October 23, 2005

Rotorua

Auckland, Rotorua, Queenstown, Wanaka, Bay of Islands, North Island, South Island, snowboarding, mountain biking, swimming, walking, talking, rain, sun, wind, snow, parties, barbeques, beer, wine, cars, planes and a bit of everything else. Well it’s been a while, what’s the excuse? Well you know how it is - we’re still in Auckland working, living and generally enjoying New Zealand. The months just seem to be flying past. We’ve been away 10 months now.

Rarotongo is our next destination, only for a week but it will still be good. Flying to the Cook Islands on the 4th of November for Abby’s birthday. We fly across the dateline on the way, so we leave Auckland at 11 o’clock on the Thursday night and fly for 3 hours and arrive at 4am of the same day, 23 hours before we left. Freaky, no?

Our last trip away was to Rotorua, or Roto Vegas, as it’s known. It seems to be built on what could only be described as a very active thermal area. You walk down the street and there’s boiling water bubbling through the cracks in the ground, and the horizon is covered with clouds of steam, lurching upwards. George Bernard Shaw visited Hell’s gate Rotorua in 1934 and said of it, ‘I wish I had never seen the place, it reminds me too vividly of the fate theologians have promised me’. We managed to pick the windiest weekend to test out our campervan. (We bought a van and had a boat fitter kit it out for us, very cool. Think A-team van meets the mystery machine). Was fine through the night, but on the drive back there were trees blown over, and branches on the roads. Think we slept through it all.

Posted by jon jack at 10:58 PM

July 25, 2005

Whitianga and the Coromandel

If rugby is the national sport of New Zealand, then tailgating and crazy driving are up there in second place. We took a trip out of the city last weekend and, after a white knuckle drive on the country roads of New Zealand we got to the Coromandel Peninsula. Coromandel sits on the Pacific Coast a couple of hours’ drive from Auckland.

We stayed in Whitianga (pronounced Fitianga) - bit of a nightmare for us wee Scots with the pronunciation of Maori place names (wh is pronounced f). Just takes a bit of getting used to.

We spent the day walking along the beach in the sunshine, pretty nice for the middle of winter. Decided to take a longer walk on the Sunday around an old gold mining area called Broken Hills. The walk starts as a bush walk up a steep hill to a lookout over the surrounding hills and out to the coast. Then you wind down off the hill and into a valley, where you come across the entrance to an old abandoned gold mine. Through here you walk 500m under the hill and out the other side. Very cool but a bit scary, nobody else around and did anyone know we were here? Hmmm. The walk is called Collins Drive, in case anyone reading this is in New Zealand.

After our walk we backtracked a bit until we reached Hot Water Beach, known as such because of the thermal springs that bubble up through the sand at low tide. We just rocked up with no shovel to dig with though, instead we just waited til some other punter had dug a hole, strolled over and jamp in, nae bother eh!

Posted by jon jack at 12:16 PM

June 24, 2005

Birthday White Russians

Birthday was cool, with added bonus that I could stretch it out for 36 hours because of the time difference at home. “But it’s still my birthday” - you know how it goes. Abby and I went out for a meal at a Brazilian restaurant called Wildfire. Very meat-based; not so great for the vegetarians but it’s great. Basically you sit there while waiters come round with skewers loaded with different barbequed chunks of meat.

Then we went boozing in the Minus 5 bar, “a unique experience that will chill your bones and delight your senses.” Don’t know about that but it was feckin cold. You get kitted out in enormous Parkas and fur booties, then you go into this bar that’s made from ice, ice seats, ice tables, even the glasses you drink from are made from ice. Felt pretty Russian so you’ve guessed it, we had a White Russian. It’s a wee bit different, and for some reason drinking in the cold seems to get you more wrecked than normal. For once the barman new how to make a white russian.

Staggered out of the -5 bar into the relative heat of Auckland and headed home. Abby gave me a White Russian making kit, no instructions needed, so we had a few White Russians when we got back.

How to make a white russian (again)

1 x shot of Vodka
1 x shot of Kahlua
Serve in small tumbler with lots of ice, finally add milk, and thats how you make a white russian.

Related links
how to make a white russian
A bunch of drunks drinking white Russians
White russian

Posted by jon jack at 7:26 AM

June 21, 2005

Day 10 in the Big Brother house

Someone stole my f**kin biscuits. Ahhh - the joys of shared accommodation. We’ve been living in Auckland for over a month and things are going good. The area we live in is cool - loads of trendy bars. I fit right in no? I’ve been working for the past couple of weeks, doing contract work for a little company downtown. The house is sweet, just a bit odd sharing with a bunch of students. Get a job, pot head slackers. Only kidding - a mixed bag of flat mates, some are cool some are, well you know. Mind you, it’s probably no walk in the park for them seeing me shambling around of a morning.

Its mid winter here, which probably equates to a Scottish summer. It’s been pretty nice when the sun’s out. The ski hills have started opening, which is cool, so it will be off to the mountains at weekends. Life’s settling down into a nice routine here; we bought a car the other day so we can get out to the beaches and mountains (and I don’t have to walk the 30 minutes to work in the morning anymore).

In case anyone out there has forgotten, it’s my birthday on Thursday. Probably a bit late for the post, but money into the bank account will do just fine.

Anyways as you can probably tell it’s getting a bit harder to find inspiration and what to write about. Kind of easier when you’re on the road, seeing different things meeting new people everyday. Either that or it could be that you don’t have to go to work, and spend your day sitting around drinking beer.

Posted by jon jack at 11:02 AM

June 2, 2005

Arriving in Auckland

So, as you may be aware we’re kind of running a bit behind on the old weblog. Our last update was the 15th of May. The hustle and bustle of finding a job/flat/furniture has taken over a bit. When you rent a room in Auckland it comes unfurnished, so we’ve had the pleasure of tracking down beds etc… New Zealand is cool; it’s been raining like crazy though. ‘Four seasons in one day’, hmmmmm - sounds like somewhere else I know.

We’ve rented a place in Grey Lynn, very near the city centre, lots of cool wee cafes and bars and funky shops and just round the corner from Steve and Jane. There’s no escaping us.

Steve took us for a cool three and a half hour hike, trek, walk, or ramble call it what you like (they call it tramping here), at the Waitakere Ranges. You end up walking up through the river with sections where you have climb/scramble up rockfaces and hanging on to tree roots. We came back covered in scratches and bruises but would do it all again and definitely want to do more. It’s amazing that walks like this are just on the doorstep here.

Posted by jon jack at 3:40 AM