The Marathon is on the 21st...and here's what you just ate

Our next weekend adventure takes us to Whangerai (pronounced Fawn-ger-ay) where we had once again secured ourselves a couch to crash on through couch surfers. Said couch surfer host told us that the one thing we had to do in the area was go and see the Whangerai heads. How could we refuse?

After a couple hours drive we begin our journey out to the coast and the Whangerai Heads. We hiked up on a small reserve, found a lone picnic table and had ourselves a picnic of, what else, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches!! After lunch we made our way to a nearby beach to watch some surfers (I exaggerate, there was only one surfer). Among the other things to entertain us on the beach were a large group of teens clad in DHL rash guards training to be surf lifeguards, and an equestrian training and riding her horse.

We then find our way back into town to find our accomodations and on the way get a text from our host, Matt, saying that we had all been invited to a "dinner party". Now as many of you are probably thinking, dinner party brings forth images of posh little get togethers in only the finest of attire. We are all wearing shorts and T-shirts from hiking earlier and so share in quite the laugh as we contemplate how this dinner party will go over.

Turns out the New Zealand dinner party is quite the casual event and we are quite properly dressed for the occasion. When we get to the house, flatmates Matt and Stu greet us and we all sit down over a beer to wait until we leave for dinner. Amidst this friendly sit down, we find out what we will be eating: A wild pig that the host had shot the day before.

We made it to said host's house ("John Boy") and found out that the beer supply is dwindling and another dessert is needed to complete this night. So Stu and the three of us set off to the nearest grocery store, Woolworth's. Jackie and Stu get in line to pay for the Heinieken while Anna and I wait behind them to pay for the apple crumble we found. Jackie gets ID'd at this point by the supervisor at the counter, who as she is pulling out her ID, turns to Anna and I and says, "I'm going to need to see all three of the ID's. No exceptions". Well turns out I haven't brought my passport with me and we have to leave bearing only an apple crumble. Apparently we look like under 18 year olds, who came in to the grocery store with the old man we convinced to buy us beer and observe and take part in the whole act...right. We end up giving the money to Matt who goes back and gets the beer for us :).

Later we feast on delicous wild pig, and during dinner conversation, Anna and Jackie agree to do the Kirikiri half marathon on November 21st. And this is where our title inspiration comes from because John Boy emerges from his room and hands the girls a brochure for the marathon and says, "Here's the info for the marathon on the 21st, oh and here's what you just ate for dinner" as he hands us this picture:




Our way home the next day is spent exploring local bays and beaches and then visiting the "Honey centre" which we had skipped on the way because we didn't want to experience the bitter dissapointment that had come hand in hand with Candyland once again. Let me tell you, the honey centre was no candyland. We had some of the best ice cream ever...boysenberry honey, macadamia nut honey, banana honey are only a few of the flavors. Way better than fudge.

Love,
Alissa, Anna and Jackie

Rawr Rawr Ka-Kaw

Less than ideal spring (that's right spring as in almost summer) weather had us looking for adventures that wouldn't leave us standing outside in the pouring rain. SO we chose to head south to the Waikato region to seek shelter in the region's network of limestone caves. It was here that we were to get one of our first real adventure-tourism as well as rural kiwi experiences...

The highlight of the 2 1/2 or so hour drive down was definitely the mini-detour to Candyland: "The Largest Working Candy Factory in New Zealand." And no, it wasn't as cool as it sounds and yes the candy was FAR from amazing. The disappointed hushed silence after we each bit into our first piece of fudge I'm pretty sure said it all.We couchsurfed at the home of Marcus and Alice Gower who also have a 18 month daughter named Grace and a dog named Ms. Tickles. Or Mrs. Tickles as they had started calling her since she was pregnant and as they jokingly remarked, didn't want their dog to have illegitimate puppies. They were all great hosts and even have a lamb feast waiting for us on our arrival. The only condition for the use of their couches was that we cooked them a dinner one night while we were there. We are happy to report that we impressed them with our Mexican food cooking skills, which I'm pretty sure helped us to get an invite back. And for all of you at home scoffing at the thought of us cooking food good enough to merit an invite back have obviously not tasted my enchiladas, Jackie's guacamole, and Alissa's gourmet nachos. So take that. (As an aside, Alissa shredded the chicken with her bare hands. That's right ladies and gentlement, Alissa Hays had her hands allll over a chicken - woooo.)

