Geet's Travels

2007-07-14T16:41:00.001-07:00

Check www.geetstravels.com for my continued travels.

I wrote the following post during my last days in New Zealand. It's not complete and at the moment there aren't photos, but for the sake sharing as much of my story as possible, I won't let this go to waste:

Ugh, I'm disgustingly behind on what I've been up to. I'm a bit too lazy to actually go into incredible detail so I'll skim over the major events of the last month. The main focus here simply being that I want to share some of the pictures I captured along the way.

Kayaking the Abel Tasman

Touted as one of the absolute best places to sea kayak in the world, this was something that I wanted to do from early on in my trip. Nelson, the last city I mentioned being in was quite close to here, about an hour drive, tops. One night, I met an English guy named Henry at my hostel. We got to talking and found we were both interested in doing some kayaking and camping over a few days. We set off early the next morning and by 11am we were out on the water, packed tightly in a 2 person kayak along with some camping gear, a few changes of clothes, and food to get us through the next 3 days.
We were on a mission to make it out to the seal colonies on Tonga Island by the middle of day 2 (located near the far north of the national park probably about 15km away from where we started.) Kayaking really does take some effort, your arms simply weren't designed to carry you long distances the way your legs were. In order to reach our goal, we had to kayak about 5-6 hours a day. The first day, we had some excellent weather, albeit still cold because it WAS winter. We made it deep into the estuaries that are accessible only at high tide to see the Cleopatra Pools. Just before it got dark we landed at the beach-side hut we'd sleep in for the night. We crashed out early in the night, around 8pm, slightly after finishing up our delicious dinner of flame grilled baked beans, toast, and cheese sandwiches complimented by a fine boxed wine labeled 'dry'.
On the second day, Henry and I made our way up to Tonga Island. The weather was a bit more harsh this day, with light showers and tail winds that we had to row into on the way back. But, it was well worth it to get to the protected cove that a colony of seals call home. It was just Henry and I surrounded by 30 some-odd seals lying amongst the rocks. One baby seal that was playing by himself in the water was glad to get some company. He swam all around the kayak, and even jumped up on the front of it to take a closer look at us. I scrambled to turn on my camera, but he teasingly jumped back into the water before I could snap a shot. We hung out in the cove for another 20 minutes as more and more baby seals joined in, swimming around us doing tricks, and playing with a string hanging off the side of the kayak.
We landed at a few more beaches along the way as we got hungry for snacks and lunch. Some ocean swells really started to pick up later in the day bobbing the kayak up and down, splashing us

2007-06-28T20:35:00.000-07:00

(View from the ferry as I crossed to the south island)

Traveling the South

It's been about 20 days since I set off on my hitchhiking adventure through the South Island. I can't believe how fast its gone but even more unbelievable is just how picturesque the majority of the trip has been.

Tom and I had a cup of coffee at Capitol on my last day in Wellington before he brought me to the ferry terminal. I remember sitting in that chair waiting for the ferry with such mixed emotions. I was sad to say goodbye to these people that had really become as close as family. At the same time I was anxious and my mind was filled with imaginings of what the next month of life on the road would bring. It's a feeling of unknown possibilities. It truly makes you feel alive. It's the same feeling that first made me want to travel.

(view from the ferry before taking off)>>>

It was nearly dark by the time I got off the ferry in Picton and took a shuttle to the city center. I stepped off the bus. I was tired, hungry, and weighed down with backpacks on both my front and back, and another bag with food in my hand. I thought to myself that I'd be feeling this way quite often over the next month of traveling. I walked a few blocks to the nearest hostel where I grabbed some food and one of the last rooms available.

With a full stomach, I stretched out in bed to rest for a bit. This was going to be my first night back in a hostel after 3 months of living in a flat. Outside the room, there was a group of backpackers talking around a table. I laughed when listening in on their conversation, it couldn't have been more stereotypical. "Where are you from? Oh, neat, how long have you been traveling? Where have you been?" Inevitably, the small talk took the oh so traveled path of discussing the differences between each persons country. "You say vit-a-min? Haha, it's vite-a-min!", "This beer tastes way different back home", "It's great coming from the pound, it's like a 3 to 1 exchange rate!". I remember when I first got to Auckland 8 months ago. Back then, I really thought these conversations were interesting. I really did wonder where people were from and what things were like there. Now, I can usually guess which country people are from after a few words. I can hear the difference between Australians and Kiwis, Canadians and Americans, and in the case of the British I can guess about how far north they live in the country. Of course, I did later hop in the conversation that night for after a drink or two it's all a lot more stimulating. But, I knew at that moment that I wouldn't be content hanging out in a hostel anymore like I was in the Bay of Islands. I was here to see places I couldn't see anywhere else, and do things I had never done before.

(one of the final sunrises from the kitchen window of my flat)>>>

With that mindset, I woke up early the next morning and hit the road with my bags. The plan was to make it to Nelson by the days end. If it was a straight drive through it'd be about 2 1/2 hours. I walked about 30 minutes down the roadway out of town. Your best chance when hitching is to stand at the edge of town on the only road out. That way, just about everyone that passes is going in the general direction that you'd like to. By that time, my shoulders were really starting to hurt. I came to the conclusion that backpacks simply weren't designed to be held on your front side, and shoulders simply weren't designed to hold 20+kg.

After about 20 minutes of smiling and waving my thumb at cars I managed to land a ride. He looked to be in his late 60's, drove a new ford and worked as an aircraft inspector paid by the goverment. He proudly made me aware he was one of three inspectors in the entire country. I like hitching rides with older people, they actually know quite a bit of local history and random facts and are more than happy to tell you all about it. While not always incredibly interesting (on this particular occassion I walked away knowing about the 25 year cycle on pine tree farming) it does help to pass the time.

(next couple are from hiking through Nelson trails)>>>>

He was heading into Blehhiem and was nice enough to take me a bit out of his way to a better spot (a road next to a nice little duck pond) for me to hitch my next ride. With my company of hungry ducks, I waited here for about 45 minutes before getting a ride. A thirty something lady from Malaysia, with rather poor english stopped to pick me up. She said she was a student, studying Toris... Turiz... "Tourism?", I corrected her. "Yes, that's it." At first I wondered why she still called herself a student when she was clearly over thirty, but now it was clear. She couldn't even pronounce the name of her field of study. The conversation only got to be more strange as we drove down the street. I told her about my plans to do some hikes and maybe camp out in the bush. She seemed appalled that I would consider going out in the bush on my own; "It's so dangerous, people get killed out there all the time, I know it!" Obviously nonsense, in the time I've been here there has been one single incident involving travelers and nobody was killed. When we seemed to agree to disagree on the dangers of the bush, the conversation took a turn to what would normally be simple small talk, family. "Do you have any brothers?", she asked me. When I told her I did, her follow up question was "Can I write him?". Now what the hell does she intend on writing him, I thought to myself. I paused for a second, "uhhh..." and she cut in again, "Is he married?... oh he's probably married, I know it. Where did you want me to drop you off?" I thought to myself, RIGHT HERE!, but rather than be completely rude, I settled for a bit further up the street. I hopped out of the car in the middle of nowhere, quite happily.

For the next 2 hours I stood on the side of the road waiting for a ride. Hardly any cars came through this area. Sometimes it gets hard to force out a smile for every car that passes, especially when you're hot and tired. Each time a car drove by I just kept thinking back to the ridiculous conversation with the Malaysian lady and I couldn't help but laugh and smile. When I had just about given up hope, a big rig truck stopped for me. I actually didn't even try to flag him down because I simply thought they wouldn't stop. He was a nice guy, an ex-construction worker that took up transport after a back injury. He didn't talk much, but seemed happy just to have some company on his daily route. A few business stops, and 2 hours later, he dropped me off at the information center in Nelson.

I had heard lots of great things about Nelson, so I decided to stay for at least a few days before moving on. I stayed at this place called 'The Palace'. It's probably my favorite hostel I've been to yet. The place is just outside the city center atop this really steep hill that can only be accessed by a series of stairs. The place must have once been a mansion built by a prominent member of 1930's society. It had this great fully wooden architecture that must have recently been renovated. The rooms all have these massive 15 foot ceilings, great old paintings and furniture and no bunk beds to be found. Better yet, you get free breakfast, free coffee, tea, breads and buscuits all day, and free meat pies and sandwhiches at night. In addition to the usual TV room and kitchen, this place had a great reading room with a fireplace, sunroom situated on the 2nd floor balcony overlooking the city. It's no surprise the majority of the people I met there were long termers, staying for a couple months or longer...

That was only the first day. But don't worry, I'm not about to go through the whole thing day by day. I'll break the rest of it up into the major events over the last month.

More to come...

2007-06-15T17:04:00.001-07:00

Just a quick update to let everyone know I haven't been murdered by a truck driver (actually the one ride I did get with a truck driver must have been one of the nicest). In the last week and a half or so I've kayaked through the Abel Tasman National Park, ice climbed over and through the Franz Joseph Glacier, and participated in a hitch hiking race down the west coast with some friends I made at a hostel.

At the moment, I'm in Wanaka which to my pleasant surprise is the location of the picture from the title of this blog (look above). I have a ton of amazing photos and some interesting stories to go along with them. I'll try to get to writing when I get a free moment, but so far I'm having too much fun to stop.

Tomorrow I'm off on an 8 hour hike along the tip of the mountain range seen in the background of the title picture. Post again soon!

2007-06-07T19:37:00.001-07:00

Wellington - Part 2

(Note about pictures: One of the guys I met at the hostel I'm currently staying at happened to be at the Cuba street festival the same night I was. I was able to get some photos off of him yesterday, he must have been no more than a few yards from where I was the same night. He even got a picture of that stripping girl I mentioned in the last post. Also pictured is Rabbit, Tom's cat that more or less lived on the rocking chair in my room. Check out the pictures below.)

Steve only ended up staying in the flat for about a week before deciding to go back to Queenstown in the South Island. He was running out of money quickly and saw the cheaper Queenstown as his best bet. On the day he left, he had about $30 cash to his name and a mission to hitch hike to the middle of the South Island before it ran out.

For the remainder of my time in Wellington, I had the 2 bedroom flat to myself. But, that's not to say I was really by myself. It was quite a regular occasion for Tom and Kate (Tom's Wife) to invite me upstairs for dinner with the family, a late night movie, the latest episode of Grey's Anatomy, or just a drink as we talked on the patio under the stars. Kate was studying to become a teacher, and as part of her training, she had to stay and teach in a city quite far north for the first month that I was there. With Kate and the kids gone, and the house now under the supervision of Tom and I, it more or less became a bachelor pad. A six pack of whatever was on sale, some takeaways from Hell Pizza, and the latest blockbuster available in New Zealand (stuff that came out in the US about 6 months ago) made up a good number of our nights.

However, we weren't always lazy slobs. Tom recently got to be pretty keen on paua hunting, and he took me out a few times with him. Paua, known to most Americans as Abalone, are a shell fish that live on rocks in shallow water. They're quite expensive all over the world and are usually pretty hard to come by in the wild. However, in certain areas of New Zealand they're still plentiful due in part to the limitations put on collecting them. Tom came across a great tide pool about a 10 minutes drive from the house that's home to tons of the little guys. Our gear consisted of wetsuits, some old sneakers to help climb along the rocks, a mask and snorkel (tanks are illegal when hunting paua), and a knife to help dislodge them from the rocks. While I did have a blast diving around in the tide pools on a sort of treasure hunt, the first time we went out, I completely failed to catch any. I was only able to find a couple paua that were legal size. On my first attempt, rather than prying between the paua and the rock with my knife I accidentally stabbed it, clouding up the water with its black blood. My second go wasn't a whole lot smoother when I simply ripped the shell off the paua.

So what do you do with paua once you've caught it? Well, first you rip it out of its shell by prying your fingers under the thick edge of shell. When you have the slimy shell-less creature squirming around in your hand, you then grab at the white stump that was connected to the shell and rip that off, pulling out its major organs with it. And voila! Your left with paua meat in your hand that will go for something like $70/kilo ($35/lb). So how does paua taste? Well, when the guy preparing it is the head chef at his own restaurant... it tastes excellent! I had a bit of it sashimi style, (live, thinly sliced, and raw) and then we sent some of it through a meat grinder, flavored it with onion, capsicum, garlic, and chili oil before grilling it up in patties to make paua burgers, yum!

Even the simplest every day chores could be transformed into an adventure when in the company of Tom. Some of the funniest moments were grocery shopping. Why couldn't grocery stores be a social place, Tom argued. Why didn't people start up conversation with each other about what they were buying, and why isn't there more flirting going on in the isles? Tom was on a personal mission to change these things and I was along for the ride.

