End of the Line

As I wind down the last night of my trip, I feel content that I have seen a great variety of the sites that both NZ and Australia have to offer. I may have short-changed Aussieland a bit, but it is such a vast country/continent that it would take a year or more to properly see all that it has to offer (and of course I will be back here at some point). But, I should pick up where I left off to show you all the beautiful sites of North Queensland that I was able to experience at the end of last week.

Last Monday through Wednesday I took a tour up through Port Douglas and on to the Daintree Rainforest and Cape Tribulation. Port Douglas was not much to write home about and was simply a small, quiet, wealthy, touristy town that many people liked to relax in for a couple days and have expensive meals before going out to see the Great Barrier Reef. I spent one night there and had a good time hanging out with some Canadians and Brits at the hostel that I was in and collectively enjoyed the $5 BBQ that the hostel hosted. The next morning I was picked up and taken to the the Wildlife Sanctuary in Port Douglas, which was pretty interesting to see some of the animals there, including some difficult and rare ones to see in the wild - the tree kangaroo and the cassowary (the world's most dangerous bird, as if you piss it off, it will lean back, and then gouge its two massive feet and talons in to your chest or across your jugular). The next stop was the Mossman Gorge, which is well known in Queensland for being...well, a giant gorge. I actually wasn't too impressed with it, as I saw much more beautiful landscapes on the Atherton Tablelands, but it was still a rainforest with creeks and massive boulders all along the water, so visually I was satisfied for a bit. The bus continued north and we started getting in to the real rainforest area and to the more secluded and remote parts of the state that bring with it unparalleled views of the beaches, forest canopy, and rivers teaming with deadly saltwater crocodiles. Queensland, but specifically Northern Queensland, is renowned not only for its beautiful scenary, but also the high concentration of "world's deadliest" flora & fauna - the box jellyfish, the cassowary, saltwater crocodile, a crazy tree that if you rub against the leaves, its microscopic pieces of sharp silicon fibres dig in to your skin and leave you in searing pain for weeks and itching for a subsequent 4 - 6 months, and then the other poisonous spiders (see picture of massive Golden Orb spider) and snakes as well. Needless to say, I wasn't getting close to water or going off the path while I was up in these parts. The rest of the day our group explored the Daintree Rainforest, which is the oldest continuous rainforest in the world at around 120 million years old. It may not be as massive as the Amazon, but it was pretty damn impressive to me and was interesting to learn about the interaction between the various palms, pines, ferns, and other trees and their infinite struggle for sunlight and water through the canopy. The birds, spiders, and other little creatures also added to the landsape, and I was constantly scratching at my face, legs, and neck to remove spiderwebs (both real and imaginary) as I walked along the paths. Before we hit Cape Tribulation up north, we took a riverboat along the Daintree River and were able to spot the dominant male of the area, Albert. Albert is a "friendly" (as in, he hasn't eaten any small children yet) saltwater crocodile that is a little over 5.2 meteres - over 16 feet long - and weighs about 600 kilos - over a ton! I could not snap a good picture of him as he was hiding pretty well in the mangroves, but it was a pretty surreal feeling to be that close to a reptile that has been so successful (namely, being a killing machine) in the wild that it hasn't needed to evolve really for millions of years.

After the trip along the river, the bus headed north and dropped me off at PK's Jungle Village around 5 pm, which was a pretty interesting hostel, set up in Cape Tribulation, and only a 5 minute walk to Myall Beach and 2.5 km from Cape Tribulation beach. I only spent a day and a half up at Cape Trib, but was immediately blown away by the remote landscapes, deep jungle, and pristine water of the adjacent Great Barrier Reef. This area is actually the only place in the world where two World Hertiage sites meet - the Daintree Rainforest and the Great Barrier Reef. Suffice it to say, I was pretty impressed when I was standing on Cape Tribulation beach and the mangroves from the rainforest were literally growing in the sand and in the shallow water that went out to meet the reef. I spent most of my time up in this area, walking along the beaches, taking the boardwalks through the jungle, and doing an exotic fruit tasting (yes, an exotic fruit tasting - I ended up trying 10 different fruits, 9 of which I've never heard of before). I also woke up at 5:45 am one morning to see the sun rising over Myall Beach and was able to snap some pretty nice pictures:

