A bit of catching up to do!

I think I'm going to have to just forget about my Tongariro Crossing post for now, which I'm sure just breaks all your hearts. Really. If anyone really wants a play-by-play of the hike just leave a comment and I'll get around to it someday. Otherwise I'm just going to scrap it, because I still haven't written about other things we did over two weeks ago!

So let's take an imaginary trip back in time to when I wrote the post from Hamilton. Remember? It was raining and pouring and Alexa was snoring, and we had just gone to the zoo?

Great.

So the day after that entry we left Hamilton and drove to Waitomo Caves. Waitomo is a town that may as well be sitting on top of swiss cheese for all the hundreds of twisting, winding tunnels and holes underground. It's cave central. Various companies offer all sorts of tours, ranging from full-day caving experiences to casual walks on platforms to check out the stalagtites, stalagmites, and "glow-worms" (read: maggot shit). We opted to go somewhere in between and took the moderately-adventurous route with black-water rafting. It's not quite as intense as it sounds. You ride in an inner-tube, not a raft, and the water moves fairly slowly for the most part. There's two waterfall jumps, but neither was higher than about eight feet. Still, the walking portions were a little bit tricky as the rocks were incredibly slippery and the water tended to be fast moving where it was shallow. The coolest parts were the portions where we switched off our helmet lights and floated along through absolute darkness. The maggot shit overhead made the top of the cave look like a clear night sky, only the "stars" were greenish-blue instead of white.

Here we are after the journey, all dressed up in our wetsuits. I look a bit impatient because I had to pee SO BAD and the guide assured us that peeing in our wetsuits would only end with us smelling like festering piss-pots.

After leaving Waitomo we drove to the town of Taumarunui and prepared for our two-day canoe trip down the Whanganui river. The trip was fantastic. The weather even cooperated for the most part, giving us sunshine for the entirety of the first day and only a few patches of drizzle the second. In total, the trip was somewhere around 71 km long and passed through around 50 or 60 grade 1-3 rapids. We were fortunate (and skilled) enough to not capsize the entire time, even though a few of the rapids were quite challenging and we managed to get stuck on the rocks more than once.

A mild stretch of the Whanganui on our second day of paddling:

After the canoe trip, which brings us to Friday, 12th December, we decided to go ahead and make the drive back to Wellington. Our canoe guide assured us it was only a 4 hour drive. I suppose this might have been true had we stuck to the 100 km/hr speed limit the whole way, but that was pretty much impossible since a large chunk of the drive involved going down narrow roads, around sharp bends, through mountains, and alongside sheer drop-offs--all without guard rails, of course. Plus we had the unique experience of finding ourselves stuck in the midst of a sheep traffic jam. Awesome. I've embedded the video below:

We arrived in Wellington late in the night and crashed at our friends Jason and Tammy's place. The next day we wandered around Wellington one last time, sent some mail, did some shopping, and spent the night hanging out with Jason, Tammy, some Monteith's, and Flight of the Conchords. Yesssssss.

Sunday we boarded the ferry to Picton. It was a nice ride. As promised, it was a scenic journey. There was no boring, "water only" period, since by the time the north island was starting to fade out of sight, the south island had already come into view. I guess they really aren't that far apart. The last hour and a half of the trip took us through the Queen Charlotte Sound, which was absolutely beautiful, with rolling, forested hills and pristine beaches on either side. There were even a few homes along the sound, and I cannot imagine living in a more remote location. I reckon they'd have to take boats into work.

A seaplane taking off from Picton Harbor:

We spent two rainy, miserable nights tenting in Nelson. While there we saw the World of Wearable Art museum, which was pretty interesting, and also had a section of restored cars. Nelson is where we're planning on staying after we wrap things up in Queenstown, and it seems like it will be a suitable home--when it's dry, anyway.

From Nelson we began the 13+ hour journey to Queenstown which took us back through Picton, and down along the Pacific coast through Kaikoura and past Christchurch. After passing Chirstchurch we veered away from the coast and drove southwest through the MacKenzie Basin, a huge glacially-formed area of farmland, rolling hills, mountains, and lakes. It was gorgeous although rainclouds were on our tail the entire time.

