Descend into the depths of New Zealand with Wandering Justin and discover the glow worms of Waitomo.
New Zealand
Campers of Chaos – Wicked to Invade America!
I’ve never rented a Wicked Camper. I’ve never even been inside one. Still, I absolutely love them for their skating-the-edge-of-good-taste humor.
And now Wicked is coming to America, bringing its crude and irreverently painted rental vans and distinct Aussie sense of humor starting in April 2009. They’ll open in Los Angeles and San Francisco to enrich our continent with cheap vans and even cheaper laughs. Soon, you’ll be seeing vans emblazoned with “If only men were as satisfying as chocolate …” or Black Sabbath logos in the United States.
My first encounter with a Wicked Camper was in Australia. I spotted an oddly painted, rough-around-the-edges van covered with a funny mural. I thought some crazed hippie had just taken some brushes to an old van and slapped a URL on there for a personal Web site or something.
From New Zealand Volume 1
Then, I started seeing them just about everywhere – all with different murals, jokes and off-color messages (and often an unshaven/unshowered German at the wheel). And I realized this was actually a rental company. According to its Web site, Wicked has artistic volunteers paint the vans – well, some are artistic!
From Australia
I was delighted to spot Wicked Campers in New Zealand … it was just a symbol that I was in a fun country, and it brought back great memories of Australia. It’s great to see a company that carves out an image that some will love, and others will hate – and embraces that. They even advertise that, if [...]
14 Days in New Zealand – Jump Start Your Travel Plans
If you live on any continent but Australia, visiting New Zealand involves a lengthy flight. That means spending at least two weeks is the only way to go. Here’s my two-week itinerary, including some highlights and a few ideas of what I would change with my newfound knowledge.
Day One: Arrive from Los Angeles at 6 a.m. local time. Drop bags off at hotel in Parnell near the downtown area. Grab a few flat whites at Ben’s. Ogle crazy foods at local Asian markets. Take a ferry to Rangitoto and hike to the top of the volcano. Return to hotel … check in and shower. Then off to dinner and wandering the streets of Auckland. Hindsight is 20/20 … and mine says I should’ve rented a car after the flat whites and driven the easy two hours to Rotorua, thus affording some time in the fun capitol, or extra time in Wellington. I was planning to feel far more jet-lagged, but the symptons never came.
Whole dessicated duck, anyone? From New Zealand Volume 1
Day 2: Bus from Auckland to Rotorua. Arrive around 2:30 p.m., check into hotel. Visit Kairua Park, walk around Lake Rotorua. Watch for the sulfury lagoon where the lake turns color. Eerie! Indian dinner at Ambiance. General hanging around the town.
Day 3: Breakfast, drive out to Waiotapu Thermal Wonderland. Amazing! After lunch, off to Agroventures. Zorbing is the highlight. Try the Schweeb, too. We followed this with driving around the countryside at dinner at Fat Dog. An extra [...]
New Zealand plans taking shape
Well, the plans for the New Zealand adventure are coming together nicely. I’ve booked a bunch of accommodations on the North Island; Sarah will handle most of the South Island plans.
We’re mostly booking smaller, locally owned hotels. They operate a bit differently than an international chain, where you visit the Web site, enter your dates, pick your room and you’re done. With the smaller places in New Zealand (and in Australia, Costa Rica and Belize, too), you often have to send an inquiry to the hotel with your dates. The staff then gets back to you to confirm, and that’s when you get down to the credit card number business. It takes a bit more time, but it’s worth it. So far, the New Zealand hotels have been super-fast and friendly.
One of the more interesting places we’re staying will be Woodlyn Park. We’ve reserved a room in the tail section of the airplane, which should be all sorts of cool. The New Zealand Department of Conservation was also exceptionally friendly and helpful in giving me the lowdown on how to get hut passes in the Tongariro area.
