Roadtrip Broome to Darwin: Hello NT (Nov 10 - Nov 13)

As we arrived in Katherine we wanted to go to Katherine Gorge (Nitmiluk National Park) but we were a bit too late to get as far along in the gorge as we wanted so we decided to just go to the look out instead and save the kayaking for the next day. So we went up to the look out which was very beautiful, had a look and some pictures, sweat some more, and then went back to the camp site and jumped into the pool (you've probably noticed a reoccurring theme of pools now).

Around our camp site there were wallabies everywhere, we thought they were so cute and innocent looking, so we disregarded the signs and started to feed them. We got some wicked pictures out of it and it was pretty fun and cute. But then later on...somebody....*cough Berry cough*...forgot to close the trunk and the wallabies went from being cute fuzzy animals to food thieves. They stole our bread, some noodles and ruined a few other things, that being said we still fed them some watermelon after dinner, and at that time there were heaps more because it was night so we had to do it.

The next day we set off kayaking in Katherine Gorge..holy moly, that was super cool. I've never kayaked through a gorge before, and if you haven't done it either you should probably find your nearest gorge and jump in your kayak. It was pretty amazing having these huge sheets of rock either side of you and little caves and things along the sides. The only down side was there was very little shade, and even with all the sunscreen I put on I still got burned on my shoulders, but not too bad. Berry didn't want a single kayak because she said she couldn't make it all the way through and after doing it, we went through 4 gorges and a portage, I realised she was right. Matt and I ended up taking turns with her in the two person kayak and basically giving her a nice leisurely tour of the gorges. No worries though, it turned out to be a really awesome day, even with birds attacking Matt's bag for the bread and Berry leaving the trunk open again and birds attacking our food once we got back.

We left Katherine and started heading towards our next stop, Litchfield National Park. That night we stopped at a camp ground/caravan park/truck stop called Emerald Springs that had a bar and restaurant, so we had our first big meals in a few days and a few beers. In the morning we made a quick swim stop at Douglas hot springs, which was a river with hot springs in it. It was very jungle-y looking, so I was a bit nervous to swim in the water in case of crocs, but there were locals already in the water so I assumed it was all good. Later that day we arrived in Litchfield, which is the perfect size to do the whole thing in a day, and it isn't too rushed. We saw the biggest termite mounds I've ever seen, a few waterfalls, some deep rock hole pools and a huge swamp (check the wiki for all the real names of the places). I cut my leg climbing up/falling off Florence Falls, but I managed to get myself to the top of the falls and have a jump... unfortunately Matt didn't have his waterproof camera at this time which was super disappointing but I've got the scar on my leg as a badge of honour. Litchfield was really beautiful, I can't really say too much more about it, it's something you'd have to see, but the scenery was great and all the people travelling around it were very friendly and helpful.

On the way out of Litchfield was an unsealed road which messed up Matt's car quite a bit. As we got out the speedo stopped working and the transmission was making a loud clunking noise, we all decided it was well worth it though because we liked the national park so much. We arrived in Darwin later that evening, around 7pm, and checked in to our hostel where I met a dude from Markham working at the reception.

That night Matt convinced me to go out and it turned out to be a hilarious night. First off I found out a bar there serves MOOSE HEAD, so I was obviously very pleased about that.. however I was not impressed with the price, $8 a bottle..smh. We met up with Matt's friend Julius and he told me he'd buy me two moose heads of I danced with this skeezy older lady..so obviously I did, and she proceeded to grind all over me and then go back to her husband... what would you do for a moose head? Later on that night I met another older lady and she was telling me how she just got out of an abusive relationship and then proceeded to show me nude photos of herself along with pictures of her children/granchildren on her iPhone..wtf?! so weird....a nice welcome to Darwin I guess..

The next day I woke up still a bit drunk, so I headed over to Coles with Matt and we had a few "free sample" Kebabs... basically just get the food from the hot food counter and walk around and eat it, works quite well. After this we spent the rest of the day in our room recovering and surfing the interwebs, before going to meet up with Matt's cousin at his awesome apartment that over looks the wharf. (Sidebar: Matt's cousin is some sort of officer in the Australian army, he is in command of 6 armoured vehicles that look totally badass, as well as a team of around 20 privates. So the army pays for his AWESOME apartment, and his army friends all live in the same building... nice life). That night Matt's cousin brought us to The Wharf which is kind of like Marche, I guess, there are lots of little food shops and you order and they buzz you to pick up your food. I had Chilli Crocodile from an asian food place, and it was delicious. This place was awesome by the way, not sure if I portrayed that properly, but I really liked it. Cool atmosphere and delicious food.

Peace & Love

Roadtrip Broome to Darwin: Goodbye WA (Nov 7 - Nov 9)

We started our journey with no real plans of what we wanted to do or see. Matt had a few ideas but we were really just going to wing it and see what we could find. We set off at around 9am (I think...), grabbed some groceries for the next few days and hit the road. The first sign I got telling me this was going to be an awesome trip was we saw a huge bush fire on the side of the road while driving, it went on for about 1Km and was pretty far back as well. That was really cool, first time I've seen a bush fire, you can hear the excitement in my voice in the video I took. The second sign was it finally rained (it never rains in Broome and its hot all the time), so that was some sweet relief from the heat, and it made a nice rainbow that looked like it was coming straight out the road.

We rocked up to a camp site halfway between Halls Creek and Kununarra just as it was getting dark, pitched the tent (Matt slept in his car alone, for various reasons.. one of which is a hilarious/creepy story) and started cooking our dinner of burgers and salad. After dinner we started to hear these really deep grunts coming from the darkness, they sounded really close and a bit aggressive. Matt and I knew that there could be wild boar in the area so obviously we went to investigate with our flash lights at the ready. We hunted the noise down for a few minutes (sidebar: we found a drunk guy passed out in a chair outside his car, that was pretty funny) then we finally discovered the source of the noise. It was just a cow wandering around grunting and eating grass, not as exciting as a wild boar but it was a fun adventure for the first night. Throughout the hunt we kept discussing our escape routes, and how fast we thought we could kick off our flip flops and bolt back towards the car.

I don't think I've ever sweat as much as I did that night (even up until now), I thought it was bad at night... then the sun decided to come up and turn the tent into an oven. I had to retreat to a nearby bench at around 5am (much to the chagrin of Berry, as there is no way to get out of a tent without waking the other person up), an hour or two later the other two woke up and we got started on breakfast. We had beans on toast then left for Kununarra, which is the boarder town between Western Australia and Northern Territory.

As we were driving along we saw a few bats fly across the road and into a tree, we thought hmm that's cool, then we looked into the tree and it was inundated with bats.. along with the three other trees around it. So we had to screech (haha..get it..bats...screech) to a halt and whip out the cameras to take pictures and videos, it was so loud and there was a strange smell coming from the trees, which I assumed was the bat poo (just found out guano is only the name for poop from cave dwelling bats, seals and sea birds).

The scenery on the way to Kununarra was absolutely amazing, seeing the change in scenery between Geraldton and now this was crazy. It went from completely flat, dusty desert, and wild flowers to large hills, trees and greenery everywhere. This region is known as the Kimberley Region and it's know for the mountains and being very beautiful, and it sure was. (Sidebar: en route we were seeing a lot of, what looked to be, random pedestrian crossing signs. But then I realised they are probably Aboriginal tracks that crazy white people put a road through)

Our plan was to go to El Questro Gorge, but unfortunately it closed the week before we arrived. The National Park was still very beautiful to drive around in though so that was ok, and we also saw some dingo pups and probably the mother chowing on a dead cow which was cool. Oh wait... did I forget to mention Matt's air con was broken in his car...and it was getting hotter by the kilometre..oh..well I mentioned it now. It's also hot ALL the time when you get closer to the north and staying along the coast, so swimming is a must. However, the further north you go, the more dangerous things are in the water..like jellyfish and salt water crocs, so swimming areas are scarce. Just outside of Kununarra town centre was a swimming area so we jumped on that opportunity to cool off. There we found a cool tree sticking out the water with a rope swing, and some local kid was doing back flips off the top like a BAWSE, so that was pretty sweet.

Later we arrived at the Lake Argyle caravan park which had a wicked infinity pool, so it looked like the pool was running off into the lake. It was really an amazing view, so Matt and I decided to do flips off the edge of the pool to celebrate the awesomeness. I probably could have stayed there for a week or so, just meeting the people that came through and talking to the caravaners, very nice place. We spent most of our time there in the pool, we did go down to some look outs to see the lake from a different angel but it looked the best from the pool.

We left for Katherine (first "major town" LOL in Norther Territory) in the afternoon the next day. As we were leaving we saw a bush fire on the top of a mountain that we were told was caused by a lightning strike the previous night, pretty cool. The next cool thing we saw was two wedge tail eagles eating a freshly dead wallaby in the middle of the road. Now normally when you approach birds on the road they fly away, even if they are eating, they just fly away and come back and continue. But these two MASSIVE eagles didn't want to give up this meal, so as we approached them they just stood their ground and opened up their wings...and I'm no animal specialist but I'm pretty sure they were giving us the "What the eff are you looking at?!" face.. so we just slowed right down and had to drive around them as they continued their feast. I couldn't believe they were going to fight the car, badass. That night we just camped at a random camp spot, again it was blazing hot but I was getting more used to it by now.

