New Zealand, Part III

The last leg of our New Zealand trip was pretty jam-packed. After skydiving, we headed to a small town called Turangi, which is just North of Mordor. We stayed at a nice hostel with a very animated owner (does a spot-on impersonation of Gollum and can act out just about any scene from the LotR movies), and we prepped for the next day's hike up Mount Doom, aka Mt. Tongariro. Years ago, Aaron bought a replica of the One Ring (it's also his "backup wedding ring"), and we planned to take it to the top of the volcano to be destroyed, of course. But when we actually got up to the start of the trail the next morning, the weather conditions were pretty treacherous. It was very cold, rainy, and foggy/cloudy. We didn't get that great view from the mountain that we were hoping for. We actually attempted the climb on two different days, but the furthest we got was only 2 hours up (only about 1/3 of the way there) before we decided to come down because of the unbearable weather.

We didn't get any great pictures from/of the volcano, but we did stop at a neat waterfall that was used in a scene from the movies:

Our next stop was Masterton, which is a small town on the Southeast corner of the North Island. Masterton probably does not make it on to many tourists' itineraries, however it is the site of the world's most prestigious sheep shearing competition: the Golden Shears. It was a fascinating event. There were several competition categories including wool handling, wool packing, and, of course, shearing.

The last few days of our trip, we did typical tourist activities: visited museums, beaches, etc. We also stopped at the Waitomo Caves, which are a huge underground limestone cave system and home to millions of little glowworms. And on our last night in NZ, we went to a rugby game, which was pretty fun.

We had an amazing time. I had many experiences that I will remember for the rest of my life, and I'm so glad we did this.

Exciting!

Ok, be honest - how many of you thought I was going to make a baby-related announcement? HA! April Fool's!

Our news is that we're thinking about going on another adventure! We're not totally committed to another big, 2-week holiday yet, but we're seriously considering it. We've got a few destinations on our bucket list that would be good to do now (before we have kids):

Egypt - See all the major ancient Egyptian landmarks and do some diving in the Red Sea.

Peru - Hike the Inca Trail to the top of Machu Picchu and explore the Amazon Rainforest.

South Africa - Go on a wildlife safari and cage dive with Great White sharks.


We want to hear what you think! Cast your vote:

Try this audience polling system at Poll Everywhere

New Zealand, Part II

New Zealand is often billed as the "adventure capital of the world". This being the case, we decided that we should take the opportunity to try out some more thrilling activities. Although I couldn't convince Heather to try Bungee jumping (which has origins in NZ) I did manage to get her excited to go sky diving.

We drove up to the a small airfield to inquire about making arrangements and within an hour we were on a plane headed up to 15,000 ft.

New Zealand - Sky Diving from Aaron Wimmer on Vimeo.

We loved it. After we landed I jokingly asked heather is she was ready to go up again, she seriously responded, "ok, let's do it". We didn't go up again that day, but after we got back to the states I started researching sky diving more in depth. I was amazed by what I found. I guess I shouldn't be suprized that there is always someone who is taking things one step further. The next step in sky diving is "wing suits"


These are pretty much flying squirrel suits that allow you to glide at very high speeds (while still plummeting towards earth). These suits also allow base jumpers to maneuver away from cliff faces or to hug the tree line as they glide over mountaintops.

I found a quote that went something like "Normal people think Sky divers are crazy, Sky divers think Base jumpers are crazy, Base jumpers think these guys are crazy." My mind has been blown.... (see below)

wingsuit base jumping from Ali on Vimeo.

New Zealand, Part I

Aaron and I have been dreaming/talking about going to New Zealand since we were in college. To be honest, the things that first attracted us to the country were that it was somewhere on the other side of the world and they mainly speak English. But then we started learning more about it, and it sounded pretty amazing. Ocean? check. Moutains? check. Tropical forests? check. Adventure capital of the world? yes, please. And so it was decided: someday we were going to go to New Zealand.

Fast forward 6 years. We got off the plane in Auckland, and picked up our rental car. Driving on the left side of the road - that was fun. And confusing. And stressful! Eventually we got (somewhat) used to it, and we successfully made our way into the downtown area for some city exploring. We spent a couple days in Auckland, "the city of sails", and while we were there, we went to a farmer's market, took a tour of a Kiwi (fruit) farm, and relaxed at a beach. We also took a ferry across the bay from the city to a village, Devonport, where we climbed a dormant volcano and got some neat pictures of the city.

