{"id":5348,"date":"2019-02-13T06:00:25","date_gmt":"2019-02-13T14:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.atumvirt.com\/?p=5348"},"modified":"2019-02-13T06:00:25","modified_gmt":"2019-02-13T14:00:25","slug":"there-and-back-again-a-familys-tale-part-8-onward-to-the-north-island","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/avtempwp.azurewebsites.net\/2019\/02\/there-and-back-again-a-familys-tale-part-8-onward-to-the-north-island\/","title":{"rendered":"There And Back Again: A Family’s Tale: Part 8 \u2013 Onward to the North Island"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Other parts to this series\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Part 1<\/a><\/td>Part 2<\/a><\/td>Part 3<\/a><\/td><\/tr>
Part 4<\/a><\/td>Part 5<\/a><\/td>Part 6<\/a><\/td><\/tr>
Part 7<\/a><\/td>Part 8<\/a><\/td>Part 9<\/a><\/td><\/tr>
Part 10<\/a><\/td><\/td><\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The final day in Queenstown was filled with snow, and left\nme with a bit of anxiety not knowing whether or not my flight to Auckland would\nbe cancelled.  I bussed into town to hang\nout for a bit, and on the way back to Frankton once again encountered my Australian\nfriends.  It was quite a delight to see\nthem marvel at snow, which they had never seen in in their lives.  Towards the later part of the day, the snow\nlet up, and I was able to depart Queenstown without issue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On arriving in Auckland, my AirBNB hosts met me at the airport\nand brought me to their apartment in Eden Terrace.  The location was nice and central. I\noriginally planned only two days in Auckland because I knew in my heart that a\ncity of that size wouldn\u2019t offer the smaller feel that we were looking\nfor.  With that said, I wasn\u2019t terribly\ndisappointed when it was raining the two days I was there, as I feel I didn\u2019t\nmiss too much.  I had hoped to get to the\nAuckland War Museum, but ultimately I felt a bit anxious to get out of town, so\ninstead I took time to work out logistics for what I needed to do for visa\u2019s\nfor the family.  To that end, I called\ninto a clinic and scheduled an immigration medical exam.  Luckily, I was able to get in the same day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The following day I boarded the InterCity bus onward to\nHamilton \u2013 it isn\u2019t a terribly long bus ride, and though people had said\nHamilton didn\u2019t have a lot to offer, I felt it was necessary to stop by as I had\nseen a few job postings there that were promising at the time.  I had booked only a single night, so I\ndropped by the Post Office to do my finger printing for the FBI background\ncheck and get that mailed off to the USA, then spent the afternoon at Good George\nBrewing before heading over to the AirBNB. \nDespite the relative closeness of Hobbiton, I ended up skipping it,\nopting to save the experience for the family when they were with me.  The next day, it was back on the bus for the\nseveral-hour ride to New Plymouth. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The weather cleared up a bit and made for a relaxing,\nbeautiful drive to Taranaki.  Mount\nTaranaki was visible in the distance as we meandered down the coast until arriving\nin New Plymouth.  At the bus stop I was\nmet by a friend, who, unbeknownst to me, had taken a late lunch in order to\nmeet me and share lunch.  It was a\npleasant and welcomed surprise.  After\ngetting dropped at my AirBNB, he headed back to work while I settled in then\nexplored the town a bit on foot.  I\nrather enjoyed the ocean walkway in New Plymouth as it offered lovely views and\nan enjoyable footpath.  After dinner\ndowntown, I turned In to my AirBNB, where I stayed for a couple of days.  The spring weather followed, however, and the\nrain came in.  I did take my rain gear\nand made sure I explored a bit on foot, walking about 30km total over my few\ndays in town.  My friend also gave me local\ntour of the \u201chighlights\u201d via car, and we shared a meal at a local restaurant.  Before leaving town, my final night we also\nshared a meal together with his family, for which I was grateful.  It was nice to spend time with people as a bit\nof loneliness was setting in after several days of \u201csolo\u201d travel since my stays\nhad been fairly short, and I really hadn\u2019t talked with people since my time in\nQueenstown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After New Plymouth, it was on Palmerston North.  I didn\u2019t really research much about Palmerston\nNorth, but after booking it due to having seen a job posting, I was committed\nto staying.  I had a full day and two\nnights in \u201cPalmy\u201d \u2013 which were quite uneventful.  The traveling was catching up with me, and I was\nreally ready to head home.  However, with\nThanksgiving flights still making returning basically impossible, a flight\nchange wasn\u2019t going to happen.  