The Airport Extravaganza And A Final Surprise

December 23^rd, 2013 officially felt like the longest day ever. I say this without the slightest exaggeration. Let me tell you why...

In the afternoon I headed to the airport to catch a flight. I was hoping all would go smoothly but as I’ve learned over the past few months things never go as planned.

Sure enough...

My carry on was too heavy, so I spent 45 minutes repacking it.

Then my purse was too heavy so spent another 45 minutes in the middle of the airport trying to make 3 kg’s somehow disappear into thin air.

Unfortunately it wasn’t until I had a security guard standing in front of me demanding what the ‘mystery liquid in my water bottle was’ that I realized I had forgotten to empty it out.

The security guard informed me in what sounded almost like a challenging tone that I would have to drink the water before I could go any further. So there I was being watched like a hawk, holding up security, trying to chug the water as fast as I could.

Turns out the only thing I did right today was get to the airport early so luckily I didn’t need to worry about time.

After boarding the plane I knew immediately it was going to be a rough flight.

I had the unfortunate luck of getting a seat in the last row, right in the middle of the middle section. The people on either side of me didn’t get up the entire flight so trying to get out to stretch or pee was a mission and a half.

Luckily everything about my connecting flight was much better!

Finally 26hrs after the time I first arrived at Auckland airport I arrived in......

TORONTO!

SURPRISE!!

Just in time for the holidays.

Yes this was a bit of a change of plans but like I said if there’s one thing I’ve learnt it is that plans never actually work out.

I’m not going to sugar coat anything and tell all of you that everyday of these last 3 months were absolutely amazing. Travelling alone was amazing for many reasons but it also got lonely at times. Not too mention the bumps, both big and small, that I had along the way.

There were many reasons that impacted my decision to come home early, one of them being just how much I missed people.

Being away made me realize just how unbelievably lucky I am to have such AMAZING people in my life. To miss people so much and want to come back to be able to talk, laugh or just hangout with them again is something special that not everyone has.

just a few of my favourite people

I met a bunch of people that had been travelling for years, from one place to the next with no inclination of returning home, or even having got to the point where they didn’t really have somewhere to call home.

While this is great for some, right now, in this moment I couldn’t be happier, or more thankful that I have people that I missed and a family and friends to come back to.

While leaving New Zealand was bittersweet (after all not only is it an amazing country but it’s also summer there right now), being home for Christmas just feels so right. I had been craving the snow and the cold because to me that’s part of what Christmas is all about. Honestly I’ve never felt more Canadian.

On a final note...

I had so much fun writing this blog so thanks to everyone who read it at any stage during these past few months, it means a lot to me!

I HOPE EVERYONE HAS A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Rachel

Te Rerenga Wairua

The area North of Auckland goes by the name Northland, or The bay of Islands. This area is home to some of the largest and oldest trees in the world.

The Kauri trees are very unique to New Zealand and an essential part of Maori history and culture. The Maori have been using these trees for thousands of years for everything from canoes to cutlery and tattoo ink.

Seriously these trees are the biggest, sturdiest and oldest I’ve ever seen! Most live to be hundreds of years old with some even reaching into the thousands.

It is said that hugging a Kauri tree brings you goodluck... 

The oldest recorded Kauri tree in New Zealand is 3000 years old!

  

Enough about the trees (although they are really quite amazing)...

On our way up to the top of New Zealand we had a bit of a pit stop ...at the sand dunes. This particular stop really made me realize just how diverse New Zealand is. There we were just driving along through a dense forest when all of a sudden you see sand dunes peaking out on the horizon.

It was literally a desert in the middle of the forest!

We went sand boarding on the dunes, which is essentially riding down the dunes as fast as you can on a body board. Unfortunately the first time I didn’t hold on tight enough AND forgot to keep my mouth closed... I’m sure you can imagine the result.

For lunch we stopped at a beautiful beach where we thankfully got to go swimming and wash off all the sand we had accumulated from an intense hour of sand boarding.

