Cheers new Zealand

Hello,

I hope everyone is having a good time. i'm actually really happy that i ended my new zealand travels with an extended stay at christchurch. the hostel got to be very homey because there were a few people that misjudged their travels and had to stay in christchurch for more days than they would have liked. this meant that i usually ran into them lounging somewhere in the city whenever there was sun.

It was mostly rainy and crappy but i still had a good time. my last two days were definitely the best of the christchurch days. while it was raining i saw the documentary "the corporation" and i recommend it, but i just don't know what to think or do about it. anyway, Emilie and Elizabeth that i met way back in nelson and queenstown were also in christchurch so i hung out with them. we had a great night of pizza, monopoly, and watching sixty minutes and the movie the others...yeah we're nerds but i'm not ashamed of that. they really are cool and its like being with comfortable friends.

The last day was perfect--mostly sunny but still crisp air. I saw the art gallery which had some really disturbing displays, but those are always the best because you know it is really causing emotion in people. Next it was a long nap in the huge botanical garden (i'd call it more a park) the air was still a bit cold but the ground was nice and warm. i was still deciding about getting a haircut and ended up getting one. its nice but as she was cutting it i decided no more haircuts for the rest of the trip.

That night i did one of the coolest unique things. the day before i went to the cathedral to check it out and saw a sign asking for people that were interested in joining the bellringers society. i talked to a bunch of people in the cathedral and got the ok to join them tuesday night. so i went. it was mainly old people, but they were so so friendly. we climbed halfway up the tower into this room that had a circle of hanging ropes. they gave me lessons on how the bells work and what they do and then i got to hang out with them as they practiced their bellringing. two very strange hours. I ended the final night of christchurch with emilie and elizabeth at a pub that had cheesy music tuesday. (i thought the music wasn't that cheesy)

Now its my final full day in new zealand and i'm at the hostel i stayed at for my first night. its mostly full of people that are just starting their new zealand travels (i guess some people like to come to new zealand when the weather is perfect...i still think nz winter is just fine). i've had an amazing time and could easily stay another year if i could, but for now, i'm ready to move on. on the plane ride from christchurch to auckland i could see most of the top of the south island. Even the exact spot where Katja and i kayaked in the abel tasman...i can't believe it took us a day to do that! The water there looks exactly how i picture the water in fiji to be, so it got me happy and excited.

so, goodbye new zealand.

have a good day
your friend

chad

Pre-fiji

Hello,

Christchurch has been good to me so far. Its a 50/50 mix of auckland and wellington, so that makes it a big (ish) city with a bit of character. I'm here for a bit too many days to wait for the plane back to auckland, so this afternoon i'll find out what kind of day trips to do. They've got a church square like in a lot of english towns and there is a guy there called "the Wizard." He's this guy dressed in an all black wizard costume and he talks in the square on a big step ladder. He rambles on and on about the strangest things. The topic for my time watching him: industrialization of new zealand (and the world in general, he was just using nz as an example) and the progression of society to its current state of conformity. I haven't used big words like that for months. He is one of those people that you don't know if they are too smart or just crazy, but in most of the guidebooks he is listed as the unofficial mascott of Christchurch (and i hear he gets paid by the city to do what he does...i'm leaning to the calling him smart side).

the crazy wizard guy.

I hung out with Pauline last night and this morning she went north to meet up with Laura. They'll be flying to fiji together two days before i get there. I'm really lucky to have met them. Its made the trip feel like i've been traveling with good friends. Other than that i'm just catching up with emails, sorting out my pack, and getting ready for fiji (things like buying a snorkel and such). Three months hasn't been enough in New Zealand, but i think i am ready to see what fiji is going to be like. And i've decided to get my first haircut of the trip tomorrow. i figure it will be easier to swim with the snorkel mask with shorter hair.

My mom has been in canada for the past week, which means Google (my mom's new dog) is staying at my brothers house. Before my mom left she decided pepper was going to be the name, but my brother's changed the name to Jasmin. I'm all for this because i think it is a more clever name than pepper. (Jasmin = kind of tea = boston had that whole tea thing = mom's dog is a boston terrier) I'm still pushing for Google as the middle name--and nothings going to stop me from calling the dog google anyway.

