On the road again

The last few days have been a huge blur of many emotions. Mainly in my case: denial. We've left Kaikoura - our home for the last 2 years, and have suddenly found ourselves once again living in a small van. Although we booked this and had a leaving date set a long time ago, I was definitely not prepared both emotionally AND practically. For example: I knew we were moving out of a house with electricity and into a vehicle without electricity yet I didn't charge any of my devices. This lead to a very long 3 and a half hour ferry trip across the Cook Strait without a book to read (paper books 1 kindle 0. Real books don't need charging. Sigh)

I thought I'd write a post about what we're up to as I've had a few confused messages from friends wondering what's going on with us. My whirlwind trip to the U.K didn't help this confusion either so I'm setting the record straight here.

We've exhausted our visa options in NZ without getting a job that would sponsor us to stay in the country, then eventually apply for residency. If we'd seriously considered this we could have found a way to go down this route, but friends and family are calling us home for the time being. This means we have to leave NZ at the end of September.

Not wanting to come home quite yet we decided to prolong our journey and make the most of being on this side of the planet so we're doing a bit of traveling en route back home. Our first stop is Niue- a Pacific island a 3 hour flight north of Auckland, and interestingly just on the other side of the International date line. So we actually travel back in TIME to get there. Niue also means 'behold the coconut' in Niuean so I hope you're all ready for a lot of photos of me eating all the coconuts. There are only two flights a week that go to Niue and the only airport you can fly from to get there is Auckland. So we've picked up a campervan that needs relocating from Christchurch to Auckland and are making our way up there over the next few days.

Our campervan is rubbish by the way. It looks like our beloved Luke from the outside but the layout is terrible and it's really cramped. The bed is way smaller than Luke's was yet it somehow manages to take up the entire van so there's no room to stand or put bags or do anything other than sit hunched on the bed. Good job it's free to relocate campers! I'd upload a photo  but for some reason I can't add pics to blog posts from my phone. Cheers blogspot.

So back to Niue. We're hoping we've got there while the humpbacks are still hanging around with their babies before migrating back down South again. We've booked a whale swim tour for the second day we're there to give us the best chance of seeing them. The water there is famously clear as the island has no beaches or rivers so the visibility is incredible. There's other cool wildlife there too like Spinner Dolphins, sea snakes and coconut crabs. It's going to hopefully be an amazing 10 days filled with heaps of  snorkelling, yummy food and a bit of relaxation after a crazy few weeks.

After Niue the plans are still a bit vague but we've booked flights to Sydney and are trying to get another camper relocation deal so we can drive south and hop over to Tasmania. After Aus then the plan is to visit a couple of South East Asian countries (not booked yet but will happen very soon) before heading home for Christmas.

Then we can begin panicking that we are homeless and jobless with no idea where we want to live - YAY!!

I'm not super excited to go home at the moment and each day hope that some inspiration will hit me and I'll suddenly know what I want to do with my life. It'll happen any day now. RIGHT??!! I'm trying not to think about it too much so I can just enjoy the now and this exciting part of the adventure but 2019 keeps looming at me out of the darkness no matter how hard I try and push it back.

I know we'll be absolutely fine but anxiety isn't one for thinking logically and there's a little voice in the back of my head whispering that I should be married with a mortgage and a dog  and stable job by now because I'm THIRTY and that's what THIRTY YEAR OLDS do even though I really am very ok without those things at the moment.

Apart from the dog.

Anyway watch this space for updates on our travels and hopefully a few pics. Kaikoura friends: I miss you already. U.K friends: I can't wait to see you. But for now adventure is calling again!

Leaving home again

I'm writing this from my living room at the house we've lived in for the best part of the last two years. I can hear the waves gently breaking at the end of the road and can just about see the snow capped mountains out of the window. I've just got back from the Dolphin Encounter office where it took me half an hour to drop off a box because there were so many people to chat to, and earlier today I hopped on a helicopter ride to see a couple of sperm whales. If it sounds like I'm bragging about my day, I'm really not - this is just what life is like in Kaikoura. It's an unbelievable place and days can turn extraordinary at the drop of the hat, or with one phone call saying there's a spare seat on a whale watch helicopter flight.

We're leaving this unique and wonderful town in September and it's only just really hit me. This is my home now and at the moment I can't imagine living anywhere else. We have a real life here and a community - friends that we love and will miss more than I can describe.

