nothing too special these days, mostly playing tourist & arranging stuff for the states. our last night in nz we went out. they called it ladies night but you couldnt fool a blind guy. in the end still pretty fun as the girls who were there liked our dance moves! boouuyaah

USA day 1 – 3

american hot dog – check!
if you know anything other than american hot dogs we should eat / do / see tell us!

We arrived in LA really early. about 6 am. we didnt have any sleep at all. we basically missed a night so during the day we were very tired. we did go see hollywood though! it was fun to have been there but nothing too special really… the next day we visited venice beach & santa monica beach and centre. venice beach is very touristic! as if thats all that venice beach is.. towards santa monica some real cool work out area. if we can go back there ill make some pictures. that night our first cheap drinks in the bar!
today we got our rental which we have for the days we’ll be here in the states. in the afternoon we started driving to vegas and around 10pm this night we arrived. at 11 pm we found lisa where we are staying for the weekend!!
tomorrow is our big vegas day! i already had a little practice this night and won 11$ haha. just warming up…

think about us tomorrow, wish us luck

b

Our day in queenstown. quite relaxed. a day of exploring the city. queenstown is known most for all its random kinds of activities. jet boats, bungee jumping, skydiving and so on. now we didnt plan on doing any of those activities really. maybe if we could find something cheap but everything was pretty expensive. next day we arrived in haast. we thought it would be a lot bigger but the town was nothing really so after some fish & chips and whitebait we left. whitebait is a small fish and a local delicacy. they put a couple of whitebait in an egg based mixture and fry it. you eat it on a slice of bread. they say you can only get a real whitebait meal on the west coast and we’ve experienced that! i had ordered whitebait only 1 hour away from the coast, inlands and it was tasteless. i couldnt believe it was such a big think over here. then we ordered it again in haast and it was a lot better and such a difference. also the lady who sold us the whitebait told us we might have bought chinese whitebait. it wouldnt surprise me..

the coastal road from haast up north is beautiful. most of the time the beach on one side and the mountains on the other side. all nice blue & green, sun and the occasional rainbow. with some stops and walks along the way we ended up at the franz josef glacier where i the next day did a guided hike on the glacier. it was very cool to stand on a big pile of ice. also the way the ice turns blue is incredible. a little bit of a let down we didnt go that high on the glacier but now i have something to look forward to:)! with the hike we got passes for the hot pools which were three small pools outside with all different temperatures. very nice after a couple of days without a shower;)!

today was a big drive back to christchurch. we dropped of stephan and just in time returned our rental. we’re at the airport checked in and all waiting on our flight to auckland where we will stay the upcoming two
nights before we leave to LAX!

our drive towards milford

two highlights today! one of them our short stop at a backpackers in milton. the happy inn backpackers it was called. i would recommend anyone who passes through to visit or stay there. i dont know about prices really but a shower is 4$ and very worth it!
we just went there for the shower and to clean our dishes. the owner of the hostel was a very smart, inspiring and happy man. he’s originaly swiss. in ’94 he came to new zealand by bike. europe – india – china – indonesia – australia and eventually new zealand. it took him a year. now he owns this small but cozy hostel for some years with a own build fire heated bath tub & sauna. advice of the day was live day by day and a whole theory behind it. when he finished the theory he said; ah well it works for me, it doesnt really matter if it works or not for anyone else…
but i guess his theory has a point. even though i like to think about the past and the future.
i caught him being very interested in the history of religion. it was pretty interesting. he had a book about the survival of jezus and his death of old age in india. a professor in history of religion had written the book with a life time of studies behind him. the title very catching and something to think about but not now. maybe when the time is right;)
eventually we wanted to give him 15$ instead of 12$. at first he didnt want to accept it but quickly ran off saying he had something for us. he came back with home made bread. delicious! 15$ we gave him, a thankful goodbye and we were back on the road again.

eventually our drive close to milford some very very spectacular mountains! especially the end was an amazing drive. from te anau till milford. jaw dropping!

tomorrow morning at 9 our milford cruise!

