6 months in

We are now in The Coromandel which is a peninsula just around the bay from The Mount. We drove up here yesterday to amazing views (although if I’m honest I’m a bit over views at the moment). We stopped at a place called Hot Water Beach which is a gorgeous white sand beach and at low tide you dig a hole in the sand which fills with hot water to bathe in. The water is heated by volcanic rock close to the surface. Actually a lot of volcanic rock seems to be quite near to the surface in NZ and truth be told it’s a little unsettling if you think about it too much, and someone told us yesterday that there have been 3000 aftershocks following the Queenstown earthquake in August last year!! Still we will come back later today and dutifully dig our hole. We were planning on visiting Cathedral Cove just around the bay but it’s been closed due to the heavy storms that hit the region last weekend.

We are now 6 months into the trip and it seems to have flown by , I’d be lying if I said there weren’t times when I wished the finishing post were in sight but to be honest the time has gone surprisingly quickly. I look back on Central America now and wonder where the time went, I can’t believe that was three months ago, I also can’t believe that I was that brave, I mean honestly, jumping off a platform in the rainforest attached to a bit of wire, who do I think I am... Lara bloody Croft!!

We have also learned a lot on the trip, at least I have. I think you have to when you are all living in such close proximity. For example it’s important to take your own space when you get the chance, for Sam and Will that’s surfing and for me that’s walking around the towns or sitting on the beach watching the sea, or reading. We also have to be very organised to live in the van, everything has its place and there is no waste and no rubbish, we can’t accumulate more that we can carry so have few unnecessary possessions, for example as soon as a book is read it’s offloaded to the nearest reader and replaced with a new one. Even walking around the shops isn’t so bad anymore as you know that you can’t have more than you can carry so new clothes replace old ones and old ones are given away and anything new has to be travel sized. Money is precious and each purchase is thought about, if we treat ourselves to a meal then we know we will be drinking tap water. If we want a milkshake we know we will have to forego the cookie, it’s a good lesson for us all, not just for Sam.

It has also been great spending all this time with Sam. It’s true you can learn a lot from kids and I realise how good he is at living in the moment and not worrying about the past or the future. It’s also great that people we meet along the way come up and tell me what a lovely boy he is. For example a family on the campsite all came to me individually and said how lovely he was with the younger kids, organising them and looking after them, making sure they didn’t get hurt. At the Maori meal the family next to us said how great he was as he offered to make everyone a cup of tea after the food. He also has such a good way with adults, asking questions and taking an interest in their lives. Very proud! He is also a pain in the arse and a stroppy teenager so let’s not get too carried away and still a bit of a tyrant!

And speaking of tyrants then there’s Will. Will is loving the trip and I don’t think he wants to glimpse the finishing post, he is loving surfing, meeting people and living in the van!! He is our driver, wheel fixer and cheif looker afterer and is generally very happy so long as there is surf around. I think one of the hardest things about travelling as a couple is that when you are pissed off with each other there is nowhere to go – I can’t sit in my friends house and cry and he can’t go and knock down a wall but together we have managed to create enough space to go off in our own strops and then come back together once the storm has passed.

So there you have it, 6 months in and we’re still rolling along, sometimes more jolting along actually but for the most part it’s pretty smooth... that said there is a bit of jolting going on in the front right now as Will and Sam do maths which can go either way, some days it’s all laughter and others days there is definitely NO laughter (it’s like that today)!!!! So I’m off for a walk on hot water beach... have a great day y’all.