End of the New Zealand Travels

Well friends and family, my travels are done for my New Zealand portion of my holiday! It has been a great year and I have done things and seen things that I never thought I would. And now, I am off to see Australia and what it has to offer, if only for a few weeks. But, instead of waste my last few days getting ready to leave this wonderful country, I took one of the greatest hikes in the world that I have lived only 1 hour from for the past 3 months. It is called the Tongariro Crossing and is about an 8 hour hike, 17 km, through a few mountains. It is more popular to do it in the summer-time so there is no snow, but we did it with the snow and it was awesome. It starts out with a walk through a lava-formed valley next to an active volcano, called Mt. Ngauruhoe, better known to people as Mt. Doom, from Lord of the Rings! We then climbed up a pretty rough, steep grade to get to almost the top of the climb where there is what looks like a plain, but is actually a huge crater. Walking through it was really neat, being surrounded by more mountains and also pretty easy on the mostly hard snow. It was also pretty warm, as the clouds were clearing and the sun came out, with most of the clouds behind us. We then go to another rough hike where we had to use our ice-axes to climb the ridge. Luckily there was a group ahead of us aways, so they made footings so we didn't need to use our cramp-ons. When we got to the top of this, we walked a little further to see the part know as the red crater. It's another crater that has rich, red dirt and also rich green in spots. Continuing up, we got to the peak of the hike, the summit of one of the mountains. From here we could see what looks like hundreds of miles all around us in all directions. It was basically one of those views that you can't really capture with a camera and have to see for yourself to fully appreciate it! Then came a fun part of the hike, starting on our downward ascent. Since it was winter-time and there was plenty of snow, we were able to sit on "magic carpets", which were just plastic tarps, and slide down the hill to a large plain. When at the bottom, we all had lunch and got our energy back up next to the Emerald Lake, which is a crater lake that has water that is a beautiful emerald color. Good name for it! We then kept on our journey across the plain and around a mountain to the top of a hill where we were able to slide down again. This time weeving around large holes in the snow and rocks and such. It was also about 3 times longer to get to the bottom where there was a hut that we took a rest at. Then came the not so exciting part of the crossing when we went downhill the rest of the way through a well-used trail and uneven steps that almost hurt my feet at times. I think this was mostly due to the fact that my rental hiking boots had filled with snow from sliding down.

And so, I now leave New Zealand to go to Australia in the morning to hopefully travel for about a month before heading back to the states! Thanks to everyone who helped me in the way of sending cards, gifts, money, and even just talking to me occasionally via phone, emails, text messages, and instant messages! If anyone is ever considering coming here make sure to talk to me for recommendations and such. If not coming to New Zealand, I would say that everyone should get away from their homes for awhile to see another part of the world and experience different cultures. I will keep everyone posted on my travels in OZ.

Fire

This past week in our new hometown of Ohakune has been an interesting one. We were all settled into our new home when disaster struck! I had come home early from work because I could at about 7:30 pm and Vicki and Meaves (the guy who lives in the bus behind us and shares our house) where about to go to one of our friends house for a little bit, so I decided to go with them. About an hour later, we left so that we could get home and watch our Monday night TV shows, Desperate Housewives, Grey’s Anatomy, and Nip/Tuck. It was at this time that we opened the door to our house to find that it was filled with smoke. At first, Meaves, Annie, and I tried to go in to see what the smoke was all about, but Annie had to turn around because the smoke was too thick. So, Meaves and I ran in to try to open the door on the other side of the house to get the smoke out. Meaves couldn’t get the door open so he went to putting the fire out that was next to the pot belly stove. I kept trying to open the door and finally got the stupid lock to unlock and opened the door after what seemed like a few minutes. All along this time, Meaves and I probably took in quite a bit of smoke, which didn’t feel very good the rest of the night. Just after I got the door open, Meaves got the open flames out and we opened up the rest of the doors and windows of the house to get the smoke out. While all this was going on, Annie was calling the fire brigade. The volunteer fire brigade siren then went off and about 8 minutes after the fire was out, 2 fire trucks arrived on the scene(little overkill if you ask me). By this time, we were all standing outside freezing and wandering what had happened. After about an hour, the fire brigade had done their work of hosing, axing and chainsawing through the floor where the fire was, as well as crawling into our ceiling and doing a lot of standing around since there was about 16 of them.

