Life’s been quite adventure’s since the last update. I decided to go traveling a bit and explore New Zealand on wheels. So once the Fanworm problem on Guppy was solved, I got my backpack, the car keys and started heading South – together with myboyfriend that I met in New Zealand. … When being asked for his origin, he doesn’t know what to answer, cos his roots are all over the world – just an earthling… like me.The first stop was Auckland, where I had another speech for a fundraiser for Y for Youth. We left Auckland straight after that as we saw no further point of hanging around there. Next we stopped in the Coromandel to meet the lovely Anazasi crew with their three kids. They had been our neighbors in Auckland for a while, and went to Coromandel to haul their boat out. After that we kept heading south, passing geysers in Roturua – and awesome hot water rivers and springs in Taupo. Passing further down the coast the hardest thing was to find a parking spot that was free and legal to camp out in the car. We travel, eat and sleep in the car, which is the cheapest way of exploring the land – just not if you get fined for wrong parking… After about a week we had driven all the way down to Wellington, where we didn’t stay longer than a day before we got enough of the big city and wanted to see the mountains, the green and rivers on the South Island – things that everyone was telling us about. So we rolled down along the cities shore, bound towards the ferry, that crosses the Cook Strait. The ferry was loading on the last few trucks and ready to leave for it’s last trip that day. We also managed to roll on and park our home in the last few minutes – and off we went, towards South Island… leaving the daylight as well as skyscrapers and everything that comes with a big city behind.We didn’t see much of the South Island until the next day as it was pitch-black when we arrived. But the next morning we woke up in a world of differences – we passed big green mountains, little islands and beautiful bays as we went along a curvy road towards Nelson. Further towards the south we took the road along the west coast passing gorges, waterfalls and the longest swing bridge in New Zealand. The sandflies living on the South island are less pleasant though. I had to get used to wearing shoes again as my feet got eaten by them. But with the air getting colder every day that we traveled further South I didn’t mind to much keeping my feet warm. From the west coast then we drove towards Christchurch, crossing Arthur’s pass – a high mountain range towards the east coast. It was raining the whole two days while we drove through that range but that didn’t stop us from hiking up the mountain and exploring some gorgeous waterfalls. At the end of the second day even our walking track had changed into a little creek… With the air being wet and cold, all our wet cloths hanging in the car didn’t really want to dry anymore, so we decided to keep going further towards Christchurch, which is where we are now. I flew back to Auckland for 2 nights to do a presentation at the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron and a talk at the Maritime Museum, which worked out nicely. Now I’m back in the cold of Christchurch again and planning to travel further South soon.

Laura