South Island: Day One

A little delayed, but here is the first post on our recent (ahem) trip to New Zealand's South Island.

For many people the South Island is the "real" New Zealand and no trip to NZ is complete without some time spent here. We had three weeks here and while we limited our plans to less than two thirds of the island, it was still not enough. The journey started with a short flight from Auckland to Christchurch - which some of you may know suffered a devastating earthquake in 2011.

Wednesday 13th February

Christchurch - 11km

We arrived with a rough itinerary, forged over the previous few weeks by studying various guide books and of course the internet. One book that proved particularly handy was the NZ Frenzy guide. Thoroughly recommend to anyone travelling across NZ, it lists many places that are not on the normal tourist route and not even on their minds. We were not going to hold ourselves to it but it was nice to have a rough plan - particularly for Amanda!

First job however was to collect the campervan. Again much research was undertaken before we chose a small independent company called CamperCo. They offered a very good deal and the vans were free of all livery - so it did not shout out "TOURIST!". In fact the deal seemed a little to good to be true; would there even be a van waiting for us there?

Thankfully, yes. A quick inspection showed it contained all we expected and was thoughtfully laid out. It was however a manual. Expected, but neither of us had driven a manual car since we left the UK. A few laps of the car park however and I was brave enough to venture out on to the road; the large blind spot over the right shoulder was a bit disconcerting though!

It did not take long to feel comfortable at the wheel and we came to love the advantage of sitting up so high. The van was also surprisingly sprightly. The next job was to head into town to get some lunch and pick up some supplies for our journey.

No easy feat. The recent earthquake has resulted in the streets of Christchurch resembling the M25 with roadworks everywhere and many closed or one-way streets.

In fact the city centre was quite eerie. Large areas have been reduced to rubble; either by the earthquake itself or controlled demolition since. Meanwhile, many condemned buildings are cordoned off as they await theirs. Chain link fences, concrete blocks and protected walkways abound. There are some positive signs however. Small gardens have sprung up across the wasteland, while temporary art exhibits attempt to lessen the feeling of devastation.

It was hard not feel a bit of a ghoul wandering the "red zone" and taking photos. Judging by the number people we saw doing just the same it would appear the red zone as become a tourist attraction in itself.

With so much of the city in ruins it is hard to imagine what it was like before. There are however some signs of recovery, with shipping containers leading it. In some places they have been used as makeshift walls or covered walkways. The heart of the city has been given a little life by a mall made out of stacked shipping containers. A handful of shops and plenty of eateries inhabit their colourful shells.

Geraldine - 150km

With not much going on in Christchurch and a packed itinerary we left Christchurch after lunch and hit the road. Our destination the sleepy little town of Geraldine; think country village with little art and crafts shops. We were to stay at the holiday park of the same name.

We arrive rather hungry and so first job is to get the dinner on. Rather than use the vans small two burner gas stove we decided to use the holiday park facilities where possible.

Amanda had promised to eat "primal" for the duration of our trip. While we broke the "rules" occasionally for the next three weeks we would be avoiding wheat, sugar and processed foods. Why!? Because I have eaten this way ever since I trialled the Paleo diet for 30 days shortly after joining a Crossfit gym. It promised to improve my energy, balance my sugar levels, improve my immune system and decrease joint pain. And in short, it worked.

Paleo / Primal

Both these diets (as in a way to eat, not a short term weight loss diet) promote eating real food and eating in a manner that reflects how our ancestors (before civilization) ate. The premise being that our bodies evolved eating certain foods and that optimum health lies in eating these same foods.

In short, the diet is simple. Eat real food. Eat lots of veg. Eat real meat, ideally free range and ethically raised and slaughtered. Eat good fats (saturated / mono saturated) and avoid bad (polyunsaturated/trans fats)fats. Avoid both sugar and wheat. If you are Paleo avoid dairy also.

But I digress!

The park itself was a pleasant affair; with some nice decorative touches. With dinner gobbled up we take a stroll around Geraldine. Very quiet with only one restaurant open. It's been a long day and with another 200+Km tomorrow we hit the hay - after setting it up of course.

