From Grads to Nomads

Well, after 30 or so long hours, and a slight debacle with Jason in Auckland, we made it home safe and sound. Of course, about 30 minutes after landing, it had to snow! That is classic murphy's law for you right there! Oh well, it made having a hot bath just that much better.
Our flight to Malaysia, as mentioned, felt long due to the crazy lady beside me who majorly invaded my space the entire flight, interrupting me even when I had my ipod earphones in and reading my book! Getting through customs took FOREVER, due to getting stuck in line behind a large Chinese tour group. I also realized that not all cultures really grasp the idea of queueing in a straight line! It was a slight bit of chaos at the airport. Add on the fact that even though it was a busy evening, the KL airport only felt the need to put 4 customs staff on duty. Not like Calgary, where with slow traffic they had about 8 customs staff on! After finally getting out of the airport, finding our hotel vouchers, and the shuttle, we got to stay for free at the Holiday Inn in Kuala Lumpur, courtesy of Malaysian airlines, and the room was very nice, and getting 2 free meals did not hurt either! We then had a 4 hour flight to Taipei, and a 10.5 hour one to LA where we spent 5 hours before finally getting home last night at 9:30.
It is great to be back, and I want to catch up with lots of people. My cell number is the same so don't hesitate to call! Looking forward to seeing everyone from at home!

PS. For note of our future travels....Rob and I are off to Washington DC and Las Vegas for a 12 day trip at the end of March, and then off to good old England for my Masters program in mid September, for one year.

The last few days hae been long with tons of flying!! The flight from Auckland to KL was 10 hours, and I had the good luck to be sitting next to a weird lady who ate my leftover food, told me way too much about her family history, and proclaimed how we would be friends in the afterlife. creepy indeed.
We stayed at a great hotel for free in KL, and today has been long, i have not slept in a long time. anyhow this keyboard is made for dwarfs, the keys are about 1/3 the size of normal ones so more to come later

Today is our last day in Dunedin, and I thought I would get some pictures up of golfing, the castle, and such.?We are getting packed and ready to leave for Auckland tomorrow and as this will be on of the last postings from New Zealand, with maybe just one more to come, I thought I would leave you all with a sentence chalk full of Kiwi words.

"Today is a nice day to put on my jandals, load up my chilly bin full of bevvies, and head out for a barbie.?We may have sausie and mashies to eat, and we better watch out for the mozzies for they like to bite.?A bikie gang may drive by, and I will see them through my sunnies"

Hurray! Our car sold....and for 400$ over our reserve price that we set it for in the auction. Tomorrow....off to collect a nice cheque!

Rob and I are still in Dunedin, until Saturday. We have been just wandering around the city really as of lately. Yesterday we got out golfing, but it was ridiculously windy outside. We managed to get in 11 holes, and some of the holes were on top of a cliff with a fantastic view of a beach and the ocean, but it was just to windy out to get a full round in. We also dropped our car off at the auction today, so we find out in a few hours whether or not it sold. We are still staying at Chalet Backpackers, the one with the ghost, but the ghost has kept himself hidden rather well.

Our trip is drawing to a close here, our group is in 3 different locations now, spread out all over the country. Tonight the big excitement, other than hopefully hearing good news about our car, is going to see Munich at the movie theatre here.

Yesterday Rob and I drove out to Larnach castle and checked into the Larnach Lodge, where we stayed in a gorgeous Victorian style room overlooking the bay, right beside the castle. We took a self guided tour of the castle, learning about the tragic history of the Larnach family (the father and one of the sons each took a gun to their head, the other sun had an illicit affair with his fathers 3rd wife...the reason for the father shooting himself) and enjoyed the elaborate woodwork and architechture of the building. We later enjoyed a tasty dinner at a waterfront restaurant before tucking in for the night at the lodge. Today we awoke to bagpipes, as there was a man playing them in front of the castle, undoubtedly for the mass amounts of tourists arriving by bus.

