Back Home - Kind of

Last time I left you, I was trying to get rid of my car. The car sale was a success, albeit I didn't get quite as much as I would've liked from it. I had two days to sell a car, and since I am the type of person that likes to take action when something needs to get done, I felt just hanging up fliers to sell the car wasn't active enough! So, instead I hung up fliers telling people that I was going to Auction the car off that night at 7:00. I figured the car was WAY cheaper than bussing around the country, so I didn't really care how much I got for it. So in that case I started the Auction at 10 dollars to see if I could get a lot of people to show up. It turns out only two people showed up at all. One of the guys, named Craig, decided to test drive it, at he immediately offered $500 for it. The other guy (we'll call him steve) was expecting to get a car for around $10, so he kind of was surprised, and immediately offered $1000 not knowing how he was going to get me the money. (Why, do I always run into these people?) Anyway, he kind of bailed in the end, and since an Auction didn't really occur because of this flake that showed up, I ended up just telling Craig that he could pay me whatever he thought was fair. He gave me $300. I'm happy!

Shortly after that, I said my goodbye's to Eric, and decided to go to the Pixar Museum that was visiting Melbourne for a few weeks. More or less, I was killing time till my long Bus ride. Finally, my bus left and for the next 12 hours I rode to Sydney. The Bus dropped me off right at the Airport and next thing I knew, I was in a plane coming home! On the way out, it was the first time that I actually got to see Sydney from the air, as the first time I flew in it was at night. And Sydney from the air just confirmed my opinions of this city. It is really quite incredible! (See if you can spot the opera house in the picture!)

12 hours after that I arrived in sunny southern California 3 hours before I left! (Yeah, weird how I arrived before I left. . .That dateline will get you every time!) I arrived to the shock and amazement of what I had left behind about 7 months ago. First thing I noticed (besides all the people being generally mean to one another) was a picture of Baseball on the wall. I didn't even realize it, but I missed that sport! I knew I was home at that minute! Baseball really is all American! A few minutes later I had met up with my brother and we were off!

The next day was the 4th, in which we just had a BBQ. And it was great! So simple, so easy, and I didn't have to worry where I was going to sleep that night.

The next day, Nick flew into town, and the three of us decided to enjoy the summer sun a little bit. Doing the L.A. thing, we took off the topper to the JEEP, and drove down to Santa Monica listening to "surfin' the U.S.A!" The sun stays up till about 7:30 down here, and I didn't get any jet lag!

That night Sean, Nick, David, and I all went to the Laugh Factory. It is a comedy club in the middle of Hollywood. And I know some of you will be jealous of who we saw. Yep, sure enough, Dane Cook was the headlining act that night! And wow, he IS funny!

So in a word or two, I'm happy to be home. My travels have been phenomenal, and after experiencing the little bit of world that I actually did experience, I'm excited to go back out there! But in the mean time I need to get back to Bozeman, make some money, and figure out what to do next. Wow. . .What now?

I guess, I'll keep posting till I get home, however I have a feeling that they are going to slow down a little from here on out. Being back in America, it doesn't seem like I need to talk about it all that much. Tonight, I'm going to a L.A. Dodgers game, which will be my first pro ball game that I've been to, so I'm pretty excited about that. Other than that, I guess I'll sign off for now!

P.S. Sean, MJ, Nick, and David are all doing great!

Melbourne - Getting Ready to Come Home

Ah, here I am again. Only about a month after my last attempt, and I am trying to sell a car again! Jeez, I need to stop doing this type of thing. It is way to much stress when you are in a limited time frame!

So, Just for a quick update of what I've done over the past few days. We more or less decided to Leave Adelaide right away. It wasn't all that fun there anyway. Parking is a pain and Eric and I, it seems, both hate large cities. So we decided to book it to Melbourne hoping that it would be easier to sell a car there, and then cheaper for me to Bus it over to Sydney to where I fly out.

On the way, we passed the giant Lobster. Australians seem to have a strange fascination with extraordinarily large objects. So far on my travels in Australia, I have passed the Giant Lobster, The Big Bannana, The Big Mango, The Big Pinapple, and another big Lobster (not quite as big as the one in the picture).

After Passing the Big Lobster, we found our way to some cool caves. We got to play around in them for about 2 days and then once again decided it was time to hit the road.

Once Arriving in Melbourne, we have immediately been reminded of "big city syndrome" where you have to pay for parking and everything else you may want to do. In fact, I don't understand how people can stand driving in big cities at all! Usually public transportation is fantastic, and faster, and in the long run probably cheaper too! But oh well, People will be people.

So, not a whole lot to report on. Definately didn't take enough blog worthy pictures on this last jaunt. Sorry 'bout that! With that said, I'm kinda guessing my next post is going to be from the States! Looking forward to it!

The "real" outback

Oh where, oh where did I leave off? Oh yes. . .Alice Springs and Martin.

From Alice Springs, our plan was to head straight to Ayers Rock, known by the Aborigines as Uluru. But since Eric and I ran into Martin, we found out about a little side road that we should take as well. It only added about 300 kilometers of driving, and when you are in the outback, 300 km is nothing! It's all in a days drive! So, Eric and I decided to head to a place called Kings Canyon first.

Kings Canyon is a fascinating area. Here we are in the middle of nowhere with nothing but high gas prices all around us. As we near kings canyon, you notice the increase in tourist hustle bustle. Then you arrive in the parking lot and start your hike. The hike is a short 6 or 7 kilometers around the rim of a canyon that has been formed in the middle of nowhere. The landscape for 360 degrees around you is as flat as a pancake, yet there is a 600 foot canyon right there! Of course, all Eric and I could think about is climbing those fantastic wall, but alas, climbing apparently doesn't exist here in Australia. So we were confined to walk around the outside rim of the canyon. But that is O.K. anyway. We came across this pool of water near the top of the canyon that we couldn't resist taking some interesting pictures of. So we spent about 45 minutes looking at reflections and playing with the cold water.

Kings Canyon was indeed very cool, however our next site was far and away more amazing then Kings Canyon could ever dream of being! We headed another 300 kilometeres to what is called the Heart of Australia. Uluru. Uluru is unfortunately something that is not nearly as exciting when you read about it as when you see it in person. But that's why I've posted pictures! So, as you're driving along, you see nothing for hours upon hours. Every now and then a car will pass going the other way, but not often. Then all of a sudden you come around a bend and there is a rock that stands 300 or so meters above the ground! It is the oddest site. (A little like Devils tower in a way) But once again, we knew that Uluru was going to be the best site to see, so we passed that road to see something else in the area first!

Only 50 extra kilometers down the road, we came to a place called The Olgas. Like Uluru, the Olgas are a set of rocks that have withstood the weathering of time and stand out above the surrounding plains by a couple hundred meters. Eric and I went here first and did a couple walks around the boulders, and were very impressed. (I felt I should put this paragraph in more or less to explain these two pictures. They are of the Olgas, and not Uluru. Notice the little dot/blurry smudge in the first picture? That's Eric! But regardless, the Olgas are very impressive from up close as well as from far away. They are actually made of what looks like river rocks cemented together and then upheaved for 100's of meters. And yes, they were fun to climb around on!

Now, the real reason to see Uluru is to see it during sunrise and sunset. During these two times the rock changes colors. Now, I obviously can't post every one of the hundred or so odd photos I got of this rock during the sunset, but I think you'd like to know that not one of them is of the same rock! You literally take a picture every 10 seconds, and to the eye it appears that the rock is the same. But then as I am looking at the pictures here on the computer, every one is a different color. It starts as a red, goes to a bright red, it passes through orange and blue and purple! It is absolutely amazing! And was it worth driving over 3000 kilometers to see it? ABSOLUTELY!

Not only is this rock impressive from far away, it is stunning from up close! Luckily for Eric and I, the climb to the top of it was open. Albeit an easy climb with a chain to assist you going up, it allowed us to get "in touch" with the rock. And of course I had to do a handstand on top of the rock. I even got an applause for doing it! (Also, those are the Olgas in the background of the handstand picture) It's so incredible because every angle you look at Uluru, you see a different rock. Sometimes it appears HUGE, sometimes tiny. It has caves, and big blank faces. It has flakes, and trees growing out of it in places. It has water holes and ancient Aborginee paintings. Needless to say, a day at this rock was not enough! But we did get to watch the Sunset on it twice, and the Sunrise once! So with that said, I'm happy!

From there Eric and I b-lined it to a small little town called Coober Pedy. We didn't spend too much time here due to the overwhelming prices of everything in town. However this little town has an incredible history to it. It was founded on a giant opal deposit. But it is absolutely smack dead center in an area with absolutely no water. So, they ship their water in along with everything else. It also gets so hot here that more than half its residents live underground! In fact, Eric and I ate at an Underground cafe, then checked out the tourist office which is also underground! It's quite a life style. Plus, surrounding the town there is over 200,000 mine shafts! Hence, the amusing warning sign!

