To Tutukaka...and Beyond!

Hey y'all! I'm meeting Miss K at the airport in less than four hours! Wow...in just a few days we'll be pedaling our ways through this amazing country. Just look below to get a glimpse of the beauty surrounding us.

I was so grateful my friend SG (short for Sailor Girl - cause she lived on a boat til she was nearly 9) was in town visiting her family. The timing worked out well because she goes back to the states today - the same day I needed to be in Auckland! Soooooooo, I made a pleasant bus trek up to Whangarei (in the Northland...north of Auckland :) and spent a couple nights with a wonderful family. SG showed me some wonderful spots surrounding her home. Really, words and pictures will never do places like this justice...you just have to go! Or look at the pics below for an idea, at least.

I almost love the isweep panorama feature as much as I love super macro...hm. actually, not really by a long shot...but it's still super cool! The photo above, I am standing on a sand spit...land created by the help of a river, the ocean and proper geography. It's between the river and ocean...and just across the river in the town of Ngunguru (pronounced Nun-guru). Developers wanted to build 100 or so houses on this chunk of sand...but local efforts were against it and convinced the government to purchase the land - yeah!!!

(there's a bit more to the story...but that's a very basic gist).

We kayaked across the river, then went for a jaunt to a very beautiful beach...and beyond. Wow! Really, wow! Much of the land we were surrounded by was established by Maori with terraces, and sacred areas, etc. We made sure to respect the land.

If you can see, there are 9 or so bees in this Pohutakawa flower...and in ALL the flowers on the tree...guess it's pollenating season?

The photos below are the coastline just a walk away from SG's home in Tutukaka...a half hour east of Whangarei. This beach is the BEST beach glass treasure cove I've ever been to. SG's mom speculates that the neighboring motel used the ocean as a dump site? or maybe there was a mighty crash just off shore?? no one knows. yet.

An ancient looking creature...

Meeting of THE boat...this one has inspired me greatly (and the people who lived on it) for the past several years (8 plus years, SG and I counted, that we've been friends).

The photo below represents my time in Auckland. The Sky Tower celebrates the Year of the Dragon! And yeah, still no idea how to flip this photo right side up on blogland...anyone know?

I'm thoroughly enjoying the feel of Auckland...very pleaseant for city standards It's on an isthmus - a rather skinny one...so it's surrouned by water. Can't quite figure how to compare it...maybe a mix of San Francisco and Seattle - except without all the fog and rain...and considerably smaller. So uncomparable, perhaps. I'm comtemplating landing here for a month for my CELTA (english teaching) certification. Though South Island is still pulling me greater...and I've yet to even be there. But not for long!

It is time...almost.

Wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow! Holy moly wow! Yeah, it always get me - where does TIME go?! Oooh, this concept of time just behooves me.

The BIG trip is just around the corner. Can you believe it? As in less than THREE days, I meet Kate at the airport in Auckland. Aaah!!

The reality of this situation is that I am so ready to embrace simplicity again. To the max style. I live a simple life by most USA-ian standards...but it's filled with a bit more junk and accumulation crap (mostly bead related) than I prefer at the moment. I enjoy grasping the less is more concept. This is when I feel for real FREEeeeeeeeeeEeeEEEeee! Too much internet time is not healthy, either. And this will be practically non-existent on the open road :) (But don't worry - I will find internet from time to time to keep the bloggy blogg blogg in a relatively healthy state of being).

Again, we've had heaps of cycle tourist coming through the doors via Warmshowers. I believe I mentioned that last week we had over 7 tourists on one night! Takes me back to the days of the AT when friendly homeowners would open their doors for sweaty, happy, grumpy, tired, energetic, smelly, etc hikers (over 30 in a few cases). Here in Rotorua, cyclists have been all of the above - except maybe grumpy. We've had sailers, french people, germans, dutch, swiss, austrian, montanans, californians, french canadian, UK-ian (the english sort)...appears to be lots of europeans. They know how to travel :)

Below are pics of some of ventures with warmshowers guests in Whakarewarewa Forest (and its chopped down bits)...in these snapshots, we've got kiwis, germans, californians, and the photographer (me).

Cycling allows the travel to meander slow enough to see the backroads and meander off the beaten path to little gems of a town, yet fast enough that one can actually get some decent distance in a nice timeframe. Plus, unlike driving, you get excersize...BUT because the bike carries pretty much all the weight - including you, it feels breezy and effortless - haha, not. But it is quite a lot easier than carrying a pack and walking miles and miles and miles and miles.

But these cyclists are a fun bunch and hearing their stories gets me super excited...even though I will forever feel a bit of nervous anticipation until out treaded tires hit the road...or dirt :)

Okie dokey - on a bus to Whangarei to meet my friend Shandy...then to Auckland on the 19th to meet Kate at the airport...then it's a life of living with what me, my bike and my trailer can carry for three solid months :)

Let the beautiful crazinesss begin!

Lots of garden flowers and an explanation of aging.

Spending much of my freetime prepping for this trip. Seriously the days fly by...not a fan of this aging thing.

To clarify. I really could care less about aging in terms of wrinkles and skin spots (the non-cancerous sort, of course). I'm not one to dwell on physical appearances "declining" due to age. This is a concern created by societal mind evolution. But in the whole scheme of life, doesn't really matter.

I do moisturize, though...and sunscreen is key. Especially in no ozone land.

Ok. So what gets me about aging...well, the aching joints, obviously. But the not so obvious...every year/day/hour/minute/second is a smaller fraction than it's unit just before. This explains why each year goes by more speedily :( the older we get. Last year was 1/28 - one out of twenty eight units (years) of my life. The year I turned 5, it was one out of five years, or 1/5 of my life. So it's the same measurement (a single year) for when I turned 28 and 5, though when I turned 5, it was a greater fraction of my life. It took soooooooooooooooo long to turn 6 years old. I'm telling you, turning 29 is just around the corner.

Hm, well that was an unintentional tangent. I just meant to post some photos of my recent gardening ventures for the gardens surrounding my current home...and a few more forest run snapshots Lovely flower and plant representations are due to super-macro wonders, and my uber skill, of course. Black and white features are not due to black and white plants. They are due to my discovery of a photoshop-esque feature that apparently came with my computer. ooooooh. aaahhhhhhh.

Enjoy!

Fern from the forest. Also known as "kuru" in these lands.

Dark Periwinkle flower from the garden :)

Ooooooh top secret (I photoshopped a bug out of this flower!)

So I guess rain is sometimes really really cool cause it leaves photogenic droplets like this:

upside down sunrise!

Upside down me! (with creepy me lurking in the background. creeeeeeeeeepy)

Pretty photoshoppedblack and white garden rose.

Regular garden rose.

Artistic garden rose.

Cutey petootee little white garden flowers.

K, I'm done for now. more macro mania coming too your blogland quite soon.