A Month of Travels

So this last post I have decided is more for me to remember some of my adventures and travels than to go into great detail about my day to day activities.  My last post ended with my mom leaving and me returning to Wellington.  It was at this time that I decided to make a definite effort to pursue my CPA designation and meant that I would be spending much more time in the library.  I had pretty much given up on seeking a job at this point with the knowledge that I had another two trips planned in the coming weeks.  This all changed in mid October when my friend Sarah Knoedler called me from Auckland and informed me that she had finally arrived in New Zealand and was thinking about doing a backpacker bus experience.  I had been interested in doing a trip like this since I arrived in New Zealand and told her that I would be interested in joining her.  So following that conversation on Tuesday October 14 I booked a flight to fly up to Auckland on October 16 and jump on a six day backpacker bus excursion Friday all over the North Island from Auckland back down to Wellington.  

The company we were with was called Stray Bus and it was one of the best times I have had during my time in New Zealand.  After spending a night at Base Backpackers in downtown Auckland sharing a room with seven others, Sarah and I got up early and jumped on a bus with our backpacks and about 30 strangers from all over Europe.  Most of the people were from either the U.K. or Germany but there were also folks from Ireland, Denmark, France, the Netherlands, Finland, and Sarah and I were the token Americans.  This was quite surprising to me actually considering that the US has a greater population than all of these nations combined.  I knew that Americans generally don't travel as much as Europeans and have a lower percentage of passport holders but I did not expect to be the only Americans.  Anyways it was great mixing with all the different people and cultures as we made our way on the bus to our first stop in a place called Hahei.  This is a little beach community considered to be the general area where the Maori people first landed in New Zealand nearly 1,200 years ago.  Sarah and I signed up to do a Kayak trip and immediately hoped in the Kayaks and paddled around the beautiful coastline over to a beach cove where we had hot drinks then paddled back.  Then we went to join the rest of the group at a "Hot Water Beach" where there is a naturally occurring hot spring under the beach and you can dig a hole and have essentially a hot tub in the sand on the beach.  It is a pretty phenomenal natural wonder and was quite entertaining jumping in and out of different pools from freezing to boiling trying to find the right one.  That evening we had a communal meal in the backpackers kitchen and after making friends with a group of Germans I went to bed.  

Saturday we drove to a town called Raglan with some stops at waterfalls and sights along the way.  Raglan is basically a small surfing community on the west coast and one of places they filmed the first Endless Summer surfing cult classic movie in the 1970's.  It is really a pretty cool place and our accommodations were cool bunk houses without locks on the doors so we just had to kind of trust each other.  I went hiking with a German kid I met and we ended up on the most horrible trail ever.  We ended up almost getting stranded up in the woods overnight and turned what was supposed to be a one hour trip into a three hour muddy getting lost excursion.  Luckily we made it back about five minutes before it was pitch black and was able to cook up a nice dinner and then get a bit tipsy with some new friends I met from Maine and Ohio in the states.  

The next day was great and we went down to the Waitomo Caves which was definitely my favorite experience in New Zealand.  Sarah and I signed up for a four hour caving expedition that included donning full Wet Suits, Helmets, and harness gear to explore through a magnificent cave complex.  After some basic training we hiked down to the entrance only to find our entry into the cave involved abseiling down a 33 meter or nearly 100 foot shaft into complete darkness.  Once we all made it down the rest of the tour involved crawling, abseiling, climbing, and nearly swimming at points through narrow shafts and down rushing waterfalls while getting soaked and all in nearly complete darkness except for our helmet mounted lights.  It was the most fun I have had in a long time and I would love to do it again.  That evening we stayed in Maori meeting house after watching a cultural performance and packed about 45 people onto the floor in the same room after throwing out mattresses and blankets.  That made for a somewhat interesting evening having to crawl over people to go anywhere and listening to snoring but fortunately I was on a couch in the corner and slept quite well.

Monday the bus drove through Rotorua and stopped for a few hours.  This allowed me to do river "sledging" which is basically a crazy New Zealand idea of going through white water rapids on a boogie board instead of in a raft.  They set me up with a full wet suit, helmet, and flippers and me and two other kids and a guide set off to the river while the other 30 or so people decided on a slightly more sane choice and stuck with the rafts.  I quickly found that this luging idea was a slight more dangerous and physically exhausting experience as I was told we would have to hold our breath for a few seconds in the rapids as it sucked us under and shot us out farther downriver.  I listened closely and fortunately about an hour later and with my muscles turned to jelly I survived the experience.

