New Zealand: Bay of Islands

Travel Date: 04-05 January 2013

My last post from my trip to New Zealand over New Year's this year picks back up on the same day I visited the Waitangi Treaty Grounds near Paihia. Back in Paihia, however, I was about to embark on one of the coolest experiences of my travels. Traveling alone is not always the most fun, I don't think. As much fun as it is to meet new people and fellow travelers, it often feels like a broken record because you're always telling people the same things: where you're from, what you do, where you've traveled, what you've done on those travels - and then it starts all over. I'd much rather have someone to travel with, either friends or family, to be able to have an ever-continuing travel narrative that carries through the rest of the journeys. With that in mind, I booked myself a room in a YHA. But this was no ordinary YHA because Paihia is the gateway to the Bay of Islands which is no ordinary travel destination!

The Bay of Islands is a fantastic region on North Island, New Zealand and as its name suggests it is a bay - a picturesque beautiful bay - with islands in it - hundred of islands!! I'd been seeing travel posters for New Zealand advertising the Bay of Islands (BoI from now on) and the posters of course make the green islands stand out starkly from the crystal clear turquoise waters of the bay and the cobalt blue skies and little white yachts and tiny yellow kayaks appear to be floating on air. Obviously this photo was used to make it seem like the idyllic place to holiday, but could the BoI really be this perfect? I found out that the answer was and emphatic, "YES!"

The Rock houseboat/hostel I stayed on while touring the Bay of Islands
on New Zealand's North Island

I said the YHA I booked was no ordinary hostel and that is because this YHA is in fact a car-ferry turned houseboat capable of hosting 36 passenters. Rock, The Boat was an ideal way to spend 24 hours on the water - and as the New Zealand Lonely Planet guide says, you can't truly see the BoI unless you're on the bay! The way I justified was this: if I'd booked a hostel, eaten out or even cooked my own food, rented a kayak for a few hours, chartered a fishing guide, and booked a snorkeling outing, I would have spent well over NZ$300! By booking a room on The Rock I could get all of this for a measly NZ$188! Sometimes I think touristy packages like this are overhyped, but I decided to go for it and I was not disappointed in the least bit!

I parked my car at the Paihia YHA (for the land-lubber backpackers) - for free, which they let me do since I'd be spending my money with YHA anyway - and headed down to the dock where I waited in line with a hoard of girls speaking German, a couple of couples, and one chatty South Korean girl from Auckland who was taking the weekend off. No one was really interacting with anyone outside their group, which didn't really bother me; I figured if people weren't social on the boat at least I'd get some relaxation. We were shortly greeted by two guys in their mid-20s who introduced themselves as part of the crew. They put our bags in a boat, gave us some life-jackets and brought us out to a two-level brown houseboat in the harbour. Being an old car-ferry, the boat's back was the former ramp and was kept in the down position as a kind of landing-deck. There was a rack of kayaks on the back and a spiral stairway up to the back deck on the second floor with a New Zealand flag attached. The inside of the boat was amazingly cozy! On the back was a small ring of benches surrounding a wood-burning stove. A large bar occupied the middle of the boat and was where drinks were served and the crew cooked the meals. Bathrooms were small and off to the side and the rest of the main floor was lined by various seats and tables. There was a piano, a foosball table, racks of magazines, and the open rafters were decorated with various antique nautical instruments, tackles, lures, fish, bottles, and so on! The upstairs was where all the rooms were. The four crew members had their rooms up near the front of the boat and the guest rooms took up the rest of the space and were either double rooms, or bunk rooms with six-beds each. The boat could host 36 passengers at once, but luckily there were only 13 of us so it was much more relaxed and much less crowded!

As our captain started bringing us out to the centre of the bay, the crew started the daunting task of making sure everyone knew everyone else and felt part of the family! To get things started they had a wooden duck on a small raft tied to the houseboat with a piece of string. Each of us were then to take turns, introduce ourself, say one unique thing about us, and then take a turn shooting at the duck with a paintball gun! Whichever guy and girl shot the duck first received a free drink from the bar. So it was pretty quickly that we all met each other, started sharing stories, and realised how bad of shots we were with a paintball gun! The crew was amazing at their jobs. I can't imagine the cruise being as fun as it was if the crew had just let us do our own things, but they encouraged us to socialise and though we didn't really get to know each other that much better by the end than we were at the beginning, that first activity broke down those initial barriers and at least got us talking to each other and having a laugh.

The Purerua Peninsula making the northern boundary of the Bay of Islands

The weather was perfect and the water nearly perfectly flat on the bay, just like in the photos! The distant hills were beautifully green and the water sparkling blue. We all socialised a bit on the boat watching other watercraft lazily wander around the bay until we got to our resting spot for the night, a small bay off of one of the mainland peninsulas which twist their way into the BoI. We dropped anchor and were told we would be fishing for our dinner. One of the crew cut up a fish for bait and gave each of us some fishing rods and we all stood off the back, or on the adjoining small boat and tried our luck. I wasn't lucky at all, but one of the guys caught two or three red snappers which we were able to keep and another crew member started to prepare it for dinner. After a few drinks and more chatting while waiting for the rest of dinner to be prepared we had one of the best meals I've had on a boat: steaks, fish, salads, potatoes, and beer. Delicious!

It started to rain a little bit, but the few clouds quickly passed and then the stars came out. There was no moon, so it was especially dark, and I couldn't believe the number of stars I could see! With the sun down and the stars out, our next activity began. We split into two groups and were going to do some nighttime kayaking around the bay which was special because at night, especially on clear nights, you could see bioluminescent algae phosphoresce and light up as you disturbed them by paddling through the water. In the eddies of water spinning around the kayak paddles little specks of light would twinkle and flash and then die out as water returned to a calm normal. If your eyes were keen, you could also see fish swimming around beneath your kayak by the traces of light left behind in its wake as it swam through and stirred up the algae. I was a little nervous I'd see a big fish (or shark) swim under me, but it seemed to mostly be smaller fish. We paddled around a bit and could even just lay back on the flat water looking up at the stars! Off in the distance the lights on the boat were all turned off and a warm glow was coming from the wood burner and a number of candles and Christmas lights. It was a beautiful scene that you can only take my word for because I didn't feel the need to potentially drop my camera or phone in the ocean.

Back on the boat some folks went to bed, but I stayed up and chatted with the Germans and a few others for a while over a few beers, but mostly tea. They were all such a friendly bunch, and I have to give it to the groups of friends and couples on the boat, they all did a great job of branching out and chatting with those of us traveling alone. I can only imagine how awkward it could have been if no one was as friendly or social as they (we) were. But soon we were all off to bed.

Morning sunrise over Electric Bay

It's amazing how well you can find sleep on a boat gently rocking under the influence of little waves. Morning came early though and I was one of maybe five people up before sunrise, which is very unusual for me, but I am so glad I did. The sunrise was just as beautiful as the sunset and the morning air was so calm and quiet it was nice to peacefully be able to take it all in. A few of the other guests who were up early then decided it was time for a morning swim and jumped in and swam around the boat. Now, I should probably explain here that I have an almost crippling fear of being in the ocean. I don't know what it is, really, but I just am afraid to swim in it. I tell people that my brother made me watch Jaws at a very impressionable age and it just stuck with me that if I went in the ocean I would be eaten by a shark. Being on a boat is fine, as is wading or paddling near the shore, but fully submerging myself in the water not near any shore is beyond my limits. Part of being on this trip, though, was going to be testing those limits and I have to admit that the morning swim looked like an ideal way to do it. So before long, and without thinking, I jumped in. The water was cold and it took my breath away, along with the crippling anxiety that came along with the fact that I was in the ocean, not knowing what sort of sea-monsters were swimming beneath my feet! But I was in and did a nice lap around the boat before calling it good and pulling myself out, wrapping myself in a towel, and having my morning coffee. It was exhilirating (yes, even that simple morning swim) and I was ready to take on the rest of the water tasks that lay ahead of us in the day. 

