Week One

Hello, hello, hello!
Here is a VERY late start to me keeping you all posted on my great southern adventure!!!! (I intend to do better at updating this in the future :p )

So, the first week in a super-nutshell:

From snowy home I headed to Vancouver and spent a fantastic day-and-a-bit with a few friends out at UBC. Janna met me down there and on Sunday evening we got on an Air New Zealand flight to Auckland. They showed the Hobbit safety video. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCbPFHu3OOc) I was pretty excited.
I haven't been on a big plane in a long time... the little Pacific Coastal ones that fly to Cranbrook don't take very long to take off; this plane seemed to slowly lumber down the runway... but it did eventually become airborne :) .Landed at 4:30 am on Tuesday morning... 15 hours after Sunday night... thats TIME TRAVEL! Not quite like a Tardis, though...


Tuesday, the 12th of February! Picked up the rental car (its name is Tuck, I'll get a picture up soon), saw some penguins, realized around noon that we hadn't eaten in a while... and drove up to Whanagarei! "Wh" is pronounced "f". Just for Maori names, I think... people certainly don't walk around saying "foo, fat, fen, fere, fy." Got a good night's sleep, went to a forest park and saw some very large trees, saw a few water falls, went to an absolutely gorgeous beach (see photo), and eventually found our way to the little town of Paihia.

Dolphin swimming under the boat

On Thursday we took a day-long tour on a big Catamaran in the Bay of Islands, which was incredible. Firstly, it was a beautiful day (saving a few light showers in the afternoon), and they Bay of Islands is shockingly beautiful. But it gets way better. The Bay of Islands is home to a large number of dolphins - a pod of which spent a considerable amount of time frolicking around our boat. And we got to swim with them - grab a snorkel, some flippers, hop in, make some singing noises and the dolphins will come and investigate! I find the water a little on the chilly side if you're not actually swimming, though. Janna disagrees.

A comment on the roads in Northland. If people from BC think that Albertans have trouble with windy roads, that must be nothing to how New Zealanders feel about rental cars on their roads. Windy, hilly, tight corners, no shoulders, speed limit? 100 km/h. I was definitely not going that fast :p

A beach with geothermal activity so close to the surface that if you dig in the sand hot water will come out, Cathedral Cove (one of the coolest places I have ever been), eels and phosphorescent maggots - more appealingly named glow worms ;) - in an underground cave system, and a soap-induced geyser brings me pretty much up to today! We're off in the direction of Mt. Doom tomorrow to do some hiking - though due to some "volcanic activity" in the area our plans are being slightly modified...

Okay! I promise to update this on a (semi)-regular basis - no more of this week-in-a-post business! I can't seem to make the data work on my phone so I've been monopolizing all the computer time... Hope you're all well and enjoying the last bits of winter (if Vancouver even had a winter this year)!

- Marysa