New Zealand and beyond

NEW ZEALAND

had to get up before the buttcrack of dawn to get my plane to brisbane then another to auckland. matt was nice enough to take me to the airport but we went to the international when i needed to be at the domestic airport. well i pushed the limit just a bit to far this time and missed my plane :~{ no worries though i chit chatted my way onto the next plane for only $50 instead of $400…awww what being nice will get you. i got my flight to New Zealand without a problem like a seasoned vet. on the plane i sat next to a native new zealander from the north island; he was a very nice guy but he snores like a lawn mower. the girl across the asile was from nex zealand as well…got off the plane and caught a bus to town. guess who was on the bus. the girl from the plane, she goes to university here and we chatted most of the way to town. after she got off i continued to chat with about everyone on the bus. or everyone in ear shot at least. in the town of auckland ( )there is a big space nedele just like the one in seattle. found a drink called miranda ( ) and it made me think of the girls. well time to get on the 7 hour bus ride to taupo. YEAH off the bus and hopped a taxi to my hotel with my own room. when i got there everything was locked up no one to help in anyway. went to the neighboring bar and met some guys and they gave me some advice. apparentally, sometimes they unlock the rooms if they know that people are going to be comming in late. so i started checking rooms to see if they were unlocked, i found an open room with no people in it at all so i went in and had a short sleep; i was to meet cherie at 7 am…

DAY 2

slept through the alarm this morning, and woke upto a note from cherie. which can only mean that i wasw in the right room at least. went and met chereie at the expo and worked all day long. i ended up meeting a gal from winstead, small world. after the expo robbie cherie and i went out for dinner and we ended up taking some of the race coordinators out for drinks. which ended up being a very late night.

DAY 3

well the news was in and cheries luggage was still in san fran. we think. it would not be that big of a deal but everything that we need to sell photos was in her bags. got to go for a run this afternoon and a bit of exploring(while on the run at least) after my run i went and talked to they guy at the local fishing shop. we got into a good conversation about trout and local fishing places and laws and the like. i htink that monday i will hire a car and do some fishing. as for now i am sitting on the edge of lake taupo, sipping some tea and watching the sun set. B – E – A – UTIFUL

DAY 4

mroe expo and more people. we had a meeting after the expo to discuss what everyones job was going to be on race day. at the meeting i met a few of the local photographers; ben and drew. both sports photographers and very nice people to boot. early night tonite Race Day tomorrow.

RACE DAY

Robbie and i left the hotel a little before 5 am to meet with ironman live people and other race operations people. after the meeting we headed to the swim start to get some promotional shots for ironman live. just after the start i ran to the end of the swim finish to capture the first three men and women leaving the water agian for ironman live. it was now around 7:30 and i was to meet with ironman live and drop off some the pictures that i had taken. headed toward the bike transition to meet up with ben and drew, so i cold get their cards to bring to the lab for printing. after dropping off the cards i ended up shooting some bike pictures til around 12:30 when i had to run to my position to photograph some runners. i photographed runners til about 6 pm. at that point i made my way to the finish line…at the finish line i was to do group shots of runners and their famlies. i stayed til the last person came in about 1:30 am and we went back to the hotel. oh yeah did i mention the whole day it rained and was windy about 20k/h. no worries i dont have to be up til 7 to sell photos.

SALES DAY

let me just sum this day up in one word: CHAOS.

LET THE HOLIDAY BEGIN

today was very relaxing i have to plans. so i hired a car and went and got myself a fishing lisence. i went to a river about 12k outside of taupo where i was told that there were tons of trout. since the size limit was 45cm tere were plenty of bigger ones. the water was so clear you could count the spots on the trout. i had fished for a couple of hours before i even had a hit. i caught my one and only trout just a short while after. it was bout 14in not bad i thought until i talked to a local guide and he told me that it was “one of the smaller ones”. spent the rest of the day near the river. the only other thing that i wanted to do while in taupo was see huka falls. i watched the sun set and made my way back to town and up towards huka falls. i ended up just camping out in the car.

FALLING AND BEYOND

i wanted to make it up for sunrise but i had over slept. i hiked to the falls and they were magnificent ( ) there was so much water flowing in a very small area. went back to town and dropped off my car and caught a bus to wellington. got a hostel there in a 20 bed bedroom. it was still early so i decided to explore the town a bit. i found a couple of street performers and they were awesome. i also found a browery called Mac’s Brewery. after that i decided to get back and have some sleep. when i got to the room someone had taken my bed. they moved all my stuff from the bed onto the floor and took my blankie. i did eventually find an open bed after shining everyone in the face with my ipod and i slept like a baby.

