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Our last couple of days in Christchurch were a lot of fun. Christchurch is our favorite New Zealand city and probably our favorite city in the world so far. Despite the rubble around every corner you are still able to see the old charm of the city. Each morning Pat and I would go to Cathedral Square and see what was going on there. There were always stalls selling goods and food, and street performers. One day we went to watch the Wizard. New Zealand is the only country in the world with an officially appointed Wizard, and we got to see him. He is almost 80, but he was able to fill the whole square with his voice and command attention while giving his thoughts for the day. We also went to a part of town called SOL, which despite what you may think stands for South of Lichfield. There you can find a French Market with people selling free range eggs, artisian bread, and my favorite fudge. It was down this little alley with pubs and stores that you wouldn't have thought were there if you stayed on the main street. But, we had to leave sometime and we drove to the airport at 9 AM to catch the first of 4 flights of the day. We were lucky to be flying from Christchurch to Auckland with Air New Zealand. And just like our first flight out to NZ they did not dissapoint. We had a whole range of free movies to choose from and free headsets to use and were served a morning tea service despite it only being an hour and a half long flight. We love Air New Zealand and can not recommend them highly enough. After a 5 hour lay over in Auckland, the next section of our flight would be with Air Pacific from Auckland to Nadi, Fiji and from there to LAX. We were cautiously optimistic about the service we would recieve on Air Pacific. It is a much smaller airline, and we were happy to recieve a full dinner and a hot breakfast. The food was not very tasty as compared to Air New Zealand, but the fact that they served two full meals complete with wine is pretty good indeed. They also had complementary movies and headsets, but again not quite as user friendly as Air New Zealand. One thing they did provide that Air New Zealand didn't was a travel pack complete with eye mask, toothbrush and toothpast, and sleeping socks! That was unexpected. And when we landed in Fji we were greated by a band playing tropical music for all the arriving passengers. I thought that was the best part. Our last leg was from LAX to Salt Lake City was with Delta. I am sad to say that Delta provided the worst service out of all the flights we had. The staff was friendly but as per usual these days guess we were given a bag of peanuts and a soft drink. They had movies but you had to purchase them ( I think they were $8 ) and did not provide headsets. It was a short flight, so not a big deal, and I guess the hospitality of the Pacific had spoiled us a bit. But after 33 hours of all that we made it home safe and sound and had a good long sleep in a nice comfy bed. We are happy to be home for Christmas and we are already marveling in the small things that we have done without for all this time like International Delight Creamer. They have cream in NZ, but it's just milk, no flavour. Like most things in NZ their version of things are healthier for you, but I prefer my coffee with a little chocolate and caramel. I started to think of all the day to day things that we didn't have all this time, like a microwave, a hairdryer or curling iron, a radio, a coffee pot, a clothes dryer, and the list goes on. But I guess the one big thing we didn't have there was our friends and family. We are looking forward to spending lots of time with them over the holidays! We will miss all of the friends we made in NZ and hope that if they are ever in the U.S, that they stop by and say hello! This pretty much concludes this blog, at least for now. Thanks for reading!! Love, Skeeter & Pat
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I can't believe how fast our time on the South Island is going by. The road to Milford Sound has got to be the most amazing drive in the world. I couldn't have imagined how pretty it was. Without exaggeration Pat and I easily saw 500 + waterfalls in the two days that we were there. While we were there we camped at the Milford Sound Lodge which offers rooms, hostel rooms and campsites. And just from the parking lot there were 8 waterfalls within view. It was spectacular. While at Miford Sound Pat and I took a cruise of the sound where we saw more waterfalls of course, fur seals, and a lone pinguin. The whole drive there was amazing! Around every corner there was another beautiful jagged mountain peak with dozens of waterfalls and low lying clouds drifting by and whole fields of purple and pink wildflowers along amazing blue rivers. The only bad thing about the area are the black flies. There were swarms of them, and that is the only reason why we only spent two days there. If it wasn't for the flies you could easily spend a month there exploring. But we had other places to see and things to do so we headed to Invercargill, which is the home of The World's Fastest Indian. After that we headed up the East coast and hiked to Pinguin colonies, but apparently they were all out to lunch. And we also found this beach with these perfectly spherical rocks that have fossils of extict marine life in them. Pretty neat! Tonight we are in Christchurch. It is a beautiful city, but we are finding it a little hard to get around. Christchurch suffered a pretty severe earthquake a couple of months ago and you can still see the effects of it here. Lots of buildings are crumbling and lots of roads are closed, and you don't find out until you get to the end and there are now 15 cars behind you discovering the same thing. Two way streats are now one way streets, and one way streets are now going the opposite way that they once were. But we managed to find our hotel just fine and we are looking forward to exloring the rest of this beautiful city. We only have 3 full days left in New Zealand and I can't believe this amazing trip is starting to come to an end. Although we are looking forward to coming home and settling down, this trip has ignited a travel bug inside us and we are already dreaming up our next trip. Although it probably wont be for 8 months like this one. New Zealand has proven to be a unique place for unique journeys and we feel so lucky to have had this opportunity. I will have one more post before we head home about Christchurch. Thank you so much for following us on this journey. It means so much to us to stay connected to our friends and family back home. And we hope that maybe we have inspired some of you to have an adventure soon too.
Love, Skeeter & Pat Wow, this has been a busy week! We had a great time while Pat's mom was here. After we got home we decided to spend the last couple of days before we had to take her back to the airport lounging at home and at the beach. On our way to the airport Delilah broke down and Pat discovered that the Alternator was shot. But Pat managed to get us to the airport in time and to our hotel. We even managed to sell Delilah the next morning. We didn't sell her for as much as we were originally hoping, but considering the state of her, we were happy to get what we did. And as Pat was counting up the money " Hey There Delilah" came on over the radio and I started to get all emotional about selling her. We had some good times with her. But we had places to go. So after a couple of days touring Auckland, we hopped on a plane and flew to Christchurch and picked up our new car that we've named Shaniqua. She's a zippy little thing and gets us around pretty well. So far we've seen a Kea parrot eating the rubber around Shaniqua's windows, lots and lots of waterfalls, we hiked to the San Josef Glacier, seen dolphins, lots of mountains lakes and rivers that are too blue to even discribe. I hope to be able to post some pictures of it soon. Tonight we are recharging in Queenstown and then it's off to Milford Sound! It's hot here and we're starting to dream of a white christmas at home. We hope everyone back home is doing great, thanks for reading!
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Skeeter
Hi there! I'm Skeeter. I grew up moving a lot and that makes me a bit restless for travel and exploration. I started this blog with my husband Pat when we decided to backpack New Zealand for a year. We are always looking for the next adventure and are loving life. We're just your average couple with two sassy dogs and a love for travel. We're sharing our travels and the tips we pick up along the way. LIZHello! I'm Liz. Blogging is very new to me, but I'm so excited to finally write as much as I talk! Archives
December 2016
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