A New Outlook

Ais’s take:

Driving, driving, driving. We stopped at this random scenic drive-off and found ourselves in front of a totally random hike towards old, abandoned mines! What we thought would be 30 minutes turned into an hour, which turned into two hours, and by the time we got down to our car we had yet to see any mines and were knee-deep in mud.

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The beginning of a very lengthly hike..

Mmm! So we continued on, and ended up at Cathedral Cove where we did an AMAZING sea kayaking trip. It was 3 hours, which seems like a small amount of time, but by golly my arms felt like they were going to fall off at then end. We went to where the new “Narnia” film was shot and it was absolutely breathtaking. Our guide somehow managed to make all 6 of us a brilliant moccachino half way through, even though he basically had a backpack. MAGIC. The next day probably changed our lives…

After sky-diving I thought it unlikely that we would ever do something so crazy again. We were on our way to Waitomo caves (where people come from all over the world to go into the caves to see glow-worms). We had already seen glow worms in a very non-touristy destination where we were totally alone, so we thought we’d had the best cave experience yet. We had recently read about “cave exploring” adventures, which looked like you went down in the cave and then took a black tube through the rivers looking at glow worms. For those of you who have never heard of a glow worm, it is definitely something spectacular. They are similar looking to fireflies at night, but they are basically like the larvae of a butterfly hanging from the ceiling. Once they hatch they look like mosquitoes with no mouth. They hang from the ceilings of caves for about 10 months, and once they hatch they are alive for about 3 days. Seems strange eh? But wow they are beautiful. They also are very territorial in regards to other glow worms, so they will eat each other if they get too close. This results in glow worms that are perfectly spread out in the dark! It looks like the sky at night, but because you are in a cave it is dead silent, and PITCH black. Anywho, we wanted to do one, but were feeling adventurous so we didn’t call any particular cave exploring company we just drove to the area. We played eeny-meeny-miney-moe and found ourselves a company. When we booked the tour they briefly explained what we would be doing, and I was slightly disappointed that we wouldn’t be doing zip-lining, as I was rearing for something adrenaline-pumping. I can not even fully describe how difficult and amazing the tour was! It was 7 and a half hours. First of all, we abseiled (repelled) down a100 metre drop to start off with, then we made our way through the first part of the cave. If you have ever crossed a river that was going at incredible speeds at knee-height, you will understand how difficult it can be to make your way through that water. Because it had been a very wet season however, the water was sometimes over our heads. Most of the time it was chest-high…but all we had to cling onto were the sharp edges of the cave we were wedging ourselves through. Not only that, but we were decked out in FULL rock-climbing gear plus some gum boots that when filled with water, felt as if a small child was hanging on to each of your feet. All while trying to throw your body forwards into chest high rapids. WHOO! Seriously…there were times where I literally said to myself, “Is this even legal??”. Unfortunately we weren’t able to bring cameras, which made both of us very aggravated as we had already fell for the no-camera deal before which ends up being a scam for the photographer to get money out of us. Well thank GOD we listened, because to be honest, I was way to concentrated on not dying to be able to take a picture. We took some pictures before leaving the camp, simulating what our faces would look like when doing the adventure!

The next part of the cave we literally scaled up the side of a 20 foot cave-side. When we reached the top, they guides instructed us to turn off our headlamps. “wha?” He then jokingly started explaining, in total darkness, how we were to scale our way down into a hole, where we were to let go (in complete darkness) and land in a pool of water 10 metres down. At this point I’m thinking, “oh my freaking god. You are joking. They’re totally joking. They’ll show us how with the lights on. I’m not going to just let go when I can’t see a friggen thing!”. They didn’t. One by one, we felt our way over to a hole and let go reluctantly, hearing each other scream and then 1..2..3..4..SPLOOSH! I was loosing my mind! This was way harder than sky diving! Haha