Next stop Cape Reinga. To get to Cape Reinga you have to drive along a highway that’s called 90-mile beach. As you can probably figure out by the name it is actually a beach. So there we were, speeding down a beach with the Tasman Sea right beside us. It was quite a unique experience, especially since our driver decided to see how many birds he could scare away... just to make things a little more interesting.

Cape Reinga is where the Tasman Sea meets with the Pacific Ocean. On some days you can even see this faint line of the two bodies of water meet, the blue meeting the slightly green color.

More importantly however Cape Reinga (known to the Maori as Te Rerenga Wairua) is a very spiritual place, it is here that the Maori believe spirits leave the earth on their journey into the heavens.

It was truly amazing to be able to experience something that is so spiritual and special to the Native people of this amazing country.

Sparky the Kiwi

The other day our bus driver asked us if we wanted to do something that most people (tourists and new Zealanders included) won't get to do in their lifetime.

Of course the whole bus was more then eager so off we went to a bird recovery center...

Here we met Robert (the man who started and runs the bird recovery centre) and a bunch of birds native to new Zealand. They were all amazing to see but...

The highlight was Sparky the kiwi.

Robert with sparky (whom he treats like his baby)

YES, A REAL LIVE KIWI!

Sparky looking for worms

For those of you that are confused by my excitement the Kiwi is New Zealands national bird as well as the bird that New Zealanders are named after.

Yes new Zealanders are actually called kiwi’s.

Not only that but Kiwi’s are extremely rare to come by as they are nocturnal, only live in secluded areas and are incredibly shy.

The chances of seeing a kiwi, let alone petting one are pretty darn rare.

So I was pretty darn lucky!

Thank you to Robert and our awesome driver for making my New Zealand trip 

that much more memorable!

baby kiwi - 29 weeks old
almost ready to be let back out into the wild

The Kitchen Disaster

One of the best things about staying in hostels for me is the fact that they all have kitchens. This makes it easy for me to stick to my diet and eat foods that I’m happy eating. Unfortunately however the kitchen facilities in 90% of the hostels I’ve stayed in are a far cry from decent, more then half of them border on the line of simply being unusable. But for the most part I’ve just sucked it up and dealt with it because really what other choice do I have?

However I experienced something dreadful at a hostel in a town called Wanaka, just outside of Queenstown.

I entered the kitchen with the intention of making an easy dinner. At the time there were only two other people in the kitchen (cooking an incredibly healthy meal of grease soaked, unidentifiable meat and white rice I might add). Finally I was able to spot where the pots and pans were kept. I headed over there determined to find a decent one that I would be able to cook my broccoli and lentils in. As I walked towards them one of the women that had been cooking also approached with her grease-coated pan. After taking a brief look at the overflowing sink she proceeded to put the dirty pan back amongst the clean ones! I couldn’t believe my eyes! Not only is that disgusting but it’s also just rude and inconsiderate.

After getting over my shock I found a somewhat decent pot and began washing it vigorously, still traumatized by what I had just witnessed.

Next came the dreaded stovetop... To light the burner you had to hold the gas in with one hand while holding a lit match to the holes of the burner with the other. Now this would have been fine except for the fact that

1) I’ve never done this before

2) The matches had the shortest handle ever and

3) Once I finally got it lit the flame flared up and nearly burnt my arm!

After narrowly avoiding the flame I thought I was in the clear. After my brief moment of relief I came to the realization that the flame couldn’t be turned down. So there I was cooking broccoli and lentils over this massive flame that kept snaking up the sides of the pot. I thought I’d be fine using a cloth to protect myself while taking this handle-less pot off the burner however I was sorely mistaken. The flame was so big that it burnt the sleeve of my ONLY sweatshirt leaving three holes and many burn marks on it.

With my sweater destroyed, not to mention completely traumatized by the experience (after all if I hadn’t have had a sweater on who knows what would have happened to my arm!)  I have been eating nothing but raw meals since. Eventually I’ll brave the awful hostel kitchens again but for now I have no more clothes to spare!

The result