Napier...

..The Art Deco city.

Having left Otaki we took the bus to Napier - The second half of the bus ride was fine, with us both listening to music on our iPods. There isn't much else to do on the bus except jab each other and that novelty wears off...


eventually.

I spent the toilet stops with a small black purse full of coins feeding them patiently into the vending machines. These are all from my coin savings jar. Saving my coins was a habit I picked up from my step-mum Jill (thanks). Wasn't great at it when I was young, but when I started working seriously I decided to just throw the silver in my pocket in a cardboard glenfiddich tube every night (where you cant see it - jars are no good!). It soon accumulates - most years it exceeds $120.

I figure that 20 cent pieces weigh the most per dollar, so everything and everyone has been getting twenties till they run out. Anyway, Arrived in Napier and had our first real walk with our backpacks and, er, front packs on. Looks something like:



Our maternity packs on our fronts are not shown, but we are travelling light (later on at the airport, we were weighed at 14-15kg of pack each). Landing in Napier, we walked straight to our favourite shop; Jesters pies. Welington sooo needs one of these shops! They do a spinach feta and mushroom pie that is yummy as. After filling up, we taxied to Princess mums place (Sue) andwited for her to finish work, while cuddling Boswell.. (Boom! fatty-boswell.. Though nowhere as fat as Rusty, Princess' Dads' cat..)

We spent a lazy few days in Napier, watching TV, tying up the loose ends of the flat and any outstanding paperwork for travel. Had to redirect our post, passion all the utilities accounts for the flat, and navigate the maze that is the IRD phone system and website - we are (hopefully) now non-residents for tax purposes. Urg what a mission, but we got it done.

We also got out the movie out of the blue about Aramoana - was a very good movie, and quite chilling. Very normal rural NZ, which reminds you that it could have been anywhere.

Princess' mum, Sue, took us out to an awesome meal at a restaurant called Taste, and we both think it would be on our top 10 meals ever! The waiter/owner was bubbly and friendly, without being overbearing. At his suggestion, we tried a parsnip and apple soup to share as part of our entree. I was suitable skeptical, but it was soo nice! The apple was very subtle, and the soup was thick and creamy - the combination worked very well!



Thanks Sue, the whole meal was wonderful. I had pine nut and pumpkin fritters, while Princess had a stuffed Chicken breast and Sue had a vege Laksa. Mmmm.



Our last week in NZ was rather cold! I think the whole island was frozen; Napier especially so. Our Wellington-hardened bodies couldn't cope without blankets, heaters and lots of hot drinks. We also went to Ocean Spa, the hot pools down on Marine Parade... very nice, especially as it was socold! Every time we are in Napier, we go there - seriously, its a great place..

I upgraded Sues computer RAM - 64MB just didn't cut it, so I went to one of the small Asian computer shops to try and find some (old) SDRam. After a couple of trips back and forth with different varieties, I finally managed to find a 256Mb chip that worked in her Compaq. Windows ME sucks a lot less with 320Mb RAM! You can now switch applications (eg from internet explorer to MS word) without waiting 5 minutes listening to it chew the hard disk to pieces!





Princess had a small bundle of old letters etc that she wanted to burn - very cathartic. So I busted out my scout skills and we had a last-minute ritual burning...





Before leaving on Saturday; the bus from Napier to Taupo goes over a few ranges, and every time we got near the summit, it started Snowing! at Midday! Thats something you don't see very often...



Can't really see it, but that is snow, not clouds in the picture. Princess will tell you more about the busride in the next post, but I got through all of the audiobook, So long, and thanks for all the fish on my new iPod. A great set of stories, they are..

FP: "... its unpleasantly like being drunk.."
AD: "Whats so unpleasant about being drunk?"
FP: "Ask a glass of water..."

Catching our breath

Hi all,

Leaving Wellington, Princess and I ventured up to stay with my Mum in Otaki. We arrived with Nick and the Range Rover late evening Monday to pecan pie and coffees. After seeing nick off, retiried to bed for the night.



In the morning, we had a nice brunch with homemade bread and a suite of dips and spreads. This is the 'after' pic, sorry.

Mum was excited to show us her new cows - so we spent some time looking over the cattle. Mum has dexter cows on her property, and there are a half dozen baby cows.



Princess was trying to figure out how to get close enough for a cuddle. Baby cows (and cows in general) are very curious animals and if you stay still, they will come up and say hi... unfortunately their mums are rather protective. Now cows are gentle and passive animals, but when a tonne of beef walks up to you and moos at you to get back, you listen.

