opua

I drove back to Whangarei this morning to do a little more shopping since I’ll be far from any large towns at the sailing school in Opua. I picked up some more oil for the car (had to use some to top it up, so will need more for the oil change), a snorkel since mine broke in Rarotonga, and a Sesame Street tshirt from Farmer’s, just because.

I drove up to Opua, and met up with the Dunns at the office. Cindy was headed in to town (Paihia) to do some shopping, so I rode along with her to catch up and discuss my ‘terms of employment,’ which are fairly loose.

I'm living in a caravan again, just like at the Pujjis, except this one doesn't have power, unfortunately. At least it's got a bed, though - so far in 2008 I've slept in a bed for a total of less than one week!

found it!

I sort of woke up this morning when Ann was leaving, then fell back asleep until a more reasonable hour. I got in a couple of hours of electrical outlet use before check-out time, then began driving back up toward the Bay of Islands. I stopped at the Canterbury store in Whangarei and picked up some shorts, board shorts and a nice big navy tote/gym back that looks like it’ll be useful for sailing. I also stopped by AA and got some maps I was missing, including one for Northland, and decided to try to find the campsite near Tutukaka that Ann and I couldn’t find the other day.

I drove all the way back down the gravel road we took on Sunday night, following the DOC directions to the letter, and again found myself stopping the car suddenly as the road disappeared into the water. I turned around, pulled over, and got out the map, looking for the name of road the campsite was on – the final piece of the DOC directions, which we never managed to reach since we hit a dead end first. I found the road on the map, then realized that if the final road name was right, all of the other directions leading up to it were completely wrong. Hoping that the road name was at least correct, I picked out a route on the map and drove there – and finally found the elusive campsite, nearly 30km from where the directions landed us!

At the site, I did some final reorganization of the car, and pulled out the stuff to do an oil change…then discovered that the ‘all-in-one; adjustable pipe wrench I bought for the filter and drain plug was too ‘strong’ for the drain plug – the plug was frozen, so the ridges in the wrench were starting to strip the nut on the outside of the plug…so the plan was aborted once again. I know they’ll have a lot of tools at the boatyard, though, so I’ll just do it there. Next project was reading about fly fishing and trying to set up my new rod. I made it through one book, but unfortunately it was just tips and not instruction, so didn’t get the rod set up yet.

After dinner, I sorted through some pictures on the computer, read for a bit, then went to sleep.

pakiri beach horse trek & kauris

Guess what we did on our way to the horse trek? That’s right, we got lost! Yeah, we’re kind of used to that by now. So anyway, we got there half an hour late. We had a great time on the trek - just two minutes into it, our horses swam across a river, then we headed to the beach, and went for a leisurely ride along the surf. On the way back, we wound through the dunes, and Ann and I and one other woman went with one of the guides to do some cantering and galloping, while the rest kept to a slower pace on a shorter trail, and we met back up near the end.

Ann’s mother called us last night when we were on our way to Whangarei and she was at the Auckland airport ready to fly back home, and recommended the Kauri Museum in Matakohe, so we backtracked an hour or so to visit it this afternoon. The museum was really impressive, with very interesting exhibits including a full-scale model of a Kauri sawmill. We got a little overloaded halfway through, and decided to leave, but couldn’t because we kept stopping to look at interesting stuff along the way! The Kauri trees were amazingly large, and the amber room, full of petrified Kauri gum, was equally astounding – there were even pieces with whole geckos and frogs preserved in them!

We picked up a quick dinner on our way to the hostel, then unpacked the entire car into the living room of the 2-bedroom suite…and, of course, the woman staying in the other bedroom arrived at the peak of the mess! We did manage to sort out everything that belonged to Ann, and even managed to get everything of mine to fit back in the car. I burned some photo and music CDs for Ann, and then we went to sleep early-ish so Ann could get a couple of hours in before her 5:15 airport shuttle.

great escape

Ann was signed up for another day of diving, but at a cost of $110/dive compared to the $25 I was used to in Utila (Bay Islands, Honduras), I decided to just do one day! Ann had to get up early again for the dive, so I did laundry and took down the tent before heading up to the Bay of Islands to research sailing schools – I want to do a week-long course up there before heading down to Wellington to work for the rest of my time here.

I wasn’t really sure where to start my search, so I just drove in the direction of the islands, stopping along the way in Kawakawa to visit the Hundertwasser Toilets, the ‘most famous public toilets in the world’ – they were designed by an eccentric architect by the name of Hundertwasser, and are a colorful mosaic of glass and tiles.

Next stop was Paihia, where I stopped in at the info center and picked up some sailing brochures before heading to an internet café to do some more research online. I wanted to do a course with internationally recognized certification, so was originally looking at the RYA ones, but at $1500+ per week decided maybe NZ certification would be enough. I took down some phone numbers from my google search, noting with some disappointment that Nelson had the cheapest courses, and started calling around. I didn’t get an answer from the first couple places, and decided to stop by one in nearby Opua to figure out what all the brochure rhetoric meant.

The road to Opua has a unique layout, with the far left lane reserved for vehicles going on the ferry across to nearby Russell. The ferry is off to the right, though, so when you want to keep going straight past the ferry, the ferry cars cut across your lane to board – without any road signs explaining right of way. The ferry cars seem to think they have it even though it goes against all road rules or common sense, but I wasn’t about to argue, so I waited until they’d all boarded to drive up Richardson Street, following the bright yellow AA signs pointing to ‘Yacht Charters.’ At the boatyard, I followed some more signs to Great Escape Yacht Charters and Sailing Schools, reached the office, and found no one home. I walked back up through the boat yard to where I’d seen someone working, and was met by Terry, one of the owners, and Toby, a 19-year old German working for the company. Terry came back down to the office with me and went through the various courses, but told me that I needed to have another person to sign up with. I couldn’t think of anyone who would want to do it and who’d be able to (Ann leaves in under two days), and told Terry, so after we’d talked for a bit he asked if I might like to work there for a month to fill in for Toby, who’d be delivering a boat to Tonga, and whenever someone called up to do a course on their own, I could do it with them. I’d also get to sail for free whenever work was light.

I was hesitant at first because I’d been planning to go straight to Wellington to work after a week of sailing when Ann left, and had been budgeting accordingly, but then remembered that most of the really cool stuff I’ve done here has been stuff that I haven’t planned, just opportunities I’ve decided to take at the spur of the moment. Soo…I decided to take the leap. I know I won’t make nearly as much money, and it’ll be a lot tougher to get a flat and a job when I’ll only have 2.5 months left on my work visa, but I think I’d regret it if I didn’t take this chance. Terry introduced me to his wife Cindy – they just live across the road from the boatyard, in a house on a steep hill surrounded by native vegetation.

I drove back to Tutukaka in a bit of a daze from the unexpected turn of events, stopping along the way to check out a couple of horse trekking places to find one for tomorrow. I picked Ann up from the dive center, and we booked a horse trek near Pakiri Beach, and a room at a hostel right by the Auckland airport for tomorrow night, as Ann has a 7am flight! We stopped for an Indian dinner in Whangarei, then set up camp at the very easy-to-find Uretiti Recreational Reserve near Waipu, a 500-site DOC campground which, fortunately, was nowhere near full capacity.

dive! tutukaka

One of the favorable side effects of sleeping in a car (there aren’t many…) is you’re already awake to see the sunrise. Upon waking (for the third or fourth time) we discovered that our ‘campsite’ was a gorgeous section of surf beach, under a pastel sky.

