hiking adventures with serita

serita is lazy so this blog will be brought to you by yours truly

monday she came to my classes with me (pacific linguistics and comp sci) and was not super entertained. that afternoon we don't remember what we did so it probably wasn't very exciting. i think i went to the gym and she unpacked her bags maybe?

tuesday we decided to go to rangitoto, a volcanic island in the hauraki gulf, a 25 min ferry ride from downtown. most everyone else i know has been there at least once already (kendall's been 3 times). the first ferry left at 9:15 am, and we managed to just miss it, so then we wandered around the viaduct area in touristy stores until the next one at 10:30. the last ferry back left at 3:30, which we needed to catch because a) i had class at 5 and b) there is other way off the island and no buildings there (except a few old historic bachs, which are sort of little vacation cottages). it was kind of grey and drizzley while we were walking around, and we seriously considered waiting to go another day, but decided to go for it, which was a good choice because the sun came out while we were on the ferry, and it was beautiful for the rest of the day.

after arriving we started following the main trail to the summit, which is supposed to take about an hour, but we took a detour on the wilson's park path, which sort of went around the back side. i managed to fall once and scraped my knees on the black lava rock (which serita thinks looks like a plowed field from a distance) but other than that there were no disasters. when we emerged from our detour we found a boardwalk with stairs all the way up to the summit. when we got there it was around noon so we had lunch (pbj of course). there were a bunch of girls, probably about middle school age, there on a school field trip, and they were SO excited that we were american it was really cute (i have not gotten that reaction anywhere else here, because most places i go there are tons of other americans). they asked us if we knew anyone famous and if there were cheerleaders and gangs at our school.

after lunch we went back down the boardwalk to go see the lava caves, which everyone says are really cool, although they all recommended a flashlight which we of course forgot. we first went in one with a small crawl-size entrance, with a larger area within. we were using the flash from my camera to light our way, which sort of worked, but serita got scared when she saw red rocks that she decided looked like blood, and there were red roots hanging from the ceiling, so we went back out. a little further on we found a big cave that you could walk thru standing upright. at first we thought it had an opening at the other end bc we saw light, but that turned out to just be a hole in the ceiling. by that time we decided we should start heading back to be sure we caught the ferry. there were some confusing signs showing a possible path around the outside of the island but the map said that way took too long, so we went back up the boardwalk to the summit, took some more pictures.

from the top we could see the auckland sky line, the north shore, and a bunch of the hauraki gulf islands, including waiheke, brown's island (which is a little grassy volcano that serita loved), and motutapu. motutapu is connected via a causeway and has a campground and farm animals, but also no permanent residents as far as i know. there is evidence of maori settlement on most of the islands, and they have found footprints in the ash on motutapu that show there were people standing there watching as rangitoto erupted 600 years ago. pretty crazy. anyway, then we headed down the main summit trail, which i had heard described as steep, with loose volcanic rock, but it was really not bad at all. we were kind of hurrying, but we got there with plenty of time so we took a little detour at the bottom and did the kidney fern walk. the whole island is covered in forest, and we saw all kinds of cool plants. the only animals are birds (and probably some bugs and stuff).

we reached the ferry landing by 3, and as we were sitting waiting the field trip girls came over and took pictures with us and talked to us more, and i'm pretty sure they were sneaking pictures of us on the ferry back. ha ha. on the ride back these 2 people who we had take our picture and we took theirs at the top sat with us. the girl was from west auckland and the guy was from england and they had met in australia and were just doing a day trip while the guy was visiting new zealand. he's traveling for 7 months, spending the first 3 or 4 in australia, then 6 weeks here, and then going to southeast asia (i've met a lot of backpackers who are either going there or have already been, and they all say good things, especially how cheap everything is).

we got back to auckland around 4, and had to go back to IH (half an hour walk), shower, and get back to campus for class at 5 (another 15 min walk). i thought the free city circuit bus would be faster than walking, only we waited for awhile and everyone had to switch buses due to the 2 presumably homeless people sleeping in the back of the first one. we finally made it back, i had a speed shower and was off to computer science, which serita decided she did not need to attend.

wednesday i have classes every other hour from 10-5, and then step class at 5:30. serita went shopping on queen street in the morning, and we met by the library for lunch at 1. it was a little chilly so we went to the sheltered quad area, where we saw signs for a free vegetarian lunch, so we followed the signs up to the 3rd floor and got some cous-cous like indian stuff and some oddly textured peanutbutter fudge which we then had in addition to our packed sandwiches. after lunch serita came to my nz lingusitics and pacific anthropology classes, again not very exciting. she just does her puzzles the whole time tho. she decided not to pay $10 to get into the gym for step class, so she went back to ih and we had dinner when i got back. generally she comes to dinner and i just get a lot of food on my tray and she has some, and also a sandwich usually.

