Moving to Mairangi

Last week I told you that I had a found a new home in Mairangi Bay, but I was too tired to show you around. Let me make that up to you, by giving you a tour of my new home. It's a large 6 bedroom house owned by Sin Yat from Singapore and shared with 5 others.

My room is behind the window on the very left, ground floor

During the day I am often in my room with my laptop. It is a lot more comfortable than the library, where I used to work. I have the privacy to speak on the phone or Skype and I enjoy a great view of the bay.

Just another sunny morning

When my fellow ground floor housemates come home from work I greet them as they walk past my window. I can also see if someone is on the deck and join them for a chat.

On the fence Sin Yat grows sweet, dark grapes

The deck is a great place for a barbecue and this weekend we did just that. Sin Yat invited his friends and all of us housemates to a great barbecue on the deck. We each contributed with a dish: Marie, our talkative French girl, made a potato salad and a clafoutis (French dessert), Ross, our resourceful shipping agent, brought a cheesecake, and I made a salad with Danish blue cheese. My upstairs housemates did the meat with Sin Yat and brought the wine.

My generous host Sin Yat (in pink) with his friend Kevin

Let's continue with the tour around the house. When you look down from the fence you see the back yard. The impossibly green grass is indeed fake, but that can be hard to tell from above.

The back yard is beautiful, but we don't use it much

You will also find a sauna and spa on the deck

To the left of the front door is the driveway that leads to the deck

This is the ground floor living room

Which is in the same room as the ground floor kitchen

Surf club

One of the best things about living in Mairangi Bay is that it's right next to the surf lifeguard club. In a 20 minute walk or a five minute drive I'm at the beach. Here I meet with the lifeguards every day to improve my board and surf ski skills. After one week of training I am still the slowest on the board and I can't even stay up on the ski, but I can feel the improvements every day.

After a board session we wash down the boards and go shower

On Saturdays practice is at 7.30 am

Vacation in Wellington

My week in Wellington has been absolutely wonderful. I enjoyed the art that the city is known for by visiting both the city art gallery and the Dowse art gallery in the suburb Lower Hutt. There are also many sculptures and beautifully designed buildings in Wellington that give color to city center walks.

Civic Square features a large ball of iron ferns suspended in midair

Along the waterfront modern architecture and heritage art mixes

Cuba street is festive and colorful day and night

It is filled with street artists, fashion shops and cafés

Zealandia

The wildlife sanctuary of Zealandia is very close to the city, but a different world altogether. When you step inside the reserve you are brought back in time to before the pākehā ("People of European descent" in Maori) came to New Zealand. To a time when the country was covered in forest and flightless birds thrived in the absence of mammal predators.

Flightless Takahē birds stomp around in an enclosure

There is a Kerurū pigeon above the path

Look closely to see the Tuatara reptile

This kākā parrot flew right by me

Zealandia caters to tourists by having some exhibitions, feeding stations and explanation signs scattered throughout the reserve. There are is also a museum, guided tours and even night tours with a high chance of seeing Kiwis. But for the most part you are on your own walking the many tracks of the park discovering the wildlife by yourself. I think Zealandia balances perfectly between being a zoo and a wildlife reserve creating an ideal space to go for a walk and a picnic with a high probability of seeing  wild, endemic New Zealand birds.

Mr Grey for Valentine

On Valentine's Day the girls and I went to see 50 Shades of Grey in the impressive Reading Cinema. I found it emotionally engaging and very entertaining, although the characters were a bit stereotypical. We went on to have drinks somewhere on Courtenay Place and celebrate the weekend.

Thanks for a great time, girls

Year of the sheep

The Chinese New Year, Gay Pride Parade and a Bay Festival were all supposed to take place in the same weekend. Unfortunately, the gays cancelled due to strong winds, but the Chinese had their parade. I would have liked to go to the Bay Festival as well, but I was exhausted from a long week full of experiences.

There was a real dragon and lots of Chinese kids

These dressed up men are a mystery to me

The girls with their fans were a crowd favorite

Moving in

When I came back to Auckland it was not to stay at a hostel. I had arranged to move into a room in a big house in Mairangi Bay. It feels luxurious to finally have my own room and I am excited at the prospect of living here for a while.

My bed is huge!

Water and Wellington

Thursday I arranged to meet with the lifeguards of Mairangi Bay. I was to meet Danny the coach of the lifeguard competitive team and join in for a session. I found him among a group of lifeguards standing with their boards and surf skis on the beach. I quickly got changed into my board shorts and joined them for a quick warm up run and paddle.

For the session, I was partnered with Nick, a guy that looked to be about my size. We were to do a run, board, run continuous loop, with pause when the other person was on the board. The idea being that you could run faster after the break and push your partner to go faster on his run coming out of the water.

If you look closely you can see the lifeguard area flags

After my first lap is was evident that I would be no help at all to Nick. He outpaced me running in the sand regardless of having just finished his board lap and I quickly became fatigued from boarding much more than I am used to from Denmark. It didn't take long before even the youngest of the girls overtook me on my board laps. But even if my performance was slightly embarrassing for the Danish lifeguard corps, I thoroughly enjoyed the session. Even at 6 pm the weather and water was so warm, that there was no reason for towels on the beach. We would just dry in the sun during the pauses and leisurely swim in the sea after the main session to "warm down".

