Bali, Indonesia

Bali

I'll start off by saying that this blog, like many, is long overdue. I have been extremely slack in writing and therefore this blog was written over a a combination of about 4 attempts. Therefore, in parts, I am writing in the present tense while in others I'm writing in the past. I apologize for this and hopefully it doesn't confuse you too much (as I am far too lazy to re-write it). Anyways, here it is...our entire 2+ weeks in Bali...I promise our next blog re Vietnam will be up shortly!

 We have been looking forward to going to Bali since the day we decided that we wanted to stop over. We booked a one way ticket and decided to try and figure out later how long we wanted to stay. I ended up booking flights out of Bali to Singapore in the Changi Airport (Singapore Airport) on January 8th, which means we had two and a half weeks here! Bali, for those of you that don't know, is located only a 3.5 hour flight from Perth (the very north of Australia) and a 2.5 hour flight south west of Singapore. So we did back track a little to get to Bali but so far it has been well worth it! 

We arrived around 9:30pm at that airport and right away you could feel the heat! Trying to get our visas and go through customs was interesting as there were numerous men who would come up and say "if you give me $25 US dollars you can skip the line".'Jordan had no idea what the guy was trying to say but I have been to Cuba numerous times and realized right away he was trying to make a quick buck and said no thank you. One no thank you wasn't enough and as we later found out once we got to Sanur, that's how the rest of the trip was going to go. While it can be slightly irritating to be followed and constantly asked to buy something, you can't fault the Balinese as they are just trying to make a living-it's the culture! 

Trying to get a cab out of the airport was hectic to say the least. The second you left the building you were hounded by at least 50 men all asking to drive you. It reminded me a lot of Costa Rica-this time I was thankful it wasn't just myself and so when. I said no and Jordan followed up with a no... they didn't hassle AS much. We decided to head into the convenience store to ask the ladies at the counter what company we should use and how much we should pay. There were lots of shady looking drivers and I didn't want to hop in a car with some unregistered taxi. The ladies nicely told us to go with Blue Bird Taxi and not to pay more than $5-$7 dollars for the 35 min cab ride. We ended up getting into a cab with the driver speaking little to no English. He turned the meter on and off we went. Right away we realized this was not Canadian or Australian driving. They were insane! There was barely any lanes and our driver acted as though he was driving a motorcycle and would just swerve in between cars and bikes. It was an interesting and sometimes an "oh-shit-handle" kind of ride but we managed to get there and pay only $7! 

We checked into our beautiful hotel (we weren't entirely sure how nice it would be as it only was costing us $40 a night). Turns out it was quite nice. Although it was 1130 pm, we were sticky as and decided to make use of the inviting pool! We slept like babies that night...with ac too! 

The next am we were excited to get up and do....nothing! After a hectic five days in Singapore, we just wanted a day or two to chill out and not go too far. We spent almost the entire day in the pool and enjoyed a Bintang (Bali beer) or three. The next am we were right back in the pool and had made friends with two Retired English couples. The one couple comes to Bali for 3 months every year while the other couple lived in Jawa (pronounced Java) for 5 years where she was a teacher. They would come to Bali for a couple for weeks each year. These lovely people turned out to be great assets and ending up giving us all sorts of ideas as to where to go on our stay in Bali and how much we should pay for everything. Their rule of thumb was to start bartering at 1/3 of the price and usually not pay more than half of what they are asking. Jan and Graham, one of the couples, also told us about the Gili Islands- a group of three islands just off the coast of Lombok (another larger island next to the island of Bali). They said there was great snorkelling and diving off of this island and that it would be great to spend a couple of days there. We took their advice and booked three nights on the island after booking a hotel and arranging a driver and fast boat to take us there. We had booked in at our hotel, Ari Putri, until the 26th but decided to stay another night so we could Skype our families on their xmas day. So our gili trip was set to start on the 27th of December. 

We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around the town and checking out the beach which was just across the road. The ocean was incredibly warm...almost hot. I think one of the couples said it was 30 degrees...ridiculously warm and didn't really cool you off at all. We ate lunch at a place on the beach called Jack Fish (the owner called it this because he likes Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the Caribbean and fish is apparently Jack's favourite food)! And holy crap, this was the best fish I or Jordan have ever had....absolutely delicious. I had a whole (skin, eyes and tail...although I just ate the meat haha) snapper, cooked on the grill and Jordan had a fillet of Mahi Mahi.

That afternoon we headed straight back to the pool and couldn't get in fast enough. Bali is soooooo hot! As we were swimming around Jordan made a comment about how green my hair looked. I brushed it off as a joke but then he was like "no babe, really your hair is so green!". I realized then that he wasn't kidding around...and holy shit was it ever green! Grinch green. Really really green. I, of course, started freaking out a little and started researching ASAP what the hell I should do. Being in the middle of no where, there wasn't much in the way of hair product that I could buy so I looked at home remedies..baking soda, vinegar and ketchup were some that were mentioned. I asked around for baking soda but nobody had any. We then headed to the grocery store and bought a big bottle of ketchup. After 3 ketchup shampoos consisting of an enormous amount of ketchup doused on my head under a shower cap for 20 minutes at a time, the green came out....THANK GOD! Turns out my hair went green because of the reaction of chlorine and cooper minerals in the pool. Note to those who have a pool and do not want their hair to go green....check your chlorine and cooper levels!! 

Christmas in Bali, or rather not at home, was an interesting one. Both Jordan and I have never been in the heat for Christmas so it was hard to wrap your head around. While we were, and still are, absolutely loving Bali, it was weird not being home for Christmas and surrounded by family. We were able to Skype both of our families on their Christmas Day (we are 14 hours ahead here) and it was nice to be able to be apart of their day, even just a little bit! We spent our Christmas Eve getting wonderful hour and a half long Balinese massages (mine included a body scrub and flower bath) for only $20 for both of us! It is a Cameron van Amelsvoort tradition that we eat seafood on Xmas eve so I was determined to have seafood! Luckily, the Balinese love seafood so there was plenty to choose from. Jordan had chicken satay (damn good satay too) and I had crab and rice. The crab is a full miniature crab and so the meat was much different from what I am used to but it was still good! 

The next am, Christmas morning for us, we enjoyed a nice breakfast (included in our room rate) on the porch and decided to Skype my family on their Christmas Eve! It was weird not being there but at the same time I knew that if I had gone home for the holidays, I would have wanted to fly back here right away (and obviously because we are broke as, that would never have happened)!

Our next adventure in Bali was the Gili Islands (actually part of Lombak, not Bali). We took the most frightening car ride of our lives to the port and took a 2 hour boat ride over to Gili Trawagan, the biggest of the three Gili Islands. Right away it was a completely different feel. The average age was around 24 I'd say and there were so many people. There are no cars at all, just horse drawn 'carriages' and bikes. Our 'hotel' wasn't far from the harbour so we set off on foot. The hotel was more of a guesthouse with four bungalow style bedrooms. You had to walk down this shady little alley way to get there and because it had just down poured, a lot of mud. This guesthouse was not one that I would recommended. While we are trying to rough it on this trip, this room was just not going to cut it. We had booked for three but ended up getting out after only one and booked another cabin for $30 a night (fairly cheap in Bali). The cabin was quite cute and had a giant king sized bed with a huge mosquito net around it (there were tonnes of mosquitoes)! The outdoor bathroom was open to the elements and so it made using the loo a bit challenging when it rained (everyday, all night). The water was what they call half and half (half fresh and half salt water). We seem to think it was more like 90/10 freshwater because it was salty as hell! It's very expensive for hotels to bring fresh water over from the mainland and so essentially it's just the $100+ a night ones that get free range of it. But, for $30 a night, you can't complain right? 

