Our first week

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So this is our 7th day in New Zealand but it feels like we've done a lot so far. After seeing about all there was to see in Auckland (for free or cheap), we headed to the Coromandel Penninsula. This included a great drive up the coast with views of the ocean and bays all along the way.

We stayed in a dorm-style room in a hostel in Thames and I got my first night of socializing with a variety of people. 4 of us played a game of pool in which I called the balls stripes and solids, a man from New Zealand called them unders and overs, a guy my age from Germany called them fulls and halves, and another from Ireland called them stripes and dots. We got along really well and stayed up really late talking about our countries, politics, philosophy and psychology and it was a lot of fun.

The next day Daniel, Nadine (a German girl we met), and I hiked up to some Pinnacles outside of Thames. It was a very intense hike full of steep stairs and the whole path was wet rocks and mud. It misted or rained almost the entire way and when we weren't in the cover of the forest, gusts of wind made the hike very interesting. This was a very difficult adventure but well worth it with the forest views and the views from the top being beautiful.

We are now in Rotorua, which is one of the most active thermal regions in New Zealand. It smells like sulfur most of the time and it gets a little too strong sometimes. There are hot springs all around and lots of pits of bubbling mud and water - even in people's back yards. Today we hiked all around a lake and found some great beaches with nobody in sight and some cool walks through the forest to cascading waterfalls.

We both seem to be pretty comfortable driving on the left side of the road now and it has been very nice to have a car. We have been eating a good amount of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and are starting to get tired of them, but eating out somewhere other than McDonalds seems pretty expensive. Most hostels have a good kitchen available for us to use so we have started cooking pasta and other meals for ourselves at night now. The people everywhere we have gone have been very friendly (except while in their cars) and they seem to be pretty happy overall. There isn't a very good selection of radio here and most CD's that we would want seem to cost around $30 so we go without music in the car most of the time. For a country with the highest ratio of bookstores to people, books are very expensive here too - about $25 for a normal sized paperback. These prices are in NZ dollars, but the exchange rate is about NZ $1.2 - US $1 so these things are still very expensive.

Alright, we have a few more days of hostel life before we try our first Wwoofing (world-wide opportunities on organic farms) experience so I'll be sure to post again on how that is going. I hope everyone is doing well and having fun over there.

-Paul

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Photos

Auckland Museum
Maori boat

Pinnacles Hike
Daniel and Nadine on a bridge

Pinnacles
Daniel and I crossing a river

Pinnacles
Partway up the mountain.

more pinnacles
About as far up as we went.

Bubbling mud
does not smell good

Our car
wind and gravel seem to be it's weaknesses so far.

Waterfalls
Me and some cascading waterfalls.

A clear lake
there was nobody anywhere on this lake

Comments

[felix]

nice pics...what kind of car is that? looks funny

[Karen Motenko-Neal]

Great blogging
You sound great, Paul. What model car is that? Yup, looks a bit flimsy but fuel-efficient! Great photos and I am glad to be able to view both yours and Dan's blogs, similar perspectives but different expressions and both wonderful! Shouldn't the caption for "Waterfalls" read: "Some cascading waterfalls and me." Love.

[Motenko-Neal]

Love your blogs
Hi Paul, (I wrote a comment but apparently, for some reason, it didn't get to you). I love your writing and photos. It's great to read the two perspectives. I'm glad you all are doing so well (and I'm not surprised by that). Love.