OZ2: Paul and Sue

Joe and I were surprised and cautious when Paul pulled up in Nasim and Amir's driveway. The dude looked late-20s or early-30s, which is an unusual age for helpx hosts, since that age group tends to keep up with work around the house and don't need the young backs. His ad had said he had two sons, one of which was at least 12. Paul also seemed just a little detached, and we thought it a bit odd that his work had mysteriously finished hours early.

OZ1: Photos

Photos of the first three days with Nasim and Amir in Gold Coast.

OZ1: Nasim and Amir

Before we left for Australia, I searched carefully for a good couch surfing host.  I found a young Iranian couple whose references were phenomenal!  In the past I have tended to not pay much attention to who I'm choosing as long as they look approximately the right age.

So I sent off a couple of requests, and within a day or two, Nasim and Amir responded positively.  They even said they could pick us up from the airport!  That was such a lovely and generous touch.  Flying into a new place and trying to make sense of the buses or really fork out for a taxi can be intimidating.

NZ Part 7: Photos

I'm just posting straight photos today--no slideshow.  Do enjoy.

We did LOVE those bikes

Auckland skyline

Maori doing the haka face.

Joe does the haka face

It's like he's meta-morphising before our eyes

Hobbit hole

Bag End

Just taking shipment to the Green Lantern, no big deal. 

Drinks at the Green Lantern

Sheep friend!

Cooking in our camper--spoiled, eh?

Just a bit of victory fist-pumping at Abel Tasman track.

Joe leans on our sweet ride.

Look at that handsome face!  Joe finds seashells.

Cook Straight Ferry

Me 'n bikes, Waiheke Island

Afternoon ride on Waiheke

 

Sunset on Waiheke

Instinctively finding anything that could possibly give milk--including muddy boots.

Joe casually strolls through the sun and surf.  Charmed lives, I tell you.

That tricky Colleen tricked us into mail again

I was alright at it, but Joe was better.

It's a nice moment in this one.  Poor sheep won't even know what hit him.

What a wonderful woman.  I feel spoiled to have known her.  We can't wait to see them both again!

Joe, Colleen, and Peter

Maunzi

Grapefruit in front and orange in back, in our own backyard.

Betty White.  There was a black one called Black Betty and four red ones we called the four orangutans (as in, Black Dirt and the Five Orangutans...).

Mr. No Name warmed up to us

2 yrs of AWESOME
(Quiche on our anniversary--drastically romantic.)

NZ Part 7: Auckland

We arrived in Auckland fairly early in the day, and just like the way Jutta had come to pick us up on our first day in New Zealand, she was waiting there for us again.  We drove back to their house and within no time we were getting tips here and there for how to do things while the pair were gone.

There were the orange and grapefruit trees, which we could pick, but only if we twisted them the right way and didn't pick too many.

There were the chickens, who we had to let out for a couple of hours each day at 3pm, but we had to make sure they knew how to work their new food contraption and chase them back to the backyard when they ventured to the front.

There was the wood-burning fireplace that could be used to take the edge off of the cold, but it shouldn't be lit like this, it should be lit like that.

There were the kitty-cats and their 1/4 cup of food in the morning and 1/4 cup at night.  Mr. No Name (yes, we actually called him this, unfortunately) also got an extra morning meal of meat with a little bit of steroid powder mixed in for his FIV (feline HIV), but with a smidge of boiling water, followed by a smidge of cold water BEFORE putting the powder in.

There was the dishwasher that needed loaded just so, otherwise the door to the soap wouldn't open all the way and heaven forbid there would be soap residue on the inside and it would have to be run again!

There were the bikes that we could use (yay!) but the locks needed to be used all the time.

There was the yard, which needed mowed with precise timing, and leave the front long so the tulips can bloom.  This just meant that it looked unkempt, with a few differently colored green leaves poking through.

There was the glass stove-top, which needed to be free of sugar or oil, and needed to be scrubbed down with a special chemical, and then buffed to a shine with another chemical, plus have any crunchy spots taken off with a straight razor.

There was the shower, which needed closed really, really hard because otherwise it drips.

There was the cat litter, which needed checked every day and the solids removed and the door left open in case they needed it in the night.

Okay, I'm being overdramatic (me? never!).  But even the ever-positive Joe was like, have a nice time! out loud but, phew thank goodness they're gone! on the inside.  I like them, but it was really nice to be alone in the house and not have to share a space with them that was just a bit too small.

Our time in Auckland was amazing, let me say that.  The first weekend, we had Constantin, our German friend who lived in our living room in Tekapo for a short time, come and stay with us.  He was flying in from Queenstown and would fly home to Germany in a few short days.

We booked a bus to Matamata (NakedbBus with a sweet discount I found just by searching for promo codes in google) and a tour of Hobbiton.  We had been indecisive about going to Hobbiton until then because of the expense.  Now that we have done it, I would say it was worth it, but probably more so because we were so hesitant due to the money.

I was really struggling with this money issue for most of our time in New Zealand because we want to travel many places and that takes money.  But I realized sometime during our South Island tour that I was getting TOO stressed about money--it had become like an obsession that I couldn't shake.  I asked Joe to help me and he talked me down from the obsessive control ledge and I'm so glad he did.  I started to relax and he reminded me that the reason we stuck out Tekapo like we did was so we had enough to make traveling enjoyable and possible and this was our chance.  Seeing all of the great parts of the South Island reminded me that spending money can be good, and it is not worth having a few more dollars in the bank if it means we have to live like hermits and misers.

Living in Auckland was very pleasant for our wallets.  We had free housing and in the course of the five weeks we lived at Jutta and Rudi's, we learned to shop cheaply, make our own food for almost every meal, and do some of the more free things around town.  It was marvelous.

Anyway, I had let go of the obsession and thankfully that allowed me to really enjoy Hobbiton as well.

The morning of our tour, all three of us got up at stupid o'clock and started walking to where we would catch a bus.  Right out on the intersection only yards away from our house, we heard screeching and crying and as we came around the bend to it, we saw a car with another car smashed into the back.  There were a few people standing around and there were flames coming out of the engine and licking the sides of the minivan whose engine was crumpled.  There was also an agonizing scream, which we never found out why.  Perhaps someone was stuck inside and dead.  Or maybe they were just frustrated by getting their car totaled.

The whole thing shook us up.  We felt bad about just walking past, but there were already police on the way and a number of people their to help out, plus we were late for our bus.

We made it to the bus stop in time to catch the bus from Papatoetoe (pronounced pah-pah-TOY-toy) to Manukau (pronounced mah-noo-COW).  Here we caught the NakedBus to Matamata.

In Matamata we found out we could move our tour a little later if we wanted so we could get lunch first and then not have to wait around quite so long afterwords to get the bus back to Manukau.  We took that option and walked around until we found a mom-and-pop chip shop with all kinds of comfort foods on the menu.  I got a Hawaiian burger (an Emily favorite) and fries and it... was... heaven.

