School is out! Finally, term 1 is over. I get a 2 week break until term 2 starts up. Term 1 has gone very well. Like I said in earlier posts, school has been easy. I have made lots new friends and have gotten to know people. What I liked the best so far, school wise, is how easy the homework and class work has been. Another good thing is that the teachers at this school are incredibly helpful Just like at my old school.

 We haven't done much since my last post. So far most of my vacation has been nothing special except a play we went to last night. The play was called “The Women”. It was about a group of women (obviously) that were living a rich life style. The play was set in the mid 1940’s. The play talked about how the women’s friendships were slowly decaying. My ears rang after hearing all of the screaming.

Tomorrow is Anzac Day. A New Zealand and Australia national holiday that celebrates the army veterans who have defended the 2  countries. It is a lot like our Veterans Day. I will report back after the holiday.

Slope Point

Our Epic Easter road trip days  5-6

Today we conquered the Catlins (not the Catalans).  The Catlins is a region in between Invercargill and  Balclutha. We drove from scene to scene. One of the first places we went to was “Slope Point”, the furthest most southern tip of New Zealand. This would be the farthest south everyone in my family would have ever gone. Since the storm over the night in Invercargill was so strong, it brought over super high winds on “Slope Point”. It got very cold as we walked to the edge of New Zealand, the winds were almost knocking us over. After Slope point we took a small drive over to a short hike. There we hiked to go see some small waterfalls. We also ate lunch at the trail entrance. While driving to Dunedin we saw a hitch hiker. My dad decided to pick him up. He told us he had to hitch hike to town because he sometimes has seizures that legally make him unable to drive. We learned he was a fisherman in the small town of Balclutha. After we let him off we had dinner in the small town. Then we drove to Dunedin and arrived late at night.

 Moeraki Boulders 

Baldwin St (worlds steepest street)

In the morning we walked down to a cafe to have breakfast. After breakfast we visited the local Dunedin museum. We learned lots of information about Dunedin. The next museum we went to was the Cadbury Chocolate Museum. There we got lots of free chocolate and we watched several hundred gallons of melted chocolate fall into processing units. I don’t think I ate chocolate for several days after that museum. My mom took advantage of the fact that the chocolate was 1/2 price and stocked up on chocolate. The last thing we did in Dunedin was climb the steepest road in the world! I begged my dad not to drive it as I would have a heart attack half way up. My mom and I braved the road and climbed most of the way up. Believe it or not, many people have houses on the street and drive up it! We left Dunedin later in the afternoon. On the way back to Christchurch we stopped and saw some completely round boulders. It was really strange seeing boulders, completely round in the middle of a sandy beach. Most of them were cracked open and mostly hollow. My dad then made the conclusion that the boulders were slowly being eroded out of the nearby cliff. After we left the unusual rocks we drove to see some more penguins. We stayed in the area for a good 10-15 minutes then gave up. Just as we were heading up the hill, some people pointed out that there was one, lone penguin hopping down on the sand. That was about it for the penguins this trip.

Our epic road trip Day 3-4

Kepler Track

On day 3 we woke up extra early and took a walk on the Kepler Track. The Kepler Track is a path that goes through a rainforest along a river back. The track is 67 km long, but the section we were on takes about 3 and a half hours to complete. We only walked 1/2 way because we stopped to some fishing. We took our fishing rods with us to try and finally catch a New Zealand fish. After 45 minutes or so of walking, we stopped and tried some fishing. We even saw many fish jumping in the water. We fished for around 1 hour then we gave up. On the walk back to the car we saw huge fish just sitting in the shallow water. It made us so angry. The reason we couldn’t get to the fish is that the bank at that point was steep and covered in spiky plants. 

After we finished our walk we hit the road and started driving to Invercargill, near the bottom of the South Island. We stopped on the way there to see some Yellow Eyed penguins. These are supposed to be one of the rarest kinds of penguins alive. Luckily we got to see one, hopping around from rock to rock. Once we got to our hotel we hit the road again to head to to the highest point all around. There my mom took a video of herself saying it was the southern most tip in New Zealand. Unfortunately this turned out not to be true, but you can learn about that in the next blog post. Then we drove back to our hotel. Over the night a huge storm hit.

Our Easter Road Trip Day 1-2.

Last week we began out Easter Holiday road trip. We started our trip. The first day of our trip we took a long drive to the small town called Twizel. That was about it for the first day of our epic road trip. The second day we took a small drive up to a small river. My dad and I started fishing but had no luck. The water here in New Zealand is very light blue colored. My dad thinks the water is so blue from the silt moving around in the water. We have come up with the conclusion that after many days of fishing, New Zealand fish are impossible to catch no matter what. At the end of the day we stayed in a small town on a lake called Te Anau.

