quick and dirty

This update will be of the variety spelled out in the title, since the Internet at tonight's hostel is slow and expensive.
We've been slowly working our way north along the top of NZ, and tomorrow are scheduled to get up to the very top - Cape Reinga, via a bus tour along the 90-mile beach. The beach is an unbroken expanse of hard sand along the west coast of the top of the country that is used as a highway for the adventurous.
We've had free places to stay along the way - a friend's beach-front house in Russell, in the Bay of Islands, was last weekend's accomodation. A week ago we got even luckier - stopping at a small local brewery by Taranaki we struck up a conversation with the brewery owner, who ended up letting us stay in a small cabin he had. Our most random social interaction so far - I'm hoping we end up beating it.

(and on another note, I've just passed 100 posts on this blog. Which seems like I've been seriously slacking. So, sorry.)

sunset in Whakatane

Our time in Whakatane - which also means our time with Internet - is about to end. We're headed for Russell, in the Bay of Islands, for the weekend. Meeting up with yet another Wellington friend who has a family house there (it's a lot easier to travel when you know people with houses).
We'll head up as far north as we can go, then start heading South again.

playing games

The mountains on New Zealand's North Island are shy. At least when I come calling.
The first few days I come to see them, they hide. They cover themselves in a veil of white, allowing only a demure peek at their uncovered lower extremities. A day or two later, they may lift the cover a bit to peek out without ever showing their peak, even though they know that's what I'm there to see.
Tongariro, Ngauruhoe, Ruapehu, Taranaki - all the same.
I made three different visits to Tongariro National Park, where the first three mountains I mentioned are located, before ever seeing the top of the mountains. One of those days I was skiing on Ruapehu, and could barely see the surface I was skiing on through the fog.
This past week we were in the Taranaki region, so named for the dominating presence of Mt. Taranaki. It was beautiful country, and the beaches had sun and blue sky. But when we looked behind us toward the mountain, all we saw was cloud.
Until the day we were leaving, when we woke up to see Taranaki unveiled, standing before us.

a few pics

From Wanganui we headed north along the west coast, spending a few days in the vicinity of Mt. Taranaki. Then east to Rotorua, where we met up with some friends and hung out at a salsa festival. The past few days we've been just north of Rotorua on the coast, in the small sea-side town of Whakatane. Here we've been soaking up the sun, hanging on the beach and abusing the hospitality of some friends we met in Wellington.

A few photos of our travels:


Statue at the mouth of the Whakatane River.


View of the beach by Whakatane, and a sliver of the Whakatane River just above its mouth.

The wind wand in New Plymouth, a beach-front art installation.



Our view of Mt. Taranaki the last day we were in the area.

And a little bit down the road.

Our view the first three days we were there.

A restored riverboat on the Whanganui River.


The tunnel to the Wanganui elevator. The elevator is a commuter elevator; the shaft runs through a hill from town to a suburb above.

the real reason we went to Wanganui

Our friend Paul, everyone. An Irish troubadour.

step one

Started our wandering lifestyle with a visit to a former roommate in Wanganui. In a nice coincidence, our arrival was the same weekend as a house party among his friends in this town (who we met before).
It wasn't all parties - we did get out and about in this river town. Drove up the road for a walk along the ridge tops looking down on the river. Took the underground elevator up to the tower overlooking the city. Watched the sunset from the beach at the river's mouth. Walked around a local park and aviary.
Wanganui is a city of about 40,000 on the lower west coast of the North Island, next to the mouth of the country's longest river - the Whanganui (the city and town have the same Maori name, but there are different ideas on how the word should be spelled). It's not much of a tourist city, but it has a decent feel and has an above-average population of artist types. Not a bad place to start out, although the weather has been rough. Patches of sunshine interrupted by violent bursts of rain.

