Hello People! Writing something after a big blogging pause. Actually writing this post for the second time, after one staff member on a Telecom "broke" my mobile phone two days ago, and I had to reset to factory settings it, losing plenty of stuff. Anyway...
Even though Daniela has informed some of you already about our car acquisition and other updates, I will write again for those of you non German speakers.
Once we arrived to Auckland, it took us four days to get our current "allrunner". She, is named "Kea Kauri", remembering a native new zealand bird and also endemic rainforest trees "Kauri", which can grow up to 30 meter high and measure 6 meters in diameter.
Even on those four days, in what it looks loke very european city, we had some New Zealand only experiences... First of all, and quite funny, on the way to Glen Eden to see for the first time the car, we took the train, which, by the way, was exceptionally clean. In every wagon, still diesel powered, there was at least two conductors, selling tickets and "controlling". The wagon we were at, was extremely noisy, so I decided to go to the next one, expecting to find more not so loud. I told Daniela to wait for me, and since I was on the other wagon I turned around, decided to go back and pick Daniela, since this wagon was much quieter. In front of me was one of the conductors, probably the biggest and ugliest of all of them, asking seriously 'What are you looking for here?'. I did not know very much what to answer, just a simple 'a quieter wagon?' She was really upset and pointed to a sign above the door I have just trespased, which was saying "no passing through. Staff only". I told her I have never been in any country/train in which you are not allowed to change wagons, she just replied 'Welcome to New Zealand'. She said she would go to pick my "wife", and they both came to my wagon in the next train stop. First indication about how much overprotective they are in this country...
Another nice story, we went to withdraw some money to pay our Van, funny though, that for the 4000$ we needed, the ATM only gave 20$notes, so look at the bed...
The other picture about the 'backpacker' karma, was in the stairs of the hostel where we were staying in Auckland, I've just found it really funny.
Well, those were mainly our first days without wheels. Then we decided to buy the van, which we found in internet "www.trademe.co.nz" and was almost exactly what we were looking for:
Long wheel base, not so many Kms, Manual, Diesel and AWD (all wheel drive, or how they call it here 4WD-four wheel drive). We wanted high roof, but they just didn't exist at the moment on the market. For my German Cologne-based bulli freak-friends, who like to know the inside: it's a Nissan Homy DX '93 2.7D, with 218.000kms, 85PS and hehe,... AWD non-seamless disconnect.
AWD it's here recomendable, it can rain a lot and we have been already driving gravel roads for longer than 40kms, some moments requiring 1st gear...
The Van belonged to an English guy, and anybody that has been to Ireland or the UK will know the devotion with which the British adore carpets...
They are however not the best suited for a campervan flooring, so we decided we would "upgrade" it to a PVC based one, removing the motor-oil-colored previous carpet.
The pictures with the new result are on the camera, so we'll show them later.
In the next post, the pictures!
Cheers.
J&D
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