Windy in Wellington

Hi Guys!
This is my first crack at the blog. Bob has been primarily in charge of it. We have been under the gun having to pay at the Internet cafe and he has been having a really good time with it.

We have make our way out of Kaikoura which was brilliant as the locals say. We were leaving Kaikoura and a woman who runs the place suggested that we stop at Ohau lookout and waterfall. We stopped at the lookout and there were hundreds of seals and sea lions just lying around enjoying the day. There were a few playing in a crevasse in the rocks that had made a natural pool. Spend a good bit of time watching them. We went over to the waterfall thinking that not much could beat that. We did about a 10minute walk into the forest and came to a beautiful waterfall with a small pool at the bottom of it. There were about 20-30 baby seals jumping and playing have a gay ol' time for themselves. They were only about a foot away from us. Nice to see nature in the wild rather then an aquarium like we do at home.

Finished the day in Picton at the top of the south island, which we thought would be a small nothing town but proved to be quite a nice place. We spent the night and took the ferry boat over to Wellington the next day. The ferry was really interesting. We drove our Corolla onto the bay of the boat along with all the trucks carrying sheep and cows.. so it left this great urine smell absorbed into the apolstery of the car. Really an enjoyment. But as you have read, with our car that would take the cake wouldn't it?

We are in Wellington now and were a little shell shocked at the scale of this city. We have been surrounded by sheep, cows mountains and populations of no more then 100 that a "big city" (loosely termed) felt a little wierd. Hope all of you guys are doing well and enjoyed the well deserved warm weather.

Dolphin Swim and First Pix

We did our dolphin swim this morning and it was amazing. There were a lot of dolphins out and we were able to get very close to them, closer than the previous times I've done the swim.. It's just very cool to be in the water, making eye contact with a wild dolphin!

I took this picture, which shows a swimmer in the water and a dolphin frolicking just behind. And here we are on the boat just after the swim:

Since we found a good internet cafe, here's a few more photos:

This is us at the pass overlooking Doubtful Sound. It's a pretty cool spot, there is a lake that's about 150 meters of altitude, and a road over a mountain pass that about six miles later hits Doubtful Sound (which is actully a fjord). We took a day's tour. The rain prevented us from seeing the mountaintops but the waterfalls were amazing. I was wearing my very fashionable bright yellow raincoat, which won't win

This is me at the terminal face of Fox Glacier.. note the warning sign behind me.

Here's a yellow eyed penguin coming out of the ocean, taken at the bottom of the South Island in the Catlins.And finally, a self-portrait of us sitting in the car..

We're having fun and these are highlight pictures.. we've taken many more. Hope all is well with you back home!

-bob

Kaikour-aah!

No, we didn't take that picture, but that's where we are - Kaikoura, NZ.

We made our way up the West Coast today from Hokitika. Click here to see the route. It took about six hours. Kaikoura is an awesome town on the East Coast - of all the places I've been to up and down NZ, this one is my favo(u)rite.. It's famous for its mountains, which rise pretty close to the sea. The cliffs basically drop right into the ocean, meaning the water is pretty deep right off the coast.

The geography of the area means it's frequented by all sorts of great marine life within a mile or so of the shore, and tomorrow we're going to swim with wild dolphins. They basically take you out in the open ocean, put a snorkel on you, and drop you in a pod of dolphins. It's pretty awesome. This will be my third time doing this, and I am ecstatic for the opportunity to do it again. Hopefully the dolphins will oblige and give us a show.. Gina's very excited for it and I hope she gets what she's expecting! We're planning to come into this internet cafe tomorrow after the swim, so we can describe it and hopefully post some pictures.

This isn't the first time we'll see rare wildlife. At the bottom of the South Island, we got to see a wild Yellow Eyed Penguin, which is the rarest species of penguin on the planet. It was quite a treat.

Out on the West Coast, we had a blip - we took a corner a bit too close and blew out a "tyre" on our rental car. We were a bit scared because we were on the remote West Coast. We changed the tire in the pouring rain, and hobbled into Fox Glacier village. Luckily the local mechanic was on duty the next day (a Saturday) and we were able to buy a new tire and have him install it for a reasonable nz$83. Could have been much worse!

Hi to all back home and wish us luck for good weather and for many dolphins! Here's a photo I found on the internet of a dolphin off the Kaikoura coast.

-bob

Queenstown (again)

We're back in Queenstown for the moment, after having spent three nights in Fiordland. We found a nice hostel in Te Anau with a nice view and a private bathroom, which was really nice. We spent three days there.

We spent one day in the Catlins, which was a long drive but worth it as we were able to see a yellow eyed penguin (the world's rarest species) come out of the water after a long day of fishing, and the sunset over Nugget Point was pretty spectacular.

Yesterday we went on a cruise on Doubtful Sound which was pretty nice, the weather didn't cooperate much but we were able to see a bit of it when the clouds cleared. No dolphins, though. Gina enjoyed the trip into the Manapouri Power Station.

We are stopping back in Queenstown for the moment, we're heading up the West Coast and hoping to make it to Fox Glacier tonight.

We're learning how to get on whilst traveling, including how to make the most of our budget and especially food. We filled up the car today and it cost nz$59 (us$43), which pretty much blew our daily budget of nz$160. (Rooms are costing nz$60 a night and the car rental is nz$23).

