Photos from walks

Tawharanui:

The beach

A panorama from near the end of the track

Just a random bunny/guinea pig shot

The bunny, the bunny, ooh we love the bunny... (Eloise and I made it up one day, we often call him the bunny instead of BamBam (his name))

Piha:

The waterfalls: you can only see the bottom '3' from the rocks where the lake is as see below: the top one is the one we walked up to.

A plane flew above us... was very clear (not so much by picture)

The top waterfall at the end of the extra not so much of an official track walk

SUMMER

I have left my blog alone over the summer, but decided that I would write something today.  Following on from my last post- I completed all my exams from Semester Two, 2014 (passed them all) and then I have also just (yesterday) sat my exam for the summer school paper I talked about doing (Bioscience: Impaired Body Function).

Over the summer period, I worked a little, did quite a lot of study for my paper including spending ALOT of time writing assignments, but I also did some fun things with the family.  These included getting to go swimming heaps at the beach, and in our pool we set up on the lawn, going down the waterslide in the pouring rain, walking up Rangitoto and doing a walk at Wenderholm Regional Park, and I also had all of my wisdom teeth out! It was a rather eventful summer, and I am looking forward to getting back into study again next week as I start back for Semester One on Monday!

Oh, I also did a whole lot of Grey's Anatomy watching... when I could. I bought the first season when I had my break between exams and starting SummerSchool, and then I bought the second season once I was nearly finished the first so I had something to go on with, my plan is to buy the third in the coming weeks, and hopefully watch all Grey's before watching the most recent season which started in NZ last night (which we forgot about and didn't record).

Mangawhai Beach

Volcanic Rock on Rangitoto

Top of Rangitoto!

Going down into one of the caves

Eloise and Anna walking back to catch the ferry back to Auckland

Resting after we had walked back down, everyone was tired!

Waterslide!!! 7pm with rain and thunder (not that it looks like it).

Australia Aug/Sept 2014- part 2

Tasmania! 

We left for the airport super early in order to get there on time- which we did in plenty, and then learnt that the plane would be delayed by half an hour at the least.  This was due to fog over Launceston (the destination for this leg of the trip).  Once we finally made it into the air, after being called for over the intercom on a final boarding call... (lets just say there were a lot of "firsts" to this trip).  

We had a relatively non eventful flight, until we were above the top of Tasmania where we were yet again, put into a left hand hold and were left circling Tasmania (I think I counted five times at least!- it was for about an hour.)  With at one point during that time when the Pilot said that it was okay that we're just waiting for 600-1000m of visibility on the ground, and we had an hour and a half fuel left (reassuring until we had been the for an hour).  We had a plane that was coming in from Sydney at the same time ahead of us, which attempted landing once, and at last minute couldn't, then attempt again, and if that wasn't to be had, they were diverting to Hobart.  If that ended up happening (which it didn't) we would have followed a similar path I would think.

The plane from Sydney in front of us waiting for the fog to clear/lift.

Launceston Airport

We got off the plane, finally, and got a car (SUV type thing) to drive around in for the next four days and headed North-ish.  We had no itinerary and were just kinda figuring out what to do as we felt like. Not the way I'm use to doing things, but it worked.  

We ended up in Deloraine where we found an info centre and they suggested a few different place to us.  One being the Marakoopa caves where we had an hours guided tour, with the history and how it was formed.  And then we headed to Trowunna Wildlife Park- which was possibly my absolute favourite/highlight of the trip!  

Marakoopa Caves

At Trowunna, we got to hold a wombat, touch/pat a Tasmanian Devil, feed kangaroos, pet the said kangaroos and their joey's, and shake hands with them too.  We saw other animals but the Tassie Devils, kangaroo's and the wombat were the more interactive sorta ones.

Daniel with the wombat.

Me with the wombat.

Cute Tassie Devil!

Feeding a kangaroo- from the bag of pellets.

Joey.

Me with the kangaroo.

The following day we headed down to Hobart and had a look at the Salamanca Markets, and walked around the wharf and looked around a bit before walking up a MASSIVE hill that overlooked Hobart- pretty amazing sites, pity we didn't know that you could drive up there in the first place! The walk was pretty neat though- and we saw a wild wallaby on the way back down.

Hobart Wharf.

Top of the hill! Looking out over Hobart/ Tasmania.

Early Morning Beach Walk

This morning I woke up at 4.30am.... Yes, that early, and couldn't get back to sleep.  So at 5.40am when I had had enough of lying in my nice comfy warm bed watching the sky I decided to get up and have a shower and throw some clothes on and head out to Browns Bay beach.