The View from the Gower's Backyard

As an additional aside, couchsurfing.org is a social networking site that connects travellers with hosts to put them on their couches, spare beds, fold outs, futons, etc. Don't worry parentals, you have to fill out a lot of information about yourself and you can can choose the people you stay with based on their profiles. The website is www.couchsurfing.org and you can even search our profile if you want. Its a sweet site and a really cool idea; bringing the world together, one couch at a time...

But back to the excitement....caving was awesome. But that may be an understatement. It took a lot of cost/benefit, price analysis of what we would be willing to spend on caving (cause, come on, there are two econ majors in this bunch) but we ultimately settled on the 7 hour Lost World Ultimate caving adventure (their title, not ours). The trip consists of a 100m abseil (rappel) down into the cave and then taking the wet way out following an underground river upstream.

Just hanging out

Our group...

Cave Monster

Our group was a good one featuring two Kiwi guides, 3 Spanish commercial pilots (who didn't realize that we spoke Spanish until after we accidently laughed outloud to one of their jokes meant only for them...we have since been invited to stay at their place in Madrid w00000), us (straight ballers, obviously), and two women who are professional poker players from LA (no don't check your initial sterotypes, they were a bit oblivious, blonde, - although that is in no way necessarily connected to the previous adjective, and "thought they were going to die" on several occaisions in the cave, despite being warned about needing a certain fitness level to complete the trip. Someone clearly did not do their research...)

Writing about all the details of the trip probably won't do this experience any justice but seeing the sunlit mist of the cave mouth while suspended in the air, watching the sunlight disappear behine us, climbing up underground waterfalls, jumping through holes into the river below, eating a chocolate fish in the middle of the cave, and laying back and watching the lights of glowworms appear suspended about us like stars in the night sky are experiences that I wil definitely never forget. It was such a fun yet challenging yet rewarding and unique experience on that we are so lucky and thankful to have experienced.

We concluded the long weekend with a hike up another volcano that looked out over the Waikato river vally and a drive up the Western coast of New Zealand. It was a very pretty drive overlooking some beautiful coastline and pretty waterfalls. Not so many paved roads though. Apprantly there aren't too many of those in the boonies of New Zealand (which pretty much means anywhere about 20 min outside of a town.)Oh and the Rawr Rawr Ka-Kaw in the title was our call that we incessantly called out to each ther and thought it was hilarious, especially with the echo from the cave. We stole it from the movie Up!, its ok, no one in our group had seen it either....

Your favorite spluenkers. Out.
Anna, Alissa, and Jackie

International Fashions with Jackie, Anna, and Alissa

It's your favorite girls, with your favorite segment.... INTERNATIONAL FASHIONS!

this week, we turn to the working world and examine some of NZ's finest work attire...

One of the first days we were here, driving around the city with Mother Debbie, we were introduced to this fashion for the first time. We have seen, and noted the trend on multiple other occasions.

A few days ago, we were fortunate enough to have the opportunity to get FRONT ROW SEATS to view this new-to-us trend. No, we were not sitting off the runway during New Zealand Fashion week..... we were at home. Looking out our front window. LUCKY.....

Here is what we took in with our own eyes. Safety- conscious yet fashion forward construction workers. This look says (hands on hips) "Hey, I want to be safe on the job, and also keep other people safe too!" but also says "I'm READY for the summer, and have been working out. Check out these calves." (We're thinking someone must have sent a mass text about Flannel day at work, too.)

So, in all of its glory... we present to you.... the NZ Construction worker in shorts.

NEXT TIME ON INTERNATIONAL FASHIONS: Find out what Madonna, Side Ponies, and Pleather Leggings all have in common....

and the WINNER is....

Upon arriving home from our trip to Rotorua imagine our excitement at seeing a package on our doorstep. Our very first piece of mail from home. Surely this must originate from someone who really  loves us. 

