NZ...finally!

I've been wanting to visit New Zealand for a long time. I finally got the chance this year. I went down for two and a half weeks to visit friends and try to line up a job for next year. After travelling around Asia, I knew NZ was going to be very expensive, so I decided to hitch hike to avoid transportation costs. I managed to cover close to 2000km! I flew into Christchurch late on December 30th. After a shitty night of "sleeping" in the airport, I walked out of the airport early in the morning on New Year's Eve and began my journey south towards Queenstown. I got very lucky and managed to catch a ride with some guys that were heading there too. Perfect! We arrived in late afternoon to beautiful weather. I got a hold of my buddy Jarrod and he said I could crash at his place. Here's the view from his deck:

Jarrod had invited some friends over for dinner, so we had a great feed then headed out for NYE celebrations. Nobody was feeling up for the madness downtown, so we went to a friend's house that overlooked the town and watch the fireworks from up there. It was a bit of a rough night with so little sleep and more than a little jetlag, but I survived.

I had only planned on sticking around Queenstown for a couple days, but ended up staying for a week. I was just having too much fun to leave. I finally dragged myself away and headed towards the west coast. On the way I remembered that I should call another friend, Annette, in Wanaka. Turns out she was headed out on some canyoning missions, including a first descent, and she invited me to come along. Sweet! Here's where I crashed, on top of Annette's house:


A view up the highway towards Haast Pass, which leads to the west coast:


We headed to the Landsborough River valley, to explore some new canyons. We drove over in the morning, loaded all our gear into a jeep, then rode mountain bikes a few miles up the valley. We found a good camping spot adjacent to the canyons we wanted to explore, then packed up and headed up one of the canyons:





It was a tough approach hike, at least by my lazy US/European standards. Quite steep with a lot of bushwacking, and over three hours long. The kiwis were all stoked about how easy it was. The canyon itself was nothing spectacular, but there were some nice sections and it was cool to be doing a first descent. After a long day, my knee was in quite a bit of pain. We sat around a campfire, drank a couple beers, and enjoyed the beauty of a cloudless full-moon night; a true rarity on the west coast of NZ. I woke up the next morning and immediately knew that I wouldn't be going on the mission that day, my knee was killing me. I hobbled around camp while everyone else packed up, wished them good luck, then found a nice spot to read. I spent the day enjoying the sunshine and hating the sandflys. Vicious bastards! When everyone finally made it back they said the second canyon was much better than the first. Dammit! Oh well, it was still a great trip and I was happy to there. After this I headed back to Queenstown so that I could tag along on a canyoning trip there. Jarod, his buddy Michele, and Michele's son Jeano, were heading to Dunedin to get a sewing machine repaired, so I tagged along for that trip as well. We had a beautiful drive, camped out on the very scenic Otago peninsula, and then got up the next day and did some surfing. Well, at least I tried to surf:


After this is was time to head north. I left Queenstown in pouring rain and hitchhiked up to Christchurch. It took me seven rides to get there, but the last people to pick me up (still in pouring rain) were so nice they invited me to come stay at their house. The next day they gave me a tour around the downtown area to show me the earthquake damage. It was sad to see how much they'd lost, but inspiring to see people continue to push on despite nearly constant earthquakes. I hitched a bit further north to see my buddy Bazz in Hanmer Springs. I spent a couple nights there, then decided that since I only had two nights left in the country I better get moving. I hitched up the east coast to a place called Kaikoura:


I got there in the later afternoon. I hung out on the beach for a bit, then decided to climb to the top of the hill behind town to watch the sunset, with the plan of camping there. While I was sitting there, some locals showed up and started playing music and singing. They were playing christian music, which I'm normally not a fan of, but they were playing with such feeling and enjoying themselves so much that I couldn't help but enjoy it myself. I chatted with them a little, but mostly just sat and listened. As they were leaving, one of them came over and asked me where I was planning on spending the night. I made a non-committal answer, then he asked if I was planning on camping up there. I said yes, and he said it was too cold for that, why don't I come spend the night at their house. Wow! I came home with them and they fed me and gave me a place to sleep and shower. Then they fed me breakfast and lunch the next day and found me a ride back south. What great people!

I had heard of a place a bit west of Christchurch called Castle Hill. Since I had a late afternoon flight, I figured I could spend my last night up there instead of staying at a hostel in Christchurch. I didn't really know what it was, just that it was supposed to be a cool place. It was:

I camped on top of the highest hill, with fantastic views over the whole area. I had the place completely to myself. What a great last night in the country. I had a relaxed morning, then packed up my stuff and hitched back to Christchurch. I was a little worried about getting a ride since there's very little traffic out there, but it didn't take too long, and I made it to the airport with no stress. It was an amazing trip and I can't wait to go back next year.

Back to work.

After travelling around for a few months, I decided it might be nice to spend a bit of time in one place. Also, I like working in new places, as I think it gives you a better feeling for the place than just hanging out with other tourists; so I decided to take a job...guiding jetski tours. Yeah, not the best way to get to know the locals, but a pretty nice way to spend my days. I have to take photos of the clients with the company camera throughout the trip, so there's not a lot of opportunity to bust out my camera, but here's a couple shots. More will come, I promise.

Another quick stop in Thailand

After the pestilence of Laos, I needed to travel to Malaysia to start work. On the way, I met up with my buddy Daryn who was hanging out in Thailand, near Krabi. The trip down was a marathon: an eight hour bus ride, another five hour bus ride, several hours of tuk-tuks and dealing with immigration, an overnight train ride, a day walking around bangkok, another overnight train ride, a couple more hours in a mini-bus, and finally a fifteen minute boat ride. However, at the end of that I arrived here:

I only had four days, but we managed to do a lot in that time. Tonsai beach is famous for rock climbing, but that's the one thing I didn't do. I did however go kayaking, snorkeling, swimming, caving, and hiking. Not to mention a fair amount of drinking and slack-lining.


There were two "hikes" that had been recommended to us. The first took us to a really cool hidden lagoon. We scrambled over muddy rocks to the top of a ridge, then down over even muddy rocks on the other side, dropping down into a lagoon that's surrounded by cliffs on all sides. The water comes in and out with the tide through tunnels in the rock. Really a cool spot. The second hike involved climbing up through a cave that tunneled through one of the limestone headlands (the one in the picture above; we entered at the bottom right and came out about a third of the way up on the left). You come out in an alcove overlooking the whole bay, what a spectacular sight:

It turns out there's a climbing route that tops out in the same alcove, so we were lucky enough to borrow harnesses and ropes from some of the climbers and rappel down out of the alcove instead of going back the way we'd come. Perfect!

I had a great time catching up with Daryn and definitely enjoyed Thailand more than I though I would. It is definitely more touristy than some other areas in SE Asia, but it is a very beautiful place filled with very nice people. How can you complain?