oh blah-dee oh blah-dah life goes on..

Hullo loyal readers. Sorry for the delayed post but compared to life on the road, being settled is far less exciting: but great just the same, I'm liking Wellington more every day. Today I explored more of the Botanic Gardens which are about a ten minute walk from here and form a longer loop through the suburb of Kelburn. I walked along a winding path down a hill completely covered with rose bushes of various colo(u)rs. Another turn brought me to a grassy hill covered with daffodils. A sign warning me that thieves would be prosecuted stopped my greedy flower picking hands. It was refreshing to get out of the bustle of the city for a bit and great to have the garden so close by.

I've worked three shifts at Hotel Bristol so far, and it's going pretty well. There's a lot to learn on the register and I have yet to work a truly busy night, but its nothing my college educated mind can't handle. Half the staff looks like they just stepped off the rugby field, but everyone is really friendly and eager to welcome me to the "Bristol Family." I work my first day shift tomorrow which will be interesting considering I don't really know how to make coffee BUT i finally found out the difference between a flat white and a latte (a latte has more milk). I think a day shift will feel more familiar to this American waitress.

Jamie is the one at Hotel Bristol tonight- he's sitting in with the sound technician for the live music they host Thursday nights. If all goes well he will work as his substitute and potentially help him get in contact with some people in the sound engineering circuit.

Now it is time for a little taste of home-The Sex and the City movie!

A Video of the Terrace

Two pieces of big news today: firstly, Emily is now an employed Wellington resident! After a successful interview this morning, she attained a position behind the bar of the Hotel Bristol, a neat bar and restaurant on the central Cuba St. The first shift is Saturday evening, so I'm sure Emily will update afterwards. In the meantime, it seems to be a nice spot; we stopped in on the bar by accident last Thursday when we overheard some music spilling out onto Cuba St., a fantastic big swing band. They have performances like that every Thursday, while the rest of the week is spent showing rugby on TV - something Emily will have to get used to (and learn the rules of).

Secondly, we've filmed and uploaded the first nugget of insight into our kiwi lives, the inside of 163 The Terrace. We've waited until the apartment is of a decent level of presentability before documenting it, and this has only been achieved after we acquired a new coffee table today. (Much of the rest of the day was spent hauling the heavy, heavy table from Ghuznee St. up the hill to our place...) But as a result, we feel truly settled in.

Settling in is just swell

Good news folks, we have a home! We are all moved into our cozy third floor apartment on the Terrace. The noise from the traffic below (something we were quite concerned about) is virtually non-existent after 10 AM (though as I'm typing a bus just roared by...) and the couch and TV rearrangement made the living room feel much more open and left plenty of space for a dining table. After an overwhelming and pricey day spent buying dishes, cooking utensils, pots and pans, and other "stuff" a new apartment requires, we were relieved to come home to a couch and TV ( with free SKY!) and not be responsible for finding and transporting furniture to Aro Valley. Despite our cold feet about the decision, we're in agreement that we chose well.

Today was spent watching the Broadband man install our wireless router and step on our couch with his shoes (rude). Then (don't worry mom) we went hunting, not for rabbits, for JOBS. After walking around for way too long in search of an internet cafe with printing available, I managed to print my resume and bring it to several trendy restaurants and hotels along Cuba street. Most of them seemed interested and I wrangled an interview for tomorrow morning (eek!) and a "trial" serving shift at a really upscale restaurant called Logan Brown's later in the week.

Jamie had a similar day, dropping his CV in at several music shops, clothing stores, and concert venues. Despite Wellington's thriving live music scene, it seems sound technicians are not in high demand, but should something pop up, chances are the venue has Jamie's contact information.

Hopefully we'll have some successful interviews soon: wish us luck in defying all odds and finding a job in this economy.

Where To Send Stuff To...

We can divulge our postal address now, since everything is set to go ahead tomorrow morning:

3a 163 The Terrace
Wellington 6011
New Zealand
Earth.

Photos to follow...

Transitionary Period

Nothing of any great significance has happened to us since our last post, apart from exploring more and more of our new home city. We don't sign contracts and move into our new apartment in the CBD until Monday, so in the meantime we're still at our hostel in the centre of town.

Although we've resolved to save money, we're still in limbo without a kitchen we can call our own and so we've fallen into the trap of either eating out a little too much or foregoing meals entirely. But at the same time we're happily learning the ins and outs of Wellington, and how alive it is both at night and during the day. We've been going to gigs and pub quizzes, wandering up and down Cuba St. and Courtenay Place (many times over), climbing mountains, exploring Botanic Gardens, and generally doing a great deal of walking all around.

