BeeTown Massacre

Listen, I realize there are other things you'd like to read about, but clearly this news update is important in its own right. 

I saw yet ANOTHER damn bee - this time outside the car, when we were parked, and it disappeared into the engine - so I bit the bullet. 

I opened the hood.

Let me tell you, it was like the freaking Jonestown Massacre in there. I'll shield you from the really graphic photos (mostly because they didnt turn out that great) but these two unfortunate bee souls are just the tip of the (honey) iceberg.

RIP bees

Just tons of bee bodies everywhere. Not the brightest bees in the land to choose our campervan engine as its home, but hey, to each their own.  Didn't see a hive, but it's gotta be somewhere in there (the jerks).

Whew!! I know, right? You're welcome for clearing up that mystery.

The End 

It's The Little Things...

I cannot get over how gorgeous this country is. We went on a little town walk this morning in a place called Wanaka (about an hour north of Queenstown) and happened upon this view:

We love it here. We sometimes wonder if we should have just done the whole 4 months here, just wandering around in the campervan at whim. Ahhh...

Anyway, so there's a serious crush happening on New Zealand, and while there are a lot of similarities in our two cultures, there are of course differences as well. I thought I'd list out a few so far - some are dumb and small, but clearly I thought it was funny or interesting enough to note.

• Coffee!... Mmmm coffee. Its great here, but ordering a black coffee will not be what you think it will be. But, it will definitely give you a jolt. Turns out, it's not a drip coffee kinda country, it's all espresso based (often, double shot espresso based). So, would you like a long black, a flat white, or maybe an americano with "runny" cream (because non-runny cream = whipped cream)? I would. But be careful when ordering a simple iced coffee, the standard might be this:

Adam: "Oh, i'll just have an iced coffee please....ohhhh....sigh"  (to anyone besides Adam, this would be an amazing and delightful surprise) 

• They like to put beets on burgers ("beetroots," mind you, and its pretty good).

• NAMES - Listen, I love New Zealand, I think I made that clear. But I cannot pronounce a damn thing here. New Zealand, at a glance, tricks you into thinking it has easy-to-pronounce locations. Wellington! Christchurch! Queensland! How very easy and British sounding! LIES, lies and trickery! Those cities are the start and end of all you can pronounce, I promise you. Everything else is Maori based and I guarantee you (and definitely I) are basically massacring all names when we try. Punakaiki, Whaipukurau, Dunedin (ok that one is Scottish influence but I still bet you say it wrong), Whaririki... Just try to say them. WRONG! Obviously I cant hear you when you try, but trust me, whatever you are saying, you are wrong. I thought for sure Waikite was " WHY- key- tee".... WRONG! It's "WACK-eh-tee!" Also, just for fun, sometimes(most of the time) wh" is pronounced as an "f," and sometimes not. But I've totally embraced my complete inability to pronounce anything correctly and am absolutely fine with it. I'm just hoping my attempts are charming to the confused locals who have no idea what I'm saying.

• Driving! We are both totally fine driving on the left side, except we both occasionally still hit the windshield wipers when turning (is in the same place as US car's turning signal). Also, I love the kilometer. I am mostly too lazy to do the conversion to miles in my head, so am constantly delighted at how quickly we get places.

A very interesting photo of Adam driving on the left side of the road. Super interesting, really. 

• Feijoa is delicious - it's a fruit people "either love or hate," said the woman in Whakanui (not pronounced as an "f", tricky bastards) who sold me a feijoa smoothie, and I loved it. A bit tangy, with some banana-y undertones. Kind of. But definitely delightful. However, the woman also added that you either love or hate the feijoa, "like the avocado," and I cannot imagine someone who hates avocado (because you are wrong. Avocado is amazing). And no, I cannot pronounce "feijoa," correctly, and neither can you.

Feijoa plant at a Marborough winery! Yum.

• Sheep: its not just a stereotype. They really are everywhere in this country. And yet this is the best photo I currently have:

Drive-by sheep shooting

• Not really a note on New Zealand, but 3 times now I've found dead bees on the drivers seat after I've driven (WHAT is happening??), and 2 live bees in the car while driving other times. Do we have a hive in this car and just aren't taking advantage of potentially free honey?? And no, we have not yet checked the engine or undercarriage. Apparently I prefer to just be bewildered.

