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Published: October 31st 2006
Sky tower
this is the highest structure in the southern hemisphere! WOW!We've arrived in Auckland on the 22nd of October and quickly realized that the weather was definitley colder than we expected! No worries though, us Canadians are used to adapting to the cool weather.
Not much to see in Auckland so we did a quick tour of the city and saw an extinct volcano which is Mt. Eden. It had quite an impressive crater and exquisite views from the top. The city actually reminded us of Vancouver, except with a quarter of the buzz and people running about and much cleaner!
Headed up North with Stray a bus company, up to the Bay of Islands in Paihia. On the way up up here we made a few stops. One being the Whangarei Native Bird Recovery Centre which is where we got to see and pet the infamous Kiwi bird!! Very uniquie experience which not a lot of people get the oppurtunity to do, so we were quite thankful as the Kiwi species are facing troubles in their numbers. We also got a chance to see another native bird called the Tui, which actually mimics what you say! Very amusing, it can even mimic the tone of your voice and
cell phone rings. Quite impressive.
We also got to view an 800 year old Kauri tree which are the trees that are native to NZ. The trees have been mostly logged as the Europeans used to use them for the masts on the ships and all kinds of other things as they are a very hard wood. Spectacular trees, they actually self prune themselves which means no knots!
Once we reached Paihia we spent the night and headed all the way to the most Northern tip of the North Island, Cape Reinga. What gorgeous views from where the Tasman Sea and the South Pacific Ocean meet. The Maori culture believes that the souls of the dead depart from Cape Reinga off of the cliffs, therefore, people are asked to respect the fact that this is a very sacred place and not eat or drink anything in this place.
From there we headed on to our sand boarding adventure...yup, face first on a boogie board down a sand dune! Crazy, a little scary but good fun! I ate some sand, and Clay took a nice tumble..good times!
The weather didn't comply with our overnight cruise that we
Kauri tree
me and ang at an 800 year old kauri tree went on Saturday, but it was good fun too. We got to go fishing...and I caught a little fish I named Freddie. Clay didn't have much luck with the fish that afternoon. And I was the female winner of the shooting contest!! They had air rifles on board and we had a bottle dragging behind the boat as our target. Bloody hard to hit a target moving that quick!
We also got to see some dolphins! They came up and swam along side the boat for a while. So beautiful. Our next day included kayaking in the rain! Getting nice and wet on our little trip around the Bay of Islands. The water got pretty rough and we were both rocking the rest of the night while we were back in our hostel and at the bar.
We've spen the last couple of nights is Auckland getting pist up with other travelers, its been fun. Everyone here is from England, Germany or Canada. Last nite we met a Steve English's sister from Port Moody ---small world.
Tommorow we head out on our tour of the rest of the two islands with Stray- should be a blast.
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Carolyn M.
non-member comment
Havin a Blast!!!
Hey Angela and Clayton! Wow, it looks like you two are totally having a blast...I'm glad to hear that all is well and this blog is awesome. Checking out pics on here is wicked...keep it up....miss you both! Love Carolyn