College roommates and I got together and had a reunion in Portland where one of us now lives. First day we were there we went to the Oregon Brew Fest. Since it was the 2nd of 2 days that the fest was going on the most popular beers were already taped out. This left mostly IPAs and other strong bitters. If you know anything of Portland beers you know that they love there hops. It would not be a far exaggeration saying they have about 3 IPAs for every other beer there. Anyways, the brew fest, they gave you a little [View Full Entry]

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So before our mid-semester break we decided to buy a car to get us around the whole island. After a while of searching on TradeMe (kinda like NZ's ebay) we found the perfect car. For NZ$700 we bought a used 1985 Subaru Justy LT. This is the best car I think I have ever owned. It gets a a little over 16 km/L which is like 38 miles per gallon. With gas at about NZ$1.43/L or US$3.52/gallon which is the lowest since I have been here the high gas milage is great. We have already put a good 5500 km on [View Full Entry]

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We headed to Hanmer Springs and Kaikoura for the weekend for a relaxing weekend. Started of going to Hanmer Springs and sitting in the hot spings there. They have a bunch of swimming pools built up there and filled with the heated sping water. It's pretty nice with various pools at different temperatures but it was a little crouded when we were there. It is in a small little town in the mountains which is pretty cool though. From there we headed off to Kaikoura and walked along a pebble beach and then walked out to a seal collony and took [View Full Entry]

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Drove out to the West Coast to go make a knife. Stayed in Greymouth at a very cool Backpacker called the Global Traveler Backpacker. It had a nice african feel and look. In the morning we headed up to Berrytown to a couples place that run a knife making buisness there. We were one of two couples making knifes that day which ended up being perfect. Started of with heating and banging to shit out of a piece of metal to form the shape and harden the blade area. Then we cut the handles out and places them and copper bits [View Full Entry]

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We went to the zoo for the day. Kiwi birds are nacturnal and kinda rare to see in the wild except for Stewart Island so we thought going to the zoo would be a for sure way to see a kiwi bird. We saw a couple which were in a dark room so thats why the picture is blury and dark. The blob on the bottom of the picture is the kiwi. It was like most zoo's in the states though. Thankfully I really like most zoos in the states so it was a good day. One thing that was different [View Full Entry]

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After leaving Invercargill we headed back northeast towards Dunedin. Once we got to the east coast we headed back south a little to make a side trip to Nugget Point in the Catlins. This was just a point that had rocks jutting up out of the water like gold nuggets. Very cool looking place. It was also a location to see penguins but we would have needed to wait tell late afternoon/evening which was a good 6-7 hours away. So we headed back north to Dunedin. In Dunedin we started of with a tour of the Cadbury World. It's an international [View Full Entry]

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After getting through the sheep we headed farther south to Invercargill. Most people I have talked to say this town is shitty but I didn't think it was that bad. As we drove into town we were thinking of going to Stewart Island the next day but ended up not because of the weather. But while we were driving into town about lunch time we heard that Subway was giving away Rugby tickets to the Otogo vs. Southland game that was going to be the next night. So we headed to Subway for lunch and at the front of the line [View Full Entry]

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After getting over Haast pass we headed into Wanaka and tried to find a place to stay there for the night. Since Wanaka and Queenstown are both the place to go for skiing and since it is still winter and one of the coldest winters in a long time here...we couldn't get into any of the backpackers in town. We did manage to get a douple room in the Holiday Park. This double was a building make of just concrete walls and it had a bed that kinda felt like a slab foam and not in a good way. Like if [View Full Entry]

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We next headed down to Franz Josef to look at the Glacier. On the 21st it was shitty weather and slightly rainy and really foggy. We still walked out 10 min to go look at Franz Josef in the fog. Then we stayed at the Rain Forest Hotel/Backpackers. We were going to stay in the dorms but there was a large tour group there that night an the two guys we got put with we kinda smelly so we upgraded to a en-suite dorm room. A four person room with an attached bathroom. We ended up getting this to ourselfs and [View Full Entry]

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Next we headed out to the West Coast through Reefton and out to Greymouth. In Greymouth we went to the Monteiths Brewery and took the tour. Unlike Coors, it was not free but it was only NZ$10. They showed us the small brewery and told us its history. It was started in Reefton durring the gold rush and then moved out to the West Coast to combine with a bunch of other small breweries to for the West Coast brewery. Monteiths was the one that stayed popular and the only one they ended making in the end so they changed the [View Full Entry]

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