After breakfast, the captain started the boat, brought us past Motukaori and Motuarohia Islands and dropped anchor in Mangahawea Bay off Moturua Island. It was time for the next water-based adventure: snorkeling. The crew pointed to where we'd be going and I saw nothing but two large rocks sticking out of the water (Rangiatea and Motuoi Islands) and some shoals of smaller rocks between them. It did not look safe to me and my anxiety crept back in, starkly contrasting with the excitement of everyone around me. Even the Korean girl, who didn't know how to swim, was excited, tightly strapped in to her personal flotation device! It's amazing what a little bit of peer pressure can do, because not wanting to be the only person to no go snorkeling and not wanting to show how scared I was (which was dumb because I told them all how terrified I was!), I didn't have a choice but to grab some flippers, a snorkel, and mask and jump in with the rest. Again the cold water got me, but my adrenaline helped push me through as we all flipped our way over to the rocks. We had two goals here. Firstly, we were there to explore the rocks and snorkel around. But secondly, we were also there to catch kina (sea urchins) for a snack later on. I now fully admit that I had an amazing time snorkeling! It was so cool to just dive around watching all the fish swim around, some in large schools like the blue maomao and some solitary ones like the sandager's wrasse (easily as big as two feet in length!) or the small demoiselle. The blue maomao were really extraordinary because you could just swim into their small schools as they congregated by the rocks. The other swimmers were either exploring or trying their hand at diving down to the rocks and picking up the kina, putting them in a small net the snorkeling crewmember had with us. I had a great time and was determined not to be in the first group of people to head back to the boat, though I also have to admit I never quite got the hang of breathing normally through a snorkel. It's such a weird feeling to breathe through a tube and I kept taking short quick gasps of air which didn't do me much good when I wanted to dive down. But soon the chilly water got to me and hoisted myself onto the small zodiac that took me back to the houseboat.

On top of Waewaetorea Island

With snorkeling done for the day we all dried off and had our packed lunches in the sun as the boat went around some more islands and anchored in the little harbour between Okahu and Waewaetorea Islands. We all hopped back into the kayaks and paddled toward the shore of Waewaetorea Island where some of us took a little walk to the top of the tall grassy hill to get a better view of the BoI, and really, we could not have asked for more perfect weather! It was warm, sunny, and only a few whisps of clouds in the sky! Back down at the beach we played some beach games with a cricket set and rugby ball - cricket I was surprisingly good at, but not the game we played with the rugby ball. But then we were told the afternoon was getting on and we needed to start heading back to Paihia Harbour so they could take the next group of passengers out. So we kayaked back to the houseboat, and before we pulled up anchor for the last time I took one more dive and swim off the back as a personal way of saying to myself, "See? You can do this!"

The cruise back to Paihia was very relaxed. Everyone just chilled out on the sofas and seats throughout the boat chatting and having a beer or two. I joined in as well, but kept being distracted by the beautiful surroundings and landscapes. There was even a large regatta in the Bay that day and a whole string of yachts were sailing around, reminding me of the Boxing Day race that started in Sydney just a few weeks earlier. We even were treated to some of the kina we caught, which were cracked open by one of the crew members. We learned that kina reproduce asexually so have both the eggs and sperm inside their bodies and that the eggs (or was it the sperm?) was considered a delicacy in many restaurants and that you could pay upwards of $50 for a small appetiser of the stuff! I don't think any of us were too keen on trying it, but the Korean girl, who turned out to be quite adventurous, volunteered to go first and we watched as the kina eggs was dabbled on her hand in a sticky yellow goo, and then she quickly stuck out her tongue and licked it clean! It was gross, but sure enough, all of us were trying it before long. Definitely not something I'd pay $50 for by any stretch of the imagination, but it wasn't all bad - kind of a salty, buttery, goo... 

Bay of Islands regatta in front of the Purerua Peninsula

But soon enough, we were anchored back in Paihia Harbour and with an unceremonious farewell to the fellow passengers, we were transported back to the docks and then each of us were on our own ways. It was fitting because the reality was that most of us probably wouldn't see each other again, but since there were no false pretenses (for example everyone saying, "let's keep in touch!") there were no hard feelings. We'd all gotten exactly what we expected: a fun night out on the Bay of Islands with friendly people making personal memories of fun mini-adventures!

Lonely Planet's New Zealand guide says that the Bay of Islands is overhyped, which compared to the rest of New Zealand might be the case (sure, it's no huge volcano, powerful earthquake, or glacial landscape), but if you want water-based activities, it's the bee's knees and I recommend to anyone who wants to get the most for their money, go on The Rock!! If you have the right social disposition, you will not regret it!

New Zealand: Waitangi Treaty Grounds

Trip Date: 04 January 2013

Hi everyone. It's become the time in my PhD where I really cannot afford to provide you with the long posts of the past. I noticed there was a lot of repetition between the blog text and the photo captions and so I am going to try and minimise redundancy by giving a brief overview of where I went, what I did, and how I got there with more detail of what I saw and learned in the Flikr photo captions. I don't really know how many people read this thing through and through, so I hope you can appreciate my changes.

So, back to my trip to New Zealand waaayy back in January...

...I left off at the end of a harrowing day of near-death experiences and kiwi encounters and by the next morning, I felt I was due some rest and relaxation. I drove in to the town of Keri Keri for some breakfast at the little Cafe Zest which had some of the best blueberry muffins I've had in a very long time and then on to Paihia, the entrance to New Zealand's famed Bay of Islands. The Bay of Islands was my main destination, ever since seeing ads for it in my local rail station in Sydney. I'd read that it is useless to visit the Bay of Islands if you don't actually go on the water, so I found myself a YHA hostel on a houseboat called, Rock the Boat, but more on that in the next post. Rock didn't leave until 5pm later that day so I had all morning and afternoon to myself.

Waitangi Flagpole at the site where the Treaty of
Waitangi was signed between the British and
the Maori peoples in 1840.

The town over from Paihia is Waitangi and is famous for being the site where the British colonists and many Maori tribes came together to sign a treaty, giving the Maori recognition of their right to the land, provided the Maori with the status of British citizens, but gave the British Crown control and governance of New Zealand. Not everything was really fully agreed upon and many Maori chiefs refused to sign. Nevertheless, the treaty became a symbol for New Zealand independence, much like the Declaration of Independence in the US. The grounds include the site where the treaty was signed, where the first Governor of New Zealand had his house (a very modest one), a traditional Maori meeting house, and one of the largest canoes (waka in Maori) in the world.

When I drove up I was greeted at the entrance by some young men and women dressed in traditional Maori clothes inviting me in. It made me very skeptical at how kitchy this site was going to be - I though cheesy reenactments and a badly presented tour were in store, especially at the price of $45 to gain entrance to the Treaty Grounds, a tour, and a ticket to a cultural performance. I thought to myself, I'm only here once so I'd better see what it's about, and in the end I could not have been proven more wrong or found a better way to spend $45 in a day!

I had about half an hour to explore the Treaty Grounds on my own but then I made my way over to the Meeting House where we were greeted by the young woman who was out front. She had a very cheery demeanor as she explained the significance of the cultural performance we were about to witness. We were told that we, as visitors, were a tribe and she selected a tribal leader for us. We were then going to be tested as a tribe by the hosting tribe (the performers) to determine whether we came in peace or in war. And then the show started with the hosting tribal leader stepping out in front of us swinging a piece of wood on a string around him, making whooshing noises in the air, snarling with his tongue stuck out and his eyes bulged so you could see as much white of them as was possible. He was shortly joined by two other men in their intimidation dance and a small group of women came out on the veranda and started to chant. Finally, the host tribal chief laid down a leaf (or feather or flower?) on the ground and our chief picked it up. We were seen as friends and welcomed into the Meeting House.