The babies were really cute, and they are short enought to get under the single line electric fence. Well most of them were; the smallest was frollicking back and forth under it, while the slightly older (and therefore taller) ones were more hesitant, as they would get zapped on the back!

Mum can tell them all apart by their horn shape and size, annd their relative sizes and boney-ness.. they all look like cows to me though..



After cow inspection, we finalised our storage, making sure they were sealed and stacked out of the way.



The old garage/extra bedroom is now a storage room! 20 x 100 liter tubs worked a treat. Thanks Mum and John!



We had a bit more of a wander arond the farm, as it was a beautiful day. I'm holding the camera in this one.. sneaky! I must have said something amusing and witty e.g. "What is the second most common topping for pizza, after tomatoes?"



Quack! Last time we came up, we managed to pick up one of the ducks. Princess got to hold it and give it a cuddle/squeeze. You should have seen the "I want to guidge (squeeze) it soo much!" look on her face... Lou you know what Im talking about.


"Now where is that cat?" - Thats Mum hunting for the elusive cat, Max.



Princess wanted to meet Max properly. Max is a very shy kitty but is sweet and beautiful if you get to meet him. Oscar is a great cat, but very alpha, and Max is very skittish. Princess did get to meet and feed them later in the evening - maybe she'll tell that story.

I remember mum telling me that cat names are always good if they have the sssss sound. I guess kitties like the noise?

Bossswell, Osssscar, Maxsssss!



The comments section weclomes (no, expects) your funny one-liners for this picture. For those new to the 'blog thing, there is a comments click-word (button) at the bottom of each story (aka posts). Oh, and blog is short for web-log - like a web journal!



No explanation nessecary. Or available.



Mum also helped me sew NZ flag patches over the brand logos on our packs. Representing New Zealand and all. And by help, I mean I watched while she did it all for us - thanks Mum you're awesome! That is my packs zip-on daypack, but Princess' pink/purple bag got one too.



Now its not that I can't operate digital cameras, but I am not great at holding stil.l and getting clear pictures. In my defence, Mum had poured me a strong vodka earlier in the evening. This picture is artistic - it reflects my mental state- blurry! (yeah.. artistic!) So we spent the rest of the evening relaxing and watching TV.

Had to catch an early bus, and so it was up and out quickly. Was hard saying goodbye to my crying Mum - but I gave her a hug and jumped on the bus. 20 seconds down the road I felt very emotional. I was sobbing and I didn't know why. After the rest-stop in Palmie, I had regained my emotional balance, and was trying to explain what I couldn't on the bus.

I had just been so overwhelmed with many things all at once. Saying goodbye to my family(Except Dad/Jill - see you in AK :) , our trip actually happening, getting all the flat dissolved and all paperwork for the trip in order, no job, getting the Muppets project done and delivered, oh and did I mention an unknown adventure around the world - whew!

Lou you asked if it feels real yet? It really is for me! Its gonna be AWESOME!

P.S. Nerds: I bought a 4GB iPod nano on Monday and loaded it up to the gills with music, so that helped smooth the drive to Napier...

Stay tuned.

Away!

Phew - What a hectic last few days! We are now officially living out of our packs, so although we haven't left the country, I'd class us as travelers; No job, no residence, and nothing but the packs on our backs.

Princess finished her final day of work last Friday and had been sick all last week, adding stress because she was trying to pass as much knowledge to the "new girl" replacing her at work and could only make it to work Thurs/Fri. Sorry Sarah, Becks and "new girl"!

Meanwhile, I had been chasing the paperwork for the Netherlands work visa while we waited for our Chinese visas to be processed and our passports returned. The work visa was complicated because of 2 main complicating factors

1) the scheme is setup for immediate issue, so for us who don't get there for 6 months, they had to "see if the system would allow postdating the issue". I had to grease and hope they'd suss something out.

2) we needed to provide paperwork for health cover for the entire stay, which ends 18 months away! I wanted to go thru Mike Henry, but wanted the 15% off that the YHA offers. Most insurance schemes are for up to a year, and then rolled over assuming you are still a viable customer. So I called Mike Henry direct and worked my way up to someone competent enough to understand the problem, and they gave me the OK for 18 months coverage and a special code for the YHA to use in their system to allow the override. Phew!