He might make stupid comments on someones items in passing, "My, you have a lot of power in that aid!", said to a guy with a cart full of Power Aid. Or when walking down the personal hygiene

Then there was the stalking of the infamous Freya. We passed her in the Woolworth's grocery store one day and couldn't help but take notice. She was probably the single best looking girl in Wellington. Tom said he knew her from somewhere but couldn't put his finger on where it was. We decided the best course of action was to discreetly follow her through the isles to help refresh Tom's memory. She was with her mom looking at hair removal products when it was decided that we needed to try and pick up conversation. As we neared them, Tom nudged me, "Just say something." Looking to the products along the wall I said the first thing that came to mind, "Ohh, look at that, they have Nad's for men now. That's fantastic!" They didn't take any notice of what I said, and it didn't seem like anyone else in the isle cared in the least bit either. But Tom was beside himself laughing as he hurried away from the scene down the isle. As we were driving out of the parking lot, analyzing the reasons for our failed game, Tom remembered that he knew her from the coffee shop just down the street from the house. Then he formulated a plan for me to meet with her, act as if Tom's house were my own and explain that Tom was just my sloppy flatmate. Of course the plan never went into motion, but from that moment it became a sort of tradition for Tom to ask me about my meeting with Freya whenever I'd see him. I'd walk into work in the morning, "So, Scott, did you see Freya at the coffee shop this morning?" I never so much as stepped a foot in that coffee shop, but often, before I could even respond, he would be leading into his next proposed strategy of getting us together. Every day it was something new, maybe it was using Cocoa, Tom's Dog, as a lure, or faking that I spoke very little English and asking her if she could show me around the city. By the end of my stay in Wellington, his plans became more desperate: "OK, Scott, what if I duct tape Freya to your door, will you at least talk to her then?"

That should give you a bit of an idea of the person Tom was, always aiming for a laugh and if he could work in some sexual innuendo, even better.

Part 3 to come soon...

2007-06-06T18:09:00.000-07:00

Wellington - Part 1

It's been a while since I've updated the blog, a little over 3 months in fact. As I explained in the last post, my travels came to a bit of a halt in Wellington where I decided to stop and save up money before continuing on. In those 3 months I reached my goal of about $1500+NZ saved, but more importantly, I became more immersed in the Kiwi culture than ever before as I worked with, and became close friends with a handful of wonderful Wellitonians.

The whole point of stopping in Wellington was to make money. So, what did I do? I specialized as a full time Aquatic Ceramics Engineer. Those who fail to appreciate the intracacies and complexities of the postition might also know it as 'Dish Washing'. Alright, despite my best efforts, I don't think it's possible to portray kitchen hand work as glamorous or exciting. But, because of the raunchy, over the top humor everyone at Capitol shared, I actually enjoyed being in the kitchen most days.

My day to day life in the kitchen was filled with characters like 18 year old Tim. He was a constant source of laughter. Sometimes he would quote a great line from 'Family Guy' or 'Anchor Man', but more often he would unintentionally make you laugh by doing something stupid(like dropping a liter of the expensive orange zest), or getting caught in a rediculous lie (like saying "No, I didn't eat any of the chocolate!" when he clearly had it melted all over his teeth and lips). One day, as he was upstairs using the rotating blade when I heard a thump downstairs behind me. "Hey Scott, can you hand me that thing" he mumbled, pointing somewhere near the rubbish bin, obviously trying to be discreet about what he was saying so that the other chef, Amy, wouldn't hear him. "What thing, Tim? There's like 20 dishes, a bunch of boxes and other junk down here, what is it that you want?", I responded. "Uh, just that thing, it's right behind the rubbish bin," he said, still not stating what it was that he dropped. But I took a look anyways, and started cracking up to find an entire raw lamb rump sitting on the filthy floor behind the rubbish bin. I knew he'd get in trouble for it, but after dropping this expensive piece of meat and then being too lazy to pick it up on his own I couldn't resist the chance of making the situation more awkward. So I said plenty loud enough for Amy to hear, "Ohh, this lambs rump resting on the floor, is this what you wanted me to hand to you Tim?". Before he could respond, Amy was on him, "Seriously Tim, how did that meat even manage to get there? That's got to be at least 10 meters and down a flight of stairs from where you are. Are you just throwing the product now?"

Some other highlights in the kitchen would include 20 year old half Kiwi, half American, Ryan's sex stories. It was a common sight to see him demonstating one of his favorite positions, like 'The Spiderman' on the kitchen floor in his chef uniform. Or there were the shocking words out of the mouth of 33 year old Australian lesbian, Carla. It was common place to hear her commenting on the female clientelle, saying things like "I'd love to stick my face in those jugs and just shake my head like this" (then shaking her head vigorously). Or walking in from the bathroom, "Ouch, my poo poo felt like acid", and one time giving me an innocent smile before saying "You're so cute, if I weren't a lesbian I would have given you a blowjob by now." Then there was the hilarity of seeing mild mannered 32 year old Kiwi chef, Amy, respond to Carla's "I can't wait to fuck my girlfriend when I get back to Aus," with a sweet, almost motherly, "Oh, that's nice." Then there was head chef and part owner of Capitol, Tom, with his corny jokes and constant sexual innuendos. You might find him responding to someone saying "It's hot in here", with an "Oh, I'm sorry, I can step out of room if you like." Or simply throwing in Ned Flander-esque "diddly-oo's" at the end of his sentences. I'm convinced he would make a sensational host for some sort of childrens programming.

Without Phil the van, I had to find a place to live. For the first 2 weeks while I was in Wellington, I stayed in 'Downtown Backpackers'. I had a bunk bed in a 20 person room, the largest dorm room I've stayed in yet. The building, one of the oldest in the city (I believe built in the 20's), was originally a high end hotel in its hay-day. It really felt like stepping back in time as all the architecture and much of the paint is the same as the original. During these first couple weeks I had no money as I was getting few hours at the restaurant, and still waiting for the weeks pay to take effect. At my low point, I was negative $200US in my American account, negative $20 in my Kiwi account, and the hostel was completely booked for a night, forcing me to sneak a restless night of sleep on a couch in the TV / Lounge room before working a double shift the following day.

But, from there, living conditions could only improve. One day after work, Tom proposed renting out the lower half of his newly purchased home to me for a discounted rate while he fixed the place up. After shopping around a bit, I decided that Tom's offer of a 1 bedroom flat with a private kitchen, living room and bath couldn't be beat for $110NZ a week. On top of that, it was located in the highly sought after community of Hataitai and within easy walking distance of the city center and work. Originally, my friend Steve (18, Half Kiwi, half Canadian that grew up in Hong Kong), whom I met in the hostel moved in with me to cut costs and keep some company. Our set up was pretty basic, almost primal. A couple blow up mattresses, a rocking chair, and a cable-less TV on the floor comprised our furniture. However, neither of us really cared that much since it was just a place to sleep and watch movies on the laptop. With the rest of our time off, we were swimming down at the beach or cruising the waterfront strip in the last days of the southern hemisphere's summer.

While Auckland and Christchurch might have bigger party scenes than Wellington, the fact that the entire party-going population of Wellington is basically condensed to one street makes it seem as lively as Vegas on a Friday night. "Getting on the piss", or as we more simply know it, "drinking" is a staple to the Kiwi weekend life. Right up there with Fish and Chips takeaways. While I didn't partake every weekend, (in order to save money, and sometimes I simply had to work the next morning) there are plenty of great nights to look back on.

The Cuba Street festival might be one of my favorites. This festival only takes place once every 2 years and goes on over the course of 2 days. On the final evening of the festival I went out with Olivia, a waitress from work, as well as her sister and a couple of their friends. During the festival, all of Courtney Place (that single street I mentioned earlier) was closed down to accomodate the swarms of people and multiple live stages that were erected in the place of traffic and parked cars. In that single night, we participated in a Guinness Book of World Records attempt at the 'largest organized dance routine', drank free all night at a gin and tonic promotional booth in the middle of the street, watched a few of the top live bands of New Zealand, checked out a parade including bumping music, massive floats, and nude people in full body paint, and finally some well proportioned chick standing on the edge of a second story balcony as she danced and stripped to nothing but a pair of high heels.

Part 2 to come soon...

2007-02-12T16:14:00.000-08:00

And the travels continue. Wrapping up the North Island.

The last week or so has offered a slight break from bush living and a reintroduction to the civilized world. We have been welcomed into the homes of friends, once again experienced the sensation of a hot shower (gasp!), and been immersed in the beautifully unique, modern, and artistic urban culture of Wellington. But, it is of course just a temporary break as we will be venturing into the truly wild and vast landscapes of the South Island in the coming days.

We said goodbye to our English friends Kit and Rich (and their van Frank) on one of our last days in Hawke's Bay. They were in a bit of a rush to make it down to Wellington (the capital of New Zealand, located on the very southern tip of the North Island) for their scheduled ferry to the South Island. To be honest, I was anxious to get to Wellington as well. Other than Auckland, every city we've stopped in has ranged from small to very small and I was looking forward to change. However, we agreed to hold out a bit longer and make sure we took in the remaining sights before reaching what would be our final stop of the North Island.

One of these sights was Havlock North (oddly there is no Havlock South), arguably one of the top wine regions of New Zealand. A cheap bottle here tastes like something twice it's price. And the expensive ones... well I wouldn't know with my backpacker budget, but I'd be willing to bet they're pretty good too. Wine is nice, but after 4 weeks of cold "showers", if they could even be called that, a real hot shower is even better. And, we got just that at Jess's house in Havlock North. Jess is a friend of Julia. They originally met in a hostel in Melbourne, Australia, and coincidentally, they ran into each other at a cafe while we were in Hawke's Bay. She showed us a night on the town of Havlock North, offered us hot showers, and let us do some laundry and cooking. Things that I had at one point thought of as a hassle, but now stick out as highlights of the week. The town of Havlock North is also the wealthiest per capita of New Zealand. It was obvious by the bleached blonde fifty something women sipping wine at small tables along the main strip. It was also apparent in the social atmosphere of the pubs. There was plenty of chat, but it remained in small tight cliques that nobody dared venture from besides the quick stuck-up jealous glances from one girl to another. Not a bad area, but you'll probably enjoy it more by driving along the rolling hills of the wine country and spending the evening at Ocean Beach as we did the second night there.

Our last destination before going to Wellington was the Kapiti Coast. On the way there, I was in charge of navigating. While I managed well for the most part, the music and scenery proved too distracting and there was this one slight turn we missed. Luckily I caught the mistake... an hour later. (shhh... Susi and I never told Julia who was reading a book in the back at the time. She has a tendency to get upset easily so we figured it best she remained out of the loop on that one). Anyways, the mistake turned out to be quite nice as it forced us to cross through this very narrow one lane (you pull over for oncoming traffic) road through misty mountains covered in rainforest. These are the same misty green mountains shown briefly during the introduction to Lord of the Rings. Other than the constant fear that I was about to die the drive and views through the area were incredible. Mental Image - picture this: A VERY narrow one way road filled with blind, hairpin corners, wet roads from the recent rain, and your driver is a blonde german girl with a lead foot, 3 weeks of left hand driving experience, and 2 years lifetime driving experience, all the while carelessly bobbing her head back and forth to the blaring sounds of some overly energetic spanish music.

As you may have guessed, we did fortunately survive and arrived at our destination, the Kapiti Coast. This coastline is a long stretch of Tasman beach that looks out upon an island called -guess what-... Kapiti Island. The island itself looks about the size of Catalina Island, only its much closer to shore, just 15 minutes by boat. The island is a protected bird refuge. Birds that are rare or even extinct on the mainland of New Zealand flourish in the island sancturary, likely due in part to the daily limit of visitors, allowing only 50 people to step foot on the island per day. Because of this, the lonely planet guide reccommends reserving a trip to the island 1 month in advance for weekday trips and 2 months for weekends... of course we didn't read this until the day we arrived, it was a weekend as well. :( But, what's better than seeing rare birdlife upclose? Another hot shower! This time, it was at the beachfront house of Su and Troy, both artists in the film industry. Su creates sculptures for scenese in movies, movie priemeres, and all sorts of industry conventions and shows. Troy's work is similar, but he specializes in scenic sculptures and painting, basically enhancing scenes to look better than they would have looked naturally. They've both worked in the industry for around 20 years and have had a hand in a number of big budget mainstream titles.

The first night we stayed at their house Troy showed us some video he recorded documenting his and Su's latest work together on a film by director Roland Emmerick, known for his movies of epic scale such as Independence Day. It was inspiring to see on video the place they called their 'office' for the 3 months of work they did for the film near Queenstown on the South Island. They woke up each day at 5:00am for the rugged cliff-hugging drive to these surreal mountain top views of the sun rising in a brilliant display of colors, cloud formations, and a layer of fog that sometimes looked like water turning the tips of mountains above into little islands. Every day was its own individual artistic display. Su and Troy were great hosts and made it clear that it was very important to them that we feel completely at home and welcome in their house. They made delicious meals of pasta with a spicy organic sauce made from scratch with a sweet and tangy side salad, pancakes bacon and grilled banana halves in the morning, and following a long leisurely day on the beach behind their house we had sauteed shrimp for an appetizer before feasting on lamb, veges, and sweet potato. All enjoyed from the second floor deck looking out to the beach and Kapiti Island. For a brief moment I was no longer a backpacker. I was royalty.

