First 5 days of travel / PHOTOS

So I've been gone from Wellington for 5 days now, on the road in Big Blue, Stefan and I traveling around seeing the north island of New Zealand. It's been a blast so far, as expected. We are up in Auckland now, having got here late last night. Been taking our time, enjoying it and see heaps of the country. Haven't been slowed down by sheep yet, but we've been on plenty of windy roads, green countryside and dirt roads that NZ is famous for.

After a day in Waikane, getting things taken care of on our van (oil change, fastening seats, air filter etc.) we went to Turangi to some wicked hot springs. Stefan hit up bungy jumping along the way in the highest place in the north island. Pretty high jump down to the river, some 80m down. We stayed overnight at some private hot springs, off the main path, being able to chill with no one around, just lots of heat and moisture. The next morning, waking up to heat, and moisture in the van, we cooked breakfast over a hot spring, which some Maori locals had shown us. Super fun way to cook food, slow, but it got the job done naturally, using heat from the earth.

Lake Taupo was huge, famous for trout fishing. Cool city too, and we camped on the outskirts near a huge waterfall at a free campground. Super strong river there, which was refreshing after organizing the inside of the van. The gas cooker worked great and the next morniing after another good swim in the river, we had breakfast and on the road again to the west coast to the big beaches. It rained the whole day, but that didn't stop us from swimming in the Tasman Sea in the biggest waves I've seen so far in NZ. Found some hot water springs on the beach too, that weren't too hot due to the rain and tide and one hour later after swimming and coming out drier than before, they weren't too much hotter.

Now we've explored Auckland and are off to an island tomorrow morning nearby to do some wine tasting and hiking.

Private hot springs in Turangi, dug out by the locals

Cooking breakfast of eggs and ham over the hot springs, old fashioned Maori style

Big Blue with breakfast table out back at free campground in Lake Taupo

Big Blue and I, rocking the North Island

Fresh corn, enough said

Green countryside, dotted with cows, and covered with summer clouds

Stefan, Big Blue and the Tasman Sea near Kaphia

Auckland, as seen from Mt Eden, the highest volcano in the city

Queen Victoria with palm trees? Must mean I'm on a south pacific island

Big Blue!

Check out my new van that I'll be traveling around New Zealand in:







Pretty excited to have the van finally. Way wicked. The best part might be the carpet. Right now Stefan is putting a roof rack on it and we're putting in some seats in the back as well to transport mates around town in. Pretty fun to cruise around in, with a good stereo system and lots of character. Couple small problems with it, but those are being taken care of by the experts, us and our mates.

Wellington by Night

Photo from Mt Victoria

A day at Midnight Espresso

I've been working at Midnight Espresso for a couple weeks now and will let you know what I've been up to there. This is what one website says about Midnight Espresso:

Midnight Espresso is Wellington's longest standing late night cafe, situated in one of Wellington's historic areas - Cuba Street. Midnight offers a diverse and colourful atmosphere, encouraged by staff, music and clientele.

Laid back and relaxing, Midnight is a great place to go just to have a coffee and read the paper, and of course sample some of the magnificent cuisine. They offer a range of predominately vegetarian counter and menu food, with awesome flavour and presentation to match.

Midnight Espresso are users and stockists of Havana coffee - NZ's only cuban coffee wholesalers. Also available are freshly cut and squeezed fruit and vegetable juices, vegan, vegetarian, and wheat-free food.

My day starts at 6am, when I get there to open up, do the cheese and milk orders and then get started on my baking. I whip up both sweet and savory muffins, making about 2-3 dozen of each, then I make enough hollandaise sauce for the day, then I make cheesy scones from scratch and get our bread set by mixing the flour, yeast, soymilk and maple syrup together to get the dough rising. After my baking is pretty much done, I start making our standard breaky sandwiches with croissants and bagels we get ordered in.

By that time, food orders start coming in and I"ll be cooking eggs and bacon etc as well as finishing up the sandwiches and then starting to work on some counter food. I'm often making vegan lasagnas, or veggie pizzas with a twist like the last Asian one I did. There are a few recipes I can follow if I want, or I pretty much just do what sounds good. Very flexible as to what I make. Just need to make several a day to keep the counter going and looking good.

