Syd & Beyond.....

YO!! Whud up kid!

Hanging in Sydney Dawg!

Lame.....

We have been laggin on the blog, I know you guys say you don't care.....but I know you've checking it... right, right?

Well, we saw the sights of Sydney. Pretty great city. Had a bear of an allergy attack, worst thing ever. All day sneeze fest, from the Opera House, to the ferry around the harbar, even in the Aquarium! 10hours of sneezing, !!ACHTUNG!! & GAZOONTITE!!
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We cruised around the city for a couple days via buses and trains. Ran into a madman dancing on the beach in his chonies. People love to wear the most offensive beach gear in Bondi...hence the tan 'dicktogs'
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So the van you see in the photo is a thing of evil. This thing was put on the earth to test the stability of Brooke and I's love for each other. WORST THING EVER. I can't describe the awefulness of this van in words....I will not even attempt. We will leave it at that and never metion the name, "WickedCamper" again..

Thanks and Goodnight

Micah

Brooke Marshall-Occupation: xtreme sports lenswomen

Brooke's becoming quite the photographer. I was in need of a photographer for all my special moves, but did not have the budget to pay for a powerful lensman.

I'm just grateful she is able to document these special moves.

Joking aside the b.s.t.s. is pretty cool...seriously folks, right?

micah.

Air-Raid Sirens and Glo-Worms

Who ever hasn't woken up to air-raid sirens should really try it, especially when sleeping in a campervan at 5am in a different country, it really adds to the experience. Yes, Micah and I woke up to what we thought were air-raid sirens our last morning in Raglan, turns out it was just the fire department calling it's local volunteers. Scary none the less.

We headed down to Waitomo Caves where we had a jump on the trampoline and a quick sleep before waking up to go "black water rafting." No, that doesn't mean rafting down sewer water, it's waaaaay better than that. We went caving, in the pitch dark, freezing caves of Waitomo. We had to dress in really sexy, not smelly at all wetsuits (actually, it smelled like, well, when you pee in you wetsuit), and helmets equipped with spelunking lights, which Micah and I wear at home on a regular basis, so we fit right in. We hiked down into an underground cave with stalagtites hanging from the ceiling. We had inner-tubes with us so when we got to the deeper water parts of the cave, we hopped in them, by being forced to jump off waterfalls, backwards, into who knows where, and looked up at the pitch black ceiling. But wait, what are those stars doing in the cave? Oh, those are glo-worms? WHOA! It looked as if we were staring up at the Milky Way as we floated through the cave waters. We couldn't feel our hands or feet and our lips were purple but we didn't care, it was so incerdible to see these glo-worms shining.

After we were treated for hypothermia (I joke, I joke), we headed off to Rotorua, first stop, thermal pools. It felt so nice to thaw our icicle bodies in these naturally hot pools. The only bad thing was that the whole city smelled like rotten eggs due to all of the thermal activity.

The next day we were all warmed up and ready to go . . . . street louging, yeah that's right. We rode a gondola way up atop a mountain and then louged down it. First run went well, second run, uhhhh, not so much. I (meaning, me, as in Brooke) was feeling a little too comfortable and sped past two kids, Micah, and then the turn got the best of me. Yes, I munched it, ran into the railing, stopping myslef from flying over the edge down a realy steep hill by using my ankle as a brake . . . not a great idea. I threw myslef back on the louge like any louge champ would do and proceeded to the finish line, only to have Micah laugh at me as he sped by me, not knowing I nearly lost my life just moments before. Once we got to the finish line he saw my tears and felt bad for speeding by me and taking the win. I have fully recovered and I am ready for more.

Oh yeah, and we went to a wildlife preserve where we pet lion cubs, fed wallabies, llamas and emus (the emu tried to bite Micah's hand off but was luckily unsuccessful).

Cheers!

Lady and the Tramp

So I guess New Zealand has a thing for trampolines. Every single campsite we went to had at least one, they call them "supatramps". Micah and I became quite good at our trampoline skills along the way, here's a few photos for your amusement and envy.

Where Do I Begin?

Sheesh, I feel like we have been to a million places since our last post, well, make that four to be exact. Our first stop was to a place called Whatuiwhiwhi ("wh" is pronounced "f"). It is in Doubtless Bay on the west coast of the north island. We hung out on a beautiful beach there, jumped on another trampoline, rolled down a couple grass hills and met some really cool people. Oh yeah . . . how can I forget . . . we were asked to babysit a strangers 18 month old while they ran to get some dinner. Yeah, I know. We did and thought it was quite odd, but everybody is so friendly here I suppose that was not out of the ordinary.

Now Micah takes over . . .

Next stop was Ahipara, suppose to be an amazing wave.....no such luck. Fun campground though, complete with ping pong, wild dogs and real live Germans! I completely destroyed Brooke at Scrabble and she continued to kill me @ ping pong.

Piha was our Vdubs next parking lot. "Piha!" the birth place of NZ surfing. Once again skunked, blown out and messy. Had a hellish drive to get to the beach too......think Big Sur on the wrong side of the road.

We got the hell out of Piha and headed over to Raglan....billed as Leucadia in the 70's by visitors that have been to both, and I could see why. Pretty clean, a little messy, filled with pround people that kinda don't want you there but are too friendly to tell you that.

We stayed for 2 days. There was a skatepark right next to the campground, the wave was about 3 mins away and town was a 2 minute walk. Highly recomend visiting Raglan. Oh yeah Brooke killed me @ ping pong again....

Driving on the Wrong Side of the Road

Who ever invented driving on the right side of the car on the left hand side of the road was obviously drunk. We picked up our campervan and were thrown right into the wacky New Zealand way of driving, everything opposite of what we are used to. Micah did a great job though, but with those round abouts, throw in poring down rain, sheesh, pretty scary. You definitely need two people to get you through those, one to drive and one to direct.

Our first stop was in the Bay of Islands. We stayed along a river edge at the base of Haruru Falls in a cool little campsite with a trampoline and a little bar and restaurant. We took a kayak over to the fals and rowed our way down the river a ways. We took a ferry over to a little town called Russell. The water was crystal clear there and it reminded us a bit of Mendocino in Northern California.

The weather has been ok. Today is the first day we have had so far without rain, but the day isn't over yet. We have arrived in Doubtless Bay and are staying on a beach campsite called Whauhuihui. It is tropical looking but still a little bit cool. It is warming up though the farther north we drive.

Auckland, New Zealand

So we made it. We are in Auckland, New Zealand. It's a really cool city, it sort of reminds us of a low-key NYC, not as much hustle and bustle.

We went to the best museum ever. NZ Maritime Museum, very hands on experience. You could touch everything, even go aboard a few of the old ships that were on display. I wanted to steal a boat but it was too heavy.

Later that day we cruised over to the tallest building in the Southren Hemi, The Sky Tower. We rode the elevator 60 stories up to the tippy top. Saw somenot so smart people bunjee jump off of the building, yikes. During our visit to the tower we got punched in the face by jet lag. Instantly sending us into a sort of walking coma. We barley made it back to our hotel.

Until next time.

Micah & Brooke