Auckland Stuff

Wow, I was being so good with this thing and then I moved to a place with no internet. Guess that's what happens!

I'm more than halfway done my 6 week block in Auckland. 2.5 weeks left to go. Missing Australia Day today which is a bit sad. Luckily this weekend is a long weekend in Auckland, so that knid of makes up for it. I'm going to Paihia, Bay of Islands. Booked my bus yesterday. At some point, will take a ferry from there to Russell, which is supposed to be lovely.

What else? Oh yeah! Last weekend I spent some time on the west coast of Auckland with one of the Massey students, Janet. She is a mature student and has a husband living in California at the moment for work (but hoping to switch jobs and come back to NZ), an 18 year old son, a 14 year old daughter, 3 cats, 1 dog, and 2 horses. She lives in a big rambling old house in the countryside which is just gorgeous. Sadly it rained all weekend, but she still took me out to some west coast beaches. I saw my first gannet colony!! We had a delicious roast chicken dinner, fed her horses in the rain, and watched "Educating Rita". I slept over and we had yummy homemade waffles in the morning with bacon. She has an 11 week old kitten (not sure if her name is Allie or Ellie - hard to tell with the accent) and she slept with me in my bed and OMG IS THE CUTEST THING EVER, I LOVE HER. It was a thoroughly pleasant weekend and she did her best to show me how a real kiwi family lives!

On Sunday, our new roommate moved in. Her name is Jess and she's from Hamilton. She is Maori and is really involved in that community. She does Kapa Haka dancing and will be in a competition in a few weeks (sadly, just after I leave to go back to Brisbane). She also works for Maori TV, at a type of reunion show where people are searching for biological parents, family they've gotten out of touch with, etc. Her dream is to become a news anchor, on Maori TV or elsewhere. She's great - I've really enjoyed having her around this week. Jo, the British girl, is also cool. So things are going well with my housemates! Yay!

Flood news- govt is offering some compensation so we are getting what we can. Jeremy is in the house and running the dehumidifier as much as possible!! The condition of my clothes is...questionable. Stupid mildew. Waiting to find out what the owner will say re: us staying in that place. Annette and Mike, our neighbours, are gone and won't be back for months. They had to gut the bottom part of their house (which they had JUST done, honestly within the last 3 months).

I'm going to take the opportunity to talk about buses in Auckland.

They're really expensive. When I was living on the North Shore, I was paying $7/day just to get to and from my placement. I suppose that might be standard, but I'm used to paying Brisbane student fare and it's way cheaper! If I had needed to take more than one bus to get to Massey, I would have had to pay extra. They don't have transfers here, so every time you get on another bus you pay again. Ludicrous! Today I did quite a bit of travelling and I bought a day pass for $10. Well worth it, considering I will probably have hopped on and off different buses at least 10 times by the end of the day. I'm sure yesterday I ended up paying around $15 in bus fare during my travels, so for a long day of looking around the day pass is definitely the way to go. Yay for living super close to my placement now and not needing buses AND my roomie said I could use her bike.

Now the drivers...

They are fabulous! I took the same bus every day for a week and a half to get to Massey and the bus driver after two days knew exactly where I was going and would just automatically print out the ticket. She also advised me about getting a pass if I was going to be doing it consistently, but since I only had a few days that didn't work out. Same with going home - the bus driver just knew I was going to Sunnynook. Very impressive. They also will stop if they see you running and I have been lucky a few times.

Except one weird story...I was out last weekend and got on a bus and recognized the driver as one that would often be waiting at Massey at the same time as me. Said hi, told him where I was going, and got my ticket. Got to the end and everyone got off, so I figured this must be where I needed to get off as well. Said thanks as I was leaving and he said "Oh no! You should have gotten off earlier, I'm really sorry, I should have told you - just stay 0n the bus". So he drove me all the way back to where I apparently should have gotten off, even though it wasn't his fault. He also asked me out twice during the journey. AWKWARD.

What else? Well in non-bus related news, Jeremy and crew did a big clean-up today. I haven't really talked to him but he had so many people helping him I'm sure they got a huge amount done. I really don't want to move and it looks like we won't have to. Not having to pay rent while this all gets sorted out is great as well.

