friendly guys, those new zealanders

"BANG!"
the family's campervan hits a blue car in a narrow street in wellington. there's lots of cheering because because everyone is outside waiting for a domestic fire to get extinguished across the street. tom was trying to find a parking spot and still is but can't find one and moves further and further away from the place of the accident.
two streets further, there's a car with the lights flashing and the horn hunking behind them. it's the same blue car!
tom pulls over and sends laurian out to appease as much as she can with her charm. she gestures to tom to get out after he parks.
laurian convinces the middle aged guy that she and tom weren't going to hit and run, now the guy orders them to take a look at the damage on, as it turned out, his right mirror.
"see, here it is.", he says, "now if we put a bit of spit on it, you can hardly see it." he spits on his finger, professionally rubs over the damage and hardly visible it is.
he: "now, since you ran into me, i can tell you you have to go to this place called pohara and takaka on the south island because they are the most beautiful places for you to visit."
tom and laurian: "we just came from there!" it's the place where tom's relative mieke is living. "we've now just started exploring the north island".
he: "oh, wait a sec. got a map?"
the next fifteen minutes the guy points out all the great places to see on the north island. laurian offers him dutch speculaasjes that she bought in the supermarket on the south island and in the end tom and he hug to say good bye as if they're best friends.

friendly guys, those new zealanders.


still notes from the south island 1: after the whales in kaikoura, the most beautiful spot to stay in - so far - was white's bay. a campground by a very small bay (the one with the mussels) and a very friendly ranger who was totally fine that the campingfee wasn't paid yet trough self registration by the time he came by to check.

still notes from the south island 2: laurian had her birthday on wednesday the 28th, the day before the cooke strait crossing. on jan's recommendation the next spot was a beautiful one at a sound of the marlborough sounds. the weather was cold but sunny and mette had the time of her life by chasing weka's who she called kiwibirds/kiwivogels. they looked like kiwi's but the difference is that weka's come out during the day and try to steal anything off of you. the ranger, ross, said that just last month one ran off with someones cell phone!
ross was a part-time ranger who stayed at the site for two months per year and he checks if everything is going ok. last week, for instance, he reprimanded a guy who was urinating in the wild right by his camper van because it's illegal in new zealand. that guy happened to have been tom's brother jan.
the morning of laurians birthday, while laurian slept in as a birthday present, mette and tom crossed a pass by bike and came into a beautiful cove, called punga cove, which had a resort that got mainly supplied - both goods wise as people wise - by boat and some customers by foot on the queen charlotte track. their restaurant was great and had a beautiful balcony so laurian got treated for her birthday lunch. appart from the fact that mette threw a whole bowl of salad dressing over herself, the lunch was quite festive.
on her birthday morning laurian got woken up by mette singing happy birthday (mette follows up with: "dear james [her friend from hong kong] and mette and mommy") and at the breakfast she had a happy birthday letters across the camper van, cake with candles from the picton dutch bakkerij and a few small presents.
the camp site had no coverage so at night - daytime in holland - tom and laurian pretended to call eachother wishing her a happy birthday.

still notes from the south island 3: forgotten earlier about pohara and about animals. the family went on a daytrip to the aotea lodge in the abel tasman park. on the way back there was a seal colony and, in shallow water, two stingrays! it turned out that mieke's daughter abbey knew the girl who had just last week gotten stung by the beach in pohara. she actually got rushed away by a helicopter and was fortunately all right the next day. abbey knew what helps best against a stingray sting. peeing on it! no jan, apparently that's not a legal offence in new zealand.