Im home, here's my trip in New Zealand:

I started out in Christchurch. I stayed one night with a local through a website called couchsurfing.com, much better than a hotel by yourself. I hit the road right off the bat to the north end of the south island.

Stayed the night in Motoueka, then headed out with a couple guys from Antarctica for a Kayaking Trip around Abel Tasman National Park. We paddled a few hours a day, then made camp, and usually had the beach to ourselves. In the afternoon wwe would paddle out to an island to explore or go hike.

I stayed in Nelson for a night, bough some equipment and set off on a 10 day trek through the New Zealand bush.


Then I went and sprained my ankle, hike over. I got a girl to carry my pack back to where I had started that day. A doctor, just my luck, had pain meds and tape on hand. So the next day I wrapped the ankle and tried to hobble out. I got to a lake and with another lucky turn a family gave me a ride on their boat, saving me another two days hobble.
With rest in order I got ahold of friends from Antarctica, Lenny and Rhoda. Every year they stay at a house on the beach in Golden Bay. They had offered to let me stay so I decided that was the next place I would go. I stayed in Nelson for a couple days with the folks I was hiking with, then I rented a car and headed on up with Lindsay, the girl that was so nice to carry my way-heavy pack. Twice. The second time she actually hiked back to find me and took my pack. Awesome. We hung out for a couple days, spent time on the beach and hung out with baby seals.

Next, after dropping the rental car in Nelson, Lindsay and I hitched back down to Christchurch. We got good, long rides the whole way. One British couple even stopped at all the tourist type spots along the way and even bought us coffee and cake. We stayed on night in Kaikoura on the way. Lindsay and I split ways and I went out to pick up a motorcycle. I looped around most of the south island. About 1700 miles in 7 days.
Qweenstown At the Montieths brewery. The tour was pretty rinky dink. And it cost $15. And at the end you get a couple little tiny glasses of beer. It doesn't add up to one whole beer. BUT. Being Sunday there was only one lady there to run the whole operation and she had to run off to man the gift shop. She left the bar un-manned. Mistake. Me and 3 Canadian girls kept the taps flowing. We got our monies worth and then some. The tour guide was pretty cheesed when she came back an hour later to find the four of us, well, we'd been gulping beer for an hour.
Near Dunedin I stayed in this old church converted to a backpackers hotel. It was owned by a really cool old Swiss guy, Tony. He had been riding choppers since the sixties. He had all these photo albums of his travels all over europe on the bike and all over the world on a push bike. In his office he had a 1960 Sportster (nucklehead) that he built him self. Its still runs.

Last stop: Wanaka. They put on an air show here every two years. The town reminds me of a mountain town in Colorado. It was really amazing they could put together such an airshow for how small the country is. Impressive. They 'bombed' targets and had WWII re-enactment soldiers there. Odd to see a guy in full German get up sitting on a bench smoking a cigarette with a guy in US GI get up.


Well, yeah, thats that.