So it all came together, but boy am I glad I have had so long off to chase this stuff.

On Friday night, Princess' (ex) employer took us out for a lovely meal and a few drinks, and we then went home to ponder the scope of our next task - dismantling our flat, and boxing all our possessions into boxes for storage at Mums place in Otaki.

The Warehouse sells 100 litre bins with sealed lids for $20 a piece so we bought 10 of those and stuffed all our crap into them. Mum and John came down Sunday morning and took a load north.

Nana, Princess' old car, was on trademe with a closing date on Saturday, and explicit expectation that the car needed to be transferred that weekend as we were leaving the country. Well Saturday night I got the call from the winner, and he was going to come over Sunday and settle, no problem.

Well I waited round all day for him, and after his no-show I used good old caller ID to call him back and ask what had happened and why he hadn't showed. He fobbed me off that he had showed up, seen the car and left because it was not tidy enough.

GRR! When you bid on an auction, you are obliged to buy it! His feedback showed that he had done the same to heaps of other people, so just added more feedback pointing out how unacceptable it is. Lesson - vet your bidders, especially if its important!

So on Sunday night with plans to leave the city the next day, I started scheming on what or options were. Car yard? Leave Nana with friends and relist? Neither were ideal. One nice lady had come and looked at the car and bidded, but missed out, so I tried to find her in caller ID, but she had fallen off the list as it was a week later. So I send out a fixed price offer to all people who had been 'watching' the auction at the same price.

Amazingly, the very lady I was thinking of accepted it about an hour later! The next day we met up and swapped no problems. I was very relieved because Princess is leaning on that cash to travel! The new owner said to me that she was hardly ever online that late, so I just caught her
by sheer luck. Thanks, karma!

So Monday was a chaotic day of cleaning, boxing and dashing around delivering the last give away stuff and saying goodbye to friends and family. And yes Sam, I did get the Muppets Albums finalized at last, but like all projects, I wish I had more time... I'll do a full post on that saga sometime soon.

I borrowed a Land Rover off Alvin (thanks) to get our final load (including us) up to Otaki, and greased another good friend, Nick (thanks also), to come along so he could drive the Land Rover back to Welly.


So, here we are in Otaki and I have got all our stuff stowed, and spent a lovely sunny day here with my mum ...

Leaving my work

First off, let me apologise for not writing sooner - its been a crazy week! We have had more injections, and lots of people to 'catch up with' before we leave. For the record, we are leaving Wellington on June 11th. We are heading up to Mums in Otaki for a day, then on to Napier for Princess' mum, then on to Auckland.

Last Friday was my final day at work. Spent most of the day finalising the clear up of my stuff - 6 years at one place and boy do you accumulate lots of fluff! I also did the technical handover and made sure the new Tim (Named Tim - Hi!). Oh, and made sure my timesheet was complete - probably for the first time ever.

Work put on drinks at 4.30pm, and as Princess had the day off, she came up for the goodbye drinks and the inevitable large-card and speeches that I have seen all the other leave-ees get.
I hope that didn't sound cynical - it was a really good affair (free booze is always a good start) and I appreciated the speeches and pressie and card. Thanks for all the kind comments, a small card just wouldn't have fit that much *love* :)

It was really flattering to hear all the management speak so highly of me - I felt quite embarrased! But after 6 years, these people are like family... Thanks guys for all your support and guidance throughout my time there. NowI have seen presents of widely varing utility given at leaving parties at my old job; so I was very happily surprised when they managed to find me a gift that is truly useful - a speaking translator! (Brook played a guiding hand I think, after seeing me getting Chinese cheat sheets off Gerome - thanks both of you guys!)


(click for more pics)

It is truly awesome - OK it doesn't listen to voice and interpret, but it has some 10,000 phrases in 11 languages, so i just gotta look up the right phrase in English, then pick a target language. Also comes with cheat sheets to quickly find the right phrase. You can read onscreen in any language, or make the device speak out! The English sounds pretty good, so I expect the other languages to be good too. Charlie and Gerome promise me that its Chinese is OK, not saying something like "ooh don't help this guy, he doesn't even know your language!!". Monty Python comes to mind..

