I started the year with a broken heart, and my life was shaken up from day one. A lot of things changed, against my will, and I was a crying wreck for the most part. The year started with me constantly feeling inadequate, and I fed off the negativity, beating myself up in the process.
Earthquakes though, are the perfect opportunity for reconstruction.
I ended the year feeling happier than I've ever felt, feeling more myself than I've ever been, being the most honest with myself than I ever dared to be. I ended the year, in a good place. In a place where I could chose happiness, where I never really felt lonely, and most importantly, a place where I could love myself.
In 2015, I was at my absolute weakest when I found true love, in the form of open arms, offers to bunk in the corners of people's chalets, and so much patience. I witnessed friends who once saw me at my strongest, love me just as equally as I literally crumbled. Friends who have never seen me anywhere near that weak, hold my hand and told me that I am not a disappointment, that I am okay. Friends that proved that they'd always be there, almost volunteering to hold my hand even if it meant walking through hell with me. I got so much care from a group of girls who had only my weakest to judge me by, they offered me their homes and unconditional love. They loved me so hard, I am still filled to the brim with it, four months after every single one of them moved out of the country. I met a boy who was overflowing with understanding, someone who allowed me to grow, someone who changed all my previous definitions of love.
In 2015, I was so desirably thin, so unhealthy, and so unhappy. I started eating, I started putting health first. I stopped believing in my narrow definition of beauty. I stopped pretending to have skin that I don't have, stopped punishing my body for the simple act of supporting my being. Beauty, I've decided, is a state of mind, not a size or a skin type. It is being comfortable at your very core about the person you honestly are. I fought against my own self, and I won.
In 2015, I went after what made me happy. I came to terms with a whole lot of things, and I pursued what I thought was necessary. In 2015, I achieved genuine happiness and acceptance of myself, and that was harder than any debate tournament, exam or interview.
2015 was the year that I began to truly, love myself.
I think thats important. You need to create a life that you are proud of, one that you can smile when you're alone reflecting. You need to be able to walk alone in the crowd and be okay, we need to be able to be sure of ourselves. Loving yourself, I've learned, is the prerequisite to loving others properly. It is the basis of making good choices, it is vital in the construction of a life that you can be proud of.
I want to do for the world what my loved ones have done for me. I want to shock people with my capacity to love, my ability to accept, and my will to keep going.
I also want to attempt to blog more regularly (hahhaaahahaa, seriously though)
Happy first day of the year everybody, thank you tons for helping me create this space. Its become an important facet of my being, thank you. Good luck with 2016, you have my absolute best wishes.
When I was younger, I read this book series by Enid Blyton called the caravan family. It told tales of adventures that one family, who lived in a caravan (I think, I've long forgotten the details to be honest ) and ever since then, I've always wanted to experience caravan-ing.
And I finally got to do that in New Zealand !
A caravan is basically a home on wheels. The one we rented had a bathroom (with a shower) , a kitchen complete with a stove and grill and fridge, a tv which we never used, surround sound radio, 3 beds - one huge one at the back, one right behind the drivers seat which can be converted into seats and one above the drivers seat. We also were given a gps device, which is actually like a tracker for our van, but its not like so they know where we are or anything weird like that. What it actually does is allow you to sync to this radio station (Tourism radio) and when you drive by a point with some sort of history, it'll give you a signal and tell you the story behind that place. Many times this device pointed out attractions we didn't plan on visiting, and the station plays good oldie music too. Our van was one of the bigger models, but even then, it was a pretty small space. There were a lot of 'excuse me ' s' and 'can you pass the baldi your nearer'. Being the clingy set of siblings we are, Dina Imran and I all slept upstairs and gave our parents the luxury of having one bed each.