Cape Tribulation definitely solidified my love for Queensland, as it really was like a tropical paradise up there; I never fully got accustomed to the humidity (being like Florida in the summer), but came to enjoy the experience of it being so sultry. And Cairns, which was simply the jump-off point for all of the day trips I did, ended up becoming a comfortable little marina town that I was able to walk all around easily and enjoy - and frequenting their only brewpub, Blue Sky, helped ease me in to the place as well. I came back to Cairns and had 3 days there before heading back to Sydney on Friday. One day I spent a large chunk of time exploring the Cairns Botanical Gardens, which was by far the nicest, most diverse, and interesting out of all the ones I have visited in both NZ and Australia. It was a combination of having very exotic, tropical plants, the superb job of labeling, and the self-guided tours that impressed me the most about the grounds. The other day I took a day trip out to Kuranda, which is a town NW of Cairns and is known for its hippy lifestyle, markets, and good day hikes in the surrounding Baron Gorge and Baron Falls area. To get out to Kuranda, I took the Skyrail (gondola) up over the rainforest canopy and stopped off at two of the stations on the way to explore the forests and see the Baron Falls. After exploring Kuranda for the day, seeing the Butterfly Sanctuary there (biggest in the world until our good old Florida came along and swiped the distinction), and ambling through the markets, I made my way to the Kuranda Railway Station and boarded the Kuranda Scenic Rail, an old-world style train that was all hand painted and meandered along through the rainforests on a 90-minute journey back to Cairns. The ride back to Cairns was incredibly scenic and the experience of sitting on the train as it went through sharp gorges, many tunnels, and around bridges alongside waterfalls was pretty spectacular.


I left Cairns on Friday and was looking forward to the wonderful, 80 degrees and sunny forecast for Sydney for the final 4 days of my trip; Phil Connors was correct in his prediction. My last days in Sydney have been spent lounging on both Bondi (today) and Coogee (Saturday) beaches, exploring the Royal Botanical Gardens (no surprise there), purchasing some books for my enviable 25-hour journey home tomorrow, and spending some QT with Sir Phil Kohn (knighted for his uncanny ability to expel hot air). I now switch places with Liz, Phil's sister, as she comes out here in early April, and return to the promise land of Manhattan - thank you Phil for letting me crash on your couch for many, many nights. I am truly looking forward to returning home after this 10-week exploration of Australasia. I hope that you all enjoyed following my adventures through NZ and Australia. It has been a pleasure to keep this blog for everyone to read, and I now have a great documentation of the trip and can look back fondly on bungy jumps, glacier hiking, jumping out of planes, and arachnaphobia.

Be well and I will talk to and see many of you soon.



Justin

Bit by a Rock Wallaby; and other adventures with Canadians and Germans

Yes, I did get bit by an Allied Rock Wallaby on Magnetic Island. No, it did not draw blood. I think it was mad that I abused its privacy and snuck some candid photos of it without it's written consent. But I was feeding him! Cheeky bastard. And, oh yeah, I should just consider myself in Bavaria right now or maybe even Calgary because I think 98% of every person I've meet up here in Queensland (the northern State about New South Wales) is either of the German influence or likes hockey. That's OK though, except for feeling like I was in Das Boot earlier today while in a semi-submersible ship on the Great Barrier Reef and all the Germans kept yelling out random things - maybe they were just talking, but it sounded aggressive and angry...

Ok, enough stream of consciousness. I'll tell you how things are going. It's sweaty, humid, people (see: women) are wearing short clothing, and I am in Cairns. Cairns, I was told, is boring. I was told to only spend 1 day in Cairns as there is nothing to see. False. It is a very entertaining, tropical town to hang around and is the ultimate jumping point to get to so many amazing sites that Queensland has to offer. What have I been doing all this time you may ask? You may ask yourself, how did I get here. Ok, maybe not, that's just a Talking Heads line. Well, I flew in to Townsville, yes, the bustling metropolis of Townsville this past Monday on Jetstar (the worst airline known to Mankind) and arrived at 9 am; just in time to see rush hour and people making their way to commence commerce? It did not look that way as it seemed like the 191,000 people of Townsville were hiding under a rock somewhere and I arrived at a ghostown with absolutely nothing to do. Although, it was gloriously humid out and I couldn't swim because the fatally fantastic box jellyfish (most dangerous in the world as Queen Latifah found out in The Sphere) were still in season. But for one day, it wasn't a bad place and I went to their Aquarium to see the largest coral reef tank in the world (moderately cool) and hang out at a raving Mexican joint with a girl from Birmingham, AL, one from Brussels, one from somewhere in Holland, and a German dude (yup, German). Ok, it wasn't raving, I was being facetious, but it was a very pleasant evening on the first night traveling solo through these parts.

