Around the World with The Blumberg's

Shrines Amongst the Rice Terraces

WE DECIDED TO HIRE OUR FRIEND PUTU again, for another trip up into the highlands of Bali and found him sitting by his car waiting for a job.

“Hey are you available?” Jon asked him.

“Yeah, where do you want to go?”

“Gunung Ka…” I fell, skidding across the pavement, catching myself with my right knee and palms.

“Are you OK?” Jon and Putu asked me.

“Uh yeah, I guess. Ow!” I felt more like an ass more then anything else.

Putu brought the car around and we piled in.

“Ow, I really fucked up my knee,” I told Jon. “And my palms, owwww.”

My knee was red, scuffed and swollen already and getting hard to bend.

“You know Gunung Kawi has many steps, it is over 100 down and back up into the valley,” Putu told us.

“That’s alright, I’ll be OK,” I think?

TWO HOURS LATER WE ARRIVED AT THE TEMPLE COMPLEX and Putu told us he’d wait for us.

We began our journey towards the temple, first through a street lined with vendors selling mostly sarongs.

“You need sarong to enter temple!” they yelled out.

Yes, it was true, one did need a sarong to enter the temple, but I knew they would offer them at the entrance for a nominal donation. And sure enough at the entrance after paying a small entrance fee we were given sarongs. Jon was wearing shorts so he needed a long sarong to cover his legs, while all I needed was a belt around my waist since I had on Capri pants, and Quinn just needed the same.

So we began our decent down first coming to a sign informing us that we needed to sprinkle holy water on our heads before entering the temple. There was am urn above the sign containing the holy liquid, and each of us gave another a sprinkle, and then headed in.

The entire way down the crumbling steps was lined with stalls selling everything from sarongs to bed quilts, masks, bone carvings, and cold drinks.

“You need drink?”

“Look, look, just come in for a look.”

“On the way back up I’ll look!” I tried fending some sellers off.

Finally we got to the bottom, my kneed still in tact, but really red and swollen.

We crossed into the temple complex and were met with the beautiful Candis (shrines), carved right into the rock walls. It was hot and I had to down an entire bottle of water before we could move on to the other side of the temple.
The other side was another couple of candies and some Hindu pavilions where a woman sat scraping the green mold from the stonework.

“HELLO COME WITH ME,” a barefoot man who was working near the rice terraces told us. He was one of those entrepreneurial type guys who took tourists who wandered his way down into the rice terraces and to the sacred waterfall for some cooling off. Of course for his services I knew he would expect a tip. He led us through the different levels of flooded farmland, down thorough some mud, showed us how the rice grows and ended our walk at a beautiful waterfall.

“I take your boy,” he pointed at the waterfall.

“He picked Quinn up and carried him across the mud, through the stream and into the waterfall, where he “baptized” Quinn in the cool sacred Hindu waters.

“Take picture of us!” he yelled from across the stream.

He carried Quinn all the way back up and through the stream and led us back to where we had wandered towards his rice terrace.

“Thank you,” we said while handing him some Rupiahs.

He was satisfied with the tip and we went on our way.

“NOW WE’VE GOT TO WALK ALL THE WAY BACK UP THOSE STEPS,” I wasn’t looking forward to that!

We managed to get up 5 steps before we were beckoned into a shop.

“You just come look,” cried the old woman.

Quinn was already trying on a monkey mask and the woman knew he was enjoying it, quickly helping him to get in perfect.

“I want it!” Quinn said while making monkey noises with the mask on.

“Ok, no problem you can have for 300,000,” she said casually as if it were a fantastic deal.

“No, how bout 50?” I countered.

“Ha! No serious price. Lot of work.”

We bargained for a bit and in the end cam out with 100,000 ($10), which wasn’t bad for a handmade monkey mask sporting some kind of real hair or fur.

We rambled slowly up a few more flights of steps, stopping for water and air every little bit, all while being yelled at to, “come look.”

BY THE TIME WE HAD REACHED THE TOP of the 100 or more steps, we had purchased a monkey mask, gotten a free banana for the boy wearing and acting like a monkey, 2 sarongs, a king size bedspread, and 3 cold drinks. Nothing like shopping and sightseeing all in one.

Putu was waiting where we had left him and quickly prepared the car with some A/C.

“Where would you like to go now?”

“Some lunch would be nice,” I said.

He drove us to another of his restaurant selections, this one overlooking a beautiful valley where fishermen sat below, posing for what looked like an Indonesian Norman Rockwell painting.

Putu grabbed himself a bite to eat as well and then we were off.

“Can we stop at Bali Bird Park?”

“Sure” Putu smiled.

We drove for about an hour before reaching the bird park. Again Putu waited.

Quinn who is now a birdie boy after having fallen in love with the Blue-Footed Boobie in the Galapagos, and the penguins of Chile as well as New Zealand, was super excited to see birds up close.

The park was very well managed and the majority of birds roamed free, sitting on branches, and benches. We were able to hold them and pet them, which was such a cool experience

It had been a long day for us as well as Putu and when we returned to the car, we found him napping in a cool spot and asked him to take us home.

You can see all our pictures from Bali in the Indonesia Photo Album.

How to Outsmart a Monkey and Bargain Indonesia Style

ABOUT AN HOUR OUTSIDE THE TOURIST HUSTLE and bustle of Kuta beach is the town of Ubud. Known as the culture center of Bali, Ubud boasts artists works of many mediums, wicker weaving, paintings, sculpture and batik, of course all for sale.

We hired a driver to take us and our friends, Elle and Mitchell to Ubud and the Monkey Forest Sanctuary. Our drivers name was Putu and we were able to negotiate a price of $25USD or 250,000 Indonesian Rupiahs for 6 hours to and around Ubud and back, in his air-conditioned SUV.