I did bash my elbow a bit on the way down, but it was exhilarating. We then had to crawl through a space the size of a doggy-door for a small dog, where the girl in front of me proceeded to get stuck. Jon was behind me and we both started hyperventilating a bit, but ended up making it through. Then while making our way through currents that were ridiculously strong, the current ripped me off the cave wall I was clinging onto, flipped me upside down and threw me past everyone else into the abyss of the caves. Our spider-monkey guide flung himself along the walls of the cave and managed to grab the back of my harness and pull me out of the current just before I went over a small waterfall. Yep. No joke. I needed 5 minutes of breathing in and out to continue. Both of our legs were throbbing beyond belief at this point…and that’s when it got really hard. That was only 2 hours in! haha anyway you get the point. It was VERY difficult. Jon saved me from dying another two times, and by the end was pretty much just pushing me through the water. My legs literally were giving out, and I was pumped with adrenaline! We jumped off (we could see this time) another ledge into a huge waterfall, where once again I was swept away and the guide had to grab me. We swam under rocks, we climbed in tiny spaces, we rock-climbed, we jumped across really huge gaps, and then we stopped to see the most AMAZING display of glow worms. The worst part of the whole thing was having to hike for 30 minutes back to the shed where we had a bbq. I thought I was going to puke.

And that was our cave-exploring adventure. It was so rewarding! So difficult, but rewarding. I would absolutely make this your “thing to do” if you come to New Zealand. But I would suggest getting muscles on your legs before doing…chicken legs don’t make it very easy. So it was on to our next adventure!
These are the faces we thought we would be making in the caves...

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We were making our way farther south when I ended up playing a song on stage at BluesFest. We especially loved their backdrop!

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Then there was one thing left that Jon wanted to do on the North Island…make his own knife! We stopped at this older couples’ house, where they had been teaching people to forge, make, and mould their own knives for years. It was a full day ordeal, where we heated up our own steal, banged it with giant hammers, cut them, filed them, filed them some more, bolted them, cut out the wood with a jigsaw, then sanded the wood, ya-da ya-da. It was SO amazing! They are really great knives too. They are surprisingly sharp, and with a lot of help from Steve the main man, mine actually looks better than most the knives I had at home. Jon was a natural, shaping his knife like a pro. Plus he actually knew what a jigsaw was.

And that was it for the North Island! We then took the ferry to the South Island in our dear, old Audrey. The ferry was very nice, and a pod of dolphins followed us over! They were jumping out of the water and everything! Jon managed to get some great photos.

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So there we were. Freshly landed in new zealand. Auckland, specifically. We were immediately in love with new Zealand, even with the shocking temperature change. Step 1- get Aislinn a very thick coat. Step 2- get giant duve blanket. Step 3- buy a van.

We were in Auckland for a grand total of 3 days. We walked around A LOT! We went to the Auckland museum- which was amazing!
As you can tell by Jon's face...

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And then we bought our van, "Audrey".
Audrey is a Nissan Serena (1996). She is small and mighty, with just enough room for everything we need. We stopped off at McD's to use the free wifi while we got her checked out my Mr.Mechanic, while Jon very intensely worked on some business on the computer.

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The first sleep we had in Audrey was in this random Bay north of Auckland in Ruwai I think.

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We then made our way to the "Kai Iwi" lakes. It was absolutely stunning scenery (except for all the trees that had been logged behind us), and Jon decided he couldn't resist a swim. It was definitely cold, and I watched him run out bravely into the lake before realizing it was ankle-deep for about 1k. He gave up after a while and belly-flopped into the freezing cold lake.

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We then found ourselves in the town of "KaiKohe". After a quick stop at Subway, we managed to find these springs called "Ngawha springs". They were AMAZING. Well actually, there was a very sketchy one on the left that was guarded by milk crates and broken down cars, and then there was the "spa" ones on the right which we expected to pay a pretty penny for. $5!! One of our most favorite parts of the trip so far. We met some New Zealanders who gave us some great tips!

The sketchy springs..

