Typical moving in day...

Well technically we are now living in Badger, but it has been a typical moving in day series of fiascos and fuck ups. Originally told we would have everything handed over at 10 this morning, then it got pushed back to 4, and was actually 4:45 by the time we started the walk through. only then did we find out the new oven isn't even in yet, let alone fitted, the car tow plate isn't here yet, and most of the other problems haven't been fixed. Had to wait around while someone signed a piece of paper to say these were still outstanding so we could take it with some comeback, by which time it is getting dark so made them deliver it to the RV park 20 miles away and put it on the site as I wasn't willing to drive under those conditions. So, just as well we are staying locally for a while so they can try and get their shit together a second time.

Managed to go kitchen shopping at WalMart, target and Ikea so we could now cook and eat a meal - pans, plates, cutlery, etc. But no food yet. We can make black tea and coffee in the morning - we even managed to buy a kettle - but only have cereal bars.
still, after the way we have eaten for the past 11 days that is actually quite welcome

Oh well, off to make the bed and crawl into it for our first night chez badger

USA - Week 1 (and a bit)...

… and what a week its been. Here’s a brief overview…

Monday – after a long flight (about 12 hours) we landed about midday, picked up the hire car and checked into the motel. Mark has already commented on what we expected to see, i.e. chalked outlines of bodies on the carpet, but so far, it’s been ok. We then found a bank, opened accounts and got our debit cards the same day (Wells Fargo have been brilliant)

Tuesday – started looking at RVs and searching online for a vehicle to tow.

Wednesday – found an RV we liked and I started the haggling (sorry, negotiating process). At around 6pm, the saleswoman stated we were going for a test drive and got Mark into the driver’s seat. Poor bugger was still jet lagged with eyeballs hanging out on stalks, driving a 38 foot bus on the wrong side of the road, in rush hour with the daylight fading fast. He admitted later that he was crapping himself, and so was I, but the saleswoman didn't bat an eyelid. After a bit more negotiating, we settled on a price, put down a deposit and went back to the motel. By this time it was around 9pm.

Thursday - we went to a few car dealers and ended up 80 miles away looking at a Suzuki Grand Vitara which fitted the bill i.e. capable of being flat towed. I started the negotiating process (I’m quite good at that you might have gathered), settled on a price and put down a deposit. It was the only viable one in a 300 mile radius, so we got a good deal.

Friday – vehicles cannot be registered to hotels/motels (funnily enough), so we needed a post box. As we are not US citizens, we cannot have a normal post box so ended up renting the world’s most expensive post box (through UPS) who will then charge an arm and a leg to forward on any mail to whatever town we happen to be in at the time the post arrives (complicated), got insurance on both vehicles, and went back to the RV dealers and gave them the updated info.

Saturday – time to kick back and do tourist stuff. We went up into the Hollywood hills to Griffith Observatory, and these are the views we saw:

our car is parked down there somewhere

LA in the smog

Sunday – more tourist stuff, this time to Santa Monica beach and pier, and to Venice Beach (including the original Muscle Beach) and all the whacked out hippies. I had to get used to driving on the wrong side of the road for the first time – oh joy!

 Monday – time to pick up our car which meant I had to drive the hire car from the dealers back to the rental place at LA airport, 80 miles away, on a 12 lane Freeway with 6 lanes of traffic going in the same direction, very VERY fast, and overtaking on both sides. To top it all off, it started raining – sigh! We even bought a pair of walkie talkies in case I lost Mark in the traffic and took a wrong exit off the freeway. I’m glad to say I only got honked at once (for cutting up a truck) and I wasn't the nervous wreck I thought I was going to be at the end of it. And the walkie talkies will come in useful when Mark has to reverse the bus into a spot and can't see me at the back - I can yell at him to stop!

Today we did the Paramount Studios tour behind the scenes and saw the back lots, sets of New York streets and how the film makers stitch it all together to trick our brains into believing its all real.

 you can just see the Hollywood sign through the arch at the top of the building

 this is the Blue Sky Tank which fills with water - its not used as a car park at that point - and images of the sky, beach, etc. are projected onto the screen backdrop

 a typical New York street, complete with dummy metro

this view is often seen in movies as the Hollywood sign is visible in the background

We then walked down Hollywood Boulevard and Avenue of the Stars to the Chinese theatre where the hand and footprints are:

Half the people we've met think we’re mad doing this trip and the other half wants to be adopted. So far we've got our personal banker and her two managers and the sales and finance guys from both the car and RV dealership that want to come along. To be honest, there’s more than enough room for them in the storage bins under the RV J We pick up our new home on Thursday and head down to Newport Beach for a month so we can start our trip properly. We’re both looking forward to catering for ourselves again too as the portions here are so large, we end up eating leftovers for breakfast, lunch or dinner the following day. 

