Flashpacking

Introduction: Sarah deserves credit for giving me the title of the post. So thanks Sarah.

There are some things I have a really difficult time writing about and the trip I took around New Zealand is one of them. I could never write anything summing up my time in Rome; the incredible things that happened, coupled with the sadness that it was over left me with too many feelings to put anything coherent on the page, and this trip is just about the same.

I was tempted to just briefly mention the trip in some coming post, but it seemed like I would be doing myself a disservice by not writing everything down to read later. So knowing there's no way I can possibly describe how excellent the whole trip was, I'll begin.

I can easily summarize the logistics of what happened on my trip: I left Auckland February 11th and began a bus tour around the North and South Island. During that time, I went to the beach, took a mud bath, went on a 20k hike, bungy jumped (yes, I did spell that right), ate a burger the size of my face, among many other things. But my trip was so much better than all the individual parts because I ended up traveling with the best friends I never knew I had. It sounds cheesy, but if you spend literally 24/7 with people for over 3 weeks with very fleeting wifi and cell service, you're either going to love or hate each other by the end of it.

There were about 40 people on the bus at any given time, and while I definitely didn't get to know everyone, there was a solid group of us who stuck together from mostly the beginning to mostly the end of the bus-Auckland all the way down to Queenstown.

It's grainy, blurry and probably the best photo ever taken.

I have to admit when I started the trip, I was a little nervous. I can't quite tell you why, but for all the traveling I've done, I'd never truly backpacked. So this was definitely a new experience. I didn't really come into the trip expecting to make very good friends. I knew I'd meet people, but I figured I'd mostly be independent. And what I got was, wholly and wonderfully the opposite.

It was one of the best cultural exchanges I've been a part of, because, for weeks, we had so much time sitting on the bus or sitting around hostels to just share what our lives are like wherever we come from and ask questions about people from all over the world. Since we were all on a forced internet cleanse, having only a few hours of connection every few days, we relearned how to talk to people without just looking up YouTube videos (hint: you just end up telling someone about "this video I saw this one time" instead of being able to look it up.) But I also learned about everything from what it's like to be an electrician in London to Zwarte Piet to how addresses are written differently in Sweden. Is it super useful information? Maybe, maybe not, but the whole of it has taught me even more about different cultures.

To remember the journey, a lot of people kept trip diaries; they wrote a bit about what happened each day. I wish I did that sometimes, but I did write down a list of things in my phone that I wanted to remember and share in my blog.
So here is a list of some of the cool/weird things that might happen to you if you take a Stray bus around New Zealand. You might:

• lose your cell phone charger and find it in the fridge because you had to pack up at 5:30 am. 
• take an inappropriate number of bus selfies.
• forget that bathrooms generally come segregated into mens and women's and get confused when confronted with separate bathrooms.
• pour wine into an empty 2 litre to drink without being judged. 
• have a difficult time falling asleep without the steady thump of the bar's bass and the shouts and giggles of those damned Kiwi Experience kids. 
• realize that en suite hostels are better than any other sort of amenity imaginable. 
• spill peanut butter over all your food and scrape it back into the jar because you can't afford to buy more. 
• discover just how long it's possible to eat rice crackers, muesli bars and noodles (college kids ain't got nothing on backpackers.) 
• play "never have I ever" until you run out of interesting things to say.
• (inadvertently) develop more inside jokes with your bus than you did with your best friend in middle school ("Like I said, it was okay. I don't like repeating myself.")
• learn to speak Dutch and/or German and/or Swedish. Or at least sing the Zwarte Piet song.
• become an expert at packing by cellphone torch light.
• do a load of laundry in a sketchy hostel that comes out questionably more dirty than when it went in. 
• know that as long as you change your underwear, the rest of your clothes are clean enough. 
• keep track of time in hostels, rather than a form that anyone outside of the stray bus would undersatnd. Ex: "Three hostels ago, at the one where the woman cried, we shared a room with the rando guy and...."
• make some of the best meals you've eaten with only half the things you need because: hostel kitchens. 
• get weirdly and beautifully sentimental during a group rendition of "Wonderwall." 

