Results tagged “New Zealand”

Hi everybody! For our last week in New Zealand, we lived in a house called Maggie's Cottage, which was on a farm. I was very excited to have a house because we haven't had one in five months. This means that we didn't have to eat at restaurants all the time, which was great.

And speaking about eating, there was a pig at the farm where we stayed that ate all of our food scraps. There were also goats on the farm that really liked our leftover toast. During our stay, they were shearing the sheep, which means they were shaving them so they could sell the wool.


The sheep are much cuter when they are all fuzzy, but it was still fun to watch them get sheared. This farm also had chickens, llamas, horses, and a couple of cute dogs that we played with.

Our cottage was in a town called Nelson and we had lots to do there. One day, we went four-wheeling on ATVs, which is short for all-terrain vehicles. I was sitting on the back of my Dad's four-wheeler. One of the first things we did was ride through a stream.

Hello again! During our last week in New Zealand, we stayed in Nelson on a farm called Harris Hill. We stayed in a house called Maggie's Cottage that had a beautiful view of the Tasman Bay.

At the farm we got to make our own meals instead of always eating out at restaurants. But it wasn't eating the food that was so much fun, it was getting rid of our leftovers that was cool. At the farm they had a pig that ate scraps. When we started feeding him, a goat would arrive and a battle would begin over the food scraps. They all got some scraps, so everyone won.

Hi everybody! In this blog, I am going to tell you about our last week in the camper van. In case you didn't know yet, we named the camper van "Tourtelvis" because it has been taking us on "tour" of New Zealand and it has a bed that sits over the main cab that looks like a big pompadour (a hairstyle where the hair is combed back to form a mound above the forehead, kind of like Elvis Presley's hair).

Anyway, one of the places we visited this week was Queenstown. They have tons of adventurous activities there. We went on a thing called a luge. A luge is a cart/sled that you sit on with a bicycle handle in the front that you steer with. We got to ride on a track that went down a big hill. We steered our way down, going through tunnels and big slopes.  It was so much fun! Stefan and I could have done it all day.

We just finished our last week in the camper van (Tourtelvis) and I'm going to fill you in on what we did. We went on a jet boat ride on the Dart River.  We were going so fast, it felt like we were going over 100 miles per hour with super sharp turns and even full 360 degree spins in the water. It was so much fun, I loved it.

Hi everybody! In this blog, I am going to tell you about our last week in the camper van. In case you didn't know yet, we named the camper van "Tourtelvis" because it has been taking us on "tour" of New Zealand and it has a bed that sits over the main cab that looks like a big pompadour (a hairstyle where the hair is combed back to form a mound above the forehead, kind of like Elvis Presley's hair).
 
Anyway, one of the places we visited this week was Queenstown. They have tons of adventurous activities there. We went on a thing called a luge. A luge is a cart/sled that you sit on with a bicycle handle in the front that you steer with. We got to ride on a track that went down a big hill. We steered our way down, going through tunnels and big slopes.  It was so much fun! Stefan and I could have done it all day.
 
The other really cool thing we did in Queenstown was go to the Kiwi Conservation Center. We got to see the rare kiwi bird, which is one of the many flightless birds that live in New Zealand. The reason they're flightless is because New Zealand didn't have any mammals on it before settlers brought them over, so the birds didn't have any need for wings. Over time, the kiwi lost its wings and now all they have are tiny little things that are buried under their hair-like feathers. The kiwi is also famous for its long beak, which they use for getting things, like worms, under the soil. Unlike most birds, kiwis have nostrils on the tip of their beak instead of at the top by the head. Its eggs are also really huge, almost one-third the size of its body!

Hello everybody! In this blog, I'm going to tell you all about our adventures in our campervan. One thing you should know about our campervan is that we named it "Tourtelvis" for a few reasons:
                                                                                  

1. Our campervan has an area above the cab that looks like a pompadour or Elvis' hair.
2. When you walk in Tourtelvis, he rocks from side to side and when he drives, he rolls.
3. When we are in Tourtelvis, we are touring around.
   

