We Got 2 Tickets to Paradise.

We have spent the last 11 days in the Samoan islands and are finally headed back to the US this evening (sad day).  There are 16 islands that make up Samoa; however, we only visited the main two: Upolu and Savaii.  The temperature is a constant 85 degrees and is, by far, one of the most beautiful tropical places we have visited.  Because of the islands' remoteness, the water is not safe to drink but the food is absolutely delicious.  Here are some pictures from our stay in Upolu. 

Pretty much everyone on the island lives in fales (little huts) - some have walls, others do not.  Here is a picture from our fale at our first resort stay.

This picture was taken right on the beach from our resort.

An iconic landmark in Upolu is the To Sua trench (basically a gigantic swimming hole).  Jared and I spent an entire afternoon swimming in here.  While the water looks calm, don't be deceived....there is a strong pull from the tide.

In the Samoan culture, a Fia Fia night is a traditional celebration put on for out of town guests or relatives.  Fia Fia night predominantly consists of eating, drinking, and dancing.  The host family performs traditional Samoan dances and song....and usually makes you get up and dance with them.  Here is a picture of our Samoan host family performing for us.

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Being in Samoa was a constant reminder of how grateful we are for the things we have and, often, take for granted.  Samoans have a different mindset about what is important in life, compared to our culture, and we were blessed to experience a different way of thinking.  The following two pictures show a traditional Samoan home.  For example. some homes have beds, other just have mats made out of flax...some families hang dry their laundry, others lay clothes out to dry on rocks.

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After a 6 day stay on Upolu, we ventured over to the island of Savaii.  There are two ways to get over to Savaii: ferry or an "island hopper" plane.  Jared and I had decided to take the ferry because it was a lot cheaper and it was what the locals did.  Now, Jared and I have taken many ferries in our life but nothing that had prepared us for this Samoan ferry ride.  There are some important factors you must know about our journey on the ferry... 

1. There are 2 ferries - a vehicle ferry and a really nice new ferry.  All the locals told us to try and get the new ferry if possible.  Both times we ended up on the vehicle ferry....

2. The whole process of trying to get on the ferry is a clusterf**k.  There is no other way to describe this.  It is a free-for-all and you must stand your ground so you can get a spot on the ferry.  They over-sell ferry tickets so if you don't push your way on, you will get left behind.  

3. Because of this process described in number 2, they don't regulate boat capacity....just whenever it looks full, they close the gates.  

4. And as a result of all of this, there are limited places to sit/stand.  We ended up at the back of the boat...me standing, Jared sitting Indian-style on my feet.  

5. The boat was so heavy (because it was obviously over capacity) that it sank low into the water.  So low that if Jared outstretched his legs from the Indian-style position, his feet would have been in the water.  

6. The boat ride time averages anywhere between 1.5 and 2.5 hours depending on tide and sea conditions.  

7. Both times we took the ferry, we were hit with a storm in the middle of the Pacific ocean.  Storms = huge waves, huge waves = wet passengers and sea-sick locals... we'll just leave it at that.  

8. I saved the best for last....we missed our flight back to NZ because of the ferry.  

So given this rewarding travel experience, you can imagine how excited we were to arrive (safely) at our resort in Savaii.  Here are some pictures from our stay on that island. 

This first picture is an attempt to show our outdoor shower in our bungalow.  Behind the wall on the right, there is a little garden growing.

We got to drink straight from coconuts. ;)

Our bungalow was the best spot to watch the sunset...

This is a picture of the remains of a church after the volcanic lava-flow overtook part of the village.  There was so much lava that it took 6 years for it to cool.

Oh! And we got to swim with sea turtles.  So freaking awesome.

Basically, the Samoan way of life didn't take long to get used to; however, we were slightly excited to arrive back in civilization where tap water is safe to drink.  ;)

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We spent our last full-day in NZ on a wine tour (shocking, right?).  We took a ferry (a legit one) to Waiheke island, a charming island across from Auckland known for their award-winning wines.  Here are some pictures from our visit.

