Ha,are you serious? Life is just too beautiful to not take advantage of. Since I last spouted on here I had just arrived home from a 9 week trek. I am back and adjusted to the "Fargo" life, although I have been in and out of homebase since we got back. Most of July was spent saving up and reconnecting with friends around town, getting back to my roots which was surely needed. Then the weekend of July 23 was 10,000 lakes festival which I spent 3 days at, campfires,beautiful melodies and people. The following Tuesday I took off with the Superior family for 6 days on the North Shore of Superior, spending a relaxing, tranquil and pristine week with a crew who has been at it for 12 years running, hot damn it was so fun. So I got back from Grand Marais yesterday and tomorrow I will be voyaging west with our eyes set on Glacier National Park in NW'ern Montana. I have been scattered about the northwoods of Minnesota for 12 years and not once have I come across Mr.Bear. Glacier sounds like it is almost guaranteed you will run into a bear or moose on your hike. We will spend the first 4 days at Glacier hiking, each night stopping along the trail to camp beside a lake, and we will have plenty of time to get off the trails and snoop around. The last 2 days we will be out in the backcountry where one of Spooner's friends will meet us, he works on the upkeep of the trails out there so he knows some hot spots we can check out. So I will be arriving back to the homeland August 11th or 12th, which should wrap up my summer's travels. NZ--10k--NorthShore--Glacier. Not bad?

I can only hope everybody else is enjoying their summer as much as I..but...there is always next summer....

Bloodshot eyes and 20,000 miles later, here I arrived back in my own little cranny of the world, my own room. 9 weeks without a phone, or a working clock, it feels rather comforting to be back home. The last 2 weeks of our NZ en devour we ended up staying at the same family farm one hour north of Auckland. Everything ran relatively smooth for the majority of the two weeks, except the family had two daughters, Denvah(7), and Khendra (10). They were just fine for a a few days, but after that, these girls' mission was to annoy us as much as possible, it seemed as if it was their gauge of enjoyment. Always stealing out belongings and hiding them, always taking the hats off our heads, stealing our food that we brought to the house, throwing my OJ in the garbage bin, the list could go on. We treated them really nice, and would go out and play "Spot Light" with them, their little game they made up. The night before we left the mom of the place got really angry at me because Khendra left the house to her in tears...the mom was yelling at me, telling me to grow up and act like an adult. I wonder what Khendra told her happened, because what did happen was they wouldn't stop asking Feigum for piggy-back rides, they said they wouldn't leave us alone until they got rides. So I says to them....I says "your mother wouldn't like to hear that, no friends over for 2 years (in a sarcastic, kind of joking tone). Khendra flipped out, got very angry and nailed me really hard with the television remote a few times ( this is just after they were holding knives up to us), then she bolted out the door in tears. This lead to the mother coming in and giving me a good yelling, and making me apologize. I was stunned. These little devils terrorized us all week, worse then any kids I've seen for portions of the day when they weren't at school, and now I had to apologize for it? That was hard to swallow. I wouldn't call it a negative situation, it really made things more interesting out there on the farm.
They dropped us off the next morning (june 21) at the bus stop, so we could get to our 7:30 PM flight in Auckland. We went to the library to burn some time then hopped on our 12 hour flight towards San Fransisco. We departed at 7:30 PM Saturday in NZ and landed 12 hours later at 12:15 PM Saturday, June 21. We had roughly 12 hours to burn until our 12:45 AM flight to Minneapolis. We toured Haight-Ashbury and Golden Gate Park and did a ton of walking, then came back to the airport to board our flight to MPLS. We took off at 12:40 AM and landed in MPLS at 6 AM on Sunday the 22nd of June. From there we hopped on the light rail towards downtown to hop on the Greyhound which would take us to Fargo. It said there would be a 7 o'clock bus and an 8:30. We all but gave up on the 7 o'clock bus, and took our sweet time getting there. Without never-ending string of luck we managed to stop 7 o'clocker just before it took off and got on. From 7:30 am- 1:00 PM today was the bus ride across Minnesota to finally get to downtown Fargo where Garrison gracefully swooped in with his Buick Park Avenue and picked us up. Home Sweet Home.

Back to the real world, still adjusting to being back, it feels quite different. Some sad news struck me tonight, when my folks came home they told me Cooper wasn't limping last month because of a torn ACL, but it turned out Coop had bone cancer. So when we went to go have surgery on his ACL, was when we got the bad news Cooper had cancer, so we had to put Cooper down, I am just happy that he lived such a happy and great life, I'm trying not to let it get me so down, he was just such an amazing dog, so smart it felt like he knew what you were thinking, a true companion. But he was in too much pain to go on, he lived 12 amazing years and we can all be happy for that. RIP Coop Dog.

