Best part of New Zealand trip wasn’t what I expected

“What was the best part?” Mark asked when he picked us up at the airport Saturday as we returned from New Zealand.

Sawyer and I looked at each other. We did so much in the two weeks we were gone.

We soaked in natural thermal hot pools at Mount Maunganui and toured Hobbiton, the set used for “The Lord of the Rings” and “Hobbit” movies.

At Te Puia in Rotorua, we saw a Ma ori performance, boiling mud pools, kiwi birds and gorgeous wood carvings. We saw sheep and working dogs at Agrodome and penguins and sharks at Kelly Tarlton’s Sea Life Aquarium.

In Wellington, we toured Parliament House and the place where props, costumes and creatures for movies are made.

We marveled at the Gallipoli war exhibit at Te Papa Tongarewa.

Then I thought of walking on Milford Beach and ordering a flat white and cream doughnut at the corner café.

I thought of going to the house where I lived as a child, seeing the place where my parents made out before they were married, hearing for the first time that a teacher at Wellington College had told my grandfather he’d make a fine journalist.

I thought of French braiding my cousin Talia’s hair before breakfast. Chatting with my aunt Sheryl on the porch in the rain. Curling up on the couch to watch “The Bay” with my aunt Christine who changed her mind about who did it at every commercial break.

I thought of my brother Danny urging me up the trail to the top of Mauao, leaving my legs so sore that I had to sweet talk my niece Isabel into tying my laces for three days.

Of my uncle Graham leaning on the horn until we were all in the van. Sawyer and Danny learning the haka. Isabel sneaking up on sheep. Meeting for fish and chips.

The best part were those little parts.