The dive trip had an 8 o’clock start, so we headed in the direction of the Dive! Tutukaka dive center when we woke up, with Ann quizzing me on dive theory on the way since it had been two years I dove, in Honduras. We had a nice ~1 hour trip out to the Poor Knights Islands from the Tutukaka Coast, then jumped in the ‘warm’ water which didn’t quite compare to what I was used to from the Caribbean or what Ann was used to from the Red Sea! We had two nice dives, with lunch and hot soup in between. We saw tons of morays, some stingrays, toadfish, colorful nudibranchs, and lots of wrasses and angelfish. My favorite part of the dives was when we went up inside an underwater cave on our second one, and poked our heads up into a 2m-wide air bubble – and took out our regulators, breathing without assistance 8m below the surface of the water!! The air was kind of stagnant, so we only took a breath or two, but it was still a cool experience.

On our way back, the guide took the boat into the largest sea cave in the world, and one of the instructors jumped out with a snorkel and underwater camera to take pictures of some sharks poachers had killed and ditched in the cave, so they could be reported to DOC.

After the dive, we checked into a holiday park, showered and changed, and Ann took me out to a really nice dinner at a restaurant on the harbor near the dive center.

lazy sunday

The campground kicked everybody out at 10 am, so we didn’t get to sleep in, but we did everything else possible to make it a lazy Sunday – no rising from the sleep early this Easter! After packing up camp, we drove Lex and Ann’s stuff into town while the rest of us walked, and we stopped at the i-site so they could find a hostel to check into. I called Mom and Dad to say hi and get my PADI number to dive tomorrow, and Ann did some research for a dive center.

We booked a day-long drive trip to the Poor Knights from a dive center in Tutukaka, and after picking out a campground in the DOC book decided based on the distance that we had some time to spare to hang out with Lex and Ann back at their hostel. We went back there, hoping we might be able to sneak in a shower too, but the hostel manager was diligent and I didn’t manage to get one. We called Sabrina - so hard to believe it’s been just over 2 months since she left! I learned the hard way that the $2/hour mobile phone rates for calls to the US turns to $1.35/minute after your first hour is up…and I’d just topped up my phone, so the damage wasn’t cut off by my usually-low balance! Oh well, good to catch up.

Tonight, our frustration with DOC’s N Island campsite directions reached new levels. We drove 28km down a windy, unpaved road to try to find Otamure Bay near Whananaki South, but ended up only finding a flooded coastline as the unpaved road ended unceremoniously and without any warning road signs.

Exhausted from driving through the pouring rain on tough roads, we backtracked and were thinking of just parking outside the dive center when we found a nice beachside pull-off with a few other campers. No spot for a tent, but no matter – we were tired enough to just put on a few extra layers for warmth, lean the seats back, and fall asleep right in the car.

bluesfest nz

The concert didn’t start until 1 pm, so we had time for a leisurely stroll into town to get more camp stove butane cylinders, some food for a bbq, and an adjustable wrench to serve double duty for removing the drain plug and oil filter on the car.

We cooked up yummy hamburgers and veggie patties around noon, then headed over to the concert venue…but it was horribly hot! We came back after less than 2 hours to sit in the shade of our tent, which was close enough to still hear the artists. After the sun went down a bit, we went back to the main concert area to listen to more acts. Highlights of the day were KT Tunstall and Xavier Rudd, both amazing performances.

We were happy not to have to set up camp tonight, one of the few nights we haven’t! Of course, in exchange for that we had the fact we were camping in a paddock that, judging by what was left behind, had cows in it very, very recently, but that’s just part of the fun.

Photos: Xavier Rudd. Ann and Ann at the main stage.

coromandel

Today began with a wonderful bacon, egg and homemade hashbrowns breakfast, then we unpacked the car to reorganize it. I attempted an oil change, but didn’t have a decent wrench for the drainplug, so decided the car would be better off running a bit longer on the old oil than having me rig up something dangerous to get the drainplug out.

We took a little longer organizing the car than we’d realized, and ended up rushing to get to the dive center…we’ve been doing that a lot lately! Just before the appointed time of 1 pm, we arrived at the dive center in Hahei and I plugged my phone in there (so we could get messages from Ann and Lex, who were meeting us to camp at Bluesfest tonight) and went to get ice and some groceries for the weekend.

After the Wildfoods free-for-all campsite scramble, I thought it might be a good idea to drive up to Whitianga to see if I could set up the tent right when the gates opened, and then head back to pick Ann up, so I drove up there – about 45 minutes away. The drive was gorgeous, with views of the blue, blue water at the base of the cliffs along the way. When I got to Whitianga, the signs for the concert and camping were hand-lettered and few and far between – great, looks well-organized! - and I drove around for a while with the concert site frustrating visible but unapproachable without driving straight across the airport landing strip or, as I eventually determined, winding through an industrial park. The guy at the gate said I couldn’t take my car in and out, though, and since it would have been a 6-7 hour walk for Ann, I drove back down to Hahei without setting up camp, but it wasn’t a bad way to spend the afternoon, and at least I knew where the place was.

I got some text from Ann and Lex saying they couldn’t get a bus to the Coromandel until tomorrow, so after I picked up Ann we brainstormed alternative solutions – we could pick them up halfway from Hamilton or Thames, etc. – but all buses anywhere seemed to be booked since it was Easter weekend, so fortunately they were able to convince a driver to take them to Whitianga.

Ann and I set up camp, made some dinner, and waited for Ann and Lex, who unfortunately got dropped off in the center of town and had to walk several kms with their backpacks…so I went to meet them at the entrance to the campground with some ice-cold beer! We caught up for a bit – always great to see them – and then went to sleep to get ready for the big concert tomorrow.

rap, rock n' raft

We got an early start this morning to drive to the caving place at Waitomo. The group was pretty small – just four other people plus the guide. I’d been to Waitomo (“water holes” in Maori) in November, but just did a ‘dry’ option. Not so this time – first stop was at a shed to put on wetsuits, pants to protect the wetsuit, a climbing harness, and helmets with headlamps.

We drove on to the cave, piled out, and hiked down to it. The landscape around the caves is pretty amazing, lots of stacked rounded rocks that look almost like the ruins of old stone buildings, and large green depressions in the ground where more tomos might form many years down the road. Our guide, Stew, taught us rappelling (‘abseiling’ in NZ) techniques on land before we stepped off a ledge to rappel 27m into the mouth of the cave. Once in the cave, we walked around for a bit and saw the glowworms, eels and wetas. Wetas are basically crickets on steroids and can grow to be nearly a foot long if you include their legs in the measurement. They’re what the digital media studio that did the Lord of the Rings trilogy is named after, too. Once we’d done some walking and wading, we picked up inner tubes and floated down the fairly sedate underground river. There’s a drought at the moment, so there weren’t really any rapids, but if I get a chance to come back in the winter I can go again for free to experience the higher waters. We jumped off some rocks, squeezed through some very small holes, slid down muddy rockslides, and then went back to our starting point to rock climb the 27m we’d abseiled on the way down.

After a full day in the cave, some warm soup was in order back at the office, and then we went on our way driving up north-east in the direction of Hahei for diving tomorrow. Ann arranged a dive – I’m saving up for the Poor Knights Islands – and we picked up supplies for an oil change since all the mechanics around were booked solid for the holiday weekend and surrounding days, and we’ve got a lot of driving to do in the next couple days.

Our drive up to the Coromandel Forest was nice, with a stop in Hamilton to get food for the next couple of days, and we found our campsite at Wentworth, an old gold mining settlement, without any drama.

free-fallin'

As we were driving over to Taupo from Rotorua, we were anxiously watching the fog which really didn’t seem to be lifting. We called the skydive place, and they said the fog would burn off and we should still be on, so we went there, signed our lives away, and sat anxiously waiting for our jump. We were joined by about ten other jumpers, and went in and watched a video and got instructions…and then were told the fog hadn’t burned off, and we should come back in an hour and a half.

So, we drove around for a bit, visited the Huka Prawn Park - the world's only geothermally heated shrimp farm, a honey store with tastings, and my favorite - camping/outdoor stores. We called the skydive place at the appointed time, found out we'd be pushed back again, and decided to find some lunch. Thai looked good, so we ordered...and then realized it probably wasn't the best option, a bit spicy and heavy for a small plane ride. Oh well, too late, it tasted good anyway.