The Maori tribal chief beginning the welcoming ceremony to Whare
Runanga, the Meeting House. Through intimidating dance, snarls,
facial expressions, and weaponry, his goal is to see if we came in peace.

While we were instructed to treat the outside ceremony very seriously, the attitude of the show changed immediately once we were inside. We were introduced through song and dance to traditional Maori customs, stories, weapons, and history for the next 45 minutes. The music was enchanting, the performers amazingly talented, and I was in awe for the entire show, sitting there with a big smile on my face, thinking how much the rest of my family would enjoy this! The Meeting House itself was just as incredible as the performance with wooden tikis carved into panels and geometric murals painted on the walls.

After the show, the performers greeted us outside in the courtyard and those of us who have no shame were allowed to hold some of the Maori weapons for a photo op, giving our try at intimidation... Let's just say I didn't quite play the part as well as the performers!

I then joined up with a tour group and we walked the grounds, led by a colourful storyteller of a tour guide to the different sites, including the large, 117-foot long waka (canoe), traditionally carved in one piece from the felled trunk of a totara tree in a sacred ceremony in celebration of the 100th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi in 1940. The 3-meter wide stump of the tree used for its construction is housed at the end of the waka's canopy and is just massive! The waka itself was built as a war canoe that could carry 135 people! It actually floats and is taken out onto the bay from time to time for special celebrations.

If you ever find yourself in the Bay of Islands area, do not miss this site!!!! It is well worth the $45 and well worth an afternoon of your time!

New Zealand: Te Paki Dunes, Whangaroa Lookout, Kiwis at Aroha Island

Date Traveled: 03 January 2013

After a hellishly adventurous morning of hiking, soaking wet, in the rain out to New Zealand's westernmost point, I wasn't sure how much more adventure I'd be up for for the rest of the day. But then, as I was driving from Cape Reinga to Paihia, where I had accommodation booked that night, I passed the sign for Te Paki Sand Dunes and thought to myself, "I might not ever get the chance to come back this way in my life, so I might as well stop and see it now."

Coming over the first rise at Te Paki Sand Dunes

Good thing I did! Te Paki sand dunes are the highest dunes in New Zealand, and they are massive (though not as big as Sleeping Bear Dunes or Pictured Rocks). I parked my car and pulled out my rain gear, because it was still raining and I had had enough of being soaked to the bone, and crossed a shallow little stream to get to the base of the dunes. The blisters on my feet weren't enjoying being cramped up in shoes or sandals, even, so I went barefoot climbing the first steep ascent which opens up on top to a vast, wide, plateau of sand with a few rocky outcrops sticking out. On the other side of the plateau was another climb to what looked like the highest dune peak around and when I got to the top of that, I realised just how expansive the dune fields here are! According to Lonely Planet's New Zealand Guide, there are 7 square kilometres of dunes here offering all sorts of recreation activities like sand tobogganing (which you can rent from the little van in the parking lot) and the start (or end) of the famous 4WD off-roading expedition up/down 90 Mile Beach is also here.

Well, I knew I wasn't going to spend a huge amount of time here, so when I got to the top, I had a nice look around, took some photos of the area, and then starting heading down. But this wasn't just any saunter down the sandy slopes. Oh, no! Growing up going to the beaches, one of my favourite things to do was go dune jumping. Usually this involves finding a nice sturdy tussock of grass near the top of the dune, getting a running start, and then throwing yourself off that tussock into the air and landing on the downslope surface of the dune. If you land on your feet without breaking your legs, it's possible to then use that momentum and run all the way down the rest of the hill. There was no dune grass here, but the sand slope was steep and a good running start was all I needed and with arms windmilling through the air, I ran down in big, leaping steps to the sandy plateau.

Here on the plateau, one of the rock outcrops caught my interest. It was circular from above and looked almost dome-like except that while the middle of the dome and its edges were still in tact, the rest had eroded out by some means of chemical or physical weathering. Up on the dune slope I'd just run down, there were a few other people using their footsteps to make large pictures in the sand. I think the one group of kids must have been from Switzerland since they made a big square with the cross in the middle.

I crossed the sandy plateau and dune-jumped my way back down to the creek and crossed over to my car, brushed off and got back on the road. Not much further down the cape, there was a sign pointing toward "New Zealand's Northernmost Pub" and I thought I should stop in for a bite to eat and charge my phone at the same time. I figured it would be some British-esque pub with a warm fire, carved wood booths, and a generally cozy atmosphere. Boy was I wrong. This place I don't think ever was cozy or welcoming, and while the staff was friendly and accommodating, I didn't want to stay there a moment longer than I needed to and I don't suggest anyone stop here. You will be sorely disappointed!

The Whangaroa lookout

Finally, I was on the road again and kept driving for a few hours, listening to local Maori radio which had some good music on there, including a lot of Christian songs I remember singing in elementary school, but sung in Maori with a South Pacific twist. I'd read about another spot that I thought might be worth looking into. The hills in and around the town of Whangaroa (remember, in New Zealand, Wh- is pronounced F-) are generally forested except for their tops which are exposed, bare, rocky knobs made of conglomerates and granite - if I remember right! The hilltop in Whangaroa offers an awesome 360° vista of the entire area and the Whangaroa Bay right next to it. I found the parking area at the Saint Paul's Rock Scenic Reserve and started up the trail which was really slippery thanks to the mixture of mud and rain. To get to the top of the rock, though, the trail climbs up through the exposure and you need to hold on to chains fastened into the rock to pull yourself up to the top! It was a nice view indeed. Even in the gray late-afternoon you could see all the way out to the ocean, see all of Whangaroa Bay, and even an expansive oyster farm.

I didn't stay long, though, just long enough to get a 360° panoramic shot but then I got back in the car and kept driving. My destination for the night was the Aroha Island Ecological Centre, just east of Kerikeri. I'd read about Aroha Island in the Lonely Planet guide and after reading that they have a few northern brown kiwi birds living on the island, I didn't think I had a choice but to book a camping spot here! Kiwis are exceptionally rare in the wild in New Zealand. In fact, many New Zealanders haven't seen a kiwi in the wild! Since I've been on my "must see all Australian wildlife in the wild" kick, I figured I may as well add kiwis to the list and do my best to see them in their native habitat, too! And Aroha Island was the perfect place for that; they offered nightly tours of the island for an additional charge saying that most tours see a kiwi. But when I checked in, the lovely woman at the Welcome Centre said they weren't doing any tours...but that I could use one of their flashlights and have a map of the island and see if I could see them for myself!

I set up my tent in the last remaining hours of daylight and backed up all of my photos from my hiking adventures at Cape Reinga to my iPad, waiting for darkness to settle in. The woman told me that the kiwis are seen all hours of the night and that they start roaming around 10:30pm. I was told to not make much noise because while kiwis have bad eyesight, they hear very well; I was also told to use the flashlight given to me which had a red filter on it because the kiwis couldn't see that red light, and that any regular flashlight would scare them off for sure. It started raining again, though not too hard, and I figured I'd have to put my rain gear back on if I didn't want to get wet, but that meant I'd be making a lot of noise while walking along the path. The island isn't large and only take about 30 minutes to walk the perimeter, so I set off with the red light and the map.

The woman also mentioned that I would know the kiwis were there long before seeing them because they make a very distinct snuffling noise. Kiwis are different from most birds in that their nostrils are located at the end of their beaks and since they use their beaks to sift through the soil while looking for food, they constantly have to clear their airways and in doing so make a very dry wheezing sound. Well, even with that information, I couldn't hear much more than the rain dripping through the leaves and my rain pants brushing up against each other. I moved so slowly along the path, thinking every noise was a kiwi, that it took me about half an hour just to walk half the island. I started along the other half thinking I was on a wild goose - errr kiwi - chase when I heard it!

