Reality Sets In... For Now

So up until now our adventures may have more or less been all fun and games. We'll go to New Zealand, tour around, and once we have some idea of where we'd like our lives to go we'll do that.

Unfortunately, our planning didn't exactly meet our high expectations and as such we've been suffering from one frustration after another for the past week.

First was the van. The interesting thing about RV living is that instead of 'freeing' you (like it is supposed to do), it actually ties you down. You find yourself so busy worrying if the water tank is full, if the battery is charged, where you're going to camp at night, if the food in the fridge is becoming spoiled, if the amount of gasoline in the fuel tank can get you to the next place, if you have enough money, and so on and so forth, that you can't even do what you want to do! We've been wanting to go hiking, to do some extreme sports, to go swimming, and be carefree, but instead we've been stressing, and yelling, and sometimes wondering if we were better off never coming here in the first place (this especially goes for the times when there are no showers or toilets availible). We're running low on funds, which means we've been just parking anywhere overnight, but no hook-up sites means no power to charge our camera, laptop, etc.

Next was the website. We wanted to update twice a day. Due to all the tiny little towns we've visited and the cost of an hour of internet ($6 an hour at some places), we've just kept on driving. We finally decided to get 3G (which is internet that uses cell-phone signals), but not only is it expensive but also coverage is spotty. And we haven't been making any money from it like we hoped to because we haven't had any time to work on it! So it's a giant circle of frustration.

This is not to say we haven't had our good times as well. We drove to the northern tip of the north island of New Zealand (Cape Reinga) which was amazing. We camped and drove on the beach with the Beast. We also drove through some really breathtaking countryside filled with cows and sheep (I have pictures but until we get this power situation figured out you'll have to take my word for it).

The idea now is to only tour around for another month or so. We'll see the south island, buy our 3G modem (so we can update the website daily), sell the van (and buy a much cheaper economy car), stay at hostels or wherever, and ultimately have a lot less stress and a lot more fun. It will be more like our trip to Tibet (which was new and exciting, but not full of stress). There will be more soon.