So Long to Godzone

Last night in Auckland tonight, and decided to do a bloggy night instead of getting plastered. Figured should save some energy for Melbourne, where Tadhog and I are headed next. A review of the past couple days:

6/9: Went up to Kahoe Farms hostel further north from the Bay of Islands. As soon as we got out of Paihia, the sun appeared and we finally got the warmer weather I'd been hoping for. The hostel was a brilliant place, owned by an Italian guy who made us the only good pizza I've had since arriving in NZ, and let us play on his X-box for much of the night. It was sweet as.

6/10: Drove up to Cape Reinga, one of the northernmost points of the North Island, and saw a few beaches along the way, including Ninety Mile beach, which is not actually 90 miles long (more like 90 km), but is still pretty awesome. It's got giant sand dunes that you can toboggan down, and Tadhog and I did just that. Only once though, since we were borrowing the toboggan and didn't feel like hiking up the sand dune more than once (it was really kinda steep).

6/11: Drove back down to Auckland. Armed with the knowledge that I gained from my last visit (that Auckland's CBD is a little on the bland side), we opted to stay in Ponsonby, a nearby suburb which is about a 25 min walk from the city centre, and is a lot cooler than the CBD. The hostel's much nicer than the YHA I was in before, too.

6/12: I take my car to the backpacker's car market for attempt 1 at selling it. Since I put a fair amount into maintenance while I owned it, I decide to offer it for the same price I bought it at. However, since there are very, very few backpackers opting to arrive in NZ this time of year, a grand total of 4 people show up all day. This was a very boring and disheartening day for me, so I shan't write about it further.

6/13: I try taking the old girl to a local car fair. The locals scoff at the price I'm selling my car for, but one expresses interest at a severely discounted price. After a couple of hours, I agree to it since it's better than a) nothing and b) waiting around for another day and a half doing the same thing, and probably not getting a much better price for it. He feels a little bad for me I think since he takes me back to his house for tea and biscuits. Or maybe he didn't feel bad and that's just how they end transactions in NZ. In the afternoon, Tadhog and I go visit One Tree Hill (the namesake of the U2 song, which in turn I think is the namesake of that show on the WB). It's got some awesome panoramic views of Auckland, though it no longer has a tree at the top (was cut down in 2000 by a Maori activist for reasons you can partially read about here). At nighttime we go to a bar to see the All Blacks (national rugby team) play France. We're accompanied by a bunch of French people from the hostel, so they're in quite a better mood than most of the bar when the French eke out a narrow victory. Do a small bit of drinking around the town, then go home.

6/14: Yeah, I haven't actually done that much today besides a bit of shopping and seeing The Hangover with Tadhog. Kind of lame for my last day in NZ, I know, but I needed a break.

So tomorrow, I leave New Zealand. I'm going to miss this place a lot, and will be back some day. But, looking forward to my time in Australia, and the fun adventures and challenges that will await me back home.

Coming to the End of Things...

So I came to a realization recently the past week and a half, when I visited Mt. Doom, was amidst the volcano farts and thermal awesomeness of Rotorua, enjoyed the "eau de South Island" of Coromandel, and in the raininess that is currently the Bay of Islands (I'm sure there are some islands out there somewhere, I just can't see them...) - I'm almost done with this trip. I have 6 more days in NZ, the country that I've come to know as something like home for the past three months. After that, two weeks in Australia, which in a previous era of my life would have seemed like a huge amount, but now I'm reckoning will be barely enough to scratch the surface of the tip of the iceberg of Aussie culture. (Yes, I've gotten supremely spoiled having such a long period of time off.)

I've enjoyed my life in New Zealand, and there is a long, long list of things that I didn't manage to do while here that gives me a huge incentive to come back (in warmer weather!). There's a part of me that could even see myself returning at some point to Wellington, Dunedin, or Nelson in some sort of full-time employed position. But not at this point in my life.

When I first moved to NYC in late 2004 and very, very unsure about what I was getting myself into, I was given a sage piece of advice by a guy whose name I can't remember now, but he was one of Daisy's former roommates in Williamsburg, anyway - "The key to loving New York is leaving New York." I've been away from the city long enough to have a better grasp on why I would choose to live in such an expensive, dirty, crowded, prone-to-shitty-weather place to live.

