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.

On the last Dutch weekend grandfather took us back to his old restored, now museum, house as during the official opening there were just too many people to hear the whole story. This time we took our time and grandfather explained a bit more, but we still had to share him, as he is a local celebrity of course. Then we went to the windmill, where grandfather was asked to have a cup of coffee with the miller and we were invited to come to the normally out of bounds top of the windmill while it was going full tack. It was quite something and you wouldn’t want to place your hands in the wrong spot. Very impressive to see the massive wooden cogs drive the mill, everything being lubricated with bees wax.

Then it was Margreet’s birthday on the 10^th of November, first time in her own house in Dussen, which was the last of the events we wanted to be in The Netherlands for. Weather was getting a bit less pleasant, so it was time to change autumn for spring and fly back to New Zealand. We both really enjoyed being in The Netherlands with family and friends and seeing a bit more of Europe and we are definitely thinking about going back at some stage to live there.

In Auckland we were picked up again by our friends Martin and Aenslee. It is just something special to have someone waiting for you at the airport, it just feels better, especially after 40 hours travel! We were again welcome to stay at their apartment and took it easy on the first day back. Seeing that we had to cover quite a lot of distance over the weeks following between Auckland, Rotorua and Wellington we figured that we should use a large part of our remaining savings to buy a decent car, instead of buying a cheap one first and then upgrading when we had jobs. Martin had reserved two full days to go car shopping with us, which was the best, Auckland is a massive city and a personal driver was well appreciated. We had done our homework in advance and knew we wanted a Subaru Outback as it fits our lifestyle: it’s a wagon, so lots of space for camping trips, high clearance and all wheel drive. After looking at four of them we made our choice, test drove it and bought it right there and then. Paperwork, plates and full cover insurance were sorted in half an hour. You see Chile, this doesn’t have to take three months! Sorry, just couldn’t help myself there! We are now the proud owners of a 2004 Subaru Outback 2.5 litre, 4WD, imported from Japan with only 50.000 km on it, must have been from a grandmother, never driven, always parked inside 🙂

We stayed a couple more days in Auckland and Martin and Aenslee surprised us with tickets for the Auckland Food and Wine festival where we spent a beautiful spring evening sampling all the best food and drinks New Zealand has to offer. We tried some awesome ciders and the sliders were just the best. We also sat in on a cooking demo from Peter Gordon, who is a famous NZ chef, hosted by Nadia Lim, who is a MasterChef winner.

Then it was time to hit the road with the Subaru, first stop Hamilton for a cup of tea with Julia’s grandmother and brother and then onwards to Rotorua. Julia’s parents said we could use their house as a base for the first months we were back in New Zealand to do various little trips from before we would go back to work after the NZ summer holidays, which was a very nice offer. We didn’t stay long this time, but knew we would be back soon. We had to make it to Wellington, where Julia was scheduled for her second round of laser surgery on her eyes. She had both eyes lasered before we left and it has been such a great thing to have done before travelling, no issues with contacts or sore eyes. Unfortunately her eyes regressed a bit, but this was covered by warranty so we had to go for round two. We had booked a cute little bach in Seatoun as we needed a place for recovery. And recovery it was, the second time was a lot more painful as they basically just lasered away part of the lens of the eye. The first time they cut open the eye and lasered on the inside and then closed the flap again, which is far less painful. While Julia was taking it easy, listening to audio books (and being in agony) I had the cambelt replaced on the car and had a new set of tires put on, making the car ready for a lot driving to be done. When Julia was feeling a bit better after a few days it was time to catch up with our friends Diane and Aled and Travis and Una at Cuba Street Bistro, then Ger and Linda at Zibibo, Roel and Nadja in Karori and of course our regular catch up with Darcy and Dance Central with Hell Pizza! Really great to see everyone!

As it was nearing December we didn’t think it made sense to look for jobs. In New Zealand the job market sort of comes to a stop by the end of November and nothing much happens till February. So it was a great time to do a bit of travelling around New Zealand, while not locked into a full time job yet. First thing we did was plan the Northern Circuit. This is the four day hike that also includes New Zealand’s most famous hike, the Tongariro Crossing. It is a hike through some pretty surreal volcanic landscape in the central North Island. We planned on doing the hike in three days instead of four days and to camp it, instead of staying in the huts. This was a bit of an overestimation of our fitness. Our packs were pretty heavy and we finished the first day’s hike at 5pm, only to then continue for the second day, which was shorter. We arrived ten minutes before dark and saw most people were getting ready to hit the sack. Not us though, we had to set up our tent and cook dinner. We were knackered, 27.5 kilometres of up and down with our camping gear had taken its toll. However, the scenery had been absolutely stunning (although, you don’t see that anymore after 20 kms, you just want to get to the bloody campsite!). The next day was the day in which we walked the ‘Tongariro Crossing’ section, the famous stretch with most of the highlights on it. The weather was holding up nicely and we had great views of the three volcanoes, the craters and the lakes. It was another long day, but we made it to the campsite at a more human hour than the night before and well before the weather packed in. We did end up having a sleepless night due to gale force winds which blew dust under the fly, through the netting in the tent, everything was brown. Never seen anything like it. The next morning we had breakfast in the hut as the weather was bad and then packed up and faced a wet and muddy walk back to Chateau Tongariro where after dropping our stuff in the car we treated ourselves to a nice meal before going back to Rotorua.

 

After some much needed recovery time in Rotorua, we had to go back to Wellington for a check up of Julia’s eyes, but not without first camping in our favourite ever campsite Mount Holdsworth in our favourite ever area of New Zealand, the Wairarapa. Had a great couple days there, we did some hiking and just relaxed and read a lot. You just realise how unique it is that in New Zealand you can have a whole campsite to yourself if you go slightly outside of the high season. We noticed an increase in bird life as well, which was probably a result of the 1080 drops which is a poison that is very controversial in NZ. Either way, Department of Conservation is doing a great job at maintaining these campsites in the most beautiful places and we are really sad to see that our National government cuts their budget so much and doesn’t seem to care about the NZ environment. Here’s hoping things will change in the September election. Enough of the the politics in this post!

After a couple days on the campsite we drove to Wellington and stayed with Travis and Una in Hataitai. Julia had her appointment with eye doctor, who gave her the all clear. After a few days of Wellington we headed back over the Rimutaka Hill to the Wairarapa and stayed in Martinborough, which is a small town (about 1500 people) with the streets layed out in a union jack format. It is a wine town with many boutique vineyards and we love it there. We stayed at the campsite which is within walking distance to town, for a few nights. We went out to Cape Palliser for a day trip and went on a 4WD track, trying to go around the Cape. We did quite well, until the rocks just became too large and we didn’t feel like wrecking the underneath of the car on them. We did see lots of seals, climbed the lighthouse and enjoyed the rough south coast scenery. That night we went to see the second Hobbit movie in the Circus Cinema. Amazing for such a small town to have such a good cinema/restaurant. On our second day we attempted to do a walking trip to the vineyards for wine tasting, but we had picked a bad day, our favourite vineyards were closed. We still got some wine tasting done and bought a few bottles at Martinborough Vineyard.

That was the last of Wellington and the Wairarapa we would see for a while. Next blog post will be about our trip around the East Coast, the new Lake Tarawera Trail and back to ‘normal’ life in Auckland!