“It will take 1 hour 20 minutes to get to Monkey Forest,” Putu told us.

“No problem!”

We drove out of the chaos of Kuta Beach then through the forgotten Sanur beach, Bali’s first beach resort, and then began our climb up into the lush green hills. We passed beautiful rice terraces, and shops selling beautifully ornate, but impossible to bring home Balinese stone and woodcarvings. Shops selling intricately carved Balinese furniture and doors, and small villages where women hiked up the steep hills with large baskets of goods balanced on their heads and babies strapped on their backs.

“OK HERE MONKEY FOREST. I’ll wait right here,” Putu let us out of the car to faithfully wait in the hot car while we entered the Sacred Monkey Forest.

“You buy banana for monkey?” yelled some women by the entrance.

“How much?”

“2000 Rupiahs.”

We bought a bunch and walked in to the monkey’s domain. We were immediately met by a brigade of monkeys eager to get their free handout.

“Here you go,” I handed some bananas to a couple macaques.

Monkeys were everywhere, in the trees, on the stonewalls, lying on the ground being groomed, and on my head.

“Hey you get down!” I said as a cheeky monkey jumped on my head.

He began to pick through my hair looking for treats. What he did find was my barrette and quickly hopped off my head and ran away with his prize.

“Hey, that’s mine!”

“He’s smarter then you. It is his now,” said one of the sarong-ed monkey forest keepers

“We’ll see about that!”

Jon went over to the lesser primate and showed him what a few million years of evolution can do to a primate brain and outsmarted the monkey by getting him interested in his sunglasses and then grabbing my barrette.

“Why thank you,” I said to the highly evolved Jon.

AFTER A WHILE OF MONKEYING AROUND we were ready for some lunch and returned to the car with the napping Putu.

“Where you want to go now?” Putu groggily asked.

“Um somewhere for lunch.”

He suggested a place and drove us into Ubud to a beautiful Balinese restaurant over looking rice fields and a duck pond. I ordered the Satay along with Jon and Elle, while Quinn got some corn and crab soup and Mitchell went with some fettuccine.

After lunch we asked Putu to drive us into Ubud center so we could do a little shopping. Ubud may be far from the tourist Mecca of Kuta beach, but it’s defiantly on the tourist trail and absolutely swarming with tourists shopping and stomping about the hot and humid jungle streets.

“You buy sarong?”

“Come look in my shop!”

“You want sunglasses, Oakley!”

People yelled out from every direction.

“No, I don’t want sunglasses, I already have a pair on!” I tried pointing to my glasses while saying no and doing the ignore and walk routine.

So thee next way to get to the money hording westerner is to show the kids items, this will get mom and dad to buy them.
But Quinn has learned the tricks as well, and knows how to put his hand up, say no and walk on by.
However shopping is something that’s almost irresistible when the goods are attractive and at the right price. I bought two sarongs, then looked around some more and came across some really cute wicker purses.

“How much?”

“280,000 (Rupiahs, about $28USD)”

“Ha ha, no way!” I said while turning my back playing the bargain game.

“Ok how much serious price?”

“Serious? 40,000 ($4USD)”

“Oh come on not serious price!!”

“I’m serious 40,000”

“This handmade! Lot of work!” she said while giving me big eyes.

“No, no thank you,” I walked away.

“Ok ok, 100,000!” she yelled after me.

“No thanks 40,000!” and I left.

I do always have a complex when I bargain with people who I know have no money. To them I’m rich, but bargaining is part of the game and there’s only one way to play it. The purse was beautiful and I really wanted it. There was defiantly a lot of work involved in making it and I would have gladly paid $40 for it at a department store at home.

I shopped a few more wicker purse stalls, offering my 40,000 Rupiahs for the same wicker purse; no one would come down below 80,000 ($8). So now I had an idea of what most people are willing to go down to, 40,000 was just a bit too low for them.

I returned to my first stand and just strolled by and made eye contact with the same girl again.

“”Ok 60,000 and good luck!” she yelled to me while bagging up the purse as if she knew I would now take it.

I kept my stride and continued to walk on by, “50 final price!”

“Ok OK 50!”

I handed her a 50,000 Rupiah ($5) and walked away with my prize.

THE NEXT EVENING WE WENT OUT TO DINNER with our Aussie pals, Elle and Mitchell one last time. They were leaving the next morning to return home to Perth and Quinn would have no more play pal. A nice dinner out on the town was what was called for, so we decided to head to The Hard Rock Café, yes every tourist destination has one. And every Hard Rock restaurant requires that freaks be a part of their employment repertoire. Along with the dudes with wacky piercing and bleach blonde hair, this Hard Rock had its resident Indonesian Vampire.
We beckoned the creature of the night over to our table and snapped a group photo to remember our fun times in Bali together.

You can see all our pictures from Bali in the Indonesia Photo Album.

Bali Shock

“JON TURN THE TV OFF ITS TIME TO GO,” I said at 9:30 AM.

We had about an hour drive into Auckland, where we had to return our rental car, catch a shuttle to the airport and check into our flight to Bali.

All went smoothly and we were at the check in counter of Garuda Airlines by 11:30.
New Zealand winter holidays had just begun and the line was packed with surfboard clad Kiwi’s eager to get away to some warmth and sun.

“Good Afternoon Flight GA719 to Brisbane/ Bali will be delayed until 2:30.”

Funny that was the original time of our flight; we got an email recently stating that the flight time was changed from 2:30 to 1:30, figures.

We waited and waited; an hour went by, then another ½ hour.

“We will be ready to board in 10 minutes,” announced the gate agent.

