MandarinManMark's Travel Log

Releasing Rough Notes!

2011-12-14T23:35:00.001-08:00

As it's starting to dawn on me that it will most likely take me over five years to finish organising my travel stories to post, I've decided to give people an advanced preview, for my family and friends who are interested to see what I've been up to. I am releasing my raw, unedited notes (with some contact details blanked out) from my journeys!

Some of these notes (especially the ones from earlier trips) are somewhat cryptic, but gives you a sense of what I've done. My later notes are much more detailed.

I'm going to start putting all my transcribed notes up here starting from the earliest notes I have to the latest, organised by trip, so keep an eye on this spot!

An additional reason that, and the reason that got me to think about putting up my rough transcribed notes, is that I want a way to prevent me from losing my notes, either by losing hardware or getting a hacked account. Hopefully, the Internet archive sites will craw the text from these posts, and I'll have a nearly un-loseable copy of my notes.

In any case, enjoy! I look forward to the day when all my travel notes are finally posted!

Here they are:
http://mandarinmamarktravelnotes.blogspot.com

Update: Completed notes for post-New Zealand trip.

2011-12-11T21:54:00.000-08:00

Just finished my handwritten notes about my New Zealand to San Francisco trip. After typing these notes up, I'll be back to updating this blog again. It wasn't easy, but I now have a cool hand-written journal for this 116 day long trip, and filled up over 160 pages!

I look forward to sharing my stories with everyone soon! There are some interesting stories from this trip I can't wait to share, such as:

- Getting reported and questioned about smuggling something out of North Korea.

- Hitchhiking in areas with rebel attacks within the past couple of decades.

- Being involved in a road accident in Laos and having to take bloodied people with broken bones and twisted limbs going into shock to a clinic.

- Getting stuck in the middle of nowhere and being invited to sleep in the tribe of some kids I befriended on the side of the road using my terrible French and charade skills, and finding out I was the first outsider visitor the kids had met.

- Visiting areas recently devastated by a tsumani and feeling the impact it had on the community.

- Hanging out and drinking kava from bowls made from old fishing floats with locals while their kids slept on straw mats beside us.

- Riding a bicycle through downpours through jungle roads with ancient ruins all around.

- Swimming over a dark bottomless hole to gurgling sounds in a cave filled with the clearest water I have ever seen.

... so many memories, and I've barely scratched the surface!

Update: Posts Resuming Soon!

2011-11-18T21:15:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone!

I realise I haven't updated my blog in forever now, and with good reason. Since my last post, I've been busy interviewing, and left my job as a game programming tutor (lecturer) at Media Design School in Auckland, New Zealand. I embarked on a 4.5 month trip around the South Pacific, Southeast Asia, North Korea and Japan on my way back to North America to work as a software engineer at Zynga in San Francisco, after surprising myself and others by turning down a job offer from Google in Mountain View.

Since I've been travelling, I haven't had the chance to update my blog. I also went right on the Mafia Wars 2 team upon arriving in SF, so going from 5 moths of not working to pulling 100hr work weeks was quite a system shock! I've now just started working on the CityVille team, and now that things have settled down a bit, I can once again start chronicling my travels. I can't wait to write about my (once again) life-changing trip, but there are so many trips to catch up on (I realised the other day I've spent a good 20% of my time since graduating four years ago travelling)!

I'm currently going to dedicate perhaps 30 minutes a day to this travel log. I still need to finish recording my last week of travel (the little I remember from over two months ago) before starting organising my trips into readable posts.

In the meantime, you can get a very tiny random taste of the experiences I have had at some of my friends' blogs. I've found myself mentioned on a few random blogs from people I have met... but didn't think of making a note about it so don't have the addresses.

My friend Jérôme, whom I first met when he couchsurfed my couch in SF a couple of years ago and then took good care of my in New Caledonia keeps a blog. There's a few photos of places we went together, but I'm dissappointed that he hasn't written up our trip to Ouvéa yet! I hope he'll get that up soon! You can see his blog (in French) here:
http://cyberjeje.blogspot.com/

I also have a quick mention as a "friend from college" in my good friend Ben's new Osaka ramen blog. (Actually, the couch Jérôme surfed in SF was both mine and Ben's, as we lived together back then) You can see a sample of the tasty (get it? "tiny taste") foods I had in Japan in his posts from late August:
http://www.friendsinramen.com/

OK, better get back to work recording my trip before I forget it, and looking forward to updating this blog once again! It's been far too long!

Image edited from original at http://www.ourpacific.co.nz

Going to Vanuatu

2010-11-09T02:18:00.000-08:00

I've booked a cheap (<$400NZD) ticket to visit Vanuatu from Dec. 19 to Dec. 26. I'm really looking forward to the visit, although a bit uncomfortable about the fact that there is malaria, dengue, typhoid, and a variety of other exotic diseases (including leprosy!) there, and supposedly no real modern healthcare facilities. Oh well, I suppose I'll just have to take some extra precautions.

I plan on staying a few days on Efate, as my flight will be landing there in Port Vila, Vanuatu's capital. I plan on spending most of my time on Tanna, where I will visit Mount Yasur, an active volcano that has been erupting constantly since the first European explorers arrived on the island (in fact, it was the glow of the volcano that apparently attracted the first explorers there). I am kind of scared about this volcano trip - although it is not too common, once in a while, with an unpredictable larger eruption, it apparently hurls a shower of lava bombs at the visitors, and people have been killed there before. Apparently everyone is told to watch the lava bombs, and if one comes for you, don't run, but step out of its way. I suppose I'll just be extremely cautious there and hope that no explosions are big enough to hurl lava bombs at me while I am on the volcano. Other than that, I'm looking forward to seeing some of the traditional "kastom" villages there, as well as the cargo cult villages - the most famous of which is the John Frum cult. Although different sources seem to report different beliefs, from what I gather, it is a cult that believes a god manifesting as a white man in western-style clothing will return one February 15th, celebrated annually as John Frum Day, and bring the villagers great riches. It is believed that this will only happen if the villagers return to a very traditional way of life, shunning western technology, missionaries, not attending school, and ridding themselves of money. Some believe John Frum to be a manifestation of a spirit that lives in the volcano, some believe that he is a vision, and some even believe that John Frum and Jesus are the same being after interacting with Christian missionaries. The cult seems to recognise that John Frum is from the USA and is associated with the US army, and they even have a ritualistic "Tanna Army" organisation, who puts on mock military parades. Many speculate the origins of this cult are from anonymous military men from the US army who introduced themselves as "John from the US" during World War II. Interestingly, this beliefs stills seems to be quite strong in the area, strong enough to obtain a seat in parliament for the John Frum political party. I'll report more about it when I learn more from the locals!

In any case, I will definitely take the utmost precautions, but this should be a very interesting trip if the weather cooperates and things go smoothly!

Image from http://www.sevensidedcube.net/

Melbourne - Day 4 (Epilogue)

2010-10-24T00:58:00.000-07:00

Today was my last day in Melbourne before heading back to Auckland. Packing up all of my stuff, double checking and triple checking to make sure I haven't left anything behind, I once again headed off to Queen Victoria Market to meet up with Jake, after saying farewell to Damien. I wasn't planning on doing anything too intense today - since I was heading off directly from the city to the airport for a 4pm flight, I was going to be carrying my pack with me all day.

Today, with the market open, it was a very different atmosphere compared to yesterday. With the stores open, many customers were milling around, and it proved to be quite a centre of activity. First order of business was to grab breakfast at a place that Jake liked. There, we had a very cheap, but hearty breakfast, and I enjoyed a flat white to make up for my lack of sleep. From here, we quickly toured the inside portion of the market, which reminded me very much of the St. Lawrence Market in Toronto (although a bit smaller - or perhaps I didn't tour the entire area). I thought I would be happy living near a market like this, with low-cost but fresh-looking butchers, seafood stalls, and boutique beer and wine vendors. From here, we moved on to the main reason that Jake wanted to visit the market - souvenirs. Since he was returning home to the US the next day from his three month trip, he wanted to bring back some souvenirs for his family and friends. The souvenir portion of the market was located in what appeared to be large outdoor warehouses, with a variety of cheap and mostly campy trinkets for sale, but at very low prices. Picking out a few items that fit Jake's limited budget, we headed over to the library for me to check my flight information, where we took turns going online as I couldn't bring my bag into the library, and there wasn't much point in storing it.

From here, there wasn't much time to do much else, so we just wandered around the city, eventually ending up along the southern banks of the Yarra. We ended up just sitting on a bench on the shores of the Yarra looking at the skyscrapers of the Melbourne CBD. We had some great and deep conversations about life, and were enjoying each other's company in the warm sun. These are the kind of relaxing moments that I feel like everyone needs once in a while - and it makes me realise that it's not where you go, but who you go with and who you meet that defines a trip. After sitting there for quite some time, a bit after noon, I decided it was time for me to head off to the airport. We meandered our way to the Southern Cross Station, stopping once to take a commemorative photos of us together in Melbourne. Seeing Southern Cross Station for the first time from the outside, I was impressed with its modern architecture, especially its wavy roof, completed in 2006. There were also odd-looking multi-story yellow boxes with rounded edges perched on thin metal legs, which served as what I think are offices in the station, judging by the contents of the boxes visible from large glass panels.

At the station, we said our farewells as I boarded the bus, and wished him luck with his plans of retuning to school. I arrived at the airport reasonably early, so I sat at a café to enjoy a mocha while reviewing my photos from the trip and watching the airplanes milling about outside the window. As I sat at various parts of the terminal for some changes in scenery, I was surveyed by Yvette, a representative from Tourism Australia. As it turns out, she was a Couchsurfer, and we chatted for a while after the survey. I asked many questions regarding life in Melbourne and her reasons for moving there. As for the flight and trip back to my flat in Auckland, that was quite uneventful. I had plenty of time to think about the lessons I learned on this trip on the three hour flight, and I arrived home satisfied at my leisurely tour of Melbourne and the time I spent with Jake and our deep and meaningful conversations. In the short time what we have been together in New Zealand and Australia, I feel that Jake and I have gotten to know each other pretty well, and will be checking in with each other for the rest of our lives, hoping, and believing that we will meet again in the future. We had better, as Jake owes me a dinner or two!

Melbourne - Day 3

2010-09-01T00:35:00.000-07:00

The third day, I woke up, looked at the various drawings and writings on the other Couchsurfers' van, and headed into town to Queen Victoria Market, where I was to meet Jake. Queen Victoria Market, established in the 1850s, covers an areas of a few city blocks organised into different, but related sections. Located just inside the northern bound of the CBD, is set against a marvellous backdrop of skyscrapers with their tops poking into the low, dynamic clouds that day. Combined with the steam rising from the vents on the high rooftops, the skyline seemed alive.

As I arrived, it was clear that the market had not opened up for business yet, as everything was closed. There were a few workers and truck around, loading and unloading their produce. As we arranged to meet at the south-western entrance to the market, I had arrived at the outdoor fruit and vegetable area, and was greeted by the giant "QUEEN VICTORIA MARKET" sign painted on the slanted roof of the enormous shed there. This part of the market was also the site of a huge parking lot, as well as a large solar installation on the roofs of the various sheds lined up in rows. Covering 2000 square metres, this was the largest urban solar installation in the Souther Hemisphere that is connected to the energy grid.

I tried to look for an indoor area to wait for Jake, but as everything was closed, I had to stand outside and endure the cold - I was surprisingly cold even though I was wearing nearly every article of clothing I had brought on this trip! Luckily, it wasn't long until Jake arrived. Since the market was closed, we decided to come back the next day and head directly to our next destination - Brunswick, to try some of the Lebanese bakeries that Ben had suggested. Since Jake was staying in the Brunswick area, he knew what trams to hop on to get there. However, it turned out that he stayed in Brunswick West, so it was only after consulting the map and hopping on another bus that we arrived on Sydney Road, where the commercial district of Brunswick was centred around. No matter, the detour was pleasant, and I took the opportunity to send a postcard to my parents.

We walked along Sydney Road and stopped off at a few Lebanese bakeries. There were also many other Lebanese shops and supermarkets, which we took the chance to explore. We had a lot of tasty pastries and a few drinks and juices, and were soon quite full and content. This was quite a bustling area lined with cafés, restaurants and shops. I noticed that this area had the typical Melbourne style, which was based on older and decorative brick buildings. There were also some good example of graffiti here as well, which Jake took the time to take some photos of.

Following Sydney road down farther, we exited the Lebanese district and wandered around what appeared to be a mixed community, with Chinese, Caribbean and Greek shops. Since we didn't have many plans, we just wandered around for a while, and stopped in a Greek café for a coffee. I love travelling with others who aren't fussy about seeing as much as possible on a trip. It was clear that Jake valued the company over seeing specific sights, which was great. We sat for a long time on a bench on the side walk, people watching and chatting. I had some deep thoughts about what I wanted to do after New Zealand and how the world fit together. This is also when I started having serious thoughts about moving to Australia, to Melbourne in particular. Unfortunately, we didn't make it to nearby Lygon Street, where there is supposed to be a happening Italian community, but we didn't care.

After chatting for a while, it was time for us to go meet another Couchsurfer downtown. Jake was changing hosts today, so we went to pick up his stuff and head over to his new place. Walking to Brunswick West, we sat for a while at his host's house - no one was home, so we just sat and chatted in the back year. There was an overly-enthusiastic puppy there that peed itself quite often and constantly nibbled at our bags and hands, while jumping around non-stop. Hopping on a tram and searching around for a while, we found Jake's new host in Southbank, near the Eureka Tower.

From here, we still didn't really have any ideas of what to do, so we went to see if we could catch the last Parliament tour of the day. Unfortunately, we arrived just five minutes late, but at least we got to see the Parliament House, where the government of Victoria was based out of. The parliament building was quite impressive, and the style reminded me of some of the buildings of Kensington Palace in London. Set on a high pedestal of stairs, large towering columns lined the front part of the solid-looking building. The lampposts outside the building were capped with crowns, giving a sense of importance to the site.

From here, we headed to Richmond and walked all around in the area, getting lost a few times. There is quite a bustling Vietnamese and Chinese community here, with many ethnic restaurants, markets and stores. We saw a few typical Melbourne houses (a small unassuming façade, but extending very deep into the property), but decorated with typical Chinese stone lions out front - an interesting contrast. We also saw a lot of houses with beautiful delicate ironwork around the windows and doors in a few of the neighbourhoods. We even wandered as far as Abbotsford, and crossing the murky Yarra, had a brief walk in Dickinson reserve. It was a good, but tiring, tour of that portion of Melbourne, seeing the typical neighbourhoods, including a few rather industrial ones. Jake also told me a story about him and a few other Couchsurfers getting arrested in New Zealand, and how their court proceedings with the judge was just like a casual conversation in an office, with people making jokes and getting them processed quickly - but that's a separate story from the Melbourne trip.

As it started getting dark, we went into the next train station we encountered, and headed back to the CBD. After dinner, we spent some time wandering around Chinatown looking for Berlin Bar, which someone had recommended to us. There were apparently many bars with interesting themes in Melbourne. Berlin Bar, we were told, was very difficult to find and had two rooms. One room, "West Berlin," is lavishly decorated and serves fancy cocltails, while the other room, "East Berlin," through a door, is barren, with only crates as chairs, and serves only cheap beers and other cheap drinks.

As it turns out, although Melbourne Chinatown is not very big, it is very interesting to explore due to an extensive system of alleyways, just like the CBD, albeit smaller. The main street, stretching across three blocks, is quite busy, decorated with lanterns and lined with restaurants. After asking a few people who were not sure where Berlin Bar is, we decided to start at the beginning and walk down each alleyway to look for it.

We found many interesting restaurants and bars, including some open-air bars in the alleyways. One of the most interesting discoveries is the Croft Institute, which is also mentioned in Lonely Planet. To get to the Croft Institute, one has to walk down a winding alleyway that become dodgier and dodgier. Walking past workers from Chinese restaurants smoking outside and taking the rubbish out, the graffiti on the wall becomes denser and denser, which the alleyway grows darker. After one final turn, a door leads to a laboratory/hospital themed landing, from which one can enter the different floors of the bar. Apparently, the bar sponsors the graffiti in the alleyway, and they had recently had a lot of new work done just in the past few weeks. They pointed us in the right direction towards Berlin Bar, and still not finding it, we continued searching. As it turned out, we skipped exactly one alleyway in all of Chinatown - the alleyway with Berlin Bar in it! In fact, we had even passed through this alleyway while looking for the Szechuan restaurant, but the entrance was so inconspicuous that we didn't spot it the first time! In any case, the bar was closed for the night, as they were only open four days out of the week.

On that note, we decided to call it a night, but not until after finding the alleyway where we saw the graffiti artists working the other day. We did a lot of walking today, and I was quite happy that it was time to rest.

Edit (Oct. 24, 2010). Since I wrote about this experience after such a long delay without making any notes about my Melbourne trip, some of the events may be in the wrong order or have been left out. I just remembered an important part of the night that I did not write about in my original post: Jake and I went for Ethiopian food in Footscray. I had been craving Ethiopian food since discovering that none was to be found in Auckland, and after raving about it with Jake, he was sold on the idea. We contacted Kirin and Damien as well, as Ethiopian food is better with more people, since all dishes are shared. Unfortunately, Kirin was busy, but Damien told us that he would be joining us - about two minutes after we ordered! Finding a good Ethiopian restaurant was quite an adventure as well, as Footscray was dodgy to the extreme and relatively empty an night! The restaurant was also dodgy and empty with the exception of a loud Ethiopian family who shot glances over at us from time to time. When Damien arrived, we had nearly finished our portions, but what he ordered was the best dish of the meal - gored gored. This was the first time I had gored gored, as I have always been hesitant to order raw meat at restaurants, but after this, I've decided that the risk was worth it for gored gored! After the meal, I was glad that Damien was there to walk back with me, as the area was quite intimidating at dark, but with someone that knew the area, the walk was quite pleasant under the calm starry night. He tried to take me to a bar (or café?) for a drink, but unfortunately, it was closed. I headed off to bed after a bit of chatting and lounging around with Damien and the others that were present for the night.

Melbourne - Day 2

2010-07-24T17:59:00.000-07:00

Waking up in the morning, I headed over to the train station, as Jake and I had arranged to meet at 10:45 in Federation Square. Arriving at just the wrong time, I had to wait for nearly half an hour for a train, but enjoyed sitting there, listening to the sound of the rain and the views of the misty city silhouette in the distance. I also struck up a conversation with a woman to ask about life in Melbourne.

Jake and I both arrived at Federation Square at close to the pre-determined time, which is quite impressive for many travellers, especially ones, like Jake, who has been wandering around the world for a few months or longer. We grabbed a burger and fries at a chain I had seen around Melbourne, "Lord of the Fries." It turned out to be surprisingly delicious and cheap, and only after a few bites did we realise that we had vegetarian burgers! All of a sudden, that big sign by the counter claiming that King of the Fries is now fully vegetarian suddenly makes sense! We wolfed down the food as fast as we could, as were were planning to attend a show starting at 11am.

As it turns out, Jake's friends had given him a fake (read: counterfeit) complementary ticket to films shown by ACMI. Since the tickets appeared to have been printed hastily, one side said "admit one," while in another section, it says "admit two." The people at the counter were quite friendly and welcoming, and they had no problems in letting both of us in. The only show these days is "Herb and Dorothy," a documentary about the Vogels, two art collectors in New York. Throughout their life, even though they did not earn much money, their passion had seen them amass an impressive art collection of thousands of pieces by famous artists, which was eventually donated to the National Gallery of Art. I quite enjoyed the film. The cinema itself was quite modern and well designed too, with lights coming through large lightning bolt-like patterns on the wall. When the lights came back on and we were walking out, I noticed that everyone else there was a senior! As it turns out, this was a "senior's cinema" show, specifically advertised to the senior audience!

After the film, we spent some time in the National Gallery of Victoria, which we did not get a chance the visit the day before. There were some good exhibits, and the facilities were quite spacious and modern, but I felt that the displays were a bit sparse. I feel that with some changes in the design and layout, they could have many more items on display for a facility of that size. But I suppose a state-of-the-art museum that is free to the public is nothing to complain about! What I did like about the gallery is that due to the layout, it wasn't just a museum, it was a social space, which is great in getting people to visit the facility. There were cafés on nearly every floor, and most of the cafés were quite alive and filled with people.

From here, we went on to visit The Shrine of Remembrance, the large war memorial in Melbourne. It was quite an impressive structure, with large stone pillars inside and carved motifs around the walls. There were also books of names of soldiers who had lost their lives (I think in World War I). There was an associated museum and a few chambers underground with statues and other memorials. There were small statues and memorials outside, around the grounds as well, including a small statue commemorating the horses who had died during the wars. Apparently, one of the main attractions of this shrine, which is quite touching in my opinion, is a plaque on the ground in the middle surrounded by a small ledge and covered with with some wreaths and flowers laid about it. On the plaque is written "GREATER LOVE HATH NO MAN." On November 11th, Rememberance Day, at 11am (modifications with a mirror had to be installed after the introduction of daylight savings time), a ray of sunlight, coming through a hole in the roof, traces over the plaque and illuminates the word "LOVE." Apparently, people liked the idea so much that every hour, there is a "simulation" of the ray of light along with a short, three minute recorded service. I thought the simulation was overdoing it a bit and made it seem gimmicky, but oh well, the intentions are good.

After getting a nice view of the city from the roof of the shrine, which is accessible to the public, we took the tram to Fitzroy, where we walked around for a bit. This was one of the neighbourhoods that I was most interested in, as people have told me that I should consider living in this bohemian neighbourhood if I moved to Melbourne. It was pretty happening, but I was somewhat disappointed that it was only one main street. Although it was quite a long and happening street, with bars, restaurants, shops and brew-pubs, it still did not feel like a large area. Unfortunately, I never got to visit it again at night, when I hear there is a lot of great activity going on. I wanted to visit Brunswick as well, but after some investigation, we discovered that there weren't any direct way to get there, so we decided to head back into the city and take it from there.

We made a quick stop at the library to do a bit more research, and realising that I had not visited the State Library yet, I took a quick tour. The State Library of Victoria is quite an impressive and sturdy looking stone building, originally commissioned in 1853. It had seen many renovations and extensions, and today houses around two million books. By far the most impressive section of the library is the La Trobe Reading Room, renovated in 2003, an octagonal atrium spanning five floors. The desks were laid out in a radial fashion, and this seemed like it would be a great place to study. Although we were invited to some kind of Couchsurfing and movie get-together by bumping into a barefoot hippie coming out of the library wearing a Couchsurfing shirt, we decided that we were a bit too lazy to figure out how to get there and to just hang around town for the evening.

From here, we wandered around the Melbourne alleyways a bit longer before coming to Federation Square again, where we found beach lounge chairs set up under a giant suspended globe. Apparently, events are held in Federation Square every so often to promote it as a busy public space. The Light in Winter, happening while we were in Melbourne, is an annual event that spans over a few weeks. Art exhibitions and shows are set up during that time. As we sat in the chairs, gazing up at the stars and the Southern Cross above the city lights, the large globe turned on, and displayed patterns like the surface of the sun. It was an art installation. The slowly changing and interactive light patterns would have been much more captivating if it wasn't so cold outside. However, I was impressed at the number of people that were out in the square.

Following a recommendation by Ben, Jake and I headed over to Chinatown to grab dinner. It was actually pretty amusing how we ended up at Sichuan House. I went through the list of restaurants suggested by Ben with Jake, and when I mentioned Szechuan food, Jake went "ooh!" It wasn't until we had our food in front of us when I discovered that Jake has never had Szechuan food before! Wow, was he surprised about what he was in for! He did really enjoy the dinner, especially enjoying the numbing and tingling sensation of the Szechuan peppercorn for the first time. Since it was quite expensive, I offered to cover food, as I'm sure I'll meet up with him again sometime in the future during our travels, where he can provide dinner. Dinner there was quite good, but I thought it didn't really live up to the extremely positive recommendation from Ben.

Still being quite early after dinner, Jake and I decided to take a trip to St. Kilda, as Ben had suggested Acland Street was worth checking out if there was nothing else to do. The tram ride took quite a long time, but eventually, we arrived on Fitzroy Street, which was not very happening but still had a few active restaurants and cafés at this time of night, which was impressive enough. As we got to Acland street, we were very confused. It was a small, quiet residential area. Where was the action? As it turned out, Acland street is divided into two portions, one was residential, and one was filled with cafés and restaurants. We had arrived at the wrong end of Acland Street, and not knowing this fact, never found the exciting area.

No matter, Jake decided to take me for a visit to the St. Kilda Pier, where there was an area to watch penguins! The pier is a surprisingly long road that extends about 700 metres into Bass Straight. One of the main landmarks of the area is the St. Kilda Pavilion, located about half a kilometre from the start of the pier. This kiosk, built in 1904 (burned down by arson in 2003 and re-built in the original style), is a very good example of Edwardian architecture. Even though nothing was open on the pier at this hour, there were still some people using the pier as a jogging track, or just taking a walk along the water.

Just past the kiosk is the penguin colony. At this time time of night, it was quite active, as all of the penguins (eudyptula minor, the smallest species of penguin) have come back from fishing. From a small wooden plank walkway, one could watch the penguins run around, fight, and call to each other. It was quite entertaining just watching them for a bit. The view across the water was also quite good from here, as one could see the glimmering skyscrapers of the Melbourne CBD in the distance, across the water. Alas, I was not able to get a photo here - as soon as I took out my camera, a downpour of rain arrived, obscuring the view. Where there was was a glimmering city, there is now only a vague bright patch.

From here, it was home time. I have only one last full day to spend in Melbourne, but I figure I had done pretty well so far. I have seen the main neighbourhoods I had wanted to. I suppose that's the advantage of going on a trip with not much expectations, which is very different than the amount of things I try to pack in on my other trips. I figure I'll just spend the next day casually exploring, and seeing that it was also going to be Jake's second last day before heading home, I'm sure he will also be in the mood just to take it easy and enjoy being here. On the way back, we ran into a group of drunk teenagers on the tram, who the other passengers effectively kicked off the tram by threatening to call the police - that was pretty awkward.

I spent that night back at the Couchsurfer's place hanging around, reading some guidebooks, and chatting with the newly arrived French travellers. They showed me their van, which in good traveller style, has been drawn all over and decorated - legacies left by the different owners of the van as it passed from traveller to traveller. Apparently, this van had even helped them make contact with other travellers. On the van is written in large letters "this van is f***ing awesome," and just a few weeks ago, they found a slip of paper stuck on the van that said "yes, this van is f***ing awesome" along with the other traveller's contact information.

Melbourne - Day 1

2010-06-19T18:34:00.000-07:00

I woke up after a cold night. I was surprised at how cold Melbourne winters are compared to Auckland winters. I made a mental note to wear more layers the next night before going to sleep, as I did not get a very good rest the night before. As Damien left for work, I got dressed and prepared by day pack for a day wandering around Melbourne centre. I also sent a text to Jake, whom I hosted for a few nights in Auckland, and Kirin, one of the two CouchSurfing ambassadors for Auckland. Both of them happened to be in Melbourne during my visit. Kirin was busy at work, and told us he would meet up for dinner, but Jake didn't have any plans, so we decided we'll meet in the city in about an hour's time.

