VicariouslyBob

Last Days and Home

My plan was to drive to the Abel Tasman National Park for a two day kayaking/hiking trip in the park then to over to Kaikoura to swim with the dolphins on the penultimate day of the trip. Unfortunately, I somehow managed to get a dose of food poisoning/stomach flu on the way north and it whacked me up till the very end of the trip.

No kayaking. No swimming with dolphins. Very little solid food. Not exactly the idea end of the trip, but I had been healthy for the rest of the 3 months so I can’t complain too much.

My 10 hour flight home was uneventful. I read most of a book, watched 2 movies and had my last mediocre airline food. I made it through passport control and customs and was standing on the curb waiting for the Hertz bus in less than 20 minutes (possibly an Olympic Record). After a coffee break in Manhattan Beach, the drive home was a slap in the face of normalcy and then melancholy; the latter a direct result of the former. I dread the fact that in a few short weeks my three month adventure will start to be a fading memory supplanted by house cleaning and trips to Costco for detergent and beer.

The phone rang at 8:30 on my third morning home and I was jolted awake by a hyper-enthusiastic head hunter calling about a job in San Diego. Blah. Fantastic opportunity. Blah. Fun. Blah. I gave her the party line about being very interested and then hung up and went back to sleep.

Welcome home.

My Big Kiwi Day

“Ready?”

“I guess.”

“On the count of three start running and don’t stop till your feet are not touching the ground.” This actually scared the hell out of me as there were two ways not touch the ground: a successful take of and running off the cliff and plummeting to our deaths.

One. Two. Three. Run! RUN! RUN! Well just watch the video and you’ll get the picture. Download paragliding.WMV

Adrenaline = Queenstown

Here is a list of other activities designed to raise your heartbeat and thin out your wallet: Skydiving, Acrobatic Stunt plane flights, Paragliding, Parasailing to 150 m then bungi jump down, Fly by Wire (riding a rocket vehicle attached to wires strung across a valley), luging on a concrete course, jet boating, Canyon Swing (fall/jump/get pushed off a platform and swing down 150 m into a canyon attached to a fixed rope), Hang gliding, and I’m sure there are a few I’ve forgotten. You can see why Queenstown is Adrenaline Capital of NZ, and maybe the world. The sentimental favorite has to be bungi since the first commercial bungi was pioneered there. Now there are at least 4 different bungi locations willing to take your hard earned Kiwi dollars.

It’s all downhill from here

I hadn’t skied for years and it was pretty far down on my list of things to do in NZ for a couple of reasons. One, I didn’t think my knee could handle the pounding of skiing. And two, I had heard the slopes were not that great and I could get better skiing in the States. In the end, Janet really wanted to go and she talked me into it pretty easily. After all, I figured it wouldn’t be very becoming to whine and pout about not wanting to ski for too long. So I only kept it up for 30 minutes.

Questions and Answers

Now that I’m back in the land of high speed internet with nothing to do but mourn the end of my trip and get annoyed at the Presidential election rhetoric, I figured I’d drag the trip out as long as possible by procrastinating and then posting the remaining stories every 12 hours or so until I’m finished. There are at least 6 more posts and maybe a few after that.

Before we break for station identification, it’s time to answer some viewer mail and questions.

Red asked about the gear I was carrying and whether or not I had a team of sherpas helping me to lug it around?

Lots and no.

Rich was curious about the other travelers and whether or not they were corporate refugees as well?

Yes and no.

Well, I hope you enjoyed that as much as I did.

Last Post From Overseas

Well, my time is up. That was the final boarding call for my flight and I have to come home now. Now don't be sad. A prolonged dose of food poisoning curtailed both by posting to the site and my activities the last days of the trip.

Fortunatley, I do have 14 hour to work on posts and pop them up when I get back.

In fact, I'll probably be home before you get up in the morning on Monday due to the wonders of the international date line.

Thanks for the email and support. More later.

Go South Young Man

Everyone told us to spend most of our time on the South Island and off we were. After the night in Wellington, we boarded the ferry bound for Picton, the gateway to the South Island. The ride across Cook Strait was awesome and for me it was the best scenery in NZ yet. The ferry winds its way though the Marlborough Sounds past islands, inlets and tree covered hills. Once again we met some great people on the ferry who helped us plan our itinerary for the South Island.

Welcome to Middle Earth

I had a great flight to Auckland on Quantas. I was reminded once again about the wisdom of cashing in my miles for a business class seat. And because I'm enamored with the video function of my camera, I can share with you a video of me boarding the 747. Download quantas_boarding.WMV

Last 36 hours in OZ

I left Melbourne to head back to Sydney to go to an Aussie Rules Footie match and to catch my flight to Auckland. My b-school friend Guy had secured tickets to the Sydney Swans versus the Adelaide Crows. I met Guy and another American Jon at a pub for a few pre-game drinks and then we headed into the match. A few too many late nights watching Aussie Rules on ESPN helped to understand the basics and Guy filled in the finer points of tactics and strategy. The highlight of the game was the entry of the game ball by helicopter. Download afl_gamewmv.WMV

Post game we embarked on a pub crawl which ultimately ended at 5 am. Guy bailed around 12:30 or 1 (only excusable since he is a new dad), and Jon and I continued the crawl with a couple of locals who were kind enough to show us around. That night I confirmed one of life’s underlying truths: food tastes much better the later it is and the more alcohol you’ve had to drink. I submit the kebab I had at 4:45 am while walking back to my hotel as proof. I also confirmed that returning to your hotel as others are waiting outside to catch cabs to the airport for their morning flights is usually a sign of a good night. I checked out of the hotel 3 hours later and heading off to the airport for my flight out of Australia.

My big conclusion about Australia: go when it is warmer and plan on spending at least 3 months traveling around. My trip was too fast and too chaotic. It was the equivalent of the appetizer sampler plate, enough of everything to have a taste but not enough of the couple of things you really liked. Oh well, there’s always next time.

Pics of the last night are in the Oz the Begining and End album.

Fore Melbourne

Other than it being a great city, I had one major reason to visit Melbourne: to play golf. I also had drinks with a guy I traveled with in Vietnam named Martin. I played two courses, Royal Melbourne and Kingston Heath. I owe a special thanks to Phil Davis, the Prez of my golf club back home for helping facilitate the rounds by faxing a letter of introduction to the Aussie golf clubs.

The round at Royal Melbourne, the top course in OZ and site of the last President’s Cup, was outstanding. In large part because an older member, named John Greene, asked if I wanted to have a game, as they say. As it turns out, he was the de facto club historian and gave me all the details and stories on Alistair MacKensie’s design and even let me in on a couple of controversial upcoming design changes. I played poorly, but he was a great playing partner. He even brought me a sandwich from home since the snack bar wasn’t open yet. My other round was on a great course but it was cold and rainy and I couldn’t hit the ball straight to save my life.

And that about sums up my brief time (slightly less then 48 hours) in Melbourne.

There are a couple of pics from my trip in the OZ the End album along with some from my last night in Sydney.