What to do on a rainy afternoon?

How about some funky photo-montages?!

Anyway.. merry christmas to all! :-)

Think of me while i'll be spending christmas in the plane to Chili!.. After 11 hours of flight, i'll reach Santiago 3 hours before departing Auckland.. how's that for a brainteaser?!

Hold on! Gloulbblblblbbl!!

All the way to India, travelling alone was providing most of the excitment, but New Zealand is pretty mellow in comparison.. so to keep you awake they sell you adrenaline by the dose..

Thus, now that i don't have any crazy truck drives accross Tibet, i just go jumping off stupid stuff!
The last one was a 7 meters waterfall on the Kaituna river, near Rotorua..

Hold on!

Gloulbblblblbbl!!

Oops.. we lost Jana!

pretty wet, eh!

(and i also added some pics of the skydive below..)

Three, Two, OAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!

After a quick stop to gaze at the turquoise blue waters of lake Tekapo (or was it Tepabo? or Tepakap? or TeKO?.. they just have the most random names anyways!) I left my dear friends in Christchurch, not without a tear in the corner of my eye..

And i hopped back on my long bus journeys to reach lake Taupo in 2 days, and spend the remaining few days before christmas in the center of the north island.

- Do you know were i may possibly ask in order to enquire about the possibility to suggest that i may some day, if it is possible.. do some skydiving.... ? i ask timidly to the reception of my guesthouse..
- Of course here is a good company you should go today because tomorrow is going to be rainy look i'll just call for you it's all good you're signed in they'll come pick you up in two hours.
- er..... ok.
She said everything in one sentence before i had time to breathe and the last part still rings in my head like a death sentence "they'll come pick you up in two hours"!

Indeed, two hours later i'm all dressed up and harnessed, sitting in a plane with an instructor glued to my back and making faces to the camera... (what the hell am i doing??)

As the plane gains altitude i start to feel my stomach going upside down.. and why don't they put toilets in these stupid tiny aircrafts?! but the pityless eye of the camera stares at me and i have to play cool so i can show later in front of my friends!

There we are. 15000 feet above the ground. It never felt so far.

They open the fake plastic sheet that serves as a door and the first person disapears in a split second. Are they dead yet? I'm next.

We move to the door and i barely have time to look down when YYYAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!
At this point it's excitment more than fear.. it's too late for fear anyways!

Completely unconscious that i'm crashing to the ground at over 200km/h i even find the time to smile at the camera!.. i mean, as much as i manage to smile with my cheeks flapping on my teeth! My mouth is completely dry but i don't quite manage to close it..
The feeling is... impossible to describe! I simply scream my guts out!

The 60 seconds of free fall seem like an instant and i'm already pulled by the crotch as the parachute opens. All of a sudden the wind stops and everything goes calm.

Except me, i can't stop screaming my excitment!

A few spins with the parachute to admire the view, the volcanoes, the snowy mountains, the fields, the lake.. beautiful..

And it's already over.. i lift my legs as instructed and we both land smoothly on our bottoms.
The time to back up to my feet and i already can't believe i just did it!
Can we do it again?!!

Mount Cook

The highest mountain in New Zealand and forgot to check how high it is!

Anyway..

there it is..

.. in its magnificent glory

Reg' trying to confront the God of the winds

Sara looking at mount cook from her luxury appartments at "the Hermitage".. (i'll just go sleep with the horses!)Highly artistic view of Mt Cook reflecting in the window of a restaurant.
Some early morning clouds look like aliens coming down on earth!

Milford sound

After the walk my nice rich friends got a rental car and we went towards the most famous spot in New Zealand: Milford sound.

First of all, it's not even a sound!
A sound, as i recently learned myself, is the arm of a river or a lake digging it's way in the mountain (or something like that, i'm not sure i got it right anyways!)
But this one is actually a fjord (sea entering the land).
But "Milford fjord" is much harder to say for foreigners like me so the marketing people probably decided "sound" was cooler!

Anyway.. I can't deny it's a beautiful spot.. but like all the overmarketed spots around the globe, it's overpriced and ends up being desapointing.. you just expect the moon!

amazing natural fields of "lupins" (in english?) on the road to the fake and silent sound

Tataaaa: Milford sound.

yep. that's it.

nice waterfalls though!
Sara.. like a candle in the wind..

cool fishes at the underwater observatory..
and "black coral" which is actually white.. whatever..

Tramping on Kepler

Just so you know, "tramping" means hiking in New Zealandish.. it's like that and that's the way it is.
And Kepler is the name of the area.. and of the track..
A beautiful 4 days walk, 5 to 6 hours of up and down walking per day.. tiring!

The first day goes straight up to mount Luxmore.. it's a tiring day..
The second day keeps going up for a while and then follows the ridge and drops down in the valley.. it's a tiring day..
The third day is a nice almost flat walk accross the rainforest.. yet it does go up a few times and after 2 days of walking, well.. it's a tiring day..
The fourth day is the day you walk alone back to Te Anau because your friends (who've been showing off, going like crazy all the way up) are too tired and take the bus back!
It's also the day you finally go back to "The Moose" for a proper meal after 4 days of starving on insufficient portions of dried noodles! Viva le moose!

And we got way lucky on the weather so really nothing to complain about.. (if it wasn't for these aching legs!)

Sara and Reg looking sexy at the beginning of the walk!

beautiful light coming through the beech trees..

our first picnic by the beach before ascending to mount Luxmore.. after that my batteries were dead for the rest of the walk so that's all you'll get! (gotta love digital!)

.. i can't believe i almost forgot to mention the biggest subject for discussion during the walk!

The week end before we walked was the "Kepler challenge", which, as the name suggests, consists of running the Kepler track as fast as possible..

Well apparently "as fast as possible" was the older version of the challenge; it turned to "faster than possible" when some kind of sensless psychopath ran the whole thing in 4 and a half hours!! (yes, we're talking the same track i climbed painfully in 4 days!!.. shit, some people are just not from this world!)

Queenstown..

..the town itself looks a bit too much like a ski resort.. without the slopes!
but the surroundings are great!

New Zealand from above..

.. as i was approaching Queenstown on the southern island, to meet again with Sara and Reg..

New Zealand fashion..

what do you think?..

Bay of islands

As the sun was back i went for a short cruise around the bay of islands..
here are just a few pics to put some colors in your december days!






The whole point of the cruise was actually to go swim with dolphins! How cool is that?!
We saw loads of dolphins swimming around the boat, fooling around and jumping at crazy hights.. awesome show!
And then came the moment to jump in the water ourselves.. in the 15 degrees water i mean! brrrrr!!
but i went! (when it's already paid for, i go!!)
now the stupid dolphins had all gone further away! so after 20 minutes of struggling with my fins, cutting my toes off and swallowing salty water, i gave up and went back to the boat..
Jumping in the water was pretty hard, and at that temperature it really cuts your breath.. but back in the boat was even worse! It took me over an hour to stop shivering like crazy!

I hate dolphins!

..they're cool though!

Cape Reinga

.. it seems a while ago now.. i'm so late again..
So after a few days in Auckland and a evening with Sara and Regis (who managed to arrive a day late, true to their reputation), i went to spend a few days up north to check out Cape Reinga at the north most tip of New Zealand..
With my luck it happened just on the first day of rain i've had since.. nepal i guess!
(i'm not complaining.. just saying!)

cape Reinga

the light house
the rain!
it didn't stop us from going sand boarding though!.. it cost me two big toes but it's mad fun!
the region is home of the giant Kauri trees forests.. here an amazing staircase carved inside a Kauri tree trunk..
..they even had a 36,000USD guitar made of precious Kauri wood!