Next we were on our way to the very northern tip of New Zealand, Cape Reigna. We had heard of the spectacular-ness of this place so we decided to give it a go. We spent one night in the middle of nowhere, and Jon drove me very sleepily to the very top of this mountain at 4am, where we very likley witnessed one of our most beautiful sunrises. We moved on to the Cape- we hit some seriously bad weather, had the most freezing shower of our lives, and then Jon had a gut feeling at 3am that we needed to get the hell out of there. He was right- it flooded very badly the next morning.

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Bay of Islands- Jon's take

It was off to the Bay of Islands, and we were looking for a campground with hot showers! We rolled into a campground just before dark. We decided to do the laundry first….boring, but there was a trampoline to pass some time. Things were going well until I decided to get cocky. “Babe watch this back flip!” **Flip*

“Mmm that was ok, but that was more like a back summersault” Aislinn said with a not-so-impressed eye roll.

“ O Yaaa?? Well watch this”. I spring-boarded myself as high as I could on the trampoline (that should have been thrown away in the 80’s).

Note: When doing a back flip it is important to arch your back and then bring your knees to your chest. If you throw your feet out too early it will result in your back flip travelling forward.

As you can most likely guess, this is what happened to me. I attempted to correct my mistake but it was already too late. As I bounced my rib cage off the rusty trampoline rail, and then my head awkwardly off the ground, I realized something. At the age of 24 I should really start thinking about the consequences of my actions.

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THE NEXT DAY..

“ Ais you want to go sky diving?”

“ mmm I dunno seems slightly dangerous”

“ You’re right… lets flip a coin. Heads we sky dive, tails we don’t”

Heads it is. So as we headed out to the airport we weren’t really nervous, we went in, paid and then put on our jump suits. Our instructions were “ make a banana with your body and we will get to the landing later“. I didn’t get nervous until I saw my purple harness that may have had one too many jumps. As the plane left the strip I started to think of the consequences of my actions. DAMN. This is probably the worst time to start thinking of all the “what if” scenarios. I started to shake, while keeping a brave face for Aislinn. The door slide open and voom!!! Aislinn was gone. “ …Aislinn?”

“Hey buddy move your ass to the door, we need to jump!” I’m not going to lie, I closed my eyes and moved myself to the edge in a not-so-manly manner. My stomach felt like it was in my throat and then I was flying. I was preparing to see my life flash before my eyes…. *Blank* nothing! All I could think was wow it’s windy and geez that’s was a pretty cool rainbow in the distance. Wooosh!! The chute opened and we floated safely to the ground.

This photo was when we were hiking...before we flipped the skydiving coin in Paihia.

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GLOW WORM CAVE NEXT LEFT< Hell ya! We turned down a random dirt road and we found a gravel parking lot and a lady in a shed marked “OFFICE“. My first thought was “we are so getting scammed“. We paid for it anyways. We walked up to the cave and for the first 100m nothing. A sucker is born every minute and that sucker was us. Then she turned off the light and it was like we were in a planetarium. There were so many of them that you could also see without any light. The green glow of the worms shone off the walls of the caves. Wow!! Great find.

We headed to Miranda hot springs. The largest pool in the southern hemisphere. It was pretty much a giant regular pool, with LOTS of chlorine and a wee bit of natural sulphur water. Definitely not as cool as the Ngawha springs we happened to come across earlier in the trip! 15 minutes later we left . We paid 15 bucks to sit in a warm pool filled with other people’s illnesses. I should have just paid someone 15 bucks to sneeze in my face.

Easter and all the chocolate addictions that come with..

And so, Easter morning came about, and I had a little plan.
I thought to myself- what be something special I can do for me man?
Well if there’s one thing I most certainly know,
It is what Jon would surely take in exchange for his toe..
Chocolate.
Knowing this, and knowing well,
I conjured up a written spell,
For him to find come Easter morning,
So our dawn would not be super boring!
He searched up and down the stairs,
Throughout the vases and carpet hairs,
For little treats wrapped in gold,
While I looked on, feeling old.
He tried to eat them all at the same time,
But soon realized his stomach was not in it’s prime.
And that was the extent of our Easter morning!

