So it was my turn to pick a day trip for us…unfortunately I don’t have a list of things that I want to do in the back of my mind so we left the house with a plan to go check out a water fall and a dam. Looking back at that impressive itinerary I am somewhat shocked that Sheila didn’t tell me to go check it out by myself…:-)

The dam is Cosseys Dam and it is in an area called Hunua which is home to almost nobody but has a ton of hiking trails (called trampling here in NZ).

Us at Cosseys Dam

For some reason we started taking pictures of each other jumping off the dam…not really sure why but there were some pretty funny ones. Apparently I jump in a similar pose as I sit on a toilet.

For all the incredible natural landscapes in New Zealand they seem to lack impressive waterfalls. I am not even looking for something to compare to Niagara Falls but just something that looks somewhat cool.

Hunua Falls

For some reason there was also a lot of jumping pictures in front of Hunua Falls…I can’t imagine the long term damage our antics in public have made on the Canadian reputation.

So after visiting the Falls and the Dam you would think we would have had a full day right? Nope! Not us…instead of cutting our losses we decided to drive towards the eastern coast without a real plan and hopefully accidentally find something cool. Driving without a plan has delivered good results for us in the past but was not so successful on this trip. After driving around and getting lost a few times we ended up at town named Miranda. We had a beer at the pub which seemed a little sketchy and local but was still kind of cool..the only thing I really remember about it was that the frequent patrons all had bear mugs with their names on them hanging behind the bar. That is something I could get behind…:-)

Trail to Miranda Bird Sanctuary

We stuck around Miranda and checked out the bird sanctuary and the hot spring pools. The hot springs in New Zealand are a nice and after a day of driving it felt nice to sit and relax in them. We got sold hard on the bird sanctuary (even though the admission was based on donation and we didn’t donate anything because we didn’t have any cash/change) and the dude told us there would be thousands of birds that would show up just before dusk. As it turns out there were thousands of birds but they were really boring and really far away. The only way you could really see them was through the dudes range finder and we kind of felt dirty and wrong for looking through his range finder without paying any donation money…we did it anyway but it still didn’t feel right.

Considering we started the day without any type of real plan we had a lot of fun and got to see some stuff that might be considered off the beaten track.

Not a lot to say about this trip…not because it wasn’t fun but because it was like three months ago now (Posting this on May 17^th even though I backdated it). So far behind on pictures and posts…I have finally convinced Sheila to start posting too so hopefully that will help us catch up.

But yeah…we had not been up the North West coast so we decided to drive up that way. Just looking at the map Shelly beach sounded cool because it was on a point in a bay and it was one of the only beaches in that area.

Not wanting to drive to a crappy beach (if there is such a thing in New Zealand), we decided to stop at Helensville and check the tourist information centre to see what was cool to do in Helensville. As it turns out there isn’t that much to do in the Helensville area…seemed pretty boring. We told the lady at the information centre that we were thinking of going to Shelly Beach and she agreed that this would be our best bet. She said it was a really nice beach…I don’t know if she had actually been there because she wasn’t really right.

On the drive between Helensville and Shelly Beach we passed a Macadamia nut farm…we joked about going in and taking the tour that they advertised. I thought it was a joke but apparently it was in fact not a joke for one of us…J

If Shelly Beach was back in Canada it would probably be overrun with people and everyone would think it was awesome but by New Zealand beach standards it was not great. It kind of seemed more like a mud flat than a beach…walking around in the water was kind of gross because the mud was so soft and the water was really muddy/murky. It got its name because of all the crushed shells…most of the beach above the muddy waterline was crushed up white shells.

Shelly Beach

There was a ton of little crabs too…Sheila wasn’t wearing her glasses and was worried the entire time about stepping on them.. Not sure if she didn’t want to kill a crab or didn’t want to hurt her foot…:-)

So after walking up and down the beach a bit and enjoying a slightly warm beer we decided to jump back into the Vitz and go somewhere else. Somewhere else ended up being the macadamia nut farm that I thought we were only joking about going to. So we pulled into the farm…got a couple macadamia nut ice creams (which was incredibly good) and went on the complementary self tour. There were a lot of fun facts about macadamia nuts…none of which I can remember. Seems like all these food related tours is a commercial for how healthy eating that particular food is….pretty sure if there was a cigarette tour here they would tell you how darts are the super food and cure cancer…:-)

As you can see in the picture below macadamia nuts grow on trees like apples and have green shells. I think they must be roasted like coffee or something to get the brown dry shell.

