Fall Ball

So today is the first day of fall basketball.  Summer league is over, and our team, Blue Thunder, came out with only a small rumble, but fall ball is supposed to be a bit more competitive.  I hear this coming from my team and think "hmm well we have all of the same players as last time, so unless our 6'7 South African has learned the rules, or we just weren't trying in summer league (I was trying), then were going to get squashed"!!!! We will just have to wait and see.  I don't know about the other team mates, but I have been hitting the gym pretty frequently, so maybe i'll be doing the squashing... ha.  All of this co-ed competition and fear of being run over giants really makes me miss yoga in the peaceful Founders Park with classes like "foundations of flow" and "relaxation yoga". That was definitely one of my favorite parts of Nelson.  I do some yoga at the events center but its just not the same.

I am not sure if it is hard for people back home to grasp that it is the beginning of fall here, but because we are on the opposite side of the equator, the seasons are opposite.  It can still get into the high 60s in the day, feeling warmer because of the strong sun, but it falls to the low 40s at night, and there is heaps of snow at the top of the mountains. The houses here are built of sticks, paper, and single glazed windows... or at least that's how it feels.  Really though the warm air flows right out of the house, and our house will be warmed by a wood stove and a heat pump.  A heat pump was a new concept for me.  Instead of having a radiator or a duct system for heating, a heat pump is like an air conditioning unit for your window except its for heat and sits above your window.  It's effective for a single room, but supposedly isn't too economical.  Funny side note:  I personally call air conditioning "the air", like hey mom is the air on?"  I always have, and never thought it was a strange thing to say, UNTIL at work one day I was like "It is freezing, is the air on?!?"  and everyone looked at me like I was stupid, and said "I hope so we need air!"  They apparently call is air-con for short... silly people missing out on saving themselves an entire syllable.

Two exciting things to announce (one way more exciting than the other, but both awesome!)  First the really awesome, important one:  Jeff's sister Laura, and her boyfriend Brookes got engaged!!  Everyone is so excited about it, and looking forward to a Stortz wedding.  They are both amazing people and I am so happy they are engaged.  The second is that Jeff was able to get us Flight of the Conchords Tickets (for those of you not familiar, they are a singing/comedy duo who are from NZ, but had a popular HBO tv show of the same name, and one member, Bret Mackenzie, just won a Grammy for a song in The Muppets).  He had to get up at 7 on his day off and wait in line for a couple of hours knowing he was 155 in line and there were only 300 tickets (and each person can purchse 2).  He waited even though the numbers were against him, and by some miracle they issued another 100 tickets!  We were able to get awesome  seats!  He is the best!

I am going to end on those happy notes, but let me know if you have an questions, because a lot of times I don't post because I am not sure what to post about, and I feel like a ramble on.

Cheers! & Hoppy Easter! :)

The Great Luge Mistake

On Saturday Jeff was back to work, and I got to sleep in a little bit!  I eventually picked up Nancy, Tom, and Laura to take them to the Remarkable's Saturday Market.  It is kind of like the Nelson market, but much smaller.  There Tom was able to try a sausage roll, and Laura and I picked up some yummy candles.  Laura and Nancy picked up some local spices, and Nancy got a bunch of Jams/Chutneys for back home.  We continued into town to visit the market on the Wharf that is mostly arts and crafts.  Laura and I picked up a knitted hat, and  after spending the entire week looking for the perfect wool scarf, I was INSPIRED.  Nancy took us to the yarn store to buy some nice possum and merino wool for a friend of hers and it struck me!! "Why don't I just knit my own scarf?!"  I was on a mission from then on to buy some tools, and knit me my very own wool scarf... Jeff's family ended up buying me beautiful wool and knitting needles, and I am slowly, but surely making myself a scarf, and then work on some scarves for others (depending on the quality of my own).

After a beautiful morning of shopping, we decided to try the Botswana Butchery's $15 lunches.  Aesthetically this place was amazing, and its menu was fabulous.  It specializes in steaks mostly, but has an impressive champagne list, and a great drink selection.  We stuck with the $15 specials, but every single thing the four of us got was AMAZING, most notably my steak sandwhich.  It had a perfectly cooked piece of steak on top of delicious bread with horseradish sauce and red onion jam (red onions reduced with sugar?).  It was the best food i've had in Queenstown and the best deal, with huge portions, and Jeff and I went back again 3 days later! 