When we got back to the skydive place we had to wait around for a bit, drank some tea, decided that was a bad idea, then got suited up and paired with our instructors. My tandem instructor was 'Big M' - Mauritio, a 6'4" Brazilian guy, and Ann had Steve, an American who works as an instructor in Chicago in the NZ off-season. After some cheesy photos, we boarded the little pink plane and then I started to wonder what I had gotten myself into.

Ann convinced me we wanted to do the 15,000ft jump for a longer freefall, so we were shoved in the very back - all eight of us on the plane fit in like puzzle pieces! I was first one in, so last one out. Since we were doing the higher jump, we watched the other two pairs go at 12,000 before climbing 3,000 more feet - with oxgen tubes shoved up our noses. Sexy. So there we are at 15,000...me repeating the instructions over and over in my head ('be the banana' - keep your head up and back, and tuck your legs back, and DO NOT EVER obstruct the instructor's hands. ok, think i got it), and looked at how tiny everything looks on the ground. Then the door slid open, the light went green and Ann was out.

Half a minute later, my turn. It's cold up that high! I moved to the edge of the seat, then somehow I was out of the plane, tumbling, flipping - wait, flipping? I don't remember that being part of the briefing - and falling, falling. Then the chute opened, and we slowed, and made lazy circles in the sky. Lake Taupo was blue and beautiful beneath us, and the ride was actually relaxing now that the chute was open and, as far as I could tell, functioning well. I was amazed how well the guys are able to steer - we all landed right by the photographer at the jump building, with perfect form - I'd been focusing on that for a while, pulling my legs up long before I had to, remembering the two people I know who've broken legs/vertebrae on landing! Everything was smooth, though, and Ann and I barely had time to pose for one quick photo in our jump gear before being whisked away to get the next set of jumpers ready. By the time Ann and I paid, our instructors were back on the ground after another jump!

Unfortunately, things didn't go so smoothly with the camping part of the day. Tired after the day's activities and drive, we searched for an hour for the Piropiro DOC campsite in Pureora Forest Park , seeing signs for it but never finding it even after we drove to the very end of the road. We were tempted to just pull over next to a paddock, but finally decided to backtrack to Ngaherenga, another DOC campsite 40km away (all hostels and holiday parks were closed for the night) but still in the same forest park, pulled in, set up camp, made a quick pasta dinner, and went to bed so we can get up early tomorrow for 'Rap, Rock and Raft' - a day-long cave adventure with black-water (underground) tubing, rappeling, rock climbing and caving in Waitomo.

in hot water

We drove up to Rotorua today, swapping our plans for Taupo until tomorrow since I don’t want to be feeling any less than 100% for our skydive. Ann did a water Zorb, and then we headed down to a holiday park with thermal pools early in the evening.

The thermal pools, of course, didn’t look quite as impressive as the brochure made them out to be, but we still had a relaxing several hours of reading in the pools after we set up camp and made dinner. The pools are drained every night and fill from the streams, which are ridiculously hot – you don’t want to get too close to the inlet!

We booked our skydives this afternoon – tomorrow morning at ten-thirty is the big event! Hope the weather holds up – I know someone who’s been up in the plane two separate days and still hasn’t gotten to jump!

ab workout

I woke up feeling a little off this morning. As we were de-constructing camp, this turned into a bit more than just a little discomfort, and I found myself lying down on the ground in between pulling up tent pegs, in order to get up the energy to pull the next. I couldn’t think of any reason why I’d be feeling so bad, though, so I decided it must be in my head, and just forged on – very slowly still, though. We decided it might be a good idea if Ann drove, and I meditated in the front seat, hugging my pillow for comfort.

About halfway through town, I decided it might be a good idea to have a bag handy, just in case, and emptied out our perfectly-sized map bag for the purpose. Just thought it would be a good comfort thing to have it out, didn’t think I’d use it. Oh, but I did! And here’s an important lesson I learned: carry-holes are not a good feature on barf bags, because if you’re feeling too sick to notice they’re there, bad things happen. Fortunately, I hadn’t had much to eat. So we stopped to get some water and ginger ale for me, and drove on.

I was feeling fabulous after getting whatever bad stuff it was out of my system, and this lasted for a good 45 seconds or so, during which I decided I was 100% okay again and loving life. Then it hit me again, and I went back to being silent passenger, afraid of what might come out if I opened my mouth at all. I significantly decreased our Useful Empty Grocery Bag Supply on the way down, and decided a nap in Ann’s mother’s hotel room might be the best course of action while the rest of them went to a long lunch. Our plan was to head back up north toward Taupo, camp tonight and skydive tomorrow, but Ann’s mother became my personal hero for the day at least when she treated Ann and I to a room next door. Ann and her mom went out to get groceries for dinner while I took a long hot bath (this was during one of my cold phases, which alternated with the sweaty feverish ones, at unpredictable intervals of course, just to make things more interesting).

Sometime in the early evening, after staring at the Saltines Ann and her mom had gotten for me, I decided to exert the tremendous amount of effort required to pick one up and consider eating it. Five or so minutes later, I had polished off the entire cracker, and things just got better from there. I even had a little bit of beef stroganoff!

womad

Today began with a nice big breakfast, then we backtracked a bit to the town of Otaki, shopped for a bit and had a nice salad-y lunch. We got a message from Ann’s mother, who’s been in the country for a week and a half or so but keeps hitting place a day or two after us, saying she’s headed to Whanganui for a few days. We had tickets to the last night of WOMAD (World of Music, Art and Dance), a festival in New Plymouth, so we had to drive past Whanganui today but we made plans to come back down tomorrow to meet up with Ann’s mom and her husband.

We arrived in New Plymouth around 5:30 and decided to get set up camp and get some dinner before the festival – we weren’t thinking about the fact they’d have great international food there! At the festival, we sent a text to the Pujjis to try to meet up with them, but didn’t realize there were six different stages so wasted a bit of time standing around looking confused at what we thought was the main stage while they were off at another. We found Arvind and Jane after a nice wander around the vendor section, where Ann finished up her Christmas shopping, and took their advice on which shows to see. Our favorite by far was a male modern Polynesian dance troupe – they were phenomenal. Oh, and they also happened to be shirtless and have great abs, but we were just paying attention to the cultural side of things.

Another memorable performance was Neil Finn of Crowded House and Split Enz – used to hear one of the Split Enz (why does love…do this toooo meeeeee….) songs nearly every night at the pub so it was interesting to see him in person. In addition to Jane and Arvind, we met up with Dean who stayed at the Pujjis for a month back when I was there in September – it was a little reunion!

Back at camp, we did our laundry and I decided I wanted to do the coastal walk tomorrow morning before we drive back down to Whanganui.

high-wire wellington

We arrived in Wellington (bottom of the North Island) early this morning via the Interislander ferry and tried to find a hostel, but hadn’t realized there was a big cricket match taking up all available accommodation for the whole weekend, so decided we’d just stay for the day and then head up to a DOC site north of the city for the night. I sent a text to Martha, a high school/UVa classmate who moved to Wellington a year and a half ago, and we made plans to meet up for brunch. We met up with her in Miramar, a gorgeous hilly area with beautiful sea views, and had lunch at the Chocolate Frog, a café inside a landscaping store. Neither Ann nor I really likes city driving, so we left the car by Martha’s house and took a bus in to the city to meet up with some of Ann’s friends from Florida who happened to be in Wellington for the weekend, at the start of primarily South Island camping trip.

After morning shopping and then lunch with Ann’s friends and some of their friends from Wellington, we all headed over to a park near the waterfront where we saw an amazing high-wire acrobatic act called Gravity and Other Myths. We also caught the tail end of the dragon boat festival over by the rowing club.

