miles dewey (davis)

Flood

Woke up today to a torrential downpour with lots of thunder and lightning. It sounded pretty awesome, and it was nice to lay in bed for a few and listen to the rain. Then we got up and saw this out the front door.

Youch. That's supposed to be a road. Luckily the larger street at the end of our block is high enough that it didn't have any standing water. No, it just ran right off onto our block instead.. It was seriously about a foot deep, and came right up over the sidewalk. Kelly had to wade through it to head out to work. Blegh. What's really amazing though, is that about an hour later it was all gone! The rain stopped and it all drained right away. I just hope this doesn't happen every time it rains..

Once I was able to leave the house I headed over to Borders to do some research among the cookbooks. With all my cookbooks at home I am without my reference section, and I now find myself very much in need of it as I have a rather fantastic job opportunity presenting itself for which I need to bring my best to the table! Literally. :) This is not a sure thing, but the position I'm interviewing and trying out for starts as a regular production role and then takes on more and more responsibility until taking up the reins as pastry chef. It may be kind of out of my league, but I might as well give it a try. In at the deep end, right? But really this would be a very cushy situation in which to learn how to really be a pastry chef. I've got a 4-day trial later this week, for which I'll be studying up on all the skills I think I may need to call upon, so cross your fingers!

This city has a lot of entertaining wildlife. Here and there you find these little lizards, anoles, sunning themselves on a fence or a rock. I always try to get close to them, but they're very wary and disappear in a flip of the tail and with hardly the rustle of a leaf to betray their passing. I found one halfway through shedding his skin the other day and tried to get a picture. But of course he ran away when I got in too close.
I think I may have stepped on one yesterday. I'm not sure, but something very wriggly came between the arch of my foot and my flip-flop, and I jumped about a foot in the air and performed a series of convulsive karate kicks to dislodge it. Hopefully he was flung to safety and not smashed..

I was recently waiting for the bus and a flappy awkward movement in a small tree next to me caught my eye. Glancing up I saw a ring-necked dove and her two half-grown fledgelings perched about two feet above my head. I could see their abandoned nest a couple of branches away. The chicks had certainly outgrown it, but they weren't very sure of their footing on the tree branches yet. The mother didn't seem perturbed by my presence. One of the chicks stretched his head down and peered right at me for about 30 seconds before shuffling around to sit closer to his sibling. This is the best picture I could manage with my phone.

I like this city.

Home Sweet Home (almost)

It feels good to have a home. Of course, visiting parents will always be "going home", but it's exciting and satisfying to be building our own home down here in New Orleans, especially after so many months of wandering without a homebase. It's a pretty slow process given we don't have a lot of extra cash lying around to spend on redecorating. But with every small new piece we bring in, every wall we paint, every shelf we fill, it becomes more and more our home.

So far we've got:

a bed
two nightstands
a desk
1 chair
a small dresser
a small couch
a kitchen table
3 kitchen chairs

And clocks! Kelly loves clocks, and we've got two cute ones so far.


Considering we've got 4 rooms plus a kitchen and a bathroom to fill, it's still mostly empty space. The apartment is half of a small house, running long and narrow front-to-back (shotgun, railroad, whatever). From the front door our rooms will go: living room; bedroom; guest bedroom; bathroom; dining room; kitchen. We've put up some great colors - red, blue, green. I think by the time we get done with it this apartment is going to be awfully cute. Patience is not one of my virtues, however, and I would really just love to have it all done and ready for use!

With my copious free time I've been getting to know this new city block by block. Of course, much time is spent researching possible jobs and bicycling from one bakery/hotel/restaurant to another in hopes of landing some sort of interesting position. But that can only take up so many hours in the day. So I come up with a billion little errands I need to run or things to do around the house to keep myself busy (read: away from Netflicks). I found a pretty awesome bike for cheap on Craig's List, which is where most of my life seems to have been acquired. Despite the already oppressive heat - 87 and muggy in May?? - I ride miles around this city's rough, potholed roads. Unfortunately this means I show up everywhere pouring sweat, but a paper towel folded into a small square and kept in a back pocket helps to maintain some semblance of composure.


Our neighborhood, the Garden District, is very bike friendly as most of the roads are residential and little-trafficked. In fact, most of the city is accessible by bike as there's not a hill in sight! Quite a change from San Francisco. However, despite the absence of snowy icy winters, New Orleans has some of the worst roads I've ever seen in a developed country. Like, seriously bone-jarring bumps and sinkholes and cracks. Kelly tells me that once upon a time all states were given leave to determine their own legal drinking age, with the stipulation that those who established it at less that 21 would miss out on federal funding for road development. Of course New Orleans placed itself in this latter category, and has apparently not been able to recover since. Too bad my bike doesn't have shocks.


The residents here are about as different from SF as you can get. Though I spend most of the day on my own, there's no shortage of conversation. Every cashier, fellow bus-rider, and pedestrian you meet is likely to call you either "baby" or "sugar" within the first sentence of your exchange. Old men sitting on their stoops call out to me as I ride by, not with lewd remarks but with greetings. It's amazing how making eye contact with people as you pass them on the sidewalk, and giving a little nod or smile of "hello", makes you feel intimately part of the New Orleans community. I think this city's already hooked me, and I think I like it.

I guess I'm turning Southern. Next thing you know I'll be sitting out on my porch swing in the heat, sipping sweet tea and chatting with my neighbors. Wait - I already do that! :)

n'awlins!

We have officially landed in New Orleans!


Welcome Home.

Onwards & Upwards

We'll be on a plane headed for home in less than 12 hours.

Good-bye, New Zealand. It was good while it lasted.





Stay tuned for our next big adventure: New Orleans.
(But first, meeting Westin! And playing with Brodie and Janet's dogs.) :)

Wellington

We're back in Wellington (yes, for like the third time).

Taupo was really gorgeous, but there was nothing to do (though I did go skydiving!). And thanks to reduced bus availability (we've officially left the high season) we had to stick around a bit longer than we would've liked. I was going to do the Tongariro Crossing but got rained/snowed out. I was pretty bummed about that as it's supposed to be one of the absolute best things to do in NZ, and is rated as one of the most beautiful one-day treks in the world. Too bad the weather didn't cooperate! We've found that when the weather inhibits outdoor activities, there's really nothing else to do. As a recent hostel roommate of ours said, you could probably do everything the country has to offer in just a month or two - if only you had good weather all the way.

