A wuss in the Adventure capital of the world

It's been a busy couple of days since my last post. I've been on the go since Monday morning, slowly but surely travelling down to the south. Monday morning started off bright and early to take the bus from Auckland to Whitianga to view the Coromandel peninsula. I started off slightly sad to be saying goodbye to Claire, the new friend I had met in my early days in Auckland and had met up with again in the Bay of Islands. It's all part of the travelling business, but it's bizarre how quickly friendships can be made and lost...

The Coromandel peninsula is a gorgeous place to visit. The highlight of the day is supposed to be Cathedral Cove, a beautifully shaped cove by the east coast of the North Island. The Magic bus brings us to a car park (parking lot for us Canadians) and we are to walk down to the cove. The bus driver let us know that is quite a good walk back (meaning uphill, yet again) and that we have 1 hour and a half before we leave. Clueless little old me spends like 15 minutes up top taking pictures, going to the bathroom, slowly getting started down the slope when I first notice the sign saying that the walk to the Cove is 45 minutes. As I'm quickly going downhill, my math skills kick-in and I figure if it's 45 minutes one-way, it's at least 1 hour and a half return trip (duh). And since it's all downhill to get there, I imagine it will take me even longer to get back. And even better yet, since I am the slowest walker I've ever met, I figure if it's 45 minutes for most people, it'll probably be even longer for me... So I start to panic and decide to forgo Cathedral Cove and go to the 2 different bays that are on the way day (Gemstone Bay and another whose name I forgot). They were quite beautiful, but still, I was disappointed I wimped out of seeing the main event...

We also stopped in at Hot Water Beach on our way to Whitianga. This is where you take a shovel with you a dig yourself a hole that fills with steaming hot water being heated by the geothermic activity right below. The smaller the whole, the hotter the water. Just dipping your toe in one of these holes can scald you in 2 seconds flat. Pretty cool, yet somehow scary as well. I figure if water is that hot just on the surface, we can't be too far from an explosion or something. Seriously, New Zealand is a beautiful country, but I wouldn't want to live here. It's made up almost entirely of volcanoes that are destined to erupt. It's not a question of if, but when. I'd rather not be here when it happens :-)

The next day was spent travelling from Whitianga (nice sleepy beach town) to Rotorua, by way of the Waitomo. For those of you who've seen the Planet Earth DVDs, Waitomo is where they have the glowworm caves. I was looking forward to this place even before I got to NZ and was not disappointed. You can visit the caves in a few different ways, either by abseiling down into them, blackwater rafting (rafting in the darkness of the caves), tubing down the river or by simply walking in and taking a boat to see the glowworms. Guess which one I chose? Obviously by the title of my post, I chose the easiest way and walked into them and then took a boat. It was amazing. You're in the pitch black cave and can't see 1 foot in front of you, but if you look up, you can see thousands and thousands of blue dots lighting up the cave's ceiling! Who would of thought that I could get excited over a bunch of worms!

The final destination for that day was Rotorua, the stinkiest place in all of NZ. And I mean that literally. Rotorua is the hub of geothermic activity in NZ, and the whole place smells of sulfur. The smell is worse some days than others, and it seems we were lucky to be there on a good day. If that was I good day, I wouldn't want to be there on a bad day. Piew! It's really cool though to be walking around town and see steam come up from cracks in rocks or from ponds of water. That and boiling mud! Rotorua is also THE place to do a Maori traditional evening. They bring you in a bus to a traditional Maori village and they put on a show for you. You finish off the evening with a hangi, a Maori meal cooked up under the earth. Kind of like their own version of a mechoui... This is what I did for Halloween. And since quite a few of you have asked me, I can now confirm to you that Halloween is basically non existent here in NZ. I heard of one bar that had a Halloween night, but that's in. No candy, no masks, no decoration, nothing.

It's been an excellent couple of days. The weather has been good to me up until now (it's currently raining, that's why I'm on the Internet) and I'm slowly getting a farmer's tan (face and arms only). And every time I get on the Magic bus, I see familiar faces from previous buses as well as meet new people. The most interesting conversation I've had lately is with a Japanese girl who is in NZ for 2 weeks. She tries really hard, but doesn't speak English very well. At one point, there I was in the middle of a typical conversation (how long are you here for, where are you going next, which has been your favorite spot so far, ...) with a girl her and another girl from Taiwan. Neither of them speaking much English and all of us using sign language to understand each other. Hilarious!

