New Zealand - Day 12 - Heading back to the US

2/16/10
Oh boy, this is going to be a looooooooong day of travel. I'm homesick though and ready to set foot on US soil! Becky and I made our way to the Christchurch airport and said our goodbyes. I was worried about leaving her alone....but knew she would soon be with her friends, Amie and Chris, back on the North Island. She had QUITE a day after she dropped me off, so you will have to check out her blog to find out what happened. Note that there were police involved.... but hey, she's ok! ;-)

So there is a lot of construction at the Christchurch airport. It was tough trying to find my way, but I figured it out. The attendants that I had to check in with kept asking what my final destination was. Atlanta, GA, USA.....after 4 flights, that is. Yeah, it was going to be a long day! Anyway, I got checked in and went to security. Oddly enough, I got pulled aside for a random check. This is the one where they use that wand thingee on you and you have to hold your arms out. I never get asked to do these, but maybe I looked particularly suspicious today? It was probably because I had all my luggage with me and didn't check any. Oh well. I made my way to the gate. On the way, I bought a really pretty necklace made of paua shell with an inlayed snowflake pattern. This one was unlike any other that I had seen and I loved it. In fact, I am wearing it right now (3/16/10)! I also bought a macchiato that I tried to drink whilst waiting for my flight, but I just couldn't finish it. It didn't taste good at all! I knitted and read a little bit to pass the time. The flight I was taking to Auckland was on Air New Zealand. From Auckland, it was going to continue on to Japan. Almost all the flight attendants, and passengers were Japanese! Most of the announcements in were in Japanese too. It made me think of my mom-in-law, Mako. Anyway, the flight was a good one and we got to Auckland on time. Not that it mattered for me. I had a 7-hour layover until the next leg of my journey....Auckland to Sydney, Australia. I had to go through security again. Once more, I was asked what my final destination was. Atlanta, GA, USA. Once again, raised eyebrows with my crazy flight plans. Then, I got pulled for the wand check thingee again! Gheez! Do I look like a terrorist or what? I got through that (again) and started exploring my home for the next 7 hours. I had a tough time trying to get my boarding pass, but was finally able to get that from the Emirates Lounge lady at 3pm. In the meantime, I shopped and ate lunch, watched some of the Olympics and knitted. I also found a computer terminal that I could pay to use. I emailed David and then headed down to my gate. This gate was FAR away from everything! It took a long time to get there, and when I arrived (early of course) absolutely NO one was there. It was just me and my stuff and just really eerie! See my stuff on the right, by the window?

After about an hour, people started showing up, thank goodness. I hate being weirded out like that! You can see it was 4pm when I took this pic. At 7:35pm I was on the mongo huge Emirates double decker Airbus and on my way to Sydney, I was worried, because our plane left late from Auckland and I now had less than an hour to catch my flight from Sydney to LA. To make a long story short, I made it. At 11:30pm Auckland time I was on my way to LA via V Australia! Fortunately, it was a light flight. Chef Curtis Stone was on my flight (he sat in first class), and when I landed, I found out Rihanna and her entourage were on my flight as well. I super lucked out on this flight, as I was able to get a whole row to myself so I was able to sleep a little bit (this was a 14- hour flight). I woke up at 7:50am Auckland time and still had almost 5 hours to go before landing in LAX. The people and the food on the V Australia flights are very good, so I was holding up well thus far, considering I had been traveling for almost 24 hours straight now. Once in LAX I had another 7 hour layover. I was going to try to catch an earlier flight, but there was no way I was going to make it. I had to wait. In LAX, you have to go outside and either catch the bus or walk to the terminal your connecting flight is leaving from. It was so nice outside and I can't describe how good it was to be back on US soil. It was comforting to know that, no matter what, I could get home now...even if I had to rent a car and DRIVE all the way from Cali to ATL! I walked, slowly, to my next terminal, made my way through security (for the fourth and final time) and found my gate. I called David and talked to him for a looooooong time. It was great to talk to him at length. I was nervous about coming home, but looking forward to making amends too. I knitted...again. I read. I was bored and getting antsy. My first 3 flights weren't too bad. All I had to do now was take the Delta red-eye home. Once the time came to finally board...much later that night, well, it sucked. It was an old plane. It had really small overhead bins that my carry-on (TSA approved carry on!) hardly fit into and everyone was packed in like sardines. I took two sleeping pills, but I just couldn't get comfortable at all. I tried so hard to sleep, but alas, it was not going to happen for me. No movies, no food. I could not wait to get off this FRICKEN awful, uncomfortable flight. IT SUCKED. When we finally landed and started to de-board, I couldn't get my carry-on out of the overhead bin. I was literally hanging on it with both hands with my feet off the ground. I had to climb up on a elbow rest for one of the chairs and tug and pull with all my might. As I did so, the men behind me didn't stop to help...they limbo'ed underneath me as I continued to struggle. Yep. I'm back in the good 'ol US of A! About 6 guys walked underneath me as I tried desperately to pull my bag free of the f'ing overhead bin. Finally a nice lady stopped and with her help, we were able to get it unstuck. Thank you nice lady!!!! I got off that damn plane and made my way to baggage claim where David was going to pick me up. I was sooo incredibly tired. I felt gross. I felt like a zombie. I called David and he was on his way. I started to walk outside and WHOA! I forgot what season it was!! It's WINTER, Wendy. Duh! I got way too used to summer. Back inside I went. David and I continued to chat on the phone until I saw him pull up to the curb. I was tired, but not tired enough to run out and greet him. He held me so tight and kissed me so hard. It was the best greeting EVER! I knew right then and there that things with he and I were going to be ok...thank God!!! We drove home, with my crying a majority of the way. David gave me an amazing and thoughtful gift....without going into detail, it was basically a new start for us. I couldn't have asked for anything better. Once I stopped blubbering, we went to the IHOP near home and had breakfast. I was so tired, I could hardly eat. I did though (of course!). After our nice b-fast, David took me home. HOME! I was home!!! I looked at my watch and realized that I had been traveling for FORTY ONE HOURS! I greeted our pets, Sandy, Dexter, Charles and Nanny, and then I took a shower and literally passed out cold on the bed. I was dead to the world. I was happy, but I was TOAST. What an amazing journey. Was it worth it? ABSOLUTELY! It was an awesome trip. The stuff with David actually couldn't have happened at a better time. Our relationship is now better and stronger as a result. I feel incredibly fortunate...for him, for being able to take such an amazing trip, and for having fabulous friends like Becky. I am one lucky gal.

