Making our way north- Auckland

Ok, bear with me we are actually back in Canada and I need to retro-actively blog. Sorry for giving it away but I promise to catch you back up!

From the most terrifying experience (bungy) of my life, we headed north to Rotorua. We had loaded up the seats to our van at Hannah and Rex's (thanks for storing them for us!) and were feeling a little packed to the gills. So we splurged on a 'cheap' hotel in Rotorua. We went up the Skyline Gondola (just like the one in Queenstown) the next morning. It was such a beautiful day!

View from the top

Riding up the gondola 

Ready to race! Jared has to make up for the crushing defeat he suffered in Queenstown 

He was taking a lot of silly pictures that day  

I'm obviously winning at this point 

Cruising! 

I should admit, this is us taking pictures of each other. We were too cheap to pay for the pictures they take of you.  

Nice place to have a cup of tea 

Riding the gondola back down

After Rotorua we headed to Auckland, a couple of hours drive. We found a hostel to stay in long-term while we tried to sell Esther. Of course we did lots of fun stuff in Auckland as well. One day we went for a bus and harbour tour. Our tour guide drove us around all of the main neighborhoods and we also went out to Mission Bay (where all the richies is at). We spent a couple of hours at the Auckland Museum and gardens in the Auckland Domain:

View of Rangitoto Island

Gecko!

Shot of the SkyTower

There it is again!

This is taken from the Harbour Bridge looking back at the CBD

After the bus tour we hopped on a boat and went on a harbour cruise. We headed out to Rangitoto Island, which is a huge dormant volcano that blew about 1000 years ago. The islands in the Auckland gulf are beautiful:

Rangitoto 

Sailing...

...out

 ....bit further

 Just about to land on Rangitoto

 The Harbour Bridge

The weather was a bit rainy, but we decided we still wanted to check out Devonport, which is a cute little island across from downtown Auckland:

Knitted poles, my kind of town 

ps: there was an amazing little yarn store there and I bought some lovely possum/merino yarn.

 At this time, the Blackhawks were playing Detroit in the conference semi-final (now you realize how very behind I am on blogging!) and Jared was glued to a TV in the sports bar. I was bored after the first period so I went walking around Viaduct Basin, which was built for the America's Cup yachting competition. Yachting is huge in NZ, and about 1 in every 4 Aucklanders owns a boat.

Another afternoon we drove to One Tree Hill to get a great view of the city from the top of the hill. There is also an obelisk at the top:

Of course there are sheep at the bottom..

Can you see Rangitoto out in the harbour?

Of course, nothing beat the view from the Sky Tower. We saved this for one of our last days in Auckland:

Parts of the floor are clear to scare you! 

Jared the daredevil :) 

Ok, almost done here but I have to talk about Tiritiri Matangi. It is a predator-free offshore island that I really wanted to visit and lots of people had told me about. We went on a volunteer basis because there was a lot of work going on on the island and it wasn't open to tourists. So we signed up for the Supporters of Tiritiri and off we went!

We had to do a bit of work while we were there, and this was the view from where we were laying a concrete block for a viewing bench. 

The Kokako! 

Here is an absolutely beautiful professionally taken picture. Look at their blue wattles, love em! 

A little wee penguin we saw on a night-time adventure. We went out every night looking for Kiwis but unfortunately didn't see them. 

Stitchbird. This bird is extremely rare on the mainland. 

Saddleback, you guessed it...non-existent on the mainland. 

Another male stitchbird 

Jared with the Takahe. There are only about 250 of these left in the world, 11 are here on the island. 

The beautiful, iconic Tiritiri lighthouse 

Tui birds at the feeder 

The view we had while digging a trench 

A rare bird....no jokes! 

There is a bellbird in the middle and a Tui to the right 

The bunkhouse we slept in 

Lucy Lawless on the ferry, she was raising awareness for the Jr ranger program. Jared didn't even realize he stood beside her the entire ferry ride. hahhah

We had so much fun on the island, I will always remember the many bird parties I got to have!

Fiji: Ok, so we get out to the first island, I realize I don't have my memory card in my camera. That's ok, we'll use Jared's camera. Well, we left it on the last island. Damn it. So we have zero pictures of Fiji! I can say it was a great time. We spent 2 nights on 3 islands total, and enjoyed beautiful beaches, great snorkeling and even had a fun scuba dive. We met tons of great fellow travellers, and had an awesome cave adventure. Here are some cheater pics:

 Until Next Time!