Photos: North Island Mini Tour

Auckland Sky Tower

Mom and Dad! Shakespear Park

Sheep always, Rangitoto in the background

Coromandel View - too bad it was cycloney

Waiheke Island

Waiheke Island - hiking through wineries

Biking in Rotorua

Wanganui geothermal area

Wanganui

Falls below Taupo

North Island Mini Tour

It all began at 330am on the 31 of March... I caught a painless flight to Auckland and made my way to the hostel I'd be staying in till mom and dad arrived on 1 April. I did a little sightseeing before they arrived, enjoying the sun, checking out the skytower, around downtown and the university, and the Auckland museum. On April 1, I caught a shuttle to the airport to meet them from their marathon trip!! So exciting to see them, it had been 3.5 months since I had left for Asia/NZ. On task, we picked up the rent-a-car, dad navigated his way through the streets of Auckland (here, get off a 13 hour flight and drive through the country's biggest city on the wrong side of the road!!!) and we arrived at our accomodation: a cute flat above someone's garage that they rented out to travelers. We dropped our bags and headed out for activities!!! I was impressed, the first thing I did after flying here was not activities...it was a NAP. We headed to Whakaparoa, a peninsula/community just north of Auckland, and did a hike in Shakespear park, seeing countless numbers of sheep, birds, cows, and AMAZING views! Was a beauty sunny day and a great way to start the trip. The start and end of the hike were also in a reserve area protected by fancy fencing, so we saw some protected native Kiwi plants and birds. We tucked in early to prepare for our day trip to Coromandel peninsula the following day. About an hour from Auckland, the Coromandel peninsula was HAMMERED with rain the day we decided to explore.... later we found out this was because of 'Cyclone Daphne' making its way from Fiji. Awesome. Regardless, we explored some seriously windy roads through rainforest, checked out mini towns, Cathedral Cove, Hot water beach, and Coromandel itself. We had a great view from the top of one of the passes, but it would've been AMAZING if it was sunny. Oh well, can't win them all, right? The next day, we ended up planning and booking things in the morning, renting a GPS from the iSite under the skytower (best idea ever) and didn't get started too early so we ended up just doing a ferry trip to the nearby island of Waiheke. It is a SWEET island where wineries and giant houses abound.... we saw the world's most expensive organic food store, walked through a winery, it rained a tad on our hike and we may have cut through some farmers fields but it was still great. Heading back to our place, we had to pack up for our departure for Rotorua the next day. Hallelujah, out of the city! Driving is so EASY on the highways! On our way to Rotorua, we checked out a map and saw that Hobbiton was not too far out of our way, so we decided to go check it out. We made it - after some serious driving through surreal scenery that basically was Hobbiton all around - and ended up NOT taking the tour, because we had plans for Rotorua. We took a break and enjoyed the sun at the Shire's Rest Cafe, but that's as close to Bag End as we got. Continuing to Rotorua, we checked in to our hostel, rented some bikes, and left the sulfur smells to check out the mountain biking in the nearby Redwood forest. We got a couple of hours of biking through beauty terrain in before we had to return our bikes and hit the grocery store for dinner ingredients. Cooking dinner in the kitchen, we met some other travelers and heard some stories, as always in a hostel :). The next morning, we headed to Waimangu, a geothermal reserve between Rotorua and Taupo. It is actually the world's youngest geothermal hotspot, only about 100 years old, but miraculously all around it is already regrown with serious vegetation. We did a 3 hour hike/walk through hot springs, geothermal formations and lakes, ending at Lake Rotomahana. After our hike, we drove to Taupo and only stopped for a bit to check out the falls and the lake, continuing on to our accomodation close to the East coast of the North Island, a farm in Norsewood, just South of Napier. Arriving at the farm, we were greeted, shown to our rooms and served dinner!! Bonus! They had the COOLEST farmhouse, 3 fireplaces and the best dog. We found the farmstay on Airbnb, a bed and breakfast website for NZ. It was so cool - we heard some serious stories at dinner, got our own upstairs part of the farmhouse for our stay, and had a tour around the farm in the morning before we left. After a breakfast of homemade bread and jam, we saw their property, fed the sheep and horses, and visited the two 'ginger' pigs they had. Haha it was very cool. Unfortunately we had to be on our way to Wellington to catch our flight to the south Island! On our way we stopped at a little town called Greytown for lunch, and did a cruise through Wellington before we had to get to the airport to return the car and hop on the plane. It was the first flight I have taken with mom and dad SINCE we visited Lauren in France 7 years ago. How did that happen?? Crazy. We had a painless 35 minute flight (world's shortest flight) to Christchurch, arriving just in time for sunset. I spent the night in my room on campus and mom and dad found a really neat bed and breakfast. The next morning was our morning to pick up the camper van and get BACK on the road! But... that's another island so I'll leave that for another post :)

Overdue update

Ok, how has it almost been a month since my last update??? I know - just got back from a 2 week road trip around the country with my PARENTS who made the trek down here to see me / see NZ over my 'easter' break from school!! I have so many photos that both my memory cards are full and I have had to be more selective with my subjects... but now that I am back in Christchurch I can upload them and start fresh. Since my last post, I finished off 'Term 1' of the semester with a few tests and 'practicals', and in the wee hours of the morning of 31 March, I made my way up to Auckland to meet with mom and dad who were on their way from Calgary. We did a whirlwind tour of the country (ish) and I am impressed with how much we saw. Every day seemed as if we were in a different country. One day, rainforest, next day, giant mountains and glacial lakes, the next day, rolling green hills and endless amounts of livestock. We did indeed see parts of both islands so I'm going break it down into North and South Island times :) Hopefully it won't be such a marathon post then! Mom and dad left yesterday at about 230pm Christchurch time, and have just arrived back at home. Hope the trip was painless, guys :)