The Ultimate Trip - Has ended

Thanks to everyone who continues to check out our website! I am starting a new one to chronicle our mundane lives in Eugene, Oregon, U.S.A.

http://patrickandshulalife.blogspot.com/

Please visit our virtual and real home anytime you wish!

Shula

Quick update, since it's been more than a month now.....
Patrick and I are moving up to Eugene, Oregon on July 15th to start our new lives there. Yes, he accepted the job with Molecular Probes, yeay!
I have been busy scanning in all the pictures from the trip and will be posting them by the end of the summer. So check back to see where we were this past year.
We are also hoping to change this webpage into something a bit more informative. Will let everyone know when that is available.
Cheers!
Shula

Our week in Portland after Patrick's interview was glorious! We visited with many of our friends and spent time seeing all the new, hip locations around town. However, the travel bug has bit in a small way again and we are now on the east coast traipsing around. Actually, we really needed to consolidate all our stuff, which seems to be spread out across the country in places such as Rhode Island, New Jersey, Philadelphia, Idaho, and California. On this trip, our hope is to move all our various things on the East Coast into a single storage facility in New Jersey. This is the crazy schedule of how we are doing it.....

1 June
Leave Portland at the crazy hour of 6:30am on Southwest Airlines. Fly to Kansas City - change planes. Fly to Chicago - stay on plane. Arrive in Providence, RI at 7:00pm and rent minivan. Drive to Brook and Merith's house for the night.
2 June
Drive to Narragansett to pack up all our belongings at Shula's mom's house including: wedding stuff, boxes from Salt Lake home and childhood memorabilia. Linda is out of the country. Back to Providence to stay another night with Brook and Merith.
3 June
After beautiful day wandering Providence with Merith, drive 6 hours to Philly. Stay with Shula's father for the night.
4 June
Collect belongings from Dad's house and storage unit. Find key to our storage unit. Drive to New Jersey to pack new boxes into our storage unit. Late afternoon, drive to NYC for a weekend with Jeff.
5 June
Drive to upstate New York with Jeff
7 June
Return to NYC. Drop Jeff off. Drive back to RI and stay night with Brook and Merith.
8 June
Return car to airport and fly to Philly.

Yes, we are driving all over the east coast - and don't ask why we didn't just get a one-way rental from Providence to Philly - it is cheaper our way!

We have been back in the USA for a little over a week now, but nothing has slowed down. It doesn't even seem like our trip is over just yet, probably because we are still traveling around without a long term stop in the near future.
On May 11th, we arrived back in Oakland after a very long flight (17 hours from Singapore via Hong Kong). It was great leaving Singapore at 6:30am (ok, not great maybe funny) and arriving in Oakland at 8:30am. That must be like riding in a Dolorian. Singapore was a nice city, but didn't grab us the way other Asian cities have. It was very clean and organized, but expensive! Can't say that I am itching to get back there.
Oakland was great! We lazed around Patty and Jim's house, enjoying good food, a comfortable bed, and just plain enjoying the company of family. The garden that Jim put in a few years ago was just starting to produce a harvest and we were lucky to enjoy fresh picked artichokes and collard greens.
After 2 days I packed up again and left Patrick and his family for sunny L.A. to visit my sister and mother. Patrick remained in Oakland to work on the talk for his upcoming interview - if that is what he really did...... ;-)

