last day... sad day...

Sam was leaving on Sunday, but luckily her flight wasn't until 10:45PM -- so we had the whole day. We made our way up to Puhoi for some cheese shopping and Devonshire Tea... yes, that may sound familiar since it was Josh and my THIRD time going to Puhoi for this damn tea. We just can't get it off our minds!! It's too good... and now we have an outside opinion to justify our cravings for those scones... Sam is officially a fan. It was the definition of a lovely morning...



From there we hit up Victoria Market (tourist shopping central) for Sam's souvenirs, then to Auckland Domain and Museum for lunchtime. We ate on our cheese and crackers while overlooking the city.


We played in the Museum for a little bit and then headed back to Mission Bay for the afternoon. We sat and soaked up the sun until the last possible moment and then headed towards the dreaded airport. Of course in true Audrey style, tears were shed, but this week will be looked back upon like the highlights reel on ESPN - all the best of the best moments lumped into one week of time.

and you thought skydiving was risky

On Saturday we took off for Waihiki Island... it's a 45 minute ferry away from Auckland and has wineries and beautiful beaches. The plan was originally to rent bikes and bike from winery to winery but we got a head's up that the island was quite hilly and it would be quite the workout to bike it all... so we opted for scooters. Oh man. Let's just say that Sam came closer to death by scooter than jumping out of a plane. Now, we love Sam, but balancing isn't her forte... and that may have caused her to almost scoot into 80 km per hour traffic... but alas, we made it through. Why we thought wine and scooters would be a good idea, no one will know, but it turned out that we ended up tasting more olive oil than wine on the trip so it all worked out.

It's a beautiful island with wonderful views and vineyards - although probably the most stressful winetasting we've ever done, it was still a fun and memorable experience.

We ended the night by doing some rockin t-shirt shopping back in Auckland - cool, local, not touristy NZ t-shirts here we come!

to the doc we go

Old Cleo's brakes aren't sounding so good so we took her to the mechanic... he said she'll be good as new for the beginning of our roadtrip... which, by the way... starts TOMORROW! Road trip! Wooo!!

better the second time around.

As you faithful readers know, we've already been to the Coromandel but it was awful weather. Luckily, Sam wanted to see what this Coromandel thing had to offer and boy are we glad she did! We actually saw the mountains this time! We actually saw blue water instead of grey mucky water! We saw a totally different side of the Coromandel and it was so fun to experience it with Sam!

First stop after Mount Manganui - Cathedral Cove. We had some time to kill until low tide, so we made the hike down to Cathedral Cove. Definitely better the second time around. We took fun photos and played around in the hot "summer" sun for a bit before heading back out.

Then onto Hot Water Beach. HWB is a strip of beach land that has hot thermal magma flowing beneath the sand. People go out during low tide and dig their own hotpool and hang out in the sun. We hired (kiwi for rented) a shovel and dug our hole (and by "we" I mean Josh...) and hot water started bubbling up from under the sand... pretty incredible. We spent our afternoon in our own private hotpool right on the ocean. VIP.

We ended our time with a drive on the backroads down to Thames for Indian food and then back to the Auckland area for the night. A lot of driving, but who cares when you have DJ Sam mixing up the tunes and beautiful scenery the whole way?? A great day!

falling out of taupo

Forgot to mention - on our way out of Taupo we stopped at the Huka Falls... they're kinda like horizontal waterfalls to be honest, but still gorgeous...

awww... :)

looking back while on the mount...

After skydiving we were on Cloud 9... our step was a little faster and had a little bounce to it, our faces had a permanent smile, and we were ready to take on the world... so we couldn't just sit and relax in Taupo - we had to move on. We took off for Tauranga (gateway to the Coromandel if you will...) so we could hit up Cathedral Cove and Hot Water Beach the next day.

Tauranga was an experience... to say the least. We made it there and checked into our hostel. Overall, hostels in New Zealand have turned out to be really nice and can be funky little gems for the most part. This hostel, however, would definitely be considered a high risk activity. We checked into our dorm room (note to self, ALWAYS get a room that you don't have to share) and made our way down to a free wireless internet cafe... score... or not... it's a coffee shop by day and apparently a strip club by night... yep. Our internet time was cut a bit short. We went back to our sketchy hostel for a good night's sleep... only to be woken up at 3:30AM by a police officer asking for our passports because there was an armed gunman on the loose in the streets of Tauranga and they had reason to believe he broke into our hostel. Umm... yikes. Needless to say, it was an adventure, but Tauranga wasn't all bad - in the morning we headed to Mount Manganui... it's a dormant volcano with incredible views from the top. And on this sunny day, it was the perfect place to recap our death defying adventures...

cave images...