So after the free booze dried up, and the family oriented staff* had headed off home, we went to Bodega, the local public bar for a few rounds and some snacks. Intentionally had a good chat with all the Ei lads/lasses (yep you, Tracey) before I got too blurry to articulate smoothly.

urg.. we rocked over to the Bristol to have a few more drinks, and also to see Katie, the mother of Boswell, who is also leaving the country soon and was out having fun. Met a bunch of her mates and then we rocked down to CellBar (under Zibibo at the bottom of Taranaki st.). Things got hazy in there and after being given a 'rusty nail' (whiskey and tequila mixed neat - or something equally nasty) I decided that I'd had enough... Granddad mode!

So thanks to everyone at work for making my time there enjoyable, and for sending me off in style! Please keep in touch. So.. I have got past that hangover, and spent the week trying to get us visas for China and The Netherlands, and arranging insurance. The consulates are open for a couple of hours each morning - (9-12/10-12) and so I have had to dash to them to get info, then wait a whole day before going back.. frustrating!

And weighing insurance options up is a job suited only for an Actuary, the sneaky so-and-sos who make the schemes up in the first place! What is an extra $100k on medical worth versus a $5k drop in bag coverage down to $10k ? I think I might have to resort to the cheapest one that doesnt look to shonky technique.

Plus the Chinese Embassy have our passports for a week! what a pain, but I think I can squeeze it all in OK - Im on if full time! We have final blood tests tomorrow, and I am also orgainsing where to store all our junk. The mini didn't sell so I'm going to store it at my good friends house - thanks Ryan!

So much more to do, once we are on the road I promise more writing!


Love you all.

Colin

Hello peoples,

Well I thought it was high time that I contributed some words of wisdom to this blog seeing as my name is on it!

Well here we are with just over a month until we leave. I can hardly believe how quickly time is passing. There is a lot to organise during our remaining time in NZ, but we are getting there slowly. As you all know by reading Tim's previous posts we are in the process of getting vaccinated against every disease under the sun. And I mean every disease! The list includes, tetanus, rabies, hep A and B, polio, typhoid and I'm sure there are more that have slipped my mind. Needles are my worst nightmare, but I must say I have been very brave and have been enduring 3 jabs per doctor's session. Only 4 more plus a blood test to go. I can SO handle it! : )

I've also been booking some accommodation. I am most excited about our hostel in Singapore. We are Staying at a place called Hostel One66, owned by a lovely man named Yang. It's really funky and crazy, in some ways it looks like a pre-schooler has been let loose with paint and interesting objects. Toilet seats have been used for chairs, there are millions of clocks on the wall - all sorts of quirky things! The most exciting thing though is the resident dragon Colin (refer to the picture below) who is tame enough for pats. I can't wait to meet him!

So yay, roll on holidays! I can't wait!

Love Princess

Your advice time:

Heya everyone;

So every time I mention that I'm traveling thru Asia, I get a barrage of suggestions. This post is for you to add your comments to so I have a written summary of suggestions.

So if you have suggestions for:

• Accommodation
  
• Transit: buses, flights, trains, boats ?
  
• activities: ruins / geography / swimming / snorkeling / anything
• General advice

The current plan for travelling thru countries (in rough travel order below):

• Singapore
• Malaysia
• Thailand
• Laos
• Cambodia
• Vietnam
• China
• Nepal
• India

And then:

• UK
• Netherlands

So sign up and add some comments ya'll - if you have a google account (eg gmail) then you can sign in with that. Get to commenting please!

The goods:

So finally I have some piccies!

These are the expensive microfibre mini-towels that katmandu sell - supposed to be good, and a really small when folded up!


We also found a sale on fairydown sleepers. Princess got the puffer, warmer bag and I opted for the thinner one - how cold can it get? I figure I can carry her larger sleeping bag, and she can have my smaller one to carry to compensate for her smaller backpack, smaller size and larger need for space for clothes etc!



Once they are put into the bottom of our packs, they make the packs look a bit more shapely...

So; next round of injections tomorrow - I have been contacting all my past doctors etc to figure out if I have had tetanus shots etc. ever/recently... I don't know! I think princess is doing realyl well, and is almost excited (rather then nervous) about tomorrow.

We have firmed up a few plans too: We are staying in Brisbane for a couple of days, then travel to the Gold coast for a few more - I'm hoping to take princess to White Water World !

From there we get a rental campervan and slowly make our way up Queenslands coast to Cairns for a family reunion with Princessseseses family. After a week looking around Cairns, we'll fly down to Sydney to stay with my Auntie Jan for a couple of days before flying over to Singapore.

Maybe Princess will tell you about Colin in the next post...