the last part of our road trip...

Well its bee quite a while since we last wrote, and we’ve been really busy since then. After the Glaciers we made our way down to Queenstown (the adrenaline capital of NZ), but we decided to take it easy there and mainly due to the expense of everything we didn’t do much. We took the gondola, which had fantastic views, and rode the luge, which was a lot of fun. After a few chilly nights camping in Queenstown (its autumn here now), we moved on to the Fiordlands. This is an area that was carved out by glaciers and now is filled up with a combination of seawater and fresh water. The mountains and scenery here were crazy. We decided to take a boat cruise out of Milford Sound and went right out into the Tasman Sea. There we some crazy features of the fiords, including the leftovers from tree avalanches and huge waterfalls. The combination of seawater and freshwater means that the area is very special as the marine life there are tricked into thinking it is much deeper than it actually is. The journey to Milford Sound was pretty amazing and scary too. We had to go through a tunnel that was carved THROUGH a mountain. This tunnel is notorious because you often have to wait for 5 or 10 minutes either end and there are Kea parrots in the area that like to come down and peck away at any rubber that they can find on your car. Luckily we got straight through so we avoided them!!

We then made our way down to Invercargill. There’s not really much to say about this town other than it’s probably the biggest dive in the country. It did give us the chance to stock up with food before our next leg. We took the Southern Scenic Route across the very bottom of the south island. This was a twisty ride on mainly dirt roads, but the scenery again was amazing. There were a few cool stop offs on the way including the very most southern point of the south island, and one our favourite spots during the whole trip, Curio Bay. We stayed at a beautiful hostel here, but it was more like a cottage than anything. We had a log fire and were right on the beach. After that we stopped off in a few more spots where we saw little yellow-eyed penguins and sea lions relaxing on the beach. The penguins come onto the beach about the same time everyday. We were only allowed to watch the penguins from a distance, but as we were driving away one of them happened to have climbed up a huge hill and was wondering across the road right in front of us. It waddled on and so did we to Dunedin now.

Dunedin is the original name of Edinburgh and unsurprisingly was set up by Scottish settlers. It is now mainly known for being a university town, so we both really enjoyed it! We also got a great deal on a hostel there with free Internet, which made it better too! We visited the Cadbury’s factory and Speight’s Brewery, and stuffed ourselves with free chocolate and beer. That was a good day! We explored the city and had a night out and saw Pendulum Live, which minus an evacuation of the building at one point coz it was too hot, was really good. We then made our way up the coast and went to Oamaru, where we stayed overnight and saw more penguins, and then we moved on towards Mt Cook. On the way we visited the Elephant Rocks, which were used as scenery for the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe film recently. These were really surreal as they were just giant rocks in the middle this field. We carried on back inland past Mt Cook to the blue lakes of Tekapo and Pukaki. We then came back out to the east coast and up towards Christchurch, but not before stopping in the town Geraldine. Geraldine (no relation to our car) has two main attractions all under one roof. The biggest jersey in the world is the Guinness world record holder and is proudly presented and made by a local woman. Then you make your way back to the back of her shop and her husband presents you with his claim to fame. He has made a replica of the Bayeax Tapestry (illustrating the battle of Hastings) out of literally millions of tiny metal pieces from knitting machines. He has spent about 20 years making this thing and it covered all the walls of the room and was so passionate about it, he was awesome!! He also created puzzles in his spare time!

We then got to Christchurch and spent a couple of nights there, and explored the city. Christchurch was meant to be the model English town of NZ and was considered the religious center of the country, until it took its own path. We then visited an area outside of Christchurch, called Akaroa. After a long terrifying drive on the skinniest windiest road over mountains, we arrived at our sweet hostel. They were famous for their homemade dinners, so we splurged and had a great meal of fresh fish, which we had family-style with everyone in the hostel. Definitely another of our favorite hostels in NZ! (we were also really glad we were in a hostel, and not camping, b/c there was a huge hail storm that night!)

After this we moved up to Kaikoura where we spent a freezing night in our car (and our final one). Kaikoura has one main attraction - Whales!!! The next day we really lucked out with amazing weather and went whale watching. The boat was a little rough and we heard from someone before that they were sick 8 times on the trip but we were actually fine. The day was a success as we saw 2 whales, and one of them twice. We also saw what must have been a super pod of dolphins as there were at least 50 of them prancing around the boat, jumping and doing acrobatics, including back flips!! It was pretty magic!

