Traveling with my Dad

Kia ora everyone,

Another footprint that was long overdue. It's also gonna be one of the last ones from, and about good old Kiwi Land, I'm afraid. I wasn't able to get a work visa and thus am simply not allowed to stay here. It baffled me to be honest. It didn't seem actually possible to me, that I'd be leaving New Zealand after only one year. I was somehow certain that couldn't happen but here I am, adapting to a curveball once again.
I'm gonna miss New Zealand, and all those crazy Kiwis soso fucking much🥺!

Sooo, here's what happend the last few weeks and months:

Aaron let me tag along as he ran his hunting dogs, so we took his quad to a wide riverbed and sped over stones and pebbles, was so much fun! But it's me, so obviously I dropped my phone into the first puddle we drove through and only noticed it halfway back home😂 Due to my weird luck it is actually still working after lying in water for two hours but it had a phase where the screen was flickering and going really dark for about two weeks so I could only see something at night. So I bought a new phone and the day I wanted to start using it, miraculously my phone lit up and said 'NOOO! PAULA! IM STILL ALIVE, DON'T JUST CAST ME ASSIDE😩' and how could I not have listened to such a cry for help and attention? So I gave back the new phone and everything's working well now except for some flickers of the screen now and then. It's weird😂

I've bought the Van! Yes, it's an old car with its very own quirks and I've fallen in love with it really fast, nevermind that I'll have to give it up so soon again🙄. Whatever, gotta say living-in-van-vibe is still a whole lot different from living-in-car-vibe. How to describe it though? Is it understandable when I'm saying that living in a metal square is soooo different to living in a plastic oval? 😂😂
Well I'm not sure how to say it, it's not only that it has more space, is way brighter and I'm sleeping even higher up, it's also the drivers cabin, that's very different, with the motor under the seats and I don't even know! I'm living in metal now instead of plastic and it's really nice, period😂

Obviously I had the shitshitshitIveboughtanewcarslashhousewhatifitsahugemistakeaaaaaah-freakout but I've had that with the first car as well, I reckon it's normal.
Sooo after cleaning the car, making some adjustments, building a mini-wardrobe-shelf for on top of the cooker and somehow stuffing all my stuff in every corner possible, I said my goodbyes to Aaron and his family and set of to Christchurch to collect my dad from the airport.

After some long needed hugs and unbelieving looks, because how the hell was my dad here in New Zealand? we went to a lodge that he booked for a few days to get used to the timezone and being 20.000 kilometers away from home. During a visit to the local pak'n'SAVE supermarket my dad had his first jetleg breakdown nearly falling asleep hanging over the shopping cart. Afterwards he fell asleep in the car while guiding me through the city, phone still in hand, mouth wide open, after about a 3 second pause in our conversation. It looked so funny, wish I had a photo of that😪😁

The next days were a bit rainy so we just did a bit of sightseeing, visiting the botanic gardens, going to a cool food/specialities market decorated in Christmas style with Christmas songs playing. Kind of weird but as it seems is the winter here still connected to Christmas, even though it's August then.
We went on some minor walks along beaches (and a weird but cool cliff cove) and through forests, played some pool, and drove around Christchurch exploring a bit. And of course there were lots of coffee breaks in little cafes because I guess that's just what people do when they don't actually know what to do😜.

After those five days we decided to actually rent a bigger campervan so that we could travel around South Island without having to book a cabin every single day and to have a bit more freedom in general.
Finalizing the payments to rent the Van was muuuuch more complicated then necessary because, well duuuh, it's us😂 We had to pay a bond of three thousand dollars if we didn't take an insurance but my dad's credit card didn't work so after lots of contemplating, multiple calls and bank websites with really shitty service, we decided to just take the f*cking insurance in order to not having to pay the bond. It was super expensive, obviously, but done is done. Then we went to sort everything from my van in the other one and the next few problems arose. Because! The Car! Stank!!! Like sweet, sweet mould and it was disgusting. It stank out of the mattress like cushions and the cupboards and the seats but worst of all out of the fridge!
But what could we have done? We didn't have another place to stay and already booked and payed for it, so we just went with it. It honestly made me sick and gave me a headache but we pushed through and with lots of open doors and windows and mold spray, it got better and bearable over the next few weeks. Oh god, how I hate the smell of mold, especially at places where you want to get comfortable like seats or couches or your bed, uuuaaah🤢😷

So my dad and me went on a trip around the south of South Island, 4 and a half weeks, 3000 something kilometres along beaches, cliffs, grasslands, mountains, bush and tundra. It is so fascinating how quick the landscape changes in New Zealand, how diverse this country is. That's one of the things that my dad found most surprising and it is!
So what should I focus on... Explaining everything we saw would take ages.