Is the blog over? Nope. I will have one more update of some other interesting things I saw but didn't post, along with other little tidbits. After that? Well, we'll see what the next adventure brings.... stay tuned!!!

New Zealand - Day 11

Ok, so remember the "coffee in a can" that I bought at the grocery store in Auckland at the beginning of the trip? We STILL hadn't tried it! This morning was the time. Becky and I were preparing breakfast in the camp kitchen at our campground. I opened the can. Inside was a light brown, thick, syrup. You mix 3 Tbsp of the goop with hot water and stir until dissolved. VOILA! You now have coffee with cream and sugar. It actually wasn't too bad! I had two and a half cups. It was a little on the sweet side, but that's how I like my coffee anyway. You can only buy this stuff in NZ or Australia. You can also purchase it in a tube (like a toothpaste tube), which is what I should have bought instead of the can. Why? Because once the can is open, you can't seal it again! Since we couldn't take it with us, I gave the rest of it away to a Maori patron at the campground. It made him (and me) happy! After b-fast, we packed up and headed into town to visit the Ashford Spinning Wheel Museum and Craft Village. You may also remember that Becky and I have been on a search for good New Zealand wool yarn for almost 2 weeks.

This whole time, we haven't been able to find anything good or even decent! Well, I'll tell ya what. We stepped foot inside the craft store and took one look and FREAKED out! We found it! The MECCA of good yarn!!! We jumped for joy, hugged, did a small jig, and then ran off in opposite directions, ohhhing, ahhhing and "Wow! Look at this!"ing the whole way.... What cool stuff they had. We spent a lot of time looking at everything. Becky adored all the spinning wheels in the museum (she took a class at the Folk School on spinning yarn and her favorite spinning wheel was a double treadle Ashford.) We had a bunch of fun and luckily, didn't buy the whole store! We got some cool yarn and then moved on to some of the other shops in the craft village. At one of them, one of the shop owners showed us her lace tatting, as well as one of her current projects.

Can you imagine hand-making this????

Look at all the bobbins!!!

This gal has won some awards for her artwork. I'm not surprised. :-) After visiting all the little shops, we were, whaddya know, HUNGRY. We had been shopping for a while! There was a cozy cafe adjacent to the craft shop, so we had a nice lunch there. We sat in the bay window and

Becky had a salmon quiche and I had a chicken, cranberry and brie panini. YUM-O! After lunch, we each bought different necklaces that we spied and couldn't live without (funny, huh?) and then drove to the city of Christchurch. The city was a little intimidating at first, but once we got into the town center, it wasn't so bad. We parked and found our way to the iSite. We got some info on the Top 10 then walked down to the Art Centre. On the way, we passed through a pretty park that you would never guess was in the middle of a big city!

Also, I spied an electric trolley going down the street! I took this picture mostly for my dad, because I knew he would appreciate it most of all. :-)

When we got to the Art Centre, it ended up being housed in a neat old church. There were a ton of interesting shops and galleries inside. Our browsing/shopping got outta hand. We completely lost track of time as a result of all the neatoness! We had to get back to our RV before we got a parking ticket. We made it back before getting an infraction. I made a quick call to my travel agent whom I bought my impromptu Christchurch to Auckland plane ticket from to make sure all was ok with that first leg of my journey tomorrow. It was! Excellent. Off to the Top 10 campground we went. It wasn't too difficult to find, thank goodness. Once situated in our camp spot, we cleaned out the van and I commenced packing 10 tons of crap in a 1 ton bag. Somehow, I managed to do so! We then made "dinner". I call it "dinner" because I don't know how else to describe it! We wanted to finish up stuff that we bought, so it consisted of some terrible baked beans in tomato sauce, ramen soup and champagne to celebrate my last night in NZ. We chuckled at our silly, but memorable "dinner"! Afterward, we took showers and relaxed (by knitting and journaling and chatting). We kept hearing what sounded like horns and children playing. We thought it was a rugby match, but when I went to satisfy my curiosity by peeking over the fence, I discovered it was a bunch of cows that were grazing right next to us! As it got dark, I went to bed kinda early. Tomorrow I start my long journey back to the US. I absolutely loved my time in NZ, but I was homesick and couldn't wait to get home to my David!

