Hoppy Birthday and Up To Whangarei (Nov. 17 – 24)

My birthday arrived amidst a stretch of nice weather last week, here on the North Shore, where we’ve been housesitting over the past few weeks. In NZ one hears a lot of gripes about the weather in Auckland, but it would be hard for anyone to find fault with the streak of warm, sunny days we’ve had here. Warm enough to hit the beach in late November works for me.

Red sunset in the North Shore means more beautiful weather tomorrow

My birthday, much like Becky’s, was a low-key affair for us, though it was without a signature moment (for example, on Becky's birthday we enjoyed a great bottle of Belinda’s wine while eating a bad steak accidentally seasoned with Christmas-cookie spices, because I don’t know how to cook, all the while it was raining like crazy outside the little hostel/shack that we were wwoofing at in the Catlins).

According to an anonymous brown-haired twenty-seven year old American woman currently in New Zealand: “The past few birthdays for Andrew have invariably revolved around beer somehow, and surprise!, this one was no exception.” We did indeed head out to the Hallertau Brewbar way out in the sticks in Riverhead (perhaps Auckland’s best beer place, certainly in the top 3), and tried their products. On the bad side, it was so full it took over 20 minutes to get our beer sampler. On the good side, they eventually made it free, but not before they accidentally added four extra things to our bill, oops. They did make some pretty good beers, but I won’t forget their imperial IPA, a ridiculously hoppy beer that was huge at 10% alcohol. They call it the Stuntman, but even though it is tasty, Masochist might be more accurate. In any event, best to have just one.

Andrew mans the barbecue on his birthday

It’s strange to celebrate my normally late-fall birthday here in the Southern Hemisphere, as Auckland’s unusually warm late-spring has been akin to mid-summer weather in the last place we lived, Vermont. For my whole life my birthday has occurred somewhere at least pretty cold, so it feels odd to be walking around in shorts around on my birthday, but I’ll certainly take it.

Later in the week, we took in a cricket game at Eden Park in Auckland, played between what I think were at least semi-professional sides. Cricket, of course, is the British Commonwealth’s answer to baseball, where it reigns as a hugely popular sport in countries India, Pakistan, and Australia. It’s somewhat like baseball in that a bowler is trying to get a batter out by throwing it past him or making him make an out some other way (e.g. a caught pop-up), but otherwise is way dissimilar. We thought we might as well check a game of cricket out, since it’s probably NZ’s 2^nd favorite sport, though by a such big margin behind rugby that it’s not even funny.

Andrew enjoying the cricket on a sunny afternoon

So we spent most of a sunny afternoon in the company of a few dozen cricket-mad students, pensioners, and people enjoying some time on the dole. It was the third day of a four-day test in which Auckland was destroying Central Districts, taking wickets at what apparently is a tremendous pace. We’d be lying if we said we understood everything going on out there, but it was pretty enjoyable, though it moved slower than even a really slow baseball game. If you don’t have the patience for baseball, you won’t make it through even an abbreviated cricket game. Pitchers take even longer between pitches, they have to run like 50 yards before each pitch, and individual batters can stay at-bat for hours at a time, scoring hundreds of runs. There are often substantial breaks for things like tea. And that’s before you consider that some games are of the 5-day variety, and that many of them end in a tie! That’s right, after 5 days of scintillating cricket action, they can’t even bother to have a winner! Instead, the rules of cricket allow one team to go in a giant stall, for the game to end without a decision, good god. In the end we enjoyed finally getting to see two teams of sweater vest-wearing gladiators go at it on the pitch, battling the proverbial ‘sticky wickets.’

Cricket fever... catch it!

Since we were in Auckland we thought we should go the Museum at some point, so we went one cloudy afternoon. Most of it was just OK, standard museum-type exhibits, but it really shined in its Volcanoes exhibit. Since Auckland is built on heaps of dormant and extinct volcanoes, there is special interest in it here. The museum’s best feature placed you in the scenario of being in an Auckland home as a new volcano explosively formed out your window in the harbor. The show had a convincing TV news program and disturbingly life-like blackout and shaking effects of the volcanic destruction of New Zealand’s major city. All in all, totally worthwhile going there.