Our Bedroom
Travelling by caravan is not uncommon in New Zealand. A lot of people opt for it, and they've designed their towns and cities so that caravans can drive around and park easily. Of course, in the more townier towns, like on the North Island, it's a bit more challenging and there are less parking spots, but there was hardly any trouble ever looking for parking. There are some no drive roads, but they point that out to you so its good. This way of travelling does require a bit of maintenance, we had to fill up the gas tank almost every day (keep in mind we were travelling 300 km on a daily basis), and mess becomes more obvious because you're living in such a small space. So, it works like this, every night, we drove up to a holiday park when we would have pre-booked a powered site. That means, they have port where you can charge the van (Yes, we actually charge it haha). When the van is plugged in, we can use all outlets and power in no problem, but when we're moving, we can't use the plugs cause we wanna make use theres enough electricity to keep the fridge and hot water and lights and radio and whatever is actually necessary. Every few days we have to fill up the fresh water tank, which is basically clean water to use as well as empty out the waste water tank, which is the used water. There's a toilet, and every few days we have to take out the dump basin and wash it out and replace a new chemical in it. It doesn't smell or anything in the caravan I swear, the chemical is really strong it really does dilute all human waste smell, so dumping isn't that bad haha. We clean our van every night and every morning before we leave, and make sure everything is secure because in a moving car, things slide and fall off. Its also technically against the law to not wear seat belts while the caravan is in motion, but truth be told, I was lying down in the bed at the back 80% of the time, seatbeltless (not a good habit don't use me as an example, we got pulled over by the cops once haha)
So lets get into some pros and cons of caravan travel.
Pro's
You are in full charge of your holiday. You get to plan what you want to see, where you want to go, and skip whatever it is you feel you want to skip. This also means you can alter your trip to suit your budget. But truly, the great part of this is that you get to see so much more by caravan, every single minute you look out the window, tadaa, instagram worthy view (check mine out if you don't believe me). You also get to stop wherever you want, and take less touristy routes. There were plenty of times we found a beautiful gorge or a fields of wild flowers and just stopped by the road, you don't get to do that if your tied down to someone else transporting you. Admittedly, this requires a lot of planning, but my parents love planning and this has been my dads dream holiday, so it was more of a bonus than anything for us. Kudos to my dad though, we covered so much and his picked the best routes.
Its convenient. You never have to keep packing and unpacking, just once at the beginning and once at the end. You have a fridge so you can snack at any moment of the day, a toilet so you don't even have to stop to pee, a bed so you can have a proper nap. You don't even have to change out of your pyjamas, and that is a hugeee plus point for me. Everything you brought with you will be with you the whole time, and you don't have to go throughout the trouble of lugging it around in a back pack either. Its great, I wish I could bring my house everyday all the time.
Great opportunity for bonding. I mean come on, I was stuck in a car with my family for 2 weeks. But, I actually really enjoyed it. If I wanted space, I just had to wait till we stop then I have the whole city to roam (but tbh I wasn't aching to have space). It made everyone more aware of each others (and the van's) needs, and we even tackled some issues that we probably wouldn't have been able to if we had to choice to run away and isolate ourselves from each other (I promised not to whine as much haha.) I think, that it made mt family so much closer, made my siblings and I super mature because we just had to do things without being told and that made my parents trust us so much more. I know some people would consider so much closeness for such a long period of time a bad thing, but it really was such a great family bonding experience for me. I have a really tight knit family to begin with though, but still, its just so nice to live with each other in such small space after years and years of being away (boarding school goer since 13 whats your story?). Plus, its my last holiday with them before uni, I wanted to be surrounded by them haha.
Cons
Things get a little crazy while driving. I mean the driving itself is crazy, you'll need a good driver, and a good support team. Ibu, my mom, drove the whole way (#GIRLPOWER) and we were always ready to get her chocolates and chips and coffee (did I mention we finished one chocolate bar a day there, I gained 2 kgs!). But its not just the driving, its they making sure everything is okay. Cause see, its simple physics, when the car stops moving things don't stop inertia bla bla bla basically anything that isn't in a cupboard or held onto will fall down a wreck havoc. This took a bit of getting used to. The cupboards in the van are fitted with safety latches so they rarely open spontaneously. Dina Imran and I would be running around (okay tiptoeing, no space to run haha) the van catching things, my laptop fell once even but its fine *phew*. We soon discovered the magic of blu tacking your things down, and using masking tape to tape things. Top tip, if you are going to travel via caravan, bring blu tack, it'll save your life.
