Rock and Pool is Nice and Cool

Ok, I just had to get back on the computer so I could write about this. I’ve had the greatest day ever. EVA! So after writing that last post I found a backpacker’s lodge to stay at called the Little Earth Lodge. It was pouring rain out, so I figured camping wasn’t an option for the night. After getting lost amongst the city streets and getting very frusterated, I eventuallly worked my way out of it and found the Little Earth Lodge nestled in a valley by the Abby Caves. It was so quaint and lovely. Lovely really is the best word to describe it. A very eco-friendly lodge with very suave and modern rooms making one feel very homey and chic. And decent priced too. Jon and his wife Junko, the owners are a very nice couple and were able to cut me a deal on a room since even though i didn’t have a reservation. I got a nice room to myself and was also able to book some scuba diving with them. AH! I get so excited just thinking about it. So the dive I booked was with a company called Dive Tutukaka. It’s about 40 minute drive from the Little Earth Lodge. Jon called the place and booked my in for the next morning. Splendid.

But what is SO great about this dive, is that it’s an all day excursion to the Poor Knight’s Islands!! And for those who may not know, these islands are listed as one of Jacques Cousteau’s top ten diving locations in the world. THE WORLD I SAY! I was looking forward to diving here before I even left PEI and now it was happening. In less than 12 hours. So I went to bed early after making some supper and chatting with a nice couple, Ollie and Natalia, from Switzerland, to get my beauty rest for next day.

I got up around 6:30 packed up. Bathing suit on, sunscreen applied, and lunch packed. I had to be there for 8am for check in. I had a lovely sunrisen drive out to the Tutukaka coast and upon arrival was welcomed by the super friendly staff of the diving crew. I was placed on the boat Calypso along with most of the other advanced certified divers and got sized up for all my dive gear. Now contrary to belief, the waters of New Zealand aren’t all that much warmer than ours. A few degrees I’d say. So we still had to wear the full wet suits, hood and all. No gloves though. We got 2 tanks of O2 since we were doing 2 dives. The staff was so nice and helpful and they really took care of you. I definitely got my money’s worth. We boarded the boat, all of us excited and pumped, got further organized with weight belts and assigning dive buddies. Since I was one of the loners, I got assigned 2 buddies, also advanced divers, that we could do our own navigation and not have to follow along with the guides.

I couldn’t have asked for better dive buddies. Benjamin and Rico. Both German. And just down to earth, funny, nice guys. Benjamin is in his 40’s and travelling NZ solo like me, and Rico is in his early 30’s on a 4 week holiday with his other friend Cantemir, who was also on the boat with us but was a beginner diver. They were all young at heart and one could sworn we had all been friends before. We all got along so swimmingly. No pun intended, hehe. On our way out to the Islands, we stopped and saw a couple of whales! Brutus whales to be exact. So we slowed down and got to watch them surface a few times then finally made it to our first dive location. The Gentle Forest.

We received our drive briefing and some Poor Knight’s history from our captain and suited up. Giddy as school girls, the three of us did our buddy checks, and went over our signals for underwater communication. Oxygen on, and we plunged in. Oh it felt so good to be in the scuba gear again. We descended and I felt at complete ease. it was beautiful. Large kelp forests all around us and a visibility of up to about 20 metres. There were thousands of fish, all beautifully colored. What’s so special about the Poor Knight’s is that for a sub-tropical location, there are many species of underwater creatures that just shouldn’t be there. But there is a tropical ocean current that comes from northern Pacific and passes right through the Poor Knight’s, thus bringing all these species with it and accommodating them with the warm water they need to survive. So needless to say, there were a-plenty. We also stumbled across a couple of short tailed sting rays and some large scorpion fish. Our bottom time was about 45 minutes and was a great first dive.

