Category Archives: New Zealand

Rain. It makes things wet.

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Hiking plans dashed again. The weather just doesn’t seem to hold much promise some days. That being said, during my 3 hour drive from Auckland to Coromandel, I did figure out an alternative.

My original grand idea was to hike The Pinnacles, a mountain smack dab in the middle of the Coromandel Peninsula. It’s peak gives a commanding view of both sides of the peninsula as well as everything else around. It’s supposed to be a great hike (6-7 hour return), tough but doable. But I knew when I awoke in Auckland that I wouldn’t be doing that climb today – nothing but clouds, rain and mist. I was *not* about to hike yet another peak without getting to see anything from the top! Instead, I opted for a detour to the Karangahake Gorge – and I was glad I did.

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Closing the Loop

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I’ve now circled back around to Auckland where I’m staying for the day, doing such exciting activities such as picking up mail and cleaning laundry.

And eating copious amounts of sashimi.

Tomorrow morning I hit the road again – this time heading to a major tourist destination for Aucklanders during their summer vacations – the Coromandel Peninsula:

More hiking awaits me there. I had considered giving camping a shot, but there is apparently another cold front moving through for the next week. I don’t really want to be car camping in 3C…I’ll wait for just a wee bit warmer temps.

Sunday Market

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Before I get talking about my adventure to the market today, I’ll play show and tell about my work during my stay here. While I did various odd jobs such as fruit picking (including climbing an avocado tree – something it turns out I’m not overly good at), fire wood collecting/carting, fruit cleaning, cookie baking and other odds and ends, the majority of my time was spent in here – the raspberry enclosure. This is how it looked before I started:

And after about 3 days of work, the weeds were removed, the ground was cleaned and the raspberry bushes were pruned.

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Muriwai

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The weather really plays such a big role in the enjoyment of one’s day. When I went to the north end of Muriwai beach, it felt a cold, desolate place. Part of this was likely due to the weather because when I went 30km further south, to the town of Muriwai, the beach here was spectacular.

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The Black Sand Beaches

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90 mile beach isn’t the only beach here you can drive on. In fact, there are quite a few, including one near Helensville called Muriwai.

Naturally, I didn’t dare take my car out on the beach – that’s just asking to get stuck using a FWD car. 4x4s only! And even then, when out by myself I certainly wouldn’t tempt fate anyways. So, I stopped at the car park and hiked over the dunes to the beach.

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One Month

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So it’s been one month to the day since I arrived here in New Zealand. Thus far, I really haven’t travelled very far – I’ve been up and down the Northland region and Auckland, but have yet to truly get into the main part of the North Island. But you know what? That’s been perfectly fine with me! I’m really enjoying the slower pace style of travelling – being able to settle in for days at a time, see things that most travellers normally would skip right over, experience life at a more relaxed pace and simply be one with the world.

Okay, that last little part was just a joke, I’m far from having an existential experience down here. But still, New Zealand has be a pleasure for 31 days, and I’m looking forward to the remaining 300+ I still have. There are so many more things to see and do while I’m here – White Water raft the largest raft-able waterfall in the world (7m!), multi-day hiking, exploring the glaciers, bungy jumping, swimming with dolphins (I WILL swim with them at some point!), hang gliding, marry a kiwi girl, car camping, rock climbing, surfing, large scale farming, thermal pools, track down a kiwi bird, take in a rugby match…learn the rules of rugby, hit the beach on a warm enough day to lounge around on one, go fishing, and I’m sure much much more. I know some of them probably won’t happen (and I was kidding about marrying a kiwi), but there certainly is a lot I’m looking forward to doing. At a very slow, unplanned pace.

Speaking of unplanned, it both has and hasn’t been a departure for me so far on this trip. I still need to plan in advance WWOOFing host stays – usually 1-2 weeks in advance. But, I’ve been taking the more ‘let others decide my route’ type approach – I’m going where hosts have invited me to stay, rather than emailing specific hosts and asking to help them for a week or so. There have been and will be exceptions (I emailed my host in Kerikeri to stay up north), but 3/4 of my hosts so far have emailed me first. That number includes my next one, quite a bit further away from where I am now, in the area called the Bay of Plenty. I’ve got a week in between my current host and my next one, so I’m going to be returning to doing more touristy things, and possibly trying a 4-6 hour hike or two. And possibly doing a little car camping, if the weather looks good enough. Either way, I hope you have enjoyed following and reading my blog so far and continue to do so! If you have any suggestions, things you’d like to see me do or have ideas for me to try, I’m always up for changing my non-existant plans to something else. 🙂

The Glow Worms of Kerikeri

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Forgot to post about this little last minute adventure I had while staying in Kerikeri. Glow worms are something you’ll hear mentioned a lot here in New Zealand for a tourist activity, but I had yet to see any. They are often found in caves or the like – they need very dark locations at night to be properly seen. My hosts in Kerikeri had a short walk to get to see some glow worms, sort of on an embankment/wall near a stream. I took the opportunity to go see them on my last night.

As you can imagine, it was a dark walk. I had my flashlight (or ‘Torch’, as they are called here), but even still you really notice how nice and dark things are. I didn’t have too much issue finding the glow worms down the path.

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The long drive

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I left Kerikeri this morning and started my return trip out of Kerikeri in the Northland – it was a 230km drive today, which I figured would take about 2.5 hours.

It took nearly 3.5 hours. NZ roads don’t have many straight sections. Makes for interesting and involved driving though, no nodding off at the wheel for me. But at the same time it doesn’t allow one to enjoy the scenery quite as much as I might like – you have to be focused on the upcoming turn in the road. I do think this is probably the most common street sign I’ve seen in NZ:

Thankfully my Honda is a pretty decent drive, for a station wagon. I certainly miss my Mazda 3 for these kind of drives – tons of hills and curves with nary another vehicle on the road.

I’ve actually now left the Northland region and crossed back into the Auckland region, though I’m still 50km north of Auckland. I’m going to be WWOOFing for 6 days at an exotic fruit farm – they’ve got a very nice place up in the rural area north of Helensville, on the west side of the island. Hopefully I’ll get out to the western beaches once or twice this week – they are black sand beaches. Not going to go swimming anytime soon though – a wee bit too cold for that still! BUT, they do have thermal pools in this area. That might be a better option.

I met my new hosts just after noon and got to work after having a tasty avocado sandwich for lunch (eating vegetarian for a week – I will eat healthy!). Work will be outdoors once again – I was helping to clear brush yesterday and today will be pruning raspberry bushes. I just hope the weather will stay pleasant!