Dear Whatcom,
I am finally here. I arrived here (Gisborne, New Zealand) after almost a 24 hour journey. I endured a grueling 14- hour flight which took me from Vancouver, B.C. to Auckland, New Zealand, and then I hopped a short, hour-long flight from Auckland to Gisborne. It was quite a shock to go from an airplane that seated 350+ people to one that only seated 10 people and had PROPELLERS! So scary! But I made it and it was excellent.
So why am I here? Well, the reason I traveled halfway across the world is to spend three weeks visiting family that I haven’t seen in three years. And since I’m a reporter for the Horizon, we decided that it would be cool for me to write a “Letter from New Zealand” once a week or so while I’m here.
So anyway, here I am on the evening of day three, writing about my adventures thus far.
For me to describe New Zealand wouldn’t do it any justice (instead I will post pictures) since it is absolutely BEAUTIFUL! It’s been “chilly” here so far, though (roughly 70 degrees), so you will have no sympathy for me, but since it’s summer here, it is usually 80 to 90 degrees this time of year. My family believes I brought the cold weather with me. I told them they’re lucky I didn’t bring the snow, too.
The first day I was here we basically lounged around because I was EXHAUSTED, but after sleeping 12 hours last night I am feeling better. Yesterday we headed into Gisborne (a city of roughly 50,000 people) and went out to lunch and then to a local art and history museum. Connected to the museum was an old boat that had been restored so that you could go inside. And by connected, I mean the boat & building only had a door between them. It was pretty crazy. Apparently the boat was shipwrecked a while ago and then someone restored the usable section of the boat and used it as a house. Now the museum has the usable section and has connected it onto their building, it’s quite cool.
Today we went to a natural hot spring located about half an hour from Gisborne. It was nothing fancy, just a rustic area with pools of warm water. My cousins favorite spot was located up a short trail and consisted of three pools (cold, medium, and very hot). I stuck with medium since that was warm enough. The hot springs were very nice because they contained natural, unfiltered minerals so it was very nice for our skin.
Anyway, that’s all for today. Until next time!
Kelsey Rowlson
