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Home sweet home?

Well I made it, after 40 hours of traveling I'm back in Toronto.

I may never be able to thank Kelley and Jacob enough for showing me around and having the patience to put up with me for so long. And I was a little sad saying goodbye to them at the terminal - okay I was really sad. I'm going to miss hanging out with them.





One last look at the views from Kelley and Jacob's apartment.

The final good-bye at the airport.

If this were a television drama like Sex and the City, Grey's Anatomy or Men in Trees I'd have one of those summarizing monologues ending the show...

It would be a voice over that the trip made me realize what was important in life. And after looking into the eye of one of nature's greatest predator, plummeting to the earth with a towel and dog leash on my ankles and being sloshed around in a giant rubber ball I've learned to have the courage to go after anything in life.

But I'm not Carrie Bradshaw, Anne Heche or skanky Meredith so I'll just tell you I'm tired and nauseous and a bit cranky to be at work.

Embrace the Fear

Today I just did the more frightening thing I have ever done in my life. I stood on a ledge and flung myself off a bridge with only an elastic band to save me.

I'm still alive.

Seriously, I wasn't worried about dying. I went to the original bungy site and in over 18 years AJ Hackett has had over 500,000 people at that site alone and 100% safety record in all locations worldwide.

When I booked it this morning I was starting to feel queasy but I distracted myself. And I was fine until I was there for the video introduction that is supposed to motivate you to jump. However, they made a comparison against skydiving and said because skydiving is so high when you jump you don't get the rush of plummeting to the ground. At the point you're near the ground you're actually sailing in your parachute. Whereas with bungy you get the full rush because you are so close.

Now adrenaline junkies would see this as a positive but it actually frightened me.

But I'm stubborn and determined to do it so I sign up and head out to the bridge and I'm starting to think wow this is high. They strap me into my leg harness and I'm really thinking it looks high. I tell the guys I'm terrified and they are trying to work me up to do it. I inch out to the ledge with one of the guys and I'm doubting whether I can do it.

So this is the moment. The guide says 3-2-1 and I... well I bend my knees but I don't jump. In fact I don't think I can jump because they are shaking so badly. I hear the crowd gasp.

Then he tells me to just jump because staying up there just makes it harder. So 3-2-1 and I... kind of jump but really just a bigger knee bend and the crowd gasps louder and I really think I can't do it. But I have to do it. There's no way out of this. So I tell him that this time I'm doing it.

3-2-1 and I go. I scream the entire time. There were people on my tour in the parking lot that can hear me. It wasn't just a scream on the way down but the way down, the way back up, the way back down, the way back up. Finally I run out of scream and the guys in the raft below want me to scream once more - but I can't.

So what can I say. I'm glad I did it. The free fall was so terrifying. It's like when you're in bed almost asleep and all of a sudden you think you're falling and you try to stop yourself. Except this time you are falling for two seconds. You would not believe you long two seconds lasts.

But I conquered it and I may never do it again, time to move onto something else that is scary. But not today. And not tomorrow either.

Below are some pics that one of the girls took for me. I also got the DVD which I'll burn and send to you and I'll scan the pictures they gave me which are much better.

Here's the big pep talk, he's telling me I can do it, it's good that I'm scared "Canada you can do it!" And I think that maybe I can.

Kelley warned me that there was a pole and not to grab onto it because, like her, I would never let go. I swear I did not intentionally grab the pole but your feet are bound together and you have to waddle out so you need something for support.

Fortunately they've gotten smarter since Kelley jumped. They remove your hand by distracting you and telling you to wave to the camera. They are clever!

Finally I did it, here is the freefall and I'm screaming bloody murder.

Unbelievably I'm still screaming here.

The boys below asking for just one more scream.

Helihike on Franz Josef

Happy to be out of Greymouth, we drove to Franz Josef, we stopped briefly in a town that has so much gold in it that when you buy a house you only own the first 6 inches of land and cannot dig up your backyard - well you can but if you find anything you have to give it to the Crown. We arrived just in time to go on a helicopter ride up the glacier for a two hour hike. It was very pricey but if you're going to go, you should go all the way.

The helicopter ride was very fun, our pilot did some moves that made us scream and turn our stomachs, but no worries it was completely safe.

The glacier was quite a bit colder at about 10C but I had pants and wore several layers of t-shirts. They provide you with boots, cramp-ons (spikes so you won't slip), socks and jackets.