So, the fire chief then told us what he thought had happened. We (mostly me though) had clothes hanging up on the drying rods behind and to the right of the pot belly stove. What they think happened is that a piece of clothing got too hot (which were wet before I left) and fell onto the stove and wood pile. This eventually caught fire, which caught the woodpile on fire, which then caught the rest of the clothes and our box of fire starting papers on fire. This then burnt through the floor and that is when we got home. We found out the next day that if we had been in the house just a few minutes later, the gases in the ceiling would have exploded from the heat and blown all the windows and probably killed Meaves and I! So, that was comforting and I might not ever run into a smoke filled house again. Of course, when this happened, I wasn’t really thinking much about this and it was more instinctive. It also appears that the drying rods that are on the wall are illegal as well as the stone pad underneath the stove, which is supposed to be a foot bigger in all directions. This makes me wonder what else in this shed is not up to code too!

I must say though, this is my first house burning incident and it’s amazing what a fire that size can do! First of all, our entire house reeked of smoke for a few days. Then, everything in the house is covered in soot and is pretty hard to clean off of the walls and such. There are other things that have happened that are weird too. The window on one door is cracked from the heat, which makes me believe the exploding house theory. Also, there is a “No Smoking Please” sign that was untouched and was right next to the fire, but posters and a calendar across the room were wrecked. So, this is our third day of pretty full-on cleaning and we hope to be moved into our house again tonight, as Meaves has been kind enough to let us all sleep in his house-bus with him. We have had to wash everything we own, along with all the beddings and stuff, which will, in some ways, make this place cleaner that before we moved in, sans the walls and ceiling. It also appears that we will no longer have the pot belly stove and they will be replacing the ceiling and the worst of the walls. The worst part for me though is that I lost half of my clothing, much of which was my favorite warm socks, favorite t-shirts, expensive chef clothing, and a pair of jeans. On the good side though, I should be completely covered and reimbursed through my travelers insurance!!

So let this be a lesson to you, my friends. Don’t run into burning buildings, don’t smoke, get insurance, make sure to have smoke alarms (we didn’t, but do now) and extinguishers, and Desperate Housewives saved our house from exploding!

The Great Move

Well my friends, I have again moved on to different things in my life. Last weekend, we moved from the busy, large city of Wellington to the little city of Ohakune. We of course had ourselves a going away party which was very fun the day before we left, which probably was not a very smart thing to do. We discovered this the next day when we awoke to a mess and had to clean the entire house so we could get our deposit back for the house. We also had to be to Ohakune by 10pm to get into the hostel we were staying at, but were 2 hours late, which ended up being fine. A few weeks prior to this, the four of us (which now includes me, Annie, Chris, and the new member being our British friend, Vicki) purchased a car together. The car is a white 1989 Mazda 323 and as soon as we bought it, we had to get almost the entire brake system replaced, which was another $600 on top of the $600 for the car. But, oh well, we will sell the car for more and so far it has been very nice to have our own car, even if we do share it between the 4 of us!

