Week #12: Rockin' it with the Kiwis

 We just got back New Year's Day from our whirlwind New Zealand trip.  Here are a few things we learned:

Lessons Learned in New Zealand

1.  Work visas and travel visas are very different things

2.     Rent things like cars from companies that exist

3.     Strip clubs don’t make good neighbors

4.     Don’t get sick on vacation

5.     Bring a backpack for 5-hour hikes

6.     Sunscreen isn’t for losers

7.     People are way nice! (we already kind of knew that one)

8.  Glowworms are real

9.    You can’t see New Zealand in 7 days. 

#1.  Work visas and travel visas are very different things.

On the afternoon of Christmas Day, we set out for our big trip to New Zealand.  At the Canberra Airport, things became confusing as we learned that you need a travel visa to travel while working abroad on a work visa.  I won’t go into details, but when we got to the gate, we almost weren’t allowed on the plane.  I was mentally prepared to lose the money we put into the flights and accommodations for the week and go home.  Honestly.  We sat and waited as the airport people made phone calls, and the whole flight was delayed.  Fortunately, things got worked out and Sterling had to apply for an eVisa as soon as we got to NZ—or else he couldn’t come back to Australia.  It was great to take that walk down the aisle of the plane and nod to everyone.  “Yes.  It was us.  Sorry for the delay.  Yep.  Just us holding up everything.  You're welcome.  Merry Christmas to all.”

#2 Rent from companies that exist.

When we got to New Zealand, it was about 11:30 pm.  I had arranged for a car rental company to pick us up at the airport.  We looked for them.  Asked the info desk about them.  Apparently, they don’t exist.  Or they don’t have a legit phone number.  Or something.  I had a confirmation e-mail, but I guess that doesn’t mean anything if there isn’t a company to show it to!  After a few hours of trying to figure this out, we decided to pay another $50 for a shuttle to our hostel in downtown Auckland.  By now it was 2:30 am.  I was starving.  Cora had a huge blow-out and the parent’s room was like a mile away, but I took her while Sterling finished settling things.  As I walked down the huge airport hallway in the middle of the night, holding a sad Cora so poop wouldn’t get on me, I thought, “Yes.  This is how I imagined my Christmas.  Awesome.” 

#3 Strip clubs don't make good neighbors.

We arrived at Nomad’s Fat Camel hostel around 3 am to a whole bunch of drunk guys making comments and trying to look at Cora while she was sleeping.  I was so not okay with that.  In the effort to be frugal, I had booked a cheap room, without a window.  (I take full blame for this mistake!)  The second we opened the door to our room, I think both of us about cried—but didn’t.  I sat there feeding Cora in the stinky, claustrophobic room and decided that there was no way I could sleep there.  Sterling was wonderful, and went back down to ask if another room was available.  Fortunately, there was—with a window.  Unfortunately, we both still couldn’t sleep all night because the drunks outside were yelling and doing stupid things just under our window until the wee hours of the night.  Ahhh!!!  We later realized that there was a bar and lovely adult show next door.  Next time we will splurge and stay somewhere a little more family friendly.

Downtown Auckland

#4  New Zealand doesn't do Mexican food.

The next morning we ventured out into the gentle rain that then turned out into the biggest rain storm only to buy an over-priced umbrella and lose Cora’s little stuffed monkey.  For breakfast/lunch we found some very below-average Mexican food with too many onions and stale tortilla chips.  Things were off to a good start. 

         At this point, we still didn’t have a rental car.  We had to have one because we were driving all over the North Island for our trip.  This is New Zealand’s biggest tourist season, so there were literally no cars available at the local travel agency.  What?  None? 

While I waited in our “cozy” little room for a few hours with Cora, Sterling searched everywhere for a car.  Miracles of all miracles—he found one!  And then another miracle—he found parking.  Frustrated from being inside the hostel all morning, we decided to finally explore Auckland.

We first drove to a beautiful little beach.  It was much too cold to do any swimming, but we had fun walking in the misty rain, collecting seashells and watching the crazies play in the water!

Beach I can't remember the name of...

In the rain at the beach I can't remember the name of

Feeling free as a bird with our car, we drove to another little beach called Mission Bay.  What a nice place.  I particularly loved watching the families playing together and then teenagers wrestling/playing rugby.  Good time.  It was still a bit rainy, but we decided to get frozen yogurt.  (By getting frozen yogurt, I mean that Sterling got some, and I got some dairy-free lime sorbet.  Actually, it was pretty good, though.)

We went back to the city and strolled though Albert Park.  New Zealand is so green!  We finished up the evening with some nice Vietnamese food—even though they were out of rice noodles, pho, and like 5 other main ingredients J 

Albert Park

Then back to our disgusting hostel for just one more night.  Blech!

Hamilton

On the way to our next city (Rotorua), we stopped by the LDS Temple in Hamilton.  The senior missionaries at the Visitors’ Center told us about New Zealand Church history and we enjoyed watching short videos of apostles bearing testimony.  Our favorite thing, though was the family messages.  The ones that end saying, “Family.  Isn’t it about time?”  Yeah.  Those are good ones that always get me a bit weepy.  It was a good little spiritual pick-me-up amidst a pretty distressing series of unfortunate events.  

