Stop 13: Taupo

I decided to stop in Taupo on the way back up because it had been beautiful when we had driven through on the way down south before and it seemed to be a popular place. Unfortunately it rained for pretty much the entire time I was there. I shared the room with a couple who pretty much just laid in bed and slept for the entire 48 hours I was there, so I pretty much just stayed out of the room as much as possible. Fortunately the people at the hostel were pretty cool. 

My first day I planned to walk to Huka falls and some thermal pools, despite the fact it was pouring rain. I met two Canadian guys who planned to do the same and asked if I could tag along. Fortunately they had a car, so I avoided getting soaked and just got a little wet. The falls were a lot more awesome than I expected and the thermal pools weren’t too exciting, but super relaxing at the same time. I actually ate out for lunch and had some INCREDIBLE Indian food. It’s been forever since I have had good Indian food, so I was really excited. The rain let up a little, so I did my best to walk around town. At dinner that night I met an English girl and American guy and we had a lot of fun hanging out.

Huka Falls

Huka Falls from the bottom

Taupo from the waterfront

WHEW!

I can't believe its finally the weekend! After being unemployed for 4 months, I finally joined the working world again. The only problem is I have become that person everyone loves to hate. I am a door to door salesman. Fortunately its for a charity, so I don't feel terrible, but if you really want to learn about people (and yourself) do door to door sales. You actually learn to appreciate the people who slam the door in your face because at least they don't waste your time.

I'm actually surprised at how friendly a lot of people are. Yesterday I got invited into at least 5 homes, got offered, tea, coffee and a seat. A lot of people actually take the time to listen to what you have to say and are more than happy to donate (though not through me unfortunately). Its entirely commission based, but so far I haven't been doing too bad. The hardest part is getting home at 8pm and being completely wiped out. Walking for 5 hours straight is no easy feat. I've decided with all these calories i've been burning I won't feel so guilty about all the chocolate i've been eating.

It's hard work, but I get to work with some fun social people and the hours are great. Since I don't have to be in until noon I can use the mornings to hunt for the job I actually want. I get to be outside all day and really get to see the city. Houses here are SOOOO confusing. There are multiple houses at every address and you can NEVER tell where the front door is (and if the door you are standing at is even the front door). Great exercise though!

Wednesday was my first day and I got two sales! No one really expects you to make any sales your first day since you are still learning, but both me and the other new girl got two so we were excited. I found out some of my friends were back in town, so I joined them when I got back and got sucked into playing in a beer pong tournament. Somehow I managed to win and the prize was a bus pass all over NZ worth $1200. I guess I'll be traveling again at some point. I wanted to sell it and use the money to buy a car, but that's apparently not allowed on prizes.

Today my goal is to find a flat to live in so I can be moved out of the hostel by tomorrow. The weather is beautiful today, so it should be a good day!

A post in real time

Don't worry, the posts from my travels aren't over yet, my free internet just ran out. I've been coming to the library when I get a chance (for free internet), but its mostly for jobs and flat hunting. Regardless, I thought everyone might like a current post for a change and I'll continue on with my travels when I get back to unlimited free internet.

I got back in Auckland a week ago and spent pretty much the first three days locked in my room on the internet. I became "that person" but I at least made a point to be social at night and met a lot of people in my hostel. I met with some yacht designers and got some great input (and free tickets to the boat show next week). I also interviewed for a few jobs in promotions/sales and got one and have a second interview for the other today. Then I just have to decide (assuming I get the one today).

I'm also looking for a flat which is proving to be more difficult than I expected. Not having free internet anymore is making it more difficult, but I have a few places to go look at. Then the plan is to buy a car and I should be good to go (for the time being).

Basically right now I'm holding out for a few potential yacht design jobs I could have in a month or so, so I'm just trying to set up a temporary life with a short term job. If things don't work out in a month, then I'll try and find something a little more permanent. For the mean time, my life feels like chaos, but I'm having a blast. All sorts of people from my previous travels have showed up in the hostel and it just feels like a smaller and smaller world. I made some really good friends the first few nights here and while many of them have left, a number of them are coming back, so I'm excited to see all of them again.

Wish you all could be here! Thanks for reading.

Stop 11 & 12: Picton and Wellington

I headed back up to Picton for a day to do a wine tour. I was going to the first time I was there, but I was still sick and since I had to come back through I figured I would wait until I was healthy. So I went and did my wine tour only to find out I was the only person who had signed up for it that day. Being the only person on a wine tour is a really interesting experience. I had one on one conversations with all of the hosts and since I was the only one they let me try all the different wines. Without other people there wasn't much downtime and we managed to get in 7 wineries, a liquor shop and a chocolate shop. We also had a really nice lunch at one of the wineries.