½ hour later.

“We will be ready to board in 10 minutes,” a groaned laugh passed through the passengers.

But within the next 15minues we were boarding.

AFTER 3/12 HOURS OF FLIGHT WE LANDED IN BRISBANE AUSTRALIA, where we had to get off the plane for re-fueling and cleaning.

The only thing to do was roam the airport checking out all the Australian souvenirs for sale, from Boomerangs to paintings made by Aborigines. But I was tired and just ready to be on our way again. We exchanged $100 USD for 1 million Indonesian Rupiahs and then reboarded the plane for a flight continuation of 7 hours.

I watched The Wedding Date, which seemed to take up only about 20 minutes of my time; there was absolutely no point to the whole movie. Then I watched Fever Pitch with Drew Barrymore and that dude from Saturday Night Live, which was thoroughly entertaining, and then I tried to sleep for a while. But sleep eluded me and I couldn’t stop staring at the “Leg Exercise” chart in the back of the seat, which shows how Deep Vein Thrombosis happens.

I get a pain in my leg. It’s deep vein thrombosis, must raise heels, stretch legs.

I’m completely fine until I see a diagram of a leg split in half with huge blood clots throbbing through them, why must they torture me this way?

WE MADE IT TO BALI WITHOUT ANY THROMBOSIS and exited the plane only to stand in line to pay $25USD each for an Indonesian Visa. Like many countries Visa processes, they only accept US dollars for payment. We paid our fees then went and stood in yet another long line, this one to get our actual Visas, then another to get the Visas stamped.

Finally by 11:00PM Indonesia time, which was 1 AM Brisbane time, which was 3 AM Auckland time we arrived at our hotel, checked in and went right to sleep.

BALI IS A TOTAL CULTURE SHCOK from the serene green gentile open spaces of New Zealand.
Mopeds and cars zoom by going whichever way they please on the streets, which are a huddled mass of people trying to sell anything and everything.

“You want your hair plait girl?”

“You look at my shop!”

“What you want to buy?”

“You want bag, hello, hello look at me, you want shoe?”

At first glance it reminds me of Cairo, Egypt; chaos. But when I look beneath the hawkers and the street crowd, there’s a distinctly Balinese culture, which we have as yet to explore thoroughly.

Our hotel was situated right on the south end of the infamous Kuta beach, scene of the 2002 Bali bombings. For a few years following the bombing tourism hit record lows, but now Bali is seeing a resurgence. It almost seems there are more tourists, most of them being Aussie’s running around, then there are Balinese. But our hotel is a small oasis from the outside chaos and for the past few days we’ve done not much else besides lazing by the pool and beach and sipping cold cocktails.

You can see all our pictures from Bali in the Indonesia Photo Album.

Pancakes Along the Coast

WHY ARE THE ROCKS STACKED IN LAYERS?

Is it from millions of years ago when New Zealand still lay beneath the ocean and the layers were formed when sediments from deadly storms, killed ocean life and here they settled on the ocean floor, forming layers of fossilized sediment?

It’s really not known for sure, but these rock formations along the west coast of New Zealand’s South Island are a major tourist attraction and are known as The Pancake Rocks.

“Oh man! High tides not until 3,” I said to Jon.

At high tide the Pancake rocks come alive, when the ocean explodes through several holes in the rocks, spraying the magnificent scenery. It was only 10 AM, and we had a drive ahead of us, so we would have to live with just seeing the beautiful sculptures sans the spurting water.

We took the path around through all the sculptured rocks admiring their flaky layers, which looked more like puff pastry rather then pancakes. Some of the blowholes were minimally functioning, with small sprays of water popping through the towering rocks. But really the rocks were spectacular without the water having to spray through the holes. Between the stacks of pancakes several churning pools crashed and banged into the slim pinnacles making one question how a flaky segmented stack of rocks could withstand the force of the sea.

BACK ON THE ROAD AGAIN we swung towards the Northeast in the general direction of Picton, where we had a date the next evening, with the Northbound ferry to Wellington, this was the last of our South Island adventures.

Our drive was another typical New Zealand drive, amazing! But before we tucked into a Holiday Park for the evening we had on our agenda to stop at the Buller Gorge swing bridge, the longest swing bridge in New Zealand.

Quinn had really been upset at not being allowed to do many of the extreme activities because of his size, but here at the swing bridge he was allowed to do the comet line.

We all signed up, Jon would go alone and Quinn and I would go tandem, but first we had to walk across the bridge to get to the comet line. I felt like I was Indiana Jones trying to get to get away from the Thugee cult with the Shan Kara stones as the bridge swayed and twisted with every step.

We made it to the other side and up the platform to the comet line. The operator strapped Jon into the swing seat and let him loose across the canyon.

“Did he make it?” the guy joked with Quinn. But Quinn wasn’t nervous a bit.

Next it was our turn. We were strapped into the seats, hooked together and cut loose. We zoomed across the open canyon picking up more and more speed.

“You OK Quinn?” I yelled.

“Yeah!”

We made it to the other side a lot faster then our walk across the bridge had taken.

“You have fun mate?” The guy unbuckling Quinn asked.

“Yeah!” Quinn was so happy and on a high from finally being able to do something he felt was totally extreme.

You can see all the pictures of Pancake Rocks and Buller Gorge in the New Zealand Photo Album.

Gold Rush

SHANTYTOWN IS A CUTE LITTLE REPRODUCTION TOWN of the mid 1800’s gold rush here in New Zealand. Seems like everyone was digging for gold 150 years ago. We had arrived in Greymouth the town where Shantytown is located around 3 in the afternoon and decided it would make for a fun late afternoon outing.