From Indecision to Perdition

On tuesday the 3rd I remained indecisive whether or not to hop on our flight northward to Auckland, I remember lying awake in the middle of the night trying to decide whether or not to stay in Wellington or wake up and fly back up to NZ's largest metro area- Auckland. After heavy thought I decided Auckland would work and I would board the 1 hour flight...which totally man handles the 12.5 hour bus ride we took down from Auckland to Wellington when we first arrived....it was great to see a great portion of the North Island via bus...but one was sure enough for me. We thought the airport wasn't too far off so we packed up all our gear,hiking packs,tent,hiking shoes and started walking about 10 o'clock for our 11:30 flight. After 50 minutes of walking and the airport not in sight yet we decided to start running, which was about as demanding as anything can be considering we were strapped with about 40 pounds of gear....it got to be about 11:05 and we were running full throttle, very desperate and I had bad thoughts looming in my head about not making the flight (which wouldn't be horrible for me, because I was so indecisive..but Feigum really wanted to.) Out of nowhere, when hope seemed distant...a random lady in a black car swung out and swerved right in front of us. I saw Feigum loading his bags in and it turned out she saw us running with all our gear and assumed it was important. We hopped in, she flew around all traffic, driving like a maniac towards the airport. We thanked her about 15 times while completely dosing her leather seats with sweat. I remember arriving the airport about 11:10....and so we sprinted inside. After sitting in like for maybe 3 minutes, we realize we used Qantas Airlines and not Air NZ, so we ran to Qantas que and it turned out the plan was running 30 minutes late. How lucky can a guy get? A ride to the port and a flight running late allowed us to make the flight. I felt really bad for who was near me on the plane, I haven't persperated that much in quite awhile. After a few small bus rides we made it back to City Centre Auckland, to the hostel we first stayed in when we flew to NZ. Comforting familiarity, we spent 2 nights there planning and talking to WWOOFers, hanging out at the best library in NZ, with free net and a great selection. On Thursday June 5 we arranged to bus 30 minutes north of Auckland in uncharted areas for us. We came in contact with the Harvey family who have a family farm with raw milk, 2 daughters -10 and 7 , cows,horses,sheep,1 goat, dogs,cats...we stay in a guest bedroom in the main house with 2 beds. The arrangement is 4 hours of farmwor each day in exchange for meals and bed. We've now put in 4 days of work here. From painting, steering and herding sheep and cows, bailing out the cow pen filled with poo and hay, picking up horse dung in the horse pen, and milking cows, which was actually really refreshing. Actually hand milked a cup of my own and it was quite delicious. I'm starting to miss home quite a bit, while at the same time still enjoying our work here, we walked up 2 massive hills with the little girls Denvah and Khendra to overlook the west coast. They also showed us their secret hiding spot way up the hills and into the woods. Our last few nights in Wellington went well, I was just walking around Wellington one night with my headphones on and I bumped into 2 folks I met down in Queenstown- Jabbah and Phil, traveling buddies from Switzerland. They were living out of their campervan, so we invited them up to McLean's apartment to hang for 2 nights continuous. That was the closure to our Wellington extravaganza, we lived in McLean's flat without Ben for 2 nights because he traveled northward to travel with his sister for awhile.

We've been here nearly 2 months, surely the longest I've been away from home. Still having great, new experiences, but starting to miss certain comforts of home and its people. People back in the states should feel grateful for summer, it is now getting to be winter here...temperatures usually in the 50s which isn't horrible, but after a full North Dakota winter I a ready for some sun and lake.

