Friday we all hopped in the car for a drive out to see seals at Cape Palliser. Our little portable DVD player came in quite handy on the long drives. Poor Ben was squished between Eden and Sam’s car seats. He was such a trooper. We were on quite a windy road and no windy road is complete without carsickness. Poor Sam threw up. We stopped the car and basically hosed her and her car seat down. Everything cleaned up fairly well. She likes traveling in her underwear anyway.
We stopped for lunch at a great little cafe and then carried on to the coast. We passed a cute little town with tons of tractors. We stopped at a lighthouse and climbed a bunch of stairs up to it. Then we went searching for the seals. Wow! We found quite a colony! There were so many of them lounging about and playing around in a tide pool. They let us get really close. The photos were fun to take! We could have stayed and watched them for a long time. Eden had a blast climbing around the rocks.
On our way back we stopped at a beach and the kids had so much fun playing in the sand. Eden stayed pretty far away from the water. That worked out well since I was holding Alden and Chad was playing Jenga with the big boulders trying to get a fallen sippy cup. We stopped on the way back for some excellent fish and chips while the kids played in the local park. The kids just barely made it to the end of the day. The last hour they were pretty sensitive.
Saturday was pretty rainy and gray. It was a perfect day to lounge late into the morning and play games. In the afternoon we went to the Te Papa museum. We ducked out of the rain and had a great time snacking on a bunch of the local yummy treats.
The Ostler’s were generous enough to allow us to stay with them while we were in Wellington. They took us to great restaurants, beautiful sites, fed us wonderful food and gave up their bedroom so we could set up camp. It was so nice to be with good friends!
Eden played so well with both Ben and Samantha. We enjoyed everyone’s company, playing games and eating all sorts of New Zealand treats. We were able to settle into the new time zone with very little trouble. We even enjoyed an afternoon at the park and a great dinner the first day we arrived. We were very excited to have David take off work and Ben play hooky from school while we were in town. If you are looking for somewhere to stay on your trip to New Zealand, we highly recommend the Ostler’s master bedroom.
Thursday we went all over Wellington city. We went to their local botanical garden and did a little walk. It was absolutely gorgeous. We stopped at their park and had fun discovering all the fun play equipment they had that would never be allowed in the States. Lots of playgrounds have zip lines. Lucky kids. Next we went downtown and had a wonderful lunch at a local favorite restaurant. Many of the little cafes had a play area set aside for kids. It was fantastic! We took a walk along the dock and got some gelato. Eden made quite a mess of herself. We are pretty sure her shirt is doomed to be tossed. We then took a short hike up Mount Victoria and got a beautiful view of the city. Poor Eden wiped out and added a bloody mess from her lips to her already chocolate covered shirt. On the way down the mountain we stopped at a rope swing. The pictures make it look like the kids were flying over the city. David and I got to talk politics the whole time. We ended the day with great Indian food. As souvenirs for our trip, we brought home suntans from the burns that we got that day.
Our mission, which we chose to accept, was to fly with two young children, Eden aged 30 months and Alden aged 9 months, over the ocean to the mystical land of New Zealand. First we arrived at Salt Lake City airport only to discover an hour and a half delay of our flights. We touched down in LA and played follow the leader and hopping games while waiting four hours for our next flight.
We discovered we were waiting at the wrong gate and rushed to find our correct connecting flight. Elisa is being nice. We were told by the gate crew to wait at that gate. They just hadn’t bothered to tell us about the other flight to Australia that was actually ours. Then we took a red eye 15-hour flight to Sydney, Australia. The plane had the personalized movie service, just like I wanted. I was kind of excited to catch up on movies. We cramped ourselves in for a good night sleep. Eden saw a couple shows and then went to bed like a pro.
The final leg in our journey touched us down in Wellington, New Zealand after a total of 32 hours of traveling. On the one hand, we’re so blessed that you can travel all the way around the world in only 32 hours. On the other hand, how is it fair that the guy in front of us in security had left Salt Lake 8 hours after we did? We keep telling ourselves that our tickets were tons cheaper. As payment we were received by Katheryn Ostler and her two kids, Ben and Sam. Cheers! Eden was so excited to see them. Of course, she was strung out from exhaustion anyway. But she had been talking about Sam for months.
