wellington

i spent the last few months of my working holiday in wellington, the capital located on the southern part of the north island. it is known for giving birth to a lot of nz creativity, its small village like personality, the sometimes never ending wind and blanket man. i met up with kay and kate whom i met in auckland a few months earlier. i worked with kay as a housekeeper at base and i met kate at a gay bar and recognized her from base where she was always hanging out with friends and getting smashed in the bar downstairs haha. anyway, i arrived somewhere in july i think and in nz it's winter then. i stayed at base the first few nights which was the worst hostel so far and ended up staying with kay and kate in their small and smelly one room-ish apartment on vivian st, which was right in the centre and will from now on be named 'the squat'. i slept on the couch (which was a matrass) and renamed 'couch potato' haha. they were both working in one of wellingtons gentleman’s clubs, kay as a waitress and kate as the door girl, where i spent many evenings and met many interesting people, mostly strippers ;)
i spent the first few weeks looking for work, because i was pretty broke (as in about NZD3.60 in my pocket). i ended up swallowing my pride and asking my dad if he could lend me some money, because i was freaking out and somehow unable to get a job, anywhere! i wasn't the only one though, i met a lot of backpackers who actually weren't as lucky as me to have a supporting dad and had to cut their trip short to go back home. so i kept looking for work everywhere and exploring the city, meeting people, partying and hanging out in the squat. i found a room also in the centre where i stayed for six weeks. i shared the house with 6 others and after that ended up back in the squat. i still hadn't found a job and was starting to get so pissed off!! also me and linda broke up around that time and i went of my meds for a little bit and was just completely drained. i was really lucky to have kay and kate around and i finally found work at the YHA, which is a big chain of hostels located all around the world. i became a housekeeper and worked with kate's ex and her friend and some really cool people and had a fantastic time there. at the YHA unlike at most hostels you don't work for free accommodation, but you actually get paid and if you stay in the hostel you get a discount. i managed to get a single room to myself which was so so tiny, but at least it was all mine and all my crap fitted in it perfectly. the work was alright, the same as any other housekeeping job.
i didn't party as much as before, since i wanted to not be broke again so i mostly just hung out with friends in my spare time. kate and kay left with casey, an awesome canadian girl we met at the club, a few weeks before i was headed to singapore and on their goodbye party i hooked up with monique who is now my sort of girl :). we spent a lot of time together my last month or so and she drove me to auckland from wellington. it was really cool and the best road trip ever. she's amazing and i hope she'll come travel with me in oz.
so i'm back in singapore and heading to sydney in a few days to start my australian working holiday. i've left nz about two months ago (yes i'm really behind on blogging i know) and have been to malaysia for a long weekend and the philippines for a few weeks in the meantime. i'm such a lucky bastard! anyway, picture time:

some city shots:

the last one is the house i lived in on webb st, i know the weather looks amazing but this was only in the last month or so when winter finished

fun at the squat:

there are really good stories behind all of these photos ;) better told in person though haha

fun with the folks at YHA:

roadtrips with monz in her adorable blue convertible:

this was at castlepoint. it's only a few hours from wellington and we stopped over in masterton to chill out for a night :)

so that was our first roadtrip. the second one was from wellington to auckland with stops in taupo, rotorua and raglan where we met up with casey. mon was actually just driving me to the airport, because it was the end of my trip already, but since it's a 9 hour drive we just turned it into a roadtrip so i could actually see some of new zealand.

we stopped for a leg stretch at this gorgeous bay called pukerua bay. after a while we ended up in this town called foxton where i saw a sign saying 'de molen' which is duth for 'the windmill' so i thought, we have to go there! and there in the middle of new zealand: a traditional dutch windmill. it's the only windmill of its kind in new zealand and the world's most southern working wind flourmill. i have no idea why it's there though, but i was i little bit proud :) we left wellington kinda late (we were both pretty hungover haha)and when we drove to our first stop, lake taupo, it was getting dark already. on the way there you can see the gorgeous mount ruapehu in the distance, a popular ski destination. it's one of the world's most active volcanoes and the largest active volcano in new zealand. lake taupo is a giant lake created by a supervolcano approximately 26000 years ago. it is drained by the waikato river and the largest freshwater lake by surface area in oceania. in this pic right you can see mount ruapehu in the background. after taupo we drove to rotorua and stopped at the waikato river which is with a length of 425 km the longest river in new zealand. it start at mount ruapehu, empties in lake taupo, drains it creating huka falls and eventually emties in the tasman sea. the waikato river system is the most highly developed for electricity generation in new zealand. it supplies eight hydro-electric stations and provides cooling water for two geothermal and one thermal station. the eleven stations on waikato produce 65% of the north island's power and approximately 25% of new zealand's hydro power. this is 15% of new zealand's total power!

