March 18, 2010

I wrote in my journal almost every night, but I had spotty internet access so here's everything in one go:

Feb 26
Alright, so I’m at the airport headed to New Zealand and I now realize that I hate airports. I always have a strange feeling that I’m completely lost. For instance, right now I’m sitting at a completely deserted gate… as in, NO ONE else is at the gate. It’s 4:30 and I believe boarding time is 6:30. Like, I get it; it’s early, but seriously… NO ONE?! I can see the stretch of about 4 gates (four big gates, lots of room) and there’s no one at those either. I take it back, there’s a janitor sweeping around in front of me, and I see one lady on her phone a ways down. It’s a really nice terminal though. There are leather couches and tables and chairs, really pretty. I almost get the idea that it’s new and not open yet and the people I see are just taking advantage of the quiet. If I were tired I’d nap here for sure. Actually, I may lay down and nap anyway. I’d just be scared that I wouldn’t wake up or that I’d wake up and realize that I’m definitely in the wrong place, then I’d have to find the right one and I wouldn’t have any time for that lol. Anyway, I had to catch a bus this morning at 7:30, so I woke up at like 630, showered, finished packing, said my goodbyes, then was off. It started raining right as I started walking to the bus stop, classic. The shuttle to the airport was a little more expensive than the Greyhound, but if I took a Greyhound I would have had to leave last night, which would have meant a hostel and more worrying about times and busses. This shuttle picked me up at the MB bus stop and dropped me off right at the airport and it was like $13 more than GH. That meant that I was almost 3hrs early for my flight, but I bought a book, “The Choice” by Nicholas Sparks, so I was kept busy. Flight to Brisbane was about 2hrs so here I am now at the Brisbane Intl airport confused and alone. Book is already more than half way finished but I actually bought two books, so I’ll have another to read later. I also brought Alice in Wonderland, which I found at the hostel. I’ve never read it and I don’t remember much of the movie, so I’d like to read it, but there are drawings in it and I feel like a huge dork reading a kids book. I think I’ll keep it around and read it when I’m in the comfort of familiar people, or maybe now when no one can see me haha.

Feb 27
I’m in Rotorua now. The flight was long, turns out I was at the right gate though, thank goodness. I had to take a long bus to the hostel and the bus dropped me off down the road so I had to walk with my suitcase at 2am, not fun. Even more not fun was that there was a HUGE hill I had to walk down, very steep and very long. Got checked in and went to sleep in my clothes but couldn’t really sleep, not sure why. Woke up to roommates moving around. I didn’t even look around, just started grabbing my stuff until I heard, “Emily?” and Vera and Carolin were there packing up! I was planning on meeting them in the lobby in a few minutes, but there they were! Anyway, we had to walk BACK UP THAT HILL to get to the bus stop which sucked so bad at 7am after only 4hrs of sleep. So, we got all settled on the bus, drove to a lookout in Auckland, then continued on. We stopped at a small town for lunch, where the New Zealand drink L&P originated. I guess Coke bought them out but insisted that it only be sold in New Zealand to keep it special or something. Either way, I’ve now had a drink that you can only have in NZ. Once we arrived in Rotorua we drove around town a tiny bit, then went to Lake Rotorua to take some photos, then went on a short walk through some redwoods. We got to the hostel around 230 so we had 3hrs until we had to meet for our cultural dinner so we found a walk in the Lonely Planet and did that. It wasn’t anything too special. We saw the Museum, the gardens, another view of the lake, and walked through town a bit more. We had more time to kill so we stopped at a grocery store that looked a lot like Costco but with less variety but it was still nice and familiar. I’m getting a cold so we had to stop at a pharmacy as well. Since it’s going to make me drowsy I’m waiting for bed to take it. We had the cultural dinner at 6. It was for the Maori people, the indigenous people of NZ. The people were dressed in indigenous wear and grunted and danced and put on a whole show for us to explain their people and history. It was really interesting. Afterward they made us a FEAST of chicken, stuffing, vegetables, salad, bread, fish, lamb, and a bunch of amazing dessert. I tried Pavlova for the first time and am now in love with it. As backpackers, we don’t get good home cooked meals very often so I think we each had 2 helpings of dinner and 3 (small) helpings of dessert! The bus driver to and from the dinner was pretty awesome. The entire 20 minute ride to the village he translated Kia Ora (maori greeting) in like a million different languages. On the way home he wanted to hear songs from every country so he started singing different songs and people would join in. He’d honk the horn to the beat and when we got to a round about, he and the other busses just started driving in circles round and round, pretty entertaining. Well, I’m pretty excited to take this Dimetapp and call it a night. I’m still a bit tired from the long flight and no sleep from yesterday, so take that and my new cold and I’m zonked. Gonna take a double dose and pray that it’s gone by tomorrow. I’m getting sick of sniffling and I hate the smell of the menthol in the lozenges.

Feb 28
We had to wake up early and head to Taupo this morning. The medicine was very helpful, and very delicious, but the bed I was in was so squeaky that I dreaded wanting to roll over so that kept me awake a bit more than I wanted. The girls and I stayed up for a bit chatting and laughing about stupid things like Coldstone and Coldrock too. We went to bed straight away on the bus, then woke up for a quick break at a beautiful river. I was sleeping when he was telling the story, but it looked like an old dam or something. It was beautiful. There were a few fishermen on the bridge and I don’t even fish, but it looked like the perfect fishing location. The water was so still, there were trees all around, just amazing. The weather was just as perfect today as it was yesterday. I’ve been in love with Australia but NZ gains mega bonus points for the weather so far. It’s been so crisp and clear the past two days. I’d say like high 70s or low 80s, but no humidity so it’s been perfect. Even when the sun gets a little bit hot, it’s not dreadful because you’re not feeling the humidity. I hear the weather here is a bit iffy, but so far, so good. Anyway, the cold didn’t go away so I took a half dose of cough syrup this morning so I slept like a baby on the bus. We made the next stop a few hours later in Waitamo for the glowworm caves. We did black water rafting where we get heavy-duty wet suits and round tubes and go deep into the caves and check out the glow worms. We got all dressed, which took a long time, then sat out in the sun roasting until everyone else was ready. We got in the bus and then had to wait a little more. Once we got to the caves it looked just like someone’s back yard. Actually, it was someone’s back yard. We had to open gates from their property to their back yard. We pulled over at a fence, went down some steps, grabbed a tube, and went for a little walk through a field then deep into the woods until we saw a hole in the ground, where steps were built into it! I thought it looked like a good scene for a murder movie. Just wandering in a private area to go on a tour, strange. I didn’t even think to be nervous until we were at the entrance. We were going INTO a cave! Once inside we sat in our tubes and had a little introduction to what we’d see. We then went a little further in and were told to turn off our headlamps to see the glowworms! There weren’t that many in the first cave there, but it was still amazing. This cave was low, so we were able to get up close and see the actual worms and the larvae strings hanging down. From there we crawled around a bit more through some small areas, saw some bones of dead animals that have fallen into the holes, and then had to trek through a thin little passage way. Because there were glowworms above us, we had our lamps turned off and we just had one arm on the shoulder of the person in front of us and the other on the cave wall to lead us through. We ended up in freezing cold water up to our chests. The bottom of the river was muddy, but more like clay, but so freezing. I did everything I could to keep my hands out of the water because I knew my poor fingers wouldn’t like it. This river ended at a mini drop where surprisingly there was a ladder (would’ve hated being the person that had to install that). We climbed the two steps and had to fall backwards into the river behind us. From there we went into another room, then had to lay on our backs in the tubes and hook person to person in a line and the guide pulled us through more small river ways with our lights off. It was insane. The ceilings were just COVERED in millions of glowworms. It really was like looking up at the night sky, but there wasn’t a moon to light up the sky so complete darkness everywhere. I couldn’t see my hands or feet and if I didn’t have someone attached to me in the front and back I’d probably freak out. The guide didn’t give much narration through this part, which was good. We were all fairly silent just gazing up at the “star” filled ceiling. At the end of that there was a water slide and then a bunch of climbing through small spaces and then a big stairway out of the cave. If the water were warmer I never would have wanted to leave! It was so unreal. I think the whole thing lasted about an hour and a half. We got out of our wet clothes, took a hot shower, and had some warm soup and headed back to the bus to Taupo. Before we went to the hostel we were taken to Huka Falls for some pics. My camera died just as we hit the main fall, but Vera took a bunch so I’m just going to take her pics. The falls were nothing like Murray falls, more like a wide river with a big rapid in it. I do have to say that the water was amazingly clear and blue. I’m sure it was clean enough to drink. We only stayed there for about 10 minutes until we got to the hostel. From there we just took a walk to the lake, found a little raft a few feet off shore so we just sat out there with our feet in the water soakin up some sun for a few minutes. The lake was pretty massive and the water was cool and clear. There are mountains and hills and trees all around it so it made for some nice photos. From there we walked to the Pak N Save to buy stuff for a pasta dinner we made. I love being here with girls that are chill and don’t really care about going out and getting drunk every night. They are perfectly happy to sit in and read or put pictures on a computer for the evening. It saves money and has been helpful to me, being sick and all.