After the second night at their house, we all made a convoy to Wellington for the Waitangi Day celebrations. A little Waitangi Day history lesson: Waitangi Day is the day in which the Waitangi agreement between the Maori's and the European settlers was signed. As I've come to learn, the agreement has been and still is a source of controversy and tension in the country. One of the major reasons for the disagreement is that there were actually two versions of the treaty, one in English, and the other in Maori. The translation to Maori was less than perfect with some items being added and others ommitted, resulting in the two parties agreeing to slightly differing terms.

We celebrated by going to the massive Reggae flavored 'One Love' festival in the city. The music was great, featuring the top reggae influenced groups of New Zealand. The crowd was friendly, saying hello to strangers and picking up conversation with the people sitting next to you. They had had a cool hacky sack and poi section, and of course it wouldn't be a festival without beer and clouds of that thick pluming smoke floating through the crowd. We stayed as long as our bladders and freshly sun baked skin could hold out before parting with Su and Troy, each on our way to get our own versions of munch... er... food; sushi for the film industry mogles and 2 minute noodles for the backpackers.

That was Tuesday, leaving us one week to explore the whole of Wellington before our scheduled ferry to the South Island on the following Tuesday. I'm writing this as of Friday night, about half way through my time here in Wellington and so far I love it. In all aspects of the city there is a richly modern and historic artistic influence, from the skyscraper and building architecture, to the open air cafes with walls of abstract paintings populated by people with diverse clothing styles and backgrounds, to the street side sculptures, pieces of art you can walk through, insane waterfront contraptions that spin, bend and spray water, and poems embossed on solid stone lying amogst a pile of rocks like they were always there.

I've spent a total of 8 hours over two days exploring the super modern, newly built Te Papa museum littered with high tech interactive displays and ground breaking designs and still have yet to see it all. I've walked along the waterfront and marveled at the huge skate and bmx scene that's developed around the skatepark. On the outside walls of the skatepark are these cool wall climbing zones with this interesting rubber ground that's easy to walk along, but once you put a lot of weight on it, it absorbs the impact like a trampoline. They have the same material beneath all the kids playgrounds, which by the way are way cooler than the skin scorching, steel slides I slid on as a kid. Instead they have a practice skateboard half-pipe on rails, and a pyramid net that climbs up through trees. The water in the city bay is incredibly clean like the rest of New Zealand, but I still find it hard to believe given the the size and relative business of the port. The water isn't just for looking either, all along the wharf are ladders to climb the 15 feet out of the water and oddly enough there more than often happens to be a big structure to jump off of nearby as well. I jumped off some wood planks jutting out from the side of the wharf yesterday and today saw a crowd of people looking on as a guy climbed 20 feet up a waterside building and jump off followed by another guy climbing a 35 foot crane next to the water and jumping. The nightlife is equally exciting with a load of live bands everywhere, cheap to free cover charges, and its legal to drink in the streets so instead of shelling out $7 for a beer, you take a break from dancing and grab that $0.80 bottle you hid in the bush before you walked in. There's so much to see and admire, I actually had a lot of fun spending an afternoon walking around the city listening to the ipod and watching the people and places descreetly behind a pair of sunglasses. It seems that every piece of the city is worthy of a long hard look. It's obvious that a lot of passion and thought lies behind it all.

After my breakfast and morning swim tomorrow, I'll be packing a lunch and spending the day at the 'X-Air 2007' events. They're the New Zealand equivelent of the x-games and happen to be taking place in Wellington while we're in town. On Sunday, we'll catch the second part of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. The theatre here in Wellington was the site of the world priemere showing of the final Lord of the Rings and has sort of become a mecca for fans of the series. It's probably the most pristinely decorated and furnished theatres I've been to with intricate details all along the walls and light fixtures, marble floors, extremely high vaulted ceilings, and plush leather seats fitted with gold tags on the arm wrests, etched with the names of the friends and family of the Lord of the Ring producers. Recently, they began showing the trilogy sequentially, one part every Sunday. We caught the first installment last Sunday (we saw Troy's name in the credits).

Long post, but its been a pretty exciting week or so. The next post will be from the South Island, later!

............

*Rrrrrrrrrr*
(The sound of car tires screeching to a halt)

As usual, it took me a couple days to get everything above posted up on the site. Since then, through the below series of events and some long consideration, I've decided to part with Julia and Susi. They will be moving on with the van to the South Island and I will be staying to live and work in Wellington for the coming months.

I met a couple guys from Auckland, Ben and Anthony that were camping out in their car next to us in front of the beach. They came down here for the x-air show, Ben was actually competing in the motocross water jump where he attempted a double back flip but only made 1 1/2 rotations. After parking all day in a grocery store parking lot, they ended up getting their car towed. To make matters worse, they only came with money for food and gas and couldn't afford to bail their car out. So they decided to get jobs and save up cash until they could afford to get back home. After asking around at every bar in town, Anthony was offered a trial at a trendy bar where he would work that night from 10pm to 8am without pay and if he was good enough he would get a job. Ben couldn't find a job. They were screwed.

The whole situation was quite funny because it basically doesn't get worse than that. They had about $20 between the two of them, no place to sleep, and no food. That night, Ben and I, along with some Irish sisters we had met the night before, wandered the main party streets, checked out some live music, and walked along the beach. Ben, with no place to sleep for the night, was looking to crash at their hotel room with them. I knew that they were staying with their parents in a hotel room and that he had no chance but I didn't have the heart to break it to the guy. Inevitably, at the end of the night, the girls and us parted ways and it looked like he would be stuck sleeping on the beach in the freezing wind. But, we had a break.

At about 2am, as we were walking back to the van in bitter defeat, we saw a group of people swimming (we thought skinny dipping) at the beach. Ben had the idea of heading down and asking them if we could use their phone to send a text message. A brilliant plan, because it of course led into the unbelievable story about his current situation. So, we got to talking to the group of 4 girls and a guy. We kept them laughing and did our best to keep the conversation up as we walked with them down towards their apartment. They were all staying at the apartment of one of the girls Grandmothers, and as we neared the place, without asking they invited us to stay the night. This was no regular Grandma apartment, it was the top floor, corner apartment of a high end waterfront complex. Richly, and modernly decorated of course. We were stoked. We all stayed up drinking and talking of nothing. We couldn't help but feel a little guilty when thinking that Anthony was deep into his shift at his overnight shift at his non-paying job. Oh yea... Anthony.

It turns out Anthony had wandered back to the van and was sleeping there, between Susi and Julia. I'm assuming he was uninvited but they didn't want to talk about it. They were angry. And the anger was directed at me just as much as Anthony. They weren't fond of Anthony, and neither was I to be honest, but without saying so, it was clear they blamed me for him sleeping in the van.

I walked away and thought about the situation, trying to figure out what had led to the obvious factions that were forming. In the last week it seemed that arguments were creeping up too easily between us. Simple things, like questions of who was supposed to wash a pan or dish were becoming difficult. Conversation was often limited to one sentence questions and answers. It was clear we were all getting on each others nerves.

I've come to the conclusion that while we could easily be good friends, and even live together in a hostel room without a problem, there are very few people that you can live in a van with. We were together all day and all night. We shared a little space where a little mess could quickly turn into a catastrophe. Everything we did and everywhere we went had to be agreed upon between the three of us. This alone is difficult for an extended period of time. Now add in a language barrier and I'm impressed we did pull it off for a month!

So last night I informed them that I would be staying in Wellington as they moved on to the South Island this coming Saturday (we rescheduled the ferry). We were all sort of sad to see the end come, but I think we understand it was the best decision and nobody is angry about it. We'll be working out the money situation tonight, but it looks like I should just about break even when taking what I owe for fuel and supplies and subtracting that from what has been paid for the van.

So I'm off now to continue the job hunt here in the city. I have one job lined up as a Kitchen Hand that I'll be starting tomorrow morning. I have a few other interviews lined up with various places (Internet Cafe, Night Club, Movie Theater, Game Retailer). Most likely I'll be working 2 or 3 part time jobs in an effort to save up as much cash as quickly as possible. I plan to live in a hostel or campground, if I can find one, for the first week or two then I'll hunt for a room for rent. I'm pretty excited about working and living with some kiwis. It's probably the best way for me to be involved in and experience the culture. Who knows, I might even pick up some of the accent!

Sorry if that made your eyes bleed. Thanks for reading, I'll update soon.

2007-01-30T14:36:00.000-08:00

Since the 8th of January, I've been driving around New Zealand in our newly purchased but very old van (1982 Toyota HiAce) named Phil along with my travel companions Julia and Susi from Bovaria, Germany. Our goal has been to see and experience as much of New Zealand as possible while keeping our expenses almost solely limited to food and fuel. This means showering at beach showers, rivers, or sneaking into hostels. Getting our drinking water from bathroom taps or boiling water from streams; and charging our camera's, phones, and my laptop by grabbing a seat next to an outlet in a cafe, Starbucks, or McDonalds for several hours.

The trip started out in Auckland where we immediately made our way to the very northern tip of the country, Cape Reinga (now my third and final time there). From the Cape, we officially started our way south, with the intentions of stopping off at nearly every major city along the way. We've kept track of the roads we've traveled as well as every spot we've stopped over night on the detailed AA maps that came with Phil. Eventually, I'll take some photos of the maps and stitch them together to give a full view of the entire journey.

While Phil has proven reliable so far, he's quirky in a way I don't think Susi or Julia will ever understand. When cold, it takes two quick pumps of gas to get him going, pulling the choke to a certain notch so it doesn't stall, and keeping the RPM's above (what I'd guess without a tachometer) 3,000 to avoid a jerky backfiring ride. Once warm, he runs well but doen't start unless you have the gas just about half way depressed followed by a quick pump as you turn the ignition. Regardless, once I managed to figure out his special needs, he has served us well.

Without power, your entertainment is basic, but in a refreshingly primal sort of way. Most days have been filled with hiking, swimming, and sun bathing, but never in the same spot for more than a day or two. We've swam in the Pacific Ocean, Tasman Ocean, black sand beaches, white sand beaches, rocky bays, hot water springs and pools, cold streams, and rapid flowing rivers. (We love the water and have spent the night parked next to some body of water all but one single night.) My biological clock is now set with the rising and falling sun, going to sleep shortly after dusk and waking up shortly after dawn, of course I sneak in a lazy afternoon nap every once in a while. I like to start out most mornings by jumping out of the crowded van, hot and steamy with the heat of 3 bodies cramped into a can, throwing my swimsuit on and diving head first into whatever water we're near that day. It's like coffee and a shower in one, only better! In a way, when living on the road, everything it takes to sustain life becomes an adventure. Whether it's finding a free source of water to refill our jugs, cooking a meal with just a pot held over an open fire, picking apples and plums from a wild roadside tree, washing clothes and dishes in a clear blue river, even finding a suitable place amongst the brush to poop, I find it all fascinating because it's just so different from the life I've been accustomed to.

Other than that, I spend a good couple hours a day reading, I'm almost done with my third book since we began traveling. Unfortunately, the boost in my vocabulary can go to waste when even simple english is often responded to with a "Huh?" by my German travel mates. English can sometimes feel foriegn to me when I have to reword what I'm saying several times before I'm understood. At times, it can be frustrating, (especially when almost none of my humor is understood... I now fully understand Heather's appreciation for adult conversation after spending all day with kids) but in the end I'm exposed to a different culture, and it's pretty convenient when something like 30% of the travelers we meet are from Germany.

Once you escape the high traffic tourist areas, where the locals aren't so sick of tourists, it becomes clear why the Kiwi's are known for their hospitality. On our first night out with the van, we pulled off a gravel road next to a field of cows. We were kind of uncomfortable parking next to someone elses land. As it grew dark a car approached. We were sure they would ask us to get off of their road, but instead we were greeted with a friendly hello and offered a parking spot in one of their free padocks where it might be quieter for us. On two seperate occasions we've been invited into someone's home for some afternoon tea and biscuits. Once by a family whose ranch we had parked in front of, another time by Marty, the sand board rental guy in Cape Reinga. After sneaking into an open room in a Paihia hostel to shower for the first time in 4 days, some of the people staying in the room came in and laughed at the situation, offering us a couple cold drinks and advice on beaches to see during our travels. When camping overnight at the Coromandel Penninsula, we met Lucia who was camping as well with her 9 year old son, Mako, and a couple of his friends. After an evening of fishing, skipping rocks, and telling stories around a camp fire, they offered us some parting gifts; an extra fish Mako caught, and a bottle of Lucia's sweet home made gin.

I'm currently writing this in a cafe in the lakeside town of Taupo, about half way down the North Island. It's the largest lake in New Zealand and is actually a crater filled with water, formed by one of the largest volcanic explosions in the earths history. When we stopped here, we ran into some friends Kit and Rich, from the UK, whom we met in Auckland while looking for our van. We've joined them and spent the last two nights in this cool free camp park situated along the Waikato river (think of our river back home, but replace the desert with rain forest, and paint the water this vivid blueish-green). Tomorrow, if whether permits, we'll be doing the Tongariro Crossing. This hike is arguably New Zealand's best one day hike, crossing through the middle of the national park where we will see a number of pristine lakes and rivers (as well as Mount Doom from Lord of the Rings) as we climb a volcano.

