http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/New-Zealand/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from Oceania , New Zealand en-us Sun, 22 Nov 09 07:02:35 +0000 Sun, 22 Nov 09 07:02:35 +0000 A Sneak Peak From our Hostel Hello AllAs promised this entry shows where we have been hanging out and how we have been getting around. As you can see this is where we sleep thanks to Jeremy M for lending their tent to us. Basically its big enough for just the two of us. Its very cozy As you can see there are pictures of what our hostel looks like. Our wheels Here is a picture of our wh http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/New-Zealand/North-Island/Bay-of-Plenty/blog-454916.html Hey So we took our first Kiwi Experience bus yesterday Thursday. Had to be up really early to get the bus at 7 so pretty much slept on the bus all the way up because Amie and myself had been to see the preview of New Moon at midnight so missed a lot of the beautiful countryside but it's cool cause this was just a straight up bus not really stopping off to see anything anyway because they wan http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/New-Zealand/North-Island/Bay-of-Islands/Paihia/blog-454538.html Hi all Sorry it has taken so long for me to upload the first updates we seem to have been so busy seeing everything but i will try and get our first 10 days up here in a mammoth session in the internet cafeSo we eventually arrived in Auckland at 8am in the morning after a 26 hour flight from the UK where Tom and I were squished against the window of the plane by a girl who proceeded to sleep th http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/New-Zealand/North-Island/Auckland/blog-454477.html It's been so long since I wrote something I am just going to give a short description of what we have been doing these past few days...car still working it's a miracle. We have been all the way to the very top of NZ Cape Reinga. It is supposed to be beautiful and I am sure that it is although when we got there we were in the clouds and could not see a thing It was so disappointing. We cam http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/New-Zealand/North-Island/Auckland/Mount-Eden/blog-454471.html Hi allWow this feels really good Last time I was writing a blog was 3 years ago for my last trip. Here I am making the first entry of my second travel blog for my return to Ecuador and to explore greater south america what an awesome feeling of anticipation and excitement this is I worked for just under 2000 hours sorting mail working full time for 13 months to be able to go away so I feel l http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/New-Zealand/North-Island/Wellington/blog-454371.html SURFING IN GISBORNEI went to check out the beach 16th Nov and it was indeed pretty flat. Probably just about surfable though so I decided I'd play some guitar by the beach then stock up on supplies in the supermarket and then head back down in the evening with a board and wetsuit. My first impressions of Gisborne hadn't been spectatular it was a bit too full of kids driving in squares in soup http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/New-Zealand/North-Island/Coromandel/Hahei/blog-454322.html On October 21 we made our way to the surf town of Raglan. Raglan is popular among surfers especially because the waves tend to come ashore to the left instead of straight ahead. A few of the people on the bus took a surf class. I opted out of this one as well I wasnrsquot about to spend 75 on something I knew I wasnrsquot going to be good at. So those of us who didnrsquot surf went t http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/New-Zealand/North-Island/Raglan/blog-454227.html So Irsquove been really bad at writing in my blog. Itrsquos been a month since I last wrote anything down so Irsquoll try and recap what Irsquove done in the past month. So on the day of the last entry back on Thursday October 15th it turned out to be a really nice afternoon weatherwise. So my roommate and I had decided to take a hike over to the nearby waterfall. It took up abou http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/New-Zealand/North-Island/Bay-of-Islands/Paihia/blog-454221.html Todayhellipfirst thinghellipnot feeling too bad. Quite impressed with ourselves really maybe the hangover hasnrsquot kicked in yet quick Charmaine get them ibuprofen..oops sorry I mean ibufofenhellip.hahahellipprivate joke On the bus we all got some people were so tired some people were so ill some people were still even drunk it was a funny morning I think everyone went full out http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/New-Zealand/blog-454083.html Today was our last day in New Zealand. Just before leaving I completed my 15000 foot sky dive in Queenstown I had to wait 2 days because of the cloudy weather. Some of the people waited up to 9 days Crazy But today I made it up to the highest peak and survivedI would have to say it was one of my best days in my life The jump didn't start until 9am. I was the first jumper out today whi