Australian Beaches, Baby!

Miracle of miracles. The weather has turned absolutely gorgeous. With a capital GORGEOUS. It's sunny, warm and breezy; there are blue skies, no humidity and it's hot during the day but cool at night... the exact kind of weather that I would choose if I could only ever have one type of weather ever again.

And, as that huge clock is still ticking down in my head, I knew exactly how I had to spend every possible minute of a sunny, warm day.... at the beach! The one thing I really wanted to do while in Sydney was to spend some whole, entire days on the beach. Seemed like a great way to end my trip, soaking up some rays before heading back to wintery PA.

Wednesday we started off at the most famous beach in Sydney: Bondi. But not before heading downtown to do some bargain shopping at a truly cheap market (definitely pays to know a local) and then over to Chinatown to, you guessed it, get some bubble tea.

We made it to the beach in the early afternoon and I didn't do one more productive thing ALL day. Picture me laying around on a towel reading. All day. That was pretty much it. I did get in the water once for a while but it was fre-fre-freezing so I wasn't able to stay in nearly as long as I normally would. Which was too bad, really, as the water here is crystal clear blue and the waves are some of the best I have ever personally experienced.

Thursday we headed off to Manly Beach. Yes, Manly Beach. Where they have businesses named things like Manly Butchery, Manly Lawn Tennis Club, Manly Grill, Manly Yoga, Manly Jewelry, Manly Dance... needless to say, Sarah and I amused ourselves with this the whole day. Moriah didn't get it and, incredibly to us, she said it had never even occurred to her that it was kind of a funny name. Yeah, hours of entertainment for me and Sarah. Yeah, we're dorks.

In addition to mocking the town name, we also had to squeeze in time for what Moriah told us were the best burgers in town. Lunch at Burger Me... where I ended up getting chicken, go figure. After that, I was chomping at the bit to hit the sand. We did and it was just as divine as anticipated. Moriah had some other things to do (what else could there ever be to do when a beach is involved??) but Sarah and I were determined to stick it out to the bitter end. It was my last full beach day, after all, and I felt compelled to soak up every single second of it possible. We stayed until the sun had set and we were starting to shiver. But of course we weren't too cold to have some ice cream which, as a bonus, gave us more time to sit and stare at the ocean.

It was all I could do to tear myself away. Knowing that I will very soon be trading this warm, lovely, relaxing world for a cold, grey, snowy one is something I just don't want to do. It would almost be easier if I didn't know this world existed. That while I'm sitting home freezing my butt off and stuck inside, the rest of the world is doing the same thing. But to know that I'll be there and yet people here will be sitting on the beach at the same time that I'll most likely be scraping off my car and cursing under my breath, is just wrong. But for the past two days at least I got to join them. To revel in beach life and to soak in as much of it as I could. And it was glorious.

Super Cool, Even If You Don't Like Opera

More grey skies so, since the beach remained out of the question (doh!), it seemed like the perfect day to use to check out more of downtown Sydney, particularly the world-famous harbor. I was so excited about getting to finally hang out somewhere that I have heard and read so much about over the years!

Moriah came with us today to play the official tour guide. It's always so nice when you have a local to show you around as know just where to go and, most importantly, where to get the best coffee.

We took a ferry in to the city this time, which was a very cool way to get the first glimpse of the harbor and the world-famous Sydney Opera House. I had the same surreal feeling as I did back at the Taj Mahal in India. When you have seen so many thousands of images of something throughout your lifetime, something so iconic and closely related with your whole preconceived image of a place, it's really, well, surreal when you actually find yourself face to face with it, live and in person.

We started off with some leisurely walking through the harbor area, going to one of the older neighborhoods in the city, The Rocks. Lots of indie shops and restaurants and coffee shops and old architecture. More wandering and then a light lunch at an outdoor restaurant on the harbor right next to the Opera House. Funny how such simple things can be so cool. I mean, really, to be sitting and dining on the water while looking at the Sydney Opera House... seriously cool. We saw guys playing the didgeridoo, we strolled through the Botanical Gardens and then....

... we just had to do it. Sarah and I ARE tourists, after all, and every once in a while we just can't help but give in to it. So we went on a full-fledged tour of the Opera House. We got to go inside and see some of the theaters and concert halls, we learned all about the trials and travails of building it and we learned more than I ever thought I would want to know about an Opera House. Go ahead and ask me anything you want to know about it, I am now an official expert. Really, go ahead and ask. I am a wealth of knowledge on the subject.

