When One Door Closes...

We all know the old motto ‘When one door closes, another one opens.’ While in this case, I’m adapting that slogan to ‘When one plane departs (without you on it), go drinking on Waiheke.’ Just wait. It’ll catch on soon enough. Sam, Jenna, and I were supposed to fly to Christchurch and then drive to Queenstown after our camping trip. We planned to hike Franz Josef again as last time we were here, it got cancelled due to poor weather. I packed the day before and got everything ready, being the responsible adult that I am. And then we decided to go out the night before...and we missed our flight. Yeah. 

Jenna still went to Queenstown the next day and stayed until she had to go home, but Sam and I had work and it didn’t make sense to go with that first day lost because our time would be cut short. That’s when our manager Ashley invited us to go to Waiheke with her and two of her friends. Sam and I had done Waiheke last time we were here and it was one of the best days of my life and one of the main reasons I wanted to move back to New Zealand, working on the island at the winery Mudbrick. (Obviously, I didn’t consider the 40 minute ferry it would take to get there every day so that didn’t end up happening.) But we still got to visit there once again! 

We rented a car this time instead of doing a guided tour which was nice because we got to see everything at its own pace. It was surreal to see Mudbrick again (the first winery we went to of course). It was just as beautiful as I remembered it. We also got to see a few new wineries like Wild on Wahieke. We found a beach later on and just hung out for a bit before heading back home. Ashley also invited us out to a BYO Italian dinner – the first time I’ve had real Italian food in months! It was a really nice day and made me feel better about missing the flight. I think the ultimate lesson learned here is that I’m just not meant to climb Franz Josef...and maybe not drink the night before a flight? After all, the whole point of the complimentary drinks airlines offer is to get drunk ON the plane, not BEFORE. Well, lesson learned then.

On a side note, we have rebooked our flight to Queenstown. Wish us better luck this time around...

Glamping: Combination of Glamour and Camping

Believe it or not, I went roughing it out in the woods, leaving all necessities behind except for a tent, some sneakers, and a flashlight. I caught fish and cooked my own food by campfire which I started myself by rubbing two sticks together. I became one with nature, just (wo)man and the wilderness....

 

Alright, I may have also brought my makeup, a book, a few outfit changes (you never know what occasion may arise), iPod, my Little Mermaid towel, flip flops, pillows, a car....I think you get the gist: I’m high maintenance and my idea of “roughing it” is only being able to bring an over-packed duffle bag to a camping ground that has on-site kitchen and bathroom facilities.

The camping trip idea has been something I’ve been dying to do, much to Sam’s dismay. After living with me for the last 4 years, I think she realized I may be in over my head. But I was determined and when her friend Jenna from back home came to visit it seemed like the push we needed to finally go ahead and do it. We also invited two other girls Becks, a German exchange student who we met through a mutual friend, and Elyse, another American who we also met through a mutual friend.

Of course, true to form, we didn’t book ANYTHING before the trip. Monday morning (the day we were leaving) Sam called a car company and they had a car for us, we picked up a tent from our friend Kasey (luckily her flatmate had one or I don’t know what we would have been sleeping in), and we got a map and were on our way. You may have noticed that we didn’t know exactly where we were going or where we were staying yet. Minor details. 

Luckily Sam drove and we found our way there pretty easily for the most part (also making a pit-stop at a winery and having a glass each...) Right when we got to Mount Maunganui, we got a little confused about how to get to the campsite and it took all five of us studying a map to figure it out.

Everyone at the winery

Team effort of trying to figure out the map

When we showed up to the campsite, the lady informed us that someone had just cancelled their beachfront lot so we got a spot right on the beach! It was so beautiful. We set up our tents and set out to find food (at the supermarket.) We got some dips and bread and ate on the beach until it got dark. 

We went to bed pretty early because we planned on getting up at 5AM to climb the mountain and watch the sunrise. I obviously did not come up with this idea and was a little worried I would be cranky in the morning since we all know I am not, nor ever will be, a morning person. But getting up early was no problem (probably because I never actually slept due to the ground being so uncomfortable) and we were on our way! The hike up wasn’t bad at all and once we got to the top, we just relaxed and waited for the sun to come up. It was probably the most beautiful sunrise I’ve ever seen in my life.

Mount Maunganui at 5AM

 After coming down from the mountain, I think I was delirious from lack of sleep and still in an active mode for some reason so I decided to tag along with Becks who was going down to the beach to “work out a little.” What I didn’t know that Becks is actually a legit fitness instructor and after running on the beach for about five minutes, she had me doing all these crazy exercises like sprints, frog jumps, push-ups, sit-ups, I think one was even called the Spiderman! There was even a stop watch involved...I couldn’t move my legs for the next week after that.

