Pic Update 3

Harrison in his natural sock jungle habitat.

We stumbled across a seal colony that had just had pups a month earlier. very cute!

Nelson lakes national park. Lake Rotoroa.

South of Motueka where we camped one night.

Pic Update 2

Abel Tasman National Park. One of the many scenic views we had.

We did an overnight kayak trip in Abel Tasman Nat. Park. It was more excercise than we anticipated.

ALLLPPAAACCCAAA....Here's looking at you kid.

I can't remember the name of this waterfall, but it was in the Abel Tasman National Park. It releases 14,000 Liters of water per second!

Pic Update

These are a couple of funny things we found in discount store. I still am not sure just what the "Commodity" is.

Sunset in New Plymouth looking at the giant Mount Taranaki.

These are the pancake rocks. Thousands of years of pounding waves have created layers in these rocks that look like stacked pancakes.

New Zealand North Island

We went to Taupo and Rotorua after the bay of plenty. Taupo was nice because of a free camp spot that we found along with many free attractions including a museum dedicated to Honey making. There are many Geysers and geothermal attractions in the area however most of them cost around $50 just to view.

Next we went to the surf capital of New Zealand, Raglin. This is the spot that much of "Endless Summer" was filmed. We only surfede one day because of the exorbitant cost to stay and rent boards there. There were a few spots in the area. The main spot was a perfect left handed break which meant that it was very crowded on bigger days. Therefore the day that we went, we went to a beach break close by called Gnaranui.

From there we went to the Waitomo glow work caves which are giant limestone caves full of Stalactytes and Stalacmytes (SP?). But also living in these caves are thousands of glow worms which , when the lights are turned out, look like a child's room filled with glow in the dark stars.

From there we went to New Plymouth and saw the giant Mount Taranaki. Which is the only mountain around and is snow caped most of the year. It was also here that we discovered that one of out break pads had entirely worn out and was now grinding the disc to shreads. ($230 later, Biff was back in action)

From there we went to Wellington, the capital of New Zealand and did some sight seeing for a couple of days which included a free museum and a zoo and we jumped a 2:30 AM Ferry to the South island.

We are now in one of the most northern points of the Southern Island (Able Tasman Natl Park) and we are waiting for the rain (Which has been coming down hard for three days now) to stop so we can do a 2 day kayak/hiking trip.

New Zealand Pic Update 1

This is at the tip of Cape Reigna. There is only one more most Northern point and it is the Surville Cliffs, which are just to the east of here. But, you cannot get there by car, it would be a challenging hike. If you look closely you can see the waves make a checker pattern because this is where the Pacific Ocean meets the Tasman Sea.














This is along the way to Cape Reinga. This is what a lot of NZ looks like. We have seen many many a cow and sheep. The occasional chicken or llama too. Also, some suicidal rabbits and peacocks that run in front of the car at the very last second possible. We have not hit any though.










This is Biff. The Ford Fairmont that is carrying us through our journey. She came with two fishing poles that we have used quite a bit but without much success. People keep telling us their are 20 pound snapper all along the coast here, but we think they are just good story tellers.









The first Dunkin Donuts we have seen our whole trip, but you still can't get just a plain coffee here. You can choose between long or short black, flat white, machiato, or some other variations. Still $4 a coffee.

Last Australia Pics

This is our ridiculous plug setup. Every time we need to charge something we brought from home, this contraption reared its ugly head.














This is the road train. This paved road was put on an old railroad track that rail trains used to carry nickel and other ores. however now its a road that is just wide enough for one tractor trailer that they call road trains. The rule of thumb is that if its bigger than you, you get out of the way.














This is an areal view of Townsville. But it doesnt do "The Strand" justice. The strand is a mile long beachfront with a rock pool, barbecues, and playgrounds.














This is one of the many Lava tubes at Undara Natl Park. This particular one is approximately 60 to 80 feet tall.

Cairns and New Zealand

Hi Folks it has been a while since our last update. People told us that things would be a bit cheaper in New Zealand but they were full of malarky. Yesterday we paid $170 for an oil change. and that is the going rate for an oil change in this country. This means that we have had a harder time finding economical internet.

