a final entry

I arrived in Sydney after dark and was pleasantly surprised at how close my host lived to the airport. We met at the train station and walked back to her apartment in the Alexandria neighborhood of Sydney. I spent my time hanging out with Ali and her friends or wandering the city.

First stop - Sydney Opera House. Both exterior and interior of the building were incredible, and the overall area is beautiful... right on the water, next to a bridge, botanical gardens. Really a nice place. Here are some photos:



From there I walked through the botanical gardens. Strange plants, huge bats (flying foxes?) and some pretty creepy spiders:





Also did the coastal walk from Bondi to Coogee Beach. Bondi was kinda of busy and touristy but a very nice beach nonetheless. I did hear more North American accents here than anywhere else on my trip. Most of them didn't have Canadian flag patches on their backpacks, so I will just assume they were from the US.

The walk itself was not too crowded and very scenic:







From there I left for Fiji. This ended up being more of an extended layover than part of the vacation. It was raining the entire time I was there and I didn't even go to the beach yet alone any of the other islands. My host there was a nice guy and had a couple of other couchsurfers staying there. One guy, Raymond, had actually come from Portland where he had spent 1/2 his life. He was returning to Fiji (where he was born) and waiting for his parents to arrive. He had a lot of tattoos, one that he had given himself, and was really into it. Had made some *sketchy* tattoo gun out of a little battery powered motor, a needle, and bic pen. He seemed like kind of a tough guy until he started talking about how into Dungeons and dragons he was.

There is another German guy staying at this place who didn't know about D&D, so Raymond explained:

"Aw dogg you dun know about Dungeons and Draggons? You know what a role playing game is? Aw DOGG?!?! Yo check it out...it's like .... "

This went on for like 10 minutes. The German guy couldn't really understand at first, so Raymond said:

"No? A'ight.. you seen Lord of the Rings?"

German guy: "Vel, no but I read them a ven I vas a teenaga."

Raymond: "Alright so you know how Gandolph is like, the wizzard right? And The dwarf... they's like characters knowm'saying?"

Entertaining at the very least. I tried to video tape some of it but it didn't really work. Here's a picture:



Nadi itself was a very poor city. I was definitely singled out for being white and asked to come inside of everyone's shop for a good deal.

So I stayed for 2 days and then got on a plane. only 9h45m flight to LAX. Not horrible. And now I'm back in Portland, going back to work on Monday. Hope you all enjoyed my trip as much as I did.

G'Day

I had a great time in Melbourne.. lots of really nice cafes, bars, restaurants, shops, etc. etc. A very cool and young city. Here are a couple of pictures:


The last picture does not even begin to describe how out of place that 7-11 looked. Transforming beautiful 19th century architecture into corporate convenience stores is certainly not helping Americans abroad.

ANYWAY, I'm in Western Australia now... I just spent two days on Rottness island, just of the the coast of Perth. Apparently the island was first colonized as an aboriginal prison (hooray for genocide!) and has since become a nice holiday spot for local Aussies. It's very dry there but all in all very nice. There was a surprising amount of wildlife there and some really nice snorkeling to be had as well. I saw a Manta ray. The thing was the size of the blanket on my bed. I've never swam so fast in my life. There are also these little animals called Quokkas (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quokka) running around everywhere... 7,000 or so on the island. Here are some photos:


I will be here for a few more days and then off to Sydney!

skydiving

I've had a number of complaints about how short and boring my skydiving entry was. Since I am cheap and unwilling to pay the extra $200 for photos, I have taken some photos off the company's website and photoshopped my face in them:




That's about how calm I was in the air... playing it super cool.

milk for blokes

One more thing. I thought this billboard was funny:

Dunedin, Christchurch, and OZ

I'm in Melbourne right now and this city is awesome. Like a larger Portland with LA weather. In general aussies hate Americans even more the kiwis. A friend tells me they have taken to calling us septics. Oh well. I have still yet to meet any other Americans here, so I am basically the ambassador for our country. Wish me luck. Tomorrow I'm off to Perth for about a week. I'll try to write again from there at some point.