thursday we went to one tree hill, which is a grassy volcanic cone park that's far enough away so we took the bus. we missed the first bus we could have taken bc we were just sitting in the bus stop shelter and you have to stand up and signal the driver if you want them to stop. we caught the second bus successfully, and it was about a 30 min ride. upon entering the park we first used the bathrooms by the planetarium and then started toward the summit. on the way we saw signs for the cornwall park (which is adjacent to one tree hill) information centre, so we kept following them and ended up in cornwall park on the other side of the volcano. cornwall park contains a working farm, not as a tourist attraction of any kind, you just kind of walk by the cows and sheep and stuff. the gates all have grating that you drive/walk over that the animals can't, and the fences have steps you can climb over or gates. it was really pretty, and after getting heaps of brochures from the info centre we found a bench and read them and looked at the map.

we decided to go the rest of the way around to the start of the summit walk again, going thru most of cornwall park on the way. it was quite pretty and the walking was very easy compared with rangitoto. these ladies from a korean church group accosted us and gave us these little booklets about "god's 4 fingered glove" which actually has 5 fingers, and the story had quite a few language errors and was a big hard to follow. we ran away from anyone else who looked lik epart of that group, and when it looked like one was coming for us serita said "just pull your pants down" as a means of scaring her away. instead i politely told her i already had a book.

the climb up one tree hill was steep but not too long, and it was all a road that people can drive their cars all the way to the top. there were signs about not disturbing the archaeological sites on the way, and when we saw some rocks down in the crater organized in some sort of pattern we figured that's what that was. however as we moved a little further around, we realized they were just organised in like, smilie faces and saying 'samoa' and stuff like that. so not so ancient. ha ha.

at the top we took pictures by the obelisk (there used to be a single tree up there, the source of the one tree hill name, but fairly recently (80s or 90s i think) someone cut it down as some a political statement of some sort, so now there is a big statue and stuff. instead of going back down the roadway, we went thru a gate and meandered down the back side of the mountain (there are various little foot paths throughout). we found our way back to the cornwall park cafe/info centre after climbing over a fence, and read/napped in the sun for awhile there. then we got kiddie ice cream for $1.50 (the "single" size was over $3 and i'm not sure how much more ice cream you would get, since we got a real single scoop).

after that we headed back around to the one tree hill side entrance, where serita really wanted to swing on the playground. however we saw this really cool playground thing where you sit on a swing hanging from a wire/zip line thing that is slightly angled so you go flying down to the end and bounce off some tires. it was actually kind of scary, and we did it several times, and then let a little boy and his mom both have a turn. we eventually found our way to a bus stop by 3, and the bus i had written down came at 3:30 so we just sat in the sun there for awhile. the bus was slightly late, although i think we may have been at a different stop than the one i'd written down but it came eventually and we successfully hailed it and paid our fare. when we got back to symonds street and went to get off my backpack got stuck in the seat but luckily serita rescued me (although she has been claiming about her injury from that since).

it was around 4:15 then and i had class again at 5, so again we speed showered and went to class, where they announced we have an extra week for the project, and they also gave us the pseudo code for the first part of it which is very exciting. then we came back and had dinner and i got a lot of work done on my project finally with the new helpful instructions.

today i went to the gym in the morning and worked on my project some more and serita went shopping on k' road, and then met me at the library and came to nz linguistics with me. the prof is super disorganized (like most other linguistics profs i've had) and basically told us for our assignment where we have to listen to someone speaking and decide if they are a new zealander or not, we can use any video or audio recording we can find, which makes it a lot easier if we already know the answer and just have to describe speech characteristics. after that i went to work on that in the language lab and serita went back to IH. i went to anthropology and we had another prof talking about ethnomusicology which was actually interesting for once, and then i went to step class which was quite intense, and then we had dinner which was less than spectacular. we considered going out tonight but sophie, kendall, and courtney are gone on a trip, and i think everyone else is just hanging out in ih tonight which is fine with me.

tomorrow i'm getting our rental car at 8:15 and we are going to rotorua to go zorbing and possibly luging, and then sunday we are going blackwater rafting in the waitomo caves. very exciting!