So, here I am in Ohakune now. We have gone from a town where we have everything like 5 grocery stores, over 100 restaurants, multiple movie theatres, and everything is open late, if they close at all, to a town where they have a single screen movie theatre open on the weekends, one grocery store, around a dozen restaurants/bars, about 5 liquor stores, and most things except the bars close at 7 or 8pm. So, we were spoiled! But, in a week or so, the town of around 2,000 people will become overpopulated with people coming to ski or snowboard, as this is the base town of Mt. Raupehu and the Turoa skifield the largest skifields in New Zealand. By the way, Mt. Raupehu is actually a volcano that last erupted only 10 years ago! Ohakune is also the carrot growing capital for New Zealand and it is kind of funny to walk down the street and see a parked pickup full of carrots in their driveway or even a semi drive down the road full of carrots. For those of you who I email somewhat often, talk to online, or even call, things might change a bit. There are 2 main reasons for this. The first is that internet is quite expensive here, at $7 to $9 per hour. Secondly, I don’t have a landline anymore, so if I want to call anyone, I have to make a trek into town, and remember that it is winter here and very cold!

Now onto my new job. I actually haven’t started working yet, so I’ve not done too much the last week. Fortunately though, I emailed the head chef at a place called the Powderhorn Chateau. This is made of the Chateau, which is some really nice lodges for skiers and vacationers, and is actually where Peter Jackson stayed during filming for Lord of the Rings while in these parts, and I have seen his room that was made for him and is is awesome! The other parts of the place are the Matterhorn Restaurant, which is a more upper class restaurant, and the Powderkeg, which is the busier of the 2 and where most people go to. So, I emailed the chef a few weeks ago, looking for work and he responded that he was interested and wanted me to do a trial. So, I found that I actually couldn’t make the trial but he was sweet with that and just put me on the roster anywhase, so that when I arrived here in Ohakune, I was already set to start working this weekend and for the mountain skiing opener.

Finally, we have found a place to live! The first day we stayed at the hostel and spent the day looking for a housing in the town, mainly so that the 4 of us could live together, but we were open to some other options too. Since we had a sign posted up in the grocery store a month prior to getting here, we got some responses from people who maybe had an opening at a lodge or whatnot. So, after many disappointments of looking at houses or calling on ads that where posted but filled, we got a call from a place and decided to check it out. We laughed as soon as we got to the place because it is not exactly the nicest place and looks like a shed. The place has basically one communal room that we all share with 8 beds, 2 of which are doubles, so the four of us each get a bed to sleep and one to put our clothes and stuff on. But, there is also a bathroom and another large living room and kitchen and is fully furnished. The place is heated with either the space heaters in our bedroom, or a wood burning pot belly stove in the living room, which works pretty well, when it doesn’t leak if the fire isn’t burning! Also, there is another guy, my age, Stephen, that lives out back in a trailer and uses our kitchen/living room to hang out in. Almost forgot about the cats! Apparently, we have been told that there are cats that live in the roof of the garage, but we haven’t seen or heard the yet and neither has Stephen, so we don’t know if they are actually there now. So, now that some of you may feel a little bad for me now, don’t worry, I am doing just fine. The place is very cozy and we are actually all looking forward to living here a bit and it is only for almost 3 months! Besides, I haven’t even told you the best part about the place! One thing there is no deposit and another thing is that to pay for rent for one week, I only have to work maybe 4 hours in a week because the rent is only $40 per week per person!!! So, because of that huge factor, I can now afford to buy my ski pass, rent some clothing/equipment, and save up for traveling and plane tickets to come home!!

Holiday with the Rents!

When I last left you the other day, I had just spent the night at the Rolling Stones concert and was awakening to see my parents for the first time in 7 months, picking them up from the airport in Wellington! I should start out first by saying that it was really nice to see them again in my new temporary home!

When the rents (that's short for parents) first got here off their 20-some-hour plane ride, they really wanted food and showers, which I understood! After they had done all to make them feel better, I took them out to the city to show them where I have been the past 6 months, seeing all the sights and such. I also took them to the two places that I spend time at, occupational-wise(This being Olive Cafe and VIVO wine bar/restaurant). At both places, we had dinner (on separate nights) and had probably the best service available in the country, along with excellent meals. Also, the staff discounts came in handy! So, I was able to show my parents a good few days in Welly to start off the trip, trying new foods and seeing new things. Also, I was translator for them, translating New Zealand accent, which I am accustomed to now, to American!