The following morning I took a ferry over to Magnetic Island, which is only 8 km across the Cleveland Bay. I was fascinated (not being sarcastic anymore) to find out that the Japanese ("Dude, Asian-American, please") raided Townsville 3 times during WWII and Australia built a fortification on Magnetic Island in case there were more attacks. Long story short, England screwed them, Aussies had to fight for themselves and spurn a possible invasion from the Japanese taking over the entire continent. After the war, this led to Australia somewhat ditching their "White-Only" policy of immigration and doubling their population so that their country actually had people in it, in pockets here and there, and would not be as susceptible to being invaded. Anyway, enough history. The island, at first I thought, did not have much to offer and I would just spend two days sweating through the couple of items I packed with me. I was wrong. Magnetic Island, or "Maggie" to the locals, was an awesome place. Over the course of 2 days, I held several interesting animals (see picture of the iconic one), hiked along the "Fort track" and saw where the gun emplacements and other WWII sites were built, participated in the popular Queenslander sport of "cane toad racing," (yes, racing toads. but no, not licking them), and got an awesome tour of the island from a local guy in a stretch jeep. Oh, and I bid $25 and had the privilege of being the "owner" of the "Red Russian" toad, and he came in dead-last, which, to my surprise, entitled me to two free awesome t-shirts to commemorate the popular event at the Arcadia Holiday Resort. Here are some more pictures of toad racing and other things I held (in order, toad race, an echidna, carpet python). Oh, and I uploaded a nice video of a feeding we did at the end of the wildlife tour to several hundred Rainbow Lorikeet (the end is the best): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihzxB_oYGzE

I left Magnetic Island Thursday morning, taking a bus to the ferry terminal, a ferry to Townsville, and then a 6-hour Greyhound bus up north to Cairns. I arrived in Cairns at about 6 pm, did some much-needed laundry, and just chilled out for the night, booking my next two days of activities around the area. Yesterday, I went on Uncle Brian's tour to the Atherton Tablelands. The Tablelands are an area of expansive rainforests, rolling green hills and mountains, hectares of sugarcane fields and banana plantations and several incredibly large waterfalls. The atmosphere on this bus was amazing and all the work of "Cousin Paul," who was our guide for the day. The other cast of characters mentioned during the day: Uncle Brian (owner of the company, but not present), Aunt Karen (Brian's wife, and reason Brian was not there as she just had baby boy #2), "Gus" the Bus, a stuffed Elmo doll as our mascot, Mr. Lunch (who, you guessed it, served us lunch in Millaa Millaa - aboriginal for waterfall, waterfall - they're so clever), and "Grandma" (a random old women who started stalking the buses coming through her small town and pops up every time the bus goes by, with puppets, strange gyrating, etc. - see picture). The bus was filled with people from many different countries, mostly in Western Europe (and, yes, Germans and Canadians). The trip was a blast, as we went walking through several different rainforest tracks, eating every couple hours, and swimming at 4 different spots (a multi-tiered waterfall with natural rock slides, a river above the lethal Babinda Boulders, a Volcanic Crater Marr, and the best, the Millaa Millaa falls, which, as you can to the left, are massive. We ended up spending a fair bit of time there, which was very memorable. After tip-toeing through the slippery rocks on the bottom of the water, we made our way towards the falls as they pounded the water below with a tremendous fury. The mist and water spraying up as we made our way around the right-hand side of the falls made visibility pretty difficult. But once we hoisted ourselves up on the rocks there, the views were remarkable. As I stood behind the waterfall, I was amazed and in awe of a perspective in nature that is unique and that many people don't get to experience. The natural rock slides at the Josephine Falls were also pretty amazing, as rock slides go in the world. I was doing all sorts of different dives down them, including head-first, backwards, and the "spinning, upside-down turtle." It's difficult to describe everything we did in this 12-hour tour to the Tablelands, but it was an amazing time. The sites, the way our group got along (there were many sing-a-longs, games, prizes, etc.), Cousin Paul, and of course, Gus the Bus, made this one day pretty memorable, even when compared to everything that I have seen and done on the trip so far. Here is a picture of the rock slides:

Now, to the present. Today I did an introductory dive on the Great Barrier Reef. Yeah, you're typical couple days in a row. The only other time I have gone diving (Mr. Engel, you can attest to this), was of the coast of Italy on a small island called Ventonene. As many Italian operations go, it was pretty shady and we were only down in the water for about 10 minutes, without any instruction. Today was the real deal and I did two dives, both of which were for about 30 minutes. I did not have any problems equalizing (getting the pressure right in my nose), but on the second dive I did have many problems with my leaky mask, thus hindering any viewing of beautiful coral and fish. But, over the two dives, I was able to see a sea turtle, a couple rays, sea cucumbers (huge slugs at the bottom that filter the sand), and the iconic clownfish.