Mar 1
Can’t believe it’s March already! We went to bed pretty early last night and I slept much better than with the squeaky bed in Rotorua. I think Julia and I went to sleep at about 10:30 or 11 and Vera and Caro were in another room so I have no idea about them. We had breakfast and were off for the day. Basically the whole day was driving, not much for sites. We had a quick stop on the side of the road so we could take photos of a volcano, then again at a café out in the middle of a small town. We decided that we had enough food on the bus so we weren’t going to spend money at the rest stop if we didn’t have to. I just needed a knife to spread the pb&j so I stole one from the café and instead we wandered around for 45 minutes taking photos of the scenery and the farm animals that were around. We finally saw sheep today. The top half of the north island is dairy farming, so mostly cows everywhere. Today we got down to the sheep! There was a small field area with two sheep, one big and one baby. The baby came right up to the fence and was eating out of our hands, way too cute. There were crazy ugly chickens and a sick sleeping hog. There were even a couple of bunnies in cages. After the café we drove again for a bit before a stop at an ice cream shop. Nothing too special but we had hokey pokey flavored ice cream, which is supposed to be a New Zealand specialty. It’s vanilla with toffee chunks I think. It was good, but not something I would think that the whole country should be obsessed with. From there we headed to Wellington where we were first going to head to a lookout at the top of Mount Victoria. The roads were insanely windy and narrow, but our driver, Scott, did a wonderful job. The houses along the mountain were all nice and supposedly expensive. A lot of them had cable cars to take them from their garage to the house, pretty impressive and lazy. At the top there is a 360 view of the area. We could see the airport and the museums, pretty much everything. It was so windy and cold though so we didn’t want to stay long. We took a bunch of photos and then headed off. Once we were checked into the hostel we went straight to Te Papa. I’m not a fan of museums really, but I was told that this was supposed to be an awesome museum, so I was expecting something different or unique, but it seemed pretty plain to me. There was one maori house thing that was beautiful; bright colors and intricate carvings. There was also an architecture section. Very small, but as soon as we walked in the cool thing on the ceiling looked like a ceiling of white plastic flowers but the flowers opened and closed! So cool. I could have spent a little more time there but I know architecture isn’t for everyone and then the museum was closing so we had to leave. I had seen a sushi place when we were getting close to the hostel so the girls went to the supermarket and I ran to the sushi place to get some for dinner. We met back at the hostel, ate in the kitchen, looked at some pictures, and now it’s about 11 and we’re about to sleep again. I’m loving the early nights. I’m feeling a lot better. My nose is still runny and I’m coughing but I don’t feel as lousy. I’m hoping tomorrow I’m better. I’m running out of cough syrup!

Mar 2
Headed off to Nelson from Wellington this morning. We had to wake up pretty early to the ferry by 8:25. I remembered the ferry from England to France being a little overrated but we had a blast. Us girls are pretty chill though so we enjoy our sleep and chill time. We read and chatted, but mostly slept. I think with the boys in Europe they were always cracking jokes or mounting things, with us, we’re a little more civilized. Anyway, we went straight to the reclining chairs and to sleep. I had taken a small dose of medicine (cold is pretty much gone, just hackin up some stuff here and there) and passed out. The whole ride was three hours, but the last hour we spend taking photos on the deck because the last hour or so is driving through the Cooke Straight so there are heaps of islands and mountain/hills to take photos of. After about five minutes of that I realized that I was basically taking photos of the same thing over and over again. It’s all gorgeous, but it’s all very similar but with a little different composition. It was cold and windy up on the deck so I was happy when we were done! Anyway, we got on the bus and met our new bus driver, YoungJoeYoung as he calls himself. He was an old guy, unlike Scott in the north, so I was a little skeptical. Scott wasn’t very fun, but he was very smart and had a lot of helpful information and knew a lot about where we were so he gave us a lot of tips and showed us a lot of cool sites. Joe is like that weird old guy that says silly things and acts like a moron, which is just wonderful. He has heaps of goofy sunglasses and magnets all over the front of the bus making it a little more personal. He named the bus Betty and explained that she didn’t want to start up earlier so we might break down. When checking everyone into the bus he asked, “who do you want to be today?” It was cute. He was also really smart and so friendly so we’re pretty pumped that we might get to ride with him for most if not all of the south island. Anyway, we made a few stops, but nothing too spectacular. We were dropped at the hostel and checked in first thing. There’s nothing to do in Nelson unless you have an extra day to do the Abel Tasman walk, which we don’t, so we were just going to take a walk around town and use some free internet. The hostel is super cute. There are little lofts above the reception desk with pillows and low ceilings so you’d have to climb up there and just chill out and read a book. There’s another above the TV room so you can climb up there and use computers. They have free dinner, free breakfast, and free wifi! The wifi is a little spotty so I just hopped on really quick and got off to let the girls use it. We asked reception for a good walk and she pointed out that the Center of New Zealand is in Nelson. She directed us that way and we were off. The weather was pretty much crap all day in Nelson. The temperature wasn’t too bad, but no sun, wind, and at some points rain. I put on long jeans for the first time since November! The walk was supposed to be about 20 minutes, but there was a sign or two missing, so it ended up taking closer to 45 minutes and most of it was uphill! The lady at reception didn’t tell us that the center of NZ was at the top of a mountain! We were miserable! I’m terribly out of shape, and the girls didn’t seem to be in the best shape either so we were panting the whole way. We ended up on a bike only track as well, so it was narrow and when bikers came we had to jump out of the way but there was no where to jump to, so we had to hope that we didn’t fall off the side. So finally we made it to the top and instantly lay on the benches. We sat there for a few minutes to cool off a bit, and then started taking photos. Most of the cities in NZ all have at least one mountain nearby so there’s a lookout in practically every city. The lookouts all have buildings, houses, some sort of lake or ocean, and bush covered mountains. Each one is still beautiful and they haven’t gotten old yet. Even in the small towns I feel small next to this crazy site of huge mountains and lakes. I noticed that I keep taking photos over and over again, basically the same one multiple times because I think I keep trying to capture the essence or the beauty in a photo and it’s almost like one photo won’t do it justice but taking a bunch of the same view obviously doesn’t do much to help either. No matter how many I take, nothing would compare to being there in person. That’s the one thing I look forward to in every city, the view from the top. Anyway, after the photos, we took the correct way down and made it in 18 minutes, downhill. We got lost going uphill so we had to trek an extra 25 minutes uphill, but made it downhill in record time, classic. Back at the hostel we got our free soup for dinner and headed back to the room where we are lazily reading and I’m looking at and organizing pictures.