While Gili Trawangan was more of a party island,we still really enjoyed it and the beautiful sunsets it had to offer! We were also able to do a dive around this old shipwreck. Since Jordan isn't certified, he had to do an hour course in the pool first and then could only dive down to 12 metres. We wanted to do a dive together and so I was restricted to the 12 metres as well, but you could still see everything! We saw tonnes of beautiful fish and even a couple of freaky looking moray eels. 

After three days on the island, we had arranged for a driver, Frankie, to pick us up and drive us to Ubud, in the centre of the island. Frankie took us to a lovely Oceanside restaurant (which wasn't expensive at all!) and then took us to see the Justice Palace and the Elephant Caves. While both beautiful, we only spent maybe 30-45 minutes in each just looking at the scenery. He dropped us off at our gorgeous hotel in Ubud where we stayed for 5 nights. Ubud, as some of you may know, is were part of the movie "Eat, Pray, Love" was filmed and let me tell you, it is a gorgeous little town! The town itself is actually made up of 15 smaller communities that all have their own talents, ie painting, wood carving etc. it is located in the rainforest and amongst numerous rice paddies. 

Ubud was both of our favourite parts of our trip in Bali...that is until THE monkey bite. On our last day in Ubud, before Frankie was going to pick us up again, we headed to the famous Monkey Forest where there are hundreds of free roaming monkeys. This place is packed with both tourists and monkeys and it is not uncommon for monkeys to come up to you and take a look around. We had been warned before going to make sure we weren't wearing any sort of earrings, sunglasses, had phones, cameras etc...essentially anything that the monkeys can come and steal. We also heard that if a monkey comes up to you, don't panic, just let him come up and take a look around. If you have anything in your pockets, including bananas, just let them take it! So well warned and very cautious, we set off into the monkey forest. Maybe 10 minutes in to our adventure, we had steered pretty clear of the monkeys getting only within a few feet of them. This girl was feeding these two little monkeys bananas and so I had walked up and was just watching (still 3 feet away). The girl left and because I didn't have any bananas (I'm assuming) the little monkey barked at me. I started walking away and then saw this big monkey coming closer. He looked a bit aggressive so (remembering to not panic and run away according to the board before we entered) I stayed put. All of the sudden, this damn ape is leaping at my thigh and is holding on for dear life. I am scared out of my mind (and feeling the pain) at this point and start walking away...fast. This stupid monkey decides he is going to start stalking me and starts chasing after me. I'm trying to hide behind anything I can find, including Jordan and finally after some dodging, we manage to sneak away. At this point I am pretty much just in shock but Jordan is trying to get me to show him my leg. I'm still in shock I think and just kept walking...quickly. Finally, we stop and take a look and as it turns out, the monkey latched on really good and ended up breaking the skin and drawing blood. My first thought was holy shit. My second thought was holy shit. My third thought was holy god this hurts. We went straight to a clinic because I knew there was a chance of rabies, especially since blood was drawn. We went to this 'clinic' which consisted of a doctors office the size of a small walk in closet. It was attached to a spa and one of the spa girls actually had to call the doctor to get her to come to the office. After waiting 10 or so minutes, the doc arrived, saw my bite and told me to go wash it with soap and water for 10 minutes in the spa washroom. That was an experience in itself...dirty dirty dirty. But I kept on washing  it for 10 minutes and then had to wait almost an hour for the doctor to return from getting the rabies vaccine. She told me that because rabies is so high in Bali, they do two shots at once instead of just one. This, I later found out from my mom and Jordan's mom, was incorrect. Two shots at once does nothing. The correct dosage is actually one shot on day 0, day 3, day 7, day 14 and day 28. So skip forward to Vietnam, I headed straight to the International SOS clinic where my mom and Gerry took Lukie when he was sick with pneumonia. 

After giving the doc the paperwork that showed what the bali doc gave me, she had a little freak out. She had no idea what to do as I was given two shots instead of one and was missing the all important immunoglobulin. I'm still not completely sure what the immunoglobulin does but, the doctor told me that it is vital in the protection against rabies and can only be administered within 7 days of being bitten-I had gone to see her on the 6th (the day after we landed in Vietnam). Thankfully, I was there just in the nic of time. She kept saying we will have to discuss the price of the immunoglobulin and I was thinking in my head, okay it's probably a couple hundred dollars. Wrong-o. The money spent on this shot could have fed a small country. But luckily, my travellers insurance will hopefully cover it all once I get home. I was also thinking that this immunoglobulin was only going to be one shot. Wrong-o again. I was the lucky recipient of 13 shots around my wound, and one in the butt. I'm not that huge of a wimp when it comes to needles (nobody likes them!) but usually I'm pretty good with them. These needles however went straight into my thigh muscle and holy mother did it ever hurt. The first six or so weren't so bad but then they started killing and I actually cried out in pain. Jordan told me later that the male nurse that was administering the shots actually dropped the needle while it was in my thigh! The one in the buttocks didn't hurt at all compared to the thigh...but that's because this girls got a badonkadonk! Hehe

After the immunoglobulin shots, I had to get my second (but really third) rabies shot. This was a piece of cake! I was to stay in the clinic for 45 minutes so they could make sure I didn't have an adverse reaction to either shot and then was free to go. I had to keep the wound dry for 2 days with a big bandage on it to keep from getting an infection either through the wound itself or the 13 puncture holes in my leg. Fast forward a week to today when I received my third rabies shot-one more to go and I'm home free! Moral of the story kids-stay away from monkeys! Even now I find myself getting very anxious when I'm around even dogs (and I am usually NEVER scared around dogs). The whole situation just shook me up a little I guess but I'm hoping that once I'm out of countries that have high rates of rabid animals, I won't be overly anxious around animals anymore! 

Back to Bali, on our third day in Ubud, we decided to do a cooking class. I decided that i wanted to do a cooking class in every country that we were going to, starting with Bali. So we booked a class in which started off with a tour of the local market. We were able to try all sorts of new (to us) fruit such as jackfruit, lychee  (which Jordan had never had), and snake fruit. Since that day, we have eaten so much delicious tropical fruit and I think we are spoiling ourselves for when we come back home and this fruit is non existent if not extremely pricey. The cooking class was absolutely fabulous and I would highly recommended it to anyone! We were able to cook 7 different dishes and were sent home with typed copies of all recipes including substitute ingredients (that we may not be able to get at home!). The cooking class was probably both of our favourite part about our time in Ubud.  

After spending 5 days in Ubud we took off to Mount Batur with our driver, that we hired earlier. Little did we know that the town where Mount Batur is, is what one would call a dump. There was NOTHING in this town and we got so many looks from the locals ('they've got to be off their rockers to be here on their own'). We spent the night in a terrible hotel (setup by our driver-note to self...arrange own accommodation). We are 99% sure that the sheets weren't clean and that there were bed bugs...I had so many nasty bites in the am. However, we were in this town to do the sunset hike up the 2000m high mountain. We woke up at 3:15am and started the hike at 4 am. This was probably the most challenging hike we've ever done. First reason being that it was pitch black and Jordan and I had to share a flashlight. Second reason being that it was nearly vertical in spots...and sharing one flashlight while climbing in a single file, did I mention that yet? After climbing for almost two hours, we were so looking forward to the sunrise once we reached the top! However, what the tour guides left out (until we reached the summit), is that during the rainy season you cannot see the sunrise. They kept saying oh so sorry, we can never tell what the weather is going to be like. Then I asked, how often is it cloudy like this? He replied, it's like this for 2-3 months (during the rainy season). Jordan and I just looked at each other and rolled our eyes. Of course. Oh well, it's own own stupidity for not realizing it would be overcast I guess! We did get a few breaks in the clouds to see the view and I was immediately thankful that we could not see on the way up because I probably would have turned around it was so steep! After a 2 hour decent and very shaky knees, we returned to our hotel for showers and breakfast and set off to our next destination. 

