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February 11, 2005
Samoa to Auckland
We loved Samoa--I mean, there's nothing like sitting on a tropical beach with amazing views and nothing, am I mean nothing, to do but read Gone with the Wind (great book, can't believe I haven't picked it before) and sip cool Vailima (the only beer in Samoa). And the water was incredible. As warm as a bath tub and full of fish. Out fale (hut) on the beach was so close to the water that at night we could hear the fish jumping around in the ocean. Incredible. We spent a few days on Upolo (the island we originally flew to) and then took a ferry to Savaii for the rest of the trip. In all we went to 3 different areas and I'd have to say my favorite was on the south east coast of Upolo. The village is called Lalumanu. It was very remote and had the best views from the beach. We're in the middle of figuring out the picture sitation but hopefully they'll be up on the site today so you can all take a look at the view for yourself. It's impossible for me to try and explain anyway. But all that said, we were happy to embark on the longest day of traveling in our lives, and make our way from Samoa to Auckland. It was so strange because leaving Samoa we crossed the date line so we basically skipped all of Wednesday. Figures we skip my favorite day of the week! Anyway, so here we are in Auckland. It's a great city--Andy says it reminds him a little of San Francisco, but is definitely has a very British feel at the same time. We're particularly impressed because we met a few New Zealanders in Samoa who didn't seem to have anything nice to say about Auckland at all. We were just happy to be in a city again--I think in comparison to Samoa, Hampton Falls would be considered a booming metropolis! We treated ourselves to a warm shower (only cold ones on Samoa), a tour around a museum, a beer at an "Irish" pub, a fancy dinner, and coffee and dessert on our favorite street in Auckland--Vulcan Lane, cute little street with loads of cafes with tables outside. It was such a great day! In Samoa there was basically no choise what you had for dinner, or any mean actually, you just eat whatever the family who owns the fale makes. Don't get me wrong, the food was delicious (especially in Lalumano--I had the best tuna steak I have ever had, honestly, I can't stop talking about it) but it was just so nice to go to a restaurant where we had a choice of foods and we could eat inside a building with walls and air conditioning and no flies buzzing around the food. Okay, so enough about food---we spent today on a hut for a car. Went this morning to a backpackers car market and saw one car in particular that we liked, but decided to keep hunting around, ended up going back to the car market around 4pm and found out the car needed a new gasket (or something like that) and so we're not getting that one. Found a German guy who's selling his car and think we'll probably take that one. It's a white station wagon, a nissan, I think. Looks good to me, except it's manual. Looks like I'll have to learn the stick after all but I'll be learning how to shift with my left hand which will be a little stange, but whatever, I am kind of excited about it. I'll let Andy get us out of Auckland though! We'll be heading out of Auckland tomorrow if all goes well. We need to see as much as we can of the north island before heading south, but we also need to be at the Milford Sound by the 22nd so we're definitely cutting things close time wish.
Anyway, I have a million more things I'd love to write, but if I wrote it all I'd be in this internet cafe all night and I should save some good stories for when we retunr anyway. Oh wait, now that I think about it, the internet cafe may actually be a step of from the Fat Camel Hostel, so it may not be the worst idea to stay here all night. And at $2 an hour, it may be about the same price as the hostel, well, almost. Okay, true to form, I am rambling now, so I am really going to stop writing.
Talk to you all later.
xoxo
Posted by Kate at February 11, 2005 12:22 AM