After Townsville we went out to the Undara Lava tubes and then to Cairns. The lava tubes are giant caves created from lava flowing and hardening on the outside. They are very neat. We saw lots of wild kangaroos here and other macropods which was awesome but we also saw lots of dead ones killed from the road trains. Then we traveled north to cairns where we sold our car. It was sad to see "Sally the station wagon" go but we ended up selling her for $1150 more than we bought her for. This gave us enough money to buy our plane tickets to New Zealand and a couple of tanks of gas on our new car.

We took a trip to the great barrier reef while we were in Cairns and took an introductory scuba dive and saw some awesome sea life (including a 1.5 meter white tip shark). Unfortunately most of our time in Cairns was spent dealing with selling the car so we didn't get to do any more exploring north.

We had a red eye flight to Auckland so we spent our first day pretty much in a hostel sleeping. The only grocery store we could find was in china town so we ate rice noodles and dumplings for 2 nights. We had trouble figuring out how to cook these things because all of the directions were written in chinese. some of them, however, had pictures.

New Zealand has been beautiful so far. We bought a terrible gas guzzleing Ford Fairmont for $950 at the car market. 2.5 of the 4 windows are broken and dont roll down. The back passenger door does not open from the outside. it does not have a radio or antenna so we rigged up some computer speakers with our ipods through the cigarette lighter. the trunk makes the sound of thunder for anybody near by when it is closed. but all in all it gets us from point a to point b with no fuss.

Our first trip with our car that we have named Biff was to the almost northern most tip of the country Cape Reinga. It is said that the Maoris believed that this is where spirits would jump off to go back to their home land after the person has died. It also is where the Tasman Sea meets the Pacific Ocean and on a stormy day can create waves 30 feet high crashing into each other.

We have also been to the Coromandel Peninsula where the hot sand beaches are. Here you can rent a shovel for $5 and dig a hole in the sand where the water is just about boiling and create your own natural hot tub. We have also been to the black sand beaches of western auckland and now we are in the bay of plenty.

Our car came with plenty of camping gear so we have been saving some money by camping at Department of Conservation campsites and holiday parks. Some of these are conservation areas for Kiwi birds and we have gone on many nighttime missions to go and spot one of these bizarre little creatures.

Next we are heading to Rotorua and Taupo then back to the west coast for some surf.

Queensland

We have been in queensland for a few weeks now and it is getting hotter everyday. There is a lot of driving inbetween towns here. We have had to curtail our ocean swimming due to the jellyfish which could be deadly. We were in Bundeburg for a day and saw a Loggerhead turtle lay 158 eggs on the beach. They insisted that the large crowds of people waching don't disturb them. Since they lay their eggs at night, we had to sit around a ranger station for a few hours and wait until a ranger saw one come up on shore and we went down in a group. We did a day trip to three different islands in the Whitsundays. We went to Daydream Island, Whithaven beach, and one more where we did some snorkeling whose name I can't remember. We sold our surfboards for a net loss of only about $150 in the town of Agnes Waters. This is the northern most point you can surf on the Australian east coast before the Great Barrier Reef gets in the way. We did a 3 day trip to Magnetic Island off the coast of Townsville. There was good snorkeling there also.

Next we are headed to the Undara Lava Tubes to see some giant caves that were formed by large flowing lava streams millions of years ago. Then hopefully we can get most of our money back for the car in Cairns and off to New Zealand.

Queensland Pic update 2

Most people pay $14 to hold a Koala. Git thought the Koala's smarter burrowing cousin, the hairy nose wombat, was a better creature to hold.




















We visited the bundaberg rum distillery. We got to taste many of their products and needless to say, we were feeling pretty good afterword.















Snorkeling at the Whitsunday Islands. It is not quite the Great Barrier reef but it is still very impressive.














When the groups go out snorkeling, they throw fish food overboard so that heaps of fish come to the surface to swim with us.

More Pics from Queensland

Nicole caught a fish at Hervey Bay, Queensland.















