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    Well, hello after a long disconnect it seems. From decent internet, from family, from friends, from the “Real” world. You see, we’ve been in Southeast Asia. If that’s not enough to get your mind’s eye twinkling, cringing, and nodding a thoughtful “oh, I see”, then you obviously haven’t been here. We flew into Singapore from Darwin, Australia and found a bigger, cleaner, more cosmopolitan city than we had seen in a while actually. Singapore was a visual spectacle, a real feast for the senses to be exact. There we found foods never tried, friends that appeared from our Couchsurfing requests to graciously allow us an eye into their culture, their city, and their people. We were able to Couchsurf while in Singapore as well as spend a couple nights in Chinatown. Like many other large cities, Singapore is a place that seems to be grasping for a culture all its own, yet finding things a bit mixed up. There was Chinatown, a bustling area of lights, shops, food markets, and everything else uniquely Chinese. The there was “Arab street” and the Malay districts that were completely different, filled with spice, kebabs, and flowing robes. Sigapore will go on in our minds for a long time, we’re sure.

    Then we came to Bali. We expected palms, beaches, and waves and among the hustle of an island of poverty and tourisms ugliness, we found them. We also found beautiful architecture, sunsets to die for, and a life that we would have never knew could exist anywhere. It has been difficult, stressful, and at times extremely beautiful. Come to Bali again? Well, maybe. The jury’s still out.

     Old man on the street in Singapore.

1. Wild roaming camels, kangaroos, cows, horses, and pigs.
2. Signs that read: “Darwin - 1652 kilometers”
3. Dirt roads with signs that say “Woolynamabu - 142 kilometers”
4. Signs that read: “Next gas - 248 kilometers”
5. Not one single house for hundreds of miles.
6. Roadkill kangaroos, camels, and cows.
7. Flat, dry, red, desolate land.
8. Giant 1000 ft tall rocks surrounded by hundreds of miles of flat land.
9. Thirsty tourists.
10. Bored locals (All 3 of them).
11. Aborigines who are reminiscent of the cavemen on the Geico commercials, only with darker skin and an obvious drunkenness.
12. Every imaginable shade of red, yellow, green, and brown in the foliage and surrounding landscape.
13. Huge gas-guzzling Landrovers and tiny little rental cars (like ours!).
14. Gas for $8 or more per gallon.
15. Sand storms.
16. Two or three gas stations over a 300-400 mile stretch.
17. Cattle farms with signs stating that they are made up of 1,867,000 acres!
18. Signs pointing towards meteorite final destinations.
19. Absolutely no radio stations for hundreds of miles…Don’t travel alone, or at least bring lots of CD’s.
20. Signs reading: “Next Hospital 170 kilometers”.
21. Free camping areas.
22. Giant lizards that are reminiscent of a Velociraptor (think of the little ones in Jurassic Park that could fray out their neck skin and spit in the eyes of their prey).
23. The top 10 most poisonous snakes in the world. Yes, all of them.
24. Bridges over completely dry rivers and creeks.
25. People hauling boats, but no water to be found for many, many miles.
26. Trucks hauling up to 8 full-length trailers called “roadtrains”.
27. Flat, straight roads with speedlimits up to 80 mph.
28. Beautiful multi-colored sunsets that are mostly bright red.
29. The sun disappearing and appearing along a horizon line that makes it seem that it is just falling away.
30. Flies whose main goal in life seems to be making their way up your nose, into your ears, onto your  lips, or into your eyes. Swatting does nothing to deter them from their goal, nor does killing all of their friends.

Here are some of our final thoughts on New Zealand:

Amazing scenery! The scenery is actually better than that of Fiji to us, because of the diversity. From snow-covered mountains to green rolling hills, beaches, dense forest, geothermal areas, beautiful blue glacier lakes, glaciers, fiords, and big cities. And that’s just one day!

The people are very inviting. Probably not as helpful and giving as the Fijians, but definitely “good people”.

Auckland had the most interesting historical and modern architecture side-by-side. Could definitely live there…

Queenstown was the most picturesque town. It is on a hillside, with a lake just below, with beautiful snow covered mountains all around.

Rotorua was the smelliest town due to the sulphur from the amazing geothermal parks.

Christchurch has a beautiful old town center that is very true to it’s English roots.

Craig’s favorite drive was from Te Anau to Milford Sound. Beautiful snowy mountains, lakes, fiords, an awesome leaking tunnel that went downhill very rapidly (maybe that was just us in our campervan), and wonderful waterfalls with rainbows in them. What more could you ask for?

Jen’s favorite trip was from Picton to Christchurch on the TranzScenic railway. We saw snowcapped mountains right next to crashing waves, seals, sea lions, vineyards, and green rolling hills full of sheep and the ever confusing “zebra cow” (more on him in a moment).

Our favorite activities were: skiing, cruising on Milford Sound, glacier trekking, and building a huge (5+ ft tall) snowman on the side of the road near Milford Sound (which just happened to be surrounded by AVALANCHE zones).

We learned to ski, glacier trek, drive on the left side of the car and shift with the left hand while driving on the wrong side of the road and simultaneously not killing ourselves, and luging.

Everything is expensive in New Zealand except the awesome 2-person meal deals at Burger King and McDonalds. Ex: Double cheeseburger, big mac, medium fries, medium drink, and a hot fudge sundae for the bargain price of $10.70 NZD or $7.88 USD. Not too shabby!

The stars are amazingly bright and plentiful here, just like in Fiji, which leads us to believe that maybe it’s a Southern Hemisphere thing…

The roads are very easy to navigate with signs pointing out everything that a person could ever need to see or do here.

They have an excellent, brilliant, smart-aleck road sign developer here (I like to call him George) who makes signs that warn of road hazards. One sign had “Drink” in small black letters above this: “DrIvE”. I tell you, that George is a real clever fellow.

They have tons of FREE camping areas along the main roads.

They seem to have domesticated deer here…Disappointing to all you hunters I bet.

1000’s of sheep herded down a main hwy at midday with no one getting arrested.

They have an estimated 34 million sheep here, and only 4 million people.

We got chased by a sea lion. Where else does that happen?!

World’s best and most rare things seen:

• Hooker sea lions

• Third lowest latitude city in the world

• Walked up and back down the world’s steepest street (Baldwin St in Dunedin)

• Saw the only land-based colony of a certain type of albatross birds