belated bdays!

So Feb 23rd was my birthday, and my little bro Danny's bday too. Two years apart, exactly! Because of the international dateline, this was the first birthday (since my first birthday, anyway) that I didn't have the same bday as Dan! Weird. And a bit funny. But all in all, it was a good 29th + 1 birthday. Josh was grand and brought me flowers at work, and had a pile of presents along with dinner and a birthday cake waiting for me at home! What a good husband!


MMMmmmmm! Chocolate cake!


Pretty fleurs!
And my favorite, the kick ass bday shoes. Yes, Josh bought me shoes for my birthday! AWESOME!

weekend 'o fun!

What a fun weekend!!
So we had our first visitor, lovely Amy, for whom the stop in NZ was just a tiny portion of her super fun trip to Oz, NZ, and Fiji! Yay. Aim got to Hawera with Josh on Thursday night (18Feb), and stopped to go dam dropping, then came and picked me up, and we headed out to the beach closest to town with the pretty black sand.

Pretty day!


Gorgeous views!
Ahhh, prom picture.
Friday Josh and Amy went boogie boarding, and I went to...wait for it...it's super exciting...WORK! heehee. then I got done in the early afternoon and we headed north to Waitomo.

Josh finds a stout Dew.

So when a sign on the side of the road says 'BEER!' you stop, right? :) This is Mike's Organic Brewery, with the lovely barman who gave us tastes of yummy beer. Yet another reason to come and visit.

Then we were passing this fabulous beachy area, with great big waves...so I whipped a quick louie and pulled over to play in the waves for a moment. AHHH-MAZING!!


Ohhh, look at the pretty wave. Josh is wishing for his surfboard.

More pretty black sand.
Then we got to Waitomo, which is where the glow worm caves are. Yup, you read that right--glow worms! (And it's not the stuffed animal kind.) Josh got us a B&B--but not just any B&B, this was an ostrich farm B&B!! (Note: they are not very nice.) The B&B also had mini horses and donkeys.

We took a little tour, which took us into one of the cow paddocks to look at the ostriches that were adjoining it in the next paddock, and every time we looked up the cows were closer...and closer....and closer.... it was like children of the corn!
Apparently cows are curious.
And Amy is the cow whisperer.

Ohhh! Baby cow!!!

After our fab farm tour, we went to the late night cave tour, which was, simply put, amazing.
This is what the glow worms actually are (maggots, in layman's terms)

We went into the caves with our cool guide, and she sang to us in the part of the cave called the Cathedral...it has great acoustics, and they've actually done concerts there. Then we got to go in a boat (the river runs through the caves) and look at all the glow worms on the ceiling and the walls. So pretty! It looks like stars. We met some lovely canadians on our tour, who told us about a trail that you can go on and see glow worms in nature...so we invited ourselves! I borrowed one of their headlamps, and Josh and Aim used their flashlight app. Damn apps.

Woke up bright and early to go to Taupo. Glorious misty-ness!

Mooo.
Then we got to Taupo and stopped at the geo thermal area called Craters of the Moon. Because of the name, I was really expecting moon like landscape. Turns out some shrubby scrappy plants still grow in super hot ground. :)

This is boiling mud. Really.

Then we got into Taupo and stopped at the Body Art festival. There was some kick ass art!


Also stopped at Huka (means foam in Maori) Falls--a very wide river gets forced into a 35 foot channel (if I remember correctly), and actually is used for energy production too.


Then we went skydiving. It was fun. :)

Scenery while falling.


Us after the jump.


That night we stayed in Taupo, and headed to Napier in the morning. That's when we found out that there wasn't one petrol station between the towns...and they're two hours apart! Oops.
Napier is the Art Deco capital of the world. Or at least of New Zealand. There was a big old earthquake there in the 1930s, and when they rebuilt, it was all in Art Deco style. So every year they have an Art Deco weekend, which was awesomely coordinated with our trip! They were having soap box derby races, and art deco style dress is encouraged. FUN!!!

He's so cute.

And so are they.

This was a sign outside one of the bars. I thought it was funny.

And then came the wine tasting! We rented bikes and did a little tour of a bunch of wineries, a chocolate shop, and a beer/cider tasting place. Awesome!

Dionne Warrick wine???

Mission Estate is NZ's oldest vineyard/winery.

Yay for foggy scenery.
Hurleyville!!!

