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Published: November 11th 2005
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Hello from Ponsonby Road!
Caitlin and I have moved on from the Fat Camel. It was nice but kind of a sterile environment that was trying too hard to be the Real World. Imagine living in those trendy IKEA rooms... not the most homey feel.
We've moved on to a suburb just west of Auckland called Ponsonby. We're at the Ueneke (?) Lodge right on the strip of cafes, nightclubs, bars and cute little boutiques. It's a yuppie neighborhood so I feel pretty lucky for this prime real estate for only NZ$20 bucks a night.
The biggest plus is there is FREE PARKING for our newest travelling companion. Introducing..... CHIPPY! Our mint green (haha, mint chip?) 1984 Honda City is a 2 door, tiny little car complete with fold down hatchback style seats, a tiny little minivan style trunk and an "I LOVE JESUS" sticker near our rearview mirror. I wouldn't let Caitlin rip it off (come on. that'd just be asking for car trouble) so she's going to balance it out with a rainbow sticker.
No worries! We test drove it on the freeway and got it inspected. Dirt cheap and a standard, so I will have to learn manual the opposite way (the gear shift is on your left, as well as all the traffic).
Yesterday we did a free tour of Auckland done by Stray Backpacking Company. It turned out to be just a giant advertisement but it was free and we got to see a lot of historical sights outside of Auckland downtown.
(Warning: Lots of historical facts coming up, albiet with funny bits). We saw Bastion Point where NZ armies in the 1880's (?) were preparing for a threat of Russion invasion. They designed these cannon barracks all along a huge cliff. When they fired a test shot, they broke EVERY window in a 30 km radius. Test shots were prohibited from then on, but the Russians never came and today they figured out that a a Russian ship would have to be a stone's throw away. It's an important note that Russians were using submarines at the time. Go New Zealand defense! 😊
We also went to to the tomb of Michael Lloyd Savage (?) who was the first Labour Prime Minister in NZ. He started a great deal of good relations between the European descendent NZ and the Maori. They are the indigenous New Zealanders who lived out the typical indigenous population story as written by European settlers. The relations between the Maori (meaning "normal") and Pakeha (meaning "abnormal") today in New Zealand is rapidly improving, along with a Maori cultural revival in recent decades.
Finally, the last place of interest was Mt Eden which is an old tranditional Maori settlement or a
pa There were some serious tribal conflicts between two Maori tribes. One was near present day Auckland and another up by the Bay of Islands. Europeans gave the Bay of Islands tribe some muskets and resulted in a conflict breaking Maori code of warfare.
The chief of the Auckland area tribe was killed with a musket at the top of Mount Eden and this is a BIG no-no. Chiefs may only be killed by hand to hand combat, not even spears are okay. Due to this large disgrace, the Auckland tribe (I wish I could remember their real tribe names) deemed the site of his death as restricted and to this day, people are not allowed at this site.
The site is actually a giant crater at the top of a enormous, terraced hill. My favorite part of this site was the giant, "Mountain Biking prohibited" sign. Only in New Zealand would they need a SIGN to prohibit crazies from mountain biking down a giant, terraced crater.
Unforunately, since it's restricted, apparently people go down there all the time. It's sad, but there is a quite funny instance of this violation... Not PC, but funny.
Some guys from the University of Auckland took a truck load of tires and loaded them up with lighter fluid on the morning of April 1st. They lit them up, rolled them down into the crater and peeled off. Back in town, they called up the local radio station to say, "Mount Eden is erupting! There's black smoke pouring everywhere!"
Thousands of people in the area were evacuated and the police were too afraid to climb up and check for themselves. (They didn't have police helicopters back then). Later, when they realized what had happened, some were pretty offended (which I understand) but WOW. What a prank.
Okay, times up!
Next entry... from Rotorua!
love
meesh
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