Dispatch #1

I hope this finds you well. From the get go, I apologize for sending a mass e-mail. Unfortunately, I'm stuck in a catch-22 which is that if I send thoughtful individual e-mails to everyone, I 'll blow my whole budget on the internet and indeed won't have money to do anything worth writing about. So I'll try to stay focused on my goals here: 1) sharing amusing anecdotes which will hopefully brighten your day; 2) answering pressing questions about New Zealand as best as I can; 3) making all you 9-to-5ers jealous.
For the past three weeks I've been cruising around the northern half of the North Island of New Zealand with my friend Amanda and her friends, Roz, Molly and Jordan. Molly and her boyfriend Jordan left NZ a week ago and sold us their pimped-out van T-Rex. T-Rex is a silver 1985 Nissan Vanette which has had seven owners, 3 in 2002 alone. The first owner was Japanese so I hope the various warnings in Japanese all over the car don't contain any items of interest. T-Rex has a bed in the back, a set of drawers containing vitamins, books, shells and the like. There is a skull and cross bones banner across the front and what appears to be a huge rabbit skull, but which I think is actually some critter's pelvis. People wave at us a lot. The van is also currently covered with a thick coat of dust (as do my lungs), since we recently took a cruise at about 80-100km up 90 mile beach (actually 70 km), then up a gnarly stream bed. T-Rex won my heart forever upon delivering us more or less intact.
So where to begin...?
For anyone who actually knows the area, here is where we've actually been, everyone else can scroll down:
Flew into Auckland, went to Raglan, hot water beaches near Wawhai, Waitomo caves, worked our way around the Coromandel Peninsula, all the way up to Stony Bay at the tip, then back through Auckland to drop off Molly and Jordan, then up to Northland, up the east coast all the way to Cape Reinga at the northernmost tip, back down the west coast, dropped Roz in Auckland, now Amanda and I are in Tauranga for a few hours before heading towards Gisborne and Hawke's Bay.
Rather than boring you with too many details, I will start with my preconceptions of NZ and whether they've been panning out:
- Sheep everywhere.
Definitely. In fact, we woke up to 5 outside our van this morning.
- Looks like Lord of the Rings
That was pretty much filmed in the South Island. Thus far, besides the gorgeous beaches, a lot of the drive looks like the drive to Bolinas or Tomales Bay but a bit greener. There are all these Lord of the Rings tours though and one Kiwi told me that during the filming, being an extra was a legitimate excuse to miss class.
- Winemakers produce sauvignon blanc and nothing but sauvignon blanc all the livelong day
Obviously not true, that's just what they export. I've had some really tasty pinot noir here and some cab/merlot blends and even better, they don't charge tasting fees and the winemaker's usually pouring!
- NZ is woodsy and hilly
Deforestation - good God! Formerly forested hills are now covered with sheep and cows. Any trees that aren't in state parks are pretty much timber farms and look bizarre because there will just be this stand of trees that are all exactly the same height, very close together and that abruptly stop at the edge of the next property line There are only a handful of kauri left, the 2nd biggest tree in the world. Redwoods are taller and smell better.
- Kiwis are rugby crazed.
Absolutely true. The sports section of the newspaper rivals the World News section. I've also seen a lot of people playing cricket.

Now on to some things that surprised me:
- The beaches are drop dead gorgeous. We've found lots of free camping at breathtaking white and black sand beaches with water warm enough to swim and there are barely any peopel around - and this is still high season. There are also fantastic shells all over the place and you can dig up pipi which are like small clams.
- The forests are loud. There's always a hint of the tropical here and the forests are fantastically lush. They are full of cicadas which maintain a constant whirring crackling racket punctuated by the drone of flies and mosquitoes and constant bird tweeting.
- Towns are outrageously small and lots of roads are unpaved. We drive on gravel roads everyday. If the size of towns is supposed to correspond to the size of the font on our map, Auckland should read across a two page spread and most the rest should require a magnifying glass to work out.

At this point, I'd like to open the floor for questions. Angie already sent a good one: What do Kiwis eat for breakfast? Amanda says they have standard English breakfast which is eggs and tomatoes on toast in the like. They also drink enormous lattes out of bowls and eat Wheatbix which is like a bran cereal bar.
So keep the questions coming. If I don't have the answer, I'll look into it. Hit me.
Also, there is nothing more depressing than paying $2 to log into my e-mail and finding only junkmail so drop me a line and tell me how are things!
As the Kiwis say for hello, goodbye, okay and most things - cheers!