Jungle Gyms and Small Aircrafts

So I've been slacking on my updates, (I still haven't updated the captions on my pictures). The truth is my second half has been a lot less interesting. I've been doing some fantastically unique things but everything isn't as new and exciting. It sounds odd but it's like I'm no longer as impressed about what I'm seeing. Also, I'm doing more social things. The last two weekends I've pretty much just gone somewhere with a lot of friends and relaxed.

Two weekends ago bunch of pretty much took over a hotel in Raglan, a tiny surf village minutes from an amazing surfing beach and legitimately stuck in 60's. It's supper artsy and crunchy. For example, the first night we ate at the Burger Shack, an organic burger mecca. The cows are shipped in from literally just down the road along with all of the vegetables, cheeses, and gluten free buns. They also had a huge selection of very different veggie burgers made from pumpkin (I'm assuming not as local), mango, mushrooms, chic peas, and so on. I loved this place if you couldn't tell and the guys who ran it were really awesome too. That night we hung out on the beach and pretty much just relaxed. The next day was a journey back to elementary school. We woke up, found a field with a candy shop in the center and threw around a frisbee while we traded lollipops and chewy candies and then ran to the local jungle gym where we played on see-saws and monkey bars. We then relocated to the beach where I learned (or at least tried to learn) how to do a proper cartwheel and handstand. Anyways, like I said, we just hung out and relaxed all weekend. Raglan was quite pretty and the little shops were really fun to pop in and out of. But, the purpose of the trip was relocate the ever expanding circle of 15 or so friends somewhere new and just hang out. Probably the second most relaxing weekend here.

The MOST relaxing weekend I think I've ever had was out on the Great Barrier Island. It's the 4th biggest island that makes up New Zealand and by far one of the most remote places in the world. It's a 5 hour ferry away or a 30 minutes flight out of the airport. After a huge adventure getting there, (we missed our flight because of traffic and had to buy another ticket...probably the dumbest thing I've done in a long time), we got in a vessel that only sat about 12 people. The airplane was probably 15 feet long and 10 feet high. I've never appreciated how incredible the concepts of lift and aviation are until we took off. You can see the plane pretty much work it's way through the air and "become" light enough to fly. It also happened to be a few minutes before the sunset so we flew northeast toward the Barrier with some spectacular views of Auckland, The Coromandel, The Barrier, and the Pacific. One of my friends here has a house out there (she was born here but moved when she was young), so she picked us up from the airport (a collection of two small huts and a big grassy airfield). The house was an old a-frame with another a-frame extension about 20 minutes from the airfield. The view from the living room was not to be believed; there's thee huge glass windows in front of all of the couches that suggest a spot for a big screen TV but instead make way for this dramatic view of one of the beaches. You can't see any other man made structure from there so it really looked and felt like the house was just dropped there in the bushes. Also, everyone on the island has their own generator since there is no other electricity source, along with water tanks that collect rain water to drink and cook with. That said, you wouldn't know it when you were standing in the local pub or grocery store.

Only 800 people live there year round and only 20% of the island is "developed". The rest is all farm land or untouched. So I was pretty excited to get a chance to hike around. Unfortunately it rained 20 hours of the first 36 hours I was there. So on Saturday we waited for the rain to hold off and went fishing, caught nothing but seaweed, and scurried back to the house before the rain came on again. That night we went to town and got some supplies for a huge dinner feast. I've really gotten more into cooking for myself on a regular basis here which is great and probably one of the best developments that I'll bring back to the states. We roasted a chicken, made mash potatoes, peas, sweat corn, pasta and pesto, and sauteed onions, (it's worth noting we had a huge breakfast feast as well with chocolate chip banana pancakes and eggs in a nest which I never heard of but are just eggs fried inside of a piece of bread with a whole in it). It was kind of weird to think that I was on my own on this little island far away from my friends and family from home, making my own family style meal. Just an odd feeling really, realizing I'm really on my own out here and surviving. Gives me a lot of faith concerning my ability to live in the "real world" but I'm not going to stat thinking about that until I absolutely have to (1 more year right?). Sunday we got up and saw no clouds so we literally ran outside and drove to the other side of the island for a quick hike. Check out the pictures as usual. From there we went to these natural hot springs which were lukewarm at best but still pretty interesting. The flight home I got to sit right behind the pilot for another amazing sunset (the pictures from the plane window are unreal to me and I was there). Sitting behind the pilot was also a really unique experience except I found myself a little antsy; every time a light lit up I would try and survey the dashboard and figure out what it meant. Nonetheless it was a fantastic experience as was the rest of the weekend.

This weekend mom and dad make their way out and I'm a little worried they wont have enough time to see how incredible this place is. I'll do my best to show it off though and seeing them will be a little weird if I think about where we are on the map but a real treat. Also, I'll caption the pictures form the last album soon. Some people also said they wanted to see more pictures of my friends so I'll try and sift through my 1000 pictures (literally) to find some and share. I had to make a new album for pictures so here's the new one that has the pictures from this entry.