This is our last day in Queenstown, N.Z.

These pics are from Rarotonga in the Cook Islands…

These are from Aitutaki

Pictures from Tonga….and our own private island!

Now this is love…

Kava night with locals

Goodbye to the island and our RTW trip!

Now we know there was a little speculation about the ‘Bang’…..thinking that there was gonna be some big action… well our idea of a ‘bang’ is ending our trip on a private island in the middle of Tonga.

The grand finale 2 weeks of our trip started out a little rough. The day before we left for the cook islands, we checked our bank account online and found that someone had gotten Lisa’s CC# and done a really good job at emptying her checking and the joint saving. They charged 4000$$$ to a shoe stoe in Saudi Arabia…. Lisa wishes that was her charge!! anyways, we tried our best to brush of the fact that we didn’t have any cash, at least we got credit and are on our way through the South Pacific!! We arrived in Rarotonga at 2 am to find that our luggage was not on the plane with us. We had to spend our first day on the island in jeans and long sleeve shirts. But like the customs guy said…. “at least we got duty free booze”.!!! We swam in our underwear and borrowed toothpaste until a day and half later our bags arrived. NOT a good start.

Things obviously turned around and we enjoyed a wonderful 5 days on Raro and 4 day on an outer island, Aitutaki. We will not bore you with the details… but we had a wonderful time.

From Raro, we came back to Auckland, spent 10 hours in the airport and then headed to Tonga. We initially booked a room at a surf resort on the main island. After 2 days we found that they only take cash… not really on option for us. So we headed to plan B. A little island called Pangaimoto just a short boat ride away. There is a small resort there and NOTHING else….. absolutely beautiful. Once again we wont bore you with the details, but we ended up being the only guests there for 2 nights.  We spent our days playing in the ocean and our nights drinking Kava with all the local boys that lived there!! Our own private island, could there be a more perfect ending to our RTW trip???……boooo hoooo

We are sitting the in the auckland airport now (again), waiting for a plane to LA.  We are trying not to think about the reality of it, so we will not write any deep thoughts on how we feel!!  Those will come later…. just because we are going home, we are not ready to give up the blog.  We are sure that we will do a few more posts because we have some more pics to post that we can’t do here. 

SEE YA’LL SOON!!!

 Thanks for your concern… we head to Tonga in 2 days!!  We plan on coming home thinking we are the skiniest people around!

Last night we rallied up and went to the bar…not at the 18 yr old free stuff bar… the bar that had 2$$ beers. They started a raffle for a free bungy jump, and what do you know…..

We only won one free jump, so despite all the ridicule, Todd agreed to let Lisa take it. It was 43 meters high (140 ish feet). This is the bridge that Bungy jumping began on… cool!

Here’s one last photo of a Sea Lion that we really liked!

Last post we ended with we were relaxing in Wanaka soaking up what turned out to be the last of the summer/autumn good weather, it has now turned to autunm/winter (like November at home). We had a wonderfully mapped out plan about our last few weeks itinerary, but we guess we should know by now… it never goes as planned. We had a beautifull drive from Wanaka to Fjiordland, on the south west of the island. We passed through huge mountian ranges, valleys, lakes, sheep, cows, more sheep until we got to our campsite way out near an area called milford sound. This whole area down here is where they filmed ‘The lord of the rings’. The scenery almost looks fake its so incredible. On our way down to milford we booked a morning boat trip through the sound. It is supposed to be a highlight of NZ. Ironilcally milford sound is also the wettest place on the south island. As soon as we finished cooking dinner (mussels of course) it started to drizzle… the drizzle gradually turned to rain…and then pissin’ down rain!! We woke up and couldn’t see our hands in front of our faces. We drove the rest of the way to the sound to where the boat leaves. The rain was a real bummer, but it made the drive way more dramatic. We were surrounded by huge cliffs with multiple gushing waterfalls all around. When we got to the dock, we found that the boat was still going out but we decided that we didn’t want to freeze our bums off. Fortunately, we were able to get a refund. The lady at the desk was kind of a bitch and we reminised back to Vietnam.

The drive back out of the sound was equallly spectacular, and now we had a much longer time to enjoy it. We gradually made our way all the way to the bottom of the island to Invercargell. Invercargell was dubbed the ‘Arsehole of New Zealand’ by Mick jagger… and to his defense it wasn’t all that much. Our reason for heading to the arsehole was to go to the Bluff Oyster Festival.

