I think one of the greatest highlights came towards the end of our trip. I just remember looking for a prime parking spot on an unlight road outside of Christchurch (kind of near the race track). We found one almost immediately.

I heard Steve say..."Cool!!! A dead possum!!!" as he kind of lurched the van forward. The next thing we knew, we were stuck 8 inches deep in mud and grass and two of the wheels were almost entirely consumed by wet road. We spent the next two hours trying to dig ourselves out.

We used everything we could thing of...towels and sheets from the van shoved under the wheels, jacking up each wheel and putting rocks, sticks, dirt and grass to build it up further, we even used our cutting board under the jack so it would sink in the mud too. About 10 minutes later though we heard a rumbling crack and saw that the cutting board had split in two. Sorry EZY rentals.

We were getting pretty tired, really hungry and a little depressed from our situation when a jeep drove down the road a man proceeded to let his dogs out for a walk. STeve talked to the guy and the friendly kiwi was more than ready to tow us out of our rut. Two minutes later we were picking up broken pieces of cutting board, various pieces of carjack, and bits of towel that had gotten stuck under the wheels, and on our way to a more solid camping spot.

Only the next morning did we take pictures.

-Amie

It was late in the evening and getting pretty cool so we decided that we would pull into the next electrical camp site so we could plug in the camper van. We saw the sign (see pic 1) and it looked like any other site so we pulled in and pulled into a site. I went to try and find the reception place but the grounds were empty. There was one other camper van so I decided to stay anyway. I plugged in and for some reason the grounds still had power.

We stayed the night after using the bathrooms (water was turned off in the toilets - oops). The next morning things started to look suspicious. In the kitchen unit there were two advertisements - one was for a person who does nude caricatures and the other said "would your family like this?" and it showed some nude families on a beach. Shrugging and continuing to search for somewhere to pay I found nothing and we drove away thankful for our free stay and use of the facilities. One the way out we gasped at the entrance sign (pic 2) that we had missed on the way in because it was dark the previous night.

-Steve

Steve + Amie go off honeymooning to Rarotonga (cook islands) + New Zealand

We're still in New Zealand, though a little colder now than we were a few weeks ago. It got to minuse 2/3 of a degree last night, according to the weatherman on the radio this morning. The water froze in the pipes of the campervan. We'll see how that thaws out. Luckily we were warm in a hotel last night with plenty of hot water, a TV and lots of coffee and tea.

After 2 1/2 weeks we still can't understand anything about these Kiwis. They are a wild, untamed people. We're in Queenstown right now, about 2/3 down the south island. This is the adventure sport capital of NZ, possibly the world. I'll get into the source of they need for adrenaline later.

We've been travelling down the West Coast of the South Island - but that was after wetsuiting up on the east coast and jumping into the sea with wild dolphins. If you sing, they will swim right under and beside you. An incredible experience.

The West coast is a whole different story. Rugged coastlines. Beautiful. And no gasoline for kilometres upon kilometres. And lots of Hillbillies. One night, completely on empty we rolled into the town of Hari Hari on fumes only to find that the gas station wasn't open and wouldn't be until the next day. So we camped out in the largest Hillbillie centre we've ever seen. The Bow-Man's club was having it's annual meeting, and there were several mullets wandering around the campground. I woke up the next morning and wandered to the bathroom and on my way saw a truck with it's back completely full of bows and arrows. Frightening.

The following day was even better. A stop at the Bushmen Centre forever changed our perception of Kiwis. You see, over the past couple of centuries since colonization, tons and tons of animals have been introduced to NZ. All of them have decimated the natural landscape in some way, overpopulated the place, and started killing native plants and animals. Apparently the cute little possum is one of the greatest threats to NZ forests. So the Bushmen Centre's personal calling is to reduce the number of possums in NZ....It's solution? Possum pies. Not joking. Yummy.

One thing we do understand better is why Kiwis love their adventure sports. You know how Australia was founded by British convicts? Well Kiwis are the wild and crazy riff raff of the British Isles. When the Kiwis were trying to domesticate deer, they had to get wild bucks and deer from the rocky mountains to fenced in farms. How did they do it? Not joking...They jumped out of helicopters onto the running dear and hog tied them...then transported them to their new destination. Gong show. And only 80 heli-jumpers died. Pretty good odds! Eventually they invented a net gun. Get this though...when the US needed help moving buffalo, they called on New Zealanders to netgun the wild beasts. Maybe the initial deer hunters inspired some of the current adventures sport. We really don't know.

This country makes us laugh. Everything from roadsigns to crosswalks to the government's policy on putting up signs against wild/drowsy/dangerous driving instead of guard rails.

Really though it's a country of unprecendented beauty. We've moved from lush green in the north to wild and rocky mountains in the South. It's a blessing to be here.

Now we're going to find some kebabs.

-Amie

Hey all,

We're sitting a few blocks from Hell right now. We're both pretty excited to try this restaurant's (with a rather risqué name) pizzas.

It's been a wild few days here since we got into NZ...

We rented a campervan in Auckland and drove it up to the end of the world...or what the kiwis call the end of the world...the northernmost tip of New Zealand. That was after learning to drive on the left side of the road, figuring out what in the world to do on roundabouts and deciphering road signs. Thank goodness the clutch is in the right spot or we'd have gone off a cliff by now!

Before we got up to the point and the lighthouse, we saw gloworms in a huge limestone cave, saw NZ's first capital and the "hell hole of the pacific" - a town that used to be rowdy with prostitutes and whalers and didn't quiet down until the Maori and the Brits had a huge war there.

It's beautiful here. Windy, curvy roads unlike anything we've ever seen. And lots of sheep. An awful lot of sheep. And the craziest accents ever! Fush and Chups is our favorite variation of the English language.

