In Which I Plan the Snot out of 9 Days in New Zealand

The New Zealand Government's 404 Error page is lol.

While my older kid is still happily sailing the South Pacific in a tall ship, doing oceanography research and other ocean-y things, her dad and I have been busy all semester planning our trip to meet her when she finally disembarks in Auckland, so we can all wander around New Zealand together. By then she'll have spent a few shore days spread out between Fiji and Tuvalu, but this will be the first time for all of us in New Zealand. I don't know when on earth I'll ever be back, so I'm determined to see as much as I can in the little time we've got!

Our itinerary is pretty tight, because I want to be back home by the time my younger kid's school break starts, and you already know that I do NOT believe in down-time or relaxation during my vacations--that's what boring weeknights at home are for! That being said, we only pre-booked the stuff that absolutely needed to be pre-booked--you would not BELIEVE (or maybe you would!) how quickly Hobbiton tickets sell out!--so we can take or leave most of these itinerary items as needed.

Day 1: Auckland

Piha Beach and Lion Rock

The first thing that I want to do in New Zealand is put my toes in the same sea that my older kid is sailing on! I'm betting that fresh air, sunshine, and a nice walk along the beach towards a majestic rock will also feel awesome after a 15-hour flight. The early morning also means that my partner, who truly is the fairest in all the land, will hopefully tolerate the sun a little better. The UV Index regularly reaches 11+ during this time of year, and this handy website all about melanoma helpfully tells me that with that UV Index, fair-skinned people can burn in less than 5 minutes. 

Like, will I hear his skin audibly sizzle?

We've got reef-safe mineral sunscreen, sun hats (we own this one and this one, and I really like them both), and the dude has a UV-protective long-sleeved shirt to wear as a base layer. We may still come home chock-full of melanoma, but we'll have tried!

New Zealand Maritime Museum

If you told me that I was going somewhere exciting but the only sightseeing I was allowed to do was go to science and history museums, I'd be thrilled. I'd been dithering about whether I wanted to go to this museum or the Auckland Museum, but I liked my visit to the New Bedford Whaling Museum so much that I'm excited to learn more cool boat facts. 

Auckland Night Market

The other nice thing about the New Zealand Maritime Museum is that it's right downtown, so we can walk around and explore the waterfront afterwards. Conveniently, one of the Auckland Night Markets will also be happening in Silo Park, so we can graze for whatever meal our bodies have decided it's time for.

Newmarket

Our hotel is a short walk from Newmarket, Auckland's bougie shopping and dining area, although I'm mostly excited that it's got coffee, breakfast, and a grocery store. 

Day 2: Hobbiton

Hobbiton

I cannot believe that once upon a time, back when I first started planning this trip, I didn't think we'd even GO to Hobbiton! It turned me off that it would take most of the day, and that it's a guided tour, not just a place where you can wander around independently on your own schedule. And now here I am finishing up my hobbit door pendant so I can wear something thematically appropriate, and my partner and I are re-watching the Lord of the Rings trilogy after forcing ourselves to sit through the Hobbit trilogy, AND I'm re-reading The Hobbit and I'm just at the part where Bard has come to parley for aid and Thorin is being an asshole, and I downloaded the Lord of the Rings trilogy onto my nook so that I can re-read it during the trip. 

AND we found out about the guy who re-cut the Hobbit movies into a single 4.5-hour film that's true to the book, but we have to wait until we get home to watch it because I'm scared to mess with BitTorrent without one of my kids at least supervising.

Anyway, I cannot fucking WAIT to walk through the Shire!

Stardome Planetarium and Observatory

We might find ourselves too wiped out after driving back to Auckland to do more than grab some dinner at Newmarket and hit the sack, but if we're still up and at 'em, I'm hoping to check out one of the evening shows here, entirely for the planetarium tour of the Southern sky. Stargazing is one of my favorite hobbies, and I am VERY excited about stargazing in the Southern Hemisphere, especially in some of the remote places we'll be visiting. So it would also be nice to get a planetarium tour so I actually know what I'm looking at!