NZ Day 9

7:42am – rain..
at nine starts our cruise. fingers crossed.
and we missed our cruise.. haha. luckily they’d put us on the next one which was 2 hours later. and so we decided to watch the first half of lord of the rings 2! the cruise was pretty amazing. a lot of clouds and rain but therefor a lot of waterfalls. we were a bit dissappointed at first with the rain but this negative turned into a positve when we saw twice the amount of waterfalls the mountains normally produces on sunny days. they say you need to do this cruise three times. after heavy rainfall, blue sky & snow.
there were seals & dolphins too who were very playful. always cool to see them drop by.
back from our cruise we finished watching lord of the rings and now on our way towards queenstown!

yesterday i lost one of my flip flops along the way to milford. i was a little bit upset losing it cause they’ve pretty much been everywhere i went this year. yea yea i know sounds stupid. i got them for free anyway and on them there’s a small label of corona and i dont even like beer! as i said a little bit… now on our way out about three hours away from milford i found it again ha! still driving to queenstown!

stopped about 20 mins from queenstown. its 19:30. camp here tonight and tomorrow morning we’ll jump into the city and around.

end of day six we came across a touristic spot called moraki boulders. what it happened to be when we went for a look were random round rocks (boulders..) about 40 or 50 of them together in different sizes. very random! i placed a photo of it on facebook yesterday. not far from there our second night. yes again very cold..

today it was just a small drive to Dunedin. the visitors centre showed us what the nice spots were and our next goal was the opp shop. also known as opportunity shop or a similar shop would be the salvation army. it has not been the first time we visited one of these shops. i always amuse myself very much seeing what other people have worn and how stupid it looks on me haha! entertainment for about 30 minutes and a really warm jacket for 9$!

we had a small drive towards the lighthouse (read one hour drive). attached to the lighthouse an albatross reserve. we couldnt actually see them because they were too busy mating and we were not allowed to get close. we could have paid a tour for 40$ to maybe see them up close but skipped that. we sat outside for quiet a while trying to spot one but the other seaguls made it pretty difficult. at one point we thought we saw one flying. he flew different and much slower than the other seaguls but it was so far away we couldnt be sure.

our next stop made our day! it was an awesome way down from the hill into the dunes and eventually being down on the beach three sea lions! we could get pretty close and made some cool pics. a bit further some more. they were quite spread over the length of the beach. some didnt care we were there and some didnt like us. at the end of the beach there were two males fighting over who’s the boss.
there on top of the dunes was a little house build for penguin spotters. we tried that for a little while but stephan’s patience ran out and we decided to walk back. we did sat there for about an hour so not to complain. the way back up was aweful! hah very exhausting..

once back to the car into town for fuel, fish&chips and making our first k’s towards hilfiord & queenstown! heading into mordor’s mountains, tonight Lord Of The Rings part 1. lets hope smeagol doesnt find us before we get to the vulcano.

B

its good! got the car & driving towards dunedin now. yesterday we’ve visited christchurch and went to a place called akaroa. christchurch is still a mess.. its been 8 months now and it looks like it’s going to take atleast a couple of years to get it back to it’s original state.. that if mother nature lets it. *fact; christchurch is build on a swamp* akaroa is a nice place, beautiful bay but not nice enough to spend a lot of time there. you can go kayaking, hiking or do a boat cruise there but we’ve already planned that for other parts of NZ. cant wait doing that the upcoming days:)!

the avacado’s & fish&chips are very cheap here, love it. the people a bit strange speaking about chrischurch. (cooincidence?) the land here east is quite flat, the view towards the west is stunning. as far as the eye can reach are snow covered mountains. thats where we eventually be heading! southern island is a lot colder than north and last night was freezing so somehow im not looking forward to those nights..

the car is good. not as good as our previous 6 person one but we’re very happy with our jucy van. its better with fuel since its half the size and still pretty luxurious. some pictures soon?

did i happen to mention today is a special day?

b

we decided to leave it behind of course.. we were lucky to find a ride to airlie beach to make the journey a bit more easy. stacking 6 people and bags + a lot of camping equipment in a stationwagon is not that comfy..

we camped in airlie beach for about a week where we had a very nice day out on the ocean around the whitsundays with whitehaven beach as a real highlight of the trip. simply stunning! the last day of the week we met up with valentin and kiki who we could ride with to brisbane.

after airlie beach onto hervey bay where we hopped on to fraser island. it’s all four weel drive and we rented our own car so every one had a bit of fun driving around on the island. to speak for myself (bart) i didnt find the island that spectacular but still enjoyed the good weather, people and freedom.

we arrived in brisbane now and with a small four weeks left we try to find a job to save up for new zealand and california. wish us luck!

we’ll make a big selection of pictures tomorrow!

b&n