“The train will be leaving in about 15 minutes,” the gruff bearded man who took our admission, let us know. He looked as if he really did belong back in the 1860’s although he wasn’t part of the act.

We wandered back into 1860’s New Zealand, where a complete town made from actual period dismantled buildings was set up in a mini town format.

Toot, Toot!

The train blew its horn signaling time to go into Gold Country.

The train ran backwards, well actually the engine pushed the passenger cars instead of pulling them. We were in the car right up against the huge steam locomotive.

“I don’t like it!” I told Jon.

“Like what?”

“The locomotive is right there. It’s chugging at us, and we’re right in front of it! It’s like my worst nightmare.”

The locomotive chugged and chugged and made that train power huffing noise; louder and louder until it got up to speed.

“When I was a kid we used to go to the National Museum of American History and there was this locomotive there, 1401. It would make realistic chugging noises and get louder and louder as you stood directly in front of it and it freaked me out!”

I couldn’t take my eyes off the front of the locomotive pushing the thin-wood wall of the carriage I sat in.

The train slowed down and we were told we could get out and check out the inside of the engine, where the engineer drives.

“This train was actually built in 1896 in Scotland and brought over by boat,” the engineer told us.

“How long did it take you to learn how to drive it?” Jon asked.

“Well, about 6 weeks of training, but I’ve been driving it for 6 years now and I’m still learning.”

It seemed like it would have been incredibly hot and unpleasant to stand in the cramped cabin, with the coal fire burning so hot. I still don’t understand where the coal shoveler would have stood, there was hardly enough room for one man.

THE TRAIN DROPPED US OFF AT THE GOLDMINE and we grabbed our pans and began pannin’.

“Have you ever panned for gold before?” asked the guy monitoring the gold panning station.

Yeah, it’s a real popular pastime in the year 2005!

“No,” I said politely.

“Ok, what you want to do is dip your pan into the water and shake. Then gently pour the water out and repeat 3 times. What this is doing in making the gold fall to the bottom, since it’s heavier then the stones. Now, tip the pan so it goes straight into the water and let the water flow in, washing away the light stones, 1…2…3,” he demonstrated. “Now continue to fill, shake, dip, dip, dip, until all you have left is gold.”

We filled and shook, dipped and dipped. A big black kitty came up to keep us company, of course. Finally we got down to the bottom of our pans and sure enough we had some gold. Actually all the pans have gold, they guarantee you’ll get some.

“I’ll just put your gold in these vials,” said the Gold miner.

We walked back into Shantytown happy that we had struck gold and with our riches in our pockets we strutted the main streets. We checked out the reproduction church, jail, toilets, hospital, candy shop, and printer, where some famous people had left their marks, before being the last tourists of the day to leave the frontier.

FROM SHANTYTOWN IT WAS A SHORT RIDE INTO GREYMOUTH, where we found a holiday park, plugged in our camper and had just enough time to walk out onto the beach to catch the spectacular sunset off the west coast of the south island of New Zealand.

You can see all our pictures of Shantytown in the New Zealand Photo Album.

Where Ice Meets Rain Forest

FRANZ JOSEPH IS A TOWN COMPLETELY DEPENDANT ON A GLACIER. The small town only supports about 400 residents, but sees over 300,000 tourists a year! There are several glacier tours offered from Heli-hikes, to straight glacier hikes, crevasse exploration, and scenic flights.

The Heli-hike was something we were interested in but with a price tag over $300 per person and an age minimum of 10, we had to abandon that idea. Another option would have been just the hike and glacier walk, no awesome crevasse exploration but about an hour of ice walking time. Again there was an age minimum and that idea had to be scratched as well. So we saw the glacier the free way, we drove to the car park and walked along the trails that lead to lovely glacier views.

The Franz Joseph glacier didn’t strike me as anything spectacular at all. It’s terminal moraine made the entire icy front black and gray, and the glacier didn’t seem large at all. I know it crept way up into the mountains, but the terminal face was just blah. We had seen much more magnificent glaciers in Chile.

The neatest thing about this glacier however, is its location. It cascades down a lush green prehistoric-looking valley in a sub-tropical rainforest. I expected to see dilophasaurus’s skittling amongst the giant ferns or Cephladons standing on 2 legs pulling giant leaves off the huge plants.

WE HIKED UP TO WHERE SOME INFORMATION was displayed about what the glacier looked like in many years past.
In 1974, the year of my birth, the glacier had been retreating and was much smaller them it is now. The terminal face was almost completely obscured from our current viewing point. During the 1930’s and 1940’s the glacier had left a great lake in front of it’s terminal face, much to the delight of tourists who could row their boats right up to the icy face. But in the mid 1700’s the glacier was receiving a lot of snow on it’s neve (snow accumulation area), which compacts down from the top of the glacier and pushes the glacier forward, and the glacier advanced to it’s largest human recorded size. There was actually a marker for where the glacier was 250 years ago and it was about a kilometer farther down the valley from where it is today and wider to the point where the valley walls have been carved. But the glaciers real hay day was during the last ice age, where it reached all the way out into the sea.

You can see all our pictures of Franz Joseph in the New Zealand Photo Album.

From the Snow of Queenstown to the Rainforests of the Coast

QUEENSTOWN, ADVENTURE CAPITAL NEW ZEALAND. Yes, it’s the place where commercial Bungy was invented and still carries with it an adventurous population. One can still Bungy at the historic bridge where curious adventure seekers took that first leap of faith, or advance to mightier more adrenaline pumping activities like The Ledge Bungy, an astonishingly high Bungy at 450ft, or even try the crazy what-will-they-think-of-next Bungy, Para-Bungy, where you paraglide up into the thin air and then Bungy off a parachute! All these activities sounded like fun, but once we saw the prices for them we had to back off.

