21-Feb to 17-Apr-2011
Well, ladies and gentlemen, here it is. Our final post from our travels and travails in New Zealand. And (deep breath) this means I am finishing this post from California. We are home! We are so happy to be home and can’t wait to visit with all of our friends and family. We spent some of our last few days in NZ relaxing in the beautiful surroundings of Queenstown, while celebrating our 3rd wedding anniversary. Following that we headed back to Christchurch. In Christchurch we crossed our fingers for an earthquake free couple of days and visited our friends who so graciously took us in after the quake. After a couple of nights in Auckland we jumped on a plane for the tropical island nation of Fiji. Six days of sand, sun, and splendid snorkeling later we are fully relaxed. After a couple more days we won’t have much more to write about and will have to put 1longweekend to bed for awhile. Thank you all so much following this blog over the last 10 months. Keeping you all posted has been a fulfilling pursuit. What a long, wonderful, journey this has been. That said, we hope you enjoy our “best’s and worst’s” of NZ.
New Zealand By the Numbers
Days in NZ: 56
World Heritage Sites Visited: 2
Days Trekking: Most days
National Parks Visited: 8
Number of Hikes: 39
Miles Driven: ~2,600 Miles
Flights: 2
Number of Sheep: Thousands and thousands (Bah, ram, ewe!)…maybe a million
Stomach Illnesses: 0 (NZ is one clean country)
Natural Disasters Experienced: 1
Photos Taken: 4063 (72 per day)
Best’s
Best Day
Nick: Our first day near Glenorchy-amazing, amazing scenery
Rachel: Hiking up to the dreamy Lake Marian in Fiordlands National Park
Best City/Town
Nick: Dunedin (Auckland is pretty nice too)
Rachel: Dunedin
Best Meal
Nick: Tapas in Queenstown for our anniversary (I must give an honorable mention to NZ’s gourmet hamburgers- American has a lot to learn, I kid you not)
Rachel: My birthday dinner in New Plymouth
Best Wildlife Experience
Nick: When the single, lonely, yellow-eyed penguin strolled onto the beach in the Catlins
Rachel: looking over and seeing a Kea in the middle of the road while waiting our turn for the Milford tunnel
Best View
Nick: Bennett’s Bluff sunset on our last night in Queenstown (and Milford Sound, of course)
Rachel: Sealy Tarns in Mt Cook National Park
Best Surprise
Nick: The overwhelming hospitality of our friends in Christchurch following the earthquake. Such great people!
Rachel: How nice the weather was
Best Hotel/Hostel
Nick: Ditto to Rachel
Rachel: Elliot Hotel in Auckland
Best Campground
Nick: Curio Bay Campground. Okay, the campground is really basic, but it is right next to a petrified forest and awesome beaches where whales, dolphins and seals play.
Rachel: Q Box in Queenstown
Best National Park
Nick: Tongariro National Park
Rachel: Fiordlands National Park
Place to which we’d most like to return
Nick: Every place we visited in NZ, if we are lucky
Rachel: um, New Zealand
Favorite Walk
Nick: Really hard to pick, but I really liked the one along the Pororari River in the pouring rain, Paparoa National Park
Rachel: Marian Lake
Favorite Section of Road
Nick: The Forgotten World Highway to New Plymouth
Rachel: Buller Gorge to Greymouth on the West Coast of the South Island
Most Fun
Nick: Ditto to Rachel
Rachel: Riding bikes while wine tasting on the North Island
Funniest Moment
Nick: Constantly having to remind myself not to drive on the wrong side of the road
Rachel: when I fell into the space underneath our bed and our pop-out tent in the back of our car
Worst’s
Worst City/Town
Nick: Invercargil (it wasn’t worth the 2 hours we spent there)
Rachel: Haast
Worst Meal
Nick: Meat pie in Queenstown-greasy and not tasty. Why are those things so popular?
Rachel: the compounded effect of pb&j sandwiches everyday
Biggest Waste of Money
Nick: Having to pay obscene amounts of money for ridiculously slow internet connections. There was far better internet service in every country we visited in Asia.
Rachel: ditto…we spent hundreds of dollars on this…
Most Disappointing Moment
Nick: Having to politely answer the question, “I thought Americans never traveled outside their country?”asked by Europeans (most of them on short trips) over and over again. We are sick of this, period.
Rachel: Christchurch earthquake.
Worst Campground
Nick: The campground in New Plymouth. It had a quaint “a serial killer would stay here” vibe to it
Rachel: parking lot “campground” in Wellington
Saddest Moment
Nick: 12:51 on February 22nd in Christchurch
Rachel: The earthquake
Posts
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