Tag: auckland sanity trip

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Auckland Sanity Trip: Day 3

Ferry station clock tower

Caught up with Aidan today. Definitely been looking forward to that for a long time. We did catch up briefly last year, but we were busy gaming at Phenomenon. It’s always fun to visit people in their home town. You get a bit of a local’s perspective on the place, but also discover new things together.

Piha Beach

Piha Beach
Piha Beach

Piha beach is one of Auckland’s more famous beaches, due to its dangerous rips and reality TV show about the local live saving club, similar to Australia’s Bondi Rescue. We drove there from Auckland city in about an hour, hoping to get a good view and a good lunch.

While no culinary delights were to be found, I do have to admit that Piha is far nicer than Bondi. While it obviously wasn’t summer, we couldn’t have picked a sunnier day. There were a few people enjoying the black sand, but there certainly wasn’t any crowd. Definitely great for photos.

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Photography Travel

Auckland Sanity Trip: Day 2

Rangitoto Island

Rangitoto Wharf

I’ve just returned from a 5km round tour through volcanic rainforest to the peak of Mount Rangitoto, 259 metres above sea level.

The trip to the top was physically hard. It’s a steady climb over an uneven trail to the top. The trail is mainly pebbles of volcanic rock (basalt, I think) and the wet conditions made for an occasionally muddy experience. Half way up, I stopped to take my jumper off and steam was coming off my shoulders!

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Photography Travel

Auckland Sanity Trip: Day 1

Auckland Sanity Break

I’ve been getting wanderlust again lately. I haven’t been out of Australia in almost a decade, and when you compare that to the first part of my life where my family moved around quite a bit because of my father’s work, it somehow feels less stimulating to keep seeing the same things over and over again. Add to that a real desperate need to get away from my job for even the shortest amount of time, and suddenly I’m winging my way over the Tasman to see Auckland and visit with an old friend from high school. It may not be the most glamourous of holidays, but it’s better than the alternative: sitting at work and bitching about how I don’t want to be there. The following journal entries are only slightly edited, and written on as on the spot as I could get – I didn’t want to have to recall everything weeks later.

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