All work, little play!

Ok all you people who have been bugging me to do so, heres your blog post.

For the most part, I've just been working since I last updated here. Funny how a thing like a job gets in the way of travelling around and having fun! That being said, its not that I'm not having fun, its just work isn't as much fun as not work, haha.

So a few weekends back I drove down to Dunedin to watch a bit of the Otago rally.  Headed down friday night and checked out the cars before they would be racing on Saturday. The next morning got up and headed out to a predesignated spectator area on one of the legs of the rally.  Watched all the cars come flying around the corner then hopped back in the van and headed to watch part of the next leg. Then repeated the process again. Was really neat seeing these cars run in person, something I've wanted to do for a while.

Some of the countryside on the way to Dunedin.

On the long weekend, I headed out for a couple hikes in hunting areas closest to Christchurch (close is still an hour away). Because of the limited public access areas close to population centers, many people utilize these areas, especially on a long weekend, so there was no animal sightings but some decent scenery was seen.

Gotta love a sunrise!

View is pretty alright I'd say.

The weekend after I headed down to Waimate, wallaby central of New Zealand. They only have them in this area, but they breed worse than rabbits. Same as other places, public access hunting areas are overrun with people so I toured around and asked a couple farmers for permission. One already had people hunting there, another still had all his stock out on the pastures. But he did give me his name and phone number so I'll most likely be down there again in a bit and see if I can shoot a couple wallabies.

Last weekend I headed up to Kaikoura with a guy from work. His mom and stepdad live there and we stayed at their house, which was really quite something! Hes a hunting guide and has also been hunting around the world so his walls were filled with all sorts of dead animals, really was my kind of place. We hung out with some of his old friends and checked out the seal colony near town, watching them play around for awhile. Then we sat ourselves on the windy beach and threw out a couple lines to do some fishing. We pulled in a couple kahawai and called it a day. Really nice area up there.

Kaikoura. 

First fish I caught in New Zealand!

I could definitely relax in here. And I did.

I'm also including a couple pictures of the fences we've been building. A few different styles for those who are curious.

I hope this post will satisfy those who have been bugging me to get an update up on here, haha. Enjoy!

~Korey

From Wellington to work

The ferry crossing from the North to South Island was a nice 3 hourish cruise through the Cook Straight, some really nice scenery along the way.  I spent the first night in the port town, Picton.

From there, I made my way over to Nelson. Nelson is a really nice spot, and from what I've heard they get the most hours of sunshine in a year in all of New Zealand.  I hung around Nelson for close to a week, looking for some work.  Most of the seasonal work (apple picking and such) was getting close to the end of the season or the places already had all the people they needed.  I toured around the area a bit, and did a bunch of reading and job searching.  Most of the jobs I found online were all in the Christchurch area.

Havelock, on the way to Nelson.

 At this point I had been in contact with Richard t'Hart and asked him about the job market in the Christchurch area. He mentioned the name of a vineyard north of the city so I headed down that way (with a brief detour to the west coast) and ended up meeting with one of the guys from the vineyard and I will most likely be starting there in the middle of May. Not wanting to just hang around for a few weeks, I asked the owners of one of the campgrounds I stayed at if they knew anyone looking for at least a temporary worker. They put me in contact with their son who does residential fencing and now I'm working for him!

Ariki "falls" at the head of Buller Gorge.

Buller Gorge swingbridge. Neat area with mining/gold-panning history. 

Heading into the Christchurch/Canterbury area. Reminded me of the area around Cache Creek

On the past Saturday morning Richard and myself, along with several others from the church here, got up just after 5 am to go to the ANZAC day service in Christchurch.  Really quite something, getting up early and seeing so many people streaming to one of the parks in Christchurch.  The service was suprisingly really nice, including the crowd reciting the Lord's Prayer, and the singing of several hymns. Not something someone finds in everyday secular society.

After a breakfast after the service Richard and I headed out and did some touring by car southwest of the city, to areas like Akaroa and the surrounding bays and the roads over the hills in the area. Some really nice country in that area. On our way back through town we toured through some of the areas hardest hit by the earthquakes in 2011.  Most of the damaged buildings have by now been demolished, leaving sometimes whole city blocks flattened to nothing but an empty lot. Some rebuilding has now started but there are also some unstable buildings left standing.  Shipping containers are stacked high against the edge of these buildings, protecting passing traffic and pedestrians.

Akaroa.