We surfaced and the dive staff, again, so nice, had hot drinks ready for us on the boat. We had some lunch while taking the boat for a cruise into the world’s biggest sea cave. And it was massive. I felt like I was in the Goonies. Minus the treasure ship. And the acoustics were really cool and we did a couple of fun little sound tests while we were in there. Took lots of pictures that I’m not able to put up today but will soon. After an hour or so, we geared up for the second dive in Nursery Cove. Since Benjamin ad forgotten to take his sweet-ass underwater digital camera with him on the first dive, we were super excited to get in for the second one so we could take some pictures. This dive was a bit shallower than the first, which meant we would be down longer which was good. And more light. And this was the best one. Oh it was amazing. We swam through more kelp, watching fish and giant sea urchins and came to a split in the rock. large enough for us to dive through so we went for it. It always fun enough just diving through a cave or a split and we took tons of pictures. On the other side was more kelp forests and this time we saw 2 Long Tailed Stingrays. These ones are larger and aren’t as shy so we got a really great view of them. We found a moray eel, and later on Rico thought he found another on among the kelp. He excitedly was pointing to it and summoning us over and when we arrived we had come to view a piece of yellow broken coral. It was quite comical to say the least and I couldn’t help but laugh through my regulator. We spent the rest of the dive cruising around the shallower waters and taking silly pictures of each other underwater. We had so much friggin’ fun. After a 55 minute bottom time we surfaced and couldn’t think of anything better to do than give high fives for such a fun dive. We lounged in the water for a bit to celebrate, and also not wanting to get out of the beautiful blueness. And there was dive #38 for me. And I can New Zealand to my diving credentials. That’s pretty sweet.

Before leaving back to the marina, out captain made sure that he took us around to some of the more photogenic areas of the islands for our viewing pleasure. And I sat with my Germans and we laughed and laughed the boat ride away. I also learned to count to 10 in German. We figured that since we all got along so well, we couldn’t let the day stop there. So after logging our dives back at the dive shop we sat down at the nearby restaurant patio, put on some music and drank some beers and ate some fish. Oh and the docks we were at are a big marlin fishing area, so fisherman kept coming in with these HUGE marlins. They did the classic photo-ops and tied the fish by the tail as it hung with its long pointy nose to the ground and smiled. I took a picture too.

Believe it or not, I drank the first beer faster the three grown German men. And I didn’t even notice. “Look at this!” They said, “Only a Canadian girl could win at this!” They were very polite as they would not speak German around me because They knew I didn’t understand and we had some great long conversations about diving, history, and exchanged lots of stories. We stayed till the late hours of the night until Benjamin showed us his hotel room. Which was his car. Oh if you could have seen it. Actually you will. I took a picture, haha. It was too priceless. The guy has a single mattress, a set of small drawers for his clothes and camping tools, a fold out table and chair all in his car. Even a space for food. It was hilarious. He folded out the table and we sat around it drinking beers he pulled out of his car as well and we welcomed us as his first guests. Oh man it was funny.

Benjamin was going for more dives the next day so we left him there in the parking lot to get his sleep, and I booked myself a room in a cheap hostel across the street. I agreed with Rico and Cantemir that we would meet back at the dive shop in the morning so we could go back to Whangarei and have some breakfast. So I met them this morning and we toured around the city for a bit, tired and sun stricken. Not long ago we said our goodbyes as they are heading down to the South Island for a week before heading back to Germany. And I, up to Paiha.

I will never stop being amazed by the wonderful and interesting people I meet from all over the world. This is the life.

Well now I have finally gotten the time to write another post. Also, I have put new pics up from Fiji and of NZ to date. So take a look! Since my last post, I have left Sabina and Chris’s place in Warkworth and headed to the west coast to the town of Kaukapakapa. I have become quite used to driving on the left hand side of the road and used to all the little give ways and whatnot. It was much easier to get used to that I thought. So I drove myself down to Orewa Beach. I checked out some of the shops and laid out on the beach for a while and watched a kite boarder on the waves. I went to a restaurant called the Ship and Anchor to have a beer and treat myself to a big fat ole burger. Not only was I presented with an enormous amount of beef on my plate, but the burger had a fried egg and bacon on it as well. I certainly got my protein fix there. Soon after I made my way to my next farm to stay with Sonnia and Rich and their 3 children Alex, Tobias, and Millie. All under the age of 7. The house was very much in the sticks, after I turned down a dirt road, I had to turn down a further dirt road in order to get to the house. I wasn’t sure what to expect. I arrived at a house in midst of some renovations, but had a room to myself at the side of the house. Next to the dog houses for the 3 dogs. And next to the handicapped boy who like to sing along to the radio all night while jumping on his trampoline. But Rich and Sonnia were really nice folks, they just had some hellian children to deal with.

