Nevis Bungy

8.5 second free fall, 430 ft, 134m, where commercial bungy was created

Hokitika Wild Food Festival

The name "Wild Foods" is very appropriate for this festival!
We were dropped off in Hokitika on Friday and set up camp. Once again our tent, Mothership, was holding her own! The camp site was on the beach with tons of other young festival goers. We went to the Friday night show with headlining act, Elemeno P. This is a well known band from Auckland. They actually have toured the States, which is rare for NZ groups. Taylor and I had a good time at their rock performance, but the crowd's average age was between 16 and 20ish. Not saying our ages of 22 and 23 are miles more mature, but kind of....

The day of the Wild Food Festival was perfect. The weather was warm and our costumes ROCKED!!!! Everyone from young to old stopped to take pictures with us. Our theme was Fern Gully or Jungle Creatures. We met 3 guys (our age!) from Dunedin, a southern university town. They were dressed in full monkey suits which went perfect with our jungle theme! Being native Kiwis, they were able to guide us around. They had been to the festival before and knew what things were popular and what foods would run out fast. Some of the highlighted foods:
1. Squirming, LIVE, FAT, grub worms
2. Mountain Oysters aka Goat Testicles on Toast (enough said)
3. Kava, a drink originating from Fiji that makes your mouth numb
4. Whitebait, really good fish
5. Worms in mini cups
6. Moonshine shot into your mouth with a mini gun

Lots of other really good fish, waffles, ice cream, etc.. The day was so much fun and everyone there had a themed costume. People of all ages were there and it was a "cultural" New Zealand experience.

The next day was a mini disaster. The Kiwi Bus did not pick us up and we ended up taking the intercity bus (equivalent of Greyhound) to Franz Joseph. This meant that we missed an entire stop on our trip!!! We were pretty bummed out but the Kiwi Experience paid for the bus trip and a free night in Franz. Our smiles came back when we had our own room with a mini fridge, bathroom and SKY TV!!!! All in all Hokitika was a great experience and would recommend it to everyone!

Did I mention we're living in a tent....

I think I forgot to mention WE BOUGHT OUR FIRST HOUSE!!! It's an 80's style triangle tent with poles in the middle!! We are so proud and named it Mothership. We also went out in search for sleeping bags and found a great deal. A guy at an outdoor store gave us each a $40 discount!
When we returned from Able Tasman the hostel we've been staying at needed extra hands to help with maintance. We are camping in the staff garden and work 2 hours a day cleaning the kitchens or making beds in return for FREE accomodation. This saves us over $200 a week!! Since we were planning on saying until March 11th (Taylor's 23rd bday)it works out great! The hostel is called Paradiso and has been our favorite thus far. We have met some great friends including The BFG, standing for Brazil, France and Germany. It's a group of 4 guys that we've had a lot of fun with since our return to civilazation. Every place Taylor and I go we find a new "posse." It's exciting to arrive in new towns because we never know what kind of people we will befriend or what people we will run into again. The beauty of traveling!!
We leave Nelson on Taylor's birthday and start our journey to Hokitika's Wild Food Festival. It's a 3 day music/food festival over her birthday weekend. It also happens to be the festival's 21st birthday. The cuisine will range from traditional Maori food to fish n chips (pronounced fash and chaps) to grub worms on toast! The music runs until late and we have reserved our camping passes. The purchase of our sleeping bags and tent was well worth it. It will be over 2 weeks until we see a bed! The festival encourages everyone to dress up in a theme of your choice. We visited the $2 store and our theme is Fern Gully/ Jungle Girls meets Music Festival. It's going to be a great 23rd birthday for Taylor!

Abel Tasman National Park

Words cannot describe the beauty of Abel Tasman. The water is the bluest blue meeting the tannest tan beaches with the greenest green forest...unbelievable! We took a water taxi out to Totaranue, an amazing beach with hardly anyone on it. Taylor and I condensed our gear down to one bag, sleeping bags and a tent. We laid on the beach for about 2 hours before we started our hike. The hike was about 3 1/2 hours long through tropical forests and beaches. It was a little hilly, which proved to be difficult for the one carrying the "big" bag. The trek was exciting with descents onto small beaches reminding me of the movie "The Beach" with Leonardo DeCaprio. The forest's sounds and color contrasts were breathtaking. When we approached different bays and lagoons it seems to pop up through the bush. It was not like a hike down to the beach, but turning the corner to see blue on blue through the trees. We crossed a bay during low tide, when 2 hours prior we had been there sightseeing on the water taxi. Even though Able Tasman is a national park, it still has private homes on the land (Bill Gates has spent the past 5 New Years at his house on Able Tasman). It would be an oasis to escape too!! Our first night was cold! We sprayed half a bottle of bug spray on us... the sand flies were horrendous!!! Some people leave Able with over 70 bites! We ate cold canned food for dinner, due to the fire ban and went to bed early.
The next day we met our Kayak guide for a full day ride. As we were getting into our boats he casually mentioned that a girl had cancelled due to the Tsunami warning, but in our geographical location it was highly unlikely anything would happen. Typical Kiwi behavior to slide that in nonchalant as we were paddling away from shore, the worst place to be in a Tsunami, but we believed him and went full force ahead. The water was perfectly calm all day and it was another amazing New Zealand experience. We saw seal colonies who were not afraid of people! They would come up to our boats and swim around us. We also saw blue penguins which are the smallest in the world and slowly becoming extinct. The highlight of the kayaking trip was the ability to see Shag Cove. Our guide said that usually the tide does not hit right for many to see it and its one of the best sights of the park. Shag Cove is not obvious to the eye. When we paddled in a calming feeling washed over our group.It was like a hidden lagoon....Peter Pan style. I can see how movie producers draw on New Zealand for inspirational backdrops because mother nature took extra time with this country. The day was sunny with cool calm waters and not a cloud in the sky. It was an exhausting all day kayak trip but worth every stroke!!! That night we played cards with other campers until our eyes could not strain anymore, even with my headlamp. The third day we trekked 4 hours into town and caught the bus home. We were so glad we made it a 3 day trip. The hiking and kayaking allowed us to see more then most do of Able Tasman. It's truly one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen...and the Kiwi's call it a "park."