New Zealand - Day 10, Part 2

...so off we went to the tiny town of Arthur's Pass. How tiny is it? Well, to give you a basic idea, here's the post office. Looks like a bus shelter, doesn't it? You'd be waiting a long time for the bus though....unless you were in a tourist bus! Ok, so back at the task at hand. LUNCH! Becky and I went a neat place called the Wobbly Kea. The restaurant is named after those rascally, feisty, smarty-pants alpine parrots. We were starving, so we got a veggie pizza to share. While we were waiting for our food, I was able to capture some more Kea antics, as you can see in the clip below. They were gnawing at the gal's bicycle seat as well as the rubber seals around windows of her car. Silly birds! After a lovely lunch, we headed out for more adventures. We were fueled up and ready to go! Next stop, Devils Punchbowl Falls. It's not a long hike to get near the falls, but there were certainly a lot of steps you have to go up and down to get there. This pic only shows one of the many flights! Once we made our way to the small viewing platform at the end of the trail, it was really crowded. As a result, we didn't hang out long. We headed back down the trail for some better vantage points. Honestly, the falls were gorgeous no matter where we could see them from!

So after that hike and clambering up and down alllll those stairs, well, we were hungry again (what else is new, right?). Hmmmm...ice cream sure would hit the spot! Ta da!

Those who know me know which one of these cones is mine. Tee hee hee! ;-) Watch out Kea birds, this is MY ice cream and I'll fight ya!

After loading up on junk food, it was time to head out of town. Our next destination was the town of Ashburton and we had a ways to go to get there. As we continued down Arthur's Pass, the scenery continued to fascinate us. Becky took tons of pictures of all the fab mountains. Me? I took a quirky pic....like the one below.

I fell in love with many of the signs in NZ. This one I love because it reminded us of a Lego car. It made us laugh every time we saw it! In fact, I will probably round out my NZ blog with a few more pics of signs and other interesting things sighted that didn't make it on my other posts. More on that stuff, later. One of the next places we stopped at was Cavestream Scenic Reserve, which you can see in the clip below.

As you heard, we did not go spelunking this time. After all our activities of the day, we were pooped! Onward we went. As we got closer and closer to our destination, the roads got flatter and straighter. In fact, the last highway into town was super flat and super straight and frankly, boring as hell. Were we ever going to get there?

Finally, we arrived. We stopped at a grocery store to pick up some things, including some much needed wine. :-) Next stop? Ashburton Holiday Park. It took a little while to find it, but find it we did. The allure? Hot showers! We hadn't showered for two days and after all our hiking and running around we did, well....we felt grody to the max. Once at the campground, we were pleasantly surprised at how pretty it was!

There was a pond surrounded by lovely old trees, mostly eucalyptus that were HUGE. The pond had a gaggle of geese and a paddling of ducks (yes, that is one of the correct collective nouns for a bunch of ducks on water!). We basically had the whole non-powered part of the campground to ourselves! Bonus!!! We parked and attended to the first order of operations. SHOWERS!!!!!! We both took nice long showers to de-crud ourselves. AHHH. We felt like normal people again! That was probably the second best shower of my life. The next order of operations? Dinner! We planned on a simple meal of wine, apples, cheese, crackers and NZ avocado, all at a lovely picnic table by the lake. Yes, I realize the below is a 2 minute movie clip, but it basically describes the scene to a T, with bonus footage of Becky's super-cool socks that she is knitting and a Subaru WRX STi sighting. Yeahhh, the car nerd in me took over. :-)

Soooo, soon after this movie was taken, the CRAZIEST thing happened. Sorry in advance for the nastyness of the next clip, but well, it explains it all....

Is that not INSANE?!?!? A HUGE bird of some sort was in the tree above us and he POOPED on us and then flew away! Fortunately, the wine bottle took the brunt of the hit. Even better? The wine kinda sucked, so we didn't mind so much that it was a casualty from poop shrapnel - lol! After cleaning up, we walked around the park to explore it. There was a playground and we, being the "kids" that we are, played on it! We played on the swings and the see-saw and I even went down the slide. Well, I sort of went down the slide. It seems that the slide was built only for narrow-hipped kiddies, not for wide-load Wendys. As a result, I went down the slide very, very, very slowly, with me saying a rather extended, "Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee" as I inched my way down. Becky and I were totally cracking up! I had tears in my eyes from laughing so hard!!! Good, good stuff. :-D

For the final course of our amazing day, we were rewarded with a most awesome sunset. Once the sun went down, we headed for bed. To say we were exhausted was an understatement! Tomorrow, we were going the Ashford Spinning Wheel Museum and craft store and give ourselves one last shot at finding some good NZ wool yarn. With all the sheep around, you would think it would be easy! NOT!

New Zealand - Day 10, Part 1

We left our campsite at Lake Ianthe at around 8am. Those stupid sandflies bit me several more times during the night, so I didn't sleep so well. It brought me great solace to see several dead sandflies stuck in the condensation on the inside of our windshield the next morning. Kinda gross, I know, but it made me happy! I guess Becky didn't get much sleep the night before either. She pulled out into the wrong lane of traffic...but no one was on the road that early in the morning in the middle of nowhere anyway! (Also note that Becky had to correct me several times too when I drove...ESPECIALLY on the roundabouts! LOL!)