On the NT in the morning! Thanks for the great time WA, it was a blast but I'm glad to see the back of you, gotta see the rest of this vast and beautiful land~

Peace & Love

Broome Broome~ (Nov 2 - Nov 6)

I arrived in Broome with no clue of where to go, where any hostels were, basically without any kind of useful information - and it was also around 7pm so all the places that could have given me some guidance were closed. So I hopped off the bus fully convinced I'd have to spend the night on the streets of Broome until I could find a visitors centre or something to find out where things are. Luckily the bus dropped us off not too far from a McDonalds, which means free internet. So I nonchalantly walked over like this was my plan all along, sat down and found the nearest hostel.

The next step was finding my way around, carrying my bags, at night with crazy Aboriginals wandering around everywhere. So I just headed off in what I thought was the right direction, then had to double back and start going in the real right direction, and I ended up just asking the drunkest guy where the hostel was - he checked all the backpacker boxes, long hair, rags around his ankles, unwashed, very drunk. Turns out he was actually one of the managers at the hostel I was going to stay in, so I walked and he stumbled all the way together - bonus.

On the way I saw the Swedish girls hanging at a bus stop drinking with Luke, I stopped and chatted for a bit then went to go check in. After that initial adventure I didn't really do much for the rest of my time there just went to Cable Beach a few times, supposedly one of the top 10 beaches in the world.. it was pretty nice, then just drinking and lounging by the pool. Broome is really humid so I stayed in the water most of the time and the hostel I stayed in (Kimberley Klub) was very nice, it was YHA so no surprises there, extremely clean and nice people.

I eventually found a ride to Darwin, just a posting in the hostel offering 2 seats to Darwin, with an English guy named Matt who was also taking a German girl named Berit or Berry. Matt had been in Broome for a few months (3 I think) working as a camel tour guide, he basically just walked with the people as they road the camels along the beach, probably the best job ever. So on his last night his friends had a beach party, there were other things going on as well I think a birthday and maybe some other people leaving as well. That was pretty fun, sitting out on Cable Beach watching the moon and just chilling under the stars. Made for a wonderful end to my time in Broome.

Coral Bay, yabba (Oct 28 - Nov 1)

Prior to leaving for Coral Bay I spoke with another guy I met from Geraldton, Dan, and he mentioned that he would be going up to Exmouth via Coral Bay. So I thought great, I'll just catch a ride with him from Coral Bay and go and see Exmouth. After a few days I realised that he wasn't coming, I didn't really put an effort forward to get in contact with him though, but it would have been cool if he just showed up and we had a roadtrip to Exmouth.

Luckily I quickly forgot about Dan after meeting the three Swedish girls who were staying in my room. When they introduced themselves I thought it sounded familiar, then I remember reading an ad on Gumtree (a website used for various things, ride shares, jobs, etc) about three Swedish girls looking for a ride to Broome and sure enough it was them. So that was a good conversation starter. Also - they obviously outlined right off the bat that they were THREE SWEDISH GIRLS looking for a ride north. I ended up hanging out with them quite a bit going to the beach, going out etc, pretty fun times. One night we ended up at a beach party and one guy was basically a beach party in himself. He had a sweet fire spinning set up and was doing that, I brought this dude that I met who runs the quad bikes and he was a much better fire spinner, we were also freestyling and just doing general gangster shit. I started conversing with him because he had a Fresh Prince shirt on so the whole night we were singing the Fresh Prince song and yelling PRAISE THE FRESH PRINCE - hilarious times.

I didn't just party it up and lounge on the beach while I was in CORAL Bay, I actually did some snorkelling and saw some really cool marine life. I went on a snorkelling tour for $50 and it was well worth it. We saw all kinds of different fish and coral (some 1000 year old coral) as well as turtles and sharks. Our guide brought us to a spot called a "shark cleaning station" this is where reef sharks go to get their teeth cleaned. They swim around this area with their mouths open and small fish swim inside and eat all the guts and stuff out of their teeth...then swim back out again! It was really funny to see, it actually kind of "normalized" sharks for me, showing me they have at least some control over their constant lust for blood. These were just small grey reef sharks anyway, they were pretty afraid of us. I also went to a shark nursery, where the mother shark leaves her babies to learn how to hunt and eat - it was just a small secluded bay, you weren't really meant to go in or else the mother shark would stop leaving her babies there. But I did a handstand in there regardless *Kanye shrug*.

The girls ended up finding a ride with a dude originally from NSW, I stumbled upon this one day as I came into the room. All I heard was...Oh ya I might be able to find you girls in...damn it, if I was in there and they weren't I could have secured that ride. He had a tiny car though and these girls had three huge suitcases, so I was still holding on to the idea that they just wouldn't fit and I'd be subbed in. But being blonde blue-eyed girls from Sweden kind of makes dudes make anything happen (sidebar: and he was trying to fit the suitcases in, I was hovering to see if it would work, he goes "Can you help me squeeze these bags over..." I turned and straight up said "No...why would I help you fit their bags in? I don't want this to work").

So anyway, they set off in the morning, one in the front and two squeezed in between the window and half the middle seat. I had a pretty nice night after they left, sometimes getting away from the people you've been hanging out with, even if only for a few days, feels very good. You don't want to get stuck hanging out with the same people all the time, or else you'd just stay home with your real friends. I ended up taking the bus to Broome the next day for $158AUS, which is cheaper than I heard it was going to be - I was told it would be closer to $250AUS so that was ok.

The bus ride took about 20 hours, but if you've been reading my blog you know I'm a professional at sleeping on long journeys. So I watched Rambo 1 and 2 (effin AWESOME movies - I didn't know they were so deep, I thought it was just killing like Rambo 4, but they take you on an emotional journey), after the movies I just slept. There isn't much scenery between Coral Bay and Broome, mostly just flat desert and shrubs to see. You can tell when a creek or a small river is coming up though because suddenly there will be trees and then you see the water then more trees..... and then back to desert. Midway through the bus drivers changed from two dudes to this lady - and for some reason she had a REALLY bad attitude (I cleaned that up from what I wrote in my journal), she was threatening to leave people behind if they got off the bus and yelling at people - wasn't cool at all.

Basically it was a pretty poor bus ride but I made it to Broome safely so it was alright.

Peace & Love

On the road again: Paying is for tourists (Oct 19 - 27)

As my end date grew nearer I was starting to think about how I was going to get the heck outta Geraldton. Luckily the same week a guy I knew in the backpackers, Shannon, was going to Port headland (about half way to Darwin up the west coast) so it all worked out swimmingly. He's originally from Carnarvon so he was going to stop there for a while to see his parents and then continue on. At first the plan was, Shannon would just drop me off at Monkey Mia because I wanted to see it and he didn't really want to stay. After hearing all kinds of hype about Monkey Mia it was pretty disappointing. There is no town, it just a resort which I knew before hand, but you have to pay $12 per person just to get into the resort then pay for parking and accommodation...not ideal. It looked nice enough though but too much hype and money, also it was pretty dead because it's out of season.

So in the end we decided to stay the night and head off in the morning to Carnarvon. The best part about Monkey Mia was when we first arrived and went out on to the jetty a turtle popped up out the water. But I don't know if that is worth $12 entry fee.

We set off in the morning to Carnarvon, I was excited to see the "real" Carnarvon from a local's point of view and we were also planning on doing some camping further north for a few nights. If you couldn't tell by my previous post, I wasn't too keen on the place before but I thought I should give it another crack. When we reached Carnarvon I dropped my stuff off at the backpackers and we went to go meet Shannon's dad. Shannon's dad is pretty awesome, he's originally from Germany but he says its way too cold there so he stayed in Australia after traveling here when he was 20 something. He's traveled all around the world and has a black belt in Karate (sidebar: He had to go to Japan to get it from one of the highest ranked black belts in the world. And he said during his exam that guy kicked his ass but it was great). He was also known around Carnarvon for being a badass black belt and the police were told to stay away from him. Apart from all of that though he was a nice guy and funny.

I later met Shannon's mum who is originally from Holland and also quite well traveled. She is very nice and the youngest of SEVEN. I was invited over there for dinner for the two nights we were in town which was very nice. We set off in the morning, Shannon, his dad (Wolf) and myself, to go camping at the Blow holes. Camping in Australia is a bit different than Canada because it's so hot all the time. So all you really need is a swag (Swag: A canvas lining with a roll up mattress and blanket inside. It can zip all the way around so you can be inside it. So it's like a 1 man tent with a bed at the bottom, but you can sleep in it like a sleeping bag too with your head out.... make sense?...and yes it is really called a SWAG).

When we arrived at the camp site, a bit further down after the blow holes, we had to check in with the rangers. Once they found out Shannon and Wolf were locals we got to stay for free, she said she doesn't like to make locals pay, works for me! As we went further there were a bunch of shacks everywhere that people own/rent for holidays and such. But when you're local you just camp in front of some one else's shack and everything's cool. So we found a nice spot and set up shop. We found some old bed frames behind the shack so we had our swags off the ground and everything, try and get me now brown snakes!

Shannon introduced me to "Jaffles" which is just basically a toasted sandwich. But you use a jaffle iron and you just throw whatever (we had stew in them sometimes) you want in there and then toss it in the fire, always delicious. The weather was beautiful the whole time we were there, and we were doing all kinds of awesome stuff. Spear fishing, snorkeling, grabbing oysters and other sea creatures right out the water and throwing them on the fire, eating like damn hell ass kings. First time I had clams, trocker shells (sp?) and sea urchins, clams are REALLY good, sea urchins I think need to be with something like on a cracker, still quite tasty though.

