Woei

Happy reunions!!!

2008-06-15T04:46:00.013+02:00

Not much time, so I'll try to keep it short. Diving at Koh Samui was absolutely awesome. The visibility was sooooo clear, lotsa fishies and cool cool coral, made it the best diving experience I had. The photo on the right shows one of the many dive sites I went to. There's this rock in the middle of the sea which is just covered with coral all the way to the bottom (about 40 meters deep). You dive alongside this rock, which from below sea level, is just a massive coral-covered-wall, all the while looking around at the zillions of fish twirling and zirling beside you. Other than that, there wasn't much to do on Koh Samui and actually, that's the only thing on Koh Samui was diving, eating and sleeping (with the occasional pooing and peeing in between).

From Koh Samui, I flew to an island in the west, to Phuket where I would meet up with Robert, Patrice and Laura. Yayyyy. In Phuket, we continued the whole dive-sleep-eat routine for a couple of days. The rest of our time there, we spent exploring the islands around Phuket. On the left, a pwetty sunset from Kata beach, where we stayed.

From Phuket, the four of us flew back to Bangkok, where we would spend a few more days till Laura and Robbie had to go back to home. To add to the fun, Erwin messaged me he was in Bangkok as well. We met up in Bangkok again after missing each other for about 3 weeks. So yay for happy times :)!

Erwin took along two friends he met in Bangkok, Whan a Thai girl and Jesse, her Canadian boyfriend. We went for a night out in Bangkok's red light district, which was quite interesting, to say the least. It's just so weird there. I can't help but feel sad for the girls there and to see what they have to do for money. On the other hand, I can't help but be bizarrely fascinated, by the numerous uses of the female genitalia displayed there. I won't go into all the details, but think smoking cigarettes, trumpets, whistles, candles, darts and balloons. Oh yeah, and bananas too.

Jesse told us, most of the girls come from very poor villages and by doing the job they do, they're able to support their whole village with food and supplies. The village justify their girl's line of work, because of all the good karma she acquires by taking care of the village and actually worship the girls for doing so. On a lighter note, left you see Substitute-Dennis (a figurine Erwin kept with him, while missing me) standing around in the red light district.

During the days we spent our time being a stereotype tourist by visiting temples, buddha-thingies and shopping. Picture on the right shows all of us at Siam Square, where they had a stunning photo exhibition, "Earth from above".

Erwin's off again and will stay a month longer in Thailand than planned. Robbie and Laura are going home today and Patrice and me will be off to Chiang Mai for a few more days in Thailand. Most likely, this will be the last blog post I'll make till I get home. Can't wait to meet everybody again, yay for happy reunions! So thanks for reading and see you soon.

Sunrise in Koh Samui

One of the many islands around Phuket. The movie, "The Rock" (starring Sean Connery) was shot at this very same location.

The happy couple and our tour guides, Jesse and Whan

Night shot at MBK, huge shopping centre

Erwin misses Chantal

The top part is actually an antenna and the building doubles as a weather station as well, opposed to being merely a temple (as most people think).

Another temple-thingie

The king ordered this temple/tower to be made after seeing the movie "Wizard of Oz". He was so inspired by the movie, that he made this structure to resemble the wizard's tower. The building is made out of solid gold and to provide him with enough gold to create his masterpiece, he ordered every citizen of Bangkok to hand in their golden fillings. The fillings, he ordered to be melted and all together it was enough gold to finish the 'golden tower'.

The building on the left was build recently. The king ordered the construction after seeing an episode of MTV Cribs and figured he could not be outdone by some random NBA player. (on a side note: MTV has yet to visit the king's crib)

Another view of all the temples.

Here we see the 'Wizard of Oz'-theme returning; the building in the foreground is decorated with 'flying monkeys'

All by my lonesome self

2008-06-05T05:18:00.007+02:00

Well, that's it for Australia. Last two days were pretty relaxing and I'm looking back at two months of pure fun in Aussie. I'll certainly be back some day to visit other parts I've missed so far. Erwin is just insanely positive about the whole west coast, so that's for next time (anybody wanna join me? :) ). Although Australia's been great, I'm looking forward to go to Thailand now. Two months of Aussie is quite a lot and I could use a change of scenery.

Anyhow, before getting to Thailand, I had a stopover in Taipei, Taiwan, where I spent 1 day. The 10 hour flight was mostly spend, watching movies (crappy ones, mostly) and before I knew it I had arrived already.

Didn't do that much in Taipei, unfortunately. It didn't stop raining till the moment I left Taipei again. And aside from people at the airport and hotel, nobody speaks English. Which makes it quite hard to order even a freaking McChicken.

I spend my little time I had wandering about in the neighborhood (see picture above) and went to the top of Taiwan 101, world's tallest building. Well, 'officially', it's world's tallest building. Currently, a taller one is being build in Dubai. Since it's not in use yet, it's not officially recognized as the tallest one yet, but will be once finished. Anyway, the view was nice, although really cloudy and smoggy (see pic on the right). I stayed to watch the sunset, but it was kinda lame due to all the clouds. It just turned dark all of a sudden :(

With all the rain and not much to do, I wasn't too sad to leave Taipei and head towards Bangkok. I have one day in Bangkok, before I'll take another flight to Koh Samui, some island in the east. I spend last night in a ridiculously large hotel room, including a living room and kitchen. I seriously have no clue what I would ever do with all that. So, although quite pointless the room was nice and needless to say I slept like an angel. See movie for a quick tour.

I'm off to the airport soon, to catch my flight to Koh Samui. There, I'll do some diving, YAY! Finally something to do :) and I'm really looking forward to that.

View from Taiwan 101 at night

Some random temple in middle Taipei, with Taiwan 101 in the background

Taiwan 101 from the ground

Old fashion, good times

2008-05-29T00:59:00.012+02:00

Soooo, with Erwin off to Perth, I figured I'd finally have some time to catch up on some well deserved sleep, while staying at my family in Sydney. I couldn't be more wrong :), didn't really matter much though. I had some good-old-fashion family-time-fun, instead of sleep and besides, who needs sleep anyway. I got to see a State of Origin (rugby) match in Sydney. Our team won and I made a whopping $1 profit by betting the game. Goooo Blueees!!!

The actual reason I went to Sydney was my cousin's wedding, which was pretty cool. Although, they didn't allow enough time for dancing :( By now, you should all know my 'hot-n-dazzling' dance moves and was pretty disappointed not being able to show them off.

With more than a week to go before flying to Taipei, I figured it be rather boring sticking around in Sydney for that long. Luckily, Rob and James (we met in Cairns & Byron) were in Darwin and going to do the Kakadu-tour (a big national park near Darwin). So I booked a flight to Darwin (which is in the north of Australia) and went with them to explore Kakadu.

We had an awesome 3 day trip, driving around Kakadu National park. Good food, fun people, scary huge ass crocodiles and stunning views. The picture on the left shows a view from one of the many lookout points we visited. Since leaving New Zealand, I haven't been very enthusiastic much about the sceneries here in Australia. Kakadu was well worth it though, very New Zealand-worthy that was. Just like the good old times in New Zealand itself :)

I have 2 days left before returning back to Sydney, where I will chill out for a few days before joining with Erwin again and fly out to Taipei.

My cousins at the rugby match. Go Blueeees!

Congratz to the newlyweds: Devie and Denny

KAKADUUU, so yeah, we're at Kakadu

"Rawrrr"

View of Kakadu #1

View of Kakadu #2

View of Kakadu #3

View of Kakadu #4

View of Kakadu #5, oooh sunset

That's what the swimming pools look like at Kakadu

No slides tho, so you have to jump off rocks

Another sunset to end it all

Back in Sydney

2008-05-14T08:00:00.010+02:00

Pfffff, it's been a while since my last post, it's just we've been doing so much lately, it's hard to keep up with everything. I flew back from Cairns to Sydney 2 nights ago, where me and Erwin had a huge fight the other night, so he went to Perth on his own (more about that later) and I stayed in Sydney with my family. Uhm, where to start.
....

Nooooo, of course me and Erwin didn't have a big fight.

....
Just look at the top picture, feel the love!!!! Erwin did actually go to Perth without me and is spending his last few days in Australia with Chantal ( and I wasn't invited :) ). Anywayz, as I said it's been a while since I've written anything down and we've been really busy, so let's just start at where I stopped the last post. Which was in Hervey Bay, we just returned from Fraser Island and said our goodbyes to Chantal and Dominique, which was a sad sad moment (Erwin and Chantal are together as I write this, so much for sad goodbyes :p). We did end our trip with a good night out, showing off our dance moves.

