Wednesday, March 29, 2000

Kauri Country

28-Mar-2000 thru 29-Mar-2000

Kauri trees are the largest trees in New Zealand - possibly the second largest trees in the world behind California's mighty sequoia. Northern New Zealand was once covered with Kauris; now less than 0.03% of them remain



 (New Zealand, The Travel Addicts, North Island)
 (New Zealand, The Travel Addicts, North Island)
 (New Zealand, The Travel Addicts, North Island)

A picturesque church on a Morai

SGK calls it "The Allergy Plant".    It is quite common in NZ (New Zealand, The Travel Addicts, North Island)

Pampas Grass
SGK calls it "The Allergy Plant". It is quite common in NZ

 (New Zealand, The Travel Addicts, North Island)

Magic mushroom on the side of a Rimu tree

If you look closely you can see the DR's head poking out (New Zealand, The Travel Addicts, North Island)

The pathway to the giants
If you look closely you can see the DR's head poking out

The dimensions of Tane Mahuta are:.  Trunk Height 17.7m.  Trunk Girth 13.8m.  Total Height 51.5m.  Volume 244.5m³.  .  A nearby sign said:.  In Maori cosmology Tane is the son of Ranginui the Sky Father and Papatuanuku the Earth Mother.   Tane tore his parents apart, breaking their primal embrace, to bring light, space and air and allowing life to flourish.  .  Tane is the life-giver - all living creatures are his children.  .  This is the largest living Kauri tree in New Zealand.   It is difficult to accurately estimate the age of Tane Mahuta.   But, it may be that Tane Mahuta sprang from seed around 2000 years ago, during the lifetime of Christ.   (New Zealand, The Travel Addicts, North Island)

Tane Mahuta - God of the Forest
The dimensions of Tane Mahuta are:.
Trunk Height 17.7m.
Trunk Girth 13.8m.
Total Height 51.5m.
Volume 244.5m³.
A nearby sign said:
In Maori cosmology Tane is the son of Ranginui the Sky Father and Papatuanuku the Earth Mother. Tane tore his parents apart, breaking their primal embrace, to bring light, space and air and allowing life to flourish.
Tane is the life-giver - all living creatures are his children.
This is the largest living Kauri tree in New Zealand. It is difficult to accurately estimate the age of Tane Mahuta. But, it may be that Tane Mahuta sprang from seed around 2000 years ago, during the lifetime of Christ.

 (New Zealand, The Travel Addicts)

Group shot in front of Tane Mahuta

 (New Zealand, The Travel Addicts, North Island)

Inside a felled kauri

 (New Zealand, The Travel Addicts, North Island)

A thistle on a mountainside

 (New Zealand, The Travel Addicts, North Island)

Yes, we are really in New Zealand

 (New Zealand, The Travel Addicts, North Island)

Helen in her wellie's

 (New Zealand, The Travel Addicts, North Island)


Helen and SaraGrace try out the logging equipment

 (New Zealand, The Travel Addicts, North Island)

Here we are with the Bullock team that hauls the logs

 (New Zealand, The Travel Addicts, North Island)

Bullocks

 (New Zealand, The Travel Addicts, North Island)

Typical scenery - 100 years ago this would have been dense forest

Sunday, March 26, 2000

Our Trip To The Bay Of Islands

25-Mar-2000 thru 26-Mar-2000

The Bay of Islands is in Northland; way up north on the northern end of New Zealands North Island and the first sight of both Maori and European settlement in New Zealand.


