AUCKLAND SKYLINE

LORD OF THE RINGS HOBBIT HOMES

I am getting near the end of my summer employment with the world's crappiest teen travel company, Rustic Pathways. This week was a complete disater. My group was supposed to do a tree planting service project on the remote northeastern coast of New Zealand. When we arrived we were promptly asked to leave by the ranger who was stationed there because he was upset about broken promises and poor communication from my company. So we basically drove from place to place waiting for someone in the organization to make a new plan. When that didn't happen we took the kids to the movie set from "The Lord of the Rings" movies shown above. It is located on a sheep farm outside Matamata, New Zealand. 

THE KIWI WHISPERER

Meet Robert Webb, a man who oozes passion that I met today. He runs the largest bird recovery center in New Zealand, and has been doing it for the past 22 years. The center will rehabilitate anything with wings, but is especially known for rehabbing Kiwis. It is the only place in the world where you can actually touch a Kiwi. He showed us around today and really made us laugh. I wish the world had more Robert Webbs'.

WHAT HAPPENED TO HOLDEN CAULFIELD?

In "Cather in the Rye", Holden Caulfield is presented with the following quote by psychiatrist Wilhelm Stekel:  "The mark of an immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of a mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one." Holden seemed too immature to fully wrap his mind around that advice. He would have probably kept fighting and kept falling until he really bottomed out. His stubbornness and distaste for phonies would have kept fueling the fire within him. Chances are he would have eventually tried to numb his pain with drugs and alcohol. Enter "A Million Little Pieces" by James Frey. Frey's pseudo-memoir about his struggles with addiction and his time in rehab could very easily be read as the next chapter of Holden's life. Frey even kind of talks like Holden. Give it a read. Both are great pieces of fiction.

CULTURE SHOWS BETTER THAN CASINOS

Mauri cultural shows are big business here in the town of Rotorua, New Zealand. For about $80 USD guests are provided a buffet style meal, and are then entertained for about an hour by people dressed in traditional clothes and singing traditional songs (although they all use the guitar). What really brings in the tourists is the "haka", the Mauri chant that gets warriors ready for battle, popularized by movies like "Whale Rider" and the sports team "The All Blacks". The chant involves the warriors sticking out their tongues and bulging their eyes in order to intimidate their opponent. To me it is has the opposite effect; it makes me laugh, probably because the performers don't do it right, or perhaps because watching it in the conference room of the Holiday Inn takes something away. 

CRAZY SHIT I'VE DONE THIS WEEK

These are three of the craziest activities I did this week, and yes, that is me in the photos! The top is skydiving from 15,000 feet, the second is my raft just after going over the twenty-one foot Tutea Falls, and last one is the one hundred fifty foot drop off the Taupo cliff hanger. I'm definitely getting older as I was terrified before each. All the activities ended up being pretty good metaphors for life. It is mostly the fear of the unknown that makes them scary, not the actual activities themselves. Tomorrow I'm going to freebase cocaine and participate in a virgin sacrifice ceremony.  

STAYING ON MY STREET

The hotel we stay at in Taupo, New Zealand is literally on Scannell Street, though the Kiwi's have chosen the vulgar pronunciation. I wonder if I could fit one of these into my luggage.

UNNATURAL NEW ZEALAND

Yes, these are some of the activities that rich kids do at summer camp. When I was their age I was lucky to weave a basket at Boy Scout Camp. These kids are spending hundreds of dollars just on the photo packages for each of the activities above. Some of them literally bring thousands of dollars of spending money for a week of camp! The top picture is a controlled drop off the highest building in the southern hemisphere, the Sky Tower in Auckland. The second is a weird little activity called "Zorbing", which entails rolling down a hill in a plastic ball. Third is sky diving in Taupo (something I'll do next week), and lastly bungee jumping into a canyon (something I'll never do). 

NATURAL NEW ZEALAND

All three of these shots were taken in Rotorua, New Zealand which is much like a small Yellowstone. I've also just noticed that all three were taken into the sun, something most people try to avoid. New Zealand is a nice place to spend a summer, even if it is winter here. It has actually been pretty cold as of late which necessitated my buying a new winter hat. 

KAITUNA RIVER WHITEWATER RAFTING

These are shots of my raft going over the highest commercially rafted waterfall in the world. The rapid is considered a class V and the waterfall is twenty-one feet high. A sure sign I'm getting older is that I was pretty nervous before we headed down this thing. The air temperature was a chilly 40 degrees, and the water wasn't much warmer. About 1 in 20 rafts flip going over the falls. We made it over, but not without getting completely soaked. And this is one of the tamer activities we do here in New Zealand.