Saturday, March 16, 2013

Wherever the Wind Blows Part 2


After cruising through Mildford Sound we took our time driving back down to Te Anau, stopping here and there to get out for a walk or see some beautiful landmarks such as: a Mt Tutoko hike, the Mirror lakes, Lake Gunn, Deer flat Creek and other places where we could skip rocks in water. J This took us a few hours and we arrived in Te Anau at 7:30pm giving us time to catch the last cruise across Lake Manapouri to a glowworm cave at 8:15pm. They took us a few minutes into the cave walking on a metal path over the rushing water to a place where we climbed into a boat for a peaceful ride to the dome where the glowworms lived. It was so beautiful and almost mesmerizing. Back at the entrance to the cave, they showed us a presentation about the glowworms and we found out they really aren’t worms, but larva…..but no one really wants to see a maggot cave so they call them glowworms, thank you to our new friend Vedant, who was one of the tour guides at the glowworm cave. The next day we invited Vedant to join us on a walk to a bay where we skipped more rocks. It was a beautiful day for a stroll and visit with new friends.
Once we said goodbye and stocked up on some groceries we headed back up to Wanaka to catch another friend of ours, Susan McLay, on her day off. On our way out of Te Anau, we noticed two travelers who were hitch hiking and decided to give them a ride. Their names were Kai (Pronounced kye) and Marcus. They are from Germany and also traveling and working on farms. They were quite grateful for the lift as they had been waiting for three hours for a ride! We were able to help them on their way and it was neat to meet fellow travelers and exchange advice and stories. We took the scenic route through Queenstown stopping for breaks wherever there was water to skip rocks! Yay! (This has become our thing. We stop at every body of water and skip rocks. We didn’t intentionally do this, it just kind of happened. Good times!) Finally, in Wanaka after a half a day of traveling, we were really looking forward to spending the night NOT in the back of a car!!!! Don’t get me wrong, Stella was a life saver! But we were kind of ready to sleep on something a little softer than a folded up car seat and eat food other than peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, which we had been living on for the last week. Robyn, Susan’s host, greeted us at the door and helped us take our luggage to our own room where we would sleep the next two nights. We would have been happy with the floor or a couch and were not expecting two lovely, white fluffy beds and a hot meal of yummy stir fry awaiting us!!! After our grand hardcore adventure, that meal tasted sooo good and those beds felt like fluffy clouds! The next morning we almost expected to wake up in Rivendell where Gandalf would greet us with a “well done, Frodo.”
We spent the next day exploring Wanaka with Susan. First at Puzzling World, we faced all sorts of trippin’ illusions in the illusion room and got lost in the labyrinth of a maze under the blazing hot sun.  We almost didn’t make it, but we overcame and found all four corners in order, plus we found the exit. Then we decided ice cream was a must and all three of us had a nice big scoop of mochaccino (kiwis pronounce it mockaccino) while window shopping in downtown Wanaka (or at least the few blocks that made up the entire town of Wanaka).  Since it was still such a beautiful hot day, after stalking Susan’s work, we donned our togs (swimsuits) and headed for the lake.  Of course, once we arrived, the clouds joined us making it too cool to actually swim, so…. We skipped more rocks!! Yay! Lake Wanaka was absolutely, hands down, definitely, affirmatively, totally the best rock skipping collection of H2O we had found thus far! All three of us, Susan being a rookie, were able to skip rocks halfway across the lake with no problem whatsoever. It was the best rock skipping experience of Trina’s life! Our adventure at the lake ended with a good old-fashioned water fight. Back at Robyn’s house, she had another wonderful hot meal just waiting for us to dig in. It was a wonderful, relaxing visit; spiritually, physically, and emotionally.
The next day as we drove toward Invercargill, taking the scenic route along the Fiordlands, we saw more beautiful mountains, ocean, caves, air shows, and wetlands, where the scene of the dead marshes from the LOTR was filmed. We spent the night in another campsite near Clifden, where the stars were breathtaking. The morning found us on Thursday the 7th of March, as we took our final road trip with faithful Stella. We drove through Invercargill to Bluff, close enough to the southernmost point of New Zealand. We found this hill in the middle of the town that had a lookout at the top where one could see for miles. There was a map showing us a bunch of different landmarks that could be seen from that point. They had all sorts of unique names that sparked our interest as to the stories behind them such as; Dog Island- where the dogs were eaten, Woman Island, and the Point where (some name we couldn’t pronounce) valiantly stood. Then we headed back to Invercargill, but first stopped at a little inlet, called Ships Graveyard, where we, of course, skipped rocks. Susan put us in touch with a friend of hers in Invercargill where we could stay for the night. After some good company and a restful sleep, we drove Stella to the rental company where we parted ways from our beloved, dear rental car who had become a special addition to our trip. Catching our bus back to Balclutha, we were excited to once again be with our New Zealand family, the McLays! They have become family to us and it was so good to see them once again!! We were grateful for our trip to the Milford Sound but so happy to stay in once place for a wee bit.
This past week with the McLays was full of more laughter, another visit from Susan, a Thanksgiving feast (where we introduced them to yams with marshmallows and pumpkin pie!), more games on the hay bales, church fellowship, rugby games, wave jumping and sand fights at the beach! Along with the fun, we helped with the chores and did some additional work like sweeping the drive way, deep cleaning the bathroom, laundry, babysitting, etc. During our visit, an Israeli couple also stayed with the McLays and invited us to go sightseeing with them for a day. Accepting the offer, we explored the Catlins national park and learned about a new culture as well! It was neat to share our different lifestyles with one another while climbing through Cathedral Cave (where Aslan, from Narnia, walked on the beach in the end of the first movie!), the McLean Falls and the Purakanui Falls.
Much to our dismay, we will be parting from the McLays tomorrow after a potluck at their church and staying with family friends of the McLays in Dunedin, where we hope to see an Albatross or two before hitch hiking our way to Christchurch! We are so grateful for all the friends we have made on this trip thus far and plan to keep in touch as much as possible; encouraging them to come and visit our homes back in the states! Hopefully we may see each other again in this lifetime and, if not, look forward with expectation, that we will see them in the next life. Throughout this trip, we have been striving to show the love of Christ to all we meet and encourage them to also love others by serving willingly, going out of our way and giving of our time with a joyful heart. We have truly been blessed by having love centered attitudes and have really seen inspiring results. I want to encourage all you who are presently reading this, to remember to take the opportunity today, to express love to those you meet through your actions and words. You may not see the result, but it does make a difference. Love never fails.

