As we havent blogged it up for a while we thought it was about time we gave you a tasty summary of the last 4 months of our time here in New Zealand.
Well, we've had 3 separate loads of visitors, Charlie/Mark, Risa/Emily and then Dribbla/Bicky Bum Girl. We've moved house from a perfect summer unit with a pool where we were literally dripping with sweat every day due to it basically being a greenhouse, to an awesomely spacious, shared house in a gorgeous bush setting.
We've had some crazy parties and visited some beautiful places. The summer was incredibly hot at times, with, in general, a blue blue sky. It was a bit weird having a hot Christmas again though!
Every morning gave us a beautiful sunrise over Rangitoto Island on the way to work, with the breathtaking journey onto the motorway (I know, I know, sounds soo weird saying that, but the journey into work is actually quite special here!).
Jen is really digging the poolage!
Festival time baby!
On our way to the blues festival in the middle a hot sunny day.
There were a lot of festivals over here this summer, some helped out and volunteered at and some we just went to and had a fab time!
Including the Chinese Lantern Festival.....cool as!
...lol, check out the really strange looking, red-haired dude in the background.
All in the name of charity...
We did a few stunts for Oxfam....oh dear what we do in the name of charity...
But the PM, John Key made an appearance.....
Its Rooster Man and Little Piggy!!
Chilling in the summer
And then we just enjoyed the summer; summer strolls along the beach, lots of road trips to nearby beaches and parks, barbeques and parties...what a life! So relaxed and fun.
The view back over the city from Mission Bay with some old gun placements behind Jens gorgeous right shoulder.
Greenery.
Another classic model pose....
We also climbed the nearest volcano called Rangitoto Island which was formed a mere 400 years ago, creating this incredible island off the coast of Auckland. Full of molten lava and rock that translates inot scorea. Such a desolute landscape...
The view of the crater, very fertile, very green.
I obviously came prepared....
A typical Sunday walk for us here out in the wilderness, clean air, lushness all around.
The big move
And when the big move came around, it was time to fulfil two further requirements whilst here in New Zealand....1. save money ideally in a bigger space..(tall order?!)...and 2. be even more sociable! I can certainly say we've achieved both, which is wikid! The move consisted of us begging, borrowing and stealing (minus the stealing and begging to be honest), but luckily the new house was only on the next road and we had a cool friend called Gav who helped us out. Cheers dude.
We now live on Verran Road in Birkenhead on the North Shore so we still have to go over the Auckland Bridge to get into the city. Its lovely on the North shore, lots of room and bigger houses. We have a 3 bedroom house on stilts now, it rocks whenever you walk around it but thats part of the character. We have a lovely open fire and had our first fire the other day which was special. It felt a tad like Christmas!
We have a wrap around balcony with views of bush and forest. We live with our friend Shannon and our friend Mark from England is coming to join us in the next few weeks! Woohoo...party!
Nice high ceilings and plenty of space in our living room.
The view from the patio doors!
Employment
Work is going well, I work for World Vision New Zealand in the marketing team. My office is really cool; the work environment really chilled out with sofas and music around all the time. Also Mr Whippy comes every friday and we all get ice cream! Tel is temping still for Gen-I/Telecom and we are still wondering if he will have work up until September...watch this space.
An epic weekend we just have to share with you
Last weekend was truly epic. Our friends from University, Claire and Becky came to see us! They have been travelling the world and stopped off for a little Jen and Terry time.
We showed them the sights and chilled out in the bars at the marina and then decided to do a little conservation 'work' for the weekend! We hooked up with Sustainable Coastlines organisation, a few guys who go around the world and motivate and empower volunteers to clean up the coastlines! The last one they did was in Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands.
After ferrying accross to Great Barrier Island (GBI), 3 hours out of Auckland, we were prepared to clean up the coast in style. GBI is literally is the 'barrier' between Auckland and the Pacific Ocean, which means it bears the brunt of the tides and subsequently receives the lovely (not) marine rubbish from both Auckland and South America. You wouldn't think it, but there truly was a shocking amount of crap along its beaches! Our attention was focussed on the West side of the island to deal with the crap that washes over from Auckland!
Having said that, the beautiful Island was full of natural flauna and flora in a pretty-much unspoilt environment. The sea was turquiose, the sun was out and it turned out to be an awesome weekend.
We then went on a speedboat (my first time ever as you can tell from the shock in this picture, I thought it would be slow for some reason...despite its name!)
We arrived at a pretty remote beach and started our clean up operation, we were left for 2 hours picking up all the trash from the beach and unfortunately there was a lot, it was sad to see. After an hour we had cleaned the beach up so we had a dance on the beach and partied til the boat came to rescue us! We saw penquins on the way back and then spent the rest of the time exploring the island. We went to hot thermal springs, walked through jungle and bush and had an awesome drum and bass party that night before sharing a 3 man tent between the 4 of us, the weekend was truely amazing.
This pic was taken at Medland Beach on our way to the campsite after cleaning up!
After the clean-up we drove to our campsite and set up what we thought was our tent (only to discover that we put up somebody elses tent!) and then got a few bevvies to congratulate ourselves at the 2.2 tons of rubbish picked up!! (not just by us of course)
The following day, before 'the big sort' of the 2.2 tons of rubbish commenced, we decided to trek to the local (secret) hot springs where we relaxed with the crazy drum and bass DJ, Pete (the cool dude in the shades).
So to wrap it all up, the winter is coming now and the evenings are getting colder...the summer was fantastic...an awesome first 6 months in New Zealand. Six more months left to go and then we are off to pastures new by the sounds of things...we'll keep you posted and promise to be more active with the blog if/when we move somewhere new!...
For now, its Peace-Out from Tel and Laters-Potaters from the gorgeous Jen!
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