I think these are all post the REM gig in New Plymouth... we decided to go have a look around a tiny bit before heading back to Wellington.
between new plymouth and auckland
i wish i could remember the name of this place. it's somewhere between new plymouth and auckland. that narrows it down eh?
but we were passing through and had to pull over to take photos of it.
regardless of where it was it's still beautiful.
i dunno... it could have been waikato, it could have been taranaki...
i'm pretty sure this was still in taranaki. john, being a queensland boy, had never seen so much native bush before and became very snap happy.
this was across the road from the ocean, where cows milled about near the water. madness.
what says road trip more than mickey d's on the side of the road? puking it up the next morning!
john investigating a sign about killing carp. poor carp.
auckland
hehe. fran took us to the cookie time factory in christchurch because i had told john about jessie's fascination with cookie time. it was soon after that we all realised how many of the cookie time monsters are decorating dairies nationwide. he bought this shirt. apparently it'll be cool in australia. yeah.
as much as we make fun of this stupid building, you have to admit it's an impressive structure.
so impressive john couldn't even take a photo without shaking.
we went up to the highest viewing level and i felt instantly nauseous.
heights scare the crap out of me, but being up that high makes auckland look almost halfway decent. heheh.
there are glass panels on the floor, as thick as the concrete apparently. it took me a good 20 minutes before i could be coaxed into standing on them.
makes wellington look like a one horse town. but i still love my mini city.
in the skytower gift shop, trying to find the perfect tacky souvenir. thankfully common sense took hold and he put this one back on the shelf.
of course, common sense let him go long enough for him to purchase this giant kiwifruit toy. apparently the people at customs laughed at him.
in wellington we found this wicked hoodie at real groovy. it teamed up with the bible in the auckland hotel to form JESUSTRON!
karekare beach
on monday morning we drove out to karekare beach on the west coast. we had to stop to admire the view from the waitakere ranges.
such a bizarre place. it feels so isolated, yet you can still see the sky tower.
just at the entrace to the beach was this happy fellow.
the beach itself lived up to my expectations. truly the most beautiful place i've ever seen.
pearl jam nerds, see if you can figure out the significance of this building...
everything is just so massive and untouched.
that surf was pretty fierce and the wind was blowing the sand along the beach at our feet with a surprisingly gentle force.
just so beautiful. i can see why so many people find it so inspiring.
it's so exposed to all the elements which just makes it all the more intriguing.
prehistoric
that water was very shallow in that little river, so we managed to go up to those cliffs... but climbing around was a bit too scary
see the kid digging? we were gonna stop and help him but figured he was on his own spiritual journey.
pretty awesome sight huh?
a giant rock in the middle of the sand. i wanted to take it home, cept it was like 15 feet tall.
not too sure what this was next to the rock, but it's either a tiny hutt for a tiny beach dweller, or some kind of cable tv transmitter.
little lone rocks in the middle of the water... just begging to have their photo taken.
so isolated but sooooo very welcoming.
a very rare australian beach dwelling transformer... endangered... and ever so cute
john and i at karekare. it was windy. that's my excuse for the face on my head anyway...
a rock. in the middle of the water. rockin.
more rocks. here i made a bad powderfinger joke about rockin' rocks... john shook his head in disgust.
we left our marks.
pure black sand... it was way too much fun digging around with our toes.
he was so enchanted by the gigantic pieces of seaweed he couldn't stop picking them up and flinging them at me. i'm assuming the flinging was out of excitement... NOT malice.
makes your fancy hollywood beaches look pretty ugly doesn't it?
highly recommended. highly. go there if you can.
ok, so the building is infact the karekare surf club, the people responsible for saving eddie vedder's butt when he got caught in a rip. 10 points.
*salutes them and wipes a tear from her eye*... god bless those men... imagine how cold it would be for the ladies in their red swimsuits... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...
on our way out of there we took this photo of the sheer awesomeness of the bush out the back of these lucky peoples' houses.
... and spotted these delightful chaps...
... who weren't too thrilled with people photographed. i think they would have liked a chance to do their hair.
huka falls
i hadn't seen huka falls since i was about 12, so i decided we should stop there on our way through taupo.
i'm very glad we did.
as you can clearly tell, so was john.
but what's not to like?
it's a lovely place
once again, it had the aussie seal of approval.
wellington aka home
my dog fell in love with john. here she is anxiously awaiting his entry into my house. please note that when i walked in she ignored me and ran straight to him. sigh. this photo kills me with it's cuteness.
i guess you can kinda see why she liked him... i guess...
i think there was some deeper understanding that i'm just not in tune with.