New Zealand – Kiwi Zone
Well so far, New Zealand has been a delight! Especially after the suckiness that was my time in China…. I arrived here early in the morning on the 27th of November. My cousin’s daughter Mona was going to pick me up at the airport and my flight got in a little early. I still had to go through customs, though, and New Zealand is known for being rather strict. They are! They have limits on what you can and can’t bring into the country, and they have rules about all sorts of things. For example, you have to declare if you have any camping gear with you because there are different types of bacteria etc that could be growing on your equipment! This even includes hiking shoes! You can’t even bring in the sandwich you got on the plane.
So I had to declare the hiking shoes I was wearing and my hammock. I had to throw away the packets of honey I had for my tea, that sort of thing. Nonetheless, I managed to get through customs with a minimum of fuss, and still had some time leftover. This was perfect, as I had planned to get a SIM card for my phone (and an all-important coffee!)
I had just finished this and was able to text Mona and find out that she was almost there! She came with a family friend, Sam, and they brought me to the house in an Auckland suburb where Mona lives with her mom Sonia and sister Jyotsna. Sonia’s dad and my dad are actually first cousins, making us second cousins. My folks had come to visit her when they were in New Zealand earlier this year, and it was nice to know I would be welcome here.
Mona is just finished with high school and Jo is in college. The girls had only last week finished their exams and were going into summer vacation. They also have a girl living with them named Akhila, a friend of Jo’s from India who is going to school in New Zealand right now. Mona and I hung out the day after I arrived and went to the mall and a movie. We also got sushi, which was nice.
New Zealand Road Hazards…
There were some things I was hoping to see while on the north island of New Zealand, and I thought if the girls had any time they might like to join me on a couple touristy expeditions. The first weekend, Jo was going to be out of town, but she kindly lent us her car so that Mona and Akhila and I could go to the Cormandel Penninsula. Sonia had to work, but luckily trusted me enough with her child and car and left-sided roads – as well as some road hazards that are rather unique to New Zealand! So the three of us headed out on a little road trip for the day.
Welcome to Narnia, Cathedral Cove
The Cormandel Penninsula is relatively well known because it is where Cathedral Cove is located. This beach was used in the filming of The Chronicles of Narnia. In Prince Caspian, when the Pevensey kids arrive in Narnia, they come to the shore near their castle, and this is where that was filmed. It is a little bit of a hike away from the area where you park, a few beaches in, but well worth the walk.
Wow, New Zealand!
First, however, we had to get there, and that was also a bit of a drive! The drive was spectacular. Every few kilometers I kept exclaiming over how beautiful New Zealand is. It’s gorgeous. The landscape is quite changeable, but very lovely. There are mountains – the kind that are jagged and the hilly, slope-y kinds, and there are valleys and rivers and lakes. And there was so much green! I love that color, all the shades of green, varying in intensity wherever you look.
Then, we got to the coast, and the ocean was so beautiful we had to stop. In one vista, there were so many different shades of blue, it was difficult to believe. The shoreline changed from grey to blue to greenish blue to turquoise as you drove along, and further out to sea the colors were dramatic, in every shade imaginable. Wow!
As we traveled, I thought (and said a couple of times) that this is one of the few countries I’ve visited that I feel I could actually live in. Aside from the fact that it’s absolutely gorgeous, I like the vibe here.
Mona and Akhila in Piriri tree Forest
Mona and Akhila were less than thrilled when they found out that we had to hike to the beach. Luckily, I have a short stride and a slow pace, so it wasn’t like they had to struggle to keep up. And on the way back, we took a different route, which led us through the forest and past some beautiful rocks. It seemed like a rock garden with each rock covered in a beautiful layer of green moss. Awesome. By then, the girls were definitely done with hiking! I was running from boulder to boulder, cheering about how great it was, and they were just looking at me like I’d lost it.
The Multi-hued Ocean view at Cormandel Penninsula
Nonetheless, we’d all worked up quite an appetite for the fish and chips we ate at a shop on the way back to Auckland. We got into town rather late that evening, as it had been a long drive (and we had gotten a little lost on the way, to be honest!) But if we hadn’t gone the way we did, we wouldn’t have seen quite so much spectacular shoreline, so I can’t complain. It was a great day.
