Blogs from Northland, North Island, New Zealand, Oceania - page 13

The South Pacific Migration is one the greatest yet little appreciated stories in human history. From 30000 BC to 1000 AD, groups originating from South China traveled to the South Pacific Islands and down into New Zealand. The humble sweet potato suggests that some groups may have even made it to South America. There are Maori legends that suggest they may have even made it Antarctica! Somehow the Maori lost the navigational arts of their forefathers that brought them to these southern islands, but they never forgot that they came from somewhere else. When Captain Cook arrived in 1769, one of his guests from the Cook Islands was able to communicate with the Maori fairly well. When the Maori arrived in New Zealand, they found great trees, the kauri, and chicken-sized flightless birds that had never ... 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

On the 23.1.10 we travelled up from Auckland to the Mahurangi Peninsula to visit my cousin Glenn and Family. Glenn has a bach on the waters edge at Jaimeson Bay. What a lovely spot this is and we all had a great day. Joel and Chelle joined us for the day. As usual whenever we travel on the road north, at Puhoi we get caught up in the traffic. This time the traffic line actually moved, although it was at a snails pace. Glenn, Diana and Anthony are always welcoming and the BBQ was already to go. It was decided to have dessert after they all went for a spin in the boat. It was quite windy out on the water, so it was a bit of a bumpy ride in the boat. Joel and Chelle ... read more

After sleeping in on New Years day in an attempt to recuperate from a long night of dancing and fireworks, we got out of the blistering hot room where our 4 other roommates remained virtually comatose. We stepped outside into a beautiful sunny day and headed down to the beach. We found a nice spot on the beach and soaked up the sunshine as best we could, taking advantage of the cloudless sky which happens once every leap year in NZ. After sunbathing for a couple of hours we realized that the sun (and its lack of ozone) was getting the best of us. So much for our resolution of applying sunscreen more liberally. We couldn’t think of another way to bring in the new year than showing off our Canadian colours! 5 hours after setting ... read more

Leaving Tauranga Well we finally left Tauranga, after our first three months in New Zealand, most of which we spent trying to work and sometimes working in Tauranga. We were headed to Northland and stopped back at Jeremy's on the way through Auckland. We ended up visiting and staying for the evening. Jeremy got us in contact with some friends of his that live in Mangawhai Heads, about an hour and a half north of Auckland. The next day we headed up to meet Lailene and Mark. The Kiwi Day We went up early in the day and had some fantastic pizza at Waipu, then spent the afternoon swimming and snoozing at Lang's Beach. This little beach has a en we heard a pig running away. We thought the hunt was down for that area and ... read more