Kristopher's New Zealand Trip

*If you are looking at my moms comment i already corrected the mistake

So we have finally made it onto the South Island. If you ever go to New Zealand, let me give you a piece of advice. DON'T CROSS ISLANDS IN THE EVENING WHEN IT IS DARK. It was super boring, because we couldn't see anything. The ride was 3 hours on and the only thing they had playing on the television was Corination Street. I am pretty sure that it is the worst tv show in exsistance. Anywho, before the ferry ride we had to get from Wangarie to Wellington. Along the way we stopped in the nice little town called Otaki. Just out of town down a massively long gravel road wide enough for half a car, is where the campground we stayed in was. The ride was fun though and after fording a small river you get to this spot where like 5 valleys meet to make an impressive, naturally vegitated valley. Well it was so nice here that we spent to nights at the campground. In town there was a nice sheep shop where I purchased a very nice sheep skin. Let me tell it is nice. Also a couple days prior I purchased a book on surf-casting. I had been studying the book for a couple days now so me and Jordan went to the towns hunting and fishing store to look into buying a rod. Man did we get lucky. The guy that was working in the shop (I think he owned it) was a surf-casting genius. He helped us purchase everything we needed to get started, which was surprisingly little. We needed a rod and reel, 20 test line, and a leader line which starts at 15kg and moves to 50kg as it gets closer to the hook. We also got a rig and a replacement hook. In surfcasting apparently you hardly ever lose tackle, lol that will be a big change. This guy had actually designed the rig that he was selling us and that everybody uses. The rig is designed to keep crabs from getting your bait. The rod will blow you away, its bigger that any rod you have ever seen. It is 14.2 feet long and breaks down into 3 pieces that are just over 4 feet. The reel is massive and hold a couple hundred meters of line. What happens in surf-casting is you cast your line out at least 70 meters, some go past 300! Then when your hook is out there baited with a very oily bait, your sinker digs into the sand and you pull the line taunt. When a fish hits your bait the sinker gets pulled out and you reel your fish in. Can't wait to try it out. After Otaki we gunned it down to Wellington and looked around. We went to the national museam, which was free. It was pretty good but really draining because it was very dim and quite. After we decided to hop on the ferry and go to Picton. Last night we slept in the campground and did laundy today. It was fun. Hoping everybody is enjoying the snow at home because we are getting tired of the rain. Talk to you later everyone. Pictures coming as soon as possible.

*note this is one day late because of internet issues yesterday

So lately we have been moving south down from Auckland to Wellington. We have been doing a couple things but mostly we feel that we will come back here once the weather gets better. First off we stopped at Matamata for a couple of nights. We found a cheap campground that had great facilities including a hot spring. It was super good because the weather was fairly sour for 2 days. Once the third day came and it was nice we decided to do the sights. First we went on a hobbiton tour. It rocked so hard and we got to see the gardeners working on the garden in preperation the new movie The Hobbit. Brandie, you would have loved it. Sadly most of the Hobbit holes were almost destroyed because New Line Cinema are pretty tight about their contracts. Then we went on a hike that went up a hill to give you an amazing view of a 157 meter tall waterfall. It was terrific. We hiked up to the top and were able to look down from the top of the waterfall from a viewing platform. Then it was off to Rotorua. In Rotorua we visted an old Maori thermal village. Moari are the native peoples of New Zealand. This village was located on the fault line and had thermal pools all around the village. One pool had no known bottom. It was 102 degrees on the surface and as far as they could test it it went over 240 degrees celcius. Then they ran out of wire. Everything smelt kinda like rotton egg salad fart, but you got used to the smell. After doing the sights we moved on to a campground near lake Taupo. Apparantly New Zealand biggest lake. It was not that huge. The road to the campsite we were going to was closed because they had recieved a little bit of snow, so we parked on the road and slept there for the night. It got pretty cold at night but I have a good sleeping bag so I was fine. Then we drove down past the lake, past mount doom, lol that was for Brandie, and to another campground. It had a nice creek there that we made a stone bridge across because we were bored. On our way to the campground we picked up a hitch hiker and drove him down the highway to the town he wanted to go to. Today we drove to Wanganui. Lol I think that is how it spelt. Anyway we have rented a cabin for the night, should be good to have a nice bed for the night. After a lunch of smaughtfaught, can't spell that either, we are just checking out the town. Raining so we won't be able to do anything outside. In the next couple of days we will make our way down to Wellington and catch the ferry to Picton. Thanks to all the comments people have been leaving, love reading them

