Christchurch (are we in NZ or England, I'm not sure)

Christchurch has an extreme amount of English influence in the city. All the streets are named Manchester or Oxford or something ridiculous like that. It has a whole different atmostphere than Auckland or Wellington. Although we are mainly in Christchurch to try and sell Lefty (alas, we must part with our mechanical friend), we are taking in part of the city as well.

We heard that Christchurch has 1 acre of parks for every 4 acres of city...pretty impressive.

The focal point in the city is the church square. It is quite a nice church (as far as churches go) but I was shocked to see a cafe and gift shop built attached to the chapel. Apparently, the church costs $3500 per day to stay open.

Huge chess board on the square outside of the church made for a cool atmosphere.

We were cheering for this guy to win!

Abel Tasman Coastal Tramp

We started out our trek at about 10 in the morning and hiked about 11 km each day. This was a easy journey compared to our monster Cape Brett track, so our legs were much happier at the end of each day. Most of the track was surrounded by forest but we did get some beach walking in as the pictures show. This track is unique in that we had to time ourselves right with the tide in order to cross the beach. There has been so much rain in the area (something crazy like 45mm overnight!) that the beach was flooded in places anyway and we had to stalk barefoot.

This is low tide people!

Our Journey in the South!

After rejecting a life of work and toil in Wellington, Jason and Corinne headed south to breath some fresh air and nature. Here is some photographic evidence of their travels so far.

We met up with our friend Kevin (from Austin, Texas) in Nelson. We went on a nature hike to the "Center of New Zealand". After our 20 minute hike up we decided to find some beer (moreso for jason and kevin, and less for corinne). We went to a microbrewery called Founder's and got a personalized tour of the family establishment. Jason also got his pint of beer and corinne dabbled in the local juice! We also ate the best veggie burger ever!

After seeing all that Nelson had to offer in a quick one day stop-over, Jason, Kevin and Corinne promptly went west to the Abel Tasman Coastal Track for two days of tramping. We had to take a boat to get out there, and we were lucky enough to see some wildlife....

Who think's its a shark, put up your hands!!!

No you silly people, it is a cute dolphin who is stalking our boat! Apparently its a local dolphin, and it lives there to play in the wake of boats.

Off the boat, onto the beach and getting ready to start our hike!

Some Photos...

Here are a few photos that we took during our stay in Wellington...

Look! It's a wild sheep! I think sheep outnumber people 15:1 or something ridiculous like that here in New Zealand.

WorldWide was our hostel for two weeks...very cozy!

This is the sign for Cuba Street, one of the main areas in downtown Wellington. Lots of cafes and bars and such. This was actually where we almost lived had we signed the apartment lease we were looking at!

Mac's Brewery. I believe this was our first stop in Wellington after our hostel.

We took the cable car in town up to the botanical gardens. Quite pretty even though it is winter and there weren't as many flowers as you would expect in a botanical garden. Lots of ducks though.

Our Work Woes in Windy Wellington

Having made our way down from the very north of NZ, we decided to "settle" in Wellington for awhile. However, before arriving in the windy city (NOT CHICAGO) we decided to take a stop in Wanganui to check out the glass blowing scene. We visited a glass blowing studio and were able to talk to a NZ artist who co-owns the studio. She offered to walk us through a full piece of glass art (process took about an hour). It was so cool! I think I have an inner glass blower in me!

Right afterward we drove onto Wellington and ran into some previous backpacker friends of ours. We quickly settled into the hostel scene and started to look for jobs/flats. Wellington is a beautiful city. It is the capital of NZ, with a strong artsy, cafe scene along with the downtown feel of a large city. It is actually tiny in area compared to Auckland, as everything is jampacked into a valley with a really long coastline. We have been lazy on the photo front so we have no visuals to show you, but trust me it is a nice city.

We spent a good week and a half slowly passing out resumes, looking in on shared flats and hanging out with our new friends. Our english friend Rob got the first job out of the group as a bartender. Not knowing what kind of bar he was working at, we decided to go give our support his first night. Turns out it is a transvestite karaoke bar! How can you beat that combo??!! No pictures unfortunately, the women looked quite muscular and I didn't want to offend anyone. We did bust out our version of Bohemian Rapsody, and they sold cheap Malibu Pinapples. I think this bar should be our official hangout!

As you might have anticipated from our post title, we did not have much luck on the job front. We gave a relatively decent effort to find a job but then we decided that we don't want one. Working bad, traveling good. So onward we travel come Tuesday! We will be crossing over to the south island so keep a lookout for new posts from there!

corinne and Jason

Cape Brett 2

Here are some more pics from our tramp to Cape Brett! We were playing in the grass and trying to take some action shots with our camera.



Here is the DOC hut we stayed two nights in. It was pretty basic but we were among two of the three people out there, so it was very secluded and beautiful.


We took this picture during sunset, right after we saw three dolphins swimming by.....amazing! Crazy amazing! That is why my fat butt walked those 21km to the hut, for dolphin moments!

Quote of the day

"Golfing should be like fishing, where you have to give me candies every once and in while"
(says corinne while having to endure 9 holes as Jason's caddy/putter expert)

Le Trek du Cape Brett

We don't have time to type! the pictures take all the time to upload! these are some pictures from the cape brett track. the weather was good, the hike was about 21km, and it was very hilly and steep. It was awesome. Maybe some more pictures later?



looks like a hubble telescope hey? no light pollution!

We're back on the road...

Oooohh yeaah.

Rollin with the windows down and the wind at our backs! Wait. If the windows are down, the wind is coming in from the window and hitting our sides. Anyway, you get the picture.

We have left the wwoofing. However, we didn't tell you about all our fun there!

Jason had an irate wasp in his shoe, and it stung his toe. We baked a vegan chocolate birthday cake. We found scallops on the beach, and we were going to eat them, but one was a little "off" so we didn't. We were real Canadian lumberjacks and chopped down trees! (they actually fell in the storm). Corinne cut Jason's hair with his leatherman. He looks so dreamy and rugged!

But, the time came and we had to move on.

We are now in an excellent little town called Paihia about 300 km north of Auckland. We wanted to learn how to scuba dive. We heard rumors of an awesome deal, but the deal has passed and we have deemed it too expensive. Now we have other plans...

We are going to walk 20km to a lighthouse (Cape Brett) and sleep in it! Wow! Soooo Coool. So cool indeed that the c is a C! And when we come back there is the town's annual Jazz festival. We're going to savour the sweet sounds of a fresh licorice-stick and sway to the sexy sounds of a succulent saxophone. Just feel the music man... let it guide your body... yeah... just let go...

Ok back to reality.

Corinne says that Jason uses too many alliterations about music.

We're making soup right now! It takes 1.5 hours to cook. That's why we're typing.

Did you miss our blog? We sure did. Its such a good outlet...

Corinne says that this blog entry is too long and boring and is unsuitable for this joint blog! I am boycotting this message completely.

Corinne and her damn politics.

Vote Blog and prosper!