We hadn’t arrived in Queenstown until dark and after checking into a campground we decided to have a look around the quaint town of the Queen and get ourselves a nice warm pub style meal. It was getting pretty cold and the streets were a bustle with what seemed should have been holiday shoppers, with their rosy cheeks, wooly mitts and knitted caps, buzzing up and down the shop lined streets with roaring fireplace lit restaurants.

We settled on a small intimate restaurant and sat at a table right in front of the fireplace. The menu listed all sorts of classic New Zealand favorites, Venison Pie, roasted Salmon, Mussels, Ribs, and Filet Mignon with roasted root vegetables.

Jon and Quinn ordered the Ribs and I choose the Filet. We swallowed it all down with some delicious Speight’s Lager and emerged back into the wintry streets with satisfied tummies.

With activities costing way into the $100’s per person we decided to just chill and enjoy Queenstown for it’s charm rather then it’s adventurousness, and spent an entire day just wandering and relaxing. Quinn saw some of his playmates from Christchurch at the campground; it seemed once again we were on the Barmy Army’s trail following the Lion’s tour.

WHEN WE WOKE UP THE NEXT MORNING snow had begun to fall.

“Uh oh, we have a long drive ahead of us,” I was excited, not upset.

Everyone was out of their campers looking up at the sky, enjoying the beautiful falling snow. Regardless it was time to get on the road. We pulled out of the Holiday Park along with 3 other campers of Lions fans all heading the same way.
I had wanted to head up the 74 North, which would have taken us over the mountains and out of Queenstown, but Jon refused to go that way, opting for the around the mountain path, since it was snowing.

We arrived in the small town of Wanaka by mid-morning and the Lions campers continued on without us. Our stop was for the mind-bending attraction, Puzzling World. They have all sorts of neat puzzles and illusion rooms, which are famous all over the country. We first attempted to take the mandatory, holding up the clock tower photo, then made our way inside.
The hall of following faces was creepy, anyway you walked the faces would follow. My favorite was the tilted room; the pool table where it seems the ball rolls up (Video File), and the sliding chair that also looks as if it’s sliding up, as well as water traveling up an incline. Obviously these things were not defying gravity, but with the way the room was tilted it sure did give the illusion it was.
When we were finished the big puzzles we rested a while with some smaller ones, before getting back on the road.

WE REALLY DID HAVE QUITE A LONG DRIVE ahead of us and after stopping for lunch; we began the journey of 450km, through the wilderness.
The drive wasn’t monotonous at all though, we traveled from the snowy coldness of Queenstown and Wanaka through the hilly farm valleys, and then past huge mountain lakes, and streams of mountain run-off, and then as we got closer to the coast and the town of Haast, we hit rainforest.
The term rainforest always makes me think of that hot and humid place where birds and monkeys mingle in the overgrown green vegetation. But rainforests only need one element, rain. This region of New Zealand, between the Southern Alps and the Tasman Sea is the wettest area in the whole of New Zealand. Huge ferns tower above the other vegetation, and mosses and vines drip constantly on the road, keeping the roads slick at all times. Luckily this area doesn’t actually get that cold and by the time we stopped in Haast for a couple drinks we had gone from freezing cold snow to blue skies and a temperature in the 60’s F. It was a nice feeling of warmth, but we were still only halfway to our destination and had to hit the road again.
At Haast we changed direction from due west to North, and continued up the West Coast of the South Island of New Zealand, until reaching the small town of Franz Joseph, home of the Franz Joseph glacier.

It was late by the time we arrived, so glacier viewing would have to wait until tomorrow. It was a warm-ish evening for being between the 40th and 42nd parallel in the southern hemisphere in June. But, that’s the way it is here, strange but true, winter days hardly get so cold and palm trees grow strong and tall. It’s all because of a warm ocean current that sweeps down from the North of Australia and makes this Latitude a wee bit warmer then it really should be. Seems a strange place for a glacier, huh?

You can see all our pictures from Queenstown to Franz Joseph in the New Zealand Photo Album.

Yellow and Blue Waddlers

BEFORE GETTING ON HIGHWAY 1 SOUTH we needed to stop by The Warehouse, “Where everyone gets a bargain,” to exchange some DVD-R’s we had purchased the previous day. We accidentally bought 4X speed instead of 8X. Jon ran into The Warehouse, which is basically a New Zealand version of Wal-Mart, to exchange the discs for the right ones.

“They wouldn’t let me return them. They said if they’ve been in the computer we can’t return them,” Jon came reporting back.

“We’ll see about that!”

We drove to the other end of town to the other Warehouse. Once again Jon ran in and came out a few minutes later without the 4X DVD’s and a new thing of 8X.

Soon we were on our way down the 1 South towards Oamaru. We had a couple hundred clicks in front of us, but we took our time leisurely taking in the beautiful South Island of New Zealand’s East Coast.

WE ARRIVED IN THE TOWN OF OAMARU AT 4PM, it was the shortest day of the year in the Southern Hemisphere and the sun was on the plunge.

“Let’s go straight over to the Penguin Beach. They’re supposed to come out of the water at dusk.”

We drove out onto the peninsula towards the beach. We knew we were getting close when we saw a Penguin Crossing sign. There was a beautiful visitors center set up, with tons of information on the penguins breeding activities, how many eggs have been laid this season, how many penguins came ashore last evening, etc.

“Hi, how do we see the penguins?” I asked the Penguin man.

“Well we estimate the Blue penguins to be arriving by about 5:30 this evening, but you can go around the other side of the peninsula and catch the Yellow eyed penguins now,” he told us.

