It is ironic really, that my luggage went missing on the Vancouver to Regina leg, but had no issues getting from New Zealand to Vancouver. It is also interesting to note that I have never had issues with my luggage, and my first trip flying with no parents ends with missing luggage. Thankfully, I had all of the baggage tags and we got the issue sorted out very quickly. It was almost a blessing in disguise that my bag was still in Vancouver, because I’m not sure how we would have gotten all of the luggage to fit in the car otherwise!
I’m going to start off by talking about what we did at home for the two weeks before my Mom writes about her amazing, and slightly warmer, adventures because, as I wasn’t there, I don’t think I could do their trip justice.
We arrived home from New Zealand on a Saturday night and headed off to meeting the next morning. Uncle Trevor and Aunty Liz had us over for supper that night, which was super kind of them, and we also picked up Diesel, who they had been looking after for us. My Grampa and I took Diesel home after supper and then headed to meeting. While we were at our house, my luggage was finally delivered to me! (Because it was the fault of the Airline my luggage didn’t make it to Regina, they delivered it directly to my house out in the country. And for those of you who don’t know, my house is just under three hours away from the airport, so it was a blessing not to have to return to Regina to pick up my bag!)Once we got home, it was straight back to work in order to try and catch up as fast as possible. Returning to school, starting basketball conditioning, working on the yearbook and doing schoolwork every spare hour was definitely a little overwhelming at times! I don’t remember much from those two weeks, which may be the result of jet lag…But I did manage to hang out with a friend! And going off on a car chase dressed in slightly strange costumes, definitely added to our evening… (Don’t worry I obeyed all of the road rules – especially since you really can’t go to fast on a bumpy prairie trail.😄)Our first snowfall of the year! (Which was exciting until Dad replied with a beautiful photo of where they were…)Verlynda here now: Back in NZ, we attended a Bible Conference in Hamilton where we met some awesome Christians (thanks for the HOT buttered toast, Jan!) and ate amazing Indian food, and then flew down to the South Island. We had a stop in Wellington on the way, so met up with the Aunties for lunch. It was lovely to see them again and get another visit in!When on the South Island, it’s a must to visit Milford Sound. We left quite early in the morning to beat the rush of tourists and drove this crazy road to get there with a tunnel that goes right through a mountain. As in, when you drive in you are one side of a mountain range, and when you drive out, you are on the other side of the mountain range. We stopped at one point (outside of the tunnel) to take photos where there were some cute parrots hanging around. Apparently these cute parrots are actually EVIL alpine parrots. They chased me to our car and I had to jump in the back on the driver’s side just to get away from them (while a lady in the next vehicle did the same thing – then we both climbed up to the front again. Very gracefully, I might add…). Then Caleb opened my window an inch and it tried to get IN THE CAR!!! Then some people started yelling at us as this parrot is now on our roof tearing strips off our car. We drove off at that point. But I digress. Milford Sound was absolutely beautiful. It was a cold, rainy day while we were there, but that just meant there were copious amounts of waterfalls. Here Caleb braved the weather to come upstairs on the boat with me – but just for the photo! He preferred the shelter downstairs. I preferred standing in the splash zone. Funny enough, I was the only person up there when the captain backed the boat right under the waterfall! Caleb said he could hear me giggling over the roar of the water… More waterfalls! Oh, and we actually saw penguins in the Sound! Like live, in the wild, penguins! That was my goal when we were in the southern hemisphere, and I’m so glad it happened. Another night Caleb and I had walked for 8km to a spot where there were “always” penguins at sunset only to see maybe one in the surf, but we’re not 100% sure. Then we had to walk back to the car, in the dark, with sheep meadows on either side of us. As we walked along, sheep bedded down close to the fence would get up and take off running and all we’d see is the flash of white. That was better than the ducks that would make a huge ruckus taking off, scaring the beejeebers out of us. But we finally made it back to the car after another adventure. I think our hosts thought we were crazy!Oh, and this proves Caleb is crazy! He’d always wanted to go on these Jetboats through Shotover Canyon. We weren’t allowed to take cameras onboard – which is good as our driver manoeuvred the boat in such a way that a massive wave drenched Caleb. Then he hands him a towel, “Sorry mate”! But it turned out to be more fun than I thought flying past rock faces at 90MPH with inches to spare, then doing doughnuts through the waves when we came to a stop. In Dunedin, the Minnaar’s took us to Baldwin Street – the steepest street in the world. Which of course, we had to walk up! The funny part was, when we got to the top, you could tell by a pile on the pavement that the exertion must have been too much for someone before us and they’d lost their lunch… Sorry, probably TMI! But that house on the left there gives you an idea to the steepness.After the meetings on Saturday, a bunch of us went down to Tunnel Beach. Again, absolutely