Last of Hawaii...or not

Well there's not too much more to write. We spent the rest of our time in Hawaii lazing around in our various beach house rentals, surfing, and snorkeling. I got marginally better at surfing, or at least got used to standing up, falling over, and hitting everyone with my board. And, as everyone noticed, I got lots more tan. We got to know all our local turtles; our favorite was an old dude with a big growth on his eye who we called the Cyborg. We were pretty mad when a white tipped reef shark came and took over the Cyborg's napping spot, but white tipped reef sharks are tame little guys and we didn't have the heart to chase it away with the spear!

Some friends visited and helped keep us entertained. Sam finally did manage to catch some squid which is what they call octupus in Hawaii, since they don't have squids and "squid" is shorter. Then Sam had to defend his catch from the reef shark and ended up climbing up on the reef to get back to the beach. Sam's cousin speared a few Nemos and we cooked those up too. Ok, not really Nemos, I promise! But we decided to go back to the mainland since we'd depleted our little fishing pool sized favorite reef. That and we missed all our little nieces and nephews who were getting bigger and bigger while we were gone!

So pretty soon we were off home to California. But we are planning on going back to Hawaii ASAP! So everybody come visit us!

The Life

We had a pleasant flight from New Zealand and before we knew it we were back in the USA! Surprisingly they let us back in, even with so many random stamps on our passports and five months out of the country. They didn't even search our bags. We stepped out into the pleasant Hawaii springtime - such a change from the ice cold New Zealand fall!

Sam's uncle picked us up from the airport and we stayed the first few nights with his uncle's family up in Kahuku by the North Shore. They live in a farm similar to the one Sam grew up in and loves to tell stories about, though they have an actual house (plywood) not a schoolbus. Sam's uncle has three little girls (from his second marriage) living with him. The six year old is crazy and talks nonstop! The older girls are more shy. The farm wasn't as shanty as Sam made it out to be, though they are off the grid in terms of electricity and water. But they turned on the generator for us so we had electricity to get our bearings! In the morning we got up and checked out the farm - right now they are growing cucumbers and tomatoes. Then it was off to Walmart to pick up essentials: fins, snorkels, masks, spear! Next priority: plate lunch at the Hukilau Cafe, where we got roast pork and the true Hawaiian specialties of macaroni salad and french fries with gravy. No mutton hangi here! Third item on the agenda, of course find a place to stay long term. Sam's uncle had some new workers coming to the farm and also I was allergic to their cat so we needed a place. Luckily a friend of a friend who manages some rentals hooked us up with a new rental she was working on! This lady was super nice and gave us a good price since she was still setting up. The best part was listening to Sam switch on his pidgin when talking to her since she and her husband were locals. If you've never heard pidgin, it's like this crazy Hawaiian brogue but more comprehensible than a Kiwi accent for sure!

That day we also toured the North Shore which was actually breaking. It was small for the North Shore (a little over double overhead) so everyone and their mom who ever wanted to surf Pipe was out, and all the more serious surfers were elsewhere. I took one look and vowed not to get in the water in Hawaii, but Sam promised me he'd take me to easier spots where the worst crowds were too many turtles. Like Pounders beach where Sam was almost paralyzed bodysurfing as a kid! No just kidding, like Castle's and a few other mellow spots.

That night we went to a Laotian New Year's Party on a neighbor's farm. I thought there'd be at least a few non-Laotians but I was the only one! I felt a little out of place but entertained myself eating all the tasty Laotian food I hadn't had in a while: cabbage wraps dipped in spicy sauce, sticky rice, mmm. The dancing was awesome: Sam calls it "Amy style" in which you barely move and just kind of wave your arms a bit. They were really good at karaoke, which came with both Laotian writing and phonetic spelling on the videos - though I still didn't join in because I was too busy eating all the food.

The next day we moved into our beach studio. It had a nice little private yard with sand dunes leading onto the beach. It was heaven! Especially after living in a campervan for two months straight.



We stocked up the kitchen with essentials like King's Hawaiian Sweet Rolls, Mauna Pua, Chocolate Covered Macadamia Nuts, Hawaiian Suns, and of course the meats! We went a little crazy - we still haven't cooked all the dishes we've been wanting! So far we've made: burgers (real ones not fake Kiwi ones), hot dogs, shoyu chicken, kahlua pig, terriyaki beef on King's Hawaiian sweet rolls, chili and rice, squash soup, lemongrass chicken, terriyaki and lemongrass shortribs, mmmm....After so long on soup and grilled cheese sandwiches we are really enjoying our bbq and oven. Not to mention the coffeemaker: I'd never thought I would miss filtered coffee, but I did! (They only have espresso in New Zealand and Australia, which they refer to just as coffee. I believe their term for American filtered coffee is not printable in this blog.)

After we grocery shopped, we grabbed our surfboards and ran out. We were too lazy to paddle out to the real surf breaks which are out by the reef at Genegator's and Goat Island, straight out from our place. We tried to catch the little waves on the inside only to discover the water sucked up to about 3 inches deep over the reef. All in all we escaped lightly with only minor scratches. We tried again later at high tide too, same deal, oh well. Snorkeling for the first few days was a bit stormy but we did really enjoy our high end gear. It was so nice to have good fins and a snorkel that doesn't let in every little splash. Later we drove to Castle's, a good beginners surfing spot, where I actually managed to ride a wave or two.

We had the cousins over a few times when we needed people to eat up all our food. The six year old eats more than everybody else combined, including Sam! They had fun, though it was a little weird to be trying to teach locals how to swim - I guess the poor girls don't get off the farm and out to the beach too much. They are good kids and didn't even complain too much when we made them clean the house afterwards.

To get fresh veggies, we visited the farm and got cilantro, limes and lime leaves, coconuts, cucumbers, and tomatoes. We also entertained ourselves driving the golf cart they use for transporting small loads of veggies and Sam wreaked havoc taking the tractor 4 wheeling.

Since then I forgot where the days went! The snorkeling has been especially nice with a few turtles and lots of pretty fishes that we don't know the names of. Altogether it's a blur of swimming, snorkeling, surfing, going for runs on the beach, sketching, napping, reading, repeat....We kind of needed a vacation from our vacation and this is it! Sam keeps repeating "Aah, the life" with a satisfied sigh. It's so nice to have our own little place that we didn't even care too much when it rained for five days straight - since the ocean is still warm who cares? Dad mailed us our laptops so we're keeping busy going through photos. Some of our friends came to visit so we're not too lonely here, though not as many friends as were supposed to come, ahem! That's it for now, we'll post again when something significant happens like Sam finally manages to spear Nemo.

