Author Archives: Richard

We’re moving… Again!

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Yes, we are moving again. First of all, it is not that we don’t like Auckland, it definitely has its pros and cons. But there is a but… We’ve been thinking lately on what we want in the long term and it came down to a few wishes. We would like to buy a house soon, somewhere relatively warm. And we would like to buy a house that we can pay off quickly as travel and flexibility will always be (very!) high on our priority list. This means that Auckland is not a possibility, houses are too expensive. Wellington isn’t exactly warm. But we need to be able to commute to one of these two cities as this is where our work opportunities are.

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Warm, Sunny Auckland

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On the 4th of January we finally had to face reality again. After 14 months off work, we were leaving for Auckland to get back to work and find a place to live. Our first week of accommodation was sorted, we were going to house sit for a week for a friend of Julia’s aunt and take care of her cat Mister Ted. Mister Ted is a rather large 14 year old ginger male cat with a just as large personality (Unfortunately he died two weeks ago after a massive stroke which left him partly paralysed). It was a very nice place to stay and get all sorts of things sorted, like job interviews for Julia and house viewings for our own place. Continue reading →

Remote East Coast and Rotorua Adventures

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We felt a little sad saying goodbye to the Wairarapa, it is our favourite piece of New Zealand and we knew it would be a while before we’d be back. While living in Wellington it was our weekend getaway. The small towns, wineries, good weather and the Tararua mountains have always had a large appeal to us. If only the commute to Wellington was a bit easier… Continue reading →

Last Days in Europe, Hello New Zealand

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I’ve realised that keeping a blog up to date when you are back in a normal work rhythm is not as easy as when you are a traveller, so this post is unfortunately way over due. It’s a lot harder to recall what happened as well now I have to write about things that happened half a year ago! We want to keep it up though as we have both stopped writing travel journals, instead ‘maintaining’ a blog.

So, half a year ago… We came back from Madrid and Rome and all of a sudden there wasn’t very much time anymore before we were flying back to NZ so we had to make it count. First, Julia and my father shared a birthday party, resulting in more presents for Julia than she had had in a long time with the extended family and neighbours coming over! Score! Then there were two dinners with my parents and sisters. First, Liana had organised a fancy dinner at Merlijn, she even had specified which table we were to be seated at. The food and service were really great and we all rolled home afterwards. Then there had to be a second less formal goodbye dinner at the Pancake House in Heusden. Pancakes Dutch Style are large and one is enough to feed most people. The most popular one is the ‘Farmers Pancake’ which is hearty with bacon in it.

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Food, Culture and Sports in Madrid

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Monday the 14th of October my father drove us to Rotterdam airport for our Madrid/Rome trip, which was quite the different trip for me as there was not going to be a car involved, just planes and public transport and carrying our stuff on our backs. After an uneventful but pleasant flight with Transavia we landed in Madrid and took the metro to the city centre. It must have been the nicest entry to a city that I have ever had, instead of seeing the ugly outer industrial areas and suburbs first and then gradually driving towards the centre, this time the metro dropped us off under an old plaza, bang smack city centre. So when we took the stairs up and came above ground we were right in the middle of a very scenic square with lots of activity around, people eating outside, street performers and beautiful buildings nicely lighted. I instantly liked Madrid!

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Three Social Weeks in The Netherlands

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We had timed our return from France in such a way that we would be in Almkerk for the ‘Regional Days’ or in Dutch ‘De Streekdagen’. This is a yearly two day event in which my family always has been very involved. My father was the director for a long time and the rest of us have always volunteered. Julia had heard a lot about it from me and was keen to visit and so was I as it had been six years since last time I went. It starts on the Friday night with Truck Pulling and in the tent there is a party with a DJ and live music. Truck Pulling means that both modified and non modified (road) trucks pull a trailer over a 100 meter track. On the back of the trailer is a weight that moves forward and increases the pressure on the sled on the front of the trailer which pushes in the dirt. Longest distance or fastest full pull wins. It’s quite the spectacle with lots of smoke, flames out of exhausts and trucks going airborne. Have a look at the videos to get an idea.

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Switzerland in Three Stops: City – Mountains – Food/History

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The planning was to visit Switzerland for about a week so quite a bit of time was spent (mostly by Julia to be fair) on figuring out what to do and where to go. We were helped by a long email from Julian, a Swiss guy who lives in Colombia and who we met on the Carretera Austral in Chile with his wife. He is from the Gruyeres region, so we decided to at least go there and follow up on his tips. We also wanted to go to the Alps of course and Grindelwald seemed to be a scenic place. However we started off with a city; Lucerne.  Continue reading →

The Beautiful Alps of (Mostly) Sunny Austria

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On Monday Sabrina went back to work so it was time for us to move on to a new country; Austria. Unfortunately it was pouring down so we decided to take it slowly, as not to arrive on a damp campsite too early. It was definitely a day for inside activities and the best we could come up with was to pay tribute to Ahnold Schwarzenegger and visit the gym in Bregenz to pump some ihon.

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Surprise Visit to New Zealand!

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After landing in Auckland, we were both surprised by the friendliness of both Immigration and Customs staff, very stark contrast with most border crossings in South America. It definitely gave us a good feeling to being back in New Zealand. We had declared some of our stuff (camping gear, hiking boots) as being a ‘bio security treat’ so they got temporarily taken from us for cleaning. When the official came back he asked where we had been as there was quite a lot of manure under Julia’s hiking boots, that he had needed to clean up. We of course thanked him very much for the sparkling boots!

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Selling the Car – An End to the South American Part of Our Trip

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Our last border crossing with the car was not a smooth one. Confusion on the Peru side, a taxi driver who wanted to sell us forms that are free and offices with no staff. The Chilean side wasn’t much better, probably because this border is along the drug trafficking route. We were ‘obvious’ suspects and had to empty the car and answer questions. Their suspicion must have been quite strong as we had to wait until a drug sniffing dog had arrived which they kept putting back in the car, despite the poor dog really not being able to find a thing! Continue reading →