I am now going to Port Douglas, which is about 90 min. north of Cairns, to see the Daintree Rainforest (another World Heritage site and the largest continuous area of rainforest in Australia), the Mossman Gorge, and Cape Tribulation. I then leave Cairns on Friday to head back to Sydney, where I will (with the cooperation of the weather), sit on the beaches for most of the time and say farewell to Australasia and make my way back to NYC on the 25th. I will probably be able to post one more blog before I get back home. I hope you are all well and I really look forward to seeing you all or catching up with you when I get back to the States. Here are a couple more pictures of the past week too:

Adios,

Justin

The Path Traveled

As some of you already know, I have extended my trip 2 1/2 extra weeks (bringing the total up to 10) in order to spend more time in Australia and continue to enjoy the beautiful weather and great sites (which I'm sure many of you can understand given the massive snowstorms gracing the eastern seaboard right now). It has been a couple weeks now since the end of my hike and I have been able to say goodbye to New Zealand (although I really intend to go back at some point) and welcome in the next phase of my trip in Oz.

To recap my last days in New Zealand, I was in Christchurch for 4 days following the hike and cruised around the city for the first couple days. It is a beautiful city that gives a very Old World English feel to it as it was one of the first proper settlements in the colony. The Avon River runs through the downtown and people "punt" (similar to gondolas, but you literally push yourself along by levering the ore into the bed of the river) along it and pass by all of the churches, gardens, bridges, and other sites, making the environment very European. Christchurch, similar to Auckland, did not have a lot to see, but the highlights included the Royal Botanical Gardens (probably the best I've seen on the trip), the Canterbury Museum (lots of old Maori artifacts, early settlement facts, objects, and even a re-creation of old streets in town), the Cathedral in the main square (aptly named Cathedral Sq.), and that about sums it up. But it was a very pleasant "city" of about 400,000 people and a nice winding down of my travels in the country after the exhausting hike. On Sunday I went to the suburb of Lyttelton with Anders & Viki (Swedish couple from the hike) to go to the 6th Annual Street Fair. The town of Lyttelton is a large, operating harbour and has beautiful hills running behind the town, which slope down into the water. The weather was perfect (fortunate for us as it was raining the previous 3 days) and we had a good time walking around the great variety of food stands, nick knacks, and performers ("buskers") - the best performance was by a Dixie band playing some classics and were located next to an old church on a hill looking out into the harbor. After a full day we ventured back into Christchurch and I said farewell to both of them, but with intentions of possibly meeting up with them in Stockholm at some point, and crashed at my hostel to wake up for my delightfully early, 06:30 flight to Melbourne.


The flight was uneventful and I got into Melbourne's Spencer St. Station (now called Southern Cross, but the locals still use the old name) and spoke to my friend, Mick, who's house I would be staying out while in the city. I met Mick and his girlfriend, Natalie, on my trip to SE Asia and it was awesome to be able to hang out with them for several days, especially after not seeing them for almost 3 years. I experienced a perfect mixture during my time with them of seeing all of the sites in the city (of which there are a ton of) as well as the suburban feel and being around a lot of locals. I was even able to go up north and see the scorched earth that is left from the massive fires that claimed 208 lives on "Black Saturday." I did not take any pictures of anything as the telling ones were at a police stop where they forced us to turn around and I felt it would have been a bit disrespectful given how recent everything happened. And the crazy part is that they have been in a drought for 9 weeks and there are still fires that you can smell in the city that firefighters are unable to put out (I even somehow got a text message from the Victoria Police warning yesterday was an especially dangerous day due to the high heat and gusting wind). The highlights of my time in Melbourne included: going to an AFL game (Aussie Football, which is like a mix between the NFL and rugby, and very interesting to watch), the Queen Victoria Market (lots of food - I ate emu, croc, kangaroo, and had Senegalese food - and shops), a tour of the Parliament building, a tour of Rod Lavar arena (where the Australian Open is held in January and you can see my picture here where the players give their press conference - the weird German dude is generally not included), a bunch of the art galleries, and taking a day trip down to St. Kilda, which is a seaside neighborhood that mixes new money, hipsters, old pier-going locals, and is famous for its cake shops (the best being Monarch's and I had a slice of their famous Chocolate Kugelhouf at 10:30 am) and Luna Park (old school amusement park designed by the same people who did Coney Island). I ended up meeting up with Phil (friend from UM and old roommate in NYC before he wisely headed over here to Sydney) and two other friends from school, Sam and Dan, as those two were visiting Phil and he was working in the Melbourne office for a couple days. We had a good time going around the city and hitting some restaurants and bars (although my absence of proper shoes precluded me from some swanky lounges at night). My favorite neighborhood was, by far, Fitzroy, which is NE of downtown, and reminds me of Williamsburg, Brooklyn as it's a place that has lots of good restaurants, an eclectic mix of shops, hip, Kerouac and Ray Davies-looking denizens, buildings with exposed brick, high ceilings with wooden beams, and also a lot of newly-renovated industrial space for commercial use. After promising myself to come back to Melbourne at some point, the 4 of us boarded a 9 o'clock flight to Sydney this past Saturday morning.

