South Island Part 2

DAY FOUR: We left Nelson this morning and headed over to the Abel Tasman region. After stopping along a look out points we reached the kayak company we would rent from the next day. We were going to kayak the Abel Tasman. The sun set on the beach was absolutely gorgeous. We talked to a local and found out about a “free” camp ground, near a historic cemetery. We ate dinner in a field and watched cows graze. It was a peaceful night, we went to a “jam night” at a local pub, but nothing was really happening so we went back to the campground and slept.
DAY FIVE: We got up and headed over to the kayak center. Here Zach and I, as well as Boris and Travis, would kayak the Abel Tasman for the next 7 hours. We saw bird colonies, where I almost got crapped on, seal colonies and gorgeous beaches. We swam in the ocean that afternoon. It’s crazy to think that at night it can be insanely cold even with a jacket and sweatshirt on, and then midday you can swim in the ocean. Watching the seals swim was fantastic. They have a great life, swimming, sleeping, sun bathing, and swimming away from sharks. The sunset was epic. We had a fire and ate spaghetti that evening. The stars were stunning.
DAY SIX: The car is an awful place to sleep. I would much rather sleep in the tent. I woke up around 8:30 and took my daily walk to take in the sights. We ate breakfast and headed out. Today would be a driving day. We have to get from Takaka to Punakaiki, where we can see the pancake rocks. Boris drove for three hours and then we stopped at a lake to hike and eat lunch. The landscape reminded me of upstate New York. The birds are fascinating to listen to, their songs are like ice cream in my belly. I drove for the next 3 hours and we got to another beach to watch the sun set. I did a bit of writing and filming. The dudes stayed in a hostel while I slept in the car, my money is getting pretty tight. The sound of waves crashing is great to wake up too. DAY SEVEN: Today we see the pancake rocks and Monteith’s Brewery. Hope you’re all enjoying my trip. Jeremy, we’re going to see C.O.B. on June 26th, looking forward to seeing you dude.

South Island Tour: Part 1

Hey y’all, here are some pictures from my South Island tour. It’s the 3rd day and already I am amazed at the beauty this country. This won’t be a full account of everything I do, but you’ll get the more interesting parts…

DAY ONE: We saw Christchurch and its gorgeous church. Then we were off to Kaikora. Zach, Boris, Travis and I are moving counter clockwise around the island. On the way there we saw a hitchhiker, we drove past him 2km, and turned around to “pick him up” (a Dumb and Dumber reference). His name was Ian and he was from Canada. He had hitched around the South Island for about 2 months and was heading up north. Once in Kaikora we headed out to a beach and slept there that evening. We sleep two in a tent and two in the back of the station wagon. We tried to get a fire going that evening but the wind and spitting rain keep the twigs and cardboard from lighting. It was nice to look at the snow capped mountains, which seemed to light up the sky.

DAY TWO: We woke up to the most beautiful sight. The sun rising over the ocean and the snow capped mountains on the other side. A seal even swam gracefully across the glistening ocean. We headed over to a seal colony and I truly felt like a National Geographic videographer as I crept up to get close to the seal to film them on the beaches and rocks; big creatures with a tendency to bark at anyone who gets too close as I found out. We met up with some others for dinner and slept on a side road. They had a stove in their van, so we enjoyed spaghetti and baked beans for dinner. I sang songs and played my harmonica as we ate and drank by the fire.

DAY THREE: We were on our way to Nelson when we found an spectacular river with rock cliffs on each side. It has been chilly every day and gets extremely frigid at night and in the morning. It averages around 10 degrees Celsius (about 52 F). Three of us decided to do some cliff jumping into some of the coldest water I’ve EVER swam in. Ryan, you know how it feels… This cold numbed your body and sends you into a hyperventilating state, a great feeling when you try to swim over to the rocks to get out. It was one of the most exhilarating things I’ve ever done. I jumped 4 times. We then proceeded to hike around the river and scale some of the cliffs without falling in. The Pelorus Bridge (where we jumped) on the way to Nelson would be a mountain man’s playground. Karson, I did a little Marmot sun bathing to warm up. We drove to Nelson and here I am typing to you all. We’re off to Able Tasman tomorrow and will be hiking and kayaking there for two days. I’ll keep you posted.

Feel free to check out my facebook album for more pictures.

Bronze Medal at Unigames

Hey, the Ultimate team took 3rd place at the Unigames this year, partly because we had some amazing players on our team. I was able to score 10-12 points and assist on many others. Overall AUT took 3rd place in the whole games. Not too bad compared to last year. Now I'm off to the South Island in 3 hours. Thought I'd show a bit more pictures from the games, one from the Blues Rugby game and one of some friends I've made while here. The pyramid picture is AUT's Ultimate team, the kid with the mohawk is my roommate from Florida, his name is Travis and he loves God. The action picture is me tossing the disc for a BEAutiful catch. The Stadium is in Auckland and that's where the Blues play. And friends, Jocelyn (Black shirt) and Kat from Canada and Zach a friend who will be travelling with me to the South Island. Hope you all enjoy the pictures.

