NZ day 5

Morning came quite slowly for me on the 5th day, I hardly got to sleep at all, the sounds of the city keeping my sleep disjointed at best. Casey, used to sleeping on ships, had no trouble sleeping through the noise and woke up feeling much like his old self, which was a relief, because now I was a grump from no sleep, so one of needed to be functional.

We did t really bother with breakfast, but made a quick potty stop, and headed for the ferry. We figured even though we had a reservation, with the cancellations, it would probably be busy and we should get there early. This proved mostly true, and we queued up with loads of other campers, cars, and commercial trucks to wait our turn to load. It was proving to be a beautiful day, and the sunrise made a beautiful show over the harbor and the ferry. We loaded up quickly enough and being a recovering Sickey and a no sleep wonder, we opted to nap it out in the van for most of the crossing. This ended up working out lovely, with the ship motion making it easy to drift off to sleep. Unfortunately, that motion also made many car alarms sound, and the nap was punctuated by endless horns echoing off the car-hold's metal walls. After about 2 hours or so Casey decided to hit the bathroom, and headed up, saying he'd be back shortly. Well, I fell back asleep, and woke back up, unsure of the time that had passed. Casey was still gone, so I figured I'd only just dozed for a minute. I decided now was as good a time as any to get up and wait for Casey to get back so we could go to the upper decks and enjoy the ride in to Picton. After about 10 minutes of waiting, I started to get concerned, but just then Casey came back, asking "did you miss me?". I said, of course, why wouldn't I? And he explained that he'd been gone for nearly 45 minutes, because the car hold doors were locked and we weren't supposed to be down there and he convinced a trash man to let him back in, because his wife was sleeping in the car. Oops! Guess I dozed longer than I thought. Since we weren't supposed to be there we thought it best to enjoy the rest of the journey from the top decks, which really was quite lovely. The ferry was quite easily maneuvering between huge rocky islands and sharp bends and shallows. It was a totally gorgeous day, too, so things really were on the up-and-up.

Once the ferry docked and everyone disembarked we decided to just high-tail it out of Picton and try to make up some time. Lucky for me, Casey is a super-awesome navigator/planner and he rigged up a delightful route for us. We had had something entirely different planned originally, but the weather and sickness delays have given cause to rework most of the rest of our trip, so from here on out we are planning day by day.

This particular plan made lots of time to bop around the Marlborough wine region! Yay! We were able to hit 3 wineries and a brewery in about 2 hours, so we not only maximized our time. We also bought yummy wines to gift to our many, many friends who have helped us make this logistical nightmare of a PCS/vacation possible (shout outs to: Jenna, Kathryn, Mark, Jessica, and all the others who were on stand by, just in case). OK, back to the trip.

So we tasted some great wines, and the weather was amazing still so the wineries were all open to their beautiful outside sitting areas. Absolutely lovely. Plus we got to taste lots of fun wines. We definitely though Cloudy Bay was the better of the places we went that day, and their gardens were the prettiest, too! But, sadly all the re-planning in the world couldn't give us our two lost days back, so we had to be on our way, we were shooting for Punakaiki by the evening, hopefully with sightseeing time to boot.

Happily, the driving was easy, the weather grand, and the company in good health. All in all this has been a great day so far! The remainder of the day we tried to make up some time and drove out to the west coast and made for Punakaiki. The way there was mostly farms again. But they were dotted with rolling hills along the way. When we started nearing the coast the rolling hills turned into much larger mountain-y areas, with sharp downhills and beautiful vistas. Much more exciting driving than flat farms as far as you can see. But, the cool thing is, even when the farms seem to go forever, you can never really be sure what the road will be like just a few miles ahead. Definitely part of the enjoyment of the whole experience lies in that itself.

When it just started to darken, but still with about an hour of twilight left, we made it to our camping spot for the night. Since we only had a short amount of light left we decided not to set up camp,but to go exploring instead. We were just a short walk from what are known as the pancake rocks, and just a few steps from the beach. So we headed up the hill to the cliffs. Casey spotted a sign on the way that said "Punakaiki Caves", so naturally he had to go exploring, but no worries, he had his new head lamp in his pocket, so all was well. It was completely dark in there, so other than Casey's lamp i just kind of felt my way around, even though Casey tried to hide in the dark and scare me, booger. There are a few fun pics in Casey's FB album from this adventure, so look forward to those. I will post a link to all the pics when I get the chance.

We made it out of the side adventure with still enough time to see the rocks before all the light was gone. It turned out to be really neat. The rocks have these very thin, distinct layers, that are very easily eroded by the waves, so they have turned into all thee crazy formations, including a natural bridge, and some very cool blow-holes. We weren't able to catch any of the sea spray at the time we were there, but it was cool all the same. This was certainly another high point in our already lovely day! We enjoy a beautiful walk back in the dark along the beach trail that led back to the camp. I made some yummy soup and had bread and cheese for dinner, with apples, and Casey just had the bread and apples, as his tummy was taking baby steps getting back to full-normalcy. All in all, great day! Hooray!