We hustled back into the camper and drove around the other side of the peninsula, hiked up to the lookout on a cliff overlooking the sea and waited. The wind was blowing and whipping at us, and a heavy sea spray blew through the air stinging our eyes. The day had grown really cold and the wind-chill at the beach made it feel like we were popsicles in a freezer.

“Look, in the water!” one of the other popsicles yelled.

There in the choppy waves was the first Yellow-Eyed penguin of the evening, returning home from his day out fishing the ocean. He dove and tumbled in the waves for a good 10 minutes before finally riding a wave onto shore and waddling up.

“Waaaah, waaah, woooh,” Mr. Penguin yelled.

We watched him waddle the beach for a bit before disappearing into his hole in the cliffs.

Like Axl Rose once said “All we need is just a little patience.” We sat and waited and waited and watched and waited and watched and froze and “A PENGUIN! No two!” they were riding in on a wave together, squeaking and yelling at each other. They frolicked and played in the waves a bit, just like the other guy and then waddled ashore. They were far in the distance, but I attempted to photograph the rare yellow-eyed penguin as best I could. We hung out a little while longer and observed 4 more penguins roll in before calling it quits, from being almost hypothermic, not bored.

WE WARMED UP BACK IN THE CAMPER and added a few more clothes to what we were already wearing and then drove back across the peninsula to view the very rare Blue Penguins, who are also the smallest penguins in the world. Here at the Blue Penguin Colony, they have transformed an area of beachfront into Blue Penguin Beverly Hills. Several wood boxes have been built in their natural habitat and wired off to keep the little blue guys safe from predators. They also monitor their breeding and have reported a great success rate of egg laying and growth amongst the community.

We sat up in the viewing stand and waited for the penguins to float in.

“Good evening everyone, fist I’ll let you know that we do not allow photos.”

“Awwww!” The entire group groaned all together.

“We used to allow photos without flash, but some people couldn’t seem to follow those rules, and the flashes scared the penguins. We try to provided a safe and natural environment for the penguins so we’ve now banned all photography and video, sorry.”

I put my camera away, which I had already set up for my night shots.

“Last night our first raft of penguins arrived at ten of six,” the penguin boy announced. “These penguins pair up for several years staying with the same partner, however we do have a divorce rate of about 30%. We’ve already had two eggs laid this season which is early, but great. We believe we’ll have two batches of eggs this year. What the penguins will do after laying eggs is take turns sitting on the eggs, while their partner goes out to fish. They’ll take turns everyday for 35 days, which is how long the egg needs to incubate. Then when the chicks are born, both parents need to go out and fish to get enough for the babies. So the babies are home alone, but no worries here, they are completely protected from predators and are flourishing.”

A lone penguin hopped up on the rocks.

“A raft should be coming in soon,” we were told in penguin terminology.

“OK OUR FIRST RAFT HAS ARRIVED.”

I though it was funny how they were called rafts, but when we saw how they rode a wave in all lined up and bunched together, we got the lingo.

The little guys hopped up and out of the water, hopped up on the rocks and stood there for a while preening and picking at their feathers.

“They need to dry their feathers,” Penguin boy narrated.

In the field across the way the partner penguins began to emerge and the penguin show started.

“Waaa ggggggaaaaaa ggggggaaaaaaaa, waaaa ggggggaaaaaaa ggggggaaaa!” they called out to their counterparts on the rocks.

The guys who just came out of the chilly ocean were still sitting on the rocks drying and until one penguin made a move towards home they were stationary. They waddled up the rocks with a few hops, looked both ways before crossing the dirt road and then ran-waddled under their fence and into their neighborhood. They continued to run in their raft or I suppose now that they were on lad this term should be changed to gaggle or something.
It’s humanly impossible to watch a group of penguins waddle-run without cracking up and the stands laughed out loud.
Soon we were watching another raft come in and then another followed by yet another, some of the penguins waddled right over to within a ½ foot of us primates, completely undisturbed by our presence. When it was believed all the penguins had returned to the hood for the night the final count was 55, pretty good. The previous night there were only 35.
Most of the crowd left having seen the waddling show, but we and a British family also with a 7 year-old boy stayed a bit longer.

“This is when it gets really interesting,” said a very enthusiastic Penguin conservationalist. “Now that they’re all back for the night they have some real socialization,’ she pointed to the penguins standing in front of their holes wailing at the top of their lungs.

Some penguins chased each other and got into fights, with some wild beak thumping, other penguins were happier making love not war.

“Look at those penguins, he’s giving her a back massage,” said the little boy from Wales.

“Oh, yeah a back massage,” I looked at Quinn with wide eyes, telling him not to say anything. Quinn knew exactly what they were doing and smiled at me in understandance.

You can see all our penguin pictures in the New Zealand Photo Album.

New Zealand Has Plenty of Wool, But No Internet

WE LEFT KAIKOURA BY 10AM, taking the coastal road South. We curved and weaved, coast…inland farms…coast…inland…coast, until we reached a small town called Chiviot.

“Look a flea market!” I yelled.

I was driving, testing out my skills on the wrong side of the road, and pulled over fast. I love flea markets and was excited to see what was being sold.

“Hm…Wool sweaters, wool crafts, wool dolls, wool slippers, pieces of wool, and wool.”

Not really what I had thought, but one lady was selling some pretty Paua shell necklaces and she couldn’t get enough of Quinn.

“Aren’t you cute?”

“Thanks,” Quinn said completely full of himself.

We chatted a bit with her, actually Quinn did most of the chatting; he loves to tell everyone all about our trip and where he’s been.

“Here, you go,” she handed Quinn a beautiful spiral shell.

“Thank You,” Quinn politely said.

