Francesca and Henk-Jan's Backpacking Trip!
Friday, July 3, 2009
Going to Cape Reinga
Heya everyone!
Yesterday was a verrry busy day for us. We had to wake up at 6:15 am because our Dune Riders tour (included in the price of the Patch Trip to the Bay of Islands) bus was supposed to pick us up around 7:00 am. We were out there on time, but the bus was 20 minutes late. Later, we found out that the two other Americans (Brandon and Jordan) on the trip with us decided to tour around on their own, missing out on sandboarding!
Oh and also, I wanted to say that Henk forgot to tell you about the colorful sheep we saw! When we were driving north towards Paihia, we passed a place called Sheep World. Lucky, our tour guide, explained to us that New Zealand was experimenting with genetically modifying sheep to be born in a variety of bright colors, so the need to dye their wool post-sheering isn’t necessary. Basically, we looked to the left out the window and saw a whole bunch of bright pink sheep staring back at us! Freaky…
Once we got on the bus, Henk realized that he recognized the driver from the last time he did the tour… I guess 4 years later that guy still isn’t sick of it yet. Our first stop was at the location of a former Maori fortification called a Pa… but it wasn’t there anymore, so we just had a really good lookout point to take pictures from instead. We stopped for some hot chocolate (Henk’s gotten into the habit of getting me hot chocolate in the mornings since I’m always freezing cold despite all my jackets I layer on) and to get some sandwiches for lunch later on.
Then it was time to ride in the bus along 90 Mile Beach (which is actually only a 90 kilometer beach – or only 73 miles) … a vastly empty but amazingly clean looking beach, except for the occasional car buried in the sand. I saw a car window sticking out of the ground, the rest of the car sunk deep under the sand! We got to spend some time walking on the beach, and even climbed up the hill a bit to take pictures of wild horses our driver spotted and another famous New Zealand hole in the rock. (They can’t seem to keep any of their rocks in one piece.)
Sandboarding! Even though I’ve already been sandboarding on sand dunes when I went to Peru with my mom, I was a bit nervous to try it again. And this time rather than taking a 4x4 up the dunes like I did in South America; we had to walk our asses all the way up the huge dune – twice! But it was worth it. :D It was pretty fun sliding down dunes again, even though I dug my feet in the sand pretty quickly so I wouldn’t end up going too fast. Henk raced right down, of course! And I got to watch him. :D
By now it was around 1:30 pm, but our really long day was far from over. We hadn’t even reached our main attraction yet: Cape Reinga. Cape Reinga is the famous area in New Zealand where the Tasman Sea (known as the male sea ‘Te Moana ta Pukapuka o Tawhaki’ to the Maori) is separated from the Pacific Ocean (the female sea ‘Te Tai o Whitireia.’) For the Maori, the cape is where a person’s spirit comes after death and departs for their eternal home. It’s easy to see why the Maori would think this – the cape was beautiful. If we didn’t know there was more out there, it would seem this could be where the world might end.
As we walked closer to the cape, we learned the story behind the area’s name: The beach surrounding Cape Reinga became known as the Spirits Bay nearly 700 years ago, after the ancestor Tohe departed from it to visit his daughter who lived far away. He was very old, and his people feared he would die before he returned. He said to them, ‘Kapohia taku wairua!’ That is, if his wairua (spirit) passed that way on its final journey, his people should reach out and catch it, not let it go on.
At the end of the Cape sat a little lighthouse built in the 1940’s, and a cool sign pointing out the direction to major cities around the globe. The perfect spot for some dramatic photos. :D
Our last stops of the day had to do with Amber, called Gum here in New Zealand for some reason: Gumdiggers Park and a staircase made from a Kauri tree. Gumdiggers is an ancient buried Kauri forest, Kauri being huge trees containing amber, now protected but farmed in the past. I thought the coolest thing was the 150,000 year old giant Kauri tree stump (the oldest known non-fossilized wood on earth,) measuring about 100 feet in its girth. The later stop, the staircase, was kinda boring but we got a lot of really cool pictures there with some pretty weird looking furniture made of Kauri.
