Saturday, May 31, 2008
Go Crusaders!
Friday, May 30, 2008
bloody Americans...
Our car was in Picton, so we took the courtesy shuttle to the city. The original plan was going to land there, but due to fog, we ended up in Blenheim. We were told that our car was at 'the airport', but of course, when we get there, we find out that the airport is just a field and is also used for skydiving. Our car was really at the ferry harbour. So the driver had to take the 'bloody Americans' to the harbour.
We eventually got going, driving through Queen Charlotte pass to check out Marlborough Sound and through a bunch of country/mountain road to our destination in Greymouth. Greymouth was rather quiet despite the millions of kids running around.
In the morning we head down the road to Hokitaki (sp) to check out the craft stores that lined the streets before making our way to Franz Josef for our hike on the glacier.
The glacier hike was great as we tramped 2.5km to get to the base and about another 2-3km on the actual ice itself. We walked up stairs made of ice, an ice tunnel, and even Egyptian walked our way through this tiny crevice. Our guide, Brad, shared some funny stories along the way, and even some about gullible, bloody Americans (did you know Ice Age was filmed on the glacier?). I think it's time to move to another country... All in all, it was absolutely amazing. All that hiking has made us pretty thirsty, so we're off to meet our new friends at some pub to down some Jager bombs!
Next stop... Queenstown for some Canyon Swing action (you should all Google it and watch the crazy videos!)... pending weather conditions. The rain might ruin the day and in turn my birthday if I don't get to do this :o(
Thursday, May 29, 2008
And finally a picture
Oh Canada!
We woke up bright and early to catch sunrise by climbing up the Memorial Tower in Wanganui. The view was gorgeous, overlooking the city with the Wanganui River flowing through it. After finding some coffee and meat pies, we started driving south towards Wellington.
We stopped at Palmerston North to check out its famous Square and for Matt's second coffee break, which believe it or not, was his second cup of Starbucks coffee.
After this quick stop, we found our way to the coast, stopping at Paekakariki to get our first glimpse at the beach and some old steam engine trains.
We left our mark in the sand at Paekakariki and moved on towards Wellington.
Matt navigated our way through the narrow streets to stop near our hostel, Wellywood Backpackers. It wasn't hard to find our hostel because it was the one painted to look like a zebra among the other high risers in the heart of the city. Of course, this wasn't the only interesting building in town as it competed with those in the Parliament District.
The famous building there is the Beehive, government offices for the Parliament. When we entered, Parliament was in session, so Matt and I sat in the public gallery to watch the question and answer part. We took this ancient elevator down to the ground floor to grab our things and drove over to the Botanical Garden.
We took a quick hike up to the conservatory that I thought would give us a good view of the city, but trees just blocked views of the bay. Due to poor planning on my behalf, Matt and I were too malnourished to find our way back to our car. I didn't account for our nutrition needs while planning this trip because it was already hard enough to pick and choose the things to do and sights to see, eating would just take time away from all the fun :op Eventually, a kind lady pointed us in the right direction and we headed to the airport to drop of our rental car.
And again, low blood sugar levels wasn't helpful as I gave Matt wrong directions to get to the airport. But we get there, drop off the car and take a shuttle back to the city center. Wellington reminds us a lot of San Francisco.
When we get back, we grab dinner at a local brewery, Mac's, before seeing the exhibits in Te Papa. Being a girl, my beer ended up being cheaper than Matt's, by $0.20, and I was the one to get free coasters. The museum is huge with five floors of Maori art and works on New Zealand history. We got to learn a lot about the tribal culture and see some interesting art.
We dropped by our hostel to check emails before hitting the town. We bought tickets from the receptionist who said that there was going to be this 'huge' party down the street and that 'Thursday' night was going to be busy, so be better head out before the bars got packed. That was a loud of bollocks.
First, the club wasn't opened until 10pm, which got us completely confused because the tickets said 'VIP entry up to 10' and in kiwi that means starting at 10. So we turned around to check out 'minibar' that seemed to be popping with younger folks hanging out in the front. The great thing about bars in New Zealand is that they stay open til 6am :o) We soon discovered the local favorite drink, a concoction of midori, Kahlua, and bailey's and made great friends with this guy named Peter.
Peter is quite the drunk riot who started chatting with us by asking where we were from. We told him California, but he kept insisting that we were from Canada and proceeded to belt the Canadian National Anthem ('Oh Canada! Oh Canada....'). He also shared examples of what to say while you're at a rugby game, what the bar scene is really like on a Friday night, and left us with a story about a bus full of foreigners. And of course, we couldn't leave him until we promised him that we would go back to the States telling everyone that kiwis know how to drink.