Okay, I can't help myself, I did find these facts to be particularly interesting:

* The Sydney Opera House has a recognition factor of well over 4,000,000,000 people. That means that 2 out of every 3 people on the planet can indentify a picture of it.

* The building project was supposed to take 3 years and cost 7 million dollars; it ended up taking 14 years and costing 102 million dollars. Oops.

* The architect of the building, due to a falling out with the powers that be, left the country and never came back to see the finished product.

Check me out, educating myself while on vacation. I don't usually do the "tour" thing but I really am glad we did it. One of the most famous buildings in the world... and I got to go inside of it!

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Dinner on the harbor, a little shopping, then home. I spent the day in downtown Sydney today. It was a very good day.

Roos, Kaolas and Crocs, Oh My!

Big surprise, it is raining here. A lot. Like in New Zealand, it was gorgeous before I arrived and then, pretty much as soon as I got into the country, the skies opened up and the rain began. Figures.

Yesterday (Boxing Day) was supposed to be beach day. It rained... all day. So we did a whole lot of nothing, just chilling out after the holiday, reading, laundry and so on.

Today was looking like more of the same: non-stop rain. Since I am now down to my official my last week here (yikes!), I have a constant impending sense of a gigantic ticking clock hanging over my head so I didn't want to 'lose' another day. We gave some thought as to what might be a good rainy day activity in Sydney and ended up deciding on... Sydney Wildlife World.

As it hasn't yet worked out for me to see a kangaroo in the wild (go figure), we had to resort to the next best thing. Sarah and I took the bus downtown to Darling Harbor and, after only one short hour waiting in line in the windy rain, made it inside. We saw lots of cool Australian animals: kangaroos, kaola bears, crocodiles, wallabes, wombats and all sorts of other things I don't remember the names of. The kangaroos were feeling pretty lazy (I understand, that's how I feel on rainy days, too) so we didn't get to see them do much actual hopping, although we did get to see one of them spend large amounts of time laying on his back and, um, scratching himself. But the roos seemed positively hyper compared to the kaola bears who, as it turns out, sleep over 20 hours a day. They didn't move a muscle the whole time we were there. We were informed that because their diet is so sparse, they can't waste energy on either physical activity or brain power. Good thing they're cute.

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After that, we also went to the aquarium, something I wouldn't normally be too interested in but, hey, it was still raining. The most interesting thing for me there was the shark exhibit. They've begun tracking some of the sharks that are in this area and they had a screen where they displayed their comings and goings, many times right in and out of Sydney Harbor. Mental note to self: do not swim in Sydney Harbor.

The rain had stopped by the time we left the aquarium so we walked around the downtown for a bit and found a place to get some dinner before heading back home. So, it wasn't exactly the beach day we had planned but at least we accomplished a few things and even learned a few things in the process. All in all, a salvaged day.

Christmas in Sydney

Yesterday I bid a final farewell to New Zealand and headed back to Australia, this time to Sydney. One of Sarah's closest friend, Moriah, lives here and she and her family have been kind enough to let us stay with them while we're here.

It never ceases to amaze me how a short little 3-hour flight can turn into 7 1/2 hours of travel time: bus to airport, waiting for flight, flight, customs, baggage claim, train, bus. Either way, I got to the house in the early evening, arriving just in time for one of the Hurst family Christmas Eve traditions - homemade donuts! I could tell immediately that I was going to like it here.

Until I had to get up at 6 am the next day. Christmas morning started off at Moriah's brother's house for breakfast and then we all headed off to their church. In the afternoon, we went to lunch at the house of some very good friends of their family, very gracious people who had a whole house full of people from various countries and cultures over for the day. They live in a beautiful home that overlooks the beach and we ate outside on their huge back porch. After lunch we went for a stroll on the beach (Christmas is a really BIG beach day here) and played games on the deck. While wearing short sleeves. On Christmas. This was the first time I have ever been anywhere warm for Christmas and I have to say that sitting outside in 80-degree weather, wearing summer clothes and hearing the sounds of the ocean, while all delightful, didn't really instill the holiday spirit in me. It was quite surreal, actually. Intellectually I KNEW it was Christmas, but not one outside factor made it FEEL like Christmas to me.

It turns out that for me getting into the holiday mood results from a whole bunch of combined factors: cold weather, seeing the decorations ALL over the place, being surrounded by Christmas music, shopping, being around friends and family as preparations are being made, stores staying open until all hours so people can cram in all of their last-minute gift-buying, all of the over-the-top hubbub that is made about it in the US. Whether or not I even like any of these things (most of them I don't) is irrelevant, but I've discovered that they each play their part in helping gear me up mentally for the holiday season.

