Auckland, Piha

What's this, another blog update??!! We happen to find internet available to us at this sweet little place we got for our last few nights in this incredible country. Therefore, I thought I would take the time to download a few photos we've snapped since the last update.

Here's a nice sunset over Auckland shot I got when we pulled into port after our ferry ride back from Great Barrier Island.

Speaking of which, on this ferry ride we were FINALLY treated to a whole dolphin show!! Lots of them showed up to play infront of the ferry as we sailed along. They were spinning, jumping, grinning and playing with us for quite a ways. We really feel as though this was a wonderful feeling of completion to our trip- we had been hoping to see them the whole trip!

We spent all day today exploding our rental car of all of our accumulated stuff that we've been driving around with for a month! We rented a sweet little place in a beach village outside of Auckland to do so, on the Tasman Sea, called Piha. We got all organized & re-packed in record time, so had some time to do our last good-bye sunset on the beach.





What an amazing trip!! We know we are heading back to COLD winter, there is snow already up at the house we are told, so looking forward already to the hot tub!

We will continue to use this blog site & address for other trips & updates of our house projects, so please don't throw away the address in your website bookmarks! Come & visit again & again.

Great Barrier Island

We had a nice backpackers room the night of Eric's birthday, which we spent in Auckland, New Zealand's own little New York City. It's a bustling, busy town, but a lobster dinner was amazingly still elusive. So we settled for nice steaks at a little restaurant, and when the waitress heard it was his birthday, she surprised us both by finishing our meal off with a warm chocolate cake! We went to bed early though as the next day we had to get up at 5:30 AM to catch a ferry over to Great Barrier Island. Here is a photo of the sunrise as we got up, from the room window- you can see their version of the "space needle" in the background.

We then caught the "slow boat to china" as our backpacker host called it- to the Great Barrier Island, a large island NE of Auckland. There are barely any people living here, it's mostly hiking trails, campsites and beach! We hiked into some backcountry hot springs, which were surprisingly nice & hot, and there were lots of good pools to choose from.

We have also spent some good days just relaxing the beach, even though the clouds have continued to follow us most of the time. Here are our happy feet on the beach on a sunny day... And here is a great sunset shot we got last night.

Now we are headed back to Auckland to land and then over to a little town called Piha. We will spend some time packing all of the shells we've collected in our dirty laundry and sending it home! :)
Winding down is hard- we 1/2 want to be home again to see our pets & family, and 1/2 want the adventure to continue!

We might not get the chance to do another blog posting before we return, so thanks to ALL who have logged in to read about our trip. A big thanks to everyone who gave to our wedding registry to help us get here. It was the best gift any of you could have ever given us, the memories will last our entire lifetimes.
It has been a once in a lifetime journey.
WE LOVE YOU ALL!!
Eric & Laura

Thanksgiving in NZ

Thanksgiving in New Zealand:

We started with phone calls to each of our folks to wish our families a great Turkey Day. Then we treated ourselves to an ice cream breakfast, and promptly did nothing but sit on the beach & read books, sometimes walking on the beach looking for more shells. For lunch, Eric went out & collected fresh green mussels from the rocks at low tide, and then went snorkeling to find some lobster he could cook up as well. He was successful on the mussels, but no lobster to be found. He cooked & ate the mussels right there & then. Talk about fresh!


It decided to rain on us after that, for an entire 24 hours, the rain continued a downpour, alternating with some crazy blustery wind, with no lightening or thunder or even letting up a little bit. So we spent a very sleepless night in the tent, tried to sleep some in the car, and then gave up & drove north again to Kerikeri. This is another tourist town in the Bay of Islands, where we found a nice winery to tour & taste for the rainy afternoon. We dried our things in a backpackers, and then drove to Tutukaka for the second cold water scuba dive trip we had scheduled, to the Poor Knights Islands.
It was a windy, rough, boat ride out to these large Islands east of the mainland. There are lots of holes in the rocks and cool caves to check out. The acoustics in the “largest surveyed cave in the world” were amazing. Eric saw a short tailed manta ray, two grey moray eels, and was lucky enough to see two rare giant boarfish while diving.

Because of all of the rain, we think we missed seeing the full moon rising over the ocean. However last night we were able to catch a less than full moon rise over the nice campsite we’re at (Waipu Cove) and get some good shots. Hope it comes through in this blog.


We are now slowly working our way back south to Auckland, where we will celebrate Eric’s birthday tomorrow with a proper lobster dinner and a nice room to stay. The next morning we’ll be catching a ferry over to “Great Barrier Island” which is another wildlife reserve type of island that we will camp & travel around for the next few days. These last days before we know we have to leave seem to be flying by at astonishing speed!

