too many scenic vistas

Wow. I’ve been so busy riding my thumb around the south island I haven’t gotten around to posting any pictures or stories in quite awhile. I left off just before Queenstown:

Gorgeous place and though it is a bit overrun by tourists, it has the only disc golf course I have encountered thus far in the country. I would have happily stuck around to play it, but with my tight schedule I had to get a move on. In fact that has been a bit of a theme for the south island—so many places that make me want to stick around for a week or two, but with only a month in the country it just isn’t possible to take things that slow. So I woke up at the crack the next morning to catch a tour bus to one of the most splendid sights on the planet, Milford Sound.

It’s really tough to capture the shear scale of the place. With cliffs jutting vertically up from the fiord 1,500 meters and capped by the occasional glacier, it sure is magnificent. It is also one of the wettest places on earth and I lucked out with the weather. It gets so much rainfall, 10 to 20 meters of fresh water rides atop the salty ocean water below, which creates a very unusual marine ecosystem.

Next stop on the whirlwind Thumbelina express: Stewart Island. But not before a stop off in my town.

Funny I must have founded it prehumously.

But on to Stewart Island...it is a pretty unique place. It rains there an average of 15 times per day and stops raining just as frequently.

These flightless birds called Wekas roam the island and don’t have any fear of people.

This one really wanted to eat whatever was in my bag and stuck his/her head entirely inside it. Another tried to jump in my lap as I was trying to make myself a peanut butter sandwich!

More fascinating than the bird life is that of the locals. I happened to be present for the live band Saturday night.

That’s right. A guitar, a one-string broom-handle bass, a washboard and a tambourine—the classical Stewart Island quartet. After they completed their repertoire of about 5 songs (for most of which the complete lyrics eluded them) they just went back to the top and repeated their set. Of course the gumboot clad fishermen scarcely seemed to notice and seldom managed a sip of Speights without spilling an equivalent portion on the carpet.

Back across to the mainland and planet Earth, I hitched to Dunedin, sister city of Edinburgh, Scotland, and New Zealand’s biggest college town. I rented a car so I could go see Otago Point and some of the Catlans National Park.

Unfortunately I forgot to recharge my camera the night before so this is the only shot I got of the beautiful scenery.

Don’t try to hitchhike in a hailstorm. It just isn’t worth it. Catch a bus. After about 5 hours of hiding out in cafés and of short rides with very friendly farmers going to the next town, I actually got picked up by a commercial bus. The driver charged me $20, but it was still a $10 discount off what I would have paid if I had done the smart thing: checked the weather and booked online.

This morning I signed up for a car relocation at one of the rental places, which is basically a $19 one-day rental. Of course it limited me to a straight shot form Christchurch to Picton, but allowed me to explore Kaikoura by car in between.

Yes another incredibly scenic place. I know you’re getting as bored of dramatic sea-scapes and mountains as I am. One of the big draws of Kaikoura is its close proximity to an extremely deep ocean canyon that attracts a vast array of rare sea birds, whales and dolphins. Unfortunately the water was far too rough to go out on a boat, so I explored the rocky coast and gazed at thousands of sea-birds too far away for me to identify.

There were loads of fur seals crashed out of the rocks everywhere. They always look like they're hungover from a huge night out.

I was going to try to go to farewell spit tomorrow, but I think it’s a bit too far for the time I have left, so I’ll probably just catch the ferry back to Wellington tomorrow. That will get me back to Hawkes Bay well in time for my 24^th. Friday the 13^th...yikes!

Why pay for bus tickets?

So hitchhiking in New Zealand is a really easy and cheap way to get around so far. It did take four separate rides to get to Murchison for the kayak festival. A local logger, an ex-pat hippie, a New Zealand Air pilot and a fellow American traveler made up my relay team.

At "Bullerfest" they set up a massive 25-foot ramp out of plywood and scaffolding, lubed it up with cooking oil and dish soap, aimed it at the Buller River and sent off a slew of crazy fools in kayaks for a big air competition. It’s only a matter of time before it becomes an official X-games event. Heck they’ve already got a pair of color commentators and sent a drunk and naked local off the ramp who had never before kayaked.

Anyway, I met this really nice guy there who gave me a life down to Franz Josef. I found out he’s a glacier trek guide and not only did he let me stay at his flat, but he also hooked me up with a free full-day glacier tour.

I was pretty impressed with our leader, this Swiss girl who basically carved the group a set of stairs up, down and around the crevasses with a pick axe. Here’s me with her axe at the high point of our hike.

