Showing posts with label NEW ZEALAND. Show all posts
Showing posts with label NEW ZEALAND. Show all posts

Friday, May 7, 2010

Good Bye

Good Bye New Zealand!
Goodbye to crazy Kiwi's
Goodbye to weird words like "munted"
Good bye to beautiful New Zealand Beaches
Good Bye to farms and cows
Good Bye to Hell's Pizza, Burgerfuel, and boysenberry ice cream
Good Bye to good friends!!!!
Good Bye to 4 months of work and fun with amazing people!

and Thanks to everyone that was so amazing to us while there....especially Dave Ski and Amy and THESE crazy folks below.....
We will miss you guys!!! (ha ha please look at Brads face in the back....so so scary!)


Hello Indonesia!!!

Saturday, May 1, 2010

road trippin it...

About a week ago Austin and I embarked on a tiny road trip to Rotorua to see more of good ole New Zealand. So let me take you along with us....

First and MOST importantly was the SHEEP SHOW!! ha ha yes that is what I said, a sheep show....a show with sheep....sheep doing a show. What more could you possibly ask for? Well I say nothing. And was it all it promised to be you may ask? Oh yes! and much much more. And anyone who knows me, knows that I love animals and for some reason they make me laugh more than anything... so needless to say this show was comedy hour :)

here are some of my fluffy friends...

Let me introduce you to....Jaba the Hut (on the left) and Perm (on the right) (named by me and Austin). These 2 were hands down my favorite....notice Perm smiling? He is just happy to be a part of such a fabulous show!
I had to take a solo pic alone with Jaba and he even showed a little leg... what a tease

What happens in a sheep show?
Well, I now have an increased knowledge of many different kinds of sheep and differences in their wool. I saw a sheep get sheared, a cow get milked, a sheep dog do tricks, baby lambs....and yes even 3 ducks made an appearance. It was a full farm extravaganza.

Now what could possibly compare to a sheep show? A Luge of course. It is fantastic....its like skateboarding down the most gigantic hill but getting to steer.

Away we go...

Now as you read the helmet you will see that...


SO up we go for a second round!


The view from the top so so pretty :)


After our first day of festivities....it was time to camp it out
(in the car because everywhere we went tried to charge us to camp)

The next morning we decided to go and see the "Buried Village". Sounds interesting, scary, maybe a little adventurous?? WELL.....it was NOT! It actually,we decided, might have been the worst thing we have ever spent our money on, ha ha, which made it SO funny. It is basically an outdoor museum about a little village that was buried under a volcano...and what is displayed? Oh you know... those exciting broken plates that were found, replica bed sheets and an old oven (that looked like a dirt hill to me)...ohhhh it was thrilling. ha ha but we were the only ones there so it was pretty fun we just fooled around and had leaf fights.

So since I had no desire to take pictures of the village itself here is a little of the beautiful nature


After the Buried Village we thought we would hit up some hot pools (pretty much what Rotorua is known for) We asked a local about some hidden hot pools that were free....and she told us about this place.
It was amazing warm bath like water, no one around and so pretty. It was so exciting....so we dove right in and started swimming. THEN we got to the other side and what awaited us was volcanic rock and boiling hot mud. It was painful and awful and we instantly decided to head back. But to get back meant to cross back over the incredibly sharp rocks and boiling mud. Austin decided to just steam roll the whole thing, but me? Well I came up with the genius idea of trying to dive OVER everything into clear safe water.
The diving idea was unsuccessful and THIS happened to my leg. It was so painful and the worst part was I had to swim back to the other side.
We tried to clean it up as much as we could....bandaged it and continued on to Raglan.
This is Raglan... so so beautiful. I just sat here on this grass and watched Austin surf at sunset, it was amazing and made Raglan one of my favorite places.

We were going to camp out and stay another night in Raglan BUT my leg was on fire and throbbing and needed some more care. So we headed home at 2 in the morning.

So this road trip was probably one of my favorites, I laughed, I cried and I was with my best friend, it was awesome :)


Okay just one more pic of Jaba.... I've gotta end this post with a bang!


Friday, April 16, 2010

My NZed accident

YES I got in an accident.
In a country that is not mine....in a car that wasn't mine....with children that arn't mine....ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Good news, the kids were fine (I think they actually thought it was neat once the initial scary part stopped happening), I was fine, the other driver was fine and it wasn't my fault
Bad news....I totaled their car :(

What happened?? Well I was driving the kids that I nanny for to their play center and I was driving down a two way road, I went to turn right (mind you we drive on the left side of the road, so it would be like turning left) and some guy in a camper van decided to pass me on my right side on a solid yellow line....I turned right we hit I lost control and landed in a ditch.
I cried, freaked out that I killed the kids, panicked cause I am not in America...and then calmed down. All in all everything was okay, but I still felt really bad :(

Some really kind people stopped to help, one pulled the kids out of the car because I couldn't get to them....the other took pictures, another called the cops, and some just consoled me.



phew glad that is over!

Friday, April 9, 2010

Easter

On Easter I had a hard time finding eggs....so these guys helped me out



ha ha we were house sitting over Easter weekend, it was a lot of fun and so nice to have a house to ourselves. And while we were there I got to take care of their chickens. They were amazing, they just would follow you everwhere. Austin called them "constantly hopeful" ha ha because they were always thinking that you were going to feed them.
When I own my own house some day I am going to HAVE CHICKENS! They are so so funny, and they give you eggs every morning, I just love em!

