Trip of a lifetime!

Wowwie woowie wow!
What a trip of a lifetime! It cost me $95 for the most amazing time I've had here!
We started out traveling up north to our campsite and stopped for some pictures at some pretty spots, then went to the campsite. There was a dock there where we could dive off into amazingly warm ocean water, my facebook picture is from that. The site was amazing, right on a cliff side that dropped into the most beautiful bay. We went down for a swim, the 5 of us that went, and relaxed in the water, it was about 4 feet for a mile around! Later we kayaked across the bay to the white sand dunes, where we walked around and played on the dunes, they were beautiful! After that we went back to the boats, got out the fishing gear, and started at catching dinner! Of course I have the most fishing experience and I was the only one not to catch a fish! We went back to the campsite and started cooking up the fish that was just caught. It was food after food for six hours! We started with fish and veg and then moved on to more and more, potatoes etc. At the end we had some boar our guides had caught earlier with potatoes, it was awesome. We did some spear throwing at night with a homemade spear that Bushman Pete made for boar hunting. There was a log about 10 meters away and I was the only one to nail it out of our three guides and another guy. Speaking of guides, ours were legendary! We had Bushman Pete, Marty and Brandon (A Maori guy). They were really nice, tons of fun and a riot to listen to at night. We slept out under that stars that night and in the morning I woke up early and saw the sun rise! I caught it about 40 minutes before and saw it turn pink, then golden, then rise, it was amazing, got lots of pictures of it. After that everyone else started waking up and Pete, Brandon and myself went down to the beach to catch me a fish, caught 4 snappers down there in like 30 minutes, it was awesome, the fish were biting left and right!
After that we started our way up to the cape, where the Tasman sea and the pacific meet. It was amazing, and since we were such a small group and left so early we beat all the bus crowds that come up there! Then we went sand boarding, which was a lot of fun, Tom, the other guy that went with us tried to stand up and biffed hard hard. He smashed his head good and busted his ankle, still swollen today, 4 days later. Then we went down the 90 mile beach about half way, flying down the beach in a van trying not to get stuck in the sand. It was pretty cool to see, but we couldn't stop for fear of getting stuck in the sand. When the tide got to high to continue we took a shortcut back to the highway and saw a pack of wild horses! I got some pictures and thought of you Kara!
On the way back we stopped at a little shop where they battered up the snapper I caught earlier that day and we had fish and chips! Then we took a scenic route back to Paihia through the bush, which was beautiful and stopped randomly on the side of the road. We went through some of the brush and went down to a fresh river/creek running next to the highway. Next to it was a real spring water spring, full of minerals. We all took a sip, strong stuff, and then some water out of the river, which was amazingly fresh. We had a little swim and then continued on home, where I spent the next two days pretty much sleeping. It was the trip of a lifetime and was dirt cheap! Got a discount because I'm working at the hostel too.
I've met a lot of really cool people coming in and out of Paihia and will probably be here for another two weeks before I continue my journey of the rest of the island.
Doing things like this and talking to people I've decided that any organized tour just skips too many things and I can't be bothered trying to whirlwind both island on the little money I have. I have lived very cheaply so far, but even so, it just costs too much to try and do everything and I figured it would put me into debt about $1500 on top of the $2000 I have now to do both islands, and that would be missing out on so much! So that said, I plan on only doing the north island this time around, even though from what everyone says the south is better. It gives me a reason to come back! There is still so much to do and see, I can't wait to do all the little things that the north island has to offer! I'm loading tons of pictures on facebook for people to see, I'll try and add photos on this blog too, the highlights, but there are just so many pictures and this blog doesn't do a good job with placing pictures or loading them.

Some pics over that last couple weeks

It's hard to add pictures to this thing, you should be able to get what I'm talking about from the captions.

1) Sitting with Maria, me, and Charlette in a changing room playing cards and having some brews, turned into an awesome version of stip poker me and another american guy steve worked up! Girls are from Sweeden.

2) Left to right, top to bottom. Leigh, me, Phil and Andy. All the guys are awesome and from England! I recon that's where I'll go next! So many good connections already!

3) Janica (pronounced Yanika) and I out at the bar, she was a really cool German girl that would say "heaps" all the time in the cutest way, always made fun of her for it, but I really love it.

4) Rosie and I, she's my roommate and a cleaner like me. Great girl, we call her a ladet as she acts like one of the boys in many ways.

5) Norway girl named Anna, she's a roommate and cleaner too, very cool girl, skydive champion!

Update

Wow, I don't know where to begin! I'm still in Piahia in top of the north island and I love it! I just can't be bothered to leave! I've been working for my room so I save $26 dollars a day and get some nice perks! I just have to make the beds and vacuum each morning for 2 and half hours. I get a free meal once in a while at night too. Because I've gotten in good with the crew here they help me out with things I need. I lost my swim trunks in auckland and another pair of shorts so the lady that runs the show got me 2 pair of really nice board shots and a towel!
I haven't really done anything hiking yet, but I got a sweet deal on a tour tomorrow where we go all day, do sandboarding on the dune, see the cape where the taz sea and pacific ocean meet, going canoing, fishing and cooking the fish over a fire, as well as hiking and a camp over. Normally $165, only $95 because I'm working here! I'll be sure and get lots of pictures from the trip!