kia ora,
kc

Well, put the organic baking profession on the backburner. We still haven't heard back from the bakery, so about 6 days ago we left from Picton and hopped on a big cruiser ship/ferry for a 3.5 hour ride across the Cook Straight while watching the history channel and drinking milk. We have been up in Wellington for 6 days hanging out with Ben and his roommates, basically just living in Wellington. We have been in contact with an organic Eco-Village, hoping to work there. They include a group of 10-15 families who merged together because they were all interested in living similar lifestyles. They purchased around 150 acres of land about 100 Km north of Auckland on a peninsula. Each family grows their own food organically, as well as structures their own homes and are basically sustainable. This sounded interesting to us, because we want to learn how to milk a cow and drink some raw milk, as well as get more tuned up to some of their lifestyle. It's been a fun 6 days here back in Wellington, meeting more people and spending time downtown and hanging with the flatmates. Sounds like most of this house is heading up to Auckland region to tour some of the northland and we will probably do some hiking or sight-seeking with them. So right now it is Thursday night here and we are preparing to bounce northward somehow on Saturday or Sunday. There has been talks of hopping in cages in the ocean to look for sealife, namely whale,dolphin, or shark...just in the talking phase though, nothing further yet. We've since surpassed the halfway point of the trip, and have alittle over 3 weeks left, the flight home boards on June 22, the cash flow is running extremely low, but morale is still running rampant, I am loving it out here, but still missing the family and friends back home, as well as June weather at the lake. It is in transition from fall to winter out here, so June and summer sounds nice, even though the winter here is mild...Wellington has been probably in the 50's most days, and will continue to warm up the further north we travel. The day after we finished our WWOOF Job in the Marlborough Sound we saw the pilots on the news with the people we worked with, talking about the scary situation of them running out of fuel and almost crash landing, was interesting to see we were there when it happened.
I think it's time to grab some tunes and my headphones and go for a walk around Wellington and see if i just can't run myself into a nice little cafe to get some reading done. Below is the Eco-Village website link we have been talking to.



http://www.otamatea.org.nz/index.htm

From Queenstown to Marlborough Sounds Region

We were somewhere near the text "Pelorous Sound" @ the lodge. The top map is zoomed in on the top of the south island where the Marlborough Sound is located.


(never mind the blue on the map)
Since I've last been on here we ended up staying something like 7 or 8 days in Queenstown. I loved every single moment in that city, the backpackers we stayed in started feeling like our home away from home. Bunji Backpackers was my favorite hostel we've stayed in so far. The friends we met there are actually people I will stay in contact with for a long time, we usually hung out with the same group each night of about 10-15 people, sometimes going downtown or sometimes staying in and just messing around, cooking and watching movies. Staying in backpackers is a really unique experience because everyone staying in there is from all over the world, everyone is traveling and offering eachother advice from their travels. Usually the cheapest methods of travel, where to hitch a ride from travels, what cheap travel agency to go through, what local food shops are best...etc.The longer we stayed at Bunji, the harder it was to leave, we got to the point where we settled down long enough where it started feeling homely,casual and part of a routine. The last night in Queenstown it was 3 other people's last night and 2 birthdays so we all decided it was best to go out and celebrate the times we had there and the birthdays. Our bus left Queenstown at 8 am the following morning and a friend Mr.Longbottom from the UK was supposed to wake us up because his bus left at 7:30 am. He forgot to wake us because he woke late himself and had to hurry, so I ended up rolling out of bed at 7:45 to use the bathroom and realized suddenly we had 15 minutes to find our bus. An intense scramble of packing ensued, trying to pack down our sleeping bags,and all our clothes. We jogged down to the city about a 7 block distance to see our bus and make it just in time, as always. We rode North East for 8 hours heading to Christchurch, one of the larger cities on the south island. On the way we passed Mt.Hood which is the largest peak in New Zealand, and a few other nice mountain ranges. We slept in Christchurch one night at one of the more commercialized backpackers that was huge and felt more like a cheap hotel, not a very friendly environment so I was glad to wake up there and hop on the bus towards Blenheim at the top of the south island. On our drive along the east coast of the south island from Christchurch to Blenheim we went through Kaikoura which is the famous city for spotting whale and many forms for sealife. We saw a few Sea Lions but that was about it, still a beautiful coast though. After about 4.5 hours that day we arrived in Blenheim where a ton of travelers are occupied in the vineyards pruning, which is much needed work this time of season around here. We are headed this direction to meet our WWOOF Hosts, where we planned to do work on a Lodge in the Marlborough Sound region. They picked us up the following day in Blenheim, arrived with a pet deer they got in Kaikoura. Our task that day was to load the pet deer in the boat and get him back to Tira Ora Lodge, where they live and work. Bambi was in no mood for an easy stroll, so we actually had to pin/tackle down Bambi and tie his legs for the ride. I had to watch over him in the boat as Feigum and the Tony rode back to drop off the trailer, Bambi was kicking his hind legs fiercly and trying to spring free, so I was basically fighting a deer for about 2 hours. It is a 50 minute boat ride from Havelock(just near Blenheim) to Tira Ora Lodge located in the Pelerous Sound which is in the Marlborough Sound. We arrived at dark to Tira Ora, loaded up Bambi who, when finally free would actually follow us around and enjoy the company of people, liked to be pet just like a dog. The land was unbelievable, they have 550 acres of land filled with animals and some big mountainous hilltops behind, with a big dock, about 4 or 5 buildings, one their main house, a few bunk houses, one camp they use in the summer to house and enterain camp kids. A few barn type buildings as well. They had 3 ostriches,sheep,horses,pet deer,cows,pea cocks,4 dogs, a few cats, geese,donkeys and maybe a few others I'm forgetting. It was awesome the first day we arrived it was rest day. So we had all day to mess around with the animals and look around the property. Monday we chopped wood for about 3 hours then painted 3 more. On our 4th day there we realized 6 hours of labor was too much for vacation so we decided to take it easy a bit. The owners realized this and we all decided it was a good time for us to leave, since Tony was bringing back 2 other guys back to Havelock who were there scouting the land to bring kids to. If we waited longer our next ride would be Tuesday (7 days) and would cost $40 each. So we packed up after 4 days at Tira Ora Lodge and came back to Blenheim, the 2 gentlemen gave us a ride back here free, so we arrived in Blenheim again last night and it appeared we would be taking the sleeping bags and sleeping in a park since all the hostel offices close around 8. After walking around and trying to hitch rides towards Picton/Wellington for 2 hours we finally found a hostel that was open, and they gave us a really good deal. At Tira Ora we came across some pretty crazy times, a small plane in the area ran out of fuel right near Tira Ora and were preparing to crash land in the sound, they came over the ridge and saw the air strip the lodge had, they had no idea it existed, they said they saw their lives flash before their very eyes. They magically had a safe landing, they were gliding at that point. The family had them in for coffee to ease the nerves a bit. The 2 on the plane stayed for awhile then refueled and did a few laps over the lodge to check if the fuel was efficient then took off. That was a pretty intense episode. Now here we are back in old Blenheim again, in contact with an organic bakery that e-mailed me saying they could use some help in Nelson, which pleases me. I've heard Nelson his very scenic, has many lakes and is only an hour and a half west of us right now. If that doesn't develop we will head to stay with Ben again up in Wellington which is a 30 minute drive, and 3 hour ferry ride north of us on the bottom of the north island. In wellington we will probably look for a good job around the city, keep our eyes and minds open.
Hopefully by the next time I make it on here we will be accomplished organic bakers or have reunited with Ben McLean.



