why, why … WHY! did no one tell me the awful horrible, painful, utterly unbelievable news!??! There are NO dill pickles in New Zealand. None, Zero, Ziltch, Nada, – the end of Kirsten is Neigh.

Oh yes, they have gross nasty “Bread and Butter” pickles, and Gherkins, but no delicious salty crunch of a delectable dill. What is wrong with the world that New Zealand doesn’t know the joy of sticking a fork into a fresh jar of pickles and fishing around until you “hook the big one” then the delightfully satisfying crunch as you bite down. *sigh*

Sadly this pickle famin seems to extend to the UK as well as none of my friends know what I’m talking about either.

Some one come and bring me pickles. please!

But nothing will speak to the contentment I’ve found in this town more then it’s looks…

now if only I could tear myself away from spending relaxing days in the grass by the water and actually apply for jobs then I can make my want to stay here a reality!

I’m still alive from my Canyon Swing but it was honestly one of the scarier things I’ve ever done. I decided to do 2 jumps; first Backwards, then “Gimp boy goes to Hollywood” which is upside-down.

As you can see in the video I was absolutely freaking out about jumping off! I think the backwards was scarier then forwards because you can’t see anything. The jump-masters were excellent with a wonderful brand of “Psyche you the hell out” humour, with comments like “oh… why did you put THAT harness on her.. it looks a little too big” to “I’m not sure if this rope will hold you” you couldn’t help but try to muster out a laugh.

I almost didn’t launch myself off the pad you may be able to hear me asking “just hold on then let me go” this is because I wanted him to hold on to me and tip me backwards and let go because I was afraid to jump by myself. But I did it!!!  After confirming several times that “ok.. I just lean.. and jump.. right? lean…. and jump” My eyes look like they’re going to pop out of my head!

Well it was so fantastic I did it twice! This time upside down… I could see a rock just off to my side while I was suspended it was so close I felt Like I could touch it.

“just let us know when you wan……..” thanks. haha.

I think that backwards was defiantly scarier on a personal level, having to be the person to jump and being dumb enough to do it. But Gimp boy was more fun to do because seeing the ground rush up at you like that was intense!

…So even though it’s snowing here (Snowing in Spring? just like home) I’m on a huge Adrenaline rush and having an awesome time (as always)

Being as it was Halloween night, the theme was… yep… Halloween. but with a twist, it was “playboy Halloween”… thank you horny Irish guys at the back of the bus for that one!

basically the idea is the bus gets dropped in a little town just north of the Mahinapua pub and gets 2 hours to assemble their costume… insert crazy running around small town here… we all load back on the bus and depart to the “poo pub”

I decided I was going to be a shower… aaaaaaand be showering in it all naked, keeping with the playboy theme?

$30 and A LOT of duct tape and help from my brother constucting something to keep the shower on later we have the result…

the rest of the group and our bus driver Dylan bringing up the front

apparently the result was good enough for me to win First place! The Prize? a free Canyon Swing; New Zealand seems to be the land of a multitdue of interesting and scarey ways to try to kill yourself.

So I’m doing tha tomorrow, and i’m thinking of doing it “pin drop” style… might as well go for gold eh?

I’m in Queenstown now and the reality that soon Kiwi Experience and playing around having fun will soon be over is setting in. It’s going to be time to settle, find a job, and get moving. *sigh*

What follows will probably be the geekiest post ever but to put in in non-geek terms I will put the photos of the scenes from the movies beside the pictures I took… because as I understand for some reason not everyone is as obsessed with Lord of the Rings as I am! 

We started off the morning in a park just North of Wellington which was the site for the tower of Isengard and the garden of Isengard

Gardens of Isengard

The park was actually quiet happy to have the movie filmed there and didn’t want to take away the path to Isengard, but because of the contract they signed with the government of NZ they had to! To get around it they planted a different kind of grass where the path used to be so you can still sort of see it… sneaky buggers!

Next to where Breamar helps Aragon onto his back after Aragon falls off a cliff!

I make a pretty awesome breamar!

The next scene we got to visit was a short one where Faramir sees his dead brother Boromir float down a river in a boat.

very exciting I know!

We then went to a beautiful national park which was the site of Rivendell! 

Which again was completly dismantled and pretty much left no trace of itself

the picture on the left is a movie still from Rivendell… Look you can see that tree on the right was in the movie!!!! ZOMG!

But it was also the shot of the promo shot of Legolas that graced ever so many teenage girls bedrooms/ceilings 

Personally I think people should hang mine on their walls…

The best part of the tour was defiantly our venture to Mnt. Victoria, aka Hobbiton woods!

First we visit the site where Sam and Frodo make there first camp and Sam cooks up Mr.Frodo some delicious eats!

I’m relaxing in the tree making a good Frodo!