We took a bus from the information center in Matamata to the gift shop, where we perused while waiting for yet another bus.  When we arrived at the base of the Hobbiton "campus," what had been pissing rain now was mud and clear skies.  We thanked New Zealand for its moments of good weather recently.

The hobbit holes were all different sizes so that film makers could play with perspective, making some of the characters look larger and some look smaller than others.  They had all the little details in various sizes--vegetables, shovels, breads, wagons, etc.

I would have enjoyed a smaller tour because as it was, it was hard to get photos without feeling like an idiot around other people and it held everyone up.  The only real solution was to wait until the whole group moved on and then take hurried photos while missing the next things the tour guide was saying.

But it was a beautiful couple of hours out in the sun amongst the hobbit homes.  They even finished off the tour with a free drink in the Green Lantern Inn, which was honestly a really nice touch.  Constantin took the mug that his drink came in home for a souvenir, though that wasn't standard or approved.  :)

We spent the last couple of Constantin's days in New Zealand hanging out with him.  The kid is only like 19 years old, so he still has the stamina to listen to house music at high decibels late into the night and has ambitions to do many things during the day.  I felt so old because we went to bed earlier than him and couldn't be bothered to do much other than sit by the wood-burning fireplace.  Haha.  We felt bad that we weren't more ambitious and lively for him.

It was really very lovely that he came to stay with us.  And it was fun to be his last contact before going home.  Our goodbye was a very sweet one.  We think a stop in Germany is in order in the future.

We had a list of things we wanted to get done in the month in Auckland and we did pretty well.  We got our teeth cleaned by a man and wife from Iraq who operated the local dentist.  Aaaaand as I have seen elsewhere, sometimes going with the cheapest dentist is not ideal.  They did fine and probably no harm was done, but during their cleaning of plaque on both of us, they hit a nerve or something and made us cringe and jump.  They were very nice though.  We realized we needed to be a little more routine and serious about taking care of our teeth and have been flossing and brushing rather religiously since then.

We got the car sold to one of our flatmates.  This happened before we left Tekapo, but we hadn't transferred ownership until we were in Auckland.

Unfortunately, we found out that we don't think we get any money back from the government.  We had been hearing mixed rumors that tourists got all their taxes back or tourists didn't get any taxes back.  We still have no idea, but when we tried to apply for the first fiscal year, it said we couldn't get any back.  And we can't apply for the second fiscal year taxes until the year ends in March 2015.  So who knows.

The first weekend after Constantin left, we grabbed cheap tickets to get down to Christchurch, where we found a relocation camper to drive back up.  We did this because I knew it was important to Joe to see the Abel Tasman National Park, since we hadn't had enough time to see it on our whirlwind tour.

The campervan was cool--we'd never done it before and we felt totally spoiled, but it ended up costing us a bit more than planned originally.  But we got it done and had a great time.  Plus, I had found free places to park that saved money on accommodation.  The first night we stayed there, we had a view over a muddy river, but with the sunrise behind it.  Sometime in the night a camperbus had joined us and we noticed we were enjoying the sunrise in company of the camperbus's cat, who sat primly to the side watching the morning mist.

Early on, I spotted (after we had declined insurance covering the windshield and tires, which would have cost an arm and a leg MORE than we were already paying) a nice little crack in the windshield in the black part just behind the rearview mirror.  Awesome.  It was so well hidden that I am sure now that it must have already been there.  I stressed about it a while, but didn't tell Joe so that he wouldn't worry about it.

The Abel Tasman was beautiful.  We woke up early to head to the base of the track, which started with mud flats with tall grasses on a series of bridges and boardwalks.  It headed up into the rain forest and away from the boardwalk.  The path was dirt with some light pebbling, but looked like it could pass for a cow trail.

The hike went through rain forest and along beaches whose sand was reddish-orange and stretched smoothly to the turquoise water.  Where there had been some snotty weather on either side of our trip, the oceans and the trails and the beaches were clear and sunny.  Another thank you to NZ weather.

We hiked as long as we could, but didn't feel like it was enough.  Perhaps the Abel Tasman is something we will visit again later in life when we're wealthy beyond our wildest dreams.

We spent the night again in the free spot after returning from the track.  Two spaces away was the camperbus with the cat.  Camping for free can sometimes feel vulnerable, just in case police or criminals stop by, so there is strength in numbers and the drive-by engine roaring by a guy who had tried to flag us down for some reason when we came back to our spot, that felt threatening alone, felt much more manageable with the camperbus.

We started the drive the next morning to Picton, where we would catch the ferry.  We only had to pay for one person, as the relocation vehicle had included the camper and one person, but it was still a little expensive for comfort.

Fortunately, Joe discovered a deep affinity for ferry rides.  The dude couldn't sit still.  The weather, while cold, was otherwise perfect for us.

We kept driving and drove well into the night, as the rental had to be returned the next morning.  We stayed in the parking lot of a sporting complex and were up again in the morning ready to roll.

We had enough time to go shopping for groceries and then drop myself and the groceries at home.  Joe dropped the camper off to get the inspection done and turn the vehicle in.  He had his business pants on.  The inherited crack hiding in the windshield went unnoticed, thankfully.

This trip, while expensive, had effectively crossed our biggest to-do items in New Zealand off our list.  Everything else was icing.

We hoped to make it to the Coromandel Peninsula before leaving, but we eventually ran out of time.  Plus, we felt so accomplished finishing everything else off that it didn't really bother us to miss that one thing.

We were hoping to make it up to Dargaville to visit Peter and Colleen one last time, but our available time to do so was complicated by the fact that it relied on the availability of other people to watch after the cats when we were gone.

Half way through our month, we got a call from Jutta and Rudi's friends who wanted to stay at the house.  The call irked me at first because she worded it, "we've decided we'd really like to stay at Jutta and Rudi's," as if the fact that they knew them meant that they could impose on us, the people actually living there at the time.  I soon realized, however, that it was actually beneficial to us, even though it was a little presumptuous on their part.

We bought tickets and headed up to see Peter and Colleen.  It was great to see them and within no time, I remembered how frustrated I could be with Peter's genial sexism banter.  But it was really nice to see them nonetheless.

They were out at their "bach" again for a few weeks, so we stayed out there with them.  We helped them on the mail run, went to see Grant (who was super surprised and happy to see us), and herded a few cows.  It was low-key, but really nice.

The first night their daughter and her husband and kids came out to eat dinner.  The kids were really cute and really, really hyper.  The family seemed so happy.  Seeing Peter and Colleen's granddaughter made me think of the time Colleen had baked a cake for Martina and invited her family out to meet us.

