beaches - Curious Karibella

2023-01-302023-02-10

New Zealand Update

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. 🙂

Sunny, Hmm, There’sWind

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 Rain go Away Come Again Another Day (or never)

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 🙂

Rain is Going To be The Last Thing I see

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.

Karekare Waterfall and Beach

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.

2022-09-202022-09-22

South African Penguins

The Scenery and the Drive

The scenery was amazing! The drive to the penguins was along the coast and through towns. We learned about the history of each town. At one point there was a tunnel that had one side open. I really enjoyed the drive and one thing I learned was, there was 14 mountains that were called the 11 apostles. If you are into awsome landscape photos I would highly recommend this drive!

Puppy the Seal

Puppy, in my opinion, is a funny name for a seal. It makes me think of a cute fat animal, wich is what Puppy is. When we saw him he was being hand fed by a man and he seemed to know what to do. We were told that he came up on the docks to get snacks and that he was very friendly. The friendly part might not be true. He was more exited about the food then anything. I think he did not mind us touching him and maybe he liked it but he was super exited about the food. While we were with Puppy I bought a really cute elephant satchel! We then moved on so we could see the penguins.

The Penguins

The penguins were awesome! We had to climb over some rocks witch was super fun. Then we had to wade through freezing water to get to the penguins. When I got to the place where the penguins were I saw what looked like a dead shark! I asked our guide and he confirmed it was a dead shark; and just to clarify, the shark was a baby so only a foot and a half long. The penguins were sitting on a rock and they would waddle into the water. I was surprised at how fast they could move under water. They were little bullets! We went to a second place with penguins but it had lots of people in it and it was less special.

2022-09-142022-09-16

Staying at the Zanzibar Pearl Hotel

Staying at the Zanzibar Pearl was super fun! They greeted us with fresh juice and hand towels to clean our hands when we got there. The Hotel was very nice, and the rooms were beautiful. On each bed, there were flowers and two straw hats. We did not get to take the straw hats home, but we did get to use them on the beach. The beach was super beautiful, and the sand was super fine and soft. There was a lot of seaweed on the beach from the tide, and there was also some garbage, but it did not bother us. It seemed like low tide lasted all day, and high tide only came around 4:00 pm. High tide was the only time we could play in the waves because at low tide, there are not even waves, and the water was down to the reef. When it is high tide, the waves are really fun to play in, and it is entertaining to get washed up on the beach.

Our Days of Play in the Indian Ocean

The communication between guests and staff at the hotel was challenging. One of the ladies at the restaurant named Gift was nice and friendly. One funny problem was that most mornings we asked for a plate of mangos and pineapple and they would say that they did not have those things. I would say, “that’s funny because I had those yesterday” then they would bring them.

Scuba Diving at Mnemba Island

On one of the days, we went Scuba diving at Mnemba Island. You do not actually go onto the island but rather above the reef that surrounds it. The water was pretty cold for me. I am always nervous about dives but I think once I get under the surface I feel better on the reef. There was a lot of fantastic fish and colorful ones too. The two exciting things that we saw were an eel and a turtle! The turtle was super giant and majestic looking its eyes were brown and big and it was super cute. We did two dives and the second one was the better one. I had a terrible start because my fins were rubbing my toes then I had to go to the surface to fix my goggles then when we went back down I was much more confident and happy.

Boarding the board to Mnemba Island

Hotel Review of the Zanzibar Pearl Boutique Hotel

The Zanzibar Pearl was an excellent hotel and provided a relatively good experience the people were friendly, and the food was good, and the venue was beautiful. One thing I would say is if you can not sleep on a hard matters, the mattress at this hotel are incredibly hard. The hotel has things it could work on and things to improve on, but I would still recommend it with five stars.