New Zealand with The Fam

Oh Christchurch! That's where we are. We also use it as a swear word. It really works. When you get angry rather than throwing out the classic four letter word, just exclaim Christchurch! You will feel better.

Alright so I have been in New Zealand for 10 days or so now with the visiting fam. Let me introduce in order of appearance: my sister Amanda, my brother Chris, and my padre Fred. They all came out to visit me and travel around Sydney for a bit and then NZ. So I am just going to list off some highlights from our time in New Zealand. I realize neither Jesse nor I have discussed much of our trip down the East Coast. I am afraid you will just have to wait a little longer for that recap because I really don't want to try and cover all that ground and all those stories without Jesse's collaboration. But we will get there eventually. But for now just New Zealand!

We arrived in the NZ on the 20th of July 2009. Flying into Auckland on the North Island we got in late in the evening and didn't do much that night besides find a hotel and pass out. Up early on the 21st we burst out of Auckland in our rental car down to Rotorua and their famous thermal activity. We spent a couple hours hiking through this mountainous landscape with thermal pools aplenty. It seemed like everything was boiling. You would see rocks with steam billowing out like a chimney. Numerous lakes and ponds and streams were all uncomfortably warm with steam rising off them. Very surreal.

After making quick work of the hike we boogied back into town in Rotorua to be in time for a Maori cultural show and feast. We learned all about the Maori culture and traditions. We got to observe some tribal dances including the women with their poi balls and the men and their hakka. Very cool stuff. After the performances the men and women from the audience were encouraged to come up on stage and learn a few moves. Amanda and the women were first with their poi balls. Spinning a ball around on a rope never looked so difficult. The sis had no problems with the spinning but the catching was another matter. She had fun with it either way. Then it was us guys up on stage to learn some of the hakka. It was a lot of stomping of the feet and beating of the thighs. The most important part of it all was you need to have your scary face on with your tongue stuck out pretty much as far as you could. All three of us Lindbergs got the hang of it pretty quick. We looked pretty fearsome.

After the show we had a feast of traditional Maori dishes along with some classics like cake and icecream which was much appreciated the night before my bday. They then took us out to show us their geyser that as luck would have it was going on when we got there. Water was shooting up 20 meters or so into the air. Very impressive. We then sat down outside on some rocks to enjoy some hot chocolate by the geyser and hear more about the Maori people. At this point in the evening the temperature is only a couple degrees above freezing and hot chocolate will only get you so far. What I wasn't expecting is that the rocks we sat on were naturally heated by the geothermal activity. It was like heated seats in fancy cars. But these were rocks and it was all natural. Such a good evening.

Next day we went out to Waitomo for some black water rafting. We all got zipped into our wetsuits and were issued our inner tubes and descended into Waitomo's extensive maze of caves. For about an hour we spent half our time climbing over rocks and learning about how the caves are formed and marveling at the tiny specks of light coming from the ceiling. Glowworms setting up camp on the ceiling would emit a tiny amount of light and then drop a snotty little web down to try and catch any sort of insect attracted by the light. Very beautiful. The other half the time we would be floating along the stream that flows through the caves on our tubes. Some of the time we did this in complete darkness. Definitely one of the coolest things I have done for my birthday. After that we hightailed it back to Auckland to fly down to Christchurch and the South Island.

In the South Island we kept up the hectic pace driving out to Lake Tekapo and it's magnificent blue hue of the water caused by some rock on rock grinding action from a glacier thousands of years ago. We took a treacherous hike up to the top of Mt. John. Ice covered much of the path so the trip down the mountain was pretty entertaining. Between the four of us there was much falling and bruising of the hind quarters.