After a hearty lunch, the four of us decided we should do a hike, so I suggested "hiking up to the gondola, and luging back down".  Everyone agreed it would be a great view and we would save the $25 it cost to ride the gondola up, and we could just luge down!  The walk was significantly harder than the QT Hill hike (and we thought it was the same height as QT hill, but its really about 200 meters lower?!) Once we got to the top we quickly realized that it was probably the stupidest thought in the world that it would be possible to luge down the 400 meters we just climbed.  The luge actually goes up an additional ski lift and you luge down only a small portion of the mountain.  It was embarrassing for me, but when we were at the bottom, no one else seemed to think it was implausible.  Needless to say we did not want to talk back down so we spent $14 each to go down the gondola, and no one even checked our tickets (as i had been told before, but we were too afraid to try to sneak down)!

Once Jeff got off of work we decided we would do a nice dinner, and chose Luciano's Italian restaurant.  It had an American Ganster theme and feel, with great food.  The ribeye was notably the best, but my potato gnocchi had an incredible texture and fresh taste.  The pizzas were also very tasty, especially the one with the pumpkin topping.  Afterwards, the ladies went back to the hotel, and we took Tom to Dux de Lux, the only microbrewery in Queenstown, with really good beers, and my favorite, the "Ginger Tom".  I am obsessed with all things ginger now.  

Luckily we didn't wait to save outdoor activities until the last day because Sunday was miserable outside.  I met the girls in town for some last minute shopping, while Tom had decided to climb the Ben Lomond.  We were worried because the summit is a little under a mile in altitude and the rain was pouring down.  The family still hadn't tried Fergburger yet so we stopped there and picked up three sandwiches/burgers to take back to the room and split.  While we the girls were all enjoying a delicious bite to eat, we hear Tom fiddling at the door, unable to use the key because he was so wet/cold/exhausted from his hike!  It was very impressive that he did it in that weather, and when he reached the summit, he said he wasn't able to see anything at all!!  What a shame!

I took the water taxi to work (yes i get to take a boat to work!!) so the Stortz's could have the car for the night and come visit me at Stacks.  They had a yummy dinner and waited to drive me home from work!  They surprised me with a New Zealand greenstone pandora bead!!  It was the one I really really really wanted!!  And we learned on our Milford Sound trip that it is good luck to GIVE greenstone, so they should be lucky for quite a bit of time!!  After dinner, it was already 11:30 so we took the girls back to the room, and took Tom out for the last hoorah.  We drank a bunch, and played a bunch of pool, and got the courage to test our hand at the casino.  We put up $100 for roulette and we were playing pretty well, up a bit throughout the game, and never really down.  We were finally up about $65 and had been playing for 30 minutes or so, so we decided to cash out, BUT we had been playing 4 all night and it hadn't hit so tom said "put it all on 4!!" we all laughed and I decided to put $5 on the four corners of 1,2,4, and 5. and IT HIT 4!! so yes I should have just put it on 4 and we would have won about $200, but we did win $40, so we went back to the hotel up $100 and super amazed by the forces of the casino gods, but we slept on the hotel room floor, so the casino gods must not be too generous.

We woke up, on the floor, early the next morning and had the fabulous breakfast at the hotel and took the family to the airport and bid them adieu!  It was sad to see them go, but it reminded us of why we must return home in September!!  

Cheers!! 

The BBQ Bus & Beyond

Wednesday night, Laura, Tom, Jeff and I went out to a going away celebration for my friend Sophie.  She is leaving me for 3 months to visit family in Louisiana! :(  It was a pajama party/ bar crawl of sorts, and we had a great time.  Tom, Jeff, and I finished off the night at the casino, with little luck.

So we're up to Thursday.  Thursday was a lovely day, and Jeff had off Thursday and Friday!  We started the day off by going to Arrowtown for crepes and coffee, and a short stroll through a creek and up a mountain!  Jeff and I were the only one who got crepes, but they didn't know what they were missing out on.  I had booked us a lunch at the Amisfield Vineyard and Winery because I had heard what a great lunch they had.  The restaurant and vineyard was beautiful, and the food was delicious, but they were out of a few of their main dishes, so we were a bit disappointed.  We had a wonderful bottle of the Sauvignon Blanc as well.  It was a lovely afternoon.

Laura riding the tractor at Amisfield

Awesome view from the Remarks!

In the spirit of filling our days to the brim, we decided to rent some mountain bikes from the Hilton and bike around the Kelvin Heights Peninsula.  This was Nancy's least favorite activity, but she seemed to enjoy most of it.  It was about a 2 hour bike ride, and we found ourselves especially "hiking with a bike" at some points, but the view was beautiful at all times, and there is some amazing architecture in Kelvin Heights!  The bike riding was one of my favorite activities and I definitely want to rent a bike and do a longer trail before winter comes.  After the somewhat exhausting day of tourism, we took a short ride halfway up the Remarkables for a picture perfect view!

