Log Book - New Zealand

Thursday, 29 April 2010 04:11 Last Updated on Wednesday, 26 May 2010 00:36 Written by Delphine

Bonjour à tous,

Puisque ce site a été créé avec l’objectif d’être solidaire, c’est l’occasion aujourd’hui de vous demander d’aider Romain (en un clic !), un globetrotteur qui a renforcé notre envie de parcourir le monde tout en aidant les populations (on tient d’ailleurs à préciser que Romain nous a beaucoup aidé dans notre projet en parlant de nous autour de lui et en nous donnant pas mal de conseils).

Pour les curieux, vous pouvez jeter un oeil sur son blog tour du monde: http://www.romain-world-tour.com.

Comment l’aider ? C’est simple, ça vous prendra 30 secondes au plus, il suffit de voter pour lui en cliquant ici. A peine rentré de son année de tour du monde, il a l’opportunité de repartir sur les routes en étant reporter pour France Soir… Pour ce faire, il doit gagner le concours organisé par ce journal.

A vous de jouer en votant pour lui! On vous promet que vous ne serez pas déçus par ses reportages de qualité.

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Pour plus de détails, voici l'e-mail de Romain:

Chers amis,

La compétition est plus que jamais d'actualité ! Et ma vidéo de candidature est en ligne :
http://www.facebook.com/l/e1574;www.romain-world-tour.com/veille/france-soir-reportour-ma-video-de-candidature/
J'ai encore besoin de votre aide pour gagner le "meilleur CDD du monde"
Je vous rappelle (IMPORTANT) que vous pouvez voter pour moi une fois par jour, et ce tous les jours jusqu'au 20 Mai prochain !
Merci donc de cliquer sur
- http://www.facebook.com/l/e1574;reportour.francesoir.fr/RomainCorraze
- puis sur "Votez pour ce candidat" !
1000 merci et bonne journée,

Romain

Log Book - New Zealand

Tuesday, 27 April 2010 04:51 Last Updated on Tuesday, 25 May 2010 23:37 Written by Maxime

Notre mois en Nouvelle Zélande s’achève bientôt et c’est l’occasion de faire un point sur toutes les choses que nous avons découvertes là bas. Des fruits aux animaux en passant par les légendes Maori, nous avons beaucoup appris !

Le Kiwi : Cet animal est tout un symbole pour les Néo-Zélandais à tel point que c’est le surnom qu’on leur donne. On appelle communément les Néo Zélandais des « Kiwis » ! Même leur monnaie se fait appeler « kiwi dollars », c’est drôle. Comme si on surnommait les français « coqs » ! Le kiwi est un oiseau qui ne vole pas et qui vit la nuit. Il est donc difficile à voir… La seule fois où nous en avons vu, c’était dans une réserve. Ils ont un très grand bec et ont la particularité d’être les oiseaux qui pondent les plus gros œufs relativement à leur taille. Dernière chose, ils sont en voie de disparition. Malheureusement.

A gauche un Kiwi et à droite une radio de Kiwi qui montre la place que prend un oeuf dans son ventre !

Le Moa : Le Moa est une sorte d’autruche géante qui vivait en Nouvelle Zélande il y a des milliers d’années. Néanmoins, des rumeurs disent que quelques uns d’entres eux se baladeraient encore en Nouvelle Zélande. Nous n’avons pas eu la chance de faire cette découverte !

Un moa au musée d'Auckland

Le fruit mystérieux : nous avons découvert ce fruit en faisant nos courses et nous n’avons pas pu résister à le gouter ! La caissière nous avait dit que le goût était entre la banane et le citron. Et bien après y avoir goûté, on peut vous le certifier, et c’est très bon. C’est étrange de découvrir des saveurs inconnues. Ah oui, et l’intérieur est un peu gluant, vous êtes prévenus !

Les Maoris : nous avions entendu parler des Maoris avant de venir ici, mais nous avons découvert leurs légendes et leurs coutumes. En voici quelques unes :

- Les vêtements : sur la photo on voit une plante verte derrière les bandes de tissus qui sèchent. Les feuilles de cette plante servent à faire les tissus que vous voyez sécher. Il suffit d’effiler la feuille avec une coquille d’huître et le tour est joué ! Puis il faut faire sécher, et enfin vous pouvez vous faire une belle jupe, comme le monsieur un peu plus bas sur la photo. On n’a pas osé lui dire que chez nous, ce sont seulement les filles qui portent des jupes… Allez savoir pourquoi !

La plante qui sert à faire ces tissus se trouve derrière.

- Les grimaces : quand les Maoris tirent la langue et font les gros yeux (comme quand ils dansent le Haka par exemple) c’est pour effrayer leurs adversaires. Cette grimace symbolise la mort.

