Back in the office

Today was my second day in the office. I have already realised that I don't much like being back at work! At least, not working for other people. I don't mind putting in long hours and a hard slog when it's for my own benefit, but I'd forgotten just how pointless it seems to be working for somebody else. But the long-term plan is to get back into self employment in some form or other, and right now I'm glad to be working for what seems to be a decent company and in a decent role. It sucks to be back in the old routine again, but it would suck a whole lot harder if I didn't have work, so I'm not complaining!

Skry and I move into our new rental place on Saturday morning. We already bought a new three-piece suite and a bed for it, since we don't have either of those things being shipped over, so I hope all the furniture fits in okay. It's a nice, newly decorated 3-storey 3-bedroom townhouse, so it is quite spacious, but rooms always look bigger when they're empty. Oh well, if there's no room for the dining table then I will happily eat off my lap as I recline in the fully adjustable reclining armchair with footrest thingy and lovely soft stuffing. It'll be a sacrifice, but I'll try to cope...

And in another piece of good news, our imported goods (almost the entire contents of my house, plus lots of Skry's things) passed MAF inspection, meaning that even my unwashed bicycle and wicker basket weren't deemed to be a threat to the eco-system here. We have been charged NZ$245 for the inspection, so I suppose MAF opened and went through several boxes, but my bike is worth way more than that and it was the thing I was most worried about. If all goes well now with Customs, we should have our furniture and all our personal possessions delivered to the new house on Tuesday. That'll be so great!

A quick update

No time to update properly. Key points : I start work in the Senior Analyst job tomorrow morning. Not looking forward to getting out of my bed before 10am, but otherwise it should be good! And we found a house to rent for the next while, which seems to be the right move for us while we decide what our long-term approach will be. So I'll have a new address by this weekend, hopefully. Off to sign the tenancy agreement now!

Back to reality in Christchurch

So here we are, travelling done (for now!) and ready to face real life. Here's what we need to do:

• get jobs
• get a mortgage
• find a house that can accommodate all our stuff
• get Pickfords to deliver everything that has been shipped over

I'm working on the job front - I had an interview with one place yesterday (a follow-up to a telephone interview I did for them a couple of weeks ago) and was offered a job as a Senior Analyst there and then, which was nice. I don't have full details of salary etc. yet, so I haven't accepted it yet and am interviewing somewhere else on Wednesday, but it's certainly nice to feel wanted.

Hopefully once we're both gainfully employed it won't be too hard to get a mortgage and house sorted out. Phil and Lou have been fantastic, letting us stay with them for so long, but I know they'd love their privacy back, and we'd love to have somewhere big enough to unpack our things too. I miss my Le Creuset saucepans! The ship with our container arrived in Lyttleton this morning, so we can get our stuff as soon as we have somewhere to put it. In the meantime, we have to pay some hefty fees for storage (about $300 for a one-off storage fee, plus $50/week after that, and GST on top of those fees too which will bump it up another bit), so there's an extra incentive to find a good house as soon as possible.

Some friends in Wellington

After a couple of really relaxing nights in Palmy, we journeyed south again for our second visit to Wellington. Although we had spent a night here before, it wasn't the most enjoyable time, so we were looking forward to seeing the city in a better light this time around. My old workmate Simon had very kindly offered to put us up for a couple of nights, so we followed his directions and found a parking space in the city centre so he could meet us after work. I was a bit nervous about driving into the centre, having been warned about the bad traffic and confusing one-way system, but it all went smoothly. Simon made things a lot easier for me by taking over behind the wheel on the way back to his house, and detoured via Victoria Mount to give us a good overview of the whole city. I stupidly forgot to take my camera out of the car as we walked up to the peak, so I've got no photos, but we were able to see a lot and it was a good way to grasp the layout of the whole place.

Simon and his wife Gilly were heading out for dinner, so they gave us direction to a very nice restaurant, One Red Dog, and I enjoyed the novelty of a pizza topped with crocodile and coconut while Skry stuck to the vegetarian options. After dinner, we returned to the house and spent some time chatting before bed. The next day, Gilly took us on a driving tour of the bays, telling us a little bit about the history of the area and pointing out the most interesting sights (including "Lord of the Rings" director Peter Jackson's house), before dropping us off at the main museum, Te Papa. I had planned to meet another friend there, Katy, who arrived with her two toddlers, and we sat chatting in the cafe for an hour or so before going upstairs to the exhibits. Due to the amount of chat and playing with the kids, we didn't see all the exhibits, but we did get to try out the Earthquake House, a little house built to simulate what it feels like to be in an earthquake. Wellington is built on a fault line, so this is something with which most people here are already familiar, but it was exciting/scary for us.

