A Little Ferry Ride to another Amazing Place!

Back Bay

View pf Back Bay from the Whitianga Rock / Pa

Trail that leads to the old Pa site

View of harbour from Shakespeare's Cliff

Looking down...

On the Edge, quick take the picture! Another windy bad hair day...

View below Shakespeare Cliff

Having so much fun, I've stayed in Whitianga for a week now! I took the shortest ferry ride ever across the way and did some really nice walks around to an old Pa site with an amazing view of the harbour on the other side. And then went over to Shakespeare Cliff for more great views.

New Chum Beach and Poker Night

At the pub it was Texas Hold Em poker night. The local competition, guy on the right won!

I got second place out of 16, not bad! A $40 bar tab and a beer shirt! They didn't believe it was only the third time I had played. Had to make dad, my teacher, proud! Thanks Dad! :)

Hostel in Whitianga where I stayed and helped out at with Sue.

New Chum Beach

A really cool stream on the way to the beach with black streaks

Peace and tranquil :)

Supposed to be one of the top 10 beaches in the world I believe, just north of Whitianga. The good thing about being here in the winter time is it's certainly not crowded! It was a nice walk down one beach, over alot of rocks and thru a forest to come out on the other side and see the view as in the picture above!

Coromandel - Another Favorite!

On the walk to Cathedral Cove

Tunnel to Cathedral Cove

Cathedral Cove

Cove beach

Coastline to the cove

Hot Water Beach

Finally got to soak in the heat....it would have been deeper but our walls kept caving in!

And nice people here too, imagine that! First night stayed in Thames and went out to watch a rugby game with the friendly hostel owner and his mates. Then next day headed up along the most scenic coastline on the west shore. Checked into our hostels in another really nice town called Whitianga and then headed to Cathedral Cove where Narnia was filmed. Another absolutely amazing place with beautiful scenary, coastline and beaches.

The next day off to Hot Water Beach with some other backpackers to dig our own pool at low tide. This area of the beach has hot water streams running underneath and you can dig and dig and find hot or warm or cold pools all in one small area. Our pool ended up being too cold so we merged it with the people beside us who's was so hot they couldn't sit it it!

Today I Jumped Out of a Perfectly Good Plane!

Before the jump

Free falling! Just jumped out of the plane with a backwards flip!

Finally the parachute!

Amazing views!

Butt shot!

Wheeee! I can fly!

Oh my freezing lips!

Fun! Can't stop smiling/laughing!

Floating thru the clouds!

Actually it was on May 6th I will never forget that day! I stopped again in Taupo for the night just to do this, I've been thinking about it since I got to NZ and Kylie kept on me about how amazing it was. She said either that or bungee jumping, some how this seemed saner! (Is that a word?!)

We it was arranged to go and after several delays because of the weather they finally called and said it was a go at 3pm, I was so excited!

Got there and all strapped up and in the plane we went. First guy and his instrutor leap out, that was a little weird watching them disappear so quickly but I was still doing okay. Then it got a little too cloudy and we had to do 3 fly bys and I was starting to think they were going to cancel it again. I was getting a little leary and very cold and ready to call it quits when the guy waved us quickly to slide to the edge of the plane and before I knew it we were doing a backwards flip out of it! Then we free fell at 200mph for over a minute, it was amazing and so fast that my lips were frozen like I was just at the dentist Xs 10! Finally he pulled the cord and we did corkscrews round and round above the lake, I asked if we were going to land there as we seemed so far away from the land! He laughed and promised me we wouldn't and we didn't! Landed closest to the button actually! What an experience! Would I do it again? Yeah! Maybe in the summer though. Back to the hostel for a hot tub, dinner and a game of New Zealand Monopoly!

Back to the North Island and warmer temps!

mmmm New Zealand's own soda, it's delicious! Hope I can find it in Canada! This picture was taken in Paeroa - L & P stands for Lemon and Paeroa. Obviously with lemon in it and mineral water and 'special ingrediants' from Paeroa. I tried the ice cream too at 10am as it's only available in that town, great breakfast dessert!

Me and my surfer dude! Thank god there was no water as I actually fell off!

Sea shells washed in along the beach in Mount Monganui. Another great town only was a little rainy and cold.

Napier/Hawkes Bay, ocean waves were huge and came loudly crashing in, I loved it there! Walked on the beach for hours, if only it was summer! Loved this town too!