“These shells are beautiful,” I pointed to the huge paua shells she had.

“You can find them on the beach and these as well. You can drive down there now, just turn left down that street and you’ll end up at the bay.”

We went down to the beach area, parked the camper and walked out onto the beach. There was no sand on the beach, just big smooth gray rocks, with some jade and red lava rocks mixed in. We split up and went on a shell hunt (Photo Above). I found all sorts of pretty spiral shells, some flakes of paua shells, and some nice pieces of jade. When we were shelled-out. We returned to our camper and compared our spoils from the sea.

WE WOKE UP BRIGHT AND EARLY IN CHRISTCHURCH, to get downtown so I could use some Internet and update the Blog. I walked into the Internet café, hooked up my computer, the Internet came on worked for a second and POOF, gone. I thought it was my computer but everyone in the Internet café was looking around in confusion.

“Telecom says the Internet is out, hopefully they’ll have it back on soon,” announced a café worker.

I hung out for a bit waiting and them decided to come back later.

Most of Christchurch is situated around the main cathedral Square, where the actual Cathedral that gives this city its name is located. Jon and Quinn aren’t interested in Cathedrals or historic buildings, so they left me to wander around the church, while they went off to feed the parking meter. There was actually nothing so spectacular about Christchurch, it had a pretty enough Rose window and some nice stained glass, but other then that it was just a church.

Jon and Quinn met me back at the square, and we walked down to check out the Arts Center, and just some plain Christchurch street life. We ended back up in the square for lunch and picked up some Chinese food from one of the mobile food carts that had a line full of locals.

I ran back into the Internet café to check the Internet status and got a “Nope!” Actually when we listened to the radio in the camper on the way back to bade camp we heard that Telecom, the internet, ATM, and phone provider in New Zealand was having a total country-wide outage, and a majority of ATM’s were out as well as Debit Card systems in stores.

“Now’s a good time to run down to your favorite store if you have no money in your account, they’ll have to take your purchase manually and won’t find out you have no money in your account until tomorrow,” one of the radio personalities said.

At about 8PM that evening Telecom New Zealand gave the all OK, and apologized for all the mayhem that their telecommunication malfunction produced.

QUINN WAS OUT ALL EVENING at the Holiday Park playing with a whole gaggle of children. The Big game for the Lions and All Blacks was approaching in Christchurch and the Holiday parks were filled with Barmy Army Lions fans and their offspring. The Holiday Park had a huge playground, with another one of those jumping pillows, a couple great slides, jungle gym, helicopter, and the kid’s choice, the hamster wheel. Six kids at a time would load up in the wheel and run like little rodents, until one would fall down and scream while the others kept running and the fallen one scrapped and skidded across the bottom.
Jon also made friends with some young Kiwis who invited him to play some Ping-Pong in the game room and Jon in turn showed them how to play the racecar video game for free. Someone had pulled out the coin mechanism and if you put your coin in and then flipped the box you would get your game and your coin back.

I spent the evening with my laptop and the heater in the camper van dreaming of worldwide broadband WiFi coverage.

See all our pictures from New Zealand in the New Zealand Photo Album.

There She Blows!

WE STARTED OUT EARLY FOR OUR DRIVE from Taupo to Wellington. It seems where ever we’re going the British Lions Tour fans are going as well.

We broke up our 6-hour drive and stopped for lunch in a small town.

“Do you think you have a chance?” some dude asked Jon.

“Uh, what?”

“Jon you’re wearing a British Lions T-shirt,” I nudged him.

“Oh, I don’t know?” Jon answered confused.

The New Zealand All Blacks fan walked away.

“Ok Jon, if your gonna wear the shirt you need to at least say something, or at least tell them your American and just bought the shirt.”

The British Lions Tour here in New Zealand is a huge affair and the country is absolutely swarming with British folk, touring around in campers and cars and whatever else will get them to the games. Many campers have signs posted on them rooting for the Lions, every store and shop has some kind of Tour paraphernalia for sale, street signs have been altered, and parties have begun. And of course since right now is the off-season for tourism in New Zealand and the majority of the tourists here right now are for the Lions Tour, everyone assumes we’re British.

We spent just one night in the outskirts of Wellington along with the entire mass of Lions Fans. There was a big game in Wellington that evening and as we sat in our camper van and made dinner, we were surrounded by hundreds of empty campers, as everyone was off for the game.

“Not going to the game?” asked the park security man, doing his rounds.

“No, were American,” Jon, told him.

“Well you can come over and watch the game in the TV room later.”

“OK.”

A cold rain began falling in the deserted Holiday Park, and Jon ran over to watch rugby on the TV. The security guard sat with Jon explaining the game as I read a year old Australian Elle magazine.

THE RUGBY FANS HAD TO GET TO THE SOUTH ISLAND the next day as did we and only because I booked our ferry crossing in advance was I able to get a spot aboard. As we sat in the queue of cars waiting to enter the car park of the ferry, several blokes began spontaneous rugby tossing games, pumped up rugby fans cheered things back and forth at each other and scalpers roamed between campers selling tickets to the big game in Christchurch for $500.

The ferry crossing took a bit over 3 hours and as we drove off the ferry onto the South Island we were alone again. The Lions fans needed to be in Dunedin some 700 Km to the south in a matter of a few days and Picton was way to far North for them to be stopping now.
Picton seemed a sleepy little town, where fog gets trapped in the nooks of the hills and lingers there all day. We stayed over one night in Picton before heading a bit father south to Kaikoura.

WE TOOK THE COAST SOUTH AND A LITTLE BIT outside Kaikoura we came across a seal colony. We pulled over to the side of the road and hopped outside to check them out. Before you see seals and sea lions you can defiantly smell them. It’s not because they are dirty creatures, it’s from the way they process the salt from the salt water they drink.

