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Published: January 10th 2006
Meet our new buddy King Kong
You can't take us anywhere. On the way in to the bar to get stamped for New Years. I know it's been a while since my last blog, where should I start...
Been in New Zealand since the 27th of December and it's been a blast. We got to Auckland in the late afternoon and it was great to be in civilization again. I was close to never leaving Fiji and I would have changed my ticket to stay longer but that would have just snowballed and I would have kept changing my ticket every time it was time to leave. The first couple of days in NZ were a bit odd. I was almost in a daze for two to three days. Auckland is a city, and most things are right at your fingertips. It's hard to explain what was going through my head for the first few days. I came from Fiji, where the lack of choices makes life very simple, to a city of 1 million plus people and the variety was a blessing and a curse. Just deciding what to have for breakfast, lunch or dinner becomes a big decision. Life really is easy on a tropical island. There are these travel agents all over Auckland called "Flight Center" and in the window they
Auckland Harbor
Went for a walk around the city starting at the harbor. What a lovely day, warm with lots of sunshine and great views. have current low prices for common flights all over the world. I found myself checking the prices for Fiji and Tonga every time I passed one. And they seem to be every 2-3 blocks so it's hard to avoid them. Good thing it was around $400+ NZ dollars for a return ticket to any of the south pacific islands. By the fourth day in NZ I was finally able to walk by without looking at the prices.
Even though there is a downside to the hustle and bustle of being in the city, there are benefits as well...STARBUCKS! Fiji had lots of great things, but a good cup of coffee was hard to come by. I was so excited for a good cup of coffee. When I woke up at 6:30 the second day in NZ there was no way going back to sleep was an option. I got up and walked over to Starbucks to find it closed, so I just sat there and waited patiently until 7:00 when they opened. And it was like a slice of heaven right there in that cup. I've always appreciated the little things in life, but this trip has helped magnify
Meet the Goonobago
So here it is...our van. A.K.A...the GOONOBAGO. Just hope she holds together until the day after we sell her. that. My perspective on life has been altered and ahhhhh the little things...Clean clothes, a hot shower, and a good cup of coffee.
Well enough on that...We spent six night at the Fat Camel Backpackers in Auckland, so I will just condense everything into a few paragraphs. Contrary to what we thought, the North Island of NZ is a bit cold at this time of year, even though it's summer, some warmer gear was needed. Spent a day walking around looking for pants, long sleeve shirt and some clean T-shirts. When we got back to the Hostel for happy hour on our first full day in Auckland we were greeted with a huge surprise....Dave, A.K.A. Hi5 Dave, Crazy Dave, Dave the Rave, London, was waiting for us. The Fiji crew was back together.
Bryan won the Nine-ball tournament at the hostel and won a free jump off the sky tower. It's basically a controlled freefall a cross between skydiving and bungee jumping. So we spent an afternoon starring up at this 500+ foot tower as people jumped off and then we got to see Bryan go. Looked like fun but at $195 NZD, it was easy for the
The Three Stooges
Look at the three retards out on the town. It's amazing just how stupid the faces we can make. Dave really fits right in. rest of us to pass that up.
NZ is a decent sized country made up of two islands, the North Island and the South Island. Everything is pretty spread out, so figuring out transportation is a stressful task. There are a few options, take one of the many backpackers buses, which allow you to buy a preset route and hop on and off and stay in places for as long as your heart desires. There are the public buses which have Eurorail type ticket packages. You can rent (hire) a car or camper van, but that tends to be quite expensive. The last option and the one that I had a hard time coming to grips with was...BUY A VEHICLE. I must say it took a good 2 days for me to agree to buy a car/van. So after a few tense discussions amongst the four of us, we went to the "Backpackers Car Market" to take a look at what was on the market in the way of vans. Let me tell you we saw a bunch of shit boxes, I wasn't sure some of these vans would make it out of the garage let alone around the
A night out at the harbor.