Skydiving was absolutely AMAZING. Maybe the best thing I've ever done. I didn't really have any interest in it when we first got here, thinking it was just a kind of slightly ridiculous adrenaline-junkie activity. But then I spoke to a couple of people who had done it (most tourists who come here seem to make it a priority) and what they described to me was totally different from what I had pictured. Taupo's supposed to be a really great place to do it, so I just kind of signed up and tried not to think too hard about what I was committing myself to.

My tandem diver was a guy named Mike, who was probably a good 6 inches shorter than me. He called me an Amazon and wondered if there was a jumpsuit that would fit me. Luckily I was too busy being nervous to be self-conscious. :) We were the last people into the plane, a tiny little outfit with a garage-type door in the side. The other 14 people already crammed in there had taken up all the available bench space, so we squeezed into the floorspace between their feet and the door. To close the door next to us without severing any of our limbs we had to practically climb into their laps.

As the plane took off and ascended to 12000ft Mike took care of adjusting our harnesses and clipping us together in every way possible, as well as giving me instructions for when it came time to jump. The photographer who was to jump with us, Pascal, was crammed in next to us. He and Mike were very jokey together and completely casual, which helped to distract me from thoughts of exactly what I was about to do. I watched our height increasing steadily on Mike's altimeter, trying to keep calm and relaxed. Then Mike rolled open the door next to us, and we swung around so that I was hanging out over open space while he was sitting behind, getting ready to push off.

I can't really describe what it's like to be suspended outside a plane knowing that in a moment you will intentionally be jumping out, not scrambling to hold onto anything within reach. They took a quick picture of us, then Mike heaved off and suddenly we were falling into nothingness. I imagine a lot of people scream when they jump out, but I don't think I was breathing.

The first few seconds you really feel like you're falling. The air goes by you so fast it's almost impossible to draw breath. In those moments I thought to myself "If this is what it feels like the whole way down I don't think I'm going to like this..". But then Mike steadied us and as we stopped flipping around and turning over the falling feeling left my stomach and it was like we were suspended motionless, with only the wind actually moving. At some point I learned how to breathe again, and when Mike motioned to me I released my hands from where they had been clenched on my harness straps since before we left the plane.

From there on out it was fun. Amazing. I couldn't stop smiling the whole time. Partially because I was hysterically excited inside my head, and partially because the wind had caught my cheeks and held them pulled back in a wide grin. I tried to refresh my dry mouth at one point, but literally couldn't move against the force of the wind. Pascal floated around us, getting pictures from all angles. I was just looking around, trying to take it all in. It's amazing how huge the world is when you really move through it three-dimensionally. I could barely sense the ground drawing nearer, despite the fact that we were plummeting at around 200 kmph.

Mike was keeping track of us on his altimeter and at around 2000ft he pulled the chute. This seemed to jerk us upwards, and we watched Pascal shoot past us as he continued his descent. He had all but disappeared below when we finally saw his chute open. The parachute ride is very serene, and the winds have slowed enough that you can have conversation. We glided around for about 5 minutes before reaching the landing field, where we skidded in for a pretty gentle landing on our butts.


It was amazing. Thinking about it makes me breathless and heart fluttery. I'd do it again in a second.
Amazing.


Pictures on Flickr. Also some pictures of the huge cave we took a tour through at Waitomo. That was pretty awesome too, but the pictures mostly came out blurry or dark. Guess we'll have to tell you about it some other time. :)

The Home Stretch

I'm really glad we tried WWOOF-ing. Really glad. I think it gave us a lot of insight into life in NZ for the true residents, not just the tourist perspective. Also, a couple of days later we went and saw a NZ movie, "Boy". It was awesome. Again, kinda like peeking behind the curtain to see what life in NZ really consists of.

Here's a trailer:



Look for it on DVD, or NetFlicks or something. Hilarious and touching.


That being said, we're burning out! Not just financially (travel is an expensive habit), but physically, mentally, emotionally. We've been on the road for exactly three months now. It's been amazing, for sure, but we're both very much looking forward to getting back to good food, privacy, and some sort of home-base. I think I've gotten my fill of hostels for a bit, and I know Kelly's felt that way since about our second week here. :)

So we've got plane tickets home! Our last bit of travel is all mapped out and we'll be heading home on April 13th. I know, it's kind of crazy that after all of this time and aimless rambling, we'll be back in the States so soon.. But we're both super excited for some things we have waiting for us there (including you all) and looking forward to moving on to a new adventure. For those of you who might not know, we'll be stopping in Charleston for a brief introduction to Westin, the newest member of Kelly's family, and then we're heading down to New Orleans to set up camp for a couple of years.

We're in Taupo at the moment, a small town on the edge of a lake larger than the country of Singapore. In a couple of days we'll head down to Wellington for a bit, then hop on a train back up to Auckland for another few days before we fly out.


Now we've just got to figure out how to make the most of our remaining time here. This was one good way I spent a bit of it:



















:)

Olives, Pirate Dinosaurs, and Kitties

Turns out olive harvesting is painful. At least, if you're the one up the tree it is. Maybe I should post pictures of my myriad scratches and scrapes. :)

However, we had a great week in the far North of NZ with Charlotte, Mark, and Joe! They're a charming family of mixed British and Kiwi descent who just moved onto this farm about a year ago. Mark is a general practitioner in the nearby town, Charlotte is a farmer-mom and baker extraordinaire, and Joe is an energetic, bright 4-year old. They had no previous experience with olive farming, sheep, veggie growing, or anything of the sort, but over the last year they've been learning as they go and fixing up this farm into a really great place. There are some 600 olive trees scattered all over the property, often in the most inaccessible spots. We didn't harvest all of them, as some were chock full of olives and others only had sparse smatterings. It took some ingenuity to figure out how to get at them. The method we mostly relied on was spreading large nets on the ground under several trees at a time, propping up the parts where the olives might roll down the hill and get lost in the pasture. Then we used hands and small rakes to strip olives from the twigs.


Of course, the best and blackest olives always seemed to be on the very top of the trees, which necessitated some serious monkey-climbing into the precarious upper-branches. None of these trees were really large, and in many of them the breeze coming in off the harbor would send branches (and the harvester perched among them) swaying to and fro. Mark compared it to "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon". I've always been an avid tree climber, and it was a lot of fun to squirm up through the branches and pull down handfuls of olives, with just my legs braced against anything steady. The only drawback was the abundance of tiny twigs smacking you in the face, scratching at arms and legs, and snagging clothing. But still fun.

