Well I finally left Tauranga after spending a week there (I was only planning on staying two or three days). The guys I was staying with were a lot of fun and had some German couchsurfers as well, so it was a full house and I had a great time. But I stayed probably a little longer than I should have. Hitchhiked down to Taupo again for a night before heading to Hastings in Hawkes Bay (East coast of the North Island. I met up with Mark and Maggie Devon, friends of Merce, Mike and Mo. I’m extremely grateful that they put me in contact with them here and equally as grateful that Mark and Maggie are able to put me up for a while. Hawkes Bay is the wine capital of NZ, with good reason. I’ve stayed two nights at their cottage in the middle of several vineyards and organic farms before heading to Wanganui (West coast) with Mark for a business trip. Headed back to Hastings tomorrow and my time to be spent in Hastings is a bit open ended at this point. I love it there, but I still need to see plenty of the South Island, which I here is even more gorgeous and less populated than the North.

So, what I’ve done since my last post. Spent the week in Tauranga one block away from an excellent swimming beach. Went swimming there every day and drank with my new friends just about every night. Tried plenty of great NZ beers, and some not so great (piss, as they call it). Went swimming a few nights as well, sometimes with shorts on…. sometimes. Hiked around Mt. Maunganui, awesome one hour hike at one end of town with another nice, but populated, beach right next to it. After a full week there I decided it was time to go, even though the guys putting me up said I could stay pretty much as long as I wanted. Went back to Taupo for a night, but I didn’t do much this time around. The hostel I stayed at had a bus full of Germans arriving the same night who seemed somewhat against talking to anyone but each other. Weird. So I kept to myself. I’m also teaching myself French. Even weirder, right? It was a good night to sit in the hot tub (just called a spa here) and practice that.

Left Taupo fairly early and had a really hard time getting a ride at first. Sweated my ass off on the highway for a while until a woman in a caravan of horse trailers picked me up on her way to a horse show in Hastings. So I got a ride straight there and met up with Mark and Maggie in the early evening. My first full day in Hastings, Mark and Maggie took me on a ‘tikitour’, showing me around Hawkes Bay and some of the INCREDIBLE sights there. Saw a lot of beautiful vineyards, a great farmer’s market, Te Mata Peak with a view of all of Hawkes Bay practically, and a lot more. Today I walked around a sweet little surf town on the West Coast called Opunake and went to the beach. Got some good pictures, which I’ll upload with a lot more in the next few days. I keep saying that, but I actually will. Eventually. Anyway, my next destinated after Hastings is Wellington. It may be the capital of New Zealand, but far more importantly it’s the home of Flight of the Conchords, with whom I am determined to become best friends. Be jealous. If you don’t know who they are, watch their TV show and listen to their music, then proceed to be jealous. With that, I’m going to bed. Take care everyone.

P.S. On a serious note: if you can, please consider making some kind of donation to helping Japan rebuild after the unbelievable earthquake/tsunami (1,000 times stronger than the one in Christchurch) that killed tens of thousands, wiped entire villages off the map, and is now causing nuclear powerplants to explode and leak radiation. Not sure what the news coverage for it is in the U.S., but I’ve seen some pretty horrible footage here and it’s really upsetting.

Sorry to everyone who’s been waiting for me to post something, it’s been hard to get internet for more than half an hour or that I don’t have to pay for. So it’s time to catch up a bit. Basically, this place is a dream come true, literally. In more ways than one. The country is at least as beautiful as I imagined it, and the people are even nicer than I expected. It’s clean, safe, easy to get around, and full of amazing people and amazing things to do.

I started out in Auckland, as I mentioned before. But I don’t think I’ve written anything since then, so there’s quite a bit to say. I was there for a week, then moved on to a town called Thames, at the bottom of the Coromandel Peninsula, which is on the Easy Coast. Pretty small town, not unlike Bainbridge but with less people. But still beautiful. I stayed with a couple named Dave and Mel who I met up with on Couchsurfing.com (fantastic website) and they were absolutely great. I ended up staying with them a couple extra nights and then moved on to Whitianga. I should mention, most of the town names here are from the Maori language, and so any ‘wh’ is pronounced with an ‘f’. So it’s Fitianga, basically. Such a cool town RIGHT on the beach, and close to a couple tourist attractions. One is called Hot Water Beach, which is a beach with thermal areas underneath so in some parts you can dig a hole in the sand and basically have a shallow hot tub. But sometimes it’s scorching hot. And it’s always filled with people. The other cool spot near Whitianga is Cathedral Cove (http://timmjunge.files.wordpress.com/2008/03/cathedral-cove-at-coromandel-peninsula-19.jpg), a really famous spot. I didn’t take that picture because, sadly, when I tried to go there the trail was closed because of falling rocks. It sucked.

