Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Made me think of home.



Only in NZ

New years eve


Another day another bit of hill.

Who needs walls!


Living in a van for a month and a bit now has been through ups and downs but there is no denying that its is an excellent way to see a country.
3 blokes in the back of one van every night tho has left its toll on the poor thing. The lights where the first sign that something was wrong and we replaced the bulbs only to have them blow again later, so when night falls instead of the 3 inside lights the van is set up with we are stuck with one rear light with about 1candle watt of power, just enough light to play rummy by. However when the boot started to refuse to open a few weeks ago a few troubles began. Firstly we were unable to get to our pots and pans we had stashed in the bottom of the boot, we bought new ones from a charity shop only to leave a campsite in a hurry one night and leave those ones by the side of the road, back to charity shop for a frying pan that's handle soon snapped off.
The food now has to be passed out through the side door. Also not being able to remove the chiller became a huge problem, trying to keep our beers cool we bought a bag of ice which allowed us one night of cool beverages before melting. Us being us left the water in the cooler along with cheese and chocolate which eventually mutated into an extremely Strong stagnant smell which radiated through our van for a few nights before we Finlay discovered the source. Cleaning this out was a big issue because the cooler was stuck, so we had to ladle out the mutated mess with a coffee mug and use a buff face mask (above) to shield us from the smell. other than that not much is wrong with the old girl apart from the hundred dead sandflys and mosquitoes we have decorating our ceiling. But she has done her job nether the less and shown us almost 4500 km of beautiful scenery.

Gotta Love NZ


Thanks maaan.

Food


So far food has not been to bad but I felt as it is my biggest daily expensie that it needs a mention. So far been keeping it relitivly low cost, always cooking own supermarket food as is 'heaps' cheaper. Our trips to supermarket are near enough daily where we shop around for cheap and chearfull. Mostly ending up with pasta and rice garneished with a superburb 'whatever is on offer' sauce. Obviously the noodles are a big part of my diet and alough im sure the health benifits are not great my wallet benifit is. So here are some tips to get the best from your noodles, Mix with beanz for fiber and density, add as much chilly sauce as you think you can take and not the packet of 'flavour' given with it. Cook untill warmish, Now enjoy.
For breackfast I find a mix of scarmbled eggs with cut up tomato (idea stole from two california surfers we met) and banana (my own idea) fryed into a pile of mess and wedged between two slices of bread. Bliss-e-mo!

Chilling in the middle of nowhere with a bottle of wine (thanks for the xmas money mum&dad).

Found a bridge after a half hour trek through a gravel dirt road on foot as a river had made it a bad idea to drive. We had originally tried to find a beach we assumed was in that direction but so far in and with no torch we settled on the bridge which crossed a shallow river 5 feet beneath with its own small bank of sand both sides. To top it off after the bottle was empty and on the way back we caught site of a few firefly's/ glow worms, which were visible as a strange green spot of glowing light. All in a hard days traveling.

Going back on myself but cant deny you of this great vid taken from a gipsy/ surfer/ all round cool creative guy who built an entire park full of things to play with, mostly for free.

Saturday, December 26, 2009

Sunset


view of a nice chilled night

First Blog: Xmas Day


4 Weeks into my travel and think its about time I started a blog. The day after boxing day and its raining which is a welcome relief to the blistering sun of the last few days.

Just been through Xmas on a beach somewhere at the top of New Zealand a place called Patterns Rock. Great experience and one was looking forward to for a while, however, as always its the stuff that could not be planed that made the day.

Starting the day off next to a busy road, flicking through a map for local beaches we headed south to check out and scout for suitable places, eventually getting to Patterns Rock around 10:30 or so (although time is hard to pinpoint without a watch) we set up our Xmas tree (basically a twig i found) and wrapped it in tinsel to kick off our festiveness! Instantly cracking open some tuborg while the boys swam in the warmest water we had found yet I sat under our 'tree' and enjoyed my sandy Xmas which was about to get interesting!.... (suspense)... when Ash and Ian came back from the water they had strangely changed our midday snack plans, I waded out with them away from the beach but toward some rocks to find an entire reef filled with muscles which a local told us we could pick, while picking them another local told us how to cook them by simply boiling water, people are unbelievably friendly to strangers around here. Eating was good, the freshest food Ive ever had!

The rest of the Xmas was spent mostly chilling, drinking and eating, having to BBQ our 4 quarter pound burgers on a disposable BBQ we found for a very reasonable 5 bucks= bout 2.40 pounds, and boiling our carrots and potatoes. Defiantly kept up the tradition off cooking more than its possible to eat!

Good Day, Good experience, Good times.
Check out ash's Blog at WWW.roadsidecassette.blogspot.com ..more to come soonish