On to part 2 of my massive blog update. Amy arrived into Auckland after our weekend in Ruapehu lurred by high pay and well, me and Matt. Before we picked her up at the airport, we went up to Orewa (about 30 minutes outside Auckland) and bought Matt his first kite. First kite you ask? This is not just any kite. Matt has decided he is keen to take up kite surfing. Kite surfing involves you surfing the waves by having a giant kite (usually between 4-5 meters long) attached to you by harness and a board (think a snowboard) strapped to your feet. We'd found a shop that sells "trainer kites" and went up to buy one and then hit the beach to try it out. It's lots of fun but not quite my forte as i managed to crash it about a foot away from people who were walking up the beach. I think i gave them quite a fright too.

Matt and his kite




Up next on our itinerary was going to Waiheke the following weekend.

The view from Waiheke


Matt and i recently hit our 2 year anniversary and in honor of this milestone we decided to celebrate with a weekend away for the 2 of us. We opted to go to Waiheke, which is one of several islands off the coast of Auckland and the second most populated after the North and South islands. We took the ferry over on Friday after work and the choppy seas and my indescresions from the evening before made for one green Lindsay the last 10 minutes of the ferry, thankfully it was only 35 minute long ride. We arrived in the pouring rain and were met by one of the hosts, John, of the B&B we booked into, Iluka. We went back to the B&B, which was about a 15 minute drive from the ferry in about the middle of the island in an area known as Rocky Bay and met his wife Cathy. Both of them were lovely, despite my concerns we might be off to a rocky start after asking John what business he'd been in and he responded with "Well, i hope neither of you is American.." (turns out his painting importing business went under after his American supplier company decided to come into the NZ market themselves and refused to give him import rights). It was a lovely B&B that looked as though it'd recently been redone and was just a short walk from the beach. Not that we really were able to appreciate that since it was pouring. The main reason i'd chose this B&B was that it had a great package and upon arrival not only did we have wine and fruit waiting for us, but our rental car had been arranged and was there waiting and we had a voucher and dinner reservations all set up for us as well! We hopped in the rental car and drove off into the rain and opted to have dinner at this nice little italian restaurant called Stefanos. Saturday we awoke to more rain. We had a HUGE breakfast with amazing fruits (my first time having passionfruit) waiting for us and off we went. We decided that our goal would be to cover the whole 27km island before we left and we made a good dent. We drove up the mountains and stopped to take some shots out the window. It started to let up a little bit and we decided to go for a walk on Onitangi beach. We found some huge scallop seashells and had a lovely stroll although no wind for Matt to fly his kite.

Onetangi Beach



Matt hunting for seashells



We drove around some more going out to the west part of the island. There are so many different forms for birds on the islands ranging from beautifully colored parrots to...PUKEKOS! That's right, Pukekos which is incidently one of my new favorite words to say. It's just so fun.

One of the many pukekos



We stopped at the Stoney Batter which are WWII fortification tunnels on the island. Sadly we didn't really get to explore them as they are currently closed (which is appearently a sore contreversial spot for many locals). We then drove back to the other side of the island and had lunch in Oneroa at a little cafe called Spice which has the most devine carrot cake. Oneroa appears to be really the main "downtown" of the island if you could say it has such a spot. From there we headed east and finally the sky was beginning to clear and you could see all the other islands in the Hauraki gulf (notably Motuihe (pronounced "Mo-to-he")).

The view


Me and the view on the eastern part of the island


New Zealand is just so beautiful and it was crazy to be on this little piece of paradise when you could see the city out on the horizon. We then went to Ranguhio estate to do olive oil tasting. Yep, Olive oil tasting, which had you asked me before between extra virgin and virgin i would not have said you could taste any difference, but you absolutely can, and the oils there were fabulous and many of the come from groves on the island itself--the blend we bought was made from olives grown just 5 minutes away at Stoneyridge vinyard. We came back to the B&B and opened our "welcome wine" and fruit and sat out on the little balcony just relaxing and taking it all in.

Our own little balcony


We took a quick stroll down the beach and watched the full moon rise over the water which was just spectacular.

Matt and this awesome beach chair we found


After getting dressed we took a taxi to the Te Whau (pronounced Tea Fowl (minus the L sound)) winery where we had our dinner reservations/voucher . We had a lovely meal and sampled some of their wines with the city twinkling back at us.

Sunday the rain was back and after another lovely breakfast (and photos of their grandkids and family) we trugged out into the rain.

See it was raining so hard even the roosters took shelter!



We had initially wanted to check out this one winery, Passage Rock, as it was given the title "Best pizza on the planet" by the New York Times, which is a pretty high accolade, but alas it was closed. Waiheke is an island of wine with over 15 different vineyards and cellar doors, so as the saying goes "when in Rome", we opted to do lunch at a different one, and went to Stoney Ridge (where our olive oil was grown). It was absolutly pissing down outside but the rain and mist gave the vineyard an almost ethereal atmosphere.

Stoneyridge


After a brief lunch and a bit more touring around we decided to throw the towel in and take an earlier ferry back to Auckland.

Last Tuesday was Matt's birthday and we went out to GPK (gourmet pizza kitchen) in the nearby suburb of Ponsonby. We came back and celebrated with my homemade carrot cake and relaxed on the couch.

How many candles are there?



