Leaving Southern Island

I woke up at 5:50 to have a sneak preview of the weather of the day. Sun and clouds and a lot of wind! All made for a beautiful sunset ! (And I think I made for the perfect sandflies victim as ever since that morning the itching feet are keeping me awake at night!) i ll show you a picture of the sun rather that my feet, no worries!

We left the Abel Tasman area to visit the Animal farm around Nelson. A little fast growing business, a bit strange for us (do you really travel all the way here and then see Amélie going crazy with a rabbit in her arms....? Or the boys feeding some pigs...? - well to give you our answer, yes we did, in that sense that we are not traveling for the kids to remember anything in particular, but for the time spent together, for them learning to touch and see and experience differences, learning to be flexible in a way, and to now the real value of being with the family.) 

I also revived a moment of nostalgic memory seeing the guinea pigs (cavias) our brother stephane used to have a few of them, that made babies like rabbits and so his room ended up, well, a bit like that farm down in Nelson.

In the late afternoon, when the weather really got bad, we arrived at Nelson Foundation which must be great by hood weather and was perfect for us then. It is a mix between ..... For the belgians; The Verbeke foundation along the n49 and Bokrijk, topped up with a brewery! We entered an old cargo plane, saw some old new Zealand passenger busses and tasted some good local beers of Foundation.

Then we continued driving till the little harbour of Havelock home to the world famous (?!) Very strange but equally very tasteful green mussles ! Which is exactly what we had for diner in the famous Mussel Pot before hiding again from heavy wind and rain in our campervan.

 Guess who is now not only awaiting his blue cast but also his bleu mussels....???!! Nobody told us the disadvantage of colour coding with twins when traveling!!

NeXT day, waking up under the clear blue sky (I love Williams morning ritual to lift the blinds at the window and screaming us all awake : grand ciel bleu! Beaucoup de soleil! On se lève maintenant!) A hundred of left and right turns further, a short getting to the viewpoint walk (which really never is that short with our party of three and crossing all verrrry nice people who alll are into a chat on 'ow twins?' And then 'ow he broke his leg') , then the lovely route along the scenic queen Elisabeth road and Marlborough Sounds. 

We had a great long lunch brake along the water in Anakiwa 

and then continued to Picton, where we would spend the night awaiting our 'grand bateau bleu' (blue Bill happy) that would bring us next day (Sunday) to the Northern Island.

Luckily we had seen the grand bateau bleu' getting into Picton on the day before, because the idea of getting on the boat with the campervan was quiet hard to get! We did so after meeting two of Pierre s colleagues who are travelling  the other way around! Small world, Bing Vistaprint? Then on the boat 70 rough (but friendly ;-)) guys from a motorgroup. I was quiet impressed. They are all 3 times Pierre (in all ways you can measure someone), have half his amount of teeth and with their black motorgear on left me quit speechless. It did give for some unusual sights though, which I unfortunately didn't really have the guts to photograph.... 

Like the one guy sleeping in foetus position in a little corner of the deck, you would almost give him a doudou to complete the tender image. Apart from the scenery on the boat, it was of course the scenery of the sounds we cruised trough which really was impressive!

And then arriving in Wellington! Northern Island! The smell of the Last Days coming closer! After hesitating a lot, we stayed and don't regret, at the very centered carpark/ 'camping' just off the boat, in the port. 

Next day we visited the Te Papa Museum to have at least some background info (shouldn't we have started with that? Reminds me I still didn't take the time to read....... Not even the Rough Guides introduction...) And interesting info about the Maori/ European influences, culture and relations.

Today (Monday) we had a long driving day, the longest. And it is immediately clear why we don't drive long distances.... Omg! Anyway, we drove all the way to lake Taupo and will add an hour tomorrow morning to go up to Rotorua. 

We are here in volvanic region (and again Lord of the Rings) with all that goes with it; mudpools, hot water rivers and geysers!/we hope to take in some of that tomorrow in Rotorua altough Mat's cast isn't making hot pools the best activity!  Hopefully with some sun! 

North of the southern island

We left kaikoura Tuesday noon to have lunch just 30minutes North with views on a new Zealand seal colony, with lots of litlle ones. From their sea sanctuary, they "walk" up a river that brings you to a lovely litlle waterfall. It's an easy 15/20min walk so we did that with Mat on the manduca/baby carrier and Bill and Amélie walking up, carefully for not ennoying the seals, they really litteraly are just cm away, they cross the path, in and out of the litlle river. They look nice, they surely are, but when you see them fighting/playing, you do not want a bite of them!

It did for a great activity, fresh air, great nature, and off we went North, through (yep, without stopping... ) the famous (and beautiful!!) wine region of Marlborough right up to Nelson, the "big city" at the entrance of the Abel Tasman national parc to the North of Southern Island. 

