Boat Day!
Our first day in NZ was going to be spent on a boat. Just a little known fact about me – I suffer (dramatically) from motion sickness. The only time I don’t feel sick is when I am standing still, on my own two feet, on terra firma. It has always been that way. I have puked pretty much all over the world, for very little reason, since I was young. Cars, planes, buses, trains, boats you name it – I get sick as soon as they move. Anyway – moving on.
We were headed out to a volcano. NZ considers this a young volcano being only 600 years old. It is called Rangitoto Island. We are taking the boat to get there. We fuelled up on our way out. Fuelling up meant we got to see the super yachts. The super yachts are insane, multi-million dollar luxurious boats. And they are big. The following picture is a small one.
The water was very choppy and it was windy as well. Remember that random motion sickness thing I mentioned in the first paragraph…. I was so sick. I mean green but I made it to the island without puking by some miracle. I was nearly crawling on hands and knees onshore to regain some balance. As the rest of the gang set up lunch, I lurched to the beach and started praying to the vomit gods to hold it in. I love the water and boats. I never say no when people offer to take me out on a boat. You’d think I’d have learnt by now. Alas… I am not the brightest and suffer from FOMO. Hence my puke fests all over the world. I’m a fun idiot.
After some lunch and a dip in the ocean, we went for a little hike. It wasn’t a super long hike but we still managed to get 4.76 kms of walking done. Since it was on a volcano, the heat that came off the very black lava rock definitely made us thirsty. Very, very, thirsty.
M and I decided to stay on land to rehydrate (and because I didn’t want to lose my lunch) while the Kiwi and Axel took the kids out to do some tubing – also known as wipeout.
Once the bottle was done, it was time to get back on the boat and catch dinner. Or at least that was the plan. We all got excited about the thought of eating ceviche for dinner that night. Red Snapper ceviche.
So…. 20+ fish caught and not one of them big enough to keep. All of them snapper too. But Tenacious C managed to catch 2 on one hook. That was exciting! But it wasn’t going to feed us and it was getting late. So time to get back.
We definitely left a little later than we should have. Coming back in the dark is not the preferred approach for boaters. The water was a bit calmer which of course gave me time to think about possible collisions and lack of visibility. Not sure which is worse – motion sickness or anxiety. I have the luxury of suffering from both. But – the boys handled the ride back like pros. The journey back did allow for a beautiful view of the city all light up. Not a bad view of Auckland. And a fantastic first day in NZ. Off to Rotorua next!