This summer there's been a pretty terrible drought up in that region, with absolutely no rainfall for about 4 1/2 months straight. After last year's bumper crop, the trees this year could hardly compete. However, by the end of our 3 straight days of picking we had filled up every available container, from olive baskets to Joe's toy containers, to shopping bags and coolers. Charlotte and Mark told us they expect the olives to yield a great amount of oil for their weight, as they're not filled up with any excess water. It should be particularly good oil as well. Mark drove our load to the nearest olive press on Sunday night, so hopefully in the next couple of days well know the final weight of our harvest, and what kind of rating their oil receives.

When we weren't harvesting we helped Charlotte mulch her veggie garden, harvest apples from their couple of trees, feed the sheep, read to and entertain Joe, etc. He's a really funny kid, always eager to be in the thick of the action. He would don his Batman and Spiderman costumes and bring us cold beers or lunches while we were harvesting. And do break dancing and The Robot performances for us. They had an amazing cat named Lola, who followed us as we went around the property, pounced and jumped after the rugby ball when we played with Joe, and alternately attacked us and snuggled with us. I think Kelly fell in love with her.

We spent one morning wandering the beach where their property meets the Hokianga Harbor. There are great big boulders scattered around the shore, with oysters crusted all over them and little black crabs with blue claws scuttling away into the crevices when we approached. On Monday Charlotte lent us her car so we could take a drive to scenic Waimamaku Beach and the South Head at the entrance to the Harbor.


Overall a fun, busy, exhausting week up North. This kind of personal experience has really been more meaningful to us than a lot of the sights we've seen around the country. Now we're back in Auckland figuring out our next move. I think we'll be heading back to the States sometime soon.

Aaaaand We're Back!

Sorry for the lapse in updates! We've been doing some figuring. The conclusion we've come to is that New Zealand is an awesome place to visit, but may not have much to offer in the long-term.

:\

I know, kind of a let-down.
In coming out here I think one of our real concerns was falling in love with the country and never wanting to leave. But while we've seen and done some really wonderful things, there doesn't seem to be much going on outside of tourist-type activities. The country is kind of lacking in any unique culture or character. I guess there's the Maori heritage, which is quite fascinating, but it seems to be pretty much confined to museums. Otherwise it's just like a watered down version of the UK; it's got the scenery but it's missing the charm and the quirkiness.

So, we're going to roll with the punches and get all we can out of this, but not make any long-term plans here. We're practicing resiliency. It's a hard outlook to maintain at all times, but it's either that or buy plane tickets home tomorrow and come back crying that it wasn't what we thought it would be.
Not only is that not really our style, but it wouldn't really be fair. We've had a great couple of months traveling down here. :)

We finished our circuit of the South Island with Kaikoura, on the east coast. There's some feature of the ocean floor right off the coast there that brings cold arctic waters rich with nutrients right up to the surface, creating a feeding frenzy for everything from krill and plankton on up to the sperm whales, orcas, blue whales, seals, dolphins, etc that feed on them. We were pretty psyched to go whale watching, but two days of consistent rain and high winds canceled all the trips. We'll have to get back there some day..

After that it was back across the Cook Strait to Wellington, and then on up north with only brief overnight stops in Napier and Mt. Manganui. We had to get up here by the 25th, because we made arrangements to work on a farm! Tomorrow we're heading to 4 Winds Olive Grove, which is owned by a young British couple. We'll stay with them for about a week, working on the harvest in exchange for room and board. Should be an interesting experience as neither of us really knows anything about growing or pressing olives. After that we'll either look into working for a bit on another farm (we're both interested in dairy farming and also beef/mutton farming) or we'll continue on our tour of the North Island.


Right now we're in Paihia, on the Bay of Islands. After the last couple of looong days on the bus we were looking forward to relaxing on a beautiful beach before getting into some hard work. This area is celebrated for it's coastline, and is a major holiday destination for Kiwis and tourists alike. Paihia itself is also a major center for scuba diving, as the many bays and islands offer beautiful and varied reefs. Unfortunately, shortly after we got down to the beach the clouds started rolling in. We walked around town for a bit, and then headed back to the hostel just in time for a serious downpour. This country gets a lot of rain.

After the dramatic and varied landscapes of the South Island, driving back through the North Island seems kind of tame. It's quite beautiful in a serene and pastoral kind of way, but can't really compete with, say, Fiordlands National Park. Or Lake Wanaka. Or the glaciers. Or a billion other things down south! Note to anyone about to undertake a similar tour of NZ: do the North Island first. Otherwise it'll just be anticlimactic.


Cross your fingers that olive harvesting is fun. Or at least not painful.

More Video

Becky early on in her advanced studies of the Kiwi accent. Auckland, January 2010.



My apologies for not being able to edit the video orientation!

Video!

We are now starting a new series in our blogging career. it's called videos. Bear with us as we figure out how to do this!
Our first test is from our water taxi ride along the coast of Abel Tasman National Park.

Van Take Two

So, about six weeks, two islands, and a little over 2200 miles later...we ran into our old van in Kaikoura.

Small, small, SMALL country.

Christchurch

We've landed in Christchurch!

Quick sequence of events:

Left Dunedin Monday morning, stopping at the Moeraki Boulders and some crazy blue glacial lakes on the way to Lake Tekapo. This is another glacial lake situated at the foot of the Southern Alps. Its' color is due to the finely ground mineral particles held in suspension in the water, reflecting back light. It's like neon aqua.

Spent two nights at Tekapo.
Went horseback riding around and over Mt. John.
Put our feet in the freezing cold lake water.
Looked at the stars from one of the highest visibility locations in the world (thanks to the thin atmosphere).

Drove to Christchurch Wednesday morning.
Began furiously applying to jobs and posting resumes to various websites, etc.


It's crunch time. Either we find jobs within the next week or two (either here in Christchurch or anywhere else in the country), or we blow the last bit of our savings on some amazing experience, and then purchase tickets back to the States.



Stay tuned to find out..

Revision

Ok, well Dunedin may not be Edinburgh, but it's cute in its own way. On Sunday we enjoyed the free Dunedin Art Gallery, which included a haunting photography exhibition which focused on scenes in America that most people never see or hear about. Tons of nuclear waste giving off strange blue light from where it's stored in water. Inbred white tigers. Playboy magazine printed in Braille. The Body Farm. A very creepy look into what goes on in the US of A. Makes our country look just a little bit..off... But Kelly and I enjoyed it nonetheless.

We tried to take a tour of the Cadbury factory, but it turns out they don't produce chocolates on the weekends so we wouldn't have been able to see the actual machinery and production process. We were pretty bummed about that, but bought a bunch of chocolate in the gift shop anyway.

