Cue the "Jaz" Hands!

Forgive my absence, gentle readers. I have had a touch of melancholy writer's block this past week, having said a tearful good-bye to my beloved mother in Airlie Beach, and haven't had a thing to say.

Also, nothing really has happened.

While in Airlie Beach, BG did a three day cruise of the Whitsunday Islands, and came back to me sunburned and crispy, though happy at seeing humpback whales interacting with their babies (even one giving birth!), and snorkeling the Great Barrier Reef. I, the land-based half of this traveling organism, stayed behind and relaxed in our spacious hotel room... nothing too exciting there!

We arrived in tropical Cairns yesterday after a few days of steady driving north and said a sad goodbye to our beloved Spaceship "Jaz". You may remember that we hired a Spaceship called "Dexter" in New Zealand as well, and we have to say that we were ridiculously pleased with the whole Spaceship experience, start to finish! The administrative staff are so laid back and friendly they even drove over to our hostel to get something WE forgot to give THEM because they owed us money. Amazing.

Seriously, Spaceships are awesome. In New Zealand, we drove Dexter through both the South and North Islands, through snow, ice, rain, and sun. We drove thousands of kilometres and stopped whenever we felt like it, pulling into car-sized parking lots in malls museums all over the country. At night, we popped up the lid to the storage bay and grabbed some grub (not grubs) for dinner. Then we'd twirl the back seat around, pull out the extendable legs, and set up our bed in under 10 minutes. Fabulous! See for yourself.



We had enough room for the two of us and all of our gear.

Here in Australia, Jaz took us from Sydney to Cairns in four weeks, carrying three people and all of their useless stuff gear. This time we had a bigger fridge (yay!), and the weather was warm enough that we could put the awning up in the back, giving us approximately 30% more space and ventilation. The bed was roomy enough for mom and me to play Scrabble and also sleep comfortably at night. We could even make hospital corners on the mattress. And where was BG, you ask? He was in the tent next door. I'm pretty sure he preferred that arrangement anyway, after hours and hours driving with us, the Clones.



We chose a Spaceship over any other camper van rental for many reasons. Initially, they were pretty damn cool to look at, with their bright orange paint job and the name -- we can now say that we drove a Spaceship! The price was sweeter than sweet, as the daily rate was less than half of that of a traditional camper van, and because Spaceships are basically minivans, they use much less fuel (cha CHING)!

Then we started interacting with the staff. They were friendly and helpful. They gave us discounts, answered all enquiries with thoughtfulness and humour, and declined to take a credit card deposit on booking, saying that they "trusted [us] to show up." Then they gave us DVDs to watch (did I mention the Spaceship had a DVD player?), a Frisbee, and a deck of cards. Any technical problems that we did have were dealt with to our satisfaction and beyond, and they reimbursed us for any inconveniences that we had (there were very few.)

So, in summary... Spaceships are awesome because:

• They're cost-effective rentals, having cheaper rates and using less fuel than campers.
• They're convenient to drive and park, because they're smaller and more maneuverable. They fit into normal parking spaces and parking garages without diva drama.
• Spaceships provide plenty of entertainment options, from DVD movies to iPod karaoke.
• Do-it-yourself cooking and food preparation is a breeze with the "en-suite" gas-powered stove* and fridge.
  
• Spaceship Cosmonauts (the staff) are super-helpful and super-friendly... and super-cute too.
  
• Spaceships allow you to go wherever you want, whenever you want, however you want.

* Gas stoves are no longer a fearsome entity for me. Consider gas stoves conquered, with two months of use and not a single explosion or fire!