From what I heard from people who have been to both cities, everyone days that Melbourne is more of a livable city with more culture and a laid-back feel, whereas Sydney is more of an international hub with 30% of the population being non-Aussie and much more cosmopolitan, similar to NYC. However I tried to keep an open mind and make my own judgments and I'm glad that I did after today's adventure (more on this in a minute). So we got in Saturday and as it was Sam and Dan's last day in Australia before heading back home to work and the real world, we grabbed brunch at a great place near Phil's pad in Darlinghurst (nice area right on the other side of the popular Coca Cola sign from King's Cross) called Bill's and then went to do some lawn bowling in Clovelly, which is a little outside the CBD and on the coast like the popular areas, Bondi, Bronte, and Coogee. Lawn bowling was a lot of fun and requires a lot of skill for something that looks so mundane and basic. We had several beers here and relaxed with the locals before heading back into town. I ended up spending the evening with a girl, Alice, that I met on the hike as we were both on the same budget and I did not have proper shoes to get into the fancy restaurant the crew was going out to on their last night. It worked out well though as we caught up before she was off to Adelaide to look for some work and I was trying to save up money for my extra time traveling.

Sunday and Monday were spent acclimating myself to a new city and I was surprised at how easy it was to navigate after finally getting a hold of a proper map. The water truly makes this place and there are beautiful harbours and views all over the place, and this is just in the CBD area, without even considering the world-class beaches with tremendous surfing conditions a bus ride away. I walked around Darling Harbour,made it down to the fish market, up to Circular Quay (pronounced "key") where the wharfs are and great views of the Harbour Bridge & Opera House, gazed at the beautiful, Victorian-style retail and municipal buildings from the 19th century that are peppered next to heaps of modern skyscrapers, went through The Rocks area near the bridge (my favorite area as it shows what Sydney use to look like when it was first settled, with Industrial Revolution-looking shops and cobblestone roads), walked over the massive and iconic Harbour Bridge, and went to a performance at the Opera House on Sunday night. The performance was the Charles Mingus Big Band and was absolutely amazing. Not only was it a dazzling spectacle just to be seeing a show in such a storied venue, but to be able to see this 14-piece (3 trumpets, 3 trombones, 5 saxophonists, bass, piano, and drums) band that was playing amazingly accurate renditions of all the great Mingus songs from his 1959 albums (including the great "Mingus Ah Um") was tough to beat.

Aside from having spectacular views of the skyline from Phil's balcony, my time in The Rocks, and the Opera House performance, today really solidified my love for this city and put it on equal footing with Melbourne. I took a short train and then bus out from the city to Coogee Beach to meet up with a friend, Emily, that I had met on my bus tour in NZ (ironic that she is a Spartan as well and knows a couple kids from UM that I know). Me, Emily, and her friend Sarah did the 6 km coast walk from Coogee to Bondi beach and it was a relaxing, slow-paced stroll that brought us amazing views of the beaches, sharp cliff edges that we could see the whole coast from, and into each of the cool beach towns with chilled-out locals sipping on cappuccinos at the cafes, fathers teaching their kids to swim, and the surfing crowd catching some freshies. There was also a really old cemetery right on the cliff in Clovelly that was amazing to walk through and take pictures of with the ocean in the background. The beach life and proximity of the CBD to all of these beautiful areas was what was missing from my Sydney experience up until today and now that I've seen the beaches and walked out on to the cliffs to be hit by warm, salty Pacific Ocean waves, I finally see why people love this city.


