I've got Sunshine (for a few brief moments) on a cloudy day!

Despite actually making it down to Christchurch before the earthquake and touring the city, I didn't actually take many photos...which in retrospect is pretty disappointing considering that many of the facades I admired have now crumbled. But from what I hear the city is coming back to life and hopefully they will begin the rebuilding soon.

This weekend off I recovered from some long weeks on call and spent my Sunday afternoon at Muriwai beach (in between the rain showers). It only about a 45 minute drive from Auckland...through groves of fruit trees and nurseries and sheep farms (in the drizzling rain) before descending down to the beach. There were, once again, way too many roundabouts which invariably mean a few too many expletives issued forth at them during the drive...

I mainly went to see the Gannet colony. Every year they fly over to Muriwai beach and camp out for 3-4 months from September to January where they nest, hatch their chicks and teach them to fly before heading back to Tasmania. Pretty remarkable birds!

The Gannets would take off from the cliffs and ride the updrafts around in circles...sometimes swooping right overhead.

When flying against the wind they looked like they were in slow motion...hovering right next to me.

It also must be mating season for the gannets and I'm suspecting that this 'necking' is part of their mating ritual.

Looking Northward up Muriwai beach

One last look at these beautiful birds in flight!

What a wonderful world...

In two months I've been blessed by a wonderful group of friends here who planned an awesome birthday trip to Waiheke Island. If you have to turn thirty, that has got to be the best place to do it. Pouring rain overnight gave way to sunny skies on the ferry trip over and within 45 minutes of leaving Auckland we were docked in Waiheke.

I was pretty much captivated from the start. It felt like a world away from rainy Auckland...an oasis where the sun shined warm upon your face. We rented a van and headed to Stonyridge Vineyards.

The patio looked out over the grape vines to rolling green hills dotted with sheep. Gorgeous. After tasting a flight of white wines and sampling their bruschetta, we headed to Mudbrick Vineyards.

I absolutely love this place. I want to kick out the owners and turn it into my house and live there forever drinking their wine.

Lauren, Cindy, Kenny, Shannon and David...my fellow Americans in New Zealand...and a great group of friends!

Heavenly views combined with lavender fragrance...

Next we headed to Cable Bay vineyards for the sunset and a scrumptious dinner of New Zealand lamb.

Great food, great wine, great friends, great location. I couldn't ask for anything more. Thank you.

Over hills and vales...the Waimangu Volcanic Valley

After a night of torrential rainfall (its gotta be monsoon season here) there was a glimpse of blue in the sky Sunday morning and I thought I'd tempt fate and head to the Waimangu Volcanic Valley...silly me...

You start out at the top of the ridge and descend into the valley...here is a view of Echo Crater and Frying Pan Lake from the hillside. I love the steaminess!

Here you have Frying Pan Lake up close, and looking up at Cathedral Rocks below...

But as you can see, it was quickly clouding over...turns out that just increases the steaminess!

Inferno Crater...with a temperature of 300 degrees F and a pH of 2.1, I don't think I'll go swimming in that one!
Crossing the marble terraces...

On the way to Lake Rotomahana
Where there were a ton of black swans!
So, another soggy but pretty cool day.

The Devil went down to...Rotorua!

So, at one point in time over the past two weeks, I worked overnight 4 out of 6 nights. I cannot actually tell you how or why it happened...but at one point I was flown to another hospital to drill into a kids head and place a drain, then brought back to Starship to suck a clot out of a kids head. When all that's happening, I kind of lose track of time.

Therefore, when I finally left the hospital carpark at 7:30 Friday night, I hit the road to Rotorua with Shannon and David. I thankfully slipped into the back seat and slept most of the way. We awoke to rain Saturday morning but didn't let that dampen our spirits as we grabbed our suits and headed off to the natural hot pools. Kerosene creek was the prettiest...but not warm enough for me.

So we headed to the bridge where two streams (one cold, one hot) merge and you can move further up or downstream until you find the perfect spot. Awesome!

After we raised our core body temps a few degrees, we headed to the Wai-O-Tapu Geothermal Wonderland, home of the devil and his playground. It was drizzling when we started...

then it switched to pouring rain about the time we got to the devil's inkpots...

So we took shelter from the storm at the views over Artist's Palette...the cold and the rain made it all steamy...

We crossed the Terrace then trekked through the Sacred Forest...

