Blogs from Whangarei, North Island, New Zealand, Oceania - page 29

Today I saw a kiwi, really alive and running, but in a cage. did you know that they are the only birds that have nostrils at the end of their beaks and it takes 3 months to incubate their eggs. I discovered all this at the live day at the local museum.... read more

we're at our first farm! we're picked up by a man in gumboots who barely speaks to us in the car. man, if this is representative of our the next few days are going to be, it's going to be rough. the farm is lovely, 15km outside of whangarei. in the middle of lonely rolling hills, with mountains and volcanoes and bush all around. grant, bonnie, and the two kids, grow a world of veggies including avocadoes, courgettes, capsicums (peppers, if i remember corrrectly) and more. the highlights? grant makes us prepare confusing dinners of pasta with cold sourcream, and spaghetti-o sandwiches, while making us feeling like the dumb americans that don't understand cooking. also, he seems to think that most americas are dumb. maria is afraid of grant. somewhat rightfully so. we attempt to make ... read more

its cold and rainy even here in the sunny north- but ONLY 4 MORE SLEEPS- and then we're OFF!!! yep we're all totally excited. SAIGON here we come- 37degrees at the moment i hear. there's me (kara), sandy-lee bob, her sister marlene and their mum and dad john and joy (both in their seventies and yesterday john was determined to only eat 'Pakeha" food- we'll soon sort that out), and Otis, my 12 year old son. Otis is really going to be the one that does the blog- becos he's a lucky little beastie travelling to fab places AS WELL AS getting 2 weeks off school- so the blog will be his schoolwork- and he's going to do all the currency conversion too- I'M GANA MAKE HIM WORK FOR THOSE SPRING ROLLS Anyway quite a ... read more

13 hours in the air, and I arrived safe and sound in Auckland. Besides almost losing my boarding pass in SFO, and riding with the New Zealand Black Sox baseball team (!) it was a mellow flight. I slept most of the time, and enjoyed three movies during the flight. AirNZ has an AWESOME entertainment system that you can choose from- tv, movies, music, travel- check it out! We left SFO at 9:30 pm on Monday, and arrived 13 hours later at 5:45 am on Wednesday...you do the math! After a harrowing shuttle ride through Auckland to Sky City, I caught a three hour bus to Whangarei ("Wongaray" kinda). It started raining north of Auckland, but the sunrise over the harbour was AMAZING. Sarah's grandmother met me at the bus station, and drove me 30 ... read more

Marcos and I went on our first individual scuba dive at Goat Island today. And given that I'm writing this should be a good indication that I didn't drowned! Two dives accomplished today, both just under an hour each. Max depth reached was 9 metres (approx 30 feet). Saw a wide variety of fish including a sting ray -- you go Steve Irwin. Seaweed forests that we had to hack our way through. Oh yes, lest we forget, we saw crayfish hidden away under ledges all defensive and ready to go if we had made a move on them. I was wondering for a while if nitrogen narcosis was influencing Marco's decision making; I though for sure he was ready to drop all his gear and wedge himself into a small cave to do battle ... read more