First of all, I wish everyone a very happy 2014!!

As life kept me busy with exiting things, I didn’t get the chance to write much in the last months so I’m quickly going to back up a little here. In November, Robert (Daniel’s brother) came over to New Zealand. For a little while we worked on a big catamaran in Auckland, and straight after we continued doing some maintenance on Guppy so that we could take her out for a little trip. We didn’t go very far as there’s no need to go far to find some beautiful spots around here. We anchored at the Hen and Chickens, a group of island just a few miles off the coast. The snorkeling is amazing there, but as it is prohibited to go on shore, we got bored quickly and continued to the great barrier. There we found a beautiful bay, without any other boats at anchor, which surprised us, as it is the middle of the cruising season now. We found out quickly why there were no other boats anchored here… The holding ground for the anchor was terrible! It felt like the anchor simply didn’t do anything at all as soon as we put the engine in reverse. We kept trying and trying at different spots and then moved a couple bays until at one stage it seemed like the anchor was holding. We set out a second anchor to be sure and then paddled ashore, where we landed on a beautiful deserted white beach.. ropes and swings hung of the branches of strong thick trees – but no one seemed to be around or close by.. A perfect playing paradise for some big kids 😉

But that was only the beginning of the fun..

I finally got the chance to show my little sister Kim around in New Zealand, and invite her into my life here. During her Christmas holidays she came over to enjoy the New Zealand summer.So just after we arrived back at Whangarei with Guppy, I drovedown toAuckland topick up Kim from the airport. My 15yo sister flew over from the Netherlands to New Zealand and After a long 29 our trip ondifferent planes, we fell into each other’s arms at the airport.We drove the two ours back to Whangarei at night, so nice driving here at night as there’s no cars at all! We saw 7 cars on the highway. The next day, Kim had to get used coming from winter in summertime and we went to explore some caves a bit up north. Life on Guppy got kind of crowded with four people but also crowded with fun. Kim is the first one of my family to actually visit me here in New Zealand, as it is simply to far away and to expensive to get here. Showing her my way of living and of course the place where I live, gave me many many smiles. I showed her around in Whangarei and took her gliding on a plane with Bernie, the same guy that took me flying across Northland in his little stunt plane about a year ago. It was the first time gliding for both of us and surely an amazing experience. No noise of an engine’s roaring, just the wind, the sky, the clouds and yourself. You constantly have to look at the clouds to find the best lifting. Similar as with sailing, you’re only using air-pressure systems to go to places. And when you are not able to find a good cloud that gives you a lift back up high – there’s not much of a problem either as you can land in pretty much any paddock that’s long enough. And we’ve got many paddocks in New Zealand. A couple days after Kim’s arrival it was Christmas which we spend at George and Ellen’s house together with friends and other sailors. Now that Kim was here I had to show her some more of New Zealand of course, so we packed the surfboard, the guitar, dinghy, and all of our stuff into Joy and started heading south. Taking turns in driving, we drove the five hours down to Rotorua in one night.By the time we arrived none of usfelt like getting the tent up, so we ended up sleeping in the car with all four of us. But Kim is nice and small so it felt like three people anyway ;)And as we were all very tired, sleep came over us pretty much straight away. We ended up with the four of us in the car more often after that, as our tent wasn’t as water resistant as we had hoped. In Rotorua we showed Kim and Bobby the Bubbling mud and steaming parts of mother earth.

She thought it was really cool, but found the smell unbearable and wondered why all these people would wanna live in the farts of mother earth… So we took her swimming in some hot rivers close by and I think that was good enough of a answer. I have been in that area three times now and am still amazed by the beauty and mystery’s of that area. Driving along the highway in Rotorua we could see the lines of steam coming out of the trees where a hot river is. Further south we where surrounded by such beautiful round green hills that they could come straight out of a fairytale. Then we went to Taupo and stayed on a lovely spot next to the river. Also there was a awesome little cave next to a big waterfall where we climbed in. A very cool little spot.After enjoying the hot springs for a couple days itwas time for some action. So we set out to climb the highest mountain of the North Island, Mt Ruapehu roughly 2800m. None of us had good climbing shoes and the best Kim and I had, were sandals. So we set out with the idea to just see how far we would get. It started of challenging straight away with some nice hiking over big rocks. Black rocks most of them, making the scenery look dead and burned like charcoal. But while hiking along, we could see brown and red colors too and even bits of green stiff grass and flowers. About half way up we encountered the first snow. Luckily it was very hard and we could walk over it without getting any snow onto our socks. So we got to the next rocky part, this time smaller rocks and more challenging as it was steeper as well. But we were rewarded with a great view. The last part was going up steeply and no way around the snow, so we slowly started trying and kept going bit by bit until we couldn’t go any higher – standing on the ridge. As there weren’t many clouds, the view was tremendous. We could see Mt. Taranaki and the dark looking Volcano Ngauruhoe. We started heading down not to long after reaching the top as the wind was freezing cold up there. Going down was by far the best part of the whole day, as we could just sit on our bum and slide down the mountain, a bit cold but it brought us back to the car very quick. Two days later Bobby left us to get his plane and continue his travels elsewhere in the world. So it was just the three of us left. We looked on the map and picked the area closed to us that looked most remote, Eastland. Off to new adventures, we cruised into an area where only few people live, mostly Maori’s. As we drove past a beautiful remote coastline with wild sandy beaches, rivers and later on cliffs and reefs, we saw Maori’s fishing and hunting. Along the reefs we collected some nice shells and abalone’s. Holding the surfboard tight – we jumped into the waves a couple times, but as Kim got hit by the fin straight away, the fun of it was rather painful and not as enjoyable for her anymore. She did manage to catch some nice waves anyway. But as she didn’t stand up yet, she will have to come back for that 🙂 For New Years eve we parked next to a clear river on the east coast. Paddled across with the small dingy we brought with us and walked for a bit. Then we made a nice campfire next to a river, with a magnificent star lit sky as our roof, roasted some meat and just had a really great time. We show Kim some big kauri trees a lot of other nice beaches and just had a awesome lot of fun together. After that there was not much time left.To fast came the time Kim had to leave for a her long flight back to the Netherlands,as school in Holland was starting soon and Kim had to go backhome. All visitors are gone and ‘normal’ life on Guppy continues. Well…normal is a bit of an undefined word especially as I haven’t really found out what normal life is, so I guess I better call it another stage of life on Guppy.

Laura