Christchurch - Man I got here fast!

Hello all! And welcome back to the wonderful world of Trevor's Blog! Today, I have a special treat for you all! I am on a decent computer, with a good internet connection, that is cheap, and they allow me to upload pictures! That is the perfect recipe for a good blog! Yah!

So, with that said, I'm going to back up a little, and talk about some of my travels in a little more detail. First, I'm going to go back to before I arrived in Wellington. From Rotorua, Alli and I traveled north to stay with Collin. (I'm forgetting what I've covered so far, so I'll make this part fast.) On the way we stopped at the largest kiwi in the world in a interesting town. Just look at the name of this town. How would you like to live here? (See picture on right for the best sign that we saw including the town's name.)

From Te Puke, we headed south to do the Tongario crossing. I know I've told you some of the details, but what I don't think I mentioned was the ridiculous amount of people on this hike. It was more like standing in an eight hour, fast moving line! But regardless, here are some of the few views I got of the ever famous Tongariro Crossing. On the left, Alli wondering why we are waiting. Oh yeah! There's people in the way! And on the right, me acting like a hobbit. Yes, the mountain is steeper than this though! My camera was tilted almost even with the mountain, so It looks flat. Use some imagination, and rotate the scene about 45 degrees or so. :)

And here is one of the three lakes that was on the Hike. The color was much better in person. But as far as views, yep, that is about all we got! Dang clouds!

So, from there, Alli and I booked it down to Wellington. We spent a day there taking in some Maori culture at the Te Papa Museum. A HUGE museum that is entirely free. It astounded me! We also went to the cable car and rode that. I swear it is a tram though. Do me a favor, and look up the definition of Tram vs. Cable Cars. I thought Trams were two cars connected to one cable. So when one went up, the other went down. Cable cars are supposed to have a constantly running cable under them, and they just clamp onto and off of that cable to move forward or stop, respectivly. Anyway, this "cable car" fit my definition of tram, so I was just wondering. :) (Oh, and I forgot my camera that day, so Alli has those pics. . .)

Well, the next day I caught the massive Interislander Ferry down to the South Island. Considering my Mom and Linnea are meeting me in Christchurch, I tried to book it down here. Alas, I did have to leave Alli - Thanks for travelling with me Alli! It was a blast! So, from picton, I started hitching again, and sure enough the first ride I got brought me all the way, 5 hours, and dropped me off in front of the backpacker I'm staying at! Sweet!

So, here I am in Christchurch. I have a few days to kill here, and want to buy a car while I'm here. So hopefully all that goes well!

And if you happen to see Katie, Wish her a Happy B-day! Sorry I wasn't there Katie!

Wellington - Hollywood wannabe

Well, (ington, pun completly intended) I am here in wellington. Also known as "Wellywood." This is where peter jackson lives and where all the Movie world premier's that are filmed in NZ occur. So, they ripped off Hollywood, and made it wellywood!

Anyway, getting down here, I hiked the famous Tongariro Crossing. Arguably the best day hike in NZ. However, when we hiked it, clouds were everywhere! We couldn't see 15 feet in front of us. It was much like hiking the ridge at Bridger Bowl! But on the plus side, I got to climb mt Ngrahoe (sp) which to most of us is known as Mt. Doom from LOTR (See previous post for acronym explanation) Anyway, I like Frodo, had a very difficult time making it to the top. In fact, I didn't. I was hiking that section alone, and due to the weather, I was afraid of getting lost. So unfortunately, I just got this picture of me acting like frodo. Oh well.

I am also running really low on Internet time right now. (Man, I hate prepay internet cafes. They should all be use it as long as you want, THEN pay) so with that said, I can't really post more, now. I'm heading to the South Island Tomorrow, and off to Christchurch. Hopefully there, I will be able to fill all you in a little more than I have been able to for these last few posts.

Chiao!

Rotorua - A Great City

So, I've been in Rotorua for the last few days, and have been loving it! It is a place that I could see myself living in if there wasn't a total lack of Snow here. So, in that case, I guess I'm gonna keep moving on.

The activities that are available in Rotorua are incredible though! First I'll talk about the white water rafting that Alli and I did. This raft trip was down the Kaituna river, which has 3 class 4 rapids and one class 5 rapid. A class 5 rapid is the highest class that a commercial guiding company is allowed to take clients down. And on the left, you can see us going over the class 5 rapid. They say that this waterfall is a 7 meter waterfall! The highest commercially floatable waterfall in the world in fact! And the picture on the right shows what happened to us at the bottom of the rapid. The rapid is so large that the entire raft goes under the water. We almost tipped, but we were able to save it just in time.