-UPDATE-

I wrote everything above about a week ago but didn't get the opportunity to post it until now. We didn't end up going to the Tongariro crossing the next day as I had planned. While stopping by a random hostel to check their free food section (most hostels have a shelf in the kitchen where people can leave behind food they don't plan on eating) we came across a job offer for lavender weeding. Needless to say, the 5 of us (us plus our English friends Kit and Rich) spent the following days weeding for $10 NZ an hour. I ended up working 12 hours the first day and another 8 the following since it was the first job in a while and I wasn't sure when I would next get a paying job. Near the end of our second day, Rich challenged us to describe the work in two words. Some of the answers were 'back breaking, mind retardening, and suicide inspiring' but it was a new experience and we walked away smelling better than we started.
After the weeding experience we celebrated with a pint of Guiness and 14 hour comma in the van. A couple days later we made it to the Tongariro Crossing. We spent a day in the van waiting out some rain so we pushed the crossing back hoping for better weather. But, the following day we awoke to more of the same rain and freezing wind. It was going to be then or never so we packed up and hit the mountain. A lot of the hike looked just like scenes from Lord of the Rings, especially some of the steep rock climbs. At one point, where we were climbing up the ridge of one of the volcanoes, the wind was so strong we had to get onto all fours in order to continue without being blown over the cliff side into the crater. Kit got a couple cool photos of us defying gravity as we leaned forward into the wind. The Emerald Lakes were the must stunning portion of the hike. At the top of this volcano were a series of large pools with this surreal light blue color that almost seemed to glow. Meanwhile, at our altitude, the clouds were rushing up over the mountain side and blowing right across the surface of the water. I was on the verge of going for a swim, but the wind was so strong and the air so cold I wasn't sure I could finish the hike if I did.

We're now in the beautiful coastal city (as if there were another kind of city in New Zealand) Hawkes Bay, renown for the unique art decco influences found everywhere throughout. We're going to see if we can get a job doing some apple picking nearby. If not, I might try for my firearms license so I can apply for a job posting I saw for 'Bird Shooting' at a vineyard (Only kidding, although I can't help smiling as I imagine a real life version of 'Duck Hunt' for Nintendo back in the 80's). I'll post again when I can, miss everyone!

2007-01-06T17:01:00.000-08:00

Hopefully everyone had an awesome Christmas and New Years, I know the family was spread about the country on their own adventures so I'm sure you all have some good stories to share as well. I'm currently in the Albert Park Backpackers in downtown Auckland where Julia, Susi, and myself are waiting to hear about a campervan for sale. Here's the play by play of my holidays. (note the lack of pictures is due to me now being camera-less, the 4 year old paper weight finally gave out)

Let me know if you prefer smaller posts broken up or if it really makes any difference at all. I think I'm writing a little too much, but at the same time I think I'll be glad I did later on. I just don't want it to get too boring or intimidating because of the length.

Christmas Eve

My first long distance hitchhiking adventure went on without a 'hitch', so to speak. On Christmas Eve I made my way from Paihia to Auckland, a distance that takes about 3 1/2 hours by car. It did take a total of 5 or 6 different rides, but I got a chance to meet and talk with some interesting people along the way including a guy in his 20's that was starting up a landscaping business, an older guy reluctantly traveling 8 hours by car to take his grandchildren to a Christmas parade, an organic farm owner that talked for an hour straight about the death place of Jesus Christ, and a really funny sarcastic English guy now living in New Zealand that was late to pick up some friends from the airport but made the time to stop for me anyways. Shortly after getting into Auckland, I got a call from Angie and Laura with directions to the house in which they were staying. I hiked up West Victoria Street and into the neighborhood known as Ponsonby. It's the hip, young, wealthy section of Auckland, reminding me of some of the areas around Newport, only with more history. My jeans, sandals, and oversized backpack got some weird stares as I passed by trendy pubs where people mingled outside with fine wines and champagne in hand. Following their directions, I made a right past a tall wooden historic church and onto Shelly Beach Road, keeping my eyes peeled for a 'grey wall with a bunch of mailboxes' because the street number wasn't marked on the place. After passing 1 grey wall that didn't look to be the right place, I came to an area where there was a light grey wall next to a dark gray one, both of which had locked gates. "I have no idea," I thought to myself, so I called them up, about to explain that I was completely lost when Laura answered the phone and said something along the lines of "Look up idiot." The two of them were standing on the balcony of the place to my left laughing hysterically. The house was very modern and minimalistically decorated in a way that made you unsure whether they were very clean or had just recently moved in. Either way, it was a pleasure to spend our Christmas Eve and Day lying around the leather couch wrapped up in blankets, snacking, drinking and making up for the lack of TV the 3 of us had watched in the past couple months. However, we weren't complete wastes of space, we did go to the 11pm candle lit service at the church I had passed on my way to the apartment.

Christmas Day

Angie's family (parents and younger sister) arrived late Christmas afternoon. Despite the long flight from Wisconsin, they were quite energetic, although it could have simply been that our excessive TV watching had made us lazy. Everyone caught up after being apart for the last several months and Laura and I were invited to join them in their family dinner at the hotel. After working out the logistics of how we would get there, how we would get back and how the reservations were reserved (I see where Angie gets her love of planning), the 6 of us piled in the rental car that seats 5 and drove 30 minutes to the hotel. We got to the luxurious (for New Zealand anyways) hotel that was more like a high rise apartment building. We went up to their rented apartment on the 11th floor of the building that was easily the tallest in this city where we had some awesome views of the vast stretch of coastline, suburbs below, and the long white clouds New Zealand was named after. Unfortunately, the dinner they had made reservations for had been cancelled without them being informed until we got there. Angie's family was flabergasted, but the 3 of us by then were well aware of 'New Zealand Time' where service is slow, people are late, and the word reservation doesn't actually mean you've reserved anything. Not that it's a bad thing, it's a more relaxed lifestyle as long as you understand that nothing is set in stone. I sat and enjoyed the view a bit longer while the girls showered, changed, and tried to figure out what we would do for Christmas dinner, and Angies Dad made a trip to the convenient store (aka Dairy in NZ). 20 minutes later, it was obvious that jet lag was beginning to settle in and there was no longer a need for an extravagent dinner; some good home made pasta made by an Italian family would be just fine. Angie's Dad returned from the store perterbed that the lady at the counter wouldn't accept his American currency. We piled back into the car, stopped by a small grocery store back near the Ponsonby house we were staying at and made a delicious dinner of asparagus, pasta, and the New Zealand classic, wedges with sour cream and sweet chili sauce. Finally, Laura and I said our goodbyes to Angie and her family as they returned to their hotel to start their family trip around the country and we returned to the couch to watch movies.

The days before New Years

Laura and I spent the following day in the city. We attempted to see a movie but realized it was still another month until the current US blockbusters would arrive here. So, we decided upon spending the afternoon at Gloria Jeans in the book store. Around 5:00pm we made our way to the car rental place to pick up a car she would be renting for the trip with her younger brother (who was arriving by plane early the next morning). We managed much better than we had a month earlier on our last attempt at finding the rental place. Laura's sandals and feet remained in-tact, and rather than an hour plus journey filled with wrong turns and circles, it took only 20 minutes. You don't truly appreciate a car until you've spent more than a month walking everywhere. It's a similar feeling to the first day you get your license, minus the akwardness and peculiar desire to use a drive-through for everything just because you can. We finished the night off with another excellent meal of chocolate-chip pancakes and wine and squeezed in the last bit of TV watching we'd get in our temporary Ponsonby home.

We stayed up too late and woke up too early, but we were both pretty excited about trying to figure out how to make it to the airport. We were a little late, but we made it with only a few wrong turns which wasn't too bad considering that we only knew the name of the exit we had to take off the highway. (Online directions in NZ can sometimes be useless). Immediately after picking up Laura's brother, Zack, we turned the car north and made our way back to Paihia. It was a nice change to have the odds in my favor again, that is 2 guys and 1 girl, (Ryan, you know what I'm talking about), sorry Laura but you had it coming. It's funny to hear the perspective of someone new to the country, it reminded me of all the things I've now grown used to. "Whoa, what kind of cars are those?" "What a weird arrangement of trees, palms next to pines?" "Man, I want to go rolling down those green hills!".

In Paihia I got a cash in hand job cleaning at the hotel next door for a day. It was pretty easy work and they were interested in having me clean the following days as well, but we made some new plans. Two of my current roomates, Julia and Susi (friends from Bolivia, Germany) and I decided to go in on a car together. We test drove a really fast 1990 Subaru Legacy GT Turbo that was selling for just $1500 NZ (about $900 US). Before buying it we had a mechanic friend of Julia's checked out the car and sadly it had an oil leak and needed 4 new low profile tires, so we decided to pass. However, he informed us of a good running camper van we may be able to purchase. I can't recall the make of the van, but it was manufactured in 1988, is painted 5 different colors, and lovingly named 'Charlie'. After talking with the owners a bit, we found that they were going to Auckland for New Years then would be looking for a farmstay job, at which point we could then buy the van from them. By now, the 3 of us, Julia, Susi and myself were feeling anxious after talking about buying a car and traveling for the last week so we decided upon taking our chances going down to Auckland for New Years and hopefully being able to purchase the van soon after. But first, there was some more adventuring to be had since Laura and her brother were in Paihia and had a rental car.

I rushed to finish cleaning that afternoon because the Cape Reinga trip ahead of us was 4 hours, each way. At about 12:30 I finished up and ran over to the Bay Adventure Backpackers to meet Laura and Zack. The weather was pretty good, much better than the first time we drove through a storm to get to the cape. This time, we made sure to stop along the way to rent some sand boards for the dunes. The cape really was an unreal sight, seeing the two great oceans meet and clash in a churn of white caps and waves with these bright green sub-tropical trees swaying in the strong winds that blew over the crest of land. We snapped photos and sat on a grassy hill taking in the views, it was like an impressionistic painting in motion (it might have just been my crap eyes). Before heading to the dunes for some sand surfing, we wanted to stop off on a beach we had seen a detour for on the way up gravel roads towards the cape. We followed some more winding gravel roads through thick sub-tropical forest until we came across a ridge where we could see the beach below. It was a beautiful cove protected, white sand beach with light blue water and some nicely breaking waves at about 3-4 feet. We pulled the car over and walked down to the sand where we could only sit still for a few minutes, the water was just too perfect to stay dry. Zack and I grabbed the two sand boards we rented and tried some skim boarding across the light sand. In a matter of minutes our clothes were just about completely soaked so we figured we might as well just go all the way in the water. I had planned on sand surfing, not real surfing, so my boxers were going to have to do. We went out, and caught a few good waves in the water that was surprisingly warm for being next to naked... (completely naked when the big waves hit). Sure I looked like an idiot out there in my red boxers, but it was a ton of fun, and got us in the mood for the sand surfing to come. As per the words of the guy we rented the boards from, that day was about the best it gets for sand boarding. It had rained the previous days, then dried up today. This helps flatten out the sand, keeps it from blowing, and also creates the cool wind swept patterns you might have seen before. We parked in front of the dunes and walked around a shallow stream that lined the perimeter of them. It was so strange to stand in this stream of water with vast barren mountains of sand to your right, and lush green plantlife to your left. We made several climbs up to the top of one of the steepest sand faces we could find. On one of the rides I hit a bump, flipping over the front of my board and rolling a good 4 times in the sand. (I'm still brushing sand off of my wallet 5 days later). After the monsterous hike to the top, we always took a little break before flying down on our boards. We met a couple Kiwi's up there and we also got to talking with a family from San Francisco. One of the kids was only 14 and already got a chance to visit nearly 20 countries, Laura and I couldn't help but to feel a little jealous. I made my final ride down from the tallest, steepest corner of the face we were on and I managed to make it all the way back to the stream we had walked through earlier. It was one of the most exciting days I've had in a while and is really what New Zealand is all about: having a blast in nature for next to no money.

So, it was decided that Julia, Susi and I would leave Pahia on Saturday. It worked out perfectly that on that same day Laura would be driving the rental car back to Auckland. So while I got a ride back to the city the girls had to hitch-hike, I did feel a little guilty but there was no way I'd turn down a free ride just to keep them company. We decided to take the 12 highway south to Auckland, it's a bit longer of a drive, but the scenery is well worth it. We made a stop off at Rainbow falls where we climbed into a flourescent green mossy cave below the 60+ foot waterfall, jumped from rocks, and dove into the deep fresh water. I haven't seen too many waterfalls, but this was certainly the most impressive one yet. We made it to Auckland around 7:00pm where Julia and Susi had already reserved me a bed in the Albert Park Backpackers. I dropped off my bags there, helped Laura return the rental car, which oddly enough we were directed to leave on the sidewalk in front of the place, then we picked up some pizza and wine which Zack, Laura, and I enjoyed on the rooftop of their posh hostel, the Globe Backpackers.

