Blogs from North Shore, Auckland, North Island, New Zealand, Oceania - page 10

Kia Ora - Welcome! Well I finally made it to New Zealand...paradise as my kiwi friend Craig calls it and i have to say it is beautiful. The lovely Jean welcomed me at Auckland airport having patiently waited for over an hour due to delays at passport control where they only saw fit to have on 3 officers for over 500 passengers. Not much of a welcome at 1am i must say. However moving on......Jean has been the perfect host. Turfing out Sarah from her room to provide me with my own room and a double bed that was far too comfortable and had me sleeping in on my first day here...clearly needed the rest. This travelling lark really does take it out of you! I had, unusually for me, given my trip here absolutely no ... read more

Friday, 29 February “Countryside and Gannet Colony Tour.” The bus driver today was Jim, he was very friendly and had just the right amount of information for us - didn’t overload us with insignificant facts or opinions. We started by going to the west coast of Auckland to Kumeu and Huapai - these are farming and wine growing areas. It was a beautiful ride to the coast. Jim told us about people that work in downtown Auckland as typically investment folks, etc, that bought land known as “lifestyle blocks” out in the rural areas surrounding Auckland. This meant that they would buy about 10 acres of land and maybe have some head of sheep or dairy cows so they could feel like they were really roughing it. These people move out to the rural areas and ... read more

Bueno, pues aqui estoy que después de un taaan largo viaje por fin he llegado a casa de Liz y la verdad es que me gusta muchísimo. Liz es muy simpática, no hace realmente mucho con nosotras pero nos explica todo... cómo hacer y cómo llegar a cualquier lugar. A parte de mi vino otra estudiante que se llama Thais. Ella es de Brazil y que pena... solamente puedo hablar con ella en inglés. En parte está muy bien para mejorar el idioma pero por otra parte necesito hablar español de vez en cuando. Con Thais me llevo bien de momento, tiene 21 años. Tampoco puedo decir que vaya a ser una gran amistad, pero nos llevamos bien durante la semana que llevamos yendo juntas a clase. Estamos en la misma clase, 305 que es del ... read more

Hi Guys, Yip I know it is a year later now and I 'm still in New Zealand, but I made an early new year promise (is that to early??) and I will try to be more active. Maybe still slow with my pictures, but text will be enough. Well where should I start?? I left Wellington, but only for a week then I got a great job offer in a nice hotel in Wellington. So after a short trip to the north, I went back and start working again. Had a pretty full on job, but I enjoyed it for the full 100%. Un-fortunately after three months, my first contract time, they "couldn't" renew my contract. I was to expensive and over qualified for the job apperently(????). So I had two weeks to find a ... read more

Today was our all day wine tasting trip to the North-East of Auckland. We visited four small, family-owned wineries where we tasted great pinot gris, port, and the best grape juice in the world. We also were able to see some of the Kauri trees which are incredibly big and hundreds of years old. If we went to the local store back home, our choice of honey would be clover or clover, so we were quite impressed with the Honey Café that offered around 30 different flavors, including a naturally antibiotic honey unique to New Zealand. Later, we enjoyed a cold outside dinner at the harbor front, although they had really good mojitos.... read more