We had discussed that no matter what, we were going to arrange our own accommodation and so we asked our driver to take us to the coast to a place called Soka.  We stayed at this fairly nice hotel which had the best view, looking right out onto the ocean! The next morning we drove to Tanah Lot which is in the western coast of Bali and is a little miniature island that is dedicated to a temple. 92% of the Balinese are Hindus and are extremely religious. Their temples are very sacred to them, and they give daily offerings wherever they are. The island temple was very beautiful but was littered with hundreds of tourists, majority being the Balinese themselves. We then got dropped off at a hotel that I had booked online in the same town we stayed at when we first arrived, Sanur. As soon as we got to the hotel we both just had this yearning to instead go back to our old hotel, The Ari Putri. We wanted something familiar I think and also our friends that we met (the two retired couples haha) were still there-we had been exchanging emails. Go ahead, laugh but we are old souls and enjoy the company of experienced travellers more so then young, rowdy, pups. Yes, I know...we are 90 year olds! Anyways, we decided to try and get a room at the Ari Putri and luckily they had a few left. We immediately went and met our friends as the pool and told them all about our travels (they had given us all the recommendations). I showed them my bite and it was like my parents or grandparents we worried about me. It was the sweetest thing. They asked all about it and wanted to make sure I was getting the correct treatment. One retired couple talked to another and to another and finally random old retirees were coming up to me and asking if I was okay and wanted to hear what happened. It was the sweetest thing!

 We had one final day in Bali and had decided that after 2 weeks we had worked up enough courage to hop on a 'motorcycle' aka scooter and try to manage our way through the craziness of all the traffic. The drivers, whether in a car, truck or scooter are insane and do not follow road rules at all. They weave in and out of the 'lanes' and the bikes even drive up on the sidewalks! But, we decided we could handle it and rented a bike for $8 for the day. We quickly got the hang of it and fit right in (except for all the looks and laughs we got from passer-bys)!! We drove to Nusa Dua, the upper class resort area and to Uluwatu, a giant set of cliffs. However, once we got to uluwatu, they warned us right away of the monkeys and immediately we both decided it wasn't a good idea. I had already gotten bite and we both weren't willing to risk it. We spent the day just riding around the southern coast and had so much fun! 

This little tidbit is not known to Jordan's mom but, I figure she'll eventually find out so here it goes...We were 2 minutes away from the hotel and got pulled over by cops running a ride check. They were only pulling over people on bikes. I had been driving and when asked for my licence I realized that stupidly I didn't have it on me-we only had Jordan's. They also asked for my international drivers licence...I don't have one. They took us down this side street and started writing out a ticket. I was not a happy camper at all because I kept saying I have my licence, it's just down the street...I can go and get it. They of course would have none of it and continued writing out the ticket for not having my licence on me. I had thought that the ticket was for $240 (so I really wasn't happy) but then realized it was only $24 US and that he was not going to issue a ticket for not having an international drivers licence..so we payed it on the spot (which I'm 100% sure just went right into his personal pocket) and went on our way!  It was an experience for sure!

The next am we headed to the airport around 6 am and took off to Singapore for a four hour layover and then a hour and fifty minute flight to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon). 

Singapore

Singapore

To say I have been slacking in the blogging department would be an understatement. Since we arrived in Singapore and later Bali, I got swept up in everything around me and decided to leave the blogging for another day. That one day got pushed to two and three and finally almost a week. We have been in Bali for two days now and so I figure its time I try and log what we have done in the last week. Before I start, I just want to thank everyone for their comments on the blog and on Facebook! I love hearing what you all have to say and really makes writing this blog more fun knowing that people are actually reading it! Also, on another note, unfortunately I am unable to add pictures to the blog. For some reason the blogger site will not allow me to use pictures from my iPad. So any pictures that we do take (on the iPad) will be uploaded to Facebook as previously done. I know that pictures make a blog all that much more interesting but hopefully you can match the pictures on Facebook to the post on my blog!

So to begin, when we arrived in Singapore after a 10 hour flight plus two hours on the Tarmac at the beginning in Auckland, we had to take the MTR (train) to our "Green Kiwi Hostel".  The MTR is extremely cheap to get around and only cost us roughly $2 each to get to our hostel. After picking up our luggage (it's so nice to travel so lightly in comparison with what we came to Australia with!), we arrived at our hostel around 8pm which was 2 am Auckland time. We were tired but also were so excited to be in Singapore that we checked in and then immediately went for some dinner and Tiger beer at the local food stalls. This is where all the locals eat and holy crap was it busy! I would say there were 20+ stalls in this "food market" and we settled on a rice, chicken and veggie dinner for $2.50 plus $5 for a large tiger (two pints). After dinner we headed back across the street to our room which slept 10 people. Initially I was not too fond of sleeping with 8 others in the room but it was actually a really nice hostel and the beds and comforter were extra comfy so it was a great sleep. One of the chicks in our room however decided she was cold (even though the ac was set to 24 degrees and it was 32 degrees outside at 10 pm at night). So she turned the ac to 26 and needless to say, it was stinking hot!!  That next night I made sure the ac was set at a more comfortable 23 degrees (still quite warm obviously but much better!). That morning we woke up at 6 am (a little jet lagged) and decided to enjoy the sunrise on the rooftop patio. Even at 6 am it was already 28-29 degrees and so we were already sweating like mad. Breakfast opened at 730 and was included in our room rate of $40 a night for both of us. Breakfast consisted of gourmet coffee, two pieces of toast and fruit (oranges, watermelon and dragonfruit)... Delicious!

We had a shower and set off to tour the city at around 9 am (everything was still closed!). We thought we set off in the direction of Little India but instead we ended up heading in the complete opposite direction towards Marina Bay Sands (the building that looks like a ship is on the top and has the infamous infinity pool). So we decided to check out the hotel and holy cow was it ever insane. It was situated right on top of an insane mall equipped with a boat moat and a skating rank along with every expensive brand name store you can think of. We walked by a display case of jewelry where they had a diamond for $500, 000 and a vase for $800, 000!!! Clearly you needed money to stay at this hotel. We ended up paying $40 to take the 12 second elevator up 57 floors to the observation deck which over looks Singapore and also a view of the infinity pool (only guests can use and enter the pool area). 

After Marina Bay Sands we walked to Chinatown in the blistering heat where we roamed the stalls and ended up eating at another food court that was filled with locals (and lots of Singaporean business men/woman). I was surprised to not see more foreigners like ourselves but it seemed that the majority stuck to westernized food...boring! I ended up with a noodle soup which was delicious and Jordan ate breaded chicken and rice. Surpassingly the soup didn't make me all that much more hot because I was already the hottest I have ever been (at that point...wait until Bali!). 

 

After wondering around Chinatown for a couple of hours, we decided to start making our way back home. It was just after four when we got home and we were exhausted and so sticky!! It was a great long day and all we wanted to do was relax a little! :) That night we headed back to the market where both Jordan and I got more noodle soup..mine with shrimp and dumplings and Jordan's with beef. Of course we washed that all down with some more Tiger beer. The old woman who had served us beer the night before remembered us and brought us our beer right away. It was nice to be recognized but then I realized we were in fact the only white people in the joint on both nights! 

