Oceania

I take risks in many ways in my life but the physical realm is not one of those areas.  So you might imagine how out of place I felt in the Adventure Capital of New Zealand, beautiful Queenstown!  Quite honestly, I have never seen more Northface-clad, dred-wearing, barefoot, care-free spirits than I did in that town.  It was insanity – a little town of clones!  Oh Nick and I pretended for a bit that we were going to do something adventurous, pulling brochures for para-gliding and skydiving…. but what did we actually end up doing?  Jet-boating and a bus ride to Milford Sound! 

And no, I’m not embarassed.  We had a marvelous time doing them, even if they were ‘tame’ choices in comparison to what our fellow Queenstown-ers were parataking in.  Maybe on our next visit we’ll feel up for something a bit more ‘risky’.  But most likely not!  So since I can’t talk about bungying over a canyon or skydiving out of a plane, I’ll just focus on talking about what we did do, starting with our 12 hour day trip to Milford Sound.

Milford Sound is something like 60 kilometers from Queenstown, so it seems like it should be nice and close.  The only problem- there’s a mountain range in the way, so you’re required to drive south, west and then north again, making it 5 hours of car time to get there.  Our coach, for example, left at 7:30 AM, got us into the National Park around 1 PM, had us on the 90 minute ferry ride at 2 PM and then we were back on the coach at 4 PM for an 8:30 PM arrival back in Queenstown.  It’s a grueling day, but seriously there isn’t really a good way to do it and the views are SOOOO worth it!

I just decided to make the best of it, befriending all the people around me.  I met two lovely study abroad students from Japan and Korea (Sana and Minyoung) who I had lots of fun conversations (and pictures) with.  There was also a group of 4 Filipinos who I spent quite a bit of time talking with.  It was a very diverse group!

The next day we did a Jet-boating trip on the Dart River in Mount Aspiring National Park.  The jet boats are basically a big jet-ski and are useful in that they can travel on 10 cm of water, so they allow you to get in to places that are otherwise not usually accessible by boats because the water levels are so shallow.  The combination of speed, spins and breathtaking views made for a fun-filled 75 minute ride. 

After that it was time to board an off-roading bus to head farther into Mount Aspiring Park.  This park is most famous for being the filming location for Lord of the Rings, Willow, Wolverine and a Coors Light Commercial.  It was easy to see why it was so popular.  Lush green for as far as the eye could see, very befitting of it’s nickname “Paradise Garden”.

I also have to give props to my husband again for finding us another kick-ass place to spend 3 nights.  We had an apartment at Oak Shores, which had magnificent views of Lake Wakitipu right from our balcony!  Highly recommended for those who are looking to go there – the bus into town is easily accessible and the rates are quite reasonable.  Despite feeling out of place in town, we honestly could have been content spending our entire trip at that apartment.  Amazing how time flies by when you’re sitting on the balcony enjoying incredible views and the perfect glass of wine!  And now… on to the cities (Wellington was yesterday, now we’re in Auckland)!

PS- 200 pics of the Milford Sound beauty waiting for you at SMUGMUG.  You’re going to want to see these, I promise!

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Hi All- Sorry for the delayed posting, we’ve been off the radar for the last few days and this is the first time I’ve had access to the internet.  I’m expecting it to be more consistent as we get farther into our trip, so don’t despair!

We got off to a bit of a rough start thanks to our choice in airlines.  As I’ve blogged about many times, we are loyal Cebu Pacific fans.  Sadly, the length of this journey required that we take Philippine Airlines, my least favorite of the 3 Philippines carriers.  Upon arriving 2 hours prior to our flight, we were forced to stand in line after endless line.  Let me see if I can remember the order:
1.    Initial Item Screening to get into the airport

2.    Bag Check-in

3.    Customs

4.    Carry-on Screening/Security Check (Complete with intrusive rub down)

5.    Gate Screening

6.    Shoe Screening (by hand, no less)

As you can see, that’s quite a few lines to stand in.  That in itself would have been annoying, but it’s compounded by certain cultural factors that make it nearly unbearable.  Some of the highlights include:
•    Waiting an hour to check in when only 6 parties were ahead of us in line

•    Getting to customs and trying to fill out a departure card, only to find out that the cards were way back where we came from at some obscure information desk (very logical, don’t you think?)

•    Going through the gate screening and having a lovely gentleman hold up every item in our bag for confirmation (“Keys, mam?  Us:  Duh, what do they look like.”  I swear, I thought Nick was going to blow a fuse at this point)

Lest I give you the impression that they’re actually security-conscious, let me share this amusing story:
We are waiting for our flight to be called when we notice that there is an unattended bag sitting in the next row of chairs over.  After all the security training we went through, we’ve been conditioned to be hyper-attentive to stuff like that.  We immediately asked everyone around us if it was there bag.  I grabbed our hand-carries and quickly evacuated the area while Nick ran to security to notify them.

I should preface this by saying that the Embassy had just released a warning that morning for Manila because there had been a credible threat, so we were on high alert as it was.  When Nick finally found a security guard and let them know that there was an unattended bag, the guard’s reply was: “We must wait 20 minutes and see if someone comes back to claim it.”  What the f*#@!?  Yeah, let’s give it 20 minutes and see if it’s going to blow up before we check it out.  God forbid we anger someone who was stupid enough to leave their bag unattended.  Can you even imagine how fast that bag would have been dealt with at LAX?  So we did the only thing we could do, we removed ourselves from the situation.

Later, when we were going through the gate security, that same security guard came over and scolded the bag’s owner in front of us saying, “Mam, you must not leave your bag unattended.  These people were very concerned.”  Yes, that’s correct, he did not say anything about it being a security concern or that he (and his staff) were worried about the chance of it being a possible bomb.  It’s times like these I’m reminded that we live in a third world country….

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Greetings all – We are T minus 5 days until our 23 day ‘rest and relaxation’ trip to New Zealand.  Because we are at a hardship post (I know some of you would debate that, but I swear we are!) we are REQUIRED to leave the country once during our tour and spend some time in a first-world country.

Each section of the world has a designated ‘R&R’ point and we can either go there or be flown to any destination in the US.  Since we’re still kidless, we’re taking advantage of all the opportunities we have to see the world unattached.  And so New Zealand it is (with a stop in Australia too)!

The challenge about New Zealand is that we are lacking the appropriate clothes for their weather.  We cleaned out our winter clothes before coming here and are desperately trying to create enough outfits to make it through.  Never mind locating hats and mittens for the Glacier visit we’re doing…

I expect that we’ll spend much of the week trying to wrangle up the things we need to do this trip right.  Thank goodness for generous Manila friends!  Rest assured, I am committed to doing a better pack job than I did for Minnesota.  You’d think I’d never lived outside the tropics…. how quickly we forget!

I’m planning to blog continuously throughout the trip (assuming we can find adequate wifi connections), so you can expect to be fully updated while we’re on the road.  With 3 camera lenses to my name now, you can also expect an insane amount of pictures.  And that’s all I’ve got for now.

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