Burning stuff

Well I guess it’s time to make another update. I’ve been enjoying myself here but have already been here two weeks, sleeping in and generally living the Christmas spirit to the fullest. I swear I’ve gained about five pounds, and that’s just the sheer amount of animal I’ve been eating. Aunt Judith and Uncle Snow have been keeping me busy, with chopping up wood and trimming hedges, and luckily there have only been a few scares with the machines.
Before Christmas things were quite uneventful, except for the chainsaw spontaneously burning into flames. Sadly we had just put a new tank of gas in it, so we wasted about 2 bucks worth of petrol, but as an added side-effect it burnt for a really long time! Quite an impressive site really, and out of everyone I’ve talked to it’s the first time anyone has ever heard of it happening! I think I should win a medal… We eventually managed to get it out, but the fire streams of burning gasoline waylaid the effort. We set up the Christmas tree on Christmas Eve, (all 3 feet of it!) and have been doing our best to keep the alcohol companies in business.
Christmas totally did not feel like Christmas. I got socks (which I think are the most under-rated present there is) and we had a huge lunch/dinner where I undertook a wee bit of gluttony. The next 3 hours were spent under intense stress trying to stuff more into my belly.
The last couple days I’ve been doing my best to earn my room and board (which I think is starting to get quite expensive). I think it is a help to Snow and Judith though, which is the least I can do. We met up with Haley a couple of days ago to suss out Fiji, and the 50 % off accommodation and airlines deals should let me go on a little bit of an extravaganza. We went into Nelson too, which is the site of one of the only Cathedrals in New Zealand and I was really quite impressed. I’ve a whole bunch of pictures of it, but a 56K modem doesn’t quite hack it with 1 MB pictures. The senery in the South Island really is like a different country. It’s quite rugged, with micro-climates everywhere. It’ll be raining one kilometre away while scorching down at 30 degrees where we are.
Oooo I almost forgot about the forest fire! Just across the valley on Friday, a huge fire struck up about 3 kilometres away. They totally ignored it for the first couple of hours, but then it engulfed a couple valleys so they had to send in a couple of helicopters. Pictures of those are coming to, once the aforementioned problem is solved. We managed to get down to the river to get a better look of it, and at one point it totally looked out of control. The entire mountainside is black now, and we almost got smoked out when the wind changed. So anyways it was pretty cool!
Ummm, and that’s life! New years will be a quiet affair, but I’ve saved a bunch of money now and am finally back in the black :p. Maggie’s been catching rabbits and playing with them, and then eating them in one big gulp. Sadly I can’t imagine Sandy doing that. Judith had to snap one’s neck because Maggie didn’t seem to be able to kill it, and I think it might have started screaming ( I was sleeping peacefully at the time). If you’ve ever been woken up in the middle of the night by what sounds like a 5 year old getting murdered you’ll know what I mean.
Oh and New Zealand Bureaucracy is just as bad as Canada. To extend my Visa for a measly two weeks I have to send off my passport (photocopies aren’t allowed) for two weeks, and then get a signed bank statement with all my details from my bank in Canada, that can’t be photocopied and probably not faxed. Oh for the days of the Commonwealth.
Alright I’m done! I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas, and that an eventful New Year is in the future. Take care!

Cherry picking...