After Lake Tekapo was Queenstown. The highpoint of our time there was the Shotover Canyon Swing we did. Much like a bungy jump, you freefall from a platform a hundred meters in the air. With a regular bungy you would get to the end of your rope and bounce back like on a giant rubber band. With the canyon swing you swing out across Shotover Canyon coming uncomfortably close to rocks on all sides. Perhaps the scariest thing I have ever done. The best part about the whole thing was you got to choose how you jumped. I was the first to go and decided to jump in the Chair of Death. They buckled me into a plastic chair and had me scoot the back of the chair right up to the edge of the platform. I leaned back in my chair just past the equilibrium point, begin to fall when one of the attendants would grab me and pull me back pretending to need to check my straps one more time. Finally tipping back and falling off the platform was awesome. Amanda followed me by doing the Gimp Boy Goes to Hollywood. They suspended her out over the canyon and instructed her to lean forward so she was hanging vertical with her face down staring at the jagged rocks below. Without warning they released her. Chris then declined to do any of the fancy jumps and elected to just take a huge running leap off the platform into nothingness. He says he can't remember any of the running and jumping, only the first step to go and then when he was out in the middle of space with nothing below him. After that I took one more jump doing the Pindrop method. Standing on the edge of the platform I clasped my hands behind my back and leaned forward to get a nice view of the ground that would shortly be flying up at me. Then all I needed to do was hop a little to my left off the ledge while trying to avoid the sharp rocks nearby. Jumping feet first really makes your stomach rise up into your chest. Chris then took the final jump by squatting down in a cannonball position with his heels on the edge. Falling backward he flipped end over end into the canyon. My heart was racing for a couple hours afterward.

Next day we were up in Wanaka where I went snowboarding with some friends I met out on the Whitsunday islands back in Oz. Such a long day of snowboarding which I haven't done in something like 8 years. Still sore from that day. The rest of the fam took the day off and did a few light hikes and enjoyed the scenery of the area.

The next day included a short stopover in Oamaru to see the penguin hotel. On the coast this penguin reserve has set up an area for wild penguins to come and live/breed that is protected from predators. There were only 8 or so penguins in the area that we could see that day and they were all sleeping more or less so it wasn't too exciting but still cool to see wild penguins even if they were staying in a motel.

Yesterday we went out to Hanmer Springs to bathe in some thermal pools. We had gotten a taste of the thermal pools in Rotorua but weren't allowed to go in them so we were excited to get in at Hanmer Springs. The pools were ok. Overdeveloped, the area seemed much more of a day spa then a rare natural phenomenon. Lifeguards were swarming not letting us do anything. Don't run. Don't put your head underwater. Don't swim under that bridge. You need a pass for that waterslide. Christchurch! The highlight of our time in Hanmer Springs was the mountain biking Chris and I did (Dad came too for a little). Loads of cool trails through the forest. We got moderately lost and exceedingly muddy in the couple hours we were out there.

Today we booked it up to Kaikoura to swim with dolphins. Now when I hear “swim with dolphins” I assume it sounds cooler than it actually is. But that is false. We got decked head to toe in multiple layers of wetsuiting before heading out on a boat searching for the dusky dolphin just off the coast. Once we found a nice pod of about 300 of them the boat moseyed on up and let us swimmers into the water. In these dolphin encounters we are expected to be the entertainment for the dolphins. If you sing into your snorkel or just make lots of dolphiny noises the dolphins will come right up to you and swim all around you trying to figure you out. Diving down into the water was difficult with all the incredibly buoyant neoprene we were wrapped up in, but if you could manage it the dolphins loved it. Whenever I would look around and not have a dolphin in sight I would only have to dive down a meter or two below the surface and swim along and before long I would have five or six of them weaving around me again trying to play with me. For the first couple minutes in the water I didn't think I could handle the shocking cold but then the dolphins arrived and you forget all about that feeling you have lost in your extremities. The only downside to this activity was Amanda who was probably the most excited for the dolphins was suffering from a nasty cold the whole day and could only spend limited time playing with the dolphins. Alas.