Its not luxurious. we only showered at holiday parks, because that'll save us the trouble of refilling the water tank too often. And that means communal showers. You also have to do most things by yourself, drive by yourself, clean by yourself, cook by yourself. The beds aren't super soft, and the pillow aren't made of goose feathers. Everything is made for practicality, and you don't want to be bringing too many clothes, so if you have a problem repeating outfits, you'll have a problem living in a caravan. My family and I didn't mind (I personally want to be a gypsy hence don't mind the hobo life), but it is a con worth considering.
You'll need patience. You don't want big fights to break out, or go travelling with people you can reconcile with easily. The small space kind of makes it easier to get frustrated, so you'll need to be mindful and be patient above all things. You don't wanna go travelling with a dark cloud trailing behind you, thats not fun at all! So yes, patience, lots of it.
I personally loved caravan travelling, I could do it for years and years (I claim la, put me to the test we'll see). Its so fun and its the best way of travelling if you want to cover land, cause like I said, no packing and unpacking, just park and drive. If you plan to stay in one spot for days and days and days, maybe not so fun, but if you want to travel, its the best bet in my opinion.
Oh and cost! Assuming you want to cover a lot of land, and not just explore one city, its actually cheaper to travel by caravan and stay in holiday parks than to stay in hotels and pay for transport.Im not too sure about details, but I think our van (keep in mind its one of the bigger more expensive models) was 200 dollars a day (a car is 120 a day, so its not that different). We also had to pay for our powered site at the holiday parks, but you have the option of just parking anywhere and camping. of course, there are places that don't allow you to do this, but we drove by lakes and beaches and saw some people just camping out in their vans, its pretty cool. There's gas and that sort of thing, but you'd have to pay for that anyway if you we're planning to travelling a lot. Another cheaper option would be wolfing. This is a term I learned in New Zealand by some wolfers, which means, you sort of sign up to do work and you get paid in service (e.g. free rooms, free meals, free tours). This way, you don't need to apply for a visa to work there (I think Im going to try this when I go to the UK InsyaAllah). There's also a lot of people in New Zealand who are foreigners but work in places like ice cream stalls and orchards. New Zealand is underpopulated, so the government set up a special work visa that last for 6 months for anyone over the age of 18. Wolfing and Working while travelling is very common in New Zealand, so many people do it. If any of you want details, just message me personally and I'd be glad to help.
Before I end this post, I just wanna talk about the company we booked our caravan with. We booked with Ahmad Caravan, which is based in Malaysia. They specialise in Muslim travel, so when we booked with them , they provided us things like a clay solution in the form of a spray bottle for us to samak our plates and pots and pans that were provided in the caravan (saved us the trouble of looking for clean soil). We also got a plastic praying mat, so we had the option of praying outside our van. They gave us a lot of advice about how to carry our everyday Islamic routines easily, and made it so easy for us lah. They also advised us on where to go, what to see, which routes to take. Their also very cheap, offer great packages and convoy options, and cater for Australia and some parts of Europe too. Heres the link to their website if you want to check them out : http://www.ahmadcaravan.com
This may just be my last post for 2015. Its been a great year, and I've been blogging for 6 months now. I want to make a promise to blog more, and more regularly next year, but you know, I have my A level exams and of April so I'll just try my best okay? In any case, I hope you've had a great year, and take some time these next few days to reflect how the year has been for you. Thanks for continuing to read this blog, and I really enjoy sharing my experiences with you (and am so happy when I get comments cause then I get to KNOW you, you know? haha). Happy New Year everybody.
Enjoy some more pictures of our caravan :
Check out the view, both dina and the scenery outside haha
Our Driver
Oh, and its Saida's birthday tomorrow, go wish her!
It really is. My family and I just came back from a 2 week adventure on caravan, and it was an adventure of a lifetime, and naturally, I have a lot to talk about and a lot of pictures to share. Its been so great, I felt so great, everything was so booootiful, I hope heaven looks like New Zealand.
Okay, so Im going to try and be objective here, honest.
