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- category: "New Zealand" -
February 17, 2007
In my dreams...
Yes, I most certainly do want it.
January 27, 2007
Panoramic views of New Zealand
my view every morning
our camping spot along the west coast of the south island
on the way to the lighthouse in oweka, near the southern tip of the south island
rolling hills a farewell cape, the northern tip of the south island
January 24, 2007
"Love it or Hate it"
Today I went into corner store to satisfy my hunger cravings by lining my belly with a delicious meat pie (steak and mushroom today...mmmm....). Along with my hot, crispy breaded purchase I picked up a small jar of Marmite for a friend. While totaling my modest bill the chipper women behind the counter asked me if I didnt prefer Vegemite. Following my reply of "oh, it's not for me. I can't stand either one of them" I received a look that seemed to convey both horror and personal insult as if I had just simulaneously called her child a dirty name, trampled my filthy feet all over the New Zealand flag, and launched a Kiwi bird across the street with a swift kick (followed surely by a weak yelp from said helpless bird and national symbol). It wasn't a reaction that I had expected from my offhanded comment and for a moment I felt such a sense of guilt that I was moved to apologize or at least explain my actions before she quickly shot me a smile and said "I'm not too surprised to hear that from someone with that [read: American] accent".
 Most Americans are larely unfamiliar with the term 'Marmite' (or the Australian 'Vegemite', for that matter). Unfortunately I am no longer one of them. For years I was proud to proclaim that the list of items that consistantly assault my taste buds are olives. And even with olives I feel like I'm almost to the point where they are tolerable to my tongue. Every now and then I'll chomp on a greens (the black ones are too far of a stretch as of yet) in order to build up some sort of taste tolerance. I'm pleased to say I can now not only stomach a dirty martini but actually enjoy one from time to time. But this couldn't be any farther from the case from Marmite.
Author Bill Bryson, in Notes from a Small Island, while commenting on the peculiarities of British appreciations, described Marmite as "an edible yeast extract with the visual properties of an industrial lubricant" but failed to properly comment on its often hard to stomach taste. Even the makers of Marmite acknowledge the polarizing public opinion of their product with their market slogan proclaiming that you either "love it or hate it." While it originated in the United Kingdom the New Zealanders (hereafter referred by their proudly adopted collective nickname of "Kiwis") have pridefully claimed it as their own national food. Even bachelors with poor eating habits (and not to mention regular proclivities for eating a substantial number of their meals after handing over $2.80 to the local pie vendor) with only a bottle of tomato sauce (that's the Kiwi version, and, in my not-so-humble opinion, an inadequate substite for, of ketchup for you North Americans) in their fridge will likely have fresh a jar of Marmite in the cupboard. They love the stuff. I hate it. I'll just stick to the pies.
Side note: Apparently, according to a contributer of the Marmite article on WikiPedia, if you put a dollop of Marmite on a plate then hit it with a spoon, it will steadily grow paler in color (as seen at this link).
Also, I definitely recommend clicking on the link to the official Marmite website. It's sufficiently hilarious.
January 19, 2007
Yep, still alive
Yes, family and friends - i'm still alive and kicking. It's been about a month since i've updated this site. It's not because i'm dead, dismembered, lost, or lazy - there are just so many other things I'd rather do while i'm in this beautiful country than sit on the internet. Don't believe me? Check it out for yourself by clicking on my album below.
I started my time in New Zealand in Nelson working for the CouchSurfing Project but quickly got out on the road with my new travel buddy Kristen for a few weeks. We toured around the south island hitting almost all of it. Below are pics of that: Oops, make that pics of Xmas in NZ, CouchSurfing style. Pics of my latest wanderings are on the way...
That's enough from me for now. It's time for another beautiful sunset. Wanna see for yourself? Come visit me!
December 17, 2006
i love my life
my friends
my mode of transportation
my bed
my view
life is good
March 17, 2006
Slainte!
 St. Pat's Day last year I was working/playing/drinking heavily at a wee bar in the even wee-er town of Blackball, New Zealand. I can't believe it's already been a year!! Click here for the one picture I appear to have taken during the night (hmmm...i wonder why it's blurry...)
 I'm a sucker for nostalgia. Thinking back on that day makes me reeeeally miss the land of the Kiwi. The most beautifully random things would happen on a near regular basis. That day I was mowing the lawn outside when a stranger tapped me on the shoulder and said, simply, "come on now, we're off to play cricket." I didn't know this guy, had never seen him before, but with only a second of hesitation I left the mower where it stopped and hopped into his van. New Zealand is definitely that kind of magical place if you let it be.
 I'd never once played cricket...and it showed. Even so I can now say I was once a part of the Blackball Cricket Team that lost so miserably the the Bob Marley clad look-a-like (complete with fake dreads) team that comes all the way across the island from Christchurch every year to play a game with the locals (and a few of their tourists) in this small, laid-back town.
