New Zealand

I found a computer that works. So let me think... When I arrived in Auckland it was raining hard and really early in the morning so had to wander the streets for a couple of hours until a hostel opened. First difference in NZ is that they are not open 24 hours. So I got rained on for a few days in Auckland and therefore decided hitching would be no fun (hitching was my first idea). Therefore I hired a little car and headed north without much of an idea where I was going. Really liberating having a car after relying on buses etc for six months. Weather got better as soon as I left Auckland fortunately

Cape Reinga is the northernmost tip of NZ


Having a car you can see a sign saying 'giant sand dune' and follow it


I went to this place (can't remember the name) to do some surfing but it looked cold and there were no waves. oh well



wrong turn one day found this sign. It says something along the lines of 'our land can never be owned by outsiders/aliens'. You do sense tension in some parts of NZ from Maori people. The only Maori encounter I had was in a place called Wanganui where me and another guy were walking past a Mauri girl drinking beer at 11.30 in the morning next to her baby, some other old homeless looking Maori dude came walking the other way and the girl started shouting at him. Eventually she walked up to him and punched him. They beat the s**t out of each other for a bit until the girls boyfriend ran along with a bottle, threw and smashed the bottle in old Mauri dudes face. Nice


Kauri tree thought to be 2000 years old. Someone should tell them that you can work it out by cutting it down and counting the rings. Some NZ guy in a hostel was boasting about how New Zealanders are really smart but the whole time I was listening to radio in the car there were repeated adverts stating how 1 in 4 NZ'ers had difficulty reading



A tree and river somewhere



Blowing geyser from a walk in some woods. I was in Rotorua




Canadian redwood forest. These trees were awesome and grow above 60 metres which is huge. The walks they have set up all over NZ are so well done. I really liked this place



Skydiving is something everyone should do. The most intense experience possible I think. I'm not sure what I did should be called skydiving as that would suggest I dived, I didn't, I was pushed! Your legs hanging out of an aeroplane and told to jump out is the most unnatural thing possible. I honestly can't describe how it felt as you fall but would do it again in a second. The only annoying part was being hard sold extra fotos/videos t-shirts by blond girls with big boobs.


Mount Doom from the film and my little toyota. Top speed 120 kmph. When I returned it I had driven more than 5000 km



Breakfast every day consisted of this. NZ is expensive for food and everything else actually so had to live on the basics. I still went well over budget eating like a student and not signing up to any tours


Met my mate Neil in Wellington, haven't seen him in probably 5 years since he moved here. He managed to borrow a bmx for me so got to ride for a few days. Neil said he hadn't ridden for 6 months but seemed to remember pretty quick

Me happy with a bike and big ramp

The car didn't look so great when I took it back


Somewhere I can't remember. Probably cool to own a boat

Can't remember the name of the place again but the hostel was on the beach which was nice

and there were pancake rocks (who cares...)

Wish it was summer as places like this would be more fun

Greymouth, went kayaking which was fun

Glaciers are less exciting than you might think



Lake Wananka. This is the place where I based myself to do some snowboarding. The little car really struggled getting up to the slopes and I was pretty lucky that it didn't snow to much as snow chains were required all around this place



Fun to do some boarding. The slopes don't compare to the alpes in Europe. Unfortunately for me it was school holidays when I went so had to queue for lifts. Below are the Remarkables mountain range I think


Went searching for sealions after the mountains near Dunedin. My kind of beaches, big and empty



Found some. Trying to get out of the way of one, I managed to almost trip over another. They are big and scary


Seaweed of some description

I got to see alot of wildlife on the road. This is a possom, they're protected in Australia but a pest in NZ. If you hunt them you get 5 bucks per animal and then they make them into hats, socks etc


I've missed loads of pics and things I did in NZ but wanted to catch up so there you are. Oh and my summary of NZ... Beautiful place, don't go there expecting culture, but for accessible wildlife and scenery I'm not sure there is a comparable country. I'd like to go back in the summer one day