Back to Work and New Zealand Cultural Training

So after the trip to Northland it’s back to work. John’s first day back was rather nice. One of the New Zealand’s Ministries held a banquet at the White House and it happened to be the Ministry Tim Webster works for. So Tim and John had a moment to catch up as John refilled the wine glasses. Marian’s work also went as well as usual.

Outside of work we started our New Zealand Cultural training and rented the first season of The Flight of the Concords. Sunday was Anzac day, Australia and New Zealand Army Corps (kind of like Memorial Day), and we celebrated by going to Te Papa, the Wellington Museum. We saw the Giant Squid exhibit and a Pompeii Exhibit. Both were pretty neat. We also went to John’s coworker’s (Kat) house for a late night roast at the end of the week. It wasn’t planned to be a late night roast but the 2.5 kg took a bit longer to cook than planned so we ate at 11:30 at night. Well worth the wait. We met James, Kat’s roommate and were plenty entertained by their shenanigans.

Cathedral Cove and Burning Our Feet

The next day we ventured out to see the “must see” cathedral coves. Again we had some beach time, but this area was another protected marine reserve and very picturesque.

Overlooking the south side of the Cathedral Cove Marine reserve towards Hahei:


The first beach of the reserve, Stingray Bay:


Cathedral Cove Beach:




On our way out of Coromandel we had one last adventure before heading back to Wellington. There is a beach which sits on top of several hot springs. Thus – Hot Water Beach. It is best to wait until low tide, so you can dig yourself a little pool and enjoy the warm water. Well, evidently there was a recent tide which came and wiped out a lot of sand, so it was fun instead to dig our feet into the warm sand and burn our feet on the incoming hot water! It was also fun because people gather here at low tide every day – it was sort of fun just to be part of the excitement.

Here is John hopelessly trying to create his hot water bath:


Here is Marian warming her toes:

We then had a LONG drive back, where we arrived at 3:00 AM, and Marian worked at 7:30! It was a great Northland/Coromandel Peninsula trip.

Coromandel and New Chums Beach

We woke up in Coromandel town after a terrifying drive along the Coromandel coastline the night before. After grabbing a coffee, we drove to the other side of the peninsula, stopping off at a viewpoint.

Looking west at Coromandel:


Looking east at the Pacific:


We stopped in to find out where would be a good place to relax on the beach for the day. We lucked out with some great weather, and were advised to go to New Chums Beach, a hidden gem tucked away along the coastline. We meandered along a path for about 30 minutes where we came to this lovely area. It was only us, the sun, the sand, the water, two ladies and a nudey man all day! Fantastic.

Whanganui and Goat Island

In Whanganui the following day, we opted to check out the Kiwi House. It is a museum/gallery situated on a historical piece of property that has several other interesting structures such the first women’s prison (looked like an outhouse), and an old homestead. The Kiwi House itself – has a Kiwi (who would have thought?) However, we were quite disappointed to not be able to see the Kiwi. The lights in the viewing area are very dim, because they are nocturnal and light hurts their eyes. The fellow did not make an appearance the three times we walked through. In the meantime, we walked around the property, saw some peacocks, some baby chickens and of course, the other historical buildings. It was OK, but we were sad not to get to meet the Kiwi.

Here is Marian in a historical women's prison:


Here is a friendly Pukeko at the closed Bird Recovery Center:


And finally here is the peacock who is the guardian of the toilets


On our way South, we stopped off at one of the wineries. We can’t remember which one, but we do remember we didn’t care for it much. We will stick with wines from the Hawkes Bay/Martinborough/Blenheim region, I think. Then we saw Goat Island Marine Reserve. If the day had been a little clearer or warmer, we would have snorkeled here. Marian first read about Goat Island in a National Geographic article years ago. It was one of the first established marine protected parks in the entire world. See article here:

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2007/04/new-zealand-coast/warne-text


So naturally, after reading this article, I was quite excited to see the reserve in person. Although we couldn’t go it, we went up to the rocks edges and could see fish swimming everywhere – pretty exciting. Here is a snapper we saw that the lady next to us estimated was about 50 years old.



