Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Devonport

As promised, here is our little trip to Devonport!

So first Ill explain where Devonport is. Devonport is a smaller town still on the mainland. But the way its situated its actually much faster to ferry across to it than to drive there. So Carla and I took our first Ferry ride in New Zealand! Here is us leaving the city :)


Carla was very excited! Her excitement always gets me excited, its amazing!


There is me with the city skyline behind me. Carla and I really enjoyed being on the ferry! It was so much fun to be out of the city and on the water. It just felt refreshing.


Devonport is a smaller city that it more family oriented than downtown Auckland, so it was really relaxing being there. PLUS there are these two hills that you can climb and the views are incredible. First we all walked up Mt. Victoria... oh forgot to mention that we also went along with a fellow animator friend of mine, Levi and his sister who is in town visiting. So we all went up to Mt. Victoria and this is what we saw. And actually in the distance is North Head which is the other hill.



Me and Rangitoto in the background, which is another surrounding island.



Theres Carla standing on these funny little mushroom things... honestly I have no idea what they were but it reminded me of a scene from the old Mario Brothers games haha

Levi was kind enough to take a picture of me and my lovely wife.
Thats one of the bridges around Auckland in the background.
Then we went down Mt. Victoria and started heading toward North Head. We got to see some really pretty neighborhoods along the way and had a great time talking with Levi and his sister.
Then we got to North Head and the views were once again, stunning! Look at this!

Lastly I wanted to show you Rangitoto one more time. Rangitoto is actually a extinct volcano... and Carla and I climbed to the top of it today! More on that soon!!


Hope you enjoyed!
Matty and Carla

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Botanical Gardens

Hey Everyone!

Heres a little post Merry Christmas with tree made up of many different kinds of plants. We saw this the other day when we went to the Botanical Gardens. So let me tell you a little bit about it!

This trip was very much outside our box. First of all it was about a 1 hour bus ride south of where we live, so that in itself isnt something we usually do. Also it is in an area that we have never been to (Manurewa), and when you get off the bus its about a 25 minute walk to the gardens... AND it was raining... HARD! But we had a blast! We went into the day saying, we are gonna get wet... we are gonna get wet and we are gonna have fun! So we just expected it and we had a great time! Now, onto the pictures!!


See I told you it was raining! We got to the gardens and by this time we are already pretty wet. So we sat in the cafe for a little bit and had a nice warm mocha.

Even though it was raining I tried to use this trip to get some creativity out and I tried to take some cool pictures of the flowers... did I succeed? Ill leave that up to you to decide, either way I had fun!


Then we went into the edible garden which was so cool, they had such beautiful plants and vegetables!


Carla really liked this one below! It was so bright blue! The camera even had a bit of a hard time capturing the color. Now Carla and I dont know much about plants, but this reminded us of an artichoke... is that what they look like while they grow?


Another thing we had a really fun time with was the bird life! We found these cool birds just walking around. I think they may be flightless, but really I dont know much about birds either haha. But they were pretty awesome. They were a dark blue and black with these really vibrantly bright red heads. And they were fairly large. I kept trying to get closer and closer to get a good picture, but they started to run away. So I started to run after them. They didnt like that. They were surprisingly fast!

Ok now I know this bird is kind of hard to see in this picture below, but it is beautiful! Its a small bird with bright red on its head and then it has blue and green and yellow and purple... it was so colorful! After a little research we found out that this is a rosella parakeet. And one of the coolest things is this is the second one we have seen. We actually saw one right across the street from our apartment! Its so cool living in a country where these are the wild birds you see when you go to the park. We would only expect to see something this beautiful in a zoo or in an display or something... but here in NZ you get them right outside your door.

It was such a beautiful place and so great to be outside, even in the rain.
I told you it was raining! Haha see how wet I am!

And my beautiful wife looking like a cute little pilgrim haha! See her cute little hood on, and her soaking wet umbrella... she even took her shoes off because they were soaking! My shoes squished with water with every step I took.


