You Stay Classy as, Ron Burgundy! (Nov. 25 – Dec. 1)

We spent our last week in New Zealand wrapping up all our bits and pieces before having to leave for Tahiti on 2 December. These “bits and pieces” largely consisted of throwing away heaps of clothing that was no longer fit to travel half-way around the world (again), picking up the Newmans from the airport after their South African holiday, and selling Ron Burgundy. Ron has seen us through almost 30,000 trouble-free kms around the North and South Islands (if you excuse him for the flat tires and dead battery, and we do), so we’re certainly sad to be parting ways with our trusty steed.

To sell Ron, we used our normal tactic of posting ads on all the free classified websites. This technique had served us well when we were selling our cars back home, but New Zealand proved to be a bit different. We got some initial interest, particularly from a finicky South African, but nothing concrete came of it. We did get one really creative would-be buyer who offered us a patio heater in exchange for the car. Hmm….yeah, no thanks.

Eventually, we decided to suck it up and take the typical backpacker advertising route – posting “for sale” signs in the hostels downtown. It proved to be an extremely disheartening afternoon, walking up and down Queen Street posting ads for Ron on bulletin boards already overflowing with other car ads. It did make us appreciate the nicer hostels we had stayed at in Auckland (Verandahs, Lantana Lodge) that were not nearly as depressing as those located downtown. We got a few bites this way as well, but even as we were posting the ads we realized that it would in no way be worth the effort. Moral: stay somewhere away from the city centre and try not to have to sell your car through fliers.

Us, the Newmans, and Auckland in the background

We eventually did manage to find a buyer from an online bulletin board. Our buyer, Bev, got in touch with us and we arranged to meet at her office on the North Shore (anything to save us a drive into Auckland at rush hour!). Not used to driving an automatic, she took us for an unexpectedly amusing test drive around Takapuna. I don’t think I’ve ever met someone who was so flummoxed by an automatic transmission, and definitely hadn’t met someone who applied the hand brake every time they approached a stop sign. Anyway, Bev got back to us the next day to let us know she would like to buy Ron. With our departure just about imminent, we took about half of what we paid for the car, $950, which was an OK offer, but I guess understandable given that our WOF was up in a couple months.

"Mushrooms" on top of Mt. Victoria in Devenport

As is always the case, as soon as we agreed to sell the car, we received much more interest than we had the previous days. You have to wonder if we could have gotten a better price (as Ron is certainly a bargain at less than a grand) but with the New Zealand dollar currently so strong against the American dollar, we’re making out okay in the end. As long as the funds get us through Tahiti…

Anyway, this marks our final day in New Zealand. I’m not sure it’s really set in yet. We enjoyed a great barbecue last night with the Newmans, and they’ve been nice enough to offer to drive us to the airport as well. We’ve been really lucky to be able to spend this time here on the North Shore, getting ourselves sorted before we leave the country. It was also great to get to know Rachel and Shanon better, as we had only spent two nights with them on our first visit. At this point, we almost feel like flatmates. We really do appreciate another couple of terrific people that CouchSurfing has brought into our lives.

One last shot of Ron Burgundy...

This might be the last you hear from us until we’re back stateside in San Francisco. Our plans for Tahiti are a little uncertain, although we have managed to line up several CouchSurfing hosts for our stay, so all we can say for sure is that it should be interesting. Beyond that, we’re planning to soak up the sun and go for some hikes. We’re not sure of how much internet will be available, so there probably won’t be any new posts until we’re in San Francisco. And by that time, we’ll practically be home.

We’ll have lots more to say about New Zealand in future posts, so stay tuned!

Hello Auckland My Old Friend (Nov. 7 – 16)

So after ten months of traveling, exploring all of New Zealand’s nooks and crannies, we’ve finally made it back to Auckland, the Big Smoke, as it were. The first thing that hit us as we approached the sprawling metropolis from the south was that there was an actual highway. Miles and miles of 4-lane (and sometimes more!) motorway, divided by a median – okay, maybe I’ll skip my usual harangue. Not that the highway is all beer and skittles, as Auckland pretty much has the country’s only traffic, and how… As we slowly drifted into the city in mid-afternoon congestion on a typically cloudy Auckland day, we began to have some brief moments of sadness at leaving the bucolic and traffic-free hinterlands.

But we had important house-sitting duties to do, so slogged on we did. As we’ve mentioned previously, we’re house-and-cat-sitting for our CSing friends, the Newmans, in their new crib in Auckland’s North Shore for a few weeks in mid-November. Fortunately the North Shore isn’t like living in the city, and the city’s ghastly traffic can be largely avoided, unless we need to go south on the motorway for any reason. We try not to find reasons.

This is about as close to Auckland as we like to get! At the summit of Rangitoto...

