Its a bird, its a plane....

Thought I would give everyone an update on the news around Auckland. One item has been on the front page for a few weeks now- the Super City. Currently there are 8 city councils that make up Auckland (each area of the city has their own government that operates its own utilities, public services, etc). By 2010 they want to have all 8 of the Auckland governments combined down to one "Super City". Waitakere is the city where we live which is one of the 8 cities that makes up Auckland. There is a lot of debate about how the government is to be structured and how many special interest councils there will be. So you might ask who runs the Super City......... As the Tui billboard on the way to work says "Its a bird, its a plane... No, it is the Super Mayor".

The swine flu is hot in the news as well. There are 2 college groups that came back from Mexico over the weekend and 11 of the group have confirmed cases of the flu Type A. They are in quarantine. The health officials are tracking down everyone off the flights to check them out as well. Wouldn't that just stink to be taking your dream trip to NZ and being put in quarantine because you were on the same flight as the sick kids coming from Mexico!

On the home front, we painted the kitchen over the weekend- it has gone from an ugly mint green to a sage. John hung a new light over the kitchen counter and also put in a new faucet for the sink. I am also changing out all the cupboard handles to something more updated.

On Saturday we went out for dinner with a guy that John works with and his wife. They moved here about the same time we did from Minneapolis. They had never been to NZ before they moved--- just gave their friends and family 3 months notice and were gone.

A funny thing happened at the movies.....

John and I went separate directions for a bit over the weekend. John went sailing for the night with a guy he has gone out sailing with before. They did a race in the morning out to one of the harbor islands and then stayed the night in a cove and sailed back the next morning. I went out with Sarah. John and I met Sarah and her fiancee Rod at Great Barrier Island last weekend. They stayed at the same place that we did. Rod and Sarah moved here in December from London. Rod is a Kiwi from Auckland and Sarah is a Pom (NZ term for British). On Saturday, Sarah and I went out window shopping, had lunch and then took in a movie. When we got out of the movie at 8:15, we headed back to the car only to find the parking garage had closed at 7:00. We had to call Rod to come pick us up and I had to stay the night at their place since John was out sailing and couldn't come and get me. I got the car out the next morning and everything was fine.

On Sunday, we went to an Australia travel expo. As you guessed..... we now have plane tickets to Melbourne for the end of May. It will be our first trip to Australia. Yeah! Another stamp in the passport. We plan to spend a couple days in Melbourne, a day in the wine country (anyone with contacts in the Yarra Valley wine country area?) and probably a day driving along the great ocean road. I have a lot of planning still to do on the trip.

As for work, my initial contract was up with Eagle on Friday. There was talk of hiring me on a permanent basis until the quarter end numbers were crunched. Then it was decided that the numbers weren't looking so hot so my contract was extended for an indeffinate period.

Another holiday is coming up this Saturday. It is Anzac Day, which is similar to Veterans Day. Since it falls on Saturday this year, we don't get the day off work. Bummer!

Great Barrier Island

Thursday night after work we left for Great Barrier Island. This is a large island that sits in the Hauraki Gulf. The island is actually considered part of Auckland. It is a 2 1/2 hour ride on the fast ferry. Or, if you are unfortunate enough to have to take the car ferry it is a 5 hour ride. Watching what people brought on the ferry was good fun. People had surf boards, bikes, dogs, huge coolers, all their camping gear. The reports were the car ferry was packed to the gills with tractors, semi trucks, cars loaded down with surf boards and anything else people thought was indispensable for the weekend.

While the island is part of Auckland, it has very little infrastructure and a very slow pace. The only public utility on the island is phone service. Cell phones work in one spot. Water is rain water, electric is solar or generator produced and toilets are 'long drop' (NZ for outhouse) or septic. We stayed at the Medlends Beach Backpackers lodge. John and I had a private villa (another name for tiny little room with a double bed). We had a shared bathroom and kitchen facilities. We really enjoyed staying at the backpackers and meet some nice families. There were 3 other groups there that we got along with very well.

On Friday, we treked to the highest point on the island. It was not our intention to do the hardest hike first, but we ended up on the top of a mountain. It was about a 2 hour hike each way with the last 1/2 hour being stairs the entire way to the top peak.

Saturday we couldn't hardly walk from all the stairs so we took it a little easier. We did an easy walk to a natural hot spring area and had a sit in the springs. The hot springs were interesting as they were thermal activity produced. You could find really hot spots in the water where the heat was coming up through cracks in the spring bed.

