Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

I spent the last 9 days of my time in New Zealand on the North Island. The country was still very attrative, but not as dramatic as the South Island. The two most notable experiences I had on the North Island were Zorbing and diving at the Poor Knights Islands in the far north of the country.

Zorbing is essentially rolling down a hill in a giant ball. There are a couple ways to do it. One of which involves being strapped in and flipping over a lot. Not wanting to get sick, I opted to be loose in the ball with a puddle of water in the bottom. You could also choose between going straight down the hill or doing a zig-zag course, of which I opted for the later. Here is a little video of me in action.


As I headed farther north in New Zealand I decided that diving at the Poor Knights Islands would be a good idea. Jacques Cousteau described the place as one of the top 10 dive sites in the world and it is considered to be the best temperate water diving anywhere. After a nice cruise of the coast we arrive at our dive site.



This was a much different diving experience than any of the others I have had to date. First, becasue of the colder water, I had a thicker wet suit which meant it took roughly a small car worth of lead to hold me under the water. Once I finally got down, there were some new and interesting things. First, the water was fill with thousands of little jellyfish that fortunately did not sting as they were impossible to avoid. I might have accidently swallowed one through my snorkel at one point. Anyway, there was also a lot of kelp that you don´t find in tropical waters. Hinding amongst the kelp were 2 scorpion fish, 3 moray eels and a wide variety of other aquatic species.

After diving, I headed back to Auckland where I would say adios to New Zealand and catch a plane bound for Tahiti. The plane landed in Papeete which is Tahiti´s big city and generally thought to be mediocre at best. With calendaresque views in mind, I had arranged to head for the nearby Island of Moorea. After spending the night in the airport, I caught the 6:00am flight to Moorea, which took roughly 10 minutes.



Moorea is a very attractive island with stunning green mountain peaks surrounded by a coral reef lagoon that is a postcard worthy shade of blue. After showing up at my pension, I spent the day lounging in true island tourist style.




I spent a little time snorkelling around and saw an awesome array of fish amongst the coral. After I was tired of swimming/floating I went for a paddle in a sea kayak. Unfortunately I forgot the sunblock on my lower legs and received and early xmas gift.



I actually woke up early xmas morning and saw the sunrise before going back to sleep for a couple hours.



Most of the day was spent as the day before and by late afternoon I had to head back to the airport.




My flight would eventually get me to Santiago, Chile. However, for reasons that I can´t understand I had to go to LA, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Colombia, and Peru before finally getting into Santiago roughly 50 hours later.

My brief time in Santiago has been spent butchering spanish, acquiring a visa for Paraguay, and sleeping.

Adios,



Ben

New Zealand: Notes From the South Island

After spending just over a week in Christchurch, I headed out to explore more of the South Island. My journey started with a transalpine train trip to the west coast. The scenery on the trip was very impressive and the time passed quickly. My destination for the afternoon was the town of Greymouth, which has little to offer. However, one available activity was a tour of the Monteith's Brewery. The brewery tour was pretty good. Having logged enough brewery tour hours to apply for a degree, I already knew most of what the tour guide had to say. However, there were the pleasant additions of (1) local history (2) my first exposure to "open vat fermentation" and (3) becasue Monteith's is a relatively small brewer, the employees were still much more hands on in the packaging process. This included some of the machinery they did have being created by a long time employee who was handy with a blow torch and spare machine parts.



From Greymouth I joined a "Magic" bus that was heading south to the Franz Joseph Glacier. Again, the drive presented a day of gorgeous scenery. In the little village of Franz Joseph, I went for a several hour hike around the area and eventually made my way to the base of the glacier.



At 3am, I was awoken as a party had apparently made its way to my room. Somehow over the blasting stereo and tv I was able to hear my roomates inform me that I had been chosen for the honor of making sure everyone was awake to get on the bus in 4 1/2 hours. About 4, things died down and I managed to get back to sleep despite my excitement surrounding my new found responsibility. In the morning, I was half tempted to leave my roomates behind, but decided that blasting the stereo at 7, just 3 hours after they had gone to bed, would probably be just as fun.

From Franz Joseph we had a big driving day past more stunning scenery to get to our destination of Queenstown. Queenstown is New Zealand's "extreme" sports epicenter. People flock there to catipult themselves off bridges, out of planes, down hills in a variety of ways, down rivers, and really anyway you can imagine that might provide an adrenaline rush. I still haven't seen someone heavier than me bungy jump, so I opted for the less extreme tour of Milford Sound.

While Milford Sound may be less extreme in the adrenaline sense, it should not be discounted as the tour offered truly world class scenery. While I find it difficult to compare different areas such as mountains and tropical beaches, I can say that the Milford Sound and the drive there represent one of the more attractive places I have seen in all of my travels. The drive was highlighted by dramatic snowcapped peaks, rain forest, and rivers that were a picture perfect color of blue.

Once at the sound, we went on a boat cruise to explore the fjord. Again, the boat trip was highlighted by dramatic peaks and the contrast of mountains rising so immediately from sea level. Certainly Milford Sound is ever bit as good as the Norwegian fjords and potentially better.

