Changing of The Seasons

Like a flickering light switch, the days pass switching between short cold and warm spells. The muggy warm days signify Spring is here while Winter lets us know that it's not yet gone with it's cold snaps. While the last couple months have been busy adjusting to life in New Zealand, I have still found time to take some photos. As always, there will be more to come.

Anticipation

Van Life

Weathered

Wild

Larry, an entrepreneur and extensive world traveler has been living in his van the last three years

Ominous mornings in Raglan

Van with a View

Three Maori And A Californian: A Heist Into My Own Van

With the sudden realization of what just happened, my heart sinks. Pressing my face to the van window like a child at the aquarium, I stare at the car keys just out of reach. In disbelief, I pat my pockets as if the keys would magically appear in my pocket.

Van Build

Luckily I'm at my friend Ruth's house in Auckland. However we are supposed to catch a ferry to Waiheke Island in a couple hours. Calling a locksmith, I'm told it will cost me $200 to call someone out. Determined to do it myself, I grab a couple items around the house to attempt a break in - a wire clothing hanger, a butcher's knife, and a bamboo pole.

Uncurling the hanger, I make a hook at one end and proceed to slide it into the door panel. Surgically moving the hook around, I fish for the door latch. No luck. Grabbing the butcher's knife, I slip it into the door jam and pry the corner open like someone shucking an oyster. Sliding the bamboo pole in, I aim for the electronic door lock.

Raglan Sunset

In the upscale suburb of Ponsonby where BMWs park on the curb, I wonder what the neighbors are thinking. How long will it be before an officer gets a call reporting a break in? A jogger runs by and slows down eyeing me suspiciously.

Getting frustrated the next door Maori neighbor named Jay sees me struggling. Coming over with a tool box, he looks at the van emblem and says to me, "A Toyota? What year is it?"

"1994," I tell him.

Taking the coat hanger out of my hands he tells me, "this should be pretty easy, older Toyotas are easy to break into."

Repeating the procedure I just did, he fishes around with the coat hanger with no luck.

"Hold on, let my grab my cuz in the house."

A few minutes later Jay returns with a big Maori guy named Kahi.  Kahi smiling from ear to ear wears a rugby jersey and could be a linebacker to an American football team. Bringing his own coat hanger, he unfurls it and begins fishing around the door panel expertly. I can tell Kahi has done this before. Catching something in the door panel, the door handle moves to our surprise. Jiggling the coat hanger around it slips loose and the elated and hopeful feeling disappears.

Kahi begins to explain to me how to pop out the rear window. Getting to work, I take a flat head screwdriver I begin removing the seal off the window.

Another Maori guy I've seen hang out on their deck who tends to be more elusive comes down with a key ring full of keys and begins trying all of the doors. Setting back to work, the van rocks back and forth on it's wheels as three Maori guys and a Californian attempt different break in methods to my van. Surely someone has called the police now.

With no luck, Kahi grabs a crow bar and begins prying open the driver door and small blue paint flakes begin to fall onto the ground from the pressure. Jay grabbing the bamboo pole begins sliding it towards the lock. With a hanger I guide the bamboo towards the electronic lock. Approaching the lock slowly like NASA docking a shuttle on the space station; as a team we successfully hit the lock. Hearing the doors unlatch we laugh and high five each other.

Trying to hand them fifty dollars for their time, they refuse to accept it and head back into their house. Asking them why they won't accept it, they tell me, "don't worry about it, you are the one traveling and needs to save their money."

Smiling and thanking them, I hope I can return the favor to someone else one day. Grabbing my keys I quickly finish packing and make it to the ferry just in time.

The Waiheke Standard

Mexican Food Finally 

Waiheke Views 

Van Life Treating Us Well

A Frosty Raglan Morning

Cloud waterfalls

With the winter solstice having come and gone, the days feel short as the sun still never really overcomes the morning chill. As the first light appears on the western coast of New Zealand, a thick layer of frost creates a glowing snowflake pattern as the light passes through the van windows. My face peering out of my sleeping bag like an owl in a tree, I couldn’t be bothered to leave the comfort of my bed. Bundled in my sleeping bag with thermals, a sweater, jacket, down jacket, and a comforter across me I couldn’t say that I was too hot or too cold.

Frosty

Opening the van door, the morning chill rushed into the van causing me to shiver. Stepping outside, a thick layer of frost remains elusive in the shadows across the hilly landscape. Picking up my wetsuit slung over wire fence, it was stiff from the frost subtly hinting that I wasn’t surfing this morning.

“Guess I’m not that hardcore of a surfer,” I tell myself.

These are some photos from the last little while chasing swells and getting lost on country roads during the month of June.

Winter fruit

Fix a flat - broke down somewhere 

Morning cuppa

The cleanest lines

Van life

Perfection

Back Into Winter

The soft winter sun sends a soft orange glow through the bedroom window. The light warps through the sagging single pane window as it surrenders to time. Mummified in my sleeping bag, I watch the steam gently roll off my breath as I exhale. Shivering, I feel the heat draining from my body as the thirty degree Fahrenheit bag tries to stave off the cold. Staring up, the chipped white paint hangs from the ceiling reminiscent of the rundown apartments I lived in during college.

Tea and music

Treasures

Refusing to battle the cold any longer I slide out of my sleeping bag and bundle up in long underwear and a snowboarding jacket. Making my way to the kitchen the other housemates are bundled up and shivering around the dining table. With the tea kettle beginning to boil, I eagerly stare imagining the hot liquid just minutes away warming my body.

"It doesn't even feel like it gets this cold in Norway. And the houses definitely don't get this cold inside," says the Norwegian exchange student.

My Kiwi friend Ruth says, "We've definitely adapted to the English way. Most houses here don't have insulation or heating inside. On the South island my friend's shampoo bottles freeze..."

A Kiwi household with a touch of the USA

Ruth pouring the hot water into our tea cups, I watch as the English Breakfast seeps into the water. Three minutes in hot water - no more and no less with a splash of milk. Proper tea drinkers. The cup warming my hands and my body I take a sip. Watching the steam dissipate into the air, I'm thankful that the English introduced morning tea to New Zealand. It's a life saver.

Working on art

 

Views from Waiheke island

Overnight secondary wash

Little gremlin

It's a real thing on Waiheke

Auckland the City of Sails