Next.. a Shortcut to Mushrooms,  if one recalls, the hobbits (Frodo, Sam, Merry and Pipin) are wandering across Farmer Maggot’s field, Merry and Pipin have raided the farmer’s crop.  They hand the crops off to Sam when they collide with Frodo and Sam before taking off into the field.

 The hobbits then come to the edge of a cliff before tumbling down it. I couldn’t find a good screen cap of this ANYWHERE despite my elite internet skills, so all you get is this crappy one…

Thankfully you may get a crappy screen cap but you DO get our elite rendition of it…

then if you do recall the Hobbits all pile up on top of one another like so…

Beautifully executed…

Then something scary happens in the forests of Hobbiton! Frodo Hears something

“GET OFF THE ROAD!”

then under the log they go! Hidden from the black rider at the last second

but wait… no log? That’s right that log was a real tree that was PLACED there for filming, but because they had to return it to it’s intial look it had to be removed .

Nothing photoshop can’t fix!

excellent.

Then the hobbits have to escape to the Buckleberry ferry! They have to be very sneaky though the forest…

need it to be spookier?

scary! but not the most terrifying thing the hobbits have to see, as they decide to make their dash towards the ferry they see at the top of the hill the silhouette of the black rider!

I’m not sure what’s more terrifying, the black rider or our uncanny ability to make a Black rider out of our bodies?!?

It was an awesome day and so much fun to galavant around imagination in tow seeing some of the sites from the movie. I’m definatly going to do the LOTR tour when I get to Christchurch as well as I hear that one is even better!

 

 

What have I been up to and why have I been so horrible at updating you ask? Well, well wait no longer I shall enlighten you!

My brother and I have departed on the “Kiwi Experience” basically it’s a nice been green bus that takes you all around New Zealand. You can “hop on” the bus anywhere and “hop off” wherever you like. The other backpackers on the bus are so much fun, and the drivers are all a blast, point in case our driver Dan’s un-PC jokes such as… “How does a farmer find a sheep in long grass?  - Very satisfying”!

The pass we are doing is called the Rangi  We’re on day 7 currently which places us in Wellington – The capital of New Zealand. 

but I’m getting ahead of myself, lets start on day Auckland – Mercury Bay or “Getting from A to B”

After 5 days in Auckland I was pretty ready to leave and we stared our Kiwi Experience tour going to Mount Eden which is one of many dormant volcanos in NZ

It was absolutely spectacular coupled with amazing 360 views of Auckland a great place to start our tour of the country. On our drive towards Mercury Bay we also stopped for a hike at Coromandel Peninsula and spent the afternoon at Cathedral Cove.

It was about a 1/2 hour walk to the cove but it was all very scenic, and yes it was “just like Lord of the Rings”.

Cathadral Cove itself was stunning. The water was apparently swimable but I was much to cold to try. The beach was littered with huge rock-formations left behind from years of the ocean wearing away at them.

can you see the water fall towards the back?

Mecury Bay was a quiet little town. the hostel we stayed in was … uh, quaint. Their bar closed at 10 and “quiet time” was 11. Being a vexatious group of 20-somethings on our first night of our trip this “quiet time” by-law was not adhered to!

We Departed from Mercury Bay to Waitomo (B – C). stopped of for another little hike though Marokopa Falls (3rd largest falls in NZ), the ‘Natural Bridge’ and Ruakuri reserve…

we read well…

Stopped to jump off a cliff.

Next stop on the way was Matamata, New Zealand which is proably more well known as Hobbiton! I didn’t get to go to the actual movie set (I’ll be doing it on the way back up) but that didn’t stop my excitment

Most excited nerd/dork ever.

I probably took the most pictures in front of this sign then any other living person.

Rotorua … a thermal wonderland. The one thing to remember about Thermal/Geothermal activity is where it comes from… Sulfur.. and what does sulfur smell like? That’s right… ass. Rotorua. We stoped in Te Puia which is like New Zealands version of Old Faithful, only there are 4 or 5 Geysers.

MMM… geothermic 

Big Geyser!

From Rotorua we left to Waitomo (C – D) stopping first at the Agrodome to take in a “sheep Show”

I got to milk a cow cuz I’m a pro…

They put on a mini show to demonstrate how dogs herd sheep, apparently by running all over them!

and then being exhausted and sleeping on them…

then for some unbenonst reason there was an emu farm by the sheep farm

evil emu gangs are a real problem in New Zealand

When we arrived in Waitomo we stopped at the Luge track first, think go cart sans motor plus steep hills. Luge was a blast

Waitomo was awesome I got the chance to go Black Water Rafting which is basically a combination of Spelunking and Tubing. I did the “Black Abyss” Tour takes a slightly more vigorous approach then the other tours offered by Black Water Rafting to the underground domain by mixing abseiling, climbing and cave tubing into a physically demanding 5 hour adventure. So our group in turn had to be THAT much more extreme…

The Waitomo caves were spectualar and to get into the one I went into we had to start with a 37 meter Abseil

Yep, that’s straight down boys and girls, no repelling here. It was a tight squeeze to fit though the vertical opening into the pitch dark cave, but I made it though! the cave was just absolute blackness (we weren’t allowed to bring cameras plus mine would have got SOAKING wet anyways). All we had was our head lamps to guide us. After the abseil we did a short zip line though the darkness of the cave as well then started our black water rafting. The cave was full of glow worms, and we laid back on our tubes and looked up at the ceiling to something that looked that it could have been the night sky.