That night I went out on a Kiwi tour and after an hour of waiting in silence in the woods, a cheeky little snuffling wingless specimen, one out of the last 300 of its kind left in the world, probed the nostrils on the end of its bill into the ground 3 feet in front of me before hustling off into the bush.

No pictures allowed unfortunately.

The next morning I caught a ride down the gorgeous west coast with the ocean on one side and the Southern Alps on the other.

Those tiny dots down on the beach at Knight’s Point are fur seals. Unfortunately they weren't the rare Fjordland Crested Penguins that sometimes come ashore this time of year to molt.

It wouldn’t be a post without a bird pic.

This one’s an alpine parrot called a Kea. They supposedly have the intelligence of a 3-year-old and are known for stealing food from backpacks, dropping cameras off cliffs and peeling rubber seals from car windshields. Fortunately this one just came to check out our glacier hiking group.

I’m in Wanaka in the moment which is maybe a bit like Switzerland, not that I’ve really spent much time there. I like the feel of the place and am tempted to stick around a bit, but got to keep moving since I’ve got lots left to see and less than two weeks to fit it all in. The next target is Milford Sound, where cameras run out of film and poets run out of words.

Here’s me and my most recent ride, an Aussie surveyor on holiday from Abu Dabi, where we stopped along the Haast pass on the way to Wanaka. Hope the next one is this friendly!

Birds and Boats

A quick review: I’m into birds. Unfortunately most of New Zealand’s terrestrial birds were flightless or otherwise hopelessly ill-adapted to predators. The vast majority went extinct when people brought over dogs, rats, stoats and the like 1,000 or so years ago. A few exceptions exist on smaller islands and drastic efforts have been put forth to try to save some of the more critically endangered species (see ‘ejaculation helmet’ from the last entry).

Here’s a cute little parrot called a Kakarito. I found loads of them on Matiu/Somes Island a small island in Wellington sound.

I took a break from exploring and birding to shoot down some enemy aircrafts from the one the island’s four never-used anti-air turret bunkers form WWII.

This isn’t just a fantastic example of my photography skills, it’s also a Saddlebird, a species that hasn’t bred on the mainland for centuries until it was recently reintroduced into a ‘mainland island,’ basically a large reserve surrounded by a massive ‘vermin fence’ and packed with special feeders and everything these fragile unafraid rarities could possibly need to survive and reproduce.

Take this guy, a New Zealand Robin. He will practically jump underneath your boots as you’re walking hopefully you’ll startle up some insects for him to munch on. Now as say a feral cat this throws the entire stalking strategy out the window. To eat one of the these guys all you would need to do is turn over a few leaves and shake a few tree branches, that is if you can find one!

I saw loads of pelagic birds on the ferry between the north and south islands, but I didn’t take any pictures (they would have just looked like clouds and ocean) so who cares!

The Marlborough Sound at the northeastern tip of the South Island is quite gorgeous. And nearly as soon as I got off one ferry, I got on another out to the Queen Charlotte Track to hike (or “tramp” as they call it here) through some amazing lush vegetation with some fantastic views of the sound.

My Camera doesn’t really do much justice to the gorgeous placid turquoise water or the 20 foot tall tree ferns, but I found an old oil drum that made a decent ledge so I could include myself in a picture. Look how excited I am. Go 10 second timer!

After a night camping out in the bush it was on to Nelson where I spent last night. As soon as I get this post up, I’ll stick my thumb out to try and hitch a ride to this whitewater kayaking festival in Murchison.

Mean times in Hawkes Bay

So now that I am actually on the move and traveling and touring like a traveler and tourist should, I’m going to try to post more pictures and fewer words to make things a bit more readable and entertaining. I’ll start here:

No, I didn’t go through a wormhole back in time. I thought so at first too, but it’s just art deco weekend in Napier. All kinds of goofy-looking folks and ‘mean’-looking cars filled the town:
I’m not sure if that’s a model T Ford, but there were definitely quite a few of them putting around.

By the way if you’re in your late teens (which, let’s face it includes a good chunk of the early 20s now-a-days) and living in Hawkes Bay, then every other sentence spoken has to include either the word ‘mean’ (used in place of ‘great,’ ‘awesome,’ or when there’s no other way to describe an especially delicious pie) or ‘hard’ (an emphatic affirmative that replaces a valley girl/surfer dude’s ‘totally,’ or the ‘for sho’ of ebonics).

You have to talk this kind of lingo (and own several thousand dollars worth of equipment) if you expect to land a gig DJing at the prestigious Diva Bar in Havelock North.
The key to a good set is the chalk marquee.
Did I mention it was art deco weekend?