Before starting the drive home, our guide had the great plan of stopping for some fish and chips in Mangonui. I usually am not a huge fan of fish, but we had a fish called bluenose which turned out to be a really delicious fish! I recommend giving it a try if you’re not a huge fish fan. :D Henk and I ended the day with some ice-cream for the bus-ride back to the hostel. And he wants to add that it was his idea and he bought it for me. :D
Today we slept in a bit, and are just relaxing waiting for the bus to bring us back to Auckland around 2:00 pm. We should get into the city around 5:00 pm, so we’ll try and grab some groceries before we get on the bus so we can head right to the hostel once we get back to Auckland. By the way, Henk beat me at Golden Axe (FINALLY, and only because he discovered you can use skills and I didn’t know that) so everyone needs to buy me Golden Axe guidebooks so I can beat him again!
Francesca
Yesterday was a verrry busy day for us. We had to wake up at 6:15 am because our Dune Riders tour (included in the price of the Patch Trip to the Bay of Islands) bus was supposed to pick us up around 7:00 am. We were out there on time, but the bus was 20 minutes late. Later, we found out that the two other Americans (Brandon and Jordan) on the trip with us decided to tour around on their own, missing out on sandboarding!
Oh and also, I wanted to say that Henk forgot to tell you about the colorful sheep we saw! When we were driving north towards Paihia, we passed a place called Sheep World. Lucky, our tour guide, explained to us that New Zealand was experimenting with genetically modifying sheep to be born in a variety of bright colors, so the need to dye their wool post-sheering isn’t necessary. Basically, we looked to the left out the window and saw a whole bunch of bright pink sheep staring back at us! Freaky…
Once we got on the bus, Henk realized that he recognized the driver from the last time he did the tour… I guess 4 years later that guy still isn’t sick of it yet. Our first stop was at the location of a former Maori fortification called a Pa… but it wasn’t there anymore, so we just had a really good lookout point to take pictures from instead. We stopped for some hot chocolate (Henk’s gotten into the habit of getting me hot chocolate in the mornings since I’m always freezing cold despite all my jackets I layer on) and to get some sandwiches for lunch later on.
Then it was time to ride in the bus along 90 Mile Beach (which is actually only a 90 kilometer beach – or only 73 miles) … a vastly empty but amazingly clean looking beach, except for the occasional car buried in the sand. I saw a car window sticking out of the ground, the rest of the car sunk deep under the sand! We got to spend some time walking on the beach, and even climbed up the hill a bit to take pictures of wild horses our driver spotted and another famous New Zealand hole in the rock. (They can’t seem to keep any of their rocks in one piece.)
Sandboarding! Even though I’ve already been sandboarding on sand dunes when I went to Peru with my mom, I was a bit nervous to try it again. And this time rather than taking a 4x4 up the dunes like I did in South America; we had to walk our asses all the way up the huge dune – twice! But it was worth it. :D It was pretty fun sliding down dunes again, even though I dug my feet in the sand pretty quickly so I wouldn’t end up going too fast. Henk raced right down, of course! And I got to watch him. :D
By now it was around 1:30 pm, but our really long day was far from over. We hadn’t even reached our main attraction yet: Cape Reinga. Cape Reinga is the famous area in New Zealand where the Tasman Sea (known as the male sea ‘Te Moana ta Pukapuka o Tawhaki’ to the Maori) is separated from the Pacific Ocean (the female sea ‘Te Tai o Whitireia.’) For the Maori, the cape is where a person’s spirit comes after death and departs for their eternal home. It’s easy to see why the Maori would think this – the cape was beautiful. If we didn’t know there was more out there, it would seem this could be where the world might end.
As we walked closer to the cape, we learned the story behind the area’s name: The beach surrounding Cape Reinga became known as the Spirits Bay nearly 700 years ago, after the ancestor Tohe departed from it to visit his daughter who lived far away. He was very old, and his people feared he would die before he returned. He said to them, ‘Kapohia taku wairua!’ That is, if his wairua (spirit) passed that way on its final journey, his people should reach out and catch it, not let it go on.
At the end of the Cape sat a little lighthouse built in the 1940’s, and a cool sign pointing out the direction to major cities around the globe. The perfect spot for some dramatic photos. :D
Our last stops of the day had to do with Amber, called Gum here in New Zealand for some reason: Gumdiggers Park and a staircase made from a Kauri tree. Gumdiggers is an ancient buried Kauri forest, Kauri being huge trees containing amber, now protected but farmed in the past. I thought the coolest thing was the 150,000 year old giant Kauri tree stump (the oldest known non-fossilized wood on earth,) measuring about 100 feet in its girth. The later stop, the staircase, was kinda boring but we got a lot of really cool pictures there with some pretty weird looking furniture made of Kauri.
