Category Archives: New Zealand 2015

Day 115 – Selamat tinggal, Bali!

Yes, there was Leberwurscht for breakfast. And yes, Flo had it. I didn’t. As you probably guessed. =P The pool was smooth as and really tempting but we withstood it…barely. Toes were dipped in…

A re-purposed boat..very cool

A re-purposed boat..very cool

After breakfast, we said goodbye to Richard and drove off to Pemuteran. It didn’t take long at all so we arrived at Joe’s bar at 11am, just when it opened. Joe wasn’t there yet so we sat down and had a lemon juice. During this one drink, Joe arrived. Joe is a friend of Santosh who called him to announce us so he knew something about our travels.

Talking to Joe was awesome but since we only drove about 40km so far, we were itching to get a bit more miles (kilometres actually) under our wheels (and butts). After two hours, a piece of Black Forest cake with vanilla ice cream and Joe’s Indonesian insight, we drove another 30 minutes to get to the ferry harbour in Gilimanuk. Here, the tickets were very cheap and ferries seem to leave every 5min. Java is so close at this point of Bali that I joked I could probably swim over if the ferry sank. The ferry did look dodgy this time.

Rocinante is hiding between trucks

Rocinante is hiding between trucks

Handing our $3 ticket to an official, we were waved onto the ferry where other officials played real-life Tetris to get the optimal loading for the given space. Flo had to move Rocinante once, when a better spot opened up after the trucks were shuffled a bit.

Supposedly, the ferry takes 30min but ours was the slowest wreck ever built and it took a freaking hour to get us across with other ferries overtaking us left and right.

Finally, we were riding out onto Javanese soil. Our second to last Indonesian island had been reached. With leaving Touristland™, we were now back in the land with stretches of no warungs and the standard of accommodation also dropped immediately. This time though, we also get the price cut with it though. Crossing over to Java also meant crossing another time zone. Thus it was still rather early but we were both knackered so we decided to stay in Bakauheni where the Lonely Planet had advertised for a very cheap and basic place. Exactly what we were looking for: Just beds and a mandi. Perfect for 92k.

Being in our room and having internet enabled us to do some “homework”. Well, mostly Flo did the homework really. First, we checked on the status of our passports which was “processed in Bali”. What did that mean? Did we get the visa or not? Why are our passports in Bali? Are they still there? Or again despite us asking to pick them up in Jakarta? Unfortunately, calling vfs didn’t clarify much. Yes, the passports were on their way back to Bali (just when we left it *facepalm*) but luckily, they could be intercepted and are still in Jakarta. But they couldn’t tell us if the visa had been granted. So we checked immigration New Zealand were our status was “pending”. How can be pending when our passports are on the way back?

It took a while to get through but then the staff in NZ explained that our visa was granted and that our status says “pending” as the visa has no end date and thus breaks the system. YUUUUUUUSS, permanent New Zealand residents!

Day 86 – Goodbye Dili

The last day of comfort in Herman’s Dili abode has come, it is finally time to move on and get on the road. Plus, there was some recovering to do from the long hike and strenuous ride back.

We spend an awful long time with the last two blog posts today. Our mobile data has run out and we did not want to buy another data package for our last days in Timor, so we went to Timor Plaza after lunch and used the free wifi there. Free unfortunately also means slow and unreliable, so all in all, it took us two hours to get the two post up online.

Nina and Joris

Porch night with the VSA volunteers & other New Zealanders

After a brief debate whether to move on late today for a short day or sleep one more night yesterday, we settled on staying and leaving the next morning. The main reason was that this gave us a chance to meet the New Zealand volunteers we have met over the last two and a half weeks one more time.

We had a great night again. A special thanks to Joris for his inside food tips and, of course, Herman for all he has done for us. He gave us a base, was our guide, driver and at times cook. Thank you, you are a big part of the reason why we will remember Dili fondly.

Day 67 – Quiet days

With one of our hosts gone and Celia working like the most impressive worker bee, not much was going on in the house. Before disappearing for the rest of the day to work though, Celia managed to convince me to join in one more time for a walk through the mangrove to the beach. Nina was supremely captivated by her newest book that she passed on the opportunity.

