Auckland is HOT! We drove to my other aunt's house where I met my cousins, who I haven't seen in over ten years! It was pretty surreal, we all look and are a lot different! It was great to see family though, and to have a chance to chill out a bit and plan my backpacking adventures. I'm staying in their garage conversion, which is really comfy, and also means I won't get under their feet too much!

The next morning we headed out early to a holiday home by the sea (or 'bach', pronounced 'batch', as they call them here) for the long weekend (like a British bank holiday; this one was for the last official weekend of summer); me, my aunt and uncle, my two cousins and one of their friends. The bach was at Matheson Beach, about an hour-thirty's drive North from the Auckland suburbs where they live. We passed through some pretty countryside, and lots of vineyards, on the way.

The bach was really nice, on two floors with a big wooden deck and only five minutes walk down a very steep winding hill to the sea (it was about ten minutes walk back up!). We arrived, unloaded the two cars and then went straight down to the beach, with our jandles (flip-flops, though wearing shoes round here, in summer at least, is definitely highly optional, which I love...shoes are annoying once you get used to not wearing them - well, unless you're walking on hot tarmac, as I found out!!) and togs (swimming costumes). It was a quite small but really pretty beach, the sea was deep blue, and there were high hills behind and to the right, and a tall rocky island out to the front, with smaller rocks with rockpools at low tide closer to the beach. Us 'kids' lay on the beach for while in boiling sun (it's real harsh sun here - you can get burnt in 10mins) and then went for a swim in the sea, which was pretty warm. Later on we drove to another beach with proper breakers, and body-surfed a bit, which was ace.

On the Sunday we drove out to Goat Island, further North of Matheson. Goat Island is a marine reserve area; the whole area is known as Goat Island even though it's actually only the island in the bay which has that official name. European settlers used to call any grazable island 'goat island' as a shorthand, because you would be able to graze goats there (simple!). As a marine reserve, the area around the island is great for seeing fish and other marine life. There lots of kids and adults snorkelling, and even a few proper divers, and I was really excited to snorkel. Although it took a while getting used to breathing through the tube, and there weren't as many fish as usual about because of earlier rough seas (sometimes you swim there and literally hit fish as you swim because there are so many!), it was still amazing to glide through the water with the fins and see different fish like maomaos (which used to come right up to the beach to be fed on dried peas by visitors, until the practice was banned when the fish started mobbing snorkelers!).

After Goat Island we went back to the bach and met up with some friends of my cousin who had come to stay overnight. We took the bodyboards down the beach and messed around on them, attempting to board on the small waves and jumping off the pontoon in the bay, before having a bbq in the evening and playing cards (they have a game here called 'Scum' which is basically the New Zealand version of 'S***head', and a really complex game called 500 which I can't even begin to explain... I'm no better at cards here than I am in the UK!). The Kiwis found the glossary of NZ slang in the back my guidebook which caused a lot of hilarity; they agreed that most of it was actually used in NZ, so I better get learning it! (I'm already starting to pick up their habit of saying 'ay' or 'eh' after every utterance!). Turns out a lot of English music is popular over here as well, one of the guys is a big fan of UK dubstep and d'n'b, including Caspa and Rusko, and one of his ambitions for a European trip is to go Glasto.

Talking only to my cousin, who's the same age as me, it had seemed like a lot of Kiwi kids were unambitious about travelling, but it seems that's mainly because NZ has so much to offer (these guys have a pretty cool lifestyle, lots of outdoor sports, beach-life, exploring the bush and hiking); but these guys had travelled and were keen to travel more (they called my trip me 'OE' - overseas experience) in particular. In fact one of them asked me, half-joking, half-serious, 'why did you leave Hong Kong to come here???'. I guess I'd probably ask them the same thing if they turned up in Nottingham or Liverpool!

Overnight it chucked it down, monsoon-style, so this morning we packed up the house and drove back to Auckland via a quick trip to Omaha beach, which looked like it would have been an ace beach if it hadn't been blowing a gale! The weather changes fast here in NZ!

written by  LizIsHere on February 1, 2010 from Auckland, New Zealand
from the travel blog: New Zealand & Australia 2010
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wow wonderful nice stuff the explanation is pretty good about hong kong.i want some more information about this waiting for more updates keep it up

written by  joseph on February 17, 2010

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wow wonderful nice stuff the explanation is pretty good about hong kong.i want some more information about this waiting for more updates keep it up

written by  joseph on February 17, 2010

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