Sunday, between the services (the pm sercice is at 5) we again headed out by car to check some of the southern city, namely around the Christchurch port town, Lyttelton.  We also went through several areas where houses had to be abandoned after the quakes, deemed unsafe by the unstable hills behind or under them.  Really something to see these seemingly liveable houses just left to rot.
On Monday (a public holiday in conjunction with ANZAC day) we headed out with a group of youth to do some hiking in the Arthurs Pass area, west of the city.  We hiked around for a few kilometers, checking out the falls and rivers and views the area had to offer.  Part way through our walking around it really began to rain, effectively soaking us all. But all in all, still fun.  That evening we had a really nice dinner with everyone and had a good time just hanging out.

Arthur's Pass area.

"Devil's Punchbowl"

I was supposed to work today but I'm off on account of rain, apparently you can not dig fence post holes when they fill with water as fast as you can shovel them!  So luckily for you all I could update this for you.  For the next several months though, I'm not sure how much I'll have to write here as I should be working full time and probably just doing some travelling on the weekends.

Hope all is well with everyone and you're enjoying whatever it is that you're all up to!

~Korey

First Blood!

From Waipawa I continued south until I came past the Tui brewery.  This is a common brand of beer made and drank here in New Zealand and is actually quite a pleasant brew.  I wasn't on time to catch the tour when I had gone by on my way north earlier in my trip but I made sure I was there on time this go round.
The tour was interesting, lots of history behind everything there.  Story has it, the original founder stopped at the nearby creek on his travels North in the early days and brewed himself a cup of tea from the water of the creek.  He reckoned it was the best darn cup of tea he ever had so he thought what any sound, logically thinking man would and started a brewery on the spot.  After many years and change of ownership the owners decided to build a nice new building and started constructing their brick tower with scaffolding and installing their equipment as they went up four stories. It was a gravity fed system, with each floor of the building being a different stage of the brewing process.  It wasn't until they were nearing completion they discovered they had forgotten to design stairs into the building plan! They ended up cutting holes in the floors and using ladders for quite some time.
Heading south again, I camped near Greymouth. No sooner had I set up than it began to pour. All night.  That night was spent inside reading by headlamp, drinking tea, and listening to water rush off the camper!

One of the original Tui Brewery buildings.

The next morning I continued further down to Wellington, stopping at a foam wholesaler and having a proper mattress cut for the van. I have yet to sleep on it but can definitely say it beats the thing camp foamy and thin thermarest on plywood that I was sleeping on.
Once in Wellington, I spent several hours wandering around the National Museum.  It was filled with lots of the local history and had many nice displays and best of all, was free!
Finished at the museum, I headed back north a little ways to van der Werffs again for the weekend.

Kiwi skeleton at the museum. Note the size of the egg in relation to the body size, crazy!

The boys were all out hunting with friends on overnighters so I spent the evening catching up and reading.  The next day I headed to the library for internet access and booked my ferry crossing to the south island for Monday. I wandered up town and got a couple more books from the used book store.  The afternoon really cleared up nicely and I went for a small hike up behind van der Werff's and got a nice view of the valley they live in.  Mr. suggested that we should go for a afternoon/evening hunt up behind the neighbours, so I jumped at the opportunity.

View from behind van der Werffs.

It was the same area I had hunted two weeks before with Hugo and his brother, but it was considerably nicer weather out this time round.  But, unlike last time, we didn't take the Suzuki so we had an extra 45min-hour hike up to where we drove to last time.  We followed the track along the ridge stopping to glass any little open spots on the heavily bushed valley.  We could hear stags roaring from all directions in adjacent properties or places you'd never get to. We spotted a hind and stag fairly quickly. Unfortunately this one was off limits as it was in the valley directly behind the owners house and he was hoping to get an easy one as he is recovering from a fractured pelvis.
Continuing along the ridge, we came around a corner and spotted a young kid goat feeding contentedly on the grass along the track.  We managed to get to within six feet of it before it ran off!
Over a rise later in the track, Mr. van der Werff spotted a hind up ahead and quickly ducked back and asked if I wanted to shoot. He handed me the rifle and I peeked over the hill but by that time she had heard/smelt us and was taking off into the thick bush.
Quietly sneaking to the far corner of the property we didn't see any other animals but could hear stags roaring in the neighbours property.  We stopped from a drink of water and a quick bite.  Mr. van der Werff was halfway through a granola bar when he suddenly spotted a stag back along the fenceline.  It was no monster but we were meat hunting anyways, so I quickly took a rest on a nearby fencepost.  He was facing away from us so I waited until he lifted his head and I settled the crosshairs on his neck just below his head and squeezed off a shot.  The bullet from the .308 covered the some 200 yards in a quick hurry and dropped him directly in his tracks! First animal down in New Zealand! We quickly ran up to him and cut his neck to bleed him.

