Wellington, New Zealand

I know it's been awhile and I'm home now but I wanted to finish what I started and explain about upcoming adventures that I have been thinking about. Before you hear about anything new, I wanted to tell you a little about my time traveling. The last place I left off was Wellington, New Zealand and probably my favorite stop while traveling. Rachel and I stayed in Wellington for about two months and during this time, we found jobs at a charming little outdoors shop called Gordon's Outdoor Equipment and a flat ten minutes away from the store. I'm so glad we got the chance to stay in Wellington for an extended amount of time because it gave us a chance to see what New Zealand was really like. We made friends with our

flatmates and coworkers, made some money which enabled us to

do more and see more, and we got a break from constantly traveling. Rachel and I were already thinking about the holidays and thought it would be better for us to be in one place rather than traveling around. This was the first time either of us would be away from home during the holidays and wanted to make it as easy as possible. Everything worked out really well once we got to Wellington (not that it wasn't going good already, we were just really lucky). We decided to go and look for jobs since we were planning on staying for an extended amount of time. We looked at mostly retail jobs for the simple reason that we had experience and figured people would be needed for Christmas. We tried about ten different places before Gordon's hired us. We were very excited because they hired us on the spot and asked us to start the next day. Once we found jobs thenext obstacle was to find a better place to live for the summer. Living in the hostel would be fine, but we could save a lot more money if we were able to find a flat. It took us about a week to find a place suitable to live in after trying about a dozen places. We were again very lucky that the University students were going home for the summer and students that were staying behind needed people to rent there rooms. We finally ended up living with some students from New Zealand, Malaysia, Germany, and Belgium, who we became very good friends with. The bestpart about staying in Wellington was by far the people we met. Our coworkers taught us a lot about New Zealand mostly about how to drink and party, things I was already

accustomed to being in a fraternity but also a couple things I didn't know, for example that it was OK to drink while working. Don't get too excited it was mostly done when no one was in the store and only an hour before closing time, but still. They were all very welcoming and friendly and eager to tell stories about some of their travels as well.

I'd like to thank everyone at Gordan's for making my stay in Wellington a great experience. Also I can't stop writing without thanking everyone in my flat too. Dinner time was another one of my favorite times of day simply because everyone sat down together and ate together. Each one of us had a specific day we would cook for the entire flat and we would eat and have conversations about life. The night would be topped off by Em making her chocolate pudding for dessert. I hope to see everyone again in the future but will try to keep in contact with everyone.

Waitimo Caves and Tongariro National Park

From Rotorua we traveled to Waitimo Caves. I planned on making it a nice little day trip and then head down to Tongariro National Park. Waitimo Caves was the place to go and do a little caving. It's basically rafting in a cave, very cool. I was a little bit sceptical about it because as it was still pretty cold I wasn't sure how I was going to get in the water. Luckily, I would be in a wet suit. The caves were fun we spent about an hour navigating through very tight rocks and even bouncing off some of them. Another plus was while in the caves our guide pointed out glow worms. Their really was no need to point them out because there were millions of them on the cave ceiling. They looked like stars in the sky very beautiful. Our guide later told us that they weren't actually glow worms but glow maggots and the glow came from there poop. I guess it's hard to get tourists to come to the Waitimo Caves to see glowing poop from maggots on the ceiling of a cave. Who would have thought. After we took a hot shower and had some of there free soup to warm up, I started down to the Tongariro National Park. I was extremely excited about this park because it was home to Mt Doom in the Lord of the Rings. I was planning on doing the Tongariro Alpine Crossing, which was a eight hour hike up Mt Doom to see some of the best views and scenery of New Zealand. Unfortunately, I stayed there for three day and the weather was awful the entire time. I had to leave the Tongariro National Park without doing the crossing, I was very disappointed but needed to continue on with my adventure. Next stop Wellington.

Roto-vegas

Rotorua often called Roto-vegas is a hot spot for tourism in the north island. I was very interested in one particular activity, Zorbing. I had researched it before coming to New Zealand and thought that I absolutely needed to do it. Zorbing is rolling down a hill in a huge air cushioned ball. I know that it doesn't sound all that appealing to some because of the constant spinning, but if you throw in a bucket of water, it's like a water slide. There were two tracks that you could choose from, one went straight down the hill and another zig zagged down a hill. I elected to do the zig zagged track. I noticed that some people had there names up in a sort of hall of fame for running in the zorb all the way down the track, so I thought I would give that a try. There was only about five people to go down the zig zag track still standing, so I knew it wasn't going to be easy but still thought that I could have a shot. I made it around the first turn and lost my footing. I tried to get back on my feet and found it impossible but thought it was a lot more fun trying. I had a great time zorbing and would recommend it to anyone. After zorbing, I finally made it to Rotorua and found a nice little hostel for a couple nights. Rotorua is a hot bed for thermal activity and one of the reasons I wanted to visit. I had never seen a volcano or any thermal activity before and wanted to make that a priority. I walked around a couple of Rotorua's parks which had many mud pools and hot pools on display, but the best was definitely Te Puia, a constantly erupting geyser. I stopped and took a couple of pictures of it, and stood there for about an hour just taking it all in. I moved on from there to watch a maori meeting house gathering. Maori people are native of New Zealand and they shared some of there dancing and native customs. It was heaps of fun. The one down fall to Rotorua is that because of all the thermal activity the whole town smells like rotten eggs. after being there a couple of days you don't get used to it. But all in all a great town. Up next Waitmo Caves.........

