Back in the Good Ole USA

After 30 something hours of traveling we made it safe and sound to Georgia, where we will spend the next few days before traveling around for the holidays.

Favorites

Here is the list of the favorites and best things we did.

Beer - Pilsner Urquell
Hot Springs - Unnamed, but the one where we got naked.
Place to Stay - Maria's (of course!) in Warsaw
Hotel - Hotel Madhuban (Jaipur India)
Hostel - Funky Green Voyager (Roturura New Zealand)
Meal - First dinner at Auntie in Jaipur
Restaurant Meal - Union Coffee House (New Delhi)
Beach - Ko Phayam Thailand
Wildlife Viewing - Yellow Eyed Penguin
Big City- Budapest
Michael Saying-"I don't know if they're gay or just German."
Ashley Saying- "Buddha says, Spicy in-Spicy out."
Day Hike- Slovensky Raj (Slovakia)
Paid Attraction- Whale Watching
Book read- Mountains Beyond Mountains (Michael), Lonesome Dove (Ash)
Country most likely to return to - India
Favorite Country - New Zealand

This is the end......

Its hard to believe but tomorrow we leave to go home. Its been a long and crazy trip, and we have had a ton of fun. I guess its time to go home and return to the real world of jobs. Oh well, we will do this again.

Since our last update on caves and waterfalls, we have been busy. Two days ago after posting, we went back to our hostel and saw a sea lion on a nearby sand bar. We went out and were blown away to see an adult sea lion playing with a younger one. It was awesome watching them frolic. Too bad the battery on our camera was dead! We saw them again later, and got some good snaps.

Yesterday, we drove up to Oamaru and saw the blue penguins. We watched them arrive in their urban nest with several tour groups and loads of other people. It wasn't as cool as the yellow penguin sighting, but still very entertaining. Those buggers are just plain silly looking. We stayed at a nice hostel with alpacas, which we fed earlier in the day.

Today, we drove up to Christchurch and did a Maori, the semi-indigenous people, show. It was quite good......then we had several drinks at a nearby bar along with dinner.

We are both sad that we are leaving.

Caves and waterfalls

Over the last 2 days, we have seen a myriad of waterfalls along with two caves. They have all been very scenic. Yesterday, we checked out Matai and Papakanui falls, near Otawa (where we are staying). Each one is about a 20 minute walk from the road, which isn't too bad. Both were stunning but Papakanui was better of the two as it was multi-levels of waterfall.

Today we went and checked out McLean Waterfalls, near Papatauni. It was quite a hike straight uphill but was the best of the three waterfalls. From there, we went and checked out the Cathedral Caves. Its these caves on the beach which is only accessible during low tide. They were seriously cool, and Ashley got a little wet walking to them, as it wasn't quite low tide yet.

Tomorrow we are heading up the east coast to Oamaru to see some more penguins, along with doing a brewery tour in Dunedin.

PS - Ashley is obsessed with the sub compact car sitting outside the internet cafe with a 4 puppies and a baby cow in the hatchback.

Seals, Sea Lions and Penguins

We have had a wildlife viewing extravaganza over the last two day. Yesterday we arrived in Surat Bay, on the Catlin Coast in the SE part of New Zealand. We are staying in this isolated little hostel right next to a wildlife refuge. Yesterday we walked from our place to a beach where we saw 3 Hooker Sea Lions (endangered). They were just napping - Ashley was worried they were dead, but was most happy to discover that they were just taking an afternoon snooze, as that is what they do. Today, we headed over to Nugget Bay where we saw some more Sea Lions along with some Seals.

The highlight of the afternoon was seeing the Yellow Eyed Penguin. It is endangered (about 4000 left), and are one of the most ancient penguins out there. They are also unique in that they don't breed in colonies. They are very scared of people and we had to hike to a hut to view them. We ended up seeing 2, maybe 3, penguins. One came out of the water, walked up the beach and stood around. Another went into the water. The third (not sure if its the second or not), came out of the water. They were adorable!!!! Looking totally goofy walking around.

Oh, yeah, I bungee jumped yesterday. It was pretty cool and very scary. I would do it again.......

