Thailand

We are having fun .....
see U soon.

Our last post from NZ

Hey All,
We are now in Auckland, our final place in NZ.
We are flying to Thailand in 2 days (Sunday). so if you want to call us, this is your last chance until sunday morning Israel Time (our flight is at 13:00 this means 4 AM Motsach in Israel).

So this is what we have been up to in the last week.
On Thursday night we slept in tents, camping for our first and last time in NZ, we were with Gil and Mor which are experts in it, it was really nice, we camped near a hot stream and locals kept comming and going there all night long.


After that we went to visit the Corromandel area, we went to a place called hot water beach where you can dig holes in the sand and sit in very! hot water : (The pictures of Tamar are Better but they are censored...)

On sunday we mainly drove in the rain to the northland area and we slept with a great family and met their beautifull cute niese (achianit) Talia :

Monday we went to the bay of Islands and on Tuesday we went to a full day Cruise on a Yacht,
Eran helped sailing and was very good in it, but when Tamar tried to take the Wheel we almost colided into a rock....
We also visited one of the islands:
And Shnorkled aroung the boat:


Wednsay we took a tour to the top of NZ and we drove a road called the 90 mile beach which is a highway on the sandy beach. some people who take their car there also leave it there.... (Really expensice Mercedes) .

And we also did Bugi on Sand dunes in the rain :

Thursday was Kauri tree day when we saw a lot of giant Kauri trees:


That's it now we are in AUckland doing our final arrangments and soon on Sunday we leave (how sad). Tonight we will go to a local synagogue and we are invites to Dinner with Shai Kill (shlomit kill Yechezkeli's Brother - small world) .

Bye and maybe we will post from Thailand (I don't think so...... we will be busy on the beach and shopping).
Bye all,
Eran and Tamar saying Rut- Sof -Thailand ( Joke for you army people...)

Our north island experience

Hi everybody,
We left you last time on Purim in Christchurch (Tamar was a bit "Mevusemet" then.. - Purim you know) and now we are on our last week in NZ in the middle of the north island.
So this is what we did in the last 2 weeks.
We did a 2 day tramp called the queen Charlotte track, you can't really call it a tramp because you take a boat to the begining anf from the end and the boat transfers your backpacks to wherever you want and ypu sleep in hostels on the way, It was a great tramp as you can see:





we slept in a great backpacker on the way with a lot of hamocks (Arsalim) and free kayaks, so we did a "Chavia Metakenet" and went for a little kayaking in very calm water: and another picture from the second day which was a little more cloudy but it added to the atmosphere:
look how Medugamim we are, Tamar is wearing a termal shirt and Eran is wearing hiking socks (that you can't see) - Thank you Pini and Irit.

After that we spent a Shabat in Picton and took a ferry on Sunday to the north island. We met Kamf again and also a lot of sheep that are lead for slaughter in the north island :
In the Wellington area we slept in Upper Hut with Owen and he took us for a tour around the area. we slao helped a farmer friend to gather his cattle(cows) an experience...

here are Owen and Eran:

On that night was the most important thing we did in NZ, We baught Kosher Lamb meat and we made Hamburgers and french fries. We spent a lot of money on the Meat and we also had to buy a new pan because we had only dairy pots, but it was definetlly worth it as you can judge yourself from the picture :
After that it started raining and never stopped (almost never).

We drove to the Taranaki area where there is a big Volcano called mt. Egmont where we wanted to do a 2 day tramp. We got there on Wednesday morning but it was foggy and rainy so we decided not to go, but when we drove to the other side of the mountain we saw it was sunny and nice so we cam back and started it in the afternoon. first half hour walking in the rain but after that we had 2 perfect sunny days until we gor back to the begining where it was still raining (this is NZ 2 different weather types for only 1 mountain).

Here is a picture of Mt. Egmont Errupting (naa.. only sunset) :

After that we headed to Tamaranui (also know as Tamar Eran Anui) where we spent 3 nights including shabat in a great farm, and we also met there Mor and Gil (we are travelling with them for a week).

On sunday we had great luck and after a week the Tongariro Crossing (the most famous 1 day trip in NZ) was closed because of bad weather we had a nice day we could do the crossing and also see everything without so many clouds. Tongariro is a volcanic area with Volacnos hot pools etc... (in the next days we will spend a lot of time in these Geo Thermic stuf).