On this trip I have had none of those things. It's been warm almost everywhere I've been. I have seen very few decorations; I have been and/or gone past tons of stores that had NO decorations at all, not even one measely string of tinsel! I heard almost no Christmas music in public; even on the bus on Christmas Eve they were playing regular music from the radio. I didn't have to do any shopping of my own. Stores closed at 5 or 6 like normal. In general, Christmas seems to be a much smaller and far more low-key deal here than at home. That part has actually been really nice, how much less commercialized and crammed down your throat it is here.

But, in the end, I just could not wrap my head around the idea that it actually was Christmas. It also didn't help that I wasn't with my family for the day, the first time in my whole life that I haven't spent it with them. It wasn't in the original plans for me to be away for the holidays so the whole time I've been traveling, I fully expected to be home in time for it. It was the one cut-off that I thought there was no way I would go beyond. But I went beyond and, in the end, I regretted it. Turns out I really like my family and I like being with them for Christmas. I missed them a lot and, despite the graciousness of the Hurst family in welcoming me into their family Christmas, I spent most of the day feeling bad about not being at home. So, live and learn.

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And now Christmas is over here even though it is just beginning back home. Another concept I can't seem to wrap my head around!

The Overlander Back to Auckland

Wow, New Zealand really DOES hate me!

Today is my last day in New Zealand. It is also the first day that I have been here that it hasn't been rainy and/or grey and/or blustery. Instead, from the first moment this morning it has been clear and sunny and warm and beautiful. And, as if it's not quite cruel enough that my LAST day here is the FIRST nice day yet, I spent it stuck inside on a train for twelve hours! I couldn't even go out and enjoy it, all I could do was look at it forlornly through the window. We did stop for a half hour for lunch so I was able to get off and go sit outside in it for a bit. But come on.

Two weeks ago it was so hot and dry here that they had bush fires. The day I arrived it started to rain and has rained so much since then that there are parts of the country under serious flood watches. The day I am leaving, the perfect summer weather returns.

What can you do but laugh? Somehow it just wasn't meant to be for me and New Zealand. I tried, I really did.

At the very least, I got to ride back to Auckland on the train today and got to see even a little bit some of the beauty of this country that I have heard so much about. I'm glad I came back up to Auckland the same way I went down to Wellington. It was pretty amazing to see the difference in how everything looked on the way down, when it was all under grey skies and rain, compared to today when it was under sun. I saw mountains that I couldn't see before due to the fog, I got to see how brilliant the water in the Tasman Sea is, whereas the other day it just looked grey. I saw expansive hills and statues and houses that I either couldn't see or didn't care to see on the way down.

So while my time here has most definitely not been the best, I can at least now leave saying I've gotten even a glimmer of what I was missing. (Oddly, even though today was the perfect day to see the scenery, I took almost no pictures of it along the way. Huh.)

I should be clear and say that my only complaints with New Zealand have been with the foul weather. I was probably too grumpy to mention it before but the people of New Zealand are some of the nicest I have ever met, anywhere. In fact, Greece held the previous title in my mind, but I think New Zealand has easily taken the top prize. Their genuine friendliness blows me away, they way everyone just starts talking to each other as if they're old pals. I can't tell you how many people have struck up conversations with me about all manner of thing, just because that's what they do here.

They are seemingly also the most laid-back people I've ever encountered. Granted, I'm no expert, but from what I've seen it seems that very little ruffles them, that they just don't have time to be bothered worrying about trivial things. The phrase "No worries" should be their national motto. They seem to be "straight shooters" who tell it like it is with no fluff. I dig that. It's also commonplace to regularly see people walking down the streets in bare feet. And not just in the small towns, in the big cities as well. It just is that relaxed here. Oh, and let's not forget about that accent. Oh yes, the accent counts for a LOT. Oh yes it does.

Since this was the first time it was clear enough to have a decent view, I took advantage when I got back tonight to go up into the Sky Tower in Auckland. For as many times as I have passed in and out of Auckland, I haven't actually gotten to see or do very much here. So I figured the best way to get a great overall last-ditch view of the city was to go up the famous tower. It is the tallest man-made structure in all of New Zealand; it's over 1,000 feet high and you can see up to 50 miles away on a clear day. Despite the fact that going up the glass elevator with the glass floor made me a tad queasy on the way up, I had spectacular views once I made it to the top. On one of the observation decks, they have sections of floor that are glass so you can walk on them and look straight down to the ground below. It's kind of a freaky experience to stand SO high up and see nothing between your foot and the ground (it's WAY scarier than the picture makes it look!). Admittedly, it took me a few tries to work up the nerve to walk on it, but I couldn't let my fear get the best of me.