New Zealand is such an incredible country. I could spend forever telling you about the things I saw: mountains so steep the trees grew parallel to the ground, some of the most stunningly blue water in the world, black sand beaches, etc... And even longer telling you the things I did, but they say a picture is worth a thousand words, so here are some pictures, the rest are on Facebook:

Eating Fergburger! In Ferg We Trust.

Nevis Bungy Jump

Here's a hint. If you take a sulfur bath. BURN those clothes. Sulphur is the herpes of smells

Sea tour in Raglan

Looks can be deceiving; this is another sulphur lake.

And now here is the fastest possible tour of where I went in the South Island

Franz Joseph Glacier: Four years ago it extended almost to where I was standing, but is melting at a startling rate.

Lake Matheson has tea-colored water

A scenic overview. The likes of which can be found all over NZ.  

Hanging out of the side of the road just 'cause.

Milford Sound: Cool, but not as impressive as anticipated/hyped.

OMG PENGUINS 

It snows in the hottest months here.

I repeat it SNOWS in NZ's equivalent of August way down south. Friggin' Antarctica 

Queenstown is heaven on earth. If heaven is quite cold and rainy a lot...

Views from the most dangerous road in New Zealand.

Definitely worth risking a 100m fall down the cliff.

I could go on and on about traveling especially around New Zealand. I could continue listing all the amazing things that you could experience. I won't, but what I will say is: Go. Go and get out there. If you want to travel, don't let anything stop you. It's never going to be the best time and you're never going to have enough money, but you'll always regret not going.

Life on the Island of Wine

I spent the past month living on what is often called "The Island Of Wine." I'm not entirely sure how I managed to tear myself away because this place is paradise. I've obviously been living on an island since October, but starting the first week of January, I moved to an even smaller island called Waiheke, off the coast Auckland. And my time here as been fantastic--insanely busy--and ultimately wonderful.

The gold star is where I was living.

 I came here knowing I would stay for just a month. I found a family to Au Pair; they needed someone to help look after their kids because they were about to open up a gelato, coffee and bagel business. The first two weeks I was here were pretty "normal:" the parents would work during the day and be home in the evenings. During the day, I'd take the kids to the beach, or friends house or whatever we got up to different days. And I'd get some time off and go exploring (wine tasting) around the island.

But the last two weeks were absolutely insane. I worked 72 hours looking after the kids in the 3rd week, and almost the same number of hours this last week I was there. I'll be honest, I started to go just a little bit crazy.

I'm not sure if looking after someone else's kids all day every day is harder than looking after your own, but I can tell you it is quite difficult. The kids were pretty good, but I don't think there's any way looking after a 3 year old for +12 hours a day isn't going to be exhausting.

Meanwhile, the family did get their business started with a bang. The gelato was an instant success on the island. They sell out of it almost every day. So most of the days I get to take the kids by and get a free scoop of some gelato that actually lives up to my incredibly high Italy standards. So that doesn't suck.

White Chocolate Salted Caramel and Hazelnut Chocolate.

The island is incredibly friendly. It's Manhattan, KS friendly. I've taken the late bus home a few times and without fail the drivers, instead of making me walk 20 minutes up hill, drive out of their way to drop me off outside my house. And, amazingly, it's a safe place to hitch hike. I did it once (with a friend mom, it was safe, don't freak out). We grabbed a ride from my house to the bottom of the hill and then another one in to town. It was actually quite fun. We had nice chats with the people giving us rides. I might have done it a bit more but I generally had a car at my disposal.

When I did actually get a few hours off, I spent most of my time moving from vineyard to vineyard. Waiheke is a great place to grow wine, especially red wine. Waiheke is internationally known for the Rosé, Syrah, Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc. Wineries on the island routinely win "Best wine in world" for their Syrah and Sauv Blanc.

I have taken it upon myself to sample almost all of these, so I can personally assure you, they are all quite good.

I managed to get to pretty much all the large vineyards where on the island. There are a ton more smaller ones, but my days off were limited and I tried to go with the quality over quantity approach. So I'd go to a vineyard or two a day and just enjoy the time there and then go relax on the beach.

