Eric L

After leaving Home Port Farm and the surrounding area of Whangarei, I continued traveling north and tried to stay at a nice little beach campsite but I was literally chased out of there by a mean old Maori man that actually verbally threatened to "tear down" my tent. Needless to say, I left in a hurry and ended up finding a far better campsite where the people were way nicer. After a hike around the headlands, a quick dip in the ocean, and an even quicker cold shower, I continued on to Russel in the Bay of Islands. The weather wasn't great. I could see rain coming in on the horizon and obscuring many of the islands from my view from my perch atop flagstaff hill. This was where the British erected a flagpole with their ... read more

Across a shell covered shallow ocean bottom, I wade across to a sand bar and look back at the mountain track I've just completed. The Maungatauhoro Te Hiko (A Journey through Tauhoro Mountain) track is a 2.9 km track through the heart of Wenderholm Regional Park. Wenderholm, meaning winter home, was once home to a prominent European settler, Robert Graham but is now known, as it still stands, as Cauldry House, named for the last owner. I left Piha early this morning in an attempt to go out to Tiritiri Matangi, an island wildlife preserve, but got lost and didn't make the ferry. I headed up to Orewa, where I had planned to spend the night, and from there passed Waiwera and stumbled upon Wenderholm. It was a beautiful hike where at every lookout point you ... read more

After a scare in Sydney where we didn't think we'd make our plane to NZ because they weren't about to let me fly without a return ticket from NZ (until they realized it was printed directly on my visa that I wasn't required to have one) we finally arrived in New Zealand! We got picked up at the airport by the friend of a friend and were taken to their home north of Auckland (the City of Sails) in Mairangi Bay. Austin sadly had to leave early the next morning to start orientation but I hung around and stayed there for nearly a week. They took me around a little bit, I got to go into Auckland a couple of times and while I was there … I BOUGHT A CAR! It's a '92 Toyota Camry ... read more

When we got to Honolulu we were a little bit surprised because the guy with whom we were supposed to be staying, Marty, decided that rather than letting us stay with him, he was just going to pick us up at the airport and drop us off at the curb of some hostel in downtown Waikiki. We couldn't camp because the offict to get the permit was closed due to a furlough day and couldn't see spending $60 a night for the two of us to stay in the hostel. After a bunch of information gathering we found a place to stay that wouldn't cost us much at all. After a long, heavy walk from Waikiki to UH, where the Prin group was staying at the moment, Austin and waited under a tree, ate a dinner ... read more

Early Sunday morning Chris drove Austin out to a little town called Paia where she suggested would be a good place for us to catch a ride into the town at the far east of Maui called Hana. We stood with a cardboard sign for a couple of hours until a couple of dudes picked us up and took us as far as Twin Falls. We spent a little time exploring the trails behind the fruit stand there and eventually came back to stand out on the road trying still to catch a ride to Hana. The couple that stopped for us couldn't have been better. They were from Argentina but had lived on Maui for 18 years and they took us all the way (3 hours) to the office of the campsite where we had ... read more