The second day we were there the family that owned the shack we were in front of rocked up in the afternoon. At first the didn't seem too pleased, but again once they found out that they were locals everything was alright. The family just kinda did there thing while we sat outside with the fire going and drinking it was funny. Later on when they were leaving, they just came for the day, the dad turns to Shannon and I and says "You guys smoke pot?" and does the universal bong hand signal. We're like..."maybe..." but still suspicious, he pulls out about $80 worth of weed and says "Got anything to put it in?" and dumps the whole thing in a bag for us and says "Have a good weekend boys"....most random thing ever. When we told Wolf he just laughed and said WELCOME TO CARNARVON!

All in all turned out to be probably my best weekend in OZ so far. Once we got back into town Shannons mum let me stay at hers until we set off again. By this point the new plan was that Shannon would take me to Coral Bay and then he would continue on. So after a few more days in Carnarvon we were off again, Wolf decided to go with Shannon to Port Headland and take the bus back (its like 2000kms away). They spent one night in Coral Bay then left in the morning.

Thanks for the great time gentlemen, we need to do it again sometime.

Peace & Love

Carnarvon: Cycling Prohibited (Sept 2 - 4)

I'd like to dedicate this post to my Grandfather who passed away on August 27th. He always made me feel loved, which is all I could ask.


I'll start off by outlining my current living arrangement. I moved out of the dorm about 4 weeks ago and have been staying in a twin room with a guy from Taiwan named Albert, it's been working out quite well he worked at the meat factory but they are cutting down his hours, so he's moving to Carnarvon in a few days. The key to finding a good roomate is make sure they have their own stuff so they won't want to steal yours, Albert is a computer engineer in Taiwan so I felt I could trust him if I said some computery stuff to him.

This past weekend I released the shackles of employment, took an extra day off, and we headed to Carnarvon with another guy named Alvin from Hong Kong. They went looking for new work on a Banana farm, I just decided to go along for the ride seen as I had'nt been to Carnarvon yet. Before going this dude at the Cameliers warned me that there was nothing in Carnarvon worth seeing only if you go to the blow holes or stop short in Monkey Mia. We soldiered on regardless.


Driving up to Carnarvon, you would never guess there was a town there it's completely flat and desert-like all the way there (because of the recent rain there were a lot of wild flowers growing though, which made it look great). It looks like it SHOULD be a nice place but it's pretty run down and dero looking. And to cap it all off, there are these "CYCLING PROHIBITED" signs all around the main part of the town, which is about 2 blocks. So not only does it look run down, I can't even ride my bike into town~ CarnarvonFAIL.


When we arrived we walked around for a while, checked out 1 mile Jetty and had some pizza at the Old Post Office, which is top 5 in the world as per Lonely Planet. The pizza was AIIGHT, we had a seafood pizza and it had anchovies so it was a bit salty but it was a nice atmosphere and the pizza was alright. WAY over priced though, $65 for 1 large pizza, 3 beers, and garlic bread.... absurd. The place is owned by an Italian woman and there's a German waitress and barman, lulz. So basically it has nothing to do with Carnarvon or Australia.


The highlight was definitely the drive up, you can see to the horizon all the way around you pretty much the whole time, which is pretty crazy. We also stopped in Kalbarri on the way back which is always a good time, I lied in the previous sentence for effect, Kalbarri was actually the highlight. We saw the wildflowers, huge patches of purple, white, and yellow,we also went to Kalbarri National Park to see Natures Window and some other cool things. Also went out on the town for the first time in a while, that was a good time, I met this girl from Ottawa. She is a basketball player, which is a character you don't find in Australia (The Girl Basketball Player) so it was funny talking to her, it reminded me of home. She also told me that Jack Layton had died recently which was a bit sad.


All in all an excellent 3 days spent away from Geraldton, back to work until October 14 then it's on to the rest of Aus. Still not sure how it's going to pan out, I'm waiting on some infoz from my travel agent, so we'll see~


Peace & Love

Laziest Post (May 3 - May 23)

Man...I work now, and for those who don't know, when I start working I mostly just lay down for the remainder of the day. Now I have to cook and blog on top of that, it's all just too much really. So here are some bullet points regarding what I've been up to for the past 3 weeks in Gero:

- Went on a day trip to Kalbarri to see Red Bluff and the awesome surf
- really nice waves and excellent surfers; Simon took a video maybe I'll grab that; a kangaroo jumped infront of us on the way back but we missed it thankfully;
- Mad searching for a job paid off, got a job at an electronics store, they made me a manager (lulz)
- Simon and Adrian both found scallop jobs, so they are out on the water for the next month or so, I decided to stay with my position
- I went to a bike race over the weekend (May 22) with the owner of the net cafe/book store in town (Johnathan) and his daughter
- Johnathan was in the race (from Minganew - Bootenels), he needed someone with a licence to be with his daughter while she drove so he asked if I wanted to see some of the country side, being the outgoing person I am I decided to go
- It was alright, something to do for the morning and I saw some nice landscape etc...forgot my camera though, that's what happens when I have to leave at 10 to 7 =(
- Mostly just loungin and working now, tryna stack dem papes and what not

Gee, I am tired...gotta go cook I guess..How's everyone else doing?

Leaders and Legends (Apr 26 - May 2)

Chilled at the Billabong for the day while Simon said his final goodbyes. While waiting around this fellow popped up during a little guitar round circle that was going on. I can't remember his name BUT he was mad dope on the guitar. He came over and was saying how he's been fieding to get back on the guitar for a while now but didn't bring his over from Sydney (click here for his myspace). He was probably the best guitar player I've ever sat infront of, all the girls around were pretty much falling inlove with him. He played with the guitar laying on his lap and had some percussion going on, I really wish I took a video while he was playing.

After an epic guitar session filled afternoon, Simon and I departed the Bong for the last time and started our journey to Geraldton. We got going at about 6pm and it takes about 4 hours to get there. And if you know about Aus, you know you should NOT be driving at night on the highway because you'll hit a kangaroo (sounds hilarious I know) and you don't want to hit one of those. They'll smash through your window then slash you up out of fear, scary stuff. So anyway, we started our journey in the dark like fools, but luckily right when we got on the highway we pulled up behind a ROAD TRAIN (long truck). This thing was great, provided us with much better light infront of us, protection from the wind and kangaroo protection (on the way down we saw around 4 dead kangaroos, and they are big mfers). The best part was that he lead us all the way to Geraldton, so we were safe the whole way, and he was driving quite fast and passing other slower road trains so we made good time. The drive was just one long straight flat road, really desert-y, or at least I think so, it was also pitch black outside. I wish I could have high fived the truck driver but the opportunity never came up.

We arrived in Gero at about 10pm and pulled up at the beach to stretch out. We were meeting a friend there who we had previously met at the Billabong, he was the one who suggested coming to Gero in the first place. Once we arrived we phone him up (Adrian), and funnily enough he was staying in a hotel right infront of us on the beach! So he came out yelling and we had a great laugh and he invited us to stay with him in the hotel for two nights. BONUS~ Had a great few nights there getting drunk in the hotel room, and having a nice bed to sleep on, it was beautiful.

Adrian is probably the nicest person I've met since traveling. He's originaly from Victoria (Aus), but is on this side for work and whatever. He bought us food, is helping us find jobs and all kinds of stuff. Really great guy, basically if it wasn't for him I'm not sure what I'd be doing in Aus right now, but I know I wouldn't be having as good a time. I can't say enough good things about Adrian so we'll just leave it at that! LEGEND!!

The second day we spent in Gero the Canucks were playing game 7 vs the Blackhawks so we had to go down in the morning to a bar to watch that (Simon is from Van remember). It was a great game, it was even amazing that we found somewhere playing it, and Van won in the end which was great (kept the spirits high for the rest of the day lol). At night we hit up the local pub called Camel Bar, we met the bartenders and had a nice chat, and they invited us back to their place that night which was wicked. The cool thing about being in such a small town (about 30-40 thousand) is that people are really friendly, and they want to meet you because they know everyone else in the town. It's always good getting in with the locals.

The next few days I just spent doing some job related things like getting a bank account, tax file number and handing out some resumes and such. I've got a few leads but nothing definite yet, I'm looking to work in the Department of Environment and Conservation, or at a school for disabled children (as a gardener to start). Both I think would be pretty interesting jobs, I also heard there is quite a bit of IT work to do in the mining industry, so I might check that out as well.

I'm currently staying at a really cheap hostel ($100 a week!) and its run by a christian organization that does work with the mental hospital so it's a nice quiet place to try and buckle down and find a job.

Oh - and I'm pretty sure I saw a shark in the water while sitting at the beach one night.. hmm...maybe it was a dolphin

Peace & Love

My Gangster Sense is Tingling: Shots fired and Beach Takeover (Apr 23 - 25)

The next day I woke up and all the dudes I was with the night before were all still out there, still drinking and talking about how awesome Creamfields was going to be! I hope they made it there in the end, because there were lots of different ideas floating around on how they were going to arrive and at what time and what they had to do first....I really hope they made it, lulz.

I wanted to trot over to Billabong to find out what time Simon wanted to leave and such...just get some final confirmation stuff you know how it is. I decided not to go my normal route (Sidenote: I had previously thought that my route was down a pretty sketch street, even during the day, just had that feel of a gangster street, and plus it's called Monger St and it connects directly to china town....pffft), luckily I made that decision that day because as I was rolling by there was a cop blocking off the street putting a bullet proof vest on. Apparantly there were shots fired and the whole street was now swarming with swat and blocked off. Looks like I......dodged a bullet there.......*insert CSI Miami tune*

Anyway, I eventually met up with Simon and his girl and we set off to Margaret River; then she got a phone call from work and had to go in that day so it just ended up being Simon and I. This probably worked out for the best, as she seemed like a bit of a worrier and we got up to some pretty dodgy things. We arrived in Margarget River at about 6pm, picked up some food (roast chicken and salad..to be combined later into a MASSIVE chicken salad) and headed to Red Gate Beach where we were going to meet up with a big group from the hostel. We got a bit lost on the way but ended up finding it eventually, we walked down to the beach to find a group of about 25 backpackers just chillin on lawn chairs in the dark drinking and smoking (Sidenote: Simon and I peeped some Cops/Rangers lurking at the entrance to the beach, probably making sure nobody drove out of there drunk etc.).