I've made a map highlighting the vineyards I went to. I could spend a lot of time telling you about all of them but I won't because that would only be interesting for me probably.

The yellow colored dot was the first vineyard I went to called Mudbrick. It definitely has the most Tuscan feel to it and would be where I had my wedding reception if I had an infinite amount of money. The views were simply stunning. Unfortunately, I did not bring my camera that day, so I don't have any pictures to prove it!

I took a bike trip to the orange dot, called Kennedy Vineyards. They're the only all organic vineyard on Waiheke. It was a really friendly place, and it was comforting to know I wasn't drinking pesticides. I also didn't know that most places add things like milk, egg and gelatin among others were routinely added to wines. This place was so good I went back twice!

This was definitely an unusual color for Rosé but I think
it was the lack of additives. It still tasted quite good.

With a view like this, how can you not go back?

The purple dot is a place called Wild on Waiheke. It's actually a brewery and a vineyard, so it's perfect if you need a break from wine! But let's be honest, why would you? Also, they let you do things like archery and trap shooting because what mixes better with alcohol than that?

Right next to it is StoneyRidge vineyards where I think I had some of my favorite wines. Their Chardonnay and Bordeaux-style were some of my favorites. If they didn't sell for around $50 a bottle, I would definitely have gotten a few.

There were some great wines here, but lets be real, after drinking all of this, they all start tasting pretty great. Also, if you're concerned, I didn't drink all these myself. I had help. 

There are so many more awesome vineyards I could talk about, but the main point is that I drank some nice wines.

And the only things that can beat the wine are the views. Waiheke is beautiful and a really fun place. It attracts a lot of unique people too. People here are generally very creative, relaxed, fun and fairly wealthy. It makes for a really fun atmosphere!

The place is crawling with beaches as well, but rather than tell you about them, I think pictures will serve much better.

This is the biggest beach on the island called Onetangi. Two Maori tribes fought a battle here. "One" means beach
and "Tangi" means something like "funeral" or "sadness" or "weeping"

While not a beach, this is the view from my drive way of a vineyard. Seriously. 

It's rare that I see a sunset that beats near-daily stunning views of the Flint Hills, but if you look the other way out of the drive way at sunset, you'll occasionally see this.

Life is good on the island of wine. I was definitely sad to leave, but I am very excited to see the rest of New Zealand. I am finally leaving on my tour of the country in just a few days.

Assimilation

It happened.

I didn't think it was going to happen. I almost didn't even realize when it did.

I'm not sure how I feel about, but I don't actually think it's a bad thing; it was just surprising for me.

I'll give you a little background on why I feel this way first. Unless you've actually never met me, you know that I am interested in and care about language.  I wrote a whole blog post about Kiwi language actually. So it's safe to say, I usually put a reasonable amount of thought into not only what I say but how I say it.

In general, I stick to American slang. I don't say "heaps" or "sweet as" too often because it feels hokey. I do find it's easier to say "togs" and call it the "boot" around the kids because they don't know what a trunk is. But it's always a very conscious usage on my part.

One language usage here that struck me as a little funny was how all food here is described as "nice" instead of "good." Ex: I ate a nice apple. Or the chicken at dinner was nice.

Even though the meaning was perfectly clear, I amused myself imaging an overly polite and well-mannered chicken at the dinner table. I don't think I'd ever heard anyone describe food that way or done it myself. Nice was always reserved for people in my book. So I just kept on saying the food was good and tried to stop personifying food in my head.

I even pretty much stopped noticing such a minor thing after a few weeks.

Until tonight at dinner. When I said, without any conscious thought to the matter, "Oh yeah, that sauce was really nice."

I don't even know if that was the first time I've done it, but I noticed this time. I used a Kiwi phrase unconsciously. Now, before you think I'm actually blowing this out of proportion, I'm not. I only care about this moment insofar as it is a sign of my larger acceptance of Kiwi culture.

Certainly everything here isn't perfect, but I do love it. I love being walking distance to a fabulous beach and 10 minutes in the car to about four more. I love how many vineyards I live close to (it's over 20 you guys). I love that I live 2.5 hours from outdoor rock climbing.

