IS GRASS GREENER?

Road Trip: West and North of the South Island... Part 2

2010-01-18T12:19:00.000+13:00

I wish I could remember where we were when I took these next photos. It's a beach in the upper part of the South Island, probably somewhere near Abel Tazman National Park, maybe near Motueka? At any rate, it's probably the most beautiful place I've ever been. These pictures just don't do it justice...

At some point as we're walking around we spotted this guy crouched by a pool. We got curious so we took a closer look...

The pool was filled with baby seals playing around. There were several adult seals around keeping an eye on them and they didn't seem too worried about us so we stayed and took lots of pictures.

This was the most memorable trip to the beach ever. Our next stop was Blenheim where we sampled quite a lot of wine, more on that later.

Road Trip: West and North of the South Island... Part 1

2010-01-02T12:24:00.001+13:00

The next few posts are going to highlights from my trip around the west and north of the South Island. I was living in Christchurch at the time and a coworker and I decided to take a little road trip. We rented a car and took Arthur's Pass west. Our first stop? Franz Josef Glacier...

We started out early in the morning:

There's more to come...

Makara

2009-12-28T06:18:00.001+13:00

Makara is a sleepy little beach town right outside of Wellington. My Kiwi friend Liz tells me this is where all the high schoolers come to smoke and drink and do other things they shouldn't be doing.

walking at Red Rocks (near Wellington)

2009-12-28T06:00:00.002+13:00

Walking in Upper Hutt

2009-12-28T05:36:00.000+13:00

I'm going to start updating again...

2009-11-15T14:58:00.000+13:00

Really, I mean it.

I'll add some pictures from the remainder of my time in NZ, I'll add some pictures from my time in Fiji and various other trips I've taken, and over the next few months, I'll catch you up to where I live now: Washington DC...

I grew up nearby, and this is where I met my girlfriend, but we don't plan on settling down here. We plan on experiencing as much of the city as we can over the next couple years, then moving on... We have some big plans but we'll write more about that as we start to take steps towards making them happen.

A cavalcade of photos...

2008-05-12T18:45:00.002+12:00

It has been a while and I have SEVERAL photographs to share, I hope you're seated comfortably...

...actually, I can't upload anything at the moment for some reason. Sorry, I'll try to figure it out.

Oh well.

While I'm here, I may as well catch you up on few things. I'm currently living in Christchurch and loving it. I'm right down town and my flatmates and coworkers are great!

I'll be here until early June when I'm off to Fiji for 9 full days. After that I'm back in Wellington for a couple days to tie up a few loose ends. I'm homeward bound on the 22nd of June.

Overdue update...

2008-04-13T19:21:00.006+12:00

My computer died. I have so many pictures to post, my family came to visit (yay), I went on a cool walk on the beach, etc... but no way to get them off my camera at the moment. I'll do what I can when I can, stay tuned.

Right now it looks like I'm moving to Christchurch which should be an exciting change of scenery. Hopefully I'll be able to show it to you sooner or later.

I've decided I'm going to come home soon. I've been applying to jobs in Maryland for the last few weeks so keep your fingers crossed. So I guess that answers to the central question of my blog, is grass greener? Not particularly, no.

Yay, the Zoo!

2008-02-11T21:08:00.000+13:00

We went to the Wellington Zoo and saw some great animals

Waitangi Day!

2008-02-06T19:39:00.000+13:00

Waitangi Day is the day New Zealanders "celebrate" the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi. It may be New Zealand's founding document but it's not a happy thing for many Maori, check the link for more information.

We went to a Marae on Waitangi Day, we heard a very interesting speech about Maori pride and culture and heard some young singers singing pop songs.

Nearby there was an excellent park with a skate park. That's really neither here nor there, but I had a picture, so here it is...

The New Flat

2008-02-03T22:20:00.001+13:00

Here are some pictures of my new place. The roommates are great and it's a beautiful house. I'm really happy here, I think this will be a more permanent arrangement than my previous couple of places. If you want to see it on a map click on the address in the sidebar. My phone number is 64 4 586 9659 in case anybody wants to give me a call, I love getting calls.

Big Day Out

2008-02-03T22:08:00.000+13:00

Amy, her brother, and I went to Big Day Out in Auckland on Jan 18. It's a huge annual festival series in NZ and Australia. We had a great time. Standout acts were Arcade Fire, Bjork, and Rage Against the Machine.

Slow internet should be a crime...

2008-01-27T23:30:00.000+13:00

I moved, but not to where I thought I was going. The house I posted about before ended up going to somebody else. Instead I'm in Normandale in the Hutt valley. It's a great house with some great flat mates. The internet sucks though. Uploading pictures is quite a chore. I'll try to get some up of my new place in the next few days.