In the afternoon, we left Wellington and drove up along the western coast of the island to the Whanganui area to camp for the night at a basic DOC site.

sounds

Ann and I packed up camp this morning and drove back in to Picton to see about finding a Sounds cruise. We booked one for the afternoon, then wandered around for a bit to find a hostel for tonight (very important as we have a 5:45 am ferry crossing, so no camping for us!) and get food.

Once again, we somehow ended up on a ‘bluehair trip’ and were the youngest passengers on the cruise by about four decades. We didn’t really get the best weather and the slow-moving boat put me to sleep, but one cool part about the cruise was seeing our campsite from the water, we could even see the van that was parked next to us last night!

We went straight to our hostel after the cruise to make an early dinner and go to bed early because we have to be ready to drive onto the ferry an hour before our already-too-early departure.

fish filmin'

We slept in a bit this morning, encouraged by our comfy cots and mattresses, and awoke to find it had been raining for a while. Unfortunately, the rain disrupted the charter schedule since the 7 am charter was a film crew, so we weren’t able to go diving in between the early morning and noon charters since the crew had the boat on stand-by. As we were having a cup of tea with Gerard the film crew rang again, saying they’d be ready in half an hour, so he was heading out and we planned to be on our way up north when he asked us if we wanted to go out in the boat when they headed out to meet them. We, of course, were up for this, so we jumped in the car and headed to the wharf where Nick met us with the boat. We had zero time to prepare, so unfortunately I wasn’t able to grab my camera.

The boat had been chartered by two Frenchmen working on a nature documentary, and this bit of it was meant to capture an American PhD student, studying at the University of Otago, using specially-designed microphone buoys to monitor whale sounds. The Frenchmen and their Kiwi interpreter got on the boat with us and we chased the research vessel around for a bit, then went to go see the seals and pull cray pots just for some variety. When we were pulling up the cray pots there was a huge octopus in one of them that had poisoned the two biggest crays – greedy bugger! Apparently they poison them in size order, and THEN go back and eat them. Sometimes they’re punished by being turned into bait, but this one got clemency for some reason. After the film charter, Nick and Gerard had another fishing charter so Ann and I took Gerard’s car back to the house with the interpreter, and wrote up the invoice for the film crew. That sounds ridiculous, but I’m not very surprised by stuff like that any longer – why would someone give two people he met less than a day earlier the key to his new car, access to his house, trust them with handling money for his business, etc.? The answer, I’ve found, is because this is the South Island (and a small town, to boot) and that’s just what these crazy-friendly people around here do.

After writing out the invoice and dropping the interpreter back off with the crew, we made grilled cheese sandwiches, did a final battery charge-up session, and hit the road. We drove through Blenheim, and made it to Prenzel (liqueurs, oils, sauces, etc.), Makana (boutique chocolate factory) and two wineries before everything closed. We picked up some groceries in Picton, then drove very indirectly to our campsite at Aussie Bay – DOC’s directions were a bit off, so we found it on our second pass. We cooked up leftover perch in some smoked garlic sauce we bought at Prenzel – delicious!

Photo: A Royal Albatross (in background) and other albatross/mollymawks in front, from

yesterday's boat trip

change of plans

As I was waiting for Ann to come back from the dolphin cruise (she’d texted me earlier to let me know she’d gotten on it, but might not be able to swim) and for Nick to finish filleting all the fish, I was thinking about how we could cook the crayfish Gerard and Nick had given us. We only have a little pot, and I wasn’t sure I would be skilled in crayfish origami, so I had a dilemma. And then I saw the tent Gerard was talking about – it was huge, with cots and mattresses, and it came with the use of a real flush toilet, and shower – even with hot water! – and a kitchen. So when Ann arrived I told her about it, and we decided it would be worth it to change our plans a bit, especially since although she’d had a shower after her dolphin swim, I still had fish guts clinging to me and she probably was not too excited about the idea of being in the car with me in that state. This was a perfect example of the kind of Kiwi hospitality I’m still surprised by even though I’ve experienced a lot of it – I was just another customer on the fishing charter, but here Gerard was opening up his home to me for nothing in exchange.

Gerard was heading up to Blenheim for the night to drop off his sister, but – maybe since Ann and I looked fairly confused by the squirming crayfish we were playing with in the driveway at the time – Nick offered to cook up the cray and the fish for us. We’d bought the ingredients to make coconut ginger fish with some frozen blue cod we’d picked up in Takaka, so I offered to make that one (we threw out the frozen fish, though, in favor of the much better fresh option!) to try as well. Oh, and when we were talking on the boat I mentioned that both Ann and I dive, so Gerard had offered to let us use his dive equipment if we wanted, and Nick offered to take us out to see crays and paua in their natural habitat in between their charters tomorrow. So, once that suggestion was thrown out there, there was no getting us to leave that night.

Nick cooked up the cray in a saucepan with butter, garlic and ginger and gave us honorary Maori status when he saw us picking the meat out of the body instead of just taking the easy pieces of tail meat and being done with it. It was delicious – better than the one this morning, since it was so fresh (and didn’t cost $47…)…but that one was excellent, so this was just off the charts! Next course was the coconut ginger fish, which turned out well enough to make Nick enjoy eating blue cod, which apparently isn’t usually the case. Then we had some lightly battered perch, all complemented by wonderful Koura Bay Sauvignon Blanc, a wine which has some sort of connection to the company hence the same name. Ann and I were feeling like we weren’t really contributing much to the feast, so we brought out our special Nestle-hot-chocolate-and-Redwood-Cellars-cream-liqueur for dessert. We had a nice relaxing spa before crashing at the ripe old hour of 9:45 pm – hey, the sun really can take it outta you.

dolphins & fishing

We arrived at the i-site to book our activities around 11 – not exactly opening time as we’d intended! After several dead-end attempts, the lady working at the i-site found me a spot on a fishing charter, and Ann got wait-listed for the dolphin swim/cruise, which was booked solid for the next few days. We drove down to the seal colony to kill the 1.5-2 hours before our activities, and found a little seafood stall by the water and - of course – had to try a crayfish fritter, which turned out to be a deliciously light egg-based creation served with rice and salad greens. After that, we made some excellent PB&J sandwiches for our ‘real lunch’ (yes, we are pigs, and yes, our taste varies from plebian to gourmand).

My fishing charter pick-up was on the beach near the seafood stall, so I camped out for a bit and read the book I’ve been working on for the past two months – quite a switch from the 3-books-a-day life at the orchard. I made it through a few pages before getting distracted by the sandflies and the fact that I had cell (texting) service, and then it was time to go. I wasn’t really sure what the plan was – didn’t see any boats around – but a truck pulled up with a little fishing boat on a trailer, so I smiled and waved in that direction hoping someone would tell me what was going on and wandered on over when it seemed like they recognized me as one of their passengers. I was introduced to Gerard (the captain/owner of Koura Bay Fishing Charters, a retired bank manager/stock sales agent/farmer/landlord, and a cousin of Ewan McGregor, who’d been out on the boat twice a couple months ago) and Nick (first mate, an ornately tattooed Maori with one aluminum leg).

As we were heading out, Gerard got a call on his cell from three more people who wanted to come out, so since I was flexible on time (Ann’s cruise was scheduled to end an hour after my fishing trip), we circled around in the bay until a car of three surfers from England pulled up and joined us. On our way out to the fishing grounds, we swung past a bunch of seals on rocks, including Harry the Koura Bay Fishing Charters Pet Seal – apparently he gets leftover fish from the charters, so he is quite willing to pose for pictures when the boat comes around. We were more interested in fishing, though, so we went on by, and dropped our lines in 25-30m water. I got several bites right off the bat, but didn’t land anything until the guys had pulled in several perch…but I got the biggest blue cod of the day next! It wasn’t the biggest fish – someone got a shark – but it was the biggest keeper. I got 3 blue cod and one perch in the hour or so we had our lines down, and we headed back with plenty for dinner. Fish cleaning was included in the deal, and Gerard had two crays back at his house that he was going to give the boys (mine had come along for the ride already), so we drove back there to get the fish filleted.