So that is a little taste of our week and a half in NZ. Hopefully I will have more pictures of all this to show to you soon. Unfortunately my camera bit the dust. Or rather it bit the sand at the bottom of the ocean back in the Whitsundays. One of the many stories Jesse and I have to share with you all when we put together a recap of those three weeks. But for now this is Brian Hotdog Lindberg signing off. A year older and hopefully a year wiser.

Rose Bay Reunited

And we are back. Jesse, Erin, Brian. Taylor where are you? Not in Oz anymore. Anyways I am going to keep this short. I met Jesse and Erin up in Cairns about a week ago to travel down the East Coast with them over the next couple weeks. In the last few days we lived it up in Cairns, scurried down to Mission Beach, floated out to Magnetic Island, and hauled ourselves down to Airlie Beach where we are now.

Mission Beach was quiet. Scotty's the hostel was much fun but the staff were trying to sell us on skydiving relentlessly. Got a bit annoying. We spent most of our time on the beach. J and E went out and did a little diving. I did some hiking around Dunk Island.

Then Magnetic Island was awesome. Well Arcadia Hotel where we stayed was not awesome. Worst place I have stayed in Oz. But the Island was great. We rented scooters and flew around the island all day. No desire to do any hiking or exploring on foot. We only wanted to ride. We did get a little hike in on the side though. Saw some wild koalas and a great sunset.

Now we are at Airlie Beach. About to go out on a little Whitsundays Sailing Trip. Should be fun. Hope home is going well. Will try and get something a little more substantial up on the blog soon. Bye bye.

B

Exmouth to Perth

Exmouth was the last time we spoke? That was pretty much forever ago. Actually I rambled for quite some time about a lot of things that happened since Exmouth in my little Word document here but didn't like the final product so I scrapped that and started again. How do you like that endless line of English teachers that always taught me to revise revise revise. They always wanted so many drafts out of me. Well here you go. Draft numero dos.

The difference between this draft and its so recently deceased ancestor is I think less rambling. More to the point. There has been a lot of beautiful scenery seen and gorges explored but it all seems to get a bit repetitive after a while. I give you a name of a different place and tell you the same thing about how beautiful and remote and awesome it is. But no more. Interesting places that you aren't going to see most anywhere else in the world. Interesting people! Plus maybe a story or two. Here goes nothing.

Exmouth: same as all the other beaches plus windier. How's that for brevity? Moving on.

Coral Bay: favorite beach so far. Less wind. Great day. Nothing too exciting though. Lyndon River, Carnarvon, Whalebone Bay. Boring boring boring. Blowholes: ooo that was a fun place. Really neat rocky/craggy coastline with holes in the rocks where water would shoot out of like a rocket up into the sky so high. I got out of the van and looked at the treacherous rocky terrain that needed to be crossed to get to the blowholes and I looked at my sandaled feet and I told myself “Brian be very careful. With all the walking and exploring you still need to do it wouldn't do to cut up one of your footsies.” And what did I do with my very very very first step after thinking that? I'm not kidding it was absolutely the first movement I made from standing by the car thinking that. I crushed my left foot into a nice big rock. Blood everywhere. Whole big scene. Good work Brian. Anyways, the blowholes were still cool. I have tons of pictures on that link on the side of the blog I keep mentioning.

Mmmm onto Monkey Mia. Dolphin feeding central of Shark Bay. Every morning 5 mama dolphins swim on in to get a little morning snackeroo from the helpful rangers. For a couple hours that morning we had 10 or so (5 mamas and their little baby dolphins with them) dolphins wandering about in the water less than 15m offshore from us. During one of the feeding sessions I got to feed a little fish to a bossy/moody mama dolphin Nikki. Very cool. We also learned about dolphin life. The alliances created among males. How the mother leads her newborn up to the surface and teaches her to breathe. The gang rapes that go on when the alliances of males kidnap a fertile female. Very kid friendly material here.

