When the usually sunny and warm Mount Maunganui gets hit with a blustery, windy, cold and very rainy day, what do the two kids from Victoria, Canada do to entertain themselves? Go for a rainy, windy trek to the point closest to the massive rolling waves of course! 

Moturiki Island has been a point of interest for Luke and I since we moved here two months ago, and yet, we had yet to adventure out to it. It is the beautiful"island" just down from Mount Maunganui main beach, a very popular spot for travelers and tourists to explore. I guess we figured since we're now locals, we'd wait for the perfect opportunity to trek out and see what Moturiki has to offer. Clearly we waited until the rainiest and windiest of all days to explore it! 

The trek out was lovely, a very easy stroll along a well-kept path with beautiful natural scenery. We were lucky that parts of it were sheltered from the wind, as once we got out to the tip, closest to the big waves, we had to stay low and step very carefully to avoid being blown into the ocean! 

The best part of the entire trek was, it made us appreciate the weather instead of complain about it! Sometimes the only thing you need when the wind is blowing and the rain is pelting down is to step outside, geared up in appropriate attire, and just experience the weather. You'd be surprised by how much you can laugh while being blown around, laugh while trying to see through a torrential downpour and become awestruck by the colossal power of the waves!

As the four month mark passes by on the day that we first stepped foot in New Zealand, I thought it was time that Luke and I reflect on our trip a bit, share some of our favourite memories, and update everyone on what our lives are like now, living in Mount Maunganui. I'd say overall the homesickness has not been an issue for us, if anything, we simply wish we could bring everyone here to experience it with us!! There have been many dreams of "If I had the money, I would fly you here tomorrow". New Zealand is such a beautiful, friendly and exquisite place.. I almost feel guilty enjoying it all to myself instead of sharing it... almost!

What are you doing now? For work, for fun? 
Well I was doing electrical work which was very interesting to see how different it is from our country, but now I'm just helping in construction which is still interesting meeting different people. As for fun like I said surfing, long boarding, just walking on the beach with dea, and going on little adventures.
Since moving to the Mount I have been working with my roommate at a hotel in downtown Mount Maunganui, cleaning toilets, making beds, scrubbing floors.. all the fun stuff. Also, thanks to Terri, I have had a few shifts with a catering company that I am really enjoying, and I had my first "trial" shift at a coffee shop... which I was ecstatic about!! For fun I've been really enjoying the gym in our apartment building - mainly because its free and always empty! I've been having a GREAT time with my blog (thank you to everyone who reads and comments! you keep me going!) and just writing in general. And of course, my fun day trips to the library or beach!! 

After our 45 minute hike up, and many many "hellos" "howsits" "howyougoings" and "g'days" from a friendly group hiking down, we saw our summit! A beautiful grassy top with 360 degree views of the Papamoa hills. 

After our much quicker hike down to the carpark and toilets, we decided to head back to downtown Mount Maunganui for a delicious treat!! Anywhere at the base of the mount is a great place to get a delicious treat! From freshly made waffle cone engulfed ice cream, to lattes to fresh and hot fish and chips. And all treats can be consumed while looking at the beautiful ocean view or looking up at the monstrous Mount Mauao!  

Luke and I opted to enjoy the rest of the afternoon down on the beach, a few km's away from the busy and bustling Main Beach of Mount Maunganui. This activity is beautiful, comfortable and free! There is plenty of people and dog watching, wave watching, friendly conversations with passerby's and a chance to catch up on that book or some well-deserved snooze time!!

The game plan for Luke and I when we first decided to bring New Zealand adventures into our lives was to travel for a few months, or however long our somewhat limited Canadian funds would last. After the traveling, we would partake in the true kiwi way of life, we would find a flat and earn some dough! Real working kiwis we be! The place to do so: Mount Maunganui! A beautiful small town on the East Coast of the North Island known for its long, white sandy beaches, cafes and restaurants and Mauao, a local hike with beautiful mountain top views. Logically, when one's funds are low, it would make sense to find a job before a home...however, Luke and I aren't often logical... and so... we found a home! This is the story of how it all began...

