"Wanna chup?"

Heeeeellloooo!!

How are you? We are great thank you! :) 

Yesterday we fell in love a bit with a place called River Valley where we stayed one night in a cottage/hostel in the middle of nowhere...beautiful like you wouldnt believe!! and the best part is that we are going back the 20th of november to work and get paid in food and accommodation and stay at least 2 weeks but hopefully they like us so we can stay longer. Phuu that was a long sentence. 

We also get one activity per week :) You can do horse riding and water rafting!! Sweeet as. 

Now we are in Wellington and we like this city very much. The bus only stops for one night here but you can choose to stay longer, so we decided to stay for 3 nights together with 3 other people from the bus. :) Unfortunately that meant saying goodbye to many friends and our veeery lovely bus driver Scott! And another unfortunate thing is that Dave is ill today...yes, i have been a wonderful girlfriend and taken good care of him:)! Fortunate one of our friends has an ipad with films on so we have spent this day in bed watching Lord of the rings, can you believe Dave has never watched it before!? No one here can. But now its done. He did it. I haven't watched it for so long and forgotten about how amazing the hobbits are. I LOVE THEM! Hopefully we can visit hobbiton in Rotorua on our way back to Auckland. 

Ok now im going to have a shower and later we will have a few drinks with our friends and get our dance shoes on!! 

cathedral cove

Dave here. Thought id give you the 'DOWN LOW' on our travels and 'LET YOU IN' on some of our adventures. Been a bit 'ILL' today so trying to get better by watching some lord of the 'RINGS' with some 'TEA'. 

said goodbye to Lucas and the english girls yesterday. It was a bit emotional as we know we're not going to see them again....maybe forever....*looks longingly into the distance* 

Just showed two people how i can clap with one hand....always a winner!!! she then proceeded to show us here big shoulder muscles. freaky!!! (and impressive) 

good BYE! 

just a few pics..:)

cape reinga

90 mile beach

the kiwi bus here we come! sweet as!

Hello our loved ones. 

The last five days have been hectic! It feels more like five weeks. The amount of things we’ve done and people we’ve met has been a bit overwhelming. We finished the last blog just before we were to depart towards Cape Reinga, the most northern point of New Zealand. It was a brilliant day, full of activities including Sand boarding (flying down giant sand dunes of body boards) and hugging 800 year-old Kauri trees (to get good energy, the bus driver said). The bus driver we had was hilarious, filling our days with comedy and interesting stories, (he even sang a song for us in the end of the day, a maori song!) The 90 mile beach drive with the bus was impressive also. Beautiful long beach and Dave had the luck to find an oyster that he ate there on the beach…nice. Was a great day J

Next day was leaving day. But before we left we had a nice morning walk.Waking up as the sun rises is so refreshing and you just feel the urge for a fresh morning walk along the beach. I never had that in Stockholm unfortunately…great way to start the day!!

During our jearney back to Auckland we stopped at the Whangarei falls, which was a very impressive waterfall, all thanks to dave, he looked it up on the map:)!

Ok continuing to the next day.

The next day our kiwi experience bus adventure started!!! Exciting times. Didn’t really know what to expect…but that’s how we roll, taking everything as it comes. Our first stop was hot water beach, that’s a beach where you grab a shovel and then you dig yourself your own little pool in the sand. Some spots in the sand were incredibly hot…and you had to mix the hot water with the seawater. Quite a challenge to get the right temperature but sweet as when you got there in the end, which we didn’t as we had another activity on our schedule which was Kayaking to the cathedral cove….and WOW!!!! Sooo beautiful!!! It was amazing. Will put up the photos later.

Next day we went to Waitamo, the cave town. Me and dave, as the only people, took the adult activity and went for a guided walk in the caves instead of crazy cave extreme activities that the rest of our crazy fellow team members did. We wanted to but its just too expensive to do everything and there is SO MUCH you can do here…But just to see those glow worms was pretty coolJ In the evening everyone went to the locals pub, much fun!

And the next day, we went to Rotorua, the heart of the maouri culture…nice little town and we got to see the geysers. This earth is one amazing thing.

Now we are in TAUPO…and I’ve (dave) just done a sky dive 15000ft (4572metres, 4, 572,000mm) above Lake Taupo! It was so weird to be flying through the sky. Its hard to explain….but I want to do it again!!!

Now….the pub+rugby awaits!

Skal!:)  

We are the campers!

Day 3

We went for a meal with Stephanie yesterday, which was fantastic, learnt of many new places to go in New Zealand, and finally got to meet one of Bergsman’s best friends from London!

After saying goodbye, it felt like it was time for us to start planning our way out of Auckland, so we got to it. First we checked ourselves in at the hostel beside the one we’d been staying at, called Queens Street Backpackers. So much cosier and friendlier than Nomads! And it had a funny Fijian guy who knew some Swedish. Anyway, we rang the ‘KiwiExperience’ to get ourselves booked on the tour, which leaves Wednesday morning. So we had three days ahead of us with nothing planned…and a campervan trip was of course the first thing we wanted to fill those days with! So we booked one, and decided to head to the northland, and the Bay of Islands.

Well I’m sitting here now in the campervan on the edge of the starlit bay, beer in hand, Johanna beside me, and Xavier Rudd on the sound system.

Let me tell you how I got to this point.