Easter Egg Hunting in Northland

We'd just left Wellington yet again and had a long drive north yet again. Our route took us back through Tongariro, but we didn't stop, since it was snowing there. Sledding Mt. Doom sounded entertaining, but they recommend against doing the Alpine Crossing in poor visibility for some reason (maybe extreme danger) oh well. We also drove through a huge pine forest planted during NZ's Great Depression that went on for miles and miles. Ok well it was more impressive than it sounds, sorry. We made it close to Auckland, but traffic grew heavy in the evening because of the start of the Easter weekend. Easter is a pretty big holiday in NZ, sort of like Thanksgiving at home, except schools get a couple weeks off, though workers get four days. And if you keep your store open, you have to charge a 15% tax. I guess Kiwis take their crucifixions, resurrections, etc pretty seriously! We found a random car park in a random town and parked for the night. We didn't see any other campervans so we were a little nervous, especially when some sedans pulled up and parked next to us. Uh oh, we thought, are we invading someone's drug dealing spot or something? In the morning we realized it was just Kiwis travelling for the long weekend and needing a place to sleep just like us. They were all very friendly though somewhat incomprehensible. They did warn us about the coup, or anti-coup, or whatever it was, in Fiji. More on that later....

The next morning we kept heading north towards the Bay of Islands. Traffic grew heavy, though luckily we'd been warned to avoid Highway 1 north of Auckland, where a new toll system was causing queues 8 km long. Along the way we saw a sign advertising hangi, the NZ equivalent of a luau, which we had read about but had not tried or even been able to find anywhere. Hangi involves roasting a variety of meats and tubers wrapped in leaves in a pit with hot stones, similar to kahlua pig. A few yards past the hangi sign we noticed some kind of wreck or commotion on the roadside, but we were too focused on finding our hangi stand. Later we learned a motorcyclist had gone off the embankment and died. Wow, did we ever feel like assholes for obliviously buying hangi. Anyway we got our hangi and it was horrible - some sweet potatoes which were ok, and a lot of tough chewy mutton, and a little tough steak. Ugh. Not worth dying over, for sure!

That afternoon we made it to Whangarei, where we checked out a kauri forest walk. Kauris are like redwoods in California, as in old-growth stands barely exist anymore. I would say they are a bit more rare than redwoods though, since they are slower to grow and most of the land has been converted to pasture. After admiring the trees, we tried to check out a self-guided cave (we refused to pay for more glowworm "boat rides.") Unfortunately the stream inside the cave was pretty high and Sam got scared of the Shrieking Eels. After getting soaked up to our wastes, we turned back. We saw more nice waterfalls, just for the heck of it, then went to a caravan park outside of town near the coast. There was no surf but there was the Southern Hemisphere's Longest Footbridge, yay!

The next day we drove through the Bay of Islands, but lacking a yacht, didn't stay. Mom & Dad's advice was to just go make friends with somebody who owned a boat, but we were feeling a little shy and also overwhelmed by the Easter crowds. So we continued up to Cape Reinga, the long peninsula that forms the tip of the north island. We camped at a busy campground - and we'd thought we could hide from the Easter crowds! It was up at the end of the cape, where we were devoured by both mosquitoes and sandflies. Oh my gosh I haven't mentioned sandflies yet have I! If you think mosquitoes are bad, you've got to try sandflies, which are little gnats that come out in droves all over NZ, at all hours of the day, and have a horribly unbearably itchy bite. The cold of autumn had mostly kept them at bay, but it was noticeably warmer up at the cape. The next morning, we drove to the lighthouse, not one of our safer drives due to the unsealed road and the fact that we were constantly reaching down to slap sandflies and scratch sandfly bites on our ankles. We checked out the lighthouse at the end of the cape, apparently a Maori spiritual site where you should not eat or drink. But bombing down the lighthouse path on a mountain bike in a tour group was somehow ok.

Along the west side of the cape stretches 90 Mile Beach, actually about 60 miles long (oh those Kiwis and their moderate exaggeration! In America we would call it 200 mile beach, at least!) There are huge sandunes, and the beach itself is so flat and the sand so well packed that the beach is actually part of the NZ highway system. Unfortunately rental vehicles are prohibited from driving on the beach (the sand isn't that well packed.) So we headed to the south end of the beach, to the famous surf spot Shipwrecks. As per usual, there was no swell at this supposedly famous spot, so we hung out and ate fish and chips. We also watched locals drive all kinds of vehicles at high speed along the beach, from motorcycles, to pickup trucks, to little 4 wheel quad bikes, and even bicycles. Our favorite was the tractors used to tow boats though.

The next morning we managed to catch a few waves, but they were mostly closing out. I got tired of going end over end (my fin is long and scary) so I caught whitewater until I cut my foot on a shell or something. Sam took one look at the cut and then promptly gave away my wetsuit and took the fins off my board, declaring no more surfing for our last week in NZ. Oh well. That night we stayed at the same caravan park - wow - this was the first time we'd stayed in one place for two nights since Raglan! But the next morning there was no swell, so we decided to head back south. We were originally planning on going back to Piha, but decided in the end just to stay in Auckland. We were getting a bit nervous about the Fiji situation and wanted to get online and make a plan.

We learned that in Fiji, the judges that had declared the military dictatorship illegal had been fired, and the constitution had been flushed down the toilet, which had backed up, creating a high plumbing bill, so the banks had been taken over by the military, and to reduce embarrassment, all foreign journalists had been expelled and the local press had been shut down. I guess this happens once every few months or so in Fiji and is a good opportunity to visit for cheap, but we were a little nervous since we'd never been there before. Mainly we didn't want to get stuck there and have to stay at a nicer hotel with a security guard and all that, since the actual resorts in Fiji cost hundreds of dollars per night. Long story short: we couldn't change our tickets, so we bought new tickets directly to Hawaii and left the next day. But not before enjoying some final meat pies at the airport! Mmmm...meat pies. We had tickets with United/Air New Zealand and it was a very pleasant flight with a TV for each passenger. We entertained ourselves watching Flight of the Conchords for 8 hours and before we knew it, we were across the dateline in Hawaii, and it was yesterday!