There were the elephant rocks for example: Huge limestone rocks, I'd say up to 10 meters high, all round and soft looking, perfect to climb on and meditate over these kind of funny but still majestic and beautiful looking rock formations.

There were the moeraki bolders, pieces of some kind of crystal stone that were formed through the sea into the shape of, well, balls. Was crazy to look at. Some of them were broken and you could see the crystals inside, beautiful!

We played Frisbee-golf and saw a penguin on a jetty, putting up a show for us tourists. We went to see the crazyass-aquamarine-blue Lakes Tekapo and Pukaki during the day and the breathtakingly bright milkyway at night.

We ate manuka-hot-smoked-Salmon fresh from a Salmonfarm in the middle of nowhere.

We saw lots and lots and loooots of seals, like, EVERYWHERE. Lots of beautiful cliffs and waterfalls and wild and mystical looking forests. With moss growing on the ground, on the bark of the trees and on their branches. Thousands and thousands of majestic farn trees, with fan tails and Kererus swooping by.

We had very cold nights as we went up the western side of South Island. So when we were done with driving, arriving at the next camp - or freedom campsite, my Dad would cook dinner with me preparing the food. Then he would make tea and hot water bottles later and we would sit under our blankets, playing cards and eating cookies and yummy chocolate.

At a really cozy campsite in Manapouri by Doubtful Sounds, where we felt like we were in Sweden or Norway, we went to the churchbar and did a bit of stargazing while enjoying the hottub.

While driving we saw a sign for a former railway tunnel and we ended up recording a beautiful duet in that eerie underground walkway.

The drive, to and from Milford Sound was already spectacular but the Milford Sound itself blew my mind, and I know my Dad was impressed as well. We took a boat cruise through this Fjord, nearly all the way out to the Tasmanien Sea, with the Mountains rising straight and steep out of the Sea and hovering over us, with heights up to 1.700 metres.

We took a gondola in Qeenstown, up to the top of 'Bob´s Peak' and took some Luge rides on a three wheel card, a few hundred metres down the hill, with curves and humps and bumps and it was gooood fun. But dear old Daaaaad insisted it wouldnt be much fun which is why we only bought three rides for each of us although it would have been super cheap to buy more...pffff!

We saw Arrowtown and waded through two ihihihiiiice cold riverbeds to get to see the crystal clear blue pools in Makarora. And they werent just your normal-boring-water-blue... nooo, they had such an intense colour that you're just like whaaaat? someone must've f*cking fotoshoped that lol. But honestly it was so cold, I thought my feet were gonna freeze off.

We saw the incredible wild-wild-west-coast, that had cliffs raising high up out off the ozean with lots of rock formations in the sea like the famous pancake rocks in Punakaiki (which we visited twice because one time seeing this phenomena of nature is just not enough). I think Im gonna let the pictures try to explain this place because, well, it makes you wanna shut up and just let yourself be amazed.

Out of the distance we could see two glaciars (Franz Josef and Fox Glacier), saw some smaller towns but also drove dozens of kilometres a time without seeing any signs of civilisation, just bush and fields and wilderness.

At some point we decided to do a Tree-Top-Walk which had my old man real scared buuut I´m proud of him for actually doing it albeit his fear of heights. And being able to fully see through the metal framework under our feet and the whole thing shaking just a little bit in the wind, didn't really help either. But my father faced his fears once again and I was able to imagine how it would be to fly over the treetops so win-win I'd say.

We had a lovely day in Hokitika, talking to a seller of pieces of art from and around there, in one of the many craft and souvenir shops. She sold greenstone, Kaka's (a native parrot) made out of cutlery and other fascinating pieces out of driftwood and feathers and so on. We ate some good Thai food and later on I found a piece of greenstone on a beach myself and fell in love with it immediately.