Auckland sky-line:

Most of the wineries were set upon hills overlooking the sea and Auckland skyline.  If you look closely, you can see the skyline in the background on the right-hand side of this picture.

Now we are headed home to face jobs and real-world responsibility (gag)...but only until we have enough money saved for another awesome adventure.  ;)

Our FInal Days in Lily of the Valley

Hello friends! Sadly, we will be bidding farewell to Lily of the Valley tomorrow... she has been good to us...minus the break-down in the middle of nowhere.  We head out for the Samoan islands for 10 DAYS!! tomorrow evening (can you tell I am excited??!?).  But before we leave, we thought we would give an update on our final days in the campervan.  

This past week, we have been traveling up the most northern part of the North island.  Our first stop along the way was Hot Water Beach.  Hot Water Beach is so cool because there are "pools" of hot water heated from thermal activity under the sand! Jared and I headed out early in the morning (to make sure the tide was low) so we could dig us a little hot water pool.  Now when I say hot water, I mean HOT water.  The pool was so hot in some spots, your skin would literally burn!  Rumor has it that some of the hot water pools can reach 140 degrees... I'd say we dug one that was about 120 degrees.  And remember...it's the winter down here, so outside it was about 40 degrees.   Here are some pictures from that adventure.  WARNING: you may want to put sunglasses on...there are pictures of us in bathing suits and we are WHITE as snow.  

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The north is made up of a ton of beaches. We did a couple of hikes up here and wanted to show you some pictures of paradise.  Even in the winter, this place is absolutely beautiful!

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Here is a story about one of the weirdest things that has happened to us while on this trip....  While we were planning this trip, we heard about a guy named Ron Laughlin that does itineraries for people coming on holiday to NZ.  This guy is originally from Ohio but moved to the South island of NZ in 1988 and absolutely loves it here.  So...we decided to email him so he could help us out.  Long story short - he was a super nice guy, made us a great itenerary for the South island and even got us a discount on our first campervan.  I don't know if the stars were aligned one night or what but here in this beautiful country, in the NORTH island, we ended up running into him while eating supper!!  We made great friends and had a great chat.  Typical Ron, he gave us a cafe suggestion that was a must do. He told us about this cafe, Corogate, that was owned by a British couple and it was super "quirky."  Him and his brother had eaten there about a week ago, ordered a dessert, and the owner totally forgot to give it to them because they were wrapped up in conversation.  So Ron sent us there to eat his dessert and enjoy the quirkiness.  Here is a picture from the cafe - the back half of the restaurant is dedicated to the Royal family.  The owner now loves Jared and me and put our picture on her website.  Haha! 

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There are tons of tiny sea-side towns here in the North island.  Here are some pictures of what some of them look like.

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After a week, we made it to the most northern tip: Cape Reinga.  This is a very sacred place to the Maori people - it is where the spirits go when they leave this life and begin their travels into afterlife.  The Cape is also where the Tasman Sea and Pacific Ocean meet, so they waves and wind can be fierce.  Needless to say, the place was absolutely gorgeous.

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On our way back down to Auckland, we hit up the massive sand dunes for a little sledding and boogie-boarding.  I could not capture the actual size of these dunes in the pictures, but I'd say they were about 55 feet tall.  Sand dunes = BA.  We could have done this all day! 

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And just a fun fact to end on: NZ is known for these gargantuan trees called Kauri (pronounced "cow-ree").  They're huge.  This first picture is the largest living Kauri tree.  It's estimated to be about 2,000 years old, stands 51.5 meters tall, and has a girth of 13.8 meters.  Basically, they're massive and we wanted to show you a picture of them.  

So that's about all we've been up to this past week.  In about 18 hours we'll be boarding a plane to the lovely Samoan islands and couldn't be more excited.  I'm not sure we're going to know what it's like living outside of a van. ;) 

Welcome to the North

We have now been in the North island for 9 days and have managed to escape the massive snow storm further south (woo!).  Supposedly, this is the biggest snow storm NZ has seen in the past 20 years... So while everyone else has been preparing for Jack Frost, we hit up some pretty awesome natural wonders.  