Such a pretty mountain! Have I mentioned yet that they used Taranaki during the filming of the last samurai cause it looks like mt fuji. Cool.

Pretty New Plymouth, just before we dropped Aim off at the airport. sad....
I like to call these the Guinness cows. Note the creamy top and dark brown bottom. Slainte!
A very good time, all in all.

road trip!

So I'm too sleepy to do anything of substance, so here are a few fun pictures from this weekend--the rest will be up within a few days!

Who knew that there wasn't one gas station in the two hour trip from Taupo to Napier?

Hi-fiver from the art deco capital of the world (or NZ, anyway), Napier.


Hurleyville! How funny is that?!?
(Hurley is Meg's hometown)

And we may have jumped out of a plane...everyone's chute opened!

i heart culture.

Yes, I do.
So as you may know, the indigenous people of New Zealand are the Maori. Technically speaking, they are the indigenous Polynesian people. It is based on what you consider yourself--you don't have to prove your lineage to call yourself Maori. (That actually changed in 1974.) While there is a more stereotypical picture of a Maori person (dark skin and hair), there are also fair, blonde Maori as well. I don't know about redheads...
Anyway, the Maori are very connected with the land and their tribe and family. There are the families (whanau), subtribes (hapu) and the iwi (tribe). The mountain here, called Taranaki, is very holy to them. I was talking to one of the Maori trustees of the clinic (she's this awesome 70sih- years young lady!!), and she was telling me about the old stories (mythology, folklore, whatever you want to call it), like how Taranaki used to be by the other mountains of the central north island, Tongarir, Ruapehu, and Ngauruhoe. Taranaki fell in love with a pretty hill called Pihanga, who was married to Tongariro. After a battle with Tongariro (which Taranaki lost), he headed west to the coast. The story goes that as he gorged a path west (which became the Wanganui river bed), his falling tears at being banished created the Wanganui River. And all the streams coming from the top of the mountain are his tears, as he still cries for his long lost love.
The whole point of that story was actually to tell you all that Maori consider the mountain holy, almost like an alter, and they don't go to the top of the mountain, unless you're part of the chief-dom, anyway. Which is pretty cool, as everyone else wants to 'conquer' the mountain by climbing it.
So we've been able to experience some of this cool culture because the clinic is Maori run, and is for Maori clients as well as for low socioeconomic status people. When we first got to the clinic, they planned a traditional welcome, or pōwhiri. There's a whole tradition and system of the pōwhiri, from how you walk in to how you greet people (traditionally, it's hongi, when you press foreheads and noses together. The ha, or breath of life, is exchanged and intermingled), to how the speeches and responses go. It's also all in Maori. :)
We've also been able to visit the marae, which is a sacred place used for lots of different things--celebrations, funerals, conferences, all sorts of different things. It's usually quite important to show good hospitality--ie, tea and food and fun things like that--to show your respect.
The photo below is of one of the local maraes (I don't know how to make that plural). There is very cool carving, lots of photos of current members and ancestors.

Another view of the marae.


We got to see a great performance by a local group--they go one to competitions and things. The girls are holding poi, which are light balls on strings that are used for the songs and dances.


I couldn't upload the boys doing the haka, but Josh put it on his facebook page. Haka is actually any kind of dance form--it's not just a war dance! Look up the All Blacks--they do a haka at the beginning of their rugby games.
We've also been going to whaiata (singing) lessons at the local school. The kids like to look at Josh, I'm not sure why. But I think it's cause he gets into the singing, and the motions that go with them...


singing

surfing

I (Josh) have been able to get a good amount of surfing done since we've gotten to Hawera. We live a couple blocks from the "surf highway"(it really is, there's signs for it and everything) and that means getting surf virtually everyday. There's been a couple of days that I couldn't paddle past the break(it wasn't from a lack of trying) due to the waves just being too big and breaking everywhere. The first picture is of Opunake which is a little ways from our apartment. Unfortunately none of these are of me, I only wish I was as good as these guys.


These next four are of Stent Rd which is about 45min from our apt. It's a famous break which reminds me a lot of the Stoney Point break back around Duluth. The only difference is that this is a day that we would have thought was pretty good back home and here some guys didn't even go out because it was at best a bit below average to them. I love the picture of this guy. I didn't even catch his name because he surfed in when I was paddling out.




This is the backdrop you get looking back to shore.





Good looking surf!