Bluff oysters are said to be the best in the world. They are very different than the oysters we are used to. They are much meatier….. mmmmm delicious. The festival was pretty good, but perhaps we anticipated to much. It was inside a warehouse because the weather down there is very unpredictable. We had imagined a big outside, hang on the grass, kinda party…. oh well. The highlight was the OYSTER EATING CONTEST. The way they do it is pick people from the audience, calll them on stage and whoever can eat 12 oysters with a toothpick, then whistle wins. We had been planning and planning on getting Todd up there…. real groupies around the stage. So the way the MC was doing it was trying to get different types of people up there. In the round that Todd got into he was picking different types of men like a computer guy, a construction worker etc. Of course todd was trying to get any profession and then lie. The one he got chosen for was ‘the intellectual’. The MC atually looked at our Toddy and said he looked intellectual. It must be all those books he’s been reading!! Unforunately, the reigning champion of 10 years was also in his group. Todd came in second place…. not bad for an amatuer (an amatuer intellectual).

We left bluff and headed up the Caitlan coast. We actually didn’t make it more than 2 hour out of invercargill because we found a spectacular campsite. It was on a peninsula. We woke up with dolphins on our left and penguins on our right. It was awesome. The penguins were so cute waddling around like little children.

we left after breakfast and headed further up the coast to an area that has sea lions. We hiked out to a spot on the beach that was full of these huge sea lions. When we first got there they were all sleeping, but then they started to have lovers quarells. The males were jumping at eat other growling, not fighting, just protecting their bitches. We learned later that sea lions have harums.

We went a little further up to the city of dunedin. Cousin Ivan (from Aussie) is from there and his parents are still there. As we arrived at their house it started to rain…. it continued to rain the entire next day. The following day we attempted to leave Dunedin, but only made it an hour before we had to turn around due to flooded roads. At least we had a nice family home to hang out in as we waited for the rain to pass. The day after we were able to get out of town and head to where we are now, Queenstown. The drive here was really sad though. All of the farms were totally flooded. So many farmers lost their animals. We were also so sad for the sheep that were hanging around because they were saoking wet. Wet wool is no fun to wear!!

We are now in Queenstown soaking in our last few days in NZ. This is the area of all the extreme sports, but we are choosing to just hike and save our $$$ for the tropical islands we move onto next!!!

THIS IS WHAT DRIVING IN NEW ZEALAND IS LIKE……

Milford sound…

The intellectual hard at work…

Our cute seal and sea lion friends

Here we are in Queenstown….

From abel tasman we headed down toward nelson lakes.  We had intended to do some hiking.. we mean tramping.. there but were so pooped from our hike the day before, we just ended up looking for a place to camp, and eating and reading. We ended up finding the best camping sopt.  We believe that it must be a local fishing spot, it was set right on the side of a blue/ green river with trees all around and a perfect little fire pit.  We were very happy we decided not to hike!

In the a.m. we left to head down the west coast.  We made a few stops along the way to take some more hikes.  This time, through rainforest and limestone cliffs.  It was like being back in Thailand.  It is remarkable how many different types of land they have in this little country.  Every time we take a tramp, we are in an entirely different enviroment… because from here we headed to….

The glaciers!!!  First we went to Franz Joesph Glacier.  We pretty much just checked it out from afar, because we were saving our energy for our next stop… Fox glacier.

Before we get to our Fox Glacier adventure… we have got to tell you abut the WORST camping experience so far!!  We were at a campsite near FJ G eating our dinner when these huge brown birds started circling in on us harrasing.  Ok, nothing really that strange when your camping.  When we left to do our dishes they came in and trashed our entire table…we kid u not when we tell you that those little bastards actually took off with our wine glasses.  so we took this as a lesson and put everything inside the car before we went to bed (inside the car also).  These vicious birds were trying to kill us we think.  They spent all night stomping around on our car.  We won’t lie when we say it was a little scary… like out of a horror movie.  We kept trying to get them to leave our car alone, but they wanted blood!!! We got up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, (it took a lot of mental prep to build up the nerve to exit the vehicle), we had a serious stare down with one of the birds… they were not afraid!! Anyways, we realized that part of our blanket was sticking out of the trunk and they had ripped it to shreds!! It was a war zone out there!! When we woke up in the morning, we realized that they had pecked away most of the rubber around our windows and doors, and the windshield wipers were falling off.  On the good side though… they brought our wine glasses back.