CC-BY-SA 3.0 by Peter Ellis

CC-BY-SA 3.0 by Peter Ellis

The beach was again teaming with life, but to my astonishment, a whole different set of critters showed up this time around. Maybe it was about the different point in the tidal cycle or the progressing buildup towards the wet. Whatever it was, I thoroughly enjoyed watching thousands of soldier crabs give the beach these flecks of bluish purple. I even dared to join the others in exploring barefoot, after covering me head to tow with mud flung up from my jandals the last time around.

To get everything ready for the post office in the afternoon, I spend the afternoon copying. We took about 2500 photos in Australia, coming to roughly 64 GB of data (I want to keep the RAWs

Cooling down every once in a while

Cooling down every once in a while

for later use). There was no internet connection fast enough in sight to upload this in any way quick enough to our Amazon Cloud storage, so I chose a different tactic for the backup this time. We carry a 1TB hard drive as the primary storage, and usually whatever gets uploaded into the cloud then gets deleted from our active 64 GB SD card. With uploading out of the question, we chose to use cheap USB flash drives and mail the backup to Germany for uploading there.

Beyond the flash drives and some post cards, we needed to send another box home. Since Nina’s Companero suit is finally complete, her old pants needed to go. Some paperwork and even the much treasured Coleman Sleeping bag fitted in as well. The price would be the same, so I was quite happy that we were able to keep the sleeping bag – it for me symbolized a much needed turning point for the better on our trip and I feared that we had to just give it away.

Day 21 – Chores and tears

We spent the day at our friends’ place to get as many things on our new (Nina updated it while I was not looking with more boxes to tick) list of things to do.

I guess the most important thing was to get the shipping of the bike sorted out and payed. After a little exchange to ensure that we do not have to pay a particular service twice, the final number still came out way over the original quote. The two reasons here were: MCL did a great job at packing my bike secure, but with little concern for packing it down. Compared to the crate I have build myself for airlifting the bike to NZ, this one is 33% larger with less gear in it.

The other reason is that the exchange rates of the NZD vs. USD and AUD have plummeted – something that will hurt our funds continuously from here on out. All in all, this lead to an invoice about 15% over the original quote. Not Mondiale’s fault, but painful nonetheless. I’ll post final numbers for shipping once the bike is customs and bio security cleared.


Theme song for a lot of NZ for me

And the tears: Well, this was the last step, we were leaving our new home NZ for real for a while now, leaving behind new and good friends, colleagues and amazing places (side note, saying goodbye and then going to bed is weird). It was a calm and warm goodbye this one though. I cooked for the three of us in the house, something that for me tied the last three years together quite poetically. Me cooking for friends (and getting a lot better at it) is definitively something that will forever be linked to our time in NZ.

P.S.: And just for Brendan – a new Favicon!

Day 20 – Waiheke

Sunday started as Saturday had been promised to be: Very sunny. Thus, if we wanted to go and see Waiheke, this was our chance.

The view back to Auckland's main ferry terminal

The view back to Auckland’s main ferry terminal

Nick drove us to the ferry terminal so we could catch the 11am ferry and off we went. The ferry ride in sunshine was supposedly quite nice…the rolling of the ferry made me tired, however, and I closed my eyes for a bit…and suddenly, we were on Waiheke.

Took the bus into town and walked along the beach and across rocks until we hit Little Oneroa Bay, where we had lunch. This is also the narrowest part of the island so we crossed over to the other side and then walked part of the walking track Te Ara Hura which leads around the island.

The whole track is not doable in a day so we walked from Blackpool to Te Wharau Bay, took the shortcut over the hill to Cable Bay and then continued along the west coast until we were back at the ferry terminal.

The look back over Oneroa (the town)

The look back over Oneroa (the town)

It was a great day for walking with all the sunshine and we saw many birds, a couple of horses, including a pony that really wanted to get rid of its saddle and even an ent. The ent was trying to run from the ocean but was ultimately defeated.

The west coast has some spectacular views onto the skyline of Auckland which is probably why there are estates and mansion with helicopter landing sites dotting along the coast.

Close to the ferry terminal, the sun started to set so, again, we got some beautiful sunset shots. After those, I hurried towards the terminal as I didn’t want to miss the 6pm ferry.