I'll be doing a few post, haven't planned how exactly I plan to compartmentalise all the post I plan to write, but I do know that I'll do one exclusively for caravan travelling/alternatives, my sky diving and whale watching experiences, and whatever else I feel like writing about really (you know me and my lack of blogging discipline- side note, maybe that should be my new years resolution?)
So today, I'll be telling you about my route, as well as the top 3 places I visited, in terms of scenery.
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New Zealand is divided into 2 island, North Island and South Island. Simplistically, North Island has bigger towns, the capital is there, and most if not all of the nations administration is based somewhere in the North Island. South Island is more rural and scenic in my opinion. The towns are smaller, the farms are big and a plenty. Its less busy. Driving around in a caravan, we found that roads on the south island were smaller but they were never seriously busy, while the bigger roads in the north sometimes got very busy. Different challenges, all good just the same if you ask me. Okay, so, we started our adventure in Christchurch. From there we headed south, all the way to the tip, then we head back up, to Christchurch, crossed over to Wellington, drove up to Auckland then went home. But let me just break that down for you, our exact stops were :
We made many many many stops from one place to the other. These stops are just where we camped overnight, but our actual activities were all done along the way. We slept in a different town every night, which meant we didn't have much time in each place but we got to cover a whole lot of ground and see many many things.
New Zealand is so beautiful, it looks like when God was creating it, he spent a little more time and turned up the brightness and saturation and everything. Also, the people there are super friendly! Like every where we went the waiters and waitresses and the people selling tickets were polite and it seemed like everyone is always in a genuinely nice, friendly mood. Also, people there are ready to help you with your trip. There were a few times our activities had to get cancelled due to the weather and stuff like that, but every time the very company we booked with would ring up other companies and totally plan the next best thing for us. They're not kedekut business at all, or at least from what I see, but Ayah told me they probably get commission for getting bookings for other companies so maybe its not like purely altruistic but in any case thats a great policy. It made everyone there eager to sell, eager to recommend and get you the best deals, even from companies that aren't their own. If you get chatty with the staff at whatever souvenir shop or restaurant you're at, and tell them where your next stop is, they'd probably point out some attractions that most people would miss out, and most of the attractions locals recommend are the free ones so that always a good thing haha. Like, when we we're driving to Rotorua, we knew we wanted to go see the geysers and mud pools. The internet and tourism companies suggested this one place, but we had to get tickets for admission. But right before we went, we were buying honey and the staff at the honey shop told us about this other place which is less touristy and slightly smaller but it was for freeeee and I like free stuff. So yeah, if you are planning on going, try find out from the locals where you should go. Really, if you're ever in New Zealand just ask around if you ever need help. If they don't know they'll be super polite about it, and if they do they'll be a big help.
I felt like I was living in an instagram picture while I was there, it was really that scenic and beautiful. Even the drives were pretty, just looking out the window and stuff (and seeing lots and lots of sheep, NZ has a 7:1 sheep to human ratio!). Its so hard to pick whats the absolute most prettiest place, but it'll be impossible for me to blog about every single thing I did and every single scene I saw. Here's my personal top 3 most beautiful places ( but even then its so hard to choose!)
Lake Tekapo
Lake Tekapo was our first stop, and our first experience at a holiday park. This is a panorama I took from where our van was parked, so we could literally wake up, walk out, and see all this. Its the second largest lake in New Zealand, and is surrounded by a lot of lupins. Lupin is a wild flower that grows in New Zealand. They locals call it a weed (ugh) but its too pretty to be called a weed in my opinion, so ill settle with wild flower *so exotic right*
On top is a picture of the lake with the lupin, and the bottom one is the closest picture I have of these flowers. I took a few walks down to where all the flowers grew and it made me feel like a fairy, surrounded by all the pretty wild flowers. We took plenty of pictures, excuse me while I spam.
Theres a church at Lake Tekapo which happens to be the most famous wedding spot, due to the beautiful scenery. But really, isn't that expected, its so pretty here. I found a place where the lupin sort of clears and its like a empty round area with the trees in the background which have quickly become my fantasy wedding place.