In Which Wooly Cattle Drive the Sheep to Despair

Sam had been very gracious about all the hikes I'd been dragging him on, so I figured it was time to look for some surf again. Everyone we'd met raved about Taranaki, a big volcano on the west coast of the North Island which formed a big peninsula with a million surf spots. We decided to skip Wellington again (we would live to regret this for a number of reasons) and started driving towards Taranaki. Unfortunately we'd forgotten that it was now Friday night so we inched out of town in heavy traffic and eventually stopped at Hatamangi beach caravan park. Usually we have a policy of driving through all caravan parks before we pay, but this place looked nice enough so I just paid up front. D'oh! Sure it was a nice park but there was not one but three high school girls' volleyball teams staying there! No showers for me! Eventually I just showered in the mens while Sam kept a lookout. Later we got to talking with the chaperones and they were all quite nice, though all suffering from the cold. We were glad we weren't the only ones who thought it was freezing! I guess we were too late to catch warm weather even on the North Island. The chaperones explained to us that they call high school "college" here, clearing up some confusion. This is just one of many strange kiwisms! Others include: appetizers are called "entrees" and "lucked out" means "out of luck." ("Lucked in" means "lucked out.")

Anyway, the next morning we fled towards Taranaki to continue our oddysey of horrible surf. There was no swell whatsoever. After some driving around we finally found some waves at a crowded beach in New Plymouth, which is Taranaki's big town. Sam went out to fight the crowds while I went for a run. Then we drove around looking for a beach shower. After Australia, we couldn't believe that such a popular beach in a big town didn't have a beach shower! Or even a bathroom! Not so much as a port o' potty! I think all the locals must have had at least one friend with a house within walking distance from the beach or something. Anyway we finally found a beach with a shower, and then we headed out to a smaller town to sleep at the marine park. All the locals were out there fishing all night. We felt a little out of place in our campervan but at least it was clearly ok to stay the night.

The next morning the swell was the same, so poor Sam got to do another hike: the Whitecliffs Walkway on the north end of the peninsula. This was an awesome walk along the beach with 100m cliffs looming overhead. I was a little uneasy since the beach was impassable at high tide and I did not enjoy the thought of trying to climb the cliffs with surf crashing around me. Partway along the walk we came upon a poor dead lamb who had clearly taken the short way down the cliffs - not a pretty sight! But we hit low tide perfectly and had plenty of time to spare when we made it to the escape route, an old tunnel for driving stock down to the beach.

Then we started on the inland part of the loop hike, listed as "moderate" in the guide book. Ah those kiwi hikers! "Moderate" turned out to mean a series of stairways, usually about 10 to 20 flights each, going up and down steep hills all the way back - and the stairways were the easy part! The hard part was super-steep slippery grass. Sam wanted to go back to the beach but I was nervous about the tide so we kept going, and eventually made it out to a series of farms, where we admired some strange shaggy cattle. I guess they love their sheep so much in NZ they even breed their cattle for wool! No wonder the lamb gave up on life! It couldn't stand the competition!

In our usual tradition of wearing poor Sam out with long hikes followed by long drives, we headed for the east coast. We stopped at a town known for its natural hot springs. We debated whether to pay for the spa there, but eventually decided just to go straight to the caravan park, which turned out to be a good idea since even the caravan park had a hot pool. Sweet! The next morning we made it to Whangamata, another famous surf spot. Here there was a swell, but the conditions were stormy. Instead we spent the day figuring out how to call home since it was Mom's birthday. We eventually found that they sell SIM cards in appliance shops and got an international calling card which we put too much money on, so we ended up with thousands of minutes. We decided to spend some of the money calling Laos to get the phone number of Sam's cousin in New Zealand. Sam was sure the cousin lived in Auckland, so we figured we could visit on our way back north. But guess what - the cousin lived in Wellington! Augh there is just no avoiding that town!

But first, we had to check out the famous Hotwater Beach, where you could surf, then dig a pit in the sand at low tide and it would fill with hot water welling from a natural spring below the sand. We had to wait for low tide the next morning though. When we arrived the tide was nice and low and there was a big crowd of tourists diligently digging with rented shovels. We decided to watch for a bit before renting our own shovel, and got lots of entertainment out of watching because the swell was still high so every 2 minutes or so a wave would come in and wash out all the pits. We alternated between watching this, and watching surfers get pummeled by whitewater, for the next hour or so. You have to admit both the surfers and the diggers were persistent! But eventually we started to look like total jerks laughing at everybody, so we headed back to Wellington. We made it in quite late, in the pouring rain, and since we were going to get soaked regardless, we eventually parked by the railroad tracks and went straight to bed.



The next day we called up Sam's cousin and went to visit him at his house, which turned out to be nearby. I showered while Sam and his cousin talked in Laotian - I suddenly realized how much Laotian I had forgotten! Sam's cousin had stayed in the Thai refugee camps for 15 years longer than Sam, and had only come to New Zealand 10 years ago. We got to learn the downside of New Zealand: low salaries, a slow economy, and not very many jobs. Sam's cousin took us to check out the Wellington museum, Te Papa, and cooked us a tasty Laotian dinner of bamboo shoot soup, sticky rice, and poua (pronounced "powah") which is basically kiwi abalone. It was quite delicious and apparently you can obtain the bigger ones from illegal poua rings. That's right - we'd finally found the Ring of Poua! Ok, ok, really bad pun, sorry. The next day the weather stayed wet, so we hung out with the family for a bit, then headed back north out of Wellington - yeah, again.

South Island, Speed Sightseeing

After the Bali ferry, we were just a bit reluctant to get on any sort of boat - at all. We were tempted to just stick to the North Island, but everybody told us the South Island was beautiful this time of year, so we booked a ferry ride with our Jucy van rental (more on this debacle later) and off we went. We decided we'd catch Wellington and tour the real LOTR (i.e. Weta Digital Inc. 1:4 scale models) on the way back. They told us to get to the ferry about an hour earlier than we needed to, but eventually we were loaded onto the "train" level with a bunch of other campervans. (I guess we counted as a tourist train.) When we got out of the van, we were surprised to run straight into some fellow Americans we'd met in Raglan and passed by again in Waitomo. They'd had fun (though frozen) doing blackwater rafting in Waitomo and one of them (a dentist) already had a job offer in Raglan. This definitely made me wish I'd gone into a career in teeth! Stupid computer jobs are only in cities! Anyway Sam passed the time boring them with tales of our travels while I waited in an endless line for coffee.