Forest & Dunes

We have taken some time to also explore the forests of New Zealand, and learned about the forestry practices here. Although we’ve seen our share of clearcuts & re-planted pine forests, we have also seen some 2000 year old stands of Kauri trees- the native tree that were once almost cut to extinction for their straight wood & useful gum sap. Two in particular are on short hikes, one called the Father of the Forest, which is pictured here with both of us in front of it. Trust me, the pictures don’t do it justice. This thing was massive! Then we also visited the “Lord of the Forest,” an even older & taller Kauri tree. Find Laura in this picture (sorry, we can't figure out how to make this photo appear vertical, anyone out there know?). The Fern Trees are huge as well, and they even have flowering palm trees called Cabbage Trees.

We were going to head away from the awesome Tasman Sea that day, but when we came around a corner on the highway we saw an amazing sight. An opening of a harbor into a quaint little town that has HUGE sand dunes! Even more amazing is the fact that for only $15 you can get a boat ride over to the dunes and they give you a nice little slippery boogie board, and you can sled down the 100 ft. vertical drop, right into the Tasman Sea! It was by far the best $15 we’ve spent yet. Eric had to tear me away from it, I would have sled down those dunes all day, especially since we had a nice, warm, sunny, clear-blue sky for it. These still shots again don’t do it justice, we have some great videos of both of us sledding down, and one in particular where Eric totally bites it!

We’re now in the Paihia, a tourist town in the Bay of Islands area. We are hoping to do an all-day sea kayaking trip tomorrow. We did just win 2 for 1 fishing trip at the local pub raffle drawing, where we were killing some time while our laundry was drying. We’ll see- we’re more the kayaking type… Stay tuned!
Love, E & L
P.S.
Avocados are incredibly cheap & everywhere around here- we bought a whole bag of 10 avos for only $3! We made a big bowl of guacamole & watched a good sunset- here's a great photo, enjoy. Lovies!
P.P.S. Thanks so much Tim for giving people the links to the maps where we've been.
P.P.P.S. Dad, temp is about 70ish on the good days.

Rotoura & Coromandel

North Island News:

To help soak out the soreness from our legs from that massive hike, we traveled to Rotoura, a town known for it's extensive thermal pools & vents. Here is a photo of a hill side just steaming out of every crevice. Some smell like sulphur.

They even have public soaking pools in the city park, which is a nice, large park. The photo with the flowers (and you can kind of see some steam in the background) is from the City Park. There are literally thermal vents everywhere, bubbling masses of mud, we couldn't imagine how anyone builds buildings around here- how would get a foundation in? It reminded us of Yellowstone National Park.
We decided to splurge on ourselves & get a hotel room with our own private hot pool in it! Sorry, no photos to share!

Then we went north up to the Coromandel Peninsula. Here we found nice beaches and a little sun, blue waters. The strangest thing we heard about was the "Hot Water Beach" where hordes of people go to dig a hole in the sand right where some thermal spots are, and make your own hot spring right there on the beach! We're heading further north up to the tip of the N. Isl, so keep tuned.

Mordor

Today we did a huge, 7 hour hike through the Tongarrio National Park, in the middle of the North Island. This is where they filmed "Mordor" in the Lord of the Rings films. It lives up to this image- stark volcanoes with only low, alpine growth, some thermal vents spouting off smelly gases, cool thermal pools, and at the top it was incredibly windy & cold. Here are some images. As you can see, there was lots of snow under-foot.



Personally, (Laura here) I barely survived, my legs hurt so bad at the end! It's good to push one's self every now & again. Eric was just fine- it was incredibly steep going both up & down, and we saw a group turn around it was just too hard. There are tons of people who do this trek every day, and some that can do it in less than 5 hours, amazing!

4th Update

Hello again!
We’ve been busy, seeing lots of sights.
On the west coast of the south island, we saw the “Pancake Rocks” which were very unusual. We waited for high tide, when there were “blow holes” that the water would come spouting out of- but we didn’t catch the tide just right. We could hear it building though, with large BOOMS of the waves echoing on the rocks below. They haven’t figured out yet what exactly makes the rocks layer themselves like this.


Then back in Christchurch for a day, we took in their incredibly large & free city botanical gardens, right in the middle of town. It had a river running through it that you could take a gondola boat ride on, and tons of walkways & bridges to all sorts of gardens. Many 100+ year old trees, from all over the world, each labeled with their type & where they came from. The air in the park was so filled with flower aroma, I wish I could have bottled it up & shipped it home! Here is us in the main Rose Garden.


We then drove to the north tip of the south island, the Abel Tasman area. We found a great beach to sit on & do nothing for a day! Pohara Beach, Takaka, Golden Bay. Many thanks to all who said they were sending blue skies our way- we got it! We watched the tide go out, gathered pretty shells, and sunburned the skin. It was cool to say that we were in the Tasman Sea! We even cooked up bacon on the beach for BLTs, and topped it off with chocolate cake & champagne~ what a day on the beach!







