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A Rainy New Zealand Hike #indie30

poweredbytofu — Sat, 26 Nov 2011 19:00:00 +0000

Prompt #26: Post a photo of your favorite place and tell us what you love about it.

“Certainly, travel is more than the seeing of sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living.” –Miriam Beard

I don’t have ONE favorite place. That’s just silly. I’m back on the BootsnAll blog again today, sharing about one of my favorite hikes, my glorious rainy Hike to Huka Falls in New Zealand.

New Zealand, in general, is one of my favorite places in the world. I did a lot of hiking in New Zealand and can’t wait to go back and see more of the North Island.

Where is one of your favorite places?

Join the 30 Days of Indie Travel project and share your story.

Red Cross New Zealand – Forkover Friday Week 8

poweredbytofu — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 13:00:12 +0000

I spent about a month in New Zealand during my travels in 2008. And like most travelers, hearing that a disaster has hit somewhere that you’ve spent a bit of time, is naturally a little more disheartening than some far off place that I’ve only seen in pictures. So this week’s Forkover Friday is for Red Cross New Zealand for the Christchurch earthquake.

I flew in to Christchurch from Sydney on a rainy, and very Northwest-y autumn day back in April 2008. I had been experiencing a bit of homesick blues, and the similarities between Christchurch and Oregon were really fun. I stayed in a hostel at Cathedral Square, spent time at the botanical gardens, meandered about town, and then stopped in Christchurch a second time after looping around the south island, so by the time I jumped back to Christchurch for a third time for one night between flights from Auckland and waiting to head to Thailand, it was nice knowing where everything was and a good end to my stay in New Zealand. So seeing pics & video of the destruction around Christchurch feels that much more real.

Forkover Friday Week 8
Who it helps: New Zealanders
What non-profit: Red Cross NZ
Where: New Zealand
Why: 6.3 earthquake that hit Christchurch on Tuesday.

#30: Walk To The Grocery Store

poweredbytofu — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 18:56:33 +0000

I’ve pretty much been walking to the grocery store since I started traveling. ;) I probably did most of my international grocery shopping in New Zealand and Greece though. New Zealand was an easy country to carry around a food bag and actually cook in the evenings, while in Greece I was buying more snack items like Bake Rolls and Laughing Cow cheese. So I originally put this on the list referring to walking from “home” to my closest market. But I’m still going to consider this one accomplished.

Back To Asia

poweredbytofu — Mon, 05 May 2008 22:54:48 +0000

Asia, take two. What a long day! I woke up at 3:30am to take the shuttle to the airport. I got to Melbourne around 8am, just in time to sit at the airport for five hours. Ahhh, airport fun! So what do I do in an international airport with five hours to kill? Coffee, sudoku, reading the Financial Times, Wii Sports in the electronics shop, Jelly Belly pear jelly beans, pretend shopping, reading, pancakes with maple syrup, 1/2 hour Internet, more Wii, and suddenly it seemed like I was being rushed onto the plane. ;) An hour into my JetStar flight to Bangkok, I decided to pay for the movie player. After that, time went pretty quickly. I watched No Country For Old Men (sad), Charlie Wilson’s War, and The Bucket List. A good use of $12, I’d say. After what felt like several days of travel, I was in Bangkok. I grabbed a taxi to my hotel and crashed.

Country Leaver

poweredbytofu — Sun, 04 May 2008 22:54:44 +0000

I slept in this morning, before heading to the Auckland airport for my flight down to Christchurch. I took the $5 bus into town. It’s kind of nice visiting the same town again. I know where everything is and it’s all so easy on the second loop through. I walked to Pac’n Save to get three boxes of muesli (granola) bars for SE Asia, did some last minute errands, did laundry, and then packed for Thailand.

Farewell New Zealand. I’ll miss you.

Walking Waiheke Island

poweredbytofu — Sat, 03 May 2008 22:31:20 +0000

I never give big cities a chance. After breakfast, I walked down to the docks to see if there were any spots on the ferry left to Waiheke Island. There was still room on the 10am ferry, so I ran back to the hostel and grabbed my backpack. First, I took the bus around the island, and then went back to the town center, where I looked at shops, walked through the art gallery, stopped at the info center for a map and the bus schedule and then got wedges at a cafe. For the afternoon, I decided to walk out to one of the closer wineries. It was a nice walk, a few sprinkles, but generally a pretty walkable day. The winery ended up being closed for a private function, and it was already 3pm, so I kept walking up around the hill to the next vineyard. There was an amazing lookout on the way that looks back over to Auckland. I stood on the picnic table and took pictures of the sea, the Skytower and the islands. Very cool. The winery ended up being really busy, but I did a tasting when there was a gap. It was only $5 for 7 wines. The Chardonnay was amazing, Rose kind of blah, and the reds so-so, but two were good. One of the descriptions was “with a hint of pencil shavings” hmmm… clever or cliche, I found it rather amusing. After the tasting, I walked back down the road and then took a side trek (track) over to the beach area. It was signed, but totally not a path, so it felt like I was walking through someone’s farm land! I arrived back in the central town area just in time to grab the bus back to the 5pm ferry. What a fun and relaxing day. When I got back to Auckland, I got take-away pizza for dinner and headed back to the hostel to eat. As I sat down in the cafe, I looked up and happened to be staring across the room at my favorite Irishman! I just can’t get rid of him! It was really nice to end New Zealand with a friendly face.

