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After a long thirteen hour plane flight, all night to San Francisco, we landed around lunchtime, and went to an old one of our favorite restaurants, The Elephant Bar. After that we went to our hotel room, and we went to the pool. The next day we went to Pacifica, went to a big park in the mountains, and then we went to Taco Bell on the beach.  The second day, we went to an amusement park called The Hollow. The next day, we went to Bean Hollow tide pools. At the tide pools we saw a female elephant seal on the beach and watched her swim back into the water. The next day we went to the pool in the morning and then for dinner we went to the Cliff House, and spent the rest of the evening climbing up and down the rocks and ruins of the all the old pools that used to be there. The day after that, we flew home, having to take the back seat in our plane. When we got home, it was around eight o’clock, so we spent an hour getting to remember what we had forgotten about our house, and then went to bed, shutting a door on what seemed like a really long and adventurous day. 

After turning in our campervan, and flying to New Zealand’s north island. There, we drove for an hour through beautiful rolling hills, and then got to Cambridge, a suburb just outside the city of Hamilton ( I love the name! ) where our rental house was. It was a cute little white 3 bedroom house, where we stayed for all of our time on the north island. On our first day there, we went to Waitomo Glow Worm Caves, where we took a tour in dark caves, and then ended with a boat ride in the pitch dark with bright, brilliant blue glow worms enlighting the top of the dark cave. That afternoon, we went to a café in the middle of a strawberry farm, where they made us the best strawberry ice cream ever! The next day, we went to Rotorua, a town an hour or so from where we were staying where there were tons of natural hot pools, in the middle of public places. In late afternoon, we took a tour bus to Temaki Maori Village, which as a large original Maori Village, with stations on carvings, games, cooking, dancing, history and the Haka, a traditional Maori war dance. After that we ate a dinner that they made there, and than took a tour bus and a car back home. On our third day, we went to Hobbitton, the place where a village of Hobbit holes from The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings still were. We took a tour around there, and than went to the Green Dragon, and got ginger beer. That afternoon, we packed up, and the following day, we flew to California, on a thirteen hour plane flight, all overnight, which was absolutely horrific. On the plane ride, I got only 4 hours of sleep, and spent many hours, uncomfortably lying awake, stretched out on 3 plane seats, with Tess.

Hi! I am so sorry that I have written for so long! So I need to catch up with all of New Zealand. I am going to start with the south island,and what we did there for 12 days. On our first day we drove for six hours to Punakaiki beach camp, a camper van park, on the beach where we stayed for two nights. While we were there, you walked up and down the beach which was made out of all black sand. We also went to Punakaiki, or Pancake Rocks. They are limestone rocks and they look like huge pancake stacks. There were a little inlet where the water would slap the rocks loudly, and splash all over. After 2 nights at Punakaiki, we drove for a few hours to Fox Glacier. Fox Glacier is one of the last existing glaciers in New Zealand. We went on a hike to the glacier and there we had a beautiful view of the big, blueish white glacier between the mountains. That night we stayed at a holiday park near the glacier. In the morning, we played giant chess and got on the road, and drove to Lake Wanaka, where we stayed that night on the edge of the beautiful lake. We were going to go swimming, but we read something online, that said that no one ever swam in Lake Wanaka, because of the because of a made up thing called duck itch, which we believed, and didn’t go swimming in the lake because of it.  The next day, we kayaked on the lake. After kayaking we had lunch and drove to Queenstown, a town, almost dedicated to adventure tourism. We stayed there that night, and the following day, we went on a Shotover Jet, in Shotover Canyon. The Shotover Jet is a jet boat that can operate in just four inches of water, and takes you through a creek at 90 kilometers an hour, just about as fast as an average car. It comes around four inches from running into giant boulders in the middle or on the sides of the canyon.  After that we went on a steamboat, which happened to be the only existing steamboat in the Southern Hemisphere, and took that to the far other side of the lake and were treated to and amazing brunch that had the best things for dessert. Then we watched a sheep shearing performance, and sheep dogs driving the sheep. It was really cool. Then we went back on the steamboat to our campervan and spent the night tin the park that we had spent the previous night in, and the next day, we drove to what I think is the most beautiful place in the whole world. Milford Sound. Milford Sound is actually a fjord surrounded by beautiful waterfalls, and mountains, and glaciers. Around there, there was no Wifi, or Internet Connection. We stayed at a park that night and the next morning went on a cruise around the whole Sound. It was beautiful. I also drank three and a half cups of tea:-) We spent another night at that same park, and the following morning, we drove to Te Anau, a small city on a lake. Soon we realized that we would rather drive straight to Queenstown, so we did, and arrived there that night. The next day we took a gondola to the top of a huge mountain overlooking all of Queenstown. Then we went up another chair lift, to the luge. The luge is kind of like a huge gocart track. Anyways, it was probably my favorite thing that we did in New Zealand. That night we spent our last night in A campervan, and in the morning packed up the van, and turned it in at the airport, and flew to Auckland, and our adventures, living in a car, were over.