Bloo caught the same type of fish. After catching it we learned that these are poisonous pufferfish. A local told us that he knew somebody who caught one of these, ate it, and died two hours later. Funny how none of the tackle shops warned us about this.















This guy was not very concerned about the 3000 psi that these freshwater crocs bite down with. He cleared up some of the rumors about crocs such as: they can run fast, they kill their prey by the death roll, and running in a zig zag will help you. None of these are true.















Bloo and git at the Whitsundays. We had to wear these ugly stinger suits because its jelly fish season and just three linear feet of box jelly tenticles on your skin could be fatal.

More Pics

This is our tour boat leading people to the beautiful white beaches of Whitehaven at the Whitsundays Islands. The sand is 99.97% silica and does not retain heat at all.















This is a platypus we found in the wild. he would float for a while then dive down to look for food for about one minute at a time.














Nicole is relocating the eggs hatched by the loggerhead turtle. The turtle had laid them in a high tidal zone and would be washed away without this relocation.

Picture Update

This is a loggerhead turtle laying 158 eggs on Mon Repos Beach in Bundaberg

Miscellaneous Pics

Clancy's Pies. He's been a busy dog













This is from the Ripley's Believe it or not museum. This picture is made entirely of Toast. Over 200 pieces of partially burnt toast it took to make this.














Surfers paradise. Lots of drinking goes on in this town. This was kareoke night. we did "Build me up" as a duet and Bloo sang "Bohemian Rhapsidy" and "Only the good die young"

This has been our only natural Koala sighting. We almost hit him with our car driving back from Nimbin.

Nimbin Pics

The guide describes this town as the hangover from the 1973 Aquarius festival. As you can see they are still in full festival mode in the town of Nimbin.

This is the giant joint used evey year at the anual 'Mardi Grass' festival



















The owner of this shop had been harrased for not having her trading hours posted so this was her response.

This sign explains itself

This is the Nimbin Rocks. There is an aboriginal folklore story that goes along with it.

.

Byron Bay, Hippies, Didgeridoo's, and Park Rangers...

We arrived in Byron Bay last week to experience an honest hippy trap. It was Woodstock with no music. Heaps of dirty people gathering in circles making didgeridoo sounds accompanied by hand drums, guitars, and occasionally flutes. There are many folks like us living in wagons or vans. The mystery is where they all went to sleep at night.

Our first night in town we found what we thought to be a nice spot to park and sleep for the night among many other vans and wagons. Once the car was parked in its location we decided to go out to the pub for a few drinks. When we returned to to the car we found that most other campers had vacated the area. So after we were both a bit too snockered to move the car we decided to sleep in the car and keep a watchful eye for the rangers in the morning.

At 6:00 in the morning we were awoken by a ranger knocking on our neighbor's van window. Hearing this I grabbed my bag from the front of the car, crawled to the front seat, and tried to start the car for a smooth getaway. Unfortunately I turned the engine over but it did not start. Upon the second time turning the car over it started and I pulled out into the road. Just then the ranger came running over to our car to knock on our window.

He approached the window to find me wearing nothing but my boxers. He asked my how long I had been parked there. I told him we had driven through the night and got there at 5:00. He simply looked at me and said "No". So I explained that maybe it was 4:00. He looked at the front of the car and said "try again. You knew you were doing something wrong since you were trying to get away from me". So I said that maybe it had been around midnight that we arrived. He agreed and gave us a ticket for $86 for violating parking hours.

Surf Pics

Bloo catching a wave.

Bloo riding a wave

Git catching a wave

Git riding a wave

Picture Update Part 2

From Russel Crowe's museum of interesting things. This is his badge prop from American Gangster. This is near his hometown in nymboida.















Git, Bloo, and Harrison at the BIG BANNANA in Coffs Harbor

These Purple/Blue trees are the cause of a small festival in the town of Grafton. They are called Jacarandas.

Photo Updates Part 1

Git patting a koala at the Billabong reservoir. She is very excited.

Bloo recieving a visit from a macropod (large footed animal)

Git feeding a hungry macropod

Surfing at Port Macquirie