Une pose durant le Aka !

- La légende de Maui :outre avoir volé le feu aux Dieux, Maui a aussi permis à la terre d’avoir des jours plus longs en ralentissant le cours du soleil. Pour se faire, il l’a accroché afin de ralentir son cycle et de permettre aux gens de la terre d’avoir assez de lumière dans la journée pour faire tout ce qu’ils avaient à faire. Et enfin, il a pêché l’île du nord de la Nouvelle Zélande en utilisant l’île du sud comme canoë et en utilisant un os comme hameçon. C’est pour cela que l’île du nord de la Nouvelle Zélande s’appelle Te Ika a Maui en Maori (le poisson de Maui). Sa vie n’a pas été de tout repos !

- Enfin, on est sûr de retenir un mot Maori: MANU, qui veut dire oiseau.

Un animal inconnu: nous sommes tombés nez à nez avec cet animal sans savoir ce que c’était… Si vous avez une idée, aidez-nous à lui trouver un nom !

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Log Book - New Zealand

Saturday, 24 April 2010 01:27 Last Updated on Tuesday, 25 May 2010 23:32 Written by Delphine

Two days of rain and it’s enough to write few stories about our New Zealand trip:

1^st: Never say “autumn is great here, it never rains!” You might be disappointed when two days after you are stuck in you van waiting for the heavy rain to stop and you know that the most beautiful glaciers of New Zealand are here, beside you!

2^nd: last Sunday we got up early and got into the morning cold. We put on our swimsuits (not easy to do so and even more difficult to get off!). We even had our hat on and a smile on our faces (just by knowing what we were about to do!) while we were getting on the boat. All that for… NOTHING! We decided to go swim with the dolphins in their natural environment and they decided not to come! The leaflet was saying 95% of chances to swim with them… I guess we are part of the 5% of unlucky people…The only great opportunity we had was the shower! Indeed, we don’t have that much opportunity to have a shower here.

3^rd: Showers day! Every two to three days we are looking for a free shower to have. Not so easy. Sometimes you have to sneak in a camping and use the bathrooms as a normal customer or we just use the public water and find a way to have a “shower” but you have to avoid the people passing by and staring at you!

4^th: The walks are making our daily life here (except when raining!). We walk during 4 to 5 hours and see wonderful things. New Zealand is a wonderful country and not very populated which makes it a paradise for those who want to have a real break from the busy Europe. The lonely planet is saying that there is 10 times more sheep than people here! Just imagine!

Log Book - New Zealand

Friday, 23 April 2010 06:44 Last Updated on Tuesday, 25 May 2010 23:56 Written by Maxime

Today, Saturday the 24th of April it’s our charity birthday. We created it one year ago already.

And this is time for a good news, the little village of Huavina we visited in Chile has electricity now! The turbine works and brings electricity to the village. They still need to do some work but it works and it’s the most important.

Thank you to all the people who helped us, Sybille, Lucie, Daniel, Angelica, Sandra, Richard…

We hope we could continue helping all those people from Mexico, Peru, Chile and Africa for a long time.

It’s also time to thank all the people who helped us raising the money we needed to help because without money a charity couldn’t do anything!

You all participated in helping the children of the Huichol Community in Mexico to have a better year at school, in helping preserve the Amazonian forest of Peru, in helping the village of Huavina en Chile to have electricity…

Log Book - New Zealand

Thursday, 22 April 2010 04:36 Last Updated on Wednesday, 26 May 2010 00:24 Written by Maxime

We are now on the southern Island of New Zealand and we already saw few things.

We arrived near a famous wine area and didn’t miss the opportunity to do some wine tastings.

But, the best things we saw so far was on our way to Kaikoura.

Our curiosity made us follow some seals which were going from the sea to the river.

Where were they going? Why?

Find out on the video!

Log Book - New Zealand

Thursday, 15 April 2010 04:36 Last Updated on Friday, 09 November 2012 14:38 Written by Delphine

Once we signed the rent contract, we got the campervan keys and we bought food for the whole week, we were ready at last to go and discover landscapes of the North Island! What was our plan? Nothing special, we just got in our mind a few names of places and national parks to visit but we did not really know what to do exactly… So we asked a few advices from locals to know what were the « must do » sites (we did not want to miss a nice place). Thanks to the Kiwi’s tips, we have spent a great week in the North of the country.

Firstly, we went to the Maori village, named Te Puia, located in Rotorua. This village is an example to show and explain how the old Maori villages were, how the natives used to live before and what the Maori culture was. We also learnt how they curved wood and we assisted to a Maori dance show. We saw as well an “Aka” dance (it’s a dance well-known all over the world thanks to the All blacks rugby team). The aka used to be danced by the Maori warriers just before a battle. It was a dance to give them courage and to intimidate the ennemies. To be honest, even if we were not “their enemies”, we have been intimidated during the Aka performance!

