Kirk in Downtown Auckland
10/1/02 Auckland NZ
Whew! We have finally made it! Kirk and I are, sending simultaneous, but different (each from our own point of view) emails to the list! So much planning has gone into this trip...months and months. We thought we were going to go in April, but when Kirk broke his wrist (on our honeymoon) we were delayed (which was for the best, we both now believe). But even with ALL that planning, it's now hard to believe we are finally here!! For those of you on the west coast trying to figure out what time it is out here, here's an easy way...subtract five hours, and that's the time here...but TOMORROW. So, it's 11:45AM Tues as I write this (but that is 4:45PM Monday your time).
So far, we haven't done much. The flight was fine, but in traditional United Airlines fashion the seats were tiny... you know how American Airlines has ADDED leg room to their flights? I think they took it AWAY from the United planes. I'm only 5'7", but my knees were hitting the metal of the armrest of the chair in front of me. Needless to say, when you combine that with the fact that there is no way to get your feet up off the ground, it's hard to sleep. BUT, we are doing pretty well and plan to stay up as late as possible tonight and get a very very good night sleep tonight.
We landed without a problem, and breezed through customs (well, mostly breezed through...in NZ, you have to also clear an agricultural inspection, where they inspected our boots, tents and anything else we had that had been in the great out of doors or might have included or carried food stuffs. We actually had no problems, but it does slow things down a wee bit.
Once through immigration, we arranged a hostel through the tourist office. We got quite lucky I think, as we booked the last double in a hostel that picks you up at the aeroport!! This is an unheard-of amenity!! In fact, it saved us approximately NZ$52 (RT) (which is about US$26). And the hostel owner, an American-turned-Aussie-turned-Kiwi haggled with us on the price, so we are in for under US$20/night. We won't be spending this much every night, thank goodness (we'll be doing a lot of camping soon) but we figure we need a good night sleep for the first night or two. And as it turns out the hostel is actually a climbing center, and so we can climb for free!
So, we are now clean, changed, and oh...yes...Tim-Tammed! Kirk picked up a pack of Tim Tams at the aeroport, which we have (I'm embarrassed to say) already finished. But it was a wonderful indulgence!! Next I'm going to introduce him to Hundreds & Thousands, which are MY favorites!! So, we are updating you briefly on how we are, that we are safe and about to head out to begin our first bit of exploration. Soon, we should have more to report.
In the meantime, thanks to all of you who made it out to our going away party! It was such a pleasure to be able to spend time with each of you! And to know that we are so loved! And thanks to all that have helped us in so many ways along the way! We love you! We miss you! We look forward to MANY emails from you!
Kirk:Well after flying 6700 miles for over 12 hours, we have finally arrived in our first location on our round-the-world trip! Hooray! Since saturday we were very busy with last minute packing, saying good bye to friends and getting everything into the storage unit. We got it all in the unit and only went over their closing time by 10 minutes. I will say that that unit is STUFFED! The car is and motorcycles are in there with stuff all around them and even inside the car. It will take a while to get all that stuff out! We had a wonderful dinner yesterday with my Mom (Thank's Mom!) at the Big Wok. I figured we weren't going to make it to Mongolia, so lets have some before we leave!
At LAX the security and stuff went well, but since I insisted that they not X-ray my film, they proceeded to open each and every film canister and do the chemical swipe on every tenth one. I now know that I have 73 rolls of film! Thoroughly inspected film! The flight was smooth, just long and cramped seats. Food wasn't bad. I just needed a tad more leg room. We got to Auckland and they had to inspect our tent in the agricultural inspection station, but that didn't take very long. We booked our hostel for the first night right at the airport using the free phones at the tourist counter. The hostel is pretty good. It is called the Rock-Naisium. They are primarily an indoor rock climbing place, (several rock walls you can climb with safety ropes to make it safe) but they have recently started a hostel as a side business. It is a good deal as they have included free rock climbing and transport to and from the airport which alone saves us $26 NZ. The double room we booked is $40 NZ which works out to about $19.02 US. It includes sheets, but no towels (we brought our own) bathroom down the hall, shared kitchen and it is right on the main drag into Auckland. We will probably stay here for a few days while we explore auckland.
