We are back in Auckland for the third, but probably not the last time. We have officially moved out of Hawke's Bay which I'm ecstatic about. Five months of my one-year-visa were spent in the bay... Fuck, time is going by so quickly. Like I said last week, there's so much to talk about, I'm not sure where to even begin. I guess I'll try to go chronologically.
So for the three weeks that Josh was with me in Hastings, we were staying at the sickest AirBnb I've been in so far. We were paying $225 NZD a week (about $160 USD) to stay in a renovated 70s caravan. It was pitched up in the front-drive of a family's house that had been doing their own version of AirBnb-ing for over 5 years. It was such a cool experience living in it, that Josh and I looked into buying our own to take on the road. Unfortunately, it would have cost twice the budget we had set aside for a car, so that plan is on hold for now.
Ever since a few years ago when I found pictures of this school bus that an architecture masters student had renovated into a loft-on-wheels, I've dreamt of doing something similar. Josh and I want to eventually road trip the US and Canada, so maybe we'll start by converting a caravan since it'll need less work.
Anyways, yeah, we stayed in the little gypsy caravan while I was between jobs. The first week Josh got here, we didn't do shit. I definitely should have used that time to look for jobs, and Josh probably would have benefited out of using that week to work on his freelance. But, who gives a shit. We needed that week. Also, Josh's flights were waaaay rougher than mine. I think he spent a total of 36 hours travelling without the time-zone difference. He earned that week off, and I was happy to be lazy with him.
The second week though, I had no choice but to spend it applying to every singe job I could find in the North Island. If any of you guys ever decide to work and travel in New Zealand, BackpackerBoard will be your savior. It's a really useful website that has everything from job listings, to hostels, to tourist info.
We were also researching used cars on this app called TradeMe, which is like the eBay of New Zealand, but with a lot of extra features. It also has it's own Jobs page (I put a screenshot of the webpage but the mobile app interface is way better). Did you guys know that New Zealand was a protected economy? I read that it was on a few travel websites before I got here, but I had no idea what that meant. Basically, no Amazon or eBay. The NZ government decided that if Kiwis want to buy used things, they should buy them from other Kiwis. Which I guess is smart, but also a little restricting.
Josh and I got to experience that people here are significantly more honest and trustworthy when it comes to selling their used things. We were looking into buying a Land Rover from someone who listed it for only $1300. One of our live-out-of-a-car plans was to buy a 4x4 that we could off-road with, and get a roof-top tent to mount on it and sleep in. Those run for about $1000-1500, which added up perfectly since our budget was 3k. When we asked the seller why the car was listed so cheaply, he flat out told us that because of the way the suspension is set up, it drinks a full tank of gas in under 30 minutes. That broke Josh's heart, he had always wanted to own a Land Rover.
We weren't looking at a lot of campervans at this point. I figured our only option would have been to get a "microbus" van, like a Toyota Hiace. They're a lot bigger than minivans, which is important for two travelers - especially if one of them is 6'6". Sadly, most of these are manuals and I, an American, only know how to drive automatics... So we kept looking at 4x4-and-tent options. We found a $2500 Subaru Forester that would have put us a little over budget, but we were so desperate for a car that we were ready to get it. After a smooth test drive, we immediately wanted to get it checked by a mechanic to speed up the buying process.
The next day we were about to head the seller's house to take it to a mechanic. Right as we got out of the door of our caravan, we ran into a friend of our AirBnb host-family. She was an American woman named Tonya from North Dakota; she came to New Zealand six months ago with her two kids after her divorce. She was initially here on a tourist visa, but she and her kids loved the country so much, that she got a job in Hawke's Bay as a project manager. It just so happened that she had road-tripped the North Island with her son and daughter in a self-contained campervan. We began chatting with her and told her about our plans to get a roof-top tent, to which she kind of gave us a weird look. She said something along the lines of "Look, I'm not just saying this because I want to sell you guys my van, but don't get one of those tents while you're here in New Zealand." After questioning her a little bit, she told us she had the exact same plans as us initially. But after getting advice from a local, she was told that roof-mounted tents are probably the worst places to sleep during New Zealand rain storms. The wind alone could apparently blow the tent off of the car's roof-racks. While mulling this over, we got to the Subaru Forester seller's house to pick it up, and....the car didn't start. Josh and I took this as a sign, and gave Tonya a call to test drive her van. A few days later, we bought it.
Guys, it's my first time owning a car! The Honda Civic and Ford Taurus I had in Oklahoma were under my dad's name. So yeah, adulting. Can't wait to tell you more about Josh and I's hectic lives. The first week of September was not kind to us...but that's a story for another post.
Oh wait, my baby made a vlog channel! Check out Josh's journey at https://youtu.be/wVBtk5WZTlE
