NOTE: I’ve been meaning to post this entry for 6 weeks. I wrote it on the plane home from New Zealand and then got caught up in everything and never got around to putting it up! So, it’s a bit outdated, but I figured I’d add it for completeness.

We drove down to Wellington a couple of weekends ago to visit our friend Viv and get out of Palmerston for a little while. Jess had been full on into her latest placement (with a year 1/2 class), and I’d been busy getting everything organized to return to Canada, so it was nice to get a change of scenery.

Back in June, we had considered going up to Auckland instead of Wellington this weekend to catch the last All Blacks game of the season in New Zealand. The national rugby union team and pride and joy of NZ has been doing well, standing at 6-2 so far on the year. We’ve gotten into watching them and have been betting small amounts on the games (so far haven’t been disappointed)! It’s a country-wide event to go to the pub on Saturdays and watch the game (rugby is to NZ what hockey is to Canada). Since they only play 2 or 3 times a month, there’s a lot of focus on each individual game (kind of like the NFL, but the teams in this league are divided on national lines). Anyway, we ended up having to skip it, as the $100 ticket price and $2.25 a litre gas would have made it a bit steep to get there.

Before each game, the team performs the Haka, a ritual Maori dance that’s used in a wide variety of occasions. In this form, it’s a challenge to and intimidation of their opponents, in the tradition of a war dance. They used to get within a few feet of the opposing team, but have to stay 10m apart now since some famous altercations broke out in the past. They shout and gesture and stomp and stick out their tongues and basically show the other team what they’re up against. It’s awesome! In one version of the Haka, they draw their thumbs across their throat at the end as if they’re going to cut the other team. Maybe if the Leafs did this they’d win more: imagine Sundin screaming in Sidney Crosby’s face and drawing his thumb across his throat!

As I mentioned, Jess has been hard at work teaching. She’s now had placements with year 4/5, 7/8, and 1/2, with her final placement in the fall (spring here) with 3/4 to round out the age groups. It’s gone really well and she’s had very positive feedback from her appraisers and teachers. However, she’s learned why primary teachers get the summers off after experiencing many long days of 8am-4pm school and 4pm-9pm planning and prep. Here are some pictures of her in the classroom that her associate teacher took, and pictures that her little ones (who refer to her as Ms. Twinker) have drawn for her.

The 8 months I’ve spent here with Tink have been incredible. After traveling around and seeing the country, I’d recommend New Zealand and New Zealanders to anyone who wants to travel here. Everywhere we went we were treated like friends by people we barely or didn’t even know, with hospitality and warmth and thoughtfulness. The quality of the people was summed up for me in how I was treated at the airport on the way home.

I had two big bags and a guitar case to bring. I’d called ahead to see what taking a third item would cost, and the guy from Air New Zealand had spent 20 minutes calling each of the airports I would be traveling through to see if I could maybe take my guitar as a carry on (as there is sometimes an allowance for musical instruments, depending on the planes and airports). I arrived at the Palmerston airport, and explained what I’d been told. They didn’t have room in the small plane’s overhead compartments to take the guitar, so they put it in the regular luggage instead, no questions asked, and without charging me. I then went through the same process at the Auckland airport. The receptionist at the check-in hmmmed and hawed over the size of the case, then asked her manager, a tall Maori guy, who came over, put some Fragile tags on the case, and told me it would be better off with the regular luggage than trying to fit it in the cabin. I got out my wallet, but he said not to worry about it – saving me $200 for the extra piece of luggage. I’ve had enough experience with airlines to know that most of them don’t hesitate to add as many extra charges as possible. He then directed me to the Oversized Items conveyor to drop off the guitar. After I put it in on the belt, the guys manning the X-Ray said “Uh-oh, there’s a bit of a problem,” and looked at each other and me with concern. I didn’t know what was up, but they were checking out the x-ray pretty carefully. I wondered if I’d left my wire-cutters or something in the case, but after another few moments they looked at me and with a sly smile said, “Your guitar’s out of tune.” That kind of easy-going, fun-loving style is the rule, rather than the exception when it comes to Kiwis. Their whole approach to life is practical and down to earth. I love it.

