I have seen the worms

Yes I did it! I went to see the glowworms in Waitomo. SOmething very special indeed. I can't really send any pics because first of all you can't really take picturs of them, and then second it wouldn't do them justice.

It was pretty amazing, My girlfriend and I picked a good tour opreator and we got quite a long time underneath the worms. They're actually the pupae of a fly. The glowing part is actually their shit, which reacts with Oxygen to make it glow. They are definately weird little creatures.

Anyways tomorrow we're off to Smelly Rotorua.

Auckland...for now

Well I am in Auckland and it's been relaxing. I saw some fireworks last night, it's anniversary day weekend here in Auckland

It was a nice display actually, went on for about 10 minutes.

Other than that I am simply waiting for the next part of the trip to start. My girlfriend is arriving today and we're heading soon to Rotorua, passing through the Waitomo caves. The Waitomo caves are the site of the well known glowworm caves.

After that i'm not sure what we'll do really, it turns out my cousin won't be in Wellington when we were planning so out plans are still fluid and changing.

Hopefully i'll be able to post some more pictures in a few days. They are turning out really well, I took a look a them on a PC this weekend and some of them are just gorgeous.

There should be some postcards on the way to everyone who sent me their address. It takes a while for them to get there, something like 12 days.. so keep your eye on the mailbox.

Christchurch Part 2

Bored....
more pics..

Back in Christchurch

Well I will try and post some more pics in a bit.

I am now in Christchurch and safe and sound. Not much going on here really? Can't wait to be in Auckland and sit around for a day or two and do nothing. You get to the point here, where it's "oh gee.. another mountain", and the scenery is amazing but a lot of it gets similar after a while

Here are more pics

Ok so here we have 3. One is of me standing at the top of the steepest street in the world. The last 2 are inside jokes. The first is of a International Socialists poster I found near the Uni in Dunedin. Wanted to let somebody know they were still around here. The other is funny because it is about a bylaw which states that you msut park in the direction of traffic. Hint Hint... However I also learned that apparently in England it is perfectly legal to park on either side, even facing traffic.

I'll leave it up to you guys to decide which is which. I'm sorry if any are sideways couldn't fix it

In Tekapo

Not much going on here.

Just let you know i'm in Lake Tekapo.

Will be in CHristchurch soon, then spending the weekend in Auckland.

Looking forward to jsut relaxing for a bit

I should be able to post some more pics on the weekend. I haven't looked through them all but there are some nice glacier ones as you can see from the last post.

To the North Island I go!

I'm heading north soon. I leave Dunedin tomorrow and head north first to tekapo and then to christchurch. I have some pics from earlier in my trip. I haven't had time to go through them all and i'll try and post some of the latest ones a bit later. I really took quite a few glacier pics so those should be good.

Other than that not much is new really, I have been wandering Dunedin yesterday and today. The hostel I'm staying at is quite good, in fact if anyone passed through this way I would recommend it to them. It's even nicer now because their internet is broken meaning that I have free highspeed internet access from a laptop instead of their broken machine.


This is Franz Josef Glacier, from where i took the pic, to the galcier is about 3 km. That tells you it is one huge ass glacier.






It's interesting how quick you can make friends on a trip. I met these people one day and spent about 2 days with them. I had to make my way through the south island a bit faster so i've moved on, but they are a nice bunch and I may run into them again.











Ok one Dunedin Pic because this internet is so fast... here goes ok.. i lied.. two pics.. The first is of the clocktower at Otago Universty the first University established in New Zealand. The second should be 148 London st. (I think.. as far as I could tell anyways)

Watching an election from far away

I voted for the first time in a federal election on dec 17th. It feels like ages ago. It's a bit weird to have voted more than a month before the actual election date.

My thoughts are well known by most who know me, and i've already posted on them. I just want to say one last time 'good riddance'. Also 'what a terrible campaign by the liberals'

I got into Dunedin today and it's pretty hilly. Man is it ever! It's a nice town and I went and checked out the oldest university in New Zealand. I kind of want to go have a look and maybe try and do a bit of research.

My interest is in two separate but related areas. First is economics and the purely ideological revolution that was forced upon New Zealand in the 1980s and early 1990s. The second area is the shift from a FPP (FIrst Past the Post) electoral system like we currently have in Canada to a MMP (Mixed Member Parliament).

