Trading in SNOW for SAND. My New Zealand Christmas!

DO THEY KNOW ITS CHRISTMAS TIME AT ALL *drops heavy beat*

PEOPLE WOOOO *choir* LET THEM KNOW ITS CHRISTMAS TIME 

Amanda texted this to me last week and all I could think of was seriously... do they? It is 23 degrees outside! Seeing christmas lights and decoration on houses almost seemed wrong. Like those people who leave their lights up all year round. But it did help to get into the mood. 

Here are other things that help me get in the Christmas spirit:

The Santa Parade

 This women decorates her house with hundreds of lights and Santa Clauses to raise money for Cancer.

A lot of people donate Santa's to add to her collection.

Eating Ice Cream with Candy Canes

Decorating Christmas cookies

Roller Skating…
Not quite the same but it was fun!

To start the Christmas season the chickenskins planned a special Christmas dinner: PIZZA! Haha it was the easiest to cook for so many people. BUT for dessert we all made sweets that remind us of Christmas at home. So this is what we came up with:

 Sweden - Swedish Meatballs

Well Amanda made Swedish meatballs (because I begged her!) I’ll say Ikea does not do them justice! 

Finland - Finish Joulutorttu (Christmas Tart)

Germany - Plaetzchen (Christmas Cookie)

I made Shortbread Cookies! Maybe not Canadian but definitely a tradition in our home. 

It was an evening full of food, friends and lots of laughter! 

Look at that spread! 

*Fast forward to Christmas Eve*

The kids begged all day to open a gift before they went to bed. And so I caved and showed them that I had something for them. Dinner was pretty funny, Finn kept telling Maggie to hurry up so they could open their gift. I had told Ann and Steve about a tradition that we do at home. Where we get to open 1 present on Christmas Eve and it was new pjs for us to wear for Christmas morning. So after the kids opened their pjs and put them on, they surprised me with a gift. 3 guesses what it was…

Pyjamas!!!

I have been told by my European friends that we have Christmas all wrong. They celebrate Christmas on the eve of the 24th like we celebrate on the morning of the 25th. Weirdos... I know! So after we exchanged gifts and cleaned up I went to meet Amanda. She had the idea of staying up until 12 so that way we could celebrate both Christmases in one night!   But man did that make for a short nights sleep! My alarm went off at 6:30 and I dragged my butt downstairs to join in the fun. The morning was spent opening gifts and playing with the new toys. I felt like a kid again playing with Maggie and her barbies, dolls and crafts. Finn was too busy with his new Minecraft lego to notice what was going on. 

Playing with some new toys!
Man I look tired…
but that's what you get when you only get 5 hours of sleep!

Around 12 we sat down to a delicious Christmas lunch that Ann had prepared. We opened gift crackers and got glitter everywhere! For dessert we had a Kiwi classic: Pavlova. 

Yum! 

Getting the ham ready

Pavlova

Perfection!

Look at that meal! 

Merry Christmas!

My Weekend with Sinah

The life of an Au Pair is constantly changing. Since we all arrive at different times and have different contracts we also leave at different times too. So this weekend it was Sinah’s turn. So we jammed the weekend with some must do’s while in New Zealand. 

Friday night we went to the Silo Cinema to watch Sinah’s favourite Christmas movie, The Nightmare Before Christmas, outside at the Viaduct Harbour. It was kind of ironic to watch that movie because it is an unconventional Christmas movie and this year I am having an unconventional Christmas. So it was quite fitting! 

The Harbour Bridge in the background.
The movie is shown on the side of a big silo.

Saturday morning Sinah and I woke up bright and early and headed into the city to catch a ferry to the island of Waiheke. We grabbed some coffee and almond croissants for breakfast from a Saturday morning Market in Britomart. The sun was shining as we boarded the ferry for our 30 minute ride to Waiheke. 

Auckland City

Rangitoto

Once we arrived on the island, we hopped on a bus which gave us a quick hour tour of part of the island. We got to see some beautiful new views and beaches. We drove up Delamore road and passed the Delamore Lodge and our bus driver joked around that if we needed to stay the night on the island that this hotel would be a good pick for about $800-900 a night! And he added that you do get a free breakfast with that price! It’s mostly used when famous people come and visit New Zealand. He also pointed out a set of houses, the one being the most expensive house on the island worth $33 million! The second HOUSE was the husband’s man cave... Nice eh! We made a view pit stops on the way. 

