Living in a Jeep in New Zealand // Mass Whale Stranding!!

In last week's episode of the Epic Family Road Trip, our Jeep made it to Auckland, New Zealand after the long journey across the ocean from Toronto, Canada. The Jeep passed inspection and a warrant of fitness test and we hit the road east to Papamoa. We set up camp overlooking the ocean and spent a few days getting reacquainted with the Jeep and organizing our gear. It was also awesome getting to surf from early in the morning until the sun went down. Something that was apparent from the moment we arrived in New Zealand is that the people there are very friendly. While we were camped at Papamoa, we met a local gentleman named Greg who welcomed us to his beautiful country and brought us fresh produce from his mother's garden and freshly harvested tuatua from the ocean. Early the next morning at low tide, Greg showed the boys how to find and harvest tuatua, which is a type of shellfish, and cook them up for lunch. Another gentleman gave us a map of New Zealand and shared all kinds of places he recommended we visit. After a lovely stay, we headed south to Wellington to take the ferry across Cook Strait to the South Island of New Zealand. On our drive south, we realized that even though it was Monday here, it was Super Bowl Sunday back home. So we stopped at an RV resort at Lake Taupo to see if we could catch the game. They had a large outdoor pool with a huge TV playing the game, so we jumped in and watched. It was fun to explain to the locals the differences between our football and their rugby. From Lake Taupo, we continued south, stopping one more night at a breathtaking campground in Mangaweka. We camped across from a steep ravine along the beautiful Rangitikei River. It was a rainy day when we arrived, but Daniel and I couldn't resist jumping in the vibrant blue water with our body boards to ride the current in the Chile River. Ever come this way, we're halfway down there near the bottom of the North Island right beside a beautiful trout river. Next time I'm going to bring a fly fishing rod, but you can stay here and just complete peace and quiet for, I don't know, it cost something like 20 bucks for the night. They have kitchen facilities if you don't have your own and bathroom, but if you're all hooked up like us, perfect spot. Next time we're going to park, you know, 10 feet from the river's edge and wake up and do some fishing. The next day we drove to Wellington to await the ferry that would take us from New Zealand's capital city, four hours across the Cook Strait to the beautiful town of Picton on the South Island. The Cook Strait between Wellington and Picton is about 64 kilometers long and connects the Tasman Sea with the South Pacific Ocean and is known as one of the most dangerous and unpredictable waters in the world. During the crossing, there was a strong wind blowing across the strait and it felt like the boat was leaning downwind. Today we drove down to Wellington and we are now on the ship heading out across the Cook Strait between the two islands. We're heading to Picton on the South Island and we're going to camp overnight there and then start heading south. It's a pretty windy day so the boat is rocking around in these big old waves. It took a few minutes for us to get our sea legs since we've been over landing. Pretty much landlubbers for the last while, but we're getting our sea legs now, feeling pretty good out here on the ocean. As we approached the South Island, the outlying hills and sea cliffs came into view and it felt to us like we were seeing a completely different country. As we arrived in Picton, the sun was setting behind the mountains and we spent the night in a nearby campground. Next morning, we explored the stunning town of Picton before driving the three hours to Abel Tasman National Park, which was one of our top bucket list destinations for the South Island. We set up camp in Marihau just outside the park and enjoyed a beautiful view of Tasman Bay. After setting up camp, we decided to hike the Abel Tasman Coast Track from Anchorage Bay back to our campsite in Marihau. The next morning, we took a sea shuttle to get dropped off at the trailhead in Anchorage Bay. Along the way, we passed fascinating sites like the famous Split Apple Rock and groups of sea lions resting on the rocks and shoreline. Once we arrived in Anchorage Bay, we got off the sea shuttle onto a remote golden sand beach and began the beautiful 12.4 kilometer hike back to our camp. The trail is pretty well maintained and keeps to the coastline winding through the forest and bush once in a while opening up to stunning views of the sparkling Tasman Sea. We just took down our camp in a hurry even though we're booked in for another night. Our aunt from Australia said she heard on the news that 400 whales were beached down the in a beach way up the coast here and they all need to be rescued so we're we thought we looked on the map and it's a couple hours drive so we thought