Peter made sure to get a few good "experiences" in for us while we were there.  His brother Clive let us see the calves that had been born in the last few days.  One lot had even just been born the day before and were still crunchy with dried mom juices.  They let me go into the pen with the calves that had been born a day before, and they all were latching on to anything they could.  If I wasn't careful, they would start sucking on my pants (loaner rag ones from Colleen, who knew the visit would be bad for my clothing), my shoes, and my fingers.  They didn't bite, so it was fun to let them suck on my fingers, but their spit got a little gross.  They were very sweet and it was very fun.

He also took us to his neighbor's place.  His neighbor was an older man (80s?) and his wife, who ran a little farm.  They had a small herd of sheep and they were getting ready to castrate and crop the tails of the new lambs.

This was interesting, but a little gross and sad at first.  If the lamb was a male, a tight rubber band would be stretched around the testicles, and then a second stretched around most of the tail.  They were then given shots.  A female would have the same procedure, minus the testicles part, obviously.  My parents used to fix our male cats with similar bands and plier things.

I was just going to let Joe do the whole thing, especially considering the shots, but eventually I bucked up and had a go.  I turned out to be pretty good at it, but had to turn my head away for the shot.

The poor lambs were leaving very confused about the pain the rubber bands were causing.  There were only 10 or 15 lambs that we did this to, and they were walking around the pasture, turning in circles, and then laying down queasily.  They would get up, walk around a little bit, and then lie down again.  The farmer said they only felt the pain for the first ten minutes and then the numbness replaced the pain, but quite frankly there were little sheep still queasy an hour later when we left, so I don't buy it.

The last night in Dargaville (well, Bayly's Beach anyhow) we went to Debbie and Grant's house to see the All Blacks play Australia.  It was fun, especially a little bit intoxicated!  The All Blacks are usually champions of the world.

When Peter and Colleen took us to catch the bus, they stood and waited with us.  We got a couple of last photos, Colleen chided us for our tiny tent again, and we moved pebbles around with our feet to distract ourselves from the goodbyes.  The bus finally came and we got on it.  We waved to mum and dad and they waved to us until they could no longer see us.

The next morning we started early to Waiheke Island.  This involved taking the train downtown early enough in the morning that we wouldn't be hitting rush hour with our bikes.  We caught the ferry, stashed our bikes on the bike hangers, and went to the top deck, but we came down from the top deck rather quickly due to cold.

Waiheke was great, except that we worked far harder with the bikes than we should have.  I made a mistake early on of seizing the day and taking the road less traveled.  We steered the bikes up and up and up and the higher we went, the less we wanted to turn back.  Until of course we were at what felt like the top of the whole freaking island, which is to say, far away from anything worth seeing.  We rode around for a while in the wrong directions and then finally found our way back to civilization.

We stopped in to an art gallery that was open.  The exhibit was fascinating--it was large photos of all different shapes, sizes, and colors of women, along with their story written out to the side.  At first it was inspiring--wow! all these women have done such great things!  Then it started to get depressing.  It was the same effect Facebook has on me.  When the highlights reel is the only thing I ever see, I find myself unable to convince myself that there are mids and lows in there as well.  I find myself wondering who I have mids and lows when other people don't seem to.  Realistically, I know my life is great, but the repeated exposure to evidence of everyone else's highs get to my head.

Silly, certainly.  It was a beautiful exhibit though.  Joe admired it, but also felt the same comparison issues.

We did some reading on the beach and then went to find some sea shells.  They had some really cool ones--like the regular crimpy shell, but all the way flat instead of concave.  We picked many different colors and sizes and later got to send some of them to some of Joe's nieces and nephews.

We were going to give ourselves a nice meal out during the day, but found we couldn't pass up a deal on Thai food.  When Joe and I set our minds to spend money on a nice dinner, we rarely can step back far enough to make a decision not based on price.  :P

All in all, a very nice day.  We biked a loooooong way out to the other ferry and then back.  Joe intended to swim, but it was too cold.  We rode around a nice path around a rocky jutting, stopped to read here and there, and then started to head back to our ferry.

The ride down the hill was amazing, but I realized by the traffic that the ferry must have just gotten in, and since they have a very fast turnaround, probably was almost gone again.  We rode out onto the dock just as the ramps were pulled up.  We had to wait.  It was a matter of 30 seconds.  Oh well, we sat and read some more and watched the sun set.

On the ride back home, there was an amazing view off the side of the boat.  I got a pretty good photo, but I told Joe that he should take one as well.  Before even thinking about it, Joe leaned out to take a photo and off flew his University of Idaho hat and his sunglasses!  We thought they both went straight in the wake behind the boat, but I found the sunglasses on the deck below.  The hat, sadly, was gone.

That night since we hadn't really done very well at splurging for lunch, we decided to buy some good groceries and make something good.  We took our bikes on the train again and went to the stop after ours to hit the grocery store.

When we got to our regular stop, two loud young women got on and the attitude of the whole car changed.  They were drunk and obnoxious, and I could smell the alcohol from eight feet away.

When the train car started slowing down, a Sikh man wearing a turban stood by the door waiting for the stop.  One of the girls started what looked at first like chatting him up.  She was asking him if he lived in Papatoetoe, but then she made a slur.  She asked him what he was doing that night and he responded, "what does it matter to you?"  She said, "Yeah, this is Turban City."

Everyone on the train let them get out first because no one wanted to be associated with them.  They continued being obnoxious.  We followed them up the ramp and down again on the other side, until they started approaching another group of Sikhs, one of whom was a young women.  The two stupid women pushed her from behind and they made more racial slurs and continued pushing the whole group.  They were actually hitting the woman and pushing their way through even the large men.

At the crosswalk the men huddled around the young woman while the drunk girls continued across the street, walking arm-in-arm and talking about the "f*-ing turban heads."

During this whole thing, Joe had been watching and anxiously trying to figure out how to stop these women from what they were doing.  Being a woman myself, and a rather wimpy one at that, my training in situations like this, especially when a person is drunk and unreasonable, is to mitigate risk, hold back, and try to not get involved.  I would have loved to yell mean things right in their bitchy faces, but maybe I know too well that I would lose in a fight.

So I had been trying to hold Joe back out of fear that we would be hurt, but once they started pushing the poor young woman around, he had had enough.  When the group huddled before the crosswalk, he circled around on his bike to put himself between them and the drunks, who were acting as though their behaviour was quite normal for a Monday evening.

Joe apologized to the group, probably because if the Sikhs were one group and the non-Sikhs were another, we would be associated with the jackasses that had treated them so poorly.  I regretted not doing anything for them, but was proud Joe had showed support.

The poor woman looked traumatized, and as we watched the couple walk down the street, his arm around her hunched shoulders, we watched as they carefully crossed the street behind the women so as to remain on the other side of the street.  We were so angry that someone would treat strangers like that.  It was so undeserved and the Sikhs looked kind and afraid for their safety.

We turned down the side passage to the grocery store and found we were accidentally following the scumbags.  We went in the store and started to talk a little about what had happened and figured we had lost them somewhere.  When we got to the alcohol aisle, however, there they were.

