Rotorua

Rotorua is probably the top tourist destination in the North Island, and for good reason. It’s got a lot to offer. Lots of Maori culture and history, nearly as many adventure activities as Queenstown, and it’s also a boiling and steaming geothermal hotspot. We came to Rotorua mainly for the Maori culture (actually to find some authentic souvenirs), but ended up taking advantage of everything else the area has to offer.

First, our digs for our 4 days in the North - a “Cruiza” campervan. We were hoping to “freedom camp”, which is basically to park your campervan wherever you feel like stopping for the night, usually a public park or some remote picnic spot, but it is officially illegal everywhere we went and even when we give it a go it was a bit too dark and creepy for us to get a good nights sleep. So, we ended up staying at holiday parks, which was cool because we could have a shower and make use of their kitchen and other amenities.

My friend Bjorn from river surfing was traveling around the North the same time as us, so we made plans to meet up in Rotorua for a couple days before he attempts to fly home to Sweden (I believe a volcano is doing its best to prevent that). Since we were all in tourist mode, we did what tourists do. First we walked around a public park right out of town to see all the geothermal features - bubbling pools of mud, steaming lakes, plumes of steam coming out of an inconspicuous little hole in the ground (of course we had to stick our finger in there and yes, it is really hot), and a foot soak in geothermally heated water.

Next we headed for some of the touristy activities. Steph had us both beat in a round of putt-putt, only to blow it all on the second-to-last hole, the “volcano.” She granted herself a ‘moral victory’. Next we were drawn to something called Agroventures. The name makes it sound like it is agriculture-based adventures, which is I think originally what it was - sheep shearing show, hay rides, and something called a dog & whistle performance were all on offer. But we were there for the non-agricultural stuff - mainly some kind of rollercoaster-type thing that we had seen on the video in the information center. Turns out this thing was called the Shweeb, which is where you get in this little pod that hangs on a rail track and pedal like a bike to make it go around. You get going surprisingly fast and swing almost horizontal around the turns. I thought it was going to be just a leisurely cruise only to find out this is a serious race, with records posted by age group as well as nationality. The operators kept telling us that we won’t break a minute the first race, and will have to go again to get close to the records, which I think was a bit of a ploy to get us to pay for a second run. They did seem genuinely surprised though when Bjorn and I both clocked in under a minute, me at 58.8 seconds and Bjorn at 58.6 (ugh - 2 tenths!). Still, our times were good enough to make us the record holders for our respective countries. That’s right, I am the American Shweeb champion!!

The other big attraction that caught our eye at Agroventures was the stationary freefall thingy - you know, where you jump over the top of a huge fan and it simulates a freefall like skydiving. This had Steph’s name written all over it. First they got her all kitted up in a really flattering jumpsuit and had her practice all the positions. Next she jumped on the fan for a minute and a half of flight! She did quite good, compared to some of the other people we saw do it. It was hilarious to watch since her face would get all distorted from the wind force and she screamed every time she flew up to the safety net on top.

After our time at Agroventures we made off for some more geothermal and Maori stuff. You had to pay for just about everything, even to look at a geyser, so we basically just drove around some. We did find a huge boiling mud pit where we were able to get some mud on a stick for an impromptu facial. Seriously, you can buy the exact same mud in souvenir shops all around New Zealand. We also went to a grove of redwood trees that were planted in the early 1900’s.

For the following morning, Bjorn had arranged for him and myself to go sledging with one of the local companies. Sledging, in case you forgot, is pretty much the same as river surfing only you use a big plastic “sledge”, which is more buoyant and gives more protection from shallow rocks than a body board would. The Waitaki River, which the company we went with both rafts and sledges, is much narrower and shallower than the Kawarau, so a sledge was definitely necessary. I kind of assumed we would tag along with one of their client trips, which is Class III rapids and supposedly not that great. Turns out, there was no sledging trip, so we would be tagging along with the rafting trip, which is Class III to Class V rapids! And we were the only ones sledging - the guides in the rafts could tell us the lines but the rest was up to us. I was pretty nervous upon hearing this, but after we got in the water it was all sweet. Their river is more of a pool-drop than ours, which means there are flat pools of calm water followed by a drop. And drop it did. We were dropping down waterfalls 2 or 3 meters in height before we reached the big one - a 7 meter drop that is a Class V! Basically I just kicked hard into it and held on for dear life. It actually wasn’t as bad as it looked. We had an awesome time and it was really good to experience a different river than the Kawarau.