Since we always followed the brown signs, which is a must if you travel New Zealand with a car - it's the 'come, look here, theres something really spectacular going on here' tourist sign. Well anyways, since we followed them nearly every time we ended up at a privately owned, former gold mine. The old man that inherited it from his family gave us a little tour and then we were able to follow the tunnels and rails into the bush and through little coves with a lot of entrances and exits that my dad wanted to turn into a house😆!
But the real attraction was the tunnel that was pitch black and let downdowndown until it split into one tunnel leading to the street and one further into the mine😱 you could literally see the glitter of the gold dust on the walls of the tunnel and there were these huge creatures on the walls that were kind of a mix between a spider and a cricket. Veeery weird. I think they were blind as well😂.
Oh oh oh and there were also glowworms! Soooo beautiful 🥺❤️ That was a veeery interesting experience. I first just went into the tunnel alone and without a lamp just closing my eyes and walking with one hand on the wall but I'm glad my dad came in with a lamp I really don't wanna know if these creatures bite... Or have grippers... Or if they sting? 😂

The last few days of our journey we spent crossing the Arthurs Pass to get from Greymouth back to Christchurch. Something my Dad was really intend on doing. I do admit I was quite scared our car wouldnt make it with the roads beeing so steep and windy. But it all worked out and we got to see some snow, and the mountains, and some cheeky Keas sitting on our car our trying to tear apart a fotographers car and shoes (very funny (and fascinating)).
But since we would have gotten back to boring Christchurch a bit early, my Dad wanted to go back to Arthurs Pass Village to spent one more day up there in the mountains.
The only thing was, that we had seen on some electronic info boards and in the weather forecast that it was supposed to snow and people were advised to not stay in the mountains unless they had snowchains, which we hadn't, of course.
But I was thrilled at the prospect of getting snowed in and my dad didn't think it would be that bad so we parked at a freedom campsite by a lake and then, oh what a wonder, thick snowflakes started snowing down on us in a little blizzard.
The next day we woke up to a beautiful, glistening and sparkling winter wonderland. We had a little snowball fight and sadly the snow started melting midday due to the strong New Zealand-Sunrays and so we made our way down to Christchurch once again.

We spent the last two days in a little cabin, wandering along the beach, wondering where the time went.

Saying goodbye at the airport was tough and emotional. Well he's my dad after all so obviously he was a bit annoying at times😝 while I was a ray of sunshine every single day😌😁 but we had a good time and I was just so glad he came to visit me on the other side of the world!

It changed me as well, I'm not exactly sure what part did exactly but after saying goodbye I felt different and I really realized it in the next couple of weeks how different I had become.

I stayed in New Brighton at a freedom campsite just next to the beach, went swimming in the hot pools a lot and tried planning what to do next and how to stay in New Zealand.
Unfortunately that didn't work out so instead I decided to go to Australia and I said goodbye to the idea of staying in New Zealand with a very heavy heart.

As I traveled up the east coast to get back to Raglan I met up with Aaron and his family again, and we went up to Kaikoura together and visited an oldtimer fair. Was lovely seeing that family again, they really do have a special place in my heart<3.

Arriving in Wellington I got in contact with Nele again to ask her if we should meet up before I left and funnily enough it was her birthday in two days and she was gonna throw a big party the next day.
She really outdid herself with that one. She rented out a luxury house overlooking a huge bay and green hills and she bought lots and lots of good food and snacks and breakfast and it really was a feast. Some guys showed me how to slack-line and I actually did well for my first time. It was such a great evening with awesome people, I loved it! And I was so surprised with myself because I was actually able to feel less anxious, talk to everyone and let loose even though they were all strangers to me except for nele. That's a huge improvement for me!

It's kind of like I'm less anxious and I feel less bad in general but I also don't feel happiness as intense anymore. Maybe I just left the rest of puberty behind me, maybe it's something else. I'm not sure yet if I am really happy about the change in my emotions and my feelings, not sure if feeling more numb and neutral is better then the ups and downs. But I'm glad about my change of emotions in contact with new people, it's horrible always feeling tense and constricted when you talk to strangers.

So long...

P.S.: This time most of the pictures are gonna be my dad ones, made with an actual camera and also picked out by him, so get ready for better quality, yay😁

P.P.S: So I just posted this now after writing it 8 months ago, since my dad hasnt really gotten all of the fotos together yet, ill just put most of them in at a later point lol.Read more