Hi friends! I want to continue sharing my journies in New Zealand. When I think back to my time in New Zealand, it feels like a whole other universe. New Zealand is such a peaceful country, boasting more sheep than humans. I lived in New Zealand in 2014 while studying abroad at the University of Auckland. However, I did not want to be in the center of the city, so I ended up WWOOFing on a farm 1 hour west of Auckland. I also wanted to see as much of the country as I could, so I found a "hop-on hop-off" bus company called Stray. Basically, I bought a "bus pass" of a certain route that allowed me to hop on and hop off the bus whenever I wanted to. The buses ranged from 10-40 passengers and one amazing bus driver, who was also the guide. It was an amazing way to meet other travelers from so many different countries. It also offered an easy way to travel, which I don't usually prefer, but when I was juggling a full course load and working on a farm, I didn't have much time to plan my travels or flexibility to "get lost".
I bought a bus pass that looped around both the North Island and South Island. My first leg of the trip started in Auckland, and I began to explore the most Northern part of the North Island. I wrote about the beginning of that journey in a post here. We had just returned from a beautiful day at Cape Reinga, the most northern tip of New Zealand, and settled back into our hostel in Paihia in the Bay of Islands. The next morning we woke up and set off on a long and wonderous hike.
We decided to do the full circle hike around the Bay of Islands. It was around 11 miles and took around 6 hours (including stopping for lunch and hanging out in Russel for a while). We started walking along the coastline in Paihia, heading towards Opua. Along the way I saw a beautiful rock pile in the shallows of the bay, setting the stage for a perfect day.
One of my favorite activities to do while traveling is hiking. Where do I even begin? I think it's a great way to slow down and take in a new environment, a wonderful way to meet fellow travelers and locals, a great change of pace from all of the sitting and driving that happens while traveling, and hiking overall just makes me happy :-) I had a wonderful time getting to know other travelers on the bus throughout the day.
The sky was clear, the weather was perfect, and we passed through so many different environments! We walked through marshlands, hugged the shoreline while dipping our hands in the bay, walked through canopied forests, and walked next to rolling hills of farmland.
Once we arrived at Opua, we waited for the ferry to take us across to Okaito. From Okaito, we still had 10 more miles to get to Russel, and some fun hills were waiting for us. We entered into a forest canopy with huge ferns that transported me to the dinosaur era.
We hiked, and hiked, and hiked some more...
And yet no one wanted to eat lunch until we reached Russel, except for me...
But views like this kept me going on a grumbly stomach...
We made it to Russel! Russel is an adorable little town filled with B&B's and gift shops. It has a cute "beach" on the waterfront that we layed our blankets down and rested. A few of us even took a quick dip in the cold water. We ate our sandwiches and fruit, and I wandered into a chocolate shop (how could I not?).
We then took the ferry back to Paihia, and enjoyed our journey back through the many islands of the area. We finished off the day with some gentle yoga, a dip in the hostel's hottub, and all slept like babies that night.
The next day, we woke up and set off to the kayak rentels. We hopped in our single kayaks and set out into the bay to explore the 144 islands in the area. There were SO MANY islands to explore!!! The water was mostly calm, but there were some choppy areas that made the journey even more fun. Any time we came across an intriguing island, we would kayak to the shore and start exploring. We practiced some hatha yoga on one island, some acro yoga on another, and just flopped around on yet another.
We didn't take any photos on this journey, as our cameras and phones were not waterproof. It was a truely unique kayaking journey, and seems otherworldly while remembering the day. In the afternoon, we kayaked back to land and hopped in the bus to return to Auckland. So long to the Bay of Islands, you will always hold sweet memories for me!
We returned to Auckland by that evening, and I headed to a hostel close to University of Auckland. I was studying abroad at the time, and my first day of classes was the very next morning at 8am! That night I wandered around the park in between my hostel and the University, and there was a huge festival, the Auckland Lantern Festival. It was such an interesting experience, as I realized how many Chinese people had moved to New Zealand and were mostly living around the Auckland area. Throughout my time in New Zealand, race relations kept on uncovering, and I learned how much tension there is between Caucasian New Zealanders and immigrants of other ethnicities. I headed back to my hostel, and was excited for the next day to journey into a new university setting. I went to my first classes the next day and immediately fell in love with my International Development class, where my professor was highly critical of development work and taught from a Foucauldian lens (discourse and power).
After my classes were over, I took the train about 1.5 hours west of Auckland to meet the lovely couple who owned the farm that I would be WWOOFing on for the next four months. I wrote about that experience in another post that you can find here. I will forever be grateful for my experience at SingingHeart Farm, and for the lessons and haven that New Zealand offered me.