One of the two wild northern brown kiwis I saw on Aroha Island

Above the pitter-patter of the rain I thought I heard people talking and I thought it must be some other kiwi-scouts, but looking ahead, I didn't see any lights but kept hearing a dry, scraping, snuffle sound. I rounded the corner in the path, and sure enough, right in front of me, no more than 2 metres away were two adult kiwis! They were big! I mean big compared to what I imagined them. I always thought they were maybe the size of a grapefruit, but these were each the size of a rugby ball, stuck up on what looked like three spindly legs, but then I realised the third leg was just their beak! I didn't want to make too much noise but I wanted to get closer to see if I could get some photos of them with my phone. I'm not sure if it was the rain or if their hearing isn't as great as the woman told me, but I was able to sneak within a metre of them both without them realising, or caring, that I was there! I just stood there for about 20 minutes watching these amazing birds do their thing, rooting through the soil along the path looking for food, and they eventually moved off and started heading down the hill toward the water. I decided that if they were going to leave, I'd try getting a few photos of them with my flash on, and while they moved away after the first flash, they didn't seem to be terrified by it and stayed relatively close, so I took a few more before leaving them to eat in peace! I think my heart was pumping just as much as it had been that morning when I was trying not to be swept out to sea by incoming waves! Here, on tiny Aroha Island, was some young Yank who just wanted to see kiwis in the wild, and with very minimal effort was able to do what so few people have ever had the opportunity to do!

Needless to say, at the end of the day, hiking 15 kilometres, climbing a large sand dune, hiking to the top of a rocky lookout, and successfully sighting some wild kiwis, I was exhausted and slept very very well! The next morning, as I was packing up my tent, some very friendly ducks came by to wish me safe travels and to thank me for staying at Aroha Island, insisting that I recommend it to anyone who wants to have wild kiwi adventures while traveling through New Zealand. I told them I surely would!

New Zealand: Cape Maria Van Diemen

Date Traveled: 03 January 2013

This is the day I almost died...twice.

Fog had rolled in to Tapotupotu Bay overnight and while it was light in the morning when I first woke, it was not too visible. I was at least refreshed from a good night's sleep, listening to the constant crash of the waves on the beach. I grabbed my camera and tried taking a few shots of the beach before packing everything up into my car, and then I drove back out and up to the parking lot at Cape Reinga, which was easier said than done because the thick fog decreased my visibility to maybe 10m in front of the car!

I figured that like the day before, the fog would lift around mid-day and the weather would clear as the day went on, so I dressed appropriately for that: sneakers, gym shorts, moisture-wicking shirt, a long-sleeved thermal, and a waist pack with two half-litre water bottles, about four granola bars, some red pepper slices, a few apples in the plastic bag from the grocery store, and some nuts. I figured that would be all I needed and even though I had rain gear with me, I decided to leave it in the car.

Cape Reinga Lighthouse in the blue morning fog

I walked down and out to the Cape Reinga Lighthouse again to try and get some good morning photos through the dense blue fog. On the way, I was dive-bombed by a few seagulls who were likely protecting their nest, but I should have taken it as a sign to just go back to my car. After visiting the lighthouse once more, I took the turn off down the path to the beach and it was eerily quiet with no one else around at 8am. The path runs right along the edge of sharp cliffs dropping down hundreds of metres to the rugged ocean below. I wanted to try and get some good shots looking down the cliff, but I knew better than to go too close to the edge, especially when the rocks were slick with fog.

I got down to the beach, which was kind of split into two sections. The beach I was on was a little tiny cove pinched between the cliffs I'd just hiked down and a steep little promontory about 20 metres on the other side of the beach. The ocean was very very rough this morning and straight lines of wave-trains rolled in one after another, constantly crashing over themselves, but the tide was low so I was easily able to walk around that steep promontory. But first, I sat and watched a cormorant at the water's edge for a few minutes before it got spooked by how close I was getting and flew off.

Cape Reinga, shrouded in mist, and reflected onto the beach

As I walked the 5 kilometres down the beach I couldn't get over the power of the ocean and the amazing beauty of the islands off Cape Maria Van Diemen in the distance through the fog and ocean spray. I was amazed at how quiet it seemed to be, almost the calm before a big storm. Other than the slight breeze and the waves crashing, there wasn't much to listen to other than the occasional chirp from some shore bird. Waves came in and left these glimmering thin sheets of water that slowly receded back into the ocean, allowing the surrounding hillsides to be reflected in them. It was a peaceful, almost mystical setting and with no one else on the beach, it was quite eerie!

About an hour and a half into my walk, the sky seemed to be trying to clear up as I forded a wide, but shallow, stream and followed the trail blazes (not extremely well-marked, mind you) up another promontory stuck between the middle of the sandy dune fields and the ocean. The rock of this tall hill was mostly these very slippery pink, green, yellow, and grey clays which if you weren't careful, you would see up close as your feet slid out from under you, sending you crashing to the ground. The surrounding dunes had creeped up the side of this hill over hundreds and thousands of years, and many of the bright-orange trail signs had been partially buried, so I had to be careful to keep my bearings about me. Even in the grey light, however, the landscape was beautiful. The trailing roots of the dune grasses were often exposed and looked like a long rope that had been draped across the dunes with a shoot of grass growing out every 10 centimetres or so. These ropes of roots criss-crossed the dunes and in some places, pretty purple flowers were growing on raised tussocks of dune grass.

Flowers growing on grassy tussocks in the dunes on Cape Reinga Beach

The trail wound it way around the hill, through the dunes, and on the other side, a wide expanse of dunes swept its way down to the beach toward the hilly knob that is Cape Maria Van Diemen. I almost missed the trail markers had I not seen the half-buried wooden sign pointing me in that direction. Cape Maria van Diemen did not seem too far away, but I soon realised how deceiving the landscape here could be. It felt like I'd been walking a good ten minutes toward the point, yet it didn't seem to get any closer! I did eventually come to a little rise, giving me a good look south down the coast and right out to a massive seastack, eroded away from the mainland by ages of wave action. But it was here I realised I was going to be in for some trouble.

While the weather seemed to want to clear up an hour earlier, it was on this rise that I got my first look at the weather over the Tasman Sea and all I could see was a wall of tall, dark, gray clouds. The clouds were a good distance offshore, but the wind was pushing them my way, and I could already start to feel the occasional rain drop. Being stubborn, I refused to turn myself around. After all, I was right at the bottom of the last rocky rise that was the westernmost tip of New Zealand. I could see the little utilitarian lighthouse at the top of the knob and decided that I couldn't hike out this far and not get up to that point, so I briskly started my walk up the hill. It wasn't too steep but the hillside was covered in these bushy, long-leafed plants and it was difficult to tell where exactly the trail was. I had to be careful because the trail I thought I was on was no more than a metre away from a steep drop down onto a rocky platform below and I didn't want to step into a hole covered by the plants and tumble down. Soon enough, I got to the top where the bushes thinned and grass took over. The view was impressive, looking back up to Cape Reinga off in the distance, and to Motuopao Island just offshore with its own private beach and another little light station on top. I scrambled to set up my camera on my pack so I could take a timer-shot of myself on top of Cape Maria Van Diemen as proof I'd been there, and as soon as I was satisfied with one of the two photos I took, the rain came.