So, the postings may get sparse for the next few weeks. I won't be doing too much for the next few days and i'm going to keep my distance from computers in fiji, unless theres a nice rainy day to catch up a bit.

have a good day

chad

Akaroa

Hello,

I hope everyone is doing well. The little blue penguins turned out so great. They're so tiny!! We saw a little over 70 of them (at least thats how many they say there were, but i thought there were more in the 50-60 range. i guess they're better at counting miniture penguins) They swim up from the beach in little groups and walk across this wide path as they make their way to a little shire of mini-houses. Penguins make you smile, its decided. I went to the penguin reserve with a cool couple from the UK, Scott and Susara. They were really nice and were going north the next day also and were nice enough to take me along.

On the drive I read about Timaru in the Lonely Planet guide. Now, the lonely planet guide can find the coolest little things in just about any town, so when it said "apart from the something something museum, there is really no reason to stop here." That meant i stayed with Susara and Scott all the way to their final destination: Akaroa. Definitely the best thing i could have done. The Bon Accord hostel in Akaroa was amazing. really friendly host (Cathy and Boots her dog) but the coolest part by far was a comfy sitting room built over a stream. My first night there I had some pasta (really, every night i have pasta), put on some chill music, and took a nap to the sound of the water.

That alone convinced me to stay one more night and the next day I took the woodills walk around akaroa. The walk was really peaceful (and moderately tough in some spots). Lots of sheep, a few horses, a random chicken...i'm not really sure what that was doing there, and even gave a deer a head rub--a farming deer, not a wild one. Right in the middle of the walk was this garden/house where you pay 8 dollars for a berry drink that was perfect. I can't really find the words to express how cool it was.

I've come to christchurch this morning. Cathy, the owner of the hostel, gave me a ride. Its about 1 1/2 hours away from akaroa! she was headed into town anyway, but it was cool of her to take me along. I feel like a nerd for worrying about my transportation way back in te anau. In new zealand there really is no need to worry about anything.

I ended up in the same room as pauline (laura left this morning to see whales in kaikura) so i'll meet up with her later. The hostel feels really comfortable and has a huge mastiff like dog named murphy that gets easily attached to guests and cries anytime someone leaves.

I've sent a cd of pictures home so in the next few weeks i'm hoping my mom will be able to put up a few of them. I'd put them up myself but you have to download some program to do it and i can't do that at internet cafes.

Chocolate birds

Hello,

First off, I'm a lot less stressed than the last post. So far, everything is working out fine with the transportation. Dunedin (pronounced duh-need-in) turned out to be a really cool town. It used to be an important port town but when the panama canal opened it became significantly less important. Now it is mainly a university town with everyone there having something to do with the school.

Have to say that every chocolate tour i have been on has been somewhat of a let down. Its usually just what you expect it to be. A lot of metal things doing their magic hidden behind all of their panels...and not loads of free chocolate. But the Cadbury chocolate factory tour in dunedin has been the best one by far. First, you start off with free chocolate, then start the tour of the factory. Yeah, there are still heaps of machines and things you can't see, but they make it as fun as possible. It ends with a one ton chocolate fall, which serves no purpose at all but to look cool. That's the willy wonka style i'm looking for.

Later that day I went on the twilight penguin adventure tour. I'm not sure exactly why its called "twilight" because we left at three in the afternoon and the sun was still up when we got back to the hostel. Along the way it stops at a bird colony and we saw a few royal albatross flying around. I've never seen one before and i couldn't believe how big it was. It has a wingspan of 3 meters (10 feet!!) Imagine a seagull crossbred with a teradactyl...thats an albatross. Huge.

I had more fun at the penguin reserve than i would like to admit. The end goal was to see yellow eyed penguins, the rarest penguins in the world. Along the way there was a miniature shire made of little houses. Those are for the blue penguins; they're about 20 cm tall...little tiny guys that live in little tiny homes on the hillside. We saw one of them inside his home, and he stood there looking out at us. Something about penguins just makes you laugh. Then we went into bunkers that felt like they were straight out of wwII. That's were you can view the yellow eyed ones. From the boxes dug in the ground we were probably only a few feet away from them. They were cool, but didn't walk around at all. Thats the comedic part of penguins so i spent most of my time watching little duck chicks whizzing around a small pond as they learned how to swim. they were much more entertaining.

Since I'm saving the last two hours remaining on my bus pass, I decided to hitch from dunedin to omaru. I got a ride to a hitching spot from Dione, a girl from L.A. Along the way we stopped at "the world's steepest street." Its not like the one in san francisco that zigzags its way up to the top. This is just a hugely steep neighborhood road that goes straight up a mountain. It was difficult to capture it on camera, so you'll have to take my word for it.

