And so the planning begins.
We have only one date in the 5 months we will be away that we actually need to be somewhere (a very special wedding in Geraldine) but other than that, we have 153 days stretching ahead of us and we thought that perhaps a rough plan might be quite a good idea.
So, I started by digging out a splendid New Zealand Travelling Atlas that we bought with a book voucher we got as a wedding gift (thank you, Miles!) and I read through the chapters to work out what we need to see. I then used a distance calculator online to plan out the trip so that our trips were no longer than about 2 hours. (Remembering that travelling with a 3.5 year old can be a delight, but push your luck and extend a journey much beyond that can be a gamble.)
Hours, and hours, and HOURS later, I had a rough plan. (In fact, I took the planning to the extreme, if I am honest. One morning at 2.30am, I realized it had become an addiction... I'm doing OK now...)
Rough plan then got turned on it's head when arrangements were made which meant we no longer needed to be in Auckland for a special 80th birthday. So after some rejigging, reorganization and hours more of toil, our plan really started to take shape:
- We go North, for 2 whole weeks! This will be like a trial run. If we need other supplies or find we are carrying too much gear we don't need, when we get back down to Auckland, we can call in at home and drop off / pick up and go crazy with the washing machine and shower! (And a toilet that you neither have to empty nor share with strangers.)
- Then we are off down the West Coast of the North Island, Raglan, Kawhia, New Plymouth, Stratford, Waitarere, etc, on down to Wellers to grab the ferry.
- East Coast, with some trips inland here and there, Hanmer, Molesworth Station, etc. A few days in Christchurch and then on down to the wedding in Geraldine.
- Then Southward bound, Catlins, Invers, Stewart Island, Doubtful Sound, Kingston, Arrowtown, Wanaka, Haast, West Coast, Farewell Spit, back to Picton,
- A loop in the North Island, then some time in Hawkes Bay, East Cape, and home.
We have about 2 weeks buffer in case something goes wrong (or really right and we want to stay somewhere amazing! In this stunning country, that is bound to happen.)
Loads of other planning is happening, have sold one motorbike, one more to go, have all got BMX bikes, because they are smaller to load on a rack, have had the caravan certified, so we can freedom camp! (Woohoo!! I promise we won't poop anywhere inappropes and leave the paper behind, New Zealand. Come on, who DOES that?) :-(
Have gone back through the plan and have added in some really cool Short Easy Bike Rides from the Short Easy Bike Rides book by the Kennett Brothers.
Have spoken with a property agent about letting the house out. Not advisable, was the general gist, and so be it. Good to have it here in case we need to venture home at any stage.
Have even 'got down with the kids' and got myself onto Instagram. (Am fighting the urge to say 'the instagram' just for the hiliarity and old agedness of it, but don't want to lose too much street cred, am old enough that the youngsters would just read 'old').
Other things to think about - power, water, locking up the house, direct debits on bills, redirection of mail, taking batteries out of vehicles, visiting second hand book shops for precious boy in lieu of weekly library visits!
And a hundred other things but if it was easy, everyone would be doing it! ...right?
So, we now have a caravan, and to pay for it, we are going to have to sell Dear Husband's boat. So this is SERIOUS. It's really going to happen.
OK. So. Probably a good time to ask for the time off work, right?
For a conservative and low maintenance (Ok, DH would say I'm more 'medium maintenance' if there was a maintenance scale) person such as me, this was going to require of me to draw attention to myself and ask for something quite significant. In the words of my darling mum, I was about to become a 'burden'. Arrgh!
So, I set myself a deadline for when I would approach my boss, and shared the deadline with DH, just to make it less elastic than I might be tempted to make it. On the DAY that I am about to enter the boss's office to discuss the lunacy that lies ahead, she is unexpectedly offsite! Gulp.
Ok, it's ok... It gives me a whole weekend to stress about it a little more and a another couple of slow journeys in the car through Auckland traffic to practice my speech. (Which I had written on a small card. Oh no, there are no bounds to my geekdom.)
Trying again on the Monday. I lync the boss to see if she's free. She is. I fly to her office door and enter.
I recite my well-rehearsed speech about the precious boy growing up too fast, about the 5 year plan, about the arduous 25 years of work that still lies ahead and the deep desire to do something amazing as a family.
Without batting an eyelid, my boss replied: "Oh, you HAVE to!!"
Uh, you WHAT now? Really? Wow!
Just to be sure, I threw a pre-practiced line in there to make sure I hadn't misheard... "Is that something the company, nay, YOU, would support me with?" (Because it would be awkward if she thought I was resigning and that's why she seemed so delighted for us!) And NO, it was not a dream, my amazing work supported me taking a 5 month career break, and this thing is ON!
So, one thing I have learned about my dear husband (DH) after nearly 20 years of togetherness, is that he is all about the action.
As soon as we had put it out there that we might want to take 6 months off work and travel around NZ in a campervan, he was ON IT. Trade Me, night after night. Comparisons of water volume, solar power, campervans vs caravans, storage space, sleeping arrangements, yahdeeyahdeeyahdah.
We had a humble budget for a camper, so we narrowed it down to a fairly dated, extraordinarily high kms campervan that was available for viewing in Grey Lynn.
We trotted along to view it. Exciting! It seemed real once we were standing inside the camper looking at the over cab bed that would serve our precious boy (PB) on our adventure.
DH is a wheeler dealer from way back and offered the seller a much reduced from window price offer. The next potential purchasers arrived for their viewing and the seller put us off and didn't accept our low offer.
In the meantime, a much newer, more spacious, very comfortable CARAVAN came up for sale in Papamoa. Not one to unduly delay matters, DH backed up PB and the next door neighbour (a very valued expert of all things caravan) and headed to the Bay of Plenty to view.
On the way home, towing the newly purchased caravan, DH receives a call from the seller of the aged Grey Lynn campervan reconsidering our initial offer.
"He who hesitates is lost..."
And we now have a caravan!! EEEEEKKK!
Earlier in 2016, dear husband (DH) and I decided to create a 5 year plan. We broke it into 5 big buckets: Family, Health, Career, Finance and Recreation.
We came up with lots of cool ideas:
DH: Do more fishing! Do more diving!
ME: Exercise more! Cut the mortgage in half!
Ok, DH husband came up with lots of cool ideas, I came up with more conservative concepts. :-/ It's alright, I have come to terms with my nerdiness.
As a full time working Mum of a three year old, I am conscious of the limited time I have with my precious boy. (PB) I am also conscious that the pre-school formative years are critical in the development of a small person and I have a strong desire to play a significant part. As a family, we made the decision that one of us would stay at home with our PB until he goes to school and that means that DH is stay at home Dad, a job that he totally owns.
One day, we were venturing down country on a road trip, when I suggested to DH how cool it would be to take a career break and pack up our lives into a campervan and travel around NZ with our boy. The idea was so fun to dream about - it kept us entertained for much of the journey.
When it came to the 5 year plan, it seemed like a no brainer that we should do something amazing as a family before PB started school. He's going to be in school in less than 2 years time, and then he'll be a school boy for around 14 years. I still have about 25 years of work stretching out ahead of me and so 6 months is an insignificant period when you think of it in those terms!
Weeeell... Insignificant until you are about to knock on the door of the boss to ask for 6 months leave without pay, that is!