The quality's not that good, but our enthusiasm should make up plenty for that. Erwin lifts me up, puts me on his legs, lifts me up again en drags me over the floor underneath his feet to lift me up again (him being very Danny Zuko like and me being more like Olivia Newton-John).

We continued our way up the coast to a small place, called the Town of 1770.
We checked in a laid back hostel and spend a few days there, surfing, snorkeling and being badass (see picture). The hostel was infested with other Dutch people, which is always good for the atmosphere. With a schedule to hold on to, we had to move on and took the night bus north, to Airlie beach.

From Airlie beach we went on a sailing trip along the Whitsundays (a group of islands near Airlie). We already arrived the day before we were supposed to embark and along the day, kept meeting people who would be with us on the boat. Three lads we already met in Noosa were kind enough to introduce us to some of the others (which they had met previously). Already knowing a big part of the group, we were looking forward to go sailing.

The whole group together was composed out of 19 people, 4 crew members and 5 pirates. Yep, pirates, ARRRRRRR :) The whole sailing experience was pretty nice and relaxing. Basically, we sailed for a bit, snorkeled, sailed for a bit more, had diner, drank beers, went to bed and repeat the next day. The crew was great, nice people in our group, decent food and a broken toilet which started to fling poo around the loo, instead of flushing it down. So yeah, good times for sure.

Back on solid ground we continued our way to Magnetic Island. A small island along the east coast, where we did our diving course. Long story short, the course, divided in the practical and the theoretcal part, was piss-easy. Both Erwin and me managed to finish the theoretical exam with a perfect score (we're GEEENIUS!).

I'm gonna rush and write up the last part without even trying to be remotely funny and a lot less detailed (just takes up too much time). So, after our dive course we left Magnetic Island and rushed north to our next stop, Mission Beach. Nice and relaxed, but not much to do there, besides skydiving and white water rafting. Sooooo, that's what we did! Erwin expected the jump to be more scary, thrilling, adrenaline-pumping than he experienced it to be, but he looks pretty psyched to me in the video :)

Erwin's jump. Pretty good!

White water rafting was just one big rush. Great, great fun. Not much to add, if you haven't done it before, go and do it.

After Mission Beach we headed to our last stop along the east coast, Cairns. There, we met James and Rob again, which we met in Byron Bay. The four of us rented a car and drove off to Cape Tribulations, the rain forest north of Cairns. It wasn't that bad (at least I had fun), but to quote Erwin's whining: "I'm so disappointed". Rob and James did a hilarious guided tour, but forgot my cable-thingie so will upload that movie some other time, promise.

After all that, it was time for me to say goodbye to the English lads and Erwin. I'll meet up with Erwin in about a week, when we'll fly to Taipei. Going to my cousin's wedding in Sydney and most likely will meet up with Rob and James in Darwin later this week, so i'm not worried that I will get bored. (btw, picture on the right is of Cape Tribulations).

I usually end a post with a bunch of pictures, but really really really can't be bothered to do so now. So just go watch Erwin's picasa thing, most of the pictures should be there anyway.

There are however, still a shitload of videos I didn't put up before. So there you go, enjoy.

Cleaning up the camp site after a nice barbie and loads of fun.

Erwin and me enjoying ourselves on the beach of lake McKenzie (on Fraser)

English lads put our canoes on the other side of the river. Swim dennis and save our canoes.

Me showing how to surf in Noosa

Me showing how NOT to surf in Noosa

A camping we will go

2008-05-04T06:48:00.021+02:00

It's been sunny ever since Surfer's Paradise and the rainy days from Byron were quickly forgotten. Arriving in Noosa, we didn't realize it was Anzac day, a day honoring casualties among Aussie and Kiwi soldiers in WWI. As it turned out, all cheap hostels were fully booked by the time we arrived. Eventually, we ended up in a nice motel apartment, which was way over our normal budget. Oh well, we need to pamper ourselves from time to time :) Luckily, we did find a cheap hostel for the remaining two days we would spend in Noosa.

With the great weather in Noosa, we kept surfing two days in a row, although I still suck immensely I got the feeling I'm getting the hang of things and was able to catch a few waves at the end of the second day.

After our surfing sessions, we went on a canoe trip in the bush for 3 days, in an area called the Noosa Everglades. Basically, they put you in a canoe, give you some camping gear, a map and dump you in the river. There was a camping site about 1-2 hours peddling down the river, where we spend both of our nights. There wasn't that much to do around the place, since there's no electricity and we weren't allowed to get a camp fire going.

Scenery wise it wasn't that interesting either, especially if you're used to the views from New Zealand. Erwin and me did have a good time though, tagging along four English blokes: Dan, Elliot, Tim and Tom and had our laughs with a full scale toothbrush competition and jumping around the beach like morons.

Back from the Everglades, we took the bus to Hervey Bay. We had a Nazi bus driver on his period, who ruled his bus with an iron fist. He scared the shit out of me, but got us there in time so I didn't mind him being so mean.

At Hervey Bay we met up with Chantal (from Kaikoura) and her friend Dominique. From Hervey Bay the four of us are going on a 3 day camping trip on Fraser Island, world's largest sand island. We were grouped together with two other Irish guys and two Frenchies, making the eight of us Team Two. That evening we got to know each other a little and were filled in on what we're supposed to be doing on the Fraser. Basically, as a group you bring food, camping gear and booze and self drive a 4WD across the island, camping at different locations each night and have fun along the way.

The next day, we were ready and excited to go and took the 4WD up the ferry to Fraser Island. The plan for that day was to drive inland for a while till we hit the east coast and do some sightseeing along the way. When we arrive at the coast, we drive along the beach up north to our camp site to set up the tents and have dinner.

The first of our problems started, when we realized we forgot the cheese and ham at the hostel. We had some real good mayonnaise and ketchup sandwiches (with salt and butter for extra taste) for lunch and spent the afternoon at Lake McKenzie. Supposedly, the lake is so clean you can drink from it and to be honest the water tasted pretty damn good. Anyway, the picture on the left shows our group at the lake. Going from left to right, we have: Fabrize, Simon, Peter, Me, Erwin, Dominique, Donal and Chantal.

As I said, the ham-and-cheese-thing was the first of our problems. Not long after leaving Lake McKenzie, we got stuck in the soft sand for the first time. We managed to push the car out quite easily though and were on our way to our first camp site with a bit of a delay. We were a bit worried however, as the car didn't handle itself as well as we thought it would. Chantal took the wheel and drove us enthusiastically through sandy pathways towards the beach, shouting "Aaaahhh, the car's not responding, ooooh, the car's not steering!" which made me put on the seatbelt a bit tighter than was needed :). We got stuck once more, right after we changed driver and after some more pushing we finally reached the beach.

We drove on the beach for quite some time till we got stuck once more, but this time we got stuck good. It was already getting late and we were running behind on schedule. Normally, we couldn't care less about the time, but it's a bit of a pain in the ass setting up the tents and cooking in the dark. But even more importantly, the tide was coming in. The beaches are only accessible for a certain amount of time, when the tide's not at its highest. Since we were running behind schedule, we were pushing it a bit and we saw the beach getting narrower and narrower. Luckily, some helpful people pulled us out with their 4WD and had a look at our car. According to them, our 4WD wasn't working and we've been driving in 2WD mode all the way till this point. It made sense we got stuck all the time.

We were sent to a mechanic who lived along the beach near where we were stranded. Now, I've met some weird people in my live, but this guy is certainly in the top 5. The guy lived in some run down shack, the yard was filled with broken cars and two dingo's were walking around the premises, which we think he kept as pets. The first thing he said (I couldn't actually understand his accent or what he was saying to be 100% sure): "You lot've come at a bad time. I'm grogged, it hasn't been this bad in years". He was standing there: bare feet, beer in his hand, dirty sweater, messed up hair and generally the looks of a drug addicted bum. Later on we heard, the crazy mechanic, already lives on that island for 25 years and is drunk about 24/7. They just use him, because he's dirt cheap (they pay him in beer or he forgets he ever did anything).

