New Zealand
1st Leg - "Send Lawyers, Guns, & Money" Tour 2001

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After graduating from Kellogg, I decided to spend the summer on the road.  I grabbed my pack and headed to New Zealand, with plans to hit Thailand, also.  

A rough itinerary:
-Auckland
-Rotorua (volcanic region with sulfur pools)
-Taupo (sky diving and 1st bungy)
-Paraparaumu (to visit my friend Simon)
-Wellington (great city!!!)
-Blenheim (South Island, wine country)
-Christchurch (met up with Tariq)
-Franz Josef Glacier (kayaking)
-Queenstown (skiing, 340' bungy, white water rafting, jet boats, etc.)
-Waitomo (glow worm caves, black water rafting)

We pretty much stayed in backpacker hostels, which were nice, if unheated.  Travel was mostly by bus, with the TranzAlpine train and the flight from Christchurch to Hamilton being the exceptions.  Met tons of cool people, like Simon and Stuart, Nicky and Alex, and various others.  The photos below are the ones taken with my diggie camera.  I haven't had the drive to scan my 13 rolls of APS photos yet.


 
Sir Michael Fay's ill-fated America's Cup yacht
What a bunch of whiny little bitches...

 
Rangitoto, a volcano in the middle of Auckland harbor.  
It appears about 800 years ago, so it's still covered in basalt rock with little soil.  Beautiful views of the city!

 
These four are from Rotorua, a city that smells quite horrible
Hot volcanic pools, eerily colored by different minerals, are all over the place.

 
Mmmm!  Tasty!  Some of the pools had a pH of 2, so hot-tubbing was strictly out (though the Polynesian Spa in town hit the spot).
Frying Pan Lake, a boiling lake which is native to the, ahem, New Zealand Hot Water Eel.  Only Aussies believe that.

 
Crossing to the South Island.
The passage by ferry through the Marlboro Sound was breathtaking.

 
The Kaikoura Range, taken during a lunch stop in Kaikoura.
Christchurch as seen from the gondola over the town.

 
We took the TranzAlpine, considered to be one of the best train rides in the world, from Christchurch across the South Island.
Me in Arthur's Pass, the continental divide of the South Island.
Tariq at Arthur's Pass.

 
Tariq with his nasty-ass chicken-flavored potato chips.  Man, were those things bad.
As a public service, here's what the bag looks like.  Avoid these at all cost.

 
We flew out to Milford Sound, a fjord on the South Island
Yeah, it's pretty flipping cold there!
It's hard to truly appreciate this place until you see it.  The scale can't be comprehended in a photo.

 
Another shot down Milford Sound
Tariq and I with Nicky and Alex, whom I ran into numerous times during my trip.