Only about 100 kms outside Coober Pedy, Eric and I hit the big red. This is the part of the desert that you think about when you think of Australia. Funny that it only lasts for about 200 kilometers! But regardless, it is a mind trip. You can literally see to every horizon, completly unobstructed! If you wanted, you could drive your car out here, and probably wouldn't even know you were off the pavement! It was a pleasure to see, and I'm kind of sad that I've already left it behind! I've decided I like the desert!

And finally, on route to Adelaide (where I am typing this now) we happened across this lake. What a pleasant surprise that was! The lake looks like a mirage. You can't actually tell that it isn't a mirage until you are about 15 feet away from it! Then you decide to go swimming in it and find that it is only ankle deep. Plus it is a salt lake! So you get to walk around for miles if you'd like in ankle deep salt water in the middle of the desert. It was a surprisingly pleasant experiance! Once again, the little dot is Eric.

So, now I'm here in Adelaide, the capital city of South Australia. (Did you know Australia has states? South Australia is a state!) I haven't had much time to do anything here but blog and shower (which I desperatly needed after all that outback travel, and swimming in salt lakes). With that said, I'm going to sign off now! Till next time!

P.S. Eric is also taking a lot of time on his blog today too, so be sure to check his out, for all the stories that I've already forgotten about! :)

Alice Springs and Everything in between

So, if you didn't know already, Australia is a BIG place. So much to do and so much to see! So, one of my goals while here in Australia was to do some scuba diving at the great barrier reef. I mean, it's world famous and everything, so why shouldn't I do it?

So I believe last I left was after Eric and I got back from Moreton Island. Wow, that seems so long ago! Well, in my defence, I haven't had a good opportunity to post since then until now, when I am about halfway around the country! Well, more or less Eric and I booked it up to the Whitsunday Islands from Moreton Island. This in itself was a couple days of driving. But we finally go there, and there is where we wanted to do our great barrier reef dive. Well, after doing a little research we found a company that would take us out for two dives. So, we waited in a little surfer town called Airlie Beach for a day waiting for the boat. After sleeping in the car due to intense rain, we awoke ecstatic to go on our dives. We showed up to the boat, signed our liability agreements and took off for the two hour journey out to the reef. Well, about 1 hour later, our divemaster came up to us and said that because of the rain and the crummy surface conditions, we actually wouldn't get to dive that day. Then he informed us that he would try to get us a refund. TRY! Well, to make a long story shorter, we did end up getting a refund and decided to continue up the coast to a town called townsville (I know, original name huh!) to get our dives in.

Once in townsville, we found another dive shop that had a surprisingly great deal to offer us! We even got $200 off because they wouldn't have gone if we hadn't signed up! So, it turns out that Eric and I hopped aboard a live aboard vessel call the "sea-esta." (Creative eh?) Turns out that they were leaving on a 3 night 3 day dive trip all inclusive with 10 dives! These 10 dives include 2 night dives, and 2 wreck dives! Doesn't get much better than that. So off Eric and I went. To live aboard a 17 meter boat for the next three days!

So, the first night was quite exciting. First time I've ever slept (or not slept for that matter) on a boat. If you don't know already, a 17 meter boat is not all that long. Well sure enough you can feel every wave that hits the side of it. And while attempting to sleep, you are actually bouncing in and out of bed, and sometimes hitting your head on the bunk above you! I think I like sleeping in the car better.

But that only lasted for about 12 hours! After that, we got to get into the water at a bright and early time of 7 am! But it couldn't have been better! As soon as you get into the warm water, and take your first look under, you immediately realize why you do what you do. The first spot that we dove in had 26 meter visibility, and the most beautiful corals and fish you could ever imagine. There was one peice of marine life that looks exactly like a miniature christmas tree. It lives on a coral, and there are several different types of this tree looking thing. It is only about 2 inches tall, and ranges in colors from the brightest blue you can imagine to the brightest reds! Well, as I was pointing one of these fellas out to Eric, and admiring its beauty, I put my finger quite close to the little bugger. Now, imagine this scene. Eric and I have our faces about 6 inches away from one of these trees, then I put my finger up to it, and it vanishes from sight! It sucks itself so quickly into the coral that it grows from that it must be powered by some type of hydraulic motor! Then Eric and I, not knowing what has just happened, look at each other faster than a jack rabbit on a pogo stick, both wide eyed and in disbelief. Sure enough, you start laughing at the sight of the other person, and sure enough, when you laugh under12 meters of water it starts leaking into your mask. I guess that is why I had to go through Scuba training! For all the times you laugh underwater! :)

Then we went on a night dive, which I don't have a ton to write about except for the fact that everyone should do one of these sometime in their lives! It was incredible swimming in the black and all you could see was the glow sticks attached to your buddies tank. We had flashlights with us, but the moon was shining just enough to give the bottom an eerie feeling that was much better appreciated without the lights. Unfortunately, Eric and I didn't see any amazing night marine life.

Whew! This is getting long!

So, we were then supposed to do a wreck dive. Well, the divemaster got us all stoked to do it and said it was on for the next day. However, at about 1 in the morning, when we were about to leave to get to the wreck, the winds picked up along with the rain again. So, once again long story short, we didn't actually get to dive the wreck, but that was O.K. because we ended up diving the reef two more times! Can't go wrong there!

After our experience in Townsville, Eric and I immediately headed inland to get out of the rain that had been following us around since last week. "Ah, the outback will be sunny!" I say. "Let's do it!" Eric says. We then drove all night, all the next day and night, all the next day and night, and I think we are up to today being all day now. Whew! Lots and lots of driving! And the outback is something else too! It is actually a lot like driving through North Dakota. I know, sounds fun doesn't it! But you do get to see some classic signs such as the "Beware of the car eating cow" sign! But nowhere else, even in North Dakota, can you look infront of you and see no cars and a straight road all the way to the vanishing point, then look behind you and see no cars and a straight road all the way to the vanishing point. It is something else!

In fact, the roads are so straight that we just decided to take a nap while driving really quickly. As you can see, we fashioned a rope to Eric's belt and tied it off to the steering wheel. That's all you need to do to get a few hours of rest! And you wake up almost at your destination! It's incredible!

Well, I guess there was one thing to see in the 3 days of driving through the outback that we've done. We stopped at a great bouldering location called the Devil's Marbles. Considering it is 400 kilometeres away from the nearest decent sized town, there are actually no climbers here. But Eric and I did some climbing. At least we did what we could considering the rain that was still falling on our heads. Oh yeah! I forgot to mention. . .it is STILL raining on us. Here we are, in the middle of the outback, and we haven't seen the sun yet! I don't think I believe people when they say it is hot and sunny here. I'm writing this wearing my polar fleece right now! It's not hot! I guess you can see the rain in the Eric picture above. Yep, that's the middle of the outback!

So, finally, more or less because I am getting a little tired of writing right now, we are in Alice Springs. And you'll never believe what just happened. Do you remember Martin from my journey's in New Zealand? Well, sure enough, he just walked in the door to the Internet Cafe that I am sitting in! It sounds like we are headed opposite directions, but I think we'll at least go get a drink tonight or something! Wow. Small World!

Yay for Cameras and things!

See that! A picture on my post! Yes, its official. I've received the camera that my mother shipped to me. So I finally have pictures on this post! Never mind the fact that it has taken me nearly 5 days to find the time to use the internet, then once we've decided to use the internet, another few hours to find a cafe with card readers. Apparently the card readers aren't as popular here as they were in New Zealand. Oh well.

Anyway, things are still going well down here on the under part of this crazy world we live in. Pat left Brisbane a few days ago, just a few hours after we met up with Eric. It was sad to see Pat go, but at the same time, I was extremely happy that Eric had showed up before Pat took off. Otherwise I would've had a lot of driving to do to meet up with Eric. Anyway, after pat took off, Eric and I prepared ourselves for the adventures that awaited. First stop, Moreton Island.

Moreton Island was a holiday get away Island just a little north of Brisbane. To get to the island, you take a vehicle ferry that travels at about the speed you might have a leisurly stroll at. Two hours later, and about 2 miles out to sea, you arive at a very pretty pristine white sand beach that stretches for nearly 20 km south of you! Of course, Eric and I couldn't see this beach because we arrived at about 7 in the evening, and considering it's "winter" here, it gets dark at about 5:30. According to the guy that sold us the ferry ticket, "It's so dark out there, you won't be able to see your hands in front of your face!"