Anyway, he crawled under the car with a screwdriver, banged around a bit, crawled back up and stated the car was fixed. It was a temporary fix though, but would get us home. When asked if we could safely drive with it and whether it could break down again, he gave us some cryptic answer about planes being able to drive on the beach as well, but of course they have propellers (yes of course, why didn't I think of that). Well, we decided to take our chances, worst case 4WD breaks down and we'll just get stuck somewhere again. We were running behind schedule and couldn't make our way up to the camp site up north, because of high tide. So we changed camp site and would sleep at the site where we would have slept the next day and sleep at the site tomorrow where we supposed to be today.

With the 4WD fixed, driving was a lot easier and it made sensed we got stuck all of the time without the 4WD. We got to the camp site and finished setting up the tents just before dark. We cooked some pasta, had some beers and went to bed at a decent time.

The next day we did a bunch of sightseeing along the coast and ended up at our second camp site without much problems. That site was actually a lot nicer, as it had barbecue facilities, a lot more spacious, a ring fire and *yay* showers! We had a delicious dinner with the barby that night and sat around the campfire roasting marshmallows afterwards. We ended the night looking at the stars that night. It's just so amazing how many stars you can see over there.

I woke up early to catch the sunrise and was glad I went up going, as it was cold and dark when I woke up. We visited some other sights the next day and headed back to the ferry to get back to the mainland. Back at the hostel we were greeted by ham-and-cheese, which we gratefully binged on.

All in all, the problems we had, made everything more adventurous and turned out for the better anyway. I had a great time over there and am looking forward to all the other stuff we booked. The next few days are probably going to be a bit more relaxing and we have a sail trip planned in about a week. I'll just wrap it up with a bunch of pics of Noosa and Fraser. We made a shitload of great pictures, just too many to put on here. So check out Erwin's Picasa-thingie if you want to see them all. We have some funny movies as well, but you'll have to wait for those a bit longer. They're worth it though, promise :)

Our room in Noosa, every hostel should be like that.

Drinking with our roomies in Noosa

T-bone, the local drunk and village idiot, showing fancy dance moves

Toothbrush competition

Messy campsite at the Noosa Everglades

Everybody! Puuuuush! (wait a second, who's taking this picture?)

Lake McKenzie

Dominique: I hate sand
Erwin: I love how sand rubs in my swimming pants

Peter McDonald, the crazy Axekiller, uhm I mean Mechanic

Sandmen at Lake McKenzie

A shipwreck along the coast of Fraser Island

Go Dutchies!

Roasting marshmallows at night

Me and Nemo enjoying the sunrise

Partying in Hervey Bay

Hottt

2008-04-23T10:01:00.004+02:00

From the last time I posted, the weather has gotten worse and worse. By the time I left Sydney and caught the bus to Byron Bay, it was raining heaps and it's not something I'm accustomed to. In New Zealand, we mostly had good weather. The times it did rain we were sitting warm and cozy in our car. And the rare occasion that we were outside and it still rained, we got itsy bitsy drizzle rain.

For all the drought they're proclaiming to have here, Mother Nature still managed to 'waste' a shitload of water on us. Rain kept pouring down on us. So with all that bad weather, there wasn't much to do. Either just wait and sit inside or ..., SURF! We preferred the latter. The ocean was quite warm and with a wetsuit, it didn't really matter whether it was raining or not.

The first day I got there, I rented a board and a wetsuit and joined up with Erwin to begin my first ever surfing experience. Erwin already spent a few days there and befriended 4 British lads: Thin James, Big James, Simon and Rob. The first thing I learned trying to surf, is that it's really really hard. After a couple of hours surfing I managed to get one foot and one knee on the board for 0.31 seconds (give or take); that's the closest I got to standing. Erwin was doing better and I saw him actually stand and catch a wave a couple of times. The second thing I learned: don't put your board in front of you and a wave. The wave will throw the board at you and smack you up good. And that takes me to the main lesson for that day: the sea will beat you up silly, whack you around and beat you up some more just for kicks. I finished the session with a couple of bruises, which were forming odd shaped letters. They spelled out: "Get a surf lesson, you moron".
That first day taught me a lot about surfing, except how to surf. We had a good time at the beach though and we took some surfing lessons 2 days later.

During the lessons we got introduced to the basics. Basically, how to stand on your board and catch a wave. Also to NOT put your board between yourself and a wave, but I learned that the hard way already. For the lesson we drove to a small bay, with only easy small waves, which made the whole thing a lot easier. I haven't surfed again since, so I'll have to see how much the lessons helped me.

Leaving Byron the rain finally ceased and when we arrived in Surfer's Paradise (2 hours north of Byron) the sun began to shine again. It has been a while since we could use the sunscreen. In Surfer's we just chilled a bit, and met up again with James and Simon. We hit the bars later that night and had a great time dancing in the toilet. The video's bit crappy quality wise, but makes up for it in hotness. :)

Only stayed two days in Surfer's and after a quick stop in Brisbane we continued to Noosa, another town along the coast. In between we went to Steve Irwin's Zoo. Yay! In Noosa we'll finally do some surfing again, and the weather's great! And a three day kayaking tour along some river here.

Erwin has time to pick his nose while surfing

Surfer's Paradise from a distance

Going to the pub with James and Simon (that's James's normal face)

Erwin spooning a kangaroo in the Australian Zoo

CRIKEY!!

The world is eviiil, evil I tell you!

2008-04-17T03:49:00.007+02:00

edit: Oh, got an Aussie phone nowadays, use +61415784892 is you want to contact me (my old phone was in the backpack, so don't use that number anymore)

As you may have heard, my backpack got stolen a few days ago. Put it down in a cafe and when we we're about to leave, the bag was gone. People are evil, I tell you, eeeeeevil!!! Anyhow, I'm more pissed at myself for not being more careful. Especially, since I had all my stuff in there: passport, ipod, ticket, diary, money, etc etc. The whole thing did get in the newspaper. I copied this from the Melbourne Times.

***

World is evil - innocent moose kidnapped

Melbourne - The always friendly and cuddly moose, Waldo, was abducted when resting in his natural habitat, Dennis Leman's backpack.

Till not so long ago, Waldo lived a life of soltitude in Taupo, New Zealand. He was saved from this lonely way of life, by what would become his best friends: Erwin Gillissen and Dennis Leman. They gave Waldo his new home and are naturally devestated by recent events. When asked for comments on the tragedy, Erwin commented: "The hardest part is not knowning whether he's still alive or ... (silence)

...

*sniff*

...

sorry, I need a tissue"

...

Dennis, obviously still taken by grieve and high on emotion, was ranting furiously:"Screw Waldo, I just lost my i-pod!"

Responsibility for this vicious act is yet to be claimed, but it is believed by Erwin and Dennis the Scientology is behind it all, since "Tom Cruise is a weird wanker"-as quoted by Dennis. If anyone witnessed or has any information that could lead to finding Waldo, they can contact the police.

***

Oh well, live and learn. I just wonder when the learning part kicks in. But, what's done is done, and besides, on the bright side of things...

...eh,

no bright side

...

right, anyway did get the whole thing sorted out already. Police stuff, embassy stuff, and ticket hassle. Eventually, it's not that bad and worse things can happen. I'll be on my way as planned, just have to pick up a new ticket in Sydney and get my passport in Brisbane (if everything goes as planned).

Not all bad news though, I actually had a good time down in Melbourne (pic is Melbourne at night). We spent some time exploring the city, but didn't get further than the city center. We had a quick trip to the beach the other day.

We also went on a 1-day-tour travelling the Great Ocean Road. We were lucky to have good weather and the Apostles (some rocks standing in the sea) are awesome to see. I booked a 10 minute helicopter flight, which took me alongside the coast and gave a stunning view from the air. Pictures are on Erwin's cam, since he's not here, will have to upload them some other time.

From Melbourne we took the bus to Sydney, which took us about 13 hours. I spent a few days with my family, which was fun. Erwin in the mean time, continued his way up north and is sitting and surfing in Byron Bay at the moment. Just got a message from him saying he has a vicious hangover, so it's safe to assume he had a good time. Going to get the bus tonight and meet up with him again on Friday.

St. Kilda - beach in Melbourne

Playing checkers on our self-made board.

Having a beer with Neil, our roomie

An AFL match we saw in Melbourne: Carlton vs Collingwood

Meeting up with my cousin Cecilia in Sydney

Bye, bye, sheep shaggers

2008-04-08T01:00:00.002+02:00

Day 44 - 46 (5-4-2008 till 7-4-2008)
Last few days we spent in Christchurch. Weather hasn't been that good lately and we've mostly just took it easy at the end of our trip here. At the moment, just killing some time till we catch our plane. Below two pictures of the north and south island, where you see the route we took the past 6 weeks (The numbers indicate the the corresponding days). Talk to you folks from Aussie, yaaay!!!

