Ah, Fresh Air!

So, I've left Rotorua now, and I'm glad to say that I can breathe again!!

I had a good time there though, did lots of fun activities. The first day out we went up a gondola (a really small one compared to Whistler...) and at the top they had luge rides and a big Skyswing thing. The luge was so much fun! You sit on this little plastic sled basically, and push forward the handle to go, pull back to stop. You could rip on those things! The tracks were fun with lots of turns and hills, and I actually got air off of one of them... crazy! We did the skyswing too because with the deal we got it was practically free. You sit in this little metal seat thing, and they strap you in and pull you up and back about 45 meters, and then you pull this cord to let yourself go. Just imagine a 42m swingset and getting pulled back to the top and then let go. It was fun but pretty scary. Especially since you swing out over the side of the mountain!

The next day, I went on a bus trip out to Waiotapu Thermal Reserve where they have a whole bunch of different geothermal activity going on. Steaming lakes and bubbling craters and all that fun stuff. I loved the champagne pool, which had a bright orange rim around it, and beautiful turquoise water that steamed. Crazy. Later Monday night I went to a Maori village for a traditional concert and hangi. It's like the New Zealand people's equivalent of a Luau. The show was amazing, and the dances and songs were beautiful. The food was excellent too! I had a great time.

The next day Tyler and I rented some bikes and rode around Rotorua. We found a really big maze! The owners change it all the time so it's always different. Tyler and I started from two different entrances and I got out first, but it still took a good 45 minutes for us to do. And then today we bussed it down to where I am now, Taupo. There's supposed to be a lot of nice walks and hikes around here, and it's nice to start seeing some snow capped mountains again. In a few days I hope to do the Tongariro Crossing, which is one section of a 4 day long hike, but you can do this part in one day. It's supposed to be an amazing trip.

Anyway, now for some pictures!

At the zoo in Hamilton



Lady Knox Geyser


Champagne Pool at the thermal reserve



Pictures from the hangi

Traditional maori greeting ceremony


The performers in traditional clothing


Only a small part of the huge maze!


Hope you like them!

Alright, Who Farted?

So, I made it out of Auckland again for the third time, and I'm glad I won't have to go back until I have to catch my flight to leave. It rains every time I go there! And as soon as I leave it's beautiful wherever I go.

So this morning I got up early and caught a bus out west to Rotorua. It really smells here, hence the title. It's got loads of geothermal activity going on around here, and tons of hot springs and such, so the air always smells like sulphur, or rotten eggs. I'm already kind of used to it, but once you go outside after being inside for a while it's quite overpowering! I've updated the map up there to show the purple dot where I am.

Some neat NZ observations for everyone I've noticed since I've been here:
- I love the money! The smallest coin they have is 10c, then 20c, 50c, $1, and $2 coins. Then it's bills like us. It works so well! Everything is still priced in smaller amounts, but once they total it up they round it up or down to the nearest 10c. It's great! And all the posted prices include GST, so you know exactly what you'll be paying which is very nice.
- The roads in cities are horribly marked compared to home. Some intersections don't have the names of both streets on the corners. You usually just get one street name. But the highways are amazingly posted. It's almost impossible to get lost going from one city to the next.
- You know how they have signs at home that warn of cattle crossings or something, well here I've seen a few signs saying "Elderly Crossing" At first I laughed and then I felt bad...
- Lilies, the pretty, big, white flowers that are really expensive back home, grow wild here. I've seen fields of them while on the bus. I wish I could send some home to you mom!
- I saw a drive through liquor store. Isn't that an accident waiting to happen? Doesn't that just throw the whole "Don't drink and drive" mentality right out the window....?
- I've learned I'm horrible at telling apart accents. I thoroughly embarrassed myself a little while ago when I was 100% sure a guy was Australian (he sounded EXACTLY like the Steve Irwin) and he was geniuine Kiwi. And then our tour guide on the caving trip sounded Kiwi to me, but he was from Australia... The only one I can pick out for sure is UK. It's pretty bad.

Yeah. That's all I can remember right now because I forgot to bring my notebook with me. I'm sure I'll think of more.

So I have a few pictures from the last little bit for everyone. I've finally found a site that will work the way I want it to, and so I can post the pictures here. Hooray!

