Francesca and Henk-Jan's Backpacking Trip!
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
While our hostel burned and melted we climbed something that sounds like Ratatouille...
Hi everyone!
Well, we never ended up going to the Skytower the other night – we were pretty tired by the time we got back to Nomads. Finally we didn’t end up sleeping through dinner and as a result we got Nachos from the bar (they give you a super tiny sample serving for free, but we bought a $4.00 larger plate to share as well because otherwise it would have not been enough) and watched music videos on the big screen. After dinner we attempted to finish watching the rest of The Two Towers, but I ended up falling asleep (again) and our Lord of the Rings is thus still on hold.
The next morning we got up pretty early, needing to do laundry and visit the nearby Internet Café. Also, we made a quick stop to the Immigration office to check on the status of our work visas we applied for the first night in Auckland. We had heard from almost everyone we spoke with that X-rays and a doctor’s clearance are not required for a working holiday visa lasting under 1 year, but we wanted to make sure this was the case. Immigration didn’t really tell us much, but I got an e-mail today stating my working holiday visa was officially approved -- I guess as long as Henk’s is as well we should be OK.
Next we needed to fuel up for the day, because we planned to do a hike on one of the islands off the coast of Auckland, either Waiheki or Rangitoto (the former an island with wineries, the latter a volcanic island). Thus Henk bought us a chocolate and cherry cookie, and then we stocked up on a few sandwiches, chips and drinks – well needed, because we knew Rangitoto had no shops whatsoever.
By the time we made it to the ferry, the 11:00 ferry for the islands had already left (the next ferry wasn’t until 12:00 pm), so we had plenty of time to decide which island to visit. Even though I’ve never been much of a hiker, (only out of necessity of exercise do I usually get stuck hiking somewhere) Henk really wanted to do a hike and we wanted to test my endurance for longer hikes in the future … SO we ended up going to Rangitoto and doing a hike up the 600-year-old dormant volcano.
Rangitoto was pretty cool – since it’s a volcano, the majority of the scenic walk consists of small mountains of black volcanic rock all over the place. We started hiking up around 12:30 pm, taking some neat pictures along the way. The hike reminded me of our trip to Costa Rica. There, we also visited a volcano – an active volcano that time– but still, the amount of volcanic stone made the scene seem similar. We took the straight path up the volcano, getting to the viewing platform around 2:15 pm.
The view was amazing… you could see the entire skyline of Auckland in the distance on one side, and the crisp waters and lush small islands on the other. From every direction there seemed to be a breeze – but hey, its winter and we’re on top of a small island, so I guess that is to be expected. :D A bunch of pictures and sandwiches later, it started to sprinkle rain so we began to head back down. We decided to not press our luck – it had been pouring rain in Auckland for two days straight before our Rangitoto adventure, and it was damn good luck we hadn’t seen any yet that day.
The last ferry left around 3:30 pm and we were on it, ready to make our way back to the hostel for a well deserved shower and some time to relax. However, when we got to Nomads, the reception was locked and everything was dark. We were told by the Nomads employees waiting outside that some idiot had tossed his still lit cigarette butt in the grate on the sidewalk, the butt ended up creating a small fire which melted a water pipe in the basement … and you guessed it, it burst and everything flooded.
Even though we were really tired at this point, we had no choice but to pack up everything and move to the Nomads Fusion (a slightly nicer Nomads hostel) up the street. I started packing (since our room resembled a nuclear explosion, mainly because I pulled everything out of every bag we had) things up, and Henk went over to Fusion to make sure we’d be able to get a double room. We got one; in fact, we ended up being upgraded to a double ensuite – with our own bathroom and a small TV. Even though it was only for one night (the Stray bus was picking us up the next morning to begin our 3-day Bay of Islands trip) it was great to have a nice long shower in our own room.
Oh yeah, also, Henk would like everyone to know that because the elevators were not working in either hostel, he had to run up and down 6 flights of stairs 3 times before we even ended up moving our stuff.
Anyways, dinner at the Nomads that night was this really spicy Thai curry. Would normally not be my first choice, but for $4.00 a plate (and after a tiring hike that day) I was starving for anything warm. Henk had eaten the extra sandwich, so he wasn’t that hungry and I ended up devouring both his and my curry plates and two huge Sprites. (Yeah, by the way, mixing spicy Thai curry and fizzy carbonated Sprite is probably not the best idea I ever had – my stomach felt pretty gurgly and weird for the next hour after.)