I told Joe, "oh boy, now they're going to steal."  And they did.  One was already headed out of the door, but I watched the other grab a bottle of something and stick it under her oversize jacket.  One of the store workers stopped her on the other side of the cash registers, making to confront her about the obvious thing she was doing.  She sort of pulled her cap down, circled him, and bolted.

The man who tried to stop her took off after her and Joe decided he was going to help, but part way out of the store, another larger man came from the deli behind me and sprinted out.  There wasn't much Joe could do at that point, but he went outside and watched the commotion.  He talked to one of the cashiers who said it had been happening a lot lately, and especially by groups of women.  She also told Joe that one of the men who had run after the two had this responsibility as part of the job, which is really tough.  She said the week before he had come back from a chase with a cut on the face from one of the runners.

We had known that the grocery store was in an iffy place.  It had that vibe about it from the start.  We knew Papatoetoe had some crime, but this was the second shoplifting I had witnessed in a week (I happened to be standing by a fire exit in a store a few days before when someone bolted out, jumped in a truck, and sped off), and between that, the fiery car wreck, and the murder that had happened within a few days of us having the house to ourselves, we were amazed, and not in a good way.

The whole thing was so frustrating.  It felt like we could have stopped it, like if I hadn't held Joe back, or if I had called the police as soon as we sensed trouble, we could have prevented the violence, the slurs, and the shoplifting.

But hindsight, eh?

Needless to say, our evening was effectively ruined.  We were home late, hungry, and then eating late, on top of the fact that we were disgusted with human beings like those two shitheads.

We went to the Auckland War Memorial museum a couple of times during the month.  We had to go back more than once because we would get so enthralled and not finish even like a fraction.  We were especially captivated by an exhibit on seismic activity.  We probably only completed about a third of the museum and the rest we never saw.  Can I just say, New Zealand does a hell of a job with museums.

We also visited the maritime museum, where we learned a lot about boats, and watched a fascinating documentary about New Zealand's catamaran that made it around the world in less than 80 days.  It was really cool.  We probably missed a half or more of that museum as well.  We like to read about things.

We were very fortunate with these museums because if you can prove you are an Auckland resident, it is free.  Otherwise each is around $20 per head!  We received mail regarding our car registration at Jutta and Rudi's house, so we got in for free!

The bikes were wonderful to have.  We would have done much less with our five weeks if we had to do all our shopping and sight-seeing by foot.  With bikes, it was a 5-10 minuted ride to a nice size grocery store and a 3 minute ride to the train.  Everything would be much more difficult without the bikes.

Back on our south island tour, there was a man who picked us up when we thought we were going to have to pitch a tent on the side of the road.  His name was John and he was the Irishman with the car that had a broken heater.  We had really enjoyed riding with him and getting to know him there between Twizel and Cromwell where he dropped us off, and he left us with his business card.  He was going to be in Auckland while we were there to take some training for work.

I felt really bad that it took me so long to actually contact him.  I was worried the course had been short and we would have missed him.  Thankfully, he answered our texts and was still around.

We met with him several times and really enjoyed it.  The first night he came to hang out with us at home just as Jutta and Rudi's friends were coming to stay.  I was worried that would be a boring crowd, but the family was actually pretty nice to talk to and John seemed to really enjoy himself.

He came over next when we had the house to ourselves and we made a feast and he brought wine and cake and we had lots of fun.  Well into the night, Joe decided we had to watch a movie, even though John had hinted that he would like to sleep.  Haha.  Joe likes to keep a good thing going, sometimes longer than everyone wants.  Eventually I nudged Joe away from the living room so John could sleep.  He had decided to stay the night, since he had alcohol in him.  I was really happy he stayed because it felt like he was comfortable with us.  He got a duvet to sleep on the couch.

The next morning, he hung out for a long time.  It was very sweet because it was one of those times where I was self-conscious about being the hosts because the person could easily start being uncomfortable and a little cold, but John didn't.  He stuck around, even the next morning.  He was so friendly about it all.

We hung out one more time, going to dinner at the same Korean barbecue place we ate with Constantin.  We had sake and ate Korean pancakes.  Afterward, we went to an Irish bar down the street, and John almost won a raffle drawing (they drew his number, but he chose a non-winning card in the stack).  He took us home and we got some movies from him and said goodbye.  The whole friendship was just so nice.

On our last days in Auckland, we spent lots of time fixing the house and yard up.  Since Jutta and Rudi were so nit picky before they left, we wanted to make sure they couldn't catch us on anything.  And for the couple of hours that they were back and we hadn't left, there wasn't much they could complain about.

Of course Rudi made sure to make a phone call to the internet company while we were still there so we knew his dissatisfaction at how much we had used.  (Internet here is sold in GB, instead of speed.)  We had tried to clarify all month if we could buy more because we were going to be talking to family on Skype and all, but Rudi was just like, no, just use it, I doubt you'll go over the limit.  We would have preferred to pay for it so we didn't have to feel guilty, but he didn't want to back when we were addressing the problem ahead of time.  So instead he sounded agitated on the phone where we could hear him, but then wouldn't let us fix it with giving him money after the fact.  It was highly unfair to make use feel guilty.  Bah.

All in all, Auckland was amazing.  We spent hours writing, reading, and relaxing.  It was five weeks of cuddles and cooking and lovely food and alone time.  After a month of non-stop work in Tekapo, it was an overdue rest.  And it was such a great way to prepare for Australia.

It was fun to be driven to the airport by the two of them, especially because they had been our first encounter of New Zealand.  Eight months before, we had watched for Jutta and a grey Nissan Cube, and now here we were in the grey Nissan Cube being dropped off to leave New Zealand.  We said our goodbyes on the curb.

We stepped into the airport, checked our bags in (mine weighing in at 19.8 kg, when 20 kg is the limit), and rounded together the last of our New Zealand change to buy a small sushi dinner.  We found our gate and waited to hear the announcement for the flight while we watched a two year old go up the stairs and down the escalator again and again with her dad.  We put together our carry-ons and boarded the flight.

New Zealand was amazing.  We had some tough times, most notably the frustrating months in MacKenzie's bar and grill, but it had still been our home.  We met some not-so-nice people, but we also made a lot of friends--Peter and Colleen, Derek and Martina, Tom and Karen, John, mustache Joe, French Sarah, chef Jason, etc.

We also saw some of the best sights of our lives.  Where European countries are rich in culture and history, New Zealand was rich in nature and people.

Australia will be a whole different ball game, or perhaps a very similar ball game, who knows?

NZ Part 6: Photos

NZ Part 6: Puzzling World video, as promised

NZ Part 6: The Whirlwind South Island

When we got out to the road heading south out of Tekapo, it was already 4:00 in the evening.  We had tried to not stress too much about getting out early, but perhaps we relaxed a little too much.  And let me tell you, starting that late when hitchhiking is not advisable, especially with the cold weather.  When the sun started to go down, it got colder much faster.  But we needed to kick-start our South Island tour sooner rather than later, because our window of time between the end of work in Tekapo and the beginning of house-sitting in Auckland was too short for comfort and there was no way we were missing out on some of the things the South Island had to offer.

