It has been a busy couple of days. My strategy has changed a bit on how to allocate my time here. As my dad says, there's more than one way to skin a cat. Ok, that's kind of morbid. I never really though of what that saying was actually inferring. Moving along. I decided, after seeking the counsel of someone who has traveled the whole of New Zealand, to only spend a few days in the Northland (where I was planning on spending a few weeks). So I came on up last night to begin a tour. I spent the night last night in Whengere (the "wh" makes an "f" sound, so it's pronounced "Fangaray").
On the way there, I took a back road excursion to see a waterfall. This was a bit precarious, as New Zealand roads are already windy and hilly (comes with the topography), the dirt road that I was on was very interesting; but I got there in one piece, and it was so worth it. Absolutely beautiful.
I stayed the night in Whengere, and went to the Whengere falls this morning. Another waterfall, this one was huge, and once again beautiful. I took a hike down the river and into the forest. I got my first look at Kauri trees there. These are the redwoods of New Zealand, and they are indeed huge. On my return south, I plan on visiting a place that the manager of the hostel I am staying at told me about. He said there are trees in this particular forest that are 8,000 years old.
After I finished at Whengere falls, I had lunch and headed further north. On the road I stopped at the Waro Limestone deposit. I couldn't find much info on it, but it apparently at one time was a limestone hill or mountain that has slowly eroded away due to rainwater, as limestone tends to do. The formations were bizarre, and many looked as if they had been formed by hand (but they hadn't, I did find enough information to substantiate that). It looked like something straight out of Lord of the Rings.
Further down the road I stopped at a glo worm cave. That was pretty awesome. It was a long limestone cave, with a stream running through it, there was a platform to walk built over the stream because there were 6 ft. carnivorous eels in the stream, I saw one (and was very glad I had a platform to walk on). Once your eyes get accustomed to the dark, and you look up, in parts of the cave it looks almost like stars (well green stars) on a clear night. There were that many. It was pretty amazing, especially since I was half expecting a hole some guy had dug in his sheep pasture and hung Christmas lights in to make a buck off some naive tourists.
I intended to stay the night at Bay of Islands, which is gorgeous, but turned out to be very touristy. So I continued on to find a place to stay. I ended up stopping on Karikari Peninsula, and I am currently at a hostel that is empty except for me, that is nice, it's quiet. It has just been renovated and it is super nice, just not full because the season is just beginning to get into the swing. If you ever happen to be traveling on the Kirakira peninsula, stay in "the Rusty Anchor Backpacker's Hostel". I highly recommend it.
When I got here, the manager told me of a bay and a beach just ten minutes up the road at the end of the peninsula. He said he has been around the world and these were the most beautiful he had ever seen. I headed his advice and went to have a look. He was not lying. They each were the most beautiful I have ever seen, and to see them within 10 minutes of each other is amazing. It's pretty astounding that they are not completely inundated with tourists. But the roads to them are not good, and they are far enough off the track that no one bothers I suppose. If I had to spend the rest of my time here at either the Matai bay, or Karikari beach' I think I would be fine with that. Absolutely breathtaking.
Tomorrow I go to Cape Reinga at the very northern end of the North Island where the Tasmin gulf and Pacific Ocean meet. The only thing I forgot to bring with me is the battery charger for my camera, it died on the way here (I was taking pictures of everything!). So I bought a couple of disposable cameras, certainly not ideal, but hopefully the pictures will turn out.
I leave you with the words of a New Zealand news caster who was reading a viewer letter this morning on the news in Whengere. "My husband told me that women are made to have children because they are closer to the ground... He is now my ex-husband." I assure you a great deal of ravenous laughter ensued upon my hearing this statement.
Friday, November 7, 2008
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
I'm too tired to think of a cool title tonight. ...
...but rest assured if I had it would be quite witty.
Today I went on a tour of Auckland, as sort of my last ho-rah in the city. We went to the sky tower, where much to my disappointment I was not a quick enough volunteer to get to do the sky jump... that's right one guy in our group jumped off the tower... lucky.
