Aug 2006

Beer is living proof that God loves us and wants to see us happy. -Benjamin Franklin[i]

A plane has transported us from New Zealand and Lord of the Rings to the massive country of kangaroos, every animal in the world that will kill you immediately, and where everyone adds "[i]ie" to the end of every word. "How about some brekkie this morning? Ah crockie! There isn't any bread left!"

Our time here in Cairns, Australia has one definitive characteristic that is different from New Zealand, it's warm!!! I really do enjoy a little warm weather and I can be in 70 degree solidarity with everyone back in Texas and the rest of the States suffering from the heat wave. I feel your pain, on the beach.

This also marks the point where we are not returning back to school, teenagers, psychological tests, papers to be graded, yet we are continuing our responsibility to travel around the world for another 7 months. We will be thinking of y'all as we sit on a beach reading a good or bad book. Someone has to do it. Crockie, we've been traveling for 2 months already. Time, she is passing by quickly. Alright, enough about the fact we aren't "working," what have we been doing?

There is one thing every person that visits Northern Queensland must do, and that is to visit the Great Barrier Reef! After a few days relaxing, we boarded our sea going vessel, the Super Cat, to transport us to "The Reef". We climbed on the boat that was jam packed with 110 other enthusiastic snorkellers and divers. The ride out to the reef took a little over an hour and the combination of wind, waves, and a rolling Super Cat, sea sickness came to those not able to focus on the horizon. Neither one of us succombed to sea sickness, because we were to busy talking to Deb and Krista on the deck of our super feline. Deb and Krista are two Canadian kindergarten teachers we've run into three times now. So we chatted about the wind, the need of a wetsuit, waves, and the probability of actually running into a great white shark.

Upon reaching the reef, we gladly jumped into the water with a massive, and I do mean massive set of coral under our fins. Nadine and I proceeded to search, discover, and take in this incredible mass of coral reef along with a few of its buddies swimming around. Unfortunately, we never did find Nemo. He must have been busy with interviews for a sequel. We only spent 30 minutes in the water. As we were snorkelling, we were being cooled by cool water and wind passing below and over us. In addition to that, clouds hanging over our dive spot (I really think they began following us as soon as we left the wharf), and Cyclone Larry caused the water to be cloudy. When the sun actually hit the water, it lit up the entire reef full of thousands of colors. Quite impressive.

After our dive, we enjoyed a little gastronomical delight prepared by "Frenchie," the onboard chef for an hour with a Belgian couple, before we continued on to our second sight. At the second sight, we were accompangied by clouds and few of their closest friends. As a result, the colors of the reef and fish weren't as bright. The waves were quite a bit larger and threw us around like New Mexicans at a rodeo. From there we rode back to shore, and as you might have guessed, as soon as we were a decent distance from the reef, the sun revealed itself. Stupid sun! We really don't need the sun. The experience was great, and we were both really felt fortunate to see such an amazing natural wonder.

After the dive, we both decided to visit the tropical Tablelands on a 2 day tour. Bart, our tour guide, picked us up nice and early and ready to take on the day. The beginning of the first day, we visited the Cathedral Fig Tree, which is over 500 years old. What's unique about the tree is that a fig tree has an unique story. When a bird injests a fig and later poops it out on top of a leaf on another tree. What happens is that the fig tree starts growing on top of the tree that it landed on. Over years, the tree grows up and its roots grow down, covering the original host tree, looking for the ground and water. Seeing one of the trees makes you want to climb it and swing around like a kid.

After the fig tree, we passed by a few volcanic crater lakes and made our way to the Millaa Millaa Falls. As the most photographed falls in Australia, according to Bart, it was a nice little place to photograph AND swim. Swimming in this little pond with the falls pounding on top of rocks is only for those who have a carpe diem spirit. Nadine and I were the only ones to partake and we had to psych ourselves up to swim in the ice cold water. Once again, carpe diemish. We swam around for a good 5 minutes to the waterfall, under the waterfall, and back to shore feeling quite rejuvenated and awake. We also saw a platypus in a creek close to town of Yungaburra....tiny little bugger.

Next day, we enjoyed the country side with some mountain biking and an afternoon of canoeing on Lake Tinaroo. Lake Tinaroo is located over a former town, and people dive to search the houses laying at the bottom of the lake. We continued up a tributary where we did a little face painting with the red ochre rock. Simply wet it, rub it against another rock, and you have a red paint. We reverted back to our time in preschool. On our way out, we were lucky enough to see the timid and shy tree kangaroo. He didn't feel like leaving his tree branches to socialize, but we did see him.

