Tiffany and Greg Around the World
Helensville, NZ
Despite rumors to the contrary, there’s a lot more out in the farms of New Zealand than Kiwis, possums and sheep:
Sometimes things fall into place and life moves on when we’re least expecting it. After about a month our battles with taxation came to an abrupt and, if annoying, at least vindicating conclusion, we got a job offer in Australia and received an invite for one last Kiwi adventure from an unexpected source.
The sailing life leads to odd relationships. Not odd in the quality but more in the means employed in establishing and growing those interpersonal connections: the happenstance, randomness and good fortune involved in who we even have the opportunity to connect with.
Some fellow sailors are friends for a meal or a few days in one port, remembered fondly but as fate and diverging cruising plans would have it, never to be rendezvoused with again.
Other people are friends for a longer time. Perhaps an overlapping prolonged stay in a Mexican port or a shared long-term rally provide ample opportunity to get to know each other over a longer period of time. The cruiser’s net, dinners aboard and joint shore excursions are the fabric with which we begin to weave our social tapestry. Radio comms and emails (yeah, you can get those via satellite uplink or over a HAM radio now…) allow us to fill in the gaps when we are mutually underway while Facebook and blogs can keep us connected while we’re in different ports.
In our case, there are those people who ask us onboard their vessels for anywhere from a few days to a few months. For that time we become roommates in a home that none of us can leave. Typically we share meals, time, adventures and our lives for however long we’re onboard. We, to a varying degree, become family. These people are, for the time we’re connected to them, a huge part of our world. Often we leave as good friends.
The downside to our situation is that, unlike most cruisers, we are unable to extend our time in places to form a relationship if our captain decides that they wish to depart. Friendships are created and maintained by a mixture of fortunate run-ins and dedicated effort placed into correspondence.
What we’re saying here is that interpersonal proximity is a variable, sometimes an obstacle and always a consideration in the formation and maintenance of friendships at sea.
Then there’s the case of Rod & Elisabeth.
Estimates vary widely but everyone seems to think there are AT LEAST seven invaders for every man, woman and child of this nation. Yes, that would be a force 30 million strong and growing by the day.
Not happy to simply live here in a land known for its beauty and kind hearted peoples, these soulless devils are pillaging the land and actually killing the natives in their own homes. Likely, at this very moment a mother is watching powerlessly as her innocent offspring is ruthlessly murdered by this merciless horde.
We are speaking, of course, of possums. Evil, dirty, disease-ridden, kiwi-killing possums.
Continue reading “Kiwi Killers”
We have found in life there are people who have learned to be good at something and possess “skill” (feel free to add the “z” as necessary) and people who have innate ability, which we’ll call “talent.” While talent does provide an edge to those with the good fortune to posses it, skill ultimately trumps it in the long run, which is why even the natural talents still need to practice. Sometimes though, an undeveloped latent talent doesn’t fade, or is discovered later in life and it provides us with potential insight into ourselves and our choices. “What if,” this talent, imbedded in our very beings, asks, “what if instead of taking the road you took, you had developed me instead?”
We bring this up because Greg is convinced he married a repressed sheep-whisperer…
Helensville, NZ
In case you hadn’t noticed yet, we LOVE Bacon!!
We know, you probably never would have guessed that we were vegetarians for 4 years because we talk about bacon so much. But bacon is just one of those things that you must make an exception for (ok, and sushi…and BACON SUSHI! Crispy, salty, greasy yumminess – that’s what it’s all about! All Americans understand what bacon is, even though we tend to have some differences in our personal preferences. Most people like the straight up, traditional bacon – thinly sliced strips of smoked pig with a roughly 50/50 ratio of fat to meat. Some people like it extra crispy, some like it almost raw. Now, there are some variations on this theme – apple wood smoked, thick sliced, turkey bacon, vegetarian bacon – you name it, we’ve got It. Or so we thought.
Continue reading “Only one thing smells like bacon and that’s BACON!!!”
Tiffany:
So it’s that time again for Greg to take the mic for his birthday message:
Greg:
2 years ago today I wrote you from a remote island in the middle of French Polynesia in between diving lessons.
Last year my birthday found us still in the Pacific, but at least now having sailed on to a different island and learning to surf.
Even now both Tiffany and I find ourselves looking at maps of the world attempting to wrap our minds around some of the things we’ve done. Did we really sail to Tahiti? Did I actually have a role in sci-fi movie? Have we really created almost 200 integrated video blog posts? Seriously, we managed to find wine made from bananas? We can play Jingle Bells on the ukulele? And did it took us 20 minutes of bashing a coconut before we realized the machete was dull?
Did I actually convince my wife that creating from scratch and wearing a genuine coconut bikini was:
1) Something worth doing and
2) Important to document videographically?
This picture encapsulates awesome.
Odd as it sounds, even to us now, the answer to those questions and so many other amazing adventures is “Yes.”
As we’ve told a few of you the good news is that we are now and at this very moment on our way home.
As we’ve previously noticed, the lines between rural and urban New Zealand are quite blurred. Sheep can be found in the middle of their largest city, and when we tell New Zealanders that we lived in Helensville for a few weeks they said,
“Oh, that’s in Auckland”.
Which it’s not. It’s about an hour drive north of Auckland into the boonies. Helensville is a small town (by American standards) complete with a large showground for showing off their various equestrian and agricultural skills. (Ok, we admit that San Francisco has the Cow Palace, but let me tell you it’s not the same thing.) When you see people riding their horses FROM THEIR FARM and your water supply comes from the rain on your roof, then there’s just no way that you can consider it to be urban. Continue reading “Living in Rural New Zealand”
With Greg’s mom’s departure came the next phase of our adventure. And, like every other part of this journey, it was not what we expected.
This time was different though because the surprise was not a good one. What this entry should have been about were the chronicles of us finding and holding a job in New Zealand for a few months, meeting Kiwis and basically enjoying ourselves.
As we’ve already mentioned, there is a ton of amazing food in this country. European food, Asian food, and of course all types of seafood. One of the local specialties is the New Zealand Green Lipped Mussels. We found a place downtown called Squid Row where we could get a kilo of these awesome things for NZD$21. If you see them, you should try some. They’re great!
Also, remember the Sky Tower? Well if you want to have the highest tea in the southern hemisphere (because, remember, we judge things that way apparently) they put on a pretty good spread.
Looking out over Auckland Bay towards Mount Rangitoto.
We don’t do this very often, but there are a number of pictures that we’ve taken around Auckland that just don’t have much of a story to them, but are still pretty cool. Here they are for your viewing pleasure!
