1998

New Zealand

I remained on the north island during my time in New Zealand. I have almost no pictures of my time there. The Blackwater caving/rafting trip was phenomenal. Ziplining in a pitch black cave is a wee bit scary but way cool. Rappelling in was lots of fun. The whole event was really great, even the climb back out.

I had the good fortune to be in Auckland during their LGBTQ Pride festivities, so I was a bit more on socializing than tourist/travel stuff.

So, we had some power issues, the heat was really stressing the grid. I left on February 17th headed to Melbourne. February 19th the 66 day long Auckland Power Crisis started. #Whew good timing!

Excerpt from journal dated February 9, 1998 Auckland, New Zealand:
Auckland is singing her siren song to me. It is 12:15 am and I am unable to sleep. She is calling me, a temptress with alluring eyes and a soul crying to be known. She is in my fiber, already a part of me. I want to dance light-hearted in her gaze, to let the magic she posses weave a tapestry of exploration and discovery. She is a city between two bays. I wonder if all cities by the bay will own my soul?

February 21, 1998 Auckland, New Zealand:
On Friday night, a group from the hostel went out to the gay clubs on K Road. Courtney, my hostel roomie had just broken up with her boyfriend. Her cousin, Jessica was 23 and knew everything but yet managed to still be entertaining. Antoine is a Frenchman waiting on his Australian citizenship and passport. He is on a 4 day holiday in New Zealand for the Pride festivities. Daniela is an Austrian working at a restaurant, wanting to be bisexual and Corrie from I don't know where. She was hard to peg. A straight Pakistani man named Shaheyd wanted to see what gay bars were like.

Shaheyd was a bit overwhelmed. He kept saying he had never seen anything like it. There were a lot of fag hags at the club we were at. In fact probably 95% of the women there were straight. Fag hags and gay men tend to be very erotic when they dance together. Shaheyd was having a hard time trying to make sense of it all. Good on him for being open to exploring subcultures.