Long exposure group shot!

The caving was pretty demanding to get around in, one minute you’d be neck deep in water, then next you’d be on your stomach trying to crawl though tight openings… again all in total darkness apart from your headlamp. It was amazing. At the end we had to rock climb up two water falls in order to exit.

Whew! Good times but I was BAGGED. We headed to Taupo from Waitomo (D – E) 

Taupo was a great stop loads of things to do, nice little community. Hot springs, Mountain Biking… and most importantly SKY DIVE!

Sky Dive was AMAZING… something I will most defiantly be doing again. Going up in the plane was pretty stressful, and watching everyone fall out of the plane before me was so surreal. I chose to do 15,000 feet (which is the highest you can do without being certified). The minute and 15 second free fall went by so fast. I do have a video which I’ll upload soon… I’ve heard some people say that it doesn’t feel like you’re falling when you are free falling. But yes it does! It feels like you’ve just come over the apex on a roller coaster and have started going down… but for a LONG time

I want to go again already, and I suggest if you haven’t been that you should get on it and do it!

Taupo was also king of the night life so far…  from ladies night

Our Bus driver Dan is on the far right…

to Toga night…

After 2 nights in Taupo it was time to go on to River Valley ( E – F ) River valley was this beautiful albeit remote lodge we stayed in. I’m sure it would have been nicer if it hadn’t been pouring rain the whole time . But the pouring rain DID help out for the white water rafting the next day! I was very hesitant to do the rafting because of what happened with Kelsey in August. It just seemed so soon to be doing it, but I know that Kelsey would have wanted me to and she wouldn’t have wanted me to be scared to do it. I will admit it was very hard getting out there but I did it! I even sat right at the front of the raft!

Also you know that whole… New Zealand has more Sheep then people thing? That is NOT a lie or an exaggeration! Look at all the sheep on the hills!

From River Valley we made it to Wellington ( The Capital of New Zealand ) We decided to “hop off” for a few days here to settle a bit. 

So as you can see in the past week I’ve been Luging, Black Water Rafting, White Water Rafting, Skydiving, Hiking, Caving and been out to ridiculous hours of the morning, and thus is why this update has taken so long. Tonight I’m just going to Chill in Wellington and possibly go bowling! Sweet As!

I don’t know where all my anxiety came from but I can defiantly say with 100% confidence that it was entirely unfounded. Traveling is the best thing I’ve ever done. Backpacking is the most fun you could ever have.

Now something I should be anxious about is coming in … oh well about an hour. I’m not anxious yet… I’m bloody well excited.

Jumping from a perfectly good airplane plummeting towards immanent doom from 12,000 feet with only a thin sheet of plastic fabric between life and becoming a pancake.

My first skydive.

So assuming everything goes as planned I will have an update for you all (with many MANY pictures) by tonight.

Green everywhere, really nice little suburbs, friendly people. Auckland doesn’t feel like Victoria, maybe like a mix of Seattle and Vancouver. The population of Auckland alone is 1.4 million, but it doesn’t feel like that. Auckland is much like Victoria in that if you don’t like the weather, wait 5 minutes.

Yesterday we went and visited the Kelly Tarlton’s Antartic Adventure, because you know, I was DYING to see penguins.

The best part was you got to ride this bobcat type thing right though the Penguin enclosure! So you got to see them really close up. they were amazingly cute.

Besides the Penguins there were many other underwater creatures to look at…

Like my favorite ridiculously oversized invertebrate the giant squid 

The Gentle giants of the sea the manta ray, which apparently I have the talent to command at my will. Everyone beware, soon I will have a Manta Ray army assembled!

The scariest damn Lobsters EVER… these were huge….

Look how big it was next to my hand!!!

Shark eggs!

Today we took a bus to the Auckland Museum, the transit system in Auckland is miles ahead of BC. First of all they have GPS screens in the buses so you can see where you are..

On our walk to the museum we came across and old train yard.. photo opps ensued.

unforuntatly we couldn’t hang around the abandoned beautifully graffitied trains all day and had to carry on to the Museum… which was spectacular.