http://www.tira-ora-lodge.com/


Kia Ora,
Kc

QTown Recap

I still can't believe our luck this trip. Everything we haphazardly decide to do, every hostel we decide to stay in,everything we do always has turned out to be the right decision, I'm beginning to wonder if there are any problems in NZ. Fiordland and National Park, the region where we hiked the Milford Track, which is as far south and as close to Antarctica as we will get, this region gets more rain then anywhere in NZ. We had 4 days of complete sunshine, that is unheard of, I've heard horror stories from others of 4 days of complete downpour rain, everyone involved with the hike could not believe our luck with no rain. Seeing that we had little spare clothes to change in, rain would have made the hike much less enjoyable, but the waterfalls a bit larger. This is our 3rd day in Queenstown, probably my favorite city I've seen down here. Yet, ever new city I travel to here always seems to be my favorite. Yesterday I attempted to climb a solo mission to the peak overlooking the city to grab some choice photos. I am still extremely sore from Milford and I was trying to beat sundown, after about 45 minutes I thought I took a wrong turn up the mountain and decided it was best to turn around before I got into trouble, when I reached the bottom it turned out I was actually on the right track and about 5-7 minutes from my destination. So I guess I will go up again today with more sunlight and try my luck again. After my hike last night I ran into a kind lady we hiked with from Czech Republic, and she needed some help finding a good car to buy for her travels here. We walked all around town looking at community ad space and calling people for her car. I told her to offer $200-$300 below the listed price, since everyone selling travel cars around here are so anxious to sell because they are leaving the country and going back home, so they will usually sell it for much cheaper then the listed price. We head to Christchurch tomorrow, awaiting a few E-mails from jobs we will work on, where they provide housing and food for 3-5 hours of work per day. This will be good time to settle down for about 7-10 days and not spend money on bus fare,food or any other nonsense. I've got a listing of a few jobs I'll link below. So I guess I will go out and enjoy my last full day in Queenstown, hopefully I will have some photos overlooking the city.
Until next time I hop on here,
Kc
Marlborough Sound Job 1

