If Hamish ever asks you if you want to go eel hunting...just say no.

Hello hello. Well its been quite some time...well rather months since I've attempted to write about our journeys so here it goes, much of it in abbreviated form. Autumn in NZ is now apon us and we have been on the road for almost three weeks since leaving o'le Picton. Life couldn't be better.

A typical day goes as follows:

We get up around sunrise. Eat. Discuss. Drive, stop and explore. Find camp. Eat. Sleep.

While tramping life is even simpler because the track ahead is already laid out.

We have no worries living a rather simplistic life, and in all honesty, if something is bothersome we tend just not to do it. Beyond the obvious experiences of traveling; exploring, seeing, meeting ect. there is an added bonus in the cadence in our livestyle. Our live's are basically dictated by the day. We wake up around sunrise, and go to sleep an hour or so after dark. There is never in a rush, there's always time for reading, exploring and stopping. We are also all in pretty darn good shape. Hiking, climbing and surfing, and unfortunatly along with a severly reduced calorie diet has made us pretty darn trim (not to say im proud or anything...but i fit into a size small pant!). Its actually quite the healthy lifestyle.The only drawback is that we are easily sidetracked. When we left Picton, I would have assumed we would have been at Stewart Island already, but we havent even made it to the southern alps yet. I also definatly haven't been as cleanly as even I would like. Hot showers are hard to come by, but theres always a stream to rinse up in. But thats ok, we have done so much and so little since we left, it couldnt be better.

A little run down of things we have done so far in short (pictures will better describe this). We left Picton and to say goodbye to the sounds we explored their far reached by travelling and hanging aroudn the French Pass and the Tennyson Inlet. Booked the Abel Tasman great walk...also strangely known as the AT, and hiked for 7 days taking the inland track back to our car instead of the ferry. Hung out and ran some errands in Nelson (a.k.a. stuffing our faces with BK), and headed of to Golden Bay and the Fairwell spit. Spent a very relaxing few days camping in the middle of nowhere on the beach, then checked out a hippy climbing commune, and headed for the west coast town of Westport.

Currently, we are camping somewhere in between Lewis Pass and the east coast bound for Christchurch. Just finished dinner, rice and carrots, and just came to the alarming conclusion that my sleeping pad has a hole in it. We actually wern't even planning to go to Christchuch untill two days ago, the same day I might add where we drove four hours to finally get to the West coast. We woke up planning to go to Barrytown to forge knives(killer), found out there was a folk festivile in C-church, packed our belongings, and started driving right back across the country to get their. We have made it work out so we can stop at castle hill (best climbing in the world) on the way back to the west coast and still make knives on next friday. This is pretty much how we have been travelling so far we just do the do.We have seen so many amazing little pockets of NZ that we never would have come across if we weren't doing things on a whim.

At the time we left, Picton was slowing on down. Friends were leaving and the ussually busy town in the summer was burning out. I enjoyed my last weeks building an ice cream shop from the ground up, but my ambitions trancend the profession scooper world. (side note: there was also a roving gang of teenagers in town that were trying to beat me up) So with the love affair with Picton slowly coming to a halt we just needed to leave and get on with what we are really here to do, travel.

Thats pretty much the extent of my existance right now. We still have some major priorities for the trip. Stewart Island and Milford Sound are at the top of the list, but right now we just are really enjoying the crisp autumn air on the road. Starting to really get sometime to think about what I want to do when I get back...which is nice.

I heard things are going better back home. Mainly less snow and more sun, which is always good. I NJ actually quite abit and am pretty jealous I missed out on the Montclair Wilco concert.

I hope everybody had a splendid easter, I miss you all! I hope this gives a sorta broad perspective of whats been happening for the past month or so, I'll try to actually update more frequently so I won't have to generalize things so much. Thanks for reading!

Edit: We made it to the festival. Really liking Christchurch. Saw a bunch of amazing folk blues bands. Jazz on tap for tommorrow!

