Kaia's Week 2 Summary - Paekakariki & Queenstown

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Saturday, April 6th-The focus of our day was Jim, Kelly, Opal, Mom, Dad, Quinn & I took a boat to Kapiti island. Kapiti Island is a nature reserve on the coast of Paekakariki. It is home to many birds of all shapes and colors. In the past few years Kapiti Island has been rid of all pests that hurt native birds. The part of the island we were on is one big mountain. We climbed half-way and had a picnic, then climbed to the summit. Once we got to the bottom we took a boat back to the mainland. On the way home we stopped at a little ice cream store. They mix whatever fruit and ice cream you wanted in a special machine. I had strawberry and raspberry with chocolate ice cream. We also stopped at the Amazing Chocolate Factory. My favorite chocolate was the hokey pokey – A honey/caramel flavor. That night for dinner we went to the Thai Lagoon. My mom and I got some pad Thai - medium spice. It was so spicy you couldn’t swallow it.



Sunday, April 7th – We hopped into the car headed for Wellington. In Wellington we went to the Te Papa Museum. My favorite thing was the giant squid that scientists melted out of ice in the Antarctic. After Te Papa we looked in shops and dinked around. Then we had Indian food and went swimming in the hotel pool. It was Opal’s first time swimming and she loved it! Kelly gave me a book of short stories from Kapiti. She wrote two of them. Kelly also taught me a song on the Ukulele, to the tune of You are My Sunshine. It is a Maori song about a “taniwha” or creature that lives in the river/sea. The book had a note written inside with the chords and words to the song so that I can learn it when I get home. It’s really cool. Sadly, it was our last day and we had to say goodbye.



Monday, April 8th –Everything was packed up this morning and it was time to go to Queenstown. When we landed in Queenstown a taxi took us to our hotel. We had lunch and stopped at the Q Book office to have the agent, “Echo” help us plan activities for the rest of our week. After that we took a bus into town to explore souvenir shops and went to Bombay Palace for dinner. There are a large number of south and southeast Asian restaurants in New Zealand. We ordered the “Bollywood Feast”. There was enough food to feed 8 or even 10 people so we had a lot to bring back to our hotel with us. The Garlic Naan was my favorite. Later in the evening I had a stomach bug which put a bit of a damper on my day and the next one as well.

Tuesday, April 9th -

We began the day early and went to Q book after breakfast to get our life vests and rain ponchos for the KJet boat ride. The jet boat was invented in New Zealand and is designed to go in a minimum of 3 inches of water. It was a good thing I had a life vest because the rain poncho was so large that it might have sunk me. The boat picked us up at the hotel dock and went up and down the river (Shot Over and Kawarau Rivers) at high speeds and did a number of 360’s to keep us on our toes. The company dropped us off in downtown Queenstown where we had lunch at the food court in O’Connell’s shopping center. Half the family had food from a Turkish restaurant and the other half had Japanese food.

We went to the bus station to be picked up by High Country Horses. They are located in Glenorchy, where much of Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit were filmed. When we arrived they gave us boots and helmets before we headed out to the corral to be matched with our horses. My horse was named Calypso and he was red with a white blaze. The ride allowed us to cross two rivers and one road. In the middle of the ride, the Casey’s horse (our guide) got spooked and threw her off of its back. The other horses were following her so they all were a little jumpy. We were riding through a willow forest so she had a steady supply of switches available for the rest of the ride. When the ride was almost over, we all started to get “saddle sore” so we kept on our way with little dilly-dallying. It was 2 and ½ hours of riding through the mountains, or the Misty Mountains, as you may know them. We heard stories of the many movie star horses from the ranch that participated in the movies filmed here. Harry and Niles were the most well known. Mr. Jones and Pig were the dogs we met there. They were cute and so very friendly. When the other group returned we drove back to our hotel to relax for the evening and pack for our two-day trip to Doubtful Sound.

Wednesday, April 10th -

We left this morning on a journey to Doubtful Sound, on the west coast of the south island. We had to take a taxi to a coach bus, to a boat, to another coach bus to cross Wilmot Pass and then finally, to our ship – the Fiordland Navigator. Once we got on the ship, we had a meeting with the crew to find out the schedule and then were brought to our rooms. I was unpleasantly surprised to find out that we had no door, just a curtain, on our cabin with 2 sets of bunk beds, and shared a bathroom and shower room with 36 other people. While cruising through the sound we took a nature tour on a smaller boat while Quinn and Dad went kayaking. Our guide, Carol, introduced us to the tree fuchsia, the silver beech tree & other different plants in the temperate rain forest. We stopped to see some fantails (birds) and watched them eat the sand flies that were swarming us in the boat. Because it was rainy, we played a lot of board games during the ride. In the evening, we reached the Tasman Sea and watched some fur seals on one of the islands. Because NZ is experiencing a drought, the water in the sound was salty from the ocean water. Due to the salt, many of the freshwater fish weren’t there and the saltwater fish didn’t like it because it wasn’t salty enough. Without fish, there were also very few animals in the sound during our trip (dolphins & blue penguins). The rainy days did bring waterfalls though.

Thursday, April 11th -

Our boat was anchored during the night and we woke up to the starting of the engines at 6:45 a.m. Not a very vacation like time. When we got back to the dock we took a coach bus across the Wilmot Pass to a boat across Lake Manapouri, to a coach back to Queenstown. By the time we got back it was time for our Gondola ride & Kiwi Haka show at “Skyline”. We dropped our bags at the Real Journeys office and walked to the bottom of the hill to pick up the Gondola. We rode the Gondola to the top of the hill overlooking Queenstown. There were only 7 people (including us) at the show that was in a theater for 50. Because the show to introduce us to a Maori welcoming ceremony included audience participation from volunteers, we all got to be “volunteers”. It was embarrassing and I couldn’t catch the twirling pom pom (I forgot the name of them) that we were using. I liked their costumes and the way the women did their hair. The dances by the men were particularly interesting and their facial expressions (tongue out, eyes open wide) were a bit frightening.

Friday, April 12th -

We woke up early to pack. It was time to head home. We spent our last morning enjoying breakfast: chocolate croissants, homemade passion fruit yogurt, manuka honey, pineapple juice, hash browns, bacon, dumplings & congee. Quinn and I went swimming while mom finished packing. We left Queenstown at around 12:00 on Friday, April 12^th. We flew to Auckland, then San Francisco, then to Denver and finally to MPLS. It was just before noon on Friday April 12^th when we arrived in the U.S. We had to live this day twice! Because of so many airplane delays, we didn’t arrive in Minneapolis until almost 2 a.m. Our travel door to door took 32 hours and I was awake (with only a bit of airplane dozing) for 39 hours. This was LONG! It feels awesome to be back home. I loved being near the ocean & Opal the most and liked Queenstown the least. If I ever return to New Zealand, I will spend more time on the North Island and exploring the beaches. Now…. Back to school.

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