Tag: engels

Yup, you are reading this correctly: we took a trip to Mexico! 🙂

After being in Yellowknife for just over a week, our Yellowknife friends Robyn and Travis asked us if we felt like going with them on a last-minute red tage sale trip to Mexico during March break. We hesitated for approximately half an hour and then decided we should just go for it. Why not? When do you get the chance to go to Mexico (especially if you’re from the Netherlands) with your friends on a 3-day notice for a very good deal?! The only ‘downside’ was the fact that we would be flying from Grande Prairie (approx. 15 hours drive from Yellowknife), but Travis offered to drive the whole way, and we actually enjoyed this bonus-roadtrip through the Territories and Alberta very much! Needless to say we had a blast in Mexico as well! Such a relaxing holiday-in-a-holiday 🙂 We tried to make a good selection of our pictures. There’s quite a few here, but it gives you an idea of the resort we all stayed in, the city of Puerto Vallarta, and the boat trip (only Bas and I) did while we were there.

From January 11 to March 5, we were back in our home country The Netherlands. It was a very busy and hectic time for us, but also a good few months with lots of fun stuff going on. Judith had to do a lot of work for several of her clients; we sorted, threw out, sold, gave away and packed up all of our stuff, making sure our house was empty but for one room where we are now storing the things we want to keep (all packed up in moving boxes); we prepared ourselves for our trip to Canada, while getting used to not being in New Zealand anymore; and of course we tried to meet with all of our family and friends again. We didn’t take many pictures, but I just sorted out the once we took and created this little blog about it. It’s kind of a mish-mash of pictures. They often include (good) food, as that is one of our favourite hobbies to share with like-minded friends (and times we actually think of taking pictures).

Now that we’re finished with our Summer holiday pictures, I have sorted the pictures of our next (and final) New Zealand trip. We spent December 29-January 2nd in the good company of our friends Aaron and Val. They had gone camping at Christmas and we joined them to spend New Year’s on the beach as well. Fun times in the beautiful Coromandel. Enjoy the pictures:

It’s been a while since we posted our last New Zealand update… We left New Zealand almost 2 months ago after an amazing year (and it’s only 2 weeks till we leave the Netherlands again, on our way back to Canada… but that’s another story!). So, I think it is about time for an update on what’s going on in our lives and to show you some pictures of our last few weeks in NZ.

Bas’ last school day was on December 12th. We left Auckland on the 13th of December for a 2 week trip to the Southern part of the South Island. This was our itinerary:

After our Summer Holiday – the last few weeks in NZ
We got back in Auckland on the 28th. After unpacking our stuff, we packed again for a few days camping with Aaron and Val, in the Coromandel. We had a wonderful time together and we enjoyed a memorable New Year’s celebration! (on the beach!!). We also went to White Island (an active volcano!) with them, before heading back to Auckland on January 2nd. After that, we had a few days to pack and sort our stuff. Fortunately we had been able to find a South African family who were moving to New Zealand for a year and who wanted to buy all of our stuff (furniture etc) and even including our car! So, we spent our final weekend in Auckland moving our stuff to their place. They were very kind and let us stay the last few nights of our time in NZ at their place (in our own bed). Quite an amazing arrangement! The last night, we spent with Marten and Mirjam, Dutch friends who we also met at the very beginning of our NZ year. We didn’t fly till 11.30pm on January 9, so we decided to spend the day with Marten and their children on the beach (and it was the warmest day of the whole year that we were there, +38 Celsius!) Such a fun way to end our year, before heading to the snow back in the Netherlands!

Back in the Netherlands – for a little while
So, at the moment we are back here in the Netherlands. We are spending those two months travelling all over the Netherlands seeing lots of family and friends, and cleaning out and packing up our stuff in our home in Groningen (where a friend of us is living at the moment). Meanwhile, I (Judith) have a lot of work to do for Talaria’s clients as well. No wonder we haven’t really been able to update as soon as we would have liked! Anyway, we have 2 more weeks left in the Netherlands before we head off again, on our next trip. As we have said before (see blog on future plans) we missed Yellowknife and Bas will try to find a job and land a permit during the 4 months that we are there. I think the biggest adjustment may well be the weather: It’s not as cold here in the Netherlands as it will be in Yellowknife…, but of course much colder than sunny and summery New Zealand was!

Picture time
I will try and post more pictures (still almost 1700 to sort out…) soon! But here you can already find some pictures of the first few days of our Summer Holiday on the South Island.

1) Christchurch

2) Akaroa (daytrip from Christchurch)

3) The drive to and our stay in Arthur’s Pass

4) The drive to Franz Josef and a glimpse of the Franz Josef Glacier

Before we head off on another trip to the South Island tomorrow, we still owe you pictures of our trip to Tiritiri Matangi Island. We tried to go there on December 2nd, but due to stormy weather, the trip was cancelled. Since we were in the area (about an hour drive from where we live) anyway, we decided to take the opportunity to walk around in Shakespear Regional Park, which was just around the corner from where the boat departed. So, the first pictures you’ll see below are from Shakespear.

We tried Tiritiri Matangi Island again on Saturday December 8th, and this time the weather was perfect. The guided walk on the island was awesome. Our guide took his time and we spent approx. 3 hours walking around, (trying to) spot birds and getting to know more about the bird sanctuary island. It was difficult to take pictures of the birds, so you’ll see more photos of views and so on, but they are worth looking at nevertheless! 🙂

After our last blog update about our future plans, it’s not like we’ve been just waiting around till we can get out of New Zealand! No, on the contrary! We are trying to make the most of our time here in this beautiful country and we are making a lot of beautiful (day) trips. I’ll be posting a few blogs this week with pictures of the things we did over the last couple of weekends.

First of all: Rangitoto!

A few weeks ago we were supposed to go skiing with the Science department (Bas’ colleagues) for the weekend, but unfortunately the mountain had just closed on the previous Monday, partly due to the wonderful summery weather. So, we decided to take a day trip to Rangitoto Island instead with our friends Aaron (Bas’ colleague) and Val (his wife). Rangitoto is a volcanic island just off the coast of Auckland. It is a very young island, formed only about 500-600 years ago and pretty spectacular! Such a very different landscape, so close to where we live! We hiked for a couple of hours around the island and up to the summit. The views were stunning.

Since we took the early-bird ferry (at 7 am!) we took the 1pm ferry back to town and still had a few hours in the afternoon to relax before heading out to Linda and Neil’s place. Linda is Bas’ head of department and they had offered to host a BBQ for the science teachers. It was a beautiful warm evening and we sat outside on their porch till past 10pm, enjoying delicious food!

Have a look at the pictures to get an idea of what Rangitoto looks like and what fun we had that day!