Last Pics and Entry (Time to put this thing to rest)

Back in Auckland where it all started.  It has been an amazing journey, having traveled up, down and around much of New Zealand, Stewart Island, Tasmania and finally the Sydney area of Australia.  I have challenged myself physically and mentally and have met some of the most interesting and amazing people along the way.   

I got to see my childhood friend Frances, an amazing person with a beautiful family and thanks to Fran I can now say I have hand fed a giraffe and have been attacked by leeches.  But most importantly thanks to so many amazing friends, family and some people I have never met, we raised money for Juvenile Diabetes Research and one day we will find a cure for our daughter Halley and other children affected by this disease.   

Good bye New Zealand.......see you soon Mount Pleasant.

Bondi Beach

Had a very cool day today. I went to the famed Bondi beach with Frances. It is nice to chat with one of the only people who remembers life before I moved to America. We both grew up in the little town of Higher Denham in England and have vivid memories of life growing up in the UK. Bondi beach was very much as I would have imagined it to be. Big waves, lots of very fit people surfing and a great coastal path that takes you along the sand stone cliffs with views in to some of the other harbors where other young surfers were riding more substantial waves among the sandstone rock formations.

After about five kilometers of walking along the cliffs, we stopped for coffee and then later for some ice cream. It was good to talk to Fran and an all together excellent day. Five days 'till Bobbi....can't wait.

Tasmanian Weight Lifting

I awoke this morning and it was raining out. Although the hostel that I'm staying in is quite lacking in creature comforts, I did notice a piece of paper stuck to one of the doors saying "Gym Equipment."  I got up early put on my shorts and a t-shirt and headed for a work out.  As soon as I opened the door I heard a familiar whirring sound.  There were two young ladies already working out.  One of them was on a life cycle type of machine and the other was stretching as she held on to the side of a treadmill.  I quickly surveyed the room and noted an old fashioned weight bench with weights already attached to the bar.  I flexed my muscles, placed my ear plugs in my ears and turned on some appropriate muscle pumping music.  I then straddled the weight bench, assumed the correct position and lifted the bar until my arms were fully extended.  It wasn't until I lowered the bar that I realized my fatefull mistake.  I couldn't get the damn thing off of my chest.  Note to myself. "Always look at the weights before lifting them."  I tried lifting the bar up and was able to raise my right arm slightly before having to lower the entire load to my chest once again.  I was able to kind of roll the weights down to my abdominal area, where I rested for a while as I thought about the next course of action.  I was finally able to lift the bar on one side and slide the other end on to the floor with a mighty clang that only helped to heighten the awarness of my lack of athletic abilities.  After lowering the other side to the ground I got up looked at the girls who were both smiling and quietly exited the room.  My workout was done.

Hanging in Hobart Tasmania

Flew in to Tasmania today. Very cool city surrounded by mountains with a spectacular harbor. I intend to spend another day here then back to Sydney for more of a visit with Frances and her family. Then back to New Zealand for a day and a half and finally home to Bobbi. (Can't wait to see her and the kids).

Received a few more donations this week which put a huge smile on my face.  The amount donated is actually more than the facebook amount listed as that does not include any checks or cash donations...so once again, thank you all who supported us.  It is our hope that one day Halley will be rid of this disease or that she will at least have access to new and improved technologies that will help her stay healthy until a true cure is found.

We will be forever grateful for your help.

Hanging in Sydney

I arrived in Sydney a few days ago and am staying with an early childhood friend from England. Frances and I were quite inseparable when we were young. It was an interesting combination as she was always completely brilliant and I was an average lad with the attention span of a small puppy. I can still remember being around ten or eleven and walking along farm road talking about what we were going to do when we grew up. Frances said "I'm going to be a vet."
She is now Dr. Frances Hulst, a veterinarian at Taronga zoo. I believe when she asked me what I was going to do I probably just stared at her with a blank expression on my face.

As I write this I am sitting outside in a free wireless zone looking across at the iconic Sydney Opera House. To my left is the harbor and the harbor bridge. Tomorrow I catch an early morning flight to Tasmania and then return two days later.

Yesterday, Frances dropped me off at a park near her house and I walked along a river in sandals no less. I was informed that their are red bellied black snakes and deadly brown snakes in the area but that I shouldn't worry as I probably wouldn't see many. As I entered the bush the sign said "If you are lucky enough to see a Brown snake, be cautious as they can be quite aggressive." Ha Ha I laughed as I looked down at my feet and wondered why I had not worn my boots.

