Category Archives: The Adventure Begins

I’ve always prided myself on having a good memory. In college I almost never took notes in my classes or if I did, they would be some obscure representation of the lecture. When people borrowed my notes, they would exclaim “What the F$%@! is that?!” “I have a mind like a steel trap” I wouldContinue reading “Mind Like a Steel Trap”

Our time in Cooks Beach has come to an end and we are making our way back to the South Island. We have spent a very lovely 5 weeks here that has allowed us to get a pretty good feel for the Coromandel Peninsula. It is lovely. We were a bit constrained in our abilityContinue reading “The Party’s Over”

Well, poor Otis is back in the shop again. We knew he needed to go back, but it is still a bummer. We seem to have gotten a lemon despite Carl’s 500,000 page report on him. Makes me wonder about Carl now. I had been invited to an event put on by a local privateContinue reading “Poor Otis”

I have fallen behind on the blog. Sorry. I think the ferry ride took the wind out of my sails, so to speak. But I’m back now. In Australia, when you are walking around everyone says “G’day.” I have always found this a bit cumbersome and it just doesn’t roll off my tongue and IContinue reading “Hiya”

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”