I work until 4pm getting lots of things done and having a blast. Good coworkers, great music and fun food makes it a good job. I'm leaving in a week or so to go traveling so I'll miss the job, but I'm hoping to come back and work there in a couple months when I'm done traveling.

Beach Volleyball

Beach Volleyball takes over Wellington! Stars from around the world, teams that are amazing, but didn't make the Olympics playing on the beach. Over the weekend Wellington held an international beach volleyball tournament. Pretty sweet to see some good volleyball and relive the Olympic memories when everyone was into beach volleyball. Well it's summer down here and that means beach volleyball is still in full effect. I watched the finals for the both the men and women, with Germany losing to the Kiwi women and the Dutch men losing to the Kiwi men. Everyone was happy with the results as the Kiwis won so everyone could party, and the other teams put up good fights so they were cool. Would've been bad if the Kiwis had lost, so although it might've been rigged, it was still a good afternoon of entertainment.

Somes Island

In the middle of the Wellington Harbour is Somes Island. It used to be used as a quarantine station for sick passengers, then for sick animals, then it was used for increasing quality sheep by taking quality sperm and eggs and making lambs. For the last 10 years or so, it's been an animal sanctuary and has been flourishing with native wildlife.

As my roommate Stefan, friend Angie and I had the day off, we headed out to explore and check out the 360 views of the harbor. Perfect sunny day for it, with a slight breeze. Upon our arrival, we were checked for rodents, as that could ruin the environment on the island. Our shoes were also checked for mud or seeds that could bring non-native plants to the island. You might ask who did the checking, well, it was done by yours truly, and I am happy to say, there were no rodents in my bag. Rangers did supervise of course.

We saw the oldest lighthouse built around Wellington, old gun battlements from WWII in which the guns were later sold to the Japanese (ironic, eh?) and some funky looking sheep, plus some finicky seagulls who tried to take a bite out of Stefan.

Skydiving

Right after Christmas, my sister and I went skydiving in Queenstown. Up to 15,000 feet which meant about a full minute freefall before the shute came out. The weather wasn't good the day we wanted, so we went early the next morning on a perfect day, with nary a cloud in sight. after getting all suited up in a jumpsuit, cap, gloves and goggles, we hopped in the small plane to take us and another jumper up. Crammed into the plane, we rose higher and higher, with the view getting better. In the distance we could see Mt Cook, the highest peak in NZ. We kept climbing higher and higher, then the other jumper jumped at 12,000 which already seemed pretty high and the brain started those second thoughts, but then we kept rising up to 15,000.

When you reach the height, the plane levels out and the door opens and you know it's time. I went first, leaning out of the plane with my instructor hooked on behind me, and a photographer holding on outside the plane. To be honest, the first 5 seconds sucked. It was basically the nightmare you have about falling. But then you get used to it and get to enjoy it, checking out the amazing scenary and making faces for the camera. We fell for just under a minute before the parachut popped out and we floated down slowly. Quite an amazing experience and in one of the most beautiful places around so I was quite happy. Enjoy the photos.

Check out these amazing dolphins we saw in the Doubtful Sound while on our overnight boat. Jumping all around and playing the surf we created after they swam alongside our boat for a long time.


And check out this closer video shot by my fabulous sister: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdpEUJ1tdl0

Christmas part 27

Family teeter totter pic taken on Christmas Day after walking around Sumner beach, exploring cave rock and opening presents in Christchurch

The children ponder the largness of Christchurch's xmas tree

Climbing in santa hats in trees on Christmas Eve must mean I'm in NZ

Looking for Captain Cook to come flying in from England to settle the country

Airport arrival with santa visors, it's summertime you know

Job update

On Saturday morning I had 2 job interviews to try and get some work since I left my last job to travel. By 10:30am, I'd lined up 2 job trials. Today I had my first of the trials, at a large bar/restaurant with a large menu. It went pretty solid. A slow day which was good to just get the feel of the place and learn a lot of the plates. They have a stone grill menu as well as heaps of others, which means that we serve a super hot stone with some meat on top of it and let the customer cook it to their liking. Pretty sweet. I liked the place and might take them up if I get a job offer. Who knows. Got in my 7 hours by 2pm and am ready to rock tomorrow morning at my next job trial.