After Kaikoura we had only one more stop to make, Blenheim, and this is wine country. Blenheim has pretty good weather, as you’d guess and we had a great day. We hired out bikes and went on a wine tour, doing quite the number of tastings. It was a great end to our travels, and we made the treacherous journey back on our bikes, slightly drunk! Fortunately we made it and the next day we were back on that ferry, on our way back to Wellington.

And that’s where we are now and will be staying for the remainder of our time here. So we frantically are trying to organize an apartment and jobs at the moment. We’ll let you know how that works out!! Wish us luck!!!!

Bye for now!!!!!

Ice Ice Baby

We’ve moved down the west coast quite a bit since we last wrote! The highlight of the past week was visiting the Glaciers – they are really amazing and unique, with rainforests growing right next to them, and they also are quite active – they move 1-2 meters a day! There are two major glaciers, Fox and Franz Josef. We decided to do Fox because it is less crowded and the tour busses, which we avoid like the plague, tend to go to ol’ Franz. The towns themselves are incredibly small and everything is shockingly overpriced (a red onion set us back a few dollars!), but the glaciers make it worth it. We did an all day hike which was awesome – we had a great guide who was really into exploring the glacier, and we got to see some really wicked ice terrain, including blue ice! We went through a couple ice tunnels and through some crevasses and learned to use our crampons pretty quickly! (our feet were tired at the end of the day from stomping down on the crampons so you don’t slip) We’ll put some pictures up so you can see it all, its hard to describe, but if you ever come over to NZ, definitely do a glacier walk!

We decided to drive down the coast a little bit after that, and forego staying at a crappy holiday park in Fox Glacier. We were in the middle of no where so our sleeping options were limited and we ended up camping near this lake, which was pretty but unfortunately absolutely over run with sand flies (which are like mosquitoes, only tinier so they are harder to swat, and give you horrible itchy bites – basically the devil with wings). So, after we squished the ones in the car one by one with our thumbs, we were trapped in our car by 8:30 b/c trying to stay outside with them would make you go insane. Needless to say, it was an early night!

Now we are in a town called Wanaka, which is somewhat close to Queenstown. We are staying at this great hostel (probably our favorite one so far) that overlooks the lake and mountains and have had a good “day off” in preparation for Queenstown, which is known as the Adrenaline Capital of NZ. We’ll let you know what we get up to there - as long as we live to tell the tale…

p.s. – we have a new member of the family that has joined our dashboard: may we introduce Count Sparkle-Tongue. Don’t let his dashing smile charm you – he is an evil lord that steals other people’s feet and eats them to seek revenge for the loss of his own foot… Thanks to Takaka’s charity shop for our new adoptee!

down souf'

So, we have made it down to the South Island now! Since we last wrote, we had the briefest stint at Wwoofing known to man – one day. We decided that the lack of an accessible toilet after 9pm and the fact that we weren’t guaranteed a shower after work, plus the fact that we weren’t really being fed in the true meaning of what wwoofing is supposed to be about. Given that these were all the things we were supposed to be getting in exchange for working, we decided to leave. Given this we cut our time in Wellington short so we could keep on moving and see what all the hype about the S. Island was about. But, before we left, we fit a good drum & bass night in – it was nice to have a good night out in a city! We really liked Wellington a lot – there’s a lot going on there, especially compared to the rest of the cities in NZ, so we may head back there when we settle down and get jobs eventually…

We ferried our Gerald (car) across quite early in the morning, along with some confused cows that kept sticking there heads out over there containers and checking out the ocean… it all must have been very traumatic!! So we arrived in the south at Picton and promptly made our way over the twisty roads to Nelson, passing by many apple orchards that brought back some painful memories! After a blustery few days in Wellington, summer seem to back amongst us in Nelson… We explored the town and enjoyed our luxurious hostel that included a swimming pool, spa pool, sauna and volleyball court. Anywho, we soon got back on the road and headed for our next Wwoofing spot… in Motueka Valley. We stayed here for 5 days with a slightly intense German family of 5. Their children, ages 16, 12 and 10 were a little crazy, bar one of them (the youngest), which literally fell in love with us (as we’re sure she does with all their wwoofers). While we were there we completed such tasks as grubbing, apple picking, hazelnut picking and …. wait for it…. window cleaning!!! Wahoooo! Sarah however got to skive off from work for a couple of mornings as fortunately the mother of the family (who was also very nice) ran her own little clothing company, and she just loved having Sarah go into her workshop with her and help out! Apparently one of the garments Sarah actually worked on has now been sold at market – way to go!!! So after a few crazy days, lots of family and especially sibling arguing, and a little too many games of Monopoly… we decided to leave (yet again!).

