Better Late Than Never (Just found our last post from April 2011 in draft) Savannah in New Zealand.

On April 19, we arrived very late at night in Christchurch, New Zealand from Australia, and we are really looking forward to seeing our camper van tomorrow!

Our Camper Van

Today we went to get our camper van! It is so cool! When we were driving out of Christchurch, we saw a lot of ruined homes, stores, and restaurants from the recent earthquake.  It was really sad. After we left Christchurch, we did a lot of driving. New Zealand has such pretty scenery! We stopped in a little town for lunch, and we also went to a jewelry store, where we saw some very pretty, colourful shells from New Zealand called paua (pronounced pa wa) made into jewelry. We also went to a beach where there is a seal colony out on some far away rocks. There was one seal that was right on the beach. He was so cute! The beach was mostly rocks with little patches of water, where we found little shells, and mom even found a few pieces of paua. That night we stayed at our first camp site. It was pretty nice.

He looks innocent, but.....

Cat's Eye Shell found on the beach

Savannah with Blue Penguin (right before he was probably seal's dinner!)

We spent the next 9 days in the camper van. It was sooo fun! We drove a few hours every day. The scenery is amazing! We saw snow peaked mountains, beaches by the coast, lots of rainforest, and fields full of sheep and a few fields full of deer. It was really pretty. Every night we stayed in a different campsite. There was even one called Jackson’s Retreat. At my favorite campsite, they had some sheep, and we arrived right when they went out to give them some food (they mostly eat grass though), so they let us do it. They were so cute and ate right out of our hands!

Savannah feeding the sheep at camp site


 

Some other things we did/places we went were:

Shantytown: Shantytown was an old fashioned town, where we went gold mining, rode a steam train, and went in a lot of old fashioned shops.

Savannah, Jackson and Paul paning for specs of gold

Walks: While we were driving from camp site to camp site, we stopped at a lot of little walks. Most of them were through forests, full of leaves, moss covered trees, ferns,  and a few little waterfalls. They were all really nice, but my favorite two were the glacier walk and the waterfall walk. We got to walk right up to about 100 yards away from a glacier. It was really cool. On the other walk we saw the Purakaunui Falls, which was a really cool, three stage waterfall. It was beautiful.

Purakanui Falls

Waterfalls on our hike to Franz Josef Glacier

Savannah at Franz Josef Glacier

Whale Watching: One day we went on a whale watching trip. The view from the boat was awesome! We could see all water on one side, mountains and lots of green on the other, and the town behind us. We saw the back of the same sperm whale twice, and when they dive down we saw its tail. They told us that the whale is about 40 years old, he has been coming to that same spot for 20 years, he is about 16 meters long, and he weighs about 20 – 30 tons! We also saw some fur seals, Hector’s dolphins, and albatrosses. The albatrosses were huge! Overall, it was a really successful trip and we were very lucky to see a sperm whale. 

Sperm Whale's Back

Whale Tale

Albatross

 Scenery Boat Ride: One day we went on another boat, but this time for the scenery. First we took a very short boat ride across a lake, then a short bus ride to another boat on Doubtful Sound, where we went through the sound to the end where it connects with the sea, turned around came back, and then took the bus and short boat ride again. All of that took the whole day. Doubtful Sound is very beautiful. It is narrow with mountains on either side. Some mountains have snow on top, and they all have a lot of trees, moss, and bushes. We saw lots of albatrosses, including one that flew so low over the boat that we could see its face perfectly and understand just how big they are! There were also some dolphins, including a mother and a calf, but all we saw were some spouts. In Doubtful Sound, the driver turned off all of the engines and generators, and we all stood in silence. We could hear a few birds and a small waterfall. It was really peaceful.  We also spent most of a day driving to Milford Sound where Lord of the Rings was filmed. It was really pretty, and very similar to Doubtful Sound.

View of the start of Doubtful Sound

Lake Manopouri

Where Doubtful Sound meets the Ocean

Hydro Electric Plant: On our way back from Doubtful Sound, we went to a hydro electric plant. We had to drive through a tunnel in a mountain to get there. A hydro electric plant is an electric plant where they make electricity, using the power of water. In this hydro electric plant, they use the water from Doubtful Sound. The driver actually pointed out the tunnel where the water goes in, and the other where the water goes out. The water goes down and turns the generator, which produces electricity. We got to see the big room where the generators are. It was really interesting!