Day 3: Rotorua

Breakfast and Groceries

No matter what we do during the rest of the trip, this day will be my favorite day, because on this day my favorite sailor disembarks! She's supposed to disembark from around the Princess Wharf area, so hopefully it won't be too much of a hassle to find her. 

Our FAVORITE sightseeing activity when we travel is finding new snacks at the grocery store. We also like to try every new location's version of doughnuts and pizza, so depending on whether or not the kid ate breakfast before leaving the ship, we can break up the drive to Rotorua with a meal stop and the search for car snacks.

Polynesian Spa

Whether you're still recovering from two months on a tall ship or 15 hours on a plane, I think that a long soak in a geothermal pool will be JUST the thing! And it will give the kid a chance to take the longest shower of her life without hogging our hotel bathroom, ahem. 

Geothermal sightseeing

I don't know if we'll do our sightseeing before or after the geothermal spa (probably depends on how bad the kid smells after two months of navy showers...), but the kid and I are both high-key obsessed with geothermal features, and we are going to look at ALL of them (that do not cost money)! There's a geothermal walking track south of the Polynesian Spa, at Sulfur Point, then more thermal pools and hot springs all the way up Hatupatu Dr. for about a mile-ish. We'll use whatever free time we have over the couple of days we're here to see as much stinky water as we can!

Eat Street

Ice cream for dinner!

Day 4: Rotorua

Spellbound Glowworm Caves

When we first started planning our New Zealand trip, knowing we weren't going to have nearly enough time to do everything we wanted, we each made a list of our must-see items. The kid wanted to see kiwis and rainforests and albatrosses. My partner wanted to see something done by Weta Workshop, although he hadn't yet decided what. And I wanted to see glaciers, the night sky, and GLOWWORMS!!!

I am SO excited to see these maggoty little larvae buddies and their illuminated mucous extrusions!

Otorohanga Kiwi House

You might recall that the older kid loves zoos THE MOST. So I'm very excited that this little place on the way back to Rotorua from the Spellbound Caves not only has the kiwis she requested, but is also set up like a little zoo! As well as kiwis, we should be able to see several other native and endemic birds and lizards... and eels, which the kid and I are both obsessed with after listening to this Gastropod episode together.

Mitai Maori Village

I wanted to do a Maori cultural experience, and there are several to choose from in Rotorua. This one looks super educational, and it includes a feast! We also get to visit the site of an original Maori village on the property, and a sacred spring, and we might even see glowworms in the forest.

Day 5: Drive to Wellington

Wai-o-Tapu Thermal Wonderland

We'll have to get a SUPER early start on this day, so that we get here right when it opens at 8:30 am, but the geyser and hot mud and sulfur steam are worth it! Just like Maori cultural experiences, there are also several geothermal parks in the area, but this one is very well-reviewed, among the least expensive, and I also like that it's well outside Rotorua so that it's got some different features. I was also really interested in Orokai Korako, but it's too far off our path. Next time!

Tongariro National Park

We ARE going off our path to visit this place, and hopefully we'll have time to do at least one nice hike as well as a couple of tiny ones. The places we most want to see are Tawhai Falls, Mangawhero Falls, and Waitonga Falls. The kid and I will have base layers, but I've never been able to convince my partner to appreciate the joys of thermal underwear, so he might freeze to death on this day. Or, I don't know, maybe he can keep warm by jogging in circles around us as we hike?

Day 6: Wellington

Weta Workshop

My partner will simply have to survive the chilly hikes in Tongariro National Park, because he booked us for ANOTHER Weta experience on this day! Just between us, he usually just tags along with whatever I plan, cheerfully enough but with zero input, so I am happily shocked that he chose and booked some activities that HE wanted to do, for a change. 