THE BIGGEST FERRY EVER

got up around 6 to catch the ferry to picton. the ferry was huge mroe like a floating mall than a ship. there was a movie theater arcade restrauants bars and a childrens play area and more. now off the ferry and onto the south island i wanted to hire a car for the time that i was to be there; but it ended up being way to expensive. so it looks like more intimate time on a bus. caught the bus to christchurch and spent the night there. i ate at a burrito place that malay would have loved. i went and say a live band; a cover band, yuck. talented but nothing special.

RIDE THE BUS RIDE THE BUS

time for another ride on my favorite mode of transport, thie time to queenstown. i am to meet up with my good old buddy from mound, Mark Savage. i only have his email so it is difficult to get a hold of him. i hope he gets my messages. shacked up in a hosteel and decided to do some exploring and make a fdew decisions on what i am to do while i am here. i decided on river surfing and sky diving from 15,000 feet. now some walking and watching a sky dive competition. watched on of the skydivers wreck really hard on the shore and get carted off by an ambulance. nothing but confidence for my jump tomorrow. went and ate at a pleace called little india. the waitress there was really cute, as she walked by she smiled at me and attempting to look cool i was spinning a pen in my hand. well that backfired i knocked off my glasses and when i went to pick them up i knocked over my water glass. smooooth! sleep now big day tomorrow.

ITS A BIRD ITS A PLANE NO ITS MARK

GOT UP NICE AND EARLY TO GET TO NZONE TO DO A BIT OF SKYDIVING. going to 15,000 ft you know. i am excited and scared at the same time. i got to meet everyone that was scheuled on the same jump as me. we were all in the same boat, first time. so no one knew what to expect. as were were waiting i felt myself getting more and more nervous. just like hte song says ” the waiting is the hardest part” finally it was my turn and my heart was doing a sort of drum roll. as we climbed higher and higher i calmed down ironically. as we inced towrd the edge it was like watching yourself about to jump yelling at yourself dont do it. then we jumped and it felt like you were flying not falling. we fell for jsut over one minute and pulled the chute and we got to do heaps of turns and then we landed safely. after we landed i did not know if i felt sick or hungry. a couple of other people got sick, but not old iron stomache here(hehe) . made our way back to town for the river surfing. but to no luck, there were not enough people to go. allie the girl who runs it did know susan hoage though so i got her number and gave her a call. wiht lots of the day ahead and no plans i walked to find a loo. when i walked in i saw Barry from my trip in perth, small world. so i spent the rest of the day hanging out with barry, clare, matty, kate and simon. we all decided that luge sounded like fun. its more like go karts with no engine. everyone was bumping and grinding ad racing. best money spent so far!

DAYS TO RELAX

the next day i wanted to relax. i still had river boarding booked but it did not look liek we were going to go. simon and kate were going witha different company so i changed my booking and hopped on with them. it was way more intense than i had ever imagined. got pulled under water in a few rapids and on of the guided taught me a good little trick; where the water will pull you to the bottom. its kind of scary though because you really have no control of when you get to come back up. there were cliffs to jump, so i showed off with some flips. got back and a wonderful thing happened. we went out for a few drinks and some live music. i ended up just crashing onthe couch at his place.

LAST DAY HERE

no plans today i got to head back to christchurch then to sydney. i feel like i have just only gotten to New Zealand and i have. i must come back here. the day went really fast and i had to get on that fun bus ride. this one the seats were less comfortable then a school bus. now i get to spend the night at the airport and catch my plane bace to sydney. it will feel nice to be in my pseudo home for a few days.

A FW DAYS TIL HOME

the last few days were spent excatally how i wanted to. hanging out with the people that i had met and the best of all playing with brooklyn (she reminded me of wynter so much) we played some tennis and best of all we went surfing a few more times. a lovely end to a fab trip. i could not be happier with everything that i got to do and everyone that i got to meet.

One of my last days

matt and rach have a spanish lesson…so i decided to make a movie to enertain myself for a bit… here it is…

its a spicy meatball, day three

today was our choice of what to do in coral bay, there were lots of tours that one could take; but suzanna, claudia, pascal, brad and i decided to just to relax on the beach. we talked some locals and headed about an hour walk to a shark sanctuary. so we headed that way. on our way we saw heaps of rays and manta rays. then we got to the shark sanctuary and we thought that there were some more rays a bit out from shore. so we decided to wade out and go get them, as we were walking towards them we got close enough to see what they were …. sharks. it was about a dozen reef sharks. now being the shark connoisseurs we decided to chase them up the shore a bit. probably not the best idear but it got our hearts pumping. after seeing the sharks and rays we headed back to meet up with everyone for a late lunch and hopped back on the bus to take the ride to exmouth.

