Wellington, New Zealand

We left Auckland in the pouring rain and began our 8 hour drive to Wellington. We pretty much spent the entire 8 hours cursing our newly purchased Tom Tom who we assumed must have sent us down some random side road as the roads we were on could not possibly be the main highway through the North Island. Turns out that Tom Tom was completely right and we were just expecting a lot more than a single lane back road through the country to get us from North to South.

After a couple of pit stops for fuel, chocolate, chips and coffee we made it to Wellington, or as we now know Lower Hutt a little town outside of Wellington and as we drove deep into an industrial estate we could see the van parked up.

I am not sure that we have even been this nervous as whilst we couldn’t let the seller know, this really needed to be our van. We had a look around her and whilst she was definitely in need of a major scrub and we needed to evict at least 50 spider families who were making her look a lot like a Halloween party decoration we took her for a drive, looked under the bonnet (not that we know many things to look for, just the things that went wrong with La Toya) and we gave each other that secret nod of ‘YES, she is THE ONE’.

After a short barter and a $200 discount we shook hands and the deal was done, we had a van and our New Zealand adventure could start, well once we have transferred the rego, got insurance and filled her us with all our worldly belongings.

With a skip in our step we waved our new van goodbye and agreed to make plans the following day to complete the exchange.

We were so caught up in the nervousness of buying the van we didn’t even have time to think about the fact that we were headed to another Couch Surf. It is pretty strange how in just a couple of years we have changed so much that turning up at the homes of complete strangers to stay the night or to house sit and live their lives has become second nature. Thankfully we had nothing to be nervous about with this CS as our hosts Marco and Ursala were just awesome. Not only did they live in the most fantastic house with sea views just a few doors down from one of Peter Jacksons houses, they were just so cool. Retirees who decided in their retirement to combine their love of travel with motorcycling and they have now travelled New Zealand, Australia, the USA and are currently somewhere in the middle of Iran enroute to the UK.

We got on with Marco and Ursala so well and had a greatv few nights sharing stories, picking up advice on camp sites and good locations around NZ to visit and used their garage to get our new baby girl looking like new.

There was no question, this van was obviously meant to be, we managed to drop off our hire car, the van seller came and picked us up, took us to the post office to change the Rego and delivered us to our new van. As we were driving off he told us that there was a present in the dashboard to help us along our way and low and behold he had given us $200 of fuel vouchers. I don’t think that happens everyday.

Marco and Ursala hesitantly agreed to come for a spin in our new girl and they directed us to the beautiful Red Rocks of Wellington where on a clear day you can see South Island and also up Mount Victoria with stunning views over the city. This little expedition very nearly ended in disaster when Tim fell out of the van and twisted his knee. We were literally in the process of deciding who was driving the van back down the mount to the hospital, when Tim managed to confirm that he was actually fine, phew.

After a couple of shopping trips in The Warehouse and Kmart, we had our van filled and we were ready to hit the road. Really we were very comfortable and happy staying with Marco and Ursala, but it was time to start to see the real New Zealand our way.

In honour of the great kiwi movie Goodbye Porkpie, we named the van Blondini and set off on our travels.

Lets go Blondini Gang!

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