This was probably one of the coolest gatherings I've ever been to. Everyone was just sitting around talking getting slizzerd on the beach. Simon was going to stay in his tent on the beach that night and I was going to sleep in the car, so I help him set that up, it was pretty windy but we got it up eventually. We were out there for a while, then the rain started...and then it REALLY started. So we all retreated to our cars and began waiting it out, Simon assured me that it would pass within a few minutes because of the wind (Sidenote: I jumped out to pee during a lull and as I started the rain started up full force again...FML).

Eventually, the rain stopped for real and the skies were clear again. We kept the party going in the parking lot, one of the vans was blasting some music so that was good, I felt sorry for their battery though. This is when we assembled out enormous chicken salad...and man was it tastarific..full chicken + full bag of salad + balsamic vinegar. Chyeaaaaa~ The highlight of the night was probably the salad to be honest...but in a close second was meeting this guy who looked AND sounded exactly like Bear Grylls, it was actually crazy because he came from a town about 20mins from where Bear Grylls is from. His story was that he is Bears younger brother, but he just doesn't like the fame, he just does all the same stuff for the love of nature; hilarious guy.

I woke up the next morning to the sound of Rangers getting details from people and issueing $50 Illegal Camping tickets...hmm...good thing I have the uncanny ability to wake up in the nick of time (Sidenote: I once had a similar experience involving a girl and her parents coming back home at 2am instead of the next day). So I turned over and told Simon what the situation was, and he said "You want to flee the scene?"..and proceeded to pop on his tuque and slink out his side of the car down to the beach. The Rangers were all on my side doing the booking, I guess they hadn't seen us in there or were just doing each car one at a time instead of rouding the people up and getting all the info at once, silly Rangers. I decided to jump over the seat and get out the driver side. Good thing nobody there knew me before the previous night, too drunk to remember me, because when I walked passed all the people and the Rangers asked "Where'd that bloke come from, do you know him?" they all said no!...Beautiful...I just strolled down to the beach to meet up with Simon and assess the situation(Sidenote: A wise man once told me innocent people don't run from the scene, they just walk on and carry on with their business).

We decided to just wait out the heat at the beach, so we stayed down there for about 1-2 hrs and then made our way back up. We met up with some stragglers, the rest had gone for breakfast in town, one of the guys got lucky and didn't get fined but the others were fined $50...womp womp womp...After a quick chat, Simon and I decided to head to some caves that were down the road. This was a FANTASTIC idea, we stopped at one called Mammoth Cave (there was also Lake Cave and Jewel Cave) and it was really amazing. I've never been in a cave like that before, and this one was a good start, now I want to see more (I got some really nice pics but I can't upload them until next month...I need to get more selective with the ones I actually upload).

After that we headed further south to Pemberton to do a tree top walk or tree climb, they all seemed pretty cool at the time. The tree top walk was pretty far but the tree climbs (60m and 71m) were quite close. We stayed the night in a caravan park, to avoid any fines, I saw signs posted that it was a $1000 fine in that area. Surprisingly there were a TON of kids running around the caravan park, but I guess it is easter weekend so they were vacationing. It was just funny because I haven't been around lots of kids in a while. That night we had tuna pasta, which was pretty delicious, and I had an early night to try and get to sleep before Simon because he snored like a monster. This was my second night sleeping in the car, and getting rained on through the leak in the window, so I am thankful to be sleeping in a bed with a pillow and a blanket tonight! I didn't really have a bad sleep, just the damp feeling gets into your bones.

As it was raining again the next day we opted not to do the tree walk or tree climb. But if you look here you'll see how sketch the tree climb set up was LOL. It's basically just some iron rods sticking out all around the tree and a small fence to stop you from falling over sideways. So we decided to head back to Perth instead of put our lives at risk on some rods and a tiny fence. Driving around Australia is SO much different than New Zealand. Here there are really tall trees along the roads and lots of red sand/dirt along the road, it still has the nice scenic water views and such though. At one point we had a large river on the right and the sea on the left, pretty cool spot.

On our way back we stopped in a town called Bunbury to avoid some end easter weekend traffic. This turned out to be great, we stayed on the beach, Simon dried out his tent and surfed a bit and we ate some lunch. The sun was shining, not a cloud in site, a much needed refresher as to why I'm here, and great change from the rain. We also decided to stop in Fremantle on the way back and have a quick drink at a brewery/bar called Little Creatures. Remember how I said Fremantle was the place to be...well this is the place to be IN Fremantle. They brew their own beer and that's the only one they sell, the food smelled great, and the place is enormous (it's two warehouses attached). Really cool spot, the entire harbor area was really nice actually, and quite busy. I hadn't been down that far when I was there before so I'm glad I got to see that part before leaving here.

Headed back Perth after a pint and now I'm writing these posts~ This is pretty much real time blogging now! Off to Geraldton in the morning, maybe I'll find a job for a few weeks?....

Peace & Love

Welcome to Western Australia (Apr 19 - 22)

Now....I've been catching quite a bit of flack for choosing to go to WA, most of which coming from the people who are actually here. "You just got here? And you haven't been to the East Coast? Why are you here?" etc... But I'm not here to give "reasons" as to why I chose to come here, that is between me and my brain, I'm here to see some real Australian sh--stuff. And so far, I am quite please with my decision.

So I arrived in Perth at about 7pm on Tuesday night, no hostel booked or anything. Jumped on the phone at the airport and phoned a few hostels before I found one that had a spare bed for a few nights, Billabong. Decent set up, they have a pool, nice high showers, and an overall nice vibe; even if it is a bit dingy. My first night I just got set up in my room and had a few beers by the pool with some German dudes I met (ARG..can't get away from these people lol =P). Next day I did some job applying (Sidenote: I was applying for a bunch of different jobs, but once I started to read the IT stuff nerdzilla came out and I was geeked on working in IT. Don't think it will happen because I only want to work for about 2-3 weeks or so..oh well), then I ventured out into the city to have a wander, looks like a city pretty much nothing special. There is a pretty cool looking Bell Tower beside the harbor and some building that lights up all crazy at night. The city is a bit bleh to be honest, but thats how I feel about most big cities. Got back to the hostel and night and had a few with a bunch of people, one Canadian guy named Simon from VanCity.

I decided to do a day in Fremantle because I heard it was a cool place to be so the next day I took a trip to Scarborough Beach (haha, yup scarbs) which was really nice. Watching all the surfers and stuff was cool, I had a sweet time just laying out and chilling for a while (Sidenote: AUSTRALIA IS REALLY HOT~ GEEZ... it's still like 30+ here during the day, I can't even imagine what the summer is like). After the beach I hoped on the train to Fremantle to spend the night there and go to the market in the morning to just check it out.

I got to Fremantle with no plan...Oh by the way, I might need to get the Perth/WA lonely planet because the Australia one doesn't have any hostel info, its just general stuff and most of it is hotels and expensive things. Anyway, I got to Fremantle and asked the dude at the train station where the nearest hostel was, he pointed me in a few different directions so I opted for the closest and headed out...No rooms available, and the guy told me there probably wouldn't be anything in all of 'Freo' because it was easter weekend...UHOHZ~ No worries though, next place I went had ONE spare bed for ONE night only, perfect for me (bonus of traveling alone).

Fremantle was actually a really cool place. Nice small city with old style architecture and a very nice vibe to the city. I went out that night to some bar because I got a free meal ticket from the hostel and met some local dudes and had a chat. It was also open mic night so there was music going on, and I owned a bit at pool, overall I had a nice time there. Switched it up and went to a club, suggested by the locals I had met, so I could get my dance on. It ended up being a dubstep/electro club (two different rooms) so it was wicked awesome. I stayed there for quite a while then bounced. It's odd going to bars/clubs alone because you have to just talk to randoms all night, but it's good because you can come and go as you please.

The next day I wanted to wake up early and hit up the market then head back to Perth because Simon had offered to give me a ride to Margaret River (south of Perth) and then north up the coast to Geraldton. My plans to go to the market got foiled, as most of my plans do, something about some dude getting killed a couple thousand years ago... not to sure on the details...but it must be important seen as everything was closed everywhere. Anyway, I just grabbed some food and walked through some more of the city before heading out. Only to discover there were no trains that day from Fremantle because of some construction on the track, not to worry though there was a bus to take us. All in all, Fremantle was pretty dope, I enjoyed the atmosphere more than Perth...so if you're planning on going to Perth, go straight to Fremantle it will only cost you $3.70 for the train.

I hoped on the bus and headed back to Perth, Billabong was full so I booked in at a place called Easy Perth; this ended up being a great and hilarious idea. Check in wasn't until 2pm so I hung around Billabong at the pool until then, met back up with Simon and snagged his number so I knew what time we were going and what not the next day...phewf...I should have done that earlier. Once I got checked in at Easy Perth I met a couple of people, one guy was really drunk already which was funny, and everyone else was drinking...2pm remember and its face-melting hot. This dude ended up passing out for the rest of the day but woke back up in the evening and got right back on it..legend. He gave me the nickname James The Cat or Mr. The Cat which appearantly is an old cartoon, I had my own theme song too so I wasn't complaining.