Today we figured out further travel plans and put our car into an auction so fingers crossed that it sells this week! This evening we drove out to the penguin beach with the guys, and as luck had it, the penguins showed up again!! On the drive out, we noticed tons of cars all stopped along the road, and everyone had cameras and picnics. We had seen a HUGE cruise ship in the harbour, so we wondered if this was correlated. I went over to ask a woman what the fuss was about, and sort of figured that maybe this was the first time a ship that huge had come into Dunedin so it was a big deal. Well....apparantly this ship comes in all the time, the people here just must not have enough to do on a tuesday night, other than watch a ship sail by and take pictures of it. We had a good laugh over this!

Tomorrow on the agenda...golfing...

Yesterday Rob and I headed about 25 minutes out of Dunedin to spend the night at a small hostel called Billy Browns, which was absolutly charming, had great views of the bay, and very friendly owners. After settling in, we headed down the the beach where penguins have nests, and we walked down to a rocky area and sat down to begin the wait. We only had to wait about 25 minutes.....it is important that the penguins don't notice any people for they are very shy, the rare yellow eyed penguin. We finally saw one pop out of the water and begin walking around, and it was a very fantastic moment for me! Then another popped up and they both waddled across the beach to their nests!! we have some great video footage of it all! Following, we walked to a peninsula, a man made spit, and we saw the Royal Albatross breeding site in the far distance. That was very cool, as they have about a 6 foot wingspan and are huge, rare birds. Then, to complete our wildlife viewing experience, we saw about 8 sea lions on the rocks, and we got their attention by making some loud noises!! Apparantly, seeing sea lions is rare unless you are on a paid tour, so guess we got lucky!!! We saw all the animals that you see on a tour, only ours was for free!

Later today, on our way into town, we stopped at Baldwin Street, which is the world's steepest street, according to the guinness book of world records!! We walked to the top and I can assure you all, it certainly is a climb straight up. They have stairs instead of sidewalk going up due to the steep grade of the road.

Today, we are off to Larnach castle!

Today we went to a bay called Cannibal bay, where they apparantly found human remains about 100 years ago. We did not see anything of great excitement there apart from some seagulls. It was a quite day, and we drove to Dunedin in the late afternoon where we are now staying at the so called haunted hostel with the others!

Yesterday after leaving Queenstown, I had booked us into a hostel which ended up being in a tiny town of just 400 people, called Owaka. We checked in, by calling the lady who runs it at home, and she gave us they keycode to check ourselves in! It is a quaint little place, with themed rooms. Ours is the star room, with stars painted all over, and glow in the dark stars on the ceiling. Today we are going to check out some local coves where they are apparantly sea lions and hopefully some penguins!!

This morning I awoke to the bleating sound of sheep, which is a good indicator of how small a town we are in, with a sheep field being right next door to the hostel!

Today was rather eventful, as our last day in Queenstown. In the afternoon, we intended to go and play frisbee golf, however, upon getting to the park, we discovered that you have to bring your own frisbee. Since we didn't see a need to own multiple frisbees, we walked around the park instead and climbed up a huge boulder, as you see in the picture. Later in the early evening, I was wandering around alone while the guys were at a movie (it starred 50 cent, hence I had zero desire to see it) and I saw the gondola and decided it would be worth seeing the view of the town before leaving. However, being me, I decided I should hike up instead. 45 minutes later of STRAIGHT uphill, including me taking a shortcut up a steep mountain bike path to avoid the long hikers route, and I was scrambing on my hands and knees over logs, I made it to the top. The view was spectacular, however, due to the spontaniety of me going up, I did not have my camera. I then rode the luge once which was great fun, and had a corono at the bar overlooking the lakes and valley. Then the gondola back down and it was all in all a great time!

Later in the evening, when we all met up, Kirby, Krista, Rob, and I went to the wine store which has a unique tasting system. You buy a card, say 15$ worth, and insert it into a slot which is linked to many wines. They are priced from 1.00 to 11.00 and you get a sample of the wine. They have over 100 to sample, and I tried around 7 for my 15.00. It was really a great last day here in Queenstown!

Queenstown did not end up being a good idea for a place to work, plus it is absolutly freezing here at night, as I turned on the heater and put a fleece blanket on the bed last night to stay warm!

