Visiting Friends

Before moving out of Wellington, there was one more thing we hoped to accomplish. While working in Gisborne we made a friend, who was now living in Wellington since a couple of days. He and his family moved only very recently, while we were touring the South Island.

I tried to get in touch with him and managed to do so, just barely before we intended to give up and move on. We met in the centre of the city and took him on board, as he just finished work and was using public transport. We brought him to his home at the outskirts of Wellington, where we were warmly and openly welcomed by his wife, her sister and his three daughters.

They told us, they actually only moved in a couple of days ago and were still new to the house and environment as we were. The wife and her sister prepared a wonderful dinner for us and all invited us to stay over the night, offering to us one of the daughter's rooms. We gladly accepted and spent a wonderful evening at their home.

The whole family is from Mauritius and moved to New Zealand to get a better education for the daughters. However they were all missing Mauritius very much and are thinking about moving back when the daughters will have finished their school education.

Mauritian Flag

Singaporean Flag

They shared wonderful stories about Mauritius with us, which reminded us of a Singapore in Africa. Actually the two countries are not so unlike. Both are small island states with tropical climate. Both are multicultural states where you can hear many different languages every day. Both were former colonies of the United Kingdom and still show traces of that heritage in architecture, culture and organisation. In both countries the government seems to care well for its citizens offering public services from transportation to swimming pools to a very affordable price. Despite all this similarity Mauritius seems a less busy and more easy going place than Singapore. And you don't have these ridiculous fines.
All that said, bilge rat and I definitely want to go there some day.

After dinner we played with their cheerful and friendly daughters, made friends with the whole family and watched Rocky, their favourite movie together. The next day they again prepared an amazing lunch for us and packed the remainder of yesterday and today in a bag for us, so we would have some food supply for our ongoing journey.

We were welcomed so lovely and felt so at home with them that saying farewell was not easy. We wished to be able to stay longer or repay them for their kindness, but we had to move on. So farewell we said, back in our Roach Mobile we climbed and due north sails we set.

scallywag