We took one last attempt to see if the club, Maya, was opened, only to meet a bouncer who just shook his head is dismay as to how lame the turnout has been. But since there was promise for free drinks, we walked in to a bare room with bartenders dressed in silly costumes. And that was how we ended our night in Wellington.
We stopped at Palmerston North to check out its famous Square and for Matt's second coffee break, which believe it or not, was his second cup of Starbucks coffee.
After this quick stop, we found our way to the coast, stopping at Paekakariki to get our first glimpse at the beach and some old steam engine trains.
We left our mark in the sand at Paekakariki and moved on towards Wellington.
Matt navigated our way through the narrow streets to stop near our hostel, Wellywood Backpackers. It wasn't hard to find our hostel because it was the one painted to look like a zebra among the other high risers in the heart of the city. Of course, this wasn't the only interesting building in town as it competed with those in the Parliament District.
The famous building there is the Beehive, government offices for the Parliament. When we entered, Parliament was in session, so Matt and I sat in the public gallery to watch the question and answer part. We took this ancient elevator down to the ground floor to grab our things and drove over to the Botanical Garden.
We took a quick hike up to the conservatory that I thought would give us a good view of the city, but trees just blocked views of the bay. Due to poor planning on my behalf, Matt and I were too malnourished to find our way back to our car. I didn't account for our nutrition needs while planning this trip because it was already hard enough to pick and choose the things to do and sights to see, eating would just take time away from all the fun :op Eventually, a kind lady pointed us in the right direction and we headed to the airport to drop of our rental car.
And again, low blood sugar levels wasn't helpful as I gave Matt wrong directions to get to the airport. But we get there, drop off the car and take a shuttle back to the city center. Wellington reminds us a lot of San Francisco.
When we get back, we grab dinner at a local brewery, Mac's, before seeing the exhibits in Te Papa. Being a girl, my beer ended up being cheaper than Matt's, by $0.20, and I was the one to get free coasters. The museum is huge with five floors of Maori art and works on New Zealand history. We got to learn a lot about the tribal culture and see some interesting art.
We dropped by our hostel to check emails before hitting the town. We bought tickets from the receptionist who said that there was going to be this 'huge' party down the street and that 'Thursday' night was going to be busy, so be better head out before the bars got packed. That was a loud of bollocks.
First, the club wasn't opened until 10pm, which got us completely confused because the tickets said 'VIP entry up to 10' and in kiwi that means starting at 10. So we turned around to check out 'minibar' that seemed to be popping with younger folks hanging out in the front. The great thing about bars in New Zealand is that they stay open til 6am :o) We soon discovered the local favorite drink, a concoction of midori, Kahlua, and bailey's and made great friends with this guy named Peter.
Peter is quite the drunk riot who started chatting with us by asking where we were from. We told him California, but he kept insisting that we were from Canada and proceeded to belt the Canadian National Anthem ('Oh Canada! Oh Canada....'). He also shared examples of what to say while you're at a rugby game, what the bar scene is really like on a Friday night, and left us with a story about a bus full of foreigners. And of course, we couldn't leave him until we promised him that we would go back to the States telling everyone that kiwis know how to drink.
We took one last attempt to see if the club, Maya, was opened, only to meet a bouncer who just shook his head is dismay as to how lame the turnout has been. But since there was promise for free drinks, we walked in to a bare room with bartenders dressed in silly costumes. And that was how we ended our night in Wellington.
To Hell and back
And it only took us 7.5 hours to drive the 600km+.
After a great night's sleep at the Kiwi Paka hostel, Matt and I started off to our next stops in Rotorua and Taupo before ending in Wanganui. As we picked up some meat pies at the local 'dairy' (grocery store) for breakfast, the locals were sweet enough to show us a short cut to Rotorua. It was a simple drive up north on the highway and a right at the first Petrol station. Simple enough right? Lo and behold, when we got to the first Petrol station, the clerk told us that the map we were given for free was crap and we were doom to get lost if we followed it. Instead he gave us another set of directions to follow while he pumped our gas for us. We ended up listening to this guy and two and a half hours later, we were in Rotorua. At the first signs of something to do that would get our adrenaline pumping, Matt and I pulled over to test our nerves on the sky swing and street luge.
Now for the curious, the sky swing is this contraption you get strapped into while in a sitting position, before a crane pulls you up about 100m above the ground, and you're now facing parallel towards the ground (feet dangling and all). The only way you can get down is by pulling this rope to release your chair from the crane, at which point you're plummeting towards to earth at 150kph. Now I know what our faces look like when we're scared out of our minds (videos to follow later).