I am trying to dive head first into the lifestyle here, and so far, I think I am doing well. That's not to say I am trying to actually become a New Zealander because that won't happen. I just think living in a foreign country is about finding how you operate and can be happy within the culture instead of trying to make it fit to you. I have enjoyed seeing who I've become here.

To me, this happening is more a sign of my general assimilation into Kiwi culture among other things. I look the correct way when crossing the street (right, left, right) instead of looking left, taking one step out and then realizing my mistake. I rarely walk to the wrong side of the car anymore (but it does still happen). I kind of know the names of places and where they are, and I can distinguish the Maori names of places. It's all the little things that help make a place feel like your home, and when I walk around here, I just feel like I belong.

Part of the reason I can feel ingratiated into the culture is because it's so friendly and welcoming. Italy was a warm and passionate place, but I never quite felt like I fit in. In fact, I felt like I stuck out like a sore thumb most of the time. It didn't bother me but it didn't feel very homey.

Sure, my accent does make me stick out a bit, but there are tons of English accents here (granted they are mostly from the U.K.) It has been an "easy as" place for me to fit in probably because a lot of the activities are the sorts of things I always wanted to do but didn't have the chance in Kansas: climbing, hiking, bungee jumping (invented in New Zealand!) and all sorts of ocean activities. I just can't get enough. It still blows my mind how I see the ocean every single day.  Plus, I'm totally going to get to pet a lion soon.*

I wouldn't say I am losing my American identity, nor am I fully adapting a kiwi one, but I am taking bits and pieces of everything I have learned and experienced and making it in to something new and wonderful.

This is the driveway where I live. What's not to love? 

*Okay, so I'm probably just going to get very close to a lion in this exclusive tour of an animal sanctuary, but I really want to pet one.

A Year of Travels

As the year ends, I, like almost everyone else, am reflecting on what I have done during 2013. There's no way I can deny that it has been an incredible year for me. But it has also been the most unsettled year of my life and changed me in ways I never dreamed possible. I've lived in four in cities in three different countries: Chicago, Illinois; Turate, Italy; Manhattan, KS; and Auckland, New Zealand, and each one has shaped me in a very unique way.

Collage of some of my favorite places in Europe.

I have seen so much of the word, but it still feels like I have seen so little of it. I feel like I have both become wiser to the "ways of the world" and simultaneously realized how little I know about all but a few things. I think I could travel and study forever and still feel the same way.

I think what I have really gained is the ability to understand how complex, rich and utterly different a culture can be while realizing that people are very similar. I think my Italian host dad said it best, "Cultures are different. People are the same." Ultimately, everyone wants the same thing from life. They want to take care of the people they love and want to be happy. Everybody faces that same crap: politics, religion, traffic, drama with friends and family--the details may change, but in the end, it's all the same thing. After living with four different families this year, one being my own, one in Manhattan, one in Italy and one in New Zealand, I feel certain that I could live with a "normal" (if such a thing actually exists) family from any country on Earth, and after adapting to different cultural standards, feel perfectly comfortable.

Knowing the goodness of people takes the world from being a scary, foreboding place, to a place where people want to help you and genuinely want to know you. I'm not saying you don't have to be wary while getting out, but it has cemented my belief that the world is inherently a good place, and people are kind. If I ever was, I am no longer scared of places that are different from what I know because I know that most people, at worst, will ignore me, or at best, will go out of their way to help me.

For example, I have been lost in almost every single city I have visited. Sometimes it was on purpose... a lot of times it was not. From the back alleys of Venice (on purpose) to the slums of Naples and Genoa (on accident), I have found people willing to go out of their way to help me find my way even when I was wary of them.

Realizing the depth of goodness in people has also led me to greater awareness of myself. I feel challenged to become one of the selfless people I have encountered. And even though I continually fail to do that, I have learned so much about who I am as a person. However, this knowledge, instead of making everything in my life  more clear, has made my sense of self murkier because I realized I am capable of more than I ever thought.

