Blogs from Northland, North Island, New Zealand, Oceania - page 28

Slowly descending through the sparse cloud cover looking down on the lush green hilltops, our first glimpse of New Zealand was one of stark contrast from the dry, baron landscape of Australia. Auckland provided welcomed change from downtown Sydney, as it felt more like a large town compared to its unofficial capital status. Our first challenge was to establish a mode of transport to get us out of the city and off the beaten track. We looked at buying a car or van but most that we viewed were either vastly overpriced or dangerously under repaired, so having made the decision that we didn’t want to end up at the mercy of a potentially expensive engine failure, followed by a mechanic’s report that would summarise; “well its gonna cost ya”. We rented a station wagon and ... read more

Hi, Everything is still going well here. The days go by pretty fast. We get up at 7:30 and start work around 8:15-8:30. The family is building four decent sized cabins that they want to rent out. Eventually they will have a health spa and-since the mother is a mid-wife-that will fit in with their life nicely. We are doing lots of different things on the property and this wek we have been working longer days for extra money which is very nice. They feed us really well so that is much appreciated. they tease us that we always eat, but that is probbly the truth. I was already down a notch in my beltbuckle, but I think I've gained all that back and more in the week we've been staying here. There is another guy ... read more

Its spring time in New Zealand and we have had very mixed weather since being here. It hasnt at all hampered our touring of the North island but we were a bit worried when we arrived in Auckland and it started to hail stone. Since then it have been really pleasant but at night its cold and I've really felt very cold in most of the places we have stayed in. The houses seemed to be built for the warm weather and not the colder temperatures we are experiencing at night. Besides that we found the people running the lodgings, indeed most of the New Zealanders we have met to be very open, hospitable and friendly. I guess most of the people in NZ are blowins really themselves..only just have stayed a little longer than us! ... read more

On Friday I did a free bus trip around Auckland and met Ester and Tavis (both from England) who said they would come on a road trip with me. I bought a car after 3 hours of being in the city from some English traveler who had driven it up from Christchurch. The three of us drove up Northland to Paihai (pronounced Pie-here) stopping at lookouts along the way. Its very beautiful and great to see greenery like home compared to Fiji and Tonga. We stopped to see giant 2000 year old Kauri trees and the mast of the Rainbow Warrior- the Green Peace ship that was sunk by the French who were testing Nuclear bombs near NZ. ... read more

Our week passed fairly quietly, with Simon starting at Auckland City Council in a three week position on Thursday. The job is helping book people onto events for a Heritage Festival taking place in Auckland later in the month. He has managed to use his position to our advantage by booking us onto one of the free events before we head out of Auckland. On Friday we ventured out for a drink with our now good friends from the hostel: Anja and Mick, who we would be saying goodbye to and also met Thom, a Uruguaian who moved out of our hostel the week before and brought his new lady friend Claudia with him. Mick would be heading to the North Shore to relax by the beach for a while before travelling the country so hopefully ... read more