Hi people! Wow, its been a long time in the making (lol) but here is our first blog entry for New Zealand. So we left America on September 11th...crazy day to fly but it was about 40% cheaper! We flew from Detroit to LA (5hours), waited a bit, then flew LA to Fiji (11hours), waited for 5hours then flew Fiji to Auckland (3 hours). Somehow, we also lost a day of our lives as we left on Thursday and arrived on Saturday!! What is that all about eh?!?! Haha
Surprisingly not jetlagged we were met at the airport by my good friend Leo whom I grew up with in Royston. Hes now an official Kiwi as he married a girl over here and has been living here for years. I was a little apprehensive about meeting him (and so was he by all accounts)...just in case we've changed tons and its not the same between us. But it was all good! 'Lid', (aka Leo...which I also discovered he got his name from when we were 9 and said our names to a teacher...for some reason we chose 'Bin' for me and 'Lid' for Leo...name stuck!), met us in good time and we set off for his house over the bridge in Birkenhead...about 30 mins from Auckland airport.
What can I say....we fell in love with NZ as soon as we saw it! Its magic here! The scenery immediately blew us away and we loved every second of it...and that was just this city!!
So we arrived at Lids and Gee's and for the next few days set about chilling, buying a car, fixing his $9000 Mitsubishi car with a hammer and screwdriver (as Gee had a little crash!), going for an awesome night trek in the rain with head torches and all the gear through the bush out the back of their house...and getting ready for the first road trip!!
The Car:
A 1992, Ford Laser 1.5i 16v DOHC (which apparently means Double Overhead Cam....[??]). We purchased this little red beauty at a public car selling place where lots of buyers come together to sell their vehicles. Now we'd planned to spend about $700 on the car (about 300 pounds ish) but that wasn't gonna happen! The cheapest car there was 700 but it was a sh*t tip! Some Swedish guy tried to sell it to us but it probs wouldn't have made it home! So we opted for a bit of pondering, some negotiation, and hey presto we got the beauty we now own from a Turkish guy from $1700 to $1250! Not bad.
Only thing was...it needed $330 of work doing to it! Rubbish! We had the rear brakes done, the switch on the fan, two belts including the alternator belt and a suspension bar at the back. Not to be disheartened we continued and now have it rocking ready for the roadtrip.
So Jen planned a route, we got provisions from the local supermarkets etc and we were ready to hit the road on Friday 20th Sept. We planned on spending 7/8 days on the road heading North from Auckland.
Whilst at Leo's house we invented a new game and created a new group on Facebook called 'Elbow Coins'...you HAVE to join it. I know, I know, its a game thats been around for years...just tell me I invented it and everything will be just fine.
Leo is big into photography and Jen is pretty damn good too so whilst there she picked up his lush SLR camera and took a few snaps. Get in there Jen!
This was how Leo and I looked after sorting out his car...IN THE RAIN....for hours. We used hammers, screwdrivers, mallets, bits of wood and anything else we could get our hands on to 'fix' (term to be used lightly) his car that has a smashed front bumper, bent bonnet and mashed up side panel. Get in there!
Jen trying her hand at Elbow Coins...she was actually pretty good!
The view outside Leos back door. Lush or what! This is the bush that we went trekking in at night whilst it pi**ed down with rain! Why, oh why did we do that!
Leo's cat Bubbakiss is so trippy it doesn't actually have a face, it just has a blur!
This is me trying the vodka jelly out that we made at Leos. We brought with us some Fijian Rum as a pressie and it was lush...along with a bottle of voddie. Vodka jelly rocks!!
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