Latino Girls' bums really do swagger!!!

Hi all! Happy New Year, hope you all had a good one, and all the best for the year ahead. Bring on 2013!

My 2012 ended with a trip down to Auckland, with a very special (and pleasant guest) after about an hour of convincing! So worth it!

Last night

I did my goodbyes in Paihia, before Sandra and I headed on a 3 hour bus ride down to Auckland, and arrived for what can only be described as an awesome, unplanned night. Sitting in one of the bars with live music and varied company. But our personal favourite was Steveo, who helped to make my last night in New Zealand so memorable! I spent the next day getting my last few things together before leaving New Zealand on the night of Friday 28th December 2012.....

.....had a 12 hour flight.....

....to arrive in LA in the afternoon of Friday 28th December 2012...........WHAT!?!?!?!?

I was only meant to be stopping over in LA for 5 hours before heading to Denver.....but due to storms in Denver, they changed my flight company completely and flew me all the way up to Newark 8 hours later. Before eventually heading all the way back down to San José. Arriving in Costa Rica at about 11 on the Saturday morning.

The view from the hostel balcony in San José

I stayed in San José just for a night, before using my finest Spanish to get me a bus ticket down to Manuel Antonio, about 4 hours south of San José.

Somewhere between San José and Manuel Antonio

Spent pretty much all of New Years Eve surfing with Californian boys Kai and Tyler (who am I kidding, everyone in Costa Rica is from California) before drinking in our hostel, then tryna head to Quepos for the night scene only to have to head back to Manuel Antonio as no ATMs had any money in them, just in time for midnight! Sorry to any taxi drivers we clearly upset.

The mass pour down at about 7 on New Years Eve

2013......Sandra feeding the habit....STILL, from so far away!

Tyler and Kai

Hay, Chica!

More Aussies!

Manuel Antonio beach on New Years Day...pretty as!

On a long long long walk on New Year's Day to get some money from an ATM, this walk actually made me ill!

Monkey playing in the tress

I should've edited this video first, but its taken too long as it is!

On New Year's Day I woke up (late, but) feeling fine. I wanted to do the National park, but needed money so worked to the closest ATM which was miles away, got back and just passed out for like the next 2 days! My head was seriously gonna explode! I woke up the next day, some how packed my stuff, got the bus to Quepos, got my bus ticket, then the bus back to San José....I slept all the way. For the first two days of 2013, I think I was only awake for about 18/19 hours.

I arrived in San José to meet my new group, before eating then heading straight back to bed. A conversation from being woken up by my roommate, Gareth, on that night:

"Mike, do you know that you were sleep talking"

"Erm, ah, no but I can definitely believe it"

"OK, well is there anyway that you can stop"

"Haha, no sorry dude!"

Serious question I got asked! Although a little later that night I did wake myself up saying "¿Cómo está?"......maybe speaking Spanish in my dreams freaked me out too! I also found out in the morning that at some point in the night I shouted out "living the dream" (which I can only assume was done so in my full on 'ampshire accent, as it was well over-pronounced back to me). But that whole thing just made me crack up....I said I was sorry, but to be honest I was way too proud and found it way too funny to be sorry.

That day we headed north onto La Fortuna where I spent my very chilled out birthday at a waterfall and an orphanage  PS thanks for the cards and messages, and presents (I've already started adding to the list)!

From our hotel in La Fortuna

That night Steve and I lied, and managed to get out on a sick as Grade 2/3 White Water Kayaking trip for the following day:

Tame start

Nailed the whole river! BOOM!

More photos to following, in my next post.

We then headed East to cross Lake Arenal before heading south onto Monteverde yesterday

Crossing over Lake Arenal

The sun set from the hotel yesterday (where I am currently)

Headed out to a local club yesterday in Monteverde....seriously them Latino guys can salsa ..well! I loved watching! Trying it was a completely different ball game! I wanna see more of that. But I've honestly never felt more white in my life! And today I headed to Senderos De La Reserva De Santa Elena with Annmarie

Arenal Volcano

And that brings me pretty much up to date.....let's see how long I can keep this up whilst travelling around!