Reading back through my blogs, I remember meandering through Saronno (I didn't realize until I left that this is the same Saronno as where amaretto was invented. How cool is that?)  from one train stop to the other. I felt so incredibly competent. Now, I am not trying to suggest that finding my way through a random city in Italy where I don't really speak the language and don't have a map isn't an impressive thing, it's just that I did it so many times after that, it seems common place now.

I've gotten lost in so many random cities that the whole idea seems more thrilling to me than scary (After all, safe travel is only a cab ride away.) I forget that before I went to Paris, was handed a map and literally forced to figure out how to navigate, ("well you took us a really long way, but I guess we got there eventually") I had never done such a thing in my life.  Reflecting on the year has made me realize just how far I've come and makes me wonder just how far I have yet to go.

And I have to wonder what I would do differently if I could do it all again. My instinct is to say that I would get lost a lot less. And on the surface, that seems like it might be a good thing. But those times when got off the train unsure even of such basic facts as what city I was in, got taken advantage of by scam artists, and talked to a man with red teeth are what really made me grow. Seeing museums and eating authentic food certainly makes for good stories, but if I hadn't struggled my through living in two countries (especially Italy), I'm not sure if I would be the same person.

Before I traveled, I used to know that I am good at X,Y and Z, and I am not good at all these other things. But since I have been almost reduced to tears in Milan, pulled muscles walking through Venice and been yelled at in Germany (and Italy several time, but I attribute that more to the Italians' love for yelling than any particular transgression of mine), I have learned that I can do and survive so much more than I ever imagined I could.

This knowledge may have muddled my ideas of what I want to do with my life and where I want to live (spoiler: I have NO clue), but it has given me a much richer sense of myself. I have found so much more strength and self respect. My journeys this year, good and bad, have profoundly changed me. So, if you'll allow me to be cliche and (mis)quote one of my favorites songs, "who can say if I've been changed for the better? I do believe I have changed for the better... but I have been changed for good."

So, as friends, family or random internet go-ers, I thank you for your support through my travels, and I sincerely hope you have had a fantastic 2013 and that 2014 is even better. Happy New Year!

Healthy Kiwis

The first time I tasted potato chips here ("crisps"), I thought they tasted really strange. Being curious, I wanted to know why, so I flipped over the package and read the ingredients. It said, "Potato, Olive Oil, Salt."
That's it. Nothing else. On potato chips. I was shocked and excited at the same time. I almost didn't feel guilty about eating them. I can't even pronounce the myriad of ingredients on chips in the U.S.

This one example is indicative of a larger trend in the healthier nature of food here. In the U.S, I have to specifically search out uncured bacon to avoid the preservatives in it. In New Zealand, all bacon is naturally cured.

Same with beef—I have to seek out grass-feed beef in the U.S. In New Zealand, there's no other choice. Nearly everything just seems to be made without being heavily processed and preserved. With all of my weird stomach problems, I appreciate this so much.

The naturally healthier approach to food coincides with a huge emphasis on outdoors activities.
Think back on gym class in the U.S. I remember playing tag, basketball, volleyball, floor hockey and the like. In high school, I took my mandatory one P.E. elective where we "learned" to play the basic sports. I basically remember having to run around for an hour 3 days a week.

Meanwhile in New Zealand, they learn water safety—things like sailing, surfing, swimming, kayaking—as well as taking outdoors trips camping and hiking ("tramping") and so many cool, practical, engaging things that would never happen in the U.S. with the emphasis on testing.

And it seems like this activity just carries on into adulthood. All the Kiwis I've meet seem to have at least one or two sports/activities. Rock climbing, surfing, paddle boarding, hiking, running. Whatever, there's just something to keep them active. 

Kayaking to the island in the distance. It took just under an hour each way!

Obviously, I climb trees. 

Rock Climbing!!

It's really rare that there's a day I don't do something semi-active. Sometimes, it's as basic as taking the kids swimming or for a long walk with the dogs. (I usually end up carrying one or more of them—dog or child—so it turns into a real workout.) Other times, it's something really challenging, like kayaking for two (non-consecutive) hours. And whenever I can, I make it to the gym to work out and boulder so that I can be physically fit enough to do everything else.

I have noticed a huge increase in my strength in the past month. All the activity is doing wonders for my upper body strength. (I can finally do a pull up!!)

