So that’s it. The adventure is over 🙁

[Christchurch, New Zealand] It’s our last official ‘On the Road’ post !

After saying goodbye to our friends we boarded a plane at Christchurch airport heading for Singapore and then on to Johannesburg. All-in-all 30 hours of travel and then we still have to get down to Durban !

It’s been a truly amazing adventure. It will take a while for it all to sink in and I’m sure well be very busy getting back into the real world of work and bills. Once we’re settled down I’ll see what I can do about writing an epilogue and polishing up the blog a little so it can be a reference for others and a nostalgic website for us to visit.

Just a few quick stats while we’re thinking about it (for sure there will be more added later);

• 285 Days – that’s just over 9 months !
• 290 ‘On the Road’ Posts… that’s a lot of thumb taps on an iPhone!
• 270 odd comments from friends and family. Thank you ALL
• 17 Countries – if you include the UK, Myanmar, Hong Kong and Australia 🙂
• 10 000+ (30GB) photos taken… with 4 cameras (oops). It’s going to take a while to go through those !
• 4GB of pretty bad video clips
• 1256 Expenses captured by V into our expense sheet. Most of them correct 🙂
• AND a lot of Pounds, Euros, Roubles, Tugrik, Yuan, Kip, Dong, Riels, Baht, Ringgits and Dollars spent

No idea when we’ll be updating the blog. Technically I guess we are still ‘travelling’ until we buy a house, sign a lease or get jobs. So one last THANK YOU to all the wonderful people we met on the way and those that followed us on our trek.

Signing off for now… Simon and Vicki

[Pictures: CHC Airport]

So these posts are very late. It’s been a busy 10 days getting things sorted and having a great time with our friends in Christchurch.

Ingrid has been on mission to make sure we don’t leave New Zealand malnourished after our 4 weeks on camp food and sugar. She stopped in at a South African butcher and picked up some mouth-watering biltong and the biggest piece of steak I have ever seen. We also had a chance to check out one of the local supermarkets and were impressed with the selection – especially the breads, meat, fruit and most importantly biscuits. The shop also had an ‘International’ section with two shelves stuffed with SAFA ‘specialties’ like Zoo biscuits, Pro-nutro, Nik-Naks and alike. Expensive, but brilliant.

We came across some odd fruit as well. The Kiwano, according to the sign, tastes like a mixture of banana and lemon. Such an odd looking thing, but just like a Dragon Fruit it looked much more interesting than it tasted. We found it on Wikipedia – turns out this ‘Product of New Zealand’ is really an African horned Mellon, part of the cucumber family – yuk!

The plan on the weekend was to pop out to a beach and have a braai. ‘Popping’ out with two kids and two guests seemed a daunting task to us by the Ewegs’ took it in their stride. Two (to continue the theme) car loads of stuff including fishing rods, chairs, prams, bicycles and the weber headed off to Governors Bay. The temperature was above 37C aided by a nasty berg wind – so the perfect day for a cool bay. The bay was busy, but not in the UK/SA sense of the word. Unfortunately the braai was a no go. NZ has some very strict ‘No Fire’ policies. John and both girls had a ball in the calm water – too cold for us wimps. We are going to have to get wet-suits!

John was kind enough to loan us a car for the week so we got to check out Christchurch. We spent an entire day cruising the neighborhoods of the city just getting to know the place. It’s small but has everything we need. Lots of green space and the ‘old’ centre make the place picturesque. Most importantly we scouted the gear shops. Outdoor, Climbing, snowboarding and mountain biking – plenty of choice and a comparison of the snowboarding gear shows it’s the same price as Backcountry (when it’s on special). Happeeeeness. The local climbing gym is great – I loved the textured walls and the grigri fixed to every toprope.

Later in the week (while John’s car was in for service) we decided to test the public transport. As expected it works brilliantly and is complete with online system that tells you exactly how to get around. After a short stop at a great little coffee shop / roastery we headed into the botanic gardens and museum. The museum was fantastic, free and truly first class with some interesting oddities – like Fred and Myrtle’s Paui shell house. My favorite exhibit was the Antarctic exploration one, pity it’s temporary. The bus ride back home was different. The bus driver instantly picked up V’s accent and greeted us in Afrikaans. We couldn’t help smiling as he whistled ‘In the Jungle’ and ‘Nkosi Sikelel’ all the way home.