After that we hit up Hamelin pool on our way out of Shark Bay. Hamelin pool is home of the world reknown Stromatolites. Living fossils! Rocks that breathe! Whatever you want to call them they are some of the oldest organisms. They were around when the atmosphere was so deficient in oxygen that most all of us oxygen dependent animals couldn't survive. These boring little rocks sat in tidepools billions of years ago quietly bubbling up little bits of O2 until the atmosphere was ripe for breathing. We appreciate it Stromatolites but trying to see you in the choppy water on a windy/rainy day was just not my cup of tea. Maybe next time.

Moving on to I would have to say the most outrageous stop so far. Welcome to the Hutt River Province Principality. Way back in 1970. A man named Leonard got fed up with paying taxes and the Aussie government and all that. So in response, he found a neat little loophole that no one (even Prince Leonard himself) will actually explain to me that allowed him to legally secede from Australia. So now almost 40 years later he is owner to his own little 5 acre nation in the middle of Western Australia. Second largest country on the Australian continent. What I love about Leonard and his nation is he totally went with it. He didn't just secede and go on living life like normal. He created a flag and a constitution and currency and stamps and even an army. All of this is mostly ceremonial and it's just fun for us passerbyers to purchase all the notes of his currency for $4AUD. The prince gave us a private tour of our land and stamped our passports as we entered and exited his principality. He is a very quirky and energetic old man. So proud of what he did and how he outsmarted them all. Loves to show you maps of the world with huge cities like Melbourne or Sydney are not even mentioned but the Hutt River Principality is listed quite clearly. We only hung around the Province for an hour or two but it was definitely one of the more memorable experiences traveling abroad so far.

The next day after tearfully saying goodbye to the Prince, we wandered our way into Kalbarri national park where we did the usual beaches and gorges that I am not going to get into except to say I did a nice little 16km jog along the cliffs in Kalbarri which was pretty exciting and scary. Lots of loose rocks with lots of edges to fall of the face of the Earth into. I felt like I was playing Mario Kart. Moving along at breakneck speeds with incredible blue waters all around but way below me with only a meter or so of dirt separating me from a big big drop. Anyways my fav part of Kalbarri was the Seahorse Sanctuary. They raise and breed seahorses to sell them as pets to reduce the pressure to fish for seahorses from the wild to serve as pets. Just because that isn't a great practice cuz the horses from the ocean usually don't survive reacclimating to tank life. They argue that this seahorse farm is a much more humane way to go about the situation. Anyways we got to see seahorses in all the stages of their lives. They start out so so so sos small. There was a sweet video of a daddy horse giving birth to his little tiny children. Just popping them out one after the other. All in all it was another place that I don't think you can find many other places in the world.

Geraldton: biggest city we have seen since Darwin. A whole 26k odd population. Really unfortunate that everything was closed since it was Sunday. Bad form Geraldton. Not even a supermarket open on the holy day of rest. All I wanted was a supermarket and a bookstore. What they did have is a nice museum focusing on aboriginal history, HMAS Sydney, and the Batavia catastrophe. We watched a full 50 minute video reenactment of the Batavia's story. So much intrigue. Shipwreck, survival, treachery, mutiny, heroism, terrorism, rescues and swordfighting, romance, sorrow, horror. What else could you want? Real actors? Nah who needs those? It was a lot of fun all around. One of the better museums I have seen out here. Beats out that disgrace for a powerhouse museum in Sydney.

Finally Yanchep National Park was the last fun spot we hit up before rolling into Perth. I loved me that park for its super cool caves. There was a whole network of them. All I really wanted to do was turn off all the lights down there and go down with just a headlamp and get all lost in the passages. Hopefully run into all the spirits like the Jinka that aboriginal lore says is down there.

So that's a nice recap of the last week or so. I am in Perth now for another five days before I am back to the west coast. I am about to go take a shower now. My second since I wrote that last blog post. Ewww. Ok im out. Peace. Love. And all that Good Stuff.

