Happy Anniversary to Mum and Dad

Happy 56th wedding anniversary to you both. Have a great time while you are away. Hope you get good weather while you are there, I cannot recommend skinny dipping. It's probably to cold anyway although you are probably getting an Indian summer during September as normal these days.

All our love
Sarah & Dave
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Wet once again in Welly

Once again made it down to Wellington and once again it's raining. It must be our visits that bring on the rain here. The locals are telling us it's 10° cooler than normal for this time of year Wellington. Anyway before we came to Wellington we spent some time in Napier Which is supposed to be the art deco capital of the world. Almost every building was built between 1933 and 1940 as early 1931 they had an earthquake which destroyed the entire city centre.

Just about to set out into the rain and onto the centre of Wellington after having breakfast.  We are going to go to one of the museum, it'll probably end up in an all day job as it tends to be when we go to a museum. When I have a chance I'll put some pictures on of Napier so you can see how classically chic it is. 

To Taupo and beyond.......

On route from rotorua to Lake Taupo we spent the day walking in the Redwoods after bathing in the therapeutic waters of the Blue Baths. The healing powers of the Rotorua Blue Baths overcame me unfortunately and as I stepped out of the 40 degree bath after a 30 min (only 15 mins really, but I need to egg it up) stint, Sarah got out first and I tried to follow but my legs went from under me and I landed on my backside scrapping my elbows and bruising my ego. The very hot hot hot water must have made my blood pressure drop as I stood up ( bath temperature, he's just nesh) so I got light headed and toppled over. Sarah got a shock as she thought I was right behind her. She told me to stay still for a while until I felt better. Left big bum mark on the poolside. I wear my cuts with pride, marks of my heroic fall! I'm not invincible as I thought, my super power let me down, Sarah wasn't affected by the heat that must be her super power. (Guess who wrote this section?) no spelling mistakes, beers or largers.

After spending the day walking in the Redwoods we headed to Lake Taupo, stopping en route to visit the Lave Glass showroom, lovely things but very expensive at over $200 for a vase. As you can guess we didn't buy anything. Then made our way to Lake Taupo checking free campsites on the way, decided on one 30 km south of Taupo on the south shore, very peaceful with lapping waves for company and snow capped peaks for a backdrop. So nice we stayed there for 3 nights and drove into Taupo each day. We found a lovely quiet campsite of the Thermal Highway and decided to stay for 2 nights. On the second day Dave decided to skinny dip in the river for a wash, unfortunately that is when we got some visitors, a lady in a van and a local farmer. Bad timing or what. He still doesn't know if there is photographic evidence! We've now made our way through the Kire-Kire Forest to Napier via a crazy detour on a forestry gravel track, we only found out we were on the wrong route from a logger who stopped us and guided us back onto the correct route, thankfully as we were running out of fuel!

Lake Taupo from our camp spot

View of the three volcanos at the Tongorario park near Lake Taupo, we will be climbing up one of these in two months. 

Night over the van

Still getting used to our Spaceship

We're starting to get used to the limited space in our Spaceship, sounds like there'd be lots of space but it needs a bit of daily organisation. Sarah's doing a grand job. Our first two days were in the rain after all it's early spring here. But following that it has been mild during the day but gets quickly cooler from dusk, around 6pm. 

We saw a few early rises in Piha going out surfing at 6am and some beautiful lilies by the seashore. Following a few days free camping near Cambridge we decided to free camp on the Hobbiton Movie Set   

(car park)

Sam thought this might make you jealous........... No sign of Bilbo though!

The last few days have been spent in Rotarua where we have spent way to much time in the museum and a visit to the therapeutic hot springs. Yesterday we were asked to leave the museum at 5pm as they were closing and today the lady in the hot springs pool was waiting for us to leave so she could go home. I think we had been her only customers all day. 

Arrived in New Zealand safe and Tired!

Arrived safely but mega tired. Thánks to Sam and Leanne for dropping us at the airport once again. We left Manchester at 8:25pm Tuesday and arrived in Auckland at 3pm Thursday. It's along way............ So we were happy to get to bed last night. 

Right now we're waiting in Spaceships office to pick up our "Spaceship camper" for the next 3 months. 

(It's still early spring over here)

Norway and the Fjords but a bit chilly at night

After Oslo we travelled across the country and nearly killed ourselves under a truck, as we've already said! We spent 4 days in Al and went walking up in the high country. Snow, lakes and dirt tracks got us to the middle of somewhere but we aren't sure precisely where. We had a brief basic map of the trail we were going to follow but after 30mins of walking we had somehow lost it and been following what we later realised was just an animal track across the mountain. Anyway we carried on for the rest of the day, beautiful waterfalls and glacial streams all around, after our little boo boo earlier in the day we had 4 water crossings to negotiate. Very stony and freezing cold water, I had to put my hat in the stream on one occasion otherwise I'd have been flat on my front. Sarah managed to get a photo just before I nearly fell. While laughing out loud!

Beautiful country with little remote settlements by lakes only accessible via water or walking over the mountains. 