The View of the Harbour from Delamore Road

Little Palm Beach

Relaxing on Onetangi Beach

Fancy meeting you guys here! 

Then we had the rest of the day to explore on our own. I love markets so our first stop was at a local market to check out the food and gifts the island had to offer. While looking at an antique booth we sifted through a bowl of little collector spoons and low and behold I found a Canadian one and of course had to buy it! I will give it to Finn and Maggie for Christmas. Hopefully there won’t be too many fights over it. You know cause who wouldn’t want to use a Canada spoon! 

Waiheke is famous for it’s wine, there are around 30 vineyards on the island! So of course we had to make a stop and see what all the fuss was about. Stonyridge Vineyard was a stunning place as I’m sure they all are. Sinah and I decided to share a wine tasting so we could get a small taste of 4 different local wines from the vineyard. We spent the rest of the day exploring a few beaches and soaking in the sun! It was a perfect day and it was still far from being over. 

Every year Coca Cola presents Christmas in the Park. It is one of the biggest outdoor music festivals of the year. They set up a stage and a line of New Zealand singers, dancers, choirs and bands to perform in the Auckland Domain. This year there were around 200 000 people to show up! And it wouldn’t be an Auckland celebration without a grand display of fireworks to finish the night! 

Too finish the weekend Sinah had a 2 for 1 voucher for a sailing trip. We boarded the Ted Ashby, which I learned was an actual person who built boats back in the day. We also learned that boats were mainly used to build most of Auckland city because it was easier to use then the roads. Before we set sail they let off a canon sound that shook the entire dock. I have no idea why but it was pretty cool! We used the engines to get out into the open water and luckily conditions were good to open the sails. The crew got us to help them, it was great! It reminded me of the summers I spent with the Clement family sailing Lake Ontario. We got really lucky with the weather because just as I was driving Sinah home we got the biggest rain/thunderstorm I’ve seen in the 4 months of being here. 

Thanks Caption Sam for the picture!

Working hard to get those sails up

And we're off!

Now Sinah is off on her big adventure to Australia and I can’t wait to hear about it when she gets back in February before actually leaving to go back to Germany. 

ich liebe dich

The Crossing

There is nothing like looking, if you want to find something. 

You certainly usually find something, if you look,

 but it is not always quite the something you were after. 

J.R.R Tolkien 

This weekend I got the chance to travel to the most sinister location of Middle Earth... Mordor! The Tongariro Alpine Crossing was used to film a large portion of Frodo and Sam’s journey into the land of Sauron, including Mt Doom!  

Tongariro National Park is a 4-5 hour drive from Auckland so a hostel was necessary. We always try to find the best bargain especially when we are staying 2 nights. So we found a great hostel that gave us a package deal of 2 nights and the shuttle ride to the park on Saturday morning.! So I called to book a room and spoke to the hostel owner Ian who lived there with his family. After booking our room, he asked me if I was American or Canadian. So I proudly said Canadian and the first thing he asks me is if I had any Canadian maple syrup! And that if I did that I needed to bring it! I did bring some maple syrup here from the St. Jacob’s Market but it didn’t last to long in our house so I sadly said that I did not have any. I tried to find the tin it was in but we must have recycled it long ago. But I brought a bunch of little Canada pins my Oma found, so I promised to bring one for him! Hostels/backpackers have a ton of international guests, and he had another Canadian leave a can of Pure Maple Syrup that he displays in his office. He was very excited to show it off when we arrived at the hostel late Friday night. We spent about half an hour chatting before he finally gave us the key to our room. We usually raise a lot of questions when we go places. Because we all sound different with our various accents and so people start asking us where we are from and when we say 2-3 different countries they get confused about how we all know each other. So then we go into details about our jobs and such. Ian went a step further then most other people and gave us all nicknames haha! I was maple, Amanda is from Swedan so she was Abba, Verena and Sinah are from Germany so they were Pretzel and Schnitzel. When we left Ian told me that if we come back and make pancakes then he will open the can of maple syrup! It was the best experience I’ve had at a hostel yet!

