The past months compiled...

Groene Vingers

Car business

As our tour in New Zealand has pretty much come to an end, we had one more task to complete: selling our car. The car in question is a minivan which has been converted into a backpacker's dream-vehicle, with a big mattress in the back and plenty of luggage space. It's a good and reliable car, but quite uh robust on the outside with plenty of bumps and um rusty spots, not to mention a sliding door on the side which unhinges if opened too enthusiastically...

Not so bad eh?

We assumed we would easily be able to sell it to other backpackers. The only problem was... there are hardly any backpackers arriving in New Zealand at this moment. We spent an entire morning at car fairs trying to sell our car and saw about 40 sellers, and, wait for it, 2 buyers, none of which were backpackers.

We knew what we had to do: we upped our game and took a professional approach much like any company would do.

As head analyst, Graham predicts a downturn in the second quarter.  "All indicators point to a sellers market," he says, "There is not a doubt on my mind that prospective buyers will stumble upon plenty of bargains and affordable buying opportunities."

Newly appointed CEO Dimitri highlights a fresh strategy. "We have a quality product and we are going to let everybody know about it. We will not stop until every single person in Auckland knows who we are and what we represent."

In practice this meant that we made some flyers which we distributed in hostels around town. We pleaded and begged potential buyers who weren't interested despite the dramatic price cuts we offered.

At some point it got so bad that we went around town with flyers taped to our bodies to attract attention to our product. We were starting to get nervous and anxious, until we finally found a buyer at a car fair. Our buyer was not a backpacker, in fact he was more of a bargain seeker and so his price was disappointingly low. Barely enough however to not make us want to cry. After tough and heated negotiations (all the other sellers around us were following with more than normal interest), Dimitri managed to squeeze a bit more out of them and they handed us the money for the purchase, unaware of what was about to go down.

Right after we put the money away, the buyer opened the sliding door with a bit too much gusto and - much to the delight of the other sellers around (who were still watching with interest)- the door completely unhinged and fell off the car. With the money in our pocket and a huge car-door lying on the ground next to the car, the buyer looked down in disbelief.

Sure we didn't get the best price for our car, but the look on the buyer's face was priceless...

A cliffhanger

To be honest, we were not greatly impressed by New Zealand when we arrived here, but in the meantime we were forced to adjust our opinions. After some dazzling treks up to the summits of treks nearby Mount Cook, the Nelson lakes, and the summit of Mount Taranaki, as well as our ascent on "Mount Doom", we have become believers. And even though calling ourselves extreme alpine experts would be a bridge too far, we have nonetheless learned some things about mountain climbing we would like to share with you.

1. The mountain lies.
That's right, never trust the mountain because it exists to deceive. We are being completely serious, the mountain likes to play evil games and nasty mind-tricks on you. Here's what we're talking about:

2. The New Zealand constant "0.6"
From our mathematical background, we know some universal constants such as Pi, e, etc. It now appears that there is such a thing as a New Zealand constant, according to our measurements around 0.6. It is very useful to all European travelers in all sorts of different situations. The most obvious is the exchange rate: multiply the euro amount by 0.6 to find the NZ dollar amount. Less obvious are the times posted at the beginning of a trek. If it says the mountain climb will take about 10 hours, multiply with 0.6 and expect to walk about 6 hours. We advise European travelers to rehearse their tables of six before coming to New Zealand.

3. The easy way down: helicopter hitchhiking
After our exhausting ascent AND descent at Mount Taranaki, we read a news paper article about a man that had been too scared to go back down the steep cliffs of the ginormous volcano. He called for help and a rescue helicopter was sent. He was not charged for the rescue. Do we need to state the obvious here? If only we had read that article before starting our descent we would have saved our knees from a terrible ordeal.

4. Sorry Elio, we tried.
Apparently planting a flag at the summit of a mountain is not accepted as a legal claim for expanding Belgian territory. Well played, New Zealand, well played.

5. Why on earth would one put him-/herself through a six hour gruesome climb?
At times we have wondered, but the pictures below should be self-explanatory!

360 degrees of pure pleasure

During our walks we get the chance to enjoy the great diversity of Mother Earth. From time to time, Dimitri pauzes a minute and shoots a 360° panorama with the Photosynth application on his iPhone. You can find some 360° views from New Zealand below, but you can find way more here, where we backup our memories with these great vistas. Enjoy!

Good day mate!

Forgive us our silence during the last weeks.
We were busy driving around New Zealand, looking for nature untouched by Japanese tourists (wha-wi-loo, a tree!! Girl making a peace sign next to tree - ... - *flash flash*) and free-camp spots on numerous curvy sideways in nomansland (sheepland would be more accurate). We drive and stop all around the country, while reading all the brochures and books about NZ. These guide us to and through magnificent spots but sometimes we ended up at random "scenic lookouts" which were nothing more than a few stairs up in the middle of a random cornfield or valley.

At a certain point we were so distracted by all the stop-and-go's that we forgot to close the trunk, so we had to drive back again a few kilometres to check if we didn't lose any important equipment. Luckily we didn't, but unluckily we discovered a crack in our dream van's windshield. A 30 cm financial bummer, but that little thing was nothing compared to the disaster and ruins that a major earthquake left behind in and around Christchurch in 2010: the centre was wiped away, houses were ripped apart and avalanches took many lives with them.