I cooked up some tortellini and ravioli for dinner, and we all enjoyed a cheap and easy dinner at our Fernhill house that night.  It was the perfect end to a very busy day, and we all went to sleep pretty early because we had a 6:00 breakfast and 6:55 BBQ bust to catch!

Friday was our trip to Milford Sound.  We originally opted for the biggest company with the nicest buses for our day tour, but they were booked (which is apparently somewhat uncommon), so we were suggested the BBQ bus, which is a smaller bus where you stop and have a proper BBQ on the way.  We figured if at the least it would be a funny story to tell.  The bus ended up being quite comfortable, and the BBQ was amazing! We had chicken on a stick, beef kabobs, and pasta salad, and we ate right at the foot of a mountain.  Another amazing thing was the weather.  Every guide we talked to said this was one of the most beautiful days in a while.  It was so clear, and we were very lucky for a day like this in a place that rains 300 days a year!

We arrived at Milford Sound after a fantastic BBQ and a 4 hour bus drive.  We were set up on a 1 hour and 45 minute cruise of the sound.  It was beautiful to see the waterfalls from the mountains and where the sound opens up to the sea.  It makes you feel so small!!  It was a lovely, but very long day.  We got back around 8pm and grabbed a casual dinner, a few drinks, and hit the sack!  

Lovely Milford Sound

I must go to sleep now, but I will finish up the trip summary in the days to come, and tell you more about how Queenstown has been treating us in the past couple of months!!  Also, I will post some more pictures of Milford Sound and the trip on our Flickr page now!

Cheers!

It's been a while

So this is the longest break I have taken from blogging since I started in October.  I was amazed at how many people told me that they and others missed the blog entries.  I can't promise this will be the start of a whole new string of regular, interesting blog posts, but I will try.  It is hard to blog sometimes while living in Queenstown for 2 reasons:  1.  Time flies here.  I can check the date for upcoming birthdays and all of the sudden it is March!?  When did it become March?  I sometimes find myself wondering where weeks have gone, and forgetting to keep track of time.  This is way more like a vacation than real life.  2.  Sometimes I try to think back to what I did with all of these weeks that are flying by, and it seems that it is just a bunch of stories about hanging out with people that I adore, that no one back home really knows.   Maybe i'll try to write more about my friends here, but I sometimes think that is boring for my readers.

Well apart from my very long rant that attempts to justify my absence, there have been a lot of really exciting things going on here lately.  Jeff's family came to visit this past week, and it gave Jeff and I the opportunity to experience Queenstown from a tourists point of view.  I had the entire week off except a short shift Sunday night, and Jeff had his nights free and Thursday and Friday off.  It was so nice to have some money saved up and be able to enjoy Queenstown as a holiday spot rather than our home.  I guess I will just write about the trip in chronological order, so if i need to stop I can just pick up where I left off.

So I picked Nancy, Tom, and Laura up at the airport on Tuesday afternoon, and Jeff can conveniently working at the airport that day.  We were very happy to see that they arrived safetly and on time.  I took them to their hotel to shower up and once Jeff finished work we went to dinner at a place suggested to us as "american and good", called Lonestar (not the same one as in America).  It was a decent meal, but our most expensive meal, and least impressive.  Despite the long trek to NZ, everyone seemed really excited to be here.  After dinner we took Nancy and Laura back to the hotel and grabbed a few drinks with Tom, but soon jet lag started to kick in so we headed home.

Wednesday Jeff had to work so I took everyone to the market to grab some groceries and we went to the Hilton to book our Milford Sound cruise.  The Hilton offers employees a discount of excursions so we were able to save some money on a coach cruise coach trip on the BBQ bus.  (We initially chose a different bus, but it was booked, so we decided to take a leap).  We met Jeff for lunch at Hamill's where it began to appear as if Tom had severely injured his eye with his mom's contact solution.  We urged him to run across to the eye glass store to have it looked at.  They confirmed it was a peroxide burn to the eye and it would take a little bit of time to heal.  With his present injury, Tom decided to sit out of the hike up Queenstown Hill.   It is a 600 meter hike with great views.  This is a hike Jeff and I have wanted to do for sometime, but often don't get days off together.  Laura, Nancy, and I started climbing, and were all surprisingly fit for the walk, but it was Nancy who was spitting out the optimistic phrases when we were slowly approaching the summit.  It was very impressive to see her climb to the top at age 60, with more ease than Laura and I.  We all napped and recovered and decided to try out the casinos 2 mains for $25 deal.  We had 5 mains, 2 desserts, 4 beers, and a glass of wine for $115, and the food was all really good!  I would say it was the weeks best bargain, and Jeff and I will definitely eat there again.

View from the top of Queenstown Hill

I must go make the same thing I make every night I am off work... Burritos/fajitas/quesadillas!!  Will finish the trip's details soon!!