Few pictures of the cave we repeled down into and did all our caving, tubing and gloworm stuff in.




The sticky strands that gloworms let down to catch their prey in


Tyler and I with the Alaine and Pierre, a couple on the caving trip with us. All decked out in our spelunking gear!


Me repelling down to the cave


A long exposure shot our guide took for us to show the gloworms. Imagine that, in pitch black darkness, with about 5 more glowing dots inbetween the ones that are already there. Absolutely amazing.


Me squeezing through a cave tunnel


The group after we did the rockclimb back to the top of the cave


Nighttime in Auckland


Our trip to Hobbiton!





So, that's all I have time for today. I took loads of pictures at the zoo yesterday, and the ones I took of the gloworms on a night walk didn't really turn out unfortunately. The best gloworm pic is the one the guide took for us in the cave. Hope you guys enjoyed them!

Left Side!

So, the last few days have been pretty interesting!

For those of you that don't know, Tyler is here for a year to do a working holiday. I knew he was coming down, and so I met up with him when he got into Auckland.

On Saturday we rented a campervan for 5 days, and headed south to the interior of the north island. We went to places that don't really have good bus service, so that's why we got the van. It was a lot of fun though! A little cramped, but nice to have a space to ourselves, and not sharing a dorm room. I even took a turn at driving, and I think I did pretty well on the left side of the road!

We went out to Hamilton and Matamata, and went out to Hobbiton (from Lord of the Rings for those of you that might not know)! We took a tour of what is left of the set. It's on a 1250 acre family farm. The family bought the rights to keep part of the set up after the filming was done and now does tours out to it on a daily basis. It was so neat to see the place almost like it was in the movies. The party tree is a real tree! I thought it would have been fake or something, but it's still there. We got our pictures taken in the hobbit holes and everything. Back at the gift shop, I had to buy a bottle of the beer that the actors drank in the movies. It was actually brewed just for the movie, and they're still brewing it here today in NZ. I had to buy it because as I was looking at it, (it's called Sobering Thought, and has Lord of the Rings stuff on it) I realised that it is made by a Harrington Brewery. So I mean, come on! Pretty cool!

After that we drove down to Waitomo and stayed down there for a few days. We went on a really cool caving trip that lasted for 5 hours, and included a 27 meter repel down into the cave, tubing on the underground river, seeing gloworms and gloworm caves, doing some caving and cave crawls, and then a rockclimb back to the surface. The gloworms were amazing! When we turned off our headlamps and just looked up, it was so beautiful. There must have been thousands of these tiny green lights all over the roof of the cave and the walls. Better than looking at the sky on a clear night. Just... wow.

Today we packed up our van and drove back to Auckland to return it. We stopped at the Hamilton Zoo on the way back, and I loved it! It was such a beautiful zoo! And lots of neat animals always makes me happy of course. I'm kinda sad to have to go back to dorming it, but also happy to be in a real bed again. And to actually have a little bit of room to move!

I'll try and get some pictures of the last week or so up tomorrow, I'm pretty beat after today for some reason so I'm going to head to bed early.

Please guys, if you read my blog can you leave a note? Just so I know who's read it. I get tons of hits a day on my counter but almost no notes. Even just your name lets me know and makes me happy! I miss you guys, hope you have a Happy Halloween. I don't think they do the whole Trick-or-Treating thing here... I haven't seen any candy for sale. Darn, I was looking forward to the discounted candy in November like back at home.

Hope you all are well!

I Found A New Friend!

Well cover me with feathers and call me a kiwi! Look who the cat dragged in!

Back in Auckland

So, I'm all done with my trip up to the northern tip of New Zealand. I'm back in Auckland now, and will be here for a few days while I sort out where I want to go next. I wanted to head down to a town south of here and learn how to surf, but apparently they don't start lessons until November, so I can't quite go there yet. Darn!

The last few days have been fun and relaxing. After my last entry (lots of pictures, check them out if you haven't seen them yet!) I went out on a boat trip around the bay of Paihia, and went to a place called Hole in the Rock. Haha yeah, it's just a hole in the rock, but I won a 2-for-1 coupon at the bar a few nights before so it was cheap! It's a sea tunnel throught an island. Pretty fun trip though, the boat was really fast, and actually gets air off the big waves!