We Must Be Aliens

So, basically, it's a long story, but we have had a hard time posting photos lately because our computer broke when we were in Singapore. One night I went to play Scrabulous do something on the internet, the screen went all crazy and then went black, and no matter what we did it wouldn't restart, so BG called Asus Tech Support and they said we needed a new motherboard, or something, so he went to the repair place and they fixed it in under 24 hours, only they screwed something up and now the laptop has a tendency to overheat if it's on for a long time except when we're here in New Zealand where temperatures are cold enough that it stays cool, and more importantly, the computer no longer recognizes the fact that it has a memory card reader, so we have to dig out the USB cable and connect the camera directly to the computer old-school like it was 2006 or something.

So no pictures yet.

It occurs to me that I mentioned sleeping in a minivan, but our vehicle is so! much! more! than just a minivan. It's a Spaceship! During the day it drives like a typical minivan, except that it still feels totally wrong to be sitting in the driver's seat and finding that there's no steering wheel in front of me. When I get in the car I find myself trying to put my foot on the brake pedal as I do up my seatbelt. Weird. Anyway, the back seat faces forward during the day, but at night it rotates 180 degrees and the bed is set up inside. We have a tiny fridge and a pretty big food-and-storage area underneath the bed area. There's a light in the back so we can see and there's a DVD player and tiny screen so we can watch old episodes of "The Office" before we go to sleep. There's a small gas-powered stove for making quick meals, and it's fully stocked with all of the cooking and eating gear we would need.

Right now, during the New Zealand winter, it's a bit chilly to be sleeping in the van, but we rented the "winter warmer kit" which includes an extra duvet, a hot water bottle, Thermos, and an electric heater, so all we have to do is plug into a powered campsite and we're good to go. The camping parks here are beautifully laid out, with big clean kitchens and bathrooms. Some of them have heated lounges, TVs, laundry, and fireplaces, so the only time we've spent in the car is driving from point A to point B and sleeping. We've only had to use the gas stove once, and I have never been so happy in my life to cook! After eight months of ordering from menus, I am taking extreme pleasure in going to the grocery store, planning dishes, and cooking simple and innovatively tasty meals from familiar ingredients. Last week we ate an incredible salmon dinner after splurging on fresh fillets from the salmon farm, and I recently also did some pretty cool things with chick peas.

Right now we're in Milford Sound, and as we were approaching the area, BG was heard to exclaim, "I love fiords!" We drove up the steep, deeply curing alpine road amongst towering granite walls that were dusted with snow on top and yet also carpeted with moss and ferns at the bottom, waterfalls cascading down the sheer sides of them like a million glacial rivers. Last night we experienced our first New Zealand winter storm [EEK! A MOUSE JUST RAN BETWEEN BG'S FEET] complete with icy rain and gusts of wind that blew the raindrops sideways into the car door. Sleeping in a van which nearly got blown on its side (slight exaggeration, maybe) through the night was an interesting experience.


Photo Credit goes to Jack Chi, of Arcadia University in Auckland -- Milford Sound, Dwarfed by the Mitre Peak

Today we did a cruise of the Sound and saw fur seals lounging on a rock -- seals are weird looking creatures, have you ever noticed? We also stopped at the Milford Sound Deep Water Observatory and learned some pretty cool things about fiords and about Milford in particular. Because this is one of the rainiest, wettest places on earth, the fiords above Milford Sound almost always have waterfalls that run into the sound. These are obviously freshwater, which is lighter than seawater, and so there's almost always a layer of fresh water lying on top of the seawater. This fresh water acts as a sort of "filter", making the seawater darker and warmer than it would be at such a shallow depth. As a result, all softs of critters live at shallow depths in Milford Sound when they would normally be found much deeper. We actually could see the division between the layers of fresh water and sea water, like an oil and vinegar salad dressing in a glass jar. We saw different kinds of starfish, coral, fish, anemones, sea cucumbers, and shellfish. It was cool -- and cold.

We had back down the coast tomorrow with warnings of an impending snowstorm on our heels, but as cocky Canadians feel that it won't be as bad as they're making it out to be. We'll be careful until we get back to Queenstown, where we may or may not throw ourselves off a cliff. Wait for it!