I wrote this entry a while ago but haven't had a chance to upload it until now:

--

After a butchering "We Are the Champions" at a karaoke bar in Dunedin we left for Mt. Cook on the advice of our host Alana. We were her first couchsurfers and she was a very gracious host. She is engaged to her Czech boyfriend... they've been "dating" for over a year now, though they've only spent 6 days physically together. Their relationship is entirely skype-based, but they are going to get married anyway.


We stayed in a cabin-like hostel very close to Mt. Cook. The following morning we went for a long hike. Mt. Cook itself was obscured by clouds but we were able to see some other beautiful peaks and glaciers. There are two lakes near Mt. Cook that had neon blue water. I've never seen anything like it.



From there we drove to Christchurch and got quick dinner at some kabab place. About halfway though our meal a fight broke out just outside the door to the restaurant, and ended in one of the guys in a headlock literally in the doorway of our restaurant.

As it turns out the loser of the fight had stolen a small can of pringles - valued at $2.50 - and been chased down and tackled by the small asian convenience store manager. The thief was Canadian and offered to pay the manager twice what the Pringles cost and said he would never go back to his store, but the manager would not let him out of the headlock and insisted he wouldn't move until the police arrived.

As we were leaving the police arrived, asked what had happened, and the told the Canadian to pay the man double what the chips were worth and not come back to the store. What a lucky break. In the US he probably would have been deported.

So from there we went over to another couch surfer's home. We played some Texas Hold 'em (I had it and then lost all my chips in two ridiculous hands) and some pool (I won all 3 games) and went to sleep. I spent today wandering around Christchurch (didn't see the famous wizard) and making arrangements for getting a ride to the airport at 3:55am tomorrow morning.

Next time I write I will be in Australia. Until then...

Rain

I came to the southern hemisphere in the hopes of getting out of the Portland rain. As it turns out it's been sunny in Portland pretty much since I left (so I've heard) and been raining on us for most of the days we've been in the south island. Oh well.

We stayed in Queenstown with a fellow couchsurfer and had a great time. That town is super touristy, but beautiful nonetheless.


We had a great view from the place we were staying as well:



From there we drove to Milford. It was pouring rain the entire time we were there, but arguably more beautiful as a result.



We stayed with some kayak instructors in a compound of caravans:



We're in Dunedin now. MGD is really expensive in this country:


And it's raining. Again. We went out last night and had a really good time. This is kind of a wild university town and the culture is much different here than it's been anywhere else in the country. I think from here we're going to Mt. Cook, then Christchurch. More coming in a few days.

skydiving

I just jumped out of a plane at 12,000 feet. I don't have any pictures because it was like an extra $200... but I can assure you that it was INSANE.

ACHTUNG!

I was expecting New Zealand to be a very scenic country, but I am amazed at how beautiful it is everywhere. There has not been a single moment throughout this entire trip where I have not been completely blown away by the landscape.


We spent all day yesterday driving down the coast, stopping briefly at the Franz Joseph Glacier and doing a quick hike on a lake near Fox Glacier. Unlike most of the other places we've stopped, these towns were 100% tourist attractions and 0% residential.


We made it to Wanaka this morning, and while Daniel is off mountain biking I thought I would make a quick entry regarding the anti-American sentiment in this country. I guess it's not so much anti-American as it is disappointment that I'm not Canadian. They seem to love Canadians here for some reason.

Either way, the vast majority of the tourists in this country are German... not sure why but it's definitely the case. And we've come across several vans of German tourists blasting U2 at full volume. Fortunately for American tourists the Germans are drawing most of the negative attention. Here's a photo of the front page from yesterday's national paper:



Somebody caught this idiot in the act, took a picture, and sent it to the authorities and the newspaper. What an idiot.

Here's a photo of me trying to blend in with the Germans:


OK... I think that's it for now. We leave for Queenstown tonight, where we *might* go skydiving. Then onto Milford and Doubtful sounds. More coming next time I have internet access and some free time...

Lake Taupo, Wellington, and the South Island

Near Lake Taupo they don't bother cleaning up roadkill, and actually paint right over it:


In Wellington it is ok to smack your children around. Note the expression on the kid's face:



The ferry ride between island, while expensive and rainy, was beautiful:



We also did a long hike at Abel Tasman that was spectacular.