Little camping, taking advantage of Nelson being a 'big' city to buy Matthias' new transportation system, a walk on nelsons huuuge and beautiful beach to test drive it, Matthias clearly felt at ease in it and is now our New Chief Commander (I will not tell who's job he took over.. Nor who's bossy character he inherited ....)

 I love the pic here with Bill pushing him around and Matt screaming "plus viiiiiite" as if pushing your bro on a Sandy beach was the easiest thing to do .. !

Then we slept on a vineyard on our way to Tasman parc, our second Okay2stay experience. This time Friendly Man is an English guy with mexican past who has put an hold on busy London live to come and work (hard) with his wife on their Riwaka River Estate. He escorted Pierre and our little van (3.3 high and 7.2 long....) and we got to park in between the vineyard and the olive trees.... Life can be hard! 

Lovely welcoming family - Amélie will not easily forget little friend Mackenzie's trampoline, cause she got stung by a bee.... Everyone who knows how Amelie can react (overreact?) on futilities AND everyone knowing how stupidly painful it can be (or bee ha-ha) , can imagine the level of screaming and crying that went through the peaceful vineyard ... Anyway, a great experience, and, as I'm writing, sipping from a verrrry good Chardonnay!

Next day we "rushed" to the 10:30 water taxi that brought us from the nearby Kaiteriteri Beach (said to be among the top I don't know how much nicest beaches in the world!) Right into the heart of the Abel Tasman national park. 

It is a not-to-miss thing in our travel guide, to kayak in the park. Small kids under 8. No go. So we opted for the water taxi that brings us in two stops to Anchorage, from where a 1 to 1,5 hours walk brings you to a viewpoint over the bays and the ocean. Beautiful!

A lot of people walk a 3 to 5 days trail in the park, which is named after the first European settler who set foot here. It is said to be new Zealand's smallest park, definitely with stunning views, created back in 1942! Voila, pour la petite histoire!

We spent the afternoon on the campinggrounds and beach ennoying à beautiful day and now that we have organised our next and last (!!!) few days of New Zealand, we might be crazy and wake up tomorrow at 5:45 to see the sun coming up again, before heading slowly but surely towards Auckland up North (on the other island) by Wednesday. The last few days are said to be wet and colder, so we are trying to get as much sun as we possible can!

Stars, sun, whales, birthday and a painfull foot (that appears to be a broken leg)

After touristic Queenstown we drove to lake Tekapo, which is of the kind of  picture perfect type of places with glacier blue water, perfectly coloured flowers (good timing for once!) , snowy mountains in the back.

 And then of course, rain, wind and (once more) kids under age to do the main activity: stargazing at one of the university observatories. So next day we continued driving  up North, and after hesitating for another okay2stay we opted (well i did, under the excuse of it being nearly my birthday I got to choose) for a close to the beach camping just north of Christchurch. It was great! Just 3min walk to the huge empty beach mirroring the kids running,  playgrounds, sand dunes.... (This is where mat hurt his foot, more to follow, as it appeared to be his leg) 

kids made me the best birthday gift ever; une pomme de pin remplie de coquillages!

A happy meal further (you dont get to turn 33 every day in nee zealand!) and  we continued to kaikouri, well a few km before touristy but nice kaikouri, we stopped in Peketa camping. A spacious green camping with views to the beach, amazing stars at night and -yep, I did wake up - a sunset on the sea!

On my birthday after a stroll on the beach, we had dinner in a cafe and it was really good, kids ate well (which is challenging) and personal was really nice. So honest to who we are, we went back there at least three times during our kaikouri adventure. (Referring to us going back and back and back to 58 in poblenou or Voorspoed back then in Mortsel)

In the same 'don't change a winning team' way, we ended up three nights in a row on the camping. So even Pierre had to try the flying fox, with three kids looking at him with eyes full of admiration.

On Monday we finally made it to board the boat and do the whale watching trip. There's only one company running it by boat, the others have seal swimming, helicopter viewing, dolphin encounter, etc on offer. We are quiet limited seen the small age of our kids, most activities here in new zealand begin at 8 or 9 yrs, so we convinced the kids thenselves and others that the boys where already three years old and we took off that well organised and well worthy trip to see one sperm whale twice (to give you an idea of how well run the tour is; the captain positions the boat on the side of the breathing animal, and then when it gets ready to dive, moves the vessel to the back of the animal just to be sure you have a perfect picture/view of the tale!) Jumping dolphins, albatrosses and sealions!!

