Week 2 - In which Braeden broke a tooth, sprained an ankle, and cut his arm open on a rock.

Day 11

Today we woke up bright and early, ready to tackle Whangarei Heads!  For those who don't know, in any inlet or bay there is usually a tip or point land mass that shelters the rest of the inlet, allowing for smooth, calm waters. Whangarei Heads protect the entire city of Whangarei from strong ocean winds and massive waves.  The unique part about Whangarei Heads, however, is that they form some really cool natural rock sculptures, so we had to check it out!  Despite having no clue what we were getting ourselves into, we decided to drive to the Heads and see what there was to see.  Upon arrival we found a massive mountain, with signs directing us towards a trail up it.

Our first warning sign should have come from the professional hikers all around us.  There were a handful of people, all sporting the latest, high-tech hiking equipment, prepping themselves to go up. We paused to admire these dedicated athletes, ignoring the obvious hint that the trail ahead might be harder than we were prepared for.  We chose to look past these people, and set out with nothing but a backpack and a few peanut butter sandwiches.

If I was asked to sum the hike up in only one word, I would say this: Stairs. Endless stairs.  Thousands upon thousands of stairs.  The trail was well laid out and packed down with man-made (and now flooded due to rain) wooden stairs, making the entire trek just one giant staircase.  I paused several times along the trek to question why on earth we (humanity) felt the desire to summit this mountain so badly that we spent what must have been thousands of man hours building stairs in order to assist the climb.  There were so many stairs it started to hurt every bone in my body, but it ended up being worth it for this:



The view from the peak was glorious. It started to rain right before we reached the top, so once there we were suddenly attacked by vicious winds and rain threatening to throw us off the peak.  I don't think I have ever felt so physically small and frail as I did while at the top of that mountain, nor have I felt nature to be so strong.  The rain pelted every patch of skin not sheltered by a coat, making it painful to simply open your eyes or look around. But you couldn't not look around at that view. It's the type of summit where you simply have to yell at the top of your lungs, not saying anything, just letting it out.  It was awe-inspiring.

We assumed that the way down would end up being easier than the way up, right?  Wrong.  Turns out that when it comes to stairs, it actually takes just as much, if not more energy to control your descent as it does to complete the ascent.  At this point in time, my weak city legs were physically shaking with every step, and I half expected to come crashing down. But we didn't, and instead we managed to make it down completely intact, just mildly soaked.  Good job us! As we stumbled to the car, I'm pretty sure I saw one of the professional hikers laughing at us.  I didn't care. We made it!


From there (after a much needed rest in the van) we drove to the tip of Whangarei, and experienced our very first beach!  To clarify, we had seen beaches before.  Most of New Zealand is technically beach, however until now we hadn't seen a sandy beach that was directly along the ocean.  Most beaches we had been to previously were either in a sheltered inlet, or too rocky to be considered a beach.  But this beach was covered with soft, white sand with large(ish) waves gently crashing on the shore.  A real beach.  I went nuts. I immediately jumped in, shorts and all, and started splashing in the waves and having fun.  Caroline on the other hand, thought it was too cold to go in and opted out, deciding instead to "admire from afar".  I (being the fun one who doesn't care about petty things like temperature) had an absolute blast jumping through the waves, making way too much noise, and simply generally having a good time.  Our first New Zealand beach!


From here we traveled to Paihia, a town near the Bay of Islands.  Paihia is the place where I will retire.  It is beautiful and majestic and amazing.  We got there fairly late in the day, so most of the shops were closed.  However, even simply walking around that town was amazing.  It is essentially a tiny little tourist town full of beautiful buildings, beaches, and people.  As well, it is the best access point to the Bay of Islands, a bay filled with tiny islands and tons of wildlife.  Seriously, just Google the Bay of Islands.  It's amazing. We decided that since the weather wasn't good enough for any snorkeling or water fun, that we would continue on to Cape Reinga and return to Paihia on our way back.  We never returned. Guess we'll have to come back.

Day 12

Exhausted from the massive previous day, we had a slightly lazy morning, and then pushed through the final portion of our drive up to Cape Reinga.  A short 3 hour drive later, we arrived at our destination.  The top of the bottom of the world!