Before starting the drive home, our guide had the great plan of stopping for some fish and chips in Mangonui. I usually am not a huge fan of fish, but we had a fish called bluenose which turned out to be a really delicious fish! I recommend giving it a try if you’re not a huge fish fan. :D Henk and I ended the day with some ice-cream for the bus-ride back to the hostel. And he wants to add that it was his idea and he bought it for me. :D
Today we slept in a bit, and are just relaxing waiting for the bus to bring us back to Auckland around 2:00 pm. We should get into the city around 5:00 pm, so we’ll try and grab some groceries before we get on the bus so we can head right to the hostel once we get back to Auckland. By the way, Henk beat me at Golden Axe (FINALLY, and only because he discovered you can use skills and I didn’t know that) so everyone needs to buy me Golden Axe guidebooks so I can beat him again!
Francesca
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
The Hole in the Rock...
Kia ora!
This morning we were supposed to wake up at 7:00AM, because our tour to the Bay of Islands would start at 7:45AM. Unfortunately, we ended up waking up at 7:43AM, and getting ready in record time. I ran down to check if the Stray-bus had arrived, and the lady behind the counter said the driver had just passed. Luckily, there was another person waiting for the bus, that had also overslept, so I asked her to talk to the hostel-staff and call Stray to make sure we were picked up. I ran back up and made sure we had all our stuff. Francesca thought she had forgot her glasses, so I had to go up one more time, only to find out she had in fact already grabbed it. Hey, at least it’s a work-out!
After all of that was said and done we met our driver for the day; a nice girl named Lucky. She would drive us up to the Paihia today. After we stowed our backpacks (which are still overweight, and which Francesca still can’t carry without almost breaking her back) we sat down in the small bus. We were accompanied by one Irish girl and two American guys. Introductions were made and off we went.
It really felt like we were starting our trip now; getting out of the city. Outside of Auckland everyone thinks Aucklanders are snobby, and considered Jafa’s (Just Another F&$#ing Aucklander). No more Jafa for us! Lucky told us some more stories about the history of New Zealand, and taught us some more Maori words to impress the locals. Our first stop of the day was the McKinney Kauri tree. The Kauri is an indigenous tree, that can reach enormous heights and girths. The one we saw today is ‘only’ 600 years old, and already makes me look like a dwarf (and Fran like an ant). For good luck and good weather you’re supposed to hug the tree and tell it it’s beautiful, so yeah… here’s us hugging a tree!
We drove off again, making our way to a little town to pick up some sandwiches and drinks. We bought some Dutch Salami (yes, really), cheese, bread and Fanta for our soon-to-come-beach-picnic. Lucky brought us to Uretiti Beach (yes, really, cheesy jokes allowed). We sat on the beach and ate slightly sandy, but surely satisfying sandwiches (I am an alliteration artist) overlooking a beautiful beach and clear water with little islands on the horizon. Not a bad meal! A little further down the road we stopped in a small town to look at some unique toilets. In the early 1990s the town needed to redo their public toilets and asked Frederick Hundertwasser (an Austrian architect that had lived there for 25 years) to do the design. I have to say, the Gaudi-esque mosaic style makes peeing quite the experience.
Our final destination of the day was Paihia, where we are currently residing. We chose to go to the Pipi Patch, a nice hostel, where we could get a good double room cheaper than a spot in a dorm. We dropped our backpacks in the room and headed back to the center of town for our eco-tour with a possibility of seeing dolphins, and perhaps even orcas. For the brave there was even the opportunity to swim, if we would find any of said marine mammals. The boat took us for a spin across several of the nicer islands, some of which are inhabited. Apparently we could even buy one of the islands, or a vacation home for several millions. Tempting, but perhaps not the wisest thing to spend our money on… We also heard the story of Russell, the first real town of New Zealand. It was once known as the ‘Hellhole of the South Pacific’, because whalers and Australian convicts came together here for brothels and booze. Nowadays it’s known as Romantic Russell, undoubtedly a better nickname. It certainly looks picturesque.
The highlight of the trip was the visit to the ‘Hole in the Rock’. Might not sound like much, but going through a hole in an island on a rough sea with a boat is actually quite cool. The island at one point had a weak spot that eroded, becoming a cave and later on turning into a sizeable hole. After the hole we looked for dolphins again, following hints from the coastguard that had spotted some a few hours before in a nearby bay. Unfortunately we didn’t end up finding any dolphins… We headed back to Paihia and concluded our day. Now we’re waiting in the hostel for the BBQ that should start in 15 minutes. We’re both really hungry, so that’s it for today! Tomorrow we’re going up to Cape Reinga, for some time on 90 Mile Beach, some dune-surfing and a view of two oceans colliding.
