Saturday, May 17, 2008

So I have been staying with Richard and Jacqui this week in Christchurch, and they have been nice enough to offer a car for me to borrow, so in the morning I will departing on a two week tour around the south island of New Zealand. Christchurch is on the upper east coast of the south island, and tomorrow I will drive to the west coast to begin my venture, and on Wednesday I should be in Franz Josef where Fox glacier is located, so yea, not everyday you can just go climb a glacier..unless you are in New Zealand..and I just happen to be. From there I will see Wanaka and Queenstown before arriving at Milford Sound, supposedly one of the most beautiful and scenic places in the country, so that should be pretty awesome. I will make a few other stops that you have never heard of and I cannot pronounce, so we'll skip that and hopefully arrive back here un-frostbitten in a couple weeks. So, off to my next adventure, hopefully will have some pretty amazing pics when I return!

Thursday, May 15, 2008













I flew down to Christchurch on Tuesday, which is on the top of the south island of New Zealand, and am staying with Richard, who is from Dallas, and his wife just outside of town. The scenic pics and the video above are from his front porch, quite a stunning view to wake up to every morning. Weather wise, the days are absolutely perfect, roughly 60 degrees, but once the sun goes down, wow does the temperature drop rapidly. Even inside the house if you are not next to a heater you can see your breath, and the fact that no houses in NZ really have central heating equates to quite a climate shift from Aussie, but overall I am loving the cool weather. I am hopefully going to road trip around the south island for a week or two, and planning to leave on monday, and will see some of the most incredible views in the world, Richard has shown me a lot of pics of where I will be going, and it seems too good to be true that I am really here. But I am.
Other than that, I have been looking for a job and have a few good leads, so hopefully once I get back I can get to work, I am really ready for a little normality in my life, the whole nomadic traveler's life is really starting to wear on me, so the idea of working and settling for a season is a good one. Also have been to a couple events with his church here, and it has been so refreshing to be around solid Christians again, have really missed church and other believers in my life, so that has been great.

We'll see where I am in a few days..

Sunday, May 11, 2008

Oh, and totally forgot...Yesterday as I was going through customs at the Melbourne airport, I was randomly selected to be tested for explosives, basically they pat you down and waive the magic stick over all your stuff. They people were really nice and joking with me as they were intimately patting me down, and then it happened. Again, keep in mind I am being check for EXPLOSIVES, and the lady's smile quickly disappeared as she turned to me and said very worried-looking, "Sir, what is buzzing in your bag?!" The guy puts his hand on his gun as I reach into my bag to find that my electric razor had conveniently started up as the bag was just sitting on the table..of course this would happen to me..

Saturday, May 10, 2008











Well I made it into New Zealand yesterday evening, and got here just in time to see an incredible sunset to usher me into a new country. And as soon as I arrived at the hostel, my adventure began, as only fitting for Jeff Stafford in a new country all alone. So I met my hostel mates, 3 guys from the UK, and after a good 3 minutes we became old friends and decided to head down to the pub for a beer, around 7:06pm. We walked in and noticed the entire pub was full of guy and girls dressed up as doctors, nurses, and random camo outfits, and after being in the pub for about 3 minutes as well, and my total time in Auckland bordering half an hour, I went up to the table and sat down with these people and struck up a conversation, and turns out they were all local people from Auckland having a going away party for Charlie, and they were doing a "pub crawl", traveling around to different pubs. Roughly 7:10pm at this point. Around 7:11 I was invited to join them, so at 7:17 I commenced out of the pub and followed them to their private bus and found out as we left that I was going to a different city, and ended up travelling for 1.5 hours with 30 strangers on a charter bus to a town called Hamilton where we went to a few clubs and continued the Crawl. I ended up getting home finally around 4:00am after all our stops, and couldn't help but laugh every couple minutes all night long as I looked around and took in the fact that I am on a different continent with total strangers on a bus going to a different city, and somehow it was not the slightest bit awkward, and just fit. They were a great group of people, and they absolutely loved the fact that I was just some random dude from Texas on their bus celebrating Charlie's goodbye party and the fact that I don't know Charlie. Solid gold.






I am just hanging around Auckland today and will go to my orientation tomorrow, then probably head out to Christchurch on the south island in the next couple days, so stay tuned, we'll see what comes my way next....

Monday, May 5, 2008

After an adventure filled 3 months, my run here in Australia has come to an end, and it is a bittersweet time. I have come to love this place, and I must say I will miss dearly my substitutionary Aussie family and the friends I've made here, but the prospect of a new chapter of this trip and a new adventure on the horizon has got me quite excited. I wasn't scheduled to leave for another month, but alas after 3 months of travel and not working a single day (come on, that's pretty impressive), the money is starting to run low and with such a short time left on my work visa, finding a job has proven next to impossible, so I must depart. I am flying into Auckland at 5:00pm on Saturday, where I will spend a few days, then most likely head to Christchurch and interview with a Ski Resort just outside of town, as well as meet up with a fellow Texan I've been in contact with who is now living there, and hopefully find work on the slopes for the winter season.
And yes, I am arriving on the cusp of the middle of winter on the Southern Alps, so I anticipate some warm summer photos being taunted at me in the upcoming months in retaliation for my previous beach photos sent over to Tx when they were getting their snow...nonetheless I will be in winter in New Zealand...I still come out on top I think?

That's about all I know for now, but I will update from the next country I end up in as soon as possible.