Category: travel

the morning was marked with me not wanting to wake up at any costs, and us departing last from the hostel out of all the people that were staying there. we’ve had some more of those farm fresh eggs for breakfast, some tea, and a desert of lens cleaning (which is mindblowingly difficult to do! help!).

we departed the place around 10:30am, and now it is 4:09pm and we’ve been driving essentially non stop. one stop was made around 12pm for some supplies for the road – water, juice, cheese, crackers, powerbars, grapes (ohmygosh i want more. they are expensive here – $10/kg, but now of course i’m craving them), and apples.

we’re about 30 kms away from the final big city before our hostel where we’ll buy our dinner stuff – chicken and spaghetti and i’ll figure out some sauce, i guess. most likely tomatoes cause they should be good and fresh here.

my nose and cheecks are red – a bit burned – despite the 45spf sunscreen we keep applying. generally speaking my face looks less pale, but i still didnt have a chance to just lie in the sun and TAN, and i really can’t wait to do that.

upon arrival to our lovely hostel of which neither me or oleg take any photographs, we were so tired so we just lounged around the place for the rest of the day, thus not leaving much for me to write about. we looked out on the view (which we do have photos of), eventually cooked dinner (from the store bought chicken and pasta and tomato sauce), and soon thereafter went to sleep, after talking to some other hostelers.

interesting points learned today:

fell asleep by 11, time to wake up – 8 am. and i’m still thinking that’s not enough sleep!

the downside of sleeping in a dorm is that you wake up together with the first person to wake up – in my case, 6am. the alarms continued to ring at 6:15, 6:30, 7:00, 7:30, 7:45 and mine rang at 8, and there was still a person sleeping!

oleg was already at the counter checking out. he also found a cruise that we can take, which departed at 9 – boarding at 8:45am. we quickly parked nearby the pier, got coffee and sandwiches, and soon after left for the cruise on the yellow shiny boat.

cruise on the bay

the cruise was 4 hours long, and surprisingly awesome. the boat was one of those that hops on the waves instead of cutting through them, which lead to first me getting sea sick, and then oleg. however despite those two minor moments of inconvinience, we generally were very happy with lots of sun and lots of wind and sometimes even splashes of sea water (i know that all of my hands, face and hair was salty tasting afterwards… don’t ask how i tasted my hair).

we first went to find some dolhpins, where i shot some videos which kinda suck, and photos which really suck, and oleg got some incredible photographs. i’ll just defer to “yay teamwork” on this one. after looking at those awesome animals bouncing around, and listening to all the abilities that they posses (far more than humans), i’m firmly convinced that HHGTG had it right.

the second and final part of the trip was bouncing out to the pacific ocean, which was anything but pacified, and looking at some islands, rocks, beaches, listening to some kiwi history and going through a hole in a rock. it was far more exciting than what it sounds like! the hole in the rock is essentially a … well .. hole that lets a fairly big boat and go out into the pacific ocean. its pretty worrysome when you see how huge the waves are, but our captain managed to do it without killing us. after all the excitement and wind and speed and dangerousness, i found a sunny, windless corner on the top part of the ship and i just napped there. it was beautifully warm. i still can’t get enough of the warmth and sun. feels like the cold of toronto won’t ever leave me!

upon completion of the tour, i finally got to try out the card and found out they ripped me off – paid $10 for a $5 and didn’t notice. however, all is well as now a connection exists between the continents. and furthermore, we can make reservations without spending $.50/minute on local calls. those vodaphone people are NUTS.

after extensive testing of the card we started driving back down south. the road was astoundingly pretty, with more new and beautiful surprises around each corner. one place in particular just took our breath away – it was this absolutely awesome, soft white beach, pearly blue water and mountains on the horizon. we stopped, walked around, i got ice cream, and we soon continued on our way south towards new adventures. but that place was something special. and the most incredible thing is that people here seem to take places like that as normal.

one of the reasons why we ended up going this way in the first place was because of the kaori trees of the area. kaori trees are a NZ speciality – they are HUGE, white, smooth, tall trees, and on the west coast of northern NZ there is a whole forest of them.

we stopped by one tree in particular. neither words or pictures can describe how huge it is – let me try numbers. its thought to be around 2000 years old. at least. it is 50 meters tall, and 13 meters girth. like oleg said “if i lived here a few hundred years ago and saw this thing in the forest i’d start worshipping it too”.

after the tree, we whirled down the curving roadways towards our hostel, both being pretty tired of driving. the road through the forest was incredibly happy, and you can see some videos of how awesome it looks here.

