Blogs from North Island, New Zealand, Oceania - page 1186

Back in Auckland now! I made the 3 day journey from Sydney to Perth two weekends ago on the Indian Pacific train. It was quite remarkable to see the various landscapes across the southern portion of Australia. We stopped in Broken Hill (ghost town - previously busy mining town), Adelaide (charming city - great parks and botanical gardens - I went for a run and skirted around a number of lovely outdoor weddings, one of which had the bride and groom leaving on motorcycles!), and Kalgoorlie (once famous for the Australian gold rush). We passed through the Nullarbor Plain, which was quaint, but perhaps similar to driving through Kansas over and over again. Upon my arrival in Perth, I stayed at Cottesloe Beach for two nights and had a great view of the Indian Ocean! Unfortunately, ... read more

Kia Ora Katou!- (Hey everyone!) Long time no blog! My apologies! These past two weeks have been just overwhelming with all my schoolwork coming to a big pile. AGH! But I managed to survive and turn it all in. SO now I have a week until my Finals and then traveling the North Island, then FIJI! It has all flown by SO quickly, can you believe I am done with my classes at Vic, already? My time at school here has been a great learning experience. For the most part I loved all my classes, (Music in NZ, Maori Society and Culture, Peopling of Polynesia and Literature, Film, Theatre of Aotearoa NZ) My favorite being the latter. In Maori class I learned how to do cultural dances, sing a waiata, do a karanga and help cook ... read more

Erratic spring showers in Auckland left me at a bit of a loss at what to do on Monday. It turned out to be one of those aimless wandering days, dodging the downpours and generally observing hostel life. In the evening I was accosted by a shy Japanese girl called Tomoni. She had only just arrived in the country and felt quite threatened by not being able to communicate and actually envious of fluent english speakers around her. Her weapon of attack was a simple electronic word convertor. It proved to be invaluable. I succeeded in explaining to her to not be afraid to ask for help in all aspects of daily life. She proved her confidence by asking another girl in our dormitory where to buy water! Although late, she was hungry and I accompanied ... read more

Today there was a huge birthday party for Evan and Kate. It was in 209, and theme was Mexico. I didn't have anything to wear, so Jason just told me to speak in Spanish for awhile, which was fun. I still remember a fair amount of Spanish. There were heaps of people in 209. It got pretty roudy. I was the 'funnel man' I packed dozens of funnels for everybody, it was alot of fun. I took one myself, even tho I didn't plan on drinking. I even had Evan funnel his margarita, twice. It was a really fun night.... read more

I was struggling to make a decision regarding my next destination, so I finally decided to head up to the Bay of Islands for a few days. I stayed in a place called Paihia, which I am sure is a glorious beachside experience when it isn't raining relentlessly. Which is what it did for the majority of my time there. Still, I enjoyed the trip. I saw Cape Regiana, the most northerly point of NZ. You could see an impressive amount of ocean, let me tell you. I saw some Kauri trees - cousins of those huge trees they have around San Fransico - they were the largest trees I have ever seen. On the same trip I tried sandboardng. This involves shooting down massive sanddunes on a small board. Quite exciting, but results in sand ... read more