When we got to the South Island we were surprised that it wasn't as cold as we feared. First on the ferry, first off, so we split for Abel Tasman National Park on the north coast. Due to yet more windy roads, this drive turned out to be longer than we'd expected, so we got in pretty late. We decided to be honest and actually put money in the campground honesty box for once. Then we found a nice secluded campsite in which we could privately do bad things like kill about a zillion mosquitoes. Kiwi mosquitoes are slow and easy to kill but tend to come in droves! Anyway I amused myself in this fashion, trying to clear out the van, while Sam snored. The next morning we got up and went for a beautiful beach hike along the Abel Tasman coast. Secluded coves, crystal blue waters, deserted beaches, warm sun, green forest...then back to a campsite for a swim and a quick lunch. Man, this is the life! Unfortunately, so much to see, so little time! So we took off and headed south down the west coast of the South Island.

The weather quickly got colder as we climbed into the mountains and headed further south. We stopped for the night at a deserted caravan park near a freezing cold river and an empty tavern. Then it was out to the West Coast, where there was a huge swell on but absolutely no surfers out. It was too big for me and too dangerous for Sam to go out by himself - plus we weren't entirely sure why nobody was out! Was it sharks, due to all the seals? Rip currents? Freezing cold water? Or was it just that any local who had ever attempted to learn on this crazy coast had been removed from the gene pool before they got could good enough to catch the giant waves? Anyway, we went for a hike instead. You can imagine how pleased Sam was. We walked up yet another crystal blue river with nice limestone rock formations and thick moss covered forest. Then we checked out the blowhole near Pancake rocks - yep more old rocks. These highly striated rocks formed sharp pinnacles out at sea and were apparently a mystery to science, yay!



The next day we drove further south, passing more beautiful rivers that were all the obligatory crystal blue, and all looked just like the fords in LOTR. By the way, if you are wondering why we didn't make more effort to see the real LOTR sites, it is because there are about a million Fords of Bruinen and a million Shires and a million Rohans and a million Fangorn Forests in NZ! That and most of the real sites were a bit further from major roads or charged $50 a person just to see a few fake hobbit holes that you couldn't even go inside! What? Bag End was a set?! Elijah Wood isn't really 3 feet tall? What disillusionment!

Anyway we soon made it down to the Franz Josef and Fox Glaciers. Here we were disappointed to learn that you couldn't walk all the way out to the glacier due to the fact that the glacier might jump out and smack you on the head. This had in fact happened to past tourists who had snuck past the barrier and been injured or killed, and then worse yet labeled "bloody stupid tourists" by the local press. However if you were willing to pay a little extra, you would be given, not a helmet, but a blue jacket (apparently magic protection from the glacier or maybe some kind of ice camouflage so the glacier wouldn't see you.) Then you would be guided out for a hike on the glacier along with a gazillion other blue jacketed tourists. We got stuck behind one of these groups approaching the glacier and thought about joining them but our jackets were the wrong color, oh well. So we booked it out to the next glacier which at least had somewhat fewer tourists. All in all the glaciers were pretty boring but one interesting fact was how many miles they had receded since the 18th century. No wonder the glaciers were viciously mad at humans! Anyway, to really appreciate the scenery, we probably should have done the helicopter tour, which looked fun. You could see all the mountains from the LOTR lighting of the beacons, but when we found out the beacons were just CGI, we decided to skip it. Darn it! Foiled by computers again!

In keeping with our philosophy of both seeing all the sights and driving a million kilometers each day, we headed off towards Queenstown. We made it most of the way and stayed in a nice empty caravan park in a town nearby, with super friendly owners and free laundry! Though we quickly realized our mistake - nobody has dryers in NZ or Australia! Luckily our wash didn't turn into complete ice and we finished drying it in the car as we drove into Queenstown. Queenstown is next to a series of huge lakes - crystal blue, naturally. The landscape here was much drier and looked like California at the end of summer. The weather was winter-in-Tahoe cold though, and Queenstown was in fact a lot like Tahoe: basically a ski town, with mountain biking and lake and river activities in the summer. Except in Queenstown they take the adventure tourism a little further! We're not just talking whitewater rafting, we're talking crazy speedboats doing tricks through the rapids. Luckily we'd already witnessed some of the whiplash these jetboats cause in Sydney harbor, so we knew to avoid these! That and it looked really cold, and also we read in the newspaper about the conviction of some of the boat drivers for reckless driving resulting in lots of dead tourists! So we decided to try one of the "safer" activities, like bungy jumping.

On our way into Queenstown we stopped by one of the oldest commercial bungy jumping sites, a bridge over a river gorge. It was 45 meters high which seems higher once you are out there! Here we observed some poor Japanese lady crying and hollering before finally being convinced to hurl herself headlong off the bridge. Looks fun we thought, and before we knew it we were out there too! The bungy dudes were about to take their lunch break so we hurried out there and dove off one by one without too much thinking. There was a second or two of falling, and then the moment hit, where all of a sudden you realize you are falling fast, headfirst, and you didn't really see what they were doing with that thing on your feet, and oh crap! Then the bungy kicks in and you are ok. But we both agreed, that for a split second, bungy jumping is much scarier than skydiving! We were happy that we hadn't started off on the 145 meter jump from a gondola!


Queenstown was a little busy and touristy. We got some delicious Indian food and watched a movie before driving out of town a little bit to camp. It was a very cold night because I accidentally left my window down. So you can imagine Sam was overjoyed to wake up after not sleeping all night and go for another long hike! This time it was the start of the famous Routeburn track, which winds through more mossy forests and crystal blue rivers before climbing up into the mountains. We made it as far as Lake Harris before our blood sugar crashed and we started running back to the car to get our food! The overnight trekkers with big backpacks all watched us fly by in envy, though really we were the envious ones. Having seen how nice the overnight camping hut was, we wished we'd packed food and stayed the night!