So instead of spending 2 nights there, we fixed the wipers and motored down to fox glacier where we found a spot on the beach without any god-damn Kea birds.  In the a.m. we went on an all day glacier tramp.  It was more amazing then we could of imagined. We were in a group of 9 people.  The great thing about it was that there was no path we just clamped on our crampons and headed onto the ice.  The crampons are spikes that you attach to your boots so that you can walk on the ice without bustin’ arse!! It was a hard thing to get used to but eventually we were cruisin on the ice.  We hiked pretty far up the glacier to where the ice was really blue and clean.  They were all the jagged peaks and DEEP cravases.  like nothing you could imagine until you see it.  At close to the end of our hike, the rain came in that actually added more of a cool element. The dark clouds hanging over the blue ice made us feel were on a differnet planet. It is up there near the top of the list of favorite things we have done on our trip so far.  It was a different sort of easter sunday for todd!

We left Fox headed through Hasst pass to a small town called Wanaka.  We treated ourselves to a room with a bed.. and are taking a few days to just hang around this cute little town on a lake, surrounded by snow peaked mountains… until we embark on our next NZ outdoor adventure!

These are our little animal friends… this duck only had one leg, he hopped around and used his beak when he swam so he didn’t swim in circles!

This was at our perfect campsite…. the one without the birds!

These are franz josef glacier

And these are our fox glacier ones… we took sooooo many and couldn’t decide which ones to post, so you guys get a lot of them!!

This is our guide who reminded us of Joel.

And here we are this morning.. hanging in wanaka

 A little roadside humor!

From there we headed down to Taupo. (where we sky dived).  In order to save $$ we have been camping… ok really sleeping in the back of the station wagon….. In Taupo, we found a beautiful free camp spot right along the side of an emerald green river.  A little ways up the river there was a natural hot stream that poured over into the cold river… it was the best morning shower we have ever taken (except you can’t get your face wet because of meningitis). We have set up the back of our station wagon pretty good.. although we still feel kinda like bums….  We have to leave the trunk open so that our feet hang out!

To answer mama J’s ???’s about sky diving we were actually pretty calm on the way up there.  We had talked to a few people who had just done it and they were all saying how scary it is but once you do it its awesome.  So we had the mentality.. we are doing it so JUST DO IT.  now don’t get us wrong we were definatly nervous as we sat in the little airplane looking out the window going higher and higher… and then when they popped open the door it was like ” you want me to do WHAT”.  But the truth is that as soon as you scoot up to the hatch, the wind kinda just sucks you out and you are just falling and it is SO F-IN COOL, and the view is beautiful (at least what we remember, and our dvd shows us) and the rush is out of this world.  Apparently we free falled for about 45 sec, 7,000 feet, 120 mph.  It felt more like sometime between not long enough and eternity. at 5000feet they pop open the parachute and then you float down chilling out taking in how crazy you are.  Our guides were feeling good and did some tricks for us.  When we landed we slid in, our hearts were pounding and the smiles on our face were painfully big!! We got a great DVD, where you all can see for yourselves!

We moved on west to a town called Waitomo.  Waitomo is known for its caves.  The caves are full of some species of worms (actually larva) that glow…. We took a really cool trip down into the caves.  Abseiling, rock climbing tubing in the dark etc…

Our internet card is almost up… check the pics we’ll write more soon.

These are Rotorua (frying pan lake)

This h2o is actually 200 degrees…They call it Inferno Lake

Bubbling Mud… cool huh??

This is our morning shower..

Our caving adventure!

We knew that NZ was the land of extreme sports, and have been talking about doing something since the beginning of our trip… so we chose skydiving. It was awesome.. we loved it.. we may do it again!!

Here’s Todd—

Here’s Lisa—

We drove to HWB and got to his camper.  It was awesome.  The camper is right out of 1970, complete with orange formica and all.  What was really spectacular was the location.  It was up on a hill overlooking the ocean… AWESOME.  We couldn’t stop cracking “white trash, red neck” jokes.  “Woman get in the kitchen and make me a drink” kinda stuff.  It was a hoot.

The thing that was so cool about HWB was that if you go down at low tide, you can did a hole in the sand and HOT water comes up.  You can sit in your hot water pool, while the cold ocean waves splash up on you.  Really fun.  We left today and headed through a town Te Aroha.  We stopped and had a spa bath at the world’s only hot soda water springs.  Too much excitement for one day… here are some pic’s.