Mom in Kiwiland: day 2

[click title for link to pictures]

My initial thought was to take mom out to Piha Beach, but Julie got to reading and noticed that there was a scenic drive through the Waitakere Ranges. Julie plotted us onto the Scenic Drive - that's the name of the road - that would take us from Titirangi (stopped for a coffee & bank machine) along the eastern fringe of the ranges through to Swanson. Mom has been quite entertaining in her search for regular drip coffee. Very few coffee shops serve the stuff as down here (Auz included) as they are all quite keen on the espresso stuff. So we keep telling her to get a "flat white" which is espresso with milk as far as I can tell. She finally found one shop on Waiheke Island but the result was such a strong coffee that she'd have been better off with the flat white. :^)

Upon entering the ranges via the narrow twisty road, we stopped at the visitor info centre which looks remarkable BC-ish with its totem pole in front. Not so BC-ish with its "well-hung" Maori carved figurines inside. Julie figures that if you're going to carve an image of yourself, you might as well make it complimentary.

The maps we got at the centre weren't all that condusive to precise navigation - buy a better map, where I don't know. [Later that night I finally downloaded all of the required software and got us set up with some flash NZ GPS maps courtesy of http://www.nzopengps.org/. Sweet as]

First stop was a short little walk (Auckland City Walk - sponsored by) through a NZ rainforest. It's a nice short walk (just over an hour) nestled in a valley below a nice-looking golf course. We got to see the big kauri trees and palms and ferns and other pines. Pretty nice. Mom's getting her baptism by fire in terms of learning to walk up and down hills.

I made a bad call on trying to head for Bethels Beach for lunch instead of having it here. We hit construction on the one road in and got sent off on a gravel road that put us backwards a few km. Finally after driving up another hill only to find the trail was 7km long I declared that we were going to eat our lunch off of the car's bonnet. Julie wasn't impressed with the digs but mom and I thought it was a choice place to snack on jalapeno hummus and crackers and fruit.

We did make it to Bethels beach and mom was in awe of the wildness of the place: the crashing surf, the wind-whipped shoreline grasses and the towering hills above.

We ignorantly defaulted on our rental car's return time as we realized we wouldn't get back to Auckland in time to return it. Thus Julie reckoned we should take one more walk. The brochure says it's a nice little walk to a nice little lake tucked in amongst the sand dunes. Sounded good. But it didn't mention how long the "little" walk took nor that it was through a stream for 80% of the way. After what seemed like forever (realistically it took us almost exactly the suggested walk time of 30min) we finally happened upon a little lake nestled between a massive sand dune and the green hills. Julie jumped straight in to Lake Wainamu, while I climbed up the dunes.

So funny thing for the way back! I reckoned that since we walked AROUND the dunes to get here, it'd be closer to walk OVER them on the way back. Mom said she needed a head start so I point her off in the direction that I felt was correct. Julie said I was crazy sending my mom off across what looked like a desert with no confirmation that I was right. Turns out mom went off down a little trail that I hadn't anticipated being there and hit a dead end. Fortunately she popped back out while Julie & I were scanning the horizon wondering where she went. In the end we made it back to the car with no incident and my sense of direciton was correct.

Back in Auckland we treated mom to an outdoor movie. Auckland City's Movies in Parks is neat *free* event where they showcase Kiwi films on a big inflatable movie screen in one of the many parks in the city. Tres cool. Bring a lawnchair, grab a crepe and a hot chocolate and enjoy the show. Mom got a kick out of it even though we missed most of the insider kiwi jokes.

Mom in Kiwiland: day 6 - Maori Culture Tour

Auckland has a strong service network to assist migrants in learning Kiwi culture and how to find jobs and such. Julie & I attended a job search seminar back in January and it was quite helpful in showing us how to "Kiwi-ize" our resumes plus providing some contacts to find jobs, even though we didn't give the job search much effort. Anyhow, part of the services is to show newcomers the Maori culture. A required seminar for most immigrants is a lesson on the Treaty of Waitangi - an important document signed between a few Maori chiefs and the British. Much can be said about this treaty and how it's been ignored/abused over the years, but I am not in a position to argue it as I don't know much about it.