A night out with some of our new friends from Auckland. We seem to meet cool people where-ever we go. country for two months. I left the car market lacking any confidence at finding a suitable van. When we got back from the car market we contacted a girl from about an add posted in the Hostel. Chloe showed up with a 1993 Mitsubishi Delica and after going for a ride, we were all in love. with the van that is. She had taken a deposit from a couple of surfers, but after we offered more money, she slept on it and met us the next morning to take care of the particulars. So enter the fifth member of our team..."THE GOONOBAGO"
So we now had a van...We wanted to leave Auckland as fast as possible, but since we never make any reservations, and everyone in NZ is off for four days for New Years, we decided to stay in Auckland for New Year's Eve. It turned out to be a great night. We invited every person in the Hostel to come pregame before going out for the evening. We picked up Corona's, by special request for the King Goon (Moskowitz) and some champagne...and the partying began. After getting pretty drunk in the hostel, we headed out to "The
New Years Pregame
So we invited basically the entire hostel to our suite for a New Years Eve pregame...Notice the Coronas, Moskowitz was a pig in shit!!! Loaded Hog", a bar on the waterfront where one of the guys in our dorm worked. Randy, (from Toronto), basically made the entire evening. It was pretty packed by the bar to get drinks, about five people deep everywhere you looked, but all I had to do was make eye contact with Randy and he would make the people at the front pass me six bottles of coronas and then charge us $5 for all of it, it was perfect. He counted and told me the next day we got 44 free beers. We had planned to leave on the January 1st, but after the big night out it took an entire day to recover.
See you later Auckland. After six great nights, we finally hit the road and our first stop was Paihia, in the Bay of Islands. It's a beautiful harbour with I'd guess over 100 islands scattered about. We arrived late in the afternoon, and settled down at the Pipi Patch. It was a nice place, but I felt like cliques had formed so it seemed less friendly than some of the places we've stayed. We ran into Natalie (Oregon) our friend from New Years and
We drank all the beers
Looks like all the coronas are gone...time to go out to the bar. met a girl Jenny (Minnesota). The Pipi Patch was the beginning of a 7 night stretch of basically gourmet dinners made at hostels or on our camping stoves. Chicken Stir Fry with carrots, onions and string beans, Shepard's Pie, with a crust (which every Brit in the hostel made fun of, but were then drooling fro a taste) and Salad, Franks and Beans, Corn on the Cob and Salad. Bay of Islands is known as a place for water sports. We slept in the first day and by the time we got up we had missed all the good activities. Brian and I booked a sailing trip for the next day around the islands.
The four goons and our new American friends headed to Russell across the Harbour from Paihia for a laid back afternoon of touring. We arrived to find a quaint little village with way too many tourists. The town had a New England fishing village vibe to it, and the sun was bright so nothing could really stop us from having fun. We did a short hike up to a lookout with a great view off both sides of the island. Dave being is typical funny
A six pack each later
And you all thought we'd change going half way around the world...sorry to disappoint. self decided to roll down the hill, which was great fun to watch...take a look at the picture. Everyone else headed to a beach on the other side of the island but since the water is freezing here I just headed back into town to walk around and take some pictures. Got some nice shots, grabbed a cup of coffee and just enjoyed the warm weather, overall another great day. That night the infamous Shepard's pie was made, I might be the only person to ever cook Shepard's pie in a hostel kitchen, take a look at the picture, it tasted even better than it looked.
That night a bunch of guys from Ohio that we met in Auckland showed up, and were in our dorm. They got so wasted one fell off the top bunk and the other two pissed in there beds. Needless to say I laughed very hard the next morning, and it wasn't an I'm laughing with you it was I'm laughing at you moment.
