Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from us both!

Apologies for the long absence… we had a fairly uneventful month leading up to Christmas; both of us working, Katie is rocking the bar (check out www.blendbar.co.nz) and Seb is fixing people’s backs left, right and centre. So we managed to save a bit of money and during our week off over Christmas we finally had a chance to explore some of the North Island. A bit of nostalgia for Katie as she visited many of the same places 9 years ago on the “Kiwi Experience”… in a different lifetime it seems! Actually I couldn’t remember most of it, Seb reckons I’m making it up that I ever came here at all, please tell me I wasn’t dreaming, Georgie, we did come to New Zealand didn’t we?

Our trip started in a random hill-billy town called Raetihi, right between the Tongariro and Whanganui National Parks. As luck would have it, our crazy Scottish landlord in Wellington has a little cottage there, mainly used during ski season, so, conveniently empty for us to use over Christmas. On our first night we arrived at about midnight and started searching the dark, and slightly intimidating horror-movie-style street for no.12… no.12 was a junk yard full of scrap cars, so we went next door to a slightly more likely looking empty house, crept up the drive and tried our keys in all the doors… not the right house, God we must have looked suspect! At this point we were half expecting a slightly stooped, masked man, carrying a chainsaw to step out into the gloom, whispering “Hello Clarice, come closer, we’re having an old friend for dinner. Please join us for some liver with a nice cianti, tss tss tss tss tss (sucking sound very difficult to spell!)”

Eventually, having survived our slightly over active imaginations, and ceased hearing the Halloween sound track in our heads, we remembered that we had phones with signal and battery and all this could be quickly sorted with a call to the landlord! Although he was slightly drunk when we called, he did manage to remember that it was actually no.11 on the other side of the road, not 12… thank God, cos not wanting to seem ungrateful for the free accommodation, we couldn’t quite picture eating our Christmas dinner off the bonnet of some rusty, old truck!!

Next day, we decided to go up to Waitomo Caves, highly recommended to us by many New Zealanders and the name was vaguely familiar to Katie as somewhere that she might have been before… We did one of those AWESOME SWEET AS GNARLY adrenaline trips where they make you abseil into total darkness, zipwire into glowworm caves, jump off 3 metre high ledges into freezing water, float with our tooshies in big rubber rings through the dark tunnels, then climb up the rock faces through waterfalls… great fun, if a little brrrrrrrr.




That night we decided to continue to the coast to a surf town called Raglan where we pitched our tent for the night. Harold the Honda, a.k.a. the Delorian™ (the car from Back to the Future for those of you who are not complete geeks like Sebastian and might not know what we are going on about) is proving to be a bit of a legend at this point, cruising along the New Zealand high ways without so much as a murmur of complaint. He is however proving to be a bit of a thirsty boy…

Anyhoo, next day was Christmas Eve. For Seb this is traditionally a time to eat seafood until you are sick so we went in search of some good quality mussels and other necessary ingredients to make his Grandmother’s famous Moulles á la Marinièrre, and headed back down to Raetihi to cook up a feast. I must say he did a fine job and Paulette would have been very proud… We woke up on Christmas morning with very full bellies and an unfortunately grey sky so we didn’t attempt to do anything atall for most of the day. Our laziness was only briefly interrupted by a short walk through the nearby bush, and an impromptu swim in the river, which just looked too clear and inviting for Katie’s Irish instincts to pass up. Five seconds later, both our nipples could have cut through glass and it was time for a quick exit. Bruised heels, after a rather over enthusiastic jump in to what turned out to be quite a shallow river and a fantastically painfully encounter with a branch on the way out, told us these things are never quite as romantic as they appear in the movies! Wet knickers in hand, we wandered back through the rain to the car. Such a random Christmas day!


Boxing day afforded us a fantastic break in the crappy weather and we set off with 10-15kg rucksacks to attempt the Northern Circuit around Tongariro National Park: a famous walk, which takes 2-3 days, with stunning views of this incredible volcanic area. This 3-day walk was quickly cut short, as we learnt of the rubbish weather forecast for the following 2 days and also, it’s really hard work walking with all that stuff! We’re just not quite as hard as we thought we were, so we did the alternative 1-2 day Tongariro Crossing instead! The trek takes you steeply up over old lava flow formations, through beautiful emerald green lakes and across the moon-like terrain of the craters. A night’s camping at the end of the trek, in a spot with the most stunning view and we were happy to walk out of the park the next day.

So, we have 2 days’ holiday left and we’re looking for something fun to do before we go back to Wellington… Katie stumbled across a leaflet for “RiverValley Lodge”, another place the Kiwi bus had taken her to all those years ago… A fantastic place for us to do some pretty impressive Grade 5 white water rafting and for Katie to get on a horse again, after I don’t know how many years and go galloping about the countryside, jumping logs and ditches and simply having a jolly good time!!!

So it’s the end of the year again and what better way to finish than with some eloquently composed words of wisdom from the Poet Laureate Katherine Elizabeth Dunn…

Now we’re back in Welly and it’s raining and cold,
It’s New Year’s Eve and we are both feeling old.
The couch is so comfy, it’s hard to get off,
And when the weather’s this crappy, who gives a stuff?
But off into town we shall venture tonight,
For a few drinks and laughs and hopefully no fights.
Our last year was full of adventures and fun,
As Sebastian and Katie travelled into the sun.
We miss you all loads, all our families and friends,
And I hope that this poem does not offend,
Because I’m struggling quite hard to find words that rhyme,
And it seems that my brain is having a really hard time,
But we love you all heaps and wish you all well,
May the New Year bring you happiness… even though you smell!?!

Lots and lots of love and hugs, Katie and Seb xxxxxx