Mar 4
I didn’t get a chance to write yesterday because I was out all evening. We headed to Greymouth fairly early in the AM. The drive was pretty long but we made a few long stops along with way to break it up. In some cases I’d think the stops were crap, but most of the stops we make are really good ones. Short, but definitely worth wile. We made a breakfast stop in a dinky town but we didn’t really need anything so we wandered the streets for a few minutes and saw a mountain in the near distance so we walked down to the end of that road to take photos. We passed a very small building with a police car out front and noticed that it was the police station. The city must have been dinky because the station was smaller than a small house, maybe the size of a one-car garage! We got to the end of the road and took a few photos. There was a river and the mountains; it was really pretty. Next to where the bus parked we noticed a shop called “Someone Else’s Treasures” or something similar. Basically it was a little shop full of a bunch of trash and they were selling it. It looked so cluttered, sort of like an antique shop, but no antiques. While we were waiting for the bus to leave we were staring in the window watching shoppers browse, wishing we had gone inside; if only we had time. We made friends with the boys sitting behind us, so they were fun about it as well. We were instructed by YoungJoeYoung that we should stay awake for most of the drive because it’s supposed to be one of the most beautiful drives ever. I actually managed to stay awake the whole drive, which was good. I colored in my coloring book, played some UNO with the boys sitting behind me, and read Alice in Wonderland. Joe would come on every hour or so and give us details about what we were seeing. He stopped quite a few times for us to jump out and take photos of the scenery. We always try to take the photos from the bus and miss the good shots, then after like 20 crap pictures he stops and we can get out and get the shot in like a minute haha. The next stop was at Cape Foulwind to see the seal breading grounds. When they said that we’d stop and see seals, I figured we’d see them if we were lucky so I wasn’t really holding my breath. When we got to the walk, we got out, went along the path, and sure enough, there was a lookout over the water and rocks and there were a good 30-40 seals sunbathing on rocks below us! There were babies waddling around and others swimming along the water! It was so cool! We walked a little more and took some photos of the other sites then went back to the bus and were off again. Next stop was at Punakaiki for the pancake rocks. I didn’t think I’d be too impressed with this – just some rocks that are flat like pancakes – but they turned out to be pretty beautiful. The water had carved a lot of them in a really pretty way and the walk itself was a little curvy and up and down with mossy rocks around, really something nice. The weather was nice as well so the water was bright blue. After that we headed right into Greymouth where there was nothing to do but go on a brewery tour. Vera wasn’t feeling well so she stayed at the hostel so it was just Carolin, Julia, and I. As I do not like beer, I wasn’t too thrilled about it, but figured it’d be something to do and dinner was included. The tour wasn’t that great. The place was closed so we didn’t get to see anything in action, only details of what was going on. Afterward we sampled beers, which, again, no fun. The boys that had been sitting by us on the bus were trying to sneak beer throughout the entire tasting, one managed to get like seven full cups! From there we got to go to The Railway bar and pub for drinks and dinner. Most of the Magic group that was on the brewery tour was there, so we ate and then joined them for drinking games. The girls wanted to leave fairly early so when we stood up to leave we got a lot of shit from all of the drunk people. I really would have liked to stay, and I hate being the first to leave, but it was a good thing we left. Turns out no one in this super small town knew where our hostel was so we had to walk back having no idea where we were going. We went down a few wrong streets but eventually found it. We stopped at a second bar asking, but they didn’t know, then we knew we needed to head toward McDonald’s, but when we saw it we still turned the wrong way. We asked a few people around but still nothing. We got back, told Vera how embarrassed we were that we got lost in such a small area, then got ready for bed and got prepared for today! We went off to Franz Josef today. This is where we were probably the most excited. Nelson and Greymouth were all pretty much in preparation for the glaciers we were to walk along today. So, the weather was a little cold first thing this morning and the hostel was at the top of a hill so we went outside pretty early as to not hold up the bus. Bus was full so for the first time I had to share a seat with Carolin. We’d been lucky before that we always had our own seats, but not today. This ride was to be fairly short, but we ended up making a few stops here as well so it made it a bit longer. It was no biggie as there isn’t much to do here besides the Glaciers. The first stop today was in Hokitika where we went to a Jade Factory. Nothing too interesting here except buy jade. I almost bought a few things but I knew I’d never wear any of it so I figured I’d save a few bucks. Next we stopped in Ross, where there was a gold rush a bunch of years ago so we were told that we could pan for some gold there for $8.50. It was guaranteed that we’d find something so we definitely wanted to do it. We thought we’d get a pan, go to the river and scoop up some rocks and get gold. Turns out, they have trays of rocks that they give you and you go out behind the info station and pan there. So basically they have some gold flakes and sprinkle it over the rocks and let the guests pan for it. Great. It was fun because no one knew what they were doing and panning is a little more difficult than we expected so we were all impatient and hated it. The boys from yesterday (we still don’t know their names) made fun of us because they understood that it was basically a scam. After we finished, we took photos around the info station. They had cut outs and silly little things everywhere so we played there and headed off. Next stop was a weird café that had farm animals and encouraged hunting and eating possum pies or something. We didn’t do the mini tour that they had, so we just wandered around a bit looking at the letters of complaints from customers and the silly things and signs they had everywhere. They had a sign that said that they don’t have cappuccino because it’s for prissy’s, so many cool messages, I loved it. The reindeer outside was glaring at everyone and they all were a fair bit away from it, so I started walking toward it when one of the guys said that it was mean. The thing was on the other side of a fence so I wasn’t too worried about it. It was staring at me as I got closer to it, then it tried to head butt me with its antlers! Twice! There was a fence blocking me from it, but whoa! Everyone had a good laugh but I thought it was going to kill me haha. From there we went straight to Franz Josef for the glaciers. We had a lot of fun with photos of us getting dressed in shorts and 4 layers of shirts. I had on two tees, a hoodie, a windbreakers jacket, shorts, two pairs of socks, boots, sunnies, and heaps of sunscreen. How bizarre?! Anyway, we got out to the park all dressed in our gear but were pretty warm once we started walking. The walk to the base of the actual glacier is about 45 minutes so we were so warm. Once we got there, I got a little nervous. We were about to hike on a glacier! Pretty insane! We got to the base, but there was still a huge mountain of rock we had to climb before we could get to the base of the ice. The whole time up we were staying that it was like the Auckland hill but it wasn’t too bad. So we finally got to the top with our guide, Tom, and about 10 other people and we had to put on crampons (spikes for the boots in the ice). We were all pretty pumped so we took millions of pics and were chatting and joking throughout the whole thing. The whole walk was pretty much mapped out, so we had a basic path to follow the whole time. Most of the ice was already carved out into steps and if it wasn’t, Tom used his handy ice pick and started whacking away. When he did this, we whipped out the camera and started taking photos. There was a little cave-like corner off a bit from where we had been standing so Julia and I decided to take a photo of us in the crack. She went back, photo taken, all good. I go back in the corner and my foot crashes through the ice and makes a huge crashing sound. I caught myself, took the photo really quick, and walked out, but Julia was flipping out, everyone that saw was concerned, and when I looked back I saw that there was a decent sized hole where I almost could have died! I wasn’t that scared at the time, I didn’t think I was going to die, but the first thing that came to my mind was that I hoped that Tom would be able to save me if I got caught somewhere. I was a little embarrassed that I was the one that ended up doing something stupid to almost die. Normally I follow the basic rules of staying close, but not this time. For the most part, we were pretty free to wander around the ice so I wasn’t too concerned. Oh well. Wasn’t the first time I almost died. The walk on the ice was probably a good 45-60 minutes. We weren’t too terribly cold. I mean, it was cold, but just like any other cold day in the snow. The sun wasn’t really out so we didn’t have that extra warmth. Once at the highest point we took a few photos for about ten minutes and then started down. Down was much easier than up… much easier! Tonight we decided to stay in but Vera told someone that she’d meet him so she’s out while we are in, opposite of last night. Tomorrow we are hoping to stay at the hostel and drink, save some money.