The ferry ride back gave us a view onto Auckland, first in fading sunlight and then in the dark with all the city lights greeting us. I think, it was the best time to come back. 🙂

Day 19 – Wohoo, the Zoo

Wohoo, both of us ...

Wohoo, both of us …

This will be a very brief one with a couple of pictures. Our plan to go to Waiheke island was abandoned after the weather (and the forecast) changed on us just this morning. Instead, we decided to go to the Zoo a bit later, after we saw our friend Mash one more time as he was passing through around noon.

Auckland Zoo is nice, but nothing out of the ordinary. We were sometime not 100% sure about the well-being of some of the animals, but the staff and setup inspired enough confidence that they care and do their best.

I really enjoyed the NZ sections of the Zoo as well. The enclosures are set up so that one gets a good look at Kereru, Kaka, Kea & co.

Day 18 – Inside Out and round and round

Blinking arcade games

Blinking arcade games

We decided to hit the cinema to finally watch “Inside Out” which we had missed out on in Wellington. I loved it. Such a good and sad movie.

During our wait for the movie to start, Flo discovered the arcade of the movie theatre and although we didn’t waste any cash, we did wander around for a while.

After the film, we had lunch at a lovely cafe and realized that we had not taken the camera into town so there are almost no pictures. Which is a shame because after lunch, we had ice cream at Giapo. They do haute ice cream in home-made flavours and use decorations on the cone as well. I had two scoops (chocolate and afghan cookie) which was then dipped in white chocolate and had cornflakes sticking to it as well as a whole afghan cookie. It was amazing but also way too much. Flo also struggled with his two scoops so at the end, we both had to admit defeat after 85% of the whole thing.

We also continue to work on preparations for Australia. Since we have quite some time in Melbourne while waiting on the bike to arrive, we now successfully lined up a new rear tire as well as most of the touratech gear. We also exchanged some money already.

In the evening, our friends had a lovely combined dinner and then a round of “Lords of Waterdeep”. It is a fun boardgame and not nearly as complicated as all the parts make it look like. I think Flo will purchase it when we have a home again. 🙂

Day 17 – stats 101

Today was a real homework day. So many boxes got ticked from our list, even some that were not on it. We are bleeding money for anything but accommodation (a huge thank you again to our Auckland friends for putting up with us).

I have a new phone, a rear tire is lined up in Melbourne, shipping payed, mails send … and most importantly: All data for NZ collated.

Country data #1: New Zealand

Full screen version of the map

  • 3388 km traveled (3223 km of GPS tracked)
  • 14 travel days, 22 days total
  • $22.90 Average cost per night (7x camping, 9x invitation)
  • 174.89 l of standard fuel for $361.78 (5.16 l / 100km)
  • ~$37 for food every day, eating out 1/3 meals
  • ~$2.500 in total, excluding shipping and tattoo

 

Day 16 – 16 in a row

When we started our trip, and this blog back up in earnest, the expectation was that we would write maybe two to three posts a week. Without really pushing for it, we now got a post for every single day of New Zealand, each of them with at least some pictures.

The surface works anywhere, this is me writing this post

The surface works anywhere, this is me writing this post

On average, it takes about an hour every day to write this blog. The process is already sinking in as part of our routine. One of us writes the body of the post itself, so far between 150 and 550 words each. Then we copy the pictures of the day onto the external hard drive, have a quick browse and pick images matching the post. Once we have a place with internet access we copy, resize and upload. Then, Flo gives every picture a title and description and 2-3 go into the post and the rest goes into a gallery. All in all about 1 hr.

The end result has been read by a growing number of people, over 100 by now. Cool – and also mildly scary.

By now, I think we both agree that we like the setup. We keep everyone informed, there is a record for ourselves and we get some great feedback (mostly on facebook, so feel free to use the comment function some more!). So we have all intentions to keep the 1 post per day up for travel days.

very hip, the surface is right at home

very hip, the surface is right at home

Now, whether that is actually achievable in places with less than North Island level of connectivity remains to be seen, but we will try.

You may have noticed that I said travel days. Right now, we are calming down a bit, so until we leave for Melbourne on the 25th, there may actually be some gaps on slow days, or posts more about more general things like this one.

Now, we did do some things today. We failed several attempts at buying a sleeping bag, survived a bus trip across town without a modern smart phone and had a lovely lunch at Federal & Wolfe.