That night we stayed in the same caravan park from a few nights ago, for more frozen laundry. One funny thing we noticed in this town: they actually obey an odd NZ traffic rule that is so odd it rates a mention in the Rough Guide. This rule stipulates that when turning right (they drive on the left) and an oncoming car is turning left, the oncoming car yields. This kept happening in this town and it freaked us out! At first we thought it was just tourists with Rough Guides following this rule, but eventually we had to concede that locals actually do it too! Weird. Anyway we decided to head back north because we were getting pretty cold and were pretty sure those evil glaciers would find us any day now. We drove right past Christchurch, and camped for the night on the roadside. Then we made it all the way up to the ferry the next morning, where we attempted to book the ride through Jucy again, and discovered they'd changed the price to be more expensive than booking from the ferry directly! Not only that but they wanted to charge us more for the ferry ride we'd already done! I'm still not sure if it was an honest mistake or some kind of scam. They wanted $508 dollars when the ferry only wanted $220 each way. They explained that no, it was $240 each way. That still doesn't add up! So we booked from the ferry directly on the way back. Jucy renters in NZ - avoid getting the Interislander ferry from Jucy! Just go direct with Bluebridge! Ok sorry for the rant. Anyway other than that, it was a smooth ride back to the North Island. We were sad to leave our whirlwind tour of the beautiful South Island, but also looking forward to slowing down a bit and enjoying the warmer scenery up north - or so we thought....

Riddles in the Dark, Mt. Doom, and the Flight to the Ferry

Sam was finally frustrated enough with surfing to try, gasp, horror, caving and hiking. Our first stop was Waitomo, home to the most touristy caves in New Zealand. Here, in true Kiwi adventure tourism spirit, you can rappel (they call it abseiling) or climb or blackwater raft in the dark on inner tubes. We decided to start out with just the simple tour and boat ride, which was cheap, could be done in an afternoon, and best of all did not involve getting wet in a freezing cold cave. We got to see the very cool limestone formations, and listen to the group cheer of a Japanese tour group echo throughout the cave complex. Nobody in our group was brave enough to burst into song a la Moulin Rouge to test out the echo. Not even Sam! Unbelievable! Even if he didn't burst into song, he could have at least done a creepy Gollum imitation for us, but no, nothing! Oh well. Then they loaded us in a boat for a 15 minute boatride - actually 15 minutes floating in place in a little cave looking at the glowworms on the cave roof. These were pretty cool but they slimed Sam with their moskie-catching ooze. And that was pretty much it. I actually thought the highlight was the redwoods by the entrance - just like home! Apparently redwoods grow three times faster in NZ than in their native California.

Not wanting to camp with a bunch of disappointed, freezing, and/or battered tourists, we drove out to the coast on another beautiful but windy road and stayed in a caravan park by the beach. The locals looked at us like they saw maybe three tourists a week and still couldn't see why the number of visitors was so high. But it was a nice caravan park next to some frisky horses that I swear hopped the fence and got into our trash later. Unless it was a kangaroo - just kidding - we're not in Australia anymore Toto! Probably a possum, which actually were introduced from Australia, who knows why. There were also some cows that Sam kept taking pictures of; Sam insisted they looked just like his dog Louie.

The next day we decided to save our money for bungy jumping so we skipped more cave adventures and drove towards yet another tourist destination: Mt. Doom. Ok, ok, they have some "real" name for it like Tongariro National Park or something, home of the Tongariro Alpine Crossing, New Zealand's most famous hike. We checked out the visitor center and observed our first kiwi: stuffed, next to a stuffed stoat, the kiwi's nemesis. They couldn't even give the poor bird dignity in death! We picked up the schedule for the shuttle because the Alpine Crossing is a one way hike (unless you do an overnight.) Then we did a short hike to a nice waterfall. Nice waterfalls are a dime a dozen in NZ, most are barely mentioned in the guidebook and don't even have names. In California or Australia there would be a million tourists oohing and aahing but we didn't see any other tourists until, lucky us, an entire busload of school children appeared. So we headed out to the National Park campgrounds.

NZ national park campgrounds are mostly on an "honesty" system where you drop money and your license plate number into a box. Clearly they have unrealistically high expectations of foreign tourists. At Tongariro somebody had even stolen all the envelopes. Anyway we got a nice little spot and sat back to watch the crowds roll in. Eventually we had to share the spot with some nice girls from Israel. As with most Israelis we had met on our travels, they were fresh out of the army and traveling for awhile before going to university. (They have compulsory service for both men and women there.) The girls were super nice and gave us more tips on NZ.

The next morning we woke up early to catch the 9am shuttle bus and joined the tourist train doing the Alpine Crossing. The crossing goes by two big volcanoes, Tongariro and Ruapehu. The latter erupted recently and looks just like Mt. Doom. It was in fact used in the filming of LOTR. You can optionally climb it, but we judged that our hobbit feet were not well-developed enough yet, so we skipped it. Also we forgot the One Ring back at the van so we didn't have anything to toss in the crater. Plus it looked about as fun as climbing a giant sand dune anyway.

At first the tourist train we'd been warned about was not too bad, but as we approached rougher terrain it did get pretty busy. Most of the tourists did not look like they should be on this hike! They were having serious trouble sliding down the rough lava scree. Only the overnight trekkers with hiking poles had any confidence. Later we passed a girl who had unfortunately broken her ankle and was waiting for a helicopter evacuation. We were both envious (free helicopter tour!) and argued about which of us should pretend to have the broken ankle. Ok, ok, it probably sucked, poor girl.



The hike involved lots of interesting volcanic scenery, which was impressive if not exactly beautiful - no shire here! The second half also had pretty emerald green lakes, creatively called the Emerald Lakes. The hike ended up, surprisingly, in a lush beech forest, which we did not stop to admire because by that point we were running our asses off trying to get away from the tourist train and also trying to catch the 3pm shuttle bus. Apparently in NZ when they say it is a six hour hike, they really mean it.

We were pretty much done with Mt. Doom so we beelined it all the way to Wellington. We wanted to do the South Island before it got seriously cold there since we were already freezing our asses off up north! On the way we just had to stop at a Chinese "takeaway." We'd been seeing these things everywhere and found it curious that all the Chinese places sold fish and chips and burgers in addition to Chinese food. So we tried the burgers and guess what - they were just like the burgers in Southeast Asia! Maybe all the burger joints in Asia are really run by kiwi Asians. Basically the burger patty was the size of a silver dollar, and consisted of: 95% bread crumbs, 3% soy, 1% Chinese five spice, and 1% unknown beef product. Next time: bacon and egg burger, hold the burger. But don't worry, later there would be redemption when we learned that the Chinese food at these places is great.