The first gentleman who picked us up was the head of the Mt. Cook Department of Conservation crew.  We told him we had just been to Mt. Cook for the first time a couple of weeks earlier and it was phenomenal.  He told us about the low morale after an ice-climbing safety workshop had gone awry and the instructor had fallen into a crevasse to his death, a sadly ironic event.  This bit had been in the papers.

He very kindly took us farther than the Mt. Cook turnoff so that we would be close to a town in case we had no luck.  People who pick up hitchhikers continually amaze me with how willing they are to go out of their way to help a stranger.  Dark was falling and we were beginning to get nervous, so we were thankful to be dropped off in a more high-traffic area.

Levin, our German stoner (I use that word affectionately) friend from upstairs in Tekapo had spent the morning with us and the other boys and baked bread in the process, which was for us to take.  The bread saved our lives!  I brought a tub of catering spread with us for this and we snacked on it with tremblingly cold fingers.  We could see our breaths and we soon had to hike down the road to where there was a gas station and more light.  Night had fallen.

We were starting to discuss options for sleeping on the side of the road or taking shelter in some large machinery in a nearby park.  It was getting cold fast and the dark was getting thicker.

After a long wait (maybe 2 hours?), someone flipped back around to pick us up.  John the Irishman was headed south, but with a broken heater.  Of all the cars to stop on a cold night, it had to be one whose heater was broken.  Haha.  Then again, we've noticed that it is generally the dysfunctional or shitty cars that stop.  People who are snooty generally are not as kind of souls as those who know a thing or two about doing things the hard way and getting somewhere by alternative means.  First world problems that I have to complain about a broken heater, right?  But damn it was cold!

Fortunately I found his puffy blue coat in the back seat and commandeered it for a good cause, which is to say, my numb legs and feet.  I never thawed out, but I was at least somewhat warm!  I was soooooo thankful he picked us up.

We chatted easily with John.  We told him we were headed back to Auckland for a month and he told us he was also headed there for some work training that would last a month or two.  He left us with his business card so we could get a beer in the city while we were there.  I'll tell more later, but

John took us to Cromwell just off the road where the giant fruit are hard to miss.  We waited here for Dean, the man who had given us a ride from Queenstown to Cromwell on our first trip to Queenstown.  He had been the one who had gone out of his way to drop us where we would be most likely to find a ride to Tekapo and offered us a bed if we had no luck.  We planned to stay the night with him that night to start our traveling right.

We went into a Subway to wait and while Joe was in the bathroom, a man pulled up in a car that looked like Dean's car, but when the man got out, I had a crisis.  The Dean from before seemed rugged, with stubble or a beard, and having just gotten done with construction work that day, seemed dirty or worn or something.  This dude had a short face, no facial hair, and glasses.  He looked like an accountant.

I smiled, which I hoped was friendly, but non-committal in case this wasn't Dean.  But he said my name and walked right up for a hand-shake.  Phew.

When Joe came out of the bathroom, he had the same crisis.  He looked at me as if wondering if I were just chatting with a stranger and was confused when Dean called him by name.  I was glad to know I wasn't the only one.

Dean took us to his house, where we met his partner, a woman who confused us by how wrong she seemed for Dean.  She seemed to laugh at surface jokes, while Dean was a lot deeper.  She was nice, just didn't seem to fit.  Plus, they fought in front of us just a bit, which is always awkward.  But lonely is lonely and everybody needs a little love in their lives.

Dean had of course turned the heated blanket on in our room, and thank goodness because our room was cooooooold.  Fortunately, we were traveling with a bit of noodle makings, so I whipped some up for a quick hot dinner.  The house was oddly-built, with no real purpose for some of the bizarre layout.  The insulation and heating system were shite, so Dean kept it cold to save money.  The house was tiny and slightly uninviting, but we loved the company.  Their german shepherd was sweet as well and just adored Dean.  We watched a little bit of television and then went to bed.

The next morning we were up early to head to work with Dean to Queenstown.  We had decided on our departure date from Tekapo with this in mind, as it was a Thursday when we left and had it been a Friday, he would not have gone to work the next morning.  We would have been able to catch a ride with someone, but it was nice to have the easy opportunity and some more time to talk deep matters with him.

We had decided that we would try to hit Milford Sound as soon as we could, so when we bid an affectionate farewell to Dean in Queenstown, we headed up the road to hitchhike towards Te Anau, the gate to some of the more major sounds.

We had real trouble finding a ride out of Queenstown.  Everyone was taking their kids to school or heading to the ski slopes.  Milford Sound isn't really a wintertime tourist destination, so we weren't getting many hits.  We were freezing to the point of slurred speech, but the view across the lake and into Queenstown was incredible.

Finally a man headed to do a heating installation job in the direction of Te Anau stopped for us.  He was in a rush and not going the whole way, but we were grateful for it anyway.  He was pleasant, but not too much attachment and affection.  He dropped us in a dinky little town in the middle of nowhere, as his path diverted from ours starting here.

Luckily for us, New Zealand is composed almost entirely of two-lane roads and very few motorways that are sprawling like in the United States.  I think it is mostly that they don't have the traffic to warrant huge roads.  This makes hitchhiking easier because we don't have to hoof it on on-ramps or decide between truck stops and back roads, or the main interstate.

We were picked up within a half hour, which was pretty great.  A couple in a nice red pickup was headed in Te Anau's direction in order to take a helicopter ride over the glaciers and sounds.  We were exceedingly jealous, but also exceedingly grateful to them.  They own a huge sheep station and were nice to ride with.

We walked a kilometer or two from where they dropped us off and into the town of Te Anau.  We immediately went to the information center to see if we could catch a bus or hitchhike up to Milford Sound for the night.  Unfortunately, all the buses were done for the night and hitchhiking would have been difficult, so our options changed a little.  We decided that instead of trying to sleep at Milford Sound to save a little bit of money on transport, we would just do our tour to include transport from Te Anau and stay the night there.

I had my heart set on kayaking.  I'm not sure where I even got it in my head that we should do kayaking instead of hiking, cruise or air.  Hiking would have been optimal, but the cost and exclusivity, not to mention the waiting list, barred us from even considering it.  A plane or helicopter flight would have been amazing, but these were very expensive and perhaps not as personal.  The cruise ships were my last choice, despite being cheaper, just because they are very impersonal, quick, and a loud way to experience the beauty.  Kayaking was up-close, personal, quiet, and beautiful.  It was expensive, but I had my heart set on it.  It's one of the few times in my life that I spend a little more for something I really want, and boy was it rewarding.

We walked to the hostel we were going to stay at.  We decided that to save money we would take a tent site, but we had a lounge area with a kitchen, showers, and most importantly, heat.

