The only constant in life is change. This blog is our chronicle of our life around the world and now in the middle Las Vegas. Follow my adventures DIYing around my first home, learning to grow things in the desert, creating art, raising a family crunchy mama style, having adventures and finding the perfect imperfections in my life.
So... I have three more days of New Zealand to go but as you can tell... I have gotten bored of that and quite posting stuff all together for a second. Things have been a little crazy here. But they have come back around to what we call normal and this is our latest adventure. After a fantastic Christmas full of much merry making and fun with friends... I needed adventure... Derick would be happy if he could hang out with his friends and chill all the time... not so much for me... I need epicness... and wind... and speed... and outside. So Derick knowing this made it a point to take me skiing over Christmas. Northern Japan has been a little behind the curve on the snow... Two days before Christmas Hakkoda (my favorite ski spot) only had 45 cm... BUT then three days later they had 120 cm!!! Sweet Nectar of Powder I just had to get out there! We drove the two hours late on a Sunday morning and skied a glorious afternoon!
You can see the snow wall on the side of the road is already starting to form!
On the gondola on our first run! LOOK AT MY NEW COAT!!! Its from New Zealand!
"Snow Monsters" at the top of the mountain... one of the few places in the world that they form!
Low visibility... HIGH POWDER!!!
It looked like Narnia in the reign of the White Witch
So on this day we left the glow worm caves behind and drove up to the Coromandel Peninsula. (With a small stop at Hobbiton which I am under legal obligation not to show you pictures of since they are rebuilding for the set of the movie "The Hobbit"!!!!) This drive was super windy and crazy cause we had to go up over the mountains in the middle of the peninsula. But it was well worth it, the area on the east side of the mountains was SO beautiful, it kinda reminded me of California... a little more tropical then what we had been used to so far. We stayed in a town called Hahei in a hotel called The Church because it is made out of an old church! Super Cool!
That evening we went to Hot Water Beach! A beach with a magma chamber so close to the surface it heats up the ground water which comes bubbling to the surface of the beach so at low tide you can dig yourself you own hot tub! SO COOL! The place we were staying even let us borrow shovels and beach towels!
After we left our little cottage in Taupo we headed west to Waitomo... but I will get to that in a minute... on the way we went to the Orakei Korako Geothermal Field.
New Zealand is a super active place in terms of volcanic and seismic activity. This was a place that was just super full of geysers, sulfurous flows, fault scarps, and silica terraces. And since I love geology this was the place for me!
There was also tons of native forest with fern trees and roots and vines and lots of I love everywhere.
And boiling mud pits... what could be better?
In all actuality I was very sick this day, I came down with a cold or flue or something and my throat hurt, I couldn't really breath, and I had no energy... so I was kinda miserable the whole time and it was very sad... but I didn't really have time to be too sad cause our next adventure was just around the corner. We continued on our way to Waitomo like I said earlier... which is famous for its GLOW WORM CAVES! Derick and I took tour through the glow worm caves (which are filled with water) on TUBES. We got wetsuits and inner tubes and floated through the most magical world I have ever seen. There were places where we had to walk, other where we had to jump off waterfalls, and still others where the guides tricked Derick into standing up where it was really deep and he went under in pitch black, freezing cold, eel infested waters! But mostly we just floated with cathedral ceiling aglow in a ethereal blue light! AMAZING! We did our tour through the Backwater Rafting Co. and although we were not allowed to bring cameras "for safety reasons" (which means they want us to buy a cd of their photos) I stole these off the internet!
So in the end all drugged up on Ibuprofen and Pseudoephedrine I had a fantastic three hours exlporing the Waitomo Glowworm Caves!
This is what the glowworms look like up close... they are a bunch of fly larva on the ceiling that produce bioluminescent mucus... to attract prey which they catch in their glowing snot string!
But this is what they look like from the tubes... like the heavens!
Well all of day 10 we spent exploring Wellington, and I gave my camera a break for the day. But we shopped at the "bohemian heart" of Wellington... very disappointing... not what I would call bohemian... I would just call it the retail heart. We went to Weta workshops where they built props for and lots of other stuff for movies like Lords of the Rinds, Narnia, Avatar. Just really cool stuff! We ate dinner at a brewery that had hard cider on tap- AMAZING! And we went to the cultural museum that I talked about yesterday. So over all a day full of urban exploring is not my favorite but it wasn't bad either.
Now for day 11. We had a long drive this day. We drove like half of the North Island in one day. So after we got to Taupo, almost straight north from Wellington by a big lake, we settled into our cabin (which was really cute) and set off exploring the town town...
This is Mt. Ngauruhoe and behind it Mt. Tongariro both active volcanos
This is in the Rangipo Desert... what you cant tell is sand is blowing EVERYWHERE!
