Back to where we started

I am now sitting in a garden cafe in Akaroa, enjoying a banoffee cake and a cup of raspberry tea while Justus is out trying to catch today's third sleeping train with Junia. In an hour and a half we will meet up mum and Håkan in this fantastic little French bistro where we had our first meal in New Zealand almost two months ago. And tomorrow we will hand in our camper van after three weeks, and head for the North island. Exciting! Justus is a bit sad that the camping days are over, but the only thing I feel sorry about are the next happy campers when they open our gas chamber (the cupboard where we kept our shoes. Junia's nappies smells like toffee sauce in comparison). We will now have a normal car again, and hopefully sleep in places with toilets and showers, maybe even in the same building as our bed. I will however miss the possibility to spread out my stuff everywhere and not having to pack every night.

So, what have we done lately? From the west coast we moved on inland towards the tourist mekkas of Wanaka, Queenstown and Arrowtown. Good food, cute places and crowded camp sites. It felt a bit like sleeping on a parking lot. Then we headed south west to Fiordland, some wilderness camping and the famous milford sounds. Beautiful and probably very much like Norway (haven't been). We have however realised that the experienced beauty of a place we somehow find directly negatively proportional with the number of people there. That might have sounded a bit too mathematical (can't even remember the correct term for it), but basically; crowded with japanese, or even worse - cruise ships passengers, means get out of here ASAP. That explains why we did not even have time to try the home made ice cream in cinema paradiso in Wanaka (as someone decided that I'm only allowed to one dessert/day and that day's quota was already filled) which I'm still a bit upset about.

Bueno, old mining town Clyde was rather empty to our big delight, and there we pallade plums, peaches, black berries and walked the old railway track Clyde-Alexandra where I had the best lamb-mint burger in my life. Absolutely beautiful! (Both the 25 km walk, the burger and the fresh fruit). In that area, central otago, famous for all the fruit we also stocked up in a place called Cromwell. The lady in the tourist office seriously could not come up with any ideas about what we could do in the area so we ended up taking a photo of the city sign, which seemed to be the biggest attraction. Places like that are cool.

But now we are again in the former French settlement of Akaroa, where we spent this morning swimming with the world's smallest dolphin, hector's dolphin. It was such a kick you even forgot how freezing cold it was. We also saw some of the world's smallest penguin, little blue penguin. They like to keep it simple these kiwis.

Hope that all is fine with you blog readers, be happy that you live in places without the merci-less sandflies! (Have killed five while writing this and don't want to think about how many I missed.)

Four reasons NOT to like NZ

Reason one; sandflies
Reason two; sandflies
Reason three; sandflies
Reason four (indeed); sandflies!!!!!

NZ is a wonderful country to be travelling in but the sandflies do make me understand why Mt DOOM figured in a certain movie filmed here. If they had really wanted to punish the British convicts, they should have sent them without insect repellent (our favourite is called 'byebye sandfly' btw) to NZ instead of to Australia. That would have tought them a bloody lesson, literally!

The first time I was confronted with these blood sucking and poison injecting creatures (would make a nice script for an Alien movie) was in Gore while walking in the garden. At first, I thought they were just flies but when I saw them taking of, slightly bigger and with a red tummy, I realised there was something terribly wrong. That night, I was punished for my ignorance as it felt as if my legs were burning. Never in my life had I longed for an ice cold shower before. Chopping of my valuable and highly appreciated legs also felt like a tempting option. These bites were way more itching than the ordinary Dutch or Swedish mosquito bites.

When I shared my vampire ordeal the next morning,I was told the bites would last for a couple of days! For once I was happy that Anna is un-capable of throwing away things and also tend to over-pack, as some Ecuadorian potion 'bug itching killing' stuff in the bottom of her toilet bag proved to come very handy. The itching cooled down and became bareable again.

At beautiful Pelarus Bridge (close to Nelson), we were literally attacked by sworms of these Kiwi guerillas. We managed to escape to our van but even there, they managed to come in through all kind of small holes. As a true Braveheart, I fought off the attacks protecting my ladies. I now understand why you always need to have a stack of brochures in your car! Both Anna and I were a few bites ritcher but Junia managed to survive the attack unhurt.

