Globetrotting family ‘happily stuck’ in NZ
After nearly a year of being ‘‘happily stuck’’ in New Zealand, 12-year-old Chloe Patton said her family has decided it’s the country’s lack of dangerous wildlife that has turned it into a nation of thrillseekers.
‘‘We’ve come to the conclusion that New Zealanders don’t have anything that can kill you, so have made things that could possibly kill you,’’ the Canada-born Switzerland resident says on the family’s YouTube channel.
Chloe is referring to the surprisingly extreme adventure activities she, her two older sisters and their parents have found themselves participating in since arriving in New Zealand just before the country went into lockdown in March.
Her mum Chantal, 44, concurs: ‘‘Here in New Zealand, you can do pretty epic adventures that in other countries I don’t think you could do.’’
Long-term globetrotters, the Pattons were in Sri Lanka as part of their mission to visit every country in the world when news broke of the Covid-19 outbreak in Wuhan, China.
As other travellers fled to their home countries, the Pattons took up an offer from friends they had met in Nicaragua, and arrived in New Zealand just before the borders closed.
En route from Christchurch to Queenstown when they heard about the level 4 lockdown, they ‘‘were a blend of emotions’’, Chantal tells Stuff. ‘‘Confusion, worry, concern, and a bit of panic since we were driving with our luggage and had no room to pick up a bunch of food. Each store we stopped at was out of bread and flour, so there was a little bit of panic going on.’’
They were able to stay in the home they’d booked in Queenstown throughout lockdown – and it turned out to provide a welcome break from the constant travel.
‘‘Lockdown was amazing, because we got to stay put, and we got all our work done,’’ Chloe said. The girls are homeschooled with a curriculum that Chantal says ‘‘simply plugs into the computer’’.
Eldest daughter Julia, 17, completed an online course in hotel management, while Chloe indulged her growing interest in cooking. Middle child Angelique, 15, was simply grateful ‘‘to know where we were going to sleep for the next six weeks (and) where we were going to go every day, because every day we would go to the garden’’.
Meanwhile, Chantal and husband Tyler, 43, enjoyed being able to run their online marketing business without having to pack up every other day. Still, they were glad to hit the road again when lockdown ended, and have since explored much of the country, venturing as far north as Cape Reinga and as far south as Milford Sound.
With family and friends in countries where even domestic travel is off-limits, Chantal finds it hard to believe their luck in finding themselves here. They’re so happy to be here they turned down seats on a repatriation flight to Switzerland in 2020 so they could stay.
Aotearoa’s unique adventure activities have provided some of their standout experiences here. The girls tried white water rafting for the first time, taking on the world’s highest commercially rafted waterfall – O¯ kere Falls near Rotorua – and Julia did a SkyJump off the Auckland Sky Tower.
Rotorua is one of the girls’ favourite places in New Zealand thanks to its many activities and hot springs, while Chantal has a soft spot for ‘‘all the different smaller towns with beautiful views like Paihia, Wha¯nga¯rei Heads, Picton . . .’’
The family keeps costs down by booking accommodation through HomeExchange, a website which enables them to swap their place near Lake Geneva in Switzerland for homes here.
‘‘This honestly has been our lifesaver for being able to say here this long,’’ Chantal says.
Chantal admits that travelling together as a family can be trying at times (they’ve been doing it since they left Ontario for what they thought would be a five-week trip to Europe in 2013), but thinks it has ultimately brought them closer together.