That evening, we took a tour of the Otago Peninsula, known for its diverse and rare wildlife. We found a little ad posted on a bulletin board at our hostel offering drives around the Dunedin area by a university student. That's how we met Kahwooi. He's Malaysian but has been in the Dunedin area for over 7 years. He was kind of a funny, dorky guy. Liked to make corny jokes.

We set out at around 7 in the evening and drove the length of the peninsula with a couple of stops for photos. If anywhere near Dunedin resembles Scotland - it's the Otago Peninsula. Steep hills and valleys covered in green grass and dark patches of trees and shrubs. New Zealands' only castle, Larnach Castle, is right in the middle of it. We drove out along the northern coast til we came to the end, about 40km out. At the end there's the only mainland Royal Albatross breeding colony in the Southern Hemisphere. We got out and walked a footpath right to the edge of some great cliffs dropping off to the sea. There were lots of gulls around, and after a few moments of waiting we saw what looked like a pterodactyl flying among them. Seriously, this thing made the gulls look like robins! I think their wingspan is something like 3 meters, and they're so large that they can't really support themselves by flapping but instead depend on the breezes to give them lift. They were huge! Eventually we saw about three gliding around, but couldn't see around the rocks to where their chicks were.

As the sun went down and it began to grow dark we made our way down to a small sheltered beach where a number of other people were waiting. The tip of the peninsula is also home to the worlds smallest penguin, the Little Blue Penguin. They make their nests in tunnels in the hillsides, often displacing rabbits to do so. Every morning the adults swim out to sea in a large group called a raft and gorge all day on small fish, squid, plankton, etc. When night falls they come back to shore and fill up their chicks with their surplus of partially digested fish matter. Yum.

We were among a group of about 30 people waiting silently and watching the water to spot the raft coming into shore. A volunteer from the Department of Conservation used his dim red flashlight to show me a half-grown chick standing just a couple of feet away, peering into the darkness like the rest of us, looking for his parents! He was about 8 inches high, dark blue-black on his back and white on his chest. He was still kind of fuzzy looking, but otherwise could've been an adult. He didn't seem disturbed by our coming within about 10 feet of him. I stepped back and gave Kelly a turn to see, and then we heard whispers behind us and found that the adults had started coming up on shore.

They're funny little things, and didn't seem put off by the presence of so many people scattered around the small beach they were crossing to reach their nests. We could hear the chicks behind us calling to their parents with high-pitched cooings and trills. The DOC volunteers had directed us to stand spaced out so as not to block the penguins paths, and they came in ones and twos winding their ways between us. They stand at about a 45 degree angle to the ground, kind of swaying around a little as they decide which way to go, and take slow, awkward steps over the sand and rocks with their little wings held out for balance. Very deliberate in their movements.

This whole operation only took about 20 minutes. We were all suspended in silence as the penguins made their way up to their nests. Then everyone just kind of drifted off, back to cars left parked up the road.

So Dunedin isn't really so bad, after all. :)

Dunedin

We've reached Dunedin. Dunedin is Gaelic for "Edinburgh" and we kept hearing/reading that Dunedin was the southern Edinburgh. Becky and I both were excited to arrive in this town and were thinking of finding jobs to stay for a few months to soak up some fine Scottish influence.

EVERYONE LIES.

We are leaving tomorrow.


thats all i have to say.

Queenstown

I would just like to say that Milford Sound is amazing.
The drive to Milford Sound is also amazing.

Fiordlands National Park consists of 3 million acres of virgin rainforest. I can't even tell you how beautiful it is. Our bus driver blew me away with the natural history he was spouting off. E.g. the entire park was once covered by glaciers 1500m high, leaving only the the top thirds of the mountains exposed. The area is now covered by beech trees from the bottoms of the mountains up to about 1200m, where the yearly snows prevent seedlings from lasting through winter. They won't seed in the valleys either, which were scraped so flat and smooth by the glaciers that rainfall has nowhere to flow to, creating too boggy of a situation for the trees to grow. So we're driving down this perfectly flat prairie covered with gold grasses, and not a single tree, except the few shrubs which have sunken their roots into the boulders scattered here and there by the glaciers. At one point we saw a mountain which had crumbled down into the valley some thousands of years ago, and everywhere it left rocks there were trees standing up on top of them. But never on the floor of the valley. At times, when there has been a lot of rainfall and the trees become waterlogged and significantly heavier than usual, their root systems won't be able to support them by gripping into the bare rock any longer. When this happens it takes just one tree falling over to start a "tree avalanche", which will strip a large area of the mountainside bare down to the bedrock. It takes around 900 years for one of these scars to regenerate its forest covering, going through several stages of grasses, shrubs, and finally trees.

From Te Anau we drove for about an hour along the Eglinton Valley (identifiable as a glacial valley by its "U" shape and the angular boulders deposited by the ice) until we began to climb up into the mountains. The area gets incredible amounts of snowfall in the winter, and the steep-sided mountains, devoid of covering above the tree line, create a terrifically avalanche-prone situation. In the winter avalanches are triggered by explosives every two to three weeks (at pre-determined times when the road has been closed in preparation) so that the snow never builds up to dangerous instability. According to our driver, an avalanche can deposit up to 30m of snow on the road at one time. And these happen all winter long!! I can hardly imagine that much snow.

We stopped at one point to fill up our water bottles at a glacial stream. Recent rainfalls had created countless waterfalls tracing their ways down the bare rock, and made the rivers churning and swift. The water was incredibly clear and crisp. It's so strange to go against the basic safety rules which are drilled into you when you're a kid, such as "don't drink from streams or rivers!". This water was probably some of the purest on earth, without the aid of chemicals, distillation, filtration, or any of that junk. Just knowing I had it in my water bottle made me super happy. :)

Then we drove through a 1.2 km tunnel blasted through the solid granite of the mountains. It took 17 years to complete the tunnel, and despite its lack of reinforcements or ventilation systems it is the most secure tunnel in the world because of the strength of the rock. Our driver said that some years ago he was driving through the tunnel when a 6.something earthquake hit, and he knew nothing of it until they emerged from the other side!

After the tunnel we wound our way back down to sea level and soon came upon Milford Sound. Since it had been rainy the last couple of days we were treated to a billion waterfalls, mostly white threads spilling down the mountainside and often blowing away in the wind before reaching the sea. The mountains rose almost vertically out of the water, and the only way we could comprehend how huge they were was to see the tiny speck of another ship drifting by the base, or the white dot of a small plane taking someone on a scenic flight. Clouds were sitting on the tops of the mountains, and the sun was only able to break through here and there. I think the clouds and occasional rain made it even more beautiful.