Here are pictures from the Tongariro:(with Mor and Gil)

On Monday we headed towards Taupo where we visited some Geo Thermal reserves, this is a free one called Craters of the moon (we did it in pouring rain) but the clouds you see in the back are not clouds but steam comming out of the ground (so if you see clouds in the next couple of pictures know that in general they are not clouds):
This is on the next day a place that costs money (but much nicer) called Houraki Murako (or something like that...) was very nice we went there with Mor and Gil:

The best thing we found In Taupo was a hot stream feeding a large river, we were there twice and this is a picture from the 2nd time, this is how we ended our day. it doesn't look so, but the water is boilong hot (you can barely stay there for more then a couple of minutes each time):
On Wednesday the weather finally cleared up and we were able to go Sky Diving....

The sky dive is from 12000 feet (4 KM) in the air, and you free fall for 45 seconds before the parachute opens. Off course you are connected to a guide and you don't do anything yourself (just fall).

The first 2 seconds are a bit scary but after that it is an amazing feeling. this is a picture of us before the skydive (really afraid):

A picture of someone after the parachute opens :
But we do have a DVD of us before and after and you can see Eran falling out of the plane there.

Then we drove to a city called Rotorua where there is also GeoThermal Bla Bla and also Mauri (natives) culture .

Today we saw Gazers Errupting (20 meters high) :

And also a Mauri show : (war face used to frighten the enemy)
Unfortunatelly we have only one week left and we are starting to plan our Thailand experience (Zula on the Beaches and off course shopping).

Have Fun with the new Goverment and we will see you soon or write from Thailand. We leave NZ next sunday 9/4.

Dash

Tamar and Eran

Lots of pictures, little words

Because we got a lot of complains about the length of the things we write, we will try to minimize this time and use a lot of pictures.
We did a 2 day tramp called the Muller Hut in the mt. cook area, together with Kamf (the "zair") and we had a great first day. we met a lot of Israelis in the hut, most of them were people we knew from previous occasions and it was a real nice night.

In the morning we woke up to see the sunrise, and tamar learned new things about the camera (manual mode) so she took about 300 pictures of the sunrise (we show you only two). after that we went down in rain and wind.

we also went to see a frozen lake in the area.

And on the way we stopped in a salmon farm and bought a piece of salmon for dinner (cooked with cream. mmm.... yummi :

The next week we went on a track called the Rees Dart, a very recomended track which a lot of people say is the best one they did in NZ, and it definetly is amazing.




There were great people in this track, 3 Germans a couple of english guys, a french guy , Bekitsur all sort of people. we taught them "yaniv"(a card game) and soon all the people in the Hut played "Yaniv" every night.
The third day was a bit rainy and foggy, and the last day started rainy but got to be clear on the end:



We said goodbye to the Glenorchy area (our favourite area) and started our way back to the east coast.


On Monday (taanit Ester) we woke up at 5:00 AM in order to swim with dolphins (and eat before th fast).That was one of the most amazing experiences we had here. We went to see with a boat, got wet suits and swam in the water with a colony of dolphins for about 45 minutes. The dolphins swim with you and right next to you - AMAZING.

you can see pictures of us in the wet suites and od the dolphins which we took after we went on the boat again. (no pictures of us swimming with them :( )

On Monday night we got to Christchurchand spent Purim here, in the Bet Chabad there was a Kriat Megila in the night and day and a great "seudat Purim" today with a lot of "Mashke" (Alcohol).

This is us in costumes, and Meir the Shalich from Bet Chabad with a bottle of "Mashke".

That's it, i hope you managed this one, i tried not to write too much (although i didn't succeed). so it's now 2:20 AM and i think we will go to sleep.

Plans for next week : Queen Charlotte track on Thursday and Friday and on Sunday we are moving on to the north island.

Bye and happy Purim.....

Tamar and Eran

Our week off.

First of all if you start from reading this post then read the one on the bottom first (Long time no Blog) beacuse we published it together.

So as we said we decided to take a relaxing week with no long tracks. We ordered a deal which included three cruises (sunday - Tuesday).
On sunday we went on a cruise to Doubtfull sound, which was a whole day and included crossing lake Manipouri, driving for an hour through a pass where you can see the sounds, and a lot of people taking a picture :

and then a 3 hour cruise on the doubtfull sounds.

and then all the way back.
On monday we had a cruise over lake Te-Anau and then inside a cave to see glow worms, there are really amazing creatures that glow when they are hungry and it is amazing to see (it looks like starts in the sky when there are thousands of them) we couldn't take any pictures of them so you will have to imagine...
After that we wanted to do some short walks on the way to the Milford and sleep in a tent on the way, but it was really rainy so we arrived in a small camp and got an old cabin where we spent our afternoon and night, we cooked shakshuka on the bonfire ("ach") and it was really nice, here is a picture of our cabin (on tuesday when it became brighter) :


We drove to the Milford sound, a beatifull road with snow and big mountains and we went to a nature cruise for 2.5 hours on the milford sound. Because it rained the day before, the sound was full of waterfalls which was wonderdfull. (charuz). here are some pictures from the Milford :


on thw way back the weather was nice so we did some short walks and a long one the top of "key summit" which is the last day of the Rutbern which we missed because of the rain (if you read the previous post you should know that - if no go read it now!). here is a picture from the key summit :


On wednday we got up late and drove to Invercargill where we stayed with a local family, the Pastors of the community, and we met three nice Israelis (sharon, Lior and Liad - which we met later for a couple of times). here is a picture with the family (Ron and Rosallie) and us :


The next two days we spent on the south of the soth island which is called the Catlins. over there you can see a lot of waterfalls green hills and animals.

