Going Into the Unknown with KB
Easter Island was a very photogenic place with stunning sunsets and tall Moai. It made it easier to get such cool photos! I hope you enjoy these!
Literally, this flower was just asking to be photographed! There were flowers like this all around the island. I feel like the petals are perfectly going around, and the darker pink in the middle just creates a perfect picture.
Above are pictures of Patagonia, and Below are pictures of Easter Island.
I never thought that I could do so much in 36 hours, but somehow I did. Yesterday around ten thirty we made plans to drive two hours to Rotorua. Rotorua is a small town on the North Island of New Zealand, and it has many tourist attractions and cool things. In under an hour, we were in the car. The drive was scenic and filled with the book’s endurance and pauses to discuss what we wanted to do. I had been voting to go to Rotorua for a week because there is Zorbing, Louging, Zip lining, and many more cool activities. almost everyone did not want to go Zorbing, but 12 minutes out from our Airbnb (booked not long before), we passed the Zorbing place, and we immediately turned around to check it out.
You are probably wondering what is zorbing. Zorbing is an activity where you jump into I huge plastic ball that is suspended by ropes (secure ones) inside another plastic ball that is bigger. There is water in the ball, and the workers zip you inside, and the next thing you know, you are rolling down a hill, not knowing what is up or down and feeling like you’re in a washing machine. At the bottom, you slide out and run to hot tubs and wait for the next bus to take you back to the top to do it again. Honestly, Zorbing is one of the funnest, craziest things to do. The zorbing place has four tracks, three of which are currently in use. The short straight one is a “short” straight track that you roll down. they have two of these tracks, but they are exactly the same. We (Me, Mom, Emmy, Zeb, and Bardez) did this one first, and since there are two of the straight tracks right next to each other, we raced. The straight track was my least favorite out of the two that I did because it is super fast and disorienting because you are just rolling and rolling and rolling. It was still super fun, though, and it’s a great one to start on if you have never been zorbing. The Sidewinder track is my favorite because you roll straight, then you turn and roll up onto the banks. then right at the top, you stop, just for a second, and then down you go again! The two other tracks I did not do, but there is the MEGA which is a SUPER long straight steep hill. Then there is the BIG AIR which was under construction when I was there. It was being transformed into a new track because only one person could ride down due to the big bumps. I hope the next time I come to New Zealand, I will get to Zorb again and do the BIG AIR track. (They are going to rename the BIG AIR track once it is re-built, but the name is a super secret.)
After Zorbing and dropping our stuff off at our Airbnb, we went to our dinner and show at Te Puia. Te Puia is a Geothermal hot spot with some of New Zealand’s most active Geothermal Guysers. It also is home to the Maori Arts and Crafts Institute which is a school of Maori Arts and Crafts. We signed up for a dinner and a Maori show. The dinner was a buffet in a big dining room with shared tables and fantastic views of the springs and geysers. The food was absolutely amazing. It was by a long shot the best buffet ever. After dinner, everyone was moved to a bit open-air building with circular tables and a stage. I thought that the show was taking place there, but I was wrong. I was not totally sure what to expect, but when our host went up and explained what we would do that night, I became more excited. He had selected an older man from the audience to be our “chief,” and that man (named Bob, I think) was to accept the peace offering from the performers. We were told that the most important thing was to NOT smile, laugh, or make any noise during the first dance. The first dance was usually performed when two tribes met, and during it, the tribe who was visiting would place a peace offering in front of the chief of the opposite tribe. If the chief picked it up, he wanted no fighting and accepted the peace. If he ignored it, that meant fighting.