Te Papa

So much for doing what my partner wants to do for a change, because as soon as our Weta Workshop tour is over, I'm dragging him to yet another museum! My excuse for making us go to yet another science and history museum is that our daughter didn't get to go to the Auckland one with us, and she loves museums as much as I do!

DIY Food Tour

The kid and I have so far gone on two big-city food tours, and although we enjoyed them both, the kid has long talked about how much more fun it would be to DIY our own food tour, so we could go where we want to go on our own timetable, and eat what we want to eat in the portions that we choose. Since Wellington has a ton of delicious-looking food options within walking distance of Te Papa, I thought we'd try out her plan!

Bonus that she's over the minimum drinking age in New Zealand, so we can add bars and taprooms to our list!

We'll likely do a lot of wandering, as well, but I've bookmarked Choice Bros, solely because it has two David Bowie-themed beers, Rebel Rebel and Star Man, that I'm crossing my fingers in hope that I can buy cans of to bring home to my David Bowie-obsessed younger kid; Shelly Bay Baker, which apparently has amazing salted caramel cookies; Duck Island Ice Cream, which has a flavor called Fairy Bread that I'm excited to try; and The Library, which is a library-themed bar with book-themed cocktails. There are also a couple of bookshops and a Daiso chain that we might pop into...

Day 7: Drive to Pancake Rocks

Interislander Ferry

The kids and I have taken the ferry to Prince Edward Island, but this will be my partner's first ferry! I tried to talk him into dropping off our rental car in Wellington and picking up a new one in Picton, but he didn't go for it, so we'll also be treating our rental car to a ferry ride, ahem. 

Apparently, the Cook Strait can be a little rough, alas. The kid will still have her sea legs, but I'm packing ginger chews and I'll be pre-gaming Dramamine!

Wineries

There's nothing like visiting several wineries when you're hopped up on Dramamine, lol! There are tons to choose from right on our path out of Picton, so even though the kid doesn't like wine, we can probably convince her to come along with us to at least a couple. No. 1 Family Estate is the only one with free tastings, but Hunter's Wines has a native garden and an olive grove, and Wairau River has themed flights, which I think is a fun idea.

Pancake Rocks and Blowholes

This short hike is so close to our hotel that if we miss high tide the previous afternoon, surely my partner won't mind driving me back at 6:00 the next morning!

Fingers crossed for me that this evening is clear, because we're staying in a teeny town near the beach, and how I would LOVE to stargaze there.

Day 8: Glaciers

Westland Tai Poutini National Park Visitor Center

I *think* I already know where I want to go in Westland Tai Poutini National Park, but I supposed it wouldn't hurt to check with a ranger. After all, the best travel insurance is the kind you don't actually have to use!

Do you think New Zealand national parks have passport stamps and Junior Ranger badges and other assorted merch? We'll see!

Franz Josef Glacier

Will my partner have given in and bought himself some thermals in Wellington, or will he definitely freeze to death on this day? Stay tuned!

We're not actually going ON the glacier, because that requires a helicopter tour and that was too spendy even for a once-in-a-lifetime vacation. We used up most of our New Zealand trip budget simply getting to and from New Zealand! Side note: if you've got a high school kid who loves to travel and you know they're going to be interested in studying abroad in college, research study-abroad programs when they apply to colleges. One of the big selling points of my kid's college is that study-abroad is the exact same cost as their regular tuition, including all their need-based financial aid. That is NOT the case at most schools. So my kid got her $31,000 study-abroad program, plus reimbursement for a round-trip plane ticket across the world, for a song. And that includes a full semester of college credits! She basically went to college for a semester AND took a months-long trip of a lifetime for the same amount that her dad and I are paying for a 9-day trip.

Anyway, we're not going to fly up in a helicopter so we can touch a glacier, but we are going to hike through a rainforest so we can look at it through binoculars.

Fox Glacier

And then we're going to go on a longer walk to see another glacier!

I'd love to do this trek but I don't have the fitness level and my partner has a touch of acrophobia so....