There were places in this garden where it was a forrest trail and the trees would get so dense that we could almost feel the rain stop... Almost! It did rain solidly the whole time :) Anyway we could go into this forrest and feel so far away from anyone, it was so cool! We would see such beautiful greenery and these amazing creeks with little waterfalls. It was quite a breathtaking day.




Thats all I've got for now, but a little trip to Devonport coming soon!
Thanks everyone!
Love,
Matty and Carla

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

So, I promised you that you would hear about Muriwai Beach, and so here it is. We were invited by some Kiwi friends this weekend (one of Matt's coworkers and his fiance) to go to Muriwai Beach to do some surfing. We asked him if it would be okay if we came along but didn't surf, because neither of us really know how to do that, and we just wanted to get out of the city and see some beautiful scenery. He told us that was absolutely okay, but he didn't want us to be disappointed, because this is not the most beautiful beach that you can see around here. We didn't mind whether it was pretty or not, we just wanted to go. However, when we got there, we were not at a beach that was ugly. We were at a BEAUTIFUL beach! We had to let our friend know that where we are from, we have Lake Lahonton, which on the way out there, all you see if brown, and when you get there, all you see is dirt and brown water! So, anything in New Zealand is prettier than that!

So this picture here, is just what you see when you are in the parking lot (or car park-what they call it)! We told him that we could turn around before even seeing the beach and we would be okay, that this was already prettier than what we have at home. He said that he actually felt bad for us for where we live haha!!! He also told us that if we think that Auckland and this beach is pretty, he thinks we are going to have an aneurysm when/if we go to the South Island, because it is 10x prettier there than this. I cannot even picture how it can get prettier... wow!

This here is one view at the beach. It is a little hard to see, but it was a little bit foggy here, although it was really warm, and Matty and I LOVE fog, so we are already in heaven with just this view!

This is what you see if you just turn around from that other view! Now isn't that just gorgeous?!? If you climb up that hill there, you have another great view and they have a colony of birds at this beach called Gannets, and Ill show you some pictures of those too. This is also a black sand beach, and again, we are at the Tasman Sea, not the Pacific Ocean, which is just cool to think of.

This is a close up of what the sand looks like; I know that looks like there is water, but there is no water there. That is what the water creates though. It looks so marble-like, and pretty.

One cool, and scary thing, was that there were jellyfish all over the beach! They were all dead of course, and washed up on the shore, but I guess this is not a very common thing, so we are wondering why they were all here, and if it was safe to go in the water. But there were lifeguards everywhere, and a ton of people in the water, so we figured it couldn't be that bad if they were letting people in the water. We even went in and did some body-boarding, and that was a lot of fun, and we were not worried about the jellies. But look at the size of that thing! It is huge and the red spots are crazy. Don't worry, I wanted to touch them, but my amazing husband wouldn't let me lol :)

Here is Matty testing out the water for the first time. It was really cold at first, but after getting in once, it wasn't so bad. We had a lot of fun body-boarding. I liked it more than I thought I would, so who knows... maybe I will take up surfing after all... only if there are NO sharks!

Remember the hill that I said you could climb up? Well when you walk closer, there are stairs to get up, so you don't have to be a mountain climber to do it, but also just to the right of the stairs, there is this beautiful cave! And those flat rocks just to the right of the cave are easy to get to, and people are allowed to fish there, or just hang out. Really pretty.

So, we climbed up the stairs to the left of that cave, and walked all the way up (not really as far as I just made it sound) to the Gannet colony, and here is a picture of them hanging out on the rocks there. Isn't that another amazing view too?

Here is a picture of Matty and me. We are still up on the hill by the bird colony, but taking a picture of us overlooking the beach from where we walked from.

And last but not least, we had to claim our beach as we always do, and we just thought of how cool it is that Christmas is less than two weeks away, and we are enjoying a day at the beach, so this is how we enjoy our Christmas!