Hope you all enjoyed Halloween. I'm in Taupo now until Saturday and off to Wellington next. Not sure how long I'll stay, since I only have 3 weeks left in NZ and the South island is supposed to be even better than the North...

My new definition of a work day

Today is a "work" day for me, and as you will see, it's quite a different work day than most of you have (lucky me). I'm in Auckland City and I'm doing some chores before starting off on my next Magic bus trip tomorrow morning. I went to pick-up a Magic Bus handbook to help me figure out the rest of my time in NZ and found a cheap Internet cafe where I made my first Skype call for free. Seriously, what did people ever do before the Internet?

I am then going to buy laundry detergent and do some well needed laundry. I am overdue and have started using the sniff test to figure out what to wear in the morning. Sorry if this grosses anyone out, but at least I still shower every day! (some people don't you know...)

Anyway, I thought I'd take this cheap Internet opportunity to give you some impressions about my time in NZ so far, as well as living the life of a backpacker.

• Kiwis (New Zealanders) are really very friendly. I haven't met a single rude person as of yet. As an example, I was heading up a hill to a great viewpoint when visiting the town of Russell on Friday, and this nice lady stopped her car and offered me a lift. She says she always picks up people at that spot, cause she sees so many people turn around when they are only halfway up the hill. It would have taken me the better part of an hour to get up there (because of my superior athleticism and great walking speed ;-) ) and instead, she dropped me off 3 minutes later.
• I don't know what I really was expecting weather-wise, but it's colder and wetter than I thought it would be. I'm not bothered by it, but if I had known I maybe would have brought something warmer than a hoodie with me :-)
• I also wasn't expecting it to look tropical in places. The far North for example, could easily pass for the Carribean (maybe if it were a bit warmer).
• Even though I am supposedly perfectly bilingual, I still have to ask everyone to repeat everything they say at least twice. My brain is slowly starting to adapt to all these different accents, but it is taking time.
• It seems to me that most travellers I have meet are either from the UK or from Germany. There are some other nationalities as well of course, but not in so many numbers as those two.
• It really is a very small world. I've met people in Paihia earlier this week and then passed by them on Queen Street (i.e. the Main) in Auckland. It seems like there are more backpackers in the country than there are residents.

As for life on the road, here are my impressions:

• La "poule de luxe" is truly dead and buried for now. No more 5-star hotels for me.
• Sharing rooms with 4 or 5 other strangers is not as hard as I thought it would be. It was awkward the first day, and even weirder the first time I shared a room with 3 guys and no other girl, but you get over it real quick.
• I try to spend as little time possible in the actual hostel rooms. They are so tiny, you can't even sit up straight when sitting on a bed. I only go there to sleep.
• Even though I'm on my own, I am almost never alone. There are always other people around, no matter where you are. Privacy is a thing of the past...
• I already have a love/hate relationship going on with my backpack. It's getting better organized every day, but I never seem to find what I'm looking for right away. And although carrying it is OK for short distances, putting it on is not easy.
• Most people I've met at hostels are in their twenties, though some are older. Lots of young couples and people travelling on their own.
• Some travellers look like they could whip-up a 5-course gourmet meal from crumbs they find in hostel kitchens, but I am certainly not one of them. I don't cook much at home, so do you think cooking in a hostel is going to be any better? And how exactly do they carry all that food around with them when going from one place to another? I actually had cereal AND 2 glasses of milk for breakfast on Friday, only because I didn't want to waste the little pint of milk I had bought earlier. And the small block of cheese I had bought the day before and put in the mini fridge in my room suddenly had 2 sets of teeth marks in it the next day. They weren't mine, since I am civilised and used a knife when I had some.

That's it for now. I have been on the Internet for 3 hours already, and only managed to upload 50 pictures. They are in flickr now if you want to see them: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rtwjanie/sets/72157602749647327/

The beautiful Northland!

Time sure flies when your having fun!

I left Auckland Wednesday morning to start my first Magic bus trip to the Northland. It's been amazing so far. Not that many people on the bus, maybe 15-20, as we aren't in the high tourist season yet. It's great for us travellers, as you get all the space you need, no line-ups and no problems reserving stuff as you go. It started off well, with a good crowd, if a bit shy and quiet. The main stop of this trip is to the town of Paihia, the "main" town in the Bay of Islands. This place is breathtakingly beautiful, and I mean that quite literally. It's all hills around here, so walking around does take your breath away, at least mine ;-) But seriously, it is simply gorgeous. If this is any indication of the rest of the country, I'm in for a great time.

