Colac Bay, Te WaeWae Bay, Nuggets Point.

11:20 PM 0 Comments




The Ocean, let me repeat myself...the enormous, gigantic, 96.5% of the earth's water, the OCEAN!
Oh hello, gorgeous people that read this blog. I have pictures for you. I have adventures to tell of, stories both tall and short. My goal is to inspire and to tell you that dreams are something you can touch.  I have gone far, but still I have miles to go.

This post is going to be a picture post mostly, since my last post lacked any retina stimulation.

A couple Fridays ago I was walking down the driveway like I always do, after being dropped off from work for the day. I walked down the driveway, doing my absolute best to leave work at work and be Dan, the fun loving guy and not Dan, the tired guy from working hard all day. So as I am doing this I notice Hugh, the fun loving Australian surfer “cruzie” dude, our flatmate, packing his car up.

It's a blue little car, the size of maybe a Ford Escort. I asked if we could tag along and he said "Yeah, I’m leaving in an hour," so Teryn and I packed up as quickly as we could and stuffed ourselves in Hugh’s clown car and left!

Teamwork makes the dream work.

Crusing along, we made our way down south straight to the coast our sights set on Colac bay. The weather man says clouds and rain all weekend. This, of course, doesn’t stop us from continuing forward. Clouds and rain did roll through, but I still managed to capture some great shots. Once in Colac bay, we drove up and around the coast and found Te Wae Wae bay with one of a kind oceanic views. 



Te WaeWae bay  Can you imagine a beach that is a mile long? Now imagine that same beach and it has not a single human being on it! No one trying to catch a tan, no one yelling, no kids crying, no sounds that are hcean waves crashing on the shore, birds and the gust of wind. My own cluttered brain noise stops in its tracks upon the views that we encounter.

I don’t always express my emotion on my face, sometimes it’s just a constant “resting bitch face”, but rest assure my brain is going off its hinges! This trip or “mission” as the locals call it, was worth it. We got to hang with hugh and discover a New Zealand that we have been dying to see. Teryn collected rocks and shells, Hugh surfed some “swell” waves and I saw the ocean. At 30 years old and this was only the 3rd time that I’ve seen or touched the ocean.






Meanwhile back in Wanaka. Mac “The Austin Powers of NZ” our most animated character, is making moonshine. As I walk into the house, I find a familiar smell. I think back to when I first experienced this smell. Kody K, my basic training bestie from Wisconsin. Moonshine. Moonshine such a distinct smell. Mac has such an amazing set up. His version of fireball is grade “A”.




Ataahua is 6 years old. Ataahua means beautiful in Maori ( Maori is the natives of New Zealand ) Ataahua is constantly surrounded by adults and different flatmates that come and go. She can be a pain, but for the most part she is just a very curious kid. I always have a hot and cold reaction to kids and I have realized that as I get older. I want kids, but I know that I am not ready for kids. I much rather entertain the thought of buying a jet ski and raising that to be a glorious yacht! Either way though she is a cute kid!



I call this one “Girl vs. Oven” Pizza oven, Check. Head lamp, Check. Trying to roast chicken, Fail. Overall though, Teryn is quite flawless when it comes to making a feast out of barely anything. I couldn't asked for a better person to travel around and experience this all with.



This last time I went to Queenstown, I purchased Dug, our sweet little campervan. After I picked up Dug, I was hanging around Queenstown for a bit, while waiting for Teryn to get off from working at the PGA tournament. During that time, I came across this gem of wall art and I found the Queenstown gardens. There were trees and plants brought in from all over the world. What immediately caught my attention was this massive tree. Upon walking up to this gigantic tree, I thought this might be what a Red Wood from California would look like. I have yet to go to the Red Woods, but I’ve seen them in movies and in pictures. As I walked up to the little plaque that was attached at the base it read. “Sequoiagigantean” Red Wood, California. This was in fact a Red Wood! Super cool! Many of the trees in the Gardens were imported there back in the late 1800’s. Just makes me want to go to see them in their natural habitat in California that much more now. They are quite a sight to see.






(Photo Cred: Teryn)

Finally we have a vehicle! I’m sure most of you seen the picture of Dug on facebook by now. We are finally able to take some trips away from Wanaka and more around the rest of the country. On this last trip we decided to go on over to Kaka Point and Nugget Point in the Catlins. It’s South of Queenstown and along the coast. Teryn had seen a picture of the lighthouse and we both really wanted to get some more ocean time in, so away we went!

Due to the massive boulders in the water this made the area very dangerous to boats that were trading along the coast. Thus propping a lighthouse to be built to warn of impeding dangers ahead. The lighthouse was built in 1869 and stands just 249 ft above the water.  





I couldn’t get a good picture, but down there in a little side pool of water there were several sea lions swimming around! This area is home to sea lions, fur seals and a bit further south there are penguins!




The Nuggets at Nugget Point. It looks like something straight out of a movie scene, it would be a great pirate movie location. This was probably in one of the Lord of the Rings during a part that I was asleep.

That is all for now guys, but Easter weekend is a 5 day weekend and we are stoked to get out and about again!

What is something you've always wanted to see? The redwoods, Grand Canyon, The biggest ball of yarn?

Let us know below in the comments.


Also we are trying to brainstorm a new name to our blog, that will be used for not only this blog, but all of joint travel social Medias. Let’s hear your ideas. 

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Work shmerk

1:54 PM 0 Comments

Queenstown from the top of the gondola.



I apologize for us not updating for a few weeks. I had a feeling that once we found better things to do we would start slackin' on here a little bit. It's been a crazy couple of weeks with work, people, and small adventures, or "missions," as they call them here. Dan has gotten a full time electrician job for a company called Aotea, and I've ended up working for a vineyard called Northburn Station. It's cool and all, but sometimes involves 16-17 hour days like last weekend, and that's not so much fun.

