skip to main |
skip to sidebar
Hanmer Springs showed us the sun, and we showed them our shine! All smiles. The sun came out for an afternoon and we soaked it up! Joe and I spent our final New Zealand day in a mountain village paradise. We left our jackets and hats in the camper, and charted some gorgeous new territory in our bathing suits and sunscreen. We basked in God's hot springs and sunshine, the waters were perfect in color, warmth and garden surroundings! Of course the clouds rolled in in the later afternoon, but that didn't bother us, we had our moment in New Zealand's sun once again! Our final stretch back to Christchurch was lively and full of noisy campervan campers (one particularly happy camper)! Happy to be all done with the camping (all done joe, all done)!
We're leaving this fantastic country today. Heading to Sydney! Trusting we will find accommodations upon arrival. We'll just tell our taxi man... "Take us to the Opera House!" And we'll go from there! No worries mate.
We find ourselves way up north in Nelson and the Abel Tasman region, but we've been unable to escape the overcastness. Summer in New Zealand has the potential to not be very summery. Through five days of barely seeing the sun, we're thankful for hot beverages, good books, and adventurous spirits. Speaking of adventurous spirits, Wanida is worthy of recognition for surviving and thriving as a campervan camper (almost done, Noodle)! Also, speaking of good books, today I finished The Alchemist--very timely for the start of this journey. Read it if you're a dreamer with a "Personal Legend" to live out.
On Friday night we were relieved to realize that we can still be social; we hooked up with a few friends-of-a-friend in Wanaka, then also met up with a good friend of mine from college who happened to be traveling through Wanaka on the same day! Thanks to Amy and the crew for hosting us and reminding us what it's like to be in the company of friends.
Wanaka to Franz Josef was the drive for Saturday as we intended to crampon our way over the Franz Josef glacier for an all day guided adventure on Sunday. Instead, enough rain dumped to freeze into an entirely new glacier, so we decided to save the money and our extremities by canceling. Bummer, though, as we were left with the rainy day blues and only our imagination to picture the ice castles and ice caves.
Welcome to Nelson, then, the sunshine capital of the South Island. Show me the sun and I'll show you the shine! One highlight that still remains before we depart for Sydney on Thursday is soaking in the thermal pools at Hamner Springs. Join us, won't you, for a drink and a dip in one of God's jacuzzis?
god took everything beautiful & dramatic and placed it along one beautiful hike, called Rob Roy Glacier Hike. this explains why joe and i have jelly-like legs today. we worked hard yesterday, and loved every minute! joe must have gotten tired of hearing me saying over and over, "this is so pretty!" i'll admit, i said it a lot. this hike was incredible. it starts in the prettiest alpine meadows, and then across this scary bridge... around some winding paths that run just beside a crystal blue roaring river. the long path drops you off at the foot of an enormous glacier. it was some of the most concentrated beauty i've ever seen. i thought of all my hiker friends and family back at home. as most of you know, joe and i aren't big hikers... but yesterday you would have been so proud of us, we hiked our hearts out!
he did it. for reals, he really did it. joey maertz was the last person on wednesday evening to jump off the original bungy bridge! joe was all smiles! the only nervous person was me. i was shaking and so scared!! joe stepped onto the plank with a big smile and began rallying cheers from the crowd. joe was in the spot light, and he gave the everyone a good show! at the end of the big "3-2-1" countdown, joe leaped into the air, and took a dive to the bottom of the gorge!! the bungy guys did a good trick on him too... they gave him a little surprise dip into the river below! when it was all said and done, i asked him how it was. his first response, "where's my t-shirt?" (you get a free t-shirt when you jump). he proudly wore his new t-shirt the rest of the day.
Well, we try at least. Four nights in the campervan down, eight to go! Our wheels have taken us from Christchurch past Mt Cook through Queenstown to Te Anau and Milford Sound, and now back to Queenstown again. Campervan rules--as far as we know--are that you can park and sleep anywhere out of town so long as there's no sign telling you that you can't. The results, after a stormy first night, look like the view above, and we awoke to clear views of Mt Cook from the south shore of Lake Pukaki.
Queenstown is charming. It's also very touristy. We like it, though, so we're back. When it comes to experiencing the place, you have two options: You can spend hundreds of dollars to eat, sleep, drink, boat down a river, ride a gondola, bungy jump, and use the internet, or you can do what we try to do by living on spaghetti out of the back of a van, skipping the speed boats, hiking an hour up to where the gondola would take you in three minutes, being bungy jumping enthusiasts (by jealously watching), and finding the only free wi-fi in town at the local ice cream joint. We're still suckers, though, and New Zealand is fairly expensive, so we've spent some cash. Should we just go for it? Are we missing out?
Te Anau and Milford Sound were beautiful and wet. We did fork over $30 in Te Anau for a spot at what's called a "holiday park". We were lured in by the guaranteed place to sleep, the showers, etc. They got us at Milford Sound too when we paid probably too much for a two hour cruise around the fiord. Wanida got sprayed and soaked by a waterfall!
New pics are up, so enjoy!
this was great day. we roamed this charming town, and loved every corner. most of the day was simple discovery: a cafe, a bookstore, a museum, a beautiful garden and for just a few moments, a little sunshine. the highlight of today came in the evening, back on the farm. greg, our wonderful host, asked us to herd in the goats. he explained very carefully how to properly accomplish this task, i (w) heard nothing. during the whole explanation, i just envisioned myself running (frolicking, really) through the field, calling and chasing after the goats, in a graceful yet run-a-muck sort of way. so i did just that, and the goats did not like me. turns out his whole explanation entailed words like "calm, easy, slow and no big movements." missed that. it took a little more time, but the goats made their way. here's my favorite part... our host asked joe to pierce tags into the ears of the little baby goats. it was a sad moment when joe didn't clamp down hard enough, and the little goat would have to go through the whole piercing thing twice. what an amazing experience. stay tuned, the shearing comes tomorrow. p.s. a little bad news: we did our first load of laundry tonight. joe's favorite shirt is now pink, bright pink. look for it in future photos, i don't think he can handle tossing it.
L.A. traffic (thanks again Sam and Anj), three flights, two long layovers (Fiji and Auckland), and 24+ hours later--New Zealand is a breath of fresh air. We're here in Christchurch!
Departure did get emotional; we spent a few months preparing for what was just a pencil and paper plan until we actually lifted off from LAX on Tuesday night, so the weight of leaving finally pulled on us. We also shared some laughs as we pondered the question, "Now what?" It's true that with this trip come our own expectations for experience, so there's this sense that we immediately needed to accomplish something. Maybe the point, though, is that "now" is "what"--each moment is a gift from God. This is what we want to be doing. This is where we want to be. :)
Christchurch is our base for one more night. We're being hosted by the MacRae family at their warm and welcoming home, and they've been wonderful. Besides taking care of us, they take care of many a goat, and the two of us have been recruited to pitch in and help shear all 30-some of them tomorrow (Saturday) morning! Stay tuned, huh?
So far NZ has charmed us from the start (with a welcome at the airport of free tea and coffee). Tomorrow afternoon we hit the road--the left side of the road--to see the rest of the country.