I stayed up drinking with these guys for as long as I could, but they were all hyped because they were going to Creamfields the next day (big music festival for dance music). They kepted trying to convince me not to go to Margaret River and go to Creamfields the next day with them...it was pretty tempting because the tickets were only $95 and it was an all day event. But I had to decline and I crashed at about 1am.

Off to Margaret River in the morning..man it's hot here...whew..

Peace & Love

Dear New Zealand,

Hey, how are you? It's me James. I'll keep this short so I don't get too emotional. Just wanted to let you know I'm leaving tomorrow and I really had a magnificent time with you for the past two months. We had so much fun, sand boarding, surfing, sky diving, bird/whale watching, partying, and so much more. You've really got it all, some of the most beautiful landscapes I've ever seen in person, and such a varying landscape as well; volcanoes, rain forests, mountains, enormous sand dunes, beautiful beaches, ocean/sea views, etc. I'm not sure how any other country will ever live up to what you've shown me. So much beauty in such a small space.

I don't know if it's just because you were my first that I feel this way or if you really are this special. Either way I know that I love you and that I always will. And I will be back one day. I hope you never change, and if you do I hope it's only for the better even though I don't think that's possible.

If I wasn't leaving, I'd be staying. Take care.

Love Always,
James "FORLIFE"

Dunedin to Kikoura is a F&%$#*! LONG WAY (Apr 16 - 18)

We woke up and got started pretty early, finished breakfast at about 9am and left. We wanted to get an early start because we knew there was a long road ahead of us. We wanted to go up the Otago Peninsula, see Baldwin St (steepest residential street in the world) and the Dunedin Railway Station, then on to Kikoura.

With only 1 stop for food, and 1 for toilet, we got into Kikoura at around 7:45-8pm. We didn't do anything else that day. The hostel we were staying in, Dolphin Lodge, was pretty nice, I always like hostels with fire places, even if it's not too cold. So we chilled and stayed in that night, I had to book my bus back to Christchurch so I could fly out on the 19th. I decided to go whale watching as well, just as a last hoorah, and it's the only thing to do in Kikoura (beautiful place, just nothing free to do). It wasn't too expensive and it turned out to be well worth the money. I had to reschedule my bus, as we could only get the latest whale watching tour, but that is free with the ticket I had so it was alright. The plan was to arrive in Christchurch the day before my flight and sleep in the airport that night so I wouldn't miss my flight.

The whale watching was AWESOME, we saw three Sperm Whales (at least the tails and some of the head/back), some Dusky Dolphines, Albatross, and some seals. I'm really glad I did it and it was a pretty nice send off. We met some (more) German girls who came along with us, Jessica and Felli (I think..or Falli..). They were pretty cool, I ended up getting a ride with them to Christchurch that night instead of having to take the bus the next day. So as most plans do, mine failed and I had to scavenge for some accomadation for that night and the next day. I eventually found something so it turned out fine.

After we left the whale watching it started to rain heavily, and we had to walk all the way back to the hostel, so that wasn't fun. Now I have a bunch of wet clothes to deal with before I leave in the morning. The drive to Christchurch was pretty rainy as well, but we survived. These girls were pretty cool, Jessica loved reggea which was funny, and they were both au pairs working in the North Island I believe, taking a short vacation.

Thanks for the ride girls~!

Now I'm in Christchurch, writting up my last blog posts before I head off to Perth tomorrow morning.

Christchurch edit: I just walked around Christchurch, doing various business, man it is very sad, but things are still going along which is good. One street will look fine, then the next is completely demolished with a "EXTREME DANGER ZONE" sign infront of it. Decided not to take too many pics (only 1), just because it's just rubble and I'm sure you all know what rubble looks like. Stay strong CHCH, I'm sure you'll be back in tip top shape in no time!

Peace & Love

Rainy bay after rainy bay... (Apr 14 - 15)

We decided to drive the scenic route up the Catlins coast on our way to Dunedin. It seemed like a great idea in the morning, but once we got started the rain followed us all the way to Dunedin. We tried to make the most of it by stopping at all the sights anyway and taking pictures of the bays, but they all looked the same in the rain.

Andy had already gone up the coast while Konni and I were on Stewart Island, and when he went it was much more beautiful and sunny. So seeing his pictures just made it worse. We still tried our best to see everything we stopped at Frasers Beach (really cool stone beach), Waipapa Beach and Lighthouse (we saw a sealion chillin in the rain, it looked like the other sealions sent him out to get pictures taken because none of the others wanted to be out in the rain), Cairo Bay, and Tautuku Beach. The good thing about the rain was it made all the waves HUGE at these beaches, so that was at least nice to watch for a little while. Not really much else to say about the drive, it was just rainy bay after rainy bay, but I'm still glad we went up that way; took a bit longer but not too bad.

When we arrived in Dunedin we stayed in a place called HOGWARTS(!!!!), the lady running the place even looked a bit like a witch (one of the nice ones though lol). This was a really nice hostel, it was an old house, and everything was just warm and nice. I even got a double bed to my self which was dopetastic (even though I only ended up sleeping on a small part of it because I wasn't used to having so much room). We ended up going out that night to a few places, and eventually got to Monkey Bar. This place was BUMPIN'.. packed with students though, which is good and bad. Students kinda smell, and they just are that cool to be around, but they wear the sluttiest clothes so it evens out, kinda...

The next day we wanted to go to the beach but it was still raining so we stayed in, watched Pulp Fiction and did some laundry. They had a laundry service at this hostel, $8 and you get your laundry washed, dryed, AND FOLDED; it was beautiful. Since it was raining we decided to go on the tour of the Speights Brewery, the one in Dunedin is the last gravity run brewery left in the Southern Hemisphere I believe. The tour guide gave us a bunch of cool facts, but we got to drink as much as we wanted at the end (6 different kinds of Speights!) so I don't remember any of the facts. Just know that Speights is the beer to drink in the South Island and the best ones are Speights Gold Medal and Speights Old Dark (if you prefer dark beer). We kind of wanted to go out that night but, after drinking at the brewery we just decided to get to bed so we could get started early the next day. On to Kikoura!

Peace & Love

Stewart Island: The Anchor Stone of Maui's Canoe (Apr 12 - 13)

When leaving Queenstown, we also left behind Rebecca who was heading straight for Dunedin and on to the North Island. Good times with Rebecca, hope you enjoy your skydive in Taupo!

To get to Stewart Island you have to take a ferry from a port town called Bluff, but since there is NOTHING THERE (not even a bank), we decided to stay the night in Invercargill (ya that is the real name...) and just drive to Bluff in the morning. Invercargill is actually a pretty nice city, not very scenic but big enough and has some things going on. Andy decided not to go to Stewart Island, and drive up the coast instead and pick us up when we got back (turned out to be a good idea, further explanation later). So Konni and I booked our ferry for the next day ($132 round trip...ughhhh, we could have gotten some standby seats on a small plane but we wanted to go the next day and they didn't have any left).

The next morning Andy drove us to Bluff and we got on the ferry to Stewart Island at around 9:30am I think (we actually almost missed it trying to get cash in Bluff, which you can't do unless you have a NZ bank account...and there is NO bank on Stewart Island..). We arrived on Stewart Island an hour later, the ferry goes really fast too, in the main town called Oban. Most of Stewart Island is made up of National Parks and wildlife reserves so the town of Oban, where most of the residents of Stewart Island live (around 400), is extremely small and quiet and situated in Halfmoon Bay. Everyone is very friendly though and says hi to you and gives you suggestions on what you should see and do and eat.

As soon as we got there we went to the information centre to find out what we should do, since we didnt want to do the Raikura 2-3 day hike or the Mason Bay 2-3 day hike. After getting some info and checking into our hostel (OH...there is also no phone reception on Stewart Island..but I guess if you just yell loud enough you can find eachother anyway) we decided to do the Ackers Point Lighthouse walk, which was pretty nice. It took us along the coast of Oban, Lonnekers Beach, Leask Bay, Ackers Stone House, Harrold Bay and we also stopped at Ringaringa Beach on the way back. We then took a walk up to Observation Rock, where we saw Golden Bay and the Paterson Inlet; all in all a pretty successful day of walking and we had even more in store for the next day.

(Sidenote: The hostel we were staying in SUCKED, DO NOT STAY AT Stewart Island Backpackers. Dirty kitchen/showers/bathroom, terrible beds, but they do let you store your things there for free for the day after checking out..)

Konni and I booked a water taxi to Ulva Island, which is a bird sanctuary island, and a shuttle to Lee Bay where we would walk back to town from via Horseshoe Track. We got on our water taxi at around 8:15am and set off to Ulva Island (approx. 10 mins away). Oh my this was a beautiful place and an amazing experience. We saw SO MANY different birds, and they all came right up to you because its a bird sanctuary so they aren't used to predators I guess; really cool stuff. We saw Stewart Island Wekas, South Island Saddlebacks (Tieke), Tomtits (Ngiru-Ngiru), Stewart Island Robins (Toutouwai), Brown Creeper (Pipipi), Tuis, Kakas, Fantails (Piwakawaka), New Zealand Pigeons (Kereru), and Bellbirds... no Riffleman, Parakeets, or KIWIs though =( (see all the pics and a video of Bellbirds singing on Flickr).