From there we went on to the Michael Savage memorial, a memorial to the first Labour prime minister of New Zealand, he brought socialism to New Zealand, was well respected and died of cancer after only four years in office.
From there we went to Mt. Eden, a dormant volcano, and sacred Maori site right smack in the middle of Auckland, the view from the top is one of only two places in the world that you can see two oceanic bodies of water that don't actually touch each other. To the east you have the bay connecting to the Pacific ocean, and to the west, another bay connecting to the Tasman gulf (between NZ and Australia). There is a crater in the top of the mountain that is beautiful, but we weren't allowed into it because the Maori (who still own the mountain) forbid it. The view here is stunning, as you can see for miles.
New Zealand is very tectonically and volcanically active. It is a very young land mass, the youngest on earth. And its formation process continues to this day.
A prime example, Rangitoto island in the Auckland harbor is a dormant volcano that was non-existent 600 years ago. The 5.5km wide, 850ft. tall (this is no pebble we're talking about) shield volcano erupted from nothing on the ocean floor and reached about half of its height in about 8 hours time, raising the rest of the distance over the next week. It only erupted once, and is now dormant. There were actually Maori living on an adjacent island in the harbor during the eruption. That island that now joins Rangitoto on one side. Imagine waking up to that little shenanigan occurring in your back yard swimming pool. Geologists expect that at some point in the next 100 years, there will be another volcanic eruption somewhere in the harbor that will yield similar results; making for quite a fireworks show to be sure.
Seeing how Auckland is laid out from the top of Mt. Eden, one realizes that it is actually on a fairly narrow isthmus that connects the two parts of the north island. This coupled with the fact that it is on top of a volcanic field, in which new volcanoes just pop up, who knows where, and grow to considerable size (ie. Rangitoto island, Mt. Eden, and several others in the area) really makes one wonder... was this really the best place to put a city? Maybe its just me, now I'm a pretty risk tolerant guy and all, but this may be taking it a bit far. Then again, I suppose for Frodo this may not be a bad proposition. Why go to Mt. Doom, when if he waits around long enough... Mt. Doom will come to him. Brilliant!
After that we had lunch, we went to the harbor bridge. Now merely for clarification, this is no small bridge. We walked on walkways suspended under the bridge to the center of the bridge (a ten minute walk; not for those afraid of heights or water), to a platform mounted under the tallest suspended part of the bridge. From this platform, if you so choose, you may bungee jump to your heart's content (for a nominal fee). No one in our group did, (as this jump was not free for the volunteer as was the afore mentioned sky tower jump) and so a guide jumped so the trek there was not entirely wasted.
The American election was followed very closely here today. Every TV screen I saw all day had coverage of the election on, and when I got home there were 2 or 3 channels on TV dedicated entirely to the US elections. One channel in particular had the New Zealand anchor seated in front of a green screen with a giant American flag on it for the duration of the coverage. It is fascinating to me that in the US, there are so few signs of the global society that we live in, (ie. when was the last time you clicked onto CNN and saw Anderson Cooper with a huge NZ flag behind him, covering the NZ elections), and yet when you travel outside of the US signs of a global society are ubiquitous, and the idea that we share in a world together permeates. That is a topic for another day perhaps.
There are fireworks everywhere tonight. Kiwis can only pop fireworks one day a year, for Guy Fox Day; celebrated in the UK and many of it's former territories. This is the same Guy Fox from the movie "V for Vendetta" if you have not seen the movie, google either Guy Fox or "the gunpowder plot." They take their fireworks very seriously here, it sounds a bit like a war zone, and has for the past several hours. I may not get any sleep tonight.
Today I went on a tour of Auckland, as sort of my last ho-rah in the city. We went to the sky tower, where much to my disappointment I was not a quick enough volunteer to get to do the sky jump... that's right one guy in our group jumped off the tower... lucky.
From there we went on to the Michael Savage memorial, a memorial to the first Labour prime minister of New Zealand, he brought socialism to New Zealand, was well respected and died of cancer after only four years in office.
