New Zealand goes into level 4 lockdown and declares a state of national emergency: we become stranded in Queenstown

3/23/20
We mostly just hung out in our new place. It's a nice self-contained unit as part of a bigger house. It has a large bedroom, large living room, dining area, small kitchen (stove, dishwasher, small fridge, sink, kettle, small oven), and a washer in a storage room. There are nice views of the mountains and a small view of the lake. There's a very nice deck and a bbq. We met Phillipa who owns the place, along with her husband Bill. They live in the larger attached house. Phillipa marries people as her profession, often helicopter weddings on top of mountains, and Bill works for one of the jetboat companies in Glenorchy. Tonight, I went out and did a big shop at the Pak n Save in nearby Frankton.

3/24/20
More hanging out in the place. Elisha Zoomed with her friends in a big digital hangout. We're trying to figure out if we should stay or go (if our flight even goes). We found out that our friends Alex and Ellie are still stranded in Vanuatu.

We watched a breaking news conference were New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said NZ would be going into Level 4 total lockdown in 48 hours. It was crazy how different her speech, reactions, etc were to what we are used to back in the USA. Very compassionate and full of empathy.

We took a walk on a trail along the lake, which was nice. I developed a cough after the walk, but it went away after dinner. Dinner of thai green curry

3/25/20
We watched a facebook live Josh Ritter concert. Went for a walk on the peninsula lake trail. Tacos for dinner. The playgrounds were roped off with caution tape. Jacinda Ardern tucked us and all of NZ into bed tonight on the even of the lockdown via facebook live. It was very sweet and cute.

3/26/20
Official start of Level 4 lockdown. You can only leave the house for grocery shopping once a week, to visit a doctor/pharmacy, or if you are an essential worker. Those are the only reasons to be in a car. And you're supposed to only have 1 person go on a shopping trip. You can walk outside if you keep the 2 meter distance and stay local. You're not supposed to do high risk style activities such as boating, hunting, mountain biking, tramping, swimming, surfing, etc.

My ear is starting to hurt again, which is troubling . We took a walk along the lake trail that heads towards Frankton.

pictures of our place in Queenstown

Small view of the lake from our place

our deck

The Remarkables from our driveway

Josh Ritter live streaming concert

That's our neighborhood on the far lakeshore

the "beach" closest to us. 5-10 minute walk

Stranded in New Zealand: All domestic travel is banned

3/27/20
Woke up this morning to the news that at midnight tonight all domestic flights in NZ would end for non-essential travel (flying to the international port of Auckland in order to go home, being non-essential) and that the inter-island ferry would also be closed. This meant that if we wanted to get out of the country, we'd probably need to get to Auckland by tonight. Our flight actually flies from Christchurch to Sydney, so we don't need to go to Auckland, but we believe that Australia is also not allowing Americans to transit through. It was going to be pretty hard to get to Auckland so quick as we had a six hour drive from here to Christchurch (or an expensive flight from Queenstown to Chch); therefore, in a sense our hand was forced to stay in NZ.

Our landlords are letting us borrow their old mountain bikes, so we took a bike ride to Jack's Peninsula, and I rode the more challenging Jack's Peninsula loop trail.

3/28/20

We biked from our place to Frankton Marina and then onto Queenstown. The trail went around the lake on a nice dirt trail. It was a beautiful day! It's was about 10 miles from our place to Queenstown; however, if you could walk on water, our places is 3/4 of a mile from Queenstown. There were quite a few people on the trail, but Queenstown itself was deserted: a ghost town. Beautiful lake and mountain scenery.

Tonight we decided we would take Phillipa and Bill's offer to stay at their place for $365 NZD/week ($215 USD). Rent in NZ is typically done on a per week basis.

I guess we are becoming Kiwis!!

3/29/20
We tried to drive up to the Remarkables Ski Area base to do a hike, but the barrier was closed, so instead we hiked up the Wye Creek Trail, which starts near the lake and climbs steeply into the Remarkable Mountain Range. At one point we left the trail and did some major bushwhacking to get up on a ridge with beautiful view, way up high above the lake!

3/30/20
Elisha did some shopping, and I hiked the Queenstown Hill trail, which goes up above the tree line and gives some amazing views of the lake and the Remarkables. I finished a bit before she was done shopping, so I walked a bit through a fancy Queenstown neighborhood. At home we cleaned off all the produce in a soapy bubble bath, then let it sit outside in the UV rays.

In the evening I took Elisha up Queenstown hill for a romantic date to watch the sunset from a high vantage point over the lake with crackers, cheese, and wine. Queenstown and the lake get some unreal sunsets. Tonight wasn't one of them, but it was still nice. We walked down by the flashlight.

3/31/20
Did some business stuff and hung around our place. We took a short walk around the Kelvin peninsula. Then we had a lockdown neighborhood party. Five couples in our little sidestreet, including us brought out chairs into the street along with nibbles and wine/beer. We sat chatting about things until it got a bit chilly (~2.5 hours)

4/1/20 April Fools Day
We hiked 5000ft up from the lake to summit Ben Lomond Peak (5,735 feet). What a beautiful day!! Lake Wakatipu shimmered below, the jagged Remarkables rose straight out of the opposite side of the lake, and the friendly Keas flew right up to say high. On the other side, you could see Mt. Aspiring (NZ's second highest peak) as well as many other glaciated peaks. The weather was warm and the sun was bright, and we enjoyed lunch from the top.

We found out today that b/c of a health insurance mistake, we may owe $10,000, so that was upsetting and stressful.

4/2/20
Didn't do much today. Dealing with the stress of potential huge loss of money. I took a fast-paced walk to Jack's point

4/3/20
I talked to Lucas for a while on hangouts. Did more computer investigation. We found out today (or maybe it was yesterday) that the US Embassy had been able to clear Americans to fly domestically within NZ, but there doesn't appear to be much in the way of international flights available.

