Nopvember 4, 2008

It's been a while...but I've been writing.
It starts with a couple days ago..

Sunday the 2^nd

Today we finally left Auckland. The goal was to make it to Leigh and Goat Island. On our way we stopped on a very cute side street with amazing beach views and found a bunch of cliffs to climb on. They had some of the coolest shells every! It was the most awesome little private beach ever with conque shells and clamshells everywhere! The boys had seen a regional park on the map, so we drove through Manly Town and took a slight detour and stopped for lunch in Shakespeare Regional Park. We sat on a grassy bluff eating baguettes with ham/chicken luncheon meat and dijonnaise, looking out onto the ocean with cliffs on one side and water and trees all around. Ari took a quick nap and Mitch perused around and spotted a sign that said “Waterfall Gully 5 mins” So, of course we had to head off down the trailhead towards the waterfall gully 5 mins and lookout point 30 mins. We had no idea what we had stumbled upon. Within 1 minute up the trail, we were in a forest with a small river winding through it. The coolest trees I’d ever seen winding here and there and everywhere. We made it quickly to the gorgeous waterfall and then decided, we can’t stop here! Ari had found a map of the area we were in and we discovered there were a whole bunch of different trails that went around the whole park-ocean on one side, and ocean on the other. So, we decided to keep going and see where we found ourselves. All of a sudden we came to a clearing up a hill...and cows-lots of cows. And the path went straight through them…so we started walking up the pasture. They would come really close without even really taking notice that we were there. It was awesome! We were going to pet them, but didn’t want to risk being charged. We got some really great pictures, though. As we made our way up the cow pasture, we realized that this pasture led into another pasture…SHEEP!

!! FINALLY!!!! Lots of them! Tons! And babies! So, we walked through cow and then sheep up to a lookout point. Sea all around, green pastures between us and the water, and sheep and cow everywhere...this is what we imagined New Zealand looking like….we were not disappointed. We then headed out further toward another bluff down to a beach. And the boys walked out into the water…ridiculously far out and it barely touched their waists. Then we walked through more sheep pastures and when the tide went out we made our way through the tidal pools. Before returning back to the car we walked the marshes and up the driveway back to our car. We couldn’t believe our luck! In the last three hours we had gone from beach side bluff to pastures, to ocean, to tidal pools, to wetlands. The terrain was amazing! And beautiful! We decided we didn’t want to go any further and would stick to finding a campground around there. We went to the information office and met a very nice man who loves his job and instead of charging 10 a head, he charged us 10 total for the site and gave us a great insider trip around the entire north island to follow. It’s basically the trip a park ranger takes w

hen they want to see awesome stuff. So we scoped out a site, and then went to try and find a market for dogs and mallows. We found cheese dogs and nothing for mallows. L We went back to the site, got some wood and started a fire wit some beers in hand and armed with being in the middle of nowhere with bird calls we had never experienced before. Just as we were finishing our dogs and thinking of heading back to the tents to pack it in, the weather changed and the rain started in quickly. We all jumped in the car and decided to put on a movie to wait it out since we hadn’t even unpacked our sleeping bags or changed into sleeping clothes yet. Ari fell asleep 5 minutes into the movie (of course) and Mitch went out to his tent after an hour and a lull in the rain. Ari and I are still in the van and ari is still asleep. I think we’ll stay in the van tonight. Otherwise we have to unpack everything in the wet dark and move it into the tent and get sleeping bags unrolled, pillows created, and keep things organized. So not going to happen….oh well. It was an awesome day. Tomorrow we head to Leigh and Goat Island and we’ll 

go diving and snorkeling and maybe do some fishing, We’re going to try and get a little more self-sustainable tomorrow so that we can cook our own food and catch our own food. I’ll let you knowhow that goes!

Xoxo

Alissa

Tuesday the 4^th

Today is election day….well, not really…it’s still the 3^rd in the US. Very disconcerting.