The glacier is much different than the one in Canada that breaks off and falls into the ocean. This one does not melt but it does move 3 feet a day down the hill. It is formed by snow and rain that fall further up the mountain which cannot melt because it's so cold, the weight of the ice becomes so tremendous that it gets pushed down the mountain forming a glacier.

They divided a large group into smaller groups and we were designated at the slower/want to take pictures group. There was a group of people from Australia and boy were they slow, but it was good because it gave me time to take lots of pictures.

These are digital only and underexposed a bit so I'll need to fix them. I also took some film which should turn out much better, I'll swap them in once I find a place to develop to a CD.

The view from the helicopter, we were two-thirds of the way up.

I was going to stay here another day to go kayaking but there is supposed to be heavy rain tomorrow so it'll be a good day to take a bus ride to Queenstown and I may try to catch the fjords in Milford Sound.

Oh it was wild...

Somehow the stars aligned and I was in the South Island for the annual Wild Foods Festival in Hokitika. It started out with a group of farmers who wanted to one-up each other by eating weird things and became so popular over the years that they now have a major beer sponsor and attract 17,000 people.

It can best be described as a hybrid of Apple Blossom with a stagette/Halloween party. I got there at 9am and most of the people there camping out in the parking lots had already started drinking. But there were families and tourists who wanted to try the food. I walked down to the main area, a large park with a big open field acting as a giant beer garden with $4 beer and it was already busy. I knew it was going to be a good day.

People dress up in theme, mostly in groups. So a bunch of friends will come as lifeguards, police, cowboys or just weird clothing. And then there are several acts ranging from African drumming to a Bee Gees tribute band and everyone sits around drinking and eating. People were very friendly and going alone wasn't bad at all.

I immediately tried the crickets, all of the food was served in conjunction with other food so the cricket was on a cracker with cream cheese. It looked disgusting (pictures to come, these are only digital and I couldn't crop or fiddle with them) but wasn't bad at all.

I have decided that after eating the venison (deer) burger that I like venison. It was the third time I tried it and I will continue to eat it at home. I also tried horse and it tasted like low grade beef. Surprisingly I had never had rabbit before, which was nothing special. Grasshopper was also a bit tough because it was so large that you had to eat it in two bites.

Look closely and you can see the big black grasshopper.

However, like Apple Blossom it gets a bit dodgy around 4 or 5pm. It was a long hot day and everyone was drinking excessively. To make matters worse in New Zealand you can drink on the street so even if you wanted to leave the festival you could continue drinking in public (although apparently not in the town square that day). My shuttle came to pick me up at 5pm and I was happy to leave.

Some highlights below:

A favorite among the boys, these were cow udders and I planned to go back but forgot.

The worms were in sushi so not much of a feat to attempt.

I saved opossum for the next day when we were going to Bushman Pete's on the way to Franz Josef, he calls them chicken of the forest and makes them into pies! It was okay it tasted like dark chicken meat, apparently they sell it Taiwan for $17 a kg. I imagine that's what rat and dog taste like too.

Sometimes a hole in the wall can be fun

I am travelling through the South Island on the Magic Bus shuttle service. There are several of these companies that will pick you up and drop you off at different hostels and also help you book activities. Basically you just book the locations you want to go to and you can hop on and off whenever you want.

I was quite surprised how much I liked Magic Bus. All the girls from the wine tour were riding it. It's a pretty good group of people and very diverse in age. The nice thing about it is that they stop several times on your way from one location to the next so that you can take a look at some of the tourist things you would have missed. The driver is also very good pointing out things and telling you what to do/where to stay.

A few highlights on the way to Greymouth were Paparoa National Park and a 40 minute walk around Truman Track to see the coastline:

And Punakaiki where there were Pancake Rocks which weren't as impressive as the seal habitat. Unfortunately, like most animals, seals are often a color for camoflage so if you squint your eyes you can see them on the rocks. I'll need to crop this picture.

We arrived at Greymouth and I was prepared for the worst. In all travellers accounts I've heard that Greymouth is the pit stain of the South Island. All the shuttles use it as an overnight stop on the coast but it's a very ugly town with nothing to do.

The hostel, Noah's Ark is quite nice, there is a huge kitchen and all the rooms have animal themes. I stayed in a dorm room with 4 other people and met a girl from France, Marie, who has been here 5 months working on a holiday visa. She was trying to get a ride to Nelson because she was so broke she couldn't afford a shuttle.

The highlight of Greymouth is the $5 all-you-can-eat sausage BBQ at the Railway Tavern where all the locals go. Marie and I met up with the women from the wine tour and headed over to see what was going on.

