Coromandel

This weekend we rented a car and spent a day down on the Coromandel peninsula, which is about three hours south of Auckland. After a long morning driving, we took a quick stop at Micky D's before setting off on the last long and winding hour of the drive to the Hot Water Beach.

By about noon we reached the beach, and after a nice walk along the beautiful shore, reached the hot spot, marked by masses of people covered with shovels, wallowing in the sand.

We staked out our spot and started digging......

and digging....

and digging until we had a reasonable-sized hole. Unfortunately, we were a bit too late to get any real hot water in our hole, but we were determined and dug three or four before we gave up.

We spent a little time by the water before trekking back to the car, where I found an awesome praying mantis!

Not only was the drive to Cathedral Cove spectacular, the hike was gorgeous as well!

Apparently there was a storm a week or so ago, so the stairs down to the actual beach were out. However, there was a mildly precarious system of ropes and dirt tracks to get down. Cathedral Cove is commonly called the most spectacular beach in New Zealand, and from what I've seen, I'd have to agree! The namesake of the cove was closed to foot traffic as having too high a rockfall risk, but that really didn't stop anybody.

It was a great beach, with really nice water, natural beauty, and even a freshwater waterfall to rinse off in!

To complete the day, we made the long drive back to Auckland, backed by one of the most dazzling sunsets I've ever seen.

Auckland International Cultural Festival

Alrighty, it's time for last weekend's activity and the final post for the month -- the International Cultural Festival! We set out at about 10 on Sunday morning and took the bus out to Mt. Roskill. From there we walked to the War Memorial Park, where the festival was held.

We were greeted by a slightly muddy park, four stages, and lots and lots of food vendors! Since we know our priorities, we made a quick circuit to scope out who was selling what, and then sat down for a delicious multicultural meal.

Once we finished eating, we took in some of the performances. There were dancers, some more adorable than others...

and drummers, shadow puppets, and even some bands, two of which ripped their shirts off mid-performance.

Next up was another round of the food stands and miscellaneous vendors, who mostly were selling jewelry and hair wraps.

After about four hours of fun, we packed out our stuff and made our way back in time to take an afternoon nap/food coma.

(The goat statue is from a different park, I just thought it should be included somewhere.)

Around town

Now that the semester has started, things have slowed down a bit, so I'm going to compress a few weeks of activities into one superpost! First there was birthday week. Arleah's birthday was February 29th, so we went out to dinner at a French restaurant and got crepes.

Next there was my birthday on the 1st, where we went out for cake and then to karaoke (I didn't take any pictures though).

Classes started, so things started to get a bit busy, however, we went to the opening concert of the Pacifika Festival where people came from all over the Pacific Islands to perform. It was in western springs park, which had a nice lake and some beautiful waterfowl.

The performers were numerous and wonderful, but since it was getting pretty dark I didn't take too many pictures.

The next day, I headed off on my entomology field trip from friday to sunday. We bussed out to Waharau regional park and learned how to collect and preserve insects. Some highlights were encountering this beauty on a trail at night:

And finding a Puriri moth, a beautiful and giant native moth of New Zealand.

I thought about keeping the moth for my collection, but let it go, not just because it's a lovely animal, but also because it's so large you have to gut it to preserve it properly, and it comes out looking brown and shriveled. Yuck.

I got a good start on my collection and now I feel a bit like a taxidermist, but it's a pretty interesting field.