We walked around the whole island (at least the parts we were allowed to go). So we saw Sydney Cove, Boulder Beach, and West End Beach, there was a whole historical walk section with old buildings and history and such, but I didn't take too much time to learn about that, I was more interested in the birds. Although we didn't get to see a Kiwi (there are only 30-40 on Ulva Island) I'm pretty sure we heard them, which was cool because they make the weirdest noise; and unlike the Kiwi on the mainland these ones come out during the day as well.

After we were satisfied with our stash of bird pics and videos we headed back to Stewart Island to do some MORE walking (if you couldn't tell, the only thing to do on Stewart Island is walk around and peep the beauty and birds). We got our shuttle to Lee Bay where The Anchor is located, there is an anchor on Stewart Island and the chain is located in Bluff, and started our journey back. We decided not to do the Garden Mound Track because the mud looked too intense, so we just took Lee Bay Road back to Horseshoe Bay and then on to the Horseshoe Point Track. Walking up there was quite nice, we got a good view of Horseshoe Bay, Dead Man Beach, Bragg Bay and Butterfield Beach, and then just mosied back into town to eat then catch our ferry back to the mainland.

My time on Stewart Island was short, but well worth it. It is definitely one of the more beautiful places in New Zealand, and a much needed change after spending so much time in Queenstown.

After that it was back to Invercargill for the night and a drive up the Catlins Coast in the morning.

Peace & Love

Queenstown: The Capitol of Fun (Apr 3 - 11)

When we arrived in Queenstown I knew straight away that it was a happenin' spot, because while walking into town to get some cash I saw 5 paragliders floating down into the city; pretty effin cool.

Queenstown is kind of a hard place to write about, because I didn't really do much, except going out and drinking; basically what Queenstown is about, extreme fun and extreme drinking. The bar promoters would come to the hostel every night and hand out free drinks/shots tickets or 2-for-1 drink tickets, so it was kind of hard to wake up and do things in the morning while I was there. While there I did do the luge, which was fun because we had like 12 people and we could race 7 at a time; I ended up getting flipped one time but I still finished the race strong. I also went up Ben Lomond, this was pretty dope, it took me about 4.5hrs to get to the top because I took the scenic route from town, then I took a gondola back down; round trip was probably around 6hrs or so (see my pics from the top on flickr). This was probably the highlight of my stay in Queenstown. Oh man was it cold at the top, I had to find a little spot sheltered from the wind to eat my summit lunch (two sandwiches + two nashi pears).

I wanted to do the Nevis bungy while I was there, which is the highest bungy in New Zealand, but I decided it was too expensive and I could do with a little saving. The reason I needed to save was because I was spending so much money on FERGBURGERs, holy mother these were delicious (Recommendations: If you're drunk get the Big AL, if not settle for the Double Ferg w/ Cheese + fries and if you're a little baby girl just get a normal Ferg). It's basically just a very large burger, but it's so tasty, and the only thing open until 4am in Queenstown. This also seemed to be the place where I met EVERYONE that I had previously met in New Zealand. I kept running into people I knew which was kind of cool, but sometimes awkward...Oh heeeyyyy....you're umm..THAT girl.....yeah..Ok, see ya later....

After spending a few days just drinking and being lazy, we decided to take a day trip to Milford Sound and take a boat tour. I finally found out what a Fiord was, very deep inlet from the sea (300m down I think) with mountains coming out. This was really cool, it's about a 4hr drive from Queenstown, but it was well worth the journey (...maybe not the $230 speeding ticket for Andy...Oh SH----!). The drive up was really nice and scenic as well, and because its fall here the mountains are all snowy and look like post cards. Unfortunately I heard Doubtful Sound was better, bigger mountains, but we never got that far so I'll have to add that to the list of what to do next time I'm here =).

This was the place I spent the most time while in New Zealand, and it was definitely because of the parties, checking out at 10am is just a plow to keep backpackers buying another night... Who's going to wake up before 10am to check out?!

Next stop, Stewart Island for some much needed rest and nature walking.

Peace & Love

This Haast to be a joke (Mar 31 - Apr 2)

The next morning we checked out at 10 and set off to see Franz Joseph Glacier. This would be my first experience seeing a glacier so I was pretty excited. To get to Franz you had to do a short walk through a forest then there was a long path up to the glacier. It was a very nice walk, and the weather was gorgeous so it made for a pleasant time. You could get pretty close to the glacier so we took some nice pictures, but there were lots of people around, a bit touristy for my taste but still nice. Fox Glacier on the other hand was much quieter, the walk to the glacier was much shorter, and the scenery was a bit nicer (if you couldn't tell I liked Fox Glacier better). We actually snuck passed the little rope telling us to keep back (Oooo the velvet rooooope), and got right up close to the glacier and took some nice pictures (Sidenote: I tried to be a genius and put my memory card in Andy's camera and take pictures, but that didn't work because I had the wrong memory card... I had a cool picture of me lifting up an ice chunck from the glacier and licking it, but it's gone now =( ).

After our glacier filled morning we thought we would go to a town called Haast and stay for the night, instead of rushing through all the way to Wanaka. First of all, this "town" was split into three parts, Haast Beach, Haast Town, and Haast. And even the three combined were smaller than any other town I've seen. I estimated the population to be about 50 - 100, so we eventually found our hostel, which was hard to find because of the town being split into three. We met up with Rebecca and decided then that this was not the place for us, so we opted just to grab some food and head on to Wanaka. We stopped in a place called The Grumpy Cow, which was a fish and chips and small grocery store. I'm pretty sure we actually met the grumpy cow, because when we went up to order we were met by a disgruntled little lady who was NOT happy to have our business. I ordered the fish and chips and asked if she had vinegar and I was answered with a snarl, I'm pretty sure she said no though. Anyway, we just ate and got the eff out of Haast as fast as we could. On our way to Wanaka the car started to overheat, so we had to deal with that for a while, but it worked out in the end.

We called ahead for accomodation and found that everything was already booked up, typical as we arrived there at around 7:30pm. We eventually found a 4 bed ensuite at a YHA hostel, so not BBH, and ended up paying $32 for the night, ugh... but it was all that was left so we just decided to leave the next day and find another place (Sidenote: It was actually a really nice place though, if we were YHA members it would be cheaper, but the view from the dinning area/lounge was really cool and they had a projection screen for movies). That night was the first time I watched my skydive video, which included some interviews with me and the jump, really nice. I am waiting for them to post the video online so I can put it up here.

The next day we moved to Mountain View Hostel, which has an incorrect phone number in the lonely planet and they've been trying to change it for 2 years now and lonely planet still hasn't done anything. So we just had to roll up and hope for the best, it worked out in the end though. This place probably had the best garden of any hostel I've stayed in, mostly grass, but got a lot of sunlight and nice sitting areas and such. After checking in we spent the day fishing, drinking, and eating. Very relaxing, didn't catch any fish but still great time, I didn't actually fish, just drank and watched Andy and Konni fish. We went out at night as well, I can't really remember if it was good or not, so I assume it was amazing. It was good enough that the hostel manager had to come in and wake us up to tell us we had to get out of the room now (check out is at 10am).

Next morning after checking out we hit up Red Star Luxury Burger, which was recommended by an english guy we met the night before. It was pretty delicious, huge burger and good portion of fries, great way to start the day. We then stopped in at Puzzling World which was pretty dope. It's filled with illusions and has a maze inside, there are also puzzle at the front of the place that you can just go in and do for free, so that was nice. On our way out some girls were kinda giggling and pointing at me, as we were driving away they were waving too, then I realized it was Alice and her friends that I met in Auckland (the girl who woke up Janine for me and pretty much secured my ride to Bay of Islands and got my whole trip started!). So I was a bit upset I didn't get to speak with them, but it was so weird seeing them there after all this time..it was almost...puzzling...=)

After that we hit the road again on our way to Queenstown, the adventure capitol of the world.

Peace & Love

Let's Fetts! To the Westcoast (Mar 28 - 30)

We decided to roll out in the afternoon and head to Nelson Lakes National Park on the way. We stopped at Lake Rotoiti for a few photos then continued on to Greymouth, where we would meet up with a Dutch girl we met in Nelson. I've been to some boring drab looking towns since I've been in New Zealand.. but Greymouth is the champion of champions when it comes to boring lifeless cities. I hear it isn't as bad as Westport (which we purposefully passed by), but the only thing to do in Greymouth is visit the brewery and even that didn't seem too exciting.

We stayed at a hostel called DUKES, which was ok, pretty nice atmosphere and beds (and FREE POOL!.... GER 4 - CAN 0 =( ). If you couldn't guess we only stayed in Greymouth for one night and departed as soon as we could in the morning. The highlight of the stay there was in the McDs late at night they gave us cheese burgers with quarter pounder patties and buns... delicious. We then set off to Hokitika, which looks like a town straight out of an old western. On our way to Hokitika we stopped in Punakaiki to see the pancake rocks and the blow holes. They looked pretty cool but it was a crappy day so we only stayed for about half an hour to take pics and walk around.

After that we went straight to Hokitika, it was pretty nice and the hostel we stayed in, Drifting Sands, was really quaint and nice; it also backed right onto the beach (literally right out the backyard). I took the time here to just chill out, bought a vball for future use, and took a walk on the beach where I saw a seal just chillin catching some sun. We had a really nice dinner here as well, BBQ lamb, chicken, corn, and veggies. That night we stayed in and had a few drinks, the stars were really visible that night because there was no moon; it was really amazing, nice night.