http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/New-Zealand/South-Island/Queenstown/blog-453953.html Estuvimos en Auckland por una semana aproximadamente. La ciudad nos encanto era sper limpia todo ordenado todo nuevo. Las primeras 2 noches nos quedamos en el ACB Hostel que es el mas conocido y el mas caro tambin. Haba varios argentinos chilenos uruguayos etc. En fin hablamos ms en espaol que en ingles.Despus decidimos mudarnos a uno ms econmico que quedaba a una cuadra. Estando e http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/New-Zealand/North-Island/Auckland/Central/blog-453813.html Today was more relaxing than my last 3 days in Auckland. Woke up at 6am to catch the 750 am bus to Paihia in the Bay of Islands on the northern end of North Island. Auckland is in the Center of North Island. I used Stray bus to get to Paihia. Along the way we hugged a very large Kauri tree for good luck passed ldquostrawberryrdquo sheep and photographed a tree house caf. Once we arrived http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/New-Zealand/North-Island/Bay-of-Islands/Paihia/blog-453812.html Well I'm a good week or so behind writing this blog I'm currently in Te Anau with no way to upload any photos so I'll add those later.I've skipped writing about a few places after crossing the Cook Strait on a ferry between the two islands we headed down the west coast of the South Island through what has been my favourite part of New Zealand so far Franz JosefWanakaQueenstown just off th http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/New-Zealand/South-Island/Franz-Josef/blog-453797.html De retour devant un clavier apres cette aventure haute en couleur a travers la terre du milieu. Nous sommes arrive a Christchurch et cette apresmidi avons retourne la voiture au depot de location...Nous voici a nouveau pieton sac au dos DBilan de notre histoire en NouvelleZelande plus de 4500 kilometres parcouru dont une peu plus de 500 en stop dans l'ile du nord. Quand on sait que pour aller http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/New-Zealand/South-Island/blog-453793.html The time has come and it is indeed a rare occasion for me to write a blog. I think the last time was in our fair city back in 2005. I remember hogging the one computer at a busy backpackers called Vagabonds.....Today I sit contented in our home office looking out of the window at the blue skies of Canterbury watching baby Monarch butterflies bouncing off one of our sunkissed swan plants besi http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/New-Zealand/South-Island/Christchurch/blog-453762.html Ok so since I haven't really done that much since I got here to Christchurch except look for a job I will put the last week and a half into one blog. Sorry it's a long one. The pictures will be from the past week and a bit as well. EnjoyNov 6I had a terrible nightrsquos sleep. An english guy in my room has a terrible cough and when he wasnrsquot coughing he was snoring so loud I asked to mov http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/New-Zealand/South-Island/Christchurch/blog-453733.html Wednesday November 11thWe slept late again only crawling out of bed after 930. After breakfast we drove into town to help Bruce move. We found Bruce and Paddy sitting outside the shop on the public picnic benches. Bruce was in his element. His son Matai Kiran HallewellSmith was born just before midnight last night. He was beaming and very proud. He was able to watch the birth on Skype and spe http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/New-Zealand/South-Island/blog-453696.html Slept in this morning. This morning irsquove just been relaxing and catching up on my journal. After lunch Carolin drove me down to the wharf to catch my boat tour. There was some really crazy wind all day and clouds had rolled in but they said the tour was still on but that we might not be able go to Motuara Island which is a bird sanctuary island at the end of the Queen Charlotte sounds.We saw http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/New-Zealand/South-Island/Queen-Charlotte-Sound/blog-453513.html On the 12th of November Rodrigo was originally only supposed to be working from 101pm but he called in to help with renovations in the pizza bar he works and ended up working all day 12 hours or something stupid in total. I spent most of the day hanging out with Jon in town which was cool I also made a significant start on my new book '7 years in Tibet' which Sarah One of Alex's housemates i http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/New-Zealand/North-Island/Gisborne/blog-453417.html Well Adventure land it is...and today Stephen proved it Check our Canyon Swing Pics VideosThis morning our helicopter ride was canceled due to the inclement weather so we are on tentative plans for tomorrow morning. After checking out Joe's Garage for breakfast and The Cow for lunch we took a walk around the Lake region and snapped some great picsWe needed to do some activity so we bot http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/New-Zealand/South-Island/Queenstown/blog-453303.html