09/11/16 Today is my last day in Auckland. I made up a nice breakfast of Bacon and Egg sandwiches, and made up some packed sandwiches of Salami and lettuce - can't wait to eat those!
The photo upload didn't fare very well overnight, but that's the hostel wifi for you!
Something I hadn't mentioned about the hostel so far, was the fact that the kitchen i on the roof level, with doors that open out on to the roof where there are benches and tables, and even a hot tub! I had been tempted by the hot tub but ultimately decided not to bother - the one time I would have used it, there was someone there already smoking, which made me decided against it.
One aspect of having a kitchen set up like this, is that there are lots of birds all trying to take advantage of the abundance of crumbs in the kitchen. This morning, the birds in kitchen appeared to be so bold now, I saw one with a feather in its beak, as if it was trying to build a nest in the kitchen for even easier access to the free food!
I took my main rucksack to the basement Nomads area for picking up after the volcano tour, and checked out of the hostel
The skies were cloud free, and already there was a good heat in the sun. Equipped with my new sandals, and the day sack + camera bag, I made it to the pier in plenty of time, and waited in line for boarding the ferry - a jet-cat boat
The crossing was event free, and we made it on to the volcano island in the scorching hot sunshine. The booking folk yesterday had advised that I should wear my normal trainers, but I decided to ignore that advice and see what happens.
On the ferry over I met an Australian lady, and her mum (who must have been about 80 or so) + friend , who were also going on the volcano tour. We discussed where we were from and our plans for New Zealand, and I was complimented on how cute Nessie was again!
Once the tour group had boarded the tractor + trailer, the people beside me were a family from Northern Ireland. I had noticed that it was still quite windy today, so I decided that since my hat might not stay on my head, I should put some sun cream on top just in case. The dad of the Northern Ireland family took my queue and also applied sun cream to his own head - I may have started a trend!
The tour guide explained how there wasn't actually much soil at all on the volcano, and that all the trees were growing directly in to the lava/rock. There was a pest extermination program that began in the 90's to get rid of rats, oppossums and other non-native animals that were destroying the vegetation, and none have been on the island now since 2011. All of the plants on the volcano are native to New Zealand - and there was a biosecurity officer bfore we had boarded the ferry to ensure we didn't take any seeds or critters on to the island.
We reached the car park near the top, and I climbed the 365 steps to the crater rim, where there was a choice to go left to the summit view point (2 minutes) or right around the rim to the summit view point (15 minutes). I opted for the latter, with the idea being that I could better manage my time at the summit itself, if I had already done the rim walk.
I managed to get a photo of a Tui bird at the top, though hearing them sing, I am no longer convinced about that being the bird that was waking me up fr the first few mornings!
Back on the tractor/trailer, and we went to a lava field - the fields look like roughly plowed soil, but are actually made of very porous lava, which was very light. There was a photo opportunity here, where I helped the Northern Ireland folk out by taking aphoto of all three of them - so far, since I've been on organised tours, everyone has been super friendly and helping each other with photos etc, I hope that continues for the rest of my tour!
The last part of the tour took us past some mangrove that had adapted itself to growing in the lava rock. It was much shorter that the mangrove I had gone thrgh up at Waitangi.
While on the ferry back to Auckland center, I decided that I could use the string from the dolphin necklace I was wearing, as a string to be used for keeping my hat on my head, so worked on that, then shared photos with the Australian I had met on the ferry over.
We got to the pier, with 2 hours before I had to get my bus, and since there was still a lot of photos to upload, I decided again to have lunch at BK and have the sandwiches for dinner - so I picked up the rucksack from Nomads, and made my way to the BK mins walk from the bus station. This proved mostly successful, though some still are left from the current batch to upload, and that's not to mention the 2 days worth I've taken since this batch was put on the phone! I do appear to be catching up though!
I made it to the bus station with 30 minutes to go, so used the rucksack as a seat, while I tried to find the roundabout I had been advised by the campsite person yesterday. Having done that, I wrote it in to a notepad on the phone so I could show it to the driver incase my pronunciation was terrible.
Loading my rucksack on to the bus, I managed to hit my head on a bar, after which the driver said "Careful!" and I replied "Too late!" and we had a laugh. The driver has a great sense of humour, and it carried on throughout the journey. I was advised I could get off at that roundabout, which saved me a good hours worth of walking with a tent on my back, so I'm quite pleased with that outcome.
I was 36 hours behind on my Japanese reviews, so once the bus set off, I hooked up to the wifi, set off the photo upload, and started on the reviews - 68% right, 32% wrong - not bad given the fact that the reviews appear just before it thinks I'll forget them, so if I leave it 24 hours, I'm more likely to have forgotten!
Due to unpredictable passengers, we were delayed in Huntly, meaning the bus was now about 30 minutes behind schedule - this made it pretty close for getting to the campsite on time.
I am writing up this log and yesterday's on the bus, and discovering that the keyboard appears to be either suffering interference, or the batteries are going - I'll determine which later on tonight once my tent is set up I guess!