We headed up the coast towards Golden Bay, and the very north western point of the south island. Here we had the chance to do a quite spectacular horse trek that took us onto Wharariki beach (one of the most beautiful beaches). The 3 hr trek caused many a hurt bum, but it was worth it as we got to canter across the beach, even Gary had a go, despite his disobedient (or just plain lazy) horse, Flick. The views were stunning and the rock formations on the beach were so interesting and unique! So after this we went back the way we came and headed towards Abel Tasman National Park. The next day we headed out on a 3 day kayaking trip that involved weaving in and out of the many many bays of beautiful white sand and amazingly calm, clear waters (especially considering it was the ocean!) We camped out for two nights and constantly fought off the pesky sand flies for 3 days straight. We enjoyed amazing weather pretty much the whole time we were there (sorry Carly) and we finally camped out properly in our tent and got to use our camp stove!!! Wooooo!! Highlights on the water included the baby seals and the two seal colonies we paddled up to. The seals were so playful they were swimming all around us and even bumped into our kayak at one point. They had the biggest, cutest eyes in the world… a look only ruined when they got grumpy and started squealing bloody murder, like a dinosaur, to be fed!! So after spotting some huge fish in the marine reserve area, and a stingray that frightened the hell out of us while swimming close to shore, we safely made it back without tipping over the kayak once!

So since then we returned to Nelson for the Farmer’s market (which Sarah loved) and ate Penguino’s gelato (the best). After stopping over on the way, and enjoying a pre-Easter Roast Dinner (ummmm!!), on Easter Sunday we visited the Pancake Rocks and spent the rest of the day relaxing in drab Greymouth! We’re about to move onto the Glaciers, which should be lots of fun… so we’ll try and update this after then!

Booyakasha for now (and happy easter!)

at the bottom of the north

hey everyone!
so we're in wellington right now and we are very much enjoying the city life after many ventures through the tiny towns of new zealand. since we last wrote on here we have been very busy as always.. man the unemployed life is hard! so adding to what sarah wrote about the beginnings of our travels (she missed the best bit!) we have so far been from auckland, to tauranga, to opotiki, to rotorua and then to taupo. we enjoyed the wondrous experience of zorbing in rotorua, which for those of you that aren't familiar, it involves two of you getting in a huge blow up ball at the top of a big hill, they throw in some water, and you roll down! although it sound kind of mental, its so much fun, and we recommend anyone to try it.



so after that we had a great time in taupo... we treated ourselves to some nights in a hostel, and went kayaking to some maori carvings on the lake. we also did the tongariro crossing, a 16km hike that goes through a number of active volcanoes including mt doom from the lord of the rings. the hike was quite hard work at the start, which included a steep trek up what is known as the devil's staircase. the winds were absolutely crazy high up and the conditions were verging on gale force, but we held on and the decent was pretty easy going... (we're experienced hikers now). unfortunately a lot of the views during the day were ruined by the bad visibility levels which was kind of a bummer, but we still completed the walk though!

so after almost doing a sky dive but it being canceled due to bad weather, we moved on to napier and hasting. although our journey was no less than traumatic. we had half a tank of gas when we left and hoped to pick up some on the way, but there were no warnings that there wouldn't be one for the 2 1/2 hr stretch to napier. being slightly worried about our situation, and finding we were on empty very quickly, we proceeded to coast most of our way down there, and fortunately made it, finally! so we stayed at a really friendly hostel, where we camped out in their yard. (oh did we mention we acquired a tent in taupo from some leaving travelers, how nice) we were in napier with the intention to stay for a couple of weeks as it was APPLE PICKING SEASON!!! needless to say we got ourselves a job and started on our third day in the town. after 2hrs Sarah had had enough, and after another 2hrs I had too, so when we worked out how much we were getting paid vs. how much of a blag it was, we upped and left and hitchhiked our way back home to the hostel. we then found out later that day that some guy broke his wrist after falling of a ladder, so we were relieved our career in apple picking is now over! (we lasted 4 1/2hrs). so after partying a little, oh and enjoying the art deco architecture to its fullest in Napier, we left for the bottom tip of the north - capital city, wellington!