 

Cape Reinga is the very tip of the North Island, and is marked by a beautiful lighthouse. It is a really interesting spot, because it is the place where two oceans meet: the graceful Lady of the Pacific and the Wild Abel Tasman.  The wave patterns, though I wasn't successful in photographing them adequately, were incredibly interesting to watch as the two masses of water collided. It truly did show the differences in the bodies of water, the Pacific ocean showing a calm strength while the Abel Tasman dashed upon the shore and collided with other waves energetically.  It was interesting to see the obvious  natural personification of the oceans.  As well, there is a signpost marking the direction and distance to several major cities.  I swear I could see Canada floating around up there!

We decided to camp somewhere near the tip, and were incredibly glad we did.  The campsite we stayed at was an inlet very close to Cape Reinga accessed via a long, windy gravel road that went on and on and on. And on.  However, once we arrived we were met with the most beautiful, isolated harbor I have ever seen.  We fell asleep to the sound of crashing waves, howling winds, and ocean's greetings.

Day 13

Having reached our destination for this mini journey, it was time to head back through Auckland, stopping along the way of course.  Our first stop being sand boarding at the Giant Te Paki Dunes.  The dunes were bigger than I could have ever imagined, massive mountains of sand.  Sandboarding is basically as it sounds; you get a board of some sorts (we rented bodyboards), climb to the top of a sand dune, and ride all the way down.  Very similar to snowboarding or sledding, except with a few drawbacks:

1. Climbing up a sand dune is nearly impossible.  Seriously. Every step that you take, you slide two steps backwards. Unlike hard, packed snow, the sand doesn't support your weight, so you literally have to run uphill trying to counteract the downhill sliding. 
2. Sandboarding is done in the heat.  When you have layers of warm winter clothing piled on, if you fall off or rub your arm against the snow, nothing happens.  On sand, it's too hot to wear layers, so if you fall it tears you to little pieces and rubs you raw.
3. Sand.  Everywhere.  If snow gets everywhere, it melts! If sand gets everywhere, it stays everywhere.  And once it enters your car, it stays in your car. 

Still, it was incredibly fun!  We stayed for several runs before we got way too exhausted to go anymore, so we decided instead to follow a stream we found, hoping it would lead us to the 90 mile beach.  After a long and cold walk, we found the beach.  And there was the Abel Tasman in all it's glory, pummeling all that dared enter with ferocious waves.  I, of course, decided to hop in despite the danger signs along the beach.  It was wild, crazy, strong, violent, and absolutely exhilarating.  While Caroline had a heart attack on the beach, I got into a fight with the craziest, baddest ocean around. I think I won.

90 Mile beach is precisely 55 miles long.  I suppose it has something to do with the beach length in kilometers, however the beach is 88 km long, so it still doesn't really make sense.  That being said, even at only 88 kms, its still a crazy long beach.  Really cool!

Hopping back in the car and driving slightly further along, we stumbled into the Waipoua Forest, where we met Tane Mahuta, king of the forest.  In NZ there is a species of tree called the Kauri trees, which are some of the most ancient trees in the world.  Tane Mahuta is one such Kauri tree, and is considered to be the oldest living Kauri tree, dating back to roughly around the time of Christ.  It is also the biggest of the Kauri trees, though not quite as formidable as our vivid imaginations would have thought.  Still, it was quite impressive, and the history behind this tree is fascinating! Though currently struggling with a recently found disease, Kauri trees are magnificent, and Tane Mahuta was definitely the most majestic in the forest.

That night we found a pleasant campsite out in the middle of the woods, and we were surrounded by the most beautiful stars imaginable.  New Zealand is so underpopulated in areas, with the vast majority of it's residents living in large, coastal cities, so the stars in most of the country are untouched.  Indeed, it is considered to be one of the clearest skies in all of the world, as there is no pollution or alternative lights to dilute the beauty.  The stars that night were by far the most beautiful I've ever seen!

Day 14

Today was mostly about making the arduous drive back to Auckland from Tane Mahuta.  While only a 3-4 hour drive, it was a full day of driving once the various stops to look at views and food stops were taken into account.  Our main activity of the day was stopping by the famous Whangarei Falls, which resulted in some pretty darn good pictures if I do say so myself!