The next morning we woke up and had our usual breakfast on the rooftop and were out again headed to the city by 930 am. Our first stop was little India where we walked for what seemed like hours. We went to a mall where we picked up some shampoo and before we knew it, it was lunch. We ended up eating in an Indian restaurant (surprise surprise) and both ordered curry and naan bread. We noticed that the Indians around us were all eating with their hands (literally scooping the sauce onto their rice and shovelling it into their mouth). Was that ever an experience to witness...I had no idea they did that! While it wasn't entirely appetizing to watch, it is their culture and it was great to experience (in a weird way haha). 

After Little India, we headed to Singapore's technology hub-Sim Lim Tower and Market. The market is a 7 floor tower filled with stores ALL selling technology (computers, electrical gadgets, printers, iPads/pods/phones, cameras, etc.). Literally everything you can think of was in this mall...ridiculous! We went in wanting to look for a SD card for our camera so that we don't run out of room for pictures. We ended up bargaining a price of $27 bucks for 32 GB...after going into 10 plus stores. Not too shabby!

Now that we had made a purchase and gotten a rather good deal we decided to hop on the train and head to Orchard road. Regarded as one of the greatest shopping centres in Singapore if not SEA. It's insane the number of stores in a 2 mile stretch and the number of duplicate if not triples of each store. Most of the stores were too rich for our taste, or rather or budget, such as Louis Vuitton or Prada so we settled for a bench and chilled out until we decided to head home. On the way home we found a Wendy's and had some frosty's and walked home in the rain. 

That night we went to the Singapore night zoo, on the way there i kept looking over at the bus driver and was wondering if he just had really squinty eyes or if he was falling asleep...turns out he was taking a freaking nap! I started talking to jordan more loudly in hopes that it would keep the driver asleep. He would wake up and doze off for a second or two but still kept on the road thank god! I We watched an animal show and did a tour around the zoo on a "train" -basically a massive golf cart. The guide on the tour put on a fake accent to try and set the mood. It ruined the mood completely. There were lots of cool animals though...tigers, lions,elephants etc. 

The next day we walked around Singapore a bit more and headed to the airport in the afternoon to make our way to Bali! 

This has been a rather large blog so next post will be all about Bali! We hope everyone had a great Christmas!

Xx

South and West Coast of NZ

Last you heard from us we were in Dunedin and had just enjoyed a wonderful sleep (with the bathroom just across the hall...with an actual toilet!!) at Hogwartz. That am we went to the Dunedin train station as we heard it was beautiful. It was nice but it was a train station. So on we went. We then went to the free museum were Jordan got his nerd on and checked out some exhibits including the famous NZ extinct Moa (massive bird that is twice the height of me) and a real mummy, that was about half the size of me! After the museum we headed to the mall to use their free Internet and check some emails. While we were on the net we got a FaceTime call from my great friend Jenn who I met in my program and is actually from Dundas, Ontario! Small world eh? We were able to chat a bit but bc both of our Internet connections were crap (she's in Cambodia at that moment) we didn't get to chat for too long! Either way, it was great to hear from my Jennybear again!! 

After our little chat Jordan and I headed out to the Otago peninsula where we heard there were albatross (in my mind, essentIially just giant seagulls). We went to the centre where they were asking $80 a person to go view these damn glorified seagulls...we said hells no to that and continued trekking on. We then decided to spend the night just outside of a town called Oamaru. We found a picnic area on the beach and hid the van away behind some bushes. The wind was insane though so we ended up cooking in our van. On the drive up the coast the next am we noticed that all the trees and bushes looked like they were frozen in place when a big gust of wind came along. We later found out that its bc this side of the coast is in, what they call, the 'Roaring 40's', the latitudes between 40 and 50 degrees south which are renowned for their gale-force winds....the trees actually are permanently wind blown! 

We then drove to Akaroa which is a couple hours drive east of Christchurch-located on a beauty peninsula. We ended up at a camper van site and did some much needed laundry! The next day we walked around the little town and had some coffee at a little shop right near the water. It was a cute French town with a relaxed feel.

That morning we continued up through to Waimate where I had read that at some point every December there was a strawberry festival that the town was 'famous for'. We decided to try our luck because it was a Saturday and whaddya know, it was on! We roamed around for a couple of hours looking at all the crafty stalls and decided on getting a couple of ice cream sundays with fresh strawberries. Surprisingly there were only maybe three stalls out of one hundred that were actually selling strawberries and the prices were outrageous (most fruit is here). We decided against purchasing any as a small box of strawberries was$9.00...for maybe 9 strawberries....crazy! I bought a little owl necklace and Jordan and I both bought a string bracelet (we are buying one from every country). 

After Waimate we continued north to Kaikoura. When we first got to Kaikoura we did a little window shopping where I actually found these beautiful winter knitted mitts and a headband.  (Note: Jordan and i ended up sending a package home with all our warm gear including jeans and sweaters...not going to need them in Asia...so that means that these are not to be worn....ok ma, char and Rah's???). Then we had a little coffee and decided to go check out the seals at the point. We hiked up the little mountain for a better view of the ocean and seals...man were there a lot of them, just baking in the sun! We stopped at a little seafood hut on the side of the road and tried some green-shelled mussels (delish but they're no pei mussels that's for sure!) and some scallops. Jordan enjoyed both which put a smile on my face-he originally didn't like seafood at all but having been in my family for 8+ years (mega seafood lovers) he's acquiring more of a taste for it! 

We had originally planned to spend the night in Kaikora at a free campsite (aka the side of the road hidden by bushes) but decided that we enjoyed enough time in this town. We stopped at Oahu waterfall where we encountered an adorable seal pup just basking in the sun. We were able to get within two feet of him-very cool! On the ocean side (across from the parking lot we saw tonnes of adult seals...massive they were!) I took 50 plus pictures and we were back on the road. 

As Jordan was driving I opened the map and noticed we were only 250 Km's or so from Nelson (aka the river bath campsite that we absolutely LOVED at the beginning of our tour of the South Island). We decided to drive up to Blenheim and stay for the night and do the remaining 150kms in the morning. Well we got to Blenheim and said scratch that, and decided we wanted to spend the night at the 'River Bath'..we arrived just before 9pm when the sun was still up! We had forgotten about the insane bugs and immediately started getting bit again. We were still recovering from our last bites here and so Jordan took a quick dip in the river and then we retreated to the van. 

We ended up staying at "the river bath campsite" for 3 nights and 3 days....totally relaxing and lots of fun! We did a little laundry in the river and swam and read during the days. There was even a rock ledge that you could jump off into the water. At one point Jordan pointed out an eel and I had a little freak out and made him jump in and scare it away. I ended up seeing it right under my feet a few minutes later when I was snorkelling (we brought our snorkelling gear) and was out of that water in a freaking jiffy.

That afternoon we decided to hunt down a DOC (department of conservation) campsite- this one only cost us $10! From the campsite there were hikes you could do. One of them led you to a beautiful gorge with the bluest water! If you know me, you know I love water and so I headed down to feel the temperature. It was pretty cold. But, I was determined to take the 100 foot ride down the rushing current to the 'beach'. Jordan thought I was completely out of my mind but after a little ( a lot) of persuasion, I got him to jump in with me. Let me tell you...it was fa-reezing!!! I felt like we were doing the polar bear dip! At the same time though, our adrenaline was just pumping because we are rushing down the gorge with the current, so while my brain and body recognized it was frigid, I was not (as) focused on that. What a rush...amazing, and best part....free! We roasted some "processed meat" (hawt dawgs) over the fire, played some cards and headed to bed. 