4/4/20
I did a big bike trip today--50 miles. Queenstown has a really sweet and large network of bike paths. There is probably a bit over 100 miles worth. First I took the Kelvin peninsula trail from our place, along the lake to the Kawarau bridge, which is where the Kawarau River exits Lake Wakatipu. From there I took the Twin Rivers trail, which first followed the Kawarau River for a bit until it came upon the Shotover River delta. The trail then turned upstream along the Shotover River, until it crossed the river at the historic Lower Shotover Bridge. The Shotover river is one of the rivers that the largest amount of gold has been taken out of it in the world. The trail then went down the other side of the Shotover, and again followed the beautiful glacila blue Kawarau River. The trail then intersected with the Arrow River. Along the way I picked some tasty apples off a tree.

In Arrowtown I took a steep dirt road up for a couple of miles and then took a singletrack back down. I then explored the cute little village of Arrowtown, which was more of a ghost town b/c of the lockdown. It's an old mining town, with one main street, and preserved buildings from the era (like some of the Colorado mining towns). I also visited the Old Chinese mining settlement and saw a few of the tiny houses they lived in. Next I took the Arrow Gorge singletrack trail for some fun.

I left Arrowtown by taking the Countryside Trail. It passed huge, fancy home, and a very fancy golf club. I then connected to the Lake Hayes trail, which does an 8km loop around Lake Hayes, a beautiful lake with mtn views.. I then rejoined the Countryside trail to get to the lower Shotover bridge, then it was whence I cam on the Twin Rivers trail then Kelvin Peninsula trial. A great ride!

Bears in the window for kids to do scavenger hunts during the lockdown

We had no teddy bears, so a penguin had to work

Arriving to Auckland

Jacinda Ardern giving a press conference that NZ would be going into level 4 lockdown

Josh Ritter doing a weekly lockdown live streaming concert

Playgrounds roped off

Ferg Burger usually has lines hundreds of yards long

Things to get you through the lockdown

only a small few things are out of stock in NZ. Mostly hand sanitizer 

Killing virus on our fruit with UV rays

Our new neighborhood social distancing party

Text from our friends while getting on our vanuatu flight

New Zealand closes it borders

3/19/20
We arrived to Auckland with a bit over an hour to spare before New Zealand closed its borders. When we landed, all the Vanuatu guys put on facemasks, and may put on gloves. They were worried to be in NZ! The airport was pretty quiet, and a strange, sterile voice kept repeating guidelines about Covid-19. All travelers (kiwis and foreigners) were required to self-isolate for 14 days, except...those who came from Category 2 South Pacific Islands, of which Vanuatu was one. However, we still had plans to try to get somewhere to self isolate as best as possible. We stayed that night at a nice hotel by the airport.

3/20/20
We tried to mostly hide out and just stayed in the hotel, but we did go out to get some kebabs fro lunch. It was weird but I had little bit of weird chest tightness in the morning Then we looked at Airbnb and VRBO websites to find a place to stay for our extended 2 weeks. We then caught our flight to Christchurch. At the airport in Christchurch, we booked a nice and very discounted airbnb in Queenstown and then haggled with the rental car companies as the airport until we got a really good deal on a rental car ($15/day).

We also booked 2 nights at what appeared to be an awesome Inn. It looked like a private bathroom and room at an amazing price. When we ubered there, it was the kind of place we would normally absolutely love! The gentleman that was running the place let us inside. It turns out it was a nice house where we each had a room, but shared bathroom, kitchen, dining table, fridge, and pantry. The man running it said to help ourself to any fruit on the table and any food in the pantry and fridge. He said that because of the crisis, they had stocked the fridge and pantry and that we should help ourselves. The co-owner was sleeping because he had stayed up all night the previous night helping a scared French couple. The sleeping gentleman was in his 70's and the other in his 60's. We immediately felt nervous. We had been traveling and Elisha (and even I) felt a bit of sickness. And here was a shared space with other travelers and two older gentlemen, who of course would be at high risk with covid-19. We decided we should leave. We told the man, and he said we shouldn't worry; he had no problem if we stayed. But we told him we just felt we couldn't stay with a good conscience and that we would look elsewhere. He tried to get us to stay for some food (kiwis are so nice!), but we simply got an uber and left. We ended up booking a tiny room at the BreakFree downtown. We had thai curry and dumplings downtown at the Little High. Again during dinner my chest started feeling worse, which was strange b/c throughout the day I had felt nothing. Back at our hotel, we watched the Kiwi bachelorette, and I felt better.

3/21/20
I felt better in the morning. We stayed mostly in the room, reading up on Covid-19 and talking to family. We went to an Indian restaurant for a lunch special and took a walk in the afternoon. We had a dinner of take away pizza.

3/22/20
We picked up the car at the airport in the morning. I had some chest tightness again. We then picked up our all our gear from Leonie (the airbnbn we had stayed at before Vanuatu and mum of one of my collaborators). We then set off on the 6 hour drive to Queenstown. We stopped for a rest and photos at 2 aqua colored lakes with snowy background peaks in the distance: Lake Pukaki and Lake Tekapo. Throughout the drive and in Queenstown, we could not find hand sanitizer or disinfectant wipes at the stores. Elisha had a strong headache most of the day, but I felt good. We cooked Thai soup and chicken satay for dinner

Bowtie Tuesday!

This past season in Antarctica I wore a bowtie every Tuesday, whether I was out in the field or in the office. Tuesday is also Taco Tuesday at McMurdo, so for lunch we have Mexican food. Thus, Elisha wore a taco shirt every Tuesday.

I ordered a couple of the bowties online, but Elisha handmade most of them. How Awesome!

Here they are...