Month: December 2016

Pros and Cons NZ

The good and the not so great of New Zealand:

Most travellers we’ve met along the way love New Zealand, and it’s easy to think ‘what’s not to love?!’, but with any place there are always pros and cons. Here is my personal take on things here.

Good:

It’s the land flowing with milk and honey, seriously! Dairy is big here and it’s delicious. And apparently NZ is famous for it’s manuka honey; the more potent the better for its healing properties.

Tipping is not expected unless you receive exceptional service.

The price you see is the price you pay except for grocery stores and maybe some other places where you pay an extra tax.

The obvious- waterfalls, great hikes, geothermal pools everywhere, crystal clear waters, etc.

Insane abundance of adventures.

Excellent rugby team.

Great churches with Bible based teaching.

The road system for the most part is pretty amazing. It’s a general rule to move over and let people pass if you’re going too slow. And on highways every few kilometers the lane you’re in is doubled and you can pass. It’s very smart and efficient.

Gardens, gardens and more gardens.

It’s a safe country in light of what is happening in the world, but of course it is not free of crime.

Healthcare seems to be pretty amazing.

Delicious wineries.

Everyone is so NICE and welcoming. Locals will go above and beyond to be helpful, and nobody seems to be in a hurry. It appears it is more important to take the time to love others than self serve which I love.

Inexpensive, gorgeous, well-maintained golf courses everywhere.

Incredible hiking trails allover the country. I believe there are endless opportunities for all capabilities and interests. Mountain biking too!

No preservatives in produce. And amazing farmers’ markets everywhere.

Giant trees. We love trees!

Not great:

Sand flies- pure evil. 

Honestly, it seems cold most of the year. Burr. I’m not a fan of the cold. You get a couple of months of “hot” weather to enjoy beaches, swimming, etc. It is like torture to me to see this amazing clear gorgeous water and not be able to swim in it. Also, I’m pretty cold natured and I have a weird cold allergy (for real, it’s called cold urticaria) so I need warmer weather. Of course, I’ve only been here for a couple of months so I could be totally wrong about the weather.

Driving on the left side of the road, though you get used to it after a while.

Lots of tourists, and I imagine it is even worse during their peak season. This country seems to depend a lot on tourism, and you will find them in every nook and crannie here. (We just read that tourism has just now become their biggest industry!)

Gas is insanely expensive, as well as other things like food! It costs the equivalent of around $8.00 per gallon for milk!

Oh yeah, the potential for a major earthquake or volcano eruption!

Crazy weather changes.

I know there are lots of things I’m missing in each category, but these are what came to mind first. I may add more later on.

 

Protectors of the Islands

That’s what some New Zealanders refer to the biting sandfly as, however I much prefer the term Evil Demons or The Spawn of Satan.  Now, I realize that God created these little things, but I cannot fathom what possible good they serve aside from a persistent reminder that this is not our home. In heaven, it will be 100% pure paradise minus sandflies, or any other nuisance.

We learned that there are 13 different species of sandflies here, but only two kinds are the biting kind. And only the females bite. They need blood to feast on in order to lay their eggs and produce more hateful little brats. We try to do our part of killing as many as possible, however I know it is not even making a dent in the insane population of them. They are worse in the South Island and though they nest near water, there seems to be no bounds to where they are. Also, they don’t actually bite, but they cut you and then release chemicals as they drink your blood that draws to the surface. Your body reacts to those chemicals something fierce and you will itch incessantly for days. Way worse than mosquitoes in my opinion and I HATE mosquitoes. In fact, I never thought I would say something like this, but honestly I’d much rather be around mosquitoes than swarm of these evil little creatures.

If you don’t know about them, you might at first mistake them as harmless little annoying fruit flies or gnats (like I did) and then you suffer after they have their feast. They prey on feet especially and prefer the sweat of some over others; apparently I have the cream of the crop sweat because they seem to seek me out! The itching will wake you in the night and keep you from getting a full night’s sleep. Anti-itch does not seem to help very much. But if you are diligent in keeping yourself covered in insect repellent you can usually avoid the bites.  

As far as I’m concerned, they can keep their islands. I’ll take my chances with the mosquitoes back home.

