Wine tours, sky diving, bungie, bubbling mud pools, smelly cities, etc. December 26, 2007

Happy Boxing Day. Yes it is the 26th of December and an obscure holiday called Boxing day. Basically everyone gets the day off and shops for sales. We are in Sydney, but I have not written for so many days that I am going to go back in time and write about a time long, long ago, taking up where I left you all off, in Wellington. BUT FIRST check out the links I added to the right. ——–>

They are links to ALL of the sets of photos I have put up, exciting isn’t it? Okay on with the fun stuff.

12.19.07 we spent the day in Wellington. We went to a great museum called Te Papa, which I thought was like Italian for YOU POPE, but apparently it is Maori for…something. There was a lot of Maori stuff, very pretty, LOTS of Jade and weird looking sculptures with intricate design. We hiked around the city a lot, took a trolley to the Botanical gardens which were gorgeous, and met up with our hosts Leon and Donna and had some good Malaysian food, followed by a tour of the Wellington movie industry, plus some scenes where Lord of the Rings was filmed, and Peter Jacksons house, sweet as (kiwis say that a lot, it’s short for sweet as gold, but it sounds a LOT like they are saying sweet ass, and it’s really funny).

12.20.07 We hopped on the bus and headed to Napier. It was a pretty drive, still rainy, and Napier is a cute little city on the beach. We got to the hostel and rented (they say hired) a tandem bicycle to bike around to some wineries and breweries for “TASTING.” It was all free and we got significantly sloshed, but don’t worry we still biked safe. We went to Mission winery, Church st. Winery, and a brewery tasting room. All were excellent, and when we got back we went with our Scottish friend Kevan for some Mongolian BBQ and to a market for cheese and wine (Church St. Chardonnay, and some other local CabSav). We watched the movie Whats Eating Gilbert Grape at the hostel, drank more wine, and were hit by a rather large earthquake.  Napier region is well known for a huge earthquake it had in the early 1900’s or so that devastated large cities and killed many, so we were a little freaked out this would be a bit like that.  It wasn’t.  At the epicenter it was a 6.8, but that was way off the coast and we only felt a light shaking, it was Kevan’s first earthquake though!

12.21.07 We arrived in Taupo by midday and booked a skydive shortly thereafter.   Bus picked us up and we headed to the airfield.  Already I was completely terrified, but I knew I was going to go through with it.  They have a 100kg weight limit however (since it is a tandem dive) and I weighed out by 8kg… It was definitely bittersweet to have my fear flee, but be instantly replaced with regret.  We waited about an hour and it was soon enough Jessie’s turn to dive!  I waited on the ground and took a video of her floating elegantly to the ground (with a thud on her butt).  She absolutely loved it and since has been itching to go again, maybe in Australia they won’t have so strict weight limit?

I regained some pride later in the day by bungy-jumping by a beautiful river.  I had the attendant play some metal through her iPod to calm my nerves; some Rob Zombie sure did help!  I also knew I wouldn’t be able to jump myself out of fear, so I just had her randomly push me.  It was really fun, though made me crazy dizzy, and I opted for a “wet” jump which dunked me into the river all the way to my knees!

We followed the river up a bit to a natural hot spring which made for wonderful bathing.  The current was strong, and the water warm, it was fantastic.   We went back to the hostel and had some celebratory wine, cheese, and crackers (I know; AGAIN, right?  We had to finish our leftovers).

12.22.07 We bussed up to Huka falls, a lovely bright blue torrent through the same river I bungied.  Then we made our way to some bubbling mud pits from the volcanic activity in the area near Rotorua.  We stopped in Rotorua which is by far the smelliest city I have been to, primarily from the sulfur pits, and volcanic vents within and surrounding the entire city.  We took a hike through the museum gardens and along the beach.  There were some beautiful blue birds inhabiting the area, and TONS of black swans that seemed to love the heat and acidity of the sulfuric water.  All along the hike were pools of bubbling water, and it constantly reeked of rotting eggs and fermented squid semen (not that I know what that smells like). 