It’s amazing how time can move so fast and yet so slow. It hardly feels like I’ve been away for almost two months already. Last Friday, Sandy took me around all his contracting operations, which was actually pretty cool. His new two hundred thousand dollar tractor has been having problems though, so he had a few choice words for the dealership we ended up visiting. I spent the entire afternoon swimming and lazing around in the sun though. The pool is surrounded by a nice rock wall and hedge, so it was quite pleasant. Then Guy and I played soccer for about an hour in our bare feet, avoiding the prickles as much as we could. At one point I had about thirty stuck in one foot. Oh how pleasant. After that we went to Hugo’s cricket game, and I finally saw the sport in live action! Granted, it wasn’t that great of a quality of a game, considering the other team didn’t show up and they ended up playing themselves, but Guy explained what I didn’t understand, and it was a blast to watch them play. We had a couple of beers in the park ( I guess New Zealand is kinda like that Will Ferrel skit in SNL where he’s yelling at his son while knocking back a few beers in the park) and then came back for some delicious barbequed venison at the house.
Saturday, Guy and his friend Matt and I caught the train into Wellington, where they bought expensive clothes and accessories and I hung out. They were quite funny and wanted to know what I thought of everything. Then we went and saw Casino Royale, which I absolutely have to recommend everyone go see. It’s nice to understand how the entire Bond saga starts off and Daniel Craig does a brilliant job of playing 007. We caught the train back and I drove us back to Brian and Joan’s house and then headed back to the farmhouse where Guy slaughtered me at a game of pool.
Sunday I drove the truck into the train station, and then caught the train to Wellington where Sandy and Fiona met me and we went out for breakfast. The ferry ride to Picton was quite uneventful, and Auntie Judith picked me up. Sadly the sounds were covered with cloud, so I missed one of the most beautiful places on New Zealand, but at least the sea wasn’t rough. We got back to the house and I met Emma and Snow, who is as delightful as ever.
The last five days I’ve been picking cherries, getting up at 5:30, and going to bed at 9:30. It hasn’t been too exciting, but at least now I’ve made a little disposable income! There was this really annoying girl there who never stopped talking, and pretty much drove everyone mad. We went swimming down at the river one day, but it was bloody cold, and I only jumped in for about 5 seconds before running out. Today we finally picked out the orchard, and got off at one o’ clock and then met Malcolm who had just flown in from Auckland. I’ve just lazed around the rest of the day, and been trying to upload some pictures but no luck so far. The thing I’m most excited about right now though is sleeping in tomorrow! Oh what an exciting life!