Not sure where we'll head next, although north along the West Coast is the short-term plan. The North Island is shaped a bit like a four-pointed star, with the northern point stretched longer than the others. We've lived at the bottom of the south point, in Wellington. Now we're headed to the west point and Mount Taranaki. Eventually we'll head for the tip of the north point, where I hope there will be sunshine, and I know there are beaches. I'm clinging to the last remnants of summer.

one more day

We're staying in Wellington at least one more day before setting off on a road trip around the North Island (and eventually heading to the South Island, if our current plan holds). We've moved out of our apartment, packed almost everything we own in the car and are just trying to tie up as many loose ends as we can (as well as perhaps one more night out with the friends we have here).
We've lived in Wellington for about seven months, almost the entire time we've been in New Zealand. I remember the morning we landed in Auckland, getting in at about 5 a.m. after a 12-hour flight, the jet-lag and early-morning, low-lying fog combined to give NZ an eerie, surreal appearance. The atmosphere amplified the veneer of strangeness everywhere is covered in the first time you see it. Now, however, the strangeness is gone, replaced by the familiar. We've been nearly everywhere in New Zealand, at least driven by the general area. I know how to say the placenames. I know the street grid, and I know what businesses are where. I know where the bars are, where the restaurants are, where the little shops are. I can remember what it was like when the city was strange to me, but now it's like another place altogether.
The country as a whole has a bit of that feel, although once we're on the road we'll feel like travellers again, and we'll be in places unfamiliar enough to explore.
It's a feeling anyone who's moved anywhere knows - eventually a new place is an old place, even if it's New Zealand (or South Korea - sorry Stephen, I started this post after I read yours, but didn't mean for it to be such a blatant ripoff).
As the newness wore off in Wellington, the familiarity brought with it a growing set of friends. It'll be good to dip back into the traveling world of the new and unfamiliar, but it'll be tough to dip back into the traveling world of no friends to call upon.

Cape Palliser

Another few photos dug out of my computer. These are from a weekend day trip we took from Wellington to Cape Palliser. The cape is just a few miles east of Wellington on the south coast of the North Island (and is the southern-most point on the island) but it takes a much longer drive over a mountain pass to get there.
We followed the coast to the Cape Palliser lighthouse and seal colony. The day featured high winds coming from the opposite side of the hill from this staircase. It made the climb up the 250 steps calm, but the first thing felt upon reaching the top was a gust causing your brain to fear its hold on the platform.

Underneath the lighthouse platform was a rocky outcrop housing a seal colony. It's far from the first seal colony I've visited here, but it is the closest I've been to a seal - there were several large seals on the rocks right near the access point, and as we climbed around the rocks we got within 10 feet of a few of them.
The seals mostly ignored us and the other tourists, although a few raised their head and growled at people who wandered to close. Since being in New Zealand, I've been warned a number of times about the dangers of seals, mostly if they are being antagonized or if you happen to wander between them and their direct route to the sea. So I didn't do those things. I did, however, almost step on a small seal pup that was hidden among the rocks.

dolphins

Photos from our first weekend in New Zealand, but which were on a film camera and have just now been scanned:

wetsuits

Sorting through some old photos before I pack up the computer for the next month or so:

These photos have one thing, and one thing only, in common: they document the three times so far we've paid for an activity that included wearing a wetsuit.
1) Swimming with dolphins in the Bay of Islands.
2) Inner-tube rafting through a glow-worm cave
3) Sea kayaking in a downpour in Fiordland's Doubtful Sound.

The reason I bring this up is the third activity, in the list and in chronological order, was the only one to give us a dry wetsuit. This is a small thing, but it was noteworthy enough for us to tell our kayaking guide, who asked us to pass the detail along to others.
And now it is passed.

mmm...

One of the easiest ways to amaze New Zealanders is to talk about American food. They have an idea that Americans constantly practice a crazed gluttony, and they're probably right.
New Zealanders harbor the suspician that American order food and it's dished up in portions big enough to require a forklift. This suspician is highest in people who have actually been to the States.
There's good reason. A large Domino's pizza here is the size of a medium in the States - possibly a little smaller. A large Coke at McDonalds here is about the same as a child-size in the States. New Zealanders can't comprehend the reason Americans are served such things (and to be honest, I'm not sure anyone can, really.)
And when I start talking about things such as fried turkey, or stuffed, deep-fried burgers, or my Atlanta friend's favorite, the hamdog (and its cousin, a burger encased by Krispy Kreme donuts instead of a bun) the Kiwi expression turns from one of incredulous to indignation to just trying to keep their head from exploding.
Fun times. (And all this really makes me want a stretch here).