Cheers!

Live the Life you Love

To everyone who reads this religiously, or in leiu of the news or as a procrastination tool, I sincerely apologize for my lack/poor quality of posts lately.  The good news is that it is because I have been having a lot of fun, and of course working really hard the past couple of weeks.  My last pay check was 86 hours in 2 weeks, and the second best part (the $$ being the first), is that I really love work.  I work with the greatest people ever, I serve the nicest people from all around the world, we have live music and quiz nights, and I have been learning to make yummy coffees and bartend.  It's quite the dream come true.  AND while I am not working I am dancing, responsibly enjoying cocktails with friends, laying on the beach, and hanging out with the best boyfriend ever.  THIS IS THE LIFE.

A few things that stand out:

• Spending the day on the beach of Lake Wakatipu with Jeff and Sophie (my most amazing American bestie), eating ice cream and playing football. 
• Going out on Sunday to celebrate a co-workers birthday only to be a table away from Elisabeth Moss (Peggy on Mad Men) (Sophie has a pic!)
• Brainstorming for Jeff's Mom, Sister Laura, and Brother Tom's visit to New Zealand in 4 weeks!!  We are so excited, and we want to take them EVERYWHERE! so we must strategize and choose wisely.
• Playing frisbee golf with Jeff and some work friends, and tripping over a root, and taking off a nice chunk of toe! AND performing really poorly at frolf.  It is so nice to be able to drink beers and play frolf in the middle of the park though.
• The weather can vary from day to day, and last week it was cold enough for snow to fall on the really high mountain tops!  It was breathtaking and made me very anxious for winter here.
• Jeff and I have been spending alot of time pondering whether to buy season passes for snowboarding or not.  Input is welcome!
• I have been going to basketball everyweek, playing for Hilton's team Blue Thunder (not nearly as serious as it sounds) and we won last week! wahooo! Although, no one is as competitive as Jeff and I.
• Joining the event center gym, where they have this amazing pool with waterfalls and a lazy river (and actual workout stuff too) and an adult hot pool... I can spend hours there without breaking a sweat hehe
• Jeff is training for the Routeburn Classic, which is an annual run of over 30k up the mountain and back down.  It is going to be pretty intense so he has started training rpetty hard already.  You can click on the link to read more!

Sometimes I feel like life moves way too fast here, but its a good fast, the kind of fast I was looking for, and not the fast I was feeling at home.  Here I don't read as much as in Nelson and I find myself watching weeks wiz by and wondering where days have gone, but it's not because I was doing laundry or watching tv or sleeping, it's because I am swimming in the lake, hanging out with new friends, dancing on tables with Sophie, or eating ice cream with Jeff.  Sometimes I feel like I don't see Jeff a lot because he works days and I work night, but we have so much fun when we do hang out.  I can't wait to have life a little more settled so we can do some of the awesome hikes around here and get some proper pictures, but for now I will post some on my flickr and possibly on facebook.

Hope everyone is well at home, and I love hearing from you!!  Miss everyone, and hope you are keeping warm as February begins!

Cheers!

Pictionary!

So many things have happened in the past week, and i might eventually get around to posting them, but in the meantime I thought I'd share a night that Jeff and I found quite amusing...

So if you have been a lifetime ourlivesaskiwis reader you will remember Markus and Jonas, who are the Finnish guys we originally met playing ultimate frisbee in Nelson.  We also visited Markus in Greymouth recently.  Well they are here in Queenstown for a couple days as part of their South Island road trip, with another friend.  I insisted on feeding them, a value only my mother could have instilled in me.  I made a spaghetti bolognese with garlic bread, and Jeff made some veggies, and we bought some chocolate eclair ice cream (YUMMM).  They brought some wines from the vineyards they visited in Nelson (double YUMMM).  Dinner was great, but we needed to find something to do inside for the night because there were torrential downpours outside.  I rummaged through the upstairs closet only to find the most appropriate game for 3 Finnish people and 2 Americans to play together ... PICTIONARY!!

They are very competitive, and we tweaked the game a little bit so it was every man for himself, but damn! They all were ahead of Jeff and I by the end and Jonas won!  I was the most pathetic example of Americans playing a board game ever.  We were slaughtered by their accurate drawings and extensive knowledge of English nouns and verbs.  Maybe this experience was only funny to the 5 of us, but I never would have expected getting our asses kicked by them!  Although they do start learning English at a young age.  This is just a warning to everyone who likes to put big money on games of pictionary... People from Finland are really really good, OR Jeff and I are just really bad.

I PROMISE to get some pictures of Queenstown up soon!  It is too pretty not to appropriately represent through photos.

