Not driving on the right side of the road

For a couple of weeks now, the blog is going to be in English, as an ever changing postcard to all the awesome people on Søren Larsen. Soon there will also be a little something here about Windy II, my new ship in Malaysia. To the great joy of all readers, I now have a camera again (thanx dad!). This time it is waterproof and shockproof so I hope it will last a little longer than my old one did. I have only used it for three days but it has already been in melee with both fresh water, saltwater and beer.

The last few days of refit were hectic. I had committed to finish off the jobs I had started, and I did. More or less. Among other things, the new panel outside Botany Bay is in place – thanks for the help Boris, and the rotten cap rail, stanchion and davit supports have been replaced – thanks for the help Rusty! Wednesday one week ago was my last day at work and we finished it off with the mother of all vodka-spank a butt parties around a bonfire down at the “beach”. I left early the next day. Not. Tried but couldn’t. Let us not get into detail but eventually I got on the bus to Auckland, a sad good bye from all the people I have met onboard.

Friday evening and a big part of Saturday was spent in Auckland taking care of a bunch of boring necessities of life, washing clothes, sending stuff to Sweden to avoid overweight on the flight, etc. I finally got on my plane to Wellington on Saturday afternoon. Wellington – “Windy Welly”. My favorite town in the antipodes so far! Not that I have seen very many towns here, and not that I stayed very long in Welly, but anyway. I’ll definitely put it high up on my list, somewhere near Amsterdam, Visby and Kyoto. I met a laid back and relaxed, yet creative and vibrant atmosphere. The city is located on the very southern tip of the North Island of New Zealand, on the shore of Cook Strait and more or less on the latitude of the dreaded Roaring Forties. It is surrounded by hills, mountains and sea. The scenery is stunningly beautiful; of course, this is after all New Zealand. My guide to the place was Laura, who sailed with us on one of the six-day trips earlier during the season. We visited a viewpoint outside the city, looked at the works of a local sculpture artist, tried delicious mussels at a beach café, visited the Te Papa museum, had super yummy Mexican food at a place on famous Cuba Street and ate experimental sushi at a really cool little Japanese restaurant. We also tried eating ice cream in a roaring forties gale. It is summer still, it had to be done. The Te Papa Museum is something like a national museum of New Zealand. They had a fascinating exhibition of whale skeletons and a very famous conserved squid. It was only a couple of meters long thou. (Jarren, was it you who said it was basically as big as blue whale?). Also at the Te Papa Museum right now is an exhibition of Monet paintings and other impressionist art. It was fantastic to see the works of one of my absolute favorite artists, the ever so cheesy, ever so genius Claude M.

I grabbed a Monday afternoon ferry across Cook Strait, from Wellington to Picton. My first impression of the South Island from the boat was dreamlike. High mountain peaks levitating over clouds in a far distance, pale and unreal. After disembarking in Picton, I proceeded to rent a car for the daring expedition into the terra incognita of the South Island. “Budget” was the key word at the stalls of the rental companies, and the vessel with which I ended up was quite a character. Unruly and unbalanced, with a rubbery bungee-cord type of response to the helm. One moment, she tries to luff, hard like a brigantine with oversized mainsail, and in the next second she bears away and is about to broach straight down the roadside bushes. But she carries me where I want to go and I love her.



The last thing I did before leaving Welly was to buy a memory card for my new camera. Unfortunately it did not take the same type of card as my old one. So the pictures from this trip starts on the road from Picton to Nelson. I left Picton early evening and arrived in Nelson a little after sunset. It is interesting in this country how large the distances are, and how long it takes to drive them on small, winding mountain roads. It was just a few centimeters on the map for fcku’s sake, how can it take a couple of hours? I drove past vineyards and hills and up into a mountain range. It seems that this Island is very sparsely, but also pretty evenly populated. It has a nice mix of scenic wilderness and pastoral countryside charm. The sun had already set when I reached the highest part of the road over the mountains. As the valley opened in front of the car, I drove out of the hillside forest and the landscape was clearly visible in the lingering light. Open farmlands, a big bay stretching in from the sea, blue hills and mountains far away, and a new moon hovering over it all. It was so beautiful I almost thought someone was joking with me.



In Nelson, I hooked up with Amy, our ex-cook from Søren Larsen. She helped me finding a hostel, the Paradiso. Perfect for anyone who likes parties, pools and spas. We spent a couple of hours playing cards and drinking local beer until we more or less passed out somewhere round midnight. The local beer by the way, it is definitely worth a few words. It is served at a place called the Rigger’s, just a couple of blocks from Paradiso and it is ahh-maaazing. It is just an ordinary house in the middle of a suburb in a town that is really way too small to have suburbs. Closes 10 pm seven days a week. They make a bunch of different beers, pilseners, bitters, pale ale, doppelbock, porters, seasonal beer, stout, etc, etc. You can try it all in a small glass before you decide what to drink and you can also buy it in a two-liter plastic bottle to bring home. I ended up drinking bitter and a doppelbock, plus bringing a bottle of the seasonal hop flower lager home. In a puddle of which my new camera was swimming when I woke up early the next morning.