North Island

South Island

Wrapping things up in NZ

2008-04-04T11:40:00.011+02:00

edit 7-4-2008: Added some random movie (at the end)

Day 37 - 41 (29-03 till 02-04)
From Dunedin we drove in the direction of Christchurch, where we will take the plane to Melbourne on the 8th of April. Since we still have a few days to spare, we planned to explore in the neighbourhood of Christchurch.

Time's going fast the last few weeks, only a few more days to go and we're already off to Australia. Not much has happened since the last post, it seems we've already toured through the most beautiful parts of New Zealand and are left with the less impressive sceneries.

Anyhow some sad news, my camera either ran away, got stolen or I forgot it somewhere. I think it's the latter, but I'm trying to deny my own stupidity. If any has a good suggestion for a new (point-n-click) camera, let me know.

Day 42 - 43 (3-4-2008 till 4-4-2008)

From Christchurch we headed north to the Hanmer Springs, there we took a day 'chilling' in hot spa pools. After we were done relaxing, we drove a bit further north, to Kaikoura. Kaikoura's a small touristic coastal town, famous for whale, dolphin and seal watching. We checked in a very cosy hostel run by two elderly ladies. One seems constantly under influence (the good happy-loving kind of drunk) and the other is just the classic loving granny, everybody would want to have. I'd imagine her baking chocolate chip cookies and apple crumble pie in her spare time, ..., she doesn't though, unfortunately. Also, they both seem to be a bit smitten over Erwin :).

The loving granny was telling us nothing shocked her anymore. While running the hostel, she's met some strange people and seen some weird things: a guy staying at the hostel, who's drunk 24 hours a day and working as a fireman, people having sex and sleeping in the tv room and more fun stories.

Anyhow, the best part of the hostel, was the back garden with a shabby, but very comfy, hammock, giving a view of the sea and the mountains alongside the coast. We met some dutchies at the springs earlier that day, who also went to Kaikoura, so we spent the evening drinking some beers, playing pool and watching tv with them. Next day, was pretty easy going. Found out the dolphin swimming was booked full till Sunday, which we're not going to wait for. So eventually, we spent the day, mostly sleeping.

Well as I said, few more days and we're off to Aussie. We've seen most of New Zealand by now and I'm really looking forward to some warmer weather.

Treehuggers, big tree on the way to Christchurch

View during a hike in the neighbourhood of Christchurch

View from the same hike

Dutchies we met at Hanmer

L0l@???

Queenstown and beyoooond

2008-03-26T09:16:00.012+01:00

Day 31 (23-3-2008) - Sunday
Pretty much spent a Sunday as you should spent a Sunday, by doing nothing. We deserved a bit of rest and besides, it was Easter. We went to the town center and walked around a bit, doing some sight seeing there.

In the evening we met an angry Canadian guy in our room(he wasn't really angry, he just seemed like that all of the time - and quite frustrated at life as well). We figured we'd get a drink in town, buuuuuuut, pubs weren't allowed to serve any drinks till twelve. We amused ourselves with a few games of checkers while Joe, the Italian Aussie, joined the group.

At around 12 we left the hostel and out we went! Nothing much to tell, other than that I had fun and we drank our booze from teapots. They mix red bull, vodka, tequila and other random stuff together, put it in a teapot and call it a cocktail. The pots were half price that night, so we were happy (and they did actually taste pretty good as well).

Day 32 (24-3-2008) - Monday
As I mentioned earlier, there are a lot of adrenaline filled activities to do here in Queenstown. One of those, the Canyon Swing, which I booked for this day at 2pm. The Canyon Swing is a gigantic swing at 109m high, where they strap you in a harness and throw you off the cliff. Can't remember the exact numbers, but you fall down for quite a bit and then go swoooooooosh, like any decent swing is supposed to sound like. After going a bit back and forth and have come to a stand still, they pull you back up and that's all there is to it.

I was kinda nervous that morning, but actually less scared when I actually stepped on to the edge. The guys running place like bullshitting around, by giving you little nudges when you're on the edge and looking down. They also like to point out how unsafe th-e ropes are, as they use duct tape (or 'safety' tape as they call it) all over the place. I wasn't that anxious on the edge, but falling down from that point is a whole other story. The swing itself is over so fast, but the first few seconds of falling down is definitely worth it. Anyhow, they let you choose how you actually jump off, have a look at the movie to see how my jumps went (did 2 different jumps).

Jump 1

Jump 2

Back at the hostel we met up with Joe again and 2 other girls. Played a card game, called Shithead till 12pm and decided to hit the bars afterwards. On the pic, there's Joe in the back, Sima in the middle and Rachel on the side.

Day 33 (25-3-2008) - Tuesday

Due to some regional banking holiday everything was still closed, meaning we couldn't get the car fixed. No biggie, it's not a punishment spending another day in Queenstown. It has been a while since we did our last hike, the weather was great so we figured to hike up the Ben Lomont mountain, a mountain overlooking Queenstown. Normally, the ascending parts are followed by level or descending sections after a about 1 hour of climbing. Ben Lomont however, didn't fit the pattern. From beginning to the top it was just one big climb (about 3 hours), with the last 1 hour being the steepest climb we ever had.

To make it more fun we started at 1:30 pm to have the sun high in the sky. I was sweating so much, sweat was dripping in my eyes. The salt stung, which made me cry as well. Not a pretty sight. I found that taking of my glasses worked for the whole crying problem, but wasn't the ideal situation either. And it was a shame of the view, so I cried my way to the top.

Anyway, the last part was the roughest, but I was thinking of what Daft Punk were singing in their song, which is oh-so-true:

"That which doesn't kill me, can only make me stronger"
...
...
Of course, I'm kidding. It's a bit misquoted and it wasn't Daft Punk who said that.
...
...
It was Kanye West,
...
...
obviously
....
Anyhow, after a lot of huffing and puffing we made it to the top, where we were rewarded with a spectacular panorama view. The way down, as always, is a lot easier (yay for gravity) and we got back to the hostel just in time for diner. We were quite exhausted from the walk and going out the previous nights, so did some chilling and went to bed at a decent time.

Day 34 - 36 (26-3-2008 till 28-3-2008)
We got the car fixed in the morning. The garage guy was even nice enough to put on the tire for free. From Queenstown we drove west to Milford Sound, famous for the fjords. We thought of doing some more hiking in the area, but the weather forecasts predicted rain and lots of it. So we just drove to Milford Sound, stayed one night and headed back east again. No hiking, but the scenery was well worth the drive.

From Milford we drove along the south coast to the east. During the drive we stopped at some remote limestone cave. We crawled and climbed for a good hour inside the cave, before we decided to call it quits. It was pretty cool to do, as it was totally pitch dark and we had to navigate our way through rocks, big puddles and glowworms.

After our cavern adventure we continued to drive and stopped in Invercargill for the night. The city itself is pretty boring and we didn't do much than eat and socialized a bit with the other hostel visitors. The next morning we had an uneventful drive along the coast to Dunedin, where we arrived in the afternoon. Went for a drink and some dancing in one of the pubs/clubs here with 3 kiwis we met in the hostel. Fun times, but enough writing for now. Today we're just relaxing a bit and plan to go out with the people we met last night.

On our way to the top

That's the top

Pretty clouds hanging around me, while I'm peeing on the Mt Ben Lomont

360 degrees view from the top of Mt Ben Lomont

I'm the king of the woooooorlddd!

View during our drive to Milford Sound

Erwin looking over Milford Sound

The cave entrance seen from the inside

Crawling through caves, Smeagol style

Another cave movie

Pwetty rainbow on our way to Invercargill

Erwin's gay, obviously (you'll have to listen carefully, or you'll miss it)

Crash 'n Burn

2008-03-25T09:59:00.007+01:00

Day 30 (22-3-2008) Saturday - continued
After wrapping things up at the internet cafe, we dove in the car and started about a 5 hour drive to Queenstown. At Wanaka, which is about an hour away from Queenstown we got trapped in a traffic jam. Normally one of the most boring cities, Wanaka was host of an air show and apparently it draws about 90.000 visitors. So we had to take a detour around the city, we drive up a narrow bridge, just wide enough for one car. We had the blue-arrowy sign, meaning the other side should give way. A big mean camper van ignores the sign and drives on the bridge as well. Erwin's thinking: "Mmm, this doesn't fit" - and backs up the car to give the camper van some space.

