Family Values

Ok, wow. It's been a while. Sorry about that, but in all honesty I have been too busy playing the tourist and have simply not had time to write. But you might ask, why was I playing the tourist? The excuse to do all the things that people do in New Zealand when they only have one week came in the form of my awesome cousin Haley, who flew here for her first spring break from college. Since she came all the way for one week, we had to make it count. Side note: she is the only family member or friend who has made the effort to come visit us in the South Pacific -- big points for her.

Haley arrived on Sunday morning but I was on patrol out at Ocean Beach last weekend so I did not see her until Sunday night. We talked about all our plans for the week - celebrating my birthday (which means going to the beach and then the pub), cultural/historical stuff, outdoor adventures, a snorkeling trip to the Poor Knight Islands, hiking, and a weekend in Auckland.

Yes, we had quite a fun-filled week that started off with my second birthday on this trip, fourth out of the country, and 24th in all. I do not think I have ever scored good waves on my birthday - spring is not the best time of year for surf. But here is it fall and I got perfect chest high, hollow peeling waves. I got closer to getting barreled than I ever have - a great birthday present. After spending most of the day at the beach we headed back to the boat and got ready to go to my favorite Irish pub in Whangarei for my birthday dinner. My buddy Lars showed up as did another yachtie friend and we headed to McMorrissey's for a lamb, mashed potato and gravy dinner accompanied by really, really good beers. We finished off the night with a rockin' jam session.

Tuesday we headed up north to give Haley a grand tour of the Bay of Islands. It was a beautiful day and we trekked around the Waitangi Treaty grounds where the Maori and Europeans signed a treaty (although what that treaty said is a bit unclear) and had a picnic lunch by the water. You know from my complaining how terrible the weather has been this summer in New Zealand, but miraculously the weather was mostly perfect for all of Haley's visit. I think she should come more often.

On Wednesday Haley and I went to the "Adventure Forest" which is a zipline and ropes course through the forest. I thought it might be kind of hokey and lame seeing as how 12 year old kids can do it, but I forgot that these are Kiwi kids and they are gnarly. When we got to the course we were given a lesson on how to clip in and move around the course, signed a waiver, and then were left to our own devices.

These courses were pretty cool and pretty damn hard. We were always clipped in but climbing across ropes 10 meters above the ground is scary! By the end of it Haley and I were both totally beat, so we treated ourselves to a fish n' chips lunch.

The snorkeling tour we took to the Poor Knight Islands on Thursday might be my favorite thing we did. It was a bit of a tourist scheme, but we went out to the islands 10 miles off Tutukaka on a big power cat that got us there fast and comfortably. Jacques Cousteau rated the Poor Knight Islands as one of his top 10 dive destinations in the world, but perhaps more for the unique diversity the sub-tropical climate has to offer. Let's be honest - it does not have much on say, snorkeling in Tonga - but it was really beautiful.

The Poor Knights are a marine reserve and I think the fish know this, so they are not shy about checking snorkelers and divers out. There is also lots of kelp and sea grass which was cool to see... there is no kelp in the tropics. There are also tons of caves and tunnels in the islands and the captain of our boat took us into and through many of them - on the huge power cat. Crazy Kiwis.

On Friday we had a "mellow" day and only went on a 10 kilometer hike up to Whangarei Falls, followed by a night out in Whangarei - Haley is legal to drink here so we had to take advantage (legal, Meg!). We were all feeling a bit stiff when we got up early on Saturday morning to head out to Auckland for the weekend.

Up until this weekend I had spent a total of about two hours in Auckland and was looking forward to seeing the city, plus it was St. Patrick's day on Saturday, plus the Volvo around the world race was stopped in Auckland and they put on quite a show.

Dad booked us a really nice hotel right in the central city and while I would have been content to hang out there all day and watch TV (a novelty!), we ventured out to the Viaduct (waterfront) to check out the Volvo Race Village. These boats are sailing around the world with stops in Abu Dhabi, Brazil, Miami and so on. Yesterday we watched them race around the bay and then head out into very nasty conditions - heading to Chile to round Cape Horn. Good luck to them, I thought as I sipped my beer and took a bite into my cheeseburger.

Auckland is a cool city full of good restaurants and fun bars. On Saturday night we went out to a fun Latin dinner, walked around and hit up a few pubs - all of which were pretty packed. The city was high energy and in a very celebratory spirit. Although Auckland is not the biggest or most sophisticated city in the world, I felt rather out of place as the biggest city I have been in since we left Mexico was Papeete in Tahiti - which is not the most cosmopolitan city. But iPad in one hand and Starbucks coffee in the other I felt very trendy and hip for a day... but I couldn't keep up the front very long.

Yesterday afternoon we said a very sad goodbye to Haley who left us to return to finish up her freshman year at Pomona college. We had a great time with her. Not only was it awesome to visit with family but she gave us the excuse to do a lot of fun things we would not have done otherwise. Perhaps you should come visit us -- wherever we are! Who knows what kind of trouble we could get up to!