Two Beers and a Pretzel

I wasted my ticket from Auckland to Sydney because it was cheaper to fly from Christchurch to Sydney than from Christchurch to Auckland.  I ended up on the same flight as Meghan.

Anyway, last night a group of us met for a final beer in Christchurch.  Neat town.  Lots of skateboard shops, cafe’s, and sculpture everywhere  - it just closes too early.  We had to keep Holly awake so she could catch her 4:30 AM bus to the Airport.

Speaking of Holly, at an after hours bar she met a very large and quite inebriated guy who offered her his cocktail (I assume thinking she’d stay and talk to him).  She came back to our table with a mixer, and the large angry guy shortly followed – accusing her of stealing his drink.  She apologized, gave the drink back, and he started getting menacing.  I was sitting next to her and honestly thought I’d get into my first bar fight since St Paddy’s Day 2001 with Joe (great story for another time).  He brought his hand near her and started talking about how muscular her was and that he would smack any woman who steals his drink.  She’s a former bartender, and was not intimidated in the least.  I stayed as calm looking as I could, but casually shifted my leg around incase I needed to kick him back if he tried to slap her.  He saw me and asked if we were together.  I didn’t need to say anything because Meghan can be quite a vocal little fireball if anyone tries to challenge her, so she spoke for all of us.  He apparantly figured that he couldn’t intimidate Holly, and there were suddenly 4 people rather than just one cute blonde, so he backed off while still sounding mean and left the bar shortly thereafter.

We stayed and danced to a great coverband that consisted of a guy with a guitar and harmonica, and his buddy with a fiddle…  At 2 AM we finally had to part ways.  I’m going to miss Holly.  She was a total blast to hang out with, fun to tease, ridiculously cute, and one of the sweetest Canuk’s on Earth.

This morning Meghan and I toured the Christchurch History Museum

Later, we caught the shuttle to the Airport.

A really good meal (for an airline) and a movie later (Narnia – Prince Caspian) and we landed in Sydney.  Emirates Air – nice service, 600 movies to pick from, and good food.  Why are US carriers to crappy and even TACA and LAN Peru were good??

Meghan is staying with a friend, but we may meet up one day for a show in the Sydney Opera.  Oddly, “Jerry Springer the Opera” in coming here early next week.  I got kicked out of a bar in Cincy for making fun of him publicly, not realising he was actually in the bar.  Heck, I also got kicked out of a bar for making fun of Larry Flynt while he was there also (unbeknownst to me) when the Hustler Store first reopened in Cincy next to the building I worked in.  I see a trend…

I hope Meghan and I get another chance to hang out, but if not, I’m going to miss her a lot too – super bubbly and cute, totally willing to talk to everyone, and into all the same travel activities I wanted to do…

Anyway… Wifi is expensive in Oz, so I need to get a cheap thumb drive to copy pics for the internet cafe.  I have another mess of pics to upload from NZ.  I’m going to relax for a few days and take in the city before going north for a week of surfing lessons.  No plan after that yet, but I may stay in Oz longer if Thailand doesn’t get it’s act together

I’m off to find some good Thai food…  I’ll try to get some more pics and fix that albatross video in the next few days. (done)

A belated Happy Easter to everyone!!!

Megan and I booked a tour of the Otago Peninsula near Dunedin for Easter Sunday (Kiwi’s celebrate Easter Friday, then have a public holiday on Monday).  It was a movie set looking place with all kinds of wildlife (other than stuffed bunneis).

Royal Albatross were hard to snap, but I got a video…

Oyster Catchers

Sheep up on the hill.

Baby Seals below the hill

Seal Lions on the beach – that we got 12 feet from with no safety barricade other than our guide.

Yellow-Eyed Penguins were a highlight…

…especially watching them jump up a hill and walk by the sheep…

By then it was getting close to sunset, so we had to go…

We stopped at a pub downtown for Easter dinner.  I had Lamb meatballs and salad…

The next day (Monday) we were back on the bus to Lake Tekapo.  Before leaving Dunedin, we stopped to walk up the world’s steepest street.

Then we stopped at the Koeraki Bounders – a formation of naturally round rocks on the beach…

This next photo is for my buddy Chris who used to compete in the USA Strongest Man contests…

We drove by Mount Cook, but it was obscured by clouds…

And stopped at the Church on Lake Tekapo – which is supposodly the most photographed church in New Zealand, as well as hosting 600+ weddings a year.  It might have something to wint being on the shore of an unreal blue lake with the Southern Alps in the background.  No photos allowed inside, but with a bay window behind the alter looking to the lake and mountains, I can see why it’s popular for weddings.

We had a Magic Bus cookout in Lake Tekapo where I was Grillmaster (no one else wanted to be responsible for anyone’s food poisoning).  Later, a number of us went up the hill on the tour of the Mt. John’s Observatory… (which is one of the places currently locating planets in other solar systems).

The city uses high efficiency reflectors and lower wattage lights so that the observatory can do its’ work…

We saw Saturn in it’s full glory, the Tarantula Nebula, a number of star clusters, and the Sombrero Galaxy.  All to difficult to photograph.

Here’s the shot my dad’s been asking for – the Soutern Cross (Crux)…  which actually doesn’t point to true south, but there’s an easy way to find it once you’ve located Crux (try wikipedia to find out).  Crux is the kite just above center.  Alpha and Beta Centauri are the two bright starts below the kite…

I’m in Christchurch today, and fly to Auckland and Sydney tomorrow – so Bye Bye New Zealand.  I’ll definately be back someday.  The only real bummers were not being allowed to skydive, and not catching a live rugby match.