One thing that we have discovered here in Australia is, FOOD! Cadbury chocolate is made here, delicious. There is a type of cookie, or biscuit for non-Americans, called Tim-Tam. Every flavor is awesome. Best cookie I have tried, other than Tracy's chocolate chip cookies of course. The third food I have come to enjoy are hamburgers with the lot. Now what is the lot? Here ya go. In addition to your regular meat, there is a toasted bun, lettuce, tomatoe, onion, the Ozzies add carrot, fried egg, bacon, some type of "special" sauce, pineapple, and for those of you who like beets, they add beets. I have passed on the beets.

Our time here in Cairns, Northern Queensland, is coming to an end, and tomorrow we are flying across the country to Adelaide and the wine country. We are not going to drink and drive, we promise. Instead, we are going to drink and ride a bike. Much safer.

Boots and Hailey, I hope you have a great first day of school.

Congrats to the older Pepper twin for correctly stating the title of this blog before I had even written to it.

It's not a contest to see who can put the most comments on the blog, all it shows us is the person that is our best friend. Nothing big. No pressure. Enjoy the blog, share it with others, but read in moderation please.

Two questions for everyone if you have made it this far in the blog.

Question #1 - What is the difference between a cyclone and a hurricane? Also, why are they called the Iowa State Cyclones?

Question #2 - What is special about the amethystine python?

Answers will be revealed next week. Oh the anticipation.

Peace
John and Nadine

Caterpillar: and who are you?
Alice: I hardly know, sir, just as present at least. I know who I was when I got up this morning, but I think I must have changed several times since then.
Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

Always in the big woods, when you leave familiar ground and step off alone into a new place, there will be, along with feelings of curiousity and excitement, a little nagging dread. It is an ancient fear of the unknown and it is your first bond with the wilderness you're going into. What you are doing is exploring. You are undertaking the first experience, not of the place, but of yourself in that place. It is an experience of essential loneliness; for nobody can discover the world for anyone else. It is only after we have discovered it for ourselves that it becomes a common ground and bond, and we cease to be alone. - Wendell Berry

Greetings all from Christchurch, New Zealand! We have been quite busy driving around the South Island on the left side of the road. We have seen, this is a rough estimate, 20 million of the 40 million sheep in New Zealand. A few were being chased by a few eager male human Kiwis. They said that the "baaahhh" from the sheep means "more." Today is our last day in New Zealand as tomorrow we head to Australia and warm weather.

From Lake Tekapo, Nadine and I headed further south to the town of Wanaka. Our sole goal here was to ski, ski, and then a little more skiing. Nadine had been suffering from a 2 year dry snow spell. We had two ski fields to choose from, Cardrona and Treble Cone. From eager pushing by a wild haired Aussie, we decided to go to the Cardrona Ski Fields first. This was a good choice too. Cardrona turned out to be the easier of the two places.

As we drove to the mountain after having had picked up a Japanese snowboarder hitching a ride, we climbed the steep "35 minute from the bottom to the top" dirt road with no safe barriers to prevent our long fall. It was here that we realized a 4X4 vehicle would be nice compared to our little go kart. BUT, the view from the top was amazing. Nadine and I spent the morning and afternoon tearing up some major green and blue routes on the mountain. It was good for Nadine to be back on skis and good for me not to fall the first day. Now for an American or European, when you think of a place to ski, you think of long ski trails lined with trees that you can ride for a long while. That is not the reality in New Zealand. In New Zealand, the ski trails are short and you have to avoid rocks sticking up out of the snow. Those prove to be more dangerous than the snowboarders flying by. It was a great chance for Nadine to hit the slopes, and a sort of a warm-up for a more challenging day.

The next day, we drove to Treble Cone Ski Resort. Same thing, drive small car up steep dirt road for spectacular views along the way. What was great about this place is that if you purchased a 15 pack of Speights Beer, there was a coupon on the packaging that allowed you to get two ski lift tickets for the price of one. Great deal, plus the beer! Good thing that one of us got in free, that person being me, because this place proved to be more difficult than the previous day. After two runs on greens that had me falling all over, I called it a morning and spent it with some hot cocoa, a camera, some crazy green birds and spectactular views. While I was sipping on some hot drink, Nadine had the freedom to run around all of the runs. She immediately headed over to the blues and blacks. She became so excited, she almost went out of bounds on the other side of the mountain. Fortunately she composed herself and decided to stay on the trails. We finished the afternoon with a couple more runs together on some kiddy runs and greens, and Nadine had had her skiing fix for a "wee" bit. She really wants to get back to the slopes of Colorado.