After a few days in Wellington, we took the ferry to go to the South Island to Picton. There, we right away took a boat tour of the Marlborough Sounds for a few hours. We made a few stops with the boat, dropping off supplies and people and also picking up the like at the same time along the way to the many beautiful, remote resorts that are all along the Sounds. We didn't get to see any dolphins, as I was hoping, but did see some salmon farms, which are apparantly huge productions in the area, along with some lovely sights and weather.

The next day, we headed down the East Coast to the city of Kaikoura, where we were to have our next adventure of whale watching! Kaikoura is an awesome city with great scenary that is apparantly a year-round home to many Sperm Whale, the largest toothed mammal in the world. It also has many other cool wildlife like Albatross, a giant seagull-like bird, dolphin, Orca, and other whale varieties. We didn't see all of these animals, but did see the Giant Albatross, which have a huge wing-span, and the Sperm Whale. We all boarded on a big boat to start, that took us out a few kilometers into the ocean where the water was real deep. They then used sonar devices to find the sperm whale, which usually would surface and then dive to the bottom and stay below for around 45 minutes before re-surfacing. In total, we saw 3, seeing one of the whales twice, which they actually knew and had a name for, and was known to be the largest sperm whale in the area. It was really neat seeing the giant whales, which we got within 50 yards or so of, seeing them spew the water from their blowholes and then flipping their tale up before diving straight down in the water for another 45 minutes.

After our awesome whale-watching experience, we headed further down the East Coast, spending a night in Christchurch, before we arrived at Mt. Cook National Park a few days later. On a kinda side-note, we were fortunate enough to meet someone that was part of the Imperial Russian Army at our hostel, which was apparantly a guy who was away from his home of Dunedin (here in New Zealand) and dressed up to go out on the town at night, conquering many-a-bars! So, back in the beautiful Mt. Cook National Park. Here, we took a little break from driving (which I was the only one that did so, not complaining though) everyday and spent the next two nights in our little cabin, which looked directly out the front door to Mt. Cook itself! The first evening we went into the village of Mt. Cook and took a look around at the different places and what there was to do for the following day. The following day, we awoke to weather that was a little misty/rainy at times, but not too cloudy to not see the mountains, thankfully. We did on hike that day that lead us up to a glacier coming down from Mt. Cook and took us over a raging river, over two swingbridges, nearly right up to the mountain itself. It was a really neat walk with a lot of great sights. Occasionally too, we heard sounds which simply sounded like a jetplane was flying overhead, echoing through the valleys, but was actually little avalanches that happened a lot of then mountains. After getting a little wet from the rain, we had a little lunchbreak in a hut on the trail and then headed back to the car where we drove a little further out of the village to a short hike to see the Tasman Glacier, which is the largest glacier in the world, being up to 7500 feet thick. At this time though, it was getting cold and dark, so we headed into the village for hot drinks before spending our last night there and heading to the West Coast the following day.

After our drive from Mt. Cook, we arrived at Franz Josef. Here we saw the Fox Glacier, which was neat to see it breaking apart and thundering at times. It was also really cool for me to see it again, as this time was completely different! The first time I saw it, we took a different road and ended up seeing it from a far distance, where as this time we were able to walk within maybe 100 yards of the terminal face, and probably could have gone right up to it if we had been daring enuogh to cross the thin yellow rope holding us back. But, we weren't, so we used the zoom on the cameras to appear that we were closer than we were in reality. After seeing the Fox Glacier, we saw the Franz Josef Glacier the next day. Again, I had been here before, but again it was a little different. There is a river that seems to always lead from the terminal face of glaciers, and this time it was raging a little more and had actually recently flooded and changed the layout of the land a bit. So, this time, we were much further away at first, but were daring enough to cross the first set of yellow ropes holding us back and take the hike across the valley where then just my dad and I crossed the second set of thin yellow ropes to climb a ladder atop a slick rock to get a better view of the terminal face. Being earlier in the day, we could see some people that were taking guided tours on the glacier itself, which is when you can really see the immense size of the glacier itself, when the people are just little blue dots walking around. So, after our daring breaking of the rules, we headed further up the beautiful west coast to the city of Westport.

