Mid-Semester Break

Alright everyone here it is! The long anticipated run down of my mid-semester break travels. Or maybe not so highly anticipated, I don’t know. But either way, as promised here is an entry detailing the trip.

So I headed out from Auckland early Saturday morning with three of my girlfriends and shot straight up north to the bay of islands where, once in Pahia, we boarded our overnight cruise boat. It was awesome. There was so much to do! We started out with a bottle shooting contest before dinner with these old fashioned rifle type pellet gun things. Descriptive, I know, but it was the first time I have ever shot any kind of gun other than a squirt gun, so I am ignorant in that area (and lost the contest sorely, I might add). After that we all went fishing and I caught some weird looking foreign fish. Then we feasted on a fabulous dinner buffet style. Delicious! Eventually after an evening of chatting with other passengers and playing cards, etc 10:30 pm rolled around and it was time for our night kayaking extravaganza. The whole point was to go out after dark to see the phosphorescent algae in the water, which was very cool. Every time something touched the water it looked like a little swarm of silver glitter erupted. Unreal, really. When we got back from the kayak trip we were greeted with steaming mugs of tea and coffee which was great because it was quite cold out there on the water. We took them up to our bunk room and chatted with our Chilean rugby player bunk mates. They made fun of our broken Spanish, but we all made an effort.

Early the next morning after breakfast I spotted dolphins and told the captain, so we followed them for about an hour that morning and received a spectacular show. There were dozens of them, swimming right up to the boat, leaping out of the water, being playful little creatures. They were very friendly and had it not been so cold I would have loved to have swam with them, but circumstances didn’t allow for that. I had a blast watching them anyway. I have never been so close to dolphins before and did not realize how large they were! They literally swam right up to the boat and just cruised around with us and we could have leaded over and touched them. So awesome!

After our dolphin encounter the boat cruised around for a while until noonish and then it was time to snorkel. We wriggled into our highly unflattering wetsuits, checked out our scuba gear and jumped right on in. Not nearly as cool as Fiji (no coral reefs or anything) but there were tons of fish and we were instructed to dive down, rip muscles off the rocks, crack them open, and feed them to the fish out of our hands, which was fun. I admit, when I cracked open that first muscle and was ambushed by big fish, I got a little nervous and ended up dropping the muscle, but I got used to it quickly and had fun with it.

Once we were done snorkelling the boat cruised over to an island for a day hike. It was absolutely beautiful! The weather was great and the island was so green. We hiked way up to the top and were greeted with a spectacular panoramic of the bay and its plentiful islands on one side, and the sea on the other. One of the most beautiful things I have seen in this country! After enjoying the white sand beaches and exploring the island for a while, some friends and I kayaked around and out into the ocean, then made our way back to the boat, exhausted. I spent the rest of the afternoon basking in the sun on the boat deck and enjoying a fresh sea food snack of fish and muscles we had caught/collected earlier in the afternoon.

When the cruise came to a close at 5 that afternoon, my girlfriends and I were invited out on the town by several members of the boat crew who were our age. So we stayed in Pahia for the night and went out to a local restaurant with the guys that evening and enjoyed a live band. Had a good time, but because it was Easter Sunday the place closed down early, and we headed back to our hostile totally worn out and had a great nights sleep.

The next morning we woke up and went for a short walk and another kayak ride to chase another huge pod of dolphins’ right next to shore in the bay. Saw one of many incredible rainbows to come, then checked out of the hostile, visited the Waitangi Treaty House to buff up on our New Zealand history, and made the long drive to northern most point in the country to visit Cape Rienga. On our way we visited a kauri forrest and stared in awe at the huge trees. They are like our redwoods size wise, really wide and tall, but have a tropical jungle kind of look to them. Anyhow, after that we stopped briefly at 90 mile beach to have a look at the endless coast line and watch people with 4 wheel drive tear up and down the stirp. Got some gorgeous scenic pics there and also ended up getting soaked with my clothes on by an unexpected attack of a wave! That was a pain.

Eventually we finally reached the cape that afternoon, the lighthouse was every bit as incredible as it looked in pictures. We had a great time enjoying the lovely views and watching the Tasman Sea meet the Pacific; an eerie sight to see the different oceans crashing together rather violently right before our eyes. I have never seen anything like it.

The next morning we drove over to the giant sand dunes by the cape for some sand boarding action. I have never seen sand dunes so gigantic! When we finally got to the top (and yes, by some miracle I made it up there without having a heart attack), it looked like an endless dessert…totally nuts. Just this vast collection of massive sand dunes in the middle of this green country….you never would have guessed they were even there. Totally surreal. Oh, did I mention that it began pouring rain right after we checked out our sand boards? Yeah, it was a riot. We were rocketing down there giant dunes on our boards, drenched to the bone, covered head to toe in sand (we looked like monsters) and cracking up at the massive wipe-outs we all inevitably suffered. It was awesome. A great memory to look back on and tons of fun. Of course we were all totally stiff, sore, and bruised the next day, but it was worth it.

For the reminder of the day we drove around and visited shops, beaches, cafes, etc just to get a little of the local flavour. There was this incredible Kauri wood working museum and shop we visited where you could watch the crafts people making all these beautiful pieces of furniture from scratch. The gallery was full of beautiful things. My dad would have loved all the stuff in that store. If I was rich I would ship a bunch of it back to the states so he and mom could furnish the dream that is their Tahoe house with it. Would have looked great.

