erin, etc.

Happy Leap Day! Finished up work in Waiuku and decided to take a nice leisurely drive up the East Coast back to Auckland. Known as the Seabird Coast, we saw tons of native birds, including our favorite, the pukeko. It was a beautiful day and Justin found the skate park of his dreams, located right on the beach. Can’t wait to get our South Island Holiday started!!

The sun down here is intense. We have gone through two big things of high SPF sunscreen in a little over a month! And this doesn’t count all the sunscreen we’ve mooched off of our friends while out! So yes, it is true…I am now turning into one big freckle…the pictures prove it…

These Southern Hemisphere folks do reality like no one else…

FAT MEN CAN’T HUNT
This has become our new favorite TV show! It features a bunch of rather large young Brits who are thrown into the African Bush with a tribe (super skinny and likely starving) and forced to hunt and gather their own food. We’re not sure if the goal is to lose weight and we can’t always understand what they say but the whole thing is just ridiculous! We’re really hoping this makes it to the states prime-time!

DIRTY COWS
A new front runner for top TV show! This is Aussie’s take on The Bachelor- it involves a bunch of ‘city girls’ in competition for a ‘down home farm boy’. There’s sheering sheep, milking cows and playing in poo. Plus the title really can’t be beat.

EVEN MY PET’S A PORKER
Another great weight loss show- this one from New Zealand. A doctor and nutritionist, both thin and pretty, find a family who is fatty-fatty AND has pets that are also at least double what they should be. They then have 6 weeks to ‘save’ both people and animals from an almost certain early death. The last show had a 300 lb. pig named Ruby that, according to the doctor (vet? MD? not really sure!)- was sitting on death’s door. Hmmm…I know some families where they make it a point to fatten up their pig- Christmas dinner anyone?

Even though the weather has been a bit crappy we decided to get out and explore the area a bit. We drove up the Awhiti Peninsula, which is kind of a smaller version of the Coromandel, inhabited mostly by sheep and cows. With the Manukau Harbor to the East and The Tasman Sea to the West, you drive along the spine of the peninsula until reaching the end. You then hike up the lighthouse and realize exactly why it was put there since there is a huge sand bar at the entrance to the harbor. It was really crazy weather the day we went up and the wind literally blew us backwards as we stood on the balcony!

We really love it here in Waiuku and are very sad that we’re only here for 2 weeks. (We would have much rather been here for 5 weeks instead of Matamata) Our host, Trish, is ‘quite lovely’, as Kiwis say and has introduced us to some of her ‘great friends’ Gill and Colin. This bunch has really endeared us to Kiwis…we went down to Gill and Colin’s farm where they are slowly controlling nature, sculpting their land into something resembling a national park. They have a small cabin on a lake on the back part of their land, a short walk from where the tidal pools of the harbor come up at high tide to join the out flowing inland rivers. There are even endangered fish living in their little pools. They also have eels. Pet eels. Big, Fat, Slimy eels that will eat dog food OUT OF YOUR HANDS! Every day Gill goes down to feed the eels, along with Lilah, her dog (who we think wants to eat the eels but instead just seems to play around with them). It’s quite the honor to be invited to feed the eels. We were a little hesitant but a few beers later decided to give it a go. Actually, Justin just took pictures. I did get close enough to pet but then I saw the sharp little teeth these fellas have and decided against actually trying to feed them! These things actually used their tiny little fins to come OUT of the water, up on land, to get this food. Unbelievable, and not altogether unlike being at Seaworld or some other weird water world exhibit!

From Eels- Waiuku

DEFINITELY check this album out!!

A beautiful black sands beach just 8km from where we’re working and living now. Went after work for a walk. The sands are black from all the iron in it. You can drive along the beach, although we didn’t want to risk it in our rental car! Seems like an even better idea to horseback along the beach- looked pretty iddylic watching riders go bareback along the surf! Too rough to swim though with really powerful rips! Justin was whining that there’s never any good pictures of him taken since he’s always the one with the camera. So since the weather wasn’t all that great we decided to fool around and take some ‘glamour’ shots!

After a lazy morning, decided to go back to MY favorite beach near Auckland. We played in the sand, building a massive sand sea turtle. The surf was really rough- ‘washing machine’ surf. Of course, we had to show Tonnie how cool the sand dunes are!

From Bethell’s Beach

From Bethell’s Beach

From Bethell’s Beach