Written on 3.1.13.

My life flashed before my eyes this afternoon.  As I boarded the Semaya One fast boat to Nusa Lembongan, I couldn't predict what might happen about an hour from that time.  But during the journey I dozed off into a sweaty slumber, in and out of dreams in the hot air of the cabin so thick with humidity you could swim through it.  In one of those dreams I had a flash of a sinking boat and immediately started thinking of what action I would take if disaster struck.  I was fading in and out of sleep with each crash of the boat down on another wave.  The hull hit pretty hard on a few, but I faded off...until the one crack that woke us all.  A wave had crashed over the bow and smashed in the two front windows of the captain's wheelhouse.  Water came rushing in and a mild panic ensued amongst the crew and fifteen or so passengers.  The boat was rocking and rolling still and again, another wave crashed over the bow, water rushing in.  After one more wave came rushing in we were all standing in about a foot of water in the cabin, and the hull had significantly more water in it.  The boat's ballast was way off and with a couple more rollers the boat nearly capsized as a result.  An Indonesian woman who lives in Canada was screaming and she handed me her four year old saying, "Please, save my son, please."  So I held him and tried to calm the mother who was near hysterics.  We all had life jackets on at this point too, but many weren't even laced up properly.  We all braced ourselves for the possibility of disaster and I phoned my parents, followed by a call to the boat company to tell them I was on one of their boats and it had taken on a significant amount of water.  We were limping along as the crew of four or five guys were hard at work bailing water from the hull with buckets, clearly the bilge pump had failed after about twenty seconds of pumping.  But all is well that ends well.  The boys got the water bailed and the captain kept her afloat, and we motored all the way to Sanur.  We only had one scare when the engines quit in sight of shore, adding to the unsettled feeling of the folks on board.  But it must have just been electrical because they fired back up.  So we cruised the next hour anticipating the end of the journey anxiously.  I had a four year old Canadian Indonesian boy asleep on my lap, occasionally needing to comfort and reassure his mother until we reached the beach at Sanur.

This experience made me take a look at life and how fragile it is.  It made me realize how great each day we have on earth is.  I post it today because this morning I found out one of my best friends, Joe, who I work with Smokejumping, died this past weekend in an avalanche.  He was an amazing person who lived everyday to the fullest.  He was only 26 years young, but he had many lifetimes of experience.  He was a sage, a wise man beyond his years.  He was gifted at everything he did.  He was an extremely talented athlete and an exceptional artist.  He shined, overflowing with warmth, happiness and love.  His energy was infectious and I value every minute I was fortunate enough to share with him.  He was my Rookie Bro, he was a best friend, he was a brother.  He will be deeply missed, but never forgotten.  We shared some great times together.  He only had a short time on this earth, but made the most of everyday.  Joe told people how he felt about them, and wasn't afraid to say I love you.  To all those reading this, I love you.  Next time you feel like life isn't everything you want it to be, be thankful that you have a life, and go out and live it.  Joe died doing what he loved doing.  Never stop living like there is no tomorrow. 

I'll see you all Stateside in a couple days.

Welcome to Indonesia.

I've been here now for a little over two weeks now and it's been a warm, wonderful, visually stimulating, hospitable, friendly, and awakening trip so far.

I arrived in Bali and promptly left for the small island of Nusa Lembongan where I met some amazing people, surfed for a number of days, and got certified as an open water scuba diver.  The course took three days and I ended with four open water dives which granted me access to a whole new world that exists under the sea.  I saw manta rays, amazing coral, fluorescent fish of all colors and sizes, barracuda, surgeon fish and so much more.

From Lembongan I took a boat to Lombok where I have discovered wonderful people and a breathtaking countryside.

Traveling provides some truly remarkable gifts sometimes.  Yesterday, myself, and my French friend Florence who stays next door to me at Diyah's Homestay met with his two other friends Yan and Beat.  Yan is a German, Chinese, Indonesian who grew up in Jakarta and speaks Indonesian, English, German, French, Spanish and Portuguese.  And Beat is from Switzerland.  So the four of us took a 35 minute motorbike ride to a great beach west of Kuta, Lombok.  It was absolutely breathtaking and untainted by tourism.  Just locals and a couple foreign land owners.  They had obviously discovered paradise and decided to buy a piece of it.  But the colorful boats, crystal blue water, green hillsides, white sand, smoke in the air from cooking fires, and the people there were amazing.  Naked kids playing soccer and running free on the beach, old women cooking fish over a fire, and old men roasting corn over hot coals.  It was spectacular.  We had a feast of epic proportions including corn, rice, vegetables, chicken, fresh tuna, and barracuda, followed by a stout cup of coffee.  All for less than a few dollars a piece.  We played with the kids on the beach, and body surfed waves crashing in.  We took a lazy walk down the beach with a homely looking dog who took a liking to us and then rode our motorbikes back to Kuta through valleys of green rice fields, past men and women toiling in the paddies or chopping corn, through groups of buffalo being walked down the road to greener pastures, and by families in small villages sitting outside their homes exclaiming bright hellos, smiling and waving as we drove by.  The people here are beautiful.  Bright eyes, warm smiles, dark brown skin and glowing personalities.  Very friendly people they are.