That day, we also got to go Mountain biking. The Mountain Bike trail is only 5 minutes from the center of town, and you get to mountain bike through the middle of a gorgeous redwood forest. For Colter, it is a lot like Fruita. One trail that goes up, and about 50 that come down. (Wish you were here Colt!) They had incredible trails too! Trails that had man made jumps that were at least 15 feet long! I was a little too chicken to do those ones though! Ce la vie!

Zorbing is also found here in Rotorua. And here, you can see us Zorbing down the hill. Yes, we are inside that giant rolling ball. There is another ball that is suspended on the inside of the large one that you can see in this picture. We are actually inside the smaller ball. They then put warm water inside it and push you down the hill. It's like a slip and slide, mixed with a shower, mixed with a washing machine. There were three of us inside the ball too, which made it all the more exciting!

Hmm, it's been so short since my last post, yet so long. . .We've done SO much in the last few days I'm having trouble remembering it all! Last night we went partying at the Lava bar with one of our raft guides. He's actually giving us a place to stay tonight too! (It's raining cats and dogs right now, so that's why I'm on the net instead of outside playing!) Colin, the guy in the picture that is next to Alli, and not me, is actually from Missoula MT. We may even meet up after my trip to Africa. He's hoping to get down south for the winter just like me!

Well, I'm running out of time yet again. Things are getting exciting here because My mom, and Linnea have decided to join me for a few weeks on my travels. So now a lot of my internet time is used planning for that meeting! Hope you all are still enjoying the post, even though my last few haven't quite been up to par! Í'm still trying though! Miss you all!

Pictures from the last Post, plus Rotorua

Well, I have made it to a decent Internet Cafe in Rotorua. This town is a fun little town with a yellowstone setting to it. Sure enough, it is right next to a volcano, and it has the smell of sulpher in the air. Fun place however. (Not as fun as yellowstone though.) We haven't done a lot here yet, but getting here was an adventure in itself. Mostly on this post though, I wanted to post pictures of Surfing, Hobbiton, and the Bridal Veil falls.

Today, we went to the Te Puia (sp?) which was a very commercialized demonstration on old Maori culture. These people lived for the past 25 generations or so using the thermal pools here for their hot water, and to cook food etc. Pretty good use of resources if you ask me. We then saw a Maori concert with the Haka dance (war dance) and women doing some of the coolest poi dancing I've seen. (Twirling Balls on the end of ropes.) This afternoon we are planning on going Zorbing, and possibly doing the freefall simulator.

Dang, I'm out of time again! I'll post more in a little while! Chiao!

Waitomo - The land of Caving

Well, I'm in Waitomo right now, however, the caving experience is for tommorrow. Now, I have bad news. I've been REALLY excited to put up this post, so I waited until I had a computer that I could put my pictures up on, however when I used the card reader on this computer, it wanted to format my card. . .NO! Not going to fall for that one! So, unfortunately, there will be no pics on this blog, and I'm so sad, because of all I've done in the last few days. But have no fear, I will post pictures eventually on those days. (And this is a prepay internet console, so I have nothing to do for the next 30 minutes but post SOMETHING, so here you are!)

Firstly, from the Coromandal region, I hitched my way down to a little no name town called Matamata. No name that's worth remembering, unless you go by it's more fictional name. (Are you ready Matt?) Yep, I went to Hobbiton! It was AWESOME. For those of you that don't know what Hobbiton is, it is one of the most important locations in LOTR. And for those that don't know what LOTR is, it stands for Lord Of The Rings. :) So, Hobbiton was phenomenol! I remembered a lot, and I think I may have been one of the only more die hard fans on the tour. There were 9 of us, and only me and one other person had read the books! What a shame! But, yeah, I got a picture of me under the party tree, infront of the lake that the dragon flies over, inside Bag End, and a picture of #3 bagshot road. (Samwise gamgee's place, which only his garden exists now. . .And I THINK it's bagshot road, but I may be mistaken on that.) The whole town of Matamata is LOTR based too. Posters of Legolas everywhere, and the backpacker I stayed at, which I don't wish upon anybody to stay there, was called hobbiton backpackers.