Our last afternoon in Rotorua we drove around a bit more, did some more souvenir shopping, and drove back out to the river to show Steph where Bjorn and I had conquered. From there we have 2 more nights, which we decided to use by taking a long, scenic drive up towards Auckland through the Coromandel Peninsula. I’ll post something on that soon.

You may be a little confused about the timing of this post. We are actually sitting in the airport and leave in about 45 minutes to start our journey home, but are trying to catch up with these posts. It’s such a hassle to get internet in this country! It’s even a hassle to find somewhere to plug in the laptop. We’ll be home on the evening of the 23rd - our first stop after the airport is the Chick-fil-a Dwarf House in Hapeville (461 North Central Avenue). We will be meeting some family and friends there about 7pm if anybody wants to come say hi!

Goodbye South Island

The day has finally come. Tomorrow morning we get on a plane and fly to Auckland. It will be sad to leave the South Island, which has been our home for about 8 months now, but we are excited to see a bit of the North. The good news is that we sold our car! Woohoo! We had a couple people look at it, and a lot of texts asking about it, but we ended up selling it today to this crazy kiwi lady with hairy arm pits. Maybe crazy isn't the right word - eclectic is more like it. She plans to convert it to run on propane and went on and on about her trip through Georgia and the southeast US and all the interesting people she met and places she went.

In the meantime, we're staying our last two nights in a cool little hotel in downtown Christchurch called Hotel SO. It's really trendy and high tech, yet pretty cheap at $99 NZD per night including breakfast and, surprise surprise, free internet! The room is tiny, but its got tons of gadgets that Steph has been experimenting with. The bathroom is this little pod surrounded by frosted glass in the corner of the room and you can change the lighting color in there to about 6 different "moods". There is a control panel by the bed where you can control all the lighting, alarm system, etc. You can set the lights to turn off slowly over 15 or 30 minutes to help you fall asleep. For an alarm in the morning, the lights slowly turn on and if that still doesn't wake you up, the TV turns on to a "wake up" channel with live camera facing the sunrise plus apparently a wake up song of some sort. It's a cool hotel.

So like I said, tomorrow morning we fly to Auckland for 4 days campervan-ing around the North Island. See you in Rotorua!

Locked Up Abroad

About 8 months in New Zealand, minding our own business, and sure enough Steph and I spent last night in a jail cell. We’ll be there tonight too. Jailhouse Hostel that is, a hostel built from a converted jail in Christchurch. Had you going didn’t I? It is actually a pretty cool hostel - our room was literally a jail cell, and still has the heavy iron door. We’ve made it to Christchurch and are currently working on selling our car before flying out on Monday. Shouldn’t be a problem selling it, though we may have to drastically reduce the price if we don’t find a buyer soon. First a rewind to our last days in Queenstown and getting from there to here…

I know I promised a bungy jump and canyon swing before I left, but I never got around to it. It’s too bad, since they would have been free, but we were pretty busy with work, moving out, and taking care of all the little things we had to do before leaving town. There was a Super 14 rugby game on the Saturday before we left, which is made up of 14 teams from New Zealand, Australia, and South Africa. We saw the Highlanders from NZ play a team from Australia. The venue, along with the weather and the setting, was great as we sat on a grass embankment around the field to watch the game. The rugby game unfortunately wasn’t so great, especially since the hometown Highlanders led most of the way but got blown out in the last 10 minutes. Rugby is all right to watch, but I still don’t really get the appeal. At least it’s better than cricket. Or netball. Ugh.. don’t get me started.