Meanwhile we made the jump from the North to the South Island, enjoying the still warm early autumn weather in an easy-going off-season period. We've been hiking a lot (for some reason they call it tramping here), seeing amazing glaciers, mountains and cliffs. Especially Mount Cook and it's  Tasman Glacier were utterly scenic.

On the other hand we've not been overwhelmed. Impressive views were scattered all around the countries in South-America, so we were too spoiled upon arriving in New Zealand

Hiking there was friendlier for our money belts and visa cards. In Kiwiland we pay more for three days of hiking (you need permission passes and so on) than for five days in South-America, with food, (cooking) guides and donkeys!

As we were trying to spice things up for the Easter weekend, we headed into Dunedin. We were astonished to see pubs closing around midnight for Easter! "Dear Jesus Christ!" (quote dM3) Our Lonely Planet predicted some great parties, but the team of authors clearly never were in South-America, Leuven or the well-known Brussels bars Celtica, Java Bar or Havana Club. If you don't know what we are talking about, please visit us when we'll be back in Belgium.

Anyways, our bond with the nature has been strengthened dramatically these weeks. Sleeping under clear skies in open fields surrounded by rivers and being welcomed by sandflies around our cooking gear. Struggling through icy water up to our waist in dark limestone caves. Standing on the windy top of a mountain after hours of climbing in burning sun rays. Trying to escape from the rapidly changing weather conditions.

To sum it all up, we're enjoying NZ as we are embracing nature every moment, while avoiding pricy yet worthless trips, choosing our own food, ways and dreams.

"Good day mate!"
GR4 & DM3

Strenuous activities

Even though the first hours in the country were uncomfortable and tiresome (see post below), we have had a great time here so far. We bought a minivan in Auckland, allowing us the freedom we want and need. Weather conditions (wind!) stopped us from doing some hikes up the volcanoes on the northern island so instead we made a three-day, 88km long canoo trip in Wanganui National Park. A beautiful but tiresome trip. Needless to say the circumference of our arms has doubled since. 

A big welcome in New Zealand

Perhaps we had gotten so used to being easy-going, laid-back, South-American nomads that we didn't see any of it coming. Our first day in New Zealand was one in the airport, and it was quite a long one after a total of 24 hours of traveling and an 8-hour time difference.

We managed a soothing concerto of "Oops" and "Really?" and "Is that so?" sounds when the customs lady informed us that we needed an outward ticket in order to enter the country. Despite our charming personalities, she sent us into a waiting line in order "to have a conversation with the customs officials", who informed us that we were a special case because we should never have been allowed to board the plane without an outward ticket. We became discouraged as the long line of problem cases from mostly South-America, Africa and Europe dissolved before our eyes. With the help of our airline we eventually managed to book a ticket to Australia and we were on our way.

Confused passenger

Wait a second. Of course our luggage was not on the conveyer belt anymore and Graham experienced a mild panic when his bag appeared to be missing. We searched all over, in our minds already cursing the customs desk for keeping us up so long and eventually realised that for some strange reason Graham's luggage had been kept apart behind a counter in the luggage area. We grabbed our bags and we were on our merry way again, we thought.

We smiled at the officer with the drug sniffing dog as he passed by. Maybe we smiled too much because the dog took an immediate liking into Graham. Our smile turned a little bit awkward and we were taken aside for questioning. This is where thoughts run through your mind like "Wait, why was Graham's bag really behind that counter? Did somebody put drugs in it?" but we friendly answered all their questions. We were questioned separately but both our conversations went something like this:

>"Where are you fellas flying from?""Santiago de Chile, but via...">"Please just answer the question and let me do the talking.""Yes sir.">"Have you been traveling around South America?""Yes sir.">"Do you have any drugs on you?""No sir.">"Did you do any drugs in South America?""No sir.">"My dog seems to like you/your friend.""Yes sir.">"I'm not interested in recreational use of drugs so just answer honestly: did you use drugs in South America?""No sir.">"You went to South America and didn't do any drugs?" [disbelief]"No sir.">"Do you smoke in Belgium?""No sir.">"W0000T?"

And so on. Eventually they recognized us for the honest and friendly non-drug-using gentlemen we are and we were on our way, we thought.



Next we were sent to a customs check where we were asked to show our hiking boots for any rural remains. Dimitri's eyes widened as he stood beside the officer and watched his bag pass through the x-ray machine. His machete was clearly visible, a huge chunk of metal distinguishable in the middle of his bag. This conversation went something like this:

Officer: "Weeeell, that is a huuuuuge machete in your bag!">Us: Uncomfortable laugh.Officer: "What are you gonna use that for over here? Slicing coconuts are we?>Us: Uncomfortable laugh.Officer: "Well on your way you are then, have a great stay."

We took our bags and got out of there as fast as we could.

D&G

P.S. Contrary to what we thought beforehand, WIFI is in most places either not as widely available as in South America (whaaaat?) or extremely expensive. If you see less blog posts passing by, then you now know why.