Gosh it’s been awhile since you’ve heard from me. And what a whirlwind it’s been. When we last wrote we were excited about the start of our epic New Zealand adventure tour. Our first event was a working sail on a real America’s cup yacht. We were excited. In retrospect…boring! Since then we have zip-lined, jet boated, quad safaried, abseiled, hiked volcanoes, para-glided, bungee jumped (ok, we didn’t do that, but we watched).
New Zealand is, first, beautiful, and second, the adrenaline capital of the world. There was hang gliding, sky diving, swimming with dolphins, heli-hiking a glacier, ice climbing; and run-of-the-mill activities like mountain bike parks or kayaking or just hiking through beautiful scenery including volcanoes, glaciers, and rain forests (sometimes all on the same day) and lots and lots of bungee jumping. They have this thing called the Fox. It is a zipline 143 meters high, over a big canyon. But wait, that’s not all. First you decide among 73 ways to start: you can ride off the cliff on a tricycle, just run and dive, slide down a slide, dive , jump, go backwards, etc. Then you free fall. Until the slack tightens and then you zip line across the canyon. Or you can do the Swing. Sounds tame, but the one I am least likely to do. A GIANT swing over this canyon 143 meters high. When the swing finally stops, they hike you back up to the top of the cliff. While some of our group were doing the Fox or the Swing, or skydiving, or bungee jumping, we elected to go parasailing. It was the scariest thing I have ever done, that, in the moment wasn’t scary at all. You don’t have to jump off anything. The kite gets wind and lifts you off the ground. WAY off the ground; then the mountain falls away, because it really was a cliff, and then you glide around for about a half hour trying not to hit any of the other gliders. And then the landing is smooth and easy. I am definitely going to do that again.
We had 22 days of this tour, traveling around both the north and south islands of New Zealand. Sprinkling in activities with cultural things. We never stayed in the same place more than 2 nights. In most of the cases, that was a good thing. We stayed on a houseboat, a maori village dormitory, some backpackers hostels and some better lodging, some in the most exquisite settings. It was a diverse group of 10 people, varied ages and nationalities (and moods and eating habits). 22 days is a lot to spend on a bus with the same group of strangers. But you are not strangers three weeks in.
Deep breath after all that excitement. Let me back up and tell you a little about New Zealand. First, Australia and New Zealand are not that close together geographically. Most of us don’t realize that. But they are also not too similar culturally either. Where Australia is a cowboy culture, and country music reins; New Zealand is not, and none of that style music here. New Zealand’s indigeous people, the Maoris, were polynesian. They are a lot closer to Hawaiins than the aboriginals in Australia. And they were cannibals-just a note. Fierce, eye bulging intimidating warriors. Names of places are similar to Hawaiin names: all “W”, “M”, “P” and vowels; impossible to remember.
And another surprise, I expected wildlife. There isn’t much. And what there is, they try to shoot. Let me back up and explain. Once upon a time New Zealand was a bird sanctuary. No marsupial predators and no Mammal predators. Many of the birds were terrestrial and some even evolved without wings (kiwi for example). Then came man, itself a major predator. But he also brought rats on the boats, possum for fur, cats and dogs, and goat, deer and rabbits. When the rabbits got out of control he brought a predator to manage them, the stoat. These marsupials and mammals outcompeted the birds and ate their eggs. Many bird species became extinct, many others are desperately endangered.
New Zealand is determined to roll back time. They are striving to eradicate all pests. Pest being a non-native. So deer, wild goats, feral cats, mice, rats, ferrets, stoats, rabbits, possum, wallabies and hedgehogs are hunted and poisoned mercilessly. Either the pest directly preys on the native birds, or competes with them for food. Or muddies the creeks (some birds like them clean). Despite the fact that some of these animals: possums and hedgehogs, are endangered in the rest of the world. It is a cultural mindset that all New Zealanders seem to be onboard about. Birds are not as common as in Australia and not nearly as colorful. And the creeks and lakes are loaded with big eels. These are cool fish, it takes 80 years for them to get as big as the one in my picture attached.
So we are back to civilization and the adrenaline has cleared, but we have entered the zombie apocalypse with the rest of the world. With rising death tolls and layers of travel restrictions ever changing. We, like everyone else, are trying to figure out the coming weeks. As I sit here this morning, we were supposed to be at the airport coming home. Thoughts of Karma hugs and Layla hopping around happy to see us. Our planned return to the USA is now canceled. We have insurance in every other country of the world except there, so getting sick there is especially problematic. No one would probably want to see us anyway after traveling around the world. And we really are lucky to be in a country virtually disease free so far; with few people and lots of open space. The Prime Minister of New Zealand is wonderful: clear thinking and straight talking. She is on the telly about every other day; she has a calming effect on me; I feel we are in a good place. So we are planning to hunker down in New Zealand for 30-60 days until our visa runs out. And maybe try to extend it if things have not settled down. We do not know where we will be sleeping in a couple days. We are true vagabonds now and truly feeling homeless. We are exploring options for lodging and transport (we want to minimize public transport for now); we may get a campervan. We have a whole country to explore. But Winter is coming and this island is close to Antartica, so we expect we may need to think about keeping warm. We are also searching for house sits to get a quick pet fix. We will keep in touch and let you know where we are.
Keep calm and wash your hands
Elbow touch (no hugs)
Love Kim and Mark