• New Zealand may have hit the jackpot for most gentle native species -- unlike their neighbor...No offense Australia, but so many things there could and perhaps will kill me. But New Zealand does have a super annoying bug: the sandfly. On the west coast of the south island they are everywhere, whether there's sand there or not. And I have the bites all over to prove it. They are tiny, gnat-like, thirsty little jerks.

Annnnnd...until I can do another real catch-up,  I'll leave you with this...

Another amazing pose by Adam J. Kanner, at Pancake Rocks.

Gonna be a good day

It has to, right, when you wake up to this? 

Buller Gorge area, outside our Berlin campground

Yesterday was pretty amazing, went to Whaririki Beach and saw the most adorable animals on the planet, Fur Seal pups, just playing to their hearts content in little tidal pools (see sneak peeks of that on facebook or instagram).

Today we woke to this amazing view and continue to Pancake Rocks and then on to the glaciers --whoop!

Happening (earlier)Right Now: dry weather

..."earlier", because i didnt finish before we had to get on the road and im clearly too lazy to change the title. Anyway, ..whoohoo! Dry weather! Because we kayaked at the legendary Abel Tasman National Park yesterday in the grey and rain (and half of our clothing is still wet from it) and had a rainy day around Nelson the day before. And let me tell you, the van smells amazing (And continues to, because the washer is broken at the place we stopped at tonight).

Be glad you cant smell this beast

Kayaking was incredible despite the less-than-ideal weather (we had a fantastic guide) - more on that later - but just know for now that our arms no longer work, and i discovered an expensive lesson involving seawater and fitbit. 

RIP :( 

Northern Exposure

Buckle up, its a looooong catch-up entry.

We're on the ferry now (or...we were at the time this was written, it takes me a while to find wifi good enough to load photos...) - hence, time to write this beast -making the Cook Strait crossing from the north to south island of New Zealand. The North Island has been a pretty great start to this trip, but we're really excited for the South. Supposed to be a bit more off the beaten track (while still traveling with hoards of others like us, on said beaten track, ha). Ride has been smooth so far, which is awesome considering there are quite a few horror stories and the lonely planet book calls it a "white knuckle" ride. Sheeeeeeeeet, we got this.

Annnnnyway....Haven't been stellar at regularly updating here (been a bit better with instagram and facebook photos), but here are some of our North Island highlights!

- picking up the campervan after ACL, we met another American, Bella,  in the Spaceship rentals parking lot, who has been traveling since January and had an amazing amount of tips and pointers ( for campervanning in general, locations, etc). Really put our minds at ease and basically confirmed that the campervan life was going to be awesome. And just right for our lazy travel style. For example, she mentioned that since there are so many DOC (dept of conservation, cheap basic camping sites) sites and holiday parks (private, usually more ammenities), as long as you show up relatively early, you never really need to book ahead. Good. Because otherwise we'd be in trouble. Went to hot water beach in Cormomandel, where theres a hot spring under the sands, and if you dig in a certain spot you can make your own hot tub. We got a little lazy, and just watched others do that. But dig your feet in, and you can only stand it a few moments before the water/sand is too hot to handle (and in no way too cold to hold.)

Motivated folks, starting to rebuild their hot tubs after a rogue wave ruined all former efforts

I know, so boring, but believe me, my feet were on fire and i went running into the waves 2 sec later. Gracefully and not awkardly at all. Just picture it.

- Hobbiton was awesome, as Adam posted. Really just adorable. And made me want a hobbit garden. And hobbit house. And cheese-filled hobbit pantry. And hobbit green dragon tavern. Basically, a hobbit life, without ring-holding responsibilities.

