Lions, and Tigers, and Sheep, Oh My!

I'm really not sure what happened to me since coming to New Zealand, but I love animals more than I ever have in the past. According to Buzzfeed, this is all totally normal (See their recent article on why we want to squeeze cute things)

This week was full of wildlife and it made my heart full. 

This guy.

The first was on Thursday when my friend Jess asked me to go for a run with her workmates. When I first heard the route I was pretty hesitant. I had hiked part of the route around this time last year, and tried to run part of it last (New Zealand) summer, but realized it was a tough trail to run.

I could tell Jess really wanted to go, so we went for it. After 1 mile of flat ground it was straight up hill. I was questioning our decision, but when we got to the top.. Sheep! And not only that - So many lambs. I kept thinking "I wonder what Cam would say if I came home holding a lamb and just said I got us a pet?" He might not be so thrilled.

Almost to the top!

So we kept running and a minute later while I was getting distracted by the scenery and the sheep on the left side of the road, I stumbled upon these two cuties on the right. Melt my heart.

Hey guys!

If we just stay still, maybe she won't see us.

And finally, after we started heading down I turned back to the top of the hill and saw the sillhouette of a single sheep and snapped this photo that made me happy.

The rest of the scenery wasn't bad either.

Yep the running route was from the beach, up this hill, and back. At least there were views :)

Always a classic - Port Hills to Bank Peninsula

Finally going down to Taylor's Mistake

After one more hill and a few more miles, we were back at the starting point. 8.5 miles and according to my iPhone health app, 107 flights of stairs climbed.


This Saturday Cam and I went out for a much more intentional and less tiring animal experience. 

My friend, Jess (same as before), is a volunteer at Orana Wildlife Park. They have an amazing lion encounter we had been meaning to go to. We chose this Saturday to bite the bullet and go. We showed up around noon in time to feed the giraffes, then walked around the park for a couple hours, saw the tiger being fed, and finally made our way to the lion encounter.

Tiger being fed - Apparently oppotunistic eaters, they eat whatever they can,
 whenever they can.
Don't want to cross one in the wild.

We mainly went to the giraffe encounter because Jess was there, but this ended up maybe being my favorite part (hard to beat the lion encounter but the giraffes were so funny!) I had imagined giraffes as beautiful elegant creatures without much personality, but at least the ones at Orana were pretty cheeky. I found them to have so much personality!

That face.

First of all their heads are just so big. And they stretch their neck to wherever the food is which just seems unnatural. They chew these crazy weeds that are rough and pokey, definitely not a plant that any human would ever want and once its in their mouth it was crazy to see how big their chewing muscles were. One muscle above their eye was literally pulsing.

I'll have that.

That's mine too.

They were not messing around at the feeding - any food they saw was well within their reach and they were going for it. One little girl was holding her branch, not ready to give it up, and was a little bit out of reach for the giraffe's large head. So Zuri (that's the giraffe's name) just stuck her white-ish-gray-really-rough tounge straight out of her mouth and took the branch from the little girl's hand. Needless to say, she stared crying. While everyone around was laughing, Zuri was just not phased. She was on to the next branch.

Mine please.

Before we left I got to know the other giraffe. We bonded. It was great. I want to go back again and see these giraffes before I leave.

True love.

And finally, the LION encounter.

The lion encounter was everything I dreamed it would be. Basically, you go in a cage in the back of a truck, which drives in to the lion enclosure, and the keepers feed the lions meat, which encourages them to jump on the sides and top of the cage. Luckily for sharing this story, my friend Jess watched the encounter from outside and snapped some photos.

That's me looking scared, and Cam taking the photos. What a guy ;)

From the inside it looked more like this:

Lion on top of the cage!
(I accidentally wrote "cafe" at first, but i guess that works too)

LION KING!

Feed me!

In case you couldn't tell from the photos the lions are HUGE. I mean look at that paw. (There seems to be a theme today - animals are much larger in real life than they appear on TV. Turns out the camera doesn't add 10 pounds)

And that HEAD.

