Four whole nights in Kaikoura! It’s the most time we’ve spent anywhere so far. Caught some fish, crayfish, and even a few carpet sharks, rented bikes, beached, relaxed. Pretty nice end to New Zealand, tomorrow we fly from Christchurch to Sydney!!

Me and a happy seal!

I like to think that he is gargling or singing.

Crayfish dinner.

Carpet shark!

Bryan caught a barracuda.

He was alive and upset..

Albatross.

Bye bye New Zealand, see you later!

We are in Kaikoura now! Going fishing for crayfish and sharks tomorrow! We stayed in a little town called Fairlie last night (Mt Cook was too foggy to see so we bypassed it)…met some really fun people at the Fairlie Hotel! Danced on the pool table with some rugby players.

Spending a lot of time in the car recently.

Barry took good very good care of us and kept the rugby players at bay!

Iguana wrestling. Wow.

Definitely stay here if you are ever even remotely in the area, these are great folks!

Well we are in Queenstown at our hostel. Kayaked Milford Sound this morning! It was beautiful there. Hiked a glacier at Franz Josef the other day, I figured it may be the only time I get to do something like that. Only 6 more days in New Zealand! Going to Mt. Cook tomorrow for some free hikes. We’ve covered a good bit of ground in New Zealand for sure.

Photos!

Well it’s been a busy week…started out in Auckland and am now on the south island in a town called Greymouth. We’ve been on the go pretty much non-stop. Here are a few of the highlights:

-Watched people break-dance then watched the movie Labyrinth on a giant silo at a park in Auckland

-Went hitchhiking for the first time (though it took about an hour to get picked up)

-Made new friends and we’re traveling the south island in their car

-Played in the thermal pools

-Hiked the Tongariro Crossing (20km), which is where they filmed part of Lord of the Rings (it was amazing and exhausting)

-Hiked and camped at Abel Tasman

-Stayed at my friend’s farm and had a blast

-Ferried to the south island

-Hostel hopped

Photos:

We’re having a great time so far! I love meeting new interesting people every day, it’s definitely one of the best things about this trip. I’m feeling much stronger thanks to all the walking/hiking around we’ve done. It’s hard to keep in touch with everyone back home because we’re away from internet most of the time and almost always doing something, but I love and miss you all! Time to get ready for bed, heading to Franz Josef to do some glacier hiking tomorrow….xoxo!

I suppose now that I’m in New Zealand I need to wrap up the Fiji posts. Here’s what I have to say about it: it was rad. Really beautiful as you might expect, and the people are the nicest I’ve ever come across in my travels to date. Everyone smiles and says “bula!” when they walk or even drive by. People were genuinely interested in talking and knowing about our impression of Fiji and were concerned with our well-being. There are still tons of villages with no electricity. Everyone was extremely laid back. Everything is green and you could drop a seed anywhere and have your crops growing out of control the next day. If you’ve ever had the slightest urge to visit, you should do it (and don’t stay in the stupid ritzy resorts). Actually, you should probably quit whatever you’re doing right now and start traveling ;)

We stayed with Bobo at his farm for a couple of days on the island of Ovalau, it was beautiful there! We took a few buses and a ferry to get there with no idea how we’d get to the farm once we got there, but alas Bobo was waiting outside the ferry when we got off. He grows pretty much everything on his land that you could possibly need, from avocados to shampoo to bananas.

Bobo carrying our stuff, including Philip the sock monkey

Fresh bananas

Our cabin

Bobo

shampoo

Bobo going down the rock slide

I can’t remember what this is…but it looks cool

lunch

Good times!

It’s 2am in Auckland, and 8am back home, so I’m far too tired to post much…but here are some photos from our trip to the village in Rukuruku (Ovalau)…lots of cute kids and the rugby team….more later!

Bula! Day one down, and it was great! We are sitting in the outdoor dining area (as seen here)

drinking coffee and internet-ing friends across the globe. Bryan Adams “Everything I do, I do it for you” is currently blasting over the speakers. For some reason. In just a bit we will pack up and figure out which bus to catch to Suva for our stay at Raintree Lodge. The following two days we’ll be at Bobo’s Farm on Ovalau. Our last day in Fiji will be spent going on a sunset fishing expedition with our new friend, Junior Christ, who is a non-practicing Fijian Muslim. Pretty much one of the most amazing people we’ve ever met. Here is the breakdown of our first day:

Arrived at 5am in Nadi and went through the customs and currency exchange process, then took a taxi to our hotel, the Wailoaloa Beach Resort:

Instantly loved it here, and they have some of the best coffee I’ve ever had.

We got settled in and started out on the 7 minute walk to the beach, where we came across some random dude wanting to sell us some coconuts. So we started talking with him, and wound up buying some kava and drinking it with them for the next hour in the space where they live and work. All kinds of fresh fruit and sugar cane growing, and roosters everywhere.

We promised to come back for lunch after going to the beach. We both loaded up with sunscreen but still managed a few streaks of minor sunburn (on the shoulders, which is good because we have to carry our heavy back packs today). The beach was of course amazing.

We headed back and stopped for lunch with our friends. Jr Christ cleaned a fish he had caught and cooked it with fresh coconut milk over a fire. So good.

We probably spent at least 5 hours of the day with them, drinking kava and smoking suki (Indian leaf) as Jr shared his many bits of wisdom with us. It’s really crazy to meet someone who is extremely genuine, hospitable, intelligent, and who actually lives out their philosophy on life every day, just for the simplicity and pleasure of it. He’s in the process of getting involved with the Workaway program, and he’d be perfect for it. I’m not sure I could adequately put into words how profound and wonderful it was to meet these people and enjoy our first day of the trip with them.

The day kind of left Nicole and I at a loss. It was so great. We invited Mr. Christ to stop by the hotel for a few beers, then parted ways until we get back from Ovalau.

Sunset and stars were awesome.

It’s going to be kind of hard to top yesterday, but we’ll see what we can do! I’ve spent enough of the morning on the internet now, so it’s time to pack up and get out of Nadi.
I have a lot more photos on facebook and will be working on videos and posting here as often as possible. Til next time!