We cruised down the sound all the way out to the Tasman, encountering some dolphins and fur seals along the way. On the way back our captain brought the nose of the ship right up near the base of a huge waterfall, so close that Kelly and I were both soaked by the freezing mists billowing all around us. We were afraid we'd drift forward just another couple of feet and the water would start pounding down on the deck, but luckily the captain was able to maneuver us quite deftly. I think that experience made Kelly's day.

It was a long day of driving to get to the Sound and then all the way back to Queenstown, but I would say it's probably the most amazing adventure we've had so far. We'll post some pictures in the next few days, though they really can't do justice to the beauty or scale of Milford.

Tonight is our last night in Queenstown, and tomorrow we'll head on to Dunedin. Later we're meeting up with a friend we've made, Hannah from Holland, for a burger from the legendary "Fergberger", and then possibly some ice cream. Queenstown is cute, but doesn't have enough going on to keep us here for long. In Dunedin we plan to star the job search in earnest, as it seems like a city we might both like a lot. Cross your fingers for good job opportunities.

On an unrelated topic, we did find some very tasty pies in Te Anau. Miles' Better Pies has shown us that SOMEONE in NZ has skill when it comes to cooking. Though I'm sure we could both still do better. :)

Southland

Location: Te Anau

Well we've finished with the west coast - for now at least. We spent a lazy couple of days in Greymouth and at Franz Josef Glacier, then headed inland to Lake Wanaka and its township.

Greymouth's a small, rather bleak ex-gold mining town. At one point I'm sure it was a bustling center of trade, but since there's not so much gold-mining going on these days it seems to have become a ghost town. However our hostel there, Noah's Ark, was really great and we hung out with several other travellers whose paths we've been crossing and re-crossing as we all meander southwards. The hostel go its name due to the fact that it once provided living quarters for the priests of the church next door, and when it remained untouched through several floods which severely damaged the city and destroyed the church in the early 1900s, they decided someone upstairs must've been keeping an eye on it. :)

We spent longer than anticipated in Franz Josef - 4 nights total - as I was coming down with a cold. We were able to offer a couple hours of work each day in exchange for our accommodations, so we figured we should take advantage of the free stay to rest up and avoid the ample rain in the area. The glacier actually comes down into an region of temperate rainforests, and they say it rains some 180 days out of the year. We didn't go hiking on the glacier, but we walked up the glacial valley to the terminal face and got a good look at the lower half. Hopefully some time over the next year we'll return to do a full-day guided hike, the only way to really get up on the ice and take a look at the cleanest parts and the ice caves, etc. Had a good time kayaking on Lake Mapourika. When we set out the conditions were mirror-like and since there was no wind we cut right across the water like a knife. It looks like hematite or mercury, all silver and black reflectivity.

Then we got to Wanaka. And we fell in love with Wanaka. It's a small town right on the edge of the third-largest lake in NZ, Lake Wanaka. The day we got there was hot and clear, and the water's amazingly blue. Not like Carribbean aqua, but like a blue M&M or something. Unbelieveably blue. The town is small and cute, not super touristy (a nice change), and filled with Kiwi vacationers. I think our bus driver said it was one of the top holiday destinations in the country. Understandable, with all the water sports, hikes, horse riding, vineyards, and ski mountains found in the immediate area. We only stayed two short nights, but have plans to return in the spring to find jobs for a couple of months. For now we'll continue our circuit, testing out new places and making mental notes of where it's worth returning to for more extended periods.

As soon as we crossed the Southern Alps on our trip from Franz Josef to Wanaka the scenery changed dramatically. The mountains around the glacier, the ones covered with temperate rainforests, receive almost all the moisture held in the winds that come in off the Tasman Sea, leaving nothing for the land East of the Alps. This makes for big, craggy, bare mountains, and scrubby, dry pasturelands. Except where irrigated the fields are mostly tan in color, and the only thing that seems to grow on the mountains are pine trees. Pair this with numerous bright-blue glacial lakes like Lake Wanaka, and you've got quite a view. It's really beautiful in a massive, raw kind of way.

Queenstown, the commercial and cultural center of this alpine lake district, is home to all extreme sports imaginable. Kiwis like dreaming up far-fetched and dangerous ways to entertain themselves. Hence the invention of Bungy Jumping in 1988 on a bridge shortly outside of Queenstown (at 43m high, it's now one of the smallest bungy jumps available. There's one in South Africa that's something like 500m high!). It's also supposed to be a great area to do a skydive, as the scenery can best be taken in when you've got a good vantage point. We only spent a night in Queenstown so far, but we found it to be a lot more charming than we had expected, given its extreme-sports-plus-partying-tourists reputation. We'll stop there again when we finish this leg of the journey.

So that brings us to Te Anau, our home for the moment. As we drove down from Queenstown the fields turned greener and the mountains more rounded and it really grew to resemble the UK. The older couple sitting in front of us on the bus were Irish, and they were telling the driver they felt right at home. Te Anau's a tiny town, with not much going on, but it's the gateway to Fjordland National Park. On Wednesday we'll be heading out to Milford Sound for a cruise. Cross your fingers it doesn't rain TOO much (some is acceptable, but I need to be able to use my camera without destroying it!). If we can figure a cheap way we'll also head to Doubtful Sound. I'd realllllly love to get there but it's much more inaccessible and much pricier. But supposed to be so so so beautiful!!! Then we'll return from this little tangent back to Queenstown, and onwards to the East Coast.

We're hoping to find work for a couple of months near Dunedin or Cristchurch, or somewhere in between. The land and the climate there is much gentler than the West Coast or Southland, which would save us from having to buy a whole wardrobe of outdoor gear just to keep warm and dry day to day. Though we have been discussing the merits of opening our own pie shop (savory AND sweet) and demolishing the competition. I don't know how a country full of intelligent, globally aware people can be contented with the baked good we've had the misfortune to encounter. Not a decent pastry in sight!

Photos!

New photos are finally up! We posted a big batch covering the last couple weeks, from Wellington all the way down to the Franz Josef Glacier area.

To view the photos in chronological order (they upload out of order sometimes in the photostream), click on the "South Pacific Travels" button on the right side of the Flickr page. You'll find everything we've done so far down here, with newer photos towards the bottom.


Enjoy!!

So here's a cool bit of NZ history. Apparently in the 1800s red deer were introduced from England for sport, along with all kinds of other animals like mountain goats and wild sheep, etc. Turns out the climate and habitat suited them so well that within a couple of years the deer numbered in the millions. Once the Europeans noticed they were destroying the native flora they decided to take some action towards limiting their numbers. This consisted of professional hunters setting themselves up in the more remote areas of the country, notably the West Coast and the South West, and attempting to hunt the deer to extinction. Business really picked up with the advent of airplane and helicopter hunting, allowing hunters to keep up with entire groups as they fled over the rough, mountainous terrain and pick them off one by one. Kind of a sad story, but seeing as the deer weren't meant to be there in the first place I guess it was for the best.