It is then we discover our first (and thankfully) only problem with the van. The cooling fan on the fridge is very noisy and neither of us get a good nights sleep.

West Coast City Break

We decided to stay in and around Auckland over the 4 day Bank Holiday weekend to beat the traffic; most journeys were taking up to twice as long - yuck!

To make up for it we decided to hit the Waitakares on the West Coast, just one hour's drive from Auckland. We visited three of these famous beaches - Karekare, Piha and Anawhata.

We first visited Karekare beach shortly after emigrating when we completed our first NZ tramp. However our reason for visiting this time was to watch the annual Karekare Beach horse races.

The races are a joint fundraiser for the local one room school and surf life-saving club. Some tents selling cakes, hot dogs and coffee were erected in the middle of the beach and the various horse races took place along the sea's edge. Some were over very quick; the pony and cart races, somewhat slower. Far more scenic than the Grand National however!

After watching our fair share of races we decided to get out of the sun and have a spot of lunch. So off to Piha, probably the most famous west coast beach and the most populated. Whereas Karekare has a surf lifesaving club and nothing more, Piha is a small community complete with Library, Cafe, Gallery, RSA (Royal Legion) and of course, it's own surf club. It also happens to have a campground, where we stayed the night.

The afternoon's entertainment was a climb up Lion's Rock followed by an hour just taking in the view.

Before heading back to cook dinner and marvel at the sunset. Finished the night off with a few jars at the RSA - thankfully barely affected by the power cut that was to last all weekend in Piha.

A quick brekkie and a very slow coffee at Piha Cafe(half the town was there for brekkie due to the power cut). Then on to Anawhata beach a shortish drive North of Piha. Only accessible by gravel road followed by a steep walk down from the car park - so much less people here.

A black sand beach much like both Karekare and Piha, complete with rocky outcrops and enclosed on all sides by bush. Thankfully, some clouds rolled over as we started the walk - it was very hot again. The rain came just as we arrived back at the car; perfect timing to end an almost perfect weekend.....

Lake Taupo

Howdy - As some of you know we spent the majority of February travelling around the South Island by campervan; however, we had only been back in "real life" for 3 days before we were off again - we headed to Lake Taupo ("toe-paw") for the weekend to celebrate a friends birthday.

450km South (by car) from Auckland, Lake Taupo is actually a volcano crater and the largest lake in New Zealand - 616km2 or to put that into perspective, twice the size of the Isle of Wight!

The main reason for visiting was for me to join Jan on his surprise birthday gift - White Water Kayking. We spent almost 2 hours riding the grade 2/3 rapids of the Tongariro river.

We were told to expect to fall into the water a lot. But, after navigating the earlier, harder rapids without much trouble we both thought we could reach the end without taking a dip.

So of course we didn't. Well, I didn't. On a rather innocuous piece of water I managed to clip a submerged rock and flip the kayak. A rude awakening I must say. The current soon dragged me into the next rapid and I spent what seemed like an eternity getting bumped against rocks; my hands getting colder all the while.

Finally, with the guides steadying the kayak I was able to pull myself back in. A little battered and bruised, I would later find out I was cut in a few places too. Still not time to dwell on the aches as the next rapid was soon upon us..!

While Jan & I were mucking around on the water, Amanda & Matylda took the chair life up Mount Ruapehu, one of the worlds most active volcanoes and NZ largest - not sure Amanda knew that before the ascent! All the more surprising given that it has a cafe on top!!

At they top they completed the 1.5 hour Skyline Ridge Walk, a tough walk on scree where they gained 300m in altitude. After Snowdon it is probably the hardest walk Amanda has done - not helped by the scorching heat.

To reward their efforts, Jan & I cooked up dinner beside Lake Taupo - all washed down with a rather nice Pinot Noir :0)

Mission Bay, Baby

As some of you know and as was hinted at in the last post, Amanda and I have had to move again. Our housemates, since May, have decided to move to Nice, France and so we needed to find a new place to live. They originally thought they would be leaving for France the first week of the new year and so we had approx 6 weeks to find somewhere else. A little daunting given how long it had taken us to find them and how little was on the market in our budget and more importantly somewhere we wanted to live! One reason for moving to NZ was to spend more time outdoors and ideally, in order to be "living the dream" we wanted a place near the beach.

