Goodbye NZ!

Our last weekend in New Zealand was packed with great day trips and birthday celebrations. My dad, Rob and I took a short ferry trip to Rangitoto, a volcanic island in the Hauraki Gulf.

Rangitoto appeared out of the sea after a series of erutions about 600 years ago. It must have been a shock for the Mauri people living on adjoining Motutapu island! The lower slopes are still bare lava rock, so our picnic spot was quite uncomfortable!

 

The view from the summit was amazing - you can see right across to the city and, on the other side, as far as the Coromandel Peninsular. There are some lava caves at the top of the island, which were formed by a crust of lava cooling and the hot lava inside flowing out to leave a hollow.

Another day, another island... for my birthday day out we all went to beautiful Waiheke, yet another little gem just a short hop from Auckland.

We visited Mudbrick, a fantastically located restaurant with amazing gardens and spectacular views across to Rangitoto.

 

It was lovely to spend my birthday with Mum and Dad. Last year we celebrated with our adopted family and friends in Panama and, as enjoyable as that was, I did miss having them around.

 

We also had one last catch up/ goodbye/ birthday celebration with our Auckland friends. Coffee with Kandace on my birthday and a night out with (below) Mark, Jen and Mark's brother, Phil, in Ponsonby. We were very sad to leave them all but all promised to stay in touch and hope to meet up again somewhere in the world!

Then the really tough farewells. We flew out from Auckland at 1am on 10th November so, late on my birthday, after a delicious meal, we all left for the airport. It was very hard to leave Mum and Dad behind, knowing I wouldn't see them again for another year, so there were lots of tears. On the other hand, they've created a great life for themselves in New Zealand, with a much more relaxed pace, lots of nice friends and more fantastic places to visit.

The journey back was quite enjoyable. It was very long (10hrs to Singapore, where we had a shower to refresh ourselves for the second leg, then 14hrs back to London) but we had amazing views some of the way, like this one over the mountains of Afghanistan.

As you would expect for mid November, the weather was very miserable when we landed at Heathrow. The palette of turquoise, blue and green of our last few days in NZ was gone and in its place was... well, grey, really!

We've now been back for about 2 weeks and are settling back into UK life. I've been getting some days of supply teaching work while Rob gets on with the serious business of job searching. It looks like we'll be based somewhere down south and we'll certainly be in the UK for a good while now, but don't worry, we won't stop exploring our amazing planet just yet!

Rachel x

Tsunami!

This morning, a pretty huge (8.3 magnitude) earthquake struck off the coast of Samoa, about 3,000km from New Zealand in the South Pacific. As tsunami waves of around 1m high were recorded (with waves as high as 4m in Tonga), a tsunami warning was issued here in New Zealand. It was expected to arrive at NZ's East Cape around 9.44am, and to hit Auckland (where we are) by 11.12am, coinciding with low tide. As advised, we packed up our backpacks, left them upstairs and headed out (with a bag comtaining our passports and other essential bits) to higher ground at the top of Mt Victoria to watch and wait. Luckily we had Rach's iPod, which has an FM radio tuner dongle, so we could keep track of the news reports.

In the end, as we stood with baited breath, the warning was cancelled and nothing happened! Lucky for us here in NZ, but not so lucky for the people of Samoa and American Samoa. Reports of up to 100 dead are still coming in.

Rob

The far north

We headed north from Auckland to explore the Bay of Islands for a long weekend. Unfortunately my dad was in Sydney for work, but Mum admirably took on the role of tour guide and we had a great time.

The bay has 144 islands in total and the combination of the gorgeous curves of the coastline, the turquoise water and the sprinkling of tiny islands makes for incredible views.

The area also has a lot of historical significance with some of NZ's oldest buildings and amazing stories about the early days of the country. The Waitangi treaty ground marks the spot where Maori chiefs and representatives of the British Empire signed the controversial agreement that brought New Zealand under Queen Victoria's rule.

As well as Busby (the first government representative in the country)'s house, there is also a Maori meeting house on the site with many impressive carvings.

Rob and I went on a boat trip out into the Bay  of Islands, in search of dolphins. Sadly the dolphins weren't in the mood for showing off (maybe they were put off by the miserable weather) but we did see the bay in its full glory, so no complaints.