Its only day Two, my gosh

we got up very early today to go see this fantastic gorge, but due to the fact of a fire we could not get there….there we heaps of closed roads and we did not even get close enough to see any fire. so plans change. instead we as a group decided to head to monkey mia to see some dolphins. now there are even more people on the bus claudia and beautiful Italian (eh mamobo) suzanna a swiss, nana and aya both Japanese, barry and clare from ireland and jemma from liverpool, chris, hervey, mellisa and of course our fearless leader skippy(german and a sense of humor, now i’ve seen everything) as i am meeting more people i am having more fun and learning and growing, but my english is getting much much worse. the night in monkey mia was wonderful we saw dolphins and swam and had dinner and lots and lots of fun. even a moonlit stroll along the beach with the girls (borat) in the morning we got up to see a feeding of the dolphins, it was fun but cruel in a way. we ate lunch and headed to shark bay hopefully tomorrow if we are lucky we will get to see sharks. we ate dinner and stayed in the town of carnervon.

Can wake up even without a clock

got up much earlier than I needed to, around 5 am or maybe even earlier. its hard to tell when the sun is not up. i got on the bus for my four day monkey mia tour and it seems to be a very diverse group. which is exciting to me because it means there will be lots for me to learn. I choose to sit next to a very beautiful Japanese girl Sayaka. she is from Tokyo and she does not know much english so she is not much for conversation. our first stop was to be the pinnacles(there used to be trees here) they can to be when sediments from the winds of-the ocean blew in and were grafted to the roots and turned to rock by a cementing process. i am full of useless knowledge. while we were there we saw our first wild emu…pretty much everyone went crazy and the emu probably felt like it was on the red carpet. there are five Japanese girls on the tour and they make me smile endlessly. their reactions to things are so natural and funny to me, irregaurdless(that word is for brad) they are very fun to be with. everyone made it back to the bus without incident and we headed to a beautiful white sand beach to have a bite to eat(thats nice) back on the bus, with being on the bus so much i am getting to meet lots of new people. now there is sandro from swiss, lisa from germany, brad form seattle and we are all on our way to do something that makes me feel like a kid in a candy store SANDBOARDING…on our way we stopped at the leaning tree, which is a tree that grows along the ground because of the constant prevailing winds. we grabbed boards and ran up the dunes like it was an olympic race. (is sand edible?) sandboarding was fun but very messy. tonight we are staying in kalbarri and we are to go to a gorge tomorrow, but that may not happen because it is on fire.

I’m going to a land downunder; while downunder

As i start my trip to Perth I can not help but think of what I had learned from my last trip alone. One thing that i did learn is to book as day tour or two; it is an easy way to meet people. I got off the plane as i pushed my limit to catch my next flight…something that i did not learn from my last trip. you can never leave too early to get to your plane…but i always get there alright. got on my flight to perth and landed there without incident or frustration…that was to come though. When i got to perth i tried to get myself a shuttle to town; but that was proving far more difficult than i had ever imagined. The drivers will not just take you into town and drop you off…you have to have a specific destination. i got a bit worried after i had talked to a girl in the information booth and she had told me that i may have to sleep in the airport…better than a park i thought…i started calling hostels and tons of them were full…finally after about a dozen hostels i found one that had an open room and said that they would hold it for me…so the info booth finally called me a shuttle and i got on…i was the only one in the shuttle, which was nice because i could stretch my legs a bit. got to the hostel dropped off my gear and went for a walk around the city(Everyone’s Waiting For You). Perth is a much different city than that of Melbourne not in a bad way just different. I found a local diner and had a bite to eat(Roo burgers unbelieveable) i headed back from some sleep. some of us have to be up at 7-am for a 4 day Monkey Mia Tour you know and i still have no watch or clock of any sort…Even some art

Triple J

onoe of the local radio stations is having a week where they honor foot soliders here is matt and i’s vote for the best