Arriving in Wellington, we asked at a motel outside of town where we could park our van and sleep in the area, and they helpfully told us that there was a great location with lots of campervans just across the railroad tracks. We drove down and looked at it, and then drove back to the motel and re-read the motel sign which advertised spa baths. Then we looked at the coating of volcanic dust all over ourselves. Not much of a decision here. So we indulged in a night in a motel with a spa bath. The next morning we got up early to catch the ferry to the South Island.

Hobbits Don't Surf

In Australia we'd talked to some people who had toured New Zealand recently, so we knew our first stop already: Piha. A few hours from Auckland, it's where all surfer tourists go first. We drove along a craggy coastline that reminded us a lot of Big Sur in California. It was nice after Australia where the beach is usually hidden behind 12 foot tall bushes or else housing developments. However the quality of the surf was noticeably poorer! We admired all the poor souls fighting the chop and whitewater for a bit, checked out the surfshops, and then found a nice parking spot for the night near the beach. The campervan next door was occupied by a very nice couple from the south of France, who run a food stand during the summer there, and travel every winter. Wow were we ever jealous! They had been travelling for awhile and gave us even more tips on where to go in NZ. Then we got asked to move on by a ranger or cop or something, who said that the people in the nice beach house across the street had complained. Apparently this is an unusual thing to happen in NZ and had only happened once so far to the French couple. We contritely offered to move the paid camping sight, but the ranger immediately clarified that no no, we just needed to move from this particular spot. Just go to the next parking lot up the beach! So we did that, but this lot unfortunately had a gate. When a ranger came to close the gate at 10pm, we thought we were in trouble again, but no, she just wanted to make sure we were ok to stay until she opened the gate again at 8am!

We were happy to sleep in, so that was no trouble! In the morning we headed to the beach, where Sam and the French guy went out to a peak further out, and the French girl and I attempted to stay on the inside. However there was a lot of current and chop and pretty soon the waves were well overhead even on the inside. I caught my first wave with no trouble and felt like a pro, but after that I just got pummeled, so we went inside to surf whitewater. The ocean was fairly cold, but apparently unseasonably warm for NZ, and Sam stayed out for awhile. Then the poor French couple had to head back to Auckland to deal with a traffic ticket, and we were on to the next stop in the surfing tour of NZ, Raglan, surfing capital of the North Island's east coast.

On our way, I think we had our first experience of meat pie in NZ - delicious! Sorry Australia but it was way better and cheaper than any we had there. The landscape and cool temperatures continued to remind us of California, in around December, and this made us a bit homesick. The drive to Raglan was pretty short. We looked at the messy beach surf, and decided it was time to find a place to sleep. Unfortunately Raglan, being NZ's equivalent of Byron, didn't allow sleeping at the beach park, but we talked to a guy in a caravan who said to head out of town a bit on the unsealed road and sleep out there. The unsealed road was rough and narrow, making all previous drives look like freeways, and we wondered how on earth huge caravans got out there. We soon came to a little lookout packed with campervans, and decided to keep driving...and driving. The coast was so beautiful it was hard to stop! But we couldn't believe such a beautiful drive was not packed with tourists. We later learned that it was really pretty standard for NZ, ho hum, crashing ocean, steep rocky coastline, craggy green hills, yawn. Anyway we eventually found a spot next to, you guessed it, a sheep farm, where we camped in the freezing wind. We were starting to miss Australia.

In the morning there was a beautiful sunrise, I would have taken a picture if I could have felt my fingers. Oh well. We drove to one of the surf shops where Sam got to talking with the owner about shaping boards. Typical Kiwis, when we mentioned that we needed to buy wetsuits, they soon offered their old ones to us for dirt cheap. They also offered to let us park on their property to sleep. Then we went to check out the town, where a local told us that the best place for fish and chips was the shack down at the campground. We headed down there and were amazed at the cheap prices! We got a huge order of fries and two orders of fish for only $10 NZ, which is like $6 US. We were so proud that we found this great place. Burgers and shakes were only a few dollars too. Of course later we learned that fish and chips are good and cheap almost everywhere! The only annoyance is that, just like Australia, ketchup and tartar sauce all cost extra. Luckily we cruise around in a campervan and have our own supply.

Happy to have wetsuits, we surfed down at the main beach, since the point at the boat harbor wasn't breaking. I gave up on being pummeled by beach break fast, but had fun catching whitewater for awhile. Thanks to my new suit I wasn't cold, but I was about to puke fish and chips everywhere, so I got out of the water. Sam soon followed and we were both starting to want hot showers, so we decided to just pay to stay at the campground. Caravan parks in NZ (and Australia too) are for the most part super nice, with clean bathrooms, hot showers and laundry that are usually free, TV rooms, kitchens, sometimes even pool tables and hot tubs. They are good value too - usually less than $30 NZ for two people. For comparison, two beds in a shared dorm at a backpackers usually runs at least $50 NZ for two people! Campervan are the way to go!

The next morning we woke up and oh man - a swell! Sam raced down to the boatramp only to find the conditions were great but there were already 30 tourists in the water, of which only about 2 knew how to surf, plus a few locals. There was no way I was going out, so I sat on the beach and watched Sam fight for waves and dodge heads. He had a good time commiserating with the locals about all these dumb tourists paddling and not even catching waves. However by this point his wetsuit only had one arm, no legs, and Sam was freezing! So he came in pretty quick, feeling very frustrated with NZ surf in general. We decided to get out of crazy Raglan. Next stop: Mt. Doom!

Just Like LOTR

It was sad to say goodbye to Australia. Everyone down to the airline lady who checked us into our NZ flight was super-nice. We didn't even get charged for the surfboards! A short flight later we were arriving in Auckland. Since we got in too late to pick up the next of our series of campervans, we booked a hotel near the airport. We hadn't stayed in a hotel since Bali, and hadn't stayed in a Western hotel since I don't know when, so it was a bit of a weird experience. We immediately noticed that Kiwis are a lot less outgoing than their Australian counterparts, but still very nice once you get talking to them. And yes, their manner and accent really is just like Flight of the Conchords! I kept thinking everyone was Brett or Jemaine and we were on hidden camera.