After Dione dropped me off, I had a ride in under ten minutes with a semi-retired man named Lawrence. His job: a sheep shearing coach. yep, he coaches competitors to win the golden shears. We had some good talks about traveling and the sheep shearing competitions and in a few hours he dropped me off at omaru. Soon I'm going to go see a whole colony of little blue penguins, so i'm actually really excited. I hear their interactions with the seals are really funny.

Tomorrow I'm off to Timaru. I forgot what was there, but i'll be there for a night. Then its christchurch and surrounding areas until the 20 oct.

No rain, No bus

Man, I don't know where to start. First some clarifications about milford sound. It is more sunny than rainy, but when it does rain, it pours like a crazy person. And in my wishing for a sunny day, i got what i wished for, but in getting a sunny day you gain one thing and lose another. Basically, any direction i put my camera i could have made a post card out of the picture, so thats the plus. A dozen waterfalls along the way and a really cool stop at an underwater observatory where i saw black coral and other cool things; those were good. Now the downside of a sunny day: there are only a dozen waterfalls. When it rains there are over a thousand waterfalls all around. Missed out on that, but i will be back, just not this trip. Time to move on.

this is called the "elephant".

Norway's fiords are going to have some tough competition. Rudyard Kipling called milford sound the "eighth wonder of the world." He's a smart guy, and i'm going to concur. It is a bit strange though. Milford sound is actually a fiord. A sound is a body of water through canyony type mountains that is formed by water going through. A fiord is a body of water that is formed where a glacier used to be. It makes for some wicked sights that can't be explained in words, so i'm not going to try. Its sweet.

I've come into a transportation dilema that will sort itself out. I'm nearly out of hours on my bus pass. This afternoon I had planned my last two weeks out day by day and when i called to reserve the first leg of the bus trip, i found out my hours wouldn't cover it. So change of plans. It will be cheaper to fly from christchurch to auckland than taking the ferry and the bus.

Well before I get all poetic about how beautiful this place is and how sad i am about leaving, i will stop for now.

have a good day

chad

5 Underpants Jump

Hello,

The minus 5 bar actually turned out to be a lot colder (originally they kept it at -5 degrees Celcius but things were still melting so its a lot colder than that now). We split off with the original group and i'm so glad we did. There were only 12 people total and we were 8 of them. We got to know the others quickly and had a great time surrounded by ice. There was only one rule: don't fart because it doesn't leave the air for about an hour. Apparently someone in our group wasn't listening and near the end there was a pretty bad smell hanging in the air. Luckily they turned on the air conditioner some more and got the bad air out of there pretty quickly. I took about 20 or so photos so one day they'll be posted. I think the ice glass was one of the coolest parts. When we were leaving the group we split from was going in...all 27 of them, which i think would not have been fun.

Minus 5 bar such a weird place.



I've done my last jump(s) for queenstown and it feels like i've done all that i can. I skipped out on one of the bungys because, really, there's not much difference between 2 and 3 jumps. that and i need to leave something for next time. Yesterday I went with Laura to the Canyon Swing and I think that if you do one thing in queenstown the canyon swing is it (with the nevis close behind). Its about 15 minutes away from q-town in a massive canyon. You get all strapped up, jump off a ledge, free fall for 60 meters, and then swing in an arc for about 200 meters going 150 kilometers/hour. i don't know how fast that is, but its dang fast. Now, it would be nice if all you had to do was jump, but thats too easy. Their goal is to find the jump that will scare the most crap out of you (they rate all of the different kind of jumps by number of underpants). My "jump" was hanging upside down over the ledge, with my feet wrapped around the top of the cord and my head looking straight down into the river below. They pull the cord and then you fall headfirst down the canyon. They call it "Gimp boy goes to Hollywood"

The next jump only costs $20 dollars more, which lead me back to the ledge to do a backwards jump off. The fall itself wasn't that bad; gimp boy was definitely more exciting. But making myself jump off of the ledge was really intense. Somehow on jumps with a countdown it makes it easier because its almost like someone else is deciding when you do it. No countdown on this one. "Lock your fingers behind your head, lean back, and push off the legde as you're falling" ...small talk...small talk... "So I'm good to go?" "Yeah" ...a few silent moments to harness my chi, and then a backwards jump.

I'm happy to be leaving Queenstown. Its a great place to be busy and do everything, but its crazy expensive (no one thing is expensive, it just adds up so quickly) and doesn't feel like a place I would like to live. My ratings: Q-town good; Wanaka great.