As I've heard some things about Footscray market, and seeing that I was in the area, I decided to pop in there to grab a bite to eat before heading into the city. After a 20 minute walk along relatively quite streets, I emerged on a series of more bustling streets, with a mix of Vietnamese and African stores and people wandering around. I was quite happy I found this place - or so I thought, as I had only some very crude maps of the area. I found a nice plaza filled with colourful characters wandering around, and due to reading some signs strangely, I was somehow convinced that this plaza was Footscray Market. It was only on the night of the day before I left that I discovered that I was standing right beside the building where Footscray Market was located in - oh well, something to save for next time. There was also a busy street where trams ran. The view down this street towards the skyscrapers of Melbourne centre reminded me very much of Toronto, where such views from similarly colourful neighbourhoods against a backdrop of skyscrapers are common. As I was walking around, I got a text from Jake saying that he was going to get free internet from the State Library of Victoria, and after referencing the Lonley Planet I took out from the library, I was on my way to Footscray Station.

The area around the station looked much better during the day than at night. It was bustling, and many people were walking around. I caught a train to Flinders Street Station, and soon, I arrived at Melbourne Central, the station by the library. It was now that I started seriously doubting my travel abilities again, as I just realised that instead of purchasing a 5 x day pass ticket, I had purchased a 10 x 2 hour trip ticket for the same price. Seeing that I was only in Melbourne for a total of less than five days, a 5 x day pass would have covered my travel period nearly perfectly. This failure in reasoning was completely not like me, and I really beat myself up over this poorly-planned purchase.

In any case, I arrived at Melbourne Central, and was immediately impressed as I emerged up out of the station into a shopping centre, right under a giant glass dome enclosing a historic lead shot manufacturing tower. After a photo and grabbing a quick look at the exchange offices, when I realised I was ripped off at the airport, I emerged out onto the busy streets of central Melbourne, right across from the library. Crossing the street, I approached a hooded man reading a book under the big statue on the steps in front, and as planned, it was Jake! I love it when plans just work out while travelling! After some warm hellos, we headed off to explore Melbourne together.

The first stop was a café that Jake was directed to earlier, where one could order a bowl of coffee. A bowl! Well, seeing that I was quite exhausted already, and had a long day ahead of me, I figure it would be a good idea. I relaxed with a giant bowl of mocha. It was here, when Jake didn't buy anything, that I learned the state of his financial condition. Jake, after a three month journey (his first backpacking trip), was to return to the US the day after I fly back to Auckland. Being still in school, this means that he has only about $10 a day to spend for the next five days, and he still wants to buy souvenirs and gifts to take home. Looks like we won't be doing anything too extravagant in the next few days!

After coffee, we spent a while walking around the Melbourne CBD. This was one of the activities I had been looking forward to doing in Melbourne. I've heard that one of the unique features of Melbourne are the small alleyways of the CBD, which one can spend hours wandering around in. I wan't let down. Just off of the busy, bustling main streets are a network of tiny alleyways filled with stores, cafés, restaurants and bars. It was very cosy wandering around here, as they are filled with people and covered with awnings, often stretching nearly all the way across the narrow canyons made by the buildings. Much of the walls here were also covered with graffiti - not the bad kind, but very professional and artistic ones. As it turn out, graffiti isn't only tolerated, but celebrated here. We even walked past a small alleyway with ladders set up and a group of artists working under the watchful eye of a handful of observers and photographers.

After a while of wandering, we headed over to Federation Square, the cultural centrepiece of Melbourne, completed in 2002. Federation Square, located right in the centre of Melbourne along the shores of Yarra River, is an entire city block filled with indoor and outdoor public spaces, a series of (mostly free) cultural institutions and a visitor's centre, all built in an abstract futuristic post-modern style. It was definitely one of my favourite places in Melbourne. I can't express enough how much I respect a city that provides such high quality cultural institutions and public spaces to its citizens for free.

We visited an exhibition organised by the Australian Centre for the Moving Image, known by its acronym, ACMI. There, I had a crash course in the history of Australian cinema, watched a few very entertaining videos (old and new artistic shorts), and a variety of visually stimulating displays. There was even a small booth that allowed you to make your own (low-granularity) bullet time video, which you can e-mail to yourself! We wanted to explore the video library of ACMI as well, but they were quite busy, and all of the booths were taken. At this time, I got a text from Damien, who had some time off between shifts, and we decided to meet at Federation Square.

As Damien showed, up, he was very keen to hit show us some bars, so we followed him back into the CBD, where he brought us to a very cool rooftop bar. Getting into small elevator covered in pasted posters and scribbles, we took it to the sixth floor, where there were a few closed shops of some sort. Taking an external flight of stairs another floor or two up, we arrived at a rooftop bar, which during the summers, also serves as an outdoor cinema! I can imagine myself quite happy here, with some friends, having a few drinks, and watching some art house movies at night, to the backdrop of the glowing skyscrapers of downtown Melbourne. I also enjoyed the beer I had here very much, a local micro brew - which reminded me of how much I missed the world-renown micro brews of Northern California that I enjoyed frequently when I lived in San Francisco. Here, we weathered quite a downpour under some parasols, and found the locals to be quite friendly and chatty. After the the beer, we left the cold of the outdoors and popped a few floors down to a large and surprisingly busy bar, which had a wonderful warm, bohemian vibe to it. Damien soon left, happily buzzed, to go to work - as he was biking to work in a commercial kitchen, I seriously hoped that he would be careful after the drinks! Of course, not wanting to leave Jake out of the fun, I had been buying his drinks, as he has effectively no money left to spend.

After the bar, Jake and I decided to head over to The National Gallery of Victoria, a large museum, free to the public, just across the Yarra. Even though we realised that they would most likely be closed when we got there, we decided it would be a nice walk anyway. After some great dusk views of the city around the Yarra, we arrived at the waterfall wall of the National Gallery to find that it was, indeed, closed. Well, no matter. At this time, Jake and another CouchSurfer made contact, and it was determined that we would meet in front of the Crown Casino and Entertainment Complex across the street from the Convention Centre.

Walking along the Yarra, we were treated to some great night views of the city and views of Eureka Tower, completed in 2006, which held the title of world's tallest residential building for a brief moment. I quite like the symbolism in the architecture, the blue and white cladding representing the flag of the Eureka Stockade, the gold top representing the gold rush, and a striking stripe of red running down from the top to represent the blood that was shed in one of the most important events in the state of Victoria's history. We arrived just in time for the nightly fire show, with large balls of fire being shot up into the sky from a few pillars along the Yarra in front of the Crown Complex. Everyone just stopped for a few minutes, and as soon as the show as over, everyone just continued on their way. It was quite cold and rainy now, and after a bit of waiting on a bustling street filled with people streaming out of the convention centre, we were glad to finally see the other Couchsurfer.

From here, we walked up a few blocks to meet up with Kirin. Unfortunately, Jake had to head off to a house party, so he left and couldn't join us for dinner. Kirin and I walked to the CBD area, where I was quite impressed with the number of restaurant choices offering reasonably-priced meals. As it turns out, Melbourne is one of the most multicultural cities in Australia, with over 40% of the population reporting to be born overseas, according to the most recent census in 2009. This is nearly comparable to the astounding 50% that Toronto reported. Actually, I found it quite interesting, I've discovered that Canada tells their citizens that it is the most multicultural country in the world, while Australia makes the same claim to their citizens! And no one seems to have questioned it or even realises that both nations claim to be the most multicultural country in the world. It makes me wonder how many more countries claim this, and what the actual statistics are.

After dinner and a drink at Young and Jackson, a bar made famous by controversially displaying Chloé, a painting of a nude female in the Victorian age, Kirin and I parted ways. Seeing that it was quite late, I decided not to join Jake at the house party, so I started back to turn in for the night, as I was quite exhausted for the day. I enjoyed some great night views around Flinders Street station. Perhaps seeing me take photos, I was hit upon my a kind of creepy Burmese gay guy on the ride back. I am really not sure what it is about me that seems to just attract these kinds of situations. In any case, when I made it back to Damien's, I spent some time chatting and trying to find a leak in a large air bed in the lounge. Damien had bumped into two French Couchsurfers sleeping in a van they bought and are travelling around it, and thought it would be nice to offer them a warmer place to sleep in for the next few days. Turning in for the night, I made sure to wear nearly everything I had to fend off the cold at night.

Oh yeah, and one other thing I learned - apparently my ticket purchased worked out after all. Any tickets used in the evening get extended to a day pass, and if one uses their pass for the second time in a day, it also gets automatically extended to a day pass - what a generous and convenient system! I guess I'm just that good when it come to travelling - even my mistakes are good! (Just kidding!)

Melbourne - Prologue

2010-06-19T01:35:00.001-07:00

June 4th, 2010. Friday. After a stressful week of work, the time for my next long-weekend trip was finally here. In all honesty, due to the recent amount of stress, I haven't even really thought about the trip, and wasn't really looking forward to it - a first for any trips I have taken. I was also thinking of the fun I will be missing out on, as Bach Weekend 2.1 was scheduled for this week - a bunch of my friends are heading out to a bach. In fact, someone had to be called to be my replacement when we realised that I would be gone for that weekend.

Since my flight was scheduled for just after 9pm, I had time to first head home, do a final check, and then head to the bus station at the ferry terminal building to catch the 6pm bus to the airport. With a new Kathmandu EOS SL 26 litre pack purchased just this week, everything went smoothly. I was happy that I finally got around to getting a small, simple, light (half a kilo!) pack for use on the long weekend trips. Sitting on the bus and looking out the window at a busy ferry terminal after dark, I finally had a chance to relax after an extremely stressful week. The ride there was not very eventful, although since it was taking place during rush hour, I saw how busy the Auckland bus stations can get, especially around schools.

I arrived at the airport, and feeling strangely familiar with the standard check-in procedure, went up to the Qantas desk to check in. "Do you have a valid visa for Australia?" asked the clerk. "I'm on a Canadian passport - I don't need a visa." I replied. All of a sudden, I remembered - for last year's trip to Sydney, I had applied for a visa online a few days before the trip (which unfortunately, only expired very recently)! The fact that I needed a visa was immediately confirmed by the check-in clerk! Uh oh, this could be bad. Fortunately, after many "interesting" situations encountered on previous trips, I stayed calm and composed, and asked is there was an Internet kiosk close by. As it turns out, the Qantas ticketing office could process my visa immediately for $30, only $5 more than what it would have cost online. I was just happy to get my visa approved and sent back to the check-in counter! I was surprised that this was the second time in a row something had gone nearly horribly wrong right at the start of the trip - but luckily, a solution would be found immediately. I hoped that this wasn't a sign that I was losing my travel skill that I had built up over the previous trips!

After the visa hiccup, I was quickly checked-in successfully, and I was off to the upstairs lounge with my small, neat pack - I was so happy that I was so comfortable carrying this pack around - definitely a good purchase! Since I still had quite a bit of time, and knowing that the Auckland airport is rather quick, I relaxed outside with a bowl of ramen from a Japanese restaurant in the terminal. This put me in a better mood after the stressful week. One of my favourite things on a trip is waiting at an airport with food. Especially on international transfers during random hours of the night, it feels like you are in a fortress of activity, protected from the night, with nothing else to do other than eat, drink, browse the stores, and people watch. As time came, I passed through security quickly, and soon after, I was on my way to Melbourne. I watched Alice in Wonderland and enjoyed an unexpected meal with drinks on the flight.

Arriving in Melbourne was pretty straightforward. A few questions and I was through. I had thought that perhaps I would receive extra attention for only having a 26 litre pack with me on an international flight, but they didn't seem to mind that much. Walking out of customs, I was greeted by a giant red rug with "Welcome to Melbourne" written on it in giant yellow letters in both English and Chinese. After exchanging some money (in which the changers told me that transaction fees were charged everywhere, which convinced me to change all of my money - a mistake on my part), I asked the info desk where to find a SIM card. I needed a phone, as I was to Couchsurf at Damien's place tonight, and needed to contact him. Unfortunately, all the stores were closed, so I decided to just hop on a bus and sort things out when I get to downtown.

Arriving at Southern Cross station, I emerged beside a giant Hungry Jack's. Luckily, I found a 7/11, who should carry SIM cards, according to the people on the bus. I bought a Vodafone card and a a recharge voucher and proceeded to activate it. As it turns out, the activation process is all automatic. When they asked for my passport number, I made a mistake while saying it, and requesting to repeat it, the voice told me "... thank you, we now have your passport number. Now, let's get your..." Great, what a wonderful system. In any case, the card promised to be activated within a few minutes, but after a few minutes, when I tried to dial a number, Vodafone told me that the process was taking longer than expected and that it could take up to six hours for activation to be completed! Just what I needed! Well, I decided that in the meantime, I will head over to my CouchSurfer's place and hope my phone gets activated before I arrive.

Since it was late at night, many of the trains were no longer running. I asked one person how to get to Footscray, and he said that there are probably no longer any trains. I asked another, and his first response was "you don't want to go there at night!" Well, that makes me feel better... after reading that Footscray is the worst neighbourhood in Melbourne earlier that day, and not having any idea how I am going to contact my Couchsurfing host! In any case, he did suggest a train to get to Footscray station, but he reckons that trains were no longer running to Middle Footscray, which is where I actually needed to get to. My plan was just to get a cab at Footscray, and that may even save me from having to walk through this dodgy area at night.

Arriving at Footscray, I was disappointed. The area was deserted. Not seeing a pay phone, I asked someone, and he didn't know where to find one. Seeing that the station was emptying out, I asked one of the last people to exit the station. He didn't know where to find a phone either, so I just offered to pay him to use his phone, but he was kind enough to just lend it to me. I was so relieved to get through to my host and told him where I was. Just then, I glanced up at the board, and noticed a train to Sydenham, the train that goes through Middle Footscray. Even luckier, it turns out that my host was on the train that I was going to take - arriving at Footscray in eight minutes! After arranging to meet him either in the second last car or the station, I happily went to the platform to wait for the train.

All went according to plan, and stepping on to the train, I was greeted by Damien, my host, who was happily drunk and on his way back from a bi-weekly Couchsurfing meeting in the city. From the station, we walked to his house. We had to pass through some extremely dodgy-looking areas, a dark alleyway of what looked like abandoned warehouses (they turned out to be garages) to a street with small-looking houses packed close together. As it turns out, in Melbourne, the houses in the city all have very small fronts, are packed close together, but extend very deep into their lots.

After settling in and some quick chatting, I was ready to go to bed on an inflatable mattress in Damien's room. I was just happy to see my bed after safely arriving at my host's place, especially after going through such difficulty contacting my host, and not knowing if I could get in contact with him or not. Just before heading to bed, I received a text from Vodafone. My activation was complete. Thanks Vodafone, your timing couldn't have been better!

Tonga - Epilogue

2010-05-08T23:09:00.000-07:00

Waking up at around 9am, I waited around for my ride to the airport. As it turns out, Eddie and I are on the same flight back to Auckland, with Dave taking a flight later in the day. Perhaps we could even meet up in Auckland once we are all there. Since my ride isn't for another while, I sat outside with Eddie and a Frenchman filming an interview with him for his travel blog. He ended up with some pretty good footage, as just after talking about how the pace of life in Tonga is slow and nothing exciting happens, I heard a loud thud behind me and felt the ground shake a bit. As it turns out, an extra-large breadfruit fell just about a metre or two from us. It would have hurt if that fell on someone's head!

As 10 or so rolled around, Eddie and I boarded the van and Peter drove us to the airport. We waved good-bye to everyone as we departed, including the Tongan who served us that kava the night before, now busy washing one of the guesthouse vans, an old Japanese van that has found a new life in Tonga. As we arrived at the airport, the day was just starting to get hot and humid. It seems that there is a perpetual crowd at the airport. As we checked in, I was surprised to find that even at the international terminal, the flight board was nothing more than signs holding printed sheets of paper, or sometimes even just sheets of paper with marker on it taped over the board. After checking in, we went to look for some food. As we walked around, Eddie was intercepted by the taxi driver who picked him up a few days ago, who proceeded to chat with him for a while. Eddie mentioned that we stayed at Toni's, to which the taxi driver immediately responded that "Toni's a bad man!"

Although there was a small café downstairs serving some pies and sausage rolls, I caught a glimpse of another café upstairs, so we headed up the surprisingly wide the gloomily dark staircase where a bunch of kids were playing. These stairs brought us up to the observation deck where many families and foreign travellers were waiting for the flights. Unfortunately, it turns out that the café also served only some dried goods, coffee, pies, and sausages. We tried to spend some of our leftover pa'anga, and I sat for a juice, pie, and flat white, while enjoying the view of the runway amongst the lush green grass and palm trees, while chatting and comparing passports. As it turns out, the Finnish passport has a thick plastic layer on the photo page, which prevents the document from being bent.

After watching two airplanes land, a Pacific Blue flight to Sydney, and our Air New Zealand flight, both departing at the same time, we headed in to go clear security. Outbound customs and security was quite relaxed, and we were through in no time. I was actually quite glad to feel air conditioning for the first time in Tonga, a welcome relief from the ridiculously humid weather. After browsing the few shops in the waiting area, we sat to wait while I enjoyed listening to the announcements made in Tongan. Seeing the sunny weather outside, I commented on how unlucky I was to have half a day of sun on the day I arrived, half a day of sun when I departed, and rain all throughout the middle!

We boarded the steaming plane and found that we were sitting across from each other. We chatted, and I even mentioned that he might be able to stay with me in Auckland, exchanging our contact information. As we took off, I caught a last glimpse of the lush green island in an ocean of blue from both the ocean and the sky. I reflected on what I had seen in Tonga. Although I had learned to value money less and life more after living in New Zealand, visiting Tonga had made a deeper impression on me. If I could live on a tropical island, have all the food I need, have all the time in the world to spend with my family and friends, do I really need that much money? Would I choose that life over one in a developed country where money is king? How many Tongans would choose to trade their life with life in the developed world? Well, there was a lot to think about, but for now, during our descent, I am just relaxing and enjoying the views of Great Barrier Island and the beaches north of Auckland I am quite fond of. Plus, I'm just happy that I'm on my way back to a hot shower and some dry clothes.

Tonga - Tongatapu - Day 4

2010-04-23T19:08:00.001-07:00

After waking up and waiting around for a while, Toni finally returned from a failed pick-up run, where the guests who were supposed to arrive apparently forgot to come to Tongatapu today. This was bad news for Becca and I, who were supposed to go on a tour with them around Tongatapu. Because of this mix-up, the tour is now starting at 10:30am, later than usual, and will cost 60 pa'anga each, as opposed to the 40 pa'anga each if the other two were here. Oh well, we figure that since everything is going to be closed today anyway, and we were both on a limited schedule, we may as well just pay the extra 20 pa'anga and go on the tour. Becca, a Canadian girl who arrived the night before, is leaving Tongatapu soon for one of the outlying islands. Having only two people in the van, it also menat that we'll have plenty of individual time with Toni, and hearing about how much of a character he was, I was both glad and unhappy about this prospect at the same time.

As 10:30 rolled around, we piled in to the van with Toni, and soon, we were off on one of the three roads that goes across the island of Tongatapu, heading east. Driving across the middle of the island on a Sunday morning, we saw many people dressed neatly in flowing skirts and grass wraps, as today is the day of worship. We passed numerous churches of various sizes, the older ones being simple concrete shacks with a stack of bricks holding a metal pipe as a spire. The most extravagant church was a Mormon temple behind a fenced and gated property - it was huge, a luxurious complex with a large gold statue of a man with a horn propped proudly high up on an imposing spire reaching towards the sky from the roof. Apparently, there is a sort of a religious battle going on, with different church denominations dumping huge amounts of money into Tonga to construct bigger and better churches to convert the populace. The Mormons have been doing quite well, and in the area around the temple, they have constructed a school and various other fancy-looking complexes where they offer free services, such as education, in exchange for conversion. It was obvious that the complexes and schools were run by missionaries from overseas who were concerned with converting both the beliefs and practises of the people, as there were signs around the school which announced in large bold letters, "ENGLISH ONLY." One of the more interesting facts about houses of worship in Tonga is that although some denominations worship on a Saturday, such as the Seventh-day Adventists, worshipping on a Saturday is extremely impractical, since it is ingrained in law that Sunday is the day of rest and worship. In these cases, the church recognises the original date line, leaving the church and its followers officially one day behind. While they, like everyone else in Tonga, worship on a Sunday, they believe that it still is Saturday on their day of worship.

Next up was a coconut tree. A three-headed coconut tree. Depending on who you as, the only three-headed coconut tree in the world, or one of a few very rare multi-headed coconut trees in the world. In any case, I was amused that apparently there are so few things to do and see in Tongatapu that this tree is a mentioned in many guide books and websites about Tonga! Even Toni joked that he was upset about people leaving bad reviews for his tour online - one of the reviews said that the highlight of the tour was a coconut tree! Although to be fair, a multi-headed coconut tree is quite rare, indeed!

Beyond the three-headed coconut tree, we came across plantations of various kinds of crops, which Toni explained to us. Apparently he had been involved in helping some of the farmers set up the fields for more commercial crops such as vanilla beans. However, he continuously complained and showed us that much of these crops were ill-maintained. Apparently the native crops are so easy to grow that people just didn't want to work at maintaining the fields for the more commercial, imported crops. For example, apparently cassava can be planted by cutting the stem of the harvested crop into pieces, which is just stuck into the soil. No watering, no weeding, and a few months later, the crop is ready to harvest. Toni estimates that the the locals only work in the fields for about four short work weeks in a year and they have all of their food. Sounds plausible, but he could be exaggerating for effect, of course.

Many of these plots of land were served by what is known as "China Roads" in the area. Apparently, China has been sponsoring the construction of new roads to provide access to these fields. Seeing one of the older roads, a mud track filled with puddles and potholes, one can see why this is an extremely important project. However, the most visible projects in the area were the water pumping and other projects by the Japanese, which always had a giant billboard beside the pump and road with a Japanese flag on it. Apparently, Japan has been spending a lot of money on aid in the Pacific island nations, where it buys most of its votes for legalising whaling in the UN elections.

We also passed some plantations owned by some of the nobles in the area. One of these used to be a coconut plantation, but is now converted into a pasture for cattle, as the uses and value of coconuts have dwindled. The fields were filled with very old (very tall) coconut trees, which were staring to fall over as they reach the end of their life cycle. The ground was covered with unused coconuts which have fallen off of the trees. The cattle, apparently oblivious to the danger of falling coconuts and trees, were happily grazing around all of this debris. We also passed a coffee plantation. Even though this plantation was overgrown by vines, the plants were drooping under the weight of the bright red coffee cherries on the branches. Toni told us how the noble who owned this plot of land was under investigation for the Princess Ashika ferry sinking tragedy last year, and the plot of land had just been left, completely neglected, even as this was the one of the three or four most productive years of the coffee plantation, being about six years old. Toni reflected on how much of a waste this was, as there was much international effort involved in developing this commercial plantation to help the Tongan economy, and just when the fruits of their labour were ripening (literally), the project becomes abandoned due to poor organisation, communication, and accessibility, which seemed to plague most of Tongan society. Well, if people only had to work for four weeks of the year and they had more than enough to eat, I suppose there wouldn't be too much motivation to do anything else other than relax and hang out with friends and family.

We passed quite a few plots of land owned by the royal families. Apparently, much of the land in Tonga is owned by the king and his relatives. I was fascinated hearing about how Tonga is still run as what is effectively a fiefdom. A fiefdom in this modern time and age! Can you imagine that!? Apparently, the land that belongs to the commoners, eight acres per family, is handed down by the father to the eldest son. In general, the amount of land shared among the relatives is enough to feed everyone, but when a family needs more land, a man without direct ownership of a land plot can request an audience with the local noble to ask for land. If he is lucky, his request will be granted, and he will be awarded eight acres of land, portioned off from the vast holdings of the local noble. In fact, the idea of an all-powerful king is still alive and well in Tonga, with the requirement that commoners must clear the roads and stoop in submission whenever the king passes them. The king can still do pretty much anything he wants, from appointing an official court jester (the last king had one of those), to closing down the only international airport in Tonga as his exercise routine involves him riding a bike back and forth along the runway, to making dubious and sometimes awesome fashion choices such as wearing a monocle! How awesome is that!? A monocle!

Soon, we reached the point where the three cross-island roads converged under a giant rain tree. Around here, there were trees filled with flying foxes, which are giant fruit-eating bats, and telephone lines on which giant spiders have built their giant webs across. Driving a bit farther, we reached a church near the end of the road. There was a monument which indicated that this is where Christianity arrived in Tonga, but Toni informed us that the pedestal was moved from down the road and the stone obelisk was moved from closer to the shore. I suppose it didn't really matter to the laid-back Tongans where the monument was. After reaching the western tip of the island, we drove back east along the southern road.

Along the way, we first stopped at a beach near one of the western resorts. Instead of sand, the beach here was made up of many small pieces of coral, many of them quite fresh-looking, with tiny features in the coral rock still clearly visible. Apparently, here was the best snorkelling one could reach from Tongatapu without a boat. I took this opportunity to try out my snorkelling gear, which I bought for the suddenly-cancelled Hawaii trip one and a half years ago. Dunking my head in the almost-warm lagoon, I was shocked to see so many fish! Even near the shore, there were countless schools of colourful fish! There were violet coloured parrot fish, schools of neon-blue fish, eels, and a variety of different tropical ocean life to enjoy. As a storm is brewing on the horizon, the water was a bit murky and quite forcefully sloshing around the coral at the bottom of the lagoon. I watched fish dart around for a while and just drifted around the lagoon a bit. I was surprised by a giant round coral, about as wide as I can stretch my arms and nearly as tall as my hips looming in front of me, which I glided over slowly. As we headed back to the van, it started to rain, and combined with the humidity, Becca and I decided that we were never going to dry off that day.

Next stop was Mapu'a 'a 'Vaca, roughly translated as the chief's whistles. This is a series of blowholes along the southern coast of Tongatapu, west of Keleti Beach. It was apparently quite a popular tourist destination, as there was a parking lot, a hand-painted sign, and a paved area with metal railings serving as an observation deck. I was quite underwhelmed by this attraction, identified as one of the top destinations of Tonga. There were blowholes alright, but they were nothing compared to the blowholes around Keleti Beach. The waves were also quite small around here, although one still could see them crashing into the coast for quite some distance. However, I heard that under the right conditions, due to the amount of water being forced through the small blowholes, the blowholes would whistle, earning them the name as the chief's whistles.