Of course he was wrong though. The Stars alone were bright enough to be able to walk by. I don't know if any of you have seen the stars in the Southern Hemisphere, away from any city lights, but if you ever get the chance, I highly recommend it! The Center of the Milky Way Galaxy is in the direction of the constellation Saggitarius, which in Bozeman is directly on the southern horizon in the summer months. Well down here, this constellation is directly over head, and therefore you can look at the center of our galaxy through less atmosphere. And boy does it ever make a difference! You more or less just see a cloud in the sky. That's how bright it truly is. So, this first night, Eric and I just slept in the middle of a helipad landing area, gazing at the stars! Pretty cool stuff!

Well, on the next day, we walked to the eastern beach. Not a whole lot to write about on that particular day, but the day after that is when disappointment ensued. (Kind of). We went for a nice day long stroll down the beach. On the way to a lighthouse at the end of the island, we ran into some people that drove up next to us, stuck a pointed PVC pipe in the ground, threw some sand in a bucket, then drove to the next place to do it again! We were wondering what they were doing when Eric so daftly realized that they were digging up Clams! We learned by trial and error (not much error mind you) how to find Clams on the beach. So we dug up about 20 of the suckers and decided to stay on the Island for an extra day because we'd have dinner that night. So we stashed the Clams in the frisbee that you see Eric Playing with in this picture. We then wrapped the frisbee clam combination up in my towel, and stashed the whole thing on the beach to be picked up on our way back. After walking for another 5 hours or so and skipping lunch entirely, we were pretty excited to get back to the clams. Well, sure enough by the time we got back to the clams, they had been stolen! Along with the towel and frisbee too! Needless to say, we were bummed, and I have decided to start a list of things that I've somehow lost on my trip. (Camera, Towel, USB Cord, Hat, etc. etc.) The list is getting quite ridicoulosly long now! :)

Well, on our way out from Moreton Island, we saw some really cool mountains in the distant horizon. "It'd be cool to climb those" Says I! Eric replies, "Exactly what I was thinking!"

So our journey continued to the glasshous Mountains. The Glasshouse Mountains are a set of about 7 to 9 mountains that are forming the same way Devils Tower in Wyoming has formed. The remnant of volcanoe cores. Most of the mountains are still quite "slopey" but the one in the picture here was the one that stuck out to both Eric and I the most. Very Devil's Towerish. Not quite as large though. Well, it became our quest to climb this mountain, which we are still on right now. The problem is, we don't have all our own climbing gear, and apparently no one in Australia really knows all that much about rock climbing. You'd think a monolith of this size would be littered with climbers, but when we enquired at the visiters center, the lady gave us a pamphlet that called "Rock Climbing" the same thing that we'd call "A day hike." She said you could only "Rock Climb" on a few particular Mountains.

Well, Eric and I ended up Hiking the tallest of the Glasshouse Mountains, and just incase we ran into other climbers, we brought our shoes and harnesses. Alas, there were no other climbers. But that doesn't mean the hike wasn't a blast! The Hike actually consisted of some easy rock scrambling. If you fell, you'd be in a world of hurt, but at least it was easy enough to climb without ropes.

So, for now, I think that is a decent post. Right now Eric and I are in a little surf town called Harvey Bay. Today has been dedicated to catching up with Laundry, Showers, and Internet. From here we are working our way up north to get to the Great Barrier Reef to do some more Scuba Diving! Who knows if we'll ever get there though! There's just so much to do and see!

Oh, finally I've gotten a request to post Eric's Blog on my site too, so here is another link that may be easier to follow than my last one. (I'm also going to play around with settings on my blog a little, so If I figure it out, there might be a list on the right hand side with some links. Take a look to see if I succeeded or not!)

Find Eric By Clicking Here

Brisbane and the Gold Coast

I now sit here in an internet Cafe about 3 weeks from the start of my travels in Australia. I have been having a blast! I think too, that we have been making really good time on traveling around as well. Seeing lots of things and doing all kinds of fun stuff! Then I look at a map of all of Australia, and notice that we haven't even begun to touch the surface of this country!

So, I just wanted to write really quickly about our experience going up the gold coast. Before I came here, I thought the gold coast referred to the east coast of Australia. Boy was I ever wrong! The gold coast is actually a section of highway that is only about 30km long. It more or less follows a section of beach that isn't broken anywhere. And it is a section of city that has only high rise apartments and congestion for traffic. We were planning on stopping in a city called Tweed Heads, and before we knew where we were, we had passed it and already drove to the next ENTIRE CITY! We were now in the city Surfers Paradise.

We finally found a parking spot in Surfers Paradise, and walked around for about 2 hours before we decided not to spend a moment longer there. It is urban beyond belief, only has high rise apartments instead of buisness buildings, and the entire city thrives on tourists. I don't think we saw a single local infact! But they do have something cool called Meter Maids there. The meter maids are really cute girls that walk around the city streets in gold bikinis and they put money into the parking meters for cars that have had their parking expire! It's quite funny actually. The first time I saw them, I thought they were the ones that actually wrote the tickets!

But needless to say, we got out of surfers paradise like a bat out of hell! It was hideous there! So we drove our way up to Brisbane, and have barely gotten a taste of this city yet. So I'll write more on it later. However, my camera is supposed to be here but I went to the post office today and they said it wasn't. Maybe tomorrow it'll actually show up in the system or something. So I'm working on it!

Finally, I just realized that I haven't given any of you my new phone number yet! I got a new number once I arrived in Sydney, so if any of you feel like giving me a call, feel free!

If you're dialing from the States: 061 44 901 2795
If you're dialing from Australia: 044 901 2795

See ya!

Byron Bay - Enter Hippyville

So, here I am in Byron Bay, and it is wonderful here! Although touristy, there is a very strange vibe to the city that I am digging! Byron bay is a "small" city of about 6,000 residents, but probably just as many tourists. It is surrounded by about 15 miles of white sand beaches and warm water! So needless to say, there is a very hippy/surfer vibe that goes along with the city. Infact, on the first day here, many amusing things happened.

First of all, as we were driving around, we found out that we showed up on the one day of the month that a local market is going on. So, like any upstanding citizens, we finagled our way into what probably was an illeagal parking spot so that we could check out the happenings. As soon as we walked into the market we witnessed some fascinating people. My favorite was a mother of about 30 years old who wore her hair in dredlocks down to her waist. She was carrying a 2 year old. (Couldn't have been older than two.) This 2 year old was in a backpack fashioned out of a peice of neon green cloth. Silky type stuff. You know, like a really large handkercheif. And here's the thing. The two year old ALSO had dredlocks down to her waist! It was incredible! In addition to that, we saw some booths that had magical healing crystals, some booths with total hippy attire, didgeridoo shops, and a kid playing with devil sticks and trying to sell lessons for $10 an hour. There also was a one man band playing a didgeridoo, a drum, a guitar and singing. He was actually pretty good!

From there Pat and I headed to the main street and attempted to park our car. Well, it turns out that the curbs here are awefully tall. So as we parked, we scraped our trailer hitch on the sidewalk. A passerby saw this and he looked at me kind of funny. Knowing that we were in a cheap hunk of junk car, I shrugged, and more or less gave him a face that said we didn't really care what damage we may have done to the car. As he was looking at me, and continuing to walk forward, he totally missed the fact that we was walking headlong into a pole. Sure enough, he walks right into the pole and just like a cartoon charachter, arms and legs more or less wrap around it. Of course I couldn't contain myself and just started cracking up! He then walked away in shame. It's too bad he didn't laugh it off like he should've!

Finally there was a french guy (or I assume he was french) who was mumbling quite loudly behind us. We turned and let him pass us. He yelled some words in french at us, who knows what he said, then turned his head and spat right in front of where we were walking! It was hilarious. I just laughed at him! I think he was trying to insult me, but whatever it was it didn't work. His loss I guess.

So, some comments on Australia. First of all, I LOVE it here! The people are so nice, and I think, in all fairness, when you talk with general people at help desks or tourist info places, they are much more friendly here than they are in New Zealand. Also it doesn't seem so small here. Well, that's obvious I guess. But all the stores don't necessarily close at 5 like in NZ. And the roads are less windy. And there are just more paths to take! Plus you meet other travelers that are much more diverse instead of meeting mostly germans like you do in NZ. So, in a sense, I've fallen in love with Australia! This place is good and I really do want to come back to spend more time here someday!

On another note, I have had a camera sent to me from the states, so I'll be back up and posting pictures in a few more days! Thanks for bearing with me everyone!

That's all I have time for now. See ya!

Swimming with the Fishes. . .SEA?

Yeah, sorry about the terrible title to this blog. But I'll keep the blog short and sweet.