Ok, and a quick story about the way back. We were driving home and our Kiwi friend asked if we wanted to stop at a gas station close to the beach, because he wanted to get something, and he asked us if we wanted an ice block. In my head, I am literally thinking of a block of ice, and because it is so hot, maybe we stick it under our butts; I don't know, but okay, if you want to stop, that is fine with me!!! Well it turns out that ice blocks are Popsicles!! Haha who would have thought!?! We are really having a fun time learning all the different phrases here too!
Love you all, talk again soon!
Carla and Matty

Sunday, December 12, 2010

Coca-Cola Christmas in the Park

Can anyone back home picture watching a concert outside in a park just two weeks before Christmas? And also being warm while doing so? I am sure not, but this past Saturday, we were able to do just that! It was in the Auckland Domain, which is a HUGE park here in Auckland City, and it is called Coca-Cola Christmas in the Park. It is a free event (which was a big reason we went), and it is a night filled with singers that are popular over here (we didn't recognize one name!), a fun Christmas tree and fireworks at the end! It was a fun, but very interesting experience.

Here below is the stage that everything took place. We had pretty good seats, but we still weren't able to see much once it all started. It was very cool though, because it is such a relaxed event, that people just bring blankets, picnics, and cameras and sit and enjoy this event. We were surrounded by New Zealanders, people from other countries, and Maoris, which are their native settlers over here.

This picture below is the big Christmas tree that they had in the middle of the park, and you can also see the stage here too. The craziest part though is how many people are in this picture, and like I said, we had pretty good seats. What you cant see, is all the people behind us and to the right and left of us. We heard that there was an estimated 1.4 million people at this event, which is huge, considering that is the amount of people just living in Auckland City! And they were all here at this event! It was insane. Ill tell you more about the concert itself, but to give another idea of how many people there were, we were walking home after the event, and they closed off some roads that were right by the Domain, and so many people were walking on this road, that Matt at one point took a video of the road, and I cant put the video up, but there was just a SWARM of people in front of us, and also behind us all walking home! It was so crazy, the entire road was full! It was said to be the biggest event of the year!

Us, hanging out waiting for the concert to start. We are in jackets, but this was starting to get late; all day and up to this point we were in shorts and t-shirts. How crazy is it that we were watching a Christmas event in summer clothes!?!

We had to take a picture of this candy. Like I said, this was a free event, but they make their money by selling things like Santa hats, and candy such as this. I have personally never seen this candy, and neither has Matt. I am not sure if it is sold in the states, so correct me if I am wrong, but we had fun tasting what we think to be a foreign candy and we can't even pronounce the name of the candy! It was quite good though.

So, the concert, like I said had tons of artists that we did not recognize the names of, and tons of bazaar stuff. Some artists sang Christmas carols, some sang the songs that they are known for, and some sang songs that made no sense at all as to why they were in the concert. At one point, the announcer lady was talking about the next song, and she was saying, "This is a song about being in love with your best friend...etc", and the song was Lady Gaga, Bad Romance! What?!?! How is that about being in love with your best friend?!? I don't understand it, but we got a kick out of it. We also are not so sure why that song (and others) were in a Christmas concert, but like I said, it was entertaining to say the least.
It was also really cool, because at one point, they brought a bunch of Maori singers/dancers on the stage, and they sang a Maori song in the native language, and they were in native dress and dancing a native dance, and the people all around us got up and started singing and dancing with them. No matter if they were Maori, Kiwi or not, they all sang and danced. It was so cool to see how united this country is. I just couldnt see Americans watching Native Americans doing a tribal dance and us getting up and dancing and singing with them, so that was really neat to see.
So anyway, it was a really fun and INTERESTING experience, but it was cool that we would never get this opportunity back in the states, so it was fun to go to. And the picture below of course, is the tree lit up at the end, and we also got to see a big fireworks display, which was just as good as 4th of July back home, but we were SO close to the fireworks here. It was awesome!
Coming soon... Muriwai beach! Stay tuned and thanks as always!
Much Love,
Carla and Matty

