"Let's heat up some water for Tim-Tams"

Wow. Australia!
Flying into Brisbane was so nice, being able to see the beach and the city, with the blue water below. Getting through customs was such a hassle, as both New Zealand customs and Australian customs are tedious and difficult to navigate and clear. Adam and I found ourselves checked in for our plane, but not through security, both carrying our groceries, which incuded two bottles of our favorite beer, so we had to drink up. That's the first time I've ever had a beer at the airport!
We went straight off the plane, and got on a bus to Noosa, which we read about in Lonely Planet and is north of Brisbane by about two hours. Nooa is a small town, with lots of shops and businesses that close early and backpackers that are constantly full, so finding a place to sleep was difficult and we ended up sleeping on the beach. I couldn't think of any other way I would have wanted to start my trip to australia, except that by 2 am it was raining on us, I lost a contact, and a bush turkey was trying to steal out food. Fabulous! We survived though, finding shelter and waking up with the sun, spending the day on the beach until we found ourselves a caravan park close to town that had sites where we could put up the tent and sleep cheap. My favorite! We spent about four nights in Noosa all together, and in the middle we went on a three day two night canoeing trip up into the everglades, through Lake Cootharaba. I didn't think I'd like the canoeing trip very much, as I prefer to kayak, but we had a great time. The water in the river was a dark amber color, because of the pH balance, and the reflections in the water were sometimes better than what we could see in the sky. It was so quiet there, with the sounds of the bird calls (which are so incredible, by the way. I'll try and post a video) the paddles, and the clouds. The trees are called Paperbark, in the same family as the Birch tree, with the bark literally shredding off as a deterant (we think) from termites (a huge pest here). The first night we discovered our new fuel in our stove didn't work, so we had cereal for dinner, then breakfast in the morning, all of our granola bars for lunch, and were desperate by dinner time. We did a hike in the middle of the day up to a sandpatch which went for miles. I didn't think I'd be very impressed only because of my times spent at the dunes near Michigan, but it was wonderful despite the rain. We couldn't even see all of it's vastness, but the fact that every day the footprints left by the visitors there are completely wiped away by morning is so unreal. I think it would be such an experience to be the first person to walk on that sand in the morning! We headed back to camp though, after our lunch of granola bars, playing the game "If you could eat anything now, what would it be?" and trying to decide between matzo ball soup (what a bunch of jews!) with noodles and vegetables, nachos or a gigantic boat full of sushi. It all still sounds so good!
At camp by 3.30, we decided we might as well try and create a fire, but with the fire ban (a reasonable one, as the forest there is so dry and there isn't a big enough source of water to collect safely (there are sharks in the river) to be able to put out an unruly fire), so, we tryed cutting off the tops of our soda cans, poking a few air holes, and filling the bottom with fuel (it would lite when it was a liquid, but one it turned to gas, it stopped staying lit in our stove) and then using the lighter to create the flame. A few sticks kept the flame high enough, and after a few attempts, we were able to boil water! This realization was so exciting that we quickly threw together some soup, then making more cans so we had a three can tripod on which we tried to fry up some vegetables, alhtough we later realized they had gone bad and couldn't even stand the smell of them cooking. Oy, what an adventure! We met a few Argentinians and Venezualans later on, who offered their stove to us so we were able to have pancakes for Adam's birthday breakfast. Yeah!
We paddled back to town (well, I did mostly; Adam's family called to wish him Happy Birthday, so I kpet paddling!) and even though we had hoped for a tail wind to blow us back to town (remember this? does it sound like Deja Vu from our trip in Piton?) but instead had a head wind, although this wind was nothing compared to our kayaking trip, the waves on the lake were still quite big.
We made tacos for birthday dinner, had a few drinks and hung out on the beach. Adam is teaching me to spin Poi, which originates from New Zealand Maori warriors, but has caught on overseas and Adam learned when we lived in Israel. Hopefully before we leave I will be able to spin fire (don't worry, I'll get pictures) as confidently as Adam does now, but we'll see. We've spent a few days on the beaches here, bumming around, soaking up the sun and getting tossed by the ocean waves. The UV rays here are extremely dangerous, considering there isn't any ozone layer overhead and the burn time for our skin can sometimes be 6 minutes!

We've traveled slightly south now, on the Gold Coast in a place called Kirra Beach. We stayed in the popular Surfer's Paradise for a night, but it was very expensive and filled with "schoolies", who are recently graduated high school students spending 3 weeks and their parents money binge drinking and not wearing enough clothing. I would love to say that it's entertaining, but the level of whining and skin I've been seeing has increased ten fold and my retina's have started to cry. Litereally. I'm mostly kidding, my retina's aren't crying.

Well, once again my time is being cut short by an internet timer where I've already spent $5 just trying to write this and not become too distracted. Hope everyone had a great thanksgiving!

Photos

I've updated photos!

Here:
www.picasaweb.google.com/marabe54

Also, Adam has updated his photo's as well, which are mainly of me, and mine of him.
The link is here:

http://ucalgary.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2060300&id=120600255

enjoy!

Happy Birthday Steamroller!

Hokitika was great, small, not too cold, and just what I was looking for. We went in search of a 'carve your own jade' workshop. We found one, and decided to stay or two days, so we headed off to Greymouth for a brewery tour of our favorite beer (Montieth's). We got a cool tour, learned all about the beer, and then got to sample every flavor at the end too! WOW! Afterwards we checked out the Hokitika Gorge, with it's perfectly blue water (my pictures don't do it justice at all) and not so perfect sand flys.