Sunday, March 10, 2013

Wherever the wind takes us part 1


Early Wednesday morning, 5:30 to be exact, we left with Coralie, Reuben, Andrew, and Luke for Wanaka.  Susan works at a resort there and Reuben was going to an agricultural conference, so Coralie said that she would take us to Queenstown, an hours on the other side of Wanaka, to pick up our rental car and start our week long traveling adventure.  When Coralie dropped us off, we met Stella.  She is a lovely silver Hyundai Accent, oh, and did we mention that she is a manual?!?!  So it was a very interesting time driving a stick shift on the other side of the car on the other side of the road.  Our first order of business was to drive to Arrowtown, a cute little gold rush town that is set up the way that it used to be about a hundred years ago.  This town is by far our favorite city in New Zealand. We explored the town and finally found a campground where we parked the car for the night.  Then it was time for a walk down to the creek, a water hike (this was Courtney’s first water hike) and rock skipping.  We wrote some postcards to people, wrote in our journals for a little bit, and ate some ice cream, enjoying the sunshine and outdoors. 

It was very interesting to sleep in the back of the car, but we made it work.  We were able to sleep in a little bit, packed up Stella, and started out.  First, we stopped at a Lord of the Rings site, but we weren’t really sure what it was exactly so we looked around and took some pictures thinking about the actors that had probably been there.  Later we found out that it was actually the road where Isildur was attacked by the orcs and lost the Ring.  After that we drove onto Queenstown, went grocery shopping, and wandered around the town.  We were actually waiting for 2:00, when we would stare death in the face and laugh as we jumped off a 43 meter (141 ft) bridge.  You got it!  We went bungee jumping, but this was no ordinary bungee jump, it was the original bungee jumping site!  The crew there talked us out of going together and we were so thankful, because it was so much fun to go by ourselves and have our own experiences to share with each other.  Trina closed her eyes for the first part because she had asked to get wet in the river below, but sadly she didn’t cause the drought made the river line too low.  After looking at our pictures and video of ourselves, we explored some more.  It was such a nice day that we decided to take a walk around the Queenstown gardens and walk by Lake Wakatipu.  Queenstown is surrounded by the Remarkable Mountains, and they sure are remarkable.  That night we decided to travel out of town to find a place to stay so we headed north to Moke Lake, a nice campground tucked in the mountains where we could park Stella and sleep in the back again.  While we were having our tea, a duck came up from the lake to visit us, we named her Fiona.  Courtney wanted to know what it felt like to be bit by a duck and decided to find out.  So she got Fiona to take a potato chip from her hand and Fiona actually bit her a couple of times, pretty entertaining. She said it tickled more than hurting. :)

