Arriving in New Zealand: Two hour wait…
When we arrived in New Zealand, it was about noon, and I expected to get out of security pretty quickly. But nope! If you didn’t know, New Zealand is very strick on what people bring in, especially food. No food. At all. We had to go though the “Something to Declare” line because dad thought that they might want to check out our snorkeling gear. But they didn’t need to. And we waited in that line for almost 2 hours! After all that, we were finally picked up by a friend of dad’s because there had been a mix up about cars and dates. We picked up the van we were going to rent while we were here at dad’s office and set out for the Airbnb that we were staying at.
That afternoon, we walked around the little town of Parnell and we got to rent electric scooters back to the house! It was so fun.
Rain, Rain Go Away!
Something that we didn’t know before we came to NZ was that on the forecast was all the rain that was going to be coming. On our first day, it rained all day. Like, nonstop buckets. I had been doing 4 hours of math classes that morning and homework, so the rain didn’t help my mood. But then mom said we should get out of the house. And she found a trampoline park!
Trampoline Park
Gravity trampoline park was so much fun. They had a dodge ball section, and we played with some other jumpers. Out time lasted 1 hour, and we used it well. There was this one strip of the trampoline where you could run and bounce off this wall, and when I ran, it felt like I was an ostrich! I tried basketball with Kb, but that didn’t work, so we just jumped and had fun.
Dinner at Esther
After a fun day, we went out to dinner with one of dad’s colleagues and her husband. Dinner at Esther was SO good. They had this cool bread section of the open kitchen where the chefs would make a kind of rising bread. I know that all bread rises, but this was, like, puff bread. That’s literally what it was called on the menu! They also had GF pasta and bread. I got the milk meat and chicken pasta, and me and Zeb shared a lamb. Poor Bardez was hurting from jumping earlier that day that he was falling asleep next to mom! We were also all very tiered. But that day had been good.
Driving in a Flood
I feel like this is worth mentioning because of its intensity. Back in the States, I was used to the occasional down-poor in Raleigh and the consent rain in Washington. But this, this was something else. It’s like all the heavens were coming down in buckets of water. Our first day was all rain. And when we got were driving back from a fantastic night at Esther, it was like we were going through a river. Buses were up to their wheels in water, and this poor small car was up to its windows water! It was like I was living in a nightmare in California. It was the most significant and severe weather Auckland had ever seen. By the following day, 4 people were dead, and many civilians homes were flooded.
Adventure in the Hills
Despite all the rain and weather, our family decided to go on an adventure… 😏 Mom made an executive decision that we needed to get out of the house, so we got in the car and drove out into the countryside. About 20 minutes into the adventure, dad announced that the Elton John concert, which had been booked for later that night, had been canceled. 😕 Huge bummer. Anyway, we kept driving. Then we hit a “Road Closed” sign. And another one. It seemed like the universe didn’t want us to go on this hike! So we kept navigating through narrow roads and finally arrived at Karekare Falls. The waterfall was beautiful and wet. The rain had started up again, so by the time we got back to the car, I was thoroughly soaked. We then presided to go to the beach: rain and all. I used my raincoat, but no shoes. B was no coat or shoes, and the same for mom. They were drenched by the time we got back to the car. I found many exquisite shells, played with a new dog friend, and took many photos. When the rain cleared on the beach but was still in the mountains, it looked like heaven. Reflection photos are my favorite, and when the rain reseeded all the way back, everything looked brightly fresh!
Our next stop was another beach. We grabbed some real fresh ice cream with real fruit. It was honestly quite good. We stayed at that beach till it started raining tie drove back to the house. The night was pleasant, and we had homemade burgers for dinner. Side note: in my opinion, homemade burgers are FAR better than restaurant burgers. No offense, people out there who might be reading this and own a burger restaurant… no hard feelings?