Rotorua area was impressive by its large and beautiful lakes, its luxurious vegetation and its volcanic activity.  Rotorua is one of NZ’s most dynamic thermal area with spurting geysers, steaming hot springs and exploding mud pools. We were keen to discover this area, especially when we took a bath at 7 :00am in a natural steaming hot spring (taking a bath in a water at 38°C in a such natural place was like heaven on Earth!). We also walked in Tongario national park, one of NZ’most spectacular park, best known for its cameo as Mordor in Lord of the Rings. This 4 hours tramp was a nice opportunity for us to walk in a desert of dry lava and volcanic stones. From Tongario to Stratford, we drove on the « forgotten world highway »… At first, we did not understand why they called this road like that. But, then we did figure it out: - we only crossed 10 cars within the 150 kilometers sheeps and cows are 100 times more than local people in this area it’s written on a road sign « come and increase our population »

But it’s definitely a road to drive on if you go in the West part of North Island. Landscapes are beautiful… the drive winds through hilly bush country with 12 km of unsealed road! Before taking this road, be aware that there is no petrol station for the next 150 kilometers, so fill up with petrol to avoid bad surprise!

We are now in Wellington which is our last step in North Island. Tomorrow, we are going to take the ferry to South Island. Wellington is a nice and warm harbor where we did enjoy the good atmosphere in pubs and cafés.

Log Book - New Zealand

Tuesday, 13 April 2010 02:03 Last Updated on Tuesday, 13 April 2010 02:29 Written by Maxime

Auckland was our first stop in New Zealand. After Tahiti, it’s not so cold. We stayed 3 days in Auckland. Enough time to get to know the city and find a camping van for our trip in the country of kiwis.

We discovered a nice city and very quiet. We even found a fench brasserie in which we found cheese and that was enough to make us love this town!

The sky city tour !

They are everywhere!

To find our camping van we went to a tourist information office in the city center. There is a lot. They did everything we wanted to do. They phoned to many rental agencies, they asked for the prices and when we finally found the cheapest they even booked for us! Very nice because when you are a backpacker, to make a phone call it costs money.

Explore more, the rental van company, even came to pick us up in our hostel.

Here are some advices if you want to rent a van in New Zealand:

1. Make sure you can give back the van in the city you end up your trip. Some companies are only in Auckland.
2. Check all the costs they made hide you! For example, in some cases to add an extra driver it costs money. Check also if the shits, towels and kitchen stuff are furnished.
3. The insurance. Before taking their assurance make sure you are not covered by your credit card assurance when you pay with it.
4. Compare! The best way to find a good deal is to compare all the companies. To do so go to any information site marked with an “I” and they will help you.

Our van is in a different place every morning.

Inside the van.

We are now on the NZ’s road and our first destination will be Rotorua, a Maori land.

Log Book - New Zealand

Tuesday, 06 April 2010 04:22 Last Updated on Thursday, 22 November 2012 09:51 Written by Maxime

Here’s our making up because we already started the second part of our trip. We started on the 20^th of November in our solidary world trip. So what’s up now about solidarity and about sport?

For the association side, we are happy of the work we realized so far. We helped 3 communities so far and all are made of natives. They are those who need more help. Their government is ignoring them, unfortunately. So we tried our best to help them in different things like education, training in different things, economic activity help…

We alos realized that, if it’s not easy to gather money or donation, it’s also not easy to give out the money fairly. That’s why we rather take our time than giving out money to anyone who can waste it.

So far, here is what we did:

- Mexico: we, thanks to your donations, financed all the stuff children and teachers needed to start a new year at school in good conditions. We are also buying handcraft to the community in order to help them financially. We are selling this handcraft to people in France in order to help our charity raising money.

- Peru: We made a donation to help the creating their animal reserve and plantations of threatened species of the Amazonian forest. We will continue to help them in their school project. The school aim will be to give an education to children left in the streets. Finally, we help Wilson’s family paying the hospital fees.

- Chile: we are looking for an electrician to fix the turbine in order to give back electricity to the village.

On the sport side, it’s not easy to organize athletics sessions because of the lack of sports equipments. So we often organize little “athletics games” with the children of the school and it allows us to integrate the community better. During the second part of our trip we will visit more charities in relation to sports in South Africa and Australia.

About our trip, we left the South America and we were sad to leave this wonderful place.

And here it is! We are not talking about our personal feelings because it’s way too soon!

PS: for those who became very rich lately, les dons c’est par ici !