L.A. was much nicer than I ever expected. My expectations were pretty low, so I guess that the experience could only be better. Of course, Tamara lives in Santa Monica, one of the nicer parts of the city, and with the ocean so close to her home how could she go wrong. Every day I was there we had beautiful sunshine and weather in the 70s with a nice ocean breeze. It was almost paradise, if there hadn't been so much pavement and so many other people to "share" it with. As luck would have it, my mother also visited L.A. over the weekend on her way home from Japan. In a week back in the U.S. I have been able to visit half of my family!
Bob (my mother's husband) insisted, as he so often does, on visiting the RMS Queen Mary, a 1930s luxury ocean liner docked in Long Beach as a museum and hotel. The Queen Mary had quite an illustrious career, first as an ocean liner plying the Atlantic waters between New York and Great Britain and then as a troop transport ship during World War II. When it was built, it was the fastest, and probably most elegant, large ship in existence, which made it a favorite of many celebrities at the time. It was larger and heavier than the Titanic and, unlike the Titanic, it's construction was so sound that it made 1001 voyages across the Atlantic before being retired in 1967 due to the growing popularity of trans-Atlantic flights. During the war, the Queen Mary was also involved in the accidental sinking of the British light cruiser Curacoa when she collided with it, splitting the Curacoa in two. Although she was on her way to Scotland at the time, permanent repairs to her hull were not completed until she returned to Boston! Originally, she was built to carry about 3,000 passengers and crew, but during the war at one time she transported 15,000 troops. It was an interesting ship to tour, if a bit expensive, and it was very cool to step on and see how the rich and famous would have traveled across the Atlantic in those days.
Tamara and I also visited the La Brea Tar pits in the downtown L.A. area. I would highly recommend anyone to visit here, as it was not only interesting but fairly cheap too. These tar pits have been a rich site of fossils from about 40,000 years ago up to about 10,000 years ago and tell an interesting story of the animals that roamed this area of North America during the last great ice age. Did you know that there were native camels, the huge Columbian Mammoth that stood over 12 feet tall, saber tooth cats, ground sloths, and many other interesting animals that are now extinct! For fairly thorough information on all the fossils found at La Brea visit this web site http://www.tarpits.org/education/guide/index.html. They have really done a great job with the museum there and you can watch all the work in action from the excavation of the pits to the cleaning and cataloging of the fossils in the lab.
On my last day in L.A., Tamara and I got out of the city and went up to the Ventura county area for a great hike in the coastal mountains. I was amazed to find out that only an hour outside of L.A. there are wide open spaces with few people about. In fact, during our 3.5 hour hike we only encountered 2 other couples hiking. Ah, to have some of the great outdoors to ourselves for a bit. The hike was good - well kept, varied terrain, and great views - but the best part came after the hike was over. Soon after we left the trail head on our drive back to the Pacific Coast Highway, we spotted a mountain lion crossing the road. It is pretty unusual to see these creatures in the wild, so I was pretty excited. I guess there had been a few sightings around the area, but that didn't diminish the fact that it was the first wild mountain lion I had ever seen. However, I'm sure glad that our encounter was from the safety of Tamara's car and not while we were hiking!

After a week in California, it was time to fly up to the state that feels like home, Oregon. I swear that every time I fly into Portland, and we are coming in for a landing over the lush green of the area, I feel about ready to cry. It always feels like coming home, even though I haven't lived here for more than 3 years. Unfortunately, we had to leave Portland right away for the drive down to Eugene, which, by the way, is not nearly as far from Portland as I remember. Not to say that I wouldn't choose to live in Portland if I had the choice, but, well, lets look at the bright side......
Today Patrick is at his interview while I spend my time at the U of O Knight Library, looking for job opportunities in Eugene and pecking away at this blog.

