Good Bye Auckland

Well, this is it. In a few hours, I'll be leaving Auckland and be on my way back home. This feels completely surreal to me right now. I honestly can not believe that four months have come and gone and it's already time to come home. It's been an absolutely incredible experience and I couldn't have asked for anything more.

I'm planning on writing one last post when I get home, so I won't get too sappy now. Once I'm back in the States, I'll have had time to reflect on this experience and maybe write about that.

This past week has been rather interesting. We didn't do much because everyone had finals. I had one on Monday and then my other 3 all in the past 3 days. It has also rained every single day for the past week. So between the yucky weather and having to study and take tests, I think it's made for a good transition and at least warmed me up to the idea of going home. I'm excited about being home and seeing family and friends, but I'm also incredibly sad about the fact of this whole experience being over. I just can't believe it.

Anyway, I still have some last minute packing to do and a bunch of us are going to take one last walk down Queen St. to get kebabs. So this will have to be all for now.

Good Bye Auckland, I will miss you!

The Many Faces of the Skytower

Throughout the past four months, I have been doing a little photo study of the Skytower, trying to capture it from different locations, in different types of weather, and at different times of the day. It is THE icon of Auckland, and as I am nearing the end of my time here (just one week left now), I thought this would be a good time to share some of these photos. I know that there are a bunch of photos here, but I took so many, that it was hard to narrow it down. Many of them were just taken right from my bedroom window (like these first 3). Believe it or not, these first 3 pictures were all taken today!

Here's the Skytower in the sun...
...and in the rain. I actually took this today during a sunshower. The weather was so weird today - it was POURING during the night and morning, then it cleared up and was sunny, then it got rainy again, then it started downpouring again, then the sun kind of came out....it was just very strange.
Again, today's weird weather:

Here's the Skytower during the day......and at night. This was while they still lit up the Skytower at night. Now, they've started this new thing where they don't light it up anymore, to conserve electricity. Nice green move, but it was so pretty! (It doesn't look like this at night anymore. Now, the only lights on are a couple of blinking red safety lights for planes.)

Before the energy conservation plan began, the Skytower would sometimes be lit up different colors for different occasions (like the Empire State Building). Here it is in yellow with a lovely crescent moon:
These two pictures were taken from Auckland Domain, one of Auckland's parks:I liked the palm trees!

Pretty much where ever you go in Auckland, you can catch a glimpse of the Skytower. From One Tree Hill...
From Ponsonby...

Down by the Viaduct...

And of course from the water. This was taken on our ferry ride to Waiheke Island:The Skytower never disappears from sight. Unless, of course, it really does disappear! (It has actually gotten this foggy several times.)

But in nicer weather, the tower just looks beautiful against a clear blue sky.

I'm really going to miss just being able to look out my window and see the Skytower in a new light every time. Whether it's at dusk...

...during a beautiful sunset,
... or night time,...I have really loved seeing the Skytower in a new way every day.

Auckland, I will miss you.

Rangitoto Island

Rangitoto Island is the youngest island in the Hauraki Gulf and was formed by a volcanic eruption about 600 years ago. Today, there are no inhabitants on the island, but it is accessible by ferry and is a common day hike. A group of us (Kelly, Cate, Ed, Lynn, Caitlin and I) decided to take a break from studying and went to visit the island on Thursday. There are several trails on the island and you can hike up to the summit. The terrain on the island was quite rocky, because the ground is still very much made of all the remains of the lava and stuff from when the volcano erupted. Relatively speaking, the island is very new.
We began our hike up to the summit, which took about an hour, including a few picture stops. Some parts were a little steep, especially closer to the summit, but for the most part it was a pretty steady and gradual uphill climb.
The views from the top were definitely worth it! We had 360 degree views of the harbor and back to Auckland. We stayed up at the top just hanging out for a while enjoying the beautiful weather and views. We had packed lunches and ate these up top.
Here's a group shot we took using a self timer. We're kind of blocking the views, but here's Cate, Kelly, Ed, Lynn, myself and Caitlin at the summit:
More views:
You could also walk around the rim of the crater, which only took about 10-15 minutes. I was surprised how much growth and vegetation there was inside of the crater. The shape of it looked as I expected, but I thought that it would be all rocky inside, not full of trees!On our walk back down the volcano, we took a side trail to go visit the lava caves. There are several different caves that are formed out of lava tubes. Some of them are very small, but others were large enough to walk through. It was recommended that you have a flashlight, but we didn't have one with us. They were very dark, but we braved them anyway, going very slow and taking flash photos every so often to get an idea for what lay ahead. It's hard to get a feel for what it was like inside from these pictures, but you can kind of tell that it was a pretty small space. On either end, you still had the light from the entrance or exit, but in the middle it got so dark that you really couldn't even see the person in front of you!