It was apartment hunting day and we had three appointments scheduled - one for a basement suite all to ourselves, one for a beautiful second story apartment with friendly flatmates and the third one we knew absolutely nothing about. So, smiles on, sunnies on, off we went to find our new home. The simple act of driving around the Mount on a sunny day is enough to put anyone's worries and stress at ease. We took a few moments to take in the big rolling waves of the ocean, the people bustling about in the shops and cafes and the big, beautiful dormant volcanic cone, Mauao, or The Mount. "ahhhh" escaped both of us as we realized that this city was a wonderful place to be, regardless of what apartment we chose. 

Once all apartments were visited and we had foolishly claimed we would give them a "yes" or "no" by the end of the day, Luke and I set out to find a seat by the ocean to have a drink and a think. With lots of discussion, we opted to eliminate the basement suite because it was just a tad too "eclectic" for our taste. We opted to eliminate the friendly flatmates simply because they lived quite far from town. So, by the process of elimination, we chose the mystery apartment. 

This apartment was stunning! It had beautiful large windows, two balconies, a big, open living area and was very nicely furnished. The flatmates would be a friendly couple from Chili with broken English. The only thing weird about our new place was this really strange, uncomfortable feeling that something wasn't quite right...

I have had quite a few moments of "I KNEW that was going to happen... OMG... I have intuition... that works!" throughout my life. Because of these moments, I paid attention to this little twang of unhappiness I felt regarding our new home and contemplated about it. Luke thought I was completely mad for not being as excited as him about our new place. The moment we walked out of it, before we had even seen all three places, he had an ear-to-ear grin and was ecstatic about the beauty! "This is the nicest, fanciest place I'll ever have lived in." And I'll be honest, I wasn't so sure that I wasn't mad. It didn't make sense. Like I said, this place was beautiful!! But, I kept my feelings to myself, we drove back to Terri's house and we got geared up to move into our new home the next day. 

The timing of our scheduled move-in had been a bit vague but was for sometime in the afternoon the next day. So, after doing a bit of work around Terri's place to show our appreciation for all that she had done for us, we put on our job hunting duds, packed our car full of all that we own (which really isn't much), and made our way to The Mount. It was about 2:30pm and the plan was to drop off some resumes, scour the town for "help wanted" signs, move into our new home and crack our bottle of celebratory champagne. wooohooo!!

As we drove in to town, we received a text from our new "flatties" stating that move-in time was 8:00pm... clearly a bit later than we were anticipating. I responded asking if it was alright to have the landlords downstairs let us in but was told, "no" and to "please wait for us...we will be home 7pm now". We were definitely a bit peeved at this change in plan and couldn't figure out a reason that we would need to wait around town all afternoon and evening instead of just talking to the landlords. Now we couldn't take sweet sunshiney moving-in photos. Fail!

In an attempt to keep our moods high, we decided to start on the job hunt. We both went in to a number of places, and both came out with upside down smiles on our faces as none of our prospects were promising. We ended up feeling even more defeated. Fail!

It was finally close to dinner time so we decided to buy a cheap bottle of wine and find a BYOB restaurant to enjoy a nice long, time-passing dinner at. Turns out The Mount has none. Fail!

Sooo, what do you do when all else fails and you're broke and feeling defeated... hit up the BK Lounge, grab some grub and park by the ocean to watch the beautiful sunset behind the mount. Finally, while chowing down on our greasy burgers, we felt happy and our smiles came back. Success!

Wake up at 6:30am to boys yelling at each other in other room, hear mom tell them to stop it, fall back to sleep. Wake up at 7:00am to boys yelling at each other in other room, hear mom tell them to stop it, fall back to sleep. Wake up at 7:30am to boys yelling at each other in other room, hear mom stirring her coffee, think: "Time to get up!" Take a moment to scratch the heck out of my likely to be forever bruised, battered and scarred legs due to a disastrous amount of unrelenting "sand flea" bites. Get up, put on grubby jeans and grubby shirt and grubby sweater (none are actually grubby.. but have deemed them this due to line of current work), join the family in the other room. boys seem very happy to see us, even though in the back of mind I'm thinking "you woke me at 6:30 you mongrels". I smile politely.

