We managed to pull in a few favours and stayed with various people including Dad's old colleague Bethwen who lives in a remote village near Taumarunui, itself one of the most remote locations in the North Island. While there it was Steve's birthday and we hired kayaks for the day to do
the first day of a five day trip down the Whanganui river. We went through loads of rapids without falling out, which the kayak hire place were a bit surprised about (apparently 1/3 of people fall out) - More luck than skill I think...! We also went for an impromptu dip in the freezing but beautifully clear stream on the Tongariro plateau. Our swimming costumes look a lot like underwear but don't be fooled.
Anyway, we did finally get sorted and have settled (for a while) in Newtown, Wellington. People who know Bristol and Wellington tend to compare the two and they are oddly similar - similar size, port cities, same cool community feel, kind of alternative. And strangely Newtown would be the Wellington equivalent of Southville or Gloucester Road with lots of cafes, indian and chinese restaurants, pound shops and an excellent mediterranean cafe/shop (the only place we've found selling rioja) so I think we have landed in the right area in the right city almost completely by chance. The house is a round about 1900 built wooden cottage and is icy in cold weather with no insulation to speak of. You really can't imagine how miserable to live in a house you CAN'T get warm unless you've tried it. We have every intention of buying our own place and insulating it to the max!
My office is on the 8th floor of a building overlooking the harbour, with stunning views towards the other side of the harbour to distract me. There was snow on the hills this week. You can even see a beach from my desk, how's that for a good view. Speaking of the beach, tomorrow is the annual midwinter dip - it's a kind of compensation for xmas not being in winter here - go for a swim in the sea on midwinter instead! So that will be fun.
Meanwhile life is moving on for us, Steve is working in a cool company, the kind that provides free alcohol for staff on Friday nights and has a Nintendo Wii in the office. Can't say the same of my place, people are more interested in going home to their offspring than partying!We are playing a bit of tennis and I have also taken up rowing and have entered a 10k run. This week we start netball - it's a mixed sport over here and we have a team with people from Steve's work. At the weekend we also saw our first All Blacks game which we got into the spirit of (a great experience, the best bits were the Haka and a fully dressed streaker being literally rugby tackled by a steward). Oh and the rugby was good too!
I don't really want to finish the blogging because then we will have finished the journey which was a wonderful experience. I'd heartily recommend it to those people out there thinking "oh, but it's too hard..." The beginning and end were absolutely awful (packing to leave and arriving in NZ looking for work and stressing about money) - but the journey itself had some wonderful elements. I may even write a blog about our highlights. I am sad we didn't manage to do the whole trip without flying but realistically I'm a very straight up and down person and it would have meant hanging around dockyards in Jakarta to find a boat to take us to Australia which was just too illegal sounding for my liking. Anyway we've made it and so far apart from the freezing houses everything is going pretty well. The best bit about Wellington and I guess NZ generally has to be the environment. We can walk to a surf beach from our house and were swimming in the sea in mid April (like swimming mid October in the UK). Vineyards and ski fields both less than 5 hours drive away. Come and visit us!