I think I last left you with an update of some of the cool new people that have become our friends here. Last weekend Flair's dad (our flatmate) threw his 60th birthday party at a nearby lake called Lake Hawea. I can imagine the image in your head, lots of old people sitting around picnic tables by the lake, grilling hotdogs and burgers, eating Grandma's potato salad and aunt Janice's jello mold... all falling asleep sitting up. Nope. Flair's dad Chud is kind of epic. He rented out an entire campground, brought in his own circus tents, hired DJ's from Australia, and threw himself a 4 day music festival. The tents had mutiple levels of stadium style couch seating, a massive dance floor, and a kitchen tent just beside the main tent. You could fit 500 people in the main tent. I've been to real music festivals that were less impressive than the main tent of Chud's 60th birthday party. He rented compost toilets for the weekend, and had a massive cabin tent with individual beds for about 20 people to sleep. We were only lucky enough to make it out to one of the milder nights, Friday, because we were working a wedding for the vineyard I work for the next day and didn't end up getting off until really late. I heard that the real party happened on Sunday, when they all moved the party to the beach and danced until the sun went down. Kiwis definitely have the whole having fun thing down to a science.

Aw, as I am writing this Mac (who has officially moved in and become our flatmate, woo!) just brought me over 'brekkie' and tea. He hurt his back jumping from a bridge into a river a few weeks ago and has been in a lot of pain. He's usually full of energy and extremely happy, but he's a little bit like a bird with a broken wing lately. We've had a few brekkie and tea chats this week. I'm hoping I'm helping bring him out of his funk just a little bit. He's the only one willing to give me me driving lessons with a manual transmission on the other side of the road, and I greatly appreciate his patience and for never yelling at me when I stall his car. We drove out to this really cool peninsula on the lake the other day, where he keeps his trailor full of his life parked, to pick up his liquor making supplies. We spent the afternoon after that 'putting down a brew', and he said he just stilled the liquor last night. We're well on our way to making our own booze, yay!

So this past week on our little hippie compound has been interesting. Mac was dating this lovely girl named Jessie all summer. They met at a music festival called Luminate and then just decided to spend the rest of the summer traveling around New Zealand together. Mac wanted to end the adventure in Wanaka, so that's how he ended up back here. Jessie and I have become quite close over the past two weeks, and unfortunately she had to fly back to Auckland on Saturday. It would be the case that I finally make a really solid friendship and she has to go away. We spent a few days thrifting for fabric and clothing to upcycle, because she's really been encouraging me to use my sewing and clothing design skills here because no one else is really doing it. It's been awesome having someone to light the creative fire in me again, and I'm going to miss her a lot until she makes her way back here. Friday night the crew invited over probably 50 people for a pizza party/Jessie's going away party, but I was exhausted and dead to the world so I didn't participate. There were 7 campervans in our driveway when I woke up Saturday morning. I guess Mac and Jessie had to say their goodbye's too that night and a long, emotional summer came to an end for them. Jessie is supposed to call and give me the scoop on how that left off, so we will see. Summer lovin' can be a real bitch sometimes.

Summer came to an end for all of us yesterday, with the first day of fall in the southern hemisphere bringing with it colder temperatures and tons of rain. I woke up today with a swollen throat and lymph nodes because my body can't handle extreme temperature changes very well. I'm sure temperatures will remain warm until the end of March, but then winter kicks in, and we're hoping by that time to be heading north to where it is warmer. The weather here is more unpredictable then Colorado, Ohio, or the rest of the random US weather combined. It snowed the first few days we were here, then was blazing hot the last few weeks. It's been nice having a little bit of summer, even if it may be short lived.

I can't find my damn notes I took on everything I wanted to write about anywhere, so I'm just going to wing the rest of this. I have one small rant I need to go on that has been driving me nuts lately. So I have been more fascinated than ever about the American food system and how fucked up it really is. It's not that I haven't been into it before, but living in a country that doesn't allow GMO fruits and vegetables has been really eye opening. The only way you'll find GMO's in NZ is in food that has been imported from other countries. I've complained a lot about the taste of food here, but that's mostly just because they don't understand seasoning and how to make things taste really good. I wasn't complaining about freshness or quality. Any meal we've made at home or with our flatmates out of the fresh ingredients we've gotten from the store has been really good.  It's really scary to know that the only way we will know how bad things really are for us in the states is if we go digging for that information because they lie to us our whole lives with advertising, and refuse to label GMO's. I've just been thinking lately that maybe I don't want to go back after traveling and buy a house and raise a family in the States. I don't want my kids to grow up thinking that it is all OK. Several of the travelers I've met here that aren't Americans said America was one of the scariest countries they've ever visited. It's hard hearing that from people who have spent a lot of time in third world countries. I'll just say Dan and I have been reevaluating our future plans and seriously considering living permanently overseas in the future.

Anyways, I'll get off my organic/non-GMO soapbox and move onto happier things. Poor Dan has had to listen to it a lot lately.
*wipes brow*

On Sunday we took a little mission to Queenstown, which is the original place we were planning on moving. Queenstown is like Wanaka's big brother, but a hell of a lot more touristy. Touristy can be fun though, it's not like we're real locals anyway...we've only been here a month. We drove over the Crown Range Pass, which was absolutely beautiful. It's about 45 minutes away. When we got there, we picked up a couple of gondola passes and rode to the very top. The pictures below were all taken on my cell phone right at the top of the gondola, and the lake you see is called Lake Wakatipu. From the top of the gondola alone you have the option of luging down the mountain (which we did), paragliding, mountain biking, bungee jumping, or just enjoying a nice meal at the restaurant at the top. It reminded me a lot of the main gondola in Aspen and the Sundeck at the top of Ajax, but with even more to do. Queenstown is considered the adventure capital of the world, and I think over the next few weeks we're going to try to get up there once a week to do some crazy shit. Wanaka is definitely a better place to live on a day to day basis, but I'm glad we have Queenstown to go get rowdy in when the mood strikes. We discovered a sort of Groupon of NZ activities called BookMe, so we're able to find some awesome deals on end of the season adventures.

I wrote this blog a week ago, and am just posting it today, so I'll add to it the fact we just took an epic little mission this weekend to the southern coast to go chase some storm swells with our Aussie surfer flatmate, Hugh. We will post pictures of that trip and talk about it in next week's blog.