We got back on the bus only three hours later and headed to Mt. Maunganui which is basically just a big surf city.  We hiked through main street and along the beach.  Attempted some body surfing in the waves, but didn’t have good conditions then we hiked to the top of the mountain where the view and sunset was gorgeous!  On the way down I chased some sheep through the fields, went back through the city and fell fast asleep.

12.23.07 Our final bus ride back to Auckland was mostly uneventful.  When we arrived we hopped on a train and got picked up by Hannah Mulgrew to head back to Karekare.  We spent an awesome night and morning with the Mulgrews who are definitely the greatest hosts ever and in the afternoon of the 24th Liah (sp?) took us to the Auckland airport to fly to Sydney.

We landed in Sydney without a problem, checked into our hotel and took a quick survey of our surroundings and got some groceries for the next few days we are here.  Then we hiked around Darling harbor with the other thousands of people doing the same in the brightly lit harbor.  It was a pretty evening and being very tired from the 2 hours time change, headed to our room a bit early to go to sleep.  Our room is insane, it is called “the Church” because of the stained glass windows and we share it with 28 other people!  X-Mas eve was aweful trying to sleep as everyone was sloppy drunk and wearing santa hats.  The couple on the bunk below us were so crazy drunk and horny that they even started doing it below us.  Even us laughing at them and making our own noises and shaking the bed didn’t stop them, they were like dirty, drunken apes and it was really quite gross.  Anyway we finally fell asleep when everyone had shut up…but hey you cannot beat the price we’re paying!!!  (And no one could host us during the holidays through Couchsurfing).

12.24.07 X-Mas day!!!  It was quite a slow day.  The drunken masses out again in their little santa hats and girls in their stupid shirts that said stuff like “Dear Santa…define good.”  Little clones of one another, and I thought New Zealand had a lot of sheep?!  We made our way to Bondi beach which is sort of a tradition.  it was a lovely beach and a lot of people were out partying and picnicking, but we were far more interested in the scenery.  We sat and read and hiked along the cliffs and had quite a good time.  The rest of the day we spent relaxing, and saw the movie Beowulf in 3-D which beyond from all the cheesiness what quite entertaining. 

That’s about it so far.  We had an ASTOUNDING night tonight, but I’ll save that for the next blog to write tomorrow.  Goodnight all, merry X-Mas to all the Americans!  Happy Boxing day to us!

Trains, boats, and automobiles December 21, 2007

Yesterday (12.18.07) we started our day at 5:45am, jumped into a cab at 6am and then into the free shuttle to the train station. By 7am we were in the train and off to Picton, which is located on the far north tip of the south island. It was a great train ride except for all of the rain and how exhausted we were feeling and slept through the first part of the trip…but once we were awake and able to enjoy it, the trip was quite nice. We cruised right next to the ocean for a little under 2 hours and even saw some seals hanging out on the rocks.

By 1 pm we arrived in Picton and dashed to the ferry depot across the street to hop onto the Interislander Ferry, which we would have missed if we were even five minutes later. The ferry was massive, it had 10 decks, with several restaurants, a bar, a movie theatre, reclining seating areas and even a truckers lounge…it was pretty overwhelming and totally unexpected…all we were expecting was some benches to sit on and maybe a coffee stand. The ferry ride took 3 hour in all and was very painless.

We were picked up at the ferry depot in Wellington by our very lovely couchsurfing host Leon and his housemate Kat, which was a relief after an extremely long day of travel. They were really welcoming and we had a tasty Kiwi style BBQ for dinner and helped us figure out what to do while in the city.

-Jessica

ChristChurch December 21, 2007

Taking up where I left off…

(12.16.07) Lake Tekapo was a nice place. Along the way we saw the brightest blue water I have ever seen in my life. I really never knew water could be so incredibly blue…and I knew I had to jump in. Well I had my chance once we reached Lake Tekapo and against the advice of some locals about how freezing cold the glacier water was, I dove in anyway. It honestly was not colder than Northern Cal ocean water, and was quite refreshing, relaxing, and incredibly picturesque with snow capped mountains in the distance.