Later in the week, we drove up to visit our CSing buddies Matt and Stu in Whangarei. We first Couchsurfed with Matt in January, as we toured the Northland in our first week in the country, and had a great time hanging out with him, his flatmate Stu, and their buddies Kel and John-Boy. Stu, who actually owns the house, has really gotten into CSing as well this year, hosting a bunch of CSers himself while Matt was out of the country. Matt has just recently returned from a six-month stint in Europe, working at a farm in the foothills of the Alps in Germany before CSing his way through northern and western Europe for a few months. We were glad to get to see these guys again after nearly a year, and we got to meet some other interesting travelers there, since their place is basically CSing headquarters.

Back to nature in the Northland

Seriously, these guys are CSing MVPs. On our first visit in January, we were just two of four CSers at their house at that time, and this time they were also hosting a girl from Hong Kong and a young couple from Sweden. The Swedes were very young and as a result were good for a lot of entertainment, though I don’t think they intended it. First, they were positively rapt about Canberra, Australia’s capital, which you don’t hear anything good about anywhere else. Seriously, we’ve met heaps of people who’ve traveled through Australia, and had never heard a good word about the place. We also learned from them that Danes are incorrigible drinkers and smokers, and that we should avoid Stockholm as it was quote unquote “gay.” “I’m from Stockholm and I think I’m so much better than everybody else”, they said in accents that we can only guess hilariously mimic those of the typical Stockholmian. But perhaps best of all, we really enjoyed that they actually pronounced the word jogging with the soft J, just like our car’s namesake, Ron Burgundy.

Amazingly, Matt and Stu had had 8 people staying at one time earlier this week. Most people would mind stepping over 8 people sleeping in all the available spaces in their house, but Matt and Stu can’t get enough, and are almost unable to turn anyone away. They also often go out of their way to show people a good time: Matt took us to his parents’ farm on our first visit, and Stu had just taken some CSers waterskiing earlier this week. On this trip, we caught up Matt, Stu, and Kel, and had a nice time hanging out in Whangarei for a few days. It really is a beautiful area, and after being in Auckland for awhile, it was nice to be in the more-rural NZ we’re used to. All in all, we just can’t say enough about their hospitality, friendliness, and generosity: cheers, guys!

Matt, Andrew, Becky, and Stu enjoying some quality "couch" time

Mt. Manaia with Kool Kel (Jan. 18-19)

The next day, Kel offered to take us out to his place at Whangarei Heads (on the water) and take us hiking. It sounded like a great time, so we all agreed. In the morning, Becky and I went to Whangarei Falls, the “Most photogenic falls in New Zealand.” Unable to resist, we visited. We were, however, able to resist emulating the Maori coming-of-age ritual of jumping off the falls.

Another nice set of falls in NZ

A word first about Kel: Kel’s a New Zealander in his mid-50’s who has lived about as interesting a life as you might be able to imagine. He worked for about 15 years as a professional deep sea diver, diving to great depths in oceans across the world, working in difficult and dangerous conditions, and then subjecting himself to the even more dangerous rigors of the professional party lifestyle with his diving mates in tropical locales between jobs. He now pilots tugboats for oil tankers docking at the plant in Whangarei Harbor. With a daughter who excels in several sports, a nephew who is a serious up-and-coming cricketer in NZ, and another nephew who introduced ‘drifiting’ to NZ, he’s got quite the family as well. In short, we thought he was a hell of a guy.

Becky was excited to ride Kel's motorbike

We took off with Kel around noon to avoid an early spate of cloudy raininess, and first took a quick ride up Pakihiri (Becky – spelling?) Mountain to see Whangarei from above, and then on to Kel’s. Becky is a bit of a secret motorbike fanatic, and relished the chance to put on the leathers for a hair-rising ride with Kel. I think they beat us to his house by about 10 minutes on a 25km ride.

Kel's crib in Whangarei Heads - not bad

Kel has a terrific house overlooking the harbor in Whangarei Heads, where we had a quick lunch before the hike. Just minutes from Kel’s house is Mt. Manaia, a mountain overlooking the harbor with a relatively easy hour-long hike to the summit. The trail considers the summit to be a wooden platform about 100 ft below the true top of the peak where the land survey station is located. Reaching the true top requires a bit of rock climbing skill, but more importantly a good bit of skill in not looking downwards.