Rob and I have pretty much decided that we will not be working in NZ, due to the difficulty of finding a job and a place to live for only 8 weeks. In the meantime, keep tuned for our plans as to what we will be doing.....could well be in Calgary in February.

We have been in Queenstown almost 3 days now, and it is a pretty place for sure, looks just like a combination of Banff and Waterton. Yesterday I dropped off my resume at a few places, but the job search here is rather slow and difficult as my resume has little to nothing to do with the jobs that are available here. Same goes for Rob. This is also a very difficult town to find an apartment to live in, as there is next to nothing, unless you are a single person looking to live with lots of strangers. We will see what the week brings I suppose.

Today we drove 5 hours to Queenstown, the drive was rather uneventful. We really enjoyed our brief stay at the hostel in Franz Josef Glacier. Last night we enjoyed watching a movie in the room, Pay It Forward, and then we went out in the dark into the woods to find glow worms. We did indeed find some, and they are very cool looking, appearing as tiny bluish white dots in the under scrub amoung the trees. On the driev today, I began to really dislike the Kiwi system of one lane bridges, for there are a TON through the mountains and it means the car is constantly stopping and starting again as you have to ensure no traffic is coming across the brideg at you.....we were wondering....how much more could it REALLY have cost to build 2 lane bridges!!

Queenstown looks just like Banff, and now it is time to finally attempt to find work and a place to live.....looks as though it may be a bit of a challenge, tomorrow will be the first day out searching, so keep tuned in for updates!

I forgot to mention below.....our total hiking distance was about 60 km in the 5 days.

Day 1....

We left Nelson at around 9:30am, intending to be hiking by about 11am. Well, due to my exceptional navigational skills....we ended up driving about 80 km the wrong direction over a hilly mountainous pass, and it was not until we were through that I realized we had missed the turn. So.....about 1:30, after renting the neccessary bits of equipment, we hit the trail. Our first day comprised of 12 km, which rolled us into camp about 5:30, and we took the last bunks available in the hut, and heated up our precooked pasta. We spent the evening chatting with a traveller from Washington, D.C., and Jason opted to sleep in the tent with Chris for the first night. Our sleep was less than restfull, as I had the great snoring Granny next to me the whole night, and on my other side a bitter, muttering woman expressing her discontent with the snoring coming from the old woman all night. On the top bunk, Rob, who had opted to sleep the opposite direction of everyone else, got kicked in the head 3 times by the big guy next to him, before the guy decided to snuggle Rob's legs in his sleep, wrapping his arm around him.....needless to say, Rob was less than impressed! The next morning we got going around 9:30am, taking the low tide route across a bay.

Day 2.....
We crossed the bay, which involved getting a wee bit wet and walking barefoot across soft sand with many shells imbedded within, which are a wee bit painful on the feet! However, it did save us an hour of walking, so it made it worthwhile. We then slugged up and over hills, treated to many gorgeous views of white sand beaches with turquoise waters. We rolled into hut number two, Bark Bay, at around 1:30, and after a lunch of pitas and cream cheese, we headed out to the beach and laid in the sand, dipping into the water for a cool down. Later on, a pleasant afternoon nap, and then dinner preparations. It was then we discovered that tonight's sleep distractor would be the young baby that one couple had brought with them, who thankfully only cried a few times during the night. Jason decided to try out the hut bed, and a German woman who slept next to him asked if he snored, to make sure he didn't because she hates snoring. Ironically she ended up snoring loudly all night. As we went to bed around 9:30 each night, we were up early in the morning. We were lying in bed in the am, getting ready to get up when we heard a loud thump and then screams/crying. Turns out a girl in the next room had fallen 8 feet off the bunk bed onto her back. She ended up getting airlifted out by helicopter, and most hikers stuck around for an extra hour to watch all the commotion. Once the helicopter had taken off, we got off hiking.

Day 3.....

