Everybody's Working for the Weekend

Although school is fun (what's not to love about 1st grade??) the weekends are where we really get to explore and experience New Zealand! This past weekend was particularly packed with fun stuff and minimal lesson planning.

On Friday, Heidi and I went on a Coast-to-Coast city walk where we basically followed a map that took us walking all over Auckland to hit a lot of the big sites and see many hidden treasures along the way. We started on the northern coast and walked down to the southern coast as we walked around the University of Auckland (found mini- Brigham Square, felt so at home), through the "Auckland Domain" aka huge park in Auckland that hosts many a cricket game and romantic picnic, up Mt. Eden so we got to see it in daylight (also where we met a fellow traveler, Leon from London who disagreed with us many times about which way would get us to the top and later to the bottom of the hill, fun to talk to though), through many city streets which we took note of for a future evening out on the town, around and up One Tree Hill (which is currently No Tree Hill, cause they can't agree on what kind of tree to plant...so you go with a monument instead? Ok, do it your way), and finally to the other coast (although you never quite make it to the coast coast, cause there is a motorway in the way)! We walked 16 km (give or take, may or may not have needed help with the map TWICE) in 5 hours.

Here I am with the monument on One Tree Hill. Look familiar? I sure hope you got permission from Washington for this one. I thought it was appropriate that I was wearing my VA shirt and visiting the mini Washington Monument :) (yes, I do know the monument is in DC, don't worry, I got it).

We went to Piha beach with the entire group on Saturday. It is one of the more popular beaches around Auckland. James showed us around, taking us climbing around the rocks to get to this HUGE cove, called Honeymoon Cove that was absolutely beautiful and like nothing I've seen before. I don't really know how to describe it other than big sandy area with cliffs on 3 sides and big rocks on the 4th side that water crashes against for a very theatrical feel. This is Rebecca and me on the rocks right at the mouth of the cove (not getting too close to the edge, duh).

As we were leaving the cove, going back to the main part of the beach, we walked up along a mountain/cliff this where there were good views of Piha. That big rock is called Lion rock and it is just right in the middle of the beach area. Here I am with Hannah, Janet, and Whitney!

Next, James took us to another beach down the road at Karekare where we had to walk along a river (or wade, but that was risky business with cameras in tow) to get to the beach. I should tell you that at both of these beaches are west coast beaches which means they have black sand (don't forget your jandals aka flip flops) and they have really rough waves. There are huge rescue crews on watch at all times with a huge canopy set up on the beach and they set up flags everyday marking where it is safe to swim. The rescue at Piha even has a show on TV on Monday nights called Piha Rescue, and people die there all the time. Needless to say, we didn't exactly swim all that much during our visit.

From the beach at Karekare we took a ten minute walk and arrived at these waterfalls! How cool? Beach one minute, and the next you're "tramping" (nothing to do with trampolines or promiscuous women, it means hiking) or "bush walking" through a tropical forest! I hadn't gotten in the water all day up to this point, but I just couldn't resist.

That night we had a little combined birthday party for the three of us who turned 21 this month because 21 is traditionally a big deal in New Zealand (fading fast, apparently). On this birthday, people are given a key to the house, showing they are finally old/ responsible enough to come and go as they please, so we got big paper keys that everyone signed. This was our cake-- almost as wide as the three of us combined! Here, the birthday-er makes their wish as they make the first cut into the cake, not when they blow out the candles. Also, at this party (but not at the one's we've had with our family) we blew out the candles before everyone sang. Everyone does a little Hip Hip Hooray after they sing too.