On our way back, I was driving with Gerard and he offered Ann and I the use of a big tent in his yard for the night. I’d told him earlier we’d been camping nearly every night of the trip, and thanked him for the offer but said we’d planned to drive up to the Marlborough Sounds tonight so we could do a day and a half of sight-seeing there before we headed to the North Island.

life of luxury

Our plan this morning was to get up early, pack in a hurry, and get on down to Kaikoura when the i-site opened so I could arrange a fishing charter and Ann could get in on one of the dolphin swims. We got up early…then went back to sleep, or at least I did. Ann did most of the packing up, and we got on the highway reasonably early. And then we got distracted. First, by the seals playing right off the side of the highway. Then, by lobster for breakfast. That’s right, around 10 am we decided to stop at the locally-famous Nin’s Bin, a seaside converted caravan which offers up fresh-cooked crayfish (rock lobster) with a view. We got ours with garlic butter, yum, and devoured every last bit. I saved my big hunk of delicious tail meat for last.

golden bay, pupu springs and pujjis

After Harwood’s Hole, we drove up to Collingwood in the Golden Bay area, stopped at the beach for a bit to admire the view, then walked over to Rosy Glow, a boutique chocolate shop and had some delicious homemade truffles. On our way back from Golden Bay we stopped in at Pupu Springs, the clearest freshwater springs in the world. I’d wanted to show them to Ann because they were in her Lonely Planet NZ dive book – unfortunately, you can’t dive there anymore because invasive alien algae Didymo has been found in the area and they don’t want it to spread to the springs, but they’re still impressive from above.

Ann really wanted to go meet the Pujjis and see where I spent 2.5 months last spring (Aug. – Nov.), but I wasn’t up to it when we were in Nelson a few days ago because I didn’t really want to talk to anyone when my head was pounding from the sinus infection, so we backtracked a little bit to return to Nelson and visit. Jane was at choir practice but Arvind was there, so we got to visit with him and their guests and current WOOFer…and we just had to stay for dinner the third time he asked us, it would have been rude not to! They were having a delicious green eggplant and spinach curry, I’ll need to get that recipe to add to my collection from my stay there. We should get a chance to meet up with Jane and Arvind at WOMAD in New Plymouth this weekend, too.

We drove down along the coast to Marfells Beach 40km south of Blenheim and camped at a beachside DOC site. Even though it’s not a weekend it was pretty crowded there, and I don’t think our neighbors were too happy when we pitched our tent between them around 10:30 pm in one of the only empty sites left, but we did it in the dark out of consideration for them – we’ve had a lot of practice setting up camp.

Photo: Ann pretending to touch the water at Pupu Springs – it is forbidden!

harwood's hole

By the time we got out to Harwood’s Hole, the weather had warmed up so much that we were sweating from the effort! After yesterday’s big heights adventure, we were feeling intrepid and decided to get as close as safely possible to the edges of all the drop-offs and tried to figure out just how much taller or shorter each one of them was than the bungy.

perfect reflection

The British boys who were camping next to us (in a van – so they were much warmer!) told us the hike that started at the campsite was worth doing, so we stuck around in the morning to do it. We were slow moving because of the cold, but it started to warm up a bit as soon as the sun came out. The hike went out to Harwood’s Hole, a 172-meter sinkhole, but we actually enjoyed all the rest of the stuff on the way more than the sinkhole itself. Just a few minutes away from the campsite we found a mirror-surfaced pond and played with taking pictures while throwing rocks in. We got a pretty cool sequence using the continuous shot feature on the camera, this is one of the stills from it.

winter wonderland

When we woke up this morning it was even colder than last night, and we heard the ice cracking as we peeled back the tent door! We’d left all our dishes out last night because we didn’t want to deal with getting our hands wet washing them in the cold, and everything had frozen solid or was covered in ice crystals. I thought it was supposed to be summer here!

going north

Ann and I didn’t actually leave Lex and Ann’s flat until late afternoon – it was to cozy to rush out of! We finished up our laundry, made sure everything was as charged up as we could get it, and I burned some photo CDs for the girls, then we repacked the car, and then we finally thought about heading out.

On the way up, we stopped off at Redwood cellars to get some of their great butterscotch cream liqueur, and decided to try a bottle of mocha too since they had a special for two. We also picked up some berries and fruit/vege from a farmstand on the way.

We drove up to the Motueka salt water bath beach, where Sabrina and I would go clamming when we worked at the orchard. We’d planned to camp there since I remembered a sign saying one night of camping was allowed, but it turned out to only be for campervans only so we just filled up a bag with the biggest clams we could find and set out in the direction of Golden Bay, tomorrow’s area of interest. Along the way, we consulted the trusty DOC campsite guide, and found one that looked nice at Takaka Downs, about an hour and a half from Golden Bay.

This campsite, like many of the others, required a long drive in on unpaved roads, but the car’s still running like a champ - knock on wood. After setting up camp, I started dicing potatoes to make the spicy clam stir-fry the French couple had made for us at the orchard. Here’s where things went wrong: Ann left me in charge of cooking because she’d never cooked clams before. I have a sinus infection, and can’t breathe through my nose. This kind of impacts my sense of taste. I knew the dish should be spicy, but for some reason whenever I tasted it, it just didn’t seem all that hot. So I kept on adding more of my favorite freshly-ground Chilli Bite spice until it finally tasted right…tasted right to me, that is! Ann and the two British boys from next door (who we invited over because it was cold and they had a monster LPG stove, way better than our little butane one!) could barely eat the stuff, it was so hot.

After dinner we made Cadbury’s hot chocolate with Redwood Cellars liqueur – yum! Warmed us up a bit.

200% chlamydia-free!!

I woke up this morning feeling even worse than yesterday – head felt like it was stuck in a vise from a sinus infection, and finally decided to break down and divert some of my Fun Activity Money into the Get Better So You Can Actually Enjoy The Fun Activities fund. So, it was off to the doctor’s – except first I had to figure out how the NZ health system and my travel insurance work. Apparently it works pretty well, because it only took one phone call to make an appointment just fifteen minutes and a couple blocks away. Of course, I got lost anyway and was a little late, but they weren’t too put off by it.

So I’m talking to the doctor on duty, and tell her that I know this is a sinus infection because I get them basically two times a year so I know what they’re like, and they just don’t go away with the usual drill of plenty of fluids, rest, etc. etc. – didn’t want to get the ‘well, just see how it goes and come back in a week!’ message – and she asked me what kind of antibiotics I usually took for them. “That Z-pack thing with four pills, you take two the first day then one each day for two days after” I replied. “I’m not sure if we have that here – I’ll look it up.” She looked it up and said, “Oh, yes, we do have that here, but it’s only approved for treating Chlamydia.” “Oh! Well, then, you know, whatever you think would work.” “No, if it’s worked well for you in the past, let’s do that. The approval only relates to the government subsidy for residents, it says here it works for upper respiratory infections too and you’re not eligible for the subsidy anyway so that part doesn't matter.” “Um…well, ok.” “I’ll write you a prescription for two doses so if you get another sinus infection while you’re in NZ, you don’t have to come back in.”

It wasn’t until I was parking in front of the chemist’s that I realized the double prescription thing would probably make it look like I was coming in to get a Chlamydia remedy for me and my, uh, unlucky partner. Oh well, just hoped I wouldn’t run into anyone I knew. So I dropped the prescription off, and came back in fifteen minutes…and it wasn’t ready. A perky pharmacist explained to me in something a bit louder than an inside voice that “WE’RE A LITTLE CONFUSED ABOUT THE DOSAGE HERE. YOU SEE, WE USUALLY ONLY DISPENSE THIS ANTIBIOTIC FOR CHLAMYD---“ “Yes, yes, I know,” I said, cutting her off and looking around the store red-faced to see how many people were listening in. “Well, it’s only two pills for that, so does this ‘fill twice’ note mean two pills or two times two pills?” “Four.” “Oh. Well, we only have two in stock, because the usual dosage for chlam…”(volume seemed to be rising again) “Yes, ok, what time should I come back?” “Half an hour or so, we’ll call the other chemists in the area to see who has them.” “Thanks!” I ran out before we could have any more store-wide conversations about my imaginary STD.