As if the swing wasn't enough, we thought it would be fun to take a crack at racing down some cement tracks on street luges. That was super fun and at one point I was silly enough to almost lose control, meaning I would fly off track into the bushes. Our guide, Terry, did tell us the night before that folks have almost killed themselves on these tracks and that's why they shut down the advanced course.
Pumped up with adrenaline, Matt and I proceeded to find our way to Hell's Gate. Lake Rotorua sits in the crater of a volcano, but near the lake are steaming, sulphur beds, aptly named Hell's Gate. It was quite a smelly walk as we saw ink spots, a hot water waterfall, a medicine lake, an even one shaped like Australia. We then moved on to check out the Blue and Green lakes. This was rather interesting because we got lost and found Lake Tarawera instead of the Green Lake. In doing so, we made ourselves sick from the curvy drive (but of course not sick from the prior activities) and this was when I took over the wheel of the car. We eventually found the Green Lake by following the road sign to the 'Lookout' only to find a poor view of the Green Lake and the neighboring Blue Lake. Losing sun time, Matt and I booked it to Lake Taupo. We got to Lake Taupo just in time for the gorgeous sunset. In New Zealand, it gets dark by 5:30pm.
Driving through back roads in the middle of no where, making sure to dodge wild horses or cattle along the way (that's what the road signs said), we drove another 3.5 hours to reach our final destination, Anndion Lodge, in Wanganui. Speaking of road signs, we saw a few interesting ones that evening including one that said to watch out for kiwis and another that said, 'Be patient. Don't become a patient'. The owner of this hostel, Dion, was super nice and recommended a few things to do before leaving Wanganui, including a trip up the river to see The Bridge To No Where. Being a full day trek, we'll have to leave that trip for next time. And so ends day 2 of our trip.
After a great night's sleep at the Kiwi Paka hostel, Matt and I started off to our next stops in Rotorua and Taupo before ending in Wanganui. As we picked up some meat pies at the local 'dairy' (grocery store) for breakfast, the locals were sweet enough to show us a short cut to Rotorua. It was a simple drive up north on the highway and a right at the first Petrol station. Simple enough right? Lo and behold, when we got to the first Petrol station, the clerk told us that the map we were given for free was crap and we were doom to get lost if we followed it. Instead he gave us another set of directions to follow while he pumped our gas for us. We ended up listening to this guy and two and a half hours later, we were in Rotorua. At the first signs of something to do that would get our adrenaline pumping, Matt and I pulled over to test our nerves on the sky swing and street luge.
Now for the curious, the sky swing is this contraption you get strapped into while in a sitting position, before a crane pulls you up about 100m above the ground, and you're now facing parallel towards the ground (feet dangling and all). The only way you can get down is by pulling this rope to release your chair from the crane, at which point you're plummeting towards to earth at 150kph. Now I know what our faces look like when we're scared out of our minds (videos to follow later).
As if the swing wasn't enough, we thought it would be fun to take a crack at racing down some cement tracks on street luges. That was super fun and at one point I was silly enough to almost lose control, meaning I would fly off track into the bushes. Our guide, Terry, did tell us the night before that folks have almost killed themselves on these tracks and that's why they shut down the advanced course.
Pumped up with adrenaline, Matt and I proceeded to find our way to Hell's Gate. Lake Rotorua sits in the crater of a volcano, but near the lake are steaming, sulphur beds, aptly named Hell's Gate. It was quite a smelly walk as we saw ink spots, a hot water waterfall, a medicine lake, an even one shaped like Australia. We then moved on to check out the Blue and Green lakes. This was rather interesting because we got lost and found Lake Tarawera instead of the Green Lake. In doing so, we made ourselves sick from the curvy drive (but of course not sick from the prior activities) and this was when I took over the wheel of the car. We eventually found the Green Lake by following the road sign to the 'Lookout' only to find a poor view of the Green Lake and the neighboring Blue Lake. Losing sun time, Matt and I booked it to Lake Taupo. We got to Lake Taupo just in time for the gorgeous sunset. In New Zealand, it gets dark by 5:30pm.
Driving through back roads in the middle of no where, making sure to dodge wild horses or cattle along the way (that's what the road signs said), we drove another 3.5 hours to reach our final destination, Anndion Lodge, in Wanganui. Speaking of road signs, we saw a few interesting ones that evening including one that said to watch out for kiwis and another that said, 'Be patient. Don't become a patient'. The owner of this hostel, Dion, was super nice and recommended a few things to do before leaving Wanganui, including a trip up the river to see The Bridge To No Where. Being a full day trek, we'll have to leave that trip for next time. And so ends day 2 of our trip.