Me on top of Cape Maria Van Diemen with Matuopao Island behind

I quickly emptied out the plastic bag my apples were in so I could wrap my camera - my bulky DSLR camera - into something waterproof and packed everything into the limited space inside the waist pack. I made sure my shoes were tied and my long sleeves were pulled over my hands because the drizzle had turned into a steady light right and it was not a warm rain. I hurried back to the bottom of the rocky hill at the end of Cape Maria Van Diemen and started my ascent up that wide, wind-swept sandy slope that seemed to take forever to get down. By the time I was halfway up that sandy slope, I was soaked. I was fortunate to have remembered to wear water-wicking clothing so even though I was wet, it wasn't stuck to my body like a cotton shirt would have been. And the woolly thermal I was wearing was at least keeping me somewhat warm in the cold rain, but I was still worried. I knew that hypothermia could easily set in and that symptoms of hypothermia included disorientation, poor decision making, and loss of a sense of time. Never having experienced hypothermia before, it was a challenge trying to decipher if any of the feeling I had were mental or actual physical. I grabbed a few protein-rich snacks out of my pack to make sure I wasn't going hungry and drank some of my water to make sure I wouldn't also get dehydrated.

By the time I got to the top of the sandy ramp, I was drenched - not a single bit of my clothes or person was dry or really warm for that matter. I knew I had to retrace my trail through the sand dunes behind the clayey headland, but once the ocean was out of sight, everything started to look the same. I did my best to follow the orange trail markers, but they weren't often visible, so I did my best to go back the way I thought I came, but each dune looked the same as the next and with footprints making trails in all sorts of directions, I couldn't figure out which was the way I came! I knew the ocean was generally off to my left and so I carried on.

Two figures started approaching me - they had been hiking from Cape Reinga, the direction I needed to go. I figured that since I was wet and they were wet I should at least let them know I was okay and ask if they had everything they needed, like water and food. They ended up being two girls, one from Scotland and the other from Ireland, who had met at a hostel and decided to do one of the loop trails in the area. They had indeed come from Cape Reinga but were covered in mud (apparently the mixture of rain and clay rocks had really made the ground very slippery and mucky) and after checking that we were all okay, wet but okay, we each went our own ways. I tried following their tracks and came across those clayey spots, taking my time to be careful so as not to slip and do something stupid like break my ankle. I definitely slipped and fell a few times, but other than being covered in sticky mud, I was alright.

I still couldn't really find the trail and began to wonder if I'd double-backed on myself and was heading in the opposite direction I wanted to be in. I was beginning to think I really did have hypothermia and that my brain was already starting to disorient my body. But I kept checking the time on my phone to give me a sense that I was moving forward and making progress and had a few more snacks and sips of water. There was going to be no way that the last people to see me ever was going to be two hiker-strangers. I just couldn't allow that. I thought of my family back at home, my folks who I hadn't been able to see over Christmas, my sister and her her husband who had just announced to us a week before that they were going to have a baby, and my brother and his wife who'd just been married that summer before. Thinking of them reset my resolve and I became determined to get back to my car. All I needed was to find my way back to the long beach walk. Once there, I at least knew where the trail was! I couldn't see the ocean yet, but I could see the upper reaches of the stream I'd crossed right before having to climb this hill, so I reoriented myself and after going up and down the next few rises I came to a lookout right above the stream I'd crossed before and believe me, it was a wonderful sight to see!

After the initial rain, I was able to take out my camera again. This is looking
back to Cape Maria Van Diemen and Matuopao Island with the dark
storm clouds coming in off the Tasman Sea

By the time I got down to the stream, the rain had stopped, though it was still windy, and I was definitely not going to dry out. I also still had another hour and a half hike to get back to the parking lot, so I rinsed my shoes off in the stream to empty them of any sand. I even stopped to take my camera out again, giving it a chance to dry off somewhat, but then I was off again and high-tailed it down the beach as fast as I could without overexerting myself.

The rain held off as I got nearer to the path at the bottom of the Cape Reinga cliffs, I realised I had one more obstacle in my way. As luck would have it, when I walked out from Cape Reinga the ocean was at low tide and the beach surrounding that steep little promontory was well wide enough. Not so on the way back. High tide was on its way in and the unrelenting wave trains were starting to crash over the rocky base of the promontory. I looked up into the foliage on the promontory for any sign of a trail I could take to go up and over the headland and while I found on that took me a few metres, it quickly disappeared and I carefully made my way back to the beach. It appeared I had three options: 1. Try the trail again and bushwhack my way over the promontory; 2. Wait for high tide to ebb back out away from the promontory; or 3. try my luck and passing around the rocky base before high tide got too high.

I decided to go for option number 3. The tide was still coming in but it wasn't all the way in yet, so I slung my camera over my back and carefully started finding footholds in the rock, hugging the base of the cliff as I shimmied across. The waves were breaking just a few metres away from me and the whitewater was splashing up over my feet. The going was slow, but at least there wasn't much distance to go. A few times I had to really hold fast to the rock wall and wait for a wave train to come through and then try to quickly hop across wide fractures in the rock between waves, but at least once the wave train caught up with me and bubbly water rising up well over my ankles. A few long reaches to sturdy foothold were almost missed, but after about 10 minutes, I made it around the headland to the safety of the little beach and cove on the other side. I took a few really deep breaths and looked back at where I'd just come from and was so immensely thankful to the Man Upstairs that I'd had the strength and perseverance to trust that my survival instincts would kick in and carry my across.

Looking back down at the rocky headland I had to skirt since there
was no trail over the top. At high tide, the wave trains kept pounding
the rocks and were big enough for water to rise over my feet!

And now, as the rain started to fall again, I quickly packed up my camera again and started the final ascent up the trail to the pathway at the lighthouse where throngs of people in ponchos were aimlessly wandering around, complaining about how miserable they felt and how wet they were, and I just brushed past them envying them and their rain-proof ponchos and dry clothes and otherwise warm tourist experience thinking, "If you only knew where I've just been, what I've just gone through, and what it took just to get back here!" As soon as I got back to my car, I pulled out my dry clothes and ran into the toilets to change out of the soaking wet clothes I'd spent the last three hours in.

Knowing I was safe in my car, back in dry clothes, I thought back to the previous five hours and came to a few conclusions. Firstly, it was so incredibly stupid of me to not have told anyone where I was going or what my plans were. I should have left a note in my car window saying what time I'd left and which direction I'd headed. And I should have checked the weather report (though there was no mobile service way out here or store to buy a newspaper from). Other than those untaken precautions, I also flipped through some of my photos and realised that I had done a hike that is epic in good weather and seemed legendary to me that I'd done it in the adverse conditions I'd been in. I decided that when all was said and done, it was an amazing experience I would jump at the opportunity to do again (of course being a bit more smart in my planning).

I said a few more "thank yous" to God before turning the key in the ignition, blasting on the heat, and driving off down the road back toward the mainland. It was only 1:00pm and I still had so much more to do today!

New Zealand: Cape Reinga

Travel Date: 2 January 2013

I said my goodbyes to my friends Martin and Lydia and left Waiheke Island early the next morning, catching a ferry back to Auckland where I lugged all of my gear about a kilometre through the city and picked up my rinky-dink car from Omega Car Rentals (Folks, their cars are old, cheap, and overpriced. Their customer service is dodgy at best. They were a very unhelpful company to rent from.) and was soon on my way up New Zealand's Highway 1 to Cape Reinga at the very northern tip of the North Island. While Google Maps says it is only a 5 hour drive, they assume there is no one else on the road, no accidents, you don't need to stop for petrol, you're not doing the drive during a holiday, and that the one toll road is operational... It took me almost 5 hours just to get from Auckland to Kaitaia at the turn-off to Cape Reinga.

That's not to say the drive wasn't pretty. In fact on Highway 1 you end up driving away from the coast for a little while but then you come up and over a large hill and are met with this expansive view of the Whangarei Heads ("wh" in New Zealand is pronounced "f") which are these staggering, precipitous cliffs jutting up out of the ocean, and it's then you realise that while you've been driving through "hilly" country, it is nothing compared to some of New Zealand's topography! Another beautiful and fun part of the drive was going through Mangamuka Gorge near Raetea Forest. Here, the road just goes up and up and up and up and up and up and up these tight winding, curving bends in the two-lane road where, at times, the road was tipped to the side on a 20°-angle, it seemed! I was a bit nervous because I was running low on petrol and worried that I wouldn't make it to the top of the road before running out. I just needed to make it to the top so I could put the poor little car in neutral and coast down the other side of the mountain! (I eventually made it).

