The time has come, and we're about to summarize our two months in New Zealand: about 9 amazing weeks, over 6000 km of astonishing views and scenery, and a few hundreds of thousands of sheep have passed before our eyes. However, before delving into general summaries, we'll briefly tell you about our last week, which was as great as a finale should be.
After a few days in New Plymouth, including a lovely light festival and nice black-sand beaches, we headed north to Waitomo, in the heart of a dramatic limestone/karst area. We must say that despite the fact that we are nearing the end of our journey, we have not let fatigue set in. In the last two days we were very active, and were aided by clear sunny skies! We joined a guided tour of two caves –the whole area is riddled with sinkholes and caves (more than 50 have been discovered to date). We visited a stalactite cave, which was pretty enough, though it is not nearly as beautiful as the one we know from Israel. But the absolute highlight of the tour was a glow-worm cave. We entered the cave and floated on an underground river on a small raft. All the lights were then turned off, and the ceiling of the cave came to life with literally tens of thousands of tiny lights, winking like stars at night. The effect is simply breathtaking, and when our eyes got used to the dark, we realized there was a fair amount of light generated by these amazing creatures. Indeed, there was light enough for us to see that Hadas had taken the lights-out seriously, and promptly fell asleep – raft, worms and all.
Aside from this tour we hiked a few additional walks and saw rivers disappearing underground and then resurfacing; huge natural limestone "bridges" carved over millions of years; deep impressive gorges and the immense Marokopa waterfall – plunging over a 30m cliff face. The short walks we went on in this area (each about an hour long or less) were amongst the best and most rewarding we have seen in NZ. We'll be spending the final couple of days in Auckland and on Friday evening (14/1) we'll be flying out to San Francisco.
On to summaries, then… New Zealand is a wonderful country! At times, it seemed almost too good to be true. The diversity of attractions is remarkable – nature lovers can find awe inspiring natural features, adrenaline buzz-seekers face a fantastic selection of adventures, and ocean buffs can find an extraordinary choice of beaches and coastal scenery. New Zealand is also exceptionally clean – the cities and towns as well as nature trails. Even in routes visited by thousands of people every day the dictum "Take nothing but photographs and memories, leave nothing but footsteps" is followed scrupulously. We know that New Zealand is geographically very distant from most of you, but since its wealth of attractions is spread over a reasonable small area, we warmly recommend a visit here! As we've tried to communicate in our letters, there is something here for everyone, and even 2-3 weeks can be sufficient to see many awesome places.
From a family perspective, it has been a truly unforgettable experience! We have discovered how easily our daughters adjust to a nomadic lifestyle, and in fact thrive on the exciting daily adventures. They were both marvellous and joyful, and we were delighted to spend this special time with them. Getting back into a normal daily routine will probably be very hard for us… More than just enjoying the time spent together, we both feel that we have grown closer to both Noga and Hadas, and this is a terrific feeling!!!
Goodbye New Zealand – we had a superb time, and plan to return for more some day.
Love, Giora, Anat, Noga & Hadas
Thursday, January 13
Sunday, January 9
Another fabulous week in New Zealand
We are nearing the end of our wonderful trip, and next Friday (less than a week from now!) we'll be flying out from Auckland to the US. However, we'd like to give you another bulletin before summarizing etc.
Since our previous report, from Christchurch, we spent a few more lovely days in the south island, and then crossed back tothe north island. We are now making our way north along its western coast. We are currently staying for a few days in a city called New Plymouth, located in the Taranaki peninsula. Most importantly, our collective mood in the last week and a half has been exceptionally jolly! Both girls are even more amazing than usual, and are almost constantly smiling and happy. Hadas is quickly developing her verbal skills, and has started putting together two-word sentences, or more frequently, orders and commands :-) Noga has perfected her social skills, and has become impressively adept at striking up a conversation and charming everyone around, naturally mainly any Hebrew speakers we meet.
Unfortunately, the weather has not improved much, but on most days we've been lucky enough to have at least a few non-raining hours. We have also learned to seize such opportunities and as soon as there is so much as a hint of blue in the sky, we abandon our previous plans and head out for some outdoor activity or another. Mostly we go hiking, and have seen some beautiful places and lovely bush-trails.
Let us decribe to you in detail a specific wonderful day we spent in the small coastal town of Kaikoura. As usual, we took things very slowly in the morning, and didn't leave the hostel until 11:00 a.m., in part due to the gray clouds above. It is worth mentioning that most of the time we choose to go on nature hikes, which is not necessarily what most tourtists here spend their time doing. Kaikoura, for example, is famous for the opportunity to go on a whale-watching cruise, swim with dolphins or seals etc. We, on the other hand, on this specific day, drove some 20 kilometers out of town, to the foot of the relatively unknown Mt. Fyffe, where we hiked a lovely 2.5k loop track in a unique forest of Hinau trees (sorry, we have no idea what the name for them is in Hebrew, if there even exists one). We met no-one on this trail, and had a marvelous time! Hadas walked most of the way (as she has been insisting on more and more recently) and Noga made up a very complicated story about a princess, a wizard and a trampoline. We returned to our hostel, that was very very well-equipped, and the girls made it crystal clear that they are not going to miss the singular opportunity to splash in the outdoor jacuzzi. So in they went (with Dad) for a delightful frolic! One hour to get them to unwind and fall asleep, another hour for their nap, and onward to our afternoon activity (as they sky remained clear enough). We drove to a very special place - a rock shelf that is revealed during low tide only. We walked along this magnificent feature of nature - cliffs to one side, the ocean on the other. Along the way we came across numerous rock pools and fissures still filled with water, and exhibiting many shells, snails, intricately shaped sea-weed and the occasional seal. Noga was fascinated by this abundance, and even spotted one of the snails moving slowly along the rock-face. Hadas methodically made sure that she stepped into each and every single puddle and pool on the way, usually jumping in with a splash. A wonderful day all around!