The next thing we noticed was that beer was affordable again - yay! And even food was not super pricey, though given that we were eating at the hotel restaurant, it wasn't exactly affordable either. We watched TV for a bit and went to bed as early as we could manage given we were still on Sydney time. Then it was morning and time to be picked up - yes what service! - by Jucy campervan rentals. In Auckland Wicked is not actually the cheapest campervan rental, so we got a Jucy van for about the same price. Even though Jucy vans have bright paint jobs too, they all have the same paint job (bright green) so you can at least know what to expect and have a little anonymity. (No, I swear, it wasn't me officer, it was that other Jucy van!) Also the vans are pretty new and most importantly come with a plug in cooler and a DVD player.

Finally we drove in to Auckland itself. Despite its reputation as a big city, the large area of surrounding suburbs still had a small town feel, with small streets and corner dairies. Of course we soon discovered that a "dairy" is basically a 7-11. Downtown Auckland itself wasn't too big either, and was fairly quiet because it was Saturday. We found a used bookstore to buy a NZ Rough Guide, a camping/roadmap/LOTR site map book (yes all in one I swear) and 3rd and most importantly a hiking book. Sam was groaning in dread of the hiking already. Then it was lunch time. We fairly randomly got Taiwanese rice rolls - basically like a burrito where you pick your filling, but with fancy brown rice on the outside, and bbq pork, bamboo shoots, or whatever on the inside. It was delicious. As we walked around Auckland, and then headed out of town, Sam commented that so far, NZ was a lot like Hawaii in terms of ethnic makeup, food, small town feel, and horrible driving. Except colder than Hawaii, of course!

Next we went to the grocery store, Countdown or some such, which we suspected was a Woolie's in disguise since everything was exactly like Australia and even had the same Woolie's brands. Surprisingly prices were about the same as Australia despite the NZ dollar being weaker. We stocked up on our usual wine and baked chicken, and of course Tim Tam biscuits. Yay - we hadn't left those behind just yet! Chocolate coated wafers with chocolate fudge in the middle, mmm.

Stocked up and ready to go, we headed out of Auckland on a narrow windy road (which by now would probably seem like a highway to us) through country that looked a lot like the Shire, except for the occasional tree fern. Later we would learn that "shire" is pretty much the North Island's default mode. It's other modes are: coast, volcanic high desert, and shire. Oh wait I said that one already. Anyway the posters in Flight of the Conchords are pretty much spot on. I think there's one that says "New Zealand: It's nicer than you might think." And another one that says "New Zealand: It's just like Lord of the Rings." This is correct except there are more sheep and cattle than in the shire. According to the guidebook, there are nine sheep for every one human in New Zealand. The reason NZ looks so pastoral is because it is! Everywhere that could possibly be used for grazing has sheep, cattle, goats, or even deer. The rest is mostly used for pine tree plantations. Even people without lots of land keep a cow or two in the front yard! And it truly is not very populated. Apparently the population is only 4.3 million, with 1.3 million in Auckland and another 400,000 in Wellington and 300,000 in Christchurch. We tended to meet more tourists than locals - NZ gets 2 million visitors a year! But more on that later.

Admiring Koalas and Surf Camp Sucks Really Sucks

According to the trusty guidebook, koalas spend 20% of their metabolism just fighting off the toxins in their all-eucalyptus diet. Humans spend 20% of their metabolism on their brains, but koalas can't afford that luxury and therefore sleep 20 hours a day. This is why they are pretty hard to spot and some Australians look for 20 years or more before seeing one in the wild. So we gave up on the idea of seeing a koala in the wild and decided just to imitate their lifestyle. Seal Rocks was the perfect spot!

We got in late to our old campsite on a Saturday night and were amazed to find the place was packed with about 100 people! Australians really do use their own parks! Luckily we found a spot and got up early to get out of there. Unfortunately for Sam but luckily for me the swell was very small. The point at Seal Rocks was not breaking, but the beach was perfect for pushing me into tiny waves. I had a great time actually getting some waves without getting pummeled or exhausted and finally even stood up for a few seconds. Yes, I have to shamefacedly admit that up until this point I hadn't even managed that particular feat.

When we got out of the water, I saw a van with blue markings all over it that said RBT on the back. That's funny, I thought, another RBT van - wait a minute! That's our van! And somebody taped over the titties! Sure enough, it was. The person who had rented it after us had been embarrassed enough to tape over all the boobs with blue masking tape. Surprisingly, it was a single guy, Jen, from Maui. He had actually rented a different van which had broken down 10 km from the Wicked lot (gotta love Wicked vans) so they gave him the booby van. He was in Australia for 2 months so you couldn't really blame him for taping over the titties. Anyway Jen was super nice and we hung out with him for the rest of our stay at Seal Rocks. It turned out we weren't the only ones who recognized the van; there were some crazy dudes from Byron Bay there who gave poor Jen a lot of crap for taping over the boobs.

We spent the next few days just hanging out on the beach, occasionally driving into town to get ice or shop, surfing, cooking, surfing again...it was very relaxing. By Sunday noon the place had emptied out completely, and we had the campsite virtually to ourselves again, with only a few other campers arriving late on Sunday night. There was a really spectacular lightning storm that night, with pretty much continuous lightning and thunder. On Monday we made steaks with Jen and this time I successfully defended them from both kookaberras and monitor lizards. There were a lot of monitor lizards at the campground and since they made Sam scream like a little girl, it was up to me to protect the steaks.

Over the next few days I got lots of surf practice, and we hung out with some crazy older ladies surfing in kayaks (again, those Australians!) The only trouble was twice a day one of two different surf camp buses would appear. These were packed full of tourists with huge foam boards learning to surf and would completely take over a spot on the beach. They were nice though and mainly kept to themselves, not taking up too much of the waves, except on one day when there were really no waves to be had. We quickly learned to all get out of the water at 10am and 2pm so that they would think there were no waves and keep moving. Really they weren't too bad, though clearly they had irritated the locals in the past, because painted on a telephone pole on the road into town, in huge letters, was "Surf Camp Sucks" and on the other side "Really Sucks."

We would have liked to stay in Seal Rocks forever, but we really didn't get a lot of sympathy that we had to leave, since our next stop was New Zealand. So we headed back into Sydney where we stayed for one day and went to the zoo to finally see some koalas. The koalas were every bit as cute as people make them out to be, and sleep just as much too. We also got to see more kangaroos - in Australian zoos they don't even fence them off; they just stick them in a revolving door-bird-like enclosure with some of the other natives! Fortunately all the native highly poisonous snakes were in separate cages.

