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
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