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Published: December 21st 2008
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Bay of Island
just one of the many bays I was fortunate enough to have some family visiting New Zealand in the same area I was traveling through. I arranged to meet up with my Uncle Jeff and aunt Kathi who had arrived to the Bay of Islands on their sailboat a few weeks prior. Since the Bay of Islands is on the way from my surf camp to Auckland, I had them drop me off to the nearest town where I'd catch the bus to Opua in Bay of Islands. It turns out that Kawakawa, the small town I was stranded in for a few hours was 'world famous' for their public toilets! It also turns out that the bus no longer ran from Kawakawa to Opua, but the local librarian was quick to offer me a lift once she got off work. So I spent a few hours wandering around town and going to the toilets multiple times while waiting for the Linda the librarian to give me a lift to Opua. It was a wild ride with Linda in her small beater of a car going up and down the twisty, vibrant green jungle hills at extremely high speeds while pouring down rain. But we made it
Uncle Jeff
at the world famous monganui fish shop to Opua in 15 minutes where she graciously dropped me off at the harbor where I tried to find Jeff and Kathi's boat among a million others. Eventually I found them and dumped my continuosly growing bag in the tiny 'guest bedroom' in their boat. My other uncle Steve was also visiting Jeff and Kathi so we spent the next three days talking about the family while barbequeing off the back of the boat and fishing right off the dock. One day we rented a car and drove up north to see some beaches and eat at a 'world famous fish and chips' restaurant. Another day we did a jet boat tour from Paihia to the Hole in the Rock where we motored through a huge arch just off the coast. It was great spending time with Jeff and Kathi on their boat, something I've been hoping to do since they left the Seattle area three years ago.
After spending three days up in the Bay of Island, uncle Steve and I hitchhiked down to Auckland where we rented a car and headed south. The first day we drove to the Coromandel Peninsula which has some amazing beaches with thick
lush semi-tropical forest coming right to the ocean. It was beautiful and hard to keep your eyes on the twisty-curvey road as we followed the coastline. That night we stayed in a really nice hostel in Hahei where we set off the next morning to Hot Water Beach. We arrived just a few hours before low tide and set to burying our feet in the sand right looking for the hot water seeping up from below before digging in with our borrowed shovel. Along with the other 100 people there, we desperately fought the crashing waves from filling out bubbling hot springs hole with the cold ocean water. We lasted for about ten minutes before a big wave came in and took out everyones tub. By the end everyone was just sitting on the hot spots while waves crashed over them. Pretty good idea until you stand up and realized your shorts are completely filled with sand and it looks like you've got a giant load sagging in your shorts.
After Hot Water Beach we headed to Cathederal Cove and rock hopped around the point to Emerald Bay. I lounged in the sun while Steve followed the snorkeling trail in
The family
Uncle Steve, Uncle Jeff, Aunt Kathi and me! the chilly water. From Cormanedel Peninsula we headed south to Bay of Plenty where we stayed in Mt. Manganui, a small surfer town with a big long beach with heaps of breaks. The next morning I was itching to get in the water, but we continued onto Rotorua where we went Zorbing! Now many of you may not know what Zorbing is, but if you ever get a chance to do it in your lifetime, I highly recommend it. Zorbing is the foolish sport of getting into a giant plastic ball and rolling down a hill. Simply fantasitc! Steve and I both went in the same ball that was filled with a bit of water, so we were slipping and sliding around the whole time. I was in constant laugher and couldn't even tell which direction we were rolling. It was great fun though! After zorbing we headed to one of the many thermal areas around Rotorua. Since we were running a bit late, we barely got permission to enter the park. We had to promise we would hurry through the trail otherwise we'd be locked in and would have to sleep on the boardwalk near the thermal pools to
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almost felt like we were somewhere in asia.... stay warm. It was pretty impressive (and a bit smelly) seeing all the different colored pools and the steam rising off of them.
After Rotorua we headed back up north to Hamilton where we rested our heads before Steve left for Auckland in the morning and I continued west to Raglan. It was wonderful traveling with my uncle and so fun to have our own car. We both had to help eachother out when approaching roundabouts and turning onto the main road. It's quite tricky getting used to driving on the other side of the road and adjusting to some of the different road laws, but luckily we never had any problems.
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