[Grace] Yesterday (2/27/18) in Pictures

Yesterday (February 27th, 2018), as my dad wrote about earlier, we visited Milford Sound. We are staying in Queensland, and so it's usually a 4 hour car drive to visit Milford Sound. However, with limited time, it made more sense for our family to switch up the mode of transportation. We took a small plane from Queenstown to Milford (and then back again). I, as the designated photographer in the family, was holding the camera and did not stop taking pictures (as anyone on that plane could attest to). These are some of my favorite shots I got while in the air:

When we touched down at the small airport in Milford, we boarded a boat that would give us a closer look at the fjord. Similarly to the plane, I did not really put down the camera much - but I did get some really good pictures.

As you can tell, I really like waterfalls :)

After the plane ride back to Queenstown, I was exhausted. All that jaw-dropping I did really wore me out. I was content to hang out at our AirBnb, do some homeschooling, eat some food, read some books. I liked our little AirBnb because we were right on Lake Wakatipu and had the most beautiful view out over the water. Chilling there was a nice way to end a satisfying, eventful day. I was in my pajamas (which also double as my running clothes because packing space is limited) when I chanced a glance out the window overlooking the lake.

The sky looked like a watercolor canvas, a purple sky with pink clouds floating along in the foreground. The quality of the color alone was breathtaking. However, what made it even more spectacular was the reflection on the lake, and the mountains in the distance. I immediately grabbed my camera and went out to our porch, stood on top of a table to get the best angle, and took as many pictures as I could. But the sun kept on setting and the colors kept on getting better and better. I put on the first pair of shoes I could find and jaywalked/ran across a busy street to get to the edge of Lake Wakatipu where I had the best views of the sunset.

These are all unedited!

All in all, yesterday was a pretty good day. I flew in a 14 seater airplane, took a boat through a fjord some have called "the 8th wonder of the world" and saw the most beautiful sunset of my life. 

The crazy part is, that all happened on day 6 of the trip. We were not even a week in. With many more days of adventures in the future, I can't wait to see what's next.

[Seth] A Flight into Milford Sound

Rudyard Kipling called Milford Sound the 8th wonder of the world, and lots of people (if you believe the internet) have dubbed it the most beautiful place they’ve ever seen. It is also mainland New Zealand’s only Natural World Heritage Site, one of only 197 designated as such in the entire world.  

Milford Sound is the only really accessible part of Fjordland National Park and to say it is a little off the beaten path is probably an understatement.  To drive there takes about 10 hours roundtrip, so we cheated and took a little plane -- thereby getting a chance to see the inaccessible parts of Fjordland by air and avoiding 10 hours on a bus.  While at Milford Sound, we took a cruise around the fjord (it isn't really a sound since it was carved by glaciers) and a short walk through the temperate rain forest between the small airport and the boat dock.  Since it is impossible to describe in words, here are some photos.

Here is our plane and then some pictures of the flight into Milford Sound.

And here is Milford Sound itself

Stirling Falls was a hit, but we got wet.

And then we had the flight out.

With some unbelievable glacier valleys and lakes below us as we flew back.

[Kate] My Thoughts on Airplanes

We’ll be on flights a lot over these six months.  Here are some of my ups and downs (hopefully not literally!):

Picture by Grace

Things I Like About Airplanes:

-We can get so quickly from Point A to Point B!  Well, it doesn’t always feel like it.  Especially now, as I sit writing this down on a fourteen hour flight.  But compared to taking a ship from California to Australia, count me in for flying.
-I get time to just relax.  Well, not relax exactly, but I have books and electronics on hand so I can do some zoning out, and enjoy the activities I’ve brought.
-The view!  Seeing the sunset or sunrise is amazing, and even in the middle of the day, rushing past the fluffy clouds, it’s breathtaking.  And I especially love the view just after takeoff and just before landing.  Everything’s so cute and tiny!