So the last couple days we spent driving up to Cape Reinga from Paihia and back to Auckland. We drove for a couple of kilometers down the 90 mile beach. That was pretty cool. We even saw a dead seal or something. When we got to Cape Reinga it was amazing. Where the Pacific Ocean met the Tasman Sea was incredable. From the cliff that we were on you could see the white water in the ocean and all the crazyness. After spending a night in the campground up there and getting hung up on a hill we went back down. On our way down instead of sticking to the 1 we drove down the 12. Man did we win with that one. We got to see the biggest Kuari tree on earth. It was 50 meters tall and had a first of 13 meters. Then we saw the widest and it had a girth of 17 meters. It was unbelievable. After we got out of the forest we stopped at a Kuari gift shop. The people there were selling Kuari gum, (which is amber from a Kauri tree) They had pieces there that were very cloudy and over the next 10-15 years would clear up as they dried, because they had been buried for the last 40-50 thousand years. It was pretty cool so I bought a massive hunk of it for 95 dollars. I will put a picture of it up soon. After that we drove to the campground we were staying at for the night. We had a nice evening walk in the forest hoping to see a kiwi because it was a kiwi reserve. We didn't see any but it was still a really nice walk. After some hot showers (so refreashing, cold showers suck) we hit the sack. Today we gunned it down to Auckland and we will keep going until we get out of Auckland and find a place to camp.

So 2 days ago we got to Paihia. We looked around for a bit and came to this tour shop. At the tour shop we decided to do a combo where we start off the morning on a dolphin watching ship and then hop on to a sailing catermeran in the afternoon. After it was booked and paid for we found a campsite and hung our there for the night. Come morning it was looking pretty gloomy but we headed out to our tour. Once we were on the dolphin boat they called our name on the intercom. We went to the desk and they said the sailing was cancled but we could do the whole dolphin thing today and the whole sailing thing tommorow. This was a win because it was 89 for the dolphin and 115 for the sailing and we paid 150. Right off the hop we dolphin watching we found a pod of about 7 dolphins. There was even a calf. We watched these for about 40 minutes then headed on looking for some more. We didnt find anymore but we saw a lot of nice coast line. The next day we headed out on the sailing ship and it was a lot nicer out there. We sailed from 10 till about 12. Then we went into a bay and had an amazing barbeque. After eating we went ashore and went on a fantastic hike. After getting back from the hike i was baking and everyone else was just sitting around. So I threw on my swim stuff and jumped off the boat. It was cold but soon 5 other people were in the water. I put on some goggles and went snorkling. Only saw one fish for a brief moment but it was still cool. On our way back there was a dolphin that swam with our ship for about a minute. That was super cool. Just as we were getting back to the warf the weather got real sour and we couldn't pull up to the warf. We all had to pile in this guys zodiac and he drove us up. Super wet. Thats all for now tell you whats happening next in the future.

So we finally got out of Auckland. If you go to New Zealand, DONT BOTHER WITH AUCKLAND. We started drving north in our Nissan Stagea wagon. Lol its my dream vehical i tell you. There is nothing better than a beautiful station wagon. After drving north for a while we saw a sign for Snells Beach. Thinking that this was a public beach we headed that way to check it out. It ended up being a town named Snells beach. After drving around the town for a while we did discover a beach. We hung out at the beach for a while and collected some shells. It was really nice cause there was a rock you could walk out to and then about 2 hours later you couldn't because of the tide. It was about 7 when we were done eating supper on the beach and decided to go to bed. We hadn't seen anything around the area so we just slept in our car at the parking lot. Twice during the night a car came and turned around in the parking lot. Once I am pretty sure it was a police car because it shone a light on a car as it drove by. But they never woke us up. In the morning we went up the road to a regional park that was on a beach. It was a really nice cove and had a nice trek up through sheep pastures to a cliff overlooking the ocean. We were just starting another loop of the hike when it began to rain. We waited under a tree for a bit while it rained heavy then when it lighted up ran back to the car. The park was on a cool homestead and had some neat farm buildings. We drove north the rest of the day and ended up at a park  Waikahoa Bay, Mimiwhangata. Today we went to a kiwi house and waterfalls. Next were going to a glow-worm cave.

