Hoos Vs NZ
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June 18th
In Auckland. Got dropped off at the Zoo! The zoo is pretty nice although I think my perception of zoos is warped because of Busch Gardens. Finally got to see a Kiwi live and in person!! And it is always funny to see people fascinated by Alligators. Got to the hostel, after walking all the way from the zoo and met two Americans, one from Oregon and the other from Colorado. Went to the bar with them and a German guy from the room and ran into a big group of still more Americans. That’s more Americans in one day then all 6 weeks in NZ so far. Had a great time.
June 19th
Off to the Auckland library for free internet and then to a few shops for some gear. An American from last night, Amanda, met up with me as I was leaving the hostel and we went to the library and the mall, got shoes and thermals for the first few days of sailing although I don’t think I will need them that much but I have learned to accept advice from those that have walked the same path before me (not accepting shorts and sandals for the cave walk the first week). Parted ways with Amanda and spent the next two hours back at the library getting things crossed off my list before potentially no internet for 3-4 weeks. Headed back up to Whangarei.
June 20th
The boat went in the water (was in the boat yard) and we did some work on it back at dock changing lines and going through stuff to figure out what we need and don’t. There were sporadic rain showers but it looks like the next few days will be good and given that we are leaving on Sunday and there is still some stuff to do on the house I think we should be able to get everything done and even with some time to spare but who knows what will happen. This week will take forever to pass by.
Somewhere between June 21st to July 1st
staying in Opua a few days, delayed again till Monday, the weather consistently says it will be bad in a few days and ends up looking fine later, from what I can gather the weather that is delaying us is only the first 3-4 days of our 12 leg, delayed so long we are cutting the niue leg which should land us in Tonga at the original projection date, once we are on our way I will get my sanity back, goin fishing tomorrow (1st).
July 1st
Went fishing today off the boat with some friends of theirs. One of them caught a red snapper which we later had to dinner. Remained uneventful but I am getting a ton of reading done.
July 2nd
Took a nice walk from Opua to Paihia today. There is a track that runs along the coast and in between the coves there are rises with great outlooks. Only unfortunate part was a lack of foresight in forgetting to bring water and my camera! The whole track took maybe 2 hours or so and I can’t believe how easily I did it, I guess I have been getting into some kind of shape. An hour or so after we got back to the boat the weather turned, got the tarp as the rain started to come in and the wind is bringing a bit of chill to the air, just as it seemed to be warming up too…
July 3rd
We should be leaving tomorrow but the bad weather that has been forecasted for the last week has finally come. It has been windy and rainy all day today. We are still in the opua marina and according to one person tomorrow isn’t looking very good for leaving, others are saying that it doesn’t look good till Friday. I have no idea what is going to happen but I don’t know how many more delays I can take. I have already been sitting around for long enough and it will almost have been a month by the time we leave if we wait till Friday, not my idea of a vacation, I might as well be working. I have been reading a lot though. Got nothing else to do sitting here in internetless land holding out for 4 days of clear skies and 20-25 knot southwesterly -
June 13th – 17th Met up with the woman and everything is good! Another good thing is that she needs some work on her house done before we leave and offered a bed and food for help on it so I have something to do and a place to stay till we leave which wont be for a little while although the date isn’t set yet… Sanding and painting doors and door frames is most of my work load for the first few days but then the weather has turned…New Zealand like, rain set in for a bit so inside cleaning and packing work took over. This weekend I am gonna go to Auckland to get some stuff together for the trip. June 18th In Auckland. Got dropped off at the Zoo! The zoo is pretty nice although I think my perception of zoos is warped because of Busch Gardens. Finally got to see a Kiwi live and in person!! And it is always funny to see people fascinated by Alligators. Got to the hostel, after walking all the way from the zoo and met two Americans, one from Oregon and the other from Colorado. Went to the bar with them and a German guy from the room and ran into a big group of still more Americans. That’s more Americans in one day then all 6 weeks in NZ so far. Had a great time. June 19th Off to the Auckland library for free internet and then to a few shops for some gear. An American from last night, Amanda, met up with me as I was leaving the hostel and we went to the library and the mall, got shoes and thermals for the first few days of sailing although I don’t think I will need them that much but I have learned to accept advice from those that have walked the same path before me (not accepting shorts and sandals for the cave walk the first week). Parted ways with Amanda and spent the next two hours back at the library getting things crossed off my list before potentially no internet for 3-4 weeks. Headed back up to Whangarei. June 20th The boat went in the water (was in the boat yard) and we did some work on it back at dock changing lines and going through stuff to figure out what we need and don’t. There were sporadic rain showers but it looks like the next few days will be good and given that we are leaving on Sunday and there is still some stuff to do on the house I think we should be able to get everything done and even with some time to spare but who knows what will happen. This week will take forever to pass by.