So off we went to travel down Arthur's Pass. The word "WOW" is an understatement. The mountains, the terrain, the scenery were just amazing! We stopped several times on the way.

In the above picture, Becky is on a bridge that takes you to Deception Valley. Maximum load of

this bridge? That would be FIVE people. FIVE!!! No joke! The water flowing underneath it was such a pretty blue. This was only the beginning of the neat things we were to see/experience today. We continued down the road and the mountains got bigger and bigger. The roadway was amazing. We had to dodge rocks that were already in the road from a rockslide. We drove through a rockslide shelter that was built over the road. We also drove under a waterfall too! This was all on the Otira Gorge Road/State Highway 73. Check out my video below so you can see what I'm talkin' about:

When I was taking the videos above, I was paid a visit by a few Kea parrots. These are a large, rare alpine parrot that live only in the South Island of New Zealand. They were fascinating! Me, being the inquisitive gal that I am, extended my hand out to one of them, as they seemed very tame. I was hoping he would hop up onto my hand or arm, but nooo. Dude BIT me! Silly parrot! You can see the one who assaulted me with the purple and yellow bands on his leg. He's lucky that I like birds!

Just a short way down the road, we turned left at Death's Corner and got a fabulous view of the Otira Viaduct that we just drove over. This was built in order to create the least amount of impact on the area. I like that. Check it out:

The video above also shows the "first aid" that I administered to myself after my birdy bite too. Tee hee hee! A little way further down the road, Becky and I parked the van in the Temple Basin carpark, with the intent of taking a short nature hike trail to see the flora and fauna. It was really cold, so we geared up with jackets, hats and mittens. As we headed out to the trail, we suddenly changed our minds and decided to ascend the mountain instead. It was a steep path, full of rocks that zig-zagged up the mountain. I'm not sure what possessed us to climb, but climb we did, and for quite a ways! It was really windy, and exciting to see the views as we got higher and higher. For me, it was totally exhilarating. I was completely jazzed! We got to a spot where there was a little bench that someone built. It had a great view of a waterfall (see movie below). Here's me doing a "Captain Morgan's" stance on said bench...

Near the bench, I found a really neat thing. It was

small rocks that were placed carefully in the shape of a heart. There was some kind of message inside the heart, but I think it was in another language. We couldn't figure out what it said! It was neat to see nonetheless. It must have been for Valentine's Day!

We continued climbing from here. I really wanted to make it to the top, but we weren't really prepared for that. We didn't even bring any water with us! Stupid, I know, but our decision to climb was a quick one. I don't think either of us thought we would go this high!

As we continued our ascent, Becky (smartly) decided to take a break. While she did so, I literally sprinted up the trail a good big further. I was breathing hard, but I wanted to go up up up! I have funny video that makes me sound like some kind of perverted crank caller. I'll refrain from posting that, but will show you a pic I took of myself from the highest point that I hiked to (right). I scrambled back down and hooked back up with Becky so we could make the rest of the descent together. What an amazing experience it was to go conquer that mountain together...on a whim, no less! It was one of my favorite parts of the trip. Once back at the van, we got hydrated again and then made our way to Arthur's Pass. We were starving after our climb. Time for some grub.... and more run-ins with those rascally parrots! More to come in Part Deux...

New Zealand - Day 9

Sooo, what was this thing that I saw next door to our van? It was a sweet Cannondale bicycle built for two!!! Have you ever seen such a thing? I surely, have not. Amazingly, there are a lot of people that are "Bike Packers" in NZ. They travel everywhere via bike and camp in tents at night. They ride up the tallest of mountains and on the narrowest of roads. Then they sleep on the ground at night! WOW! After admiring this bike, we went and took showers. I also (thanks to Becky) called David from a phone booth. It was REALLY good to talk to him. After talking to him, I was even more confident in us and that things were going to be ok, thank goodness! What was ironic was that I was standing in shorts and a t-shirt next to the ocean when I spoke to him, and he was watching it snow 5 inches in Atlanta! Anyway, after this, Becky and I made oatmeal breakfast in the communal kitchen, packed, and got on the road again. We stopped at a grocery store to stock up on some more food and other staples. We then drove to Hokitika. All of New Zealand's jade is mined within 20km of this town. We shopped for a little bit at some cool stores, but when the weather started to improve, we decided to drive to Franz Joseph Glacier. Once there, you have to hike to actually see it. Me, being the brainiac that I am, wore just my Teva sandals. We did a steep 20 minute hike that took us to an elevated viewing platform. The weather wasn't the greatest, but we could see the glacier!!!

Once we made our way back down from the viewing platform, we decided to hike out to the glacier itself. The path was very rocky, but flat. The below movie clip pretty much tells it all. My favorite part of the clip is at the end. :-)

We didn't get close enough to the glacier to touch it. We saw several others who did. They paid to do a group hike ON it, gear included. They had on heavy duty hiking boots and garb. I had on shorts and Tevas. LOL. People looked at me funny. Surprisingly, I was quite comfortable the whole way out and the whole way back, with no soreness later on! I should write to Teva to tell them my story.... Anyway, after taking in all the amazingness of the glacier, we walked all the way back to the van. We drove to Lake Matheson in hopes that we could see Mount Cook. We got there and hiked out to where we were supposed to be able to see it, but the weather wasn't cooperating. We couldn't see it at all! It was still a pretty hike though, as you can see from the pictures below...

