Bay of Islands Bliss

This past weekend was Labor Day Weekend here in NZ.  My first long weekend!  Which meant time to venture farther than a 3 hour radius!    I bought a voucher online for a half-price boat cruise on the Bay of Islands (I'll call it "BOI" from now on), so I figured this would be the weekend to use it, since BOI is pretty far North (to the tune of 8.5 hours by car, ugh).

I headed out Friday after work, spent the night in a little town exactly halfway, and woke up the next morning and finished the drive by noon.  Not too bad for travelling solo!

The only touristy stop I made along the way was the town of Kawakawa, to see their toilets.  Yes, their toilets put them on the map.  An Austrian artist named Friedensreich Hundertwasser made the small town of Kawakawa his home and designed a beautiful set of public toilets, with brightly colored tiles and glass bottle murals.   

Quite possibly the most famous toilets in NZ, maybe even the Southern Hemisphere!

I used these toilets to change into... *drumroll please*  SHORTS!    Hurray!    Labor Day Weekend here is usually the kickoff to nice weather.   And it was.  Sunshine and warmth (in the 70s!)  all weekend long.  FINALLY!

So, moving on--- BOI is located in the Northland portion of the country, just about at the tippy-top.  It's a group of 144 islands, and was the first area of NZ settled by Europeans.   The main towns are Paihia, Russell (accessible by ferry), Waitangi, and Kerikeri.   Paihia is the main tourist town, so I landed there first, and took a 2 hour beach walk to the next town.

It was great.   And so was lying on the beach in a bikini with a beer when I was done and getting some quality SUN!  

I read somewhere that BOI was ranked #2 (behind Rio de Janiero) for bluest sky in the World.  BLISS!

Later on that evening I headed up the road to Waitangi.   This is quite a historic town, as the Declaration of Independence and the Treaty of Waitangi were both signed here.  The whole tourist hoopla costs $25 for admission, but free for NZ residents.  They let me in for free when I showed them my NZ library card. Score!

Here's is the world's longest waka (Maori war canoe)

This is the house where the Treaty of Waitangi was signed and NZ became part of the British empire on February 6th, 1840.  This treaty did 3 things: established a British governor of New Zealand, recognized Maori ownership of their original lands, and also gave Maori the rights of British subjects.  February 6th is Waitangi Day, a public holiday nationwide.    To this day, there is still much controversy on the true interpretation of the treaty, leading to many protests by Maori activists.

This is the Maori Whare Runanga, a meeting house built in 1940 to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi.

 

Here are some of the carvings inside.  Remember how I explained how the paua shell was used for the eyes of the Maori masks?  Here are some examples!

 Warning:  PG-13 rated Maori warrior below  :)

I spent Sunday morning visiting a few more waterfalls and historic sights, but the highlight of my trip was my boat cruise on THE ROCK!

The Rock is a converted carferry boat owned by a husband and wife team that provide 22 hour overnight adventure boat cruises on the BOI.  It was a blast!   We fished, kayaked, snorkeled, travelled to and hiked on a remote island--- and had some absolutely spectacular views!

Some islands were tiny:

 Some much larger!

 It's subtle, but this is my favorite picture- contrasting the white sandy beach on the left and the more rocky grey sand on the right.  What a difference, huh? 

We had our share of seafood, too.   While snorkeling we collected several dozen kina (New Zealand sea urchin) by hand and ate their slimy (but delicious!) contents on the boat afterwards!

Their roe (eggs) are a delicacy--- they sell for about 100 US dollars a kilogram! 

This snapper's body was fried for Sunday dinner, and head was smoked for a tasty Monday snack!

 One of the neatest parts of the trip was the diversity. The boat sleeps 35, and of those 35, there were folks representing US, Ireland, NZ, Australia, Finland, the Netherlands, Austria, Germany, and the Phillipines! Here we all are after hiking to the top of one of the islands:

After the awesome boat cruise, I hopped in the car to start the 8.5 hour journey home.  Boy did going back to work on Tuesday morning suck.  But the trip was definitely worth it!

Definitely a labor-less Labor Day Weekend :)



Hangi and Lake Rotorangi

This post is dedicated to Steve--- a great friend, doctor, dining buddy, and travelling partner.  We spent about 10 weeks working at the office working together.  He was a great colleague and role model.  His locums term ended this past weekend, so we spent Saturday packing in all sorts of last-minute Kiwiana fun.

Our local paper notified us of a "Pet Day" at the Manaia Primary School.  Manaia is a town of approximately 925 located just northwest of Hawera, a short drive along the Surf Highway. 

Manaia is the "Bread Capital" of New Zealand.   This is because the Yarrows Bakery is located there, and it supplies the bread (dough, frozen) to all the Subway restaurants in New Zealand, Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan and Taiwan!  That's a lot of bread!!