Nuts

Macadamia Nut Fun Fact:

As you can see below if you run out of gravel when constructing a driveway you can substitute macadamia nut shells.

Nut Driveway

At the beginning of our trip to Fiji we saw ads for swimming with the manta rays. The ad showed these huge rays that were like the size of a small whale or something so we really wanted to do that. Apparently the only way to do that is to fly to an island up north and stay a night on a resort out there. Sadly Manta Rays were not in the vacation budget…

So we had two other things on our list of things we definitely wanted to do… 1) Snorkeling and 2) Surfing. We kind of wandered around talking to different people that arrange trips from Port Denarau and Nadi and it was looking like we would need to rent a car or take a taxi to go surfing. Since we didn’t feel really 100% safe when we were in Nadi we decided that renting a car and venturing out on our own would be a bad idea.

So this left us with just snorkeling…while walking around Ndi there were tons of people that arrange touristy trips from the resorts and they all say a different trip is the best trip and come off as complete snake oil salesmen. I can only imagine this is how Merf comes off when he is selling urinal pucks and garbage bags. “My urinal pucks are carcinogenic free…blah blah blah”. All the pamphlets for the day trips sound the same too….so we decided to just pick one and go with it since there was no way to know what was garbage and what was good.

We went with Robinson Crusoe Island…I think what got us was that it had snorkeling and there was a full day with 2 meals. The lady that sold it to us was adamant that this was by far the best deal and the best trip and that she did not receive any commissions and was completely unbiased.

They picked us up at the resort and we were greeted by a dude in a grass skirt and guitar named Tequila. Kind of an unoriginal name but other than that Tequila kept the mood pretty high on the bus and said some really stereotypical stuff about Fijian people. The day was looking up…it was before noon and we were drinking beer and singing along to Tequila’s Fiji-accent rendition of The Gambler.

Fun Fiji Fact: They love Ann Murray, Kenny Rogers and Elvis….if you go up to someone playing a guitar in Fiji and request anything by those three they would know it. I am convinced The Gambler is their national anthem.

Boat going to Robinson Crusoe Island

So after a hour bus ride or so we arrived at the wharf and got on a boat that went through a mangrove type river thing and out into the ocean.  First activity we did was snorkeling…it sucked…it was too choppy and they kept us close to the shore so all we saw was sea grass and a few fish here and there. Was really unimpressive and a huge disappointment…

A fish (Snorkling at Robinson Crusoe Island)

Next activity was sea turtle viewing…they gathered everyone around a pile of sticks and told some story about how the turtles come up to the shore and dig holes and lay eggs. Then the pulled the sticks off a turtle shell and they brought everyone in closer. Then a dude jumped up with the turtle shell on his back…so turtle viewing was actually a dude with a turtle shell on his back. I don’t think we were the only ones that felt a little ripped off after that.

Sea Turtle Viewing at Robinson Crusoe Island

Next activity was a group conga line thing…basically everyone got in a conga line I had Sheila behind me and a girl in front of me and this dude asked if he could get between me and the girl in front of me because it was his fiance. Makes sense whatever… so now I am behind this dude in the conga line. The guy that was organizing the dance pulled me and a goofy awkward kid out of the line and made fun of us for being behind guys in the line and basically called us flamers in front of the whole group. Awesome… so I move in behind a girl that is like probably 12. Me being behind a dude made me gay so I guess by the same logic me being behind a 12 year old girl makes me a pedophile….which apparently they are completely fine with on Robinson Crusoe Island.

Fire Walking at Robinson Crusoe Island

The next disappointment… fire walking. Fire walking to me means a long fire pit with red hot coals and some dude walking the length of it. Fire walking to the Robinson Crusoe people was a lame fire pit like 2 feet in diameter with nothing red hot and a dude walking on the non-red hot rocks. The looks on the peoples faces standing around the fire pit said it all..boredom.

Fire Show at Robinson Crusoe Island

As much as I hated Robinson Crusoe Island I must say their fire show was pretty legit. They twirled fire and did all kinds of cheerleader type pyramid things….was kind of cool.