We've definitely covered a lot of territory with that van! And we're getting pretty good at creating gourmet meals on the tiny cookstove.

We started off today at a giant Kiwi.

They're really proud of all three kiwis here: the person, the bird and the fruit. And anything that has to do with any of three is drastically overpriced. The giant kiwi...at least a picture in front of it was free. Words cannot explain. It was just a huge, fake, half of a kiwi fruti. It was fun.

Zorbing. It's hard to explain this one...but definitely explains the kiwi (the person this time) and their love for all things random and wild. Zorbing is basically the following: put on clothes you don't mind getting wet. Do a nose dive into a huge, airfilled, rubber ball (that's the zorb) then get warm water poored all over you, then roll down a hill for about 2 minutes. We didn't zorb ourselves (another one of those pricey kiwi things), but we certainly watched it. And got a video.

We drove this afternoon through thermal NZ...wild, wild, wild! This part of the country is over a huge faultline and the area proves it! There's steam coming from everywhere...every single valley, random spots in fields and from the sewers too. We wandered around a thermal field and saw craters, bubbling mud pools and an amazing crater lake with the most unbelievable colors in it.

We've smelt nothing but sulfur since we got here.

Highlight: swimming in a natural hot spring this afternoon - warm water was pouring down a waterfall and we swam at the bottom of it. Digging our feet down into the sand burned them the ground underneath was so hot.

It's not surprising NZ uses geothermal power and we saw a huge power station for it...but I can't forget...on our way there, our van was stopped by...a huge cattle crossing. There were so many cows on the bridge a car couldn't get by. There were hundreds of them. Very random and very funny.

But getting back to geothermal power...we've driven over geothermal pipes and seen hundreds of streams of steam. Maybe it's the steam around this place that made the owners of Hell name their restaurant that way.

Who knows. But looking forward to that pizza!

-Amie

Rarotonga is the capital Island of the Cook Islands, a little string of islands in the South Pacific. To get here, we had to fly through Tahiti...not a bad deal! The island is so small (32km around) that when you climb up it's highest peak at 556m or so, you get a panoramic 360 degree view. Stunning.

We've never been in such a laid-back atmosphere before. For being such a beautiful place with a lot of visitors every year, the islanders sure don't go out of their way to help tourists. I think that's what's so appealing about the island. It hasn't fallen prey to near as many tourist traps as other island paradises. Stores close at 6pm, restaurants and coffee shops are closed by 9pm (or "until late") and nothing's open on weekends. It's a very family-oriented island.

There were a few things we noticed about the island right away namely, no traffic lights. Not a single one. Just two roundabouts that threw us for a few loops that's for sure! There were also goats tied up everywhere in people's back yards, onto street signs and advertisements, and tethered to just about anything imaginable. You name it a goat was probably tied there.

Before we rented our motorbike, we had to hitch rides a lot...it was a method of winning against a very expensive transportation system...$3 per ride on the local bus - which really adds up after a few days of needing to go to town!

Raro has many gods. Namely the phallic demi-god Tongaroa. Apparently he's the god of fertility on the island. Check out the picture of him and you won't wonder why any longer. We just couldn't get away from him...he was everywhere and such an integral part of the island that we had to go out and buy our own little statue of him for our house.

We spent a lot of time on the beach...trying to become bronzed stallions. We snorkeled, swam and sunned ourselves. We even buried Steve up to his neck in the sand...probably not the safest thing to do, but it certainly was an afternoon island adventure that's for sure! Until...a group of horseback riders came galloping down the beach. There was no way Steve was getting out of there on time, so I had to sit by his head to protect him. It shouldn't have been a problem, except that one guy couldn't get his horse under control and was running straight to us. All of a sudden we heard one of the ladies yell out "Watch the lady!" (In a British accent) and then a squawk when she finally saw the live head that was smiling under my arm. Somehow the wild rider managed to swerve out of the way in time. And Steve and I are still married and didn't fall prey to a nasty Honeymoon catastrophe.

Our second last night on the island we checked out Polynesian dancing...can those people dance! Picture coconut bikini tops and grass hula skirts on the girls and bare-chested men wearing hula/loin cloths and feathered headdresses. The music was amazing and the whole evening was definitely worth the small price we paid to go!

-Amie-

Can't say we've done anything too productive in our first 10 days of marriage. We have been hanging out at the beach most of the time. We are hoping to go on a day hike today across the island if it ever clears up. We have lots of stories already and too much to share on this expensive internet time. We had good times hopping through small town sask and alberta on our way to Calgary before we took off. We went to cypress hills and dinosaur national park and stayed in random small hik towns along the way. In between all that Amie and I were both going through interviews for jobs in Suriname.

It started the day before the wedding when I had a first round interview. I didn't think too much of it because there were other things on my mind. For some reason I made it to the second round of interviews which consisted of an hour long interview. So from a hotel in Medicine Hat I did that and it went pretty well. They asked to see Amie's resume and then this random other job in Suriname magically popped up in and so the hour before we flew out of calgary, Amie had an hour interview for that position. Both jobs are pretty awesome and perfect for each of us. I think the interview person likes us and she is going to get back to us sometime this week. The positions are only for 4-6 months so we will see what happens.

Anyway back to the honeymoon. We went to rent bikes the second day we were here after finding that hitch hiking was just taking too long (we refused to take the expensive tourist busses). When we were at the rental place we randomly decided to get a motorbike instead. Only problem with that is you need to get a licence and do a drivers test at the police station in town. So I decided I would do it - some people at our hostel had done it and it seemed to be pretty straightforward. I showed up at the police station and somehow it was busy or something and I got pushed into a wrong line. My picture was taken and I was handed my licence without even doing my test. So I now have cook islands motorbike licence.

that's all for now!

-steve-