The hiking was fairly uneventful, just seeing many more great views. A lot of the hike is through dense, tropical foliage, which is very different from hiking at home. The trail was busy, as it is filled with day hikers taking water taxis in and out, and we passed a lot of people. At one point, we caught up to a middle aged German woman who got angry at being passed. SHe pulled up her pace to avoid being passed, and then tripped and stuck her hiking pole out to the side to prevent us passing her. WHen her friend yelled up to her from behind us to let us pass her, she began to mutter angrily to herself before finally stepping aside! That bit of drama out of the way, we came to Awaroa lodge in the early afternoon, a luxury lodge in the middle of the hike where we stopped for lunch before heading to our more rustic hut! We enjoyed some chicken salads and cold beers, checked our email, and enjoyed a touch of civilization before walking across a hot dry sandy tidal area to our hut. I should mention though that all the huts on the hike had flush toilets, running filtered water, and sinks, some that included dish soap!! It was not quite roughing it, although we were cooking over a camping stove. There was a cold shower at this hut, which I took advantage of to wash my hair, although it was like pouring ice water over my head!! In the evening, we got into a round of poker with seashells for chips, and finally headed to bed, as playing by candlelight got a bit dim. It was a great sleep for us, as Rob and I hopped into a room with only 2 others, while the other hikers cramed into the larger bunkrooms.

Day 4......

Today was an early day.....we awoke at 5am, due to neccessity. Once leaving the but, we had to cross a huge tidal area which was only passable at low tide, and leaving at 5:30am was the latest possible time to do so, otherwise we would have had to wait until late afternoon. We set off in the dark, and crossed tidal streams which reached my mid thigh, and headed off for what turned into our longest day. It was overcast all day, and there were a lot of hills to climb over. It basically went....climb a hill....go down, cross a beach, climb a hill, go down, cross a beach, and so on! Let me mention, walking in loose sand with a 20lb backpack on is hard work on the legs!! After hiking for about 5 hours, we took a rest in a bay called Mutton Cove, where we prepared for an extra hour to our day so that we could head to Seperation Point to see seals. We walked some more beaches, and were about to start our climb into the hills when we saw a seal laying alone under the beach brush. We took some pictures of it, and then Chris got a little too close, for the seal hopped up and got quite angry!! It was quite a sight to see!! We then saw a dead penguin in the bushes which was very sad, and then we made our way to Seperation Point. It was a rocky scramble down, and we saw a few seals and a lot of birds. From here, it was a long walk to the last hut, which was a restored 1898 farmhouse. It felt like staying the night in Heritage Park!
The night was the most fun, as there were only 9 of us staying there, and 10 minutes after we arrived the rain came in buckets and poured the rest of the day/night. We sat around chatting to the other hikers all evening, and when the Dept. of Conservation guide came over to check our permits, he told us all about Maori legends of the area. We also apparantly missed seeing about 300 dolphins in the bay by 2 days. It was a great night, and we sat around the old stove to get heat from the fire. The hut was apparantly haunted by an old sailor, but we did not catch any sightings!!

Day 5.....
The rain thankfully stopped and turned into a drizzle, so we made our way back 8km to our spot for the water taxi pick up. We basically pushed on, going up and down over hills again, and got to the campground for the water taxi an hour early. We purchased some junk food in the camp store and enjoyed some decadent Cadbury chocolate and fed the birds bits of chips! THe water taxi back was a lot of fun, as the guy stopped at a nature island reserve where we saw tons of seals, and also a penguin in the water.

All in all, it was an all around fabulous experience, albeit a few sore muscles!

Our hike was a fantastic experience, please read the posting below to hear all about it and how it went! After we finished the hike yesterday, we stopped in the only cafe in Marahau, the small town where the hike began for a real meal before driving to Greymouth on the west coast, about 4 hours away. The drive was very scenic and when we pulled into Greymouth, we suddenly found out that almost all accommodation was booked, due to some car rally or show or something. We ended up finding this gorgeous brand new (5 weeks old) motel which was more like a fancy hotel done up motel style, where we had separate bedrooms and a whole kitchen and living room!! It was pretty much the last room in town, and we beat a family to it by about 3 minutes. When we were checking in, I got asked if we prefer "blue or green milk". I stared blankly at the woman until she explained that is how they refer to skim and whole milk! We enjoyed the first shower in 6 days and brought in pizza and a movie last night! Today we drove to the glacier, and we just finished a 2 hour hike to the base of it and back, you can see the interesting sign at the base. It is an incredible glacial valley, with lush growth and waterfalls all around you as you stare up at the glacier, which is also the world's steepest glacier. It is just stunning, and here is an interesting fact....it moves at a rate of 1 meter per day, either retreating or advancing. We are here for the night, in a great hostel with our OWN bathroom, and then tomorrow we finally head to Queenstown.