The next day the weather was much better and we headed up to the far north on a coach trip. The early morning mist on our journey was very dramatic.
The bus is specially designed for driving on sand, which meant we had a brilliant drive along 90 mile beach. It's actually only about 55 miles but that was long enough! The tide can be quite brutal and some people get caught out, like the driver of this 4 x 4, which is now partly buried in the sand!

At the top end of the beach are the enormous Te Paki sand dunes, where we did a bit of dune surfing. They're very tall and steep at times so it was pretty exhilarating to plummet down head first with just a body board to cling onto!

Cape Reinga, the far north tip of the island is an amzing place. We were very lucky to have a clear, still day, which gave us fantastic views out into the never-ending Pacific ocean. If you were to jump off the cape, you could keep swimming for 2066 miles before you even reached the equator, let alone land!

The journey back to Auckland was wonderful, too. We took a detour across the Hokianga harbour on a car ferry and through the ancient kauri tree forests.

The kauris are the second largest trees on Earth (after Redwoods) and Tane Mahuta is the tallest living kauri. It really is overwhelming to stand at the bottom of this 2000 year old tree and marvel at its immense size and the variety of life it supports. I also find it amazing that it was still there in the same spot before any people lived in New Zealand.

A lovely few days in Northland before setting off to the South Island later this week!

Rachel x

First week whirlwind

We've now been here in New Zealand for a week and we've been busy exploring every day. For me, the best thing is seeing my mum and dad again. After a year apart, we've been chatting non stop, filling each other in on what we've been up to and fitting in all those hugs we've missed! They live in New Zealand's biggest city, Auckland, and on our first day here we went north of the city for a walk in the native bush.

We also squeezed in a bit of wine tasting...

and a glimpse of the fantastic views up in the hills.

The sun came out for a wonderful afternoon on Karekare and Piha beaches. Karekare is my favourite because it's incredibly wild and dramatic (it was the setting for the film The Piano). On the top picture you may be able to make out the amazing patterns the sand made when it was blown by the wind. Here's the lovely view of Piha with lion rock, an old volcano cone, sitting on the sand. Can you make out how it got it's name?!

 

Devonport, the part of Auckland where Mum and Dad live, is right on the water so the city centre is just a short ferry journey away. You can see the striking skyline across the harbour.

 

This is Auckland's most famous landmark, the Sky Tower.

 

One of the best things about travelling is the friends you make and we've been delighted to be able to meet up with friends from Central America here in New Zealand. We spent a great evening at Jenny and Mark's fab flat in Kingsland; good wine, good food and good company. Unfortunately we were so busy catching up that we forgot to take any photos!
Kandace, who we met in Tikal, Guatemala, gave us a fun tour of her home country as we went driving 'out west'. Thanks for making us so welcome guys!

 

It's been a great start to our time in New Zealand and the perfect combination of familiar faces and new places to explore.

Rachel x

Singapore

New Zealand is a long way away. To get there, one has to fly via somewhere else. In our case, this happened to be the city-state of Singapore. Amazingly clean and even more incredibly safe (the guide book says it's ok to walk around alone at night, even for women - a bit of a shock after the experience of Latin America).

We got a great deal on the flights through Singapore Airlines, which meant a long break between flights at Singapore airport. We got an even better deal though on a stopover hotel through the airline - just NZ$1 each for a pretty nice hotel right in the middle of Singapore! Just enough time for us to freshen up and head out for some food in famously multicultural Singapore.

There are many 'classic' Singaporean dishes to choose from, such as Laksa soup or Chicken Rice. We headed to the Lau Pa Sat Festival Market near Chinatown to sample a vegetarian version of Rojak (made with a peanut/chilli sauce and tofu) and a delicious Indian Masala Dhosa (a savoury pancake filled with spicy potato and served with curry and coconut chutney to dip it in). Yummy!

Our fleeting visit was just long enough for us to get a few hours sleep back in the hotel then return to the airport for an early flight. Next stop Auckland!

Rob

Setting Off!

So, we're off on another trip already. This time, as many of you will know, we're heading to New Zealand to see Rachel's parents. The bags are packed and all that's left is to catch the train down to Heathrow. Next stop Singapore!

Rob