Wellington, Napier and the Taoaofdkaf;jo National Park

These are some pictures from the national park and Wellington. They were on a different memory card and I forgot about them, so this is about 2 weeks ago. We went to a really cool free museum in Wellington that had all kinds of history and really cool art about NZ and the Maori poeple. I saw this boat and thought about you Dad. From there we have an angry seal, I got a bit too close. The rest are from a national park we went to at the beginning of our trip around the east cape. It was beautiful but overcast the whole time, or raining. We saw the biggest Rata tree in the world, which is a parasite pant that starts in the top of a tree and grows roots down the tree into soil. It was massive! Then me being silly in these rock caves we went to. I have some awesome video going through and on to the top of them, where the wind was blasting. Anyway, have to go to work, more later!













http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2110316&l=5dc23&id=25904364 Welly and Napier
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2110317&l=01d76&id=25904364 Same
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2110318&l=78b15&id=25904364 Forests of Tajfdjf

The Coremandel: Edited 4/10/08

My last post skipped so many things, I just couldn't think of anything to write about!
Before I got to Paihia we were in the small town of Haihei, which was pretty cool. We stayed in a little backpackers, which was just a couple rooms in the bottom floors of this couples house. It was really homie and very close to the beach, which was perfect. We ended up going to hot water beach at low tide on one of the days. It was pretty cool. We got a shovel from the house we stayed at and I spent about two hours digging sand to try and make a hot water pool. Because of the way the tide was coming in it would destroy the sand walls of my pool, over and over and over again. It was really cool though, the water was boiling hot in some places! When it mixed with some sea water it was a really nice temperature. I have some pictures of me sitting and laying down in the water, which I'll post on here as soon as I get a faster computer, probably tomorrow. Other than that we took some pictures and walked around to Cathedral Cove, which was really pretty.
It's a beautiful day here (in Paihia) today and many hours will be spent in the sun or in kyacks on the water! Pictures soon, here and on facebook!

POST EDIT, ADDED BIT:

This is pictures from Hot Water Beach, the water was really hot, but I could never get my pool very big because the tide kept filling it with water. At one point, people we had been digging with, an older couple was about to leave and wanted to see me lay down in the pool. I had been digging, the same hole, for over an hour and they wanted to see me lay down in it before they left after such work. When I layed down there was a cheer from the crowd, even though it wasn't a spectacular pool, I was happy I finally laid down in something!

The other pictures are from Opotiki the day before. The place we stayed was right on the beach and had free boogie boards and kayaks for us to use. The day before the surf was twice as good, but we had cameras this time. Still a ton of fun. As soon as I started kayaking I got hit by a wave sideways and took a spill, was a great way to start my photo shoot! haha!

I'm excited to come home and see all the friends and family again! Things have been super-duper, but not much compares to you guys back home. I may end up having Lijanne come out to the States to visit too. We've been talking about it, after she gets done with her travels near the beginning of June. That would be bringing back some of the best I've found over here!

I'll make a call in the next day or two and try and set up a date for some sailing, I hope. I'll watch out for spiky things and sharks as well!

Oh yeah, I'm back in Paihia Tim, which means I have access to that super gym again! You will be dominated this Summer. Even if I don't come back as strong, my superior tanned skin will make me skate smoothly along the water, while your white flesh burns and cries out in the hot Summer sun!

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2109291&l=8aeb6&id=25904364- East Cape 1

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2110133&l=a64dd&id=25904364- East Cape 2

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2110136&l=407c6&id=25904364- East Cape 3

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2110137&l=cbadd&id=25904364- Coremandel

Back in Paihia again!

I've come full circle now. I'm back in Paihia, working at a different hostel up here for my accomodation to save on the non-existant cash flow I have. It's time to chill out, do pretty much nothing but hang out by the beach and work on my tan!
Won't be long now and I'll be home, less than two weeks! I leave at 7ish pm from Auckland and arrive in Seattle 9:15 pm that same night. That's after a 6+ hour layover in LAX! Madness! I'll see if I can jump on a earlier flight.

The East Cape

Man, this is the first time I've really been a bit homesick since I've been here. Not that I want to go home this instant, but I really don't think I could just carry on staying away. I've met some great people, but nothing compares to the life-long friends and family (of course) I've got back home. I'm in a little town called Opotiki right now, which is pretty much our last stop on the East Cape. It was a pretty wicked trip, though I have to say driving with LiLu has been the most trying thing I done with her yet. Anyway, we are staying in a little house/backpackers lodge just out of town that is literally 50 feet from the beach. From the deck you can see the waves crashing. Yesterday we went out in some sea kayaks and played around in the surf. I started trying to find the holes in the crashing waves and knife my way through them. It sparked such fond memories of you Dad when we were in Hawaii so many years ago wave racing on that double kayak. That will always be one of my fondest childhood memories. Anyway, before I start crying in the Internet cafe, it was a ton of fun. The surf was really good and I could actually ride the waves in about 60 feet from where they were breaking straight on to the beach, it was awesome fun. LiLu both got it handed to us a few times though. Catch a wave sideways at all and you are eating sea water. We decided to stay another day here because it's such a nice and chilled out place. It's a beautiful sunny day too, which means all day chillin' out in the sun playing in the ocean. I'll try and take some action shots today!

