Dave Says:
Consider the value of a dollar. Now consider ten thousand of them. The distance between Vancouver, Canada and Auckland, New Zealand is eleven thousand kilometers. I’m going to round that down to ten thousand kilometers because I’m an international business bigwig to whom one thousand anythings is just a mere rounding error. Here’s some math:
$10,000 / 10,000km = $1 per km
I’ll leave you with that for a moment.
Dave Says:
I have a suntan. I also haven’t shaved for nearly two weeks. Both feel good although the former didn’t feel quite so good at first and the latter is starting to itch so probably won’t feel quite so good for much longer. We leave tomorrow. No doubt my skin is looking forward to that more than the rest of my body. I can hear and see the surf from our little caravan situated in the garden of the hostel we’re staying at in Opotiki. Our friends from Seattle, Kurt and Lisa have joined us. They are on the start of a seven month sabbatical in NZ and coincidences in this small world being what they insist on being, we were able to meet up and enjoy a few days together. They are settling in well to their new adventure and I have stopped baby-sitting them. They didn’t really need me to do that but I can’t help myself. I’m always meddling in other people’s ability to think for themselves. (more…)
Dave Says:
It’s been too long since my fingers put those two words and one punctuation character together. This is a macro blog of a micro trip. But we are back. Back on the road, back in hostels and back in New Zealand. Things are different. Not NZ, that appears to be pretty much intact. But we’re different – circumstances are different. For the record, for posterity and to clear the air of any pretense, I’m here in NZ sucking on the teat of corporate America; sent down under (almost) to sell my company’s wares to corporate New Zealand. In return for the subsidized pleasures of an industrialized road warrior, I/we get a subsidized vacation back to a country we love. I refuse to bore you with the economics of this trip – suffice to say that it actually saved us no money at all but rather financed a luxury beyond a point we would have spent anyway. A last minute plane ticket for Sarah equals the price of two reasonably advanced bookings and three nights of expense account excesses in a major metropolitan city would have been beyond the depth of my wallet or indeed, the willingness of my thrifty fingers to delve in anywhere near to it. To atone for these sins, I sit writing this in our sparse, non-en-suite room in the Raglan Backpacker’s Hostel (albeit on a rather nice MacBook Pro). (more…)
Ultimate Top Five Things We’ll Miss:
Sarah:
1) Kath and Kim (on 3) – An Aussie Sitcom
2) Lunch display cases in cafes
3) Random swims in random places
4) Endless supply of trashy magazines in hostels and cafes
5) Roundabouts
Dave:
1) Roundabouts
2) Free book exchange in hostels
3) Hearing cricket scores on the radio
4) Not seeing the ocean nearly everyday
5) Kath and Kim (on 3)
Ultimate Top Five Things We Won’t Miss
Sarah:
1) Sharing a kitchen
2) People who do not say “Excuse me” before pushing you out the way in stores and on the sidewalk
3) Having flip flops be the dressiest shoes I own
4) Paying $6 for bread and oil in restaurants
5) Having the toilet be in a separate building from the bedroom.
Dave:
1) Restaurant service
2) Having my fleece be my only form of sweater
3) Sharing a kitchen
4) Kiwis talking through movies
5) Beer only comes in a half pint
Ultimate Top Five Things We’ve Done
Sarah:
1) Skydiving
2) Michael Stipe saying he loves me and dedicating Nightswimming to me
3) Flying in a helicopter
4) Zippy’s Chocolate Cake
5) Everything that happened in Nelson including: Saturday market and swimming holes
Dave:
1) Swimming with Dolphins
2) Skydive
3) Macs Brewery tour on my birthday
4) Whitewater rafting
5) Crashing the surf
** Please note: Michael Stipe did not talk to Sarah – she’s having delusions….
Ultimate Top Five Songs Everywhere and Everybody in New Zealand Loves But We Now Hate
1) Wild World – Cat Stevens
2) Hotel California – Eagles
3) Living on a Prayer / Dead of Alive – Bon Jovi
4) Song Sung Blue – Neil Diamond
5) Everything by Donovan Frankenreiter (A Jack Johnson clone)
6) Everything by Jack Johnson (A Donovan Frankenreiter clone)
Ultimate Top Five Reasons We Love Seattle Even More
1) Going down the pub with our friends
2) Quantum
3) Decent restaurant service and prices (especially breakfast/brunch)
4) Darby (our cat)
5) Living in a city
Don’t forget to check out our first gallery and our second gallery and our third gallery and our forth gallery and our fifth gallery and our sixth gallery and our seventh gallery and our eighth gallery and our ninth gallery and our tenth gallery and our eleventh gallery and all our extreme sports mad stuff.
