Ferdi & Talita de Lange

Ferdi and Talita

Ferdi & Talita de Lange

We are two South Africans who love traveling, snowboarding, river rafting, hiking, mountaineering and all manner of outdoor activities. We have recently sold everything we owned and quit our jobs to travel Southeast Asia and New Zealand. It is sooooo worth it!



Africa » South Africa » Gauteng » Pretoria September 18th 2010

Saturday, September 18th We got up at 6am and Ferdi went to play golf with Konrad and dad Franz. He didn't do too badly, considering that he hadn't touched a golf club in four years. While Ferdi was whacking little white balls Talita went for a power walk with dad Mike and mom Mariana. It hurt! As a reward they went for omelets at Maxis while Ferdi had Wimpy with his golf crew. When we hooked up again we quickly packed a few picnic things and drove to Nkwe, a bush retreat a short drive east of Pretoria. Here we met up with a group of our friends and had an absolute blast catching up. It was almost like old times, except for little Seth who had joined the clan since our last get-together. Later we ... read more
Little Seth
Seth enjoying the water with his proud daddy Rian
Rudi getting his tan on

Africa » South Africa » Gauteng » Pretoria September 7th 2010

Since we have a large number of friends and family we thought it good to give a short breakdown of who's who in the de Lange/Minty zoo: Parents Mike and Mariana Minty Franz and Corne de Lange Sonja de Lange Brothers and sister: Jaco, Leon, Brian and Rudi Minty Konrad, Deirdre and Dewald de Lange Sisters in Law: Sarah and Lindy-Ann Friends and fiances: Melinda (Leon's partner) Vicky (Konrad's fiance) Liandri (Dewald's fiance) Rian, Jolene and Seth Werner Rossouw Tuesday, September 7th We got up at 3:30am, packed the last of our stuff, said goodbye to Kattie, and then Tersia took us to Auckland airport. We were finally on our way to South Africa to visit our friends and family. Dad Mike was turning 60 and Konrad (Ferdi's brother) was getting married. We hadn't seen our ... read more
Great to be back
Surprise!
Happy tears all around!

Oceania » New Zealand » North Island » Auckland May 24th 2010

After 482 days of travel we now consider this part of our journey completed. We've accomplished more, seen more, and experienced more than we'd ever thought possible. Best of all we've grown very close with God and we met awesome people who changed our lives forever. To everyone who helped us along with an encouraging word, took us in, gave us advise and taught us something new, we thank you from the bottom of our hearts. You'll probably never know just how much you've meant to us, and we hope that some day we can do the same for you and for other travelers as well. May God bless you all, and may we see each other again/for the first time in the near future. Ferdi & Talita de Lange... read more

Oceania » New Zealand » North Island » Auckland May 24th 2010

Saturday, May 22nd Once again we got up early. This time we drove to pastor Karel's house where Ferdi dropped Talita off before joining AJ and pastor Karel for a men’s breakfast. Here a guest-speaker talked about NZ family law and how quickly the laws have gone down the drain. Prostitution and abortion is legal, spanking is a crime, and children are interrogated by other parents and teachers about what happens in their homes. He also talked about a father’s role in his family and how important that role is. They had a really great morning with a delicious breakfast and Ferdi met a lot of great men from the congregation. While the men where out Talita had breakfast with Karinda and Marinda and chatted about where Talita could assist in the church. She's going to ... read more
Talita has to navigate the many gates of Ambury
Belladonna actually allowed us to pet her a bit
Almost like a scene from SA

Oceania » New Zealand » North Island » Auckland » Mangere May 22nd 2010

Wednesday, May 19th We woke to yet another beautiful and sunny day in Auckland. We were amazed at the good run of weather we've had because by rights it should've been cold and wet, but instead it was sunny and warm. We had a lovely scrambled eggs breakfast, then spent most of the day doing research and reading with our feet sticking out a side window, soaking up the sun. Just before 5pm we had a shower and then left for the Young Adult cell group (that’s us… regular young adults). We had to leave Ambury Farm earlier than we needed to because the gates of the park are locked at 6pm. The cell group didn't meet until 7:30pm so we drove into Manukau and found an Indian place where we enjoyed a delicious dinner. When ... read more
Hanging wet towels on an electric fence...
Misty morning in Manukau Hights