I stopped in Kaitaia for some groceries and food since there are no stores or petrol stations out on the Cape itself. And then I started my drive out to the tip of the island. There is only one road to use and the drive is 110 km away from all civilisation. While you can't see it from the road, off to the left is Ninety Mile Beach (it's not 90 miles long!) which many visitors to NZ either hike or take their 4-wheel-drive utes on day trips, being careful to watch the tides so their cars don't end up being fed to the ocean. But honestly, for most of that drive there is little scenery to see until you get to the last 30-40km where the road really utilises the hilly terrain and give you amazing views of this thin peninsula with the Tasman Sea to the west and the Pacific Ocean to the east.

I wasn't too interested in the scenery here, though; I was more worried about securing a tent camping space at the Tapotupotu Bay campgrounds, run by the NZ Dept. of Conservation. The campsite doesn't take reservations, and I was worried that during peak holiday season, the whole campsite would be full, so I was mostly in a hurry to get to the campground and secure a spot for my tent. Eventually the road starts another large ascent up these rocky mountains and off to the left I could the the wide expansive sand dunes of Maria van Diemen Land (NZ's westernmost point), which would also be my target for tomorrow. Finally, I saw the turnoff for Tapotupotu Bay and took it, going a few kilometres down the dusty dirt road. Luckily, it was well-used and not too steep so my junky Nissan Sunny had no problem getting down the switchbacks to a tiny little sandy cove stuck between two rocky headlands: Tapotupotu Bay!

Coastal beaches stuck between headlands like this often have a high beach berm (2-3m) behind which is a flat lagoon with sandy banks, and it was all this high land that the campsite occupied. There were specific sites for RVs and one large grassy strip along the beach's edge where you can just pitch your tent where there's room, of which there was plenty and I had no problem finding a nice grassy area far from other tents. I paid the campsite attendant and set up my tent, but then I got back into my car and drove back out to the main road and turned right to drive the last few kilometres out to the lighthouse at Cape Reinga.

Maria Van Diemen Land (the westernmost point
of New Zealand) as seen from Cape Reinga

Cape Reinga is a spiritual place in Maori culture. It is believed that all Maori people originated from a place called Hawaiki somewhere in the Pacific Ocean and Kupe, the earliest Maori explorer from Hawaiki, believed Te Rerenga Wairua (Cape Reinga) to be the place where spirits would return to Hawaiki after death. Because of the spiritual nature of the site, tourists are strongly requested to not eat or drink anything past the parking lot - which, unfortunately, many less well-behaved tourists and respectful tourists neglect to notice. There is a nicely paved walkway that loops around from the parking lot down a hill and out to the lighthouse. In 1928, the organiser of the Ratana faith - a Christian group of Maori people - prophesied that "a great light would one day shine out on the world" from Cape Reinga and according to the displays around the area, some believe that the building of the Cape Reinga Light fulfills that prophecy. Below the light station is another little rocky point, Te Reinga, juts out into the merging waters of the Tasman Sea and the Pacific Ocean on the side of which grows a solitary kahika tree called, Te Aroha and it is here that departed spirits descent to the ocean waters on the roots of the tree and begin their return journey to Hawaiki.

I cannot imagine what it would be like to visit Cape Reinga when the parking lot is full of tour buses because it is such a spiritual place, I imagine the vast number of people crowding the point would ruin its serenity. Fortunately, the night I visited, there were only a handful of tourists. It was so peaceful and quiet, the only sounds being those of the waves crashing on the rocky coast below, a few sea birds, and the wind blowing through the grassy hillsides. The air was warm and comfortable and you could see the turquoise waters of the  Pacific merging with the darker waters of the Tasman off the coast where a thin band of mixing water left a visible stripe a good distance off shore. To the west, clear views out to the long beach leading to Maria van Diemen's Land and the rocky hills marking the western most point of NZ. Off the point of Maria van Diemen's Land are a few more grass-covered islands, and a good distance from land to the north is another little archipelago called, Manawa Tawhi - or Panting Breath. A Maori chief once swam to those islands from the main land, naming them for his physical state upon arriving. While no one lives out there now, Maori people lived there until about 200 years ago! What an existence that must have been!

Cape Reinga Lighthouse and Te Reinga below. The dark line near the horizon is the mixing line between the waters
of the Tasman Sea to the west (left) and the Pacific Ocean to the east (right)

The sun was dipping toward the horizon and I thought I'd wait for it to set, but I soon realised it had a ways to go yet, so I headed back to the campsite to make a little dinner and explore the beach there. I'd met a guy from Auckland at the Lighthouse who, like me, was just taking a week-long break, exploring and taking photos, and we met again on the beach, taking photos and chatting, watching the sky turn a brilliant pink colour as the sun finally set behind the rocky promontory on the west side of the beach. But it was soon time to turn in for the night. I'd decided that the next morning I was going to hike out to Maria van Diemen's Land - a 15km return-trip hike.

New Zealand: Waiheke Island and Stoney Batter

Dates Traveled: 30 December 2012 - 2 January 2013

After spending a few hours on Rangitoto Island with my friends Martin and Lydia, we ferried back to the Auckland wharf, grabbed my bags from storage, and caught the last ferry of the day out to Waiheke (why-HEK-ee) Island where Martin's family stays. Waiheke is a 45-minute ferry ride out from Auckland and it is a wine-lover's paradise with dozens of vineyards strewn across the island. (I am not a wine connoisseur, so I don't really know what types of wine grow best in Auckland Harbour) The island is surrounded by sparkling water, private coves and inlets, and because of the loose sedimentary rock underneath, the hills are very steep and I don't think there was a straight road on the island! Quite a few people live on the island in a number of little communities connected to the wharf by the main road, but even more private drives twist and turn their way through sheep and cow pastures, over steep ascents, and between white sandy beaches. It reminded me a lot of Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard, or Nantucket due to it's seclusion, it's high-end residents, it's scenic water views, and the awful traffic (though nothing really outdoes Cape Cod traffic on a Friday summer afternoon!).

Martin's whole family was celebrating the holidays at his parent's place and they couldn't have been more welcoming to me, refusing to let me do anything but relax, eat, and help myself to wine or beer no matter how much I insisted I could help out! The house was situated way back away from any main road and up on a hill with a beautiful view of the little cove below, the New Zealand mainland across the water, and the sun setting down behind the adjacent hillside, all surrounded by native forests! It was spectacular! After I set up my tent in the back yard, Lydia, Martin, and I walked down to the water's edge and strolled along the pebbly perimeter of the estuary. It was high tide then, but during low tide the water retreats and reveals an expansive shelf of sticky, mucky, salt marsh. Little crabs darted around the rocks, and rock oysters were fastened to almost every little bit of rock covered by water at high tide.

Sunset over Awaararoa Bay (don't ask me how to pronounce that!) on Waiheke Island

To be honest, not much happened those next few days. We did go to Onetangi Beach the morning after I arrived and spent a few hours there. Being as terrified of swimming in the ocean as I am, I was determined on this trip to start getting over that fear! I'm a fine swimmer, but I just am hesitant when it comes to the ocean. Well, I enjoyed the warm waters of Onetangi Beach, but the wind was a bit much so we decided to call it quits and headed over to Wild on Waiheke, a beautiful vineyard/brewery with delicious pizzas and beer, cider, and wine (had to try a bit of each!) and there were all sorts of games for Martin and Lydia's little nieces and nephews to play, but it looked too fun so we eventually joined in the extra-large chess set and bocci ball - but there were also more grown-up activities like volleyball, laser-skeet shooting, and archery! Soon, though, the rest of the family headed back to the house while Martin, Lydia, and I drove up to the Peacock Sky Vineyard, which the rest of the family had raved about earlier, for a little bit of a wine tasting. It was good wine, and the food they paired it all with was delicious, but again, I just don't know my wines well enough to be able to say, "The acidity of the Cab Sav really brought out the flavour of the garlic chicken skewer." (I don't even know if cab savs have acidity or if they pair well with chicken. Probably not. Oh well. I do know that Cab Sav is a wine, though, so there's a plus!