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Update-ish
Started sailing, went up the coast. Currently tied up in the Bay of Islands and delayed 2 more days till thursday to meet up with some better/more comfortable weather. I was really excited to get started and now I have to wait AGAIN. My first experience sailing started at night stearing the boat through the channel out to sea during which I had an intimate encounter with a sandbar although from what I hear that sandbar gets around quite a bit. Sailing at night knowing that the coast isn’t that far off and with the limited sailing exp I have (none at all) it was kind of unnerving. HOWEVER, the stars were absolutely astounding! I wasn’t even looking for them and I saw at least 8 shooting stars in the 3 hours or so I wasnt completely focused on bouys. The arm of the milky way made it almost seem like there was actually a large cloud in the sky, just breathtaking.
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At an internet cafe
and forgot my flashdrive…cant get update onto blog…the next one will come in long bursts as it will be 2 weeks at least for us to sail from Bay of Islands to Niue and then to Vava’u
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Well now, its been a little while…Hope I remembered everything!
June 5th
Decided to spend some time in Kerikeri. Went to the Sunday farmers market where I was finally able to find some actual hot sauce! The rain slowed down but there were still some showers every now and then.
June 6th
Waiting six days to follow this up was probably not such a good idea…Stayed in Kerikeri again and have been abusing this free internet and kiwis. Not a fan of the gold ones as much as the green. My drive to go back to school has been growing quite steadily and in response I have used this free internet to download some MIT opencourseware to help me prepare. It’s the Queen’s birthday so there was no work today but apparently there was some packing the places wanted done so no one is here.
June 7th
Left Kerikeri. Continued up north a ways to our first stop, Matauri Bay, a small bay that you don’t even know is there until you are right up on it. The bay is famous for the ship they resunk here called the rainbow warrior. It was a greenpeace ship that was used to sail into nuclear weapon testing areas to stop tests so the French sent agents that bombed it in Auckland harbor and it was risen and resunk in this bay and now is a popular dive spot. Also to my extreme pleasure this beach was my first introduction to sand flies, New Zealands answer to noseeums(sp?) although you can see them and they are quite numerous. From there we stopped at Coopers Beach with its orange ‘sand’. The sand was mostly sizable pieces of shells and it wasn’t as orange as I hoped but it was cool and a nice beach. Drove along the Karikari peninsula but never really found a place to stop and get out the water but it was still a nice drive! Stayed in Pukenui for the night.
June 8th
Made our way up to Cape Reinga, the most northern point in New Zealand. The waves of the Pacific Ocean and Tasman Sea slam together just offshore. It is a beautiful spot with the lighthouse and cliffs. Took a few side tracks for a while and got to see more of the shoreline. Went to Spirit Bay which reminded me of basically a Florida beach except with a few large rocks and the elevation in the background. Took a side road out to 90 mile beach on the way back that was once again, kind of Florida like. On both those beaches though there were a lot of jellyfish that had washed ashore. Stayed in Kaitia(?) with nothing there so it was a pretty boring night but was able to get some movies off Anna’s friend.
June 9th
Long drive from Kaitia to Auckland today. Visited a forest that has some of the largest Kauri trees in New Zealand and they are quite impressive. It is easy to believe that the Maori used to make huge canoes out of those things. Impressively large trees and can only imagine how large they had been before almost all of them were cut down by Europeans. After hours on the road found a hostel in Auckland for the night.