Woofing in Whangamata

I'm realizing that I don't have as much time to do my blogs due to the lack of Internet access so I am going to start summarizing everything instead.

My time in Whangamata was amazing. I woofed with a great English couple and worked on there 40 foot catamaran. My host family, Rich and Joe sailed to New Zealand about 15 years ago from England with three children. Talk about brave. Whangamata was a nice little summer community that is known for great surf and beaches. Unfortunately, it was still not warm enough yet to enjoy them. I did, however, get to enjoy a great hike to a wonderful 50 ft waterfall and an amazing boat ride around Whangamata harbor and shoreline. Rich brought us out to a nice little island in the shape of a doughnut known if you can believe it as doughnut island. The island was very much like the last scene in the goonies where the ship was hidden. I guess a lot of locals will boat out there for the day, anchor, and spend the day on a very small beach. Their isn't room for many people, but not many people know about it. On the way back from doughnut island is where this trip started to get really interesting. We happened upon a boat having trouble getting into the harbor. The tide was going out and a nice little yacht was grounded. Rich being an accomplished sailor decided we ought to help. He tide a rope to the bow and asked me to hang off the mast of the boat over the water. I thought he was kidding at first. I immediately knew he wasn't kidding and said what the hell, the thought of me holding on to the mast with my body hanging over the freezing water amused me and if by chance I fell into the water, what a funny story I would have. I was able to hang off the mast without falling in the water and Rich pulled the yacht back into the channel. I was a hero, sort of. We hooked up the boat and started home when about half a mile from Rich and Joe's house we found a couple of motorcyclists on the side of the road. One of them must of came around the corner and slid right of the road. One was still on the ground having trouble getting up. We called the police and went to help. Luckily, no one was very badly hurt, although the passenger on the bike had a dislocated finger and probably a knee injury. We did the best we could to help before the ambulance came and took her to the hospital. It was a very exciting day. We spent the rest of that night like every other night in the company of Rich and Joe and their amazing dinners, and stories. I'm glad I got the chance to experience woofing at Rich and Joe's. I think it is amazing that people open their homes to people they don't know and while there strangers become great friends. Off to Rotorua.....

Auckland: The City of Sails

Flew in to Auckland on a Thursday after leaving from LA and losing a whole day flying over the dateline. Didn't really get any good sleep while on the plane, so needed to find a place to sleep for the night. we wound up staying at a great hostel (Nomads hostel) in downtown Auckland. The first day we walked around the city to get our barrings. Auckland is not all that big only 1.3 million people and had somewhat of a Boston feel to it. There were many other backpackers in the city going who knows where. We did a lot of our errands; bough a phone; a couple phone cards; some food; researched more about buying a car and bank accounts. Nothing really exciting happened during the day just a lot of walking around to take everything in the first night we roomed with two guys from Canada, one who just started traveling and his friend who had already been to Australia and heard that New Zealand was more beautiful and had to check it out. the next day woke up early probably because my body was used to LA time and went out in search of breakfast. we bought some food at a mini mart to save some money and started out to buy a car. there was a car fair down the road for backpackers which had all types of vehicles from vans to sleep in the very weathered cars. Rachel and I found the cheapest car we could find and took it for a test drive. Let me tell you a little about this car, it is a 90 Nissan Bluebird. (which I have never heard of before) It has 265,000 km on it which if my math is right is about 176,000 miles. It is standard and the driver sits on the right side (which made it a lot of fun to test drive and Rachel doesn't drive stick so i would have to drive everywhere). Doesn't have a radio so there will be a lot of conversations between Rachel and I. Finally if you go to fast, the roof will make a huge bang (which has scared us numerous times already). I'm not really sure what we were thinking when we bought it, but it was only 1200 New Zealand dollars ($800 US). In all seriousness the car is a station wagon so if we need to we can sleep in it and it has really good "petrol" mileage. The registration and warrant of fitness had just been done, which means a garage has taken a look at it and is if to drive (no mechanical problems). Did I mention it only cost us $800.
After that was taken care of we made our way up to the sky tower to have lunch. the sky tower is the largest building in the southern hemisphere. We were very interested in going up to the observatory to see out over Auckland and New Zealand. It cost admission to go up so we decided it made more sense to eat lunch up there where admission was free and we got to go to the observatory anyway. I was excited for Rachel because i have had dinner in the CN tower in Toronto, Canada and knew that the floor would move 360 degrees to see the whole city while we ate. It was a great experience and would do it again. The last thing we did before we left Auckland was the - 5 bar. what makes this bar so great is that it is actually - 5 degrees in the bar. They give you jackets and gloves and everything is made out of ice. Glasses are made of ice, tables are made of ice, walls, you get the idea. we stayed there for a couple drinks and then left Auckland behind.