A detailed post

so i've had comments from a couple of camps that i am being slack with this. so here is a comprehensive account of what we have been up to recently... this morning because the sun is now coming up earlier, we got up at approx 8.30. haha! nah not like that...
okay - will start with SNOWBOARDING
wooohooo!!! so we went up to cardrona on both tuesday and wednesday a couple of weeks back. fantastic weather! hired our boards off the mountain which meant we could get up there and get going. the first morning was sooooo frustrating! spent a lot of time on our asses - em got it at first better than i did. i was just sitting on the snow seething for quite a while :) at one point i was sooo close to going and renting some skis and ripping up the big slopes but stuck it out. i got my front edge first while em got the back. but neither of us were that great at stopping and my way seemed to be falling down the slope flat on my back! haha! the afternoon's aim was to get the opposite edge which for me meant i had to turn around as my unfit self was unable to stand up on my back edge! but eventually got that too so by the end of the day we were both doing falling leaf on both edges and getting a few clumsy turns on there
day two- ps.. we had sore muscle to the baddest!! which made the morning a bit owee as the muscles loosened up again. i also had the unfortunate occurence of my feet going numb when i was halfway down. potentially problematic. so todays aim was to get the turns going. we went back on the learners (magic carpet) which was quite good coz there was tonnes of lessons around us which we poached the ideas from. hehe! who says you have to pay? so mid morning we both had our front turns going (mine from front to back edge and em's the opposite) and were slowly getting the other turn. so befor lunch we decided to just do it and bust up the chair!! made it on to the chair alright - but getting off was a different story! briar had earlier told us that the best way was just to fall so thats exactly what we did! i like to think i was graceful :) that first chair run was very long... we both fell over multiple times but it was great! i even got some linking turns going.. woohoo!! styling! after lunch we went back up the chair - all in all about 5 times i think. in the end run i only fell over once! yeeaahhh!!
so conclusion... snowboarding = cool once you get it :)
ps... the biggest injury of the day was when em was putting her board back on the bus (which was driven by a cute pink pompom hat wearing boy) and didn't reverse before standing up so slammed her head.. hard.. on the storage lid thingy!! haha!! dumbass!!




right... moving on....
on thursday we cruised back to dunedin for em's grad. was a good weekend. caught up with some people and went to etrusco for em's grad dinner. good times. except... civilisation did not agree with either of us and we got colds. me esp bad. grrr!!! also em wanted to stay longer to spend some time with erwin (her boyfriend). that combined with crap weather on tuesday meant we didn't actually leave til wednesday - only leaving us a few days. still better than staying in the city. el capitan is not built for cities after all!

look how pretty we look :)

went into central via the pig route which means going over the kilmog's north and then busting inland from palmerston. real remote in there (the hills have eyes!) and there was quite a bit of snow around. we stayed that night in st bathans which is a very small town next to a cool blue lake - the result of gold sluicing back in the day. went for a wee walk around the lake with a random dog friend who was barking at the water - we thought he might have been able to see spirits in there - st bathans is known to be haunted. we slept in a potentially creepy site there where i had the worst sleep ever

em and jack the dog - is he barking at ghosts?

next day went and had a cuppa with johnny's dad snowy (johnny is em's old flatty who works at etrusco) who lives near st bathans. he gave us a porterhouse steak to take with us as well. awesome! we were both feeling quite blah so went to alex and wandered around. em tried to parallel park and ended up on the pavement! haha! then went to a random, and definitely freaky, campsite just outside of alex with semi-permanent looking caravans. the hills really do have eyes!!
had to head back to dunnos (again) the next day but went and looked at the clyde dam first and lake dunstan. another stunner of a day (we have been super lucky with the weather - only a wee bit of rain and cold). did an hrs walk of part of the otago rail trail too from alex. was so warm that we stripped down to t shirts! yeah! goodbye pasty arms! then drove back through central via middlemarch. question - who knew mosgiel was so big? they even have traffic lights!!

rail trail photos...

Still in Wanaka...

yip thats right - still here - due to varying circumstances... none of which are bad though! are planning on staying here til thursday too and going up the mountain before heading back to d-town for em's grad.
sooo.... went to puzzle world the other day and completed the maze in the amazing time of 23mins!! yeah!! i challenge anyone to beat that!
the last couple of days we've been hanging out in wanaka - em's boyfriend erwin came up for a few days from dunno's which meant we had to stay reasonably metro (he can't handle the complete outdoors!) i got the van to myself for 2 nights which was awesome - and woke up one morning to find frost INSIDE the van!! woah! crazy shit
but The Captain is usually great at catering to our night time requests - i'm sure the mountain of blankets we have helps - and i mean mountain :)
life as a hobo is interesting though - we have been getting 10hrs of sleep most nights. its amazing how the lack of artificial light makes you tired earlier. and we have been finding all kinds of things amusing - for instance we have started calling the footstep of the van 'the trough' for some reason - we chuck our shoes in the trough to keep the van clean, things sometimes fall in the trough when we drive... it bears no resemblance to a trough but has somehow gotten this name which we - and i think only we - find really amusing! it is the butt of many jokes
and then there is the constant quotes from the simpsons and anything else we can find. and our newfound hatred of people. we went to queenstown the other night for a bit and it freaked us out heaps! lotsa people and cars and... eeew!!! just not not cool at all!! whats with this metro lifestyle?
okay now i feel like i'm just blabbing so time to move on... next time will have amusing stories of snowboarding attempts. bring it on!
oh and if anyone has any questions then feel free :)