By the mid 1900s more than 2 million had been killed, hauled out of the wilderness, and butchered for meat. Around 1970 their numbers were so low that the prices for venison skyrocketed. That's when some bright entrepreneur decided it would be better to haul LIVE deer out of the wilderness to breed in captivity, ensuring a constant supply of venison. So what do the Kiwis do? They go out and fly around in helicopters till they find a deer, then the pilot maneuvers real close in and follows it within a few feet as it runs, until the hunter LEAPS FROM THE HELICOPTER ONTO THE ANIMALS BACK AND WRESTLES IT TO THE GROUND! Then they truss up its feet, string it to the helicopter, and lift it right out of the woods and land it in some nice, green, fenced pastures. Pretty crazy. I thought the guy who told us about it was making it up, until we watched a video of people actually doing it.. I think this has got our American cowboys beat. (This method didn't last for terribly long, as it was of course very hard on the hunters, and with the help of tranquilizer darts and net guns they now bring down the deer BEFORE grabbing hold of it.)

In the mid 90's a couple of Kiwi experts in the field even helped American conservation groups to round up American bison and moose with the same net-and-lift methods, in order to relocate them onto protected reserves. I imagine if someone had tried jumping onto the back of the bison and wrestling it to the ground, his trampled remains would've deterred the technique from gaining popularity in the States.

On our recent bus rides we've passed a few venison farms, and there's something pretty strange about going by a field filled with a couple hundred deer, just standing around in broad daylight like cows. Kelly says if that's the only thing she sees in this country she'll still be impressed. :)



Today we arrived in Franz Josef Glacier, after a couple of days in Greymouth. We're really in the wilds of New Zealand now, and the mountains are growing with every hour we drive south. The coast is beautiful but dangerous, with strong currents and rocky shores. On our way south from Nelson to Greymouth we stopped at a fur seal colony on Cape Foulwind (so named by Captain Cook for the strong winds which blew him off course) to attempt photos of the handful of seals basking on the rocks. Then we wandered among the pancake rocks and blowholes of Punakaiki. It was pretty awesome looking, and the sound of the ocean as it flows into and out of the natural rock formations is thunderous. Unfortunately my camera batteries were about dead, so I only got a handful of pictures.
Tomorrow we're going on a half-day guided kayak tour of Lake Mapourika, which is at the base of the Alps. It's a "black water" lake, darkened by the tannins leached into the water as it runs from the glacier down through the rainforest and into the valley, and known for its mirror-like reflections of the mountains. We'll also paddle up the river that feeds into it, getting a look at the temperate rainforest on either side. We're both pretty psyched about it.

Pictures soon, I promise!

In the North of the South

So Nelson is supposed to be the sunniest region in the country, averaging something like 2400 hours of sunlight annually. But you wouldn't know that from our last few days here. Yesterday we set out for Abel Tasman National Park first thing in the (cloudy, misty) morning. Our bus driver was this slightly crazy guy named Renee who talked non-stop for the entire hour and 45 minute ride. His topics ranged from climate to geology to agriculture to city planning and beyond. Apparently Nelson was planned as a "utopian society" back in the day, and the concepts used in this plan were taken from the Iriquois Indians' way of life. Also, of the more than 3000 varieties of apple, over 800 are grown in the Nelson area. And in harvest, each crate of apples must contain 3568 apples. When we set out he told us to concentrate on blue skies and use our bright smiles to bring some sunshine to the day. Bus drivers like him make the trip almost more entertaining than the destination.

When we got to Kaiteriteri, where we would embark on the water taxi portion of our journey, we did find a small hole in the clouds and a bit of optimistic sunlight peeking through. Unfortunately by the time we had traveled up the coast a bit to Anchorage Bay and the starting point for our hike, clouds had once again blotted out every bit of sky and we were treated to a light mist. Over the next four hours of hiking and walking it was NOT raining or misting for probably about 10 minutes. But walking through the dense jungley woods, with all the ferns and birdsong and flowing, dripping water made it feel like a rainforest. Every so often we would come upon a view of the meandering coastline with its many natural bays and coves. The sand of this area is golden quartz (hence the name Golden Bay), and the water is bright aqua. It was really gorgeous, and despite the weather we had a really good hike. I even spotted some sort of quail just of the trail at one point, though he scurried off into the undergrowth before I could get my camera out (I think the flapping of my large green transparent poncho may have had something to do with that).

We keep bumping into people many times over at different stages of our journey. In Picton we dormed with two girls whom we'd seen at the car market in Auckland; here in Nelson we recognize three people at our current hostel from the hostel we stayed at in Wellington; and just yesterday who should sit down on the bus next to us but this girl Laura whom we befriended briefly in Picton! I suppose some amount of over-lapping is inevitable on such a popular travel route. It'll be interesting to see just whom we keep crossing paths with as we continue on our way.

Today we'll re-provision and maybe wander a bit of Nelson, and then tomorrow we're heading down the coast to Greymouth. Along the way we'll stop at the seal colony at Cape Foulwind and the pancake rocks and blowholes at Punakaikai. And then after Greymouth it's on to Franz Joseph Glacier!

Should be an interesting few days.
We'll let you know all about it. :)

The Center of New Zealand

We're in Nelson! It's a small city on the north coast of the South Island. We've found it to be a really cute town, with the personality of the houses somewhere between Charleston and New Orleans. We're staying at this crazy hostel called Paradiso, which was actually someone's mansion at one point. As our bus driver told it to us, the owner of the hostel is a German guy who ran a bus circuit up and down the west coast of NZ for several years with great success, until his business was eclipsed by companies like Kiwi Experience and Magic Bus, which offer circuits of the whole country. At that point he sold off all his buses but one, bought this mansion in Nelson, and converted it into a big, rambling hostel complex with his last remaining bus parked in the middle of the yard and furnished as a hang-out space. It's a pretty interesting place, but out "camp site" is kind of a joke.. It's really a dirt strip behind a hedge on the corner of the property which we share with about 7 other tents. But whatever, we don't need much space.