Here are a couple from the caves... Sam and Audrey's pictures came on a faulty disc, so these are all we have right now, but more to come... I KNOW you want to see this hotness in a wetsuit... oh yeah...

SKYDIVE!

Do it. Skydive. It's SOOO worth it. On Thursday, following our Rotorua adventures, we headed down to Taupo to jump out of a plane at 15,000 feet. Well, the plan was originally 12,000 but then we got talked into more... but absolutely 100% worth it. Here's the day:

We stalked the weather to find the perfect day - and we found it. Sunny with a few clouds. Perfect. We showed up for our jump at 12:30ish. Got the low down and all the options. Audrey got overwhelmed and teared up... ok... cried a bit... but not "ugly cry" - just cute nervous, overwhelmed cried. Right?? We decided on 15,000 feet. The highest you can jump tandem. AHH!

We got geared up. Met our tandems and basically jumped on the plane. Everything is done for you. You just do what they tell you which is "Put this on," "Smile at the camera," "Here's your tandem - have fun!" You just have to trust your tandem and off you go. Josh and Sam - calm, cool, collected, and excited. Audrey - nervous and excited and swaying side to side to avoid thinking about jumping out of a plane. Hey - it's nerve racking!

We got on the plane and then it was business time. Audrey was in the zone and good to go. We all were on a total high and crazy excited. We made it up to 15,000 feet and one by one jumped out of the plane. Simply put - the COOLEST experience ever. Like nothing you've ever done. Would TOTALLY do it again. You free fall for about 60 seconds, but it's not a stomach dropping feel the whole way - after the first 7 seconds or so you just feel like you're floating in place with an intense wind pushing against your body. It's so crazy. Then they pull the parachute and you simply float to the ground. It's silent up there and you can see EVERYTHING. It's so so so amazing and I encourage everyone to go somewhere beautiful and just do it. I may of had tears at first, but I was thrilled afterwards - so great!

Here's the after shot. We did it! 15,000 feet!!

Hangi

So after the luging and a little shopping, we were set to do a traditional Maori Hangi. It's basically like a luau but for the native people group of New Zealand. You have a traditional feast that's cooked underground, see a cultural show, do a tour of their property, and basically get sucked into tourist world... but hey - you gotta experience it, right? We weren't experiencing the amount of people that were actually there, but overall it was a really fun and enlightening time. We learned some cultural dances and symbolism and ate like the natives... this is a mish mash of clips from the cultural performance...



After the whole experience, Josh took us to a hidden gem he found last time he was in New Zealand - Kerosine Creek. It's a waterfall/pool area that's heated with those darn underground thermal things and it was really fun - people leave candles all around so there's totally mood lighting provided. As you sit in near darkness, you can look up at the stars and get lost in them. No Orion or Big Dipper.... but there is the Southern Cross and other constellations that make up the southern sky. Simply breathtaking. A great way to tie up our time in Rotorua.

luge me!

We took a gondola ride up to the top of Rotorua... from there you can pick your poison and luge down the tracks. We felt like kids again as we raced down the tracks... ps... Josh is a cheater! Just kidding... I'm just jealous of his luge moves... onward to the HANGI! More to come...

rotten-egg ville

So Rotorua has a ton of hot thermal pools and therefore smells like sulfer... which smells like I made an egg salad sandwich last week and left it out on the counter in the hot sun with the windows closed. All the time. Everywhere. It's kinda like living in Gilroy and not knowing that it smells like an Italian restaurant ALL the time. Which... to be honest... I really like :)

Anyway - we started our day off with a walk around the city -- seeing the boiling mud pools, the lake filled with swans, and soaking up the... smell. Ick. Town = pretty. Smell = bad. Next... the luge.

glow little glowworms, glimmer glimmer...

Well we picked up Sam on Tuesday and headed for Waitomo - the center for caving in New Zealand. Man - we are so hardcore, huh?? Sam and I did the Labrynth and Josh and our friend Jessica did the Abyss. The Labrynth is where you climb down into a cave, walk through the caves below, through all the water and danger that lurks below (i.e. fight off huge flesh eating eels!! Well, not so much human flesh, but still...), jump off waterfalls, and tube below the earth's surface while gazing at glowworms - one man nearly had a heart attack and had to be evacuated!! Pretty cool, huh? All Josh and Jessica did were repel down a little cavern (70 meters or so... *yawn*), rock climb along the cave walls, zipline through the caves, climb up silly waterfalls, and then do some tubing (copiers!) BORING!! Actually - they did a lot more of the "hard core" stuff... Sam and I thought it was child's play so we passed. :)

After the caves we were off to Rotorua for the night...

Pictures to come --