It started raining right before we headed out of the first building, so instead of the dance and other performances taking place on the wide lawn, we went into a second building that was hand-carved and very ornate. Inside, it was dimly lit, and the walls were covered in carvings. For about thirty minutes, we sat and watched the dancers. One man played a guitar while four other men danced, and five women danced. They all sang, and the sound was so beautiful and filled with joy. The women had strings, with white balls on the end, that they would swing through the air to make a beat to the music. Each dance they performed was full of life and extremely beautiful. When it was over, it was Extremely rainy. Like, pouring rain. We were given the option of going to see the geysers via train (not a normal train like a trailer but not a trailer. (They call them trains) Me and Bardez wanted to see the geysers, and I did not mind getting wet to walk to the train. It was dusk by now, and the geysers were illuminated by purple lights. It was also very cold, so even more steam was in the air. It was super beautiful and standing in by the hot rocks and letting the clouds of vapor and steam roll around me was just amazing. It was like being in fog or a cloud, but in fog, it is super thin and cold, and in a cloud, it is thick and cold. The funny thing is that on the airplane ride into Auckland, I was watching the clouds fly by, and I made a wish to go into a cloud someday. Not in an airplane inside a cloud or on the ground inside a cloud, but really, inside a cloud. We stayed by the geysers for what felt like 45 minutes, but I was not sure of the time.
When we got back to the car, Mom told us about a redwood tree walk. Yes, Redwoods in New Zealand. It was nearing 9:00 pm but I was still game for more adventures. It turned out to be a two-hour adventure of waiting in line. The tree walk is a magical experience, but it comes with a cost. You have to wait in line for a very long time. But the good news is, it’s totally worth it! you walk up a wooden ramp 20m into the air and travel from tree to tree along suspended wooden bridges. The trees are lit up by beautiful hand-crafted lights at each tree platform. At each tree there is a sign talking about the trees and the lights and the California redwoods. The night walk was literally a perfect thing to polish off the day. We did not get a ton of sleep because of early classes, but I definitely never did so many fun things in a day!
Sydney, Cape Town, and Seattle are three of my favorite cities. Cape Town for the People, Sydney for the City, and Seattle because we lived there for many years, and I love it there. Sydney has this really awesome bus system where its all ferry’s and since the city is built on a huge inlet with the north head and south head it makes this possible. Every few blocks there is a ferry station on the water and you can just hop on and off!
Sydney was a penal colony of England. After America shut its doors to prisoners being brought there, England was in a fix. They had several ships stuck in the in london river with tons of prisoners dying and going crazy. Londoners were very worried about a prison break. Most of these prisoners were petty thieves. For example if you stole a pair of stockings, you could get hanged! Instead, these people received a “pardon” and were sent to places to make new farmland and colonies.
A few years earlier an expedition went to Botany Bay (which is right next to Manly Bay where Sydney is located) and they saw beautiful lush land perfect for farms. Little did they know that Botany Bay goes into this lush state once every three years, the rest is spent in drought. The only thing they did not see was that beyond the cliffs of the North and South head stood amazing farmland.
Finally the government sent eleven ships, six of which were full of prisoners. The ships went from England to Rio to Cape Town to Sydney. When they went to Rio, guess what they spent most of their money on? RUM! Literally, a Boatload of Rum was bought. They didn’t even have Jack Sparrow to influence them! Now, these blokes weren’t very creative with naming things, probably due to the rum but when the first expedition came, they saw a very Botanical Bay and creatively named it botany bay.
Between Cape Town, South Africa, where they bought livestock and seeds, and Australia, all the ships got separated in a huge storm, and none of them knew if the other ships were okay. Surprisingly they all reached Botany bay within one day of each other. Sad for them, they saw dry land in Botany Bay, horrible for farming with no streams. They were so disgusted by what they found that they did not even let the prisoners off who had been stuck in the hold of the ship for eight months! Thankfully some of the men took a boat around the point and saw the beautiful manly bay! They actually saw the two heads, which were scraggly cliffs, but they went in and saw streams and perfect farmland. They also saw some natives who looked very Manly, so they named the bay Manly Bay. Again, they were not exactly creative with names. Soon all the ships were in the harbor, and they all lived happily ever after. No, they had a very hard time living because the soil was not too great, but now it is the most beautiful city ever!
If you’re interested in the history of the last two hundred years in Sydney there’s this thing called chatGPT….. Im serious Chat GPT can write you paragraphs of history that is all original!
