Demystifying the Myth - New Zealand's North Island

Hey all,

I am back after a 6 day tour, with Active Earth , of New Zealand's "Far North" - the very top of NZ's North Island. And I am determined to set the record straight about the North Island!

The common myth about NZ is that you should not bother with touring the North Island and spend all of your time on the south island. A few reasons for this include: 80% of NZ's population lives on the North Island, the South Island has most of the Parks and conserved land, the south island is more majestic, etc. These are all true (but remember NZ has only 4.5 mm people and it is practically the size of Italy which has 60 mm people!). The fact of the matter is that the North Island is an entirely different ecosystem and is a sub-tropical rain forest (the south is more like the Alps, etc). In the North there are fern trees that grow 20-30 feet tall! They look exactly like regular backyard ferns, just massively bigger. There also are kauri trees that grow for up to 2,000 years and are the size of our sequoia trees. Honestly, they could have filmed Jurrasic Park here!

We spent 6 days hiking/kayaking/touring the north island, all the way up to Cape Reinga (the northernmost point where the Tasman Sea meets the Pacific Ocean)...sunset there was spectacular. Just to give you a taste, the picture above is the view from my tent during our first night. We camped on a cliff overlooking the ocean, nobody was around. We went for a swim in the crystal clear waters. Since we are much further south than Australia the water was cold...60 degrees to be exact. I have never felt like less of a man if you catch my drift. On the last night of the tour we actually got to see a Kiwi - the iconic NZ bird. This flightless bird is quite rare and requires much conservation work because introduced predators like to make them a meal. Seeing a Kiwi is a very rare sighting and most NZers have never actually seen one in the wild. It was very exciting, especially for your very own bird man!

Although I have not yet been to the South Island, I hereby declare the North vs South Island myth bogus. There is beautiful scenery in this country wherever you go and the landscape is very diverse; differing from North to South. The next stop is fishing near Lake Taupo (also North Island) for a few days...then heading down to Christchurch for a tour of the South Island.

Hope things are well and that Thanksgiving was good for everyone. I spent Turkey day kayaking on the east coast of the north island, eating PB&J and chocolate covered banana cake. The scenery is better than being stuck in NJ but the food certainly doesn't hold a candle to mom's cooking!

later

dave

The end of Australia...off to New Zealand

Technically i am already in New Zealand, booking trips and preparing to enjoy the sights over here. But the end of Australia deserves an entry. After touring the Northern Territory i ventured back to the east coast (Brisbane) and met up with my buddy (Ricky) from my Kenya/Tanzania overlanding-safari trip back in June (he is one of my new British mates). We took a bus to Hervey Bay from Brisbane and booked a Fraser Island self-drive tour. Spent 3 days and 2 nights on Fraser Island which is a massive sand island off the eastern seaboard of Australia (about 1/2 way up the eastern coast and a UN world heritage site). We had an old Toyota Land Cruiser and jammed a total of 10 people in (with all their stuff) for 3 days. The group was composed of 4 Germans, 1 Swiss, 1 Chilean, 3 Brits and the token lone American. Overall it was a good group. Of the 7 dudes (yeah, we had a dude heavy group) 5 of us drove the manual 4wd on the sand, but we had one kid (Chris) who took control in the really tough driving situations. The island has not had rain for ages and the sand is very, very dry which causes most groups to get stuck multiple times. We actually didn't have any major problems and only had one slightly annoying situation when we got stuck behind 3 vehicles that didn't know how to drive and kept getting stuck every 50 feet. We eventually blasted around them after a bit of negotiation and pushing our own vehicle through the thick sand...we made the ferry off the island with 3 minutes to spare! The highlight of the Fraser trip (besides the funny drunk antics Ricky and I pulled off the first night) was Indian Head. This part of Fraser is a massive rock cliff that sticks out over the beach. You climb to the top and look down into the crystal clear waters. We saw 3 sharks patrolling (reef or tiger, hard to tell) as well as turtles, rays and a pod of dolphins. It was quite a sight.