Nice little management stag! Good one to pull from the herd!

We snapped a couple quick pictures and quickly set to work gutting him and cutting him up to pack out as it was quickly getting dark.  I quickly boned out the loins and front legs and took both back legs off together at the spine. We just had soft day packs along so we put the boned out pieces in Mr. van der Werffs bag and packed out the back legs and head "kiwi-style".  This involves throwing it over your shoulders and holding the hocks and packing it out that way.  It definitely was not the most comfortable as the knee caps were digging into my shoulders the whole way down but it got the job done for the few kilometers back to the car!  Being that the stag was rutting, I stank highly by time we were done the job!
Once we got home, we found out Hugo and his brother Derek had each shot a stag as had his other brother Justin and his friends! All in all a successful weekend!

Now off to the South Island!
~Korey

Taupo to Waipawa

North of Taupo, I had booked a river cruise the next morning to check out Huka Falls.  The guide who owned/ran the boat gave us all sorts of information about the local flora and fauna as we cruised up the Waikoto river to the base of the falls.  Not quite the magnitude of Niagra Falls, but still very impressive nonetheless.

A nesting black swan. Non-indigenous to New Zealand and a prolific pest, there is a hunting season for them here. 

Huka Falls.

We made it back just in time to see the opening of the dam on the Waikoto river.  They open the floodgates for about 15 minutes every 2 hours during the day so people can see how the Aratiatia Rapids would normally flow if it weren't for the dam. There is an impressive amount of water that flows through these pools and rapids.  Also, for those film buffs, it is also a location that they filmed at for the barrel scenes in the hobbit movie. They floated specially painted barrels down the rapids as it would be too dangerous to send any human, or hobbit, through.

Aratiatia Rapids

I continued north and stopped next at Rotorua.  Being incredibly tourist-y with everyone trying to sell you any "adventure", and having a large amount of people, and smelling of egg-fart (sulphur gas from the geothermal activity in the area), I didn't hang around long. I continued on the road to a nice quiet caravan park right on the ocean, just outside Opotiki.  Spent the rest of the day cooking up a feed, and finishing my book while sitting on the beach watching the sun go down and the locals fishing on the beach. Living the life.

Watching the sun set just outside of Opotiki.

The next day I continued up along the coast around the north-eastern edge of New Zealand.  The area once thrived with many ports where ships loaded up with meat from the area destined for overseas, but now is a quiet area, with only a few small settlements.  The road pushed through to Gisbourne made trucking the product to a major port easier and less expensive.  Apparently the economy is looking good with vast tracks of forestry land reaching maturity and lots of harvesting happening.  I followed this winding, twisting, hairpin-cornered road all the way around to Tolaga Bay, where just outside of town I found my way to Len and Theresa Vanbeelen's place.  For those who don't know, Len used to live in Smithers, but that was some 15 years ago.  The weekend there was mostly spent helping Len load up firewood and deliver it into Gisbourne, or being entertained by their high-energy 2 year-old, Nathan.  I made some minor modifications to the van, allowing me to now leave the bed set up full time and still have floor space to stand.  On the Monday I did the nearby hike into Cooks Cove where Captain Cook anchored in October of 1769.  In the same valley is also whats known as "Hole-in-the-Wall", which is quite literally that, a giant hole in the wall of the valley.  I also checked out the incredibly long wharf in Tolaga Bay, which had been restored in previous years, as it had become quite rundown when the majority of shipping moved to Gisbourne.

"Hole-in-the-Wall". Don't let the picture fool you, that "hole" is about 20-30 feet tall inside!

Cooks Cove.

Tolaga Bay wharf.

Prying myself away from Theresa's amazing cooking, and away from Len's threats to make me a full time employee, I continued south out of Gisbourne to the small Waipatiki Beach. Its a small beach, in a small valley, at the end of a long, winding road through some amazing country. This morning I made my way down the Napier, New Zealands "art-deco" capital.  In the early 30's there was an earthquake that destroyed much of the brick buildings that existed in Napier.  Looking for a cheap building alternative, and keeping with the architecture popular at this time, many of the buildings were rebuilt in this "art-deco" design, making it a tourist attraction for many people.  I checked out the National Aquarium of New Zealand, chock full of fish from around the world (but I didn't see any from Canada!).  I also toured through their shopping district, streets lined with lots of little shops selling anything you wanted. The only thing I did pick up was some more reading material, a book about hunting in New Zealand in times past, when meat hunters and deer cullers were common.

South of Napier it began raining steadily, so I found a nice little place in Waipawa where I can stay for the night and where I write to you now from.