June 10th
Anna left for Rotorua this morning. Stayin at the hostel one more night had have to get up way early for the bus back up north to meet up with some potential travel companions
June 11th
Arrived back in whangarei and read most of the day away, Meeting up tomorrow.
June 12th
Met up with the guy but will have to spend another night here to meet up with the woman to see if this adventure will work out. Seems like it will but that means I have to find something to do for the next two weeks before we leave and then also have to start planning post adventure. Thinking I might try my hand at the south island a bit and then maybe some other adventures. It looks like all that stuff I downloaded will go to waste over this new adventure due to lack of electricity which also means that my ebook becomes dead so I got two weeks to figure out at least two weeks of entertainment outside of electronics.
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Told ya when I got internet I would be a little more frequent.
June 3rd
Went to the Whangarei Falls and the Abbey Caves. Skipped one of the three caves as the water was really deep right from the start. Saw an eel glaring at me from below the water and as I was going barefoot kinda freaked me out a little for the rest of the caves. I would put the Waipu cave above these but I would also like to go back to the Abbey caves with some appropriate gear and explore a little farther. The falls were nice, some 26 meters tall but mostly just your general waterfall. From there we drove along the coastal ‘highway’ and did a walk that went out to a ‘lighthouse’ (see pictures). It was really cool as the walkway is only open during low tide which we were lucky enough to catch again. However it was a little rainy and crazy windy to the point that it was sometimes hard to stay standing up much less standing and trying to take pictures. Stopped at quite a nice art gallery on the way up to Paihia but just barely made it through before they started turning the lights off. Stayed the night in Paihia.
June 4th
Left Paihia as the wind and rain picked up and made all the outdoor activities inaccessible. Visited the area where the British and Moari signed their treaty. Saw the largest war canoe built but got soaked as you had to walk from building to building and it was raining pretty good…again. From there drove up to Kerikeri and just took the day easy, all the running around from the day before just tired us out.
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May 30th
Arrived in Rotorua, and walked the town, finally quenched my odd sushi craving I have been having and now have developed a curry craving (for this I blame Thai Temple). Given said craving I think I will, for really the first time, try my hand at cooking tonight. Then to drink the leftover beer, play cards, and someone mentioned a hot tub with some of the people in the room. God this place is so much better then Gisborne.
It’s almost 9 I’m trying to decide if I want to go out, stay in and sleep or whatever… Tomorrow I will go for some walks around the lake/town. I apparently somehow got corrupt file names on my memory card for my camera, hoping I can get that sorted so I might have to get internet if just for that. It says that there are 522 files on the card taking up 2GB but alas I cannot SEE them on there and the camera says it is empty. I have been backing up every once in while but I didn’t for the last batch.
May 31st
Walked the geothermal areas of Rotorua and down to the redwoods park, 110 year old cali redwoods in new Zealand… It was amazing though, the height of those trees will never cease to impress me. The geothermal areas are pretty sweet and to think that those are indications that rotorua is a town build in the caldera of a giant volcano, and they make it stink of sulphur. Met some good people here and it looks like I will be leaving earlier then I thought. Someone I met is driving up to the northland tomorrow and I am going to tag along.
June 1st
Drove almost all day, we were thinking of doing the Mangawhai Cliff Walk but the hostel in that town was…well it wasn’t closed since the door opened but there was no one there and instructions were left to use the phone to ring a number but that was not working nor was any external given number for the hostel. We ended up driving to the next town(Waipu) and staying in an even more expensive hostel then the one is gis ($33).
June 2nd
Last night we decided to go back for the walk. Half of it was along the beach and the other half was along the cliffs, given that the tides close down the beach trail and that we hadn’t consulted any tide charts we got lucky with it being just right for us to make it but the beach was awesome. I drastic tide change leave tons of tide pools amongst the rocks on the beach and some of the formations made me wish I paid more attention to geology (see pictures). The cliffs were alright but after the beach and the fact that it started raining it wasn’t all one could hope. Taking the advice of books and the germans in the last hostel we went back up to the waipu caves. As opposed to the usual caves around New Zealand these were free to explore and we even happened to be the only two people in there the whole time. Using a pen light and a solar/hand powered flashlight (‘torches’ for those around here) we made our way through the chambers into one that had enough glow worms that with a while to adjust I was able to see the rock I was sitting on and my hand out in front of me without any lights on. Ended up in Whangarei for the night after finally finding a hostel with dorm rooms available. Off to Paihia tomorrow after doing some things around Whangarei.