A week and a bit...

okay okay... i suck at putting stuff on the blog. promise i will when i have a bit more time. photos too! am now in wanaka for a couple of days... gonna go up the mountain next week sometime and try some snowboarding with em. should be interesting considering our co-ordination levels!
since we started we have been to stewart island for a couple of days where we did the first day of the rakiura track, then round the bottom of southland - colac bay and tuatapere - up to fiordland and milford and then came up to wanaka the day before yesterday. went to black seeds concert last night which was fricken cool! i recommend :)

monkey island in southland (monkey island! what they got there? apes - but they ain't so big

mountains over te wae wae bay in southland - we saw hectors dolphins on the other side

did the whole milford sound thing - pretty cool but i think some of the other stuff we have seen is almost better. esp coz theres been no other people there! lake hauroko in fiordland was awesome - super clear and pretty with snow mountains around.

obligatory milford photos...

the reflected mountains in mirror lake

little whirlys at the entrance to milford sound

hollyford valley

early morning at lake hauroko.. which is the deepest lake in nz at 438m. deeper than the sea level at which it sits!

haha! em's pirate shadow at lake hauroko

a robin friend from lake hauroko - we had the most epic meal here with our tuatapere sausages (its the sausage capital of nz!) and steamed veges in a makeshift tinfoil container on the one off grill. those things are gold!

lake monowai - fiordland

had a freaky incident when driving from there to te anau - at the end of a one way bridge there was a bunch of branches on the road and what looked like safety tape. em got out to have a look and discovered there was a dead cat under the branches and the tape was just toilet paper. a bit odd... i got out to help her and then a person started meowing from the bushes!! freaky shit!! we had moved the main branch and got the heebie jeebies so jumped back in the van and drove over the top of the remaining stuff. it gave us a bit of a fright so we stayed in te anau that night near people (not to mention the most fantastic bathroom ever!! we're talking heated floors and lights and mirrors and radios.... porcelain heaven!!)
The Captain is driving like a dream and we are becoming accustomed to his little tanty's that he sometimes throws. he drove in snow the other day too - at mavora lakes. yeah!
right gotta go - sunny outside and puzzle world is calling!!!
laters

hehe! our 'hobo to hot' photos! what a transformation!!!

It begins!

Heya friends! Well heres the first of hopefully many posts about the adventures me and Em get up to in our wicked phat van. First news is he has a name! Yip our van shall now be known as The Captain - or as I have recently been calling him - El Capitan! Woohoo! A slightly piratical theme due to the curtains being like sails and Capt Jack Sparrow watching over us from the dashboard. Good times :)
So I will post photos of the van on here soon for those who haven't seen it yet. And just to recap - Em and I bought a pimping van for the cool cool price of $1200. All kitted out with bed and kitchen stuff and all kinds of other goodies. Have since had it painted up with a custom paint job so it is very psychedelic now. (Thanks again Guy!) The plan is to drive around the country in our baby and see this beautiful country of ours before Em has to bugger off back to Canada (sniff) at the end of October. So if you are in the country let us know where and we will most likely drop in for a visit and shower and to do the laundry!
The van plan begun for real on Monday when we drove down to Invers with the thought of continuing on to Stewart Island the following day. Managed to get a bed for the night in Lisa's old flat (cheers Amy) and went off to Stewy the following morning on some wild seas. Pretty much just got off the ferry and walked the first day of the Rakiura Track from Halfmoon Bay to Port William. Was a good day - a bit rainy and I was slowly dying due to my complete loss of ability to walk up hills. I blame living in flat Westport! But we got there in the end - went for an ultra quick swim which I can say was refreshing in the least! And settled in to a night in the hut with our new found hunter friends. There were 4 of them - ranging from 16 to about 60. We played some crazy games of Hearts with them and drank their gin. Haha!
Ah shit this is turning into a short novel - surprise surprise - so just to wrap it up... walked back out from Port William yesterday, consumed lots of junk food, made friends with a random Swiss boy in our backpackers and met a crazy French man who had just walked the North West Circuit alone and hadn't talked to anyone in 7 days... and woke at the crazy hr of 6.30am to ferry back to Bluff. Have been messing round in Invers for the day and are heading over to Tuatapere now. Will write more soon...

Some photos of beautiful Stewart Island... if you get the chance to go there... DO!