On the drive to Kaikoura we spotted a random seal colony. Here's one of the seals chilling out on the rocks:

This is an awesome lake we passed during the drive to Queenstown. The neon blue coloration has something to due with glacial melt, but I don't really understand all that science mumbo-jumbo. It's just pretty. Look:

A little bit past the lake, we came to a turn-off for the Clay Cliffs, a little self-service tourist attraction down a long dirt road. It was a bumpy ride, but worth the view.

Eventually we made our way to Wanaka, our last stop before Queenstown. Wanaka is a little town about forty-five minutes from Queenstown. It's sort of like Queenstown's little brother. Both are primarily tourist towns, both sit on large lakes, and both rest in the shadow of impressive mountains. There's not much to Wanaka, especially compared to Queenstown, but before leaving we decided to check out Puzzling World. We went on a whim, thinking it would just be a silly, touristy sort of place, but it actually ended up being one of the coolest things we've seen so far in New Zealand. Puzzling World is made up of two main halves: a huge outdoor maze, and an indoor "hall of illusions." The hall of illusions is definitely Puzzling World's main selling-point, featuring room after room of crazy optical illusions that really need to be seen in person to be appreciated. It included an "Ames illusion room," which was one of the filming techniques used to make the hobbits look tiny in Lord of the Rings. Alexa already put a picture of that in her blog, so instead I'm going to show off Puzzling World's Roman style toilets:

Nice, yeah? Don't worry. They had real toilets too.

Anyway, from Puzzling World we headed straight to Queenstown. We found an apartment, I got a job, we went paragliding--yeah, we're all caught up now. Fantastic!

Also you may have noticed not one, not two, not three--actually it is three. Three new photo albums on the sidebar to the right! Check them out at your leisure. There's a few good shots in there, I promise.

Lastly, just to avoid falling behind again, I'll fill you in on our Boxing Day exploits. After having a video chat with Christine and family, during which Madison had a great time making faces at the camera and Zach bombarded us with sarcasm, Alexa and I headed into town for our day's adventure activities. First we took an hour-long jetboat ride down the Kawarau and Shotover rivers. It was a lot of fun, but nothing compared to what we did next: white-water rafting on the Shotover river. It was awesome! White-water rafting is one of those things I've wanted to do for the longest time, but never really had the opportunity. We went through several grade 4-5 rapids and finished up going through a 170 meter tunnel. I'd show you, but the maniacs want $39 for a pack of four pictures. Outrageous, eh?

Anyway, I think that's about it for now. Enjoy the pictures and have a great New Year if I don't update before then.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from the first country to see the sun each morning! While it's still Christmas Eve in most parts of the world, Christmas is already in full swing here in New Zealand, which means... well, not quite what you'd think, really. It's a much more subdued affair here. Storefronts, streetlamps, and indoor shopping malls have decorations, but most homes don't put on the light displays typical of American suburbia. In some ways it's nice, because you don't have to drive down the street and pass the homes of overzealous rednecks who drove to Wal Mart and bought a dozen three-story-high inflatable snowmen and reindeer to fill the neighborhood with the incessant roar of industrial-strength fans. Not that I have a problem with tasteful decorations, but there's a line that shouldn't be crossed.

I get the impression that Christmas here is more akin to our Thanksgiving in that it's the time for the whole family to get together, consume a boatload of rich food and alcohol, and fall asleep by three in the afternoon. Also, since summer's starting, Christmas barbeques are quite popular. Over the past few days at the grocery store, the Kiwis have been buying immeasurable amounts of charcoal, meat, and alcohol. Oh sweet dancing Jesus, so much alcohol--all I want for Christmas is for one of the customers to randomly invite me to share in this glorious tradition. We're talking shopping carts filled to the brim with Speight's, Mac's, Monteith's, and Tui (the main NZ beers), and whole cases of wine and "bubbly" (champagne). Apart from the odd shopper just in for a few things, I've been ringing up tickets anywhere from $150-$600. Sorry. Forget what I said about Christmas being more subdued here.

My booze-filled fantasies aside, Alexa and I actually have been invited to a Chirstmas barbeque. Our landlady's having one on Saturday. Since we live, oh, about a dozen feet away, we figure we'll probably take up the offer and check it out.