Reflecting back on the experience, I won’t miss:

• the ridiculously bad news coverage (ie. weather and movie reviews, with 2 minutes of headlines every half hour)
• wetas
• the damp cold in the unheated houses (and the resultant mould on everything)
• terrible customer service from wait staff (they get paid too well, if you ask me! Tipping is a better incentive)
• broken glass on the streets of PN (so many flat bike tires)
• 240V electricity (which seems to fry as many electronics as it powers)
• the low-level racism that’s fairly prevalent (primarily anti-Asian, as well as anti-Maori)

But those things are all minor when compared to what I will miss. The generosity and kindess of everyone we met (in particular Sheila and Barry Grainger, Margaret and David Woodbridge, Lucy and Bugsy Ryan, and our neighbours Don and Cynthia, and all of our friends), our great house and the view over the lagoon, the stunning landscape and national parks, campgrounds everywhere you need them, incredible food, crystal clear sunshine, no pollution, freezing cold rivers, lambs and sheep as numerous as blades of grass, ocean coast two hours from anywhere, world-class hiking, Mac’s Gold beer, and of course Jess most of all, but she’ll be home pretty soon.

Jess may or may not be keeping up the blog (correction, she will be!), so keep an eye here. Either way, thanks to everyone for reading and writing to say hello, and for keeping us company on our trip! It’s been a blast.

Sick of the cold, and eager to check out the south pacific paradise on New Zealand’s doorstep, Jess and I booked a trip to the capital island of Rarotonga in the Cook Islands back in May. Quickly enough, the end of June came around, and after a frantic week of finishing school work for Jess and tying up work stuff for me, we were off on an Air New Zealand jet to a tropical vacation!

One of Jess’ classmates is from the Cook Islands, so she asked her Mom to come pick us up at the airport, which was really nice. She had even made us real Leis of tropical flowers! Nice way to arrive. She dropped us off at our resort, the Edgewater, and we settled into our room and quickly found our way down to the beach and the bar in time for the sunset.

The next day, the first order of business was to get some wheels. Rarotonga is a tiny island, 32km around and less than 10km across, so the easiest way to get around is by scooter. We were told that we had to go to the police station to get a Rarotongan driver’s license and take a road test before we could rent a bike. Tink was a bit nervous to do the test, not having any experience driving motorcycles or dirtbikes, so I waited patiently for my turn. The cop running the tests was a bit of a grump, and he reamed out the guy ahead of me for speeding, so I took it really easy on the road test. For my caution, I got him driving beside me revving his engine and yelling at me to go faster! I think I was going about 27kph in the signed 30km limit area, with tourists all over the place and lots of other scooters on the road, but what can you do. Anyway, we got back to the station after the test and he passed me without any more criticism, so I must have done fine! Jess tried out some scooting on the back roads for fun, but let me handle the driving.

With our newfound mobility, we began our week-long beach-hopping tour. The island is surrounded 360 degrees by a reef, which varies from about 50 to 150m out from the shore. This means that almost all of the shoreline is made up of peaceful beaches with really calm, clear water out to the reef, with little islands dotting the area in between in some places. The geography also means the snorkeling is world class. We got some gear and snorkeled every day. It was absolutely incredible: we saw moray eels, red octopus, all sorts of butterfly fish, different types of wrasses, starfish, boxfish, blowfish, sea cucumbers, urchins, all different types of corals, and a bunch of other types of tropical fish. Basically, it was the cast of Finding Nemo (except no clown fish). Outside the reef you can dive with Mako and Whitetip sharks, sea turtles, stingrays, and lots of much bigger fish, where the shelf drops from 4m to 4000m! We didn’t have the money or the experience to do those dives, but the quality of the snorkeling made up for it. Unfortunately, underwater cameras are crazy expensive here ($30 for the camera and $30 for the developing – $60 for 24 pictures!), so the only pics we got of these creatures were these ones I took of a lone butterfly fish in the shallows.