After a lovely afternoon with Katy and her family, and a stop in Starbucks for refreshments, Skry and I took the bus back to Simon's house (pausing only to admire the government building, which is made of wood but looks like it's made of stone, and to imitate another statue). Back at the house,we learned that we had actually slept through an earthquake last night! It was 4.0 on the Richter scale, which isn't enough to cause any damage, but it does explain why I was dreaming about earthquakes and why Skry woke up in the early hours and couldn't get back to sleep.

The next day was an unexpected full day in Wellington, because we weren't able to get onto the earlier ferries and had to wait until the 8pm sailing back to Picton. Gilly dropped Skry off at a nature reserve, and I spent the afternoon in the shops - only window shopping, since we don't have any spare cash for proper spending, but it was still nice to get some time to myself for girly pursuits. The plan was to meet Skry at 4.30pm, but he had some trouble with buses and it was nearly six before we got ourselves onto the bus back to the house. Because of this, it was a bit of a rush to get our stuff packed up, say goodbye, and get ourselves to the ferry on time, but we made it and had an uneventful crossing. Arriving in Picton in the pouring rain at nearly midnight was a bit daunting, but Skry was confident that he could drive through the night, so we filled up the petrol tank and headed for Christchurch, arriving at 4.45am. It was a strange experience driving in the pitch black, with almost no company on the roads except for some lorries, and the rain made it quite grim, but everything worked out fine and we collapsed into bed in Christchurch before the sun had come up.

The earth moved

I will update properly on Wellington later, but suffice it to say that we are here now.

Last night, I had lots of dreams about earthquakes.

Last night, Skry woke up in the early hours and couldn't get back to sleep.

Today, we learned that we somehow missed the fact that there actually was an earthquake in the early hours of this morning. It was 4.0 on the Richter scale, which is the biggest earthquake that I have ever knowingly been right on top of, but is apparently not very big for this city which is built on a fault line.

Guess we can expect more of this sort of thing, in a country which is very new in the bigger scheme of things....

A few days with few pictures

Since I last updated, we have been doing some travelling but an awful lot of chilling out in places without taking many photos. After leaving the Mount, we headed for the Coromandel Peninsula, and stayed the night at Mercury Bay Motor Park, $37 for the night to camp but a bargain $10 each to hire kayaks for half a day. We spent a very enjoyable three hours paddling around the bay on the evening that we arrived, and have both got a taste for kayaking. The next morning, we took in Cathedral Cove before heading off to Hamilton for the night. The original plan had been to spend ten nights seeing a whole lot of places on the north end of the North Island, including Auckland, but that is going to have to wait for another holiday. We have been on the road for weeks, and energy levels (mine) and funds (both of ours) are running low. So we cut out Northland from the itinerary and started to head south again.

After a very enjoyable and relaxing night in Hamilton (The Eagle's Nest backpacker hostel, about $57 for a very servicable double room), the next top was Taupo. This is a very pretty lakeside location, and we stopped in the Top Ten campsite for the night. This campsite has some great facilities, including a swimming pool, and would be a fantastic place for a family to spend a few nights. Unfortunately we only had one evening there, so we weren't able to take full advantage of everything and get our $38 worth, but I would definitely recommend it.

Next stop was Palmerston North - not a traditional stop on the tourist route, but somewhere that I thought might be an option for us to live in. We spent two nights there, at my insistence, because I just wanted to chill out for a full day and do nothing in particular. Skry loves to have a packed itinerary, but I find it wearing after a while, and wanted some time off! We stayed for two nights ($58/night) in a rather strange hostel called Pepperpot. The hostel itself was fine - we had a decent triple room that wasn't linked to the rest of the house and was accessible without going through any other areas - but the atmosphere was non-existent. Although there were plenty of other backpackers there, we were all feeling a bit oppressed by the laminated signs everywhere telling us what we could and could not do. No cooking after 9.30pm, no opening the windows when it's raining, no alcohol without advance permission from the manager, no drinks in the fridge (Fridges are for Food Only!), etc., etc. It didn't make for a relaxed environment. Luckily we were pretty much self-contained, so we just came and went as we pleased. Palmy is a university town these days and we had a really nice time just eating in cafes and a really good Turkish restaurant called Halikarnas, and indulging in a few pints in the Irish bars. We also spent some quality time feeding the ducks in the square - check out my Army of Duckness! We both really liked it here, and it is definitely hight on the list for our ultimate destination, due to how relaxed we felt there, how nice everyone was to us, and how many ducks there were. If you have never felt ducks walking over your feet and nibbling your jeans leg, you've missed out.