Today, I went diving here in Coffs Harbour, Australia. And let me tell you how phenomenol it is! The visibility was about 20 meters! And here is some of the things I got to swim with today!

-A Sea turtle. (he was just at 20 meters away though so it was tough to see)
-A couple Moray Eels
-A lion fish. . .By far my favorite fish. They are most beautiful.
-A couple Eagle Rays, or rays of some sort for that matter.
-On the boat ride out and back we saw some humpback whales!
-Oh yeah, how could I forget. . .I also swam not more than 5 meters away from 5 grey nurse sharks! And let me tell you, it is a very humbling experiance, although not very scary at all. Sharks, I think, are much scarier in an aquarium. But here, they just minded their own buisiness, as I minded mine. They are very graceful creatures, and were quite fun to look at!

So, just thought I'd brag a little bit about the awesome Scuba dives I've just completed, and now, I need to go eat!

P.S. Eric and I are getting closer!

Coff's Harbour

Well, here it is on the 30th, and Eric has officialy flown into this country to meet up with me. Well, this is quite a big country as we didn't entirely understand when we were making our plans to meet. Well, do to a little miscommunication (or lack of communication) between Pat, Eric, and me, Eric is now about a 20 hour drive north of Pat and I, and we were not able to pick him up from the Airport like I had originally planned to do. So, thus begins the adventure of trying to meet up! I think that'll be fun in itself!

In the mean time, Pat has been trying to figure out what to do with his remaining days here. He's constantly hitting himself for not spending more time here, as 3 weeks just wasn't enough! Like I said, Australia is a big country! Anyway, pat and I have been debating whether or not to B-line it up to Cairns to meet Eric, or if we should continue our "slower" pace up the coast. Then we stopped in Coffs Harbour, where it has all begun to spiral out of control!

Coffs Harbour is a really fun city with loads of Ocean things to do! Well, pat and I went into a dive shop to see if we could get a dive in. One Discover Scuba course for Pat turned into a full fledged open water certification for the next 4 days. So, while I was trying to convince pat of going further north so we could meet eric, it has turned into being stuck here for 4 days! But we do have a dive planned for friday which I'm pretty excited about!

In the meantime, Pat and I drove through Dorrigo natl. Park and saw some really intersting things. When one thinks of Australia, they generally think of the Outback. Well, as I recently found out, Australia is home to many other climates then just Desert. In fact, we spent two full days exploring Rain forest! The Flora and Fauna was unlike I have ever seen! Giant Eucalyptus trees being strangled by vines. Birds with beaks as long as my forearm. Ants with pincers the size of my fingernail. And spiders that would give anybody a spook! (In fact, we tried feeding one of the spiders with one of the ants! They fought a lot, and it turns out that the Ant won! Kind of, it just didn't get eaten, but it was still stuck in a web!)

Another great thing is the amount of camping we've been doing! Sure enough, it is car camping, but nontheless great fun! And a whole lot cheaper than paying for Hostels every night. If you've been reading eric's blog at all, then you'll see that he found it was cheaper to drive 10 mins to a place where no one is there, and just camp! Well, pat and I have found the same thing, except here, we just find beaches or beautiful lookouts, pitch a tent and call it good! It is quite an experiance, literally living out of a car!

And once again, my excuse. I haven't found my camera yet, but went camera shopping today. Didn't find anything to my liking quite yet, but trust me I'm working on it! What is terrible is all the pictures from Sydney with Pat and me, are gone! Plus a few extras from New Zealand. So sad.

Till next time! Miss you all!

The New England Highway - Good times and Bad

So Pat and I have decided to get out of Sydney. Sydney was a fantastic city with lots and lots to do. Well, we looked into the best way to travel up the coast, and by comparing buses to renting cars to buying cars to trains to hitching, the obvious solution presented itself. Buying a car IS the cheapest option. Buying a car cost exactly the same amount as renting it would've been. And it only cost a little more than taking a train or a bus, but now we have the option of going where ever we please. It is quite nice! And no, we haven't given this car a name yet. We're working on it though.

So, instead of going all the way up the coast to Brisbane, we decided to go inland a little bit and check out some of the "off the beaten track" areas of Australia. We started off by going to the blue mountains which are an absolutely gorgeous national park. There are sandstone cliffs that are hundreds of feet tall and perfectly vertical. And lookouts all over the place! I wish I could show you! (That story a little later. . .)

So from the Blue Mountains we traveled up the Old Western highway, and turned onto the New England Highway. These highways pass through some really fun small towns as well as some larger Bozeman sized towns. Right now we are in Armidale which is about the size of Bozeman, and has the University of New England. So really, it has a Bozeman feel to it.

Plus, by getting out of the city, we've been able to save quite a bit of money on sleeping costs! In fact, we have become "vagrants" over the past few days. Living in the car, and when we need to sleep, we've just been finding rest areas to pitch the tent in. It has been quite fun! The problem is finding showers though! :) Oh yeah, and it's been really cold. For Pat at least. He didn't bring a sleeping bag with him so we've been fashioning sleeping bags out of blankets, switching sleeping pads, and slept in the car. Finally we went shopping for a bag!

Also on the New England Highway we saw our first kangaroos! Funny little creatures and surprisingly agile. Instead of jumping over a wire fence, they'd jump through it! Quite impressive.

The Kangaroos were in wine country, so we stopped and did some wine tasting. We went to a GREAT winery called cruikshanks, that makes the best port wine I've had. (In fact the only port I've had until now) I suggest you look them up if you want wine, and maybe order some!

And finally, that day we drove to Tamworth and looked at a giant 12 meter tall golden guitar. Of course it was such a tacky touristy thing that I had to take a picture. Well, that is the point that I found out that I couldn't find my camera. I had thought I left it in my polar fleece. Not there. Maybe in the pants I changed from at the first winery. Not there. We tore apart the car. Not there! So I tried calling the first winery we went to to see if I had dropped it there. Well, I ran out of credit on my phone. So I had to go top up and buy a new sim card for Australia. Well, after stopping at about 10 different electronics stores and gas stations, I finally found the sim card I needed. So I tried calling the winery, but had to activate my sim card to use my phone. And guess what! When I tried activating the card, the phone companies system was down. So I tried on the Internet. System still down. Everything I did from that golden guitar onwards went terribly awry! And I still don't know where my camera is!

So, I only have a couple minutes left, so I should get going. But as soon as my camera reappears (hopefully) I'll get some pictures up that I've been promising for about the last month now! See ya!

(And I only got 2 comments on my last post. . .you all are slacking as much as I am! Thanks though to the two people that did comment. ;) )

Sydney - Too freaking fun!

Hey there everyone! It's been a while, and that's just because I've been having way too much fun here in Sydney, Australia! This town rocks! Well, at least it is the best big city I've ever been to in my life. There are tons of fun Museums, beaches, and lots of places to drink beers! In fact, as I got here and met up with Pat, we immediatlely booked three nights in a Hostel. The hostel itself is kind of a dive, but by booking three nights, you get 15 free beers at 15 different bars around the city. At first, we looked at the map of the where the beers are located, and sure enough, they are spread ALL OVER the place. So at first we were pretty bummed about that, but once the scavenger hunt began it begun to get really fun! We have been all over Sydney now looking for our free beers and in the mean time, we've seen most of what the city has to offer. I could really spend a lot more time here than I think we have though. We've been to the Opera House, been over the Sydney Harbour Bridge, been to the Maritime Museum, Been to Bondi (Pronounced Bond-ee) beach, and seen some of the best Architecture and art and fountains of my life. There is one fountain that emulates a whirlpool. It is one of the strangest effects that I've seen water do. Now, I realize I don't have pictures on this blog (as per my usual excuse in these blogs) but I am on free internet right now. . .(who can complain about that?) and they don't have a USB port to do the picture thing. So, I'll hopefully find the time to post some photos of this wonderful city later!

On another note, this city would be a parkour persons dream! Don't know what parkour is? Do a Google search! It is more or less free style walking. Or, it could also be a Unicycler's dream! There are all kinds of walls to balance on, buildings to climb, rails to balance, fountains to play in, and people to watch here! I suppose if I were to move to a big city, so far Sydney would be it! (Don't worry though, I still don't want to move to a big city.)

Other than that, I think I'll talk on the pluses of traveling with a companion. So, I met Pat two days ago here in Sydney, and I've just been loving every minute of traveling with him so far! Normally I'd be more or less bymyself exploring the city and looking at museums and walking the city streets gets awefully boring by yourself rather quickly. Every now and then you can meet someone in a Hostel and spend a few hours with them, but hardly ever do you spend a whole day with someone let alone a few weeks. (Yes, I think I got lucky meeting Martin a few months ago!) But now that I have Pat to travel with, we are laughing and talking and joking all day, at the same time as doing the touristy things! It just brings a smile to my face being able to hang out in the Sydney Aquarium, looking at sharks and being able to point out certain things to someone else! So, yeah, In the end I would say that one shouldn't be afraid of traveling by themselves if that is the only option they have, but traveling with someone sure makes things fun!