After our hike, we decided to find our campsite for the night. We drove to a DOC campground on Lake Ianthe. It was so pretty, right on the shore of the lake. We were roughing it tonight...no showers, only composting potties, and no potable water. We had a feast planned though! Tonight's special was chicken curry with veggies. We unloaded our food and cookware on a picnic table near a babbling brook by the lake and began prepping our food. It was pretty! However, two things began to suck. One, the DAMN sandflies were here, BIG TIME. The other thing that sucked was that we couldn't get our camping stove to work at all. Fortunately, there were two women at a picnic table close by and they saw we were having troubles. They let us borrow their camp stove! To thank them, we made them a plate of crackers, cheese and fruit. They were very pleasantly surprised! Becky made us yummy chicken curry (she wasn't as big a fan of it as I was, but I kicked mine up a notch with a little peanut butter and a handful of raisins - YUM!). We ate quickly cause we were getting eaten alive by the stupid sandflies. I took a quick movie of our surroundings so you can see where we ate and camped.

Even though it was still light out, Becky and I decided to get in the van in order to get some solace from the sandflies. We chatted and journaled and knitted while looking out over the lake to watch the sun set. Before it got too dark, I saw a feral cat that came out of the woods in search of food scraps under our neighbors picnic table. There is a terrible feral cat problem in NZ and there are traps for them all over the place. They look like cute kitties, but they are apparently wilder than wild and NOT friendly. It was odd to see a wild cat like that, that at home in US, could pass off as someone's cuddly pet. He slunk back to the woods as quietly as he came out. Wild. Literally. As it got dark, we got out our headlamps so we could continue writing and knitting. The light attracted the darn sandflies that got into the van though. We killed a bunch of them, but couldn't get them all, darn it. We went to sleep, but before we did, another car pulled up next to us full of noisy people. Hrumph. Perhaps I won't be so quiet when we get up early tomorrow morning..... ;-)

By the way, I neglected to mention that Becky and I sat down with all our guidebooks a night or two before. After much research and strategizing, we determined that we just didn't have enough time to get to the southern part of the South Island. No Queenstown or Milford Fjords for us! Shoot. Well, we'll just have to somehow make our way back to NZ someday!

Anyway, tomorrow is a big day....Arthur's Pass!

Becky has a blog too!!!! Check it out!

Hey everyone! You need to check out Becky's blog too! She's been writing about our NZ trip and has all sorts of other cool things on there too. It's awesome!

http://talesofaneclecticsoul.blogspot.com/

Enjoy!

New Zealand - Day 8

Becky and I got up early so we could be the first to get to the showers. When we got there, they were being cleaned by the Ranger dude. Bonus! Not only do we each get showers before everyone else, but super CLEAN showers too! So, we showered and dressed and began packing up to head to the farm for our morning horseback ride. Before we left, we were able to see some of the mountaintops that we didn't get to see the night before at the lake. Sooo neat.

When we went out on the dock too and I noticed the water was super clear, even in the deep parts! I think it was at least 6 feet deep when I took the below shot.

We had to be at the farm by 9:30, so back on the road we went. We stopped to get a quick breakfast at a coffee shop on our way to Richmond, and arrived at Stonehurst Farm on time.

There were two horses in the paddock that already had saddles on them. They were ours! Becky got Dinky and I got Rodney. In fact, we were the only two going on our trail ride that morning, so we totally lucked out! Sue was our guide, and she was great. I've been on many trail rides before and this one was the best ones I've been on in my life. We actually had some control over our horses and the whole ride was very personalized for us.

The scenery on "The Musterers Trail" was beautiful. We lucked out with the weather. The sun came out and the clouds went away. Sue led the way through pretty pastures, bits of forest and we even did a stream crossing! I had to keep my camera tucked away so I don't have many pics of the surroundings, but Sue used Becky's camera to take pics for us (must be a liability thing!). In addition to all the naturey stuff I saw, I spied a few Quail families along the way. Sue told us all about the area, the trees, the history of the land, etc. Did I mention she was cool? Halfway through our ride, we stopped at the Musterer's shack, which was actually called Cherry Flat Hut. We dismounted and let our horses take a break in a small pasture. While Sue was putting together some snacks for us, I, being the kid that I am, climbed on the "bucking bronco" as shown below. Tee hee hee. It was actually kinda fun!

Here's Sue and Becky enjoying some cookies, granola bars, water and an orange drink that looked and tasted exactly like Tang.

After our snack break, we gathered up our horses for an enjoyable ride back to the farm. We did some trotting on the way which I thought was fun but poor Becky kinda got thrashed a bit without posting (rising and falling in the saddle in time with the horses gait). At one point, Rodney got totally spooked at something and sprang forward with a jolt, which also set off Dinky, as well as Sue's horse too. After a few minutes of getting the horses calmed down and back in proper formation, all was well once again. :-) Once we got back to the barn we dismounted and thanked our horses and our guide. It had warmed up quite a bit, so we went to

the van to open the windows. When Becky tried to start the van, we had no response. Dead battery! Becky had left the lights on by accident. Fortunately, the kind gentleman who owns the red truck next to our van, jump started our little RV (with Sue's help). This was majorly nice of them and saved us so much time. I tried to give them some money to thank them for all their help, but they wouldn't accept it. I tried hard too! Wow. Some NZ folks are indeed THAT nice.