Perhaps the most potentially-significant moment occurred yesterday, when we woke up with a sudden change of heart about whether we wanted to live in our chosen apartment or not. Most people would simply dismiss this as nerves about rushing into signing a long-term contract - after all, it has been an extraordinarily fast-paced week in terms of househunting - but this didn't stop us from questioning our original instincts and starting to backpeddle on our decision, despite having already paid the bond and the first two weeks' rent. By the afternoon we had been in contact with our second-choice seller asking if the property in Aro Valley was still available, as well as the housing firm we were already dealing with. In the end, we were satisfied with the choice we'd made, due to the apartment's location, size, furnishings, and general straightforwardness.

Right now we've begun looking for jobs despite not being in our apartment just yet, and so once we're in and unpacked by Monday evening, we can really concentrate on the tasks at hand. Besides gaining employment, we also have to populate our empty kitchen with utensils and cooking things - not to mention food - and then try and make our new apartment feel like home.

A place to call HOME

Exciting news, all: looks like we have a brand new Wellington apartment! It's exactly what we were after, with a separate living/kitchen area, bedroom and lovely bathroom. Plus its about 5 minutes walk from Lambton Quay which is right in the heart of the city. We went on a viewing yesterday morning at 9 sharp (as Deborah the agency lady insisted) and knew right away that we loved it. Its a corner unit so there is plenty of light from the large windows, its furnished except for dishes and things, and comes with a vaccuum cleaner (so there's no excuse).

This was only the fourth viewing we went on since being here. A large and much cheaper though unfurnished flat in Aro Valley was a close second but ultimately location and furnishings won us over. Without a car, picking up an entire home's worth of furniture might have been difficult on top of all the job hunting and city navigating. Still, New Zealand continues to prove far easier to live in than America.

Today we have to arrange payment to the agency but it all seems fairly straight forward. The bond (deposit) required is a hefty chunk of change but as long as we don't wreak havoc, we will get it back when we move out.

Next up, JOBS. As the short-shorts wearing Aro Valley flat owner Finley so kindly pointed out as he looked at us like we had 7 heads each, we are in a recession, but we believe we can job hunt with the best of 'em.

Where to Find the Photos

Just a quick post to say that I'm starting to upload the bulk of photos to Flickr, where you can view them at http://www.flickr.com/photos/29259433@N03/sets/72157622005206998/. This is the first album, 'Arriving and Campervanning', which isn't quite finished yet.

There's also a little set of thumbnails on the right of this page (above the playlist) which shows the latest few pictures we've added. Enjoy!

A Succession of Littler Decisions

It's probably a good idea to take advantage of the free internet here at the Wellywood hostel - our home indefinitely until we can move into an apartment permanently.

Our flat-viewing yesterday went according to plan, but we ultimately decided that the place was far too small and a little too expensive for what we were after, despite a near perfect location right next to the city centre. However, it set us off on a positive note; no sooner were we off the ferry than we were proactively house-hunting. Given this encouraging start, we're now spending every spare minute looking around the internet, newspapers and building-side advertisements for suitable places. We have another two viewings this afternoon and with a little more work we can have several more over the course of the week, until we finally settle on somewhere.

We're facing all the standard hurdles as house-hunters in a city but with the added complications that we're not only foreigners in a strange country, but also not-quite-proper-adults-yet type people, for whom this is all a completely new challenge. I remain optomistic, though, and as long as we're calling people up to query properties or walking across town to different viewings, it feels like we're getting the job done.

Big Decision!

Upon arrival in Akaroa we checked into yet another Holiday Park where we had the good fortune of viewing a strange duck mating ritual which evoked very clearly 2nd grade recess--the original boys chase girls site. We found a short and dimly lit path down to the pier so we headed down in hopes of catching a glimpse of the extremely rare Hector’s dolphins who happen to be the smallest marine animals in the world. Sadly we didn’t see any dolphins that night but we did stumble upon the short strip of shops and cafes that make up the small town. In an attempt to preserve the cultural heritage of the French settlers who lived briefly in Akaroa before succumbing to those greedy Brits (kidding!), the town was very obviously trying for French provincial. French and New Zealand flags hung proudly from the decorative cottages, street names were exclusively in French, and “Le Mini-Golf” seemed like the attraction of choice. Given the strong English influence we had encountered elsewhere in the country, being surrounded suddenly by all things French seemed wonderfully eccentric.

