A couple of months ago, the world stopped and so did our travel. We left Australia and entered New Zealand days before covid19 restrictions started.
We were originally scheduled to be here for 3.5 weeks but almost 3 months later, we are still in New Zealand, appreciative of every moment we got to spend in this impressive country. We were extremely lucky that we’ve already gone all around the globe before we were stopped by covid19 restrictions. We went from Seattle to South America, then Europe, down to Africa, back to Europe to spend the summer with family, through SE Asia, all the way to Australia, and finally to the “end of the world”, New Zealand. After New Zealand, we were supposed to go to Fiji for a few days and then spend a month in Japan before we planned to head back to Europe for the “second-summer-with-family” portion of this journey.
Since Pedja and I visited Japan a few years back and loved everything about it, we wish we had the opportunity to share it with our kids. However, in the grand scheme of things, missing Japan worked out well for us. We did not spend a significant portion of our travel budget and we went through the lock down in the best possible and most pleasant place on earth, New Zealand.
During this global standstill, we were privileged to enjoy probably the most relaxing time of our life. We quickly fell into a lazy mode. We were in a comfortable environment, with plenty of resources, cooking, baking, urban walking, we did puzzles, played cards, and watched far too many streaming shows. At some point, I’ll do a real write-up and post pictures about this part of our journey.
Being in Christchurch proved to be great for us, especially for this time of the year. We had the most perfect sunny Fall days, with trees turning colors, a beautiful river running through the city, great parks. The city is safe and small enough for Petra to roam around it by herself. That gave her an added sense of freedom and space that a teenager needs.
During this time, I posted about our experience in the Philippines but then I didn’t have the motivation to continue with review and writing about our time in Australia and NZ prior to the lock down. This downtime was welcomed and I enjoyed it to the fullest extent possible.
Not all was peachy of course, there were still push and pull action with homeschooling (but the whole world was experiencing the same so it felt a bit better knowing that it was okay to not do much), there was plenty of sibling teasing, I couldn’t pull my attention away from the disaster of the current US politics, etc.
However, all in all, I will remember this downtime in New Zealand as my most relaxing time, away from everyone and everything, with the least action, just the five of us together.
Now, after 2 full months of this lazy life, it’s time to get active again. We are making plans for our next adventure, spending time with our new Kiwi friends, and I’m slowly getting back into writing about Australia and New Zealand. Until my next post about our time in Sydney, enjoy this collection of murals from Christchurch.
P. S. Here is the backstory on the murals of Christchurch
https://www.stuff.co.nz/…/christchurch–from-blank-canvas-o…
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