So after my time in Fiordland National Park I went back to see Ginny and Gerry, Eve and Paddy at Halfway Bay Station.  We enjoyed a great meal and some Emerson's Pilsners and the following day I went on one last sheep muster in the high country with Gerry and his new shepherd Mark.  The top photo is the walk down after getting the mob through a tricky gate to graze the high country for the summer.

I ended my trip in Queenstown and went on an epic mission to bid farewell to the country I've come to love.  Yesterday I walked up the 3,000 + foot elevation gain to the top of The Remarkable Mountains which stand proud over Frankton, Queenstown, and Lake Wakatipu.  I made it to the top for an illuminated late day view over the valley below and bid farewell to the sun as I made my way down the back side of the range to Lake Alta.  After a good long drink of ice cold water from the lake I started down.  I descended the ski area nestled on the back side of the range and ran the access road out the 12km to the main road, and the remaining 6km back to town.

The run was amazing, two hours of bliss.  A breeze in my face, hair blowing in the wind, Lake Wakatipu below, the amber hue of tussock and silhouetted speargrass on ridgelines.  Miraculous mountains to the west, snow capped Alps to the north, the TSS Earnslaw returning from it's sunset cruise, and me in a zone of my own, rolling down.  The sun set transforming the sky from pale blue and orange to a glowing fire in the west, and endless pastel shades of purple to the east.  The first stars showed in the north, and I followed an upside down Orion to the north, while the Southern Cross watched my back as I churned my way over the Kawarau river and up the low lit slopes of Frankton.

Thanks for everything New Zealand!

The Milford Track and Milford Sound are acclaimed for a reason.  I had an amazing four day walk in well worn leather boots through places I wasn't sure even existed.  You can tell a lot about a man by looking at his boots.

I'm high above MacKinnon Pass communing with the Keas high flying over worlds unknown below.  This place is pure magic, pure!  The beauty surrounding me is inexplicable.  Mother Nature, the creator of all this magnificence can't even explain how she pulled this one off.  Wow!

Following my stint in Nelson Lakes, I made it back up to Mapua to bid farewell to Mary and headed south to Queenstown.  I based out of here for the remainder of my trip in NZ.  The above are photos from the Routeburn Track.  A beautiful three day walk through amazing high country in Fiordland National Park.  I camped in some beautiful places and met some wonderful international travelers.  So after three days of walking, sweating, swimming and taking in breathtaking views, I went to Te Anau to prepare for the acclaimed Milford Track the following day.

Treetops whistle as the first stars show.  The stone peaks surrounding Lake McKenzie still pose in the remaining twilight, standing guard over the valley.  And I allow my tired self, after a tea with whiskey, to slowly fade off to bed and the coming night.

I spent a week volunteering for the Department of Conservation in the Nelson Lakes National Park after the kayak trip with Mary.  We were charged with cleaning and painting one of the remote huts in the East Matakitaki valley and clearing a bit of trail.  We easily accomplished these tasks and the rest was like a vacation.  Myself, a young German guy named Moritz, the two Kiwis above, Nigel and Martin, and our DOC trip leader Kerri flew in to this beautiful valley for five days of tramping around, working and deer hunting.  Both Nigel and Martin bagged a red deer hind a piece.  It was a good week.

She's done it again, Mother Nature never ceases to inspire me to put pen to paper.  The slow trickle of a spring waterfall behind me, birds singing in the breeze, the alpen glow of west facing peaks at sundown and the low rushing churn of the river below is where I live right now.  Perched in a rock slide high above the East Matakitaki Valley below, looking South at the Majesty that these mountains behold as the sun lingers no longer and the foreboding gray of a cloudy twilight over stone peaks starts to take shape.  I feel infinitely inconsequential amongst these giants, but privileged to be allowed in their company.  For a brief moment in time I get to exist in a place that they've called home for thousands of years.  Time marches on and they watch it march right on by.  

I'm in the Blenheim area now, I got five days of work wire lifting on vineyards in the area.  It's monotonous work, but a great physical job.  It's good to work outside, get fit and not spend any money.

