Creativeme.ca

Mes premières impressions de Whakapapa

Antoine — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 09:10:46 +0000

Je suis bel et bien arrivé à ma nouvelle résidence. Je commence juste le 21 juin alors j’ai quelques jours à relaxé ici. Mes premières impressions son moins bonnes que mes premières impressions au Japon, mais ce n’est pas si mal non plus.

La résidence est pas mal mais il reste que c’est un peu rudimentaire, genre que rien a changé depuis les années 80. Les chambres son bien et chaudes (très important) mais le reste est vraiment ordinaire avec une café et une salle de télé. Le petit village de Whakapapa (où j’habite) n’a pas grand-chose non plus il y a un genre de Château/hôtel, un centre d’information, un pub et un café. Les gens qui semblent travailler ici sont des Australiens et des Kiwis(Néo-Zélandais) en majorité. Il y a un couple de Polonais, un Américain et une Brésilienne. Il reste encore beaucoup de monde à arriver mais j’ai l’impression que ça ne va pas beaucoup changer. Je ne crois pas voir beaucoup d’Asiatiques ici. Je ne pratiquerai malheureusement pas mon Japonais cet hiver semble-t-il. Les Australiens et les Kiwis se tiennent ensemble et aiment boire de la bière, beaucoup beaucoup de bière…. Ils ne sont pas très accueillant non plus, on verra bien avec le temps! Dison que le contraste avec les gens de la Nouvelle-Zélande et du Japon est immense.

Sinon les choses se passent bien et les environs sont superbes. J’ai hâte de commencer à travailler, tout le monde me dit que c’est vraiment cool…….Ici, il ne fait pas trop froid non plus mais il y a beaucoup de vent car il n’y a pas d’arbres à cette altitude. La ville la plus proche est à 30 minutes de voitures si je veux un supermarché et un resto. Il y a un village à 15 minutes mais il n’y à pas grand-chose là, à part une station service et quelques magasins de location de skis.

Bon en gros c’est ça

Internet est chère ici mais je vais quand même pouvoir y accéder un peu.

Around Taranaki

Antoine — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 06:41:35 +0000

A few pictures around the Taranaki mountain located on the west coast. I had my camera on 1600 ISO the whole day so you will notice my pictures are a bit grainy, sorry

Waitomo caves

Antoine — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 06:38:14 +0000

So the day started with an amazing rainbow and after it was time for the Famous Waitomo caves. I also went to the GlowWorm caves, but you are not allowed to take pictures. So here is what I have

Mount Ruapehu

Antoine — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 00:55:43 +0000

So I stopped by where I will be working this winter just to check it out. It was a beautiful day and I think it made awesome pictures. This is from the Whakapapa side of the mountain.

Palmerston North

Antoine — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 00:51:07 +0000

Here is Palmerston North a city about one hour north of Wellington, not much to see in the city, but they have this amazing wind farm. Even if the weather wasn’t so nice, it was a great experience. I always wanted to see this so I finally got to see it. YAY! Btw those things make so much noise it’s crazy.

here are some pictures

Napier down to Wellington

Antoine — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 05:47:20 +0000

Lovely ride down to Wellington from Napier.

Rotorua to Taupo

Antoine — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 05:46:04 +0000

Here you can see The geothermal power project and some other volcanic stuff :)

Around Rotorua

Antoine — Sun, 30 May 2010 02:21:46 +0000

Rotorua is known for it’s volcanic activity. Call me a bit blasé, but I have seen much better. Having visited Iceland and Japan, New Zealand is really not that impressive. Also they try to profit from every little thing they can. It sucks the fun out of it. I found this nice place where you could swim for free in the forest. That was cool, but not warm enough. haha

Here are some pictures of The city and the surroundings of Rotorua.

Hot Water Beach

Antoine — Sun, 30 May 2010 02:14:30 +0000

This is where you dig a hole in the ”very hot sand” and wait for the water to fill the hole. A bit over rated, but still a lot of fun with a beautiful beach.

Thames to Hahei (cathedral cove)

Antoine — Sun, 30 May 2010 02:10:58 +0000

From Thames to Hahei was a nice drive. Hahei is where you can see the Famous Cathedral Cove. The New Zealand equivalent of the Québec Rocher Percé in Gaspé.

Cape Reinga to Kerikeri

Antoine — Wed, 26 May 2010 08:54:18 +0000

Some more pictures from the trip. This time from Cape Reinga(the most northern part of New Zealand), Sand Dunes and the 90 mile beach where you are free to drive on.

Little bit more…

Kerikeri to Tutukaka

In Kerikeri you can find some landmarks of the very first europeans settling in New Zealand. You can also find a reconstitution of a traditional Maori Village.

Tutukaka to Thames

some random shots on the way to Thames… yea

Auckland to Waipoua Kauri Forest

Antoine — Wed, 26 May 2010 08:44:07 +0000

Here are the first few photos of my trip in in the North Island. (Oh yeah and that’s my new *old* car haha)

Huia’s Native Forest (Parua bay region)

Antoine — Mon, 17 May 2010 08:59:14 +0000

Sunday Clemens, Wenx, Liz and I went for a little hike in Huia. We were suppose to have a nice little 2 or 3 hour walk, but we ended up taking the wrong path so it turned out to be much longer walk. By The way, always bring a map when you go hiking. Obvious no????

Here are so pictures of the region. Enjoy

Weekend Away in New Zealand

Antoine — Sun, 02 May 2010 11:57:38 +0000

Saturday was the big day. I had to go to my interview in Ohakune which is about a 5 hour drive south of Auckland. I was thinking about doing the round trip in a day with a rental car. Since it was a good opportunity to go and see the country side Clemens and Wenx, two very friendly Germans from the Auckland hostel, joined along with me and turned this into some sort of road trip for the weekend.

First, We went to Ohakune for my interview and it went great. (I should know by Friday if I get the job)…. Job or not we decided to drive up the mountain and go see the ”closed” ski resort. As you can see in the pictures it was already snowing. YAY! After a few pictures we drove back down to the Ohakune village to have dinner. As the sun was going to sleep we drove back up to Taupo, a lovely little city by the lac where we spent the night at the Youth Hostel.

The next morning we woke up and headed north to Wai-O-Tapu Geothermal Wonderland. It’s a sort of volcanic area that reminded me Iceland a lot. They had the Geyser, Mud Bath, boiling water that smelled like rotten eggs etc etc….. It was actually quite nice, but if you ask me it was too expensive (NZD $30).

We had to continue north on our way to Auckland, but we wanted to stop by some beach on the way. Wenx kind of randomly picked Waihi Beach and it was beautiful indeed. We arrived just in time to see the sunset where we had some fun with the camera. As the day was soon finishing it was already time to go back to Auckland.

It was a fun 2 days and I certainly had some fun :)

Enjoy the pictures.

Little News From Auckland

Antoine — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 02:54:29 +0000

So I finally found some time to walk around town and take some pictures. Nothing to report. I am just looking around and looking for a job at the same time. The city is just a little bit smaller than Vancouver and the people are very similar. Lots of immigrants in the downtown area.

Here are a few pictures from Auckland.

Et pour Papa… je suis allé dans le coin des bateaux….. il y en a plus mais cette partie est pas trop loin du centre-ville.