We had one last nice dinner with Roy, Kimberley, and Jenny. Then Sam dropped me off at the airport with all the surfboards and luggage. He returned the Wicked Van and caught the train back in no time, and we were off to New Zealand!

Mission: Kangaroo

So admittedly this wasn't the most well-planned tour of Australia. Thankfully we'd gotten lots of good advice on the way. Our main purpose in heading south was to finally see some kangaroos! There is a famous beach where kangaroos supposedly just hang out. Envisioning roos in boxing gloves on surfboards, off we went.

Against Kimberley's advice, we took the Grand Pacific Drive and Prince's coast highway, because our guidebook made it out to be spectacular. We imagined something like Big Sur, with kangaroos. Again, we were failing to take into account Australia's idea of scenery! There was one impressive bit driving right along a huge cliff, where they'd got so sick of rock slides they just built a bridge out over the water. After that, it was mainly driving slowly through beach towns with an occasional glimpse of water over the horizon. Finally we made it to Jervis Bay, a nice beach front state park. It wasn't famous for its surf so we weren't to disappointed to find no swell. We admired the beaches and camped at a nice spot, hooked up by the lady at the visitor's center. (For once, you actually had to pay to camp in advance, so we finally made our contribution to Australia's park system.)

In the morning I got up to go for a run, and actually spotted two little wallabies running away through the bushes. Sam got to see one too at the campsite. I was so busy admiring the forest and looking for koalas that I missed my turn back, and had a bit of a scary time wondering when I should turn back and whether I would end up as foxbait. Fortunately I found my turn the second time!

Wallabies are nice, but we wanted kangaroos, so we drove down to Murramarang National Park and the famed Pebbly Beach of the roos. There were no kangaroos on the beach! Noooo! So we decided to camp at Depot Beach instead. Shoot, we had to pay again, so we headed to the campground office, and there, lo and behold, lazing on the lawn right outside the office: a few dozen kangaroos! Success! We took pictures and hoped they didn't come out looking like we were at a zoo. Stupid kangaroos couldn't even be bothered to walk down to the nice scenic beach background! Oh well. At least we got our fill of kangaroos. After a nice beach walk, it was time to camp and cook some kangaroo steaks, no just kidding, we had regular steaks. Though apparently kangaroo steaks are more environmentally friendly there because there are so many kangaroos that they are somewhat of a pest, and they can live off native flora efficiently, unlike cattle. Still we stuck with beef - the roos were too cute!



As we cooked our steaks, we admired a particularly photogenic kookaberra happily posing for us. Or so we thought, until we turned our backs for 2 seconds and the beastly bird flew off with one of our steaks. Sam laughed but I was mad! That was my steak! Luckily the steaks were small and we had four more of them.




Now what? Mission accomplished, we felt so empty and purposeless. During our beach walk we had learned that the ocean down south really was cold - not California cold, but not bearable in just boardshorts either. Also there was no surf unless we drove quite a bit further south. Originally we were planning on doing some 4WDing in our fancy new van in the parks down south, but we quickly realized that Australians are absolutely not kidding when they say 4WD. Heck they'll take an ancient Honda Prelude towing a boat on American "4WD" roads! And drive 80 kph to boot! When they say 4WD, they mean, Land Rover commercial complete with deep river crossings! Given that our tires were bald, our van was useless, so we studied the guide book, and decided screw it, what we really wanted was to go back to Seal Rocks and just stay in one place for awhile to end our trip. So we drove all the way back up to Seal Rocks in one very long day. This time we went through Kangaroo Valley as per Kimberley's advice. There was some nice, actually fairly really mountainous country (really I swear) and pretty waterfalls on the way. The guidebook warned that there were no kangaroos there, but now we didn't care so much. Now if only we could see a koala....

Searching for the Blue Mountains

With no swell anywhere, it was time to drag Sam kicking and screaming on some actual hikes in some actual mountains. So we headed off to the Blue Mountains, only to discover that Australia's idea of actual mountains is rather generous. See, according to the Lonely Planet, Australia is a very old continent with little volcanic or glacial action to renew mountains or topsoil. Which finally explains why candy is so expensive there! No corn for corn syrup! Though this did not deter me from trying every kind of Cadbury candy bar they have! And there's a lot!

Anyway we headed up to the so-called mountains and to the most famous view point, where we stared intently into the complete whiteout but failed to discern anything at all. We were going to take a picture to prove the complete lack of a view but figured we could just take a photo of a blank sheet of paper later and the time would be better spent fleeing in terror from the hordes of tour buses full of pissed off tourists. The guidebook said that Blackheath was a little mellower so we went there to find a caravan park for the night. Here we met our first unfriendly Australians (though maybe they were immigrants, not sure) who accused us of trespassing when we decided to drive through the caravan park to see it before paying, even though we'd checked in at the office first. We explained that we just wanted to check for any loud campers who had somehow wandered out of Byron Bay and this mollified them somewhat. Anyway it turned out to be a great caravan park, very clean and well-run, and we thoroughly enjoyed the hot showers, as well as the amusing commentary on the owners written by other campers on the shower doors.

The next day we drove back to the view point where we managed to see a little bit, and hung out in town waiting to see what the weather would do. Fortunately it cleared a bit, so we returned to Blackheath to do the "Grand Canyon" hike. We were a little afraid of what Australia's idea of a grand canyon would turn out to be, but it turned out to be totally awesome. We hiked through dense forests and winding canyons with verdant foliage, clear streams, and elaborate rock formations - caves, overhangs, cliffs, buttresses, and so forth. Despite being one of the best and most famous hikes in the area, the hordes of tourists were not in evidence - we only saw five other hikers the whole time. The hike was so nice Sam even enjoyed it and that is saying a lot. The bit where some older ladies kicked our butts on the way up was great too. Those Australians! Luckily we had hot showers to ease our aching muscles back at the caravan park. The park proprietors were getting friendlier by the minute as they realized that despite our scruffy appearances (well, Sam's scruffy appearance) we were not going to try to sneak in 10 friends without paying.

The day after that: whiteout again. So we drove back to Sydney, where it was raining also, and caught a movie at the pimp theater with huge sofa sized seats and side tables. Then it was back to the Wicked lot to finally, gratefully, ditch the titty van and get a nice 4WD van with relative mild artwork - some aborginal looking stick figures hunting, playing with kids, etc. We headed south at an amazing 110 kmh! Finally we could drive at the speed limit! Yay!