Elliot's Dad Visits

We might not have much time left here in New Zealand, but Butch Koop wasn't going to let us come home without sneaking in a visit!  Butch (Elliot's dad) arrived on July 3rd ready to go!  Luckily, we actually had some nice Wellington weather the first few days he was here.  We got to drive around, see some sights, and even hike Mount KauKau, which has an amazing view of the city from the top.  It was quite a hike up, with plenty of breath catching stops along the way, but the hike leads to an amazing view and it was worth it.  I've got some photos of that hike along with our other trip.  Let's start with something else first...

As with our other guests, jet lag started to take hold around dinner time that first night.  I told Butch he'd be in bed by 7pm, but he didn't believe me at first... until about 5:30 rolled around, and he wondered if he would even make it to 7!  Once he was fast asleep in the other room, Elliot and I made our gourmet meal of Skyline Chili Sandwiches.  Thank you Butch for bringing the chili!  I knew he would most likely sleep through the night, but I would have never guessed that he would also sleep right through so much excitement.  At 10:36 a powerful earthquake hit the North Island.  It was a magnitude 7 earthquake, the largest in the region in seven years.  Luckily for everyone, it was far below the surface, so no major damage was done.  You wouldn't have guessed it from the effect it had.  It sounded like really heavy thunder and the floors felt like jello!  Elliot and I even reverted to what you learn in Kindergarten and ran to the nearest doorway to wait it out.  Once we were sure it had passed, we went to the bedroom and listened to see if it woke Butch.  He was still sound asleep!  When we finally told him what happened, he was bummed to have missed all the excitement!  What a way to start the trip.

The earthquake related trip didn't end there, with a visit to post earthquake Christchurch on the trip schedule.  After spending a few days in Wellington, we were off on our trip of the South Island.  We took the Interislander Ferry from Wellington to Picton.  As it always is, the Ferry was running late so we had to rush from the Ferry to the train station.  Then we boarded the first of our train trips on the Coastal Pacific Train, which took us from Picton to Christchurch.  What an amazing way to see the sights.  With huge picture windows across all the train cars, comfy seats, and an onboard open air viewing deck, it was truly awesome.  There are plenty of pictures to show!  That train took about 5 or 6 hours.  Here is a snippet from the website so you can see the path we took

We spent our time in Christchurch exploring the beauty and the devastation.  For those of you that don't know, here is a quick look at what has happened in Christchurch in the past couple years (thank you Wikipedia)

The February 2011 Christchurch earthquake was a powerful natural event that severely damaged New Zealand's second-largest city, killing 185 people in one of the nation's deadliest peacetime disasters.
The magnitude 6.3 (M_L) earthquake^[1] struck the Canterbury region in New Zealand's South Island. The earthquake was centred 2 kilometres (1.2 mi) west of the town of Lyttelton, and 10 kilometres (6 mi) south-east of the centre of Christchurch, New Zealand's second-most populous city.^[1] It followed nearly six months after the magnitude 7.1 Canterbury earthquake of 4 September 2010, which caused significant damage to Christchurch and the central Canterbury region, but no direct fatalities.
The earthquake caused widespread damage across Christchurch, especially in the central city and eastern suburbs, with damage exacerbated by buildings and infrastructure already being weakened by the 4 September 2010 earthquake and its aftershocks. Significant liquefaction affected the eastern suburbs, producing around 400,000 tonnes of silt. The earthquake was reported to be felt across the South Island and the lower and central North Island.
In total, 185 people were killed in the earthquake, making it the second-deadliest natural disaster recorded in New Zealand (after the 1931 Hawke's Bay earthquake), and fourth-deadliest disaster of any kind recorded in New Zealand, with nationals from more than 20 countries among the victims.Over half of the deaths occurred in the six-storey Canterbury Television (CTV) Building, which collapsed and caught fire in the quake. The government declared a state of national emergency, which stayed in force until 30 April 2011^.
The total cost to insurers of rebuilding has been estimated at NZ$20–30 billion, making it by far New Zealand's costliest natural disaster, and the third-costliest earthquake (nominally) worldwide.



So, needless to say, the downtown area, or lack there of, was practically abandoned, with much of the city fenced off to keep people from entering the most dangerous or "red zone" areas.  You'll have to see the pictures to understand what we saw.  These earthquakes happened after Elliot and I had decided that when we moved to New Zealand we would settle in Christchurch.  Needless to say, our plans quickly changed and that is how we ended up in Wellington.  It was sad to see the city we had hoped to live in being in such shambles, but you could still tell the beauty and character it had before the earthquakes.

After our time in Christchurch we boarded another train, taking us from Christchurch to Greymouth.  The TranzAlpine train trip took us through the scenic Southern Alps and across some amazing landscape.  This one was definitely my favorite of the two trains.  It got quite cold as we neared the top of the mountain, and the few stations we stopped at along the way had snow covered grounds.  The open air car was obviously quite cold, but if you bundled up enough, it was such a cool experience.  Wait until you see the pictures and decide for yourself.  Here is where that trip took us (also from their website)

We didn't have much time in Greymouth with just one night, so we went to the highly recommended pancake rocks and blowholes.  " The Pancake Rocks are a heavily eroded limestone area where the sea bursts though a number of vertical blowholes during high tides. Together with the 'pancake'-layering of the limestone (created by immense pressure on alternating hard and soft layers of marine creatures and plant sediments)"  It was worth the 30 minute drive to see such a sight.  We were lucky enough to get there less than an hour after high tide, so the blowholes were active and the tides were crashing around the rocks. 

