If someone asked me....

how to sum up traveling in New Zealand, I would tell them this story:

Shortly after finishing my last blog post, I went through a wander through gorgeous Kaikoura. I met a woman from Alabama at an art gallery, got coffee, and enjoyed the sunshine. While heading back to my hostel, I heard someone yell out my name. It turned out to be a guy named Marc who I had ridden the bus with through Milford Sound and Stewart Island. We had a chat for a while and since neither of us had anything to do that evening, he asked if I wanted to meet up for pool later. So we went out to the bar, had a few pints, I lost horribly at pool (no surprise there!), and some Aussie guy asked us if he could challenge us, but since he was on his own, he grabbed some random dude from the bar who was watching tv. I got to chatting with this guy, whose name was Cristian, from Chile, and it turned out that he was from Picton, which is where I was headed the next day. He works as a fish engineer, at a salmon "farm" (basically like DIPAC, not an evil salmon farm). He was a really interesting guy, had a degree in marine biology, had just learned how to surf, was buying land in Chile to start a hostel, etc. I mentioned I was going to Picton the next day and he said, "why don't you come over for dinner, I don't know many people in Picton and I have a huge fresh salmon I need to cook". I then convinced Marc to postpone his travel plans (he was going to head to Christchurch the next day), get on the bus with me, hang out with Cristian in Picton, and then I'd drive him to ChCh the next day. He agreed because hey, who doesn't like a salmon dinner and free ride to Christchurch!

So the next day we got on the bus, hung out in Picton, I got my car from where it had been stored, and we went over to Cristian's lovely house by the beach where he proceeded to cook us the most amazing dinner I have had in ages. Salmon seviche with garlic, onion, and fresh-squeezed lemon juice (he got the lemons from his boss' lemon tree and I squeezed them myself!), veggies, salad, and I hate to say it, but the best barbecued salmon I've ever eaten (sorry dad!). Plus lots of wine and beer. He then offered to let Marc and I stay there for the night, he had plenty of couch space and an air mattress, so of course we did.

The next day we had a lovely breakfast, hung out with Cristian a bit more, and eventually hit the road to ChCh. At the half way point in Kaikoura, we decided to stop for coffee. We were sitting in the cafe when all of a sudden, my friend Owen that I had traveled with about a month ago and who I thought was in Australia, walks in! Apparently he had gotten a job in Kaikoura and decided to come back from Oz. Such a weird string of coincidences!

If I hadn't run into Marc, I wouldn't have gone to play pool that night. If I hadn't gone to play pool, I wouldn't have met Cristian. If I hadn't met Cristian, I would have missed out on an awesome night of free food and accomodation and lovely conversation. If I hadn't stayed the night at his house, I wouldn't have gone to Kaikoura that day. If I hadn't gone to Kaikoura that day, I wouldn't have run into Owen.

And that is pretty much traveling in NZ in a nutshell. Just when you're feeling down, a whole bunch of weird shit coincides to make life good again.

Off the island, back to the real world

I left Stewart Island a few days ago, which was nice. I had fun at first but at the end of a couple weeks I was ready to leave. I ended up working more like 6-12 hours a day, instead of 3-5, and I just got really exhausted by the end. I was bummed I didn't have more spare time to hang around the island, but I still enjoyed myself, met some cool people, and made quite a bit of money.

After Stewart Island, I caught a bus back to Queenstown for a couple days, and then yesterday headed to Christchurch for one night, and now I'm in Kaikoura, which is gorgeous. It's pretty much the best place in NZ for marine life; there's whale watching, dolphin watching and swimming, and seal swimming. We visited a seal colony earlier this morning, which was cool. But I've seen tons of seals since I've been in this country, so not as exciting as it used to be I suppose. :) I would LOVE to go swimming with them but I don't have an extra $130 to spend on that at the moment (I don't get paid from my job until Thursday). Tomorrow I head back up to Picton, which is where I left my car, and then drive BACK down to Christchurch and couch surf on a farm outside of the city. I'm going to sell my car in ChCh, as they call it, hopefully quickly. Then headed to Oz! For a few weeks of laying on the beach, thank god. I need sun, very badly.

I'm starting to feel quite anxious and antsy and ready to get back to the states. The last few days haven't been much fun, most of the cool friends I met aren't around any more, and the new people I've been traveling with are really lame. It's weird though, because I know as soon as I leave I'll want to come back. I just need a break, I suppose. I'll be home before I know it!

whoo!