The story of how I hitched there is one of my favorite short stories. If you didn't read it last year here's the link.
April 08, 2005
12 hours in the North Island
I finally made it to the North Island of New Zealand last night. I've been in the South for 2 1/2 months with every intention of touring through the North as well but I've only just made it here. And my plane leaves in four hours.
I'm leaving for Hawaii just before noon and I have mixed feelings about it. I've absolutely loved New Zealand. It's a wonderful place to visit and I can see why so many people try to immigrate here. One of the biggest reasons I saw so relatively little of the country was because of the amazing people I met along the way. I didn't see much of the land but I met so many of the best people. That's what put me back in Dunedin and Clinton three, four, five+ times for sure.
I'm going to miss NZ but I know I'll be back. Traveling here is so easy that it doesn't even feel like traveling. It feels more like home.
April 02, 2005
Still alive
Yep, I know it's been quite awhile since I've written anything (although in a way it feels like I last wrote yesterday). I'm still alive!
Since the last time I wrote I made it to Blackball, had some interesting times in the Hilton I was wwoofing at, got a ride with a pretty, laid-back Irish gal to Nelson, was someone's surprise hitching passenger, wwoofed at another interesting place, hitched with my "good luck charm" (otherwise known as Jess) on Easter, took a dog to an animal healer, and hitched in the rain back to Dunedin once again.
Ok, I guess a lot HAS happened since I last updated. I promise I'll write more soon. While you're here go ahead and look through the archives of the other countries I've visited. Even though I haven't had the occasion to write much lately there's still plenty to read up on.
I'll be back soon!
March 17, 2005
10 Minutes
Monday was a spectacular day. Some of my favorite days on the road seem to be the ones when I’m actually on the road. These times are always full of constant activity where each minute is almost inevitably one of uncertainty and, therefore, excitement. A great deal of these feelings indubitably come from seeing new and unfamiliar places but most can be found exclusively through the joys of hitchhiking.
I began this particular travel day by saying goodbye to the inhabitants of my Wwoofing homestay in Rangiora. Paul and Raylene were great hosts for the week that I was there on their hipericum flower farm. It was also great to meet the other Wwoofers. Miho from Japan had been there for almost two months, Jess, a fun Jersey Girl who has been one of the few people I can actually find to play card games and Connect Four with me, and lastly Wayne and Vivi; a nice Irish couple that arrived, sadly, only the night before I left).
Raylene dropped me off just after 10am on the motorway surrounding Christchurch in a spot I wasn’t quite sure about since it was so close to the city. My best rides usually come when I’m clearly outside of town with a look of desperation about me. These drivers seem to realize they are my only chance of getting anywhere, which is just the look I try and convey. The Pity Factor is my bread and butter.
After almost two hours (and a nice enough minced meat and cheese pie from the corner shop) I finally managed to be someone’s passenger. The woman who responded to my sign of “EVERY Km HELPS!” (“Km” is the abbreviated form of kilometer for my American or otherwise non-metric readers) took me, fittingly, less than 10 km down the road. Interestingly enough this proved to be more than enough time to fill me in on the sordid details of her impending and apparently soon to be quite messy divorce from her “filthy, cheating bastard” of a husband. She was, in fact, on her way to her $200/hour divorce attorney’s office when she took a momentary break from her festering rage to stop and pick me up.
This woman (let’s call her “Marcia” since I never did learn her actual name) was from the German part of Switzerland but was half Italian. This is the half that, judging from several interesting experiences with a few fiery women in Italy and, hence, one I don’t feel wrong in presuming, attributed largely to the brewing fury that I was witnessing after knowing Marcia for less than ten minutes. She took great pleasure in assuring me her husband was quite wealthy as a result of their thriving tourism biz and would pay dearly.
Suddenly Marcia quite noticeably switched gears. She stopped raving about the hatred directed at her soon to be ex-husband and took on a tone of less rage yet still full of unrequited intensity. Just days earlier, Marcia explained, she uncharacteristically stopped to pick up an injured cat from the roadside (which she took to the vet) and “now a strange man.” By the way she let this exclamation hang in the air I had a hard time discerning if it was stated matter-of-factly or if in her newly thrust upon freedom she was entertaining the thought of doing something with this “strange man” that you only read about in the Penthouse Forum. She had, after all, commented on the string of connecting events by querying “first a cat, then a strange man – what next?”
I’m not going to say that this statement absolutely implied anything at all more than just thinking out loud on her part. Likewise I’m not saying I would have done anything Forum-worthy with this strange woman either but I was definitely interested, in much more of a who-is-this-crazy-woman-and-what-is-going-to-come-out-her-mouth-next, what exactly she would say next. But judging by the gap in her otherwise never ending narrative it appeared to be my turn to speak. In my obviously bounded short-term wit I only managed the feeble reply of "yeah, you never know what could happen."