Every night has been a blast pretty much. From partying on the beach and listening to other people rocking homemade songs to dance parties in the street drinking box wine. A guy named Phil and I even created the ultimate guess who drinking game! Which turned into strip guess who later in the night.
Been playing soccer when I can, swimming a lot and getting good and tan! It's so relaxed and so many good poeple everywhere! I'll try and post more pictures, but it's hard, the computer is slow and internet is spendy and I'm trying to conserve funds.

First day in the Bay of Islands!

The first night was pretty much a blur. Once I got in Pahia I looked around a bit at the hostels for where I was going to stay. I ended up choosing the Pipi patch. I went down to the beach to look around and saw a guy playing soccer, so i joined him for a while, was good to kick a ball around. When I went back to the hostel I saw some more people kicking a ball around and joined them too. We ended up playing basketball ball too, it looked like they all had never played before, so foreign to them (them being a bunch of English guys and girls).

The sun was out and hot so we went to the bar in the hostel and got a round. I'm such a cheapskate so I couldn't be bothered with just getting a sinle pint, pitchers (or Jugs as they call them) are cheaper. We ended up playing Ring of fire, which is basically our Kings but with way better game rules, it was awesome! I must have drank 4 pitchers that night had got the worst dirty pint, which was about 4-5 different shots and some beer and coke. International rules meant I had to drink it out of a straw! Got a video of it even. The rest of the night was a blur but good fun.

Captions: From Left to Right

First: the Crew I met and played Ring of Fire with

Next: The evil "dirty pint"

Next: Aled spilled part of the dirty pint on his foot! He had to lick his sandal and buy 3 more shots for it!

Last: The crew in the bar later that night.

The next nights are anymore tame! More on them later!

Adventure Doesn't Stop!

It's been too long since I've sent a note along. It's hard to find time somehow, even though it's so chill around here...



Well, lets see. I wanted to leave Auckland and I did. I took a bus out of town, because you can't hitch in the city limits. I ended up heading to Weiwera where there was a big spa and a great view of the coast. I took some pictures there in the hot sun and started making my way back up to the main road to try my luck at catching a ride. Just before I got to the right side of the main highway it started raining, hard. It was an instant down pour and I had to try and fish my rain jacket (bottom of the bag of course) out of my bag and get the rain fly on my pack asap. I was instantly soaked but I had my thumb out and was on my way, an adventure indeed!





It took only about five minutes before a car pulled over and I hopped it. Turned out to be a french couple heading up the coast and they felt sorry for me walking in the middle of no where in the pouring rain. They were awesome and we ended up going for about an hour before camping at a remote beach for the night. We had some brew, some wine and played rummy! The guy, Max, brought out a digeridoo (sp?) and played for a while, I got a great video of him doing it.







The next day they took me all the way to the Bay of Islands! They even went a little out of there way to drop me off. They didn't stay long, the area is pretty touristy and that wasn't there scene. I had made it to the Bay of Islands, and none the worse for wear!








Picture Captions:
Top is in Weiwera. 10 mintues later fat rainstorm!!
Next is in the car of the country side. It's amazingly green, more so than even Washington!
Next is the ocean view from where we camped south of the Bay of Islands.
Next is a sunset that night where we camped
Last is french Max and his girlfriend. They gave me the ride all the way up to the Bay of Islands where this picture was taken.

Time to Move

Well, Auckland was interesting. Met some cool people, but just not enough to do in the city. Every night is a drink fest, I went to bed about 1:30 in the morning and that was hours before any of my other roommates got in. I am happy to report that I could drink any of these forgeiners under the table, with the exception of a brit named Berry, he was pretty stout.

The first day I was in I wondered around town, I didn't think I was out that long but I for sure look like the stupid American tourist. I look like a lobster, but it's cool, now no one can tell when I'm blushing.

So far I've met the most germans, and they've been pretty cool, everyone in fact has been pretty cool, once you start up a conversation. Even met a guy in the bar, deaf pool shark he was. Kicked my arse pretty soundly.

I plan on taking a bus out of town and then hitching my way up to the bay of islands next, which should be an adventure. Trying to save money, I spend about $100 a day, so this trip is going to be very short unless I start figuring out how I can save money, even McDonalds is expensive the portions are for small children!

I may try and steal New Zealander's best jobs from them and work under the table picking fruit, we'll see what I can get away with. I guess you can make like $13 an hour doing it, who knew! Minimum wage is $11.50 over here.

Don't know when I'm going to be in a town again, I need to see about doing more camping and cooking because all the adventure things to do cost anywhere from $100 to $400!

Picture of the bay near the shipping yard and one of the nights at the club, both roommates, a german guy and ausie chick.
Take luck, and good luck taking caring for the luck you have!

Alive and Well

Well, I made it alive, I'm not sure what was worse, the 11 hour layover in San Fran Airport or the 13 plane ride to New Zealand.
I got off the bus at the wrong stop, so I had my first little adventure trying to find the Hostel I'm going to be staying in for the first day or two. Seems pretty nice though, lots of feautres (Like a bar). I'm in a room with 8 people, just killing some time before I can check in. No cool pictures yet, the city is nothing special, I can't wait to get out and check out the scenery.
Just from what I've read there are some amazing places to see and things to do, before long I'll be sending pictures of bungi jumping and cave tubing! Once I get my stuff together and figure out what I can and can't get away with I'll be in with some good posts!

Post Cards

This will be the first of hopefully numerous posts I make throughout my trip.
I want to know who wants to be sent post cards from down under, so send a reply with your address and I'll try and make sure I get post cards out to ya!

-Dainer