Our First Home as a Married Couple. . .
… is a van down by the river! We picked up a 1988 Toyota Hiace van, with only 601,000km on it in Cambridge, NZ which is right next to Hamilton. It was a deal, and looks like its only seen 300k of those km. The engine has been rebuilt in the last five years, and she runs quite well. We know it was rebuilt because we actually met the guy who owned it 5 years ago while filling up with gas and hesaid that it was originally a taxi, and was looking over what was done with it. It’s got a nice cosy bed in the back with some shelves underneath it to stash all our stuff. We are still trying to figure out a name for it, the best we have come up with is “Vanna White” or “The ‘moon-mobile.” But since we’re indecisive we’ll put it up for a vote or if anyone has any other good names for it, email me at eero.teene@gmail.com
After we picked up the van, we drove to a shopping mall and got outfitted with all the other junk that we need to live in it. We picked up extra dishes and cooking supplies, a propane tank, BBQ stove/grill, solar powered LED lighting for the inside, screens and velcro for the windows to keep out the mossies, etc. We still have to figure out how to get tunes in the van, since the tape deck isn’t wired up, and figuring out the wiring on it is a mess.
After pimping out our van, we drove from Hamilton to Raglan beach which has the longest left-hand breaks in the world. There we took surf lessons and were standing up on the boards riding the waves in no time. Sarah’s toe worked fine now. The lessons were much more helpful than the day I tried surfing without knowing what I was doing at Lawrencetown beach in Nova Scotia. We hung out in Raglan for an extra day relaxing and kayaking.
The next day we drove down to Waitomo, and went caving. This involved rappelling down into a cave (they call it absailing here) and then hiked up the cave to see the marvel of the glow worms. They are tiny worms that light up the cave like stars in the night sky. We then tubed down the river (called black water rafting down here) before squeezing through tiny holes like real cavers do. We then got to rock climb back out of the caves before calling it a day. We have pictures posted up from the caves and surfing.
After waitomo, we went to Rotorua, where Sarah went Zorbing. This invovled getting into a giant inflatable ball (which costs about $10,000 to make) filling it with water, and then sending it down a giant hill. It was a blast. Then we hung out in Rotorua, which smells like sulfur due to all the geothermal activity in the area. We checked out sights like the Redwood forest, and the Government Gardens. We were going to check out a Maori Cultural theater and meal, but decided to save that for next time we pass through the town.
We decided to work our way quickly to the South Island, so we can meet some of Sarah’s friends who are also vacationing down there. So we decided to do the Tongiraro crossing, which was on the way. Mt. Tongariro is in a national park right next to Mt. Ngauruhoe, which was used as Mt. Doom in the Lord of the Rings movies, and Mt. Ruapehu which has ski resorts and actually kept operating as it was having a volcanic eruption in 1995-1996. The Tongariro crossing is a bit of a hike, it took us 7.5 hours to walk the entire 20 km path, with a side trip to the summit of Mt. Tongariro. Definitely an exquisite hike, which pretty much drained us of all our energy. Unfortunately there was fog during the morning, which obscured our views at the top, and we didn’t actually get to see much until the afternoon when they began to clear. We still didn’t get more than a teasing quick glimps of what the real Mt. Ngauruhoe looks like.
Yesterday we drove down to Masterson to meet Jenn Victor and her partner Mark Quinn. Jenn is a distant relative of Sarah’s from PEI. We had a delicious meal with them, and then visited Mark at his school this morning, Masterson Intermediate School. We were introduced to the shop teacher Mr Mallman, who let me use his shop to craft some new shelves for the van. So now we can keep our stuff nice and organized. This afternoon, we visited the Te Papa meusem in Wellington, and we have to hop the ferry this evening to the south island. So we are alive, and have been quite busy on the road here in NZ. There’s so much to do, you might have to excuse us from being a little less frequent in our posts. But we’re trying none the less! Wish you guys were here!
Oh, also they have this cool thing here called ‘Movember’ where a lot of people (both men and women’ grow mustaches during the month of November for charity. So there are a lot of oh-so-stylish handlebars going around. Although Sarah wouldn’t let me grow one to fit in (I guess I would have to actually do it for charity) :(.
