Non-Stop New Zealand

Wednesday in New Zealand: We started the day in Taupo. I woke up feeling okay-ish and decided to go for a run. In my defense, running when sick sometimes (oftentimes) makes me feel better. I think it has to do with sweat -- and mental health. ;) When I got back to the Motor Inn after my (admittedly short) run, we threw on some jackets and walked to Sacred Grounds , a coffee shop across town. The kids have been enjoying drinking hot chocolate each morning, and the hot chocolate at Sacred Grounds did not disappoint. Neither did the coffee or the muffins. We loved our lazy morning at the coffee shop. In front of the #LoveTaupo sign on our morning walk. We drove out of Taupo about 10am and headed for the  Waitomo Glowworm Caves . Having learned from our Hobbiton experience, we purchased cave tickets ahead of time (#check).  About 30 minutes out from the caves, we stopped in a small town, Te Kuiti, and ate lunch in a converted railway station.  The girls at lunch. The boys at ...

I woke up Tuesday morning still miserable, having spent the night popping throat lozenges into my mouth so I could catch some sleep. Within a few minutes of waking up, I gave myself an honorary medical degree and diagnosed myself with strep throat. Our mission on Tuesday morning was to get me to the nearest urgent care to see a real doctor. Before urgent care opened, we grabbed breakfast at a cafe in town. While at the cafe, Taylor and Wyatt went off to check out the kids' room (so many places and spaces in this country are kid-friendly!). Tim and I both commented that one of the gifts traveling gives us is this closeness between the kids -- without any other distractions, they realize they're good friends. And we all soak it up.  Fast forward to 8am. I checked into urgent care and within minutes, was taken to an exam room. I was given a COVID test and then told to wait for the doctor. About two minutes later, the doctor showed up (#efficiency). He asked me some questions and I...

As we drive on the road, we see it: A big sign and a ball, saying Zorb. As we keep driving, we see people rolling down the hill in the balls. They keep rolling; they hop the fence and roll onto the road and get smashed by a car. Taylor and I think that's fun, so we talk about it at lunch. And after lunch, we head to the balls.  When we get to the place, Taylor and I change into our bathing suits, because there's water involved. After we get changed, we take a van up the mountain where the balls are stored. In the van, we were with other strangers who offered us candy. We went up the mountain to go in the balls, and we got dropped off at a lower point than some other people.  When we get out, we see none other than Mike Wazowski waiting for us. He told Taylor and me to get into separate balls and said once the gate opens, we can push the balls and we'd roll down the hill. He also filled the balls with water.  As the gate opens, Taylor and I push the balls down the hill. Ta...

Our first full day in New Zealand started off great. Tim and I were up about 5am (after going to sleep the night before at 6:30pm!). Taylor woke up about 6am. The sun came up about 6:30am and I headed out for a run. Wyatt woke up shortly after.  By 7:30am, with a packed van, we rolled out of the Hahei Beach Resort in search of breakfast. And we found it just a few blocks away at the Little Blue Kitchen . Oh. My. Gosh. Breakfast was so, so good at this tiny cafe. We ate outside at a picnic table and watched as kids got dropped off at the general store next door -- that's where the school bus (which was a legit city bus with 'school bus' painted on the side) picked them up.  After breakfast, we headed for the Hobbiton movie set, about a two-hour-plus drive from Hahei. The drive was beautiful -- lots of green everywhere plus trees starting to turn color for the fall.  When we pulled into Hobbiton, we marveled at the sheer number of tourist busses in the parking lot. We found...

We are giving all the claps to Air New Zealand. They served us TWO hot meals, offered decent leg room in economy class, and piped Taylor Swift into the bathrooms (which were a fine size and remarkably clean for being airplane bathrooms). We landed about 6am Sunday in Auckland, which was about 11am Saturday back home. We felt pretty good getting off the plane; we had each gotten sleep. After getting our passports stamped, we headed toward baggage claim to grab Tim's surfboards. We also had "items to declare:" New Zealand is very careful about what comes into the country, and the fact that we had packaged food (granola bars, trail mix) and outdoor gear (surfboards) meant we had to get processed by their biosecurity agents. However, the line for biosecurity was loooong, and after about 10 minutes in line, an agent came along and released all the LA travelers. Turns out there were other inbound flights that were higher in priority for biosecurity processing -- namely from Bal...

We were supposed to visit New Zealand back in April 2020. Well, we all know how that turned out... But here we are, April 2024, and we're finally on our way! Our airline credit expires at year-end, so we opted to travel the 6,534 miles over the kids' spring break.  Wyatt was packed and ready to go 48 hours in advance of leaving for LAX. I'm not exactly sure what he has in his bag, but hopefully there's some clean underwear.  Tim, Taylor, and I finished packing this afternoon. I'm not exactly sure what I packed either, to be honest.  Yet again, we're traveling with our favorite Cotopaxi Allpa bags. I am definitely obsessed with this company and probably spend too much time following and liking them on social, but it's all part of my goal to work for them some day. ;) When we got to LAX, we parked in the economy long-term parking lot. That lot is NICE, people! Highly recommend if you're a SoCal reader. Checking in with Air New Zealand was a breeze, too. A...