Okay so I went on two major trips in the last two weeks. Last weekend I hiked Rangitoto volcano, and this weekend I went to Bay of Islands (the farthest point north of New Zealand). It's 5 hours north of Auckland.
Here are pictures from Bay of Islands. I'm going to upload the pics of Rangitoto shortly.
Remember to click on the pics to enlarge them. They look much better, even though you can see everything in the small version.
We started off in a bus with 10 people, driving to the house we were staying at (which belongs to my orientation guide's parents).
Here are a few pictures of the ride there...
A lot of times there were cows or sheep just standing in the middle of the road, haha. This particular one mood at us as we drove by.
Rolling green hills as far as you could see.
New zealand is called land of the long white cloud. They often have tons of really cool clouds wherever you go, especially over mountains.
Here we are finally at the womans house. This is her front yard.. The entire coast goes in a circle around her house, as she lives right on the sand of a small bay. These rocks you see here curve around so it's like an enclosed in area. I'll post a panorama later. The guy with the tractor has a boat and is going fishing with a few people in my group.
Heres some pictures of walking up the beach.
We climbed to the top of one of the mountains that are directly on the coast of her bay. This is the view from the top (facing the other direction, away from the bay we are staying at).
A cool tree on the beach
Here's the sunset looking towards the left of where the bay curves.
That tall mountain in the background on the right of this pic is the mountain we hiked to the top of in the image a few pictures back.
Heres looking to the right standing in the same location. As I said, you can see how its a huge circle. Once again the clouds are awesome and you can see a little red barn on the hillside.
Heres the house we stayed at. I took this picture on the edge of the beach pretty much (there is a dropoff right behind me on to the sand). In this large area we had a batchiball championship and I got to the final round and lost by one point. Other activities were mainly playing scrabble, hiking, lying on the beach, watching New Zealand movies, fishing, kayaking and generally having a good relaxed time. One of the best experiences of the whole weekend was going out at 11pm, with a full moon and clouds, and going to swim in the bay, then going and jumping in the hot tub by the house.
Now we left the house and are travelling further north the the very most northern tip of New Zealand. We left the house at 8am, so you can see the fog still covering the hills.
We drive the car onto a ferry and cross this small body of water.
A picture of the hillside while we're waiting for the other ferry. apparently it was stuck or something.
After we got to the northern tip we went to the Waitangi grounds where the British Govt signed a treaty with the Maori in 1840. Here is the exact spot they did it, marked by a huge mast in the ground.
After looking at all the maori buildings and artifacts, we got on a boat to check out the actual body of the bay of islands. Heres a shot of a cruise liner. The weather at this point was very dreary but it cleared up within an hour.
Dolphins followed us the entire trip and tried to impress us with triple axles and 10 foot vertical high jumps.
Heres a pic of one of the hundreds of islands..
That little speck on that island is a lighthouse where someone used to live. Above it you can see a helicoptor doing a rescue mission.
Heres a pirate-cove-looking rock formation with a huge hole in it. We drove the boat through it.
*EDIT* OK, I edited a few panoramas.. I think I hid the seems pretty well. These are all pictures from the little inlet that the woman's cottage was on. There are two panoramas looking to the left, and one to the right. In the middle I don't have one, but it just wraps around and its mountains all the way across.
Enlarge them to get the full effect. Imagine swimming here in the first picture in bright moonlight in the middle of the night, the cloud completely and brilliantly lit up with stars and bright clouds (there is less ozone in NZ, so you can see about 5x as many stars).
A lot of times there were cows or sheep just standing in the middle of the road, haha. This particular one mood at us as we drove by.
Rolling green hills as far as you could see.
New zealand is called land of the long white cloud. They often have tons of really cool clouds wherever you go, especially over mountains.
Here we are finally at the womans house. This is her front yard.. The entire coast goes in a circle around her house, as she lives right on the sand of a small bay. These rocks you see here curve around so it's like an enclosed in area. I'll post a panorama later. The guy with the tractor has a boat and is going fishing with a few people in my group.
Heres some pictures of walking up the beach.
We climbed to the top of one of the mountains that are directly on the coast of her bay. This is the view from the top (facing the other direction, away from the bay we are staying at).
A cool tree on the beach
Here's the sunset looking towards the left of where the bay curves.
That tall mountain in the background on the right of this pic is the mountain we hiked to the top of in the image a few pictures back.
Heres looking to the right standing in the same location. As I said, you can see how its a huge circle. Once again the clouds are awesome and you can see a little red barn on the hillside.
Heres the house we stayed at. I took this picture on the edge of the beach pretty much (there is a dropoff right behind me on to the sand). In this large area we had a batchiball championship and I got to the final round and lost by one point. Other activities were mainly playing scrabble, hiking, lying on the beach, watching New Zealand movies, fishing, kayaking and generally having a good relaxed time. One of the best experiences of the whole weekend was going out at 11pm, with a full moon and clouds, and going to swim in the bay, then going and jumping in the hot tub by the house.
Now we left the house and are travelling further north the the very most northern tip of New Zealand. We left the house at 8am, so you can see the fog still covering the hills.
We drive the car onto a ferry and cross this small body of water.
A picture of the hillside while we're waiting for the other ferry. apparently it was stuck or something.
After we got to the northern tip we went to the Waitangi grounds where the British Govt signed a treaty with the Maori in 1840. Here is the exact spot they did it, marked by a huge mast in the ground.
After looking at all the maori buildings and artifacts, we got on a boat to check out the actual body of the bay of islands. Heres a shot of a cruise liner. The weather at this point was very dreary but it cleared up within an hour.
Dolphins followed us the entire trip and tried to impress us with triple axles and 10 foot vertical high jumps.
Heres a pic of one of the hundreds of islands..
That little speck on that island is a lighthouse where someone used to live. Above it you can see a helicoptor doing a rescue mission.
Heres a pirate-cove-looking rock formation with a huge hole in it. We drove the boat through it.
Here is a picture of just the Auckland students. I see at least one of these people every day.
Heres me at a rugby game: Blues vs Reds. The Blues are Auckland's team. The Reds are from the south island. The All Blacks is the team for the entire country of new zealand. I was going to see that game in June, but tix are $120 so I think I'll use that money elsewhere.
Heres a picture of the city as we were coming in from Devenport on the ferry. I'm going to take some high res pictures of the city very soon.
Just some kiwis I met....