We had the amazing experience of watching an Opera in the Sydney Opera House! The Opera House is located on a peninsula in the city. In sydney there is the inlet and at the main ferry hub there is all the skyscrapers and the rocks which will explain later. The maps below this paragraph are worth looking to give you a general idea of where everything is. Walking to the Opera House from the back was weird because in pictures you always see the iconic waves and the arch things. The inside made up for everything else on the outside. The ceilings were vaulted and they had really really cool lighting. I still don’t really understand how there is so many theaters in the Opera House or how the layout works. When we walked to our theatre there were all these cool walls which as I just found out are actually designed after the sails on a boat, not waves. The acoustics were surprisingly not what I thought they would be. The singing and music was amazing but there was no amplifying of the sound that I noticed. The Sydney Opera House was a very amazing experience and I would go back.
We did three tours in Sydney and all of them were the best. The first one was a tour of the city where we learned all the cities history. In almost all the places we go we do some sort of history education experience #homeschoolingwhiletravling. We do this to learn the history of the place but it also is part of school. Thats where this blog comes in to tell everybody about the amazing stories around the world. Back to the history tour. In most cities the history all sound the same, native people lived mostly peacefully then a European country comes in and invades claiming the land and starting a new country but also upprooting the lives of the people who actually had claim to the land. Sydneys history was actually slightly different. Or mabey it was told in a different way. I actually found it very interesting and we even got to visit some really old intact buildings from when the city was growing up.
Tour two was climbing the bridge that spans the harbor. In one of the photos I circled it to show you where it is. The amount of getting ready was alot. It was like we were in an assembly line to get ready to climb the bridge! When we started we were underneath the road then we got to the stairs/ladders. By stairs i mean the kind you have leading to a loft where its like a ladder but not straight up. As we were climbing past the road and all the cars my only though was don’t look down. I can tell you people are not joking when they say don’t look down. Its not a fake thing if you don’t look down its less scary for most ppl. I looked down and that did me absolutely no good. I could see all the way to the cars and beyond that to the water. When we got to the top arch it was just stairs to the summit of the arch. We were all insanely thirsty and I really wanted water. You might be wondering why i did not bring a water bottle but let me tell you, you couldn’t bring anything. You couldn’t even smuggle things like a phone or camera in your pockets. To even start putting on gear we had to put on jumpsuits as if we were parachuting. Then there was a metal detector and the other hand metal detectors after we put the jumpsuits on. They had good reason for all this seemingly ridiculous security. The didn’t want us bringing something and either dropping it or having it cause us to drop/fall. They took lots of pictures for us and I will show some at the end of the next two or three paragraphs. At the top i asked if anybody had ever proposed on the bridge because i was thinking how badly that would go. Surprisingly they said yes lots of people. I was like sure that makes perfect since amazing proposal then oh no! The ring has fallen to the sea or cars! The guy i asked explained that there was a special wristband to keep the ring from falling. I still don’t understand how that would work. One last thing. As we were gearing up i was being handed gear and a person clipped on this black thing to my harness and told me it was a parachute! I was instantly thinking parachute? Mom did not tell me we were jumping off! I asked if it was really a parachute and how it would work and I was told it was actually a raincoat. (This was true)
Five starts to Bridge Climb Sydney! Amazing unforgettable experience and great people.