It was 3 levels and had great exhibits, including a really scary one about Volcanos! I mean just when I think I’m safe from “the Big One” back home, I find out Auckland has it’s own version of the big one. But instead of being an earthquake it’s a terrifying underwater VOLCANO.

the 3rd floor of the museum was entirely detected to the great war, and the 2nd world war. Being the huge history nerd I was I absolutely adored it. It was really interesting to see all world views of the war depicted and not slanted in bias one way or the other to americans, british, Canadian etc.

My favotire part of the war memorial would have to have been this wall, situated in the centre of all the other memorial walls with all the fallen soldiers names on them..

“May these panels never be filled”

Tonight Ryan and I will be going out to the local pub to have a few drinks and meet up with a few friends. Tomorrow night we may take in some theater as Phantom of the Opera is playing just up the road!

My stay in Fiji consisted of one day in Nadi on the main land, then traveling though the Yasawa’s island chain visiting 4 islands over 10 days. The Islands of the Yasawa’s each have their own unique personalitlies which makes them all very interesting to visit.

Things I learned in Fiji…

1. Fiji Time - take it easy, there’s no rush.

2. Bula! – Hello, how are you, what’s up, welcome etc shouted all the time! BULA!

3. Sambuca – don’t drink it, it’s evil.

Want a Play by Play? well follow the link…

The flight wasn’t bad at all, I made away without any jet lag at all…

Things I learned on my flight?

Don’t look outside the window, or else you run the risk of causing things to spontaneously combust.

Always insure that all hobbits are buckled into their seats during taxi, landing and take off. We must protect our shire brethren. 

October 6th 2008 doesn’t exist, never have, never will!

I digress…

To get from Island to island in the Yaswa chain we took a large brightly coloured boat, it would take us out to relatively close to an island where we would then have to hop off the big boat into, sometimes, just a tiny speed boat.

All the while our luggage is being hurled across the ocean from the Large boat into another smaller speed boat to be taken to our island.

Once we’d been taken to our island the locals would always line up on the shore line and sing us their welcome song, always ending with a loud “BULA” to which the crowd in the tiny speed boat would always enthusiastically yell back “BULA!!”

The people in Fiji were amazing, everyone always had a smile on their face and most would remember your name even if you’d only told it to them once. Fijians were so happy with their homes, their island, their lives and it showed.

Betting Money on Hermit Crab Races

Even more grateful was I for the friendliness of all the other backpackers we met on the way. It only took me a day to realize that all backpackers have the same mentality and everyone is out to meet people and have a great time. It’s so chill and everyone is so accepting. I can’t even begin to explain how much fun meeting people backpacking is. 

We were lucky enough to be in Fiji for Fiji day and had a great big bonfire down on the beach, partying and general reviling commenced.

Showing the Scots and the Brits how to dance in Canada…

I did my first SCUBA Dive while staying at Manta Ray with my friend Daneila (it was her birthday). I am officially addicted and will be doing my SCUBA sometime this summer. We dove to roughly 15 meters which is 50 feet.

Learning how to not drown.

Biggest Sea Cucumber EVER!

Doing Okay!

We also had the pleasure of visiting a Fiji village on one of the islands. We were welcomed by the Chief and treated to a traditional Kava ceremony. Kava is like currency for the villages, it’s some sort of root that they mix with water and you drink. The water looks very brown and mud like when you drink it, but it doesn’t taste that bad!

at the Way Lai Lai resort we got to do a sunrise summit walk

We also got to go swimming with the sharks! A boat took us about 20 minutes off the coast and dropped us off into a deep sea reef. There we got to swim around with them. There were at least 5 circling around us at one point. The Fijian divers would GRAB the sharks and hold onto them so you could touch them if you wanted. I was seriously scared the shark was going to get pissed off and take it out on the nearest foot, but they were fairly friendly.

On our last day we got to do a cruise on a 58 foot Sailboat. We didn’t do much sailing though, it was all via the outboard motor. We visited the Island that “Castaway” was filmed on. So I did the logical thing… makeshifted my own personal ‘wilson’ and ran around the island yelling “WIIIILLLLSSSSSOOONN!!!”

Jumping off the Sea Spray into the ocean

WILSON!!!!!!

All and all Fiji was amazing, the people were friendly, the backpackers were welcome friends, and the country was beautiful

So yes, so far I’m doing well. We are in Auckland now in the central Auckland backpackers. It’s an amazing hostel and huge! We will be in Auckland until Monday then we will start our “Kiwi Experience”…

it’s amazing how dirty sea water makes you feel.

So I’ve been gone 10 days now, Fiji was amazing but I’m defiantly getting anxious to move on to NZ and get settled. Honestly my biggest dread in the last week was coming back to the internet and seeing what’s been going on behind the scenes without me… but here I am overcoming my sudden inapplicable fear of the internet? who would have known!