I also have to check the latest travel warnings for Thailand to see if I’m still going there…

Friday was a perfect sightseeing day.

Milford sound is a day trip from Queenstown on a bus, then a boat cruise thru the Fijord on the West coast of NZ, then more bus back to Queenstown.  All the way, there are remarkable views of mountains – including a range called “The Remarkables” because the whole range runs true North to true South.

Our first stop was at a glacially carved valley..

Then a bit farther along to a reflecting pool…

Look at it upside down at it looks like a real mountain scene…

The individual mountain + reflection shots were not as good at the pano…

And on to the actual Fijord…

And to the sea…

And back…

And came home to a sweet moon scene.

Today was an easy day for catching up on planning, and resting up for the Easter Egg Hunt / Pub Crawl tonight.  There’s supposed to be 150 people there, including Meghan, Holly, and me!!

Being a bit hungover yesterday afternoon, I skipped the expensive glacier hike with the group, but made it to the shuttle bus and got to see the Franz-Joseph glacier.  This is a bit different from the glaciers in Argentina, as this one ends in a rain forest.

and it’s not as visually stunning as Perito Moreno or Viedma were…  although is does have a unique beauty being surrounded by waterfalls and jungle.

Today was a bus day.  The Magic Bus arrived at my hostel at 7:15 AM.  We went to a reflecting lake early in the morning to get a sweet view of the mountains…

We had a few more stops, but we had to keep moving as we didn’t get to Queenstown until about 5 PM.  We spent most of the day looking out the windows at the ever-changing mountain views that never seem to get old.

We got outside of Queenstown to the bridge where Bungy-Jumping was invented at 4 PM.  Meghan and a few others did the 43m jump.  I’m saving up for the big 163m jump sometime on Saturday… I was going to go skydiving, but apparently there’s a 100Kg (220 lb) limit around here, and I still weigh in at 107 Kg (235 lbs) with boots, camera, ipod, etc…  Bummer…

Tomorrow Holly, Meghan, myself, and a few others are taking the “must see” all day cruise to the Milford Sound and back; so I should have some more great landscape pics.  Then Saturday is adrenaline junkie day followed by a massive pub crawl and Easter Egg Hunt that should have about 150 people attending.  Sunday I’ll be on a bus to Dunedin.  I also need to call Air New Zealand and see if I can swith my ticket to flying ot of Christchurch on the 18th or 20th.

I think I’ve been in New Zealand for 10 days, but I’m moving so fast that they all blend together.

On the 4th we took the Interislander Ferry across the Cook Straight between the North and South islands, then thru the beautiful Marlborough Sound to Picton.

The Magic Bus took us from Picton to Nelson. It was interresting because there was a bicycle roadrace with 2500 racers.

I even saw a recumbant bike and a unicycle (sorry, no pic).  Personally, I’d be unreasonably upsett if a guy on a unicycle was beating me in a bike race.

About 2 hours later the bus arrived at Nelson. I assume this town was named for the British Admiral, Horatio Nelson, who’s exploits would have been going on during the founding of this city.  I never asked, but te next city is called Trafalgar (named after the battle where Nelson died), so I’m guessing so… Odd that I just recently finished a biography of Nelson.

I went into town for dinner and a beer. Since this is the post-peak season, the whole town basically shuts down at 5pm except the girlie revue bar / dodgy massage parlor, which had some rough looking women smoking in the upstairs windows calling to you from the street. Luckilly, I found a slightly less dodgy place to eat…

On the morning of the 5th I boarded a transfer bus to Abel Tasman National Park at 6 AM. At 8:30, we arrived just outside the park at Kiwi Kayaks where I met the rest of my group for the day. I had fun sharing a Kayak with Holly from Canada.

We kayaked North thru the park to Anchorage Bay, where the Aquapacker’s Hostel was waiting for a number of us.

The next day I hiked back to town with Jutta, a very nice German lady who works for BMW finance in Munich and had travelled to their office in Dublin, Ohio a few times.

Back at the Paradiso Hostel, I ran into Tom & James again and we ventured out to sample some of the local brew at the Sprig & Fern.

On the 7th the bus went to Greymouth – the largest city on NZ’s west coast.  We stopped at a few places along the way, like the “pancake rocks”.

Later that evening, a huge group of us went on the Montrith’s Brewery in Greymouth, got tastings, all the beer we could drink for 30 minutes, and then a BBQ and Kereoke at a nearby bar.

Me & Meghan…

Me & Holly…

Lisa and Tova from Sweeden…

The “Magic Bus Men” won the Kereoke contest (you lost that lovin feelin) and got our bar tab covered, and nifty drinking bottles…

My favorite event of the night was the drinking contest between Megan and Holly…  It’s pretty funny.

Today (the 8th), slightly hungover, we stopped in the town of Ross to pan for gold…  This rown was built on a gold vein, but the residents continually vote not to mine it (which would involve removing their houses).  So it is considered on of the richest toowns in New Zealand – although I don’t know how New Zealand law works regarding mineral rights. I tried panning ($8NZD) and got a piece of Jade and a dozen flecks of gold (they rig the pans so everybody gets some).

They also had a neat wall of old newspaper ads…

Oh yeah, here’s one more pic for my buddy Joe… Rugby is the national game here in NZ, and many of the clubs are well established.  Driving anywhere you see kids playing in Rugby leagues like Pee Wee Football or Little League Baseball in the States…

Today I’m in Franz Joseph – comtemplating whether to risk the weather to see the Glacier…  I think I’ll give it a go, as the hangover is fading…