Today's tour focused on a traditional Maori meeting place - a "marae". We went to the Orakei marae which is located near our place on Bastion Point. At the marae there is the meeting hall and the dining hall. In the meeting hall we were given a traditional welcome. You must remove your shoes before entering, then the men enter first and sit in the front row with women and children behind. Each man in the front row will have a role (quite similar to a modern board meeting) so we had a gent who volunteered to be our representative and presented a greeting on behalf of the tour group. It's all sorta neat, but other than our man's speech it was all in Maori so I'm not sure what was all said.

We were fortunate today to be given an impromptu cultural performance by a group of school children who are practicing for the upcoming Pasifika Festival.

After the show it was activity time: learning the haka and flaxgrass weaving. The haka is a war cry/dance. The version we learned today is one that one of the Maori tribes developed after their chief was pursued by another tribe. It's also the pre-game ritual of the New Zealand rugby team, the All Blacks. Mom & Julie got a kick out watching me learn it; I got a kick out watching the East Indian fellows trying to learn it.

Now we come to the best part of the day: lunch! A Maori "hangi" lunch is basically a roast dinner: there's beef, pork, chicken, stuffing, potatoes, kumara (a NZ sweet potato), pumpkin and bread. It's all cooked by fire-heated rocks in a hole in the ground. Super, super good. Oh, plus some fresh-cooked NZ green mussels. (One fellow diner commented that the Maori have good bone joints late into life due to the high amount of mussels in their diet.) And did I mention the steamed pudding with custard and ice cream for dessert? Sweet as, bro.

Mom was wise in opting for the haka before lunch, saving the low-impact flax grass weaving for after. Flax grass doesn't look like flax - it's actually a tall lily, but the Brits reckoned that it's fibrous leaves reminded them of fibrous flax stems so that's what they called it. The Maori term is harakeke. Our crash course in weaving produced varied results in the class. Some people complained that they just could not understand the concept and gave up; others got it quickly and produced more than one woven flower. Tooting my own horn here, I got the hang of it quite quickly and was commended on how tight and even my weave was. But once all of the flowers were complete, you couldn't tell the good from the bad - they all looked like twisted grass. And tradition stipulates that you gift your first one, so most people were jokingly glad to give away their first piece of messy weaving.

After a day of haka and flax weaving we were pretty tired. But that's not the end of our day! The Mission Bay Jazz & Blues Festival was cancelled yesterday due to the lowsy weather so it was postponed to tonight. (All we did yesterday was wander around town: rode the Link bus around central Auckland showing mom the sights.) Mission Bay is a nice part of town just a few kilometres from our place along the shore. The festival overtakes the beachside park and shuts down the main street. 19 stages are set up with the same band playing the same stage all night. To prevent too much distortion, the stages are numbered and alternate every half hour by even/odd numbers. They stretch the genre of jazz/blues, but there's a lot of good music and it's a pretty cool scene either way. This festival kicks the snot out of last weekend's Devonport Food & Wine Festival, but Julie points out that they're targeted at different folks.

Mom in Kiwiland: day 3

Yesterday was the west coast - today we went north.

Julie plotted us on a course to Whangaparaoa (in Maori, the "wh" is pronounced as an "f" sound)just about an hour north of Auckland, depending upon the motorway's traffic. Our destination was a little park called Shakespeare Park on the edge of the Hauraki Gulf. It's got a nice beach and some nice walks to take in views over the bay and gulf. Best thing was some trees that grew out of the bank and twisted and turned creating a fanned arch out over the beach. I had fun setting up the gorillapod to take some self-portraits while mom collected sea shells and Julie rested.