After Mapu'a 'a 'Vaca, we stopped at Keleti Beach Resort for lunch, where the people there recognised me. They thought I had gone away to 'Eua, but I informed them that I had returned from the visit already. After enjoying the view, we drove over what Toni described as "The Alps of Tongatapu," the highest point on the island at around 80 metres above sea level. Here, Toni stopped the van after driving through some grass that went over the roof of our vehicle. Turning down a tiny hidden trail from which we can see giant spiders hanging from the trees, we were treated to a beautiful view of Hufangalupe, a natural arch formed by a collapsed sea cave. The waves were making all kinds of vortices and splashes below. As with many of the land formations in Tonga, there were legends describing its origin as some combination of the god Maui and his spear being thrown or stabbed somewhere in anger. Walking a bit farther down the road through some quite slippery and slimy mud, we arrived on top of the arch, where some tourists, along with an Air Chathams pilot, seems to have plowed their car into a bush and nearly off the arch! The car was tilting precariously close to the hole above the churning sea. I was just glad that they didn't all plunge to their deaths! No wonder Toni had decided to stop the van farther back. From here, we enjoyed a beautiful view of the sea cliffs below us, although the weather was quite crummy and the sky was a dull shade of grey.

The next stop was a drive-by of the king's or queen's old former residence, passing a car on the road with a licence plate that was just the letter 'Q' and a single-digit number following it. Apparently, this was one of the queen's cars. The residence was nothing too spectacular, but considering its age, it would have been quite a structure when it was built. It had the standard royal style of white walls and red, gently sloping, peaked roofs. Following a sloped road down towards the sea, we came across a village graveyard where seaside graves are decorated with old bottles and other colourful bits. Apparently, the decorations of the graves in Tonga are to represent the different levels of the sky and heaven. We were told that the road continues to the royal beach, now handed over to the villagers, who are guarding the entrance and charging visitors for the privilege of visiting a beach which was previously only accessible to nobles. On the way back past the old royal residence, Toni pointed out some goats, which were apparently quite a status symbol. One of the volunteers told me that "in a village, it is better to hit a child than a goat."

Our next stop was the Ha'amonga 'a Maui on the eastern extreme of the island. Just to test the theory that everyone knows each other in Tonga for a final time, I asked Toni if he knew of some ROTC volunteers stations near here, in the village of Niutōua, and he did in fact know that there were some ROTC stationed around here. Ha'amonga 'a Maui, a 12 ton stone trilithon built from coral rock at the beginning of the 13th century, and is supposedly the only trilithon in the South Pacific. It was build from two thick slabs of coral rocks on either side, with notches at the top in which a large stone beam is placed. This trilithon, as with Stonehenge, which it is commonly compared to, also has some astronomical alignment functions, and may have been used as an observatory or calendar. Getting up close to it, I could see many pores in the rock, and some rather sizeable plants were even growing out of some of the holes. The beams were massive. Although I was quite impressed, I didn't have much time to look around as Becca was exhausted and stayed in the car, and even though I heard the waves close by and wanted to investigate, I decided against it.

On the way back, we made a quick stop at the ancient tombs of past Tu'i, or kings from the Lapita culture. These were large tiered structures scattered around the town of Mu'a. Once again, the tiers symbolise the different levels of sky and heaven. On our way back to Toni's, we drove alongside the lagoon for quite a while, and Nuku'alofa was visible in the distance. There were small fishing boats in the area, and many, many trees that were toppled over by the recent cyclone. Apparently, some of these huge trees were as old as 800 years! It was really quite a shame to see such gorgeous trees felled. We saw a frigate bird soaring overhead, an area by the lagoon where it is suspected that people first arrived in Tonga - the starting place of Polynesia, and the supposed landing site of Captain Cook. We saw a few bakeries, open illegally on Sunday, but decided that we didn't want to stop to pick up food.

Once we arrived back at Toni's, we rested a while as we chatted to the other guests and helped them formulate travel plans. I made some more dinner, kumara and corned meat again. Becca decided that the kumara was enough for her after having it for dinner last night. Seeing that there wasn't any food around, I picked up a breadfruit that fell off the tree outside our guest house (one or two fall every day, and they all seem to disappear after an hour or two) and offered it to her. She tried to make kumara and breadfruit fries, which turned out burnt and undercooked respectively. I did get a chance to try some breadfruit earlier, which I found quite delicious and was quite like a spongy potato, except for the amazingly sticky white resin that oozes out when cut open before cooking. At one point, one of the German girls (I forgot her name), showed up with a bag of bananas. Apparently she went to church, was invited home with one of the local families, and she was given a bag of extremely ripe bananas off of the family's tree when she left. These bananas were extremely thin-skinned, and tasted very sweet, with a hint of pineapple. This reminds me - one of the Australian volunteers told me that if you go to church or just walk around on Sunday, you will almost be guaranteed to be invited to a feast at a local family.

Soon, it was kava time. Heading over to the blue house, which was in fact much better than the green house that I was staying in, but 5 pa'anga more a night, we sat as kava was prepared. Although there were a lot of people here to keep up company, only three of us were drinking kava - Dave, Becca, and myself. Kava is the drug of choice in Tonga, with each village having their own "kava kalapu," or kava club, where men socialise over a bowl of kava. Apparently, women are not allowed to drink kava with men at these kava clubs, only to serve them! I heard that going to a kava club was quite an experience, with singing and conversation, but one can get lost quite quickly as everyone happens in Tongan. With that in mind, we decided to drink kava at Toni's in a much more informal environment, and one where females are welcome as well.

As we waited, the kava was prepared in a large red plastic bucket and then strained into the traditional kava bowl, a large round wooden vessel resting on a four sturdy legs. The kava itself was a thin brown muddy-looking liquid and didn't look very appetising. As it turns out, kava is drunk in rounds. As the our host stirs the kava bowl to pick up the small particles at the bottom, he quickly fills a thin bowl made from half of a coconut shell. When passed the bowl, the kava is downed quickly in one go, leaving a small amount at the bottom, which is thrown out along with the hard particles that have settled out. Immediately, my entire mouth, lips, tongue, and throat started going numb after drinking the mild, peppery liquid. This effect, which some describe to be like drinking Novocaine, only became more pronounced and more pleasant over the course of the night, crescendoing to a pleasant numb tingling after a few more drinks. Kava also has a similar effect on the mind as well, and the many, some yet-to-be identified, psychoactive kavalactones lulls the drinkers into a calmer, more focused and more social state of mind. After quite a few drinks, and an order by Toni to stop using more kava as it does cost money for him, we retired to our respective houses. Although I felt like I could just pass out, I stayed up for a while longer to chat with the other guests before I have to leave for home the next day. As I went to sleep listening to the sounds of the fighting dogs outside, I looked forward to the vivid dreams promised to me as a result of drinking kava.

Tonga - Nuku'alofa - Day 3

2010-04-13T02:45:00.000-07:00

I woke up at 7:30 in the morning. Having a flight out at 9:10am, Taina suggested that we leave at 8:00am. This was a much better time than the ones who took the ferry at 5:00am in the morning. I was awoken when they left at around 4:30, when I refreshed my mosquito coil. We arrived at the airport at around 8:15 or so, where there were many people around, many who have arrived in trucks. The airport did not appear to be open, so I sat down and waited. I tried to take a walk around, but there didn't seem to be anything of interest in the area other than a small "Welcome to 'Eua" sign with a few paragraphs on 'Eua, which I read.

As I waited for my flight, a Tongan woman started talking to me. As it turns out, she was a with a group of Tongans, all dressed in black and wearing the traditional grass wraps. She was going to a funeral, and as she was sick, she was taking the flight instead of the ferry. We talked for a short while as the family was sobbing loudly in the background. Eventually, at around 8:45, a woman showed up, unlocked the tiny room in the airport with a desk and sat down, making busy-sounding phone calls. After a while, she looked up at me and asked me if I was Mark. I said yes, and she busily scrawled out a boarding pass and gave it to me. The woman going to attend the funeral was telling me a story about her family and situation, and I got the feeling she was trying to get me to pay for part of her ticket as someone with the money failed to show up. However, as the person showed up in the last few minutes leading up to the flight, she asked me to take the money to the counter, which I did. The person at the counter looked at me suspiciously and asked me if the woman asked me to do this, to which I said to her it was the woman's money. Since she didn't have the right change, I ended up paying an extra two pa'anga for her, but I figure an extra two pa'anga was probably going to make a bigger difference to her than me.

The plane swooped around and landed at around 9:00am. The pilot got out, along with just two passengers, a palangi couple. After they had a chat with the pilot, I decided to go over and say hi to them. I re-arranged my already checked-in bag that was sitting by me, and went over to the other side of the covered seating area to say hi. By the way, if you haven't figured it out yet, 'Eua airport is now the newest "smallest airport terminal" I ever flew out of. Just as I was about to introduce myself, the guy said "... you look familiar... are you... Mark?" As it turns out, this was the Swedish couple I contacted through Couchsurfing - they told me that they couldn't host me as they will be moving around during my visit. What was even more astonishing was that during the hike, some of the Australian volunteers were talking about a Swedish couple who were doing some research in Tonga and were travelling around - they thought they might even be on their way to visit 'Eua. I didn't pay too much attention to their discussion, as although it crossed my mind that it could be the same Swedish couple, I thought the chances were too remote to really consider it. Who knew that I would bump into them at the tiny 'Eua airport! Once again, the coincidences of people meeting each other are just amazing in Tonga! Although I would have liked to chat for longer, my plane was just about to leave, so after a hasty good-bye, I boarded the plane over the sounds of the sobbing family members growing louder.

After another short flight, I was back in the domestic terminal of Fua'amotu airport, where I started my journey to 'Eua just a day before. As I waited in the luggage pick-up lounge, a small room with a shelf at the bottom of two open holes in the wall, more family members dressed in black and the traditional grass wraps waltzed in, sobbing loudly, to greet the woman who was going to attend the funeral. We greeted each other as she left. As all the bags were taken from the shelf, the man who rolled them up to the window climbed through it and, lying on the shelf, went to sleep.

I was picked up by Peter, who was a very nice fellow and a distinct face as he had what appeared to be two large, messy tumours growing out of his chin. We chatted as we drove to Toni's Guesthouse, where I would be staying in the very reasonably priced 15 pa'anga/night Green House. It was just after 10:00am when I arrived, and seeing that the next 1 pa'anga shuttle into town doesn't leave until 11:00am, I went to grab some Internet, which was surprisingly difficult to access, as the Internet here seemed to fizz out whenever it started raining. At least this is better than 'Eua, where only half the island has internet as it was knocked out during the recent cyclone. I spent the rest of the time unpacking, setting up the mosquito net around my bed, and chatting with Larissa, a Finnish girl who has been here for a while and seems to have run out of things to do.

At 11:00am, Larissa, I, and Kira from Estonia climbed into the van to go to town. On the way, it was decided that we would be dropped off at the weekly flea market taking place by the fish market. Toni was nice enough to act as a guide on our drive through town, pointing out to us various points of interest, such as the first girl's school set up by Queen Salote, the Centenary Chapel, where the royal family attends church, the Tongan parliament buildings, the largest building in Tonga - the five story tall National Reserve Bank of Tonga, holding around 150 million pa'anga of foreign reserves at the time of my visit, enough for six months of imports, and a fountain that was gifted to Tonga, but was knocked off the dais by a drunk driver. Apparently the fountain had never been in operation anyway.

Kira and I walked around the market for a while, as she was looking for a new dress. I bought a coconut to drink - this one was a bit sour and tasted a bit like yoghurt - which I hoped was OK. When I finished the coconut, I bumped into Toni and asked him where I should put the rubbish. Surprisingly, it turns out that there were rubbish bins all around, unlike many other countries I have been to. However, Toni informed me that the coconut isn't rubbish, and proceeded to smash it open on a nearby concrete planter, revealing the soft white insides. We also wandered over to what we thought was the fish market, but it was quite empty and had what appeared to be only a few fish there. As we left, I stopped at a stall to buy some food as I haven't ate for the day yet. I was quite a good deal, 5 pa'anga for a box of grilled chicken and a hot dog on a bed of cassava. Seeing the opportunity, I also asked the vendor to help loosen the flesh inside the coconut I had with me, which took a surprisingly long time, but was completed eventually, with no complaints.

As we walked down the calm northern shore of Tongatapu amongst the street stalls selling root vegetables and some other food, it started to drizzle. We passed many young people, all of them smiling or waving at us with a hearty "Bye!" Along this stretch, we passed the Chinese embassy, which was built for the Taiwanese, but taken over by China as relations between Tonga and China strengthened. We also passed the International Dateline Hotel, a modern-looking imposing hotel in downtown Nuku'alofa. Although it used to be one of the most up-scale accommodations in Tonga, travellers now avoid it due to a rash of problems after some Chinese owners purchased the property. In fact, the Chinese seemed to have taken over most of the shops and businesses in Tonga, to the point that some Tongans I met even told me they though I might have been a shop owner! Although this has been causing a lot of tension between the Chinese community there and the Tongans, as Toni puts it, the only crime the Chinese have committed is working harder than the Tongans.

As we passed the Tongan Development Bank, a one story-building made famous by being depicted on the back of the old 20 pa'anga notes, Talamahu Market came into view. The main market of the town, two stories tall, was both surprisingly filled with activity and empty at the same time. Outside the market were stalls selling root vegetables, lu (the leaves of the taro plant) and clothing. There were a few small store-like stalls along the wall, selling a range of products from tobacco to cold drinks to eggs. Inside the main section of the market were long rows of tables with each producer occupying a section. There was surprisingly low choice in produce, with the main items appearing to be tiny tomatoes, overripe bananas and a few other vegetables. Strangely, every single stalls seem to have placed all of their produce into neat piles - with every single pile costing 3 pa'anga! Whether it's four tomatoes the size of ping-pong balls or a ten-kilo basket of kumalas (sweet potatoes) in a woven straw basket, everything was 3 pa'anga! I bought a pile of strange yellow fruit, which I later identified as yellow passion fruit - they tasted like how artificial air fresheners smell. I also picked up a bunch of bananas - very short and stubby with pink-tinted flesh. There were also large fruit-looking things that looked like a less spiky and larger version of durian or jackfruit, but when I asked how to eat one, the vendor replied "it is not for eating!"

Surrounding the main produce section of the market, along the walls and narrow corridors were women sitting on the floor, pounding out large sheets of tapa cloth, a traditional fabric made from the bark of the paper mulberry tree. These large sheets were all over the market, but smaller, painted sheets were as well. In the back of the market and on the second floor, there were a variety of stalls selling handicrafts, kava bowls made of coconut, grass skirts, wraps and decorations, as well as grass bags and some other items, some geared towards locals, some geared towards tourists - of which the only ones we encountered was Eddie, a Finn who I discovered was staying in the same room as I was.

As we walked out of the market, I decided to pick up some kumala, seeing that everything will be closed tomorrow as it will be Sunday. As it turns out, it was impossible to buy a small portion of kumalas. At the vendors, I asked if I could just pay one pa'anga and pick a few kumalas off the top of the giant pile, but was told no. In the end, Kira and I decided to split one of the giant baskets of kumalas for 1.5 pa'anga each, which we carried around town in overfilled plastic bags. Walking back towards the town centre, only one or two blocks wide, we passed the Tongan parliament building, which was only the size of an oversized shack. After making a stop at the ATM, we decided just to take it easy at the popular Friend's Café in the middle of town, as it started to rain quite heavily.

Friends Café gave off quite a strange feel to it. The staff, all dressed in the same flowery shirts served what appeared to be solely a crowd of foreigners in a well-maintained building along with a patio covered by a wood and grass roof. Inside was very fancy, and as Kira put it, you can't tell that you are not in Europe. The prices of the coffees and pastries were also European. Sitting on the patio and watching the run-down cars and stray dogs passing by in the rain outside the iron fence, I felt like I was back in the old British colonial times (from what I can tell from movies as least!). It wasn't surprising that there appeared to be no locals in the café - the price of an item here is about 4 pa'anga, and with the unemployment running into the double digits and the average hourly wage of a worker being around 2 pa'anga an hour, this café would have been quite expensive for the locals.

As we waited for the next shuttle back to Toni's, we bumped into Eddie again. As I sat there, I enjoyed a cup of Tongan coffee, a tasty coconut and chocolate square, and a bottle of Mata Maka, a beer brewed in New Zealand specifically for the Tongan market, the closest I will be able to get to a local beer while in Tonga. I was surprised to find that this beer is apparently so obscure that I could not find it listed on www.ratebeer.com, one of my favourite sites that lists and rates beer from all over the world. After a while, we caught a ride back to Toni's with a quick stop at a local supermarket, where I still could not find any good locally produced foods! I ended up purchasing two cans of what I thought was corned beef from New Zealand. It turns out that they were cans of "corned meat," consisting of beef, mutton and beef hearts. Apparently, many of New Zealand's less desirable cuts of meat, including mutton flaps, are exported in large quantities to Tonga.

That night, I boiled some kumalas for dinner and ate them with a can of corned meat. Many of the kumalas kad worms in them, which took me quite a while to cut out. To a degree, it was fun peeling the kumalas with a knife, as I soon discovered there were three kinds. One was red-skinned and had a yellow-white flesh. Another kind had white skin and yellow-white flesh. My favourite, however, was a white-skinned variety that had purple flesh, the sweetest and most flavourful one. I figured that the purple one must also be healthy, as the purple pigment must be composed of natural anthocyanins, a potent anti-oxidant (although recent studies have shown that these chemicals may not actually be absorbed effectively from foods). Getting into the Tongan sharing spirit, I made some extra for the others. We had our meal as we piled together on the couches in the common room, protected by a mosquito coil, watching Snatch on Larissa's tiny netbook screen. Apparently this had been done in the past few nights, as although there was a DVD player in the room and a bag of DVDs, the only movie that was not scratched to oblivion was Casino Royale, which I saw people watching at least three times in the two nights I stayed at Toni's. Although I was waiting for "kava night" to be set up, which David and I had been looking forward to drinking at together since 'Eua, everyone decided to call it off as they didn't start setting up for it until about 9pm. Well, I hoped that I would bump into David the next day, as I had promised to deliver a message and contact information to David from Sibylla, an Australian volunteer working for the Tongan ministry of tourism that we met while on 'Eua. I went to sleep under the sounds of rain and movies relatively early. The dim lights and lack of activities made it seem much later than it actually is - which I was glad about, as my sleep cycle started to adjust to a more natural setting instead of one influenced by bright artificial lights.

Tonga - 'Eua - Day 2

2010-04-10T21:21:00.000-07:00

I was quite unhappy about having to wake up early two days in a row while on vacation. Waking up at 6:00am, I quickly gathered my stuff and was out the door and into the taxi, the same one that took us from the airport, by 6:15. We checked in and waited for the flight at the airport, which was delayed, once again, this time due to winds that are too gusty. We passed the time chatting, and helped some other bored passengers straighten the pictures hanging crookedly on the walls. Luckily, the pilot deemed it safe to take off at around 8:00am, so we piled into the full flight. As the lucky man who got the co-pilot's seat got in, the pilot warned him not to bang his knees against the flight controls. After some quick safety instructions and a warning that take-off is going to be loud, we taxied to the runway and took off with no delay. Our aircraft, a Britten-Norman Islander, was quite bumpy in the gusty wind. Although its paint was chipping off, its body had numerous rusty spots, and there were numerous warnings on the control panel for low fuel and for the navigation system being out of date, the upbeat, easy-going British pilot made me feel quite safe.

As we lifted off, we could see 'Eua Island in the distance right away. After all, the seven minute flight across twenty kilometres of ocean is one of the shortest regularly scheduled flights in the world. Before I knew it, we were crossing over the shores of 'Eua Island and lining up with the runway. Even from the air, I could see that the runway at 'Eua Kaufana Airport was in poor shape. The unsealed coral runway looked as if it had many potholes, and parts of it appeared washed out. As we made a final bank towards the runway, the plane shuddered as it got caught in a gust of wind, which definitely caught my attention. I tightened my seatbelt to prepare for a rough landing, which the pilot warned us about before take-off. As it turns out, our pilot also realised that the runway was not in good shape, as he chose to land the aircraft on the strip of grass beside the runway instead. We were quite lucky, and our landing proved to be quite smooth in the co-operating weather conditions.

After a having our luggage wheeled to us on a derelict wood trolley and a phone call, we were on our way to Taina's Place in a van. We stopped briefly on the way at a farm, then on the road, where some people and some kids jumped in. As it turns out, they were all family members who help out around Taina's Place. When I arrived, Taina informed me that she already gave away my bed and that they were all out of rooms for the night. However, she can let me sleep in a bed in the "office" section of the common room for 20 pa'anga, which I gladly agreed to. I relaxed for a bit and chatted with the other Australian volunteers and the Peace Corps volunteer. I also met the guy who's house it was that I stayed in last night. After a while, everyone decided to go on the three hour hiking tour, which me, along with a couple from Hong Kong and an older American man who has travelled to over 150 countries and published a few books, have committed to. As we were waiting for the hike tour to start, the people who came by ferry yesterday said it was quite a trip. Apparently, the two and a half hour ferry ride turned into over five hours as the seas were extremely rough. The boat was tipping from side to side, causing everything on deck to slide from one side of the boat to the other. Even the people who said they have never been motion sick before said they were all throwing up. By the end, everyone was soaked from the rain, and glad to be alive as a few of the large waves they hit made them fear that the boat may capsize. Although I am glad that I traded that for an eight minute flight, I felt that I may have missed out on another adventurous experience and story!

At 10:00am, everyone piled into a few vehicles and we were dropped off at a large grassy field surrounded by trees. Apparently, this was the largest group they had taken for a hiking tour, so we were assigned three guides to keep an eye on us. As we started off into the bush, one of our guides, Taina's daughter, who I believe is also named Taina, pointed out to us some guava trees and picked some for us to eat. As it turns out, these are pretty common, and a few of the travellers, especially David the American travel writer and photographer, ate them throughout the hike.

The first stop was a huge banyan tree. The tree, growing on the side of a wide sinkhole, was enormous! The roots formed a forest of interconnecting branches that one could walk through and explore. We spent some minutes exploring the root system of this tree and taking photos. Most people, including me, have never seen anything like this and were quite amazed. The tree itself it very tall, supporting various ferns and other plants in addition to its own leaves high up in the rainforest canopy.

Trudging through trails serving farmland, with the occasional horses or cows tied to a tree, we came to the next point of interest, Matalanga 'A Maui, also known as the Smoky Cave. Matalanga 'A Maui was a dramatic depression in the earth. Following a steep slope down a bit leads to a sudden vertical drop. Standing on the edge of this drop, none of us could see the bottom. On one side, there was a stream, turning into a waterfall plummeting into the black abyss below. The other walls of the sink hole were covered with ferns and other tropical plants. As the water cascades into the depths, one could also see a white mist gently wafting out of the hole, dissipating near the top. Although it is technically possible to use the vines to climb to the bottom of the hole with some skill, we did not have the time to do so. Taina also told us of a tale of how an American man fell into the hole a few years ago after being lost in the forest with his brother and trying to find their way home in the dark. His brother managed to make it to Taina's Place, where she called for help, but when they found the man who fell down the hole, he was dead.

As we continued on, it became more and more muddy as the rain started up again. We passed through huge patches of mimosa, the plant that folds its leaves when touched. Although it was quite pretty to see, this is in fact an invasive species from South America. Eventually, we entered the main rainforest area of 'Eua National Park, where I immediately slipped and ended up with my right pant leg completely covered in mud. It turned out it didn't matter much anyway, as by the end of the trip, I was fully covered in mud halfway up to my knees, and I had to wash my pants and shoes to make sure they got past Biosecurity New Zealand anyway. This turned out to be quite a gruelling hike. Due to the category four cyclone that passed through Tonga just a week and a half prior, there were numerous downed trees. Finding the path was difficult enough, but now it was compounded by the problem of climbing over and under the numerous tree trunks and branches in the way. What was supposed to be a three hour walk turned into a five to six hour hike. As we gained altitude, we travelled through a variety of different rainforest landscapes. We heard many birds around us, but saw few. We were especially on the lookout for rare parrot that can be found only in the rainforests of 'Eua.

After getting lost a few times and retracing our steps (I can't imagine how we would have found our way without the guides!), we reached a clearing where a wood platform was built. Stepping out onto the platform, we were treated to a view of the rounded and vegetated cliffs of 'Eua island towering over rainforest covered in vines leading up to a beach being pounded by the rough surf. White-tailed tavake birds were gliding amongst the treetops below. Although we were quite high up, we were still not at the tallest point of 'Eua island, Te 'Emoa. From time to time, a break in the forest canopy would allow us to catch glimpses of the cliffs above us leading to the peak. We took this opportunity to take our bags off to cool down in the strong breeze and take a snack. I had grabbed a bunch of bananas hanging in the yard (a large bunch of probably over a hundred bananas cut from one of the numerous banana trees of her property) from Taina's place, and had a few of them. Remembering that I was in Tonga, I offered some to the others, but no one else wanted any. After another short walk, we came to another viewing platform with similar expansive views over the cliffs, rainforests, and the Pacific Ocean.

Continuing onwards, we stopped at Ana Kuma, The Rat's Cave. Once again, it pays to have a guide with you when exploring the rainforests of 'Eua. Ana Kuma was nothing more than just a small hole between some rocks by the base of a tree. However, climbing into it reveals a dark passage filled with some stalactites and stalagmites. Making your way towards the light at the end of the tunnel reveals an expansive view over the forests and coasts of 'Eua. There is a ledge that one could carefully climb down onto, but seeing that we were already well behind schedule, we decided to just get a quick look and continue on. As someone put it, Rat's Cave is probably named that because you feel like a rat when entering and exiting the cave.

After another long hike, we reached a small pool in the forest. The pool is made of a concrete barrier built at the bottom of some small streams and waterfalls. The water was murky, which was undoubtedly due to the recent heavy rains. A traveller who has been here before remarked that last time he was here, the water was perfectly clear, very inviting on a hot and humid day. The area around the pools were also in a terrible state, filled with many fallen and rotting trees, no doubt from the recent cyclone. After sitting for a rest, some people decided to head back, with a few intrepid folks determined to go on to the last point of interest, only a short walk from here. Not much was said about the last point of interest other than we'll like it - in retrospect, perhaps Taina and the other guides could have done a better job of selling the attraction!

After carefully crossing the concrete barrier and walking up some muddy trails strewn with fallen trees, we reached what were were looking for. It was a huge banyan tree. I was wildly impressed with the first banyan tree, but this one was much bigger! Not only that, but it was growing out the side of another sink hole, which was really the entrance to a subterranean cave system. Following a steep path, we descended to the bottom of the sink hole, and climbing through the roots of the tree, we arrived at the cave entrance. It was spectacular! The tree towered above us, visible through large holes in the rock between the rock bridges above. The cave, with large stalactites, stalagmites, and a small river or pool of water was visible, although it was not possible to see too far into the cave, even with a torch. The natural beauty of the place reminded me of the Hometree in the recent hit movie Avatar, and someone even pointed out that the Hometree in Avatar was called Eywa, which sounds just like 'Eua!