The next day we took off south to Hanmer Springs-a little town that's only a couple hundred Km's north west of Christchurch. We went to the outdoor springs which consisted of 10+ pools all ranging from 28-42 degrees. They also had three water slides which we made great use of! I tried to convince Jordan to keep going down them with me but he had hot thermal sulphur water on the brain! That night we spent our LAST night in the campervan at a little free campsite called Balmoral.  That morning we packed up all our gear and cleaned out the van and drove into Christchurch. 

Driving into Christchurch was not what we had expected at all! As I'm sure most of you know, shortly after Christmas (I believe February) of 2010,  the city got hit with a 7.2 earthquake that completely destroyed the town and killed 158 people. The number of after shocks that have occurred since was over 17,000!  (Keep in mind these are very little...most of which you can't actually feel). We had heard there was still destruction in the city but when we drove into the town, it looked like it had happened the day before! The destruction was incredible and we both felt this feeling as though we were in some war zone. The CBD was completely ruined with abandoned and demolished (purely from the earthquake) buildings and roads. There were fences up everywhere and so many streets completely shut off to the public as there was so much rubble. It was absolutely devastating to see...people lives, homes, business and their beloved city completely torn out from underneath them.  Needless to say, we walked around christchurch taking pictures of some of the destruction. We ended up booking a room at one of the few hostels that are left in the city. We ended up getting our own room as this hostel didn't have any mixed or woman's dorms (just men's and private rooms). That afternoon I face timed char for three hours while Jordan returned the van (yes, it took him three hours because he got lost....multiple times. It takes a woman to deal with directions evidently. :) 

That night we watched The Hobbit in theatres (we had to watch it while we were in NZ!). It was actually really cool to watch it and recognize parts of NZ that were in the film...good movie-recommended if you are a LOTR's fan. The next day we walked around Christchurch (not all that much to see anymore...and by that much I mean basically nothing). I had researched the town a little and lonely planet had revised their chapter on the city after the earthquake (because most businesses,restaurants, hotels they had written about weren't there anymore). They wrote about an old fridge that was on the corner of Kilmore and Barbadoes Street that was filled with used books! We headed there and exchanged some of our books for new (old) ones! Great idea! We then went out to lunch had a couple of beers, and headed back to the hostel for the night. 

The next am we had to be at the airport for 9 as we were flying to Auckland at 1030. It was a quick 1 hour flight and once we arrived we went back to the first hostel we stayed in when we first arrived a month ago, Queen Street Backpackers. Massive hostel. I'm not entirely sure how many people it could sleep but I'm willing to bet it was around 300+... The building almost took up an entire block! We slept that night with 6 others in the room and needless to say, didn't get a whole lot of sleep. I ended waking up just after 5 am because the girl above me was hopping around on her squeaky bed getting changed and fiddling with her bags since she had an early flight. Restless and unable to sleep anymore, I had a shower and spent the am watching a Christmas movie in the lobby. As I'm writing this I'm actually on the plane to Singapore and surprisingly not that tired (although I just took my second round of gravol so ill be out like a light in about 30 min). We are flying with Jet Star, the cheapest airline around with the squishiest seats and nothing complimentary...even though its an 11 hour flight. Once we boarded the plane they told us that the baggage count was wrong and it had to be fixed before we left. We ended up sitting on the Tarmac for TWO hours. As we speak, we've been flying for six hours but have been on the plane for over 8. Only five more to go! Jordan and i have already purchased and watched two movies and have had a $15 dinner (per meal) consisting of lamb and potatoes for me and chicken and rice for Jordan. We land in Singapore around 6:30pm (their time) and will be heading to our hostel where we will spend the next 4 days.

Well, I'm feeling the gravol start to kick in so i'll sign off here before I start writing stuff that makes no sense at all!

Till next time xx

Wanaka, Queenstown, Milford Sounds, Invercargill and Dunedin

Well, it's been a few days and I've been slacking on the blogging front so I'm going to write about the past week or so to fill you in! After we left Fox Glacier we drove straight through to Wanaka, a beautiful town in the heart of ski country. The town had such a great feel to it, reminded me a lot of Collingwood (Blue Mountain) where my aunt and Dad have a beautiful condo. Lots of little shops and overall a great town! When we first got there we hit up Puzzling World where we spent a couple of hours going through the illusion room and this insane maze that takes people on average anywhere between 30 minutes to an hour to complete. The harder version takes over 1.5 hours. At the beginning we were excited about the maze and thought we were getting the hang of it but then, not surprisingly, I started getting frustrated. However, happy to report back that we didn't give up and solved it in just over 30 minutes (it felt like hours). 

After Puzzling World we walked around the city checking out the shops and then headed to Paradiso, and old church converted into one movie theatre. This theatre is not your typical theatre! It is decked out with old, comfy, clean donated couches and even an old car that you can sit in if you so choose. Let me tell you, best movie theatre ever!! So comfortable! Not only that but we had a pizza there before the movie and then had some dessert, while watching the movie...delicious homemade ice cream! Think we're done? Oh no! Then came the intermission where we were able to purchase HOT fresh out of the OVEN cookies and beverages! I chose a hot chocolate and Jordan had (according to him) the best beer he's ever had that was made in Wanaka. Did I mention that you got to eat/drink this during the rest of the movie? Like I said, best.theatre.ever!!

We ended up staying at a DOC (department of conservation) campsite for $14 and woke up to some beautiful mountains! We then carried on to Queenstown. The drive to Queenstown was one of the prettiest of all NZ...endless snow topped mountains and beautiful yellow bushes (not sure what they are called but the sign said NZ's Golden Forest). The whole West Coast was absolutely gorgeous and we found ourselves going for little drives (taking the seniors scenic route like my parents always used to do when we were kids...I hated it!! But Jordan and I had some good laughs now that we are doing it and looking at real estate while we are at it...old foggies now!). Anyways, Queenstown, we both think, is the prettiest town in NZ...surrounded by snow covered mountains and beautiful lakes...absolutely stunning! When we got to Queenstown we headed straight for the luge (same thing we did back in Rotorua if you remember). We had such a blast last time that we just had to go again...we were the first people of the day (eager little beavers we were!) and raced the luge 5 times. Of course I won 3/5 times...Jordan only won those two times because I told him my winning move...if any of you end up going to NZ, you absolutely to have to do the luge, and then I will tell you my winning move! :) 

After the luge we hit up Makkas for some Internet and charging. While cruising Facebook my Dad told me that the fam would like to buy us a ride on a jet boat. We've heard lots about how fantastic these boats are and took him up on his offer immediately! Thank you Dad and Jen!!! We had such a great time on this boat. We went with ShotOver Jets and these boats cruise up and down the river going, at points, 85km an hour and hucking mad 360's. It was freezing out and we were getting drenched but it was so so worth it!! Little tidbit: some fellow riders (unfortunately at an earlier time) included Ryan Reynolds, Allanis Morsiette, Kenny Rogers, many actors from LOTR including Sir Ian McClellan (?) and even Sir Peter Jackson.  After the jet boat ride, for at least a day after, when we were driving our van it felt like we were drifting the corners..the strangest feeling ever...slightly nauseating actually haha but we got a kick out of it!)