Marlborough Sound Job 2

Christchurch Job Host

Chrischurch Job Info

Queenstown

Milford

'Ello, we conquered the milford track yesterday, the last 4 days we managed to tramp around 40-43 miles with the weight of a small child on our backs. But, we also journeyed our way through some of the most beautiful, breathtaking scenery I've ever seen. The day before Milford we hiked 3 hours into the Keplar Track, which is another "Great Walk" Of New Zealand, retreated backto our cabin ni Te Anau where a new couple from China checked in. We woke up early the next morning and hopped on a bus that lead us to Te Anau Downs, where we hopped on a boat that drove us through fjords surrounded by huge lakes, where eventually Clint dropped us off at the beginning of the Milford Track. Our journey began with a group of 4 from UK,Georgia,Czech Republic, and Germany, and also a group of 2 from Czech Republic. After 45 minutes of hiking a rather green,foresty trail we stopped at Clinton Hut for lunch, which was probably a mistake. We then ate for an hour and hiked about another 80 minutes and stopped and played around on a river, hopping rocks and taking rest on a huge tree laying in the river as deadwood. We were extremely behind the pace to make it to Montanyo Hut (little did we know). About an hour of hiking past our river stop we hiked in the most beautiful valley, inbetween 2 huge mountain ranges of the Fjordland National Park. As we layed and drank water for our last break I snapped a few pictures of us laying against our packs, we had our moment of silence for a few minutes to soak it all in, some of the most beautiful moments I've been apart of. The last 3 hours were pure hustle halfway up the mountain. We finally arrived at Montanyo Hut about sunfall, sometime around 6:30, the mountains block all the sun at a fairly early time. We arrived to a nice hut nestled up in a mountain, no electricity,only source of anything was water from the stream. It was filled with tramping groups and hikers all over the place, cooking with their fancy,expensive camping gear. We walk in with dried fruits,bread and trail mix as they are sipping teas,gorging on pasta and somehow a birthday cake. So there we all were, 46 trampers all in a hut with a few picnic tables resting our aching bones, everyone being guided by the headlamp on their heads, you could really tell where people were looking with headlamps on their heads. We started day 2 about 9 am (quite late). The first hour of hiking was all up the mountain until we reached the summit. It got very snowy and windy at the top, but also new views formed as we were looking top-down rather the former. We stopped for lunch ina freezing cold hut on the top, right near Mackinnon Pass which is the highest point of the hike. After lunch little did we know (yet again) that a 3 minute's hike from our frigid lunch spot was down the mountain a nice sunfilled path going down the opposite side of the mountain. The remainder of the 2nd day was down the mountain through lush forrest , across cabled and wood plank bridges until we reached the Sutherland Falls, which are 5th largest in the world. About 6 pm we arrived at our Hut for the evening. Again, all the bunks were full so we were plotted on the floor of the Hut, McLean with just a blanket was freezing both nights, I felt sorry for the guy, seeing that I had a 20 degree bag and was very cold myself with 2 sweatshirts on. I'd say it was about 40-45 degrees in the Huts both nights. We woke about 6 am on day 3 to get a good start. It was all along the side of a river and lakes on day 3, straight and the easiest day of the hike, except for being very tender and sore. We arrived at the end around 3 pm where the boats would pick us up and drive us through part of Milford Sound. It was an amazing 3 day journey, meeting some amazingly friendly trampers, a majority of the gruop of 46 were middle-aged, somewhere in their 30's or up through 50's. There were also plenty of people in 20's as well, from all over the world. US,Canada,Israel,Czech Republic,Germany,China,Italy,a few tramping clubs from Ontago Region of New Zealand. ONe of the best things was meeting and being around all these amazing people throughout the hike, always seeing them when you pass eachother for lunch breaks or for the sites of the hike. Last night we got back to our beloved Cabin in Te Anau after a 2 hour bus ride away from the sound, which we have been longing for. We ran into Yon and Asaf from our hike in the town at a pizza joint. Turned our Asaf was going to sleep in his vehicle to save on cash and Yon had a room in the same hostel as us. So we offered Asaf couch space for the evning and he abliged. Since it is getting closer to winter down in NZ and the south island is cooling down, especially overnight temps drop. We woke up this morning and McLean had to hop on the bus to Queenstown, then board a flight from QTown to Wellington, back to his schooling, we had some solid times with Ben, for about 10 days straight. Feigs and I woke up and right as I ordered our $35 dollar bus tickets he ran and told me we didn't need to, that Asaf was headed to Queenstown and would give us a ride for 8 dollars, just to split gas. So we eventually cancelled the bus fare and got $17 back from the $35 and rode a couple hours with Asaf and Yon. Asaf is from Israel, it was interesting learning more about their culture, in his army duties he had to do for 3 years (no choice in Israel) he had to watch over terrorist palestinians and such. Yon is a mechanical engineer from east coast Canada, Ottawa region. Us 4 cruised to Q-town and checked out the city today, it is quite beautiful here, smaller then Wellington by quite a bit tucked up in mountains and on a lake. We are staying at a hostel here for 2 nights in a tool shed that is heated and with beds, actually pretty comfortable. Our plan is to slowly make our way northward, where it is warmer. We have a job possibly lined up in Christchurch which is about 8 hours NW of Q-Town. with goats to milk, and organic veggies and other work for us to keep busy with. After that we also have to lined up in the Marlborough Sound Region, doing similar work plus additional work with the land for conservational help, seeing they are covering heaps and heaps of land and many hikers come through.