And this is Toad....

He's a 2009 Suzuki Grand Vitara and is one of the few "proper" 4x4s you can tow on its own wheels rather than messing around with trailers (I'm sure JohnMill will dispute the pedigree) and he should follow Badger everywhere he goes...

Hullo, and welcome to Badger Watch.....

Bob Fleming here....Ahem

This is Badger. He's big and charcoal and grey and stripy, and a bit ponderous, and he is now ours. Well, we've signed a State of California contract 3 feet long with some very small print, so I doubt very much if we can back out of it now.

Technically speaking he is a 2003 Jayco Avatar, 38 feet long, 8 wide and 12 high, powered by a 330 Caterpillar Diesel engine that has an air filter the size of a dustbin. But he isn't blue, and doesn't have a pony tail that plugs in to others.

Not sure yet when we can actually collect him - they have a few bits to fix, add and service, but hopefully some time next week. More details will follow then...

Straight inta Compton - F.B.W.A

Arrived in the city of angels after a fairly straightforward flight, and started hitting problems immediately. Only let us in for 6 months, which was disappointing but probably to be expected. The immigration guy we spoke to was pretty helpful, but his supervisor who he checked with was definitely old school - all the posters around about customer service and being the face of the nation were having no effect on this one. It may be possible to get an extension for another 6 months from an internal immigration office, but the mood on the web forums seems to be that if you do this you can kiss the rest of your visa goodbye so queer the pitch for return visits, so may cut our losses and head up to Canada at Easter and spend the summer touring there - want to do it sometime so may as well be sooner rather than later. Means we might miss Florida out this trip, but still aim for Vegas and New Orleans. Don't have to decide for a few months yet...

US Postal Service wont allow you to rent a PO box if you are not a resident/citizen, so we will have to hang around to get each piece of post one at a time, and Citibank left us high and dry by not allowing us to open an account with the motel as an address. We could open one against our UK address, but then we could only get an ATM card for the first 6 months, which is not really viable for buying a home. Or wait until we have the RV on a park which would count as a residential address...catch 22

The lovely lady at Wells Fargo, on the other hand, opened the account there and then, gave us pre-coded visa cards until our real ones arrive in the post to the motel in what should be less than 5 days, and was helpfulness and efficiency incarnate. And she recommended an excellent Thai for supper.

I've tried to not get too stressed over it all...

motel is as seedy and distressed as it looks on the web pages, and you do expect to see outlines taped on the carpet, but the Indian guys running it have been really helpful and friendly as the trip advisor reviews said they would be, so unless we hear drive bys in the night I think we will be OK. It does feel like part of the movies' Americana image. And it is only about a mile from Compton, so won't be walking much

so tomorrow we get on with the real shopping....

New Zealand - almost done

Last full day here as we fly tomorrow night, so time to review:

Glad we came, have enjoyed it, but still think I wouldn't have bothered flying halfway around the world just to visit. Highlight for me was the geothermal activity around Rotorua - mudpools, geysers, hot pools and clouds of steam everywhere are like nothing else I have ever seen, and different to volcanoes I have visited (Teide, Vesuvius). The rest of it I think you can find across Europe between Norway, Scotland and the Alps. It is all pretty, just not unique. Plus the weather, language, food and culture are too like the UK to feel like you are a world away - one of the main reasons we never holidayed in the UK.

69 nights in Lurch and Fat Tranny have also been an education - we now have a long long list of things that these vans are missing and that the next one must address. I think it was the right decision to rent given the time we were here for, and we have timed it about right having only really had to kill the last few days back around Auckland, but it hasn't been a comfortable time compared to Oz and Tigger. Soooo looking forward to the economy seat on the back of the plane and a decent nights sleep :-)

If I was coming again I would probably come a bit later in the year - we were probably a month or so ahead of when we expected to be here as we sold Tigger so easily, so late winter and into spring. Advantage was that van hire and camps at the start of the trip were a little cheaper, and we never had to book in anywhere as there was always plenty of space, but overall so much to do and see here is outdoors so weather dependent. We had some great days - Milford sound, Marlborough sounds, whale watching at Kaikoura - but equally we had a lot of drizzly rain and cool that just saps the spirit. But then this is what NZ is famous for...