Every View is a Postcard

So what is so great about new Zealand has all the great landscape elements of America (except desert) but within a 3 hour drive. Yesterday we went from a glacier, to a stunning coast to a mountain town. Today, we tried a hike but it rained on us.....so we read. We decided to skip jet boating, and instead high tail it to this secluded coast with lots of wildlife (penguins, sea lions, dolphins, etc), we hope to see some unique creatures. This may be our last update for a while b.c the area is secluded.

Glacier Love

Yesterday, we hiked up onto the Fox Glacier on the west coast of the Southern Island. It was seriously cool. Its one of the few glaciers in the world that is growing, not shrinking. We did about a four hour hike (with a group) up to the glacier and then onto it. We have some cool pics of the glacier that we hope to get up shortly. We normally shy away from guided tours, as they cost a lot and many times aren't worth it. But this one was quite good. Our guide was knowledgeable and the hike was semi strenuous, plus it was through a temperate rain forest. What a contrast....a glacier surrounded by ferns! Strenuous enough to really wind some other participants (not us though ha, we were winded too).

The day before yesterday, we just hung out in Hokitaka on the west coast. It was a smallish seaside village. We did a nice hike and visited a stunning waterfall, along with getting caught in a road rally on a very small gravel road. It was nerve wracking with all these antique cars driving towards us at high speeds. Anyway, today we head to Wanaka, which is near Queenstown. We hope to do some jet boating there and maybe a bungy jump.

The Crazy Birds of NZ

NZ has some crazy-arse birds! NZ used to be part of the super continent Gondwanaland, but split off early and developed its own crazy ecosystem in which there was only one mammal- a now extinct bat- so birds didn't have predators to worry about, resulting in many of them becoming flightless.

NZ has the only flightless songbird, a wren. Also, the only flightless parrot. And of course the flightless Kiwi. Kiwi's are nocturnal so hard to see, but we have seen some cool birds nonetheless.

While we were whale watching we saw two giant Albatross (largest wing span of any bird in the world). While driving through Arthur's Pass National Park (in NZ's southern Alps) we saw a Kea- the only alpine parrot in the world. He just came walking up to us while we stopped to eat a picnic lunch. NZ also has Black Swans that we have seen in parks and on the coast. I keep hoping to come across a Kiwi with insomnia...

Jay and Carla

So our friends from Denver, Jay and Carla, came to visit us in New Zealand. They just left this morning and we had a grand time with them. They stopped over in Australia and then popped over to New Zealand for an adventuresome 3 days.

We picked them up last Thursday.......and headed straight to our hostel. Luckily Jay and Carla are of the hosteling type, easy to please with the accommodation. Even luckier is that we had a nice hostel not too far from the center of Christchurch. After a quick trip to the market, Jay cooked us an awesome dinner.....veggies and cream sauce over pasta. We then proceeded to get intoxicated and did some bar hopping.

On Friday in the daytime, we headed over to the Canterbury museum in Christchurch and got the low down on Maoris, Antarctica, Colonization and native animals. We then had a nasty drive up to Kaikoura. It was rainy, cold and windy. Our car battery also died along the way. But we made it. We then had a dinner at a local pub, and headed back to the hostel were we caught up with some fellow travelers. Quite a nice time.

On Saturday, we went Whale Watching. See Ashley's post for details. I will say that it was awesome. Saturday night Jay made another fab meal of coconut curry vegetables. Very yummy. We dropped them off this morning.

I have to say that it was a real treat seeing them. They are good friends, who are now much better friends. We made lots of future trip plans together......lol.

Whale Watching

This is something that I have always wanted to do (same with Carla) so given the opportunity to whale watch off the coast of NZ how could we not!

The weather the day before on our drive up to Kaiboura was terrible, windy and overcast...but we all tried to keep a positive attitude that the morning of our whale watch would be okay. It was better than okay, it was totally clear and beautiful! The day before (when we went to see a seal colony) I didn't even know there were snow capped mountains right beside the ocean!

The whale watching was better than I had even hoped. The weather was beautiful, the scenery breathtaking and the whales were amazing! They were giant sperm whales (moby dick). They are deep water feeders and luckily right off the coast of Kaikoura is this really deep underwater canyon that male sperm whales hang out in while they are growing. We saw 3 different whales do 5 dives. Hands down one of the most memorable and amazing experiences of my life!