Today we were around town in the morning taking care of the necessary errands etc, and then in the afternoon we hiked up to the The Center of New Zealand! They actually measured the middle-point based on the farthes north, south, east, and west points of the country, and stuck a little monument on a hill to let everyone know. It was a short but quite steep climb up one of the hills bordering the city, and from the top we had some good views of the surrounding mountains (the beginnings of the Alps), the large natural bay Nelson sits on, and Abel Tasman National Park farther on up the coast of the bay. I took a couple of pictures, but it was pretty overcast and a bit drizzly, so they didn't come out very well.

Tomorrow we'll be heading up to Abel Tasman by bus and water taxi to do a bit of a hike. We'll be dropped off about 12 km along the Coastal Track at a beach accessible only by foot or boat, and from there we'll hike back down the southernmost segment of the track to the carpark at the entrance. I think we're both excited to start some real hiking, so that further along in our adventures we can tackle some of the more challenging, multiple-day treks. The land around here is beautiful, and will be a good place for us to get started.

Sorry no pictures this time, as our hostel's not set up to read my cameras' memory card. Will post as soon as possible!

South Island!

This is just a short note to say that after a few days in Wellington, we have sailed to the South Island. Wellington was very cute, and we both look forward to a possible return for further explorations. We took the cable car up to the Botanical Gardens (see our flickr photos), which was absolutely beautiful!
We have found throughout our travels so far that a lot of the things/clothes we brought are just excess baggage. So, we've packed them up and put them in storage. along with our computer!! So, be patient, we will update as we are able, but we will be at the mercy of very small, dial-up, internet sources...god help us. But, we are 100% backpacking now, everything on our backs, walking the country.

Back on track...

So our revisit of Auckland has been a bit longer than we both wished, but we have now sold our trusty little van to two super cool German girls. We also met a lot of interesting characters during the course of our time at the car market. My personal favorites were three girls from Israel fresh out of the army (two were from Jerusalem, and one from Ramat Gan) and traveling to Australia this week after spending 3 months in NZ. They sold their car right before we sold ours, so it was a great day for all. We exchanged information and promised to keep up and allow couch surfing in the future back in our respective homes! I fully intend to take them up on the offer someday!
Now that we can leave Auckland, we have found that the train that runs daily from Auckland to Wellington is booked full through next week!! Ugh! But lucky for us it’s just as cheap to fly (and takes 2 hours vs 12). So, on Thursday we’ll jump on a plane and head to Wellington for at least three days while we sort out some business and see the town. I feel better about this knowing that we have our passes to come back and tour the rest of the north island as in-depth as we’d like within the next year (and the more you guys come to visit, the more of a reason we have to further explore)!
It feels like things are finally starting to move in the direction we had both wished from the get go. Yes, we made some rookie mistakes, but we are recovering and learning so much along the way. I feel that all this experience and knowledge will be invaluable in the long run, especially with all our future travel wishes and plans.

Auckland Farmers Market

Yesterday we went to the Auckland farmers market, which was a small but tasty affair. Our breakfast consisted of the most amazing pita bread I've ever eaten, plus some decent garlic tahini and some huge, super ripe blueberries. The pita were hot and thick and soft, not like the hard flat cardboard affairs you find in American supermarkets. I probably could've eaten them all day.




Seriously, the best pita ever.

FINALLY! We are officially aunts! Say hello to Westin, our new little nephew.
Born 8lbs 2oz, 22 inches, 1:35am Feb 5. Brodie and Janet are doing great!

Auckland. Take Two.

So, after a week of camping it out along the north eastern coast of New Zealand, we have decided to refocus and change the way that we are traveling so that we can make it a bit more sustainable, without sacrificing any of the experiences we desire. Traveling by our own van is pretty easy in the most basic of ways - we want to go somewhere...we just hop in and go. However, it is expensive, stressful (mostly because I am a nervous passenger and therefore make Rebecca a not-so-happy driver and i cant honestly figure out how to relax!), and its rather...isolating. It seems it could be very easy to live in this tiny Mistubishi bubble, where 99% of interaction would be between just the two of us. As much as we love one another, we both need a little more social stimulation from the world around us. Having spent, as of today, a month together on the road with very little time apart, we are doing really well with it. But of course it's trying to travel, spending THIS much time with anyone, no matter how much you like them! We have met some really great people along the way (including a guy from Asheville), but we are not spending time in places where our peers and fellow travelers are spending time.
Our solution has been an easy decision for us. We did some further research and have found many great options for "backpacker" travel in this country without the financial responsibility or stress of owning a vehicle. There is an option for everyone, every age, every interests/lifestyle, and travel time frame. Not to mention New Zealand has built The Great Walkway, which allows you to literally walk from top to bottom. We have purchased bus passes that allow for us to travel from top to bottom, side to side, stopping where we want, for however long we decide to stay. We have 12 months to complete the entire loop of the tour we chose. So, here we are, back in Auckland for a few days, asking why we did not figure this out sooner. Our van is officially parked back at the same lot from which we purchased, looking for a quick and easy sale. When it's done we'll be taking the train from Auckland to Wellington, spending a few days, then passing through the Cook Straight to start our South Island adventures! We are both rather anxious and excited to be moving on to the South Island. The more we both hear and learn, the more it seems we may make the South Island our home for the remainder of our stay. Where ever we may land, I feel confident we can and will make the best of it!

Camping on the beach.

Northward-ho!

Whew! It's hot in Northland! Just a couple of days up here, and we're both pretty well burnt - despite the spf 70 we've been slathering on. I don't know how the locals do it. Today we reached Whangarei, the largest "city" of Northland at about 50,000. It's a cute city, but we're really just stopping in for internet access and to charge up our electronics. Then it's back to the beaches!

So far we've been to Tawharanui Regional Park and Oretiti Beach. Tawharanui was our first van camping experience, and 5 km of narrow, windy, downhill gravel road to reach the campsite made it a bit of a tense ride (this was within our first few hours of driving on the wrong side of the road, too). Delays at the auto shop where our van was being fixed up put us on the road much later than intended, and when we finally reached the park we were greeted by a sign stating the campsite was fully booked. !!! I think we both laughed that semi-hysterical "you've got the be kidding me" laugh.. Luckily a couple of Kiwis rolled up in their station wagon, chatted with the park ranger on the phone, and got him to agree to us sharing the campsite of these Kiwi's friends', who were already in the park. It must've been about 8:30 or 9 at this point, and after a long day of shopping for gear, outfitting the van, and driving, we passed out.

