Being in New Zealand means I am 18 hours ahead of the mountain time zone in the US. While I celebrated my birthday on August 30th in Auckland, NZ, most of my friends on the other side of the Pacific were ending August 29th. When 6pm arrived in NZ, August 30th was just beginning in Montana. So, I technically had two days of celebration. Not only do I avoid the winter of 2018 with my trip, but I also get to celebrate my 38th birthday twice!
And celebrate I did. Days 11 and 12 were amazing days here in Auckland, NZ!
Day 11 – After staying in Mount Eden for 5 days, I decided it was time to ascend to the top of this volcano, which is the highest point in Auckland and last erupted 15,000 years ago. The path leading up to the summit was lush and beautiful, and you can easily forget that you are in the middle of a city with over 1 million people. It reminded me of Mt. Tabor in Portland, Oregon. I had one of the other hikers take a picture of me looking off to the south of Auckland. My first couch surf is somewhere down that way.
When Mount Eden last erupted, it left a 50m crater at the top. The best thing is that I didn’t realize any of this until after I got to the summit. This made the discovery of the crater that much more spectacular for me, as you can tell by my reaction. But, the hike also afforded amazing views of the entire city. The link is a video of me approaching the summit, so that might be better to view before the other pictures below.
After soaking in the views, I trekked down the north side of Mount Eden (and made sure not to fall like I did in Cornwall Park). I then walked myself into the city to find a charging cord for my underwater camera. I had bought it used before I left Montana, but never got a charger with it. After visiting 4 different camera and technology stores, I finally found a mini-usb cable (who knew it would be that rare?!?) and started charging my camera while I ate lunch at Wendy’s. I gave it about an hour of charging before I made my way to the Sky Tower.
The views were impressive. I was able to find the Harbour bridge and point out to it. That’s where I would be bungy jumping later that day.
They also had windows in the floor, so you could stand on them and look straight down! The elevator also had a glass floor.
I actually took a couple of artsy photos while I was up there. They had various posters that talked about the Sky Tower and what it meant to the writer and the city. I noticed that I could see my reflection in the posters, as well as the city below me. So, I took a couple of pictures. The second one I’m particularly proud of, as I made sure there were no other people in the reflection. It was so good, I made it my Facebook and Instagram profile pic for a while!
I finished up at Skytower around 1pm. I messed around in the casino for a bit and lost some of the money that I had won earlier in the week, but met a nice couple from Arizona and shared some of my story with them.
I had to be at the Waterfront by 2:30pm, where I got a shuttle with 4 other bungy jumpers and 1 bridge walker (you can walk over the top of the bridge and get some great pictures). We were taken to the bungy shop at the base of the bridge where we were weighed twice (74 kg), given a number (#12) and then suited up in a harness for the bungy jump. As we walked out to the bridge, I took some photos and video.
Bungy jumping was incredible! I wasn’t nervous until I was standing at the edge of the platform, with my shoetips hanging off the ledge. But there was no hesitation, and I followed the instructions perfectly. Because we had been weighed beforehand, they said they could weight the bungy properly to dunk my head into the water. I had my underwater camera in hand and turned on. I smiled for the camera and jumped…
I was in freefall for 2.5 seconds and the thing that kept me the most calm was knowing that I was diving towards water and I should slow down as the bungy stretched. And sure enough, it did, dunking only my head and torso into the salt water of the Auckland Harbour. I came up out of the water, twirling back into the sky before descending again but not entering the water. On the second upswing, I pulled a cord at my legs which flipped me right side up so that I wasn’t hanging down as they hauled me back to the top of the jump. I was the only jumper that managed to do that!
I realized I had turned off my camera after I jumped, even before I got to the edge, but I did turn it back on when I rode up, so at least I captured my BEFORE and AFTER. Here they are.
After we had all gone, we had the option to do a second jump for half price, but I was happy with my experience, as were the other jumpers. So, we went back to the shop where we could see our photos and video of our jumps. While the other jumpers all bought media, I decided not to. Instead, I decided I am going to do the BIG bungy jump in Queenstown. The Nevis jump is 134m high and you jump out of a cable car. It has full 8 seconds of free fall! I’ll know what to expect, so I am sure I can get better pictures and video from the jump. I wasn’t that impressed with any of the media they shot, not that it was bad, it just wasn’t anything I wanted to pay $80 NZD for.
The only other picture from my bungy jump is my completion certificate.
And I didn’t get any pictures of Anna, for the second time in a row!
Anna met me for a celebratory drink, and we had dinner at Baduzzi, an upscale Italian restaurant. I was able to get her signature in my dive book, so I now have 19 dives confirmed in my dive log. I still don’t know why I didn’t think to take any other photos, but we just got wrapped up in our conversation, which covered lots of topics. One of those – She has spent time at an Anglican retreat center here in NZ, and I think I’ll do that when I return to the north island in February. We also talked about getting back together for more scuba when I return to Auckland in April and May 2019.
After dinner, I walked her back to the ferry station and on the way we got some ice cream. I then stopped by H&M which had just opened in downtown Auckland. There were tons of people taking selfies outside the store, a DJ was spinning records inside, and it was a massive 3 story structure. Did you know that H&M has a home section? I had never seen one with that until now.