I will be bartending the New Zealand Open PGA tournament in Queenstown from tomorrow until Sunday, so hopefully I'll have some cool stories to tell from that. We have been spending a lot of our time the last couple days getting together some sort of game plan for the year that we are here. We are thinking of sticking around Wanaka for the winter as our home base while we explore the rest of the Southern Island, then heading north in the spring time. We should have our campervan in another week or two, then the real fun will begin! I'm personally falling more and more in love with New Zealand every single day. Seeing a completely empty beach perched right up against jagged mountain peaks and rolling green hills this past weekend was probably one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. It was exactly what I had imagined New Zealand to be. In America, that same strip of land would be littered with beach houses and people. It's awesome knowing we can just drive a couple of hours and have a huge stretch of the ocean to ourselves. Many adventures await in the next few weeks...and we're planning a seriously epic adventure for my birthday in May that may or may not involve great white sharks. Hang in there for the good stuff to get going!

A wealth of adventures awaits you at the top.

Pre-luge cheesin'.

I liked the dramatic 'no alcohol or drugs' pictures. Pretty sure I know that guy.

Weeeee

Post-luge beers and pizza at Winnie's Pub, as per my friend Hilary's suggestion!

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The Grind.

12:51 AM 0 Comments

     Oh hey there! Sorry I’ve been gone for a hot minute. Just been doing the grind of trying to get some cash back into my bank account. Ok, let’s go back into my notes and see what I have to tell you guys about.

     I have come to conclusion that there are 10 blondes to 1 brunette here. I’m at a coffee shop, naturally, and there appears to be 5 blondes, 1 brunette and 1 woman with red hair. I think she might be the owner and the blondes are her little minions. So if you like blondes, man or woman, then New Zealand is the place for you.
When you ask for a Lemonade here, you get a Sprite. *Scratches head* Huh? I’m not sure if they know what lemonade is, but that is probably because lemons here are very scarce and thus, are very expensive.

     Half the town closes at 5pm, and the other half opens at 5pm. Much like all small towns, the trick is figuring out what is open at which 5. Speaking of Wich Wich, they don’t have those here. Sad face, but they do have a Subway. Which does, in fact, still smell the same. Still shitty sCrubway food. Sad face. I did go in there for some cookies though. (Yep, they taste the same as back in the states.)

    Michael Jackson’s “Beat It” is blaring at the climbing gym. Oh, the 80’s and 90’s are still alive here. Pearl Jam follows me everywhere. Oh, and did I mention “ Welcome to New Zealand, the only place in the world that will play Creed and Nickleback songs back to back on the radio.” Oh gawddd my ears can’t take it!

    I did, however, successfully introduce my co-workers to gangster Fridays! Bumping some Biggie and Pac with some old school Dre.

    I met the neighbors Goldie, Alex and their little boy Caleb. Super cute kid. Long blonde hair, looking like he is already surfing bigger waves than I ever could. Goldie is tattooed from head to toe, a rare sight here. Doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of inked up people here. Goldie automatically gives me a huge hug and warm welcome. I later find out that she does the traditional “poke” tattoos! So needless to say I’ll be getting one before I leave Wanaka. (Sorry mom, yes another tattoo.) I also learn that Goldie and her husband are the owners of the one tattoo shop that is here in Wanaka! Yay!

     Netflix is not allowed in New Zealand and actually it’s not allowed in many countries. So that was a big blow to us, at first. But luckily there is ways around it, and for $4 a month, we can bypass it and configure our computers to be able to watch it again. New Zealand is epic and there is a ton of things to do, but until we get money and a car, our options to do epic things are a bit limited, for now. I guess I’ll watch some docs and mindless shows on the laptop.

     Ghost!! So Lonestar ,the bar and grill I briefly worked at, has a Ghost! Every couple of days when they first turn everything on and open up, the POS system has a glass of brandy ordered on the screen! It’s very rare that anyone drinks brandy here. I thought “well maybe it’s just the one register fucking up,” but no, one day it’ll be ordered at the bar register and the other day it’ll be ordered on the waitress staff register. Then it’ll come up on the one upstairs. At least the Ghost is attempting to pay for it?

     Whoooo, I found a pinball machine. It’s a sweet AC/DC pinball, but it cost $2NZ to play. Boo!

     I found myself a proper job as an electrician, aka ‘Sparky’. I’ve decided that I’m not going to go into the depths of the job, but know that I’m making just a little bit under what I made in the states and in a lot of ways it’s tons or “heaps” easier. They don’t even use metal conduit it’s all PVC plastic pipes. The outlets are all super simple to install. There are 7 employees and I make 8. Super chill, super laid back. My boss’s only question during my interview was...if you even want to call it that, where my hobbies were at on my resume? Dumbfounded, I told him that I don’t usually list my hobbies and he said “well on Mondays we all gather around and talk about the adventure we did on the weekend,  so you best have something good to say on Monday.”

     Day 3, and I’m in the workshop with Jonny fixing appliances and whatever else people are having problems with. On the wall of the workshop is about 8 posters of naked girls from what looks like photography from Playboy, circa 1995. I didn’t know if I was in my uncle’s garage or at work. My day was spent fixing coffee and espresso machines, 3 vacuums, rewired a storefront’s open sign, fixed some other tools and a bakery’s industrial mixer. Here they don’t throw things away when it breaks, they take it apart and fix it. I can’t help to remember my Uncle Richard, one of my many uncles that were in WW2. Richard was the neighborhood handy man and always had a garage full of lawn mowers that he was fixing. There is something satisfying about taking something broken, taking it all apart, figuring out what is wrong with it, and then remembering how it all goes back together again. I can see myself being 60+ and being like my uncle Richard, fixing the neighborhood appliances or helping with electrical issues.
I’m pretty stoked that my schooling for construction/electrical is something that is in high demand in other countries as well as the U.S…now if I can only find a way to own a company and still be my own boss.

Switch lanes.