Late afternoon we went back to the medical centre as Matthias still had not accepted to put his foot back on the ground after a litlle staying-stuck-on-the-slide accident on saturday. On Sunday the doctor had asked to wait before taking images, but today she would. So Pierre and Mat went back armed with some more patience to the very kind people of the centre. Images were taken. Foot was alright (i had put all my love in that first aid bandage!). Upperleg is not. Fractured. And so we ended the day putting his leg 'comfy' warm and without moving for the next four weeks in a green plaster. Woehoe!!

As I speak, he has been helped over it thanks to a lovely drawing from Amélie and William (and a bit of ibuprofen) and we are trying to get over it with the Como Villa wine and getting ready to face a lot of carrying him around, dealing with Williams jalousy, but then also, fully realising it is better to have this here and only just that ! Cheers!

Oh!/and thank you all for the nice birthday wishes! See, now that's a birthday I ll never forget ;-)

Three kids and a campervan?

We rented a 6berths campervan for our three weeks of new Zealand adventure. (There's still an empty spot, if any one still willing to join after reading this post ;-))
So how about our first ten days the 5 of us in les say, 15sqm?

I guess there are some key ekements to making it a success or at least surviving the campervan adventure!
First things first; keep calm! That's a rule for the parents (me....) And for the kids; no, you really really won't play with that ball now inside. Not even if you stop breathing (our 3 Kids have the special gift to stop breathing when really upset... Comes completely with turning blue and faint. A real pleasure!)
Secondly, keep things tidy and clean. Great! You all know how well organised and tidy&clean Pierre and I are! So this one did take us a few days, learning to put things away immediately and - more challenging - at the same place!
Then not having too much stuff helps and really good outside weather would have or would be great. Of course, as we are not good planners, we kind of missed on that last one, though we are getting better with it everyday.

You rent the thing with outside chairs, bedlinnen a microwave, a fridge and even a dvd player (but we have no dvds)

so we just put up the boys tent on the double bed in the back, Amélie is really happy to sleep in the upper cabin (and I'm glad I don't have to cause up there I suffer from the well-known campervan sickness: you feel every little movement of the wind or anyone in the campervan as being on a roller coaster. No thanks! Great for Amélie!) when we stop for the night, We put the three child carseats in front and that makes for our dinner table and Pierre&my self's bed. Note Pierre doesn't completely fit in there, but it doesn't prevent him from sleeping through all the noise and fuzz!

I m glad we tested the campervan traveling for a few days back in Spain in June, for us it functions well. We drive mainly during afternoon siesta time, we eat two out of three meals in there and even survive colder evenings and being in there with three kids. It gives you freedom to eat and stay where and when you want to,you don't need to pack and unpack all the time (let alone wet tents ans stuff). We only twice did freedom camping cause battery-wise we don't survive a night on heater and fridge. And on the other side, campingsites, though really expensive here, do make for nice settings and the washing is a lot easier with the kids (the shower/toilet/lavabo inside the campervan is a completely no go on this one, as you can not stand with 2 in there, we really do need the showers of the campingsites.) another plus of the campings is the wifi, or better said: YouTube.

I ll leave you with some pictures of the good moments and why we like campervan travel. I ll leave the less good moments to your imagination .... I am sure you can imagine some of them, knowing we need to dress, feed, sleep, change, calm down, tantrum-handle etc.. The three in there as well!

So, who is joining in for all the good things about it?!

Queenstown

Après le vélo, on a rejoint en quelques heures Queenstown. Sur place, on s est mis parmis les dizaines d'autres caravanes sur le camping holiday park, foule qui présageait bien le tourisme particulier de Queenstown. Resort de ski en hiver, point de chute pour les sports nautiques et d'adrénaline en été, nous n'avons finalement pas grand chose à y chercher avec nos trois petits. (Ce qui ne veut pas nécessairement dire que je me serais jetée du premier bungy croisé.... Je ne suis pas plus courageuse en Nouvelle Zélande qu'à Durbuy Aventure. Kids or no Kids.) De plus vu le temps médiocre et froid, nous avons décidé de ne pas nous enfoncer plus au sud (pas glenorchy ni les fiords tel Milford sound - il faut bien se laisser une excuse pour revenir un jour...) mais de commencer tout doucement à remonter vers le Nord de l'ile. 

 Petit tour en télécabines (oeufs) qui font  l'émerveillent des enfants, resto sur le quai, super délicieux nommé public je pense) puis nuit au son du ronronnement de notre chauffage. 

Le Lendemain matin, On s'est mis un peu en dehors du centre pour déjeuner le porridge quotidien et jeter des pierres dans l'eau., pendant qu'on faisait nos recherches pour la suite du planning. Un bon soleil et 18 degrés! Il n en faut pas plus! On met cap vers le lac Tekapo au coeur de la réserve naturelle du ciel (Aoraki Mackenzie International Dark Sky Reserve), en veillant bien à faire le plein de soleil dès que possible.