The next day I caught a ride with Ray and Conor, the guys from Ireland, and we went up to the bottom of 90 mile beach because they wanted to see it. Then we drove back down the West Coast to a little town called Opononi. It is so beautiful! Too bad there wasn't more to do there because I would have loved to stay more days. We only stayed one night there, and ran into someone that we had met back in Paihia. His name was Olaf and he's from Holland. In the morning we caught a boat over the harbour to the sand dunes there, and did some more sandboarding! These hills were quite steep though, and led right out onto the water, so you would skim across the top for about 20 feet before you sank. I didn't want to take any pictures though because I didn't want to ruin my camera with water or sand.

After we'd showered and stuff, we set out and drove down to the Waipoa kauri forest, and saw the biggest trees in New Zealand. Remember the picture I posted earlier of me hugging a big tree? Yeah, the biggest one in New Zealand is twice that size... It's 14m around the base! Absolutely huge. The pictures don't really show the size of it that well. We also saw teh second largest tree, and a group of trees called the Four Sisters, which grew up in a really small square. After the forest, we drove down south to a town called Dargaville, stocked up on groceries and drove out to the coast to a tiny town called Bayly's Beach. It was a quaint little surf town that was really relaxing. We ended up staying there for two nights because it was so nice! The only other person in the hostel was a guy named Jason who lived there, and he was really cool. So we had it to ourselves really and all we did was watch movies and the rugby world cup games! Unfortunately the weather was horrible so we had to stay inside pretty much.

So yesterday we left there, and drove back to Auckland where Ray and Conor dropped me off. They are only in New Zealand for 6 more weeks, so they are going a lot faster than I am, and I wasn't ready to head south yet. So my time with them is over and I'm back to rainy Auckland!

I'm trying another thing with the pictures because SOMEONE complained about having to click on them all... *cough*Ryan*cough* So here's a link to the latest ones I've put up from the last few days. Not many unfortunately, but a few more.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/polkadotskies/

Hope you all are well, and I miss you lots!

Lots of pictures!

Hey everyone! Sorry about the delay on the pictures.

The last few days have been really awesome. I've met a whole bunch of great people from Ireland and the UK, and we've been hanging out and doing lots of fun stuff. The internet places here all close around dinner time though so I couldn't get back on in time.

So, I'm still trying to work out the best way to get pictures up on here. The blogger way takes absolutely forever, and the pictures are really small. Today I'm experimenting with another way so bear with me. For now all I can do is link you to them and you have to click on each one. Still not the greatest way, I'm sorry!

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The sunrise from the plane as we were arriving in Auckland

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The view from my hostel room in Auckland looking out towards the downtown area.

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Someone doing a skyjump of the SkyCity Tower! The jump is 187 meters I think, and the building is over 300m. Pretty cool.

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Panorama shot of Auckland skyline from the fortified hills I hiked on the first few days I was here.

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The penguins at the Underwater World!

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The stingray going above me at the Underwater world on the clear roof walkway. So cool!

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Look, it's the whole Finding Nemo gang!

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A Maori marae meeting house, recreated inside the Auckland Museum.

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A close up of the carvings on the wall in the meeting house

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A view of Auckland from the top of Mount Rangitoto. The weather was sort of foggy so its' not very clear unfortunately.

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The island next to the volcano. Doesn't it look like Ireland mom? :P

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A view of the volcano from the boat going back.

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A three day old Kiwi! At the Native Bird Recovery Center in Whangarei

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Look, I found my very own right here in NZ! Sooo close with the spelling though.

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The view out one of the holes in the tunnels on the fortified hill, North Head. The tunnels I was talking about last week.

Ok, so those are the good ones from the start of my trip. Now back to the ones from the last few days.

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Climbing up the sand dunes to go sandboarding

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Baby seal on the beach, resting and waiting for it's mom to come back. Aw

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Jen from the UK, Nick from Kelowna!

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Connor and Ray from Ireland

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Playing on the huge inflatable slide at Adventure World!

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Connor and Ray battling it out on the jousting log.

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Ray on the trapeze! I did it once, but didn't even try to go for the transfer to the second swing...

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Roger and Fish from the UK, and Connor and Ray all singing karaoke, 'You've lost that lovin' feeling.' They were pretty good!

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Group shot!