     The UK version of Cards Against Humanity is hard! There is so many cards that I have no clue what it’s supposed to be or who it’s supposed to be. But… I managed to beat everyone still. J
Here is a new game for ya’ll, Giant Jenga with a fucking hammer! Rules goes as follows: You must first use the hammer for the first hit or tap. Once you touch any block that is the block you have to get out, there is no tapping to see which one is loose. Best tip: Just swing hard. “it’s kinda like the same concept of pulling a table cloth off the table, without spilling all of the glassware onto the floor.” Do ya follow me? So just pick a block, hit it really hard, and hope the rest don’t all fall down!

     I have to take a moment to talk about car doors. 6 out 7 lonely car doors are left open. These sad car doors are left open and forgotten about, sometimes for hours, sometimes for days. It’s sad. These doors never know if they will ever be shut again. They might just be open forever! “Shut the damn door!” is what I can hear my parents telling everyone here. I guess a lot of cars here don’t have “dope scopes” or dome lights, because people everywhere around here just leave their car doors wide open. It kinda drives me crazy, but meh, it’s not my car, so not my worries. It’s just an odd thing to me.

     Oh, I know what would drive my dad crazy…. the potato salad here. We bought a package at “New World” (the most expensive grocery store in all of New Zealand.) The package said, “American Style Potato Salad.” Well, I opened it up and it was more like a potato salad soup…It had potential for taste, but it had a gallon of water in it. Oh man, I can’t wait til’ Teryn and I get our food blog done up for ya.

New words and phrases for your pleasure:

     Cruzie – Super Chill. “Oh dude, today was super cruzie, I just laid at the beach all day.”

     Dodgy – Sketchy. “That is a dodgy job they did on that repair.”

     Yarn- Chat. “Let’s meet up at the cafe and have a yarn.”

     “I was doing a proper boogie wiggle.”- I was getting down on the dance floor.
   
      “I am so wrecked.”- I am super tired.


     “Oh man you fucking smashed it!”-You did a great job man!


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The Cast of Characters

3:13 PM 2 Comments


English friends, Cory, and Dan at the barbie!

Laying on the beach after work. Pretty much what I do best.

Awesome art work on the side of our house.

I finally got a kiwi hairdryer so I don't blow up our outlets. Yay straight hair!

Sorry for the lack of exciting posts as of late, we sort of fell into work this week and haven't got to do anything that cool, but I still think our day to day New Zealand life is pretty neat so I'll update ya'll on that. We have met a lot of cool people this last week. On Friday our English friend Harriet had a 'barbie' at her house, which is right around the corner from ours. Everyone brought something to throw on the grill, and we hung out drinking wine and eating until the sun went down. Then we went inside and played the UK version of Cards Against Humanity, which was made even funnier by the fact that we totally don't know half of the shit the cards were talking about. I lost. Hard. We got a little bit drunk that night, but only had a 1 minute walk home, so that was a plus. I had to work Saturday morning though, and had a massive headache, so that was probably not the best decision. I was warned by our flatmates that a possible pizza party would be happening on Saturday night. I've mentioned Flair, she is the owner of the house we live in and seriously one of the coolest chicks I've ever met. She's kind of one of those superwomen, where you look at her from afar and wonder how she does everything she does and still is who she is. At first she sort of comes off as a whimsical music festival hippy, very free-spirited, constantly jamming to Beats Antique while she tends to her garden....but there is so much more to her. She's a single mother of the beautiful Ataahua, she owns and operates her own coffee shop called The Good Spot, grows tons of fruits and vegetables on our property, rock climbs several times a week, paints, plays guitar, climbs mountains, and is in general an all-around badass. I'm not sure how there are enough hours in the day to be Flair, and I really admire her drive and ambition. We had a really good chat the other night about manifesting the life you want and the power of positive thinking. We got ourselves to New Zealand on that same principle, and it sounds like that's Flair's secret weapon too. Figure out what it is you want, and focus on what you need to do to make it happen. Simple stuff. Flair is dating our other flatmate, Hugh, a Aussie surfer dude that always has a goofy huge smile on his face. They're totally cute together. Flair has more friends than anyone I've ever seen, and on Saturday night, I got off work and came home to a backyard full of amazing new faces. I'm not sure if we've mentioned this or not, but one of the really cool features of the property we live on is the brick pizza oven in the back yard. Some people have grills...we have a pizza oven, and Saturday was my first official pizza party. Apparently they throw them all the time, and everyone just shows up with one element and takes turns making pizzas until everyone is way too full. In the end everyone votes on who made the best pizza of the night. I met some really awesome people that night. After I changed out of my work clothes I grabbed a beer and strolled over to the party. I was greeted immediately by a girl in a snapback, holding a pizza at me saying "if you haven't eaten pizza with fish on it, you haven't lived." Her named is Perron, rhymes with Teryn, and she runs Wanaka kayaks. She does guided kayaking trips out on the lake, and is an Alaskan salmon fisherwoman every June and July. Talk about a fucking badass. I met a nice couple from Finland named Cybal and Michal, who invited us to come stay with them if we make our way to Dunedin. Our neighbors, Goldie and Alex, happen to own the only tattoo shop in town. They showed up that night after a Valentine's date, and Goldie was sluggin' wine straight from the bottle and telling stories about her time squatting in London. My kinda lady. She's a really neat chick who does classic poke tattoos...which sounds horrible to me, but I'm sure I'll end up getting one before we leave Wanaka. Goldie was rockin' some awesome black high heels, but was too drunk to walk in them, so she kicked them off. They were immediately intercepted by another character, 60 year old ski pro, Sarah. Sarah has traveled the world teaching telemark skiing. Telemark skiing is free-heeled skiing, and allows you to move your body more freely than traditional alpine skiing. Until Saturday, she had never tried on a pair of heels in her life, but her training as a pro-telemark skier made her a natural in them. She proceeded to dance for the next hour in those things, jumping up and down in them while she knocked back a bottle of wine. She's been coming to Wanaka since her 20's, and has said that there is no place in the world where she feels she can be herself more than here. Flair's step-mom, also a woman in her 60's whose name I didn't catch, is Sarah's long time best friend. She was making fun of her heel dance moves but totally loving watching her friend having an awesome time. Flair's step-mom decided at 50 that she wanted to become a yoga instructor, and now teaches classes at her home. She reassured me that the average Kiwi has 7 different careers in their lifetime, so my need to do and try everything is totally embraced in this country. People get me here! The pizza master running the pizza oven was one of Flair's oldest friends, Mac. This guy seriously has so much personality that I'm not sure how to describe him. He's definitely a free-spirited festival hippy too, but he's also one of those quick-witted people that always has something absolutely hilarious to say at exactly the right moment. He used to live in the little house we live in, and is thinking about moving back to Wanaka and staying in the main house for a bit. I'm crossing my fingers that he does, because he's one of those feel-good people that is just a light to be around. Myself and my new friend Jessie, also a Kiwi girl who lives in the North Island, cleaned up. We had a really good conversation over doing dishes, then she made tea for everyone as they came in and sat by the fire. The theme of the night seemed to be everyone telling me how special of a place this is that we have ended up in. It's great to hear everyone's stories about how they left Wanaka to go travel more and eventually found their way back here. The sense of community here is incredible. I've lived in several small ski towns, but none like this. Ski towns tend to be very clique-y, and I've always felt kind of on the outside of the club. In Wanaka, it's like as long as you're here, you're in. Even if we don't want to be in, our flat mates will come open up our door, sit on our couch, and coax us out of our little house to hang out with them. As long as your energy is good and you appreciate your life and where you're at, everyone here welcomes you with open arms. I can see how easy it would be to get stuck here. I started work this week at a little bar/cafe/art space called Lot 3. It is owned by a lady named Berwyn, a Kiwi who also came to Wanaka in her hayday and has decided this is where she wants to settle down. After working for one of my best friends for the last two years at Vinue, it would have been really difficult to work for anyone other than Berwyn. She reminds me of myself in the future, and I'm really lucky to have landed in her cool new little project. Tonight we have a brainstorm session at 5 to put all of our ideas onto the table to turn Lot 3 into the newest, most happening place in Wanaka. We have one thing that no one else has...good food. After being on a hunger strike for like a week, literally only eating a bite or two of things here or there, that makes me really happy. I'm going to wrap this blog up because Dan and I are combining forces on an all food one later today, complete with the premier of our "Teryn and Dan vs. New Zealand Food" episodes. We've taken to filming out new encounters with strange NZ cuisine for your entertainment purposes. I apologize for the lack of pictures, people here aren't on their cell phones nearly as much and I feel rude whipping it out all the time to take pictures. We will have more soon. Food blog incoming soon!

