Picnic-ing in Albert Park

So today is Monday and I'm supposed to be working on essays right now. It was so nice out though that I decided to picnic in Albert Park and bring along my camera this time. Its so difficult to get stressed out about anything here, haha. That being said, I really should start/finish those essays soon.

Queen Victoria looking all pissed off. Don't know why, it was such a great day.

"We should've brought sun glasses"-Dinner at Orbit.

So towards the beginning of the week, I knew that my weekend would be kind of terrible compared to last weekend. I have a few essays to write (still haven't started) and we all decided to stay in Auckland for the weekend. Luckily, we all decided Friday would be a great time to actually go up into the Skytower. It turned out to be the most perfect and clear night to do this. Quite possibly one of the coolest restaurants that I've eaten in, Orbit was unbelievable. We made reservations for 5 30 and made it just in time. The cool thing about eating in the restaurant is that the normal admission price up to the viewing area -i think its $15- is waived if you order $30 or more at dinner. We all managed to order more than thirty dollars, and we tried to savor the ride and the food for the allotted two hours. The outer edge of the restaurant constantly moves 360 degrees an hour. It was odd sitting still in one place and having the shadows move around you, but the views were amazing.
Aside from Friday though, this weekend has been pretty relaxing. Just been doing some studying, sat around Albert Park today, and will hopefully get started on my essays tomorrow.(Sunday). Here are some pictures from dinner:

If you look in the foreground of Ragitoto, you'll see Mt. Victoria, where I climbed before exploring Devonport for a night.

Ragitoto above the table The Skytower casts a huge shadow over Albert Park as the sun sets. Just to the right of the skytower's shadow you'll see the Clock Tower, a white building that is part of the University.Auckland Harbor Bridgemmmm so good.Hauraki Gulf at sunset

“Hey guys, we just went off the map.” “What Kevin!?”… Getting lost in the Bay of Islands

This weekend was the kind that made me think, “Wow, I’m really in New Zealand”. To describe anything I’ve seen, even in the following pictures, does not do any of this country justice. It is all here the way it is, just because. Men had nothing to do with the way the scenery has shaped itself, and the terrain constantly proved that to us this weekend; with cuts and bruises, we rolled our busted van directly to the grocery store as soon as we got back into Auckland. If I haven’t mentioned this before, the grocery store, FoodTown, is across the city from where we’re flatting, and the hilly streets here are brutal even without carrying sacks of groceries.

We left on Friday around five thirty and headed up the coast on Highway One. Just outside of the city, highway one looks just like any other highway, but the similarities ended after 30 minutes. The road turned into a two-lane road that winded through hills, between valleys, and along the coast towards our destination. We stopped in Whangarei (Wh is pronounced as “F”). We ate at a small Indian restaurant that was one of a handful of restaurants in the entire town. On a map, the town looks huge, but we passed through it quickly, stopping at a liquor store on the way out because it was getting late. The drive to Keri Keri was a bit treacherous at times as it was getting dark but an hour later, we made it to our hostel. The hostel was $25 New Zealand dollars, and because there were seven of us, we got our own dorm room type place to share. We spent the night drinking gin and tonics on the playscape next to the bathroom area, played card games, and walked down to a small river next to the campsites where we watched the stars. The stars were amazing to say the least. Words could definitely not describe everything that we saw. Most of the time in Naples you can only see O’Ryan’s belt and maybe the north star, but here it was like there was a mist covering the sky the stars were so prevalent and bright. And with no moon in sight, we each spotted a handful of shooting stars.


We woke up around eight and a few of us decided to take advantage of the free kayaks. We kayaked down the aforementioned river. It was a really good way to start the morning. We asked the hostel owner (throughout the trip, none seemed too helpful or nice) about what could be found in the bustling town of KeriKeri, she pointed us in the direction of the Stone Store and Rainbow Falls. On the way, we stopped downtown at a café for some breakfast.

The Stone Store is apparently the oldest stone building in Keri Keri and is located on a small inlet/estuary type body of water. To be totally honest, it was a complete tourist trap. We’re talking ladies dressed in old-timey garb trying to sell you overpriced homemade candles, post cards and ice cream from a freezer. (they had those in 1820?) Otherwise it was interesting enough, although we decided against the 15 dollar admission price to the upstairs bedroom quarters.
The next stop, Rainbow Falls was way more thrilling and I think we all enjoyed it much more. The falls were at least 60 meters high. Looking through my pictures now, the waterfall doesn’t look nearly as impressive, but it was so massive that we heard it from the road, a few hundred meters away.

Me at the top of the falls

The resulting picture

After the Rainbow Falls we picked up a huge bag of Clementine’s from a roadside vendor for 3 dollars and made our way to Paihia. The Bay of Islands region is known for its orchards and fruit farms.

Bikers on the "town green"

On the way to Paihia we passed a lot of road bikes, and when we finally arrived to the small beachside town realized why. There was a huge race going on, exhausted bikers everywhere. This was going to be a problem. So we went from hostel to hostel asking for any vacancies, and found none. We finally decided to go to a travel agency where they called up a hostel in a different direction out of town and were lucky enough to get beds, again for 25 a night.

We took advantage of the free kayaks the hostel offered, even though we had to double up in one-person kayaks. We paddled to an island in the bay. A few of us walked around the entire island, exploring tidepools and not so secluded beaches-we ran into a couple who had kayaked onto one of the beaches-. Eric had brought his spearfishing gear and he and Chris were determined to catch dinner. The rest of us paddled to a different island and then paddled back to shore to explore the town.