From there we went to Mt. Eden, a dormant volcano, and sacred Maori site right smack in the middle of Auckland, the view from the top is one of only two places in the world that you can see two oceanic bodies of water that don't actually touch each other. To the east you have the bay connecting to the Pacific ocean, and to the west, another bay connecting to the Tasman gulf (between NZ and Australia). There is a crater in the top of the mountain that is beautiful, but we weren't allowed into it because the Maori (who still own the mountain) forbid it. The view here is stunning, as you can see for miles.
New Zealand is very tectonically and volcanically active. It is a very young land mass, the youngest on earth. And its formation process continues to this day.
A prime example, Rangitoto island in the Auckland harbor is a dormant volcano that was non-existent 600 years ago. The 5.5km wide, 850ft. tall (this is no pebble we're talking about) shield volcano erupted from nothing on the ocean floor and reached about half of its height in about 8 hours time, raising the rest of the distance over the next week. It only erupted once, and is now dormant. There were actually Maori living on an adjacent island in the harbor during the eruption. That island that now joins Rangitoto on one side. Imagine waking up to that little shenanigan occurring in your back yard swimming pool. Geologists expect that at some point in the next 100 years, there will be another volcanic eruption somewhere in the harbor that will yield similar results; making for quite a fireworks show to be sure.
Seeing how Auckland is laid out from the top of Mt. Eden, one realizes that it is actually on a fairly narrow isthmus that connects the two parts of the north island. This coupled with the fact that it is on top of a volcanic field, in which new volcanoes just pop up, who knows where, and grow to considerable size (ie. Rangitoto island, Mt. Eden, and several others in the area) really makes one wonder... was this really the best place to put a city? Maybe its just me, now I'm a pretty risk tolerant guy and all, but this may be taking it a bit far. Then again, I suppose for Frodo this may not be a bad proposition. Why go to Mt. Doom, when if he waits around long enough... Mt. Doom will come to him. Brilliant!
After that we had lunch, we went to the harbor bridge. Now merely for clarification, this is no small bridge. We walked on walkways suspended under the bridge to the center of the bridge (a ten minute walk; not for those afraid of heights or water), to a platform mounted under the tallest suspended part of the bridge. From this platform, if you so choose, you may bungee jump to your heart's content (for a nominal fee). No one in our group did, (as this jump was not free for the volunteer as was the afore mentioned sky tower jump) and so a guide jumped so the trek there was not entirely wasted.
The American election was followed very closely here today. Every TV screen I saw all day had coverage of the election on, and when I got home there were 2 or 3 channels on TV dedicated entirely to the US elections. One channel in particular had the New Zealand anchor seated in front of a green screen with a giant American flag on it for the duration of the coverage. It is fascinating to me that in the US, there are so few signs of the global society that we live in, (ie. when was the last time you clicked onto CNN and saw Anderson Cooper with a huge NZ flag behind him, covering the NZ elections), and yet when you travel outside of the US signs of a global society are ubiquitous, and the idea that we share in a world together permeates. That is a topic for another day perhaps.
There are fireworks everywhere tonight. Kiwis can only pop fireworks one day a year, for Guy Fox Day; celebrated in the UK and many of it's former territories. This is the same Guy Fox from the movie "V for Vendetta" if you have not seen the movie, google either Guy Fox or "the gunpowder plot." They take their fireworks very seriously here, it sounds a bit like a war zone, and has for the past several hours. I may not get any sleep tonight.
Monday, November 3, 2008
And the search continues
Sunday I went to worship with the Elys. We went over to North Shore, there is an established congregation there, that has been there for some time. One of the things I was looking forward to about this trip was getting to worship with the people here. Churches here are not nearly as established as in the states, especially in comparison with the bible belt. It's a bit more like Europe in that respect I suppose. It is a passion of mine, participating in different ways of worship, in a realization that we all worship the same God; He is always the same, the difference is us, and in this case our cultural context. It is my opinion that gaining more perspective, or experiencing things though other's perspectives, only yields a more complete understanding of the world we live in, and therefore a more complete individual, not just in terms of religion, but in all aspects of life. I truly enjoied the time I spent in worship with the people here.