Dec 14

Back for another update!
I hitched to Napier with relatively few difficulties. It took a while to get a ride, and I had to walk for about an hour to get to the road that actually went out of town to Napier but it all turned out alright. The guy I got a lift with had a son in the British Army (even though he was from New Zealand) who was in Iraq, and was very forceful about his dislike for Americans. It was a little sad to see the pure discrimination coming out in his views, but as he was giving me a ride, I just nodded and grunted. He also explained many of the rules of cricket, so I now think I have a general understanding (although Guy, Sandy's son, is telling me a little bit more right now). It sounds like a pretty good game! I may have to give it a go (the test matches sound like drinking marathons though, to be honest). I made quite a good dinner that night, consisting of chicken cordon bleu and some sauteed veggies and spent the rest of the day hanging out with the (many) Germans.
The next day, monday, this German girl, Jana, and I hiked to the top of the bluff above Napier, and it was quite a breathtaking view. We talked about pretty much everything, and she had some quite interesting views. Supposedly extreme left and right parties are coming back in Germany because of the lack of jobs there, and the only parties that actually display any sort of National pride, (due to the unfortunate past) are those parties. So looks like we have World War 3 coming up soon! After we hiked down from the cliff, we went on this five hour Cape Kidnappers hike, (named after an incident where the local Mauris tried to kidnap a polynesian boy aboard Cook's ship) where there is a huge Gannet colony. They totally stunk, but there were about 3000 of them and they were very tame, so we got some pretty good photos. We only got to spend a couple of minutes there though, because we had to beat the high tide back.
The next day I slept in until about 10:30, then totally lazed around on the beach. It was totally awesome. However, even with 45 SPF sunblock I managed to totally cook myself. Have to do better next time :p. When I got back to the hostel, I realized I had forgot to tell them I was staying another night, and they had given my bed away (no doubt to a German). So I had to pack up and head out to another one down the street, which actually turned out to be quite nice and spacious. I met a couple Seattle girls there, but to be perfectly honest, they were a bit wierd!
Wednesday I hitched down to the Tui Beer Brewery, which actually turned out to be not too entertaining. To start off the day, I got a couple of rides further down the ride, but none for more than 10 minutes. Then I got picked up by these Somali guys, who were seriously quite sketchy. They were chewing on some leaf, which they called 'khat' which basically is speed. The driver hadn't been to sleep all night, but he conveniently forgot to tell me that until about 39 km's down the road. It was at that point I decided I would get off early, at teh brewery. They kept on talking about guns too, and how hard they were to get in New Zealand. So maybe next time I'll be a little more cautious in deciding what cars to get in to. I wound up camping in a sleepy little campground in sleepy little Pihatua, and ended up reading most of the day. I did manage to get some aloe vera there, which was greatly needed.
Today I got up retardedly late, and after finding the campsite owner, managed to force my money on them ( I hadn't seen them the entire previous day). I got picked up right away by this Israeli couple, who's luck with cars had been quite poor. They'd already spent 5000 dollars on cars, and the present one didn't actually look that great. They were really nice though, and we stopped at Mount Bruce Park on the way south for a couple of minutes. Both of them had just got out of the army, and I was impressed to find out that the guy had actually been an Israeli commando for the last six years. I really wanted to ask him about some of the details of his previous job, but he was very modest and declined to elaborate. They dropped me off in Greytown, and after talking to some people about the Bidwells and Handysides and how well they were known, got picked up by Sandy.
Sandy has been very nice, and his wife Fiona very hospitable. She is a part-time doctor (which I didn't know) and loves her job, so I have been trying to ask a lot of questions of her. I met Joan Bidwell, and she remembered my parents as well as my grandparents and was quite with it for an eighty-something year-old. Dinner was some roast lamb (which was oooo so good) and then random discussions for the rest of the night. Sadly, all the TV shows here are between 4 months and 2 years behind, which is a bloody nuisance to a North American. Anyways, now it's time for bed, but tomorrow I will try and upload some photos.

Stupid Weather

Well I'm supposed to be hiking the Tongiriro Crossing right now, which is one of the best hikes in New Zealand, but it's started raining and snowing up there so sadly I'll have to skip it, which doesn't make me too happy.
So I left Charles' on Wednesday around noon and he drove me down to Otorohunga, where the have a bird sanctuary. I finally saw some Kiwis, but they don't let you take pictures because the flash frightens them, and they live in the dark, so sadly I have no evidence of the trip. I got some good pictures of other birds though, and hopefully I'll be able to upload those in a couple of days. After that I caught the shuttle to a Waitomo Caves Hostel, and chilled the rest of the day.
The next day was the epic caving adventure. I got up early and then we absielled 30 meters down into the cave, and then hiked up to see some glow worms. They really are quite impressive, and really like up the cave when you make loud noises. They're excretions are actually what glows, and they have a whole bunch of sticky webs that hang from the ceiling that you have to watch out for. After that we explored through the caves for a couple of hours, and rafted on big inner tubes which was all really cool. Then it was a rock climb out again, and five hours had passed by! I went for a hike after that, but didn't get too far and ended up napping in a really cool orchard beside the river. Life is tough sometimes!
Yesterday I hitched from Waitomo down to National Park with this really nice couple who actually took me out to lunch on the way down. They were going to the Chateau, so I ended up going up the mountain a bit too, but as soon as we got on the slopes it started to pour. I had been planning on spending the night camping there, but once the forecast came in and it said the rain and wind was supposed to last for 2 more days I just decided to get out of there. So sadly no Tongiriro Crossing, and no pictures of Mount Doom :(. I caught a ride with a Belgium couple down to Turangi and stayed the night in this Samurii hostel which was almost empty except for a Dutch guy who I talked to extensively about all sorts of things!
Today I got picked up right away when hitching and got into Taupo around 11. I checked into my hostel, then did a little shopping and it really wasn't too exciting. I did take a picture of the clouds covering the Tongiriro Crossing.. sigh. I ended up doing a nice little three hour hike to this really impressive waterfall, which absolutely races through a canyon. There was also a hot water stream which was pretty cool; there is craploads of thermal activity here. If only the volcanoes would erupt!
Tomorrow I'm going to hitch to Napier and see if I can get a day or two's work there, and then head down to the Wairarapa. I haven't yet got a hold of Dennis, but I'm going to try again tonight. Cheers!