They have a calf rearing farm and a vegetable garden they use for their own food. They also have some goats, sheep and chickens. Or chooks as they call them here. On the first night there I went with Sonnia to help milk the house cow so there would be milk for the morning. I also helped her make some homemade cheese and that was pretty cool. Over the next couple of days I spent my farm work herding cows in these huge paddocks which was quite entertaining. Man cows shit a lot. It was good exercise and frusterating trying to get the cows to go where you want them to. But we did it eventually. On the weekend, we took out the family boat and went to the Makarau River along with the neighboring family who has 6 children! They like to reproduce in these parts apparently. So we took along the seabiscuit for some fun. The river, to describe it for you you, was muddy, very narrow and twisty, and surrounded by mangroves on both sides. Since I was the heavier of the people riding the seabiscuit, the boat driver had not quite got used to the shift in weight. So there I am, cruising the wake, turning the corner, and there are the mangroves. Coming closer, and closer. Oh crap. BASH! Into the mangroves I go. Frig it hurt at the time. My legs were battered. There is a picture of them if you care to view. Hehe. I also spent some time exploring the local bush walks and old Moari reserves and stumbled upon some gorgeous waterfalls and scenery. The next day I spent out in the paddocks grubbing thistles with a pick axe. Tobias, the 4 year old, came with me and we started to call the thistles Fatties. So Tobias would locate the thistle and I would pick axe away, and he would yell, “GOOD BYE FATTIES!” It was quite entertaining.

The week went by pretty fast, and I decided to leave a day early and spend a night camping in the tent that came with my car. I spent the night on a beachfront lot in Martin’s Bay. I had some very nice neighbors on both sides and they kept me equipped with a few glasses of wine and I spent the evening reading Great Expectations and walking the beach and star gazing. I couldn’t see the big dipper at all and that’s how I knew I really was far from home. But I found Orion, so I knew at least that I was still on planet Earth. Phewf.

I packed up quickly the next morning as I felt some raindrop heading my way and drove down to Leigh. This is where my friend Bree lives. Bree I met in Fiji at the hostel. We got along swimmingly. She lives with two other girls, Suz and Becks, both of which who were finishing up their master’s thesis. They were a little stressed to say the least. But they have this awesome house right on the water with huge windows and wide open doors. It was so nice. Bree and I spent the weekend mostly at the beach and snorkelling at the famous Goat Island. T’was great indeed. Lots of fish and little critters. I also go a tour of the marine lab she works at and can get myself a job there anytime I like to help out in the lab. Not too shabby. Saturday night we convinced Suz to have a couple drinks with us and she took us to the fire station in which she volunteers. Cheap beer and free pool. It was a fun night. We went back to the flat and Bree made some quite stiff cocktails which sent us all to bed in the end. Next day, I went and toured the Tarawhanui National Park. Went on a looong walk. Spent most of the day walking up hills and through paddocks and along coastlines. It was very pretty. To finish it off I went for a dip in Anchor Bay and the water was just perfect. I could have floated around all day. To end of my stay with the girls, Bree and I went up to Matakana to watch a movie in their new cinema. Top of the line. It was so classy! A HUGE chandalier hung from the ceiling and the front row was equipped with real leather, nice and wide, reclining chairs. We couldn’t pass that up so we watched Casino Royale up close and personal.