Third experience was a kayak tour throughout the harbor. we went to three beaches and they were all beautiful. Beach One had a little waterfall on it and mom was daring us kids to go under it for fifteen seconds. All of my siblings were saying it was freezing so naturally i went to stand under it. It really was not freezing at all. It was not even as could as a beach in oregon! We did not spend alot of time at the first beach nor the second beach. Beach two was long and very shallow. It was surprisingly only accessible by water. There was no trail or road to get to it. On a big rock in the back was an inscription that was very hard to read. I don’t remember what it said but it looked very old. We learned that this beach had been used to store tanks during some war. I asked how that was physically possible because it was not accessible by land. Our guide said the tanks were moved by boat but i think thats a bad idea because if your boat gets sunk then you have to say goodbye to very expensive machinery. Paddling to the third beach was just beautiful. We could see the north and south heads and our guide told us a little story about a zoo on one of the heads. He said this zoo was partially an open zoo where the animals could roam around. You could also camp in the zoo but the more carnivorous animals were kept in enclosed in habitats. One day the lions (i may be wrong) escaped. The alarm was sounded early enough that everybody got out in time and the lions we put back in their places. Backstory to the climax there is a bird that can mimic almost any sound. It learned to mimic the sound of the alarms so it thought it was funny to make that sound and scare everyone! Everyone evacuated again but it became clear that nothing had escaped.
The third beach was a former coal mine hub, hospital, penitentiary and had military history. There was another rock here and it had dozens of inscriptions in it from exploration expeditions, prisoners and people. There was a coffee shop and a little museum but we were running low on time so we had to start the long kayak back to the boat club that we came out of. The adventure was super awesome and very beautiful, i would totally do it again and bring friends with me.
Sydney was literally so amazing! I know the adjectives I’m using are not very fancy but i have to say it was just amazing! I very much look forward to going back with my family and exploring new sights.
Okay, Australia has a reputation for having dangerous animals, but after Africa, I am now not super scared of Australia. Our first place to stay in Australia was Cairns in Queensland. They call Queensland The Sunshine State! So that makes Queensland the Florida of Australia. It was so stressful getting into Australia! You can’t have any food going through biosecurity, especially meat and vegetables, and fruit. I had a chicken sandwich in my bag (I thought it was fine) and some peppers (I honestly thought I had thrown them out). Thankfully, the very lovely Bio Security lady only gave me a warning and did not fine us. The long Bio Screening wait and the Chicken Sandwich caused us to miss the small bag drop window for our flight, which meant we could not get on it. FYI, that flight was canceled later, so it is good I had that chicken sandwich. The lady at the Qantas desk said she could re-book us on a Jet Star flight. She gave us Taxi coupons and told us where to go.
Jetstar was way better than Qantas. I know this because I have taken a Qantas flight, and it was okay. FYI, if you are on a flight and love funny movies, Ticket to Paradise is hilarious! On the flight, I got three complimentary snacks because we had to move flights, and I enjoyed my time as much as you can on an airplane. When we got to Carins, it was So Hot! I was wearing pants, and it felt like it was 100 degrees. It was probably only 93, but it was still so hot. We got the rental car out, and it was literally as hot as an oven. We went to our Airbnb inside a hotel. We love Airbnb’s because you have your own kitchen, and you can have a lot more room! The rest of the day we spent in the pool and eating dinner.
We did not do a lot inside cairns, we spent two of our days Scuba Diving, but I will tell you about that in a post probably called Great Barrier Reef Diving. What we did outside of cairns is more important. On Tuesday, after we had done all of our diving, we went to have breakfast with the koalas. We went to Hartleys Crocodile Adventure and ate breakfast. It was more like koalas as a dessert for breakfast. Not to be eaten but to pet and look at. The Koala was adorable, and its fur was velvety. Koalas, in my opinion, would be an okay pet, but they sleep most of the day and eat so much! They sleep for up to 20 hours a day and eat 500 grams of eucalyptus daily! Sadly for the koalas, they were not my favorite thing. After the Koalas, we went on a Crocodile cruise. The tour guide got the crocodiles to jump out of the water to get meat chunks off a stick. It really was amazing to see just how stealthy the crocs can be, I saw one surface and swim word the boat, but it went under and appeared at the front of the boat, and it surprised the guide. The crocodile sanctuary (I don’t know if it was an actual sanctuary, but they kept the crocodiles and fed them and took care of them) had once held the world’s second oldest crocodile! You might have noticed from my writing that crocodiles were not my favorite.