These guys in particular are extremely friendly, and acted like tour guides (as Jess put it) as we swam around. After about 20 minutes in the water, there are usually between 10 and 30 of them following you, and if you stay still they’ll swarm you. Jess did not like this feeling, but I was thrilled. They’ll swim right up within inches of your mask, and surround your body. You can never quite touch them (they’re quick!), but you can feel them brushing up against your shoulders and chest. So so cool. Swimming around the eels and octopi was a bit scary, although as one of the dive shop owners told us, they’re more scared of you than the other way around. She said that if you bother the red octopus too much it will change to a white colour and then ink if you continue to threaten it! Anyway, the snorkeling experience made us very keen to visit other places with this kind of marine habitat so we can swim with more fishies.

On one of the nights, we went to the Island Night entertainment at the resort and saw some native music and dancing, which was really cool. Lots of hula girls/boys and intense drumming!

The only other adventurous thing we did was to attempt the cross-island hike, which takes you through dense jungle up to The Needle, a peak of rock. We got sidetracked from the overgrown trail and ended up having to turn back after getting about 3/4 of the way across, but we were cool with that, as reaching the other side would have meant having to catch a slow bus back around the island to our scooter. Not a very exciting hike, but cool to get into the jungle and see out to the ocean from up high.

One afternoon at the resort, they put on crab races, which was a lot of fun. You lay bets on which crabs will crawl out of the circle first when they’re released from a bucket. That’s funny in itself, but the organizers did a good job of getting everyone involved. For the last ‘race’, the emcee picked a handful of young guys (me included) to be ‘hurdles’, explaining that the hermit crabs from the early races had been replaced with a different species of jumping crab. This was of course an exaggeration, but they had put in a bunch of new white crabs that were super fast and freaked everyone out when they were released and scattered everywhere! He told us to make sure to hold our shorts close to our legs so we didn’t take home any uncomfortable souvenirs. I’ll leave the inevitable joke about getting crabs in the islands up to you.

Most of our days were spent like this – beach to tan and read, snorkel, lunch and some drinks, beach again, back to the resort for some rum punches by the pool, quick dip, dinner out somewhere on the island, then cocktails and sleep! It was a super fun and relaxing way to spend a week.

We had sunshine the whole week except for a 30 minute rainshower on the afternoon we left. The locals were all incredibly nice and very easy going, and we never had to worry about theft or any other sorts of crime. The Cook Islands feel really untouched and non-touristy compared to the Caribbean. Wicked vacation! There are a bunch more photos in a set on Flickr.

With Jess on her break this week, we decided to tackle one of the hikes within driving distance of Palmerston North. About 3 hours north is Tongariro National Park, the 1st national park in NZ and the 4th ever established in the world. It’s made up of a mixture of landscapes, but is dominated by three active volcanoes: Tongariro, Ngauruhoe, and Ruapehu. We had visited Ruapehu on a cloudy day a couple of months ago, but had been wanting to get back to the area in some better weather to try out one of the legendary hikes. So we decided on the 18.5km Tongariro Crossing, which traverses the northern slopes of Ngauruhoe, then across the craters between it and Tongariro, and finally down the eastern side of Tongariro. We drove up Wednesday night with our friend Vivienne and camped at one of the Department of Conservation sites in the park. Around 5:30, we got up to a cloudy but clearing sky and a beautiful moon, and started our journey.

We had decided to go on a weekday to avoid the infamous ‘traffic’ on the hike. The Crossing is really heavily promoted in the guide books and park brochures, so a lot of people decide to do it. We started out in the midst of a handful of hikers, but by the time we got to the “Devil’s Staircase” portion of the climb, there was a pretty steady stream of people ahead and behind us.

The clouds from the early morning had blown away and we were graced with an incredible clear sunny day for the rest of the hike, with awesome views of the peaks and craters. These photos don’t really give a sense of the scale, but the crater in the photo below is actually gigantic, the remnant from an ancient explosion. It took us about 20 minutes to walk across it. To give an idea, nearby Lake Taupo was formed by an eruption in this range of volcanoes 26,000 years ago. That eruption formed a lake 606km square, and is said to have dramatically changed world weather patterns at the time due to the ash and dust that plumed into the air. Since then the Taupo volcano has erupted many times, with the most recent explosion in 180 AD being noted in historical documents by observers as far away as Rome and China! Ok…that’s enough Wikipedia for now. But aren’t volcanoes cool?