The other day I found this quote and I immediately welled up. It sums up exactly how I'm feeling at the moment - torn between two places, two countries and two lives. I miss my family and friends back home desperately and it's a given that I'm so excited to see them again. But oh man - after living in NZ for three years I hope no one will be offended when I say it's going to be hard to adjust to life back home again. 

It feels like we've lived here just long enough to settle in and get comfortable with the way of life here. We have great friends that live within walking distance and a beautiful teeny house that looks out at the Pacific Ocean. Whatever life we make for ourselves back home I do feel like we'll be aiming to get back to what we have here already. I hope that we'll get it (minus the dolphins and free helicopter rides probably) but it's going to take a lot of work to get there. 

We have NO idea what we'll do back home, where we'll live, how we'll even begin to know what sort of jobs to look for. That makes it even harder to leave this place where we don't have to think about anything grown up or serious. Luckily (and we are SO lucky) we have amazingly supportive family and friends in the U.K. and France who I know have our back. I know we'll be absolutely fine and there are bigger problems in life, it just all seems a bit daunting right now. 

There's so much I'll miss about New Zealand. The people I've met here I'll miss most of all. The mountains that take my breath away every day. The birds - Fantails especially. The colour of the pacific ocean. The road trips where around every bend is a view more stunning than the last. The marine life that I take for granted but will pine for when it's not on my doorstep. The beautiful beaches of Abel Tasman - my favourite place in the entire world. The forest walks that lead to pretty waterfalls that soothe my soul. The emptiness - you can visit a breathtakingly beautiful spot and feel like you're the only person in the world. The coffee - OH how I'll miss the coffee. I'm trying not to think about that to be honest. 

I'm so sad to leave. This is my happy place and I know we could live here comfortably forever...IF it wasn't so far away from our other home. I am blaming all you people back home reading this by the way. Why are you all so wonderful that I want to see you and be near you? Why do you keep having beautiful babies that I want to hang out with and get to know properly? Why do you keep getting married and giving me massive wedding FOMO? It's quite selfish to be honest. 

I am very excited to see you all. When we went home last summer for 4 months I was really sad to leave you all in the U.K. and I knew then that I'd never be able to live this far away for good. I think I knew it all along. Many Brits I've met here told me I'd get used to being so far away, friends would fade, family would understand and I'd make new friends. Well, we've made new friends who are absolutely wonderful and I hope we'll keep forever, but I knew that I'd never get used to being so far away, and my far away friends would never fade. 

But it's still a hard step to take. This place, this country, these people have all shaped who I am now and I do feel like a completely different person to the one who got on the plane at Heathrow in 2015. It'll take a while to adjust and work out how to fit into life back home again. 

I think we just need to get a puppy. Then everything will be ok.

Back to bloggin'

Hi friends

I've moved house! Well blog house...blouse?

It's been a wee old while since I wrote anything mainly because I styled the last blog about mine and Nick's travels around New Zealand in a campervan. After settling in Kaikoura for the last couple of years we sort of...stopped traveling around in a campervan. Apparently not traveling is frowned upon in the travel blog world. Weird ey?

I also realized I was itching to write about other subjects that interest me that didn't necessarily fit in with the first blog's theme. I wanted a fresh platform to natter away on about passions of mine including travel of course, but also subjects like wildlife, environmental issues, feminism, the war on plastic, The Spice Girls possibly reuniting, all the hard hitting issues y'know?

If all that sounds remotely interesting and you want to stick around then yay! thank you! I hope I can be ever so slightly entertaining and I welcome any feedback. As long as it's positive...I can't take criticism ok?! ...just kidding.

Nick and I are almost at the end of our New Zealand adventure and are about to dive into the exciting world of being jobless again (or as I like to call it...fun-employed!) Whilst it completely breaks my heart in half to have to leave this ridiculously incredible country, I'm excited for the next adventure and I'm sure there will be plenty of travel chat and pics as we slowly make our way back to the U.K. when September has rolled around. After that I'm fairly sure the majority of posts will be along the lines of 'I'M 30 AND UNEMPLOYED WHAT AM I DOING HALP' so...stay tuned.

Until then thank you for reading even if it's probably just mum and dad left at this point...thanks Nige & Glendles! 

Farewell for now!