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Published: April 18th 2011
On Friday morning I woke up early and left on a bus bound for Auckland. It was a 10 hour bus ride and I have to say, by hour 8, I was extremelly antsy. That's a long time for me to sit still! The ride was really pretty for the the entire day. The bus was crowded and completely full for 1/2 of the day. We were able to see a steaming little volcano off of the shoreline at one point. The first half of the day bus driver was really funny. He gave all sorts of information as we pasted things. It was like having a tour guide! We stopped for a tea break in a small town. We stopped for lunch in Rotorua. We stopped for another break in Hamilton. About an hour away from Auckland, the driver lost all the gears on the bus. We were at a stop light and he couldn't go anywhere. Ah,oh...this is not good. He turned the bus off, waited and then turned it back on. He then had 4th gear and higher only. He was able to get us through the light and to the next stop and then called in to
the mechanic. He was able to get 1st gear back, but that was it. So, we traveled the rest of the way to Auckland without 2nd and 3rd gear. And we were in Friday evening rush hour traffic. I felt bad for the guy. When we arrived in Auckland, I hopped into a cab to go up to my hostel. I had picked a hostel just outside of the city center hoping that A) the younger backpackers would not pick a place further from all the fun and B) it had small dorm rooms. When I arrived, I was happy to find out that for a really good price I could stay in a twin share room. Its like a college dorm room. Two nights down and I still don't have a roommate. I'm soooo happy!!!
I got up on Saturday morning and it was raining cats and dogs. I was quite hungry and tired of eating just a plain bagel or the likes for breakfast. I headed out and found a really cool funky cafe and had a traditional breakfast - egg on toast, potatos, grilled tomato, sausage and a small pot of tea. I was such a
Piha beach (west coast) and the Tasman Sea
This is the view from the mountain as we were on our drive down into town. So pretty!happy camper! While reading the local paper, I came across the movie listings. With the rain absolutely not letting up, I decided that a movie was the perfect thing for the day. I headed down to the theater and watched Just Go With It. It had some seriously funny parts! Afterwards, the rain was a bit better so I made it to a few shops and picked up a t-shirt for myself. Then it was over to the center transportation center to make sure I knew how to get to the rugby game that night. I hopped on a bus for 50 cents and road it back up to K Rd near my hostel. I got a flat white take away and them came back to the hostel to get ready for the game.
I left for the game at 5 pm, road the bus to the train terminal and then hopped on the free train service to/from the game. The rain had pretty much stopped which was a good thing. According to my ticket, I was not in a covered seat. The train ride was very nice. Quick, easy and I met a few people along the way.
Piha, the black sand beach
It was raining like crazy when I ran out of the van and took this photo. I had to get my "feet" photo here! When I got to the stadium, I was early and so I went into the apparel store to see if there might be anything I'd like to buy. Now, I have to admit, while watching the Super Rugby over the last couple of months, the team I've seen the most and therefore am now cheering for is the Highlanders and they're from the Dunedin area on the South Island. So, buying something that says Blues and going to a Blues game was not my first choice, but flying down to the South Island was not going to happen either. So, I browsed and ended up coming upon a really cool All Blacks shirt. I had been on the hunt for one of these shirts that was a reasonable price and finally, here it was! I was super excited and then this of course solved my dilemma of buying a Blues shirt or not. I draw the line at one shirt per game. And, I had on my rain coat which is the same blue color as the Blues...so I fit in :-) I headed into the stadium and made my way around to my section. Along the way I stopped and bought a beer. The rules here...there almost aren't any rules. I love Kiwis! You can buy plastic bottles of beer in 4 packs and I'm pretty sure that the only rule is you can only buy 2 4 packs at a time. Sweet! If only I had a couple of buddies with me! I found my seat and was relieved to see that it was in fact covered! I was on the sideline near the end zone/scoring area. I'm not sure what you call it. I had a great view of the whole field and for $20, was really happy with my seat. I settled in with a hot dog (ok, seriously, the US does one thing really well and that's a hot dog...its a seriously sad thing to be good at, but its ours!). I watched a couple of kids teams of rugby play matches as the pre-game entertainment. The stadium is quite large and I heard it seats 60,000. They didn't even sell close to that many seats for this game but its a World Cup venue so in and of itself, it was cool to be there. Buy the time the game started, I was finished with one beer and happy to get the game going. They do a big announcement when the team runs onto the field and all the fans are waving flags and there are a few machines that shoot fire up into the sky. Not bad stuff. The game itself is really great! I absolutely love this game. The guys are huge and they all run like widereceivers. The pace is quick and there are few stops. They hit hard and they get up and shack it off. How this sport is not more popular in the US, I'll never understand. I was mezmorized from start to finish! I was cheering, and clapping and even jumping up when the Blues scored. This was great stuff. The fans are really dedicated, with wearing of wigs, outfits and face paint. There was even an almost streaker. Gotta love it! The Blues won the game big and I had a great time! I left the game and headed back to the train and rode that packed in like a sardine to central station. From there I hopped onto the bus again for 50 cents and was back to the hostel. What a great day!
