Category Archives: Wellington

Part 11 – Last weekend in Welly

And with that, our time in Wellington was almost over. The first good-byes had to be said, though luckily just for now. Mat had to leave to the US for a work trip so we had a last brunch, all of us together.

In the afternoon, we rented kayaks from Ferg’s to explore Wellington harbour a bit. I first got to Wellington 19 years ago, I have lived here for three years later on and I have never been kayaking in the harbour before. It was about time. Plus, the kids are really keen on kayaking.

We had a blast, I got a blister, we got out of the kayaks quite happy. Some ice cream and a last visit to the kids’ favourite playground in Frank Kitts park later, we were back in Plimmerton for a last evening with Liz and Zeph. The evening saw lovely conversation, wine, chocolate and then a dog that needed to be rescued in a spectacular fashion through a lot of gorse.

After all the excitement of last night, we had a lazy Sunday morning. It was lunch time before we actually left Plimmerton. I was quite happy that we will return again for a couple of nights before leaving NZ as I will miss the very good company of Mat and Liz and the kids dearly when we live on the other side of the globe again.

Afterwards, we fullfilled on of the kids’ wishes: We went to Wellington zoo!

We decided to stay in town on Sunday night as the ferry to the South Island will leave on Monday morning at 8am and we have to check in way earlier than that. Instead of just parking at Te Papa, we’d stay overnight. Being right in the middle of town does have its advantages. We met up with Aaron for a stroll along Cuba Street festival which didn’t feel like it had really started. After a failed attempt for a coffee at Fidel’s (which was already closed), we had pizza and the signature hot chocolate at Scopa. The kids loved the hot chocolate and I managed to get this particular itch scratched. 🙂

Flo got the kids into bed, Aaron and I hung out at the waterfront and then we actually went out to the Library. It is one of Flo’s and my favourite places to go out to so we were very happy to be there. It’s a cozy little bar full of books and some live music. It serves great cocktails and also desserts so I had a lovely chocolate mousse while Flo sipped port. Aaron had the rocky road dessert which turned out to be a gigantic portion so he shared.

Bye Wellington, bye Aaron, bye Liz, bye Mat, bye former home!

is awesome. Also, the kids loved both of Mat’s and Liz’s “kids”

Part 10 – Double the Fun Week

Faced with the tough choice of another week of school vs. a week of daytrips with me, Number 3 chose the latter. Not for lack of fun at school, but more out of fear of missing out. Nina did go all out this week, working basically nine to five.

It was quite the spectacular week, all in all. We ended up with all sorts of activities. A best-of-the-past walking tour, including the cable car, botanical gardens and CBD. One and a half days of Te Papa, including stalking mum over her work-coffee. A chill day with movie and snuggles.

But probably the highlight was renting an e-bike and one kids’ bike for Number 3 (sadly, he was still too small for even the smallest of the kids’ e-bikes) and going on an epic 30km ride along the eastern shoreline and over Mount Vic.

For convenience and to have a place for me to get a nap in during the day, we ended up taking Timmy into town on most of those days. Parking at Te Papa was both central and very convenient, and we were more flexible on when to leave and head back.

Part 9 – Out and about

Our first weekend in Wellington already had a fixed activity…Saturday evening, Mat made it a date to have a port night. As Flo has to work every week night and thus misses most of the conversation amongst grown-ups, we also made it a date to go out on Sunday evening for dinner. Just the four “adults” Mat & Liz and Flo & me. To be able to do this has been a real treat as we managed to have their kids babysit our kids. Zeph especially was great as a babysitter but then they are a professional by now.

Weather was still nice so we needed some outdoor activity. After the much needed laundry, we headed out to Zealandia shortly before lunch time. Lunch was had along the way at a French cafe, then we reached Zealandia after a terrifying drive through Karori tunnel…we realized too late that Timmy is too tall for the tunnel and had to do the same thing buses do: Drive in the middle of the tunnel.

Zealandia is just a great place to be. Showing the kids native bush and birds, we even finished up with finding a weta. Just an overall great day.

In the evening, we got to hang out with lots of cool people that we haven’t seen in forever. We used to roleplay with almost all of them at some point while we were still living in Wellington. I had too much cheese and just about enough chocolate and enjoyed the whole thing.

On Sunday, we were just tired. Some plans were made and then dismissed. In the end, we stayed in until we went out to dinner in the Wellington CBD. Flo had an itch to eat in one of our favourite place from ages ago (that is still around) so we dined in Capital next to the Embassy theatre in the end. It was a lovely night even though we didn’t make it back to Plimmerton before the gorge was closed and Liz had to take a detour through the outskirts of Wellington instead of going on the motorway.

No. 3 going native…barefoot in pak’n’save

Part 8 – Work, Work, Work

Well, how the turntables. All of a sudden, the “holiday” vibe was gone, and it was almost a settled life for almost all of us. The general arrangement for this week was: Nina goes to town and does basically a full workday either at the National Libary of New Zealand (Turnbull Libary) or at Te Papa Tongarewa. Maybe a brief meetup for lunch, if I am in town, but that was it.

Number 3 got the chance to go to school. Which is mind-blowing to us, coming from Germany. He could not have hit it better, though. He got assigned to Mr. Cross` classroom of year 3 kids. First day kicked off with swim class. He was in love. Just the logistics were a bit of a challenge.

That left me and the Agent of Entropy, finding our ways. Most of the time, that meant going to Wellington as well, either to get stuff sorted (like, voting as #1 and #2 voter in NZ in that incredibly unneccessary snap election Germany had) or just to hang out.

Then, in the evening, with the kids in bed and the house settled in, I would go and get to work, usually 8pm to midnight. Sometimes, a bit longer. We knew, this whole trip could only work if we both put in serious time to work. But still, ouch. Those first few days hit me hard. Especially before I managed to make a mid-day nap a non-negociable. Working late is weird. Somehow, not helped by the 12 hour time difference, it feels like “the morning” in my mind.

Anyway – we got through this mostly alive – probably the hardest week of our entire trip in terms of work commitments. Time for some weekend fun …

The kids really warmed to Lupin and Loki, the two Golden Retrievers

Time for a check

A dear friend of ours made a list of ’65 Flo-like things to do in NZ’ for Flo’s first birthday in Wellington. Now is the time to check how we did, I guess. 🙂

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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.

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

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. 🙂

: always on the edge of the bad weather

: Views on the Taihape to Napier road.

: Sun coming through after Taihape.

: Clouds lightening near Foxton

: OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

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.

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!

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

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.

Last things to do in Wellington

Master chocolatier

Last Christmas, I wished for a couple of vouchers for things that I wanted to do in Wellington. In March, I went to the zoo and had a close encounter with the red pandas and about two weeks ago now, it was time for me to have a two hours chocolate class with my favourite Wellington chocolatier: Bohemein chocolates.

The class was designed for someone like me: Having tried to work with chocolate at home and having run into problems. So instead of looking at all the maschines to work with 50 kg of chocolate, we started with a 2kg bag of chocolate chips on a stove. Just like you would at home. Well, probably not 2kg for you alone but we were 6 people in class.

We started with how to melt chocolate without spoiling it, checking temperature (I want a thermometer for chocolate!) and then the ‘stirring until your arm is falling off’. Working with chocolate is a science in itself as chocolate is the most squirmish material and hates a two degrees difference in temperature.

Chocolate truffels

We used the molten chocolate to make a ganache, dipped it in chocolate and rolled it in chocolate shavings. They were yummy. The reason for the exercise was that truffels are the easiest piece of chocolate to make and you can flavour it with almost anything.

Chaos roaming the world

random pieces of life of Nina and Florian