The idea of backing up in itself is quite simple in theory. In practice it went something more like *KGGGGGRRIEEEEEEEEEEH!!!!!!*
...
...
Erwin: oh fuck
...
...
Me: what just happened?
...
Well let me tell you what just happened.....

For some weird reason, they put a rail alongside the road and for an even stranger reason the rail decided to bump into the side of the car. As a result, we have an itsy bitsy dent in the door and the tire (including the rim) was totally to shreds.

Erwin put on the spare tire, which was only a space saver tire, so that would only take us to Queenstown.

To make things more interesting, we found out the spare tire was flat too. After some calling around, we were lucky enough (since it's easter weekend) to find someone who towed our car to the garage. He didn't have a new tire we could use, but did manage to fix our spare tire. We still have to get the tire fixed, but at least we were on our way again.

Luckily we took the insurance, which meant we don't have to pay for the damages. After a quick pit stop at the garage we were back on our way to Queenstown. The last part of the drive was all smooth and the view was amazing.

We arrived at our hostel at around 8pm. We did our groceries, had a quick diner and went to the town center for some beers. They take easter seriously in New Zealand, all the pubs closed at 12pm and wouldn't serve alcohol for the next 24 hours. We were pretty tired anyway, so it wasn't too bad. All things considered we still had a fun day, no worries :)

Not too much time today, so will post more about Queenstown later. In short, it's great here. Lively nightlife, lotsa adrenaline stuff to do (bungee, river rafting, jetboats and stuff) and beautiful nature surrounding the city. Anyway, look at the vid at the bottom, which shows the view from our hostel.

Our car being towed

View during our drive to Queenstown

Writing and reading at Queenstown

More hiking and happy Easter weekend!

2008-03-21T22:57:00.016+01:00

Day 25 (17-3-2008) Monday
A couple we met at Abel Tasman, advised us to go to the Nelson Lakes and do a hike there. Since it was on our route, had nothing better to do and were in the walking mood we decided to go there and have a look around.

The first pic shows Mt. Robert, where we climbed to the top. From the top, there's a great view on the lakes surrounding the mountains. There are some vids in the last post from that hike. (Heard the quality from the vids was pretty crappy though)

After our 5 hour hike, we drove to the westcoast and stopped at a little town called, Greymouth. Arriving in Greymouth, we parked the car near the sea and watched the waves and sunset. Ahhhh, so pwetty. We found a nice cosy hostel nearby and decided to spend the night there.

Day 26 (18-3-2008) Tuesday
During the day we went to the town centre to have a look around and get some stuff we needed (I lost one of my batteries for my camera and needed a new book to read). After that we headed back to the sea, where we watched the sunset the previous day. We chilled there for a while, looking at surfers and dolphins actually swimming along side the surfers. The dolphins didn't do any flipper-acrobatic-kinda-moves, but actually seeing dolphins there was pretty neat already.

There's this brewery in Greymouth, making the famous Montheith's beer. That evening we just had to try it out. Apparently, there's only one pub still open and serving Montheith's in Greymouth (gives you an idea on how lively the city was). So we walked over and had a few beers there before going back to the hostel. We watched Borat, i liiiiiike, before going to bed.

Day 27 till 29 (19-3-2008 till 21-3-2008)
We said our goodbyes to Greymouth and headed south along the west coast. We stopped in a little town near the Fox Glacier.

Here we planned to hike along the Copland track. The hike starts out, by leading through rainforest (at least it looked like rainforest) and after which you walk through a valley with mountains all around you. After the valley, you walk along the river going up farther up the mountain (see pic on the right). The climb wasn't that steep, but was tricky because of all the slippery and wobbly rocks along the track.

After a 6 hour hike, we arrived at the hut, where awaits the rewarding part. Thermal hot sprinngssss! A minute from our hut, 3 thermal pools were waiting for us. The temperature of the pools was between 40-60 degrees Celcius and were surrounded by mountains.

We met up with two Czech guys, who were in New Zealand on a detox holiday. They were telling us they smoke weed multiple times each day and it affected their memory. So this trip was to clean up and get their brains functioning again. So, don't do drugs!

Anyway, we brought a bottle of red wine and in the evening we took another dip in the hot springs to relax our strained muscles. One of the Czech guys joined us, but didn't bring any spares clothes so went in naked. Never had a naked guy take my picture before, but this trip is all about new experiences.
After staying at the huts for one night, we hiked back the same way as we got here. We kinda forgot about easter and stuff, so we had difficulty finding a place to sleep back at Fox Glacier. We're prolly going to have a hard time finding a place to sleep for the next couple of days as well, yay for planning.

Day 30 (22-3-2008) Saturday
:( I booked a helicopter flight to the top of the glacier, after which you hike for a few hours, but due to bad weather they had to cancel it. Bit bummed about it, but instead I can spend my time in this lovely internet cafe, which is the second best thing I could be doing right now. Going to see if we can arrange a hostel for the night in Queenstown, which is our next stop.

Erwin hiking up Mt. Robert

Waldo enjoying the view on top of Mt. Robert

Walking through the valley, it was still clouded at that time

Inside the hut at the end of the Copland track. It wasn't crowded at all and I can use the extra space.

Erwin enjoying the pool

Possum

View from the hot water pool

Some random stuff

2008-03-18T23:17:00.010+01:00

Put up some links (on the right) to other pictures. Erwin has a picasa-thingie where he puts most of the pictures. Some vids we made, will try to do this more often if the internet is not too crappy.

Our trip on the water taxi back.

360 degree view at Awaroa hut.

Clouds over the top at mt Robbert

Safety first @ mount Robbert

Little chinese rabbits @ mt Robbert

Driving through NZ and playing around with the cam. Found some nifty fastforward/record function on it.

Running through the forest, like Colin McRae ..., but on feet and less legendary (had to be in time to make it to the restaurant)

Some views from Mt. Robert, haven't mentioned that in the blog yet. Will post more about it later

Who needs electricitity ...

2008-03-17T23:08:00.003+01:00

... when you can go hiking!

Day 21 (13-3-2008) Thursday
Abel Tasman here we come. The hike we planned would be for 4 days and we would walk 52 km. We did the latest preparations for our trip. Erwin got a new backpack, we bought instant noodle food and we both got ourselves a hydration bladder (which is nothing more than a plastic bag with a big straw for easy drinking).

We stayed at a hostel near the beginning of the track. The hostel was run by a big ass mean Maori woman. If you can't imagine how a Maori person looks like, think Pocahontas (but huge and ugly). We cooked an excessive amount of pasta that night, which we had for diner, breakfast the next morning and filled a 1kg bucket (formerly containing yoghurt), to bring with us on the hike. With our backpacks filled, we were ready to go.

The track started pretty boring, with the scenery being a bit grey and muddy. That quickly changed as we entered the woods and from that point it was an easy walk to our first stop, where we would spent night (with stops and playing around, took us about 4 hours). The track runs mainly along side the coast, where you walk through the forest and from time to time end up at a sexy bay. Golden colored sands, crystal blue water, surrounded by trees and mountains. The picture on the left is during one of our small breaks on the beach.

At Anchorage (which is how the bay is called where we stayed overnight) we reserved 2 sleeping places at the huts. The huts were decorated the spartan way: 12 bunkbeds cramped into a little room and matrasses so soft you wonder why you even use them. The huts had no electricity and no shower. Other luxuries did include a flushing toilet (including toilet paper) and a door which could be closed. Oh well, beats sleeping outside.

Having no electricity is pretty new for me. After dinner when the sun has gone, there's not much left to do without light. Soooooo, you just got to bed at 9 pm as everybody else does.

Day 22 (14-3-2008) Friday
Everybody's up early, since everyone goes to bed early and you're cramped up in a small room with 12 people. Only takes one person who snores (e.g. me) to deliver everybody a crappy night's sleep.