I got up pretty early on Sunday morning and headed out for a day of adventure. Today is the day for Canyoning! This is another activity I wanted to do the first time I was in NZ and didnt' end up getting to. So this time, I made it happen. For those that may not know what this is, its climbing, abseiling (rappling), jumping into pools, sliding down rocks all while navigating through a canyon. Good stuff! I walked to a close cafe and picked up a hot tea take away and quiche and walked the 15 mins down to Sky Tower for our pick up. Along the way, I passed a club that was still jamming from the night before...complete with folks staggering around out front. Good god people...its 9 am! Otherwise my walk was quite nice and the sun was out and I was happy! I met up with Cam and 5 others at Sky Tower. A couple from Signapore - the first people I've met from Signapore, 2 german girls and a french guy. Again, nice small group. This is such an awesome time to be in NZ. It was a 40 min drive over to the coast. We were headed for Piha, a small beach town. The drive was really nice. From the motorway you had a great view of the city. This is actually the first pretty view of the skyline that I've seen. Then we head into the hills surrounding the city and the suburbs. Then we entered the Waitakere Ranges. This is another beautiful forest and mountain area! The trees are huge, the forest is thick and the views are spectacular. We pass some funky little shops along the way selling arts and crafts items and then the road narrows and becomes really whindy. I ask Cam, our guide about the area because it seems as if its a summer home kind of place. As it turns out, it used to be, but since they've paved the road about 10 years ago, people now live in the area year around. The road used to be gravel and even whindier that it is now. This is hard to believe. Its a great drive and before we know it, we're looking out at the beautiful black sand beach of Piha and the Tasman Sea. The Tasman Sea holds a special place in my heart and I'm so touched to see it again!
We pull into town which consists of a small general store and a cafe. Nice! Cam starts to pull all the equipment together while we wait for further instructions. Then we have to sign a waiver. I've noticed that this has changed since the last time I was here. Turns out waivers are actually needed in NZ now. The original great adventure country might be in jeporady. I sign my life away and get my wetsuit so that I can get suited up and ready to go. You know its going to be an interesting day when you're handed a wet suit and its so heavy, your arm is tired just carrying it to the changing room. This water is going to be COLD! I pull on the full lengh suit with great effort. Then I put on the jacket. All zipped up, I'm ready to go! I then added the neoprene booties and my KangaRoos. You have to wear gym shoes for this activity and my Roos are just about done. I'm completely run them into the ground on this trip and after today, I believe they are officially retired. I have loved them and they've done me good in several countries. They will definitely be missed.
Once we are all suited up, we climb back into the van and drive about 5 min to the start of the track. We had about a 30 min hike up to the top of the mountain/canyon where we started our adventure. I'm not going to lie, it was not a fun hike. The wetsuit was hard to move it because it was dry, thick and really stiff and we're trying to go up stairs and whatnot...I was not happy. But, the scenary was beautiful. We followed a little creek up for most of it and could hear the waterfall we'd be decending down later in the day. By the time we got to the top, I was happy to be jumping into the water just to cool off. However, I made the mistake of sticking my hand in first to feel how cold it was. I suddenly had no interest in this activity. After watching 2 of the others jump in, I held my breath and took the leap. I went completely under...it was a really deep pool and when I came up I was saying...oh my god its cold, oh my god its cold! Yeah, I'm in trouble. I may have no fear, but I have a serious problem with cold water. I have issues! LOL Once the water warmed inside my wetsuit, I was feeling a bit better. The first abseil we had was right at the top. I couldn't wait! I was the third one to head down the side and almost couldn't go fast enough. You're all strapped into this harness and you are clipped into a rope and there is a person at the bottom holding onto the rope incase you loose control and start to fall, they can stop you. Well, all day, that person was holding my rope too tight. I never did move as fast as I wanted to. Oh well. Let me put it this way...for all my adventure activites I like to move at a Beastie Boys Sabotage kind of pace...this activity was more like Green Day's Time of your LIfe. Its not a bad pace but in reality, you wish it was faster. Either way, I was having fun! I slipped once and giggled as it happened, then regained my footing and was back on my way. You have to really sit back and get yourself perpendicular to the rock wall. Sweet as! This is a fun feeling!!! We're literally following the side of the mountain down to the next level and on one side is a water fall and on the other side is the forest. I have to say, it was pretty cool. Once down at the base, you have to unclip and then hold the line for the next person. After everyone was down, we got to swim (yeah, I didn't put my head back in) and play in the waterfall. The waterfall was really pretty and we even climbed up behind it and posed for a photo. Then it was back to the next abseil. This one was a little more challenging and again, we had to move carefully. There I went down the second