The rest of the day was spent just tramping around the city. We visited quite a very quaint and cute stone church on the ocean and got some great pictures with the surrounding lupins of various colors. We hung out with some friends we’d made and found ourselves soon with a group of various folks on a hike to a high peak for a view of the sunset. We all got lost and at some point split up, but Jess and I managed to find the path to the very highest peak. It was about an hour and a half hike and we forgot water so we were quite parched the whole time. We caught just the butt end of the sunset over the lake from near the top. We reached top as the stars began to come out, and gazed for a bit fighting against winds almost knocking us on our asses.

The hike down was fun, and we slept very well after all the hiking around. When we awoke we jumped right on the bus again and headed to ChristChurch (12.17.07). This time around the city was FAR more entertaining than our miserable wait in the middle of the night last time we were here. We met with our couchsufer host who let us put our bags in his car while we hiked about the city (he was at work).

We toured through the city and made our way to the famous cathedral square, which is quite stunning, and met up again with some UK friends and later our Colorado friends (from the Oamaru adventure) and we all went to the Christchurch art gallery. The gallery was fantastic; the highlight being some incredible portraits of Maori people with their intricate facial tattoos, as well as some really crazy modern art, most interesting was a talking cardboard box (more fun than it sounds). We also headed to a local museum for a bit and through a touch of botanical gardens to kill some time.

After all that jazz we hopped on a bus to the Ko Tane Maori experience. It was a bit cheesy but lots of good acting, costumes, makeup and told a great story of the lives of the Maori during the first colonization of the “pale skins.” The village they re-created was great and the whole show was followed with a Hangi which is the traditional way the Maori used to cook. A Hangi is similar to Hawaiian styles, burried underground with hot rocks, but Jess and I had to poke a bit of fun at the fact that 90% of what they served was stuff brought in by the pale skins (ie chicken, lamb, cranberries, potatoes, etc), but it tasted fantastic (and in their defense most meat the Maori ate traditionally has gone extinct, or near).

After that we got dropped off downtown where we walked along the beautiful Avon river running through the city to our Couchsurfing host Shane’s house. We chatted it up with some fun dutch girls also staying there and fell fast asleep.

-Dave

PENGUINS!?! December 15, 2007

(12.15.07) Currently we are in Oamaru at an incredible hostel, with free internet as well, whoo hoo! We’ve seen tons of penguins, but I’ll get back to that in a moment; allow me to take off where Jess ended the last post.

(12.11-13.07) After our awesome trip through Queenstown which consisted of Milford Sound, much hiking around town, hanging out with these two awesome Korean girls, cooking, and drinking local beers, we headed to Dunedin. (12.14.07) Dunedin was mildly uneventful as all the college students are home for the summer/X-mas holidays (I know, it’s cool…actually warm!). We had a free place to stay that we found through Couchsurfing. The guy was nice, though the house was just some run down frat-like house, but we had a cozy bed!

We spent most of our day just hiking around the town, going from high spot to high spot to get good shots of the city. We snooped around the shops a bit, Jess got a cool necklace, we explored local architecture, and we ate some sushi, then went to bed, nothing too exciting.

(12.15.07) Next morning back on the bus and we went to the “steepest road in the world.” I made the silly mistake of accepting a race challenge, and about 1/4 of the way I thought my heart was going to explode. Apparently it is WAY steeper than it looked from below. It took a good half hour to regain my breath, though the guys I raced all had the same problem, so I didn’t feel too bad about losing.

On the way to Oamaru we stopped in Moeraki to see some HUGE, perfectly round boulders plopped right on the beach. Imagine giant geodes that a human would fit in! After some hopping around, we ate lunch and soon landed in Oamaru. No one else from the bus stayed the night in Oamaru except us; big mistake on their part.

We got in around 11am. Checked into our amazing hostel, got some info about sites, and trekked away. We stopped by some pretty sandstone churches, and gazed at the stained glass, then headed across the train tracks toward the Whitestone cheese factory. Along the way we saw our first penguin…dead on the RR tracks! The cheese was fantastic, and we met randomly with another couple from Colorado we’d met in Dunedin. We got some great Camembert and the four of us went to the grocery store to get provisions for a picnic on the beach.

