Quite often I find myself turning my head to the side with a half confused/half contemplating look when I hear certain phrases come out of my fellow New Zealander’s mouths. Most of the time I depend on the context of whatever we’re discussing to give away the meaning, but other times I just smile and giggle to myself knowing I have no idea what’s going on.
Lucky for me, I’ve found Ryan. Another New Zealand native who has caught on to my unknowing American ways and has been so kind to help me out with the “American translations” of Kiwi phrases.
I would say my all time favorite from today was when he said, “Sweet as…”. Naturally I wondered…sweet as what? But apparently that is a phrase of acceptance. As if someone were to tell me what they did that day and I would respond with, “Oh, okay”, instead, NZ gives it their own little twist and makes it something cute.
Moving on with my NZ adventure of the day, I was introduced to Piha Beach. One of the utmost beautiful lanscapes i’ve ever laid eyes on. As we drove up, the first thing I noticed was the color of the sand.. black, and metallic in certain areas. Like someone had dripped black sparkling nail polish into the puddles of moist sand the night before and let the sun bake it into the earth all that morning. It was breathtaking…and very soft.
And then there was Lion Rock. Although I couldn’t fully understand why it was given this name, I was told it’s all about the angle you’re looking at it. To me, it appeared to be one gargantuous rock sitting on the beach just waiting to be climbed. And so we did.
We climbed up the steep steps that twisted and turned through the greenery, rocks, and moss, and climbed up some more past the families of spectating people. And climbed up some more until we reached a large fence that stated clearly we should not pass. “DANGER”… “NO ACCESS BEYOND THIS POINT”. I would have turned around at that point… but Ryan, my trusty New Zealand tour guide (not really) did not. Instead, without hesitation, he hopped right over and began venturing upward some more.
Not wanting to feel like a frilly ol’ American girl who was not up for adventure, I followed closely behind. Watched his every step and copied it as best as I could. It was a fairly nice day with a cool breeze… but I was sweating. And somewhat attempting to meditate the fear out of my eyes as we crept along the skinny lined sides of these rocks with no promises of grip or protection.
With many thanks to every ounce of the heavens above, we reached the very top of Lion Rock, peered over the side to the great depths of the steep sliding slopes into the sea and basked in the sun of the day. I must say, the views on the way up, as well as the panoramic scenery as we reached the top, were well worth the feeling of near death from the climb.
You feel so small on top of large masses of land like that, no picture could ever truly capture what it looks and feels like. But I attempted to capture it anyway.
New Zealand is just beautiful, and that’s all I have to say.
Sweet as …. 😉
Joyful Thinking 