I never would find out what would be next. The 10km was up and it was time for me to look for another ride. I could only imagine what else I would have learned about this firey woman hell-bent on revenge if the drive with her had lasted longer than 10 interesting minutes.
March 10, 2005
Rangiora
Yep, I finally made it a bit north. Not too far, mind you. Just somewhere in the general vacinity of Christchurch, where I started my Great Kiwi Adventure. I'm really not even sure what direction of Chch I'm in or how far it is to there. Nor do I really care. I'm still having a blast.
Sorry to tease you with such a short entry. I hope to write more before the weekend is up. I'm heading to the west coast soon and I'm anxious to get out there. I love being on the go!
March 03, 2005
Heading north - and this time i'm serious!
Ok, I'm finally heading north. I've been in the south of the south island for almost the entire time that I've been in New Zealand. I had hoped that in the three months my visitor's permit is valid for I would have seen a good deal of the country. But my plans have a mind of their own. Actually, I really only make a "plan" just to have one to break. So instead of flying through the countryside seeing everything the two islands have to offer i've spent almost an entire month on an organic farm a small town. I couldn't have been happier my choice.
I've had a great time here at Wairuna Organics. Pia and Shaun have made the sleepy little town of Clinton, New Zealand a great place to be. In the three years since they've opened up their farm to volunteers from WWOOF and HelpX they've hosted over 160 different travelers coming through. With all that history they know how to be terrific hosts. I've enjoyed daily life here so much that, you may have noticed from previous entries, I've come back not once but three times more. Tomorrow I'm leaving for the Christchurch area again but I can't say for sure that I won't be back before I leave!
So what's next for me? All I know for certain is that I'm heading north again to the Canterbury region of New Zealand for a week or so. From there I plan on heading west to the Greymouth area and then up the coast through the Marlborough and Nelson areas. I don't know if I'll finally venture into the north island from there or not. That's WAY too far into the future to guess with any degree of accuracy:)
If you want to check out my latest creation go to Wairuna.com. It's a website I made for this farm I'm staying at in Clinton. I did it in just a few days so I'm proud of what came out of it in such a short amount of time. Check it out!
March 01, 2005
Party in Dunedin - happy birthday Tania!
I had a great weekend. On Saturday I hitched back to Dunedin yet again (i've been down that road so many times now) and went to a great party with Tania and Marcus again. Tania had her birthday party Saturday night and we took a bus trip down to Moeraki (someone tell me the correct spelling, please!) to the seafood restaurant Fleurs. It was soooo good! Afterwards we partied back to Dunedin on the bus until we got back to the house where the party kept on going. It was a LOT of fun.
Today I'm back in Clinton on Wairuna Organics farm again. I really enjoy it here. This is the fourth time I've been back, although it's hard to count this as a separate time from last week since I was just gone for two days. Today I took a drive shaft off of an old truck (i couldn't have even POINTED to a drive shaft this morning) and then did something spur of the moment. Here's a hint what I did...
So that was fun. I'll post a picture of what my head looks like later. I haven't gotten a good pic of the damage yet. It's nice having short hair. I haven't had it this short in... I don't even remember!
February 23, 2005
Back in Clinton, part 3
Hey everyone. It's been ages since I've written too much on this site, I know. Sorry about that. I hope to be better soon. I have LOTS of ideas about things I want to do and change on this site. It's going to be awhile before I'm able to make major changes but in the meantime I hope to update from the road more often. Bare with me!
A few days ago I found myself once again back at the best farm in the tiny village of Clinton. I really enjoy it here. If you don't know about WWOOFing or HelpX you should definitely check them out. It's so much fun AND you get to help someone else out.
Dinner time! I made a pizza tonight and now i've gotta go see if it turned out ok:)
February 17, 2005
Queenstown
Greetings from Queenstown, the adventure capital of New Zealand. I made it here yesterday and am loving the fresh, mountain air. It's beautiful here! Queenstown is surrounded by mountains on all sides and a great lake right on the edge of it. I can't wait to put some pictures up.
I spent the last few days just down the road in Cromwell. Cromwell has the distinction of being NZ's city farthest away from the ocean. I think the ocean is somewhere around three hours away:) That's one of the things I love about this country - you're never far enough away to not hear the beach calling.
In Cromwell I met up with Stewart and Bernadette, my gracious hosts from GlobalFreeloaders. We had several yummy, homecooked meals and I even got another round of golf in with Stewart. Golf is a game I never thought I had the patience for but have really enjoy the three times this year I've been able to play. I don't remember if I mentioned it but I also played with Marcus and his friend in Dunedin a week or so ago (with the third time being in Denmark). I suck, but it's still fun:)
Off to explore the city!