some on the road shots on our way to rotorua:

isn't new zealand just gorgeous, i spent most of the drive going oooh, aaah, look over there, look over there, is that a mountain? what about that one? no? that one over there? look sheep!! anyway, you get the point...

rotorua stinks. real bad. i do mean literally. the geothermal activity releases sulphur compounds in the air which makes the town smell like rotten eggs. but the reason why it's so popular are the thermal pools, mud bubbles and geysers. but we only had one day so we just spent it soaking in a thermal spa :) our last stop was raglan, a small beachside town, located 48 km west of hamilton. famous for it's surf locations and apparently jack johnson and ben harper both own a house there. but we had a small stop on our way to the airport for some fish&chips and a beer with our mate casey. we also drove to ngarunui beach, a black sand beach just a few minutes from town. of course because of my bad map interpretations we ended up going the wrong way but the view of raglan up there next to some farm was amazing (to the right here). we finally made it to the black sand beach and once the sun started shining it looked so beautiful:

and a few hours later i was saying goodbye to mon and on my way back to singapore. i can't believe how fast this year has gone by and how much it has changed me. i still have moments where i look back at my life and just feel incredibly happy that it has turned out the way it has and so grateful for all the support i've had :) i'm also very lucky to have met the people i have along the way, they have truly shaped my trip and i'll never forget that.

takapuna and melbourne

hello you lovely people!

as you can see i've been changing my blog. my new zealand working holiday has ended and i'm back in singapore, yay! i'm kinda behind on blogging, but i'll just go on from last time...
...so i ended up staying in takapuna until the beginning of june. it was awesome and i've learned so much working at the restaurant. in the beginning i only worked a few nights a week, but when we got a new head chef, this soon became over 50 hours a week! during the day i helped out with preparations (i think i must have peeled about a million onions, see the restaurant's name to the right) and that's when i discovered how much i enjoy working with food and learning about cooking. i was lucky enough to have some amazing people working with me and teaching me stuff. despite all the drama which was caused by the changes the new chef was making, i had a fantastic time and i'd like to thank everyone at the restaurant for making this happen. i'm also so incredibly happy that i got to live with my friends. mau and clare have moved back to holland in the mean time and i already miss them so much! it was so much fun and i can't wait to see them again!
i decided to go to melbourne and visit a girl i met at sydney mardi gras who lives and studies there. so after about three months in taka i went to melbourne for two weeks. in the meantime i sent my laptop and some other stuff home, because i just had too much luggage!! i'm slowly dematerializing myself and it feels great. everytime i leave a place i just give so much stuff to people and it kinda feels like closing up a chapter and moving on to a fresh start...anyway, i went to melbourne for two weeks and it was absolutely amazing. unfortunately me and her didn't work out afterwords, but i still have really good memories and i'll try not to sound too bitter hahaha.

the view from our balcony, me passing time in the very boring takapuna, clare and mau

crazy claretje, crazy giles and proud mau with his first car ever!

giles trying my sunnies, me and clare, me at dutch delight, a dutch restaurant where we had poffertjes and mau trying my sunnies

below some pictures i took in the restaurant

the left pic shows where i slaved over piles and piles of dishes every night!

a bunch of my fantastic co-workers :)

like i said, my two weeks with linda in melbourne were amazing. i've realized now that trying to have a relationship and caring about someone who lives in a different country is a very big challenge and i failed. especially while traveling and living an uncertain (mostly financially) lifestyle isn't a good base for a healthy relationship i guess...it works for some though, but apparently not for me. ok, i'll not bore you with all the details and drama, so let me show you the beauty of the grampians and the great ocean road. (we didn't spend much time in the city itslef, but i will show you more about melbourne next time i'm there)

the grampians national park is a giant park 235 km west of melbourne and features a series of sandstone mountain ranges. it's the home
of over 800 plant species and 200 bird species. there are heaps of tracks and tramping routes and rock climbing is a very popular thing to do as well. linda had arranged an amazing cabin for us where we stayed for two nights. i finally got to see some real aussie kangeroo's hopping around and we almost got attacked by an emu (an emu is related to the ostrich and quite frightening when running instowards you in a high pace...) since i'm not that much of a tramper we drove to a few lookout points and spent the rest of our time just uhm, hanging out...

