New Zealand Report some might call it a novel
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WARNING!! THIS IS A WEE BIT LONG AND HAS A LOT OF PICTURES BUT MY STORY HAD TO BE TOLD. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.
The New Zealand Experience
Getting there- After months of preparation my wife and I were finally on our way to New Zealand. We boarded a plane in Missoula at 1pm leaving the snowy skies of Missoula behind. Our first stop was Salt Lake City which as far as airports go is pretty nice. Our time there was short and we were off to Los Angeles with a stop at LAX airport to hook up with our international flight on New Zealand Air. LAX is now my least favorite airport in the entire world. It is dirty, unfriendly, and just an all around crap hole. This would become even more clear on our way home, but more about that later. We FIANALLY found which terminal we were flying out of and proceed BACK through the security check points and got back inside only to find ourselves lost once again. Things are not marked very well at LAX and it is very easy to walk right by your gate. We loaded on to New Zealand Air and it was time for 12 + hours of flying to Auckland NZ. The New Zealand Air experience was nothing but positive. The people were so friendly, there was plenty of room, and each individual seat had it’s very own TV screen with it’s own selection of movies with over a hundred titles to choose from. Oh, did I mention that there were free drinks on the plane as well? There were and they proudly served a variety of New Zealand wines. We both managed to get some descent sleep on the flight after our dinner service and the next morning a couple of hours before landing we enjoyed a nice breakfast before landing in Auckland. Our stay in Auckland was short and we were off to our final destination Christchurch.
Arriving in New Zealand- After making our way through customs (which by the way all the people were super friendly to us) we made our way out to the main terminal where we were greeted with a warm smile by Tony Davys owner of Overland Rentals. http://www.overland.co.nz Tony had been recommended to me by some friends and I have to say it was the best rental experience I have ever had in my life. He helped us to the SUV we were renting and drove us to his home. I was very happy for this personally as it gave us a chance to see how people drive in New Zealand before jumping behind the wheel and finding out the hard way. We arrived at Tony’s house and it was like we were going to the home of long time friends. We met his wife Helen, his twin new born boys Thomas and Lockland, and were quickly offered something warm to drink. Tony got us all set up with EVERYTHING we needed and got us pointed in the right direction and we were off to Lake Tekapo which would be our first stop in our journey.
Lake Tekapo- Our drive to Lake Tekapo was simply beautiful. It was interesting at times reminding myself to stay on the LEFT side of the road, but I managed to get us there in one piece with many reminders from my wife to stay left. We checked into our room on the Lake Tekapo Scenic Resort at about 1:45pm. Our room had beautiful views of the lake and seemed to be quite nice. After settling in I called my friend Simon who we were planning on fishing with on Sunday (it is currently Saturday by the way). This is kind of how the conversation went. Me- “Hey Simon it’s Joel.”
What a great read…
I laughed quite hard at the shrimp thing… thats how we do them too. Our wine is better, of course…
Thanks Boet…
Zach the similarities between Montana and New Zealand are plenty. I think the biggest difference is the numbers of fish. Montana has WAY more fish but the ones in New Zealand are big and almost always smart. I think in general their terrain is steeper than most of Montana but the amount of mountains is the same.
Funny thing amount the IA shirts. Simon and both woke up wearing them on Sunday morning. I took it to be a good omen!
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🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂I LOVED it Joel. That is a fantastic trip report. I read every line of the novel and can feel your excitement in the writing. Cheers and hats off. Great pictures – they tell the story well. How cool that you got to drink some Fat Trout finally. Awesome!
Great stuff – it’s an awesome country and well worth the trip, nice pucs as will… 😀
Simon is the man !
www.dsaphoto.com
A picture is thousand words that takes less than a second while a thousand words is a picture that takes a month.
Ok Cam, you asked for it! The picture of me with the rainbow is not a good picture but it is one of the ugliest rainbows I have ever seen! Still I love his fight and the fact I fooled him!
Who would have ever thought one would stumble across this in New Zealand? Being a HUGE simpsons and having a long time friend who did the special effects for the movie I had to get a shot of this!
One word comes to mind repeatedly, Joel: WOW! That was a fun read, and I read it all before viewing the pics.
Nice one Joel, thanks mate.
Its a small world too, Tony and Helen at Overland are who I always rent a vehicle from, great people.
That Chu guy’s not a bad sort of fella either, snappy dresser too…… ;D ::) 🙂
Morsie
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