Queenstown - "The Adventure Capital of the World"

So apparently time runs a little faster in Queenstown... We have already been here for 2 weeks!  And I have not blogged once! It's way too easy to keep busy here, and I'm worried that I might blink and September will be here, or maybe things will start to slow down now that we are settling in, but I wouldn't count on it.  It is difficult to go into great detail about the past 10 days, so, again, I am going to try to highlight some of the more interesting moments using bullets (sorry).

In somewhat of a chronological order

• Jeff and I went out for our first Fergburger (The "best burger in New Zealand").  I think its a law that everyone that comes to Queenstown must try one because there is almost always a line outside, and people wait up to an hour for this burger. (It is open from 8:30am-5am).  It was delicious, but because of the sauces, the meat itself was not much more than any other american burger.  It probably is the best burger in New Zealand though.  While we were there we saw Gabriel, a boy we met on the Heaphy track.  He and his other French friend invited us to Cowboys for a beer (A bar Steve and Laurie had suggested to us on our way to Nelson from the Heaphy).  Cowboys is a really awesome bar with pool, shuffle board, and a mechanical bull.  We let some older man play pool with us so he bought everyone a liter of beer and I got to watch all of the guys attempt the bull ride.  It was a great night that started off with an impromptu trip to Fergburger.
• When something is going on in Queenstown (as there usually is on the weekends) everyone goes, so we thought we'd try our hand at properly attending the National Rugby 7s Tournament.  It is all of New Zealand's regions playing against eachother in a 2 day tournament, but it is a 7 on 7 game and is shorter in duration. We went with Dan, and you pay $10 to enter and because it is early afternoon you have no intention of drinking until you realize that is basically why everyone is there.  Dan and Jeff split a 6 pack of cans for $20.  Sadly, that isn't too outrageous for Queenstown.  
• I started my job at the Pub and I love it alot.  All of the people there are so nice and friendly, and they are from all over the world so they give some great insight and ask some funny questions about the US.  They come from the UK, Canada, South America, South Africa, NZ, and the US.  We went out with all of them and some of the other hotel people, and Jeff got along with all of the guys great, and from what I remember (or have been told) Ashley, Fran, and I spent a lot of the night dancing, telling boys they can't dance with us, and yelling I love you.  It was really fun, and apparently quite funny to watch.
• Jeff got a full-time job at Hertz rental cars working as a customer service agent or something?  Today is his 3rd day he seems to really enjoy it, and he will get to learn how to drive manual, well other than his motorcycle.  He teases me because he makes more money than I do, but I think I win after tips.  Either way we both have really perfect jobs that will let us enjoy Queenstown, its activities, and save for travelling once we leave New Zealand.
• Jeff's mom, sister Laura, and brother Tom are thinking of visiting in April/May which is super exciting, and I hope my mom will get a chance to come out too.
• We have a hotel co-ed basketball team, so there has to be 2 girls and 3 guys on the court at all times or you have to play a man down. So I heard this mentioned and wanted to go so that Jeff could play, and they said it was fine if he played as long as I played.  Jeff missed most of the first game because he was working, but when I got there I found out there was only one other girl there for our team so we had to play the entire 40 minutes!  I made one basket and we lost by one shot the first game.  There wasn't enough people to make up 2 full teams next game so they asked us to fill in so Jeff got to play, and I ended up playing a whole entire other game.  We got killed that game, probably because I took it easy :).  The second game had some aggressive boys so I backed off a bit because I have a tendency to get hurt in basketball.  I was fortunate enough to just be super super super sore for the next 2 days, and I will be there next week, and was even invited to play net ball on Wed nights (mostly because they need girls, and I have no idea how to play).  Jeff didn't like it as much as I did though, which I assumed he wouldn't when I knew there would be 4 girls on the court and most of the people hadn't played basketball before. There wasn't a strong defense or much strategy and he wasn't getting much playing time because there were so many guys, so it wasn't ideal for him, but I think there are more serious leagues coming up for him to join. 

That's about it for now, and I need to get ready for work, but Jeff suggested we start a little chart with the differences/similarities between a city like Philly and Queenstown to paint a better picture of the city, and speaking of pictures I will get some up here soon!

Love and miss everyone so much!!

Cheers!

Jeff & Nicole's Hitchhiking Adventure

So there comes a point in your life when you go on a long hike, you have to hitchhike 400km back to your car, and by the time you get settled in the next city, you're so far behind on your blog that you have to summarize adventures, leave out some details, and get on with reality... Welp that's where I am at.  Too much to put into detail in the blog, but I will try to summarize, and happy to talk about on skype.

