It’s hard to believe that it’s almost been two weeks since the last post. We’ve been enjoying our “bonus time” here in New Zealand–we pushed our flight back about a month–and have seen some really cool things and places that we would have missed. It’s always hard to try and capture it all a week or two later, but here’s a quick recap–check our Flickr page in the next few days as well for lots of photo updates. After leaving the oil refinery and our phony Texas accents behind (they weren’t impressed), we continued north in search of sun and fun. We got a little bit of the former and lots of the latter. The weather has certainly changed here. It’s June, which despite our refusal to accept it, means the onset of winter in New Zealand. Of course, it’s not like winter back home, but the nights are getting cold and if it’s raining during the day it’s not exactly pleasant. But, here on the North Island you can still get some beautiful, fine days–warm enough for a surf or snorkel session. We had a couple of awesome days out on the Karikari Peninsula near the top of the North Island. At Matai Bay we found not one, but two octopi. We spent hours in the tide pools with our octopus stick, watching it grab on or push it away, feeding it other creatures, seeing if it would swim around if we coaxed it out of its hiding spot–basically all of the things that we would typically be telling the groups of kids we used to take on these kinds of excursions not to do.
We also had a chance to stop at the “World Famous” Mangonui Fish Shop for some delicious fish and chips. It’s funny how things work out sometimes. Ever since writing that post about the fork, we can’t seem to get away from them. Joanie landed a few forks at the fish shop amd then we went snorkeling a few days later and one of the first things we saw was a fork in some seaweed. Spaghetti has been much more enjoyable lately.
Another huge highlight was catching sight of our first wild kiwi (the bird, not the mulleted rugby type–seen plenty of those). At Trounson Forest Park we strapped on our headlamps and took a night walk in search of the elusive kiwi and were treated to a fleeting glimpse of a dark blob scratching through the forest floor. You can see the picture here.
We also found another massive eel on the same walk–they spend around 70-80 years in freshwater before returning to the sea to mate and die! Finally, we topped off the wildlife mania with a visit to some ancient kauri trees. Wow!
As exciting as all of that was, I think the highlight for us may have been a visit to the Kauri Museum on the west coast. We felt as if we had landed in the Deming, New Mexico of New Zealand. Deming, of course, was the sight of the coolest museum of our New Hampshire to California road trip, and the Kauri Museum was similar in many ways. When you’re inside the museum you can’t help but wonder where the heck am I? From the outside you just have no idea how big the place is. And, like Deming the museum is lucky to have a dedicated staff of volunteers and is filled with tons of artifacts from the local region. The Kauri Museum, however, does have a theme to it–kauri trees and logging–though there is also plenty of other stuff thrown in (no braille editions of Playboy however). The best part is that a group of older guys who like to tinker with machinery have fixed up old sawmills, milking sheds, etc. so you can see these things actually working. And all of the mannequins running these machines look just like the guys who fixed them up. The attention to detail was incredible. The dentist’s office patient had blood in all the right places–mouth, shirt collar, vest, gauze on the table–there were even mud smears from his gumboots on the chair’s footstool. You won’t see that in the Smithsonian.
Where to next? With just a couple of weeks left we’ve been feeling a desire to get out of the cold, under a roof, and back to our favorite place in New Zealand. Any guesses where that might be?