Homeless in Auckland

It is almost 10pm and I am sitting outside on a beautiful night in downtown Auckland. In order to conserve my rapidly depleting cash reserves, I have decided that it didn't make sense to get a room for the night when my plane leaves for Australia at 7:15 in the morning. There appears to be some type of art festival happening with many people drinking wine and beer and enjoying the evenings festivities. This works to my advantage in several ways. I am unlikely to get mugged with a large crowd hanging around and I will not be the only strange character lurking around the streets at 2:00am in the morning. There is a sixteen dollar shuttle bus that leaves from Queen street every half hour or so. My plan is to hang tight 'till 2:00am, do the sad and lonely homeless thing for a while and then catch the bus to the airport for some much needed rest on a cushy airport chair.

If you are reading this before you pick me up Frances, I apologize for my physical appearance and I promise to bathe as soon as possible. For anyone reading this who does not know who Frances may be. She was my first best friend as a young child growing up in England and she currently lives in Sydney Australia. She ended up in Sydney and I ended up in New Jersey. What was up with that? Actually New Jersey was quite an awesome place to be.....a lot of great people up there.

I can't help but sit here and reflect on what I just went through over the last two and a half months. I have seen some amazing things and have pushed this fifty one year old body and mind to the limit. I have stood at the summit of Mount Tongariro and walked alone through the Martian landscape of the Northern circuit. I have trekked almost eighty kilometers through a driving storm on the lonely and wide open Heaphy track. I walked along the ridge lines of the Routeburn, Kepler and Milford tracks and walked through the mud and rain forest of the Raikura track on Stewart Island. I slept in my tent along the Abel Tasman Coastal track and awoke to the sounds of the waves crashing on the beach and I fell about fifteen feet off of the path during the Waikaremoana great walk and I Kayaked the primal and challenging Whanganui river. Having accomplished this I now realize that it is the people that I met along the way that probably had the greatest impact. Calvin from Singapore hiking in his rubber shoes that looked like gloves for your feet. The two young Russians and juggling Canadians I met on the Northern circuit. The cool English Doctor from Christchurch and the two sweet German doctors along the Heaphy track. My Canadian friend Shelby who pulled out of the Kepler due to rain. The Irish woman Toni, who made bird calls and the diabetic Englishman Tony, who struggled with me in a storm at the top of Mackinnon pass. My young Australian paramedic friend who warned me about the loud American group on the Milford track and who I met again while hiking the Routeburn and the couple from England who worked at the Artic, who just recently bought a boat and sailed it to New Zealand and who were hiking the Kepler along with his parents. Geoff and Linda two awesome Kiwis who love to tramp and who happily walked in miles of mud along the Raikura track and two hysterically funny Dutch guys and an amazingly strong and inspiring sixty nine year old Australian who kayaked the Whaganui river. But most of all, I will remember a family from Wellington with two little angels, that took me in fed me and made me feel at home. When they dropped me off at the train, one of the girls said in her cute little Kiwi accent "Greg..will we ever see you again." There was a pause and then she said "ever?"..I sure hope so.

The realization of a dream and Kayaking the Whanganui river

I have come full circle. I am back sitting in the same Starbucks in Auckland where I first wrote in my blog. I cannot believe that I just did what I did. Two and a half months of tramping and now kayaking, covering almost 600 kilometers. It was one thing to write that when I hadn't even started, but having experienced the journey, I really can't find words that would do it justice.

My final chapter was a re-visit to the Tongariro/National Park area. After leaving Jon and his family in Wellington, I took the overland train up to National Park. In order to save dwindling funds, I went with the cheapest kayak rental place I could find, and one that would let me rent one without being part of a group. The owner Steve, said "no worries, we will meet you at the train." He also said "no worries, we have plenty of kayaks." Followed by "no worries, your camera will be safe with us mate, we'll stick it in a dry bag." I learned that in National Park lingo, this means "sure we have at least two kayaks and you will be paddling a double by your self and we are unfortunately fresh out of dry bags, but here is a plastic bin liner will that do?" Followed by, "Oh were we supposed to pick you up...don't remember saying that."

After calling the kayak operator, a young Kiwi girl finally showed up and picked me and an Irish girl up at the train station. We arrived at the "lodge," where I was greeted by an older gentleman with a cowboy hat and his Asian wife. I assumed they were the owners but apparently they lived in a camper van on the premises. After sitting for about twenty minutes in a plastic chair in the middle of a huge room with a massive fireplace, I approached a young man sitting on one of the worn and thread bare couches. He was apparently French and spoke very little English. After another ten minutes I found the young girl who had picked me up in the kitchen area and asked her where I could pitch my tent. It was already starting to rain and had apparently been doing so for several days. She showed me to an area outside littered with trash, beer bottles and broken machinery. "How much would a room be?" I asked. "Eighteen Dollars." She said. I smiled. She showed me to a dingy room, with two bunk beds and a single and pointed to the single bed saying "don't sleep in that one, I think it's still dirty." Yeah! I was home at last.