Sweet as!
P.S. Please keep the comments coming! We love them! \\o.o//
P.S.2 If you wish to see Francesca skydive/bungee please donate!
P.S.3 Fijne verjaardag nog Jelle! <3 Take care bro! 28 is ancient.
This morning we were supposed to wake up at 7:00AM, because our tour to the Bay of Islands would start at 7:45AM. Unfortunately, we ended up waking up at 7:43AM, and getting ready in record time. I ran down to check if the Stray-bus had arrived, and the lady behind the counter said the driver had just passed. Luckily, there was another person waiting for the bus, that had also overslept, so I asked her to talk to the hostel-staff and call Stray to make sure we were picked up. I ran back up and made sure we had all our stuff. Francesca thought she had forgot her glasses, so I had to go up one more time, only to find out she had in fact already grabbed it. Hey, at least it’s a work-out!
After all of that was said and done we met our driver for the day; a nice girl named Lucky. She would drive us up to the Paihia today. After we stowed our backpacks (which are still overweight, and which Francesca still can’t carry without almost breaking her back) we sat down in the small bus. We were accompanied by one Irish girl and two American guys. Introductions were made and off we went.
It really felt like we were starting our trip now; getting out of the city. Outside of Auckland everyone thinks Aucklanders are snobby, and considered Jafa’s (Just Another F&$#ing Aucklander). No more Jafa for us! Lucky told us some more stories about the history of New Zealand, and taught us some more Maori words to impress the locals. Our first stop of the day was the McKinney Kauri tree. The Kauri is an indigenous tree, that can reach enormous heights and girths. The one we saw today is ‘only’ 600 years old, and already makes me look like a dwarf (and Fran like an ant). For good luck and good weather you’re supposed to hug the tree and tell it it’s beautiful, so yeah… here’s us hugging a tree!
We drove off again, making our way to a little town to pick up some sandwiches and drinks. We bought some Dutch Salami (yes, really), cheese, bread and Fanta for our soon-to-come-beach-picnic. Lucky brought us to Uretiti Beach (yes, really, cheesy jokes allowed). We sat on the beach and ate slightly sandy, but surely satisfying sandwiches (I am an alliteration artist) overlooking a beautiful beach and clear water with little islands on the horizon. Not a bad meal! A little further down the road we stopped in a small town to look at some unique toilets. In the early 1990s the town needed to redo their public toilets and asked Frederick Hundertwasser (an Austrian architect that had lived there for 25 years) to do the design. I have to say, the Gaudi-esque mosaic style makes peeing quite the experience.
Our final destination of the day was Paihia, where we are currently residing. We chose to go to the Pipi Patch, a nice hostel, where we could get a good double room cheaper than a spot in a dorm. We dropped our backpacks in the room and headed back to the center of town for our eco-tour with a possibility of seeing dolphins, and perhaps even orcas. For the brave there was even the opportunity to swim, if we would find any of said marine mammals. The boat took us for a spin across several of the nicer islands, some of which are inhabited. Apparently we could even buy one of the islands, or a vacation home for several millions. Tempting, but perhaps not the wisest thing to spend our money on… We also heard the story of Russell, the first real town of New Zealand. It was once known as the ‘Hellhole of the South Pacific’, because whalers and Australian convicts came together here for brothels and booze. Nowadays it’s known as Romantic Russell, undoubtedly a better nickname. It certainly looks picturesque.
The highlight of the trip was the visit to the ‘Hole in the Rock’. Might not sound like much, but going through a hole in an island on a rough sea with a boat is actually quite cool. The island at one point had a weak spot that eroded, becoming a cave and later on turning into a sizeable hole. After the hole we looked for dolphins again, following hints from the coastguard that had spotted some a few hours before in a nearby bay. Unfortunately we didn’t end up finding any dolphins… We headed back to Paihia and concluded our day. Now we’re waiting in the hostel for the BBQ that should start in 15 minutes. We’re both really hungry, so that’s it for today! Tomorrow we’re going up to Cape Reinga, for some time on 90 Mile Beach, some dune-surfing and a view of two oceans colliding.
Sweet as!
P.S. Please keep the comments coming! We love them! \\o.o//
P.S.2 If you wish to see Francesca skydive/bungee please donate!