Tuesday and Wednesday were a bit slower and involved Sarah, myself, and a few others doing a short walk in National Park which also happens to be the location of "Mt. Doom" from the Lord of the Rings movies.  We then stayed in a beautiful new backpackers hostel with a beautiful wooden living lounge area and a large fireplace in the center where everyone crowded around to chat and have a few beers before heading in for the evening.  Finally Wednesday was spent mostly on the bus on our way down to Wellington.  

At this point I had two days in Wellington with Sarah staying with us on the couch before Ashley, Danielle, and I headed down to Christchurch for a four day trip in the Canterbury area.  The first day we caught the Tranz Alpine train to Arthur's Pass where we disembarked and hiked around for nearly four hours before catching the train back to Christchurch.  The weather was beautiful my mid afternoon and allowed us to see incredible waterfalls and wildlife including the Kea bird.  The Kea is an alpine parrot and it considered one of the smartest animals in the world.  They are very mischievous and are well known for breaking into cars looking for food.  

Sunday and Monday in Christchurch we all did tours of the city and rode up the Gondola one day then hiked down into Lyttleton Harbor on perhaps the most beautiful day I have had in New Zealand.  We also managed to visit the beautiful botanical gardens, Canterbury museum, and the Antarctic Center before flying back to Wellington on Tuesday.  I have decided that Christchurch is my favorite city in New Zealand that is large enough to support cultural events as well as being only two hours to beautiful mountains and right on the ocean.

Now one would think all this traveling would be enough but after four days back in Wellington I was off again when my Dad and Julie arrived for another eight day trip around the South Island.  Our route took us from Christchurch over to Greymouth via the Tranz Alpine train again and then down to Wanaka.  The landscapes on the South Island are really quite spectacular and in one day we went from coastal plains, to Alpine Mountains, to coastal rain forest, including stops at glaciers, cascading waterfalls, and gorgeous blue mountain lakes.  In Wanaka I got in touch with Sarah Knoedler again and she talked me into the terrible idea of doing bungee jumping from the worlds third highest bungee operation.  I was basically nervous about it for the next 24 hours leading up to the jump and after a 45 minute drive to the jump site out of Queenstown I realized my fears were well placed.  A crazy New Zealander named AJ Hackett had decided to string cables across a giant gorge and put a Gondola in the middle from which people could jump.  To give you an idea, this Gondola hung about 600 feet above the canyon floor allowing the jumper to fall a terrifying 440 ft before the cord flung you up again.  To get to the Gondola our group of 13 had to be ferried out in groups of four or so on a little cable car that rode on a guide wire from the hillside to the middle of the gorge.  Everyone was quite nervous, and especially me because I happened to be the lightweight in the group which meant I went last.  After watching everyone else jump, and as they were back inside on solid ground drinking hot chocolate it was finally my turn.  I sat down in what looked like a scary dental chair and was hooked up before waddling out onto the little platform ledge.  Fortunately one of my favorite songs, Black Dog by Led Zeppelin was blasting through the speakers and abated some of my fears so after the countdown 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, with one giant leap I just went for it.  I yelled the entire way down and had to stop to take a breath while falling because it was eight seconds of free fall from that height.  After feeling my eyes being pulled a bit from their sockets and having all the blood rush to my head causing me to see stars they finally pulled me back up into the relative safety of the Gondola.  The strange part to me was that unlike skydiving I was still nervous through the entire experience even after the jump when returning to solid ground.  It was literally one of the scariest things I have done in my life and it will be a while before I even consider doing it again.

That evening we stayed at the beautiful Pounamu Apartments that I chose for our two nights in Queenstown and they were incredible.  My Dad, Julie, Sarah, and I after having a pizza dinner had some drinks and watched the elections results from back home while having a few beers by the fire.  It was quite neat being in New Zealand for the elections and getting a glimpse of peoples perspectives from abroad.  By the way, the near universal preference for people abroad was for Obama to win so people were quite delighted here and apparently everywhere in the world when he was the confirmed winner.  

On Thursday November 6 the four of us met up early at 8:30 a.m. for a morning of adventure.  The first thing we did was catch a ride on the Shotover Jet.  This is also an original New Zealand activity and involves riding a jet boat through a canyon only inches from rock boulders, canyon walls, fallen debris, and the like at speeds of over 30 mph while only at times in about three inches of water.  It was quite a rush and quite a frigid experience at that time of day but was completely exhilarating.  Then we all caught a quick but beautiful 10 minute or so helicopter ride to the top of the Gondola overlooking Queenstown and partook in five rides on their luging sleds down a windy track.  They are basically like little sleds on wheels and are a complete blast to drive/ride.  The evening was a bit more mellow and Dad and I caught a ride on the T.S. Earnslaw steamer boat across the lake before crashing at the apartment.  