Saturday, March 27, 2010

Funny N ZED! (That's right, "Z" is prononuced "zed")

Well we have been living in New Zealand now for 3 months, and in that time I have come to notice things...
funny things...
like the fact that people in New Zealand just don't like to wear shoes. To the market, around the street, or pretty much anywhere. Kids just go to school with no shoes on ha ha its very strange

Or their weird traffic rules....

But what I have come to really love are their funny words!! I just am picking up on more and more of them, and I felt that I had to share some of my favorites with you all :)

Jandals- Sandals/flip flops
Nappies- Diapers
Pram- Stroller
Full stop- Period
(like at the end of a sentence (punctuation wise), or if they're trying to emphasize something, like:
"I told you I'm not doing that..period!" They would say, "I told you I'm not doing that...full stop!" ha ha)

Sweet As- Cool/ Awesome
Flash- Fashionable/ Nice ("that car is flash")
Togs- Swimsuit
lollies- Candy
(this one confused me because I thought everyone was talking about lolly pops)
Munted-broken or messed up
Chippies- any kind of chip
Chips- Fries
Park or Parks- parking spot or parking lot ("I cant find a park")

and my all time favorite...."I cant be bothered" ha ha this one is amazing!! People say it all the time. Austin and I went to open a bank account and the manager went up to one of the tellers and said "can you help these two" and she said I CAN'T BE BOTHERED!! and it's totally fine, its just their way of saying I'm busy or I cant, but it sounds like they are being lazy.

Friday, March 19, 2010

Rugby

Our first Rugby game.....

It was a lot of fun! And even better we got in for FREE! ha ha we just walked up to the gate and a lady came up to us and said "hey you guys want some tickets, I don't need these"
Sweet As (as they say in New Zealand).

Now I don't fully understand the game....especially this part....


But it was fun!




Wednesday, March 17, 2010

???

What have we been doing???

We have been in New Zealand for over 2 months now and well, I have not posted much....so this is what we have been up to....

WORKING!! ha ha yes!
We both agreed, along our trip around the world, we needed to stop somewhere and make some moolah...SO what better place than NZ? and why you ask? well basically because everyone here speaks English (or close enough)
So after about a month of getting work visas, buying a car and a scooter.....searching and submitting applications and resumes...we both got jobs!

Now what are our jobs?

Well..... Austin landed a job as a program tester for an online medical school. So basically he sits in front of a computer and tries to find mistakes and problems with certain programs....actually pretty neato for a quick little job. He really likes it BUT the hours are intense and when I say intense I MEAN intense....for example one day last week he went to work at 7 am and didn't leave till 4 am! He is such a hard worker...I love him!

I am a Nanny....for a family of cow farmers :) ha ha I never really considered myself the city type...but after this...I think that I am! I love the family they are so incredibly nice and the kids I just adore One is 6 one is 4 and one is 2, I love my job.....besides all of the strange things like...smelling cow pies most of the day, driving about 45 min out into the country every morning, and a few other things that I will share later...but I really do have a great time.

So that is what we have been doing...besides the escape to the local beaches almost every weekend...we are officially not bums for the next couple months, we are back to the grind (at least for the time being) and it really feels nice :)

Friday, March 12, 2010

Piha

Another beautiful NZ beach....and one we go to the most....Piha

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

New Zealand part 3

BEACH BEACH and more BEACH.
ha ha that pretty much sums up what we have been up to in New Zealand....so excuse the beach pictures...and the many more that will be coming.







Thursday, February 18, 2010

New Zealand part 2

My favorite day...
We have been in New Zealand for about 2 months and so far this was my favorite day. We went to 2 of the most amazing beaches I have ever been to
-hot water beach
-Cathedral cove


Hot water beach
is so cool....basically you dig a hole in the sand and you have BOILING hot water....so you have little hot tubs everywhere. You have to mix in some cold ocean water or you pretty much scold your skin...its really neat.


Austin is NOT naked in this pic (even though he looks like he is)


ha ha Brad is just relaxing and enjoying it


Now Cathedral Cove....
It is so wonderful. You have to take a 40 min hike to get there and it is so breathtaking....and then you get to the beach and it looks like
THIS!


AND I went swimming....and didn't even rash that much! yay it was so fun swimming out to this rock with Austin.



a little cave...

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

NEW ZEALAND part 2

Well I have to say when we got to New Zealand we didn't really do much. After 4 time changes and 4 flights we were pretty tired. So we just relaxed for a couple weeks, and soaked up some sun at the local beaches. Then we had to buy a car....then we had to find jobs....and after all was accomplished it was time to
HAVE SOME FUN!

Here are a few pics from a casual little hike we did one day. There are pretty much A MILLION fields in NZ, they are so beautiful I just love them.

our picture perfect poses....ha ha I loved this frame of the scenic view such a fun idea. For sure a picture opp

one of the many fields...its my favorite at sun set everything is so golden




Next we went to check out the Waitomo Caves. They are unreal! We heard about these glow worm caves and had to check it out. Unfortunately we couldn't take ANY picture inside the caves, it was not allowed. So here are just a few from the internet.....

these are what the glow worms look like up close. These arn't the actual worms but the sticky strings that they build to catch bugs....but they are so beautiful and delicate.


Well first you hike through a crazy cake (picture on the right) and then when you get to the very bottom it is pitch dark and this is where you see the glow worms. It was so incredible it was just a starry sky of little blue lights. And you are just floating in the dark, in a boat, in complete silence...it was so magical, I loved every second.
(the picture on the left is kind of weird cause it was really dark ha ha no spot lights on the boat)