P.S.3 Fijne verjaardag nog Jelle! <3 Take care bro! 28 is ancient.
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
Monday, June 29, 2009
Our first stop!
Kia ora (that's 'hello' in Maori)!
It's been a few days since we last left you a few words about our state of being. You'll be glad to hear we've made it to New Zealand safe and sound. We left New York on the 25th of June with a 6 hour flight to Los Angeles. We had a short stop-over at LAX, and then continued onwards to Auckland, New Zealand. I am happy to say that this was the first time ever I slept comfortably on a plane. Francesca also managed to get some hours in, and we were both fairly rested in the morning. We were supposed to land in Auckland Saturdaymorning around 6:30AM. However, we ended up with another stop-over on Fiji, because it was too foggy in Auckland. After standing still at Nadi airport for an hour we were cleared for take-off and finally completed our last leg.
Arriving in Auckland we knew our trip had really begun. We grabbed our backpacks and jumped on the Airbus that took us to the citycenter. We had looked at some hostels and decided to go to Fort Street to check out Base and Nomads. The Base-hostel had apparently been sold off since my last visit to New Zealand in 2005, so we booked ourselves a doubleroom at Nomads. Tired, but happy to have started our trip we took our bags up and rested for the remainder of the Saturday. We did sign up for the free citytour with Stray on Monday.
Sunday was another day of rest. We checked out Queen Street, which is the shoppingstreet of the center of the city. Francesca had had a craving for McDonald's for a while now, so we went and grabbed her a meal. Since I came to New York back in April she had not touched KFC's, McD's or BK's, so it didn't actually taste that bad. The weather outside was still kind of bad, so we just stayed in for the majority of the day watching Lord of the Rings, which Francesca had never seen! Omgosh, I know! Who hasn't seen those?
Today is Monday the 29th of June and earlier this morning we jumped on the Stray-bus for our free (yay!) tour of the city. We saw the first thrillseekers' sites: a slingshot for 3 people and a controlled bungee off the Skytower, the tallest structure of the Southern Hemisphere with its 328 metres (1,076 ft). I have already done 3 bungees, and Francesca is not too keen on them, so we passed on the opportunity to do a jump ourselves.
Our busdriver, a Maori, told us about the creationstories of Aotearoa, the name Maori give their country. Here's the story in short:
Maui was a demi-god, who lived in Hawaiiki. He possessed magic powers that not all of his family knew about.
One day when he was very young, he hid in the bottom of his brothers' boat in order to go out fishing with them. Once out at sea, Maui was discovered by his brothers, but they were not able to take him back to shore as Maui made use of his magic powers, making the shoreline seem much further away than it was in reality.
So the brothers continued rowing, and once they were far out into the ocean Maui dropped his magic fishhook over the side of the waka. After a while he felt a strong tug on the line. This seemed to be too strong a tug to be any ordinary fish, so Maui called to his brothers for assistance.
After much straining and pulling, up suddenly surfaced Te Ika a Maui (the fish of Maui), known today as the North Island of New Zealand. Maui told his brothers that the Gods might be angry about this, and he asked his brothers to wait while he went to make peace with the Gods.
However, once Maui had gone his brothers began to argue among themselves about the possession of this new land. They took out their weapons and started pounding away at the catch. The blows on the land created the many mountains and valleys of the North Island today.
The South Island is known as Te Waka a Maui (the waka of Maui). Stewart Island, which lies at the very bottom of New Zealand, is known as Te Punga a Maui (Maui's anchor), as it was the anchor holding Maui's waka as he pulled in the giant fish.
Hope that wasn't too much of a wall-of-text; it's really an interesting myth to hear! After storytime the driver took us to the top of a pa, a Maori-fortification used in their fights with the Brits. We also cruised the waterfront and climbed a volcano. This was followed by a tasty, and well-deserved Seafood Basket at a nearby pub.
The final part of the tour took us to the Harbour Bridge, where we could see another bungee, and perhaps try one ourselves. We were hoisted in a harness and walked up to the middle of the bridge, to see someone run off the Harbour Bridge with a bungee-cord strapped to their waist.
This was the end of the tour and we knew what we had to do. We went back to our hostel to book our tour with Stray. We ended up getting a very nice discount and will start coming Wednesday, when we'll go up to the Bay of Islands. If the weather allows it we'll go to Waihiki tomorrow for a short hike (3~4 hours) on the volcano there. Tonight we have free dinner awaiting us at the hostel and even later we'll head up the Skytower for a nighttime panoramic view of Auckland.