We found an internet cafe right downstairs that has DSL access and only charges $2 NZ/hour. Thats where we are sending these messages from.
Well, that's all for now. It's time to go explore
Auckland. Hopefully we can get some pictures
developed and on the web in a week or so.
10/3/02 Auckland NZ
Well, should I even START with that story?! Noooo....
I'll let you stew a while!
|
Kirk in Downtown Auckland |
Kirk at base of SkyTower |
Donna amongst the flowers in the Winter Garden at the Auckland Domain |
Donna and our Mazda Familia Wagon |
So, that's been our last couple of days. Tomorrow, we
will tie up a few loose ends and then head out of
Auckland...hopefully up to Whangarei to visit a friend
of my mom's for a couple of days. More later!
10/5/02 Whangarei NZ
Kirk, Donna, Sam, & Rodney |
They also have fluffy chickens wandering around on the grounds. |
Petting the Kiwi |
Rob & the Kiwi |
Then we went on up to Whangarei and met a friend of Donna's Mom, Sam and her husband Rodney. They put us up at there home where they live with Kevin and Pandora, Sam's parents. They are all very nice folks. Sam and Rodney run a desktop publishing business in Whangarei. Today Sam and Rodney showed us around and we visited the Kiwi house just outside of town. You can go there to see a live captive Kiwi. The kiwis were once very populous in NZ, but after the introduction of many mammals, they have dwindled to a very small population. Next door to the Kiwi house is a bird rescue organization that is helping in the effort to increase the Kiwi population. This is where we got to pet a live Kiwi. Rob Webb runs the rescue organization and has been at it for over 30 years. He is the one holding the Kiwi. We also went to Abbey Caves today a set of limestone caves just North East of Whangarei. We successfully found the caves and found one we could get into. I saw the glow-worms, but Donna wasn't able to get in and see them in that cave.
This evening we made dinner for our hosts. Donna made her mother's chicken with rice and mushrooms and I made a chinese salad Donna had the recipe for.
Tomorrow we head North from here to a destination yet
to be found. God will be our guide. With Donna doing
the navigating.
10/9/02 Kaitaia NZ
Some Falls on the way up the coast |
Kirk on Russell Ferry |
One family, the Ellises have even invited us to stay
with them if we swing back through Whangarei.
From
Whangarei, we headed back up the coast toward
Kawakawa, the Bay of Islands and Russell.
We took a
short little ferry ride across the bay and took one of
the many unsealed roads into Russell to investigate
the little town there.
Rawhiti, NZ |
The next day, Monday, we drove around the Bay of Islands a bit, up into Doubtless Bay and stayed at Matai Bay at a DOC campground on the end of Karikari peninsula. It was fabulous!
Donna at 90 Mile Beach |
Cape Reinga Lighthouse |
Kirk at the Cape Reinga Sign |
10/14/02 Lake Rotorua NZ
In Kaitaia, we neglected to mention we actually stopped for our first HOT lunch in AGES (well, at least a hot lunch that someone ELSE cooked). We ate at a tiny little place called Pizza Time, run by a German guy. We had the Firebrand Pizza (and it was HOT!! Spicy and Temperature-wise). We were in heaven! US Dollars, it set us back about $6.