Lake Matheson

If it's a clear day, we can finish up with this hike that has an awesome view of Aoraki/Mount Cook.

West Coast Wildlife Center

And if it's a rotten day and we've reached our physical capacities by simply not dying on our glacier walks, we can go look at some more kiwis instead!

Day 9: TransAlpine Train

National Kiwi Center

Okay, I know that by this time we'll have seen kiwis--maybe twice!--but here you can also FEED EELS!!! 

This is also our last proper day in New Zealand, so we'll stop either here in Hokitika or in Greymouth to stock up on our favorite snacks. I'm STILL sad that I did not buy a case of Cadbury Popping Jellies to bring home from our trip to England--I will not make that mistake again!

TransAlpine Train

This is supposed to be an absolutely glorious trip, and bonus: we don't have to drive it so we probably won't die!

Day 10: Fly Home

This kid of ours is a lucky duck in that her plane ticket, separate from ours, starts her off on her journey home not quite 3 hours before our journey starts, but she'll get to our home airport TEN hours before us!

We're currently all debating, so please feel free to chime in: do we think that she should hang out at the airport and wait for us, or do we think that we should give her the car keys and the parking ticket so she can leave and then come back and get us? The drive between home and the airport is only an hour and some change, so honestly she could even go home, take a shower, pet the cats, maybe even pick Luna up from the dogsitter. Or she could just stay in Indy but get a proper non-airport meal and hang out at Barnes and Noble. OR she could hang out at the airport but get the car from long-term parking and move it to the hourly parking near the terminal so she wouldn't have to deal with her luggage and we could just zip on out of the airport when we finally arrive. OR she could hang out at the airport but when she sees that our flight has arrived, she could go get the car and then meet us at the Arrivals curb?

Whatever has the most votes will win!

P.S. Want to follow along with my craft projects, books I'm reading, dog-walking mishaps, encounters with Chainsaw Helicopters, and other various adventures on the daily? Find me on my Craft Knife Facebook page!

Falmouth to Philadelphia to Valley Forge

Oh, my gosh, you guys. This was the day that I had been actively looking forward to and dreading for years, the day that I settled my second and final kid into college and headed back home without her.

It was a long, tiring day, made purposefully so with an afternoon of presentations and receptions and family activities on top of the morning's work of actually moving kids in and all that entailed--it was kind of like the first day of sleepaway camp, when you want everyone too exhausted to feel homesick.

This was actually my partner's first time seeing the kid's college campus in person, so we also found time in between the emergency Target run and the presentation about the campus career center to walk him around a bit so he could see for himself how pretty it is:

These days, the kid often complains that "there are no interesting clouds" there, and it's true that, although the place is beautiful, in these photos there are no interesting clouds!

At the afternoon family reception, just before the parents were summarily kicked off campus, the president asked all the kids to say a loud "thank you" to everyone who had helped them get to that moment in their lives. I wasn't standing near my kid at that moment, as she was standing with her new roommates(!!!), but I saw her in profile, laughingly saying the words with all the other freshmen, and you guys. She's too young to really appreciate it, but at that moment I could feel all those people, the NICU nurse who helped me hold her for the first time, her great-grandfather who took her fishing, her favorite ballet instructor, the math teacher who taught her multiplication tricks and the best properties to land on in Monopoly, the college students who ran the drama day camp and cast her as a Star-Bellied Sneetch in a brown paper bag costume, the mom friends and parents of her kid friends who treat her like one of their own children, the summer camp counselor who told the kids they were pirates and had them do a night-time raid on the camp director's cabin, the instructor of her community college baking class who she said was mean but nevertheless taught her how to laminate dough, the boss of her very first part-time job... she is the legacy of everyone who has ever dealt with her caringly, or taught her an academic or life lesson, or healed her body, or loved her for exactly who she is.

Why on earth the college president would do this to me after everyone else at that college had worked so hard to keep me calm all day I do not know.