We took a quick walk to see the sunset (including stepping into mud so deep it swallowed my boot) and then set into cooking some dinner and relaxing a little.

It quickly got cold, we noticed, so we just sort of settled into the couch, where we eventually slept.  It was pleasant.  We had our own little corner.

We were up early in the morning to catch the bus, but somehow cut it pretty close.  We threw our stuff in bags and I headed off down to the front desk where our transport would pick us up.  Joe told me not to let them leave without me and he followed behind shortly.

I was worried we had missed our bus as the sun rose and the morning started to make sounds.  But then our bus pulled up and we were relieved to shove our huge packs into the back of the bus.  There were only 6-8 of us in the bus, a result of off-season.  The whole thing felt more intimate.

The ride up the mountain was perhaps the most beautiful part.  We drove through a chute with striking mountains on both sides.  The morning was frosty but bright, which made pictures just downright awesome--sparkly everything and crisp colors.

There was a one-lane tunnel through the mountain at one point, which was alarming and amazing.  It went on for a long time.  Joe is the one that freaks out for things like this.

On the other side, we stopped for the view and it was breath-taking.  We were surrounded by these super steep green mountains and out in front you could see the snow-covered mountains and the valley crept right up to your feet and spread out like an inviting green chute.

When we stopped here, we also got to see the Kea, a bird well known in New Zealand for being "cheeky."  The guidebooks even talk about them.  They are the only alpine parrot and they are remarkably curious about tourists.  Plus, if you don't watch them very carefully, they'll strip your windshield wipers, steal your lunch, or tear apart your backpacks.  They were the oddest bird I'd ever seen because they were curious enough that they walked (trotted, actually, and sideways) closer to us with their heads tilting one way and then the other to size you up.

We continued on down the beautiful valley and drove until we got to a small hub with a big tent and a couple of out buildings.  We were hustled into the shed where we were to receive instructions for our gear.  There was a heater that helped a little, but I still couldn't believe we were crazy enough to kayak in this weather.

We got our warmth layers on, and then the spray skirt, jacket, and life jacket.  We had little glove things that attached to the paddles to put our hands in when paddling to keep some of the water off our hands and cold out of our bones!

It was cold at first.  I seriously considered turning back.  But this was literally only for a minute or two.  It was easy to stay warm while paddling, and the little hand shield glovey things did a surprisingly good job of maintaining heat.

The trip was amazing.  Kayaks are definitely the best way to see Milford Sound.  Obviously having not experienced the other methods, I can't say this accurately, but I will say that it felt amazing.  The mountains rose out of the water steep and sharp, carved away by glaciers.  We saw seals up close and dolphins from a distance.  Joe and I kept lagging behind because we were admiring it all for too long.  We got our money's worth.  We saw several cruise boats go by with their loud motors and decks of the few passengers brave enough to go out in the cold.

We saw some of the best sunset moments of our lives on the way home (though our eyes were droopy, having been going since dawn light had tipped the scenery).  The whole sky was a glowing pink.  We also saw a few more trotting keas when we stopped to wait for our turn to go through the tunnel.

The bus dropped me and our bags back at the campground and Joe stayed on the bus to get some food for dinner in town.  I paid for another night and hauled our packs this time to a private room (sleeping in the lounge area may not have worked a second time, plus we were pooped).

We had a delicious dinner, though I can't think of what it was now.  I think dinners always taste better when you have a big day.  And sunrise to sunset, partially in the cold and rain and out on the water all contribute to the hunger.

The next morning we hiked back out to the place where the couple had dropped us two days earlier to try and hitchhike.  We were cold.  A freezing fog descended on us.  I was slurring.

After a couple of fake-outs (and Joe letting one go because it looked too full) and several hours of standing around, we finally got something.  A bright red Alfa Romeo with a couple from Dunedin said they could take us as far as Gore.  I was so happy to have a warm place to sit.

In Gore we encountered more trouble getting a ride to Invercargill, but finally a man stopped.  He told us he could drop us at the i-Site, which was a perfect place to start in a new town.  He was a photographer in his spare time and he showed us some of his photos, which were phenomenal.

When we got to Invercargill, we asked about getting to Stewart Island, but the ferry was going to be expensive, plus we would have had to take a shuttle to get to the other city, and all in all, the timetables were difficult and the ferry seemed like a hassle if we were just going for a day.

Then the lady at the counter told us about a wintertime stand-by deal to fly to Stewart Island.  It was cheaper, faster, and better, plus it left very soon, meaning we wouldn't have to wait around.  We were thrilled!  We hopped on a little cheap shuttle to the airport and were waiting for our plane in no time.

At the check-in desk, this handsome young man hand-wrote a ticket for us and asked us to be weighed on the scales.  With such a small plane, their weight measurements had to be more precise.

We were pumped to fly.  The handsome man came out from behind the desk, gathered his 7-8 passengers up, and took us out on the tarmac.  While walking, he asked if anyone was afraid of flying.  I knew Joe is a little nervous about flying and a lot nervous about heights, so I raised his hand for him.  The man said, "Okay, then I'm going to pick on you and bring you up front to fly with me."  The young man was the pilot and Joe was to sit next to him in the front seat of a two-prop plane.

The flight was incredible and incredibly nerve-wracking.  We caught every bit of turbulence and the plane seemed to rock backward and forward, one wing at a time.  We could see the ocean and a few small islands.  I was jealous of Joe and thought he might be mad at me.

The men I sat next to in the back were cracking joke after joke.  Turns out, one of them works for the plane company and is as sarcastic as can be, the witty humor that goes with his British accent.  He gave the young pilot a very hard time, but everyone laughed about it.  Everyone else on the plane also knew one another, or at least of one another.  It felt like we were flying with and into one big family on the island.

The landing was intense.  He bumped and skidded in and it was probably a comparatively good landing, but having not flown on a plane so small before, it felt like dive-bombing a strip of dirt!

The island was small and wet.  It was raining so hard that the ground was having trouble soaking it in.  Luckily, the hotel we were directed to was only a block away.

The hotel is charming.  It has a bar and restaurant on one side, a cafe on the other, a desk with a pop-up railing to show it was closed, with a staircase leading around the desk and upstairs to the rooms.  This was all in one building.  It felt like an old western or something.

We paid for a night (during the winter they rent out rooms at hostel rates because the hostels are all closed on the island--a counter-intuitive business plan if you ask Joe and I) and we went to our room out behind the main building.  It was simple, but cozy.  The afternoon light and the clean sheets were so inviting.

In the room next to us were two Belgian men.  We talked with them and they told us about trivia night at the bar, steak and eggs from the restaurant, and looking for kiwi birds at night.  We excitedly agreed to all go together, but first Joe and I went out for a walk.