After booking the van at QSB, we went to chill out in the dorm room, promising ourselves that we would stay up and ignore the jet lag. But it took over, and we were both fast asleep by seven o’clock. I was up at three in the morning, fresh as a daisy, and Johanna was up soon after, so we chilled out together in the common room discussing possible destinations for the day ahead. After a lot of debate (and discussion), we decided a bit more sleep would be helpful, but it was all in vain as the jet lag and excitement of the day ahead kept us from drifting off…and after lying in bed, staring at the ceiling for two hours, we got up to start (resume) the day.

We got to the campervan depot at nine o’clock, and went through all the terms, conditions, technicalities, rules, and regulations that they have. Took about an hour and a half. Then we were on the road! We were given a huge van, with all the amenities except for a toilet and shower. Driving it was weird at first, but I soon figured it out. It felt like we’d really begun our holiday, and driving along listening to music with the beautiful NZ countryside all around, was an amazing moment.

We drove north for about four hours until we arrived at the Bay of Islands. It’s such a special place. I’ve never had a nicer driving experience. The scenery and the roads are just immense. We got to a place that Steph recommended called Paihia, (we call it Papaya) which is the cosiest little seaside village, with the most beautiful, picturesque bay we’ve ever seen. We parked up on a campervan site, and then went for a walk. On the way we booked tomorrow’s adventure, the Cape Reinga and 90 mile beach tour.

When we came back to the campsite, a woman came to us and told us that campervans without toilets couldn’t stay there. Proper pissed on our chips. So we went for another mooch to find a campervan site. After a few failed attempts, we found the one we are at now. Expensive…but well worth it. I’ve never been this happy I don’t think…

Sweet as. 

Kia Ora New Zealand!

Hej karaste vanner! Vi ar antligen i Auckland...och det kanns saaa fantastiskt bara. Det ar verkligen fint har och hela staden kanns sadar harligt relaxed! Att jag har latar som "du ger mig bra vibrationer" och "sitting at the top of the bay" pa hjarnan sager val ganska mycket:). Och sa himla mysigt med denna dialekten...jag bara myser nar de pratar...maste forsoka anstranga mig for att hora vad de sager for det ar sa mysigt att bara lyssna till dialekten. Hostellet vi bor pa ar trevligt, det bjuder pa frulle och zumba!

Dave och Sky tower!

Vi klev upp tidigt idag for att promenera runt och utforska, vi tog oss en kaffe pa ett mysigt cafe vid hamnen vilket framkallade maffiga semesterkanslor. 

En lyckotraff var ju aven att vi hittade affaren Dr. Shoe. Vi var namligen pa jakt efter nya sulor till mina vandringsdojjor, da mina forsvagade fotter kraver nagot proffsigt nu da vi ska vandra inom snar framtid. Mannen i affaren var nagot av det hyggligaste jag stott pa...berattade allt man kan tanka sig om alla olika slags sulor och vad de gor for de olika delarna av fotterna...en riktig dr.shoe alltsa! Jag provade ungefar 5 olika sulor och till slut hade vi hittat sulan for mig, och OJ vilken skillnad....jag bokstavligt talat skuttade ut ur affaren! Redo for vilket fjall som helst nu jag. :)

Imorgon ska vi kaka lunch med bergsmans kompis Steph. Det ska bli mycket mysigt och ett gyllene tillfalle att lara oss allt om detta fantastiska land!! 

Dave drar en powernap nu och vi ska sen ner till hostellets egna lilla bar och ta en billig ol for att halsa oss sjalva valkomna, och kanske att vi spelar lite kort. 

Hoppas allt ar bra med er! :) Hors snart igen! Puss och kram <3

We need to talk about Kevin....

Day 1. Goodbye Warrington, Hello London.

Don’t know where to start. We have had such an incredible time in the house of Grants + a beautiful Simmons and one lovely Smith. We have been to Liverpool for a standard crazy primark shop, which was funny, but not when Mandy went missing, but that’s another story haha J…that day we also went to Warrington’s new exclusive pub called Chapelford farm, very nice and huge cakes! We celebrated my b-day, that was a very nice day with many friends, food, drinks and joyfulness. I got a new camera lens from dave, I almost cried! I did cry!

After a sentimental goodbye we are now on the train to London. 

Of course there is no trip without an incident when it comes to me and Dave. So here we go. Let us tell you about Kevin. 

Kevin is a train conductor with dark brown hair and glasses. He is a mild mannered man with a cheeky smile, but he loves his job, and doesn’t like to break the rules.

When Dave booked our train tickets he did it with a railcard he did not really have…unluckily. So he knew it could be a bit of a problem, at worst we would just have to pay a bit of extra money. But no worries we thought.

Oh well..

Kevin comes up to us with his mild but strict face ready to see our tickets.. and as soon as Dave show him his NOT VALID railcard I just knew, its over. I could see straight away that Kevin was not having this. And Kevin was very clear that if we don’t have a valid railcard we needed to pay 69 pound. Not just 5 pound like we thought. But 69 pound. ITS OVER!

Dave is at this point a bit stressed and a bit shaky, he tries to explain that he did everything in his power to get a new railcard….kevin says no, dave says come on, , Kevin says no, dave says COME ON, Kevin says NO..and so on…..

Dave is not giving up and puts on all that he has learnt from his dad…

Kevin gives up. He says: I am kind today…. and leaves us…. shaken and bruised from the encounter… but free from an extortionate rail fare.

We say THANK YOU KEVIN!!!! YOU ARE THE BEST TRAIN PERSON OPERATOR MAN IN THE WORLD!