Jeremy has been hard at work at our house, ripping up carpets and hosing things down. From the sounds of it, most of our stuff was saved but the house is a pretty big mess. Sadly, I missed him on the radio. So it's all fairly uncertain at the moment - will we stay in Fairfield? Will the owner just want to tear the house down after the damage? If so...where the hell do we go??? As you can imagine, the rental market in Brisbane is now pretty much non-existent. I'm crossing my finers we can just stay where we are, but honestly, who knows. Looks like J has more than enough amazing helpers so even though I feel bad about not being there, there are lots of people willing to pitch in and lend a hand.

In other news for a minute, I just moved house and now am living in Pt Chevalier, Auckland. I took a walk to my new placement this morning for fun and it's only 15 minutes away. My housemate has a bike and I might see if I can steal that off of her, if she's not using it. Her name is Jo, I would guess that she's fairly close to my age, she's British and seems pretty fun. Last night she went out and so did I - I met up with some Massey Uni girls just for about an hour and a half. They are so so so sooooo lovely. My placement at Massey started off kinda iffy, but it turned into a fantastic experience and I'm really happy I did it. I ended up feeling like part of the group, because everyone was so friendly and welcoming (students, staff and clients). Last Sunday I went out for dinner with Linda, one of the students. Yesterday, as I said, spent some time with a few of the other students. Either today or tomorrow, Janet is going to pick me up and show me the West Coast beaches. I also made a date with a girl named Laureen for bubble tea and a movie sometime in the next week or two. So as you can see, they're just fabulous. Yvonne, my clinical educator, is pretty much the best ever. She is so positive, encouraging, and wonderful - I kind of want to steal her and bring her back to UQ!!

Monday I start my placement at Rehab Plus. I think that the couple of weeks at Massey was a good introduction and now I'll be working with a more varied group of patients. I'm sure it will be challenging, but I think I can do it. 4 more weeks, and then back to Brisbane. My poor Brisbane. Such a beautiful city in such ruins at the moment. It's amazing to hear all the stories about how people are so willing to volunteer and help other people out. Thanks to everyone who has helped and is continuing to help Jeremy (and me, indirectly!)

Don't know if this will work, but it's a video from the Brisbane Courier-Mail.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mANvEa5v-mM&feature=player_embedded

So the verdict so far - yes, our house was flooded. Jeremy has posted pictures of our house. Better than we thought - but still carpets destroyed and smell horrible. Can't imagine the real estate people will be contactable for quite awhile. Will take a lot of work to clean up but we've had so many offers of help...Fairfield was one of the worst hit suburbs with some places going under up to the roof, so I'm grateful that didn't happen to us. Friends have been amazing. This weekend will be a lot of work for J and co.

Intersection of Fairfield Rd and Ashby St. Traffic lights nearly under water.


What the gas station across the street from our house looked like yesterday.
What it looks like today. The whole thing is just...gone.

Our house has gone under but Jeremy and Claudia made it out safely and are now at our friend Sean's house on higher ground. I can't believe this actually is happening.

Fairfield Rd

Jeremy's okay and leaving our house today. This is a pic he took yesterday:

I'm scared

http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/brisbane-flood-alert-as-wivenhoe-threatens-to-spill-over/story-e6freon6-1225985251560

Anyone who has been keeping up on the flooding in Qld will probably have read something like this and if not...well, it's worth a read. Brisbane is not the place to be right now, so I'm lucky - unfortunately my husband, friends, neighbours and cat aren't. Our suburb (Fairfield) is on of the ones listed to experience flooding tomorrow. Jeremy went to talk to our neighbours, Annette and Mike, and they have packed up their house and are leaving. They experienced the floods of 1974 and apparently Sydney St was flooded (only the one side of the road though...maybe we'll be lucky?) They're saying these floods will be worse than the '74 floods which is not an encouraging thought. Jeremy says that if the waters start to creep up to the house, he'll go to De ands Graham's (neighbours next door, their house is on stilts). He's smart so I'm sure he'll do the right thing. I feel really helpless and worried...

Back to the present!