The first place we drove to was a town called Omarua, where they were on the last day of a five-day Victorian festival. Everybody was dressed in Victorian clothes. We saw a bunch of old-fashioned things like funny looking bicycles called penny-farthings, people juggling on stilts, and log-sawing competitions. Also in Omarua , we saw penguins come up to the shore at sunset and go tend to their babies in their nests. When we saw them coming out of the water, we were surprised to see them in such large groups and how fast they got out of the water.

We went to see the glowworm caves in Te Anau, which was amazing. Glowworms are tiny worms that live in caves and have a glowing tail to attract insects like moths or sand flies. The caves are filled with these tiny guys. There was one area with a bunch of them all over the walls and ceiling. You can go around in a boat in the pitch black to get a really close look at them.  

Now for our latest activity ... jet boating! A jet boat is not like the average boat because the engine is inside and the water shoots out of jets in the back, so it can go in really shallow water and has lots of power to make quick turns. We were able to go right up to rocks and turn at the last second. We even spun around in full 360 degree turns, which was really fun because the water sprayed all over the place and got us all really wet.

Living in Tourtelvis has been interesting too, especially the way it can turn from a living area to a bedroom, not to mention eating in your car is something you have to get used to. So far it's been great and we still have another week to go in our moving home. 'Till next blog!

Hello, nice people. This is our first week in a campervan that we named Tourtelvis. My family and I have been waiting so long for this and now that we finally got it, we are so excited. Tourtelvis is a campervan that can sleep six people, or in our case, four people and all of our luggage for a year! It has a kitchen, three beds, and a bathroom. One of the three beds is up above where the driver sits. We call it the pompadour because it looks all puffy from the outside. Tyler and I love it up there. It is fun to hang out there. Tourtelvis also has a TV and DVD player, so Tyler and I can watch movies. At night it is cold in Tourtelvis, but we have warm blankets, so it's okay.

Happy Birthday to me! I spent my ninth birthday in Tourtelvis. Tyler's birthday present to me was to decorate the campervan, so I woke up with streamers and balloons everywhere. One of my birthday presents was a Camelback, a backpack that holds water which you can drink from out of an attached hose. I love my Camelback and I wore it when we hiked to a waterfall on my birthday.

We also went to a petrified forest that day, which was cool because the old trees looked like rocks. We encountered a surprise there, when we saw an endangered yellow-eyed penguin really close up. He was just standing there in front of a bush and Tyler and I walked right by him as we were exploring the forest. I loved seeing it so close and I had a great birthday.

Another big day we'll be celebrating in Tourtelvis is Thanksgiving. We won't be cooking a big feast because the kitchen is really small, but we have lots to be thankful for, even if we won't be eating a turkey (we're planning to eat chicken). I'm thankful that nobody got sick in Asia. I'm thankful for going on this trip and learning a lot of cool new stuff. I'm thankful that all my friends and family at home still remember me and miss me so much. I'm thankful that I get to spend this whole year with my family--the only time we're not together is when we're in the bathroom, haha.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Hello everybody and welcome to New Zealand! We just left Asia. We love that people in New Zealand speak English and eat Western food. It feels like a vacation from our year-long trip.
 
Although New Zealand feels like America with British accents, there's a lot here that you can't find in America, like the Maori culture. The Maori are a Polynesian tribe that lived in New Zealand before English settlers came. We got to learn about them at the Auckland Museum. At the Auckland Museum we learned about Maori culture and weapons like the "patu," a war club made out of rock, bone, or wood, and the "taiaha," which is a long wooden spear.

I'm in New Zealand, where it's a little chilly and really fun. The plane ride to New Zealand was 11 (!!!) hours from Thailand and a six hour time difference--oh boy! I had jet lag and couldn't get used to the new time zone, so it was really hard to fall asleep, but now I'm better. This is the farthest away from home we're going to be. There's and 18-hour time difference between here and New York!
 
When we got to New Zealand, we were so happy to have western food (YEAH!!!!). I missed it so much. I was also really happy to have salad since we couldn't eat the raw vegetables in all those places in many places in Asia (except Japan).
 
New Zealand is made out of volcanoes. It is two islands: the North Island and the South Island. Two different islands, but one country ... cool.
 
My family and I went to a redwood forest on the North Island. On the trail, my Dad, Tyler, and I played rugby with our new rugby ball. The redwood trees are big, really big! My Dad couldn't even put his arms around the trunk of them. Redwood trees are also found in California.