The interesting thing about the lions at Orana is that they were snipped when they were young because they are all related and Orana didn't want any inbreeding to occur. So these lions don't have any manes and the main way to tell if they're male or female is just how giant they are (slightly giant = female, seriously giant = male). I'm not sure if this lack of testosterone affects their roar, but it wasn't the most intense roar I ever imagined. I call this video "Working on my ROAR".

These lions are also a bit on the chubby side as lions go, since they get fed a ton at the wildlife park. Daily visitors and shows mean they get a good bit of food. Apparently the park lets them gain some weight for the cold New Zealand winters but theyre currently beginning their diet. So, I think a real safari is in my future - gotta find some skinny lions with manes to get the full experience - but the lion encounter was one of the coolest things I've ever done, and probably one of the most unique encounters of most zoos.

Clearly, I loved it. Lion in the background is not so sure.

Next up - swimming with fur seals in Kaikoura next weekend. It's the capital of whale watching in New Zealand, but I've been whale watching many a time in my life (not that I wouldn't go again) but my friend Jess (who I've now mentioned multiple times in this post) and I decided to try to swim with seals. Stay tuned for that!

Also Orana had ducklings!
I've never seen so many ducklings that just wanted to say hi.
And their mom (luckily) didn't mind!

Five Hundred, Twenty Five Thousand, Six Hundred Minutes

How do you measure, measure a year?

This Thursday is my official one year anniversary with New Zealand. What. A. Year. It was approximately TODAY a year ago that I found out I would be coming to New Zealand at all - just until Thanksgiving, maybe Christmas. Well a year later here we are. I have experienced, learned, and grown so much over the last year it's almost hard to put it in to words, but I'm certainly going to try.

First and foremost I learned a lot about myself - I learned who the people are in the world who matter the most to me. I learned what I truly and honestly like to do. I learned what habits were a product of my environment and which were activities I would enjoy doing in one of the furthest places from home. I discovered who I am as an individual and how to stay true to that self.

I learned how to travel. To be honest I'm still working on that one. If you've been reading my blog, you've seen all the missteps I've had on weekend trips here and there. Over the course of this year, I've discovered there's more to traveling than booking transportation and accomodation. It takes an incredible amount of planning, direction, and a willingness to change your mind. My first weekend here I drove to Hokitika to discover that it was a much smaller town than expected, and I basically had a beer in a bar, decided not even to try to see Pancake Rocks or the Hokitika Gorge (which 10 months later would become one of my favorite trips) and without cancelling the accomodation I had booked, turned around and drove back to Christchurch. Throughout this year I've learned the things to look for in a smaller city and how to enjoy the road- even if it's bumpy, and rainy, and probably not the best idea I've ever had.

Traveling in Style

I met Cam. Life has been an amazing adventure ever since. I owe about 90% of my knowledge of New Zealand to this guy. Thank you for teaching me the merits of surfing, lolly mixtures, and salt and vinegar chips.

I gained friends who I will treasure my whole life. Without getting too sappy, the TTNZ community is made up of an incredible group of people, and I am certain those people will be in my life for the long haul.

The Girls of TT New Zealand

I rediscovered the flat white. Plain and simple- New Zealand makes the world's best coffee.

So how do measure, measure a year? According to the cast of Rent - Measure in Love. I can truly say I have loved this year - this opportunity, these friends, each trip and every experience. Work has been hard, and missing friends and family pushed me to tears a couple times - but what a year full of love I have had. I am so grateful for everyone who has been a part of that.

To wrap it up, I've been thinking recently about all the adventures I've had and wanted to do a couple superlatives:

Best weekend trip: Akaroa for the Queen's birthday or Nelson Wine Tasting with my mom
Best day hike: Queenstown Hill
Favorite City in New Zealand: Queenstown
Favorite blue water I've seen - there's a lot here: Lake Pukaki (I'm always driving and have never taken a photo but just look - Thank you Google Images)
Hardest thing I've done: Routeburn in the middle of a blizzard
Craziest thing I've done: Bungy Jumping in Queenstown

And finally, I made a map with all of my trips - red are completed, green are on the calendar to be finished by December, and purple is Christchurch. I've seen a good bit of this country - but honestly, it keeps surprising me.

