Exploring the Land of the Long White Cloud

Today I had my third encounter with crime on my mail route. Not a personal encounter, no danger or anything like that but still rather unsettling stuff. I crossed through to 92 A Ave and saw a portion of the block was taped off with yellow Police-Line-Do-Not-Cross tape. I don't think I've ever seen that tape in real life and not counting all the fake Halloween types. There was a cluster of people and a police car within the tape's boundaries but my loop took me in the other direction first. So I rubbernecked as I moved down the street and when I came back up I was on the side with the tape on it but still not close enough to ask any of the police what was going on. A few houses up the block, the homeowner (whom I met the previous day as he told me stories of his 35 years delivering mail in Fiji) opened the door as I got to the top step so I asked him. He said the police knocked on his door that morning to ask if he had heard anything over night because a body was found ...

Well it already feels like 2012 is older than just 6 days. Neither of us took extra time off over Christmas so maybe it just feels like we haven't taken a break. But our mindset is somewhat set on our plans for March so we didn't really consider taking extra days off, I mean we had a 4 day weekend and then a 3 day weekend so that was a good deal. I think we underestimated though all of our plans over the last couple months and they left us kind of drained. Theresa was in town over the holidays and it was funny because she asked what we've been up to and we were kind of stumped and it became apparent that we seem to have two modes: work, and travel. Now Dustin's headed out of town during the week to work in Logan Lake. They are building something for the mine up there. So I'm solo on weekdays now. But that's ok, it just encourages me to work on projects or be more social! We spent New year's with a handful of close friends which is exactly what we like to d...

Slightly overdue update but also timed just perfectly. Today I received an unusual email from Immigration New Zealand. It simply advised me that my immigration status has been updated. Since we hadn't applied online this time, I was expecting to hear back from our contact with the agency we applied through, not with an automated email. However, what better way to find out we've been approved than following a link and trying to remember a long unused username and password (only used a few times back in May 2010...) and getting it on the first try? Sure is a good thing that we had a bottle of bubbles in the fridge to give this moment proper pomp. (Sorry Brian and Crystal, we'll get another bottle for you! haha) So yes, the officially official news is that on March 18th, 2012, we depart this soul-sucking city for greener pastures once again. We'll then have 12 whole months to make arrangements to get longer working visas so that we can live peacefully among the kiwis. It...

Here we are back in Surrey. We got in Tuesday in the early afternoon after about 26.5 hours of travel. I think we're just starting to feel like we're onto a normal schedule! We didn't feel the jet lag on the last trip but this time we did a bit more. We departed Melbourne on Tuesday the 26th at 9:30am and arrived in Vancouver at 1pm on the 26th. After we left Phillip Island, we had a day of driving ahead of us. First stop was heading to the city to drop off the surf board. It took a couple hours to get up there and then we continued through to Torquay but hit some big traffic jams. So that was another couple hours. We found a Mexican place for lunch and the Dustin was on the hunt for some flip flops as he lost a couple pairs along the way. There are a few good outlet shops in Torquay so we checked them out. Turns out the surf comp had a lay day for the men and the women were out but there was only a short time left for the day so we didn't end up heading right down to...

Apr 21/11 7:21pm Dustin went for what will very likely be the last surf of the trip today. We're down in Phillip Island and although the wind was a bit rough, he went out anyways. At least we had some sunshine too. After leaving Denmark we got into Albany and stayed there for a couple nights. I liked Denmark better but Albany was still on the to-do list. Unfortunately the surf there was not working when we got in and Dustin booked in with a surf coach for the next day but the conditions weren't too great then either. But was it good for him to get out and pick up a few pointers on his technique. While he did that I went to the farmer's market which wasn't very big and then walked around waiting for the shops to open up. We had to get the van back in by 3pm on Monday and Albany is a 4.5 hour drive to Perth so we decided to leave Sunday and take it leisurely rather than have to be on a schedule on Monday. Turns out there's pretty much nothing worth seeing in betwe...

Apr 13/11 8:28pm We are in chilly Denmark today. Probably not the Denmark you know and love but a city of a few thousand on the southwestern corner of Australia. But the good news is that just a few campsites away from us are about 11 kangaroos grazing on the lawn. They are such fascinating creatures and it's too bad it took this long to spot some! We saw a few just before we got dinner going and then when we returned to the van they were almost right beside it but slowly moved further as we made more noise. We ventured into a town called Augusta yesterday, hoping for some surf and maybe a dolphin sighting. But the only water the surfboard has seen is more rain and we didn't see a dolphin but did see some stingrays and octopus from the edge of the river. Unfortunately we are finding the holiday parks to be well below the New Zealand standards we're used to. Finally tonight though they have an enclosed kitchen area which includes a fridge/freezer (the van comes with a mi...

Apr 11/11 9:05pm This is night number three inside a van. We picked up our hire after a lovely breakfast out with Theresa and Mick. They took us to a place in the Swan Valley in Perth. We all had eggs benedict or a variation thereof. We got repacked and sorted out by around noon or so and then headed south. We stopped for a sausage sizzle and then continued on. We got into a place called Bunbury to do some grocery shopping and then figured we had time to get in another 50kms or so before sunset. (They advise you don't drive after dusk here in case you hit a kangaroo. This is serious as we know of people who have hired cars and hit one and boy does it get expensive after that. So all the tourist info you pick up mentions not driving at night.) We spent the first night in a place called Busselton. The holiday park office had closed but she thought we were her other pre-booked late arrival so opened up for us. It was only shortly after 6pm. We were able to check in and cooked up som...