Two4theShow

….The edge of an active volcano that is! While in Borneo we got word of a volcano that had recently errupted in Indonesia, and was continuing to spew ash and lava. Even more exciting was knowing that there was an opportunity to hike up the volcano adjacent to it to have a front row seat for the erruptions! We spent a few days relaxing on the beaches of Kuta, Bali and then met up with Sandro and Lisa-Marie: a couple we had met in Thailand over New Year's who had decided to join us for this last leg of our Asian adventure. Upon greeting these two, we had to do a double take with Sandro as he had taken an unofficial vow not to shave when we parted ways 7 months ago in Thailand, hence ... read more

0.00539 Under the Sea It is estimated that the surface of the earth is covered by approximately 70% water. The deepest part of any ocean, the Mariana Trench, plummets over 11 km below sea level while the average depth of all oceans is around the 4 km mark. With stats like those it is easy to understand that we humans have been thought to have only explored 1% of all our world has to offer; most of this being on land. The other 99% of the world we have yet to chart and discover remains submerged. Making our way to Malaysian Borneo we would not have guessed that we would be visiting arguably one of the most beautiful and awe-inspiring places on the face of this earth, above or below water - but that is just ... read more

Scratching the Backbone of the Southern Alps We took a couple of days to make our way to the interior of the south island. The drive from Christchurch is absolutely beautiful and offers views of the Southern Alps mountain range. The Alps run vertically down the south island and act like a backbone as they almost split the west from the east. We took a quick jaunt through the town of Methven at the base of Mt. Hutt to scope out what the job situation looked like. Mt Hutt experiences the longest ski season in the country and actually opened two weeks early this year as they had been getting dumped on in the snow department. This however didn’t seem to spark many job openings yet so we decided to move on. We pulled up for ... read more

After our skydiving birthday adventures we thought we should tame things down a bit, so we travelled to the east coast to an area densely populated with wineries! Similar to a Niagara-on-the-lake, the Hawkes Bay area has over 65 wineries, of which most only sell their product within the country. The Kiwi’s must really enjoy drinking their wine! We spent a couple of days here going from winery to winery and sampling all of the free tastings. Fantastic! This area is also known to be the fruit production capital of the country and we enjoyed driving past apple orchards, seeing mandarin orange trees overflowing with fruit, and of course, eating all of the seasonal goods! One of the most interesting points about the Hawkes Bay wine region is that it contains a rather famous area known ... read more

Welcome/Kia Ora to the country where the sheep outnumber the people, the land is covered in an emerald Astroturf (at least in the north island), and the people are also keen to using the word “eh”. It is evident that we are no longer in SE Asia and back to a Western country as driving rules are obeyed, everyone speaks some form of the English language, and there aren’t millions of people wandering around the cities. We have officially arrived in New Zealand! As we flew into Auckland and admired the many small green, carpet like covered islands and dormant volcanoes we knew that this country would awe us with its beauty. So far, it has yet to disappoint. My mom’s cousin and her family live in west Auckland and we were fortunate enough to stay ... read more