- Glow Worms! I thought this was going to be pretty cheesy but the tour did it pretty right. No photos allowed, so google it to see what I'm talking about (Waitomo Glow Worms). Basically, a family discovered this fairly large cave with glow worms over 100 years ago and have been giving tours ever since (glow worms are elsewhere in the country, too, but its a really cool concentration of them in this cave). There's also a huge  "cathedral" room in the cave with amazing acoustics, so they sometimes have concerts, sometimes with famous people. The name that hilariously stuck with me was Kenny Rogers. Yesssss. Anyway, glow worms have a bizarre life that mostly exists in this bioluminescent larvae form. They hang out in caves, like this one, on the cave ceiling, feeding off of little bugs that get caught in little sticky lines they drop. The ceiling of this cave is just full of them, like a really cool, serene, blue starry sky. And the tour ends with a dark boat ride to see the glow worms, and they do the best thing ever -they tell everyone to SHUT UP during this part (except the guides are way more charming and polite than that). Best direction ever for a tour like this. Very cool experience to float in total silence, in this large, dark cave, with this bizarre and amazing site above you (while also hoping no larvae fall on you...they didnt). But its the end of the life of the worm cracked me up... They're a glowing larvae for about 10 months, then they finally become an adult just long enough to procreate, and then DIE immediately of starvation (about 2 days later) because the adult form has no mouth or stomach. But they sure look pretty as larvae!

End of tour, boat retreating back into the caves

Side note, huge announcement on the ferry that the "scone trolly" is about to come around, with fresh-from-the-oven scones and jams. This country is amazing.

- Rotorua was next, is a hot town, literally...smack on top of a ton of thermal activity, and also a prime spot for Maori cultural shows (that we didn't go to). It rained for two days straight when we were here, though, so we mostly saw the inside of their museum and restaurants, and were really busy making bad decisions about walking vs driving and getting completely soaked. It's also here that the state of (the smell of) our campervan went downhill rather quickly, given the overall sulphur smell of town, and wet everything. Mmmm. Did see some cool exhibits on Maori life and some cool bubbling springs (they were everywhere around town, fenced off, though, i suppose so all the tourist don't accidentally stumble into one).

bubbling muddy sulphor-hotsprings in Rotorua

- Also walked through one of their California Redwood Forests. Yes, California. Apparently all their trees in this area were crap to build with, too soft and such, so they planted a bunch of foreign species to see what would take. The redwoods definitely took. Apparently the volcanic soil is awesome for the trees, and even though the forest we were in is only 100 or so years old, they have some huge trees. Guide said some of their 100 year old trees rival the size of some of the old growth trees of California. Kind of fascinating.

Pondering California in New Zealand

- Waikite thermal springs, posted about that...was awesome.

- Headed to Lake Taupo, beautiful area. Just wandered around the lake and the town there. However. It was Good Friday. I did not get the feeling that New Zealand was a particularly religious country, but they take their Easter holidays pretty seriously. Not only is almost everything outright closed on Good Friday and Easter Sunday (fine, fine), but they have weird alcohol laws on these days for the few open spots. NO booze sold at a lot of places, and the ones that do, you HAVE to order a "substantial" meal. Then they get really specific on how to categorize "substantial." This is THE LAW. The country took time to specify meal requirements for drinking beer on this holiday. This resulted in a pretty strategic conversation with the (British, and also bewildered at this law) waitress because we weren't hungry, but we were thirsty (ordered pasta and took most of it with us for dinner. HaHAAA! Loophole!)

Lake Taupo waterfront, and sad empty beer gardens

- Next morning, crack 'o dawn, Tongariro Alpine Crossing. Very cool day hike that takes you past Mt Ngauruhoe (aka Mt Doom), through volcanic rock formations, steaming vents, emerald lakes. Legendary hike, that a lot of people do. And we were there on Easter Saturday, one of the busiest days of the year. It is 19km long, and the entire way we were completely surrounded by people. Hiking in a line, pretty much. Either stopping to let others pass, or trying to pass others, ourselves. But the landscape was crazy and beautiful and the masses of people almost felt like part of the experience, so I'm still glad we did it (Adam may feel differently!).

Tongariro Alpine Crossing....a small break in the constant stream of hikers

Adam's excitement, somehow captured in one single photograph

This one is titled, "Tongariro Temptress." Just kidding. I've had a beer.

- Whanganui - cool little town where the Whanganui River meets the Tasman Sea. Not much open, (EASTER!!) but we did check out a hilltop lookout. Took an ancient 1910 elevator to the top of the hill and met the woman who's been operating it for FORTY YEARS! 40 years in an elevator. She joked she's only still there because "they" wouldn't let her out, ha!! Cool view... Mountains, river, sea.

Tunnel into hill to reach Whanganui elevator

View from top of Whanganui elevator tower... 

