Road Trip!

Our summer holiday this year is a road trip around the South Island. This was all arranged before the earthquake in November and the subsequent closing of one of the two roads south to Christchurch.

The large earthquake caused multiple landslides and damage to the SH1 that is the main route south from Picton to Christchurch via Kaikoura. Its a stunning route and eventually it will be re-opened but currently only half the road is open. The section south from Kaikoura.

This meant that our trip south to Christchurch had to be re-routed via the inland route through the mountains and Lewis Pass. This is a spectacular route but wow it is long!


We got off the ferry at Picton at around noon and didn't arrive in Christchurch until 7.30 in the evening. This is an area with amazing scenery and fun to drive (especially if you select the right accompanying sound track!) but not easy. The roads are winding in places and there are quite a few one land bridges to cross.

As this in now the only road south all the tourist traffic and freight is diverted on this route and so the traffic is reasonably heavy. At least by New Zealand terms. This meant we occasionally got stuck in a line of five cars attempting to pass a big lorry. You also have to be wary of the odd hire car driven by tourists who are clearly not used to driving on the left. We met a car on a bridge about to cross the centre line to our side of the road and a tourist on the ferry terrified the car behind by dramatically shifting into reverse rather than drive! We also met a scary Japanese couple in a rental weaving all over the road clearly trying to interpret the signage and figure our where to go.

All the cafes and little shops on this route are now a little overwhelmed with the amount to passing trade they are now dealing with. I imaging their trade has more than doubled since the November earthquake and some of them are struggling to cope with the tired and starving tourists that suddenly arrive.

The opportunities to stop on this route are also rather rarer than on other roads and we found ourselves contemplating at one point whether to stop and pee behind a tree. My youngest refused to do this so thankfully some enterprising land owner had hastily set up a burger van and long drop toilet on one section of the road and so we thankfully took advantage.

It was a fun but exhausting journey and when we finally reached Christchurch I was extremely grateful that our chosen Bach was absolutely beautiful and rather luxurious!

Christmas and family

Christmas is always exhausting!

I think its something do with the fact that Christmas in New Zealand is during the summer and is also the time when everyone has their summer holiday. So there is no respite in the middle of winter, you pin all of your hopes for a decent holiday and celebration on the summer months. At least in the UK you have Christmas and summer holidays six months apart. So holidays and celebrations are spread more evenly throughout the year.

I'm not complaining really. I think we are just really tired this year. Or at least I am trying to make excuses for the fact I fell asleep for two hours after Christmas dinner this year! It clearly has nothing to do with age :)

We are all really excited as my sister is coming over to visit from the UK. She has never been to New Zealand before and I have not seen her for over four years. The girls have reached a fever pitch of excitement. My sister is their very cool Aunty, so much cooler than their Mum could ever be!

One of the things I have noticed about being an expat is that visits from family are really important. I find myself driving around our local town planning the sights I want to take her to visit and things I want to show her while she's over here. I have been doing that ever since we moved here eight years ago.  Silly things like wanting to sit in the corner cafe drinking coffee after the dog walk so that she can experience the atmosphere. Or taking her to the supermarket so that she can see that the assistants actually pack our shopping away here and there are no queues for checkouts! I'm not sure these are the things she'll want to see, but these are some of the things I guess I weirdly value. 

I find you just want to almost justify why you have moved so far away and desperately need your visitors to appreciate why you decided to move to the otherside of the world. 

Its probably partly guilt. I often feel guilty for being able to live in such a beautiful part of the world and so when people come and visit I need them to appreciate why we made the  decision to abandon our family and and relocate such a long distance away.

Also probably part of me is hoping that they may decide to join us!

After all who wouldn't want to spend Christmas eve paddling on the beach!

Citizenship

About a month ago now the Brunt family officially became citizens of New Zealand.

This was a very big deal for me and I just felt that I should make a record of it on here. We have always intended on staying in New Zealand permanently (a decision made about a month after we first arrived sitting on a bench in Butterfly Creek in Eastbourne looking over Wellington harbour) and eventually becoming citizens.

We were prompted into it by the Brexit vote in the UK earlier this year. As a family we had lived in Brussels for just under two years and we had always felt like Europeans, embracing the many benefits that being part of Europe brought with it. However after the shock result and all the vitriol and lies that the Government and a large percentage of the British press seemed to be spreading we began to feel more and more remote from our British heritage. I was ashamed to be British!

So the day after the Brexit vote we filled in all the papers, paid the fees and put in our application to become proper Kiwis. As we already had permanent residency this was not really a difficult task and the Department of Internal Affairs are very helpful. You can make an appointment to go there for an interview and they process and check all the paperwork in front of you.

About 6 months later we were invited to attend the citizenship ceremony. You have to declare your loyalty to the Queen and receive your certificates from the Mayor before you are officially declared citizens.

The ceremony itself was lovely and a very uplifting and positive experience. The city we live in is very multicultural and there were people from all around the world getting their citizenship at the same time as us. Some of the accents we spotted whilst they read the oath were American, Spanish, Malaysian, British, Samoan and Scandinavian. The section that almost moved me to tears (I am a bit of a soppy old thing at times) was when the Mayor declared that his city was proud of its multicultural heritage and that we should not forget our original culture or traditions but they should be blended and shared with the rest of the population. If only every country was as accepting as this.

I really wanted to know what everyones story was and how and why the ended up moving to New Zealand and settling in our little city. I was particularly interested to find out why the chap who appeared to be a Tibetan Monk has decided to move to New Zealand but his grasp of English was faltering so I was not brave enough to approach him.

The ceremony ends with everyone singing the national anthem and you are presented with a native tree to plant. Since we live in the middle of a native forest we were obviously grateful, but did wonder where we would find the space to plant it. In the end we invited some friends round for a celebration of our citizenship and a ceremonial planting in the back garden.

I did ask the kids to do a haka as we planted it, however they ended up doing the macarana instead!