After our four days in the Wanaka area, we quickly drove to see Queenstown, "capital of extreme sports" in the country that is "home to all extreme sports." If you wanted to use the word "extreme" for any part of the U.S., you could use it with New Mexico and the fact that they use green chile on all dishes. Cereal included. Now that is extreme! I would like to see anyone from Queenstown try a little green chile on their Weet-Bix in the morning. Wowzers. After our quick visit to Queenstown, we continued our circular driving route up the western coast. Along our way, we passed the impressively calm and dark blue Lake Hawea. A lake similar to this back home would have been built up years ago and full of people. We saw one single boat the entire time.

Our first stop along the Western coast was the town, and they are all towns on the South Island, with the exception of Christchurch with its whooping population of 320,000, of Fox Glacier. It has this name due to the fact that, well, it's at the bottom of a rather large glacier. You could call this the glacier district, because 25 kilometers north is the Franz Josef Glacier. What makes these two glaciers so unique and spectacular is that they have advanced so close to the sea. Both glaciers average about a meter, 3 feet, of downhill descent everyday. On a good day, they may move as much as 15 feet. Imagine this scenario - driving along a two-lane road and seeing a vast sea to your left and a humungous mountain capped in snow on your right and in the ridge of that mountain, a big ol' glacier just hanging out. That is New Zealand for you, full of jaw dropping shots.

The first glacier we visited was the southern Fox Glacier. We hiked through the valley to the terminal face of the glacier. You were miniscule compared to the glacier. It was here that you felt like a Pepper at a dance full of WNBA basketball players. Think of the bright side though, if you were throwing a party, you would have an unlimited amount of ice. Barry! Can you climb up the valley and get some more ice. No dirt this time though.

The following day, we travelled north to the Franz Josef Glacier. The Maori legend states that this glacier was created when a girl lost her man when he fell climbing the local peaks and died. She searched for him at the top of the mountain and her resulting tears the loss of her lover froze and created the glacier. I can't actually vouch for that, because when we drove up, there was a full gale wind storm smacking us in the face. So I didn't actually see her at the top. Honestly, the wind was strong enough that we were able to lean into wind and not fall over. Eventually, I ran to the terminal face, took a few pictures, did NOT pee into the wind, and ran back to the car where Nadine was waiting. Both glaciers were still quite spectacular.

From the glacier district, we traveled north to the small town of Punakaiki. It's here that you find another unique geographical anomoly, pancake rocks and blowholes. Not two items you associate with breakfast. What has happened is that the limestone at this point have been eroded over time and looks like stacks of skinny pancakes. When the high tide comes in, the water rushes in and explodes out of blowholes similar to geysers. It is a sight to take in. I felt like a kid at Disneyland running from spot to spot trying to catch the "money shot." It was so good that we first took it in the evening, like it so much, went back in the morning to watch the show again.

Our final noteworthy experience was in the city of Kaikoura on the eastern coast. It doesn't take long to travel from coast to coast. Maori tradition holds that the demigod Maui sat on his boat, the southern island, at the point where the penisula of Kaikoura rests and fished up the northern island, where we decided to hike the peninsula. There were two routes you could choose, hike along the top or walk along the beach. We went with the hike along the ridge that provided excellent views, and on the way back we returned via the beach. This is where it gets interesting. We passed a small point along the beach where we saw a colony of seals, no relation to the singer Seal. Upon our return we had to pass a small and wet jetty. As the tide was coming in, you had to time it perfectly to reach the next high and dry rock. As Nadine panicked and scared of having return to the hostel wet or dead, we turned around and did something much safer. We climbed up a grass cliff to get to the top. We did return home safely and the nerves still intact.

I already have named our first entry from Australia. I will not reveal it until week, but it is does have its origin from Dumb and Dumber, the greatest movie of all time. Hope all are well and enjoying the blog. I have to note that the top commenter of the blog is a New Mexican, Jeremy Pepper. You may not be able to win with stamps, but you can win by total comments. Keep up the good work buddy.