So - I've been in Auckland for a week and two days. For the last little while, I've been living with a 14 year old kid, his mom, and another boarder they have (an Irish guy - I think his name is Allan, we pretty much don't talk). It's an interesting arrangement. Great for me - one bus to Massey University, my own room, wireless internet, double bed, cat. The option to socialize should I so desire. Sometimes I randomly sit out with Dan, the 14 year old, and watch his choice of TV - ahem...South Park, Family Guy, etc. His mom and the owner of the house is Fay. I don't think she works - seems to always be around. Super nice lady but a bit...odd? She insists on driving me to the bus stop in the morning which is lovely. I'm quite happy to walk, but she won't take no for an answer. The strangest thing is that their house seems to have everything...except it's missing key items...e.g. a spatula for flipping eggs...there really isn't one. I searched the kitchen from top to bottom and then asked. Nope. Also no tupperware. Might have something to do with the fact that the only things i've seen them eat are takeaway and frozen food items. Hm.

Now. My placement at Massey University. As some of you know, it had a pretty bumpy start. Uh yeah. There were tears, it was embarrassing (only in front of one person thank goodness and not the patient, but...argh). It's gotten...well, I guess from there it could only get better. We have 3 more sessions with the patient - tomorrow, Thurs and Fri - and then I'm DONE with Massey and I can't say I'm super upset about that. Although it means I'll be moving on to what I think will be a more challenging placement - Rehab Plus. Hopefully this Massey thing will have been good prep for it. I'm really stressed and really scared. I DON'T want to fail my placement!!!!

Our tent, through the trip

The site that started it all - Herbert, about 25 km outside Oamaru.
Dunedin Holiday Park...where we got our picture taken for the paper as crazy Canadians who camp in high winds...also where the tent pole first snapped - too bad it was only our second night of camping!
At the best campsite I've ever seen, near Queenstown. Lake was freezing but refreshing, sheep randomly grazing nearby, amazing mountain views!
Found a sheltered valley Christmas night at our campsite by lake Te Anau. Our American friend thought we'd wake up swimming, but we were just fine.
Can tell it's a bit worse for the wear, but still holding up. Near Blenheim.
Um...yikes! Luckily it's our last night of camping - can we do it??
Jeremy aka MacGyver rigs up this situation in a non-camping area (but we needed the trees as support!)

Dec 29- 31 - Blenheim! The town of Blenheim itself wasn't all that exciting, and our campsite was on the okay-ish kinda side, but we were really happy to have made it there. Actually the area the campsite was in was quite nice, just a short walk to the beach...it was just the site itself that wasn't the most convenient. Kind of out in the open and near a road. Ah well. So we set up the tent, happy that we were staying for two nights and wouldn't have to pack up and move again...little did we know...hahaha. So we just sat on the beach and relaxed that evening. The next morning, we were picked up for our Marlborough region wine tour. It was us, the tour guide/driver, and a British family of four. There were some really delicious wines and lunch was amazing. After lunch we met up with more people who joined the tour - 3 Germans and 2 Serbians. We ended at a chocolate shop. Instead of driving us right home, the driver took us to Picton (he was going there anyway to drop the Serbians off). Picton is where you get the ferry from the South Island to Wellington on the North Island. It's a really cute little town and it was nice to get the chance to see it. When we arrived back at the campsite, our tent was a disaster. The day had been sunny and beautiful, but apparently our campsite had been...you guessed it...WINDY. It was actually mangled beyond belief and our hope of just sitting around doing nothing when we got back was sadly shattered. Jeremy assessed the situation and decided there was no way we could stay in the same spot because there was no wind shelter at all, so we walked all of our stuff into the more forest-y area and found a patch of trees to provide shelter and support. Jeremy rigged up some crazy ropes and stuff to try to keep it from completely collapsing in the night - the whole process took about two hours! Then we finally got to eat our sandwiches while watching the sunset and sharing our Marlborough wine purchase. Luckily, the tent lasted the night and that was our final camping night in New Zealand, so we left it behind and were off on the final lef of our journey - we had come full circle back to Christchurch for New Year's Eve!

