Blogs from Bay of Plenty, North Island, New Zealand, Oceania - page 17

One sunny Sunday we headed out to the beach at Mount Maunganui with our American friends Jess and Matt for a barbecque. We had seen other beach side barbecques along the way and they were all coin operated, so we were pleasantly surprised when we got to the beach and discovered they were free. That's right all that beach and free barbecques, they make being a beach bum pretty easy on you at the Mount. We watched one of the first cruise ships of the season sail out of port and enjoyed the sun, while it lasted. It was a beautiful afternoon at the beach and when we got back the German's and Chilean's were having a sort of farewell barbecque which the manager of our hostel joined in on. Four of the guys were heading ... read more

I am currently in the midst of my first rain-day here in New Zealand, and considering that it's the 16th day of my trip, I guess I can't complain. You get a shower just about every day here at some point, but today is the first time that we've been stuck in our tent or indoors for more than five minutes or so. I've spent most of my day reading (John Belushi biography), watching smutty New Zealand daytime television (the Kiwi version of Maury Povich, with the lie detector and everything!) and Leigh Ann and I rented and watched a Chris Rock standup DVD this morning during breakfast. A german traveller sat in the tv lounge and ate breakfast during the same time, and I think I was more entertained by watching her looks of confusion ... read more

We left San Francisco on Thursday the 12th, and when we got to the airport around 3p, we found out our flight to L.A. had been canceled. After waiting in a line for awhile, and talking to a United agent for an hour, we got booked on a flight to Sydney at 10:40p that arrived around 8am, then a flight to Auckland around 1:30p or so. The flight to Sydney was alright. We mostly slept the whole time -- even me! The entertainment system was broken, so for 16 hours the only thing to watch was our flight progress. Our flight to Auckland on Air New Zealand was really nice. Personal screens, shepherd's pie and ice cream for lunch! All this on a 3.5 hour flight! When we finally got into Auckland , we booked a ... read more

Did you know that they only have roll-on deodorant in New Zealand? I have been searching for a regular stick for over a week now and have found nothing. I finally caved and bought some roll-on this week but I am not happy about it. LA and I spent the last 5 days in a Tourist/Surf town called Whangamata that is located on the Cormandel Peninsula on the East Coast of NZ. We had spent a couple days in Auckland last weekend(which is a massive and pretty cool city by the way) before heading down the Coast. We had plans of doing some surfing this week but the conditions were junk, so we spent our days doing other things on the Peninsula. We also worked out a deal where we could stay for free at a ... read more

Der Sommer kommt....... read more