We hadn't originally meant to go as far as we did, but we kept going farther and farther and we knew that if we turned back, we probably wouldn't make the time to reach where we wanted to go later.  There was a point at the end of the trail that was famous for its kiwis, its lighthouse, and its penguins.  The farther from the hotel we got, the more we resisted turning back.  We ended up running the last couple of kilometers to speed it up.  We found the lighthouse, but no kiwis or penguins.  It was a beautiful view, though the sun had mostly set and there wasn't much light to see the view.  We were glad we made it all the way out there though.

By the time we got back to the hotel, the Belgian boys had left us a note saying they were in the bar at trivia night already.  We went down and found them, ordered our steak, and played on the foreigners' team in trivia.  Our team made second place and the steaks were to die for.  This was actually the second time in New Zealand that we had done very well at trivia on a foreigners team and it's my theory that because travelers are usually a little more educated, as well as come from diverse backgrounds, we rock at the guessing game.

Afterwards we went out with the boys to look for kiwis.  I didn't know how well this would work, since I don't have much night vision.  Humans aren't really nocturnal.

We went up a few hills in the town toward the bridge the locals had told us might have kiwis.  Joe and one of the guys were just chatting away, which bothered me a little, and I think it also bothered the other guy.  It just seemed like if we were looking for an animal in the dark of night, we should probably stay quiet enough to not scare the animal away, plus we should be listening for them.  Plus, they could have talked some other time.  But oh well.  I am actually very happy when Joe makes a new friend.

Our luck was not good at the bridge, so we continued up another hill until we came to the cemetery, the place the other locals suggested that we might find kiwis.  It was a little ominous to walk through there in the dark, especially because I was the only one without a flashlight.

We had no luck in the cemetery and it was getting colder and darker, so we decided to head back down the hill.  When we got to the bottom of the cemetery drive that split off from the main road, we turned the corner to head back and I heard something move near my feet.  I gasped a little and looked down and there he was.  A kiwi!

We were so excited.  He was so close to my feet and he almost started to peck them.  He bumbled around a little bit and then started heading down the road in front of us.

Joe and I didn't bring a camera because we knew ours would not do so well in the dark.  One of the guys had a nice, big, DSLR camera and the other had a small point-and-shoot.  Once we found the kiwi, we were being as careful as could be not to frighten him, but we definitely wanted to see him and the only way that could be done was by flashlight.

He picked up his pace as the boys tried to get a few pictures.  The one with the big camera kept trying to shoot photos, but the camera wouldn't go.  Joe beside me was getting slightly upset by it because he wanted to be able to share the pictures and he thought the guy was just trying to conserve photos and wait for a good one.  It is silly when digital photos are conserved, especially in conditions where getting the right shot is milliseconds apart.

He walked down the road as we trailed him.  He got closer and closer to the big camera, which would only shine the focus light, but never click to say the picture was taken.

He started looking a little nervous about our presence, probably mostly because there were three of us on one side of him, and one on the other, which may have made him feel trapped.  Then he suddenly let out a shrill call.

After a couple of these short calls, we heard one behind us and looked back to see a slightly larger kiwi with his head and beak in the air letting out the same nervous song.  Now the three of us were surrounded!  We think they were calling for one another because they were nervous about our presence.  Both arched their heads and beaks into the air to call one another.

They continued to walk close to the road for a while, but eventually walked away and into the bush, one on one side of the road, and one on the other.

We were pumped!  I felt like our New Zealand time was complete.  We'd seen it all, kiwi birds included.

Unfortunately with the big camera not being able to focus due to darkness and therefore not able to take the photos, we can't prove it overly well.  The point-and-shoot got a couple of pictures, but not many and they were blurry and partial.  I didn't mind because we had seen a kiwi and that was enough, though Joe regretted not having post-able facebook photos.

We went back to the hotel and there was some after-hours drinking going on in the bar area of the hotel.  The boys had a couple of beers and we watched the locals get drunker and drunker, while one of them played bad tunes on an over-strummed guitar.

We said goodnight and thank you to the boys for a nice night.  They promised to send any successful kiwi photos to Joe on his facebook.

The next day we were up and walking around.  We called the flight service to get seats, since our tickets were standby.  They didn't have any at a reasonably early hour.  We would have to stay another night.

So we went instead to the grocery store and bought some lunch supplies.  Joe got himself into a great conversation with the very young owner, and they talked about remoteness of locations and trying to find the balance between living just for capitalism and business and living just off the earth like a hardcore hippie.  He seemed very balanced and real about it and very well-spoken.

Next we took a water taxi out to Ulva Island, which was a tiny island that was reserved as a habitat for many birds.  There were trails everywhere and we took much longer than the other people on the water taxi to see all of the paths.  We were thorough.  We had the ride back with just us and the captain of the boat, which was fun because we got to talk one-on-one with him.

We ate in the bar again, though I chose something besides the steak, since that seemed like a heart attack waiting to happen.

The next morning we checked out and walked around for a little while, but then we sat in the upstairs part of the hotel reading while looking out at a beautiful view of the harbor.

We checked in for the flight and asked if I could sit up front.  They said yes, so I rode next to the pilot, with all the buttons and thingamabobs on my side as well.  To even get into the plane, you had to crawl over the wing and through a tiny door  It wasn't as scary as the first flight, probably because it was one propeller instead of two.  The two-prop had always just seemed to hit the wind wrong in one propeller or the other and that would make it rock from side to side.

We made a safe landing and felt super lucky to get to experience the whole thing, from the flights, to walking, to kiwis, to trivia, to the Belgians, and to the water taxi and small island.

We took a shuttle back to the i-Site in Invercargill, where we had booked a bus back to Queenstown.  We were already several days over our hopeful itinerary for seeing the South Island, so we had decided it was time to move a little faster than hitchhiking.  The bus was the first step.

We had also booked a relocation vehicle that would go from Queenstown up to Greymouth, which was great.  We were trying to get to Greymouth to catch the train anyway, so relocating a car there would be perfect.  It did make our schedule a little tight for seeing the glaciers on the west coast, but not that bad, because we needed to catch the train at a specific time anyway.  This was our first time trying the relocation thing.

The bus ride was easy and nice.  We were dropped in Queenstown and had some pizza while we waited for Constantin (our German friend) to text back.  I was getting stressed because I felt like we were losing money way too quickly while having all these experiences.  Mind you, I didn't regret our experiences, but we were hemorrhaging our funds.

It took basically all day to get in touch with Constantin, but eventually we did and he said we could sleep at his place, but that he was leaving for the night to go on a ski trip with his friends.  We met up with him and he led us up the road and then up like 6 rickety staircases and dirt scrambles, until we got to his weirdly sandwiched little house where he rented a room.