A few things I've noticed while living out of a backpack. You miss good, cheap, food. Everything here seems so much more expensive. Everyother day we head to the grocery to try and plot what foods we can carry with us, that won't spoil, that we enjoy, and that isn't expensive. This is a very tough task. Also, I have only found 1 decent pizza joint in Te Anau and only because they didn't put sauce on it. The sauce they put on their pizza here is usually similar to bbq sauce and tastes funky in a bad way. Also, Keabob's are huge here, basically our version of the burrito. People here are insanely friendly as well. Television and any sort of entertainment or media is very explicit here. Not much censoring goes on, even on prime time television. The police do not carry firearms in New Zealand, everything here is so laid back, that theme seems to carry over into everything. I'm currently downtown Queenstown at the World Cafe, where all travelers come to make cheap calls and get cheap internet access, the phones have been booked forever. I don't really remember the way back to the hostel but I guess I will go figure it out after alittle walk around this aspen esque town.
'til later,cheers,
Kc

Te Anau now remains our current home. Yesterday we took a flight from beautiful Wellington down to Queenstown near the bottom of the South Island. We were in Wellington for about 7 days with Mclean and his roommates, we got a really good feel for that city and once McLean finished his speech for a class it was time to jet down to Queenstown. Once arriving in Queenstown we hopped on a van with other hikers headed down to Te Anau(SW of Queenstown). This joyride really started reminding me of Lord of the Rings. Amazing mountains surrounded by bays and lush green forest. Our van driver also happened to be a city messenger and delivery driver, so along the way we stopped at farms,shops as he tossed packages out the window and honked the horn letting the owners know he made the drop, that was old school. It was about a 2.5 hour drive through some really astonishing mountainous views. We arrived in Te Anau yesterday about 4 in the afternoon, this is a nice little town with a laid back atmosphere, basically designed for backpackers to stay and settle before big hikes all around the town. We somehow got settled in a hostel which is more like a lake cabin for $30 each. Like most hostels we were thinking we would share an 8 bedroom, which is always nice for meeting folks but not if you need some solid sleep. We settled in the 2 bedroom cabin with a couple from Wales who are really nice, they just checked out and left us a nice little note, letting us know they left us their extra goods in the fridge. We've got this amazing cabin and loaded up on hiking foods and are setting out to trek the Keplar Track as a day hike today, alittle warm-up for a 3-4 day trek through the Milford Track, ending up in the Milford Sound (google it). We are minutes away from taking off down to the Keplar Track for the day, only thing is that the rain is coming down fairly hard right now. We better get going, I will finish this update soon, til tomorrow.

Kia Ora---from NZ,
Kc

Verbin' It in Wellingon

Wellington, New Zealand: The City of action, the city of verb. This place is so beautiful, McLean is so lucky to live here. A city purched around huge hills and gravitates around Mount Victoria, also aligning the city is a beautiful bay. The homegrown festival is taking place down on the waterfront right now, Salmonella Dub will be on stage any second so we will probably go down and check that out. We had good times in Auckland hangin' with Ross, but we eventually headed our seperate ways and we hopped on the NakedBus, which was a 12 hour bus ride from Auckland to Wellington. We got to see a ton of the country side and many prominent cities of the North Island. Also Lak Taupo was beautiful. The bus made stops roughly every hour or two so we got time to checkout a few different cities on the way. A group of rebel/punks on our bus got jumped by a crowd of skatboarders in North Porstman, eventually getting hit in the head with a skateboard. That was kind of intense. I sat next to a Victoria Uni student Tia on the way to Wellington, she was really nice and her folks were sheep farmers and teachers, I asked her folks if they needed any help but they seemed to be fine without us. The bus dropped us off in Wellington around 8 o'clock PM, we had no idea where Ben's house was or anything about the city. We were on our way to find internet at a hostel to contact Ben via E-mail so we could meet up. Out of nowhere a character comes sprinting towards us with a huge smile on his face. BEN! So happy to see him. He lead us to get food at the grocery then we headed up to his place in the hills. We arrived here Wednesday the 23rd and have been hanging around the beautiful city ever since. The plan is to take off for The greatest walk in the world," Which is the Milford Track, and also hit the Milford Sound as well. Tia Ora to all.