With our first week here in the bag, I’d say it’s gone about as well as we’d have hoped, as we’ve gotten out a few times, but mostly we’ve done nothing but lounge around. The lounging and temporary lack of responsibility for trip planning has been quite good, but I think more than a few weeks not doing much would drive us nuts. To be honest, it’s been kind of great to have our own space for awhile while we’re here, and much like when we house-sat for Kieran and Belinda in Canterbury, we’ve found traveling to be great, but you can forget how nice having your own space and sleeping in the same place for a few weeks can be.

Another gorgeous day on the North Shore. Some might say, picture perfect...

Although maybe I’m short-selling us a little bit, because we did get out of the house a bunch. We went up to Shakespear Regional Park, which lies out on the very end of Whangaparaoa Peninsula on the North Shore. Somewhat oddly, it shares a border with a military facility which warned of firing range activity on the day we were there. It seemed like a good idea to give that part a wide berth. The park was nice, with heaps of just-flowering pohutakawa trees (often called NZ Christmas trees) but what really impressed us is that they had such a big park taking up some ridiculously valuable oceanfront real estate. Good on ya, North Shore.

A pohutakawa tree in bloom

We also took a ferry out to Rangitoto Island, a dormant volcano island that lays in Hauraki Gulf, not more than a few miles from Auckland’s waterfront. We nearly missed our ferry since we underestimated how much time it takes to get into town around 9 on a weekday morning, who knew there would be rush hour traffic. It was a pretty good hike to the top, though the crater was disappointingly covered by trees. Auckland is built on something like 6 or 7 old volcanoes, and we hear the museum has a pretty frightening multimedia display on what it will be like if there’s a geologic rupture leading to major volcanic activity in the area, which the city is apparently overdue for. Auckland will not be the place to be when that happens.

The outline of Rangitoto in the distance

Lastly, yesterday we got to Piha Beach, one of Auckland’s picturesque black-sand west coast beaches. It’s a haul out there, but it’s well worth it to see the site of one of our favorite NZ TV shows, Piha Rescue, which is like Baywatch, except that it’s real, and there’s no Pam Anderson, nor almost as sadly, The Hoff. West coast beaches, and Piha in particular, are notorious for their dangerous rips, which suck out heaps of tourists, who have to be rescued by the life saving club, thus providing the show with heaps of material. Based on our unscientific survey of Kiwis, most of them say they wouldn’t swim there since Piha is well known here. Most episodes of Rescue bear that out, with Aussies and surprised swimmers of various Asian nationalities having to be saved. We skipped the surf on our visit, as we’ve enjoyed the nice beaches on the east coast, but caught quite a show from the lifeguards in training.

The wild coastline at Piha

Well it’s been a tough week, and we’ve got a couple more to go here. We’re in the process of selling Ron Burgundy, maybe trying to sell some beer if we can gin up some motivation to go into the city, are working out our Tahiti and San Francisco plans, and want to go up to the Northland one last time. Add in my 28^th birthday tomorrow, and I know I know, it’s sounds like a ridiculously busy schedule for the next two weeks, but someone’s got to do it.

Meet Ron Burgundy (Jan 14 - 15)

Ron's a handsome bastard, isn't he?

On Sunday, for the relatively low price of NZ$2000, we welcomed the New Zealand Ron Burgundy, Anchorman (erm... Anchorcar) into our traveling family. Ron is a right-side drive 1992 Subaru Legacy with 146,000 kms (apparently low for a cheap car in NZ), and is as burgundy as the day is long. For backpackers touring New Zealand, naming one's car seems to be the thing to do. We quickly decided Legacy is a terrible name for a car, and thus Ron Burgundy was born. The only bad thing we can say about Ron so far is that he doesn't smell of rich mahogany, but we're on the lookout for an appropriate car freshener.

Becky and I may never have children, so for the time being, Ron may just have to do. After a less-than-thrilling trip to the Ellerslie Racecourse Car Market on Sunday morning, we instead accepted a delivery from the Verandahs car stork. Or to be exact, from Ken Thomas, Auckland mechanic/inspection agent/sometimes backpacker car dealer. Ken seems the rather quintessential New Zealand type - no-nonsense hard-worker with a penchant for shorter shorts than most people in the US would find decent (think Larry Bird in the early '80's) and little tolerance for dallying around. We are literally kicking ourselves now for not getting a snap with Ken.

Ron and Andrew look good - this is how we roll

We accomplished quite a bit on Sunday and Monday. Besides getting Ron, we opened a bank account (an 1.5 hr ordeal that is best unremembered), got car insurance, sent away for NZ tax ID numbers, and got a cell phone - 021 178 8755. Apparently we don't get charged for incoming calls, so call away. Remember, however, that we're 18 hrs into the future for those of you on the East Coast, and we can easily retaliate if you call at inappropriate hours of the night here...