Last morning surf at Robin Hood Bay

Picton...

Tennyson Inlet

Pack Dolphins

Eel Hunting with Hamish...Never again

French Pass

Kurtismo Clownbaby's Face with a hint of Cable Bay

Music!

Yup...

Abel Tasman Morning

Huddled away on the AT

Meth-Lab

Trekkin'

Seriously good Folk band called The Eastern...Check them out

Lots of driving...but we made it

Lewis Pass NP

Radiant looking Jay

Sunrise at the hut on the inland track

Somewhere circa the Fairwell Spit

Campish things

Never too much B&W right?

Thanks Giving...In Drag

Yo! So it’s been awhile since the last update and if anybody is still reading this here it goes! I guess I'll just start with the jist of what’s going on. Jay is back again working at the now newly opened Cafe Cortado. He is pretty pumped about that except for the fact that he now works like a dog, often doing ten hour shifts. Curt is also doing very well as he has had some trials, at the Cafe as well, and it seems he will be offered a job there soon. Good stuff, now we’re all pretty much employed.

Things are going well for me at compass charters. I get to work outside on the sound most of the time, and am learned to deal with my boss Arron. He's actually not that bad of a guy, he really likes me, he is just hard to work with. I am pretty sure he sees me as a younger version of him because he used to travel the world when he was younger. I on the other hand fail to see the similarities other than that. The other people I work with are pretty awesome and they keep me sane. Shirley is the sweetest woman ever. She basically acts like mom. She brings me fresh eggs every week, makes me kick ass sandwiches and makes sure that I eat my veggies. She has also offered to take us out on the sounds in her family yacht, a pretty sweet deal for three dudes that couldn't afford to get out on the sounds any other way. Jeff, the handy man, is also very cool. He never lets anything get to him, and makes work easier to deal with.

Ahh it’s been awhile! Three weekends ago we climbed Mt. Stokes, which is the highest mountain in the sounds. We didn't really know what we were getting into, but we wanted to do something wild after feeling like bums after a big night out. Well it ended up that the hike, which is only about 100k, took three hours to get to. The road was so contorted, like seriously unbelievable. We were all getting motion sick, and at most times the lane wasn't bigger than a bike lane, but we got there. It was a rough trek up, and instead of using the time tested method of cutting switch backs into the trail, there were none, we slogged straight up the mountain while going slightly insane. But the reward was great, with seriously serine views of the sound. It’s hard to imagine the labyrinth of bays and valleys that the sounds are without seeing it from an arial view.

I started surfing again last week (thanks mom!) in a magical place called Robin Hood Bay! The first day out was pretty interesting. There were spitting over head barrels just firing down the line with 30 mile an hour offshore. It was probably some of the most insane conditions I've been out in with the winds. When you were taking a wave it was like being shot in the face with a fire hose with the blow back. I have gone out a few more times since then in waist to belly high waves and totally flobbergobbined the jim john! It’s actually pretty cool. One of the bartenders at Seamus, Scotty, also surfs and he called to go with him on a session on Friday. Scotty is a seriously cool dude, he’s a professional artist, and also a well known bahrain player (Irish drum). He also was once a professional tree climber, and now teaches ceramic classes. Kinda a jack of all trades I guess, but it was really cool to be surfing with a mate again.

Last weekend I found myself in kind of a weird situation, as both jay and curt were working to get the Cafe ready to open so I had some alone time to adventure myself. I decided to go to two beaches south of Bleinham, Ward and Marfield. Ward was a geological surprise! On the beach were these big rocky bulbous mounds that happened to be petrified remains of ancient reef building sponges. It was seriously inspiring, and it reminded me that my geological journey actually began here in New Zealand. I am excited to do something with it sometime in my life...we will see when!

This weekend so far has also been quite the undertaking. With Jay working, Curt and I decided to hit the road and head to Nelson. And let me tell you what a day it was! We visited Nelson the most livable slash trendy city in New Zealand, we meandered our way up to Abel Tasman NP, stopped to take a dip, picked up hitch hikers, claimed an island, went on a hike and ate at burger king...twice!

I just sorta realized that I was blabbing a bit too much and now have a monster blog. Sorry about that. Nothing much more to add. We are looking very forward to Thanks Giving on Thursday. I made sure to get the day off and we will feast, drink and be merry...but not to hairy! Ha! We are inviting the friends we have made to come as well, so hopefully we won't be dining alone but we will have to see. It's kinda sad not being able to share this holiday with the people we love, but we are going to do our best to remember what it’s all about.

Other than that, life is slow. It’s really nice living in a town with a population of 1000. People know us around town as the American boys, everybody says hello to us when we enter bars, it’s just an overall just a very refreshing change of pace. Jay and I have played a few open mic nights around town, although I have to say Jay steals the show I just do the best I can to compliment him on the ole mandolin.

Alright, thats enough. Much love everybody.

Haha so I since I didn’t get to post this a week ago, when I wrote it I’ll add a little update. I got to go out on the sounds with Arron my boss on Wednesday. It was so sweet, the water was glass for most of the morning. It is a very different perspective being on the water. Oh yeah, and since Arron wasn’t paying us for it, we didn’t help him do any work! It was a treat to watch him scrape algae and mussels.

Thanks giving came and gone, and I’m not gonna lie, we kick ass at thanksgiving. We did our best and prepared great food, while dressed in drag. I’ll let the photos speak for themselves.

A glorious set of petrified sponges

A lonesome stroll on ward beach

T-day with the fam



Nothing too exciting, just a normal thanks giving

Before the madness

The best car ever

We just started to realize some of our habits may be out of control. But we have learned valuable engineering skills from it!

Sunset from our backyard

Nelson

Dominating the summit of Mt. Stokes

Picton/Waikawa

Erotic Hippie Sculpture Fest

Abel Tasmen

Walking back from our island

Teeny Wave

Claiming island for america

The two most akward french people that we just happened to pick up

Buzz Aldrin Hates the Moon

Had some time here a just a few for the road off my camera. Real post WITH pictures coming soon!

Cheers

Small sheep got stuck outside the fence, we failed to shepard it back in.

Jay and curtiepie looking epic atop Mt. Stokes

Mt. Stokes the highest mountain in the sounds

Havelock

The snout

We are not chefs, just boys

Well I can't really believe its November, it came so much sooner than we thought. Its slightly weird that a month filled with cold, falling leaves (have they fallen) and thanksgiving is a sunny paradise here. I'm not really sure where we left off on the blog, so we'll start from last weekend. Curt is here and is fitting into the Picton lifestyle marvelously. Jay was working last weekend so I showed him the sites around the area. We had a delightful time together that included the discovery of Monkey Bay, which is a little wave cut bay that is a climbers playground. Seriously it has everything, caves, overhang and slab with no need for a crash pad because of the sand below. Pretty sweet.

Oh yeah very important! There are waves in Robin Hood Bay! This is one of two surf spots that we can get to without driving over an hour south, needless to say were pretty pumped to see some waist high splooger bombs. Although it is close, it is not easy to get to. You have to drive 10k on mountainous gravel road that pushes the chitlin to the max. For real, if you don't drive maniacally fast to get some air into the engine, the car over heats, and the 20k ride ends up taking you two hours. But that said, it keeps the bay very desolate, which is already is picturesque as is, with turquoise water wrapped in lush hills. Hopefully we will get a chance to surf it this week. I picked up a board in Kaikora on Sunday, and although its hard to justify spending a large portion of my net wealth on something that really has no practical application, nothing makes me physically happier than surfing. The board is also very me, it is a 6' 0" twinner retrofish, with a slightly ridiculous paint job. Can't wait to shed the gnar!

Actually, on the way back from Kaikora, two pretty incredible things happened. The first being witness to one of natures most bazaar events(well, we think its bazaar). We stopped off on the 1 to do a little hike to a waterfall, probably about a half mile in through the woods. We got there, the waterfall was spectacular, but we were more surprised by the presence of seals. In the middle of the rocky woods, a half mile from shore, the not so graceful seal had made the trek to play in the waterfall. There were actually more seals here in the woods, than at the seal colony we visited a few hours prior It was very fitting seeing that Jay was joking about mountain seals all day, but it was seriously an amazing event. Planet Earth would totally do a special on it.
Also on the way home, but not as spectacular, we visited one of our future surf spots. It’s a 500m point break, that is back dropped by snowcapped mountains. I really can’t imagine the mountains being any closer, it’s a unique place.

At home we are planting a garden, spearheaded by Mr. Romanchucks weeding. We are gonna try to grow the basics, beans, corn, tomatoes, peppers and basil. We already have some basil growing, so hopefully the others will come along nicely as well. We are also looking into getting some chickens, as they make delightful household pets! But really, we found a coup in the backyard and with a little work we could have a miniature farm in our backyard, very organic.
So the Chitlin unfortunately hasn't been fairing to well. It sounds like shes about to take a mechanical dump, kinda like Sean's Astro van before it died. But being the keen mechanics we are, we decided to get the oil changed...try to do it ourselves. Things got off to a quick start. It took more than 20 minutes for three of us to find the fucking dipstick. But once located, we found that the car was critically low on oil. And although we never technically changed the oil, because we couldn't get the damn oil plug out, we did add oil, and now she runs and sounds 10 times better. Raging success!

So yeah, I guess it seems we are really settling in here. At night we usually have some NZ brew and play music, and we work during the day. I hate my boss, hes a dick but thats ok. It’s starting to get really nice out, which I hear is the opposite of what is happening at home. I can't really think of anything else to write right now, but its probably a bit long as it is.

I miss all of you alot. Keep in touch amigos! I'll throw on the pictures tomorrow the library is closing.

Pie Overloard Sector Six

Howdy and hello. Hmm since the last little post a little bit has happened. Last weekend Jay and I took a lovely little trip to Kaikora, which is about 150k south of Picton on the glorious coastal highway. We really wanted to check out this area because we heard there was an abundance of marine life and surf. It was kinda a craptastic day, which we are kinda figuring out is common in the springtime here, but we departed anyways. On the way down we stopped in Ward to fuel up and get a meat pie. For those who don't know what a meat pie is, it is a little pastry filled with meat and cheese that is taking over our lives. They are amazing, we probably eat on average of 15 each a week. Its incredible they don't have them in the states. Further down on the coastal approaching two we were starting to pass some of the surf breaks including a 500m point break. Even in garbagy sloppy blown out conditions, it was producing a nice little, forever peeling, waist high wave. Pretty promising stuff.

We got to Kaikora, which is basically a peninsula jutting out into the sea (uplifted wave cut terrace if you wanna get technical), and headed towards the furthest point where we were greeted by seals. We did a little hike, which ended up going through a gull colony and more seals. Seals are really cool and adorable and such, but on the way back there was a lone seal on the track, that was getting kinda aggressive with us, so he had to climb as far up the cliff as we could to keep from getting mauled by a seal.

But yeah, it was a really refreshing to get out and travelling a bit again, we felt somewhat stagnet. The hike was great even though it was cold and windy, and we got the dibs on the local surf spots. Apparently the little bay thats only 20k from Picton called Robin Hood Bay, does get some pretty good surf, and were stoked about that.

