December 4, 2007 When we returned to our tent site at the motor park after grocery shopping this morning a pleasant surprise was waiting for us in front of our tent: two bottles of beer; donated to us by some anonymous friend. I have my suspicions that it came from the people tenting across from us, as the guy saw me drinking from a hose last night and might have thought we were poor. We’re not poor; I just don’t have any hang-ups about drinking from a hose. Hitchhiking today was not easy nor was it fun. The first ride took forty-five minutes to get and only took us twenty kilometers. The second took over two hours to get, but ended up being somewhat interesting. A big Maori semi-truck driver named Ruma picked us up and ... read more

November 25, 2007 The day began with us doing laundry and meeting some new friends and possible traveling companions from the hostel. There was Bob-- a guy who is training in survival skills and was headed to a “haunted” hut, and Shera- an Israeli girl who was doing all the Great Walks in New Zealand. Her circumstances had recently and dramatically changed and she was looking for new ideas and people to travel with. She briefly considered tramping with us on our next section, but ended up doing something else. It may work to meet up with her somewhere in the South Island though. So after getting six days worth of food (making our packs very heavy) and updating the blog, we set off out of town. One ride came from a local college student and ... read more

November 13, 2007 My sleep pattern seems to be off as of late. Last night I once again was wide awake at 3:00 a.m. Maybe it has to do with me going to sleep around 9:30 p.m. each night (because you can’t do much after the sun sets). Or maybe it could be that 3:00 a.m. is the coldest part of the night. Whatever it is, I still seem to be functioning well on only a few hours of sleep per night, although it’s annoying to be up so early. When the sun finally rose I got up and read outside for an hour while Eric was still sleeping. We ended up leaving camp around 9:00 a.m., as we thought we had a full day of walking ahead of us. The first farm field we passed ... read more

November 3, 2007 Though our shady host at the hostel from last night had insisted that we stay for a few more nights, we have decided to leave Paihia today to see what is next. It’s a beautiful town, but a little too touristy for my taste. The tourists have good reason to flock here though; the beaches are incredible. The area we are in is known as the Bay of Islands because of the thousands of islands dotted throughout it. Paihia lies on the west side of a very large inlet, and we needed to take the ferry to go to our path on the other side. After hiking about four miles down winding coastal cliffs and shores we crossed the inlet via a ferry. On the other side, we caught a ride with a ... read more

October 23, 2007 It was an early morning, but we got out of Denver as scheduled and flew to Los Angeles. Upon arrival in LA, our good friend Jeremy Palmer picked us up and gave us the tour of the city on the way back to his house. It was a nice and well-informed tour, but I was far too tired from the lack of sleep last night to appreciate it fully. We’ll be through here in March, so maybe we’ll have a chance to experience the city in a coherently next time. From here we will depart at 9:05 p.m. for Auckland and are expected to arrive there at 5:45 a.m. on Thursday (New Zealand is eighteen hours ahead of Denver time.) Once in the city we have a few things to take care of, ... read more