It was a lovely sunset here at the Wairu River mouth.  Pastel blue and orange swept over the western sky as gulls soared over the Wairu Bar facing into an incessant north wind.  I will sleep well again tonight after a physical ten hour day in the sun.

The above photo was one of about seven vineyards we worked on through the week.

After a week of work in Blenheim, it was once again time to play.  I made my way back to Mapua outside Nelson to see Mary, the cousin of Ginny who is the wife of Gerry, who manages Halfway Bay Station.  Mary is a wonderful person, filled with positive energy, so there was no better person to be with after hearing the news of my grandmothers passing when my brother called on the morning after I returned from Blenheim.  I decided Bama would want me to carry on enjoying the beauty that New Zealand beholds, so Mary, two of her friends, Brad and Ketter, and I went to Golden Bay and Farewell Spit at the very Northern end of the South Island.  We enjoyed a fantastic time at Fahariki, the sand dunes above, roaming the rolling green sheep paddocks right on the West Coast,  and enjoyed a beautiful evening watching swans, catching shellfish and walking forever at low tide on the sandbar at Farewell Spit.  The next day, Mary and I departed on a three day sea kayak trip around the Abel Tasman National Park.

Mary and I have been kayaking from Totaranui south.  Last night we stayed at Anapai and today we've made it to Mosquito bay.  The coast of Abel Tasman is astounding.  Crystal clear turquoise blue water, dramatic granite coast, sea birds, seals, the sound of cecadas and paddle strokes as we float by endless beauty with the backdrop of endless green bush blanketing coastal mountains.  It has been great.    

We ascended through a dried moss laden bush forest into the long white cloud that shrouded the ridges of Paparoa.  The clouds are what brought me back.  I'd been lost, unaware of the beauty surrounding me for awhile.  But the clouds brought me back.  An evening stroll from the Croesus Hut through the tussock fields above as the day gave way to a descending twilight, reopened my blinded eyes.  The company of two new friends overlooking the valley below was an antidote to an illness I had been temporarily stricken with.  An illness of disillusionment and uninspired times.  But a jaunt into the mountains is always good medicine to an apathetic soul.  Even as we descended I continued to ascend to a higher standing.

The holidays were great, with the cheer of a Kiwi family and plenty of food and drink.  The New year came in peacefully in the town of Karamea with a great group of people who live in a wonderful community at the end of the road on the Northern West Coast of the South Island.  Days have been passing by with lots of swimming, fishing and roving through the perpetually green forests.  I've made it to Nelson and will enjoy the next few weeks of real summer weather in the sunniest place in NZ.

The clouds have been swept away as the sun takes over after the storm has passed.  The hillsides glow, overflowing with trees of the brightest green imaginable.  The Tasman Sea churns incessantly beating down the rocks and sand.  But the tea colored river, swollen with fresh fallen rain flows with grace, beauty and a calm that brings peace to my overactive mind.

 

The above photos are a small selection from the last couple weeks in my world here in New Zealand.  The first is of an early morning sun on the slopes of the Eyre Mountains on my last day of work at Halfway Bay Station, the following two are of a tramp to and from the Welcome Flat Hut on the Copeland Track.  The final photo is my contribution to the rocky landscape, one of many, at Gellespies Beach on the West Coast by the Tasman Sea near Fox Glacier.

It feels good to have finished a couple months of hard work on sheep stations.  The work was much appreciated and a wonderful learning experience, but now I've reestablished my freedom on the road with a little TLC for my van, and a new alternator which was what she really needed.  I've accepted that she often needs love and affection in the form of money costing repairs to  maintain my relationship with her and after giving her a little, I'm on the road again.

I left Halfway Bay on Saturday and headed north to the outdoor recreation mecca of Wanaka.  It was a beautiful town in a wide valley, on a pristine lake surrounded by dramatic snowcapped peaks.  But I was there, not for the recreation, but for a Saturday night on the town after five weeks on a sheep station.  I started with Happy Hour and carried on past the midnight hour.  I met some fun people and woke up with a heavy head on Sunday.  So what better way to clean the body and mind again than to hike ten miles up a river canyon to an alpine cirque and the Welcome Flat Hut.  I walked the Copeland Track after a three hour drive north with a young German hitchhiker I picked up named Paul, who was filled with young energy, awe and inspiration.  The hike was a challenge to start, but as the toxins from the night before flowed out of my pores and I got further up canyon, I fell into a stride all my own.  I covered the distance in just four hours and arrived at dinner time.  There were hot pools waiting for me there beneath magnificent Alpine peaks.  The lush green bush was adorned by bright white waterfalls rushing down the precipitous mountain slopes from the snow melt above.  A hundred such creeks converged in a cacophony of roaring water forming the Copeland River, creating the most magnificent turquoise mother nature could mix on her pallet.