We took the TranzAlpine back to Christchurch the next day, stayed one more night in Christchurch, and then flew back to Wellington.  It was a beautiful and sight filled trip.  We still had a few days before Butch left, so we spent a rainy day at Te Papa Museum and some quality time with good food and good company.  We saw Butch off knowing we would see him when we got home a month later!

Okay, here is the link to all the pictures I talked about.  Enjoy!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/eandleenz/sets/72157630799727558/

Australia!

In mid-June we decided enough was enough of this winter Wellington weather!  Good thing we had tropical North Queensland to escape too!  Joined by our work friends Jason and Sean, we headed off to Cairns, Australia.  We had booked 7 nights in a 2 bedroom apartment on Trinity Beach, a small town about 15 minutes from the city.  The trip there was comical to say the least.  We had to be at the airport at 4am, which meant we were all sleep deprived and a bit loopy.  We flew straight from Wellington to Brisbane, where we had to spend 6 hours killing time until the second leg of our flight.  Elliot and Sean decided waiting around sucked, and promptly took a nap on the floor of the airport in the middle of a busy gate.  We got a lot of weird looks, but at least Sean and Elliot got in some good sleep.  Elliot said it was the best sleep he had all week!  Imagine that. 

Once we finally arrived in Cairns airport we looked around for a guy holding up a sign with Elliot's name.  We had arranged with the hotel to be picked up.  there were a lot of people around, lots of shuttles, and lots of names.  No Elliot Koop though.  We found one guy who had the name "Coop" on his board.  Elliot's last name is often mispelled, so we thought this might be our guy.  We got our bags in the back, took our seats with all the others, and waited to head out.  When the guy came around the van to take role call, and he called the name Coop, another group said "here".  Damn!  There really was another Coop and we were on the wrong bus!  We gathered our bags, got off, and headed back in to the airport.  By then, most of the other buses had already left, so our ride was gone (if he ever was there).  We got in line for a taxi and just called it a bust.  The taxi took us to our hotel.  Once we told the guy at reception that we had arranged a pick-up and never found the guy with Elliot's name, he upgraded our room for free.  We decided it was totally worth it to miss our ride because our room was amazing!  It was a big apartment on the top floor (it's only 3 floors, but still, I'll take it).  There was a huge kitchen and den area, a big balcony overlooking the beach, and two large bedrooms and bathrooms.  It was time to get into vacation mode!

The trip ended up being a little different than we expected.  Trinity Beach was beautiful, and there were lots of little shops and restaurants that we enjoyed.  I have to say one thing about it though, we rarely saw other young people and the nightlife was non-existent.  It may have been because it was winter, but we realized then that we were going to have to make our own fun!  And that we did!  Most of the days were filled with soaking up the sun on the beach, by the pool, or walking around.  We had BBQs, enjoyed naps, and enjoyed our fair share of vino.  It was such a relaxing vacation, so no complaints here.  The first couple of days Elliot had a stomach bug, so he saw more of the bedroom then the beach, but once he was recovered we started doing some more exploring. 

We did a few things outside of laying around on the beach.  One day we drove into Cairns, drove around the city, and stopped at a market.  The market was pretty cool.  There were vendors peddling everything from produce to jewelry.  I definitely left a little of my money there!  Another day we went to Cairns Tropical Zoo.  This was my favorite part of the trip.  They have a place where for $15 you can have your picture taken cuddling a Koala.  It was awesome.  The Koala was so cute and soft, although he wasn't exactly smelling like roses.  You'll see the pictures of the Koala cuddles when you click on the picture link.  We also saw plenty of crocodiles, wombats, wallabies, and other very Australian animals.  They even had an area where you could get in with the kangaroos and wallabies and feed them by hand.  I really enjoyed the zoo, and didn't even mind that it was so small.  They didn't bother with elephants, giraffes, or even any large cats.  They stuck to what was local to their area and it allowed us to see it all in just a couple of hours.  Another day the boys decided it was time to do some Go Kart Racing.  The four of us geared up, hopped in, and were off.  Well, at least 3 of us were, Sean ran into the tire wall on the first turn.  I guess he forgot you have to turn the wheel when driving Go Karts!  The staff were able to free him and he was back on the chase.  A rivalry began shortly after between Jason and Elliot.  I started realizing, as they lapped me, that I better get out of the way when they were coming because they meant business.  Elliot was able to maintain the lead the whole time, but I was a casualty of Jason trying his hardest to catch up.  Apparently I didn't get out of the way fast enough and I was slammed from behind and sent head first into the tire wall.  The good news was that on the next lap Jason ran into a wall too, so I thought Karma did it's job!  It was all in fun, but I'm sure the Go Kart people were glad when our turn was up, after all, they did have to free us multiple times and may have been wondering if we knew the difference between Go Karts and Bumper Cars!

Well, that is the top line look at our week in Australia.  No one got eaten by a crocodile, bitten by a poisonous spider or snake, or stung by a jellyfish, so I consider it a success!  Click on the link below for all the fun pictures

http://www.flickr.com/photos/eandleenz/sets/72157630312326816/