New Years Eve

I said my final goodbye to Laura and Zack the next morning as they returned to their hostel to catch their tour bus across the country. I returned to my hostel, and caught the long overdue Z's in my 12 person dorm room. It's funny that I can sleep easier in a room with 12 people than I ever could sharing a room with Brian the 'Garbage Animal' back in Santa Barbara. I woke up around 5 that afternoon and read my current book 'The Pillars of the Earth' well into the evening. I met some siblings from Netherlands, a brother and sister that I spoke to for a while in the room. Neither of us had plans for the night so we figured we would head out together and see what happens. However, shortly after Julia and Susi came back from the internet cafe and said they knew of a house party we could go to. We did some good pre-drinking at the hostel backpacker style ($10 boxes of wine, 1 box = 3 bottles). Throughout the night we kept trying to get ahold of the house party guy, but he never answered his phone (we later found out he passed out early and missed new years altogether) so we figured the best course of action, now that it was 11:30 was to hit the streets. We walked outside to see the city streets were now flooded with people, spilling over the sidewalk and blocking most of the street traffic. Everyone was smiling and cheering, drinking in the street was almost acceptable, and music was blasting from every other car and business open. We followed the flock of people to Sky Tower just 2 blocks from our hostel. Below the iconic tower of Auckland was a mass of people yelling, dancing, snapping pictures and laughing, and all traffic had completely stopped. We didn't here a countdown like we're used to, but right at 12:00am of 1/1/2007 the top of sky tower lit up with fireworks blasting from all sides in an impressive display that reflected off all the nearby buildings, and doused the crowd and streets below in purple, orange, and bright white light.

I popped the cork off our bottle of champagne, spraying half of it into the street, and we split the rest of it in a couple minutes. We couldn't help but bob our heads to the cover band playing in the club directly behind us so we headed in and danced for the next hour. Later, we left the club without any particular destination in mind, rather just interested in taking in the partying that filled the streets. Everyone else in the crowded streets seemed to have the same motive, for we stopped and talked with what seemed like every other group of people we passed. Finally, in the distance we spotted some bright flourescent lights that seemed to call out to us. I focused my eyes to read the words 'Burger King' and instantly we were on a mission to get the biggest sloppiest American style burger we could order. Up until this point, I had never actually tried any American fast food in New Zealand. The names of the burgers were completely different, but it all looked and tasted better than I remember Burger King ever tasting back home (Note that my ability to judge quality of food was slightly impared along with most other senses). Susi and I were pretty satisfied with the night at this point but Julia (who didn't eat any delicious Burger King mind you) wanted to go to another club. We waited in line for an all night house club, only to be turned down at the door. They only accepted Passports or New Zealand Driver Licences; my California license and Susi's German License weren't going to work. Julia flipped out for a minute because she had told us to bring our passports earlier, but it all worked out fine in the end. We got some sleep and Julia got her partying done, returning to the room at 8am.

Currently, we're still at the Albert Street Backpackers waiting for a response on the van we initially came down here for. If the owners are able to find a farmstay, we can pick it up. It's a good deal cheaper than most of the other vans we've come across so we're willing to wait a bit longer for it. Alright, I need to stop writing for the moment. I'm laying in my dorm bed being pelted with plato by the Germans. We'll see what happens in the coming days with the car situation. Stay tuned...

-Update-

I meant to post everything above about 3 days ago but didn't get a chance to make it to the internet cafe. Since I originally wrote that, we did find a car, or van rather, covered with spray painted flowers named Phil. It's basically the ultimate hippy van, it's pretty hilarious. The guy we bought it from, John, was a school teacher from England but he has been living out of the van and traveling New Zealand for the last two years. He was incredibly honest, pointing out every tiny flaw Phil had, and always referring to the van as a person rather than a thing. He was asking $1750nz, but he accepted $1600nz from us, split 3 ways. We bought a cheap pot, took some cutlery and dishes from the hostel, then bought a full size mattress that fills the back and will easily sleep the 3 of us. With only the cost of fuel and food, we'll be living pretty cheaply in the next several months as we travel every crevice of the north and south islands of New Zealand. Tonight is our last night in the hostel, where I am sneaking in and sleeping in one of the free 12 person beds at night to save some cash. Our plans are far from certain, but that's what makes it exciting! I'll post again soon.

(Note, we have since removed the creepy stuffed animals. Susi and Julia promptly took showers after John's fairwell kisses; I washed my hand.)

(Random Photos)

One of the last nights together with the Pahia group, all chilling out in our single dorm room.

From top left, clockwise: Sebastion, (on the ground: Sam, Emily, Julie, Margaret) Sidse (top right), Me, Yochem, Susi, and Julia behind the camera.

Simon's last day in New Zealand, we celebrated with a delicious dinner of Ice-cream, chicken, cake, and beer.

Passing the day away in Albert Park, Auckland.

2006-12-22T19:12:00.000-08:00

It's been a while since I've updated everyone. I'm still in Paihia, taking in everything the awesome Bay of Islands has to offer, meeting lots of travelers along the way, and enjoying every minute of it. I've had a bunch of adventures in the past couple of weeks since I last wrote and so I'll list out the highlights.
Originally, Thanksgiving was a bit of a let down. Only one person mentioned anything about the holiday all day and I ended up eating a grilled cheese sandwich (Toastie in NZ) in place of a turkey. Fortunately, about a week afterwords I got a call from Laura and Angie, inviting me to a Thanksgiving dinner they would be putting on at the lodge they were working for. I got my first try hitch-hiking by myself out to the town of Keri-Keri to make it to the dinner. After 2 hitches, one with a local family that moved here to escape the city a few years ago, and one with a Canadian photographer that taught in a local school, I was dropped off directly at my destination. I was blown away by the high-end stylish lodge nestled in the hills of Keri-Keri with amazing views of the lake and forest. I helped supervise as the two of them prepared dinner for the 9 or so guests we were having that night. We were the only Americans and the Kiwi's were pretty excited to try out an official Thanksgiving dinner even if it was taking place on December 3rd. One of the guests was a professional chef so the girls were a little nervous but to be honest their pies from scratch were better than his apple cranberry sauce. After dinner, Richard, the guy that owns, runs, and lives at the lodge with his 15 year old son Harry, invited me to stay the night. I expected to sleep in the helpers shack that the girls stayed in but instead I got to have one of the luxurious $200+ a night guest rooms to myself. The king size bed, private deck, heated bathroom floors, and mirror defogger were a welcome break from hostel living.
We've gone kayaking quite a few times in the last couple weeks as well. There is a place right out front of the hostel that rents them for just $10 an hour, but the guys there are pretty laid back and don't mind if you take an hour and a half. In fact, I've helped them pull up some catamarans and kayaks at night a few times in exchange for free kayak rentals the following day. Paihia is a perfect place for kayaking because of all the small islands that are otherwise inaccessible. Just right out front of the hostel are 3 islands that I've got to explore during these day adventures.
While I've been meeting a handful of new people each week, some of the best friends I've made so far were the hilarious Rob and Chris from Ireland. They're a couple surfers that stayed at the hostel for the last week. While surfing definitely doesn't fit in with the Irish stereotype, they did of course enjoy their drinking and pool. In two consecutive games Rob was able to 7 ball Chris then myself, forcing each of us to take the 'walk of shame' around the pool table with our pants around our ankles. On Saturday we made plans for an all day surf adventure in the beaches near the town of Kaitaia. Rob and Chris have a car (a station wagon fondly named Cesar, for they claim the soul of the late Julius Cesar powered the beast, but they swear hes kicked that molesting little boys thing to the curb) and luckily 3 boards as well so all I had to get was a wet suit rental for the day and we were off. After about an hours drive and a quick lunch stop, we gunned the car through some soft sand and were driving along the beach. Well, we gunned it the second time, we got stuck for a few minutes on the first attempt. The weather was perfect, the waves, on the other hand, were anything but at just 1 foot, if they were even breaking at all. We drove up and down the sand in search of waves for around 45 minutes before throwing in the towel on our surfing plans for the day. So we decided to check out some sand dunes that we were now somewhat close to after all the driving. We drove as near to them as we could and hopped out with the intentions of hiking. The lonely planet guide specifically warned of car theft in this area which paranoid Chris couldn't get over, so needless to say he didn't want to leave the car for the couple hours we would probably take for the hike. But, that doesn't mean we gave up, I mean come on, it was an all day adventure so we couldn't give up now! So instead of hiking along the jagged rocky coastline, we came to the conclusion that off-roading across it would be the next best solution... off-roading in our 1993 station wagon, Cesar. We did make it a good half mile across the rocks before getting to a point where we had to drive through an inch of water, which was OK then, but we knew the tide was coming in and we'd end up stranded if we were gone for long. So, that plan was out as well. :( We turned around and hefty Cesar hurdled over the rocks once again, bottoming out really badly at one point. We made it back up onto the paved road and were driving along the road, slightly disappointed at what little had become of our day so far, when we spotted something in the water, something bigger than the 1 foot waves we had seen all day. No, it wasn't the perfect wave, it was a huge pod of dolphins! We watched them for a minute as we continued driving, it looked like they were staying in just one area right where the little waves were breaking. "Let's go for it!" I yelled, "we'll throw on our wetsuits and paddle out to them." No more than a few moments later, we were parked on the side of the road where Rob and I were zipping up our wetsuits before we sprinted down with some boards towards the fins surfacing in the water. Even with as exciting as this was, Chris still couldn't bear the thought of leaving the car alone so he said he'd just wait for us. The water was actually surprisingly warm, it might have just been our nerves as we paddled out, still not entirely sure of how safe it was to swim directly into a large pod of dolphins that were now riding waves and launching out of the water with aerial acrobatics. The one thing to be cautious of with dolphins is that they can be defensive if they have babies around. We were peering a bit into the distance, probably about 30 meters now, to see if we saw any young ones in the pod when when out of the bottom of my vision I spotted two large dark shadows charging towards me under the water. I stiffened for a second unsure of what to expect when the two dolphins separated at the last second, one swimming around my left side and the other on my right. The rest of the pod was getting nearer as well and we could now see that they were all fully grown adults so it was safe. Rob and I were cracking up laughing, enjoying the moment for it was totally unreal to see these giant, wild, mammals so close and moving so quickly through the water. I hopped off the board and dove into the water, opening my eyes as I swam around. More dolphins came in close and circled past me, communicating with their high pitched squeals that were deafening with your ears submerged. After a few more moments Chris eventually made his way down to the water along with a couple girls off the beach and the 5 of us swam for the next 15 minutes with the dolphins before they continued on their journey and we did ours. It was one of the most incredible experiences I've had and without a doubt made our day if not month.
While there isn't a single national dish New Zealand is known for, the fresh seafood is without a doubt their most noteworthy cuisine. In place of a lot of fast food chains we're used to are various fish and chip shops. In Paihia alone, a place that only has 1 bank, and not a single movie theatre, you can order fish and chips from at least 9 different places, usually with your choice of several different catches. I got to try mussells for the first time here, only we didn't order them at a restaurant, instead, we caught them ourselves! At low tide, mussells and oyster picking is at its prime along some rocks right in front of the hostel. Some of the best mussells we were able to gather were from a couple of the small islands we kayaked out to. They were absolutely massive, it was obvious that we were some of the only people to have gathered from the area because it must have taken ages to grow to that size. Some friends, Dwayne and Painia, catch Oysters in particular all the time. In the picture here I tried eating live oysters for the first time. The taste wasn't too bad, it was like salt water flavored jello, but the idea that the animal was still alive made my throat tighten up preventing me from getting it down in one gulp. I'll give it another go soon enough.
Just yesterday, the weather was finally just right for one of the best adventures yet... SKYDIVING! Julia, Julie, Sidse, Dwayne, and myself all went. We had to reschedule on Monday because of some strong wind, and while yesterday still wasn't perfectly clear, it was perfect for skydiving, a few clouds makes things more interesting. We were picked up right from our hostel at 2:00 and made our way out to a open field about 15 minutes away. Everyone was a little nervous but even more excited. The running joke on the ride up was 'that's your last ____ before you die' anytime something happened. So when Dwayne made a phone call it was 'that's your last phone call, Dwayne!'. Or, someone sneezed and it was 'that's the last time you'll sneeze!'. Once at the skydive center we signed the "you're not liable if we die" forms and suited up. Julia and I were first, she thought she would die if she had to wait any longer. Surprisingly we weren't given any sort of lecture on what to do. We walked up to the plane, and were told to tuck our legs back and put our hands across our chests when we jumped out, then to spread out our arms once they tapped on our shoulders. I repeated their instructions once, which they found suitable enough, and then they fired up the plane and we hopped in. The ride up was probably the scariest part, the plane barely fit the 4 of us. We sat on the floor of the plane, with our knees against our chests and our legs intertwined so that we could all fit. I was attached to Juan, who had a video camera in his hand the whole time, taking clips of the action so we could watch it once we landed. The rattling of the plane body, and roar of the motor as we made the steep climb made talking almost impossible. We were meant to jump from 12,000 feet but the weather was a bit rough for it, so they went to around 13,000 feet for a clearing. "30 seconds!" I heard faintly from Mike, the guy strapped to Julia. A few moments later, the door flew open and this biting cold air came thundering through the cabin of the plane. Julia and mike turned to their side, struggling to maneuver their legs in the tight space. I looked at Julia's leg that was caught under her as she tried to get out the door, then in an instant it was gone as she dropped out of the plane. I peered over the edge of the open door to see her quickly shrink to a small dot before vanishing in some clouds below. I broke from my trance to notice Juan now pushing me over to the edge. I sat with my butt on the edge and my feet dangling in the air that whipped by me at more than 100mph. Before I could tell what was happening, I felt this deep sinking feeling in my stomach as we fell face forward, flipping twice through nothingness. We flattened out, stomachs facing the earth and I felt a tap on my shoulders letting me know to stretch out my arms. We fell through a cloud and I could see beads of water build up on my goggles. I had a big smile on my wind stretched face for the next 45 seconds of free fall which really only felt like 10 seconds. Before I could tell what was happening, I felt a sudden jerk on my harness and instantly the sound cut out and my vision cleared to see this gorgeous green countryside, in front of me, light blue beaches to my left, and a volcano in the distance to my right. It was the weirdest feeling to look down at my feet and have to refocus my eyes so greatly to see the next object below them. For the next few minutes we floated almost silently through the air and circled our way back down to the field we took off from nearly 20 minutes ago. Dwayne went next, Julie and Sidse after him, and each of us landed back on earth with the biggest smiles possible. Without a doubt, skydive if you ever get the opportunity. (I still have to grab the photos from the girls, will post them soon)
Alright, I need to cut this post out here. I'll be hitching down to Auckland tomorrow where I'm celebrating Christmas with Angie and Laura in a large house in a gated community there. They were asked to watch over it while the owners are gone on vacation. My new years plans aren't sorted out yet so I'll just write about it when the time comes. I'm sure it's going to be a blast wherever I end up. Thanks for the Christmas card Heather, it was a nice surprise to see everyones faces again, I showed all my friends here too.