After the Shotover Jet we headed back to town where we cruised the downtown area and had a few beers at this cool little bar called Red Stone where this band was playing some great Reggae music, even a little Marley! We then headed up to our campground (it had been a few days...we needed showers!!) and cooked some din. We had heard about these awesome private hot pools (a massive wooden tub). The tub is in its own room and with a touch of a button the sliding door goes up and you are looking at a beautiful view of the mountains and river! Totally gorgeous and so peaceful! We had tried to go the night before but unfortunately they were booked out so we made a booking for the next night and spent the day wondering around Queenstown again. In the afternoon we drove up the coast to Glenorchy, a small town with pretty much nothing. However, the drive to this town and when you got there was totally stunning! At this point though, we were both exhausted and ended up having a 2.5 hour nap in the van (the van isn't as comfortable as our last one when we went up to Cairns in Oz so we haven't had the best sleeps...also our damn bug bites still keep us up at night!). Anywho, that night we drove back to Onsen Hot Pools (totally recommended them). We didn't want to pay for accommodation again (we have a kitchen and bed in our van...we shouldn't have to pay!) and went south until we found a little picnic area with no signs saying we weren't allowed to camp there...we took full advantage. This little spot was right on the lake and was surrounded with mountains! If the water wasn't so damn cold we would have had a little dip and probably did a little laundry...however it was painful enough just washing our dishes!). 

The next am we took off to Te Anau, which is south of Queenstown. We did a little grocery shopping and then continued on to Milford Sounds. Unfortunately we didn't really research this area before we got there and realized after 2 + hours of driving that the only thing to do there was take a cruise that would cost us $180. We have already spent over what we had thought we were going to spend and decided against it. However, the drive up was really beautiful and I was even able to touch snow for the first time in a year!! (Of course I whacked Jordan with a good snowball as soon as I got my hands on it!). 

We ended up staying at another DOC campsite for $10 and ended up spending the whole night and next am in the van as it was pouring rain!! I have never held off going to the bathroom for so long-such an ordeal!!!

That afternoon we drove to Invercargill, the biggest most southern city in NZ. At this point it had been a couple of days since we had showered (nothing new) so we hit up the local swimming pool! Haha we were playing around in the water and on the indoor slide for hours and then headed on out of town to find a free spot to camp. We randomly saw a sign for a scenic reserve 7 km off of the main road and took a chance. Essentially just in the middle of a field with a circle of trees around and a picnic table and long drop (porta potty) toilet.  We were the only ones there (you don't say right?). That night once we had shut the lights off in the van, some kids (we think) came into our little circle of grass and started racing around in their car....with no lights on. Scared the absolute shit outta me because at that point we didn't know what the hell was going on because we couldn't see anything! The next am though we noticed doughnut tracks in the field and decided that it was just a bunch of punk kids coming in to have a bit of fun. 

We then drove (lots of driving eh?) to Dunedin, a town just 2.5 hours north on the east coast. Right away you could see a massive difference from the west to east coast in terms of scenery. Whereas the west coast is very mountainous and snowy, the east coast has more rolling green hills and flat land for farming...farming what you ask? Farming sheep...thousands and thousands of sheep! Both islands are covered in sheep but this particular area seemed to have quite a few more. Once we got into Dunedin we noticed quite the European influence. I was desperate for something Christmassy (it just doesn't feel like Xmas here!) so we headed to the mall for some Christmas tunes and decorations...they didn't really deliver all that much so we headed to the local Starbucks where we sat by the fire drinking some hot Christmas drinks (Jordan stuck with his flat white...he's now a coffee connoisseur). The kiwis and Aussies are very particular about their coffee. I remember on one of our first days in Australia, I asked for a double double and they looked at me like I was speaking Swahili. They do coffee the fancy way here with flat whites, short/long blacks, mochas, lattes etc etc...took us forever to figure out which coffee was the same as what we like at home...conclusion-there is only one Tim Hortons coffee and you can not replicate it or the price (you'd be screaming for joy if you found a coffee under $3.50- for a small that is). 

After our trip to Starbucks I researched a little bit about the town and what to do. We had heard from Isaac and Mia that you could do a brewery tour of Speights, NZ's biggest brewery. Sounds fun? Sure....now include unlimited beer in that baby! We obviously wanted to take advantage of the unlimited beer drinking so I looked up some hostels (there weren't any close campervan spots within walking distance) and I ended up finding a nifty place called....wait for it....Hogwartz!! I checked out the pics and we headed over ASAP. Best hostel we have ever been too! So unique and the owners were super nice. They even had herbs and spices that you could get from their garden if you wanted too. They also had an awesome loft that could be reached via ladder where we spent a couple of hours just lounging around while the heat from the wood fire (more comforts from home!) heated us up. We splurged on a private room which essentially came with a private bathroom...took full advantage of having a shower at our disposal and had not one but twoooo showers! Haha. Let me tell you, was I ever stoked to sleep in a REAL bed that isn't made up of six different sized cushions that you slip between the cracks in. Not only that but when I woke up in the early am, I didn't have to put on any shoes or a jacket and make the trek to the bathroom...oh nooooo, I could just walk across the hall and blam!! There was the bathroom! LUXURY!!!! The things we take for granted, oh buddyyyy. On this special night I was also, for the first time, able to wear the Pyjamas I brought with me instead of every piece of clothing I own (it's freezing every night in that damn van!). 

On an absolutely embarrassing note (maybe more info then needed but I got a kick out of it)...we've been so lax lately and hadn't really gone out in public for a couple of days (before we got to Dunedin). So we are wondering around Dunedin (super populated city...for NZ) and we finally get back to the van and i realizeeeee......that I didn't have a bra on!!! Oh man, talk about hippies to the max right? Told you I just had to share!

Sorry about this extensively long post but hopefully you are enjoying it! Anyways, that night we did the Speights brewery tour....fantastic! They make six different beers including their famous Speights Gold Medal (delish!!) , a pale ale, an old dark, a pilsner, an amber and finally an apple cider that they only started making two years ago which I helped myself to generously along with the gold medal beer. Get this, the tour guides get to drink with us butttt back in the olden days, Mr. James Speight,  would allow for each pair that worked together to drink....not 1 or 2 litres of beer but 23 litres of beer a day!!!! They had their own personal keg and they would flip a coin to see who would get to take home leftovers (if there were any, that is!). Best boss in the world...it's amazing they were able to make such a strong business that is still thriving 130+ years later! After the tour we headed to Speights Ale House Restaurant where I had the best meal of the trip....a lamb shank, mashed potatoes, peas, corn and broccoli....all for only $18 (which in NZ and Oz is an pretty decent price!). See Grampy, they do have lamb here! :) 

Once we left the restaurant it was raining cats and dogs so we decided to head on back to Hogwartz! Overall, we have loved Dunedin and we are looking forward to checking out more of the town and its surroundings. 

On another note, it has been absolutely freezing and incredibly windy down in the south. We found out yesterday that this is probably due to e fact that Auckland got hit with a tornado killing 3 (as of yesterday). Thankfully we weren't in the city (or close to it) but we will be flying back into Auckland on the 17th. Fingers crossed the tornadoes stay away!

I know it was a long post but I hadn't written in over a week so it was time to catch up! Hopefully you didn't get too bored reading it and maybe even had some laughs.

Love to all xx

Abel Tasman, Franz Josef & Fox Glacier

Alrighty, well we've had a couple of great days since our last blog. After we left the "river bath" campsite we headed north west to Abel Tasman National Park. This is a beautiful park most popular for their 3-4day hikes Up the mountains and along the coast.  We decided to just spend the afternoon there and walk along the beach. As soon as we stepped on the beach I noticed the little holes in the sand and right away knew, from my summers in PEI when I was a kid, that there were clams. And ohhh buddy were there clams. Jordan had never clam dug before so I was excited to show him how. Right away he loved it and it was a game to see who could catch the biggest one. It started off as such finding some clams here and there but then we hit the jackpot and collected more and more. I think we probably ended up with over a hundred and so that night we steamed up so delicious clams with some carrots and garlic butter and had ourselves a delicious little/big appetizer.  The black flies were going crazy over the garlic butter so we gobbled them up pretty quickly! 