So that brings me up to today, where I rest in the city of Whangarei. I will be camping for a couple nights in this area. My next action plan is heading to a town called Russel. I made a connection with a man Wilhelm, who is good friends with Sabina, and he has an old summer house up there. He no longer lives there and it has been vacant for some time. I contacted him and made an agreement that I would clean the place up and take care of it for a few weeks, in return to stay there. All is a go and I will be heading there this weekend. I’m excited to have a place to rest for more than a week at a time. Air out that back pack of mine. Again, I wish I could have written more about the all the funny details and happenings that have occured but internet time runs short and my fingers can only go for so long. Thankfully though, I have been doing really well at recording it all by hand in my journal. I have written quite a lot and I know will be fun to read over again in the future. And to think I still I have another 49 weeks to go! Ta ta for now!

Oh how I wish I could update every day. Each day has something new, exciting, funny, and surprising to talk about. I’m still with Sabina and Chris at their place until Wednesday. It’s amazing how comfortable you can become with people you have just met. I already feel like I’ve known them forever. Sabina continues to crack me up with her search for the proper english words. She’s German and her english is very good, but sometimes can’t quite translate certain feelings and it’s funny. And she has a good laugh too. I’ve started to help her out in the massive garden she has in the back. Basic stuff like weeding and whatnot, but she teaches me a lot and tells me lots of stories while doing so. I’m starting to understand more about what permaculture is and it’s a really great concept. It’s about using the land you have and incorporating yourself into it, as opposed to forcing the land to grow what you want. Let the nature of the land tell you what you can grow to its full potential and use everything around you for something else. It’s relaly quite amazing. What else is amazing is how much food you really can grow yourself and make delicious and easy meals. Sabina makes kick ass vegetarian meals. I thought I might have a problem at first with this, but the food is unreal. And all from the gardens. And I’ve actually had no meat since arriving here. Eggs, yes, but no meat. Despite the fact that I am craving a big bloody BBQ’d steak. Hehe. I must say though, I’m feeling healthy. Fresh fruit and veges really do do the body good.

I’ve also made friends with Sabina’s son Alexis and his group of friends as well while I’ve been here. They are a few years younger than I but it’s refreshing to have some youthful people to hang around with when I’m not helping out around the house or in the gardens. Alexis is kind of a lazy dope, really nice though, and reminds me of my brother Ian how he sleeps in until like 3 in the afternoon. but he’s introduced me to his close friends Sam, Sarah, Stew, Eva, and Zac. I went with them one day to the swimming hole, which is an old cement works plant that was made into a freshwater lake and it’s about 30meters deep. It’s really fun to swim in. Instant drop off. Even more so than Tracadie beach. Then the bunch of us watched Stew play some touch rugby and had some beers. Pretty good beers here thus far. Since we’ve all played some poker, went for a late night cemetary walk, and played some pool. Yesterday I walked down to the swimming hole by myself to go for a quick dip. To my surprise a couple of them were down there and I was greeted by a “Hey Ashley!”. It was quite comforting I must say to be greeted by new friends in a new country.

And for my final paragraph of fun, I have made a large decision and acted upon it. While sitting in my room at Sabina’s a few days ago, I was trying to do some further trip planning on where to head to next, what to do/see, et cetera. I was getting slightly stressed and overwhelmed by it all as there is so much to see and do in New Zealand and I want to do as much as possible. I knew I wanted to go to remote places where the buses wouldn’t go and do things at my own pace. So the only rational decision was to buy a car! HA! So yes, I have bought a car. Well tomorrow actually the deal is going down. Alexis told me there was a car fair in Auckland every Sunday morning. So I worked some extra hours on Saturday so I could have Sunday off. I got Alexis’s lazy arse up at 7:30am so he could take me to the car fair. I drove on the way there so that I could practice driving on the left hand side of the road. It’s not so bad. Puts the thinking back into driving. I will need some more practice though, but thankfully people here are slow drivers and there is lots of country side. So after searching the lots for some cheap-o cars, I stumbled upon a couple of Canadian girls from Alberta, selling the car they bought for travelling for the past 6 months. I couldn’t refuse. It’s was reliable for them and got them where they needed without hassel. Old and ugly it may be (a 1984 Mitsubishi Mirage) but work it does. So for 500$ I will have my own car and in it they are inculding a tent, a sleeping bag, a cell phone if i ever want to start one up, and a Lonely Planet guide on New Zealand. Pretty sweet deal if you ask me. Even if it needs some repairs along the way, I’m still doing alright. WOO!