Make a cup of coffee, two scoops of instant crystals, one sugar (sometimes two), and a dollop of milk from Licky the cow. Sip coffee while reading a chapter of current book on the beautiful back deck in the crisp sunshine. Finish coffee, realize its much too hot out already for jeans and a sweater, go change into grubby shorts and grubby tank top (same rules as other "grubby" items).

Grab gumboots (there are a few pairs for wwoofers to use) and bucket for chicken feed, wander down towards the chickens. Enter first paddock that is empty, see all chickens at the fence, happily awaiting the arrival of food, pretend they're just excited to see me, try to get them more excited with a few high pitched "chicky chicky chicky" calls, feel happy that they're suddenly jumping on top of each other trying to get closer to me. (clearly it has nothing to do with the food in my swinging white bucket!!) Enter the chicken pen, feel overwhelmed with the amount of clucking chickens surrounding my feet and making it very difficult to walk without stepping on one and feeling bad for the terrible "SQWAK" I'd hear, then thinking "Hey! I'm the boss here, outta my way chickens!" Sadly, the chickens are clever little buggers. They know that white bucket = chicken feed, therefore they try not to let it out of their sight. I try tricking them by throwing a handful of chicken feed over to the left, then I quickly scurry over to the mini chicken-trough and start pouring the chicken feed into it. Usually as soon as I begin to pour the chickens are climbing on top of the trough and bucket and themselves.. so I devised a plan. Now I pour a little into the trough, get them all excited and munching away, then I secretly scurry away to the other chicken pen (which they have full access to, I'm not that tricky!) and pour the rest of the feed into the other trough. Usually over at this trough is my little chicken friend that I call Dementee. (maybe not PC... but hey, I'm on holidays). She had an accident of sorts. Her beak is all wonky and one wing is itsy bisty... kinda like Nemo! Her top beak bit always points West while her bottom beak bit always points North. Don't know why she's like this, but I get a little happy feeling inside when she's the only chicken in the other pen, so she gets full peck at the chicken feed trough while the others are climbing ontop of each other trying to get a few kernels in the other trough. "hah, dumb chickens" we laugh together. (likely just me laughing.. but I like to believe she gets me). Then while the chickens are all happily pecking away at their breakfast, I watch Luke feed the piggies. We got new piggies the other day, after the other much larger and "porky" looking piggies got "sent away". These newbies are much more shy and timid. Luke heaves a bunch of scraps and yuck stuff over the fence into their trough... and almost automatically, a few chickens come racing over to see what's going on with the pigs. There are usually one or two chickens in the piggy trough, pecking away at old vegetable scraps, bread, meat, leftovers, etc, along with the piggies! Silly chickens. Don't they know I gave them plenty of chicken feed?

Raglan was amazing. The moment we stepped off the bus and into the small downtown area... my entire body breathed a sigh of relief and relaxation! The air was still, the town was quiet, you could tell this was a place that didn't possess a lot of clocks! It was wonderful!

This little surf town on the west coast of the North Island prides itself on its ability to relax, let go and enjoy life! After a few days in the active downtown Auckland area, and a few hours and a few buses on our travel day, we were very pleased with just how relaxing Raglan felt already!

I have stories and stories to share about Raglan, but those will be saved for when I have more time on a computer.. and hopefully when my laptop decides to un-break itself... it happens right? hah. We spent five nights in Raglan and although we were ready to take the next step on our journey when the time came, we both decided that it is worth a re-visit within our year here in New Zealand! One thing I learned there, I really, really enjoy a relaxing morning sitting in the sunshine in an outdoor table and chair out front of a coffee shop in a not-too-busy downtown, sipping a delicious latte and just... being. It's wonderful. Exactly what I needed/wanted/dreamed of!! yay!