As for today, we're probably going to head downtown and see what Queenstown is up to for Christmas. A touristy, hoppin' town like this is bound to have something going on. Sadly, after three nine-hour days at work staring longingly through the windows at glorious sunlight, it's cloudy, raining, and miserable on my day off. Figures, right? Still, we'll find something to do. At least it's not snow! Later on we're going to have pretty much the fanciest Christmas dinner ever--we bought a whole chicken!

We already exchanged presents this morning. I gave Alexa roughly $5000 worth of lavish jewelry, clothing, lotions, and a week-long vacation to the world's most famous spa in Switzerland. All she gave me was a dirty, used sponge to do the dishes and a sock. It's true. Don't believe whatever she writes in her blog. Seriously.

Anyway, we're going to head downtown. I have the next three days off, so we're probably going to go white-water rafting or river-surfing tomorrow or Saturday, depending on the weather and what's open on Boxing Day (whatever the hell that is). I'll keep you posted!

Merry Christmas or Happy Chonnnjnucka' (Alexa says there's so many ways to spell it, I can spell it however I want, so I thought I'd use four n's and a silent j).

Oh, and happy Kwanzaa, Chad.

That's two shout-outs. You have to pay for the next one.

New Zealand's largest Christmas tree. It's up in Hamilton.

We're in Queenstown! And I am cracked out on caffeine!

Well, we made it to Queenstown, and it is awesome!

It's been a while since I've had a chance to update, so the next few posts are going to be a bit disjointed. Here's the plan, so you can keep it all straight: I'm going to write this post just to talk about our move to Queenstown a bit and what we've been doing the past couple days. The next post is going to be the Tongariro Crossing-dedicated post I promised a couple weeks ago. Finally, there will be a third post (which I will probably not get around to today) that will pick up from Hamilton and take you through the rest of our trip to Queenstown. From then on, my posts will be less postmodernly-nonlinear and more normal.

Here we go:

Two days ago we arrived in beautiful, stunningly-scenic Queenstown. Queenstown is a smallish city near the bottom of the south island. Despite its size, it's quite a bustling place. It's one of the top tourist towns and the adventure capital of New Zealand. Here you can skydive, bungy jump, parasail, white water raft, jet boat, river surf, street-luge down the side of the mountain, paraglide, ski (in the winter), go mountain biking, and pretty much any other insane activity the Kiwis can dream up. It's also a good base for exploring the many national parks that are only two hours' drive, or less, from city center.

Geographically, Queenstown sits on the edge of the massive Lake Wakatipu and is surrounded by the Remarkables, a large mountain range. Yesterday we rode the gondola (a ski-lift but without the skis), up to the Skyline. The Skyline features an impressive (and expensive--$60 for lunch!) buffet restaurant, a large observation deck and viewing center, and also serves as a base for street luging, bungy jumping, and paragliding.

Here's the view of Queenstown from the observation deck. The little orange blip towards the right is a paraglider.


We originally took the gondola up to do some luging. There are two 800 meter tracks, which wind halfway down the mountain through tunnels, over bridges, and around bends. We did each track once, and it was pretty awesome! Here's some other people coming down the track so you get an idea of what it's like:



While we were at the Skyline, we noticed the paragliders. I'm not quite sure how it happened, but I managed to convince Alexa to "think about" doing paragliding at some point during our stay in Queenstown. If convincing her to think about it seemed impossible, then what happened next was nothing short of a miracle. We went to the kiosk just to enquire about the price and what the experience was like in case we wanted to come back at some point, but the skilled salesman convinced us to do it that day! That's right, we pretty much jumped off a mountain! Paragliding is basically skydiving, minus the free-fall and from a much lower height. I told Alexa the next natural step is skydiving, but she's not having it, and there probably isn't any convincing her of it.

Here's photographic proof of our paragliding, though:

It was tandem, in case you're wondering who the two insanely-enthusiastic guys are. Apparently they just can't let you jump off a mountain on your own.

Aside from pulling insane stunts like riding luges down the side of and jumping off of mountains, we've been doing the mundane tasks of apartment and job-hunting. Incredibly enough, we've already had some success!