Mar 5
Not too much happened today. It was a long drive from Franz to Queenstown with a bunch of stops between. First stop was at Lake Matheson, which was just a really calm, pretty lake so all photos turn out really beautiful. They say most pictures can be turned upside down to look the exact same. Mine were pretty close. The walk for that was a good twenty minutes, took some pics, and then walked back to the bus. There was a small little bridge we had to cross and the thing shook pretty heavily while walking over so walking back, the guys had a good laugh making it rock more than it was supposed to. On the way to our next stop we played coach bowling in which everyone on the bus threw in $2 and had a chance to bowl down the aisle of the bus and knock over six soda bottles. I think I knocked down three or four. Max was five, Vera being one of the four that got that. After lunch we had the championship of that and some random guy won it with five or six pins, I don’t remember. It was a lot of fun. It took a while with 25-30 people playing so the fun died down after about 10 people, but it was still good and Joe Young’s commentary was really good. When asked where people lived, he always knew, even small areas. He always asked if it was close to this place, or near this road, it was impressive. I think he has done a lot of traveling in his day, probably met some insane people and done amazing things. He said that he’s done about 147 bungy jumps and had been asked to be a coach driver for bands and important people, which is sort of sweet. Anyway, lunch wasn’t anything special either, just a rest stop. We drove to Wanaka, so on the route we passed Lake Wanaka and Lake Hawea. Both amazingly beautiful with the Southern Alps in them, and the sun was shining so we had super blue waters and, ugh, just wonderful. Once we hit Wanaka we went to the bathroom then took some photos of random things. There was a statue of a hand, so we shook it… it was a big hand, so it was silly. Then, I saw a playground with a huge dinosaur slide, so I had to take photos of that. Anyway, when we got to the hostel around 6ish, we had to run into town to do some stuff to continue our trip, then I went off on my own to do the gondola because no one else wanted to. The girls didn’t want to spend the $22 and the guys were planning on doing it a different day. They are staying four nights, so they have plenty of time. I figured they probably didn’t have anything better to do, but they wouldn’t budge so I did it alone. The gondola was a little scary considering it’s so small and it goes so high up. I just kept looking out at the view instead of the ground, but had to look down once or twice to take some photos. At the top there’s a lookout point, so I took heaps of photos up there. The town is laid out pretty nicely. There’s water all around it and on one side of the water is mountains and the other is the city, so it made for some amazing photos. The sun was just starting to set as well so there were shadows, which sucked, but was still pretty cool. Being alone, I got the photos I wanted, went to the gift shop, and made it back down in about 45 minutes to an hour. Joys of traveling alone, you don’t have to wait for anyone else! I went searching for the cheap internet I was told about but had no luck, went to a few more gift shops and found that the price I paid for my hoodie at the gondola was awesome, $10 cheaper than anywhere else, and then went and bought some vodka. The girls haven’t really wanted to drink, and I’m not much of a drinker usually, but I figure, we’re meeting people, we should at least go out and socialize, and we haven’t really done that. The guys we’ve met, Chris, Tom, and Eddy (found out their names today during bowling) are pretty killer, so I would have loved going out and hanging with them, but getting four girls to agree on anything is virtually impossible. Tomorrow I think I’m going to go out regardless and hopefully drink some vodka because I don’t know what I’ll do with it otherwise. Anyway, once I finished in town I went back to the room to find that the girls weren’t back yet. I passed the guys room on my way to mine and saw that they were outside so I went down and hung out with them for about an hour until the girls came back. We had a bit of the vodka in a shotglass that they stole from the goldpanning place. They said that since everyone was scammed so bad there, that they’d steal from them haha, smooth! Not sure what took the girls so long, but they hung out for a while and then we came back, looked at photos, and are now getting ready for bed.

