S'later Palmy!!

So...this is it! 18 months in this wonderful country... and tomorrow morning I'm heading back to good old Europe. Phil will stay here for a bit longer and will take up the blog again. Thanks heaps guys for the most amazing farewell present ever, I hope we meet again somewhere, some time in the future. NZ rocks!

The Lost Gipsy Gallery

Ok, this is one of the funniest things we've seen in New Zealand (and thanks again to the Lonely Planet guide...): The Lost Gypsy Gallery. This guy (who is a surfer, by the way) works in a bus that is filled with gadgets he's made himself out of junk and recycling items. Everything is wind or solar powered and made out of...well, anything he's been finding around!! We spent hours playing with the toys and having a look around the garden where all his best creations are on display.

Tunnel Beach

Tunnel Beach, a new place we discovered in our recent visit to the South Island, is just two kilometres south of Dunedin. The place got its name because of a passage that was carved years ago through a rock to give access to a sheltered beach at the base of the cliffs. The walk to the beach is an easy one hour return- although there's quite a bit of a climb involved on the way back to the carpark.

The views on the way are spectacular, and once at the beach we had a lot of fun trying to climb up the huge rocks there.

Climbing up Mt. Ngauruhoe

The team (from left to right): Rayon, Phil, Mishi, Jose & Sylvia

Con Rito y Milita en la Isla Norte

First day in the Coromandel

After a maori performance in Whakarewarewa

Relaxing in some hot pools near Taupo

Looking for Paua...

Getting ready for a day looking for Paua at Flat Point. (Both of us together with Jackson, Mishi and Beata)

Riversdale, awesome spot to chill out after a morning in the water

Biggest ice cream ever in Masterton, on our way home

The Paua with some garlic, ginger and a little bit of pepper...soo good!

Best spot to camp out ever!!

trying our brand new BBQ on the beach...somewhere north of Wainui

6:30 sunrise

I'm on a boat!

We went on a boat cruise around Gisborne's harbour, on one of the oldest boats in town!! It had been recently restored, and the guys in charge were a couple of old men who were very happy to show us the best spots around and tell us about the place. The weather was brilliant, so we had a very good time...couldn't see any dolphins though :-(

Gisborne

The Cook Landing Site Historic Reserve on Gisborne's seafront marks the place where Captain James Cook first set foot on New Zealand soil in October 1769. This little guy in the picture is Nick Young, the son of the surgeon, he was the first one to see land.

Gisborne is the first city in New Zealand to see the sun every day.

My Delirium

Some more kiwi music for you to enjoy. This is Ladyhawke, who grew up in a town not far from Palmy. She won six awards at the New Zealand Music Awards last week, including album and sigle of the year. I love this song, and the video is fantastic. Hope you like it!

Postcards from around the World

To all those people who sent us postcards from every corner of the planet: THANK YOU!!
Thanks to you guys, we now have postcards from all five continents!!! Hopefully we'll get to vist all those places one day... ;-)

Massey University Student Association Awards

Winners of the MUSA 2009 award for Outstanding Contribution of the Year

Congratulations Phil and Ed!!

Bye bye snow season!

Sunday 20th Sept at Turoa Ski field

The Caccia Birch house

A little bit of history here in Palmerston North: the Caccia Birch House was built in 1895 (and that means "very old" here in New Zealand) for a Scandinavian family. Several families lived there for years and it was used by the army and the university later on. It is now property of the Palmerston North City Council and it is available for use by the whole community. The best part: it's only 5 mins. away from our place :-)

MSC Beach Clean up mission

5th September, cleaning up South Beach

Spring is here!!

Len Lye's Wind Wand

This is one of Len Lye's best known kinetic sculptures: the Wind Wand. It stands 45 m high on the seafront in New Plymouth, North Island. It can bend at least 20 metres, so sometimes I can be quite scary to see it sway in the wind...


Len Lye was a New Zealand born artist; he had a passion for both cinematography and kinetic sculpture and an obsession (that's what we thought) for making movement something real.
On our recent visit to Melbourne, we visited an exhibition on Lye's work at the Centre of the Moving Image. Some of his sculptures were just mind-blowing, and watching them moving, some of them at the same time, was quite an experience!
His movies were also quite a discovery for us; dancing patterns of colourful lines and prints. Here's a taste of it:

Surf Mission 23/08

Sunset at Waiinu Beach

A Perfect Right Hander

Barefoot

One of the things that surprised me most when I arrived here in New Zealand was seeing people going barefoot everywhere. You see them everyday at uni, in the supermarket, walking the dog in the park and even in pubs (like the one in the picture). It's like they don't remember to put their shoes on before they leave the house!

I heard a kiwi the other day saying one of the things he missed when he went overseas was walking barefoot without fearing hurting his feet. The first thing he did when he came back home was taking off his shoes and walking on the grass. I have to say it's a nice feeling, but I still don't dare going anywhere without my shoes on...and I think it has to do more with my made-in-spain mindset (what would my mother say?!) than with fearing I would hurt my feet...

8th Aug. Wharite Peak

View of the Manawatu from Wharite Peak

A visit to the neighbours

Here is an overall view of our recent trip to Australia. In this second visit, we spent 3 days in Melbourne and a whole week touring around Victoria (mainly along the Great Ocean Road and the Grampians NP). The weather wasn't that nice on most of the days, but we had a lovely time nonetheless and we are already looking forward to our next visit!

View August trip to Oz in a larger map

And here you can see some of the pictures of our trip:

Phil surfing Jan Juc, near Bell's Beach, on the Surf Coast.

Surf Museum, Torquay

One of the numerous cuddle-me-please koalas we saw on the way

Our wicked camper!!

Cape Otway Lightstation

The Twelve Apostles

Another astonishing view on the Great Ocean Road

A real Aussie checking us out

Melbourne on a sunny day

Oh! and next time somebody asks me where New Zealand is, I'll be careful not to say "it's that country close to Australia"...Four hours on a plane, that is more than 2,500km, is not what I would call "close", that's longer than a flight from Barcelona to Istanbul!! ;-)