Nonexistant Earth Day,Wind Burn and Missing Fleece

On the flight from Dallas to Frisco, which actually was longer then the MPLS--->Dallas flight, getting us nowhere..haha, it was cheaper yet we used almost twice the fuel? haha, doesn't make much sense. But I was lucky enough to land a spot next to a really nice guy from Michigan who had lived in NC,Dallas Region and was visiting his daughter in SF, who also had a son who is an aspiring actor in LA and was just in an episode of 2 and 1/2 men, also shooting a small role in a new Jamie Foxx film, he was good company for the3-4 hour flight to San Fran. So there we are around 6:30 PM on Thursday April 18, at the airport trying to figure out a way to navigate ourselves as cheaply as possible to downtown region to book a hostel for the evening. We hop on a bus, only about 25 minutes later we are headed the absolute wrong direction, and heading past San Mateo and onto Palo Alto (Stanford U). After running into the friendliest bum I've encountered, we headed on our way to the CalTrain where he lead us, and I felt as if earned my 62 cents. CalTrain takes us down to SF Finally, and after a grocery trip for food we are ready to find a hostel around 10:00 PM. We begin meandering the streets with all our gear like lost souls with no direction. Eventually another homeless man approaches, he offers to guide us to a hostel and asks if we need any sort of drugs (he was quite scary looking). I wanted to get away from this guy right away, but since we are so lost we follow him and he leads us through alleyways and backstreets, mumbling about stories of his 10 years of living on the streets of SF. He constantly was bending over picking up cigarette buts hoping they were something he could smoke, this man claimed his favorite was crystal meth,which scared me even more. He takes us to a pretty sketchy motel and says he can hook us up a deal, not true at all, we got the same price but we decide to move onto an old hostel turned into a hotel for 35 dollars a night each...we give the dude 10 bucks to get out of our lives and call it a night. We awaken the next day, load up our gear and begin walking for a backpackers hostel to stay the next 2 nights in. After about an hour of walking around,failing completely we stop at Union Square to munch on some apples and take a look around the park...only to have a fellow lead us right to a backpackers down an alley a block away. The place didn't look like a 5 star, but i was exactly what I was looking for, about 20 backpackers staying in (smaller hostel)...with a 3rd floor community room with kitchen and computer access. This hostel had folks from Ireland, West Virginia, Australia, London,Uruguay,Tokyo and a few other places, everyone was amazingly nice and down to earth, we would hang with them on down time in the community room throughout our 2 night stay. After getting settled in there we headed down to Whole Foods which is gods gift to natural/organic food lovers. Found some amazing bottled organic milk. a couple fresh loaves of bread and had some lunch. Then we pregamed Friday evening for the YMSB show a few blocks away at the Warfield..legendary with Phish drummer john fishman. The show was filled with crazies, older deadheads who've moved onto the fresh jam scene of our generation, nothing but good vibes, bluegrass ,and smiles all around, amazing concert. After the show we just went back to the hostel around 1:45 am after a getting lost for about 20 minutes. The last day in SF we rented bikes with 3 others, one being Chase, who was also from Fargo and staying in our hostel, such a small world. Backalley hostel in SF and another Fargoan checks in. We bike toured from downtown to the GG Bridge to GG park and then finally Haight St....this town has so much zest and culture, I have a few pics and videos throughout our ventures here. After about 6-7 hours biking around SF we biked back to the hostel to pack up and head to the airport for our 12 hour flight to Auckland,NZ at 9pm.....The San Francisco Treat was more then I anticipated, greatest large city in the country as far as I'm concerned.