Sunday, December 5, 2010

Wine Tasting and Piha Beach

We woke up this weekend having no idea what we wanted to do to spend our weekend in New Zealand; we looked at a couple brochures on Saturday morning, and decided, last minute, that we would try to go on a wine tour. Wine tours are actually quite popular here, so we thought, that if it was available, we would do that. So we called, and were actually able to go that same afternoon, and even better, it was just Matty and I, and our tour guide John. We even got to customize our tour, combining two tours into one. It was wonderful and so much fun. We started out by going to two different wineries, and had a lot of wine before eating lunch, which wasnt all that good for someone my size...

This is a picture of me at the first winery, and the only picture we took at the wineries. The wine overtook us, and we forgot about the cameras.

This is a poster that was up at that same winery, that shows all of the wine regions of New Zealand and which region is known for which kind of wine. It was fun to see.

This is Matty and me in the shuttle that took us everywhere. We were on our way to lunch here. The nice thing was that the price of the tour included EVERYTHING, including lunch, all the tastings and the scenery.

So, after the first two wineries, we went to lunch at this place called Beesonline Honey Factory Cafe. It was a great menu, and since they are a honey factory, they had a lot of types of honeys to taste, and we even got to see honey bees in action. The picture below is one of the cases of bees that were collecting honey. It was inside too, which was weird, but it led outside, and there were tons of bees everywhere. It was cool to see. There are honeys here that is a natural healing honey, that kills bacteria in the body. Very cool.

So, after lunch, we went to the final winery of the day, and then took off to Piha Beach, which is about a 40 minute drive from the city. By the way, all of the wine was AMAZING, for anyone who may be wondering and we bought a bottle of Pinot Gris, which if you know us, you know we are red wine people, so that really says something about the white wine here. It was great!
So, anyway, after the three wineries and lunch, John took us to Piha Beach, as part of the tour. It was an amazingly pretty beach, and the best part of it was that it is on the west coast of New Zealand, meaning that this was not the Pacific Ocean, but the Tasman Sea. That was really cool to know that we were looking at an ocean that we have never seen before. The sand at Piha is black sand, rather than the usual tan, and Piha had beautiful rocks that are huge and the one below is called Lion Rock. Can you see the Lion? It took me a while to see it, but once you see it, it is really there! Very amazing!

When we got to Piha, John took us on a small hike up one mountain and we were able to overlook the ocean and take some wonderful pictures. The climb up the mountain was also very beautiful, as everything is so green here! Here is another view at Piha Beach.

Matt took this picture of me as we were treking back down the trail, and man, isnt the scenery just beautiful even on this small trail?!?

This is also on the climb up the trail. It was really fun and not too bad of a walk, but I was wearing heels, which wasnt so much fun, but so worth the climb! Also right before we started on the trail, we saw a sign saying there are penguins at this beach, and dogs are not allowed at the beach because of the penguins. How cool is that, that although we didnt see any that day, there are wild penguins at this beach, and we could have easily run into one... wow. We are definitely not in the US anymore.

Here is a picture of Piha Beach while we were still driving down there. I put this one up because you can see the water, but also Lion Rock and beautiful green NZ. This is the NZ we have been waiting to see since we got here. We love it in Auckland, but it was so nice to get outside the city and see the rest of this beautiful country (and we havent seen anything really). But isnt God's creation just incredible? We just love it and cannot wait to go back on our own so we can actually enjoy being on the beach, and climb up Lion Rock.


After Piha, we headed home, and it was tremendous and definitely worth the money. We walked away with some great wine, and directions back to Piha, so it was a wonderful trip.
Thanks as always for checking in with us!
Carla and Matty