Kia Orana

Kia Orana all,

Well we've been lounging in the Cooks the past few days. It's hard to get out of bed when there's this view waiting for you the second you open your eyes :). The snorkelling in the lagoon in the picture(created by a barrier reef that encircles the island) is the best I've seen. Anyway, pictures to follow..later.

We still have a ton of pics we'd like to put up on the blog, probably more for us than you guys :), but we won't have time until we are back. So we'll post a best of an recap when we're back, also some more insights of the places we've been and what we thought of them. Anyway, hope everyone is doing well. We get to Tahiti(Bora Bora) on Thursday night and then Fly back home from there around Mar 1.

Back to the Honeymoon.

l8s

More New Zealand

Thank god we finally hit a town that has some food variety. Namely, donairs and isklanders from a Turkish place, and a Thai food cart on the street. Can you tell we are missing food from home? The one thing that we have learned over the past few months is how lucky we are to have such a huge variety of food in Toronto. Can't wait to have some Rol San, Fune, Spring Rolls, Rajkapuri .. getting hungry now.

Anyhoo this post is dedicated to more pics of NZ.

First set of 4 pics are from the North East part of the South Island namely, Kaikoura, a small little coastal city who's claim to fame is all the marine life living around it. The seals in the pictures are Fur Seals (Really Sea Lions, but they have been misnamed).These guys are nocturnal hunters so they're easy to see lazing about during the day, we were at one point only 10meters away from them..

A lot of these are cloud shots, something about the clouds in NZ, they're just very grand.

Mount Doom in the North Island as promised.

Pics from Franz Joseph Glacier: We did a full day Hike on the glacier and these are some of the shots we got while on the climb. You wore a pair of Crampons (which are not used to relive cramps...) and walked up this crazy mass. Since the topography of the Glacier changes daily you end up in some interesting spots that the guides will swear were clear yesterday. The blue ice that you can see Mel's outline in is a Cave created by water, these caves can last days or months, this one is lovingly named the Worm Hole.

Yellow-Eyed penguins from a reserve called Penguin Place in Dunedin. These little guys are on the endangered list. They exist only in New Zealand on the South Island, and their numbers are a sparse 6000. The reserve offers them some protection in that they set traps for predators like stoat (sort of like a weasel). There are numerous above-ground walk-ways or "tunnels" throughout the reserve that are covered by wood, mesh, and leaves, so that people can observe the penguins without scaring them. We were there around 7pm so we were lucky enough to see quite a few penguins coming in from the ocean, from a day of fishing, back to their nests. Saw March of the Penguins the other day in keeping with the theme (courtesy of a $1 DVD from Thailand).. if you haven't seen it, watch it!

And finally a sign we saw posted at a gas station...some enterprising kid (I hope) has been laughing all the way to the bank with this unique offering..wonder what price he/she would get on eBay?

Images of a Journey Through Middle Earth

Ok really, it's New Zealand..but same thing..I mean it just got bumped higher on the list thanks to Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy. Although honestly we haven't really sought out the filming sites. There are no remaining sets left, once filming was complete the crew was forced by the Kiwi government to restore everything back to the way it was. I believe all that is left, is a bit of Hobbiton, and from the pictures we've seen it ain't much :) The only thing we have seen, and that purely was because we drove by and noticed it is Mount Doom.

Sooo anyway, we got to Auckland, New Zealand on the 28th of January after a long overnighter from Bangkok. Auckland by the way is close to the top of the North Island in New Zealand. If you thought American customs was bad, you should check it out here. They aren't as worried about terrorists as they are about soil...Yah the dirt kind. Kiwiland has a big agricultural industry and they are ultra paranoid (I guess rightfully so) of foreign plants, sand, animals, diseases, etc getting into the country. So basically they ask questions like this on they're customs declaration card: eg: Do you have wood? (DO I!) or Have you got Hiking Boots?..a yes to any of the questions gets you a meeting with a friendly, hard to understand, latex glove wearing Kiwi..thankfully that latex glove is for your belongings and not you! after everything has been searched your stuff goes through an x-ray machine (yah, that's just to get into the country). And then you are cleared to get on your way, to be honest the process didn't take longer than 20 mins.