we're just going to pack up as quick as we can and head up there so that's where we're going now. Huge pod of whales almost 400 or even more than 400. They got disoriented and then when they took on the beach and so we don't know much about it but we're heading up that way to see if we can help out in any way and maybe rescue some of them. There's still hundreds that are alive and hopefully we can. The roads to Farewell Spit were windy and mountainous but we hurried along the best we could and arrived just before the sun started to set. There was a volunteer whale rescue group on site called Project Jonah. They thanked us for coming and advised us to set up camp, get a good night's sleep, and meet them on the beach at sunrise for a short whale first aid training. Survival hanging in the balance. A group of volunteers worked frantically to sustain these stranded pilot whales who became beached on a remote corner of New Zealand's South Island. The next morning we woke up at the crack of dawn, made a quick coffee, packed a bunch of snacks into a backpack and headed to the briefing. This is the largest stranding on mainland New Zealand in recorded human history. So to be part of this, to play a part today, I'd really like to honour and respect your efforts to come down and play a part. After the briefing we walked four kilometres down the beach to where the whales were stranded. As we approached the site our hearts sank as we saw the hundreds of whales that had already perished before the stranding was discovered. But as we kept walking we began to hear the high frequency calls of the whales that were still alive and fighting for their lives as they lay stuck on the sand in the hot blistering sun. You ready? Yeah. She said don't wear rings because their tissue, well their skin is as thin as a tissue so if you're handling them it might rip. They said just keep them cool and don't pour water in their blowhole because that's equivalent to getting water in your lungs. Okay. What do you got to watch out for? The tail and the teeth because they don't even go near like the muscle part of the tail. There are some dangers that people face when working around these whales, particularly in the Farewell Spit region, not only exposure to the weather, even a bright sunny day can get very windy out in the exposed flats, but also there's the risk around the dead whales of sharks and stingrays coming in. The plan was to wait till the tide came in and then push the whales and attempt to free them back into the ocean. Because if they're sitting on the soil like that their fins get stretched. So if you can just make little holes so they can sit down like that like naturally it will make a difference to it. So we'll just gently try and move this down away from there so you can do it with your hands or else we'll do it with that. So we had a debriefing this morning and it's a four kilometre walk along the beach but we're out here now you can see the whales that are still alive and we're keeping them wet putting water on their skin and we're going to start rolling them over and digging a hole for their flappers. But you can see out here there's 100 plus about 116 live whales that we got to keep hydrated all day until the tide comes in tonight. Hopefully then they can swim away. When we refloat 100 whales at a time we don't do them one by one because they live in a social pod and that pod is a really tight social bonding and you put one out and turn around and come back to the rest of this family. So we have to refloat them all at the same time. Come on guys you can get out. It's amazing the tide came in. We're digging out a whale in a matter of two three minutes the tide's here so we're hoping and praying that these guys can get out. Once the water was deep enough to begin floating the whales we rushed our cameras out of the water and began the job of trying to push the whales. This bay stays shallow for a long way out and a lot of pushing was needed to get the whales into deep enough water where they could swim on their own. Eventually all 120 whales were free and swimming in the bay. We held hands and formed a human chain to keep the whales from swimming back into shore. Then the most amazing thing happened. A super pod of about 300 whales was swimming out in the ocean and heard the distress calls of the whales we had just freed. They changed direction and swam as fast as they could into the bay. The experts told us later that the super pod was adopting the stranded and orphaned whales into their family. Eventually they all began to swim farther and farther away until they were free in the ocean once more. This experience is one we will never forget. It was physically and emotionally exhausting but it was so rewarding getting to help rescue these beautiful creatures and get them back into the ocean where they belong. Stay tuned for next week's episode of the Epic Family Road Trip as we continue down the west coast to the southernmost tip of New Zealand.