After I finally stopped laughing we noticed a monsoon outside, and assumed that there was no possible way the sailing trip was on. Brian called to check on it
And the New Year's Eve Goonfest Continues
Out at the bar...Shut out to Randy from Toronto who worked at the bar and just kept giving us free beer after free beer. Not to mention that we cut the entire line at the bar aswell. and found out we either could go sailing or take half our money back. After giving Glenn, the skipper some good old New York attitude...we ended up going. It was Brian, Me, two girls and one guy from Germany. It was cold and rainy on the way out, but we got a nice surprise when 5 dolphins started swimming next to the boat for 10 minutes, no pictures of course because it was raining. We headed to a nice bay that was protected from the wind by an island and headed to shore for a hike to the lookout on top. It had stopped raining but it was a bit cold out, obviously right as we got to the lookout it started to pour again, but luck was on our side. As Glenn had promised us that morning the weather did finally clear and the sun decided to make an appearance. We kayaked around the bay, headed back to shore and I got a second chance at those pictures from the lookout. The fun was just beginning. On the way back the wind was blowing at 30 knots and we were sailing at a 45 degree angle, man that was
Bay of Islands
Ferry ride to Russel, across the bay from Paihia. fun until we broke a block (pulley) and had to turn the engine back on and limp back into harbour. But at least we got a 30 minute taste of some serious sailing.
We headed out of Paihia the next day and the headed north. The ultimate destination being Cape Reinga, the northern most tip of NZ. We found a farm-stay backpackers on the way in Pukenui and ended up staying 2 nights. We borrowed some fishing gear and spent the afternoon of the wharf trying to catch Red Snapper, which obviously never happened. Later we found out we had gone to the wrong wharf (idiots). It ended up not mattering as our hosts were gracious enough to give us snapper they had caught 2 days before, that turned into a nice Poached snapper in sweet chilli sauce concoction, might have been my favorite meal we cooked. Other than fishing we just relaxed and got back to "Fiji Time" enjoying the fresh air, sunshine and a condo basically all to ourselves for 10 bucks a night each.
We left the farm and headed north, went up to the Cape, walked to the lighthouse and enjoyed the view. When
Shepards Pie!!!
So we've been chefing up a storm...I made Shepards pie in a Hostel Kitchen. It tasted just as good as it looked. we got back to the Goonobago, Dave had the idea to put up signs selling "Ice Cold Beer" and Ice Cold Coke". We actually sold one beer and one coke and some batteries to a guy whose camera was dead. We spent an hour just watching Dave run around the parking lot wiping his forehead in front of everyone walking off the trail telling them how refreshing a cold drink was on such a hot day. It made for some great video footage and lots of laughs. We'll probably try selling more stuff again soon.
We spent that evening in Spirits Bay to the east of Cape Reinga, at a basic campground. Played Frisbee on the beach, read my book and just watched the sunset...again. Moskowitz and I had one of those classic travel moments when you're on a deserted beach trying to figure out how we got this lucky. And we just appreciated it with a couple of "Ice Cold Beers".
Got off to an early start the next day and after stopping by the farm to drop off some tackle we forgot to return, we headed further south. This time down the West coast of the
Hi 5 practice...
If you want to attain platinum elite level Hi 5 status...it takes practice. North Island, with the intention on getting to Hokianga Habour. We stopped about 45 minutes north of there in Broadwood at another Farm. We were basically sharing these peoples house, they where nice people until we asked how many Israeli's stayed there. The lady went into a tirade about Israeli's that made us a bit uncomfortable so we just changed the subject. They did have a BBQ so Moskowitz cheffed up some nice burgers and I made some sauteed onions & mushrooms and mashed potatos...I wasn't lying about eating well for 7 nights in a row. The three other goons hit the hot tub late that night and I crashed early listening to them laugh like little girls.
I woke up early the next morning and went up the farm track to the top of this hill and got some great shots of the rolling green hills. Another great spot on the planet that I feel privileged to find, just so relaxing. We spent the rest of the day driving south and arrived in Auckland in the evening. We are all hoping to get working holiday visa's so we wanted to hit the immigration office up, which I did
Top of the lookout in Russell
Meet Natalie from Oregon and Jenny from Minnesota. Part our crew for the trip to Russell a few hours ago. Funny thing is the entire form needs to be filed online.
We're outta Auckland in the next few hours, stay tuned, I'll try to write the next blog sooner so it is not a novel....
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Betty
non-member comment
Looking good
It's beautiful on the other side of the world. Goonabago is cute, I love her too. I guess you're not applying for jobs as fishermen! unless you want to starve. Keep up the good work, you've got alot of people living vicariously through your blog.