First Week! (Cont.)

I'm in Wellington as I write this, but for most of the last week I was in Auckland and the surrounding area. Back in the Maori times, the Auckland area was highly contested for its fertile land, easily defensible volcanos (though they have more in common with hills than my image of a volcano), and easy access to both the Tasmanian Sea and the Pacific Ocean.

The first thing I noticed, however, was the wind! I snapped a photo of some fine looking breeze as we drove by in the bus.It was blowing about 18kts, and it continued every day we were there! I'm super excited to get my hands on a boat, and I've been sorely missing Dan and I's Hobie 16.

It cranks here. All the time.

The city of Auckland was great. I was really blown away, until I arrived in Wellington. Now most of the words I had for Auckland are reserved for my review of Wellington. Though I did love all the sailing going on. We saw the last America's Cup kiwi boats out on a couple of occasions, they were looking very sharp.

Reefed under 15kts

 At first, night life in Auckland during the week was surprisingly slow. Though as we were later told, this was probably because we were usually asleep by 1:30 every night - but personally, I get tired of walking from empty club to empty club pretty quickly.

The weekend, however, was a different story. The main street, which is normally chock full of tourists and business people by day was overrun by young people by 10pm. The whole area seemed like a big party - if not a bit seedy, with lots of club promoters and street performers. Those nights we had a blast at the couple of clubs we went to. Unfortunately though, I didn't bring my camera, so no pics.

Bus ride to the caves, via the NZ countryside

Just like IN...

Our final group activity was caving - which was about two hours outside Auckland. On the way we saw lots of rolling NZ countryside, with cattle, sheep, vineyards, crops and jungle in the distance.

With such goofy wetsuits, I was skeptical at first...

After a long game of minties - probably one of the silliest in car games I've ever played, we arrived at the caves. I was worried that the wetsuits were going to be an indicator of the awesomeness of the caving, but fortunately, there was no correlation. Dropping down a five foot crack in the middle of the jungle, then squeezing through a pitch black tunnel as wide as my shoulders felt like a true adventure. What a rush! Then to emerge in a massive underground cavern, hundreds of feet high, with turquoise glow worms providing the only illumination of the ancient stalactites as we drifted silently down the black river in our tubes was almost a religious experience.

 

 The whole group on a bus in Waiheke

Finally, we had Saturday for ourselves so we did our own group trip to Waiheke island, a short high speed cat ride from the center of Auckland. As a group, we spent most of the morning running around like chickens with our heads cut off. After we finally managed to pull our act together we made it out to Onetangi Bay, which was great swimming, akin to the Caribbean. Also on the beach, I met some kiteboarders who were actually from Wellington. Jackpot. I got their numbers, and I'll be calling them this weekend for sure.

That about takes care of it for that week. Next I'll be traveling to Wellington.

First Week!

Today marks the end of my first week in New Zealand. It hard to believe it's only been one week! Here's what's happened:

Arrived at 5:30am last Tuesday after 14 hours of quality time next to my new buddy Trevor, a fellow study NZ. At the hotel we met the rest of the gang, all students from the US studying at various schools around NZ.

 The Gang

That afternoon we climbed the top of a dormant volcano just outside Auckland. For a volcano it was surprisingly small - more of a hill. But still, what an awesome view!
 

The next day we got out cellphones - I'm using an old school nokia from the 90's - the number (with international code) is: +642 021 805 630. Feel free to call!

 Yup, that's a volcano

Thursday we got a little culture. We went o the top of another larger dormant volcano with our Maori (pronounced moor-e) guides Michelle and Melissa, who told us the history of their people - the indigenous New Zealanders. On the volcano you can still see the shape of what used to be their terraces on the side of the hill. After that we hit a museum with lots of Maori weapons, boats, and a full size building. Without going to far into it, I defiantly got the impression that the Maori people were far more violent than their current descendants would like them to be remembered. Nowhere in the museum did it mention that the Maori were cannibals, for example, and almost all the artifacts seemed to in some way relate to warfare. Interestingly enough, Maori tribes also have a large influence on contemporary NZ politics, and their culture is extremely prevalent through NZ society. (Maori is the official language of NZ, and it's taught in all the schools).


Still got a lot more to tell! But it's 7 and there's a BBQ downstairs. Will continue later with Auckland, nightlife, the beaches and caving....