O my lord

I write this from the inter-islander ferry as we cross from the north to the south island. We've just left Wellington after three days of relaxing and comfortable city exploring while we were staying with a girl who graduated from Columbia that we found on couchsurfing. Ah what a small world we live in!

I feel its time for a run down of the fun and crazy, and impossibly exciting, advenuters we've been having so far in NZ.

Raglan was a blast with surfing and swimming, communal cooking and sleeping in a train caboose, no one wears shoes and no one seems to do much except have fun and be tan and enjoy the beauty of the sea. Enticing, i know, but we had to keep moving--adventures were ahead! so we dropped some friends (those seem to be instantaneous around here) off in Hamilton, went grocery shopping at a Cosco-like place where people still didn't wear shoes and went on our way south towards the Waitomo Caves.

Fast forward to Gen and me standing waist-deep in frigid water 65meters underground, floating on inner tubes down this river deep inside a cave, swimming around underground in full wetsuits and headlamps looking at glow worms above us and hoping eels weren't eating our bums. That was the caves. Followed by free bagels and hot soup and more bagels and more soup! and off we were again! This time heading for the tiny and unknown town of National Park.

Once there-- and really we're talking about maybe 4 stores in a row, that's the town-- we found a campsite along this pretty little stream with a handful of other campers like us.

Next morning we head off to the beginning of the Tongariro Alpine Crossing where we promtly met Eva (German) and Alistor (Canadian) who were planning to hike that day as well. We schemed up a great plan with these two: instead of paying $35 a head to take the bus at the of the treck back to our cars, we four decided to leave one car at either end and do a kind of carpooling. Save $$, make friends! We had a blast and ended up hiking the whole day with them! The two of them proved to be formidable hikers, tho their jeans and converse sneakers might have suggested otherwise initially. Gsm and I, of course, are dorked out in super hiking boots and rain gear (just in case!)....and of course they beat us up. Which made us feel only slightly silly.

The area we were hiking in is really barren and is full of old volcanoes and dried lava. It's really steep and a hard, but amazing hike that takes all day, 20km in all. Actually, and importantly, the mountain we hiked around is Mt Doom in the lord of the rings (LOTR ROTK, that's for you O). So we're hiking in Mordor basically is what I'm saying, but meanwhile we're high enough up that you can see way out to rolling hills and in the distance Lake Taupo and some epic mountains. Damn cool.

What's next..?? Oh we finished the hike and recamped and were about to eat our tiny stove-made dinner when we realized the car wouldn't start. The 'dent' part of 'rent-a-dent' was coming to full fruition. Only a little panicking and some Israeli girls driving us to cell service and I'm talking to THE friendliest man I have ever spoken to from AA. Which, so perfectly, here is the auto service company like AAA in the US. Anyway, we wait and this AA guy pulls up to our campsite in a full mechanic suit, asks me to show him the problem and....of course the car works. So he leaves and we feel embarressed and awkward but cool! Car still works.

Next morning we head to the start of our canoeing adventure. We arrive with zero minutes to even think about what we are about to do or what we might need while canoeing down thus river in the absolute middle of nowhere for three days. Throw our stuff into plastic barrels, throw ourselves into the boat and we're off! And on our own.

But of course there's always kiwis on this kind of adventure too. Families on vacation, couples sticking to themselves, and then also the group of 7 twenty-somethings who are celebrating a birthday excursion and have with them 4 coolers of food and beer, a BBQer, at least a fair amount of illegal substances, and lots of nudity. They were great-- invadors of other canoes, pirates wearing purple earmuffs, with an inflatable swan with sexy eyes tied to the back of one canoe, swimming along behind for all three days. They were generous with their beer and food, friendly and just fun to be around--- tho quite loud at night.

Anyway the canoe trip was awesome. We were so far in the wilderness, it was so remote and so quiet of man-made sounds, tho noisy noisy with forest sounds! Canoeing felt like an alternate universe where suddenly our purpose was only to make it to the next camp site, and all the planning and worrying about emails or phone calls or work issues later, just didn't exist for that time. Quite fantastic!

So that took us to 6 days without a real shower, smelling rather foul and generally pooped. we drove, first to where Gen will be working later in Martinborough, and then to Wellington, dropped off the car and packed in to Hannah's house ( from CS) with her 4 musician-sorts flatmates.

Wellington was really awesome-- it feels a lot like San Fram because it's right on the water with a bay and it's super windy and so nice and sunny, tons of waterfront walkways and loads of cafes and a really great beer garden. CSing with Hannah was just perfectly what makes couchsurfing so great. We got a floor to crash on, a kitchen and house to use and instant friends. In exchange we cooked everyone dinner two nights and by the end of our stay really felt that we'd crossed over from just using their floor to sleep on, to actually being good freinds with a fantastic group of kiwis! Sweet-as! (best expression. Used constantly here. As in: this view out the front of the ferry that I'm looking at right now, out to the mountains of the south island, is sweet-as!)

And now?? Well we'll pick up a new car and head south along the eastern coast of the south island then over west to do lots of tramping around giant mountains and glaciers, then finally back north by march 22nd to start working at the winery!!

Will keep on keeping on...per usual. Love the no shoes culture here-- I fit right in, love how everyone really is totally friendly and relaxed, ready to help and so generous with what they have. Not to mention how stunningly gorgeous every inch of this country seems so far to be!

All my love from the sun that I'm sitting in as I write this,
SB