Both are possible candidates for eventual Master's theses if I can find a program that will support the research. I would love to do the economic one, but i'd look at it more from a political perspective. I think a lot of insight could be gained from looking at it, and maybe comparing it to Canada, or the UK or US or even Australia.

More and more I feel like I'll stay in Canada, hopefully travel as well, but I think that's likely where I'll end up. I met this nice British girl who also wanted to do her Phd and become a professor. She started studying American history. It was interesting to see another person's thoughts about the whole process and being in the middle of making those difficult decisions.

It's the 23rd here, why can't i know the election results?

Milford Sound

Well I expected big things of Milford Sound. Though it wasn't impressive as I had imagined it, we did get it on a sunny day, it rains about 300 days a year there, and so to get a nice one is a rarity.

I have to go eat soon so this won't be long. I hope to post more pictures when I get to Dunedin in a few days.

Hope you're enjoying election season.

A little piece on the election

I always thought the conservatives had a chance at the minority. Gary you didn't beleive me and neither did Derek and Dan.

Dan's question was what do the conservatives have to offer other than not being liberals. I think their campaign demonstrated they have some ideas. I don't agree with them all, the beer and popcorn comment was atually pretty accurate despite the flak it got.

Thank god Paul Martin is gone. I've been reading some websites talking about a campaign to get rid of him already!!! Thank god!!1

The only reason he gave for wanting to be PM was "We want to goverm..." I translate that as I want power!! He did nothing for the entire time he was PM. FOr somebody who planned his leadership campaign for like 10 years he sure had nothing to offer. This may be a warning to Gordon brown the chancellor of the exchequer in the UK.

Anyways thats enough for now.

Go Harper! (Even though I voted NDP I realized early on that the only person who could form government other than Paul Martin was Harper.)

Goodbye corrupt directionless liberals!! Good riddance

Galcier Walking

So I did it! I spent about 6 hours climbing a glacier. I decided not to post any pics till later.

Anyways I had a great time today, and i'm now tired!!! I am going to go bbq myself a steak and then go to bed.

I have proof that I did it too!!!!!!!

Later

Finally Some Photos

So I finally got to a place with a USB port, so here are some picks.

The first is of the Cathedral in Christchurch.



These last two here are from the tranz alpine train trip, from the east coast to the west coast of the south island. I was experimenting a bit with the settings on my camera so some of them turned out a bit dark.





Anyways I am off on a glacier hike tomorrow which should be a blast, then down to Queenstown the adventure capital of New Zealand. I am quite excited to spend one day in Milford sound, supposed to be absolutely gorgeous.

Bye for now

I'm in Noah's Ark

Oh first of all I bought a new backpack, which fits more stuff. I had been getting annoyed at my small pack so i bought a bigger one. it's not the biggest kind yet, so it seems a bit smaller than what some people are carrying but i got it on sale and I needed the room so i can buy people souvenirs.

I still haven't found a place to hook up my usb yet. I found one late last night in christchurch but i didn't feel like going there late at night.

I have started to meet people which is nice a few interesting characters and some really nice people today.

Well I have had quite a long day, moslty because i had trouble sleeping last night. I had an early start to the day, because the chuttle bus came at 7:09 am this morning and picked us up for a 8:15 train across the country from the east of the south island to the west coast. It was really nice and I took tons of pictures, hopefully when i find a place to upload them I can post a few.

I met a few fellow travllers and actually it's been great fun. I met them at the start of the train journey and have spent most of the day hanging out with them. they happen to be doing the Magic Bus tour as well. It seems like almost everybody I've met here is doing the magic bus tomorrow. Should be fun.

One of the guys I met even made me dinner which was nice.

Then we played a board game called rummy-o which is sort of like the card game rummy and just chilled all night.

Tomorrow is Glacier day we go to Franz Joseph Glacier, which should be awsome. I am planning to do a glacier hike the second day there I think. Haven't decided for sure yet, but i've heard good things about it.

Thats all for now
P.S The noah's ark is the name of the hostel I'm staying at. I would recommend it to anyone passing through, for nothing if not the best shower's i've seen in a hostel anywhere

South Island

Well i'm here on the south island and the weather was great today. I made a bit of a blunder today though, i ended up in Nelson, paying a whole heck of a lot for a room, and realized today that I have to leave early, and i am basically now backtracking.