2 comments :

Which side do I drive on again?

6:01 PM 0 Comments

Yeastie Boys is a name of a stout from Wellington, New Zealand and is quite delicious. Most closely tastes like a Lefthand Nitro Milk Stout.

I drove for the first time last night. Okay let me back up. I got a job at LoneStar which is basically this restaurant at the edge of town. Longest bike ride ever. It’s all up hill coming home and after a long day that’s the last thing I want to do, but nonetheless I’ll do whatever I have to do to get some money rolling back into my pocket again. So Lonestar. Is basically your American streak house. Lonestar Steakhouse. Yeah I’m pretty sure they just stole the name from the original Texas restaurant chain.

Country music plays over the speaker system. There is the occasional good classic Johnny Cash, but its few and far between. The place is covered in pictures of butch Cassidy, Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash and a few other legends. I think my Johnny Cash picture count is around 30 right now.

So far I have had their steak fillet and Salmon dishes. I must say the steak was pretty comparable to something you’d get back in the states. The Salmon was alright, but they laid it on top of some green baby poop, so that pretty much ruined it for me.

I get to this place not really knowing what they want me to do. Quickly I am told to run the bar. Okay cool. I can do that. Or at least I can pretend. Bartending out here is pretty simple other than the coffee part of it. Which as I mentioned in the last blog, they are pretty crazy with their specific ways to prepare coffee and the different sizes of each cup for each. Okay so bartending, Pour some beers and wipe down glasses. Cool.

 Well.. yesterday I get told that I get to drive the curtesy coach which is the 11 person van they have to be able to pick people up. They pick people up from their house or wherever and bring them to lonestar and then at the end of the night the van driver takes them all back home again all for free.
Not bad of a deal, since A: the restaurant is kinda far away from the main strip and B: You do not want to get caught drinking and driving here.

 So yeah pretty good deal. So one of the managers asks me if I have my license to drive and I was like I have my states license. She says okay cool you are our driver tonight. I was like..um… okay.. I haven’t ever drove a car yet, let alone a van with 11 passengers in New Zealand ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE ROAD…She said well... you’ll be alright. You’ll figure it out.

So away I went. There really aren’t a lot of stop signs here, they are more like yield signs. Which I was used to in Germany. There is also a lot of Roundabouts or traffic circles here. Those can be a bit more confusing, since you are entering on the left and exit on the left. I almost made the mistake of exiting on the right. Thankfully I didn’t. 

 My first couple of customers noticed that I had accidently put the windshield wipers on instead of the turn signals ( The turn signal is on the right of the steering wheel and the wipers is on the left) At first they were concerned, but quickly were like..oh you must be an American. I told them yup and today was my first time driving on the other side of the road. One woman said “ohhhh help help” but in a joking tone. She just kept telling me to always remember to stay to the left and I’ll be alright. Upon taking that same woman back home she asked me “ Which side of the road do you drive on? I jokingly said “ummm the middle right?” by this time she was a bit drunk and was like yeah that sounds right.

All night everyone was quite friendly and after I told them I had just moved here, they were quite excepting and helped give me directions around town to get them back home safely. After about 3 hours of that I actually got a hang of driving and I think as long as I don’t space out and just keep focused I’ll be alright with this whole driving thing. I remember in Germany I was a bit scared to drive, because there they have 100 more signs than we do in the states and everyone there drives super crazy fast., but that too I got the hang of and soon I was driving 90+ everywhere I went.
I think this job will be alright for the time being, until I either can find something different or until Teryn and I decide to take off to another part of the south island.

 We are looking at Nelson, New Zealand or Bay of Islands. But right now our main goal is securing the campervan, so we can take off and explore more.