A huge braai at an old associate of V’s with a bunch of friendly Kiwis and a couple SAFAs capped a brilliant week. New Zealand has been great and we’ll have to write a little more about it but we just want to say a HUGE THANK YOU to Ingrid and John for just being so awesome. Tomorrow we board a plane back to SA and our wandering is officially over 🙁 … For now 🙂

[Pictures: Wierd fruit and SAFA essentials. Punting on the Avon! They think they are in Cambridge and near the botanic gardens. Some ‘old’ looking street]

– Posted from my iPhone via WiFi

(more…)

[Christchurch, New Zealand] We’re even impressed with ourselves about this one. 9 months travelling out of our little packs has provided us with some amazing experiences and memories that will last a life time. Unfortunately the list of places we would like to see again, those we didn’t quite get to and some that were not part of the plan has grown exponentially.

AND Happy Birthday Brother. Hope you had a great one!

– Posted from my iPhone via WiFi

Finally got around to uploading videos and photos. [UPDATE: Photos tagged to 4 Feb] Still have to tag all the pics but if you are really bored check out the sub-galleries under ‘New Zealand’ or just skim the posts to find related photos.

For a laugh you can click the ‘Videos’ category to the right (or click here) to get a page with all posts that have poor quality video clips (we last uploaded videos before we got to Railay, Thailand).

Fixed the silly Menu text popping through images but have still got a bit of work to do on the blog (eg. That iPhone wordpress app update really made a mess of image alignments).

Sylvie (one of the group at Uncle Tan’s) was kind enough to upload and provide a link to the photos they took on the river safaris. You can view them by clicking here

Don’t miss the amazing critters that Jeroen shared with us from the dives at Sipadan. The guy an amazing photographer – lots of pics Click Here BTW the comments are mine, we have no idea what half the critters are called.

AND the pics that our Dive Master Shannon sent us Click Here

More soon

– Posted from my iPhone via WiFi

[Christchurch, New Zealand] We’re running out of things to report. I guess because we are nearly finished our travels (for now). We fly out to SA next Sunday and that will be the ‘official’ end of our ‘traveling’ and the start of the ‘sponging’ 🙂

New Zealand weather is odd. Yesterday was cold, today V was out washing the van in her Bikini. We gave the ole little Vanette a solid scrubbing inside and out mainly to save the ‘Cleaning Fee’ from Rental Car Village. We have £10 left in our adjusted trip budget (more on that as soon as we get to updating the sheets).

We returned our little house. Sad to see it go. The receptionist at RCV barely glanced at the car to check for missing items, damage, fuel level etc. I was hoping they would at least comment on how clean it was after all that work. There is so much trust and honesty here. It continues to amaze us. What’s really funny is that if you return the car after hours the car manual has instructions on how to get into their service yard and where to leave the keys!

The Eweg’s have very kindly loaned us a car to use for the week so we’ll be able to get out and about in Christchurch if we don’t get stuck on the net or in front of a TV. We have loads of photos and video to upload, blog things to sort out and an awful lot of Net and TV time to catch up on.

[Pictures: Farewell little Vanette]

– Posted from my iPhone via WiFi

[Christchurch, New Zealand] It was the last day of our New Zealand road trip today 🙁 We left Nelson around noon and made a beeline for Christchurch. Tomorrow we have to return the van. The trip is only around 400km but the windy roads and New Zealand’s 100km/h speed limit meant it took more than 6 hours. We breezed past a lot of cool looking spots without stopping. Blenheim and Kaikoura especially look interesting. There are lot of good beaches dotted in between rocky patches on this part of the coast. We also spotted the odd seal lounging around but other than that we spent the afternoon concentrating on the road ahead in the iffy and wet weather. Once again we passed a lot of cyclists. Road touring is very popular in New Zealand and they do it even in the wind and rain – these guys are hard core.

We eventually got back to Christchurch (as civilized as it gets on the South Island). The only stretch of what we would call ‘highway’ so far, 2 lanes and even a centre barrier, it lasted less than 20km. Passing on the inside here does not seem to be an issue. We guess that is because there aren’t many roads with more than one lane! Christchurch was cold compared to Nelson and had us reaching for our fleeces and zipping our longs back on before we got out the van at a KFC. We have been testing KFC’s since Asia. These seem good but expensive with a small (thankfully) portion size. About double the price of the cheapest ones in China.

It was a long drive (for us) and we were relieved to be back at Eweg Haven. This time the tea on tap tastes great! – helps not to be sick. We could have used at least another two weeks to do a proper job of the South Island. We’ll have to save the north eastern corner and coastline for next time and there are a number of places we need to go back to. Mt Cook, Queenstown and the Glaciers for sure. North Island we’ll treat as another country to add to the list of ‘Places to visit’.

[Pictures: None today but not to worry – we will be uploading tonnes next week]

– Posted from my iPhone via WiFi

[Nelson, New Zealand] We have to be in Nelson tomorrow to see a guy about a thing so today’s mission was to get a look at some of Marlborough Sound (an actual Sound, not a Fiord that was incorrectly named). We headed out of town via another gear shop that had some technical climbing and ice gear, which is always fun, and picked up a copy of the NZ quarterly climbing magazine (just for the photos). Once the road out of town left the coast the bends and climbing started. It was very slow going made even slower because it was hot enough to use air-con.