After that, I spent a day in Hamilton and I met up with an old friend from Bozeman. Alli Rodrique is here and we met up to travel together for the next week or two. She'll be travelling way up north to go teach after that week is up. So I really look forward to hanging out with her for a little bit! So, Alli and I went to the gardens in Hamilton, and they just make me want to post pictures so badly! They were gorgeous! They had six different gardens, each with a unique theme. Japanese, Chinese, English, Modern American, Indian, and Italian. It was like visititing six different countries in half an hour. Then they also had a huge rose garden as well. Roses of every variety that you could think of. Deep purples, Lush Reds, and the whitest whites you've seen. And yes, we stopped to smell them! :)

Then, the next day (today) came around. Alli and I got a super early start and drove to Raglan. One of the rides I hitched from told me that Raglan was a phenomenol surf spot, so I took his word for it and checked it out. He was not lying. So, I finally, after 23 and some odd years, got to go surfing. And for all of you that didn't have faith that I could get up on my feet my first day, I'm sticking it to ya! I stood succesfully on the board on the 3rd wave I caught! Given, I was on a nine foot soft board, but yeah, it wasn't hard at all. I compared it to wake boarding when the boat is going slow, so that the board is a little wobbly. However, I did try larger waves and I couldn't really catch them, or they'd tumble me. But I definately see how this could be a very addicting sport! I'm excited to try again, maybe even with a shorter board! I don't know if I'm ready for that yet though.

Then finally, Alli and I drove to Waitomo. But on the way we stopped at the most beautiful Bridal Veil Falls. The largest falls I've seen to date. 55 meters, and very pretty. Once again, I wish I could get the picture thing to work! What was interesting about this cliff that the falls were going over is they had "professional" abseiling (rappeling) chains with signs all over them saying that only qualified professionals were allowed to use them. Mainly for tours and what not. People making money on others doing something so simple as rappelling. Oh, how I wish I had my rope so that we could've just gone for it. Well, looks like I have a reason to come back with all my climbing gear now!

So yeah, I'm having a great time still. Tomorrow we go caving which in theory includes abseiling into a cave with glow worms, black water rafting, (black water rafting is floating down an underground river through the cave) and maybe even a little climbing inside the cave! I'm really excited! Looking forward to telling you all about it in more detail!

Till next time!

Whitianga - Pronounced Fiteeanga

I know, the weird New Zealanders and their pronunciation of strange words. Wh down hear is pronounced with an "F" sound. Strange.

So, I know I haven't posted in a while. This is due to the location that I have been in for the last week or so. As you saw from that last post, I didn't have the resources to make one worthwhile. So, although it is expensive to do so now, I will try to make another good one to entertain you all till next time! :) (As Eric has told me, my post is kind of like the newest daytime reality show back in Bozeman. Everyone is talking about it! I am so happy you are all enjoying it so much! It makes it much better writing them!)

So starting about a week ago, I finally got out of Auckland. I'm with Martin still, who bought a car and it is making it quite easy to get around with. We started off by driving to Thames and stayed at an interesting backpacker (Hostel) there. I say interesting, because considering checkout was at 10:30 in the morning, and we weren't out till 11:30, we got yelled at! But in the most unusual circumstance. We were actually waiting for another person to ride with us, and we were just sitting in our car where we had slept the previous night. It was like sitting in a parking lot. We weren't using the facilities at all. And sure enough, the owner came out and said stuff like "travellers don't travel anymore! You guys are getting me pissed! etc. etc." So we took the jeep and parked it in front of the driveway in the street instead though. So word for the wise. . .Don't stay at the Sunkist Lodge Backpacker in Thames! (Take that Sunkist lodge. Your reputation is tarnished forever now. Haha! The power of the Internet!)

Well, from there we went on our way to Coramandel Town. A small little podunk place that had some fun things to do. First I went swimming at this Waterfall. Then we Hiked up to Castle Rock, which I only later learned is a fabulous rock climbing area. (Stupid me! I should've had a partner with me) However at castle rock, it was socked in the clouds, hence no pics of it. I actually didn't see the rock itself it was so cloudy. We stayed one night in Coramandel town before heading even further north. We made it to a fun camping beach named Fletcher Bay. Spent the night there and booked it around to the other side of the peninsula to Stoney Bay. Stoney Bay had this fun little swing there that I had way too much fun taking pictures of! :)

Then a very fun thing was undertaken. Martin and I hiked the short yet beautiful Coramandel Coastel Walk. This walk weaved in and out of these canyons with the prettiest creeks you've seen. (Well almost) It was slightly dissapointing because there was only one really good view. The other view that we may have gotten was obscured by clouds! Dang New Zealand weather!

And then from there, it was to the Farmstay. Yes, a very fun place to hang out. We got to Milk a cow by hand, as you can see here. And then we got to drink the milk. Wow, was it ever good! It's unfortunate that the majority of milk we drink is so processed nowadays. Oh well. . . We also were able to hike to an abondoned Gold mine with a few glow worms in it. Unfortunately though, glow worms would never in a hundred years show up in any picture that I tried to take. So, you'll just have to imagine being able to see a starry sky in the middle of a cave! And then finally we hiked to the most gorgeous waterfalls I've seen thus far in New Zealand. Their beauty may just be compounded by the fact that the hike itself was so pretty. Oh yeah, and the swimming.