Meanwhile, my man was sitting over there in the shade just vibing. Nobody's moving that guy to tears--he's not even looking in the speaker's direction! Nor at his child! THAT direction is where the refreshments will soon be served!

When just the two of us finally got back in the car and drove off campus, my man, who is happy to vibe anywhere, asked where I wanted to go now, and I was all, "Sob and wail, can we go to Valley Forge?"

Reader, we could!

We'd have to wait until the next morning to go back for the visitor's center, because obviously I'm not leaving another passport stamp behind, but that evening were able to drive what I'd later learn was the outer line of defensive entrenchments:

There were places to step out and explore mock-ups of the cabins that the soldiers built for themselves--

--and, of course, a place to park and walk down the hill to wander around the farmhouse that once served as Washington's headquarters:

I'm trying to take a selfie in front of the room where I think Alexander Hamilton stayed, but there is definitely a ghost in that second-story window...

The next morning at the visitor center, I tried not to be jealous of the family with two bored little kids running around holding their Junior Ranger badge books, even though once upon a time eight years ago I got to be the one at the visitor center with two bored little kids running around holding their Junior Ranger badge books, and there was probably some empty nester there at the same time who was jealous of *me*. 

I remembered from last time that this is supposed to be an extremely accurate model of George Washington:

I did not buy this book about search and rescue in national parks (I asked my public library to buy it instead), but I did buy a set of national park stickers for my passport book--Valley Forge is 1991!

The morning at Valley Forge, since it was so close, let me put off the moment where I felt like I really and truly left the kids and started home, but eventually the time came when I was going to have to either buy a tram ticket to tour the park again or get in the car, and the tram looked hot and crowded, so off we went...

...for a total of about 25 miles, because I found another national park site I figured we might as well stop at. You know, since we were in the area!

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On the Way to College We Stopped at Niagara Falls

Thank goodness both kids are light packers, or I don't know how we'd have gotten them both to college at the same time. As it was, we fit four adults, two Frakta bags, four Frakta bag knock-offs (I can't believe IKEA discontinued this college move-in staple!), one duffle bag, and three backpacks into a compact SUV with a canvas car topper.

Oh, and in Cleveland we added a few bags of candy, as well... College kids need their snack hauls!

Geography is weird. Do I understand why the route that looks like it detours so far north is only 20 miles longer than the route that looks like it goes pretty much straight to Massachusetts? 

No. No, I do not. I picked it, though, because it's the road less traveled, AND because it includes one of my favorite overhyped but iconic detours into Americana:

The last time we visited Niagara Falls, we HATED the Canadian side, but parking in Niagara Falls State Park on the US side and walking around Goat Island is always a good time:

It's always SO crowded, though!

It IS kind of the perfect roadside stop, though. For the price of parking you can just wander around and get some fresh air, take photos, maybe buy an ice cream, and also, there's a natural wonder right there!

We did a bit more hiking than the kids technically agreed to (one of my many annoying traits, according to my children, is how I constantly goad everyone into sightseeing beyond the agreed time/geographical range by exclaiming that who knows when we'll ever come here again! We should seize this moment that has been gifted us, because our time here together is precious! These poor kids have been to Niagara Falls three times in their lives so far, and every time I act like it's going to disappear forever the second we drive away)--

--so much so that my older kid and I, having paused to look at a weird bird, looked up to notice these two criminals CUTTING A SWITCHBACK!!!

I guess I can't guarantee that my partner knows any better, but that teenager who's tugging him along is a Girl Scout who has listened at least once, and more likely four times, to my lecture to the troop entitled "Do Not Cut Switchbacks Let Me Tell You a Story about a Boy Scout Who Did That Once and Was Never Seen Again."

The two criminals looked up to notice us gasping and exclaiming and clutching our pearls and thought we were trying to gesture to them to pose for a pic. So... cheese, I guess!

Do you think there's ever an off-season for Niagara Falls? I feel like I would like it so much more if I had it all to myself, ahem. Like, forget taking a book and sitting on a bench and enjoying the view while reading and eating a snack--I had to wait in line in a crowd of tourists just to take these pics!