So I left off with us finishing the hike and arriving in Karamea (the town closest to the end of the Heaphy).  Basically we had to get up to the car (430km away) in the next 2 days to make it to the Heaphy start and down to our friend Markus in Greymouth (all the way back past Karamea).  It didn't go quite as planned.

The first day we got lucky enough to be picked up by Steve and Laurie (The American couple we met on the Heaphy) outside of Karamea, and they took us all the way to Nelson (approx. 5 hrs)!  After that it took 2 more days and 6 more hitches to get to the car at the start of the Heaphy.  It wouldn't have even helped to get there any earlier though because for the 3 days we were hitching it was pouring rain, and in the last 10km of the road to get to our car there are 3 water passes (basically a flowing stream with a cement road under it to drive through) that were over a meter higher than normal, so even if we got to our car during the rain we couldn't get out of the lot.

Our last hitch was on New Years Eve, around 1pm, and about 5 hours after the rain had subsided, after hitching 2 times earlier that day and walking about 15km already we only had 15km to go and a German kid stopped and picked us up, claiming to have been looking for a waterfall.  We were so hopeful we would end up at the track start before he found his waterfall, but only 3km away from the pickup point was the intersection for the waterfall.  We were discouraged, but the boy, Metaius, was insistent on taking us to our car despite our warnings of the possible high water passes.  We drove through the first one fine, and warned him that the second one is the worst of the 3.  We urged him to drop us in front of the second, but he claimed his brother told him his Subaru could drive through knee deep water and he and Jeff tested the water to be a little below the knee.  Metaius was excited to drive through the water pass!  (and we were excited to be getting a ride).  We kicked it into 1st gear and made it through all 3 no problem.  We found our car right where we left it!  We thanked Metaius and wished him good luck on his travels.

So it was 2pm on NYE and we were supposed to meet Markus, and we had no phone on the Heaphy so he still didn't know if we were coming or not.  We decided that we were too tired to get to Nelson (2 hrs) and grab the motorcycle then drive the 4hrs it would take to Markus (possibly in the dark on some really windy roads).  We charged up the phone and told Markus we'd see him the next day, then drove into Nelson, cooked and ate Cup Noodle in the car, grabbed some drinks, discovered this neat outdoor concert they had set up in town, watched some live music, greeted the new year with open arms, and slept in the car. :)

Sunset in Nelson on NYE

The next day was a long day in the car, and on the bike, but we made it to Greymouth in a little under 5 hours.  Markus gave us an awesome rate on a couples room and we just cooked up some amazing dinner and headed out to the pacific to watch the sun drop off the side of the earth... so beautiful.  The next day he took us to Lake Brunner, where we grabbed a tan and a jump of a bridge!  We decided to stay one more night because we were really exhausted from the constant go go go we'd been doing, but on the 3rd of January we were off to Queenstown!  Unfortunately the windy roads and the constantly changing weather wears on a lonely driver and the biker following her so we stopped to sleep in the city Haast, about 2.5hrs from Queenstown.  It was Jeff's birthday so we grabbed a nice dinner and a few drinks.

Sunset in Greymouth

Finally the day had come!  We arrived in Queenstown.  We instantly stopped at the McDonalds for their $5  coffee and muffin deal (and free internet) so we could start calling places to rent.  We were able to see 2 places the first day, but the first was too expensive and the second was smelly... That night we met up with Dan (our British friend we lived with in Nelson for a short while), and grabbed some drinks and live music. It was great seeing Dan, but sad to hear he might leave Queenstown soon!  The next day I had an interview at the hotel at their pub (I had already had a phone interview in Nelson with the manager), and we were able to set up 2 rooms to look at to rent.  The interview went great and she offered me a trail night the next day and the first place we saw that day we loved, but wanted to hold out until we saw the second place.  The second place wasn't even available until 2 weeks later, so we left and called Lucy in the car asking if we could move in that night.

That brings us right about to reality (although I have a few more stories about Queenstown to add later), but we live with a woman named Lucy, who owns the home we live in, and who is a painter/designer, so the house is beautiful and tidy.  She has an adorable French Mastiff named Marley, who we love.  We also have another guy at the place who rents a room, but keeps to himself.  They are both very nice and we pay a little under a $100/wk (which is less than our last place).  It is in Fernhill (approx. 4km from the center of the city), so it is up a huge hill, but it is great exercise, and Dan lives on the street next to ours, so we have some company close by. As for employment, my trial night went amazing.  I loved the atmosphere and the people I work with, and they wash my uniform every day and I get to wear jeans, and if they have a hole they fix it, they feed me for free, among other neat thins.  They checked my NZ references and I should be starting at the end of this week!  Jeff has been applying all around town and should have no problem getting a job, and there is certainly no shortage in people who say "there are tons of jobs in QT".  I think I just got really lucky with mine!

