Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! We have
returned from New Zealand and I can’t even describe how amazing that trip was.
We hit a few bumps in the road along the way but it was a great experience. I
will tell you a little bit about what we all did on our trip to New Zealand.
Virginia and I spent two weeks traveling around the country. We left for our
trip and took a tiny plane from American Samoa to Western Samoa. The plan had
about eleven or seats and we were squished inside the plane. Once we got to
Western Samoa we took and hour and a half taxi ride to the international
airport to catch our plane to NZ. We were so giddy when we got on the plane
because we were able to watch movies. The little things really made us happy.
We ended up watching a movie that was about the Samoan culture it was called,
“Three Wise Cousins.” When we arrived in Auckland it was freezing for us. I
remember stepping off the plane and going we need to stop and get our coats out
its too cold. Sure enough people were walking around in shorts and tank tops
and we had leggings and coats on. We had a little bit of culture shock upon
arriving in Auckland. Auckland has about 1.7 million people in the city. That’s
a lot of people after living on a small island for five months. I remember
looking at Virginia and going this is just too much for me I can’t handle this.
After settling into our hostel we felt a little better about the situation.
Our first couple of days we spent
exploring Auckland and going on a little shopping spree. We had to buy some
warmer clothes because the clothes that we did have was not warm enough for us.
We also went to a pharmacy to pick up things we needed to take back to the
island. We couldn’t believe how easy it was to purchase everything. The rest of
the time we just explored around Auckland. One of our favorite things to do in
Auckland was to just sit in the harbor and watch people walk around and listen
to some music. We also enjoyed the food a lot. We took full advantage of the
fact that we finally had some American food. After spending a few days in
Auckland we flew over to the South Island to Christchurch. A majority of our
trip was spent on the South Island. The south island is known to be absolutely beautiful.
The first major thing that we did on the south island was take a five hour
train tour through the mountains. The tour that we were on was known to be one
of the top five best train tours in the world. We travelled through the
mountains and saw bright blue rivers, deep valleys, crystal clear lakes, and
fields filled with lavender flowers. The pictures that we took throughout the
trip do no justice for what we saw on the trip. On the train tour we were
traveling through the Southern Alps. After we had finished our train tour we
hopped onto a bus. In NZ they have multiple bus tours that go all over the
island. Its one of the cheaper ways you can travel along the island. The bus
will stop at scenic areas so you can takes pictures along the way. We spent on
average about 5 to 6 hours on a bus when traveling. Our first bus took us to
Franz Joseph this was a smaller town that was known for its glacier. We took a
hike through the rain forest and made our way to the glacier we got lucky and
were able to see the glacier. The clouds are almost always covering the glacier
but when we were doing our hike we were able to see it.
The next city we traveled to was
Wanaka. If you ever have the chance to go to this area in NZ do it! I have
never seen scenery like this in my life. I have never been speechless in my
life when driving and looking around. I just looked at the window in complete
awe of what was going on outside the bus. Wanaka was a smaller city not nearly
as busy as the other ones, which is more of my style. Wanaka was located on a
lake in between huge mountains. It was one of my favorite parts of the trip.
After Wanaka we headed to Queenstown for five days. Queenstown was a big city
that was very busy around Christmas time. It had very nice restaurants and this
was also located on a lake. We spent Christmas on the beach with all the other
locals. Everyone just goes to the beach for Christmas and has a picnic on the
beach. We did a lot of walking around in Queenstown just exploring and doing
some shopping. We also did a few touristy things while in Queenstown. We headed
down to Milford Sound, which was a national park that was filled with
waterfalls and mountains. We also took a boat ride on a lake at Milford Sound.
Milford Sound is one of the most photographed areas in New Zealand. We also
ended up going hang gliding. For hang gliding you are running off the top of a
mountain and just flying above the ground. It was so much fun. The instructor
took videos while hang gliding and I will have to show you guys when we get
home.
After Queenstown we headed to Mt.
Cook, which is the tallest Mountain in New Zealand. We apparently got really
lucky that day because usually the clouds are covering the mountain but we got
to see it. We took a ten-mile hike that day to look around the Mt. Cook area.
We came across a glacier and a lake on the hike and we saw huge chunks of ice
just sitting in the lake. To end the trip we headed back to Auckland for
NYE. For NYE we stayed at a nice hotel.
We felt so spoiled that night when sitting in the hotel. We had a dishwasher in
our room. I forgot how much I missed the luxury of having a dishwasher. On NYE
we walked around and saw fireworks getting shot off. It was an experience that
I will never forget. New Zealand was an amazing trip and I never expected that
I would actually get to see this country. I am also happy to be back in Samoa
seeing all my kids and the familiar faces of the island. I am also very excited
that I will be seeing my parents in a little over three weeks! J
With
love,
Abby
Drenth
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