Unigames and Rugby Games

Hey All,

It’s Tuesday, first day of the Unigames. It poured cats and dogs today. Rain and strong winds put some doubt in our minds about how the game would go, but as soon as we started playing and getting soaked, our attitudes totally flipped a lid. Ultimate Frisbee became this crazy slip and slide fest with all the coolest layouts a human could possibly do. We became almost completely unstoppable, almost. We played the toughest team today, the next few games should go better. The Unigames, for those of you who don’t know, is a time where 6-10 Universites from around New Zealand compete in a variety of games ranging from Basketball, Rugby, Running, Fencing, Ultimate Frisbee, Surfing, BMX, and a bunch more. In the end all the wins are tallied and the Uni with the most wins in each sport wins the competition. It goes from Monday night to Thursday night; which means we miss school for those 4 days. In most cases the teachers are understanding. It worked out well for me, my teachers were actually thrilled to get me out of class, I’ve been answering too many questions these past few weeks…. Anyway, I had some sweet catches today and some really good layouts. I scored two points for our team and assisted two more. The end score was 13-6 them. But you must understand, half of the team we played is going to the world finals for Frisbee, it’s actually amazing we even scored that much! It’s gonna continue raining the next few days, I think the coaches are trying to move the games inside, that means I won’t be able to do so much sliding. Oh well…

I’ve been to two professional rugby games since I’ve been here too. They’ve been really awesome. The game is really fast paced. The Auckland Blues won the first game and lost the second. The league that they are in is called the Super 14 between the tri nations of South Africa, Australia, and NZ. From here players are chosen to go onto the All Blacks, one of the top Rugby teams in the world. I played rugby with some of the locals and learned to run a little faster when I have some bigger dudes chasing me.

Last Friday was the Air Guitar Finals for NZ. They went pretty well. Garrett, the only American placed 5th in the whole country of NZ. He wore the American flag as a cape, he looked stellar. I’ll be doing a mockumentary on Air Guitar and will hopefully put it up on Youtube, but don’t count on it being anytime soon. I’m here in Rotarua until Friday and then leave Friday night to go to the South Island for two weeks. There I’ll be seeing gorgeous mountains and hiking a lot. I’ll also be doing the highest bungy jump in the world. I love you Mom and Dad and Jeremy, you can have my room and my car if it still works. (I love you too Waldo). It’s going to be an amazing trip. And Lord willing, I also be swimming with whales. No video though, it’s too heavy to carry all that equipment, but maybe so stellar pictures. I miss you all, and hope to hear from you via email or facebook. I try my hardest to get back to all, but since so Thanks again for all your prayer and support and helpful emails.
Tim

Facebook Album Links

This is for all y'all who don't have facebook

Poor Knights Dive
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2051648&l=a1736&id=34506567

Other NZ Photos
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2048542&l=02d1c&id=34506567

I'll be doing a South Island tour in a week. I leave on Friday

This week I get to miss school and play ultimate frisbee at the Unigames. Monday thru Thursday. It's gonna be great. I'll post more later.

Poor Knights Video Part Uno

Ok Dudes

Since you last heard from me I've learned a lot of new things. Good news isn't it? This past weekend was nuts! I was constantly bust from Thursday morning until Sunday night. Thursday morning I finally went spearfishing, it's too bad there wasn't any fish to shoot. NZ's fish population is lame, so far... I've been offered to go on a blue water trip to shot marlin sometime in the next month or so. I think I might go for it. I went diving with this kid Adam, I met him at the Bluefins meeting. He's a really cool dude who studies aquaculture at AUT, which means he's a fish specialist. I'll be diving with him more during the next few weeks.

Thursday night was a party and a half! New Zealand had it's Air Guitar Championships at the AUT campus bar. I joined the shredding of air and with 5 other Americans and 4 Kiwis. Garrett, a friend of mine, got 3rd place and is moving onto the finals! He might even have the chance to head over to AUS for another competition! I chose to shred to 3 Inches of Blood- The Goatriders Hoard. Pat, you'd be proud. That will be up on the tube eventually... I didn't win but I got a sweet hat!

After the competition ended, around 11pm, I began to drive on a 3 hour journey to a town for diving the next morning. I met at a hostel around 2am, got 4-5 hours of sleep and went diving Poor Knights Islands. I brought my underwater housing and took a bunch of video. I also learned how to use it more efficiently. Instead of swimming down with the housing, I drop it down on the float line and swim down to it. There I do the filming and can have more time under the water. It's hard work moving that around. I reached a personal best on Friday too! I hit about 1:45 minutes and reached around 60 feet, according to the SCUBA dudes I dove with. I also dove through a little cave. This I went on two dives that day. I'll give more details in the next post and include some pictures.

We (me and two other friends who dived on SCUBA) got back around 7pm. At 8pm I left for LOUD retreat. The retreat was for young adults 18-35 and everyone was from Life Church in Auckland, I'm sure you can google it. They have their young adult service on Wednesday nights. There's about 300-400 people who attend. 300-400 people my age!!!!!! It's fantastic. I'm meeting a lot of cool people, divers and longboarders and I'll also be joining the film team and editing some of there promo videos! Since it's a "mega church" there is 3-4 cameras. The video on Wednesday nights is run like a concert, lots of lights, smoke, cranked guitars, bass, and drums and a small push/mosh pit in front where people dance for Jesus! The atmosphere is really passionate and it's definitely a change from CBC. The retreat went really well. There was singing, 5 sermons, games, and food, like most retreats have. I met a lot of interesting people and made some good friendships. Around 20 people got saved. Boomshaka! I'll write more on it in the next post, but here are some pictures to keep you satisfied for now.