We then headed on our way to Rotorua (or "RotoVegas", as it is affectionately called by the locals). Here we saw a Kiwi (bird) farm, learned more about the native Maori culture, and tried the "Mordor Special" from a great pizza place, "Hell". Far and away my favorite thing we did in RotoVegas was Zorbing.

We weren't sure exactly what this would be like since we had really only read about it, but it turned out to be crazy fun! So basically what they do is inflate a giant ball (or Zorb), take it to the top of a huge hill, throw a few gallons of water into the Zorb, toss a few people into the Zorb through a beach-ball-sized hole, zip up the hole, and push the Zorb down the hill. The inside inside the Zorb involves sliping, sliding, trying to stand but failing, and a whole lot of laughing.

Australia, Part II

I told Aaron before we got to Australia that if we came back with nothing else, the only tangible thing I wanted to get on this trip was a picture of me holding a koala. After our diving adventure, we went in search of a koala to hold. We found one at the zoo in Cairns. To be more specific, we went to "Night Zoo" where they bring out all the nocturnal animals.

Here's the little fella I got to cuddle:

His name is Kai, and he was super cute and sleepy.

At the zoo, we also saw crocodiles and kangaroos!

After we got back to the city, we turned on the news and heard about the earthquake in Christchurch. We watched the coverage on the devastation, both to the city itself and the people. So many lives lost and missing. We watched with heavy hearts. Then we realized that we had a lot to be thankful for.

When we were planning this trip way back in August, we were polling our friends and family on what we should do - either go to the Great Barrier Reef or visit the south island of New Zealand. We decided to do the GBR, obviously. But, had we decided to do the south island, we most likely would have flown into Christchurch and still been in the city when the quake hit. Scary stuff.

Australia, Part I

Aaron and I just got back from our trip last night, and we are tired! A full day of flying along with a 19-hour time change is a lot to get through.

But, our trip was amazing. I had the absolute best time of my life. I am so glad we did this.

I'm slowly uploading pictures and writing blog posts (as well as getting back into the swing of things at work and home), so this is just the first part of our trip recap.

We were only in Australia for 3 days, but it feels like we packed a lot in. We spent 2 of those 3 days on a boat in the Pacific, floating right on the Great Barrier Reef. We did a 2-day "liveaboard" diving trip, where you actually spend a night on the boat so you can save time by not having to head back to shore. We did 6 dives in total, including one dive AT NIGHT!

It was like an underwater playground. So much to see and explore, I loved it. Each dive was no longer than 45 minutes, and they all ended far too quickly. We saw countless beautiful fish, fantastic coral formations, bright-colored giant clams, plants that danced and moved, bioluminescent algae, etc etc! The best part, by far, were the sea turtles. I've ooh'd and ahh'd about this on facebook already, but I thought I would share the actual story here.

By the last dive of our trip, many of the other folks on our boat had seen various super cool animals: turtles, sharks, sting rays. But Aaron and I had not seen any of these! (not completely true - we had seen 2 turtles on our night dive, but they were sleeping and we couldn't really get close to them) We were definitely on a mission to see something really cool before we headed back to shore. We were at the end of said last dive and I had just signaled to Aaron that I was almost out of air and we should head toward the surface. We slowly made our ascent, just checking out what was going on at the very top of the reef we were on.

We were only at a depth of about 3 meters, just about to surface, when I saw the large sea turtle swimming a circle around the top of the reef. He had just gone behind a rock, and I was trying to point him out to Aaron (the camera man), who was still ascending. Now, trying to get someone's attention when you're diving (and they're not within arm's reach) can be pretty difficult because you're not usually looking at each other and your peripherals are limited by your mask. I basically just flailed my arms, screamed into my regulator, and started knocking on my tank. It worked and I just started pointing at the rock he was behind and frantically gave Aaron the underwater sign for "turtle". Eventually, he came back out from his hiding place, and we actually got to swim with him for a bit & snap a few pictures.

It was amazing. I just felt so lucky to have that experience with nature, however brief.

New Zealand: 3 Weeks!

I have an app on my phone called "Countdown" that has all the important and/or exciting dates we have coming up, and it is probably my most frequently used app on my phone! I check this app every morning when I first wake up (I know, that's ridiculous). I have a countdown (or three!) for our upcoming trip to New Zealand, and I love it every morning when I check the time left to our big trip and there's so little time left!