Compared to Auckland, Wellington is awesome. The battle between the big smoke vs cultural city has been settled.
The people of Wellington are young and dressed like out of an urban outfitters catalog, hipster. We ran into a
guy we met in Sydney and another guy we had met in Taupo. The guy from Taupo is originally from Portland Oregon
and went to university at Montana state...... Weird. The three of is decided to catch the local pro football (soccer) team play at westpac
stadium. They played a team from Perth Australia. We ended up having great seats behind the goal and the game was well worth
the money. Overtime play into penalty kicks with the wellington Phoenix winning!!!!
Waaaaa ohhhhhh waaaaooooo phoenix!!!
We also went to the te papa museum, free entry and when it's free we go! We saw the biggest squid ever recorded and
made our own USA squid named j on the computer. Oh the things you do to entertain yourself!
A few days ago we hopped on the inter islander ferry and headed to the south island. We are currently in Nelson, the sunniest
city of new Zealand and it's raining! Haha! Our hostel is great with a pool, spa, free tea coffee breakfast and soup!!! If you thought
it was too good to be true just wait, free wifi as well!! So I am writing this blog on my iPhone, which I've recently unlocked!!!
We are in the works of planning our three day two night hike/kayak trip through Abel Tasman national park. I am soo stoked to
be out in the woods camping! We've heard nothing but great great things about the park and Cant wait to make our own journey.

River Valley / Wellington

We left Taupo and headed to River Valley on the Kiwi Experience Bus. We hadn't been on Kiwi in 3 weeks!! We drove to River Valley Lodge, it's an adventure lodge in the middle of nowhere. Its known for grade 5 rapids and horse back riding. The road leading to the lodge is basically a one way winding one!! I was a little sick...I'm not gunna lie! Once we arrived, the lodge was beautiful with the river 20 yards away and mountains surrounding. It was a calming and remote place, just what we needed. Taylor and I didn't sign up for any of the activities and instead hung out around the lodge reading our books.

We are currently in Wellington!! The capital of New Zealand. Wellington has the feel of a miniature San Francisco with WIND! It is the most southern city on the north island. The Cook Straight divides the north and south and brings a lot of extreme weather to the Wellington Harbor. Yesterday Taylor and I met up with two of my friends from University of Montana, Caroline and Lauren. They are studying abroad at The University of Victoria in Wellington. It was good to see some familiar faces!! The weather was hot and we hung out on the local beach all day. We later went to a Mac's Brewery and had some beer tastings.
Today is the Home Grown Music Festival. Its all NZ bands. Unfortunately it's sold out!!! We might still try to get a ticket or visit the Botanical Gardens....who knows!!

I'll try to post pictures and videos soon!!

Lake Taupo/Tangariro Crossing

Lake Taupo is absolutely gorgeous. Taylor and I spent the day on the lake beach. The sky was clear and the heat was beating. I have noticed that in NZ the sun rays really beat down on you. It's not like California or even Hawaii where you will get a dark tan. In NZ, if you don't where sunscreen, you burn!!! I finally have a good tan so my skin is not as vulnerable!


Lake Taupo's water is soo warm! It's not like lakes in the States where there is a big contrast from the temperature outside vs the temperature of the water. Our friend Josh, who is one of the managers at the Raglan Backpackers, was also staying at the same hostel as us. It was nice running into him again!! We've decided that Taupo is in the running for a place to job search in the future.





Tangariro Crossing:





Ohhhhhhh Boy!


To be honest, the weather was awful!!! We woke up at 5am to catch the bus to the trail head of the Crossing. During the first leg of the hike it was drizzling and foggy. This was unfortunate because we were not able to see Mt. Doom, the ocean, other mountains, etc. We were able to see the different volcanic igneous rock formations, which was unique. The first leg was all uphill and stairs have been built to help with the steep incline. We powered through the first leg because we wanted to keep our body temperatures up. When we reached the top of Mt. Tangariro we were in the middle of storm. It was windy, hailing and foggy. There was a narrow path we had to follow with cliffs on either side. I felt like the wind was going to sweep me off my feet. The way down was fun because we charged down wet ash, making our shoes a mess! The second leg of the trip we saw acidic lakes. There was 3 of them. We also walked through a couple of huge craters, which made me feel like I was on Mars. It was a weird concept to think about such a huge flat surface on top of a mountain. The third leg was also downhill through meadows with geothermal activity. The strong sulfur smell was a little much on the nose! Taylor, Josh and I decided we were cold enough and started running down the path!! Thankfully there was a hut in the meadow with a fire. We were able to half dry our things and warm up for about an hour. The last leg of hike was through a forest. It was amazing to see the diversity of hike. The forest was lush with streams and wildlife. The Tangariro Crossing normally takes about 7 hours but we did it in 6. We would have taken longer if the weather had permitted, but the cold and wind pushed us along. Overall we made the best of the hike and had a good time. I can see how it is one of the best day hikes in the world. Even in bad weather the scenery and diversity was amazing.