Wednesday was of course 4th of July. I wouldn't say i'm a particularly patriotic person, but i like the 4th of July. In London we had a BBQ out in our back garden and in Ireland we did another one and even had sparklers and confetti! This year however, we have no back garden or real patio to BBQ on and it's the middle of winter. So i searched the net and even joined a few expat groups here in Auckland but alas, no one was doing anything. So in the true American dream fashion (aka do it yourself) i gathered all our friends and all the Americans i know (plus a few new work friends) and we all met for drinks at a local bar, Brooklyn. There were about 10 of us and we all had a lovely time, however Matt, Conrad (a work mate) and i carried on 'til VERY late in the morning and as a result work was a bit rough the next day. Drinks to celebrate moving in, a birthday party, seeing the new transformers movie (which kicks some serious butt!)--if you haven't noticed we've been very busy lately!

Despite the go-go lifestyle we're living at the moment, things are great, and we have many more misadventures yet to come, so stay tuned!

Kia Ora Campers! If you haven’t quite caught on by now, Kia Ora (pronounced Key-Aura) is Maori for Hello (and goodbye i think). The "Aloha" of New Zealand. There’s this great commercial with people camping and this guy who’s disappeared and…well, I guess you’d have to see it to find it funny. Life continues going very well on this side of the world, which sadly is now in the depths of winter, however we're now past the shortest day of the year with only 9 hours of sunlight. Auckland however, does not get particularly cold—maybe 10 at the lowest during the day, which is around 50F, tho the nights and mornings can be bitterly cold. I’ve come to believe that Kiwi’s just like being cold. It must be some strange form of self punishment because not a single house I’ve been in has central heating. And I know I just said it doesn’t get that cold, but when you don’t have any heat in a house/flat and you’re getting out of a warm bed, trust me, it’s cold.

I’ve been getting lots of new insight on travel blogs and perhaps on how you dear reader, feel when reading my blog. The woman who I’m covering for at work is on long term service leave and has been on a yacht sailing around the Mediterranean—to Barcelona, watching the Americas cup in Valencia, to Ibiza and the Balearics and she’s also going to Cannnes film fest and the Monaco grand prix (not to shabby a holiday huh?). Anyways, the owner of the yacht she’s on has a blog and I’ve really rather enjoyed reading it. Some of the detail really just puts you in the action and it sounds like a fabulous trip! For those with curious minds it’s at http://www.unrealtv.co.nz . Surprisingly I’ve never really read any other travel blogs of people’s trips. That being said, I’ve really into travel books at the moment. Not your run of the mill travel guide, but writers talking about their own experiences traveling. I blame Bill Bryson really. At the moment I’m finishing up “A Year in the World” by Frances May. This woman so succinctly sums up my passion and feeling for traveling into some of the loveliest phrases. "The urge to travel feels magnetic"-- Frances May. I think there’s also a thrill or rather just a smile having been to some of the places she visits. Her writing is reigniting a desire, a passion in me to travel--Especially knowing that Asia, this seemingly unfamiliar continent, is suddenly at my feet.

"Only in looking back do you find those crumbs you dropped that marked your way forward." -- Frances May

But enough of my travel lust, time to look back on what i've been up to and back to helping you travel vicariously through me. A few weekends ago, on the 15th of June we went to Mount Ruapehu which is dab smack in the center of the North island. At 2,797 m high it's amazing and as Wikipedia has just told me it's also one of the worlds most active volcanos (Hmm, didn't know that one before). It's also close to Mount Doom in the Lord of the Rings movie, although we didn't really explore that area. Backing up, we left Auckland at 4:45pm. I thought it'd take us 4 hours to get down there but we didn't arrive in the town of Ohakune (prounounced Oh-ah-koonie) until more like 10:15. Yet another weekend adventure with our friends Rosie and Houghie. We stayed in an A-Frame chatlet (refer to my previous note about Kiwi's and heating). We got up Saturday morning and made our way up to Turoa (one of the 3 skifields on Ruapehu). Stunning. I think Ruapehu is different than my experiences in Colorado for a few reasons. First is that the Rockies is a range, not just one or 2 peaks. It's mountains all around you. Also everytime i've been there everything has been coated in snow, not just the mountain. We got to the top only to discover that the mountain was closed. Which was fine since it was FREAKING COLD!





We headed back down the mountain, had lunch, and did some shopping in the town.



We had a bit of a late afternoon rest for Rosie (she's currently 7 months pregnant so she's resting for 2 at the moment). We had several grabbing games of jenga to pass the time.

Jenga!


After dinner at the Powderkeg (a lovely bar/restaurant) we got ready to go to the Ohakune Mardi Gras festival which was several bands playing and had fireworks. Again freezing. I'll spare you the long drawn out details, but never have i been to a more disorganized, chaotic event. Horrible.

Smiling despite the cold and the disorganisation


We only ended up staying outside watching the music for an hour before retreating backinto the powderkeg to watch the drunks. After breakfast on Sunday we parted ways and Matt and i decided to go check out another skifield--Whakapapa.









Whakapapa is beautiful and also just a really fun name to say--refer to my previous post on spellings and the WH sound in New Zealand. A long drive home, but we enjoyed it. Taupo is a beautiful area as well and hopefully we'll check it out sometime soon.



Still to come our adventures on Waiheke for our anniversary, Matt's birthday, 4th of July and more!