Auckland at last

Back in Auckland and it was really our first time to drive around and see it. One can almost always see the sky tower.

So many hills and parks (and yes even sheep in the parks).

Great buildings both old and new.

Amazing views from atop One Tree Hill.

Wandered around the museum grounds and greenhouses.

We took the Ferry over to Half Moon Bay after dropping off the Campavan (ahh how sad to lose our little home…..actually how nice to not have to sleep in that little cold, cramped tin box ever again!).

What a great ride…speeding away from beautiful downtown Auckland along the mansion lined coast and past lush islands, windsurfers, sailboarders, day boaters, many parked yachts and straight thru the line of Friday afternoon Rum racers: sailboats leaning hard into the wind!


We had a most excellent last dinner at a very fine Thai restaurant.
Spent a lovely fun morning with Graeme and Bunty’s family and sweet little Theo entertained us all.

In the afternoon before our flight we went for a final hike up the hill over Duder’s Beach enjoying a wee bit more of that fine dark New Zealand Kiwifruit chocolate.
Good on us!

So to sum it up…..
New Zealand’s natural beauty is truly wonderful and like its weather so varied.
Everything grows so big, like “gignormous”!

Giant ferns, geranium vines and towering lupin bushes….plants don’t die off they just keep getting bigger. We often felt we had landed in Jurassic park and expected to see dinosaurs, but no just lots and lots and lots of sheep (Kiwi lawnmowers) and lots of birds.
The people were all so friendly. They must surely be part seal and part mountain goat. They are so into enjoying their great outdoors all year round.

And even though the land mass of the country could fit like islands into our Great Lakes, it felt huge. With the narrow, winding mountain roads the driving was slow and so even in the month and half of traveling we still have so much more to see….and that will be another fine trip some day.

Monday Oct. 1st. 07

Resting here back in the Bay of Plenty….ahhhh abundant in serenity and beauty……the long, long stretches of wide sandy beaches, grassy dunes and gentle rolling surf.

Blessed with warmth and sunshine for our anniversary we climbed to the highest point around to view the strange twisted mud flats of Ohiwa Harbour, far away Motiti Island and the still active and sulphur stinking volcano White Island, Opotiki Beach to the south where we camped the other night and all the way up the coast to the most Easterly Raukumara Range, Maori Lands.

We enjoyed the slow (rollercoaster ) journey up the East Cape coastline, staying over at Te Araroa south of Hick’s Bay and before that at Tatapouri where the tiny blue penguins come out at night.

Gisbourne is an interesting historic town, (Capt. Cook). We bought Paua shell treasures and much needed woollens of Merino and Possum fur. Ahhh warm
and cozy at last.

Tuesday, October 2nd 2007

Headed back up the coast, we are now stopped at Waihi beach. It`s raining, and since we`re neither ducks nor penguins, we are holed up in the campervan. We haven`t even seen the beach yet. We`ll probably stay here a couple of nights.

Update from Gisborne

And, for those of you who have been concerned about us...





Thurs, 27 Sept 07

We are sitting in a small internet cafe in Gisborne (east coast, north island). We are currently enjoying a cold rainy spell due to Antarctic air coming up from the south. This has limited us to snuggling up in our campervan and catching up on movies and other things ;-)

We will head north from here to Tolaga Bay to check out the rest of the east coast that we had bypassed when travelling through Rotorua down to Napier.

Monday sept24th-07

We are sitting in our wee campavan with an other amazing view of another Eastcoast beach. This place is called Waipatiki Farm Beach Camp.

And yep the chickens are fighting at the van door for table scraps. There is only one other family tenting here. Earlier a couple of surfers were out in the waves, but now we have the beach to ourselves.
We don’t have internet here (or hardly anywhere actually) so if you have checked out our blog and were thinking we have been tardy with up dating it that is why. So on a lazy, rainy day like this afternoon we will just have to work on emails and the blog and then get it off when we can.
We are just loving being by the Pacific Ocean again even though it is quite cool right now here…It was definitely wishful thinking that made me bring all those bikinis and sundresses!