That's all for now everyone. Hope you enjoyed the pictures, and let me know if this way of showing the pcitures is ok for everyone. It's kind of annoying having to click on them all isn't it?

Take care!

Fun In the Sun

Wow, lots to talk about!

So, since I last wrote, I went out on my dive trip to the Poor Knights Islands of the East Coast of northern NZ. They're supposed to be one of the top 10 places to dive in the world, because a branch of the East Australian Current runs past them, making a unique mix of cold and warm water creatures. They're 24 km off the coast, so it was a long boat ride out, and quite choppy. Our first dive was in a little cove called Splendid Arch, and it wasn't too exciting. We didn't see much there, but the dive was still fun, and much different from at home. Still needed wet suits as the water was 16 degrees, but that's better than the 11 it was at home!

The second dive was amazing. We went to another area called Rock Cave, and there was soooo much to see. I saw crayfish, snapper, blue and pink maumaus, one clown nudibranch (so cute!), and best of all about 5 huge stingrays. Most of them were resting on the sand under rocks, so we couldn't get too close, but another group of divers actually scared one out of it's spot and it swam past us about 10 feet away. So beautiful and graceful! It had to have been a really big one, at least a 2m wingspan. I did buy an underwater camera before I went, so hopefully the pictures turn out well! I can't wait to see them. On the boat I actually met a couple from the UK who had met in Vancouver, a French Canadian family who used to live in Sechelt, and one of the employees had been to Whistler and Squamish and done some diving at Porteau! What a small world.

After my day of diving, I left Whangarei on Saturday and bussed it up here to Paihia, in the Bay of Islands. It's gorgeous up here! All sandy beaches and beautiful sun. It's so relaxing that I think I'm going to chill out here for a while! I've updated where I am on my world map up there, remember the purple dot is where I am right now.

Yesterday I did a day trip up to Cape Reinga, which is the northernmost point of NZ. It has a great importance to the native Maori people, as they believe that Cape Reinga is the departing place of their souls and the gateway to the Maori underworld. There is an 800 year old pohutukawa tree at the tip of the cape that guards the entrance, and when they die, their souls make their way up to the Cape, and climb the tree and jump off of it to enter the underworld.

Also at the tip of NZ, the Tasman Sea and the Pacific Ocean meet. It was a bit of a choppy day out on the water so you could actually see the swells where the two of them meet - pretty neat! On a stormy day they can be up to 10m high!

After we went there, we bussed over to the Giant Sand dunes at the top of 90 mile beach, and had an international sandboarding competition between the members of our bus. I was the single representative for Canada, and you'll all be glad to hear I did us proud and won! I travelled the furthest! It was wickedly fun, but a lot of work to hike up to the top of the dunes!

Next we drove all the way down the length of 90 mile beach, right on the sand. It's actually an official highway! It's more accurately about 90km, but still it's a really long beach! On the way, we spotted a baby seal lying on the beach, and we were able to get out and take pictures. Their moms will leave them on the beach as they go out to hunt for food. He was so cute!

I think I may have figured out how to get some pictures up, so we'll see if it works! Miss you all tons, and thanks for the comments. Oh, Evie is my official guide to all things NZ, so if you see her making corrections about my facts, don't worry, it's welcome! Evie, if my story about Cape Reinga is wrong, blame my tour guide!



So, I forgot my other card with my first pictures back at the hostel, so these are more recent ones. I know they are small, I'm working on getting them on here a different way so they'll be bigger. At least I figured out how to do it at all!

Whangarei falls, in Whangarei


Me hugging a giant Kauri tree on the way to Cape Reinga. This one is close to 1000 years old, but the biggest one in NZ is about 2000! I won't see that one for a few days yet. Hard to imagine a bigger one than this! The kauri trees are in the conifer family, same as the giant redwoods and great sequoias.

Me in front of the very tip of Cape Reinga. If you look closely you can see the tree I was talking about earlier.

A nice panorama shot of the lighthouse in the middle, the tip of NZ off to the right, and on the left, the rough patch of ocean is where the Tasman Sea and Pacific Ocean are meeting.

Me sandboarding! Look at me go!

More pics to come tomorrow, my internet time is running out. Bye for now!

Soooo different...

Kia ora everyone!