After leaving Hokitika, we drove south towards Queenstown, at the southern end of the South Island. We stopped off at the Fox Glacier and Franz Joseph Glaciers, doing a nice little walk in the area and got to touch the glacier! We then hiked out to Lake Matheson, bringing lots of food with us to make Vietnamese Rice rolls and cooked lunch sitting next to the lake and looking at Mt Cook and Mt. Tasman. So beautiful, peaceful, and a great picnic spot. We spent the night near the glacier in a deserted picnic spot, waking up to a van load of asian tourists and an ice cream truck being used for it's generator. The ice cream trucks owner came eover to talk to us, seeing that we slept in the car and wanted to know how we configure ourselves, as he sells the miniwagons privately and thought it was funny that we could fit our lives inside. We think it's pretty funny too!

Queenstown is a town mainly comprised of tourists, adrenaline activities, high prices and lots of souvenier shops. Sweet! (Can you sense the sarcasm?!)
Anyways, we got into town and decided to find a hostel so we could spend my birthday night in the tent rather than the car makeshift bed we have concocted. My birthday was great, including us going to something called the canyon swing, out to dinner at a real restaurant, donating beads to tzedakah organization and drinking our favorite NZ beer.
The canyon swing is similar to a bungy jump, except instead of being on a latex rubber band that bounces, it's like a gigantic schoolyard swing suspended 109 meters above a cayon river, next to rock cliffs, and in the open wind. First you jump, are thrown, scoot a chair off or flip from the platform, freefall for 50 meters and then are swung another 200 meters in an arc from a full body harness. Because it was my birthday, they blindfolded me, hooked me to the swing, suspended me upside down (so, head first into the canyon, with my feet wrapped around the rope attaching my harness to the swing, hands above my head towards the ground) and then, at the same times, the following happened:
I realized I might cry out of shear fear
The blindfold was taken off
The release cord was pulled
I began my fall
I scream, louder than I beleive any child who drops their ice cream, smacks their head against the ground, or falls face first into something. I scream so loud, for so long, it makes me 'screamer of the day' according to the guys who put the blindfold on
oh, and I remember that it's my birthday, I have a moustache drawn on my face, and the marker is permanent. Sweet!

To say the very least, the canyon swing was one of the most exhilaratingly horrifying things I beleive I have ever engaged in. The swing was so beautiful, with the river below me a crystal robin's egg blue color, and the rock cliff faces were also so interestingly carved by the water from years ago. Then again, because it was my birthday, I got a free jump, so I attempted a back flip (to no avail, but oh well) and it was still as scary and as fun as the first time. What an adrenaline rush!

Dinner was great, although being at a proper restaurant was a little weird. We ate, we drank, and we tried to score some cake for free (no dice) and walked back to our cold, Monteith's Radler (ou new favorite brew) chilling in the fridge. Since we haven't had a fridge in the car (obviously..?) we realize how much we've taken our previous usual access to a fridge and how wonderful an apparatus it really is. Oh traveling, how you make me understand the small tihngs in life that I forget when I am in the "real world".

We've left Queenstown (yes!) after eating lunch the next day and headed towards Timaru, on the east coast. It was really the next big town we could find before Christchurch, which is where we are staying until we fly to Australia on the 20th.
Timaru is a... gross town. It smells like rotting beer and a sponge that's far overdue all the time, nothing is open (although i did by a cool scarf), so after spending the night there (which was another nice spot, near the beach, with a barbeque pit outside!) we headed out the next day, driving up to christchurch.

I've updated the photos, so check out all the stuff we've been up to for the last month or so!

Hope all is well with everyone at home. Is there snow yet?

This post is going to be ultra quick considering I had 16 minutes left at the internet cafe and too much to write! (as usual)

So Adam and I have rented a car, whom we call "donkey" and have driven from Nelson, down the west coast (the more rugged, and beautiful part of the south island) to Punakaiki, then over to our wwoof-ing house. We stayed at Gunyah Country Estate for 5 days, doing mainly groundskeeping work and staying outside all day. After work was finished for the day, we drove up to Castle Hill to go bouldering, which is a low form of rock climbing without ropes. We bought rock climbing shoes for me in Christchurch the day before the new wwoof family house, and then headed there after work everyday, sometimes taking Valerie, who is an Autrain wwoofer staying at Gunyah for a number of months. Good luck to her! Our stay at Gunyah was fine, although the work was quite monotonous and the family a bit strange. Their dog was really cute, however, and we were able to stay and eat for free, saving us some money that we can put forth towards Australia. Wahoo!

We left our hosts two days ago, spending the portion of our day climbing again in Castle Hill, then heading through Arthurs Pass National Park, then over to Hokitika, where we are now. Donkey has been treating us very well, and soon I will put up pictures. We didn't think we'd be so comfortable sleeping inside Donkey, but there really isn't any bed that is more comfortable, compact, multipurpose, and as interchangeable. It's so fun having everything you own and need right around us, nothing compares to having it all on your back.

We are well, happy, eating fine and, as always, smiling. We are gearing up for our back to back birthdays (mine November 15th, Adam's November 25th) and trying to prepare for our departure from NZ!


More pictures, descriptions of our travels, and stories to come soon!