We skipped the walks (walked too much yesterday!) and headed back into Manly village for lunch at a cafe before checking out some more beaches.Little Manly is on the gulf side and is a bit scraggly but has a nice view of Rangitoto Island and dramatic cliffs book-ending it. Big Manly is big and sweeping and is compared to Manly Beach in Sydney, but has nowhere near the surf quality. Nonetheless it's nice so mom walked and collected more shells while Julie & I played frisbee in the sun.

We capped off the day with a BBQ of fresh salmon fillets accompanied by a Montana Marlborough Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon (J&I preferred the cheaper non-reserve version). Quite tasty!

As an aside, the salmon down here is a bit different than the BC Pacific salmon we're used to. It's a lot more fatty, but with that comes a smooth, buttery taste when it's BBQ'd.

mum's a kiwi

Mum arrived on Kiwi soil at dawn on Tuesday morning, forcing me to get up at an hour we've not seen in some time. Although I'll admit it did feel good to have to get up and get somewhere at a set time. You know, like going to work!
Since mom flew overnight from Vancouver, she skipped an entire day (that's one good way to rid yourself of a Monday) plus an entire night's worth of sleep. We let her have a nap in the morning before shuffling her out the door for a tour of the city. Julie had an interview in the afternoon so in the process of running around to buy her a new blazer, then back across town for lunch at home, then down south for the interview and over to another district to pay for some tickets Mom definitely saw much more of the city than we had anticipated showing her on the first day.

The highlight was climbing (well, no, we drove) up the famous One Tree Hill. It provided great views of the city so I could show mom where we had all gone during the day. it's a lovely park around the hill, complete with pastures for sheep and cattle with some majestic big trees.

From the hill we went to pick Julie up after her interview (with Genesis, somewhat equivalent to MB Hydro) and rush her off to play soccer.

I whipped up some fabulous Indian-style butter chicken (totally impressed myself!) for dinner before taking mom out for a walk around the neighbourhood. We live in Parnell - it's a nice area near to the port with lots of hills and little parks. We took a walk up one hill to a park that contains a really nice rose garden.

We watched the sunset over the city downtown before mom finally needed to go home to sleep.

are you there? yes, we are still out and about

To all of our devoted followers! (namely my mom, my aunt shirley, cousin darlene, Julie's mom and aunts and friend Candice who are asking where the new posts are)
Sorry that I just haven't been getting anything new on here. We fell behind in Thailand, and then even more as we went through Malaysian Borneo. And now that I'm technically 4 countries behind, it's seeming to be an ominous task to write about what we have all done in the last 3 months. That and my memory ain't so great and trying to remember Thai/Malay/Auzzie/Aborigine/Maori names is harder than you think! And you'd think that being unemployed for over a month would provide heaps of time to get it all done.
Anyhow, I've got a bunch of stuff written down and we have many stories to tell so there will be a flood of blogging fun for you all to enjoy in the near future. Plus I've noticed that we've passed the 2000-picture mark and you know what that means... Slideshows!
My mom arrived in Auckland on the 24th and we'll keep her busy seeing the sights. With her here I'll make a best effort to keep her sisters informed of her antics.
Stay tuned!

Happy 2009 Everybody!

Of all the party cities we’ve been through (Hong Kong, Macau, Bangkok, Sydney) we probably  hit the one dull one to spend New Year’s in. Luckily Julie was thinking ahead and booked us into a hung-over harbour cruise so the scenery made up for it. 

We started off the evening at the Patio Cafe whose patio overlooks downtown Auckland’s main drag – Queen Street.  It was fun people-watching as the crowds moved up and down from the harbour into town. We weren’t really that hungry so we just kept ordering rounds of appetizers after we discovered the biggest mussels we’ve ever seen – NZ green mussels are nearly 10cm long!  Since we didn’t have anywhere to go, we sat in the restaurant for hours, outlasting the other guests and waiting for the drizzle to end.

