Aotearoa, we're sad to go.

The time has come to leave New Zealand and head to Asia.
We've had two months of sun, fun, big hills, great biking and wine. So very much good wine.
The last few days in Auckland were:

• Stressful (trying to sell Gertrude out of tourist season)
• Testing (sitting on a railway platform late at night heavily laden with bags in a [insert appropriate adjective] suburb at 21.00 with some local Maori youth mouthing off to local police, dying for the loo and feeling washed out by the previous 4 hours dealing with some of the areas more colourful car 'dealers'
• Divine (eating a degustation menu at The French cafe, where the waiter was a super star making sure Sam's dietary requirements were catered for and the food was sublime)
• Full of contradictions (walking barefoot in the rain to the aforementioned expensive restaurant as the £12 posh outfit from the charity shop didn't include high heeled shoes comfortable enough to walk a mile in)
• Out of character (sitting in a 24 hour BBQ place at 23.30 eating burgers and drinking cider and dancing to the trance music playing loudy into the dining area)
• Surprisingly sunny (having rained for most of our time on the north island bar a couple of part days the last day was back to being hot and sticky as we sat in a park watching the Easter bunny drop cadburys eggs out of a helicopter onto small children)

The highlights from our time in NZ are definitely predominantly from the South Island.

• The scenery [lake Tekapo, on our drive back round after a good days running up to Mueller hut. Both the colours and the reflections made us stop the car to take what have become some of our favourite shots of the trip]

 

• The hills [the view from the pass on the Milford Track- the mist lifted just for the 20 or so minutes we were on the ridge. Despite the cold we could have sat and stared at this scene for hours, in fact this was the scene that proved to us that you can never get beauty fatigue and that you can never stop being awed by the wonder of the outdoors]

 

 

• The campsites [£6 per night, only accessible by boat and wonderfully deserted these sites in the Marlborough sounds were spectacular]

 

 

• The biking [the view here is from the top of the Queen Charlotte Track. We don't really have any shots of the biking taking place as the sorts of tracks we were on definitely required two hands! Both the tracks and the surroundings made for some of the best biking either of us have ever done and Sam's technical ability has come on leaps (through necessity rather than design:))]

 

• The wine [boutique and high end new world, New Zealand is dotted with wine regions with different characteristics and their cellar door tastings mean we got to appreciate a good number of them. Two months ago we wouldn't have bought a light red like the characteristic NZ Pinots, but we now have a much better appreciation of the subtleties of their flavours and the smokey nose]

 

• The tourist spots From watching Whales to visiting the Hobbiton, even the tourist spots are great fun:

 

• The running We've had some really fantastic runs from:

The short and steep (and surprisingly snowy) [3 hr return up to Mueller hut with over 2000 steps laid into the hillside - and that only takes you to half way!]:

 

To the undulating [40km along the Abel Tasman track]:

To the wet [Routeburn 1,2 and Tongariro 3,4]:

 

To those that were both epic and painful in equal measure [the Kepler]:

 

The weather was largely kind to us, as were the people we met along the way.

Whilst some thought we were crazy to want to live in a van, it gave us the freedom to travel, the cash we would have spent on accommodation to spend on other things and the opportunity to wake up surrounded by the stunning scenery that makes this country famous. Gerty we love you and we'll miss you!

 

Land of the long white cloud, we know we have to leave, but we're not sure we want to...