Seems as if our time in NZ, and on this journey, is coming to a quick close. There are so many stories left to tell from this trip, perhaps Patrick and I can continue to add to our blog in the coming weeks.
For the past 2 and a half days we have sat at a "backpackers car lot" in Auckland trying to sell Eden, our little NZ car. She has served us well here and taken us all over both islands without any problem. Unfortunately, this time of year is pretty bad for selling cars - all the backpackers are going home! It was pretty depressing sitting in the lot for all that time, without so much as a single person taking the car for a test drive. We were not the only ones having problems. There were at least 12 other cars waiting for new owners and 6 or 10 campervans. Some of the sellers had been around for more than 5 days trying to get rid of their vehicles. The first day we were there, only 5 or 6 potential buyers came to look at the cars/vans and only 2 vehicles were sold. Those that were sold, went at a pittance. To give you an example, one van sold for $1200 yesterday - in November it will probably go for more than $3000. It was pretty funny to see everyone perk up and start smiling when new backpackers would arrive, only to go back to slouching and reading as the buyers passed their cars by.
We spent the long hours of waiting chatting and playing games with the other owners. A kind of camaraderie develops down there and everyone seems to share in the anticipation, disappointment, and anxiety of trying to sell a car. Everyone celebrates as each car is sold, especially when a deserving person, who has paid their dues by sitting around for more than 3 days, finally finds a buyer. And there is a shared disgust when a car shark comes in and offers $100 for a good car, just because he knows that person has a flight out in a few hours. That is the name of the car game in NZ and it is a strangely special part of the backpacker's world here.
I guess I really haven't answered the question of why we bought a car instead of renting one or finding other means of transport. When we first arrived in NZ we were anticipating staying here for at least 2 months, if not longer. We wanted to have our own transportation so we could go where ever, and when ever, we wanted. The cost of a cheap rental car for 2 months would have cost us around $1500NZ. After looking at a few cars, we decided that by buying a car for $1100NZ, we could afford to drive it around for 2 months, sell it for a few hundred dollars and we would still pay less than if we rented. In the event, 6 weeks worth of rental was about the same as the cost of our car.
In the end, we sold the car for $200NZ to Dennis. A little disappointing but at least it is out of our hands! Now we can relax and enjoy our last day in Auckland and our day in Singapore before heading home.

For all those of you who care what we will be doing once back in the U.S., here is our itinerary as far as we know it.
11 May We arrive back in Oakland
11-20 May Patrick will remain in Oakland until the 20th when he will fly to Portland and head down to Eugene for a job interview.
13-20 May I will be flying to L.A. on the 13th of May to spend a week with Tamara and then will meet Patrick in Portland on the 20th.
20-23 May We will spend the weekend in Eugene, getting to know the town a bit.
24-31 May In Portland, visiting with friends.
????

Although the North Island is not as dramatic as the South Island, we are still having plenty of good fun up here! It was really hard to leave the South Island because our last stop was at such a great place. Hopewell is probably one of the best backpacker retreats anywhere in the world! It is located at the very end of a long peninsula in Marlborough Sound, which is only accessable by either a long, windy dirt track or by boat. The owners have chosen to live out there with their children as a way of life. Mike came out to meet us in his motor boat for the 15 minute trip to Hopewell so that we could avoid the long drive around the bay. He is a great host who, although choosing to live away from big towns, loves to have people come and stay at his place. As soon as we arrived he sat us down at the family table and brought us coffee and muffins while we introduced ourselves around.
The hostel is set right on the water overlooking the sound and is a prime location for all sorts of water activities. We made full use of the free kayaks to explore the nearby coves and on our way discovered a huge oyster bed! The water was surprisingly warm, which was helpful when we were digging around for dinner. A couple of hours later we were surprised to find that the tide had dropped so low that all the oysters were on the shore. So much for wading in the water. The hostel itself was beautiful and comfortable and we felt like we were staying in a 5-star hotel. Even the kitchen was well equipped and the knives were sharp.
We probably wouldn't have left hopewell if we hadn't booked a non-refundable ferry ride!

So far on the North Island we spent a few days in the Napier/Hastings area - towns that are saturated in Art Deco architecture. These towns had to be completely rebuilt in the 1930s after a 7.8 magnitude earthquake leveled most of their buildings. Since Art Deco was very popular at the time, they chose to reconstruct in the fashion of the times. It wasn't until the 1970s that the towns realized what unique buildings they had and went about restoring and preserving their history. These towns are amazingly beautiful, especially when the blue sky adds a contrasting backdrop to the bright pastels of the buildings. We were lucky to have a few good days in these towns for tours through the history of the buildings.
Now we are in Rotorua, the hotspring capital of New Zealand. Last night we attended a Hangi at a Maori village - our first real Maori experience. It was fantastic and well worth the added expense.
We have very few days left Down Under!