so far we have had a great time. it seems that wellington, unlike much of new zealand has actually caught up to rest of the world and has lots to keep you entertained. we have done some gallery visiting and there's an arts festival on too at the moment which is great. we have also given Gerald (our car if you've forgotten) some love in the form of 4 new wheels and a wheel alignment. apparently our wheels were getting pretty dangerous, oops, but all is good and smooth now. so we're planning of sticking here for a day or so more, then we're going north a little to do some Woofing (working on an organic farm) for a week or so. and after that we're going south for more adventures.... so we'll keep you posted on our progress.

also we have had to move our photographs to snapfish coz flickr wants to charge us to put them up there so sign up and you can view our photos, plus its much easier to view slideshows on there!

feel free to comment on our blog by the way!!!

bye x
gary (and sarah too)

by sarah:

alright, just thought i should update our blog finally! somehow even tho we had unlimited internet at our last place, we never managed to write on our blog... hopefully we will do shorter, more frequent posts...
so... last you heard we had just started working at the art shop in thames. We had a really great time there and got to see a lot of the Coromandel Peninsula in our free time, which we had a lot of. There are a lot of great hikes in the Kaeraenga (?) Valley, with some nice swimming holes in the river that runs thru the area. One of our great feats was climbing the Pinnacles, a 9 hour round trip hike up to the top of an old volcano "plug" - there was a lot of volcanic activity in the area millions of years ago; the volcanos eroded away but some plugs remain... it was a beautiful hike with lots of scrambling at the end, but we were very tired after the "1,000 step staircase" which lasted pretty much the whole hike and included stairs cut into the stone of the mountain (they used to bring pack horses up the to bring supplies to the logging camps that used to be up there - not sure how they did it b/c it was hard for humans to climb!). needless to say, it took me about a week after the hike to be able to walk down the stairs like a normal person and not hobble about like an old lady.
we also got to explore some of the beautiful beaches in the area, including Cathedral Cove that has a giant rock that has eroded into a HUGE arch on the beach, and Hot Water beach, which has natural hot springs that come up under the sand and you can dig a hole and make your own hot tub. we had some trouble with the ocean filling our holes with cold water, but the springs were VERY hot when you would step on one. Some dolphins came by and swam along the shore - which was very cool - and everyone at the beach thought it was cool and abandoned their nice hot tubs to watch. gary then had the brilliant idea to steal the good hot tub holes and watch the dolphins from the comfort of our new actually hot hot tubs!
We had a great time in Thames, and enjoyed getting to know small town life (like knowing who everyone was in such a short time, and all the gossip involved) and worked with some really cool people. We had wanted to get second jobs but that didn't really work out as quickly as we would have liked so we decided to heat out early, and do our road trip of nz while it was still summer time!
so, we got some nice pink, purple, orange and gold spray paint and jazzed up our car Gerald, kitted him our with some nice curtains (the inside is a 70's gold color pallete), put up our sleeping platform and headed out last week! We spent a few days visiting our friends in Auckland (and found this awesome chocolate shop which coinsided perfectly with the required chocolate ingestion on Valentines day). Then we headed to Tauranga and Mt. Manguanui for a couple nights to explore that area. we then headed down the coast to see some of the beautiful beaches there ( and stayed at a campgroudn with some sweet trampolines and playground equipment (complete with giant slide and swinging log walks)). Yesteday we were in Rotorua and checked out the geothermal activity going on there, and today we experienced it at the "secret spot" - a place where a cold river meets with a hot springs river and makes the river a nice natural hot tub! it was really nice and relaxing and you could move around so you could get water ranging from almost too hot to bath tub temp, and then move over to the cool river and cool down a bit!
now we are in taupo (some say the sky dive capital of the world?) -so we should have some exciting days coming up!
-sarah
p.s. we posted some pictures a week or two ago so you can see gerald in all his glory and some of our hikes in Thames.

On to bigger & better things

First things first, check out our photos link as we have just updated them...

so, we apologize that it has been so long since we last wrote (almost a month ago?), but as we said, we were kinda limited by dial up and also our psycho live-in employers & their possesive internet nature. anyways, lets start with christmas...

We went to Waiheke Island just off the coast from Auckland for our Christmas holiday. It was absolutely beautiful and we spent Christmas Eve lounging on the beach and catching up on our tans (while most of you were enjoying snow &/or cold!). Our hostel was really laid back and a few minutes to the beach, so we chose a great spot to relax for a few days. Even better, our hostel put on a big Christmas spread on the deck(above the pool & hot tub!) so we were also fed well! (we also met the most laid back cat in the entire world and were seriously considering bringing it home with us) Although it was great having a sunny hot Christmas, it still was weird without the cold!

