Hike!

The weather was gorgeous yesterday so we drove out west to the Waitakere (why-tack-ery) Ranges for a long hike. The sign said it was a 4 hour hike, but we did it in 3. We rule!

Then we headed to Dante's Pizza based on a recommend from our friends Pete & Zeke, and ate our pizzas in the car in the parking lot. Dante's does true Italian style pizza, and it was delicious. I still miss American style pizza, however -- perhaps I'll have to make my own!

Pictures of our hike are on on Facebook which you can see (even if you're not on Facebook, Danielle and Shelby) by clicking HERE.

Lynch Creek Trail

We struck up a convo with our "neighbors", Lorraine and Mark, who were camped across the way in a really swanky blue tent (with fringe!!) that they got from Holland. Apparently Holland makes really good tents.... who knew?

Anyway, they recommended to us a great day hike that took you 2.5 hours into the woods and emptied out onto a beach. We were looking for a decent hike (Cathedral Cove is only 90 minutes roundtrip) so off we went.

It started raining while we were in the middle of the forest, which resulted in lots of slipping and cursing and soaking wet shoes (there were 30 stream crossings -- that's right, I counted), but also some incredible wildlife sitings. We saw:

6 wild pigs! (I think this remains the highlight of Iain's entire holiday)
2 owls (pretty amazing -- we've never seen owls in the wild before)
2 Tui birds
1 Fantail bird

When we finally made it to the beach, we sat down and had our lunch: canned chicken, crackers, and cheese. I'd underestimated how challenging the hike would be and had stupidly brought a bottle of beer , but we had no opener. Beer and hiking don't really mix, so this was a good thing.

Six hours later we returned back to the camp, covered in mud and sweat. We showered and went out for dinner. There are few things more satisfying than collapsing in front a huge meal after a day of hiking.



I am sure this meal (these are our appetizers!) totally canceled out whatever calorie burning we enjoyed on our hike but it was still worth it.

Indian food!

After a day of fishing in the pouring rain (Iain & Wayne) and watching TV (me), we headed out for some Indian! Completely stuffed, we rolled home and collapsed in front of the TV to watch the last hour of "The Hills Have Eyes 2". It sucked.

Today, the rain's stopped so we're going out for a very long walk!!!!

Lover's Leap

Now that we've got the car and the driver's license sorted, we've had free time to do some hiking. Hopefully we'll start to lose some of the weight we've gained on this trip, although the beers at lunch pretty much negate our progress.

Here's a cliff called Lover's Leap where it's rumored that 2 people jumped. This lead to a quick discussion of Best Ways To Kill Yourself - diving off of a cliff was NOT on the list. I could barely look over it.

Sea Lion

Here's footage of a sea lion that we walked by on the beach today. He bears a slight resemblance to Blue, we thought!

Pictures of Dunedin

The water was a little too chilly to swim in (but barely) - think Florida in the winter - but it was still a beautiful day outside. The best part is how everything smells -- it's so amazing.

Our hike up Camelback Mountain

I admit it -- we've been eating a lot. And we certainly enjoy our cocktails, so it's important to try to stay on top of it so we don't end up 20 lbs overweight by the time we get to New Zealand. Iain is much better at encouraging us to exercise than I am, so I reluctantly agreed that a morning hike up a mountain was the perfect way to help work off our recent indulgences.

The thing is, the hike was pretty intense, and it was not made easier by the athletes running by us in their cool hiking gear, all lithe and super attractive, while I wheezed my way behind Iain in my dorky shorts from The Limited that I bought like 6 years ago for Erik's Manayunk Bike Race Party (remember, Kate?) and a goofball tshirt from a bar in Philly. At least my sneakers are cool. Of course, Iain totally looked the part, with his swanky breathable running shirt and hip R.E.I. shorts.










The worst part of all is that we got 1 mile up and decided to turn around -- we didn't know how long it was to the top and we still had a full day ahead of us and wanted to get home. When we got back to the bottom we saw a sign that read that the summit is reached in 1.2 miles. We were so pissed.