the ferdinand!

dinner prep down in the galley.

we got our cap'n a roomie!

no luck thus far. however i just bought a deep sea rod and reel and a spear gun! YES!

rob and cap'n dave on the sail up to whangarei.

good god there are heaps of rainbows in new zealand. i will miss you new zealand.

just another day at the office.

sunrise at sea on my first ever sail. we went from whangarei to auckland, new zealand.

i'm a sailor now?!

you may be asking yourself, how does someone just become a "sailor" all of a sudden. well, allow me to explain. for me it was simple. i met this dude, a fellow hitchhiker. he told me about how he had sailed from tahiti to new zealand. there's this web site he tells me, findacrew.com, where captains are looking for crew for upcoming voyages. a few months later i find one such captain on his way to fiji and like that i become a student of sailing on a boat bound for fiji and warmer waters.

along the milford track...

we went behind the falls. i remember lots of screaming and getting very wet.

sutherland falls - the tallest waterfall in nz.

monster trout were everywhere. taunting us.

"why didn't we bring our fishing rods dude?!?" one of the themes of our walk.

wow. enough said.

just look at the color of the water.

the milford track - often called the greatest track in the world. it didn't disappoint.

http://travel.nytimes.com/2009/01/18/travel/18explore.html?em

here is a link to a ny times article desribing my next sojourn into the wild.

purple mushroom!?! perttty tempting.

so beautiful.

oh just mountain hoppin'.

day two on the kepler is other-worldly. side note: could i look any more like a cut-out from an l.l. bean magazine?

reading in my tent at night, i am soon surrounded by sandflies. ah, a new game! smashing sand flies as they settle on the light-bathed pages. i count 7 here, but my record is 9.

day one on the kepler track is a mossy wonderland. my tramping buddy brian is on the move here.

mt. cook. the biggest mountain over here and often a training ground for everest.

these kids insisted that their aunty pick me up even though they had to hold onto my massive bag in the back.

on this particular day of hitch hiking i ended up being picked up by a 1935 model car and became part of an antique car rally for a while. and this is why i hitch everywhere. i'm up to 72 rides so far by the way!

this place is gorgeous. it's also a world class bouldering site.

the mother of all mussels. soon to be in my stomach.

i harvested lots of mussels on my mission to inspect the mcbeth's old hippy commune home before all of their family came in for easter.

this happens all the time here. cows and sheep in the way.

if this doesn't make you hungry...

mari looking like a badass. is that an oxymoron?

more vistas from the heaphy track near karamea.

mari and me go for a hike: scenes from the heaphy track.

starting the track.

this is where mari and i stayed whilst watching the mcbeth's farm. not bad, eh?

extracting oil from the tea tree leaves.

hamish stuffs tea tree leaves into the distiller.

life on the farm.