in wellington!!!

We've finally made it to the southern most city of the north island. This marks a bit of a turning point in the trip as the south island is going to freezing cold so I don't suspect we'll take that much time to see things. Today we have to book a reservation on a ferry to take our ourselves and our car over the water, I think it's about a 3hour trip on the boat.

Wellington:
It's nice being back in a "big" city again. As I said in the last post we've been doing a bit a driving and although it's beautiful country and I've seen more cows and sheep than I ever seen (and catching brief glimpses of them doing everything they can do which is eating, sleeping, and mating), it's nice to be back in the energy of a city. We walked around a little yesterday and it's a very picturesque city, much like San Francisco as it's right on the bay and the first thing I saw driving in were those big boat crane thi9ngs you see on the Oakland harbor (you SF folks know what I'm talking about)..
We're going to walk around more today so hopefully I'll have more to say on the subject.

Free Internet!!
The hostel we're staying @ tonight has free internet (for 1/2hr), which is a first for us. The only drawback is that this is a crowded hostel and if someone didn't know better they would think it was the international dorm for the local university (or community college as is mostly the case). This becomes a problem not because I feel older than everyone here, or that it's loud @ night, but that the common areas always seemed to be crowded.

Alright my half hour is just about up (plus I'm missing the free breakfast and it's going fast). Thanks for all the emails and blog comments (Les) I'm glad there are people who are reading this thing. As always more pictures to come..
-Jon

Fun things..

Hey all,
We've been having a great time over here. At least I have, I asked Gay the other day what her favorite thing was that we've done so far and she couldn't remember anything.
Keep in mind I asked her this while we were sitting in a geothermal hotpool. Apparently, you can't please anyone. Granted we have been doing a lot of driving and staying in hostels which in themselves can be a lot of fun. Anyway, here is a short list of some fun things we've done since leaving Cable Bay:
* took a boat tour around Bay of Islands.
* went snorkeling near Goat Island, NZ's "natural aquarium".
* went for a hike on Coromandel Pennisula, got very close to some sheep as you'll see in the pics.
* camped on a "naturally heated" campsite.
* found non-touristy locally-known hot pools and went swimming.
* went on a thermal walk and saw a lot of bubbling water and steam.
like i said, just a short list, but more to come. We're slowly making our way south and pretty soon we'll be in Wellington and ready to cross the border to the south island. I'm looking forward to it, although most people think it's way too cold down there.

Hostel living:
This is my first time experiencing what it's like traveling like a true backpacker and going from hostel to hostel. I have to say, so far I think it's the best way to travel. Not only is it the cheapest way to spend the night, but more often than not the most interesting. For those of you not familiar, a hostel is a cross between a hotel, a b&b and a dorm. Shared bathrooms, shared living spaces and shared kitchen areas. Every hostel has its own personality, its own pluses and its own minuses and everywhere you stay you're going to have a unique experience. Sometimes you're staying in someone's house (with an extension to fit a good number of rooms) and you have to always be on guard not to mess with things as Gay found out. Sometimes your staying in a purpose built hostel where it feels more like a hotel and the bathrooms are usually pretty dirty. The kitchen is usually where all the action is. Since this is budget living at it's best, most people who stay in hostels do their own cooking as oppose to going out. We've been doing our own cooking (thanks to master chef Gay) and cleaning (thanks to me) and we find ourselves in the kitchen quite a bit. This is where we meet all the other characters. For instance, 2 nights ago we were staying in a town near Waitomo and there was only 3 people staying in this hostel. One of those people was a very kind Maori man who decided to not only give us his life story but also give us a Maori 101 class session. A couple nights before that we were in a charming hostel where Gay got in trouble, but there was a French couple, a German couple and an Italian solo traveler there. Before long we were all drinking wine and huddled around the French couple's laptop watching CD-ROM footage of their skydiving trip from the day before, it was a lot fun.