In addition to the day trips Robinson Crusoe also offers multi-night stays where you can stay in their huts. I can’t imagine how much fun that would be!

We have been back from Fiji a month and change and I am just now getting to posting pictures…you would never know I am on vacation…

I decided to split the Fiji trip into a few different posts…mostly so I can write about how crappy Robinson Crusoe Island is…

We have been to Mexico a couple times and stayed on all inclusive resorts so we knew that going to Fiji and staying in a pay per meal/pay per drink resort would be a little different. Aside from having to pay for everything the biggest difference was just the mood on the resort…it was super calm and chill…a lot of families and older couples.

Not really knowing how much stuff cost we swam up to the swim up bar on Day 1 and looked at the menu. Beer were like $10 and mixed drinks were like $23…boo!  All the restaurants on the resort were pretty expensive as well. We quickly realized that the litre of gin we bought at the duty free was a good decision and would be our savior at least for a few days.

Drinking Gin in the Pool

The resort was really nice…beautiful pools with sand right up to the edge of the water so it seemed like a real beach. Later in the week we walked to a few of the different resorts on Denarau Island and some of them looked a bit nicer but ours had the best pools without a doubt.  It was nice to have a no-kids pool too so you didn’t have bastard kids splashing around and stuff…actually we were pretty much the only ones in the no-kids pool most of the time.

Pool at Radisson Fiji

The island that we stayed on (Denarau Island) is basically 5 resorts side by side and you can go from resort to resort and eat at different restaurants or sneak into their pools. There is a bus that takes you around the resort loop and takes you into the port which we used a ton. The port was super touristy kind of like a fancy strip mall with a bunch of separate restaurants…absolutely no locals that were not working. Most of the stuff in the port was pretty reasonably priced…we had dinners there and they were around $50/person. So we ate there a lot and also killed a lot of pizza on the resort.

Back to the drinks situation…the first day we had a bottle of gin but we had no mix and nothing that we could drink it out of in the pool. Also we didn’t really know if you were allowed to mix your own drinks and take them down to the pool…nobody else seemed to be doing it. We chanced it and picked up some insulated travel mugs and some mix at the port and tried to be pretty stealth about it (Some people later told us that it was pretty obvious what we were doing)…none of the workers said anything about it all week. While we were picking up the mix I took a picture of the same bottle of gin that I paid $70 for in New Zealand the day before that was selling for $140 in Fiji. Crazynesss…

We had planned on doing a bunch of day trips (surfing, snorkling, swimming with manta rays) but it was all pretty expensive so we decided to just chill in the pool for most of the week and only really left the resort to go to the port for dinner, one trip into the neighboring town Nadi and a day trip “cruise” package called Robinson Crusoe. More on Robinson Crusoe later…

Nadi was pretty poor…before we went into Nadi we kind of thought it might be a good idea to rent a car tour around for a day but after walking through the town we kind of realized that it might not be that hard to find trouble in Fiji. Some people looked pretty desperate and it was really run down and dirty.

All in all we had a great trip though…weather was almost perfect (a couple days were overcast but still warm) and we had a lot of fun.

We continue to explore New Zealand’s rugged west coast, with its beautiful black sand beaches and vast sand dunes.  It turns out that Muriwai is about a 40 min drive from our place in Greenhithe – and a much pleasanter drive than that of Piha!

Shelore at Muriwai

The black sand is merciless on your feet on a warm sunny day….even with flip flops on the sand gets on your heels and over your toes….there is a lot of wincing and whimpering as you run from the parking lot (which is sand) over the dune and down towards the water.  The parking lot is sheltered by a sandy ridge, making it the warmest part of Muriwai.  Once you are over the ridge and settled on the beach there always seems to be a strong cool wind so it’s never very hot (except for that sand!).  The water is also not so hot…all in all not an awesome place to bask in the sun and lounge in the water – but beautiful all the same.

Muriwai has a bit of a bad rap for drowning…tourists…surfers….New Zealanders….I have to say that I was really sceptical about the “dangerousness” of the west coast waters.  But, after a couple of uncomfortable situations where I felt how fast and strong the waters are here – I am now a bit afraid of the water which I have had a hard time coming to grips with as someone who has spent half her life in the water.

