Things You May Not Know About Meagan

Here’s a post of cool facts about Meagan, the creator of this website.

I was born in South Africa to Kiwi parents and went to school there, later moving to New Zealand where I attended Uni, completing conjoint BA/BSc degrees and then a postgraduate diploma in teaching.

I’ve been to Outward Bound at Anakiwa, New Zealand. The Marlborough Sounds in that area is one of my favourite places. Others are Russell, Milford, Queenstown, Arrowtown, Papamoa and Napier.

I worked 3 jobs at one point to earn extra to go on my first OE – In customer services, hospitality and in an outdoors/bike shop, which I liked the most. The effort was so worth it.

I was a Girl Guide Leader before I left NZ for overseas.

I found my husband through my best friend during my time overseas. We later returned to NZ and renovated a 1950’s bach while teaching full-time.

I realised then there’s nothing you can’t do with a little coaching. I can plaster and paint really well now and pride myself on completing DIY tasks proficiently.

Leisure wise, I like gardening, riding bikes with my family, spending one on one time with friends and family, and being near beaches.

My favourite happy moments are usually in the outdoors at the top of mountains where the vastness, peace and beauty of creation lights up something in my soul.

I really admire people who can play music and sing well. I’ve done beginners guitar a few times and started music theory but didn’t prioritise practice so will have to begin again sometime when I have access to my guitar again.

My favourite colours are red, blue, green, pink and yellow. If I could only choose one, it’d be blue.

I love earrings and necklaces. My favourite place to get these is the Coromandel Bead Shop in NZ. They have thousands of glass beads which you can pick from to make your own earrings with or they can make them up for you. Leave me there for hours. Come to fetch me and leave again to return later. Perfect!

I once rode over 1600 kms in one month when cycling from Land’s End to John O’ Groats in England (S to N). It was an epic 27 day journey. They were the days of pitching a yellow tent, plenty of panniers, amazing British sights, tinned food, too much pasta, paper maps, hills, and triumph. And a few hairy highland coos.

I love airports and that faint airline fuel smell, which always feels exciting to me. Even being in an airport without a ticket somewhere feels like adventure, except if you’re in a customs queue, then it feels like violation! – no shoes, water or place to sit during those predictably long waits with kids.

When we sold our first house, we bought a bus to live in when we were building a new one. We had two weeks to get the bus sorted as we had to move out of our old house within that time frame.

On the Friday night of the week we decided to buy it, we outsourced our kids and road-tripped until 2am to get to where it was, slept on a piece of ply in it overnight and drove it home the next day.

In the next two weeks we whipped up bed frames and on the last weekend, took all our household stuff, piled it into the bus and drove away from our ex-house.

Then for 4 wks we ‘camped’ in it as we had no power or water on board. Beach and solar showers were the flavour of that time. Brrr.

Later we moved it to the section of land we’d bought to build on and hooked up a hose to a kitchen sink inside the bus and thus got cold running water. Yay!

Then my husband, with a mile-long list of things to do on the bus while still working full time,  cut the tip of one of his fingers off with a benchtop electric planer when a piece of wood dragged it down in a moment of distraction. Boo!

Luckily the new neighbour (the poor distractor) was a paramedic and knew what to do. Much to his chagrin, Neil was out of action for some time so the bus build dragged out longer than expected which was challenging. 

For the first 3 months of living in the bus, we went to the local pools for showers in the evenings with our 2 kids as we were yet to properly plumb and build in the bus bathroom/ shower.

In those days dinner was usually late and there were times I washed my hair in a tub in the foot-well of the bus then set off for work.

It was a resilience-building time but life’s either a daring adventure or nothing, right? And today after self-sacrifice and building effort we have a great motor home for adventuring in.

Also, I love ballroom dancing. I turn out to be quite good at it and I’m happy to practice endlessly.

I’m also good at house cleaning but I don’t really want to spend my precious time doing the inside parts too much as I find it a grind. When I do it though, I much prefer working alongside others to complete the task. Way quicker and more fun!

Food…I eat to fuel myself and my troops. I prefer savoury over sweet. I’m not a huge fan of cooking and wish I had a foodie in the house that made delicious, nutritious, and varied dinners for me daily.

How about you?

Is there something you like or dislike? A favourite hobby, food or colour?

Feel free to post your comments below.

Meagan