Its morning like this where I wish I was back in Orewa and had a the beach a two minute walk away... as it is now a 10minute drive to the closest beach!!

Looking out to Rangitoto Island

North end of the beach

I got out there at 6.30am when it was still pitch black and went for a walk along the beach and took some photos as I went, there were a couple of other people but not many.  The sun rose at 7am and it became a little busier.  Once the sun was right up I went to find the closest supermarket for bread and milk and well... I went to put the bread in the toaster earlier and found it was mouldy. Yuck! And the milk.. well, can't have a coffee without can I?

About 6.45am

Browns Bay

South end of the beach

Browns bay beach at 7.15am

I plan on going into Uni as soon as the library opens at 10am to finish (hopefully) my essay and sheets to do to hand in on Monday.. well that are due Monday.

Semester one is complete!

So, my first semester at University is now finished, its over, its complete.

I sat my last exam this morning and so I am now awaiting my results which I think take about three weeks from the end of the exam period to be marked and put online for us to see.

This afternoon I was a bit baffled as to what to do.. I am thinking I am going to need to find some projects to work on over the semester break as I am not going to have episodes of Greys Anatomy to catch up on.. but I am thinking about starting the Games of Thrones series.. not to sure if I want to enter the obsession that everyone has over it though.

I have a busy couple of days ahead of me and then it will die down and I hope to be off exploring and adventuring, one plan is to go to Rangitoto Island, to do walks around there and to spend the day there.  I believe that Rangitoto Island is New Zealand's newest formed volcanic island, approximately 600 years old.

Tomorrow I am involved in the National Men's Health Day in Northcote with a team of student nurses taking blood pressures and blood sugar levels (yes, sticking people) among other things.

I am then going to be going straight from the event to hitting my bed and having a nap before I go to work and do a night shift. They joy of having a holiday and being able to ring work to actually ask for some shifts instead of other things!

Spontaneous night to the City...

..Taylor and I started off by Taylor deciding to come to my flat after she finished work and then we wanted to do something different, spontaneous and just to get out of the house... so we went to Takapuna Beach, then headed off to have dinner at Pita Pit.

...Taking random "selfies" (I hate that word with a passion..) at the beach...

KiwiYo for dessert..

This is just the beginning of our random, just cause we felt like it trip into the city on a Saturday night.

After eating and as we were about to head back to Albany we were on the road to the motorway on/off ramps, talking about how I love the massive bendy curve bit from Esmonde Road North, and how Mum always forgets and hates it and seems to end up heading into Auckland City.  

On our way into the city we had a few options of where we wanted to go and explore and ended up at the Skycity parking lot where we thought, hey, lets go up the Skytower just for the fun of it! 

Down to buy the tickets... I didn't have my student ID on me but he let me get in for student prices! YUS!

Going up... up... up... 51 stories up! 

You could see the city from inside the lift!

Taylor's first time EVER going up the skytower!!!

Random skytower photos..

AUCKLAND CITY!!

Standing on the glass.. scary when it decides to creek!!! haha..... we jumped on it too!

Taking photos of the magnets.. (I should keep this in mind sometimes...)

Love this one!!

After the skytower we went for a walk to look at the cathedral.. (Skytower is the red lit building in the distance)

......Photos....

Sad to be leaving... 

actually it was cause these people tried to use the ticket booth before us..... we were there first.. :)

It was a rather awesomely spontaneous trip into the city but it was pretty cool to see the city at night and walk around Hobson Street and down a couple others... walking past clubs and bars... Hurry up and turn 18 Taylor!! 

Finished my night off with a cider at my flat :) 

Exploration walk across the rocks...

Eloise and I had already decided before we went up that we needed to go and explore the rocks and see where it took us basically, to the bay along the coast a bit.  We were not gone for too long, but we found a few interesting things along the way and took heaps of photos!

Getting over the first of the rocks.. there were lots of oysters to avoid with our hands!

Looking back over the the bach

We found a little seat type thing in a hollowed out rock!!

Just views

Quite a way down from here!

Eloise

Taking photos of each other.. also trying not to fall in (and successfully so!)

My feet dangling from the rocks a couple meters up

Me

We found a tyre buried in the rock/sand and it was jumpable on!!

(There is a video of me actually jumping on it.. just trying to upload it)

Dead crab....

Eloise thinks she's strong....