For us, the parents, it's fun to see how much the girls enjoy the simplest of things. A recent example is one night in which we were tenting. Though we've been carrying full camping gear with us, we didn't sleep in a tent during our travels, due to the rain and cool weather. However, we decided that for the sake of the experience, we should do it at least once, and so we did. Indeed, there was a lot of excitement - bulding the tent, using our camping mattresses etc. Another such example is the ferry on which we crossed the Cook Strait, back to the north island. Designed to contain as many vehicles as possible, this ferry is a gigantic ship, with several enormous passanger decks. In a way it feels like an air plane, but much more spacious, with an indoor playground, bars and even a clown performance for the kids. That said, it's perfectly understandable why the girls enjoyed the cruise so much. For Noga, the crossing day was really an exciting one!
So, as you've probably understood, we continue in having a great time in NZ. We can only be sorry that this terrific travel will soon come to an end, as every good thing does.
Hope you're all well, lots of love,
Hadas, Noga, Anat & Giora
Since our previous report, from Christchurch, we spent a few more lovely days in the south island, and then crossed back tothe north island. We are now making our way north along its western coast. We are currently staying for a few days in a city called New Plymouth, located in the Taranaki peninsula. Most importantly, our collective mood in the last week and a half has been exceptionally jolly! Both girls are even more amazing than usual, and are almost constantly smiling and happy. Hadas is quickly developing her verbal skills, and has started putting together two-word sentences, or more frequently, orders and commands :-) Noga has perfected her social skills, and has become impressively adept at striking up a conversation and charming everyone around, naturally mainly any Hebrew speakers we meet.
Unfortunately, the weather has not improved much, but on most days we've been lucky enough to have at least a few non-raining hours. We have also learned to seize such opportunities and as soon as there is so much as a hint of blue in the sky, we abandon our previous plans and head out for some outdoor activity or another. Mostly we go hiking, and have seen some beautiful places and lovely bush-trails.
Let us decribe to you in detail a specific wonderful day we spent in the small coastal town of Kaikoura. As usual, we took things very slowly in the morning, and didn't leave the hostel until 11:00 a.m., in part due to the gray clouds above. It is worth mentioning that most of the time we choose to go on nature hikes, which is not necessarily what most tourtists here spend their time doing. Kaikoura, for example, is famous for the opportunity to go on a whale-watching cruise, swim with dolphins or seals etc. We, on the other hand, on this specific day, drove some 20 kilometers out of town, to the foot of the relatively unknown Mt. Fyffe, where we hiked a lovely 2.5k loop track in a unique forest of Hinau trees (sorry, we have no idea what the name for them is in Hebrew, if there even exists one). We met no-one on this trail, and had a marvelous time! Hadas walked most of the way (as she has been insisting on more and more recently) and Noga made up a very complicated story about a princess, a wizard and a trampoline. We returned to our hostel, that was very very well-equipped, and the girls made it crystal clear that they are not going to miss the singular opportunity to splash in the outdoor jacuzzi. So in they went (with Dad) for a delightful frolic! One hour to get them to unwind and fall asleep, another hour for their nap, and onward to our afternoon activity (as they sky remained clear enough). We drove to a very special place - a rock shelf that is revealed during low tide only. We walked along this magnificent feature of nature - cliffs to one side, the ocean on the other. Along the way we came across numerous rock pools and fissures still filled with water, and exhibiting many shells, snails, intricately shaped sea-weed and the occasional seal. Noga was fascinated by this abundance, and even spotted one of the snails moving slowly along the rock-face. Hadas methodically made sure that she stepped into each and every single puddle and pool on the way, usually jumping in with a splash. A wonderful day all around!
For us, the parents, it's fun to see how much the girls enjoy the simplest of things. A recent example is one night in which we were tenting. Though we've been carrying full camping gear with us, we didn't sleep in a tent during our travels, due to the rain and cool weather. However, we decided that for the sake of the experience, we should do it at least once, and so we did. Indeed, there was a lot of excitement - bulding the tent, using our camping mattresses etc. Another such example is the ferry on which we crossed the Cook Strait, back to the north island. Designed to contain as many vehicles as possible, this ferry is a gigantic ship, with several enormous passanger decks. In a way it feels like an air plane, but much more spacious, with an indoor playground, bars and even a clown performance for the kids. That said, it's perfectly understandable why the girls enjoyed the cruise so much. For Noga, the crossing day was really an exciting one!
So, as you've probably understood, we continue in having a great time in NZ. We can only be sorry that this terrific travel will soon come to an end, as every good thing does.
Hope you're all well, lots of love,
Hadas, Noga, Anat & Giora
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