1. A great group of friends and potential friends that are always around at any point that I choose to seek them out. By potential friends, I mean that person sitting on the subway across from you that's reading Sandman right after you got done reading it. Something I never realized before I moved to the city is that there is a HUGE amount of people out there with the same interests as me, and that often that Venn Diagram of interests intersects in many, many places. Seeing this, I became much, much more confident in myself and allowed my interests to flower in ways I never would have living in a rural area.
2. Living in NYC is the static equivalent of travelling. Travelling allows you to discover many new things about the world and about yourself, and meet lots of new people. NYC allows you to do lots of that as well to an impressively high extent. It's important to get out once in awhile, but you can almost always find something in NYC that you've never seen before, or meet someone who completely changes your perspective on life, if you're looking for it. So while travelling is maybe the best thing in life for figuring out things, NYC is the next best thing (that I've discovered) if you need to stay put and make money.

So, that's why I'm putting an end to my time in NZ for now. That, and winter has arrived, even in the "Winterless North" where I'm typing this blog post right now (it's warmer than the rest of NZ, but rainy as, as they would say). I need some warmer weather.

The plan from here, to finish up, is to head up to Cape Reinga, one of the northermost points in NZ, then to head to Auckland day after tomorrow to see some things, sell my car, then fly out to Melbourne. From there we'll head to Sydney via either the outback or the coast, depending on how much Tadhog wants to drive. On the 29th of June, I'll fly to LA, see two of my favorite redheads in the world for a few days, then be back in NYC in time for the 4th of July. I sure hope someone's having a party then...

Kia ora, mates...

12,000 feet

That's how high the plane was when I jumped today. Or, more accurately, how high my skydiving instructor Greg jumped while I was attached to him. Wow, that was an experience unlike anything I've encountered before. Not something that can really be put into words, but I'll give it a go - 8 of us (4 instructors, 4 newbies) plus the pilot go up in a small airplane that's really not much bigger than a suburban, get up to the desired altitude, strap ourselves to the instructor's front, then basically dangle ourselves out the hatch and wait for the instructor to jump. I experienced what seemed like about 5 seconds of sheer terror as my face hit a wall of air and the ground approached sickeningly fast, before my mind took over from my animal instincts and realized that, wait, this was all part of the plan. I laughed for a bit and enjoyed the descent. Supposedly it was about 45 seconds of freefall before the chute opened, but it really felt to me like maybe about 15 seconds. The parachute part to me was even cooler, as I could look around Lake Taupo, and all the volcanoes southward and westward. Of course, that's when I started experiencing a bit of motion sickness, as Greg started teaching me how to steer the parachute - spinny spinny spinny. I avoided making pavement pizza from 1000 feet up, however. A few minutes later, we landed, which was really much smoother than I thought it would be, a nice standing up landing (before I collapsed a second later due to dizziness). Not something I will probably be doing again anytime soon, but really glad I had that experience.

Oh, right, what came before:
Had a couple of sweet-as days in Wellington once Tadhog arrived. Was quite ready to end the solo portion of my trip, though it rocked the house while it lasted. We enjoyed the Wellington nightlife, exploring some bands, some hiking trails through various parks, and the Te Papa museum, the finest one I've seen in NZ yet.

From there, we made our way north to Napier, stopping in Martinborough to do some wine tasting (I spat most of mine since I was driving), having a nice little luncheon there. Napier was a good point of interest - in 1931 there was a devastating earthquake which basically flattened the town and caused about 40 square kilometers that was previously below sea level to rise above sea level. That latter effect actually wound up being a gain for Napier, as it gave the town much more room to expland. New buildings that went up to replace the old for the next 15-20 years or so were all built in the Art Deco style, making it one of the largest collections of Art Deco buildings on the planet (I think there's somewhere in Florida that might be a little larger). Cool place to walk around and relax. Tadhog and I also went on another wine tour (Napier's in yet another big wine region) aboard bikes (or push-bikes, in the local vernacular). While we didn't finish in record time (you know, you get distracted by good wine and beer and conversation), it was a grand old time.

Yesterday, arrived in Taupo, which is nestled by the lake of the same name, which is NZ's biggest lake. It's actually the caldera of a huge volcano, which last erupted in 186 AD. It blew out so much ash that Chinese and Romans at the time noticed the sky going red. So yeah, if it happens to go while we're in NZ, we're pretty screwed. But it's a nice town.

Tomorrow, going to investigate a local hot spring and waterfall, as well as have lunch with Sally, one of the ladies I hiked the Queen Charlotte Track with. After that, will head down to Tongariro National Park. Unfortunately, it's gotten way too cold and icy to do the Alpine Crossing without a pickaxe/crampons and a guide (which costs too much for my liking), which I was really looking forward to doing. But there's some lower-elevation hikes we can do, and we'll get to see Ruapehu and Ngaruhoe (Mt. Doom) up pretty close. After that, we're going to book it up north where it hopefully will get warmer. It's getting pretty cold in NZ - so much for my notions that it would be like San Francisco in the winter!