Friday morning we got up early and caught a bus with Real Journey to Milford Sound for an overnight cruise.  After about a six hour journey through some of the most beautiful scenery in the World we arrived at Milford and jumped on our boat called "The Wanderer" for our evening on the water.  Milford Sound is truly a spectacular and unique place perhaps only similar to some of the fjords in Alaska and Norway.  Unfortunately our boat was filled with another backpacker bus full of kids so about 50 of the 60 people that evening were between the ages of 18 and 22.  The evening was still fine though and after having dinner with two gentleman from Taiwan I headed to bead early and fortunately had a great nights sleep tucked away in a little berth in the bow of the vessel away from all the noise and partying that evening.  We rode the bus back to Queenstown the next day and continued on in our car to a place called Lake Tekapo.  That evening I signed us up for a stargazing tour at an astronomical observatory where much research is conducted by students and scientists from New Zealand and Japan.  It is normally one of the clearest skies in the world but unfortunately there were some high clouds the night of our tour that obscured some of the more interesting sights in the sky.  I thoroughly enjoyed the evening though and was still able to see Venus, Jupiter with some moons, and a star cluster.  Astronomy is one of the most humbling experiences someone can have and really puts into perspective how fragile and miniscule we are in the Universe.  

Our last full day on the South Island we drove to a town called Hanmer springs which is famous for its natural hot pools and skiing in the winter.  Dad, Julie, and I stayed at a little B&B in town and upon arrival immediately went to the hot pools for about two hours to have a relaxing soak in the mineral waters.  It was just what we all needed after a week of busy traveling.  That evening we had dinner at a local restaurant and then went back to the B&B where we played pool and Dad and Julie got a little tipsy before having a good nights sleep.  

Monday came around and we made our way back to Christchurch where we explored the beautiful beach before heading back across town to the Antarctic Center once again.  Afterwards we returned our rental car and finally made it back to Wellington that evening.

Tuesday my Dad and Julie left and pretty much marked the end of my long adventures in New Zealand and the beginning of my intense studying routine for the Auditing portion of the CPA exam which I plan to take in January.  Thats all for now.

Sept. 10 to Oct. 6

This past month has been quite a bit better weather and travel wise although the job search has still been frustrating.  This past month has seen the arrival of spring and slightly better weather, although by better I mean raining only half the month instead of three quarters of the month.  Two weeks ago Ashley, Danielle, and I rented a car and drove up to the Hawkes bay region.  This region is about four hours drive north of Wellington and includes the large town of Napier and Hastings.  It is popular for its warmer beach climate and an especially good area for wine production, particularly Pinot Noir.  The drive was particularly nice and I now understand why counting sheep before bed is considered a sleep aid because that job would be utterly exhausting here.  New Zealand has about 40 million sheep or about 10 per person and I think I saw about 1 million of them during our drive north.  The baby lambs are extremely cute and really are like small puppies except that they run away when approached.  The weekend was especially nice and we managed to do some tours including a honey bee operation, wineries, cideries, a small wool processing operation, opossum world, an aquarium, and just walking around town.  The best part of the weekend was Danielles idea to do a full day bike tour of the area which took about six hours and included stops at three wineries and a chocolate operation.  The weather was perfect and the fairly significant quantities of free wine kept us going throughout the day.  That evening we ended up playing scrabble with the girl working at the hostel and her guy friend before going to bed in our very inexpensive yet surprisingly nice bunk bed shared room.  The next day we made our way casually back to Wellington and "big city" life.

After the trip I got back to contacting and interviewing with more recruiting agencies and accepted a job offer only to find out three days later that they changed their mind.  Without going into too much detail, returning to Raleigh in December in combination with time I am unavailable due to pre-planned trips with my family has made it quite difficult to find regular employment related to my educational background and so the search continues.  However, this dilemma has given me more time to keep up with political developments and watch the financial crisis unfold from a New Zealand perspective.  Perhaps the most interesting story of these two weeks was my first and hopefully last experience of getting hit on by a middle aged gay drag queen.  Following a show at a local improv comedy club a random guy joined our table and introduced himself as the resident drag queen of the bar who goes by the alias "The Duchess!"  That was perhaps the strangest introduction I had ever heard and my initial humor quickly turned to awkward conversation as somehow within five minutes everyone else was having their own conversation and I was stuck listening to "The Duchess" ramble on about some random drag queen history or something.  At some point a bad joke and corresponding hand touch and rub of my shoulder invoked an urgency to either leave or inflict injury upon the man Queen and fortunately my roommates decided to leave with me.  After a beer at a Karaoke bar and some late night Kebabs we finally called it a night.