It was kind of sad to leave town and say goodbye to all our friends, but most of them we’ll probably see again. Some of them we might meet up with while traveling, and most of the river boarding crew will be back next summer. Whether or not we stay for another season, we’ll be back in Queenstown in December so will get to see everyone again. It was starting to get cold though, especially at night, so at least that made us feel ready to head north to warmer waters. From Queenstown we did have to briefly head south to Gore, as we had a couple days planned on a dairy farm with our friend Sean. To be honest we weren’t looking forward to this, but it turned out to be great. Sean lives in a nice house on the farm with a couple other guys. It’s pretty isolated, but good honest work and he is an amazing painter, so he’ll have plenty of time to do that in his off time. They were able to talk me into getting up at 4 am for the morning milking shift (Steph slept). Let’s just say that getting up was the easiest part, as you are constantly dodging cow urine and feces as you do the milking. Three hours later and I was pretty nasty from the splatter, but no direct hits so I was happy. We did manage to get Steph to milk a couple cows before we left, though she stayed pretty clean.

While we weren’t helping Sean with his farm duties we were continuously entertained by their resident cat and it’s two 6-week-old kittens. They were adorable as they scampered around and attacked anything that moved.

We said goodbye to yet another friend and headed north towards Christchurch. Originally we planned on spending a night or two by Lake Tekapo to see first-hand the “clearest skies in the Southern Hemisphere” and really experience it through the nearby observatory. Regrettably it was quite cloudy as we drove up there, and we were pretty concerned about selling the car in only 5 days, so we kept moving and came straight to Christchurch.

Our mission in Christchurch is simple: sell the car. It is the last thing we have to take care of, and currently feels like a huge load on our backs. Today we spent all day cleaning her up - gave her a nice wash down and a vacuum, and bought some amazing Turtle Wax cleaning stuff that removed all the scuff marks from our little wreck a while back. The last piece of the puzzle is to get a replacement front blinker casing and side mirror to replace the one’s that were shattered in said wreck, which we’ll do tomorrow. Even without that completed, through the magic of photography we were able to make some flyers and advertisements to get the buzz going. We’re keeping our fingers crossed that someone will bite soon.

While out and about fixing up the car today, we did stumble upon a couple little gold mines that we are really excited about. The first was the “dollar store” which was really just an Asian grocer. We went in looking for a FOR SALE sign and maybe some tire cleaner. They had neither, but did sell Dr Pepper. I know this doesn’t sound like much to all of you, but this felt better than finding money in a coat pocket. I’m not even a big Dr Pepper drinker back in the US, but this was the real thing. Sure, we can get Coke, Sprite, as well as other name brand things from back home (Doritos just came to NZ, for example), but all of these things are made in Australia and quite simply don’t taste the same. This was Dr Pepper, made in the good ol’ USA and boy was it delicious. I drank the entire room temperature can right there. Later we went back in and found A&W root beer and cream soda, which we saved for dinner. I’ve been searching for root beer the entire time I’ve been here, just didn’t think to check Asian grocery stores. While I was enjoying my Dr Pepper, we wandered next door to the Funky Pumpkin, a fruit and veggie store. Nothing out of the ordinary here, except for the cool name, but it sure was cheap! We loaded up with all the fruit and vegetables we could possibly want and even got two small watermelons thrown in for free! We took a picture of our bounty so you all could share in our joy. You have no idea how happy this made us. Little victories, I guess.

All this for $22 NZD!! That's about $15 US!

So now we’re just playing the waiting game in Christchurch. There should be plenty to do - we’ve seen a movie theater, go-karts, putt-putt, and we’ve already checked out the arcade. Plus, the beach is close by if we want to wander around a bit. We’ll check back in a few days before we fly up to Auckland to let you know how the car selling went.

A Beautiful, Expensive Day

We've finally done it. Sucked it up and solidified our plans for the rest of 2010 by booking our 'around the world' tickets. Here is a rundown of what you, faithful readers, have to look forward to in the coming weeks and second half of the year:

April 11th - leave Queenstown. It's going to be bittersweet, but we are ready to go (Steph especially). We plan to visit a friend who is currently working at a dairy farm, spend a couple nights stargazing near Lake Tekapo, then hang around Christchurch for a few days trying to sell our car.

April 19th - Fly from Christchurch to Auckland. We already have a campervan booked, so we'll pick that up and spend a few days touring the North Island. The only place we are definitely going is Rotorua for its volcanic activity, some souvenir shopping, and maybe even sledging.