We've met a few interesting folks, including a few clueless Americans who flew here on a whim with no money, a guy just out of the Japanese Navy who was looking for work as a helicopter pilot, and a twentysomething pair from the Midwest who decided to come here for a year to work. They are living out of their car and working as they can find it, including an interesting stint on a pig farm somewhere on the North Island.

Basically we got here thinking we were hard-core backpackers, but we're feeling kind of wimpy. Some folks come here and really rough it.

And we've already learned to dislike Germans. They travel in packs and are ridiculously loud. Kinda like freshmen.

Anyway we might not blog for a few days as we travel up the remote West Coast. All is well with us and hi to all of you back home.

- g&b

Had a nice day today driving around Queenstown..

Drove over Skippers Canyon Road to Wanaka, which was really a beautiful drive, and Wanaka's a great town. When I was here in 1999, this road was not yet paved and off-limits to rental cars.

We went over to the Kewaru Bridge and watched some people bungy jump. Looking forward to doing it myself up in Taupo. Gina said she might even try it!

Everything in Queenstown is ridiculously expensive, so we're going to jump ship and head out to Te Anau tomorrow for some hiking and a cruise on Milford Sound.

And We're Off

Piggybacking on someone's internet here so I'll make this quick..

We made it to New Zealand.. not without issues, we flew into LAX and realized that we had nine hours to kill. So we took the public bus to Santa Monica and went to the pier. It was nice to get a little slice of LA. It was just long enough to confirm that all our preconceptions were true.

Quick flight down to Auckland, felt like a redeye - we slept most of the way.

Six hour layover in Auckland, ick. Got into Queenstown at 2pm or so, got a nice upgrade on the rental car (a Corolla, by NZ standards pretty phat) and spent the afternoon taking a quick drive. We're trying to reset our body clocks to NZ time. The layovers helped with it, surprisingly.

Anyway we are safe and sound and reacting horribly to bland NZ food (even "gourmet" alfredo sauce has no taste whatsoever).

Relaxing here for a few days then we'll probly head down to Te Anau and deeper into Fiordland.

We had our first blip: Gina lost her Oakleys on the plane. The guy at the airport said they found them, but couldn't find them within the lost and found office. A first class operation to be sure. Hopefully we can reclaim them when we go through AKL next time.

Hope all is well with you all back home.

-Bob

Getting Ready to Leave!

We're in the final throes of preparations to leave. Our flight departs at 7:40 AM tomorrow. I'm glad that we had a few weeks to get our ducks in a row.

A few common questions we've received..

Q: How do you pack?
A: Very carefully. We have taken care to buy and pack clothes that are light and made of nylon or polypro, so we can wash things as we go along. I am bringing three pairs of polypro pants that zip off and convert to shorts, a few nylon tops (both short and long sleeve), and about ten days' worth of underwear. We're expecting more warmer weather than cold weather, so we brought some layers and are leaving our winter coats. The bottom line is that we will have to wash our clothes several times as we go along, so we've brought easy drying and layer-able clothes.

We're also bringing a first aid kit and some peripherals like headlamps, raincoats, Excedrin, prescriptions, etc. Suffice it to say our bags are stuffed to the brim.

Q: Why are you so busy? What kinds of things do you have to do to prepare?
A: There are a ton of things that go on in everyone's life over the course of a trip of our duration. We had to take care of all those things in advance, or transition them to someone else to take care of for us while we're gone. Not to mention all the stuff we had to do to directly prepare. Here are a few examples:

• Ensuring my health insurance from my former company is extended, that Gina is on it, and that it's paid for.
• Sweet-talking health insurance into overriding prescription refill limits (basically, we need a much longer supply than would normally be needed).
• Buy any supplies we didn't need (we are keeping REI in business).
• Little things like canceling our Netflix subscription.
• Visas - we needed visas in advance from Zambia and China. Thankfully services exist to get them for China, so we were able to avoid a trip to New York to get that. And with a major assist from my old friend Will in Washington DC, we were able to have our Zambia visas issued at their embassy there. All told, we spent about $700 on visas for these two countries.
• Compiling phone numbers for our credit cards and such, just in case they're stolen.

Itinerary Change
We decided to add in a side trip to Tasmania. We booked a flight to Hobart and we'll spend five days there. We also decided to hire a car in Australia and drive the whole way from Melbourne to Cairns, instead of taking the train.

So we are shoring up the final things and we're off tomorrow!

-- Bob

About the Trip

Here are some fun facts about the trip.

Here's the path, courtesy of the Great Circle Mapper:

• 44,521 flight miles, not including land segments between Cairns and Melbourne, Australia and Queenstown and Auckland, NZ, or continental Europe. That is the equivalent of going around the Earth 1.8 times at the equator.
• Five continents and at least nine countries
• 17 airports
• Longest flight: Hong Kong to Johannesburg, 13 hours 5 minutes
• Shortest flight: Johannesburg to Livingstone, 1 hour 35 minutes
• Five airlines
• Two continental rail passes

We're getting pretty excited!

What's a Blog and How do I Use It?

Just some pointers for those of you who may be new to reading a blog.

What's a Blog?

The term "blog" is short for web log. It's a public, online journal. When we're able, we'll write posts about where we are and what we're up to, and the entries will appear on this webpage.

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