But now I’m in Wellington. It’s quite scenic despite the lack of 1930s style. Here’s the view from the top of the cable car track just in front of the botanical gardens.
The museum here is amazing. My favorite exhibit was about the rescue efforts of concerned biologists desperately trying to save a critically endangered species of flightless parrot:
Probably the second most significant item on display after the ejaculation helmet:
The only colossal squid on display in the world. It’s not full grown, so only 4 meters long, but would still make some ‘mean’ calamari if it weren’t pumped full of chemical preservatives. Got a few boat trips planned over the next couple days that should be opportune for seeing some ‘mean’ pelagic birds. ‘Hard!’

In New Zealand's fruit bowl

After a brief stay in Auckland I caught a bus down to Hawkes Bay to visit my friend ‘Carl’ who I met back stateside. ‘Carl’s’ family has really opened their arms for me with a free bed and delicious dinners consisting mostly of the fresh produce grown in their back garden--yum! This part of New Zealand is known as ‘the fruit bowl’ and is packed with apple orchards and vineyards. ‘Carl’s’ backyard contains 41 varieties of fruit and nut trees/shrubs alone, not to mention a full vegetable garden, three chickens and a small aviary of exotic parakeets and finches.

The last couple mornings I have dropped ‘carl’ off at his tractor-driving job at a local vineyard and gone off to explore. The volcanic soil, a product of abundant volcanism arising from the nearby Pacific-Australian tectonic plate boundary, makes Hawkes Bay a prime area for agriculture and thus not much in the way of wilderness has been preserved barring a few exceptions.

Of course I have pretty much scoped all of them out over the last couple days: a small scenic reserve called White Pines Bush lies just a few dozen kms inland and shows just how lush the native vegetation was before the land was thoroughly cultivated. It’s a tiny rainforest oasis with trickling streams, massive tree-ferns and towering trees among a wider landscape of steep unnatural pastureland and tree plantations.

Further up into the mountains lies Lake Tuitira, which is a large deep lake home to New Zealand’s endemic grebe and ducks. It was quite gorgeous on the day I visited:

Just beside the rather large and sprawling beach town of Napier is the Ahuriri Estuary, an important habitat for local and migratory bird populations. I got to see a colony of about 157 Bar-tailed Godwits overwintering. In the next couple months they will make a 12,000 kilometer flight back to their breeding grounds in the Alaskan arctic, a trek that earns them the distinction of being the world’s farthest traveling migratory bird species.

In 1931 a large earthquake leveled Napier and it was rebuilt completely in Art Deco style architecture that was popular at the time, which makes it quite a unique and cute town. This weekend is art deco weekend, which means that Kiwis flock in from all over the country to showcase their relic 1930s automobiles.

I’ll stick around for the festivities and to see ‘Carl’ DJ with one of his mates at a local bar and then head down to Wellington after the weekend and then onward across the ferry to the south island where the truly stunning scenery is supposed to ubiquitous.

I’m hoping to catch up with ‘Carl’s’ brother, ‘Clive’ down in the south island in Murcheson, the whitewater capital of New Zealand. ‘Clive’ is a world-class whitewater kayaker and documentarian. Extreme kayaking has taken him all over the world and he has used his videos to raise money for charities in Africa that fight malaria and in Nepal that train women to be river guides. Another one of his videos earned him a year’s supply of Red Bull. Anyway, it seems like a fantastic opportunity to experience first hand the heart of one of New Zealand’s trademark extreme sports. Can’t wait!

Off to the land of the Kiwis

How it ends so quickly. Four months in Australia gone in a blink. And I still have yet to travel anywhere outside New South Wales and Victoria.

I arrived at my hostel in Auckland, New Zealand after midnight last night and immediately wandered out onto the street where I met three young delinquents. “Where’s the nearest pub?” with an American accent immediately earned me a can of beer and an escort into heart of the city. They warned about a liquor ban, but everybody around was drinking on the street despite an abundance of cops who seemed completely ambivalent about enforcement of this said ordinance.