One of the things I enjoy about living in different countries is learning the things from other cultures I want to adopt. I picked up some things in Italy, and I've picked up some things here. I know now that I definitely want to settle somewhere that affords me "heaps" of opportunities for outside adventures. I have always valued being physically active and now that I live somewhere it is so easy to be so active, I don't want to give that up.

Heaps Easy As, Bro

Heaps easy as, bro.

This phrase was the name of one of the routes at a climbing gym, and while it may sound like unintelligible gibberish, it is actually a logical, if slightly exaggerated, Kiwi phrase.

Now, I wrote a post about trying to understand Italian, and Kiwi, obviously, is much easier, but for something that is actually English, there are surprising number of moments when I don't understand what someone is saying.

Kiwi bird approves these translations.

I'll throw out a few examples**

"Bring your togs and jandals this weekend."

Togs is the generic term for a swimming suit. Jandals=Sandals.

"Be careful driving on the loose metal"

I was genuinely terrified the first time someone told me this. I imagined scrap metal flying all around me, but fortunately, it just means gravel.

"Oh yeah the water there is mean."

Mean and Mint are all alternates to cool. Mean gets used the same way "wicked" gets used. And mint seems to be more like "awesome."

That's not to say that they don't use "cool" or "awesome;" they just also use these other things

"He lives in this posh as house."

In Kiwi, for whatever reason, they add "as" on to a lot of their descriptions. So really, this quote just means he lives in a posh house. Sweet as means cool and/or sweet.

So back to the title of the blog, heaps is what they use instead of "a lot" or "a ton." easy as just means easy. And bro is a way less douchier thing to say here. So basically it means "really easy, man."

One thing that was a bit startling to me was that the "n" word is not really as taboo as it is in the US. It's not exactly a polite word, but you also aren't the worst sort of person if you're white and you say it. But it's still not something I like to hear. I think given the lack of historical context and black people in general, it doesn't matter as much. (That's not to say that NZ isn't diverse. It is. The diversity is just more Maori, Asians, Brits and Pacific Islanders)

On the flip side, "granola" isn't a word here. I've said it a few times and people have NO CLUE what I'm talking about. They call it muesli. There actually is a slight difference between the two, muesli tends to be a lot healthier than granola (as is almost everything... I'll save that for a later blog though.)

So that is a few examples of the slang here. And even though I know or can use context clues to figure out most of it, I still have to contend with a very different accent.

If you want to hear what Kiwi sounds like, listen to this:

80 percent of the time I don't have any issues understand anything. But if the environment is loud or I'm distracted, I might have to ask someone to repeat what they're saying.

As an example:
Last night at dinner, I was so mentally exhausted that I couldn't understand anything my soft spoken waitress was saying. At one point she came over and said... I have no clue what. I just stared at her, trying to make sense of the sounds. Nothing. I asked her to repeat it. My brain couldn't even process it as a language. I felt like an idiot. And my friend across the table looked like he was concerned about my sanity. "What?" I asked again, this time to him. "Do you want dessert?"

It was embarrassing.

Now obviously this same concept holds true when I talk, but I find that native English speakers are a lot more familiar with American slang than we are of theirs. It's because books and movies will actually change or re-edit movies for American audiences and British or Kiwi slang gets changed into more recognizable forms.

So the fact that they are more well versed with the slang I use and the fact my accent lends itself to fully enunciating words and the kiwi accent definitely doesn't generally means I am slightly better understood than I understand people. Or at least that's my impression... I could be wrong.




**All translations were approved by a real, live Kiwi.

Battle Scars

Sometimes, being uncoordinated... adventurous... can be quite painful. I've spent my past two weekends kayaking, hiking, swimming and rock climbing. I have loved every second of it, but these fantastic moments have come at the expense of several layers of skin from my hands, feet and legs.

Not that I'm complaining, but I don't think I've ever been so beat up around the edges.

I acquired my first set of bruises and scrapes on my weekend at Coromandel. For the most part, we just hopped from beach to beach and enjoyed the sun. But four hours of kayaking left me with very cold, blistered hands!

