North Island Adventure

The night before my plane to the North Island I met up with Stuckey relatives (church chums) out at a bar called Lime. Andy and Holly were really cool folks. They seem to be enjoying life and kicking it NZ style. Holly is working at a bridal shop while Andy is in grad school. We chatted and had a few Heinekens. Then we wandered back to their pad and had wine and played Soul Caliber. It was a lot of fun. I hadn't played a fighting game in a long time. After a few rounds, Gord came to pick me up. We got home pretty late and I still had some packing to do. So I decided to forgo sleep, pack and go. Unfortunately, I ended up crashing for 45 minutes. Then I had to get up at 4:30 am to catch a 7:45 flight. I initially thought that the departure time was 7:10 am, but that was just the boarding/arrive at gate time. Now I will do a better job of closely reading important travel documents ahead of time. I felt awful. It was probably a combination of the alcohol (even though it hadn't been an excessive amount), lack of sleep and flying on a plane. So I was feeling a bit off by the time I met up with Leigh (family friend).

Then we waited a bit for my mom's flight to get in. It was really good to see her even though it had only been about 2 months since I've been home. 

We ended up driving all around Auckland on the way to Orewa. The house was beautiful the driveway was lined with giant flowers that gently bounced off the car when we drove too close. Nearby was a lone fenced sheep named Snowy. If you're outside and you yell "Hey Snowy" he will give you a bah or two in return. Also if you've keen to pat Snowy and you wander near the fence, he will fallop over to see if you've brought any treats. He's a softie. He also bahs if you try to walk away. Snowy wasn't always alone, but the other sheep vanished, probably dragged off by wild dogs. The house is owned by a fellow named Seger and one of his kids lives downstairs, Sacha. The porch is one of the coolest parts of the house. It opens directly into the house with a gorgeous view. We hung out for a bit and then I took off to meet up with my friend Erin from the states. 

I got dropped off at Pete's house and met up with Erin, Sam and Pete. Then we went to a house party. Don't forget that I was running on 45 minutes of sleep and whatever I racked up while I was on the plane. So by the time we rolled up to the party, I was dead on my feet. At the party I learned a game called the cup game. To play the cup game, you need a cup and a group of people. It's one of those frustrating games you play with a lot of people. The object of the game is to figure out how to play the game. People handle the cup and say something like "my name is Molly and I can play the cup game, but can (insert next player's name) play the cup game?" Then the cup is put in front of them. The people who know how to play the cup game will then tell the player if they have indeed played the cup game or not. Erin got it after a bit of time and I was a little worried that I wasn't going to get it. Most of the people were old friends and a handful of them already knew how to play. There was one kid who hadn't figured it out for 1.5 years or so, talk about frustrating. If we had left before I learned the cup game I probably would have made Erin play the game with me until I figured it out, but lucky for her I figured it out eventually. We got home pretty late and all just went to bed.

We got up 6ish or earlier to start out sunrise to sunset, coast to coast trip in one day. We ended up racing to North Head to watch the sun come up. It was really beautiful and we watched it across the bay. There was a giant low sloping volcanic looking island to the left of the sunrise. Apparently a few families had built houses on the island many years ago and the government had wanted to reclaim the island as a preserve or something protected, but they couldn't legally take the land away from the families. So an old law was enacted or a new law was imposed that the houses had to be passed from family member to direct descendant. It couldn't be sold and once the line died out the government could take back the land. This was a secondhand story so it could be a load of gibberish, but I thought it was interesting. We wandered around the island and played on the old war artillery. There were big cannons, shelters and underground caves. Then we went to nearby Devonport for breakfast. We ate at the Stone Bakery and had a tasty and hearty meal. All the front doors folded in so the whole street entrance was open. Birds kept flying in and snapping up orts and other leftovers. Some were even adventurous enough to swoop behind the counter for the really big crumbs. We also purchased some delicious ciabatta rolls and other provisions for lunch and went on our way to Bethel's lake. 

I thought we were going to the beach, but this ended up being much cooler. It took us a few tries, but we finally ended up parking on a mound of black sand. It was a little concerning because the wheels spun out a bit, but Pete assured us that it would be fine. We walked along the side of a river through a green forest area until we came upon what I can only describe as a mini black sand desert surrounded on all sides by huge hills covered in trees, bushes and forest. Trekking across the hot fine grains made hope that I never got lost in a desert. I was really glad that I was wearing my Vibrams because the sand was burning hot with the sun bearing down on us. After we crested a few hills we hit a lake. I knew we were heading for a lake, but it was still an unexpected sight and seemed out of place. Forest, black sand and a lake. Peter jumped in the water and said it was tepid. I got in the water and said it was chilly bordering on cold! Maybe NZers run cooler than us. I decided to cover myself in black sand. We played around the lake for a few hours and had lunch. The desert had epic slopes that made me wish I had a sand toboggan or a lunch tray. Then we drove to Piha. We stopped to stuff ourselves with fish and chips. Then we took the windy road to Piha beach. It was almost empty except for some emergency fire people who were putting out a fire on Lion's Rock. We played tennis ball catch for a few minutes and then went running towards the rough cold water. It actually wasn't as cold as I had been expecting. Then we tried to watch the sunset, but were thwarted by clouds that had been rolling in that evening. We walked up and down the beach because it was a nice night and we needed to warm up from our swimming expedition. On the way back to Pete's house we got into an awesome round of the movie game, a relic from my and Erin's past at the AICPA. We all got stumped by a movie with Freddie Prinz Jr. called Girls and Boys. Almost immediately after getting back to Pete's house we all were in bed and asleep. Pete and Erin dropped me back atSeger's house on their way to Bird Island. I don't actually remember what island it was, but apparently there are a lot of birds there. That was the end to my Coast to Coast trip.

The next will be my adventure with Leigh and my mom and then Fiji. I have to blog with limitations like internet time, laptop battery time and such. So bear with me.

In an unrelated note, John and I have been rock walking in the waterholes near camp. They are so incredibly fun. Big rocks to jump off of, ropes to swing on, places to swim around and silly things to do. The water is really clear so John and I decided to take rocks and run underwater with them. Yes, just like in Blue Crush. We then decided that we wished we could stay underwater for longer so we decided to make a snorkel. We bought 10 meters of tubing and fashioned a floatation device out of gaffer tape (duct tape) and empty bottles. The four bottles hold up the end of the tubing above the water and we taped a stick to the top of the tubing to make sure it didn't bend down into the water. We also taped a rock to the bottom end of the tubing because it had a tendency to coil. It didn't work. When you get a few meters down there is incredible suction on the tube and I couldn't breathe in. We also bought $5 kids goggles that fill up almost immediately when submersed. It was a fun idea, but a failure. Though we thought we devised a way to bypass our inability to pull the air down several meters of tubing, air pump. We didn't buy one because the logistics are too complicated and it might not work in the end and this little project was getting expensive. It was a creative invention and fun to try and implement.