So tomorrow we will be crossing the boarder into Nicaragua, which will be double figures of countries from me on my travels, and country number 2 of Central America. It's been a fun 9 days of varied weather and scenery! Time to move on up and on!

I think someone needs to tell the Kiwis that the Allies won the war, cos this place is full of......

So like I said from my last post, we got LOADSA SNOW on our last week...so much that we were closed on the Wednesday (suspiciously) and on the Saturday (not so suspiciously, the weather was crazy). Left for a pretty fun last final week up there.....

Tom taking me back up the mountain on the Friday...checking out "make-out point" as he likes to call it!

Cheesey taking me off the mountain on the Saturday morning, you really couldn't tell where the road stopped and the edge of the mountain started.

Fun things to do on a wet closed day off. We also did blind folded wall climbs.

Heading up the mountain for the last time, we had such a big dump over night that we pretty much had a 3m summit

I know, why did we close!

So that'll be the last picture that I put on my blog of Mt Hutt, I am aware that there probably was a few too many! Aint I good to you all! So apart from missing out on a cheap heliski, a chance to help the Patrolers cause some late night explosions, and a helicopter ride up the mountain on the last day to work (that one really p'd me off, apparently we can't text if we can't make it to work, but its perfectly fine the other way round when they need us!!!) I pretty much did everything up that mountain. After an awesome last day in fresh, ungroomed powder, I did about an hours work, before grabbing my things off the mountain and heading off with the rest of the staff. Homeless and Jobless yet again....time to get on it I suppose!

Methven was pretty much dead from the next day, and it got quieter and quieter as time went on. Spent most of the next week carrying on my job/house hunt. I had a couple of interviews in Christchurch, including giving punting a go down the River Avon. I'd like to say it was fun times, but it got boring pretty quick.

Heading down to Christchurch with Mel and Rachel with yet another New Zealand Traffic Jam!

Tom and I got so bored that on the Friday we hitch-hiked our way down to Queenstown. We were gonna leave at about 8ish in the morning, but Thursday night's antics kinda held us up, and we ended up leaving at about 11......we got pretty far down, and even after going off route and checking out Mt Cook, we still got down as far as Omarama before calling it a night and heading back the next day. Still sick as to get out of Methven.

A kiwi doing what Kiwis do best!

Back in Methven:

Don't mess with a drunk little Liz!

Methven Rodeo

Southampton boys doing what Southampton boys do best.....Getting over yet another Southampton defeat on an all-day bender! RODEO STYLEY

I did get offered a job in Hanmer Springs. So I left Methven the following Wednesday, and headed slightly further north.

After Arriving in Hanmer on the Wednesday, I got offered a job in Bay of Islands on the Thursday morning, so I quit my bar job before I even started it. And just made the most of my time in Hanmer.

The top of Conical Hill

Mountain biking on the Friday:

After checking out of my hostel I camped for a night!

On the Saturday a group of us aimed to head to Castle Hill for bouldering and camping, but the weather was terrible, so we headed to Christchurch for our BBQ on the beach, then headed to Castle Hill the following day.

The following day (last Monday) I started my long adventure to the north...north of the North Island. I spoke to Taylor (my new boss) to see if I minded if I took my time getting up to the Bay of Islands, to which he encouraged me. I got myself a rough plan of what I wanted to see and started my hitch-hike.

About 9km out of Hanmer

Spring Junction....

..About an hour away from Hanmer

Maruia Falls

A random stop with a Polish couple

After getting 5 rides I ended up in my first destination: Motueka. I booked myself into Hat Trick Hostel for two nights and booked myself on the Aqua Taxi to do the Abel Tasman!