after leaving the forest, and doing some more scenic driving we arrived to our hostel which turned out to be yet another awesome thing in a pretty awesome day. the road to the hostel is a curving 200m long driveway that goes STEPLY down. a very interesting idea of driving.

the hostel turned out to be a really pleasant, quaint, country style place. except i tore the curtain (a bit) and broke the window handle (one of the two). i’m just going to pretend nothing happened and hope for the best. its up to them to keep this place running in face of clumsy travellers like me! especially given how “strong” i am, that window handle was about to break anyway.

the hostel offered fresh farm eggs for 40 cents (boiled eggs never have tasted so good), and homecooked steak dinner for $12, served at 7pm. we eagerly signed up for that (the time was 5:30), and i made myself 2 above mentioned boiled eggs (oleg didn’t feel like any). the time before dinner was spent lounging around the place, unpacking, reserving the stay for tomorrow and the day after tomorrow, and just relaxing.

the dinner was incredibly filling – steak and lots of veggies. tried kaura, like sweet potatoes (never tried before, but tastes exactly as described. sweet. potatoey.), except local to NZ. and absolutely mindblowingly awesome bbq sauce. imagine very pleasant bbq taste in a thick, juicy, warm, dark red sauce, with a strong, pleasant sensation of wasabi. turns out the owners grow wasabi. must… resist… temptation.. to… ask.. for… some… i think they could sell that recipe to restaurants easily. so awesome.

evening was spent editing photographs, typing a little of the blog (i’m finishing right now, which is next day in the car on the way further down the island) and staying up till late talking to other hostelers. they’ve got tents and they pitch them in the backyard and then cook in the hostel kitchen. we intend on buying food tomorrow and starting to cook as of tomorrow. i’m mostly likely going to be responsible for figuring out what to buy, so that will be interesting. we have no fridge at the moment, or box, to use a fridge (plan is to freeze water bottles and just store stuff there). hopefully we’ll find one when we stop for supplies.

only 2 (3 nights) days in NZ and i’m already overwhelmed! doesn’t feel this short, but instead more like a week.

departing auckland

the day started with a (far too early) waking up at 8:45am, by the hotel wake up call. we grudgingly drag ourselves out of the super comfortable beds (after the couch and the fold out bed of sydney, it was definitely nice to sleep on a hotel quality bed), and went to inspect the breakfast. the inspection was considered a success with 4 bowls of cereal (on my part only), 2 glasses of orange juice, and 2 cups of coffee with cream and sugar.

soon after the adventure has officially began with our checkout and departure from the hotel to the “bus on tahp o; the rahd”, which turned out about 10 minutes walk under blazing sunlight. given how before we were mostly in shade and/or wind, and dressed fairly warmly (like sweatshirt and windbreaker), and ended up being loaded like pack mules (oleg’s backpack is 15 kilos and laptop bag is 7 kilos, and mine are 10kgs and 4kgs) – this lead to a lot of discomfort really fast. upon arrival to the “tahp o’ the rahd” we figured the top is the other side where we could see a bus stop, so we crossed. upon arrival of the bus it turned out that we were on the wrong side, so we rushed back to the other side, and in another 10 minutes our bus came. total savings out of this small adventure: about $20 – since the bus turned out to be $6/person. cheap! we were told tales of 15$ – $20 tickets.

from this point life became a little easier for the next hour, while we were riding into town from the close-to-airport-hotel. unfortunately, in town we still had to haul our bags to vodaphone (to get a sim card. ask my parents for the number if you feel like paying $50 cents a minute to talk to me!), and then to avis. i believe i’ve worked off all the doritos i ate in 2005 on those few walks (and even getting lost once).

the process of getting our cute white 4 door hatchback holden astra was incredible. i don’t think i’ve told any of you that if you reserve the rental car in NZ from canada, the under 25 age charge ($25/day!!!) is waived. i called Avis NZ first a few weeks before christmas to check if we can rent at all, and they told me this information. then oleg called avis canada then avis international who confirmed this

guess what we were told when we arrived to avis to rent the car? “you’re under 25, so we have to stick you with a $25/day charge”. of course we disputed this, and two fairly sleazy looking young men of course disputed us. after them arrogantly demanding to know who did we talk to and when (when i asked why – and i was nice to them, i swear – the main sleazy looking one said “we record all the conversations”. *eye roll*), they said “sure we’ll call avis international to check”, with their own eye roll. after waiting for about half an hour, the less sleazy guy hung up with a slightly disappointed look and told the main guy that “yeah, you can give them the discount here if you wanted to”. argh! anyway, we got the discount. so its all good. :-)

upon settling into the car with all our stuff (i’m taking bets on the amount of time it took me to forget the weight i had to carry and start regretting not taking this or that “since we drive anyway” – hint, i’ve already said that. on the same day.), we quickly left auckland, with only one goodbye snapshot of the city’s skyline. and a blurry one at that!