My plan now is to stay in Sydney for one full week from today and then take a return flight up to Cairns, which is in the top of the state of Queensland (Sydney being in New South Wales, Melbourne in Victoria). Cairns itself is not a place to write home about, but it is a great jump off point to hit the surrounding areas of much interest. North of Cairns are the popular Daintree Rainforest, the town of Port Douglas, and some other national parks to hike around, and to the south of the city are some great beaches, including Mission Beach, as well as easy access out to do snorkeling or scuba diving in the Great Barrier Reef. Needless to say, I will have my hands full with activities and it will be nice to see another area of this massive country/continent. Of other random anecdotal interest, I am now reading Bill Bryson's book about Australia, "Down Under," and it is great to continue reading quality travel writing, especially his, while being in the places being disected in the book. Also, I'm getting better at becoming comfortable with the change currency here and how to efficiently use the one and two-dollar coins instead of just wasting them. Finally, I find that Sydneyers have a hip, trendy lifestyle, mixed in with their laid-back, beach-going downtime, and this fascinates me. People don't seem to be as openly friendly here as in Melbourne, and a bit more blunt, but they speak their minds in an educated fashion and are really good people once you start talking to them and befriend them.

As always, I hope you all are well and I will talk to you soon,

Justin

11-Day Hike

This picture is of Mt. Cook, which is the largest peak in NZ at 3,754 m. (it's Maori name is Aoraki and literally means "Cloud Piercer") I think it is a fitting way of starting this post that describes the 11-day hike I just finished yesterday as I think it was one of the more memorable pictures in my mind from the trip. In total, I hiked 81 km, cycled 47 km, and kayaked 14 km. Sorry that this is in metric, but over here they won't even listen to you if you try asking for things in miles, feet, etc. The group was 10 people including myself and a Kiwi guide. The others were from Sweden, Finland, France, the UK, and I was representing the ol' Red, White, and Blue. I'll try and summarize everything I saw, experienced, hiked, etc. and give more pictures as it's probably a better way of showing you all the incredible landscapes I was surrounded by each day. The first day of the trip we all met in the center of Queenstown, did some introductions and quickly did our first grocery stop and some other administrative items, including job designation. I was given the easy job of telling people what meal/clean-up duty they were on each day and simply carried around a sheet of paper with the whole grid, which people dreaded each time I took out because they may be the next name to be called to clean up dirty dishes in frigid water in the dark while camping...


Our first hike (6 km) was to the Key Summit on the renowned Routeburn Track in the Fiordland National Park. This park, as well as 3 others all connected in the South Island, are World Heritage Sites, and make up around 20% of the land mass of all of NZ; which means that much of the country is protected for the world under this label, which is pretty crazy to think. We had great views of the Darran Mountains, which you can see in the picture, and saw clouds actually being formed in front of us, rare alpine flowers, and some hanging valleys like the one shown here. These valleys were formed when two glaciers were connected, one carved out the valley and went through, and the other on top melted, leaving a valley "hanging" between the mountain with a glacial lake in it. We stayed at a cool little place called Gunn's Camp and had really basic accommodations in old miner shacks, but the novelty of it was an experience for me and our group started bonding that night over corny, yet effective, ice-breaker activities. The second day we woke up early and most of us went to the kayaking shed next to Milford Sound, got on a bunch of thermals and jackets on (as cold temperatures and rain was an inevitability) while avoiding the onslaught by local sand flies - basically vicious little buggers that bite the crap out of you - and then got into our 2-person kayaks. The total for the day was about 14 km kayaking, and was pretty challenging at first for me as I have only kayaked once or twice, and never with rain pouring down, decent waves and wakes from boats, and high wind. But the views were some of the best I've seen in the country as there are massive land masses jutting out of the sea and clouds hovering all over at low altitudes, with skyscraper-tall waterfalls cascading off these mountainous bodies, and also fur seals swimming all around (saw one that was apparently digesting his food by swimming back and forth along the rocky shore) The day was long and tiring, but well worth it, and we slept at a nice, local campsite. The views here for the sunset were spectacular as some of the ash from the deadly fires in Victoria, Australia were mixing with the air all the way over in NZ and made the sky look like it was on fire (see adjacent picture). The next day we packed for our first overnight hike and I finally experienced what true hiking/tramping was, as I now had a 15 kilo bag on my back instead of the light day bag. But my body and feet soon got used to the extra weight. We made our way up to the Borland Saddle (1000 m) and had some amazing views of the landscape, but very different again from the previous day. It was a lot of tussocky terrain with small ponds here and there, great views of the Fiordland National Park in the distance, and the ever-present, low-lying clouds moving quickly over the ranges and making superb photo opportunities.

