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.

the endless estuary near karamea.

athletic as.

finn the dog. he lives to play fetch.

tea tree. mmmm.

this chook is in the 'sin bin' because she won't lay an egg. we were also told to deprive her of food. it's a hard knock life on the farm for them animals.

chow time for the chicks.

so folks i'll see what i can do about the broken camera...the last five pictures are from my friend mari's camera taken around queenstown...might be no pictures for a while but we shall see...

the arrowtown area. i had a nice christmas visit with jan (kiwi) - an old friend of mine who i met on an archaeology dig in belize.

bluff blasting.

ah, the mighty clutha river.

a choice rope swing near queenstown.

why so serious? i think i'm scared.

the view from our valentine party pad. opulent doesn't begin to describe this apartment.

hoosiers in new zealand!

the most surreal day of my life. how do you go from being a homeless hitch-hiker to partying in a luxury loft above queenstown?

this is one of the amazing flats i came to before ascending above the tree line. unfortunately my camera display screen was crunched against a boulder soon after this. i wish i could show y'all what awaited me above this point. but yeah, i was very near the snow line at the base of mt. cook with thundering waterfalls everywhere. i stayed at a backcountry hut for two nights after i found myself trapped as the rivers swelled from an all night rain and became uncrossable. actually, a great place to be "trapped" if you ask me. i didn't see anyone else for two days! only problem is that i ran out of food, so once the waters finally calmed, i had to literally run the 28 km track and then hitch a 100 km ride back to civilization and food.

there were more and more of these signs after a while.

walking up the valley into the misty mountains.

the start of the copland trail - the best track i have ever been on.

boulders on the south east coast near dunedin.

yeah, that pretty much sums up apple thinning.

pastis and pan fried trout with my french friend julien. bon apatite.

trout, it's what's for dinner.

after work it's to the river!

apricots. we developed a love/hate relationship during this time.
let's just say i didn't have the time of my life picking fruit in ettrick. in the end i did two, three week stints. during the second go round i found myself living with a career criminal in a house that pretty much amounted to a stable without the straw. he was quite chatty and i often found myself trapped in a conversation i wanted nothing to do with. one time he says to me, "yeah, i'd go back to jail. i mean shit man it's free rent, food, and dental." yeah dude, can't beat that.

this guy also wasn't the best looking bloke i've ever come across. he was very short and has been bald since he was like 15. a chainsmoker, a cigarette is forever dangling from his lips. anyway, his looks didn't deter him from going after girls. or at least talking about going after them. whenever he would see a girl, and i mean any girl, he would always say, and i'll never forget this, "she'd look better with me hangin' out of her! hehe!" oh.my.god.

the kumara horse races. i went all in on the #11 horse in the second race. he came in dead last. so naturally i joined the drunken masses and we consoled each other.

eager sand flies wait for me to emerge from my tent in the morning. beware of the sand fly.

i remember on this particular occasion i had no bug spray. i also didn't have a lighter to make a smokey fire. and oh my god did the sand flies feast. it took me a few minutes of fumbling around with some flint to get a small fire going. but of course, there was no wood around, and this fire was truely pathetic. oh man it was bad. the only time the sand flies were worse was when i was trying to hitchhike south to wanaka. i was standing next to a swamp and no one picked me up for two hours (the longest i ever have had to wait for a ride). if i remember correctly i could be seen kicking the ground, hitting myself, and shouting obscenities. no wonder i couldn't get a lift.

just south of mt. cook on the west coast near haast there are some spectacular farms.

i was going to sleep in here but it was locked! since when are churches locked?
instead i slept in my tent and waged war against the sand flies.

atop the glacier.

looking up at franz josef glacier. there is a jungle along either side. don't see that very often. new zealand: where jungles and glaciers collide!

punakaiki "pancake" rocks.

my swedish escorts.

the west coast, south island! up and down along highway 6.