Rows of grapes on Waiheke Island

On the way back down the road to the house we saw a few pukekos which are these birds with brilliant navy blue plumage and a bright red beak perched up on top of spindly legs. There were just two of them rummaging around a fence post, but I didn't have my camera handy enough to get a photo of them before they darted off. People always say that New Zealand is the place to go if you want the Down Under experience where no animals will kill you (unlike Australia) and this is true. What took me by surprise were the number of amazing birds here! Not only did we see the pukekos, but at night you could hear moreporks calling to each other across the bay (here's a YouTube video which doesn't show much, but you can at hear their distinct, "More-pork!" calls), and during the day we would frequently see tuis (TOO-ees) flitting through the trees with their black bodies and white bobble-feathers at their necks. Also, just down along the bay below the house is a protected nesting ground for the shore dottrels and we frequently saw them flying around.

I think it was New Year's Eve by this point and after a great barbecue dinner and the little kids soon went to bed. Us adults then sat around drinking and playing a card game called, "asshole" which was really fun and I'll probably introduce it to my family at some point - but I forgot how to play... That was a nightly occurrence, but after playing this night, we walked up the very steep driveway to the top of the hill to see if we could get a good show from the Auckland New Year's Fireworks. Well, we saw the fireworks, but they were extremely uninspired and dull. There were maybe two or three big sprays of pyrotechnics from the top of the Sky Tower, but then the show was over and we had to manage our way back down the driveway.

The next morning was the first day of the new year and Martin and his brother impressed us all with homemade eggs benedict and it wasn't long before everyone packed up into the cars for a mini day-trip out to the northeast point on the island to the Stoney Batter Historic Reserve - a WWII gun battery that was part of a network of stations around the perimeter of the Hauraki Gulf. Built by the Kiwis and funded by the US Military, this network of battlements were set up to protect Hauraki Gulf and Auckland Harbour from any incoming threat from the enemy. The US got involved because the US Navy's ships used the protection of Auckland Harbour during the war. Stoney Batter's guns could fire far beyond the line of sight so the various radio stations would report the location of an enemy ship to the radio control centre on top of Rangitoto Island who then would call to Stoney Batter and let them know which way to point their weapons. While the threat of enemy invasion was real (3 Japanese subs did sneak past Sydney Harbour's defenses and sank a British battleship), the enemies never came and the battery never saw real action. The entire complex is pretty astonishing though - the three gun batteries are all connected by over a kilometre of underground tunnels which you can tour with the aid of a very bright torch, provided by the very knowledgeable woman who was attending the station, though she was a bit gruff and insisted on giving a little lamb a bottle of formula before taking our money. There is also a little "museum" there which is nothing more than a storage room full of photos, maps, and bits and bobs from the machinery that used to be in the tunnel systems. It appears as though the tunnels and bunkers are being renovated, but we couldn't be sure. It was nice to get out of the heat though and into the dark, dank, echoey tunnels! It's definitely something to check out if you're ever there. Once we got out of the tunnels and back into sunlight we walked up the hills in the sheep paddocks to the outside of the batteries and the views of the Gulf were so clear we could easily see Great and Little Barrier Islands way off in the distance!

Exploring the depths of Stoney Batter Historical Site

On the way back to the house, the whole family regrouped at Man o' War Vineyards for some tasty cheeses, olives, meats, and some wine, of course! What a fun time we had just sitting around talking, joking, watching the little kids play cricket, and eating! But the day was hot and everyone was exhausted so back home we went and while everyone else decided to do a little napping, I nipped down to the bay and took a stroll to the dottrel preserve and around the bend to a wide beach used as the launching site for rock oyster farmers whose farms were just out in the little bay. I was leaving the next morning so I also got my things together to make a quick pack-up in the morning and the rest of the evening was just relaxed on the porch looking out over the water while the sun set over the hills.

No better way to welcome in a New Year than this!

New Zealand: Auckland and Rangitoto Island

Dates Traveled: 29 December 2012-2 January 2013

New Zealand became the 15th country I've been to (or 18th, depending on how you count the countries of the UK) late last year. I knew I wasn't going to be able to afford the ticket back to the US for Christmas/New Year's but then I heard that my friends Lydia and Martin - classmates of mine from Vermont - were going to be spending a few weeks in Auckland with Martin's family, half of whom live there, for the holidays. I politely asked, not wanting to intrude on their family time, if I could stay with them for a few days, figuring that if I couldn't get home to see family, I may as well see friends in a new country. And with their blessing, I planned my week-long trip, packed my bags and tent, and was on my way.

I flew Air New Zealand for the first time and was giddy with excitement when the Flight Safety Demonstration Video came on because being shortly after The Hobbit came out in cinemas, New Zealand's Middle Earth tourism sector was booming again. The video was well done and includes all of your favorite Hobbit/Lord of the Rings stars teaching you about the safety features of the aircraft. Take a look:

And upon landing, the fun just continues as you exit the airport through a tunnel of rocks presumably from the Dwarf Kingdom and once you reach the baggage claim area you are greeted by one of the Dwarf Lords! I don't think I could stop smiling!

I had a little bit of trouble getting my tent and camping gear through customs. Because both Australia and New Zealand have sensitive native species, both governments to above and beyond the call of duty to make sure you're not tracking foreign-born plants or animals along with you or your gear. It takes an extra 15 minutes when you pick up your bags, but if your stuff is dirty, you'll get a free wash out of it! But soon I was on my way on a shuttle bus into Auckland.

It was almost 9PM when I arrived at the City Road YHA hostel, which was a nasty, dirty, bare-bones hostel, and I was told I'd be lucky to find anything open for dinner, so I quickly stashed my bags in my room and headed out in search of a good New Zealand bite to eat; I found a Manhattan pizza by the slice shop about to close up, but they gave me a few pieces of pie which I scarfed down and then headed out to explore what I could being so late. I took a stroll down Queen Street into the CBD which still had all the Christmas lights and decorations up. It is a pretty city, about the size of Grand Rapids, Michigan, I'd say, though its skyline is more iconic, I think - especially with the domineering Sky Tower which was all lit up at night and rather beautiful! I found a few local pubs on Vulcan and Durham Lanes where I started my New Zealand beer sampling, really enjoying my Moa Original Lager. I didn't stay out too late because I needed to get up early enough to meet Lydia and Martin down at the ferry wharf.

Auckland city skyline from the Rangitoto Ferry. It's an impressive little city, but I stress it is a little city - very walkable and not ever too busy. Quite relaxing, really!

The next morning was Sunday and while it was early, it was not bright and threatened to rain all day. I dropped my bags off at a hostel's storeroom closer to the CBD and waited for Lydia and Martin's ferry from Waiheke Island to come in. And sure enough, right on time, I saw my two good friends, who I hadn't seen since their wedding a year and a half ago in Vermont! It was so good to see familiar faces, especially after a less than exciting Christmas. We went back to Vulcan Lane for a nice breakfast, though we missed our ferry out to Rangitoto Island and had to wait another 45 minutes for the next ferry which gave us a little bit of time to walk around the CBD, do a little bit of souvenir shopping, and catch the next ferry on time.