I may have left a few things out, but i'll check my notes and fill in any blanks ASAP, but I feel better to be somewhat caught up on the blog, and feel like i'm writing about reality.

Really missing everyone at home, especially around that holidays.  Hope all is well!

Cheers!

ps. will take QT pictures soon and post them... it's beyond breathtaking!

Our Heaphy Adventure

The second day was about 17km from Gouland downs to the Mackay Hut.  We had to cross a few rivers (more like bustling small streams) by foot (most have bridges), which meant I had to fall into at least one.  My record has been pretty good with crossing waterways in New Zealand, but when you strap a 20lbs pack on my back I'm bound to fall right into the water like a turtle on its back, and sure enough I did.  With a little time and the hot sun I dried up a bit, and at the next rest stop Jeff and I went dipping in a watering hole. (too cold for swimming)  It was a beautiful afternoon, but the discovery of some nasty looking spiders under the rocks quickly scared me from the water hole.  We arrived at the Mackay huts and were greeted by the sandflies.  They basically make is so we cook quick and run and eat it in the tent.  My feet were killing me by day 2 so I was very content setting up the tent and falling asleep before sundown (which was about 9:30-10).  We were abruptly woken around midnight to the sound of a Weka trying to steal our food.  We were able to save the cous cous, but he got our last few slices of bread!

Honestly, I was quite surprised that of all of the things that could really hinder my ability to enjoy the hike it was my feet.  I expected sore shoulders, a lower back spasm, or maybe some really rough hills, but not sore feet, but they were so sore at times i could feel the adrenaline pumping so that it was almost numb.  Day 3 came along and the feet were still pounding, but we had to move along so I took it one step at a time for about 20km to the Heaphy Hut.  It was the most beautiful of the hut locations, and it was located right where the Heaphy river (a very large river) dumped into the Pacific Ocean.  Despite all of the sandflies, we made sure to take a swim in the waves of the West Coast.  We were informed by John, a friendly American born (attended HS in Allentown!) guy who has lived in NZ for 8 years, that there was a shuttle from the track end to Karamea (an additional 18km) that came at 1, so we made sure to get up around 6am to get to the trail end by noon.

The last day was the most beautiful, as we walked almost entirely along the beaches of the upper west coast, and we arrived at the end around 11:30 and grabbed a shuttle to Karamea to find a backpackers to clean up in.  It took us 72 hours but overall I enjoyed the hike.  I don't mind camping at all, but I did not enjoy walking when my feet were acting up or the sandflies.  I think I prefer camping when I don't have to carry a pack the whole day, because I was so exhausted by the time we got the huts each day, I really couldn't enjoy the surroundings too much.  We also had to ration out food, which is my weakest point because I love to eat, but we brought a soup for each night, and about 18 granola bars, some cous cous, some scroggin (kiwi name for  trail mix), breakfast shakes, a bar of dark chocolate, a loaf of bread, and a jar of peanut butter, and we had finished everything by the end, and didn't go too hungry, although a bigger dinner would have been nice.

The Heaphy River draining into the Pacific Ocean

Arriving in Karamea was like a huge ray of sunshine, despite the dark clouds rolling in.  We got some laundry going (for $5 a wash!!) at the Rongo backpackers.  Rongo was really fun and there were a few Heaphy trampers there.  Petia stayed the same night we did, as well as our new found French friend Gabriel (he'll show up later in our adventure as well), and we even got to pet our first sheep (because it was on a leash)  That afternoon we headed out to a cafe called "The Last Resort" for a proper bite to eat.  There we had run into an older American couple, Steve and Laurie, we had seen/spoken to along the Heaphy, who were currently living in Nelson.  We said hi and joked with them about following them here, and you could tell they felt bad about not offering us a ride from the trail end when we spoke to them there.  They offered to take us on this nature adventure they were doing the next morning, and said if we wanted to go to just wait outside the backpackers at 8am.  We thanked them for their generosity, but decided not to go because we wanted to sleep a bit and there were rain clouds coming. By the time we got all of our things together and has some breakfast it was 10am and time to set out for our first hitchhiking experience.  It is 430km from Karamea back to the Heaphy start where our car was, so we knew this could be quite the adventure (when driving to the west coast you have to go all the way around Kahurangi National Park rather than through it).
(side note:  At "The Last Resort" we ordered a milkshake, and apparently a kiwi milkshake is just shaken milk with a flavor... quite disappointing for $5.50)

We often refer to our experience getting back to the car as "more of an adventure than the Heaphy itself", but it only took 50 hours to get the 430km. We could have taken a shuttle for 6 hours and $110, but we decided to do it the hard way, or the "adventurous" way as some may put it.