Group Photo.    SaraGrace, Dr Keenan and I at breakfast (New Zealand, The Travel Addicts, North Island)

SGK, The Dr and I

Graveyard and Church in Russell, Northland, New Zealand (New Zealand, The Travel Addicts, North Island)

The oldest Anglican church in New Zealand

A Yellow flower in the churchyard in Russell, Northland, New Zealand (New Zealand, The Travel Addicts, North Island)

A flower in the churchyard

Boats in the Bay Of Islands, Northland, New Zealand (New Zealand, The Travel Addicts, North Island)
Boat in the Bay Of Islands, Northland, New Zealand (New Zealand, The Travel Addicts, North Island)

Messing about in boats

Cliffs in the Bay Of Islands, Northland, New Zealand (New Zealand, The Travel Addicts, North Island)

Scenery from the bay

SGK in front of the hole in the rock Cape Brett, Northland, New Zealand (New Zealand, The Travel Addicts, North Island)
The hole in the rock Cape Brett, Northland, New Zealand (New Zealand, The Travel Addicts, North Island)
The hole in the rock Cape Brett, Northland, New Zealand (New Zealand, The Travel Addicts, North Island)
The hole in the rock

Cathederal hole, Cape Brett, Northland, New Zealand (New Zealand, The Travel Addicts, North Island)

Cathederal hole in the same rock

A wave crashing against the rock.   Cape Brett, Northland, New Zealand (New Zealand, The Travel Addicts, North Island)

Wave crashing against the same rock

View of the Bay of Islands from one of the islands.    Cape Brett, Northland, New Zealand (New Zealand, The Travel Addicts, North Island)

Picnic on one of the islands

View of Russell, Northland, New Zealand from the water (New Zealand, The Travel Addicts, North Island)

The town of Russell from the boat

Saturday, March 25, 2000

Greetings from The Bay Of Islands NZ!

Hi Everyone!