Because it is near the sea, the winds there are strong as hell, so the trees are all crooked and grow to one direction as you can see :

Here are some pictures for you to enjoy :

on one occasion we almost stepped on a sleeping sea lion, which could have been a bit sad for us because they may seam lazy (they always sleep) but we were told they can run faster then humans and they weight a lot. here is the sea lion:

At some stage we got to a village with a great name (Eran thought it was funny) :

On shabat we stayed at Hazel's place near Danedin which is the 2nd biggest city in the south island. on sunday we went to the Peninsula (half island) with Inbar and Alon where we can see more animals and we met a nice pinguin which we followed for half an hour along the beach, we took there about 300 pictures together (especially Inbar) but i selected 1 for you where you can see Inbar and Tamar stocking the poor pinguin:

On Monday we stayed with Ran Shapira (from Oranit - a long story which we will tell back home) and it was real nice. we went for a tour in the city, saw the world's steepest street and even drove up and down, the Botanical gardens, ate Humus in an Isreali restaraunt and went on a tour in Cadbury choclate factory (it was nice but Tamar says that they are cheap and in Elite it is much better).

On Tuesday we got back to doing tracks and we met Kampf (from Eran's army) but we will tell U that on the next time because we are tired now.
Next week we plan to do a 5 day Track called the Rees Dart - wish us luck.
Until we meet again...
Tamar and Eran

p.s.

this one was with a lot of pictures, for you lazy guys and girls (Michal) that don't like reading english

Long time no Blog

Hi,
Although some of you were worried, we are OK and still alive. just didn't have enough time to update the blog. But because of the pressure from the audience back home we decided to dedicate a couple of hours and update you on what we have been doing in the last month.
We Left Wanaka after we saw a movie in the Cinema Paradiso and tasted the famous cookies. after that we left for Queenstone where we met Orry and spent a day with him just touring around the city. In that evening we found ourselves wandering around a deserted Ski location trying to find the top of the mountain...
The next day we met Irit and Pini and did some short walks around the Glenorchy area, in a place called Paradise and the name is quite fitting for the area (they filmed some parts from Lord of The Rings in that area).
Here is a Pastarolic picture of a sheep in Paradise :

And one with Tamar in it (hiding):

We spent the shabat in a little lodge near the lake in that area, it has a hot tub with a superb view of the lake, and the shabat there was great. Here is a picture just before shabat :

The only problem was that we were supposed to start the Rutbern track on sunday and on Shabat it started raining so we were pretty worried. Ory took our car and we decided to meet him on Tuesday at the end of the track which is in a completely different area.
At the end the weather was OK, a bit rain on the first day, but it was a really short day and the 2nd day which is the one with the greatest views was clear and bright. Here is a picture from the Harris saddle taken on the 2nd day:

The third day was really rainy so we just started it late and waited a bit in a hut(bikta) in the way until 4 oclock was close enough and then we walked out fast. But we didn't take that much pictures but here is one we managed to take (you can see the sea in the end of the valley):


(after a week we returned to do the last part of the Rutbern we missed out in better weather)
Irit Pini and Ori waited for us in the end of the track with Choclate, Tea and cookies and we drove to a town called Te-Anau. Tamar and I decided that the track wasn't so hard, and we thought of doing the Kepler with Irit and Pini the next day (wendesday until friday) the only problem was that we didn't order a place in the huts for these dates (and this is a "great walk" -that means u should order a place in advance or u won't have one) so we went to the doc office and they told us there aren't any places. we signed up to an internet site "trek watch" which SMS's you if someone canceles their Hut places, the next day when we already gave up on the kepler and went to order some cruises we suddenly got an sms message, ran to the DOC office and booked places for the huts. in 1 hour we got ready (our bags were already packed and ready for a track from the Rutbern) and we started the track with Pini and Irit.
The track was great, especially the 2nd day, we had good weather but a lot of wind up on the mountains - but we survived.
Here is a picture from the Kepler Track :
1 from the 2nd day sunrise (Tamar walk up early because she needed to go to the bathroom) :

2. from the 2nd day with a view of one of the Fiords in FiordLand ( Fiord means a long lake that is connected to the sea and was formed by a glacier):

After we finished the Kepler we were really exhausted (as you can imagine after 6 days of walking lots of Kilometers). We bought some food for Shabat and we spent it in a hostel viewing lake Manipouri, the 4 of us got a Zimmer with a kitchen, and on the front porch there were armchairs to sit and view the view. The shabat was great, in noon on shabat we said goodbye to pini and Irit for the last time and they left while we stayed and did nothing (just great) until motsash.