So I’m off, going for a little walk and to purchase some rubber boots. I hope to get more pictures up soon, but I am having no luck finding a place to hook my laptop up to so I can upload them. Soon though. Soon.

Until next time…

HOLY! Ok this post could be long and weird because since my last, one I’ve been in 4 countries. Canada, USA, Fiji, and now New Zealand! I am here and have arrived safely and it is absolutely beautiful. Everyting you would imagine. And the people are just as nice. OK, so here I go…

Vancouver. I loved it. I think I liked it even more than Montreal. It was awesome. The people are nice, they love their city, they love their environment and they love their health. And they hate smoking. The rest of Canada should seriously strive to be like Vancouver. It was great. Ajay and Maneesh picked me up at the bus station and took me on a down town tour of the city and we stopped for some dollar pizza. Oh so good. Spicy chicken and eggplant. Then I stayed at Anne’s house for the night. And for those of you who don’t know, I met Ajay and Anne in Chicoutimi in 2002. Maneesh is Ajay’s brother. The next day, I took the Skytrain to down town and walked around. Had lunch at a delicious deli and continued walking down Davie St. to the water. Davie St. is the gay street, and livened up with pink benches and pink garbage cans. I walked all along the water and the beaches. Yes beaches in the city, which are littered with huge logs that people can sit on. (See flickr) I walked and walked for most of the afternoon and took it all in. It was warm. I arrived back at Anne’s and soon Ajay and Maneesh picked me up for supper. Homemade authentic Indian chicken currymade by Papa Puri (their dad). Soo good. We ate up quick as we were already late for Salsa dancing! We showed up late but learned a few moves and stayed for another hour after to pretend to know what we were doing. Well, Ajay did, but Maneesh and I just kind of shook our hips a lot. But man, there were some pros there! They were so cool to watch. At this point, the curry started to cause a little uproar in my old faithful digestive tract, and I needed remedy fast. Since there were no Tums at the apartment, I was given the Indian cure to indeigestion. Haj Mola. A tiny ball of what looks to be a spice, but defintely does not taste like it. It was powdery and gross, but you know what? It worked. Just like Buckley’s. The next day, we got up and drove out to the Spanish Banks, Wreck Beach, and UBC. After that we had to go to “Brown Town” to get some food for the evening’s potluck at Ajay’s girlfriend, Azar, at her place. We got some Tandoori chicken wings at a Meat/movie store. Quite the combination. So we headed to the potluck, ate and had some beers and then played theatre sports! It was like improv games and we had so much fun and met a lot of really nice people. So to top off the night we were cleaning up and heading for the elevator. This was around 2am. In the elevator was a man wearing a saxophone around his neck. We were so excited! We asked him to play and he said,” OF course! I am drunk and just got my first lap dance! I will play for you!” So he jazzed us up on our elevator ride and it made a perfect ending to a lovely day. The next morning consisted of packing and organizing to leave the country and off I went. FIJI is next!

The flight to L.A was rather uneventful, slept a lot. But the view was pretty cool at night. A lot of lights. The airport was huge and I ended up on a bus taking me to the massive parking lot instead of the international departures. No worries, I found it eventually. waited in a long line with everyone and their dog going to China it seemed. And oddly enough, the guy in front of me was from New Zealand and was going back home. So became quick friends and I asked him lots of questions. We got some food and drank some beers and made fun of the bartender at the airport whie waiting for our flight. Not a good idea to drink 3 pints of beer before heading on a 10 hour flight. Especially when you are in the window seat scrunched next to two large black men. NOT convenient. 10 hours after sleeping uncomfortably and watching “Scoop” about 3 times, I arrived in Nadi, Fiji.