A friend at the Mount

Today we had a very short drive ahead of us - over the bridge from Tauranga to Mount Maunganui. The two towns are so close together that they are really just one big sprawl. Even with a lie-in, and a gentle stroll around some gardens and the Mission House, we were still at the Mount before lunchtime. I had planned to go for a swim at the lovely long sandy beach, but it was so windy that a seagull beside our car was having his head feathers blown in the wrong direction so they stood out like a ruff, so I gave that a miss. Instead, we had a quick lunch before walking up the Mount itself. This was a steep trek, and left me puffing and panting, but the view from the top was very impressive. Sadly my trip was partly spoilt when I took a tumble on the way down and scraped my knee and foot, and I had to hobble the rest of the way, but it was still something interesting to do.

After reaching flat ground again, we were back into the car to head for the far side of the town, to meet up with Alice. We had met a few times back in Belfast through another friend, but I hadn't seen Alice in years before rather cheekily contacting her to ask if we could come and crash for a night or two. Luckily for us she is very nice and let us stay, showed us a brilliant time, and gave us loads of useful information for the rest of our trip too. After meeting one of her flatmates and a couple of other friends, we had a barbecue with Alice then headed to a local bar for a jam night, and spent the evening chatting to everyone around us and listening to the bands. It was a nice change to be around ordinary, non-backpacker people, and much more fun than we would have had in this town on our own.

The next day, after a leisurely lie-in for me and a run along the beach for Skry and Alice, it was time to start socialising again. This involved a picnic at the beach, some volleyball, and surfing/bodyboarding for those so inclined. I had some great fun on my body board, scooting along on the crest of the waves, and lots of the others were surfing. However, it turned out that there were tiny jellyfish or sea lice or some such things in the water, and poor Alice got bitten all over, which became apparent the next morning. She had to get all sorts of creams and pills to try and calm the bites down, and she looked absolutely miserable, covered in itchy spots.

Aside from that, it was all good, and we had a lovely BBQ at another house to celebrate the daughter's 18th birthday, with lots of people, loads of kids running around, and a fantastic pool and spa beside the house. I ended the evening floating on my back underneath the stars, which was absolutely lovely and definitely a highlight of our stay in this area.

Geysers and kiwis

We had planned to stay a second night in Rotorua, but unfortunately our campsite was crawling with ants, and after a night of pain, ichiness, and very little sleep, I just couldn't face any more bites. On to our next destination - Te Puia, which is a cultural centre just outside Rotorua. We paid $50 each to get in, which seemed steep, but it was well worth it. As well as a very impressive hot-water geyser, we saw more mud pools and hot water pools, real live Kiwis in the Kiwi house (kept in semi-darkness because the birds are nocturnal), and a Maori show. I was afraid that the latter would be touristy and cheesy, but it was very entertaining to hear about ten of them sing songs, throw sticks around, and do the haka at us. I was surprised by how like what I associated with Hawaii the music and costumes were, but I suppose it makes sense if these different cultures originated in the same area. Anyway, it was money well spent, and we took loads of photos before heading on up the road to Tauranga.

In Tauranga, we stayed in the Harborside Backpackers, which is our most expensive night's kip at $70 for a double room with en-suite, but was also well worth it. The hostel has a great location, right beside the harbour in Tauranga, which is a small seaside town, and the facilities were fantastic too. Our bedroom was in a quiet corridor on the first floor, but upstairs from us was a massive kitchen/lounge area, with a balcony looking out over the water. It was great sitting at the long tables outside, looking out over the water and chatting with the other hostel residents. Skry and I also made a trip to the cinema ("No country For Old Men" - okay until the end, where it seemed to just stop dead) before heading back to the hostel for more chat and then bed.

Ant bites and mud pools

It seems that garden locations can come at a price. This morning when we were packing the tent away, I took a glass into the kitchen to be washed, and only realised as I put it down that it was crawling with ants after a night lying on the grass outside the tent. "Phew", I thought, "I was lucky not to get bitten." Hah. An hour down the road, I noticed some red bumps on my leg, and one on my hand. More and more bumps appeared on our way to Rotorua, and they got bigger, redder, and itchier, until I could count eight on my right hand, one on my left hand, eight on my right foot and nine on my left foot and leg. They must have been all over me and I never noticed - I guess there is some sort of anaesthetic in their bite so I just wasn't aware of it at the time.

In Rotorua I picked up some antihistamine cream at the chemist, and we headed out to explore. Rotorua is most famous for its geothermal activity, with lots of boiling pools of water and hot mud, often in people's gardens. It is quite common to cook food in the hot water, and our campsite (Cosy Cottage, $32) even had cooking pots and recipe suggestions to use in their own cooking pool. The camp site had fairly basic facilities, but compensated for these by providing spa pools with hot water, so people could make use of the natural heat. We didn't bother, though. Instead, we took a long walk along the lake edge oohing and aahing whenever we saw some particularly impressive bit of steam. It is so strange to see steam rising from an otherwise perfectly normal looking body of water - it is almost like an early morning mist, but it keeps going all day.