I'm writing this from the comfort of our new studio flat. Our very OWN flat. It's not shared. There is no Ornery and there is no Silly. It's clean and it's comfortable, and we can see the Remarkables from our living room window! We have our OWN kitchen and our OWN bathroom and our OWN everything! The only other person around is the quiet, friendly landlady who lives upstairs. It may not seem like a big deal, but after three months at the Pickled Parrot it's pretty amazing to have our own space. What's even better is that we're not paying much more rent than we were in Wellington, so it's quite a bargain. It also came fully-furnished and included a bunch of sweet kitchen gadgets.

Check it:

On the job front, I applied for a job the day we arrived, interviewed for it yesterday, and I start on Monday. Not too shabby, eh? What's more, the job has 100% less toilet-cleaning than my job at the hotel. What, oh what, could this glamorous job be, you ask? Am I a copy-writer for the local newspaper? Am I an assitant at one of the many extreme-sport kiosks in town? Am I a taxi driver? Did I open my own business? Am I the CEO of a brand new, up-and-coming multinational business?!

I'm afraid not. I'm also afraid I don't know why I included taxi driver in the list of glamorous jobs. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

As of Monday, I'll be a cashier at Fresh Choice, the only grocery store in town. Woooooooooooo!!!

On the upside, I'll have between 40-45 hours a week right from the start, unlike in Wellington where I was barely scraping together 20 hours for the first month and a half, and I'm making a bit more per hour than I was making in Wellington. Plus I get a 5% discount on groceries. Yeah, I know, big whoop. 5% is sales tax in Maryland. Still, I'll be hauling in a lot more money than I was in Wellington so we can live a bit more extravagantly. Last night, for instance, I cooked actual food--chicken parmesean--instead of some combination of gross meat, pasta, and frozen vegetables. We even bought wine and beer. Oooh. Ahhh. Having our own fridge where we don't have to worry about Orneries and Sillies stealing our food is a plus too.

Alexa's prospects are looking good as well, as she's landed an interview at a nannying agency on Monday.

Anyway, Alexa is growing bored with my blog-writing and wants to go out and find the Remarkables Shopping Center, so I'd best be on my way. For now, enjoy all the sweet pictures. I was quite generous with pictures for this post, eh? It probably has something to do with the metric shit ton of coffee I drank this morning. Enthralled by the shiny new coffee press in our flat, I filled it to the brim and consumed enough caffeine for about ten people. Weeeeeeeee!

Greetings from Hamilton!

It's raining, it's pouring, Alexa is snoring... well, not really, but she is taking a nap, and it really is raining here in Hamilton. We're in Hamilton, New Zealand's largest inland city (Auckland, Wellington, and Christchurch are all on the coast). It wasn't a part of our planned travel itinerary, but we changed our plans around quite a bit and saw some pretty interesting things.

On Friday we left Wellington as planned and drove to Turangi, a small town bordering Tongariro National Park. The drive was absolutely beautiful. It's the same drive we made before when we first came down to Wellington from Rotorua, except this time it wasn't rainy, cloudy, and miserable. Oh, what a difference the weather can make. Last time it had been so foggy we didn't even realize that Mount Ruapehu was in sight.

We spent the night at a holiday park. The next morning we woke at 5:20 to be on a shuttle by 6:30 and we were at the beginning of the Tongariro Crossing a little after 7. For the next 9 hours we hiked the 18.5 km trail (with a few necessary breaks). It started with a scenic jaunt through a barren desert littered with massive chunks of volcanic debris, followed by a grueling series of climbs up Mt. Tongariro: the Devil's Staircase, a 45-minute hike up to the brim of an ancient crater; the climb up red crater, a hazardous journey up a path of scree (loose rock and volcanic ash that slips away under your feet) with a plummeting death only 2-3 meters away on either side; and lastly the optional side-track (an extra 3 km added to the 18.5) up to the snow-capped summit of Mt. Tongariro. Alexa opted out of the final ascent, but I hiked up through the snow to the very top. By that time some low clouds had settled over the area. It was completely surreal. I could only see the rocky outcroppings and patches of snow 4-5 meters around me. Beyond that, I was inside a cloud and cut off from the world. Completely still and completely silent.