 Buller River was where we spent the night at a free spot right by the river. After paying for accommodation so much we decided to start being really sneaky and try and find spots that were hidden from the road so we wouldn't get a ticket. This spot was great however this time we didn't end up swimming because a) there was a huge current b) there were tonnes of black flies and c) the water was frigid!! Did I mention there were blacks flies? These little buggers have quite the bite to them and then the bite itches like crazyyyyy for days after. We both got lit up so bad that we would wake up in the middle of the night and just itch for 10 minutes straight..not fun. We woke up the next morning and decided to hold off on breakfast and just get the hell outta there...we did NOT want anymore bites.

After we left Buller River we carried on to Franz Josef Glacier. We had heard all about this place and wanted to book a trip up to actually walk on the glacier and check it out. However because hunks of the ice were starting to fall off at the end of it, it was unsafe to walk on it, even with a guide. The only way to get on the glacier was to take a helicopter which would cost anywhere from $299 per person and up. We vetoed against that and decided just walk to the edge which was about 150 metres from the actual glacier. This thing was a monstrosity and was just beautiful! It was an hour and a half round trip to see the glacier and the numerous waterfalls that surrounded. It's the craziest setting because there is this huge ice block that just sits in the middle of a rainforest. Who knows why it doesn't just melt but it was a pretty cool experience. That night we went out to a cool restaurant called the Landing, had a delicious dinner and treated ourselves to dinner...date cake with caramel topping...reminded me of my Aunt Gina's...yum!! We stayed at a "free" (really we just didn't pay) campsite with the worst smelling port-a-potty I've ever smelt....gagggg!

Due to the fact that we couldn't walk on the Franz Josef Glacier we drove thirty minutes down the road to Fox Glacier which is actually 2km longer at 13km! This glacier we were able to take a guided tour onto the ice that was a half day trip. It was really cool to be able to walk on it and through crevasses. By the end we had enjoyed it so much that we wished we did the full day hike! There is also a tour that is a two night trip in which you get flown up by a heli, the guide makes all your meals, you stay in a cabin and you hike during the day. The price tag: $1400 buckaroonies. Maybe when we are retired and are (obviously) rolling in the dough we'll come back and do that trip! Hehe. We ended up "splurging" on a campsite so we could have a much needed shower! Today we are off further south to a town called Wanaka we our Isaac and Mia also lived for a while. 

On a side note, because we only have an iPad with us and there is no USB port, we are unable to add photos to our blog until we get the little add on we ordered....fingers crossed we get it before 2 weeks is up and we are off to Singapore! So apologies for the lack of pictures but we are trying to take pictures on our iPad and iPhone and upload those to Facebook! Ahhh technology!

That's all for now folks!

Ps. Thanks for commenting on our blogs!!  We are really loving reading all of them and get so excited to here a new one and all that's happening at home! Miss everyone!

Love Kikki and JoJo

Waitomo Caves, Rotorua, Wellington and Picton

I  hope you enjoyed the last blog. It's somewhat of a different style, combining sentence and short form together, but hopefully it gives you a taste for what we have been up to! Again, my apologies for spelling and grammatical errors. It's tricky to self edit on the iPad so this'll have to do!

Our next stop was Waitomo Caves (more specifically a company called Blackwater Rafting) where we repelled 27 metres into a cave and we were able to float down the pitch black water on inner tubes! We had little head lamps on our helmets buT at this point turned them off so that we could see the millions of little glow worms...the coolest thing! The whole adventure was 5 hrs (including driving to the caves and suiting up in full on wet suit gear) so towards the end we were getting a little chilly. Our guide Amy handed out cups of hot juice (surprisingly delicious) and three pieces of chocolate to give us a bit of energy to get out of the cave. The only way out was to climb what we had just repelled down. Jordan of course was up in a jiffy while I took just a wee bit longer, but still made it up in under 5 minutes. The caves were well worth the money we spent and we would definitely recommended it to everyone! We were one of two other couples that did this little adventure. One of the couples, who was on their honeymoon from Ireland, were on a six week adventure stopping in  Fiji, Australia, NZ, LA, and Dallas...all in six weeks!! It was unbelievable...they had flown into NZ for only four days and were planning on seeing the North and the South Islands...not entirely sure how they were planning on doing that as Jordan and I are finding that one month is not nearly enough time to be ale to spend in NZ.  (I think if it weren't for family and friends back at home....I can see my mom tearing as I'm writing this...we would probably live here for a while since we love it so much! But don't worry Ma, we are coming home...eventually!). 

After Waitomo Caves, we drove two hours south to Rotorua (Roto meaning lake in the native Maori language and rua meaning two). Going a little off topic here, the majority of town names and lakes all have Maori names which is very similar, I found, to Hawaii and how their towns are all named in the Native Hawaiian language...too cool!  Anyways, Rotorua is the adventure spot on the North Island and has all sorts of activities including Zorbing (which was first invented in NZ) and luging. Rotorua also has a whack of thermal activity where you can actually see mud bubbling in the middle of the city!  They have thermal pools all over the town which absolutely wreak of sulphur...so much so that we kept on driving when we pulled into one of the places you could have a thermal bath! Isaac and Mia, who I will be referring to a lot in these blogs re NZ , recommended use to do the luge in Rotoruaa. Essentially you are on a little toboggan with bicycle handle bars and you zoom down a windy ski hill...let me tell you, we had an absolute blast!!! I've never had so much fun on a little toboggan than on this luge track....we were definitely going the fastest out of anyone on the track and we would race each other down the hill! Jordan won twice (because I let him..didn't want to damage his self esteem) I won once. Apparently there is another luge track on the South Island, so we are hoping to hit that up before we leave...so much fun!!

We also had Wendy's for the first time in a year!!!! NZ has so many things from home that Australia doesn't have so we are feeling a but closer to home (even though we are further than ever!). Here's a list of things that NZ has that Australia didn't for home:

Queen Anne's lace

Wendy's

Burger King

Fruit loops/Cheerios

Dodge and Ford trucks

Nature valley bars

Bagels 

Starbucks (had a gingerbread latte yesterday....yum!)

Trivial to everyone at home but having these things around us make us feel a little bit closer to home, which during the holiday season is nice! Haha

Anywho, after Rotorua we drove on to Taupo were we ended up finding this incredibly hot thermal river where we bathed in...well sort of. It was so hot that you could only stay in for a couple of minutes but nevertheless, it was really cool to be swimming in a hot river! We spent the night at a free campground called Reid's something rather and ended up driving straight to Wellington (the southern tip of the north island). While driving into the city we spotted a caravan park (of sorts) in the middle of the downtown...right on the water!! We ended up staying there that night and enjoyed a (much needed) hot shower. I ended up falling asleep at 7:45 for the night! I think it might by endless days of fresh air but I never have a problem falling asleep! The next day we wandered around Welli enjoying the free Te PaPa museum and their free Internet! We were able to catch up on all that we had missed and even write a few emails to back home! (It's crazy how so much happens in such a short amount of time...but at that same time, it's nice to be completely disconnected from the digital world!). 

After the museum we wandered the Sunday markets and even checked out the Hobbit exhibition they had going on. As some of you know I'm sure, I loveee The Lord of the Rings trilogy (yes, a little bit of a geek in me) and the prequel to these movies, The Hobbit, was made in NZ recently. Anyways, they were  hosting the world premier of the movie only a couple of days after we left Wellington (sad face) but on this day, they were showing how they did the make up of the Orcs (scary creatures in the movie)...Dad, I'm sure you'll appreciate this! The whole make up process takes three hours for each person (sometimes they had over 300 to do in one day!) and at least an hour or two to take the make up off. We watched this process for a bit while one of actors answered questions about the movie and about Peter Jackson (the director) who he referred to as PJ. It was so interesting! (Jordan was a good sport about this as he is not nearly the fanatic that I am!). 

