Random Update #2
Trip Start
May 05, 2008
1
74
84
Trip End
Ongoing
Wellington, North Island, New Zealand
Saturday, December 26, 2009
In bigger news, our residency application has finally come to a head this month after 11 months of bureaucracy. We received a letter that we have been accepted. All we have to do is send in our passports to get the residency visa and work permit. We are required to pay a further $300 each for the so called migrant levy. Our plan ultimately is to stay in NZ long enough that we can keep the door open when we leave. That means a further 2 years (well at least 18 months of those 2 years in NZ), then we can get a permanent residency visa which would allow us to leave NZ and perhaps come back a number for years later.
What else can I tell you? Oh yes, sadly we decided to sell Mr. Parker. It was a great car but for a while there he wasn't performing very well. It got to the point that the first thing you would do before starting the car was pop the bonnet, pull off the air filter housing and wedge a rag down the air intake of the carburettor, then you had a fair chance of starting it. Turned out that there was a problem with the fuel mixture adjustment. We got it sorted eventually and decided to sell while he was running well. We got $4000 for him and I believe that he went to a good home. Keep an eye out for a brown Mini Clubman 1275 around the Mt. Vic area! We will both miss the car but it will be nice to get a car that is more reliable and that we can travel greater distances in.
For the labour day weekend we decided to take off down to the south island with our bikes and some camping equipment. We went to Picton on the ferry and stayed a night in the Sequoia Lodge hostel. The next day we cycled the 20 km over the Queen Charlotte drive to Anakiwa where we hired sea kayaks for 2 days from Sea Kayaking Adventures http://www.nzseakayaking.com/ . These guys were great, they also have an office in Picton and they brought our camping gear and everything over in their van so that we could ride without packs to Anikiwa. They let us store our bikes in their facility in Anikiwa and we set out to paddle the sounds for the next 2 days. The first day we paddled 16 km north and found a nice beach to camp up for the night. The sounds are beautiful, however, when you are sea kayaking for that long you start to just focus on getting across the next bay and sometimes forget how beautiful the place is until you stop for a rest. The Queen Charlotte sounds are beautiful and there were very few tourists about. I think Abel Tasman is the big draw in the north of the south island but I would not over look this area, it is great. I would like to mountain bike the Queen Charlotte track next time we are down this direction.
Me and a couple of lads from work have been jamming regularly and now we have a full band going on. We are still looking for a bassist. Every Monday we meet in Petone for a pint in Murphys and then we head up to a church on Britiania St., and practice for 2 hours. It is mainly covers at the moment while we all get used to playing together. We are from all over.. The lead guitarist is from Wales, singer / guitar Kiwi, Djembe / Percussion / vocals from Mauritius, Drummer from Vietnam and myself on guitar and bass (when we don't have a bass player). We are really enjoying it and maybe we will do a gig our something next year. You can see a clip us jamming here: http://www.youtube.com/user/MamboMega5#p/a/u/1/BPAv58UgGqo (sorry for the crotch shot!).
We only went snow-boarding one weekend this year. It was up in Mt. Ruapehu. We stayed in a bach in Ohakune. I got a board, bindings and boots on TradeMe. Angie had her own boots but rented a board and jacket. We got one good day in and a half day the next day before the weather got bad. My boots are about a half-size too large which makes it more difficult to switch quickly from your heel to your toe edge. I had click in bindings which were great, I could be clipped in and ready to go while everybody else is still fumbling with their regular bindings. I just need boots that fit!
The big news since my last update is that I decided to ask Angie to marry me. This story begins a couple of weeks before our week in Sydney. We were sitting on our couch in the living room watching a movie. Angie wears a stainless steel ring on here finger. It is a friendship ring and she and 4 of her girl friends that were at nursing school in Dresden all wear one. I was idly playing with her ring and trying it on different fingers to see which finger I could fit it on my hands. I really wasn't thinking of anything whilst doing this. However, Angie started to think and it occurred to her that I was going to ask her to marry me in Sydney. After all it makes sense, we met in Australia 3 years earlier. So the next day she is telling her friends at work that she thinks that I will propose in Sydney. They are getting all excited and are dying to know what happens. Anyway, we go to Sydney and I realize that Angie is really excited about her birthday and what will I get her. The morning of her birthday we are sitting in a cafe in Newtown having a nice breakfast. I order a chocolate muffin for dessert. The cafe had no birthday candles so I had to run down the street to find a shop that sold candles. I had already left her birthday present on the table. It was in a small box and it did look like it might be a ring. Angie was getting nervous, she was like oh my god, he is going to ask me here, has he planned this, she is looking around to see if people are looking over, maybe everybody is in on it. I come back and plonk the candles in the muffin and light them. I wish her a happy birthday, she blows out the candles, opens her present and her face drops. A pair of earrings (nice ones I will add), she tried to fake her delight. She realized that I had no intention of asking her on this weekend. Of course I was blind to all this but I did find her reaction strange and I got the truth later that evening. I felt like such a twat! After that it became a sort of running joke where she would say, so, when are you going to ask me then : ). Several weeks later we were going snowboarding up in Ruapehu as I have mentioned earlier and I got to thinking, why the hell not. I love this girl, would I like to marry her, hell yes! So that week I scoured all the jewelery shops on Lambton quay and eventually found a ring. I had intended to ask her at the top ski lift in Whakapupa. I was going to write it in the snow like in the book "Holding On". So the first day, Angie was still learning how to stay upright on her board. I was trying to encourage her to go up on the higher ski-lifts but she really wasn't ready that day. I had the ring in my pocket all day but decided to wait until the next day. Maybe I could get her to the top. Anyway, the weather wasn't great the next day and after about mid-day the upper mountain was closed. We decided to go home that afternoon. I was thinking, shit, I have missed my opportunity here. Our friend Mike was driving us back to Wellington that evening. It is about a 4 hour drive back and I was very quiet for the whole journey. Angie knew something was up and thought that she had done something over the weekend to upset me. I kept telling her that I was fine and that I had a great weekend. She kept it up though and when we were home I cracked. I went and got the ring from my jacket and I proposed to her there and then in our living room. Her reaction was amazing, she was so happy she was crying. It really was a great moment. She didn't like the ring I had picked so we went back to Michal Hill the next day and picked out a ring that she liked. She was delighted and still can't stop looking at it. So that was the story of 2009. We plan to get married in Thailand in Feb 2011.
We are currently back in Europe with family and friends for christmas. I am looking forward to another fantastic year in NZ for 2010.
Merry christmas and happy new year!
Dave and Angie