We completely skipped over Earth Day, and 4/20 up in the air. We left Frisco 4/19 at 9pm, and landed in Auckland 4/21 around 4 AM. The 12 hour flight over the Pacific was smooth, watched 2 movies, read alittle bit of Chuck Palaniuk's "Diary", and slept about 2 hours. We landed early, and by the time we gathered everything and our luggage I realized I forgot my jacket with deodorant and biking cateye in the pockets. While Feigum slept in the airport for 2 hours I was sent aimlessly from desk to desk in search of my missing north face, after 2 hours of desk meandering, I had no luck and now some Kiwi is sporting my fleece around Auckland. Oh well, just a jacket...right? Around 7 am we took the city bus to Auckland's City Centre and found a nice backpacker's hostel in the heart of the city in an 8 bedroom for 22 dead prez's a piece. We had the chance to meet many many nice people from all around. The countries/states representing our 8 bed was Germany,Israel,Michigan, and Turkey. After a nice shower (it had been 4 days) we met Ross from Fargo who has been tramping NZ and Auz for 6 months. We checked out the city and roamed with Ross all day and night, eventually opening our Jameson Whiskey and cracking a 6-pack on the 5 floor balcony of Ross's hostel about 2 miles down Queen St. The drinks lead to a craving for food, we bounced down to a local NZ pizza joint. Pizza is not NZ's specialty, they don't really use pizza sauce, but more so BBQ sauce on their pizza. I was hungry, I was sem-drunk...it was OK, he did have a good lager on tap which made up for the lack of pizza credibility. We headed to a pub a few blocks away for one last brew and headed home around 1:30...seeing that I had only 2 hours of sleep on the plane, and we had been slowly inebriating ourselves since 6 o'clock. We woke up today and walked around the harbor of Auckland looking for good fresh produce and fish. The skies were sunny for moments, then rainy the next, back and forth for hours. We finally decided on loading up on cheeses,fresh bread, hummus,pesto and organic milk to snack on. All while trying to figure out travel plans to get out of Auckland. They say Auckland is only here as the main transportation hub, but get out after a couple of days and see the country, which we are doing tomorrow. Taking 12 hour bus ride across the North Island to Wellington and Ben McLean, where Ross will head up north and work for someone a week longer.

Day 1-2, Towards, on Away from Friso

So Tubby, Feigum and I packed in my car and headed to mpls. to meet our flight towards San Fran, we made a stop at Megan G's house to dropoff Tubby's book, we ended up chatting a bit and printing off our plane tickets, only to realize we forgot to book a return flight home from frisco to mpls. Luckily, we found a return flight for only 135 bones, so we were set. We passed out at Welle and Erik's humble abode (thanks for the couch space), woke up around 9 am. and started walking towards the Metrodome, loaded with 2 months worth of living in our packs. Boarded our flight from Minneapolis to Dallas, which got us no closer to Frisco, but was the cheapest route I could find. We chilled around in the Dallas airport for awhile, I ate shitty overpriced Baja Turkey Sandwhich and we were on our way to The Golden City.....out of time.....to be continued.

Abruptly Sinking In

Here I sit tonight in the same house I've lived in for 21 years. About to embark on a 2 month journey across the world. As of now, mixed thoughts fill my head. Thoughts of the experience of new lands, environmental jobs, organic farming jobs and breathe-taking hikes are all right on the horizon. But, at the same time I am loving my life here at home in Fargo,ND...loving time with my friends and I can only hope when I return, things will be the same in town as they are now. But I've been waiting a good 4-5 years to visit New Zealand, and 2 months of backpacking,camping and hostel staying will be the experience I've been craving. I've tried preparing for 2 week trips before, but leaving for 2 months with just a backpack is something different, what to pack is leading to be a more difficult plan then anticipated. Indecisiveness looms, we had planned to cycle 500 miles and ship our bikes, but a few days ago we decided that would be too expensive, and possibly too much paint for our palette, seeing that we have never gone on a cycling tour before. Plans so far are to stay 2 nights in San Francisco and attend a Yonder Mountain String Band concert with Jon Fishman...and get a good taste of Frisco for a few days. Then taking off the 19th of April for Auckland, landing the 21st. So far we've got 4 very enticing jobs lined up, kind of, we talked to them and they said they will probably need our help. Work expands from working on a family's organic farm on Hawke's Bay up on the North island, to 2 lodge's working completely for the environment both located in the Marlborough Sound, accessible only by a long tramp or boat.

Job 1: Marlborough Sound: http://www.nydiatrack.org.nz/index.php

Job 2: Marlborough Sound: http://www.tira-ora-lodge.com/about_the_lodge.htm

Well, 21 years old, the time can't be better. Many people always say want to take a trip like this but never do. Anyone can, you just have to make it happen. Set aside what seems important for a few months...you can always get back to it. But once you have kids and careers these things diminish due to the crazy working lifestyle Americans live. Americans take less vacation time then anyone in the world. People, Enjoy Yourselves!

Kia Ora ,
Kc