December 2011 – WSKLong

NEW ZEALAND!

We arrived in NZ on December 3 and were picked up by Kim at the Auckland airport. I now have an even greater appreciation of this as it was a 2 hour drive one way for him to come and get us. Traveling through NZ is beautiful, but not fast. The roads, even the main ones, are narrow and winding. Not good for those who are prone to motion sickness. We went thru Te Puke, pronounced, Te Pookie, but it seemed aptly named.

We have been traveling and staying with the Closson family since we arrived. Clossons are our friends from Saskatoon, for those of you who do not know them. They are on an ambitious one year round the world tour. Kim lived here when he was younger and so still has many friends and connections. Fortunately for all of us, many of Kim’s friends have been very generous and allowed squatters in their “bach”. A bach is typically a small holiday cottage, but our first “bach” was a luxury highrise at the beach with views of the ocean and harbor. Thanks Kim!! It has been great to see another side of NZ other than just as a tourist. I am loving a lot of their local expressions, and so far my favorite is “rattle your dags”.

So far we have been to several different beaches which are all a bit different. Some have been sandy and great for body surfing, and others more rocky and rugged. Cathedral cove is a gorgeous beach with limestone rocks and caves and the kids saw a big manta ray in the water while there. Another amazing beach is “Hotwater Beach” which has thermal hot spots that you can locate when the tide is out. You find your bubbler, and dig a hole and make your own hot tub on the beach. You have to pick your hot spot carefully as some are so hot, they will cook you like lobster. I can become a lobster quite well on my own without the assistance of a boiling pot.

We had the chance to do some of the “adrenaline” type sports around the Rotorua area. Rotorua is a geothermal area and sort of like a mini Yellowstone. It is also the location on the north island where the adrenaline stuff is. We opted to try Zorbing which is where you get into a giant hamster ball and get rolled down a hill. We did a ‘wet” Zorb so ours was filled with warm water. The other thing we decided to try was sledging which is where you go down a whitewater river on a sledge (boogie board type thing with handles). In the end, the chicken heart in me won out and I did the whitewater rafting trip while Warren and Keiran did the sledging. I ended up with a group of about 30 rafters who were on a Contiki tour and I was about probably the age of most of their mothers. My favorite of the lot was the “Adrenaline Forest” where you do an obstacle course of physical challenges while in a harness about 40-50 feet off of the ground up between the trees. I will put in some pictures to give you an idea. It was a gas, even for the chicken hearted as it is really safe with the harnessing system.

Today we are in National Park and were hoping to do the Tongariro crossing tomorrow, but it is looking like the weather has a different idea. So we are trying to figure out more “indoor” type of activities to do. Kind of ironic as NZ is famous for all of it’s scenery and outdoor activities. Maybe Keiran and I will have to resort to doing some of the daily “conditioning” that we had planned to do to keep in shape. Nah, can’t break a perfect record.

Til next time…..

Keiran after zorbing

Keiran and Warren sledging

Boogie boarding with Clossons

Sitting in our hot tub. The hot spot was about 2 feet from Keiran and was REALLY hot!

Keiran at Cathedral Cove.

Adrenalin Forest. Warren on swinging logs.

Kim tests out his newly refurbished hip.

Keiran loved this!

Tegan, Shay and Keiran with ostrich

Sandy

Yes, he did crawl out from under a rock…

Well we left Cambodia this morning and are enroute to NZ. Amazingly, Keiran and Warren seem to have made it thru Asia without having to use a squatter. Sandy enjoyed the real cultural experience as women’s toilets across the world seem to be always lined up and so you take what you can get.

Our time in Cambodia was quite brief and was spent around Siem Reap where most of the well known temples are. We had arranged for a guide ( who went by the name of Mr. Bean 🙂 and a driver to get around. The driver had the Cambodian equivalent of a tuk tuk called a remorque which is a tiny motor bike towing a 4 seater trailer. Mr. Bean was a rice farmer in addition to being a tour guide. He was saying that he only recently got electricity lines to his house. The flip side to this is he is also on Facebook (Poy Pines) and you can check out his contact info there if you are in need of a Cambodian tour guide. We visited 4 different temples which were truly amazing especially considering that they were largely constructed between 900 to 1200 AD as well as the history of warfare in the country. The amount of damage done by 4? successive wars is truly astounding. Mr. Bean pointed out places in the stone where you could see where bombs had exploded. I think we picked out the place at Angkor Wat from which the temple rubbings that Warrren’s family had up in their house, had been done. Our guide was very knowledgable about the religious history of the temples, but I found that I can only take in so much info (before my brain goes to jelly) so we talked to him a lot about his day to day life as well as that of the people. This was very eye opening for me in some cases. I think our favorite temple was Wat Ta Prohm where the jungle has taken over much of the temple and the least degree of restoration has been done. This is where ” Tomb Raider” was partially filmed and so now we will have to watch Angelina Jolie and see if we can pick out some of the locations.

Other sights included the Landmine museum (which was sobering) and driving thru the countryside where we got to see the rice being harvested. There were a lot of domesticated animals ( cows, buffalo, dogs, cats and even chickens) who had enough street smarts to stay clear of the traffic. We also did a boat trip thru a floating fishing village. This village is a community of people who live year round in houseboats. The poverty in this village was staggering with no electricity or running water. The people got their power from old car batteries which they keep recharging. I will include a photo of some little girls who supplement the family income by paddling around in metal washtubs with pythons wrapped around their necks while soliciting money from tourists for photo ops. I kept thinking about my Mom when I saw these kids as she absolutely hates snakes and this will be sure to make her gag.

The morning we were scheduled to leave, Siem Reap was hosting their half marathon. I can’t imagine running in that heat/humidity. This can of Crisco would turn into a big puddle!

Next is NZ where we will meet up with the Clossons. Should be awesome.