After the hot springs we hiked to some waterfalls. We ended up leaving our car at the top of the mountain pass and walking down hill to the falls which was a good 5k. One of the main forms of transportation on the island is hitch hiking. We picked up a few different people over the weekend and gave them rides(even a group from the East Coast of the US). For my first ever hitch hiking experience, we got picked up by the local police lady. At least this one was not wanting to give John a breath test! John got to sit in the back of the huge Land Rover with her German Shepard police dog for the ride back to the top of the mountain. You could tell this lady was used to driving gravel roads in the mountains. Both the dog and John did some good rolling around during the drive.

We stopped by to see Pippa Saturday evening. Pippa and Richard (PedalTours) are building a bach on the island. They had hoped to have a house warming party this weekend----- the house doesn't have a roof yet. It is running very behind schedule. They are bringing builders over from Auckland 4 days a week to work on it. All the materials have to be sent in as well. You could probably buy a pack of screws on the island but nothing more then that. Richard is in Vietnam with a bike tour so we only saw Pippa and her sister.

Sunday was an even lower key day. We spent most of the day at the beach and still resting up from that mountain hike on the first day.

Monday we went to a secluded beach and went for a really long walk. The beach was the site of a ship wreck in the late 1800's. The ferry left in the late afternoon and we got back to Auckland about 8:00. The seas were very calm both directions. I believe I even saw a dolphin jump on the return trip.

Here is a link to more pictures. http://picasaweb.google.com/jandlmarshall/GreatBarrierIsland2009_04_11?authkey=Gv1sRgCLyxmKXrsbeZCg#

Another week gone by

Another week has flown by. We had house guests Thursday and Friday nights. Eric and Martin stayed for 2 nights and left for home Saturday morning. We went out for drinks and dinner with them downtown Friday. Now they are off to work for a bit and save up some money for another long holiday. After dropping them at the airport we headed out of town for the night. We went southwest a couple hours and did some trekking and biking. First stop was Karangahake Gorge. This is an old gold mine area which some hiking trails and a really looooong railroad tunnel that has been turned into a trail. Next stop was a campground/hot springs outside of Matamata for the night. Sunday morning NZ went to Daylight Savings--- and it was about time because it was getting really dark in the mornings. We got up early and went to Wairere Falls and hiked up to the Falls viewing platform. From there, we got the bikes out and road to Te Aroha, about 17 miles down the road. We were tired by the time we got home!

We have two short weeks coming up. We have a 4 day week this week with Good Friday being a public holiday. We have a 4 day week next week with Monday being Easter Monday and also a public holiday. Since it is a 4 day weekend, we are leaving town Thursday night after work. We are taking the ferry to Great Barrier Island, which is around a 2 hour ride. We are staying on the island and taking the ferry back Monday night. More stories then!

Happy Easter to everyone. May the Easter Bunny bring you lots of chocolate! The Cadbury factory in Auckland is not far down the road so we get the really fresh stuff.

PS- John got stopped for a 3rd time this weekend when we were down by Matamata. He is getting to be a pro at the 'say your name' breath test.

April Fools Day

April Fools day was celebrated in style here. I was surprised at how much the radio and newspapers got into the day. Here are a couple good examples from the New Zealand Herald:

• Jetstar Bronze Class ad- a new class of service being offered to the Gold Coast by Jetstar. Bronze class offers free inflight spray tanning. Just need to bring your togs and your budgie smugglers. I will let you figure out what togs and budgie smugglers are.....
• Rotorura's new Playboy mansion ad- New research shows that sulfur smell is an aphrodisiac and Hugh Hefner has purchased a share of the Rotorura city building (which looks like a mansion) to house the Playboy bunnies in the off season
  
• Mini copyright ad- Mini Cooper copyrighted the word mini and provided a list of new terms you should use instead of mini- miniskirt is now tiny skirt, Mini Me is now itzy bitzy me, minivan is now small van, etc
  

A couple of these were full page adds in the paper.


Not much other news. We had a pretty quite weekend and stayed around town and ran errands. Last night we went to the Duffy concert at Vector Arena (looks just like Wells Fargo arena). Duffy was good but is not quite the mega star arena diva yet.

John also got stopped again for a random breath test. This time it was up the street from our house.