Follow the Coast

the last few days have brought with them some great times not soon to be forgotten…i have decided to take my trip to perthWrong Turn at Albuquerque) which brought many challenges….i decided on a tour where i will get to go do some fantastic things…but paying for them was a bit of a trouble…anything i try to pay for online will not work…if i am in person it works just fine…all well it will all work out for everything at least i hope. so i got my trip booked after a few hours and lots of frustration…i have not been that frustrated with anything in a very long time…matt was sitting and making comments at me while i was grumpy…got out of that bad mood quick when i stopped and realized that i was still in australia…

that evening Rach had gone out with some friends and left matt and i all alone…so we did what boys do best…we went to the breweries of Red Oak(A full bodied taste) and lord Nelson….red oak is a much better atmosphere and has better spirits as well…after the breweries we took a walk to see all the boats in the harbor…there was a huge cruise ship that i just had to touch. So matt had bet me that i could not touch the boat…so i climbed a fence and ran and touched the boat. when i turned around there was a security guard heading my way…i climbed back over the fence before he got to me and when he did he asked me what i was doing on his side of the fence…i told him that i just wanted to touch the boat, he said OK and turned and walked away…(weird)

on sunday we woke up and went to church at the beach…three weeks in a row…after church we went over to Alice and Saki’s house for a BBQ..we were celebrating the fact that saki had just gotten back from his latest green-peace trip (Saki in the Boat) he was out on the ocean for 2 months trying to get the Japanese whalers to stop their whaling…saki is an awesome guy and nice to beat the band…

today matt and i headed out to play a bit of tennis in the morning and listen to the new jack johnson CD ate a spot of lunch and headed out for a surf…the waves were terrible and we only went out for a little while….I Heart Sumo, but not whaling

well i leave for perth in the morn so i will be updating soon

love you all

thanks for reading

Another Week Has Gone and Past

Well another week has gone and past and i am still very much enjoying my time down under. I am contemplating a trip to perth soon, but we will see what happens. hopefully it all works out. i got more info on my new zealand trip. They (action sports international) is going to fly me into Auckland on the 26th of feb and then i go down to photograph the ironman race and back up to the airport on that sunday march 2 and down to the south island. I am trying to get a hold of contiki to take a tour but they are not calling me at all. time seems to be going really fast down here. the days are flying by.

in this last week it has been really rainy again. and the rain is not for just like a few hours of the day it is like a heavy rain all day. i think we got about 20-cm this last week alone. its crazy, our pool is freezing. since there was so much rain we went and saw the movie ‘charlie Wilson’s war’ i think dad will like it but everyone one else will probably be bored. other than that we decided that we thought that his motorbike would look better without the stickers that said GS500 on the ferring..this turned out to be much more of a job than we had anticipated. Once we got the stickers off then there was the sticky residue so we got some wash to take that off…well that wash started eating through the paint, so we had to sand the ferring and repaint the whole thing. after we got those sanded and painted we sanded and painted the muffler and engine. the bike looks lots nicer now and hopefully we upped the resale of it when he wants too…

other than the bike and movie… we have been you guessed it surfing. I can’t get enough of it. the big waves still scare the crap out of me. for example we went to freshwater yesterday and it is kind of a sheltered beach so we thought that the waves would be a bit smaller. no can do the ocean said the waves were anywhere from 6 to 10 feet depending on the set that was rolling in. i mostly stayed in shallow and rode the whitewash, but matt and mike went out and caught a few really good waves. one that matt caught he rode for a bit and after it crashed he fell off his board the next thing you see is his board shooting up like it was gasping for air the came his feet. the wave was just washing him over and over. he said he “felt like he was in a washing machine” this surf was the best so far it was raining so hard it just would drown out the sound of the waves even it was so peaceful.

got a new picture of matt here for you… other than that i think that i am going to go into the city on sunday and have me a walk around and take some pictures for everyone to see.

Guess Which Ones Matt

love ya all, thanks for reading

Doin’ what I came here for!!!

hey everyone…hope you are all enjoying the blog. The last week and a half has been busy, but not with travel; with lots of relaxation. Since i have gotten back from Melbourne we have had 2 bbq’s and been to the beach 8 or 9 times…did get to go to church on sunday with matt and rachael at church on the beach. it was a fun time not really structured. i had lots of fun. on monday it was Australia day (its like 4th of july but for australia) me, matt, benny, mike and john went out for a day break surf. the waves were huge so i did not temp fate. I love surfing by the way…it is such a good workout. matt and i have been playing some tennis and matts buddy nat is going to tech me how to play some squash. other than that there has been lots of relaxing and some planning for a trip to byron bay and when i am in New zealand…did get something done though(took some advice from miranda) i made a site with some of the pictures from the journey so far.

thanks for the emails love them
well might go have a swim in the pool love you all
on the right hand side just click the link for “trip pictures”