North Island

El Calafate, Argentina

We apologize for the lack of posts recently, but technical difficulties are preventing us from uploading any pictures at the moment. We've resolved to put up a few text-only posts, and we'll add pictures when we can.

We had less than a week to explore New Zealand's north island, starting and ending in Auckland, so we had to limit our itinerary to something managable. In Auckland, we explored the parks and markets, took in a movie at the IMAX and hiked up Mt. Eden, the highest of the extinct volcanos upon which the city is built. It has an impressive crater, and we were treated to a great sunset from the top. As night fell, we found ourselves looking down into the glowing statium below, listening to ecstatic cheering crowd gathered for to watch the local rugby team. It was really cool.

Next, we rented a car and head out towards the Coromandel Peninsula. This quiet area east of Auckland is characterized by lots of conservation land and vacation homes. We stayed in Whitianga on the east coast, which is lined with white sand beaches. One of these, known as hot water beach, has a unique geothermal spring. It bubbles up through the sand around the low tide mark, making it theoretically possible to come with a spade (british for shovel) and dig your own spa (british for hot tub). We tried this, along with about a million other people, but the tide didn't get quite low enough to build a tub that would withstand the surf. Still it was pretty cool to stand in the waves near the spring and feel the alternating hot and cold water.

We also hit up Cathedral Cove, a secluded beach with a huge stone arch and stone pillars, and a long enough access hike to keep some of the tourists at bay. I tried to snorkel at nearby gemstone bay, where there are a lot of stingrays. Unfortunately, I was equipped with neither mask, snorkel nor wetsuit, so I couldn't see much through my foggy swim goggles and didn´t last long anyhow. I saw some fish though.

Our next stop was the town of Coromandel on the west coast. On the way we drove down a long dirt road to the sedcluded Otama and Opito beaches. These were absolutely stunning and empty and we spent most of a day there. From Coromandel, we explored a rare, undisturbed grove of giant Korai trees. These were logged almost to the last tree, but a few remain. The oldest in the grove was 6m in circumference, about 40 meters high and 600 years old. The largest one ever cut down was 20m in circumference, about 80 meters high and 4000 years old. It's a shame, but it's nice to see they're being preserved now.

We continued down the rocky west coast of the peninsula back toward Auckland, stopping occasionally to forrage for green-lipped mussels. I got about a dozen, which I cooked up back in Auckland with butter and a little local sauvignon blanc. They were delicious.

Our last morning in Auckland, we went to visit Bill Buckley at Buckley systems. He gave us a great tour of his shop, including the 'toy shop' where he builds midget cars for racing. It was really an impressive operation, and Bill was a great host. We were glad we squeezed it in. Then, we went to the airport where we almost didn't get on our flight because we didn't have proof of exit tickets from argentina. We got it worked out though, and got an escort past the security lines (sweet!). We settled into our transpacific time machine, and arrived in Buenos Aires 3 hours before we left! To be continued...