Ok internet time is not exactly cheap in these parts, we're @ Lake Taupo region, so I'll sign off for now..Please enjoy the latest batch of pics..
Jon

yes mom, i have been taking pictures

we're a little slow on uploading pictures, but these are from the bay of islands, our hike along the coast of the coromandel peninsula, and rotorua (similar to yellowstone with hot springs and thermal activity). my personal favorite is the smiling sheep with her kids.
-gay

by the way, jon and i feel a little lonely. it seems the only people that haven't forgotten about us are our mothers. we'd love to hear from our friends. i know we're far away but it's great to get emails about what everyone is up to!

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Pictures!!!!

Hey everyone..
Sorry for the long time without a post. We've been having a relaxing time in a cottage on Cable Bay which is on the far north. Long story short, I was able to work out a deal with the nice woman that bought my car to stay in her beautiful cottage. Please enjoy the pictures below, it's basically all the pictures we've taken since we got here. some are from auckland and the ride up north...
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update and random observations

Hey all,
We've made it safe and sound and have spent the last couple days in Auckland. We just bought a car today and tomorrow we'll be driving up north to Cable Bay.

On the people of New Zealand:
I love the people of New Zealand, it's been my favorite part so far. Gay and I haven't had one bad experience interacting with the locals. In fact we're both blown away by their warm demeanors and how patient they are with our tourist questions. We've had a hard time getting used to the bus system in Auckland, but there's one refreshing difference between MUNI and Auckland's MAXX or "Busabout" system. People actually interact with the drivers. You're suppose to tell the driver where you're going. The driver actually gives you correct change on the spot. We've seen drivers discuss things with passengers for upwards of 5 minutes at a time and it's OK. Nobody starts gritting their teeth or exhaling deep sighs.

A bit about Auckland:
It's is a beautiful city with a huge tower called the "Sky Tower" in the middle. The Sky Tower is much like Seattle’s space needle, only this is New Zealand, the land of adventure sports, and to remind you of that, there are 3 ways to get down from the tower. 1) Go down the "lift" (elevator) like most people. 2) Repel down the **outside** of the tower 3) Bungee jump off of the tower. We've been staying @ a hostile in the business district which has been great as far as accessibility, but not so great as far as charm. Last night (Saturday night) the downtown was packed with teenagers and cars with loud sub-woofers. On the bright side, it's comforting to know bad taste is universal but on the other hand I think our experience of Auckland has been distorted by our locale.

More to come..
As I've said we just bought a car which was an experience in itself. We went to an outdoor car "auction" out in one of the suburbs and ended up buying a car from an incredibly nice couple about our age who moved here from Zimbabwe four years ago. Gay did the initial test drive because I'm not confident in my "other side of the road" skills. Plus, Gay thinks I'm the worst driver in the world and there may be some truth to that. So tomorrow hopefully I'll get to drive a bit on our way up North. I still want to post some pictures but it's been difficult as there is not one wireless hotspot in the city.

-Jon

we're here, mate!

after few hours of sleep and too many cheesy in-flight movies, we are in auckland. in one day we managed to get a bank account, a cell phone, and soon a car. of course i found a food festival going on this weekend that jon will be forced to enjoy along with me.
the weather's not too cold but apparently there's snow in christchurch so i'm looking forward to that. but we're still mastering the art of looking right then left before crossing the street. jon almost became roadkill. and while i seem to understand people's accents more than jon, i can't understand exactly what they are trying to say. jon's a good translator.
on sunday we are headed to the northland for some r&r before some more travel.
pictures to come!

-gay

how to do an RSS

someone finally clued me in to what all this RSS stuff is about. just ignore me if you already know:

The RSS URL for the blog is...
http://nzmove.blogspot.com/atom.xml
...which can be added as content to portals (e.g. My Yahoo).

For example, with My Yahoo the steps to add it are easy...
- Go to My Yahoo
- Click 'Add Content' in the upper left
- Click 'Add RSS by URL' next to the Find button
- Provide the RSS URL for the blog
(http://nzmove.blogspot.com/atom.xml)
- Click 'Add to My Yahoo'

That's it!  Now any recent posting to your blog (i.e. within
last three days) will appear on My Yahoo automatically.

i guess the same applies for google or whatever host you are using for your
email account.