Setting off last Tuesday morning

I stared my walk from Bark Bay

Oh, and I walked all my walk either bare-footed or in my flip-floops

Torrent Bay

Where Anke and I had lunch on Torrent Bay

Cleopatras Pool

Not even half way done, and only 3 hours left to make it to Marahau....I still made my on personal stops, and back on time!

Anchorage

Coming to the end.

Abel Tasman is seriously one of my favourite parts in the world. I could've put so many more photos on this page (but I feel like I already have loads). I will be going back, 1 day was way too rushed. Next time I will take camping stuff and spend several days doing the whole thing. If anyone was to ask what my 10 favourite landscapes were from my travels I would bring up Abel Tasman for sure. The weather definitely helped. Loads of hidden little (amazing, beautiful) beaches and hideaways.
I had a night out in Motueka with Anke, before getting up the next morning, and carrying on my journey. I got a ride from Anke (a German) to Nelson. Then Ross picked me up and took me from Nelson to Picton so that I could get the Blueridge Ferry form the South Island to the North Island through Cook Strait. Windy as!

Picton

Auf wiedersehen South Island...

...And hello North Island

Wellington

Is it wrong that I took a photo of these...probably...but this girl was a miserable bitch, so what of it, now they're on the internet

Wellington's a pretty cool city, I could set up there (I won't, but I could), I managed to convince Alex (another German) to head to Mighty Mighty with me to check out some local bands, and it ended up being a pretty sweet night, with some awesome local bands, and awesome locals! First night in North Island = Great Success! I then did all the touristy things for a day...(thanks to Kate for all your help and advice, it was good to meet up with you (a friend of my cousin Kate)).

For Russ, if he ever reads this!?!

600ml of Iced coffee costed about $3.05...2 litres cost $3.50 = challenge accepted...and passed!

Up Mt Victoira

Wellington's awesome, it has a St. Mary's, and this...

Inside Te Papa Museum, anything and everything NZ!

Colossal Squid

..And my previous home

My home to be..

And for Rosie, if she ever reads this!

Tokelau dancers for Tokelau Language Week

After another night out in Wellington, I carried on my journey north, getting the Intercity bus from Wellington to Rotorua, stopping off briefly at Taupo on route

Room at Curtis Jacks, thanks to Alex's recommendations

The Thermal Pools!

Saturday, time to tick something off of the bucket list. Grade 5 white water rafting down Kaituna River with Kaitiaki Adventures.

Lake Rotorua

It looked cool, it spelt out "ROTOURA" with really cool effects on the "O" but I obviously wasn't in the best picture position

Another random all-nigher with the hostel crew, ended up woth me having a Maccy Ds brekkie, and deciding to start hitch-hiking further north. I went back to my hostel, grabbed my things, checked out, and by complete fluke got to a stop just in time for a random Intercity bus driver asking if I wanted to go up to Auckland, so I just jumped on his bus...and several hours later.....Auckland:

Albert Park

Yes to Iced Coffee...it's been so long!

New Zealand 1 - Australia 0

I never really planned to stay in Auckland, so I texteed Taylor to tell him I'd be up later that day, and jumped on a bus to Paihia....thnak you to MIchelle for keeping me company all of that ride! I arrived in Paihia on Sunday evening for Taylor to come pick me up and take me back to my new home. Taylor and his wife, Ruby, have started a Kayaking tour company (just under a year ago) that give a boat cruise followed by a Kayak tour (and under) Haruru Falls. Please check out http://kayakcruises.co.nz/site/. I haven't been out on a tour yet, but today we started maintenance on the boat for the season, aiming to work on it all tomorrow, and Thursday morning, to be up and ready for tours again on Thursday evening, but I was out on the boat today to take the boat through the river and into the dry dock. But more on all of this in my next post. But pictures below were taken yesterday....in my new home for summer:

Oh, just one more thing, I did catch my first ever fish today:

And that's been my last 4 weeks. I will put more on Paihia in my next post!