Report from 10 February to 23 February 2024
From: New Zealand
we meet 2 other German couples and enjoy the time together
Scrap yard
Bubbling mud pools and dormant volcanoes
Immerse yourself in the 1920s
An "Alman" is a person who behaves like a stereotypical German. They fulfil clichés about Germans, such as excessive punctuality and accuracy. You usually use the term in a mocking and jokingly derogatory way.
In the last post, I told you how we bought our Günni van and how we repaired the roughest parts of it. However, there are still lots of little things that don't work. In the coming days and weeks we will be patching things up from time to time. The very first thing that falls into this category is the broken window - one of the sliding windows at the back of the van is broken. To be more precise, the handle is broken so that the window can no longer be closed. The corresponding component is no longer available to buy new. So Karli and I drive to a scrap yard. I've never been to a scrapyard before and find it super exciting and thrilling! Hundreds of broken cars are lined up in rows. Many of the cars are already missing a lot. Parts are flying all over the ground. Sometimes even an entire engine. We walk through the rows and marvel at the old bodies. Here in New Zealand you actually have to pay an entrance fee (about 1 euro per person) for the scrapyard. Don't ask me why, I have no idea! But in any case, scrap yards are very popular. As the WOF (=TÜV) has much lower hurdles here, the cars are repaired thousands of times - with parts from the scrapyard. We find our window part and Karli installs it in our car.
A few days ago, we met a German couple, Daria and Jacob, at a freedom camp (free overnight pitch). We exchanged mobile phone numbers with them and met up again a few days later, 400 kilometres further on. The next day we go on an excursion together and pick up another couple, Lea and Jan, in the evening. We move on to the 6. It's a crazy group, we spend fun days, play cards and have marvellous guitar evenings.
We criss-cross the area in a colony for 11 days. Together we look at waterfalls, hot springs, bubbling mud pools, climb large tree stumps and mountains with great viewpoints.
When I lose my sandals, they all come with me and take a long diversions to see if they are still there. Just before we reach our destination, we get caught up in a fire brigade operation: the area is cordoned off due to a forest fire. My sandals are lost forever.
One of my highlights was the trip to the swimming pool. We all haven't showered for a few days because we only spend the night on the free pitches and everyone longs for a warm shower and the feeling of being "fresh" again. We spent half the day splashing and splashing and splashing around in the pool.
In Napier, a town by the sea (like almost every town in NZ), we are once again standing together at freedom camp one cosy day, cooking, when an elderly couple in a red Mustang pulls up next to us. The man, who looks very confused, asks us if anyone would be interested in helping him in his garden the next day for a fee. A tree had to be cut down, the lawn mowed and weeds pulled. I think to myself "why not".
The next day we say goodbye to the others - we see Daria and Jacob again two days later, but Lea and Jan have to move on, they only have a few weeks in New Zealand. When we say goodbye, we joke that our current employer is a stalker or maybe a murderer. We agree that Karli and I will check in every two hours at the latest, otherwise they should alert the police. So we arrive at the guy's house. He has a nice big property. He's self-employed and builds special parts for machines or something, but his workshop and his employees are right on his property. He shows us what needs to be done first - a tree has toppled over and another one has a huge branch broken off. He gets out his chainsaw and cuts the trees down to size while we load everything onto a small pick-up truck. We then drive it to the edge of his property and push it down a slope. After a short time, he says he's a nudist. Shortly afterwards, he proves it when he gets too hot and changes his clothes in front of us. At lunchtime, he shows us pictures of the nudist club on his PC. He likes to invite backpackers to join him, which we can prove by looking at the nude pictures.
Historical festival in the streets of Napier
New Zealand's western history is only 400 years old. Accordingly, there is no "history as we know it" in New Zealand. No Middle Ages, no castles, no old towns. However, there is one town, Napier, which was completely rebuilt after an earthquake. At that time, the "Art Deco" style was all the rage, a style that was very influential in the 1920s. Once a year, the city of Napier organises a festival that brings this period back to life. And we happen to be right in the middle of it. People dress in period costumes, Oldheimers drive through the streets, Saxophone music resonates through the air and a few Oldhimer aeroplanes perform breathtaking aerial manoeuvres in the sky. It's madness.
Hike over a volcano
2 days later we meet Daria and Jacob again. We are going to climb Tongariro together. The name might mean something to the attentive reader, Karli has already conquered the Tongariro together with his parents. The Tongariro is a volcanic massif in the middle of a national park. For "Lord of the Rings" fans, it is known as Mount Doom and among tourists it is famous for its breathtaking hikes. On the day we actually wanted to climb it, the sky was heavy - thick, low clouds hung heavy in the sky. Not a day to do the Tongariro, it's far too dangerous in this weather. So we do something else: Karli cuts Janine's hair and Janine cuts Karli's hair - I think we both lost two hairdressers;) Afterwards, the four of us snuggle up in a car with Daria and Jacob, play cards and watch films. A lovely day!
Fortunately, the weather is better the next day! Now nothing stands in the way of conquering the Tongariro! As all four of us want to save the money for the expensive shuttle buses, we find another way that is "slightly" more complicated. It involves, for example, one of us having to jog 2 kilometres uphill before he and the rest of us then have to jog the 20 kilometres up a volcano. Fortunately, Jacob volunteered for this task - he mastered it with flying colours. The hike was exhausting and super beautiful. If you want to know more about Karlis first ascent of the Tongarero together with his parents, have a look here: https://www.einfach-so.com/post/gr%C3%BCnlippen-muscheln-und-hobbits
The following day, the four of us travelled to Wellington. I gave the others a short tour of the city before Daria and Jacob boarded the ferry at midday to get to the South Island.
Karli and I stayed in Wellington for a few more days, we still have a few things to do to our car: the converter for our solar panel isn't working properly and our new windscreen has its first stone chip - the roads in New Zealand are very annoying.
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