So back on the road we went, heading to the west coast. We grabbed some yummy sandwiches that we could eat while driving, so that we could save time. We also stopped at one point to get gas. While at the gas station, we got ice cream. This wasn't any old ice cream though. This was MAGNUM ice cream. It was advertised all over the place and looked very tasty (especially on this warm day!) so we finally succumbed and bought some. Even though it was expensive, it was a wonderful treat that we thoroughly enjoyed. We continued on and went through some pretty mountains call the Lyell Range. We saw the longest swinging bridge in New Zealand (my pic is too blurry of that to post, sorry!). To give you and idea of the scenery and roads that we experienced along the way, see below. The roads got crazy narrow in places.

Hmm, ya think?!?

On our way, Becky happened to see a sign for Seal Colony! Hmmmm.....Was this a place just called Seal Colony or was a place that actually had seals? We decided to find out. Cape Foulwind is where the seal colony is located. Yep, that's right. Cape Foulwind. I'd rather call it Cape Fart, but that's just me. However, Cape Foulwind didn't smell foul at all! It was, as usual, beautiful when we got to the ocean, as you can see below (and it smelled good too.)

I couldn't believe that just a short while ago, we were driving over big mountains and crossing large, fresh-water streams....much like what I would imagine Montana to look like. And now? We are at the ocean!

We followed a nicely groomed path along the craggy rocks, and then we started to hear the seals! Sure enough, there they were, New Zealand Fur Seals, on a bunch of large rock outcroppings. There were big ones and really cute baby ones too. This was definitely a wonderful, unexpected surprise that we got to witness.

Not only where there seals here, there was yet another elusive (elusive at least for me!) bird called a Western Weka. They were almost like a small, brown chicken with big beaks. There was a few of them around, some with babies! Every time I tried to take a picture of one, they got shy and would run into the bushes. Dang birdies! Ok so time's a wastin'. We needed to git, and that we did. We got back on the main road and were now trying to find Pancake Rocks. In so doing, we accidentally went to a place called the Truman Track Hike. The hike went from the main road, through what seemed like a tropical rainforest, and ultimately rewarded us with these gorgeous vistas.

It was really pretty, but we began to notice these little buggies that were biting us. They were small... smaller than mosquitos, and faster than them too. When they bit, it hurt! We enjoyed the scenery for a bit and then headed back to the main road. We still needed to get to Pancake Rocks, and wanted to get away from them dang bugs! Not much farther down the road, we finally found 'em (the rocks, and the bugs too, darn it!).

No one really knows whey the limestone rocks in this particular area are layered like they are. It's definitely interesting to see, especially with the ocean meandering through them. You can kinda see the layers of the rocks in the picture above, but the below movie clip will give you a better idea of what it was like in this magical place.

Even though we couldn't get enough of Pancake Rocks, it was getting late, and those dang buggies were biting. We did some shopping and then we went to get some dinner. As you can imagine, we were starving after such a long day of activities and driving...and we weren't done yet! We ate at the bar of a friendly pub. We would have eaten outside, but those buggies were out there too. We learned that these little boogers were sandflies. No one wanted to sit outside because of them. The inside was packed with patrons, many of which were watching the rugby game on tv (a MAJOR sport in NZ). After refueling our bodies with a nice dinner, back on the road we went. We needed to get to Greymouth that night. I love the below clip, 'cause it gives you good insight into what our lives were like when we were on the road (again). :-)

By the time we actually got to Greymouth, it was quite dark. We got lost and couldn't find the Top 10 campground. Luckily, they had a toll-free #, so we stopped at a phone booth in some odd part of the city and got directions. After bumbling about a bit more, we finally found it. I was excited because it was right on the beach. Even better? There were NO sandflies. Ahhh. We made our way to one of the last camping spots, as it was crowded that night. We were SO tired. Still, we walked over to check out the beach with our headlamps (had to! It's the beach!). It was neat. The waves were loud and we could see the lights of ships far out at sea. Soon after that, we went to bed. We left the windows in the back of our RV opened a crack so we could hear the ocean. It was loud, but really peaceful. I could even hear it through my ear plugs! We fell sound asleep, but a HUGE rainstorm came through in the middle of the night. It rained hard and the wind was so strong, it rocked our van! In fact, I dreamt that someone was siphoning gas from us, and they were rocking the van to try and get as much as possible out of the tank - lol! I thought it was for real! When we got up the next morning, I was amazed at how many people were camping in tents all around us. How did their tents even stay together, much less, stay staked to the ground? It was still really windy and a lot of them looked like they were going to blow away any second! Then....I spied something amazing that I had never seen before, right next door to us. Wanna know was what it was? You'll see on Day 9!!!

New Zealand - Day 7

We got up early in the morning to a chilly rain. It would have been nice to sleep in a bit, but we wanted to make sure we could make our Interislander Ferry on time, and thankfully, we did just that. I actually drove our van onto the ferryboat, the Kaitaki. She is the biggest one in the Interislander fleet, and the biggest ferry in New Zealand! She was fancy too, especially for a ferryboat.