When I last left you, it was almost exactly one month ago and we were just leaving the Royal Flying Doctors somewhere out the Back of Bourke in Australia.
From Broken Hill we made a mad dash all the way across northern NSW to Sydney to surprise SGK's Parents. You see, they flew out from CA and had planned on meeting us in Cairns after spending a week of jetlag cure in Manly. Helen must be psychic as she booked accommodations that had two bedrooms! So, after arriving on the Steyne at 2:30am and spending what would prove to be our last night in Daisy, we met them for Breakfast!
Helen and Andy had planned to see all of the sights in Sydney that week, but first SGK and I had some work to do - yes I know it's sad, but we had to put Daisy up for sale. Sniff. The very next day, after washing and unpacking Daisy we headed down to the Kings Cross car market for what we assumed would be a long week selling Daisy, but as it would turn out, within 2hours of arriving there we sold her!! Yea!!! a nice English couple (he used to fly Harrier Jets for a living - way too cool a job) bought her and promised to take good care of our baby.
I won't bore you with the details of the sightseeing around Sydney with the in-laws, but jump straight to the fun stuff - we were off to Far North Queensland where I haven’t been since Eric and I went about 10 years ago. We had planned to do some diving, then head down the coast for Brisbane to fly out to New Zealand.
In our excitement about heading off to Cairns, we forgot to look at the weather until the last minute - good thing we did though, as a Cyclone was passing through Cairns the day we were supposed to leave!!!! This caused us to change our plans and head to Brisbane instead, and then drive north to Cairns. Then we found out that our tickets to Auckland couldn't be changed to depart from Cairns, so we changed plans 180 degrees again to go to Cairns first and proceed with the original plan, but only delayed a week to let the cyclone pass. This gave us the opportunity to see Sydney's famous Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras.
Sydney's Mardi Gras reminded us of Halloween in San Francisco - only with a parade. All the "Tribe" was out. We kept an eye out for one of our friends who was in the parade, but never saw him (we had arranged to meet him at a certain spot, but the crowd was too much to allow us to get there).
The day after the Parade we got on the plane for Cairns - an eventful flight thanks to some Pommie bastard who was sitting behind me. He demanded that I keep my seat upright as he claimed that he had no room. Like I did either???? When I refused, he waited until I dosed off then kicked my seat so hard that my head struck the seat back in front of me. This caused me to jump out of my seat to confront the asshole. He freaked, and called the stewardess claiming that I struck him (a blatant lie). The passenger sitting next to him supported my story, but they still moved the moron to first class!!!! Then when we changed planes in Brisbane, he called the cops! After having SGK and her parents support me to the cops, we managed to get on the flight to Cairns. I hope he catches gangrene in his willie and it falls off.
Cairns was exactly as I remembered it. The Kebab shop where I had my very first Kebab is still there (Remember those Eric???) and so is the End Of The World; An enormous bar that won't let you in unless you claim to "Intend to Dine" even though they don't serve food. We booked a dive trip to Cod Hole on Mike Ball's Supersport at 1/2 price as we were filling seats that would otherwise go vacant then headed up to Kuranda.
Kuranda is a "Market" town that has a scenic train ride to get to it, then you leave it by Gondolla back to the seashore. Market is in quotes for a very good reason as the town is nothing but a collection of over priced ticky tacky shops, but the Gondola ride down is fantastic! I would recommend to someone coming here to take the train up and the gondola down but not spend any time at all in the town itself because it sucks.
The Day after Kuranda, SGK, Dr. Keenan, and I left Helen to her own devices, and boarded Supersport for the Cod Hole. What a trip! The diving got progressively better as we headed north, and the Night dives were especially good. The Cod Hole itself was a bit of a let down as they do a fish feed there - a real circus. All the divers get to the bottom and sit in a circle as the giant Cod get fed by the divemaster. The water soon turned murky and it was worse than being at the circus. The trip was memorable though, especially because one of the Japanese divers, a man named Kats was having so much fun that it just rubbed off on everyone - even if you were miserable (we weren't) his good humour would have infected you.
After the diving we rented a car for the drive down to Brisbane. We shouldn't have done this as our time in Oz (ie: time left on my visa) was running out. We drove pretty much straight to Brisbane - through Townsville, Gladstone and Maroochydore before coming to a stop for 2 days in Surfers. The poor doctors boney butt was sore from 3 days of solid passengering in the car, and the car smelled like something that had died. To top it off SaraGrace got a speeding ticket!!!!!
Finally we bid Oz goodbye and were off to Kiwiland. SGK and I arrived a couple of days before her parents and met up with our Kiwi friends from the Inca Trail - Greg and Nicole. We also ran into Hazel and Andrew from Coral bay at the Airport (Hi Guys! Give us a ring! We sent you our cell phone number!!!!!)
We spent the next few days at Greg and Nicole’s place. Since climbing up to Machu Pichu in June they've gotten married and PREGNANT! Yes indeed, petite little Nicole looks like she has a basketball under her dress and is about to pop any minute! We bought the baby an All-Blacks jersey for it's birthday knowing full well that it'll get some good use.
After spending those few days in Auckland with our friends, we gathered Helen and Andy up in a new rental car and headed up north, which is where we are now.
Where do we go from here???
Well, tomorrow we are taking a cruise of the Islands, then are off to 90 mile beach, the Kauri Forest, and something called "Sheep World" before heading down south via Rotorua and Waitomo and the Ferry to Picton. Beware Peter, Ava and Jo - We are headed your way!!!!!!
Cheers!
MRA

Whangarei

23-Mar-00 thru 25-Mar-00
Our Trip to Whangarei

A sign here said:
Whangarei is a town in New Zealand's Northland. The old name for this place is Otuihau. It is said that the river was full of eels and the local Maori set their traps here. This area is now known as Tikipunga to the Maori. In the 1880's and the 1900's the falls were a very popular picnic spot. People came by carriage, horse or on foot for a day's outing. The property was owned by the Dobbie family. In the late 1920's Mr. Archibald Clapham bought the property, reputedly to prevent the falls from commercial use as a water mill site. In 1946 a local businessman's association raised the purchase price by public subscription and the property was vested in "His Majesty the King" as a public domain. The domain board handed over control to the Whangarei borough in 1958.