So basically i wasted today and it was expensive and because i arrived in the late afternoon on a saturday everything was closed. So that has been a bit discouraging. But i think i needed to catch up on sleep and having a double bed will make it easier.

I haven't been up to a whole lot today but i went and did my first grocery shop, i bought stuff to make sandwhiches fort my bus trip tomorrow. The grocery stores here are a bit different, especially the cheese section, they have so many different cheeses and not much cheddar. A lot of specialty cheeses, like feta with all sorts of variations like pesto feta, or berry feta or whatever, same with camembert. They also have a lot of like organic stuff and all sorts of health type foods. They also have fanta here (which I love) like they do in Europe.

The bus trip should be my last before i join the magic bus tour, which will be nice because my transport is already paid for. I have a few more arrangements to make before that though.

Anyways i can't post pics here, so i won't be able to settle any debates, but maybe at my next stop.

And if it's derek asking about Papua New Guinea.. all I have to say is.. no comment.. why don't you worry about your own travel plans first...

Windy Wellington

I'm in Wellington after an 11 hour bus ride. The one thing that was weird was the buses had seatbelts, but only kids under 14 had to wear them. The countryside here is really beautiful and though parts of it reminded me of Canada it's much more hilly and there's so much more vegetation everywhere. We also passed by an area with 3 volcanoes, and apparently one of them went off only a few years ago in 1996.The bus driver gave some commentary on most of the places we passed through which was nice and then dropped the backpackers off at the different hostels.

I'm going to see Te Papa which is the big new modern museum here. It's supposed to be really great and it's free. The weather isn't great here right now i think it may be raining outside, and its definately windy. The city is in a valley right by the ocean so it is known in New Zealand as the windy city.

I'll try and post more pics at a later.

Thats all for now

Wedding!!!

So i went to the wedding of my cousin Diego to his wife Katie. What a good experience, I met some family, and got to participate in such a wonderful event.

It was really a good ceremony, not too long, it was outside and the weather was just perfect. I have attached here a photo of the couple. I didn't get a lot of pictures of the reception, but this is a very nice shortly after they exchanged their vows.



Well i'm not up to a whole lot today other than planning the next part of my adventure. I leave tomorrow for Wellington, then quickly down to the south island.

I'll probably have less access to a computer than here and it'll be more expensive (ie it won't be free) but i'll be updating as often as I can.

Wish me luck!

Meeting Cousins and such

Another Pic, this is from Mount Victoria, on the north shore..



Well i met the cousins yesterday and that was fine and dandy. Getting this planned for the rest of my trip.

Not much else going on here really.

I'll try and post more a bit later

Wonderful Rotorua

I had a great day today. I went to Rotorua which is where they have geysers and boiling mud. It smells of sulphur there, but it didn't appear to be very strong today. We also had variable weather, which meant lots of rain on the trip down, including some close to being horizontal, and then a few patches of sunshine. Overall the weather was ok.

I also went to see a buried village where the remains of a volcanoe explosion are located. They had a very nice tramp(in NZ this means hike) which led us by a waterfall and everything. I still can't get over how green everything is!

I even did something uncharacteristic of me, I went on a big swing thingy, with my mom's cousiin and her friend. It takes you 150k/h in 2 seconds. It was nuts.

This picture here is of the Maori welcoming ceremony at the Geysers




Here's me with the waterfall in the background.



This is a great picture of the area near to the buried village

In the Land of the long White Cloud

So a big welcome to the first people I actually know, who now have the address for this blog.

I am in New Zealand known in Maori as Aotearoa. It's very green and hilly; the roads are narrow and of course they drive on the opposite side of the road than in N.America. It's a bit peculiar, trying to figure out which way to look before you cross the road, but so far no accidents. My second cousin also keeps reminding me to get in the car on the opposite side. The driver in NZ is on the right hand side of the car not the left.

I went to an udnerwater aquarium yesterday and then bummed around the downtown. I got home here just in time to avoid the rain.

One thing I still haven't done is checked to see which way the water drains here.

For the moment i'll be in Auckland which means free internet (for me) and free food. So i'll probably be online a bit more frequently than later on in my journey. I'll try and post the best pics here, but it may be a bit difficult.

Bye for now