A trip to the Botanic Gardens

2008-01-16T23:20:00.000+13:00

I had some time to kill in town today so I took a ride up to the Botanic Gardens here in Wellington...

This is the Carter Observatory and Planetarium:

What a view!

This is the cable car I took back down into the city

This is a 100 year old cable car in the cable car museum, apparently people used to sit outside the car... which seems crazy to me.

On the way back to town, safely inside.

Things really do just seem to work out, somehow...

2008-01-16T18:56:00.000+13:00

For the last couple weeks I've been stressed out about money and housing. My temp gigs weren't coming in like I had hoped, I was having a hard time finding a permanent job (I still am), and I was quickly running out of money. At the same time my flat mates and I were trying to figure out how to stay in the house we're in after the current lease holders move to the south island at the end of this week.

Things went from bad to worse, we were having trouble filling the extra rooms and the rest of us would have to foot the bill for the extra rent, as well as the extra bond. Meanwhile I'm still running out of money, and nobody knew what was going to happen.

Now we know, everybody is moving out. I'm going to Auckland this weekend for the Big Day Out concert and I'll have to move before Wednesday next week.

I'll move into a hostel for a few nights until I can move in here:

It's a historic building, fully furnished and maintained by the city. Amy's mother works for the department that doles out council flats and she arranged for it, thanks Jane! The best part about it is it's location, that big round building about 2 blocks to the north east, that's the beehive, New Zealand's Capital Building...

View Larger Map

I'll also be starting my new job next week! It's nothing permanent yet but my flatmate Liz really came through for me. Thanks Liz!

A Day at the Races

2008-01-13T20:55:00.000+13:00

We all went to see stock car races this weekend. This isn't like American stock car racing, It's a small dirt track and they had several classes of cars but the most fun to watch were the junkers. They smashed into each other and walls, spun out, and smoked a lot. At the end there was a great fireworks display and then a demolition derby! Everybody had a great time.

I'm working on getting a new house, the place I went to today was pretty terrible. I'm still looking for a new job too. The markets for both are really bad so life is really stressful right now.

New Years!

2008-01-09T13:04:00.000+13:00

For New Years Katie, Peter, Amy and I all went to Martinborough. It's a great little town in the wairarapa Valley near Wellington. This is the road we took to get over the mountain. It's about a 45 minute drive. These pictures were taken at the Summit Cafe at the highest point on the road.

This is the house we rented for the weekend, it was a beautiful place:

This should give you an idea of the size of the town... this is the police station:

Christmas!

2007-12-26T11:54:00.000+13:00

I hope everybody is having/had a wonderful Christmas, mine was great. I spent it with Amy and her family:Then I got a really cool present, a new car!
pretty awesome, right?

Wellington's beaches

2007-12-24T01:45:00.000+13:00

Amy and I went for a drive yesterday around some of the beachier suburbs of Wellington: Scorching Bay, Island Bay, Lyle Bay, etc... We saw the boat from King Kong rusting in the harbor near the airport and lots of beautiful blue water.

The island of Island Bay fame:This is right behind the airport, you can see a plane coming in for a landing:

This is Wellington as viewed from out past the airport:
Some cool swimming platforms for diving in the bay, we wished we had brought our "togs":

Hiking

2007-12-18T01:09:00.000+13:00

On the way back to Auckland I stopped a couple places and did some hiking at Whangarei Falls and in the hills above Paihia.

Cruisin in the Bay of Islands

2007-12-17T00:23:00.000+13:00

While I was in the Bay of Islands I went on an overnight cruise of the islands. We went fishing, snorkeling, had a shooting competition, kayaking at night in bio luminescent algae, and generally had a great time.

This is "The Rock", our boat:

Russell, Bay of Islands

2007-12-16T23:04:00.000+13:00

This is Russell in the Bay of Islands. Sure, it may look like a picturesque, sleepy little beach town now, but apparently it used to be known as the "Hell Hole of the Pacific".

Paihia, Bay of Islands

2007-12-15T21:52:00.000+13:00

This is beautiful Paihia in the Bay of Islands. It's the most touristy place I've been to in New Zealand but it avoids feeling like a cookie cutter tourist trap beach town.

On the road...

2007-12-15T19:34:00.000+13:00

After a couple weeks of working hard I decided to rent a car and drive up to the Bay of Islands about 3.5 hours north of Auckland.

2007-12-11T19:19:00.000+13:00

These are a couple more shots I took while working in Auckland: