Batman and Robin (A Love Story)

Alright, I figured I'd just start this off with the biggest news that has been on everybody's mind and put the rumors to rest. Yes, Jay and I are co-authoring a book titled Batman and Robin (A Love Story). It will be released in segments on this blog much like many of the great Authors of the past ( Dr. Seuss) released their master pieces in segments through periodicals.

Next biggest news. We survived the tsunami. Early yesterday morning Jay and I were cooking a breakfast of hardy proportions, when we noticed that there was a tsunami warning for New Zealand triggered by an earth quake off of Samoa. Since we were say about a foot above sea level in Naiper at the time, worry us it did! So after warning the camp host, we headed for higher land, well way higher, it was like a mountain in Lock Haven North over looking the Pacific. We'll the tsunami was supposed to come, and it did kinda. It ended up being less than a 40 cm high, so nobody could really see it from our vantage point.

Although the tsunami never really came, the bigger spectacle was how many people were on this cliff type thing with us. It was kinda like that scene in Independence day where all the people were on the roof of that building to great the aliens except not really because there were no signs welcoming the tsunami. But seriously, people left work, school, basically what ever they were doing to come and watch and be safe. Pretty cool stuff.

So since we last updated rounded the East Cape, stayed in Gisborne, went to the Scrumpy factory, did one of the Great Walks in New Zealand, met some great people, stayed in Naiper, laughed, sobbed and are now heading south toward Wellington where we booked ferry tickets for tonight, to go the South Island. We are truly excited to get down there, as neither Jay or I have been yet and we here there is work on the vineyards down there.

My time is running out the post is not finished yet so check back soon for more updates!

Fish market folly

Hello all. Just a short update. We looked for jobs today as we heard there was work to be had in a fish factory nearby (yeah fish!). Unfortunatly it does not look like there is much in the way of seasonal jobs in the Bay of Plenty at the moment, so we are gonna head south towards the south island where we hear there is sheep shearing and vinyard work, or mabye a delightful combination of the two. We are going to go around the east cape near Gisbourne taking our time with the possibility of doing a trek on the way down. As promised, below are some pictures. Many go with the last blog!

Much love...

Sunset from our campsite in Whaiheke!

We hiked across the island and ended up at Onetangi beach

We harvested the freshest of cockle every morning

Peace flame in the Ostend market...we wanted to do the peace walk the next day...but you know, we had bigger fish to fry

Having a blast after hiking out of camp and waiting for the bus for two hours



Driving in the starship destroyer/chitlin

Kicking the chitlin

Friend

The little ones on the Mount

View from the Mount

Epic

We own a car.

Friends! Family! Relatives! Hello all. So alot has changed since I last updated.After we stayed in auckland for two days, not that we didn't like the city, but we needed to get outof there because it was draining us and the city. After all we didn't come to NZ to be in a city. So after being thouroughly frustrated, which we rightfully should have been, about our transportation situation (no car) we decided to get out of there and camp on Whaikeke, which is an island 45 minutes from Auckland. It was the greatest decision we had made on the trip so far. We got there and took the bus to the last stop and hiked into this place called rocky bay campsite. It was wild, we had this whole freakin beautiful beach to ourselves with only one other camper who we thought was a homeless dude. It turned out that he was not homeless, and his name was Mark. He was pretty interesting/bizzar, he works on an organic farm and built his own house. The relationship between Mark and us grew quickly, and we even exchanged items. He needed a hook for fishing, so we gave him a few, and when we got back to the campsite after a hike we found that he left us two dead and very rotting fish to use as bait. Thanks Mark!

The next day, we hiked across the island to Onetangi beach. We came back and cooked food with four Canadians. It was actually really great. We had drinks with them and got a chance to play guitar with them as well. The next day we all went to the market in Ostend and got to talk to these ladys that are doing a peace walk across Whaiheke. They are carrying a tourch that has been all around the world (think olympics), used in parades and cerimonies to promote peace. Cool stuff. We ended our day by parting ways with the Canadians, hitting up the beach in Oneroa, packing up our stuff and heading back to Auckland to try to score a car at the sunday car mart.