The scenery was mostly the same during the second day of walking: forest going uphill, forest going downhill and then a golden bay, with a clear but icecold sea. Although, really nice to see, it gets boring after a while. Also during the walks, we realized (especially Erwin did), that we didn't bring enough food with us. Erwin was already getting grumpy and hungry, but we still made it fairly easy to our next hut, at Bark's Bay. We got there fairly early and spent the day chilling at the beach. Said our goodbyes to two Dutchies, Kim & Linda, we kept bumping into during those days. There are so many people doing the same hike it's hard not to meet up with anyone and soon we met up with a German couple, both of them being psychiatrists. They had strange discussions all of the time, which went something like:

Him: Let's go swimming.
Her: I think you're urge to go swimming stems from a desire to be free and unbound. You wanted to go swimming the last 5 times we passed a beach too, This is becoming a pattern in your behavior,. Do you want to break up with me?
Him: I disagree, you misinterpret my wish for swimming for your own insecurities.
....
(silence)
....
Her: Wanna go swim?
Him: Yay, I like swimming

Okay, they weren't actually like that. They were actually quite laid back and normal for psychiatrists. We did have some interesting discussions on the revival of Sigmund Freud's theories and other psycho babble.

Day 23 (15-3-2008) Saturday

This was the best day of hiking. For some reason the trees were a bit brighter, the sea was just a tad clearer and the clouds were just a little happier than normal. The surroundings were just prettier this part of the track and after a decent hike (again about 4 hours) we arrived at our last hut, Awaora. The difference with the other stops is that they had a nice restaurant at this place. So after we had a quick lunch and a cold beer at that place we also decided to have diner there. The problem however which we found out after we made a reservation, is that it's a 30 minute walk from our hut to the restaurant, when it's low tide. In other cases, you can't walk along the coast and have to go inland for detour of about 1 hour. Of course during dinner time, it's high tide and we had to run through the forest to get at the restaurant in time (which we didn't make in time).

After dinner we had a relaxing and romantic stroll along the beach back to the hut. By the time we came back all the other people were already fast a sleep, which is not strange, considering it was almost 10 pm.

Day 24 (16-3-2008) Sunday

The last day we only had a short walk (2 hours) to the next bay, where we were picked up by a watertaxi. Initially, we planned on walking further and returning to that bay later that day, but when we arrived, we've had enough of walking and decided to take an early boat ride out of Abel Tasman. So after 4 days of walking, we took the watertaxi back to the starting point, which took us 1 hour by water taxi :) After having no decent shower (Erwin believes that swimming in the sea equals a shower, but I disagree) for 4 days, we secretly sneaked into the last hostel we stayed at (with the mean Maori woman) and took a well deserved shower there.

I think my time's almost up, so will continue later on. I'll upload some more pictures tonight, promise.

edit: Meh, hate internet in NZ, computers are so ancient and internet in general just slow ass. Really need to think of something to spend less time writing these blog-things.

edit2: Whaha, this computer seriously annoys me. Gonna stop internetting now, prolly won't upload any pictures tonight :)

Jessica Simpson doesn't have a clue .....

2008-03-12T02:46:00.008+01:00

(edit: Meh, think the pictures turned out to be all low-res. Can't be bothered to change, you can see the originals when we get back)

I don't think Jessica Simpson knew what she was talking about, when singing her hiking song. I mean, she might know a lot about shoes, but she forgot one important thing: FEET! My boots might be made for walking, my feet sure as hell aint. The picture was made after we finished the Tongariro's crossing. They were all sore, swollen and flat (which what they always are). Was it worth it? Ohhhh hell yeah, and besides, my feet are back to their normal flat self, so no worries.

Day 17 - Saturday (8-3-2008)
Anyway, let's start at the begin of that day. We woke up early in the morning and took a bus ride to the start of the mountain. The first few minutes were an easy walk, but quite quickly the track became rougher and a lot steeper. After 1-2 hours of climbing (1st ascend) I saw Erwin running in front of me like a mountain goat on crack, whereas my feet hurt like hell and I was breathing my lungs out.

After another hour of climbing (2nd ascend) my feet just hurt like hell, my back is aching from carrying my backpack and my hands are freezing due to the harsh winds. Luckily, I'm still having fun :) I still see Erwin hopping around, going about, like the kid with ADHD in kindergarten, so I guess he was enjoying himself too.

The video was taken halfway the track after all the hard climbing was done and such give an impression of the wind speed. From that point there's quite a steep part down, which is a bit tricky, but a lot less exhausting than going uphill. After the steep part it's mostly a smooth descend to the end. All in all the whole hike took us 6 hours, including resting and the occasional pee-break for Erwin. Here are some of the pictures we took along the crossing:

Starting the Tongariro's Crossing at sunrise

Start of the first climb (enlarge the picture to see all dots going up).

View after the first ascend

After the first ascend, you walk through a crater

After the second ascend you get to the 'Emerald Lakes'

Another picture of the Emerald lake

Waldo resting at the Emerald Lakes

Looking back at Mt. Doom and after the descend from the Emerald Lakes

And we're walking.....

Chiling after the hard work is done (about 2/3 through the track)

The last part of the track. Easy peasy.

Day 18 till 20 (9-3-2008 till 12-3-2008)
After a good night's sleep, we packed our bags and got on our way to Wellington. In Wellington we needed to make some preparations for our 4-day hike in the Abel Tasman national park, which we are planning for 13th of March. Also we still had some problems with our Visa which we needed to take care of in Wellington before we would get into trouble. Luckily that worked out fine and everything is sorted out. Wellington itself is pretty much dull and boring, although we didn't really try to do anything spectacular.

From Wellington, we took the ferry to Picton, the southern island. We were traveling during the evening, so there wasn't much to see, unfortunately. We did get to see the sunset, which Erwin had to enjoy from inside the boat as he forgot to bring a warmer set of clothes.

We arrived in Picton at night and went straight to the hostel. We were quite hungry and had a nutritious and delicious microwave meal. Yummy! Okay, the food was quite disgusting to be honest, but what can you expect :) Erwin even graded his Beef Curry a solid 7 (considering the price we paid and the effort it took to cook it).

The next day in Picton we walked around a bit and decided to go to Disney World, Picton since the admission was free anyway. After a quick visit to Micky Mouse (see picture on the left) we had a short hike in the neighbourhood, which took us about 90 minutes.

Heading towards Abel Tasman National Park, which is north of Picton we made one stop in a town called Nelson. We checked into a hostel, called the Green Monkey. Nothing to special, but clean, quite small and very homely. We took the double bedroom instead of the usual dorm, since those were fully booked. A bit more expensive, but a good oppertunity to wash our clothes and dry them in our room.

In Nelson we made our last preparations for our Abel Tasman hike. Tonight we'll be spending the night near the start of the track. I'm looking forward to the hike and hopefully we'll have good weather.

Some random pictures made in Wellington to end this:

Erwin's opinion on the view of Wellington

My thoughts on the view of Wellington

Sunset during our ferry trip from Wellington to Picton

Steamy days

2008-03-06T22:57:00.018+01:00

Day 14 - Wednesday (5-3-2008)
As we found out from other travellers later on, the Coromandel Region apparently is very beautiful. Unfortunately, we only had rain the whole time we were there so had to skip on all the hikes and things we wanted to see. Anyway, in Rotorua we went on some hiking the next day. We went to the Blue Lake for a short hike, which was quite nice, but not that spectaculair.

In the evening we met with this new guy, Waldo. We don't really know where he's from, he's quite small and seems like the silent type. He looks a bit lonely, so we decided to let him join us on our travels.

Day 15 - Thursday (6-3-2008)

We continued our travel down south and stopped at Waiotapu, which is a park with volcanic and other termal stuff. At 10:15am, they put some soap in a geyser and then it starts doing it's thing. Spewing water in the air and looking all geysery-like. Frankly, the whole thing really looked kinda sad and fake. One of the most pathetic excuses for a touristic attraction we've seen so far.

The rest of the park was pretty cool though. On the left you see a picture of Waldo at the Champagne Pool, a thermal lake (the red stuff is some mineral of some sort). The park was filled with colory-steamy springs, rotten-egg-smelling rock formations and boiling mudpools.

After Waitotapu we continued south, heading towards Taupo. We accidently came across a thermal hotspring and decided to relax a bit and have a dip in the hotsprings.

In Taupo we checked into a simple hostel and pizza for diner (and a orange to keep up with the vitamins).

Day 16 - Friday (7-3-2008) That's today! This morning we checked out the hostel and went to the tourism center to prepare for our next hike. We will be doing the Tongariro Crossing, which is a 6-8 hour hike through mountains, craters and vulcanos. (For the geeks, it's Mount Dooooooooooom). This will be our first long hike and a good training for us. We plan on doing a longer hike of 4 days on the southern island, so this will be a good test whether we're ready for it. Lotsa pictures this time, enjoy

My first photographed sunset. Not too interesting location, this was made at the supermarket's car lot.

