A Month of Adventure

Wow, I have a lot to say, but will try to keep it (reasonably) short.  As you probably know, I worked Labour Weekend (the end of October) at the Jet Ski rental company in Paihia, but because November is slow for them, they told me to travel for the month.  I didn't bring my laptop, so here is everything that happened and I decided to not write anything down, so this is strictly the things that I remember most.

Fishing in sunset

I started the adventure by going to Great Barrier Island, a moderately remote island that is 5 hours by ferry from Auckland in the Hauraki Gulf.  I found a family to stay with and work for there and had planned on spending 9 days on the island--it turned in to 18 days.  The island itself is beautiful with a lot of native forest and big hills, but rimmed with white sand beaches and crystal blue water.  I say moderately remote because there are 800+ people living out there, but they have no central plumbing, water, electricity, etc as everyone has to get their own and there are no supermarkets out there.  Anyway, I loved it.  The beaches themselves were beautiful, but not being a beach person, I found plenty of other things to do.  My host family (the parents, a 9 year old daughter, and a 13 year old daughter in boarding school who I didn't meet) allowed me to borrow their fishing gear, so I spent a lot of time fishing, not catching, off the rocks all around different beaches.  They're on their 7th generation on the island now, so they know it really well (and own a lot of it)!There had been a German guy who I'd travelled with a bit before who was also out there, and I did go fishing, successfully, with him and his host on a row boat just a few hundred metres offshore!  We got snapper, trevally, and kowhai--nothing big, but enough

Harataonga Bay Coastal Track

for me to bring back and feed my host family the next night!  The host family was also great friends with the two police officers (a husband and wife) on the island and he took me out on his boat to dive for "crayfish," which we call rock lobster back home.  I'd never had them before and they used a snare to catch them, so after watching him catch the first, I was able to catch two by myself and feed the family once again.  My god, they were delicious.
 
There is also some great hiking out there and one day I went on 3 hour coastal walk, then did a 2-day hike that took me up a track with natural hot springs to a hut.  The next day I went over the highest point on the island and down through a canyon back out to the road. From the hut, there were amazing views to over Little Barrier Island and the coastline, with a beautiful sunset.  I got to the hut early, so walked the 45 minutes to the top of the mountain and got great views, but was back down in time for dinner and the sunset.

Sunset from the hut

The stars were amazing and I even saw one shooting star! In the morning, I walked up to the ridge where I could view east and watch the sunrise from the other side--not many places where you can watch the sun set and rise over the ocean from a ridge on a mountain!  It was then an easy walk back down and out to the road where I quickly hitched a ride back to "my" house.  I also spent my birthday on the island, which I got spoiled on.  The police officers, along with one other guy and his son, came over to celebrate.  They got me Corona and lime to drink, while we ate tuna and crayfish dip for appetizer followed by a wild pork roast for dinner and chocolate cake and strawberry cheesecake for dessert!  While on the island, I went on a field trip with the daughter's school to a wildlife sanctuary and also played a game of touch rugby!  When it was finally time to leave, I hitched a ride to the ferry, which I made with a whopping 3 minutes to spare, then had a pod of dolphins jumping around to wish me farewell.

My first crayfish

My next stop was New Plymouth and Egmont National Park.  The weather was meant to be mediocre at best, but you know the saying--there is no such thing as bad weather, just improper clothing.  Luckily, the lady working at the hostel had said there was another guy, Uli, from Germany (notice a theme) heading to the mountain tomorrow as well and she offered to drive us the thirty minutes, which saved me from hitching in the rain!  On the first day, the weather was very cloudy and windy, so we never actually saw the mountain and were literally getting blown off the track.  We got to the hut we intended to stay at around 1pm, but the next hut was only 2 hours further, so after eating lunch, we decided to just go to the next one.  There, we met Eric, a German, who was doing a different track, but would end up in the same hut as me two nights later.  At night, the clouds cleared and it turned out to be quite starry and I even saw a shooting star--can't tell you the wish though.  The following day, we had only a 4 hours walk to do, so did a side trip to waterfall, then were on our way around 10am.  Just before noon the weather got really

Fantham Peak (left) and Mt Egmont (right)

ugly, turning in to hail, high winds, and walking through snow in parts.  I am not sure that you can be properly clothed for hail and if you can, I wasn't. Uli and I were both happy when we got to the hut in under 3.5 hours, but by now our feet and boots were soaked.  There was a French couple who had spent the last night in the hut as well, but didn't feel like walking in the hail, so they were staying this night again.  We lit the fire and got dry, then began playing dice games when an Irish couple came in too.  The 6 of us had a great, warm, dry night, sitting around the fire playing games and even saw a rainbow--I saw one on Great Barrier too.  Uli left the next morning and I carried on myself for a longer day--about 5.5 hours.  The weather finally got beautiful and I had amazing views of the mountain, but still had a bit of snow in parts and it actually felt like a November walk in the Colorado (on one of the warmer days).  My boots were still soaked, though, and I was very happy to get them dry.  The views from the hut were amazing of both Fantham's Peak and Mt Egmont.  Not long after, Eric showed up and

Mt Egmont

we chatted for a while then were sound asleep.  It was another shorter day in the morning, but Eric and I walked out and he was staying at a lodge by the visitor centre, while I walked another hour to a hut for free.  For the first time, I had the hut alone and there was no fire wood, but it had gotten warm, so it wasn't a big deal.  This was the first time in the whole trip that I had walked with in a t-shirt with no rain coat on!  After an uneventful night, I got to the trailhead around 9am and slowly hitched my way back to town--it took about 3 hours to get a ride!

Hot Springs on Great Barrier

I spent a few more days in town, and met up with Eric a few times.  The town had a really nice 6 mile, ocean front walkway, along with some rock climbing, and views back to the mountain, as well as an amazing city park.  My next plan was to meet my friend Andy and do a 4 day canoe trip, but the weather looked awful, so I decided to just go to Wellington, where he lives, for a couple days and Eric came along too.  Eric was the first person I really travelled with and could've seen myself travelling longer with and hopefully we will meet up again!  I explored more of the city, going to museums when it rained, and walking around a wildlife sanctuary for a day.  Wellington is the capital building and they had Parliament debates open to the public, so I sat in on one of those, which was quite the experience.  First of all, I just walked through a metal detector thengot in to the house full of Members of Parliament (our equivalent of the House of Rep) and even sat within 50 metres of the prime minister!  All they do is scream is at each other, so that kept Eric and I entertained.  Andy's lived in Washington D.C. for 4 years as his dad worked in the NZ Embassy, but they hadn't

Dinner from Great Barrier!

celebrated Thanksgiving for ages, so his mom was happy to make a mini-Thanksgiving Dinner for me.  Turkeys here are $50 for the smallest, so we had a chicken roast, sweet potatoes, and pumpkin pie--I didn't complain!  Finally, it was time to head back north, so I caught a sleeper bus, which was an experience.  It was a 10-hour trip leaving Wellington at 10pm and arriving in Auckland at 8am.  While the bus was nice, I didn't get a ton of sleep--it turns out buses stop, accelerate, and turn much more than airplanes, which is not conducive to sleeping.  At 11pm, they did serve cookies and ice cream as a snack and at 6am, we got breakfast--cookies and ice cream (an interesting breakfast).  Anyway, I got to Auckland on time, and hitched surprisingly easily back to Paihia and start work tomorrow!  I will be here now for the rest of the summer (until the end of February), with the exception of my friend Brynn's visit in mid-January.  It was great to Skype some of you on Thanksgiving, miss you and love you all!

Kaitoke Beach, Great Barrier Island