prj
Peter Jackson Joined: January 23rd 2006
Logged in: April 16th 2007
Logged in: April 16th 2007
Travel Blog Posts
Xmas in Brisbane
As the humidity finally kicks in Peter finds comfort in the air conditioned internet cafe, and remembers about the whole blogging thing.... So then - Australia! I started in Brisbane where I stayed for a few nights with Nene and Denise (who I meet at the Wilderness Park in NZ back in September). I arrived in a thunder storm complete with tennis ball sized hail and 35 degrees heat, well this is different to Auckland I thought! Alas it didn't last long, and since its been what I consider to be 'far too hot' but what Queenslanders like to call, 'really mild', crazy people! Brisbane was pretty nice, cute city with a vibrant night life and cool galleries. I had a great day with the Koalas and thier mates at the local santuary, got to go ... read more
Chris from Koromiko
Well, after ten months this is my final blog from New Zealand! It does feel quite sad to be leaving, but at least i'm not coming straight home, i'm off to Brisbane in the morning. It has to be said that New Zealand has been a great place to spend the last year, to see its wonderfully contrasting countrysides and experience life as a semi-kiwi for a while. Most of all Wwoofing as been an excellent way to get to know locals and learn about saving the world of course! Just thinking about it i've wwoofed at ten places, i've had amazing experiences at them all and would recommend it to anyone as a way to take time to really look at the world and your place in it. Without making this sound like an award ... read more
Koromiko Homestay
Well its finally November and that means i've only two more weeks in New Zealand! More to the point it means i've got to actually leave Wellington, something I have to admit i'm slightly sad about. Wellington is such an amazingly lovely city, I didn't realise how much until my sister asked if i'd consider living here! Whilst here this time i've been working in a backpackers, painted like a zebra and called the Wildlife House. It was hard work but luckly I only did it for 4 hours a day, which has made my Kiwi bank account look somewhat better. For the last three weeks i've been staying at a wwoof gay homestay and doing 4 hours gardeing a day after the backpackers! Feeling like i'm a person in the real world was actually nice ... read more
Springtime in NZ
Hey guys, not such a sunny entry this time! I'm hanging out in Wellington for the next month or so and it's been windy for the last few days, I only just made it across the Cook Strait (from the South Island) with the ferries cancelled due to the weather now. The joy of NZ in springtime... To catch up when I got back from Raro I had the minimum time possible in Chrischurch (horrible city!), where the only exciting thing to happen was I heard a meteorite - see this link (http://library.christchurch.org.nz/Reference/Backgrounders/SpaceJunk/). Basically it was just a bang that was kind of like thunder, but the white flash and otherwise perfect blue sky suggested otherwise! I forgot all about it until reading the paper the next day. Honestly the world could end and i'd just ... read more
Beachfront Hostels
Yes thats right folks I just escaped the joys of New Zealand winter for whole 11 days in the tropical paradise of Rarotonga!! I'd no idea where the place was before I got there, so lets bascially say the Cook Islands are in the middle of the Pacific, south of Hawaii and east of French Polynesia. You can look it up if you want but the place is too small to be on most maps! Since I last blogged I spent a few weeks in a placed called Little River just outside Chch, with Sally and Richard Gabric, a Japanese wwoofer called Kako and their three dogs. This was one of the good wwoof farms, well set up for the job, you can tell Sally has been doing it for 18 years. The area was beautiful ... read more
So I’ve finally left the West Coast after over six weeks, collectively, of changing beds, scrubbing showers, cleaning the rainforest and, in Lisa’s more insane moments, hoovering the rocks!! Actually I’m quite sad to have left the place I’ve by far spend the most time in since I arrived in nz. Te Nikau was an amazing place to be, I meet some great, and some very, very weird people. I don’t think there is anywhere quite like Punakaiki and I can think Lisa enough for putting up with me for so long! Enough of the Oscar speech, and back to the travel writing, events of the last few weeks in Puni include. Convincing Jo that she really wanted to kayak up the Pororari River - this was great fun despite the fact that it was more ... read more
Seal in Dunedin
This is my first blog entry as Uncle Peter! My sister had her baby on the 15th July, he's healthy and doing well by all accounts (detailed one's about feeding and the like I get from a women i'm now calling grandmother!). He's called Tai Salvador Meyer Jackson, though I don't think we need say all that at once. I'm very annoyed at being on the other side of the world but Helen assure me i'm only going to miss the gross bits!!! Anyway, where did i leave you all last time, Invercargill? That was not the most interesting place in the world but it did at least give me a chance to see the 'third island' from the shore. Its called Stewart Island, and is the south, south island of nz. Its like a scottish ... read more
Okarito
Well i've finally made it to the 'bottom of the world'!!! I've been travelling south for about a week and a half now from Puni and as predicted it has gotten colder all the way but there's been plenty to entertain me on the way down. I got a very handy life from the Te Nikau (the hostel) with an American girl (Courtney) who was heading to Okarito, a tiny little place on the end of 'Westland' thats got beautiful beaches and amazing sunsets. Its famous as the home of the author of a NZ book 'The Bone People', this women's house has a sing saying, 'All unknow cats and dogs will be shot on site!'. All i can say is, 'how west coast'! Courtney had wwoofed for a couple there so we got to hang ... read more
Following a few more days of drunkeness and cultures in Wellington (my favourite NZ city so far) - where I meet up with a few guys from the orchard, and even the owners - I finally made it across the Cook Strait to the South Island. The crossing is well known as being highly dangerous, but also beautiful as you enter into the Marlborough Sounds. This means 'fijords' for those of you as uniformed as I. Alas on the day I ventured across its was very safe, calm, and hoggy as hell! You could literally see nothing and we were amused instead by the captain calling us on deck to see the dolphins, and realising that the island is not really south but in fact west of the north! Getting the ferry across did fell like ... read more
Having final picked my last apple i've travelled South to Capital City and become a Wwoofer again! Wellington City itself has about the population of Newcastle but is a lot less developed and has nature right on its doorstep. Its basically built on mountains, which are amazing, and remind me somewhat of Bergen without the snow. On a good day you can see the South Island. As you can see from the photos i've visited the Parliament of NZ, which was very interesting if, well you are me!. I was impressed by the openness and lack of OTT security - Tony Blair and the high tech screens no where to be seen! I've just read the Guardian article with him saying that taking away the liberty of the majority is okay because 'its what everyone wants' ... read more
