Hello everyone!!
Sorry it has been so long since I last updated!! Maybe it hasn't been that long, but I have been crazy busy!! I will attempt now to update you on everything I've done. Here goes.
I left Christchurch about a week and a half ago. From there we went to Kaikoura and I swam with dolphins! This wasn't like Seaworld swimming with dolphins so get that image out of your head. These were wild dusky dolphins. We got wetsuits and snorkels everything and went out in a boat to where the guides had located the dophin pod and there were tons jumping out of the water. It was beautiful. I'd never snorkeled before so I was a little nervous, but it was easy. You just slide into the water when they blow the whistle (to signal that the propellers were off) put your face in the water and sing. Yup. The dolphins are attracted to things that are dolphin-like and interesting, so if you swim with your hands at your side and make noise they come right up to you. There were about 300-400 dolphins in this pod. The guide said that for every one dolphin we saw jumping on the surface there were probably 4 underneath. And sure enough when we got in the water there were tons. A couple of times up to 4 would get within a foot of me and I'd freak out a little bit like "oh my god it's working!" but it was so amazing!!! I definitely want to go again sometime.
So that was Kaikoura pretty much. After that we went up and took the ferry across the Cook Strait to Wellington. We got there at night and left bright and early the next morning tho so I don't know much about Wellington other than the skyline is pretty. I am still thinking about settling there, but I wanted to get up and travel the rest of the north island first so that's why I left right away.
The next day we had a 10-hour ride to Auckland. That was terrible. I was so sick of the bus that even tho I wasn't particularly interested in Auckland I got off the bus for a day and hung around. Auckland is alright. Apparently it's the fourth biggest city in the world by land mass. Definitely not by people, but as many people live in Auckland as the whole of the south island (about 1.3 million.) The day I was there I walked around a bit, found an art gallery and some really pretty gardens near the university, but I figure if the gardens are my favorite part about the city, I probably don't want to live in Auckland. We'll see if this logic holds for Wellington, but everyone agrees Wellington has a much less industrial feel. It's supposed to be a hub of young people and creativity. But anyway, Auckland was okay.
The next day (Wednesday) I headed up on the bus to the Bay of Islands, which is the area north of Auckland. We stayed in Paihia for the night, which was a beautiful seaside town. Not much there, but I almost thought about staying there and looking for work. We went on a boat tour there that was included with the stray pass. It was nice but they promised dolphins and we didn't see any. I definitely got my fix already, but it was kind of a bummer for other people.
The next day we headed north to Cape Reinga which isn't actually the northern most point in New Zealand, but it is for tourists. You can actually see the Pacific Ocean and the Tasman Sea collide and there was one of those signs there that points in different directions and labels how many km's to various world cities. It was pretty windy, but nice. Then we headed down Ninety-Mile Beach, which is actually more like 90km. We went sand-boarding which consists of lying on your stomach on a foam board and sliding down the hill, and digging your toes in to stop before you hit the stream. It was way fun. After that we actually proceeded to drive down the beach itself for about 70 km. Like on the sand. It was a little weird. I'm not sure how I felt about that environmentally, but apparently it is a legally recognized road. So there you go. But we saw Albatross (an unbelievably large bird) and wild horses on the beach. Pretty cool. We went back down to Paihia again that night.
The next day we went back to Auckland (yay.) But we left early the next day for Hahei, which is on the Coromandel Penninsula on the East coast. It's just a tiny beach town, but it was cool. It's famous for Cathedral Cove where portions of Prince Caspian (from the Chronicles of Narnia) was filmed. It was about a two-hour walk to Cathedral Cove. Well worth it. There was a huge arch in the rock you could walk thru. Very pretty. We also watched the full moon rise over the ocean, which was gorgeous.
The next day we went over to the West coast to Raglan, which is famous for surfing. I'm chicken, however, and trying to watch my money so I didn't go for the surf lesson. Plus there are tons of places to surf all over the country (and will be slightly warmer in summer.) We stayed in a hostel that was up in the hills tho so I didn't really see much of the city of Raglan, but had a nice relaxing day at the cabin-style lodging. We watched the sunset which was really nice. It's not often you get a group of twenty people who are usually loud and boisterous to sit quietly and collectively forget about the time, lost in the view. It was very serene.
The next day we went back over to the East coast to Maketu. I'm still not sure if there is actually a town called Maketu. I might have blinked when we went by, but the purpose of coming here was for a "Maori Cultural Experience," which turned out to be very cool. It was this old Maori guy called Uncle Boys who ran the place. They fed us as soon as we got there and then we watched a performance. They do traditional dances here called the haka (for men) and the poi (for women.) The All-Blacks (New Zealand's rugby team and a big fracking deal) do the haka before every game. I think it's a warrior challenge type thing. The poi is a cute dance about a ball on a string (called a poi) that was originally used by warriors to strengthen their forearms and fell out of use as the wars dies down and was picked up by women. Anyway, they taught us these dances and we performed them. It was cute and I got some of it on video I think. We spent the night in there traditional meeting house and Uncle Boys told us all about his tribe. It was really neat and interesting as I hadn't learned too much about Maori culture yet. It raised some more questions for me tho because I can't really figure out what their religion is about. They say they are very spiritual and he showed us their four gods, but they also seem to be very influenced by Christianity. I will have to do some more research and figure this out...
After that I took the bus to Rotorua and got off and took a regional bus to Tauranga where I got picked up by the family I'm wwoofing with!! Yes, I'm wwoofing. I'm not farming tho. Just house-sitting and taking care of two dogs. This woman (Donna) and her husband (David) live with Donna's sister and her two kids. Everyone but David is going on holiday to Australia for 11 days leaving David to run the business (a bookstore!) and needing someone else to watch the house and the dogs. I'm here now and will be for three weeks. It's a little odd living in someone else's house, but I think it will be a good chance to rest and relax after the craziness of traveling. Not to mention a good way to wait a bit for tourism season to start and the job market to pick up before I need to work.
So that's what I've been up to!! Sorry about the length!
Love you and miss you!!
-Laura
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