Big City Life

poweredbytofu — Fri, 02 May 2008 22:21:09 +0000

I had breakfast at Replete Food and people watched. I could totally live here. After checking out of the hostel, I wandered around, and did some shopping. I ended up buying a blue tank top and a hat (for Thailand) at a surf shop. At noon, I caught the Stray bus headed to Auckland.

I officially hate cities. I’m feeling a little down this evening. It’s raining, I’m tired, I’m alone in a big city, and I’m leaving New Zealand in two days. This happens every now and then, but I’m totally in a funk this evening.

Wai-o-tapu Thermal Wonderland

poweredbytofu — Thu, 01 May 2008 22:07:42 +0000

We booked a tour to the Wai-o-tapu Thermal Wonderland for this morning. It was fantastic. I took way too many pictures of boiling mud, the geyser, sulphur pits etc. Nerd day out! Seriously, though, it was great. After the bubbling mud, we stopped at the geyser. Oh and buzz kill, they put soap in the geyser at 10:15 every morning, which is why it’s on a precise schedule. After watching the geyser, we did the 1 1/2 hour walk through the “wonderland,” before heading back to Rotorua. We grabbed lunch a cafe and then watched Whale Rider, a movie about the Mauri people.

Around 4pm we walked to the bus station and soaked our feet in the thermal spring at the info center while we waited for my bus. It’s been really nice traveling in a little group of three, but it’s time for me to leave New Zealand, so I’m headed back to Taupo and then up to Auckland. And then there was one… for real this time.

Sweet As! Spa Day!

poweredbytofu — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 21:55:19 +0000

This morning we walked back to the spa park to swim in the river. It was rather murky and really warm. I ventured closer to the river where it was practically freezing, and then decided to stick to the mud area. A very fun morning! Everyone was going skydiving before we left for Rotorua. (Our Stray passes didn’t cover Rotorua, so we bought $13 tickets on Nakedbus.com instead.) Their dive ended up being canceled because of the weather, so we headed to Rotorua. Us girls got off the bus in Rotorua and Ireland continued on to Auckland. After checking in to possibly the nicest hostel in New Zealand, Treks, we decided to check out the Polynesian Spa. We grabbed our swim stuff and headed in to town. It was $20, but ended up being really fun. Each of the pools vary in 1 to 2 degrees, so if you travel in one direction, it just gets hotter and hotter, until you circle around to the first pool. It was overrun with Japanese and Chinese tour buses, but after an hour it cleared out a bit. It was fun checking out a natural spring spa and then the geo-thermal commercial spa, all in the same day.

Waiting For The Tongariro Crossing

poweredbytofu — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 21:47:30 +0000

We had an early start yesterday on the express bus to Auckland. We were only going halfway, to Taupo, but since it’s the express bus, it made only a few stops and no hiking. We made it to Taupo around noon and received the bad news that the Tongariro Crossing is closed, due to a storm. We decided to stay here a few days anyway, in hopes that it will re-open and we can hike it.

We decided to go hiking around Taupo while we wait for the crossing to open, but we woke up to pissing down rain, again. After breakfast, we headed in to town and checked in with one of the Stray drivers at Urban to see if there were any updates on the crossing. No good news. Then Sas and I decided it was clear enough to hike to Huka Falls today. But on the way back to the hostel we got drenched in a sudden downpour. We changed and then headed back in to town to find ponchos and got even more drenched! By the time we had found garbage bags, it had cleared up a bit. We walked out toward the falls trail. We passed a spa area, which we need to return to tomorrow. You can just swim in the warm, muddy creek that flows into the river. After several hours we reached the falls. It was a brilliant trail, right along the river. I could totally live on this river. We continued past the falls and ate our lunches outside of this heli-pad cafe. We considered hitching back into town, but decided to just take the same trail back. By the time we got back to town we were exhausted! After finding dinner, we met up with our favorite Irishman, who arrived in town today, and went to see a movie at the Taupo Cinema, followed by a second dinner at Hell’s Pizza.