I wish I could make this more interactive and tie markers to photos/blog post links..
maybe with a little more internet research time :)

Cam and I have been enjoying Christchurch, our friends, and being outside in the spring weather, but the traveling will pick up again in the end of this month. Next stop: Waiheke Island (it's that green marker next to Auckland)!

Staying home's not too bad, when home looks like this.

Around the World in 30 Days

It has been quite a month and between all the traveling and getting the flu, there just wasn't enough time to write. Since this time last month (August 22nd) I have traveled to the West Coast of New Zealand, Melbourne, Australia, Naples, Florida and New York City. Just a quick tour of the globe :)

This is how I felt after flying from Melbourne, Australia to Naples, Florida. Any questions?

West Coast of New Zealand

After all the skiing mishaps and glorified day trips we took, I was really excited for a full on weekend getaway. Accommodation booked, sights to see planned, and no other distractions from Friday after work until Sunday evening. We normally travel from Saturday am to Sunday afternoon, so this was big. Cam had mentioned a few times that maybe we should leave Saturday morning, but I really didn't want to. 

Get me here ASAP please

In retrospect, we probably should've. The road to the west coast is extremely windy. And dark. And pretty darn scary. Cam was driving and, frankly, really not enjoying it. The road was dark and it was foggy - to be honest (sorry mom) the whole thing was pretty dangerous. 

When we got to our house, we were both exhausted, but we started a movie, and about half an our in we were both (nearly) asleep.

Despite the stressful drive, we woke up Saturday morning really happy that we went Friday night. We were able to wake up slowly, find a cafe in town, and casually get on our way to Pancake Rocks, the main destination of our trip.

Cafe in Greymouth - a very questionable 4 star rating on Google

We tried to time it so we were there and high tide, but I think we were a bit late for that. At high tide, water comes up through the rocks and is apparently quite the sight to see. Not to worry though - the pancake rocks were still incredible. 

Rock Bridge

I didn't realize what they were exactly, which is probably the best way to go. I imagined piles of rocks like giant silver dollar pancakes and where the water comes up from between the stacks. It's so different than that - massive and amazing.

Love this part

One more angle - Do you see it?

There's just a short walk from the highway out to the rocks, and it's really well maintained, which was nice. Unfortunately it was raining, so we just did the walk around and headed back to our cozy cottage.

We spent the rest of the day sleeping in my case or watching movies if you're cam. Cam woke me up just in time to go to the Montieths brewery tour. The tour promises to give you 4 beers for $20 so we figured we would go. Unfortunately monteiths beer is disgusting and we only had 2 before deciding we couldn't do it anymore. Oh well!

Sunday morning, the sun came out and we decided to make the drive down to Hokitika for breakfast and to see the Hokitika Gorge. The cafe in Hokitika was really good. So much better than the one in Greymouth. Then we drove out to the Gorge, which did not dissapoint. The water in the gorge is from glacial melting, so the color is stunning. 

Drive on the way to the Gorge

Hokitika Gorge

Then we drove back to Greymouth to take the train back to the Chch. 

On the way back Cam pulled to the side of the road and went in to a dairy and came out with this "lolly mixture" apparently you can go to any dairy and ask for a "dollar mixture" and you get this. So yum. Another reason why I love New Zealand.

The best part about this is that the trip wasn't over when we left the West Coast. You know how sometimes you leave vacation and its just a long drive home? Well the train is meant to be an experience in and of itself. It goes to places that the road can't go so the views are meant to be incredible. Well, it wasn't quite as good as I thought it would be. To be fair, my expectation was the polar express, but I was still pretty disappointed. Everyone on the train was a tourist and experiencing the southern alps for the first time. After doing the drive twice, hiking avalanche peak, and skiing this winter, none of the views were particularly new.

