Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

There’s nothing like dangling on the edge of an aeroplane at 13,000 feet to make you really appreciate your mum. So mum, I hope your ears were burning cos there was a lot of love coming your way as I balanced on the edge of a rather unsubstantial-looking little plane strapped to a large South African named Scruffy earlier today! 

I’d decided to do a skydive while I was here a long time ago, to tick another thing off my bucket list. I decided not to tell mum, as I think these things are better told in retrospect to avoid unnecessary (but obligatory) motherly worrying.

We left it until the last minute to book though, (secretly hoping it would be too late) but alas they could squeeze us in at 3pm, so we suddenly found ourselves nervously awaiting instructions in a random little airfield in Motueka, not quite knowing what had hit us!

We got suited and booted and instructed (rather briefly), and packed like sardines into the back of the plane, and up we went, trying desperately not to wee ourselves with nerves (makes you think twice about my post title doesn't it?!..). I was the second to go and bloody hell I was petrified when that door opened, but you don’t have time to think before you’re plunging towards the Earth with your stomach left somewhere up with the pilot!

5 minutes later you’re on the ground wondering what the hell happened to you, and feeling absurdly pleased with yourself for being so clever and not dying, even though all you’ve actually achieved is 

not getting your feet in the way as someone else pushes you out of a plane. I have to say though, that was one of the most exhilarating things I’ve ever done, and definitely definitely worth it!

So ma, I hope you’re pleased we’re not dead, and I hope you have an absolutely marvellous Mother’s Day xxxxxxxxxx

Naked cycling...

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WWOOF!

Our first attempt at Wwoofing-Golden Bay

For those of you who have never heard of it before, Wwoofing stands for 'Willing Workers on Organic Farms’. The gist is that you work 4-6 hours a day in exchange for food and lodging. To us it’s a means of prolonging our trip by not spending money, with the aim of getting some work done and having a bit more of an insight into how the locals live (Nb. ‘organic farm’ is a loose term-basically it seems to be any work in an outdoor/environmentally friendly capacity).

We certainly lucked out on our first experience. Victoria, our host is simply wonderful. She is a retired radiographer, and self-named ‘Hippie’ and ‘Political Activist’ who lives on 10 acres of land on a cliff overlooking Golden Bay, on the Northern coast of South Island (a renowned Hippie-community). She is extremely well-known and well-respected within the local community, and spends her time fighting to improve the lives of those around her in any way she can. She is the proud founder of the ‘Love Revolution’-a concept she created with a friend, by which the idea is that every day you do at least one good gesture for either yourself, for someone else, or for the environment (in roughly equal measure). She’s definitely someone who makes you aspire to be a better person, and I am frequently blown away by her positivity, despite a number of hardships she’s had to endure throughout her life. A genuine gem. She is also a shit-hot cook. Winner.

Our duties each day are all out in the beautiful garden in the sunshine, and mainly involve weeding. As perhaps the least green-fingered biologist that ever existed, this suits me down to the ground (excuse the pun). Killing things is my forte. Brodie is an absolute stalwart in the garden-he’s finally found a use for his muscles aside from pushing a bar around the gym, and has been digging up flower beds left, right and centre. We are kept company all day by the three chickens (Natasha, Rachel and Precious) who wonder around pecking up any bugs we uncover, and the cutest little Jack Russell called Scooter who is simply so cute we are all putty in his hands!

When we finish work we have a dip in the sea on Victoria’s private section of beach, then rinse off in the super-hot solar outdoor shower overlooking the sea. Jealous much?!

When we’re not working we are free to explore the area-with waterfalls, springs, beaches and cafes galore we’ve been pretty spoilt so far. Future Wwoofs have a lot to live up to! 

My Grandpa

Today I lost my dear Grandpa. He died peacefully and apparently wasn't in pain. And Dad was there beside him, holding his hand. 

While this is extremely hard for me, I’m also happy. Happy because I know he was ready. Happy because of the wonderful life he lived, so so happy that I got to have him in my life for all of my 28 years and for all of those wonderful wonderful times, throughout my childhood and my adulthood where I was lucky enough to have him beside me, happy that we have so much to celebrate about his life and happy because he can now be with Grandma, where ever that may be.