Well, I wish I could put up some pictures, because I think I've gotten some really fun ones, but alas, you'll have to wait until I'm not having SO much fun doing other things, that I can find a Internet Cafe and spend some quality time blogging! hehe. Till next time!

Christchurch - Playing the Waiting game

Hey all, I've arrived back in Christchurch for the last time on this particular voyage of mine. And a few things have happened since, that I deemed worth blogging about.


First I had to say good bye to Kris, Bruce, and Ayva. This was an especially sad time for me since I had such a good time staying with them. So thank you very much Kris and Bruce! It was a blast, and I'm looking forward to August when you come visit in Bozeman! Remember my home is your home!

So, on my way to Christchurch, I found out that the fastest way to get here from Nelson is to travel through Lewis Pass. Lewis pass is one of the roads that my mother and Linnea and I didn't have time to drive on during their time here. And it's too bad, because it was a absolutely stunning drive. Although, it didn't seem that there were many places to turn off from to wander off the road. There was this pull off though where I got this picture. Notice the snow in the mountains. Yes, it is actually starting to get cold down here in New Zealand. I haven't put on a pair of shorts in the last month actually. (Another reason I'm looking forward to Australia) But this turn off was quite beautiful, and made me realize once again what I am about to leave behind. It made me sad that I'm leaving New Zealand, and anxious to come back some time down the road to do the things that I ended up missing. Such as spending more time at the Milford Sound area, and making it to Dunedin and Invercargill. I never saw any penguins down here either, so I'll have to come back for that. But in the mean time, I'm happy to be leaving! It's time now. I have plenty of life left to make it back! :) (Speaking of which. . .I thought of a saying that really bothers me. Everyone says "it's a once in a lifetime opportunity" Well, I don't think that's ever true! If you don't want it to be once in a lifetime, don't make it once in a lifetime. You can always do something twice if you put your mind to it.)

And finally, I have broke down and sold Larry. This is the final parting shot I got of my friend as I walked away! Sure enough, I had to cut my sale price by about a third of what I wanted for him, but in the end, I think it is O.K. The person I sold him to said he was going to get him all fixed up before trying to sell him to someone else during the busy season. So, Larry is in good hands! I hope he's happy with his new owner.

So now, I'm just hanging out in Christchurch till I fly to Sydney on Wednesday! It's a short post, but it'll do for now! See ya!

Selling Cars - Not as easy as buying them. . .

Well, as my stay in New Zealand comes to an end, I have decided that it is time to get rid of the oh so reliable Larry. At least I decided this about 2 weeks ago, in the middle of my skydive training. So what would anyone do that wants to sell their car in two weeks do? Well, they'd post fliers at every single hostel in town, 14 of them to be exact. They'd put up ads online, 2 backpacker sites to be exact. And they'd even go to a few dealers in town to see how much money they could possibly, at a last resort, get from a car. Oh, and they'd wash and clean the car, of course.

Now, with that said, I've found that the most effective way to sell a car is to sell it to unsuspecting Hitchhikers! I've done all the above things, and for the past two weeks, I have only just now gotten a reply on someone that may be interested! But also, in the past two weeks, I have picked up three hitchhikes, and two of them were interested in buying. One of those two is following through and looking at the car this Friday. So, forget the fliers, forget the internet, and instead pick someone up that is looking for a lending hand! They may be able to return the favor!

Also, in my endeavor to sell my car, I have learned a few things about Larry that I never knew, and am glad I never had to find out! First, I'll start with the Dealer that I brought Larry to. The dealer took one look at the car, and more or less said "you'd have to pay ME to take that off your hands!" I was gutted! Larry is worth more than that! Well, he took a little closer look, and noticed that the front tyres (yes, that is how they spell tires in NZ. Actually in Thailand and Kenya too for that matter. Oh and they call Math maths. But that is a different story) are in not the best condition! He then told me that if I had a spare, I should slap that on right away, because if I got in an accident with those tyres, even if it wasn't my fault, I would be blamed. So, he was nice enough to loan me his garage and jack to put on my nice looking spare tyre. The spare was a little low on air, so I just drove to the petrol station across the street, and filled it up. No problem, right? Wrong. . .

Enter the next day. I get up to start working on making my car even more presentable to potential buyers that are consistently not calling me. Today is the day that I go to find a car wash. So, I go outside to jump in, and during my daily walk to the passenger side of the car (I walk to that side every day because I still insist that the driver should get in on the left hand side of the car!) I noticed that the spare had gone flat overnight! Doh! It had a slow leak that I was unaware of! So, I open the boot (trunk) of the car to get the jack to start changing the tyre back. Lo and behold, no jack! SWEET! So, I borrow a jack from Kris' car, and jack up my car. Then I try to take of the lug nuts. Sure enough, my tyre yron (get it? Tire Iron) is the wrong size! I try Kris' Tyre Iron. . .also the wrong size. I look more in my boot, and find, you guessed it, my foot! Oh, wait. . .I looked in the trunk and found another Tire Iron. Finally, this one fit the lug nuts.

So I removed the "new" tire, put on the old one, and let the car come to a rest again. Now, I can finally take Larry to the car wash! So, I'm not going to lie. Larry has what I like to call "character." Meaning he has a lot of duct tape holding him together. Well duct tape doesn't make for very good weather sealing as I demonstrated today! Sure enough, here I am in the car wash, taking a shower! Not intentionally of course. I went to one of those hands free car washes, and as I'm sitting there cleaning the ash tray in the car, water is spraying into the door at mach 3! Water is dripping from the windshield right on to my lap! You should've seen me holding my hands at all the cracks and seams of my car trying to keep the water from spraying into my face! I'll bet the car behind me was laughing it's head off at larry! :)

So hopefully when I show Larry, it'll be a bright sunshiny day! And hopefully I can either sell it to another backpacker who is looking for adventure in their car, or some type of boy racer that wants a fixer up! Ahh, good 'ole larry! My hat is off to you my old friend! Now good riddance! :)

And yes, I do realize that there are once again no pictures on this blog. Have you ever noticed when you become "local" in a particular place, the magic of everyday things seem to disappear, even though it still exists? Well that is exactly what has happened to me this past month. I've been in the same location where I haven't felt it important to carry my camera. But then I'll see something fascinating, or experience something bizzare, and have no way of sharing the images with you all! So I feel really bad about that, so I'm gonna work on improving my style in these next few days. On that note, I saw a lady that had 8 great danes on the dog beach the other day. 6 of them were spotted like Dalmations. I really wish I had my camera with me that day! Oh well.

I've become "local"

O.K. so the title isn't entirely true. I haven't become a local in the sense that I still have a crazy "Canadian" accent, but if you take a look at myspace, you'll notice a few new additions. One of which is my world travel map. As you can see, over Nelson there is now a little yellow arrow saying that I've lived here.

Well, it's true. When I arrived I had only planned on spending a week or so with Kris and Bruce, and from there I was going to head to queenstown to work on my skydiving certification. Well, when I found out that Skydiving here was about half the price as it was in queenstown, I was sold. So I asked if it was O.K. with Kris and Bruce, and they said sure! So I don't know how long you have to be in one area to say that you've lived there, but I think a month is about good. So I've officially lived in another place!

Now, I also LOVE putting up these blogs. It's a great way to keep in touch with everyone. However, I've been aching because I know I have a video of me Skydiving that is just waiting to be finished up and given to me. I've been just DYING to put this video online for all of you to see, but alas, since the weather has literally rained for the past week nonstop, I haven't been to the drop zone, meaning I haven't been able to finish training, meaning no video for me yet, finally meaning no video for you yet! :) Funny how that works isn't it. Our lives are so dependent on the weather. So, since I haven't gotten the video and not a whole lot of exciting NEW things are happening in my life, I've been slacking on the whole Blog thing.

I do have to admit though that this month in Nelson has done wonders for my psyche. Before coming here I was just getting off the plane from Africa. Now, I don't know if you all remember what I was going through there, but I went to Africa at the 3-months of traveling, and I got back at about the 4-months of traveling. Well, all the traveling websites say this is the time that you will be most homesick. Stick with it, and it will get better. I agree with that whole heartedly! So going to Africa, I was DYING of homesickness. While in Africa, I was DYING of homesickness, and as soon as I got back to New Zealand, the feeling hadn't gone away. I realize now that the feeling was largely due to the fact that I was sick of figuring out where I was going to sleep a particular night, what I was going to eat a particular night and I was definitely sick of telling my life story to every new person I met! So, enter skydiving, and the oh so wonderful Kris and Bruce. Since Skydiving has started, it has given me a reason to stay in one place for an extended amount of time and recharge my batteries. Plus, since I was so homesick, I decided on a date to be home by. So those two things combined have more or less gotten rid of my homesickness. I mean, don't get me wrong. I still miss Bozeman like no other, but now that there is a date that I have in mind for getting back, I have something to look forward to, and it doesn't seem so far away!