 From the falls we drove straight back to Auckland, all the way back to our previous Airbnb's house.  Patrick was more than generous in allowing us to camp outside his house, and donating his hot water in the pursuit of our cleanliness. Warm showers and hot meals make for happy Braedens and Carolines.  The happiness didn't last particularly long, because that evening Caroline smashed my tooth with a wine bottle, causing some stress, though there was nothing we could do about it in the morning.

Day 15

Caroline would like me to clarify what happened the night before.  You see, as we enjoyed our first relaxing evening in some time, we poured ourselves some glasses of wine.  Deciding to be funny, I started drinking straight from the bottle.  Caroline turned at the wrong time, hitting the bottle with her elbow and chipping my tooth.  So not entirely her fault (though not entirely NOT her fault).

Anyways, today we decided that the best course of action would be to head into the city, and figure out what to do about a broken tooth.  After a couple phone calls had been made, we resolved that nothing could be done about the tooth, so we visited an Auckland art gallery instead, then proceeded on our way.  Our new destination?  Coromandel.

Coromandel is a little peninsula beside the main arm of Auckland, and one that we had heard amazing things about, but hadn't really researched fully.  Based on some light Googling, we decided on 4 things we wanted to do there.  First off, Hot Water Beach!

We read about this beach that had two massive hot springs under it, and were excited to take a nice, warm, natural soak.  Pulling up to the beach in the late afternoon, we immediately ran to get changed into our swimsuits, eager for the warmth. However, as we walked along the beach we got really confused; there was absolutely no hot water to be seen! A gentlemen walking nearby must have noticed our confused faces, because he approached us letting us know that the hot water was currently under the ocean water level, and that we had to return at low tide in order to dig ourselves a hole in the sand for a soak.  I was slightly disappointed that we didn't get to jump in right then and there, but we walked back to the car to figure out when low tide was.  This particular evening, it happened to be at 9:15 at night.  So we went back into town and waited.

At 9:15 we drove back to the beach.  Being early spring in New Zealand, the days were short and it was total darkness by the time we arrived.  Having brought no torches or spades (flashlights and shovels in Kiwi), we would have been hopeless had it not been for three fellow travelers that were already there and prepared.  Together we located the springs and started digging.  Our endeavor was met with moderate success, as the low tide wasn't quite low enough, and would flood our little pool with cold every few minutes with a large wave.  Even then, the searing heat of the water that came up shocked me, and we had tons of fun digging.  As we went, more and more travelers came to join us in the dig, until eventually there were dozens of us attempting to build a pool with walls to defend ourselves against the cold waves.  It was a losing battle, and eventually once it started raining we all gave up and went home.  Even so, the party we had while digging that pool was so much fun, everyone was an amazing sport, and someone even brought biscuits (cookies in Kiwi)!

That evening we drove through the darkness to arrive at our next Coromandel destination, arriving at the base of the Pinnacles at around 12 AM.  (We first attempted to go to a different campsite further away.  It was haunted.  And terrifying.  We didn't stay.)

Day 16

Our second Coromandel must-do was the Pinnacles.  To be totally honest, neither of us knew what they actually were.  But everyone said we had to go there, so we woke up bright and early to find out what it was.  

The Pinnacles are volcano corks.  Literally.  When a volcano erupts, its mostly just filling up with molten lava and spilling over the edge.  Eventually, as it cools down, the lava turns into hard rock filling up the inside of the conical volcano.  As the years go by, the volcano erodes away, however the hardened rock molded to the inside of the volcano doesn't erode away, leaving us with pillars, or Pinnacles, of rock sticking out of the ground in the places where volcanoes used to be.

This all sounds cool in theory, except to actually reach those pinnacles one must endure a tough, 4 hour hike up, and then walk another 4 hours to get down.  Not knowing what we were getting ourselves into, we eagerly started clambering up this mountain, loaded once again with nothing but peanut butter sandwiches.  It was a long and painful hike, and to be totally honest, the Pinnacles weren't that spectacular.  I think the highlight of the day was me rolling my ankle severely at the top, and then subsequently having to limp all the way back down the mountain.  Fun times!