April 23rd - Fly from Auckland to Los Angeles. We get into LA at 5:30 in the morning, so we went ahead and booked a 10:30am flight home to Atlanta! Our official arrival back in Atlanta is 5:44pm. Chick-fil-a here we come!

Three months in the US - weddings, working, visiting friends and family, etc.

July 16th - Los Angeles to Mexico City. We have about a week to gorge ourselves on the last decent Mexican food we will find for probably the next 5+ months, plus visits to ancient Mayan and Aztec ruins.

July 23rd - Mexico City to Lima. Peru is one of the destinations we are most looking forward to - we plan to walk to Inca Trail to Machu Pichu, take a riverboat down the Amazon River, and possibly visit Lake Titicaca and the salt flats of Bolivia.

August 9th - Lima to Quito. Unfortunately we'll probably have to skip Ecuador's most famous (and expensive) attraction of the Galapagos Islands, but there should be plenty of wildlife watching, volcanic hikes, and chillin' on the equator to fill our 10 days or so.

August 19th - Quito to Santiago. Luckily for us, this is really the only region of the world that we will be visiting at a bad time - it'll be the middle of winter in Chile. We'll just have to take advantage and spend a couple days skiing the Andes before traveling by bus through Argentina to Buenos Aires, then Igazu waterfall, before hitting the beach and partying in Rio de Janeiro!

September 6th - Rio to London. We have about 17 days planned for Europe. We haven't decided what exactly we'll do quite yet, but we'll probably fly to Spain or Italy and work our way from there back through France to London.

September 23rd - London to Cairo. Egypt is another destination that we are super excited about - cheap, exotic, and lots to see and do. After a few days navigating the streets and markets of Cairo we'll travel up the Nile to visit pyramids, tombs, and mummies. Next we hope to ferry across the Red Sea for some apparently amazing snorkeling and diving before following Moses' footsteps up Mount Sinai.

October 9th - Cairo to Amman. Originally we had no desire to visit the Middle East, but since we would have to pass through here anyway, we might as well stay for a visit. The more we looked into it the cooler it sounds. Who wouldn't want to visit holy sites in Israel and the amazing carved rock city of Petra in Jordan?

October 18th - Amman to Bangkok. Southeast Asia is the backpacker's mecca. We'll spend 3+ weeks visiting remote jungle villages, sampling authentic Thai food, and if we get tired of all that - sit on the beautiful beaches of southern Thailand.

November 11th - Bangkok to Tokyo. Another destination that we kind of had no choice but to fly through, we'll only be able to afford about 5 days in the Land of the Rising Sun.

November 17th - Tokyo to Beijing. This is really about seeing some of China's - and also the world's - must-see destinations. The Great Wall, Forbidden City, Terracotta Army, plus it'd be cool to see the Water Cube and Bird's Nest in person.

November 26th - Beijing to Hong Kong. A few days to explore this mega city and do some serious shopping.

November 29th - Hong Kong to Cairns. Cairns is the gateway to the Great Barrier Reef, so expect a lot of snorkeling and diving during our week here, as well as day trips along the coast and into the outback to see some crocs and other Aussie wildlife.

December 6th - Cairns to Sydney. Who knows? We have about a week, so maybe we'll travel around searching for koalas and kangaroos, or maybe we'll just hang out on Bondi Beach for a week.

December 15th - Sydney to Queenstown. That's right, back to Queenstown. If it were up to me we'd settle down for another summer of riversurfing and hiking here, but I think Steph would rather move on. We may end up coming home right away, stay here for a few months, or maybe even try somewhere else for a while. It's a long way off, with a lot to see and do before then.

So that's it! I'm exhausted just typing all of it, but it should be an amazing 5 months and we can't wait to get started! Counting down 18 more days until we are back in Atlanta!!

Dunedin to Queenstown

There's not much to say. I'm a bum. Here's the rest of the story from my mom's trip down here.