And now Henk's going to post about the fun we had today. :D
Francesca
Well, we never ended up going to the Skytower the other night – we were pretty tired by the time we got back to Nomads. Finally we didn’t end up sleeping through dinner and as a result we got Nachos from the bar (they give you a super tiny sample serving for free, but we bought a $4.00 larger plate to share as well because otherwise it would have not been enough) and watched music videos on the big screen. After dinner we attempted to finish watching the rest of The Two Towers, but I ended up falling asleep (again) and our Lord of the Rings is thus still on hold.
The next morning we got up pretty early, needing to do laundry and visit the nearby Internet Café. Also, we made a quick stop to the Immigration office to check on the status of our work visas we applied for the first night in Auckland. We had heard from almost everyone we spoke with that X-rays and a doctor’s clearance are not required for a working holiday visa lasting under 1 year, but we wanted to make sure this was the case. Immigration didn’t really tell us much, but I got an e-mail today stating my working holiday visa was officially approved -- I guess as long as Henk’s is as well we should be OK.
Next we needed to fuel up for the day, because we planned to do a hike on one of the islands off the coast of Auckland, either Waiheki or Rangitoto (the former an island with wineries, the latter a volcanic island). Thus Henk bought us a chocolate and cherry cookie, and then we stocked up on a few sandwiches, chips and drinks – well needed, because we knew Rangitoto had no shops whatsoever.
By the time we made it to the ferry, the 11:00 ferry for the islands had already left (the next ferry wasn’t until 12:00 pm), so we had plenty of time to decide which island to visit. Even though I’ve never been much of a hiker, (only out of necessity of exercise do I usually get stuck hiking somewhere) Henk really wanted to do a hike and we wanted to test my endurance for longer hikes in the future … SO we ended up going to Rangitoto and doing a hike up the 600-year-old dormant volcano.
Rangitoto was pretty cool – since it’s a volcano, the majority of the scenic walk consists of small mountains of black volcanic rock all over the place. We started hiking up around 12:30 pm, taking some neat pictures along the way. The hike reminded me of our trip to Costa Rica. There, we also visited a volcano – an active volcano that time– but still, the amount of volcanic stone made the scene seem similar. We took the straight path up the volcano, getting to the viewing platform around 2:15 pm.
The view was amazing… you could see the entire skyline of Auckland in the distance on one side, and the crisp waters and lush small islands on the other. From every direction there seemed to be a breeze – but hey, its winter and we’re on top of a small island, so I guess that is to be expected. :D A bunch of pictures and sandwiches later, it started to sprinkle rain so we began to head back down. We decided to not press our luck – it had been pouring rain in Auckland for two days straight before our Rangitoto adventure, and it was damn good luck we hadn’t seen any yet that day.
The last ferry left around 3:30 pm and we were on it, ready to make our way back to the hostel for a well deserved shower and some time to relax. However, when we got to Nomads, the reception was locked and everything was dark. We were told by the Nomads employees waiting outside that some idiot had tossed his still lit cigarette butt in the grate on the sidewalk, the butt ended up creating a small fire which melted a water pipe in the basement … and you guessed it, it burst and everything flooded.
Even though we were really tired at this point, we had no choice but to pack up everything and move to the Nomads Fusion (a slightly nicer Nomads hostel) up the street. I started packing (since our room resembled a nuclear explosion, mainly because I pulled everything out of every bag we had) things up, and Henk went over to Fusion to make sure we’d be able to get a double room. We got one; in fact, we ended up being upgraded to a double ensuite – with our own bathroom and a small TV. Even though it was only for one night (the Stray bus was picking us up the next morning to begin our 3-day Bay of Islands trip) it was great to have a nice long shower in our own room.
Oh yeah, also, Henk would like everyone to know that because the elevators were not working in either hostel, he had to run up and down 6 flights of stairs 3 times before we even ended up moving our stuff.
Anyways, dinner at the Nomads that night was this really spicy Thai curry. Would normally not be my first choice, but for $4.00 a plate (and after a tiring hike that day) I was starving for anything warm. Henk had eaten the extra sandwich, so he wasn’t that hungry and I ended up devouring both his and my curry plates and two huge Sprites. (Yeah, by the way, mixing spicy Thai curry and fizzy carbonated Sprite is probably not the best idea I ever had – my stomach felt pretty gurgly and weird for the next hour after.)
And now Henk's going to post about the fun we had today. :D
Francesca
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