A bit of rock climbing at the very top of the mountain

A view from the bottom, we reached the very top

As a bit of a mad man, Kel is an experienced hand at climbing Mt. Manaia, however, and he helped us all to reach the top. Hopefully you can get a good sense from the pictures how difficult the last part of the climb is. If not, take it from me, it’s a bit freaky up there! However, the view at the top more than rewarded the work and brief worry involved in reaching the summit, and the sense of accomplishment was great as well.

Happy to be at the summit of Mt. Manaia

Afterwards, we gathered for celebratory beers at the bar at the base of the hill and toasted a great climb. Stu then joined us, and we headed off to Kel’s for an impromptu barbie at their insistence. Not wanting to be bad guests, we reluctantly accepted their gesture of food and beer that evening, and had a great evening on Kel’s deck. Many thanks, Kel!

Matt, our host in Whangarei and grillmaster (and Vincent from France looking on)

After a few drinks, we decided to crash at Kel’s, as he had some spare rooms. Matt had offered to show us around his parents’ farm the next day, so we got up a bit early and took off for there, about 45 minutes inland. From there, Matt gave us the grand tour of the 600 acre farm, showing us the family’s cows, sheep, and vast forested sections. It was a great time, and Matt was rightly proud of his family’s environmentally friendly practices and the care that they’ve taken in cultivating the farm over the past 25 years.

Obligatory picture with a sheep, Brutus

Matt’s dad was also a riot, giving us the lowdown on New Zealand’s battle with possums and other topics. Apparently possums were introduced about 100 years ago to provide income in the fur trade, but with no indigenous mammals in New Zealand, their population quickly became out-of-hand. As with many introduced species, possums have become a significant ecological concern in the country. With the collapse of the fur trade in the last 40-50 years, possums lost nearly all of the little value they once had. Various government attempts to poison the creatures have also caused ecological problems, and attempts to induce the underemployed to hunt them seem to have only reinforce Conservative opinions about most of the unemployed. Although I might be the only one to find the idea of possums as a destructive force of nature hilarious.

Fe-Fi-Fo-Whangarei (Jan. 17)

The norm for most travelers to New Zealand seems to be: arrive in Auckland and go directly south through the North Island and then on to the South Island. This bypasses the Northland area, the beautiful, sparsely populated, and very beachy peninsular area north of Auckland. Since we are staying for a year, we thought we should see as much of the country as possible, and so we left the Auckland area for Whangarei, 3 hours north and the largest city in the Northland. The name is funny because the “Wh” sound in the Maori language is pronounced as an “F.” If you don’t agree, I’m tempted to suggest that you “Whuck off.”

Becky checking out the ocean

On the way to Whangarei we stopped at a couple other scenic locations, Goat Island Marine Preserve and Pakiri Beach. The weather didn’t quite agree that day, but they still were worthy places to visit, and allowed me to work on my ‘crane kick’ technique.

I'm the best around, nothing's ever gonna keep me down!

Whangarei is a sleepy, relatively small harbor town on the east coast on the Northland, and home to some of the best blokes you should hope to encounter on your travels, in our opinion. One of them is Matt Pedersen, our next CouchSurfing host who graciously agreed to put us up for two nights. Matt’s another world traveler and is from a farming family about 40 minutes inland. He flats (rents) in a great house on the outskirts of Whangarei from a fellow named Stu, another terrific and friendly Kiwi. While Matt was hosting us, he was also hosting a woman from Denmark, Suzanne, and had just agreed to put another guy up, Vincent from France, for the night.

This indicates that we were able to figure out the delay setting on our camera

This is apparently the norm for Matt, as he recounted the many guests they had recently put up. I’m not sure if it’s a New Zealand thing or a CouchSurfing thing, but we’re finding our New Zealand CouchSurfing experiences to be just tremendous. Matt, Stu, and Stu’s friends Kel and JohnBoy all blew us away with their kindness and generosity. Cheers boys!

Our first night in Whangarei, we all enjoyed some beers and wine with the guys before heading off to bed. The boys had just arrived from a preseason rugby match held in Whangarei between Auckland and Queensland, a match the Kiwis won handily, 38-9, putting everyone in good spirits. We tried a pizza from Hell, apparently a popular and somewhat controversial pizza chain in NZ, who market their pizzas under the seven deadly sins and other similar nomenclature. In a brilliant marketing move, they apparently sent condoms to most mailboxes in the nation, guaranteeing a good bit of uproar, and thus, publicity. Oh for the days when a mass mailing of prophylactics would generate outrage in America…