The next morning we got ready for a hike around the lake, but decided to climb one of the mountains surrounding the lake instead.  It took us a couple of hours, but we were able to get to the top and see for miles and miles.  The way down was super fun, sliding on our bums most of the way, which resulted in both of us ripping our shorts; just one less piece of clothing to have to carry around the rest of our trip!  Then we went for a nice, refreshing dip in the lake.  It was so cold!  We then decided it was time to move on in our adventure, this time the destination was Milford Sound.  It was only a hop, skip and a jump away from where we were, but there was only one way to get to Milford Sound and that meant we had to drive back south, through Queenstown and head back north at Te Anau (three hour drive).  It was a beautiful drive though. The mountains just rose out of the plains as we drove and we were just in awe of God and His beautiful creation.  After stopping in Mossburn for dinner and Te Anau for petrol, we found a campsite near Milford Sound and stayed the night there.  We even made some new friends (and no not the sand-flies) who invited us to join them for tea (dinner). They were two travelers from Germany and another guy from Israel. How ironic, two Americans, two Germans and an Israeli enjoying a meal together. :) We all were entertained by the irony.

At Milford Sound, we took so many pictures, but they just don't do the beauty of this place justice.  We were in the wilderness surrounded by amazing mountains flowing with waterfalls and topped with clouds, making them look that much more beautiful. The Milford Sound is an amazing fiord weaving through the mountains out to the sea. A fiord, if you didn’t know, is a stretch of water that was carved out by a glacier, whereas, a sound is carved out by a river. The Milford sound is actually a fiord but they originally named it a sound to match all the other sounds in the area. “The cruise is the best way to see Milford Sound” is what we were told so that’s what we did.  It was a two hour long ride and most definitely worth the money that we paid.  We saw sea lions, waterfalls (even drove right up under one in the boat), minerals in the rock such as gold, copper and iron, and some very beautiful mountains that eventually led to the ocean.  The word “beautiful” doesn’t even describe this place; you just have to see it for yourself, and not in pictures, but in person.  We can only imagine that if it is this beautiful on earth what will it be like in the New Earth?

Eight kids and counting!!


Well Friends, you have all been so patient in waiting for our next post. We have done so much!! Last post, we were in Auckland on our way to the airport to fly across New Zealand down to Dunedin where we have been staying with the lovely McLay family. They have 8 children, four boys and four girls and they are heaps of fun! Starting from the oldest: Susan (19), Reuben (18), Isabel (16), Esther (14), Naomi (13), Josiah (11), Andrew (2) and last but not least Luke (1). We have had a blast sharing our cultures with one another such as learning new songs and realizing we all grew up with the same kid songs in bibles school, learning new words, talking about different sports, and teaching each others' accents. It is quite entertaining. :)

We have been mostly helping with housework (cleaning the windows, weeding the garden, etc) and looking after the two littlest boys, Andrew and Luke. The first full day of our stay we walked around the town of Dunedin with the two boys while Naomi got braces. We went window shopping, checked out some neat buildings, went to the Cadbury chocolate factory (definitely got some souveneirs there!) and had a good look around finishing at the train station! It’s a cute little college town built on the side of a hill.

The McLay’s live in Balclutha, which is about an hour south of Dunedin. The Balclutha area reminds us a lot of Montana with rolling plains and large mountains! This makes us feel right at home here, but also a little homesick. :) Our new found friends live on a beef and sheep farm with 2,500 sheep, which they are in the process of sheering. So we got to help them round the sheep up, and herd them into the barn one group at a time to be weighed. The world record for sheering a sheep is 45 sec, but usually takes an average sheerer 2 minutes, I think. So, do the math and you can imagine how long it would take them to sheer all their sheep, separate the wool and still run a large household! Phew! We stay pretty busy out here! There is not a dull moment! :D

They live about 2km from the coast so we have gone to the beach a couple times even finding crabs under the rocks and sneaking up on a real life, wild penguin!! The water is colder down here in comparison to the north island, but still just as beautiful! The kids were in a school track event, which here they call Athletics. So, we took a day off of work to go into town and cheer them on! Go team! They all placed in at least one event! Yay! We're pretty sure it’s because they had their own cheerleading squad. ;) We have really just been enjoying being a part of this family, watching the little boys, playing red light green light on the hay bails with the older kids, teaching them some good old line dancing, and just being silly! Who said we have to act our age? :)
In a bit we will post about our great road trip adventure that filled our time last week!