The next day I was greeted by the presence of my Mom, who arrived early in the morning for a nine day visit and mother-son trip to the south island.  It was actually a great trip despite the long drives and we managed to check out Christchurch, Dunedin, Queenstown, and those citie surrounding regions.  The strange and somewhat gruesome highlight of that trip for me was the unfortunate early slaughter of a cow that found itself in the path of our train on the way to Christchurch.  Our conductor quickly informed us what had happened as a collective EEEwww and AAAwww sound emanated through the carriages.  That was followed by some stick poking out of the window and a tasty looking rack of ribs visible from the front of the carriage.  Eventually everything was cleared and we continued on our way through some of the most beautiful countryside I had ever seen.  The train follows the east coast down to Christchurch and winds between caribbean blue ocean on one side and soaring snow covered alpine peaks on the other making for a gorgeous and mentally conflicting combination of climates.  Also, being the start of spring here all the flowers and trees are blooming make for exceptionally pretty gardens which it seems all cities are obliged to offer.  Mom and I managed to do a brewery and Cadbury chocolate tour in Dunedin followed by a Wine and Cheese tour in Queenstown and a beautiful view of that city via the Gondala.  I can truly see why Queenstown is considered the adventure sports capital of the world after being there.  They literally offer every extreme sport activity you can imagine.  Just to give you an idea they have skydiving, bungy jumping, paragliding, jetboating, ski/snowboarding, luging, aerobatic flying, white water rafting, horseback riding, and dozens of further activities that will pump more adrenaline through your body than you knew you had.  Unfortunately I couldn't talk my mom into participating in any of the more extreme activities but hopefully I will get my chance when Dad arrives in early November.  Finally, the drive back to Christchurch was lovely and allowed us to see spectacular Mt. Cook which is the tallest mountain in New Zealand at 12,300 ft and the beautiful blue lake at its base.  It was a wonderful trip and a taste of what New Zealand really has to offer.  I hope everyone is doing well back home and I have included a few pictures of the past month for your enjoyment.

 

Life in Wellington

So there is not too much to report on but I figured I would give a short update about what I have been doing.  The job search is a bit more difficult and frustrating than I initially expected and I am still looking for something decent.  Not surprisingly, people are hesitant to hire me since I am only planning on being in New Zealand until mid December, have a partially limited visa, am only qualified to entry level work, and already have certain weeks planned for travel.  I am close to the point of just giving in and doing some data entry or cafe work if I don't find something better soon.

In other news, we have been getting out a bit more and planning some future excursions to get a feel for what Wellington has to offer.  Last weekend the girls and I went on a wine tasting tour up into the Martinborough area north of Wellington.  The area is famous for making high quality red wines, mainly pinot noir and they are quite delicious.  I still don't know really know anything about wine flavors other than red vs white but it was still a nice time.  We met a couple in their early 30's while on the tour and decided to have dinner and a few pints with them that evening which was nice.  The are originally from Nottingham in the U.K. and were down here to escape from their parents or something.  Unfortunately after awhile we realized that they were quite boring and conversation was about as interesting as me talking to a tree so I'm not sure if we will try to meet up with them again or not.  

So there have been a few interesting new observations this past week that surprised me a bit.  The first one is that Fridays here at work are not only casual, wear jeans to work, days but also are start drinking in the office around 3:30p.m. type days.  Apparently many offices allow/encourage employees to help themselves to some beer or wine while in the office on Friday to loosen up for the evening.  I'm sure this leads to many stories and reputations being made about people at work but its kind of cool at the same time I suppose.  We ran into this partially buzzed after work crowd on Friday at a bar down the street and it pretty much looks like tradition for co-workers to get a bit tipsy after a weeks work.  Another interesting coincidence was that when we entered the bar, a waitress immediately asked us if we were with the Obama 08' group.  HHmmm the Obama 08' group I thought?  Damn I look to much like an American.  Anyways, we went upstairs and sure enough there was a group of about 15 people, who were mostly americans, in a corner drinking some beer with Obama 08' shirts and buttons on.  By the way, in my opinion wearing political logos out to a bar is just kind of dorky.  Anyways I went up and talked to them for a minute and asked about what their goal was and they didn't really seem to have one.  I think it was just more of a "You like Obama? ... Oh me too!!! ... Lets hang out" type of thing.  Anyways they asked me what state I was from and then got all excited when I said I was undecided from North Carolina because it is a swing state this year.  The started bugging me with political jargon then I had to tell them to just stop and ended up going downstairs to grab a pitcher with the girls.  I was tempted to start a McCain chant or something just to push some buttons but fortunately decided that was not a good idea.