As you can see below, they pack the cars in the ferry like SARDINES! It was a tight squeeze and everyone had to be really careful when getting out of their vehicles. Once parked, you have to lock and leave the car and go upstairs to the seating areas and lounges.

Becky and I got some comfy seats for our 3 hour tour to the South Island. Kinda sounds like Gilligan's Island, huh? Ok, moving on... I got some coffee (which was quite good!) and I sat down to journal for a while. When I tired of writing, I headed over to the ship's shop (that sounds funny too, doesn't it?!? Ship shop?!? Ha ha!) to check out their wares. Y'all, I got the NEATEST bag from that shop. It's called Zip It. The whole entire bag is a ZIPPER. You can unzip it into this pile of zipper, or zip it into a purse! I took it out of the box and zipped it together. The two women sitting diagonally from me were enthralled and asked me to take it apart and put it togeter again. I happily complied. Check out this video I found, as it shows exactly how it works. My bag is lavender and pink and a little bigger than the one shown in the video. I used it a lot during the rest of the trip because, not only was it compact, it was satchel-like, leaving my hands free. It was also big enough to hold my camera, video camera, wallet and keys. I <3>

Once in Nelson, we made good use of the I-Site there. I-Sites are information centers that are all over New Zealand. They cater to all tourists needs for info and are very popular. We used Nelson's I-Site to make a reservation for a horseback riding expedition the next morning at 9am in Richmond. Yahoo! I LOVE horseback riding and horsies. I also used the I-Site to email David. Our emails back and forth to one another were increasingly positive and promising, and I was plenty thankful. Anywho, once we got all info'd out from the I-Site, we headed out to explore Nelson. It was a cute town with all sorts of shops and restaurants, one of which we stopped at to have a nice lunch outside. It was pleasant, especially with the violin music coming from one of the talented, but broke (I guess?) musicians on the corner. This little, dizzying video gives you an idea of what it was like. :-)

After our late lunch, we went looking for the other non-existent yarn shop that we were told surely sold fabulous yarns. The first one was a dud, and this second one was closed and didn't look like it sold yarn at all! Sheesh. When are we gonna find us some good wool yarn?!?!? Enough of Nelson, time to get out of the city and head back out to the country. Our aim was to camp at a DOC (Department of Conservation) campground in the Nelson Lakes region. We got down to Nelson lakes, but had a heck of a time trying to find the campground. In the process, we drove on a narrow, windy road that turned into dirt road and ultimately took us to to the top of a mountain. Once at the top, we were rewarded with an amazing view of Lake Rotoiti!

...still no campground though. Shoot. Ok, back down the mountain we went. For fear of annihilating our brakes, I had to put our little van into stupid-low, first gear. That's how steep it was! After getting back to the main road, we found the Ranger Station place, now closed, but were able to get more info to find our campground of choice. Excellent! Off we went again and we found it! For a DOC campground, this one happened to be top-notch. It had real working potties, hot showers, a kitchen/gathering room, and even a couple washers and dryers. Fancy shmancy for $6! The lake and mountains there were shrouded in clouds but it was still super pretty. Check it:

Becky and I hung out on this gorgeous pebble beach for quite some time, just taking in all the awesomeness that surrounded us. We journaled until it got dark.

When we walked back to the van, I showed Becky a sign I saw on the edge of the woods that indicated that their might be Kiwi birds around. These, as you may be aware, are the national bird of NZ. What you may not know is that they are very elusive and very nocturnal. Hmmmmmmmm..... NIGHT HIKE!!!!! We grabbed our headlamps, locked up the van, and headed to one of the trail heads near the lake. This, my friends, was MY first night hike ever! I was excited! We really wanted to spy a Kiwi. I'll tell you what though...it was PITCH BLACK in them thar woods and oddly enough, absolutely silent. Shhhhh.....we're huntin' Kiwis! But heck, the only sounds we heard were the occasional burbling of a small stream or two that we crossed. That was it. Not even a stick or a leaf dropped in those woods. Funky. We gave up huntin' those wascally Kiwis and made our way back to camp. We were beat and needed to get up early to head back to Richmond for our horseback riding adventure!!!

New Zealand - Day 6

OH BOY! I slept! Not only did I sleep, I slept comfortably and soundly. Becky did too! Not bad for our first night in our camper van. I awoke when the sun came up and journaled while Becky slept in for a bit. She still wasn't 100% well, and I knew rest was still really important so I tried not to move too much so she could sleep. After she woke up, we took showers in the camp's shower facility and began to pack up to leave. While Becky was taking her shower, I befriended our next door neighbor, who slept in a tent the night before. He was a very friendly fellow from the Coromandel Mountain region. His name was Krommers. He thought it was cool that we were from the USA! He and I chatted for a bit. Like us, he was also heading to Wellington that day. I asked if he knew the ferry schedule, which he did not, but he did have a book that had the phone number for the ferry, and even dialed it on his cell and handed it to me. Sweet! The schedule for that day said that the last ferry was going to leave at 2pm...and I knew there was no way in heck we were going to make that one. Shucks. Krommers finished packing his car, said goodbye and headed out. Not much later, we followed suit. We had a LOT of driving to do today! We travelled down Route 1 and soon found ourselves, believe it or not, in a desert! Rangipo Desert to be exact. Y'all... there is NOTHING out there, just vast open spaces of low-lying shrubs and some grasses. The picture above is of Mount Ngauruhoe (a volcano!), and was taken while there was still a bit of greenery on the flat land that stretched before us. Mount Ngauruhoe, was apparently "Mount Doom" in the Lord of the Rings movie. The volcano is currently inactive. The desert is largely uninhabited, with the exception of Waiouru Army Camp, which is used for training. The mountains that loomed in the distance were now getting big enough for snow-capped peaks, as you can see below:

