North island

Sorry about the slow updates again, time is flying...

After the last blog entry we have changed both islands and way of accomodation. Even if we got refused entry in a hostel once due to age restrictions (4 years, ID required), we did not give up but have mainly stayed in hostels since. The dorm days are over however (although we ended up booking an entire dorm at one place), and most places have been quite ok with babies. Usually there are also happy young German girls who likes to baby sit while we eat. That is a definite advantage. Only once we ended up in a party place where I found myself doing a multi-lingual cursing 5 o'clock in the morning when they had been "singing" Wonderwall constantly (chorus only) the last quarter, and still did not shut up until an hour later, but then we got our money back the next day. All of a sudden I have a totally different understanding for former neighbours in Linköping.

Anyhow, first stop on the North island was Wellington, quite cool to come to a "big" city after 2 months of countryside and small towns. I tried a body pump class (the entire les mills concept is from NZ) and realised that
1. I prefer my skivstång
2. I don't really like having carpet in the work-out area
3. Muscles disappear totally when you don't use them for 5 months or so (this realisation especially kicked in the following two days).

Then we moved north west (high light on the lower half of the North island - yummy mummy's cheese cakes), and visited Napier, a city that was in ruins after the 1931 earthquake, and totally rebuilt in two years in the current art deco style after that.

Next stop Rotorua, where I constantly accused Justus for farting and checked Junia's nappies. The whole town is bubbling and gassing (Anders - nato, big time) which is quite interesting to see. Luckily we did not fall into any of those boiling mud pools.

Mum and Håkan had visited a lady from mum's tantklubb in Wellington, and got to borrow their beach house in Coromandel, so there we happily tagged along for a few days. A proper home with a proper grandma equipped kitchen was a little paradise. Nice walks, beautiful beaches and lovely cafes everywhere made Coromandel a big time favourite.

Then it was time to wave goodbye to the best baby sitters in NZ, and we moved on to Auckland where we stayed with Jade (who I had not seen for more than 10 years) and her husband Rodney (who was not in the picture at that time). The best birthday celebrations with cake, good company and not to forget, a visit to ten pacific island (some of which I was unaware of the existance) in the Pasifika festival. Junia tried cassava and saw folk dancing slightly different than the Swedish midsummer style, I ate raw fish, taro, saw old school hard core tatooing and had the by far best fruit drinks in NZ. There are worse ways of spending your birthday than eating your way through Kiribati, Tuvalu and the Cook islands, while watching samoans in bastu skirts dance to beyonce. The next morning we came to a shocking realisation - not that I was all of a sudden 32 according to Swedish time, but that we only have two weeks left in New Zealand! Mixed feelings. Hope to be able to upload this entry within those weeks anyhow...