Riders of Rohan

Well, the last couple days has been quite the whirlwind. In less than three days we've transported ourselves from Napier, down to Wellington, across the ferry to Picton, on the South Island and now to Christchurch. The part of town we're in, New Brighton, is about 15 minutes away from the city centre, and is almost like a Venice Beach of the south Pacific, tonnes of cool little shops, surfers and MASSIVE waves.

The trip from Picton was long, but thankfully uneventful. For the first hour or two we were driving through this barren, almost desert like region of dry, grassy hills. Rohan, for those of y'all who watched Two Towers. And then, out of the complete blue, we come around a corner to THIS.

Not Pictured: my "holy shit, mountains!" face.

This is the beginning of the Kaikoura range, one of the smaller mountain ranges of the South Island.

"Alright let's do our Asian teenager pose"

Needless to say, we were pretty pumped. This is only the beginning. Our final destination tomorrow is Wanaka, sort of a smaller, quieter Queenstown, I'm given to understand. The mountains there are larger. And more numerous. Tomorrow we drive straight from our lil' surfer hostel to the PickNZ office in Alexandra to register for cherry picking and then off to Wanaka for some arrr ennn arrrr. 

And I was always taught that cherry picking was unsportsmanlike. Tee Hee. \

-james

The Ring Goes Southier

Matt, Master of Middle-Earth

We're wrapping up our time here in Hawke's Bay. Today we climbed up another big hill, this one much larger than the first. This picture is from the top of Te Mata Peak, just outside of Havelock North (a few minutes drive from Napier). It was AWESOME. We wandered pretty quickly up to the top and then dawdled our way down past the sheep and the bush. It was really good to get out of the hostel after a couple days of cabin fever coldness and back into the scenery.  We drove the car today for the first time since we bought her. Steph had her first shot at driving in reverse-land and performed admirably.

On Thursday we head south once again. First to Wellington, then across the Cook Strait to the South Island, then the drive down to Christchurch, and finally from Christchurch to Alexandra, near Queenstown. The plan is to get in on cherry pickin' season a way down south for at least a month and make back some of our money. Tomorrow we venture out to Cape Kidnappers for some cliffs of insanity and rare bird watching! :)

-James

Jenny

Yesterday, we bought a car. We have named her Jenny, after a particularly obnoxious kea bird we met at Rainbow Springs in Rotorua. Car ownership is pretty simple here; we paid cash for the car (1500 bucks, pretty good deal) and then went to the post office and paid 9 dollars to register the car under Matt's name. Third-party insurance is about 50 dollars for the year. Pretty exciting stuff!

First thing Monday morning its job hunt time. Now that we've got wheels things get a whole lot simpler. It's apple thinning season here in lovely Hawke's Bay, and jobs seem pretty plentiful. We could have worked yesterday and the day before, a horse farmer was here looking for some help, but we didn't have the car at the time.

Last night we had a campfire on the beach. You can have them whenever you want, and there's all kinds of driftwood to burn so you don't even need to bring anything with you. Ben met up with us yesterday and we all made rather merry. Me and Matt also went halfsies on a $100 guitar today so life is good!!

The Ring Goes South

So it's been a little while since I've made a post. We've been pretty busy! Yesterday we left Auckland and headed south to beautiful Rotorua in the scenic Bay of Plenty! The views along the way were absolutely spectacular. Rotorua smells like rotten eggs constantly because of all the volcanic activity. You can see the steam rising up from places all over the valley it's in. There's also lakes. And mountains. Seriously, this country is ridiculous. It should be illegal to have this much scenery packed into one place.
This picture is from our long hike into a park called The Redwoods, it was awesome. There were large trees, and it felt very Middle-Earth.
Today we rented a car from the hostel owner and toured around the area a bit. Matt took the mantle of driver upon himself, and we got to have the excitement of driving on the wrong side of the road. We survived in style, and went to some awesome places. We went to a place called Hot-Cold River. It's basically exactly what it sounds like: a hot geothermal river meeting a cold river. The hot side feels as hot as a really hot tub, and the cold side is... well, cold like a river. We soaked there for over an hour, and then we went to this conservation park to see some native NZ fauna! The kiwis were really hard to spot, but we got to see one and it was awesome. I was by far the most excited about the kiwis, but I think it was contagious.
Tomorrow we're heading to Napier, on the coast. We were intending to go to Hastings, but when the hostel there was sold out we did some quick replanning. The hostel we're staying in in Napier is literally 50 feet from the ocean. Should be pretty epic.

There were chickens at the park we went to. They were actually awesome. They followed us and the chicks were trying to eat our feet. Maja was terrified.

Many Meetings

Today Asta and Maja arrived! I'm about to run out of internet but I wanted to post this. We went to Waiheke Island and spent the whole day on the beach. Awesome.

PENGUINS!!!!

Penguins. Penguins, penguins, penguins, penguins.

Also, penguins.

*edit* i feel i should add: steph took this picture, i wasn't yelling about penguins for no reason :)

A Short Cut to Mushrooms

Today we climbed a big hill. 

Auckland is filled to the brim with Asians. Seriously, there are times when it feels like we're in Bangkok. In some places every restaurant, store and person in sight is Asian of some description. Lots and lots of choices of Asian food, it's pretty much all there is haha.

This picture is from the top of Mt. Eden, which is a huge extinct volcano in the middle of the city. The view was spectacular. Behind us you can see the mountains to the west of the city. We're thinking about hiking all the way to the west coast to see the black sand beaches!

In more mundane news, i ate a "Seafood Sensation" sub at Subway. Not the best choice. 

Love!

Three is Company

Well, we're here! After an agonizingly long flight, (seriously, no matter how much i prepared myself, i was NOT prepared for sitting in a chair for longer than I've ever been in a vehicle in my life) we have safely arrived in beautiful Auckland, NZ. We landed at about quarter to nine in the morning and it was about 19 degrees and sunny outside. The sun is very very hot here! In the shade you're shivering and as soon as the sun comes out you can feel that deliciously powerful UV roasting off the top couple layers of flesh.

Now, firstly let me assure you that despite what these first two images may imply, we are in fact doing OTHER things than just drinking beer all day long. This magical moment illustrates the first place we went after arriving in downtown Auckland from the airport; our first step back into the world of the living (we aren't quite there yet, its about 7 at night now and we're just trying to stay awake) We're sitting in the hostel after a day of journeying around the city on foot.

Interwebbery is in fact kind of tricky to find. It costs $3 an hour to use it here at the hostel. We're already pretty excited to get out of the city and head south but there's a few fun touristy things for us to do while we're up here.
Not sure when I'll be posting next, but now you know we are all alive :)

james
(and steph with the camera)

A Long-Expected Party

So here we are at beautiful Pearson International. Check-in was uneventful, they let Matt through despite his clear genetic inferiority. We all actually ended up on the same plane, which was totally unexpected and a bonus! The American customs were very tough and scary. In their imaginations.

It seems crazy that we're finally here! A few months ago when we booked the tickets it seemed years away but the last few weeks have flown by. We bought one last Canadian beverage at the bar here (for almost 10 dollars each. that Canadian money was just burning a hole in our pocket) and then it's farewell home!

The kids behind us are absolutely hysterical. Couple of ten year old girls talking about going to L.A. where all the awesome, cool people are.

Well, since nothing of note has happened yet, that is all for now. I love you all very much.

James