Totally Awesome Adventures

Long time no posts, I apologize for that. this blog has turned into a big guilt trip for us because we neglect it so much, better stop apologizing about it and get to it!

We had heaps of fun when our parents visited, going on a 6 day backpacking trip (Heaphy track) and then having JUST enough time to recover and go on another, more difficult backpacking trip (Kepler track). Both amazingly beautiful and unique. One of our highlights during those three weeks had to be seeing the Yellow-eyed penguins up close. There are only 4,000 of them existing in the world! Surprisingly tame, they would just waddle right by us.. my dad put together a cute video of them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tx-sPeLETSM

After we parted ways with the folks, Tess and I headed to Mt. Cook National Park for some tramping. One day we decided to scope out the hitchhiking spot for the next morning, and came across a HUGE thicket of blackberries. We had way too many, so we offered some to a couple American guys & chatted with their parents for a bit. Next morning after waiting 40 min for a ride..guess who picks us up? We ended up going for a hike with the American guys, Jordan & Casey, and now we're planning on backpacking together in the Abel Tasman! Funny how a little thing like offering some guys blackberries leads to such a crazy string of events.

At the moment, Tess and I are recovering mentally & physically from the Wild Foods Fest. List of things consumed: Live huhu grubs straight out of the wood, huhu beetle (tess only), chocolate covered pepper, seagull egg, sea cucumber, worms on toast, worm truffle, raw tuna, whitebait patties, moonshine injection, beer, and some yummy berry wines. Things we opted NOT to consume: sheep testicles, scorpions, and horse semen shots.

Murchison, our home!

Murchison is one of those places you want to get out of because its so small with not much to do, but then it just grows on you. When we leave here I get the feeling we'll miss it a bit; enough to want to come back. Our home away from home! Along those lines... I've been missing home a bit lately. I'm having heaps of fun here but at work when it gets slow I think about going out with friends to my favorite restaurants back home again: Evergreen, Hard Times, or ANY Indian Restaurant. Missin movie nights and midnight retros... and excited to join in on the Wed. bowling nights. It will be really nice when our parents visit us in 2 weeks, but maybe that will make me miss home more!!

Tonight we're having a bit of a going-away party for our friend Michelle. A lot of people are slowly leaving Murchison.. either to continue traveling or going back to a university. We're going to miss Michelle!! Luckily we're going on a camping trip with her and some other Murch girls for a couple nights, so that will be a good time!!

Sorry Tess and I haven't been updating so much. We're actually keeping really busy in Murchison! Also... internet is hard to come by, especially for me. The Library has free internet from 9-4 and I work from 10-4 everyday. The blog is the one getting rejected here if you haven't noticed, haha!

We both like our jobs, but I have not worked so hard in my life... Cafe/restaurant employees work their butts off and we're under-staffed, but I love all the kiwis I work with!!

On our days off we've been watching movies (Totally Awesome), laying on the beach with a beer, swimming in the river, playing pool at the bar, and recently went on a night hike up a hill & stargazed. We can see the milky way here pretty easily every night as there isn't too much light pollution.

Oh, and I finally got a chance to get out of Murchison to Nelson for a day and bought myself a shiny new toy... a 1 Terabyte external hard drive. I filled it with over 20,000 songs last night.

Happy Holidays/New Years!!

Murchison

Murchison our new home until our parents get here!
Population: around 700
2 bars in town

We are living at a backpackers with a guy named John, and his dog King. There are 3 other people that live there who I work with. I work at the Commercial Hotel and Teegan just got a job at Riverview(I think) cafe. Yay! Teegan found a job instantly. She is also woofing at the backpackers. She only needs to work one hour a day to pay rent. Anymore time she puts in he is paying her. Sweet as! The town is pretty calm and quiet, but it has tons of people coming in and out all the time. It is in a valley surrounded by mountains and rivers. So there is tons of kayaking and rafting for tourists.

We have done nothing in town because we work and it has been raining for days. We have been having a Tom Hanks marathon at the backpackers with everyone that lives there. One night Teegan went fishing with our friend Joel but no luck. Yesterday we had some wine with dinner and then explored the river.