We have found some real treasures as far as camper sites:

Castlepoint where the lighthouse is and Captain Cook’s Castle rock we stayed 4 days and saw glorious sunrises each morning. We hiked for hours along the bay and over the high ridges. Took at least 700 photos, all keepers Saw seals sunning themselves on the rocks at Christmas Bay.(Christmas seals).

More switchback mountain roads with another Kiwi traffic jam,freshly shorn sheep slowly meandering along to another grassy hillside. The best lawn mowers in the country.

Then a sign to let you know you are passing the place with the worlds longest place name. “Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateapokaiwhenuakitanatahu” took longer to try to read the name than to pass.

Wellington, what a lovely city with its tunnels and trams and winding streets up towering hills and back down to the bay filled with yachts. 360views from mount Victoria.
Modern and old, culture and arts, and a bigger Tango scene than Montreal yet it seems smaller than Halifax. A condensed San Francisco. Very colourful and livable with its swimable beaches and abundant watersports.

Sunday, 16 September, 2007

We stayed across Hawkes Bay from Napier in a campsite outside the tiny town of Clifton. Today we walked the 8 km hike along the coast to Cape Kidnappers to see the Gannet Reserve. A Gannet is a type of seabird, larger than a seagull. The Gannet reserve at the tip of the cape is a protected colony of gannets.


On the way there we were flanked on one side by the bay and on the other by high, looming cliffs that threatened to come down on us if we stayed too long to admire their grandeur. We had been warned before our hike that there are frequent rockfalls and we should hurry so as not to be caught between the sea and the cliffs at high tide.

After two hours of walking, we arrived at the gannet colony and were treated to a sight of hundreds of gannets nesting and wheeling above us. One annoyed gannet decided to bombard my bald target of a head on his fly-by run. Good luck, I guess.


The good luck stood us in good stead on our return trip from the colony. As we walked along the cliff-lined coast, we were startled from our sight-seeing by a sudden cloud of dust extending down the cliff face and out to sea some 100 metres ahead. One of the rockslides we had been warned about. At least we weren`t below when it happened.



We arrived safely back at out campervan and toasted our luck with quantities of NZ wine.


Tuesday, 18 sept.-07

Having crossed over from the Eastern Hawkes Bay region, yesterday we traveled south and overnighted on the West coast beach, in a town called Otaki, approximately one hour North of Wellington. Now heading for the capitol.

Hawkes Bay

Wednesday, 12 Sept. 07

Here we are in Rotorua – a town lying around the edge of a volcanic lake. Black swans cruise the lake in quantity, going ``bottoms up`` as they feed. The smell of sulphur fills the air. Mmmmmm. Rotorua is situated around volcanic hotsprings. Bubbling gurgling grey mud boils like witches’ cauldrons and sulphurous clouds bellow out from the many fumaroles that dot the area. (Makes for nice thermal baths.)

This morning, we woke up in Thornton, in the Bay of Plenty region, camped almost on the beach. The beach itself is a long 70 km stretch of beautiful shell-strewn sand all the way from Whakatane (pronounced ``Fa-ka-taw-nay``) to the volcanic mount of Manganui .Aside from the funny black sea birds with long red beaks and a few fishing at the river mouth, we have the beach to ourselves. With long rods stuck into the sand they catch sea salmon and snapper, huge nets for scooping up the plankton, whitebait, a pricey delicacy apparently good as fritters.

We had spent a couple of days in Tauranga, the home of Mt. Manganui. – its a tourist town where the surfers are out from dawn til dusk.

The view from atop Mt. Manganui is spectacular, especially at sunset. The locals run up at all hours. Most Kiwis being more than part mountain goat!