I like to think he’s not gone, but instead he’s in a little piece of all of us he’s left behind- his children, his grandchildren, his great-grandchildren, his dear friends and everyone who’s been part of his glorious journey. I hope he’s proud of his legacy and the wonderful family he’s made around him, and I thank him for growing me into the person I am.  

xxx

Edmund the Camper (and the time we stole a shower)

So I’ve decided I quite like camper-vanning. And I quite like driving an automatic. It’s like driving a go kart, which definitely adds a certain thrill to your journey. Mum wants to know how we’re getting on living on the road, so I thought I’d share with you some things we’ve discovered while camper-vanning so far.

Firstly meet Edmund. He’s our trusty camper who is a bit like the third member of our little party. He’s rather old (we think 1999) and has done a whopping 336,000km so he deserves respect. He is dwarfed by most other campers on the road (hello budget) but he’s got a damn-site more character than most. And we love him for it.

OK, so some things we’ve learnt so far on our journey…

1)      We are both deaf

2)      We are both inarticulate

3)      That the previous 2 points make for some rather comedy/annoying /entertaining conversations.

4)      I am a bad driver (no revelation). This is particularly apparent when Brodie grabs the door handle in terror every time I drive round a corner (rather reminiscent of my early driving avec Papa Salter-remember Dad?!). When you consider how far we’ve driven so far, that’s a lot of white knuckles! He assures me it’s just the roads and not my driving, but I’m no fool.

5)      I can lose any single item within 5 seconds of finding it.

6)      Brodie can find any single item within 5 seconds of me losing it.

7)      There is only so much fresh pasta you can eat in any consecutive meal without going crazy (Ad-you thought that meal we made in Hepburn Springs reminded you of your student days, well we have taken it to another level. Today I bought Nutmeat. Yes it’s as bad as it sounds).

8)      Brodie is quite simply talented at finding unique hiding places for our valuables. Genuinely he’s like a squirrel on a mission (and is like a puppy-dog with 5 tails when he finds a new one). Leaving the van for just a 10 minute outing becomes a covert mission of great importance.

9)      Pants have more than a day’s usage on the road. In my case this is rather out of necessity than choice as I appear to have left half of mine in Melbourne (sorry Leas). In Brodie’s case I think it’s less necessity and more novelty.

10)   Showers are hard to come by when you only want to pay $6 (£3) per night to stay somewhere.

This last point is rather significant as it means we at one point went 4 days without a shower (apart from a dip in a lake and a hair-wash in a stream). I am aware this is distinctly gross. However each day we say ‘we must find a campsite with a shower tonight’, then get lured in by the wonderful beauty of the Department of Conservation (DOC) campsites which are all in simply stunning locations and get lured in by the super-cheap fee, and low and behold it’s another stinky night without a shower.

On the 4 day streak (our record so far), we finally broke the trend by stealing a shower. This was a highly planned, and very cloak-and-dagger/drive-by type setup, whereby we targeted the largest holiday camp we could find in Te Anau. One of us then drives to the most inconspicuous spot and waits in the driver’s seat while the other one runs in and has The World’s Fastest Shower, and then we switch (incidentally it’s also where I managed to do an entire underwear wash in 3 minutes flat). Then we get the hell out of there as quick as we can, adrenaline racing. We decided that we’d make pretty pants bank robbers if that’s how scared we get stealing a shower.

Brodie's idea of packing

My idea of packing!

All in all though, we bloody love our little trio. We’re so lucky we have the flexibility to explore this fascinating country and just follow our noses down any nook and cranny we come across. 

Thanks Edmund you little gem!

Wanaka and the Glaciers

Wanaka is beauuuuutiful (sorry for sounding like a broken record). We stayed a night on the lake which apart from the attack of the sandfly (you haven’t heard the last of those), you couldn’t have a better spot. Our plan was to head to Fox Glacier, but it took us about 4 hours to get 20km from our campsite as at almost every turn there was another viewpoint/nature trail/river to see, and at each one we’d pile out with our cameras and go exploring. We found ‘blue pools’, rope bridges, more waterfalls, forest walks and crazy pieces of art. This part of NZ is covered in thick, rugged, temperate forest and it’s just beautiful, and so much fun to explore.