At the highest point of our hike (around 1900m, or 6200ft), we had climbed up to the Red Crater, a much smaller crater that’s still fairly active, with steaming vents and vivid red rock. The ground was hot to the touch.

It was all downhill after that, literally. We passed by the beautiful Emerald Lakes (hoping they were hot we stuck our hands in…but disappointingly they weren’t jacuzzis waiting for us), then past incredible ‘lava tongues’ spilled out from the crater across a plateau, then finally on to Blue Lake, where we stopped and had lunch.

By this point we were pretty tired, but were only about halfway! Fortunately, the rest of the hike was downhill, so we ate another granola bar and carried on past steaming vents, milky sulphur springs, and tussock-covered hillsides toward Ketatahi Hut, the last stop before the trails end about an hour and a half beyond it.

By the end of the 8 hour hike, we were pooped but stoked about the day. I’ve never seen such a dramatic landscape – we sure don’t have anything like this in Canada! If you’re interested, you can see all the photos from the hike as a set on Flickr. Lots more volcano shots.

On Easter Sunday, far from family and the springtime accoutrements of the holiday, we opted instead to go see Jack Johnson in New Plymouth, a coastal city about 3 hours northwest of Palmerston North. After our own egg hunt and a nice breakfast followed by family phone calls, we headed out.

We picked up Jess’ friends Ruth and Clair, and after a nice drive to the venue, past impressive Mount Taranaki, we settled in to wait in the ticket pickup line. We noticed it was moving really slowly, and figured out that there was only one window and one employee dedicated to ticket pickup. What’s worse, the tickets seemed to be only loosely alphabetized, and there was no computer or computer records! This meant that each person had to show their credit card, which was hand-checked against a list of names and transaction numbers, sign a piece of paper (not a form or a credit card printout, just a piece of paper), before getting their tickets. The line of maybe 1000 people got more and more restless until the yelling started and the venue was provoked into opening more ticket windows and splitting the line into batches of letters by last name. We ended up having to wait about an hour and a half just to pick up our tickets! Sheesh – anyway we eventually got in and found a grassy spot to set up our blanket just as the sun was setting and the band was setting up. Great venue – a big grassy bowl in the middle of a big city park, with great acoustics, and a beautiful starry sky. Strangely, there was a 20-foot wide moat between the stage and the crowd, which would prove inviting to the drunks as the night progressed.

The opener was Matt Costa, who played a good, low-key set of his new material and songs from his first album, which we have. After a short break, Jack came out and played a good 2 hour set of oldies and new songs. Highlights were really good versions of “Sleep through the static” (from the new album of the same name), “Banana Pancakes”, and “Good People”, as well as a really nice solo “Times Like These” and a “Whole Lotta Love/Staple It Together” medley for the Zep fans in the crowd.

The funniest part of the night was when some guys at the front started skinny-dipping in the moat in front of the stage. It wasn’t very deep, so they just ended up staying in and splashing around. Pretty soon a hundred or so people were in, and security was scrambling to stop them getting on stage. The band handled it really well, extending the song they were playing and having a laugh, with Jack pointing out the uneven mix of naked men to women in the water, but between songs the venue guys came out and asked everyone to get out for safety reasons. The reaction, inevitably, was for everyone in the water to start splashing the stage, which freaked the band out, plugged into their instruments as they were. Anyway, it got sorted out pretty quickly and made for a memorable moment. I was sure glad to be warm and dry, as it was quite a cool night, it being fall here in NZ.

Jack’s not a riveting performer, sticking to his mellow vibe and delivering a fun but low key show. I wish there was a bit more jamming in his songs, but he sticks to the recorded versions pretty closely. Nevertheless, good times. He’s got a lot of great songs and a good message, so it was nice to just chill out and sing along with the crowd. I give it 7.5 out of 10 banana pancakes.

On our way from Fiordland to Wanaka, we decided to drive through Queenstown, famous for extreme sports like bungee-jumping and skydiving, to see what all the fuss was about. Apparently, about 50,000 other people were also interested in seeing the town. So, we drove in one end of town and out the other, without seeing a parking spot or having any desire to attempt the crowds. We did stop off outside town to see Lake Wakatipu, but decided we were better off heading for the quieter charms of Wanaka.