Lindy

Updation Station

I met a man from Brussels… he was 6 foot 4 and full of muscles. I said “do you speak my language?” and he just smiled and gave me a vegemite sandwich. Now, I don’t know if you’ve had vegemite, but I hope so. It is the weirdest stuff I’ve ever tasted and I gotta say I don’t know how it’s popular. They must have had some fantastic marketing when it first came out.

Anyway – Back in blogland is where I am. I’ve been slacking off like a 200 pound 12 year-old in gym class, so it’s time to kick it in gear. There isn’t all that much to update everyone out there on what has happened… but more what will hopefully happen. Well, ok, we’ve done more than nothing here in the past few weeks so I’ll go over that first.

One notable thing I got to take place in recently was the dicing up of a ‘killah’… as it is affectionately called. A ‘killah’, as I understand it, is just a bull/cow from a cattle range that you kill and eat. I was a butcher for a day. Now, I wish I had a picture of me with all the different parts of the cow on the table or hanging on the hooks (especially the kidney, tongue, liver, etc), but I don’t have a picture because my hands were covered in meat/juices. I helped Rob cut different pieces up for steaks or mince or whatever else. Then we took a break for a bbq lunch and I had cow liver and kidney for the first time in my life. I liked the liver a lot, but Erin preferred the kidney. Both were very interesting flavors. Afterwards Robbie hooked us up with a bunch of steaks and a couple kilos of mince so we’ll eat well for the rest of the time here. I’m currently under the impression it’ll be fine to just leave the meat in the fridge for the next week and a half and cook them up when I want them… is that ok? Somebody let me know if I definitely need to freeze it to keep from keeling over because I’d much rather just leave it as is. Mmmmmmm, delicious.

I recently finished reading a book called ‘Exodus’, which was a fantastic novel based on the creation of the Jewish nation of Israel. It’s a good book and I’d recommend reading it if you haven’t. I knew a decent amount of the hardships the Jewish people went through during the holocaust in Europe, but I had no idea about most of the other stuff prior to and since. I also recently finished reading Huckleberry Finn, which I’m not sure if I ever read before. Mom – did we read that when I was growing up? I couldn’t remember any of it and thought it was very entertaining and a good break after such a serious book. Tom Sawyer is hilarious. I just started ‘A Portrait of Dorian Gray’, which Erin’s claims to have heard it’s fantastic. It’s a penguin book and only 250 pages or so – so it should most definitely be worth the time. What else am I gunna do here?

To answer that question… I will say not much. We have about a week and a half left here in good old Bedourie before moving on to bigger (it’s impossible to get any smaller than here) and better (more exciting, that’s for sure) things. Without giving too much away… Lindberg and Erin and I are going to do more ridiculously fun and amazing things in 3 weeks than any 3 people should do in a year. Activities include, but are not limited to… Scuba diving, sand dune tobogganing/surfing, snorkeling, surfing, 4WD’ing, rainforesting (no that doesn’t mean cutting down rainforests… just checkin em out), NRL footy double header-ing, sailing, hiking. What do you think? I know… I’m excited, too!

With only 3 weeks to do everything… our schedule has to be worked out to the day and in some instances the hour. What I mean to say is that one particular day we get back from a 4WD tour of Fraser Island in the evening. Then we sit around for a few hours and get on a bus at 1am headed towards Brisbane. When we arrive at Brisbane at 6:05am… we have 55 minutes to take our stuff to our hostel for storage and return to the bus depot to get picked up by our next tour (Moreton Island) at 7am. We will be sleeping in more ridiculous places than ever before. Actually, thinking back to New Zealand, it’ll just be almost as ridiculous but certainly just as fun.

I hope you enjoy reading Lindberg’s blogs because I am living vicariously through him at the moment. He inspires me to continue my rigorous workout regimen in preparation for the fun along the east coast.

That’s all for now – you stay classy readers.

- Jesse “T-minus 11 days” Meredith