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
"and you trust me?"
After driving through some gorgeous countryside, Matt and I finally make it to our first destination, Waitomo, famous for its glow worm caves. Of course, taking a cute boat ride (equivalent to It's A Small World at Disneyland) just to see the glow worms is not the way to start a trip (in my humble opinion), so I signed us up for the Black Abyss adventure. Matt had no idea what I was getting him into except that some part of this trip would include black water rafting.
Alan and Terry were our tour guides for this trip and they got us started by supplying us with cold, used wet suits, helmets, and gear for abseiling. There were three others on our trip, James from UK and Nicole & Natalie from Canada, who ended up being great company and future traveling friends. After gearing up, we took a short drive to the beginning of our 5-hour trip, where we learned a cute little rhyme to set up the rope in our abseiling rack and tips/tricks for stopping ("stick your thumb in your bum!"). Soon enough, Matt and I were abseiling 150 meters down into a super dark cave where all you see in front of was cave wall (now I know what those kids felt like in the movie The Descent). We tramped around the caves a little bit to our next stop, without any forewarning from our guides, to do a fox swing for another 100M in pitch black because they told us to turn our lights. Since I was the first in line, I was the first to go, thinking the whole time "Alan, what in the world are you strapping me into?!" The fox swing ended being an exhilarating ride as we flew through the air with hundreds of glow worms above us and stopping with a huge, terrifying bang created by Terry slamming an inner tube against the cave walls. He also decided to sneak up on me as I had no idea why I was still hanging above who knows how many feet off the ground. For a better explanation, we were strapped to this rope line from the gear on our waist and then flew down this dark tunnel without the slightest idea as too how long we were swinging or if anything was going to jump out and eat us. This was the warmest part of the trip...We took a snack break that included a nice, hot cup of coffee while sitting along a cliff overlooking the river below. Despite the lighting gear on our heads, it was still pretty difficult to figure out how far below the water was to us. Soon after, Terry and Alan handed us inner tubes and proceeded to tell us very quick instructions on how to jump down into the water without losing our raft ("you want to land on your bum") and we lined up to free fall from a 10 ft cliff into the cave river (at a good high temperature of about 9C). Luckily, we only had to hand paddle for about 20M before we reached the rope line used for guiding us the rest of the way. Terry guided us through the river sharing stories of glow worms (that are actually maggots... who wants to see the famous glow maggots?!), a stalagmite formation that looked like Gandalf, and a rock that fell down from the roof of the cave. Following our little excursion on rafts, we walked through more river, sliding down a waterfall on a man made slide, swimming through this tiny crevice while Terry took the nice open route, and stopped for a second snack break before starting the last leg of our trip.
In order to get out, we had to walk, crawl, and climb our way through the Black Labyrinth and at one point Matt started leading us through this maze, ensuring that none of us would fall into the big hole. At the fork in the cave, we had the choice to either take the pansy route out or climb 30M of waterfall and of course, we chose the latter :o) Terry is a huge rock climber, which was very beneficial for us as he instructed us where to place our feet and hands to grip certain rocks to climb up. This was absolutely amazing as we made our way up while gallons of water kept pouring down. On our way up, we had to stretch out and we all just looked at Terry like he was crazy asking us to stretch our left leg out to the far wall with all the confidence that we would stick it okay and won't slip and break some bones. This climb was two trips, 20M for the first and at least 10M for the second and probably my favorite part. Five hours later, we made it back outside for another hike back up to the road to get in our car. We were wet, cold, drained, and I couldn't have felt any better. Knowing that there were super hot showers, soup and bagels waiting for us when we got back was helpful too.
Pictures will hopefully come soon...
007 and Round-Abouts
HELLO!!!!!!
The flight wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be and the people were super nice! We had our own screens in front of us where we could choose whatever movie and TV show we wanted to watch!!! When dinner came, our names were called over the intercom because wonderful priceline.com ordered us "special" meals and embarrassed us!!! When drinks came around, I asked for a glass of wine and right after my glass was filled, the flight attendant dropped the bottle of wine and wine went flying all over my shorts! She was very sorry and brought me club soda which she said was "the miracle for stains"! After asking me over and over, I finally changed into jeans so she could soak my shorts in club soda for a couple hours. There was one flight attendant in particular that was "very friendly" on the plane and there are definitely some stories to go along!!!!