Things I Dislike About Airplanes:

-It’s so cramped!  You can hardly buckle your seatbelt without knocking your elbow into someone.

-The food is terrible!  I have recently attempted to eat my breakfast after about thirteen hours on a plane and it’s so disgusting.

-There’s no Wifi.  Okay, I know this is a really 21st century 1st world child problem, but when I have a cool idea for a bog post it can be a little irksome.  And if I want to nerd out on Pottermore.  Or if I want to write on google docs.

-Have I mentioned the food is terrible?

-So this is more of a me problem, but every time we hit some turbulence a part of me thinks we’re going to crash and die, despite how much time I’ve spent on planes.

-And then there’s sleeping.  I’m not a good sleeper even when I’m in my own bed.  Sitting in a chair with a bunch of people all around me, loud fans, lights, a shifting plane…well, let’s just say sleeping on flights isn’t really my thing.

I know flying is lightning fast compared to times past, and I love it for that.  But all the same, it isn't much of a wonderland for me either.

[Grace] Hopelessly in Love With the World

Last night, I was editing some pictures on my phone, when I suddenly proclaimed to my family, 

“I am hopelessly in love with the world.”

My dad looked over at me and said “Well that’s a shame, because you can’t date until you’re sixteen.”

Sigh.

***

Yesterday, we drove from Christchurch, on the coast of the southern New Zealand island, to Queensland. It was about a seven hour drive, with all five of us (and our luggage) crammed into a rental car. Not to mention the fact we were driving on the wrong side of the road. We did not have high expectations for how the day would go.

We start driving at around 10:15 in the morning. In the car, we have a discussion about homeschooling. I take a take a nap. I listen to music. I was staring out the window a lot, especially as we drove further, because the scenery was just getting prettier and prettier.

Then, we turned a corner and I saw this:

Do you see the color of that water!?

I felt like I had been shot with Cupid's arrow. That was the most beautiful thing in the world to me. The blue of the water, the green of the trees, the mountain in the background: all so incredibly gorgeous.

Of course, I forced my family to stop so I could take a few more pictures.

Even as I look back at these pictures, they take my breath away. The earth is STUNNING. As an avid photographer, I often am looking for subjects to photograph everywhere I go. Though my family can find it rather annoying, as I stop them to take pictures every five feet, I think it is wonderful. Every single day, I go through life looking for beautiful things. I am constantly so humbled by the beauty all around me. Whether it is the trees after rain or sunsets or wildflowers or spectacularly blue lakes, I love it all.

I tell my parents that "Pretty places feed my Grace soul." It is true. I am hopelessly in love in the world. And when the world looks like this, how can you blame me?

[Kara] On the Trickiness of SIM Cards and Phone Calls

When we arrived in New Zealand, we bought a local data SIM card right away so that we could get driving directions as we explored the South Island.  Our SIM card is from the company Spark. On day three of our visit, I needed to call the excursion company we had reservations with the next day to coordinate details, so I used the Spark app to add some phone call minutes to my SIM card and it seemed pretty slick.  But when I then tried to call the number I needed to reach, I immediately got a Spark error recording saying I had insufficient funds to make a call. 

Frustrated, I turned my phone off and then on.  The phone call wouldn't go through.  I checked the Spark app and confirmed that I'd actually added the minutes.  The phone call wouldn't go through.  I couldn't find a customer service number for Spark, but I did find a "live chat" icon and I embarked on a 45 minute not-so-live-chat with a bot that eventually did transition into a chat with a person.  But the person couldn't solve my problem.  The best the customer service chatter could do for me was put me in the queue to get a call from a person . . . in 59 minutes . . . and give me a phone number I could call with a warning that I should expect to wait on hold for longer than 59 minutes.  I turned my phone off and on again just in case the second reboot would magically solve my problem.  It didn't.