Lets see, tracking back now... We stopped first in a town called Napier. Where I did some souvenir shopping and some wining tasting. It was an art deco town and really cool actually. From there we went to a national park in Maori land. It was about 2000 feet up and we stayed on this lake in the middle of a mountain range. Got some great pictures, including me in a 1000 year old Rata tree, which are like parasite trees and start in the top of a host tree and then send roots down to the ground. It was massive! As soon as I get to a Internet cafe that will allow me to download fast pictures I'll get the whole thing on facebook, could be a couple more days though, still pretty small towns.
Next we stayed in a bay, forget the name, where Capt'n Cook first landed in New Zealand. He was the first white guy to find it in the 1700's. They had the longest pier in NZ there, 660meters which we walked along and took pictures of the sunrise from. (Top Most Picture)
After that we went up to the East Cape, where we stayed in a little holiday park. They had a sweet beach there surrounded by forested hills. It was like a jungle on the side of the ocean, like nothing I've seen before. We woke up at 5:30 in the morning to be the first to see the sun rise in the world (along with about 8 other people). There was a bit of clouds in the way, but the sun broke out and we got some pretty cool shots of it (2nd picture). On the way back to our campsite the sun came over the clouds and looked amazing! I have a shot of that here, 3rd one.
The final shot is of what is supposed to be the largest tree of this kind in the world (I forget the name but it's really long)! It was 40 meters across at its widest point and 21 meters high. You can see our 4 door car on the left side that gives you some perspective.
From there we marched along the rest of the coast, took a few pictures and ended up in Opotiki where we are now.
That's the update for now. We are heading up to what are supposed to be some more amazing views and hot water beach, where, depending on the tides, you can dig a hole in the sand and have it filled up by hot springs underneath. You can sit in your own man made hot spring!
After that it's back to Auckland where we drop off the car and see where to go from there.

The East Cape here I come!

Hey, just a short note before my internet money runs out and I leave Wellington. We checked out the free museum in Wellington, which was really cool, better than a lot of paid ones in the states. It had a ton about Maori culture too which is really cool stuff. I took some pictures of the Maori weapons and sailing craft. I'll see about posting some on here when I get a chance.
Lijanne and I rented a car for 9 days. It's going to take us up the east side. We will stop in Napier, which is wine country and a art town, that should be cool. Then it's off to Maori land and the East Cape. It's supposed to be beautiful there and really neat cultural experience, here's hoping! After that we go to hot water beach, where you can dig you own hole in the sand if the tides right and it fills up with super hot water you can soak in!
The rugby game was pretty cool. It was about the worst seats in the house, but it was a smaller stadium, so I could still see quite well. Got a couple good videos in there, hard to capture as I just wanted to watch the game the whole time, obviously.
Times almost up, things are still going great! More when I can!

The Northern Circuit

Well, after four days in the bush, it's nice to sleep in a real bed again!

It was an adventure, but an amazing trip. Lijanne and I decided to do the four day Northern Circuit which includes the famous Tongariro Crossing, the best one day tramp in all of NZ. We did that on our first day and it was bruuutal. We brought a regular backpack and my big bag for the trip. I think my bag weighed roughly 400 pounds, but I never got an measurement so I may be off by 10-15 pounds. You start the tramp by doing what they call the Devil's Staircase. I think the name says enough. I went picture nutty while I was up there. I think in total I have about 280 pictures and about 10 minutes in video. I would have done more but my batteries ran were running out and I didn't want to have to miss something at the end. I'll be putting 4 albums up on facebook for all the pictures. I'm sure some aren't the most exciting, but I can't be bothered trying to sort through all of them right now. There are some amazing shots and some not so, I'll try and make another album of just what I think are the best, but if you feel like running through all of them I think you won't be disappointed on the whole.

Anyway, lots and lots of hiking the first day. We went to one of the summits, not the Mt. Doom one, it was entirely too steep to do with a huge pack on and we had a long ways to go to our first hut for the night. I got a great video of LiLu trying to pick up my pack and put it on to see what I had to carry. She couldn't even lift it off the ground, it was pretty funny because she didn't realize I was recording the whole thing. I also got a silly video of me pretending my bag was Mr. Frodo and I was Samwise. I was acting out one of the last scenes where Sam picks up Frodo and carries him the last bit up Mt. Doom, it's a laugh as well. When we finally made it to the camp site about 8 hours later I was completely obliterated. I didn't even want to eat I was so tired. I think I slept (fitfully in my tent) about 12 hours that night after eating. We tried of course to eat the heaviest things first to lighten up the packs. In the morning was the most amazing sunrise. I think I took about 15 pictures of it. From about 6000 feet up we were above the lower cloud line and could see the sun shining over the top with a lake under the clouds. The pictures were simply incredible!