After Fraser we took a nice 13 hr overnight bus ride to Airlie Beach which is a small beach town established for sailing to the Whitsunday islands. I am going to post whitsunday island pics on facebook because the water and scenery we experienced was unbelievably breathtaking. Since Ricky and i didn't book our sailing ahead of time we had to book different trips. He had plenty of time to chill but I already had the flight here to NZ and took the last spot on a large, old sailboat that was leaving the next day. The crew of our ship was very helpful and chilled out and our group was a nice mix. I spent much of my time with 3 Frenchies - 2 guys and 1 girl - you know, repairing relations across the Atlantic with our old ally. Our group enjoyed 3 days snorkeling in various spots around the islands as well as hanging out on Whitehaven Beach (pictured above). Whitehaven beach is the most photographed beach in Australia. The sand is perfectly white and the water is more blue than you can imagine - and filled with sand sharks and sting rays (don't worry we kept Steve Irwin in our thoughts and shuffled along the sandy bottom so as to not get a barb in the foot). The Whitsundays were a great way to end the ~6 weeks in Australia.

Overall Australia was an interesting experience, tons of new friends and plenty of amazing and diverse landscapes to experience. Looking forward to New Zealand!

Not to disappoint those looking for more from this entry: there will be a final entry of Aussie language for everyone's edification!

I know you are excited, it is ok, you can get excited at work, after all this blog is helping you kill the day, right?

1) Too easy! - This is a great phrase. There are quite a few variations of this Aussie phrase such as "It's too easy" or "easy peasy" and my favorite "Its too easy, lemon squeezy." Only a few Aussies I met actually use it (our tour guide up in the Northern Territory gets the award for most variations of the phrase and most frequent usage)! This phrase effectively is a variation of "thank you" or "take your time" or "no worries" depending on its use in a sentence. It is most frequently used as a version of "thank you" if you are accommodating to someone.

2) You're Alright - An Aussie version of "No Worries." If you bump into someone or get in their way or drop a pen or accidentally stab someone in the hand - they will just respond with "you're alight." Not as exciting on paper, but a good one to hear in person

3) Bugger/buggered - this is an Aussie and British phrase and has many uses. "Bugger off" can most realistically be translated to "f-off." The word can also be used in this context: "this bloke tried to dance in the club and totally buggered it" - meaning he screwed it up. They also use bugger as a noun - usually referring to animals or...u guessed it...bugs.

4) Chips - This is very important to the Brits and Aussies. Fries...what people sometimes in the US refer to as French Fries and what some nutcases in the US call Freedom Fries (and by nutcases I am referring to conservatives...you know the people in our country who shouldn't be allowed to vote such as the ones that think religion includes speaking in tongues and that all Muslims are terrorists or those that still think Saddam Hussein is harboring weapons of mass destruction). OK, strayed a bit off point there...but what we refer to as Fries are CHIPS. Yes, i know, makes no sense, but that is what it is.

OK, that is enough for now. The next update will officially be about New Zealand - hope to have some interesting pictures, stories, etc.

Havin' A Bit of A Walkabout - Northern Territory, Australia

Hey folks. I have been MIA for a few days, just finished a 9 day trip through the northern and central outback, going from Darwin to Alice Springs and seeing many of the sights along the way. Although this blog is not intended to be a Discovery Channel briefing, the story behind some of the outback in the Northern Territory is too interesting to be left unsaid, an attempt at humor can come after the history lesson.