On a side note, for your viewing pleasure, I thought I'd post this video on my blog since one of my jump masters was one of the people in this jump! It's pretty incredible!


Also, during my recharging time, I've met some of the best people I'll meet on my adventures. Given, you meet interesting people every day of traveling, but the ones you meet you don't necessarily get to KNOW! Since I've been skydiving, I have really gotten to KNOW and truly befriend my jumpmasters and fellow students! In fact, I can't wait to meet up with them again to see how we have all progressed with skydiving a few years down the road!

This break has been exactly what I needed, and I am so happy to have friends here that I was able to take a break with. And to add to that, I have gotten a girlfriend while I'm here! :) No, don't be frightened...She's about 1 year old! It's little Ayva! It is absolutely hilarious how Ayva acts around me now! She is always showing off, and whenever she does something cool, she looks for me and smiles! This morning, when Kris brought Ayva over to say hi to me, Ayva practically leapt out of her mothers arms into mine! It was priceless! Unfortunately for her, I have to break up with her in 2 weeks time, when I am off on the next leg of my journey!

So, I know there aren't a lot of pictures, and not a lot of exciting "new" things to talk about, but I guess in the long scheme of things, a month is nothing really, and I'll be back out soon enough! Until then, you can just look forward to my skydiving video, and maybe a few more posts with nothing more but words of traveling wisdom. . .or something along those lines.

P.S. It's official. Eric has purchased his ticket to come visit me now, so I'll be traveling with him from May 30th until I decide to come stateside. Yay! I have somewhat of a plan! It's nice!

Spending too much time on the Internet

Hey all! I just figured that I'd throw another post up since it has been a decent amount of time since my last one. Although I don't really have much new news to talk about. So, I'll just kinda blabber on for a couple paragraphs, maybe try to throw some words of wisdom in here and there, and then let you all get back to what ever else it is you should be doing instead of reading my super entertaining blog! :)

Anyway, so as you know I've been doing the skydive training. It is taking just a bit longer than was expected, and to make it worse the weather hasn't been cooperating for the past few days. So I haven't gotten to jump for 4 days now! But I am super close to finishing. I can smell the liscence! So, in the meantime, while I wait for good weather, and openings on the plane, I have been spending a lot of time with the oh so wonderful people, Kris and Bruce. In fact, I've spent enough time in one place now, that it seems like I've "moved" here. So, in a sense, I'm getting itchy feet again. For that reason, I have decided to get on the move again (after skydiving of course. . .)

Well, I know I'm going to be talking about the future here, but plans for me have changed a little since I originally decided to leave last November. So I just thought I'd give all of you an update on to what my plans are for the next few months and that way you'll have more exciting posts to look forward too! (I'm sure you are all getting bored with hearing about New Zealand, right?)

So, Pat is graduating from college here in about 2 weeks. And of course, he has decided to travel some. And he has decided to come travel with me for a bit! Originally the plan was for him to come down to New Zealand, but since I had already taken a lap around the south island, and have spent quite a bit of time down here, I talked pat into flying to Australia instead. So now, I'm going to Australia in about 2.5 weeks time. So that gives me 2.5 weeks to finish skydiving and sell Larry. Needless to say, I'm hoping the weather holds so I have lots of time to sell Larry!

As of now, it sounds as if I'll be spending till about the middle of July or so traveling Australia, then I'm hoping to fly to L.A. to visit my brother for a week or so. (He's going to find out about that by reading this blog :) ) And from there, I may be heading back towards the Bozone for the remainder of the summer. So not too long till I'm home! Hehe.

Like I said, I'd also offer some words of wisdom for this blog, so just for your enjoyment, and for no other reason, I'm going to bring your thoughts back to Thailand for some hilarious "Engrish" quotes that I got there. . .Keep in mind, these are not typos. . .

"Brings your monotonous home interior decoration into live." - On a refrigerator magnet

"Cinnamon is used as a spice on doughnuts, candies, yellies, and fruit jams." - What are Yellies???

"For guest you must pay fee for support local 1% of price follow the law fix of kanchanaburi provincial industry administration organization for develop local. Thank for cooperation" - Wow, they were trying WAY too hard!

"Disclaimer: Using the computer and internet can cause serious problems that may require you to do a lot of thing. We cannot guarentee that problems can be solved. Try any provided at your own risk." - Uh oh. . .I wouldn't want to have to do a lot of thing!

"Food, Dink, Music too!" - Could I get one more dink with that music?

"All soups are served with galic bread" - Sweet! They import their bread from Ireland eh?

"Please do not drop butt into toilet bowl." - Well, good thing it's attached to me then!

Hope you enjoy! Only a little more time till I'm on the road again with exciting posts! Bear with me!

Hangin by the Hangers

Hey hey! I'm still alive everyone! Yay! And I've officially gotten my AFF certification. Although that is not A-license yet, so I am still working on that. Only a few more days though, and I'll be able to jump out of Airplanes anywhere in the world!

So, as you've all gathered, I've been jumping out of airplanes for the last week. And my oh my, it just gets more and more fun each time you do it! For those of you that have taken tandem rides, you've gotta try the courses! The freedom that you have in the air is unparalleled to that of a tandem jump! For example, I've always dreamed of doing a double backflip. Well, skydiving, I've done a quadruple backflip, then a front flip, then some barrel rolls, then a couple three sixties, all in one jump! That's way more than I could ever do on a pair of skis!

So, for some more amusing stories about Skydiving too. I am a man of firsts apparently. First of all, there are three other students learning to skydive with me. Now, the jumpmasters used to talk about one student years ago that finished his AFF certification in 5 days. They were super proud of him being able to do it that quickly. Guess how long it took me and the other 3 students! yep, 3 Days! Needless to say, the jumpmasters have all been dumbfounded at how quickly we are jumping, and how good we all are this soon in the game!

Now, there are 9 levels that need to be completed in each stage of the AFF certification. Each level being a jump where you practice some type of new skill. Such as 360's or backflips. After you complete level 6, you are cleared to jump out of an airplane completely on your own if you'd like. Most people do their first solo jump at that point. Some however will go through the rest of the stages before doing their first solo jump. Well, I was different. As I showed up to the Drop Zone on my B-day, just after have finishing my AFF-certification, I was asked if I wanted to do a 5 way. "Of course" I say. So, it is me, two other students, and two jumpmasters. We go through the jump before hand, and then in at 13,000ft above sealevel, execute, more or less, a perfect 5-way round. Falling at 120mph, we were all holding each others arms to make a big 5 person circle in the sky. Once we all got to the ground, I reiterated the fact that I still hadn't done a solo jump to my jumpmasters. They were flabbergasted that I had just been a part of a 5-way before I had ever jumped on my own! This was my 10th jump too. So, I had half the number of people in my group as I had jumps. The Jumpmaster was talking to some other sport skydiver and asked him how many jumps he had. The other skydiver said 220. The Jumpmaster then told him he'd have to do a 110-way round to rival what I had just done! :)

Well, I don't have a TON to talk about unless it has to do with skydiving, but I promised I'd get some pictures and video done. Well, it turns out that the jumpmasters did a rough editing job of all of us students and our first few jumps. Problem is I haven't quite gotten a copy of that video yet. So, in the meantime this post was mainly to get some pictures up of the drop zone as seen from the ground. These pictures were taken by "Frenchie," one of my fellow students. (His real name is Amadee, but we all got nicknames. Mine is Bendi-boy. Apparently I'm really flexible or something. . .)

And on a side note, some things I've been able to see while I've been skydiving.
-A full circle rainbow
-Skydiving through clouds during sunset. (ABSOLUTELY INCREDIBLE!!!)
-A stunt plane flying in barrel rolls around our skydive plane with the pilot waving to us.
-The southern alps
-The end of the Leslie-Karamea track
-The Abel Tasman walkway.