What I think was one of our finest days yet, we spent sea kayaking in the Marlborough Sounds, at the north tip of the South Island. We both took to sea kayaking like a fish in water, and loved it!! We are already planning to change a few things around on the North Island itinerary to fit in more sea kayaking!










No dolphins or penguins, but plenty of friendly ducks & other cool kayak mates from Germany & Wales, and a local Kiwi.
Instead of doing an over-night trip on kayak, we hope to do that on the North Island where it is reported to be warmer, nicer weather. Therefore we went ahead & boarded the ferry to the North Island a few days earlier than planned. Incredible ride over the open water where the Tasman Sea meets the Pacific Ocean- got some great sunset shots.

Thanks for checking in! More to come. Hope all is well with everyone. Be sure to email us or leave comments here. Love to all!
L&E

3rd update

Howdy folks,

We're now in the Abel Tasman area, a great beach national park (good idea!) and yesterday I saw my first whale!! :) Here is a lame photo, in person it's so much more powerful.

Here is a photo of us unpacking the rental car at the campsite where we are at last night & tonight. We finally decided to give ourselves a break & NOT drive anywhere today, just sit on the beach & write postcards. :)
Tomorrow we head to Picton, to get ready for a sea kayaking trip.

Missing everyone! Be sure to post comments here, we get them!

2nd update

Hello!
We're in Christchurch again now, after finishing our tour of the southern & western parts of the South Island. It is a VERY wet & rainy part of the country! We managed to find some sun now & again, so here's a couple of sunny photos.
It takes awhile to upload photos over here. I will never take our wireless in USA for granted again!
Next we are heading north, to do my first Whale Watching boat ride, which we are promised not only whales, but dolphins & penguins as well. Then we'll be doing a two day, one night sea kayaking trip along the very northern tip of the South Island, before taking a ferry over to the North Island.
Here are the old posting photos:

First update

Greetings from the other side of the world!

Stewart Island was our1st notable stop along the way. Here we got to trek through some amazing temperate rainforest, most of it while it wasn’t even raining. Parrots and parakeets, weird sounding Tui birds, HUGE and colorful wood pidgins, and many other cool birds, thank to having no predators on the island. We haven’t had the fortune to happen upon a penguin or a kiwi bird yet, nor did we get to see the southern lights, but all in all, a fantastic first destination. The picture of Laura sort-of shows how green and lush everything is, but really doesn’t do it justice. The shot of me is overlooking the bay where the ferry that took us between the main island & this one docks. All of it very, very cool.

From there we went to Fiordland, where we are right now, which is an amazing place. Imagine Colorado, but with mountains straight up for thousands of feet, and an ocean or lake at the base. There were tons of 2000 ft. waterfalls coming straight down the face of these mountains, falling into the ocean that we were on, floating by on the diving vessel. We even saw some seals too, sunning themselves on the rocks.

Yesterday we went to the glow-worm caves, where they wouldn’t let us take pictures, but those little blue guys were just the strangest things ever. When the turned off the lights, and you look up at the cave ceiling, it was like looking at a universe of stars. I even saw constellations!

Today, we went scuba diving in 45-55 degree water, and saw a small shark, ginormous deep-sea coral, and some clawless lobsters. It’s a good thing they have a hot tub at the back-packers lodge we’re staying in, or we’d still be cold.

Everything is wonderful. Wish we had time to share everything with you right now. They charge you for every minute you use the internet in this country, so we’ve had to keep our connections short and to the point. Plus, right now anyway, the connection is too slow to handle uploading the photos we had picked out to post here. We'll try again soon, as we're heading into Queenstown to do some laundry & will look again for some wireless connections.

Much, much more when we get back home, and some more periodic tidbits while we are here. Hope you are all well. We are!

Love to all,
E&L

Up & Away!

Hello Friends & Family~

Eric & I are finally all packed & ready to board our plane for New Zealand! We have waited a long year & a half for this honeymoon, and we intend on making the most of the 34 days we have planned in the country- scuba diving, snorkeling, canoing, sea kayaking, whale watching, and of course just sitting on a beach!
We also plan on posting our pictures & notes from our trip on this "blogspot" so please bookmark this page in your Internet Browsers and visit it often. We are told there are many internet cafes around the islands, plus we are bringing a laptop in case we can find some good wireless somewhere! :)
If you would like to email us, please do! Eric: egraves@accuer.com; Laura: at808a@msn.com
I have no photos to post yet, but just wait to see!
All our love to each of you, and we hope it isn't long before we can share our stories with you in person!
Love,
Eric & Laura Graves