Tunnel

Mountains

 The next day we took an amazing drive to a huge fiord. The fiord was called Milford Sound. To get to the fiord we had to take a one way tunnel that had a steep incline. Looking up at the steep mountains was
enough to make you dizzy. I think these sheer rock mountains were probably the best not only in New Zealand, but in the world. But unfortunately no mountain goats, although we saw a heck of a lot of sheep on the way there. At the end of the day we went to a restaurant called the “Fat Duck”. It took us forever to get our meals. My mom and dad were impressed by their food (Green Liped Mussels and Venison salad) , but sadly I wasn’t -_- (Hamburger)

Rugby game

This week was much more exiting than I anticipated it to be. School was normal. Nothing special happening there. This Saturday we went to our first Major League Rugby (Super Rugby) game. We watched the Canterbury Crusaders VS the Souther Kings from South Africa. My dad was in a bit of a knot because he was born very close to the Southern Kings  home town is. In the end he was rooting for the Crusaders. The Crusaders destroyed the Kings 55 to 20. We saw the game in the replacement stadium because the large scale one is being rebuilt due to the earthquake damage. In the upcoming week I get 3 days off of school because of Easter. We are planning another road trip to the other side of the South Island. We don’t know yet what we will do specifically on the road trip but we plan to head to the very southern part of the South Island. 

Rugby game

Today My mom and I went to a local exhibit about “Scott’s last exhibition”. The exhibit was about an explorer named Scott who set off to the South Pole. Little did he know that he would die on this trip. The exhibit was very interesting. The voyage from Wales took 7 months. The team was in Antarctica for 3 years. Scott and 4 others died while getting stuck in the winter of Antarctica. With a large ice patch the ship could not pick them up. They survived many months in an ice cave. They eventually tried to walk back to their home base but died in a blizzard.

This week my dad took a business trip to China over his birthday. We all thought (including him) that he would be miserable on a business trip in China. When he returned we found out he did enjoy himself apart from the pollution. He said that the Chinese people he was staying with him were more than fluent in the English language. He also said that one of the ladies with him had such an American accent you could not tell she has never left China. 

Not only my dad had fun though this week. While he was gone the 2 of us went to a street fair at the local beach town. It was rather strange. It seemed to have no theme. My mom soon discovered a wooden clothes peg on the back of her backpack saying “pass me on”. It took us a while to find the right person to pin it to. We saw a drunk man who seemed very strange. I was moments away from pinning the clothes pin to him when he turned around. We decided that if he found out I did this he wouldn’t be too happy if I bugged him. My mom immediately saw a women in a chicken suit. While my mom used her food talk to distract the chicken I put the wooden clothes peg on it’s tail. Funny enough she didn’t seem to notice.

 The rest of the week was the usual school days, today (Monday) it was very cold and rainy, that means it is a shorts day! We also got are mid-term progress report. I scored reasonably well in every subject. We get a 1 to a 3 for our reports, 3 being good and 1 being bad. I scored a 3 in math, electronics, grammar, French, and history. I scored a 2 in science due to the fact I tend to talk a lot... I scored a 2 in PE because I forgot to bring my uniform 1 day... shame... To my surprise My electronics teacher said I achieve above the teachers expectations... I don't really get this because I have barely said a word to my teacher, I am also starting too think he doesn't know who I am..

Another thing about our road trip. We encountered some sand flies in the West Coast. My dad an I could feel them biting us while we were fishing. About 2 days later the bites started itching like you would never believe. We are still itching after a week. My dad had thought he brought some kinda of a bug back from China. thanks god the suffering has stopped on day 8

This weekend our school had 2 teacher meeting days so we got Friday and Monday off. For this 4 day weekend my family decided to take a road trip to the West Coast. In school we discussed the West Coast a lot. We talked about how rainy it was. I have to say I don’t think it is the rainiest place in NZ... The skies were blue everyday and getting very hot. I pictured the West Coast as more England’s weather.. I was very very wrong. The West Coast is very tropical. The plants and terrain change a great deal. It gets very humid out there. While we were in the West Coast we took a tubing trip out on a local river. Since the West Coast hadn’t had rain in 7 weeks the rivers were VERY low. It seems that us Californians bring drought with us to every river. The tubing trip was fun. They gave us a free zip line ride to make up for the lack of water. I could see the fear in my dad's eyes standing over the cliff edge. After we finished the zip line we got to sit on what was left of the water. The ride was slow but fun.

After we finished tubing we headed into a glow worm cave. The cave was very cold and long. The cave was inhabited by glow worms. The glow worms were not actually worms but maggots. They had silky strings hanging down from them to catch up insects to eat..  We learned that the worms were territorial so they would defend each's property. They also spend months as the maggot then turn into large flies. The flies only live for about 2 days max...

The next day we tried to go find an area to fish. It took us forever to find a good place. All of the rivers (if they had water in them) were stone covered and we kept getting our lines stuck in the rocks. In the end we didn’t get to catch anything. Instead we decided to skip stones. I beat my dad's record of 12 skips while I got 15!  

The next day we took a nice walk through a path alongside a river. While we were driving we came across New Zealand's largest swinging bridges. It didn't look very far though... The walk across it was great. My mom decided to walk both ways while I took a zip line on the way back. After that we did nothing except drive back to Christchurch and stop at the occasional rest area. This weekend had lots of adventures and we hope to do another road trip all the way around the south island.