Ok so pick up a rental car from the airport at about noon after a crappy 4 hour of plane sleep and we try to get to a little crap smelling town (due to the sulfur gas released from all the hot springs) called Rotorua. There were only 3 things we wanted to do in the North Island : See Rotorua, Hike the Tongiraro Crossing and raft the low Worm caves in Waitamo. Our plan was to get to Rotorua and do the other 2 on the way back up. Driving in New Zealand has been the most fun and beautiful we have ever seen. I think driving through the Rockies comes a close second, but the thing about NZ is that you get changes in scenery every hour. One moment you're driving on the coast, the next your in the mountains, and all of it is stunning. I can't count the number of times we've just stopped the car to take pictures and take in the scenery. After 2 days and a night in Rotorua we drove towards the ferry that crosses to the South Island with a waystop in Palmerston North to sleep. After that, got on the ferry in Wellington, got off in Picton on the South Island and drove to a sleepy little town on the east coast called Kaikora, famous for it's Whales, Dolphins and Seal colonies. At this point we had probably driven 1000 klicks. After a full day in Kaikora tramping by the seal colonies, and by tramping, I don't mean the Julie kind (ok sorry Julie, it's just been so long since I made fun of you, I miss it..u know?), I mean the hiking kind, we headed towards the large city of ChristChurch. OK so large city means 300k people, but where they were is anybodies guess. Everyone told us the town was just super busy, but it looked empty. Also, everything closes early in New Zealand, the latest restaurant open, closes at 10pm..it's nuts..and frustrating for those of us who like to roll into cities late in the night..we've learned not to do that anymore. If you get in past 10pm, it is very very difficult to find a motel open (yah) or restaurant. We checked out empty ChristChurch and then drove through Arthur's Pass to the west coast. Stopped for 4 hours in Arthur's Pass town to tramp through the mountains and then made it to the Town of Franz Joseph, where one of the world's most stunning Glaciers is constantly moving. Recently it has been one of the few actually growing, at an average rate of 2meters per day..the thing is constantly changing. We hiked it and basically the guides were saying every hike is a new hike since the topography of the glacier changes daily. They have to cut stairs at the bottom for all us tourists every day and as we hike! We also spent 1 of the 3 days at Franz's sister glacier, Fox, pretty cloudy day though so the views were less spectacular. Anyway, yadda yaddda...lots of sheep and amazing scenery later and we are in Queenstown. The adventure sports capital of the world. Yesterday we tried jet Boating, took the gondala up the montain, and took some Luge Cars down (Really fun stuff). No Bungy this time, although they have a unique version here. They take you parasailing across the river on a platform, then when you are up on the parachute, you Bungy off..If we come here next time, we'll do that :) Today we are just hanging out and prepping for our 4 day trip into the Fiordlands national park. Anyway, here are the pics (seal and glacier pics to come):

1-5. Wai-O-Tapu (a.k.a. Sacred Waters) Thermal Wonderland in Rotorua (North Island)- Volcanic geysers, lakes and craters
6-8. Hell's Gate in Rotorua - hottest spring waterfall in Southern hemisphere (albeit damn small), mud pools
9. Biggest valley of windmills in New Zealand (near Palmerston North)
More on post below..

More NZ pics

10-11. Sunset on ferry from North to South Island

NZ- pics cont'd

12-14. Views from the highway
15. Lake Matheson- reflects Mount Cook on a sunny day :-(
16. Viewpoint of Queenstown
17. Sham on the gondola up to the viewpoint
18. Sign in lady's bathroom.
19. Another toe pic

More of Thailand's Islands

Hey All,

Hello from Franz Joseph Glacier in New Zealand. Thought we'd finish off the Thailand pics before we started posting the Kiwi Land ones. Very Beautiful here. A bit cold today but we are pretty close to the Antarctic here..plus there's a Glacier 2km away so we can't really complain!

1) Our Long Tail Boat driver who took us to Phi Phi Lei. This is where the movie The Beach was shot. We did get into trouble on the way back as there was a storm coming in and waves of 5-8 feet started pounding the side of the boat. We almost capsized a few times and our driver lost his seat (The bouncing around tossed it out of the boat)..anyway he was fairly drained after getting us back..a little wetter..but safer :)

2)A group of Long Tail boats docked on Phi Phi

3)When the tourists run under cover from a rain storm all the local children come out to play. This little guy was enjoying the water while we huddled in a store pretending we were looking at T-Shirts but really just trying to wait out the storm

4) This one is taken on Koh Lanta. In that hole is a crab, and those spheres around the hole are what the crab spits out after eating all the nutrient goodness from the sand. Basically once the tide heads out thousands of these guys come out to eat the nutrient rich sand (That the tide has deposited)..really neat to see all these little designs..it basically changes the look of the beach in hours. Until the next tide, and the process starts all over..Circle of Life..blah blah blah

5) A view from Phi Phi Noi

6) This one was taken in Lanta from a beutiful Hotel that was a bit too expensive for Thailand ;)

7) This one is off Koh Samui in Ang Thong National Park. It's a large lake ina mountain