To the left side of the beach is a rocky outcrop where the fishermen are (always where people drown).  Looks like a lot of fun – will definitely have to give that a try at some point.

There is a large Gannet colony at Muriwai.  It was baby season at the gannet colony which was super cute.  We might have taken a ridiculous amount of photos of the gannets – but got some pretty wicked ones of the gannets in flight.  Who would have thought that I would move to New Zealand and become a bird-lover?

Baby Gannet

From on top of the Gannet colony you can see for miles the black sand beaches and sand dunes that stretch up towards the tip of the north island.  The pictures really don’t do it justice.

Muriwai Gannet Colonies and Coastline

Following up on the very successful “Sheep and Dead Fish” outing I decided the next stop on the kiwi “tour” would be in the land of boiling mud and stenchy sulphur.  The land of Rotorua.

Google. Maps. Suck.  In New Zealand.  A less than direct route to be sure – but we certainly got an eyeful with the giant dog and giant sheep made out of corrugated cardboard along the way.  Never seen that before J

Clayton discovered the unique traffic safety ad campaign launched across the highways in NZ.  Of course we don’t have a picture of them – and can’t find any posted on the internet – but it is a “clever kiwi” campaign where kiwi birds make wise decisions about their driving, including: clever kiwis nvr txt n drv, clever kiwis take power naps, and Clayton thinks he saw one suggesting that kiwi birds should smoke dope and drive.  Clayton.

I had described to Clayton how Rotorua smells….like being trapped inside a massive vat of boiled eggs.  As usual he thought I was exaggerating -  however I was, if anything, under exaggerating.  Rotorua is situated in a geothermal belt powered by sulphur.  There are boiling mud holes and steaming water everywhere.

We thought we would visit the Agrodome and catch a Sheep Show as it seemed like a funny/fun thing to do (nothin but mutton), however upon arriving at the Agrodome we discovered it cost $100 to watch some dogs chase sheep and watch a sheep shearing.  Maybe not a $100 funny.

We mulled over the option to Zorb, or to visit the safari nearby, but ended up deciding on a more cultural experience at Te Puia which was pretty wicked. The singing/dancing reminded me of the luau in Hawaii which brought back awesome memories of romantic photos in front of a setting sun with my cousin Laura   Te Puia is also the home of the NZ Maori Arts and Crafts Institute which was awesome as well.

I took this - and it rocks

We wandered through Te Puia after the cultural show – in the rain because after a full day of sunshine driving in the car it rained the few moments we had to wander outside – and got rained on by a sulphur geyser.  It was not wicked.  Clayton hadn’t quite believed me about boiling mud – but I believe this settled that debate.

A boiling mud pool

One day in Rotorua was definitely NOT enough.  Apparently we missed out on the luge, and probably a better place for looking at pools of steaming coloured water/mud (Wai-O-Tapu) not to mention the Lord of the Rings tour at nearby Lake Taupo, so I guess we will just have to go back to Rotorua.

We found a really great beach like 15 minutes from our apartment. I say we found it like nobody else knows about it but it is actually really popular I guess…we just hadn’t realized how close it is to us. It is on the west coast (facing Australia) which is the coast which has the coast that has the more dangerous waves.

Muriwai Beach from top of the hill where the Gannets nest

The first time we went to it the waves were not too bad but the last time we went they were pretty crazy. I had only seen waves even close to that size or quickness during hurricane Juan at Peggys Cove. I don’t think by a lot of peoples standards they were that bad though. I am very nautical so they wouldn’t have been a problem for me…

Like my nail polish?

The beach has black sand which sounds cool but it is actually not that awesome…it gets ridiculously hot on the feet and seems to get everywhere. Sheila’s car is full of it and the other night she tried to take a hit from her puffer and there was black sand in it. So that is my biggest problem in life right now…the black sand. Things are pretty good…

Muriwai Gannet Colony

We layed on the beach and got some sun and also took a walk out to the point where people were fishing. While we were out by the people fishing we found the Muriwai Gannet Colongy…I don’t know much of anything about birds but it was a pretty impressive number of them and they had a bunch of baby birds too which was kind of cool. I hadn’t seen that many birds since they closed the landfill in Kentville…I loved that place.