From Kaitaia, we headed down toward Opononi and Omapere. Opononi has a truly hilarious historical event/story about a dolphin that visited its waters in the mid-50s for less than a year...it started coming to its waters, and seemed to be quite intelligent...tame, almost. It learned tricks, played with people. The town essentially "adopted" the dolphin and named it "Opo". People turned out in hoards to see the dolphin and television crews even came from US and beyond to film it. Less than a year later, it turned up dead and the theories surrounding its death flew -- everything from accidental drowning to foul play to suicide! The town now (50 years later!) sports the dolphin's grave, a memorial, and an entire section in its museum (probably 1/2 of the very small museum, including a live video taken of the dolphin in the 50s) dedicated to the dolphin's memory. We, of course, HAD to go check it all out!
On the way into the twin towns, we checked into camping at the holiday park at Opononi (they wanted NZ$11/pp!), and decided to try for something better down the road. In Omapere, we pulled into Globetrekker's Backpackers. They advertised tent sites at NZ$9-10/pp. We pulled up the driveway and it was a very nice place. It turns out they were changing ownership and weren't really fully open yet. We got a double room (not tent...a ROOM) for NZ$10 TOTAL! This is less than a quarter what it normally cost! Praise God! We NEEDED a bed that night, I think! And we got to do our laundry, which we desperately needed to do too! The facility is beautiful and we would highly recommend it to anyone!
Kirk and a big Kauri |
Kirk at WW1 Memorial in Thames |
While in Thames, we took the opportunity to tour a
little gold mine. The Thames Golden Crown Mines have
been closed since the 1950s, and in fact, it looked
like the tours were closed, too, but Kirk was bold and
hunted someone down to take us around. And we ended
up with a personalized tour for his efforts. The tour
guy, Elved, was very nice and even took us down a mine
shaft that wasn't open to the general public yet. It
was really an interesting process although, seemingly,
quite outdated.
Trestle View Campground |
Kirk crossing a stream on the way to Pinnacles |
Pinnacles Hut |
On the way down |
The next day, hiking down was in some ways more challenging than up! (I find that down hill is tougher on the knees). We were pretty exhausted when we got to the car! The trip was definitely worth the experience though. We got back to the car in mid-afternoon. We jump (crawled?) in and headed across the peninsula for warmer waters! (REALLY!) We headed for Hot Water Beach and Cathedral Cove area. Last night, we pulled our car into Hahei Holiday Park and got ourselves a little cabin where we could get a hot shower, do laundry (a desperate necessity by this time) and get some shut eye).
Our other decision was to splurge on a meal out. We had decided to take the ferry across to Whitianga, but when we got to the ferry, there wasn't another one for an hour, so we went back toward Cook's Beach. Nothing there either. We had passed a cute little place with an attractive sign and decided to drive in. It was called "Eggscentric". What an incredible find! God was SO looking out for us when he steered us there!! The food was FANTASTIC! The atmosphere was somehow quaint and hip at the same time (HOW did he do that?)! I sat there thinking of my many friends who would love to be there at that moment (Will L...you would love this place! And Kirk thought Jim H. would like it, too.) It was comfortable and romantic and well, what can I say? If you're EVER anywhere near Cook's Beach, Whitianga and the Ferry Landing there, I would HIGHLY recommend this place. ESPECIALLY the Crunchy Mussels! Which apparently they once tried to take off the menu and there was almost a mutiny from the locals! They also have a number of local wines on the menu. I (Donna) tried one that was quite good (it was a Chardonnay Reserve, but I neglected to write down the details).
Hot Water Beach...what a wonderful place! This is a beach located where there is a lot of thermal activity. Apparently pools of hot water bubble up at low tide, allowing one to dig in the sand, essentially, creating your own private spa. So, after dinner, we headed out to Hot Water Beach to dig ourselves a little spa but we just couldn't locate the right spot in the dark, so we decided to come back in the morning.
