Category Archives: travel

That Time I Went to a Sheep Farm

I’m back with more adventures from my trip!

I don’t even recall where the idea to stay on a farm came from, but omg am I glad we did! Just as an FYI, I’m not writing these posts in the order of our itinerary.

Our trip to New Zealand was…logistically challenging, to put it mildly. I’ll write about this when I write about that part of the trip, but in short: it took us three different airports and missing our planned night in Brisbane in order to leave Airlie Beach, where we were before NZ.

We landed around 12:30 AM Christchurch time (which, btw, 3 hour time difference from Sydney) and had an hour-long drive ahead of us to get to the sheep farm. This is a really good first time to drive on the other side of the road, no?? Well, spoiler alert: I lived. By the time we’d picked up the car and our bags and made the drive, it was nearly 2am.

Karetu Downs

But we woke up to this, so all was okay. Also, this bed was amazing and I could have stayed in it for days.

And we woke to the sound of a single sheep, bleating. Toto, we are definitely not in NYC any more.

Karetu Downs

Karen and Bruce, the owners, had put out this lovely spread of food.

Karetu Downs Breakfast

None of my photos quite did the kitchen justice, but it was straight out of a Pinterest dream.

Karetu Downs

Karetu Downs

Once we finished breakfast, it was SHEEP TIME!!!

Karetu Downs

And we got to feed them!! The one in the middle lost interest in me when I was done feeding him. FINE.

Karetu Downs Sheep

So. Many. Sheep.

Karetu Downs

Not just any sheep farm — we stayed at an award winning one!

Karetu Downs New Zealand

2017 01 07 18 45 59

10/10, would sheep again.

Bummer Summer: Or Why You Should Always Buy Travel Insurance

Vancouver

Well, this sucks.

Eleven months ago, a group of blogger buds and I decided to all try to get into the Seawheeze Half in Vancouver. I’d heard such good things about it, but it’s really hard to get into. I set a calendar invite, and managed to get in, and we booked a house immediately. 

I waited until a few months ago to book my flight, and I’m so glad I chose travel insurance. This was in the middle of when I was searching for Australia flights and I knew I would definitely be getting travel insurance for such a big trip. Another $30 onto my airfare? Seemed well worth it. 

Last Saturday morning, I woke up with a really sore throat after having been sick a few weeks ago. I tried to ignore it and went to the wedding, did my long run, attended a celebration of another friend’s mother’s life briefly…until I couldn’t ignore it any more and came home and collapsed. I canceled all plans outside of work for the week and hoped that if I hunkered down, drank lots of fluids etc etc, I’d feel well enough to go. 

But instead I only got worse. The sinus pressure was so bad that it hurt my head to cough, to laugh, even to bend down to pick something up off the floor. So I went to the doctor today and she told me I had a sinus infection and couldn’t fly. In truth, I think my body needed a giant sign to slow the eff down, rather than push through right now, so it’s probably for the best. Thankfully, my travel insurance should cover this.

Doesn’t mean it doesn’t suck, but in the grand scheme of things, it’s just another race/trip.

Brb looking for my next race.