The next day was much better, after a full nights sleep I was ready to go again, and with some of the heavier canned soups gone the pack was much lighter. LiLu said it was still the same so I think it was a combination of a lighter pack and getting used to carrying the weight that made the second day so much easier. More pictures of everything along the way were taken and I was in high spirits. We made it to the second hut and I set up my tent again. I was on a cliff edge and I had a great view of the valley and a waterfall in the not too far distance. LiLu and I went down to the waterfall for a quick bath, which was great, though quite cold, which you can tell from my facial expression in the picture. Nights on the track tend to end when it gets dark and start when the sun rises, which means lots of sleep, for so much hiking I wasn't complaining with that. Day three brought our shortest day. There was a group of girls that didn't have inside voices that were driving me crazy in the morning, at 7:30 you shouldn't be shouting (talking waaay too loudly) at each other. The hike to the next hut was supposed to be 3 hours, but LiLu and I made a game out of catching people that left before we did and we were trucking it all the way to the next hut. We ended up making it in an hour and 45 minutes which was pretty sweet and a good workout (especially with a full pack as LiLu carried the food which was diminishing and I carried everything else). We ended up to a little natural spring that wasn't too far away and going for a quick rinse and to fill up our drinking water. The water tasted amazing. I got some right from where it was coming out of the ground from an underground stream. It was brutally cold, much colder than any other water I've been in except for Chelan in the middle of winter (though maybe just as cold).

We met a family of Kiwis there and had a great time laughing and playing cards with each other. I got there names and they are from Christchurch on the south island. Another connection for when I come back (perhaps with some fellow Americans this time)! The last day we went back to Whakapapa Village to catch our ride back to Taupo where I am now. On the way we stopped and took a few pictures of a lake which looked really cool, I wanted to go for a swim but we had a bus to catch and would have taken us about an hour to get too from where we saw it. We also stopped at some falls on the way back. I waited for there to be just a few tourists around and then run under it for a photo ( I didn't want to ruin every ones photos by being in the middle of it). It was really cold water and stung when it hit me. When it dumped it nearly knocked me over from the force of it. So much happened and at the same time it was so chill, I know I'm forgetting parts of it. Hopefully the pictures will tell more of the tale that I may have forgotten. It was an amazing trip, though I never got a good nights sleep and my feet are pretty wrecked now. It was well worth it and I'd do it again (and climb Mt. Doom!) in a heartbeat.

Tomorrow is my birthday and LiLu and I are going to have a Mexican night! We'll go out and get some Mexican (or stuff to make it if we can't find one) and get a bottle of tequila with some lemons (the limes here suck!) and have a fun night out!

After that we are off to Wellington where we will check out the capital city and all it has to offer. From there we want to rent a car and tour around the east cape of the north island, which is all Maori land and supposed to be a truly amazing experience (along with the views of course). One spot on the cape is supposed to be the first place (arguably) to see the sun rise each morning! I've heard you can take a horse ride really early in the morning and see the sun rise from horseback which would be super sweet! We'll see what we can get our hands on.

On the bus ride home from the Northern Circuit I started talking with an older Kiwi couple that lived in Kerikeri, which is really close to Paihia where I spent a month of my time. They were really nice people and we talked about the man's boats. He has an 18 foot class A Cat! As they were leaving they gave me there names and told me to look them up if I make my way back up to the Bay of Islands and maybe they would take me out for a sail! LiLu and I were planning on heading back up that way because it's so nice and relaxed and I've got tons of connections for free accommodation and cheap living. I think we'll head back up there for the last week or so and see another side of it!

It's great to hear from everyone through facebook and through comments on this blog, I really look forward to reading and hearing from people back home. Keep it coming!

Photo Albums 1-4 for the Northern Circuit:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2107456&l=c5956&id=25904364

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2107462&l=c0622&id=25904364

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2107467&l=73447&id=25904364

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2107474&l=97edb&id=25904364

Rotorua and the Waitomo Caves!

It's been on adventure after another here in NZed!
We went to Rotorua, which is a natural hot springs town. All the water is heated naturally by the boiling water running through everywhere in the town. It is full of sulfur too so it smells mildly like rotten eggs, it wasn't too bad though. I dipped my hand (finger) in the water, way to hot to have a swim in though I wanted to! I got some really cool pictures of the hot springs which I will post to facebook shortly and have a link to at the bottom of this post.