After the summit we began our descent. At some point along the way Alexa mysteriously injured her ankle. She can't pinpoint the exact moment it started hurting, but the last two hours of the hike were pretty miserable for her, unfortunately.

Once we've settled in some place where I'll have more internet time I'm going to devote an entire blog post to the crossing, complete with beautiful pictures and a play-by-play (rock-by-rock, maybe?) account of the hike. For now, just know that it was awesome.

Back at the holiday park we soaked our feet in the spa--I had a blister thicker than Angelina Jolie's lower lip!--and changed our plans for the next few days. Originally Sunday would've been the day I went skydiving, but we decided to head up to the Coromandel Peninsula instead. There are many scenic beaches and parks on the peninsula that are best seen during the summer, and as we're headed to the south island for the next six months, this is our only chance. Skydiving I can do pretty much anywhere, and I'll probably end up doing so in Nelson with Abel Tasman National Park as my in-flight scenary.

So on Sunday we drove to a holiday park near Hahei, a small coastal town on the peninsula. Along the way we went Zorbing in Rotorua. Basically you climb into a human-sized hamster ball filled with water and roll down a massive hill. It's as insane as it sounds, but it's great fun.

The drive to Hahei was also beautiful although a bit hairy at times. Several sections of the road were marked by signs with squiggly lines for "Next 7 km." They might as well have just put one sign that said "The whole damn highway is like this" and saved themselves the trouble. Crazy turns around sharp bends past steep valleys with no guard rails, and of course the local Kiwis are zipping by at 80-100 kph without care. It makes the roads in Ireland look tame.

Still, we made it up to Hahei without incident. Overnight rain came, and on Tuesday we found that the beautiful, sunny weather we'd been expecting had turned to clouds. Despite this we went to a couple beaches. First we went to Hot Water Beach, a beach famous for its natural subterranean geothermal springs. Supposedly you can dig into the sand at a certain section of the beach and hot water will come bubbling up from the ground. Maybe the springs were broken Monday, because out of the thirty or so eager tourists with shovels, not a single one of us dug up any hot water. I hit some that might've qualified as lukewarm compared to the stuff rolling in on the surf, but certainly no hot water. Hot Water Beach was also home to some tremendous jelly fish. I'm not sure if they were man-of-wars, but they were varying shades of maroon, pink, and purple, and some were larger than dinner plates. Needless to say we didn't go for a swim at Hot Water Beach.

Disappointed but not discouraged, we then headed to Cathedral Cove, a beach known for its enormous limestone formations. I really need more synonyms for beautiful, or maybe the ability to upload photos. I don't want to keep repeating myself.

Here's something different: beech wuz very pwetty lol :)

I swam for a while, even though the water was pretty damn cold. I wasn't alone in my craziness, though. A handful of high schoolers were standing, shivering, in waist-deep water and shrieking with great surprise each and every time a wave crashed against them every five seconds.

It was only a little past noon when we left Cathedral Cove. We had planned on spending our whole day at the beaches, but the weather didn't agree with that. Instead of spending another night near Hahei, we headed down off the peninsula to Hamilton. It's another rainy day, but we were able to do a bit of exploring. Hamilton has a few points of interest. Not only is it New Zealand's largest inland city, but it also has New Zealand's largest (fake) Christmas tree!!! Oooh. Ahhh. It also has an indoor mall that could fit in perfectly in just about any mid-sized US city, complete with a seasonal calendar shop and a mall Santa. Weird. The only differences are the store chains and the food court selections (sushi, curry, and kebabs instead of Cholesterol King and McObese). The rain let up for a couple hours today and we headed to Hamilton Zoo. Tonight we might check out the indoor waterpark just outside of town.

Tomorrow morning we're headed south to Waitomo Caves for our black water rafting adventure, and then we're headed further south still to Taumaranui where we'll leave for our two-day canoe trip down the Whanganui River before returning to Wellington for the weekend. On Sunday we catch the ferry to the south island.

Anyway, I guess that's enough about all the awesome things we've been doing for now. You'd better quit reading this and get back to your jobs. Hahahahahaha!

It's okay. I'll be picking fruit, cleaning rooms, or doing whatever other menial tasks I can for money in a few weeks. Just let me get my cheap shots in while I can.

Pictures will come as soon as I get a chance!