So our flight is finally over. I started out saturday at 2:45. Departing from Winnipeg to Chicago I flew right over Grunthal and even managed to spot my home. When I arrived in Chicago I got lucky and got to my next flight right away. When I boarded that flight I realized I had somehow gotten an economy plus ticket and got a whole lot more leg room. Then I landed in LA a couple hours later. LA was horrible to navigate but an hour later I was at the next departer gate. An hour later I met up Jordan and an hour after that we boarded the plane. Just before we got on we exchanged my ticket so we could sit together. When we got on the plane we found out that we were behind a wall so we once again got a ton of leg room. After 3 movies, a couple chess and checkers games, a TV show and 2 meals we landed in Auckland. When we landed we went to pick up our bags and Jordans name was on the intercom. We went and checked it out and his bag was going to be a day late They said they would delever it to the hostel that we were staying at. So we left the airport. We got outside and debated renting a cab or taking a bus. We decided to start walking for a bit. All of a sudden the sidewalk we were walking on ended. Just as we were leaving to turn around an asian guy pulled over told us to hop in and drove us to the hostels in the city center. Lol now we are officially backpackers. Once at the hostel we checked and started wandering around. We looked at a couple used vans and now are realaxing. Hope everyone is doing good at home

So a couple days after i purchased my tickets to New Zealand with expedia I noticed that I had placed Kristopher Bryan on my ticket instead of Kristopher Martens. My middle name is Bryan and that got mixed up with my last name. I figured whatever this should be easy to fix. So I called expedia and they told me name changes weren't allowed by the airline. I told them that I wasn't changing my name I was correcting it so they "Called Quantas"  and were told that the answer was no. After recruiting my mom, we called Quantas and were told that a name change was possible and the $200 fee would be waved on this case. When we told Expedia this they "Called back" and were told that this wasn't authorized. After spending at least 20 hours on the phone we gave up for a bit because the farm work began to get more intense and it was hard to find the will to get myself to call them for an hour after work. Then at the begining of August a schedual change was placed upon my ticket and i began to use this change in contract to negotiate a refund. I began speaking to numerous Expedia agents and supervisors having them call "Quantas". Finally one agent that seemed to be either in India or a very recent immigrant and didn't understand the Expedia policy I think and gave me the number that the agents called to reach Quantas. I called Quantas myself and talked to a super helpful agent named Eliza. She understood my difficulty with Expedia and authorized a full refund and no penalties. The next day I called Expedia and was given the run around and had my calls dropped three times. The day after that, i spoke very firmly with a supervisors and finally got him to call Quantas and he found out they authorized a refund. His employe then did my refund. For some reason the money will take 6-8 weeks to show on my credit card, but its okay because I recorded the entire call of them authorizing a refund so if the refund does not come I can take them to court.

My best friend (Jordan Mahara I know this is the first mention of who I am going with) and I finally bought our tickets. We managed to get a flight on September 19, 2009 from Winnipeg to Calgary to Los Angeles to Auckland. Then the return on April 22, 2010 is from Auckland to Brisbane(Australia) to Los Angeles to Denver to Winnipeg. We bought our tickets for $1475 each after all the taxes. Look it up that is really cheap for a flight to New Zealand. Things are pretty much locking into place. I'm ridiculously excited and have started telling almost everyone I start talking to.

It's been a while since the last post. Thing have started tocome together. My visa is ready. Tickets to New Zealand are ridiculously cheap right now. I'm thinking of getting my ticket very soon. We have started planning where we want to go first, and then how long until we move on to the next region. I'll post again when more details are confirmed.

Well this week I finally got my mastercard so I was able to apply for the Visa. It is a working holiday visa so I can get a job if I need one. It cost my 120!! so I hope it goes through.