Rafting, Tubing, Surfing and soon to be Caving

Back at Charles's for some peace and quiet so I thought I'd give a little update. On Thursday I went white water rafting in Rotorua, which was really wicked. We rafted a 7 meter waterfall (one of the highest commercially rafted ones in the world) and overall got completely soaked. The guides just basically screwed around with us the entire time, even convincing one girl to jump in and then paddling away from her. I did that in the morning, and as soon as we got out of the river it just started to pour. Sadly I don't have any pictures, because they were charging 40 bucks for a CD, and there were only about 8 pictures that I was actually in. It rained the entire rest of the day, so the entire hostel basically ended up watching movies and hanging out, until the night time when it finally cleared up.
The next day, Charles picked me up in Rotorua because he had some business down there to attend to. We drove up in a quite uneventful trip, and then hung out with Nick and Becs and drank a couple of beers. We set up the Christmas tree at night, which was pretty wierd considering it was actually warm outside!
On Saturday I slept in, and then we hooked up the boat and went down to the river. We ripped around in that, and I got to do some biscuiting which I haven't done in years. Becs was too scared to do biscuiting or kneeboarding, but I think Charles was quite happy for me to drive the boat while he went for a ride. I drove it as gnarly as I could and managed to send him for a huge tumble which he was still complaining about a couple of days later! We eventually ran out of gas, so came back to Charles' and went to a super cheap bakery that had really good food. Then I offered to paint the fence, and so earned my room and board for at least a couple of nights!
On Sunday we went for a drive around town and checked out the local sights. There aren't many to be honest, but there was a cool 3/4 size Spitfire which I'll try and upload a couple of pictures of later. There was also an Aviary but sadly no Kiwis were in attendance. We then went to a cool English Pub for some appies and a beer, before coming back to Charles' where Nick and Becs spent the next couple of hours playing some Wrestling game on PS2, and Charles went to the Supermarket. For dinner we went to Donna's and had a couple bottles of Hardy's Sparkling Wine (don't worry we walked over). I played a whole bunch of Guitar Hero then, which I'd never played before, but I can see why it's considered such a good game. Too bad it doesn't actually help with real guitar playing...
On Monday Charles and I dropped the kids off at school, and then he drove me out to Raglan as he had some work to do there. I booked myself in at the hostel, and then managed to get into a surfing lesson at Manu Bay (it's featured in some movie!). It was so fun, although the instructors had to spend a disproportionate amount of time with the Germans who didn't understand English very well. I ended up being one of the first to get up on a wave, and then went the furthest too! We spent two hours in the sea doing that, and now I'm totally hooked. It was raining the entire time too, but I hardly noticed because I was having so much fun! I was super tired by the evening, and just wanted to go to bed around 8, but decided I had to stay awake longer for appearances sake.
I slept right in until 9:30 today, and then managed to hitch a ride with the hostel owner who was going into Hamilton. I wondered around town for a bit, then decided to come back here and work on booking a ferry ticket as everyone at the hostel said it was very difficult to book one in the 10 days or so before Christmas. I think I panicked in vain though, as only a couple of the ferries are actually sold-out.
And that's me caught up for the last couple of days! I'm going down to Waitomo Caves with Charles tomorrow (and maybe the Kiwi House!) and then I think I'll go on to National Park from there. I don't know at the moment if I will be able to get to Napier (if the ferries are actually that bad) but Taupo should be in the works.