Auckland is a city built on a series of hills that have all, in their past, been active cones of volcanoes since about 250,000 years ago. Rangitoto Island is the most recent of these volcanoes, having erupted only 600 years ago! Before Rangitoto erupted, there was an island in the harbour, but Rangitoto rose up out of the water right next to Motutapu Island, and Rangitoto is huge! It's hard to believe that this island erupted out of the Earth within the history of human habitation of New Zealand (having been discovered by the Maori people only about 800 years ago!). While mostly forested now, there are still wide expanses of bare basalt (lava rocks) where plants haven't yet colonised. One of the dominant species found on Rangitoto, and throughout New Zealand for that matter, is the pohutukawa tree (PUH-hoo-tuh-KAH-wuh) - a very regal tree with wide, shady, leafy branches and hundreds of bristly red flowers. The pohutukawa is revered in Maori culture and it is now illegal to remove the trees from wherever they grow.

Rangitoto Island from the Ferry Wharf

The ferry ride took about half an hour to get to the island and offered some nice views of the city, though the weather was still threatening rain. Once to Rangitoto we started the relatively short and easy ascent up to the caldera at the top which only took about an hour. At the top, the first thing we came to was the gaping pit that is the caldera of the volcano. It was a bit odd because you typically think that at the top of a mountain there should be a summit, but with volcanoes you get to the top only to look down into that hole. And it was deep! I'm not sure the measure, but I was impressed with how deep it went!

The red flowers of the pohutukawa tree on Rangitoto Island

Because of it's high elevation and unique position guarding Auckland Harbour, a radio station was built as part of New Zealand's WWII defenses and a few of the buildings are still up near the top. The weather was starting to clear up and we were getting our first clear views of the skyline and the rest of Auckland Harbour with it's beautiful islands poking up out of the water, and far off in the distance to the north and east we could see the larger islands of Great Barrier and Little Barrier Islands and the Coromandel Peninsula. If there's one thing I learned about this part of New Zealand it is that volcanic activity makes very large landforms that dominate the landscape around them! And if I thought Rangitoto and the Auckland volcanic field was impressive, I was sure in for some awestriking moments in the days to come.

On the way down from the Rangitoto Summit we followed another short trail to the Lava Tunnels. These tunnels are formed when the very fluid basaltic lava flows down the side of the volcano. The surface of the flow is in contact with the cold air and it forms an insulating crust under which the hot lava can continue to flow. This process forms these conduits or lava tubes which can be large enough to crawl through once the lava all hardens. A great example of lava tubes can be found at Craters of the Moon National Monument & Preserve in Idaho in the US. We navigated our way through a few of the tunnels and then had to hi-tail it back to the ferry wharf to catch the ferry back to Auckland so we could be on time to catch our ferry out to Waiheke Island.

Australia: Boxing Day in Sydney

26 December 2013

Well, my first Christmas away from home and family was more than dull. Let's be frank. It was terrible. Sydney was rainy, gloomy, and gray. I would much rather have been at home in Michigan in the cold and snow, driving 10 miles under the speed limit because of icy roads, shoveling the driveway, and spending an extra five minutes just putting boots and winter gear on every time I left the house. Oh, I wouldn't have minded the extra ten minutes it takes to get the car running, brush off the snow, and scrape off the ice from the windshield. Had I had a nice sunny day down at the beach in 30-40°C (90-110°F) weather, maybe my tone would be different, but nah.

Christmas Eve wasn't bad, though. A friend of mine had some friends over at his apartment for a nice cookout on his new grill (or in Aussie terms, to have a barbecue on his new barbecue), which was fun, but I left around 10:30 because I wanted to maintain some semblance of Christmas tradition so I headed down to really the only church I know of, St. Mary's Cathedral, for part of their Christmas Eve services. Really, I just wanted to hear and sing some traditional Christmas Carols like our church back at home does for the midnight service, but I arrived at the Cathedral an hour late for that. It was packed, though, and every single seat in the nave was full with spare pews lining the outer aisles, but few spare seats; people were standing and sitting wherever there was an open spot on the floor. I did, however, find a seat next to a very nice Asian woman who reminded me a lot of my grandmothers. She was there for the services, too, unlike many of the tourists poking their heads in, but between songs and scripture, she was all ears and wanted to know what an American like me was doing in Sydney, why I wasn't at home with family, and why I would come to St. Mary's if I was not Catholic. I smile thinking about her because even though I'd never met her before and never will see her again, I sensed that she wasn't spending her holiday with many family members either, and so in some way we were supposed to sit next to each other and be a surrogate family for the next two hours.

The service was very nice and included your traditional scripture readings (albeit all sung on the same note like in all Catholic churches which I do not understand - kind of like the sing-speaking in "Les Misérables"), the classic carols (which when over 500 people join in with the organ in a massive Cathedral is amazing!), and all of those little other Catholic rites or call-and-response songs that seemingly everyone knows but follows no real melody and for an outsider like me is just complete confusion! But I did my best and I wasn't there to nit-pick the service. It was very well done and quite inspiring to share that experience with so many people! It's a good feeling to know that churches still do fill up these days, even if it is just for Christmas.

Midnight passed and the service finally came around to partaking in communion, which I know that since I'm not Catholic, I do not take at a Catholic church. I also know, from my Aunt's church back at home, that serving communion to a few hundred people can take over an hour, so with a Cathedral full of people, I figured it would take until next Christmas! I said, "Merry Christmas," to my surrogate-grandmother and ducked out of the Cathedral. Sydney was empty, and since I wasn't tired yet, I walked down to Martin Place (the Wall Street of Sydney) to see the Christmas Tree they had set up, and then walked up George Street to the Town Hall station where I caught the last train home.

Martin Place Christmas Tree, Christmas Day 2012

Since I've already mentioned how not-great Christmas was, I'll move on to Boxing Day! Boxing Day is a holiday celebrated in most other current or former British Empire countries and commonwealths. It is the day that workers would receive gifts from their employers upon returning to work after Christmas. Nowadays, most everyone has Boxing Day off and there are lots of festivities around the city, the most exciting of which is the Sydney to Hobart (capital of Tasmania) Yacht Race which begins at the Harbour Bridge. All of the boats, ships, and yachts then race out to the Harbour Heads, out into the Pacific Ocean and then follow the coast all the way down to Tasmania. It is a massive event and I was told to make sure to get a good view somewhere near the Harbour Heads, which I was going to do but not after treating myself to a breakfast fit for a king: scrambled eggs, french toast, real bacon, and pineapple - delicious! The time it took me to make and eat breakfast set me back, though, so I caught a bus out to Watsons Bay, the suburb right on the South Head, distraught that I was sure I'd miss the good spots because the traffic was heavy and people were everywhere! But as it turns out, I found a great little spot on the edge of the cliffs at the Gap Park where my view was looking directly north to the North Head, perfect for watching the Yachts come through the Harbour Mouth and turn to head south.

For a while there was no excitement other than watching the 14 helicopters flying around overhead like a swarm of flies. But then a series of motor boats rounded the South Head and soon enough Wild Oats XI came streaming through the mouth of the Harbour, sails full, and you quickly realise just how big some of this boats are! I was a good distance away and above the yacht, but comparing the size of the yacht to the size of the cliffs behind her at North Head, you came to the conclusion that there wasn't much difference! (Wild Oats XI, by the way, eventually won the race.) Soon to follow were a few more large yachts and a dozens more smaller yachts, each being accompanied by a speedboat and being followed by locals in their own speedboats, tourists on the Manly Ferry, and patrons out on the tall-ship, the James Craig. Once the yachts made their way past North and South Heads, they were in the open ocean, turned south, and started following the coast toward Hobart, their final destination, almost 1,200 kilometres away!



It was fantastic to watch and be part of such a large crowd, but soon the crowd thinned and I headed over to the Laings Point Reserve, spread out my blanet, took out a few papers and a beer and read in the shade of a tree, with beautiful views of the city all around! Overall, not an entirely bad Boxing Day...though I forget what I did with the rest of the day...