We tried to buy a car in Raglan.. a Toyota Camry Station Wagon... it was perfect for our needs! Not too old, big enough to sleep in if needed, cheap and within our price range, and being sold by a guy from Tofino... perfect? I'd say so. Sadly.. he sold it to some other guy before he even let us talk to him... in Luke's words "Where's the backpacker love?" Sooo, after many complaints between us about how much that tofino guy realllly screwed up our plans, we changed our plans. (haha, as per usual when backpacking right?) We figured out how to bus to Hamilton, then on to Rotorua. [row-toe-roo-ah]

We spent 4 hours in the bus depot in Hamilton, and after such a wonderful time,  we clearly wanted more.. so we missed our bus to Rotorua... by 3 minutes... due to an intense card game! True to style for both Luke and Deanna. We just laughed at each other. ridiculous! Soooo, we spent another 3 hours in the bus depot (Hamilton didn't seem to have too much to offer, and we had all of our gear too) avoiding playing cards again, until we finally gave in to setting an alarm so we couldn't miss the next bus.

Sue had warned me that Rotorua is really smelly. Really smelly is an understatement. It STINKS! Literally. It has to do with the geothermal activity across the entire city, and the smell is of sulphur, stinks like egg! bleh. But so far we've really enjoyed it. Lounged this morning in a natural hot spring while getting to know our new friends from France and Ireland.. who we now are going to be travelling with. They have this bright green campervan they've rented.. like NEON green!! All 5 of us are going to roadtrip together from Rotorua to Wellington (the bottom of the north island) with a few fun stops inbetween.

I have oodles more to share but will do so at a later date! We're having a fantastic time and are very happy we're here! Today was the first time we brought up Tim Hortons!! The coffee here is expensive and it seems to be rare to find a cup of regular coffee, always espresso. So Luke hasn't been too impressed. We reminised about a big delicious cup of Timmies, two milk, one sugar for me - double double for him. It felt nice.

I have heaps of photos and videos to share.. will do down the road.

Auckland is a very unique city! Before arriving here I had hear it was quite comparable to Vancouver, so this is what I was expecting. I guess in some ways it is. there are lots of people, all over the place. There is a beautiful waterfront, right on the ocean. Some of the buildings are really quite gorgeous and the weather can change in a matter of moments! 

One thing that I always notice about a new city is what people wear. There really is no standard here. You'll see tow girls walking together, one dressed to the nines, decked out in sky-high heels and jewels all over her, and her friend will be wearing a messy sundress and converse sneakers. It's a bit random, but it definitely makes me feel better about my backpacker wardrobe!  

The buildings are unique! Really really old character buildings in among brand new all glass towers. There are palm trees all over the place and it is very humid. Their trees are massive!! Not really tall like in Vancovuer, but very very wide and big. It's quite neat to see. The drivers are very entertaining, just honking and honking for what appears to be no reason at all. 

Our hostel, ACB Base Backpackers, was right off of Queen Street, the main strip of downtown. (Thanks for the heads up about Queen Street Sue!) It was nice to just wander up and down the street, looking at all the shops and people. My favourite part of downtown is at a busy intersection. The traffic lights stop cars in all directions and a big mass of people walk in every direction in the middle of the road. It's beautiful chaos. You have to be careful though, this only happens at a few intersections.. and seeing as they drive on the other side of the road, we're still adjusting to which way to look first before jetting out into the street. 

Realizing that we aren't really downtown people, we did some fun day-trip excursions, exploring the outskirts of downtown Auckland. We went trekking to One Tree Hill - a historical monument on top of a hill, Mount Eden - an old volcanic cone, and wandered along the fancy Parnell Village. Everything here is just so BIG!! The green spaces are massive amounts of rolling green hills, all very lush still for it being the end of their summer. 

I have come to my own conclusion that there is no rhyme or reason as to why New Zealanders do what they do. Prices for things change randomly throughout the day. why? Just because. They never have a reason. They build brand new beautiful buildings right beside old, run-down shacks that look like they'll barely last one more winter. why? Just because. We asked four different bus drivers the same question and got four different answers as to how to get to the same place. And I think they were all wrong.. haha.. Luke just got us there with his own sense of direction. Oh.. turns out, Luke is a great day-trip planner and has a wonderful sense of direction!! I am very very verrrrrry thankful he possesses these skills!! For anyone that knows me well enough knows that , well, I get lost in my own head, let alone trying to find my way around a new city!!