Moving on, we eventually made it back to Auckland late that night to save a nights worth of hostile money before heading south at the crack of dawn for the Coromandel the next morning. Was good to sleep in our own beds, even if it was just for a couple of hours before jumping back on the road again!

So, with our short jaunt north behind us, the girls and I headed south west to visit the Coromandel area, which was beautiful. Lots of quaint little ocean side towns, lovely beaches, and pretty sights. Our first evening in the area we decided to spurge and do a farm stay at this adorable farm on the bay. I had such a great time. We got to visit with the farm animals (including giant deer – they farm a lot of deer here) and just hung out around the farm. Nesa and I played basketball on this court in the middle of a giant grass field overlooking the ocean below while Janelle and Al went hiking through the pine forest and hills. The farm was beautiful and we had a great stay in our own private cabin, where we spent the night playing cards, catching up on reading, basically just relaxing.

The next morning we drove to Coromandel Town to take a scenic ride on its legendary train – this tiny little train on tracks winding through the woods all hand built by this man who turned his passion into making electric trains into his life work. He is now 80 years old and has completed the track, and because he has no children to hand the little business down to, he donated the train and his 50 acres to the state as protected national park land. It was pretty cool. There were tons of little kids on the train with us and it was fun to see them all having a blast.

After the train ride and a short stop at a very Santa Cruzy café for lunch, we drove way, way out into the middle of nowhere for a day hike. We reached the trail head entrance after hiking through a field of sheep and then we were off. Several hours later, after multiple stream crossings and some rugged terrain, we were back and totally spent once again. Sure was good to be out of the car for a while, but none of us were complaining when it was time to get back in it. We made it to a hostile called the Cat’s Pyjamas that night and much to our great surprise found there was a hot tub, which was actually clean! It was the prefect way to end a day of hard hiking.

Waking early the next morning we took a short walk around town, then packed up and decided to head to Cathedral Cove, one of NZ’s most famous beaches. After completing the 45 minute hike to the cove from the car park we were rewarded with the incredible limestone arch that makes Cathedral Cove famous. I’ll post pictures of it – the arch is HUGE, basically like a cave you can fit so many people under it. We spent nearly the entirety of the day enjoying the beautiful beach and lazing around.

When we finally made it back to the car, I realized that I had misplaced my cell phone. Turns out it had fallen out on the sidewalk in front of our hostile from the previous night and spent all day in the rain before somebody found it and took it inside. So we drove back to the Cats Pyjamas to spend another night there and I retrieved my phone, which the woman had kindly dried out in the sun. It miraculously still works, but it wont make any noise now. My bad. We spent another evening in the hot tub and then the hostile owners little boy asked us if we wanted to watch Lord of the Rings with him. Nesa and Al had never seen any of the films (sin of all sins if you are going to live in NZ, since all the movies were filmed here) so we spent the rainy night in front of the television.

We were well rested when the sun rose and ready for our adventure to Hot Water Beach, another of NZ’s famed beaches. It earned its name because of the thermal activity that takes place under the sand. People go there at high tide and dig down into the sand, forming hot tub pools that you can relax in all day. You can only visit the beach at high tide though, because the thermal water under the sand is scalding hot and you need to have a certain amount of cold ocean water make it into the pools if you don’t want to burn yourself! It was so crowded when we reached the beach that there was no space left to build our own pool, so some Canadians around our age invited us to share their already existing pool with them. That was nice! No digging for us.

After spending the morning at Hot Water Beach, we packed back into our tiny rental car and booked it to Tauranga where we enjoyed a little shopping and a visit to the rose gardens and war monument. Nesa met up with an old friend who lives there and she took us out to this great Thai place and to ice cream. Fun! Then we spent the night in Rotorua and met up with several more friends who were visiting. We had a good time enjoying a lively band at a local bar. Lots of good small town entertainment in this country!

Spent the next day exploring Rotorua. Took the girls zorbing, stopped at the buried village (remnants from a volcanic explosion a century ago that nearly levelled a Maori settlement), looked at the blue and green lake lookouts, stopped by the agro dome, drove around the museum grounds, etc. We also visited some sulphuric hot zones. Huge clouds of stinky steam pouring out of boiling holes in the earth. Nutty. Later on that night we went out to eat at this amusing little restaurant called Fat Dog. The decorations were fantastic. I loved it! Then we went to the movies and at the insistence of the guys, we submitted to seeing Black Sheep, a new NZ movie about killer sheep. By far the worst movie I have ever seen in my life. Don’t waste a cent on it unless you want to see something so atrocious it is borderline hilarious. But it was kinda fun just to be back in the theatre again. Not much to see here since most movies open in this country long after they do in the US, so I have seen a good deal of them already.

That was our last night in Rotorua. Early the next morning we met up with the last of our beach house crowd and all 10 of us started the day long drive to Gisbourne to check into our beach house! It was so nice. As soon as we got there the guys high tailed it to the beach. It was nearly dark and raining sporadically, but there was an 8 foot swell and the guys couldn’t pass that up. They said the surf was fabulous. So, for the next couple of days we all just hung out around the house, enjoyed the beach, explored the tide pools, etc etc and spent the night’s in playing card games, watching movies, eating tons of great food, and just shooting the breeze. Very relaxing and laid back vacation and everyone had a great time! Now I am back to classes....a harsh alternative to the world of non stop fun and traveling!