While in the area of Westport, the weather turned for the better and so we decided to do more sightseeing. Before heading out of town, we went to a fur seal colony. It was really neat to see almost 100 fur seals, some little pups jumping around and playing, and some really big, not really moving much at all. We then did some backtracking to Punakeiki to see the Pancake Rocks, which are limestone rocks that look like pancakes and the water rushes through them, often shooting up looking like blowholes. The trick is to see this area at high tide, but we were there an hour or two after, but it was still a fun sight to see and we did see some waters raging on through the formations. After we left, we headed back north taking our time, making a few stops for a short walk and some picture shooting before getting into Picton. Once in Picton, we looked at taking a ferry back to Wellington, and found that there was one leaving in 15 minutes. Hearing that, we ran out unpacked our stuff from the rental car and literally had to run back onto the ferry. This time though, the ferry ride wasn't as nice and calm as other times and the seas where a little rough. But we all withstood it and didn't get sick at all!

Back on the North Island, we again spent a two more days in Wellington to do laundary and such. We then left my home to go further north to Napier. Napier is part of the Hawkes Bay region, which is a large wine area, so naturally I thought it best to visit some of the wineries that I have previously been to. Normally, the area is beautiful, along the ocean with lots of nice scenary and views of great vineyards, but it was rainy the entire time we were here, so we didn't get to see as much as I would have liked for my parents. We did, however, go to three wineries to sample their wines and see what they had to offer! My parents, especially my dad, seemed to enjoy all the wines, which I explained was because they were good quality wines, not just really cheap wines, which can be hit-or-miss.

After visiting some of the wineries and seeing Hawkes Bay, we headed to Taupo for a day. The weather finally started to get better and was sunny by the time we actually got to Taupo. In Taupo, we went to see same rapids and waterfalls at Huka Falls, where we also go to see a jetboat. In the area, we also walked around a thermal park, called Craters of the Moon, where it was much like Yellowstone Park, only there wasn't as many mudpools as I hoped, but mostly a lot of holes in the ground, with some bubbling water and a lot of steam in the area.

After a day in Taupo, we started our way back to Wellington, taking our time again. On the way back, I took my rents to Whakapapa, on Mt. Ruapehu, where I spent Easter, and possibly hoped to work for the winter. Whakapapa, by the way, is pronounced Fakapapa, where the 'wh' is always pronounced 'f' in names of things here in New Zealand, which I don't know why. We did a few walks at the base of the mountain and spent a little time in the village there. While there, I actually filled out an application at the Grand Chateau, to be a chef. The Grand Chateau actually seems to almost own most of Whakapapa, having 4 restaurants in the area and is itself an immense building that holds 2 of the reastaurants and is a hotel. About 20 minutes later, I recieved a call from them for an interview, which I appeared for and apparantly went well. After my little ordeal, we continued on our way back to Wellington. Back in Wellington, I spent the day again going around to shops and stuff with the rents before I had to say goodbye to them again at the airport, where I don't expect to see them again for another six months or so.

So, in final words, I really want to thank my parents for visiting and helping me experience things with them that I had hoped to do. Also, sorry if I appeared annoyed with you at times, but I really did enjoy your stay and will be home for the holidays this winter!!

Easter In The Mountains

This week in Davey's blog, we travel back about 2 1/2 weeks in time, to Easter weekend, 2006. Since I am away from home for all of these holidays, I have had the chance to spend them with my friends over here in the NZ, along with other people that have taken us in as well. In this case, Chris' boss and his friend took us all to spend the weekend in an awesome large chalet on Mt. Ruapeho, the tallest peak on the north island and a volcano that has erupted 10 years ago. Not being quite winter yet here, there wasn't a ton of snow around us, but higher up on the peak there was plenty, and of course it got pretty cold up there.