Equipped with our backpacks, lots of food (for me anyhow.....I am hoping it will also sustain all the guys) and a map with tide timetables (since we have a few water crossings), we are ready to embark on our 53km 5 day hike along the Abel Tasman Park. We will be back and updating as of January 13, 2006!

The other night, we headed to the ferry terminal around 11:30pm, after navigating the very confusing mass of one way streets in downtown Wellington. It turned out our ferry was late, not due in until 3am, when it was suppossed to be in at 12:30am. The 3 of us in our car watched 2 episodes of the OC on Chris's computer, which did help to pass the time. Once we finally got on the boat and started moving, the ferry began some brutal rocking, which made me utterly nauseous. Thankfully we got through the ride and started driving at 7am. The lighting was very pretty cascading over scenery again similiar to inland BC, and then the nasty curves suddenly began. The road kept doing sharp switchbacks and I ended up having to pull over for a bit. We finally rolled into Nelson around 8am and then spent the day napping and such. Today we have to prepare to go on our 5 day hike starting tomorrow morning, so there is some grocery shopping to be done!

The last few days have been quite busy for us! Our last day in Raglan we had intended to golf, but several storms decided to blow in , producing the worst winds that the hostel owners had ever seen in Raglan!! We seem to be lucky enough to keep seeing "the worst storm ever" everywhere we go. We spent the day hibernating in the hostel instead, and hit the road yesterday for an 8 hour drive to Wellington through scenery that looked just like driving through parts of BC and Alberta. Remarkable how similar the two countries topography is. We arrived in Wellington to discover that only Jason and Chris had a hostel room, the rest of us were out of luck, as our reservations apparantly did not go through. As every hostel in town seemed to be booked, I got fed up and I called the Intercontinental and booked the 4 of us in for a night. We thoroughly enjoyed the luxury of a hotel, immediately heading for the pool and hot tub, and I was able to relax in a eucalpytus scented sauna....pure heaven. We then wandered around looking for dinner at 9pm.....again in true New Zealand style it is difficult to find an open restaurant at 9pm so we finally got Hell's pizza and brought it back to the room.
Today has been spent wandering around 2 museums, first the history of Wellington....somewhat interesting but really New Zealand does not have the most fascinating history in comparision to the US or Britain. Then....we went to the Te Papa museum, a huge one which is similiar to a Smithsonian in size, and wandered around, learning about earthquakes and volcanos and the history of migration to New Zealand. We now have the evening until our 2am ferry to the south island! I am enjoying Wellington, I find it to be much more enjoyable than Auckland, and there is more to see and do here.
The pictures are from the dolphin tour in Paihia, New Years Eve, the beach at Raglan, and Rob and I at the pier in Wellington.

Yesterday we had to be out of our Paihia hostel at 9:30 am, so we decided to drive north to Ninety Mile beach to check out the surfing and sand boarding. 100km turned into almost a 2 hour drive, through extremely twisted and windy roads, and surprisingly, well actually shockingly, I was the only person to not feel at all nauseous! We got to Ahipara, and it is a tiny trashy town on the coast. The people working in the adventure shop and the conveience store were anything but friendly and the beach was really not that nice, so we decided to get the heck out of there. Since we enjoyed Raglan so much, we are back here now, but yesterday ended up being 12 hours on the road, as we got caught in traffic on the way back down through Auckland, and finally pulled into the hostel at 9:30pm. The owners here are fantastic and remembered us and are now making special arrangements to keep us here for 3 day!