I've done a cruise of the Bay of Islands, saw some dolphins and the most amazing untouched beaches and islands. I've also had a day trip up to Cape Reinga, the northernmost spot in NZ. The views are spectacular, you see where the Tasman sea meets the Pacific Ocean. The day trip also takes you to giant sanddunes, where the more adventurous can try sandboarding. Needless to say I was the official picture taker for our crowd. I had 5 different cameras and had to try and remember which went with which person. That was adventure enough for me!
Another cool part to the day is the ride back. A stretch of 90 km of beach, called 90-mile beach (go figure!) is actually considered a highway! Max speed 100 km an hour, you ride on the beach, over sand and little streams of water, as if you were speeding down the 10 in direction of Sherbrooke!

It's hard to convey how beautiful this place is, but I'll try an upload some pictures when I manage to get a decent Internet connection. I'd really love to update the blog more often, but hey! I've been busy for one and Internet is really expensive for another... So I do my best.

Next leg of the journey starts (hopefully) on Sunday with a trip to the lower part of the North Island. More on that later.

Getting into the groove

I can't believe I've only been in Auckland for 4 days so far! It feels like I've been gone at least a week, if not more.

It has been great so far, with really busy days. I've been mostly visiting Auckland city and it's surroundings, as well as trying to get the rest of my time in New Zealand organized. After a couple of days of being here and still not having a clue as to what my itinerary was going to be, I was starting to get edgy. Part of my day yesterday and today was spent figuring that out. Since Auckland is either the starting or ending point for most trips, I've met quite a few people in the same boat as I. Some come here for 6 months to a year, others for a month of so. And most do their planning once they get here, so that reassured me.

I finally decided to do a "Magic Bus" trip. This is a type of hop-on hop-off backpacker bus that follows a specific itinerary, but you stop for how ever long you want at every stop. You can stay a day, a week, a month, whatever. I wasn't initially interested in this, it seemed a bit to "packaged" to my taste, but then I got some more information on it and it seems ideal for me. I now have 4 1/2 weeks left in New Zealand, so I got to get a move on... I've chosen to do the "New Zealand Encounter" (see http://www.magicbus.co.nz/main/productDetail/index.cfm?productID=94) that covers both North and South Islands, but first with a side trip to the very tip of the North Island (see http://www.magicbus.co.nz/main/productDetail/index.cfm?productID=74).

The first leg of my trip starts on Wednesday, so I still have a day left in Auckland. It's a beautiful place, with lots of little harbour islands to explore, so an extra day is fine. So far, I've seen: "Downtown" Auckland (what they call the CBD: Central Business District), the neighborhoods of Parnell and Ponsonby, the Auckland Museum, the Sky Tower (highest standing tower in the Southern hemisphere) & Devenport Island. Not bad for my first 4 days!

I've also met and talked to a bunch of people at the hostel. It's a really easy-going environment and everyone has been great so far. I actually went to the Museum with a girl in the same room as I, and tonight am going out to diner with a fellow Quebecois who just got in last night.

P.S Thanks to all who have posted comments on my blog. I'll keep trying to do my best and post regularly. Bye for now!

The neverending day

Day 1 of the Big Adventure was certainly a long one... 31 hours from YUL to AKL, or 34 hours if counting door-to-door from Brossard to Auckland. It went as well as could be expected with some highs and some lows along the way. The highs: A nice going-away lunch with Mom, Dad, Jackie & Johanne, managing not to completely fall apart when saying goodbye at the airport, managing to sleep at least 5-6 hours on all the flights combined, my backpack arriving at Auckland airport at the same time as I did, and lastly but not least, arriving safe and sound.
The lows: A few minor ones like uncomfortable seats (no shit, excuse my language), and the same movies being shown on all flights (saw the movie Gracie twice, even though I had never heard of it before, and The Rise of the Silver Surfer twice as well...) but the only major one worth mentioning is that I managed to catch a cold & started getting symptoms the day I left. After 5 hours of flying, I was completely congested and both my ears were blocked. As of the time I'm writing this more than 50 hours later, my left ear still feels like I have an ear plug stuck in it...
I had a few "freak out" moments as well. The first one involving my money belt, as I was leaving the plane on my 2nd flight of the trip. I could not find it anywhere and was convinced I had left it in a bathroom stall at LAX. The freak out lasted 5 minutes until I got off the plane and dumped out my carry-on and found the damn thing.

