North Island, New Zealand: Part 1

We arrived in Auckland on Feb. 4th. Piers, from Brisbane, called a friend and fellow ultimate player Hayden Glass who graciously offered up his house, and the use of his car, for the following weeks. We had signed up for a beach tourney the 10th and 11th of Feb. so we decided to hit the road in Hayden's sweet ride and do some exploring before the tournament. What follows is our first road trip and tramp (Kiwi for "hike") in New Zed.

The skyline of Auckland, New Zealand's largest city and our home base for exploring the north island. This picture was taken from One Tree Hill, one of the 48 extinct volcanic cones that dot the city. It used to have a single tree on top, until some environmental extremist cut it down with a chainsaw because it wasn't a native species. You can see the remains of the stump in the foreground.





Our first sheep in New Zealand; One Tree Hill is still used as active pasture land, so they were all over it. Sheep are quickly becoming one of my favorite animals. Fun fact: New Zealand has almost 4 million people and an estimated 30 million sheep.









Cows have the right of way here...good policy.












The first place we stopped on the road was Kiwi 360, an ambitious collaboration of all things Kiwi (the fruit). I thought kiwi fruit grew on trees, but they actually grow on hearty vines, like grapes. They had yellow kiwis, mini kiwis, kiwi wine, kiwi jelly, kiwi face scrub, and a ginormous kiwi slice the size of a sfour story building that you could climb up in.













The road on our way to our campsite in Coromandel Forest Park.












We did a tramp called "The Pinnacles", an estimated 8-9 hour tramp on in the Kauaeranga Valley on the Coromadel Peninsula. We passed through a fern engulfed forests, crossed over raging streams, climbed boulders as big as buses, and climbed at least 2000 stairs. All in all it was about 12-14 kilometers up and down a mountain.








The weather was clear until we got to the top, which was a series of ragged peaks , hence the name "The Pinnacles" . By the time we climbed the mega stairmaster and huge Agrocrag sized boulders, the top was in a cloud. Luckily, we got a sweet view from right below the top before the fog started rolling in (left). You could see the sea and a string of islands to the west and beautiful valleys on all sides.





























Usually you can just ford the rivers on foot, but there had been a lot of rain recently so we had to cross the rivers on these single person wire suspension bridges. It was so Indian Jones and the Temple of Doom, except there were no crazy zombies chasing us.

Yosemite Sam.



















The view from a hill above Hahei, NZ. This is a popular town for it's proximity to Cathedral Cove, the Hot Water Beach, and the Coromandel Peninsula Parks.











Mike did a tramp down to Cathedral Cove, a huge cave formed by two caves eroding together to form an arch.


















A fence post on the Cathedral Cove hike.















The track to Cathedral Cove. He got a little carried away with the camera, but it's beautiful.












Hot Water Beach near Hahei, NZ. At low tide, you can get a shovel (or a frisbee) and dig a hole in the sand which fills up with scalding hot water
from under the sand. You can make your own little spa. The only trouble is, low tide is not really "low", and every few waves, you get totally covered in cold water. It's a good equalizer though, otherwise the scalding hot beach water would probably burn your ars off. We came back at low tide, 6:00, the next morning to have the beach mainly to ourselves. The people watching here was fantastic.


Sunset at Hot Water Beach the morning we went to dig our spa.














Our team at the Boutique Beach Hat Tournament in Hawkes Bay. Specifically, we were on Waipatiki Beach, a secluded beach just north of Napier on the North Island. We were a green machine! Mike, Nick (from Switzerland), Sean (from San Diego), Becky, Nobi, and I ended up winning the tournament and winning some sweet shot glasses as prizes.




In order to get back to our campsite after playing on the beach we could either wade through waste deep creek or try to fit as many people as possible on a little homemade pontoon and try not to fall off.


















After the tournament, Mike and I drove to Rotaurua, the city famous for it's geo-thermal activity.There are hot springs, geysers, and mud pools everywhere! We stopped at Kerosene Creek, a creek that runs with steaming hot water...incredible...and just what we needed after a lactic acid inducing beach tourney. And it was free! Wee!

A black sand beach that we stopped and ogled at on our way to the tourney. Just north of Napier.

After the tourney we needed to get the car back to Auckland to pick Hayden up for our next adventure, another beach tournament north of Auckland in Whangerai Heads. Our plans to spend a few days in Rotarua exploring the area were abandoned when Mike came down with food poisoning Sunday night from something he ate at the tournament. So we hauled it back to Auckland so he could have a comfortable place to stay in between trips to the bathroom. He was a soldier, and we spent the next few days watching movies at Hayden's and occasionally venturing out for sustenance and nature while Mike recovered.


View of city from Mt. Eden, the tallest and most scenic of the Auckland's volcanic cones.












A view across Mt. Eden's crater at sunset.