I met a bunch of great people at the hostel in Whitianga, including a couple Belgians and a couple Germans. The Germans were headed towards Taupo (a craazy popular tourist town) which has an amazing lake right next to it. So I hitched a ride with them and spent a couple great days there. Went to some more geothermal areas and swam and went out drinking and saw some other cool sights. I was expected for a job in a town called Waihi a few days later, which we passed on the way from Whitianga to Taupo. So the Germans went for a day trip to Rotorua, a bit north of Taupo and left me there so I could make my way BACK up to Waihi. Which is fine, because Taupo was totally worth having to backtrack. Spent a night in Rotorua, met a guy from Holland and went out drinking. In the pub we went to I ran into the Belgian guys I met in Whitianga (it’s a small country with a lot of travelers) so we had a fun night on the town. Next day I headed up to Waihi and eventually got to the farm where I was staying.

The stay in Waihi was definitely the highlight of my trip so far. The job was not for money, just for food and accommodation. But it was a business owned by a few people who buy fruit from local farmers (lots of farmland in Waihi) and sell it out of vans on the side of the road. There are always about 5 or 6 vans out each day selling in different places. The proceeds of the business go to building an eco-hostel in Patagonia, where some of the owners/workers are from. I was living in a barnhouse-type building with about 18 other people and a few more in the two houses on the property. I met more Germans, French, Spanish, Austrian, Argentinian, Brazilian, etc. It was absolutely amazing, everyone there was so fun and it was amazing living with them. I was supposed to stay there for two or three weeks.

Unfortunately, right as I was arriving there, the city council of Waihi (a very conservative town) told them they had to shut down by the end of the week. The council had disliked them because selling fruit out of a van was a “hippie thing” as it was described to me. There were other people doing the same thing these people were and had no problems with it, but because one of the neighbors of the farm didn’t like so many people living next to them, they constantly complained until they were forced to shut down. I worked from Monday to Thursday, which I believe was their last official fruit-selling day. It was extremely sad. But they have another branch in Auckland which is still up-and-running, so hopefully that does more successfully.

Yesterday I hitched a ride with one of my new French friends to Tauranga, another awesome beach town with great surfing, right next to a small mountain called Mt. Maunganui, apparently with a pretty sweet hiking trail about an hour long. Probably going to hike it tomorrow or the next day. I’m staying with some more couchsurfing hosts, a guy named Tyler and his flatmates, all in their mid-20’s. He was nice enough to pick me up in town yesterday and took me to his place, where he had three other German couchsurfers arriving. Luckily they have lots of room here. We immediately went to the beach, one block away, and swam and played drinking games. Went back to the house and had KICKASS barbecue, more drinking games, etc. It was a great night. And the guys here are so nice and said I can stay through the weekend and a bit more if I’d like to. Which I very well might depending on how much there is to see and do in Tauranga. They also said I’m “the first decent yank they’ve hosted,” I’m proud to say. I finally bought a guitar yesterday from another French buddy of mine and today I might head into the town and busk for a while to see if I can make any money. Wish me luck. I’ll be posting more often (hopefully) so maybe my next posts won’t be so damn long. Miss you all!

I arrived in Auckland this morning! It’s so gorgeous here and rather scary to be driven on the wrong side of the road. Every time the car turns it feels like it’s turning into oncoming traffic. And I keep looking the wrong directions when I’m crossing the street. Oops. Currently drinking a glass of wine with a bunch of other folks in the hostel while they sing karaoke. It’s epic! I haven’t taken any pictures yet because I’d rather not look like a tourist just yet. But I explored the neighborhood the hostel is in today and it’s pretty sweet. Lots of boutiques and restaurants/bars. it’s such an amazing city and the people are so nice, and the weather of course is awesome (it’s the equivalent of your August on this side of the world). Which is weird because I was walking around town at 8 PM and most of the stores were closed and it was still quite sunny. One of the guys I’ve met here today is from England and we went out for a couple beers this afternoon, that was pretty awesome. My first legal beer. Pretty cool I guess. I don’t really have any good stories other than that, it’s been less than 24 hours. But overall the people here are great, and I’m meeting lots of people from all over the world too, and the weather is equally as great. More interesting posts to come…

The main purpose of this blog will be to share pictures and stories of my backpacking trip. In less than a week, I leave for Auckland, New Zealand. I’ll be staying in Ponsonby Backpackers Hostel for my first three nights, after which I’ll either continue out of Auckland or try to find somewhere else to stay in the city if I enjoy it. I have three months to make it from Auckland (North Island) to Christchurch (South Island), where I will fly to Sydney, Australia. Then I have three more months to explore Australia before returning to Sydney to fly back to Seattle on August 5th. This is the first time I’ve done any real international travel, or been away from Bainbridge Island for more than a few weeks at a time. I’m looking forward so much to this experience, I’m confident it’s exactly what I’ve been needing for quite a while. I hope you enjoy the pictures/stories and such I’ll be posting, once I actually have something to post that is.