Amanda's shifts were not kind so I was charged with viewing potential flats. Thankfully I only had to view two. The first seemed very nice, the second awful. Along with everyone else at the viewing I entered an application to rent the first flat. We then had to wait what seemed like forever for a response - but was in fact only 3 days.

Lady luck, she must have been smiling on us - we beat the competition and were soon signing a 12 month lease on our first place together - be that the UK or NZ. A couple of days later and Amanda could view the flat for the first time!

I had to make a snap judgement on the flat and now that we have been living here a couple of weeks, I think I did pretty well. Apparently Amanda trusts my decisions now!

View of Rangitoto from the end of our street

Palm lined front of our block

View our of our Kitchen - sea view possible with the right angle

The only concerns at the time were, one, it's a flat - would it be noisy? And two, the kitchen. It's tiny - but a perfect excuse to improve our Mise en place.

Thankfully, while a little noisier than our last abode, it has proved pretty quiet despite being a block of flats and despite being one road back from the busy village centre. The building itself is afforded a slight Mediterranean feel by it's orange tiled roofs.

The previous tenants (Kiwis who had moved there from Brighton!) had been there for 2 years and it was completely refurbished just before they move in - we have a bathroom that would make Faye Kidd proud; and a load of new white goods. It's on the first (top) floor and we have a gas cooker again (yeay!).

We've managed to furnish it by making some pretty sweet purchases on TradeMe, the pick of which must be our solid wood dining table. The chairs, brought separately need a little love but that is going to be a little side project...

The flat lets in loads of light, but not direct sunlight so it's bright, yet cool. Best of all however, is the location. We are set just one road back from the seafront and so the flat is filled with fresh sea air :0)

The beach itself is just a 90 seconds walk away; and that would be less if there was not a road to cross.

Mission Bay is a little like Brighton in some respects. It's a lively place and sometimes it can seem like half of Auckland is visiting. That said, even then, it's still nowhere near as busy as Brighton on a sunny day.There's loads of cafe's, bar's and restaurants on the strip and even a cinema.

The beach, sandy of course, with great views of Rangitoto and the city, is backed by lawns shaded by Pohutukawa and fir trees. It's great for swimming and we can also hire paddleboards, windsurfers etc.

Finally, it's an easy 8km cycle to work along the seafront - although it can a be a little harder when the wind gets up!

OMG We've been here one year already!

Wow, that year went fast! No way does it feel like 12 months have passed since we boarded the plane at Heathrow Airport last year. With the (lame) Sky Tower fireworks ushering in 2013 we have now been in New Zealand for 1 year and 4 days!

What a year it has been too. With our latest move (look out for a future blog post) to Mission Bay, we have now "lived" in 5 places since we arrived; while we've also "owned" three cars. Both myself and Amanda have rejoined the rat-race and found gainful employment and of course in November we were both granted Residency.

More importantly however, despite the rather paltry 20 days annual leave that is standard in New Zealand, we have still managed to get out and see quite a lot of the North Island - still a lot to explore however.

With Amanda's job been a little stressful to say the least I think she often loses sight of how much we have done. Last time she complained we were not exploring enough I knocked up this video - it only covers the first 3 months!

Lookout at Opito Bay - Bay of Islands from Rich & Amanda on Vimeo.

Enter The Fatman

We left the UK on Boxing Day 2011 so our year has been bookended by two Christmas's. We had only been our new place a week so our decorations definitely took the more is less approach, but then that's our style anyway - check out the world's smallest Christmas trees!

As it happens our first NZ Christmas ended up being an "Orphans" Christmas with our ex-housemate's and their friends and their daughter. In typical NZ style a barbecue was involved as we enjoyed a Christmas Brunch that lasted pretty much all day.

Just as well as there was a lot of food... A leg of ham, barbecued lamb, sausage, bacon, avo and eggs, Croissaints, Christmas cake, Pavlova, mince pies, coffee and of course Champagne. I think there may have been some veggies involved too.