Yay, I got the job! I'm working 3-5 hours per day washing dishes, waitressing, house cleaning, etc. It's not super fun but it's manageable. I get paid $13 an hour, get free soup, coffee, and soda, and a $4 staff meal every time I work. Plus free accomodation in the hotel! It's pretty perfect, really. Sad I can only stay for a couple weeks!

New favorite place!

I arrived yesterday in Stewart Island, and I've barely been here for 24 hours but I absolutely love it and never want to leave. It's the 3rd largest island in NZ (after the main two, the north and south), and it's basically the last stop here before Antarctica. It's a big island but only 400 people on it and about 15 miles of roads. It's gorgeous and quaint and tiny and I love it. It's similar to Great Barrier Island, which I wrote about before, but totally different eco system.

I'm staying at a backpacker's right now that is owned by a kiwi couple and is being run by a really cool young South African guy (Mark). Today everyone in the hostel got up at 6 am to go watch the sunrise (phenomenal!) and later in the afternoon Mark took me out fishing for blue cod. He only had one proper fishing pole, so we fashioned another one out of a stick, some line, and a hook. It worked pretty well! I caught two fish right away, but one was not what we wanted and another was too small, so we threw it back. I haven't been fishing probably since I was a little kid, so it was really great. I only lasted about an hour before the sandflies were terrorizing me (they are the most annoying bug on earth, probably worse than mosquitoes!). So I headed home. But as soon as I was walking down the wharf, Mark caught a big ol cod, so we're barbecuing that right now in rosemary and lemon butter, and I'm about to make some rice and also we're going to fry up some mussels and paua (abalone, which is delicious). Jack Johnson is on the radio, and life is great!

Tomorrow I'm heading to the hotel/pub here to see if I can possibly get work for the next couple weeks. They're hiring but I'm not sure if I can get enough hours to make it worth it. Here's hoping! If I can, I'll stay here for a couple weeks. If not, I have to leave tomorrow. :( Keep your fingers crossed for me!

So I ended up staying in Queenstown for a little bit over a week before heading up to Wanaka. I've been here since Monday. This area of New Zealand reminds me a lot of Juneau, actually--it's all on the water (lakes though), and surrounded by mountains (but sorta small ones). This is Wanaka:

It's actually probably one of the most beautiful areas of New Zealand, I think. But sadly I've barely been able to enjoy any of it because I've been sick for the last 10 days. I came down with a cough and a cold while I was in Queenstown, and I figured it was because I was just out partying too much. So I took it easy for a few days and still didn't feel any better. I had one late night and then headed to Wanaka and I've hardly done anything since I've been here, and I still feel like rubbish. It's not that bad, just a bit of a cough, my throat is sore and a little swollen, and I'm really tired and lethargic. But it's bad enough to make me not want to go snowboarding or hiking or anything like that, which is pretty much the entire point of this area of New Zealand. The people I'm staying with are all into backcountry snowboarding, mountain biking, rock climbing, running, etc, and I feel super lame because I'm not doing anything but sitting around at home reading and sleeping. I was supposed to go up snowboarding today and ended up not going because I couldn't sleep hardly the night before because I'd been coughing.

So I finally went to the doctor today because it's been almost 2 weeks and I'm usually never sick for this long. It took about 10 minutes and $85 for him to tell me that I'm pretty much fine, it's just an upper respiratory virus and to just drink lots of water and rest. Ughh. I wanted him to give me something that would make me feel better! I guess I'm basically just going to have to suck it up and do all the shit I want to do even if I feel kind of bad, because there's no way I'm going to let something like this ruin my time here in NZ. I only have a month left! So I'm going snowboarding tomorrow come hell or high water, and on Sunday I'm going to Te Anau and I'm going to hike as much as I can of the Kepler Track before it gets too snowy and crappy.

In other news, in the past 2 weeks I have met a ton of people from the States, which is weird. I think I can count on one hand all the people I met from the US the first 4 months I was here, but since I've been in the South Island I've met at least 5, maybe more. And even WEIRDER, is that 3 of those people know people I went to high school with. Seriously, how fucking weird is that. When I was at the Franz Josef Glacier, I met a really awesome couple in the hot tub from Oregon who knew 2 people who were a few years older than me (Callahan Dillon and Eric Tollefson, who I know by name but couldn't pick them out of a line up). Then just last night I met someone from SEATTLE (!!!) who went to Whitman and was in the same fraternity as Stefan Ashe, who I've known since I was like 5, and James Voelckers, who I went to high school with. Pretty crazy, eh??