31 - Christchurch. It was nice to return the rental car in one piece. We got a shuttle back to the hotel we had orginally stayed at, which had been called Hotel So less than two weeks before but had suddenly transformed into the All Seasons hotel while we were away. Christchurch was not in the best shape after the Boxing Day aftershocks - lots of businesses had signs saying that the buildings weren't safe to enter because they weren't structurally sound. We walked around the city a bit and saw that there were going to be fireworks at midnight in Cathedral Square. Got some Thai takeout (which Jeremy LOVED...insanely spicy, not very tasty to me, even though I generally like spice) and holed up in the hotel room. Randomly ended up watching "Marley and Me" (Who knows, really...) Turns out it's a bit of a tearjerker. Realized we should maybe actually make our way out of the hotel room at some point in the night, so we went into town and watched the fireworks display. It was...cute. Kind of like a small town Canada Day display, but there was that Nre Year's feeling in the air and some local bands playing and it was quite enjoyable. We went to the bar beside our hotel after that but didn't stay long, and I spent a good hour on Skype with Ronan after midnight while Jeremy slept. So that was that. Our holiday was over and we would be parting ways in a few hours!

Glow worms and such

So I definitely skipped a day or did something weird somewhere, but on the 29th I know we did glow worms.

29 - Since we were already in Westport, it was a quick-ish half hour drive to Charleston, where the caves are. We were handed our snazzy wetsuits, complete with socks and booties, in a bag to take with us on the famous "Nile Train". Okay, probably not super famous...but it's this hilarious little train the company owns that chugs through the forest and gets us closer to the caves. They broke us into three groups - we were with two other couples, one young couple from England who are in Nz till July and another older couple who used to live in Canberra but now permanently live in Wellington. We got off the train and climbed a bazillion stairs in our wetsuits. Our guide was very fresh and young and enthusiastic - she's been involved with the caves for at least 10 whole years...since she was EIGHT. We saw stalactites and stalagmites and all those other cavey things as we wandered through, being careful not to touch the top or sides of the caves - at some places Jeremy was more than doubled over. Oh yeah, we were also carrying huge innter tubes this whole time. The best part was when we got in the water...we linked up as a chain of tubes, and floated through a galaxy of glow worms, which was beautiful. Then we got to finish by tubing down the Nile River back to the train platform. As soon as we were done, we waited 50 hours to get this free photo thing and then were back on the road, this time towards Marlborough, near Blenheim. We had a wine tour booked the next day, so we were hoping the floods wouldn't hold us back!

Dec 27 - After packing up our hostel room and making sure not to leave any rubbish in the bin (that would incur a $10 fee! Shock shock horror!) we were on our way again in the pouring rain. I'm getting a bit forgetful now of our route. We tried to see Franz Josef Glacier...I got exactly two pictures - one of something white that could possibly be part of a glacier in the distance, and another of a sign telling us to keep out and detailing how dangerous it is, how tourists had died there trying to get a closer look, etc. On the 20 minute round trip from the car to the entrance of where the glacier is and back, we got positively soaked. I feel like today was the day we were meant to go to the glow worm caves but no...something is wrong! I'm totally missing a day. Whatever, I'm sure no one cares!! So with our clothes sopping, we got back in the car and started north. Destination: Charleston to do glow worm rafting through caves. It was only supposed to be a 3-4 hour drive. We left at 9 am and had glow worm tour at 2 pm. it was all going according to plan...we were almost in Greymouth, which is the large-ish town right before Charleston...and then it all went through the window. The rain was beginning to subside a bit, but with less than an hour left to our destination...Paroa happened. Paroa is a town right before Greymouth. As we drove along, we noticed large amounts of flooding at the sides of the road. Some of the side roads were completely submerged. People were kayaking past a half drowned play structure. Then there was the large line up of cars, clearly stopped for a reason...yes, yes, the road had totally flooded. This led to a crazy adventure (9 hours of driving in total for the day) in which we tried to get around the flooding. Guess what? The flooding was happening EVERYWHERE. Don't tell the car rental company, but we took some pretty iffy roads through forests and splashed through a couple of puddles that were, well, bigger than your average puddle. It quickly became evident that we were NOT going to make it to glow worms, but there was no mobile reception to call. Slight worry, but what can you do? So...5 hours of crazy backroads later, and after seeing quite a few tiny NZ towns we were never planning to see (Blackball, anyone? Apparently famous for their salami factory, which J was extremely excited to see...sadly it was closed) we made it to stupid Greymouth. Now we had to stay the night in the area so we could do glow worms the next day instead of going to the awesome hot springs campsite that Jeremy found (the road that way was flooded too, so we couldn't have gone even if we had been able to). We made the mistake of driving the extra hour or so up to Westport. If you ever go to NZ - believe me, you can skip this one. Westport was kinda flood-y too, and we couldn't camp, so we stayed at another hostel called Bazil's. At least there were some cute cats there. Totally exhausted after our huge day in the car, with no glacier, no glow worms, and no salami factory, we collapsed into our (separate) beds and set the alarm to be up early for damn glow worms!!!

