Goodbye pork pie, hello OZ

Few hours before we leave this country, to the bigger island in this ocean, we want to say few words..

First, we sold the car, so called Menashe, which was a sad and happy thing, at the first day we tried, in the car market in Auckland.

Second, we re-booked our flight as early as we can.

And third, we relaxed. as much as we could, in this wonderful place in beach-haven, which is a 20min drive on the high-way from the city, but still, a suburb of Auckland.

an amazing-young family with four little boys.

they gave us great hospitality, even when they where gone for two days, and another perspective about rising up children...

so, beside relaxing and baby-sitting, we traveled the big city a bit, had some Chinese food, that seems to be the locals food in this city, visit the museum (also been at the Holocaust room due to the date) and went back home.

during that time, we had to finish all of our spare food, which appear to fill us up, and of course, the Tim-tam event!

today we went to the ANZAC march and service, and experienced a different memorial day.

Now, right before the main part of our journey is about to end, we can say out loud that it was an excellent choice to come all the way over here.

plenty of outstanding-different-powerful views in such a small land, that surprises us every time.

we know that we got a lot to see around the world, and we will, but , still, a good start...

until the next time, from Melbourne

take care

shachaf and ofer

hard to find in new zealand:

some of the things took us lots of time to find, some we didn't even try to find, and some we understood at the end that are just not exist here...

tehini,

kiwi (the bird),

desert,

bridge with more then one lane,

road with more than two lanes,

town with a clear and easy to pronounce name,

a hole week without rain,

nice and useful DOC people,

orange triangles in the other side of the river,

weather forecast for more than 3 days,

locals who leave at the same place they were born,

locals who love (or at list like) Australia,

people that you can understand what they say,

people that talk with cellphones on the streets,

mt without bush (we don't count volcanoes... and even they have it sometimes!),

coin phone,

cheap vegetables,

free hot springs,

libraries with free Internet,

a road without constructions

or camper vans

or dad animals and wild birds on them...,

a strait road,

alive possums,

high buildings,

a place with out scenic flights

or bunjy jumping

or sky diving

or kayaks,

dumpsters,

Japanese without a camera,

small trolleys in Pack & Save.

to finish with a good point of view-

easy to find in NZ:

Israelis

and sheep!

Matana la'Hag! she'haya...

"it wasn't me, it's the earth that stinks"

hi everybody

it's been a long time since the last time we wrote ... or maybe it was just a week but for us it feels much longer.

in case you were worried about us, and we know you were, we did a "seder kahalacha", if you call a great dinner (chicken with fruits and batata in the oven) with some songs and religious talking with two Cristine couple "kahalacha"... and we also took some "hofesh pesach" from our trip and did a hole day of nothing watching stupid local sope operas on tv (did you know that there is still "neighbours"?!?). so you can all calm down, we had a great pesach!

last time we said that we're planing to climb to the taranaki mt, but again - the weather. two days before we got there the mt summit covered with snow and they told us the next time we can climb it is the next summer (their, not ours, which means - December). we had to laugh, this time, on our "good luck", and did another tiyul that goes as high as we could without the special gear. but we had great views, saw this great mt really close to us, and did some snow walking . actually it was quiet enough snow walking for us, you can't believe how fast it goes from "oo, look at that snow" to - "fuck, i hate that snow, i can't feel my legs and where the hell is that stupid hut?"

well, finally when we arrived to the hut (so far - the last one for us) it was great, with nice people, fire place and, of course "timtam shel yom shishi". this time it was the hazelnut - mmmmmmmmmm, almost a winner!

from there - we went east to the tongariro - ye, another volcano. we did it in one day and decided that this time we are going to "see the white in the eyes" to that mt. so we climbed it (not the tongariro, another one which is higher and better but we really can't pronounce it's name... sorry) and this time we could actually see the steams comes out of it. this whole day was amazing and left us with the feeling that we are very little on that huge globe. we walked between steaming lakes, cold lava and great craters when all the time we could smell the stink that comes from the earth. scary and beautiful at the same time.

from there - up north to taupo, where we found matan (that traveled with the davar in oz) and a great deal in dominos pizza (the second one for free!!).