I met a couple possum hunters there trying to catch possums to see if a massive government possum poisoning program had worked, evidently it had because I went to check a trapline with one of the hunters and they were all empty.

Since the rainy walk out the Copeland Track, I've driven casually up the West Coast, stopping to fish occasionally to no avail.  I do hope to get into some Brown Trout in the coming weeks though.  I've now made it to Greymouth where I'll spend a couple weeks helping a family that's building a new house.  Then it will be on the road again to the North part of the Island to perhaps reconvene with Felipe and Patricia, and explore what the blue waters surrounding Abel Tasman National Park behold.

The Herefords and White Charlet in the paddock before me casually graze beneath the cloud veiled peaks of the Southern Alps.  The sun has finally made an appearance and the songs of hundreds of birds and insects float through the afternoon breeze.  I have filled my belly with a hearty tuna sandwich and sit content in a grassy meadow.  Despite the scars on my hands and soreness of my joints, my body is content.  It is my mind that wanders.  Ever wondering what's to come and where I will find what I'm looking for.  All in time I suppose.  Until then I'll have to be satisfied with the call of the Tui & the Wood Pidgeon, and relish in the beauty that surrounds me as the intense NZ sun warms me from the previous day's drenching rain.

In my life it does not go unnoticed that it's the people that have made it so great, not some far off mountain peak or a crystal blue ocean.  I do miss everyone I've left behind and realize what I may be looking for is the community I left in the first place.  I feel a change in my life, and though I most likely still have some wandering to do, I may finally be growing up.

Merry Christmas to all, until the next report.

Life goes on at Halfway Bay Station.  These photos are courtesy of Felipe.  One more week of work, then it's off to the west coast for a mid summer Christmas.  Not much to report, other than a great send off BBQ that we had for Felipe and Patricia.  They had wanted barbequed lamb since the start of docking so Gerry made it happen.  Last Wednesday night we celebrated the last month of work with good food and plenty of cheer.  Gerry broke out three bottles of very nice expensive Scotch and the men, myself, Felipe and Gerry had a Scotch tasting before dinner.  Four very tall glasses and an hour or so later we had made it to dinner.  Everyone was feeling quite loose and the evening was fun.  After dinner my memory was quite foggy, but I do remember fishing on the boat under the moonlight.  The girls were well into the wine and beer too and we all woke up for work with heavy heads the next day, but managed to get through a good day of tailing.  So Felipe and Patricia have departed and I'll remain for one more week to button things up for Gerry and Ginny before Christmas.  I send good cheer and love to all in the upcoming holiday season and will update you all soon as to my next move in this wide wonderful world.

Halfway Bay Station

It is High above Lake Wakatipu in the Eyre Mountains that I bring you this correspondence.  The sun has set over my left shoulder, a cool diurnal breeze is at my back blowing down valley and the shaded slope has begun it's transformation into night.  I can hear the calls of a thousand grazing sheep, some near and others just a faint moan in the distance.  Life here at Halfway Bay Station is grand.  I'm a stones throw from a crystal blue lake, rivers are filled with rainbow trout and salmon, pastures are green, and I have work, to keep my hands busy and maintain my sanity.  I work with Felipe and Patricia from Chile, who are wonderful people, and Tori, a twenty year old shepherd, who is a ball of fire.  She's filled with young energy and has become fun to work with.  Gerry and Ginny manage the farm and have two kids, Paddy and Eve, 4 & 6 years old.  Gerry and Ginny are both nice folks and the kids are a breath of fresh air, constantly playing outside, often running naked, as free an existence as I can imagine.  They have a pet goat named Goatee and are unafraid of anything outside, be it a plant, animal or otherwise.

I've been here nearly ten days now, and it's nice to reflect on all the tasks accomplished.  We've tailed hundreds of sheep and done numerous other projects.  Just now I'm admiring the plethora of wood Felipe and I cut and split.  The massive gum tree had tons of energy laying in it.  I made a butcher block of a huge round as well.  My time in New Zealand has been good, work purifies my mind and fortunately I've kept busy with the sheep farming.

Sandflies bite, but not incessantly, cool breeze keeps them at bay.  The distant sound of a powerboat, calling sheep, singing birds, and a flowing river are the music in the song I hear.  Sentinel snowcapped peaks, alpen glow, shadows in the folds of glacial carvings, green pastures, an ice cold lake, and the story land group of buildings below that make up Halfway Bay Station are the scene in the show I'm watching.

