Depending On The Street, You Could Be The Most Beautiful Girl On The Street

No point arseing you with a story, is there? You come here for illustrations! And I've been somewhere illustrious! Have at these, worth approximately ninety thousand words:


One of the first things we did was take a ferry out across the Haruki Gulf (from Auckland) to Waiheke Island, which is fucking gorgeous. This is a photo of the Eastern coast of the island, where buses don't run and therefore it is blessedly free of backpackers and people touring the wineries (it has a ton).


This made us feel at home. Actually, NZ in general is a lot like Scotland smooshed with the good parts of Hawaii, but with more summery weather (at least right now).


Welcome to Planet Sheepie, you guys. I LOVE SHEEPIES!


The view from the place we stayed toward Auckland City. You can barely make out some of the skyline in the background.


This is a koru-- the fern is the national symbol, and a koru is one of these yet-to-unfurl itself ferns. Very popular for photographing.


This is the deck (pronounced, "dick" in NZ) of the place we stayed, which was rad. I am still incredibly sick at this point in the trip, lame.


This is a pohutukawa, the New Zealand Christmas tree. These trees flower with these red things for only two weeks, usually right over Christmas. They look totally badass.



Here's JD making friends with some snails in a tidepool on Great Oneroa Beach.



A better view of the beach looking out from the tidepool.


Another angle of Greater Oneroa Beach (little Oneroa beach is adjacent). This is how crowded beaches are on a Saturday, in the summer. I love NZ.


This rooster chicken literally crossed the road in front of our car, forcing us to stop and watch, me laughing hysterically.


These beauties are malbec grapes (my fave!), being grown at Te Whau (pronounced, "Tey Faux") winery, which was ten steps up the road from where we stayed (yes, we went there, don't worry).


This is a proper photo of Te Whau.


Te Whau again, with more drama. Check out that view! DANG


We went "tramping" all over the island, and one of the walks we did was a fantastic hike down from our cottage to Hitapa Bay (what our dick looks over).


Hitapa Beach proper. That "beach" is almost all shells, and sea glass, and we sat there like five-year-olds playing in the cool shells for about an hour. We tried skipping stones, which JD can do because he is a boy, but I suck and am totally unteachable.


More of our trek through the woods.


These sweet, sweet babies lived next door to us. I wish I were an alpaca. Look how sweet! And what a nice place for them to live.


I can't help it. You're getting more alpaca photos. Look how cute it is that you can see the lines from the fur clippers.


Last one, but it's taking all my restraint. Oh, they're sweeties. Look how they give each other sweet alpaca kisses!


Sunset from the dick one night. Not bad.


Auckland skyline from Te Whau point.


On the ferry back to the city...


Auckland City.


On Christmas Day we flew to Wellington, the capital city and most-south city on the North Island. It kind of looks out over the Cook Strait, which separates the two islands, so we could see South Island (aka The Mainland). That city is awesome and incredibly windy.


I am good at photo-taking.


This is the Beehive, where the country's parliament meets. JD respects other countries and their historical figures, as always.


On Boxing Day, which is another national holiday during which nothing is open, we went to the one open thing, the incredible free museum (Te Papa)(Our Place). It's like five museums in one, but free. And it was this pretty all day, then it started raining abruptly and I decided it was my favorite city ever.


After a couple days in Wellington, we drove up the east coast to Napier, the "art-deco" city and right on the coast of Hawkes Bay, one of NZ's major wine regions (next time you buy NZ wine-- which you all should, it's fabulous-- check out whether the wine comes from Hawkes Bay or Marlborough. If it's HB buy red, if it's Marlborough buy the Sauvignon Blanc. You're welcome). Along the way, I took lots of photos from the car.


Planet Sheepies revisited.


Driving, driving, wheeeeee!


This is the view of the area from Te Mata peak, looking out toward Hawkes Bay. Our "motel" was actually right on the bay in Napier, but this gives you a better idea of how pretty the bay actually is.


Again, photo out to HB.


And a third. Can't help it. We went to a bunch of wineries while we were in Napier, and then after a couple days drove up through Geothermal/Volcanic land to get to Rotorua.


On the way, though, we went through Taupo, which sits right on this huge Lake (Taupo) and is beautiful! We stopped at this little alcove to have, oh yes, a picnic. Leftover Indian food and a vegan curry pie from a BP.


Also on the way up to Rotorua, we stopped at Wai-O-Tapu national geothermal park. Umm, that shit was amazing. It's all very hot and boiling and strange colors, and if you were to bathe in it you would run the very serious risk of contracting amoebic menengitis, from which you would almost certainly die. So, you know, don't get any ideas.


More from Wai-o-tapu...


The uber-famous, oft-photographed Champagne pool.


This green is not something I had ever seen before, not even in boxes of 164 crayons! My camera didn't do it justice, it's eyehurtingly green.


In Rotorua, we booked in to a b&b. Last time we'll make that mistake. Although our hosts, including my new BFF Furball here, were lovely, I was sure we'd be murdered in our extremely floral guest room and I absolutely hate the idea of making conversation with an uppity British couple (who referred to NZ as "the colonies" multiple times) first thing in the morning, before coffee. Also the nice lady had a mini-stroke when we told her we were vegan (pronounced, "vay-gan") even though JD had emailed her about it when he made the reservation.


One good thing our hosts did do was suggest a tramp (heh) around this oddly-named Blue Lake. Which we did, and which was awesome.


We drove back to Auckland from Rotorua, and spent NYE on JD's dick (hahahahahahahah) watching these here fireworks they shot off from that there Sky Tower. I'd like to point out that, being on the far side of the Int'l date line, we were in the very first time zone to celebrate the onset of 2008. So suck on that, California.


Some of JD's work friends offered to take us around the west coast of Auckland, which houses several jaw-droppingly awesome beaches, including the one on which my mom's favorite creepy movie, The Piano, was filmed. More on that in a minute. This is a photo out over Manukau Bay before we descended into beach territory.


This, my friends, is Karekare beach, where they filmed The Piano, and with which my mother is obsessed. It is a black-sand beach and I have to admit it's fantastic.


More Karekare.


In mom's honor, we drew a piano in the sand. teehee.


Another rad-ass beach just north of Karekare is Piha. Oh, this is what I always pictured when I thought of NZ.


Apparently there is a lifeguard reality show called Piha Rescue that they were filming that day, perhaps in part because the water was ridiculously dangerous (that's the Tasman Sea you're looking at, and it's rowdy almost all the time. Good surfing, though). Although they did seem to be abusing their whistles just a lot, maybe because of the tv show?


This is cool, isn't it? That big rock sits on the main Piha beach and is called Lion Rock. Figure it out!


And this is called the Blowhole (can you see those weensie people fishing up on the rock? That's how big this is). You can only get over to it during low tide, and next to it is this awesome natural lagoon that lots of children were peeing in and warming up when we were there. Nice.

Yeah so maybe I'll detail some things I liked more later. It was fucking great. Everyone should go there, possibly to live, at the expense of anything else you thought you might want to do. Ahhh. And with that, I am spent. Gnight!