This morning, we got up early, had some toast and headed out to Hot Water Beach (we were DETERMINED to get some spa action after two days of hiking up and down the Pinnacles!). And we got out there, it was very easy to find in the daytime since you can see the steam coming off the sand. We dug our holes in the sand, and voila, Jacuzzi! (Well, not exactly, maybe really shallow dirty jacuzzi!) What a wonderful thing!! It was also great entertainment to sit in our shallow hole while we watched other people come out with the huge shovels (we had used a spade and a dustpan to dig our shallow holes) to dig these giant pits that were quickly filled by the incoming tide almost by the time they were finished! Or they were too hot or too cold and just not in the right place. On the other hand, we got to sit in our shallow holes from about the 3 minutes it took us to dig them until the tide overtook us (30 minutes later).
Cathedral Cove |
Cathedral Cove Trail |
Finally, we headed back to the holiday park to pack the car, shower and hit the road for our current location, Rotorua, another thermal area.
Well, that's quite a lot to swallow for one message!!
Hope you enjoyed it!!
Love,
Kirk and Donna
10/17/02 Lake Taupo, NZ
Thar's steam in them thar hills!
Lawn Bowling in Rotorua |
Tamaki Village Concert |
Donna & the Geyser |
One of the thermal pools |
Kirk at another pool |
Gurgling Mud |
Huka Falls |
Next stop was the Wairakei Geothermal Power Plant. Pretty impressive. Lots of pipes taking steam from under the ground to run the power plant. New Zealand gets 5% of their power from Geothermal. They were the 2nd country to generate power from it.
After that we went to Craters of the Moon, another Geo Thermal area, this time it was FREE (nice) but not nearly as impressive as Wai-O-Tapu. They had an eruption 2 weeks ago at Craters of the Moon and thus over half of the walking paths are now closed because they are unstable.
Tonight we will stay here in Lake Taupo and then tomorrow it is off to Wellington to catch our ferry to the South Island at 1:30 AM on Saturday morning!
Wellington & Cable Car |
We met him at a little bar on Blair Street called Amba. We were certainly not dressed for it...we had on colors. Everyone else around was in black. But it was early -- only around 5:15. Mark met us a few minutes later. We sat and talked for a bit and then went for a walk trying to decide where to eat. Mark gave us a little tour of the area (he's a great tour guide) and we ended up at a delicious little Malaysian restaurant called Cimba. The food was wonderful, as was the conversation. Kirk and I enjoyed getting to know Mark better and I think we all enjoyed the opportunity to learn a little more about one another's culture.
Afterwards, we walked around for a bit, and ended up in a little Internet cafe playing a group game together, (Battlefield 1942, VERY FUN! -Kirk) killing time before our 1:30 AM ferry (THAT'S something I've never done before! -Donna). But we had a good time.
Picton Overlook |
Saturday (the 20th), we spent running some errands around town and preparing for our next "adventure", which was to hike the Queen Charlotte Track. We decided to put in at Furneaux Lodge on Sunday and then we ended up coming out at Lochmara Lodge on Tuesday afternoon.
One of the Participants |
Kirk likes Minis |
Donna likes Bug-Eyed Sprites |
Afterwards, we found ourselves a little church to attend... the Baptist Church in Picton. It was a cute little church with a brand new pastor, Kingsley. He's a young pastor, much in a similar position as Chris Cannon was when he took over King's Harbor Church almost 6 years ago now. It was interesting to see the parallels. We met a number of very nice people at the church there, including a wonderful family, the Pettigrews.
A typical view on the Queen Charlotte Track |
Kirk trying to hit a repeater on the Queen Charlotte Track |
Kirk trying out the swing at Lochmara Lodge |
We got into Camp Bay rather late, and had a wonderful trek. We didn't see a single person once we had left Furneaux Lodge! We spent the night at Camp Bay and prepared for a long, arduous day on Monday. Monday, due to a number of reasons, we were going to have to trek 20.5 kilometers, all hills. It was actually a fabulous day! But it was very long! The weather was, what they call here, "very fine" (i.e., very beautiful). We did run into one couple around mid-day when we stopped for lunch, but saw no one else for the rest of the day. About an hour or so before we reached the Portage Hotel, which was 15 minutes from our campsite, Kirk tried to hit a local repeater with his ham radio (he'd been trying off and on to hit the local repeater) and someone actually responded this time! He'd made his first Kiwi contact! It turns out the Picton repeater is linked with a repeater south of it which is linked to one in Blenheim, which is linked to another and so on and so on, all the way to Kaikoura...so he was getting quite a bit of coverage with his little hand-held radio. He beamed all the way to the campsite after that! We met a nice Dutch lady in our campsite at Cowshed Bay, who invited us to visit when we are in Europe next summer.