One of our first stops since our last blog post was to Mount Doom (from Lord of the Rings -- LOTR).  The mountain is really called Mt. Ngauruhoe; but since I can't seem to pronounce that word at all, we just refer to it as Mount Doom.  

Here is a clip showing Mt. Doom in LOTR: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xmp56n_mt-doom-from-the-lord-of-the-rings-the-two-towers-2002_shortfilms#.UcFyAJWROFI

...And the picture below is what the mountain actually looks like in real life.  

Anywho, we did a hike up to another peak so we could get a panoramic view of Mt. Doom - probably one of the best hikes we have done so far (minus the awful climb at the very top...I wanted to vomit).  Jared, on the other hand, was feeling very energetic throughout the entire climb.  Here is a picture of him from the top of our peak.

So after our 5 hour hike, we headed back to Lily of the Valley so we could get to our next destination by nightfall.  Little did we know, Lily of the Valley had other plans for us.  She decided she didn't want to start... Lucky for us there was a hill and two helpful Aussies.  We pushed Lily of the Valley down the hill and got her jump started half-way down.

While we made it safely to our next destination, we were still totally confused about the campervan.  We decided we would just wait until the morning and see how she started up.  Long story short...Lily of the Valley left us stranded AGAIN because her spark plugs were bad.  Here she is gettin' fixed up real nice and purty.

She is as good as new now. ;) 

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The North island is predominately known for their thermal and volcanic activity due to their fault line location.  Jared and I visited the best geothermal park in the North island and got a better glimpse of why the North has this reputation.  Minus the god-awful smell of sulfur, the geothermal park was one of the coolest things we have ever seen.  Here are just a few pictures from the thermal and mud pools.  

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We honestly didn't think our day could get more interesting after our visit to the geothermal park but, oh, how we were wrong.  That evening we planned to visit the Taranaki tribe's village to get a taste of local Maori culture.  The Maori people are similar to our Native Americans back home...but just a little bit more awesome.

The Maori people are bred to be warriors.  They all have a large, stocky build and are beast-like.  Culture and tradition are very sacred to them so when we visited the village, it was important we show our respect.  Anyone who enters a Maori village is given a traditional greeting - which includes a peace offering, delicious meal, and a performance of the haka.  The haka is a war dance the Maori people do when faced with a potential war threat.  The dance is done to bring fear into the enemy.  Because Maori culture is so strong in NZ, the All Blacks rugby team performs the haka at the beginning of each match.      

Just so you can get an idea of what I am talking about, here is a cool video of the All Blacks rugby team meeting a Maori king and performing the haka. The beginning of this clip is similar to what we experienced with the Taranaki tribe.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Vxy_-e_hZ8

Here are some pictures from our visit to the Taranaki village.
This first picture is an example of a traditional greeting - rubbing of the noses:

 

 These last two pictures are of Jared trying to learn the haka. ;)

Needless to say, that entire day was eventful and one that we will never forget.

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Even after being here for almost a month and a half, we are still amazed by how beautiful this country is.  Earlier this week we took a hike in a forest that runs along the outskirts of a city.  As we made it to a lookout point we experienced our first geyser.....in the middle of the city! 

And we just thought this picture was pretty awesome....

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Today we got to take a visit to Hobbiton (aka The Shire).  For those of you who don't know, this is one of the movie-sets from LOTR.  This place was absolutely incredible (and I'm not even a die-hard fan).  

 In front of Bilbo Baggins' hobbit hole:

The Green Dragon pub:

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We had a decently long drive today (in the relentless rain) after our visit to The Shire but were blessed with this gorgeous site upon our arrival at the beach.

In the next few days, we are headed up the northern peninsula before we take off for the Samoan islands.  More blogs to come.  Hope you enjoyed the read!