cliff and I'm getting even more confident, sitting further back and really liking the feeling of just hanging off the edge of part of this world! Once down at the bottom of this one, we had to walk a bit and then we had the big one. This was the abseil of the day...a 50 meter cliff side next to a beautiful waterfall! I was the third one to go and started shortly after one of the German girls. Cam says to me, if you need to overtake (pass) her, its fine. Don't worry about it. You'll probably go down faster than she will. I smiled and was off. This was another one of those activities for me where I was smiling the whole time. As I started down and got to the first point of the cliff, I realized that we'd actually end up underneath parts of the side. Cool! I quickly overtook the German and was on my way. This time I had a bit more slack, still not enough :-) and was moving with a pretty good pace. I kept stopping to take in the views around me...I'd look down to get the thrill of the height and then look to the side to see the water rushing by next to me. There were a few really wet spots and so I did a little slipping and sliding but overall, didn't have too many problems. I kept saying out loud as I'd look around - this is great! It really was. By the time I'd gotten to the bottom, the German girl was still only half way. I unclipped and helped to hold the line for the next person down. This was probably my favorite part of the day. It was just so picturesque and thrilling. Once we were all down at the bottom, we took a break and had lunch. Then we had a bit of walking through the water and climbing over some rocks and then got to the last abseil of the day. This one went right through a waterfall and was really narrow. I was the first one to go and you had to start off using the side of the wall and then turning yourself into the waterfall and going the rest of the way down in the water itself. Talk about slippery! I was all over the place and yet laughing the whole time. When I got close to the bottom I moved myself over to the left so that I could keep my head out of the pounding water. Then I dropped into a deep pool and unclipped. From here I climbed up on this huge tree stump and waited for the others. While I was there, I noticed that on the other side of the stump was a big pool of water and that a HUGE eel was swimming in it. Um, Houston, we have a problem. Eels remind me of snakes...this is worse than cold water! Eek!!! As I waited for the others to come I was half watching them and half keeping my eye on the eel. Watching everyone come down was hilarious. Its impossible not to slip so everyone did some sliding around and all in all, looked pretty funny. Once we were all on the tree stump we had to climb into the eel infested pool and make our way to the next dry stop. I looked at the French guy, told him about the eel and said, you first. He laughed and said no problem. I found out in the van on the way home that him and Cam had seen it from the top and watched me have my mini freak out on the tree stump. Awesome! LOL I can report that I made it thru the eel pool with out running into the thing but I did squeal a bit along the way and its the fastest I've ever swam! Once we were all back in a dry spot, the eel came back out for everyone to see and the other girls sqealed a bit too. I no longer felt like such a sissy. LOL With the abseiling done for the day, I was a little sad. It was a ton of fun! But, there were more thrills to come. After a bit of climbing, we came to our second jump. It was high, higher than a 10 ft diving board. But it was a narrow landing area. Just a little off to either side and you'd hit the rock. Ok, let's assess this...I don't have a good track record in terms of close calls and this trip has gone really well for me thus far. Perhaps I should skip this part. Then I watched 3 of the people go and I was like, hell no, I have to do this! I paused, prepared, spotted my jump and leaped! Whoa!!! It was great! I hit is just the right spot and it felt good!!! From here we had more walking along, climbing and pretty easy stuff. We climbed through a couple of caves, even had to slide through one area on our bellies. We got to jump again, this time it was tricky because you had to take a couple of steps on some slick rocks first but all in all, a good jump. Soon after that, we were done. Back on the hiking trail and all talking about how exhilerating it was! Back at the van, I stripped off my jacket and we climbed in for the short drive back to town. Here we changed and put on our dry clothes. I was more tired than I'd thought I'd be. I think it was the rush leaving my body and me realizing on hard I was actually working. Sweet, I'll sleep good tonight! Just as we hopped in the van, the rain started. We made our way over to Piha beach which was magnificant, even in the rain. If I ever end up with millions, I want a summer home here! Its a soft black sand beach that has huge volcanic rock formations on it. The beach is wide and the surf it great and the Tasman Sea was doing its best to put on a show for us. Had it not been raining, Cam would have had to drag me back to the van. The ride home was nice. The scenary was the same, but it was still just as pretty. As we descended from the reserve and could see the city again, we saw a huge rainbow that stretched itself over the city! What a sight!!!
Cam dropped me off close to my hostel and I headed back for a shower and some dinner. This was a great way to spend a Sunday!
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Lynn
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The return.....
I can't wait to see you and see ALL of your pictures and hear your stories in person. You are missed.