Yes, ladies, hold your applause! :) This is me in my boxers about to go swimming. Of course I had to do the pose!

Well, regardless, we stayed one more night at the farmstay just cause it was a blast. And from there we drove down to Whitianga! I have just arrived here and look forward to exploring a little! So with that said, I'm going to leave you all till next time. I need to go enjoy some of this New Zealand sun!

The Coromandal Region - On the farm in Corville

Right now I am sitting in front of the slowest computer I have ever used in my life. . .This is going to be a short post with not many pictures. (none in fact. . .)hehe Anyway, I am in Corville right now staying on a farm. I plan to wake up and Milk a cow by hand! We also get to pick fresh fruit here! It looks like a really fun place! Ihave e just been camping for the last few days, and I really look forward to telling you all about some of the hikes I did in the meantime. HoweverI am typing about 50 words infront of what the computer is displaying, and the internet is too expensive to deal with this right now! So sorry about the lazy boring post, but I have gotten all your emails, and thanks all! They lighten up my day! Sounds like some of you may come visit sooner than I thought! Looking forward to it! So with that said, I'm still alive, and I'll tell you all more in the next day or two! Chaio!

Auckland Still

(Sky Tower, Tallest Building in NZ)

Well, I know it hasn't been too long since my last post, but I figured just to keep you all entertained, I would post again, although not much has happened. I'm still here in Auckland, and I have been coming to an Internet Cafe almost daily because it is very ridiculously cheap here. The last few days haven't been extremely exciting. I've been staying at my freinds flat which is very nice indeed. It sure beats the Hostels. I've been meeting up with Martin and he is looking into buying a car, and if he does buy a car, we are probably going to travel a little more together. I told him I'd split petrol with him and we could cruise. But since buying a car isn't a show up and pay for it process, it has been taking quite a while. He has to figure out insurance, make sure the car he is getting is road worthy, and become an AA member. (Similar to our AAA.)

Anyway, one thing exciting has happened to me that I thought I'd inform all of you on. I finally got off my lazy bum and hit a local climbing area here in Auckland. This area is called the Mount Eden Quarry, and it is the rock that was exposed when it was dug up to build walls for the prison that is across the school yard from us. Yeah, you heard right. The layout of the area goes, from north to south, Prison, Grammer School, Climbing Wall. All within a square kilometer! Apparently for gym classes the kids are allowed to go climbing! How lucky! The routes are very difficult however. Very short compared to the climbing I'm used to doing though. Anyway, I showed up completely alone to this Rock wall hoping to find some fellow climbers willing to give me a belay. Sure enough, the first people I ran into immediatly offered to let me join them! People are very nice here! The problem with the particular people that I joined though were that they yelled out beta (advice) for the climb before you even attempted it. One guy told me how to do a climb step by step even though the climb wasn't even that difficult and I easily could've figured it out myself. It really takes the puzzle out of the climb if people do this. Oh well. It was actually very fun on some climbs to listen to their beta, and then purposefully do the climb a different way. I was laughing on the inside every time I did this succesfully. :)

So what's amazing, is how quickly, yet how slowly time goes. At the same time! I fly out of Christchurch on the 19th of February, just over a month from now. I thought I'd be down by the south Island by now, and I'm nowhere even close! I may have to skip the South Island until I return from Tanzania! There is still so much up north that I want to see! Two more tramps, Mountain Biking, Hobbiton, Mt. Doom, Zorbing, and Fly Fishing are all on my list! Jeez! For that respect time is FLYING by. But on a day to day basis, especially when I find myself alone, man it drags by. Whenever I find myself alone, I find myself thinking of home, and yeah, missing it a lot. For that reason, it's good that I've kinda found a travel buddy.

Well, till next time!

Back in Auckland - The City of Sails

Well, it's been a while since my last post, and I've done and seen a lot since then as well. I believe since last time I left you, I was just finishing up my tramp around the coast, and heading to swim with the dolphins. Well, sure enough, plans changed soon thereafter. When I told Martin (my tramping buddy) that I was going to go Swim with dolphins then go check out the Kauri Forest, he said, "why don't you check out the Kauri Forest with me first, then go swim?" I said, "Why not?"