2006-11-29T17:06:00.000-08:00

I last left off on the night before my birthday when we first arrived in Pahia, New Zealand during our road trip. Long story short, it was one of my best birthdays yet. We woke up and had a delicious breakfast at a nearby surf cafe, went for a 3 hour hike through forest and mangroves and ate lunch on top of waterfalls. In the evening, Angie and Laura treated me to dinner at an amazingly great seafood restaurant (Only Seafood) where we met a couple guys from Auckland and our waitress Catherine, all of whom joined us in our pub crawl following the meal. We capped off the night with some dancing and midnight ocean swimming where the water glowed a dim green any time you moved (some micro-organism is responsible for it, I forget the name). The next morning I dropped off Angie and Laura at their new Help Exchange host, a high end bed and breakfast in Keri Keri. Then, I made a 3 hour drive back to Auckland to drop off the rental car and caught a bus the following day back out to Pahia, my new home for the coming month.
I'm currently staying in the Saltwater Lodge, owned and operated by a friendly and laid back couple whom live here along with their 1 year old daughter, dog, and cat. The place was built new a couple years ago, features 19 rooms with private bathrooms, a modern well equipped stainless steel kitchen, a large chillout room with 11 couches, a large video collection, and its all located less than a block from the warm summer water of Pahia. As one of the cleaners here, I receive free accommodation in exchange for just 2 1/2 hours of cleaning each morning. I share the cleaners room with Julia from Germany, and the Danish twins Julie and Sidse (pronounced Ceaser without the r).
A typical day starts out at about 9:30 where I'll wake up take a quick shower, and make a simple breakfast. At 10:00 we start on the rooms, each of us with our own roles for servicing a room or preparing it for new guests. I have what Simon (a friend here from Australia) has described as the 'cruisiest' job. I simply make my way from room to room vacuuming with this hilarious backpack mounted vacuum and topping up the tea and coffee packets. It's almost too easy of a job for the quality of accommodation I receive in return. We finish up between 12:00 and 1:00pm where we prepare a lunch together then have the rest of the day to ourselves.
The owners here, Lucy and Gareth, have a bunch of friends in the area so it's common to be invited to different activities during the day. I've already got to go out sailing twice. Once on Pete's 119 year old sailboat, along with a bunch of other people from the lodge that day. At that age, the oldest boat in the Bay of Islands and second oldest New Zealand made boat in all of New Zealand, there's a lot of hands on work to keeping up the speed and keeping it afloat. I had a blast learning how to raise the mast, steer the vessel, and 'tec' (spelling?) as we changed directions and adjusted the sails for optimal power. Pete was entertainment for the rest of us in his own right. He's a middle aged school teacher that lives on a boat in the harbor, never wears shoes (even in the pubs afterwords), and has the mouth of a sailor, voice of a drill sergeant and the no none-sense personality of a New York police officer. Most of the people were a bit timid as he barked orders but after an hour or so with him it turned into a joke for the rest of us as we laughed at about everything he had to say. I won't forget the face of the girls on board when they were shown the toilet facilities; a green bucket with some left over urine from its last use. Also hilarious was Simon being yelled at by Pete as he was about to pee upwind from us. It scared Simon so bad he nearly fell overboard, unit in hand. We were also really lucky to see a pod of Orkas (killer whales) about 50 meters away, something incredibly rare to see deep in the bay where we were.
A couple days ago, Julie, Sidse, and I got a chance to go out and sail with Rob, Willy, and Dan. Rob owns a boat that's a bit larger and younger than Pete's. The weather was absolutely perfect that day. We got a bit further out into the bay where we passed by quite a few of the more than 100 islands found in the Bay of Islands. It was more of a relaxed trip where we mostly laid back on the bow and took in the summer sun and breeze as we cruised through the open water.
We've gone for a few hikes as well. One was a 5 hour hike through forest and down through the beaches of Opua. At one point we found this cool sandbar out a 100 meters or so into the water. I thought it'd make a great picture to be out there seemingly walking on the water so I went for a swim and the others got some pictures of me running Jesus-esque in the middle of the bay. On the way back in as I was about to climb up some rocks Carin yelled to me "Maybe you should swim to the sand over there instead." Just as I was asking "What's that?" I lost my footing and felt a shooting pain in my foot as it scraped over the rocks below, cleanly slicing my right foot like some poorly placed chef knives and dying the tidepool a shade of red. Grosser still were the small blood sucking bugs I had to pick out of the wound once I swam to the sand on the other side. Fortunately, all is well now and my foot is nearly healed, just a bit tender still.
We play pool almost nightly at the nearby pool hall, 'The Sandpit'. Carin, a girl from the UK that has now since moved on traveling the rest of New Zealand gave me a bunch of pointers and explained the rules (UK rules of course). I wouldn't call myself good yet, but I can already tell a huge difference from when I first started playing. They hold tournaments regularly that attract the local pool crowd. It's impressive to check out just how good you can become with years of practice. It's a great place to kill some time in the evening and if you bring in your ipod the owner lets you hook it up to the sound system and DJ yourself. However, be sure that you play at least one or two games of pool before attempting to in New Zealand. New Zealand rules require that if you lose a game without knocking in a single ball you're required to take off your pants and run a lap around the table in your underwear. At the amusement of the rest of the hall, I found this out first hand in my inaugural game against Carin.
So that pretty much sums up Pahia living at the moment. I've got too many pictures to post them all right now so I'll upload some more soon. I'm sure I'll have some more stories to share as well, so stay tuned! ;)

Everyone sort of looks beat in this picture since we were tired from just finishing up our work for the day, but I wanted to show off our quality eats anyways. (From left to right; Me, Julia, Sidse, and Juli.)

2006-11-20T17:34:00.000-08:00

I'm a week behind in writing about this trip now so after this massive, novel like post, I'm going to condense the next few days. I'm now back in Paihia in the Bay of Islands staying at the Salt Water Lodge, just 100 meters or so from the water. The owners here are really friendly and I'm waiting for a position to open up (likely Thursday) that will allow me to work a few hours a day for them in exchange for accommodation. I met a bunch of long-termers at this hostel, many of which are doing the same thing I'm doing here, stopping over to make some cash for a month or so before continuing on. I'll write more about it once I catch up. Internet access here is pretty expensive at $4 NZ an hour so I won't be able to check in every day.

-TUESDAY- November 14th

We woke up early Tuesday morning, packed up, and continued on making our way north. After about an hours drive, we stopped at a Kauri rain forest hike. The walk was somewhat short (about 30 minutes) and mostly along an elevated wooden path in order to protect the 'delicate shallow roots' of the trees. That sort of became a joke with these signs posted every 50 feet reminding you that the roots were delicate and shallow so that you would stay on the path. Regardless of where you walked the sight was incredible, albeit I haven't been in a rain forest before so it was extra impressive to me. The shade provided by the tall dense trees was welcome on this hot day. It also formed these rays of light that broke through the canopy creating a nice contrast of light and dark greens. It felt like an animal was going to jump out and attack us it was so quiet. Fortunately, there aren't any dangerous animals in New Zealand, nor are there any native mammals at all.
After the little hike break we hopped back in the car and drove further along the 12 highway that reminded us a lot of Hawaii. Along a 20km stretch of the highway we drove through another forest. The road was pretty fun, zipping left and right with banked turns, palms and ferns stretched out overhead, and crossing over numerous streams. We stopped at a cool cafe after exiting the stretch of forest. They specialized in organic foods and had some creative dishes. I ended up getting a slice of cranberry, cream cheese, chicken, pizza that might be my new favorite style of pizza. All along the walls they had some great inspirational photography of the New Zealand landscape.

After this we passed through Opononi, an unreal looking place where massive sand dunes sit in the middle of a bay that's otherwise very green. Sand dune surfing is really popular with the locals in this area. We found a great spot to stop over and grab some photos here. I couldn't get enough pictures and ended up ignoring multiple requests from Laura and Angie to, "Come on!", "Lets go!". Finally, some stupid car got in the middle of the picture and stopped, ruining my great shots... wait... that's our car! I looked in the window to see the two girls laughing hysterically at me as they drove off. I hopped up and started running down the hill after them.

.... POP ...

There goes my shoulder again. Dislocated; I've lost count of how many times it's happened now. After 15 minutes or so I managed to get it back in and we continued on. I laid in the back of the car and napped a bit to help ease the slight pain in my shoulder and bigger pain my ego suffered. The last thing of interest for that days driving was a little ferry crossing in Rawene. The water was kinda mucky so it wasn't really picture-esq, but it was cool to see a highway lead right onto a ferry in the water.
We ended up getting to our destination for the day around 5:00 or so. I believe it was Awanui, but really can't say for sure now. We stayed at a lodge on a cliff overlooking the bay for just $21 NZ each. It was a nice place that felt more like an apartment with 4 bedrooms and a community kitchen and living area. As we prepared dinner I met a couple German guys that I shared my room with. They've been traveling around New Zealand for the last 7 months with nothing but their backpacks and hitched rides. They camped most of the time on beaches or forests along the way, just stopping in hostels to clean their clothes or when the weather was particularly bad. I believe one of them was named Hannah and I never did get the other guys name who at the time was out fishing for that nights dinner. Angie, Laura, and I made some dinner ourselves and ate at dusk on a picnic table right at the cliffs edge where we watched boats come in and people pack up from a day on the water.

-WEDNESDAY- November 15

The sun we enjoyed at our dinner the previous night was the last bit of sun we would see for the next 3 days. It stormed all night which always makes it easier to sleep but so much harder to get up in the morning. After a typical breakfast (a banana with peanut butter smeared over it) we packed up and checked out from the hostel in anticipation of the days destination, Cape Reinga, the very northern-most tip of New Zealand.
We brought the German roommates along for the day trip up there so the car was packed tight with 5 of us in our tiny 1995 Toyota Corolla. After being denied to drive yesterday because of my shoulder, Angie and Laura so graciously allowed me to drive this day... Pouring rain, muddy unpaved roads, and an old car with nearly bald tires carrying 5 bodies that likely weighed close to the car itself. Thanks guys! Despite the horrible conditions and the herd of cows that blocked the road at one point, we made it to the tip after about an hour and a half of driving. It sounded amazing up there. I say sounded because we couldn't see anything more than 10 meters in front of us. I'm not sure if there could have been a worse day to make the trip up to the point. Regardless, we hopped out of the car, shielding ourselves from the bite of the cold rain upon our faces, and walked down the final path to the lighthouse at the end. Normally, at that point you're supposed to be in awe of the sight of the clear blue Tasman and Pacific Oceans clashing with waves up to 10 meters high at the bottom of steep cliffs lushly decorated with tropical plants... We saw this:

Of course it wasn't a complete loss. We did see the world famous lighthouse (once we were within a few meters of it), and the cool AA sign pointing out major points across the globe, and we all got a nice rush of adrenaline as we slid around the treacherous muddy banks and turns on our way up there.
Before making our way back to the lodge to drop off the Germans, we decided to make a quick detour to the sand dunes just a few minutes away from the tip of Cape Reinga. After crossing through some unfenced herds of cows, and nearly being ran off the road by a tour bus, we made it. We had seen dunes the day before but didn't get a chance to get up close. Unfortunately, between the rain that was still falling, and the stream you had to cross to get to the base of the dunes, nobody was up for climbing them. "Well, whens the next time I'll get a chance to do this?" I thought as I ran and leaped across the cool stream of water getting just a bit wet. Other than a single other guy dragging his boogie board up the dune, I had this mountain of sand to myself. I climbed a couple walls of sand on all fours and continued up towards the highest face I could see. Upon making it to the top, I was greeted by this wide open plato of sand with a 360 degree view of the rain forest behind me and the ocean out in front of me. I spent a few minutes up there taking photos that really couldn't convey the vastness of this adult sand box. I took notice of how soft the sand was as I began making my way back down the steep face. You could jump forward and fall a great distance and still just gently sink into the soft sand when landing. I hopped with both feet together the rest of the way down, jumping further and further with the speed I picked up on my way down. The last few jumps must have been close to 15 feet, I had a blast! I ran most of the way back to the car with a stupid grin on my face. Meanwhile, everyone else sat wet in the car, obviously eager to head back; so we did.
After dropping off the Germans back at the lodge, we continued on and drove the rest of the way to the Bay of Islands, the destination we were most excited about on this trip. We drove through the famous Keri Keri, sight of both the oldest stone building and wood buildings in New Zealand, before reaching the town of Pahia. We got to Pahia later that afternoon, enjoyed some cheeseburgers at this groovy surf cafe next door to the Salt Water Lodge, and later got a couple drinks at the Pipi Patch before calling it a night.

to be continued...