Things scientists used to believe about skydiving. . .
-If you touched someone while in freefall, you'd both explode.
-If you open your mouth while falling through clouds, you'll explode.
-During free fall, you don't have to breath, because the air just gets pushed through your skin! :)

Oh, by the way, thanks everyone for all the B-day wishes you sent my way! I had a blast on my B-day, but it sure wasn't the same without you. Turns out I'm the youngest one at the dropzone though! So, my party consisted of hanging out with the people at the Dropzone. They did a fantastic job of surprising me infact. One jumpmaster brought me into the back room to "try different parachutes" and when I came back into the main room, there were about 15 people waiting there and they sang Happy birthday to me, and gave me a delicious chocolate cake. So, yeah, I still got to make a wish and what not. That night we then went to the only bar in Motueka, and played some darts. So, it was still good, but definately not the parties I'm used to! :)

It's official!

Hey there, first of all, I realize that all of you can't check on my blog every day. . .so with that said, you should really scroll down a couple blogs because I've been updating a lot lately!

So, I left my last post saying something about how I had more stories to tell. Well, do to recent events I'm gonna kind of blur through those stories so I can get to the good one!

The day after the Hike with Martin, I was able to see a few more sights of New Zealand. Since I was in the area I checked out three pretty cool areas of the golden bay. The problem with doing all this was I had no one to enjoy it with. It's amazing how much more fun things are when you can share the experience with someone. Instead of taking in the incredible views, I spent the time thinking about how I miss home or what not. When I'm with people, I can push those thoughts back a bit at least and it's not quite as bad. But, that's enough of that negative stuff. . .Let's get back to the sights and sounds of NZ.

So I went to what is considered one of the most beautiful beaches in NZ. It was called something like Whariki beach. (Remember, WH is pronounced with an F sound. So Fariki beach. . .) This beach was great because I showed up at low tide, and there is a group of baby seals that play in a pool that forms at low tide! Probably three babies that would allow you to get right next to them to take your photos! And they'd play and have fun! (No, the seal in this picture is not dead!)

But besides the Seals, there were also some REALLY cool rock formations just off the beach. If you remember that post about the hole in the rock in northern new zealand, Well, these holes were much better! Just take a look! And these formations were everywhere!

From there, I was only a few kilometers from Farewell spit. So I just drove over there to take a quick look. Really not that interesting at all in fact. A few sand dunes, but it would be much cooler to take a look at it from the sky. If you don't know what Farewell Spit is, just take a quick look at a map of NZ. On the very north of the south island there is this really large spike that sticks out to the east. That is the spit. But more or less, not worth visiting, except to say that you've been there.

Then it was off to Pu Pu springs. Yes, you read that right. Pu Pu. (Sounds like poo poo) Actually the full name of these springs is way too long to remember since it is some Maori word, but even the signs pointing to it call it Pu Pu springs. Well, the thing about these springs are they are the cleanest water that I will probably ever see! Truly. In fact, The only cleaner water in the world is the water directly under the Ross Ice Shelf. I don't know if they've been to every body of water to measure it's cleanliness, but they say this one is in second place! And wow, could you tell! It was gorgeous. The sun was setting though, so the pictures have tricky reflections on the surface of the water, but more or less, you get the idea!

So, that night I spent the Night in Motueka, a little town just north of Nelson. And the next day, I was up bright and early and had a HUGE smile on my face. For that was the day that I began my official SKYDIVE training!!! Boo yah! Actually, it didn't come out that easy though. I showed up at 8 in the morning, and we had 10 hours of ground training. (could've been done in about 4, but the teacher was always going outside to assist with skydives. . .) And unfortunately the weather was pretty crummy for a first skydive. There were clouds above our heads. Well, during that first 10 hours, we learned that we need pretty perfect conditions to jump our first couple times. So, we'd have to wait till the next day. . .

The next day comes, and I've been dreaming of my jump. Going through steps through my head constantly, over and over. I have it down pat! I show up that day ready to go, and guess what! Crummy day again! Doh! I ended up sitting around at the drop zone for a few hours hoping weather would clear up, but in the end decided it wouldn't. So, I came back to Kris and Bruces and wrote that other phenomenal blog since I wasn't jumping. By this time, I've gone through the jump so many times in my head that I don't even have to think about it anymore.

Then today came. The skies were clear, the wind was low. It was perfect weather! So, after doing a little rock, paper, scissors with my fellow jump students, we decided that I was jumping first out of the four of us. Now remember, I've been through this jump about 800 times in my head, so I jump into the plane and I am as calm as a Hindu cow! I had no worries, no adrenaline, nothing! It was incredible. The plane began to climb, and I went through the jump in my head a couple more times just to be sure. And after reaching 12,000ft, the door to the plane was opened and it was FINALLY my time to shine!

Now, remember, this is a solo jump. Not tandem. However, there are two jump masters on either side of me holding on to me the whole way to make sure things go well. After the parachute is pulled though, I'm on my own. Kind of, but I'll get there. So, I climb out of the plane, hang on, make sure the jump masters are ready, and then jump! And it was phenomenal! I took two deep breaths, and a huge smile appeared on my face! I enjoyed the free fall, no, LOVED the free fall, ran through my exercises, checked my Altitude, reached a certain height and deployed my parachute. From there the jump masters book it to the ground while I hang out under the canopy and wait for them to give me directions over a walkie-talkie. But, in the end, I got to the ground no problems whatsoever.

After the jump, you get debriefed. You tell the Jumpmaster how you think the jump went, and they then tell you how they think it went. I'll bet you'll never guess what the criticism they had for my jump was! Guess what. . .I was TOO relaxed! hehe! Apparently, when I decided to pull my parachute (at 6000 ft) I was too slow doing it and they were almost wondering if I was going to do it! They almost pulled it for me! I probably had an extra second before it was pulled for me. Then I asked my jump master if he gets many people that are "too relaxed." "Nope, sure don't" he says. "In fact, your the only one I've ever told that to. Man, you ARE weird!" :) And remember, this jump master has something like 10,000 jumps under his belt!

Whew! Getting long, I know, but bear with me!

So, we then get briefed on our Stage 2 jump. And this time, they tell us what to do, and more or less stick us in the plane. Remember, I had 2 days to learn about my first jump, and then about 2 hours to learn about my second. So, I climb into the plane a second time, and now I'm freaking out! The Adrenaline is pumping hard! Now, just thinking about it I'm getting adrenaline! We flew up to 12,000 feet again, and this time I was the second one out of the plane. I'll tell you one thing, watching those first people jump gets you amped even more! There they are in the door of the plane, then POOF! they're gone! Then my turn. I climb out, again and this time when I jump out I actually see the plane. It's incredible how quickly it just shrinks away after your jump! Then I worked on keeping stable in the air. And I got to try a couple turns in the air too. This stuff is fun! Plus I had really good altitude awareness (at least I was looking at my altitude, not necessarily registering what it said though) but when I looked and finally registered that I was at 6000 ft, I pulled my parachute and floated safely to the ground once more!

And now just for a little bragging. My jumpmaster is saying that I am a natural at this! (I wonder if they just say that to everyone. . .) but he is saying that I'm doing everything very well, and so far, passing with flying colors! :) Let's hope it stays that way!

So, yeah, I don't know if you can tell how happy I am currently! I was so excited to come blog about it! And I have many more jumps to go! Woot! Now, you're probably wondering where all the photos of the jumps are. Well, here's the deal. I have a few ground shots but I'll be getting those up a little later. As far as in air shots go though, it is quite expensive to get them since you more or less pay for another jumper to go up. Now, as Jon Wixson said, I HAVE to get the filming/photography done. So I was about to get it, but then the jump masters suggested that I wait until I've gotten a little better at jumping so I can actually show off to the camera a little instead of just running through exercises while in free fall. So, with that said, they talked me out of it for the first few jumps, but I will get some photos done at some point during the training! Have no fear!

Wetness, Wilderness, and Wekas continued.

O.K. So I think I finally have some good time to work on this blog! And I hope it's a good one! It's only 12:30pm right now, I'm listening to the White Stripes, no one is home, and I have Internet for as much time as I need it! So, that should be the correct recipe for a good blog!

So, now that I'm here, where do I start? First, I'd like to mention that I have officially walked over 100 miles in "one" go. The two tramps combined was 168km. The only stop was for a rest day and packing up of food. Not too shabby if I do say so myself! So now to start. . .Ah yes, of course. The Heaphy track. Like I said earlier, the Heaphy is a NZ great walk. NZ has 10 walks that have made great walk status. These walks need to be booked in advance, you have to pay for your camping, and generally they are more crowded. But the trails are very neatly manicured, and they are easy walking with great views.

So, the day is Monday, and I drive the two hours to meet up with Martin. I picked martin up at this fabulous little backpacker called the Innlet. Well immediately the adventure began. As I was going through the food that I had purchased for the tramp, I noticed I forgot to pack the Tea! Heaven Forbid! No Tea? (Uh oh, I'm becoming kiwi or something. . .always needing tea) But I brought the sugar and the instant milk. Everything but the tea! I was immediately thrown into a state of panic! Running around waving my arms above my head and screaming "what do I do?" Luckily Daria was there. Daria is the owner of the backpacker, and she came to my rescue. She gave me about 20 tea bags, just enough for the long trip ahead! Whew! Close call!