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May 19th
I arrive at the hosts place at 4pm. About 4 acres from the looks of it, horses in the front by the road and pigs in along the back hill. I will be staying in a Caravan in front of the house next to a converted bus that sleeps another two but there is no one in there at the moment. Cozy little camper trailer basically with a bed, table, and some seats. I get a quick crash course in feeding the pigs and then alls done till dinner. If you don’t cook you clean so it looks like I will be cleaning for the next few days.
May 20th – 25th
I am too lazy to try and remember what happened each and every day so I will sum it all up here. Pork for dinner almost every night mixed up with venison and beef sporadically or as was the case for some amazing sausages, all together in one (venison/bacon/beef). Fed the pigs twice a day with maize, fijoas (cumera when the fijoas ran out), pumpkins and sometimes whey to the sow; corralled cows and piglets; watched a pig get killed and partially butchered (only into halves at the time); fed chooks (chickens) and collected eggs; went to the beach for some fishing (pacific); got to sleep every night before 10pm and up at 7:20; almost didn’t get to see a shooting star thanks to the damn moon but finally did one of the last nights while the arm of the Milky Way presented itself as the perfect backdrop to the end of every day even while the moon was shining down. Overall a great experience. I am sure that I have not listed everything that happened or everything I have learned. I leave for Gisborne tomorrow and from what I saw my short time there it doesn’t look like much so we shall see.
May 26th – 29th
I know I am getting worse and worse about writing stuff down but I will get better I think. I have been in Gisborne these few days and it isn’t all that good. A whole lot of nothing in a sleepy little town. Went out on Friday night with the guys from the room and two other people we met in the hostel, our group consisted of a maori guy, a French guy and a dutch guy and a girl from the UK. The bar we went to some karaoke but then turned more ‘club-ish’ I guess. Next day I wandered about town, climbed a hill with an overlook of the area that was nice. Some people from Canada are staying here too, that’s the closest I have gotten so far to fellow Americans…Leaving for Rotorua in the morning (7am :/ )!
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May 15th
Got to national park and did a short hike to some falls but forgot my memory card in my computer…of course. It was a nice walk but it was very windy and there was a mist flying over the tops of the mountains. We were the only ones in the hostel so we just drank all night till we ran out of beer which was way too early. The whole town is shut down, its kind of eerie, the beginnings of a horror film?
May 16th
Today everyone else left, I am by myself in this dead town and it is still raining and very cold. Took a long nap, about 11pm I finally decided I will be going to Napier tomorrow afternoon. Watched some TV on a streaming site I found and am going to sleep early.
May 17th
Slept in a little, which these days for no reason is 9:30. Bus is at 1pm. Guess what the weather is today? Even colder and hey, more rain. The couple that runs the hostel is really nice though and I talked to them for a bit about the weather here and the rest of the island for the winter. The woman gave me a ride to the bus stop which was very nice and I was the only one on the bus (actually a van) till I got to my connection. Now I am back in Taupo waiting for a few hours till my next connection comes, I’m eating fried mushrooms and I think I just paid $6 for a local beer…damn just as much as the mushrooms were! Got to Napier, everyone on the bus was pretty quiet. Napier seems just as quiet. The owner or manager or whatever is really nice, talked to him for a bit and he makes soup for free every night! Walked around the close part of town for a little bit. The beach is rocks with coarse sand starting at the water line. Other then that is seems pretty sleepy. 24 hours unlimited internet means streaming show I have been missing I guess since there doesn’t seem to be much else to do…
May 18th
Finally found an adapter so I can charge my ebook. Called a wwoof host and got a gig starting tomorrow! Bus ticket in hand free soup in my belly pretty boring day. If I was here longer I would have done a wine tour but this will be better in general.
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The one problem
The one problem with bars attached to hostels. They call you to them! I can hear the music from here…