Here are some other picture of Goat Island:


Here are some pictures of the coast:




On our way back through Auckland, we stopped in at Lois and Steves’ just to see if we could bug them. Who answered the door? Not Lois, not Steve, but Marissa Rosati! She and her family were visiting for 2 months! It was great to see someone from back home and Marissa was excited to be back in NZ where she spent some time several years ago (she is the Websters’ niece). We also saw Maggie, our Italian friend again. It was a nice chit chat and we sent the Websters our regards through Marissa, who informed us that they were out of town for the evening at a wedding.

We then drove further to Coromandel.

Dolphins, Dolphins and more Dolphins…plus a few islands

It was an early morning to make sure we didn’t miss breakfast, which was going to be needed for our long day ahead of us. The plan is to sail to on of the outer islands and kayak to shore, go on a hike to get the scenic view of the other islands, then go snorkeling and head back to the boat to go back to Paihia. It was a beautiful sunrise to start the day:



After breakfast we started sailing to the island and our morning entertainment showed up. A pod of bottlenose dolphins started to follow the boat. We all ‘oooed’ and ‘ahhed’ like a bunch of little girls watching one of them Dicaprio movies. As well everyone started taking pictures and pointing out the different areas the dolphins were showing up. After 10 minutes and probably 60 pictures later we expected the pod to swim away but they kept on following us. They continued entertaining us for about 40 more minutes, jumping out of the water, swimming under the boat, swimming next to the boat and one even tried to push a fish on to the back of the boat. In total we took about 158 photos and 10 videos. Check out the highlights:









We then made it to the outer island (I believe Waewaetorea) for the day of outdoor activity. We kayaked to the shore and hiked up the hill to get the view of the Bay of Islands. It was pretty and sunny but not super warm. Here is what we saw:

Here is Waewaetorea Island as we went on shore. THe sand beach is were we hung out after the hike.




Here is a group picture of everyone on the cruise with us:




Our guides told us the details and names of a few of the surrounding islands, which we can’t remember nor could we pronounce. After our lesson we hiked back down and went snorkeling. We saw the Kina (Maori for sea urchin) and collected them for our feast. John also saw a sting ray with a few other people. Marian promptly swam away from said sting ray to safety. She has heard one too many (of just one) Steve Irwin story to make her a scaredy cat!



After we headed back to the beach from the water, we were quite quick to jump into the kayaks and head back to the main boat – there was a little rain coming in! We jumped into the boat just in time to grab some hot chocolates, warm up on the way back into shore. We made sure to thank the great guides at shore – it was probably our favorite thing? Since we’ve been here? Maybe? Its so hard to tell – this country rocks!

On the journey back to Paihia we got to feast on the Kina. Here is John enjoying his meal:




We jumped in the car and rode to Whangarei, stopping off to see this lovely waterfall (Whangarei Falls) on the way. Its really all about how many waterfalls you can see anyway.



That night we stayed at a Top Ten, where a lady ended up borrowing some of our utensils. Then she stole them, because we forgot to get them back. !!! Dang it!

Tauranga Bay, Waterfalls, Cruise in the Bay of Islands

We were slightly grumpy the following morning because we were disappointed the night before with no showers and lots of sand because the showers could only be used by getting tokens from the front office (which was closed when we arrived). However, when John went to pay, he discovered that we only owed $10 in total for our sleep! Amazing! We were pretty happy with the price, and decided not to worry about the shower mixup after that. $10 for literally – a site on the beach. Here is our lovely campsite



We walked along the “pink sands” of Tauranga Bay, and found these awesome rock formations.






The weather started to turn a little sour, so we knew we wouldn’t luck out with any warm weather to sunbathe in. We decided instead to hike up to St. Paul’s Rock. The hike was relatively mild, but one part was fun where we used a chain bolted into the rocks to help ourselves along. The view from the top of the surrounding bays and harbors was gorgeous, but ruined by the presence of some very irritating, pesky flying ants that had decided they owned the top. This in turn made Marian very grumpy and she ran down from the top while John snapped as many photos as he could in five seconds. Here are some photos we took, ALMOST from the top. You can see the lovely landscape in the background.