For me, hiking the Tongariro Alpine Crossing will be one of the key points of this trip. Obviously, the New Zealand government is really clued in about how to make a hike even better … throughout its parks, you’ll find huts that can range from barely a lean-to to fully heated and enclosed affairs. And they’re pretty inexpensive for a night. That frees up [...]
Cameras: Just as important as a plane ticket
The best souvenir you can bring home is a great photo. And New Zealand looks like it will give me a lot of incredible photos. There’s just one little problem – my poor old Fuji S5200 superzoom has been through a lot of hard knocks, from deserts to temperatures well below freezing. It’s showing its age a bit, with some shots starting to lose sharpness, and a power button that often gets sticky and balks at firing the camera up. It seems that over the last year, the Fuji has gotten particularly bad at high ISO settings.
The Fuji could probably survive New Zealand, but I don’t want to fly 15 hours and have it die. Or worse yet, just take mediocre shots of stellar scenery. So it’s time for a new one … and I decided long ago that I was ready for a digital SLR. The first one I considered was the Olympus E420, the smallest SLR in all the land (and the one that uses the same xD cards as my Fuji). My co-worker, Alex Scott (who is a most-excellent graphic designer and artist), steered me toward Pentax, which is making some impressive stuff. I gave Canon and Nikon their due, but I just wasn’t impressed with the plastic-like, somewhat flimsy feel of their entry and intermediate-level cameras. Sony wasn’t a consideration since I just don’t like their controls and layouts. I thought about Fuji, but they just didn’t have what I wanted in my price range. Believe it [...]
The Final Australia 2007 Post
Friday, Aug. 31
Seriously, you haven’t lived until you’ve seen an F-111 fly a few hundred feet over your head with its afterburners lit. This was part of a crazy celebration called Riverfire. If you ever visit Australia, do yourself a favor: Be in Brisbane for Riverfire. The video is lengthy, but it gives you a great idea of the fireworks display, and the jets that open and close it. Awesome!
We woke up early and took a stroll around the downtown area. This is a very outdoorsy city, lots of people running and cycling. After some breakfast, we picked a direction and walked. We also noticed that everybody was getting all aflutter about Riverfire. People were already lining the riverbanks to grab primo spots for the evening’s festivities. Sarah and I aren’t much for parades and shindigs, so we largely ignored it. We were pretty happy to be proven wrong later, but more on that toward the end.
Our first stop was the excellent Queensland Museum, which is really strong on science and nature. There was just too much cool stuff to see. We spent a few hours easily cruising around in there before heading out for general walking about. There’s a very neighborly feel to Brisbane, with a lot of non-chain store types of places. This particular section of Brizzy is like a big college town, even though Queensland University is down the river. Speaking of QU, we thought it would be fun to check out the campus.
We hopped on the [...]
A Little Travel-Planning Advice
This is a brief interruption from my usual recap of the Australia trip … but I think it’ll be really valuable for some of you out there planning a trip.
Sarah and I have been working on a trip to New Zealand. We read the book Kiwis Might Fly (which is a tremendously fun read), we saw a Kiwi politician quoted as saying “Whenever a New Zealander leaves for Australia, it improves the IQ of both countries,” and we saw the awesome scenery in Lord of the Rings. With all that going on, how can you not want to see New Zealand?
My first job was to sniff around for flights from Los Angeles. I searched all the airlines, and the prices were pretty grim. I was really hoping for a good Qantas deal since they fly there and we both have nice chunks of mileage there from our Australia trip. And Qantas is a oneworld Alliance member, so that can help with a lot of destinations. But I wasn’t seeing any good deals from any of the carriers headed for Auckland.
Since I was getting deal-desperate, I signed up for the Qantas Red Newsletter. A few days later, boom! A two-for-one special. We’ve booked the tickets.
You really should do the same for any airlines serving destinations that interest you. Wanna go to Germany? Check the Lufthansa Web site and see what’s up (and don’t forget to pack a Speedo). Tahiti? Hit Tahiti Nui and see if they have a newsletter. Interested in [...]