We stayed at this place on Saterday called the Brown Kiwi, that is outside of central Auckland in this district called Ponsonby. It was pretty rad, the hostel was filled with basically only french and german people who wanted to talk to us to practice their english.

We followed some of the germans to the car mart on sunday morning, and ended up buying a car. Yes. Jay and I are now both the proud owners of a 1989 Sizuki Chitlin. It's really some to behold. It has a wopping three cylinder engine and tops out at about 115 kmh. But we love it, it is so sweet. We can now get around NZ freely, and also live on the cheap by camping at night. Transportation is so expensive here. We basically had to buy a car or we really would have blown our money away and not been able to get a full kiwi experience. In two days we have already saved 120 bucks, so its slowly but surely paying for itself.

We are currently at a campsite in Tauranga (im actually in the tent right now), that is south of Auckland on the Bay of Plenty. It was a fun trip road trip down, and after getting used to it driving on the other side of the road it was cakework. We climbed Mt. Maunganui today which gave us unreal views of the coastline and the surrounding area. Its amazing, this country is so active and health concious. Its a tough hike to the top, but we saw so many older people and younger people doing the hike. As jay said it, its like they value their lives more than we do in the states by living healthy lifestyles.

We are currently going to spend the next few days looking for work in the area. We are in good spirits right now and are looking to get more involved by either volunteering or working. There are lots of nice people here including about 5 other backpackers and their cars doing the same thing we are. We also met this very nice lady Dee, who seems like the campsite mom. She helped us cooked tonight and gave us advice about our travels. Well thats pretty much it right now, we miss you all lots and hope to update soon! Happy B-day Christy!

Lalaland meets NZ

Hello friends. This is our first attempt at writing a real trippy trip blog. We are currently in Auckland trying to figure out how were gonna get around the north island. Were staying in a backpacker hostel called nomad that is oh so hip.

So yea we started our trek flying into L.A. on a really old crappy plane that Jay and I were both sure was going fall out of the sky. But thanks to the in flight movie, The Proposal, this thought barely crossed our minds. We landed in L.A. around 7 were liza picked us up while simultanously getting yelled at by a turd cop for parking somewhat akwardly. LA was great though, we got to hike in the hollywoodhills (aka right under the giant hollywood sign), thanks to ethan who took us there while liza was at work. It was pretty wild, deserty, and senic. I thought hiking around LA would be easy because, you know, its LA. But it ended up really kicking our ass, the last hour of the hike was straight up hill and it was like 100deg. Being three guys and jacked up with testosterone nobody wanted to man up, and say they were about to hurl so instead we nearly drove our selves towards passing out.

The next day was highlighted by me and jay buying food for the day at the grocery store with our spare change for a grand total of $5.22. (Not actually the highlight, but still really impressive)

We ended up our trip in Venice Beach and Malibu, which was seriously hip and georgous. Thank you to all of the LA crew especially Liza and Brit for opening up their sweet Beverly Hills apartment to us for the for days we stayed, we really had an awsome time.

The flght to New Zealand was 13 hours long it wasn't so bad, because they gave us a pair of fresh socks in case ours got soiled during the flight. New Zealand is amazing, Auckland is so georgous. Its a super clean trendy city, that sits among cinder cone volcanoes and the strangly aqua blue water of the warf. We spent the first day or so getting bank accounts(met the nicest bank guy ever) and tax numbers. Its pretty stressful doing this stuff, and suprisingly takes alot out of you. But day two were done with most of the loose ends, we got to finally do some fun stuff. We went on an Auckland bridge walk with our hostel, in which we thought we were literally taking a walk over the bridge. But it ended up being we got to walk through the framework of the bridge while being tethered to the walkway. The views were amazing, Jay forgot his camera. We got a chance to grab a drink with a few people that did walk with us which was really cool. It was nice to finally get to sit down and get to know people.

So yea we are somewhat stuck in Auckland for the moment while we figure out our transportation situation. Well I wouldn't really call it stuck, as Auckland is awsome, but Jay and I are really just itching to go down to the south island. We really want to go out and find some solitude and hit some of the treks down there before they get crowded. Hope to update again soon.