The next day, Ralf and Eva decided to stay behind for one more night and catch up later, so Konni, Andy, and I set off for Franz Joseph. Oh our way we decided to stop at the Hokitika Gorge, this place was really cool. The water was a weird milky blue because it w as run off from the glaciers (see pics for wowness). There was also a swing bridge which was pretty fun, haha. We left from there and continued on to Franz Joseph.... on our way we got a flat tire! OHNOZ~

So here we are, stranded in the middle of no where, no phone reception, flat tire and no tools to change it. We had the jack but the used car they bought didn't have that thing that takes the wheels off (shows how much I know about cars, don't even know what its called...). Anyway, we were basically effed and stranded in the middle of the road. Konni set off to try and find some service for his phone so it was just Andy and I left waiting by the car. By the graces of Allah/God/The Spirit of the Universe a service man drove by and helped us out. He changed the tire and gave us a name of a good place to get a new one on (didn't want to drive all the way to Franz Joseph on a spare). So we head back into Hokitika and tried the mechanic he suggested, we had some special tire that they didn't have and would have to order....so we tried the next place...same deal..Finally we got to the last place and this guy actually tested the tire to see what was wrong and found out it was just the valve that was broken. He did a quick $40 repair on the valve and we were off again. I wish I could remember the name of the place so I could give it a shout out.

The problem with driving between really small towns in New Zealand is the lack of phone service. I like to pre-book my hostel rooms to ensure I have one for the night (remember that time in Auckland?) but with no phone service we just had to hope for the best when we arrived. We got to Franz Joseph a few hours later, and it was surprisingly small. It was basically two streets, it had 2 bars and 1 atm machine (there was a sign on the machine saying that this was the only one). Right when we got to our hostel, Glow Worm, I decided to do a skydive. I already knew I wanted to do one in Franz Joseph because you get to see the highest mountain in NZ and the glaciers. So right when we checked in we signed up for a skydive that afternoon with Skydive Franz .... I was quite pumped. We quickly grabbed some food and they picked us up at 5:30pm for our dive.

Konni and I went together, and once we got to the air strip they gave us a BRIEF run through of what was going to happen, I had an interview with my camera man and we hopped in the plane. I got the full package with photos and a DVD of the jump, so I was out of money for 24hrs but it was WELL worth it. My jump master Leigh, girl who jumped with me on my back, was about 5"2 so it was really funny going with her. She said it's better that shes small because then we can go faster. I can't really describe what it was like, going up was a bit scary but the view was so beautiful, then once you jump it only feels like you're falling for half a second then it feels like you're flying. You can't hear ANYTHING while you're falling, I was yelling as loud as I could and I couldn't hear it. Then Leigh pulled the shute and we just glided down. She let me steer for a while which was fun, doing turns and stuff was really cool. Then once you hit the ground you just want to do it all over again. I can understand why some people travel the world to follow the skydive season, very addictive. I'm not sure how I will top this anywhere else in the world, the feeling of the skydive plus the scenery was just breath taking. EVERYONE SHOULD DO THIS!

I am waiting for them to send me the link to my DVD which they will host online. I'll post it as soon as I get it.

The next day we are off to see the glaciers (Franz Joseph and Fox)..already seen them from above, why not up close =P

Peace & Love

Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik (Mar 22-28)

Picton was a really small and quiet town, it's really just a passing through point for people coming off the ferry. The backpackers I stayed in, Tomstone Backpackers, was located outside of town across from the cemetery, hence the name. This place was the main reason I ended up staying for so long in Picton. First of all, YOU GOT TWO PILLOWS.. absolutely unheard of. Second there was a hot tub and it was just a really nice spot.

I was also trying to find a ride to Nelson, which didn't pan out but I enjoyed my three nights in Tomstone anyway, met some nice folk, successfully sewed a button to my pants etc. It rained quite a bit while I was there, obviously, so I stayed in and watched a lot of TV. I did end up going on two walks, one of them was 5 hours and the other was 1.5. The first one I took a nice stroll around the Victoria Domain, all the way to the "Snout", where you got a nice view of the Queen Charlotte Sound. Then the next day I went up Esson's Valley and got a nice view from above of Picton and the town right next to it. I took some nice pictures with my disposable camera but I still have a few left on there so they haven't been developed.

After all my failed attempts at getting rides, everyone else was going up north away from the winter, I decided to take a bus to Nelson (only $25). I also turned down a ride going the opposite direction I wanted to go, towards Kikoura, oh well. Once I got to Nelson I finally experienced what everyone was talking about before I arrived to the South Island....SAND FLIES...EVERYWHERE...ALL THE TIME. I quickly got accustomed to them and put on some long pants, a shirt, and my shoes...I wasn't in the North Island anymore =(. On my first night in Nelson I met Ralf, German from Hamburg, and a girl that I can't remember her name (it was like Simone but fancier), from Switzerland. I immediately turned on my charm (it's like a super power) and secured a ride down the west coast of the South Island. We weren't leaving for a few days as we had to wait for his friends to come back from Able Tasman (Sidenote: I kinda wanted to go to Able Tasman but never ended up going, I've already seen mad beaches here though so I'm not too upset), so we made some plans for the next few days. Obviously our plans to visit the Centre of New Zealand monument and some other hikes fell through because of the rain (are you sensing a pattern here?). But luckily we had a fall back plan, The Nelson Craft Beer Festival (Marchfest 2011). We also stopped off at a trolley race (box car race), which was pretty funny, few kids crashed lulz. Anyway, the Marchfest was awesome, good beer, REALLY good music (check all the bands out, except Chimuka, Barons of Tang were the best, I hugged them all after the show). We stayed there from 3pm - 10pm (pretty much open to close), great times. We then proceeded to the club until about 3am, I think I was drunk all day. Good thing we went to the club though so I could dance all the alcohol out of my system.

The next day it rained again, but I took a walk to the beach with a girl named Lilian (also German) so it wasn't all bad. Off to the west coast the next afternoon with the German Masters (Ralf, Eva, Konstantine, Andy [Sidenote: He's from the northern part of Italy where they speak German?! Who knew about this? They have to learn Italian in school though]). Let's Fetts!

Peace & Love

Farewell North Island (Mar 18 - 21)

My second last day in Auckland was Berni's last day there. And that night she had to go pick up her hat from some random place and that took a long time. So I said my final goodbye to Berni. She said "This is the longest time I've spent with a guy I didn't know".. and that made me actually think, yea we didn't know each other and we just traveled together for like a week. Awww, travel buddies for life.

My last day in Auckland was pretty sweet. I finally decided to go up the Sky Tower which was great. I was initially being a snob saying "Pfft, I've been up the CN Tower, now THAT is impressive"... but we don't have the same views obviously, and you can't see three different volcanoes going up the CN Tower. Unfortunately at this time I was without a camera so you won't get to see what I saw, but take it from me, it was quite nice. I saw Mt. Rangitoto[pic], Mt. Eden[pic], and Mt. Wellington[pic]. I also watched the sun set and got some full moon action while I was up there. Very nice evening.

After that I went back to the hostel and chilled at the bar for a while, and met a girl named Barbara from Austria. We decided to go for a walk around the city to find a better bar and happened upon the Auckland Arts Festival. So we stopped in there for the evening and enjoyed some live music and drinks. It was a pretty cool vibe, lots of young successful socialites sipping wine and having conversation. There was also a camera that you moved around in front of and it created swirling images on a huge screen; this was pretty cool. I stayed for a few hours but then had to go because I was catching an early train (7:30am departure) the next morning. So I said goodnight to Barbara and to Auckland for the last time.

I woke up the next morning at 6:30am, because I had to be at the station early for check-in. Luckily the station was only about 5 minutes away and I mapped out my route the day before just in case I got lost in my half sleeping state. So I stumbled out of bed, dragged on my clothes and walked in the dark to the train station.

Taking the train was a GENIUS idea, it was really relaxing and I got to see all kinds of nice scenery; there was also commentary along the way, I took one of the maps on the menu for a souvenir (scissors coming in handy once again). The train went Auckland -> Pikekohe -> Hunty -> Hamilton -> Te Awanutu -> Otorohanga -> Waitomo -> Te Kuiti -> Taumarunui -> National Park (Mt. Ruapehu) -> Onakune -> Wairu -> Taihape -> Marton -> Fielding ->Palmerston North -> Levin -> Otak -> Paraparaune -> Poriua -> Wellington...oh I didn't mention the train ride was 12hrs?..yea. Most of those places were EXTREMELY small towns, but the people seemed nice enough, most of them were waving as the train went by which was cool. The highlight of the trip was seeing Mt. Ruapehu. It was kind of bitter sweet because I never got to go up and see everything when I was in Taupo, but at least I got to see it; but it just made me want to go up there even more. It really made everything else I've seen (mountain wise) just look silly in comparison. This was a real mountain, I was actually impressed, it was the biggest thing I think I've ever seen.