From Queenstown, the bus headed for the university town of Dunedin. After another day of impressive scenery, Dunedin offered a chance to tempt my tastebuds with a tour of the Cadbury Chocolate factory. I learned a fair amount on the tour, but maybe the most notable is that the average American apparently consumes 22 Kilos (over 45 pounds) of chocolate per year. In comparison, Kiwis (New Zealanders) average only about 4 kilos a year.

On the way out of Dunedin, we stopped to walk up the world's steepest street. For those of you from Eureka Springs, it made Howell street seem somewhat tame. It isn't easy to capture in a picture, but here is a look.

After returning to normal streets, we headed for Lake Tekapo. It was yet another day of impressive scenery. If you like green hills and snow peaked mountains, I seriously reccomend a trip to New Zealand's South Island. In Lake Tekapo, I decided to go for a swim. Most people thought I was crazy and the water was in fact shockingly cold. However, the cold quickly became numb and then a burning/stinging sensation the encouraged me to get out after a few minutes. I did inspire one other person to go for a swim and we later revelled in the fact that we were both idiots. Actually, the swim was rather refreshing and after a nice hot shower, I joined the others from the bus as we prepared a big BBQ.

The next day I made it back to Christchurch. It felt good to be back. Before leaving, one of my friends was determined to take me on an eating tour of his favorite places in Christchurch that we hadn't been yet. It was a tough effort, but after about five meals and a day long food coma, I felt I was ready to leave Christchurch and head for the North Island. It was that or face the reality that a heart attack could be in my near future if I kept up that eating pace.

On Saturday morning I caught the transcoastal train from Christchurch to Picton and the ferry from Picton to Wellington. I missed the first few hours of the train ride as I caught up on sleep fromt he night before. However, when I woke up I was again stunned by how impressive the scenery was. Much of the train ride went along the coast giving passengers the opportunity to look for seals or just watch the waves come in.

After a very pleasant ferry ride, I was in Wellington. Finally, I made it up to the North Island and New Zealand's capital.

Sydney to New Zealand

Just off the plane in Sydney it was time to take in some culture. After dropping my bags off, I caught a train into town and went on a tour of the famed opera house. After the tour, most of the day was spent touring around the city.



In the evening I saw “Thank You for Smoking” at a restaurant/movie place. After enjoying all you can eat Indian, patrons retire to a little theatre where we reclined on these big chair/couch things. I must say it was a pretty relaxing way to see a movie. Sunday started with a trip to the beach. The water was a little chilly, but there were decent waves for bodysurfing. After an hour or two, it was time to head into the city.

Sunday afternoon seemed like a good day to catch some cricket and conveniently there was a match between New South Wales and Western Australia at the Sydney Cricket Ground. The turnout was very sparse, but it was enjoyable enough for the price of admission ($1 for students).

The next few days involved a lot more walking around Sydney. It is a good city and I had a good time. A definite highlight was arriving at the Maritime Museum pirate exhibit only to find out it was designed for children. As you can see in the video below, I tried not to let that prevent me from enjoying it.

Some of my time in Sydney was spent convincing the Brazilian consulate that they should give me a visa and my passport back before I was supposed to leave for New Zealand. Luckily, they did both and so off I went. I left Australia with mixed emotions. My time there was really good, but I was ready to be on the road, seeing new places and heading somewhat towards home.

I arrived in Christchurch, NZ on Nov. 30. I felt privileged to be singled out in customs and inspected thoroughly. After spending a half hour explaining how someone can be a student and still manage to see a good chunk of the world, the customs agent begrudgingly accepted my story and let me into the country. (Note to self, stop writing ‘student’ for occupation on customs forms. If you would like to make suggestions for what I should write on the next form, feel free to comment or email me. I fly out for Tahiti on Dec. 24, so you have a little time to think about it. I suspect things like ‘secret agent’ would not be appreciated.)

Free to take New Zealand by storm, I walked out and was greeted by three very friendly faces. Some of my friends from the Truck Africa trip had been waiting. My time in Christchurch actually turned into a mini reunion as we had 6 people from the Africa trip together one night.

Surprisingly, I have now been in New Zealand for nearly a week and I can’t say I have done an enormous amount that is notable for posting purposes. I have been doing some nice catching up with friends. I have experienced some of the Christchurch nightlife, seen a real Canterbury farm, visited a museum, walked through the botanical gardens, and checked out a few local markets. I have also been on a few nice drives into the countryside, which is breathtaking.

href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijdc8JP5HhU9rdKboK9-j70F8cfDpxtRYW424JC99KhAE76FeGm9_u8u22IdW17m-g_RVt0m0VKJSnwWpNx-RT1ZRKt5sP5SXQHZMh-TknOEtTyy676s8AzX-4AxWnNCoWPBLs/s1600-h/beach.JPG">

On Friday, I begin a journey around the country and will try to write about it when I get a chance.