We still have so much to decide on, plan, and book! So far, we have our plane tickets and a reservation to go diving in the reef. And yep, that's it. We're planning to leave a fair number of days wide open in case our plans change slightly and we decide to stay in a city for an extra day or anything like that. But still, we have a lot of work left to do! We still need to at least find hotels, a rental car, and some more activities to fill up our 2 weeks there, even if we don't make the reservations beforehand.

This trip is the second part of the travel plans on our "Baby Bucket List" (Alaska was the first part). This list is different than the Bucket List on this blog, it's a more concise, travel-centric list of places we want to visit before we settle down and start our family! We feel that getting these experiences out of the way now while we have the time and money is important for us and feeling "ready".

And the coolest part is that we're going to get to tell our kids about all these cool experiences we've had! (Crossing our fingers that they will think they're as cool as we do!)

A Very Nissen Christmas

Merry Christmas!

This year, Aaron and I travelled to Nebraska at Christmastime to see the Nissens (Aaron's mom's side of the family). We were very lucky to have no snowstorms this year for the drives there and back!

We had a wonderful time visiting family, exchanging gifts, and playing games. Aaron and I didn't really exchange gits this year because we bought a new camera for our upcoming trip to New Zealand, and we said that was our gift to each other this year. But, I couldn't resist getting him a few things. One of which was a Dog DNA Test! I wrapped the results (before opening them!!) and gave them to him on Christmas morning. According to the test results, Ellie is..... a Siberian Husky/Boxer mix. We're not totally sure we trust the test results yet, but we did Google that mix and there's definitely potential that it's accurate :)

I had never seen so many presents in my life:

The Beautiful Rockies

For Labor Day, Aaron and I made a trip out to Colorado with some friends. Aaron's grandparents have a cabin in the mountains in Fraser, Colorado that they graciously let us stay at for the long weekend.

The theme of the trip was apparently "Hike til you Drop", which I almost did. We did 4 hikes, including one very long trek to the Devil's Thumb peak. I lagged behind the entire time, and Yader declared that he is "retiring from hiking". Though it was brutal, the view (and the feeling of accomplishment) was well worth it.

All of us at the top:

By the evenings, we were totally beat. So, we spent the rest of the time just relaxing at the cabin, playing games, or out exploring the small towns in the area. We also checked out the Hot Sulfur Springs, they were pretty neat.

All in all, it was a fabulous getaway.

The Big Apple

This month, Aaron and I traveled to the East Coast for a family gathering with the Abts' (my mom's side). My cousin Sarah's graduation party was happening near Springfield, Massachusetts, and a handful of the family in WI headed out there to celebrate with her!

While we were out there, we took a 2-day trip to New York City! It was fantastic! Aaron had never been, so we made sure that we hit up as many of the big attractions as we could: Times Square, Rockafeller Center, Empire State Building (from the street only), Central Park, 9/11 memorial site, Statue of Liberty (from Battery Park only), NYSE & Wall Street, and Grand Central Station.

And that was only the first 48 hours of the trip :) After that, we all headed over to MA to spend the rest of the time together, playing Mafia (our family's favorite game), celebrating birthdays (I turned 24 AND Sarah and my uncle Ron had birthdays too), exploring western MA, and partying it up :) It was a great time!

Alaska

We just got home from our week-long adventure in Alaska, and it was nothing short of amazing. Here are some of the highlights:

- Wilderness camping in Denali National Park. We climbed a mountain, hiked 15 mi or so, saw tons of wildlife, and slept under the stars (that we couldn't really see because it was light out 22/7), all the while surrounded by magnificent formations. We got to see Grizzly Bears, Wolves, Eagles, Caribou, and a Moose!

- Our flight-seeing tour of the Alaskan Mountain Range and Denali (Mt McKinley). We got to land on a glacier in the mountains 5,000 ft up!

- A day-cruise of the Kenai Fjords. We saw whales! Two families! Of Orcas and Humpbacks! And we saw Seals, Otters, Dolphins, Sea Lions, and Puffins! It was amazing.

- Getting to see huge glaciers up close. We got to get close to 2 glaciers on our trip, one on a hike (Exit Glacier) and one on our Fjords Cruise. The face of the glacier below is 300 ft tall!

- All the fresh seafood! We got to try Alaskan King Crab, Salmon, Calamari, and Rock Fish... yum!

It was definitely a trip of a lifetime, and I am so glad we did it. I just kept thinking, "I can wait to do this with our kids someday!"