Coromandel Peninsula

Hi friends!

After getting over our worst jet lag we did our first short trip – we borrowed a “bach” / beach house from our friends for some days and toured the Coromandel Peninsula. We found the roads to be good but tiny and very windy – enough windy for Emma to get motion sick, throw up and ask if they don’t have any big straight roads. The scenery is just beautiful, the valleys are deep and dense the mountains are steep and sometimes well cut as golf courses by the great masses of gracing cattle and sheep. The weather has some extreme changes, the nights are sometimes freezing cold, the days offer any thing from strong winds, rain and great warm weather.

The high lights from the Coromandel Peninsula was the beautiful beaches even if they were a bit to cold and windy to swim at. But then we visited the Hot Water Beach where you at low tide could dig wholes at the beach and thermal water surfaced so you could have warm baths at the beach. We also visited a farm beautiful set up in the mountains where Emma could feed the animals everything from rabbits, ducks and pigs to emus, donkeys and deer.

Emma is doing very well, she has learned a few words of English such as milk and she also found a bigger sister and role model in Nisha the 6 year old girl of the people we’re staying at. Emma want to play with her all the time, where a skirt when Nisha do so, eat the same food and sleep in her room at night. Emma still loves to go on swings and she have to try all the once we see. One of Emma’s favourite activities from home is to make necklaces and bracelets with string and beads. Now all three kids of the family are occupied doing this everyday.

Lina is also doing very well except for waking up just too many times at night… Lina is starting to experiment with her voice making all kind of different noices – the Darth Vader voice is one of her favourites. She still mostly do commando crawling but he first day arriving in New Zealand she just started to crawl some properly. Emil was a bit dizzy in the beginning. It might have been the jet lag but it could also be that Lina and Emil found the gravity to work a bit different here, not easy to be walking up side down – compared to Sweden – all the time…

We also went into Auckland the largest city in New Zealand. It’s a beautiful city very hilly like San Francisco due to all the old volcanoes which rises as green mountains throughout the city which also offers a great view.

That’s all for now folks. Next week we’ll be heading for something really warm and special. We’ll keep you posted.

Travel and touch down

We have now arrived in New Zealand after the some 32 h journey with car, train and three flights between Copenhagen, Frankfurt, Seoul and Auckland. We were a bit stressed only having 1h 20 min in Frankfurt and even more so when we got a bit delayed but after a bit of hurrying we had several minutes in spare. The kids were amazing during the flight doing quite a bit of sleep, which Hanna and I didn’t manage as well as them. Emma enjoyed the flying really well which means all the playing material they gave her, we could never get her interested in looking out the window even once. She also found the remote control to the media her own media centre at her chair fascinating where you both could have disco with the lights and get the attention of flight assistance several times.

After touch down and the meticulous bio check for the luggage we were greeted by our first family to visit (Mark) at the airport, a cold storm and horizontal rain. We are all doing well now after two days of recovering and trying to get used to the new time zone. Hanna is probably the most tired but that is also due to Lina still really doesn’t understand all the fuzz about New Zealand and are focusing on eating, crawling and sleeping but Swedish time works for her just as well, that’s why this post is written in the middle of the night watching over her. Emma didn’t understand the concept of time zones either so she didn’t want to go to sleep during the first day, so she fell asleep standing but then did her sleep record of 14 hours before we had to wake her up in the morning all happy now synced to NZ time. Mark and Rani with family are having two lambs, two pigs and some goats which are of great interest to Emma. It’s quite charming to wake up to the sound of lambs just outside the window.

We did our first drive yesterday. Emil did coop with the left traffic all right but the windshield got really really clean. Can’t understand why they had to switch place of the wiper and the direction signal.

The Rugby world cup just started here in New Zealand. It the national sport down here and most people are great fans of their national team the All Blacks. We’ll join in a Rugby night this evening as honorary All Blacks supporters. We just need a lesson first how this game is played though. I’ll then also have the opportunity to catch up with some other Kiwi friends from my middle East trip (Emily, Steve and Kelvin including our hosts Mark and Rani).

That’s all for now, Lina is sound asleep again so I should try to get some rest. Cheers mates!

New Zealand here we come – just one week left

Our family of four Emil, Hanna, Emma (3 years old) and Lina (6 months) are having the unique opportunity to spend half a year together and we’re enjoying family life. We have now decided to take a break from reality and travel down under to the land of Kiwis – New Zealand – for almost three months. This will be our family adventure traveling around at a slow child speed taking the time needed and doing things their way. We’ll be enjoying family life, company of old friends and one of the most astonishing sceneries of the world.

We’re lucky to have quite a few Kiwi friends which we’ll be visiting on our grand tour of New Zealand. We’re also lucky that the Kiwi’s are the most generous people you can find. It’ll be great fun to catch up with all you guys down under, which Emil learned to know at a longer trip through the Middle East (more about that trip at www.sarnstrand.com) – 12 years ago, time flies.

Now it’s only a week left and the countdown has started with some minor packing done. Emma is all excited about the plane flight itself and has made certain that they both have food and toilets on board. Hanna has been worrying about child food since “välling” a fluid porridge, seems to be unique for Sweden – Google translate told me the word was “gruel” in English which I never heard of. Emil has been worrying about how to get all electronic gear to work such as cameras, cell phones, bank access and blog – strange every device needs it own cable, looks like we’re having a back pack just full of cables, adapters and chargers. Lina is just doesn’t understand all the fuzz about the travel, and is concentrating on her food, sleep and learning to creep.

We haven’t done too much planning. The only things booked are a camper-van and a car for parts of the trip. We’ll be visiting some friends and plan to see both the north and the south island. Our itinerary and travel plans will develop along the way as we meet people and learn to know this beautiful country and people.

We’ll be back online once settled down somewhere in New Zealand, take care until then!