New Zealand - Part 3 - Boatwork and Road Trips (Nov 2015 – May 2018)

Hi ho hi ho it's off to work we go. We hauled out three times while in New Zealand and completed some major upgrades during the two years we were there. Dec 2015 and Jan 2016 - Dockland 5 - Whangarei

• Professional sand blasting of hull with 4 coats of epoxy and 3 coats anti-fouling
• Installed a shower and hot water heater for the shower

March 2016 - Tauranga Harbour Bridge Marina - Tauranga

• Installed air pulse Eberspächer heater

July 2017 - Pier 21 - Auckland

• started work on repairing hydraulic shaft for the lifting keel

Auckland - 2018

• Lithium batteries
• Katadyn water maker
• additional solar panels
• new main sail
• new genoa
• new auto pilot
• new fridge
• new 50 metres of anchor chain

........... It's not all work and no play. During long weekends and for 2 weeks in February 2018 we went on road trips to explore this beautiful country. Mountains, volcanos, fjords, lakes, volcanoes, glaciers,  geothermal  geysers, beaches, hot springs, and bubbling mud!!! New Zealand has it all in such a small country. We were living aboard Arbutus in Westhaven Marina and we both bought real non-foldable bikes to commute to work. Paul's commute 10 mins. Sundy's commute 13 mins by bicycle!!! Rush hour traffic in Auckland was intense and some of my colleagues had a 40 min - 1 hour commute. We were super lucky. Even on our days off we used our bikes and public transportation to get around. Our cruising friends Mark and Sue on sv/Macushla lent us their mini van while they went back home to England and we only used it once a week at the most. So we decided we didn't neeeed a vehicle while in Auckland. We did end up buying a mini van after a year because of our up coming road trips. For our 2 week road trip in south island Paul transformed our "people mover" (Kiwi for mini van) to a camper van. He removed the middle seats, folded down the back seats into the floor, and installed a wooden platform for our bed :) Our camper van was ready in one afternoon. New Zealand is stunningly beautiful country. Pictorial evidence below.