Mt. Ruapehu another active volcano
Huka Falls north of Taupo
And then we went to the Honey Hive... full of local honey products
The next morning Derick and I work up at 4:45 to get ready and be at the dolphin place of 5:30. We did the early swim because one the guides said the dolphin activity is betting in the early morning and two this way we could swim and still make our 1:30 ferry to the North Island. Derick and I were not really excited this morning. The seals had been okay but not AMAZING, and it was so early and the water was going to be so cold. But neither of us said anything (I think if one person would have said "I dont want to" the other would have jumped on that real fast and been like "okay back to sleep") and we went to the Dolphin Encounter building on got all suited up for our trip. While the seals were a mom and pop kinda thing, this was a super stream line high tech kinda thing. Which on one hand was kinda nice... there was a hot water hose on the boat so if you got too cold, just stick this hose down your wetsuit, a bathroom on the boat, we watched a safety video, and they fed us cookies and hot chocolate, but on the other hand I kinda just felt like a number. Where as with the seals, there was no hot water, no hot chocolate, no bathroom, but I felt like we got treated as individuals.
Over I all I would suggest doing both the seals and dolphins if you go to New Zealand... especially if you go to Kiakoura. We had people in out seal group the did the dolphins the day before and said the seals were way better... but one day later when we went to the dolphins the dolphins were way better. I think since these are completely wild animals and are not enticed in any way that they do what they want and some days will be better then others.
There are the Dusky Dolphins that we went swimming with. They are highly curious and highly acrobatic. Since these are entirely wild dolphins playing with us of their own free will the guides told us they will stick around longer in they have good entertainment. The dolphins like when you make dolphin noises through your snorkel, make eye contact and swim in circles, and dive down. Any time I did any of these things there were immediately 1-5 dolphins by my side. It was amazing. They were inches from me.
Check out my video!
While we were swimming in the ocean we were with a pod of about 300 dolphins, and later when we got back on the boat, that pod joined another pod to make over a thousand dolphins. There were everywhere... from horizon to horizon!
After the most amazing experience of my life we left the south island to go to the North Island on the Inter islander Ferry. Our rental car came with free ferry tickets for the 1:30 sailing which worked with out schedule so we went with it. It was so nice just being able to drive on, hang out for four hours and drive off without having to get a new rental car, moving bags, and all that lame stuff. We got our car through Apex Rentals by the way.
This is leaving Picton Harbor and traveling through Queen Charlotte Sound.
This is emerging from the sound out into Cook Strait.
So for our first evening in Wellington we explore the city including their botanical garden. And if you know me then you know I am a sucker for botanical gardens. They had a really beautiful rose garden.s
After the botanical garden we continued our explorations through the downtown to the cultural museum (which was already closed) but we went in for like 45 min. before it closed the next day and it was SO COOL! If you go to Wellington go to Te Papa Tongarewa it was the coolest interactive hands on museum ever! Anywho these are some sweet sculptures outside the museum.
And this is looking out from our hotel at night. If I had to do it again, the hotel we stayed at wasn't bad, but the city is a little hard to navigate and we ended up having to drive most places anyway so I wish we would have stayed out in the country instead of the heart of the city so kinda get away from the rush. But I have never been a city girl.
We left Christchurch quite early to drive two hours to Kaikoura. We had to get to Kaikoura early for our seal swim. I talked to the tour people and they said the earlier tours are better for tidal conditions so we went with it. We got there about 30 minutes before our tour started and explored the beach a little bit.
The beach was all pebbles and when the waves crashed and went back out is sounded like a thousand little chimes. It was SO beautiful. As you can see there was some fog that morning but the sun started to burn it off and it was like a picture window to the mountains.
The reason Kaikoura is such a good spot of Whale, Dolphin & Seal watching is because the mountains are so close to the sea and that topography continues underwater...
"The Kaikoura Peninsula extends into the sea south of the town, and the resulting upwelling currents bring an abundance of marine life from the depths of the nearby Hikurangi Trench." -Wikipedia
SO here we are all suited up to go swimming with the seals. We used Seal Swim Kaikoura. They were a family run Father, Daughter, and I think even Grandfather business. They were really awesome. Since the tours are totally out in the wild they can be unpredictable so for people that reserve in advance if the weather is too bad to go you get a full refund, and if you go out there and there are no seals, or due to tide, weather, or seal behavior you can't swim with them you get most of your money back, they just keep a small fee to cover the cost of what they did do.
The water was really cold, but it was so exciting to swim with the seals I hardly noticed. We got a little waterproof camera bag called a DiCaPac for Dericks little camera and it worked SO well... with the exception of a little bit of black on the corner of some the pictures it was awesome and only like 25 bucks!
There was Kelp everywhere... I felt like I was swimming through a kelp forest. Unfortunately some of the fog hung around and it kept the temperatures cooler and the seals usually get in the water during the day when they are overheating... so we only got to swim with like 5 different seals. But it was still awesome... but I was a little sad. But I knew we were swimming with dolphins the next day so I kept my hopes up!
This was the view from our hotel. We stayed at the Panorama Motel which was a little bit older but really nice. We had a two bedroom apartment with a kitchenette and sea views!
And I of course am out there exporing the ocean every chance I got. I love the ocean SO much!