Post-Christmas NZ

Dec 26 - Woke up to rain at our campsite in Te Anau. Packed up and drove to Fox Glacier. I believe this was the day that I looked at the map and saw a scenic route "short cut" and decided we should take it. Well.....it wasn't exactly a short cut! It was a crazy route going up up up into the mountains...rained the whole time...I think Jeremy was a bit nervous - we were REALLY high up. Saw a lot of cyclists on that road. Crazy buggers!! (Really though, super dangerous - no bike lanes, wet, narrow road, lots of blind spots) Stopped briefly in Wanaka and then kept going to Fox Glacier. The rain didn't let up for a second. This was a disappointing day, since we had planned to camp at Gillespie Beach at a beautiful site and take a 3 hour walk to an "unmanned" seal colony. The torrential rains prevented that and we were forced to take shelter in a hostel. On the bright side, the owner was extremely nice and we had a good cheap meal at the restaurant. Chatted with some kiwis who were out 'tramping' and then made friends with a bus tour group who also were supposed to be camping, but were rained out. Played CHOCOLATE PICTIONARY!! So cool!

The present, for a moment

Since Saturday, I've been in Auckland by myself and Jeremy flew back to Brisbane. I'm staying in a 4 bed room at the Queen St Backpackers downtown. It's a really good location and I've done tons of walking around in the time I've been here. That being said - I can't WAIT to get out of it. I'm paid up until Sunday, which is a shame, because I've found another cheaper place to stay on the North Shore (which is where I need to be for my placement...argh!) I just hadn't been able to find anything and thought better safe than sorry...but now I'm sorry anyway! There's just something weird about sharing a room with three other people...So far I've had:

- a Norwegian girl on a working holiday visa who has been living the hostel life since Nov when she arrived, but just this morning moved out to her own place
- A German girl who got here the same day as me but has already moved on to Wellington
- a lady in her 50s who is "between flats" aka homeless and had all her possessions in a couple of big plastic bags

They are all gone now, but just as I was leaving to go on a walk this afternoon a blonde European sounding girl came in. She ran right out to "get her bags" but wasn't back in the time till I left, so we haven't really met yet.

Today was a gorgeous day (every day here has been sunny and beautiful so far and the perrrrfect temperature - not humid!!) and I decided to have a look at Mission Bay, one of the apparently famous beaches. It was lovely, but not my type of beach, for swimming at least. The water temperature was excellent, but it was really shallow with lots of toddlers/families running around. Not such a great swimming place for me, but good for people watching and reading, which is what I did!

I just came from watching a massive cruise ship leave the port. I was in the middle of the city, and kept hearing these giant whistle/horn blasts that actually vibrated everything around me, so I went to check it out. It was pretty cool - a lot of people were gathered around just watching it leave.

Tomorrow is my last free day of the week, then on Wed I have my orientation and Thurs & Fri I'll be running the aphasia groups at Massey Uni!! Eeeep...then on Sunday I get to move from the hostel to a place where I'll have my own room, and it's even $4 cheaper for the week and overlooks Mairangi Bay :)

Dec 24 - woke up in Dunedin and our tent luck hadn't held up...one of the poles had snapped completely. Yikes! We packed it away and went and made breakfast at the campsite kitchen. This was a very exciting event for Jeremy because they have streaky bacon (or what Canadians would just call regular bacon, and Australia is lacking). After our bacon and eggs, we were off to Invercargill! Invercargill...well. We decided to rent a cabin for the night when we got to the campsite, as it was alternately pouring rain and hailing, with a fierce wind. This is the middle of SUMMER........like.....seriously?? It was SO COLD. Weirdest weather - probably the first time I've actually experienced the "4 seasons in a day phenomenon". It would rain, hail, be cold...then the sun would come up and it would be warm and lovely...then the whole cycle started again! We drove to Bluff (the southernmost town in NZ) just to say we had been. Back at the campsite, we went to see the lounge room and met a retired Dutch couple who shared Christmas cake with us. In the cabin, we had a nice restful time after a lot of driving - and way more yet to come!