We pulled into a small parking area near Goat Hill after spotting another DoC sign and a large collection of bee hive boxes. The DoC is amazing in this country. No matter where you are the DoC has setup marked trails, loos, donation box and picnic spots. The signs always indicate walking time and distance. This little empty trail to a lookout on Goat Hill even had a comment book. Not so impressive? Well it had been there since 2009 and there was a working pen! The short trail offered some stunning views of Okiwi bay and few islands popping out of the turquoise sea. A magic spot. :gps:(GPS)::-41.10195::173.64149:gps:

We stopped for quick lunch at Okiwi bay. A tiny little bay side village. The serviced camper van park had a warning sign up on the main road 20km back stating that advanced bookings were essential. The place was empty. It really has been a bad year for Kiwi tourism. Good for us as we have never been turned away from a park. We decided to continue on to Elaine Bay. It was a very slow drive as the road got even more windy along impressive bluffs lined by forestry. Plenty of spots to stop and snap photos. The only traffic was the occasional logging truck flying around a blind corner on a steep hill – yikes. Logging must be a major industry in the area. The steep hillsides stripped of trees were impressive (impressive that they can operate on such steep slopes). When we eventually got to Elaine bay, V was feeling pretty I’ll (the roads were that windy). The basic DoC campsite overlooks a small collection of houses and fishing boats. Looks like a very peaceful spot to camp and a lot fun if you fish but not really our speed. We didn’t hang around long before hitting the road back to the campsite in Nelson -V didn’t enjoy that part at all 🙂 We didn’t get very far in Marlborough Sound, but what we did see looks magnificent.

Tonight is our last night in our little Vanette. It’s been great to be sleeping in the same ‘room’ every night for the past 4 weeks. Not having to pack up and find another hostel has been great. We can highly recommend doing New Zealand like this.

[Pictures: Beautiful views of the sound]

– Posted from my iPhone via WiFi

[Nelson, New Zealand] From our campsite we could see the water taxi’s loading up. It’s funny to watch. They have a boat on a trailer hooked up to a tractor. Once full of people they drive the whole lot down the main road and out onto the beach. The tide runs a long way out so at low tide they have to go a lot further. Getting the guys out of the water is a similar process. The tractor and trailer park in deep enough water and the boats just drive on.

The taxis are running people out to trail heads or secluded beaches in the Abel Tasman national park, we decided to walk out along the coastal trail to see what all the fuss is about while many others opted for a sea kayak – another popular way of exploring the park. The trail is stunning and winds it’s way along bluffs passing into rocky coves and sandy beaches surrounded by pristine dense forest and turquoise oceans. We will have to come back with some gear and do the 4 day hike one day (if we can ever get a slot – these popular trails and huts fill up years in advance). We turned back after walking for just over an hour and headed back passing a lot of day walkers and hikers (this is a busy part of the trail).

Heading south we stopped for a few minutes at Kaiteriteri beach. The campsite here is so popular that they allocate sites with an online lottery system. The beach is beautiful and with the now very hot and sunny weather it looked like a scene straight out of Thailand… Until we put a toe in the water 🙂 It was a short drive to the next largish town, Motueka, where we stocked up on supplies for the last time. V overheard some Afrikaans in the store so I guess we aren’t the only visitors.

We cruised on down through the industrial looking Richmond and then finally into Nelson itself. We spent a couple hours wandering around Nelson city centre which does a reasonable job of trying to look very old and English. V had a little shopping to do and we wanted to check out the gear and bike shops (Nelson is somewhat of an outdoor adventure sport hub). We thoroughly enjoyed town. Lots of little cafes and a pleasant ‘street’ / ‘cafe’ vibe. This place seems a lot like Cape Town with better weather (today). After working up a bit of a sweat walking around we located the award winning ‘Penguino’ ice cream shop. V had their signature Boisenberry and I tried their Chili Chocolate from the odd selection including cucumber and mango lassi. It was excellent but a chili burning mouth with ice cream was an odd experience.

From town we headed back along the water front to the campsite. The huge beach front was packed (more than 4, less than 100) with people on mountain bikes and kite-boards or just out for a stroll with their dogs. Seems like a wonderful spot. We got a campsite right on the beach front in a massive park that is almost empty. Another good meal but this time we treated ourselves to a bottle of a local merlot. The first wine we’ve had in months went down wonderfully and possibly a little too quickly 🙂

[Pictures: Abel Tasman NP coastline. Kaiteriteri beach. Penguino yummy and our campsite at Tahuna beach]

– Posted from my iPhone via WiFi