More from New Zealand

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Alright since internet is so cheap here ($1 for 20 minutes) we headed back to get online so I think I'll write a little and then add to this post another day.

So we came up to a little town called Orewa after leaving Hobbiton yesterday and we got in on our first traffic in a couple months. Going through Auckland (a city with 1/4 the population of NZ in it) it took us an hour and a half to get about 30 km so that was kind of a bummer but we didn't really have any pressing engagements as usual so it wasn't a big deal. Today we headed up the coast a little and did some hiking through a "dome forest" (we don't really know why it's called dome) and we stopped by a honey center. There was free tasting of about 40 different flavors and types of honey and some really good honey flavored ice-creams that we got so that was a lot of fun. A couple girls from Vermont that we met at our hostel have been tagging along with us for the day and it has been fun to have some more company on our adventures. We did another little walk trough some recreational area right next to the ocean and that was a pretty relaxing stroll with many stops at nice viewpoints.
(a cuople days later) We stayed up later that night than we were used to playing cards and hanging out and it was good.

Now we are in a town called Paihia in the Bay of Islands and it has been rather stormy. We drove up here through extreme rain and some mildly flooded roads and have since been stuck indoors. The water in the rivers and in all of the bays is a very opaque brown which made for our waterfall visit to seem somewhat willy-wonka'ish. We have booked (but not payed for yet) an overnight cruise for Wednesday night which in good weather would involve some fishing and then a BBQ dinner at sunset including whatever we catch followed by some kayaking and swimming in phosphorescent water and a night on the boat. The next day would have snorkeling, kayaking, lounging around on islands, target shooting off the boat, and dolphin-watching. So...the weather forecast says rain wednesday, cloudy wednesday night, and partly cloudy thursday so we are doing some decision-making right now. More to come another day.

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Comments

[Kam the man]

yo paul, any guess on when that card will be coming here?

[pmertens]

Kam
Estimated arrival is December 10 but tracking shows it has been in brooklyn since december 1st so I don't know what they're waiting for - I'll keep you posted