And onwards to Frying Pan Flat and Lake Ngakoro

Bird's Nest Crater
And Lake Ngakoro which really can't be too vile because there are ducks swimming in it...

The champagne pool was gorgeous...but you only caught a glimpse of it when the wind blew the steam away...like a hidden surprise beneath the steam...

And we passed by Devil's Bath on the way out of the park...we definitely needed a hot shower and a few logs on the fire after this afternoon!

I'll post on the Waimangu Volcanic Valley tomorrow night...need to get some sleep before work tomorrow! You never know what that will bring!

Blue skies shining down on me...

For two days in a row, I've had blue skies overhead and sunshine (though not warmth)... So, I packed my backpack and took the ferry out to Rangitoto island. It's a dormant volcano, uninhabited at present, but great for hiking.

It's a bit hard to hike on the lava flows but about halfway to the summit it turns more into a rainforest and I made a slight detour for the lave tubes. Check out the cool fern frond.

Then onwards to the summit!

After eating my lunch I headed down to Mackenzie's Bay to the lighthouse.

Then did the coastal walk back around to Rangitoto wharf.

Neat grove of trees...I loved the shadows on the road.

After a long 5 hours of hiking I was thrilled to catch the ferry back. Heading out to Sky City Theatre to see "The Housemaid" as part of the international film festival tonight.

"All Black' sandy beaches!

I finally had a sunny saturday afternoon that coincided with me being off (took a month for that to happen)...so I packed up my new camera and headed off to Auckland's western beaches.

A mere 15 minutes from Auckland you pass through the verdant pastures of the Waitakere region where I finally saw, and heard, my first sheep.

From there I turned onto the scenic route and it slowly becomes a tropical rainforest as the cypress trees are replaced with palms and ferns. I descended down the windy one lane wide road to Karekare beach. 'Karekare' means breaking surf in Maori. The windswept cliffs of the Waitakere range part for this small beach of metallic black sand which is silky smooth.

Panatahi Island is just off the coast and I think it looks like a shark's tooth.

From there I took windy roads back up the range and back down to Piha Beach.

It's probably the most popular of the black sand beaches. The beach is amazingly flat and wide...Here I dipped my toes in the Tasman Sea (and froze them). It's known for Lion's Head, the rock outcropping from the beach. I hiked to the top and enjoyed the views until sunset.

Lion's Head at sunset (from the beach).

Piha at sunset from the overlook.

I finished the day watching the New Zealand "All Blacks" beat the South African "Steinboks" at rugby. Awesome day!!!

So, its been over two weeks since I posted and despite having purchased a new camera, I haven't taken a single shot! 50 cases in 4 weeks and some major sleep deprivation have overshadowed everything else New Zealand has to offer. But here are a few of my recent discoveries here:

On Baking...

Um...yeah...so it was hard enough trying to figure out how many grams I needed when I wanted ounces. And butter isn't sold in sticks. And the convection oven is in Celcius. By some miracle of guesstimation I managed to make (from scratch) forth of july chocolate cupcakes with cream cheese icing and red velvet cookies with icing and blue stars. I think I need to import some measuring cups and spoons...

On Walking...

I am slowly mastering driving on the other side of the road, but who decided that people needed to walk on the other side of the sidewalk here? Or that the escalators are reversed... I never thought that such a basic skill would come into question here. And back to rule number one though, always look both ways before crossing the street...did you know that you can cross a street diagonally here? Craziness... I'm not that trusting...

On Shopping...

I asked around last week where I should go to get some basic supplies...everyone said the Warehouse. Let me just tell you, the Warehouse is like a giant Dollar Tree...crappy, junky, expired items on falling apart shelves with poor lighting and trash everywhere. It was frightening. I want my Target.

On Work...

My house officer (intern) failed to show up for rounds any morning last week and quit 3 times in one week...you may wonder how that happens but that's the NZ medical system. No accountability. When asking her why an important scan didn't get done, she replied "well if it was so important maybe you should've just taken care of it yourself." Right...luckily she's history and my dependable house officer is back... On a bright note, the nurses decided to have a Fourth of July party at work for me. How truly sweet of them!

I guess the long and the short of this post is that I'm a little homesick. It's almost like the harder I work the more I miss the little things, like picking up the phone to say hi to family/friends, not having to worry about the drive home, just falling asleep in my own bed.

Hope everyone has a great week!