No time to dawdle though, we had a big decision facing us. We did compensate for our short visit to Akaroa by taking the very scenic Summit Road route back to Christchurch. I braced myself for a ride spent squeezing my eyes shut and pressing my foot to the imaginary brakes since the book called Summit Road “narrow” and “difficult for large vehicles.“ But the beautiful scenery led me to deter my usual and often unnecessary pleas for Jamie to slow down. The book was right--there was no road shoulder and we were literally driving on the edge of a mountain, with very steep drop-offs beneath us. As the road curved through endless herds of sheep and lush greenery ultimately leading us to the summit, an astounding view of the Pacific unfolded before us, its beauty enhanced by the faint glow of the Southern Alps in the distance. We had been skirting an in depth exploration of Christchurch for several days but the accessibility to such natural gems as Kaikoura and the Bank’s Peninsula that living in the Garden City would allow was impossible to ignore. That being said, Wellington was gorgeous in its own right, and it has the cultural element to boot--the city is full of free museums and is home to some of the best theatre and live music in the nation. There was no use making the decision without actually visiting Christchurch, so we spent Friday seeing what the city centre had to offer.

As it turns out, Christchurch was disappointing., especially since I had been rooting for it from the beginning. Our initial drive through the centre looked promising, but parking was impossible so we checked into our campsite and bused back into town--I could have been in New Jersey for all the strip malls and fast food chains we passed. I kept looking for the blooming gardens and picturesque Cathedral Square all my research had promised, but there just seemed to be construction and unkempt streets as far as we could see. There was one pocket of the city that led me to question our disinterest. The botanic gardens were enormous and clean and downright lovely. Boats meandered down the Avon River running through the park and throughout the city and joggers decorated the flat paths alongside the water. The Arts Centre which used to make up a large part of the University of Canterbury campus but now houses shops and cafes framed the park and we stopped into the famed Dux de Lux brewery for a much needed discussion. The unyielding sunshine of Christchurch was not helping Wellington’s case either, but as we broke down the pros and cons of each city, Windy Welly was the ultimate victor. Clearly Christchurch had its nice bits, but it was no match for the craggy rocks of Wellington Harbour and the unique vintage shops of Cuba Street. Of course it would be difficult to return to Wellington, especially without Leland 2 (we had to turn him in the following day) but we decided it was worth it.

Making the arrangements to get to Wellington proved easier than expected. Twenty minutes in the Christchurch tourist center later, we were North Island bound. Our trip would involve a bus to Picton where we would stay in a hostel for the night, then a second ride on the Interislander in the morning. We spent the remainder of daylight taking advantage of free internet in the Christchurch library by looking for apartments in Wellington--the prospects seemed promising.

The following morning we visited “the other University of Canterbury” to fulfill Jamie’s one wish in Christchurch. His dreams were dashed when the University shop selling UC apparel was closed, but he managed to buy a mug and took plenty of photos to commemorate the event. We then ventured to the airport to return Leland 2, whose leaky bladder would no longer be our concern. A shuttle brought us back to town where we whiled away the hour enjoying the last bit of South Island sun we would see for some time. At 4 pm we departed the city we would not call home.
We are now sitting on the Interislander with the hills of the North Island before us, a hostel booked for tonight, and a scheduled apartment viewing for 3 pm this afternoon. Its okay, you can be proud of us (and a little nervous too).

Kaikoura to Akaroa and More Pictures

Let me just finish explaining what happened since Kaikoura, with another batch of photos, while Emily prepares dinner.

After all the excitement of seals and cows, not to mention the stress of a broken Leland and the ordeal of replacing him, we were anxious to get to Hanmer Springs, known in the area for its soothing, hot outdoor thermal pools. When we arrived, after over an hour's drive through the mountains where we saw literally NO other cars on a New Zealand State Highway - we're quickly learning that it doesn't take much for even the humblest country road to get upgraded to the national level here - we saw that the tiny mountain town has very little else aside from a complementary infrastructure of hotels, motels, campsites and tourist information centres.

We raced to get ourselves settled into one of the campsites before heading to the pools, eager to squeeze as much relaxation time in before it closed. The brisk night was superbly clear, with a bright full moon shining over the 40 degree waters (I don't yet know how that translates into fahrenheit, sorry Americans), after which we came back to the campsite to attempt to forge a meal out of the only remaining scraps of food we had. The result was sweet potato on toast.

Unfortunately, that night we also discovered that Leland 2 had sprung a leak - just another of his problems. Whenever we tried to fill the onboard tank of water from which the tap and shower operate, he simply spurt the water out all over the floor. Considering that we'd been thinking of his predecessor as a pet we had to feed, clean and take to the toilet, it seems Leland 2 has serious bladder problems. In fact, the tank was leaving a trail of steadily dripping water all along the route from Hanmer Springs to Akaroa on the Banks Peninsula east of Christchurch, some 200km away, which finally ran out just in time for us to get to a mechanic in our penultimate stop. As a result, there was nothing he could do, so we're just going to have to put up with it until we return Leland 2 on Saturday.