driving…

the trip around new zealand started off with us heading towards “bay of islands”, which turned out to be a fair bit away. after a challenging drive through the beautiful NZ scenery (see photos for all the photographs/snapshots – i’m going to oversaturate you people with those as much as the sky here is oversaturated to blue, because there IS NO WAY THAT I CAN CHOOSE), we stopped in wharengei, pronounced “fanragey”, for a fairly expensive dinner ($20/person) (but still better than nothing, and at least the food was excllent), and a break from driving.

driving itself is very interesting. in sydney our host’s car had the blinker on the right hand side and the windshield wipers on the left – totally backwards. oleg was worried about it, as it’s a big habit of clicking the blinkers with your hand when you turn. thankfully, our car has the blinkers on the left side, which however prompts the question of what is the standard? we may never know ;)

but, generally speaking, EVERYTHING is backwards. turning left is “sticking to the curb” and turning right is “going to the far side”. driving on highways is alright as you’re moving together with some other cars, but pulling out and parking is just ODD. oleg’s saying that the biggest challenge is feeling where the car ends – its totally backwards.

as the passenger, sitting where i’d usually be driving, is not that weird. the thing that threw me off the most is that the mirror is facing oleg and not me. in the start i had to crash the instinctive reach of correcting it to face me – the gesture comes very naturally after being used to doing it all the time in toronto! other than that, its surpisingly regular – some moments of oddness exist, but mostly its fine.

the thing that made us BOTH feel like we’re on pluto is that the windshiled wipers go the other way. i can’t describe how much you don’t realize it, but its just SO WRONG for them to be rotating the other way. which brings me to rain – and weather.

weather

on the way to paihia (the big city in bay of islands where we wanted to stay and take a tour the next day) the weather changed at least a 100 times. and the most awesome thing is that the sky was always blue throughout that time. basically, it was really sunny, then rainy, then really rainy, then really rainy and sunny, then really sunny and cloudy, then some rain, then some rain and a lot of sun, then a lot of sun, then … you get the idea. it was mindblowingly awesome, cause the sky stayed blue, clouds stayed fluffy, and sun kept on shining, but seriously strange to the maximum degree.

arrival to bay of islands

we arrived into the scarily beautiful bay of islands in the evening. oleg said he had seen more pretty views, and in some respect i agree that it wasn’t the most gorgeous view i’ve seen. however, it was certainly unique. imagine standing on a shore of a bay that’s big, but not so big that you can’t percieve its limits. the bay is littered with islands that are about 50-70 meters in circumference, and each island has its own white sandy beach which turns into a “mountain” (a very steep high hill) that is covered with lush greenery (trees, evergreen trees, and palms). and the sun is setting, and the color is grey and pink, and the yachts and sailboats anchored at the bay are softly rocking on the waves.

unfortunately finding a place to stay was not as peaceful. after going through a whole bunch of hostels (walking between them as there arelike 5 within 3 meters of each other), we found 2 beds in 2 seperate dorms. at that point it was starting to get dark, so it was just easier to agree.

upon figuring that out, we made plans for the next day, which essentially concluded in deciding to wake up at 8, so that we make the cut off time for morning tours – 8:45-9:00am. after walking around the town for a bit and finding a convinience store, we got a phone card (one NZ for dialing NZ numbers, and one international, for dialing out. you use the NZ card to call from a payphone to a local number for the international card, and then you dial the pin, and finally your home phone number), we proceeded to local bar where it was 2 beers for the price of one. the price of one beer is $5. so, life became very enterntaining very quickly.

the bar had some silly contests, and i had the pleasure of watching one with 2 kiwi (that’s new zealanders for those of you who are not “in” to the “slang”) girls who were on their vacation from oakland. the contest was musical chairs, and you could take off your shirt to stay in, or sing a song, or make a little dance. the girls were joking about americans and saying that they’re not shoving enough.

after watching the 12-year-old-looking-guy win, and the a-bit-too-big-girl fall on her ass trying to make it to the chair, i decided that i’ve had enough local enterntainment and headed to the hostel, where the internet was too expensive, but not so much that i could resist its lure. quick emails were sent, vodaphone survey was filled out in order for us to get $10 credit on our cell, and soon after sleep came.