As well as steam and mud pools, we did see some pretty buildings and a very impressive-looking museum, but people really don't go to Rotorua for those. The clouds of steam were quite choking in places, and of course the steam is full of sulphur, so we were trying not to breathe too deeply when the wind was blowing our way, but it was still really interesting to walk around and see everything. We were in one particular park which had dozens of boiling pools, all fenced off, but then there was one little pool by itself at the edge of the road, quietly simmering as it waited for some careless person to put their foot in it. I suppose that kind of thing just appears from time to time without warning, in such an unstable area, but it was quite strange to see it there without so much as a warning sign.

A quiet night in Whakatane

Due to the overcast weather and the noisy tent site, we decided not to stay a second night in Gisborne, so we headed further north to Whakatane. Here we stayed in the Karibou Hostel, which was $28 for a tent site in a lovely peaceful garden with full access to the hostel facilities. It was a very pleasant change, locationwise! Skry and I went for a stroll into town, and had dinner in an Irish bar with the worst pub singer ever. This guy was woeful - so bad that the barmaids kept turning up the radio - but it seems that nobody has told him that he couldn't hold a high note to save his life. He was so bad that we actually stayed for longer than we had planned, just so we could hear what he sang next. Hmmmm, maybe that is the bar's cunning plan...

On return to the hostel, we spent some time chatting to an English guy who is cycling around New Zealand, and I took advantage of the communal television to watch an episode of Grey's Anatomy, as well as spending time swinging in the hammock outside. Overall, it was a very relaxing day.

First to see the light

After a very good sleep in our hostel room - Archie's Bunker in Napier is large, but the walls are thick, and we weren't bothered by any noise - it was time to get going again. This time, our destination was Gisborne, the most easterly city in the world and the first city in New Zealand to get the sunrise. A few people had told us not to bother going there because there wasn't any reason to, but we threw caution to the wind and went there anyway, and I'm very glad we did. Gisborne is a pleasant little town, and it would have been a shame to miss it. On arrival, we went straight to Waikanae Beach Holiday Park, which is located right beside a lovely beach and is obviously very popular with the holidaymakers. Unfortunately for us, this led to us being given the only available tent site ($24) in the park, which was separated from the busy main road only by a wire fence, and which was right under some large trees full of birds and pine cones. By the end of the night, the tent was covered in bird dirt, and our dreams were full of jet engines and pneumatic drills thanks to the lorries rumbling past as we slept.

Apart from the location of our tent site, I couldn't fault the holiday park itself. The facilities were excellent, including two laundry rooms with washers and tumble dryers, and a large walk-in chiller room with dozens of drawers, rather than a couple of over-filled fridges. The location was great too, although we didn't make the most of the beach on our first evening and it was very overcast the next day. What we did, instead, was to visit Sunshine Brewery, which is one of only a handful of microbreweries in New Zealand, and produces some very fine and award-winning beer. After the wine tour yesterday, which was mainly for me, it was only fair to let Skry do some beer tasting as well! A very friendly guy in the brewery told us all about the different beers they do, and poured us a glass of each one, in between dealing with all the other customers that came through and filling up their plastic bottles with their beer of choice. There was a constant stream of customers and we only saw one person who bought new bottles from the fridge rather than having their own bottles refilled - it's a much more economical and environmentally friendly way of dealing with things.

Gisborne is also home to lots of Captain Cook stories, since apparently the first sighting of New Zealand by a European was round about here, and Cook landed here himself with his crew. We weren't overly impressed by the statue of Young Nick - he looked a bit gormless. All the same, that didn't stop Skry from imitating him!

Wine tasting in Napier

Although we enjoyed our night in the cells, we decided that the location of the jail at the top of a hill wasn't going to be fun after doing an afternoon wine tour today, so we moved down to near the waterfront for a second night in Picton spent in Archie's Bunker hostel ($52 for a double room). This hostel has excellent facilities, including a large DVD library and a pool table, as well as very knowledgeable and helpful staff, and I would happily come back here again.

Having chucked our stuff into our small but comfortable double room, we headed to the shore for a picnic breakfast before going back to Archie's at lunchtime for our wine tour. We booked this with the Grape Escape, who do small groups (there were 10 people on our minibus) and charge $55 for the afternoon. We had a lovely, relaxed afternoon, driving from vineyard to vineyard, tasting all kinds of different reds, whites, and roses, and getting to know the other people on the bus. Skry and I spent most of our time chatting to an older Dutch couple, and to a young American girl. The rest of the group was all English, I think. After visiting four vineyards we stopped to enjoy a bottle of red and some crackers and cheese, relaxing in the shade of some trees, before hitting our last venue and then heading home. Although I tasted some lovely wines today, and definitely have a better idea of what to look out for in future, I didn't buy anything because the boot of a car is no place to store it. Oh well, we probably got our $55 worth in tastes anyway!