Blogs from Lower Hutt, Wellington, North Island, New Zealand, Oceania

Getting to the stage where we want to leave tomorrow, not in 7 days time. Lyn's still at work this week but I'm at home attempting to ensure we've done all the little things we need to. Packing - leaving out clothes, putting them back in, umming and aahing...all part of the excitement of the impending journey. We've belatedly realised that the temperatures in Germany will be a little cooler than we had imagined. Average temperatures for September appear to be around 13 to 14 degrees up to a maximum of about 19 or 20. That has meant a rethink of what clothes to take especially as Hong Kong and Tokyo will be up to 10 degrees warmer. Roll on 13 September!... read more

Wow, we are on day six and I am already exhausted. Here is what we have accomplished in the past four days. I will also include a few of the photos that I said were in the other blog but ran out of time via wifi internet to load them. Currently I am writing you from a Wellington Ferry as we just embarked on a 4 hour ferry ride to Pickin. Free wifi for the whole trip so I hope that for this blog I am able to share all the information and photos before we land. Wifi is a bit slow, but hey it's free and unlimited. #firstworldproblems We picked up our van in Raglan, stayed the night in camp called soulscape, and the next morning woke up and decided to try an take a ... read more

Thursday 13th We complete our packing and leave for the airport in plenty of time. Check in goes smoothly and we board on time for the flight. The flight passes quickly and we arrive in New Zealand around 5.30. That’s when the problems start ! We que for 45 mins just to get through immigration and go and get our luggage. We then all have to que again for checking we’re not carrying prohibited items such as soil, plants and food etc. Another 45 mins go bye and because we have walking boots we are then directed to yet another que to have them inspected. This que has dozens of people in, mostly Chinese bringing in food. It takes over an hour before we are called for inspection. The chap takes one look at the boots ... read more

New Zealand has been a wonderful journey. You can tell this country was colonized less than two hundred years ago. The relationship the New Zealanders have with the native culture is very different from anywhere else I have been. Maybe because they had more experience with taking over the locals or because the Maori were cannibalistic and cooked a few unsavory European interlopers, but Europeans didn't eradicate the culture of the Maori. Maori is recognized as an official language of the country and they are allocated seats in the government. Of course, that doesn't mean Europeans didn't try to take as much land and resources for themselves as they could. But there is definitely a much more prevalent Maori culture here than, for example, Aboriginal culture is in Australia. In the last two weeks I have ... read more

So had about one day in Wellington, we went to the Te Papa museum which ids the national museum of New Zealand. We also walked along the waterfront and up and down Cuba Street which is the main street. I found Wellington very funky with a lot of art and a very relaxed city. We also went up to Mount Victoria and looked out over Wellington before we headed to the ferry to cross over to the South Island. We stayed in Nelson the first night on the South Island and we had the best Indian food ever. Nelson is not a big place and mainly famous for their seafood. Our visit was short however we defiantly enjoyed our dinner.... read more