Here we are at the top and Maran with her scared face from the ants:


A partial view from the top:


Here we are a little further away from the ants:


Here is John going down the chained part of the trail:


Back on the road we went to Kerikeri and John spent a frustrating 35 minutes figuring out to pay a toll road fare online. On the way out of town we stopped off shortly outside of Kerikeri to see some waterfalls.

Here we are at Rainbow Falls outside of Kerikeri


After the falls, we drove onto Paihia, where we were to board “the Rock” cruise at what we thought was 4 PM. It looks like we missed the fine print on this one – we actually were scheduled to board at 3 PM, which was in the fine print noted in the confirmation email sent to us and not correct on their website. Nothing a little water taxi couldn’t solve! We were grateful for the crew at the Rock for their help and understanding, and made quite the arrival on the cruise as the latecomers. We boarded the boat shortly before sundown, and had some beautiful sunset photos to take.




We then fished a little while trying to catch dinner. Marian was the only one to catch a fish from the back of the boat that night but it was too small and hand to be thrown back. So we settled for the steak and sausages that were brought on board to barbeque.

Here is John the unsuccessful fisherman:


After dinner we finished the evening with some night kayaking to see the phosphorescence in the water and to do some stargazing. After a long while John finally found the Southern Cross…which is pointed out as a significant constellation but the guides did not know why it was significant. We headed back to the boat. John decided to join in with the boat crew for a little night swim for an upclose and personal view of the phosphorescence and Marian was a little cold so she took some pictures instead. Here is John getting out of the water:

Cape Reinga, Sand Boarding

The next day we drove the Northest of the North – Cape Reinga. This is where the Tasman Tea collides with the Pacific Ocean. There is a lighthouse here, and according to Maori legend, this is where the soul departs after death towards heaven (I believe heaven was actually called “Hawaii,” or something similar). We hiked out to the lighthouse to take photos. There is also a famous, old Pohutukawa tree that grows straight out the side of a rocky edifice. If we haven’t told you yet, Pohutukawas are called “New Zealand’s Christmas tree” because they have bright red blossoms and bloom around Christmas every year. We heard about the tree about 95 times when we first got here, and it sort of became a joke, but they are gorgeous. They are also used in a lot of NZ art and tourism guides.

It was pretty incredible to see the two bodies of water colliding – you could actually see it, and the landscape was just lovely.

Here we are looking from the cape on to Te Werahi Beach and Cape Maria van Diemen


Here is Marian impersonating the meeting of the Tasman Sea and Pacific Ocean


Looking out at the cape lighthouse


Here is a lighthouse with Lighthouse


Here is the Pohutukawa tree at the end of the cape.


After spending some time at the Cape we drove back down, and dawned our bathing suits for a little sand boarding on the dunes. Marian was very excited for this, and John was too, but not as much because he does not like getting sand on his body. Marian smartly put on her super SPF shirt her mom had given her to try and keep some sand off. Riding the dunes was one of Marian’s favorite things she did while she was here – and she only crashed once! John did a really great job, but ended up dragging his feet a little too hard and got a little sand burn.

Here is a sequence of Marian coming down the sand hill...she is the moving white dot:




Here is John;


We then drove South, stopping off at Rawawa Beach. John used the opportunity to devoid himself of the evil sand and jumped in the Pacific! Marian was way too cold to do that and stayed nice and sandy. After this, we traveled over to 90 Mile beach. Its actually only about 67 kilometres, but the point is that it is a long sandy beachy area…with evidently a lot of dead sea creatures! Look at what we found!





And just a nice picture of the beach:


After our stroll along 90 mile beach, we decided we wanted to stay the night at Tauranga Bay. Along the way we stopped off and enjoyed the view of the Doubless Bay



Although it was dark by the time we reached the campsite, we could tell it was right on the water by the sound of the waves, and we arrived under a beautiful clear canopy of stars. We were happy to have a clear night! John was frustrated because the showers were token operated…but the office was closed and we couldn’t buy any. We did our best to shower in the bathroom sink until the lights went out. Since the temperature had dropped significantly at this time of the year at night, we hurried to cook dinner, set up camp and get to sleep in our warm sleeping bags.