We made it to Auckland and we were loving every minute of it. We arrived around 5:15am local time and went through customs like a breeze (shocking cause we know what they were thinking... hmmmm.... two ex-college kids coming to New Zealand for 9 days... hmmmm....). All went well and we checked-in with the rent-a-car place which by the way is called National in the states and Europcar here in NZ (I didn't forget the "e", it is really missing in the name!). Once we packed the car, (our beautiful "pearl" green Kia Sportage) and gave the map a good look; we were off and ready to see some sights. Well of course, I ended up in the wrong lane and when I needed to make a right, I had to make a left, which put the navigator (Maryann) in a bit of a hustle to figure out an alternative route! We of course had the wonderful opportunity to go through some round-abouts which in way are the most nerve racking things because you need to look to your right but you don't really know if the person is actually going to come towards you until last minute! We saw the Auckland Harbour Bridge with the sun coming up behind, which was gorgeous (pictures to come soon!).
We then went to the grocery store, bought some goods and then hit the town looking for calling cards and a bank to exchange!! We got a little carried away with time and noticed that we were 20 minutes over due for the parking and had to book it to the car before the "Parking Warden" ticketed us, but we made it there before him! Then we were off to Waitomo for the BIG adventure, which Maryann is typing away about a mile minute (or shall I say a kilometer a minute)!
Stay Tuned!!!! Hope everyone is doing great!
The flight wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be and the people were super nice! We had our own screens in front of us where we could choose whatever movie and TV show we wanted to watch!!! When dinner came, our names were called over the intercom because wonderful priceline.com ordered us "special" meals and embarrassed us!!! When drinks came around, I asked for a glass of wine and right after my glass was filled, the flight attendant dropped the bottle of wine and wine went flying all over my shorts! She was very sorry and brought me club soda which she said was "the miracle for stains"! After asking me over and over, I finally changed into jeans so she could soak my shorts in club soda for a couple hours. There was one flight attendant in particular that was "very friendly" on the plane and there are definitely some stories to go along!!!!
We made it to Auckland and we were loving every minute of it. We arrived around 5:15am local time and went through customs like a breeze (shocking cause we know what they were thinking... hmmmm.... two ex-college kids coming to New Zealand for 9 days... hmmmm....). All went well and we checked-in with the rent-a-car place which by the way is called National in the states and Europcar here in NZ (I didn't forget the "e", it is really missing in the name!). Once we packed the car, (our beautiful "pearl" green Kia Sportage) and gave the map a good look; we were off and ready to see some sights. Well of course, I ended up in the wrong lane and when I needed to make a right, I had to make a left, which put the navigator (Maryann) in a bit of a hustle to figure out an alternative route! We of course had the wonderful opportunity to go through some round-abouts which in way are the most nerve racking things because you need to look to your right but you don't really know if the person is actually going to come towards you until last minute! We saw the Auckland Harbour Bridge with the sun coming up behind, which was gorgeous (pictures to come soon!).
We then went to the grocery store, bought some goods and then hit the town looking for calling cards and a bank to exchange!! We got a little carried away with time and noticed that we were 20 minutes over due for the parking and had to book it to the car before the "Parking Warden" ticketed us, but we made it there before him! Then we were off to Waitomo for the BIG adventure, which Maryann is typing away about a mile minute (or shall I say a kilometer a minute)!
Stay Tuned!!!! Hope everyone is doing great!
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Jet setting
Matt and I are officially on our secret agent plane, flight NZ007, for a 13-hour flight to Auckland! Thank goodness that our flight isn't full, leaving plenty of room to catch up on sleep! The best part, we have our own TVs in front of us! Time to catch up on some new releases. Goodbye for now!
Thanks to all our families and friends for your support and well wishes!
Thanks to all our families and friends for your support and well wishes!
Saturday, May 24, 2008
Black Abyss Tour
A great way to start off a trip is to climb down into dark caves just to go black water rafting in 40F water! Waitomo Caves here we come!Friday, May 23, 2008
Change in plans...
As it turns out, ferries are quite popular in New Zealand and so we find ourselves staying an extra evening on the North island at a place called Wellywood. The good news is that we now have more time in Wellington, which is perfect for spending a few hours checking out the exhibits in Te Papa Tongarewa--Museum of New Zealand. The not so pleasant news is we might have to skip Blenheim and its famous Sauvignon blanc... maybe. Check out this bad boy that will be taking us from the North island to the South:
Looks oddly familiar to the same plane I jumped out of skydiving a couple of months ago :o) Two more days til we leave the States = 48 hours left to pack. Plenty of time, right?
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Welcome to the MHP Adventures Blog!
Hello! I have created this blog to document the amazing time Maryann and I are going to have in New Zealand and Australia. Please come by and enjoy the updates, photos, and hopefully some videos as we go on our road trip journey from Auckland to Christchurch, and of course our stop to Sydney before coming back home!
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