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Back then, Lara had aspirations of becoming a world renowned romance novelist. Now she has no aspirations whatsoever.
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No Motorhomes Overnight

by Adam & Lara on 03/23/10


New Zealand is a liberal country, but not everybody approves of our mobile, Z-emitting lifestyles.

Chilly Bin

by Adam & Lara on 03/23/10


This guy really likes chilly bins.

From Auckland to Cape Reinga: the Van Chronicles

by Adam & Lara on 03/23/10

Apologies for the sporadic barfing of blog posts - we've been vanning around (a term that us van people like to use) north of Auckland for the past week or so.  Internet seems to be a bit spotty on the serene beaches up here, so thanks for your patience. 

Here are some highlights:



The Steema made a new friend at Bayly's Beach!  At first they barked at each other but then they sniffed their tailpipes and played nice.

 

We ended up spending the night on the beach, free of charge, and caught the following sunset:



Sweet Jeebus, that's nice.



The next day we drove around on 90-mile beach.  It's not 90 miles long, nor do they even measure things in miles here, but it was badass nonetheless.  The key is driving in the wet, hard sand.  If you drive in the dry sand you'll get stuck and then Lara, Adam and two other random people on the beach will have to push you free.  This happened to one German couple who were neither dialed nor living the dream.



Then up to Cape Reinga, the northernmost point in NZ, where the currents of the Pacific Ocean and Tasman Sea collide to form a huge ripple.  Down here they teach kids that the Tasman Sea is one of the World's oceans, but if you come talkin' that trash to me I'll fight you to the death.

We saw this insane beach from Cape Reinga so we decided to hike down to it.  It ended up being the weirdest hike we've ever been on.  Observe:



Sweet beach!  We should go there.


The first trail marker was inside a cow field, so we walked through at gauntlet of about 35 cows who just stared silently at us the entire time.


Then we walked through Smeegle's lair, where we captured a photo of Smeegle as he lurked around with his giant fishing rod in hand.  Like most movies, Lord of the Rings does not portray nearly as much detail as real life - case in point, look at how hairy Smeegle really is.


After that we walked barefoot through a barren desert wasteland and burnt our feet which were already burnt on top, but now burnt all over.

Finally we got to the beach, which I forgot to upload a picture of.  But here is a close approximation of what it looked like:



Next up: heading down the East coast of Northland so Adam can burn the other side of his body while fishing.

And now we are completely DIALED.

by Adam & Lara on 03/12/10

Why?  Because Adam went into a bait shop in Dargaville and bought a surfcasting rig.  It consists of 12-foot rod (at least fishing rods are measured in feet here), a huge spinning reel, and 25-pound-test line.  He also bought some salted bait.

 

Figure 1: Completely fucking dialed.  This was taken on Bayly's Beach.  Adam is holding a Tui beer in his left hand and a big-ol' rod in his right.

 

Figure 2: Mixed Grill: it's what's for dinner.

 

Figure 3: I think I'll try some Mixed Grill!  Ah hahahahahahahahaha!  JK I didn't actually eat it!

 

Figure 4: Adam's first catch - a smallish yet keepable Kahawai.  Rep'n the Sconnie Nation tee.

 

Figure 5: Lara's first surfcasting experience was uneventful.  Since then, only Adam has been fishing.  Lara has spent her beach time "laying out," whatever the hell that means.

 

 

Sonar

by Adam & Lara on 03/12/10

We just found out our van has sonar.  Does your van have sonar?

Figure 1: That's what I thought, bitches.

But seriously, what the hell does this do?

Cricket

by Adam & Lara on 03/12/10

Like watching grass grow, watching paint dry or watching the National League Central Division, watching Cricket is an acquired taste.

First off, the short games are called 1-day matches, as in they last ALL DAY.  We recently saw the 1 day match between the Australia and New Zealand national teams in Auckland.  The game started at noon and we left around 8pm.

Secondly, they only serve 3.5 beer at the stadium.  You drink all day for $6.50 a pop, and by the end of it you don't even have a buzz and you find that you've actually paid attention to a cricket game for 8 hours straight.  If we had known this we would have stuffed more mini bottles of Jim Beam in our unmentionables beforehand (we only stuffed 4).

But despite those downsides, we thoroughly enjoyed our experience.  There are some pretty impressive aspects of the game.  They use one ball for the entire match, and constantly scuff the shit out of one side of it so that they can throw some wicked googlies (no relation to Google) later in the game.  They don't wear gloves, making baseball players (sans Pujols) look like huge pussies.  And just about everybody on the team hits, bowls (pitches) and fields throughout the course of the game.  Here are some highlights:

 

 

Jackpot!  A 4-pack of cold beers for $20.

Upon closer inspection, they're 3.5 beers (i.e. half beer half water) or as the Steinlager marketing geniuses call it "Mid-Strength."  Do they have a low-strength?  Note the slogan: "Designed for those who want to enjoy a cold beer and still do everything else in their day without compromise."  Propsed disclaimer: excludes most things, including watching live sports.

 

Something is happening!

Cricket umpires tend to spend most of the game doing nothing.  However, it is their job to hold the hats and sweaters (jumpers) of the players if it gets too warm out.

Thank god for that scoreboard, because without it we wouldn't have known what the fuck was happening.

Brendan McCullum, NZ's star batter, tries to hit a ball omnidirectionally while also making sure the ball does not hit a wicket, which is undesirable, we think.