Tasman Sea, Whanganui (Castlecliff, really) 

- I had made Adam take a scenic route to get to Whanganui. It followed the river, was totally curvy and pretty, and sometimes you weren't convinced the van wouldn't topple over the cliff into the river. So Adam loved it. But road karma caught up with me immediately, for my next turn driving, as we left Whanganui for a highly recommended regional park outside of Wellington - Kaitoke (they filmed Rivendell here, too). And it was only $NZ12 to camp. Sold. But oh my god, the road through the mountains to get there. Not only was it windy, and almost entirely on a cliff, but it's a two-way road on a one-way road width. You have NO idea when a car will come barreling around the corner and you'll almost die (the answer is "often"). Speed limit was like, 40 or 50 mph; I think I went 20 the whole time and often felt too fast at that. New Zealander drivers on the road with me did not. They are crazy.

But! We didn't die, the campsite was cool, everyone in all of Wellington was also camping there on the holiday weekend but it was still fun, we made it to Wellington the next day, the end.

Wellywood

Sus v Orc from The Hobbit™ whose name escapes me. Pic taken at Wellington iSite, NZs tourist info centers

We are currently on the Interislander ferry crossing Cook Strait to reach the South Island, which I figure is a fine time to write about NZs capital city, Wellington, also called Wellywood for it's massive involvement in the film world. To begin our time in Wellywood, I gotta take us back to Auckland. On day 2 of our travels, or maybe it was even day 1, we met a nice dude named Matt at Brothers Brewery. He was nice enough to share a table with us while he waited for a buddy who was apparently stuck in traffic. Good thing as we three got to talking. He was visiting his wifes family in Auckland, though they live in Wellington. After chatting for a bit we exchanged emails, and he suggested we meet up in Wellington. Deal.

Fast forward almost two weeks and a couple of days and we drive into Wellington early on Easter Sunday. We decided we would stay at a Campervan spot that was on the water, and walking distance to most of the points in the city we would want to see. Really this place was a glorified parking lot with bathrooms / showers that are code locked. In the morning as you shuffle from your Camper to the toilettes, you are basically walking with daily commuters on the way to work. It's a bit odd, but not bad. Anyways, it was in a great location, and we basically walked to all points needed save for the Weta Cave (The production facility responsible for LOTR, King Kong, The Hobbit, District 9, etc). We spent a lot of Sunday in the NZ national museum Te Papa (fun to say). Te Papa is a gorgeous mostly free museum, filled with plenty knowledge on Kiwi life. The coolest thing we saw was a Weta produced exhibit on Gallipoli. Weta built large life-like sculptures of NZ soldiers, and one nurse, from Gallipoli; It was weird to enjoy such a site that was all about NZs involvement in war, but it was quite well done. 

Gallipoli exhibit at Te Papa

Also, while staring at one of the oversized sculptures a Te Papa worker came up to us and just started telling us about the process Weta had to go thru to make the exhibit. Right away we could hear his American accent, so we asked where he was from, which was Louisiana. His name is Bruce and he's been here for 15 years. Anyways, we told him that we were going to Weta the next day which prompted Bruce to tell us how he was a gorilla consultant on Peter Jackson's King Kong. His contribution in his words was this: "I'm responsible for King Kong's ass." Supposedly he pointed out that the crack in Kong's rear was too long, and Bruce had Weta fix the mistake. Dunno how true this is, but we are choosing to believe him. He was awesome.

Riding the cable car face

After Te Papa we went to get lunch, but thanks to Jesus rising, this proved to be more difficult than expected. We had planned to take Wellington's "famous" cable car up to some gardens post lunch, but since we never found anything to eat we went straight to the cable car. The ticket people told us the cafe at the top would have some food, so we took the cable car up with a bunch of other tourists, got off and went to the cafe. Which was closed. Thanks Jebus. Now we are hungry. We looked at the views, but it all looked like burgers and fries. Supposedly there is a village up there with a proper pub, but we decided we would walk back down to Cuba st. in the city center. Which we did, and which proved to be a good decision. The walk was about 20 minutes, but it felt like the 40 year wander through the desert. Anyways, Cuba st. It's a main drag in Wellington with cafes, bars, and shops. A fine spot for a good meal. We ate at a place called Fidel's. Felt good to be sitting, and eating.

