Category Archives: The Adventure Begins

The time had come to start packing up and getting ready to move on to the next phase of our adventure. We scheduled lunch with Jon and Becky again at the Moutere Inn on Sunday. It was a nice day, so I thought I would try to squeeze in one more bike ride before lunch.Continue reading “Ferry Tales”

We are still in a bit of a daze about our approval. It had just started to feel like it wouldn’t happen. We had dreamed about a lot of stuff but we couldn’t really do any of it until we knew. Now we know. Since the hippie bus got ruled out, camper van here weContinue reading “Great Taste and Less Filling”

Ok, lots to report, but let’s just cut to the chase. We got APPROVED!!!! We are now (once we fill out some paperwork) officially permanent residents of Aotearoa! We are so excited. It has been almost exactly 2 years from the time that we hired our immigration advisor, which might not seem that long, butContinue reading “GonnabeKiwi”

There is and has been a gigantic low pressure system parked over New Zealand for quite a while and it doesn’t look like it is going anywhere anytime soon. As many of you know, this usually equates to unstable weather that can include high winds, rain, snow, and crabby people stuck indoors. In other words,Continue reading “Feeling Low”

We have now been in Nelson Bays for just about a week and I am happy to report I seem to have fully recovered from my bout of COVID. Yeah! And double Yeah! that Susanne miraculously avoided the COVID fate. She definitely wins “immune system of the year” award. Many people think that James CookContinue reading “Abel Tasman”

Blenheim has been ungodly boring. Some people raised eyebrows when we said we were going to spend a week in Blenheim, with that not-too-subtle implication that they thought Blenheim was boring. But, to be honest, Blenheim has not been boring because Blenheim is boring. It has been boring because yours truly managed to catch COVID.Continue reading “Over Friendly Chickens”

We are now in Wellington, or as most Kiwis would say, “Welly.” They do like to shorten things, sometimes to the ridiculous, but I guess it fits the culture. As Jacinda said on the Colbert show “we are a pragmatic people.” I have come realize this to be very true. The brevity of the language,Continue reading “It’s Swelly in Welly”

Our time in Te Awanga and Hawkes Bay has come to an end. We are moving on after a month-long stay here. It has been nice and we learned a lot about the area, drank some good wine, had some very lovely hikes, hung out, got rained on, met some seriously cool people, and justContinue reading “On the Road Again”

I have perfected….uh…..mastered…….uh…..well, I can do a flip turn now. It has been a long time coming (years, really), but I set my mind to it and I can now do one with regularity. Goes to show you that anything is possible. Now, does it look the like person above? Absolutely not. Do I bangContinue reading “Flip Turn”

We just happened to be in Hawkes Bay exactly when they were having their winter Food and Wine Classic. It is a four-weekend affair where wineries and restaurants host wine and food events. I had discovered this when we were still in the States and thought “that would be fun” and signed up for theContinue reading “Heaps of Fun”