On my way up.

Hello everyone,


This is my first blog and I have been in NZ for about 4 days now. The weather is much like home in the summer time. It is always cloudy in the mornings then the sun stays out for the rest of the day. The Ozone layer is very thin down under so the burn time is about 10 minutes when outside. Therefore I am already a lobster. Here is my recap for my first few days in the North Island of NZ. When we arrived at the airport we took the city bus to our first hostel called the Fat Camel. We checked into an 8 bed dorm room and passed right out from Jet Leg Exhaustion. In my dorm I met people from all over the world. There were Brits, Americans, Irish and more Brits. We all got along really well and decided to do a day trip to an Island across from Auckland. This island called Rangitoto is a dormant volcano and the last time it erupted was 800 years ago. Four of us hiked all the way in the hot sun to the top of this volcano. The view at the top was incredible. We could see a panorama view of all of Auckland. it was simply spectacular. The water here is a beautiful greenish blue and the land is comprised of rolling hills and sheep. In NZ there are 4 million people and 60 million sheep. Quite hilarious I think. So the next day I wanted to get out of Auckland- but we did not have a car or any knowledge about the transit system being that efficient. Tim and i did some research and decided to hop on this backpacker bus called STRAY. This is a private company that travels all over NZ and also provides you with a tour guide and lets you know about all of the attractions in the area that backpackers would not normally know about. They also market themselves as "taking you off the beaten path" . This seemed right up my alley. So I handed over the money and now the adventure begins. Right now I am in Paiha- a town North of Auckland. Tomorrow we are going Sand Dune boarding (kind of like snowboarding but on Sand). Anyways it should be a blast. I will post pictures in a few days. All my love. Erika