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Published: June 14th 2006
DISCLAIMER - Brewery tour tonight...'nough said. It's now 1AM on Thursday.
So, my latest challenge has been crossing the street on foot in a country that drives on the left (wrong) side of the road. If you're not careful, you'll get your a** hit.
I've been a little delinquent in posting an update...schedule has been packed, and I haven't had easy access to a computer.
Realizations of the past few days: lots of folks from other countries - especially Europeans - aren't big fans of Americans. I know this is probably an obvious point, but you don't really realize it until you are surrounded by folks from other countries. That said, I've managed to get along very well with the Europeans who I've met, but it's interesting to get their take on things. I had one Spanish friend who I met on the Magic Bus observe, "it's not a very popular time to be from America, is it?" Others have echoed that sentiment. On the other side of the coin, it's very obvious that people from other countries look with great interest at what we do, what happens to us, our movies, our music, etc. I do think that we look inward too much and don't make an effort to understand or know other cultures...I think that short-sightedness is a bad thing.
New favorite song from Kiwi land - "I Just Want to Wish You Well," by Albert something. Caron...add this to my CD you're working on.
Hope all is well back home. It sounds like Crofter is stinking up Betsy's house...Betsy, just drop him off on 280 if it gets unbearable (kidding).
A couple of you have requested photos, and I just haven't found a place yet where I can hook up my camera to the computer...I think there will be one in Queenstown (two days from now on Friday), so I'll try to send some then.
Here's a recap on the past few days:
We left Taupo on Monday morning and headed south to Wellington. It was a long drive...through the Tongarito National Park. The weather was absolutely terrible for most of the way, which limited some of the scenery for most of the drive. There has been some pretty serious weather here...record rainfall in the north, and heavy snowfall in the south. However, there were breaks in the rain, and the views were phenomenal...saw numerous rainbows, too. We arrived in Wellington (the capital of New Zealand) in time to check out the Te Papa museum, which had some very cool exhibits of New Zealand cultural history and geological history (including a simulated earthquake). Again, not to sound like a science dork, but this really is an amazing place in terms of geology. So much of the present landscape was formed by earthquakes and volcanos...and still is changing. The museum also had a very cool Lord of the Rings exhibit, with all of the original costuming and miniature set exhibits for the three movies...it was very cool. Spent the evening in Wellington out at a local pub. Played pool with a native New Zealander against two English guys (who were absolute jerks)...but we won. After my New Zelander buddy insisted on buying me several drinks and a shot or two, I called it a night (back to my hostel).
The next morning, we boarded the intercoastal ferry from Wellington in the north island to Picton in the south island. The ferry ride was quite an experience. The ferry itself was huge...much bigger than the dingy I had expected. I planted myself in the front of the ship, on the seventh level deck, where the views were the best. It was awesome, until we hit the harbor outside of Wellington, which was extremely rough due to all of the rough weather coming in. At first, it was really cool...the ferry was up and down in these massive swells, and the spray came all the way up to the windows on our seventh level deck. However, after about fifteen minutes of that, I began to have my first experience with motion/sea sickness. It was pretty bad for about forty-five minutes, but it got better once we were out in the Cook Strait (between the north and south islands). Then, as we approched Picton on the south island, we went through a beautiful inlet...the sun came out, and it was really amazing.
Once we got to Picton, we met our south island Magic Bus and headed in the direction of Nelson. We got our first glimpse of the landscape of the south island...it really is the most beautiful landscape I've ever seen. We arrived in Nelson late in the afternoon. After checking in to my hostel, I hiked up to the "Centre of New Zealand," above Nelson, which is the recognized geographic center of the country. It was absolutely beautiful from up there...watched the sun set over the snow-capped mountains of the Abel Tasman National Park. Went into town for dinner and drinks and called it a night. A lot of these small towns are pretty dead right now in the winter...not a lot going on, which is kind of nice.
Today, we left Nelson and drove south to Greymouth. The south island landscape started to become very obvious. The south island is very rugged and fairly untouched. It's not even that populated (more people live in Auckland on the north island than the entire south island combined). The scenery was dramatic - snow-capped mountains and gorges everywhere. In many spots, the road went to just one lane. I signed up with a couple of others to ride jet-skis through the Buller Gorge, but, due to all of the rain that has come through in the past couple of days, the operators couldn't run the equipment today. Sucked, but nothing we could do about it. We continued down to the west coast and visited a seal colony...I would guess that there were at least one hundred seals on the rocks. It was really cool, and the ocean views were amazing. Also saw some penguins. Headed then to Punakaiki on the west coast, an area known for its "pancake rocks," which are these rock formations above the ocean that are formed in layers that look like pancakes. It was a really cool sight, and, again, the ocean views were dramatic. From there, we headed into Greymouth and did a four-wheeler ("quad bike," as the Kiwis call it) ride around the hills of Greymouth. It had been and was raining, so the trails were extremely muddy, many were actually a foot or so underwater...it was really a blast. Tough to describe the experience and scenery...you'll have to take my word for it. Tonight, we took a tour of a local brewery, which included lots and lots of free samples. Hung out with the locals at a bar afterwards...ate some kind of shady sausage and drank more beer for dinner. Had a great time.
Tomorrow we head to Franz Josef, which is down even more in the mountains and looks absolutely beautiful. On tap there is a heli-hike on a glacier (hopefully the weather will cooperate). We head to Queenstown ("Queeny" as the locals say) on Friday for two days. There is supposedly another weather front moving in this weekend, so there will likely be more snow there. There have been several towns on the south island completly shut down due to snow. Not sure what the weather holds, but we'll see. Planning to ski in Queenstown and, upon arriving on Friday, looking to bungy at the original sight.
This hostel thing has been pretty cool. It's really an entire culture of very interesting people...and the hostels here are really pretty nice (and cheap). The hostels have provided a great way to get to know people literally from all over the world. Most of them are travelling for many months.
The Magic Bus continues to be very cool...we have a new driver on the south island - "Cuddles" - a native New Zealander, used to be a sheperd, very cool guy. We were joined on the south island by three Virginians, several more Brits, and a few Japanese folks. I have enjoyed hanging out with the Virginians...very cool folks, and it's nice to have some Americans to talk to.
I could keep on, but I'm out of change on this machine. I'll update more later, and, hopefully, I'll be able to add some pictures at some point so that you'll all (Leon) believe some of the things I'm talking about.
Hope all is well.
ASN
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Well- I couldn't get down 280 due to the traffic and so I dropped him on 65. He was ruining my game. I would have to meet all my peeps on the door step. Bless him! I think it is his ears. I think next time he needs to stay with people his age. There is too much of an age gap. When you get back. Do you need us to pick you up from the hairport.