While everyone else sat around the chalet and enjoyed the cloudy cold weather, Greg(Chris' boss, mine too kinda) and I went flyfishing. For any of you who know stuff about flyfishing, you may or may not know the name Taurangi, or the Tongariro River. Taurangi is the flyfishing capitol of the world and the Tongoriro is the river that runs through it. Also, this flyfishing was a bit different from what I have done before in South Dakota. The water rushed quite rapidly and sometimes it was too difficult to cross the water that was stomach-depth. Greg, by the way was a great teacher to me, teaching me how to set up the rigs and little techniques and such. So, we spent the first whole day out on the rivers and such but with not much luck at all, but did have beautiful weather. I actually only caught one rainbow trout that day and Greg caught about 6 rainbows, and they were all pretty small. He did catch one that would be a good size trout in SD, but here it was on the small size of average, he said, which surprised me. The next day, we all got out and went to spend a part of the day on a small lake. There, we all took turns going out, in groups of 3-4, onto the lake in a rowboat and dragging a few fish lines. Again, no one caught a thing. We also spent a little time biking around the property there and such. I actually got to chase some sheep, along with a few cows, on a mountain bike!! I will admit though, that I may or may not have ACCIDENTALLY caused harm to a few sheep. You see, I was chasing after them (and some of you may know that it is a life-dream of mine to wrestle a sheep, so this is getting closer) and then I realized that the gate was closed ahead of them and they all ran towards the corner of the gate and fence, which may or may not have been electric, which may or may not have been on, and there may or may not have been a sheep that got caught in the fence. So, I did in fact feel a little bad about the whole ordeal, but still had fun! After this little adventure, we were all a little cold, so we went to a restaurant/hotel thing that had a swimming pool, where we spent a little time and ordered a few drinks, that we forgot to pay for! Oops. The very next day, Greg and I were up around 4:30 am, to pack up to leave the chalet before everyone else and do some more fishing. The moon at this time was a little less visual and more cloudy, so the fish seemed to be a little more active. I again only caught one small fish, but in less time. I did see 2 good size trout, which will be posted on my pix sight, that one guy caught. Also, Greg caught more fish that day, but apparantly still not up to par for the river. Around midday that day though, we all headed back home to Welly, runnning into the worst traffic jam I have ever encountered. It took us about 6 hours to get home and should have only been about 3 hours. We actually were fortunate to spend at least 1 1/2 hours in a certain town, moving only about 1 or so in that time! But, we all made the most of it, certain people doing their duty to moon Kiwi Experience, a tour bus, along with 2 stupid ladies that were trying to cut us off! (sorry mom/dad)

Back to Wellington again, the fun wasn't quite over for me! I was fortunate enough to get free tickets to see The Rolling Stones, with Nickleback opening for them! Actually, the tickets weren't exactly free. I did, or rather still do, have to work them off for Greg, by working/cooking in his kitchen for free for 3 days, but I feel that it is worth it! So, we all got shuttled to the concert, which is in an open-top stadium and got there just in time to hear the last 2 songs of Nickleback. Me and Amanda (Gregs daughter) were seated to the left of the stage, eight rows back, so we had great seats, but it just wasn't good enough! We attempted to move closer to the center of the stage a few times, but didn't have much luck, as the security was not letting anyone go anywhere, even dance in the aisles or stand on their chairs. But, even with the resistance, we were able to get about 2 rows closer and 1 section closer in to the center, standing in fron of a drunk lady that was almost passed out in her seat! Anywhase, the concert was pretty sweet, lasting 2 hours with the Stones. Also, at one point, part of the stage that the drumset was on, along with Mick and Keith, moved from one end of the stadium to the other side on some sort of motorized catwalk. This was pretty cool and all, but was the only time of the concert when I couldn't see them clearly, but they were only there for about 2 songs. The next morning, I was off to pick up my parents from the airport!!

