Hello, Goodbye, were gone, were back

It doesn’t seem all that long since we left NZ bound for new and exciting adventures overseas. In fact these days sometimes when I look around I think ‘did I ever leave’. You guessed it, we are now back in the land of the long white cloud. We have been home for about two months (yip, pretty slack with the emails) and most of our time has been spent travelling. We have been up to the Bay of Islands to visit my extended family in Kerikeri, spent Christmas with Mum and Dad at Mahurangi and been as far south as Wellington.

We had a fabulous idea (Vaughan would say it was my fabulous idea) to borrow a campervan off a friend and tour around the country. We thought, great, we get to see this beautiful country of ours without breaking the bank. How wrong could we have been. The campervan was fine at first, we managed to see East Cape which Vaughan and I had never been to before (and now we realise why — there’s not much there — except of course for the breathtaking scenery and absolute solitude). We then got to Gisborne and then meandered over to Napier, where we did a few wineries and a lavendar farm. We were just getting into the swing of things — learning to sleep well on a bed literally only the width of your body lying down with your arms down beside you….it takes a bit of getting used to! Not to mention learning to function in our little kitchen which we did rather spectacularly if I do say so myself. We were just commenting on how we could really enjoy having our own campervan when disaster struck.

We cooked our motor. Damn. Of all the things available to cook in the world, a motor should not be one of them. We were driving along in the middle of nowhere (it is Murphy’s Law of course that we did not know where the hell we were) when we both noticed a ‘hot’ smell. We stopped the van and then saw the temperature gauge. Oops. Vaughan tried his best to create a sauna by pouring water into the radiator whereas I got busy calling the AA. Which is just as well because in all the kafuffle, we left the headlights on and the battery went flat! When it rains it pours.

Luckily we have friends in Masterton which is about one hour away from where we broke down (which turned out to be Waipukerau). We managed the nurse the van to Masterton and took up residence in Shane and Kattrina’s spare room whilst the van got sent off to the shop. Two weeks later, after being told countless times ‘the van will be ready the day after tomorrow — yeah right’ we finally left there to drive back to Auckland.

Masterton was great (well, for the first three days anyway). We went to Castlepoint with Shane and six-year-old Kathryn, spent some time in the awesome park, and generally chewed the fat over Trivial Pursuit (Vaughan is the undisputed champion — don’t take him on where trivia is concerned) and Pictionary. Thank Goodness for friends like Shane and Kattrina, whilst Masterton was not going to the major highlight on our New Zealand trip, they certainly came to the rescue, and even let us borrow their cars (a brave move I thought given our track record at the time).

We finally learnt one day that the campervan was ready, picked it up and promptly left for Auckland. We had been going for about three hours when there is a huge explosion and the van gets the wobbles and I realise we’ve had a blow out. I get on the blower to the AA again, vowing and declaring never EVER to go campervanning ever EVER again!

We get the tire fixed, make it back to Auckand, and that’s where we still are. Nothing has gone with the campervan yet since we came back (mind you it is only sitting on the lawn).

We are both getting settled down into the Auckland scene again, I am looking for work and Vaughan is busy getting his business off the ground. It is going well so far and before too long we will be settled in to Auckland well and truly. It will be lovely to have our own flat, and a steady income, not to mention the chance for development in a new role after having been travelling for such a long time.

And that’s pretty much where we’re up to. Keep your eyes peeled for the next installment (which hopefully won’t be quite so long in coming!).