Hydroelectric Plant

Fossilized Forest: We went to a beach that was covered with old tree stumps and trees that fell over when the forest was destroyed. You couldn’t really tell it was a forest, but once we knew what we were looking for, we started to see the shaped of stumps and fallen down trees.

Savannah at the petrified forest remains

There was a really cool beach that was covered in pieces of driftwood. The beach was on the Tasman Sea, and when we got out of the camper van I stuck my toes in. It was freezing!

Savannah on Bruce Bay

We went to Nugget Point, where there was a great view of the ocean from a cliff. We saw a few birds, but the best part (other than the scenery), were the seals. We could see a few seals and pups on some rocks, and in the water there were a bunch of them splashing and playing around. Two of them even leaped out of the water and started chasing each other around!

Savannah at Nugget Point

We have to leave the camper on April 29th L. We had a really long drive from Oamaru back to where we started in Christchurch. In Christchurch, we returned our camper van and then went to the airport where we caught our very short flight to Auckland.

Savannah does not want to leave the camper van!

On our first day in Auckland we went to the Auckland Zoo, which used to be on a T.V. show that we watched in Australia, but the last one ever made was two years ago. We did recognize some of the cages though. We saw all the normal zoo animals, (lions, tigers, seals, birds, monkeys, etc.) but we also saw some other cool exhibits. In one cage they had some baboons, and they were making a ton of noise, hooting and grunting and screeching. They had big balloon looking things on their throats. We also saw a show about the wildlife in New Zealand, and we got to see a kiwi in daylight! It was really cool. We also saw two kiwis in their cage, poking around with their beaks, but that was in the dark. It was a really cool zoo!

The elusive Kiwi

The Lorikeets are beautiful

The next day we drove from Auckland to Rotorua. When we got to Rotorua, we went to Te Puia, where they have some geysers. Rotorua is known for its geysers. At Te Puia we took a tour, where we saw some geysers and mud pools, and we learned a lot about Maori culture. Maoris are the Aborigines of New Zealand. We saw some of their wood carvings, a meeting houses, an old food storage house, and learned a lot about their culture. The wood carvings were really good, and the meeting room and storage house are really ornately carved. On our way to the geysers and mud pools, we stopped at the kiwi house. All we saw was the back of a kiwi under a log. The geysers were really cool, but my favorite part was the mud pools. It was a big pool of mud, and in a few different spots, a little bit of mud would spurt up in the air as much as one foot! Our guide told us that the mud was 95 degrees Celsius. On the way back, we stopped at the kiwi house. After looking around and waiting for a while, there was a ton of dirt that started flying from the corner, and a few minutes later a kiwi came out of the corner. He walked all around his cage looking for food. We stayed in Rotorua that night.

Today we were driving back Auckland from Rotorua, and we stopped at some caves where they had glowworms! At the caves, we took a tour where we looked around the caves a little bit, learned about the glowworms, and then took a boat ride through the part where there are tons and tons of glowworms! The caves were really cool, and we learned a lot about glowworms, but the best part by far was the boat ride. It were in complete darkness and silence, and the roof was covered in little dots of lights from the glowworms. It was amazing! It was like looking at the stars in the Sahara. We arrived in Auckland later that night.

On May 4 we left New Zealand and took a 13 hour flight to L.A. It was a beautiful country, and I would definitely go back.  On the same day we left, we landed in LA, and then on May 5 we flew to Boston.

In Boston we met Hannah and Sarah Lang at a hotel, and they brought DIXIE!!!! We were all so excited! We spent the night in the hotel, and then the next day we flew to North Carolina.

Hannah, Savannah, Dixie (and MiniPig!) Reunited

We were all really excited to see our house and our old furniture after so long. Now, a few weeks later, we are pretty settled in and both Jacksons and I went to school for a while, but now both schools are out for the summer.

It was an amazing trip, and an unforgettable experience, and now, although we miss out friends in Bermuda, we are happy to be in our new house in the USA!