After painfully arriving back at the car, we jumped in and drove to the tip of the Coromandel peninsula on what was and is the windiest, narrowest, most awfulest road I have ever driven on. It was definitely worth it though!  We stayed over night at a campsite called Port Jackson, which was absolutely stunning. We spent the evening enjoying a long, pleasant conversation with the gentleman running the campground, and peacefully gazing at the stars.

Day 17

The van had to be back in Auckland today, but we had only achieved 3 out of our 4 Coromandel goals, the last being a visit the Cathedral Cove, site of a famous scene from Prince Caspian.

On our way down to the cove we saw a nice looking gentleman sticking his thumb out at us.  Pulling over to the side of the road, we learned that he was heading to a town en-route to the Cove.  It had been on our bucket list to help out a hitchhiker, so this worked out perfectly for both parties! He was an American fellow with an incredible passion for the outdoors.  We exchanged many stories and shortened the trip with our merriment.

After dropping him off, we quickly arrived at and made the hike to the Cove (painfully I might add.  My ankle was still swollen from the Pinnacles hike).  It was definitely worth it, as the beach was beautiful, and it was cool to be in the film location. (It is worth a mention that while swimming here I managed to injure myself again by cutting my arm open on jagged rocks. More fun times!)

From there we quickly drove into Auckland, and just managed to return the van before the rental shop closed.

From there we went to our next Airbnb with Rhonda, who was an incredibly lovely host, and we had a restful evening and weekend!

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Week 1 - In which we find a Frenchman, climb a volcanoe, and die by bike.

Okay.  Here we go. 

Day One
The first plane ride was a pleasant short ride from Calgary to Seattle.  Getting on the plane? Not a hitch! Despite our inability to properly fill out a declaration form (we actually needed help from an officer because we are so great at being adults...) we managed to worm our way onboard with plenty of time to spare (thanks to Caroline's insistence on leaving 3 hours early). The ride itself involved lots of sitting around and sleeping.  Packing the night before was a brutal all-nighter involving plenty of stress and zero sleep, so you could say that lots of sleeping happened on that plane. Despite the excitment we felt, it still didn't quite feel real.  So after a short 1 hour plummit through the sky, we landed in Seattle with what we thought was plenty of time to catch our connecting flight to LA.  We set off to explore the amazing Seattle airport, cameras at the ready!  After an hour of walking about, we realized we were cutting a little bit tight for time to board our flight, so we made our way to the gate. Upon arrival we found the gate more-or-less empty and decided to wait for the boarding call at a nearby Burger King (BK in the states is SO CHEAP!!).  As we sat and ate, we expressed confusion that the plane hadn't started boarding.  Suddenly it was anounced that our flight had been moved to a gate across the airport, and that they were doing final boarding call.  I am not sure I have ever ran that fast in my life with poundage of luggage on my back!  We arrived just as they were packing up the gate and managed to squeeze on board.  Probably the most stressful moment of our trip so far!

Landing in LA we had a decent amount of time before our next flight, but we were taking no chances! We blew through security and arrived at our gate with plenty of time to spare, only to meet three wonderful travellers going on a similar trip! It was cool to connect with them and feel slightly less alone on this massive adventure.  After a bit of walking around, some talking to our new friends, and a TON of waiting around (our flight was very late), we managed to make it onboard our 14 hour flight to Auckland, New Zealand.  (If you ever decide to fly to New Zealand, take Air New Zealand.  The inflight entertainment is worth it alone! Plus the seats are extra comfy, with foot rests, they provide blankets and pillows, and the meals are quite tasty.) All told it was a pleasant and suprisingly short flight to Auckland, and as we landed we met another friend who shared her experiences on similar trips, and gave us some helpful advice.  So at approx. 6 AM AKL time we landed, and the real adventure began!!

Day Two

Before we left we decided to go on a website called AirBnB (a site that allows people to rent rooms in their houses just like a hotel, but often far cheaper) and we rented our first week in Auckland.  Probably the smartest thing we have ever done.  Patrick, our host, was kind enough to offer to pick us up from downtown at 3pm, so we only had 9 hours to kill.  Probably the longest 9 hours of my life. We were so tired after our flights, that we spent most of it in Subway half asleep in our chairs.  It turns out that things in Auckland are incredibly expensive, but we could afford Subway.  So most of our first day we simply hung around the downtown harbour area either eating Subway or staring at the multitude of boats or staring at the far off mysterious island (We now know this island is called Rangitoto and it is amazing.  More on that later). Finally 3 o'clock rolled around and we met Patrick, a short, smiley frenchman with a thick accent and a charming personality.  He drove us back to his home and thats where things started to get cool.  Patrick lives in a peaceful home overlooking a small inlet with a beautiful view. I can't stress enough how gorgeous the view was.  Just wow.

Patrick has a wife, two dogs, three cats, and three empty rooms that he rents out.  Most of his tenants are from france, but we were lucky enough to be welcomed in despite our obvious englishness.  However, that meant that we were definitely the odd ones out in a house that spoke french, had all books and tv in french, and even smelt and looked French.  Here we were, our first night in New Zealand, surrounded by... France.  A little bit unexpected, but definitely a welcome suprise.  Plus the coffee.  Mmmhhh that coffee!  After a quick nap at the house, Patrick then showed his generousity by taking us to the supermarket where we purchased food for the first time in New Zealand.  Despite being expensive, we bought enough for a weeks worth of good eating, and using our tolerance of cheap pasta alongside an amazing brand entitled "budget", we were able to keep our purchases cheap and within budget.  We felt good! That night we cooked an amazing meal, and subsequently passed out. Our first night in New Zealand, and we slept a solid 14 hours.  Well deserved rest!

Day Three

We woke up groggy, well-rested, and excited for our day! After a delicious breakfast, we started to decide what to do with our day.  And that is where someone-who-will-not-be-named decided that the thing to do with our day was to borrow Patrick's bikes and go for a 20 km joyride to a local town named Devonport.  While Devonport was amazing and beautiful and everything it was promised to be, the bike ride was... excrutiating.  It turns out that Auckland (and most of New Zealand as far as we can tell) is covered in hills.  And not hills like we are used to; massive, gigantic, rolling hills.  Everywhere.  It got to the point where we couldn't bike up the hills anymore.  Our legs were dead, and all we could do was walk up the hill pushing our bikes, and then clamber on the bikes and let ourselves roll down the otherside.  It took us several hours to get to that stupid, glorious town (but we saved 5 dollars in bus fare. So like... Yay...).  Devonport itself was a quaint, picturesque town with a beautiful view of the bay and the boats going in and out.  It is the Auckland version of Banff if you will, and was quite amazing to be there.  I think that town and that view is what made the trip start to seem real. 

Day Four

According to Caroline, this is the day she almost died.  I guess the hours of biking really did her in, because she complained about her legs being broken and moaned about how close she was to death.  But the instant I suggested that we pay for a bus to and from the days activities, she leapt up and insisted we walk.  I'm glad we're both cheapskates!

Today was Aquarium day. We had read good things about Auckland's aquarium, and assumed that since it was close to the ocean, it would have an amazing display of beautiful fish and cool marinelife.  In actuality, it was marine-animal hell. It starts off with a cool exhibit showcasing equipment used to track and study penguins in Antartica, with the promise of penguins around the corner.  However, when you round the corner you simply see a plain, concrete room with a fake rock in the middle.  Oh yeah, and roughly 75 - 100 penguins shoved in. The room was WAY too small to hold the number of penguins there, and moreover everything was so sad and fake.  It was poorly lit, and honestly the penguins looked sad.  Penguins are such an amazing, beautiful creature, who are cute and silly.  Penguins in this place just stand there and don't move.  Even when the trainer came in to feed them, they just stood there and frequently rejected the food.  It was terribly sad. Not a great first impression.

From there the aquariam didn't get much better. We went from sad penguins, to sad stingrays who swam in circles in a boring, tiny pool.  There was this massive shark tunnel that had the potential to be so cool, except it was poorly lit and frankly quite boring.  I definitely DO NOT reccomend the aquarium for anyone who has any compassion or cares about animals at all.

Day Five

Most of the weather we have seen in New Zealand so far has been pretty dismal and rainy, however when we woke up this morning it was terrible.  Absolutely terrible.  We had planned to travel to the aforementioned island of Rangitoto, and after some thought we decided to go anyways.  Google said it would clear up.  Google is our friend.  So we took off for the ferries.  A bus ride and a short walk later we were at the ferry dock ready to board.  However, because of the weather the ferry was delayed slightly, and altogether it was a confusing platform.  And that is why we got onto the wrong ferry.

The ferry that ran from Auckland to Rangitoto ran straight there and back. The ferry that we went on was an all inclusive harbour tour with free coffee, muffins, a guide, and it stopped at Rangitoto.  Needless to say we didn't complain, simply eating our muffins and enjoying the sights.  It was fantastic!

Let's talk about Rangitoto.  Most of New Zealand is volcanic; either being near a volcanoe itself or simply being over a lavafield.  And most of those volcanoes have been there for thousands and thousands of years.  Rangitoto is an island really close to Auckland that has only been there for 600 years.  That is so recent! It blew our minds...  It is absolutely gorgeous, and we enjoyed a beautiful two hour walk up to the summit, eating lunch and staring into the volcanic crater at the top, and then walking back down.  On the way down we passed a side path that we enevitably followed, leading us to some amazing lava caves! The entire thing looked like a shot out of the Incredibles! Cool!

Day Six

Zoo day! The Zoo in Auckland is so much more amazing than in Calgary! Not only are the animals incredibly beautiful, but the cages they are in don't seem like cages.  Evrything from the large elephant roaming grounds to the huge otter pens, each animal had a special home representative of it's native enviroment, and they seemed happy and natural.  As well, it was apparent that the money being invested into the Zoo was going towards the animals, and not towards the "zoo experience" if you will.  The facilities for humans were definitely more neglected than the ones for the animals, which definitely felt right.  The Zoo also seems to do a ton of research, and has an active pet hospital which is amazing for the little guys who need help.  All around an amazing experience! I think it was this point in the trip where I realized how much walking we would do.  My legs were tired...

Day Seven

And on the seventh day... we rested.  And planned.  And rested some more.  It was technically a Wednesday, but we decided that a solid rest was in order. We got a decent amount of planning done as well, but for the most part we simply relaxed and took a break from all the walking.  Then, after it got dark, in a sudden burst of energy we went kayaking in the little inlet around the house.  Despite it being pitch black, it was amazingly beautiful and so cool to paddle around in the ocean.  As we paddled along we suddenly heard this random musician from one of the nearby houses playing guitar and singing.  So we floated along the ocean and listened the the guitarist play his music.  It was a good day.

Day Eight

This was the day we said our goodbyes and left the comfort of Patrick's home. We decided that we wanted to rent a campervan and do some driving for the next bit, but the van we rented couldn't be ready for this day.  So instead we booked a different AirBnB for the night and spent a large chunk of the day packing and heading over there.  We stayed at an amazing place with some very welcoming hosts.  The new house was by an outdoor mall, so we immediately headed over there for some much needed grocery shopping.  As well, we ate out for one of the first times since we left Calgary, and it tasted amazing to not have to cook the meal for ourselves.  We then headed back to the house and stayed up late talking to our hosts and swapping stories.  They were closer to our age than Patrick, and it was really cool to connect with some locals on that level!

Day Nine

We woke up early and headed to the store to pick up our vehicle.  We got an old but very well maintained camper van.  While the final price ended up being significantly more expensive than we wanted, the ability to drive to the places you want to and go to some of the spots off the beaten trail is priceless. So we hopped into the car, started the engine, and.... realized we were on the wrong side of the road.  And that Kiwi drivers are insane.  Still, we managed to navigate the busy streets of Auckland, and worked our way up the coast towards our destination of Whangaparaoa.  This is a little landmass that juts quite far off of the coast, and offered a spectacular sunset view of the beach and the coastline.  However, it gets dark incredibly fast in New Zealand, and we lost track of time, ending up in the middle of nowhere in the pitch dark.  We had intended to move to a campsite farther up the coast, but it was now 6 PM and we didn't know exactly where the campground was located. Solution: Mcdonalds Wifi!  A couple of cheap ice creams later, and we were desperately trying to get the wifi to work at Mcdonalds.  And it wouldn't work.  Eventually we realized our campground had closed, and the next one had closed as well.  And the one beside that.  It was now 8 PM, most of the campgrounds had closed, and we were desperately fighting with the wifi to find a solution to our crisis.  Meanwhile, on the table beside us was another woman who was also fighting with the wifi.  The wifi was out at her home, so she had decided to try and finish her work at Mcdonalds, to no avail.  Eventually she noticed our distress and started to help us in finding a campground.  She worked for the city council, and because of this started trying to pull strings to get us into a campground nearby.  This too didn't work, so she finally offered to let us park on her driveway, stating that it was "the kiwi thing to do!".  It was incredibly kind and generous offer for her to make, and we had quite an enjoyable stay on her driveway.