Here we are at the entrance to the lava cave:

It was rather low at some points:

Here are Caitlin, Ed and Kelly emerging at the end:

We got down to the bottom of the hill and still had over an hour before the ferry would be back to pick us up, so we decided to walk along the coast for a little while. It wasn't very "beachy" because the beaches were made of volcanic rock. There were several historic beach houses called "baches" that were built during the 1920's and 1930's. The building of these baches was banned in 1937 and most have since been removed because Rangitoto is now considered a scenic reserve. Here's one of them that was preserved:

It was a great day for a hike and wonderful just to get out and do something. It's disappointing that the end of our time here has to be spent studying and taking finals, but we are trying to still experience things and hiking Rangitoto definitely made for an enjoyable day.

All Blacks Game!

This past weekend was the 2nd test match of the Iveco Series, a rugby challenge between New Zealand, Ireland and England. We had watched the New Zealand All Blacks beat Ireland on TV at the Wellington game last week, so we were really excited to actually go to the New Zealand vs. England game in Auckland this weekend.

The All Blacks Rugby Team is New Zealand's pride and joy and from my understanding, gets about as much hype (and probably even more) than football in the US. So needless to say, we were all pretty excited about having the opportunity to see them play in person.

We took a bus to Eden Park, where the stadium was, and got to ride for free just by showing our rugby tickets. The bus was packed and there were people everywhere. The whole city was buzzing and it seemed like everyone was out for the game. I do have to admit though, that I was surprised how many England supporters there were at the game.

We made sure that we were at the game and in our seats in time for the preshow. We didn't want to miss the haka. The haka is a Maori war dance/chant thing that Maori people use to intimidate their opponents before battle. We have seen it performed in several of the maraes we have visited. At one marae we went to, they called some of the boys from Loyola up on stage to teach them part of the haka, which was quite amusing. Anyway, it is tradition that the All Blacks do the haka before every match and basically the other team just stands there and watches. So as much as I was looking forward to the game itself, I really wanted to see the haka as well.

I tried to get it on video. It's pretty far away, but once the cheering dies down, you can kind of hear the chant. (And watch their faces on the stadium screen!)

We really enjoyed watching the game (and even more so because the All-Blacks won 37 to 20)! Since rugby is such a big thing here, we really felt like we were getting a true New Zealand experience being at the game and cheering for the All-Blacks. There was one point where the whole stadium was doing the wave and apparently it was pretty cool. (Unfortunately, I missed it because I was buying fries.)

We wanted to show our support by wearing all black and also by decorating ourselves with face paint (some more than others). I stuck with simple
black and white stripes on my cheeks, but some people went for the whole face (like Cate and Brian).Ed went ALL out and painted his whole upper body black and then Steph drew a really good fern on his chest. People kept stopping Ed and asking to take a picture with him!

After the game let out, it was crazy trying to get back into the city. There were buses and trains, but there were just so many people. We wound up on a couple different buses, but we all did make it back. Since the bus dropped us off on Queen St., we decided to head to the Vulcan, where they have a cover band playing on Saturday nights. It turned out that the other group of Loyola kids showed up there as well. Plus, some Loyola people who had been studying abroad in Australia just happened to have a long layover in Auckland and were visiting some people, so they were there too!

Day Trip to Piha

Way back in February, when Kelly, Kim, Dana and I went to the Auckland Cup (the horseraces), the rest of our group took surfing lessons at Piha Beach. Piha is one of Auckland's West Coast beaches, famous for it's black sand. We didn't care much that we missed out on the surfing, but we didn't want to leave Auckland without having seen Piha!

So, Kelly, Kim and I rented a car for the day and took the 45 minute drive out to the West Coast. It was a nice drive: first, through Auckland's suburbs and then on very windy roads with lots of hairpin turns through the Waitekere Ranges.