Milford Sound is next: voted the second most beautiful place in the world by national geographic (Norway's Fiordland was first). It rains about 230 days a year there, so hoping I can slip in there rain-free.

have a good day

chad

Cold as

Hello,

Back in Queenstown for another two nights. tonight we are going to a bar called minus 5. You wear boots, gloves, and big heavy jackets with fur around the hood. Then you go into this room made of ice that is kept at -5 degrees celcius. Even the walls are ice and all around there are ice sculptures. Part of the price includes one drink out of a cup made of ice. It should be fun since it is kept to a maximum of 25 people and we should have about 10 or so of them.


And sorry for the malfunction with some of the postings. There was something wrong with the computer in arrowtown, which kept posting things over and over again. Everything should be all fixed now.

From what I know, Google is still officially nameless.

Have a good day
chad

Q-Town

Hello,

Its seems like so much has happened since Wanaka...probably because a lot has happened. First, there was amazing success with my first hitching experience from Wanaka to Queenstown. I waited at a grassy field with two snowboarders who were looking to go to cardrona. One of them was a girl from seattle who back home made coffee and went snowboarding and in wanaka, she makes coffee and goes snowboarding. For some reason i think that is really cool. We had a good half an hour talking and laughing about everything. Eventually I was picked up by a nice couple that were also going to the ski fields. It was a tough choice riding with them because if i never got a ride, i always had the bus; but if i went to the ski fields i would be committed to hitching the whole way. So i went with them (it was the more adventurous route).

I got dropped off at the road and they continued on to the ski fields. Since finishing school i've got a goal to read one book a month, and even though i'm traveling, the goal still stands. Right now i'm reading a hilarious book by sue townsend called the growing pains of adrian mole. Its supposed to be for kids, so i think it fits me fine. Anyway, i just held up a cardboard sign that said "Q-TOWN" and had my book behind it. It was a nice time standing in the sunlight with fields and mountains all around. About 15-20 pages later a travel van stopped with the raddest couple from scotland: Louise and Ewan. I jumped into the back of their van and headed off for queenstown: listening to great music and talking about the most random things. They even stopped so i could take pictures!
Louise and Ewan and their van. they had no back seats so that they could pass inspection (the seat belts were broken, which equals a no pass. but if there are no seats, its all good). so i just laid in the back, used my bag as a pillow, at stared at the sky.

Ok, so new zealand isn't that big of a place in general. The south island is even smaller (people wise) and most people traveling the south go either down the west or east coast and then up the other side. Queenstown is one of the only cities where nearly everyone spends extended time since there are so many things to do. This turns it into a by chance gathering place for everyone. After checking into my hostel i ran into louise and ewan again so we went to a pub to hang out. After a montieth's and a tui we parted ways, which left me alone for about 5 minutes, until i ran into Pauline and Laura. From there we hung out all night long, running into about 20 or so familiar faces along the way. It really was crazy. Everyone knows everyone else on the travel route.

Jumper junkie: once you jump off one thing, your hooked. Remember how I said Hayley was thinking about doing a bungy jump (but she only wanted to do it with someone)? Well, she arrived in q-town on thursday night. By saturday afternoon she had already jumped 4 times and saved the Nevis for last. Sunday morning i booked the Nevis jump at the same jump time as hayley and at 2:00pm we were heading for the nevis river jump. 134 meters doesn't mean much to me, so i wasn't really thinking that much about it. But when we got there and i saw that 134 meters means 440 feet, it is friggin huge! I guess to put it in building terms, its like jumping off of a 44 level building (well, actually i'm not sure, is a level 10 feet or 12 feet? anyway its a really big fall). You take this little tiny gondola to a big one that is made more of glass than steel. Heaviest jumps first, which put me near the end (stupid metabolism). You get strapped while you sit in a chair that looks more like a dentist chair, and then you baby step to a ledge (since you feet are tied together). They count down from five and then you jump. It was one of the most intense feelings i have felt--way harder than sky diving.

And thats when i became a jumper junkie. Five minutes after the bus dropped us off, i was signing up for a different jump at 7:00 that night with a guy named darryyl from ireland. It was only a 43 meter jump but you could do a forward flip off of it, which of course is what i went for. Still a crazy feeling, but nothing like the Nevis.
the second jump of the day. this one went much too fast.

I've left queenstown now, since it was way too much money, and now i'm relaxing at arrowtown about 20 minutes away.

I hope everyone is doing ok. My mom got a puppy! Its a bosten terrier and currently it is nameless. My vote is on Google, but I think I have been banned from naming animals ever since Wonder Butt. I'm a little bummed because it will be almost a year old before i see it for the first time.

Have a good day.

your friend
chad