Promised Pictures

Here are the promised pictures from our last post. The picture of the lilies was taken on the side of the road, they grow everywhere here.

Northland!

We’ve been up in the wops (boonies) where Internet is hard to come by, so we have a lot to share. We’ve been staying at Kahoe Farm Hostel, where we had an old house all to ourselves! Stefano, the guy running the place, was originally from Italy, and as a perk for staying there he will cook guests proper Italian meals. On two occasions he made us a couple homemade pizzas and pastas, which were delicious! He was also a football (soccer) fiend and Bobby and Johnny got to go to his small clubs training one night. We went on some amazing hikes around the farm. Our first hike was to the Duke’s nose where Bobby, Natalie, and Johnny climbed a steep, rocky cliff. In the picture you can see Bobby and Natalie coming down the cliff hanging onto a chain. On top of the cliff you could see the ocean and all the beautiful green hills around. Our second hike was to rock pools, which is actually on their farm. This was probably our favorite hike because we met Franklin the goat who was Johnny’s best friend. He followed us around and wanted to be pet. The pools were gorgeous, very green and deep, so of course Johnny and Bobby jumped in. It was way too cold and rainy for Natalie and I. We walked through some true bush, which is what they call the wet forest around here. The only downfall to these hikes is the sand flies that bite like crazy. The bites are a little itchier than mosquito bites and last far too long. Today we drove to the west side of the island and we are staying right on the beach. It’s so awesome to hear the waves crashing right outside our window. We are going to stay at this hostel for a week and clean for a couple of hours a day for part of our accommodation. From here we can visit the 90 Mile Beach and hopefully learn to surf with our wet suites on.
Cheers, Mae

More pictures to come, it takes a long time to upload them. Sorry!

Car Talk - Meet Jordan

Here is our 1989 Subaru Legacy.  We named it Jordan because that is the name of the young guy who originally drove us around in it for our test drive (more precisely after the smell the car had that we all associated with Jordan the person).  Our version of car talk will just tell adventurous stories, no mechanical solutions to the many problems we might have.  Adventure is constant with Jordan seeing as how first of all, the steering wheel is right in there on the right side.  It's a standard which means while you're driving on the left side of the road you are trying desperately to be kind to a very old clutch while shifting with your left hand.  Left turns are dreamy and right turns are confusing and scary at best.  After handing over the 900 NZ dollars to the owner, Maegen drove away.  About two minutes from the shop we bought it at she went to pull down her visor and snapped it clean off.  You should know that we did have the car inspected and got two new tires and a cv boot (what the inspector told us to), so it should work out, but it's old and the visor really broke the ice.  The next day when we went to leave Auckland, the driver's seat belt wouldn't work.  To our great surprise we fixed it, drove off and about ten minutes later Mae, still driving at this point cause the rest of us were too scared, went to shift and pulled the whole gear shaft (the thing you hold to shift, I think it's a gear shaft) off the little knob.  We all freaked out but she shifted with the tiny knob until we could pull over and push that back on, which we'll have to keep doing all year it looks like.  Then finally we had several hours of peace with Jordan until Bobby pulled into Whangarei.  We heard a ticking which scared us again so as he went to pull over it turned into a gigantic crunch and our collective heart sank.  Again it turned out to be cosmetics as it was just the liner to the wheel well.  We try to compliment Jordan as much as possible, seeing as how that is about the best we can all do for a car, and thus far he has responded in the most exciting way. 

Great Beach

Unkown Beach near Whangarei

-  It was raining cats and dogs, literally, a very strange scientific happening; but we pulled over to get a brake from the curvy, wet road and found paradise.  As soon as the clouds broke the water turned an incredible aqua marine and the beach was the softest I've ever been on.  We climbed around the hills in front of us in the picture, through a crack in a rock, that led to another cove.  It was our best stop yet by far.

The Falls

Whangarei Falls

- We walked around the falls and it was so pretty!  Of course it was raining off and on but we really enjoyed it.

Our second day was really busy with orientation, bank accounts, and cell phones; but we got a lot done.  We've also now had a chance to try a couple NZ favorites.  L & P (which is sort of like a lemon coke but a little more like a lemon dusting agent) is actually quite good.  Actually Mae and Natalie don't like it at all and Bobby just wants to at this point, so maybe I do just because I should.  BurgerFuel might be there equivalent to In-and-Out in the sort of burger deity status it holds with the locals for fast food.  It was quite good as well, although Natalie was extremely brave and ordered "The Bastard", which had a third of a pound of beef with beetroots (her least favorite part of it), mango, avocado, bacon, aioli sauce (which was great), and maybe a couple other things I can't recall now; she was unimpressed.  We're all enjoying ourselves especially as our bodies start to adjust to the day and a half time change.  Later!  

We're in Auckland!

We got to Auckland at about 6:00 am, New Zealand time.  The flight was pretty painless as it was only 12 and a half hours from LA and we slept for most of it.  It's cool and rainy which is very welcome from WY and CO.  We left our camera in our hostel for our first walk about but will improve on that I promise.  It really feels like dinner time but we are going to have lunch.