Overdosed on curry at the Diwali festival yesterday as it will be my last one for the foreseeable future - never found a decent Indian in the US. On the other hand I have only had 1 burger this whole trip, so I dare say I will make amends for that in the next couple of weeks....

Happy early diwali

From downtown Auckland. Last opportunity to top up on good curry before the US, so making the most of the food stalls.

Interesting double standard watching the dancers on stage,( and when we did the Maori show in rotorua ) in that happy to watch other cultures traditional acts, but I would shoot Morris  dancers on sight. Maybe its the accordion....

Unlike Lee in Bangalore we haven't seen anyone defecating in the street yet,but it is still early.

And if bollywood ever remake knight rider the theme tune should be awesome...

North Island part 2 - the final leg

The day couldn't have been nicer as we made the journey through the Marlborough Sound and across the Cook Strait from the South Island back to Wellington.

We took highway 1 up the west coast from Wellington to Palmerston North, then route 3 up to Wanganui where we went for a paddle in the Tasman Sea at Castlecliff Beach – boy it was cold!

As the weather was due to be nice for a few days, we stayed on the west coast and carried on up to Opunake – where we were the only ones there!

The walk along the cliffs showed what a great coastline this is, especially for surfers

On up to New Plymouth and the biggest city on the west coast, where we spent a couple of days walking along the coast and relaxing in the sun watching the ships come into Port Taranaki

When the weather to the east cleared, this was the view inland from the other side of our van:

Mt Taranaki - beautiful.

We left New Plymouth and headed down towards Stratford and the start of the ‘Forgotten World Highway’, NZs oldest Heritage trail, 155kms following ancient Maori trade routes and pioneering farm tracks from the west coast to the central plateau…

… and through the Moki Tunnel, known locally as the Hobbit’s Hole (think thin - it only 1 lane!)

We carried on from Taumarunui (the end of the highway) to Turangi, passing the bottom edge of Lake Taupo along the way…

… and saw Mt Tongariro grumbling (it last erupted in 2012) …

… and Tawhai Falls…

… on our way to Tongariro National Park and Whakapapa Village, seeing Mt Ngauruhoe (aka Mt Doom from Lord of the Rings)

and Mt Ruapehu

in the distance. As the weather was nice when we arrived in Whakapapa and we knew it was due to change later in the day, we decided to do the 2 hour hike to Taranaki Falls. It was a lovely walk through the national park to the waterfall

… although we could see the weather closing in across the plateau…

Did we make it back in time? No, the rain came and caught us 10 minutes away from the carpark. About 20 minutes later, it started snowing! I’m glad we weren't out in the open then. As the weather had closed in, we decided to go to Chateau Tongariro in the village for ‘high tea’, and spent the late afternoon in luxurious, warm surroundings, watching the world go by through a huge picture window (mainly rabbits multiplying on the plateau!) and eating tiny sandwiches, lovely cakes and drinking pots full of tea (with the pinky stuck out, of course). We had taken our e-readers with us and after we had been there for about an hour, I heard a thud as Mark dropped his – apparently his fingers had gone to sleep, unlike the rest of him! We decided to leave shortly after that and before they evicted us for snoring! It snowed again in the evening and it’s the only place I've had to wear my coat and take a brolly to the shower block as it was so cold. I’m so glad we have a heater in the van.

The following day, we headed up to Otorohanga and visited the Waitomo Glowworm caves – wow, what a sight! From our boat, we went deeper into the caves and saw thousands of glowworms lighting up the inside of the caves just like stars in the sky. Photography was not allowed, so here is one I found on their website:

We then spent a couple of days in Hamilton, visited the local farmers market on the Sunday morning and went for a very long walk along the river. We’re now in our last week and based in Manukau in the greater Auckland area. We’ll be visiting places to the west of Auckland that we didn't get to see the first time around and also fitting in a few curries too (especially as we won't get a good one for quite some time), including heading into town for the Diwali festival this weekend. We'll then bid farewell to this country as we head off across the Pacific to Los Angeles and another new adventure!

Farewell south island

All done and dusted, now another 19 days in the north.

And we apparently slept through a 4.something tremor this morning without feeling a thing.