Tropical Cyclone 12 - Oli

Here's close shave number two for the season. More rain but not as much wind as last week's close shave. Again, I put a green oval where our island is, near the center of the picture. And, again, it's moving east, away from us.

Tropical Cyclone 10 - Nisha

This is what closed schools today. I put a little green dot where our island is right in the center of the picture. The bonuses? It's moving away from us and Melinda and the kids are are really cute doing homeschool and I'm "working" from home.

NZ part 15 - Queenstown

Last day of fun, December 27. We had a 2:40 hr drive to church and then to find the building, so we packed up quick (I think we left something behind at almost every place we stayed. Argh. It's just stuff, right?) and drove back through the farmland (deer and llama farms, too!) back along Lake Wakatipu to Frankton just outside of Queenstown.
We didn't really know where the church was, so we stopped at a shopping center to get help. We borrowed a phone book from a shoe saleslady and a cell phone from a friendly passerby and got an address for the funeral parlor where the branch meets on Sundays. They paused the service for us while we changed in the parking lot. There were maybe a dozen people, including us. But it was a lovely Sabbath morning, and the sweet peaceful Spirit felt like home. They only had sacrament meeting since there weren't many people there, so we chatted with members about Samoa, our travels, and Lord of the Rings since the crew spent heaps of time in Queenstown.

We found our "Motor Park" which I expected to be a dump and was pleasantly surprised again. (By this time I should've stopped being surprised by all the clean and functioning facilities.) I guess you just can't go wrong in NZ. The view from our room.

We followed a recommendation to check out Glenorchy. Glad we did.






As the birthplace of bungy jumping, Queenstown has a dare-devil reputation, and people were pumping adrenaline all over the place.



Since we were leaving the next morning, we had to indulge in the excitement with the Gondola ride. It was one of the highlights of the whole trip.


And man, whadda view!



At the top we watched bungy jumpers bounce from death's grip and paragliders casually sailing by, as if they were completely sane.


The Remarkables in the background. (Don't my sunglasses look like Willy Wonka goggles in the TV room?)


It sealed the deal. I'm in love with New Zealand.

Side note: New Zealand men ain't scared to wear short shorts. I mean shorts above the knee. You never see that in American Samoa, everyone here wears long basketball shorts. Unless they're Kiwi, or on their way to rugby practice. I'm not sure why, but it cracked me up to see burly construction men out on the road showin' some thigh. Burly thigh. Like it was 1985. Oh these people! They're lovely.

NZ part 14 - Milford Sound

Boxing Day - This was to be our pinnacle day: a cruise in Milford Sound. To get there we drove 2 hours west of Te Anau through the coastal mountains and down to the Tasman Sea.

It was a fabulous drive. We saw snow and rivers, and hundreds of waterfalls scaling down tiered mountain cliffs. It was rainy, so taking pictures was difficult, but they would be insufficient anyway. I was a little disappointed in the weather, but apparently it rains 90% of the time in Milford. Thus the waterfalls.


Ephraim couldn't keep his eyes on the road.
At one point we were driving up the mountain and at the peak we went through a one-lane tunnel to emerge in a giant bowl of waterfalls--thousands of them. How can so much water travel so consistently? Big wows.



At the end of the road we checked in at the dock and soon boarded our scenic lunch cruise. I have to say the meal part was distracting. I mean I felt silly worrying about getting the kids tomato sauce when we were passing through the most beautiful place on earth. But lunch on a boat, yay!

The boat took us right into some falls, so people outside got drenched in seconds.

Everywhere you looked water was careening to the sea. Some cliffs were so high you couldn't see the top, and many were tiered, like giant steps.










I must've smiled like this a lot in New Zealand because my cheeks constantly ached.
It was a lovely day. That night back in Te Anau we were furthest west (or east, I guess) and furthest south we've ever been at 45 South and 167 East. When we passed the sign for 45 degree latitude line we thought of how often we crossed 45 North in Oregon. Now were at the bottom of the world. Do you ever have moments when you ask yourself, How did we get here? We're just blessed I guess.

Ephraim found Milford Sound on Goggle Earth and was impressed with his virtual tour. You should try it!

Side note: "Good on ya!" is a common phrase in NZ. Getting off the boat Isaac got a "Good on ya!" from a crewman. He turned to me and said, "That guy just called me Onya." Ha ha. No matter how hard I tried I couldn't get that phrase to sound natural.

NZ part 13 - Christmas in Te Anau

Christmas morning we set out gingerbread men, Nutella, and pastries then got on Skype with my family (although it was only Christmas Eve for them). No presents, no stockings, no stress. Just us and New Zealand. Perfect.

Christmas is now way in the past, so I'll just get to the fun. We drove through Queenstown along Lake Wakatipu and the Remarkables Mountain Range. I thought it would be windy mountain driving, but actually it was still plains, farms, and rivers.



We made good time and found our Te Anau Holiday Park. I booked a budget room and had "budget" expectations, but it was very clean, modern, and quite comfy. We took a little Christmas nature walk to a Wildlife Park and saw pukekos, fat ol' pigeons, parakeets, and you know, a partridge in a pear tree.

To answer Meredith's question about hike time: A hike that takes normal people 15 minutes takes us an hour. So our max is about 3 hours (there, look around, return) including lots of breaks, whining, and stories to keep them entertained. This hike had Ephraim giving Ella the complete history of The Ring of Power. Notice how extremely exhausted she is in this photo taken before we started back. Once the story started she barely noticed how not-tired-anymore she was. But yeah, hiking with kids means quality, not quantity.

Didn't you play with techno-gadgets Christmas evening? Here are our Pac Man fans back at the bunk beds, settling down for a big day tomorrow.