MURPHY'S LAW

After living with the Murphy’s for few days we were happy to notice that this time our WWOOFing work would not consist solely on “girly” stuff. We were actually allowed and required to do some very small scale cow herding, heavy lifting and wood splitting.

One of Miia’s proudest moments was when we finished a new henhouse for the few chickens of the family. The other heart-warming though slightly exciting thing for our adorable “city Miia” was to actually go and collect eggs for our lunch from the current hen house.

http://youtu.be/Hz7ps8Nrr6M

However, after these few exciting escapades Miia and myself got used to this comfy “country” life. Especially to the lovely, creamy milk in your afternoon coffee, in your morning muesli, in our host's self-made yoghurt or just in a glass with our lunch. The animals of the family followed our work on the paddocks and the garden relentlessly and Lotta could not but help to take few pictures of the creatures that by just spending their casual, animal lives made our days so much lovelier. Even the jobs done around the premises felt homey and after cleaning already clean toilets in Queenstown, all the work we did felt a bit more meaningful.

 

We did get a glimpse of Christchurch while we still had the car during our first week at the Murphy’s and the experience was both revealing and slightly depressing. As few of our friends probably noted from our social media posts (Facebook, Instagram and what not) neither of us had fully understood the gravity of the earthquake of 2011 which destroyed 2/3 of the city. We decided to take part to this 50minute tour around the red zone by Hasselfree tours to educate ourselves. The tour opened our eyes to the sheer magnitude of the consequences and made us realize that even though the quake claimed only 185 lives it will affect to the city’s population, infrastructure and economics for decades to come.

After the windy day in town we were happy drive home to our cozy little hut. We had noticed that the nights were getting colder and sure enough after few mornings of warm sunshine there was a slight frost on the lawn. As weird as it might sound it actually made us feel more at home.

But like all good things our time under the Murphy’s law came to end as we headed towards the capitol where we would stay for few days before travelling up to Hamilton and our next “home”.


With Love Miia & Lotta 

DETOUR

Everybody who has ever driven anywhere they haven’t driven before knows the certain sensation of insecureness that may overwhelm the driver. To avoid this unpleasant emotion we decided that Miia, who simply cannot trust any driver except herself would do the driving while Lotta who knows how to read a local road map (at least most of the time) would do directing of the driver. Just in case, while we were still in the Franz Josef’s, Miia decided to check the route from the internet and write the directions to our next host in Rangiora to a city we had no map of. And so came the rainy Sunday morning when we started our trusty sidekick and headed towards Rangiora through the misty mountains. 

The weather did not this time favor our trip but it was with a relief we noted that the closer we got to Christchurch the better the weather seem to get. However, our fearless adventurers had miscalculated the amount of diminishing daylight and found themselves in Rangiora just before dusk. As I already mentioned we did not have any map of the city but my astute trust to our fearless driver’s direction I was sure we would get to our next accommodation before dark. And we probably would have without a slight detour we took as my fearless driver started questioning her own mind, sense of direction, google maps and her own HANDWRITTEN directions. The result was somewhat…interesting…

http://youtu.be/d5E8M-Or1Q8

Nevertheless this early evening excitement ended up well as we found the correct  route to Loburn simply by following  Miia’s written instructions. As we arrived to our next host, the Murphy’s, we were welcomed by whole party of people. Our becoming neighbors had decided to come and help Dan, our host, whose wife had left him and their two children for a week to go cooking course in Vietnam to prepare an astounding Sunday barbeque. Even though the house was teeming with children under the age of 13 (very untypical environment for us both) the evening felt very welcoming and for us travellers nice and homey.

  

We learned that Dan and Anne are both owners and at the managing level in the company called Hiking NewZealand, they have two wonderful children Liam and Eva and a German intern also called Eva living with them for few months. They have chicken, five horses, two cows and a dog called Fern. This lovely family welcomed us with open arms to live in a small hut at the edge of their premises, equipped with small fireplace and to help them to prepare their home for the winter to come. 

  

With Love Miia & Lotta

ROADTRIP SPECIAL

Coming soon...maybe...

GOODBYE WITH A VIEW

After three weeks in lovely Queenstown it came time to say goodbye to this marvelous town; bittersweet moment, but we were eager to get our trusted sidekick on the road and test our roadtripping-skills during a six-hour-drive up the scenic west coast of NZ. In order to make our last day count, we geared up and headed towards Bob’s Peak. Rising 1,748 m (that is 5,735 ft for you metrically challenged folk) above sea level and 450 meters above Queenstown and lake Wakatipu, it was –literally, the best place to get one last glimpse of the majestic town. 