Things were a little basic in the Al campsite we had to wash the old fashioned way, hand clothes washing. Sarah managed to get a blister from the pleasure of wringing out the washing, unfortunately, they didn't have a mangle. Honestly, I had been doing my own wash, stamping on my underpants in the shower(I would beat them on a rock but the water is too cold), and washing my heavy shorts. I just finished before Sarah, who had done hers and finished mine. So thought I'd take a picture for posterity's sake! This far in land and high up the nights are cold so had to wear bed socks, I must be getting old!

Our drive to Bergen should have been an easy 3 hours but after an hours drive over the A50 we had to turn round and drive back to our starting point as there was an accident in the tunnel ahead and the road was closed. So over two hours later and we hadn't moved one inch closer to Bergen. The roads are full of tunnels in Norway, they like trolls here and you see models of them everywhere. They also like garden gnomes, I wonder if that's why they build so many tunnels? The first tunnels we travelled through on the A50 were very thin, Anna you would not have enjoyed them, Sarah started to get a feeling of chlostrophobia they were so small and looked unfinished as if they could collapse. These were the ones of course we had to go back through so Sarah was not so pleased, cursing the fool that had had an accident further down the road. Back on the main highway we traveled through two 7 km long tunnels and they both had roundabouts in them, believe it or not. One even came out half way up a sheer mountainside along the Hardanger fjord near Eijfjorden. To put the sight in perspective we had earlier passed a cruise ship moored in Eijfjorden next to the road, which is also a sight to see all that distances inland, the bridge had allowed this enormous ship to pass underneath it with a mass of room to spare. Anyway after 8 and a half hours we arrived in Bergen. 

Bergen is steeped in history and has a small part of its original dock preserved as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The great thing is it's still in use today. The front of the warehouses have modern shops esconsed in them now and each house, or warehouse as it was, has reams of little store rooms stretching back away from the dock. One is set aside as a museum and kept as was centuries ago with dried fish etc. These properties were owned and run by the German Hanseatic League, a group of entrepreneurs who ran trade from Central Europe to countries both north and South via the sea. By all accounts they were a secretive group who wouldn't let outsiders in thus retaining all the trade and wealth to themselves and other members of their league. The Hanseatic League held sway all over this part of Europe for over 500 years while towns and cites mainly remained as independent entities within countries. They bought grain, wool and other necessities from farmers in more southerly latitudes and sold it to the Scandinavians for dried fish, fish oil and timber which in turn they exported to the south. It was only when nation states started to exert themselves that the league was diminished as local cities were no longer able to bargain solely for themselves and suffered the additional burden of central government taxation. 

Its a very attractive and well preserved part of Norway, clearly the Norwegians take a lot of pride in there heritage. 

Dock front warehouses in Byrggen (Historic name for the area)

Seedy alley's between the warehouses now used as small niche shops selling such things as furs and bone/ metal jewellery and the odd glass of lager (as spelt by Dave "larger") remember the beer blog or should that be bear blog!

The fjords, it goes without saying, we're beautiful we have oodles of images and spent an entire day driving around Hardanger Fjorden and Scammanger Fjorden I don't think we realised the time and didn't arrive back at our base until after 9pm. We had a very late tea that night!

On the ferry back from Bergen to Denmark we got this great view of the Hardanger Glacier. Up there you can go skiing all year round. 

While driving back to Bergen we came across this powerful waterfall with the opportunity to walk behind it while staying reasonably dry. Take a look at the guy in the pink shirt near the base to get an idea of its immense size

The ferry was a first chance to sleep in a proper bed, not an air mattress where Daves feet hang off the end. To top it off we also had and ensuite, no going out in the cold to use the loo in the middle of the nighT. Another sign of old age. The crossing according to the captain was smooth, rocky I would say but as I was laid down managed ok most of the time, only the pinball effect walking down the corridors. Arriving back in Denmark saw beautiful weather and a flat run to Esbjerg. We were settled in just after lunch for a relaxing day. We went into the small town to the international market where they sell speciality foods and clothes, nice to visit. The shop keepers are very trusting as they have loads of their products hung outside for you to look at. Definitely have nothing left if they did that in the UK. The following day we went out on our bikes and rode through the nearby village to the beach. The architecture is a mixture of traditional and modern, a really pretty place. Dave made fun of me when I offered to take the pannier saying I was already slow enough without a bag to slow me down more. There's love for you. I'm just appreciating the relaxed life style and scenery (that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it). It is amazing though to see the oldies out on their bikes doing their shopping etc.

After a few days in Esbjerg we set off to our final destination of Amsterdam. WOW what a long day, 10 hours travelling, set the tent up, tea then bed, we were shattered. As you can guess today has been a very lazy day, lie in, late breakfast, trip to the shop, collected our free bread rolls and writing emails and blog. Good excuse it's been raining on and off most of the day with thunder and lightening! Tomorrow we are cycling into Amsterdam and will hit the historic sights and museums plus the obligatory McDonalds for a drink and abuse their free wifi AGAIN! We will have to send them a letter of thanks when we finally get home.

Happy Birthday Dad

Have a happy birthday Dad. We'll see you both in a few days time. Have abreast day.

All our Love
Sarah and Dave
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