life goes on

so... i've settled in queenstown for the time being. i have a lovely flat near the downtown area. (its actually in a hostel... a "private" room) i make beds for about 2.5 hours a day for free room and board. its not SO bad, except that if any of you remember my apt. from stl you would know that i never used a vacuum there and now i vacuum rooms EVERY DAY. and i do a lot of laundry.

the people i live with are pretty cool too... kate and tina from the UK they have been in queenstown for a couple months more than me. kate is actually my supervisor at the fresh choice (think: hanley schnucks, or a small jewel, acme, etc.) and tina works at the cinema (think 3 screens--showing movies taht are a few months behind the states) and then there is seffi from isreal who is cool, but kind of strange... he smokes about 4 times a day (a few different substances, but hes pretty chill and has good taste in music).

i work full time at the fresh choice and i'm still learning my fruits and veggies (peppers are capsicums... i have to distingish NZ from Aussie oranges and grapefruits, and there are 5 different kinds of apples) luckily i do have a college degree... so i might catch-on eventually.

i haven't really done too much of note... its just nice to actually (kind of) find a "home." i have a gym where i go to step and yoga, and a bank (they charge INSANE fees over here) and its small enough that i'm starting to have "hi friends" (you know the people you pass daily, etc.)

till later... kp

whats going on

old email... old email... old email...

i'm in whitianga right now, on the coromodel peninsula a bit east and north of auckland... i am still in "holiday mode." we (some backpackers that i have met in the past few days) have dissected the whole thing and decided that going on holiday (or vacationing in american english) is SO incredibly different than traveling (or backpacking, if you will). it is not just a time span (ie you "travel" longer...) but it is a state of mind. when you go on holiday, you eat out, spend money on presents and just have a jolly good time. when you travel you are more involved in the area; you live within some sort of self-imposed means, etc... neither way of going at it is "right" they are just different. right now, i am still vacationing. i am going to beautiful areas (with beaches) and just hanging out. but I LOVE IT!

i started off in auckland--main city and home to about 1/3 of NZ's total population... i took a long walking tour (read: i got SUPER lost) and saw everyhting (read: its a city, there is not much) but it was cool to see... i decided to take the kiwi experience bus because it goes all over--all the big sites and isn't TOO expensive...

anyway... i spent the vast majority of last week in paihia in the bay of islands (north of auckland, in, well, the northland). it was a cute little resort town... the hostel was fun and i met some super cool english people... i also ran into a couple americans... 2 girls from miami of ohio, a strange 19-year-old from wesleyan, and 2 girls from madison... we all had a blast. people who travel around have so many interesting and different backgrounds, but we all have that common thread of wanting to see EVERYTHING!

went for a day trip up to cape reinga--pretty much as far north as you can get. went to the kauri trees which are HUGE! they used to cut them down and they would make full boats out of the trunks (or they would make the masts of tall ships)... they mature at 4000 years and are HUGE! (did i mention that) now they are endangered. we also went to were the abel tasman sea hits the pacific ocean--pretty cool waves and a pretty lighthouse... we made the gods angry by walking through some sacred maori ground to see the view, and they answered by making it rain REALLY hard. on our way back to paihia we drove down 90 mile beach (and by drove down i mean on the sand... our bus, through the water--on the beach!) we stopped to go sandboarding down the dunes. which is BRILLIANT! (can you catch my UK vocab!) anyway, it was good fun. complete with sand moguls and everything! you had to walk a fair amount up a steep hill, but the rush... yeah.

also went on a "fast boat" ride to the hole in the rock (think: an arch in the sea) it was pretty cool--and fast. we were going about 30+ knots and bouncing all over the place. the boat (the excitor) was also one part "love boat" due to the captains overwelming urge to find me a suitable guy to sit next to and meet. the aussie that was there was not bad, but not quite my type...

one night they had a masquerade party at the hostel--we got pretty silly... earlier that day we visited the first pub in new zealand, and the first catholic church. meeting some super cool people... fun times.

aucklandauckland

bay of islandspiahia

coromendal whitianga

my bum

warning... you probably read this...