As beautiful as Niagara Falls is, eventually the groceries back at the car start to loom ever more appealingly in one's mind, so we walked the long way back to our parking spot, and continued our family road trip tradition of making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches out of the back of the car, balancing paper plates and bread bags precariously on top of Frakta bags and backpacks, then hopped in and noshed our way the long way through New York, because we'll generally be damned if we take a toll road.

Next stop: the East Coast!

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I Met a Sloth

Did I ever tell you about the time that I met a real sloth? It turns out that this is something that one can do simply by paying the zoo lots of nice money!

My older kid has always been the zoo's biggest friend, and the world's second-hardest human to shop for (her father is the world's hardest human to shop for, so it might be genetic), so her big Christmas gift from me last year was a day at the zoo with us, with the extra activities of a sloth encounter AND a dolphin encounter.

We met all the animals for Christmas!

But first: my favorite sea lion pose:

And, of course, at this zoo there are plenty of animals that you can meet without paying any extra money:

If you, a full-grown grown-up, don't leave the touch tank wet to your elbows, are you even a homeschool graduate?

As someone who has regular internal hysterics on the daily about the fact that all my family! Is not in the same room at the same time! Much less the same state!, just walking around the zoo together was my own favorite part of Christmas break:

Okay, I lied. My favorite part of Christmas break was THIS guy!!!

We got to hang out with him and coo over him and watch him eat snacks while his zookeeper talked about him and answered our questions--

(Look! He smiled at me!)

And then WE got to feed him snacks and take our photos with him! And then, THEN he curled up in a little ball!

He. Was. ADORABLE. 

Sloths don't seem like big thinkers, and there weren't really any thoughts apparent behind those big, brown eyes, but here he is scratching himself:

Oh, and here he is eating just one more snack:

Look how slowly he moves!!!

I swear I felt like I came out of a fugue state when we finally left our new sloth friend. I had no idea how much time had passed, what day it was, or what was happening in the outside world.

Might as well go visit the flamingos!

If nothing else, they'll scream you out of your meditative zone of contemplation!

We've seen free-range kangaroos at other zoos, but I think this is the first time we've visited since they've come to our zoo. There were very few people out on this cold late afternoon right before the New Year, so the kangaroos had plenty of room to hop all around in our vicinity and act like we weren't there:

I always forget that in December, the elephants and zebras and giraffes really aren't there, so we walked through a silent and empty African savannah--

--but the orangutans were around--

--and so were the dolphins!

After the dolphin show, my partner and kid went off to meet the stars of the show, while I hung out by the fire pit and got completely obsessed with the entity I call Twinkle Tree:

Every few minutes, it would do a whole light-up musical number, then go back to being a regular Twinkle Tree for another ten minutes or so. Even after the others came back from their encounter and wanted to walk around some more and tell me all about the dolphins they'd met, I was all like, "Shhh!!! Twinkle Tree is about to go off!"

I... may have sat there until I watched Twinkle Tree's entire repertoire. I don't even want to guess how long that took.

Eventually, my partner only managed to lure me away by wondering out loud if the Twinkle Tunnel also put on a show every few minutes...

It didn't, humph, but it was still pretty cool:

This turned out to be SUCH a good present! The kid loved it, of course, but I definitely loved it the most. We spent the whole day together, and although I sobbed miserably a couple of weeks later when we dropped her back at college, then spent another couple of weeks in a depression, pretty much just crying, listening to lavender country, and finishing the puzzle we'd worked on all break, I think all that together time shored up my emotional state so that I wasn't as much of a wreck as I usually am.

Yes, that was me NOT being as much of a wreck, ahem.

P.S. Want to follow along with my craft projects, books I'm reading, road trips to weird old cemeteries, looming mid-life crisis, and other various adventures on the daily? Find me on my Craft Knife Facebook page!