Aside from being pretty, you can stargaze at Lake Tekapo, and not just normal stargazing, serious stargazing. From lake Tekapo, you can join a stargazing tour by Earth & Sky which takes you to Mount John observatory, a 15 minute drive up a hill where at night, they don't shine any white light to prevent light pollution. When we went, it was freezing and dark, and were giving small red lights because red light doesn't bounce around too much and therefore, doesn't diminish the ability to see the stars. But my god the night sky there, I've never seen anything like it. It was full of stars. The tour comes with hot chocolate and brownies and so we sat, cold with out hot cups, looking up at the magnificent sky. They do research at Mount John, which is why we couldn't interfere with out white lights and cameras and phones and all that. We learned a bit about the stars, and greek as well as Maori legends that are attached to the constellations. I also got to see gemini (my star sign!)
The sky literally looked like that. Shame that this is the only photo we got, but it really was amazing.
Lake Pukaki - Mount Cook
So Mount Cook is the highest mountain in New Zealand. People normally go straight to Mount Cook but we just saw in from Lake Pukaki. Mount Cook in the white one in the background. But the view here my god, amazing. We spent about an hour and a bit here, just looking at ALL THAT BLUE and theres a shop that sells alpine salmon, so we had lots of salmon sashimi.
The rocks you see are actually a slope going down, and Imran and I went all the way to the bottom right to the edge of the water. Not much to say about this place except its freaking beautiful. Ill let the pictures speak for themselves.
Batu pun lawa, haih.
Kaikora - In the middle of the sea
Say hi to my hat, which I lost shortly after this pic.
Okay so, the third was the hardest to pick. I mean, Rakaia Gorge had the prettiest clay blue water, Milford Sound was tranquil and breathtaking, but I mean, guys lets face it
How do you beat seeing a sperm whale?
Thats the tail, btw.
Kaikora used to be a whaling village, they'd hunt the whales for its blubber and meat. But after people there saw the light and learned that whales are facing existential doom, this changed, and they eat crayfish now (which is DA BOMB DA SHIZZLE). Kaikora is now huge on whale conservation, and does whale watching tours. You get into a fast fast fast boat, into the middle of the sea, and they track whales for you. The tour took about 3 hours, but we got to see 2 whales and a pack of dusky dolphins. Also, I don't think I've ever been that out into sea before, its quite scary. Kilometres of water under you, yikeys. I didn't take many pictures, which is sad, but hey my hat flew off and I got really paranoid after that.
Sperm whales are the biggest toothed whales out there. They spent 80% of their lives under water, and come up for oxygen. I don't think they eat humans, but they do eat giant squids (which are giant btw, more giant than you and me put together ). There are quite kuat one these whales, walao let me tell you. They can look for food using sound waves, and when they find something they wanna eat, they target it straight at their prey, and kind of like machine gun at you, but with sound, just sound okay. Your body would vibrate so much, that you internal organs would turn to mush and you'd be paralysed on the spot, if not killed. The tour is pretty much sitting, going out, getting told to get in really quick cause they found a whale, seeing it for a few minutes then taking pictures and sitting back in to find more whales. I actually really enjoyed seeing a pack of Dusky Dolphins, there were around 200 of them surrounding the boat! Dusky Dolphins are not only adorable, they are mighty sexy and sex driven (hehe) and have sex like 15 times a day. They also never stop moving, from the day they were born till the day they die. They even eat, sleep and have sex while on the move.
I have videos of whales surfacing and dolphins swimming, but not many pictures. Nevertheless, enjoy.
If you want to see the dolphins, I put a lot of footage of them swimming in the video compilation of my trip. There's also scenery of other things there which is pretty and amazing and beautiful. Ill insert that below for those of you who want to see :)
My trip really was amazing. We also planned the whole thing by ourselves, where to stop, what to see, so I'm (or at least my dad haha) is pretty informed about New Zealand by now. If you have any questions feel free to comment below or contact me.
I'll be writing more on this, and hopefully be writing more regularly in general. Okay, gotta go, heading to Hilton with my family on my moms side for a little city get away.