i'm writing from a cyber-laundry cafe, so while my things are spinnning i wanted to send a short email cause I WENT SKYDIVING THIS AFTERNOON! it was AMAZING!!!! (don't worry, i am sending the video to my parents, so i'm sure that sometime you all will see the cinematic adventure epic-kristin does skydiving and lands on her bum at the end)

it was beautiful... it was in TAUPO on the north island,,, i went from 12000 feet, and was SO SCARED... when i watched the video the other guys in the plane wiht me could not believe the scared face i had going out of the plane... the guy had the nerve to flip me out of the plane too... it freaked me out, but was SUPER SUPER COOL... brilliant even. i free-fell for 45 seconds, and then we parachuted for 4 minutes or so... above a LAKE, and mountains and everyhting, amazing... they only downfall was that we approached the ground rather fast and had to land on our butts... that, of course, is also on video. great.

this after yesterday i went on this thing haggas honking holes, which is the "closet thing to actual caving you can get in a commerical operation" (says my LETs go new zealnd book). basically we hopped into wet suits and gum boots, abseiled (rappelled) down 30 meter rock faces adn two WATERFALLS! then we crawled through REALLY tight places... saw gloworms (which are actually maggots whos feces glow to attract stupid insects to eat). it was pretty phenomenal too.

the rest of my week has been rather lax. i kayaked up in Whitianga... that was cool,a dn relaxed... and then went to rotorua which is the geothermal center of hte country... saw some geysers (like yellowstone) and then some maori dancing... which was very interesting too... they stick their toungues out to scare away opponents.

taupo and river valley: skydiving, etc.

sweet as

this is a previous email...

so, i have spent WAY to much time organizing my picutures into separte albums and describing MOST (not all of them). so, enjoy.

well... i spent the last week in national park villiage (ie the middle of nowhere on the north island). i went skiing on mt. ruapehu--one of three volcanos on the central plateau. it erupted in 1995 and they say it will blow again... it would be pretty crazy to be skiing when that occurs...) it was pretty cool... good spring skiing, and super cheap (well, compared to sky diving). new zealand skiing is kind of like colorado, but more erratic. the central plateau is the highest thing on the north island so it catchs ALL the weather systems that come by... which basically means that you wake up about 7 am to get the first snow report on "ski FM" and then you sit around till about 10 am waiting for the lifts to get off hold. you still get about 6 quality hours of skiing in, so its not too bad of a deal. one day, however, we tried to ski on the other side of hte mountain, but visibility was shit; we couldn't even tell that we were at the bottom of the mountain when we finished--so we gave up adn got coffee instead.

i stayed at a backpackers in villiage about 15/20 minutes away... there was a climbing wall inside (yeah!). the owner and i worked out a deal, so i did 2 hours of work each day in return for free accomodation. sounds good, right? well... it wasn't so bad until you do the conversion... 2 hours = $18 a night. that means i was working for $4.50 american each day. and my "work" varied from teaching people how to belay (easy) to making beds (not bad) to moving firewood (crappy) so i think he got the better end of the deal... oh well.

i usually got rides from skiers staying at the hostel in the morning, but on the way back i actually hitch-hiked with peopel going down the mountain. (side note... don't worry mom, dad, etc. it is perfectly safe to do this. it is a common occurence, and i will not do it again.) i got some interesting rides, however. this INCREDIBLY rich asian couple from auckland drove me back in a very new, very expensive BMW one day... my ski went in the golf club holder the is in the trunk/backseat... and thier dashboard computer let them know about everyhtin gyou could never care about that was goign on... one day i got a ride back from the marketing manager on the whakapapa side of the mountain. she had came from canada 5 years ago... taken the kiwi bus too... (met her husband here and stayed... interesting) anyway, we were talking and she asked if i wanted to go to a snowboard jib festival in a town a half hour away; i had nothing better to do, so i went... i got free food and sat in the corporate boxand watched snowboarding... it was pretty cool.
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rotorua

taupo and river valley

two hours after low tide

this is a previous email but there are pictures attached now!

so i haven't written in a very long time, so you might want to take this email in two doses--its a long one.

when i last wrote i was in wellington (the 2nd largest city in new zealand and i little taste of civilization). I went to the Te Papa museum... a HUGE FREE museum which looks at NZ history adn a little bit of natural history (volcanos, giant prehistoric birds, etc.) it was super cool adn i spent the whole after noon checking out everything... they had this funny exhibit where you watch short videos of people who immigrated. this one lady talked about the promisuity on her boat from europe the whole time. anyway, it was fun.

