NZ Adventures 9: Auckland

Everyone else headed home a day before I did. So we headed for the airport as a group and met Ben and Mel one last time before we headed home.



We swapped NZ dollars for US dollars, gave back some of the things we had of theirs and then headed to take everyone to the airport.

It was sad to say goodbye to so many of the new friends I had made during the week. I hadn’t met Jean, Dolly or Gene before the trip and it was a lot of fun hanging out with them. I knew Marilyn and Dan before the trip and we had fun as usual.

After dropping everyone else off, Dan had a bit of time to hang out in the city so we had lunch and walked around the pier.



A few hours later though he left too. I went exploring. I didn’t have much on my to-do list, but I wanted to go to the top of the Sky Tower and see some of the city.

In my exploring, I found a protest. I’m still not entirely sure what they were protesting, but I thought it was interesting.



A few protesters.



I waited until a bit before sunset and headed for the tower.



The elevator had floor windows.



With the cloud cover, sunset wasn’t too incredible. Though I did find the lines of light from the clouds pretty cool.



They also had windows in the floor.



I enjoyed watching people’s reaction to the windows. Some people held onto the railing for dear life as they walked over it. For some it was no big deal. But my favorite was the 3 young boys who were jumping on it. When I asked about it, I was told they were practicing for bungee jumping someday (you can do that from the tower).

From one location, you can see a countdown until the next time they will drop a bungee jumper. I got to see one.



I was amazed because she was just a little girl, maybe the same age as my little sis. She looked so happy to be out there.

Everyone else had the same idea for timing as I did, so it was fairly busy that afternoon.



Even with the cloud cover, the light was pretty nice.



We interrupt this blog for a tea break . . .



It was delicious!

Unfortunately the light inside and the light outside were two different colors of light.



After the tower I found my way to a café and had a yummy chicken and citrus salad. I loved that it was HUGE.



Of course, being at a café, I couldn’t resist having my new favorite – slice!



Sunday was my last day in NZ and my last day in Auckland. After really, really enjoying worshiping in English the Sunday before I searched on the internet for a church in the area where I was staying.



Unfortunately, I hadn’t realized that NZ had a great number of Pacific Islanders and found myself at a Samoan church, with a congregation who mostly spoke Samoan. I snuck out part way through the service because I couldn’t understand it.

Then I headed back for main Auckland.

I thought the waterfront area was so pretty.



One last slice before it was time to leave. This one was Hokey Pokey.



Goodbye Auckland!



After all the fun I’d had in NZ and the new friends I’d made, I wasn’t ready to return to Japan.

NZ Adventures 5: Waihi

The Monday after arriving, we were off for more adventures.

It started off, of course, with all six of us sharing the bathroom to get ready. This worked quite well, actually, as the shower and the toilet each had their own room, so we could all do various getting ready activities at the same time.

Here’s the power plug from the bathroom. It even had it’s own on/off switch.



Dan came back that afternoon and then it was time to call the insurance and have me put on as a driver – a fun and exciting thought!

The first thing I noticed in driving was this sticker on the dash. Obviously Jucy rental company gets plenty of foreign renters.



The fun thing about the car, from this strangely named rental company was that all the locals seemed to think we were selling juice. We got asked a few times about what kind of juice we sold and who we sold to. (Photo taken by Dolly).

We headed to friends of some of our party’s house. I didn’t take many pictures since I was driving, but we drove though the beautiful Karangahake Gorge. The drive was super curvy, and I was really glad I was driving. Before the end of the gorge, we turned off for the friend’s house.

When we arrived we found that they had a pukeko statue in their front lawn. This was exciting because we were staying at Pukeko Lodge and it was the “first” one we had seen close enough to get a decent picture of.



At the friend’s house, I got my second serving of my new favorite food, slice.

After the friend’s house, we decided that since we had already come most of the way, we should go out to the Waihi beach before the sunset. We got there just in time!



I loved the shape of this tree.



Unfortunately, we were on the wrong side of the island to watch the sunset, but we did manage to see a glorious un-sunset.


Once the sun was mostly down, we headed back to Paeroa. We decided to eat in town and ended up back at the same café we had been to the day before.

I got quiche and . . .



. . . slice. Was there really any other option? The bottom layer was chocolate and coconut, the middle was caramel and the top was chocolate. It was kinda like a Samoas Girl Scout Cookie.



After dinner, we headed home and played Skip-Bo.

NZ Adventures 4: Paeroa

On Monday, Dan took the car to Auckland to take Josh to the airport to fly out. We had him drop us off in Paeroa (read: Pie-row-a) on his way.

We wandered the town. After leaving my tiny town of about 3,000, seeing how alive Paeroa is at 4,000 people had me amazed. I had to take a picture of how lively the little downtown street was.






Paeroa is home to the NZ famous L&P soda (Lemon and Paeroa). In American terms, it’s kind of like lemonade meets soda, not like sprite or 7up.



Look who’s inside that L&P bottle.



Palm trees and a park. I want to live somewhere that palm trees can grow in my neighborhood park!



L&P sign on the side of a building.



If I ever own a used bookstore, I think I’d like to label them pre-loved instead of used.



For lunch we went to a café with a million different delicious looking choices . . . I wanted to try every single dessert.



I sat with Dolly and Gene – a very fun pair.

Look at how big this cake is! I didn’t try it, but this is where I first discovered slice, my new favorite dessert, but I forgot to take a picture of my own dessert.



After lunch, we continued our wander through town. We ended up in the shop of a guy who spins wood, like a potter spins clay. It was really cool to watch him work.



He uses some sort of vacuum system to attach the bowl (or what he’s spinning) to the “wheel.” And then he goes to work.



Watch out for stray wood chips!



It’s the Nikown! Like Nikon and Cow had a baby, Nikown!



Even McDonalds has a NZ theme!



Doesn’t Paeroa have a cute post office? We went in and they had all their postcards on sale – a dangerous thing for me!



Positive Paeroa Office.



Since it was fall in NZ, they had my new (since coming to Japan) favorite fall fruit – Persimmons! Of course, I had to get one.



We ended our day around town with a ride in a taxi back to the B&B. We got a surprise and our taxi driver used to live just down the road from where the B&B is located. We thought she had missed the turn for our B&B, but it turned out she was showing us where she lived.

After our day in town, we decided to play a game of Scrabble. After all the Words With Friends I’ve been playing with mom and my uncle, it turns out I’m better than I expect at Scrabble these days – I somehow managed to win!