After catching the final few songs of a fantastic cover band over an 8 dollar pint of beer, I decided to call it an early night as I hadn’t managed much sleep in my final few days in Sydney. Here’s my first picture in New Zealand:

I spent two of my final four weeks in Sydney on work travel trips south and then north. Revisiting and camping at gorgeous and secluded Racecourse Beach along with getting a great view of a wedge-tailed eagle were probably the highlights. The drive up through the Upper Hunter Valley Sunday was quite scenic as well and we stopped off at a few wineries for some tasting and banter with lonely vintners. We did pass a few anti-scenic huge open cut coal mines, but they served as good motivation for a team of environmentalists. Here’s a sunset in the Upper Hunter:
On my last night I threw a going away party for myself at my flat. The Wilderness Society bought me an Australian bird book, which unfortunately will be dead weight for me in New Zealand, but was a very nice gesture. Everybody signed a card and one creative employee sweetly drew humorous little caricatures with bios of all the employees and several of the different stereotypical people encountered on the street at work. It was great way to say goodbye to everyone and my English flat mate was nice enough to clean up the entire mess (which was quite big) before I even woke up despite the fact that some of my work buddies’ friends were apparently complete dicks to him the night before. He did such a good job cleaning that I even got my entire bond back from my crazy landlord at 1:30 pm the next day! I owe you one mate.

It is always a bit of a transition uprooting oneself from a stable living situation, city, job and social group and hurtling into a new exotic location to start with a clean slate. I promised myself I wouldn’t linger too long in Auckland as my boss advised me that it’s basically just a smaller version of Sydney. New Zealand is about adventures and being outdoors. I haven’t planned a first move yet, but it will likely be to Lake Taupo to see some friends I met through my parents in Sydney who happen to be there for the week. It is also en route to a Kiwi friend I met in the US who lives in Hawk’s Bay. But before I can get out there I have to sort out a few tedious logistics such as my visa back to Australia, return flights, currency exchange and cell phones.

We had some very un-Australian weather for Australia Day:

Hope the elements cooperate in Kiwiland!

a brief outline of four weeks of mayhem and explosions

I have tried to begin writing this entry several times. Far too many things have happened to cover adequately.

Just after my last report, I went to a music festival to cook for a band of cabaret performers. They gave me a ticket that would normally cost 280 bucks and all I ended up really doing on the culinary front was cut up a few tomatoes and wash some dishes. I was happy to let them paint my face and dress me up in goofy costumes and then wander around terrorizing people and helping promote their show, “the non-linear bohemian guide to love.” Probably the coolest part of the festival was this thing:

Basically if you can’t tell from the picture it’s a tennis court but with a giant wire and paper Mache dome in the center. It makes for a game of lobs and shouting ‘service,’ since you can’t actually see your opponents. Anyway, a few days I was about ready to run off and join the circus.

But I ended up leaving early to come back to Sydney for a hectic New Year celebration. Lots of people and flashy fireworks.

I got to do a bit of body-boarding (boogie) up in Terrigal with my boss, I would have rather given surfing another crack, but just had to work with the equipment on hand (body-boards and fins). There happened to be some sort of kids’ Australian triathlon going on with all these ‘nippers’ clad in bright suits and swim caps running up the beach, paddling boards and swimming through fierce surf and occasionally capsizing.

The Sydney Festival kicked off on the 10th with a bunch of free concerts. ANZ bank was handing out thousands of light sabers for the hordes of revelers. It left us wondering why a bank would give weapons to a mob of 300,000 people. I caught Grace Jones among the throng in the Domain. She was a James Bond villainess in A View to a Kill and apparently has a music career as well.

The next weekend I went on this tour of the Hunter Valley and got to hand feed port Jackson sharks, eagle rays, and some other cartilaginous sea creatures, go on a dolphin cruise and surf down some massive sand dunes (which by the way isn’t anything like snow boarding, though I think I’m equally bad at both). Hunter Valley is renowned for its wines and I got to taste quite a few of them at the cellar door along with some cheese and chocolate as well.

It was a bit tough getting back into work after the break, but training up some new talent helped me get back into the swing. I led another week-long travel trip. This time to the south: Wollongong, Gouburn, Nowra, Kiama, Batemans Bay. We ended up working a bit too hard for my liking. This Irish guy was absolutely voracious (when he wasn’t suffering from heat stroke) and helped set the pace. Last month I had the second-best fundraising results in the country: 52 signups. Some jerk down in Melbourne beat me by one, while the third place performer only had 39. I already have 48 this month with four more shifts to go. If I don’t take the title this time I reckon this new leprechaun will. He’s got the gift. A few people I was particularly proud of joining: a nuclear physicist concerned about the hard-line anti-nuclear energy stance held by many environmental organizations (including TWS as far as I know), a marketing student who complimented me on doing a good job, and a man who after saying ‘no’ and walking away, came back five minutes later to fill out the form and tell me he had schizophrenia (oh the irony).

I’ve got about three more weeks on this work visa. One of them will be spent on another travel trip. After that I’m off to Kiwi land for an unknown amount of time to do unknown things. I’ll miss Sydney for sure, but happy to be off on a new adventure in a new country.