Jemma and Aaron had done a stand up job with the decorations, even decorating the dog's kennel. We even got presents; one of which I managed to set light to - oops!

A great day finished off with a couple of hilarious games of Cranium. A real shame that Aaron and Jemma are soon to leave NZ to start a new life in Nice, France. We are going to miss them. Stanford the dog and Lilly the cat will also be missed (Never thought I'd miss a cat!) I guess we cannot complain too much though! ;0)

A weekend with the rels

A couple of days after Xmas we drove 3 hours south to a valley south of Rotorua to spend the weekend with Amanda's cousin's Tony and Frances. Frances's brother George and mother Shirley were also in residence and we were joined from the Hutt Valley by her sister Liz and hubby Pete, with whom we had stayed earlier in the year.

George reprised his role as a tour guide and took us to the nearby Orakei Korako thermal park which you can only access via a short ferry ride. Interesting place but not as spectacular as Waiotapu which we visited during our visit to Rotorua in June.

Later that day, Tony took us out on his 60 year old wooden fishing boat. He inherited it from his mother and has done a wonderful job restoring it and fitting a few mod cons. We spend a good hour crusing the 12km length of the nearby lake Ohakuri. As it happens arriving at the banks of the thermal area we visted earlier in the day with George. Amanda even took the helm for a bit - eeek!

Frances and Tony have a lovely life style block (approx 2 acres) with great views of lake Ohakuri and the mountains beyond. Had a huge barbecue and plenty of wine to finish off the day. Frances also presented Amanda with a pile of postcards and letters that her Mum had sent to Frances and family over the years. I think it brought back a lot of good memories for everyone.

Next day, despite the rain George and I hit the amazing mountain bike trails in Whakarewarewa just South of Rotorua. Wow, awesome trails through stunning Redwood forest with native bush intermingled. We completed a few grade 2's and then a couple of grade 3's. Must say I was most impressed with George's 'give it a go' attitude. The trails were quite a bit removed from his usual leisurely cycles. I hope I am the same when I myself are more advanced in years!

Another great weekend visiting Amanda's rel's who were yet again superb hosts.

NYE

We decided to have a quiet New Year's Eve as were both exhausted. Enjoyed a quiet night in with mince pies and red wine before heading out to the beach to watch the fireworks off the Sky Tower - along with a lot of Auckland. Following the fireworks there was an impressive traffic jam along Tamaki Drive that lasted quite some time.

The fireworks, were, like last year, pretty lame with an pretty insipid 5 minute display. Auckland council could do with watching a few videos of Sydney's show! Or London, this years display may even have given Syndey's show a run for it's money. Although, that said, perhaps it's a good thing that our tax dollars are not going up in smoke...

New Year's Day

One advantage of having a quiet NYE of course is that you do not spend the next day with a stonking hangover. As such we were able to start 2013 the way we hope it will continue.

Headed to the already busy beach in the morning and hired some paddleboards. Amanda had planned to get a kayak but they were all out. One hour later and she could call herself a Stand Up Paddleboarder. Great conditions, but getting rather hot, so cooled of after with a quick swim.Even managed to fit in my good deed for the day by rescuing a beach ball for a little girl. It was well on it's way out to sea so proved quite a challenge - but her squeal of delight when reunited with it made it worth it.

A quick shower at home (tis only 90 seconds away after all!) and then hit our fave local cafe for lunch (courgette & mint fritters since you ask) and an allpress coffee.

The beach was really heaving now (though still nothing on a busy day at Brighton) and we spent the afternoon reading in the welcome shade of a Pohutukawa tree (the real NZ Christmas tree which hits full bloom at this time of year).

With the sun a little lower we took a walk along the coast to the next village center were we finsihed off a great day with an authentic gelato.

What a great start to 2013 - and with steak and mince pies waiting at home our first day of the year is going to end pretty swell too... :0)

Food for thought

Finally, I thought I would leave you with this to start the new year with. It was posted by a friend on Facebook and I think it deserves sharing...