The next morning, we awoke to the very LOUD (can you say "almost deafening"?) sound of birds overhead. It was such an interesting sound because there were clearly many different types of birds and different songs. We couldn't sleep much longer though, as they just were too loud. It reminded me of a story I had heard when I was here three years ago: When the settlers first came to New Zealand, there were no mammals here, just birds. The bird population was truly enormous. And the sound of the birds on the island WAS deafening. They couldn't hear one another speak the birds were so loud!
We packed our packs for the last time on this trek, delivered them to the hotel for transport back to the boat, and were on our way to Lochmara Lodge. Although it was a shorter day -- only about 10 km -- the first hour or so was almost all uphill. We climbed from sea-level up to the very top of a ridge from the get-go. It was certainly an eye-opener, if you weren't fully awake yet! But again, the weather was fine, and we were in no rush! We arrived at Lochmara with plenty of time to spare (more than 2 hours before our boat was due) and hung out, relaxing at the resort. Played backgammon, played with the dog, watched some ducks, talked with a German tourist from a small town near Hannover (hi, Stefan...thanks for the tea!), and just generally relaxed.
When we arrived back in Picton, we drove by the house of a couple we had met at church. They had told us generally where they lived and said to "stop by" when we got back to town. We weren't really sure if that was appropriate and if they'd even be home or even if we could find their house, but figured we'd try. Sure enough, we found the house, they were home and we were welcome. BOY were we welcome!! WE were welcomed into the garden (there was a meeting going on inside) when we first got there) for coke and cakes. Then, INTO the house for tea (that's "dinner" for you Americans). Then, to shower, do our laundry AND stay the night!! All I can say is THANK YOU, Bill and Mary! You two are simply WONDERFUL and we are very very thankful!! God blessed us immensely through you!
This morning, clean, happy, well-rested (we slept on SHEETS!!), well-fed, we reluctantly said our good-byes (I still think they could use some adopted 38-year-old children)...and headed to Blenheim. We took a tour of Montana Vineyard this afternoon and drove around the wine country a bit.
And now...you've been updated!!
10/25/02 We Swam with Dolphins! (Blenheim to Kaikoura, New Zealand)
Kirk: As Donna left our story off, we were in Blenheim NZ, and had visited some winery's in the afternoon.
To add a little bit more about the wineries, we visited the Te Whare Ra winery first. It was a very small winery, but the wine was good and Donna bought a bottle. We asked them about wine tours, and they told us about an interesting "Underground" wine tour at Cellier Le Brun winery just down the road. That sounded good so we went there. We got to the cellar door and asked about the "Underground" wine tour. The clerk got a big smile on her face and said "Yes, we have an underground tour, right this way" we followed her into the back room, past some wine barrels to some big doors. She opened the doors, and said "Here you go, our Underground wine tour!" The doors opened to a room cut into the hillside that they stored their wine bottles in. One room. It held several thousand wine bottles. That was the tour.
After that we went on to the largest winery in NZ. Montana Brancott Estate. In the US they market under the Brancott name. Elsewhere it is Montana. There we did a real winery tour. Very nice. It costs money but was worth it. You get to see the whole process at their site, and have wine tasting at the end. Donna bought another bottle from them.