On the way to the beach we walked through town and were awed by all the random crap; sandstone carvers, blacksmiths, old theatres, and an old whiskey distillery, all open to the public. The whiskey distillery had the greatest deal I ahve ever seen, 4 samples for $2. Three huge shots New Zealand Malt Whiskeys aged 10, 12, and 15 years (15 was my favorite), a small glass of port and one of Cabarnet Merlot. With the massive alchohol percentage, and being the only one who really like whiskey, I got a bit sloshed. We took a self tour of the storage facility, drank some organic beer from Dunedin and headed for the hill for penguin hunting.

We tramped through some hills that held an old fort during WWII (yeah I guess they fought too!?) and picknicked facing the ocean. We ate the cheeses (also a strong blue they shared) with crackers and fantastic local red wine then hiked down the beach collecting shells, and tramping through the rocks and water. The tide unfortunatly cut us off from the yellow-eyed penguin beach, but no matter as we were to see them the next morning.

At some point we headed back to the blue penguin observatory, past the pillow lava, and witness our first Little Blue Penguins (their official name…I’m not joking). We saw 2 babies inside wooden homes the conservation facility built, and saw a little blue just coming onto the rocks to come home. At 8:45 the “show” started. A bunch of people crowded into the bleachers and a guide made commentary about the little guys. As it got dark, the yellow lights came on so we could see them, but penguins are blind to yellow light, so it was pitch black to them. Soon they came in in groups of 20 or so at a time. They would wait behind rocks and, like WWI soldiers crossing no-mans land, made a mad spriont for their homes where they would hang out and make cute noises once they found their young.

On the walk home, the blue penguins absolutely flooded the streets. Every 10 feet we’d find a little group scurrying through the shadows trying to find their burrows, it was unbelievably cute. (PICTURES TO COME!) We slept at about 11 after a long, exhilirating day to wake up at 5:30am and taxi to the yellow-eyed penguin beach. All in all we saw maybe 15 penguins this morning. 7 waddling their way to the ocean and plopping clumsily into the water to go fish all day, and others just hanging out in the hills. A group of four let us get extremely close and take some awesome photos! We headed back, and now we await our bus to take us to Lake Tekapu!

Cheers,

-Dave

Driving, driving and more driving December 13, 2007

So we have spent a lot of time waiting, and driving and waiting to drive….on the morning of the 11th we were ready to leave Franz Joseph for Queenstown but the road was washed out (big mudslide) and had to wait till around noon to leave, which wasn’t horrible. But they sent our bus away so we had to travel on an Intercity (different company) bus and they kept attempting to change buses, but never succeeded unless you consider sitting around for hours on end with nothing to do a success! Plus our driver was a complete jerk and never once apologized and never really told us what was going on, a very frustrating day to say the least…don’t worry we are going to complain to Magic Bus tours, but we are not holding our breaths.

We didn’t get driving to Queenstown till about 4pm and because we were so late we didn’t get to stop at all of the places they normally let you out for a picture and a view, our driver actually refused to stop at any point, even when someone had to pee, they had to ask several times. It was also pouring rain for the entire day and very overcast so we couldn’t see much of the mountains around us, but the fog made for a dramatic scene and because it had been dumping rain for so long the rivers were roaring and there were waterfalls coming from everywhere, literally a waterfall of some size every few feet in some areas!

We did go on a 40 minute walk to get a view of Lake Matheson (outside of Fox Glacier) which was beautiful but got sopping wet in the process, all apart of the experience right? That was what we kept telling ourselves as we got drenching wet anytime we walked anywhere the past few days, it felt quite strange when water wasn’t dumping on us yesterday and today. We didn’t get into Queenstown until 10:30/11 pm….

(12.12.07) The next morning we got up bright and early at 7am to get on the bus to Milford Sound (a famous world heritage site/national park) the drive there was about 4 hours and then we got to the harbor at 2pm, got on for a two hour cruise plus free lunch. On the drive we saw the local parrot, called Kea, they were really mischevious and were chewing on the bus and posing for pictures, really awesome! It wasn’t perfectly clear but it was still stunning and we both wish we had more time to camp there and explore, but without a car that is nearly impossible…a bit frustrating but we will know exactly what we want to do next time we visit this part of the world. We also saw some seals hanging out on a rock in the Fiord and some huge waterfalls that the boat got right up close to, we could feel the power of the water crashing down, it was amazing!