That evening I met some other wary adventurers, a sixty nine year old Australian Veterinarian two hysterically funny Dutch guys and a very intense young fella from Switzerland. We all joked about the posh accommodations. That night we were Informed that we may not be able to get on to the river due to the rain. This was my second attempt at kayaking the Whanganui and this was really bad news to hear. Anyone who knows me would understand that completing eight of the nine great walks would haunt me for ever. We were told that they would check the conditions in the morning and that we should all be ready to go by 7:30am if it was going to be a green light. Just when they got done informing us about this two soaking wet American girls and a group of about six Kiwis entered the room. They had gotten on to the river three days prior. I listened intently as they recounted how they had capsized and how one of the American girls needed help from a passing jet boat, as her kayak had filled with water and had gotten wedged between some dead trees during one of the rapids. I looked at the Dutch guys and the sixty nine year old Australian. The Dutch guys mouths were wide open, the sixty nine year old Australian just smiled.

After a fairly sleepless night, I awoke to a cloudless and beautiful day. Our driver, an interesting young lad with dreadlocks and very cool sunglasses took us outside so we could load up our barrels. It was then that I found out that there was no single person kayak available and that the kayak company was fresh out of dry bags. My experience on the Whanganui river would involve me trying to steer a very long two person kayak down a treacherous and often rapid filled river while trying to stop the nose from turning to far with each stroke.

After about a forty five minute drive we arrived at the landing, roped in our barrels filled with supplies and pushed off in to the rain forest. I can only agree with what my friend Jon from Wellington said about the Whanganui. It is a very surreal landscape. When the river is calm you paddle along looking up at cliffs that rise vertically out of the brown water. The cliffs were often covered in drapes of vines and moss that lead up to a dense forest that looked completely impenetrable. At times you would pass waterfalls, some that were visible, cascading down the cliff face and some that roared inside a hidden cave or around a rock face that you could not see. At other times that roaring sound emanated from the approaching rapids or break water leaving you wondering what was coming and where to position your kayak to avoid the inevitable roll in to the chilly and murky waters. Along the grassy portions of the river banks, you would see wild black and white goats grazing, along with the occasional wild pigs. With every turn, the river was more astounding as the cliffs got higher and the landscape continually changed. You were in a completely different world that has probably looked this way for over a million years.

At night we stopped along the banks at various DOC sites. At this point we were also joined by two young English lads rowing in a Canadian style canoe and a Swedish couple out for a little adventure. The Dutch guys turned out to be the two funniest people that I had met on this trip. They were both in their mid thirties and were former art students turned massage therapists. They had a few extra barrels to contain the wine, beer and gourmet food supplies that they had bought on this trip. I haven't laughed so hard in quite a while, as watching these two Amsterdam residents drink and eat Their way down the Whanganui was hysterical and great comic relief. At one point the Australian chap had capsized in one of the rapids and while helping him with his kayak and gear I looked back up river to see the Dutch guys laughing and standing on a pile of rocks. Instead of just hitting the rapids head on they had apparently decided to try to go around them and ended up stranded in the middle of the river.

On the last day as we approached the pick up zone in Papriki, we could hear a more intense rumbling up ahead. As I turned the corner I could see the Swiss guy turning and paddling hard towards us. He was waving us over to the left hand side saying we had to go that way as it was too shallow to paddle down the center. We had intentionally avoided this, as to the left the water was accelerating at a rapid speed and the rapids were way more substantial than those in the middle of the river. We watched the Swiss guy line up and head down the chute. It looked amazing watching him bounce around and finally come out the other end so off I went. I paddled over, lined up the nose and plunged in head first. It was amazing. I could feel the water trying to spin me around and you continually had to power the nose of the kayak in a forward direction. Although you were probably through the hardest section in a matter of seconds it felt like a lot longer. I looked back to see the sixty nine year old Australian guy shoot in to the water and watched him come out smiling once again, on the other side. I found out later that the two English guys had experienced a serious wipe out earlier, but that after getting to dry land they gave it a second try and made it through. After one last really good rapid towards the end we paddled to the pick up zone. In the perfect end to an amazing journey, our dreadlocked driver stopped to pick up a few beers, happily drinking one as he drove us back past the Tongariro National Park with Mount Doom looming in the background.

The next day the Australian chap dropped me off on the road heading in to Taupo and I hitched a ride to the entrance to the city. From there I caught another ride from a young Israeli all the way to Rotorua. GOOD TIMES.