That's a general greeting used here a lot. It pretty much means everything from 'welcome' to 'thank you' to 'hello'. Just some random info for you.

So my first few days have gone pretty well. It's pretty much a give in that things would be different from home, but it's pretty crazy. First off there's the obvious wrong side of the road nonsense. I mean, you don't realise how instinctive it is to look left when starting to cross a street until you almost get hit... Don't worry mom, I'm ok! But I'm sticking to crosswalks for now... The other big thing is the price of everything! I was really stoked about the exchange rate until I discovered that everything is 25% more, if not double here. A 2 litre of milk is almost $5! Insane. I'm going to have to find something other than cereal to eat for breakfast or I'm going to go broke. Have any of you ever seen a fast food value meal over $10? I have. And all of you complaining about gas being $1.10 or whatever it is there now, be glad you don't live here and have to pay $1.64/litre! Ouch. Oh and Mike, Fanta is just as common as Coke or Sprite down here!

Auckland is actually pretty similar to Vancouver. I felt pretty at home walking around the streets downtown. Smaller than Van though. One thing that is really neat is at big/main intersections they have a pedestrian turn at the stoplights. So all at once, all four directions go, and a mass of people just swarm the intersection. It's a pretty weird sight to see. You gotta really hope that no one tries to run a red light right before a pedestrian turn... The transit system is really good, with a free bus that runs around the main points in downtown for free, every ten minutes. I've taken advantage of that one a few times! They also have electronic signs at big stops telling you how long until the next bus comes, and what number it is. Pretty handy!

I've done quite a bit since I've been here. I have crossed the harbour and hiked up some small hills that had old battlements on the top that were built for the world wars to protect the harbour. One of them had a huge cannon, called a disappearing gun, on top that could fire a 210 pound shot over 5 miles! They only shot it once as a test, and it shattered all the windows of the surrounding houses, so they didn't test it again... Nice. Another site about 20 minutes away had a whole network of tunnels built into the hillside to house men to arm the guns. A bunch of them were open for exploring and I had a great time! I couldn't imagine living in those smelly holes though.

I went out the the Underwater World, and saw a whole bunch of neat stuff. Penguins! They had a kind of tram ride thing that took you into their enclosure and you could see them above and below the water. I loved it of course, it was penguins! They also had a underwater walkway where the roof was clear and you had tons of fish, sharks and manta rays swimming above you. Pretty cool.

I went to the art gallery where they had a real Picasso! I also went to the Auckland museum where they had a whole bunch of exhibits on the native Maori people, native plants and animals, and a whole floor dedicated to NZ wars and their involvement in the world wars. They had two restored planes in there, that were actually used during the war. A Zero and a Spitfire. Pretty neat stuff. Although I got caught in a full out lightening and thundershower while walking to the museum, so it could have been better. It was a good test of my stuff though! My shoes and backpack did great, and the jacket did pretty good too, but my pants were soaked when I got there. Haha.

Yesterday was really cool. I took a ferry out to Rangitoto Island (pronounced Rang-ee-toetoe) which is actually an extinct volcano, that is only 600 years old. I hiked up to the summit in an hour, and the views of Auckland and the surrounding areas were amazing. It was pretty neat to be walking along a path made of old lava. This volcano came up right next to another island, Motutapu, which is the complete opposite. It looked like a page out of one of mom and dad's Ireland books. All rolling fields of grasslands and even some cliffs.

Today I bussed my way out of Auckland, and up north to Whagarei (Fang-ga-ray), where I hope to do a side trip to do some diving at the Poor Knights Islands. They're supposed to be one of the top 10 sites in the world to dive because of the mix of tropical and coastal currents. I should be here until Saturday, then I plan to head up to the Bay of Islands for some fun in the sun. Hopefully it will be sunny - it's been regular BC weather out here so far!

Still no pictures, haven't quite figured out how to work that out yet. I have lots to show everyone though! I'll get them up as soon as I can. But internet is expensive here, hopefully it will be cheaper up in Paihia (Pie-hee-ah) and then I can try to figure it out.

I can't get logged in to the site where I change my map, so it still says Auckland, but I'm a little bit north of there right now. I probably won't be back online until next week. I miss you all alot, wish you could be here with me! Leave me lots of notes about home... I haven't seen a tv to even see news since I left.

Take care!