The best views from hiking Avalanche Peak last January

I would definitely recommend it for a tourist (a tourist willing to spend a pretty penny since its a bit expensive) but for someone who's been living in New Zealand for a while, it was a little underwhelming. But still, we didn't have to drive and we got to read our books and take in nice views, so it definitely wasn't all bad. 

And then our train got delayed due to a runaway cow on the tracks! Poor guy.

Melbourne

The week after we went to the West Coast, Cam came down with the flu. I tried to stay away from him and take care of him at the same time.. and somehow.. I got it too. On Tuesday I started a new round of site visits at work telling my boss that Cam was home sick. By Wednesday morning I was sniffling and as soon as we found out that Cam officially had the flu, I was sent home to rest and be quarantined. By Thursday I was non-functional. The reason I am telling you this is because we had a BIG trip planned for Friday. 8 days in Australia. My first time living in a campervan. We had planned to fly to Melbourne, rent a van, and drive from Melbourne to Adelaide along the Great Ocean Road. Then drive back so I could fly to America, do my visiting, and we'd meet back in New Zealand a week later. So Friday when we got to the airport and I realized that I couldn't stand up long enough to check my bag, I had to make the decision not to go. I went home and slept for 15 hours, and decided that was probably the best decision I could've made. 

Despite knowing that we did the right thing, we were both extremely bummed, and I still had a flight out of Melbourne the next weekend. We decided to book flights to Melbourne and just stay in the city for three days. It wasn't the Great Ocean Road, and it wasn't my favorite city in Australia (I don't think anything will ever replace Sydney in my heart), but it was really nice to take a vacation with Cam and explore a new city.

Side note: Melbourne is known for food and beaches so we decided to go to the beach and out for a super-trendy brunch in Christchurch once we started feeling better. It was super fun - but then I needed a nap :)

I ordered pancakes and it came with a scoop of ice cream!

Sumner, you're pretty.

Day 1: 

We landed in Melbourne at 8 am ready to seize the day! We wandered from our airbnb, through the famous alleyways to the Melbourne Museum. The building was beautiful and the museum was really interactive and cool. For example, they had an exhibit about mental health and one section was on dreams and they had you lay down in a bed and above the bed was a video of the types of dreams you have when you're stressed out. There were a lot of other exhibits that were really fun to walk around in too. 

Then, because this is vacation, it was time for a beer. We headed to Young and Jackson - my dad's favorite bar. When I called earlier in the week to tell my dad about our trip to Melbourne, he had my mom take a picture of him in his Young and Jackson hat and told me I had to go. It is apparently Melbourne's oldest bar and conveniently next to our airbnb. We had a really cool PINE-LIME IPA. It sounds bad, but it was pretty tasty - in a weird way. 

Yup, we're on vacation.

We continued our walking tour of Melbourne by heading across the river to check out the South Bank.

This area is meant to be really fun at night time and has a nice promenade along the river. As we were walking we found a bar on the BRIDGE PIER of a pedestrian bridge. I think my life was just made complete. We went down there for one more :)

See the bar?

Then we decided the next stop should be a bar recommended to us by one of Cam's coworkers (she moved to Christchurch from Melbourne!), It was rooftop bar with nice views of the city skyline. To Cam's delight they had Fernet! Apparently Melbourne is pretty trendy and has Fernet in a lot of bars. For those wondering, Fernet is a liquor that's common in Argentina (and apparently San Francisco AND Melbourne).

Then on the way home we found a burger shop called Huxtaburger (with burgers named after the Crosby show characters) It sounded pretty cool, despite the recent Bill Cosby revelations, so we gave it a shot. Definitely a good decision.

And after that it was time to watch Aussie Bachelor and go to bed. Successful Day #1.

