The Wrap-up I don’t Want to Write

I know I need to wrap up our trip to New Zealand, but I don’t want to. Why you ask? There is not much to write about. We left Queenstown after a great hike over and through the mountains to Milford Sound and our relaxing night on a boat. The plan was to take a helicopter up to a glacier and hike around. It was supposed to be on Fox and Franz Joseph Glaciers. We did not do it. I honestly can’t remember why. Maybe weather?

The trip to the west coast was marked by several one way bridges. One of which caused me to rear end someone. Fortunately we were driving some kind of foreign plastic car and it just sort of broke. Car was okay to drive and since everything was half price I had actually gotten the extra car rental insurance (right?).

These one way bridges were pretty creepy when they were short , but downright terrifying when long. Many went over rivers and you had no place to go once you got started.

While I don’t recall much about the glaciers we passed, I do remember a particularly insane bridge just south of Greymouth which is where we were going to catch our train across the mountains back to Christchurch. This bridge was one-way, long for cars and also for, wait for it, TRAINS. Apparently there are now two bridges because even the insane Kiwis realize trains and cars and one lane bridges don’t belong together.

Fast forward to Greymouth. Train, exceedingly boring, Christchurch, beautiful but raining. Last night in NZ dinner in hotel restaurant. Next day was pretty cool. We had 2 Monday mornings. We woke up in Christchurch on Monday morning, flew to Auckland then headed back to Honolulu. During the flight we crossed the international dateline and, poof, it was Sunday night again. So we went home, went to bed and got up for our second Monday morning in our home in Kapolei. So great trip, not so great ending. I have taken forever to wrap up NZ because these last few days of the trip were just kind of meh. I want to write about the big summer trip next, but who knows where my mind will wander. Safe travels.

-John