Last night we camped in an awful picnic area on the side of the highway. I slept in the car because it was raining. We are going to check out Franz Joseph and Wanaka today, and hopefully make it to Queenstown this evening where we will be staying with a Canadian couchsurfer.

The sun is out now, so I am going to get off the computer and on the road. The next time I write I will most likely be in Melbourne, Australia.

Digging out the car and driving to Lake Taupo

Black water rafting was a good time. I saw an eel. And lots of glow worms. And my rental wet suit smelled like somebody else's BO.



On our way out we got a tip on a good beach to camp at. It was a little out of our way but well worth it. Unfortunately we tried to drive our little car out on the beach (there were tire marks and a little bit of a path) and got the car stuck in the sand. The next morning we spent hours digging it out and managed to move it about a meter (that's right... I think in metric now) before getting it stuck again. With only 1 car driving by every hour, we were ready to give up. There are worse places to be stuck than a beautiful beach I guess.



Then a van full of kiwis drove up. We ended up digging it out again, jacking the car up (it was bottomed out) and ramming a big piece of wood under the tire. I got behind the wheel of a kiwi car for my first time and got us out of there. All said and done we were out by noon. Not so bad I guess.



So we got lunch and drove down to the rainbow trout capital of the world: Turangi. We stopped on the way to take some pictures and I got a nice shot of some kiwi graffiti.



When we got to town we were given another tip on where to camp right on the lake. We didn't drive out car out on the sand this time and managed to have a good time nonetheless. We are going to go for a hike today and then on to Wellington. We will be catching a ferry to the south island on Sunday morning. Until then...

the beach

NOTE: Do not drive your tiny car onto sand. It will get stuck. More on this later...

Raglan and Waitomo

After the first night in Auckland I managed to meet up with a Canadian mining engineer named Daniel. He was staying with a couchsurfer in Auckland that was nice enough to let him borrow a car for a month. I am not comfortable driving on the left side of the road so he will likely be doing most of the driving:



For our first day of driving we went to Raglan: a small surfing town with nice little shops and great beaches. We stayed with an older woman (couchsurfer) that allowed us (and two other Aussie couchsurfers) to pop our tents in her backyard. She cooked us dinner and good times were had by all. Here are some photos from her back yard, the town, and the beach:


Daniel has a "green" tent that didn't come with poles. It's meant to be erected using sticks:

I will be sleeping in my own tent.

Before I came here I had no idea what kiwi cuisine was all about. I still don't really know, but there seem to be these pies everywhere. Like chicken pot pies, but with all kinds of different fillings. We got a bacon and egg pie. It was kind of weird, definitely not healthy, but still pretty good:



Right now we are in Waitomo waiting to go black water rafting. Not because the water is black, but because your raft goes through dark caves with glow worms. Afterwards we will find somewhere to camp (Daniel has already collected his sticks for the evening) and probably continue on to Taupo tomorrow. Either way we will be in Wellington by Saturday night and taking the ferry over to Picton early Sunday morning. Until next time...

Auckland - best and worst hostel ever

Still feeling like a zombie, so other than a brief walk around town I've just been mostly hanging around the hostel. The top floor of the building has an open deck with a grill and really nice views:


After dinner I thought I'd take a shower. Having traveled Europe in hostels I learned
to always wear sandals in the shower, but I have never come across something like this:



Ironically there is a guy that looks just like Scott Palmer staying in my room. Coincidence? I THINK NOT! On that note I think I'm going to try and get out of here tomorrow. Auckland seems like an interesting city, but not really what I came to see.

February 16... or 18th I guess

After a few days in LA and a 10 hour flight, I have made it to Fiji. This place seems like a beautiful island from the window... unfortunately I probably won't see much beyond that. We arrrived at 4:55am and there were 3 guys playing music and singing. Lots of energy for that hour of the day. I got a short video of them that I will try and upload later.

I am pretty jet lagged and my brain is mush right now. Mom - good news. I don't think I got a blood clot! Nothing more to write for now. I will try to update this as frequently as possible. Until next time...