Flatlanders

Hey guys. this is our last full day in New Zealand! Wow. How time flys. It is really hard to believe it is all coming to an end. It realy seems like we left yesterday. Other than the clear fact that traveling from one place to another finding a place to stay and eat has all become very routine and easy. Rather than a journey in itself. We have really been blessed with great weather for out last 2 week bike trip in NZ. We went around the pinisula of the coromandel. Lots of beach and mountains. We had some great hikes and some great days just cycling and roaming the beaches. We finshed the cycling in the town of Thames and had a great hike to the tip of the pinicles. I have never done ... read more

Hey guys! Seems like ages since we have sat down and wrote one of these once again. We have spent the last 3 months of work saving and looking forward to all these things that we were working for and toward and it has finally arrived. We decided that we will have had enough of our good ol' holiday park job by the middle of November and would quit and start to play backpacker again. In the mean time we found out my mom was coming for an 8 day visit.! Wow! So we told work that we would be finishing work even earlier and the planning began. It's always hard to tell someone you are quiting, but they knew it was coming and threatened to get in touch with immigration and not let us leave ... read more

Hello from Thailand! We've been in Thailand for about two weeks now and I have been sweating the entire time. Not that that is remarkable or that I expect it to stop, but for a guy who prefers the mercury below 25 degrees, a humidex consistantly over 45 degrees is an experience in and of itself. It's been a month since our last blog so lets leave the heat behind for now and return to cool NZ and the finish of our first epic bike tour. We left off in Greymouth where we had decided to stay an extra day in order to go kayaking on the river behind the hostel and to enjoy the lounge/hottub one more time. Our punishment for our indulgence was a cold front carrying rain that would follow us along ... read more

These blogs are a real killer when they are left to long! It took me four hours yesterday just to get the pictures formated and uploaded to the sight ( and yes Fro that was time and money better spent than on my last place fantasy baseball team). It seems a shame sometimes to be sitting inside on a computer when there is so much to do, but it's gotta be done, especially with the phone rates in most places. How I'd love to have my laptop here sometimes, just so we would always be working with the same system instead of being at the mercy of internet cafes. Enough kvetching, on with the story. Dunedin as it turns out was built in a large bowl and no matter what way you leave you encounter a ... read more

As we have come to learn......... YOU ARE ONLY AS FIT AS THE HILLS OF NZ TELL YOU YOU ARE AND THE HILLS OF NZ ARE ONLY AS FLAT AS HOW FIT YOUR BODY TELLS YOU YOU ARE.! Well we have been pluging along quite well. Our time in Kaikoura turned out to be pretty quiet, no dolphins, no sharks. As it turned out it is very important to book these trips well ahead of time, even though it is no longer peak season. We did get in a nice hike with a trip to the nearby fur seal colony. Most of the seals couldn't have cared less that we were hanging around, they just laid in the sun like sleeping dogs. There were a couple clowns though who really seemed to enjoy the attention, making ... read more

Welcome from Aukland! We had a stay in Vancouver of a couple nights at the Westin Grand courtesy of a deal Vicki picked up in Whistler. Quite a nice hotel but it seems the more expensive the room the more they nickle and dime you over the little things. We had a great little visit with Tony and got to see the Olympic closing ceremony festivities downtown. We got delayed for a couple hours leaving Vancouver when they discovered a window malfunction that couldn't be fixed, but after that everything was brilliant. Surprising how well our 13 hr flight from LAX to AUK went, our hats off to NZ Air! We arrived in Aukland at 7:30 am picked up our gear and spent the next 3 hrs setting up our bikes. In that time we had ... read more