Category Archives: Wellington

Day 1 – NZ in winter

We left Wellington at a reasonable time around 9.30ish. Leaving Welly was hard. I cried into my helmet. Oh well, now it is baptized. I take it as a good sign: We had an amazing time in our second home and I rather cry while leaving than be glad to go.

Nina and Flo on the bike

ready to leave wellington

Wellington cried with me. At least that is my explanation for getting absolutely drenched for the next two hours going north. I remembered again why a new suit was not just a requirement for the hot and humid conditions of the tropics…it didn’t take very long and my suit capitulated to the water. Given that it was also about 15 degrees and we were doing 100kmh, I started shivering quite quickly.

We managed to get out of the rain when we hit a small town called “Bulls” in the proximity of Palmerston North. A cafe gave us refuge, allowed my hair to dry again and we had a lovely hot soup to warm up.

From there, luckily, the weather also started to get a bit better. Lovely afternoon sun helped dry us off again, except for my feet which remained drenched until we arrived at our camp spot. We stopped a couple of times to hang out in the sun and take some pictures of the NZ landscape in winter.

on route to Taihape

on route to Taihape

Taihape was our last stop to shop for breakfast food and then we were off on the road between Taihape and Napier. What a lovely road for a motorbike ride! Very enjoyable.

The DOC campsite was accessible through a horse paddack and though I did not take a picture of them, the horses in that landscape looked lovely. They just belonged there.

We were the only ones on the campsite as far as we see. Two other people were hiding on the far side but we only found them after quite a walk; also, it seemed to me as if they wanted to be left alone.

Put up the tent, changed into something dry and warm started to read. Then Flo told me that we couldn’t actually use our stove as we only had the wrong type of fuel for it with us. Tough luck, no evening tea then. Well, also no warm meal. Instead, we ate our supplies for breakfast and decided to have breakfast in Napier the next day.

Darkness dropped quickly on us and at something stupidly early like 8pm, we went to bed. It already felt quite cold so I put on an extra fleece and tugged the sleeping bag all the way around. Snug like a bug. 🙂

This morning, I get woken up by a nearly frozen Flo who had a terribly cold night and a big envy for my down sleeping bag. It had been cold. So cold in fact, that our tent froze and was covered in a tiny layer of ice. The motorbike as well. It took us way longer than on other mornings to pack everything because everything was stiff and uncooperative, including our own cold fingers.

Now we are in Napier, in the Groove Kitchen Espresso, which makes amazing coffee (Flo) and let’s us use the wifi and the power plugs. All good. 🙂

A world of good-bye

For me, it really started with the SPCA good-bye on Wednesday. My last volunteer shift in the feline and small animals area, working as an assistant to the lovely Sam.

SPCA messages

Little messages that were distributed throughout the cats’ rooms.

They didn’t make it easy. Even the cats decided to team up and just be so cuddly that I couldn’t go. From Dawson, who climbed out of his box to get cuddles, over Nero, who tried to sit on my lap when I was kneeling and kept sliding off, to Phoenix, even, who cuddle-jumped against my knee with his head when I was walking to get all the attention he wanted.

Thank you so much, feline team and Wellington SPCA, that I could have such a great time with you. You are an amazing bunch of people and I will miss you.

Blood test

As part of preparing for the journey, we wanted to know our blood groups and put a sticker on the helmets stating these blood groups…just in case we’ll have an accident and it comes in handy.

For testing, we needed a little detour as our GP doesn’t do it, so we had to get it done at the lab. Turns out I am AB+ which is quite a rare blood group and renders my blood generally useless as I can only donate to my own blood group. On the other hand this blood group is known as the ‘universal receiver’. Any other blood group is compatible to mine. In other words: Flo will be able to donate blood for me if push comes to shove, I won’t be able to return the favour.

Reading up on my blood group though was good. I don’t need to feel bad for not donating blood for the reason stated above. However, I should seriously think about donating plasma. For plasma, things are turned upside down: I am the ‘universal donator’. Because I have A and B in my blood, my plasma does not contain any kind of antibodies and is thus usable by every blood type while I can only received plasma donations from my own blood group.

I might have to look into this a bit more in the future.

Making a difference – UNICEF NZ

In the tradition of other great, long distance motorcycle travellers, we decided to add a cause to our journey. So in addition to experiencing a new country, a new culture, meeting people and seeing places, we want to be able to give something back. For this reason, we will try to raise money and have a fundraiser going for each country that we will travel through. This is our contribution to the decrease of world suck. 🙂 DFTBA!

Nina visiting UNICEF NZ

Visiting UNICEF NZ

We will break it up into parts for each country or section to be able to help diverse charities, make it interesting for you, the lovely people who donate, and to keep having a fundraising goal within a month or two rather than half a year away. The money will go to big, established charities rather than to small local ones; as much as we want to support small ones, it seems unrealistic to believe we can discover a small charity for every country, that is also legit and vouchered for, without constant access to the internet or putting hours of work into it.

Givealittle campaign image

Givealittle campaign image

For the start of our journey, we will explore more of New Zealand. We haven’t been to the East coast or Northland yet! Thus, we will also fundraise for a New Zealand charity. We have decided that the money of our first fundraiser will go to UNICEF New Zealand. To get a better feel for and connection to UNICEF, I met up with the lovely staff of the Wellington Office today. To be honest, I was quite overwhelmed that three people took the time to see me and were interested in what Flo and I are trying to do.

UNICEF New Zealand is helping many Pacific islands that we will not come through on this journey. However, they also have projects in Nepal and Laos, two countries that we WILL come through. Giving money to UNICEF NZ allows them to allocate it to where it is most urgently needed.

Both projects, in Nepal and Laos, aim to better the educational situation for children. To be able to go to a school has a lot of prerequisites that need to be fulfilled first. Access to clean water, medical treatment and general hygiene are a priority. As is getting children who work full-time into a better position.

Nepal, which was hit so hard by the earthquake, now faces a different problem: Child trafficking. Exploiting the poverty after the disaster, children are bought from their families with the promise of sending them to school and then sold into slavery of one form or another.

If you are interested in specific regions or projects, please read up on it on www.unicef.co.nz

So to help children in these countries and around the world: Please consider donating for our fundraiser. We added an extra page labeled ‘Making a difference’ for all our current and future efforts.