Days off are a blessing, and with Christmas around the corner, the mind never seems to rest. Lying in bed this morning, I picked up my phone and scrolled through the various facebook notifications, and a whatsapp message from an old friend popped up. He is imminently moving to NZ, and asked me how I was enjoying it. I lay in bed thinking about how it was when we first got here, our first experiences.
I came over with my two youngest children, who were 10 and 13, and my mother. The plan was, we would stay with my mothers cousin and his wife in Auckland for the first few weeks, until I finished my 6 week nursing programme, (known as a CAP), which enabled me to register as a nurse in New Zealand. I was lucky to have my mom with me, because I didn't know her cousin too well.
I bought a car, a Nissan stationwagon, within 2 days of being in the country, because my course started that next day, and I had to drive into Auckland city for it every day.
My mother 'home schooled' the girls for that period, while I completed the programme,
After 6 weeks, I can safely say, cabin fever was at an all time high, and we were ready to move on. But my mother had to go back to South Africa in a less than 2 weeks, and I still had to find a job!
Luckily we had another relative in NZ, down in New Plymouth, and we decided to go and see her before mom left. I would start looking for work there.
We had bought bicycles while at my uncles place, and other things, from the second hand shops that are so tempting to buy from, because they're so cheap! So my stationwagon was jam packed with our worldly possessions, and bicycles on a bike rack that I had purchased second hand for $70. I remember feeling the pinch with that bike rack, soo expensive! And it didn't have any grip padding on the holds, so the bikes moved so much. I had to use sanitary pads to make the grips firmer, that was all we had in the car at the time that was suitable :) It worked well.
We stopped off at Rotorua for a night, and stayed at a really cool backpackers, all sharing a room. It was groovy, and a new, fun experience. Our car was a real eyesore, stuff everywhere!
The drive to New Plymouth was an adventure, we asked directions from a truck driver, and he showed us towards the freeway known as The Forgotten Highway. Something we only realised too late.
This was really scenically beautiful, and so awesome in some parts that you felt you were driving in heaven maybe.
Yet, it felt like we were also in an Indiana Jones movie. The roads are a bit like a rollercoaster, one 'saddle' after another. Up and over the saddle, and down into the valley, and again... and again. Six times in all I think. Two lanes suddenly become one lane!
Signs appear suddenly, " FALLOUT AHEAD", what's that, we wondered. When all of a sudden half the road was missing, literally fallen down the cliff!
"WASHOUT AHEAD", huh?? OH SHUCKS, a huge pile of rocks in the road, quickly veer right!
After a few hours of this, your nerves are shot. And then you see a mountain in front of you, with a tiny little one-laned arched tunnel going through it. Pitch black inside. No way to tell what could be coming around the corner from the other side. I just stopped the car. I stopped the car, and told my mother to please drive. It really felt never ending. The journey, the unexpected obstructions.
"Just turn your headlights on and drive" said mom. And so I did, and we got through and out, and vowed never again!
We arrived at a town called Whangamomena. It had a hotel, and maybe a trading store. But really, it was from another era. Perhaps we had gone through a wormhole during the trip?
New Zealand is full of strange and quirky places, where you often have to pinch yourself to see if you are in fact awake. This was one of those times.
Curious, we stopped, and looked around. We had a cup of tea in the hotel, and soaked in this experience. How did we get here again? What an adventure!
7 hours or so after leaving Rotorua, we arrived at my Aunties house in New Plymouth. We literally fell out of the car.
We enjoyed her and her husbands kind hospitality for 5 weeks, because once I got a job offer, which was very soon after arriving, I then had to apply for a work visa, and this took 4 weeks! Mom had gone back to South Africa, content, knowing I had a job offer, and would be allowed to start work as soon as my work visa had kicked in.
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