February 06, 2005
Dunedin and Clinton
On Friday (Jan 28) I made my way south down to Dunedin. They call Dunedin the "Edinburgh of the south" because it's quite the scottish town. It's even laid out the same as one scottish town (oops, I forgot which one) with the streets, ect. Because of this plan they even inadvertantly have the steepest street in the world on Baldwin St.
In Dunedin I met up with some friends of two people I stayed with in Munich through GlobalFreeloaders. Sylia and Glenn put me up more than once while I passed through Munich last year. Glenn is from NZ and told some his friends to email me since I was traveling around here. Marcus and Tania Brown did just that.
The Browns have been great! I immediately felt at home almost instantly upon arriving. I can see why they're such good friends of Glenn and Sylvie. We had a picnic on the beach while we watched seals swimming along the shore, went to not one but two of their friends' BBQs, played a round of golf at one of the 11 golf courses within a ten-mile radius (EVERY town in New Zealand has at least one golf course), and more than a few games of chess. We even went out to watch the penguins come in from the sea one evening (who even knew penguins lived in New Zealand???) I had such a good time last weekend that I popped back in for the weekend to watch the Superbowl (yeah, Patriots!).
This last week I've spent my time at Wairuna Farm. Shaun and Pia run an organic farm in the small town of Clinton (interesting tidbit: Clinton is just down the road from the town of Gore - they call the road between the two the "Presidential Highway") and they inlist the help of travelers through HelpExchange. I stopped by for a few days to help out in exchange for food, accomodation, and loads of good times. I really enjoyed my time there so much that I'll be going back tomorrow for the rest of the week.
That's enough for today. Sorry to run everything together. I'm just glad to be caught up! I won't have email or internet access for the rest of the week so I'll write again when I can!
Christchurch
I'm in New Zealand now and I love it. I started out in Christchurch where I met up with Richard and Colleen from HospitalityClub. They met me at the airport at 11:00pm and took me to their lovely home in the city. I also got to finally meet up with Christian and his girlfriend Rosi from Austria. I had been emailing with Christian for a year now while we were both traveling and it was great to finally meet up with them. Rich and Coll were incredibly hospitable and put us all up in their home at the same time. Richard has a catering business and could definitely cook! We had a great time.
The week that I spent in Christchurch coincided with an internation busking festival taking place all throughout the city. I spent most of my days there going from square to square watching impressive street performers from Japan, Europe, North America, and of course New Zealand. There were dozens of them and they were all spectacular. My favorite pair were two guys from Japan with colorful mohawks. I'll try and put some pictures up when I'm able to.
Te Ratonga Manene
And now a lesson on flying into New Zealand.
It would be great if you could just decide you want to go somewhere, purchase a ticket to get there, and jump on the plane. Sadly we live in an age where invisible boundaries mean added hardship to travel. Even worse is that it's not always so easy to find the right answers when crossing these borders.
I went to New Zealand's immigration and visa website trying to find out how to come and say hello. After clicking through a series of pages to find what should have been an easy answer I came back with what I thought was right. It wasn't until I got to the airport in Sydney and checked in for my booked flight to Christchurch that I found I had a problem.
New Zealand requires incoming passengers to have already purchased an onward ticket out of New Zealand before coming into their country. For this reason I had bought a ticket from Auckland to Melbourne. Unfortunately I still managed to screw up. At the Virgin Blue check-in desk at the airport I learned three more important details:
"Passengers requiring to hold an outward ticket from NZ must hold a ticket or acceptable evidence of a ticket from NZ to:
1. A country that they are a national of; or
2. A country where they have evidence of permanent residence,; or
3. A country where immigration authorities of that country have confirmed that they will accept the passenger for entry into that country on a one-way ticket.
While I had my onward ticket back to Oz I was still lacking the visa to get there. For the visa you have to apply for it ONLY from outside the country. Since I was still in Australia I couldn't get the visa I needed to get back in. Since I didn't have the visa I violated the 3rd exception. Confused? Yep, me too.
I won't bore you further with stories of my running through the airport to the Qantas desk, back to Virgin Blue, over to Air NZ, back to Virgin, to Qantas not once but twice more and eventually back at Air NZ to buy a ticket from Auckland to Los Angeles. With this "refundable" ticket I was able to board my flight. What a mess!
January 23, 2005
Get your postcard!
Greetings from New Zealand! I just made it here yesterday after quite the ordeal at Sydney International Airport that resulted in purchasing an additional (and hopefully as refundable as I was told)$1500 ticket from Auckland to Los Angeles. Confused yet? Just wait until you hear the story.
But no time for that now. I'm in a bit of a hurry today. But there's good news! If you've been dying to get a postcard from me now's your chance! Click here to find out more:)
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