WEEK 8
Dear Lincoln, Lilliana, Leni, Juliana, Evyn, Jack, Faye, Chloe, Emerson, Lake, Rita, Violet, and Ella,
If you’re wondering what the title of this post means, it is “Farewell, New Zealand” in Māori, because this was my last week in New Zealand and I spent a little time learning a few things about New Zealand and its people to share with you before I left.
This week I stayed with Emily, who is almost 12, and Josh, who is 9. They live in Auckland with their mom, her partner Shaun, and their big brother, Dan, who is 14. Their Dad also lives in Auckland and they see him every other weekend and sometimes go on vacations with him.
Emily is a wonderful artist, and before I left she made me this beautiful picture showing all the things she’d enjoyed during our time together. The picture is so good that I almost didn’t put up any photos this week, because I thought you could just look at the pictures Emily drew! As I tell you about some of the things we did, see if you can spot them in the picture.
Emily and Josh absolutely love soccer (they sometimes call soccer “football”, like they do in England), and so do their mom and Shaun, who play on a mixed team of men and women, which I’ve never heard of before, but I thought was really cool!
I was extremely happy to find that they support Liverpool Football Club (from the UK), which is the club I support, too. However, for one reason or another, I haven’t been a very good supporter for two years and haven’t been watching any games, so Josh and Shaun and I watched a game together and saw Liverpool beat Wolverhampton Wanderers 3-0. It was awesome!
Josh’s bedroom is a sea of red with all his Liverpool posters and scarves and covers. He even has Liverpool football boots with his name on them.
He has so many soccer balls I had to line them up and take a picture of them for you to count.
Emily is a super talented girl, and she also became a very good friend of mine by the end of the week. We loved hanging out together and we even did stuff together on my days off when I wasn’t officially looking after her.
She likes to bake and because she is very grown-up and careful, she is allowed to bake and use the oven by herself. She loves singing and beat me a few times at SingStar, and she is also very good at playing piano. I gave her some lessons and a schedule for practicing, and she’s promised to keep it up and email me every week with how long she has practiced for.
Emily and Josh helped me research some interesting stuff about where they live. One day we went to Devonport, which is a small town across the harbor from the main city of Auckland. You can get there on a ferry, or take the long way around over the bridge by car.
Devonport has a lot of history. It was used as a port in the late 19th Century because the water was deep enough for the British Navy to bring in their ships. It wasn’t deep enough on the other side of the harbor in Auckland. Devonport is still used as a Naval base today. There are two hills, Mount Victoria and North Head, which were made by old volcanoes. They provided good look out points for the Navy, and inside North Head there are loads of tunnels and caves to hide out in.
We couldn’t go inside the tunnels because the weather got really windy and rainy, and we didn’t have any flashlights, and it would have been too dark down there. So we went to look at the old hotel and the local gift stores instead.
In the gift stores, we saw loads necklaces made of green stone. This is jade, which is mined in quarries on the West Coast of the South Island. In Māori culture it is traditional, and lucky, to wear a piece of jade around your neck. Both men and women wear necklaces. Each symbol means something different. We read about what each symbol meant. Our favorites were the “fish hook” (center, bottom row), which is meant to bring you strength, luck, lots of money, and a “safe passage across water.” I was given one of these earlier in my travels so I was very happy to hear what it will bring me! The “kuro” (center, top row) is the spiral and it represents new life and peace and personal growth. My brother gave me one of these in silver, about 7 years ago, and I never knew exactly what it meant until now. The one that is like a triple twist (right, bottom row) represents new shoots growing together and symbolizes the joining together of cultures, bonding, and friendship.
The next day, Emily and Josh and Emily’s friend, Imogen, and I did a big tour around Auckland. We went to the famous Sky Tower, to the Auckland Museum, and to Mission Bay.
The Sky Tower is a big huge tower in the middle of Auckland. Now, I’m not too good with heights, I tend to get scared. The kids thought it was very funny that I got so scared. They weren't scared because they are fearless Kiwis!
Of course, as it’s New Zealand, you can also do crazy things like jump off the top of the tower (attached to ropes of course) and walk on a metal walkway around the top of the tower. Again they are attached to ropes, but there is then nothing under them, just a very, very long drop to the ground.
We watched some people go out for their walk around the tower. I thought they were mad!We saw this woman in the lobby of the building. She told us she's jumped off the tower loads of times because it was fun. She dangled down on her ropes and waved to us before they dropped her.
There is a target at the bottom of the towers that the jumpers have to aim to land on. I don't know what happens if they miss it. Hopefully the ropes will guide them before they get to the ground. I'm not going to try it just to find out!
Around the top of the viewing area, they have sections of the floor made out of glass that you can walk over. Even though you are told that the glass is the same strength as the concrete you are standing on, it feels so scary because you usually think of glass as something that can break.
The kids all walked across it, Josh even jumped up and down on it to prove it wouldn’t break, but I still screamed with fright when I walked across it, which made the kids (and some people who were watching me) laugh!