When I came back in half an hour later, I got a new chemist, who of course also felt obligated to tell me, at a volume the whole store could hear, about how that antibiotic is usually only used in NZ for chlamydia, and only two pills for it, so that’s why they had to go to some trouble to track down four of them and I shouldn’t be too worried that one pack was a different brand than the other, it’s just that they don’t have to give them out that often, and.... Wonderful.

Bottom line: I just spent $150 – or half a skydive – to get twice as many antibiotics for my sinus infection as it would take get rid of chlamydia, so I’m looking forward to feeling 100% (or is it 200%?) very soon.

hoki is gorge-ous

Ann bought a beautiful greenstone necklace from a Maori carver in town who collects the greenstone himself, and while we were there talking to him I asked him for directions to the Hokitika Gorge, which I’d seen pictures of in another store. It was about 45 minutes out of our way, but I’m glad we stopped even with how I was feeling – the water was an unreal color. The only way Ann and I could think of to describe it was ‘Pepto Bismol Blue’ – kind of the same intensity, fake chemical-y color, and opacity as Pepto, but blue instead of pink.

We drove on to Nelson, a couple of hours behind Ann and Lex who left before the shopping trip, and arrived at their house after a stop at Woolworth’s to pick up fixings for a taco dinner we fixed for the girls.

Our stop at Lex and Ann’s flat was great timing – we were in need of a recharge, literally (computer, cameras, etc.) and figuratively (hot showers without the 40-minute wait we encountered at the campground in Hoki! Oh, and laundry) and it was perfect place for it. Oh – and we even had a great air mattress in our very own room! Absolute luxury.

Ann and Lex, having Real Jobs, had to be up early in the morning while we planned to sleep in, so we said our goodbyes tonight. We’ll see Lex at Bluesfest in the Coromandel in a couple weeks, and Ann might make it up there too.

jaded

I felt like crap this morning when I woke up – well, okay, when I got up, since I woke up about five times throughout the night and early morning because of our noisy neighbors. I’m amazed at how quickly everyone was able to pack up this morning when they were all up so late last night! Anyway, the allergies/cold/sinus infection I’ve been somewhat successfully fighting for the past 2 weeks has definitely caught up with me, and I feel miserable.

Hokitika’s famed for greenstone (pounamu) carvings, and Ann wanted to buy one for herself and get a head start on Christmas shopping so we walked around town for a bit and then I went back to the car to take a nap while Ann power-shopped some more. Ok, so normally I’d be a little self-conscious about taking a nap in a car on the side of the road, especially when I’m looking pretty bad from camping out and not showering for a few days, but I was really tired and anyway this is a little town in New Zealand, who would I know here anyway? Yeah, of course, I got woken up an hour or so into my nap by Ena, a friend who worked at my hostel in Christchurch, who saw me and stopped by to say hello and told me the building I was sleeping in front of belonged to the hostel manager. Shouldn’t be surprised by this kind of stuff anymore!

bringin' down the barn

No Wildfoods Festival would be complete without a barn dance, right? That’s what we thought anyway. After riding out the afternoon rainstorms in the tent, we went back our campsite to change, scarfing down some pizza on the way home – you know, because doughnuts, wild boar sandwiches, venison curry, rabbit sausage, kangaroo and crocodile bites, pickled punga palm, ‘Westcargot’ and all the bugs mentioned above just weren’t enough to satisfy our hunger.

We all danced the night away under a giant tent with a mediocre live band and continued to enjoy the mullet fashion parade – honestly, I don’t know where they all came from because I hadn’t seen more than one or two the seven and a half previous months I’ve been here, but they were out in full force this weekend.

guess i'll go eat worms...

…and crickets, grubs, crocodile, kangaroo, wild boar, venison, rabbit, kava, punga palm and snails. Yes, today was the big day – the one, the only Wildfoods Festival in Hokitika. I’ve wanted to go to this event since I first cracked open my Lonely Planet book last May, and I wasn’t disappointed. Okay, I was a little disappointed because apparently the health authority cracked down this year so fried possum and magpie pies and some unmentionables weren’t on the menu this time around, but the sheer numbers and quality of mullets on some festival-goers made up for it.

[side story: we saw this amazing ginger mullet and Irish-Ann chased down the guy to ask him for a picture, and he was with a friend…who turned out to be the son of the organic sheep/beef farmer I was working for in Gore a few months back! Small country.]

Anyway, the Wildfoods Festival celebrates the heritage of the still-wild-wild-West Coast of the South Island of New Zealand, and on the first weekend in March quadruples the population of the town to 20,000, even after you subtract out the 4,999 native Hokitikans who run for the hills when the attendees converge on the town.

Highlights and/or lowlights of the day included crickets on toast (shown in picture) which very nearly caused me to re-sample everything else I’d eaten up to that point, mouth- and mind-numbing kava flown in from Fiji that very day, Worms With Wings – worms in shots of Red Bull so you can kind of cheat by not having to chew the worm, and fried Huhu grubs. We were not brave enough to try the live ones, which you must first hunt out of a wood pile and then decapitate before eating. Apparently they taste great, but I’ll have to wait until next year, or never, to find out for myself.

Ann1, Ann2, Lex and I were met at the festival by Sandra, Sarah and Kev from Christchurch who’d decided to make the drive out west for the weekend. Sandra tended bar with me at Mulligan’s, Sarah is her friend and flatmate who worked at Foodstuffs with me, and Kev was a glass collector at the pub and I also knew him from City Oasis, my Christchurch hostel. It was great to see them but felt kind of weird because my time in Christchurch seems so close, yet so far away – it’s been less than a week, but with all the stuff we’ve done in the past six days it feels like forever!

just jump

Not surprisingly, we didn’t make it up in time to get out on the road to see the sunrise! Also, we miscalculated on the distance from the campsite to Queenstown, and had a white-knuckle drive over. I was speeding along at 110-120km/h much of the way, which is quite slow in US terms but ridiculously fast over here. We got stuck in 25km/h roadwork areas a couple times, then had some big hills that Lola the Corolla (Ann’s christened her) didn’t really like, and then right at the very end when we were driving around Lake Whakatipu we were going crazy because you can see Queenstown right on the other side, but you have to drive about 3x farther than as the crow flies to get there because the lake coast is so sinuous. We ended up calling the bungy place because we knew we’d be late – in the end, we were 25 minutes late and if we’d been 5 minutes later we would have missed the bus to the jump and forfeited our non-refundable tickets!

We had a loooong bus ride up to the bungy gondola – apparently it was only 45 minutes but it was forever to me, as I spent the whole time imagining the dive off the ledge and wondering if I’d be the one in our group who’d back down from the challenge. When we got up there, we were weighed and fitted in harnesses, then shipped out to the platform pod by a little cable-car type thing, which was high-adventure in itself. Jumpers went from heaviest to lightest, and I was near the end…great, had to watch everyone else go! Ann went, and came back alive, so that was a relief. But then the girl ahead of me got out onto the platform, started shaking and saying she couldn’t do it, and came back. Then they coaxed her back out, and the same thing happened. Apparently only one in 250 people back out once they’re that far along, and I didn’t want to screw up the statistics, so I knew I had to jump. I kept reminding myself it’d be over really fast, I’d be really proud of it once I did it, and I’d done ultimately-scarier things in the past 12 months, such as quitting a comfortable job and moving halfway across the country, and eventually I somehow found myself standing on the edge and hearing the crew members count ONE…TWO…THREE…JUMP! And I did. I just did – for a split second, I thought about it, then just went. And…I was actually kind of disappointed, because for all I’d worked myself up, it wasn’t as terrifying as I’d imagined it could be.