Thursday, 13 September
Sitting bundled up in multiple layers of clothing and bedding with the tiny electric heater blasting, doing its best to warm this little tin box, our home on wheels, I can watch the morning sun illuminate Lake Rotorua. Swans and ducks float gracefully this way and that as long boats glide by with up to eight rowers.



Friday, 14 Sept.

Stayed in Napier overnight last night. We had the most beautiful sunrise this morning.


We went into town to view the 1930s art deco architecture. The entire town of Napier was leveled in the 30s by an earthquake and was rebuilt in art deco style.

We decided to overnight again here since we needed to recharge our batteries, and since this is wine country, what better fuel than a nice chardonnay or merlot?

Auckland

Tuesday, Sept 4,

Day 2 in Auckland. Yesterday, we arrived 5 :05 am. Bunty came and met us at the airport and brought us back to her place where we will be staying for a couple of days.
It was a brutal last flight from San Fran stuffed into the tiny seats with us two locked in by a big man with the foulest of foul breath, A mr. Hal E. Tosis.
So after about 36 hours of not a wink of sleep we were quite wrecked and felt slightly out of it for the next two days.
Dear Bunty took us immediately down to Howick beach to stretch our cramped legs and smell the fresh sea air. Ahh even in the cool dampness it was great to watch the sun come up over the water.
After a short nap we went for a good stroll to see the local sites.



Graeme came home early this morning from Christchurch where he had been to his old uncle Frederic’s funeral,101 years!
Off we went for a good walk about through the town of Howick and down to Melon Bay and up and down and wow my calves and shins are screaming out in protest.
It is barely just spring and there are already so many flowering plants and trees.
Graeme took us for a quick paced walk to the AA to get maps and then along the creek back.
Andrew and his missus Angela came over for dinner and Bunty made a very delicious roast Lamb which made us realize how good New Zealand lamb is.
After a couple nice bottles of NZ wine and our Chilean Merlot, we finally had a good sleep.
Wed. September 5th
It poured rain all through the night and even though it has been so cold and rainy, it still feels good to be here. Do wonder why we chose to come here for this season….
Really stiff and sore this morning so just managed a short walk about the shops. Bought three fun hats in the antique shop where viv had got me hats on her last visit here! Robert found a fantastic brass mermaids lamp that we decided we would get when we move here.
We got fresh fish at the huge fish store and I wanted to hug the gigantic tuna head….of course I restrained myself as I was wearing my new yellow suede jacket.
I also got all nostalgic when I smiled at an old Polynesian man, sure he was Tongan.
Looking at the scallops and noticing they had funny little orange tails attached….the fish man told me they were the roe and he would give me a half doz. If I promised to eat them….well how sweet and he gave us a good full doz…..Graeme sautéed them in garlic and butter. The roe was abit rich at the moment and had to feed them to lucky fat zigg the cat.

Thursday September 6th,
Yeahhhhh here comes the sun!
And wow what a difference it makes!
Will be venturing into the city soon to pick up the campavan and start driving on the left! Look Right! Ahhhh

En route....

Here we are in airport at San Francisco waiting for our connecting flight to Auckland. The flight to Auckland will be 13.25 hours long. My butt is already sore from the two previous flights. We watched Shrek 3 and Waitress. Great Japanese food served here in the airport. We`ll tuck ourselves in on this next flight and catch some much needed Zs so that we`ll be fresh for Auckland.

New Zealand Map

We'll be landing in Auckland at 5:30 (local) in the morning of Sept 3rd after our Ottawa->Toronto->San Francisco->Auckland flight beginning 13:30 Sept 1st. I'm not entirely certain about total trip time, what with dateline crossover and timezone changes, but an initial estimate puts it at 20 hours.

On the 4th we will pick up our Camper Van and begin our adventure by travelling up the northern peninsula to the warmer regions. Temperatures in Auckland are still cool this time of year; it being early spring in NZ.

Packing Day

Sat, 25 Aug 07. We leave in one week. Yes, we`re getting excited!