I came back to the hostel, had dinner and hung out with the other people at the hostel. One of them decided we should try and go find a bar, so I joined along and ended up running into an American (what are the odds out of the 6 people in the bar). When I mentioned I was trying to do yacht design he mentioned he actually had a friend working in design for one of the big companies and put me in touch with him. That friend put me in touch with his boss and said he was leaving around October and they would probably need someone to replace him, so I am keeping my fingers crossed.

The next morning I woke up thinking I needed to be at the ferry at 10:45. I was taking my sweet time getting ready and decided to double check the ferry time. It was actually 9:45 and i checked the time to find it 9:40. I was still unpacked, in my pajamas and had to walk to the ferry. I'm not quite sure how I did it, but I made it with only leaving my toothbrush and toothpaste behind.

I got into Wellington to find that all the friends I left there a month ago were all still there. The first night I hung out with Laura and her new friends. In the following few days, I went back to the Te Papa museum to see an exhibit I had missed the first time and sat around in the sunshine and read. Wellington has an amazing public space with beautiful benches and bridges and general public space. Its known as the artiest city in NZ. With friends, and beautiful weather and a beautiful city I did not want to leave (and got sucked into staying a few extra days). If I didn't want to be in Auckland for yacht design, I would probably choose to live in Wellington. One day you could actually consider it to be hot and we went down to the beach and laid in the sun and stuck out legs in the water. Mark chose to actually get all the way in.

my favorite bridge in Wellington. Its kinda hard to see, but its a VERY artsy wooden bridge.

Mark and Glyn trying to do cartwheels on the beach. Yes, we actually got to wear shorts!

Wellington Harbor

Stop 10: Kaikoura

This was by far one of my favorite stops. I got in at night and my first mission was to find a supermarket. I went to the one I thought was the closest, but was not at all. I was on a really dark deserted road, but I got my groceries and all was well. It wasn't until I woke up in the morning and stepped outside that I realized how beautiful of a place I was in. I was really regretting that the walk I had done the previous night had been dark.

view from my room

I went to figure out my plans and booked swimming with the dolphins for that afternoon. That had to be one of the coolest things I've ever done. I'm pretty indifferent towards dolphins, so I wasn't sure how it would be. We got in our wetsuits and got in water so cold they wouldn't tell us the temperature of it (10C), but it actually wasn't that bad. There were hundreds of dolphins around and they would swim inches from your face. Every once in awhile you would have to swim to find some and then out of nowhere one would come right at your face. It was incredible. At one point I almost panicked because there were so many of them surrounding me so close to me. There was also a sea lion swimming around with them that passed right in front of my face too. Then we relocated closer to where the herd had moved. Since I was by myself I was able to isolate myself from the group. I made friends with three dolphins (they taught us how to entertain the dolphins) and they swam in circles around me for a good ten minutes (though time was hard to tell). I can't describe how awesome it was. Then we got back in the boat, changed into dry clothes and drove the boat with the herd. They LOVED to swim under the boat at the bow and they were especially playful. It was really hard to take pictures so I realized I could do video. Here's what I have....

Again, I look ridiculous.

so many dolphins

The main road in town

The next day I went whale watching, which was kinda cool, but you spend like an hour on a boat to see a whale for 5 minutes. The thing was MASSIVE though. And we got to see the dolphins again too (that would never get old). Then later I hiked out to a seal colony (though I only saw two seals and one was laying across the path) and another walk around the peninsula that was absolutely beautiful.

Sperm Whale

I wish I had gotten a better picture of this

Seal chilling on the pathway. It scared me when I turned the corner to find this.

The colors here were just incredible. Look at the colors in the water as well.

Kaikoura is a great place for wildlife because you have two tides merging and there is also a really deep canyon so there is a plethora of wildlife for feeding.

Stop 9: Christchurch

For those of you who don’t know, Christchurch had three bad earthquakes in the past three years and is pretty much demolished as a city. I wanted to go just to see what there was to see and I really wished I could have seen what it looked like before. The gardens were really pretty and some of the architecture was really unique. Most of all the bad destruction has already been demolished so there are a lot of empty lots, but almost every other building in the town center, along with hundreds if not thousands of homes are still to be demolished.