2006-11-16T21:38:00.000-08:00

Wow, I truly had no idea how varied, surreal, and simply beautiful the landscapes would be on this roadtrip... There's quite a bit to write about, so I'll break up the trip into a couple different posts over the next day or two. Long story short, I made the 3 hour trip back to Auckland today but I'll already be on my way back out to the town of Paihia in the Bay of Islands tomorrow via bus. I loved the place so much that I'll be getting a job there and staying for a while.

Oh, and I wanted to say thanks for all the happy birthday emails from everyone (I'm making a best effort to respond to them). I really appreciate the kinds words and thoughts. And yes, it was one of the best birthdays yet. :)

- MONDAY -

At about 4:00pm Monday afternoon, Laura and I picked up the rental car on our second attempt at finding the place. During the first attempt she stubbed her toe badly enough where it filled her right sandal with blood and minutes later broke the sandal completely by tripping again. The mutilation of her feet has become an ongoing theme. We managed to find the place the second time around and navigated through the downtown Auckland traffic back to the hostel where Angie and our bags waited. We piled in and hit Highway 1 heading north out of Auckland. After talking a bit with a guy at the front desk of the hostel, it sounded like our best bet was to stop off in Dargaville, just a couple hours north east. In the next few hours I got my first taste of how vast, green, and untouched the New Zealand landscape was.

After just 30 minutes of driving outside of the city, the highway quickly shrank down to just one lane in each direction. It would remain this way for the rest of the trip, regardless of where we headed. Something also worthy of noting is that we never again encountered a traffic signal after leaving Auckland. We rolled and winded through an endless sea of grassy green hills, sprinkled and patched with trees (many of which I had never seen before). Most of the trees looked similar to pine and palm trees. An odd combination of trees to see growing next to each other so frequently. It's times like these where I wish my vision was better than 20/20, for nothing limited your view other than your eyes themselves.

(Above - A typical view out the window of the car.
Right - After coming up with this idea for a picture, we found the perfect hill for it on the side of the road)

We traveled wide-eyed and in awe until about 7:00pm when we made it to the town of Dargaville. The town center looked like it was straight from the 1950's with single story, low ceiling shops lining the road with a style and construction quality that was fitting of the time period. We were one of 3 or 4 cars to be seen driving on the road here as we circled the center a few times checking out the accomodation available. In total, there were two motels and a hotel. The prices were reasonable, around $20-30 per person but we decided we'd save some cash by camping or sleeping in the car. With the sun soon setting, we wanted to make sure we were at a place that would offer a good view. What place better than the beach just a few Kilometers down the road? The single road into the beach actually leads directly onto the sand where you're free to drive around wherever you like. We stopped at the thought of our Toyota Corolla getting stuck in the damp sand. A man to our right walking up the road saw this and cheered us on, "Go for it, you'll make it!". We laughed, and got to talking to him a bit. He sounded like he was American, yet upon asking him if this was so he acted very offended. After joking with us a bit, he admitted with a grin to living in LA many years ago. He said he came out here to visit when he was younger (not quite as young as us), fell in love with the place and wrote a small check that bought himself beachfront property with a breathtaking view.

With the sun now dipping behind a mask of clouds sitting upon the horizon we made haste; parking the car a few meters up the road, grabbing our couple bottles of cheap "sparkling wine" from the trunk, and running down to the sand. Here we found a nice little cove nestled between some vegetation and palms that offered some shelter from the ocean breeze. We popped open the bottles, losing one of the corks in the wind overhead. Pointing out towards the open Tasman Ocean, we guessed where Japan, Australia, and Africa might be in relation to us as we sipped from our community bottles in the glowing light of the setting sun.

We cruised up the street a couple minutes until we got to a camp ground where we parked the car for the night. I managed to throw together the tent for the first time, all with just the dim light of a small flashlight. We spent the rest of the evening laying on our backs admiring the stars and pretending to point out the skewed constelations of the southern hemisphere's sky.

To be continued...

2006-11-12T15:24:00.000-08:00

On Friday, Angie, Laura, and I waved farewell to John (sadly Niel was away) and the Ranch that was our home for the past weeks. Thanks John and Niel for making us feel so welcome and feeding us so well in your beautiful home!

(Pictured: Angie left; Laura right - "This way?!")

We made our way back to Auckland by bus and into the YHA Auckland International Hostel. We took it easy on Friday, getting in a nice day off for the first time in the last couple weeks. The afternoon was spent lying around in our hostel room enjoying overpriced chicken burgers from Oborto's. We had a corner room with an awesome view offered by the two walls that were nothing but windows. In the evening, we huddled around the glowing screen of my laptop watching downloaded episodes of Grey's Anatomy.

Then Saturday came, the first and last day of indulgence for a long while to come. We threw on some sharp clothes, (well about as sharp as a backpacker can look) and made our way down Queen Street to the restuarants by the Pier. We enjoyed a bottle of red wine and an Italian dinner by the waterfront. Afterwords we stopped by an Irish pub and, had a couple drinks and heard a few songs by a live band. The girls ran into an Irish couple they had met a month back while in Australia. The crowd here was a little older and tamer than we were aiming for that night so we decided to make our way to place more suited for our age-range. We cut through a couple alleys and down a few blocks to the Globe Bar. This bar and dance club, in the basement of a popular backpacker is one of the hottest spots for backpackers traveling through the city. We had an awesome time, dancing like idiots with people from all over the world. We spotted Edward's (John's son) girlfriend here, Iris. It's funny, Angie and Laura talked about going cheap and getting guys to buy them drinks throughout the night. However, by the time we wrapped up the night and made our way back, I was the only one who got anything free. I got a jack and coke from a New Zealand guy that thought California was cool, and a girl that said I had to try a lemon vodka.

In a few minutes I'm due to meet up with Laura and Angie. We'll be picking up our car for hire (rental car) at about 2:00pm. Over the next 4 days we will be traveling across the northern teretories of New Zealand. We'll be driving up the 12 highway along the west coast, then to 90 Mile Beach at the northern most tip of New Zealand, down through the pristine Bay of Islands, and then back down the east coast of the country before returning to Auckland on Friday. We'll be staying one night at Gilbert's place, a surfer from Opononi that I met through couchsurfing.com. Other than that the trip is very open ended, we'll be stopping off at anything interesting we see along the way, eating when we get hungry, and sleeping when we get tired. I'll be sure to take tons of pictures along the way and post again when I get the chance. Later!

2006-11-05T22:04:00.000-08:00

Ranch Life - Continued...

As I was saying in the last post I made, since Monday I have been living with John, Niel, and Edward.

A typical day starts out at 7:00am, where I'll stumble out of bed, shuffle over to the kitchen and get some water boiling for the morning tea. After getting dressed and finishing up the first of many cups of tea to come throughout the day, I'll make my way through the garden, over a small bridge above a stream through the yard, and to the horse pin (seen to the far right of the picture above). Here, I'll move the the two young horses, Kiri and Luby Lu, to the opposite pins before preparing their morning feed, cleaning their pins, and putting on their coats. After then leading the two horses out to the paddock where they'll roam for the rest of the day, I'll feed the chickens and collect the mornings eggs that are sometimes so fresh I have to push the nesting hens off of them first.

After this morning ritual I'll grab another cup of tea (always with milk and two teaspoons of sugar) and do whatever needs doing from here. I've laid stone tile in the courtyard, gardened and weeded, burned trash, detailed a 1967 Jaguar 420 (correctly pronounced 'Jag - U - R'), cleaned and PH balanced the pool, and I'm currently in the process of preparing the tile roof for some paint I'll be applying in the coming days. I'll usually work, have some tea, work, eat, have some tea, work, have more tea. 7-8 cups a day seems to be the norm around here, with Edward sometimes drinking into the teens if he is studying for exams.

John and Niel make excellent company. They're both originally from the UK, enjoy Land Rover off-roading, collecting Jaguars, interior design, international foods and performing the labors involved in keeping up 8 acres of their own. John is borderline obsessed with antiques, spending a good hour or more checking the local ebay (trade-me) for 'good deals', and at about 7:00pm every night you'll hear him ohhing and ahhing over the newest 'British Antique Roadshow' on the living network (NZ HGTV). Niel, on the other hand, loves computers, tech stuff, and researching the two. He's almost worse than me when it comes to researching things before he buys them. He spent 3 days reading about dryers before special ordering one to the local home appliance store. They also both work as Insurance Investigators, most commonly visiting the shipping docks around Auckland to inspect insurance claims.

(My room)

3 days ago, a couple more help-x'ers joined the party; friends, Laura and Angie, from the midwest of the US. Angie is good with horses, has participated in various meets and competitions and also makes some delicious meals from limited ingredients. Laura has a bit of riding experience also, laughs at just about anything (a lot like Cindy), and loves snicker bars (I placed one on her dresser just minutes ago while she was sleeping, cant wait to see her reaction in the morning, haha). The 3 of us work, prepare meals, and hang out most of the day. We share a similar sense of humor so we spend most of the day laughing and get along well.

On November 5th, we celebrated Guy Fawkes day. You can think of it as British / New Zealand 4th of July. Not so much similar in what is celebrated but rather how it's celebrated. After Saturday night's firework show we 3 Americans agreed that New Zealand has way better fireworks. It may have been their more lenient firework laws. We sat no more than 100 yards from the point in which they were firing off the rocket. Some would hurt your chest because the explosion was so powerful, others came back and touched the ground before going out completely. We got lucky and it was a full moon directly behind the portion of the sky where they were going off so you could see this amazing cloud of smoke that blew overhead. It was an awesome show that sadly none of us brought camera's for. The next day, we spent the afternoon at the annual New Zealand Jaguar show where we lost a drawing for a free vacation by just one number. John and Niel were still happy though as they drove away in their latest addition to the Jaguar collection, a 1998 XJ6 Sport if I recall right. At the same point I was pretty happy cause I got to drive the 1967 Jaguar 420 on some green rolling hilled backroads once we got home. Pretty fun week, still trying to get in on some Land Rover off-roading soon! ;)

Check out the 1 week old baby horse. The other day as I was kneeling down he came within a foot of me and was sniffing about; I'm told that's rare for such a young one.

2006-11-02T16:40:00.000-08:00

I was picked up from the hostel at about 2:00pm on Monday. John pulled up in his silver Range Rover, I tossed my bags in the back and we were off. John asked what I had got a chance to see so far and named a few places. My replies were something like "nope; not yet; no haven't been there either." "Great," John said, "We'll see them all!". We immediately made our way towards the unique sights of Auckland.

First was Mount Eden, a now dormant Volcano whose summit is the highest on the Auckland isthmus, just minutes from Downtown Auckland. We circled our way up the mountain on a single lane road bordered with lush green grass that flourished in the nutrient rich volcanic soil. The wind grew stronger as we progressed upward. Finally, at the top we came to a small area where we parked and hopped out. We made the mistake of both opening our doors at the same time and the wind, now gusting strong enough to throw you off your balance, instantly cleared the front seats of some stray paper that laid on the dash. I watched the paper quickly fly out over the mountain side and out of view and I stopped in awe, for behind the paper lay one of the most incredible views I've had the opportunity to see. We were at a single point of land mass higher than all else in the city. It was a 360 degree view from which you could spin around and look below upon the 2 bays of Auckland speckled with boats, the highrise buildings of downtown, the suburbs that looked like small terracotta tile with green grout, and at least 3 other dormant volcanoes that sat silently in the distance. At this same point atop the cone of Eden, you could look down into the crater of the volcano from which molten debris last ejected 60,000 years ago. In its place now, some 300 feet down, lay a small herd of cows grazing at the bottom.