... and norther to rotorua, where we looked for free (or at least cheap!) hot springs. a very hard task in that tourism monster. thanks to the lonely planet we've found one. the davar was very excited and immediately jumped to the hot water but the gozal thought that it looks and smells to much like a stream that comes from tul karem - bad!!!

now, after we tried to get out of this very smelly area and spent another night in the home of a very nice "hit" couple, we're in Auckland. shocked from that huge city (now we know where are all the locals hiding...) hope to sell our car this week, so if you know any one... it's in a really good condition!!!

that's it for now,

wish us good luck tomorrow,

shachaf, ofer and menashe (the car...)

everywhere you go, always take the weather with you

After 7 weeks we decided that it's just too much, we couldn't see any more of that amazing, beautiful, breathtaking views... so we left to the north island, where there more people and volcanoes and less mountains and send flies.

the last day in the south we spent doing kayaking in Charlot sound (an like fiords, the sounds were made due to water floods and the rising of the sea level so it looks different... if you want to know). we must say that it looks nice but it's actually can be really scary when you're out on the sea (for the gozal...) and really hard work with your hands (for the davar...), but like one of the Israelis here told us - a "chavaia" is a "siyut" in the past... but it was fun and no ferry or wail killed us, so...

the next day we took a ferry from picton, saw some dolphins on the way (no pictures this time, you'll just have to believe us, but there were a lot of them, really!) and after 3 hours we were in Wellington, the capital city and for us - the first real city in NZ, where you can actually see buildings with more then 4 flours and rodes with more then 2 lanes, amazing...

we stayed there in a "hit" member house (the organization we told you about... nice people, religious, love Israel) which looked like a combination of a temple and a sport hole. we also had a very (very!) weird tour around the town with one of his friends... well, it's just too hard to explain, lets just say that we're alive, out of wellington and every thing's OK now!

we started to go up north, and again pray for the good weather (our new hobby here), this time for mt.Taranaki, one of the volcanoes here which is still "working" (last time was in the 80's) and we hope to climb on it and see if it's true. don't worry, many people do that, and if we survived wellington we'll survive everything!!!

but in the meanwhile we're waiting for the sun in whanaganuy, very tired from the south island (we think maybe we have a "jet leg"...), doing some "chofesh pesach" from the trip, and maybe we'll do the Seder some where here... still don't know.

we hope you all ready know where you'll be, but where ever it'll happened -

hag same'ach!!!!!!!!!!

eat for us,

drink for us

and shana ha'ba'a beramat-gan habnuya

(the davar got in to tlv university!!!!!!!)

davar ve gozal

Belief is a good thing as long as you are a beliver

We started to believe. so, at the first time we have been in wanaka and the mt Aspiring NP - the weather was very bad so we did nothing there, and after that we met way too many people that told us that it is so beautiful and we must travel there, especially the Cascade Saddle - we decided to go all the way from nelson to wanaka (a day and a half of driving), and pray for good weather over there.
on the first day we climb to the Brewster hut, which was amazing, but we couldn't decide what was more breath-taker - the climb or the view! (pics on the end of the last album)
then we spent the whole weekend in wanaka, thanks, again, to a shitty weather. but in this time, we manage to play candy-poker (which gozal won and earned the ninth-weakly-timtam [the timtam here is price less, about 5-6 shekels each and there is big variety!]), a movie in a special-coaches-cinema with huge-amazing-hot cookies at the break time.
When the good weather came we went to the mt Aspiring NP, spent the night in the hut, and on the morning, with not too good forecast, we decided to take the risk and climb to the divine Saddle.
WOW! it was worth it, as you might see in the photos.after a hard climb with heavy clouds we made it. god was with us (or just wrong NZ weather forecast) and gave us clear sky!
and for desert we had, again, the red-star burger, as you can see, and 'Cascade project' had succeed.
we drove back north throw the west coast, we saw some dolphins (try to find them on the beach pictures..), and hips of sand flies.
Now, in nelson, two days before going on a ferry to the north island, relaxing and eating some meat-pies (delicious!)
the frequency of our writing and photos uploading isn't measured by the amount of beautiful places and adventures we are having, but by the amount of free Internet library we find.
so there is some nice photos on:
http://picasaweb.google.com/shachafby/CascadeProjectLoopingAgainTheSouthIsland?feat=directlink
no, we don't know where we gonna do the Seder, looking for an Hagada, and planing a really good dinner.

Hag sameh!
goz&dav