Whale watch video

The guide explains why watching a sperm whale is not boring, although it doesn't do that much

First Christmas update

Chilling on our overnight boat in the Doubtful Sound

Christmas Eve in Christchurch

Kaikoura shenanagins

Christmas in New Zealand baby

I've been traveling with my family for almost 2 weeks now in the south island of New Zealand. pretty amazing so far, covering lots of ground and seeing so much, and yet, just making a dent on the island. We've been wine tasting, whale watching, hiking, hanging out on the beach, kayaking, and just got back from an overnight boat ride through the Doubtful Sound seeing dolphins, penguins, seals and tons of birds. Pretty sweet out there going past waterfalls, side canyons, huge islands and fishing for dinner.

It's been a great trip so far and tomorrow if the weather is good, I'll be skydiving in Queenstown, where we are now, then off to hike in the mountains and go across swinging bridges. The adventure capital of NZ.

The weather's been good for the most part, not as hot as normal for down here, but still a lot better for the family than the snowstorms in the States. been wearing shorts a bunch and living it up in the sandals.

Merry late Christmas to everyone. Happy early New Year.

Cheers,
Justus

Christmas Carols in the summer

Santa flying around in his helicopter

Picnicing in the sunshine before the carols

The carols band, all 70s decked out

Wellington loves to put on a good old fashioned Christmas carol night every year. This year it was at the cricket stadium and over 10,000 people showed up. Pretty massive. We got their early to picnic and get set up before the show started. Felt pretty different to be celebrating Christmas while wearing shorts and throwing a frisbee around outside. Perfect weather out.

Although the event was called Carols by Candlelight, there were no candles for sale, just glowsticks. Guess candlelight sounds better than carols by glowstick. All proceeds went to help the Childrens Hospital.

The music was pretty wicked, all different versions of the traditional songs. A samba Jingle Bells, a blues Silent Night and such. Interesting and it kept the crowd into it. The highlight was the helicopter with Santa flying around the stadium. No sleds down here folks.

The band was dressed up as 70s TV characters. Felt more like Halloween than Christmas. But they did sing the Peanuts Christmas song about Snoopy fighting the Red Baron, so you can't argue too much.

Here's a short video of their Christmas song to Michael Jackson's Thriller

Summertime in December

It's definitely summer down here. Got my first wicked sunburn this past weekend. Been having the weekends free from work so it's been nice to relax at the beach. We have a beach just 6 minutes away from our place, so been heading down there with some friends. Swimming in the cold water and playing a little rugby, pretty much the national sport. There's always people playing rugby at the beach or park. I've got a beach chair, so it's nice to go out and have a spot to sit that's pretty comfortable. And on the way back from the beach, it's nice to stop off at the supermarket and have a seat in front of the cold meats to cool off.

Work's been solid as always. Having a blast in the kitchen. It's nice to be in charge when I'm there, doing the orders and telling people what to do. I'm doing 3 dinner shifts a week and 2 brunch shifts, so it's a wide variety and keeps me on my toes. I'm working for just about a week more, then will be leaving with my family to travel around the South Island for Christmas. Going to be an awesome trip and I'm excited to see more of New Zealand.

Played tennis with one of the cafe owners at a fancy tennis club the other day. Got to know more about the cafe and their other side businesses.

Saw In Bruge with 10 other couch surfers. Awesome movie. A good night out with a bunch of people at a small movie theater. It's pretty typical here for the smaller movie theaters in each town to have a cafe there with good cakes, coffee, alcohol and the ability to bring drinks in with you to the theater. Pretty cool, despite the fact that movies come out here a while after the States. Bond just came out last Thursday here.