Oh cool thing about lonestar is that some of the bartenders believe there is a ghost there. Every now and then there is an order for Brandy on the register screen. Never anything else, just brandy. And people here don’t really drink brandy. But every now and then it’s popped up on the screen and already ordered. So weird. At least the ghost is trying to pay for the drink I told them.

I’m going to wrap up this post, because I wanted to post about the driving experience and I need to organize my notes for my next big post. I don’t have good pictures to show this time, since we have been working and not really getting out but we are trying to see about going for a hike tomorrow.

Also future post I’m looking to forward to is Teryn’s post of our videos that we have been doing. We have decided to film each other with tasting the food here and describing it. It’s pretty funny. So those will come soon. Hope everyone is doing good back there. Thank you for reading!





0 comments :

$177 for tequila

3:13 AM 2 Comments

First week in a far far away land called Wanaka, New Zealand. For those that don’t know, Wanaka is a beautiful quiet little town about an hour away from Queenstown and for those that don’t know Queenstown..well go to you google maps app and look it up. J upon arrival Teryn and I went to work on figuring out where to live, where to work and where to get food and booze, ya know the necessities of life. Teryn imidiently found an add in a local weekly news paper for a room to rent.

 She called and it ended up just being right up the street from the bar we were at. So we walked up a bit using only the map from the visitor’s center and walked up and met with the woman who owned the place. Flair ( pronounced flea) ( yeah I’m not sure how that works either) is this really cool woman maybe early 30’s complete hippie girl with a slack line in yard and just over all great energy. She is also an entrepreneur. She owns two coffee shops, one being a mobile (food truck) called “The Good Spot” so awesome! Her and her daughter Ataahua (Ahtoowah) along with another roommate or as they say ( Flatmate) Hugh an Aussie who just turned 30 the same week I did.

 They both are so welcoming and friendly Teryn and I really lucked out. Everyone couldn’t believe how fast we were able to find a place to live. I guess that can be the hardest thing to do around here. Our friend Corey who also lives here, lives with 4 other people. It’s pretty common to live with 3 to 5 other people.                                     
                        
So anyways we basically live in a garage. Well it’s a converted garage. We have a sink, mini fridge, toaster over, gas cooktop ( propane tank) couch, a couple of chairs, bed ( horrible springy bed) a dresser , little desk. Over all it’s pretty sweet. We just have to go to the main house which is just a couple steps away to use the toilet and shower. I really can’t complain too much, since it’s a place where it’s just Teryn and I and we can still be naked and not worry about roomates. Ataahua does tend to stop by whenever she wants in the morning, but she is a cute kid so it’s alright. She’s 5 and just got a kitten (you’ll see in the pics) named Kahn. Well it was named Kahn, now I think they changed it to Charlie.

So I can’t really remember what I had typed the first time that I started this part of the blog, so I am going to do what comes best. Be random with my thoughts.

Went to the liquor store and I couldn’t believe my eyes for a regular bottle of Patron they wanted $177! Which ends up being $130 for a bottle that is normally $50 or $60 back in the states. ( We later found a store that more reasonable prices) They have jack and cola already premixed bottles that are still only 5% alcohol. They only have 5% on tap at most. This one place has a 2.5% on tap. Because of the liquor laws the bars want to provide a beer to people where they won’t get in trouble if they drive after. I told the bartender that in Colorado you can get 6% to 8% on tap and I think I just about blew her mind. Everything is definitely a lot more expensive here that is for sure. For happy hour only certain beers or wines are on happy hour. Happy hour is only an hour. Not like in the states, where a happy hour can be 2 hours or so. At this rate. I’m gonna have to stop drinking…ha naw that’s not gonna happen. But I might have to switch to Wine or Ciders since that is one thing they do right.

Most bars doesn’t have seats at the bar, which I find quite odd too. Oh and for the guys it’s back to the days of pissing in troths again. Barely any individual urinals.

Charlie the kitten. Pictures of cats will go viral, Pictures of sleeping kittens will travel to the ends of the universe. I could put the most breathtaking picture of Mt. Wherever, but I bet my life savings that the kitten will get more likes and shares.

Don’t flush the toilet after every piss, you are wasting water.

I should learn to be a barista. Coffee is the way of the world. I know I can find a job, but the stress of finding one is stressful enough in the states. If I am to make this travel life work. I need to be able to get a job wherever we decide to go on this planet. Maybe I should learn to be a barista. Iced coffee to them is coffee with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. They take their coffee very seriously here and it is pretty damn good and strong. However the size is super small or small. No Large, No grande super size. But with how strong it already is, I am beginning to realize the bigger coffee in the states is really just filler with sugars and milk that you don’t really need anyway. 

So I am getting used to that.

I’m learning to either drink cider or drink wine because they atleast do those “proper” here. ( I’m also convinced that I will return home with a british accent, because of all the british people that live here) but food ah man… that is something to be dealt with. For starters I almost wasn’t able to find frozen pizza let alone a pizza place. We have tried a few pizzas now, but still nothing special. Mexican place…thought to ourselves you can’t fuck up Mexican right? Wrong… We went to a restaurant called Trout. Guess what… They don’t even have trout on the menu!?! And we are on the lake where there is tons of trout! So..yeah not sure what is going on with that.

We have yet to have Sushi here, but we are told the best sushi here is at a little place inside the mini mall ( when I say mini, I mean it literally has 4 stores and a video rental store.) problem with this is that the sushi place closes at 5pm. Ugh….. I could go on and on about the let downs of the food here, but I think Teryn and I both will do an entire blog on the food here.

 *TWO WORDS. HAM HUCK. ( Ham pieces mixed with a flavorless jello) yuck! Picture of that is on my Instagram which if you don’t know is dan.conerd come follow along kids.

1993. Always. Errrday. Allllday.

 It seems that Kiwis’ love American music, but it just so happens that it’s pretty much all the music from 1993. I am going to start documenting the music that plays here more, so you’ll know what I’m talking about.

