headed to the airport. See yall in two weeks.

If I went to New Zealand as a tourist I'd want it to be all Blue Mountains-Sirens naked chick-like. But it'd probably turn out to be all Welcome To Woop Woop weird.

Don't you mean "Goodbye, cruel world!"?

Between LooGAR's wedding, the Squirrgle Family trip home for Christmas, and this trek to Hobbitland, TEH CAP'N + FIRST MATE must be accumulating a shitton of frequent flyer miles!!!

sup guys

Squirtle, you lucky bastard...have a fantastic time!

we considered NZ for our honeymoon, but there's no Marriott hotels there and the fiance has loads of points with them...so we decided on Italy

enjoy yourself Cap'n...look forward to seeing the pix

Oh I'm back, an shit. Details tomorrow. I've sat down to write it up twice now, and keep getting interrupted. Like now. More stuff / pics tomorrow. Goddamity I wanna move there.

I just got back from Vietnam. I wanna move there.

Welcome back, Cap'n!

nz would be a beautiful place to live. welcome back, kotter.

Hey Cap'n. I want a list of what you chowed on and where. And alcohol consumed. Everything else i can look at in pictures.

Mostly the tour guides cooked for us - lots of fresh fish, curries, pasta... the usual fare. The resturaunts weren't anything unusual either.

Either they don't make really good beer there, or they hide it. But the shwag was good in a High Life-meets-Killian's sorta way... easy to drink lots of it, non-offensive. I mostly drank Speight's. We bought a case of it and carried it around with us on the bus. Well, that and Jack Daniels.

*wipes tear from eye*


Our little baby's all growns up.


Can't wait for the picture show. I had a friend go over there and it's apparently a breathtaking place in some areas. Brutal flight though.

My opening salvo: Milford Sound.



That tiny waterfall in the distance is three times larger than Niagara.

Alright, so the synopsis...

It was all South Island. First we had a 10-hour layover in LA, where we met a friend and biked 18 miles around Hollywood Blvd, etc. Then we got onto a 1/3 capacity flight (rawk!) on the way to Auckland, so we slept across 4 seats each and were well-rested. Finally a tiny 1 and a half hour flight down to Christchurch, on the south island, where we got picked up by the tour company, who were awesome.

Then we spent two weeks driving around the island, up and down each coast, hiking, biking, kayaking, horseback riding, and river boogie boarding (which is scary as a motherfucker). We saw the Queen Charlotte Track way up northeast, we saw the Franz Joseph and Fox glaciers, we hiked rainforests, we climbed up to a glacial lake under Mt Cook, we stayed on a sheep ranch in the middle of Nowhere, and we spent two days in Queenstown, where I think the entire board should relocate. I'm sure as shit thinking of moving there. The wife and I are having serious thoughts of raising kids in that country.

Anywho. There's more to it, but that's the general idea. Everyday was very, very active, and you saw tons of amazing things that were ALL EMPTY. That place is like Disneyland without people in it, but all the rides are working. There are only a million people on the whole south island. Lake after enormous lake of perfect turquoise glacier water, surrounded by snow-capped mountains and trails, and not a fucking boat in sight.

Goats really, really like beer.

The Franz Joseph glacier.

[img][375:500]http://img129.imageshack.us/img129/8058/dscn3617np0.jpg[/img]

The Lochmara Lodge, an "eco resort." Apparently that's code for "hippy retreat," since the place was rife with 'em. We kayaked 2.5 hours upwind to get to it - no roads. It's communal living, where people yell at you for doing dishes in clean water, for using someone else's salt, etc. Wierd blend of "Welcome, make yourself comfortable" and yet "deodorant hurts mother earth's feelings." Plus my room was next to their private sewer system, which you could hear gurgling softly every night right after dinner time. Pretty views though.

[img][650:487]http://img54.imageshack.us/img54/5756/dscn3585sb2.jpg[/img]

Heading to the Fox Glacier. Typical water color.

[img][375:500]http://img206.imageshack.us/img206/140/dscn3628qb5.jpg[/img]

Okay. I'm going there to die.

Skipping rocks on the lake, just up from Queenstown. Note the sun line on the mtns.

Hiking up Iron Mtn. This one was waaay up there - took almost 3 hours to get to the top, and it was steep. I bit it on the way down - slid a good 4 or 5 feet, for no reason. Just being stupid and running downhill over rocks.



[img][375:500]http://img59.imageshack.us/img59/8574/dscn3703ul3.jpg[/img]

Queenstown at sunset from the back of a 2-person scooter. The Mrs acted as Official Road Photojournalist from back there, for the 2 days we rented the scooter and drove around. Turnaround time for an american to get a work visa there is 24 hours.