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Our very last Beach trip in Australia was to Burleigh Heads, which we actually found to be one of the most amazing beaches we saw! It was partially due to spectacular weather- but what we thought would be a beach chocker block full of grumpy retirees was actually not too busy! Jon also got one last leg of surfing in, and we got to see the Anzac parade. White crystal beach, deep blue water, hot sun (but not too hot), and then a very beautiful brunch. Perfection.

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In Australia there is a television reality show called, “My Kitchen Rules”. Basically a bunch of teams of 2 compete against each other to show that as a team they can prepare the best food. They are not chefs, but are just regular people who take an interest in cooking. The food they come up with is AMAZING…and we got semi-hooked on the show with our roomates. So we decided to do our own version! We ended up getting 5 teams of 2 people to join in, and Jon and I were first.

Neither of us had cooked for more than 4 people, and if we did it was usually pretty simple stuff, so we thought about it long and hard. We ended up making the following:

Appetizer: Goat cheese cakes with homemade basil pesto and fried tomato.
AND
Rasberry, blue cheese, and walut salad
Main: Blueberry, maple, ginger salmon with lemon and asparagus risoto (had to put the maple in there- yay Canada!)

Dessert: My sister has been making crème brulee ever since I can remember for all special occasions… not once has it been a fail. Anyway, as she is the master of all crème brulee I decided to give it a go, so after skyping Chloe for some sisterly instruction I decided to give it a go. Jon and I decided to go for white chocolate and raspberry crème brulee. I have NEVER been so stressed in a grocery store as when I was trying to get all the ingredients for this. Clo said to use half and half, I kept saying. But noooooo, they don’t call it that in Australia. We debated for probably a good 20 minutes about what kind of cream/milk we should use instead, and by the time we got home I thought there was no way it was going to work out. Luck was on my side, and our dessert turned out SO well. Jon had cooked the salmon perfectly, so our main and dessert were definitely the winning dishes.

Next it was Sim and Son ( our roomies) turn to cook. *Side note: one thing I have really noticed about Australians is that they really love their nicknames. Nicknames noted so far: scoobs, splooch, toola, sim, son, ells, daz, kd. At Sim’s bday party we realized (after many drinks) that our friend Dana had no nickname. Hmmm we thought…and all we came up with in the end was..Dana. Anyway their cooking was to die for, and we fell asleep with very happy bellies that night!

The same day as Sim’s bday, Jon, Sonya, Ben, and I went to play mini-golf. We thought it wise to make it drunken mini-golf in honour of Sim’s birthday celebrations. I was surprised when Jon started the game by losing, as he is generally not the losing type in any competition. In the end though, Jon’s true colors shone through. He won!

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A few days later, I went through with getting a tattoo I had been thinking about the whole trip! We went to the tattoo parlor that is sisters with the infamous “Bondi Ink” in Sydney. I was very happy with the result, and the pain was definitely worth it.

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Another new development- my commitment to recognizing and treating my body after years of an untreated gluten allergy. I had almost been sick for the entire first 4 or 5 months of our trip (though I still had fun, but lack of energy and feeling sick made it pretty hard to stay up after 7pm), and one last night of eating and then being incredibly sick set me off. We went out to eat wonton soup after I hadn’t eaten all day because I felt sick, and the result of eating the soup made me so sick I had to leave the restaurant and put my head between my knees. I vowed to Jon (and myself) that I was done eating gluten forever, and mentally imprinted in my mind how sick I felt so if I ever thought about eating bread (which I love…a lot) I would remember why I don’t. Anyway it’s been almost a month with no gluten- and I haven’t felt sick since! HOORAYYYYY!!! Never never again.