Havana Coffee works, not on Cuba st. 

Later in the eve we met up with Matt at a place he suggested: Goldings Free Dive. A cool spot with plenty of NZ craft beers on tap, and a lot of Star Wars stuff hung on the walls. Good atmosphere, and we learn that Matt wants to brew his own beer. Rather take the beer he has been brewing and sell. After Goldings we wander to one more spot, the name slips my mind, but it's more proof the beer scene is alive and well in Wellington, which is not a surprise, but something to note. Also at this place Matt corrects the way we have been saying Dunedin, which is a city on the south island. We had been basically saying it like it was written by Tolkien: Doon-eh-dine. But it is actually Do-need-in. He laughed as he corrected us, and we totally appreciated this. Thanks Matt!

Sus and Gollum at Weta Cave

The next day was our Wellywood day. We had a 1030am tour of the Weta Cave, and we planned on seeing a movie at the Embassy Theater where LOTR premiered. First off the Weta tour was awesome. For 25 nz bucks you get a 45min to an hour tour of where a lot of the models, costumes, and sculptures that Weta makes. It's not pretty, but it is inspirational, at least to us. One work in progress we saw was a bunch if miniatures from the movie Labyrinth. I think the tour guide said they are making a game based off the movie, either way we got to look at these awesome little clay hand sculpted figures that looked spot on. I'd show you pictures, but no photographs allowed. We also got to touch the fake skin used to make people look like dwarves, wizards, goblins, orcs, etc. . After the tour we took some photos with the trolls from The Hobbit™, and headed back into Wellington.

High five buddy

We checked out the Te Papa one more time, exploring their exhibit on the local flora and fauna which was quite nice. Post museum we figured it was time to sit in one place for a few hours so we went to the movies. Batman v Superman was playing at the Embassy Theater, a 3 screen cinema, the main one being a large classic theater, which is the one that premiered LOTR. Honestly, I was probably more excited for this than warranted, but also it was so nice. The theater from the outside is very unassuming, but inside it has a great classic feel. Old floors, a winding staircase, and big windows that look back out on Wellywood. It is basically everything I'd want in a theater. We also got some edamame to take into the movie. High class folks. Anyways, the movie was not great, but that barely mattered. The cinema experience was worth it. The inside of the main theater was so grand, a great mix of new and old, that any complaints I have about the movie were overshadowed by the theater. Also they played old timey movie tunes before the show. Seriously, if you find yourself in Wellington, see a movie at the Embassy, it's all worth it.

After the movie we grabbed a late night dinner at a burger spot, one of many restaurants to choose from near the theater. A nice end to a Wellywood day.

The following morning we packed up the van and got ready to board the ferry for the south island. One regret was not going to Victoria park, it has great views of the city, but it's also another LOTR filming spot: The "Get off the road," where Frodo senses the Wraith is close. Ah well. Next time...

Swimmers in the water

Waiheke: Why Not?

So in my head this blog title is cracking me (and probably only me) up because it's pronounced "why-hee key..."

Get it? HILARIOUS!

Anyway.

After Auckland City Limits, which was cool (and proved we are old, and still like sitting in the back of festivals, even internationally, and also proved teenagers are the worst everywhere, even if they do have charming accents), we headed to Waiheke Island. Though Auckland was a nice enough city, everyone, including and especially Aucklanders, told us how much they don't like Auckland and to GET OUT and see other stuff. So we did!

Waiheke is an island just north of Auckland, about a 30 min ferry ride away, filled with wineries and hippies and rich people and tourists. Apparently the hippies were there first and now just piss off the rich people with their old non-rich house boats. Ha.

Not too shabby

We opted to do a winery tour via a hop-on-hop-off bus (they called it a "hopper"). The driver said we'd be doing well in the day to hit up 3 of the 8 wineries on the tour course. We ended up going to 6, and one of them twice. Classic.

The day was pretty amazing; highlights include:

• In classic Kanner form, we immediately missed all buses we were supposed to get on to the main town where Hopper picks up (unlike everyone else on our ferry, who apparently got the memo), but the driver of another unscheduled bus offered to take us because "hell, I don't have anything else to do."  I am loving the locals.
• The first wine stop at Te Whau (fun fact, the "wh" is pronounced like an "f"..) on a more isolated point on the island.  It was just beautiful; great wine, cool owner...but the owner maybe ruined tons of other wines for us by telling us that, unlike his winery, others who don't hand process the grapes often use weird shit like bulls blood (among other things) to hide the taste of tannins (which get crushed in by machinery when it's not hand processed), and that weird shit is never on the label. Great.  But who am I kidding, I'll still drink all other wines.