Mar 8
I’ve missed a few days so I’ll go in order. On the 6th we went to Milford Sound. Not too much to write about there. Basically, we woke up at 7am for a bus at 8 and drove until 2pm until we got on a cruise boat until 630, got back on the bus, and drove until 8pm back to the hostel. We made a few stops on the way there, so that helped a little. Our bus driver wasn’t Joe and he sucked. Joe is always slow and late, but we have a great time on the bus so it’s worth it. I’d rather be on the bus for five hours and have it be entertaining than be on a bus for four hours being bored out of my mind. Anyway, this bus driver, Dean, was middle aged, and acted like it. He, like most people, paid attention to the road, but that distracted him from giving us tour guide information so he’d start talking and stop mid-sentence, then wait about 30 seconds to start up again. It was so obnoxious. And, while he wasn’t talking, he was breathing quite heavily into the microphone so we just had to listen to him breathing for a few minutes before he started again. Ugh, it was horrible. I put in my headphones and napped for a bit. He said that napping for a few hours would be okay until about Te Anu because that’s where everything started getting beautiful. A lot of the beautiful stuff was similar to the previous day driving along the lakes but we stopped a few times to amazing sites. I loved the trees along the forested areas. It’s like everything around here is covered in moss, so cool. Mountainsides and trees are just coated in moss. I tried taking photos as we drove through it but they didn’t turn out. Once we got to the boat, we went straight up to the top deck and hung out there for the next hour and forty-five minutes. The top deck was freezing and windy, but the views and photos were much better. Milford Sound is basically a big body of water surrounded by mountains and the area is one of the most famous for site seeing, and for good reason. The mountains are huge, but we were on a fairly big boat and we had been seeing mountains all day so it was sort of difficult to comprehend how big it all was until a helicopter or bird would go by, or we’d get close enough to see the details of the trees on the side of the mountain and all of a sudden I felt so tiny! We drove all the way to the Tasman Sea, and then back to the dock. On the way back we cruised right up to a waterfall, which was so cool. It was a huge waterfall and the water was splashing everywhere. I managed to get some really good pictures of it, but it was so cool and so amazing up close. From futher away it didn’t look that big, but close up it was massive. Right after we pulled out of that and the excitement wore off dolphins were spotted off to the side! We watched them and took photos for a bit and then headed back to land. Drive back was shorter because there were less stops, but still long. We did have a movie to watch on the way back though, Italian Job. Surprisingly, I’d never seen it like I thought I had and I liked it. We got back and I really wanted to go out drinking. The guys were staying another few nights, so this was the last night to see them and they were going out drinking and I wanted to drink. The girls didn’t want to drink so I went out alone to find them. They weren’t staying at our hostel this night so they said that they’d either be at their hostel or a pub-crawl. I went to the pub and they weren’t there, so I had to find their hostel and find them, which I did! We played fuck the dealer/high-low, and then went out to the bar. Hanging at the hostel was awesome. We sat outside on the veranda and played and had a great time. Around 11 they wanted to go out so we wandered to the bar, used our voucher for a cheap drink and then everyone started dancing. The drink was in a teapot. Never heard of teapot drinks, but it was basically a lot of liquor and some sprite, so good. I don’t really dance, but I was fairly drunk and with people I wouldn’t see again, so I danced a little. After an hour or so I noticed most of the guys attached to other people so I got bored left. I had to drunkenly wander home alone in Queenstown! Kind of crazy, but I managed okay. When I got back around 2 Julia was asleep, but the English couple staying in the room was awake so I chatted with them for another hour or so and then went to bed. The next morning we had to get up early again and I semi-drunk had to get ready to head off North to Dunedin. South is done, so we are all North now, meaning weather is starting to get better! We were supposed to get there fairly early and there wasn’t much scheduled to do, so I figured I’d just sleep off the drunkenness and be good to go for the day. My seat sucked and had no legroom and I couldn’t really sleep so I felt kind of tired and crappy all day. We got to town a little later than planned too so that sucked. We were supposed to have a tour of the Cadbury chocolate factory but it was Sunday so the machines weren’t running. I didn’t want a repeat of the crappy brewery tour so we decided to skip it. There was a wildlife tour for like $80 so I signed up to do that instead. The girls didn’t want to do it, so I was on my own. We pulled into town to find out that this is one of the few places in the country that has nice architecture. There are a few old, England-type cathedrals and town halls, etc. Great, I sign up to do something on the afternoon where I actually want to wander town! I figured the wildlife tour would be a few hours and I could take a quick walk around town in the evening. Turned out the wildlife tour started at 3 and went to 9pm! No one told us, so I didn’t have food and I luckily had good walking shoes and warm clothes. Other people from our bus wore sandals and our light jackets weren’t quite heavy enough. I got picked up and we had to drive a good 45 minutes to some albatross breeding ground to see birds. They are pretty cool birds, but they need windy weather and we didn’t have it, so they weren’t that fun to watch. After sitting there for over an hour, we drove around the area a bit more to spot other boring birds. A lot looked like pigeons or herons, not that fun. That took another 30min. After that, we had to drive 45min to some other coast, Saunders Bay or something Saunders to see seals, sea lions, and penguins! This is what I was pumped about. The drive was nice, a lot of rolling hills and sheep, but beautiful. Once we got to the peninsula we had to trek 20min to get to the lookout to see the seals. It was cloudy and the sun was starting to set, but I think the weather was pretty perfect for what we were doing. Sun would have been nice because it was cold, but somehow clouds made it more perfect and made for some nice pictures. As soon as we got to the seals, the cold went away and the weather was irrelevant. There were probably a good 50-60 seals just chilling on the rocks. It was pretty similar to the seals we saw on the way to Greymouth but we were a lot closer and we got to spend a lot more time watching them. We all had binoculars too, which encouraged me to take a break from photos to just take it in. I think a big problem with site seeing and going so fast is that we forget to just enjoy the sites around us. I’m trying really hard to just take a break from the rush and the running around. Most photos won’t turn out as well or don’t do stuff justice so I think the mental pictures are really important. The binoculars were good for that; I just watched them close up and enjoyed them playing. After watching them, we had to walk another 20min to get to another beach to see the penguins and sea lions. I wasn’t sure what to expect with the sea lions, and Donna, the guide, said that they have been chasing people so I was a little nervous. There were four on the beach and the first we came to was just sleeping, so no fun. The next three were together and the big one started vomiting and then messed with the others for a bit, then we went on to the penguins. They were malting, so they weren’t really moving or doing anything cool, but they wandered further off the beach, so we saw one on the hill behind us next to a sheep, which was sort of different, then saw a few under bushes and on our walking path on our way down to the beach. There was one laying in the sand and he looked injured so another guide went out to the water to check on it and when he did, they all got up and started running, so I have a video of the penguins waddling away. While we were there another sea lion came onto shore and started messing with the three that were there before so we got to watch them fight for a few minutes. They look like lazy animals because they’d fight for a second, then lay down and rest haha. We got back and it was dark and late but I was starving and still hadn’t done any of the sight seeing that I wanted. Another girl that was on the tour and I took a quick walk to the supermarket, got some food, then went back. I got to the room and the girls told me about their amazingly relaxing evening. They walked town, took photos, went shopping, took a nap, showered, and had been hanging out drinking beers for the rest of the night. I showered and packed, went to sleep, and woke up a half hour early to go out and sightsee. I was tempted to skip it, but the railway station looked beautiful and it is supposedly one of the top attractions in New Zealand, so I had to! It was so warm and nice out so a wonderful morning to site see. It was about 7am so the town was still quiet. I saw the First Church. I’m not sure why it’s called that, but it was really pretty. Then I went to the town center and took a picture of another church and the town hall building, then over to the railway station. I took a few quick photos, but had to start getting back, so I figured the girls would have some good ones. I got back just in time for breakfast with the girls then we went off to Baldwin Street, which is the steepest street in the world. I think it’s the steepest “residential” street, but they don’t advertise it that way so I’m not positive if there’s a difference. It was so early, but we managed to get all the way to the top and down. We were yelling and complaining the whole time, but we did it anyway. Every time we found a big steep hill we’d joke that it was like that huge hill we walked up in Auckland, but now, we had to compare everything to Baldwin St. From then on, everything was like Baldwin St. We made another stop at some rocks, but I wasn’t that impressed. They were pretty cool, and I understand why they are so cool… they are almost perfect spheres, but I wasn’t that impressed. We took a few photos, and then jumped back on the bus. Driving we had another round of Bus Bowling. There were a whole different lot of people on the bus, so it was really exciting again. I wasn’t sitting in the aisle like I was before so I couldn’t watch, but still fun. Vera was winning until Julia went and got all six pins. She flipped out and started screaming, it was hysterical. Someone else got all six so they had to have a championship round. There were interviews and talks of nervousness, pretty killer. Julia won, so she, again, flipped out and started screaming. She won like $60 so she bought us girls an ice cream cone with her winnings. It was definitely a good way to break up a long drive. We stopped at a dam, not that fun, and then at a rest stop at Lake Pukaki. This was an amazing lake. There was a big snow capped mountain on the other side and the water was such an amazing crystal blue. I had on a baby blue shirt, and the water was probably close to the same color. The sky was darker blue than the water, and the sky was clear and amazing, so that tells you something about the lake. From there I think we went straight to Lake Tekapo. The water here was just as amazing. I think the blue was a little darker, but still eye poppingly bright. There are mountains all around and little islands and everything, completely amazing. We checked into the hostel, which was one of the nicest we’ve been to. First off, it’s right across the street from the lake, so we had a great view from the hostel. Dinner was outside and we could see the water and the mountains perfectly. Next, there was a sign outside the hostel saying what room we were in, so we got our stuff in the room, settled a little, changed into shorts (it got hot!) and then we paid and checked in; so efficient! And, the place is completely clean! The bathrooms were spotless, the floors are carpet and clean, and everything looks pretty new, it’s nice. We decided to do the nature walk up Mount John. We knew it’d be up a mountain, but I think we forget that up a mountain means walking up hill for an hour! It was miserable. Luckily it was shaded but still crazy hot and it’s not a rainforest, just a regular NZ forest so there isn’t much to see in the forest but trees. Once we got to the top though, we could see everything. Everywhere around the mountain looked like the desert, just brown plains, but then there was mountains in the distance and lakes and then this phenomenal bright blue long skinny lake with a small town on one side, a small island in the middle, and mountains on the other end, just amazing! There was a café at the top so we got drinks, took a bunch of photos, and then had to walk back. Walking back was so much easier because it was all downhill, but we were all in sandals so our feet were so dusty and walking downhill in sandals meant that my feet were pushing forward on the straps stretching them out so they weren’t that great. Once we got to the bottom we went straight to the freezing lake and washed our feet, took some more photos and went back for dinner. We made pasta and salad (for the third time), and ate it outside overlooking the sunset on the lake and fed the duck that was wandering around the picnic table. I hopped on the internet to let the fam know I was alive, and now we’re cleaning up and chilling out for the night.