Auckland’s got it’s own version of the CN/Calgary/Sydney Tower, the SkyTower, and that’s where we wandered over to after dinner. There was a big crowd milling about and if you had tickets to the party then you were in, but we were denied at the door. We’d been through here earlier in the day and had spotted a small chapel that had been set up in the foyer where Elvis would be later. Julie got the great idea that we should go and get pictures taken in the chapel and send them home saying we got married by Elvis!  Unfortunately, like I said, we couldn’t get in the door. So no fake marriage to fool all you folks back home! But we did get to have our picture taken in the ol’Caddy parked outside that was to be used for the wedded people to “drive away in”.

Auckland plays host to some elite sailing competitions, and for one of them (the America’s Cup) the city revamped its harbour front and built it into what is now called the Viaduct. It’s a nice place, with a fancy Hilton hotel built over the water, loads of restaurants and bars, and parking spots for all of the big and fancy yachts that sail in here.  The Viaduct’s also got a reputation for being the place where young “bogans” hang out and cause a ruckus, so “mature” people tend to pass it off. But every time we’ve been there it’s been the “mature” people causing a ruckus. Go figure…

Anyhow, I digress… We found a small pub down there that had a live band and no cover charge, and they were serving Crown Royal for the same price as Canadian Club (that’ll make any Canadian’s day!) so we hung out for a bit. Julie smuggled in a small bottle of champagne that we uncorked as we watched the fireworks go off from the SkyTower.  Happy New Year!

 

The next day we played tourist and went on a harbour cruise to Rangitoto Island. (Fullers Rangitoto Volcanic Explorer) It’s the youngest of the volcanoes in and around Auckland at just over 600 years old, which means that the Maori people who were living here at the time saw it erupt.  The island is essentially uninhabited now as it’s been turned into a park. That and there’s not much to do there since the ground is not dirt but crumbled lava rock.  the native Pohutukawa trees seem to grow quite well though and at this time of year they are blooming there bright red flowers, hence their nickname of “Kiwi Christmas tree”.

Oh, and I managed to catch the highlights of today Canadian Junior victory over the Americans on tsn.ca – Sweet as!  (Kiwi slang for “good”, “great”, “right on”, etc)

Kia Ora! Welcome to Auckland!

A short trip across the Tasman Sea, or the “ditch” as they refer to it here, and here we are.  I had no idea what to expect when arriving here. As we flew in I saw the coast and beaches and then some trees and suddenly it was the city and we were landing. I had done next to no research on New Zealand before coming here, relying entirely on what Julie knew from her last trip here. So I didn’t even know where Auckland was situated, which would’ve explained why we saw beaches and then landed. Auckland’s located on a narrow isthmus of land between the Manukau Harbour and the Waitemata Harbour, or the Tasman Sea and the Pacific Ocean.  Realistically, if you flew in to almost any Kiwi city you’d land soon after seeing the beaches since the country’s just not that big. 

We were booked into a downtown hostel (Nomad’s Fusion Backpackers) and were treated to another uber-tiny room with a bunk bed. We’d also learn quite quickly that we were right above a couple of bars, so at night you either roasted in the sealed room, or slept with earplugs depending if you had the window open or shut.  Julie wanted out of there pretty quickly so she got right on task for finding us a place to live.  New Zealand’s answer to eBay – www.trademe.co.nz – provided most of our leads while scanning the bulletin boards at the surrounding hostels also gave a couple of clues.  In order to visit these places we did get to see a variety of neighbourhoods, learned that Auckland’s public transport system is annoying to use as Winnipeg’s and had to smile while backing out of a couple of places.

It’s New Year’s Eve tonight.  We didn’t plan ahead and therefore missed going to the big party out in Gisborne. The Rhythm & Vines Festival is where you go if you want to be the very first in the world to ring in the new year.  Beyond that we couldn’t really find much to do and did feel quite isolated since we didn’t know anyone.

* “Kia Ora” = Maori greeting, literally “be well”