The 2nd freak out moment was after arriving at the hostel. I had managed to start the trip without actually putting on the backpack. It was trekked from the car to a cart to a plane to a cart ... without going on my back. Getting it there is no easy task, let me tell you. I can carry it OK, but picking it up and putting it on in a quick and timely fashion is beyond me. I hope I get better at it soon. Anyway, back to the freak out. The hostel office was not opened when I arrived and I had to wait 1 hour before being able to check in. At this point, I'm exhausted, sicker than ever and thinking what the hell am I doing here. And I'm going to do this for a whole year?

It got better when I finally checked-in, even though there was only 1 bed left in my 5-person share, and that was a top bunk with no ladder! I was glad there wasn't anyone in the room when I got there, as I could practice getting on and off the bed without an audience. Not a pretty sight :-)

I spent the rest of my very long first day getting settled in. I walked around the neighbourhood (think a less trendy version of Laurier in Outremont), bought a new cellphone, got myself some dinner and shopped for my breakfast for the next 2 days.

All in all, not a bad start!

In the last stretch...

Only one night left in my own bed before setting off for the grand adventure! It's hard to believe that 6 months have already passed since I made the decision to take a year off. It's been a busy 6 months and time has really flown by.

The past week has been quite something. Hard, as I imagined it would be. Saying goodbye, even if for only a year, to people I've worked with for a long time was not easy. I had a nice send off with the gang from work last Tuesday (merci Christian!), followed by a hectic couple of days trying to finish up my job. By Friday I was drained, but then started over Saturday with the even more difficult task of saying goodbye to my close friends and family. But then it has also been an amazingly heart warming week. It's not often you get an occasion to be celebrated like I was these past few days. My going away party was amazing for me. To see all the people I love and who love me one more time before my departure made me feel like the luckiest person in the world. I am very grateful to have all these people in my life and it's hard to leave them behind for now (pause now to wipe away tears). But enough sappiness for now, and onto the fun stuff!

As mentioned, my "Bon voyage" party was great. My sister Jackie made this spectacular cake representing a world map surrounded by the flags of every country in the world. By the time I get back, I expect she will be making cakes that rival any seen on the Food channel...

I also received an embarrassingly huge amount of going-away gifts. An equally huge thanks to everyone for these, and I promise they will be put to good use!




And for those who are curious, I finally packed my backpack today. Everything fit into the backpack on the first try, so that's good, but it weighed way over what I thought it would. 38 pounds of stuff is a lot and it's about 25% heavier than I expected. I've unpacked everything and am going to start over tomorrow, this time trying to remove the non essential extras. But seriously, I don't know how some people manage to pack everything in just a carry-on type bag. They must have 1 change of clothes and buy absolutely everything they need as they go along. But then, where do they put the stuff they buy?


Tomorrow is another big day. Final packing and heading out to the airport with Jackie, Johanne and Mom & Dad. I'll pack a few extra Kleenex for sure.

And by the way, thanks to all of you who have posted comments. It's great to get your feedback! That's it for now. Gotta go rest up and take advantage of my comfy bed one last time...

The blog! The blog!

I set up this blog so that my family and friends can follow me on my 1-year adventure around the world. Be forewarned: I'll update it as often as possible while I'm on my way but it might be less often than some would hope. I'll do my best.

Et pour mes amis francophones, j'ai choisi d'écrire le blog en anglais pour plusieurs raisons: 1) j'ai de la famille anglophone 2) c'est plus facile pour moi d'écrire en anglais et enfin 3) vous êtes tous capables de lire l'anglais. Si jamais vous voulez des éclaircissements, envoyez-moi un courriel et ça me fera un plaisir de vous traduire de quoi!

It's getting down to the wire now. Only *gulp* 11 more days before D-day. It's a weird feeling, not quite like anything I've felt before. I'm very nervous, exhilirated, excited, a litte bit scared, but most of all, really really happy.

I still have a few things to do before I leave, but it's been manageable so far. I'll probably start freaking out by this time next week, as my procastinating ways will catch up with me, but so far, so good.

Stay tuned for more updates. I hope you enjoy the blog. If there's anything you'd like me to add, let me know and I'll try to figure it out. Design wise, I suck, but I can always try!