Along the way I saw the first black sheep I've seen in New Zealand, and some other sheep that have black faces; up until this point I had only seen one kind of sheep in NZ, but there's a TON of them. I decided not to engage in any conversation while on the train, there was a lady from Alberta sitting in front of me talking to a couple from England and another girl from England. I just wanted to chill and watch the hills roll by; the sound track of my journey was Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes, Metric - Grow Up & Blow Away, MGMT - Congratulations (first time listening to this whole album, it was really good. I especially liked I found a Whistle and Brian Eno), and K-os - *All songs*. (Sidenote: There was a gangsta guy sitting behind me and for the last few minutes of the journey he was singing Lonely by Akon..pretty hilarious)

I called ahead to a place called Downtown Backpackers, none of the hostels in Wellington were rated over 65% in the BBH book and once I got to DT Backpackers (which was rated the highest at 65%) I found out why. It had a very detached vibe, not very friendly, and it was kind of old inside but not in a homey kind of way, like a run down hotel. I slept in a dorm with 24 beds in it, so yeah.. I wasn't too impressed with this place but I was only there for one night so it was alright. The best part about this hostel was it was located right outside of the train station and a $2 shuttle away from the ferry, so it was very convenient. That night I wanted to go out (sitting on a train for 12 hrs I needed a drink), I went for a walk around but it was Sunday night so nothing was really going on. I went back to the hostel to have a drink in the bar and met two Dutch guys (Sidenote: Jonathan DeGuzman used to play for their favorite soccer team in Holland, so when I told them we were from the same place and I had to play against him they were pretty impressed. Oh and they were both martial arts masters... one taekwondo black belt and the other was a judo champion in holland.. so yea, good to know).

Long story short I decided to hit the town with these guys and the night went something like this: First bar met some more Dutch guys, then left with some Danish guys and a local (Sidenote: This guy was a Mauri and he was CRAZY, he kept saying I'LL SHOW YOU THE REAL KIWI EXPERIENCE, HEY... he was funny though, he told me he's never seen a water fall before and all that stuff is just for tourists LOL), we almost ended up in a strip club but it was too expensive, then ended up at an Irish bar and stayed there for a while with some more locals. One of the guys knew a bunch of weird facts about Canada. The Dutch guys and Danish guys left but I stayed there to chat it up with the locals, ended up speaking some french and making out with some woman who had just come back from an MGMT concert.

Woke up the next morning feeling alright, I stored my bags at the hostel and went for a walk along the harbor (really nice houses across the water [took some pics on twitter] and free wifi!) to Te Papa Tongarewa. Te Papa was really cool, nice building by the water and some really interesting exhibits inside. I spent about 6 hours in there just wondering around, it was really cool. While there I got a new idea for my super-awesome "I've traveled the world" tattoo. (Go to my twitter page to see some highlights from the museum, scroll down to where it says "A walk through through Te Papa" and go up..I also named all the exhibits, just for you guys!) I had my ferry booked for 6:25pm so I had to get something to eat. I went to a really nice Fish & Chips place down Cuba st. ... Wellington definitely gets cool points for Cuba st, very trendy cool there with nice boutiques and oddly dressed people roaming around.

After that I got my bags from the hostel and hopped on the ferry. The ferry ride was very nice, I watched the sunset at the front of the boat and we traveled through Queen Charlotte Sound, which was really nice, but it was getting dark so I didn't get the full effect. Finally I arrived in Picton at 9:00pm-ish, and was off the North Island. We had some great times North Island, but now I must see what the south has in store for me. I'm sure I'll be back one day, goodbye and thanks for the memories.

Peace & Love

Picture post: Courtesy of Janine & Lisa

http://blogs.statravel.de/tinilizjane

North Cape










Cape Reinga sand dunes





Taupo - Huka Falls





Whangarei - Whangarei Falls




THANKS JANINE & LISA!!

The Wild Goose [E]xperience: Sailing to the City of Sails (Mar 16 - 17)

Prelude: The actual name is Wild Goose Expeditions, the name of the boat is The Wild Goose (it used to just be Wild Goose but there was already a boat registered under that name so Lisa painted on a small THE). I put [E]xperience in an attempt to be ironic and funny because there is a charter bus that drives around all of New Zealand called The Kiwi [E]xperience; but it is mostly filled with 17-20 year olds getting drunk and making brief stops at some tourist sites. And traveling on The Wild Goose was probably the antithesis of that. Us real backpackers (HA!) scoff in their general direction. Also, we didn't actually sail all the way to Auckland (The City of Sails, more sails per head than any other city in the world), but we got pretty close...and it makes the title sound much better so get over it.

Brief background story (don't quote me on this, Jamie and Lisa if you are reading this please correct any misinformation): Jamie has sailed all around the world (literally, all the way around) in his previous boat Possibilities. He's been sailing himself around for about 14yrs, starting when he was 20 and going to school for something like agricultural science, he told me the name but it was too long. He has sailed across the Atlantic Ocean 3 times (twice across the north and once across the south) and out of all his stops he enjoyed staying in Brazil the most. The funniest part about Jamie is when people ask him where he's from he says "Australia....I guess..". He was born in South Africa while his parents were sailing around, stayed in Aus for a few years and then started sailing himself. Very mellow and laid back guy, made me really appreciate sailing. Lisa knew Jamie through a mutual friend from Uni and they all decided to sail to Brazil together.

He and Lisa picked up The Wild Goose while in the U.S and sailed across the Pacific to Australia then to New Zealand where Tane Mahuta Harry Ketu Mitchel was born. While sailing across the pacific the longest they went without seeing land was 27 DAYS! between Panama and Marquesas. Pretty wicked right?..yup. Now on to my journey.

I woke up pretty excited for my first sailing journey, the only other sailing I've done was at Ben's cottage and that was on a tiny sail boat and just around the lake for a while; so I was pumped. Berni and I made our way to the port at around 8:30am and waited there for Christiana to arrive. After she arrived we met with Jamie, piled our bags into the dingy (Sidenote: This was a great feat, three large backpacks (Berni's being the biggest and heaviest LOL) and 3 small backpacks plus 3 people rowing in a small dingy. Christiana was else where at the time so Jamie had to go back and pick her up). Once we got on board we met Lisa and Tane (3 month old sailing master and part time DJ) and they gave us the tour, they made special note of the bicycle cupboard.

We needed a little push to get out of the harbor (help from the engine) but after that it was just quiet and calm sailing. We started off by passing by a few bays (Cooks Bay, Lonely Bay, and some others) very beautiful and then we were out onto the open water; or at least what I would consider open water, probably nothing like sailing across an ocean. There isn't really much to say about sailing, it is very relaxing and requires a lot of patience, my kind of activity. After a few hours we made it to Great Mercury Island (Fun fact: Great Mercury Island is owned by a New Zealand business man who bought it for about $300,000!!). This place was beautiful, and NOT mentioned in the Lonely Planet, so there weren't very many people around; also probably because it was an island in the middle of no where. We stopped at Peach Tree Bay, there were many others but Jamie thought that this one looked like a nice stopping place, and had lunch.

Before lunch we had a quick swim and snorkel. The water was so clear you really didn't need to snorkel you could just stand on the boat and watch the fish AND MANTA RAYS. I swam around for a while looking for fish, I saw a school of small silver fish and came back out. Then a manta ray came along so I had to jump back in to get a close look. It was pretty awesome I must say. After we ate Jamie decided to do some fishing and caught two snapper for dinner. We then set off again and sailed for another few hours until it got dark, so we stopped at Port Charles. Being on a sail boat there is no real bathroom available, so I had to learn how to pee off the back of the boat. This proved much more difficult than I thought, Jamie said it's because you are using your stomach muscles to balance so you have to relax them to get it going. I figured it out eventually =).

Sailing at night was one of the best experiences I've had here, the stars and the moon looked so amazing from the water, the moon was incredibly bright, a bit annoying as I'd have loved to see some more stars but it was good none the less. Also, as we were approaching Port Charles there was a faint smell of flowers in the air, it made for a very pleasant ride as I laid out on the front of the boat and watched the stars. I even saw the space station go by and a shooting star (yup..best ever). Sleeping on the boat was another thing I had to get over, because I like to sleep on my side. This proved quite difficult as I kept falling over, so I just turned on my back and everything was fine. I woke up in the middle of the night to pee and when I went out the moon was near setting so it was ENORMOUS and really close to the horizon, very cool.

I woke up the next morning at around 830-9ish (really good sleep after I figured it out) and we set off at around the same time; the wind was good so we had to get going quickly. On our way we saw Great Barrier Island which is the fourth largest in New Zealand's chain of islands. It was MASSIVE, from the front it looked alright, but then once we got around you could really see how big it was. And comparing it to Great Mercury it was pretty amazing in terms of size; if we had another day we may have made it out there but we were on a schedule. We also passed by Port Jackson which was quite nice, Berni and I had previously discussed driving up there when we rented the car, but seeing it this way was much more impressive. We also saw a penguin swimming along as we were sailing, which was pretty cool. During the trip Jamie taught us how to tie a Bowline knot and he taught me how to tie a monkey fist knot, which I will be using to decorate things from now on.

We finally arrived at Owhanake Bay, Waiheke Island in the late evening. The houses along the bay were really big and beautiful, there was also a vineyard just up the hill. It was a very nice quiet bay (the kind that Jamie likes) for us to say our goodbyes. We stopped in the bay for a while and I played with Tane for one last time (quick DJ session, he's a natural...obviously because he's a December baby like myself), said goodbye to Lisa and hopped in the dingy with all our stuff. This time around we had ALL the bags and ALL the people, and we still survived; I'm pretty sure Lisa has a video or at least a picture of this, pretty sketchy but we made it.

From there Luke from Kina Backpackers on Waiheke picked us up, not sure how else we would have gotten there really, and brought us to a pub. Oh right...it was St. Patties day! I had completely forgot, time flies when you're sailing I guess. So we stopped for a few beers and then continued on back to Kina (which was a really nice place right by the beach on a hill) to sail into dream land.....

Thanks to Jamie, Lisa, and Tane for giving me such a great trip around the Coromandel Peninsula. Look them up if you are ever up for some REAL adventure. It was a spectacular way to see the mountains and beachs, and I hope it won't be my last sailing expedition.

Peace & Love