Leaving New Zealand

Driver’s license in New Zealand

25 August 2006 Foreigners are allowed to continue to use their original driver’s license up to 1 year after arriving in New Zealand. Then they need to get a New Zealand driver’s license. Because New Zealanders drives in the left lane, most tourists and newcomers better would be forced to take driver’s lessons immediately on …

Cars are human

3 December 2005 While I’m painting, Frank is busy trying to get the cars on license. It seems like we are the first people in New Zealand ever, who have imported something this strange. One of our cars never has had a Dutch license. We never started that process in the Netherlands, after we imported …

Household goods

31 October 2005 Friday the sea container with household goods was put in our street by a swing lift. That’s a truck with 2 huge claws on board, resembling giant spider legs. To prevent the trees to be damaged, the container was placed at the beginning of our dead-end street about 70 meters from the …

Sea container arrival

26 October 2005 The past two days were devoted to the car container. Which was of course much more important than the furniture container. Yes, we do miss the washing machine, all my pretty clothes and my art materials, but my nightmare is, that the cars are left unguarded too long and take up too …

Car seats in the living room

23 October 2005 We still have no chairs, but today Frank got the bright idea to take out the 5th and 6th car seat. A relief, because I’m already a bit of an hunchback and without proper chairs it got worse. It is almost cozy now; seated in front of the warm fireplace, with the …

Small talk and hot pools

21 October 2005 During the wait for the sea container -doomed to be bored to death- our favourite thing to do has become shopping. Every day we allow ourselves to buy 1 something, because that is our only amusement when the sun is not shining. If the sun does shine, of course we do exhaustive …

Harvesting vegetables

10 October 2005 We have been back to Auckland because HURRAY, Pini had accomplished her prescribed 30-day quarantine!!! We checked in at the counter with $ 1,000 ransom. The lady at the desk was relieved to see us, because they had been expecting us last Saturday … (what??? I’m quite sure I can count to …

European style

4 October 2005 Yesterday I moved the bed to the dining area, where also is located the phone wall plug. Now we can use internet in bed (remember; we are writing 2005 😉 ). But a more important reason is, now the bed was further away from that scary lamp. But this night I saw …

Back to Auckland

1 October 2005 I had a quite sleepless night. The pillows were too flat and the house creaked. The house is made of wood and when the temperature changes at night the wood moves and creates very loud sounds. Also every 10 seconds the lamp above our bed in the living room made a very …

First day in the green house

30 September 2005 The cheap motel is said goodbye and we have occupied the green house. The manager of the hotel shouted after Frank: “Don’t forget to come to the Topless Waitress Show next week!” Like agreed; on our first day the new bed is delivered. With exaggerated royal linen because in the next 4 …

Household appliances

29 September 2005 The neighbours in our hotel are laborers who are living somewhere rural in the country. Here, after work, they drink away their evenings in the hotel bar. Last night I was suddenly awakened by a noise, followed by the light turned on in our adjoining front room. I hammered on Frank’s head, …

Arranging connection to daily life

28 September 2005 Last week Frank has found coins on the street for already 4 times! He is thinking about to becoming a professional money sweeper. By contrast; to get our money out of the ATM is rather tough though. Our new credit card, which we temporarily have entrusted our entire earthly possessions, suddenly pretends …

Viewing the rental house

26 September 2005 Fortunately, today everyone is back to work and we can continue our live too. The morning we spent again in various stores. At the outside of Whakatane we found some furniture stores, car dealers and giant stores with clothes and household stuff. It is all much larger than I thought. But for …

Exploring the supermarket

25 September 2005 After two weeks of living on fast food it starts to turn us off. Our truckers room contains a kitchenette with a few tiny tin pans and a kind of single-person gourmet set. So Saturday afternoon we are doing some regular shoppings at the ‘New World’, a huge supermarket. It takes quite …

A list with rentals and a tire blowout

24 September 2005 On Friday, just before closing time, we could pick up a list of rental houses at the real estate agency, so we have a job to do this weekend. Of course we couldn’t wait until the next morning and immediately went to see the outside of the leading contender. It’s located on …

Arriving in Whakatane

23 September 2005 Because our car was not ready in the morning, we had some room to visit Pini a third time, before we would leave to Whakatane. As a surprise, we brought a beautiful cardboard box with us. And a t-shirt from Frank’s own travel collection for an essential home-smell. With one of those …

Quality time with Pini

21 September 2005 Yesterday we went by train to another suburb, called Penrose. We planned to buy a second-hand car from one of the dozens car shops over there. We wanted to check them all and then make a well-advised a mature choice. But … soon we made up all kind of reasons why it …

Cat in quarantine

19 September 2005 After leaving the Netherlands and before arriving in New Zealand, we spent 1 week in Disney World, like a kind of stop-over. The flight from Orlando to Auckland took 17 hours. I think this is the longest flight possible. Near Auckland the lightning hit the plane. Yes really! It was an enormous …

Two American cars shipped overseas

8 September 2005 After the traffic jam debacle of yesterday, we decided we better should leave home to drive to the harbour at 6:30 AM. But before that, we had to call the quarantine cattery in Auckland in the middle of the night. The time difference is 12 hours, so we put the alarm clock …