See you later, New Zealand!

Not able to bring myself to say goodbye.  Such a beautiful place that I hope to get back someday and explore more of it.

We spent the last week and a half of our time there renting a campervan and traveling around, usually parking in a carpark at night so no internet.  Sorry to overload with pictures, but lots to catch up on!

For our last week, we traveled back up to the north island and around Northland--the area north of Auckland.  It's just filled with bays around the coast and rolling green hills inland, so the scenery pictures continue:

We hiked up and down two of these hills (we'd like to call them mountains) to reach Cape Reinga, the (almost) northernmost part of New Zealand:

Meanwhile, all these other lazy people just drove their cars to the carpark and walked a short pathway to it!

This one is for Aunt Jamie.  We stayed in a basic campground with this pasture between us and the beach.  The girls were tentative, Mike insisted it was no big deal, this bull stepped into our path--and we drove to the beach.

The north part of New Zealand used to be filled with these huge kauri trees, until they were used up for their lumber and gum.  We went to see the granddaddy of them all, "Tane Mahuta".  With the huge trunk and those wild branches at the top, this looked like an enchanted forest.

And of course the girls loved the cheesy picture of the four sisters in front of The Four Sisters--4 kauri trees that grew out of one root system.

We sought out beaches as we traveled around and there were lots to choose from.  On the west is Ninety Mile Beach (actually more like 90 kilometer beach) which you can drive on and is notorious for its sand dunes.  Michiganders, be proud--those dunes weren't nearly as impressive as the Lake Michigan ones.

On one beach, we saw people digging and Mike found out it was for clams.  He enlisted the girls' help and it was quite addictive.  The clams were everywhere and just under the surface so we just wanted to keep finding more.  The next day, Mike prepared and ate about 50 clams for lunch--no other clam eaters in this family!

Trina found a nice spot to read for a while

This was another hike we did while in Christchurch on the south island.  Unintentionally we hiked it right at sunset and the sky just burst into color.

Felt a little like India--we got stared at a lot!

At one of our other beaches, Mike discovered rock oysters.

Mike convinced Trina to try one.  Wish I had room to include pictures of the whole process, but here are some of the most telling:

Found this sweet beach as we were looking for a picnic spot one day.  We ended up staying most of the afternoon.

But we also had picnic lunches like this

CHRISTCHURCH--Christchurch really deserved its own post.  We somewhat remember hearing about the earthquake in 2011, but we didn't pay much attention at the time.  Well, it was devastating to this city.  185 lives were lost and there was huge destruction to many historic buildings and hundreds of homes.  It was shocking to drive through the city--cranes and construction and flat areas all over.  But the city is doing some really cool things.  An organization called Gapfiller has been installing temporary art in vacant areas and the site of a former mall now contains this really cool container mall:

We also visited Quake City, a museum that tells about the earthquake.  We were most impacted by a video of individuals telling their memories of that day.  And Trina had fun with the legos.

Christchurch Cathedral was one of the historic buildings severely damaged.  A Japanese architect constructed this new cathedral--nicknamed the Cardboard Cathedral--in only a few months as a somewhat temporary place of worship.  Those tubes are made out of cardboard.

This was a memorial to the dead entitled 185 Chairs.

Side Note:  Just as I was preparing this post, I saw news about the Nepal earthquake.  This is where we spent the first part of our trip, developed some friendships there, and spent time in the areas affected by the quake so it all feels a little more personal.  Please pray for Nepal.

And so our camping days in New Zealand came to an end, and we had lots of dirty laundry to show for it.  Quick stop at the laundromat before heading to the airport.

We're now in the Philippines and spent yesterday meeting Trina's Compassion friend and her family.  Hoping to post about that soon.