Eventually we made our way to the hut we were staying at (the Department of Conservation, similar to our Forestry Service, but massive in size and well-known/respected by the whole country, maintains huts along a lot of their popular paths for trampers (hikers) to use to sleep in) along the Green Lake and made a good pasta with bacon dinner on the burners we carried with us in our bags. It was a great first experience and toe in the water to test out my foray into hiking, camping, basic cooking, close quarters. And that night we did another group game called "Can you do this?" where each person thought of a challenge for the whole group to try and pull off. Mine was a one-arm push-up (which, yes, I did successfully), but the best was Roger's (older guy from the UK) challenge of trying to make it around the whole hut without having your feet hit the ground (see picture of this 6-foot guy attempting the fete).

This finished off Tuesday, our third day hiking, and adding another 10 km to the mental odometer. The following morning we packed up our bags and headed out to hike another 13.5 km through some beech forest and more tussocky basins. I was very tired after these two days as you never really get good sleep while in the huts or camping in tents, as I quickly discovered on this trip. I basically woke up a couple times each night, whether it was due to being too cold, too hot, not being able to move my legs in the mummy-designed sleeping bag, or others snoring. I didn't mind though as I expected it and knew the next day I would be hiking through amazing scenery and this was a small price to pay. We wrapped up the hike, put our bags in the trailer and drove down to the Caitlans Coast, which is renowned for its hector dolphins, yellow-eyed penguins (3rd largest in the world and endangered), massive sea lions, and seals. This area of the country was some of my favorite as there were massive sheep stations mixed in with rolling countryside and beautiful coastal views; knowing that 5,000 miles away on the other side of the water was Antarctica was a cool thought as well. We went through Invercargill and stayed at a cosy crib (NZ summerhouse where a lot of surfers stayed) right on Curio Bay. The next day we did about 5 different shorter walks that totaled 6 km, but was a great rest on our feet and we were able to see the dolphins in Curio Bay, a fossilized forest from 180 million years ago, Surat and Cannibal Bays with the great, beastly-looking male sea lions (bulls), and several yellow-eyed penguins later that night. The penguins were in a cove located on a private farm we were able to go on through the hiking company's contacts and it was awesome to see them swim up from the waves, waddle on to the land, and slowly traverse the grassy hills to go feed their newborn young. And we actually got to see a penguin and it's gray baby coming down the hill at one point. After this we came back to where we were camping and finished making our "hangi" dinner, which is a Maori was of cooking meat and vegetables where you basically dig up a large ditch, get a tepee of fire going, then get the fire to start heating a certain type of stone, put the meat/vegetables in a cage covered with a special cloth, bury this cage on top of the burning hot stones, and then dig up the dirt 2 hours later and you will have great, smokey-tasting food, somehow cooked to perfection without any temperature regulator or timer. We had lamb, chicken, kumara (sweet potato), pumpkin, corn, potatoes, and carrots and they all tasted absolutely delicious.

Friday, Day 6 was our "rest day", but a group of 5 of us decided to do the 47 km section Otago Central Rail Trail. This trail is over 100 km in total and used to be an old railway line that was built in the early 1900's to connect Dunedin (the main city/town in the area) with the other small towns westward to ship livestock and also for people hopping around looking for gold after the first discovery of the rock a bit earlier. The cycling was a lot of fun and we rode through some amazing landscapes once again, changing from tunnels, viaducts, canyon-walled tracks, vast sheep and deer paddocks, and rolling and moundy hills in the distance. The cycling became pretty challenging after we stopped after 30 km and had our break of pints of Speights ("The Pride of the South"). Let's just say that the last 17 km was pretty tough on the legs and I was glad when we could put our bikes away and have our first meal at a restaurant in the bustling metropolis of Alexandra (population: 2400).