It wasn't a real thought-out plan (as almost nothing is with me) but it just so happened to work out with the timing of my return to the city that I was able to be there to see the sun set while I was still atop the tower. So I had great daytime views, great sunset views and then great night views. All in all, a pretty great way to end my time in New Zealand. Even if it does hate me.

SO Easy to Please

These two days in Wellington have been very good for me. A change of scenery, a nice place to stay, lots of time in coffee shops, some good New Zealand wine... things are looking up!

Yesterday, despite my inclination to just want to stay in my hotel room and soak up every minute of "luxury" I could, I headed out to see what I could of Wellington. When I left the hotel, big surprise, it was raining. But not only was it raining and grey as usual, there were also gale force winds. Like, walking down the street and having to lean into the wind to walk, the kind of wind that can knock you off your feet if it catches you off guard. Heh, I actually just had to laugh. Of course there were gale force winds. Of course.

Which made for a perfect museum day. Wellington is home to the Te Papa, the national museum of New Zealand. I have to admit, I'm not a big museum person as a rule. But it was a monsoon-like day and the museum was free. Okay, twist my arm. So finally, in my last days here, I got to learn more about the Maori people, the native people of NZ. Better late than never. They also had some great exhibits about different political struggles throughout the history of the country (women's rights, gay rights, etc) as well as a superb photography exhibit and another telling about immigration in New Zealand throughout the decades. I left a far more educated person!

I also left to find it had stopped raining. I almost fell over. I decided to take advantage and spend some time walking around. Even though it's the capital, Wellington is a relatively small city (only 180,000 people) and it's nice in that you can walk just about everywhere. As it's a harbor city it makes for some very lovely ambling. The city is known as the arts and culture capital of New Zealand so it is full of galleries and theaters as well as lots of artsy little stores and coffee shops. It's a nice mix of old and new; there are little old historic buildings snuggled in between big new, modern ones. That helps maintain its charm by giving it this odd sense of being a small little town somehow.

About a half hour into my walk and, gasp, the sun came out. There were blue skies and everything. I almost started to weep with joy. I found an open spot and the nearest bench and just sat and basked. Literally basked, letting my skin soak it up. I heart Wellington.

I took the Wellington Cable Car up to the top of a hill and got a nice view of the city and the harbor below. More basking, and lots of it. It was really the sort of thing where most people come, look, stay about 2 minutes and move on but, oh no, not me. Despite the continued extreme wind, there was still sun and I was not about to miss out on sun. I stayed up there for about an hour or so, hair whipping every which way, enjoying the sun on my face.

Today was more of the same, just checking out the city on foot. While it wavered between sunny and grey, the rains held off so it still made for a decent walking day. Wellington is well known for its "cafe culture" so I happily partook in my share of that as well, but this time I got to enjoy it while sitting at outdoor tables, which I was beyond thrilled about. I'm such a simple girl, really.

The Overlander to Wellington

They say it's darkest before dawn. Which is I guess why I had to survive yesterday before I could start enjoying today.

Yesterday was the worst day in NZ so far. I couldn't get out of my hostel and off of Waiheke Island fast enough. I got up early in the morning and walked the 30 minutes to the bus stop in the rain. I then waited another 30 minutes in the torrential rain. Then I took the ferry back in the rain. And then I walked another 30 minutes back to my hostel in Auckland in, you guessed it, torrential, blowing rain. Only to get back to my grubby hostel. A hundred little things went wrong along the way and, with each new one, I handled it worse and worse. I spent the afternoon on the phone with the airlines trying everything in my power to change my flights to get home sooner. I failed. I talked to my family back home, which only made me feel even worse about the fact that I would be missing Christmas with them in favor of sitting in rainy New Zealand by myself. It wasn't pretty.

Wanting to spend as little time at the hostel as possible, in the evening I went out to another movie. It's a real shame when your once-in-a-lifetime trip to one of the world's most beautiful countries becomes a time to catch up on the latest movies. The day was capped off by getting to come back to my hostel and having to go up to my room to sleep, a room that Sarah had aptly described as having "the stench of humanity" while she was there. I don't even understand how it's possible that people can smell like that!