Tarawera Falls and Lake

When we read about a magnificent waterfall that flows from crevises in a rock wall we knew it was something we had to see. Even though it was relatively close to Rotorua, you had to drive a very round about way to get there. So it could have been a 20 to 30 minute drive, but instead it was about two hours. The drive was nice though because it went beside clear lakes on the way. We also drove through an old town that was originally settled for loggers. The annoying part was that as much as it was promoted to see in the guide books, there was nothing informing us that we would have to get a permit first and before a certain time. We arrived at a gate with a huge sign in red letters saying you could only enter by permit because the only road to the falls was through a privately owned land. Hundreds of acres used for logging with long gravel roads. Anyway everything worked out and we ended up camping near the trail to the falls. And the drive and time it took to get there was completely worth it. It turned out to be one of our most peaceful camping experiences, which was much needed as we were kind of tired from just being on the move.

Dave fished in the crystal clear river and caught a beauty of a trout. In the morning we hiked to the falls and they were some of the most amazing we’ve ever seen! Dave made his way much closer because he wanted some cool pics, and I did some yoga stretches. The park was so fresh and clean. It was actually pretty warm that day so I got in the river. The river was painfully cold, but I could not resist its beauty or immersing myself in it if only for a few minutes. It seemed we had the place all to ourselves, but after a while a few people showed up.

After hiking and fishing around there we decided to drive to the other side where you can access Tarawera Lake. It was beautiful too and I caught a large trout there and released it. I cooked our lunch while Dave continued to fish and this happened to be where I first encountered the evil sandflies which I mistook them for harmless little gnats until they began to bite my feet. A mistake I did not forget! Anyway, we loved our time there and I would definitely go back to that peaceful haven, … with some strong insect repellent of course! Ha!

Aoraki/Mount Cook

There were three of these cool walking bridges on the hike over a raging river.

Mount Cook is one of my favorite places we visited while here so far. It was gorgeous. Kind of reminded me of the Swiss Alps or Grand Teton National Park. We arrived there on Saturday December 10th and it was rainy and very windy. We decided to check out the Hermitage which had a small museum. We learned a lot about Sir Edmund Hillary and that he practiced climbing Mount Cook in preparation for Mt Everest. Pretty cool stuff. We also watched a half hour film there which was kind of traumatic about the people who do rescues for climbers on the mountain. The main rescue in the film ended with the guy dying, but the way it was going you had no idea what the ending would
be. Needless to say, I have no desire 
to climb mountains of ice and snow. Burrrrrr.

That night we camped at a free DOC campground ne
ar the water canals in Twizel which is a good 45 minutes from Mount Cook, but it was great because Dave got to do a lot of fishing. I actually had some service on the phone and got to watch Netflix for the first time in at least a month! I was so excited, but probably not a good idea to start watching something like Stranger Things when you are in a tent by yourself at night, in the middle of what feels like nowhere while your husband is a couple miles away fishing. Ha! It was good though and nice to just chill out.

The next day we had hoped to go to church, but the nearest one was over an hour away in the wrong direction so we were kind of bummed about that. We ended up cooking breakfast near the fishing canals and did a little fishing. It is so beautiful there. After that we headed back to Mount Cook for some hiking. The weather was perfect that day; sunny clear skies and mild temps.  We chose our hike, packed our lunch and set off for about a four hour hike. It was worth it.

Traveling ways

When I told people about our 5 month NZ and AU trip, I was asked lots of questions. Often I was asked if I would blog about the trip which I was somewhat hesitant to do just because it feels like a lot of pressure to keep it up. But the more I was asked, the more I became intrigued with the idea of blogging to take time to answer other questions that I was repeatedly asked. Several people said they were inspired by Dave and me, and wanted to know more about how we make travel happen. I love that people were inspired and I even more so love the idea that I might be able to help others travel more often. So I hope to create a series of blog posts on our traveling ways, gear we use, and some other random stuff more specifically about our actual trips – though not necessarily in any chronological order.

Disclaimer: I am brand new to the world of blogging so please forgive me for making a mess of this! Hopefully I’ll figure it out soon enough.