We are on our way to the North Island tonight, taking a ferry from Picton to Wellington at 5pm. Word on the street is that the North Island is not as interesting as the South Island. However, I am looking forward to being able to visit more Maori towns - a little more diversity. Before we run off, though, I thought that I might do a little to catch the blog up on what we have been up to!
After we left the Banks Peninsula we stopped in Christchurch for another night and then headed north and west toward Golden Bay. This is a large peninsula in the far North West of the South Island, reaching around like a big arm toward the East and ending in Farewell Spit. It is unbelievably quiet and untouched because it is a bit out of the backpacker circle and a 2 hour drive, over mountains on a windy road, from Nelson. Very few New Zealanders, and even fewer foreign tourists, make it this far out. We loved it out there! Farewell spit is the longest sand spit in New Zealand, extending something like 26 kilometers, with golden sand and stunning beaches. Just opposite the spit are dramatic green bluffs, dropping directly down into the ocean where fur seals play amongst the waves. We hiked along these cliffs, sometimes walking at obscene angles just to stay near the edge, and I felt like I was back in the Westman Islands in Iceland. Some of the beaches in Golden Bay look like remote tropical beaches, only they are not as warm. We stayed in a wonderful backpacker called Shambhala, which had doubles on a hillside overlooking the ocean. Our sliding doors opened onto a small deck and we could watch the sunrise while lying in bed! Golden Bay was truely a place we will remember.
Because Golden Bay next to the Abel Tasman national park, we were able to go for a day hike along the famous Abel Tasman walk. This is one of New Zealand's "Great Walks" and follows the coastline for a 2-4 day hike. We have even met some people who have hiked it in a single day, although I am sure they were not able to linger anywhere to view the stunning scenery. It is truely a beautiful area, with blue-green ocean, golden beaches rising into green mountains, and NZ bush country. At the end of the day of hiking, when we were returning to our car, we stopped to stroll along one secluded beach. Just as we were about to leave, a pod of large dolphins swam almost right up to the shore! They couldn't have been more than 2 meters from where the waves were braking and they stayed around for 10 minutes playing in the surf. This was probably the best dolphin show I have ever seen. At one time 5 of the dolphins all jumped high out of the water together - it would have been quite a great picture, if I could have managed to catch it! After that hike we really were feeling quite high.
Even though we were sad to leave Golden Bay, we managed to drive to Nelson that night, for a short stay in this northern city. Nelson is friendly enough, but the two highlights for us were the wine tour we took with Roy and discovering the small, but excellent, Lighthouse Brewery. The wine tour was interesting, mainly due to Roy, who was a very interesting and informative tour guide. He seemed to know plenty about the wine growing and making business, probably because he has spent plenty of time volunteering on vineyards in Europe. Not only did we taste wines at the 5 vineyards we visited, Patrick and I managed to buy a bottle at each! Hopefully some of these we make it back to the U.S. for our friends and family to try.
The other find, Lighthouse Brewery, was not in Michael Jackson's beer book, nor did we read about it anywhere. Somehow, we happened upon it while walking in town and it turned into a great find. The guy who owns it runs everything - he employs not a single person. He seems more of a beer drinking, than maker, but manages to turn out some of the best beer we have tried in New Zealand yet! He started as a home brewer with a homebrew store and turned it into a (very) small brewery. He has help developing recipies from a friend in Auckland and it seems to work. Unfortunately, he is shutting down his current location in July without having a new place to move to. Visiting him has gotten us excited about home brewing again when we have a home.
Our final stop on the South Island was in Queen Charolette Sound at Hopewell backpacker, by far the best run and nicest backpacker we have stayed in in New Zealand!

