The final post - for now

The maiden voyage together with Leonie on my
boat in the Wellington Bayl

As you without doubt would have noticed by now - this blog is now quite inactive.

I should have posted about this earlier.

It was always intended to be a diary of my move to New Zealand.

I've now been here 3.5 months and I'm starting to settle in. I'm fairly active on Facebook, which provided a light-weight version of this blog.

My intention is to start another blog about living in New Zealand. If so, then I make sure I'll announce it here.

Thanks for reading and may you live long and prosper!

  -- Dan

Practice driving

The weather wasn't very good today, so I decided to get some oil to loosen up the winch on the boat trailer, as it had prevented me from connecting the trailer to the car earleir on.

It worked like a charm and I decided to kick off part 2 of my boat trailer practice run: reversing!

It wasn't as difficult as I thought and I managed to park the boat quite nicely aftera  few practice runs, albeit very slowly. I then took it to the ramp area where there is a bit more space and practiced some more reversing.

Next session will be launching!

Happy New Year

Happy New Year - Gott Nytt År!

I met up with some 15 other people in the Active Wellington group and celebrated the new year in the Wellington Harbour area.

It was great to be smack in the middle of things with nice people, but the ban on alcohol in public places really ruined it. A lot of "You can't be on the lawn with a beer after 21:00", "You're not allowed to be away from the tables with a drink", and of course having a cup of coffee at the strike of 12 does ruin thinsg quite a bit.

Very odd, as I would expect this kind of hysteria in Sweden and the UK, rather than New Zealand, but they can't get all things right. Hopefully it'll be fixed when we get a new government.

The important thing is that my first two month in New Zealand have been amazing and there is no way I would allow such a minor outbreak of nonsense overshadow all the fantastic expriences I've had so far!

Happy New Year!

God Jul från mor och far

One of the neighbours received a package from my parents while I was away on the osuth island.

Opening this package from my mother and father was quite emotional. Many people claim their parents are the best in the world, but I think I got proof that mine are now:

Nelson

I had a marvellous drive from Christchurch to Nelson. I t was a 5 hour drive over flat lowlands and through canyons. Very scenic.

I didn't get that many chances to take pictures as it was a narrow road and the triumph of finally getting past a string of caravans didn't really allow me to stop to take pictures.

Maruia falls

I did manage to stop off at the Maruia falls, through.


I arrived at Nelson and absolutely everything was closed. I fortunately had food that I could cook in the apartment, but I only had a total of two glasses of wine - on Chistmas Day!

I wandered around for a bit in the scorching sun and then had quite a nice evening in the apartment.

The next day was all by a sudden brimming with life! People eveywhere.

I went down to the local tourist centre and asked about good tramping (trekking) paths. They sugegsted the track opposite Pepin Island and the Boulder Bank. Excellent!

I started off with the path opposite Pepin Island, but it was a real struggle with my problem with heights. I managed to get up to the top, but I just couldn't continue alongside the ridge - it was just too steep.

I stayed up there for a bit and got comfortable enough to take a few pictures, as the view was too stunning to ignore.

Defeated by my vertigo, I moved on to my next tramp: the Boulder Bank. It's an amazingly thin (50-100 meters) 13 km long natural land strip of boulders, pebbles and sand stretching alongside the coast outside North Nelson.

I just had to walk it (at least part of it). It was a long stretch of stunbly pebbles, but an amazing feeling to walk this stretch with the sea on one side and a huge lagoon on the other.

The sun was amazingly hot and I got completely sun burnt despite putting on 50+ sunblock four times.

I found the perfect hut where I could have stayed intead at the hotel as well:

Hotel California, eh Nelson

Dolphins!

I sat down with a glass of wine and peanuts last night to figure out what to do in Christchurch. I was quite keen to drive out on the giant caldera South-Wast of Christchurch and I discovered that they had tours where you would be swimming with Doplhins in Akaroa, which is located by the sea in this caldera.

It required less wine and and early bed, which was an easy sacrifice, beleive it or not.

I got to lovely Akaroa, had breakfast, got into a wetsuit, boarded the boat and, well, this is where pictures can say more that a thousand words:

The doplhins are Hector's Dolphin, that are the smallest Dolphins in the world (only 1.4 meters) and unfortunately under threat of extinction, as only 7,500 are alive today.

They circled me and made mock lounges towards me. More playful than the average pet and it was entirely on their terms. If they aproached the boat, then we went in, if they showed no interest, then we moved on.

Quite an experience!

Whale watching!

Today was the day - the suns was shining, the ocean was calm (well, as calm as it gets around New Zealand), so I packed up and dashed down to the whale watching centre.

We were briefed and took a bus to the marina on the south side of Kaikoura.

We dashed around to a few spots some 4 nautical miles off the coast where the continental shelf dropped off into as much as 1,600 meters depth. This is where the male sperm whales likes to hunt (the female whales prefer slightly warmer waters closer to the equator).

Three boats and two airplanes coordiented their effort and we spoted our first whale about 45 minutes later.

We then spotted a second one only some 10 minutes later.

It was quite something to watch these kagnificent creatures up close.

This is a clip from when the first whale dives back down into the depths: