While the girls enjoyed week one at their new NZ school, us grown ups had some fun adventures of our own. It was the first time in over 260 days that the four of us were separated and doing our thing. Imagine that! It wasn't very traumatic for any of us to part ways. I think largely because of the excitement we all felt for the girls and their new school setting; knowing they're in a good place, being stimulating in new & fun ways, makes it easier to be on our own.
Food & Stuff (Monday)
Monday was consumed with a massive grocery shop and other odds & ends. It was the first time in over 8 weeks that I tagged along with Doug for the grocery shopping. Not exactly thrilling, but a productive day at least!
We ended up grabbing lunch at an Indian place in the Remarkables shopping center. It was our first time in a restaurant in over 8 weeks (before stay-at-home covid19 orders). The food was actually quite tasty, but the health & safety precautions were definitely sub-par. As we walked out we agreed we will not eat at places that don't have all the immediate signals that they're taking people's health & safety seriously (hand sanitizer at the entrance, contact tracing sign-in at entrance, etc.).
Moke Lake (Tuesday)
Tuesday we packed a lunch and headed out straight after school drop-off. We did a hike around nearby Moke Lake. The loop around the lake was about 2 hours and we literally had the whole glorious trail to ourselves. On our drive to the lake we watched the morning fog lift and reveal stunning reflections in the still water.
All throughout the hike, the lake and mountain views were dynamite. And the serene lake provided mirrored views that were simply stunning.
Moke Lake goes down as one of my all time favorite hikes of our travels! Just look at this beauty:
On the homestretch of the trail we spotted a self contained van parked along the lake. We walked by and said hello to the guy seated in front of the van, enjoying the beautiful lake views. We ended up chatting for quite some time with the kind couple. Eoghan and Rachel are from Bristol, England and traveling for six months around NZ in their self contained van. We exchanged stories of NZ life during stay-at-home orders, favorite pre-covid19 NZ spots, life in a van, etc. We really enjoyed our time chatting with them and exchanged details to follow each other's travel shenanigans on Instagram. We ended up running into them on the streets of downtown Queenstown later that same day. We even ended up inviting them over to our place for coffee over the weekend (more on that in this post) and had a blast! Yet another example and reminder in our travels of how one chance encounter can lead to a connection and new friendship.
We enjoyed our packed lunch of yummy kale salad and peanut butter/granola sandwiches, seated on our picnic blanket along the Moke Lake. Doug spent half the time shooing away pesky ducks looking for a bit of food. We ate quickly and threw crumbs their way as we packed up. Gorgeous day all around.
NZ Mobile Phone (Wednesday)
The school requires a local NZ number for emergency push notifications, so we needed to sort that out sooner rather than later. That was the big task for Wednesday. After quite a bit of back & forth exploring our options at the local Spark store, we ended up with a basic flip phone, no bells or whistles. It reminds me of our cell phones from the early 2000s. The old-school phone 100% does the trick. It's free to receive incoming texts and calls, and we've got $1 NZD loaded on the sim on the off-chance we need to make any outbound local texts/calls. Truthfully, we should never really need to tap into that $1 as we've got our regular US phones to accommodate all of that. Glad to have gotten than sorted.
I had a late morning dentist appointment back in Queenstown to check out a tooth that's been bothering me. All good, no work needed to be done. We hung around in town and grabbed lunch at a Vietnamese place that was quite tasty. Our second time in a restaurant and it still took getting used to.
Glenorchy & Isengard (Thursday)
Packed lunch in the car, we headed about an hour north along Lake Wakatipu to the small town of Glenorchy. Glenorchy sits on the Northern end of Lake Wakatipu, surrounded by snow-capped mountains, lakes, rivers and beaches. European settlers first arrived at Glenorchy back in 1861. Through the years it's been known for gold mining, sawmilling, scheelite mining and tourism. At last count its population is only ~300 people. Charming little spot, and virtually no one else there.
Most recently this stunning area is the backdrop of many films, including The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. We drove further past Glenorchy town to see the sight of LOTR's Isengard along the Dart River. We parked and walked down along the bank of the Dart River to get a better look at the sweeping views of the Isengard film location. Serendipitously there was a Gandalf-like staff resting along the river bank. How could we not take advantage of this epic photo opp?! It was a super blustery and overcast day. Even holding the wooden stick upright took strength!
Not knowing if the iffy weather would take a turn for the worse, we opted for a shorter 1.5 hour hike along Diamond Creek, leading to Lake Reid. As it turned out, the sun peeked out and we were treated to a rainbow most of our hike. No kidding, I've seen more rainbows during our time in NZ than probably my whole life up to this point. They never cease to awe me.
Close to the turn-around point of our hike we bumped into two men grooming the trails. One was in a lawnmower-type vehicle, so we just smiled and waved as he slowly rode past. The other was behind him on foot. We stopped to say hello and ask what they were up to. He told us how they're grooming the trail, working to tramp down pesky weeds that rise up and make the trail clumsy for hikers. We carried on talking with Nick, learning that he runs his own fly fishing business (Southern Trout), and that one of his grandsons goes to the same school as the girls! His grandson is the same age as Sadie, so they're bound to cross paths at some point (if not already). Nick gave us his business card and very graciously encouraged us to ring him so that he & his wife could have us over for lunch on a weekend, and meet his son & family (whose son goes to QPS). Incredibly kind of him! We will most definitely be getting in touch to make that fun happen! Any opportunity to connect with kind, local, interesting folks and we're all in!
Friday at Home
Friday we spent largely at home doing stuff around the house and other things that have fallen down our adult to-do list. I had popped into the Queenstown library earlier in the week and gotten each of the girls a library card. They were anxious to get their hands on some books, so we popped into the library after school, just a short walk down the road from the school. With Level 2 safety protocols in place, I was only able to take one of the girls in at a time, with a max stay of 15 mins. They were happy campers with their book picks and were totally engrossed, reading and not saying a word the whole drive home.
All in, Doug & I managed to do just fine on our own :) After spending so much quality time together as a family this past year, you'd think we'd be "over it" by now and be looking to completely break away from each other. Happy to report that we still very much enjoy each other's company & conversation, and make each other laugh :) Time for us to get in some more epic NZ hikes without the girls before Winter hits!
Comments