There has been some recent news that will change our trip, but I will keep you waiting until later in the blog for that!
The last few days have been spent on the Banks Peninsula, East of Christchurch getting back into a good mood about traveling. It could be because the weather has turned up, or that the place we were staying was absolutely terrific, or that we met some interesting people, or that we just plain had tons of fun. Probably all of these! When I made reservations at the Onuku Farm Hostel near Akaroa, I had no idea just how out of the way and cozy it was going to feel. The hostel is on a real working sheep farm (not that we really noticed that) and was everything a hostel should be - homey, warm, friendly, environmentally consious. Besides sheep, they also had chickens and a cat, an herb garden, grape vines, lemon trees, peach trees, apple trees, kiwi bushes and other plants I couldn't identify. A couple of indangered Wood Pigeons also had made the garden their home. A perfect place for all creatures. There were only a few other people staying there, since it is late in the season, and we all seemed to warm to each other immediately. And for some reason, the weather out on the peninsula seemed to be at least 5 degrees warmer than in Christchurch!
The area is beautiful: rolling hills with windy streets, vineyards, and farms. The peninsula creates a very sheltered bay where the world's smallest dolphin, the Hector dolphin, lives. We had booked a trip to "swim with the dolphins", which literally means we would don semi dry wetsuits and get into the 10 degree Celcius (50 degree Fahrenheit) water for a swim. It was actually a lot more fun than it sounds, although we didn't see the huge pods of dolphins that I was expecting. After chasing around a few pods of feeding dolphins, who weren't too interested in us, we discovered a pod of 3 dolphins who had a ball swimming around us and playing. They really are interactive creatures. Actually, it was a bit better watching from the boat because the visibility in the water was very poor. By the time we headed in to shore all our extreamities were practically frozen off :-) but it was well worth it!
After the swim we had intended to do some walking on the farms around the peninsula, but ended up lazing about in the sun, just enjoying being warm. We were very sad to leave Onuku this morning, but felt we needed to get a few things done in Christchurch..... which brings me to the big news.
Almost.
Before I forget, I wanted to mention that when we were in Dunedin we also had the opportunity to see adult Royal Albatross! It was really an experience of a lifetime for me because ever since I read "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" I have wanted to see an albatross. Actually, it was a fluke we were able to see one. There is an albatross colony residing on the Otago Peninsula but it is protected due to their endangered nature. You can pay quite a lot of money to visit a hide close to the colony, but we were told that the adults were not frequently present at this time of year because they were off to sea finding food for their young. Instead, we chose to take a tour of Fort Taiaroa and the dissapearing gun they have there. I can definitely say that Patrick was a bit more excited about the tour than I was, the lookout part of the fort turned out to be the ideal spot for watching albatross! There were at least 3 adults that kept swooping around us while we sat there and we probably even had a better view than the people on the colony tour. Even our guide was amazed at how lucky we were! And oh, are they beatiful birds with a 3 meter wingspan!! Just amazing to watch.

Now, I am finally to the point of the big news. The reason we needed to get back into Christchurch today was because.........
Patrick was waiting to hear back from a biotech company in the U.S. and he now has an interview arranged for the end of May! It looks like we will be traveling back to California around the 10th of May so that he can prepare for the interview, which is in Eugene, Oregon. Pretty cool! We will have to speed up our trip around New Zealand and we will skip visiting Asia again before we travel home, but it is all good.

That's all folks, for now. Looking forward to having the chance to visit with many of you in the VERY near future!

Because the weather was so bad at the southern tip of New Zealand, we completely bypassed Stewart Island - the island off the southern coast where Kiwi's (the bird) are seen during the day. It was a shame to miss this island, which is mostly national park, but we found quite an interesting coast between Invercargill and Dunedin! Our one night in Invercargill was spent stocking up on food and wine and taking in a movie: The Secret Window. Great flick, with Johnny Depp doing a great job in this spooky Stephen King story.
The Catlins is a newish park in the south east part of the south island, and seems to be not too well traveled yet. Perhaps this is because the main road through the area has yet to be sealed. No worries for our stout little car! We found a great little town with a crazy shop in a converted bus/van. Everything there was made out of recycled items and was meant to be played with. I couldn't help but push the button that was labeled "life is full of little temptations, this is one of them" only to be drenched by a water pistol. Patick's favorite item was the "Mail Whale", a huge, steel mailbox shaped like a... you guessed it.... whale. We almost couldn't tear ourselves away from this kitchy store, but we left in good spirits to look for a place to sleep for the night.
Our first try was a tiny little backpacker down a long dirt road. When we arrived, there was no one about, but a sign suggested we let ourselves in and sign up for a bed. The small house was warm and cozy and filled with character. Unfortunately, it was also full for the night. Since there was nobody home, we stayed for a few minutes to look through their guest book and eat a few chocolate eggs :-)
We lucked out and only minutes later found a new lodge, not yet listed in any of the books or literature about the area, which was cheap and completely empty! We had a huge cottage all to ourselves, with two bedrooms, huge living room, kitchen and porch looking out onto a farm. What luck after all the trouble we had in the Southern Alps.

