It's so beautiful. What a nice place to land after a long long day at airports. I am still wondering if the jetlag is causing hallucinations or if what I am seeing is real.
While waiting for our ride at the airport, we met a cyclist who was reassembling his bicycle from a box (ther was a teapot on his back rack)... he said he was at his final destination and that he had just finished 50,000 km (which is longer than our plane trip) around the world!
After picking up our bedmobile in Auckland, we headed directly to the Pac and Save for some start-up groceries (1000's of kilojoules in apples, muesli and rolled oats, soy milk, hummus, pita, wheat bread, spirulina juice, 10 liter jug of water, and a couple of Gatorades). The shopping was easy compared to the driving. You drive on the left side of the road and the steering wheel is on the left. It feels very strange at first. My job is to constantly remind Jason "Drive on the left, Left is correct, Drive in the middle of the road, Left!" He is feeling much more at ease, I think, on this third day Monday, the 19th, and so am I.
Well, we drove here to Whangarei (fahn- ga-ray) on Saturday for the 5th Ultimate frisbee beach tournament at Ocean Beach. It was a 6 hour drive. We arrived at 2 pm, thinking we were late, but actually not. Brendon, the organizer, greeted my "SpaceMan", with a handshake and a bright orange Tshirt. Jason jumped in for a point, then it ended... but there was one more that day. So the games were played one at a time with a 30 minute timecap even if the teams were tied. There were 6 teams, about 30% were Americans who had just come from Worlds in Perth, Austrailia. There were a couple ex-patriots too, along with the Kiwi players, plus individuals from Canada, Switzerland, Austrailia, France... Oddly enough, it felt just like home, except for all the languages and accents. Saturday night, there was a bar-b-que of sesame covered lentil burgers, steaks, and sausages, and BIG salads of shredded carrot, red onion, tomato, cucumbers, and zucchini. There were actually 2 parties happening (one was a going away party for a lifeguard, and the other was the frisbee party) . After dinner I went straight away to bed in our van (next to a field of camping tents), and Jason partied for a couple hours more then joined me instead of playing beer games, skinny dipping, and a bonfire. He was really tired! Ha!
Well, Sunday was another full day. An amazing event happened that stopped the games for about 10 minutes... A pack of dolphins came swimming by, leaping into the air! I wish I could've gotten more pics, but I was in shock while fumbling for the camera. From 10 am to 5pm, they played 2 rounds of games, then awards were given out along with another bar-b-que of sausages. Then it was time for everyone to say goodbye and head on their way. We actually plan to join the Auckland teams(I'll be on the women's team, and Jason will play with the Ginja Ninjas) in Christchurch on March 3rd.
So, after a morning of hiking around Ocean Beach, we are headed out of Whangarei this evening and headed to Wellington for our ferry on Wednesday. I will miss it here (cliffs next to the beach, surfing, hiking, frisbee, sunshine, and cool breezes.) But there is much more to discover, and we have arrived at the nicest weather of the season; the people are as lovely as the landscape, and I expect to see more of the same.