After worship I had a conversation with a lady, about American politics and the election. That is a popular topic here. Even with their own elections coming up on Saturday, many Kiwis would rather talk about the American election. It is neat to see the way that other people participate in government. Though, I must admit the election system here is a bit perplexing to the outside observer. Through my observations thus far, here is what I have gathered. Voters do not vote for individual politicians, but instead make a party vote, to elect what party should be in power. The party leadership then determines who should be in the particular positions. There are a multitude of parties, the labour (labor in American-ese) and national parties being the largest; but there are multiple small parties as well. These include the Maori party (Maori's are native New Zealanders), the New Zealand Pacific party, the green party, and surprisingly enough the legalize cannabis party among others. If you don't know what cannabis is, google it, I didn't know until I saw one of their commercials.
After politics, we talked about her son who is almost college age. She asked me about Lubbock Christian. She said she wasn't sure he could do with being so far away form the ocean. She recounted her own memories of going to the interior of England, and feeling "trapped". I told her that LCU is a great place, but it is indeed quite far from the ocean, much further than one would be when in the interior of England.
Not much going on right now, the search for a job continues. I'm getting leads, but it may be a few more days possibly a week before anything pans out. I spent a couple of hours at the BUNAC office yesterday polishing up on my CV (a Kiwi resume). Then I drove around the bay a bit. I got a little outside of Auckland, where the road skirts the bay, and the drive is breathtaking. I stopped at the Michael Joseph Savage monument, which is a monument to the first Labour prime minister of NZ. It is on a hill, overlooking the harbor, and boasts a fantastic view.
About my phone, I discovered that when dialing form the states, you need to drop the first zero. So then, if you are calling or text-ing from the states, the number you would dial is (64) 21-0227-9014. My apologies if you have tried to contact me. My parents had a hard time I know; this earned a scolding for not having checked in, or being acessable every hour on the hour. Sorry mom. The trek to cast the ring into Mt. Doom was taking up too much time to blog yesterday.
Things continue to go great. Love it here. Just looking out for a job up north.
After worship I had a conversation with a lady, about American politics and the election. That is a popular topic here. Even with their own elections coming up on Saturday, many Kiwis would rather talk about the American election. It is neat to see the way that other people participate in government. Though, I must admit the election system here is a bit perplexing to the outside observer. Through my observations thus far, here is what I have gathered. Voters do not vote for individual politicians, but instead make a party vote, to elect what party should be in power. The party leadership then determines who should be in the particular positions. There are a multitude of parties, the labour (labor in American-ese) and national parties being the largest; but there are multiple small parties as well. These include the Maori party (Maori's are native New Zealanders), the New Zealand Pacific party, the green party, and surprisingly enough the legalize cannabis party among others. If you don't know what cannabis is, google it, I didn't know until I saw one of their commercials.
After politics, we talked about her son who is almost college age. She asked me about Lubbock Christian. She said she wasn't sure he could do with being so far away form the ocean. She recounted her own memories of going to the interior of England, and feeling "trapped". I told her that LCU is a great place, but it is indeed quite far from the ocean, much further than one would be when in the interior of England.
Not much going on right now, the search for a job continues. I'm getting leads, but it may be a few more days possibly a week before anything pans out. I spent a couple of hours at the BUNAC office yesterday polishing up on my CV (a Kiwi resume). Then I drove around the bay a bit. I got a little outside of Auckland, where the road skirts the bay, and the drive is breathtaking. I stopped at the Michael Joseph Savage monument, which is a monument to the first Labour prime minister of NZ. It is on a hill, overlooking the harbor, and boasts a fantastic view.
About my phone, I discovered that when dialing form the states, you need to drop the first zero. So then, if you are calling or text-ing from the states, the number you would dial is (64) 21-0227-9014. My apologies if you have tried to contact me. My parents had a hard time I know; this earned a scolding for not having checked in, or being acessable every hour on the hour. Sorry mom. The trek to cast the ring into Mt. Doom was taking up too much time to blog yesterday.
Things continue to go great. Love it here. Just looking out for a job up north.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
