sarahs veganvision: Happy Camper 2.0

Happy Easter everyone! I hope your weekend has been as good as mine has so far.

We just came back to Tauranga after spending a couple of nights away, living a camper life in a tent at a camping site close to Coromandel.

The weekend didn't start off very good though. After a road trip in Danni and Scotts awesome nightclub van, we arrived to the camping site and went straight to the supermarket to buy some Easter wine for the night, which we all had looked forward to all day.

Little did we know that it was Good Friday, which meant that we wouldn't be able to buy any alcohol, anywhere in the whole country during this day. Yay..

But - the evening made a quick turn. From feeling stupidly miserable, to have the best time with so much laughter that my cheeks hurt when we ended up having the most luxorius evening at restaurant Manala.

Because, thanks to Guy and Scott's mum Caroles Easter gift to all of us, we realized that we could afford to treat ourselves to a massive delicious dinner at this really nice restaurant, where we were allowed to buy wine as we bought food.

So the Good Friday literally turned out to be a really good Friday. Especially the food was over the top! Woodfired vegan pizza, with shoestring fries on the side.. A vegan Easter dinner dream!

We continued the evening in the nightclub (aka the van), where we listened to music, drew on a piece of wood and danced sitting down so that the whole van was shaking - so much fun!

The day after we went on a little trip to Hot water beach. We had heard so much about this place. About how if you bring a spade you can dig yourself a hole in the sand where you can sit as if it is a jacuzzi, because the water underneath is superhot. So on the way down to the beach we hired a spade and were super excited, but the beach didn't really meet our high expectations.

I don't know if it was because it was Easter Saturday, or if it's always like this, but the beach was insanely busy. We also realized that it sure wasn't easy to find a good spot to dig our own jacuzzi, as the only area on the beach where it seemed to be hot underneath the sand, was just a small area where everyone else gathered, just to feel the heat under their feet.

To be fair, it was pretty cool to feel it because it really was boiling hot, but we didn't get much use of our spade and personally I though that the waves were too high (have I mentioned how freakishly scared I am of sea and waves?) to swim in. I know. I'm a coward. But the rest of the gang ha fun in the waves and we ended up having a nice time in the sun and then having the best soy latte and chips at a nice restaurant by the beach.

Even though it was a lovely day, one thing really pissed me off (and that still pisses me off when I think about it). On the parking lot, there was this car that someone must've hired from WickedCampers, with a stupid graffiti saying "If we aren't meant to eat animals, why are they made with meat?"

Ha,ha - very funny to put a message basically saying "hey, let's continue exploiting millions of innocent individuals in the world" in everyones face.

I know that I shouldn't put energy on being annoyed at stuff like this, cause it is soooo immature and stupid, but I just can't help it. It is just so unnecessary. As if the meat industry needs more commercial?

All I want to say to Wicked Camper is just (sorry for my language, but I can't help it): Fuck off you ignorant bastards!

I just felt so frustrated, but thanks to Twitter I could express my anger towards Wicked Camper, and felt a lot better afterwards.

It could also be because of the veggie stir fry with noodles that Scott cooked for us when we came back to the camping, that made me in a much better mood.

So overall - our little camping trip had many ups and downs, but I would do it all again. It was over way to quick. We came back to Tauranga earlier today, tired from not being able to sleep very well in a tent, we went for a chill on the beach by Mount Maunganui, went for a pizza and chips (and a piece of avocado sushi!!) and then made an attempt to feel a bit more productive by walking up this mini mountain next to Mount Maunganui, climbed up a tree and took funny selfies.