The first night in the van….sucked. I was cold with no blanket a

nd uncomfortable all night. I kept waking up feeling like someone was watching us. Turns out the campground used to be a Maori burial ground. Figures.

So, we packed up camp and headed out to find a Wharehouse (Farehouse)—when the Maori write their language in English, they didn’t like the letter ‘F’ because it symbolized some evil being. So, anything that is ‘Wh’ is pronounced ‘F’. We spent way too much money buying another sleeping bag, eating tools, gas stove, gas, blow-up mattress, pillows, tarps, knives, utensils. I can’t even think of what else we bought, but it filled up two shopping carts and our entire van. After three hours there, we went to the grocery store and picked up rice, beans, packaged noodles, and boxed non-perisha

ble milk (yea…it makes me a little nervous too), and we are now fully self-sustainable. All we need is a place to park. J

The system for paying for things is really interesting. Prices are labeled to the penny, but the smallest coinage they have is .10 cents. So 2 bottles of soda is NZ$5.99. But when you go to pay, everything is rounded. So NZ$5.99 rounds to NZ$6.00. But it comes back to you in the situations like our groceries came to NZ$34.02. So we only had to pay NZ$34.00. Weird.

So we then headed out. Stopped at some really cool beaches. When the tide goes out, it really goes out and you can walk out as if you are walking on the floor of the ocean. It is one of the most amazing experiences. We finally made it to Leigh and Goat Island. (By finally I mean we drove another half hour…we really are taking our time with this, but that’s the point.) We went to a really odd campground that was up on a hill overlooking the bay and Goat Island. I hid in the car so we onl

y had to pay for 2 people instead of 3. It’s a rip-off really. Why are we going to pay NZ$12/person when we have 1 van and were all going to sleep in it?!?!

Anyway, we parked the van and Ari and I (okay, I) decided we wanted to sleep in the tent, so I pitched it and got it all set up with our sleeping bags and pillows while the boys unpacked and organized the car and all of our new possessions.

Ari then made up delicious pasta in the kitchen and we sat on a table watching the sun go down as we ate. It was absolutely breathtaking.

The boys have taken to talking in accents…mostly they sound like really old British women…but it makes for great laughs and good driving entertainment.

Last night it poured rain again. It was so cool. We wer

e lying in the tent in the middle of nowhere with the sound of the beach, the sound of the birds, and the pouring rain. It was really serene.

Until I woke up at 4am this morning having to pee really bad!!! And it was no fun listening to the rain hoping there would be a lull soon. Then the birds started waking up and one of them sounded like a woman from Saw V screaming uncontrollably. It was awful. Finally I fell asleep again. Woke up around 8:30, we made oatmeal, and headed to the dive shop. This area is supposed to have some of the most amazing snorkeling and diving for anyone. So, we grabbed our gear, rented suits (it’s cold, but not nearly as cold as Monterey, so 3mm suits felt like nothing!) and we headed out to snorkel. Mitch isn’t scuba certified, yet. So we only snorkeled...and it was enough. We saw HUGE fish...and they thought we were so cool they followd up everwhere. Blue Morae, Red snapper, eels, jellies, stingrays, and lots of things. It was amazing. Sometimes it was a little difficult because the water was 

still choppy from the weather, but it was still so clear and absolutely beautiful.

We are still having a really great time. Having three people means that everything has to be debated and making decisions can be rather laborious some times, and we are getting a little tired of it, I think. But we all make a pretty good team and we are open about it and talk about it when we’re getting frustrated, so I think we’ll be okay.

It’s getting late now, but we are going to try and make it the Whangarai (I think that’s the proper spelling…I don’t have the map in front of me.) So…hopefully I’ll be able to be in decent touch, but we are trying to take the beach roads (which means gravel and no internet anywhere) so it’s a bit of a challenge. But we do have the phone now so anyone can call.

01164211732453

xoxo

Alissa

I'll add pictures later.