Oceania » New Zealand » North Island » Auckland » Mangere May 18th 2010

Sunday, May 16th We've decided to start attending church again. Without realizing it we'd become separated from other believers and were starting to have a tough time with our faith. We'd been told by a few people that Doxa Deo had established a campus in Manukau, only 14km from where we're camping. After visiting their website we found that the morning service is in Afrikaans. To be honest, we were a little skeptical about attending an Afrikaans service. We'd not exactly had a good history with Afrikaans churches in SA, but this is a Doxa Deo campus and in the past we've always enjoyed their English services. When we arrived we found that the congregation was fairly small, so there was no chance of slipping in unnoticed. We'd hardly sat down before pastor Karel Botha came ... read more
Beautiful sunny morning
Nifty tarp to keep our doorstep dry
Rainbow over Ambury Farm

Oceania » New Zealand » North Island » Auckland » Mangere May 18th 2010

Thursday, May 13th Happy birthday maatjie Melinda! We hope you have a beautiful day and that man of yours spoils you rotten. May God bless you this year and may all your dreams come true. We woke to an eerily calm morning. The raging wind of last night was gone. Today was to be a day of regrouping, recovery, reading and learning. We got a wonderfully encouraging email from mom Corne that lifted the gloomy mood we were in, brightening a possibly miserable day. Talita was still in the grip of the flu, so we didn't want to do much. While she was working on the laptop Ferdi reorganized some of the storage compartments to make everything fit a bit better, then he spent a few hours studying navigation techniques and the proper use of compass ... read more
Kissing gate
Pretty tree on the paddock
For rams without horns they sure have big...

Oceania » New Zealand » North Island » Auckland May 15th 2010

We’ve been encouraged to use our blog to share more of the journey within our journey; our journey of faith. As some of you already know our current journey of faith is entwined with our search for a new home. We can’t tell the one side of the story without telling the other. It’s important to note right from the beginning that this trip was not only about having fun. Our over-riding goal, our mission, has been to find new meaning in our lives, trusting God to lead us and teach us, and hopefully in the process find a new home to raise our future children in. We were hoping that NZ would be the “Promised Land”. For years we’ve yearned to be here because it seems to be the perfect place for us to settle. ... read more

Oceania » New Zealand » North Island » Auckland May 14th 2010

For those observant readers out there we just want to say, no, we're not back in Karamea. The panorama above is the photograph that won one of the categories in the Karamea Digital Photo Competition. Monday, May 10th The more we stay in the Boesman the more we love and appreciate it. Living in it is like performing a highly choreographed dance that we're getting very good at. Even so, every now and then we get out of sync and someone gets an accidental elbow somewhere soft and sensitive. We left a sunny but windy Shakespear Park and drove to Browns Bay. Our prescriptions were running low and we needed to see a doctor to refill them. This is a very expensive and very annoying thing to do, but we had no choice. After seeing the ... read more
Sunny morning
We have no idea what this is, but if it was alive and any bigger it would be veeery scary
The sunny didn't last

Oceania » New Zealand » North Island » Auckland May 14th 2010

Friday, May 7th We left Ambury Farm RP and drove into the city where Talita had a meeting set up for 11am. We'd driven past the location before, purely by accident, so we kinda knew where it was. Today, because we approached from the opposite direction, we completely missed it. We eventually found the place and Talita's meeting went well. Cautiously uplifted we drove on to Browns Bay where we found a spot by the beach to have lunch. With full bellies we did some shopping; we got six small containers for coffee, tea, sugar and a few other things we'll need on the hike. We also, finally, got a small dustbin for the Boesman as well as some fruit and veg. Then we drove to Team Smit's place. In the three weeks since we'd seen ... read more
A special card for each special mom
Ferdi braving the incoming waves
Happy Mothers Day




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