Day Ten

We woke up quite early this morning, intending to be off this ladies driveway as soon as possible in order to not inconvience her in any way.  However, just as we were leaving she appeared on the driveway insisting that we go inside and drink coffee with her.  We ended up staying for several hours swapping stories and drinking delicious coffee!  Just an incredible example of kindness in the world.

We took off from her house and started driving further up the coast, stopping at anything of interest along the way.  We found a nice winery with sheep and sculptures, an amazing beach and marina, and are now sitting in a Burger King, using their wifi to check social media and post this blog.  Lots of driving happened today, as well as lots of rain, however we are happy to be that much closer to our eventual destination of Cape Reinga.  We've had an amazing first week, and we are so crazy excited for the weeks to come!

Much love,

Braeden and Caroline

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Introduction

(From Braeden's POV)

Okay, here we go!  If you're reading this right now, you're probably aware that Caroline and I will be leaving shortly for an epic adventure in the south pacific! We decided to create this blog in order to express our thoughts and memorialize our travels.  It quite honestly doesn't matter if anyone reads this ever, as this is less for you, the Reader, and more for us, the Travelers.  It will force us to take time, slow down, and think about the experiences we had on our travels.  A year from now, we will return from our travels completely different people.  More tanned, yes, but also more aware, more experienced, more "knowledgeable" (whatever that means). The long and short of it is that I expect us to grow over the year, transform into better versions of ourselves.   So, without further a due, let me try to explain what I hope to get out of this blog:

Any diet or workout program that you undertake will be unique and different from the others. Some will be super similar, others will be cray out there.  But every single one will tell you that in order to complete the program successfully, you have to take pictures of where you are now.  Because the change is slow and gradual, and you may not notice the impact the workout/diet has had.  But it has had impact, sometimes significant impact, and comparing to previous photos is the only way to know what changes have occurred to your body, and how much better off you are now. Likewise, Caroline and I will be changed when we return from our adventures.  And likewise, it will be hard for us to see the changes, despite what our family and friends might say. This blog is a way for us to look at how different we are, and reflect on what we did that changed us so significantly.  Hopefully through this blog we will be able to really see how much we have grown.

As well, this is blog will be an opportunity for you, the Reader, to travel with us.  We recognize that not everybody is a young, crazy teenager with amble time to live large and go on adventures.  Some of you may even have a normal 9-5 office job that offers no independence and insists on boring conformity.  This is an opportunity for you to live vicariously through us.  To hear our stories, see our pictures, and experience our travel in a unique way that has been offered through the miracles of the 21st century.  

Lastly, this blog will hopefully be an inspiration to any travelers-to-be that might stumble upon it.  It might inspire them to achieve what we achieved, to be crazy on their own, to see the world and grow for themselves. Or it might be a "what not to do" blog.  We really have no clue what we're doing, so who knows how this adventure will turn out!

So, as our first blog post draws to a close, I hope I have eloquently described my dreams and aspirations for this blog.  I really am new to this whole thing, we both are, and as such I really haven't the foggiest idea as to how this whole thing will turn out.  It's crazy.  It's exciting. And successful or not, it will allow myself and Caroline to grow and learn more about ourselves and the world around us.  So in that regards, no matter what the outcome of both the blog and this trip, it will be a success because we will be different.  Better.  So, after a flurry of typing, it's time for me to start this madness.

Okay.  Here we go.

B & C

“Travel is more than the seeing of sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living.” – Miriam Beard

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