Martin and I then drove to the trail head. It was about another half hour from the backpacker, complete with mud bogging and three fords! Apparently when it rains, these fords become unpassable, so at this point I was praying for the next days that we wouldn't get rain on the last days of our tramp. It'd suck not to be able to get good ole Larry out of there! So, on the way in though, Larry did phenomenol! No problems whatsoever with the fords or the mud! Good job larry!

By this time it is one 'o clock in the afternoon. Martin and I know that we have a 5 hour day in front of us. So we begin the hike with the hope of making it to the campsite by 6. It gets dark about 6:30 now. So we our heads down and started tramping! The first day was pretty hard. All uphill, and the scenery wasn't good at all! But we were rewarded with a fantastic sunset once we got to the campsite! That night I had my cup of tea, and some pasta, and then slept like a baby! Now, get ready for the routine. . .

For the next days the routine went a lot like this. Wake up early (early being relative of course. We were waking up around 7 every day) We'd then pack up camp, walk for anywhere from 2 hours to 6 hours, find camp, then set up again! We did that for 11 days straight, and it was nothing else but fantastic! So, now that I have that over with, I can just talk about what we saw and did!

So, the Heaphy has every right to be a great walk. Normally it is done in 5 days, but that was with a 3 hour day and a two hour day back to back. So Martin and I combined those two days and made it a four day trip. Day one - all uphill, bad views and stuck in the forest the whole time. Day two - A fabulous walk through the most beautiful section of Forest I have ever seen! Given though, the forest section was only about 100 meters long. And I don't think the picture on the right does it justice, sadly. But as soon as we walked out of the Forest, we walked into the Gouland downs. Here is where we got our first real views!

By the way, the next days were all downhill, so that made the hiking easier. The next day, we did a 27 km hike in 5 hours. We saw a lot of beautiful forest and finally made it to the coast, where I met my favorite bird! The Weka! Favorite should be read with a sarcastic tone too. So, the Weka is a flightless bird only found here in New Zealand. Sure, it makes for a cool sight, but these things are pesty to campers. During the night I caught one of these buggers under my tent flap trying to open my plastic bag carrying my wallet and book and other things of that sort. So, at one in the morning, here I am half way out of the tent waving my arms like a crazed maniac trying to get this Weka to leave me alone. The Weka would just jump away about 10 feet, then come up close again till I waved like a dang monkey! I think the Weka was playing with me. It did this about 10 times before it finally went to our neighbors tent and started pestering them! (I wasn't up to getting all the way out of the tent to warn the others. . .oops! :) )

And finally we woke up for the last day of hiking which was on beautiful coast. 4 nice easy hours. And since they were nice and easy, I had to stop to climb this pretty rock carrying a huge pack! The Hike just wasn't enough. You should of seen my on the rock though. I walked up to it like I was all that! Super confident. Then I got on the rock and immediately a wave came crashing into it making me scramble up even faster. I just didn't get wet, but realized I was now "stranded" on the rock. I'd have to downclimb, at just the right time and then book it out of the way of the next incoming wave. It must've been a riot to watch. But, I made it with out getting wet! And sure enough, there was Martin, shaking his head going "crazy americans!"

Now Martin and I get out of the Heaphy track, and we hitchhike to this great little backpacker called Rongo. Rongo had it's own community radio station in the garage, it had rainbow painted walls, and it had fish hanging from the ceiling! Crazy place! Total hippy feeling to it though, and so much fun! I of course had to buy a huge chicken bacon and avacado sandwich and the celebatory beer for completing the first of the two tramps on the itinerary. Unfortunately, Martin doesn't drink beer, so I had to cheers him with his glass of apple juice. I don't know. . .it's just not the same! The next day was a rest day dedicated to planning our food for the next tramp too. So we spent a total of two nights at Rongo.

So then we were off to do the Leslie-Karamea track. And we immediately could tell that we were no longer on a great walk. (I think Mike talked about this exact same phenomenon in one of his posts.) The trail is no longer manicured. It is just through forest with orange markers stuck to trees! So if you lose the orange markers, well your S.O.L. Start relying on your map! But within the first hour of hiking, the little bit of trail that was there had slidden into the river. So we had to do a detour around a cliff. And the detour was climbing up what you see on the right. I should also add that I heard that the Karamea river supposedly has some of the best fly-fishing in New Zealand. So I also have been carrying the rod that mike left with Kris and Bruce. Well, on this detour, the rod was nothing but trouble! Getting caught in the vines on every step! Argh! I was wishing I was back on a great walk! But that wish didn't last very long at all. After the first day on the Leslie-Karamea it begun to get super beautiful!

So more and more hiking. We hiked over a saddle the next day at about 1000 meters where we got our best view. We then hiked and tried to make it to the Trevor Carter Hut that night. Well, the trail markers were not very good in the vicinity of the Hut. (Oh, before I get ahead of myself, the NZ department of Conservation has over 900 backcountry huts in place, complete with mattresses, and usually some type of fire place. So a tent isn't entirely necesarry here.) So as we're looking for the hut, it begins to get dark. We pull out our map, and realize we think we've gone too far. (of course we haven't) so we start back tracking. We then find these markers that go right across the river. So we have to do our first river ford. Even though there is supposed to be a bridge nearby. But we haven't seen anything! So we walk across the river, and luckily find a sign that points to the Hut. So we walk in that direction. We then finally find the bridge that we should've crossed, and by this time it is completly dark. The sign says the hut is only 10 minutes away. So after 15 minutes of walking in the dark, we think we're lost again! Then lo and behold, another sign saying the hut is 2 minutes away. 10 minutes later, we FINALLY make it to the hut. Exhausted. So, after my celebratory cup of tea, we went to bed!

The next day (or the day after, time is merging for me now. . .) It started raining. Not hard. But it's the first rain we'd seen for the entire hike. So we waited out the rain, and then during our short day, I saw this, and had to take a picture of it. I think it is to date the most beautiful thing I have ever seen in the forest. Now, for me, I just had to stop and stare at the scene before me, in awe. The sun was at just the perfect spot, the trees were in just the perfect spot, the mist was in the air, and there was just something magical about it. It was weird, just standing there with a heavy pack on staring at the forest for a good 10 minutes. It was pure bliss! (I got the best picture I could, then Kris helped me photoshop it a little to make it better, but the picture STILL doesn't do the real thing justice!)

And then from there, it rained, and rained. We saw the sun only one more day out of the next 4. Still not bad though. I finally made it to the point where all the books were saying the good fishing is. So I pulled the rod out and wet a line. Well, I've also heard that fish here in NZ spook quite easily. Well, I had a bright red raincoat on, and was pretty tired from hiking, so I can't say I put my FULL effort into fishing, but nontheless, I was skunked. But I'm going to blame it on my raincoat scaring all the fish away! So, I carried this fly rod around with me for 11 days just to get skunked! Oh well, it was fun casting again I guess. :)

The remainder of the hike went more or less without a hitch. I found a kauri tree with a big hole in it, and what do we do when we find cool things with holes in them? We play of course! So go press play on the video below to see me playing in the Kauri tree! We then got out of the hike a day later hiking through beautiful forest and higland plataues for the rest of the journey, and went to dinner. I had to buy a fish since I missed out on all of them in the Karamea river, and it was divine!


Whew! So, I'm only just now finishing with the hikes. This IS a long post! Sorry! :)

After hiking, Martin and I hitched our way back to the Innlet to pick up larry. Luckily, the day that we were hitching became sunny again, so all those fords had let up. Larry started right up again too! He was so happy to see me after those long days in the forest all alone! When I got larry back to the backpacker, I checked my phone messeges and got quite a surprise! The police had actually noticed that Larry had been at the end of the Heaphy for about twice the amount of time than people normally leave their cars there. So they had called me making sure not to send out Search and Rescue. I suppose If I had been one or two days later, Search and Rescue would've been after us! So, I called them back to tell them I was O.K. and sure enough, they didn't have any record of calling me! Sweet! I don't know if I should trust the police or not now!

Whew! I'm not going to lie, I'm getting kind of tired of blogging at the moment, but I do have a few other quick stories to tell. So I will be publishing those in another blog either later tonight, or tomorrow. So keep in touch still. Also, since I am putting so many blogs up in such a short amount of time, be sure to scroll down to make sure you haven't missed one! For the time being, peace out!

Also, in the mean time, while you are waiting for my next post, you should click here
It should be a map of my tramp that you can explore on your own! Have fun!