On Tuesday night in Taupo we met up with Rosie, a girl I cleaned and lived with for the month I was in Paihia up north. She was there too and we met up at a bar, where we met a couple of her roommates, both from the states! Amazing, 3 of us in the same place at the same time abroad! I think I've met a total of 7 Americans since I've been in NZ. Anyway, they were pretty cool guys and through the night we all decided to go to Waitomo the next day for a day trip. It was perfect because we were going there anyway and the bus would have cost us $45 a person and we got to ride in an old beast of a van on a road trip over for free! When we got into Waitomo (known strictly for it's caving, which is the reason we were there) myself and the other guys went down to the local rugby pitch and had a toss/kick around. It was quite a fun time.


The next day LiLu and I went on an amazing caving experience. We went with absolute adventures, which is basically the non-tourist group in the area. They don't hold your hand going through and the concept is to teach you about caving as well as challenge you and push you beyond your comfort zone. I never really got out of my comfort zone, but I live for this stuff! Even so it was an amazing experience! We repelled 20-30 meters down waterfalls, had to hand over had climb ropes up wet rock to get into the next bits of cave, and many other crazy things!


Probably the hardest bit for me was a spot where you had to stand on one side of a cliff edge and reach your foot across to the other side, free falling a couple feet before your foot hit the other side and you were straddling a 20 meter fall bouncing down the crevasse. Of course we are clipped in to ropes so you wouldn't fall, but it's still a little tough to let your body go and you would still fall and bang yourself on the rocks if you did slip. Being the guy I am I kept asking the guide to give me some particularly challenging bits to do. Towards the end he tried to step it up a bit. One of those bit was a squeeze flat on my stomach through a passage that was 3/4 full of water! We were in overalls and two layers of thermals and the water was still freezing! Granted we'd been in the water the whole time pretty much, but only half way up to your shins up to this point. I was pretty much submerged in the water except for half my head which was turned up so I could breath going through the squeeze. It came out into an opening and the only way out was to squeeze through another whole which would put me right back into the water on the other side. I couldn't where my helmet through these bits because it was just too tight, so I had to take it off and let it float backwards pointing at me so I could see. It was pretty intense but not too scary. Another really cool bit we did was in a part of the cave that was more or less straight (I think), our guide had us turn all our lights off on our helmets. Then continue to follow the river/stream forward (upstream) in the dark. He went ahead and we could hear him whistling. I was leading the group at that time and so we continued in the dark. Then I realized part of the reason he did it. There were glow worms on the ceiling and walls around us! It wasn't packed full of glow worms like in the tourist caves but you could still see there blue light shining on the walls. It was amazing to see! As one point I passed within inches of one, right at my face level. They are so small you can't see anything, even from that distance, but it was really neat to be that close. One we saw was so bright I could see the rock around it in a 7 inch diameter! He must have been hungry! We continued on for about 80 meters winding through this cave following the river. In some spots I could hear Doug's whistling echo so I knew we were coming into a big cavern, as well as being able to hear my own voice echo once I reached it. It was really cool to completely lose your ability to see and try and rely on your other senses to navigate. In total we spent 4 and half hours underground, with the end having a bunch of waist and chest deep pools to wade and climb through before we saw sunlight again. Overall the trip was a ton of fun and a great experience. By the end of it Lijanne was beat to a pulp, bruised from head to toe, but she loved it.


Tomorrow we are going to do the Tongariro crossing, which is meant to be the best hike in all of the North Island and if you do just the day trip it's supposed to be the best in all of NZ. We are going to do a couple more days after the day trip and head up to one of the summits so we should be up there for 3 days in total. This is where Mt Doom is from Lord of the Rings and Mordor, so hopefully I can get some awesome pictures of it and we can match them up later! I won't be on a computer again for 4-5 days probably, until around my birthday I guess. Then I'll have some amazing photos! I put a video up you can find from my profile on facebook of the huge tree Tane Mahuta and our guide Taf singing in Maori for those that have access to that.
I have a bunch of video's too, and a couple I've already put up, but it's really slow to load them and costs my a lot to stay online for that amount of time. I've been thinking of sending you a CD with a bunch of video's to put online or pass around Timmy, send me your address and maybe when I get a chance I can send a bunch out to you.
Sounds like everything back home is going well from those I've heard from. Things continue to be amazing around this way! More in a 5 or 6 days!
Here is a picture of Lijanne for those who care!


Links:
I put a video up you can find from my profile on facebook of the huge tree Tane Mahuta and our guide Taf singing in Maori for those that have access to that. This is the link, but it may not work for everyone...
http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=522233123730


This is the link for the Rotorua Hot Pools and the Caving Trip:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2106890&l=d1e70&id=25904364