Lost Together: September 2010

Carolina had quite the surprise in store for my birthday. We got up Saturday morning, drove about an hour out of the city and stopped at a small air strip in Parakai. Carolina booked me in for flying lessons! We met the instructor and he gave us a pretty detailed explanation of everything we would be doing.

The plane was a Tecnam P92 - a really small 2-person plane. The instructor did the take-off and landing, but I had control while we were up in the air. There's a stick/pedals on both sides, so either of us could control it at anytime. Once we were in the air he just took his hands off and I was in control! It was really exciting! There's a lot going on when you're in the air. The stick controls the flaps on the wings, then you have foot pedals for the rear rudder. When you move the stick, you'll change direction, but the rear of the plane won't follow the front of the plane, so you start to fly at a weird somewhat-sideways angle. To fix that you need to use the foot pedals to straighten the rear out so you fly straight and have less wind-drag. You also need to keep an eye on all the different instruments like your altitude, flying angle, etc. Once we were up in the air we were going about 200km/h. I did a few turns and we took it down along the coastline. I was really surprised how much distance we covered. Even in those little planes you could make it all the way down to Wellington in a couple hours.

The engine inspection: "Yup, that looks good to me too"

Here's a description of the plane if you're interested:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tecnam_P92

They gave me a discount coupon if I want to continue lessons and get my license. It was really fun, but I don't have the time or money to add flying to the schedule, haha.

After that we stopped at a waterpark. They have a couple waterslides and a few pools, but it was a bit cold and windy out. We walked around the park and decided it was too cold, so we moved on to the next thing she had planned. We made our way along the beautiful terrain and spotted "Sheep World", haha. We had to make a pitstop!

Yup, pink sheep!

We missed the daily sheep-dog show and the sheep shearing lesson, but we got a few pictures anyways. We grabbed some lunch at a nice cafe in tiny little town and kept driving north of Auckland.

We spent the rest of the afternoon in Leigh at the Goat Island Marine Reserve. It was really beautiful. The area is famous for having massive swarms of fish. You can go on Glass-bottom boat rides and scuba diving is very popular. We were happy to just relax on the beach.

Some birds Jesse figured he could sneak up on:

I'm sure most of you have heard the story by now. It started with dinner at the Red Elephant in Auckland. This is an excellent Thai restaurant where we went to "celebrate our 26th month anniversary". haha 26 months, not really a typical milestone, but it was an excuse to go out for a date. Little did Caro know, I had far more in store. After dinner I had a couple special fortune cookies brought to the table for dessert. Ya, ya, Thai Fortune Cookies? ... whatever. I brought the cookies in myself. I had tediously removed the fortunes from these cookies with a paperclip and replaced them with my own. When Carolina opened hers she was surprised with the message "Pack your bags. Queenstown awaits!" Mine said the same thing since I was sure they would get mixed up. At first she was pretty confused, but then she looked at me and knew something was up. After a bit of persuading I convinced her that it wasn't a joke and we were in fact catching the next flight to Queenstown (7am the next morning).

I had been going on about wanting to do a ski trip in Queenstown for months, but couldn't convince anyone to go with me. Just as I expected, Carolina thought this was my not-very-sneaky way of going. She didn't expect a thing.

When I showed her the tickets she noticed that we weren't returning until Monday night. It wasn't a long weekend. "I have to work on Monday! My boss has scheduled me for a full day of training!" No she didn't. I had made arrangements with her boss so she would have the day off. The training was just a ploy so she wouldn't book any other meetings on Monday.

We had a connection in Christchurch. This was a couple weeks after the big earthquake so we were expecting to see some of the devastation. We didn't have time to leave the airport but from the window on the plane everything seemed fine, haha. We landed in Queenstown around noon. What a beautiful town! It really reminded us of Banff. The town is beside a lake, nestled in the mountains. We could actually see skiers winding down the mountain as we approached the runway to land! I had arranged for the rental car company to pick us up at the airport. From here we drove into town, had some lunch at the famous Ferg-Burger and made our way to the hotel. I drove up to the backpacker hostel (our normal travel accommodation), but kept going. We were staying somewhere a little nicer this weekend. I had booked us into the Heritage Queenstown, a beautiful 5 star hotel up on the side of the mountain. The view from up there was just incredible.

The view from our balcony:

We dropped off our bags and decided to walk back into town. I had been eye-ing up the surroundings, looking for just the right place.

I spotted what appeared to be the perfect location. "Hey, we should try to walk all the way around the lake and check out what's on the other shore."

On the right hand side of this picture, across the lake:

She agreed and we slowly made our way along the lake, through the harbour, through town, and over to the other side.

I couldn't tell from the hotel, but the spot I pointed to was actually part of the Queenstown Gardens. It's a huge park, full of walking trails. We walked along the paths and sure enough, made it to the exact spot I pointed to from across the lake.

We made it!

But it's a jogging trail!

I was getting pretty nervous, but Caro didn't seem to notice. I wanted the moment to be perfect. I kept nervously looking around, waiting for a lull in the constant stream of joggers. This just wasn't going to work. We needed somewhere with more privacy. We continued along the path and came to a spot behind a skating rink. The walking path turned to go around it, but there was a nice quiet spot along the beach, just behind the rink. There was a nice big rock to sit on, so I suggested we take a break and sit down for a while.

I had prepared what I was going to say, and practiced it a "few" times beforehand, so I knew I was ready. What I wasn't ready for, was Carolina's constant talking! haha I said I had something wanted to tell her and started making my way through the speech, but she kept interrupting me! (agreeing with what I was saying) When I knelt down on one knee, she stopped and her face changed completely. "What are you doing?" she asked. "Carolina, will you spend the rest of your life with me? Will you marry me?". She didn't look at the ring and she didn't even wait for me to finish asking the question. She knelt down with me and hugged me. Tears started rolling down her cheeks. "Yes." She didn't even realize I was holding the ring in my hand. She then looked over at what I was holding. Her eyes lit up. "Oh My God!! It's amazing!" In the background we could faintly hear the music from the skating rink. In a Little While by U2 was playing. "In a little while, surely you'll be mine". What a suiting song!

Here's the view from where I proposed, but it wasn't what I was looking at:

We spent the rest of the afternoon walking around Queenstown. Carolina was sure to point out everything she saw on the way (with her left hand of course). That evening we went out for an engagement celebration dinner at Pier 19 in the Harbour. The food was excellent and the atmosphere was perfect.

We brought all our snowboard gear down with us, but we didn't end up using it. At dinner I gave her 3 cards, each containing a different option. She had to choose between Adventure, Excitement or Relaxation - A scenic drive through the mountains, an afternoon on the ski slopes or a day at the spa. She chose the scenic drive so we explored the beautiful mountains.

Had to get a picture of this!

Check out the beautiful, calm lake... just perfect for skipping rocks...

We're in luck, all they have is skipping rocks!

On Monday we spent the sunny afternoon back in Queenstown Gardens. There is a Frisbee Golf Course that we had to try out. It's a lot like normal golf, you have a tee off box, a map and there is a flag at the end. Instead of hitting a ball, you throw your frisbee. Then you pick it up and throw it again from where it landed. Instead of a hole, they have built special baskets that sit on a pole. The baskets have a bunch of chains hanging above, so when the frisbee hits the chains, it will fall down into the basket. It's harder than it sounds!