View from the ferry

Took a ferry from Picton to Wellington and for all of you wondering if I've met any nice guys in my travels wow did I meet a dozie on the ferry, started out all nice and then he got into freaky talk about where we come from and why and where we're going...any ways I managed to hide in the cinema area and escape......the ferry's here have bars, cafes, theatres and viewing decks. Lots of ways to entertain and places to hide on the 3 hour trip.

mmmm Wine

View from Marcus and Val's home of the Picton harbour, they could watch the ferries come in.

Wine Cellar at Wither Hills

Different grapes vines

Still some grapes on the vines

Loved the fall colours

From Kaikoura to Blenheim we passed Shania Twain's sheep farm just before Queen Charolette Sound. Beautiful area. There are now more cattle than sheep in NZ and deer farms they have here as well.

New Zealand does have alot of vineyards so I went off with another kiwi friend to explore them one day outside of Blenheim. Unfortunately they weren't giving tours as the season is slow now but they were quite happy for us to taste quite a few. I like the Merlots here, they can't grow the right grapes for my favorite Shiraz though. The colors were amazingly beautiful and then I stayed in Picton and went to a neighborhood party. My friends kept asking me if I had enough warm clothes to wear, I already had on all the warm clothes I owed on and I asked well they do have heat don't they? Then they laughed and said well it's a Bar-bie (BBQ) outside! It's like late October weather and we ate, drank and danced outside all night! The latter two were required just to keep warm and forget about the cold. The homemade sambuca really made me forget!

Good memories on the south island, I will definitely be back but next time in the summer. Awesome sights, lakes, mountains, treks/tramps, people and things to do! Luckily I missed the snow!

**on my fourth bag now...my first one burst the seams back in Malaysia, the second one I bought in Malaysia lasted one day.... the third one finally burst in small town Picton. There's not much to pick from there so now I have a super size red suitcase and don't look like a backpacker at all! But at least all my stuff fits plus I have room to expand so it should get me home now!

Saturn, Cathedral Square and Pas

Me on an old bike in the Christchurh Museum. it said children need accompanied by an adult but it didn't say any thing for adults so of course I had to try and then have some random stranger take my picture. I could hardly reach the peddles, people must have been tall back then or maybe I am just short....

Darren's family whanau (homestead)

Darren, a Maori friend, who enjoyed teaching what he called 'Maori 101'. This was an old Mauri Pa (village) that he showed me around.

Seals by Kaikoura

Mount John Conservatory

Sorry I haven't been on strike just been busy having fun, my updates are long overdue!

One other thing I did in Lake Tekapo was to go up on top of Mount John one evening to see the Mount John Conservatory which works in conjunction with the University of Canterbury. There we looked thru telescopes and actually got a clear view of Saturn and it's rings, also got to see the "Crux'- the southern crosswhich you are not able to see in North America and a few other constellations like the Jewel Box, Sirius, Milky Way and Orion.

Next stop was Christchurch, a really nice town with Cathedral Square that had trolley cars, old buildings and a church. Had fish and chips in newspaper and strolled thru their beautiful museum for a few hours. Saw the movie 'The Reader' with Kate Winslot, it was a nice day ending it with delicious Indian food for dinner!

Next day I was off to the beautiful town of Kaikoura to swim with the dolphins. My friend who lives there laughed at me cause he said even the dolphins wear wetsuits this time of year! Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) there were no dolphin sitings that day so it was cancelled. Apparently the week before a bunch of orcas came thru and ate a bunch of dolphins right in front of some Japanese tourists who were screaming 'Stop them' only to have the locals look at them and say 'It's nature!'

So I met up with a my friend Darren, who is passionate about the Maori history and spreading the word and he took me for a tour of an old Pa (village) where a Maori tribe lived, explained how they built them to fight off other Maori tribes and where they would have their homes and ceremony areas. Then he took me to his family site where they have gatherings for everything from weddings, funerals or any other type of celebrations. Very interesting and cultural afternoon and I didn't have to freeze in any water!

Then Darren was kind enough to give me a crayfish to cook. I really appreciated this even more once a group of us from the hostel went out that night and some wanted to try crayfish. It cost $118 for a whole one and $72 for 1/2 of one! So I cooked mine the next day, it was delicous, tasted alot like lobster.