Back in the Good Ol' US of A

Home again, home again...Well, not quite yet
Sorry to those who've been checking, we have been weak about updating.
Everything went well with the end of the trip. We took our time driving back up to Auckland and sold our van to a backpacker from London. All kinds of stories from that whole thing, but it worked out. We took the proceeds and flew into Cairns to visit the great barrier reef. I got PADI certified and we spent a few days on a liveaboard boat diving and snorkelling. After that we hopped on a plane and flew back to Auckland and eventually back to LAX. We are now in San Diego visiting my brother, his wife and our new niece, Annabelle. Back to Columbus this saturday and back to the real world. Time to get a job, find a place to live in Dayton and get our stuff outta storage.
See you all soon.

Still Truckin...

Well, we managed to make it all the way around to Dunedin for the Easter Weekend and got a hotel for a couple nights. Free wireless and it works well if I tuck myself in the corner of the bathroom. So over the last month or so we've driven down the west coast, through Fiordland, down and around the south coast and are starting up the east coast.

The best part of the west coast was probably the Glaciers... although it could have been the 4o hrs we spent in a cow pasture waiting for the rain to stop. From there we headed south to the town of Wanaka through Mt. Aspiring National Park on a very impressive stretch of road. A lot of the pics are from the hike up Mt. Roy giving awesome views of Lake Wanaka and surrounding mountains.

Next, on to Queenstown, a pretty sweet little town known for being the adrenaline sport capital of NZ. Lots of bungee, skydive, jetboat, you name it. We did not partake opting for the comfort of a hotel room for a night. From here it was a few hour drive into Fiordland National Park, a truly unique and amazing place. We ended up spending almost a week checking it out and took a cruise through the infamous Milford Sound. This is also when the sleeping bags came out marking the end of summer. We've had some cold nights, hasn't froze yet but some trees are changing.

We spent several days on the beaches at the bottom of the south with a couple days at Curio Bay trying to swim with Hector's dolphins. Had good weather for it but no luck. We saw plenty but only a couple from the beach. I swam out a few times but with the water in the mid 50s it made it tough to swim for too long even with a wetsuit. We were, however, lucky enough to spot a yellow eyed penguin.

No major problems yet with the van so far. Most every problem has been fixable with either superglue or silicone sealant. Both have worked wonders. We've put on almost 10k and are now pushing 408,000km and going strong. We plan to drive it round trip back to Auckland getting there in a month and a half or so to get it sold. Hope everyone is doing well and we'll see you all in a couple months.

West Coast

More west coast camping pics. Nothing like a room with a view.

Cape Foulwind

Stopped at this beach on the way down the west coast. We hiked to a fur seal colony which was pretty neat to watch.

Nelson Lakes National Park

Glacier lakes, gotta love 'em.

Rawhiti Caves and Grove Scenic Reserve

Another crazy place. We went way down in the cave, not many good pics from inside. Gotta love my tarzan pic.

Farewell Spit and Wharariki Beach

These were taken at the northern tip of the South Island.
This was one of the most incredible places that we have seen.
The winds were gusting like crazy and the skies changed by the second.

Abel Tasman National Park

After the town of Nelson we drove up to Abel Tasman and spent a few days hiking around.

Marlborough Wine Festival




Leaving Marlborough Wine Festival



Where we slept after the wine festival


French Pass


Elaine Bay near French Pass


On the way to Elaine Bay


Cloudy Bay




City of Wellington






On the ferry crossing to the South Island



Queen Charlotte Sound - S. Island

Nelson

Hey everyone. We made it over to the South, the ferry ride was calm and we even got to see some dolphins. We are now in the Marlborough sounds region in a town called Nelson and spent this morning in the town market stocking up on fruits and veggies. We also caught a few songs from an impressive bagpiper group roaming the town. We have been to the Queen Charlotte and Pelorus Sounds which are amazing. The landscape is quite different from the north island. We're going to drive along another Sound and then see about hiking in Abel Tasman National Park.

BTW, we changed the blog settings so now you don't have to register to post.
Of course, more pics to come.

South Island Here We Come

Well, i'd say its been a pretty nice little January so far. We just got into Wellington, the southernmost tip of the North island, and will likely spend a few days here before taking the ferry across. This is a very cool city. Right now its about 80, overcast with 130km gusts coming in over Wellington Harbor. Pretty impressive to see. The museum here allows overnight parking in the heart of the city for $10 so that's where we're sleeping tonight. We haven't had to pay to camp up for about a month so we'll cough it up for a couple nights and explore the city.

We pretty much just finished a 3day canoe trip down the Wanganui. We got to paddle 88km in a very beautiful, secluded river gorge. It was also at historically low levels which meant it felt like we were paddling against the river at times. It was good though and it was nice weather, hot and sunny.

Before this we spent a few days hiking in a volcanic area called Tongariro national park. This is where the Mt. Doom volcano was filmed for all you Ringmasters out there. We've seen a few LOTR sights along the way but none that were really anything special, except mt. doom I suppose. I hiked up Mt. Ruapehu, which actually erupted very recently. There was still lots of snow up there so I got to do some JH slides on the way down.

Weather has been awesome. Very little rain. Mostly sunny and clear in the upper 70s.

I just put up a bunch of pictures at my online picture dump. http://picasaweb.google.com/stearnr

O-H-I-O

Hi all. We are currently back in Taupo at an internet cafe listening to the national championship game since we couldn't find it on tv anywhere. At halftime, things not looking so good, but we still have faith.

So, since last blog we have spent Xmas in Rotorua-a thermal valley complete with boiling mud pools, hot springs, and the smell of sulphur. We went through a couple of thermal parks and got to see some neat pools and springs results of volcanic activity many years ago. We have found several hot streams that are great to soak in. From there we spent some time in Taupo hiking and viewing Huka Falls, and headed into Te Urewera National Park. We were woken up by an earthquake on our first morning camping, just a small one. Then we headed out on our first Great Walk around Lake Wakaremoana. It was a 4 day/3night hike so we spent New Years in the middle of this trek and were asleep by 10. The last day of this trip also marked 8th day without a shower. There were a couple swims mixed in though.
After this grueling trip, we headed to Gisborne for the beach (this is the place that got the 6.8 quake a couple weeks ago) , then down to Napier/Hastings/Hawkes Bay to some wineries. It wsa great, we only made it to 5 considering they all had free tastings of 6-8 of their wines.
What's up next for us is Mt Tongariro hike and a 3 day River trip down the Wanganui. We plan to cross to the South island within the next 4 weeks.

More pics are up at http://picasaweb.google.com/stearnr and more to come.