Unfortunately, I did not enjoy this place as much as I would have, as I really needed to go to the bathroom. This is the second time this has happened this year - I needed to go to the toilet really badly after a walk longer than five hours - I hope that this is just a phase and doesn't continue to ruin my longer hikes! I was very glad when we started to head back. If I wasn't in such discomfort, I would have climbed up the roots of the tree out of the sink hole as a few others decided to do. Just as I was about to give up and run into the bushes with some toilet paper, which I always carry when travelling, we reached a series of fenced-in fields. After some more walking, a truck suddenly showed up, and following the guides, we jumped in. There were fishing nets in the truck, and the truck stank of old fish. One of the volunteers remarked that they don't know how they do it, but everything seems to just work out in Tonga. After what seemed like a torturous long drive, we finally arrived at Taina's Place, when I dropped off my bag on the patio and went to the bathroom. When I got back, I had a bowl of curry chicken soup and two purple kumalas waiting for me - I didn't see any for anyone else, so I wondered why I was getting this special treatment - probably due to me having to sleep in the lounge that night. Taina also brought in some fresh macadamia nuts, still with the fleshy fruit around it, collected from a tree on her property for everyone to try.

After washing my shoes and pants, I spent the rest of the evening resting and chatting, sometimes just sitting there and letting my mind blank while listening to the wind and the rain. For dinner, there was a miscommunication, as they forgot to make some for me even though I told them I would like them to make me dinner (I think they even told me that they would give me the dinner for free due to me not having a bed in a dorm, but I suppose that might have been an actual misunderstanding). Luckily, they found a bit of extra food for me. David and a Danish guy who told me about the tensions between Tongans and the Chinese in Tonga, donated some of their dinner to me. After the volunteers played some board games and amused themselves with trashy magazines, the lounge cleared out. Positioning the mosquito coils, I went to sleep at just before midnight, wrapping myself up in the blankets to protect myself from the vicious mosquitoes in Tonga. I didn't have too much to worry about for the night, as apparently, only the daytime mosquitoes carry dengue, which supposedly most of the volunteers who have stayed for over a year has contracted at some point.

Tonga - Nuku'alofa - Day 1

2010-04-09T23:21:00.000-07:00

As we pulled in to the domestic terminal of Fua'amotu International Airport at around 2:30pm, it started raining hard. The domestic terminal, for some reason, is separated from the international terminal by not too far, but due to the way the fences are placed, it would be a surprisingly long transfer between the terminals. As it turns out, the domestic terminal was surprisingly busy. This would be the smallest airport terminal I have ever flown out of. The airport is nothing more than a small concrete building with some benches outside. The inside is a hall with some additional seats. There is a small information booth, which I would never see open during my trip in Tonga. There is a small café serving coffee and sandwiches in the corner, by the doors marked "Arrivals" and "Departures." Two more doors lead to small bathrooms. The hall was pretty simple, adorned with a few pictures hanging on the otherwise empty walls. The most important part however, was a small desk, wide enough to fit two people, beside a simple printed sign that said "Chathams Pacific. The Friendly Islands Airline." There was also a scale beside the desk, which I took to mean that it was the check-in counter. Behind the desks were two windows to the outside, filled with the passengers' luggage. On the other side of the desk was a small whiteboard, with a list of flights for the day scrawled across it. It was quite uncomfortable inside as it was crowded, dim, and humid. Although the crowd was mostly Tongans, some wearing bulky-looking traditional grass skirts and wraps, there were a few palangi, or Caucasians, hanging around.

I went up to the check-in desk, hoping that I could drop my bag off before taking a quick walk to Fua'amotu village and the beach. However, the check-in clerk told me to come back at 3:30pm, as they were busy clearing everyone for a flight to Vava'u. I sat outside, waiting for the rain to at least slow down before attempting to go for a walk. As the rain lightened, I decided to try to visit Fua'amotu village, which we drove through on the way to the airport, only about a fifteen minutes walk away. I put on my raincoat and was disappointed to find that I would not zip it up with my bag inside. Well, no matter, the rain was much lighter now, and the only important things to keep dry are my bag and camera. So, I bravely went out into the rain. As soon as I reached the first houses near the airport, I realised that I was getting quite soaked and uncomfortable, so I decided to turn back. As I got back to the airport, everyone was looking at me and probably wondering where this foreigner came from, all soaked from the rain. I sat down and decided just to wait for my plane, seeing that there was only about an hour left before the flight. As I waited, the airport became rather empty after all the passengers for Vava'u boarded a rather antique-looking Convair double propeller plane designed in the 1940s. Many of the drivers and family members of the passengers asked me if I was on the flight - it was good to see that there are still areas of the world where people are still looking out for others.

At around 3:40pm, I decided to go check in. The check-in clerk suggested I check my bag in as there is not much space on board, so I dropped off my bag and went to wait for the flight. The clerk gave me my boarding pass, a slip of printed paper template on which she scribbled my name, flight number, seat number, and boarding time. At this time, there were only a few other passengers around, as the flight to 'Eua may have been the last flight of the day, and the plane only holds up to nine passengers, if one of them sits in the co-pilot seat. Seeing one palangi girl in the waiting room, I decided to introduce myself and have a chat with her. It turns out that Marian (or Mary-Anne, or some such name), is an Australian volunteer on a one-year assignment to Vava'u, helping the area's arts and crafts shops develop their appeal to tourists. She was on her way to meet a group of Australian volunteers and one Peace Corps, who were all taking a short break to visit 'Eua, all staying at Taina's Place, the same guest house I was staying at! She told me all about how everyone knows everyone else in Tonga, especially the foreigners since there are so few of them around. I had heard about this phenomenon, colloquially known as "coconut wireless," with which everyone in Tonga seems to know a surprising amount about everyone else, where they are, and what they are doing.

As we were chatting away, a birthday cake materialised and went into the office, were we heard the staff singing happy birthday. We, and some of the other very few passengers waiting around joined in the applause and cheering afterwards. Soon, the woman whose birthday it was appeared, walked around the terminal with cake and offered a slice to everyone. So everyone in the terminal had cake. Apparently this is a very Tongan thing to do, to share food with everyone if feasible. Although I have been in other cultures where offering food is the norm, this is the first time I have been in a culture where when food is offered to strangers, it is not expected to be automatically refused! I didn't know this at first, and as I was the first one being offered cake, I said no. I ended up sharing the slice that Marian got.

As it got close to boarding time, the airport attendant made an announcement. In such a small airport, it turns out an announcement is made just by the person walking to the middle of the room and talking. Since there was only about five or six passengers around, it felt like she was walking directly to us, even when she prefaces all announcements with "attention all passengers for the flight to 'Eua." As it turns out, the rain was too heavy for the tiny plane to take off, so the flight has been delayed to wait out the rain. For the next two hours, the plane became more and more delayed as the rain would not relent. We watched the pilot walking in and out, and carefully monitored his expression as he reported his finding to the front desk. When he walked into the airport with his bag, we knew that there would be bad news. At around 5:30pm, it was regretfully announced to us that the plane has been cancelled, and re-scheduled for the next day at 7:30am. Much like the other passengers, I wasn't too worried or shocked. I've already heard that when in Tonga, it's going to be hard sticking to any kind of a schedule because no one is ever in a hurry. If things change, things change. In fact, one of the other travellers I met told me that the activity he has spend doing the most of in Tonga is waiting.

Although I was thinking of going to Toni's Gueshouse, where I booked my last two nights on Tongatapu, Marian invited me to stay with her at a friend's place. After a phone call, it was all confirmed and we were on a taxi headed to Vaha'akolo, with directions given to the taxi driver using the names of the house owners - since, once again, everyone in Tonga apparently knows everyone else. I enjoyed the ride into town. Just like the other taxi, this van had strands of fake flowers decorating the car near the dashboard. Passing by an new gated multi-story hotel near the airport, the road winds through many small villages filled with people walking around the muddy roads. It seems that any store in a village becomes a popular hangout spot for the locals. Along the way, we passed many sights such as the king's residence, a modern-looking villa set far back from the road among the fields with a gated entrance and a manned guard post. We also passed a few schools and universities. Since it was Thursday at around 5:30pm, school was just going out for the weekend, and we saw the students heading home. The students from one particularly prestigious school were wearing their school uniforms, white clothes and a woven grass wrap around their waist. Shoes appeared to be optional, and they appeared to be optional in most other facets of Tongan life as well. I was kind of surprised at what people walked around on all day without shoes though, the roads were generally gravel or dirt, with numerous sharp coral rocks strewn about.

As the rain stopped (what terrible timing!) to a mix of international pop and Tongan music on the radio, we turned down a tiny road. At the end was the house we would be staying in. The neighbours were out in their yard, and a little kid came over to whisk away the puppy that wandered over to see what the action was. Marian told me that pets weren't treated with respect in Tonga at all, and as I observed, they seemed unwelcome in more situations. Marian told me that the puppy was actually the only one that was still alive out of five puppies that they kept from the last litter, with the rest being killed by other dogs, run over by cars, or having some other tragedy happen to them. She even told me a story about how one of the Australian volunteers was offered a dog to eat as a gift from a neighbour when he arrived in Tonga, because the dog was being naughty.

Stepping out the the car, I saw the Australian guys I met at the airport just getting into another car! As it turns out, they were friends and they were just heading off after a visit! Not only that, but this was just the beginning of a long series of such coincidences and similar experiences, which turned out to be one of the main reasons I loved my visit to Tonga so much. After dropping off our stuff in the surprisingly modern and spacious house, contrary from what the house looked like from outside, Marian and I went for a walk around town. Cathy, a German-Australian, had a call from her dad so she decided to join us later on.

Our route took up to the waterfront and into town from the west. As we passed a few stores, I popped in to see if I could find any Tongan foods or drinks to try, without any luck. Well, I say "pop in" in the loosest of terms. As it turns out, many stores in Tonga are shacks with a long window made up of metal bars through which you tell the attendant what you want. We passed by a few official-looking houses on fenced and guarded properties. We also passed a few Western-looking hotels, the only one that looked clean and tidy being the hotel and restaurant complex Little Italy, which with rooms starting at 230 pa'anga per night, is apparently quite a popular destination for more up-scale palangi visiting Tonga. Eventually, we made it to the Royal Palace, a stately-looking wood structure built in 1867. The palace is very well maintained, with a fresh-looking coat of red paint on the roofs and whitewashed walls. The complex is surrounded by an old one metre tall sacred stone wall, which has been extended upwards using a combination of chain-link and barbed wire, which is starting to fall off. The entrances are guarded by red iron gates displaying the Tongan coat of arms. Sadly, the palace no longer appears to be in use, as the new king prefers to live in his modern mansion, the one we passed on our way from the airport. However, the palace does serve as a powerful symbol, occupying some prime space in downtown Nuku'alofa along the waterfront.

As we reached the tiny town centre, we got a call from Cathy. Apparently some of their friends are having dinner in town, so we decided to join. Walking up Taufa'ahau Road, Marian waved to a few people she knew, some of whom she met in Vava'u. I asked her if she happened to know the family of a Tongan Canadian I met at one of the Couchsurfing meetings in Auckland, and after a bit of thinking, she said that she did in fact know a Tongan Canadian family living just out of town near a hospital. Following this line of questioning, I asked her if she knew any of the Couchsurfers I contacted before my trip here. Unfortunately, I couldn't remember all of their names, but we decided that she must know the Peace Corps volunteer on 'Eua, as she did know a few Peace Corps who are stationed there.

Eventually, Cathy met up with us on her bicycle. As we walked up the street, we passed the royal tombs, consisting of a few decorated and raised platforms in an otherwise large empty grassy lot. We passed numerous churches and cathedrals, the two most impressive ones being the round Basilica of St. Anthony of Padua, rising to a dramatic peak, and the large, Gothic-looking Free Church of Tonga. All the churches were full tonight, as there were going to be all-night services leading up to Good Friday. Ever since the introduction of Christianity in the late 1700s and early 1800s, Tonga has become overwhelmingly devoted to Christianity.

We ate at JJ's Indian restaurant, newly remodelled - it was now a "pretty fancy" place, with a counter to order from and some plastic tables and chairs in a lounge surrounded by large windows and curtains. We sat for a long time while the old friends chatted and caught up with each other's lives. After dinner, we went for a quick drink. I was disappointed to find that there are no longer any beers brewed in Tonga. Ikale, the only beer brewed in Tonga, was discontinued only months before. Tonight, this bar had more bouncers and security guards than customers. After the beer, Marian and I were both ready to pass out as we both had to wake up early today to catch flights. As we waited for the cab we called to pick us up, we compared numbers in Tongan and Maori, which turned out to be very similar. In fact, I could even understand simple numbers when I hear them in Tonga speech!

The drive back through dimly-lit, palm-tree surrounded, heavily pot-holed roads was slow. Once in a while, we would pass a church, with their lit crosses becoming beacons of light, and were filled with people for the all-night services. As I got back, I was happy to find that their house had hot water for a shower, and after a shower under a trickle of water, I fell asleep on the couches to the sounds of the rain, dogs fighting in the streets, chickens crowing in the yard and pigs squealing.

Tonga - Keleti - Day 1

2010-04-08T00:46:00.000-07:00

The drive to Keleti was surprisingly long. Even though Keleti Beach, the site of the Keleti International Resort, is only about ten kilometres from the airport, the drive took about half an hour along the narrow unpaved roads. I very much enjoyed the views of fields filled with crops and palm trees along the way, as well as sections along the road where the grass on the sides were towering over the car. Along the way, I chatted with the driver and his kids. I learned that they have family in Sydney and have visited Australia and New Zealand before. This is not at all surprising, as nearly half of Tongans live outside of Tonga. In fact, one of the main sources of income for the Tongan economy are remittances sent home by oversea relatives. Since Tongan culture is so communal, family members living and working overseas apparently have a difficult time saying no when their family at home needs or asks for money.

As we turned down a very narrow gravel road, I could see the ocean pounding the coast with surprisingly huge waves. Soon, Keleti International Resort slowly rolled into view. I was shocked. There was no fancy international hotel or restaurant. There were no multi-storied buildings. It was a simple concrete building, a water cistern outside, and some small shacks (Tongan fales) behind the building on the property. As I was being dropped off, the driver sold me on a ride back to the airport for 15 pa'anga, with me being picked up at 3:00pm. I decided that it would be indeed too far to walk back. The taxi driver immediately started chatting with some of the people who were working there. As it turns out, Keleti International Resort is owned by some of his family members. I found my way into reception and learned about what attractions I could visit in the area.

Seeing that I just got off of a three hour international flight that I had to wake up at 4:30am to catch, I decided that the first order of business would be to head to the beach for a quick visit and rest. Following a path made of roughly strewn concrete blocks under the coconut trees, I arrived at the beach. As I was walking over, I saw a coconut fall from a height of about fifty metres from a tree only a few metres from me. I made a mental note to be alert for falling coconuts if I happen to pass under these trees in the future. As I made my way to the beach amongst the numerous small hermit crabs, I arrived at a small beach cove squeezed between large protrusions of coral rock. It was just me on the beach, and I did not see another soul for the rest of the day during my visits to the beach. Finding a sheltered area, I changed into shorts and jandals for the tropical climate.

The beach was surprisingly active, and the water was churning away. I was actually quite amazed at the layout of the beach. About fifty metres offshore is a long line of reefs stretching along the shore for as far as one could see. These reefs formed a wall of circular terraces rising up to about two metres from the surface of the ocean during low tide. These reefs shouldered the brunt of the pounding from the ocean, creating a relatively sheltered lagoon in the fifty metre wide strip of water between the shore and the reef. The receptionist told me that when the seas are calmer, there are many corals and fish to be seen by snorkelling in this lagoon. Today, however, the lagoon was turbulent. The large waves, reaching what I would estimate to be about eight metres high for the largest ones, crashed into the reef with such force as to shoot solid walls of white spray tens of metres into the air. The reef also formed hundreds of blow holes of varying sizes, and it was fascinating to watch the sequence of dancing "eruptions" as the waves hit the reef. The water washing over the reefs caused the lagoon to become quite turbulent and frothy that day, making swimming in it nearly impossible.

After a good rest, I decided to walk along the beach for a bit. Walking over the jagged coral rocks, I reached another small beach, which I took a quick rest on. From here, there were some wonderful views of very active blow holes in the area, which I enjoyed. I decided not to go farther as the waves were quite intimidating as viewed from the beach. Although the reef was there to protect the beach from the massive waves, I was still uncomfortable seeing such large waves crashing so close. Once in a while, when the waves hit the reef at just the right angle, it created a spurt of water high up in the air, so high that I had to tilt my head up to see the top, even though it was shooting up in the air fifty metres away! What really bothered me was that the coral rocks I had to walk across to reach this beach were wet, with water flowing in small streams from the pools around me. This indicated to me that rogue waves would reach up to where I was walking! I didn't want to get stranded when the tide comes in! With that thought, I headed back to the hotel for a quick walk-around.

As I walked around the hotel grounds, I looked into the fales, simple concrete structures serving as hotel rooms. The staff cleaning the area invited me to go in and see the fales, but I decided that I can see enough just walking around. There was a small pagoda perched on some coral rocks, which offered an expansive view of the ocean. The complex wasn't very large, so I turned back soon. It was still quite early, and I wasn't ready for lunch yet. Luckily, I ran into the receptionist who recommended to me that there are more beaches along the shore, and even though it might look otherwise, it was quite safe for me to walk over the coral rocks between the beaches.

So, it was back to the second beach, where the single trail of footsteps I left in the otherwise pristine sand was still there. This time, I ventured farther finding an additional beach. I was dismayed that I found some rubbish in the area, and even saw some other sets of footprints. Seeing that I have already ventured so far, I though I might as well continue. I crossed the beach and climbed up some coral rocks leading though an area of overhanging rock, forming a half-cave. I was quite intimidated here, as this brought me closer to the large waves breaking just in front of me, and I was afraid of falling rock from above me. Disappointingly, I didn't see any other beaches. I thought maybe there were some more hidden coves, so I continued on for quite some more time. The terrain became more and more difficult, and I eventually found myself in a patch of vegetation, quite overgrown and filled with spider webs. Seeing that I was now sweaty and uncomfortable, I decided to head back to the second beach where I knew I had a speedy get-away just in case the tide rose faster than I had prepared for.

I took a long rest at the second beach, enjoying the sight and the sound of the waves. Soon, it was lunchtime, and I wondered up to the restaurant at the resort for food. Not seeing any real Tongan food on the menu, I ordered fish and chips and a fresh coconut to drink. "Everyone has the fish and chips," remarked the woman taking my order. The outside dining area was very nice, under a roof of thatched leaves overlooking the ocean, reef and lagoon. I chatted with a group of Japanese eating there, who were temporarily living in Tonga, working as architects on a new Chinese-funded hospital under construction. We exchanged contact information as they left since they were planning on visiting Auckland in the next few weeks. As my food arrived, I enjoyed my meal over the view of the waves and doing a bit of studying from my Lonely Planet guidebooks I took out from the library.

Soon, ominous dark clouds loomed over the water, along with streaks of rain heading this way. At first, the rain posed no problem, but as the wind picked up and the rain intensified to an intense downpour, the roof started to leak. Eventually, I was called in to take shelter indoors, in the bar area of the resort where some of the Tongan workers and their families were resting, watching TV and playing pool. After waiting out the rain, I decided to take a walk up the road to see what was there. The Tongan woman who invited me in told me that it was safe to leave my bag on the chair in the bar. Although I heard that due to the communal culture of the Tongans, everything is fair game for "borrowing," I decided that it wouldn't be such a huge problem here as they should be used to catering to foreigners who don't like sharing as much as the Tongans do.

I only made it up to where the driveway met the main road before realising there was really nothing in the area other than some fields, palm trees and breadfruit trees , so I decided to head back to the seaside to wait for my ride there. I was quite impressed by the breadfruit though - they were much larger than I had expected! My driver happened to return just as I started back along the driveway. I decided that I've seen enough of the area already, so I will go to to airport an hour early - at 2:00pm. Maybe there was still time to explore Fua'amotu village after all. I picked up my stuff and headed over to Fua'amotu Airport. As we drove back to the airport, slowing once in a while for my driver to wave to some friends in the fields, my driver told me about how Tongans used to use each part of the coconut tree before the introduction of cheap synthetic alternatives such as plastic. He also explained to me the importance of taro and the attributes of each of the three types of taro grown in Tonga. In addition, he explained to me that being one of eleven taxis licensed to serve the airport was not too bad - some days there are as many as three incoming flights from overseas to the airport, although some days there are no international flights at all!

Tonga - Prologue

2010-04-05T02:58:00.001-07:00

April 1, 2010. Waking up at 4:30am, with only about four hours of sleep, I was surprisingly energetic. Today, I will be heading off to the Kingdom of Tonga, my first trip to the islands of the South Pacific other than New Zealand. Last night just before bed, I hastily packed four shirts, four pairs of underwear, four pairs of socks, jandals, snorkelling gear, guidebooks, toiletries, medicines, a raincoat and some other simple supplies into a small pack I can carry on my back. I got ready very quickly, and as I was just about to walk out the door, I picked up my bag. Immediately, disaster struck! One of the straps snapped right off the bag! I just stared at the bag for about a minute as I was still half asleep, but as I got my wits about me, I rummaged around my closet and found a sewing kit I collected from a hotel stay at some point in the past. Throwing that in my bag, I started off towards the airport bus station to catch the 5am bus.

The walk to the bus station was against like swimming upstream. There were many drunk people walking out of the city centre to turn in for the night. The area in front of Showgirls, a well-known strip club on Custom Street, was especially packed. As I reached Queen Street, I realised that I did not know where the bus station was, so I walked towards the ferry terminal, the supposed terminus of the airport bus. Asking directions from an old man, I found my way. I spent my time waiting for the bus sewing the strap back onto the bag, which proved to be quite successful. I stuffed the sewing kit into the bag, hoping that airport security wouldn't mind. I was still quite half asleep as the bus showed up. I spent the rest of the time watching the drunks walking around outside the station, and said hi to one of the cleaners working the graveyard shift.

The bus to the airport became surprisingly full as we made our way through downtown picking up bleary-eyed passengers heading to the airport. Some of them were young backpackers, some of them were old businessmen. Although it was still dark outside, the inside of the bus was filled with chatter, and we were kept company by a giant stuffed tiger perched inside the front window.

I arrived at the airport one and a half hours before my flight at 7:15am. Check-in was quite smooth, and I was quickly whisked through security in no time. In New Zealand, it isn't even necessary to take off one's shoes to go through airport security, and the atmosphere is much more relaxed. It turns out that I was once again going to quite a familiar gate, gate 68, where I boarded my flight to Hong Kong just three months ago. The first thing I noticed was that, wow, there are so many Tongans around! There were much less tourists than I expected! In fact, I felt kind of intimidated, all these large Tongans wondering what I was doing on a flight to Tonga! After ducking in to the bathroom to brush my teeth and freshen up, I sat down to wait. All of a sudden, I noticed that out of the adjacent gate was another flight, scheduled for the same time as mine, going to Sydney! As boarding for the Sydney flight started, nearly all of the few non-Tongans in the area piled into the Sydney gate, leaving me as one of the very few foreigners still waiting for the Tonga flight! In fact, all through the check-in procedure and while I was waiting at the gate, attendants would ask to make sure I was not going to Sydney, apparently making sure I was catching the right flight as most probably assumed I was flying to Sydney. While waiting, I quite enjoyed listening to people chattering in Tongan, as it sounded so foreign and exotic to me.

When the time came, I boarded the rather empty flight, and had a row all to myself. Since this was Pacific Blue, there wasn't much to do on board and I had to pay for all my beverages, although the fare is quite cheap. I spent the time trying to relax, nap and read my Lonely Planet book for some last-minute studying before arriving in Tonga. Since my plane was arriving at 10:05am, and I had another plane flying out to 'Eua Island at around 4:20pm, I wanted to spend some time exploring close to the airport. I had a plan of walking through Fua'amotu Village to Fua'amotu Beach, only about a three to four kilometre walk from the airport. I was going to find some food in the village then see if I can learn how to ride a horse, as I had read in the guidebooks that it was possible to rent a horse for cheap from owners in nearly any village in Tonga.

Before I knew it, we started our descent into Tonga. It was rather late in the descent when I finally caught a glimpse of land, the first land I had seen in the past three hours, the last time being about ten or fifteen minutes after take-off. This view left me quite excited. I saw below me a tiny flat island of crisp greens and yellows in a sea of varying shades of blue. The island was covered in tens of thousands of palm trees, with small clusters of buildings visible here and there connected by dirt roads. The capital of Nuku'alofa was visible on the other side of the island, along with the lagoons and small islets around it. The sky was blue with puffs of fluffy, cotton-like clouds dotting the sky above the precious terrain. As we flew over the coastline, I could see large waves pounding the reefs below, spurting white foam high into the air. As we descended into the palm trees, I wondered what new experiences I will soon have on this small, remote piece of land in the vast, turbulent ocean.

With a gentle thud, our plane was on the ground of one of the few remaining near-absolute monarchies in the world, although theoretically, this is soon about to change with the upcoming reformed elections taking place in November. This change was spurred by the riots in 2006, which burned down the entire capital of Nuku'alofa, which they are still in the process of rebuilding. Currently, however, the king still holds near-complete control over his kingdom, even though the country is technical a constitutional monarchy. At the time of writing, the reigning monarch of Tonga, King Siaosi (George) Tāufaʻāhau Manumataongo Tuku'aho Tupou V, has the privilege of appointing the country's cabinet, prime minister, and twelve of the thirty seats in parliament, while his relatives in the royal family has the power to appoint an additional nine of those seats, leaving nine parliament seats to be chosen via public elections. In addition, the King also keeps a strict control over media coverage of Tongan politics. It will be very interesting to see what changes will happen to Tonga after the democratic reforms planned for later this year. In a way, it is sad to see the royal family relinquishing their control on one of the last absolute monarchies in the world.

As we descended the stairs from the plane to the tarmac, I was surprised at how humid and hot it was. The airport building was quite small, with an observation deck filled with anxious waving family members and small children running around and climbing on the fences for a better view. There was even a small, what appeared to be hand-painted sign that said "Welcome to the Kingdom of Tonga. Malō e lelei." I went through customs very fast, and was in fact the first person in the "Visitors" line. I realised just then that my original plan of taking a cab then the ferry to 'Eua island would have worked out, but due to reading an article on the Internet about how the Tongan customs can take a long time, I thought it would be safer to take the flight rather than risking missing the 12:30pm ferry from Nuku'alofa. Well, I suppose this just means some extra time to explore the surroundings, although I would miss out on what is supposed to be quite the interesting experience of taking a ferry in Tonga.

As we got off the plane, I chatted to a another visitor. He told me that he was visiting his brother, from Australia, who is living in Tonga for half a year to teach Tongan kids soccer. At the airport, I asked him for suggestions on what to do, which led him to arrange for me a taxi trip to nearby Keleti for 20 Tongan Pa'anga. So much for the carefully laid plans of exploring the area around the airport. Climbing in to the taxi with two of the driver's kids, we set off from the airport into the greenery of the Tongan landscape.

Piha Beach and One Tree Hill

2010-03-28T01:40:00.000-07:00

Sunday, January 24, 2010. Although recently I have been wanting to visit Karekare to explore the wide coastline and the ocean caves, we had a late start today. From looking at the map and the descriptions, I realised that I would need an entire day for me to explore all that I wanted to see at Karekare. Since our time was limited, we decided to head out to Piha Beach, as I have never really gone and explored the area yet, although I have made a few short stops there before.