Hamilton LDS Temple

Sterling posing outside the Temple Visitors' Center

Rotorua
Fortunately, the hostel in Rotorua was a million times better.  It was like a big communal house, but the people were chill and pretty quiet.  What a relief!  Rotorua is a big tourist hub and you could really stay here for weeks just hiking, seeing boiling mud, bathing in hot pots, going to Maori cultural shows, doing extreme sports, and visiting wildlife parks.  We had just one day so we had to choose our activity carefully.  (This was another huge planning failure:  We tried to see way too much in way too little time in every city!)  However, the facts that it was raining pretty bad and we have an infant, made it easy to narrow our choice of activities to a nice walk around the city and lake.  We finally braved the rain to get some food.  Then Cora had a blow-out so we had to go back to the hostel. (I know, we were ill-prepared—again!)  Then we left again for Lake Rotorua. 

Lake Rotorua is absolutely gorgeous, as you can see.  And huge.  We spent over 2 hours exploring it.  Cora loves her new backpack.

Lake Rotorua

Sterling loves to take the "gazing" shots!

So, so many birds!

Cora in her new backpack carrier.  She really did love it, even though it doesn't look like it in this photo :)

Black swan

Geothermal activity.  You could literally see mud boiling out of little holes in the earth.  Pretty cool.

At the Night Market in Rotorua, we got delicious fruit, including kiwis.  Definitely, the best kiwis we’ve ever had.  Kiwis from Kiwis.  Haha.  J

The best kiwis--ever!

Auckland Museum  (We didn't end up going, but the building is really unique looking!)

Gardens on our walk home from Lake Rotorua

Another shot of the gardens on our walk home from Lake Rotorua

Religious Mauri building in Rotorua

#4  Don't get sick on vacation.

On the way back to the hostel, my legs were killing me.  Now, I know I’m not the most in-shape person to ever exist, but I thought I could walk for atleast a few hours without being in pain. 

Later that night, the pain in my legs spread to my hips, elbow, finger, and my whole body ached.  I got a fever and don’t think I have ever had such a hard time sleeping in my life—ever.  When I got up in the middle of the night to feed Cora, I could barely lift her because I was so weak.  My head was pounding and it hurt to even open my eyes.  All I could do was lay down and try to not move.  By the time morning came, I was so tired from not sleeping and in more pain than I knew what to do with!  Sterling is wonderful.  I don’t know if I can emphasize that enough!  I’ll say it again:  Sterling is wonderful.  He told me to sleep in and he packed up everything, bathed Cora and got her ready.  By 11 am, I was able to stumble into the car and we headed to Tongariro National Park.  Rotorua:  Beautiful, but we didn’t really get to take advantage of any of the things it is known for.  At this point, Sterling and I realized that we should have planned this trip very differently.  Live and learn.

Tongaririo

The drive to Tongariro may have been the most difficult one.  I was still so disgustingly sick and Cora was pretty uncomfortable (due to teething trouble and eczema).  For me, it might have been another bout of mastitis or just the flu, but I was still to sick to pick up Cora or even talk and I didn’t eat for over 2 days.  On top of that, I had some serious stomach/digestion issues—I’ll spare the details on that one.  Let me just say, that having to run to the communal bathroom in a separate building (in the rain, in the middle of the night), several times, is not ideal.  You know…

Fortunately, I had the mastitis medication with me, so I could take that and in the morning, I felt a million times better, which still wasn’t 100%, but I could function.  (I also later realized that the ibuprofen I was taking for the pain all week, were actually my iron supplements.  That'll teach me to not put medicine in unlabeled baggies!)  I didn’t want to just rest all day, though.  We were in New Zealand!  We were going to do stuff and I was not going to miss out on the fun. 

As we drove to the Visitors’ Center where our hike started, we came across this “chateau.”  It really is called Tongariro Chateau.  Sterling described it as a dollhouse.  So out of place!

Tongariro Chateau

Kind of an eye sore, huh?  Too bad.  (But not too bad that they had the best potato wedges I’ve ever experienced!  Fried to perfection and served with chili sauce.  Mmmm….)

#5  Sunscreen is not for losers.

I learned very quickly that a 5-hour hike, the day after I was bed-ridden, probably wasn’t the wisest course of action.  But!  We did it!  Cora didn’t cry one bit the whole time.  Not even when I had to nurse and change her on a rock with the wind blowing everywhere.  (I felt so bad.)  But we felt even worse, when we realized that we didn’t put sunscreen on her!  Bad parenting, I know.  I will never make that mistake again, I hope.  She had a little shade thing on her backpack, but apparently, that wasn’t enough to cover her little face.  That night, her cheeks blistered a bit, then she rubbed her face on me and broke the blisters.  Now there are little black scabs that make her look like she plays football.  Sterling got totally burned and my face is a peeling mess.  We are a good lookin' bunch at the moment. 