We eventually made it to Glacier country. Having been told before we left by almost everyone who’d been that a Glacier walk was a must, and Bro having already been on one was really keen to return, but we’d been given the heads up before we’d left Queenstown that this is now a lot harder than it used to be. Unfortunately over the last 7-8 years the glaciers have retreated significantly due to the warming climate, and a regional increase in rainfall in favour of less snowfall over the Southern Alps. Now you can only actually walk on them via a rather expensive helicopter trip which drops you much higher up. As you can guess this wasn’t in our budget, which I must say I was rather disappointed about. Another wake up call about our ever apparent changing climate.

However, you can walk up close to the terminal face of each glacier via a steep walk up the valley, or to various viewpoints of them. A poor substitute, but still an experience.

So on the first day we took the walk to Fox Glacier (my favourite of all the mints!). It’s startling how much it has retreated according to the photos (so much so that Bro initially didn’t recognise it from his previous visit 10 years ago). It’s still rather impressive, but it all feels a little bitter-sweet as you know there aren’t likely to be many more years where people can view it like that, and perhaps a visit to Fox Glacier won’t be on the menu when my future kids come to NZ one day.

We consoled ourselves by spending an hour in the hot springs in the nearby town of Franz Joseph.

Our attempts to view the Franz Joseph Glacier the following day were thwarted by a serious rain storm. And this wasn’t just any rainstorm, this lasted all day. And all night. Relentlessly….That means without stopping. At all. It sucked. However we did take solace in the fact that we’d rather be stuck in a rainy camper together than sat at home marking. Silver linings. 

Queenstown

Now seasoned pros, we stole another shower on the way back through Te Anau (thank you Te Anau Holiday Park), then headed to Queenstown where we spent a marvellous few days enjoying the buzz, the sunshine and the views from the top of the gondola. We also stayed in a campsite in town rather than a DOC site for the first time since coming to NZ, with the sole purpose of allowing us to go out into town in the evening for some drinks. This we did, and we had an awesome night bar-hopping and spending a lot of our night feeling smug (/devastated) that we are no-longer 21 like the most of the population (and awesome hangovers to match in the morning). 

We also spent a lot of our time luging. For those of you who haven’t been to Queenstown, this is the only organised thing available to people visiting that does not require you to take out a loan (total over-exaggeration, but we’re trying to last a year, so £100 to go canyoning is not really an option). So we did it 7 times. You basically sit in a plastic sledge on wheels and go down a hill. The fun part is that you can go as slow or as fast as you like, so on one track you have 10 year olds tootling at 2mph, and groups of men hooning it down at break-neck speed. Stick Brodie at the top end of the spectrum and me not far behind, and you have apparently hours of (relatively) cheap fun!

Three waterfalls, a Sound (that’s actually a Fjord)…and a flat battery

So after Dunedin we meandered down to the Catlins where we spent a glorious night parked up on a heavenly beach, followed by a day of exploring the area’s treasures. This is a simply stunning area on the South coast with incredible empty beaches, lined with thick forest. We spent the whole time down there following our noses and exploring tourist routes and footpaths, and we found some gems. Amongst others…Parakaunui Falls, Parakaunui beach and Makai Falls. 

From here we made the long drive towards Milford Sound. Milford Sound was phenomenal. When you get there you can choose from a selection of different trip providers. We of course picked ours because they gave you free fish and chips on board, and we’d convinced the sales person to throw in a free coffee. Result. The weather was pretty overcast, and even rainy on the way back but it was still an incredible spectacle, and the clouds made it quite eerie!

Mirror lakes

Seal rock

Brodie not quite getting the selfie!

Unfortunately our day took a turn for the worse when we returned to the van to find the battery was dead. Whilst rather annoying this was easily remedied by paying a guy from the café to jump start it, however the downside of this was that we then couldn’t stop for our much-needed petrol as we couldn’t turn the engine off, so had to cruise on fumes on a 7km detour down a little gravel track where we had to pay double the amount to an old local to fill up our van enough to get us back to civilisation. The up-side was that the 14km return detour led us to an incredible waterfall that just blew the other two out of the water! If it were in England people would flock for miles around to see it, but in New Zealand you have to make an unplanned detour down a forgotten track to reveal such a wonder. I bloody love NZ!