Aussie won the game but it was close up until the end.  Next stop northland.

Tramping in the Bush

by Adam & Lara on 03/04/10

We just finished up a 4-day backpacking (tramping) trip in the wilderness (bush) of Lake Waikaremoana.  For all of you STUPID AMERICANS, that's pronounced why-car-ray-mo-on-ah.  Actually, half of the kiwis we talked to didn't even know this lake existed, much less how to pronounce it.  So you're not so stupid after all.

Day 0:
Drove from Auckland to the trail head and slept overnight in the van.  DER WAZ HORSIEZ ON TEH RODE!  Also, Google Maps forgot to tell us that the last 2 hours of the drive is on dirt road.  The 'Steema took it like a champ though.


Caution: this vehicle poops frequently.


Our first night 'Steem-ing it up.

Day 1: Hiked 6 hours uphill.  Did 1100 meters of vertical climb, which is about 3600 feet, which feels like 10,000 feet when you're carrying 4 fucking days of clothes and food on your back.  Drank whisky in celebration.


Lara, Adam and Sticky (the stick) about 3/4 the way up.


Dear everybody, look at how badass I am.


Good thing our friend Jim Beam booked the same hut as us.


Day 2: Walked for 9 hours straight, going up and down the whole time.  Lara was cursing Adam under her breath.  The dogs were barkin'.  Ended up having a hut all to ourselves at the end of the night.  Insert sexual joke here.


Welcome to the jungle, we've got pudgy out of shape hikers.


Our love shanty.  The key to using the outhouse is to stop breathing.

Day 3: The hiking got a lot better.  And by better I mean wetter.

Day 4:
After 45 minutes of hiking we were at the water taxi pickup by 8:45am.  Too bad our pickup was scheduled for 2:30pm.  Granted, there are worse places to be stranded on a Wednesday afternoon.


Ohhh noooo a 900 lb. boulder fell on the bridge!  We best put some caution tape up.


It totally sucked having to wait here for 5 hours.


Now we're in Rotorua (row-tow-rue-ah) where it smells like farts and we're about to go get rubdowns from strangers and soak in geothermally heated pools.  You can see the rest of our pics here.  Hugs 'n motorboats,

Adam & Lara

New Zealand 'Steema

by Adam & Lara on 02/26/10

First off, we now live in the future.  We're 21 hours ahead of Pacific Time, 19 hours ahead of Central and 18 hours ahead of Eastern.  If you're in another time zone then you're probably not our friend or family member so do the math, a-hole.

Secondly, the first 3 days in Auckland have been big.  But we can tell you about those later.  What we really want to show you is the van we just bought:






It's a 1992 Toyota Estima, known in the US as the Previa.  It has about 350,000km on it, which works out to 217,000 miles.  Longevity - that's how you know it's good.

We bought it from Craig, a badass dude from Australia who buys old vans, guts them out and turns them into campers.  He also plays blues guitar in his spare time.  He told me that he'll be needing help next season and gave me his card.  I was sure to mention the handyman work I had done through BroBuilders.


Craig's Shop


The van has a bed...



That folds up to allow space for sitting and looking awesome...



Also, it came with some goodies:  1 cooler (or "chilly bin"), 1 bag of pots, pans and kitchenware, 1 butane stove and 2 canisters of butane. We also picked up some jumpers to make Lara feel better about things.



Not to mention this little hidden gem...



And that's that.  This is our last night in the Ponsonby Backpackers hostel - tomorrow we're driving south to Lake Waikaremoana to do a 4-day backpacking trip.  In the meantime, we'd love to hear your ideas on a name for the van.  Right now "New Zealand 'Steema" is at the top of our list.

All the rest of the reasons

by Adam & Lara on 02/24/10

Note: this was written 2 days ago but I just got time to post it.  Sorry, I know that is a cop out.  Don't worry though, this entire post is a cop out.

First of all, I don't want to hear it.  We've been busy putting all of our shit in storage and hanging out with all of you a-holes one last time.  Now we're at the airport waiting to board.

Secondly, as promised, here are the rest of the top 20 reasons why we're moving to New Zealand:

#7 - The Great Walks

#6 - Lara's bad at keeping in touch with people - and now she has an excuse not to call.  The same applies to Adam, but don't worry because he will be sure to call his mother.

#5 - Bungee Jumping

#4 - Beaches

#3 - Fjords

#2 - Glaciers - What?  New Zealand has glaciers in the middle of the rain forest?  PWNED.

#1 - It's fucking New Zealand.  Come on.

Reason #8: Helicopter jumping

by Adam & Lara on 02/18/10

New Zealand had a problem: deer had been introduced into their ecosystem and were procreating rapidly, wreaking havoc on indigenous animal and plant populations.

New Zealand had a solution: fly around in helicopters and capture feral deer by jumping out and tackling them, and then put them on deer farms and sell venison to the Germans.  They now use net guns to capture the deer (instead of literally jumping off the helicopter onto the deer's back) but there is still helicopter jumping involved.  HELICOPTER JUMPING.  That's awesome.

Behold:




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AWARDS AND DISTINCTIONS:
LARA
Back then, Adam was a baby-faced young professional. Now he is a Sasquatch-faced... well... now he's Sasquatch.
ADAM
Adam and Lara used to live in San Francisco where their pathetic lives were consumed by work, boozing and jockeying for social attention.
Nowadays everything is different. They don't work nearly as much.

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