(You can see Mount Eden pointed out in the picture to the left. Photo taken atop One Tree Hill)

The next destination was One Tree Hill, named for the lone sacred tree that once stood upon its top. This hill (actually another dormant volcano) has a rich history. It was the home of the largest and most important Māori tribe (indeginous people of New Zealand) before the European settlers came. The tree that originally stood upon the hill was a sacred totara tree. It was cut down by a white settler in 1852 for firewood. Two pine trees were planted in its place. In 1960 some boy scouts cut down one of the pine trees. The remaining pine tree that stood upon the hill was a source of great controversy. The pine tree, which is foreign to New Zealand, was seen as an insult to the Māori. After a number of attempts made by the Māori at cutting it down, the damaged and dying tree was removed in 2000 out of safety concerns. For this reason, the now treeless One Tree Hill is often referred to as 'None Tree Hill'. The above picture of Mount Eden was taken from atop this hill.

Before finally making our way to the ranch, we drove by the renowned Auckland Museum. We didn't go in the museum so I don't have a whole lot to say about the place, but the massive open green grass vistas in front of it were pretty impressive.

So we made our way back to the ranch where John, Niel and Edward (John's 24 year old son) live. The area is mostly rural. There are fair amount of single family residences, each with several acres to their own. The roads are lined with grapevines, kiwi orchards, and incredibly green grass everywhere. You go to the local shops and everyone is greeted by their first name...

to be continued (sick of writing at the moment, hehe)

2006-10-31T22:24:00.000-08:00

Just a quick photo update to satisfy all of you, haha. I'll write all about life on a New Zealand ranch in the next post!

Click a photo to see a larger version.

(Right) Sky Tower

(Below) Queen Street, Downtown Auckland

First glimpse of NZ land before arriving in Auckland Airport --->

(Above)Panoramic Sunset on ranch

Clock Tower in Auckland Town Square --->

Interesting glass paneled building ---->

(Above) Sky Tower street scene

(Right) More city stuff

(Below) Window view from hostel bed

2006-10-29T13:19:00.000-08:00

A couple more days, but its felt like a week. I've walked miles... er kilometers upon kilometers, met dozens of people, and spent hours conversing with them. It's amazing how open everyone is when they hear your accent. I'm so glad I've chose to come by myself, I think it really makes you more approachable and at the same time forces you to speak up and be proactive.

Some random stuff I've picked up on:

Everything is really clean, the pavement and city streets (no gum stains, or trash), the air (there's always a coastal breeze with bays on both sides of the city), even the hostel is as clean as most hotels I've been to.

Nobody talks on cell phones as they walk the street or are in their cars. After talking with people over email they usually ask you to text them rather than call. It could be somewhat due to their cell phone plans. Vodafone is really big over here, they're as common as starbucks. Their prepay phones are really popular, in fact I picked one up myself. The plans they have are different than what we have. Instead of getting say 600 minutes free for $40, you only get 40 minutes free. But, instead of being fined like crazy for going over, you're charge a set rate, 50 cents per minute. Then on top of that, incoming calls don't consume your minutes or cost you anything. If I receive a call, I can sit on the phone for the next 8 hours without spending a penny.

Very few places offer the customer service we're used to. Rather than glazing everything over with fake smiles and forced sincerity, they're really honest. I think it may go hand in hand with the fact that tips aren't expected and are instead something given for extremely great service. I went to this burger place last night and they asked if I wanted their chili sauce on the burger. I said, "Umm, no, but can I have it on the side?", and she simply responded "No". I just started laughing, "ok, no problem". Surely, in America you can have it anyway you want. Hell, I could ask them to spread the sauce on my ass and they'd stop and consider it. But don't get me wrong, by no means are they jerks. It's nice to know that you're talking to real people and getting strait answers rather than fluff.

I still can't get used to drivers on the left side of the road. I'm in a group of people going across the street and I turn to my left looking for traffic. I turn back to see I'm the only idiot facing that way and the other 15 people are all looking to the right, hehe. At least once a day I've also found myself looking into a car driving down the street thinking "OMG, who's driving?!" when I see the empty passenger seat where we have our driver seats.

Already, I've got a whole new outlook on our affect on the environment. You open the newspapers here and you don't read about murders, rapes and fires but instead an honest concern for our impact on the earth. When you go to fast food places they don't give you disposable plates and cups or a sandwich wrapped in a bag, in a bag, in a bag, but instead real dishes that you return when you're done. It's out of concern for creating more waste and at the same time they trust that people won't run off with dishware that's worth 10x the cost of the food on it.

In the hostel they have a game room with arcade games, big tv room with couches and bean bags all over, and a chill room with a huge library of books. But, the most popular area is the kitchen and dining area. I made friends with a bunch of people as we prepared meals in the industrial style kitchen. It's not uncommon to cook food and end up sitting around in the dining area talking until its time for the next meal. I met a surfer from Japan, Hiroo, ( pronounced Hero) that was really jealous of my California accent and thought it was awesome that I could use chopsticks. A guy from Austria that tried hitting on this girl at the market with his bad english. He confused the poor girl asking her "How can I get you?", rather than "How can I reach you?" when asking for her number. Over some beers last night a guy from Mexico told us stories of October Fest in Germany, a Canadian explained the beer purity law, and we laughed about the various age of concent laws around the world. Apparently it's 16 here, and as low as 14 in some providences of Canada.

I've contacted a bunch of people through couch-surfing and help exchange, the two websites I mentioned earlier. In fact, I'm getting a ride to Kumeu in a couple hours to help Neil and John on their ranch. You can read more about them and others experiences here . I'm not sure how long I'll stay, it could be a week or perhaps a month. I also got a reply from a family just a bit north of Auckland. They've invited me to sand dune surfing and their 40th annual hog hunt this saturday so I'll see if I can make that, it sounds too exciting to pass up!

Of course there's some stuff I've missed, but I'm almost out of time here at this internet cafe. Will post again soon, later!

Oh yea, I'm going to get a CF card reader RIGHT NOW... seriously

2006-10-26T21:18:00.000-07:00

Day 1 - Auckland, New Zealand

It's unreal to imgine that I've leaped forward 20 hours, 2 seasons, and a distance of around 9,000km in just under a night. But, here I am typing away next to the wide open window of my 3rd story hostel room in downtown Auckland. Compact, oddly shaped economic cars whir by over the chatter of Kiwi's (New Zealander's) on the sidewalk, who are happy the weather has dried up and is no longer "weet" (wet).

At around 5:30pm I boarded my flight. I was sitting there thinking about how they decide where to seat the many varying personalities of the international flights. Was it random, or did they try making what they thought would be good matches, considering some of the information we gave beforehand when checking in. A few moments later, Kasper, as I later found out his name was, was seated next to me. We got along really well, and over the next 8 hours + 2 hour lay-over in Tahiti + 7 more hours until Auckland, and a few games of virtual chess, we talked about a little of everything. Kasper, originally from Holland and now fluent in 4 languages, has been traveling around the world since 2004. He's all about paying for only what he has to and has gone far because of it. He's a co-developer of a website, http://www.couchsurfing.com/. With over 200,000 members across the world, couch surfers is about people helping others to see the world by offering a place to stay for 2 nights to 2 weeks at no cost. Over the last year, he has used nothing but this service, meeting hundreds of people, and seeing Africa, India, Australia, South America, Europe, and most of the US without paying for a place to stay, once.

So we arrived in Auckland around 6:00am Friday, losing Thursday completely to the time lapse. After a 2 hour journey through immigration, we walked out the doors of the Auckland International Airport and were in search of a means to get into the city (21km from the airport). It seemed the cheapest option was the air shuttle at $10 NZ... it seemed. "That's bullsheet!", claimed Kasper. While I thought it was a pretty good deal for what would be an hour drive in traffic; he thought it was outrageous. He was sure we could hitch-hike there faster and free. Sure enough, the first person we asked was headed to the city and was happy to give us a lift. We toss our bags in the trunk of her Civic and we were off.

Sadly, I forget her name, but she was a married woman in her early 30's. A Fijian, but born and raised in the UK before moving to NZ 8 years ago. Her and her husband own 3 businesses in the city but she claimed not to work very hard, planning to head to the gym and taking the rest of the day off after dropping us off in Auckland. She said she hitch-hiked a lot when she was our age traveling around Europe and was happy to pay back the favor. She was pretty hilarious, no matter what it was she was talking about. I think the accent had something to do with it. Calling one guy that cut her off a "Tucker", and telling us that we'd have our choice of girls in NZ with the girl to guy ratios way off, claiming it was 4 girls for every 1 guy. A lie obviously, but both Kasper and I couldn't help to notice the odd case that just about every guy was with a disproportionally hot girl. Like seriously, some of these girls were pretty attractive then you look to their male counter-part and you're like... really?!

Anyways this is longer than I had planned on and I want to get back out before the sun sets. Long story short, we found the hostel, walked the city for a couple hours where we purchased AC outlet adapters, a couple sandwiches, and led what seemed to be an endless search for a free wireless connection. Kasper left a few hours ago to meet his latest Couch Surfing host across the bay and I took a much needed nap. Strangely, I'm still the only one in this hostel room at 7pm. Kind of a shame to not have the opportunity to meet some roomates, but I can't really complain about a private room for $16 NZ a night.

And so, from a hunched over position where my laptop atop a dresser is just barely able to gain a signal, I'll end this post before I push my free internet luck too far. But, "DLINK Unsecured Wireless Connection", whoever you are, just know that I love you.

P.S. - Sorry for the lack of pictures. I forgot to bring my CF Card Reader but will post them very soon.

2006-10-25T09:16:00.000-07:00

Wow, I had planned to update earlier than this. Anyways, today is the day I begin the journey. It's only a matter of hours now until my plane departs. In the next few hours I will be saying my last few good-bye's and catching a ride to LAX International Airport.

It was difficult deciding what to bring and what to leave behind, knowing that every ounce would be on my back for so much of my travels. Packed in my single over-sized backpack (thanks Kevin) are 4 changes of clothes, 2 swimsuits, 1 jacket, 1 pair of sandals, 1 pair of running shoes, a 2 person tent, sleeping bag, sleeping pad, camera with a second battery, laptop, ipod, and headphones. Then of course there is my passport, visa, and copies of important documents.

Short post, I know, but I'm sure I'll have much more to say after landing. The next posting will be live from Aukland! haha... Until then, thanks for checking this out. Later!

2006-10-14T03:47:00.001-07:00

So the initial destination has changed, but the momentum is still strong. After receiving my passport in the mail I proceeded with researching the various Australian Visa's available. In order to legally work in Australia as a non-citizen, you must obtain a WHV (Working Holiday Visa). The United States, as luck would have it, is one of the very few countries where an Australian WHV is not available for its citizens. The US doesn't allow Australians to participate in our WHV system and so the Australians have basically returned the favor. What this means is that as a US citizen, the only work available in Australia would be under the table. Furthermore, I would risk being deported if caught working illegally. In order to keep things as simple as possible; at least when starting out; I want to make sure I can work worry free and keep myself open to all employment opportunities. So, Australia will no longer be the first destination.

New Zealand was the next country I planned on visiting so I have simply switched where I will be starting off. Fortunately, they're more welcoming to US immigration. After filling out a simple WHV form online I was approved just 24 hours later. This WHV will allow me to live and work in New Zealand for 12 months from the date in which I enter the country so long as I abide by a few regulations.

1. You may not stay with any one employer for more than 3 months.
2. You must have full medical insurance coverage during your stay.
3. You must have NZ $4,200 (about US $3,000) available to you to support your cost of living.

My plane will be departing LAX on October 25, 2006. After a short lay-over in Tahiti I'll be starting out in Aukland, the largest city in New Zealand. (Northern most city pictured right) While not the capital, it is in all other ways known as the heart of the country.

So with 11 days left until my departure I'm really beginning to feel that anticipation. Heck, I'm wide awake at 3:30am writing this! I still have much to do in preparation. I need to purchase a sleeping bag, 2 person (*wink*) tent, ebay a couple more items of value and still sell my car. Regardless, my goal is to be completely packed and ready by the 23rd.

Now, off to sleep before I continue. Until later, thanks for stopping by!

2006-09-22T18:07:00.000-07:00

So here's the first post to what hopefully will flourish into a current and exciting view into my coming travels through Australia, New Zealand, and the many countries and continents beyond.

The whole idea of this trip is to see and experience the infinitely varied views, cultures, and personalities of this single world we live in. Through this decidedly long trek, I aim to gain a first-hand understanding of both what's 'out there', and what's inside myself. In order to see what you're made of, you have to break from that comfortable routine and venture into the realm of the unknown.

I figure this is probably the best way to keep everyone updated as to where I am, what I'm doing, and to let my family simply know that I'm still alive. I'll share each step of the way, right here. Everything from the breathtaking vistas to the lowest of low days where I'm down to my last few $. I want this to be a very visual page as well, so I'll be throwing in images of whom and what I come across in my daily life wherever possible.

As of this writing, I'm still in the US, working on tying up the last few loose ends associated with leaving a country for an extended period of time (selling off car / items of value, finding a replacement for my room, awaiting Passport in the mail). The current goal is to begin the travels in approximately 3-4 weeks. I'll update here when the dates are more firm. Until then, thanks for checking this out, and please stop by again soon! :)