Needless to say, I was incredibly frustrated and tried to call the customer service phone number to see if the wait REALLY was longer than an hour.  Yes.  A recorded voice informed me I was in the queue and my call would be answered in 90-120 minutes.  Stubbornly, I refused to hang up.  Twenty-five minutes into my sojourn on hold, I got a call!  (Ten minutes ahead of my estimated 59 minutes.)

This customer service representative was very pleasant and determined to be helpful after she read through the notes in my file.  We tried a few simple changes and she asked for the phone number I was trying to call.  She wanted to call it herself to confirm it was a working number.

     Me:  The number is +64 3 4422351. [I read it off the e-mail the company had sent Seth.]

     Her:  Can you tell me again what the number is before the 4422 . . .

     Me:  3

     Her:  03?

     Me:  Um . . . yes?

At which point it dawned on me that I might have been dialing the number in the wrong format!  The customer service rep put me on hold, dialed the number, it worked and she came back on the line to tell me that I should hang up with her and try calling the excursion company again.  She promised to call me back in five minutes to learn if I'd been successful.

Lo and behold!  With 03-44223511, I was able to make my call--an hour and a half after I started trying.

User error! But really, how was I to have known?  I did feel sheepish when the customer service representative called me back.  I didn't have the heart to tell her that it had been user error all along.

[Seth] Where do you go first?

Where do you go first?  Is the first question I am asked when I tell people about what we are doing.  Actually, I guess it’s usually the second, the first question is some variation of “Are you kidding?” or “You are doing what?”

When we got serious about this trip it was always going to be heading west around the world.  It made sense to get the longest flight out of the way first. And when we realized that we would be starting in the winter in the Northern Hemisphere (or what passes for winter in Northern California — we got a severe weather warning last week because the temperatures were going to drop below freezing overnight) it just made sense to start in Australia and New Zealand.  So Thursday flew to the town of Christchurch on the South Island of New Zealand.  It took us 25 hours and a couple of layovers and we didn’t arrive for two calendar days but that is where the adventure starts.

The rest of the itinerary is roughly as follows:

•  New Zealand/Australia for 3 weeks
•  Singapore for 1 week
•  Southeast Asia (Thailand, Laos Vietnam, Cambodia) for 4 weeks
•  Nepal for 3 weeks
•  Dubai for 3 days
•  Africa (South Africa, Egypt, and Morocco) for 4 weeks
•  Paris for 3 weeks
•  Northern Europe (Scandinavia, Germany, Estonia, Russia and perhaps a few others) for 3 weeks

We have largely self-planned the trip but we did get help in places where we felt less comfortable — Southeast Asia and Northern Africa).  We are staying in a mix of AirBnBs and hotels – mostly AirBnB for longer stays and hotels for shorter.  We are trying to stay for at least a week in one place every month (Sydney, Singapore, Bangkok, Port Elizabeth, South Africa, Paris) to decompress.

[George/Cannon] Bungee Jumping

This is a picture of Bungee Jumping  (That's not me)

For those who do not know, we are currently in New Zealand.  New Zealand is well known for many things.  Having more sheep then humans, being awesome and many others.  On that list is bungee jumping.  If you don’t know, bungee jumping is when you jump off a high thing attached to a bungee cord.  Before you hit the ground (hopefully) the cord should pull you up and you might bounce a couple of times.  That’s bungee jumping.

In the next couple of days, we will be going bungee jumping in New Zealand which as I said before is famous for it.  I have mixed feelings about this.  I think that afterwards I would very much enjoy the experience, and it would be a fun thing to talk about.

However, this doesn’t hide the fact that it would be absolutely terrifying.  I will admit that bungee jumping scares me.  Just hurtling to the ground and being yanked up at the last minute would cause me lots of stress.  Then bouncing like five times afterwards, I feel like that would just make me sick.  But even before that I would hate having to jump or lean off and fall off the platform. 

In spite of all of these cons I think that I’ll try it.  I think that I will either hate it or love it.  Either way I will probably write another post on how I felt doing the real thing (if I do it).