The water is still really cold…one of these days I will go in it for a swim instead of just wading up to my knees and going back to the towel to lay in the sun. It is still early in the summer!

Sort of fell behind with the updates lately. It is now January 12th and I have a ton of pictures and have done a ton of stuff since my last update. I think I can catch up in 4 updates… Rotorua, Stick Insect, Muriwai and Fiji.

So here is Rotorua…

Sheila had done a weekend trip before I arrived in NZ and one of the places she stopped at was Rotorua. Rotorua has a ton of boiling mud sites, geysers and a M?ori exhibit called Te Puia. M?ori’s are the New Zealand indigenous people and are the equivalent to natives in Canada.

Dude doing his thing during the show. I learned that they stick their tongues out to intimidate people not just to make them laugh.

We decided to make it a day trip. In hindsight we probably should have made it an overnight trip because it was like a 3 hour drive each way…seemed like we were driving the entire day. Was really cool though…a lot of really cool scenery between Auckland and Rotorua. We made a stop at Agrodome (a petting zoo type place outside of Rotorua) where we saw some sheep and took some pretty funny pictures.

Sheila made me wear this hat and take a picture at Agrodome.

Te Puia was cool…the geyser stank so bad of sulfur and it was blowing all over the place so it was kind of like taking a bath in rotten egg water. It looked pretty cool when it went off though…especially the boiling mud. Sheila liked the Maori dance/show thing but it wasn’t really my type of thing. They made everyone take their shoes off and  get into a small building (like 50 people)..it smelled so bad of stinky feet…hahaha

The geyser at Te Puia

Part of our plan for the day was to see the hobbit village from Lord of the Rings but it didn’t work out because we ran out of time. Another day I guess…

I woke up in the middle of the night…in quite the panic.  It felt like there were tiny claws pinching into my forearm…the thought occurred to me perhaps it was a huge spider.  After hitting my arm and swiping the sheets I woke up Clayton so he could make sure the coast was clear.  Clayton turned on the lights and looked on my side of the bed for any misshapen spiders.  Telling me the coast was clear I relaxed and looked over to where I thought the creature would be.

It was still there.

Ace Ventura had missed the very large and long stick insect that was clinging onto the side of the mattress.  To be fair I didn’t know at the time it was a stick insect, as they are docile and harmless.  I just saw a huge weird looking insect.  I may have flipped my lid a bit…and shrieked at Clayton to get rid of the insect.  I thought it was understood that “get rid of it” means irreversibly destroy.  Suggestions include flushing down the toilet, crushing until all that remains is a smear…you know.  Destroy.

I was left very unsettled wondering where the mysterious creature came from, how it ended up crawling on my arm while sleeping, and whether there would more.

In the morning after much contemplation, I decided that the creature from the night before must have been a  weta which I had seen once on a screen door.  Disgusting creature.

Turns out it was a stick insect.  How did I find out?  Well, apparently when I asked Clayton to get rid of the insect, he took that to mean don’t kill the insect and throw it into the garbage can….alive.  So as I was making lunch the next day, and I went to throw something in the garbage….the stick insect popped out of the top of the garbage can as soon as I opened the lid.

Stick Insect

Long story short…..we freed a somewhat maimed (1 broken leg) stick insect back to its environment on the tree outside the front door.

Stick Insect in Tree

Few observations after a week in New Zealand….

1. Driving on the wrong side of the road may never feel normal
2. The money is made from a synthetic paper that is really hard (maybe impossible) to rip
3. They are really big on the metric system. Even distances on golf courses are measured in meters. The red marker is at the 90 meter mark and the white is at the 135 meter mark.
4. They have $2 coins and $1 coins like Canada but they also have a 50 cent coin..which is kind of cool
5. They call sausages hot dogs and real hot dogs are called “American hot dogs”. I also saw a sea dog on a chinese food menu yesterday. Sheila dared me to try it and it was pretty gross…like its cousin the hot dog it is a tube of random ground up meat. But in the case of the sea dog it is all sea food and is encased in a layer of batter and is deep fried. Pretty gross.

A Sea Dog...despite the labels claim that it is delicious it is in fact anything but.

Going to the Green Day concert for Sheila’s birthday tonight. Should be fun…