As its raining, and I have little desire to be out in the rain, I will share with you some things I've noticed about New Zealand:
1. You will get sun burnt. Like 10 minute burn time kind of sun burnt.  A person is best off buying the best sunscreen you can find, and applying it early in the day, quite liberally, and limit your exposure to the sun.  Apparently the ozone layer over New Zealand is quite thin, making over-exposure to this vitamin D quite common.
2. Speed limits. I swear the guy who posted them laughed as he hung the signs! You have to be darn near suicidal or have an incredibly well handling vehicle to be able to reach and maintain the speed limits posted! Oh and if the sign says slow down to 25 kmh for the corner coming up, its in yours and everyones best interest to do so.  They don't joke about those! Its not uncommon for a stretch of major highway to have a couple of hairpin 25kmh corners in it.
3. You will never be able to pronounce the names of places, streets, towns etc here. Even some locals can't.  Many of the names come from the Maori (indigenous) people of New Zealand and therefore have unpronounceable names. For example, sometimes a "wh" makes an "f" sound, and sometimes it doesn't. And there is no rhyme of reason as to when and why!
4.If its living, it will grow in New Zealand. Like a weed. Due to its isolation and lack of predators, the local flora and fauna is very slow growing and susceptible to pressure from other animals.  Native species suffer, introduced species thrive.  

I think that is all I have to say for now, hope everyone is well!
~Korey.

Well, time to get this thing started I guess!

I choose the suggested name of Bearded Wanderer for this blog as, well, I'm bearded and up to this point I've really just been wandering around. No real set schedule, just go where the road takes me with a faint idea of where I'm headed.
The flight from Vancouver to Auckland was less than ideal (being seated next to a young red-haired child) but survivable none the less. Sleep was rare on the flight.
After clearing customs at 3am or whatever insane hour it was, I caught a taxi (not the cheapest, but the easiest at 3am) to a hostel downtown. As I could not check in yet, I started scouring the interweb for vehicles.  I had a couple specifics in mind: it had to be a hightop van so I would be able to stand up in it, and it had to have a fridge, and had to be kind of a comfortable living space.  Yes, maybe a little picky but I intend to spend the next months living in it.
For the next week I looked online every day for new postings of vehicles and then toured around the city. Auckland is busy, always. Even at 3-4am I could still hear people carrying on from my 3rd floor window. There were a few interesting things in Auckland though: I spent a bunch of time in the Maritime Museum learning of the history of boating in New Zealand. Auckland is known as the city of sails and that was very obvious, they have quite the passion for racing. The marina in Auckland was huge, more boats than I've probably ever seen in one spot. The views from the SkyTower (328m tall) were quite something.  Touring around Devonport (the orignal and still current location of the naval base) was nice, including a trip to the Naval museum.

Maritime museum. One of the first jet boats, circa 1957.

Maritime museum. Lots of model ships, including this one made of whale bone.

Pride of the Kiwi racing team, Steinlager 2.

View from the SkyTower, Auckland harbour bridge.

One of the numerous old churches in Auckland.

Auckland skyline, view from one of the harbour ferries.

Few boats having a race.

NZ frigate, loading up to leave. Watched it sail out shortly after.

Another shot of Auckland. Note the marina on the left.

Auckland at night, seen from the SkyTower. Note the cruise ship upper center.

Walking bridge that raises and lowers for access to part of the marina.

On the weekend there was a couple of car fairs where people can sell their used vehicles and quite often good deals can be had.  I had walked to both of these, the one day putting on over 20 km round trip.  Nothing suitable was to be had at these car fairs, but I wasn't to bothered by it as I had found a vehicle online that would suit my needs and the couple selling it would be in Auckland Monday.
I met up with the fellow Canadians Monday and,after looking over the van, decided it would be the one for me.  The rest of the day was spent hanging out as they packed their things and sorting out a transfer of the registration which was pretty straight-forward and easy.  They found a rental vehicle and I dropped them off at it and then hit the road, happy to finally be out of Auckland.  That felt like the true start of my trip.
I made it a couple hours out of Auckland and found a campsite to park my van.  Caravan parks are common around here, providing a place to pull up and park, plug-ins if needed, toilets and showers (not all have hot water), and a communal kitchen. New Zealanders are real fussy about just pulling over and camping anywhere as past tourists have not been so tidy and ruined it for the rest of us.
The next day I found a cheap grocery store and stocked up on supplies and then again hit the road, making my way down to Raglan. Raglan is kind of a sleepy surfing town and was a nice quiet place to stay and walk down a large beach.
The day after I continued south down the west coast to Waitomo Caves, stopping off to look at the renowned bridal veil falls, which was nice.

