It’s a Small World

I hate January so much I will literally do anything to make it go away. This year we managed to chop 19 whole hours off of it by flying to New Zealand. Yes, I would eat wretched quinoa and chicken gloop, have swollen ankles, fight restless leg syndrome and endure airplane bathrooms just to shorten the worst month of the year. Well, that isn’t the real reason why we came to this lush, remote Island. The real reason is Zach and Camille and the adorable Kindi Lou. But as we were driving to their house it suddenly hit me that we had taken a giant leap through January and the shiny black van rang with my joy.

New Zealand. That bucket list island full of birds, mountains, waterfalls and beauty. That place of explorers, exhausted sailors and sheep. And now Heath and I are here for real!

We left an extremely Arctic South Dakota on Wednesday, just as the sun was setting in a glorious show. That was the last of the sun we saw till about 3 hours from Aukland when I watched, with all kinds of strange feelings in my soul, the sun make its appearance over the South Pacific. People ask why we travel, and I wish I could explain that feeling of total thrill to see somewhere you have never seen before. The feelings of excitement that course through the veins and almost make you tear up. I gazed at the vastness of the sea, where so many people have suffered, lost their lives, been stranded on rafts, faced hunger, thirst and mutiny, battled relentless storms and cried out to God through their exhaustion and fear. As a child, I was seriously bummed that the whole world had been charted and I couldn’t ever join an expedition party. As an adult, I doubt my mettle.

We too, faced hunger and deprivation on our way over. Actually no, but thanks to the Winter Storm of 2026, the caterers couldn’t get to DFW to restock the aircraft so the pickings were thin. We were settled into our seats and the pilots were making their endless announcements. After one stock announcement we noticed the mic didn’t get shut off and heard the captains visiting. “I’m not even sure how to do this, murmel, murmel, murmel”. Uh oh. That is really not something you want to overhear from the cockpit. More mumbles, and then a proper announcement starting with an apology that he “didn’t even know how to start but there would be minimal food and drink on the plane due to weather, etc etc.” OK, if that’s truly all he didn’t know how to do, it didn’t seem imperative to quick watch a YouTube video on How to Land a 787. We settled back and proceeded to get to know our most colorful seat mate. Never judge a person by appearance. I had spotted this lady in the airport already and nailed her as a total weirdo. Yes I know. Bad. Her hair was dyed in brilliant rainbow colors, not stripes, just clumps of color, her glasses, watchband, phone case, bags, all displayed the garish ROYGBIV. Crowning the whole production was a feathered headpiece cascading over her head in, yes, rainbow hues. Her name is Ruby and she is a retired lady who brought her knitting onto the flight. Her husband was at home and she was off to explore NZ. Her and hubby love to take road trips, but now she’s made a rule they need to be home on Sundays so she can attend church. You couldn’t have asked for a more amicable seat mate! Judge not.

Green. That’s what struck me first coming in over NZ. Almost off the charts green. Little fields surrounded by hedges and sheep! So many sheep. We landed in Aukland, walked a mile to our domestic connection, ate not so delicious pastries and then boarded our final flight to Christchurch, which is on the South Island. We had checked one of our carryons for this flight, and thus began a small saga of disappointment. I did what I never do. Waltzed up to the baggage carousel at Christchurch, grabbed my bag and walked off without checking the tag. Stupid. Totally stupid. I even ignored the voice in my head that said “check the tag, dumbo”. Well, it didn’t say dumbo then. Hours later, after Robert and Tracey had got ahold of us the word dumbo was added. “You should have checked the tag, dumbo”. To be continued.

Zach’s live in Methven, about an hour out of Christchurch towards the mountains. The drive there through the Canterbury countryside was pretty amazing. It’s flat and full of farms. Tractors share the road. Tall trimmed box hedges surrounded most of the fields, literally thousands of sheep grazed the lush grass, horses abounded and even something that looked like a cross between a llama and a giraffe, which we christened a “laugh”. We pulled off at the Rakaia Gorge and spent a little time stretching our legs, drinking in the beautiful scenery and listening to strange bird songs. The water was a strange almost brilliant milky aqua color.

We were a mile from Zach’s when we got an email saying we had the wrong bag in our possessions. We checked and yep! Not ours. Totally disgusting, but fixable. We headed back to Christchurch, returned the goods to the couple we stole from, chased down the correct bag back at the airport, listened to a little speech about properly checking luggage before hauling it off, and we were free to start our vacation again.

We visited well, ate well and slept well last night. The windows were flung wide with no screens and the glorious scent of summer came floating in. It cools off when the sun goes down and sweaters are welcome.