The next morning we woke up and drove to Goat Island. The following pictures were taken at a beach that we stopped at on the way that looked amazing from the road and we figured we could all stretch our legs.

About two hours later we arrived at the dive shop. We all rented snorkeling gear for $NZ30 and donned full wetsuits/flippers for the day. Goat Island is a Marine Reserve and was full of fish darting in and out of the rocks around the island. A little scary at first, we would soon all be snorkeling around the island to another rocky area and halfway into a cave. It was definitely something that I’d love to try again.

Goat Island

Overall, it was a really great weekend. I’m realizing over and over that Auckland’s appeal is not the city itself, but the city’s proximity to HEAPS of amazing sites and activities that couldn’t be experienced together in the same day in much of the world. I love New Zealand.

Taken from the Harbor Bridge

Pacifika Festival...a week later.

Okay so I've been kind of bad at updating the blog for the past week. Anyways, last weekend I just hung around Auckland a little bit. We went out to a few bars on Friday night and then woke up early for the Pasifika festival. The festival is a huge deal and happens every year at a gigantic park in one of Auckland's suburbs (I forget which, to be honest). The event is all weekend and covers most of the Pacific Islands, Fiji, Tonga, Samoa, Cook, New Zealand, Hawaii, Vanuatu, etc etc. The food was interesting. I got a chicken curry dish that was from Fiji, and then there were these cheesey icecreams being served in carved out pineapples.
I totally forget what else I did that weekend, maybe laundry? Nothing to noteworthy. Even so, let this post be a lesson to me. If I don't write a blog post within a few days, its likely to be less content filled. So here; Look at the pretty pictures.

You're not meant to know how to pronounce it.

So the past couple days I spent a little time around Auckland outside of Queen Street and the CBD.
I took the bus around the entire city on Saturday, including down towards the harbor, where there was a yacht sale going on. All told it took me about an hour to meander the city.It was good to get an idea of where everything was, and realize that most parts of the city really aren’t that inaccessible. The good thing about The Link Bus is that it costs $1.60, no matter how many stages you go through.

Today I rode the link to Ponsonby, which is a really nice part of the city just near K road. I walked into an art gallery and was given a recommendation to throw pottery at a place called Auckland Studio Potters in Onehunga, which might be a bit of a commute; but I’ll look into it.
I ran into Western Park , a neat green patch just at the end of K’road and beginning of Ponsonby. I read over some of my politics lecture notes as well as started to look through the course reader for Pacific Studies.
Without much warning it started to rain so I walked further down Ponsonby, under the overhangs of shops and cafes. I ran into a bakery to grab a scone for the bus ride back after avoiding mobs of schoolchildren on their way home.
Lately my life has consisted of making lists of places I want to see, researching travel, and marking spots on maps. Tonight was a lot of fun though, we went to a few happy hours at bars around the city. But tomorrow is my third day of class, and it will be a pretty hectic.

Western Park

The “I’m in a rut” blog post; wait you mean your life isn’t perfect in New Zealand?

Wow, this past week flew by, and unfortunately, I didn’t do much. I got my schedule, it is absolutely ridiculous, a blessing and a curse.

I have all of my classes on Thursday and Friday(class descriptions for another post). This leaves me with five-day weekends to travel anywhere my money will take me. Sadly, I don’t know anyone else with a schedule this flexible. Looks like I’ll be traveling alone.
So with that daunting idea in my head, I spent the first part of the week in Auckland, perusing some shops, getting some last minute things that I needed, and generally wishing that I was starting class or away somewhere.

One ray of excitement came on Tuesday when Alyssa and I saw The Dark Knight. We saw it in the biggest theatre in the World (by 2 millimeters). In IMAX. It was kind of great. We also ate at this really delicious place called Nandos. They have fire grilled chicken and the best chicken sandwich I’ve had in a while.

Lately I have been feeling a little bit confused about with who and how I want to make new friends here. I have met a few people through AustraLearn, and this weekend a few are going to Sydney for Mardi Gras, and a few others are going to Coromandal Peninsula. I may still jump on that trip, but I’m not sure. So anyways, all of these people I’ve met are nice enough, but I just can’t help but get the feeling that if I spend all my time traveling with Americans, I’m never actually going to get to know a few kiwis.

This presents an interesting tri-fecta of dilemmas.
To see things, to do things, to meet people.
Ideally I’d do all three at once, but the current predicament I’m in isn’t allowing for that.
So this weekend I may stay behind. I may join a Canoe club. I may meet new people that aren’t Americans. I may try something new. I hope I may do all of these things.

So comes the next personal admission.
The reason I came here was to test myself. And lately, after caving, luging and with Auckland’s main thoroughfares conquered, I feel as though I need a new challenge. I need a new skill to master, or at least attempt. So I am looking into doing a few new things I think would be challenging, but won’t mention them yet.

Lastly, I am trying to plan my Mid-Semester break, and may be stuck doing that one on my own as well, or at least without the whole American bandwagon, but we’ll see what unfolds. Planning the break will be my priority for this upcoming week because the break runs from 6th of April to 19th April and is coming up fast.

So while this post might be super boring for you, its actually quite cathartic for me. Typing these thoughts out here makes me feel a lot better, and makes me want to organize, prioritize, and figure out what I want out of this.

Just as the weather in Auckland is bound to change for the better within the day, so will my mood - and the current rut that I am finding myself in.