I’d been telling Jess all about Aspiring National Park, and we’d decided to do the same hike up the Rob Roy Valley that I’d done with my Dad on the last trip. After our drive from Fiordland, we got a late start but enjoyed a beautiful late afternoon journey up to the glacier. It was just as beautiful as I remembered, and worth the ridiculous washboard gravel road on the way into the park.

We had a gorgeous sunset on the way down, and then an awesome brew pub meal back in town, where Jess ordered ribs and got a herd of cattle dipped in BBQ sauce, before settling in at a B&B – our first and only of the trip.

After charging up our batteries (electrical and otherwise) at Kanuka Lodge, we had a lovely breakfast and conversation with Heather and Graeme Halliday, whom we had stayed with on my last trip south, and left for the long drive to Akaroa. On the way we were lucky enough to have a clear view of Mount Cook from the foot of Lake Pukaki, a rare and special sight.

Jess drove the majority of the hot day, and got us to the Banks Peninsula around dinner time. I took over and we wound through the scenic sheep fields, harbours, and steep hills of the area before arriving in Akaroa in time to set up camp before nightfall. We had an incredible view of the harbour as twilight settled in.

The next day, we wandered and pondered the shops of Akaroa, a charming town that was the first French settlement in NZ. The history of the area is evident in the street and place names of the town, and the variety of neat shops to enjoy. We picked up a few neat things, then had a quick meal in the park where a scraggly little cat preyed on our soft spot for small furry creatures and scavenged from our picnic. After that, we arrived at the harbour at 1:30, ready for our trip to go SWIMMING WITH DOLPHINS! This has been a lifelong dream of mine, so I was pretty stoked. Unfortunately, this is also the moment at which my camera decided to turn inside out:

Neat effect! It wouldn’t cooperate for the rest of the day, so Akaroa will have to go mostly un-photographed. Anyway, we got wetsuited-up and jumped on board the Black Cat for our adventure. Akaroa Harbour is a favourite haunt of Hector’s dolphins, the world’s smallest and rarest, so we were excited to get a glimpse. Over the course of about 2 hours on the water, we managed to see a few dolphins for a couple minutes, but unfortunately the water was too rough, and the dolphins too busy with feeding, for us to get in the water with them. It was disappointing, but still a fun experience. It’s fairly rare for the company not to get people in the water, so they refunded us about 80% of the cost, which is very generous given the costs of the boat and staff, so we left the harbour a bit let down but not unsatisfied. We’ve decided we’re going to try to swim with dolphins in Tauranga on the North Island sometime in the coming months. Fingers crossed! Here’s what they would have looked like, had my camera been working (from the company website):

That night, as it was the last evening of our trip, we went out for a nice meal in Akaroa, and decided to go to the little artsy cinema in town. We enjoyed a funny British comedy called Death at a Funeral, and on the way out Jess happened to compliment the owner on the quality of the sound in the theatre. He casually mentioned that he’d made a living building studios in the States in the 70′s. Neat, I said. Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Wonder and The Eagles, he said! After that, we chatted for 20 minutes, and he related stories of opening Electric Lady studios in NYC with the profits from Hendrix’s Electric Ladyland album, and having a launch party with Jimi in attendance, just 3 weeks before he died. Apparently after that, then-unknown Stevie Wonder was the next client of the studio, and he used it to record lots of his early material. After a few years of that, this guy moved to California and built and managed the studio where The Eagles recorded the Hotel California album. Pretty amazing! He finished his career in the US, moved to NZ with his wife, and built this cinema in Akaroa – what a life. I asked him for juicy details on the rock scene in the 70′s, and he told us about Zeppelin using the studio to do some recording. He had to kick them out when he came to the studio late one night to find they’d had a chinese food fight, and that one of the band members had made love on his mixing board and ‘left the evidence,’ as he put it! Super cool stuff, and a really down to earth dude. It was a fun and funny last night of our trip.

The next day was uneventful, as we packed up things and traveled back north to Picton to catch the ferry, arriving home in Palmerston North around midnight. All in all, a fantastic trip, and a memorable time in the wilder parts of New Zealand. We both can’t wait to return.