So, back to Pet Day.  Steve and I arrived to the town early, and thought we'd get a cup of coffee at the local dairy (aka convenience store).   Wrong.   Just so you know, there is nowhere in the town of Manaia where one can get a hot cup of coffee on a Saturday morning.  Fail.

So to kill some more time, we drove to the beach, to catch a glimpse of the morning Tasman Sea.

Then it was finally time for the Pet Competition!!!   Cows were up first.  When the kid/animal's number was called, the kid paraded his animal around for the judge lady.  Sometimes the pet didn't cooperate with the parading, and the judge lady had to give the animal a kind tap on the bum, as seen below.  :)

 LOVE THIS PIC!  I don't know who's cuter, kid or calf!

Here are some of the girls and their calves in the ribbon ceremony.   So precious!

 Inside the school, some of the classes art projects were on display.  Ah, the joys of rural farmland art class....

After Pet Day, we stopped at another dairy in Stratford (this one did have coffee!), but we opted for some soft ice cream (my first since being here in NZ!).  Love the sign :)

Our next stop was a looong drive to Lake Rotorangi, New Zealand's largest manmade lake.  The lake, and the drive there were absolutely spectacular.  We were the only people there!   The day was perfect.

The lake has a short loop path along one side of it.  We were all set to get some exercise (and burn off our Frosty Boy), when the path to the right looked like this:

And then we headed the other way, and after walking only 5 minutes, the other direction looked like this:

 Some serious storm and mudslide trail damage left us hopeless in finding our way around the path.  Sadness.  Next time we'll bring our machetes and do some serious bush-whacking!

Some cool fossils on the beach rocks:

And my favorite picture of the day:

Just gorgeous!

Our ride back home was fairly comical--- we had some traffic jams--- of the sheep and cow varieties.

Sheeps in the fields (all those little white dots!)....

 Sheeps in the roads.....

 This is the cow crossing they warn you about!  (and they sure like to take their sweet-ass time)..



We ended the day with picking up our dinner from another School festival in Normanby (another town just north of Hawera, population 800).   They were hosting a hangi dinner.  Hangi is a traditional Maori form of cooking.  It means "earth oven".  Basically, a meal of meats (ham, lamb, beef, chicken) and veggies (potato, kumara (sweet potato), etc) and stuffing are covered with leaves (cabbage, banana, etc) and placed in the ground into a dug-out pit oven which is heated with stones.  The food cooks all day, and turns out to be a delicious roast meal by 5pm!

The picture doesn't do it justice, but the smells, textures and tastes were delicious!   My only comparison would be US Chicken Barbecue meets Southern Soul food.  YUM!

So, after our hangi, I dropped Steve off at his hotel to make his final preparations for his deparature back State-Side.
Thanks for a wonderful weekend and wonderful 2.5 months, Steve!   I will miss you!

(Steve and I, celebrating his 70th(!) birthday last month)



Sure Plays a Mean NetBall (but even better Pokies!)

Have you heard of Netball?  I hadn't, until I got here.   It was only the first week of work when people starting asking me if I play. Kind of like the "Volleyball or basketball?" question I often get in the states, just because I'm tall. 

Netball is a game similar to basketball, but not really.  7 players per team, 15 minute quarters, a round ball, a basket.   But it orginated in England as a more lady-like sport than basketball--- no contact, no dribbling, no backboard.  So really, quite far from bball!  My clinic organized a team for the town's social league, and the season started last week.   Here's a few pics of our first game.

Left to Right:  Rachel, me, Hemi (zoom in and check out his Moko (full facial tattoo)).  I'm "goal shoot" in this pic, a position inside the circle which is one of the only two positions on the court in which you're allowed to shoot.  

The basket is higher than basketball, and no backboard, which makes shots quite tricky.

Mister Kopko and Jerry would be so proud of my hands here :)

She shoots!

Like I said, I only scored once in each game.  The first game we lost 2-20.  But the 2nd game we only lost 7-16.  Improvement is key!!! We'll be AMAZING by season's end, for sure!

In worldwide netball news, just yesterday, the Silver Ferns (The NZ netball national team) just won the GOLD MEDAL in the Commonwealth Games (think Olympics, but only for those nations once under British rule) against Australia.  In overtime to boot!  An awesome game.  A great day in NZ sporting history, as the Kiwis and Aussies are quite sporting rivals!

In other sporting news, Steve (the locums doc from Cali) and I played some SERIOUS pokies tonight.  Pokies is just the down-under term for video poker.  Most bars have them here (in a separate back room).  We were about to leave the bar for dinner after happy hour, but I persuaded Steve to try some pokies with me.  I twisted his arm, put a 2 dollar coin in a machine for each of us, and what do you know, the Kiwi Luck was in our favor tonight!

Steve casually watching as he HITS the jackpot!  20 dollars- whoopee!

Not as successful as High Roller Steve, I still came home with 13 dollars in my pocket!   Not too shabby for each of us starting with just a two dollar coin!

Cheers from your favorite netballin' pokie player!