On Monday nights we have made it a tradition to go to Shamus Pub, which is a little Irish Bar at the wharf in Picton. Its seriously freakin awesome, they have a irish fiddle jam session, and people show up all night with their instruments and join in. Last monday, I got to play a mandolin for a brief period of time and a shaker that somebody through to me across the bar. Sweet. There are also a variety of characters that frequent the pub. Probably our favorite is Jim. Jim is about 80 years in age, wears a handkerchief around his neck and looks like he is searching for gold. He is great, as a former surveyor, he loves talking to me about geology, as well as reading us poetry that his has written in his little black book of Jim thoughts.

Oh yeah big news! Curt has arrived safe and sound in Picton. We are very excited now to be a gang of three instead of a duo of two. Also with his arrival we can finally put finishing touches on our band. A few more band names have been thrown into the hat including Turd Johnsen and the Retards, as well as Single Steve and the Mixed Drinks. We are excited to make more music although we have been musically stagnant for the past week.

Work is going ok. My boss is kinda a condescending ass, but he really likes me and I’m starting to make some good money!

We have managed to create five paintings and paint them, below hopefully are some pictures of them that will shed light as to the meaning of our souls!

I miss you all, I have three days off this weekend so hopefully there will be some adventures to update soon. Much love.

Epic 1 (Sean coined this)

Epic 2

Kaikora

Art...and not the person haHA!

Epic 3

Home!

Life

Hello friends! It has been a little while since our last update and currently Jay and I have made great strides in becoming real people in NZ. We are currrently living in Picton and it looks like we probably will be for the next six months. I have have scored a job at a boat charter company called Compass Charters. Its a pretty sweet gig, I get to work on megayachts to which I will never be able to afford and get to work right on the water. I get a buck above minimum wage, which really isn't too bad at 13.50 an hour. Jay is starting a waitering job this week and the Corner Bistro, which also right on the water. Cool stuff, everybody wish him luck.

Hmm lets see...oh yeah, we have a house! Jay and I are renting a little bungalo thats only a 10 minute walk from town. It comes complete with shag carpet through out, and it looks like it was decorated by an older woman of sorts, maby even a grandmother! But me and jay are making it home, it has a really nice backyard and a sweet work shop and work area for projects. We have decided that we are going to decorate it with paintings that we paint, which might include such works of art as Dino Fighting Robot, which is my first piece I plan to create.

Life is good, I picked up a Mandolin to complement Jays guitar playing, and we have begun writing music again which is very refreshing. we hope to write and play some gigs soon, so Look for some neat tunes coming soon from the Rape House Family Band!

The Chitlin has been having a few problems, but nothing that can't be solved with a little love. She turned off the other day while I was driving to work which was neat, and then the same day the battery died, and we had to get a jump in the middle of a storm with gale force winds. Lets see, oh yeah and a big chunk fell off the inside of the car that came from under the steering column, hopefully that one can be fixed with duck tape!

We are really excited to be here, the town is seriously georgous, and we have good accesss to surf, hikes and bars. After living in a tent and a car for a month, it is really nice to have a place to go home to, and we get to shower and go to the bathroom indoors which is also a bonus!

In other news, I have decided to take it upon myself to build a kayak from wood, and am going to pick up supplies this week. I'm pretty sure this little project will push whatever crafting skills I have to the limit, but I guess I'll give it a shot> It would be really cool to get out onto the sounds and explore.

Anyways, I really miss everybody and home, and I am actually kinda bumbed that I am not going to get a fall which is my favorite season. I guess having two summers in a row isn't a bad compromise though! Keep in touch everybody, below are the long promised pictures with cheezy captions in really no particular order.

Oh yeah, I eat meat now.

What we do when there is gale force winds outside

Say no to duck rape

Ugly picture of picton

This is where we live!

Romantic walk in wellington

Twat a night!

Scrumptown USA

bah

Church on the East Cape

The tsunami madness

Waiting for the tsunami slash relishing the view

This has happened more than once

Lyndle and Strat the radist musicians we have met on our trip so far

Top of the ridge with Mish and Ben

Yeah! We woke up to this!

Jasonian 5

The never ending pursuit of unhappiness trying to catch a fish