Job search. Teryn of course landed an amazing new wine bar/artsy kind of place job and as for me… well  I am currently still working on it. I do have trial day at this steakhouse called lonestar. I think it’s basically a restaurant trying to be an American steak house, but we haven’t actually ate their yet because it’s out at the edge of town. The brits that we hang out with say it’s the worse place to work for, but at this point I am looking for anything that can provide a paycheck, before I dig myself in any more of deeper hole that I already am. For those that don’t know Teryn and I are by no means rich and only way we made this move possible is by a leap of faith and some credit cards. I still have a flat screen tv and soundsystem for sale back in Denver if there is anyone that wants to make me an offer.

Anyways wish me luck on getting a job.

I was lucky enough to score a free mountain bike, I just had to change out the front tube. The breaks need work, but for now I think I can make it work. It’s already so weird riding my bike on the other side of the road. Teryn also scored a bike today for $30 ( or for those keeping track that is around $24 in American dollars)


Today Teryn and I had a very beautiful walk to the local Wanaka Wine Vineyard, where we got to do a wine tasting and then we bought a bottle and soaked in the sun ( I of course forgot sunscreen and am now burnt) but nonetheless we soaked in the sun and sat in awe of the amazing views. Pictures below.

 Today was a beautiful day, one of the many I am positive that we will have on this adventure of ours. It’s getting late now and I’m sorry that it took me a bit longer to write this one, but I am going to try my hardest to write more and write it down right away from the time something happens, so I don’t forget.

 I love you all and may your week be proper. Oh this guy ( who might have a job for me) says he would be keen to go have a yarn with me. What the hell do you suppose that means? 

**************CLICK ON THE PICTURES TO MAKE THEM BIGGER*****













2 comments :

Mari-Wanaka

8:54 PM 2 Comments

I stole this pic because I haven't taken many yet. Going paddling on the lake tomorrow so many pics are coming!

You know how they say that it is more about the journey than the destination? When referring to the traveling experience from the United States to New Zealand, that is a lie. The journey here was HORRIBLE, and I don't think I'm ever going to leave based on my experience getting here alone. I'd like to start this by apologizing to my older brother, Dustin, who is moving into our apartment in a couple of days and will arrive to a house that looks like people just ran out of it with their stuff still everywhere, because that is exactly what happened.

We learned the morning of our departure via Air New Zealand that, because we booked our trip from Denver to LA seperate from our trip from LA to Auckland, we would have to pick up our bags in LAX ourselves then run them across the airport and check them in with Air New Zealand on our own. Not to mention, the ANZ bag drop closes 75 minutes to departure, and we had a total of two hours from touchdown to takeoff. Talk about pressure. Non refundable trip around the world, with about 45 minutes to accomplish LAX bag pickup, security, and international check-in. I know mercury is in retrograde, so it is a MIRACLE that we made it to our NZ flight. New Zealand immigration also messed up both Dan and I's birthdays on our visas, so we almost got flagged for customs secondary security check and not even allowed onto the NZ flight. Good times.


Our 13 hour flight from LA to Auckland could have been fine. I was pumped full of Xanax, we had backpacks full of shooters, and ANZ's airplanes are fully equipped with awesome in-flight entertainment screens. I was the proud owner of a new neck pillow, and I was ready to conquer my aviophobia. Xanax basically makes me feel like this: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

 I was doing fine for about an hour, but then there were the clouds...
Non-stop turbulence on a 13 hour flight was absolutely horrible. All we wanted to do was sleep and there was no way it was going to happen for us. When we finally landed in Auckland we were happy to be in New Zealand, but seriously so angry that we had one more flight to get on that we couldn't really even enjoy that fleeting moment of "aha, we've made it." We also had to transfer all of our luggage ourselves again for the 3rd flight, at 5 in the morning, right after dealing with customs. Ugh.

So yeah, blah, blah, blah. Jetlag. Blah. Anyway, the traveling part just really sucked.

When we finally got to Queenstown, our friend Cory and his lovely friend Emmy picked us up. We had planned on living there actually, but he quickly whipped us through Queenstown...pointing out all of the in-your-face tourism advertisements everywhere, and talking up the town he lived in, Wanaka. The best way I can describe their relation is that Queenstown and Wanaka are a lot like Aspen and Snowmass, just on a much larger scale. Wanaka is about an hour from Queenstown. It's sort of the "down valley" of the area. Once we got to Wanaka, we reevaluated our game plan, and decided maybe we should just settle here too. Things have gone strangely well since arriving two days ago. We stayed at a little cabin in the Lakeview Holiday Park the first night. The next day we picked up a copy of the local classified magazine and set out to grab a beer and take a look at it. I found an ad for a "two room sleep-off" for rent and gave the lady a call. Apparently a sleep off is like a guest house. We were able to score the little place and we moved in yesterday! Everyone says it is usually really hard to find a place to live here, so we took our quick success as another sign we were doing the right thing. I also got a job at a really cool little art gallery/coffee shop/wine bar called Lot 3, and I start Monday!

New Zealand is funny in that it is really a lot like the U.S, and the South Island is specifically a lot like Colorado. However, there are so many little quirks that make it really different. Let's start with the people...Kiwis are amazing. They are the friendliest, most welcoming kind of people I've ever met. Our 'flat mates,' Faleah and Hugh, are two of the nicest humans on Earth. They're like "take our kayaks, borrow the car, take my bike..." all of the time. I'm amazed at how well people share here. Faleah (who will probably read this and make fun of me for mispelling her name) has a 5 year old daughter, whom I briefly met yesterday. She was wearing red flannel pajamas and the first words out of her mouth (in reference to her attire) were "I spewed all over myself on the drive into Wanaka," as she was giggling and making snow angels on the carpet. Kids are weird, but kids with accents sound so proper, even when they are talking about puking on themselves.

Cory was kind enough to immediately introduce us to all of his friends, which are mostly a cast of characters from England. The girls all love drinking wine with me and the guys are super awesome to Dan...so it already feels like we kind of a have a crew, and we've only been here 3 days. We're having people over for dinner tonight to thank them for their kindness and generosity the last few days.