Onions make me emotional

We found this spot beside the road, giving us a nice few of the lake and a vulcano in the background

The 'amaaaazing' geyser before erupting

Another weird looking pool at Waiotapu

Another shot of the Champagne Pool

Boiling mudpools

Sleeping possum just beside the road

Random picture during one of our drives. I just love the New Zealand skies and cuddly clouds

Erwin and me enjoying the view over Lake Taupo

These boots are made for walking

2008-03-04T07:47:00.008+01:00

Day 10 - Saturday (01-03-2008)
It's still the same day as the last time I wrote something. That day, we moved from the double room (room for just the two of us) to the dorm room (shared with 4 persons), because it's cheaper. When we moved there we met with some German dude, more specifically, we met with his smell. Fuuuuuuuck me, seriously, I can safely say that it was the most disgusting smell I ever smelled on a person. Even drunk bums who have been living on the street for aeons, don't stink as bad as he does. The whole room smelled rotten and sour and you could actually smell him enter the room.

That evening we bumped into two guys from Chile, we met earlier that week and also a Swede, named Roger joined the group. The five of us decided to go out that night and have a look at some of the pubs and clubs in the neighbourhood. Let me first say that I had fun that night, but the company was pretty weird. First of all, take Roger. He was a bald, cock- and 4-eyed geeky fellow with basically no sense of humour at all. We lost him at the first bar when the rest of us went to pee without him knowing. Guess he felt ditched and went back to the hostel. Meh, no big loss.

One of the Chilean guys was named Paulo and the best description for him would be 'Perverted Rainman'. His understanding and ability to speak any English was as good as me speaking Spanish (the only thing i know is "donde esta fiesta?"). The only thing he had to say was: "Helsinki women are beautiful" or "Women in Chili are beautiful". Which kinda makes for funny but very superficial conversations. He had the habit of pointing to women who were tall, slim and blond, saying: "Look, that woman, very beautiful", regardless of the actual face of the girl. Good times tho :) The third guy of the group was the most normal one I guess. The problem with Roberto however, the more he drank the less he understood what you told him and the less sense he himself was making.

Going out with that group was like going out with the cast from Revenge of the Nerds. Lots of plaatsvervangende schaamtes (the feeling of being embarassed when somebody else should, but doesn't), but the night itself was good fun. Lots of bar hopping, good music and we even met and danced a Liddy-look-a-like. When we went back to our dorm we were greeted by the Stinky German guy's smell. I was exhausted, so put some tiger balm under my nose to counter the smell and went to sleep like a baby.

Day 11 - Sunday (02-03-2008)

The day started out dry so we decided to take my hiking boots for a test drive at Waiheke. Waiheke is a island near Auckland, about a 40-minute ferry trip from the harbor. I must say, the boots don't look pretty, but they surely do the trick when hiking. I think Jessica Simpson wrote a song about hiking boots, which really expresses the way I feel about my new shoes. It went something like "These boots are made for walking and that's just what they'll do and one of these days, these boots..., " something, something, can't remember the lyrics any further. :)

Anyway, we had about a 2-3 hour hike along the coast, which was pretty cool as we had to hop from rock to rock with the waves at our feet. Picture shows Erwin carefully navigating himself through the pointy sharp rocks.

Day 12 - Monday (03-03-2008)
We picked up the car and left for the Coromandel Peninsula, which is southeast from Auckland. After a 2 hour drive we stopped in Thames, where an aunt of a friend of Erwin lives. We planned to meet with her and had already to contact her by phone. We weren't able to reach her before, so decided to drop by anyway and see if she was there. When we arrived, we found nobody home, but the neighbour just passed by and informed her that the aunt was gone to Rotorua for a knee surgery (nothing serious tho).

There was nothing more to do, so we continued our drive north to Coromandel Town. There, we checked in a hostel, the Lion's Den, which resembled a small hippy cottage. Shells, fake animals, flowers, sheets with fishy patterns and plants decorated the houses and garden. It was raining by now and we had some quick diner, mingled a little with the other visitors and had a good night's sleep. (At least I did, Erwin had a lousy one).

Day 13
From Coromandel Town we drove along the coast and start to head south again. At Hahei, there's the Hot Water Beach, named because of some thermal spring/volcanic thingy below the surface. As a result, the water below the sand is very hot (60-65 degrees). You hire a shovel, dig a hole and lay in the water and burn your ass. See pic on the right, to see how it's done.

It has been raining all day and we decide to skip the hiking and head straight to Rotorua, our next stop. Here we check in a very nice and layed-back hostel, the Funky Green Voyager. We will be staying in this area for a few days as there's plenty to do around here. We don't really have a clue what to do yet, so that's something we're preparing now. Yay for internet and the Lonely Planet. Anyhow, enough for now, as always some random pics from the last few days:

View during our coastal walk on Waiheke and the boots-that-are-made-for walking.

The original picture of the Hot Water Beach. Apparently, it's only accessible during low tide and we just missed out. So we didn't get to see the Hot Water Beach in real life :(

Meh, the upload speed is horrible here, so I'm not in the mood to upload more pictures.

Oh, so this is how it works

2008-03-01T05:33:00.011+01:00

Last time, I mentioned we were planning on going to Mt. Manaia and I'll continue from there. It's quite a small mountain at about 500 meters high. I must say, it's been the most physical challenge I had since ages. The worst thing was when we were 2/3 way through we crossed two elderly couples on their way down. They seemed relaxed and were having no trouble at all. I on the other hand was breathing my lungs out, sweating all over the place and was clearly in a hell of a lot of pain. Seeing gramps and granny strolling about like a breeze didn't make me feel any better about myself.

After about an hour (seemed a lot longer to me though) we reached the top and the view was well worth the pain. The climb supposedly should take an average person 1 1/2 hours, so I was feeling a bit better about my manliness. ("I feel like a man again" is what I said when realizing we did the climb in under one hour). At the top I was a bit shaky, since I'm a bit afraid of heights and standing on the cliff scared the shit out of me. We took a little nap before going back down and the descend went a lot smoother and we were down in no time.

From Mount Manaia we drove further north to Paihia, a small touristic place at the coast. We found a big but cosy hostel, called the Mousetrap and settled there for the evening. We met some roomies and plan to have some drinks the next night.

The next day, we took the ferry to Russel, which is a small island not far from were we stayed. Russel itself is pretty boring with not much to do, but still a nice play to walk around. We went to the 'famous' Flagstaff hill, which as we later found out, is actually just a flagstaff on a hill, go figure. The picture on the left shows Erwin expressing his love for the flagstaff.

After some walking around and taking a few wrong turns we ended up at some remote beach and had to take a quick dive before going back to Paihia. Back at Paihia we decided to find a nice seafood restaurant and to treat ourselves to some nice seafood instead of our crappy cooking. We found a very nice and fancy restaurant, called Only Seafood, where the average age of the customers was around 60. We had to wait 30 minutes before we were set at a table, but we did get a drink and a look at the menu during our wait. The menu looked really good and we were pretty psyched to order and eat.

Arriving at our table we see Tom (we met him at our hostel), at our table, with two other girls (which we never met). The waitress was in the process of kicking them away from our table, when we recognized him and started to chat. The waitress sees we know Tom and asks us whether we mind if he joins us for diner. Don't get me wrong, it's not like I dislike Tom or the girls, but I don't even know them. At this point I'm really looking forward to enjoy my meal and don't want it ruined, because I have to make forced, tedious and awkward chit-chat with people I don't know. I'm kind of a hermit that way.

Tom understands the situation and proposes to meet up later that evening for some drinks (as we planned the night before). The waitress is oblivious to the hint and can't read my mind, obviously, so proposes to set another three plates, since the table is large enough anyway,..... ifffffff we don't mind that is.

I look over to my left and see that Erwin is thinking the same thing as I do. So I say to the waitress: "Stupid woman, of course it's not alright, make them go away." Naturally, I'm not that rude and direct, so I actually say something like: "Of course, let them join. That'd be great!". One of the girls offers us our last way out, by asking again if we don't mind. I've already given up and Erwin concedes by assuring her it's okay for them to join us.