I did like the reflection I got. I’m at that point in my life; I wear things that make me happy. That’s why I have my American Giant Sweatshirts, my 32 degrees cool t-shirts, and my Carhartt pants and shorts (with a cell phone pocket!) Don’t even get me started on the cell phone pocket. It has single-handedly revolutionized my access to my phone, keeping it out of the way, but also making it so easy to pull out. Anyway, you don’t need to hear about my clothes, at least not in this post. 😉
I then danced my way up Queen Street in my red sweatshirt. It seems that most people wear black and gray (I guess it is winter here right now), so I tend to stand out, but I love it. And I might look like a fool dancing around, but I do it because it makes me happy (and helps me burn those pesky calories that I eat). And so, that brought Day 1 of my birthday to a glorious close…until I got home and realized I didn’t have my underwater camera in my bag. I had either left it at the bungy shop or the italian restaurant. I was a little worried, but there wasn’t anything to do about it until the shops opened the next day. And so I went to sleep.
Day 12 – Day #2 of my 38th birthday, although it was technically August 31st, 2018. Walking out my door, it was a very gray day, which created an interesting picture as I looked up towards Mount Eden.
I spent the morning at a Starbucks, beginning my day 8,9,10 post. I was able to call the bungy shop at 9am and they confirmed they had my camera. Evidently, I had left it there while I was viewing the media from my jump. So, I just needed to get down to the shop to pick it back up. Answered prayer!
Before I could get to the bungy shop, however, I met another guy from Grindr named Alexei. We had been chatting earlier that morning, and he decided to stop by the coffee shop. It was an awesome time of sharing stories. His starts out in Russian orphanages for his first 8 years of life. On top of that, he has a heart condition that limits his ability to exercise. So, he’s had a very rough life early on, but he has also processed a lot of his story and written his story up to age 21. We have even swapped books and I am reading his written story right now. We talked for close to 2 hours, and then he was kind enough to drop me off at the bungy shop so I could get my camera.
After picking up my camera, I went back into downtown via the Foreshore, and got another artistic reflection photo.
I grabbed a small pizza from Pizza Hut for lunch, and then holed up at Starbucks on Queen street to finish my day 8,9,10 post. It took me another 3 hours to finish it up, and I got it posted shortly after 4pm. I also reviewed the page I had torn out of the inflight magazine from Billings to Seattle, as it had many things to see and do in Auckland. I checked off a number of things in my 12 days in Auckland, but I also have more to see when I return next year!
I then took a bus back to Mount Eden and awaited dinner with Ian. While we had planned to have dinner that night, I had also accidentally left my jewelry in his car when we did the BodyJam workout on Wednesday, and he had also been very kind and washed my black hoodie for me. I was hoping it would shrink a little because it was so big on me.
Ian picked me up sometime after 6pm, and we had dinner at a cafe near his house. Being the Montana boy that I am, I had meat and potatoes (and we got Fried Chicken as an appetizer). After dinner, I was able to pick up my jewelry and sweatshirt from his house. And the sweatshirt HAD shrunk, so I was quite pleased. Then he drove me to Karangahape Rd, but everyone here calls it K Road. It is the “gay” area of town, so I went to a bar called Saloon and hung out for a bit.
I met a very interesting woman who asked to borrow my portable charger. All in all, it was a very strange night meeting her and speaking with her, especially because she was pretty drunk, so I am not sure if everything she told me was the truth. She said she worked 80 hours a week helping “working girls on the street”, and she was quite proud of that fact, implying that she was working harder than all of us (myself and two other bar patrons who we were sharing the table with). And even after we got her phone charged up to 20%, I noticed it was saying that it had an invalid sim card. So then I had to help her open the sim card slot, and re-slot the sim card in the tray. Once that was done, her phone worked again and she could get in contact with her friends. So, I was glad I was able to help her, but I really went to the bar to dance. However, by 10pm, the dance floor was still empty and I didn’t want to wait around too much longer because I planned to hit up Centurion one last time before I left Auckland. If you went before 11pm, you got in half price!
If you recall from a previous blog post, Centurion is the gay sauna that I visited the previous Saturday, and since I have all ages of readers on this blog, I’ll leave it at that. If you want to know what went on there, you can contact me and I’ll tell you. I have nothing to hide, I just want to be sensitive to my readers.
I got home around 1:30am (I didn’t want to pay for an Uber so instead walked the 2 miles back to my Airbnb). My exercise for the day was the best ever. I had gotten two achievements for consistency in the Move and Exercise categories, and I ended up walking an astonishing 22,579 steps which was 11.51 miles!
I made sure to set my alarm, as I had to be out the door by 7am to make sure I made my train to Wellington. Getting to bed by 2am would mean I would get about 5 hours of sleep, which isn’t a lot, but I had gotten by on that much for several months during my breakup and divorce. And so Day 2 of my birthday came to a satisfying close.
Thanks for reading! I leave you with the final song on the Apperception III playlist.
Carry Me Home (feat. Jake Reese) – KSHMR, Jake Reese
“Carry me home
Home, home, home
When I’m down at the end, oh I know
You’ll carry me home, carry me home, home, home, home”