  

Today (Sept. 13), was the first day in about five where it did not rain thankfully and we took advantage by going to see a movie at a film festival.  The movie was a documentary called "How Cuba Survived Peak Oil" and was a fascinating look at how Cuba adapted to the huge economic shock it experienced after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1990 and stopped sending supplies to Cuba.  Apparently Cuban GDP dropped by about 38% and their oil supplies dropped by nearly 75%.  The idea was that the rest of the rest of the world could learn about how Cuba adapted to the massive drop in supply and their lessons could help other countries adjust when the world reaches the predicted "Peak Oil Crisis" in the near term future.  It also reminded me how I wanted to visit Cuba sometime soon so if anyone reading this is interested in going down there with me at some point then let me know.

Well thats about it for now.  Hopefully these posts will get a bit more interesting once I either find a job, start traveling more, or both.  I have a random craving for some ice cream so I think I will run out to the store and grab a tub of it.  They have this ice cream called "Hokey Pokey" and it is creamy vanilla style with little chunks of honeycomb mixed in and it is incredible.  The fact that it is only about $4.50 NZD for a large tub does not help limit my intake either.  Then its off to a bar to watch the big rugby match where New Zealand is playing Australia for the Tri-Nation Cup or something like that.  Hopefully I will post another update in the next two to three weeks so stay tuned.  Until then,  Cheers!!!

First New Zealand Blog Post

So here I go again.  After plenty of requests and encouragement from friends and family who desire to keep up with my happenings and whereabouts I have succumbed and decided to keep another blog for my New Zealand adventure.  Although not as exciting and diverse as the Semester at Sea experience this New Zealand trip has a different purpose.  Many people have asked why I have decided to do this, what I plan on doing, and the main motivating factor behind this decision to move, and it was quite simply because I couldn't answer the question, why not?  I realized that there may be truly few times in my life where the feasibility of making such a change would be realistically possible and it happens that one of these times is now.  It was simply the idea of living life to the fullest and knowing deep inside that if I didn't take this opportunity I would regret it for the rest of my life.  Not to mention this country is beautiful.

So now that you know why I am here I suppose I can give an update on the past months events.  I arrived July 24 2008 and finally a month later have a place to live in Wellington with phone, internet, furniture, my own room, and all the other necessities for a comfortable existence. Before arriving here in Wellington I was in a basement for a few nights at one place, on a couch for two nights in another, at hostels, and finally on the floor for 10 days at Ashleys cousins house while we looked for a place to live.  I also arrived just in time for the worst storm systems to cross the country in 10 years where it rained for four days straight with high winds then continued to rain every day for the next three weeks.  Actually since I have arrived there have probably only been about seven days where it did not rain at all.  Granted a large part of that is due to the climate for this time of year since it is in the middle of winter.  The weather has been less than ideal and somewhat depressing especially during the housing search but things are finally coming together.  

We have managed however to squeeze in a few activities along the way including a sail on an old Americas Cup yacht in Auckland harbor, a Maori cultural performance, a ballet (hmm), a wildlife sanctuary, an asian cultural festival sponsored by ASEAN, and a comedy show in town.  Other than that things have been rather uneventful and revolve mainly around getting settled in with setting up utilities and buying extra necessities like a space heater.  Since electricity is expensive people often keep it cold indoors so I have tried to recreate the natural North Carolina environment in my room by keeping it nice and warm.  My room is probably one of the warmest places in Wellington and I love that way.  

Other than that I am finally starting to make progress on the job front.  I finished my CV and have begun contacting temping agencies and listings online to find something appropriate and flexible.  Thats about it for now and I will try to start updating the blog once or twice a month to keep things up to date.  I have posted a few pictures below and please feel free to call me on my skype number at 919-809-6949 if you need to reach me or just send me a message.  Cheers.