NZ day 4

We made it through the night! Sickey woke up feeling a lot more like Casey, so that's a win. Although, he still lacks a real appetite. We head for Wellington proper and find parking at Te Papa, the national Museum. We were really looking forward to this museum, as it has been featured on the history channel and stuff. We actually saw something on the colossal squid right before we got to NZ, so we are looking forward to that. Since half-Sickey wasn't in the mood for breakfast, it is now nearly lunch and we've only just picked at things to eat. Luckily, there is a cute cafe in the museum, and we enjoy a little sit down and something to munch before we explore the museum. We spent a few hours exploring, they had quite a large natural history area, which included the colossal squid. We also perused the Maori and settlers of NZ areas, as well as some exhibits on the typical natural disasters and hazards of NZ living. All in all, the museum was fun, but had a ever-present feeling of "even though NZ is great everyone who lives here and has lived or settled here is ruining the beauty of NZ and it's not as cool as it used to be", so that was kind of depressing. It definitely could have had the same wonderful and interesting exhibits without being so depressing and negative about it all, especially in the Maori exhibits. oh well, certainly worth the money ($0). :-)

We decided to walk about the small waterfront downtown and the shopping street, Cuba street. It was a lovely day and a lot of people were out and about, and it helped me to notice how particularly grubby I was looking, so after strolling the length of the shopping street I picked up a shirt that helped me look a little less like a person sleeping in a van, and more like a normal shopper. I felt much more presentable for hitting a few little pubs and restaurants, of which there were many. Also, as an extra bonus, while we were shopping around the ferry booking office called and said our ferry had been cancelled due to continued uncertain weather, and we had been rebooked on another ferry, leaving at 0830. Lovely, at least we would make it to the South Island, however we wouldn't actually be landing there until after noon, so it will push us back even further on our imagined itinerary, but hopefully we can still see the top sights and make it work.

Thankfully, after getting this news we were right outside a pub, so we stopped in for a beverage and the day was finally looking up. We happily spent the rest of the day wandering the shops and pubs, and just making a relaxing day of it so Casey could get his energy back up. He still wasn't able to eat much, but he was managing a liquid diet. The waterfront near Te Papa was hosting some kind of arts festival and had tents set up along the pier where bands and artist were showing off their talents. That turned out to be lovely, and a great winding down of our city experience in Wellington.

Since the car was already parked in the Te Papa garage, and they allowed for overnight parking, which was surprisingly cheaper than any of the holiday parks we had stayed in, we decided to just leave the van parked there. This also worked out because it is quite near the ferry terminal for tomorrow's crossing. So sketchily, we crashed out in our camper van in the Te Papa Museum parking lot. We are so hot. Hopefully, there is a ferry ride in our future...!

NZ Day 3

I pretty much didn't sleep at all in Rotorua, mostly thanks to the fierce winds that shook the van and the rain pounding at the windows. Casey, on the other hand didn't sleep, mostly thanks to his stomach ache. We got nice hot showers the night before though, so that was keeping us motivated. Casey couldn't manage anything for breakfast besides half an apple. Knowing Casey, this was not a good sign, but he insisted we do some low-key sightseeing while we were in town and try to make the best of it. One major highlight here is that we found a nice outdoor store that was having a sale; and after getting soaked the night before on the walk back to the car, we decided to pop in and look at jackets. Casey found a nice jacket in black that the sales person offed to give us 20% off, score! Then I found a small in the men's clearance rack, and ended up scoring a nice mountain hardware jacket for about 25% of the original price, double score! This ended up being the best part of the day :-(

Being that the wind was still super fierce and the rain was intermittent, we opted out of the geysers, which is fine, since geysers are kind of all the same, right? Oh well.

We decided to hit the bricks since the weather was crummy and Rotorua wasn't delivering on the sights and events. We decided it was better to use up all the bad weather time driving for Wellington, so we could at least get into town and do something fungi the evening. Bonus: the windshield wipers make a horrendous squeegy noise every time they drag across the window, which is super fun in a down pour.

Casey get progressively worse as the day drags along, and I'm starting to think he's caught that horrible stomach virus I had about 2 weeks ago (think of wanting to be in the fetal position and nausea, but riding in a van with broken wipers and having to sit up and/or sleep against the window). I feel so bad for him, but there's nothing to really ease the discomfort, even with the virtual medicine cabinet I packed. Thankfully, we made it just outside Wellington early in the afternoon, but now instead of plans to visit the city, we will be holing up so Casey can sleep and try to come out on the other side of this virus alive.