Holiday from Windy Welly!!

Well everyone, it's been awhile since I last let most of you know what is going on in my side of the world. This past week, Lindsey, who is the sister of Chris and Annie here, came to visit us so we all went on a little vacation around the north island with her. It was really nice for myself, because this is pretty much the first time of getting out of the Wellington city area since we moved here, 5 months ago! So, I was excited to get out of here and get a little break from the routine of work and play around home.

We started the trip off by renting a car for 5 days and then driving to Taupo, where we didn't really go out and do much of anything the first day, since it seems like the country is shut down on Sunday afternoons. The next day though, we had plans for Chris, Lindsey, and I to go skydiving. As most of you know, this would be mine and Chris' second jump out of a perfectly good plane and Lindsey's first. As a side note too, I haven't flown much and I believe have been in 5 planes that I can remember. This would mean that I would jump out of 2 of those, so the average of me doing that is nearly half, which to most people may be a little different. Anywhase, we arrived at the skydive place, the same one that I was at before and we found that we would have to wait for about 1 1/2 hours to jump, which is really great when you are nervous, which just lets the anxiety build up!! So, as we were waiting around talking about dieing (sorry about the spelling, Heidi?), I was feeling nervous, but actually not as much as the first time. I then got suited up into the jump suit, harness, and a life jacket pouch, which I don't know what good it would do down around my waist. After that, I got to meet my tandem master, which was a Swedish guy by the name of Patrick and has done over 5,000 jumps! We then boarded the plane, with me being the last to jump, Lindsey the first, and Chris in the middle. Once the plane took off of the ground and we were making our way up to jump height, I lost all nervousness and felt fine, ready for the jump this time! Once we got up just before 12,000 feet, something interesting and a little nerve-racking happened. The jump signal light at the back of the plane turned green, so up the door went, with Lindsey and her camera-man to jump first and out they went. But, little did they know that everyone in the plane was yelling at them telling them not to jump, waving their arms at them, because the green light changed to red. There was then talk about whether or not there was a plane underneath us, but Lindsey made it fine, so their fears were kinda for nothing! The door then went up again for the real 12,000 foot green light jump. It was really neat this time for me, because I was more aware of what was going on and got to see everyone else get sucked out of the plane and see how much the plane shakes when 300-400 pounds leave the plane at a time, which is kinda a lot. It then came to just before my turn, and my tandem master was kind enough to lean way over out the door as the person in front of me went out, so I was just staring straight down at the ground. Then came my turn to jump so we moved up to the edge, smiled for the camera, and out we went, doing a backflip as I had requested!! It was incredible again, flying in the air at more than 200 km/h. I even steared us a bit with my arms towards different directions, which I thought was really cool. The freefall was really cool, being over the water this time and seeing the different colors, feeling again like it lasted longer than about 45 seconds. Then around 5,000 feet, Patrick pulled the chute, which apparently takes about 1,000 feet to open up. Then, just pure silence again, except for when we spoke, as we floated down until we landed, not quite as softly as I had the first time. So, safely on the ground again, I felt the rush again, from just getting hurled at the ground from a perfectly good plane, and we all left the place feeling pretty good! While in Taupo, we decided to take Lindsey and throw her off of a bridge! So, we went to a place where they can actually make you hit the water and submerge you if you wanted, so Lindsey walked to the edge of the bridge all alone, with no waiting and as much anxiety as when we all jumped the Nevis! She then jumped after the count-down, about 43 meters in the air and mostly just got her arms dipped in the water. After she got dried off and such, we headed to smelly Rotorua for the night.