went to parliment where i met the prime minister--kind of. i ws on my tour in "the beehive" (so called cause it looks like that) and she was walking to her office. some one called out to ehr and then asked her soem unitteligable question, and she came over to answer. kind of neat.

i also went to my first rugby LEAGUE game. so you know, cause i didn't and got a lecture from the ticket lady about this, rugby league is not the same as rugby. bassically, the game is faster; they have 6 attempts to get down the field before the possession changes sides and there are 13 men on the field per team. those are the only differences i remember. it was NZ vs. the aussies, so people were pretty riled up. the kiwis pulled ahead early, but the kangaroos beat them in the end. it was pretty cool though. i kept asking questions and almost got beaten up by this english guy i was with casue i tried to compare it to american football (note: do NOT do that).

After a few days in wellington i took the ferry to the south island ... its about a 3 hour trip, so they have movies adn stuff on the boat. however, it was lilo and stitch adn stuart little 2, so i passed. as soon as i arrived in picton (very tip of the south island) i hopped on another boat to take me to the start of the queen charlotte track. it began at ships cove, where capt. cook initially settled. i walked 71 kms over 3 days... (44 miles) down the q.c. sound. it was brilliant. however, my mp3 player broke so it was a very quiet 71 kms. at one pt. you could see bothe the q.c. sound and the kenapuhu sound; they were different colors and just amazing. (quick fact: unlike fjords, which are drowned glacial valleys, sounds are sunken river valleys.) when i got back to picton i stayed at a hostel that gave you FREE apple crumble in the evening and FREE breakfast in the morning... i seriously considered staying there for another few nights!

i then took a quick bus ride to nelson, where i spent the weekend answering the phone at my hostel (shortbread cottage--you get free shortbread cookies!) for a couple afternoons for free accomodation! i went to the world of wearable arts (it was REALLY strange.) they ahvea whole exhibit on crazy bras. there was one that had rugby balls sticking out the front... i can't begin to explain it--so check out the website (www.worldofwearableart.com) i then followed that up witha visit to the MAc's brewery, wehre i enjoyed a lot of NZ beer. (don't worry, i learned too.)

i found myself a pickup ultimate game, adn i might come back here for a tournament in nov... crazy, huh?

on monday i started the abel tasmen coastal walk (another 51 kms over three days) but this time i tried to save myself a little energy and i kayaked the first 10 kms... it was a blast; but i'm still completely knackered. i also ran into a TON of americans on the walk... it was kind of nice to heaar some normal speaking for a few minutes. today i even saw SEALS! they were up at the top of the walk... just kind of hanging out. brilliant.

anyway, my fingers are tired, and i'm tired... i had to wake up at 5 am so that i could cross the estuary within 2 hours of low tide... it gets dangerous after that point. so i had to drag myself out of my sleeping bag, trudge through knee-high FREEZING water about 30m wide before the sun came up. being a coastal track, i had to deal with low tide routes about 4 times totalk... the first time i didn't believe it would be a big deal, but i learned my lesson quick--that time the water was waist high--still freezing.

well, i answer phones tomorrow again and then down the west coast--heading towards the glaciers!

pictures from wellington and picton/queen charlotte pictures
pictures from the walk can be found here... nelson and abel tasmen

the rest of the week

whereas the rest of my travels have been quick drives for one location to the next followed with long stays in each "new" town, this past week has been spent in 5 different places of 7 days. not that they weren't interesting and wonderful places to be, i just felt like sticking on the kiwi bus a bit more... i made some really cool friends who all had less time in NZ so i stuck with them. till they ditched me in queenstown, but we'll get to that.

i got on the bus in nelson after relaxing for a couple days... just reading and running, etc. (read Wild Swans by juang chang... its an amazing account of Communist China and growing up under Mao and his teachings and how much it sucked.) we took the bus down the west coast of NZ. its a different more relaxed place, the coast. there is constant rain adn not as much tourism. they have been fishing and mining there for ages, and towns are small and kind of rugged. but it was cool.

drove to cape foulwind the next day... it is the point of NZ which is closest to Australia.. there is a large colony of fur seals... we also stopped at punakaiki state park which has pancake rocks (limestone rocs which eroded away and now look like stacks of pancakes...

that evening a bit of debauchery occurred in mahinapuha... the "theme" for our "halloween" party was to make a costume of a bin bag... due to my lack of design,, this meant a lot of electrical tape... it was a rough night.