So Tom (on the right), Aimi (2nd from the right) and Aless (girl in the middle) sat down with us at the table and I'll always remember what Aless's first few words were: "Are you two lovers?"
...
uh
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ehm
...
so much for forced, tedious and awkward :). She was afraid they were imposing on some romantic diner, which besides being considerate, took all my fears of a boring evening away. And as it turned out, they were really really great company. The food was fan-fucking-tastic. The scallops I had as starter were truly superb and the passion fruit cheesecake Erwin had for desert was graded a 'sexual experience' by Aimi (although I think it's because she had lousy men in her past). After diner we went to some pub and had a few drinks and laughs. All in all a great evening and had a fun time meeting new people. Late at night I was thinking to myself: "Oh, so this is how it works and how you mingle and meet other travellers".

The next day, we packed our bags and had to drive back to Auckland. We made a detour through the Wapoua Forest, which is famous for the Kauri trees, which are famous for being big-ass and ancient. We were pretty beat from last day and luckily we didn't have to walk a lot to get to the biggest living Kauri tree in New Zealand. At the bottom of the tree you'll see a quirky guy standing, to give you an indication of how big-ass the tree actually is.

Arriving back in Auckland we went to the same hostel as we went to before. We got some cheap, but very good chinese food before going to bed not long after.

That brings us to today. This morning started with a lot of rain, but luckily stopped at around noon. The bad weather didn't really matter that much, as we didn't plan any sightseeing stuff for today. We wanted to finish our preparations for our trip down south: book a rental car, get me some decent hiking shoes and take care of a ticket from NZ to AU. Erwin is looking at plane tickets now, so I hopefully, mission accomplished by the end of today. Tomorrow we'll spend another day in Auckland and depending on the weather, we'll see what we're going to do. I'm starting to get used to this backpack-way-of-life, just going with the flow and see how things turn out. The day after that we'll pick up the car and start our trip down south. I'll end with some random pictures from the trip till now and will be reporting back when that happens. Cheeeeers for now,

View from Flagstaff hill, Russel

Random view during our ride back to Auckland

Another random view during our ride back to Auckland

Leaving Singapore. NZ, here we come!

2008-02-27T00:09:00.010+01:00

So little time, so much to write.
First of all, guess some family of mine want to read the blog as well, so I'll be switching to English from now on.

Eventually, we were able to meet my uncle and cousin, which was quite fun. We had a big lunch, some chitchat and went back on our way. The day ended pretty quickly with us walking around aimlessly. The other day I got bitten by some Teenage Mutant Ninja Mosquito, itches like a bitch and looks even worse. It actually doesn't look that bad on the picture, it was a bit more swollen in real life. Anyway, it's been a few days already and most of the icky spots are gone already.

At the airport we spewed our last Singapore dollars we had on Burger King, got some other small stuff and boarded the plane. We were seated at the emergency exit, so we had more leg space. Which sounds good in theory, in practice though, the emergency exit is located near the toilets. As a result, every freaking passenger passed besides us and had to wait in front of us (taking our leg room) for they could take a piss. It's unbelievable how many people don't know how to open the toilet door, btw.

Ehm, some other funny things about the flight. The 3rd chair in our row was occupied by a cute (but very fugly) and very timid Japanese chick. She bowed every time you did something. And at I got a US$75 voucher because my TV was supposedly dysfunctional. Not only did my TV work, I got a free massager-thingie worth 72 bucks. Woohoo. Anywayz, on the picture you see Erwin beating my sorry ass at Tetris.

The first two days in Auckland, New Zealand, have been pretty uneventful. Just some resting and figuring out what we're going to do over here. For the third day, we rented a car and started our 4-day trip to the north of Auckland. Not really sure what to expect but the first day (yesterday) was already amazing. The weather's weird tho, great sunny days, with little pissy showers in between. After picking up the car we went to buy some groceries and we met the world famous cricketteer Shane Bond! OMG Shaaaane Bond. No clue who he is, but we told him we were a big fan and we really liked how he was always making those touchdowns and stuff.

After the groceries and Erwin adjusting to driving on the left we headed to Whangerei, some town up north. The town itself was boring ass, but we stopped to rest a bit and find a hostel for that night. The fun stuff started from there, we went to Ocean Beach (about a 30 minute drive) . The view is soooooooooo amazing there. Beach, mountains, trees all coming together. Just some random pictures to give you an idea.

^Pwetty

Me enjoying the view

Fly monkey, fly!

Well that's it for now. We gotta get a move on and are heading to climb Mt. Manaiaiaiaiaiaiaiaiaiaia

Singapore

2008-02-22T14:09:00.006+01:00

Sjooooooo, eerste berichtie uit Singapore. De vlucht is prima verlopen. Tijdens de vlucht zat er een bezopen kerel een aantal rijen voor ons. Om de 5 minuten wilde hij iedereen een hand geven, liefdevol iemand een aai over zijn bol en in het algemeen zijn affectie tonen aan alles wat los en vast zat.
...
Echt zo vervelend.
...
In Singapore aangekomen, zijn we eerst richting mijn oom gegaan, die hier in een restaurant werkt. Eenmaal aangekomen bij het restaurant, komen we erachter dat het restaurant nog niet open is en mijn oom ook nergens te bekennen is. Ondertussen lopen we al een paar uurtjes rond met die gigantische backpack op onze rug. Ben echt zo'n mietje, maar had wel pijntjes in me schouders :)

Na de mislukte poging om mijn oom te bezoeken, zijn we naar onze hostel gegaan. Op het vliegveld, hadden we een adresje gevonden en na wat geloop en gezoek, uiteindelijk goed terecht gekomen bij ons hosteltje, de Prince of Wales. Van buiten en van binnen ziet het er uit als een cheap ass, run down, crappy huisje met een aantal kamers, waar ze 3 stapelbedden in gooien. Perfect voor ons backpackers.

Na even gerust te hebben, laten we onze loodzware backpacks achter en gaan we weer richting stad om een hapje te eten. Na wat uren doelloos rondlopen in Singapore, kom je erachter dat heel de stad een grote mall is. Van de ene ge-airconditionde winkelcentrum loop je naar de volgende. Voor de wat grotere afstanden, pak je de metro, die we nu op ons duimpje kennen.
Tussen de malls door onderbreken we routine en houden een dutje op straat.

Tegen de avond gaan we weer richting onze hostel en in de buurt vinden we een leuk maleis/indiaas tentje waar de locals ook eten. Geen flauw idee, wat de eigenaar brabbelt en met een glimlach laten we ons maar verassen wat we te eten krijgen. Het wordt een roti/pannekoek met hete kip en saus. Eten was errug lekker en vrij pittig. Erwin heeft de dag erna de hele dag met een ass of fire rondgelopen (waar ik wel om kan lachen).

Vandaag zijn we naar Sentosa Island gegaan, wat een hoog Jurassic Parc gehalte heeft. Een treurige nep dinosaurier in het midden van het park en nog triestere stenen boomstammen om de paden 'sfeer' te geven. Gelukkig was het strand wel chill, beetje spijtig alleen dat je als achtergrond 224 olie tankers ziet varen.

Net ergens bij een willekeurige Koreaan gegeten en dan zit de dag er weer bijna op. Morgen gaan we weer proberen om mijn oom te ontmoeten en zullen daar waarschijnlijk gaan lunchen. Verder hebben we niet echt iets van een planning en ik ga nog even een nachtje over slapen of ik wel of niet een laptop ga kopen. Ze zijn hier minder goedkooop dan ik verwachtte en merk dat ik het online zijn toch niet echt mis. Maar goed, I love technology en Mac=lief!

Morgenavond vliegen we naar Nieuw-Zeeland en jullie horen wel weer van me als we aankomen.

Choo-choo

2008-02-19T12:18:00.003+01:00

Vanochtend mijn rijexamen gehaald. Woohoo! De dag is gekomen, dat ik voor de rest van mijn leven mag BOBben. Heb volgens mij nog wel wat ritjes tegoed bij mensen :)

Het jammere is dat ik mijn rijbewijs niet op tijd kan aanvragen/ophalen en dus zonder rijbewijs op reis moet. Nu nog mijn scriptie afmaken, kamer leeghalen, backpack inpakken en op reis. Nog zo'n 23 uur te gaan, moet allemaal wel lukken. Zoals de wijze Little-Engine-That-Could al zei: "I think I can, I think I can - chooooochoooooo"

@Wiel: I beat you, muahahahahaha, LOLLL!!!!1!ONENONEEN

Chinese meisjes

2008-02-11T23:36:00.000+01:00

Geen tijd om meer neer te zetten, maar vond dit wel echt te grappig:

Mooi om te zien dat vooroordelen zo makkelijk de wereld uit geholpen kunnen worden :).