detour
Annie Lin | Tuesday, March 23, 2010 at 12:22AM 
When we started our journey one of the goals was to not plan too much and be open to opportunities that crossed our path. Hence, one of the meanings behind our blog’s name.
An overwhelming consensus we got from people was to head to the south island of New Zealand. Spend three fourth of your time in New Zealand visiting the south.
So our plan was to stay in the north island for just a few days until we met Danielle and Pete. We were waiting for the ferry to Waiheke Island when they sat down next to us and we started chatting it up. They are an American couple who live three months out of the year in New Zealand and the rest of the time between Virginia and Vermont. Within 20 minutes we decided to rent a car together to drive around the island and they had also invited to stay at their home for a few days up in Mangonui, a town in the northland. When people think of Mangonui they immediately think of fish and chips. And were they delicious! Danielle and Pete even had a guest cottage for us with a real bed that Jon could comfortable lay out on. It all sounded too tempting for us...how could we say no?! But it was going against the path that we had set our eyes on...heading down to the south island. We were only in New Zealand for 18 days and already that didn’t seem like enough time.
However, we are so glad we took them up on their offer. They showed us some great sights such as St. Paul's Rock (oh, what a hike), Ninety Mile Beach, and the beauty of the northland. We went over to their friends’ house for dinner and stayed in our last night to watch a movie together. It was as if we had known them for years. We kept thinking is this for real? Who invites total strangers to come stay at their place only after meeting them for a few minutes? We’ve learned it’s part of the Kiwi hospitality as we have received similar offers along our journey.
Thank you, Danielle and Pete, for reminding us that detours can lead to unexpected good surprises. We hope to see you again somewhere in the world and pass your hospitality and generosity forward to someone else.
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