Getting as much non-bull's blood wine while we can

• A winery called Stony Ridge had the most beautiful view and setup (and of course I've tried to upload a photo of this place 3 times but the blog must have something against it...). We then walked down to another winery close by that advertised "adventure" with wine and beer. This equaled archery and shooting, which to me (and probably most normal people) seems like an odd combo. You walk up the front path and a bunch of people are aiming their guns at you...laser guns, but no one makes the effort to tell you that at first. Good wine and beer, though!
• We chatted it up with a couple from New York, Lisa and Brian, and had a hilarious time with them closing out one cool little hidden winery, Obsidian. We all then made the excellent decision to hike over a few (gorgeous, picture-perfect set of) hills to another spot, also set to close until we convinced them to stay open just a bit more if we bought a bottle.  

The trek begins

This is when the day starts to get a bit spotty but trust me, it was fun. Night ended when we hiked further to StonyRidge once again (we'd long missed our hopper at this point) to find that the previously family-friendly kid galore spot had turned into some kind of crazy after-hours hot-spot with beautiful people lounging around and dancing to a DJ. So clearly, we fit right in.

Classing up the place

And by the end of the day, I felt like this:

Pretty sure Adam did not feel like this. Photo courtesy of future me, at a really cool farmstay campsite 2 days later.

The end.

Last Night's Campground...

...Was pretty awesome. We had just been in Rotarua, known for its geothermal action, and headed south. This spot is still in the hot zone, and is situated right next to this boiling hot spring....(is about 98 degrees Celsius at the spring)...

 ...which they use to feed their 6 hot spring pools and tubs.

Use of hot spring pools and camping in this gorgeous valley was about $29 US. Big fan of NZ.

other posts coming soon when i have the wifi and patience to load more photos. So far have had a great time in Auckland, Waiheke, Hobbiton, Glow Worm Caves, Rotorua, and now on the way to Taupo and Tongoriro. Whoop! 

New Zealand: Like Lord of the Rings

For those that watch Flight of the Conchords

Hey, we did it. We visited Hobbiton, the rebuilt set for The Hobbit Trilogy™ from Lord of the Rings. It was as silly as it may sound, but also totally worth it. You shuffle along with a bunch of other tourists, and that is a bit of a downer. But also, it does not matter. We took some fun pics, and grabbed a "free" pint at the Green Dragon. 

Happening Now: Hahei Beach

First camp spot, guessing they all won't be this nice.  

Post ACL we went to Waiheke Island for some wine & views, neither disappointed. But this morning we left Auckland by way of Campervan, saw Hot Water Beach, and Cathedral cove. I'm sure Sus will write about it, post pics, but right now we are parked for the night on the beach. Awesome.  

Auckland City Limits

Here are some pics from ACL: 

Early

One of the bands St. Paul and the Broken Bones just after their set taking in a band.  

Grace Potter

The National

We left before Modest Mouse and Kendrick Lamar, too old, too tired.  

How to Time Travel Without a Delorean

Thursdays... Who needs 'em, am i right? When you're totally feeling your Wednesday but want to skip right over to Friday, it's just as easy as a 13 hour flight to New Zealand. Bam! Wednesday night skips right into Friday morning. 

Sorry for skipping over your birthday, Justin Kanner!

But not sorry for skipping St. Pattys day.

Catch ya later, America (and Wednesday) 

Well hello there, New Zealand (and Friday) 

Venice Beach Layover

Sus and the Pacific

Snack

Will Arnett with Will Arnett

Beach Buddies

Packing (kinda, if you dont compare me to Adam) Light

From this... 

Not sure yet if this is a lot or a little... 

To this... 

Pack that shit up! 

To this! 

Except i couldnt really zip it. Minor details.

So packing for 4 months maybe looks like this instead. ..done, until i realize how i dont need half of this.

I wish i had a banana for scale

All Packed?

via GIPHY