The kayaking was exhilarating and definitely different than anything I was used to.

We kayaked from Hahei beach to Cathedral Cove, which was gorgeous. We sipped hot chocolate on the beach and generally enjoyed the sites before setting off for the two islands we paddled around. The weather was great, and the sun was out. But the water was still a balmy 16 degrees (about 60F), so I was definitely chilly by the end of it. 

That night my group decided to go to Hot Water springs, where hot water bubbles up to the surface and you can sit and enjoy the water. We thought it would be a relaxing and easy way to end the day. I don't know what the other girls were expecting, but I certainly didn't know that you had to dig your own hole in the sand to get to the hot water. 

So instead of sitting in a lovely warm pool for an hour or two, we had to fight through a throng of other beach goers and spent nearly half of that time battling the tide, trying to dig a hole deep enough to sit in. The other girls and I took turns with the shovel, scooping out great chunks of sand, only to see the sides of our little pool crumble back in. It was really disheartening, but eventually, we got a decent hole dug. 

And I found that Hot Water Beach should really be called "Boiling Water Beach." The water was incredibly hot. We found a decent spot that combined hot spring water and cool ocean water, so ours was a reasonable temperature. But the poor kids next to us weren't so lucky. Their water was literally boiling to the surface and steaming. 

Beach Hopping #1

Beach Hopping #2

Beaching Hopping #3

The next day was beach hopping at its finest. We saw so many lovely beaches, but the best one came at the behest of the woman working the desk of our camp ground. She told us to "talk the lovely walk to New Chum Beach." So we all popped out of the car, thinking we'd walk a few hundred meters or something to the beach. 

That was not the case. We took a several kilometer walk across large boulders and eventually through the jungle. And in true Kiwi fashion, we were barefoot. The path was pretty smooth, so it didn't bother my feet too much. 

The beach was incredible and definitely worth the trek. 

New Chum Beach!

I made it!

That's when we spotted people sitting atop the extremely large, steep cliff, and decided obviously,  we had to hike up there. The hike was about 20 minutes of scrambling up a mixture of dirt paths and rocks. The view from the top was even better, as we had a complete view of two beautiful beaches and the surrounding jungle (probably it's actually a forest, but jungle sounds so much cooler.)

The intervening week took me rock climbing indoors once or twice, but nothing much by way of injuries, until the following weekend's rock climbing. 

The whole trip was awesome, and I met some cool climber friends who definitely pushed me into much harder climbs than I'd ever tried when I was in the States. We climbed volcanic rock called new ignimibrite, and according to Mountain Project, the rock is soft. Now, I don't know what they were smoking when they said that, but I have a whole host of cuts on my hands and forearms that would gladly protest the "softness" of this rock. 

Each time I started a climb, all I could think was, "Ouch. I hate this.  Ow. I hate this. I hate this. Why. What's wrong with me?" Until I got maybe 20' up and either got use to it or just lost feeling in my hands because I stopped noticing the pain. 

The climbing was so much fun, but a few unexpected crack climbs, stems, and lead falls later, I found myself quite cut up. 

And I can't wait for my next trip. 

The final (well... for the moment) set of battle scars came as a result of a freezing ocean swim. I know. I'm as surprised as you are. 

Another Au Pair friend wanted to go for a 1.5k swim from one bay on the North Shore of Auckland to another. we swam out a safe but reasonable distance from the shore and began swimming until I kicked and slammed my foot into a rock covered in oysters because where we were swimming became quite shallow. It felt like my entire foot was split open. And I did that several more times. 

Eventually I gave up and walked where it was shallow, but I still tripped and fell a few times, slamming my shins into the previously mentioned oyster-covered rocks. 

Despite the brief bouts of pain, the swimming was quite exhilarating. I'd been in the ocean heaps (as the Brits and Kiwis say) and swam around, but I'd never gone for a serious swim. So I view my cuts as a sign of accomplishment, instead of an inability to walk without injuring myself... just go with me on this guys. Don't judge my lack of coordination; it's a life-long struggle. 

My next adventures involve things like surfing lessons and going to the zoo. So there's no saying how I will manage to slightly injure myself next.