The 134m freefall was followed by a bounce that’s higher than most bungy jumps themselves, and the scariest part of the whole thing was at the top of that bounce when you’re changing direction from up to down and suddenly your harness feels like it’s come off because there’s no pressure on the ropes, and that’s when I wondered what the hell I had gotten myself into, but then just a second or two later I was at the bottom of that bounce, and then it was time to concentrate on pulling the strap between my ankles to turn myself upside down. Most of the people before me hadn’t done it, so I wasn’t entirely convinced it was a safe thing to do, but we’d been told many times to do it by the crew, and since I hadn’t died on any of the other parts I decided to trust them. It worked, and I was right-side up again, and had a fun ride back up to the bungy, looking down at the river and feeling pretty proud that I’d actually gone through with it! Back at the top, Ann and I celebrated but found out we were both feeling a bit cheated since neither of us was feeling the buzz we’d heard everyone saying the felt for hours afterward.

We hung around Queenstown only long enough to see the waterfront, pick up our pictures and my DVD, and get some groceries for our next few nights of camping, then started the long drive on SH6 toward the coast and up the coast toward Hokitika.

We stopped at the Blue Pools along the way, one of my favorite places in NZ. It was my third time here and I still can’t get over how blue and clear the water is. We saw some trout resting in the deeper pools – guess they know fishing’s not allowed there!

The drive seemed ridiculously long, and it was late when we arrived in Hokitika – we were too tired to even go say hi to Lex and Ann (at whose flat we had our Christmas/New Year’s celebrations), who’d driven over from Nelson for the festival and were in our same campsite. We’d kind of expected to find the sites all marked off and organized, but it was just one big area with tents smashed in it, and six showers for around 1,000 people – wonderful planning! They had 24-hour security all sorted out, though – we had to produce all our proof-of-purchase papers just to make it past the gate.

doubtful sound

We left our campsite at Lake Monowai this morning but apparently didn’t leave quite enough time to around sunrise, and saw a gorgeous sunrise over the valley on the way to the Real Journeys departure point on Lake Manapouri. There’s no public road access to Doubtful Sound, so you first have to take a ferry across the lake, then a bus to the sound. Our package included a tour of the underground, remotely-controlled hydropower plant, which was actually kind of interesting despite our expectations.

After the power station, we took a bus to another boat on the sounds. We saw the one that does the overnight trips, and it looked gorgeous – really too bad we weren’t able to swing that one! The sound was gorgeous, like Milford but with better weather today, fewer boats, and fewer waterfalls. We saw a pod of dolphins, some seals, and apparently we saw a Fiordland crested penguin but I’m not convinced that I did – at least I saw one at Milford!

I’m still not feeling great, allergies/sinuses, so I slept the whole way back across Lake Manapouri. In Manapouri (the town) we called up to see if we’d be able to do the Nevis bungy jump tomorrow. I’ve said I’m not leaving the country until I do a bungy jump and a skydive, but I’m terrified of bungy. I really wanted to do the skydive first to work up to bungy, but the best place to skydive is in Taupo on the N Island, and the Nevis is the tallest bungy and that’s in the S Island, and if I’m gonna do it I’m gonna do it big, so I guess I can’t do them in my preferred order. Anyway, the jump was booked for the times we would have preferred, which I originally took as a sign that we shouldn’t do it, but then I decided I’d be really mad at myself if I chickened out, so we decided we’d do a later time and just drive up the West Coast to the Wildfoods campground at night.

There weren’t any good DOC campsites near Queenstown, so we decided to head back to the one we camped at last night so we can try to catch the sunrise tomorrow to get a picture – we were running too late today for our cruise to get a shot!

When we got back to the campsite, we practiced for the bungy jump by jumping off little logs or just jumping forward on the path with our eyes closed – we both think that the jump itself, which you have to do yourself. I also decided to jump into the cold lake for practice. Then we went and Ann made her famous Tuna Surprise from her Peace Corps days – it was delicious! Not something that’s usually said about a food with ‘surprise’ in the name. Oh, and I made a real live fire - took about an hour with all the wet wood around, but I did it and it even got hot enough to cook some baked potatoes! I was feeling really tired tonight, so I went to bed after dinner while Ann socialized for a bit with the Aussies and Kiwis next site down.

island hopping

We got a lazy start this morning, sleeping in for a bit and then making a nice omelet for breakfast. While we were eating, we started talking to a British pensioner nicknamed Slideshow Kev who was a scientist-turned-sounds-and-lights-man currently biking around the South Island(s) of New Zealand. He was really entertaining – when he returns to England, he plans to take a Punch-N-Judy-style puppet show of his own creation to the road, traveling around England in a caravan doing educational shows for children with other graduates of the puppetry diploma program he recently completed.

After breakfast, we got tickets for a cruise to Ulva Island, a predator- and pest-free native wildlife sanctuary near the main island. Again, we just barely made it onto the ship – in this case because we’d been holding out for the glass-bottom boat adventure which was cancelled for the 3rd day in a row due to poor visibility. The island was great – nice views and very wild, but we got stuck in a really slow group with a slow-speaking interpreter and there wasn’t much of a chance to wander off to entertain ourselves. We did see a couple of the chicken-like wekas, and a few Stewart Island robins, which are really curious and will fly right over if you scratch a spot on the ground.

Before leaving the island, we arranged a day trip for tomorrow to Doubtful Sound, the slightly-less-accessible version of Milford. We’d hoped to do an overnight, but everyone was booked – we don’t like planning ahead! As we were on our way to catch the ferry back, we ran into Slideshow Kev again and all went to the pub to have a pint and swap more travel tales.

The ferry arrived back in Bluff just as all the food places were closing down, but we knew we’d be getting to our campsite late so we hunted around and found one takeway that was still open. We ordered a dozen of the famed Bluff oysters – fried, because we’re not too brave – and they were absolutely delicious. We also had shark bites and a paua fritter, and of course a scoop of chips. I definitely like the way the paua shells look a lot more than how their meat tastes!

Campsite arrival was especially late tonight, and we weren’t even really sure if we were in an actual site but were too tired from the drive to really care.

falls galore

Ann and I made our rounds to three waterfalls today – Purakaunui, Maitai and Horseshoe, all of which were beautiful but we were done after those three. As we were eating our leftover taco lunch near the entrance to Matai Falls, we brainstormed ideas for the next destination and decided to try to make it to Stewart Island instead of spending another day in the Catlins or heading straight for Queenstown/Wanaka. Stewart Island’s a place I really wanted to get to before leaving the country, so this will save me from coming all the way back down to the ‘South South Island’ once I’ve moved on to the north.

We drove straight to the ferry terminal in Bluff, passing the huge aluminum smelter on the way and bypassing Invercargill this time around. When we arrived in Bluff it was a lot smaller than expected and no one was around to give us information on how to get to Stewart Island but we found the ferry terminal and Ann booked our tickets while I called around to see if we could get hostel space or a camp site on the island. No luck with a room, but we got a tent site at the only hostel there. We did a super-fast packing job, sticking the tent and camp stuff in Ann’s magic army-surplus parachute bag and everything else in our little backpacks so we could have arm space for the cooler too. We were out of breath from packing and running to the ferry, so the hour-long trip was a nice relaxing break.