Next we stopped at the gas station on the way into town and as Jon filled us up, I called Whale Watch Kaikoura to book us on a tour for the next day.

“We have 4 spaces left,” the Whale Watch operator told me.

“Ok, well sign us up.”

Kaikoura is whale watching central of New Zealand and it was imperative we see some whales while here.

We easily found a Holiday Park and transformed our camper into home. This was one of the first Holiday Parks we had been to that was right in the town center, easy walking right into town.

Kaikoura had all kinds of cute little shops and restaurants, most specializing in Crayfish, Lobster to us North Americans. They even had a town cat.

After our Crayfish lunch we stopped in a coffee shop, grabbed two cappuccinos and spent the rest of the evening keeping warm and listening to the sounds of the rough sea at our backdoor.

“GOOD AFTERNOON AND WELCOME to Whale Watch Kaikoura,” said the woman behind the counter.

“Hi we have reservations for a tour.”

“Ok, I just want to let you know we have a sea sickness warning, the swells today are about 3 meters. So if you think you may get sick we sell tablets.”

We had a few minutes before the tour actually started so we walked out onto the beach, to check out the huge waves. The waves were coming in full force and breaking right on the beach in huge pipeline fashion. The sea shelf must have been quite deep a few feet off the beach and when the waves hit the beach…CRASH!

It was time to go. We were shuttled to a boat waiting in the bay right outside of town. Again we were given a seasick warning.

“There are barf bags on the backs of the seats in front of you is you need them,” said Chevy our Whale master. “Please keep you seats while we are traveling and when we spot a whale we’ll send everyone out on the deck.

The boat was a super fast modern boat and we were traveling so fast that we hit the huge waves and Miami Vice jumped them, coming down hard on the water…BAM! We got a good distance off shore and the Capitan stopped the boat.

“He’s going to use the Hydrophone to listen for some whales,” Chevy told us.

The Capitan stuck the long pole with the microphone head into the water and listened for whale noises through his headphones. He heard some and we were speeding away towards them in seconds.

TWO HUGE SPERM WHALES floated along the top of the water surface feeding, chasing fish and sharks. We watched as the two, presumably male whales glided along the water, blowing a wet misty air from their blowholes.

“”This is more a feeding ground here rather then a breeding ground. The waters here are just too cold for female Sperm whales. So the males hang out here feeding themselves so they can get nice and strong before heading towards warmer waters to mate,” Chevy explained.

We continued to watch in complete awe; so rare was it to see two whales right in the same place.

“We’re getting a real treat,” Chevy smiled. “Ok get ready here he goes, he’s gonna dive, he’s flipping and here comes the tail, out of the water up, up, up and dive. Wow that was fantastic! Ok here goes the other guy now, see his fluke come up and…. dive.” Chevy was so enthusiastic about the whales that even if you weren’t already impressed with the huge mammals you would be, listening to his commentary.

We piled back into the interior of the boat and sped off in another direction towards another possible whale sighting. Sure enough we found another whale there. He too was surface feeding, but was close to being finished and with a deep breath he flipped his fluke out of the water and dove down into the deep.

We sped off once again now joined by another Whale Watch ship that was in constant communication with our ship about possible whale sightings. Off in the distance a spout was spotted. Zoom…we hauled ass across the waves, up, crash down, up crash down again. We were really speeding off for this guy.

The Capitan stopped the boat and walked out on deck to use the hydrophone again. Ah, we were close. The whale had gone down for the moment but he would soon be back up. Suddenly, the whale popped up directly next to our vessel.

“Humpppfff,” the whale was so close we heard him sigh.

He stuck around right by the side of the boat, popping his head up and looking around at us. He was curious about us for a bit, but defiantly had more important things to do then to sit around looking at tourists all day. He swam away into the distance and flip, his tail fluke popped into the water.

See a video of a whale diving herfe.

OUR TOUR HAD A MONEY BACK GUARANTEE that if we didn’t see any whales we would be refunded 80% of our tour price. We defiantly had seen our share of whales for the day!

As we sped back towards the bay Chevy explained some things about the whales.

“Whales have an amazing system to help them dive and to help them stay buoyant. The whales have oil reservoirs in their bodies, that cool as they dive, and turns into wax to help them get down. When they want to come back up, the wax is heated and changed back into oil and, what does oil do in water? It floats.” Chevy explained. “So do you know how the Sperm Whale got its name?” everyone shook their heads. “Well when people first started killing these whales, they would cut into the foreheads and out would come 2 tons of this sticky white fluid. So they thought this was sperm. But when they began killing the females as well, they would cut into their foreheads and the same white substance would come out.”

Another crewmember brought out a petition to Stop Whaling and Chevy passed it around.

“There are still 27 nations that allow whaling, the 3 biggest being Japan, Russia and Norway. Some use them as food, while some are still killed for oil and some are killed under the guise of scientific research. Others are killed from being run over by boats and many whales and other sonar using marine mammals are being hurt and killed by naval sonar devices.”

The “Save the Whales” theme has been a popular bumper sticker for a long time, but recently NZ and Australia have taken up the fight more seriously and have began petitioning the Japanese government to stop and ban all whaling. Their efforts haven’t paid off yet, but it’s quite evident in New Zealand, that they are quite serious about saving whales, not just in their beautiful waters, but in all the waters of this planet, so future generations can experience the majesty of these huge animals that share a common bond with man and all mammals alike.

New Zealands campaign to stop whaling in Japan.

Greenpeace, save Our Seas

you can see all our pictures of Kaikoura and Whale Watching in the New Zealand Photo Album.