Mar 9
Today wasn’t that amazing. We woke up a few minutes before the alarm clock because our beds were so unbelievably squeaky! Oh my goodness it was terrible. I wanted to tell someone at the desk that there was no way I’d recommend the hostel with the beds the way they were. I woke up at least 6 or 7 times throughout the night to beds squeaking. And, once one person moved, it woke up everyone and everyone started moving. On at least one occasion I thought that everyone was getting up because of all of the noise, but I noticed it was only 2am so I went back to sleep for another few hours. We took a short video in the morning of the sick noise of the beds. Because of waking up early, we had enough time in the morning to watch the sunrise over the mountains, which was beautiful. The bus ride wasn’t too bad. I slept a little but still had a hard time. I’m about half way through my new book now, which sort of sucks. I really wanted to save it for the plane ride back to Oz but Vera gave me The DaVinci Code so I’m going to reread that if I have to. We made some stops, but nothing too spectacular. One stop had a cheese and fudge shoppe so we got to try cheese and fudge and I bought a little block of fudge. It’s not normal fudge, way too soft. I could spread it on bread if I wanted to and I don’t think that’s normal. We got into Christchurch fairly early, around 230 or 3, so we had a lot of time to walk around. It’s mostly a city so we didn’t have much to see except the cathedral and the botanical gardens so we did both. We ended up going to the gardens and walking around for a few minutes and then finding a bench at the river where ducks were so we sat and watched the ducks for at least twenty minutes. It was a wonderful day, really sunny and a nice breeze. I was in shorts and a tee and comfortable until I hit the shade. We went to the rose garden and then to the pool. Julia and I found a bench there and fell asleep for a few minutes. Not sure what Vera and Carolin were doing while we were there but when we got out they were sitting on a bench talking about dinner. We walked all across town to find a grocery store, bought stuff for dinner, and went back and made sweet and sour rice and salad. It’s about 8:45 now and we’re just sitting around reading. Only 60 pictures today, so sort of shitty day for photos, but tomorrow is swimming with the dolphins!

Mar 11
We’re just getting on the ferry so I have about three hours to do nothing but sleep. I’ve found that the less I sleep during the day, the better I sleep at night so I’m trying to avoid sleep. Yesterday turned out to be pretty uneventful. We got to Kaikura fairly early, about noon and hand to rush out to the dolphin-watching place. When we got there the trip was cancelled due to winds, so we had to walk back to the hostel, not cool. The weather was nice, but the beach was large rocks so nothing too nice to walk on. We started walking back, being incredibly pissed off at the cancellation. We decided that we just saved $165 so we could go out and spend a lot of money on alcohol to drown in our sorrows. YoungJoeYoung ended up driving back around because he heard that it was cancelled so the seven or eight of us that were scheduled to do the dolphin thing jumped back on the bus expecting to go back to the hostels. Joe ended up taking us up to the peninsula in town to see some seals, but there ended up only being one out and he was big and not as much fun as the others we’ve seen. After hanging out up there for a bit, sitting on the bench bitching about not being able to do our swim and how terrible the town was, we jumped back on the bus and went to a little roadside crayfish stand. The area is supposed to be known for crayfish, so we each got a crayfish fritter sandwich. It turned out to be a mighty slow stand and it was fairly busy, so I felt a little bad that we were making Joe wait for us; I figured he was just trying to salvage our day a little but that he probably didn’t really want to be carting us around anymore, but he said that he had some paperwork to do anyway so we could take our time and he’d just be waiting on the bus. Such a cool guy. Anyway, the sandwich was decent, not a lot of fish, and a lot of fritter (what that is exactly I don’t know). From there we went back to the hostel. I needed to call Derek for his birthday and the girls wanted to wander the town so I stayed in while they went out. I chatted with Derek for a bit and then went outside to lay by the pool. Town looked fairly boring, some souvenir shops, a secondhand bookstore, and a bar. I would have liked the bookstore because I’ve read three books since I’ve been in NZ and am running low, but I was just as happy to sit outside. We haven’t had much daytime chill time so my tan has been fading a lot. I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the ground. It was perfectly sunny and a nice little breeze so took a quick nap, then went in when I felt like I was burning to get sun block then went back out with my book and read until the girls got back. They sat out with me for a bit, and then we went to the grocery store to get alcohol. We got back and decided to start drinking a bit before dinner. We walked outside with our drinks and a few guys saw us without a seat and called us over. They were pretty cool, from England, NZ, and Cali. YoungJoeYoung came out to eat with us as well. We ordered burritos from the restaurant at the hostel and just sat around drinking for the rest of the night. We didn’t get too plastered but we had a good time. Once it got chilly we went inside to the lounge and just hung out there for another few hours. I think we ended up going to bed around 11.