Peace from Kiwiland

John and Nadine

Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes.
- Herny David Thoreau

Howdy yall! Hope this latest entertaining blog entry finds y'all doing well. Nadine and I are currently here in Lake Tekapo, New Zealand. This little town of a couple of thousand Kiwis is located on the South Island and surrounded by towering mountains covered in snow and a few sheep.

Since our last email from Taupo on the North Island, we have visited Wellington, Christchurch, and now Lake Tekapo. Nadine and I have started a new little tradition. Not the climb to the top of a mountain and take a naked photo, but the day that we leave a city, we take an early morning walk through a park or forest. As we were leaving Taupo, our favorite place on the North Island, we took a nice long walk through a park that ran along side the Waikato River. The Waikato River is the largest and longest river in New Zealand and originates from Lake Taupo. Lake Taupo was created 26,000 years ago, before both Nadine and I were born, my parents might have been kids at the time, when the largest volcanic explosion of all time took place. The result was Lake Taupo, which created Waikato River, which created a perfect place to take a walk during the day. Several miles away from the lake, there is a spot where this mighty river is crammed into an area the size of a Texas sized truck. The result is a mighty, baby blue waterfall that you wouldn't want to kayak on your best day. These falls are called Huka Falls. Have I mentioned that all the water in New Zealand is really clean? If not, the water is clean and tastes so good when it hits your lips.

Anytime that you have an experience with locals that are not involved in the tourist industry, it is always a pleasure. This past Sunday, we had searched for a church, but could not find one in the phonebook, on any maps, until Nadine was luckily able to locate one very close to our hostel. We had no idea how what time it started, so we headed off around 9:25. As we walked up, we learned that church started at 9:30, perfect timing. After mass, we sat in the conference room jabbering with some local Kiwi ladies. This group of ladies that we were talking to were more or less all part of the same family. And this was a big family. The ladies we were talking to were part of a family of 9, and they each had enough kids to form at least a basketball team. Thus, after each question they posed to us, it was hard to get a word in edge wise. Here is a blurp from one of our conversations:

- So where are you heading to next?
- Well, we were . . .
- Hey Lisa, here are two Americans traveling around our clean water country. Where are you going next?
- We were thinking of . . .
- Stop that Margaret, be nice to your little sister.
- thinking of filming the next Lord of the Rings movie and slapping a few sheep around, you know, the usual.
- That sounds great, enjoy your time here.

Come to find out, they gave us the location of a great little diner where we could have a large, greasy breakfast which were craving for a good long time. They also gave us a lift to Brooklyn Cafe.

Throughout the North Island, Nadine and I traveled by bus. We decided to travel the South Island via another mode of transportation, not the scooter of the Cook Islands, brace yourselves, but an actual rental car. It's the first time in our lives of traveling internationally, that we have rented a car, and for two weeks. Identical to the Cook Islands, everyone drives on the left side of the road, and the steering wheel is on the right side of the car. Fortunately, we have an automatic transmission, and if not for that, we would still be in Christchurch a couple of blocks away from the rental facility. From Christchurch, we drove here over a span of 3 hours. Half of that time, Nadine was screaming at me to avoid that concrete barrier, that sheep, as well as that 18 wheeler. The car tends to pull to the left a little more and I am used to, and as a driver, used to being on the left side of the lane when driving, you can understand Nadine's preoccupation with my driving. It's her turn today.

Last of all, as we sat here relaxing in Lake Tekapo with not much to do other than read, we decided to finally wash our clothes in an actual washing machine. Since we had a room to ourselves, I decided to wash ALL of my clothes aside from a red rainjacket. While our clothes were washing, I played backgammon naked with a fully clothed Nadine. When it came time to put our freshly cleaned clothes into the dryer, Nadine and only Nadine went to do the transfer. Come to find out, the spin cycle did not work at all. Thus, our clean clothes were still sopping wet AND freezing. No worries on my part, I was stuck in the room naked and unable to help. Nadine had to do it alone. Nadine came soon after frustrated that I coulnd't be of clothed assistance. Being the problem solvers that we are, I put on my red raincoat and Nadine's only pair of white longjohns. The result was Nadine laughing like she hadn't laughed before, almost causing a serious asthma attack on her part, but I was able to help now. For the next 2 and a half hours, I was prancing around like an elf at Christmas time. Minus the elf shoes. Did I mention that it was cold?

Life is good, we are heading to Wanaka for some much needed time on the slopes for Nadine. We have added some photos to a few of the previous entries. Enjoy!

The human race has one really affective weapon, and that is laughter.
- Mark Twain