Friday, May 28, 2010

Auckland, New Zealand

As I am sure you have figured out by now, I made a significant detour in my travel plans this week. It has been a very eventful few days and I have found myself up to my eyeballs in photo editting. This has and is going to severely limit sleep in the next few days (currently pulling an all-nighter). I find that when I am really busy I tend to take lots of photos. And when I take lots of photos, I have no time to edit them because I'm busy all day. Anyways, here is a summary of what I've been up to in Auckland.

I arrived in Auckland on Tuesday without a single plan on what I was going to do for 4 days. I figured once I got into my hostel (which has free wifi) I could do some research. Well my plans to that went directly out the window when the airport shuttle dropped me off next to the first Wendy's I've seen in months. I walked to my hostel as quickly as I could, dropped off my things and immediately went back to Wendy's. That was the highlight of my day. I also took some night photos while walking to and from Wendy's.



On the second day (first full day) I grabbed my cameras and started walking at 9:30am. I wandered to the supermarket, the new wharf, the harbour, the arena, the old train station, the Auckland Domain, the Winter Garden, Mt Eden (volcanic cone), Sky Tower and back into the city for even more night photos. I returned to my hostel at 9:00pm after almost 12 hours on my feet and over 500 photos. I even went to a buffet which featured some fantastic singing...










The third day finally saw some structure to my life. I woke up nice and early in order to make it to the Victoria Park Markets. Unfortunately for me, my ability to wake up early prevented me from seeing the market open (too early) but it did allow me to catch the early ferry to Rangitoto Island. Rangitoto is a dormat volcano that is only 600 years old. The island itself is a bit of a wonder because a lot of the plant life is unique and mostly unspoiled by imported species. While on the island I hiked up to the peak, saw the crater, walked through the lava caves and then I walked over to the east to the next island. After that I stopped by the old WWII site that is in ruins. After viewing all the sites I wanted to see, I noticed that I had a long trail which was supposed to take 2 hours to complete and I had less than two hours before the last ferry left the island. Needless to say I was half walking/running all the way back which was a task in itself because the island is made up of volcanic rock (jagged, sharp) and sand (which because of rain was slippery mud). Made for an adventurous hike back but I made it with plenty of time to spare.







On my last day I took a tour over to the Waitakere Ranges Regional Park which is located a mear 30 minuntes from downtown Auckland. The ranges are the tallest mountains in the area (not very tall) but have exceptionally diverse fauna and black sand beaches. I found the most appealing place to be Piha which is a beach that sites between a few rock cliffs (similar to the Oregon coast).







That's all for now, and probably that's the last major update for the forseeable future. After this I go back to being a slave once again. I will be working until the end of August before I have some more fun. I will definitely keep you posted on everything up on the mountain and also provide some videos of skiing (and hopefully spills). Talk to you soon.

PS If you are wondering why there is no state/province in the title it's because their are no states or provinces in New Zealand.