It was a beautiful beach and it wound up being a great day trip out. We got to see Lion Rock (a large rock/hill on the beach that Piha is known for). Here's Kim and Kelly in front of it (you can get an idea of the size):

We even climbed Lion Rock, and this gave us some nice views over the beach. We walked down to touch the water, but of course it was cold at this time of the year. We only saw 2 other people while we were there, plus 1 surfer who was brave enough to face the water!

Here's some pictures from the day:

We also drove about 5 km down the road to another beach, Kerekere. In order to actually get to the beach, you had to cross this stream. The bridge was undergoing construction and we didn't feel like getting all wet trying to cross the stream (plus we were getting very hungry for lunch!) so we just took a picture of the stream!

On a side note, we got use of the rental car again later that night when a group of us took a trip to "Spookers," a year-round Haunted House type place. That's not typically my kind of thing, but I had a fun time anyway. The house was very intricate (since it's open all year, they don't have to dismantle it and reassemble) so it was a fun experience. They take it pretty seriously though - you have to be at least 16 years old to go in! Another weird thing: the people who jump out at you are actually allowed to touch you (this would never happen in the US, but here in New Zealand, it's "no worries" and anything goes). So it was an interesting experience with people coming over and chasing you around with a knife, or grabbing your arm or touching your back. One woman cornered Cate and was rubbing her hands all over Cate's face and neck. (In case you are getting too freaked out, they did tell you that you can put your hands up in front of your face and yell "Stop" and they will back off.) Some people in our group decided to do the "Freaky Forest" as well as the Haunted House, so while I was waiting in the car with Kelly and Lynn, a man with a chain saw came over to the car, opened the car door and turned on the chain saw inside of the car. Kind of creepy. But I'm getting off topic here. What I really wanted to say in this post was simply: Piha was nice!

Final Trip - Day 5: Nelson

We had to be checked out of the hostel by 10, but free breakfast ended at 9 so we had planned to get up at 8:30 for breakfast and then pack up and check out. I did get up at 8:30, brushed my teeth and washed my face. But then, I realized that no one else seemed to be moving and the breakfast really wasn’t that good anyway, so I just went back to sleep! It turned out no one actually got up for breakfast, so after we checked out, we headed into town (Nelson) to get some food.

We all split up in town and planned to meet back at the cars at 12:30. I went with Brian, Kelly and Cate to a Swedish bakery (the only one in New Zealand) and had a DELICIOUS cinnamon bun.

The lady inside was so cute and friendly. She was talking with us and telling us about their shop and just being really nice. Everything in the bakery shop looked so good that I bought a “chocolate mud muffin” to have later on.

Notice the cinnamon buns in the left case!!

We walked around the town, poking around in some shops and stuff. Cate, Brian and I climbed up to this church at the top of the hill where we had a little view over the town.Then, I decided that the cinnamon bun was SO good and this might be the last time I could ever have one, so I went back to get another one! I was very glad I did. Cate and I got back to the cars before everyone else, and both cars had parking tickets. Not one of the eleven of us thought about having to pay for parking. (Sad, I know, Dad!) Anyway, where we had to pay the fine was actually right across the street so we just went over and paid it right away. We split up the cost between us and it only wound up being $6 a person – not too bad for a stupid mistake.

We filled up the cars with gas and then headed to return the rental cars. When we got there, the guy just came over and drove us to the airport in our respective rental cars, except he drove instead of us! Kind of a weird setup, but it worked – we just kept our luggage in the trunk.

The Nelson Airport was the most lackadaisical airport I have ever been to. None of us had to show any form of identification or go through any type of security or baggage check. Both Brian’s and my plane tickets were on my credit card, but he just gave his name and they gave him a ticket. Since the car was due back at 1, we were at the airport much earlier than we needed to be (our flight was not until 3:50). So we just hung around the airport and entertained ourselves. We got some food at the café and split into 3 tables: one table played the card game Phase 10, my table played the card game Skip-Bo, and one table just hung out and talked.

Then, we boarded the plane and made our way back to Auckland. The next time I get on a plane it will be to go home! It’s crazy to think how fast these 4 months have gone by.

It was a really tiny plane, so we weren't flying that high and had some good views from the air. This is near Nelson, right after take off:

We also flew by Mt Taranaki, which is on the west coast of the North Island. (They call it the Mt Fuji of New Zealand.) It looked really cool because the top of the mountain was above the cloud line.