Next stop was Dunedin, a great little college town with loads of character.... and Yellow Eyed Penguins. Somehow we arrived just in time to hike out along the beach and wait in a hide while the cute birds came home from fishing for the day. They seem to come out of nowhere and pop up in the surf on the beach. Then the birds waddle up on shore to the base of a hill, where they begin to preen themselves until they are dry. Finally, they hop up the hillside to their nests for the night. The whole process is pretty funny to watch because they are so awkward on land.
Since then we have watched them again in Oamaru and also have seen Blue Penguins, the smallest penguin in the world. While the yellow eyed penguins arrive individually, the blue penguins arrive in rafts of about 10-15 and stay in a group as the waddle up to their nests. A pretty fun thing to see, but while the yellow eyes were free to watch, the blues cost about $8US, which was a bit expensive we thought.

Just a quick comment for those people visiting NZ anytime soon. We ate at a great restaurant called Fleur's Place in Moreaki and highly recommend it. It has great food and great atmosphere! It is located in the small fishing village at the harbor. The owner put the building together from recycled materials, including old windows from another structure and walls from a shack in another town. A true gem!

Here we are on another blustery day in Southland. Spent the day slowly driving our way to Invercargill after bypassing many muddy camping spots. Hadn't planned to be here until a day or two later, but here we are none the less. Looking for inside activities, we stumbled upon another internet cafe and thought we could waste some time typing. Just thought I would write down a few odds and ends.

Did we mention running into a couple, Vern and Stephanie, in Christchurch who we had met almost 5 months ago in China? Amazingly, we had stopped by a hostel to look at the tent of another traveler and there they were! I think it was in Xian that we first met them on our way out of the hostel there. They had spent the day with our friend Clem. What a small world of travelers. Here in NZ, we had the opportunity to spend an evening drinking beer and talking about travels and the world. It felt like seeing family.

While driving back from Milford sound to Te Anau we had our second flat tire in three days... on the same tire. Unfortunately, this occured on Good Friday, a 4-day holiday weekend in NZ. The spare tire seems to be doing OK and it will need to continue to roll until Tuesday, when everything opens up again. We celebrated Easter by having a lunch of fish and chips at a take-away place in Riverton. Pretty exciting!

Yesterday, a huge group of teenagers arrived, with their escorts in tow, at the holiday park that we were staying at. Patrick and I debated where they might be from, he guessing somewhere in the U.S.A., and I saying Canada. Turns out Patrick was right (a very unusual occurance ;-) and the group was from St. Johnsburry Academy in Vermont. Five teachers have brought 26 kids here for 2 weeks of hiking, biking and river rafting. How cool is that? Sure wish they had something like that when I was in high school.

As some of you may know, New Zealand has a huge problem with non native animals brought here by settlers. Before man arrived here, the only native mamal inhabiting the islands was a type of bat, and the main other land animals were birds. They have some fantastic large, flightless, birds here, not seen anywhere else in the world where preditors are present. Unfortunately, some of these birds have been hunted to extinction now, but this is not where I am going. One of the animals brought to NZ was the possum:
"The brushtail possum is an introduced species that was released in NZ in 1837 to establish a fur industry. The NZ possum is only distantly related to the american opossum.
With the fall in demand for fur and the value of the fur dropping to uneconomic levels the numbers of possums dramatically increased and they have now reached epidemic proportions with well over 70 million possums munching there way through 21300 tonnes of vegetation nightly, and they are decimating NZ's native bush and birdlife.
The possum has no predators and NZ's bush is defenceless against them. They are a serious threat that has spread to 92% of NZ's three main islands and many native trees,plants & birdlife including the kiwi are under threat from extinction because their habitat is being destroyed by the possum."
Now there are whole environmental groups dedicated to protecting the NZ environment by keeping the numbers of possum down. What do they do? They kill possum and use their fur in combination with sheep's wool to make clothing. Pretty nice stuff, too.