#6  Bring a backpack for 5-hour hikes.

Also, we didn’t have a backpack for our long hike, so I had everything in a shoulder bag.  That meant a very sore back for me.  And we only had two small water bottles for me and Sterling.  What were we thinking??? Live and learn.  Again. 

The dreaded bag!!!

Despite our lack of preparedness, and thinking, in general, we did it!  It was beautiful.  The hike was definitely worth it.  From the trail you could see “Mt. Doon” from Lord of the Rings. 

We made it to the lake!  So beautiful.

Cora was pretty happy about it, too! 

At the waterfalls.  Notice that Cora is totally exhausted!

This is totally a forced smile.  My legs were about to fall off by this point :)

Family shot

I think this is the mountain from Lord of the Rings???  I wouldn't know, but that's what I read somewhere...

On Sunday, we went to church in the small town of Turango.  There are only about 20 people in the branch.  Soon after we sat down, a member of the bishopric came and quietly asked us if we would like to bear our testimonies.  The whole meeting was made up of visitors bearing testimony.  I guess they get sick of hearing from the same 20 people!  Both Sterling and I totally ended up crying and getting all emotional.  In addition to feeling the Spirit, I know that I was also tired and sunburned, and sick!  I was blown away with the friendliness of the people there and we were even invited to have lunch with one family—which we did!

#7  People are way nice!

The family made us the traditional sausage and white bread fare.  So generous of them to invite strangers into their home!  The kids absolutely loved Cora and couldn’t get enough of playing with her.  She was loving all of the attention.  At lunch, we talked about all of the good New Zealand treats that we needed to try.  Among things to try were a chocolate covered banana taffy thing called a Perky Nana (which they gave us one of), and Pineapple Lumps (chocolate covered pineapple pieces).  At the grocery store, we also took them up on their recommendation to get “Chit Chats”—the New Zealand version of Tim Tams.  Apparently, these are better for Tim Tam slams because they have easy-to-bite-off rounded corners and are slightly softer cookies. 

The father of the family told us all of the treats he loved in the States.  Frozen juice concentrate was his favorite!  Isn’t that funny?  He thought that was the best thing ever!  That and Kool-Aid.  When we get back to the States, Sterling and I are definitely sending them a package with Kool-Aid and maybe a few other fun American things. 

Before we left, the kids asked their parents if they could give us this big box of chocolates that they had.  Isn’t that sweet?  I wish we would have had something to give them in return.  What a great family. 

Waitomo

Originally, we had planned to stay only one night in Tongariro, drive 5 hours to Wellington, spend the night there, then drive 4 hours to Napier, spend the night, then drive 5 hours back to Auckland before flying out early the next day.  We totally abandoned those plans because we realized that that is way too much driving!!!!  And I was sick!!!  And we just wanted to relax.  Fortunately, we were able to find a place in Waitomo at the Glowworm Motel.  A very fine establishment, as you can imagine from the name J 

The drive to Waitomo was incredible.  When I think of New Zealand, I think of sheep-covered hills.  This drive was just that.  I should have taken better photos, but here is one.  

The drive to Waitomo was filled with sheep-covered hills--just how I imagined New Zealand to look!

Scenic look-out (I forgot where!)

#8  Glowworms are real 

Waitomo is know for its caves—specifically its glowworm caves.  Up until this point, Sterling and I had kind of avoided the touristy stuff, but several people had told us that we just had to do the caves.  We are so glad we did!  Totally worth the money. 

This is a photo of the glowworms from online, but this is really what it looked like.  No joke! 

This is the glowworm cave from the outside.  Unfortunately, we couldn't take our own photos, but it was unreal to feel like you were under the stars, in a cave!

In the Ruakuri Cave

So incredible!

A stalagtite that looks like a curtain

This photo isn't that great, but it shows Cora's poor sunburned cheeks...   (They are better now, FYI!)

Aranui Cave

Aranui Cave

Before we went in the caves, I was a little bit paranoid about going in a cave, you know?  I was afraid of being claustrophobic and getting stuck a million miles underground when the unlikely event of an earthquake collapsed the entrance.  Fortunately, none of that happened.  The caves we went in were super spacious and safe.  There were even dim electric lights in most parts of the caves so you could see the cool stuff.  I mean, Cora could go in them and she was totally fine the whole time.  So, even if you hate the dark or small spaces, those are not excuses to not go to the Waitomo Caves.  Sorry.

This was right before the 2nd cave when we went out to get pizza for lunch.
She loved the highchair--even though it was a bit sticky!  

#9  You can't see New Zealand in 7 days.

It's funny to think that we even talked about trying to do both islands in a week.  Ha ha!  We hardly got in three cities on the top half of the North Island.  That wore us out, in and of itself.  Sterling and I learned that we really don't enjoying packing and unpacking our stuff every night.  Next time, we will do things very differently.

It was a wonderful trip, but we are glad to be home.  Our next big trip is Tasmania on January 24th.  Then we come home to the States, early February.  Wow.  Can't wait to see you all.  Love you.