I got the bed set up and locked in Mr. Sickey, while checked into the motor lodge and jumped on the Internet to see if any of our military paperwork for our move was being processed in our absence (not so much). I also tried doing a bit of planning for the next day. New awesomeness: the weather bomb had cancelled many of the ferries to the south island, so the next possible crossing was actually not tomorrow, but the morning after at 0600. I went ahead and made the booking, seeing as it was our first possible chance to try to get to the south island with any sort of time left to enjoy it. For those of you following along, this is what is known as being in Shambletown. After getting that awesomeness squared away, I checked in on Mr. Sickey, who was so passed out that's couldn't wake him, which meant I also couldn't get any of our food or dishes. So I decided to leave him sleeping and get some stuff at the grocery store nearby. I felt like I was driving around with a big secret in the back of the car and I was all worried about turning too hard or going over bumps! At the store I tried to get things that were sick-friendly like soup and pasta, and wine (for the caretaker, it was a long day of driving and planning alone). Thankfully, I made it back to our parking space with Sickey in one piece and I managed to get him to roll to the other side of the van, so I could get out some pots and pans. The lodge had a communal kitchen, and I was glad to make some dinner and have a glass of wine while Sickey slept, it was relaxing after a crappy day. It was still raining, so I waited until everything was done before I attempted to get Sickey to eat something. I had set out a little table with light pasta and bread, with the option of soup if none of that went down. Casey managed about half a dinner roll's size of bread all while looking like complete death (sorry, Sickey, I love you, but it's true). There was a nice German couple making dinner next to us, and I think they were utterly confused as to why Sickey appeared to disdain everything I cooked, not really speak, and leave about 5 minutes into the non-meal. Nothing was going down so Sickey decided to go back to bed. :-( I went ahead and finished eating and watching some silly TV show, only to be surprised to see Sickey again a few minutes later, less all of the bread and medicine he had managed to force down. This must be really bad since the last time Sickey lost his dinner was on our first date due to food poisoning. Poor kid just went back to bed, and I decided to just make my evening relaxing by watching silly TV, drinking my wine, and reading, while watching over Sickey. Not exactly the best day, but at least we made it to Wellington. Here's to hoping for a little rest and a more successful day in Wellington on the morrow.

NZ Day 2

We had a good first night in the van (which was mostly uneventful except I had to pee in an outdoor location), albeit short. We had hoped to get to the Waitomo caves in time to hit the 0900 labyrinth tour, which is a combo of caving and rafting. When we pulled in around 0800 the tours were already booked up until noon. Happily, this ended up working out great, because the short sleep and slight time change caught up with us and we were both pretty tired. Luckily our hotel was right there with us in the parking lot and we decided to grab a nap before our tour started up. It was nice to zonk out for a bit! We got up with just enough time to make a small lunch and change into our suits!

We met the tour group and headed over to get suited up. We had a young Canadian couple, 3 Danish young ladies, and a Japanese family in our group, and everyone seemed eager for a bit of adventure! As the guides tried to learn everyone's names they started getting us our gear: socks made out of wetsuit material (that were soaking wet and cold, yum), an actual wetsuit (also wet and cold), and a wetsuit-jacket (perhaps a true sport-coat?). Then they sent us away to suit up. All of the above-mentioned items were MUCH colder when you actually put them on, and also made you feel a bit like a banana trying to get back into its peel.

The caves themselves were awesome, the waterways freezing, and the glowworms were really glowing maggot poop. Nonetheless, this was a highlight! The guides did great at giving everyone an opportunity to jump off of small waterfalls, float in the dark, and just take in the craziness of being underground floating on a tube looking at glowworms. At the end we got (sort-of) hot showers, soup, and bagels. Plus the guides took pictures the whole way, so when we get access to a comp with a disc drive, we will upload those! Fun fact: Casey is a waterfall jumping champ. :-)

Over bagels and soup we planned some more activities and chatted with our new Danish friends. We planned on heading to the Tongariro crossing the next day, and staying at a campsite suggested by another friend (shout out to Mark) outside of lake Taupo. The Danish friends mentioned at we should check ahead at Taupo because an Ironman triathlon was about to go down. Turns out this was good advice. But, unknown at the time we popped in to a nearby tavern for a beverage and some wifi to check out the sitch around Tongariro.

Turns out the bit of rain we were experiencing at the caves was actually what would come to be known as a "weather bomb". Tongariro was closed both the current day and the next two following, making our tight schedule impossible to incorporate this hike, which was supposed to be one of the main events of our trip here. We are now seriously bummed and trying to figure out how to rearrange our plans. Scramble, sadness, flusteredness ensue. After some calming, yet disappointed, words from Casey we decided we would instead head to Rotorua and see some geysers, a cute town, and some Maori gooby-tourist sights. Being that it was getting late, we made some arrangements ahead of us at a holiday park (which is like an RV park, but accommodating vans and tents ect.) and hit the road.

