Yearly archives: 2007

Friday had me in Auckland for another day. Freddy, Elaine and Maya were getting in early that morning, and I had told him that I’d stick around to catch up a bit with him before I took off on Saturday for the real adventure. Even though they rolled in very early, I planned a few other things to do to fill up my day, since it would be my last Auckland touristy day before hitting the dusty trails. My first problem in the morning was that I had no way to get a hold of them. Kevin doesn’t have a home phone. Not a problem for a resourceful lad like me though, I just got set for my day, then biked over to their parents house where they were staying. Luckily I had the address, so I found my way. I rolled in around 10am. They had just had a little nap, so my timing was relatively good. I stuck around for a little bit, posted some blog entries, then headed out alone for downtown again, read on for what I did. You can also check out the map that I threw together as well.

Huzzah! I’ve finally made it. Well, actually, I’ve already been in NZ for over a day now, but am only now finally getting a chance to write up a little post about it. My flight yesterday went very smoothly, not a single complaint from me. I was supposed to be picked up at the airport by Greg’s brother Kevin, so wanted to make sure I got through customs quickly and efficiently. As my last post mentioned, NZ is very tough on their biosecurity measures, so I wasn’t sure that things would go all that smoothly upon entry. However, my fears were laid to rest, and I actually made it through in record time. I actually think it was one of my fastest customs checks of my life, especially considering all the gear I had. I was also blown away by how quickly my bike made it to me in the luggage area. I had barely gotten my duffle off the conveyor belt when a side door opened up, and a fellow rolled in the box. Sweet. Anyway, read on for the rest of the past 24 hours excitement.

Hey gang. How is everyone? Hopefully you’ve been enjoying my little posts that I’ve put up so far from Fiji. As my title implies, I sort of treated the Fiji portion of my trip as the true ‘vacation’. From here on out, there will definitely be some hard work to take care of. Namely, hauling myself, my gear and my bike over thousands of kilometers of hilly roads all throughout New Zealand. While I’m certainly extremely excited about starting this adventure finally, I must admit I’m also a little apprehensive after speaking to loads of people coming from NZ. What have I gotten myself into by doing this by bike? Either way, now isn’t the time to dwell. Do or do not. There is no try, right? Anywho, this post will serve as my final thoughts on Fiji, along with the flight to NZ and customs stuff. Read on dear patrons…

Howdy all again. I’m going to have to try to write briefly this time, as I just noticed I’m down to 40 minutes of battery life, and on the islands, there certainly isn’t really reliable power, so I’ll cap off the rest of my day’s stories with the past 18 hours excitement. Once again, the sun is killing me out here, and re-applying every few hours is the norm to avoid the super-extreme Canuck burn! The highlight for the day has to be my introductory scuba dive, which I splurged the 120 FJD to do, having to actually dust off my credit card to pay for. Had it been cash-only, as most of the events are, I couldn’t have done it. I was not disappointed, and have now decided that I should definitely get PADI certified at some point, as the feeling is phenomenal. Read on…

So, just how does one celebrate the return of a prized possession when floating around in the South Pacific on a boat anchored off shore? Well, apart from doing high jumps off the third deck, there were other options. I could of course drink my face off, but that leaves one feeling a little under the weater, and since I had already decided to do a scuba dive the next morning, that was out of the question. However, a German and Italian fellow each had a great solution. We decided we should try to source some authentic Fijian Kava. For more info on this, I would implore you to do a Google search on it. There is quite a bit of history and lore to Kava, and I had to try it, and the only way is for a Fijian to prepare it for you. Read on for more about this exciting tale of narcotics on the high seas, complete with the stealthy delivery.