Days 7 and 8 were our second overnight hike (24 km total) and were around the Ohau Range and near some spectacular scenery with Lake Ohau in the foreground and some of Mt. Cook National Park and it's snow-capped peaks all the way in the background. These two days were also challenging hiking as there were a lot of steep inclines, especially up through the rocky bowls near the top of the Ohau Range (1915 m). It was a lot of fun though setting up our tents right along the Freehold Creek and being able to doze off to the sound of the water rushing along the rocks and then wake up in the freezing cold, hurrying to put some clothes back on. And it really was unique to live my days at the mercy of the sun and try and cram everything in (cooking, writing, setting up the fire, etc.) before darkness came. We also encountered some wild horses along the way, which made for some great photos with Mt. Cook and other mountains the background (again, very Lord of the Rings as many places and scenery seemed like). On Day 9 (Monday) we drove over to Mt. Cook National Park and did an 8 km day hike to get views of this monstrous mountain that many Kiwis and foreigners have perished trying to climb. Our guide, Kaz, commented in a very serious way that, "You don't conquer the mountain, it simply lets you climb it." Telling us this next to the Alpine Memorial, which had memorials up for many climbers who lost their lives climbing the nearby peaks, was a bit morose, but pretty appropriate. As you can see from the first picture of the post and the one below of Mt. Sefton (3100 m), this park had some amazing scenery and actually was home to 19 of the 27 peaks in NZ that were over 3,000 meters.

We camped by the shores of Lake Pukaki and I was in charge, with Alice's help, to make a chicken satay with vegetables and rice, which was pretty challenging given the equipment (lack thereof) to make the meal, a setting sun, and a wind blowing fiercely into the trailer, blowing out the gas every 5 minutes. At one point, the chicken was still raw, the satay looked like a liquidy dog food, and Alice had severed her finger while cutting carrots as Anders distracted her, probably humorously asking her something about France after asking me about the different football teams what were being referenced in his copy of The World According to Garp. Needless to say, Viki was able to save the day using her innate cooking skills, and the meal come out really well and eaten just before sunset as I set up the ipod speakers to play some tunes (Radiohead and then Miles Davis, bit of a weird mix, but it worked). The final two days went by pretty quickly as we hiked 7 km around the Mackenzie Basin and Mt. Somers on Day 10 and stayed at a very nice hut that Kaz's father-in-law actually helped build as part of the DOC (it seems that a lot of Kiwis have had a hand in helping build or preserve their land). Some people went swimming in the brutally-cold waterfall, while I simply did an ad-hoc "shower" in the creek right outside the entrance to the hut. The next morning we started our last day of hiking checking our the water caves, which were giant boulders that had fallen on each other over streams, forming small caves that you could walk through (Carefully) and also swim if it was a nice day. It was pretty cloudy and misty so our group just walked around and took some photos. We came back to the hut to grab our bags and then set off for the 6 km hike back to the van to end the trip. It ended up being a bit longer than that as we got lost along the way. We had to detour from the parts of bush as there was a certain tree that wasps swarmed to and Anders was allergic to bees. This detour brought us to many places surrounded by Scottish gorse, which was introduced by them when they came over to NZ as good hedging plants, but grew completely out of control and were like little daggers into your skin as you brushed past them (See the up-close shot I took of them after these little bastards tore up my legs). We eventually made our way back thanks to Roger's GPS device and exasperated, flung our bags to the ground and tried to rest, but were immediately met by some wasps and hoards of sand flies and had to pack up quickly and move elsewhere to pack up our gear to end the trip. We drove back, most of the group sleeping, and came into Christchurch to drop everybody off at their respective hostels. I'm staying at the Jailhouse Accommodations right now, which was actually a Dept. of Corrections prison built in the 1880's and recently turned into a brand new hostel. It's really clean, pretty unique, and has a massive amount of DVDs, of which I used this morning to revive myself with The Dude's help. All of us (except for Roger & Anne, who made their way to Hanmer Springs to go to a spa for a couple days) met out at a real good British place for dinner and I had a delicious Murphy's Steak & Stout pie, which really hit the spot.

Overall the trip could not have been more of a success. I met some amazing people (of which I hope to connect with again on a future Europe adventure), saw great scenery and wildlife, became decently skilled at living in the outdoors with basic tools for cooking and sleeping, and did some major exercise in the span of only 11-days. I will now be in Christchurch until Monday morning, when I fly over to Melbourne and start my adventures in Oz, which I'm very excited about as well. I hope all of you are well and I shall be connecting with you soon from Australia.

Justin