We made it to Rotorua around 6, and it was already super dark. The rain wasn't falling too much, but there were wind advisories all around the area. We didn't need an advisory to tell us though, the drive over was difficult keeping the van in the center of the lane. Weather bomb, go.

We decided since the rain wasnt terrible we'd go ahead and get some food and a drink in town. We found the Pig & Whistle, which turned out nicely. The bartenders seemed worried at how much food we ordered and even more worried that we housed it. Oops. But, now full and happy we strolled back to the holiday park; in the full on rain and gale-force winds. We got settled in for sleep, but Casey was worried his belly wasn't feeling so good, but he's tough and just chalked it up to all the bar food. Little did we know this would be the gastro version of the weather bomb. So much fun on the horizon for day 3...but unknowingly, we hit the pillows for our second night on the road. Whew.

NZ Day 1

Luckily we had a great flight over from S Korea all thanks to Korean Air, who not only treats you like real people, but they're nice about it,too. After a short sleep on the plane and some decent plane food, we landed in Auckland the morning of March 1! We were able to get a sim card for our phone and call for our van rental place, Jucy, to pick us up in just a few minutes after getting our bags. Seemed as though all was off to a good start! We got checked in for our rental and waited about an hour, since our campa van wasn't quite ready, and for the inconvenience they comped our gps, score! After we got loaded up we made a quick pit stop at the grocery to pick up some road trip essentials, and headed off for our first stop: Svord Knives. Turns out that place doesn't actually exist and we drove around some pasture land for about 30 mins before wandering into town and grabbing a small bite to eat (and a flat white as per Kathryn's instructions). Luckily we had some good food and it was still before noon, so all was not lost and we decided to head over to Hot Water Beach. The idea is that underwater hot spots heat the sands at low tide and if you dig a hole, the water that fills it is like a personal spa. So we headed over and made it to the beach about an hour before low tide, so we had time to wander about, get some ice cream, and get our beach things before digging time. Now, for those of you who don't know, Casey hates sand, spas, and manual labor that has no real purpose; so this was his version of vacation hell. Oh yes, he also hates tourists; so even better. But, being the loving husband and good sport that he is, he helped me find a little hot spot in the sand and even did most of the digging for me. Unfortunately, the water was sort of luke-warm, and not the spa-like warmth I had imagined, but it was still fun! I thought it was particularly enjoyable to sit in our warm-ish sand pool and listen to the loads of different languages people were speaking. We eventually abandoned our pool and tried to beat the crowds out of the beach area. Happily, we headed slightly north and ended up at a decent restaurant that was the replacement of something listed in our guidebook. Nothing seems to be still-around from the guidebooks or the gps. It was decently late, but seeing as we were up the coromandel peninsula, and we needed to be much further south in the morning we decided to just make a haul until about midnight and camp where we landed. This ended up working out great and we started to hit E on the gas tank right close to midnight and near a town with a suitable campground. We spent our first night in the back of our lime green mini van campa, and it slept surprisingly comfy! All in all the first day was a typical Burnette version of vacation, where barely anything goes as planned, but all is equally enjoyable. Oh yea, Casey is going to work on complimenting his mustache with a nice beard, so look forward to pictures of that along the way as well!

On the Cusp!

Hello! Last night in the Navy Lodge before we head off to NZ! We're pretty excited to have a real vacation together that is "no strings attached". I think we have a pretty solid itinerary ahead of us, thanks to our lovely friends who gave us their NZ expertise (shout out to Mark and Kathryn)! Tonight is just filled with last minute laundry and try to pre-pack before tomorrow, although we still have many errands ahead of us before we leave for Fukuoka tomorrow afternoon. We'll stay the night there so we're close by for our flight the next day. Only a few trips to the post office, NEX, and optical shop before we leave tomorrow, which really isn't SO bad. Well wish us luck! I may not be able to post again until we're in NZ, but I will surely keep you up to date when I can! Hooray for vacation! I suppose this is also the beginning of living out of various cars for a month...so I have that going for me! Mata ne!

It's that time again!

Hi friends! I know it's been a long time since I've updated on our many travels, but that's about to change! We are about to move back to Washington state; I can't believe 18 months went by so quickly. Before we get ourselves to Whidbey Island, WA we are going on VACATION! Casey and I are taking a full on real grown up vacation to New Zealand, where we will be road tripping between the two islands in a hot lime green mini-man that has been converted into a camper! But don't worry, the fun doesn't end there...we will then be flying back to Japan for a day or so and then fly to North Carolina where we will pick up our car and then drive cross country, stopping at various fun places and camping out on our way up to Washington! Stay tuned to be a part of the excitement!