Bridal Veil falls.

 I stopped off and booked tours of the three major caves in the area and then headed off to two of them, saving the third for the next day. I've been in caves before in Australia and they never cease to amaze me, there is a certain beauty to them. These particular caves are one of few in the world that have glowworms.  They are the larval stage of flies and in the dark damp depths of the caves they glow blue to attract insects washed in on the underground stream. On the one tour they load everyone onto aluminum boats and then pull the boats through the caves on a series of ropes, in complete darkness.  The roof of the cave is lit up by these blue-glowing glowworms, making it look like stars in the night sky. Really quite something to marvel at the not commonly seen aspects of creation.
From Waitomo caves I headed south to New Plymouth, where it absolutely poured. I started reading a novel left behind by the previous owners. I figured this was note-worthy as I haven't done that in years!

 There, I got in contact with Hugo van der Werff. Hugo had been living in Canada just previously, working in Vernon. He had been in Smithers, but I wasn't there that weekend, so I got his contact info from Erica. He invited me down to his parents place, just outside of Upper Hutt city.  The next day I made my way down to the van der Werff residence. The road to their place was quite a windy road, 25km/h was the max speed one could get.  I was warmly welcomed at the van der Werffs and spent the rest of the day just chatting and get to know everyone.
The following morning we headed out with other members of the church to pick pinecones. The cones from the pines here are much larger than ours back home and many people burn then in their woodstoves during the winter, especially as firestarter. They bag them up and sell the bags as a fundraiser from their school.

We ran out of bags so we filled van der Werffs trailer up!

Later that day we headed out back of the property and made sure Hugo's rifle was still shooting straight.  A lot of New Zealanders use suppressors (silencers) on their rifles and it was quite something to hear the difference it makes.
 After ensuring it was sighted in, we headed, with his brother Derek, to the neighbours property.  He had recently fractured his pelvis and was unable to get out to shoot some meat so he invited the van der Werff boys to come shoot something for him.
  It was quite a climb up the side of the valley behind the neighbours but the little Suzuki made short work of it (motor bored out to 1600 cc's, high compression cylinders, aviation carburetor). From there were headed in along the track on foot.
  The weather that had been nice in the morning was no longer cooperating. We walked from vantage point to vantage point looking into the valleys below for red deer.  This time of the year they are rutting and the stags emit a "roar" as its known.  Hugo and Derek would call from these vantage points hoping to stir up a stag.  It wasn't long before we spotted a hind and her fawn.  The hind wasn't in the best of shape, and with the possibility of a stag coming into a roar, we decided to leave them.
  We continued along the ridge tops, still shrouded by blowing mist that would sometimes limit visibility to maybe 30 yards.  Adjacent to the property was a large fenced area for the water catchment that supplies the city with water.  Along the fence is a break in the fence with a small cliff that the deer can escape the catchment area but can't get back in. We stopped here and let a roar go which was quickly responded to by a stag! Its quite something to hear them roar! We hunkered down as we had a bit of visibility along the track and hoped he would come out through the deer jump. We could hear him coming our direction as every time we would call, he would quickly call back, his roaring getting nearer and nearer. Hugo and I hung back while Derek headed into the thick bush to try head him off. Unfortunately he must have caught our scent in the wind as he quickly shut up and moved off. We never did end up seeing him.
 We continued along the track, calling and spotting when and where we could. We didn't end up seeing any more deer, just several wild goats. We made our way back down.

Hiking up through misty pines, this is way more open than the bush we were hunting.

View back down towards the farm through the fog.

Sunday, my birthday, was a nice, quiet, relaxing day spent going to church, chatting, and reading hunting magazines.
Monday I thanked the van der Werffs for their outstanding hospitality and headed out to get a few groceries and hit the road once again.  Heading north through the central part of the island, I made it to a nice little campsite outside the small town of Mangaweka.
The next day, yesterday, I continued north through to Taupo. Along the way I stopped off at the national Army museum.  It was quite interesting and had quite the assortment of guns!
That brings me to today where I'm currently sitting in the library in Taupo to use their wi-fi to get this blog off the ground! I scheduled an oil change for the van today so that could get done while I sit here typing.

Typical winding New Zealand road.

Countryside.

Interior of "Jake" (the previous owners named him). Note the 5 speed column shift manual transmission.

Top popped up.

Not even a tenth of the guns at the army museum.

Hopefully I haven't bored anyone to sleep.  I hope to update maybe a little more often so the posts aren't quite so long winded! Please feel free to leave a comment so I can tell if anyone is actually reading this thing!
~Korey