Wellington to Motueka

We caught the boat to the South Island and stayed in Picton for a night. We were contemplating camping but ended up staying in a hostel. Definitely don't regret that decision!! The hostel was cute and had a hot tub which we enjoyed very much. Next day we couldn't catch a bus because they were full so we hitchhiked to Motueka.

We'd been camping in Motueka looking for jobs with little luck, except for Jake. He got a job as a cook for a cafe. We met up with some old friends we had met backpacking in Tongariro. On the way to the beach with them we stopped to pick up some beer, and Tess got a phone call for a job! Ending the day lazing about on the beach drinking a couple beers with friends, perfect!

Tess and I plan to stay in Motueka another couple nights, and hopefully meet up with two friends from the beginning of the trip. After that we're heading to the tiny tiny town where Tess is going to be working for the next 6 weeks, Murchison. We don't know much except its the "white water capital of New Zealand." We are VERY excited and hopeful. I better find a job there, but if not I'll have a lot of time to burn. I bought running shoes today at the Salvation Army for $3 in preparation.

Wellington

Tess and I headed to Wellington and met up with Tess's friend Jake right away. We had never couch surfed before, but luckily we found an awesome place right away. We showed up and were greeted warmly by about 7 people, and we all played mafia. Later that night they went dumpster diving and got a huge score (chocolate, beer and pumpkin!).

Highlights of Wellington: BEST mochaccino we have ever had and probably ever will have in our lives. Hitting the bars, staying up WAY too late playing pool. Te Papa, wonderful museum. The "Christmas Tree" which was basically lights in the shape of a tree and created a beautiful light show every night. Under the tree there were giant comfy beanbags tempting us all to fall asleep to the light show above. An excellent potluck with the couch surfing employees we met complete with a real egg hunt. Visit to the the zoo, and ROLLERDERBY!

Palmy!

We pretty much abandoned the theme of naming posts after the date because as you've noticed, we can slack sometimes.

So we were promised "a wicked time" and we definitely got that. Over the weekend we got to see what life is like at a kiwi batch (beach house). We had to pick up a crate of Tui for crate day, then made a stop at the Tui brewery for pics. We found ourselves on the longest driveway EVER on this windy dirt road and stopped off at "Gorgeous" George's house in the wop-wops (middle of nowhere). They had all these chickens with their chicks roaming around the yard with the dogs.

We drove back out to head to the batch. Together there were 16 people there, family and friends (10 were under 26 years old). We made a giant tee-pee that we unfortunately couldn't set on fire.. watched them ride dirt bikes on the beach, and drank crates all night. Tess sat by the bonfire for a bit while I played spoons with the rest of the family (I have the scars to show for it!). I chose to sleep inside, Tess slept in the yard to watch the stars (and saw over 10 shooting stars).

Next day Brad ditched us and left us with his friends and relatives to go dirt biking. We went jet skiing! Tess went on her own but I chose to get a ride from George. He gave me a sweet ride!!

We all got in wet suits to collect some food in the low tide, but only found Paua and one Kina. The road to get there was pretty borderline.. it wasn't even a road really. We pretty much thought we were going to die. For reals. Anyone that knows anything about me knows that it was probably the scariest moment of my life. A few braved the Kina tasting (including tess). They cracked open the spiky ball with a knife and the inside was just a mess of unidentifiable yellow and black goo, the yellow parts were edible (supposedly). Tess said she wouldn't eat it again.

On the way back we went into the wop-wops again, ie. George's house. We saw some smoke on the hillside downwind of their house and asked.. "Is that ok.. over there?"
After eating a bit we looked back and there was a LOT more smoke and we saw some flames in the nearby brush. We asked if we should call the fire department, and the reply we got was something like "It's supposed to rain tomorrow." Apparently it's the 4th brush fire they have had. The flames at one point were at least 25ft tall.

We went back to Brad's for bbq and homebrew. The Paua was tasty to eat but was reeeally chewy. Next stop for us: Couch surfing in Wellington!

Be excellent to each other