Mar 12
So we didn’t get to our hostel until around 5pm yesterday. We had to take a local bus to the hostel and it was right at rush hour so with all of us, our luggage, plus the millions of people hoping to get on the bus, it was pretty packed. We clearly weren’t sure where we were going so we were staring at a map hoping that we were going the right way and that we’d get off at the right stop. A few people on the bus ended up helping once they overheard that we were lost. We didn’t have any site seeing to do so we decided we’d go to the cinema. I had read Alice in Wonderland since I’ve been here and gave it to Caro to read as well. Both of us had finished and the others had seen the cartoon when they were young so we thought it’d be a good choice. Anyway, we had cold spaghetti for dinner at the pub next to the hostel and then went to the supermarket to get some candies and drinks. Caro and Julia wanted to shower so Vera and I went to the supermarket and then wandered the city for a bit. We went to Te Papa again for about an hour and saw an entire floor that we didn’t see the first time around. When we left it started raining a little so we had to get there quick. There wasn’t anyone at the front desk so we waited and waited until someone finally told us to head upstairs to the concession stand. We weren’t sure if she thought that we already had tickets so we went up and paced around for a bit before we saw others buying tickets. We thought maybe we’d get in for free but that didn’t happen. This theater, The Embassy is a theatre, not a cinema, so there’s only one screen/stage and it’s pretty with lights and woodwork. This particular theatre was where the Lord of the Rings had its big red carpet premiere so it was kind of cool to be there knowing that a bunch of famous important people had been in the same room. Movie was pretty good. We had gummi bears and sour gummi worms as a snack, yummy. The walk back was nice. It was still cool and a bit rainy, but Wellington is a fairly big city so we could hear the music at the clubs and could see a lot of local people walking the streets. When we got back, we showered and went straight to bed. We’re pretty lazy. This morning we got to meet our new bus driver on the drive to Napier, nice guy. He’s Maori and much younger than Joe, but a nice guy. He is similar to Scott, our first North Island driver, in that he tells you a lot of information about the activities and he’s very helpful, but he says “Sweet as” a lot, and after every time he speaks on the mic he reminds us that if we have any questions we can come down and ask him. That’s a long statement to repeat EVERY time you talk to us so that got old pretty quick. As for the sweet as… it’s supposed to be a very Kiwi thing to say and we’d never really heard anyone say it until he did. The first few times we were pretty stoked, but after the 6th we were incredibly sick of it. After one day I’d be happy if I never heard it again. Caro was saying that she wanted one of the shirts from the gift shop that says “Sweet As”, but that she didn’t think it was right because she had never heard it. Half way through the day she said that maybe she could get the shirt now. I think by the time we were dropped off in Napier she figured she didn’t want to hear it again. On the way through to Napier we made a couple of stops. The first was at a café and wildlife park. They had a kiwi house but we were told that it’s better at the Aquarium in Napier so we were going to skip it. The café had some information boards and posters and stuff so we checked that out and then Julia noticed a path out the back door so we figured we’d walk a little and see what was out there. The door wasn’t hidden and there weren’t any signs telling us not to go, but it turned out that that was the wildlife tour path. We saw signs that directed us to the kiwi house and we got so excited and practically ran there. We got to the door and read all of the signs just in case. We figured one of them would say not to enter without paying at the desk first, but none did so we went in. We thought we were being super sneaky but there was someone inside who made us jump when we first saw him, but then we found the kiwi cage. Kiwis are nocturnal so their cage is dark with red lights for us to see. Basically you can’t see shit, but once we spotted the one bird in the cage we got all excited and tried taking pictures with no luck. We watched for a few and then figured we should probably get out as soon as possible so we didn’t get caught. We got away with it, awesome. Girls were jealous. The other stop was at the Tui brewery. We didn’t get a brewery tour, but they had a bar on site with really cheap beer and some museum posters and info boards so we wandered around there for a bit. I guess it’s a really old place so the original building is there and old cars so we checked all of that out and then I lay on the picnic table and half-slept until it was time to go. It was only 11am so us stopping to drink at 11am seemed a little silly but people really wanted to do it for some reason. Cheap beer I suppose. Once in Napier we wanted to get to the aquarium to see the kiwis and the sharks. They had a tank that looked like all of the Nemo characters in one tank, fun fun. Then we saw the Kiwi cage. Same deal as before, it was really dark, but there were two kiwis to watch so we spent a shit load of time trying to get pictures but failed completely until we gave up and went to the sharks. They had one of those water tunnels so we watched the sharks and the stingrays swim around and then we left. Napier is supposed to have really cool Art Deco architecture. We wandered the town a bit but I wasn’t all that impressed. It was cute, but nothing picture worthy. We got back, made pasta dinner, and now were chillin in the room. The girls are going to go across the street to the spa but I’m gonna pass. Gonna shower and maybe start reading a new book.

Mar 13
Alrighty, almost finished with NZ! Crazy! It went by so quick! Tomorrow we’re going to Auckland, complete circle. Julia and I will be headed to Bay of Islands for a night, and then I’m back to Oz. I have no idea what I’ll be doing there, but I’ll be back. Enough of the future; back to the present. Today we went off to Mount Maunganui. We stopped through Taupo and Rotorua, which is why I started thinking that the trip went by so quick; those stops seemed so far away but they were only a week or so ago! We dropped Julia off in Taupo to skydive. I had considered diving with her, but she has to take a different bus to get to Auckland and catching different busses and all of that seemed like a pain. Plus, being in Auckland for another night didn’t seem like much fun. Plus, I’m running low on money and I don’t need to skydive a third time. When we hit Rotorua we got to stop at the Geothermal park that we didn’t get to hit the first time around, thank goodness. We had ninety minutes to walk the entire park, plenty of time. I forgot how bad Rotorua smells. It’s not something that’s easy to get used to either. We were told that after fifteen minutes we’d forget it, but there was a constant waft of a terrible smell coming through. The whole thing was a lot of the same… holes in the ground that have steam or bubbles coming out of them, and smelly. It’s pretty cool and very interesting that it happens, but it’s not pretty so the photos aren’t something that will grace the wallpaper of my computer anytime shortly. There was a huge shallow pool that was steaming like crazy, that was neat. There were cool orange coral looking things building up along the shore of it as well, so pretty killer. My favorite was right at the end, a pool of water that was lime green! The water was opaque and bright lime green! So awesome! We had to stop and wait for some girls to ride the Zorb too, which was boring, but we got to lay around for a bit and chat with some people. Once we got in town we checked into the hostel, another efficient hostel that gave us tea and cookies until they had our rooms settled, pretty cool. Instead of sitting in line with a bus full of people waiting to check in, we got to drink tea until people slowly went and checked in. I was put in a different room than Vera and Caro though so we all got settled and went out for a walk. The beach was a few minutes away and we walked the coast to the base of the mountain and then walked through town to the grocery store and back for dinner. The coast was nice; sunny for a while and then the clouds came in. The sand was wonderful, very fine, but not white like advertised in the Magic book. There were millions of shells everywhere, all really pretty. I wanted to take some and make a necklace or something but I knew I’d never wear it so I skipped out. The mountain wasn’t that big but it was right at the point of the coast so that made it pretty cool. Town was dead, and the walk to the supermarket sucked. Dinner was pasta and rice with salad, basically leftovers. After, we went to the computers and checked emails and what not and now I’m sitting in the room chatting with the roommates.

