March 16 - 19, 2013 - Tauranga, New Zealand

March 16 - 19, 2013 - Tauranga and Rotorua, New Zealand

MILESTONE:  NEW ZEALAND IS THE 40TH COUNTRY I HAVE VISITED in my lifetime. And no I am not counting airport layovers.

Visa and fee: None required
Exchange Rate: $1USD = 1.20NZD

New Zealand.  The country wasn't in my original travel plans.  But the greatest thing about having very little planned is that changes can be made to plans without much fuss.  So change my plans I did.  A number of things convinced me to travel here.  One, was its proximity to the part of the world I was already in at the time.  Two, was all the fantastic stories I had heard from other folks that had traveled to the region.  Three, was the fact that I had a native and a transplant willing to host and show me around their areas.  And four, was pure curiosity.

I landed in Auckland around 1:30am local time.  New Zealand is justifiably known for being very protective of its agricultural and enviromental uniqueness.  Due to this, I had to declare my hiking shoes.  This once again put me into another slow line at customs for them to question me, rescan my bag, and wash my hiking shoes with disinfectent.   Luckily, I had a rather light hearted gentlemen taking care of my hiking shoes and had no trouble getting thru.  Once on the other side I found a comfy bench to take a nap.  I didnt want to bother finding a hostel to stay the night because I had a bus to catch at 7am from the airport to Tauranga.  I figured by the time I took transport and paid for the night stay it wouldn't be worth the 4 hours I would actually get to sleep.  But no worries! The Auckland Airport is a fantastic place to sleep.  And there were plenty of other backpackers with the exact same idea.  It was actually quite comical at how many people were sleeping in the airport with their bags next to them and a sweater thrown over their face.  I wanted to take a picture but thought it might be a little too creepy to be walking around snapping photos of sleeping people.

At 7am I caught the local bus to the Intercity bus stop at the Westfield mall.  From there I took the Intercity bus to Tauranga and arrived around noon.  In Tauranga my friend Greg had offered to pick me up, host me for 4 days, and to show me around the area.  He even took 2 days off work to make sure he could take me to see and do everything!

This is a side note on how awesomeness happens while traveling.  I actually met Greg while in Africa.   He, his 2 brothers, and his dad were on a similar overland trip.  Their truck and ours overlapped at a couple campsites while in Uganda and we had enough time to play a lot of phase 10, talk, hang out, and become friends.  We have managed to stay in touch for the past 5 months (mostly because I wanted to use him as my NZ tour guide, but dont tell him that ;-) ) and it worked out that he was more than happy to show me NZ as only a local could.

Anyways, so Greg picked me up and as soon as we dropped off my bags we went to hike up Mt Maunganui.  Maunganui is a little mountain right on the beach that gives beautiful views of the city, the bay, and the ocean.  The pictures below are better than my words.

New Zealand silver fern.

The highest point on Mt Maunganui!

After the hike we ventured around the cute little town and scarfed down a giant burger at Burger Fuel.  I was also treated to a locally produced soda that is "World famous in New Zealand", (hah) called L&P, Lemon and Paeroa.

After that was "the surprise"!  I guess he figured after 6 months of traveling I would really enjoy a relaxing spa treatment and massage.  He couldnt have been more spot on.  Are all you other friends that have offered to host me taking notes on this?  Im gonna be expecting a lot now. :-)

The next day was St. Patrick's Day!  The plan was to head north and do a little exploring but the rain and some logistical issues kept us inside.  We did however manage to venture out for a few beers in green bottles and dinner.  I was a little disappointed to find out that New Zealand does not dye the beer green on St. Patty's.

On the 18th we headed to Rotorua.  We rode the skylift to the top of the mountain.  We rode the luge down the mountain 4 times.  It was WAY too much fun to do just once and Im certain I got airborne a few times! Then a bit of exploring Rotorua. We also took a walk out to a popular natural hot water river.  I quickly found out that New Zealand is full of these little puppies.  Heated naturally by the volcanic activity close to the surface.  On the way back to Tauranga Greg pointed out the Southern Cross constellation in the night sky.  This the southern hemisphere's equivalent to the big dipper and North Star. Cool.

My last day, the 19th, was more exploration around Tauranga and mother nature was even nice enough to give us a beautiful sunset.

It should also me noted that I learned a great deal about New Zealand from Greg and his roommates. Examples are below:

1. Rugby rules.  If you have the misconception that rugby is similar to american football you are wrong.  Oh and the best argument they have for rugby being better than football is that their players dont wear pads.  I dont buy that that's sufficient reasoning for rubgy being better.  I still love my football.  :-P  The sport is rather entertaining though, I will give them that.

2. The Maori people.  This is an indigenous population of New Zealanders that arrived here before the British.

3.  The Moa and the Haast's Eagle.  Both are birds that have gone extinct in relatively recent history.  The moa was an Emu type flightless bird that stood up to 12 feet tall!!!!!!!!  The Haast's eagle was a GIANT eagle that preyed mostly on the Moa.  Can you imagine an eagle large enough to consider a 12ft bird prey?!?!?  HOLEY MOLEY!  The Moa was hunted to extinction in the 1800's by the Maori people.  The Haast's Eagle died out shortly after that due to lack of food.

4. The feather emblem that is on about 75% of the logos in NZ is in fact NOT a feather.  It's a silver fern.  A fern indigenous to NZ.

5.  Lastly, and probably the most entertaining thing I learned was that there is an evil version of the Koala bear roaming around called a "Drop Bear" .  Ill let you read about that yourself,
       http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drop_bear


Thanks for all the knowledge boys.