But today the sun started to peek out of the clouds. Not literally, of course, no no. God forbid. But at least figuratively and, at this point, I'll take what I can get. Back in Melbourne I met a Kiwi (as people from NZ are called) who told me that I should take the Overlander train down to Wellington while I was here. It's a famously scenic ride which gives you a great overall picture of the North Island as it runs from pretty much the very top to the very bottom of the island. It's also famous for crossing the Raurimu Spiral, a "feat of engineering" in which through a series of horseshoe curves and tunnels the train makes a complete loop over itself to get up a tricky section of mountain.

Of course it was grey and rainy the whole ride but at least I was getting out of my circumstances and going somewhere new. I felt optimistic and energized for the first time in days. The train ride is 12 hours and I spent large amounts of time out on the little outdoor viewing platform where I could get a clear view of the, well, sheep. Seriously, how is it possible that so many sheep can populate one tiny little island? Either way, I have found that I like train travel. Twelve hours on a bus is hellish. Twelve hours ona train isn't that bad. You can get up and walk around, go outside, get something to eat in the dining car... not bad at all.

But the best part of the day, as odd as it may sound, was getting to my hotel room in Wellington. I simply could NOT deal with the idea of one more hostel so I had reserved a room in a real hotel. Like, a REAL one. One where I have my own room with my own bathroom. My own sparkling clean bathroom, no less. It has a big bed with crisp, clean sheets and mountains of non-lumpy, non-smelly pillows. There is a TV that not only works, but on which I can watch whatever I want, whenever I want. It is like a little slice of heaven on earth and it was worth every single penny I paid for it. Every single one. At this point, it was a matter of maintaining my mental health (I'm only half joking) so money actually started to become irrelevant.

When I walked in, I kid you not, I actually started to laugh with excitement. Very rarely have I felt such a tangible sense of relief coming off my shoulders, as in I could physically feel my shoulders getting lighter. I've known for some time now that I was over hostel life, that I needed some space of my own, but I didn't realize how much of a total difference in my outlook it could make to simply be somewhere nice and clean again. I went out, bought a bottle of wine, came back and hunkered down for the night to watch a great movie that just so happened to be starting exactly when I got there. Perfect. God bless the Trinity Hotel in Wellington. Aaaaaah.

What did I ever do to New Zealand?!?

I'm pretty sure that New Zealand hates me. I am here at the beginning of their summertime, what should be day after day of temps in the mid-70s and bright blue, sunny skies. But since I arrived, other than a few hours on our first day in Auckland, it has been nothing but grey, bleak and rainy. Wait, I take that back. Today there were approximately 7 minutes of sun while I was sitting outside. You would think I'm exaggerating, but I'm not.

Since we had had pretty bad luck since arriving (weather, car accident... both of which resulted in lots of lost time), I decided to spend some extra days in New Zealand, to give it a chance to redeem itself. I have heard such amazing things about NZ for so many years, that I felt like I had missed out on a lot and it would be a shame to leave having experienced so little. Also, since it is about as far away as you can get from home and it is SO expensive to get here and therefore quite unlikely that I will be back, I figured I should see as much of it as possible while I'm here. Better to spend a few extra dollars to stay another few days than to eventually have to spend thousands to get back here, right? Now I'm not so sure.

Had I stayed and had the weather been nice (I would even take semi-nice at this point... even marginally decent would be something), I would definitely have felt I made the right decision. As it stands, having now spent the extra money to stay longer and STILL not being able to see anything, I am seriously regretting my decision. I could have been stuck inside due to miserable weather at home for free!

Sarah left yesterday morning as planned for Sydney. She turned 30 today and wanted to stick with her original plan to spend it with her good friend there. So I hopped a ferry on my own yesterday to Waiheke Island, about 35 minutes off of Auckland. I figured I would spend two days lounging on the beach and enjoying some rays. Well, at least I got to walk on the beach. Once.

It rained on the ferry over here. It rained all evening last night. It was raining when I woke up this morning. And it continued to rain for most of the afternoon. Grrr.

Since I was on my own, and since I am SO over hostel life, I decided to "splurge" and get a room on my own. No having to keep all my stuff in a neat little pile so it doesn't get in other people's way, no having to make nice chitchat if I don't want to (and lately I don't want to), no not being able to stay up and read as late as I want because others want the light off, no having to grope my way around in the dark so I don't disturb others, no having to lug my stuff back and forth to the bathroom every time I take a shower.... you get the idea. I found a single room in a place that described itself online as being on the sea with wifi, a restaurant and a little store on the premises. As I was informed by the lady at the hotel way back in Amsterdam, "Sometimes people lie on hotel websites".