The Northern Territory (one of Australia’s 8 states/territories) is 1/6 the landmass of the Australian continent. Yet, there are only about 200,000 people living there! (that is less than 1% of the entire population)...and 30% of those people are Aboriginals (not very well integrated into the society, but seems like Australia is making a much more heartfelt attempt to mitigate wrongs than the US is with it's natives). Our first (and most interesting) stop was Kakadu National Park. Kakadu is technically a tropical savannah that has extreme dry seasons (the temp was over 100 during the day) and extreme wet seasons (where a majority of the park is closed due to many meters of water flooding the landscape and surrounding structures). Honestly, the landscape and the birds remind me of Africa...It is a very hot and very harsh environment. The only thing missing are the large herds of animals and the carnivores that live off them. Kakadu is also a special place because it is a World Heritage site according to the UN and is designated as such for 2 reasons: 1) natural beauty, 2) "creative genius" from the many aboriginal paintings throughout the park. This is a massive place, roughly 20,000 square kms and it was designated a national park by the Aboriginal people of the region. In the 1970s and 1980s the Aboriginal people of Australia (in many cases) successfully argued in the high courts to get their land returned from white settlers. They had to prove an attachment to the land both in terms of subsistence and spiritual activities. They were given large tracts of land and Kakadu was originally handed over as aboriginal land to do with as they wish. In order to save their culture, produce revenue and protect the environment, the Aboriginal people of Kakadu agreed to lease the land back to the Australian Parks authorities and they now jointly administer the park for environmental and cultural preservation. Needless to say, this was a special place with amazing sights. After Kakadu we drove down to the "Red Center" where the landscape turns into desert and the land becomes dustier and drier. This is also where the famous Ayer's Rock (Uluru) is located. The trip was great fun, good sights and many new, fun friends.


OK - now we need to continue the language lessons from the first Aussie blog. I am also making the executive decision to include not only Aussie phrases but also British phrases that are worth writing about. After all, Australia was once under the auspices of the British throne.

1) "Sort of" - This is the Aussie version of "like." You know how everyone in the US peppers their sentences with "like" unnecessarily? The Aussies say "sort of." It is less prolific than some "like" abusers in the us and occasionally has its place in the sentence, but it pretty much is like...a filler word, sort of.

2) "Bloody" - There is no way of beating around the bush on this one. It is a substitute for F-cking...and no I don't mean the verb but the adjective. And seriously, relax, not trying to be derogatory, but the fact of the matter is people in the US drop the f-bomb a lot and in Australia and the UK they just say bloody. When you think about it the word sounds bloody weird, but it is not "foul" language per se. Some examples: "This bloody idiot pulled out in front of me." "I need to answer this bloody phone." "Why are there so many bloody Germans in this country."

3) "Bloke" - This is an important lesson because it incorporates some learning from the first lesson and requires a bit of distinction. Bloke means: dude, guy, man, etc. It should not be confused with "Mate" - which can also mean some of these things but in a different context. When you refer to your friends - you say "mate"..."I need to give my mate a call"; "Hey mate, how ya going?" When you are referring to another person as in "this guy said etc" or "this guy was walking down the street and got run over by my mate"...you can substitute "Bloke" for guy. Got it?

4) "Do One" - This is not aussie from what i am aware of, just British. But this is a good one because it is so terribly confusing. This means "to leave". The first time i heard it was hanging out in Sydney with these brisith blokes, one of which is my mate (you confused yet?). We were standing in line, there were lots of attractive girls around, i was terribly confused when they said it. "Do one?...uuuhhh." Nope, not what your thinking, but "you wanna do one" actually means "let's get out of here", "let's leave" or if you want to bring it back to the 1990s hip hop i am cool even though i am white phase: "let's bounce"....you could even say "let's skedaddle" if you are sort of over 50.

5) "Having a bubble" - Saving the best for last. This means: "you making fun of me", or "you laughing at me." It is British, technically cockney rhyme, but it is my favorite one. So when the British say "are you making fun of me" or "are you joking" they actually say: "are you having a laugh" (with the accent of course). So to get to bubble we need to do some rhyming. Laugh rhymes with bath and you always take a bubble bath. Here is the sequence: "Are you having a laugh" ---> "Laugh" rhymes with "bath" ---> "Are you having a bubble bath" gets shortened to "Are you having a bubble."
Another good rhyming scheme: Bees = Money...what? "Bees and Honey" - honey rhymes with money therefore Bees = Money. pretty good

I think we should bring some of these to the US, maybe "Bloke", "mate" and "are you having a bubble."

Off to the east coast again in a few days.

Hope things are well in the US

dave