Clever title eh? Hahaha I just thought that I would post another update again, make up for some of the last ones that I forgot!
Today I am leaving Kerikeri (unfortunately) but I am moving on to bigger and better things! I am going to move onto the boat tonight! For those that don't know I have been given the opportunity to sail around the coast of New Zealand for two or three months on a beautiful hand-built 60ft yacht! I will hopefully post some pictures of the boat soon. She is named Rose Maree. I am not sure what my access to the internet is going to be like while I am on the boat but I will try and update you all as much as I can!
I just checked the stats from my blog and I am so excited to see how many people are reading it and where everyone is from!
I know I still owe you all some pictures but they will be here soon!
cheers!
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
Here I am again!
Hey everyone! I have taken a bit of vacation for myself and I have been staying at a hostel in Kerikeri farther north. I spent Christmas here with a great group of people from all over. We spent Christmas eve at the pub with the rest of the town which was quite fun! It is really cool here because people are truly not concerned at all with theirs or other people's appearance. Normally you would expect people to be at least a bit dressed up on Christmas Eve but there were people in normal street cloths and even some in gumboot and work cloths. Now you are probably thinking that it has something to do with it being a pub but it is like that everywhere! You can walk into the supermarket barefoot and shirtless and people don't really mind at all.
Christmas Day night we went to a beach and lit a bonfire. We had a barbecue with the fish that we just caught. I don't know what they call them here but at home I would call them a rockfish. Later Tony, our host, informed us that "Those are dog food" I think it was because they were so bony, but they tasted great to us!
Yesterday I took a tour from the town of Mangonui north up to the tip of Cape Reinga. It was very, very cool! Unfortunately it was a bit like the Oregon coast when we got to the top, with fog blowing up over the cliffs so we couldn't see a whole lot. I could just barely make out the outlines of the Three Kings Islands. On the way back the tour stopped at the "Ancient Kauri Kingdom" another corny tourist trap but it was pretty cool to be able to walk up a spiral staircase carved into the stump of a 45,000 year old tree! There were chunks of rounds that stood taller than me and they were only pieces!
Today I am just taking the day off maybe going to the Karikari Peninsula but tomorrow we are going to go on a fishing and diving trip in the Bay of Islands! Hopefully the weather gets a bit better tomorrow, today it is really windy and there was apparently an cyclone on the South Island somewhere. The forecast looks good though!
I am heading back south to Whangarei on the 30th (29th your time) to hop onto the boat! I got to go out and spend a few hours on the boat before I left and she is beautiful! I realized as I was climbing on board I realized that I forgot my camera! So I can hopefully get some pictures to you sometime! We are planning on leaving Whangarei on the 2nd of January and I am not sure where we are going from there. The last that I have heard was that we are going to the Hauraki Gulf and Great Barrier Island but that plan may have changed and we may be going North instead now.
Also thank you so much everyone for the Christmas wishes, as always it was great to hear from you and I hope that I remembered to send you something back!
I think that about sums up the last month. I can't believe how bad I've gotten at updating this! I will try and post pictures soon, my camera is in my room which is like a 2 minute walk away so I'll do it some other time :) Hopefully I can give you an update before I leave!
Cheers!
Christmas Day night we went to a beach and lit a bonfire. We had a barbecue with the fish that we just caught. I don't know what they call them here but at home I would call them a rockfish. Later Tony, our host, informed us that "Those are dog food" I think it was because they were so bony, but they tasted great to us!
Yesterday I took a tour from the town of Mangonui north up to the tip of Cape Reinga. It was very, very cool! Unfortunately it was a bit like the Oregon coast when we got to the top, with fog blowing up over the cliffs so we couldn't see a whole lot. I could just barely make out the outlines of the Three Kings Islands. On the way back the tour stopped at the "Ancient Kauri Kingdom" another corny tourist trap but it was pretty cool to be able to walk up a spiral staircase carved into the stump of a 45,000 year old tree! There were chunks of rounds that stood taller than me and they were only pieces!
Today I am just taking the day off maybe going to the Karikari Peninsula but tomorrow we are going to go on a fishing and diving trip in the Bay of Islands! Hopefully the weather gets a bit better tomorrow, today it is really windy and there was apparently an cyclone on the South Island somewhere. The forecast looks good though!
I am heading back south to Whangarei on the 30th (29th your time) to hop onto the boat! I got to go out and spend a few hours on the boat before I left and she is beautiful! I realized as I was climbing on board I realized that I forgot my camera! So I can hopefully get some pictures to you sometime! We are planning on leaving Whangarei on the 2nd of January and I am not sure where we are going from there. The last that I have heard was that we are going to the Hauraki Gulf and Great Barrier Island but that plan may have changed and we may be going North instead now.
Also thank you so much everyone for the Christmas wishes, as always it was great to hear from you and I hope that I remembered to send you something back!
I think that about sums up the last month. I can't believe how bad I've gotten at updating this! I will try and post pictures soon, my camera is in my room which is like a 2 minute walk away so I'll do it some other time :) Hopefully I can give you an update before I leave!
Cheers!
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
The Coromandel
Hiya all! I am trying to keep you updated, really! Life here is wonderful! The season change is really strange however, I was sitting in the sun on the coast having lunch and I looked at the bread and it said "best before: 07 Dec" and I thought to myself "boy that's a long time for bread to last!" Then I realized that it is only until tomorrow…
I figure I will update everyone to the plan for the rest of my trip. I am trying to sell my car as we speak and I am going to buy a bus ticket to see the rest of the islands. My reason being that I am leaving for 3 months the first week of January and am cruising around the North and possibly the South Island on a 60ft sailboat (tough life down here). Specifically our first stop is in the Hauraki Gulf and then on to the Marlborough Sounds. This means that I am on the boat until the end of March and possibly into April so I won't have that much time on the South Island and I have a host in Christchurch for a couple of weeks. I am going to do a bus circuit of the South Island and see what I can see!
For now I am staying on a really beautiful property 40 minutes north of Thames. It is set up on the side of the valley and if you look east you see more hills and valleys and if you look west you look out onto the Firth of Thames. There is only one other house in sight (It's built out of cob, the owners are dubbed "The Straw People"). I'm not sure how long I am going to stay here but I think that it's only going to be another week or so. I know for sure that I am going to be back in Whangarei for Christmas and leave from there on the boat. I love hearing from everyone! Don't be shy!
Keep warm!
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