Leigh Ann
Leigh-Ann Joined: September 10th 2009
Logged in: May 28th 2011
Logged in: May 28th 2011
Travel Blog Posts
So, for those of you who I haven't managed to contact yet... there has been a big change of plans to my trip - I have ended up returning home to Nova Scotia earlier than was originally anticipated. It is nice to be home, and the timing worked out perfectly as I am back to work at HIS. Thanks to all of you who helped make my trip such a success... please keep in touch via email. ... read more
A Small Tropical Island
Our first stop along the West Coast route really wasn't on the coast at all - it was inland at Mt. Cook National Park. We arrived into our campground (at the foot of a glacier, I might add) in cold weather and rain. We huddled in the back of the station wagon and played some yahtzee before braving the cold to cook our dinner on our little camp stove. We even made the decision to sleep in the back of the car because it was just too cold to set up the tent and shiver the night away in it. After a slightly unsatisfying sleep, we awoke to clearing skies and slightly warmer weather and so decided to make the best of it. We got our gear on and did a hike up to a place ... read more
Lupins and Mountain Ranges
After coming off of the 'Bungy High', it was time to head to Alexandra to get some fruit-picking work. We had read, and been told numerous times, that there was more then enough work in this area through January, so we were pretty positive about finding somewhere to make a little bit of money. Laughable, really, looking back on how confident we were in finding a position. When we arrived at the job agency on January 2nd, the mate working behind the counter informed us that 'this is the first time in over 15 years that we haven't had enough work to employ at least all of the people looking for work'. Not exactly what you want to hear when you've been expectant of having an income. We decided to stick around the area for a ... read more
You want me to smile right now?
So - I did it! And I have the pictures to prove it :) It was probably the scariest thing that I have ever done in my life, but they (who?) say that you have to do one thing every day that scares you, so I figure this could count for all of 2010! The cool thing was that as we were doing the countdown to jump off of the ledge those of you back home in Halifax were counting down to midnight on New Years Eve! It was pretty neat to think of that (and it helped me keep my mind off of what I was actually about to do - at least for a second). The jump itself went so quickly - it is actually hard to remember how it felt! I remember being ... read more
Raglan beach at Christmas
So, no luck with doing Tongariro a second time due to (once again) 'unfavourable' weather. Instead we spent Sunday in the Taupo area - including a beautiful hike along the georgeous, clear, turquoise river. We even passed the place where they do some bungy jumping and so stuck around to watch people test their boundaries for a little while. On Monday morning we made our way west to Hamilton, where we enjoyed roaming around the downtown and seeing their giant Christmas Tree. Finally, after looking forward to it for more than a month, Tuesday came. This meant that we could make our way to Raglan where we had a bach booked for four days (but not before making a full-on grocery run in Hamilton!) So, over to the west coat we went and made ourselves comfortable ... read more
Beachin' it
The second week of December we found ourselves (again) with a lot of free time - not having heard from the job that had 'guaranteed' us 60 - 70 hrs. per week before Christmas (can you feel my frustrations?). So, trying not to think about it too much and get too upset about it, we instead focused on the fact that a) We were actually in New Zealand b) It was December and averaging 25 degrees Celcius each day c) We were living within 10 minutes of the beach Needless to say, we decided to take advantage of the beautiful vacation-like conditions and made our way to both the tennis courts and the beach every day (eating mainly peanut butter sandwiches, as this is all that we can now afford if we want to splurge during ... read more
Hamilton City Garden
So, from Rotorua we headed on to the city of Hamilton for a couple of days. We weren't overly impressed with the city itself, but the one thing that really amazed me was the city gardens. I had no idea how much one could learn from a garden! There is just so much history and meaning behind each garden. The city did a tremendous job of re-creating a variety of gardens from all different cultures. We roamed throught the gardens for a good three hours (including a picnic lunch) before we decided that we had seen enough and were ready to move on. From Hamilton, we headed back to Tauranga on yet another hunt for work. This one, however, proved successful (though given the type of work we found, I don't know that I would really ... read more
Night-time in the Tent
This week was spent mainly in a small city on the East side of the North Island called Tauranga. Like I mentioned in my previous blog, we came across a great tourist park to stay at (complete with a hair dryer!) and so decided to spend our days there, while scoping out the job situation. While there was not a whole lot of luck with the job search, we did find some other interesting stuff to do while we were around the area. My favourite area was across the bridge from Tauranga - a place called Mount Manganui. It is a pretty small spot but it has all kinds of stuff to see and do. It's right on a beautiful surf beach, and although the surf was small, Brett and I did manage to get out ... read more
Limestone Formations
After only one full day in Auckland Brett and I decided that it was time to do some surf-chasing, so we stocked up on groceries and headed over to Whangamata, a little beach town on the Coromandel Peninsula. As Murphy's Law would have it, the ocean was completely flat, and remained that way (much to our dismay) for the entire four days that we stuck around - despite our religious checking of it each and every morning and afternoon. So, to keep the 'no waves' depression from sinking too far in, we came up with ways to entertain ourselves. We set up in a nice campsite in a place called - interestingly enough - Wentworth Valley. There was a nice trail out of the campsite up to a beautiful, high waterfall. We wandered down to the ... read more
Alive with energy at Tawharanui Beach
While I realize that I have been a little slack on my blog lately, I have to say that the way I've been spending my time lately makes sitting in front of a computer seem a bit of a bore. But, given that it has been a while since my last blog I am kind of looking forward to sitting back and recounting all of the memories of the past couple of weeks... The week after getting back from my sailing trip seemed rather short (recovering took a good full day of napping) and was spent mainly around the Auckland area. I visited with Lena (one of the girls that I had met in Hawaii) throughout the week, as she arrived into Auckland on Tuesday morning and stuck around for a few days before heading south. ... read more