That night at 8 we caught the three hour ferry to the South Island that dropped us off in Picton. We slept in a parking lot that night...surprisingly there were no "no camping" signs, so we took full advantage...even cooked our breaky there in the am!). Random sidetracking here but this town had the craziestttt toilets! Everything was electronic to the sliding door, the lock and unlock, the toilet paper, the soap dispenser, the water (which when turned on would flush the toilet) and the hand dryer. Oh, and did I mention that jazz music was turned on once you entered and you were thanked by the toilet gods when you exited for using "Ezeeloo"?....like I said, crazy! Jordan was in love. 

We then carried on to the Marlborough Sounds, reached by a beautiful road with some fantastic views of the islands. We found a beautiful little private beach were we went for dip in the freezing ocean! After, we drove west to a town called Nelson where we enjoyed free internet from Makkas (McDonalds). We were able to FaceTime my family for a little bit but then I think the employees switched off the Internet bc we were using up their bandwidth...or it could have been because we didn't buy anything... But hey, it's expensive here! Like I was telling my family, a Big Mac meal here is $12.80!)

Thanks to Mia and Isaac, again, we had NZ's best fish and chips (they were delicious) and found a beautiful campsite by the river where they stayed on and off for three months! One spot in the river is even deep enough to dive I ( I'd say at least 8-10 ft deep), so we busted out the shampoo and had a much needed river bath! We loved this campsite so much we decided to stay two nights. The days were filled with jumping in the river and reading our books on the cushions from our van...hippies to the max, but it was by far the most relaxing day we've had yet!  Now that we are on the South Island and we've got three weeks, we are taking it a bit slower and soaking it all up!

Well, that's it for now..hope you enjoyed!

North Island, New Zealand

Ok, we are back! Now that we have started travelling again, I'd like to keep on top of the blog as much as possible. The following post is an accumulation of the past week. Since our Internet access is few and far between, they won't be regular and unfortunately until I can figure out how to upload photos, there won't be any photos either. However, this gives you a bit of a taste of what we are doing! Enjoy! (Ps. Please ignore and spelling/grammar mistakes as I am writing this on the iPad).

We got up at 5:40am after only 3 hours of sleep after my Gde ball...amazing!

We said goodbye to 41-43 Bourne st and took a quick last look around, it was somewhat sad to leave the gong....we loved it there!

We then headed to the train station for 6:18 but then realized that it didn't actually come until 6:45! Damn, could have got a few more minutes of sleep. Jordan slept on the train ride there (2 hrs) and then we dropped off our one jammed suitcase at the storage lockup where a friend of ours, Ashley, would pick it up on the Monday and bring it back to Canada with  her...we owe you ash!!

Waited at the airport for 3 hours..my need to be early had evidently rubbed off on Jordan who planned this leg. We then flew to Auckland with Air New Zealand...highly recommended! The safety video was all LOTR and we both actually watched the entire thing...so cool and very smart!

When we landed in Auckland it was freezing and raining. Since we landed after the campervan rental placed closed (such a pain) we had to pay $32 bucks to get into Auckland, $22/each to stay in a hostel and another $30+ bucks to get back to the airport area to pick up our home for the next 29 days. After picking up the van, we drove around getting breaks and groceries/supplies for the next week or so. We then drove up north to the town of Puhia, in the Bay of Islands district, where we spent the night at a campground for $20. When we first arrived in Puhia we immediately went to book an overnight boat trip on "The Rock"- which came highly recommended by our good friends from home Isaac and Mia who lived in NZ for a year or so. After looking our trip we went back to our campsite had some din (chewiest steak we've ever had) and headed over to the local pub called Shippey's-an actual ship...very cool! 

Turned in for an early night...still exhausted from the Gde ball I think...we partied hard!

Well, woke up this am on a boat called The Rock. Surprisingly I slept like a baby and was not motion sick at all..yay! The night prior we jetted off on this overnight tour boat and got to fish off the back and ended up having a late dinner with the crew and fellow passengers. We also went night kayaking and saw the phosphorescence in the water (algae that glow when you touch the water...think Disney water! Very cool!) However, I was freezing this entire time and despite the on board fired, I couldn't shake the cold feeling. The next am we woke up and had NZ traditional porridge (same as home) and went snorkelling for some sea urchins. I, however, already feeling a bit under the weather, decided not to venture into the freezing water. The air temperature was probably only 17 degrees as well and pouring rain. Jordan did go in but was back in a jiffy after collecting eight spikey sea urchins that we later ate (their eggs which tasted like slimy salt and looked like an over saturated crouton). After that , we ventured up a mountain in the pouring rain...very cool but again, freezing.

 We then were back on land by 3pm and driving north to the Coromandel Peninsula. That night we stayed at a beautiful campsite that was at the bottom of a huge mountain. Going off track a bit, NZ is such a beautiful country. I can't even begin to describe what it lookalike by it encompasses so many features from, other countries into one. First of all, if you hAve seen LOTR, those little (and massive) green rolling hills with little "stairs" going up them actually do exist...duh, the film was shot here! On top of the rolling arm hills/mountains, there are rivers and beautiful ocean drives everywhere. I have never been in such a green country. Completely and utterly green everywhere you look.

Anyways, after spending the night in Thames, we drove to the Peninsula and man was it beautiful! Our main goal however was to go t the Cathedral Cove, apparently stunning. But since we had been driving forever and we so caught up in the scenery, we drove way, wayyyy passed it. Unfortunately we drove too far to turn around and ended up continuing on to Raglan for the night. Raglan, well, it's a pretty town ill give ya that but not a whole lot to do. However, since the whole boat trip the day prior, I was getting pretty sick and having (and still) the worst allergies ever. Not sure how I got the short end of the stick and Jordan went swimming n the freezing cold and is fine but that's the way the cookie crumbles haha. 

We ended up spending the night at the local, and only campsite. In NZ there are very few places where you can damp for free. They have no camping signs everywhere and if you do and get caught, which you will, it's a $200 fine. So, each night we've had to pay for 'accommodation' even though we sleep and cook from our van. This, in turn, has added on a whole other cost that we were not accounting for. Not entirely pleased about this but what can ya do?

Anyways, the next am we went to Kawhia (pronounced kaf-ee-a) to check out the hot water beach!  There is a very popular and famous beach called Hot Water Beach, however, we heard through Our friends Isaac and Mia that this one in Kawhia was much better and we might find ourselves the only ones there...which we were! In short, there are old volcanic remnants that lay under the sand and heat up the water like a hot tub. When the tide goes out, you can literally see the water boiling up through the sand! We just dug a little tub for us to sit in and voila, our own personal hot tub with a view of the ocean and mountains. The water was so hot that we actually got a little bit burnt! The beach also has black sand so walking on it was somewhat painful. We had to wear flip flops and even then it was incredibly hot. Jordan decided to try and test his limits and ran..literally sprinted...down the dune in bare feet and burnt his feet so badly that he had blisters! 

Later on the afternoon we drove to Waitomo Caves to book our black water rafting trip. More about that tomorrow! We carried on to Te Kuiti where we found a beautiful spot to park the van for the night...alongside a river on a reserve. Best part- it is free and there are no signs saying we can't camp here! If we had more time, we definitely would have stayed longer....beauty spot!

Well, that caught you up to the last few days...more to come about Waitomo Caves and Rotorua soon!