It was awful.  Constantin had stayed in our living room for a week or more and not having much privacy, and having a futon for a bed was not great, but this was worse.  It smelled and was run-down.  His neighbor across the teeny-tiny hall came out of his room with a cloud of skunky smoke and eyes so bloodshot they made him look like a ragged werewolf.  Each regular room in the house had been split into three or more rooms and had permanent bed installations so that there were two or three people to a room, in a way that reminded me of the tighter fraternity living situations.  Every room smelled.  The kitchen was shit.  It was dirty and impractically sized, made even worse by the fact that there were at least ten or twelve people living in the house and sharing a kitchen that wouldn't have suited even one person.  They had very little heat, and very little light.  The porch was okay, but like the rest of the house, there had been no maintenance in years.  Their bathroom... listen, I'm not picky when it comes to bathrooms.  I pee in the forest without even a second thought.  Porta-potties aren't even that bad because I know it is purely temporary.  Trying to feel at home, even for a night, in a place that has never ever ever been cleaned is really quite tricky.  Bleh.

Rant over.  The place was a sty, just know that.

So we slept on top of Constantin's smelly bed for a matter of only a few hours because we needed to get up and get to the bus to the airport where we could pick up the car.

We bought insurance and paid $1 per day for the rental.  Altogether, I think we spent something like $65.  It even came with a free tank of gas that we didn't need to top up before returning it.  GREAT deal, especially considering that a straight-through bus to Greymouth would have cost at least that much PER PERSON.  And then we wouldn't have been able to see the glaciers or anything else on the way.

We went out to the lot and there was our vehicle: a gold 4WD Toyota Prado.  It was beautiful.  We were so lucky.  We were so happy to have such an awesome solution to our cost/time dilemma.

We drove out of Queenstown elated and on to Wanaka, where we went to Puzzling World.  The first time we went to Wanaka, I had seen it and thought it looked like an odd place to spend time.  But then I heard a few great reviews for it and I was so glad to have the transportation freedom that allowed us to go.

It's a cool place because it takes all of those perspective tricks that artists try to illustrate in two dimensions and puts them in three.  For instance, there was a room with two doorways--one on each side at the back wall--that were different scales.  Using the diagonal lines and scaling everything perfectly, looking at the room just made you think they were the same size.  When people were standing in the doorways, the observer thought one was a giant and the other a miniature.  And if someone walked from one doorway to the other, it looked like the person was shrinking or growing.  Super cool, though rather hard to explain in words.  I'll post a video to illustrate.

There was also a room where everything was tilted to an angle.  Everything was at a slight angle--the floors at 25 degrees, the walls at 25 degrees, the furniture at 25.  And then when you would look around at other people or yourself in the mirror, it screwed with your head.  How could people stand at that angle?  Our brain never sees the whole house at an angle, so our perception sort of rights the house, but then it's freaky that we're standing at an angle (gravity still applies straight down) in a house that our brain tries to fix by making it flat.  I don't know if I explained that very well, but basically it was trippy.  So trippy that it started to make us sick after a while, even though we wanted to stay in the exhibit and mess with our heads.

Puzzling World also had a huge maze, which was fun and difficult.

Then we were on towards the West Coast!  We drove for a long time and we were enjoying the scenery, but the sun started to go down.  Since we didn't want to miss the sights on the west coast, we found a holiday home with a yard that we could tuck the Prado in.  This is technically illegal, but we weren't disturbing anyone and most kiwis hate the no freedom camping rule anyway.

We slept there for the night (a little cold, but otherwise pretty great).  The Prado was not as nice for sleeping as our Subaru was because it wasn't as long and didn't fold all the way flat.  But it didn't bother us too much.  We were glad for the economical option.

The next morning we were up early and drove to Fox glacier.  We did a beautiful hike to see it.  The trail was just beautiful, with different features, like streams, high-country forests, a river crossing in boulders, and an outlook just out of dense forest.

We moved on, feeling accomplished at having gotten up and hiked so early.  We were crossing things off our list quite quickly.

Franz Josef glacier is more pronounced and popular I think, and that is where we went next.  We had a quick and nasty fight, though I'm not sure what about now.  The hike up was silent.  Bleh, I hate fights, but at least he doesn't refuse to engage in a fight with me.  I think healthy relationships include fights.

The glaciers were so impressive.  Especially since we could hike with short sleeves.  They were an icy blue and sometimes you could hear them cracking.  There were helicopters going over all day long with wealthy people taking a closer look for a higher price.

We were glad we got to do the glaciers.  Without the relocation vehicle, we would have been screwed and not gotten to see the glaciers.

In the town of Franz Josef, we stopped quickly at a cafe to get enough internet to book the TranzAlpine train from Greymouth to Christchurch.

We headed on towards Greymouth, but must have stopped somewhere to sleep, though I don't remember at all where or when.  We did make it to Greymouth in time to eat a little something and return the car.  We also went out to see a stone beach and there we found a dying seal, which was rather sad.

The train was amazing.  We checked our big bags in, which made our ride much more comfortable.  The windows were huge and the seats were very comfortable.  There was also a train car on the back that was used solely as a viewing platform and it had huge, glassless windows and railings.  The ride was gorgeous and Joe spent a good deal of time in the viewing platform.  I didn't spend quite as much time, but I did go back several times.

The ride was about 3.5 or 4 hours, starting in the early afternoon and ending just as Christchurch was falling into a light dusk.  We got our bags and called the Argentinians (Jesus and Nicolas), who we knew lived in Christchurch.  They said they would come pick us up!

We went back to their house with them, where they looked like they were really thriving.  Nico looked a little chubbier than he had in Hawke's Bay, and Jesus looked more relaxed.  He is still the Latino male though who puts on a pressed collared shirt to get drunk with his friends, which is cute.  Nico's eyes were still the warm, soft, and kind eyes that a good number of Latinos have.  They're both Latino gentlemen.

The place was full of Argentinians and it was a party night for them!  Everyone got pretty drunk except Joe and I because we knew we would have to be up stupidly early the next day to catch our plane to Auckland.  We were trying to be sociable and fun, but within no time, we were exhausted.  I excused myself and laid down on Nico's bed since he offered.  The party continued.

Eventually they all rounded themselves up to go to another party, though as drunk as they were, it took like a half hour to leave.  Joe eventually faded out sometime in this time frame as well and we cat-napped until 4am, when we needed to wake up.  We were amazed when we realized everyone had come back and were still drunk and still going.  They made us feel old, and I'm pretty sure at least Nico is older than us, and probably Jesus as well.

We took a cab to the airport and checked into our flight.  We had only had a very small window in which we could explore the South Island, so it ended up being as on-the-go as we could muster.  And I had been working two jobs the whole month before that.  So when we got on the plane, I started falling asleep.  We were finally heading to Auckland--a place of rest and peace.

NZ Part 5: Tekapo Photo slideshow

Here is a 7.5 minute video with a lot of photos from our Lake Tekapo stint.  Enjoy!  (p.s. Here is a link to the much better quality one on youtube: http://youtu.be/J9R4cOUli8g)

NZ Part 4: Journey South Photos

All eyes on me

Stratford clock tower

Inside the belly of the beast (the ferry)

Christchurch by night

Joe's penny farthing at the Christchurch museum