Dave Says:
Well, that’s it. It’s just six hours before we climb aboard the plane and head home. We’ll arrive in Seattle before we left Auckland although I’m sure it will feel as though we left NZ a week ago. In just short of both 90 days and 9000 kilometers I think we’ve just about completed everything. In fact, so much we’re having trouble remembering one town from another and one mountain from another. Here’s some interesting facts for you:
Number of kilometers driven: 8955
NZ$ spent on gas: 810
NZ$ spent on beer and wine: 675
Number of waterfalls seen: 21
Kilograms of supermarket muesli consumed: 12
Number of hours of internet cafe time bought: 25
Number of times “Hotel California” was heard in pubs, shops, cafes and on the radio: 2376
Number of sandfly bites: 65 bites per leg per person (plus assorted assaults on other body parts)
Number of photos taken: 1210
Number of photos in our galleries: 822
Therefore: Number of photos you were spared looking through: 388 (say “thank you”)
the facts go on and on…. look out for out ultimate top five lists in upcoming posts.
What did we learn? What did we discover? Well, that’s for a separate conversation. Lots to talk about over beers and campfires. In the meantime here’s more pictures.
See you in Seattle!!
Don’t forget to check out our first gallery and our second gallery and our third gallery and our forth gallery and our fifth gallery and our sixth gallery and our seventh gallery and our eighth gallery and our ninth gallery and our tenth gallery and our eleventh gallery and all our extreme sports mad stuff.
Sarah says:
Who here either recognizes this meal or, for a bonus point, has actually had this exact plate of goodies:
1. 1 burnt bbq’ed sausage
2. 1 peice of burnt steak
3. rice with curry powder and raisins
4. mix-your-own coleslaw (raw coleslaw veggies and a dollop of mayo on the side)
I said to David at a backpacker bbq, “what a funny meal”. He said, “this is such a typical British bbq meal. I’ve had the exact thing many times.”
Mmm, yum.
Don’t forget to check out our first gallery and our second gallery and our third gallery and our forth gallery and our fifth gallery and our sixth gallery and our seventh gallery and all our extreme sports mad stuff.
Dave says:
We’ve been heading south and south and south. We’ve been to the most southerly part of the south island, then headed north to the south pole.
In the southern hemisphere south doesn’t mean more warmth. The further south we headed the worse the weather became. All the way down the west coast the weather is affected by a mountain range just a few kilometers from the ocean so it does nothing but rain, then you get a little break in Queenstown only to pick up the crappy weather as you head towards the armpit of New Zealand, the depressing town of Invercargil.
In one way Invercargil should be marveled because it’s founders had the ambition to design a flat town laid out in a grid with wide streets and grand Victorian building facades. Engravings on the facades proudly exclaim the businesses that owned them and the buildings are named after important people of the time. And then people just stopped coming to town and the buildings now lie in a state of Victorian decay. Dirty crumbling plaster and rusting ornaments adorn these once proud buildings as they sit on those massive but almost deserted streets. It’s all very depressing and we were glad to only be staying for a night. We went to the movies – that was about all there was to do!!
Next we headed to The Catlins where we found Slope Point, the most southerly part of the southern island. We saw some more bloody waterfalls and took a walk in field with a bunch of sheep. Please note. Sheep look cute at one end and completely lack any form of personal hygiene at the other.
Next we went to Dunedin. Surprisingly this was better than we expected. Here we found the best “alternative” area of all the cities we’d visited. The street we stayed on was like Seattle’s Broadway/The Ave/Fremont. Record stores, cheap eats, funky shopping etc. Strange this little city beats Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch for being hip and cool. We took a creepy night time tour around all of Dunedin’s murder and ghost spots. It was refreshing to hear doom and gloom!!
Next we turned north and headed to the south pole. Well, actually we went to the Antarctic Research Center in Christchurch. Here we learned all about the cool scientific work that goes on in the south pole and how they get the people and equipment there. We even went into this snow chamber where they turn on massive fans so visitors can feel what a minus 25 degree Celsius Antarctic wind storm feels like. It’s cold let me tell you.
Next was a visit to the Christchurch speedway. That was fun. Loud cars zooming around a muddy track whilst the redneck population of the area drank bad beer through the gaps in their teeth. We were covered in mud and partially deaf at the end of the evening but it was $15 well spent and I’m certain we were the only tourists there.
Now we’re in Kaikoura and killing an hour before we swim with the dolphins. Whether the dolphins want to swim with us remains to be seen.
Don’t forget to check out our first gallery and our second gallery and our third gallery and our forth gallery and our fifth gallery and our sixth gallery and our seventh gallery and all our extreme sports mad stuff.