For New Years, we went down to Auckland with 2 guys we worked with at the alpaca farm - we made up quite the international crowd, representing the US, UK, Czech Republic, Chile, Argentina & France! We enjoyed a mellow house party, watched the fireworks above the Sky Tower (Auckland's try at creative architecture that actually looks like a giant hypodermic needle instead), and spent too much time looking for a party that didn't exist.

After surviving the night in a dodgy as hell baking caravan we returned straight back to work for more joyous fun with our Dutch employer. A few days into the new year, our employers then left us in charge at their farm as they left for their own holiday leaving us with 120 alpacas, a herd of cows, 2 goats, 5 cats a dog and some chickens to look after. Needless to say we had our hands full and we had to care for a weak new born baby alpaca. Unfortunately after lots of care the baby didn't make it, but we were glad to say we did everything we could to help it.

On a funnier note we were also chased after when trying to take a short cut by a goat that thinks he's a human but also has extremely sharp horns. We however managed to manically run away with feed buckets in hand and vaulted over the closest 6 foot fence, thanks Billy. We think this could be a great scene in our forthcoming horror movie set at the farm. They genuinely have all the settings required for a slasher film: maze like buildings, freezer chambers, lots of industrial steel, rooms to be trapped in and dilapidated power tools that could cause serious harm. Watch for it in theaters.

So only a day into our boss being back, we endured probably the hardest day of our time at the farm. It was hay day! And the weather forecast was rain (which isn't too great for hay). So we actually spent the first half of the day up until about 3ish making concrete ramps (of which Sarah is now a master concrete spreader) and then finally the hay balers turned up.

Turning 6 fields into 1000 bales of hay which then need to be loaded and unloaded onto the back of trailers driven by a crazy dutchman, you can begin to see why this wasn't our favourite day. So after soon becoming very irritable and almost crushing Gary's foot while giving him a quick-fire tractor lesson, our Dutch boss reached new heights in our opinion of him. After a 14 hour day for Sarah, and a hurt shoulder for Gary, we didn't even get all the hay in! Hans wanted to start work again at 6am, but Sarah said no way jose. We finally finished the next day right before the heavens opened up and went back to bed. Needless to say we were beginning to think about handing in our notice... and by the end of the week we were on our way. We were sad to say goodbye to our favorite dog Jess and Swiper, aka Sniper, the cat that eats anything (including lasagna off a fork) but otherwise glad to leave behind fanatic bosses, awkward family members and people that talk only about themselves.
We spent a night in Auckland - saw the Kings of Leon and then met up with our friend Chrissy for a night out. Just for the record, nights out in Auckland are nothing to write home about, so we won't say any more.

We have now moved to our new home in Thames, in the Corammandel Peninsula (south east of Auckland). We were really lucky to find a great job at an art & design shop that sells all NZ made crafts (and they needed someone to start the day after we left South Head). The guy that runs it seems really sound & is actively trying to create an art scene in a small town. Thames is the biggest town in the region (with the only grocery store too!) and once was almost made the capital of NZ b/c there was a gold rush in the region... in reality though it is a pretty small town, 10,000 people and one long main drag. (it reminds Sarah a lot of Pittsfield!) - But we are happy to be living IN a town and not 1/2 hour drive from it!

So we are absolutely blessed by magnificent scenery right on our doorstep and while we so far have lightly searched for jobs, we have so far hiked a bit and spent days on the river, or in it in fact. The area seems really cool with a strangely organic feel and an insane amount of gluten free products on the shelves. Throw in a few salvation army type stores, a scrap yard and a bunch of junk stores, as well as some art and craft stores, and we have the perfect setting to go and create what ever the hell we want. While working at the store we have access to studios that come equip with sewing machines and also full workshop facilities to do most things with wood and every other piece of junk that has been collected there. We'll let you know what happens there! Hopefully we can sell some stuff at the store during our time. We also will be partly looking after a laundromat/internet cafe, (which is genius by the way) with all the free washes and internet time we want, wahoooo! So hopefully we can keep this a bit more updated now!

In even better news you (and those that sold him to us) will be pleased to know we have made some great new modifications to Gerald (our car), by producing a stunning made to fit and fold away platform to sleep on in the back. We're hoping to make great use of it and camp as much as we can while seeing the rest of the country! So now we will move onto to bigger things in our mission to pimp Gerald and we've been getting some good exterior ideas in. Yet another project!!

Alright, that is enough for now! Make sure to check our pictures out at

http://www.flickr.com/photos/21270615@N06/sets/

We will write soon!