Not much was going on. It was a typical tavern with old men drinking and watching sports. The beer was really cheap, about $2.50 CDN for a drink, so I bought Marie and I draught remembering what it's like to be broke and hoping that I'm never as poor as she is right now.

The dinner was surprisingly good, I guess charcoal can make anything tasty and we stayed for the band. It reminded me a bit of the Edge, a band playing Bryan Adams and Joan Jett and no one dancing except the crazy guy. It started to heat up once a drunk lady brought her rhythmically-challenged but eager to please husband out to dance. She also decided that our table should dance so I actually got up for I love rock and roll.

The best part was some drunk Kiwi guy decides he's going to tell the two Scottish girls what's wrong with Scotland and how to fix it, except he kept getting them mixed up with the Irish but he knew what was wrong with them too - or so he thought. His equally inebriated friend was bright enough to interpret that the girls' rolled eyes and looks of disdain and carried him away to go to another bar.

All in all I think it was the best night you could possibly have in Greymouth.

New Zealand has great wines

I made it to Nelson on the South Island and I'm alive. I don't know if you (Mom) or Kelley were more worried that I could actually survive on my own in a foreign land. What would have happened if I went to Tunisia?

The flight was only an hour but they didn't take us through the metal detector or x-ray our carry-on luggage. Apparently they don't think that anyone will bomb the plane while in it, atleast going to Nelson I guess.

My first impression of the South Island is that it is absolutely stunning, if you could cram all the wonderful landscapes of Canada into a tiny country it would look very similar. While in Fiji I had asked several people what they recommended in New Zealand and universally they said it didn't matter where you went because it was all beautiful and I would agree.

Nelson is a very small. I find some of the New Zealand towns very odd in that their sole purpose is to support the tourism industry. Without transient backpackers coming through the towns likely wouldn't exist. It's just an eerie feeling when they look at you in the grocery store like they're happy to have you but you're also a pain in their ass. There must be a good analogy there of something that you need to have but it's a pain. I'll keep thinking.



My hostel Accents on the Park.



The shuttle bus driver told me that I had picked the best hostel and he was right. It was extremely clean and the people were very nice. It is relatively low-key because most people are getting ready to leave the next morning or go to Abel Tasman to kayak or hike. I had a really quiet night, I didn't have the energy to be friendly and meet lots of people so once I settled in I went to bed. However, I came to learn that most people at this hostel are often in bed at 10 or 11pm. Nelson isn't exactly a party city.






The main tourist street in Nelson, very nice but the service is terrible. The first night I had a pint and waited over half an hour for the waitress to come back and ask if I wanted another. Finally I went to the bar and paid. The second night I was at a pub and waited over an hour for dinner, after everyone at the table had already eaten, they forgot to put my order through even though they kept saying it would be there shortly. Maybe they should work for tips.

I hadn't been to any vineyards and Kelley was quite disappointed so I thought I would do a tour. It was cheaper than Abel Tasman and I knew I could kayak elsewhere. Also, it was a lovely afternoon to consume a bottle of wine.

Before we get to the drinking I should try to recall the things I learned:
1) 90% of New Zealand's plants/trees are not native. You see a lot of oak and pine from North America.
2) 95% of New Zealand's trees are evergreen so they don't experience fall like we would.
3) New Zealand also introduced a lot of animals to the country which wreaked havoc. The most notorious is the oppossum which they brought over for the fur trade which subsequently went belly up. Unfortunately there is no natural predator so they eat all the kiwi bird eggs, destroy the forests and New Zealand declared war (well they did 50 years ago) and are trying to kill them off - I should actually credit that factoid to Jacob who told me on the way back from Gisborne.

Okay back to the wine:

The tour was mostly couples but there were several solo women and one man from Chile. It's funny how women seem to come together when traveling alone, you become friends immediately and you're always asked out to dinner or to events because people know you have no one else to go out with. In fact, in some ways I think it's better than travelling with someone because you meet so many people. Whereas if you see a couple you just assume they want to do things on their own.

So I spent most of the day drinking wine, eating bread and antipasto with a girl from England, another from Scotland and two women from Ontario and Ireland. They had quite a few wines that I knew I liked. They also had the German 'box o wine' that we have at Christmas.


The wines were okay, some better than others but I discovered a new food item called Dukkah, when you dip your bread in olive oil you then dip it into this mix which is I think grated nuts and spices. I bought some and plan to figure out how to make it myself.

After a tour to 5 vineyards in the summer heat we headed back home. I had a nap and then met the women from the tour for dinner at a local pub.