Finding a hostel is difficult because there aren’t many left and what accommodation is left is housing residents and people who came to work. The first day I walked around town (or through what is still open to walk through), the gardens and the museum which had a really awesome exhibit on the earthquakes. Then I caught a tour the hostel did (which ended up being a personal tour) given by a local police officer. He took me all over the city and its suburbs and showed me a lot of the damage and what all was going to be demolished. It was really sad to see all these places that were so dear to the people blocked off. Shipping containers lined the roads to protect them from potential landslides.

The Park

The top of the church that fell off

close up of the damage

Beach in Christchurch!

The portside of Christchurch

Christchurch from above

 That night I met up with Agustin (from Picton and Motueka) and it was fun to hear what he had done since I had last seen him. The next day I woke up and went to the Re:Start Mall to grab a bite to eat and sit in the sun and read. Its really cool what they have done. They used a bunch of shipping containers to make makeshift stores. There is a little food court area and since it was the weekend there was live music. The weather was absolutely beautiful (dare I say hot?) and I was really glad I walked around. For as little as there is left, the people have a really great attitude and are really doing a lot to help each other out. The tour guide said people are much more laid back now because they realize how many things aren’t that important anymore. I was also impressed to learn that part of taxes goes to an earthquake fund, so people actually get some money from the government (and then insurance companies) to help rebuild.

RE:Start mall

I took this over the "not allowed past this point" fence

Food court, live band and if you look closely and ATM machine in the side of a shipping container

I think that is supposed to be THE church in the back

Stop 8: Dunedin

Apparently I didn't learn my lesson before and got into Dunedin without booking a hostel. I walked up this incredibly steep road, in the rain, carrying my probably 70 lbs of stuff to get to the hostel I had planned, only to find it was closed for the winter. I walked back down the hill to the next closest hostel. I checked in, settled in, and went to reception to figure out what to do. If i hurried, I could do the Cadbury tour, and i convinced a girl standing at reception to do the Speights Brewery tour with me later. Great rainy day activities. The cadbury tour was excellent. Lots of free chocolate. At one point we got liquid chocolate samples and he poured too many so I went back for seconds. And then when there were more left, I ignored all the judgemental looks and went for thirds. MMMM so good.

Hannah met me at the Brewery and we had another excellent tour. At the end they put us in the room with the taps and left us alone in there for 30 minutes. We met Glen and his dad who were there to celebrate his 21st birthday (apparently its still a big year over here even though it doesn't mean anything). Hannah and I became fast friends.

Hannah and I enjoying our beer. Ironically Glen and his dad are in the background, and this is before we had met them.

 Since it was still cold and rainy the next day we signed up to do a wildlife tour (apparently its good because the animals actually like that weather, but it was MISERABLE). We went to the albatross center, which is rare for some reason (only inland nesting site in the world/NZ? Maybe?). Unfortunately we didn't see any Albatrosses, but we did see the storm coming straight for us. And our guide filled us in on some juicy albatross gossip that may or may not have been made up. Then we headed out to some private farmland to see a colony of fur seals. That was fun because since its not mating season its only females and their young, but there was a male there who forgot it wasn't mating season, so it was cool seeing the female try and fight him away.

From the albatross center. Can you see the storm coming?

Fur Seals!

So many fur seals! But they blend in so well! How many can you find?

SOOOO cold

We hiked to the other side of the hill and stood maybe 15 feel from some ENORMOUS sea lions and watched them play, then walked a little further down the beach to the yellow eyed penguins. They are VERY private animals, so they are hard to find, but this happened to be a social area for penguins looking for partners. It was so entertaining watching them swim ashore and hop along the rocks. We were entertained by all the courting routines. They then climbed even further up the hill to nest for the night. Which happened to be in the middle of a sheep farm. Thats something I never thought I would see.

Penguins!

The one on the right with his arms back is courting the one on his left.

can you see the penguins on the hill?

blurry, but an absolutely hysterical picture

Hannah and I went out with James (another guy from our hostel) and we ran into Glen and his dad again. Seeing as it was a Tuesday night, we were pretty much the only ones in every bar, but we all got along awesome and that was probably my favorite group of people I have met the whole trip.

The next day I did a scenic train ride which was pretty cool. Hannah and I decided to watch Lord of the Rings that night since I had never seen it (shock) and she hadn't seen it yet in NZ. We were both so tired though we didn't make it through the end. In the morning I went to Baldwin street (the steepest residential street in the world) and walked to the bus stop, which i thought was just down the hill I had walked up, but it turned out it was like a mile and some on the other side of town.

Train Station

Baldwin Street

The sidewalk is stairs

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