Almost immediatley after we got back on the bus and headed back for Queenstown… a whirlwind of a trip but very enjoyable and our bus driver was really awesome and ended up talking to him alot (we were sitting in the front)! Today we are hanging out in the city and tomarrow off to Dunedin, a cool college town on the coast!

-Jessica

Franz Josef December 10, 2007

(12.11.07) We arrived in Franz Josef yesterday from Greymouth and quickly jumped on a half day glacier hike. The hike was 4 hours of absolute amazing scenery! The glacier was muddy at first, but made way for some gorgeous blue ice. Since we arrived however it has been dumping rain all over us, and the hike was a constant downpour. Thankfully the agency we hiked with provided rain gear since it rains 150 days of the year here. It has not let up rain once since we’ve been here, even this morning. It has been so bad that the roads were closed and we got stuck in this city for a lot longer than expected, but we are leaving soon. Anyway gotta go, times running out on the meter. I’ll add photos and more later.

-Dave

Greetings from Greymouth, NZ December 9, 2007

Okay I am typing fast and furious because I’m on the timer at a Hostel, but I want to update everyone. In Auckland we met with a STA Travel associate and booked ourselves a huge bus tour around NZ for a great deal, starting in Christchurch. It would have ended up costing a lot more if we did it any other way.

So we flew Saturday (12.08.07) from Auckland to Christchurch via Quantas. Christchurch sucked, but really only because we had to wait forever for a bus downtown surrounded by the most obnoxious, drunk, testosterone driven alpha males, and slutty sloppy drunk girls stumbling by. The hostel was amazing once we got to it. It is an old jail turned into a Hostel and we stayed in a jail cell, FAR more comfortably than the prisoners I assure you, it was appropriatly named The Jailhouse Hostel.

(12.10.07) In the morning we jumped on a VERY scenic train from ChCh to Greymouth. It was a few hours of absolute gorgeous countyside of glacier, farm fields, cows, sheep, tropical trees and plants, etc, (pictures to come later!) We arrived in Greymouth where we are now staying at by far the nicest Hostel I could ever imagine, Global Village. Free Kayaking, free bikes to take around, huge WELL stocked kitchen (we cooked a stir fry curry tonight), excellent rooms, Hot tub, Sauna, gym and only $23 per person per night! We biked around the city, got stuck in POURING rain; went shopping for food via bike in the rain (hey we were already wet) then warmed up after with a super relaxing hour in the hot tub.

Now fun pop-indian music fills my ears and beer and chocolate my mouth, as I sit at this computer in the comfy living room with a roaring fire, amongst some fun German couple we’ve met, our italian roomate, and some cool Japanese guy who loves cats. Tomorrow, FRANZ JOSEF for some HeliHiking in the glaciers! Love you all, gotta go, $2 doesn’t go too far on this computer.

-Dave

NEW ZEALAND! December 5, 2007

(12.06.07, we skipped a day, that’s why all the dates on the blog are off from US dates)

After a very simple flight of 2 1/2 movies and a long nap we touched down in New Zealand. Joe’s mum Viv picked us up from the airport and drove all the way home on the left side of the road. So far this country is absolutely beautiful; full of lush green tropical plants, curvaceous roads, cute little towns, and gorgeous beaches; one of which lies only minutes from the Mulgrew household. It was pouring rain up until a few moments ago, and the landscape is thick with fog; I can’t imagine how great it will look when the weather clears up. We are a ways outside of any city and in the middle lots of green. Viv cooked a great breakfast including vegemite and some fantastic bacon and eggs. They have two cute labradors and a few playful cats as well as some cows and chickens. So far everything is wonderful, and I believe it only gets better from here. I think we are going to go on a hike right now, and tomorrow work with Joe’s sister’s fiancee at his macadamia nut farm.

-Dave