Since we had quite a late start, we planned on going for lunch soon after setting out. Seeing that I heard good things about fish and chips at Piha Beach last time, but the shops were closed, we attempted to find the fish and chip shop. We stopped at the café we stopped at last time, but found that alas, they stopped serving food just about fifteen minutes ago. Not seeing anything really good left at the takeaway window, we bought a couple of mangy hot dogs from a grill set up outside. After wolfing them down, we headed over to the beach.

As we got to the beach, we realised that today was the last day of the International World Junior Surfing Championships, being held in Piha this year. As we walked towards the event, we were surprised at how few spectators were around. There were some people casually strolling around the area, but nowhere near as much as someone would expect for an event like this. The number of competitors were almost as high as the number of spectators! I suppose that's New Zealand, where there is just not that many people around.

After walking past some of the booths selling food, we came across a fish and chip shop. I decided that this must be the fish and chip shop the Couchsurfers were looking for last time, as it matched the description - by the beach and quite busy. Even though we had just ate, we were not full, so we ordered some fish and chips and took them to the beach to eat. Walking past the tents set up as a staging area with the flags and names of different nations on them, we found a dune on which we can sit on and watch the action. The surfers were quite far out, and we could barely make out the small black splotches in the distance. We did enjoy the fish though, although the highlight for me were the potato wedges which were much more flavourful than expected. As we ate, we saw the surfers wrap up, and parading with their flags, go back to their tents. As we ate, we watched the seagulls screaming at us for food. I was even pooped on by one of them - it seems to happen to me much more often than my friends for some reason.

After the meal, we followed the beach to the south, as I had only seen the northern part of Piha Beach before. Eventually, the wide black sand beach came to an abrupt stop against a steep forested rise and some jagged rocks. Looking back from here, I realised why Lion Rock was called that. I was quite impressed, as this was one of the best examples I've seen of a geographical feature looking like what it is named after. From this angle, Lion Rock looks just like a large lion reclining on the beach, facing the ocean - its front paws, hind paws, tail, mane, everything - was clearly visible!

After walking around on the rocks looking at the breaking waves, we approached the rise. Seeing a signed trail head, we followed it up the steps leading to the top of the hill, which gave us quite a nice view of Piha Beach and Lion Rock. We noticed that there was a trail leading south, and decided to follow it. The trail was quite pleasant, winding its way through the vegetation along the hills. There were a lot of spiky-looking stuff, but the spikes were relatively soft and they didn't reach on to the trail. We eventually reached a small cove with a small island very close offshore, forming a thin stretch of water with sandy beaches on either side.

From the trail, there appeared to be a steep dirt trail down the side and a shallower trail leading to a barren rocky plateau looking over the cove. We chose the steep dirt trail. Squeezing through the vegetation, it led us tantalizingly close to the beach, but the trail stopped just in front of a steep rocky area, which we climbed down with not too much difficulty due to the rocks jutting out.

We spent some time exploring this sheltered cove and explored some neat features. First of all, there was a section of a nearly perfectly round beach, with a gap in the rocks where the tall waves came crashing through. The waves squeeze through the gap, becoming calm and forming ripples which spread out to meet the inside edges of the beach perfectly. There was another section where there was a natural arch in the rocks. The waves were crashing through the hole, filling and emptying the cove. There was also a mysterious concrete shack built into the steep hill, where the roof was sagging and looked like it was going to collapse soon. The consistency of the ground was also quite strange - there were what appeared to be loose rocks in clay, but upon further inspection, there were stuck into the hard surface, almost like cement. Finally, I tried to wade across the channel to the island, but without my swimming gear on, the water was a bit too deep to not get wet, so I gave up.

When we finally had enough, we climbed up a steep rocky section back to the trail, which was quite a challenge as I had left my shoes (jandals - the New Zealand term for flip-flops) in the car. We then had a very pleasant drive back to town through the road to Piha, which is surrounded by beautiful tropical-looking vegetation.

As we got back to town, we decided to make a quick stop at One Tree Hill in Cornwall Park, in the southern half of Auckland. One Tree Hill is named for a tree standing at the summit which has been cut down, replaced, and cut down again. Currently there is discussion regarding what tree should be re-planted on the top of One Tree Hill, but as I understand it, there seems to be some disagreement between different parties as to what tree should be planted as a replacement as some people take it to be quite an important cultural symbol. There is, however, an obelisk that stands on top of One Tree Hill, which makes the mound quite distinctive.

From the top of the hill, the view as quite enjoyable, with the soft light from the setting sun being cast over Auckland. The view here was different, and arguably better than the view from Mount Eden. From One Tree Hill, it is possible to see both the southern and northern harbours of Auckland, and a variety of different volcanic cones scattered around the Auckland region. There were cows lazily grazing in the fields below the hill, the side effect of which is having fields covered in droppings of various kinds all around the hill. We headed back when it started to get darker.

Surprising New Zealand

2010-03-18T01:44:00.001-07:00

When I first got here, I posted how one of my American work mates who was now to NZ described NZ as a country that is "deceptively boring," where it seems similar to North America, but will surprise you once in a while to make you feel far from home (if you're from North America). Here are three things that happened recently that makes me feel that way.

Today, the verdict for a pretty famous trial came down. A few activists broke in to a military base and destroyed a radar dome in protest of US activities causing loss of civilian life in Iraq. They admitted to the crime but said they did it to prevent loss of life as the operations would have led to the deaths of Iraqi civilians. They were found not guilty. Although I am sympathetic to them, I still think they should have been found guilty. Last time I checked, destroying someone else's property is illegal. In any case, I am impressed at how progressive NZ is compared to the US, as this would never have happened in the US. However, I am afraid that this may be sending the wrong message - that you can do anything as long as you believe it is right.

Another thing that I have constantly been surprised about is now trustworthy the NZ government is. In fact, NZ is ranked number one in the world with regards to government trust. It is also ranked number one in terms of peacefulness, accounting for violent crimes, violent accidents and war participation. But this post is not about these topics.

There have been many "The King is coming" ads for Burger King. When I asked a friend about it, they said that it was for the new KingPing burger at Burger King, but I was pretty sure it is about the Burger King King character, who is a symbol of BK in North America. At this point, I just realised that the Burger King King does not exist in New Zealand, and his arrival was the focus of the ads!

I just saw ads for "Doritos: They're coming." I am really excited that I will be able to eat Doritos again! But then again, I don't really approve of ubiquitous snack foods you can get all over the world as it pushes out local foods and flavours. Life without Doritos was unimaginable in North America.

Also, I just heard a program pronounce Yosemite National Park as "YO-se-mite" rather than "yo-SE-mi-tee." I remember that it was always a joke with us to pronounce it like "YO-se-mite" back in California.

Another quick point that's only kind of on-topic: There are apparently no hipsters in New Zealand, and people don't know what a hipster is!

Omaha Beach

2010-03-15T01:32:00.000-07:00

Sunday, December 6, 2009. There's wasn't much to do today, so Steffan and I decided to take a drive around again. After studying Google Maps, we decided that we could head over to Omaha Beach, as it was a place we haven't visited yet, and it looked like a nice stretch of sand from the satellite images.

It was quite a pleasant drive up. Driving up the Northern Motorway, Highway 1, we passed Orewa, and after just under an hour from when we left, we arrived in Warkworth. A town of just over 3,000, it was quite a pleasant place. It had a small town centre away from the highway so that it was very pedestrian-friendly and calm. There were a few stores open and some people walking around. We decided it would be a good idea to grab lunch here. We ate at a nice little café, and as typical New Zealand cafés go, there was a counter displaying all of the delicious-looking foods they were serving. The food was quite tasty, even better than the usual tasty fare from a New Zealand café. The only complaint I have is that one of the ceiling fans was directly in front of a skylight, so that there was a pulsing light effect inside, which made it quite uncomfortable if you start noticing it.

After lunch, we carried on. Travelling down tiny country roads, we crossed a large lagoon over a long causeway. Omaha Beach is located on a thin crescent of land stretching from north to south, with a lagoon to its west and the ocean to its east. Only the southern tip of this piece of land is connected to the New Zealand mainland. As we approached the other side, we drove through a small forest grove and then through the village to a parking area just by the beach. After a short walk over the board-walk through some grass-covered dunes, we arrived at the beach. It was quite pretty here. Omaha Beach is four wide kilometres of fine glittering white sand. Straight ahead beyond the breaking waves and the blue water lie the prominent hills of Little Barrier Island, which looked especially pretty with the puffy white clouds it tends to collect around its peaks.

After a trip back to the car to get some swim trunks and sunscreen, we stayed on the beach for a while. I had a quick dip in the waves and walked around collecting shells from the smooth wet sand near the breaking water, which reflecting the blue of the sky and the puffy clouds like a mirror. There were also many sand dollars here on the beach - some were very small, but some were nearly as large as the palm of my hand! I picked up some of these live sand dollars to examine them, but not wanting to kill them, placed all of them back in the water. Eventually, we were joined by Leon, an art tutor in the Games Department and his girlfriend, Adi, who is a student at MDS. It just happened to work out that Adi is now in the class that Leon is teaching. We spent the afternoon sitting there, talking, and digging a large hole in the sand. We also encountered a lot of the little jumping bugs that burrow into the sand when they are unearthed accidentally. Even though it became cloudy later on, I was still sunburnt, another reminder for me to be aware of the powerful New Zealand sun.

After we headed back, I bought some beautiful gree-lipped mussels from the nearby Countdown, recently converted from a Foodtown, which were on sale for only $2.49 per kilogram. I am still amazed at how cheap shellfish is in New Zealand. I was so happy to discover I could get cheap shellfish that I took a photo of the bag of mussels and the receipt with the amazingly cheap price on them.

Beachlands

2010-03-13T21:57:00.000-08:00

Saturday, December 5, 2009. Recently, after studying Google Maps satellite images of the areas around New Zealand, I have become obsessed with visiting somewhere where I could swim or walk to an island. Luckily for me, today is going to be the day where I can go somewhere to try to satisfy that desire!

Beachlands is a large village about twenty kilometres east of central Auckland and about eight kilometres south of the western portion of Waiheke Island. The reason that I wanted to visit Beachlands is that according to Google maps and other online resources, about half a kilometre off the coast of Beachlands is Motukaraka Island, an island which is accessible on foot during low tide.

The drive there was pleasant. There was a surprisingly large suspension bridge on the way. We also stopped to grab a drink at a diary (convenience store) in the middle of nowhere during some sun showers. Then, after stopping at a store in Beachlands to grab a pie, we headed to the coast. The first thing we noticed is that there is a surprisingly good view of Rangitoto, so of course, we stopped to take some photos. It turns out that we didn't park at the best spot, as we ended up walking down a steep hill, into another parking lot, before reaching the beach that appeared to provide access to the water. I was disappointed by the quality of this beach. Although the water was a pristine aqua colour, there were a few pieces of rubbish in the water by the beach, including a tyre and a beer bottle. I suppose this is what happens when a beach is close to big city like Auckland.

We followed the beach around towards Motukaraka Island, passing some private residences and tiered rock formations covered in strands of Neptune's Necklace, shells and tidal pools. At one point, a balloon floated nonchalantly around us, slowly drifting off just above our heads. Eventually, we reached what looks like a causeway to Motukaraka Island. I checked the tidal charts the night before, and found that luckily, low tide is during the day, so we could actually walk to the island while we are there.

The causeway was mainly made of slabs of rock, much like the coast we had been following previously. However, as we went towards the island, we came across thick mud, which was quite disgusting. To make it worse, the mud was interspersed with large shallow tidal pools filled with moving things. Sometimes they were just hermit crabs and shells but sometimes there were things in there I could not identify! Progress was slow and we nearly gave up a couple of times. However, we pushed onwards towards the island.

Eventually, we intercepted a what appeared to be a swath of higher ground covered in shells. This was much easier to walk on, as it was just like walking on a soft gravel road. We realised that if we had followed the coast a bit farther, we could have taken this easy route the entire way from the shore. Following this causeway, we reached the island and a staircase leading up the small cliffs surrounding the island. We walked around the top of the island for quite a while, getting quite beat up by spider webs, overgrown thorny plants and other unpleasant things! We reached the other side of the island where we could see some ocean. The view was quite disappointing considering what we had to go through! We tried to take an alternate path back, but ended up in some thick overgrown patches of grass with sharp serrated leaves taller than we were! We ended up taking the same path back, getting jabbed left and right by the sharp plants. This was one of the worst hikes I have ever had!

We were very happy we after making it back down the stairs. We walked around briefly on the rocks surrounding the islands, stopping for Steffan to have a smoke. On the way back, we took a quick look at a rusted-through boat that was lying on its side by the island. We were afraid that we might see something scary like a dead body inside, but luckily there was no such thing. Following the shell causeway back, we had an easy walk all the way back to shore. I also noticed oyster catchers and other birds foraging around - I am sure there is shellfish somewhere hidden underground. I also experimented with tossing the shells like playing cards - I can throw playing cards quite far, and these shells, with the curved shape, generated a surprisingly large amount of lift.

Instead of going back west, we headed east. There were some pōhutukawa trees in blossom, which was quite pretty. We explored a beach with a small stream running through it and some rocks covered in tiny oysters. Steffan smashed one open to see what was inside, and it turned out to be a live oyster. Eventually, after passing by a grove of mangroves, we reached a marina. We were a bit unsure of where we were. When we got back to land, we noticed a lot of people walking, with chairs and chilly bins towards an area with some restaurants and music. It turns out that there is a Christmas event planned for that day, but seeing that it was mainly family oriented, we decided to head back.

We walked back to the car through a trail that led us up a hill past some very modern and expensive-looking houses with a great view of the water below and Auckland in the distance. After that, there was a surprisingly long walk through some pleasant residential neighbourhoods before we found our car.

Te Kuiti and Raglan

2010-03-13T20:21:00.001-08:00

Saturday, January 23, 2010. Waking up in the morning, I thought I'd check what Steffan was up to. Turns out he had to drive to Te Kuiti to meet his mum, where they were planning on swapping cars. For the past week or so, Steffan had been driving him mum's car, as his car was in the garage being fixed in his home town, Wanganui. The drive would take about two and a half hours each way. I thought it was pretty notable that it was only a two and a half hour drive for him to meet him mum halfway, considering that Auckland and Wanganui are located at the opposite ends of the main body portion of the North Island. This was very amusing to me, as a drive from coast to coast across Canada or the US would take much longer!

The drive was very calm and relaxing, travelling through the New Zealand countryside, through fields of grazing cattle and sheep. After a while, though, it did become a bit repetitive. A bit outside of Auckland, the highways deteriorated to simple two-lane highways with no shoulders as is the case with most highways outside of the Auckland region. A lot of international visitors, including me, have found the speed limits in New Zealand surprisingly high for the quality of the roads, and often, in especially tortuous portions, it's rare that we will be travelling at the posted speed limit, whereas in Canada and the US, the roads are over-engineered so that it is rare to ever have to go significantly below the speed limit.

After about an hour and a half, we arrived into the central street of a small town, where we parked the car. After a phone call to Steffan's mum, it was revealed that they she was running behind schedule so we had half an hour to burn. We spent the time walking up and down the main stretch of Te Kuiti, where there were some dodgy-looking teenagers wandering around. Two of these dodgy teenagers were a pair of girls who appeared to be dressed better than the others we saw, which isn't saying much. They shouted something at us when they passed, which I thought might have been "Are you guys gay?" I assume that's because we didn't try to hit on them. In any case, Steffan and I were confused enough to find it pretty amusing. We explored a two dollar store and ended up spending most of our time in the Warehouse, where I saw a copy of SimAnimals DS, the game I worked on while at Electronic Arts. The only other item of interest we saw in Te Kuiti was a small roofed structure called the Trust Waikato Millennium Pavilion, there to celebrate culture or something along those veins. Apparently Te Kuiti's main claim to fame is that it is the host of the New Zealand Searing Championships.

After a while, Steffan's mum showed up with the car along with either her boyfried or new husband. We had lunch together and departed soon afterwards. We had to be back in Auckland before a certain time, and we started to realise that we wouldn't have much time to spend in Raglan at all.

The first stop in Raglan for us was an area of the coast besides Whale Bay, called the Index. The Index is supposedly the surfing spot in Raglan with the largest waves. After walking over some rocks to the Index, we were kind of perplexed. There were very few surfers around, and the large waves appeared to break directly onto some dangerous-looking rocks, which the surfers were staying their distance from. However, it was nice to stand on the large smooth boulders making up the coastline, watching the curling waves against the beautiful backdrop. The water was blue in the sunny parts, the cliffs were a wonderful shade of charcoal, and the hills all around were emerald green. Combined with the puffs of cloud drifting overhead, it was quite a pretty sight.

After watching for a bit, we decided to drive around as it was almost time to leave. We drove around some other water access points and found one particularly popular area with many surfers in the water. Even here though, there were rocks, and the waves did not look particularly impressive. This area also seemed overcrowded and I wondered how the surfers stopped themselves from running into each other. After driving through town, which looked like a typical happening beach-side New Zealand town, we headed back. It was a nice slow day of driving and getting out of Auckland.

Waitakere Ranges

2010-03-05T18:17:00.001-08:00

Sunday, 17th of January, 2010. Today, I am going with about 50-60 Couchsurfers to the Waitakere Ranges to take the Rain Forest Express. The Rain Forest Express, located only 40 minutes from downtown Auckland, was built in 1931 to aid in the construction and service of the Upper Nihotupu Dam. This extremely narrow gauge track has found a new life as a tourist attraction, bringing eager tourists six kilometres into rain forests of the Waitakere Ranges to the Upper Nihotupu Reservoir.

After a drive up narrow windy roads, we arrived at Jacobson's Depot, where the tracks start. As more Couchsurfers arrived, we spent the time chatting, and I got a head start collecting money from everyone as I was the treasurer for the trip. This went surprisingly smoothly, with no hitches whatsoever. I found this fascinating as one Couchsurfer observed that things seemed to be done efficiently and correctly because no one blamed anyone else. When anything needed to be done, there were numerous volunteers and no complainers. I thought this was a great example of how an organisation should work together. Everyone was also quite happy with the price too, as due to the fact that we had so many people, we were able to charter an entire train, so our ticket prices were reduced to $19 from $25. We even had our trip extended to four hours from three hours as we were able to schedule in a BBQ as well.

As the train pulled into the station, we were all amazed. Even though we saw the flimsy-looking narrow tracks, the train was still smaller than what we expected. The train looked like an over-sized model train set. We all squeezed in to the carriages, which barely fit two people side to side. My head was just about touching the ceiling as I sat straight up. One side of the train was fitted with windows, and the other is a simple latching door. As we all settled uncomfortably into our cramped seats, we started forward.

Following the large water mains beside the track, we headed into the dense Waitakere rain forest filled with ferns, palms and other dense foliage closely surrounding the train carriages. As we gained altitude, we were treated to spanning view of the forest and water below. One of the most scenic spots was a stop on the longest of the nine wooden bridges along the track. Spanning a deep valley filled with fern trees, it felt like were were in the midst of a dense jungle, with no trace of the city only half an hour away. I took the opportunity to check out the engine of the train, which was tiny but filled with gauges and even had a small storage locker.

Although the bridges were spectacular, I enjoyed the ten tunnels much more. Each of these tunnels were extremely narrow, barely fitting the train inside of it. Some tunnels were coated in smooth concrete shells, some were supported by rough wooden trusses, and some tunnels were nothing more than long carved holes in solid rock. It was a lot of fun watching the foliage folding over the top of the train as we entered the tunnels, soon followed by darkness, then the dimly lit walls of the tunnel moving by just outside the sides of the train as my eyes adjusted. As we went through one of the caves, one of the conductors jumped out at a particularly wide section of the cave and pointed the flashlight at the wall. As we rolled past, we could see large, spindly looking cave wetas jerking around, apparently confused by the light and noise.

The train stopped just short of the dam, where a new station was being constructed. As we walked to the base of the dam, we can see a spillway into which a surprisingly small pipe was shooting out spiralling water at a surprisingly high speed. After some photos, we followed a set of steep staircases up the side of the dam, which led up to a walkway along the curved top. From here, we could see the reservoir on the other side, which appeared not to be at its maximum capacity judging by the bare earth around the water. The dam around the reservoir also did not look very new, as there were metal posts that were completely rusted through. To the other side, there was a wonderful view of a long steep valley filled with rain forest plants. It was kind of calming to listen to the water spilling into the forest and enjoying the light drizzle making small rings on the surface of the reservoir.

As we walked around the dam, we noticed that there was a trail leading into the forest from one side of the dam. Unfortunately, there was not enough time to explore this trail, but perhaps next time there would be. After a while, we followed a service road from the other side of the dam to a small clearing where the train was waiting for us. There were toilets, a grassy field with a nice view down a valley, a shelter with picnic tables and a large BBQ there. We set up for a BBQ, and spent a good amount of time cooking, eating, drinking and chatting. It was glorious to watch the amount of food on the grill at maximum load.

As we boarded the train to return, we decided to head to Piha beach for a quick visit as it was still early in the day. On the way back, through one of the particularly long tunnels, the conductor turned the train lights out, revealing patches of bright blue-green pinpoints of light on the tunnel ceiling. It was quite amazing to watch as we rolled past patch after patch. These were in fact the famous New Zealand glowworms. They were surprisingly bright. I had seen these lights on the way into the Waitakere forest, but wasn't sure if these were the glowworms as they were so unexpectedly bright. In fact, they looked like the bright tacky fibre optic effects in theme park rides.

As we arrived back at Jacobson's Depot, I explored the old rusting steam train engine on display there, one of the engines which used to run on this unique track. It was cool pulling open the front of the boiler to reveal the various tubes inside.

From here, we made a quick stop at the Arataki Visitor Centre, the main visitor centre for the Waitakere Ranges. There were some interesting displays inside including a giant piece of kauri gum, some wetas and some stick insects. There was also a great view of Manukau Harbour from here where one could watch air planes line up for final approach. There was also an amazing view of Auckland City and North Shore City from here too, with Rangitoto directly behind the Sky Tower. We took turns taking photos in one of the picture frames installed in strategic locations in all of Auckland Region's parks. I took a cool one where I jumped from the frame, so I would have been floating in the middle. The man from Quebec who took my photo on his camera (he was a professional photographer) still has not sent me that photo yet...

From here, we drove to Piha, first making a stop at Kitekite Falls, accessible by a short hike through a kauri forest. Due to the Kauri Dieback crisis in New Zealand, there were cleaning stations along the trail to disinfect shoes with, preventing the spread of the deadly parasite. During the hike, one of the Couchsurfers showed us how to pull up the stalks of one of the plants growing in the forest. The base of this plant was edible. It was crunchy and had a delicate savoury taste to it, which reminded me very much of heart of palm. I'm not sure if I'll trust myself to pull up the right kind of plant by myself, but it is something to keep in mind as the stalk was quite tasty!

After a short tramp, we came across a clearing in the forest from which we can see Kitekite Falls. Kitekite Falls is an impressive multi-tiered waterfall, with the lower tiers taller and wider than the upper tiers. It is what you would think of when imagining a typical tropical waterfall hidden in the jungle. There were some people playing around the falls, and I heard that there might even be cool pools and parts of the waterfall one could slide down hear the top. As we descended the steps leading to the pool under the falls, a bunch of the Couchsurfers jumped in to swim at the base of the falls. I decided not to join as it was quite cold and I didn't have a towel. It was overcast and it started raining, and I got wet anyway. This also reminded me of the time I swam under Taughannock Falls in New York State close to Cornell University, where I went to school. Taughannock Falls is even taller than Niagara Falls, and the force of the water pounding down was quite exhilarating. However, five minutes after swimming away from the base of the falls, some huge boulders fell directly where I was swimming just minutes before! That's when I decided not to swim into tall waterfalls, although Kitekite Falls did look a lot safer, with less loose rocks than Taughannock Falls.

After the swim, we made our way to Piha Beach. This was actually the first time I had been at Piha, so I was quite keen to explore the area. Jake and I walked up Lion Rock, the landmark geologic feature at Piha. Unfortunately, we found that we could only walk halfway up the rock as the top portion was closed after a rock slide a few years earlier. Even from here, the view of the beach was impressive - a wide, expansive beach below us with large surf pounding far up the shallow sandy embankment. Here, we decided that we wanted to go for a swim, so we changed up here away from everyone else. Later I realised that probably most people could see us changing, as I could see most of the beach and pretty much the entire town on the hills behind us!

A few of us ran into the water, which was surprisingly comfortable after a few minutes of acclimatising. The waves were quite large, and we spent some time trying to body surf, which we did more or less successfully. We were very careful not to go too far out, as the lifeguards were off duty at the time and Piha Beach is notorious for its exceedingly strong rip currents. I noticed that even when were were not in the rip, just ducking my head into the water and floating for two or three seconds would result in me being pulled in a random direction for two or three metres! I kept bumping into the others as I always underestimated how much I would get pulled along as I swam!

From here, we tried to find what is supposedly one of the best fish and chip places in New Zealand, but failed. We ended up going back to Titirangi, a small town just past the Waitakere Ranges on the Auckland side, for dinner, where I gave the money I collected to Kirin. Most of us ate at a Chinese and fish and chip shop. I enjoyed my fish and kumara chips and a delicious Memphis Meltdown ice cream bar, which Wes, another American that has been in New Zealand for some time, agreed was the best ice cream around. A Finnish girl, I think by the name of Pii-Tulia, was showing us some of her pole acrobatics moves on a nearby street sign, which was one of the random moments of the night. After this, it was home time, early enough for a relaxing Sunday evening before work the next day.

Tongariro Alpine Crossing, Ngauruhoe and Taupo (Days 3 & 4)

2010-02-21T20:40:00.001-08:00

After a good night's sleep, I woke up to an empty room - although most of the Couchsurfers were still sleeping, it seems that the people in my room are just early risers. Walking out, I had breakfast and noted that the weather looked crummy. I was hoping for good weather so that I could go skydiving with a few others who were interested. Although I was relieved in one sense, I was more disappointed as I had convinced myself that I wanted to skydive in Taupo, one of the few places in the world where you can skydive from an altitude of 15,000 feet. I suppose I will just have to return some other day to do it. Along with the 134 metre Nevis bungee jump near Queensland, currently third highest in the world, this is one of the things I felt that I needed to do in New Zealand, but am also extremely frightened of. I just want to do it and get it over with so I can experience the rush before I decide to chicken out.

With the option of skydiving gone, I decided to join most of the other Couchsurfers to go visit some natural hot springs. As it was announced how much money people owe for the trip over breakfast, for the rest of the day I had people coming up to me to give me money. Even as we piled into the cars, I had to wait as people chased me down to pay me. After a moderate drive, we found our way through Taupo and to a nearby park. After a short walk from there, we arrived at a small footbridge over a stream flowing into the adjacent Waikato River. Spa Thermal Park is a free public area where a bore has been drilled into a reservoir of hot thermal water underground (or perhaps the pipe just helped guide the water from a natural stream in the area to prevent erosion?). It seems that many of the hotels, and even some residences in the area have bores drilled into the ground to tap the natural thermal water underneath. At Spa Thermal Park, the water is gushing forward, forming a cascade of water, which collects in a few pools before flowing over the rocks and into the Waikato River.