Instead,\nI sucked it up and moved on to Napier, where I had four days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Napier was a lovely town that was rebuilt entirely in Art\nDeco style after the earthquake in the 1930\u2019s. \nThe museum in Napier was quite humbling and it is definitely worth a\nstop.  During my stay there, I spent\nquite a bit of time chatting with folks at \u201cThe Rose Irish Pub\u201d, a great\nestablishment.  The food, drinks, and\ncompany there were all great.  During my\nstay I was able to rent a bike where I went for a 25KM round trip ride \u2013 I could\nhave continued, but, about 12KM in I realized that I had forgotten sunscreen, I\nwas exposed in the open and bad times were coming my way\u2026 a suspicion that was\nlater confirmed when I saw my arms the next day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During my stay in Napier, the official job offer with employment\ncontract came through, so it gave me a lot to think about and to review.  This set of documents was confirmation that\nmy life, as well as the life of my whole family, could be changing direction\nfor the rest of our lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My AirBNB host was incredibly gracious to offer a tour of\nthe greater Hawkes Bay area, but ended up having to go into work (she was a\nnurse).   However, she did arrange with a\nfriend to take me on the tour as well \u2013 How kind!  Nick picked me up, we drove into town and\npicked up another gentleman (who Nick also did not know \u2013 Kiwi kindness on full\ndisplay!) and we toured around Hawkes Bay, seeing a variety of sights, going to\na winery and doing wine tasting, before heading back to town where I plopped\ndown at The Rose one last time.  Several\nhours and Guinness later, it was back to the AirBNB where I spent the evening\nhaving a lovely conversation with my host. \nThe next morning, it was back on the bus, and off to Wellington, via\nPalmerston North, for the final stay in Petone (across the harbor).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I had two more full days in Wellington and three nights,\nwhich I used to reconnect with the friends I had met the previous month.  I also took the opportunity to enjoy a walk\nin the Percy Reserve and check out a waterfall. \nDuring the walk, I met up with a walking group consisting of\nseniors.  When we reached a lookout, one\nof their group was staying behind until they returned for him, so I opted to\nsit and chat with him.  Our conversation\nwas quite varied, ranging from middle eastern history, royal bloodlines, geopolitics,\nelectrical engineering and the Christchurch earthquakes\u2026I was amazed at the depth\nof knowledge the man held and how articulate he was.  When I reach that age, I would hope to be not\nonly as active, but worldly as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My final night in Wellington I moved on to a new AirBNB near\nthe airport, had a brief chat with my host (who had been a primary school\nteacher until a few weeks before my booking) about education, then headed over\nto meet another friend I had met during my first go-round in Wellington for\nsome fish and chips.  We sat and chatted\nfor hours before departing where she wished me well and hoped that I would be \u201chome\u201d\nsoon, a bit of a slip up but a joyous one at that \u2013 referring to New Zealand as\nhome.  We went our separate ways, I\nturned in, set my alarm, and felt a bit of sadness at the thought of leaving\nthis country that I had come to love.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The final day in Queenstown was filled with snow, and left me with a bit of anxiety not knowing whether or not my flight to Auckland would be cancelled.  I bussed into town to hang out for a bit, and on the way back to Frankton once again encountered my Australian friends.  It was quite […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[24],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/avtempwp.azurewebsites.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5348"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/avtempwp.azurewebsites.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/avtempwp.azurewebsites.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/avtempwp.azurewebsites.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/avtempwp.azurewebsites.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5348"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/avtempwp.azurewebsites.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5348\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/avtempwp.azurewebsites.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/avtempwp.azurewebsites.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/avtempwp.azurewebsites.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}