After the winery tours, we went in to Blenheim and stopped by Margaret's house. Margaret attends the church we went to on Sunday, but we didn't meet her there. When we were at the Pettigrews' house on Tuesday, she happened to be there and had asked us where we were headed next. Donna mentioned Blenheim and she immediately offered for us to stay with her! We were supposed to call that night and let her know, but we had all forgotten to pick up the phone. Well, we knocked and she was home and had "Tea" (dinner to Americans) waiting for us. We had a wonderful dinner with Margaret and her friend Lorraine. After dinner we went out to a movie. It was " Rabbit-Proof Fence" a wonderful movie about an Aboriginal girl in the 1930's. We both highly recommend this movie to anyone that can find it!
After the movie we had a wonderful chat with Margaret and got to sleep a second night in a row in a bed on sheets, wonderful sheets!
Kaikoura Seal |
This morning we got up at 5:00 AM put on our swimsuits had some toast and hot tea, and went to the Kaikoura Dolphin Encounter and got on a boat to go swim with dolphins! It was a great time! They provided wetsuits and all the snorkle gear. They brought us out to the pods of dolphins and we swam around with them. It was incredible! You are supposed to make as much noise and movement as possible to attract the dolphins. At one time I had about five of them circling me. I would circle around and around with them, keeping eye contact (they like that). We both saw lots of dolphins up close and personal. I think they were all Dusky Dolphins. We did two swims in two different locations, and then we all got in the boat and they toured around a bit with the dolphins following and leaping out of the water. I had an underwater camera and took some pics of them out of the water, too. I hope the photos come out. As we came into shore, the weather started getting rough (don't sing the song!) We were on the larger of two boats, it turned out that all the women on the smaller boat got seasick on the way back in! Later we found that they had to cancel the 8:30 boat and those following due to bad weather. Praise God we picked the dawn boat!
This afternoon, we rested and drove around Kaikoura to the seal colony and lookouts. It is VERY windy this afternoon, I'd estimate about 30 knot winds.
Tomorrow we head down to Christchurch, NZ.
10/30/02 Rain, Hail, & Fire. (Christchurch & Akaroa, New Zealand)
Christchurch Cathedral with Firetrucks. |
Evening Shot of the Cathedral |
Part of the Toughest-Fireman-Alive contest |
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The hail falling in the tent |
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Christchurch Botanical Garden |
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Saturday afternoon we walked around Christchurch and walked into Cathedral square during the opening ceremonies of the 2002 World Firefighter Games. This is a bi-annual event where firefighters from around the world get together in friendly sport competition. This year was a memorial games dedicated to the FDNY.
Later we pulled in to a holiday park in Christchurch and set up our tent. We stayed there for three nights. On Sunday, we found a wonderful church called City New Life Church. It was in an old movie theater. Very large with a balcony and everything. They had a band just like at King's Harbor and some of the worship songs were ones that we sing at King's Harbor! It was great worship and sermon, and afterwards we chatted with some of the wonderful folk there. On Sunday and Monday, we toured around Christchurch amongst the rain and hail. We watched a portion of one event from the firefighters games -- Toughest Firefighter Alive. A very interesting event where the firemen have to do many ordinary firefighting tasks in quick succession during 4 fifteen minute periods. Fastest is declared toughest. A few of the tasks included dragging a weighted (80 kilo) dummy , climbing a 20 story building and pulling and rolling up hoses. Later in the afternoon we were visiting the main tent for the games and the sky just let loose with hail for quite a while. So much so that people were pushing up the roofs to get the collected hail off and prevent the roof from collapse. Monday was more rain, and we viewed the museum that had a very nice 9/11 photo exhibit, as well as photo exhibits from New Zealand Geographic and a special photo exhibit of Ghandi. Later, when the rain had quit, we toured the Botanical Gardens which were beautiful (but the flowers had taken quite a beating from the hail).
One of the Beautiful buildings in Akaroa |
Crayfish for dinner tonight! |
Saving the sheep |
One Month and counting!!!
If you are reading chronologically, click here to go to November.