After changing, I stepped into the water. It was hot! It was at first quite painful, but after a while of getting used to it, it became quite comfortable. I found the water just bearable, slightly cooler than the hot springs of Japan and Korea. After sitting in there for a while and standing in the hot waterfall (without inhaling the hot water and having my brain eaten by amoeba), I decided to join most of the other Couchsurfers closer to the cold water of the river. Carefully stepping over the slippery rocks, I made my way down to the tiny cove where the hot water from the stream mixes with the cool water of the river. I spent most of my time here, moving around to adjust the temperature of the soak. It was also fun trying to find where the cold water and hot water formed gradients of quickly changing temperatures. Often, the hot water would be on top while the colder water would sneak in near the bottom. The temperature also changed with each person walking past or changing their positions, which made for quite a stimulating soak, trying to balance the hot and cold water for maximum comfort.

While soaking, I noticed a lot of debris near the bottom of the stream, and the rocks seem to be surprisingly stirred up by the water to drift casually back down to the bottom. Once in a while, I would see a white glob floating past, which I tried to avoid. Eventually, I realised that all of this was was actually pumice! I bet that I my feet were pretty well cleaned of dead skin from the hot water soak and walking around on beds of pumice! Once in a while, when I started to overheat, I wondered over the smooth rocks into the Waikato River. the water, flowing out from Lake Taupo, is perfectly clear, giving me pristine views of the rocks on the riverbed, tinted slightly in a shade of light aqua. The current is surprisingly strong here, and the river made for a great lap pool, allowing me to swim while staying in place. I was careful not to get pulled into the river though, as the current was quite swift and Huka Falls was only about two kilometres downstream.

After soaking for a while and taking some Couchsurfing photos of us sitting in the shape of the letters "CS," people started to get hungry, and as it was quite late in the day, we decided to go for lunch. When we left the hot pools, the parts of our bodies that were in the water were all glowing red. Driving into Taupo, we found a parking spot on the main road by the lake. It looks like there is some kind of speedboat race going on today, but we decided to go grab lunch first. I had lunch at a fish and chip shop as I have been craving fish and chips for a while now. After lunch, the race looks like it was over, so Tom and I visited a liquor store and decided on what we might get for the party that night. After that, we relaxed on a grassy park area near the lake by the car to wait for the others. Eventually, our driver, a South African, showed up, and we all had a good nap/relaxing time under a tree until the other two Couchsurfers showed up. After a quick liquor store stop, we were on our way back to set up for a BBQ.

We arrived back quite early, and after setting up and after a bunch of us tried to take a nap outside on the grass, I decided to take a quick visit to the neighbour's house where most of the tent city is set up. On Johanna's property, there were five or six tents, but at her neighbour's house, twelve tents were pitched in close proximity, forming small pockets of grass between the tents where I found people sitting, relaxing and drinking. That night at the BBQ, I had to run around collecting money from everyone. It was not fun. Although we only asked for, I think, $24 from each, about 10% were unhappy to pay or made excuses for paying less. In the end, since Kirin had made some allotments for people unwilling to pay (out of 60-70 people, there are bound to be some spoil-sports), it worked out. However, I made the bad mistake of mixing my money with the collected money, and when the accounting didn't add up as hoped, I decided just to give all of the money in my wallet, which I think means I ended up paying an extra $30-40. Well, I would rather have paid this amount extra than have accidentally taken other people's money (it eventually worked out a few weeks later). For the rest of the night, we drank a lot, had a spontaneous massage chain at one point, and just a lot of random fun. One of the most hilarious things I saw that night was when people were taking photos and people started doing "sexy" poses. When some girls asked a bunch of guys to get into "sexy position," everyone looked ridiculously gay, especially one guy who just turned around and bent over! Going to bed late, I drifted to sleep very quickly.

In the morning, after some final clean-up and accounting, we were ready to leave. We gathered on the lawn with the Couchsurfing flag to take a photo together. Johanna got a great shot from the second-floor patio of her house. A few days later, she posted a facebook photo showing an article from the Taupo Times about Couchsurfing and our visit! It was one of the coolest things I have seen from my involvement in Couchsurfing (see image at top of post).

Soon, we were off again. I was back in Tom's car, with Erica(?), recently from Ireland. Wes, who came in our car, took another car back as he had to be back in Auckland early. We decided that I would drive for a while, so today turned out to be my first driving experience on the other side of the road! Although we were supposed to meet at a petrol station first, it turned out that no one else stopped there - they must have changed the plans after we left. After contacting the others, we found that we were to meet in Taupo, so that is where I drove. The drive was relatively smooth, although I had to keep reminding myself to keep to the left when turning. And of course, I fell victim to that typical mistake people make when driving on the other side of the road for the first few times - I kept turning on my wipers when I tried to signal for a turn. After lunch in Taupo, during which Tom left me his keys without me noticing and almost losing them if it wasn't for the waiter bringing them back after clearing our trays, we were on the road again, to visit Huka Falls.

We had a very short stop-over at Huka Falls, mainly to take a few photos. Huka Falls is one of New Zealand's most popular tourist attractions, undoubtedly partially due to its proximity to Taupo. The falls are fed by the Waikato River, New Zealand's longest river, with an astounding flow rate of 220,000 litres per second. In this section, the river is squeezed into a narrow canyon between some solid-looking rocks, causing the flow to intensify to impressive speeds. The water spills out at the falls, it falls off a six metre cliff, but due to a five metre depth at the lip of the falls, the water appears to fall eleven metres into the churning pool below. The water is an unearthly shade of light blue. I judged that due to the high volume of water and short drop, it would be possible to survive going over Huka falls if you didn't get sucked into the powerful eddy currents. Returning to the car, I continued to drive, with our next stop being some natural hot springs near Rototua. The drive through this portion of the countryside was quite pretty, with gently curving roads in lush green fields, dense forests, and hills in the distance. There were numerous farmlands and one or two geothermal power plants as well. Every so often, there would be the smell of sulphur in the air. It was an easy drive following the convoy of Couchsurfing cars.

After turning down some small side roads, we arrived at our destination, an unsightly area just past a bridge, with some dirt shoulders in a small patch of woods on which one could park their car. There were only two or three other cars around so it looks like we effectively have this place to ourselves. After walking down a short track, we arrived at the junction between two murky streams where the air was filled with the smell of sulphur. While some of us changed and headed in the stream, some others decided to just observe on land.

This area was another great natural hot spring. The two converging streams means that once again, you get to choose what temperature you want your soak to be. Moving closer to the steaming hot stream gives you water hot enough to satisfy the people who like the hottest of soaks. Moving towards the cold stream gives you access to cool and refreshing water, and it was great to switch back and forth between the two. Best of all were large stones one could sit on at the bottom of the stream, so it was just like a hot tub except for the lack of backrest and bubbles. There are even half-burned candles placed in small holes in the steep banks and short cliffs surrounding the mixing pool. The cool stream also has a surprisingly strong current, and walking into it is like crossing a vertical wall separating the swift current with the still water. The water further downstream was also comfortable - warm and evenly mixed.

After a good soak, we got out and got ready to leave. It was at this time I discovered that on the other side of the road, there is a trail that leads further up the stream. I found that this trail leads to other, calmer hot pools on the stream, perfectly suited for sitting and soaking in some extra-hot water. It was also apparent that hot water is bubbling up through the ground all throughout the stream, as portions of the stream bed had bubbles rising through it and was extremely hot to the touch. Tom told me that this is where he was hanging out for a while. I still haven't figured out what this area is called yet, but it doesn't appear to be Kerosene Creek, which everyone seems to know about. Kerosene Creek is one of the most popular natural hot springs in the area, a hot water stream with some small waterfalls along it. Although probably much more interesting, it would have been much more crowded as well.

Soon, we headed off again. After a short drive, we turned down a few small roads toward an area where steam is rising up through the trees. As we stopped and stepped out, we were hit by an unpleasant strong smell, sulphur mixed with some other metallic and tangy chemicals. Walking up to a temporary fence, we can see a field of bubbling mud. Unfortunately, some kind of construction was going on, so the area was closed. However, after observing for a while, and after a police car parked in the area left, a bunch of us decided to duck through a hole in the fence for a closer look. There is a series of newly-constructed board-walks here, following a large U-shaped pool of bubbling mud. We stood there for a while watching the mud bubbling away among the trees and bushes around it. This was quite a large mud field with many centres of constantly bubbling and mud up-welling. Once in a while, there would be a few much larger bursts accompanied by large puffs of rising steam. It was quite entrancing to watch this volcanic activity, although the smell was quite disturbing.

After we all had our fill of photos, we continued on. We stopped in Rotorua for a short coffee and snack break, where a few of the Couchsurfers stopped to spend the night. The rest of the convoy stopped at Tirau, well-known for its sheet metal sculptures. The Couchsurfers split here, and we continued on our way back to Auckland. The drive around Rotorua was quite interesting, with steam rising up from various locations in and around town, sometimes from buildings, sometimes from what appeared to be empty fields and ditches. I made a mental note to come back to the Rotorua and Taupo area to explore some more of the volcanic features in the area.

Tongariro Alpine Crossing, Ngauruhoe and Taupo (Days 1 & 2)

2010-02-09T00:38:00.001-08:00

The weekend of the 30th of January 2010 was my first long weekend in New Zealand. The holiday, Auckland Anniversary Day, is celebrated on the Monday closest to January 29th throughout the historical Auckland Province, whose boundaries no longer match any modern-day regional boundaries. For this long weekend, I was going on a trip to do the Tongariro crossing with about 70 or 80 other Couchsurfers. I thought the previous Couchsurfing invasion of Opotiki was big, but this is huge! We will be based in Turangi, a town of about 3000 residents. With 80 Couchsurfers coming from all around the world, that makes up over 2.5% of the town's population! Our host will be Johanna, who has generously agreed to lend her and her neighbour's house as a base for Couchsurfers to sleep in and the associated lawns and paddocks for Couchsurfers to pitch their tents. As per usual, the trip is organised by Kirin, one of the Auckland Couchsurfing ambassadors, with me serving as the treasurer for the second time in a row.

After work, I met up with Thomas (Tom), and after a quick stop in Onehunga to pick up Wes, we were off on a five hour drive to Turangi. The drive took us through some beautiful New Zealand landscapes and small "highways," although it did become repetitive after a while with few spots of interest. The bypass around Hamilton provided expansive views of the flat landscapes there. This was made especially interesting by the large number of small localised patches of rainclouds drifting slowly over the plains. Another highlight was sunset, when the sky turned all sort of beautiful colours, from orange to red to violet to tan. But most memorable of all, after a discussion, it was confirmed that it was legal to drink in a car in New Zealand, so I had my first drink, Tui Beer, in a car! It was a glorious moment.

After driving in the dense moth clouds around Lake Taupo, we finally arrived in Turangi without dinner. After asking for directions, consulting a map bestowed upon us, and turning down the wrong street of Hirangi rather than Hinerangi, we finally found Johanna's house. Walking in, I was greeted by a big hug from Joanna, and news from Kirin that instead of sleeping in tent city, I have a spot reserved for me inside the house. Although I was at first disappointed that I will not have a chance to stay in tent city, it turned out to be a much better place to sleep, as rain eventually developed during the trip. After some quick shoving food in my mouth to carbo-load for the day-long hike the next day, I drank a bit, socialised, then went to bed in preparation for an early start.

At 6:30am, I woke up and got to breakfast just before the bulk of the crowd hit. It was quite chilly outside and the grass was wet from the dew. It was a very tranquil morning, but became more hectic as everyone, plus the dogs, were roused. After breakfast, we made a hasty retreat to the car. On the drive to the trailhead, we were treated to spectacular views of the morning mist drifting around small lakes and through the trees. The mist was extremely dense at times, and very localised, so that we could see thin tendrils of mist, made golden by the morning sun, wafting out slowly from the groves of trees all around the farmland there. In the background was the spectacular range of the three volcanoes, Tongariro, Ngauruhoe and snow-capped Ruapehu. As we pulled up into the nearly full parking lot, I realise that I forgot my sunscreen. Well, at least I have my thin long sleeve clothes and a hat with a large rim to protect me from the sun.

After some organising, a toilet stop, and a a few photos with a Couchsurfing flag that some people made, we split into three groups and headed up the trail. I was with the "fast" group of just under twenty Couchsurfers who were going to attempt the summit of Mount Ngauruhoe in addition to the Tongariro Alpine Crossing. Right off the bat, the only girl in our group, Capri from Montana, instilled a racing mentality in the group by shouting something along the lines of "if you're not the lead elephant, you're stuck staring at everyone else's ass," and bolting to the front. As the guys all raced ahead, she fell farther and farther back, and not wanting to ditch anyone from the group, I slowed my pace as well. After a while, we found Jake, an American who crashed at my place for two nights, trailing back as well. We decided to stick together and take the time to stop, enjoy the view, and take photos rather than running ahead. After taking a bathroom break at the last toilets until the other side of the pass, we started the uphill portion of the trail. The area around the toilets were surprisingly beautiful. It was a valley surrounded on three sides by a bowl-shaped cliff. To the left is Soda Springs, a beautiful waterfall supporting a swath of green around it. To the right and above is the imposing cone of Mount Ngauruhoe, with clouds condensing and brushing the summit. There is also what appears to be a steam vent on top, as small wafts of steam appear to be rising from the left of the summit from a source just hidden from view.

Continuing from the toilets, we immediately hit the Devil's Staircase, a series of steps leading up the side of the valley. I was happy to find that the steps were not nearly as bad as I feared it to be, especially with a name like that. It did seem that people around us were getting tired - maybe it's me walking over a hill to work everyday that has gotten me into better shape! As we gained altitude, the valley spread out below us. It became clear that this was a volcanic valley, as the patterns of the solidified rocks were clearly solidified lava flows. Mountain ranges, forests and farmland beyond the valley in the distance also became visible. As we gained altitude, we met up with some additional Couchsurfers in the fast group, and at the top of the Devil's Staircase, we met up with the rest of the group, who were relaxing with some beers.

This is where the best of part of the trip began! The top of Devil's Staircase is a small ragged plateau right at the base of the amazingly symmetric cone of Mount Ngauruhoe. Ngauruhoe is an imposing mountain. At 2,291 metres in height, the mountain looks like a stereotypical stratovolcano, conical and nearly symmetric. In fact, it looks so imposing that it had been filmed as Mount Doom in the recent Lord of the Rings movies. As with the other volcanoes in this range, Ngauruhoe is still active, with its most recent eruption in 1977 generating pyroclastic flows, which are visually depicted on a sign at the base of a volcano. The simulated image on the sign shows the same view up the mountain in real life, except with a giant cloud of burning ash cascading down towards the vantage point. I would have hate to see that in real life! Although the previous indications of possible activity in 2006 have by now settled down, there are still numerous volcanic tremors weekly, and the chances of an eruption in the area is still large enough that volcano drills are conducted regularly on the ski fields of adjacent Mount Ruapehu.

From the plateau, we followed the trail to the base of the volcano and started up its steep slope. Progress was slow and frustrating. The terrain was dusty and made up of many tiny chunks of porous rocks. Combined with a lack of any sizeable plants, the terrain was extremely unstable so that you would lose your footing and slide back every few steps. The constant climb also resulted in a very slow progress rate as it would get tiring quite quickly otherwise. About a quarter of the way up, I suddenly hear "ROCK!" Looking around, a saw a rock about the size of a head rolling down the hill about ten metres away at speeds that looked like it would be painful if it had hit. I was really uncomfortable with this, as this was the first time I had seen falling rocks so close and hoped that it wouldn't happen again. Little did I know that due to the terrain steepness and make up, this would be a common occurrence, with shouts of "ROCK" every five or ten minutes from this point onwards! At one point during the climb up, I saw a rock tumbling at a very high speed towards a girl, and bouncing unpredictably off a boulder the girl was trying to place between her and the rock, it missed her head by only about four or five metres. This was a quite a close call, as a hit could have been fatal!

The trail had long since disappeared at this point in the climb. As we inched upwards, I followed the edge of a large tongue of boulders to "follow the ridge," remembering the advice from a woman I chatted to as I waited for the toilet earlier. This was about half way up the mountain and already uncomfortably steep. If I had slipped here, I could have rolled down for quite a ways over the rocks. After a few changes in terrain colours, from grey to yellow to red, I finally emerged in what appears to be a tiny valley near the top of the volcano. The view was amazing here! I was just at around the cloud line, and can see small tufts of clouds with flailing tendrils blowing past the green and blue forests, pastures and lakes in the distance below. Looking down closer to the base of the mountain, we can see the trail of the Tongariro Crossing going past a dried lake and up hills in the distance. The people walking on this trail were tiny dots, almost too small to see. Beyond the closest hill are a series of barren ridges and other hills with a few lakes hiding in its midst. To the right and above is what appears to be an enormous conical pile of red porous rocks about 20 metres tall. to the left is another hill, nearly as high, but the top of which was steaming, with floods of vapour rushing out and blowing away. I could also catch some glimpses of Mount Ruapehu among the clouds.

The pile of red rocks appeared to the be the summit, so I decided to tackle that first. The terrain here is even more unstable, causing me to lose my footing often, sometimes having my entire foot sink into the light loose rocks. After a final climb to the top, the crater of Mount Ngauruhoe fanned out in front of me. Although I was hoping I could visit the crater, it was immediately apparent that the crater was not accessible. The crater was almost perfectly round and surrounded by a vertical wall of multi-coloured rock. There is some indication of large rock slides inside the crater and a few enormous shattered slabs of rock inside. Realising that I needed some sunscreen for my hands and face, I decided to ask loudly if there was anyone here from the Couchsurfing crowd. It turns out that although no Couchsurfers in our group were here, there was a Spanish Couchsurfing couple sitting just beside where I was! I guess you can meet Couchsurfers anywhere - even at the top of Mount Ngauruhoe!

After a quick lunch and break with Jake and a few other Couchsurfers, we decided to head over to the vents on the other peak, about a 5-10 minute walk away. Sliding down the scree back into the small valley, my shoes were filled with sharp jagged rocks. As I approached the top of the hill with the steam vent, I can see that the steam was escaping through a pile of boulders near the top. Although there were other steam vents around the crater, this was by far the largest. There was one particularly large vent at the base of the rocks, which created a constant "air through a hallow tube" sound and had condensation dripping and being blown out from the hole in the rock. I moved my hand around the edge of the steam vent to try to touch it, until I felt really stupid for trying to touch a volcanic vent.

As we sat on the rocks enjoying the view below and having the steam on our backs to keep us warm, we were joined by a bunch of the other Couchsurfers. After a second lunch, we decided it was time to head down. Jake was especially in a hurry, as he had the Couchsurfing flag, which the other Couchsurfers not coming up to the peak of Ngauruhoe wanted to take a photo with. Oh well, it was kind of their fault for not taking the flag when Jake tried to give it to someone who was not going to summit Ngauruhoe.

We took a different route down. At first we just followed a vague trail until we started climbing over some rocks and sulphurous yellow patches hiding small steam vents. Eventually, we intercepted a well-used path straight down the mountain filled with dust and scree. Apparently the dust is dropped out of a helicopter to help stabilise the terrain for hikers. Going down the mountain was a lot of fun, as it involved just jogging down, and combined with sliding, progress was quite fast but required a lot of effort and balance. At one point, I heard "ROCK" from above, and raising my head to look up, my eyes went wide as I saw a large boulder, the size of a torso, rolling down the track towards me. In fact, this rock was so large that later on, we bumped into people who were not on the mountain but said they saw a boulder rolling down the slopes at around 40-50 kilometres per hour. Jake had knocked loose the huge boulder, and Mark, another Couchsurfer, even scraped his hands up trying to stop the boulder by pushing it downwards into the ground just as it became dislodged. Luckily, I had about 10 seconds to react to it due to the early warning, so I just watched it and passed on the message below. As the rock rolled closer, it veered off course and missed me by about 3-4 metres. However, as it passed me, it bounced back onto the track, and seeing Capri still not realising what was coming at her, we started shouting at her, along with some other hikers between me and Capri. As we were freaking out, Capri finally looked up, and with only about three seconds to react, her eyes went wide, she rocked left and right a few times and leaped out of the way at the last second. As I arrived at her location, I found her knees and hands were scraped and bleeding, and the other hikers were tending to her and providing some bandage cloth. Using my knife to cut the cloth, she fashioned quite an effective bandage and we continued down together.

As we arrived at the bottom, we sat to rest and take the rocks out of our shoes. It was seriously like one of those TV moments when someone just keeps dumping rocks out of their shoes. There was a surprisingly amount! My shoes looked kind of like planters when I first took them off. From here, Jake ran off to see if he could catch up with the rest of the Couchsurfers to deliver the flag. After taking a few photos, Capri, Mark and I just continued on the trail at a slower pace to make sure everyone can complete the crossing successfully. At this point, we were probably not even a fifth of the way through the actual Tongariro Alpine Crossing, so we knew we still have a full day ahead of us!

Our timing turned out to be quite good, as by the time we left the base of the mountain, the upper portion of the mountain has already disappeared into the clouds, eliminating the view from the top and making the trail much more treacherous due to hidden falling rocks. In fact, the clouds started arriving just as we left the summit, which made for some cool views on the way down, seeing the clouds drifting in just behind us. After some walking, we started climbing up again, this time to go over the Red Crater. Luckily, the climb was much easier than Ngauruhoe, and we had reached the summit before I even realised!

The Red Crater was also a fascinating sight. Parts of the ground were steaming in addition to numerous steam vents and fumaroles around the area. In fact, the steaming landscape of the Red Crater was also used in filming the Lord of the Rings as a close-up representation of Mount Doom when the actors would be in the scene climbing the mountain. The Red Crater is very aptly named, as the soil around the area was red and black, which reminded me very much of the volcanic sand I saw in Thira (Santorini). There also appeared to be some humongous vents big enough to fit houses in, but they appear to be no longer active. In and around the summit were more cool views, including clear views of Ngauruhoe and Mount Tongariro, which looks like a typical volcano, except with the top half cut cleanly off. I wondered what would have caused this formation. There are also numerous other valleys and formations around, which appeared to me like the remnants of old craters, some of them larger than the base of the current mountains there. Around this area were also other fascinating formations such as solidified lava fields, clearly delineating where the lava flow stopped, and small protrusions that looked like lava domes scattered around.

At this point, we have been joined by two of Mark's friends, who climbed Mount Tongariro earlier in the day and have been waiting at the fork in the trail. I was even tempted to go visit Mount Tongariro, as it is not nearly as difficult as the Ngauruhoe climb, and I was very curious to get an up-close view of the flat peak. Alas, no one else was interested so we decided to skip it for this trip. Following a narrow ridge leading around the Red Crater, we came to a steep descent in loose scree. Although we had been warned about this section, it was not nearly as bad as the descent on Mount Ngauruhoe! Once again, it turns out that this section of the track is maintained, with sand being dropped on the ridge to make it safer for visitors.

As the bottom of the this hill leads to the Blue Lake, the view during the descent was uniquely beautiful. Behind and above us is the steaming Red Crater. To the left is a volcanic valley surrounded by what looks like volcanoes, including the oddly shaped Mount Tongariro, with its perfectly flat top that looks perfect for a soccer field or stadium. To the right are more mountains, with farmland and forests in the distance, and the view of patches of rain drifting across the landscape, sometimes dousing us with a layer of cool water before moving past. In front of us and below is Blue Lake. Blue Lake is actually a series of what appears to be three lakes, turquoise blue is colour, no doubt due to volcanic minerals and metals. There are hints of yellow, brown and other sulphurous compounds on the bottom of the lake as well. This entire area is surrounded by steam vents, constantly billowing out volumes of white steam, giving this area a very "live" feel and reminding me of a budget spooky stage set with patches of mist coming out everywhere. In fact, it isn't just me who sees a particular uniqueness to this area. The Blue Lake is tapu (sacred) in Maori culture, making it disrespectful to eat or drink in the area. I found out later that the summits of Ngauruhoe, Tongariro and Ruapehu are tapu as well, so I will have to keep this in mind next time I visit.

After the Blue Lake, we passed through a variety of fields and hills with interesting rock and lava flow formations. It was at around this time Capri convinced me to stop and smell the flowers - literally. It was more difficult and less enjoyable than not stopping and smelling the tiny flowers on the ground of this desolate volcanic terrain. Eventually, we reached Ketetahi Hut after passing through a beautiful section of ridges with a great view of Lake Taupo. At the hut, a group of Couchsurfers were waiting for us. As we sat for a while waiting for the next group to arrive, some were stretching, some were eating, and everyone was chatting for a while. It was quite busy there, as the families who have booked the hut for this long weekend were busy chatting and appeared to have started preparing dinner and snacks. Eventually, Jake and I started down the track. Although it felt like we were nearly there, it turns out that we were still only about two-thirds of the way through the 19 kilometre long track, although were past the most difficult sections. Although I kind of wanted to go to the toilet here, the toilets were very busy, so I decided just to skip it, which turned out to be a huge mistake.

Immediately past the hut, we walked past the private Ketetahi Hot Springs. We could not see or get close to the source of the springs hidden in a small valley, as it was closed private land, and apparently it is very dangerous due to unstable terrain and boiling water. I believed it, as the volume of steam rising from the hot spring was amazing - we could see the large billows of steam rising up kilometres before reaching the hut. However, we did cross a stream containing the run-off from the spring, and although I didn't want to touch the water due to possible toxic chemicals and acid, I could feel the heat coming off of it. At around three kilometres from the end of the track, I realised that I really needed to go to the bathroom - the kind that needed a toilet. Jake and I sped up until we were passing people quite regularly. From this point, we also descended into a jungle - the typical type of fauna that can be seen in tramps around the Auckland area quite often.

Although we kept thinking that the end of the track was going to be close, it wasn't. Apparently other people though this part of the track stretched on for much longer than they expected too! Eventually, as we caught up with Capri, I ran off and jogged nearly the remainder of the trail, with a quick stop at a spur track to view a waterfall. The waterfall and streams around it were slightly turquoise in colour, probably due to volcanic run-offs from the hot springs. Passing groups of other Couchsurfers, I exploded out into the open, where everyone else was resting and waiting for the last few groups to finish. I dropped my stuff and headed directly for the toilets, and although it was hot and smelly in there, I was glad to have found one!

Afterwards, I enjoyed a (warm) beer and relaxed while we waited for some other groups and to sort out all the rides. I even bumped into the other Couchsurfer I met up at the top of Mount Ngauruhoe in the parking lot. As I waited and relaxed, I was impressed at how clearly I can see the steam from Ketetahi Hot Springs - it was the centre of attention for me - half way up the mountain is a valley, and from that valley, copious amounts of steam was rising and drifting away, sometimes merging with the low clouds floating around the area.