The rest of the day was pretty relaxing – we went to the beach and laid out (I got a little bit sunburned unfortunately) so when we got back I stayed inside and read “I Know This Much Is True” – good book! 

We decided to stay over one more night since we enjoyed it so much and I got less sleep this night than I did the night before if possible (mainly because someone was hogging all the covers...Sam). Unfortunately, I had class the next night so I left early with Elyse to go back to Auckland. But I finally got the camping trip out of my system and I’m glad I did it! I’m also glad to be sleeping on a mattress once again...

Music: New Zealand Edition

So I’ve heard a few New Zealand artists here that I really like mainly because they play at work all day or on one of the three TV channels we actually have in our apartment. The first is Gin Wigmore and I currently like Too Late for Lovers, Hey Ho, and Under My Skin. Very Unique voice. 

And the second artist is Zowie. I’ve only heard one song of hers called Broken Machine but it’s very catchy.

Sam and I also recently went to Big Day Out which is a huge concert here with sooo many artists.

Some highlights:

• Kids of 88 who were amazing! My House and Just A little Bit were my favorite.
• The Naked and the Famous were good – two songs Punching in a Dream and Young Blood are really good
• John Butler Trio has a song which apparently has been out for a while but I just heard it recently – Lion Man – it’s amazing.

We went from almost 11 in the morning to 11 at night. We also had to come up with some creative ways to sneak in alcohol aka putting vodka in an All Purpose seasoning bottle strapped to my leg....it was like prom all over again. We even got to cut the line and be VIP because one of the security guards there is a bouncer at Fox’s. Yeah, were kind of a big deal.

BEFORE PICTURE

AFTER PICTURE

 As you can tell from the before and after pictures, it was a fun, crazy, rainy, and long day.

That Time We Planned A Trip We Already Took

 So our manager Ashley is from Canada and had two of her friends from back home coming for a visit. They had planned a trip to the Bay of Islands and Sam and I happened to have off those same days and they invited us along. 

 We ended up staying in the same town and hostel that we went to on our first ever Loyola organized trip the first week we got to New Zealand. It was so funny/weird to be back and compare the two experiences and how different they were. Last time we were still getting to know everyone and everything was new. Our last trip was also jam packed with every tourist-y thing there was to do. 

This time around, we just got to relax on the beach and actually go into the main town and wonder/explore. We also took a ferry ride over to Russell and got drinks right on the water and watched a live band play – nothing too fancy, basically two guys trying to raise money to get to Australia. It was nice to travel with other people for a change as well. 

Coromandel: Home of the Lukewarm Water Beaches

         We finally had days off from work so we planned our first real trip out of the city! We went to Coromandel and stayed in Coromandel Town which was a very small cute town. 

       The first day we got there, we rented bikes from our hostel and biked down to a local beach. We didn’t have on bathing suits so we decided to come back another day. Biking was one of my favorite parts of the trip. I felt so young and carefree. That night we decided to go out to dinner. Coromandel is known for their mussels and oysters so we went to a restaurant called Pepper Tree and got oyster shots with tomato juice.....Needless to say, I don’t think I’ll be having oysters again in the very near future.

Baby Beluga

      
  The next day, we had planned to go to a hot water beach and Cathedral Cove (which was in the movie Narnia apparently?) The day before we had organized a rental car so we could drive ourselves. We show up at the gas station to pick it up – it was a cute little blue car that we named Baby Beluga. We got in, put our stuff in the back and were ready to head off! – then we realized the car was manual. 

 Since neither of us can drive stick shift, we had to walk down to the other part of town and get a rental car from another company. We were lucky they were able to give it to us on such short notice! This time it was a silver Nissan we named Bernice – and we were off! – for real this time. 

Bernice!

         Sam drove first on a road called 309 which isn’t really paved and is very narrow and windy, but we made it out alive! On the way, we even stopped at a little stand and bought some Manuka Honey which NZ is known for. We made up a road trip scavenger hunt to keep the car ride fun, such as get currency from another country and take a picture with a live animal – which almost got me killed by a cow with horns, but that’s a story for another time. 

Scavenger Hunt List

Currency from different countries - Check!

         We went to the hot water beach first, rented shovels, and started digging. It wasn’t too packed, but we couldn’t really find a spot that was hot anywhere so we ended up with a little lukewarm bath instead of a hot water pool. We even went in the water and I wanted to ride the waves but it was impossible to get passed them before they broke and I almost died trying so we went back to the safety of our kiddie pool....