So with that said, after I left Kaitaia, Martin and I hitched our way to a little out of the way town called Opononi. This town looks to the naked eye like it offers nothing at all, but in the end, it was a place that one could stay at for a week or two with plenty to do. We stayed at a freindly Hostel called the House of Harmony, and I got into some really interesting political debates with some British, French, and German people. In fact that is one of the most interesting things I've noticed about travelling. Just how centered the States are in the worlds politcal views. It's kind of sad in a way. I was talking to a Korean and he was pissed at George Bush because the economy in Korea is directly linked to the one in the states. So due to Bush, Korea's economy is down in the tubes right now too. (By the way, everyone wonders why we made such a big deal out of the Clinton Scandal.)

Anyway, back to the point. Opononi. I got to spend new years in this quaint little town. There is one bar, and so we all went down to it to party a little. Apparently this bar normally only sees 4-5 people a night, however it was packed on New Years day. There were a lot of local Mauri people there, and a really funny guy with bare feet, pleather pants, sunglasses, that was just pacing back and forth all night long! (I think he was dancing, but I can't be sure. ;) ) So, after the countdown, Richard and I, (Richard is the fun bloke from Britain) went back to the hostel to bring in the new year with a game of Chess. After downing a few beers, the game of chess turned into another political discussion! Imagine that!

We then checked out the Kauri Forest. The Kauri trees are trees that rival the Redwoods, however I think redwoods win. Kauri trees are HUGE though. You see that wall behind me in this picture? Yeah, that's not a wall at all. It's a tree. So the Kauri's are cool and all, but sure enough, they are just big trees. Not a lot to talk about. . .

The next day, I decided to head on my way to karikari to find an adventure with the dolphins. On my way to Karikari, Richard brought me to the puzzle man in Opononi. This guy lives about 5km off the main road, and he makes and sells puzzles for a living. What's great, is when you walk into his hut, he hands you a puzzle first thing and says "figure it out!" I ended up spending a good 45 minutes there just doing puzzles! I think he got frustrated with me though because I'd solve all his puzzles very quickly! There was one called the "ten dollar hooker" where the effect is a rubber band pulling a wooden stick into a hole. So when he does it, it looks like this stick snaps back into the hole, but then you try and there is no rubber band at all! I only had to play with it for 15 seconds to figure it out, where as Richard never figured it out. (He worked on it for about 15 minutes!) I can't wait to show you all the effect in person!

So, after the puzzleman, came Kerikeri. I stayed at an extremely fun YHA hostel there that had a pool table and a bunch of Koreans that have come to New Zealand to study english. I impressed them with my pool abilities, and trick shots, juggled a little and called it a night. I would've liked to stay there longer too, however, if I was going to swim with dolphins, I needed to get to Paihia.

Considering Paihia was only about 30km from Karikari, I had some time to spare in Karikari the next day. So I decided to hike to Rainbow falls. These were gorgeous waterfalls more or less in the middle of the town. On the way, you pass by the oldest stone building in NZ too. I thought about checking it out a little closer, however I couldn't justify the admission for a little NZ history that I wasn't too interested in. So I just walked on the outside of the building and oohed and awed from there. After another hour of hiking, I finally got to the falls. These falls were about 40 meters tall, and had a cave behind them that was fun to go play in. (And yes, Eric, I played in them, just for you!)

Then it was off to Paihia. I got a nice little campsite for a really good price at a place called Haruru Falls. Most people walk to these falls, but I camped right at them! (You can see the falls through my tent, I think) They even light up these falls at night. By no means are they as impressive as the falls we see in Montana, but they were fun to camp outside of regardless.

And now, the moment you've all been waiting for, my dolphin Swimming experience! Sure enough, I didn't get to actually swim with them! I know, a huge dissapointment. However, I did take a cruise around the bay of Islands, and we got to see a lot of dolphins. And they were cool! They are such playful creatures! We weren't allowed to swim with them though because there were baby dolphins in the pod, and that makes it against the rules. Apparently it's hard on the baby's to exert any extra energy other than basic food gathering energy. Oh well. The Cruise then continued on to the apparently famous "hole in the rock" which is exactly that. A big hole in a big rock. So big infact that we drove our massivly huge tour boat right through it. Impressive, indeed.

Well, after spending one more night at Haruru Falls, I hitched back to Auckland today. One guy that I got a ride from offered to take me out for the weekend to do some boating and saltwater fishing, so hopefully that will happen. I'll keep in touch! If it doesn't happen then I think I'm off to Rotoruo (sp?) for some mountain biking, thermal soaks, and Zorbing! (If you don't know what zorbing is, you should google it! It is a very amusing New Zealander thing. . .)