      
beaufort, a cute tiny town where we stopped to stretch our legs

above some pics i took when we were walking around in the park and here left is a view of the grampians from the boroka lookout. linda really wanted me to see the 12 apostles, so we took a roadtrip on the great ocean road, which is a 243 km stretch of road constructed between 1919 and 1932. it was built as a living memorial to the servicemen who fought in the first world war. after a while you reach port campbell national park and the twelve apostels, a collection of limestone stacks formed by erosion (but i'll get into that later). it was amazing, every turn showed us a different gorgeous beach view and i couldn't stop taking photos and being hypnotized by the blue ocean and massive crashing waves :)

beneath some pics on the road

the first to are made on the gibson steps, when you walk down you see the first apostle and left is the view from one of the many lookouts (if you click on it, you'll see some people standing in the right corner on top of the hill, just so you'll realize how colossal these stacks really are)the rock stacks are the temporary remnants of a retreating limestone coastline, under constant attack by the sea. cliff faces are being eroded at a rate of about two centimeters each year and here's how it works:
1. wave action erodes the cliff face, leaving harder rock as headlands
2. waves eat away the rocks at sea level, forming caves on each side
3. the arch collapses, leaving a rock 'stack'
4. further undercutting by waves and opening up of vertical cracks in the rock by rain and saltwater, gradually reduce the stack to a low platform or reef.

this stack is called the razorback. the sharp edges and bumps along its back are caused by wind-blown spray, which hardens small areas of rock. the softer rock around these erode away,leaving an uneven surface. wave energy channeled along the side of the stack carves the deep smooth grooves just above sea level. with one wave every 14 seconds there's lots of erosion. the razorback once extended much further out to sea. the force of the waves gradually eroded and undercut the base of the stack. vertical cracks in the rock were widened by rainwater, forming a line of weakness. huge blocks of rock then collapsed into the sea, leaving the rock shelf you can see today.

there's a part of the park called loch ard gorge, also known as shipwreck coastline, where a ship from england going to melbourne crashed. here's the story as told on the signs in the park:

' on 2 march 1878 the clipper loch ard left gravesend, england for melbourne under the command of captain george gibb. the ship carried 36 crew, 18 passengers and a mixed cargo weighing 2275 tons. on the night of 31 may the crew and passengers held a party on board to celebrate the end of the three-month journey. next day the ship would enter port philip heads.

land was very near but a thick mist obscured the horizon and the cape otway light could not be seen. concerned for the ship's safety, captain gibb stayed on deck throughout the night and when the mist lifted at 4am, high, pale cliffs were revealed. captain gibb set full sail to turn the loch ard away from danger, but wind and current carried the ship towards the cliffs. sails were then lowered and anchors dropped, but they dragged across the ocean floor. in a final desperate attempt, the anchors were cut and sails again raised. the ship began to make headway nearly clearing the cliffs, but the bow struck a shallow reef and stuck fast.

water flooded into the cabins and waves swept across the deck, hampering attempts to launch the lifeboats. paralyzed with fear, the passengers clung to one another and, amidst their screams and cries, the ship slipped into the silent depths below...

only two of the 54 people on board the loch ard survived: 18 year old eva carmicheal, one of a family of eight irish immigrants, and ship's apprentice tom pearle. after the ship went down tom drifted for hours under an upturned lifeboat. when the tide turned at dawn he was swept into this gorge (see above right). 
short after reaching the beach he heard cries from the water and saw eva clinging to a spar. tom quickly swam out and struggled for an hour to bring her to the beach. he sheltered her in the cave (see left) and revived her with some brandy, which has washed ashore. then, exhausted, they both slept. upon waking, tom climbed out of the gorge to search for help. he came upon two stockmen from nearby glenample station. the owner, hugh gibson, made immediate arrangements to get eva out of the gorge and back to the safety of the homestead'

after melbourne i flew to wellington, where i spent the final months of my working holiday. but more about that next time :)