18 days, 17 nights, 3400kms, 1 island, buckets of rain, 12000 foot skydive, 43m bungee jump (Ralphy did that not me), 1000's of scared sheep (blowing the car horn makes sheep run and was a favourite past time of ours), 1 injured foot, 1 Toyota van and one lifelong friendship was made. Thats the numbers of the trip. Lucy in the Sky is back to her home in Christchurch, Raphael is in Europe and I am sitting in a treehouse in Picton awaiting my journey to my job site tomorrow. All I can say is “things do change quite quickly”. Our [View Full Entry]

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After my skydive, I picked up Ralphy in Franz Josef after his glacier hike. Now gasoline is expensive in Franz Josef, in fact a whopping 189.9L. So with a little better then a ¼ of a tank I decided lets fuel up later. The sun was shining and the early evening drive was beautiful. We stopped in a little town called Haast to find the fuel store closed. It was just a little past six. We had a decision to make, it was about 140km through the mountains to Wanaka and we had less than a ¼ of a tank of [View Full Entry]

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You have seen the opening picture so you know what I did. I jumped out of a plane at 12,000 feet and plummeted at speeds of 120 mph (200km/h) towards the earth. What possessed me to do such a thing is a question you may ask. And that is a good question. Let me try to explain how this all came to be. Living and travelling in New Zealand has given me the opportunity to meet many people. Some adventurous, some less adventurous but many have taken the time to explain how they ended up sky diving and how much fun [View Full Entry]

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I believe Takaka is where I left off. We were hoping to catch some sunshine or even some non rainy clouds to enjoy more of the Golden Bay area. This did not happen, so with dampened spirits and dampened roads we just started driving again. As always our plans were vague, “let's drive someplace with less rain and maybe even some sunshine”. So over 500 km later and probably over 6 hours of windy roads we found ourselves once again at the end of the road. This time a place called Karamea, which is just a little town on the Tasman [View Full Entry]

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Where did we leave off? I believe it was at the farm where we parked for the night. So the next morning we enjoyed some hot showers, packed up Lucy in the Sky and started driving out Kenburu Sounds. I recently had gotten a job out at a resort and had told my boss that I would drop in for a visit. When I said this I did know that this place was out of the way and was ready for it, or so I thought. It was Raphaels day to drive so here we were manouvering around endless sharp turns [View Full Entry]

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Monday morning came and Raphael and I were dragging our bags through the streets of Christchurch, looking for the Wicked Campervan offices. After I very hard 15 minute walk (I am out of practice at dragging around a backpack), we found the Wicked offices. After some paperwork and an introduction to our new home for the next 17 days we were picking up some food supplies. I have no camping experience and don't have two clues on what we really need and what we don't. We fueled up and hit the road, driving the streets of Christchurch without any idea which [View Full Entry]

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They are certain situations that you find yourself in when living on the road. One is the constant good byes that have to be said. And this is the situation that I find myself in once again. I have been in Lake Tekapo for nearly 4 months and have met some great people and have shared some great times with them. We kept each other occupied on boring days, road tripped and celebrated together. Not to mention the dinner parties, house parties, days on the slopes, movie nights, day hikes and even guitar sessions at the lake. Looking back at my [View Full Entry]

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Thursday was a beautiful sunny day here in Lake Tekapo. Sofia, Melisa and I had decided to have a little picnic out at Lake Alexadrina. We spent the day just laughing, joking and making plans. Somewhere in one of these conversations the topic of taking the Mt Cook scenic flight popped up. We knew we got a locals discount so why not. Upon returning into town we found ourselves in the Air Safari office getting prices and flight times. The 50% off discount helped encourage our decision and we decided Saturday morning was a good day (depending on weather and flight [View Full Entry]

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Cabin fever is a recurring problem that I have here in Lake Tekapo. Yes the town is beautiful and I have some great friends here but the lack of things to do here sometimes can be a bit of a drag. So most of us here are always trying to plan some little getaways on our days off. This week a few of us had the same days off and decided that this was our chance for a little road trip. Sarah, Laura, Sofia and I were all set to go to Queenstown but there was one problem.....we had no car. [View Full Entry]

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I have been in Tekapo for around six weeks now. I have been outside of Tekapo for a total of about six hours during this six week period. Cabin fever, or just plain restlessness, has taken its grasp over the last week. I decided on this weeks days off I would skip town. I checked the weather forecast for Mt Cook and Monday was supposed to be sunny and pleasant. Seemed like a good idea, go to Mt Cook, do some hikes and get some nice pictures. Picked up my bus tickets on Sunday for a Monday morning departure. Sunday night [View Full Entry]

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