From here, after everything was organised, we headed to the Tokaanu Hot Pools, where we rented one of the private pools fed by natural hot spring water. We can tell that this was in fact natural hot spring water from the light sulphur smell, the debris in the water, and the fact that there is steam rising from the rivers and creeks surrounding the hot pools. At first we got our heads wet from the hot water, until someone noticed a sign warning not to put your head underwater due to amoebic meningitis! I actually found the sign quite humorous, as it showed a smiley face outside the water and a frowney face under the water. It turns out that amoebic meningitis had caused deaths before, but is extremely rare and can only infect someone by having them inhale water deeply, causing the amoeba to come into direct contact with the olfactory nerves. Although rare, it is exceedingly deadly, with a fatality rate of 97%! Effectively, the amoeba, once it gets onto the olfactory nerves, explode in population, eating the nerve cells and following the nerves up to the brain and down the brain stem. Sounds like a terrible way to die, having your brain eaten from the inside!

Unfortunately, the tickets only allowed for twenty minutes in the private pools fed by natural spring water. After this, we all moved to the public pool of heated municipal water. Here, we stayed until quite late when everyone was hungry. There were some interesting things going on in the pool, such as Thiago cradling other guys in his arms while other people tried to copy him - he was showing us relaxation techniques he uses in the pool at his work as a physiotherapist. On the way back, some people stopped for fish and chips, while we tried to find a liquor store around the area. When we got back, we got in the car, which appeared a bit different. "Wait a minute... is this the right car...?" I asked. We looked at each other and suddenly realised that we had got in someone else's similar-coloured car parked beside our car! We quickly got out, hoped no one saw, and drove away back to Johanna's house.

We got back, ate some food prepared by everyone, and relaxed with some drinks. I collected the receipts to prepare for collecting the money from everyone, but was reminded that because it was the long weekend, we still have another day to sort everything out. I relaxed, chatted, and went to sleep just after midnight to rest after such a long day and to prepare for the next day here.

Back from China!

2010-01-10T21:37:00.000-08:00

(Originally posted on my deviantART account at mandarinmanmark.deviantart.com)

I just got back from China yesterday after a three week vacation. The return trip took me over 20 hours door-to-door! To get from my dad's flat in Suzhou to my flat in Auckland, I took a taxi, a train, a subway, a maglev(!), a three hour flight, an 11 hour flight, then a bus, all without any sleep! So I was exhausted when I got back, and slept for 12 hours, being awoken by my alarm clock for work.

I had a good vacation, although I was sick for two of the three weeks! I got bad food poisoning the first week, and as I was just about recovered, I ended up with a bad cold! Well, at least the last week was OK, although it had its share of problems!

I ended up visiting, in chronological order, Macau (UNESCO World Heritage Site), Zhuhai, Kaiping (UNESCO World Heritage Site), Hong Kong, Suzhou, Xidi and Hongcun (UNESCO World Heritage Site), Huangshan (UNESCO World Heritage Site), Hangzhou, Beijing, and Shanghai. I had 5 flights (including a two-segment one), an overnight train ride, three long-distance bus rides, and 5 long ferry rides, making a total of 5 border crossings, not including a transfer in a different territory. All in all, a surprisingly busy trip!

Anyway, I will start processing the photos from this trip and writing about it in my travelogue at mandarinmanmark.blogspot.com, although it may take a while for me to start working on my China trip info.

See you guys around dA!
- Mark

Whakaari / White Island

2009-12-06T22:59:00.000-08:00

Saturday, 31 November 2009, I arrived at the Foodtown on Quay Street. This weekend, I am going on a trip to Whakaari, also known as White Island, with a total of seven Couchsurfers from Auckland. The plan is to couchsurf at Grant's place in Tirohanga, about seven kilometres east of the district centre of Opotiki, which is about 45 kilometres east of Whakatane. The original plan was to meet at 4:30am as we were originally going to visit the island on Saturday, but thankfully, due to a booking mix-up, we now have our trip booked for Sunday, which means that we can meet at 8:30am instead as we are spending the night in Tirohanga. I gathered the Couchsurfers to be picked up here, Alejandra from Mexico, and Mita from India, both temporarily living in Auckland. Eventually, Kirin, one of the Couchsurfing ambassadors for the city showed up and we were on our way.

We settled into a long drive, about 300 kilometres to Whakatane. With the small, single-lane Kiwi roads, this drive takes around four hours. About 40 kilometres outside of Auckland, I saw the Bombay Hills for the first time. These ranges, near the town of Pukekohe, mark the divide between Auckland Region and Wiakato Region. A bit further along, traffic got a bit heavier as we drove around the Hamilton area, but it was still pretty smooth sailing. As expected, traffic was light once outside of the Auckland region. We drove over the Kaimai Ranges, and although not very tall, the hills were very abrupt, making for some spectacular views down the edges of the road. After a brief stop at Te Puke to get some cash and to contact the other parties, we continued on. Apparently, this area is considered the kiwifruit capital of the world, with the countryside covered with orchards filled with kiwifruit vines.

Eventually, we made it to Whakatane after driving through an area where the road was sandwiched between the sea and some sandy-looking cliffs in which there were holes with birds flying in and out of them. The pōhutukawa trees, which are colloquially called Christmas trees as they bloom around Christmas time, were also starting to bloom. From this road, we could see the small hilly Motuhora Island and White Island in the distance, low in the water. Here, we met up with the other car from Auckland, with carried a Kiwi, a Frenchman and a Canadian. We also met with an American living out of his car in Whakatane, looking for a way to get a job and a work visa so that he can continue to stay in New Zealand. We all grabbed lunch together in Whakatane, where I realised that food prices here are much lower than they are in Auckland. After a long and disorganised shopping trip here, we headed off to Grant's place in Tirohanga, where Kirin organised a Couchsurfing BBQ. As the plan was to have nearly 20 Couchsurfers there, I joked that this must be the largest Couchsurfing invasion of a town in New Zealand by proportion, as Tirohanga is only home to 1,200 residents. On the way over, we drove through some beautiful fern covered gorges carved out by a surprisingly small river.

As we arrived at Grant's place, we found that he already had two Couchsurfers staying with him, one from the US, one from France. After a visit to the beach, which is just behind his house, we all worked together in the kitchen to prepare a large dinner. As the night went on, more Couchsurfers trickled in, and it grew to be quite a large party. We also enjoyed the company of Bruno, a black Labrador Retriever, who was very social and energetic. During the evening, Grant took us down the road to his avocado orchard, where he showed us his avocado trees and how he cared for them. He even brought out his Hydraladder cherry picker, showed us the controls, and allowed us to take turns trying to operate the machine! On the Hydraladder, I was able to see the ocean in the distance and have a great view of the surrounding orchards and mist-covered hills. We also toured the octagonal house he built there, one of the nearly ten houses that he designed and built himself. It was quite a nice living space, and I could see a family living here quite comfortably among the avocado trees and ocean views.

As dinner was ready, we gathered in the back yard out of the rain under a huge rain shelter made from four posts and some kind of fabric. It turns out that Grant was religious and decided that we should say grace. With his suggestion, we did it in as many languages as people knew, including English, French, Mandarin Chinese (in which I tried my best, and it turned out better than I thought), Spanish, Hindi, and Swedish. Although I am not religious, I found it was quite a rewarding experience, having so many cultures brought together in this tiny town in New Zealand. It was a great meal, with steak, chicken, sausages, salad, potatoes, a variety of roast vegetables, and a giant pot of steamed mussels, not to mention beer and wine. After dinner, I stood there talking with people while slowly picking at the mussels. These mussels were really tasty, large and fresh. This must be because New Zealand is a large producer of mussels so that the ones we get here are of very high quality, especially considering how unpolluted the local waters are. It also turns out that the mussels in New Zealand are of a local variety, the New Zealand Green-Lipped Mussel, which may account for the size and taste difference, although I would imagine that at this point, these should be cultured elsewhere as well.

I spent the rest of the time after dinner chatting with various Couchsurfers and hanging out. Some of the Couchsurfers were hanging out by the bathtub in the yard with a fire under it to heat the bath, which is apparently pretty common in these parts. It seems that life here is very simple, and there are uses for everything. Paper towels were thrown into the fire, the mussel shells went into the compost bin, and food scraps and bones became Bruno's dinner.

Inside, I got into a conversation with Katrina, or Kat, the Canadian Couchsurfer from the other car, and a Canadian neighbour who moved to New Zealand twenty years ago. We found out that all three of us were teachers, and Kat remarked that all the Canadians she met in New Zealand were teachers as well! I wonder if this was a coincidence, or if many Canadians come to New Zealand to teach. As it came time to sleep, everyone found a surface to sleep on. It turns out that Grant has two guest bedrooms available, with some Couchsurfers setting up tents outside. Although Grant offered the use of his farmhouse as well, everyone decided to stay around the house, which accommodated the large numbers surprisingly well. I slept on one of the small mattresses in the living room.

I woke up at around 7am to the sound of breakfast in the kitchen after a short night of sleep. Having toast with jam, I looked out the front door to see steep emerald green hills covered by mist near the top, just beyond some pastures filled with grazing cattle. On the other side of the house was the path leading down to the beach. As we had breakfast, Grant went for his morning run, so we said good-bye. I was very impressed that Grant would trust leaving his house to over a dozen Couchsurfers, but he seems like a very laid-back guy, and has let Couchsurfers use his house before even when he wasn't there!

After breakfast, the Couchsurfers who were going to White Island packed into the cars and started towards Whakatane, where we were catching our boat. Today, we tried a different route, Highway 2, instead of the coastal route we took last night. After a delay caused by a wrong turn down a narrow road into a park, we were quickly on our way. I was enthralled by the scenes of green hills filled with fern trees rising above peaceful farmland. I thought this would be a great area to live for someone looking for a quiet, peaceful life.

After a short wait, everything was sorted, and trading in our strange metallic cones we obtained from the tour company desk, we boarded the boat for White Island. Sitting at the back of the boat, I watched the boat pull out of the harbour at Whakatane, past the Wairaka statue, the symbol of the town. As we pulled out of the harbour, the boat became shaky amid breaking waves. I made sure to enjoy these waves as the boat rocked back and forth. Little did I know that this was only a taste of what is going to be the best boat ride of my life!

As we headed out to sea, a few Couchsurfers and I walked up to the bow. We sat by the windows of the cabin looking out at the bow, enjoying the view of the open ocean ahead. As the boat sped up, the waves also increased in size. Eventually it got to the point where I became concerned that my bag might fall overboard, so I walked back to check. Walking along the outside deck, I had to hang on tight with both hands to prevent myself from falling over. Whenever the boat struck a wave, a solid wall of water would shoot up beside me up to my head to curl away and fall back into the ocean. When I was satisfied that my bag was stored safely, I carefully made my way back to the bow, where my seat had been taken. No matter, I sat at the very tip of the bow, on the right side. Although I now have to turn a bit to look ahead, this turned out to be the best seat on the boat!

The waves kept getting bigger and bigger. Eventually, the spray from the waves washed over the entire front section of the bow, with the exception of the very tip! The right side was slightly drier than the left due to the wind direction. Almost everyone who stayed were soaked, except for me, who was nice and dry with my camera, having a blast! By this time, many of the Couchsurfers had gone back to the back of the boat, and at least one person even fell over on the deck even though she was holding on tight to the handrails. I watched as the spray off the bow became taller and more violent. Eventually, the spray would consistently soak even the second floor deck of the boat. I had a blast leaning out in front of the bow, watching as the bow bounced off the waves. It was like riding a roller coaster, complete with having my butt leave the seat with particularly large waves. This went on for one and a half hours. While I was having the best and most exciting experience since arriving in New Zealand, a few of the other Couchsurfers were sick, including one who threw up. It turns that he wasn't the only one who threw up on that boat.

White Island slowly rose out of the ocean as we approached. When we were close enough, we can see that the island was giving off periodic puffs of smoke, which drifted slowly away from the island to the east. Sailing past the gannett colonies on green slopes which lead into trecherous cliffs, we could suddenly see into the crater and the constant steam rising from it. As our boat anchored itself offshore, we were taken in groups to shore on an inflatable dinghy, with the seasick people getting offloaded first.

The crater is a completely different world. It looked devoid of life, reeked of sulphur, and steam was pouring out of the fumaroles all around the crater. The floor of the crater is criss-crossed by dozens of streams ranging from light turquoise to a dark maroon gushing out of openings in the rocks. Given a helmet and a gas mask, we followed our guides for a walking tour of the volcano. Apparently, the previous eruption had not been predicted successfully, but luckily it happened late in the day when the tour was not running. With this in mind, we were given the instructions to duck behind the steaming mounds of earth lying around and put on our gas masks in the case of an eruption.

The tour took us around the crater past various fumaroles and streams, some of which we were told to avoid touching due to high concentrations of sulphuric acid. One of the streams contained water which we could taste, although as I was far back in the line of people at that time, I didn't see the exact stream the guide was pointing to and didn't want to risk tasting the wrong stream! Supposedly it tastes kind of like blood due to the iron and various other elements, such as gold and arsenic, that it contained. The tour took us up to the main fumarole, which was surrounded by boiling mud. The sounds of the fumarole, with a large volume of gas coming out of it at high speeds, made a sound that reminded me of a jet engine. Luckily for us, the winds were kind that day so that the steam was blowing away from us, allowing us a clear view. However, I decided to keep my mask on most of the time as I was developing quite a sore throat even with the candies they gave us to promote salivation.

The tour continued to the edge of a cliff leading to a large lake at the back of the crater. The pale yellow-green water was churning and steaming so that the entire lake crater was spilling over with a white mist. Supposedly this was an extremely acidic lake, with a pH of less then one. We were also told about how the level and colour of the lake changed over time as well. Although the lake is currently yellow-green, it was light blue just a year or so ago, and was very low. At one point, the lake was so full that geologists were even concerned that the lake could overflow and cause a lahar of acid into the surrounding waters!

On our walk back to the old dock, we passed many other sights such steaming mounds, more pools of boiling mud, colourful streams, and a variety of different gas vents. I found a cute tiny gas vent on the path puffing out steam and creating a delicate tower of sulphur crystals around itself. The tour ended with a stop at the corroded mining facility which had been abandoned decades ago after an eruption killed the workers there. While the metal machinery there had been heavily corroded, the wood beams were surprisingly well-preserved, possibly due to the lack of microorganisms due to the toxic atmosphere. In fact, our guides tell us that they switched to polyester uniforms as the cotton ones would get corroded away very quickly.

We had lunch aboard the ship. Enjoying the outside deck on the second floor, I noticed a sharp delineation between the murky waters near the coast and the clear waters of the ocean. There were also bubbles all around the area, which I learned was due to underwater vents around the volcano. As we sailed back, the weather was much nicer, although I still got soaked by standing near the front of the second floor external deck. I also enjoyed watching the wildlife around the boat, which included seabirds skimming along the waves and giant jellyfish as we entered the harbour. We noticed that there are many people with snorkels in the water near buckets on shore, which we assumed must mean there is something tasty that can be collected here.

On the drive back, we stopped in Mount Manganui, a hip beach town located on a penninsula tipped by the dominating Mount Manganui, for dinner and to see the beach. Although we wanted to watch the sunset from the mountain, Kirin realised that he had a Couchsurfer waiting in Auckland, so we drove back right after dinner. It was quite a nice drive with a few more sights to see out the car along the way, including the large L&P bottle in Paeroa. All in all, quite a rewarding and exciting weekend.

Shelly Beach and Rainy Day Around Auckland

2009-11-30T01:22:00.000-08:00

On Friday the 20th of November, the school that I work for, Media Design School, had a Christmas party. Of course, this led to everyone staying out very late. I had a lot of fun seeing a few different bars and clubs around central Auckland after the official party. I particularly enjoyed a club called forté on Fort Lane, which was techno themed and had lasers casting dots on everything inside. In any case, I did not expect to do anything the next day, as I assume that both Steffan and I would want to rest for the day as we got back at nearly 4am.

Saturday, I was lazy and laid in bed until almost 2pm, trying to get as much rest as I possibly can. When I popped online, Steffan was there, and within half an hour, we were out the door. The weather was decent, so we decided to drive towards the west coast to explore the surroundings there, as we had visited the east coast for the past two weekends. Although we were hungry, we decided that we would try to find a place outside of Auckland to eat, as we could eat in Auckland at any time.

It turns out that we did not encounter any significant towns until all the way to Helensville, about 50 kilometres north-west on Highway 16. We literally walked from one end of Helensville to the other while looking for food. Unfortunately, it turns out that the restaurants and cafés in the tiny town were generally open to only 3pm. After a series of direction asking, leading us from the information centre to a café at the train station, we finally came across a restaurant that was open, the Art Stop Café at the southern end of town. Helensville, a town of just over 2500 residents, set below rolling green hills filled with sheep on the banks of the meandering Kaipara River, is the idyllic Kiwi small-town. I felt much better after a breakfast chicken sandwich with ham, which was much better and filling than I had expected.

After lunch, we decided to follow a map we picked up at the information centre towards Shelly Beach on the peninsula that leads up to South Head, where there are some lakes and large sand dunes. We decided to go to Shelly Beach as it appeared to be a location of interest, with photos in the information centre and a special mention on the map.

Unfortunately, when we should have turned onto a smaller road just outside of Helensville, we continued up Highway 16 towards Kaukapakapa, which one electronic sign referred to hilariously as "KKK." We realised that we were heading the wrong way just before reaching Kaukapakapa, 12 kilometres outside of Helensville, but decided to continue on for a little bit more, as there was a "scenic overlook" just beyond the town, according to a distance marking sign just outside of Helensville. We figured that if the scenic overlook was posted nearly 15 kilometres away, it must be a good one. When we arrived, we discovered that although the overlook did provide some views of the southern portion of Kaipara Harbour, the largest enclosed harbour in the Southern Hemisphere, the view was nothing to be excited over, definitely not worth posting about 15 kilometres in advance on an official road sign! I guess there is just not that much out here of mention in the boonies of Rodney District.

We doubled back and turned onto the correct route for Shelly Beach. As we drove on, the landscape became filled with farmland and native bush. We started entering stretches of ten minutes or more without seeing anyone else on the roads. It turns out that this part of Rodney District is one of the least populated areas within a short driving distance from Auckland, and it really does show. Eventually, the road led us to the small community of Shelly Beach on the shores of the Kaipara Harbour.

We arrived at Shelly Beach during high tide, so it was not very impressive at first glance. The beach is very narrow by the park, and there are some spots for tents and camper vans to park. However, Shelly Beach is quite appropriately named, as the beach by the water was completely covered in shells. Steffan and I strolled along the beach, and walking up a path, found a grassy park with gum trees leading to a small, informal neighbourhood of what appeared to be simple vacation homes. We attempted to follow a path down to a cove we saw from the park, but when this turned out to be a residential driveway, we retraced our steps back to the beach to follow the shore instead.

Following the shore past some rocks, we reached the more unique parts of Shelly Beach, although I cannot say that I really enjoyed it. The shores around Shelly Beach consist of vast areas of mudflats covered in a thick layer of gooey mud. I found it quite disgusting to walk through the mud, and I didn't have clean water to wash the mud off my feet as the water was so murky that I couldn't see past a few centimetres below the surface. As we were walking, we encountered a group of Māori kids with what appears to be a digging tool and a bag filled with shellfish. All along the muddy shore, we encountered shells and the occasional jellyfish.

Eventually, we found ourselves a few coves away from Shelly Beach. At this point, we were also quite far from the shore, across what appeared to be a large lagoon. There is a mysterious black gooey strand-like substance covering the plants in the lagoon, and there appeared to be thick layers of mud which formed wall, towers, and hidden mud wells below the sand. Although this mud looked solid, it was nearly impossible to predict where the ground would be solid and where your entire foot would sink in. Luckily, I had my shoes off, but Steffan's shoes and parts of his socks were completely covered in mud by the end of the trip. It was also hilarious that he had just cleaned his shoes off at a log a few steps before the worst section where his entire foot sank into the mud and his shoes became too muddy to even attempt cleaning. I was very careful to not step in the wrong place, as the mud has a strange soft consistency, was grey like concrete on top, and black like charcoal a few centimetres below the surface. I am still trying to figure out what causes mud like this, as I had not seen this before. I certainly hope it is not the pollution from the nearly farms.

Soon, it became too difficult to walk along the mudflats, so we decided to turn back. We took the first set of stairs we found leading up the shore. We were surprised to meet a local walking his dog on the mudflats on the way back, but he had hiking boots on, and seemed unfazed by the mud. He immediately asked us if we were from Auckland. I wonder if he knew that by seeing how muddy Steffan's shoes were, as it looked quite obvious that he had not prepared for the mud.

The stairs led to a concrete path among grassy lots and a few houses. There was a lot of construction around the area, and the path eventually turned into a sidewalk in a tiny neighbourhood that looked like modern suburbia in my home town of Richmond Hill, a suburb of Toronto. This path soon took us back to the park, which led us back to where we had parked. When we got back, the beach was much wider, although the newly exposed areas looked suspiciously like the mud we had just walked through.

Seeing that the sun was setting, we drove back to Auckland while Steffan and I had some even more deep conversations about our histories. When we got back to Auckland, I suggested checking out the Korean restaurants on upper Queen Street. We found one that appeared to be open, and happily discovered that it was open until 4am. We had dinner, soju, and numerous Korean beers among a good crowd of Koreans doing the same thing. We were surprised at how much alcohol some of the other parties had to drink. All in all, it was a good Saturday, and I went to bed happy.

Sunday turned out to be very gloomy and rainy. Still not feeling like staying indoors all day, Steffan and I decided to drive around. Seeing that we were both hungry, we decided to drive to Sylvia Park, the largest mall complex in Auckland. In fact, Sylvia Park had held the title of New Zealand's largest shopping mall for a short while until Westfield Albany opened in North Shore. However, with future expansion plans, Sylvia Park is likely to regain the title of New Zealand's largest mall, both in terms of floor area and number of stores, which it currently holds.

Although I like exploring areas with local culture, Sylvia Park felt surprisingly comfortable to me, as it reminded me of the large shopping mall complexes back home. It was no different than large malls of North America. It was clean, shiny, and surprisingly crowded. I joked that it seems like everyone in Auckland was walking around in the mall. With just over 200 shops, Sylvia Park was also quite large, although nowhere as large as the biggest of the malls I used to visit in North America. The mall was built to be very easy to access, and actually straddles a motorway and is located just beside a train station which connects directly to Britomart in central Auckland. I felt like a sell-out enjoying such a commercial space so much, but I suppose it did remind me of home. As with everywhere else in the Auckland region, its food court had a surprisingly large amount of choice compared to the food courts of North America. I had a delicious Indian curry and vegetable pakora for lunch.

After lunch, we resumed driving around. We drove through Otahuhu, Papatoetoe, Manukau, and arrived at the Auckland Airport. Some of the areas we drove through are considered some of the worst neighbourhoods of Auckland, and the buildings there did look obviously run down. When we got to the airport, I found that it was in fact more than just an airport, as they owned the land around the airport as well, which had been developed to have recreational facilities as well as shopping centres. In fact, Auckland Airport Limited is the third largest company listed on the New Zealand Exchange, measured in terms of market capitalisation. Here, we found a parking lot and observation area on the motorway located only a few hundred metres from the end of the runway. We sat there, with a surprisingly large number of others, watching the planes land. The majority of the planes we saw were small planes operated by Air New Zealand, but we did see a few large jets, including a Boeing 747. We wondered from what far-away place this plane has just flown in from.

Driving back, we stopped at small market between Manukau and Auckland which caught our eyes. It was located in a neighbourhood with a lot of Muslims. I picked up some spices, snacks, and drinks from the market. After spending far too long at the market considering its size, we decided that it was still too bright to go home.

We drove around and ended up at Point Chevalier, west of central Auckland. It was a relatively uneventful neighbourhood other than a park by the water. Although there was a beach, it was filled with rubbish and broken glass. We walked around the rocks a little, and found some interesting smooth rock formations, probably the work of water and wind erosion. There were also walls built into the rocks here, which we assumed to be breakwaters to prevent further erosion.

From here, there was a beautiful view of the Auckland Harbour Bridge against the backdrop of Rangitoto Island. The skyline of Auckland was visible to the right, with the tip of the Sky Tower poking into the low clouds. Since it was low tide, we could also see Meola Reef, also known as Te Tokaroa Reef. Meola Reef is a finger of land stretching two kilometres off the shore from the Auckland side of the harbour, stopping at within 500 metres of the northern shore. It was formed 20,000 years ago by a ten kilometre long lava flow from the Three Kings. I thought it might be cool to walk to the tip of the reef at high tide, but hearing that this area used to be the city's dump decades ago turned me of the idea.

On the way back, we made a brief stop at the park in Western Springs, where the water supply of Auckland used to be sourced from. The park was very pretty, filled with pūkekos, swans, and other birds. There was a beautiful pond in the middle of the park. The park is situated just beside the zoo, so that looking through some holes in the fence, we could catch a glimpse of a few zoo animals inside. While walking around, Steffan charged at a group of pūkekos, who all ran away which making a funny screaming sound which made Steffan feel bad. As we were leaving the park, we could hear the lions roaring against the darkening sky to announce their presence. It was a surprisingly low and reverberating sound which carried very well in the light breeze. We ended the day with a few drinks at The Chapel, a bar in Ponsonby, where there is a beautiful view of Auckland. We wished that the weekend could be longer so that we could fit more exploration in to each week.

Shakespear Regional Park

2009-11-22T23:49:00.001-08:00

15 November, 2009. Steffan and I decided to take another day trip. Looking at Google Maps, we thought we would head to Shakespear Regional Park, located on the tip of the Whangaparaoa Peninsula, just a bit south of Wenderholm, where we visited last week. The Whangaparaoa Peninsula is a thin finger of land stretching eastward into Hauraki Gulf. It ends just three kilometres short of Tiritiri Matangi Island, which I decided would make a cool kayak trip one day, especially considering that Whangaparaoa is Māori for "Bay of Whales," as whales and dolphins visit this area regularly. For us, we were looking forward to another relaxing day exploring the spectacular scenery that the Auckland region has to offer.

The day started off rainy and gloomy, but we hoped for the best, as the weather in Auckland changes very quickly with both temporal and spacial dimensions (Kind of reminds me of quantum physics. So what if I'm a nerd?). As we drove, the weather did get a bit better. The rain turned into mist and eventually stopped. This time, we did not stop at a supermarket for quite a while. When we did finally stop, it was in the town of Whangaparaoa at the base of the peninsula. Whangaparaoa sits at the southern edge of the Hibiscus Coast, a coastal area covering about 25 kilometres of the Auckland region. The main population centre of this costal region is the built-up area stretching from Whangaparaoa to Orewa, where the majority of the 28,000 residents of the Hibiscus Coast reside. The Foodtown in Whangaparaoa was located in a small but surprisingly busy mall in the centre of town. Driving past here, the roads suddenly become more empty.

After a brief stop at Army Bay, where cars were parked on the sand and there appeared to be fishermen on the rocks in the distance, we tried to drive farther in to the park. It turns out we should have taken an earlier turn-off to take a road deeper into the park. Taking the road that we did, we ended up at the Waterfall Gully trail head lot at the western edge of the park. Here, there are numerous pūkekos wandering around, some of them approaching us curiously, probably trying to see if we had food to give them. I found these birds to be very interesting, with their purple body and exceeding long legs. I started calling them "tasty birds" as they looked like they could be quite delicious. However, it turns out that the Māori consider them to be a poor choice for food as the meat is supposedly sinew and tough. Still, I would love to try one someday as they do look quite tasty in my opinion.