Feeling rightfully accomplished, we visited Sky Tower, Auckland's answer to a landmark architectural feature, on Monday, our first day of nice weather in Auckland. Sky Tower boasts some great views of Auckland and the surrounding areas. As the self-proclaimed adventure sports capital of the world, one can ride the elevator, climb to the top, or do a bungee-style jump off the tower. We took the perfectly good elevator to the top.

AfSky Tower, from the ground

Sky Tower, from a bit higher up

After our trip to Sky Tower, we were off to the Auckland suburbs! (Nicer than they sound, actually)

‘Ello, Auckland (Jan 12 - 13)

Friday afternoon found us arriving in Auckland at about 1 PM after a short 3-hr flight from Fiji. In a delay I’ve never experienced before, the flight was a bit late as we had to wait in Fiji for an extra half hour to allow the customs department to process a significant number of passengers on our flight – customs lines usually operate at a pretty laconic pace, but that was a new one for me. Otherwise the flight was uneventful.

Despite the shortness of the flight, the difference in latitude between Fiji and New Zealand became quickly apparent, as the weather in Auckland was much cooler than Fiji. It was sunny and about 90ºF in Fiji, but was a cool 70ºF and drizzling in New Zealand. It apparently has been a rather chilly, wet summer thus far in New Zealand, which, though a bit annoying to us, seems to make sense in a cosmic fashion, as it’s been unseasonably warm in the Northeast US this year.

Cool and cloudy in Auckland

When we started planning this trip, we thought we would cleverly be able to escape the cold Northeast winter in the States by going to balmier New Zealand climes, but so far the joke seems to be on us. I don’t usually root for really cold weather to hit Pennsylvania, but it really would make me feel better about the whole thing if I knew traveling halfway across the world would at least bring some nice weather! Sorry, friends and family who live there, but that’s how we roll. Who knows, maybe New Zealand will also have a warm winter this year as well.

Anyway, after our flight, just like obtaining our working holiday visas, getting through customs was a breeze in New Zealand – the passport agent asked us a few cursory questions about what we’d likely be doing on our working holiday visas and looked at our visa print-outs, but didn’t require us to show that we had sufficient funds to live on and return to the US with. Either he forgot, or NZ figures that if you think you need to prove that you’ve got enough funds to return home, you will actually have those funds, and they don’t need to go to the bother of checking your bank account print-out. I have to say that that does have a certain bit of logic to it. But since they didn’t check, hope they don’t get mad when they find out I’ve only got $50 to my name, and they’ll have to pay my way if they want me to go home by the end of the year! I’m kidding of course, mostly.

Prior to getting through customs Becky had convinced herself that entering New Zealand would for some reason be rather difficult, or that they wouldn’t let us through at all on some technicality. Happily, that turned out not to be the case. She had had similar fears that we would not be able to get on our earlier flights as well, but hadn’t mentioned that to me. So it was with a sigh of relief from her that we got through customs. I, on the other hand, hadn’t even really considered the possibility that our visas wouldn’t work, so I only had a momentary feeling of retroactive panic at the possibility of not getting through. But as they’re fond of saying down here, no worries.

After landing we called for a shuttle to take us to our lodging for the first few nights in Auckland, Verandahs Backpackers Lodge, where we again got a double room. Verandahs is in a large, old house right in the Ponsonby neighborhood on the edge of Western Park in Auckland. Ponsonby is apparently a rather hip area with a lot of trendy bars/cafes and a pretty gay-friendly vibe. Despite not having a grocery store in very close walking distance, it seems to be a pretty cool area of the city.

View of Verandahs from Western Park

On our first day in the city, Friday, we walked for several hours, taking in a bunch of the city and meeting people in the hostel. It was Becky's first time in a hostel, so that was quite neat for her. On Saturday we didn't get much accomplished either, beyond having some great fish and chips and finding a supermarket so that we could eat less expensively. We also managed to withdraw enough funds to buy a car through the magic of international ATMs. Due to the fact that midnight EST is at 6 PM here, we can withdraw up to US$1000 each in a five-minute span in the evening.

The Best Fish and Chips in Auckland!

With all the rain we’ve had so far in Auckland, the greenness of the city, the Sky Tower looming above the skyline, its political leanings, some native-inspired art, and a rather hip and casual vibe, Auckland seems to be pretty similar to Seattle to us. That might just be the rain talking, but the comparison doesn’t seem totally out-of-line so far. In spite of all the clouds, it's recommended that people wear an SPF 30 sunscreen everyday, as the amount of UV is relatively high here, owing to the ozone hole over Antarctica. One other thing: we haven't even driven here yet, but the driving-on-the-left is a major issue when you're crossing the streets! Looking left-right-left doesn't work here, and will probably get you flattened. It's a tough one to unlearn after a lifetime of crossing the street in the US: hopefully we get it before we have a Frogger experience!