12/31/07

Final greetings from Aoteroa, New Zealand!

As we are about to board a plane taking us from Auckland to Adelaide, let us get you up to date on our adventures on the North Island. When the rain finally abated, we enjoyed a bit of kayaking on Lake Rotorua and a visit to Lake Timaru which is the site of a volcano that erupted in the 1880’s burying a village and destroying the major tourist attraction of the time, some geothermal terraces to which people came by horse and carriage.

We drove to Tairua on the Coromandel peninsula on the Pacific side. Coromandel is a beautiful area of native Kauri forests, scenic bluffs offering coastal views and vestiges of hippy life-styles. While we were in Tairua we observed the boats arriving at the dock during a major deep-sea sports fishing competition. The winner was a woman who fought for 2 ½ hours (standing up) to bring in a 77 kilogram marlin.  Tairua was a great base from which to go to Cathedral Cove, a bay of soaring rock formations, caves and arches, and to Hot Water Beach. Hot Water Beach is an area where hot springs lie under the ocean sand. During low tide you can dig a hole in the sand, which fills with hot water and voila, you have your own spa. Jordan thought it was great fun! In spots the water was so hot that it could scald you unless you mixed it with cool salt water!

From the Coromandel we pushed up through Auckland to Paihia on the Bay of Islands. The Bay of Islands is as it sounds – a bay with over 400 islands within it. It is very scenic and historical. The bay area boasts having the earliest European settlement - wild whalers followed by mounted police and missionaries. The town of Russell, a ferry ride across from Paihia, was New Zealand’s first capital and had New Zealand’s first church and cemetery. Near Paihia is Waitangi the site where the treaty was signed between the British and the Maoris in 1840. There are strong feelings today that the treaty was highly important in the history of New Zealand but that the Maoris were betrayed and cheated and that there is restitution due with regards to land claims, resources, etc. Waitangi Day on Feb. 6 is an important National Holiday.

It was a bit of a shock to come back to Auckland, a huge sprawling city of over a million with many suburbs, box stores, traffic jams and big city issues. It was hard to get excited until the hosts of our home-stay (in a 100 year old mansion) were very helpful and suggested some drives in the outskirts which gave us a different sense of the city. There are 48 dormant volcanoes in the Auckland area and each has been designated as a ‘domain,” a preserved parkland. In addition, there are 21 regional parks surrounding Auckland comprised of the “Wild West Coast” the Waitakere mountain range, picturesque peninsulas, sheltered harbours and rugged bush. We went to Piha Beach and Kerikeri beach on the “wild west coast” where the movies Whale Rider and The Piano were filmed. Apart from a few surfers, they remain untamed and rugged, and only a half hour drive out of Auckland. The route there is called the Scenic Highway and runs along  former volcanic ridges affording views of downtown Auckland, the volcanic cones, and the bays and harbours that surround the city on all sides. In Auckland itself, we enjoyed the Auckland Museum which along with displays about natural history, volcanology, and the history of New Zealand’s wars, holds the best collection in the world of Pacific Island artifacts. There was a special display on the inventions of Leonardo DaVinci with working models of his prescient ideas for helicopters, bicycles, drills, and various mechanical devices.  We visited Kelly Tarlton’s Antarctic World and drove through the posh districts on the hills above the waterfront. We walked along the harbour where it seems like there are a thousand sailboats and pleasure boats moored (included Bill Gate’s Ulysses), and strolled the streets and alleys of downtown. We took the ferry to Devonport on the North Shore and stepped into as many galleries as we could manage. Two attractions we avoided were the bridge climbing and bungy jumping on the harbour bridge and a trip to the top of their highest landmark, the Sky Tower. We settled for watching “the sevens” on TV, an international rugby tournament being held in Wellington, and moaned as Canada got beaten by Fiji and Scotland. 

We have thoroughly enjoyed our time in New Zealand and leave with mixed feelings. Just as we are becoming semi-intelligent about the All Blacks (NZ revered rugby team), about  road works and traffic rules, and about buying capsicums, kumaras, hoggets and rock melons, we will now have to learn a new language and new ways all over again. We wish we could stay longer, but also look forward to the experiences that await us in Australia.

 - Carol, Erich and Jordan