20th of August 2018; 'Donde van'

Enjoy a beautiful song by Diego Torres while you're reading this post. The title of the song is 'Donde van', which means 'Where are they going'.

Well, that'll be South America. Just 2 more weeks and we'll wake up in Santiago de Chile. Scary and exciting. The only plan we have so far is to fly to Santiago, buy a car and head south. Haven't booked any other accommodation than the one in Santiago. That's so 'not me'. I usually travel with an Excel sheets, having booked all the accommodation well in advance, knowing exactly what the distances are between them and where the points of interest are around them. And now, we both have a South America travel guide, the South America on a Shoestring and the Footprint of South America, but we only read a few pages on Santiago. Not in any hurry to read the rest, we'll just see what happens.

We'll probably head for Patagonia and Antarctica. Drive north again through Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia and then back into Chile. There is some stuff on the bed in the spare room, but even packing hasn't started yet. The last 2 weeks before the trip are filled with meeting friends and neighbours to say goodbye. Dick was even so friendly to bring fresh fish because I missed a fishing trip. Some sneezing patients had given me a bug in my last week in Otaki.

Last weekend we went to Greytown in the Wairarapa to meet some friends we met in the first weeks here in NZ. We had just plundered the cheese shop in Featherston when a man in a camper van started honking at us. A Dutch friend from the Coromandel had seen us walking with our arms full of merchandise and was in for a 'kopje koffie'.

Those friends from Wellington brought us a birthday cake, a bit early, but who cares when it looks like this. Everybody had brought some food, but forgot to bring the rest of the neighbourhood. Enough food to feed the whole village. And then this thing to top it of.

Even my lovely wife had a bit too much prompting her to state she would never do this again in the middle of the night. Till the next time of course.

In the morning we dragged ourselves into the cars and visited the Waiohine gorge. More for a visit and to kind of make ourselves feel less guilty, than to walk a distance anyone could boast about.

After concluding the tracks on the other side of the bridge were pretty wet (at least for us) we reached consensus and headed back to the cottage to finish of the beautiful cake.

The dinner at Terohana estate winery in Martinborough was perfect again. Not sure what the owner told his staff about us, but they were clearly nervous and kept throwing things over. Have to say that Nienke visits the restaurant more often with her notorious chatty bunch of friends. A great weekend.

Finally replaced our old Ikea tulip lamp with a new one. The UV radiation in NZ had made the leaves so brittle they started crumbling down when you walked past it to quickly. Found a replacement on the Dutch TradeMe and Nienke twin sister as kind enough to arrange transport. I saved one more or less intact leaf in order to use it as a template for when I attempt to repair the big lamp when we come back from South America.

About halfway on the horizon you can see the snowy tops of Mount Ruapehu. A nice surprise when we took a long stroll over Te Horo's beaches. If you can't see it click on the picture to enlarge it.

Well, we'll just walk a lot when we're in Santiago. With all those dinners (here with Louis and Sue) it's an endless battle. We thought we'd just have the leftovers the next day, but had forgotten we were invited for another dinner. Luckily there are still some jobs to do. They're all jobs you plan to do one time, but usually only do just before you sell your house. Paintwork that needs patching up, lamps that have always been broken mysteriously, doors that do not close properly, etc. And once you've done them the house is so much better. Ergo, just plan a day like that!

One of the those jobs was our stove. A pretty good brand (Smeg), so you'd expect it to function normally for a decade. Well, one of the ignitors decided to go on strike. We, as 'local government', just ignored the bloody thing and just used a lighter. By the way, pretty useless things, they last for about 3 weeks. Anyway, we wanted to make sure everything worked well for our house sitters. So I called the Smeg service station; "We don't do that ourselves, we an electrician in Wellington". So I called 'the electrician' in Wellington; "Nah, that involves gas mate, we don't do that. You'd have to call a plumber". So I called a plumber (several actually); "Nah mate, that involves electricity, that's work for a sparky (NZ nickname for electricians).

This was leading nowhere, so I called a supplier; Yes, you can order that part, and no, I won't tell you how to replace it. Not allowed to by law".

OK, I'll wait for a rainy boring day and do it myself with the help of my friends from Youtube. Turns out that no one has done this yet. They probably have very eager service stations, plumbers and electricians who just jump to a fun job like this. And so today was horrible. Water came bucketing down. So I grabbed some tools, and some more, and even more. I think I removed about a 100 screws. The guy tearing down the bathroom (leaking there as well) asked Nienke carefully if I'd already started swearing. There was simply no easy way to do this. RTFM? Read The F***ing Manual? There was no manual! These machines are not made to be repaired or dismantled. No wonder that stupid ignitor costs $65, it probably had to come all the way from Italy. About 5 breaks and a lunch further I finally managed to replace the faulty ignitor. And surprise, surprise, I was 1 screw short! Not the expected pile of 'no idea where they belong'. Reconnected the gas, threw a liter of dishwasher liquid on it and stared at it for bubbles. None came. Now the ultimate test, switched the power back on and BINGO, it worked. I guess I saved ourselves a $200 travel costs (Tradesmen never have the part they need with them so they have to drive twice), $250 in man hours and $100 on materials (those spare parts tradesmen buy are apparently plated with gold). My reward? A high five from my wife and a 'good on ya' from the builder. I'll take it.