The 26.3m high falls were formed by the Haten River crossing a basalt lava flow, estimated to be about 2.5M years old. The flow flooded a valley formed by the faults and built the Tikipunga plateau. The basalt flow, here around 40m thick, cooled slowly and it's middle third split into the typical 'columnar basalt'. These upright six sided columns form when the cooling basalt cracks. Examples of this can be seen at the base of the falls. The river continually erodes the edge of the falls and slowly cuts a gorge as the fall moves upstream. The falls have moved about 400m since the river started crossing the flow and are about half way across.



The falls from the bottom.   Imagine how fantastic it must have looked to the first Europeans to see it- with naked Polynesian girls bathing in the pool below of course.  .  .   (The Travel Addicts, New Zealand, North Island)

Whangarei falls
The falls from the bottom. Imagine how fantastic it must have looked to the first Europeans to see it- with naked Polynesian girls bathing in the pool below of course.

 (New Zealand, The Travel Addicts, North Island)
 (New Zealand, The Travel Addicts, North Island)

The falls from the top

 (The Travel Addicts, New Zealand, North Island)

The pool at the bottom

 (New Zealand, The Travel Addicts, North Island)

SGK showing off at the top of the falls

 (New Zealand, The Travel Addicts, North Island)

The stream that drains the pool

 (New Zealand, The Travel Addicts, North Island)

The Marina

 (The Travel Addicts, New Zealand, North Island)

Sunset in town

- so we had to get it steam cleaned (New Zealand, The Travel Addicts, North Island)

SGK was allergic to our rental car
- so we had to get it steam cleaned

 (The Travel Addicts, New Zealand, North Island)
 (New Zealand, The Travel Addicts, North Island)

The headlands out of town

 (New Zealand, The Travel Addicts, North Island)
 (New Zealand, The Travel Addicts, North Island)
 (New Zealand, The Travel Addicts, North Island)

Surf's up!

 (New Zealand, The Travel Addicts, North Island)

having WAY too much fun.

Friday, March 24, 2000

Greetings From Whangarei NZ!!!

Hi Everyone!

I've heard from a lot of you, and it seems that no one got the last update that I sent out from the middle of nowhere in Australia a whole month ago!!! Well, for those of you that missed it and are dying to find out about us getting caught in a flash flood and what we did when Daisy's engine exploded can find out all about it at:
http://thetraveladdicts.blogspot.com/2000/02/greetings-from-back-of-bourke.html

Since then lots has happened, so look forward to hearing more in the near future!
Cheers!
MRA

Thursday, March 23, 2000

Auckland

19-Mar-00 thru 23-Mar-00

Auckland is New Zealand's largest city - over 1/2 the population live here.


A spider in Brisbane, QLD
Our last sight in Queensland before heading to New Zealand was this big fella

Greg Moon running
Greg, One of our Kiwi Friends that we met on the Inca Trail hamming it up for the camera

Greg Moon spitting Copenhagen chewing tobacco into a bottle while SaraGrace watches
Greg trying chewing tobacco for the first time - What a sport!

purple flower
Flower from Greg and Nicole's back deck

greg doing the dishes
To show Nicole that Greg really was doing the housework...

The Northcote Tavern
...And not down at the local Pub.

Nicole Moon
Nicole about to pop any minute now...

Auckland Sky Tower
The Auckland Sky Tower is the tallest man-made structure in the Southern hemisphere - and it's in the Skycity casino!

glass floor in Auckland Sky Tower
OOOOH! That's a long way down!

Sky Tower panorama
180º view from the top of the tower

bungy crane
The crane that Eric and I Bungy jumped off of 10 years ago - So does that bring back memories Mr. Nelson?

Auckland Skyline
No, this is not a photo of some random motorist - he snuck in while I was taking a photo of the Auckland skyline

A chocolate coated Easter Potato
A chocolate coated Easter Potato - Uniquely Kiwi...

All content including images copyright 1999-2014 © SaraGrace Keenan and/or Michael Alessio Permission to use only granted with permission