The winner of the "Mother who loves her daughter the most" award goes to none other than Robin Richards for her cleverly packaged and delicious cookies and her seasonally appropriate and festive gifts. Thank you so much Robin! The cookies are delicious and the masks are adorable. 

Cristina and Ev, you might want to step it up.  Apparently, "work" and being "busy at home" is no longer and excuse to neglect your wayward daughters.

Love,

Robin's biggest fans

Science Rocks! And Rotorua Smells

The plan was to get out of town for a few days before we had to get back to work. We decided we needed some sort of adventure...we had looked into CouchSurfing in Rotorua (about 3 hour drive south from here), and had a list of things to do in the city. Getting up and going clearly did not happen on Sunday. Nor did we get a response from anyone to sleep on their couches. Good start.  sooo..... as road trips usually don't get going until much later than planned, we left on Monday instead.

We filled up with petrol and headed south. We planned the drive so we could stop through Matamata, otherwise known as Hobbiton, where Lord of the Rings was filmed. Unfortunately (yeah right.... thank GOD.... because I have NO interest in Lord of the Rings, and neither do the other girls really... it just seemed like something we had to do being in NZ),  you have to pay $25 a person to ride the Hobbiton bus out to the already torn down filming set. So we crushed that dream and got back into the car and continued on our way to Rotorua.

Hobbit-country.  A self guided tour that we gave ourselves - fo free.

We dropped our things off at the hostel we stayed at and headed out to check out "New Zealand's largest mud pools." yep. its as exciting as it sounds. A natural area the size of a pool filled with mud (and since it was POURING down rain, there was a thankfully a LOT of mud) that is so hot from thermal heating. we took a LOT of pictures there... let me tell you. 

New Zealand's Largest Mud Pool.  In all its glory.

I would like to add a little here to Jackie's wonderful color commentary about what I was going through my head while gazing out at the beautiful grey muck that was the mud pools.  Now when the mud pools bubble and then explode for lack of a better word, they make the most awful fart noise to accompany the most awful fart stench the fills the area.  Earth science at its most glamorous.  So while taking in yet another example of the wonders that are this planet I could not help but laugh to myself (literally, I laughed, outloud, to myself) about how once upon a time a Wheatley family vacation would transpire at such a locale.  I decided on lots of fart jokes, lots of ooohs and ahhhs at said fart sounds, lots of complaining about fart smells, and it would probably deteriorate from there.  In conclusion - thinking of you family!  -ADW

Ooooh Mud Explosions!!!

Geothermally heated mud STINKS!

Next off to the hot pools. They are public pools that they fill then empty on a daily basis with natural mineral water that is heated naturally by the earth. On a walk after our dip in the pools, Anna (in the most Gary Wheatley sort of way), notably stated, "this (water) is SO COOL....because... it's heated by the earth." True... it is cool. its practically like having free hot tubs EVERYWHERE. and everyone knows how I love free things.

Who knew hot springs could be so exciting?

Tuesday was our tramping day. no, not that kind of tramping. Thats what they call hiking here. We went out into a Redwood forest and walked around a lake, had lunch, then drove to a place we were told we could see a few waterfalls. It was BEAUTIFUL, but this was no Snoqualmie falls. We did get to see whitewater rafters coming down the river (and the waterfall), and decided that would be something we should definitely look into. 

We headed back into the city and walked around the Sulphur Pools, found a few cool native Maori art places, and grabbed dinner and a few mugs of "Swine Lager" at the Pig&Whistle restaurant. Unlike how I described most of the Rotorua adventure, it was really fun. For the first time, we packed bags, got out of town for the weekend, tested out STEWIE's ability to do long distance.... we are true travelers....

and true workers. Alissa got a job at a pool (St. Albert) teaching swim lessons, guarding, and has been offered every free hour they have for the next few months.! Our next task is looking into some semi-permanent housing for when we leave the house we're in until around Christmas time! 

that's that. can someone post a comment on this blog... because we know a lot of people read it, but nobody wants to write on it. 

Love,

Jackie, Anna, and Alissa