beautiful. Apparently in the past some rich guy had a tunnel built through that spit there (center of pic) so that his daughters could have their own bathing beach (bay to the left). It was pretty neat, and of course, I couldn’t stay out of the water. In a previous post, you may recall seeing a whole pile of girls with messy buns on top of their heads. Well, these two other families of 3 girls each adopted me at conferences after my girls flew home. They made me feel right at home. They even shared their candy with me!And then we flew to Raratonga! What an absolutely beautiful island! We were met at the airport by our taxi driver, Henry. Having travelled to Mexico in the past where after you step out of the airport you are bombarded with many loud pushy people claiming to be your taxi driver, we were very skeptical of this woman who claimed to be Henry. But it turns out it was Henry, or Henrietta as her mother named her, and she gave us flowers and transported us to our resort. In the taxi, Henry pointed out this burger shack on the side of the road that had been there for a long time. So, the next day, we decided to try it out. The names didn’t mean anything to us and while we thought the burgers were a bit pricey for “just a burger” we thought we’d give it a try. I wasn’t too hungry so I ordered a “lite-something-or-other”. Let’s just say their burgers weren’t overpriced after all. Caleb’s burger arrived and was literally eight inches tall. Mine came out and must have been at least six inches high. We won’t be posting any during or after pictures as those weren’t so pretty. But we did find a ladder at the marina behind the burger shack to climb down so we could wash fingertips to elbows in the ocean!Haha! We went to a cultural night and buffet which was actually very interesting, but then Caleb was so disgusted that I wanted to get our photo taken with some of the aboriginal dancers… But the history part was fascinating. Apparently the Maori’s on the Island were a warring, cannibalistic, polytheistic people, but then the gospel was introduced by a missionary and they ended their warring, stopped eating each other and turned to the one true God. To this day, everything closes down on Sundays and everyone goes to church. Raratonga has an extremely safe and comfortable feel – a place I would never hesitate to recommend to anyone!We celebrated our 20th anniversary (because we obviously hadn’t celebrated enough with a week in Raratonga…) by going out for supper. It was a lovely restaurant with a beautiful view of the water and reef. We rode there on the little scooter we rented, and as it was sprinkling a bit, we wrapped a towel around us to keep dry. Well, while we were enjoying the dinner and a view, the heavens opened. So there we were, all dressed up (me, in my absolutely gorgeous platform heels, if I do say so myself!) ready to leave the restaurant. The Maitre’D brought us our helmets and everyone dining in the restaurant gasped as they realized what was about to transpire. We ran out into the pouring rain, safely stored my gorgeous shoes under the scooter seat, wrapped ourselves in towels and headed back to the resort. It was an adventure not to be forgotten as every rain drop stung our bare skin (ever tried holding a towel tight around you while driving a scooter!?!) and we laughed and we laughed. Caleb had always wanted to go on a deep sea fishing trip, so using a gift we had been given for our anniversary, that’s what we did! What a blast! It had been stormy a few days previous (tail end of a typhoon off the Phillipines!?) so the swells were enormous in the morning, but thankfully things calmed down after a couple hours.Caleb caught a Mahi Mahi, as did the other man in the boat, we each caught two yellow-fin tuna, and wahooooo, I caught a Wahu. I was looking back and actually saw the guy I caught as he jumped out of the water taking the bait. Very cool! Not so cool when I vomited over the side a few moments earlier. But all in all, a successful few hours. (The guys in another boat that went out at the same time as us only caught a few yellow-fin. They were very jealous!)And this is our scooter. We had a blast on this thing! The best thing about it was I got to snuggle up and relax while Caleb did the work. If you can call blasting around a tropical island on a scooter work!The beach and lagoon in front of our resort. Great snorkelling around that island to the left. Beautiful warm water to swim in. This cloudy day was part of the storm – probably the day we went out for supper! 😄
Raquenna here again: Thank you so much for following us on our adventures from last October! Missing three weeks of school was definitely worth the trip and I would go back in a flash. Also, thanks to my Grampa and Grandma who put up with us for the couple of weeks my parents were away. I know we weren’t much of a help with anything as we were trying to catch up on all of our schooling – but we really had a great time!
Hopefully, I’ll be back in a couple of months to write about my graduation – but who knows what the timing on that will be any more, so for now, stay safe and healthy!
Fascinating as we expect from your blogs! Wow what an anniversary trip Caleb and Verlynda. Such fun! Thanks Raquenna, Cassia and Lanaya for our two weeks with you. Love Grampa and Grandma.
Fascinating as we expect from your blogs! Wow what an anniversary trip Caleb and Verlynda. Such fun! Thanks Raquenna, Cassia and Lanaya for our two weeks with you. Love Grampa and Grandma.
Thanks for putting up with us! Love you both!
What a trip ! What an experience! Your photos are fantastic! Thank you for sharing them. Great A Elizabeth.
It really was one of the best trips!