From Dunedin we had a flight booked to Stewart Island, which is the "third" island of New Zealand - a fairly large island just south of the South Island. It has a population of something like 400 people and is known as a birder's paradise - one of the best places to see the elusive kiwi in the wild. Luckily for us, this was about the time the weather turned really bad, with gale force winds and a little rain thrown in there for good measure. Apparently the planes are "designed to fly in high winds", as we were told at the airport. The check-in guy didn't seem too concerned. Turns out he is a multi-tasker, since he was standing at the door to take our tickets when it was time to board. He even walked us out to the plane and got us seated. Then...wait...why is he getting in? Oh yes, he was also the pilot! Stephanie was a complete basket case the entire flight, but I can't blame her since it was pretty stinking scary. That little plane was getting blown all over the place. At least we didn't take the boat.

Stewart Island is a beautiful, relatively unspoilt place. Unfortunately we didn't get to see too much of it since it rained the entire stinking time we were there. Still, we were able to get out and do some hikes, battling the winds and rain. 

acting!

Steph and Pen enjoying all the ferns

We weren't lucky enough to see any kiwis, but did see a massive sea lion and lots of birds, including the kaka, or "forest parrot" (similar to the 'alpine parrot', the kea, but not to be confused with the rare and flightless parrot the kakapo - try to keep up). When we couldn't take any more rain and wind, we sat in the visitor center and watched dvd's documenting all the flora and fauna we were missing out on. 

cove on Stewart Island coast

The flight home from Stewart Island was no less frightening, made worse by the new pilot chatting it up with a co-ed friend seated in the co-pilot seat as well as texting on his phone. The weather was so bad the ferry was cancelled. Happy to be on solid ground, we headed up to Te Anau for one last night on the road. Once there, we booked our Milford Sound tour for the next day, found a place to stay, and crashed for the night. Luckily for us, the weather cleared for our trip to Milford, since last time Steph and I were there it was rainy and cloudy (still amazing - actually possibly better, but it was good to see it both ways). We made the mandatory stops on the way up there at all the overlooks and scenic spots, dodging the tour bus crowds as best as we could. 

aptly named Mirror Lakes

The boat cruise itself was pretty good. We saw seals splashing around and laying out in the sun, but no dolphins or penguins this time. We did get to directly under a waterfall thanks to the smaller boat size, during which Steph and I got absolutely soaked. You expect it to be similar to a hard rainfall, but it turns out to be quite a bit more water than that. 

this is what the fjord looks like on a clear day - Mitre Peak still covered by cloud on left

hanging valley

getting soaked in a waterfall on the boat

After Milford Sound we drove all the way back to Queenstown for my mom's last couple days before she had to leave. We had a few action-packed days planned, but we had already done a lot and my mom's ankle was far from healed, so we took it fairly easy. Steph and my mom went to the Kiwi Birdlife Park in town so they could actually see a live kiwi in person. My mom wanted to see riversurfing in action (was going to take her, but the ankle thing...) so we went to the bungee jumping bridge to watch them float under. While we were there they let me jump for free! We drove out to Arrowtown for some sightseeing and souvenir shopping. On her last day, since she had an afternoon flight, we drove out to Glenorchy for a brief hike on the Routeburn. It was great to have her visit and really good that she was able to "harden up" and push through the sprained ankle, which I'm sure didn't feel too good. We were sad to see her go, but comforted that it would only be about a month until we came home!

my jump from K-bridge - world's first commercial bungee site

We've been staying busy since my mom left and can hardly believe we'll be home in 3 weeks!! Steph hasn't been working, but has had more than enough work keeping the house clean as we try to find new tenants to move in. Our roommate Simon had a bit of a scare a couple weeks ago when he went flying over his handlebars of his bike and nearly split his skull open. A couple ambulance rides and a long day in the hospital later and he was cleared with a concussion and some nice road rash - he was lucky. I've been actually working quite a bit and generally trying to enjoy my last few days in Queenstown. In the next week I still have another bungee jump to do as well as a giant swing across a nearby canyon, so wish me luck with that. We don't have our flight home booked quite yet, but should in the next few days. We have however planned out or last couple weeks in New Zealand - leave Queenstown on the 11th, giving us about a week to make our way up to Christchurch and try to sell the car. On the 19th we fly to Auckland, where we pick up a campervan for a few days before we fly back to the US on the 23rd! Woohoo!!