I guess I should probably talk about coffee as I sit in the Urban Grind typing this. Kiwis do coffee way better than we could ever dream of in the states. I'm laughing at the idea of Starbucks introducing the "flat white," which is literally the best coffee drink I've ever had in my life. Kiwis and Australians argue over who actually came up with it, but Starbucks trying to make them is a total joke. Coffee is an art form and a serious business here. Being a well-trained barista is more valuable than being a well-trained bartender. What New Zealand doesn't seem to do so well is food.... ugh. Day 3 and I'm already so sick of "chips" that I would be ok not seeing another potato for a long time. They also don't have ketchup to go with these "chips." It's called 'tomato sauce,' and its basically just ketchup with a lot more sugar in it. It's disgusting. Oh God, and I also tried Vegemite. Vegemite is a real thing and it is absolutely horrible. It tastes like a mix of fish sauce and soy sauce concentrate, but is the consistency of a really thick molasses. I highly recommend never eating it. Fruits and vegetables are really expensive here, so most meals seem to be meat and potatoes. We're at the coffee shop drinking smoothies right now because we woke up feeling like we needed something healthy in our systems, and this is about the only way to get it. They do bake a lot of good bread here though, so there's that. Good luck being gluten-free in NZ.

I just experienced my first real grocery shopping trip. The super market here is called New World, and is set up pretty much the same way as the states...except they put frozen dog food in the same section as frozen meat, and if you're not careful you may end up with dog food burgers instead of ground beef later. Don't go grocery shopping drunk or tired. I about had a meltdown trying to order sliced lunch meat in grams instead of pounds. I thought I ordered 200g of sliced beef, but she gave me 2 slices. Then I ordered 400g of sliced ham, and she gave me a reasonable amount of ham. I don't understand. I gave up. The deli doesn't offer sliced cheese, so we had to go find that elsewhere in the store. When I asked a store employee where sliced cheese was, she pointed right at American processed singles. There are hardly any Americans here and she probably really thought that is what I wanted. 2 laps around the store later, I discovered actual sliced cheese. The struggle was real. The grocery store really made me finally feel like I was in a foreign country. Also, there is no sriracha anywhere, and that is a problem. They have some other version of it, and I bought it, but I'm sure it won't be the same. I'm going to just make some penne pasta tonight because anything more complicated was going to give me a heart attack after that grocery trip.

All in all, I couldn't have asked for anything to work out better here the past few days. We were so lucky to be sleeping in a bed of our own our second night here. I seriously have everything I could ever want in life right now...an amazing man, a little bungalow in NZ, new friends, a new job, and endless adventure out my front door. We are going to stick around Wanaka until the end of the season, then embark on our campervan journey around the rest of the country.

I could go on forever about the weird things I've noticed here the past few days, but I'm starting out the window of my new little house watching the prayer flags blowing in the wind with the mountains in the background. I have an absolute feeling of bliss washing over me.  Dan and I made a pact a year ago that we would move here, and here we are a year later. I am staring at a New Zealand mountain range from my living room, with my neighbor's laughing outside and chatting in their kiwi accents. We are here.
We LIVE here.

 Woah.




Life is short. Time is fleeting. Do what makes you happy NOW, and don't ever apologize for it.

2 comments :

From 764 square feet to 70 Liters...

11:51 PM 0 Comments

Teryn:
Yikes....we leave in 4 days.

There is something really exhilarating to me about getting rid of stuff. When I was younger I collected everything, and it just made every time we moved around, which was every year or two, so much harder. After I got out of the Backstreet Boys memorabilia collecting phase, I really enjoyed having less and less stuff laying around. I really did some serious life cleansing before I moved into my tent for the summer to raft guide in West Virginia. I left some things with my dad in Ohio, some things with my mom in Arizona, and moved my life into a green duffel bag that would fit me inside of it rather easily. I've maintained a pretty nomadic lifestyle since then...moving from Boone, NC, to Denver, CO, to Aspen, and back to Denver, so I've kept my life belongings down to a minimum. This packing my life into a backpack thing hasn't been super hard for me....but Dan on the other hand, has tons of shit. It's been interesting watching him spend hours each day figuring out what should go where, who should have what, and what he should just get rid of. I've just been pawning off clothes and shoes onto all of my friends. We're moving out of a pretty nice apartment that looks like this:

Into one 70 liter Osprey backpack for Dan, one 65 liter one for me, and the same green duffel bag I used to live out of in WV to split between the both of us. I'm not sure Dan has even put anything in there yet, and its halfway full of my whitewater gear. 

I have been a rollercoaster of emotions lately. I had a little too much wine a few days before our going away party and demanded that we cancel it. I guess the stress of moving, and dealing with a lot of people that were supposed to help us flaking out made me feel like fuck it, maybe all we have is each other. I decided to quit being an emotional wreck and let the party continue, and I have to say, I was extremely surprised with the turnout. We started at the bar I work at, Vinue, and made our way to Milwaukee Street Tavern, where we walked into the back room full of a ton of people we love. My mom was on her way up for Arizona and made it just in time to make an appearance at the party. I vaguely remember grabbing a fork, clanking a glass, and giving some sort of emotional 'thank you' speech. From there we ended up at Shotgun Willies and then I think Dr. Proctors? Dan and I both woke up in our clothing from the night before, in separate locations in our house, and were miserable for two days after. Hangovers get SO much worse after 25. Thank you all who made it, we seriously feel so loved.

I'm pretty close to done packing. I purged a ton of clothes yesterday onto my friend Natalie, and between compression bags and my previous backpacking skills, I think most of what I have left will be coming with us. You probably won't hear from us again until we're actually traveling, so stay tuned as we take off Monday. I have serious aviophobia, so between Xanax and wine (don't worry, I won't combine the two) I am hoping to make the journey there without having to be removed from any of the planes for losing it. No promises, though. 

So here we are with four days left, and we're on our last few days to say goodbye. I've been squeezing friends with tears in my eyes, because even though some people think we won't be gone that long, I know Dan and I are looking at this as an odyssey. We don't have a return flight home for a reason. I'm so lucky to have someone that fits into my life in every single way, and I absolutely adore him. I can't think of a better person to take off around the world with me.

My phone number will be the same, plus the NZ country code, I've got Whatsapp and Skype, and my email is TerynLunacy@gmail.com.

No excuses for not keeping in touch.

<3 Teryn


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