E haere rā!
It's been a few days since we last left you a few words about our state of being. You'll be glad to hear we've made it to New Zealand safe and sound. We left New York on the 25th of June with a 6 hour flight to Los Angeles. We had a short stop-over at LAX, and then continued onwards to Auckland, New Zealand. I am happy to say that this was the first time ever I slept comfortably on a plane. Francesca also managed to get some hours in, and we were both fairly rested in the morning. We were supposed to land in Auckland Saturdaymorning around 6:30AM. However, we ended up with another stop-over on Fiji, because it was too foggy in Auckland. After standing still at Nadi airport for an hour we were cleared for take-off and finally completed our last leg.
Arriving in Auckland we knew our trip had really begun. We grabbed our backpacks and jumped on the Airbus that took us to the citycenter. We had looked at some hostels and decided to go to Fort Street to check out Base and Nomads. The Base-hostel had apparently been sold off since my last visit to New Zealand in 2005, so we booked ourselves a doubleroom at Nomads. Tired, but happy to have started our trip we took our bags up and rested for the remainder of the Saturday. We did sign up for the free citytour with Stray on Monday.
Sunday was another day of rest. We checked out Queen Street, which is the shoppingstreet of the center of the city. Francesca had had a craving for McDonald's for a while now, so we went and grabbed her a meal. Since I came to New York back in April she had not touched KFC's, McD's or BK's, so it didn't actually taste that bad. The weather outside was still kind of bad, so we just stayed in for the majority of the day watching Lord of the Rings, which Francesca had never seen! Omgosh, I know! Who hasn't seen those?
Today is Monday the 29th of June and earlier this morning we jumped on the Stray-bus for our free (yay!) tour of the city. We saw the first thrillseekers' sites: a slingshot for 3 people and a controlled bungee off the Skytower, the tallest structure of the Southern Hemisphere with its 328 metres (1,076 ft). I have already done 3 bungees, and Francesca is not too keen on them, so we passed on the opportunity to do a jump ourselves.
Our busdriver, a Maori, told us about the creationstories of Aotearoa, the name Maori give their country. Here's the story in short:
Maui was a demi-god, who lived in Hawaiiki. He possessed magic powers that not all of his family knew about.
One day when he was very young, he hid in the bottom of his brothers' boat in order to go out fishing with them. Once out at sea, Maui was discovered by his brothers, but they were not able to take him back to shore as Maui made use of his magic powers, making the shoreline seem much further away than it was in reality.
So the brothers continued rowing, and once they were far out into the ocean Maui dropped his magic fishhook over the side of the waka. After a while he felt a strong tug on the line. This seemed to be too strong a tug to be any ordinary fish, so Maui called to his brothers for assistance.
After much straining and pulling, up suddenly surfaced Te Ika a Maui (the fish of Maui), known today as the North Island of New Zealand. Maui told his brothers that the Gods might be angry about this, and he asked his brothers to wait while he went to make peace with the Gods.
However, once Maui had gone his brothers began to argue among themselves about the possession of this new land. They took out their weapons and started pounding away at the catch. The blows on the land created the many mountains and valleys of the North Island today.
The South Island is known as Te Waka a Maui (the waka of Maui). Stewart Island, which lies at the very bottom of New Zealand, is known as Te Punga a Maui (Maui's anchor), as it was the anchor holding Maui's waka as he pulled in the giant fish.
Hope that wasn't too much of a wall-of-text; it's really an interesting myth to hear! After storytime the driver took us to the top of a pa, a Maori-fortification used in their fights with the Brits. We also cruised the waterfront and climbed a volcano. This was followed by a tasty, and well-deserved Seafood Basket at a nearby pub.
The final part of the tour took us to the Harbour Bridge, where we could see another bungee, and perhaps try one ourselves. We were hoisted in a harness and walked up to the middle of the bridge, to see someone run off the Harbour Bridge with a bungee-cord strapped to their waist.
This was the end of the tour and we knew what we had to do. We went back to our hostel to book our tour with Stray. We ended up getting a very nice discount and will start coming Wednesday, when we'll go up to the Bay of Islands. If the weather allows it we'll go to Waihiki tomorrow for a short hike (3~4 hours) on the volcano there. Tonight we have free dinner awaiting us at the hostel and even later we'll head up the Skytower for a nighttime panoramic view of Auckland.
E haere rā!
