Feb through April
Our first goal here in Auckland is to get busy with fix it's and maintance. Items on our list are lift raft repacked, watermaker serviced, depth sounder repaired, and numerous other small items, but mainly getting the generator repaired/replaced. That turns out to be quite a nightmare for us. Trying to figure out what is wrong with it in the first place and whether it is worth salvaging has taken quite a bit of time. It seems that every time the mechanics repair something, they find another problem. Parts have to be ordered and shipped and in the mean time we wait. We try and keep our spirits up. This is not a bad place to be. We love the community where we are (Hobsonville) and have gotten to know our way around quite well. In fact we almost feel like locals. We are even getting better at understanding the Kiwi's when they talk. At first Jaime and I would just look at each other to see if one of us understood what was said. The first time someone asked us if we had a torch, we though how strange and said "no". It seems like we have a lot of torch's on board. They are flashlights! You don't rent a car or a movie, you hire them. You don't go hiking, you go tramping and an electrician is a sparkie. Could go on and on with more. Add to that, their strong accents, it's just enough to keep us confused which isn't hard to do.
In between waiting for repairmen/mechanics to show up we are able to take several trips around the area and see the sights. There are a lot of surf spots that Jaime has been checking out as much as possible. We even got to spend three days in Raglan where Jaime surfed the legendary Manu Bay. That spot was featured in the popular surf flick "Endless Summer". Our New Zealand sightseeing took us to Rotorua along with our friends Frank and Barbara of the yacht "Destiny" who helped us celebrate Jaime's birthday while we were there. Rotorua is known as the Geyserland of New Zealand. We knew when we were getting close when the smell of sulphur grew stronger. The Rotorua Valley is full of spectacular geysers, violent boiling springs, mud bubbling like hot porridge and multi-coloured silica terraces. We treated ourselves to a geothermal enriched mud bath that was to make us feel revitalized refreshed and totally cleansed. It felt great, but it took us four days to get the mud smell off of our skin.
According to the Lonely Planet Guide to New Zealand, one of the most amazing things
you can do in this country is visit Waitomo Caves and experience some of the adventure tours. We chose to do the blackwater rafting tour which includes going deep into a narrow dark cave with an innertube to float on. It seemed simple enough except for the fact that we had to crawl into a small opening in the ground. Walking over slippery rocks
while holding unto an innertube was a little more challenging then we thought. At least it was for us. Then there are three waterfalls that we jumped off of backwards while in our tubes. We were a little nervous when we were told that we needed to push off hard while going over the falls as there were rocks we needed to clear at the bottom. When it was over and we were ok, we were glad we did it. The caves had interesting formations and lots of bright glow worms to see. Truly a magical experience. We love this place, although it's starting to get cold here.
Burrrr. Need to start heading north.