movin' on south

Well boozey people out there, I am off again. I finished up my last shifts at the Grange Road Café a few days ago, and am in the airport waiting for my flight that will take me way down south to Queenstown, New Zealand. While I am excited to move on in my travels, I am surely going to miss Tauranga and the people in it. It has been my home for the past five months, and it’s been quite a fine home. There, I was lucky enough to spend time sailboat racing with Tauranga’s “Women on Water” program. I always worked foredeck, and enjoyed every minute of it, including a few first place races. In Tauranga I also met a good friend Tim while rock climbing on the mount. Being from the UK, and in the process of obtaining his NZ residency, he shared my frustration with NZ immigration. He recently received his residency and I couldn’t be happier for him. My second to last day in Tauranga was spent with him, his girlfriend Biv, three of their friends and of course my wonderful travel mate, Taylor. We took a trip back up to the Coromandel Peninsula where we hiked an hour up a river valley, and spent the next six hours “canyoning” or “canyoneering” back down. 

This included rappelling (or abseiling as the kiwis call it) down massive waterfalls, jumping off 10 meter plus jumps into the clear pools beneath the waterfalls, sliding down natural rock waterslides, taking breaks for an emergency Tim-Tam, swimming, deep water soloing (for Taylor), and all around fun having.

It was one of the coolest things I’ve done in NZ thus far, and when I found out going with a guide and group costs around 300 dollars for the day, I consider myself even luckier for having some serious bad-ass friends who will take me on their adventures with them.

Now it’s down to the South Island for some hiking around. Ah, the South Island. Really, the main reason for me coming to NZ at all. Huge mountains, big backcountry hikes, tons of world class rock climbing, and of course, millions of sand flies…great. In all honesty, I came to the North Island of NZ and didn’t really expect much, and I am so happy my opinion has changed ten fold. I sort of got stuck on the North Island, and I am so glad for it. I have found so many amazing things here, and met amazing people. I can’t wait to someday come back here and catch up with all the people I met. For now, it’s down South I go! My American crew of Gus, Abe, Josh, Abby, and Levi will be picking me up (hopefully if they haven’t drunk too much last night) at 9 am. Keas, Milford sound and Castle Hill, here I come!

Much love.

Happy (very belated) Holidays!

Happy Holidays from down under! Or almost down under. The holiday season is celebrated quite differently here in NZ, as to be expected as summer is really getting going now. Life is still great here in Tauranga, and looks like they're going to continue being great. Now..where to begin?

Thanksgiving was spent with wonderful American and Kiwi friends in the sun. Unfortunately, Kiwis aren't as keen on Turkey as we are, so Abby and I had to resort to making a duck and a chicken. That's two thirds of a turduckin, so we called it good.

yum

We of course dressed up in the traditional Native American garb, headdresses, and enjoyed champagne while our new friend Toby carved the birds. He became first place bird carver.

first place

perfect sweet potatoes

After a fun Thanksgiving, our friends Gus and Abe returned to us after spending some days doing two of New Zealand's "Great walks." There are nine Great walks in NZ now, and as you can tell by their title, they're great. They are so named because they are usually the most popular, and always the most expensive. NZ has a really awesome hut system set up in their backcountry. Along multi-day tramping tracks the Dept. of Conservation has built huts, and trampers are welcome to stay in them for a small (or  in the case of Great Walks, quite large) fee. They eliminate the need to carry a tent, sleeping pad, and other heavy items which is really nice, but not always necessary. Anyways, back to the holiday topic at hand.

Just a few days after our Kiwi Thanksgiving, another American joined the colony here in Tauranga. Our friend Levi flew in. This warranted a mini vacation to some beautiful natural hot springs close to Napier.

Over the next few weeks, the apartment was quite crowded with so many Americans living under one roof, so we took as many chances as possible to go explore beautiful New Zealand. Here a few pics...

Rock climbing/camping at a new crag 

'the mount' as seen from Matakana island

just another beautiful Tauranga sunset 

As Christmas crept closer and closer, it was weird to experience the weather getting warmer and warmer. I had to remind myself that Christmas was coming. My mind knew it, but I never really got in the Christmas spirit. I was just excited for the week and a half I would have off from work during the Holidays.

As I left Tauranga for my week and a half holiday trip, I was semi excited to be back living in the trusty ol' Mitsubishi Chariot again. Living in a car is not always such a bad thing. We first traveled to Lake Tarawera with a kiwi friend and spent the day sailing on his 21 footer and stayed the night near some amazing hot springs (I like hot springs, have you noticed?) Christmas day was spent climbing at Waipapa.

on lake Tarawera

Happy Holidays from some NZ travelers!

Next, on to do some spelunking in the Central North Island. Glow worms everywhere! Unfortunately cave pictures rarely come out very well, but I find these cave pics entertaining.

yum

After caves were thouroughly explored, we went to Raglan. An amazing little surf town on the West coast. Rain and living in a car doesn't add up well, so we splurged on a hostel for the night.

After Raglan, it was straight up to Northland to see the second largest trees in the world. Kauri trees! These beautiful giants are truly amazing, though, like most natural beautiful things in this world, there is a disease killing them and great care has to be taken when visiting them. We made sure to clean our soles and got to visit 'The Father of the Forest' the 'King of the Forest' and the 'Four Sisters.'

yup, there's four of them

16 meteres girth. big guy

After checkin out the amazing giants, and searching in vain for a kiwi (I heard a kiwi call at a campsite though, it was awesome! Too bad they're tricky to spot), we met up with Gus, Abe and Levi who had been way up north planting kumara (sweet potatoes) for about a month. That meant it was party time, New Years was upon us and as is tradition; a music festival. Northern Bass. We celebrated a day ahead of everyone else, and, clearly, it was awesome. 

Happy New 2013 everyone!