         Then we went to Cathedral Cove and we had to walk about 45 minutes to get there. I swear halfway there I wanted to turn around and someone was like don’t worry it’s worth it...and it was. Absolutely beautiful. We were actually able to swim in this water and we swam out to a giant rock and jumped off. We then went down to another bay by Cathedral Cove called Gemstone Bay and you get to the end of the stairs and its literally all rocks straight to the water! It was very difficult to finally make it down but we managed and then we went snorkeling. I was scared of sharks and I just had to tell myself that it’s shallow water and there are no sharks there – and then one of the next days we heard there was an 8 meter Great White in shallow waters right by Cathedral Cove....

 

        
        I drove the rest of the way home. I’m sure Sam was scared for her life but I managed to do a pretty decent job. Krissy would have been sick to her stomach with my driving but she wasn’t there to complain. 

        Sadly, the next day there was a cyclone and the weather was crap so couldn’t go back to that first beach like we had planned. We sat in the hostel and Sam watched ‘Into the Wild’ while I passed out on the other couch. Not the day we had planned, but it was so nice to be out of Auckland for a change and finally be able to travel a bit more.

One Day We Went to Rangi-To-To...

It's actually spelled Rangitoto, but for some reason whenever Sam says the word, she insists on pronouncing every syllable and ends up sounding like an old woman. (If anyone has seen Salad Fingers on Youtube, it is very similar to how he says 'rusty spoons'...creepy I know) 

Rangitoto is another dormant volcano around Auckland, but it’s interesting because it’s uninhabited. There's no stores, cafes, or anything. There are a few historic baches on the island, but now they are just for show and no one lives there.

We packed a lunch, took the ferry over, and started our hike. It was interesting to hike up because the trail was surrounded by dark volcanic rock (which I thought was soil at first haha). After about an hour, we took a detour to travel through some lava caves. It was cool to think that they were once formed by lava and now, years and years later, were just walking through them. A half hour later, we reached the top and it was one of my favorite views so far. It was a lot higher than Devonport and I was able to see the Skytower and Harbor Bridge together.

Volcanic rock on Rangitoto

Lava caves

Once we got down to the bottom, we had to wait for the ferry so we walked around and looked at some of the old baches. There was also a cement pool that was empty when we got there, but then when the tide came in, it filled up and was like an actual swimming pool. We put our feet in for a while and relaxed until the ferry finally came to take us home. I don't really remember what we did when we got back to the apartment, but if I know myself at all I probably followed my active and healthy day with some ice cream and a nap! Hey, baby steps...

Arsty photo shot curtesy of Ms. Nicole Riverso

After All, Tomorrow Is Another Day (And Year)...

Happy New Year!! I recently bought and watched Gone with the Wind here so I had to use that quote somehow. 

       This year for New Year’s Eve, Sam and I had work from 1 until closing. Fox’s was having a Corona Beach Party theme so we dressed up in Corona colors – blue, yellow, and white - and wore a beachy outfit. I thought I would be really upset working New Year’s Eve and debated going out of my way to get fired before New Year’s Eve so I could go out and celebrate. I even called the New Zealand Government Employment Hotline to see if I could get deported for not giving two weeks notice and just never show up to work – Unfortunately, they didn’t answer because it was a holiday week. And as Michele advised me, “Don’t burn your bridges.” So I sucked it up and worked. 

It actually wasn’t bad at all and I enjoyed myself. Right before midnight, I snuck outside to see the fireworks from the Skytower and Harbour Bridge – I don’t care if I was working, I wasn’t going to miss that. It was amazingly beautiful! Sam had shown me a picture on the internet of fireworks coming out of the Skytower on New Year’s and we always said that we want to see that one day. It was amazing to actually see it in person and to think we actually did it when we were only kind of half joking about it. (I didn't have my camera on me so I only have pictures on my phone unfortunately!)

There was also a contest for who could sell the most Corona buckets, best attitude, and overall sales for the night and Sam won overall sales! She got two vouchers for a day of free surf lessons (so I won too - by default - because she’s obviously taking me). We ended up getting home around 6 in the morning after closing and passed out. 

I must say, it was nice to actually not be hungover on the first day of the New Year for a change. We decided since we didn’t do anything big on Christmas, we would go all out on New Year’s Day. We got a bottle of champagne and went out to dinner at Mecca which is a really nice restaurant near Fox’s. For an appetizer, we got bread with hummus, olives, and a roasted red pepper dip. Then for my main course, I got salmon fillet over cous cous and it was delicious! Finally, for dessert, we both got chocolate cake with pears, strawberries, and chocolate sauce. It was the perfect first meal of 2011. I haven't thought about New Years resolutions yet, but it would probably be to live more in the moment and take time to appreciate things in life and do what makes you happy - which I'm basically trying to do here anyway ;-).