Mind you, this is still summer time in New Zealand, so you KNOW it's cold up in them thar mountains! After stopping for a few picture ops, we continued driving south, with me at the wheel. I was zipping along this flat stretch of road, when all of a sudden, a policeman coming from the other direction braked hard and turned around to follow us. I looked down and I was speeding and didn't even realize it! UH OH. I pulled over immediately, and of course, he pulled up behind us with his gumball machine goin'. GHEEZ! I knew I was getting a ticket...but a million things were going through my head....was I going to have to go to court? Was I going to JAIL? What the heck is the speed limit here again? How fast was I going? Maybe he'll give me a warning since I am a dingaling tourist? Nah, I ALWAYS get tickets when I get pulled over. Sure enough, I got a ticket for doing 120kmh in a 100kmh zone. Whilst he was writing the ticket, I saw our friend Krommers pass us. I watched him hit his brakes for a sec and look in the

rearview mirror of his car, then continue on. I waved and chuckled,"Hi Krommers!!!" The policeman came back to the car. He pointed out the three convenient and easy ways to pay the fine. Yay. My fine was $120(NZ). Apparently, your speed that is clocked on radar (he actually got me on laser) is the amount of your fine. It bummed me out for a while, and poor Becky had to deal with me being quiet and bummy, but I recovered. At least I wasn't going to jail our court! We pressed

on....at 100kmh, TOPS. ;-) We saw more pretty scenery on the way and stopped at one wool shop. It ended up being mostly (very nice, but very expensive) clothing with very little yarn. Shoot! We are not having any luck finding good wool yarn in New Zealand. You think with all the sheep around it would be a lot easier! When we were walking back to the car from the shop, a train went by! This is the Overlander and its route runs between Auckland and Wellington. You can see it's being pulled by a diesel engine rather than a steam engine. It would have been cool to see the steam engine, but it was still neat to see nonetheless! More pretty-ness unfolded as we travelled on, as shown below.

We stopped for lunch in a town called Bulls and ate at a place called Mothered Goose. Becky picked it out, and I'm glad she did. Come to find out, this place used to be an old bank, and was actually the site of New Zealand's first armed robbery! Crazy, huh? The place was BUSY, so we sat on comfy couches in the corner, chatted and people-watched as we waited for our food. I got pumpkin fritters with beet relish and feta, while Becky got a lamb dish. Both were super tasty! (I couldn't help but to start eating mine before I remembered to take a picture - lol!)

After our yummy lunch, we continued to head south. We did stop, on a whim, at Peka Peka Beach. It was overcast and cold, but still very beautiful.

In the below shot, you can see Kapiti Island.

So, not only could you drive on Peka Peka Beach, I found out you can skinny dip there too! I did see two cars, but alas, no birthday suits on such a cold day. :-)

We hopped back in the van, and headed to Wellington. We decided to stay in a Top 10 campground. It was fairly close to the ferry terminal and they had a lot of ammenities like internet, washing machines and dryers, hot showers, and a JUMPING PILLOW! Becky was so excited to jump on it. We arrived at the Top 10 campground, and went into the office to pay for and obtain our camping spot. There was a doggy in the office! He was sooo cute. He was a big 'ol dog, but he was trying to sleep in this teeny, tiny cat bed! LOL LOL LOL! He cracked me up!

While the Wellington Top 10 wasn't in the most beautiful part of town, it ended up being a good choice. I bought a membership card that would give us discounts on future stays on all Top 10s throughout New Zealand, but best of all, it gave us a nice discount on the ferry trips too (which were fairly expensive). Not only that, but they could make the ferry reservations for us too...which were rather involved. Last but not least, these Top 10s would give Becky a safe place to stay after I left the following week. Anyway, since we could, we went ahead and got a reservation for the ferry early the next morning. After that, we parked in the campground and Becky made a b-line for the jumping pillow. It was so good to see her feeling better and having fun! Ain't she cute?!?!?

Here's both of us jumping away!

Here is a movie of me jumping and being a goof!

All that jumping makes for a tuckered out Becky!

We were spent after all that! Believe it or not, there were no kids around when we were playing. I think they were frightened of us - lol. They showed up after we left to go to dinner! Speaking of which, we walked a ways down to a take-away place and got some chinese food. Poor Becky lost her appetite though. We walked back and when we got back to the van, Becky had some snacks instead....healthy stuff like fruits and carrots. She's so good! We got out our camping chairs out because it was still light out. Get this, it doesn't get dark until after 9pm at night! That worked out very well for camping. So anyway, we sat in our chairs and Becky taught me how to knit!!!! Granted, I kinda suck at it, but I can knit now! I was so excited. I had brought my knitting needles and yarn with me from home, so I was so glad I could actually do somethin' with 'em! Becky told me that knitting can be very therapeutic and calming. I ended up doing a lot of it when I was on my way back to the US, and I couldn't agree with her more!