Currently we're at a campsite on a hill overlooking Akaroa, and tomorrow we'll see what the town has to offer before heading back inland to Christchurch for our final day.

The downpours which greeted us upon our arrival in the South Island.

Emily in Nelson, set amongst the hills.

Our first glimpse of the Southern Alps.

Leland (left) passing the baton over to Leland 2 (right).

A seal doing what seals do on the tip of the Kaikoura peninsula.

Emily and the Kaikoura Mountain Range.

An offshore seal colony visible from the peninsula.

Emily pointing to the colony and the Pacific.

Me in a field of cows overlooking the Kaikoura Range.

Emily cycling towards Hanmer Springs.

The End of Leland

It is on a note of sadness that I must begin today’s post, with the distressing news that Leland is no longer with us… Our trusty campervan, with whom we undertook an amazing journey around the North Island (and a good portion of the South), suffered something of a fatal blow yesterday, leaving him - to make a cruelly ironic pun at his expense - in a state of shock.

To clarify the last post’s ending, it is true that whilst Emily was writing on her laptop and I was driving through the sleepy town of Rangiora on Tuesday evening, rushing to Hanmer Springs to get at least an hour’s swim in before the hot thermal baths closed, we were ushered to the side of the road by a police car. When I nervously rolled down my window to enquire what was wrong, the policewoman said someone had noted that the vehicle with our registration number was dragging a part along the floor, and invited me to take a look at something hanging down from the van‘s underside, which had been grating against the road. Consultation from roadside assistance after a brief and nerve-wracking wait (from Emily who stayed with Leland; I’d wondered off to get a Subway) confirmed that the shock absorbers on the bottom of the van had cracked at some point during our drive though the mountains, and that it certainly wasn’t advisable for us to head up to Hanmer Springs without a more thorough inspection / repair.

Miserably resigned to the fact that we wouldn’t get to swim that day after all, we booked into a campsite in Christchurch - arriving in New Zealand’s second largest city a full two days earlier than expected (four if you go by our original South Island plan). After laboriously planning and replanning our South Island itinerary, it seemed we would once again have to adjust, delaying our next few stops by yet another day, and consequently putting even more pressure on things we still wanted to do. Regardless of planning, it also seemed that all our plans were up in the air anyway until we had either got Leland fixed at the nearby Maui rental place, or replaced altogether.

(At this point I should say that although the mechanic remarked that we must have been in some discomfort, driving for quite some time without suspension, it was not a particularly dangerous breakage, and of course Emily and I are unharmed. If it weren’t for someone ringing up to say that our vehicle looked unsafe, we wouldn’t have even noticed.)

So the next day we woke up early to pack all our things away into suitcases and bags, just in case we were told there was nothing that could be done for Leland, and would have to quickly shift into an alternate campervan. This turned out to be exactly what happened, as after some confusion at the Christchurch Airport rental place (there is a queue for returns and a queue for pick-ups, but premature returns doesn’t have the same well-worn codified procedure attached to it) we were introduced to Leland 2.

Initially, Leland 2 looked to be a considerable improvement, with shiny new interiors, new sheets and blankets, and upgraded toaster and microwave facilities, whilst still being the exact same make of vehicle we had grown used to driving. Upon eventually leaving the rental place, however, some of Leland the Second’s myriad differences from its predecessor started to become apparent; the most annoying of which was a worryingly high-pitched, kettle-like whistling whenever we reached a certain speed - what turned out to be one of the rear window’s inability to close all the way, letting in air.

Nonetheless, with our new vehicle we quickly headed for Kaikoura. The little coastal town was spectacularly photogenic, perched between the Pacific Ocean on one side, the Kaikoura Mountain Range on the other, and (as the town’s tourist information told us) shielded from the rest of the South Island’s inclement weather by cliffs, thus making it wonderfully sunny. After fush & chups on the seafront, we headed up the coast to the tip of the Kaikoura peninsula - which Emily mentioned in her last post is famous in Maori legend for steadying Maui’s foot as he pulled the North Island up from the waves.

Over the course of our time in Kaikoura, we got up close to seals from the nearby seal colony, wandered through a field full of cows on a cliff overlooking the Pacific, and admired the stunning mountains as we worked our way up one of the walking trails. Finally we found one spot on the corner of a cliff to perch ourselves on, looking out over the ocean, where we stayed until the evening. At which point, we realised that the day was not yet over as a result of our delay in Rangiora, and so headed back to Leland 2 to continue.