The next day in Rotorua, it was Annie's birthday!!!! So, we went out to a nice cafe of her choice, with delicious food. We then headed out to do some more fun stuff. We first went to the Zorbing place again for Lindsey, as we had all already done it before, but Lindsey had fun, I think rolling around in the hampster ball. We then headed to do some luging again! We all did this again, because it's pretty cheap for a lot of luging and a gondola ride. It all went pretty well this time, with no major crashes, except that Annie had a mishap once or twice, apparently not being able to stand up quick enough, before the conveyor belt took away her sled! It even started to rain again while we were luging, which made the track nice and slick and more dangerous!! Unfortunately though, it also becomes a lot colder, so when we were done, we went into the cafe they had and got ice cream cones and hot food!! We then did a little shopping and headed back to our car and back to Taupo. On the way, since we were all still cold and feeling numb in places, we decided to stop by a naturally heated pool, since Rotorua area has heaps of hotpools and geothermal stuff. So, we sat in the pools, which were basically like hot tubs, just without the bubbles and jets and such, for awhile, warming up quite nicely! We then arrived in Taupo where we had another nice birthday dinner for Annie and then went to quiz night at the Irish bar. This actually ended up being pretty lame and we left before we found out who won, but started talking to some people who were at their brand new Turkish-themed(?) restaurant and they invited us in, where we talked about stuff like their restaurant, home,hukas, and such that you would over a nice Guinesse and delicious cake!

The next day, we headed out to the Napier/Hastings area, which is famous for all of it's wineries. We spent the whole day driving around to about 7 different wineries and sampling all the different wines. I probably tried about 30-40 different wines, and purchased 4 bottles of nice wine, which some of you may be lucky enough to try when I return home with them. Some of the wineries that we tried and some of you may want to look up were: Eske Valley, Mission Estate, Vidal Wines, Te Mata (which makes good cheeses too), Black Barn, Clearview Estates, and Alpha Domus. We then headed back to our hostel and headed back home to work and the usual stuff the next day.

New Job!!

Well everyone, it's been awhile since I blogged to you all. Nothing extrememly exciting has happened for awhile though. The weather has been beautiful lately, with temperatures in the 80's and maybe even reaching the 90's at the hottest part of the day, so days off are usually enjoyable. I've been kept real busy at the Dockside restaurant, working 50-60 hours per week, constantly doing near 14 hour shifts everyday, with few breaks. Normally, I wouldn't actually mind this, because it's nice to make money, but this is a working Holiday for me so I don't need to work that much, but need to enjoy myself! At least that's how I feel. The Christmas holiday season is mostly over now though, so the restaurant isn't doing it's usual 200+ covers in a service, but back to the normal 100 or so covers. So, I thought that this might be a good time to get out while I can.

So, today I started my first day at the Olive Cafe (NOT Olive Garden, which is not in this country at all!!), in downtown Wellington. I did a trial the other day for them and they called me the next day and asked me to work there, so I talked to Dockside and finished up there. So, I haven't worked there more than 2 days, but I already am very happy with the place. It seats about 70 people when the restaurant is full inside and seating outside is full as well, but apparently this does not happen most the time. The kitchen is fairly small, with only 2 cooks working at a time, me (I?) being one of them. I have not actually seen a night service or menu yet, so I can only speak for the morning and lunch time, which I will be working for a little while until I get the menu down and then move on to the night menu so I know EVERYTHING. The menu has some brunch items on it, along with sandwiches and baked goods that I help make. There are also a few different salads that they offer, along with a fish, lamb, soup, and usually another special dish of the day. The food is all pretty good though, and when I tell people where I work, they recognize it as a very nice cafe that they like. Some things I really notice that are different though, is the atmosphere of the cafe, compared to Dockside. I really enjoy that the chefs don't yell at people and it is much quieter in the kitchen, making it much less stressful, although I do enjoy that environment sometimes, but don't want it here in New Zealand. Anywhase, it is nice to have a job right now that is a lot more easy going and I am noticed more and get to use good ingredients. It's also nice to have a fresh produce market right next door, in case we run out of something and need it on the fly! So if you are in the area, make sure to stop in and get a coffee or wine and some good food!