The view on top was even more breathtaking that either of us could have imagined, and well worth the 1-hour hike along Tiki Trail (which by the way ended up being a harsh reminder of the lack of our aerobic stamina. Check out the video below for proof:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqQ16TMWFXk&feature=youtu.be

Extreme Hobbit

With Love Miia & Lotta 

FEW DAYS IN THE SUN

As we left behind the accommodation at Slope Hill we headed to our next destination and host at the Punatapu Lodge. Miia lost her heart to the place just driving up the lane and I have to admit than I also got a few goosebumps. 

   
The place is lovely and reminds us of an old Tuscan villa. Even though the place is closing up for the winter it’s not hard to imagine yourself having a cup of tea at the courtyard in lovely summer breeze. 

We ARE imagining it. We imagine it every morning as we slump to the summer kitchen where there is no kind heating at all. But what the place lacks in the heating it takes back in the warmth and hospitality of the owner and the beautiful autumn colors surrounding the beautiful property. 

Once again our supervisor is small and furry and cute. She’s called Polly and she guards us against cars, birds and especially leaves we are meant to rake. 

And rake we do or now did. So much that one day Miia came up with a catchy tune: “Rake rake rake, Rake rake rake, Rake those leaves up…”.

Unfortunately our short time in the sunny and cozy Punatapu Lodge came to and end rather quickly. Come to Thursday we packed our trusty sidekick Nisse, said goodbye to our wonderful host Sue (and Polly) and Queenstown and started our adventure towards Franz-Josef’s Glacier. 

With Love Miia & Lotta 

STILL SWINGING

Because our mother’s day would not have been possible without certain people we wanted to create this post to salute all of them and to show you, our dear readers that a person can truly beat their fears in this case it was Miia and her fear of hights. From this achievement we both want to thank of course our mums (<3) but also the crew at Shotover Canyon Swing; Cam-our fearless driver, leader and instructor, Doug- the jump dude, who did amazing job of making us relax, laugh and with Cam fall, the French dude whose name we have forgotten but who loved our hugs and of course lovely Bridget who helped us booking this awesome jump and donated all the footage seen in these swinging posts. You were AWESOME! 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zw3aRDE9upU 

With Love Miia & Lotta

SOMETHING CRAZY AND HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY!

You know the feeling you get when you invent a perfect idea for a present? Good! We don’t, not when it concerns a gift for a mom on mother’s day and especially when you are half-a-world away. Surprisingly we invented something better; an experience our moms would never get anywhere else. They say picture is worth a thousand words, so therefore a video is worth a thousand pictures... So here’s to our dear moms; THANK YOU for raising us to be brave (and sometimes downright crazy) and letting us try out our own wings <3

Video: Mother's Day Special 
 

With Love Miia & Lotta

PROGRESS

 

After a long radio silence post of today concerns mostly the progress we have made in these past few weeks we have stayed in Queenstown. Don’t get me wrong we still wake up every morning opening the thick curtains in our room just to gaze the incredible scenery like two drugged lamas gazing a bale and yes we still amaze the sunrises, the sheep, driving on the left side of the road, the smell of the air and the endless amount of leaves falling from the trees.

However, we still have made some progress in some areas of our life. Firstly, even though everything is still awesome we miss people back home; our family, friends and even dogs and cats. This has caused Lotta, a total anti-smart-phone-person to remove certain apps from her phone just to be able to acquire WhatsApp and eat a whole hamburger size of her head. Miia, on the other hand, a total anti-swim-person, jumped to a freezing cold river, floated through few small rapids’ and actually enjoyed it. So yes, this place truly makes people do crazy things :P

Secondly, we have almost finished the first part of our data collecting process related to our thesis. And so far it hasn’t felt like work at all. Ok so we’ve had to wake up at six o’clock almost every morning, drive to town, search a parking lot from a busy city center and after waiting for few hours drive out from the city to get about 50 seconds of interviews. But then again what could be more perfect place to do it? The people of the first company, Queenstown Rafting, have been so obliging and helpful not to mention their great sense of humor. And like the icing on the cake they offered us a rafting trip for free! So on Saturday we jumped to a raft filled with teenage boys and an awesome maori guide and cruise down the Shotover River. And it was definitely a river worth of experiencing <3

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvLkY_qLF_Y

The third measurement of our progress is both positive and negative at the same time. The time in our current accommodation at the lovely milieu of Slope Hill is coming to an end on Saturday. However it’s also exiting as we are going to transfer ourselves to the other side of the city, into a whole new family for a one more week before leaving this dreamy city. There are just some things you have to do before you are ready (if you’re ever going to be ready) to leave Queenstown… 

With Love Miia & Lotta