I hope to get caught up to Queenstown by tomorrow because I really can't wait to blog about QT, but there we have had a lot of great experiences before we even got here!

Cheers!

Jeff & Annabelle

Christmas & the Heaphy Track

I know it’s been quite a while, but it has been a non-stop adventure ever since we’ve left our house in Nelson.  This may end up being a 3 part blog entry because there’s a lot to tell, and I want to start from where I left off last time.  So where did I leave off last time?  Jeff finished up at the orchard, and I worked 2 shifts at the council.  I brought my lunch friends Tim Tams so they could try the Tim Tam slam, but they all insisted I do it for them.  I tried to be as eloquent as possible while shoving a melting cookie into my mouth, and I’m pretty sure they were delighted.  This time working at the café I worked with James (the manager/chef) rather than Lorraine (who left early for Christmas), and he was really fun to work with and even taught me how to make coffee!  It was an invaluable experience because it looks really good on my CV (resume).  Speaking of resume, I was reading a weekly bulletin put online that lists Queenstown jobs and apartments while we were still in Nelson to get an idea of how difficult it could be to obtain employment and housing once we get there.  It was clear we would have no trouble finding a place to live, and I saw an ad for waitstaff at the Hilton in QT, so I applied, and within a day the manager had called me for a phone interview and asked me to come in to meet her as soon as I got to QT!!  More on this later.

So Thursday night I took Jeff to basketball because I needed to go to the grocery store out that way anyway, and I came and watched the end of his games, and he was playing with a Giants player!  The Giants are equivalent to the Sixers in that they are the big team for that city in the country, but unlike the Sixers, they are not super rich and famous, but apparently he was a pretty decent player, and super tall.

Friday, Jeff finished up at noon, and I at 2, and we went to Coverstaff to say our goodbyes and collect our holiday pay.  Then we went on a mission to find a speaker that could play music while we were on the Heaphy track.  We came across this awesome speaker called the “Bassburger” (seen below), which has a rechargeable battery that charges by USB and lasts for 8 hours on a 3 hour charge.  The sound is terrific, and it is way too loud if you turn the ipod up all the way.  It was perfect for the hike, and a really great reflection of what modern technology can accomplish in a combination of size and quality. 

That night we went out to the Nelson Hotel, which is a bar we found that had $3 Tui, Heineken, and Speight’s bottles (which is really cheap by NZ standards) and an amazing Ginger Lime cider that I am in love with.  We met up with Jeff’s basketball buddy Jake who is from Germany (the same town as Dirk Nowitzki, which is kind sweet).  We spent a few hours talking to Jake about Germany and basketball and life, and we hope to meet up with him when he comes to visit Queenstown soon.

Saturday was Christmas Eve and we headed to Golden Bay to find a backpackers to spend a warm night in before our big hike.  The Shambhala backpackers and yoga retreat was recommended to us by James at the council.  It looked and sounded beautiful on the website, and the price was right so we headed there, and it was beautiful in real life but we were disappointed that they didn’t have internet because we wanted to skype with family before Christmas.  Needless to say we had a free yoga session and a wonderful Christmas eve dinner because everyone there that night made a dish and we all shared.  Jeff and I made a vegetable scampi of sorts.  We got a really good sleep in and were off to the Heaphy track on Christmas morning. 

 

We picked up Petia, who was hitchhiking to the track and walked with her for the first couple hours of the track.  She was a nice 46 year old forest ranger turned music teacher who was very eccentric and fun to talk to, and loved to take pictures.  Our first day was about 24 km (& 7 hours) to Gouland Downs Hut, and once we arrived there we were hungry and I was beyond exhausted.  We made some dinner and put some decorations on a tree to get in the Christmas spirit.  We were the only ones there from 7-9pm then a young group of trampers showed up (from France, Switzerland, Germany, and Mexico).  Jeff and I attempted to go look for kiwis as the sun went down, but the sandflies were really bad so we went to bed. 

Side note:  Because the track is 49 miles (76 km) long we didn’t really expect to meet too many people on the track, but we didn’t realize that we would get to the huts and the break shelters and there would be about 20 others who had booked hut beds or camp sites.  It ended up that we would see the same people every morning and night for 4 days, and we made a lot of friends who appear very often later in our adventures.  It was actually really great to be able to hike alone during the day, but share your experiences on the track with the others at the end of the day. 

It’s getting late and I’m getting hungry, but I will blog about the rest of the Heaphy track and our adventure to Queenstown tomorrow.  Hope everyone had a happy and safe Christmas and New Years and I want to hear about everyone’s Christmas so please skype/e-mail!

Cheers!!

Ps. I have uploaded all of our most recent pictures to our Flickr/Photo page!