What I do not understand is that nobody had ever mentioned the ferosity of these creatures. I had just heard positive stories about NZ but this was never shared. It is something to be aware of though. Sitting outside at dawn or dusk is just not an option at some places.

Anyway, I am now sitting in the Sandfly cafe in Te Anau and the Latte tastes delicious. I wish all Sandflies were this nice! Attached two pictures I took during one of our walks. Hope you can read the text. I agree with Cook! Also is an example of the damage the beasts do, Håkan is modelling here.

A shocking realisation

When we were hiking in Abel Tasman we met two blond Swedes who did the 3 month Thailand-Australia-NZ tour. In Australia they were going from Sydney to Cairns, and I heard myself saying "I did that too, in 2005." The girls did the 5 hour hike a Gucci handbag, one bottle of water and a bag of crisps. They were clearly heading for beaches and party rather than hiking and a bed at 19.30.

Then we reached Queenstown, known as the adventure capital of the world, I saw this guy trying to sell all kinds of thrills, from jet boating to bungee jumping, to everyone passing by. Apart from us, who he just ignored.

In Lonely planet I don't even read the drinking chapters anymore, but underline "family-friendly establishment", "home-baked cakes" and "beautiful gardens".

We tried to stay in a hostel only once but we were being refused entrance - not because we were smelly or drunk but because we had a child with us. Justus had to be talked out of leaving Junia's fully loaded business card as a souvenir at the front desk. We slept in a beautiful B&B run by a friendly retired couple instead.

When sitting in cafes and restaurants, we realize that we talk more with 65+ couples (have never heard so much about grandchildren before), than with travellers 20+.

During this trip, I have read two books about raising children but not one sleezy paperback.

Instead of being hungover once, I have only felt sick from eating the biggest carrot cake I've ever been confronted with in my life (the picture does not make it justice, but it was delicious.)

The price was not the only criteria when we booked the camper van. Safety and comfort were equally important. We especially liked the fire extinguisher and airbags.

In short, I am trully getting older. The positive thing however, is that Junia works as the biggest ice breaker ever, so at least we get to talk to loads of people. But the days of hard core partying, no worries and no responsabilities are definately over. At least I'm still closer to 30 than 35...

And last photo load

someone just threw up on me, and here are the final pics, from abel tasman.

Photos 3

and these are not all...

photos 2

some more...

Happy camper

Dear blog readers, sorry about the slow updates. We have now changed vehicles from a grey passenger car to a white camper van (as some of you might know, I tend to describe vehicles by color as that's the only thing that says anything to me).

Anyhow, this camper van is slightly more luxerious than our wicked van a few years ago. We here have a fridge instead of an eski (cool box/ kylväska)! First stop was Kaikoura where we met up with Tomas and Christie from Melbourne. It is always so nice to see old friends! Kaikoura offered beautiful walks with sea lions and fantastic fresh sea food (Ocean link Hanna...)

Then we moved up north to the wine district where there were more wineries per square km than hair dressers at Kungsholmen. After the first stop (where I quickly lost count of how many different bottles you could try, I soon realised that after 13 dry months, not much is needed to make my head spin. The products from a small chocolate factory went down smoother...

Further north for some beautiful days of hiking in Marlborough sounds and Abel Tasman, and we also met up with the specially ordered first class baby sitters from Örebro (who had brought a very longed for pipinette, which makes the camp nights quite a bit easier...)

In Nelson we tried 16 (!) different kind of ice creams (bought a taste platter with 9, but the Dutch ice cream magic man came out with another 7 that he had invented and wanted us to try. Everything from bay leaf, to knäckebröd and olive oil.) A very cold heaven, and worth the trip to Nelson alone. We also took advantage of mamma and Håkan's baby sitting and spent and afternoon white water rafting - just as fun as usual, but unfortunately I have discovered that becoming a mother also turned me into a chicken. No 8 m cliff jumps or swimming down rapids thank you very much.

Now we are exploring the west coast glaciers, another week and a half to go with the van!

PS, Anna wrote the text and Justus chose the photos. Less is more only applies to one of us... For those of you who actually look on all of them, guess where pancake rocks and the babysitters are. There are actually babysitters on two photos, as we have understood that the best way to have a meal in peace and quiet is to sit close to some asian ladies who soon will pick up Junia...