Next morning we woke up early and went for a walk on the beach, which was warm and beautiful and overcast. But Tawharanui wasn't our real destination, and fearing another fully-booked campsite at the end of a long drive we decided to get on the road early. A couple hours later we rolled into the Uretiti Beach campsite, found a great spot to set up our tent, and wandered down onto the sand. This beach was different from the first, and more typical of Northland beaches, with its white sands and aqua waters. The morning was temperate with clouds and sun alternating, but the water seems warm once you get into it. The Maori name for NZ is Aotearoa, which means land-of-the-long-white-cloud, and it seems particularly apt now that we've seen the huge fluffy white clouds which are always present in some part of the sky. We spent the day relaxing in the sand, swimming, cooking on our camp stove, and sitting in whatever shade we could find. It was hot and blindingly sunny in the afternoon, and we both have the sunburns to prove it. But night cooled down and we got to enjoy our new tent for the first time.

It's interesting to see the camping culture which seems to be the norm among the Kiwis. Whole families pick up for a month or two in the summer and settle at these beachside campsites, equipped with vans, campers, multiple tents and tables, gas ranges and coolers. Apparently camping is the national pastime. It's nice, but I think we're both looking forward to reaching the South Island and camping and exploring in wilder, more isolated areas. There's also lots of farms and livestock up here. Some sheep, but mostly cows. Seriously the most beautiful cows I've ever seen. As Kelly was driving yesterday I think I pointed out groups of particularly fine, glossy, healthy looking cows about every 2km. She wasn't quite so excited about it as I was.. :) And the land as we drove north out of Auckland was really beautiful. It's like a combination of Northern California's rolling, rippling, late-summer golden hills, and NY's lush, dense, dark green late summer foliage. Except the woods here have a kind of jungley feel, with fern trees sticking up between pines and deciduous.

Our van's doing well, and I enjoy driving it, but he's turning out to be a real gas-sucker. We'll have to see how long we can support his habit.. Today we're going to head up to Otamure Beach, supposed to be one of the most beautiful in the country and great for diving or snorkeling. Hope our skins get a little tougher.

Pictures will be up soon!
Let us know what you all are doing up in your corner of the world!!

Mit-sue-bee-shee

WE GOT A VAN!!!!!!



Yep, that's our sweet ride over there. Our for the low low price of $3900 NZD, or about $2850 USD. We did the math, and if we sleep in the van for 100 nights (it's got a bed and a mattress built into the back) it'll be like finding a hostel for $15 per person per night. Which seems impossible, as the hostels in Auckland start around $90 per person. Plus all our transportation needs are met!

We've got two more nights here in Auckland to sort ourselves out and get hold of whatever gear we may need (camp stove, some basic foodstuffs, whatever), and then we'll be on the road! Up north first to enjoy the scenic beaches of Northland, then right down to the south island. Our van (soon to be named) has a rack on top, so should we acquire a kayak or some surfboards at some point, we'll be prepared. :)

Here we go!!

Auckland. Over it.

Auckland is pretty silly. The ants are so fast…like, the fastest little things you’ve ever seen. Seriously, you wouldn’t believe it. Also, hostels are more expensive than our nice hotel, and it just doesn’t make sense. The food here lacks…and is really terribly expensive. The best food we’ve found is this hole in the wall ramen place, where we’ve already dined twice. Bacon, as we know it, seems not to exist. You get this ham steak when you order bacon. Crazy.

Today has been, by far, the most beautiful day we’ve seen in Auckland. It has been rather misty and cloudy the whole week. We bought ferry passes yesterday and toured the harbor. Our first stop was Rangitoto island: a volcano formed about 600 years ago. The summit is 850ft above harbor, and takes about an hour to hike. There are lava caves and such towards the top of the mountain. Our particular tour company had oddly timed pick-ups, so we were unable to explore the caves and had to book it down to catch the boat to the next island. We did meet this very nice couple from the UK who were on the 161st day of their NZ journey. They were travelling with their young son, Geoffrey, who was the coolest kid I’ve ever met. Motuihe, the second island of the day, was much smaller, and was cleared many years ago for farming and a prison. They are now re-introducing the native trees, grass, and plants to bring it back to its original glory. It has become a great area for bird watching, and is a sanctuary for the native Kiwi.

We are looking at purchasing a vehicle by Wed. There is one we are looking at tonight that we are both pretty excited about. It’s a camper van that comes with all the camping equipment we’ll need. So, cross your fingers for us, should you be reading this before we see it. I also just found a car dealership that specializes in backpackers' vehicles, so we'll run down there tomorrow and maybe fall in love with something. We are getting pretty anxious to hit the road and see the sights. Our plan is still to drive all the way north first, and then head down to the south island to tour it top to bottom.
Finding an internet/wifi connection in this country could be listed as an Olympic sport, so, we will continue to post as often as possible!

Auckland. Day One.

4 flights, 10,000 miles, 36 hours of travel, and 55 hours of temporal relocation later – and we’re here! Our flights were something of a nightmare, what with delays, redirected luggage, airport navigation, and last-minute runs through international security to arrive at the gate right at boarding time. However, I’d have to say we got pretty lucky. All three of our bags arrived with us, which was something we both doubted would happen. And we spent three hours watching dawn break over Fiji yesterday!


When we got into our hotel room yesterday around 2pm we were both totally wiped out. After much-anticipated showers and a quick burger at a pub down the street we both passed out at around 4:30 – and proceeded to sleep through the night. Up and out early this morning (about 12 hours of sleep proved to be our max, despite the fact that it was still hours before dawn when we woke), we had a leisurely breakfast and stroll around the CBD, collecting numerous activity brochures along the way. It’s nice travelling with no real agenda and no shortage of time. We wanted to take some time to adjust to the new time zone and unwind from all the travel, so since it was a rainy day we hopped on a tour bus and cruised all around the city.

Auckland is a fairly large and sprawling city, though the CBD is very compact. The rest consists of various suburbs and neighborhoods, spread over a lush, hilly land. We got great views from a couple of high points, including Mt. Eden, an extinct volcano and the highest point in the city. It’s interesting to see chickadees and small sparrows hopping around next to tall black birds with red-crested heads which look like something out of a National Geographic magazine. Many trees are familiar to us, but there are also many new ones. Really, there’s just an amazing variety. Hopefully tomorrow we’ll take a stroll around one of the parks near us. Or maybe go island hopping. Depends on the weather. :)


For dinner we got ramen at a tiny place around the corner from our hotel. It’s hard to beat a huge bowl of hot soup after a long day of exploration and rain. Tomorrow we’ll keep wandering the city, and maybe get ourselves some phones. And soon, a car! After that, it’s the open road.

touchdown

We have made it to Auckland. 36 hours later. Not much to say, too tired to make something up, but wanted to let everyone know we are here safe and sound!

more in the coming days.

Eleven Madison Park

So Far