Murrays Bay is just a short walk north of Mairangi Bay

Another week another home
In the weekend I planned a trip to Wellington. I felt like it would be a good time to get out of Auckland and see some more of the North Island, because I had made a lot of progress finding a place to stay in Auckland (more on that next week). I decided to make a reservation at Worldwide Backpacker's hostel. It is a villa turned hostel and that makes it a charming small hostel, with a curious layout.

The entrance is on the porch behind a yellow gate

I got one of the downstairs rooms

It is rather spacious for four persons

The view from the permanently open window

Windy Welly
Wellington is the windiest city on the southern hemisphere! But when I arrived it was sunny with a comfortable breeze.

I was immediately impressed with how beautiful Wellington is

The museum "Te Papa" in front of Mount Victoria 

I went to see some of the most impressive sights on my first day. The "Te Papa" museum is one of the best museums in the world with its massive size and modern interactive exhibitions it can keep you entertained for a full day. But I wanted to be outside as well, so I went for a walk to the top of Mount Victoria.

The top lookout offers a great view of Wellington and the bay

Hi girls

The two Danish girls Tilde and Louise invited me to join them on the beach Wednesday afternoon. I know Tilde from home and she now lives and works in Wellington with her friend Louise. They will do so for the next six months and they are already much more settled here, than I am in Auckland. We had a good time at the beach with a short swim and went out for dinner afterwards. I couldn't imagine a better way to start my week in Wellington.

Moving again

This weekend I suddenly had to move out of the hostel. Some people would not be surprised that hostels can be full in the summer season in Auckland, but I was. I went to the reception Thursday evening to extend my stay, but the hostel was fully booked until Monday. Still unconcerned, I postponed the decision of what other hostel to book to Friday morning when I had to check out. I was sure I could just go around the corner and check into another hostel. But I couldn't. I searched online and found no vacancies in the hostels of Auckland! Some rugby festival was making Auckland a popular place to be, so I decided it would be better if I left the city for the weekend.

Coromandel Town

So I decided to go for a weekend trip to the Coromandel peninsula. I got myself a ferry ticket and a reservation for a hostel in Coromandel town. I packed a small rucksack with only basic necessities and left the rest of my stuff in my suitcase in Auckland. It would stay at the Attic Backpackers hostel until my return on Monday. I had no idea what to see in Coromandel, but I had heard it was a beautiful place to go and sometimes I find it's best not to make plans.

Coromandel is a real western style gold miner's town

Coromandel is a small town that grew large when gold was found in the 1870's. Today tourism and fishing is keeping some life in the area, but you can feel that it used to be a busier place.

The Anchor Lodge is a great place to stay. It has free bikes, a pool and a spa.

There's an old goldmine just 20 meters from the hostel

New friends

Already before boarding the ferry I made my first friend. Dani, a girl from Germany, was also headed for the Anchor Lodge and the same dorm room as it turned out. We arrived late to the small town of Coromandel and had a meal at a restaurant. The blue rimmed mussels I had is a New Zealand specialty and I was very impressed with them.

Hi Dani, have a safe flight home

At the hostel we met Kerstin and after a short talk about plans she agreed to take me with her to a famous Coastal walkway that you have to drive for more than an hour to get to. It was exactly that kind of luck I was hoping for, when I made no plans for my weekend.

Thank you for the ride Kerstin, I hope you had a good time in Whitianga

It's a two hour walk to this lookout and I forgot to bring water

As I came back late in the afternoon Dani introduced me to a new friend from the hostel, Dominik. We went on to plan a day trip for Sunday. We would borrow mountain bikes from the hostel and ride to the Kauri Grove and the Waiau Falls.

Dominik says hi to a pig we met on the road

The Kauri trees are massive. This one is 600 years old.

After walking around in the Kauri Grove for half an hour we went on upwards to find the Waiau Falls. Only I had read the instructions wrong in the brochure, so we had already passed them earlier. The ride to the top of the hill was incredibly hard. We measured it with Dominik's phone on the way down to be almost 200 meters of altitude in less than 3 kilometers of road. On the top we had some of our lunch and checked the map again. Then we went downhill as fast as we dared, using the brakes hard on the gravel road. We finally found the waterfall and finished our lunch sitting on the overhang.

Lunch atop the waterfall

We went below for a swim in the pool

We had a crushing shower

Back on dry land

Feeling refreshed we drove the rest of the way downhill to Coromandel town.

Where the Kiwis live

This weekend felt like my first real nature experience. Rangitoto was nature too, but almost no animals live there. In this unique Kauri forest there was a real chance to meet a Kiwi.

Sure, but where are they?

But the Kiwis are night active, so the chance to see one was pretty slim. I hope that I will one day see a Kiwi in the wild. I wonder if that would make me any more Kiwi myself?