another thing about hte west coast is that there are many "bushmen." and these super burly guys were even sent to the states to go and catch deer and bison and put them into sanctuaries... also so some opossums and wild pigs etc. learned how to through a knife and an axe. who said NZ wasn't going to give me more of an education... these are life skills people... this was follewed by a whitebait fritter sandwich... a handful of these little fishes (about 2" by 1/16th of an inch) are all fried up in a batter... this is gold on the coast. peopel make their living selling these things.. its a real delicacy. i thought it was fish.

pictures online the west coast
and... wanaka and the rest of the west coast

franz josef hike

on oct 28th i hiked on the franz josef glacier... this is one of two on the west coast glacier. well known because they are some of the closest to oceans. franz is also the steepest and fastest moving commercially guided glacier. it was sweet as...

little fact break: through franz is the alpine fault which pushes the alps up close to the ocean. this also causes more rain and snow to fall annually. it also flows 10 time faster than other glaciers and is a "river of ice"

we woke up super early and got all decked out in hiking boots, blister tape, ice axe and ice talonz (like crampons, but not quite as burly) and took a shuttle out the the glacier. we got a 50 sec intro to hiking on ice and using the axe and started our full day glacier hike. we wandered through super skinny spaces and over crevasses (on precariously created ladder bridges).

at one point i got freaked out cause we had to place out ice axe on the wall for balance and lean into it over this 3 foot wide space that was about 15 feet off the ground so that we could ease our way down... it was slightly scary, but i survived. it was totally beautiful...

my pictures are online, of course. franz pics

my crazy halloween

DISCLAIMER: since this is going to be posted for the whole world to see it will not necessarily be a totally accurate account of my past few days. the actual account would include many vulgar words and statements that you proabbly didn't even know that i knew.


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peer pressure is a dangerous thing; english boys are crazy; and i have officially gone insane. as we drove from wanaka (a beautiful city on a lake) the sign up sheet for bungy jumping went around the kiwi experience bus. these guys who i have been hanging out with for the last week added my name to one of the jumps...

hold on. i retract that last statement. they didn't just write my name on ONE jump; they wrote it on THE jump. the NEVIS. the highest bungy jump in new zealand, and something like the 2nd highest in the world. 134m. (thats 440 ft kids.) due to my inability to think clearly, i didn't cross off my name...

i think my rational was that i was going to do a bungy sometime in my life and where better than new zealand where it was started in 1987 by AJ Hackett (check out the website www.ajhackett.com) and if i'm going to bungy i have to do the biggest i can. right?

after reaching queenstown on wednesday evening and perusing the bar scene (which was too good to me) i went to bed only slightly scared... but i awoke and was totally freaked out. two of my english buddies (nick and anthony) and i wandered to the bungy center where we weighed in and met up with the other crazy individuals who like to pay NZ$160 to attach themselves to a wee rubber band. we took about a 45 minute drive out the the site (during which i had calmed myself down) and then got all harnessed up... we had to take a small cable car out to the center of the highwire where we watched some of the first people go (it was in weight order... heaviest to lightest.) at this point, i was scared shitless. (sorry, slight slip of vulgarity, but i can't even describe how horribly scared i was.) ant went first. he lived. nick then went. he lived. georgina next. she lived. they all loved it. i was calming down slightly. kind of. then it was my turn. got my ankles strapped up and shuffled to the chair where they gave me my final debriefing. i shuffled out to the edge. kind of paused about 5 inches from the ridge and the guy said "got to move a little further"... i gave a little wince... shuffled... counted down from five and leapt into oblivion. (note: you have to leap, they stress the diving because it is SO high, and if you don't leap you can get tangled in the cord... so i leapt.) i think i screamed something for a second and then there was silence. all you could hear was the WHOOSH of the me falling. and the cord streching... (well, the whoosh, maybe). it was un-f-ing-believeable (sorry, it slipped) and then you rebounded about 2/3rds of the way back up... and bounced back down... on the third bounce up you had to release your feet (yeah. great...) and then they winched you back up to the cable car. i was on a complete high for the rest of the day. i look at my pictures (which are posted on line) and i still can't believe it.

all 19 people in the car did it too. no one chickened out... pretty sweet, huh?

totally amazing. you need to do it. really.

the pictures are at : bungy pics