We followed the Heritage Trail, which is a long trail that goes all around the park. Our first stop was down a spur track leading to Waterfall Gully, where there was a relatively large horseshoe shaped rock wall with water trickling down into a shallow pool at the head of a stream. The water looked amazingly disgusting, but the sound of the waterfall combined with the sounds of exotic birds and insects chirping set to the backdrop of a lush jungle-like forest was quite pleasing. I was especially impressed by some enormous gnarly trees with branches spread all over the canopy. These branches support numerous small epiphytes growing on the branches at various intervals. I am still working on identifying what species these trees and epiphytes are.

Continuing up the track leads to sections with various plant life and birds. There were small streams and bridges. The dense jungle with fern trees and various birds made me feel as if we were quite deep in some kind of tropical forest, but I knew that this was only a small patch of growth on the Whangaparaoa Peninsula, close to home (or at least my home in Auckland). There was one section filled with thick tangles of supplejack, which looked like thick black vines, stretching from the ground up to the canopy, sometimes forming thick interwoven strands 20 or 30 centimetres wide. They felt quite hard and woody to the touch. As I said to Steffan, as long as they don't start moving, I'm OK with them. Apparently, supplejack can be used to make a variety of things, from rope to fishing nets to baskets, and the roots is even used as a flavouring in beer.

As the track travelled east and up a hill, we suddenly found ourselves spat out of the forest and in front of a series of large fields, some with sheep and cows in them. Walking toward a wooden watchtower built around a water cistern, we came across a gate and a sign which told us that these farms belongs to us as well, as a part of New Zealand heritage. It turns out that parts of this park also serves as a working farm, with many of the tracks going right through the fields. One has to be careful to shut the gate behind them to make sure no livestock escapes. I thought having a "public" farm was a very cool idea, and had not seen anything like this in North America. Overall, I have found New Zealand to be much more laid-back in terms of safety, as people do not expect others to sue over the smallest things here.

When we reached the lookout, it was windy and started to drizzle. However, the weather quickly cleared up again, and we were even treated to small periods of sun and blue sky. In the distance, we could see the Barrier Islands, beyond which is open ocean all the way back home to North America. Closer to shore, we could clearly see the features on Tiritiri Matangi just across a small channel of water. On another side, we could see Rangitoto, and when the rain wasn't blowing around in the distance, we could even see the faint outline of the Sky Tower surrounded by the skyscrapers of Auckland City and North Shore City. We sat at a bench sheltered against the wind by the observation tower to have our lunch.

The weather continued to improve, and it became quite warm and pleasant. Walking south through the fields, picking our way through the animal dung, we arrived at Te Haruhi Bay, set along some grassy areas filled with pūkekos, which I tried to chase down and take photos of. I find it really hilarious how the pūkekos seem like they just try to nonchalantly avoid you as you approach, and then try harder to avoid you when they see you following them. Unfortunately, we travelled south from the observation tower, so we missed Pink Beach on the western edge of the park, set below rocky cliffs, from what I can tell from the map. We also could not enter the area to the north, as that served as a training ground for the Ministry of Defence (although it is possible to walk around the coast on the rocks at low tide and when the red flags signalling the use of live rounds are down).

We followed the beach at Te Haruhi Bay towards the east. This beach is filled with these long, narrow, conical shells. I was quite fascinated to discover that it appears as if each beach here has their own mix of types of shells. We followed the beach onto the rocks, which are surprisingly smooth here. There are many interesting rock formations, such as curved and folded striations along the rocky cliff, rocks with bubbles in them, and some rocks that looks like they are enveloped in other rocks. These are no doubt the result of extensive volcanic activity in the area. There is a very interesting section where the rocks form multiple mini-islands that you can walk around on if you hop over the water channels. Although I had a lot of fun, my pants got soaked from unexpected waves there. The rocks around this area also has strange bubble patterns embedded into it, which Steffan thought resembles animal prints at first glance. As we walked farther, we came across some fishermen on the rocks, beyond which is a deep channel of water that looked passable only if we are willing to get soaked or if we waited for low tide. I wonder how much it would suck if people decided to take the three hour walk around the peninsula at the wrong time and realise that they had to backtrack after getting so close to the beach at Te Haruhi. As we headed back across the rocks, we came across a black bird with a red beak furiously squawking at us for some reason. I was afraid that it would dive-bomb us if we got too close. As we got back near the beach, we realised that the tide had risen, and we ended up having to climb over the branches of some trees so that we didn't get too wet. I made a mental note to be more aware of the tide here, after running into tide-related problems for the second time in New Zealand.

We followed the Heritage Track back towards the car through the southern section of the park. We came across an old wool house and an old pillbox that was constructed as part of the defence fortifications during World War II. The track in this section is laid out in a very cool format. There is no actual track for most of it, but the path is made up of wooden poles painted with colours every few dozen metres. They are spaced at such a distance that each time you approached a pole, you would wonder where you needed to go next, and after a few seconds of looking, you would find your next way-point just before arriving at the marker. Because of this, the poles appeared to be placed in some very random locations.

This section of the track also led us through paddocks filled with sheep, who were grazing among the pūkekos. At first, I was quite apprehensive about approaching sheep, but Steffan said that generally, sheep are pretty safe to be around. Apparently everyone in New Zealand has been around sheep at some point. For a good portion of the walk, were were scattering sheep in all directions as we walked through the flocks grazing in the paddocks. They would sometimes look at us and bleat, but the worst they did to us was left us dried poop on the fields which we had to avoid. I wonder if anyone came to steal sheep here, as I did not see anyone else around, and there were dirt roads right beyond the fences and gates. I certainly hope that nothing dodgy happens in these fields at night.

The track eventually dumped us at Okoromai Bay, where there is a beach filled with shells. There are signs all over stating the limit on now much fish and shellfish could be gathered per person per day, which got me thinking that I should organize a shellfish gathering trip sometime. While we were there, there was not much sand visible here as it was all shells. The thick layer of shells even covered part of the grassy field. To be fair though, there may actually be a beach here, just that it is covered up by the high tide at that moment. From here, there is another view of Rangitoto and Auckland.

Walking across the peninsula, which is quite narrow at this point, we returned to the car. We stopped briefly in Matakatia Bay just outside of Shakespear Park to take a view of a curious island, called Kotanui, that looked like a giant cone standing in the water. I though it would be a really fun day to kayak there and climb it - if I knew how to rock climb. As we started driving back on the motorway, it became cloudy and started to rain as Steffan and I talked and got to know each other a bit better. We were glad that we left and returned at just the right time to enjoy a day outdoors without being rained on.

Wenderholm

2009-11-16T23:26:00.000-08:00

Sunday, 8 November, 2009. Over this week at work, I found that Steffan Hooper, a fellow tutor in the Games Department at Media Design School, is also interested in exploring the Auckland area. Steffan is a Kiwi who has been living in Auckland for a few years now, but personal and professional life has kept him busy over the past few years so there are still places in and around Auckland that he has not been to.

Today, we decided to visit Wenderholm Regional Park, situated on a peninsula in the Hauraki Gulf about 40 kilometres north of Auckland. The small spit of land is sandwiched between the Puhoi and Waiwera Rivers. Established in 1965, it is situated around the historical Couldrey House, also known as the "wenderholm," or winter home, as it was constructed to be used as a winter residence by politician and entrepreneur Robert Graham in 1868. We were looking forward to the beaches in the park as well as the numerous tramping tracks through the bush.

Steffan picked me up with his car. Driving over the Auckland Harbour Bridge, which in my opinion is like a lame version of the world-famous Sydney Harbour Bridge, I realized that this was the first time I will be in the North Shore, and in fact, north of Auckland, other than my visit to Muriwai Beach on the west coast a few weeks ago. Even during the weekends, the traffic across the bridge was surprisingly heavy, as this is the only connection between Auckland and North Shore. Apparently the government has been considering a second crossing for quite some time now. Everyone has been complaining that the government did not seem to plan for the long run when the bridge was built. In fact, the bridge has already been expanded once to double it's original size by adding "clip-ons" to both sides of the bridge. This expansion was necessary only ten years after the original bridge was completed in 1959. The cost of the bridge plus the expansion was significantly higher than what it would have cost the government to build an eight-lane bridge.

On the way, we stopped at a Foodtown to pick up some bread, meats, and other picnic foods. I decided that on these trips with Steffan, it would be fair for me to cover the food in exchange for use of Steffan's car, petrol, and driving.

We travelled up the Northern Motorway, Highway 1, which had a brief toll segment with bridges and tunnels. Steffan found this very surprising as he informed me that toll roads are relatively rare in New Zealand. Since the tunnel exits just before the turnoff for the park, we ended up driving too far north and ended up going to Mahurangi Regional Reserve after driving through a very scenic area filled with farmland on rolling hills. As with a lot of roads outside of the cities here, it was very narrow, with grass growing through the crumbling edges of the road, which gave it a very "close-to-nature" feel.

Mahurangi Regional Reserve was not that exciting, or at least the portion that we went to. There was a campground with many camper vans, and a reasonably long but very narrow beach. Around the beach was a grassy area where there were many ducks leading ducklings around. I found these ducks quite amusing, as they had tiny Mohawks on their head. We walked along the beach a bit, and there was a somewhat interesting area under a series of pōhutukawa trees. There were a few boats anchored offshore, and there was a pretty view of the lush green islands and surrounding peninsulas. Framing this view was a giant wooden picture frame with the name of the park written on it. Steffan told me that these are installed in quite a few parks in the area, which I eventually found to be true and quite amusing. Heading back to the car, we saw a map which indicated there was much more to the park, but we decided to head over to Wenderholm Park anyway since there some some beaches we wanted to visit there. I made a note to possibly come back and explore the rest of this park one day, as the map indicated that there was an island you can walk to during low tide! How cool is that? (Note: I later found out that there are quite a few islands in the Auckland area which one can walk to during low tide.)

A bit more of driving brought us to Wenderholm Park. As it turns out, there were a few groups having events there, including a volunteering group and a kayaking competition. This made for quite a full and crowded park. Over the course of our visit, the crowds dissipated, and the park was quite empty by the time we left. There was even a stall selling food, which I was tempted to visit, but felt that we had to eat our picnic food. We sat by the beach, ate, and walked around to explore.

We spent most of the time exploring the northern part of the park, a thin spit of land separating a lagoon and the ocean. On the west side, there were grassy fields and tidal mudflats filled with shells and grounded boats during low tide. I saw some huge, well-formed scallop shells in an area filled with shrubs growing out of the mud forming a thick network of air roots. Separated by a strip of large pōhutukawa trees, the eastern side features a wide, sandy beach looking out at the ocean, with a view of a town in the distance and the top of Rangitoto visible behind a peninsula. At the tip of this spit of land is a channel of fast-flowing water separating this park with Mahurangi. The mud here had a very strange consistency, as the top layer felt like dense foam. With each step, you would sink about 15cm into the sand without disturbing the sand around it, creating well-shaped vertical holes in the sand that do not collapse after stepping out. It took quite a bit of effort walking through here, and it reminded me of walking in deep snow. A bit higher up, near where the tide comes to a stop, is a vast, thick blanket of shells, whole and crushed. Digging into the sand, we discovered that this layer of shell mixed with sand is quite deep. I wonder how long it took to form this shell deposit, and how long these shells have been here. At low tide, the gently sloping peninsula comes to a rounded point quite far from the shore, with the shallow water gently lapping around its edges. From here, we can hear the bleating of the sheep on the farm across the channel.

We walked all along the beach and explored the area. The tide was heading out, which left a vast network of relatively deep channels of flowing water on a very wide beach. I waded through these channels and visited the variety of mini-islands that were carved out in the beach and surrounding mudflats. The southern edge of the beach came to an abrupt end at the base of some tall cliffs. We walked onto the exposed rocks at the base of the cliffs, exploring the variety of sea life in the tidal pools. One of the pools was filled with dozens of hermit crabs living in shells of various shapes, colours, and sizes. They seemed to be busy feeding in groups, but shrunk back into their shells quickly if we passed our hand over the water. The flatter part of this area is covered in a thick layer of Neptune's Necklace seaweed, which are strings of small bumpy beads filled with water, and globe algae, which look like green, wrinkled, thin-walled bladders on the verge of popping. It was quite a strange and creepy sensation to walk on them.

Although we could have walked quite far on these rocks, we decided to turn back as we did not know when the park was going to close. As we walked back towards the car, we came across the historic mansion, already closed for the day. We also found that this is where the tramping tracks start, leading into a dense jungle filled with bird sounds. Since it was too late in the day now, we thought this would make for a great second visit to the park.

We decided to take highway 17 back, as we wanted to visit some of the towns along the Hibiscus Coast. We drove through Waiwera, a tiny village with a thermal spa, and quickly arrived at Orewa, a town at the northern end of a stretch of populated area just north of North Shore City. We stopped here to visit the beach, which was enormous! Although at high tide, the beach is quite narrow and even disappears at some points, at low tide, it is a completely different story. The beach was very wide and long, stretching nearly three kilometres in a straight line. We walked along the north side of the beach and once again, climbed over various strange rock formations.

This time, we found two large caves, which appear to be accessible only during low tide. The inside of the caves were dark and filled with a white sand consisting of crushed seashells. In one of them, there were names of lovers carved into the rocks, which led us to think that dodgy things must happen there from time to time! One of the caves also contained a wall filled with evenly spaced snails, each with a drop of water on it, and each with a very creepy red dot on their shell. Around the area, we found many curious rock formations and blowholes, as well as round tidal pools filled with seaweed. One of these made a gurgling sound when waves forced water up through the hole and reminded me of a giant toilet as it emptied and swirled around.

Walking farther, we came across a beach filled with a dark maroon sand below cliffs where large mansions are situated, many of them with private steps leading down to the beach. I found many good specimens of conch shells here, and collected the best two I can find. We also came across a sea urchin on the beach, empty inside, but the spikes still moved around and responded to touch. As we walked to the end of this area, Hatfields Beach, we decided to turn back as it was starting to get dark.Walking back, I accidentally kicked a sea urchin covered in sand and sent it tumbling. I was scared to look at my foot for a few seconds, but realising that it didn't hurt that much, I was surprised to see that I had luckily escaped any punctures.

As we drove back, we talked about going on weekend outing often to explore the numerous natural treasures of the Auckland region. We both had a great day of wandering around beaches and exploring what the shores of the Auckland Region had to offer.

Waiheke - Day 3

2009-11-01T23:13:00.000-08:00

As expected, I woke up early to the sound of children playing again. I spent my last hour or two in the house talking to Angie as she and the kids were preparing for a large family picnic on the east side of the island. Although I had wanted to see the sparsely populated farming side of the island, I decided that I didn't have time and it would be better to leave the eastern side to another trip. After a quick round of packing, I left the house at the same time that Angie and her family were leaving. My plan is to walk to Matiatia Harbour via Oneroa, enjoying the beaches and the sights along the way. Angie told me that if I was in a hurry for any reason, I can just flag down a car and ask for a ride as hitch-hiking is common practise on the island. I've found this to be very true, as I hitched a ride the day before (unintentionally!) and I've seem hitchhikers waving to the van as we were being driven around by Angie.

The first leg of the walk was pretty and green. I walked in a general western direction and followed any signs pointing to Oneroa I came across. The winding road led me up a large hill where I can see the water and the mainland and through native bush. I noticed that there were trees with yellow fruit on them. I saw kids climb up similar trees to pick the fruit on my walk yesterday. I was tempted to try some, but decided that perhaps I should do some research first. After further research, I decided that these fruit must have been loquats, which is what I had thought they looked like, but didn't realise that they grew on Waiheke. Apparently loquat trees were introduced to New Zealand and have been growing rapidly as a weed ever since.

After some walking, I saw houses on the hills a few hundred metres ahead, signalling to me that I was approaching a town. Luckily, this turned out to be Oneroa, the largest settlement on Waiheke, about six kilometres from Ostend. The first feature I encountered in town was Little Oneroa Beach, separated from the popular Oneroa Beach by yet another group of volcanic rocks. Walking around the beach, I found a path on the very eastern edge of the sand. This path leads straight up the hills around the area to a beautiful lookout. The water looked very inviting in the sunlight. It was blue and crystal clear, showing off the dark coloured volcanic rocks among the sand under the water. I followed this path a bit farther and wandered onto a rocky shore under the shade of a huge pōhutukawa tree. There were two boats under the complex root system chained to the tree. Looking around, I noticed that there was another shore beyond a group of volcanic rocks jutting into the water. I rolled up my pants, took off my sandals and waded through, getting my pants only slightly wet.

Arriving at a private little rocky shore surrounded by impassable cliffs away and volcanic rocks, I felt like I found a cool hideaway. I was happy to know that there are so many beautiful private places around here, only half an hour from Auckland plus a short bus ride. As others have told me, in New Zealand, you can find great little places where nearly no one can be seen, often even within Auckland city itself. I attempted to walk across the volcanic rocks on the other side of the beach, but quickly learned that walking barefoot over jagged volcanic rock is not a great idea! I did get a view to the other side, however, and discovered that lies beyond is just more, steeper volcanic cliffs. What caught my attention, however, was a small channel separating a small island of volcanic rock. I might have been able to wade over without getting wet if I had walked along the cliffs more, but I decided to give it up seeing that I didn't want to get my sandals wet. I figure that I might be back here sometime in the summer with swim trunks on so that I won't have to worry about getting wet while exploring.

I sat at the beach for a long time talking to my mum on the phone. Suddenly, I realised what I was seeing in front of me. A current of water flowing inland! Looking around the rocks, the water looked deeper than before! I decided I had better head back, and it was clear that the tide was rising. Seeing that I had even gotten wet wading over when the tide was lower, I realized that it wasn't looking good! Interrupting my conversation with my mum, I hurriedly put my pack on, rolled my pants up as high as they would go, and decided just to run through the gap as waves were starting to pick up. By the time I got through, my pants were soaked! Now that I was safely back near the path, I climbed up the giant pōhutukawa tree and sat there talking to my mum and enjoying the scenery. There was a family on the rocks about fifty metres away or so, fishing, with the waves lapping at the jagged rocks below. I had to leave after a while of talking, as soon as my pants became dry, since the wind was picking up, the waves intensified, and the sky became darker and darker as a thick bunch of dark clouds slowly approached from the distance.

I explored the surroundings a bit more and discovered that the patch of volcanic rocks between Oneroa Beach and Little Oneroa Beach were impassable without wading into the relatively deep water. I made a mental note to re-visit this area during summer when I can wade around and explore the various stone arches and shallow caves along the shore and in the water. The rocks there also have a very interesting pattern to it and looked like a series of strangely-shaped honeycomb with softer, eroded rocks inside. The walls of the honeycomb structure looked almost like rusted metal. I also enjoyed the view from these volcanic rocks, as there are flat areas here, which formed curious little tidal pools filled with snails, anemones, sea stars, crabs, and a variety of other underwater life. The waves crashing around the edges, throwing up white foamy spray also made for quite a dramatic view. I wondered how scary it would be if I saw a freak wave coming my way.

Returning to the beach, I continued my walk past the town centre, but not before stopping at a lookout at the end of a short trail following a jut of volcanic rock towering over the coast. From there, I could see a series of small beaches surrounded by interesting rock formations such as caves where the ocean lapped into. The town centre is a busy, relative to Waiheke standards, road filled with stores, restaurants, and bars. As with typical Oceania style, there were large awnings protecting the pedestrians from the weather, making you feel quite cosy in this tiny town centre. Following the signs to the Matiatia Ferry terminal, I walked out of town and down a long road. Luckily, the walk back to the harbour was quite enjoyable, as there was a series of tracks built into the surrounding hillside. Apparently I had three choices: the high track, mid track, and low track. After consulting the hand-drawn map, I decided to take the low track as I wanted to catch the next ferry to Auckland and not have to wait another hour for the following one. The trail system was very charming as all the signs were hand-painted. Some of the signs appeared to be nothing more than a few casual scribbles or a message carved into the wood. It made me feel like I had gone back in time or had travelled to some small village in a mystical land.

The tracks led me through bush filled with all kinds of vegetation. I had only seen two groups of people in the entire twenty minutes I walked the track, but I felt surprisingly safe and did not feel scared (expect for one section when I saw some pails and tubes - it probably belonged to whoever takes care of the tracks, but my imagination led me to be afraid of drug plantations). First, the track took me through a section surrounded by flowering tea trees on a grassy hill. It was dark under the trees away from the track. The trail then wound through grove after grove of cabbage trees, ferns, and plants with large, long foliage. It got quite dark in some parts of the track, but I still felt quite comfortable walking there alone. A few minutes from the end of the track, there was a tiny shed whose slanted roof fed into a large overflowing tank of water. A small spur with a sign labelled "pond" led to a tiny pond under a grassy hill hidden from the sun by the foliage of tall trees growing all over. There was a bench beside the pond to take a rest.

The ferry ride back was surprisingly unstable as the waves have grown in size. It was extremely windy. Seeing all of the boats on the sea, I wondered if I could have been in one of these boats if I hadn't taken that ride. It started raining half way to Auckland. I could see across the water that the rain would intensify as we got closer to home. Although most passengers moved down into the covered cabin, a few of us stayed on the exposed deck, some bracing themselves against the wind and rain in small areas on the side of the deck where they can sit under the walls. I found a spot beside a mast holding navigation equipment. This shielded me from most of the wind and rain, and allowed me to still maintain a 360º view of the area, where I can watch as the tall buildings of Auckland grew bigger and less grey as we approached. It started pouring as I got off the boat. By the time I walked home, my sandals were soaked.

Waiheke - Day 2

2009-10-29T01:14:00.000-07:00

I woke up early to the sounds of children playing and screaming. I stayed in bed for a while longer trying to catch up on any sleep I can get. After reluctantly waking up, I hung out with the family for a while waiting for a picnic they had planned with a relative and her kid, Phoenix.

Just before noon, the girls, Phoenix, and I packed into a van and drove to Whakanewha Regional Park and set up a blanket right by the water on a big grassy plane under a series of hills, one of which is a home to a vineyard. As Angie spent time with India, the kids took me up a hill to what used to be an ancient Māori pā. A short hike up a hill through native bush led to a small grassy clearing with a kumara pit. Through the trees around the clearing, I could see Auckland and the surrounding islands in the distance over water. After a short hike through the area and a climb up a large pōhutukawa tree from which I had to lift all the kids down, we walked off the path through the forest back to the grassy plane where we were based.

As it turns out, many of the parks on Waiheke, and Auckland as well, are installed with rudimentary kitchens in the forms of a water tap and large gas cooking griddles built into sturdy-looking brick bases. Over a glass of wine, Angie cooked sausages for the kids and salmon with hoisin sauce for the adults. Lunch was delicious as it also came with a tasty salad with tender greens (and flowers!) in a light sweet fruity vinagrette. The grated beetroot was surprisingly delicious in the salad. After the meal, the kids went swimming and I decided to start on a long, leisurely walk back to the house.

Walking north along Rocky Bay, I encountered a group of volcanic rocks again, which I stepped across to another beach. There was a protected colony of some kind of endangered bird there, along with a beautiful large Pōhutukawa tree. Apparently the Pōhutukawa trees are much healthier on Waiheke Island compared to the mainland due to the fact that they have managed to successfully eliminate opossums on the island. A walk through some pretty parkland surrounded by native New Zealand flora led to the road, which I followed for quite some time. I would run into others once in a while on this road, but it was mostly empty, surrounded by a green sea of grass, trees, palms and ferns. As I came to an intersection, I ended up taking a turn in the wrong direction without realising it.

After a fair bit of walking on a small track beside the road and enjoying views of Rocky Bay as I gained altitude, I came across a nice elderly couple. They asked me directions to a track, which I had no idea about. I though this would be a good opportunity to ask directions to Ostend, where I was couchsurfing, and they told me I was heading in the wrong direction. After handing me a map they picked out of an ant-filled box, we walked together and talked for a while. It turns out that the man came from England decades ago, and settled in New Zealand. He and his wife are on a weekend outing from the Auckland region and had sailed here on their boat. I had wanted to look for an opportunity to see if I can bum a ride back with them, but before I could, we reached the intersection where I took the wrong turn and it was time to part. Just as I was about to bring it up, a van came behind us, which they waved down and asked directions to Ostend for me just to make sure they weren't misdirecting me. The guy driving the van, a photographer who had settled in Waiheke over a decade ago, offered me a ride back, which I decided to take. Jumping in the van, I wondered if I had missed an opportunity to hitch a ride back with the old couple on their sail boat and had missed a great experience and an opportunity to get to know more people in the Auckland Region.

On the drive back, we passed by the Waiheke Dirt Track, where a race was going on. The Waiheke Dirt Track, well know in the area, is a track in a rough oval-pear shape where locals race old cars. There were cars parked all over the area, and kids and adults alike were mingling around the fence jockeying for a view of the cars running around the dusty track. I had meant to stop by on the way back, but had to bypass it as I wanted to learn more about the island through talking to the driver. He drove me all the way back to the house after a quick stop where I helped him load a new BBQ grill into his car from the supermarket in Ostend.

Later on in the day, I went on a walk around the southern shore of Waiheke, which I was told is very different than the north shore. The social make-up of the south shore is also different, and I'm told that as opposed to the large vacation batches of the north shore, the south shore population is "poor as." The walk was generally uneventful. the only points of interest being a swampy area I walked through, filled with air roots sticking out of the muddy ground around the path. I also walked through a hilly area filled, again, with native flora. This area was a quiet residential and farming neighbourhood where I encountered more people riding horses around, and had great views of the coastline. Walking along the shore, I came across a large tongue of water, flowing out from the receding tide, revealing an expansive mudflat where anchored boats became grounded, and the view of the mainland across the water beyond. There were dingy boathouses around here, and some people were sitting around a boathouse playing the guitar and singing songs. Finally, I walked through downtown Ostend, where there were a few restaurants and a sports bar just starting to fill up with cheerful people for the evening.

When I got back to the house, I had a light dinner of fruit with yoghurt along with everyone else before the kids were all put to bed early. Tonight, Phoenix was staying over as well, but luckily, Codi was also away for the night so there was room. I sat and chatted to Angie while she sewed for a while at night, dealing with India who refused to go to bed. Just seeing the interaction of Angie with her kids, especially India, puts a smile on my face as you can tell that although she is exhausted, she is genuinely loving and cares for her children. It made me miss my parents as I get to see them only about once a year. After Angie went to bed, I stood outside on the patio for a while, watching the stars above a valley of gently swaying trees and ferns. I could see the lights of a few houses around, but the area was generally dark if it was not for the moonlight. This was the first time I had watched the stars at night in New Zealand, and I tried to find familiar constellations as well as try spotting new ones visible only in the Southern Hemisphere. After watching the stars for a bit longer out of the window in my room, I went to bed. I didn't want to go to sleep too late as I knew that I would be woken up early in the morning again.