Our last week in New Zealand!

We got back from Samoa in the small hours of a Tuesday morning and so missed the Team Latte paddle that morning, but we did make breakfast with the group before going into the Backpackers Car Market once more. It was time to sell our van. We had put it on a website, Trade Me, before going to Samoa but nothing had come of that. We booked the van in for the following Friday morning, as the market was quite busy at the time. While we were in town we took a look at the other vehicles on sale there and were amazed at the prices. Having seen that we quickly decided to up our asking price a bit!

That night we went to Greg’s house for a barbeque and met his new housemates – two German girls and one Irish guy. The three Irish started talking to each other so quickly Greg was left smiling in the corner for a while, not having a clue what we were saying to each other. I think we haven’t lost our accents at all!

On Friday morning we brought our scrubbed up van to the Backpackers Car Market again, arriving about 10am. By noon several people had looked at it and one couple sent it for a mechanical check. At 4pm the results were in and they agreed to buy it. Easy!


Selling the van so easily meant we were free to go to Taupo on Saturday without any worries. Ron and Carolanne were kind enough to lend us their spare car so we drove down and found everyone in the back garden around the hangi. A hangi is the traditional Maori way of cooking and the lads in Taupo had decided to try doing one specially for our going away party.

Here’s my simple explanation of a hangi: first you dig a big hole, light a big fire in it and heat stones (or in this case some big lumps of steel) on top. When the fire has died down and the stones are hot you put the food on top of them, wrapped in tin foil and sacking. The food is then buried in the soil you dug out of the hole and left smoking for the afternoon. This was the guys’ first attempt at it and there wasn’t a bit of Maori blood in any of them, so they were pretty pleased when it all turned out to be edible and quite nicely cooked. It was a great way to finish up our time in Taupo and we’re really grateful to all at 16 Rahui Street for having put that effort in and hosting a great party.





A few more Irish friends (Barry, Eibhlin and AnneMarie) were in Taupo that weekend too, so we met up with them and they were able to come to the party so it was a great weekend.

When we got back up to Auckland we had to pack up the two polo boats that we were shipping home, along with all the things we’d decided to put in them (which turned out to be quite a lot). Thankfully everything fitted and we were just about able to carry the package out to the truck that picked them up. Then we squeezed our remaining things into a bag for the trip home.

On our second last night in New Zealand we had a big Oosterdijk family dinner with Mammy and Daddy, Dave and Nic, Uncle Steve and Auntie Pauline and Uncle Denis and Auntie Anita. The following morning we made it out for our last Team Latte paddle and breakfast. That night, after dinner with Ron and Carolanne, we went to Andy’s house for the night as it’s near the airport.

Waiting for our taxi the next morning we saw a white rabbit hopping up the street, strange! After a bit of re-arranging of our luggage at the airport to meet the weight restrictions, we were off to Australia to start the trip home.