Mar 14
Back to Auckland today. Tomorrow we’re headed to the Bay of Islands for one night and then back to Auckland again and I’ll leave the day after. Not much happened today though. Bus ride from Mt Maunganui to Auckland was uneventful. We met up with Julia as soon as we got here, put our stuff down and went to find a place to burn our pictures. My computer burns discs but we needed a card reader for Vera’s photos, so after we found that we went to Starbucks to chill and burn the discs. We went through everyone’s photos, all of them… probably over 3,000 pictures between the four of us! After that we went to the park and slept in the grass for an hour or so until the sun started going down. Some guys were playing soccer near us so Julia played with them while we watched. She was so excited about it. She was staring at them, wanting to play for so long and eventually one came over and said that they needed more players. She jumped up so fast and ran over and kicked some ass. Randomly, a little puppy wandered over to us and we played with it for a long time. Eventually an older man came up and said it was his but wandered away leaving us to play with it again. He muttered something but he went out of sight so we weren’t sure if he just abandoned it with us. He came back with a little doggy vest, tossed it at us, and left again, so weird. He was only seven weeks old and had coloring of a rottweiler but didn’t look as big, so maybe a lab mix. Some hippie girl came over to play with the dog for a bit too. Once the dog was gone she stayed and chatted with us about how facebook is a conspiracy and it used to track people. She works in a rehab facility but wants to take acid and go see Alice in Wonderland, hypocrite much? She was interesting. After the park we went to eat at a pizza place, Fresco. Mine was some chicken, rosemary, sweet potato, garlic thing and it was amazing. The pizzas were a pretty good size, I’d say a US small, but it’s intended for one person. We all got different kinds and tried each others, but I liked mine best. I really want to try and make it again sometime, so yummy. The Lady Gaga concert was in town that night so there were heaps of people in the streets walking to the concert. We walked back and hung out in the room with Vera and Caro until they had to leave. They put new music on their iPods and then packed up and headed out. They are planning on sleeping in the airport and headed to Melbourne in the morning.

Mar 15
Most of today was a wash but we def made up for it later. Vera and Caro are gone so it’s just Julia and I and we bought an extender pass for a two day trip to the Bay of Islands, which is a few hours north of Auckland. Basically we drive four hours here, hang out for the afternoon, and then take the scenic route back to Auckland in the morning. The trip here this morning wasn’t that wonderful. When we bought the pass the consultant or whatever told us that our bus would pick us up at 715 so we were ready at 715, early compared to the 8am we’ve been used to for most of our mornings. We were in a room with 6 others and one snored really bad so the last few hours of sleep was horrible. The beds were pretty squeaky too so if he was snoring, I’d roll over, which would wake him up for a second, and then he’d roll over and stop snoring for a minute or two. Either way, bad nights sleep anyway, but it turned out that our bus wasn’t coming until 735, so we could have slept another 20 minutes, crap. The bus was much smaller than the buses we had been on for the rest of the islands too –much smaller – so much less comfortable. There was less room and less spare seats so we had to squeeze next to each other. We’ve been used to big comfy coach seats and no one next to us. Whatever. We stopped at a café, then again at a rest stop and we got to Paihia at noon where we had to change and head straight out to the charter boat for swimming with the dolphins. We were pretty cautious because it had been cancelled in Kaikoura but when I asked the girl what the chances of it being cancelled were she got mad and me and asked, “what makes you think it’ll be cancelled?”. She said that it was definitely going out. Awesome. I guess I didn’t really think about it beforehand but we were tracking down wild animals so it wasn’t like we could just jump on a boat and they’d appear. So we drove around for almost three hours looking for dolphins. The company had a guarantee that if we didn’t see a dolphin we’d get a lifetime voucher to return for a free trip again, which was a little discouraging. What are the chances that I’d make it back to Paihia for a dolphin watch? Anyway, it was a bit chilly plus we were on the front of the boat so we were getting the breeze. The sun popped out occasionally but not enough to keep us warm. Finally we spotted a few! Us on the front of the boat lay on our stomachs and squirmed through the railing so that our heads were about a foot from the water. This way we could see directly in front of the boat, where the dolphins liked to swim. I got some good pictures, but they didn’t stay long. We ran to our seats to get a quick briefing on what to do but we took off our sweaters and layers and jumped in the freezing water and started swimming my heart out but I didn’t get there in time. The lady, Floppy, told us to swim hard in the direction of the dolphins and start singing or diving and twirling around to get their attention. How cool is that? WILD dolphins are playful to humans! Anyway, I didn’t even get close enough to try and because she had said to swim hard and fast, I got all panicky and lost my breath so I thought I might die or drown or something. Either way, there wasn’t a dolphin, so we swam back to the boat and everyone, all 18 of us, just sat at the back of the boat wet and cold looking for dolphins again. Probably 15 minutes later they popped back up so we got the boat a bit closer and jumped in again. This time, I was one of the first off the boat so I could see dolphins swimming below me as I was swimming out toward the direction they were headed. The same one swam around below me for a few seconds before disappearing, but that was so intense! I was swimming near a dolphin! We kept swimming out and looking back at Floppy for directions to see where to go, but eventually she shrugged and told us to come back. They were gone again and it was about time for us to go back in, so we were finished. Because the dolphins didn’t stop and play with us, we got a refund for the “swimming” portion of the trip, which was pretty cool because I didn’t think we’d get anything back once we got wet. When we got back to the hostel we watched a few movies, ate some crap food (trying to eat up the last of the food we have), and showered. Fun stuff.

Mar 16
I thought today was going to be a bit more eventful than it was. The Magic book said that our trip from Paihia to Auckland was going to be about 6hours and that we were going to make a few stops, so I thought we’d have a long drive with heaps of cool sites to see on the way. I was wrong. We made one decent stop and it was only for twenty minutes. It was to see some big tree, which doesn’t sound that cool, and in all honesty, it wasn’t that cool, but it’s a spiritual tree. The Maori said that this tree held up the sky or something. The driver is Maori and told us the story, which was cute and all spiritual or something. Either way, it was a big pretty tree so we stopped and took some photos and headed off. Our first stop was crap and was in some dinky town. We played with a cat in the street, took some photos of the water and the little town across the water, and then sat on a small pier until it was time to leave. Later in the drive we read a bunch of cool facts to the bus driver, Scoob until we got back to Auckland around 3. We walked to the YHA to settle a few issues we had with them, and then bought airport shuttle tickets. We stopped at a store on the way back to pick up DVDs and I got new headphones. Mine were starting to break. One side was blasted so it was all staticy and the other was complete crap. I had to turn the volume up all the way just to get a decent volume. Anyway, we got back to the room and burned our photos on DVDs for Julia and listened to music and hung out in the empty room for a few hours until dinner time. We went back to the Fresco pizza place and ate the same thing we had before. Walking there we passed the same puppy we saw a few days earlier in the park. Julia spotted the owner and not the dog. She pointed him out and I asked if she was sure it was him… it definitely looked like him, but what are the chances we’d see the same guy twice in such a big city? We walked a little more and passed the car that was blocking our view, and there, on the sidewalk next to him, was the puppy! Because of how things ended before, we didn’t go talk to him or the dog, but how ironic? After dinner we passed an Emily Street, so I got my picture taken (obviously) and we went and got ice cream to celebrate the end of OUR trip (last time we went out was celebrating Vera and Caro’s last night). Now we’re back in Julia’s hostel. I’m going to shower, we’re going to watch a movie, and then I’ll head out to the airport for the night. It’s going to be a long night.