Happy Easter from NZ!           

As we drive through the Southern Alps, looking more at the spectacular surrounds and doing less, a snapshot of our life on the road has been swirling in my head .    

Some random memories I'd like to keep:

• We have booked one-way tickets. Admittedly, we did secure the last points-based ticket we could find to return home in May, but we have always considered that an "if it works out, we’ll take it" option. This bit us when we departed Hawaii, as New Zealand will not let you on a plane without a ticket out of the country.      We awkwardly were moved aside and given a phone with a direct line to NZ Air central where bought two tickets out, on a random date to a random place – the type that we can change when we are ready to leave New Zealand.
  
  
• Our rental car is 15 years old, has lots of dents, scratches, and non-mechanical pieces missing (like part of the bumper).      The passenger window doesn’t go down now and when it rains there’s a good-sized puddle in the trunk.   We’ve all bonded.  
  
  
• We self-cater a lot.     Our mobile fridge is a small cooler pack.     Each night we freeze a 4x6x2” block of ice, and each morning we return the milk, butter, salad dressing, yoghurt and other small perishables back into the pack for the day’s travels.      The full-sized cooler I figured we’d buy has never been needed.
  
  
• We also have our mobile “pantry” in the boot of the car – a canvas bag we picked up at a Salvation Army store, in which we keep our coffee, bread, saran, twist ties, soup, eggs, peanut butter, a few Robertson jam jars of herbs and such.      With the pantry and the freezer pack, and a constant inventory of fruit and veg from markets and grocery stores, we have self-catered likely 2/3 of our meals.     Picnics are fun, even if on the hood of the car…hobs (hot plates) at our domiciles make us happy. 
  
  
• Marty put us on to NZ meat pies – they are hot at every gas station and some upscale ones (still less than $5) are found at food stores.    Only later did he tell us they may contribute to weight gain.       Still, they have been handy on occasions when rations were low, stores few or when we needed a change from our go-to menus.  
  
• Speaking of accommodation, most of our spots have been found through Airbnb.      Our long-time go-to site of VBRO just redirects New Zealand travellers to a bach site (bookabach, bachrentals, etc.).   These guys do the same thing as VBRO and Airbnb, but charge a cleaning fee and a management fee on top of your nightly charge – for some places the on-top fees exceeded $60/night.      Locals use these sites all the time – not us.
  
  
• Airbnb puts you in people’s homes or bach units in their backyards.      You live in local neighbourhoods with locals and each one has a personality of its own.      Each time you draw closer to a place, it is like reading tea leaves – your sensory skills are heightened to gauge the area, the location, the feel for the place.     Some are incredibly inviting, some have you walking up the stairs with some trepidation.    All have been meticulously clean and better than their profile.      Great experiences so far.
  
  
• One particular locale I'll not forget.     Promoted as a “Retreat”, a half hour away from the nearest mountain village, the pictures were charming and appealing.     No hob, no microwave, nor bbq, but as not a lot of options were in the area, we booked.     As we drove through the nearest town on our map, then on for half an hour, we passed through the smallest hamlet not on the map, and kept driving.   Started heading up a mountain, with foliage reducing to a sort of rainforest version of tundra.       We’re told we’d find blue flags to mark the driveway, where we turn into a little used car-trail with two carefully laid narrow gravel tracks.       The spidey senses are on max alert.   This is unusual.    A small sign about half a km in designates guest parking.   The overgrown tiny walking trail uphill into the rainforest leads us to a shack.     I go very quiet; John finds some useful epithets. Otherwise, neither of us is speaking.     Thankfully, that is merely a shed and a short distance afterward is a most charming hillside rainforest retreat.   Our host is a tiny cheerful woman, with large open eyes and a train engineer’s cap – she is holding snippers that she is using to cut back the endless overgrowth in the path, while she leads us to our home for a few nights, her pride and joy.   Magical to me; something John has yet to find the words for.    Possums jump on our deck and roof and night – and stare into our windows as our flashlight shines out at them.
  
   The mental trail for this one was so sharp for each of us as we moved farther from our comfort zones.   I laughed uncontrollably at our reactions for a good while after we were left alone.     Truth is, I think we actually go through this process as we approach each new hosted accommodation, but aren’t so acutely aware of it as we were this round.
  
  
• We plan a few nights in advance.      This allowed us to move on nimbly (though with a good measure of disappointment when Cyclone Pam closed the two best snorkelling marine sites in New Zealand for five days) – and now on the South Island, as we are in the middle of a weeklong forecast of heavy rain, we can skip a few stops that need some view plane to appreciate and move to next stops easily.
  
  
  • The downside is that we hit Easter weekend without any accommodation booked and a “no vacancy” response from the many places we tried.      As my friend Betsy said, the no-room-at-the-inn theme is usually for another holiday, but perhaps everything south of the equator is upside down.
    
    
  • We ended up paying a premium and had a luxurious roof over our head.       I rather liked the notion of sleeping in the car.
    
    
• Under the “stuff happens” category, I lost my wallet a couple weeks ago in Rotorua.      Fullpoints to both our banks who cancelled the cards immediately, gave me an alternate way to access our accounts on line, and offered to mail a replacement card to me.      As we don’t know where we will be, I haven’t availed myself of this service, but was impressed it was available.     
  
• Laundry here is a dream – laundromats are easily found, some hosts allow use their facilities, some even had laundry in their units.

Onward!    At t his point we figure we'll be one more week in NZ and then on to Australia.    Perhaps we should consider booking a ticket?