At the hostel, Ann set up camp while I started on dinner. There was a big school group there and a fisherman had given them a huge crayfish (rock lobster) to look at/play with – it looked delicious but they were intent on freeing it!

gold at nugget point

I loved Nugget Point when I visited with Sabrina, Graham and Gayleen, so since we had a little bit of sunlight left – and because we know we can set up camp in the dark at an unknown campsite and we’re spending tonight at one I’ve already been to – we made a short detour to Nugget and Kaka Points. We saw yellow-eyed penguins, lots of big and little seals (far away, though) and a gorgeous sunset off to the side of the lighthouse. The lighthouse area looked pretty different in low light, though – the water wasn’t the gorgeous azure crystal of October’s visit.

The road out there and back is pretty rough and only a little more than one lane wide, so we made sure to get out of there before dark. We set up camp right by the beach at Purakaunui Falls and made a gourmet taco dinner with the rest of the mince.

peninsula penguins

Next stop: Dunedin. We drove out along the Otago Peninsula in better weather than I’d had back in October. We stopped at the Albatross center then went down the hill to the beach to see the seals. It’s also a blue penguin colony, but we didn’t think we’d see them since it was the wrong time of day. A family nicely pointed out an easily-viewed burrow, though, and we got to see two of the little guys snuggled up in there. We saw some seals, too – might not have noticed them either, except one of them was making some noise. Ann was fascinated by their acrobatic efforts to scratch themselves.

Afterwards, we stocked up on some more essentials – an iPod car cable, some more kitchen/camp stuff, groceries, extra butane for the stove, and an impractical (for camping) but cute shirt for me – and then visited Baldwin Street for my third time and Ann’s first. This meant she walked up it, while I waited in the car J

moeraki boulders

In between rain showers this morning we stopped at Moeraki to see the unusual large spherical boulders along the beach. They kind of look like giants’ marbles, and have rolled off of the cliff faces when the softer earth erodes.

We actually spent more time looking at the iridescent spiral shells everyone else was just walking past, though.

and we're off!

Ann, Charlie and I had brunch at the Cathedral Café this morning (again, loosely speaking on the morning part) and were surrounded by several corps of bag pipers. This was not a good thing. Ok, so maybe I don’t have any loyalty to my partial Scottish heritage, but those things should never have been invented, or they should at least be banned in public places and before noon on weekends. I can usually hear them even from my hostel ten blocks away – there’s a weekly gathering in the square, and they are very enthusiastic.

After brunch, we said goodbye to Charlie and headed back to the hostel to pack everything up. Ann’s an expert packer, so I left her in charge of the car while I took down the tent and packed up all the food from the communal kitchen and charged everything up since we’ll be without electricity most days.

Ann got everything back in the car just before the rain started up again, and after showers and goodbyes to everyone at the hostel we hit the road around 3 pm. We were only about five hours off our target! Then, once we hit the road, we stopped again! Did some more shopping at yet another Warehouse location, got a nice Indian dinner and finally headed south along SH1 past Timaru (where I got pulled over in January) and Oamaru (we missed the penguins at dusk but found a nice fruit & veg store) to our campsite at Glencoe Scenic Reserve, about 275km from Christchurch. We arrived in pouring rain, and split setting up camp and kitchen duty so we had a nice warm hamburger dinner ready and the tent and sleeping gear set up all at the same time. We got in late and, with the rain, really had nothing to do so crashed right after cleaning up (somewhat) from dinner.

Photo: The dead spot on the ground from being under my tent for 10 weeks!

a taxing day

It’s been raining like crazy all day today! Ann and I went on a shopping expedition today, hitting 2 different Warehouses and several other stores to stock up on food, camping equipment, and shoes – Ann found a great sale on flip-flops and casual shoes so she doesn’t have to wear her hiking boots or Chacos all the time, and I’ve been wanting to get a pair of heels since I’ve been here because it’s been years since I’ve gone more than a month before wearing them, and my last day of work was the perfect excuse. I’d been told I’d get off early as long as the new girl was working out alright, so I brought a chance of clothes in with me so I wouldn’t spend my whole last night in Christchurch in my Sullivan’s uniform!

After the shopping trip, Ann pulled all my ‘Christmas presents’ out of her bag – a camp kitchen and mess kit I’d ordered on Amazon, my new fly fishing rod (my Cap One promotion present, finally remembered to use that gift certificate!) and books etc., the underwater camera on loan from Mom and Dad, nail polish and blank CDs (both ridiculously expensive here), Trader Joe’s shampoo from Mom, and all my tax forms. I was very excited about my tax forms, actually, because this is the first time in several years I’ll be getting a big return instead of writing a big check to Uncle Sam. And then this Queen of Last-Minute Tax Returns sat down and did her taxes and submitted both state and federal in time to take an hour-long nap before getting up for work at 7:30!

I grabbed a sandwich at the Picasso Café a couple storefronts down from work – their ‘thing’ is having toilets with themed lids (like clear acrylic with fish, sand and shells) instead of regular chairs or booths, but I just like them for their crispy chicken sandwiches and convenient location.

Work seemed to stretch forever today – it was like once I knew the end was near, it couldn’t come soon enough and I found myself having a short temper with customers. I wasn’t let off early as promised, but Ann showed up a couple hours into my shift with Charlie (who’d texted her on Sabrina’s phone since she already knew the number!) and Rina, so I ducked away from the bar to sit at their table whenever I got a chance.

I got off work around midnight and met up with Ann and crowd for a couple of drinks on ‘the Strip,’ but wanted to go back to Sullivan’s for the knock-off drink so I left the crowd at Liquidity and headed back to meet up with everyone. Ann came by later and got to experience the magic that is Sullivan’s after-hours…and it was certainly magic tonight, as I’d refused to do the traditional ‘sing with the Black Velvet band’ farewell for fear of being blamed for the mass exodus and loss of revenue that would ensue once I started singing. I didn’t know I had anything else in store, but I sure did – yes, that’s right, a leprechaun striptease to ‘Play that Funky Music White Boy’ – I didn’t get that when I left Cap One! I will definitely remember this job.

We had a pretty impressive Stock Exchange contingent after we left the pub – most of us headed over there after and closed down that place, too.

oops

I'm not doing so well on the blog new year's resolution, am I?

Ok, so here's the really quick version of what I've been up to for the past 2 months or so: after the farm, we headed up to Christchurch by way of the Catlins. Sabrina got a job at City Oasis hostel for a couple of weeks before flying back to the States, and I set out to find a full-time job for the eight weeks or so before Ann (TJ/UVa friend) was set to arrive for a month-long trip. Office work was difficult to find on account of the extended holidays, so I did some very short-term assignments and went looking for a second job.

I fulfilled my kindergarten dream of becoming a waitress with a one-day trial at a burrito place, then took a better offer bartending at an Irish pub in town. The pub work was ridiculously fun for a while, but once I picked up full-time work in the finance department of Foodstuffs (major grocery/manufacturing co-op on S. Island), it wore off a little. I've definitely met some awesome people at the pub, on both sides of the bar, though. Oh, and I can pour a damn good pint of Guiness now. Important life skill.

I've spent most of the time between the two full-time positions sleeping, but still managed to work in some stuff like the Antarctic Centre, trips to the beach, the Christchurch gondola, Lyttleton harbour, swimming with dolphins in Akaroa, a couple of nights out, an intro to fly fishing, the Maize Maze, a 'kiwiana food crawl' (like a bar crawl, but more filling), sporting events, and just meeting new people from around the world. It will all, someday, make the blog and photo album.

Upcoming plans: I have my last shift at the pub tonight, so Ann and I will be leaving Christchurch tomorrow and heading south in the direction of the Catlins for some camping, then through Queenstown to the West Coast and hitting up the legendary Wildfoods Festival in Hokitika next weekend. Then some exploring on the northern part of the South Island for a week, followed by a sunrise ferry crossing to Wellington that Saturday. After that, the WOMAD festival and checking out places in the central North Island, then the Blues N' Roots festival (some big names! the first NZ-based offshoot of the famous Byron Bay one) in the Coromandel, and some diving and Bay of Islands exploration in there. Stay tuned...