MY BDAY! May 12th

My birthday was fantastic! Jon had been keeping his present for me a secret for quite some time, and I could tell the secret wanted so badly to burst through his mouth. After work we were on our way to our next leg of My Kitchen Rules, where Toola and Scoobs wowed the crowd. We had an AMAZING meal, and then my secret present was …presented. Haha Jon had managed to get pretty much everyone we know to pitch in to buy me a day of recording at the Acoustic Zoo. Needless to say, I shed a few tears out of the thoughtfulness, and then immediately headed home to practise. Recording was successful! I now have my first solo acoustic EP!

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LEAVING BRISBANE

Not long after my bday it was time for us to leave. I had found a job I loved, and we had found one of the best places with the best roomates. But, all good things come to an end, and it was time for new things! Sim very kindly drove us to the airport at 5:30am, and we tied up some loose ends on our laptop before jumping on the plane.

WOW long time

So we have been setup in Brisbane for sometime. I got a job working for Suncorp as a Claims Offficer, and Aislinn became the manager of a natural cosmetics company called Perfect Potion. The weather has calmed down and things are comfortable. Personally I just want our trip to start up again. We are currently saving for the second leg of our trip to New Zealand. I am really hoping to get a snowboard instructing position but if all else fails I will work some lame job during the days and ride Snow Park by night.

The most recent adventure we have had, was that we went to Sea world. Sea World was fun but it would have been a lot more fun if we were five. I also wanted to break out the Speedo for the first time. I thought it would be pretty funny but quickly realized how exposed I was as I waited in line for the waterslides. It got boring fast so we spent the rest of the afternoon lying by the pool working on our tans saving our energy for the flood relief fundraiser.

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After Sea world we went to a little fundraiser in the alley by Aislinn’s work with local people serving food and a few local bands.. then a surprise. A member of Wolfmother was friends with the event coordinator and they agreed to play a show. We got to watch Wolfmother in an Alley of 150 people and it was awesome. Jumping turned to dancing which turned to hardcore dancing! One of the funniest concerts I have ever been to.

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I am well aware that it is MARCH, however, I was just looking through our pictures and thought our Christmas experience away from home was worth mentioning!

So there we were getting settled into our house with our lovely roomates Sonya and Simone. Jon and I had pretty well avoided talking about Christmas, as to not get incredibly depressed, until probably December 1st. Our roomates offered to bring us with them to their far-away houses with their families, but we both had jobs that would keep us in the city. We had planned the syncronizing of skypes between families, and had given ourselves a $ cap as to what we should spend on each other. Jon's Mom even sent us stockings- which we proudly hung in our living room above our tree! It was not long after that that BOTH families sent us a plethora of cute little wrapped gifts, which we then proudly stuffed in our stockings. When it was in fact time to put up the tree, Jon was at work, so us girls went at it and I baked us a chocolate avocado cake (Mmmmmm)!

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Then, before the girls left for Christmas with their families, we had an "Australia Christmas Dinner"- shrimp on the barbee. Yep! Plus Sonya made mussels...and Jon made me eat it first. Tasted great...but the texture isn't easy to swallow your first time. We have a HILARIOUS video of Jon and I both trying to eat a fresh mussel.

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And then there were 2. Us two. We did actually have a decent Christmas considering it was without our family! Christmas eve was full of good eats and plenty of good movies, and we skyped my family at 1:30am our time so we could catch a glimpse of them opening presents! Jon fell asleep...but I actually skyped them for about 3 hours. We "fake" shared champagne, and had some near tears at our first christmas apart. Then we skyped Jon's family on the actual day, and they watched us open the presents they sent us! It made Christmas a lot less depressing! Also remembering that we were in one of the most beautiful countries on the planet made it a little more bearable as well.

We then had our actual christmas dinner with our friend Dana and her family! They were so beautiful, and made us feel really at home. I played some tunes with their son Connor- who's a local musician here in Brisbane. We did a secret santa, and Connor gave me the best gift ever. A handmade guitar pick, that was made out of tiger's eye. Best pick I have ever seen!!

The next event that I vividly remember about Christmas was my "Perfect Potion" staff party. We had a great night, especially Jon...needless to say he ended up with his dress shirt as a turban by the end of the night!

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