At the hostel

Even before I got here I knew that the crossing was one thing that I HAD to do! The crossing is a total distance of 19.4km ranging in difficulty. I was told that it was 22 km so when we got to the sign and it said 19.4km I made the mistake of saying “oh it’s only 19.4km!” Did that ever come back and bite me in the bum! I had started running to try and help me prepare for this but nothing could really prepare me for what I was about to endure during this hike.

Here are 2 maps of the hike we trekked! Hopefully it will help you to picture what we went through. 

We started bright and early on Saturday with a 5am wake-up call to catch a 6:50am shuttle to Tongariro National Park. We got to see a beautiful pink and purple sunrise. 

In the shuttle on our way to the crossing!
So nervous! 

Mangatepopo Car Park to Soda Springs

We were dropped off at 7:15am at the Mangatepopo Car Park, had some breakfast and our last bathroom break for 3 hours. In high spirits began our trek at 7:30am. This first section was quite flat and there was a boarded path that made it very easy to follow and walk on. We followed the path beside a stream which used to be an old lava flow! 

Soda Springs to South Crater

This section is known as Devil’s Staircase... Yep... it was! It was steep, we went from 1400 meters above sea level to 1600 meters above sea level. Even in between the stairs it was extreme uphill and was far from a smooth path. 

There is me looking pretty defeated, taking a break on the side!

At the top with Jacquie, Vicki, Katie and Chubby Dino! 

This section consisted of layers of old and modern lava flow and other volcanic deposits. It nearly killed me and this wasn’t even the hardest part haha. See I can laugh now because it’s done but man during it I just wanted to punch something! We unfortunately had a cloudy day so the views were very foggy but this is where you were suppose to see Mt Ngauruhoe which was Mt Doom in TLOR. 

Volcanic activity 

Mt Doom..apparently…
We will take their word for it. 

South Crater to Red Crater

FLAT!!! We reached another straight section but this didn’t last long. It was also the creepiest part of the walk. It just looked like we were walking into nothing. I actually got scared at one point that we might be walking in the wrong direction. We made it out alive though and I kind of wish were going the wrong way because the next section was horrendous!!! 

Ok so picture the scene in The Hobbit, when the Dwarfs, Gandolf and Bilbo are caught in between the rock giants fighting. The rain and wind, the small path and exposed edge! Ya I was there! It was insane. Sinah told us afterwards that she was so glad she had put her host families numbers in her ICE contacts so that they would know who to call... The wind made the rain come at us sideways and it was freezing! I couldn’t feel me hands. The one side was exposed and dropped straight down and on the other side of the narrow path was a jagged rock edge that we used to help us climb. Then we got to a steep sand hill where you would take one step forward and slip 2 steps back. Extremely frustrating! But we made it! It was the happiest moment! We paused at the top to warm up and re-fuel. It was all downhill from here. 

At the top! We made it!
I think I was leaning to hold myself up haha. 

Red Crater to Blue Lake

This section was probably the most fun and most worth it! The hill was deep sand so when you stepped you slide about a foot each time. Before we got the hang of it most of us fell on our butts! We laughed lots! 

View from the bottom

View from the top

And at the end of this hill was a pair of stunning emerald lakes! The minerals from the surrounding rocks make the water turn this colour. 

Emerald Lakes
Like you didn't guess from the colour of the water...

Blue Lake to Ketetahi Hut

After emptying our shoes of sand and rocks we continued. And so started the downward zigzag trail. The sun had started to come out and so we got to see some nice scenery including the Blue Lake. This is a cold acidic lake that is scared and it is disrespectful to eat or drink around its shores. So we took pictures instead. We continued along and reached a flat surface which was once filled with molten lava, cooled and solidified to make a 1000m wide crater. Then we got to hike around and down Mt Pihanga and Lake Rotoaira. Since we were making good time we stopped and waited for the clouds to pass so we could snap a view pictures! 

Blue Lake

Ketetahi Hut to Car Park 

The end is near! That was pretty much the only thing that was getting me through. It was a pretty quiet walk from here on out. All focused on finishing. We reached the 3km to go sign and our path turned from mountain views to rainforest. It was a refreshing change of scenery. We made it to the car park at 2:30pm, making a grand total of 7 hours to complete The Crossing! 

We hiked around and down to the end of that lake. 

some more volcanic activity

Last stretch. 2 hours to go! 

Can check one more thing off my list. 

This is probably one of my greatest accomplishments!