My first moments in NZ started off perfect when Laura met me at the airport with chocolate. We took a bus to the city centre, while I exclaimed about fern trees and cool plants all the way. We walked to our hostel, which backed onto a beautiful park! It was lush and green and had big trees and a mini zip line! (We think it’s intended for grown ups anyway…)
After we saw the park, we walked along some residential streets and found some hibiscus blossoms along the street. We picked a few for tea. Then we came across a GIANT rosemary bush outside someone’s house. So of course we picked a few sprigs. And then they also had some GIANT fennel plants, so we picked some of that too, which we made into fennel, potato, and rosemary fritters for dinner. We had them with sheep yogurt and lemon. We also found some lavender plants so we picked some flowers and made hibiscus and lavender iced tea with honey and lemon when we got home. There were extensive bins of free food at the hostel too, so we had an awesome (and really cheap/kind of stolen) meal. Someone had also left some Australian rose in the fridge so we had that to top off our freegan food.
We also saw some GIANT aloe very bushes, and some jade bushes. Everyone’s yards are just full of thriving jungle plants!
The bad news: I have cankles. Literally. It concerns me. Laura says it’s from flying. It reminds me of when I sprained my ankle and it was really swollen. Luckily, they were temporarily cured by lying upside down on a hill, and then backwards on a plastic lounge chair. They came back later, but are mostly gone today. This trip will be known as “The Time Michi Suffered Cankles.” I’m a survivor through, I’ll get through it hopefully.
Today Laura and I were going to get a ride with two girls from BC that I shared a room with last night. Turns out the ride didn’t work out (they weren’t going far enough North), so we walked around the city to find some internet and find another hostel. Our last one was really nice, but we wanted to try something knew. Everyone takes 2 days off after New Years eve here, so hardly anything’s open. We used some internet outside the library, where there were about 15 other people doing the same thing.
We found another hostel close to the bus stop where we will catch the bus tomorrow to Paihea. We did a lot of walking today: we explored some lovely parks, went to an amazing Indian food restaurant that had a lunch special with a TON of food and naan.
People are really friendly here. Lots of people stop to talk to us and ask us what we are up to. There are also a lot of other travelers with giant backpacks just like us. Theres a giant slingshot ride by the skytower that people go on, and a bungee jump thing off the skytower itself.
Tonight we're going to a bar to a couchsurfing event. A guy pulled over and told us about it when we were using the internet on a park bench. We looked up the event online and we get cheap drinks! The bar is near our hostel, too.
Tomorrow we’re getting up early to get the bus at 7:45, and we will get to Paihea at noon and start our first woofing experience! I can’t wait! Wish me luck on the cankles!
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