Dec 25 - Crazy, crazy day. Much more driving - we drove through Te Anau past where we would be camping later and right into Milford Sound. 7 hours later after one hell of a scenic (and sometimes scary) drive, we were there. On the way, we drove through a mountain tunnel and TOUCHED SNOW!! ON CHRISTMAS!!!! The road was really windy and the views were incredible...numerous waterfalls, snow capped peaks, rivers , mountains...unbelievable. At Milford, we took a 1.5 hour cruise through a fiord, saw some more waterfalls, and even seals! Then we had to rush back to Te Anau, set up our broken tent, and then get to a Christmas dinner at a hotel at 6:30 pm. We made it right on time. The food...mmmmmmmmm. Turkey, ham, potatos, veggies, desserts, etc etc. Back at the campsite (which was on the shore of Lake Te Anau) we made friends with an older American guy who was travelling with his buddy and his buddy's wife, and they just shut themselves in their campervan so I think he was a bit lonely. We sat in the drizzling rain on the shore of the lake and talked for a couple of hours. Then bed, and another drive in the morning.

Well, here I am in Auckland. Alone. I checked into my hostel and walked around a bunch, then found an internet cafe to waste some time in. I'm just not sure what I should be doing?? I miss Jeremy!!

So, I'm going to write about our trip while it's still fresh in my mind...

Dec 21st - arrived in Christchurch in the middle of the night and got a good sleep in our teeny tiny hotel room. We stayed at a place called Hotel So and the room we were in was called "So Snug". Basically it's a bed and a bathroom. It was quite cozy. We were hoping to take a gondola ride and bought tickets, but it was insanely windy and the gondolas were cancelled. Instead, we hopped on a tram tour and also went punting (rode on a boat while a guy paddled from the back). We decided a trip to the beach would be a good idea, so we braved the city buses and went to Brighton Beach. Christchurch is odd - no one wants to live near the beach for some reason...the property prices actually decrease as you enter that area!! Strange. Had a swim - the water was really cold, but it was hot and windy out, so we dried off quickly. On the way back, the bus had trouble with the brakes, so we had to pull over and wait for another one...argh!!

Dec 22 - Rental car company came and picked us up from our hotel in the morning. We headed off to get our car - a "Sunny". Loaded 'er up and we were off! Our first stretch was Christchurch to Oamaru. Oamaru isn't that exciting...it's known for historic architecture and penguins. We walked around and looked and buildings and stuff before going back to our campsite. We saw a dead seagull hanging from power lines...yuck. At the campsite, the peace and quiet was broken around 9 pm by someone vomiting incredibly loudly and disgustingly across the site. Jeremy and I for some reason thought it was pretty funny, so we were the jerks laughing at the person throwing up. Whoops. We had a freeeeeeeezing cold sleep that night (hadn't perfected the art of strategic blanket placement yet).

Dec 23 - Oamaru to Dunedin. Dunedin was my favourite city on the South Island. It's so picturesque and quaint. I can't emphasize enough how strong the wind was!!! We went to the steepest street in the world and drove up it. Jeremy had a little adrenaline rush when the pedal was all the way to the floor near the top of the street and our poor little car was struggling, but it made it! Jeremy swam and apparently the waves were excellent for body surfing. I couldn't force myself in...it was freezing!! We got back to our tent (which we were surprised to find still standing since the wind was so strong) and there was a photographer from the newspaper there. He took our picture for the paper, because we were crazy enough to be tent camping in that wind! We walked into the middle of the city along ther harbour, which should have been pleasant, but I was lucky enough to get a bad cold right at the beginning of our trip and I wasn't doing too well. We stopped in a bar and had a good chat with the bartender (we were the only ones there). We had managed to go on Tradie's Day, the day when all the trade workers start their holidays. There was some definite holiday cheer on the streets. Jeremy and I were walking and we saw a pretty funny procession - a crowd of drunk tradies, followed by two cops, and at the end of the line was a drunk Santa who shouted curses at us for some unknown reason!

Okay...enough for now!