Ian and I have spent the last week on Great Barrier Island, a remote place with about 500 people or so that's 90 km from Auckland. It's been absolutely gorgeous and a lot of fun as well. The local cast of characters includes lots of drunks, ex-pats from Ireland and England among other places, super friendly locals, some dirty old men and some not so dirty. We're currently WWOOFing at an Irish pub, which basically rules. We do a couple hours of gardening in the morning and a couple of hours of washing dishes at night and get to stay and eat for free. In our downtime, we've been visiting the beaches, going on hikes (and getting lost on said hikes), and today we rented a car and drove to the other side of the island, where we then broke down. That sucked but we managed to get it fixed and make it home in one piece. We didn't bring our car over cause it's too expensive, so we've mostly just been hitching, and then rented the car just for today.
When I originally wanted to come to New Zealand, I was sort of unsure about coming during this time--I wanted to be here in their summer, when the weather is nicer. But now that I'm here, I'm so glad that I came during the off season. There's hardly any tourists around, stuff is cheaper, and people are more friendly and talkative since they aren't innundated by tourists like they are the rest of the year. Today we went to a gorgeous white-sand beach, and the water was crystal blue, the sun was out--it was perfect. And we were the only people on the entire beach. I cannot imagine going to a beach like that anywhere in the states and being the only person on it, it just doesn't happen. Maybe somewhere in the dead of winter when it was snowing, but not when it's still 60 degrees out. And it's like this all over the country! Going on multi day hikes where you don't see another soul, not passing a car for miles and miles on a road...fuck I love it here. :)
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