Bay of Islands

Friday, January 19, 2007

Today we left work early and walked down the road by my work to Soljans Winery, the place that I have been looking at online for about 14 months. It was pretty impressive, and you know me, I wanted to buy everything they had because of the logo and of course find the prettiest wine bottle. We actually could sample all the wine we wanted, so we did, Melissa, maybe a sip too many, no just joking….Anyways, so I did buy a bottle of wine (only 1 bottle because we are only allowed to bring back 1 litre to Canada, and one bottle is 750 ml, too bad). And I bought a bottle of their own chocolate dessert sauce and a bottle of raspberry vinaigrette. It wasn’t too expensive there at all, I guess because you cut out the middle man. Friday night…what did we do? I don’t remember.

Monday, January 22, 2007

This weekend we went to the Bay of Islands and stayed on a town called Paihia (pronounced pie-hee-ah). The drive was phenomenal to say the least. The whole drive was like being in a video game where you are constantly climbing hills and driving down them, the windiest roads you can imagine. And below us for most of the 4-hour drive was deep gorges with bright blue rivers, and what appears like jungle sections. Absolutely stunning. And it was the whole way! Along the way we passed the indoor ski resort called Snowplanet, literally a big dome built on a hill with snow inside, looked kind of worse than Martock to me), past Sheepworld and drove through a place called Waipu, a town actually founded by Scottish men who sailed across the Atlantic looking for a place to settle, found Nova Scotia, decided that the weather was too “extreme” and then made their way here where they stayed. It is now the town where they hold a huge Highland Games festival. Melissa videotaped the coachdriver talk about the town and its link to Nova Scotia. When we finally made it to the Bay of Islands, we went to the tourist i-site and booked our tours for the next 2 days and then we checked into our backpackers lodge (they don’t call them hostels here), which we were not overly impressed with but it would do. We had our own locked room but had to share a bathroom and showers with everyone else, males and females mixed, which I was not a fan of.

So we went out on ‘The Excitor’ high speed boat through the Bay of Islands on a 1.5 hour tour. The highlight of this adventure was to visit the world famous ‘Hole in the Rock’ out at Cape Brett. The hole has been etched by wind and wave in the Bay of Islands. We also saw other rock cutouts, including the famous one called the ‘Cathedral’ (just an upside down V, deep into the rock), but cool. On the way to the ‘Hole in the Rock’ we came across about half a dozen to a dozen huge dolphins jumping right beside our boat, like right next to us! They swam under us, were jumping like crazy. Melissa was able to get a few good shots, I could only get a tail end of a fin in my shots. I never thought that seeing dolphins would be a big deal or exciting but it was super cool! I guess I am just used to seeing them in marinas and things, way different when you see them in the wild for sure! So when we were out at the ‘Hole in the Rock’ Melissa’s digital camera croaked. It wouldn’t do anything! She did a good job keeping her cool, but I would have been crying awfully hard. When we got back to the shore, we went to a camera shop to see what could be done about her camera, they said that she would have to send it back to Sony with her warranty information. Well, there is no Sony store here that we could find and that could take months. Needless to say, her day was a little sad. She still has her video camera, but I am sure we will think of something. The drive back in the boat was awesome, we coasted past enormous hills and cliffs, with truly baby blue sparkling water, unlike any water I have ever seen before. There were all kinds of caves built into the hills and cliffs which were neat to see. Around each turn, your breath stops at the sights.

So we went pack to the mainland in Paihia and walked along the beach, ate out, looked at all the other backpackers places that we should have stayed at…sat at a bar by ourselves (Melissa had found coupons for free beer on the beach..), and then to bed.

I got up early on Sunday to try and call home, but again, the payphones only use their own phone cards here. It’s the worst set up I have ever seen. I had a shower and I didn’t have any shower shoes so I actually took the pillow case off of my bed and stood on that in the shower :o).

We found out in the morning that the town of Waitangi was close by and within walking distance. This is the place where the ‘Waitangi treaty’ was signed, at the Treaty House (a marae) there. So we decided to change our booking and get a later ferry so that we could walk there. The guy at the tourist i-site told us it would take about 15 minutes, 50 minutes later we arrived. I had a rough go because I had my hiking pack on the whole time, while Melissa had chosen to leave hers behind at the information center. I didn’t do that because it was just stored in an unlocked door that everyone in the public has access to and if I had left mine there, I would have been worrying about it the whole time, better safe than sorry seems to be what all my decisions have been made by, even if it means a lot of extra effort lugging that thing around. It was brutal, but great exercise. At least I had peace of mind. So we get to the Treaty grounds and find out that we have to pay to get in to the site, which we would have, but actually had to turn right around and walk back b/c it had taken longer than we had been told. And from where we arrived, it would have been another 15 minutes to walk to the actual treaty house itself. So I bought a copy of the treaty and we headed back. We got to the ferry in time and were shuttled out to Urupukapuka Island, in the Otehei Bay and spent the day out there. It was magnificent. The whole island was surrounded by fairly secluded exotic beaches divided by monstrous hilltops covered with sheep and their poop. On this whole massive island, there was not one place to walk where you weren’t walking in sheep poo, so you just had to be choosy, soft, smelly poo, or hard, balls of poo. I chose the later b/c I was wearing flipflops ) called “Jandals” here. So then we hiking to the top of a few of the hills for spectacular views of the Bay of Islands. It seems that everything in New Zealand looks better from the aerial views :o). We split up for a while so that we could explore on our own and really have some of our own time to really take it all in. That was nice, then we hiked down to one of the more secluded beaches and camped out there for the day. We got some great sun, and really enjoyed that day. It was like a beach right out of survivor. :o) too beautiful for words. This was the only island that you were allowed to actually camp on, and there were a few tents around in breathtaking spots, so that is definitely a plan for my next trip here, next year…

Then we got the bus back to Auckland. I really actually love the bus rides. So relaxing, there are commentary, so you get to learn lots. It’s so sad coming back to the city after these amazing weekends. But we have lots to do these next 2 weeks during the week days; we are trying to pack it all in.

So just to let you all know that I am having the time of my life, better than I thought I could ever have this far from home. I miss everyone and am excited to come home, although coming home can wait-I am going to have a real hard time leaving here I can tell already.. It’s hard when Andrea is at home sending me pictures of wedding dresses that she is trying on, she looks so beautiful!

Oh yeah, Monday afternoon was my evaluation at work. Man was that rough…I did it at a sports bar in the city with my preceptor (his idea) on the commercials during the Patriots and Colts game. What a game, what a sad ending. Good thing though, if the Colts won ( my preceptor’s team) I would get an “E” the highest you could get as a grade, if my team wins, I would only get an “8”, the second highest. So at least I got the best mark I could, I think I would have rather had the Pats won.

Note: Paige I got your letter yesterday! Thank you, it was soooo sweet, check your mail in about 2 weeks and hopefully there will be something there for you!