The Snakes were my favorite. While I wouldn’t say I like snakes that are threatening me, I Love Snakes that I can hold or touch and look at. I got to hold a Black-Headed Python! It felt so muscly and thick, but the skin felt so thin. I could really feel its muscles moving, and it was really cool to feel it wrap around my hand. The Black-Headed Python can grow up to 6.6ft and is found in the upper coastal part of Australia. It is one of the only types of Snake that can eat other venomous snakes! The Python is not venomous. It is a constrictor which means it squeezes its prey to death. We had to go to the snake show, so I had to leave the Python. At the snake show, a man held a very short, fat python. It was a short-tailed python because it had a short tail. Next, he brought out an Inland Taipan. The deadliest Snake in the world. Deadly means the most fatal venom, not that it has killed the most humans. The handler was holding it; if it wanted to, it could have bit him and me and gotten away. Thankfully this one was specially bred to be handled and okay with the show. It was not a trained snake, but that would be cool to see. People rarely see an Inland Taipan because they like to hide. They mainly eat rodents and small prey.
After the Crocodiles we went to Babina Boulders, an area with a river and boulders. We drove for a while, and when we got there, I seriously doubted this would be any fun. It was fun; I sat in the freezing water, reading my Agatha Christie. The boys jumped off a massive tree into the river, and I was the only one not to get fully in the water. My book was exciting, and spoiler alert, somebody dies. Many people do, and I think what makes Agatha Christie so interesting to read is her colossal plot twists. The entire day was fun but quite exhausting.
Hello everybody, a quick update on the goings on of NZ. What we’ve been doing, how amazing New Zealand is and mabey a weather update. 🙂
Starting with two and a half long wait in Bio Screening in the airport. We get outside and enjoy the sun ☀️. Get to the air-bnb and go electric scootering through the area. Hmm, there seemes to be alot of wind and clouds, Whatever 🙂 We get back and as soon as we get into the house it starts raining and storming.
Rain, Wind, School, More Rain, Violin, Rain i think you get the picture. 🙂 We went to a trampoline park and the Rain was so bad that the roof was leaking onto the trampolines! We were driving to dinner in at least four inches of water. Driving home from dinner was a whole new world! It was Rainy! What a surprise, it was no joke though, there was about two feet of water on the ground. Some small cars had water covering the fenders and all of the tires! We got home safely and I went to bed with rain pounding the window 🙂
I cant believe it, Its still Raining! Its like were in The Pacific NorthWest! For those who dont know the Pacific Northwest consists of the states Washington and Oregon in America. It did actually get sunny for like an hour in the morning and we were feeling good about the outdoor Elton John concert at 7:30pm that night. Jokes on us, as soon as we get in the car to go hiking at a waterfall, it started raining! Driving up in the mountains close to the coast was fun! It was super rainy and we saw signs of mudslides all the way! At one point we drove past a section of the road where the hill had slipped and the road cracked! While driving we came across three “road is closed” signs.
We finally got to the waterfall area and it was a five minute walk to the actual waterfall. It was actually pretty cool! I finally had a chance to take a long exposure photo! I have to add that it was Not raining while we were walking to the waterfall but on our way back it was raining. There was a Black sands beach right by us so we went to it. When we got there, it was raining. We got out and everyone else had taken their shoes off but I kept mine on. I ran from the entrance to the coast guard building while the sky was dumping buckets. I was as wet as you can get or so I thought. I had to walk under all the water pouring off the roof at the coast guard building to get to the beach! I was thoroughly soaked and I was so Happy!
Running in the rain is one of the awesomest things, unless it is cold. I had to take my shoes off to cross the river that flows to the ocean and I left them on the bank. We played on the beach for a while but the water was freezing and none of us had swimsuits.
After the first beach we drove to a different beach and got Real Fruit Ice Cream. Most things advertise their products as real but in NZ Real Fruit Ice Cream is out of this world! It is soft and creamy and has real fruit in it! I got the passion fruit flavor and it was delicious. We stood on the beach until it started getting cloudy so we went back to the car and drove home.