It's been quite some time since my last post, so I'll try to catch you all up.  Since I left Tim and Viv's, I went to Scott and Karyn's farm outside Thames.  It was a gorgeous setting high on a mountain overlooking the Firth of Thames.  Which is essentially a huge bay.  Scott is an American who evidently did well in the printing business in California and Karyn is a Kiwi he met there.  So they moved to Thames when the economy crashed and thought they'd become farmers.  They are working on it and have some great kids of there own to help them out.  So I spent a week there cutting firewood, driving a tractor, building a bridge and feeding animals.  After that I made my way to the city of Hamilton for a night on the town and saw some great music there.  I headed to the coast after that to spend a couple days relaxing and preparing for my sheep docking job.  I stayed at a great hostel in New Plymouth and enjoyed a couple rainy days laying low.

And then it was a few hour drive to Taihape on a windy but sunny afternoon.  I drove through beautiful country of endless green mountains manicured by the thousands of sheep grazing the hillsides.  And then finally made my way to Erewhon Station.  It's one of the biggest sheep stations in the country.  Myself, two Chileans, and two Argentinians made up the docking crew along with four more local hands and four shepherds with about ten dogs each. On the first day we were told we'd be docking about 22,000 lambs.  We are now through about 11,000 lambs already.  It's been a bloody, shitty, squealing, heavy lifting, hot, cold, rainy, beautiful, satisfying, and fascinating adventure so far.  The people are great and we get fed amazing meals made by Robin each day.  It's the real deal.  I have been enjoying the dogs work immensely.  They use Heading dogs which are silent and more or less stalk the sheep, and Huntaways that bark and herd.  It's impressive to watch the dogs get a whole "mob" from a distance and drive them right into the yard.  We've covered over half of the 10,000 acre farm and it is all beautiful country.  We put in 10-12 hour days and work while the sun shines.  I'm usually exhausted by the end of the day, so two "Tui" beers, a wonderful dinner from Robin and it's off to bed for me.  I will post some pictures soon to give you an idea of what it's like in pictures, I think they will explain more.

I've settled into the hills on the Coromandel Peninsula for the last week.  I found a family, Tim and Viv, to take me in, giving me room and board in exchange for half a day of work each day.  They're a great couple whose three kids have all recently moved out.  The property they have has an abundance of "projects" on it.  Tim, an Apple Orchardist by training, and Viv, ran an orchard in Nelson for a number of years before Tim took a job at a steel mill.  And now, after ten years of that, he's putting his full attention on the "Farm" they live on.  It's about 90 acres located on a steep side slope of some spectacularly green mountains.  From the upper pastures you can see almost the entire valley, scattered with dairy farms and green pastures as far as you can see.  Up valley there's a dramatic basalt stone peak, the remnants of a huge volcano from thousands of years ago.  Tim and Viv have four cows, ten chickens, one goat, two cats and a dog.  They recently planted over 1500 young trees and are in the middle of completing the construction of an earthen and timber framed home…(they started six years ago).  Tim has endless projects and I've been helping with the gamut.  I've done gravel drive work, fencing, bike mechanic work, built a low stone wall, and oiled an earth and tile floor, amongst many other things involving heavy lifting and time.  It's been nice feeling productive and I've probably put in an average of eight hours a day.  I enjoy listening to the insight Tim has on native tree species, or the hopes he puts in my head about getting a job on a big sheep, cattle, or trophy station in the high country of the South Island.  The day, in true English fashion, is broken up by a tea time at mid morning, a pleasantly long lunch and tea at about four in the afternoon.  So I've been highly caffeinated and have learned a thing or two by soaking up the many unique aspects of the lifestyle here.  Tim has so many projects, I have to give him pressure to finish one before moving on to three more, but it's been fun.  I've been eating well, a lot of beef that they've raised, and vegetables that they've grow.  It's been fun to partake in tea time talks with random neighbors who periodically stop by, reaffirming to me just how nice the folks here are.  Tomorrow I go to another family's farm about a half hour from here, to spend a week with them.  I think it has more animals than here so it should be another good experience.    

Crystal blue and snow white
Emerald green at dawn's light
Fading gray twilight

Here's shot of where I did a Birthday Bungee Jump.  153 feet above the Waikato River in Taupo.  Since then I've made my way up through Rotorua, in and out of various hotsprings, and on to Opoutere on the Coromandel Peninsula.  The coast is absolutely beautiful and there is hardly anyone here.  Those who are have been incredibly nice.  I've been staying at a hostel that's an old school.  It's been cool, but still managed to get a swim in, go kayaking, and dig some cockles (like mini clams) up for dinner.  Off to Paeroa tomorrow for a farm stay.