Day 2:

The sun decided to come out on Day 2, which means the day started with a run along the river path. Then Cam and I decided we had to try some of this famous Melbourne coffee and brunch culture. We wandered through the laneways (that Melbourne is also famous for) and stumbled upon an adorable cafe in the Melbourne Library. The food definitely didn't disappoint on the trendiness scale. I got the "fruit of the day" which I've never heard a place sell before. Poached pears with yoghurt and honey. yummm.

yes.

The coffee let us down a bit since it had been so talked up, so on our way to Melbourne's famous grafitti lane, we got an even better coffee at this cafe where the line was out the door. We figured it couldn't be as good as the line made it look but... it was. 

Sippin a flat white on Graffiti lane. #Melbourne

Favorite.

For lunch, Cam googled best dumplings in Melbourne, and we headed to chinatown. We walked in to a little mall with chinese shops and restaurants and found an empty restaurant with the name that Cam had found online. We were a bit skeptical but it soon because clear that it was only empty because it wasn't lunch hour yet in Melbourne. Within 10 minutes the place was full and the girls at the table next to us said the last time they tried to go the wait was 40 minutes long! When we were leaving, every other restaurant in the mall was empty -ShanDong Mama clearly the place to be. Those dumplings were incredible. And for $15 each we didn't need food for the rest of the day.

  And then since it was after noon (aka socially acceptable to have a beer) we walked to the river, found an awesome outdoor bar and basked in the sunlight while drinking a few fat yaks.

Happiness.

After a big ol' nap we went out to explore some more laneway bars and restaurants and then called it a night. 

Day 3:

By Day 3 we felt like we had walked the city 5 times over and decided to hit the suburbs. Stop 1 was the Melbourne Botanical Gardens. We went by the Australian war memorial, the Shrine of Remembrance, before hopping in an Uber (Cam's first time since it's not in Chch yet) to go to the South Melbourne Market. The Market was nice but I think the best part was that the neighborhood around it was adorable! It was shops and cafes and was such a perfect suburb town. I felt so much more at home than in the busy streets of downtown. Then we got on the street car (Melbourne's famous public transit system) and went out to the beach! 

We found a bar out there that was right on the promenade, so we settled in to these adorable pods and hung out for a couple hours. 

My happy place.

We tried to go to Melbourne's Luna Park and I was so excited but turns out it's  not open during the week in the winter. We were so upset, but we got on the train back to the city to hang out for the rest of the afternoon. 

Then for one final trendy act in Melbourne we went out for dinner on Flinders Lane. The reason I didn't say much about dinner on Day 2 is because.... we didn't have dinner. We tried to go out for dinner on Flinders Lane but all the restaurants were absolutely packed. By the time we said "OK sure we'll wait an hour", the menu turned out to only be serving dishes centered on anchovies, sardines, and parts of animals I never intended to eat. I normally consider myself pretty adventurous when it comes to food, but that was way too much for me. So Friday night we did more research and went early to a restaurant intending to wait. Turns out we got a table right away (although only for an hour... classic Melbourne) but the food was so. freaking. good. Asian fusion for the win. And Cam got fernet!

Cam took this picture of his Fernet. That spicy tuna was really good too.

Then it was home to pack and sleep one last time before my big trip to the US.

It's been real Melbourne. You definitely lived up to your reputation of trendy, modern, casual, and unique. And your beer wasn't bad either :)

America!

America was just as amazing as I remembered. After the longest flight I've ever had, it was so nice to relax with my parents in Florida. After three days of beaching, shopping, and dining at my favorite places it was time to go to New York City. 

:)

I had three days in the city - just enough time to see both of my sisters for their birthdays, stop by work for a day, have dinner with my friends, and squeeze in one beautiful run in Central Park. 

Happy Birthday my love!! 28 looks good on you.

Tavern on the Green with Caitlin and Bobby!

And finally, Caitlin's birthday celebrations. Happy birthday Cait!

And then it was back to New Zealand for these last three months. It was a busy month, definitely a tiring month, but one of the best month's I've had recently. Big thanks to everyone who made my trip to the US so special. I know you're all busy but it was amazing to see so much family and so many friends in such a short time period. And I'll see you all at Christmas time!