I got here to find out that the place does in fact overlook the sea... from a distance. To actually get to the sea, you have to walk down a mountain, a walk that also includes precisely 187 steps. My 'single' room is a tiny dorm room with bunk beds, they just won't rent the other bunk out while I'm here. The wifi is charged hourly at an obscene rate and doesn't really work anyhow. The 'restaurant' is in the communal kitchen where they offer a pre-determined dinner (but only during the week) that you can sign up for the day before. The 'store' is, no lie, a shelf in the reception area that has like five items, things like canned beans and ramen noodles. When I asked the guy if there were any restaurants around, he said, and I quote "Sure, loads." and proceeded to point out exactly two on the map, both a half hour walk from here. All visions I had of myself in a lovely little room in a seaside cottage, being self contained and able to eat my meals here in between jaunts to the beach quickly evaporated. Instead I found myself on the top of a mountain with NOTHING around, no book (I left it in Auckland by mistake), no TV (doesn't work), no wifi (doesn't work), no beach (raining) and no food without walking a half hour. Sigh.

If it sounds like I'm grumpy, I am. I think I may have finally pushed my luck too far, in trying to extend just once more. I should have just gone to Sydney with Sarah as planned. But I made my decision and all I can do now is try to make the best of it. I have a few more days here so I'm still optimistic that my time in New Zealand can be redeemed. Tomorrow is another day... and fingers crossed there may even be, dare I dream, TEN minutes of sun!

Oh, and the first picture is one I got online of what Waiheke Island SHOULD look like at this time of year. All the rest are what it actually DID look like.

We Press On...

Yesterday we were back in the north of New Zealand, on the Coromandel Peninsula staying in a little town called Whitianga. And, with a population of just over 3,000 people, I really do mean little. Of course, it's a metropolis in comparison to Waitomo (where we went to the caves), whose population was just 300 people. Before coming here, I had heard that there were more sheep than people in NZ, which seemed like it had to be an exaggeration. Turns out it's not. Rarely have I been in such sparsely populated places, the kind where you can drive for an hour and not see a town or where in a town there might be one place to eat, and it closes at 5 o'clock. But there's also a certain charm to it... unless, of course, you're hungry at 7 o'clock.

Either way, we went there because we'd heard about the spectacular beaches and planned to take full advantage. Too bad the weather had something else in mind for us. Since getting to New Zealand, I don't know that we've had a single day where it hasn't rained. Which has been a huge bummer, because you come to New Zealand for the scenery but, so far, we haven't been able to enjoy much of it. Nor the beach, as it turns out. Sigh.

Regardless, we headed to Cathedral Cove, figuring that even if it was too cold to swim, we could at least enjoy the view. We hiked for about 45 minutes up and down mountains, through the woods and what sometimes felt like a rainforest to get there. There were points when you felt like you were so far back in mountain country that you almost forgot you were next to the beach. And then we emerged and we saw what we had come for: the cove formed thousands of years ago by volcanic activity. Even with the grey skies, the water appeared a beautiful green color... I can only imagine how much more brilliant it would be when seen under sunny skies. We sat for a while, both to enjoy the spectacular view and, admittedly, to put off the inevitable hike back out just a little bit longer.

We then headed over to Hot Water Beach, famed for the natural hot springs that you can access at low tide. Masses of people show up with shovels in hand, ready to dig their own private spa. Sarah and I came geared up, ready to dig our own spot but we got there too early. We had to sit and wait a couple of hours in the on-and-off-again rain and chilly winds until the prime hot water time and, by the the time it came, we were too cold to bear the idea of stripping down to bathing suits to dig a hole in the sand so we sit in a couple inches of hot water and then trudge back to the car soaking wet and freezing. So, like true spoil sports, we watched everyone else do the hard work and lived vicariously.

Today we headed back to Auckland, driving nearly four hours in some of the greyest, bleakest, foggiest, rainiest skies I have seen in quite some time. Definitely not what I was expecting when I thought of being in New Zealand during their summer. It is a shame as bad weather really does affect a trip, both in what you can and (mostly) can't do... as well as mood. We were going to go check out Auckland on foot when we got back but we got a few blocks away and decided the idea of trudging through the pouring rain wasn't nearly as appealing as it had sounded when we hatched the idea back at the hotel. We ended up going to a movie instead. Good movie, but bummer of a way to spend time in NZ, a once-in-a-lifetime destination. I repeat: sigh.