The hostel I had booked, picked me up at the airport, along with 3 Kiwis on thier way home. Katy, Bree, and Josh. We all hung out for the morning, and settled into our hilarious rooms (mine slept 8, their slept 4) And Katy and I started walking looking for the closeest beach. It was like 40 degrees and humid. I was sweaty. So we kept walking and walking and were probably 3/4’s the way there and some random man walking all the sudden became concerned for us. He hailed down the next car, he didn’t even know them and asked them to drive us to the beach. So the two Fijian ladies agreed and dropped us off. They were very nice and funny. Random. So to make the day even more random we walked down the beach and waded the water, for fear that the creepily symmetrical jellyfish were dangerous. So we’re sitting on the beach and a Fijian guy about a little older than us walks up and asks, “You guys like sailing?” Well YEAH! So off he goes, yelling, “Toulee! Toulee!” to some guy moored out on a catamaran. We were feeling it was a little sketchy but weren’t too concerned. Half hour later they row back to pick us up. Abdula and Toulee. All they wanted was some sailing company. So out we go on this catamaran, talking, singing, playing guitar. THEN they stop at a reef so we can all go snorkelling! Like Jesus. how is this really happening. So I spent my afternoon sailing and snorkelling in Fiji. Honestly, could I have asked for anything better? I think not. And all for free too! “Bula” is how you say hello in Fiji and everyone says it to you. No one is creepy or trying to get money out of you. They just sincerely want to help you out and be nice. So on the way back, which we were dreading because it was even hotter and a long walk back, another random car pulls over to drive us into town. We didn’t even stick out our thumbs. Just stopped. I love it! Back to the hostel for food. After food, I walked down by myself to this really cool and colorful Hindi temple that was built in Nadi to take some pictures. I ended up chatting with this spanish guy Jon, who now lives in Sydney and was looking for something to do In Nadi for a bit. So he offered to pay a taxi guy to drive us around for 1/2 hour. So he did. As if the day wasn’t random enough. It was so awesome. Then I went back for a nap as I was up since 5 am. I talked to the lady cleaning the room only to find out that her sister lives in SOURIS, PEI! Small world! So I fell asleep for a few hours, alone in the room, only to wake up to 7 new roomates. All boys. 3 German. 2 American. 1 Belgian. 1 Austrian. It was a stinky room is all I have to say. They were all pleasant though. A nother nice Fijian who worked at the hostel offered to take me to a place to get food so I picked up some food and chatted with the restaurant people. I really still can’t get over how nice people are there. And they love their Fiji. That pretty much ended my short stay in Fiji, but DAMN it was a good one. Really good. Off the next morning in the early hours to NEW ZEALAND.

And here I am, staying with a VERY nice couple Sabina and Chris and a helper Fredritch. They have this amazing house that they built themselves out of untreated lumber and seriosuly use everything to its full potential. It’s very environmentally friendly without being overboard. It’s the kind of house I would love to have. It’s really quite lovely. They have an orchard and vege garden, chickens and a nice deaf dog. I was actually supposed to be staying somewhere else, but they werent expecting me till Friday. So when I arrived and found this out, I quickly found another place to stay. It was so nice of these of folks to take me in so last minute. But since I got severly sunburned in Fiji, ’she doesn’t want me working outside for a couple days. Fine by me because I am in PAIN. Getting better though. So right now I’m helping around the house and talking a lot with Sabina. And for my first night there, Fredritch and his friend Lance took me out to a new restaurant opening in the village where we got free drinks and I made some more connections. People are just way too nice here. “If you ever get stuck, give me a call and you can stay with me.” I really can’t get over it. So after the day of helping around the house, I am now here at the Warkworth library typing my hands off on a paid computer and there are children crying and bawling. So there is my update, I hope you enjoyed. Feel free to email me anytime, dunsford@gmail.com. I don’t promise a speedy reply, but a reply indeed. I miss you all and wish you could be here to see this place for youreslf. Love.