We’ll update on the rest of the day later on…

Nelson to Hokitika

Upon waking in Nelson, we explored Tahuna Beach, which our campsite was named for. But after deciding we’d been terribly spoiled by the gorgeous soft-sand turquoise water beaches of the North Island, we turned our backs to Tahuna and wandered into town to see what Nelson had to offer in hopes of finding a more lively city center than the previous evening (apparently no one leaves home on a Sunday in Nelson). True to its reputation, Nelson was lovely-chock full of cozy cafes and one-of-a-kind shops, such as the kitschy second-hand bookshop, Litter Arty, whose vast collection I spent nearly our entire allotted parking time browsing.

Having drastically modified our South Island driving route the previous evening, we were eager to get back on the open road. Ultimately we decided we had bitten off more than Leland could chew. The South Island is simply too big for a week’s time, given the lack of roads and long distances through mountainous terrain between destinations. So our new plan had us driving to Hokitika on the West Coast via Greymouth (which was very grey indeed). The following evening would have us back in Hot Springs country Hanmer Springs, just North of Christchurch via Arthur’s Pass, the winding mountainous trek through the Southern Alps, followed by a stay in the Marine mammal (dolphins, seals, crayfish oh my!) capital Kaikoura, and finally down to the Francophile Akaroa on the picturesque Banks Peninsula. Of course it was disappointing to forgo the scenic Southern half of the South Island, but lucky us, we’ve got a year left to skydive and bungee jump and climb glaciers.

This morning we ventured into Hokitika city center which is dominated by its jade and bone carving shops. In the back of the shops we could see the carvers at work, which was reassuring given the warning we received about jade imported from Cambodia. Somehow I managed to escape the lure of the greenstone, but Jamie was not so lucky. He settled on one of the “hook” carvings to symbolize how the ancient Maori demigod pulled the North Island from the ocean while stabilizing himself on Kaikoura’s coast.

Oops gotta go! Seems we’re being pulled over by the Rangiora police…

More From Wellington

Guten tag. There's just time for me to write a blog entry while Emily steers Leland safely through the winding roads between Picton and Nelson, at the northernmost tip of the South Island. Besides being the first time we've seen some of the landscape the South Island has to offer, today has also provided us with the most treacherous weather conditions yet - unfortunately for only Emily's second time behind the wheel - with hammering rain and strong gusts which noticeably shake the campervan from side to side. This is the first evidence of the South's wintery temperament, which has caught up with us just moments off the ferry.

Since our last post, we've had a couple of Windy Welly days, during which time we have become completely enamoured with New Zealand's capital city. After our pleasant drive along Wellington's coastline on Friday evening, accompanied afterwards by a nightmarish quest to get pizza during which our over-dependence on TomTom began to cause problems (two closed-down pizza places, and three unnecessary journeys through the Mt. Vic tunnel later...), we returned to a campsite in the nearby Hutt Valley, where the site's owner inexplicably told us many times of his 'simplistic' ways. Maybe he was knocked out by Team Leland choosing his humble holiday park instead of the slightly superior, slightly nearer-to-the-city, and slightly easier to find campsite - where we proceeded to stay the following night - in Lower Hutt.

The following morning, exactly halfway into our camperventure, we met up with a friend of mine from Amsterdam, Liz, currently working in Wellington. She showed us around a good proportion of the Other Windy City, taking us to Nz's spectacular national museum, Te Papa, down Cuba Street with its variety of boutiques, coffee shops and trendy haunts (and the bucket fountain), and up the Cable Car to a panoramic view of the city. For the governmental, cultural and economic centre of its home country, NZ's capital was decidely underwhelming - not unlike Amsterdam - and as a result had a very youthful, positive atmosphere.

Needless to say, we found plenty to like about Welly, so much so that to leave it this morning took a bit of determination. Fortunately for us, the means by which we were to leave the city - as well as the rest of the North Island - was the Interislander ferry, which took us across the Cook Strait and neatly into our second week. The view from the ferry's deck was amazing, as we were navigated amongst dots of land jutting out from the water, until we finally pulled in to Picton.

Today, we'll find something to do in Nelson, hailed by one of our guidebooks as an alternate-lifestyle epicentre, before exploring more of the South Island's west coast tomorrow. In the meantime, here's another batch of photos from the last few days:

Me at Wai-O-Tapu, sacred geothermal waters nearby Rotorua.

Emily looking over the edge of the world.

Honey tasting on our way to Taupo.

Emily Besen: Queen of the Birds.

The two of us in front of Wellington at dusk.

Emily on the (windy) Cook Strait ferry.