Emily’s friend, Imogen, really made me laugh. I told them to make sure I was always driving on the left, because in New Zealand they drive on the left side of the road and sometimes I nearly forget. So every time we got in the car, Imogen started singing, “Always drive on the left side of the road” to the tune of “Always look on the bright side of life,” which is from a film called “Life of Brian.” Ask your mom or dad to sing it to you. It’s a funny tune.
Next we went to the Auckland Museum, which is free for Aucklanders (and people looking after young Aucklanders!)
We were greeted by three Māori warriors, and learnt a lot about Māori culture and history in the museum. We saw the buildings of a Marae, which is a sacred meeting place where the members of one tribe will meet for big occasions like weddings, funerals, and special birthdays. The buildings include the big meeting house, the sleeping quarters, a dining hall, and bathrooms (if you’re lucky!) There are three units in the tribe. There is the whanau, which means just your close family, your mom, dad, the kids and the grandkids. Then there is the next unit up, which is the hapū, which will include all your aunts and uncles and their kids and grandkids. The next unit is an iwi, which consists of 5 hapū. An iwi (yes, that is “iwi” not “Kiwi” with the “K” missing!) is the name for a tribe. On all the buildings there are carvings, often of the tribe’s ancestors, and also of symbols and traditional designs.
They have a huge display of animals in the museum, some are dead and stuffed, but some are very real.
We saw many albatrosses, and I was amazed by how big they were.
I also thought that they were extinct, but there are quite large numbers in the Southern Ocean around New Zealand, although they are endangered species now.
The kids got to laugh at me again as I screamed when I saw all the cockroaches (real ones) and the weta, which is a type of cricket found in New Zealand.
We saw a stuffed Kiwi bird, an anteater and a live eel.
And there were some of the biggest starfish I have ever seen.
But my favorite thing was seeing a real Nemo and Dory swimming around in the fish tank!
I feel a little bad for animals that are kept in cages or tanks, because I think they should really be all living in their natural environment, but it was still interesting to see.
There a whole room filled with historical things about the lives of children many years ago in New Zealand.
We saw an old schoolroom (obviously Emily’s teaching was boring Josh!) and a crate full of old milk bottles, because children used to have milk delivered in glass bottles to school every day.
We saw some old school reports and even what the dentist used to look like.
The kids loved this wall of candy. In New Zealand they call candy, “lollies.”
On the way home we went and got ice cream at the beach called Mission Bay that has a very cool playground.
When we got home we all had dinner together and I met Emily and Josh’s brother Dan who I hadn’t met yet because he is always doing swimming training because he plays lots of water polo. He had his friend over, who was also called Dan, and whose older brother is in the band, The Naked and Famous, which is my new favorite band.
They have just released their first album, and I think they are going to become the most successful band ever to come out of New Zealand. Not only are they great musicians, but they did all their own production and marketing and built their own website. Very impressive!
Emily and Josh's mom and Shaun are very good at giving parties. They don't do parties by halves (which means they put 100% into all the details). While I was there they gave a "night in the islands" party and hired a traditional hula girl and bar and made a traditional archway for people to walk under.
As I told you earlier, Emily and I spent lots of time hanging out together. Her mom was very busy with work, and personal stuff because sadly Emily’s grandfather (her mom’s dad) died while I was staying there. He’d been sick for a very long time, but everyone was still very sad to say goodbye to him. The best thing about Emily is we like to do the same things. We both like spending the mornings reading books, and then doing fun stuff in the afternoons. One afternoon we went shopping and I bought her some birthday presents, a book of music to learn on the piano, and a shopping bag that was similar to one I had that she really liked. We also went swimming in the sea. She laughed at me (yet again!) because I screamed when the big waves came. She said they were only medium ones, but they seemed pretty big and strong to me!
We were all very sad when I had to leave. At first, Emily and I were quite brave, but then her mom cried so that made me cry a little bit too. But to make sure I definitely come back, I left a few things behind in a bag (just some clothes and books that I don’t think I’ll need for a while) and Emily made a sign that said “Susie’s Stuff” and she is going to look after it until I come back.
Although I am looking forward to going to Australia, I know I will miss New Zealand. I can’t believe my 8 weeks here are already over. I have made so many wonderful new friends. They are some of the kindest, smartest, and most fun people I have ever met. So, with all my heart, thank you, Paul, Alison, Calum, Flynn, Helen, Laura, Matt, Sam, Isabella, Anne, Chris, Aidan, Luke, Helene, Lynda, Tim, Sarah, Bryan, Fynn, Archie, Charlie, Gretchen, Jo, Simon, Jenny, Jimmy, Minnie, Bill, Terry, Hamish, Julia, Gus, Kate, Phoebe, Cameron, Johnny, Nicki, Shaun, Dan, Josh, and especially my dearest Emily, for showing me your beautiful country and giving me some of the best times of my life. I will truly treasure the memories. Keep it beautiful and stay well until I return!
I’m off to get on a plane, now, kids. I’ll write soon from Australia.
All my love,
Susie xxxx
Wow. So excited to keep reading this and see what's happening on your big old adventure.
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