The followin week was supposed to be easy without any tracks just a lot of cruises(Ori- Hayam shaket neze lecruise) . we will post that in a few minutes time.

Tracking in NZ (a lot...)

Hi again,
we will start from where we left off the last time...
We managed to meet Irit, Pini and Ori in the Arthur's pass village we slept there in a funny place, where in order to get in we had to call a phone number get a code to open a lock and inside the lock were 5 keys, and at the end we had to role 20 dollar bills on each key and put them back in the box. The Kitchen was huge and new, but the room had 8 bunks (mitot komotaim mechubarot). The next day we did a 1 day track called the Avalance Peak where you go up 3 hours 1000 Meter altitude in really steap path (DUCH). when we reached the top we had a marvelous view of the sorounding mountains, and a bunch of Kea birds (the local birds) try to eat anything they can (including your bags). We made tea sat there for an hour and went back down.

That night we slept in Hokitika and had some nice day trips in the area, and in the evening we arrived to the glacier (Karhonim) area. the next day was friday Pini Irit and th 2 of us started a track called the welcome flat trek or also known as the Copeland track. on Friday we had a 7 hour walk (not hard walking but really humid -we smelled really bad in the end). we got to a beutifull hut located near the hot pools and we spent the shabt there relaxing, we set in the hot pools saw the stars and the snowy mountains. this was by far the best shabat we had here so far.

Here is a picture of the hot pools and the view from them :

On sunday we went back to the fox glacier and in the evening we went to Mathison lake were you can see beautifull reflections of mount cook (the highest mt. in NZ)

Monday morning we went on a day tour on the fox glacier, yu go with a guide which builds you stairs on the ice and you climb the glacier, we got back at 6 PM exahusted but satisfied.

Tuesday we drove to Wanaka, it took us 8 hours because we stopped at every Waterfull and short walks on the way, at night we met Pini and Irit again in Wanaka.
Wednsay was a rest day, we went to the "puzzling world" where you have a big maze and other weird rooms, you can see a picture from the tilted room where everything is tilted :

in the evening we went out to the Shooters pub with 2 more friend we met in Christchurch (Galit and Ishai), and there was a karaoke - and i managed to convince Tamar to show her singing talent, here's a picture of us (luckily with no voice attached..) :

On Thursday we went out on a 2 day trip to the Metukituki valley and the Rob Roy Glacier. We slept in a great hut (which had a Gas, but we didn't know that and carried our own Benzinia).
Here is a picture from the glacier :

And a picture of Tamar and Irit relaxing in the valey :

Shabat we stayed in a wierd HIT, where we had our own 4 bedroom, with a kitchen but Israelis aroung here told us that there are bugs inside the bed, so Tamar was a bit histeric all night long but overall it was OK, we spent the afternoon in lake Wanaka eating Tuna and pineapple.
On sunday We went on a 3 day Treck with pini, Irit Ori and Yamit (Yochai, she's from your school). This was rated in the book as a demanding track (and it was) we had to croos a freezing river (luckily for eran it wasn't so deep):

We spent the day climbing through the forest to a hut located in a beatiful spot :

it was really small (10 beds) so Pini and Ori slept on the floor.
Here is a picture taken from inside the hut at night (with a long Hasifa):

In the morning we started the hard part, a steep climb to the Gillespie pass, but it was worth every second :

from there we went a long steep way down until the next hut (siberia hut) in the valley. On the next day we planned doing a 6 hour day walk to a frozen lake (also steep climb) but unfortunately the weather was cloudy and rainy so the day went like this :
We got up at 6 AM, still dark outside and at 7:15 we left the hut towards the lake inside the valley, we had to cross a river and we build a stone bridge for an hour after we passed it we decided to turn back because of the bad weather.
We got to the hut at around 10:30 but we ordered a jet boat for 17:30 and the walk to the jet boat was 2 hours. so we decided we will sit in the hut and eat all the food we had left, we ate spaggetie soop and sandwiches.
suddenly we heard a plane landing so Pini ran to take a picture, meanwhile the hut warden told us that there are 17 people who are landing in the area and the planes go back empty, so if we want we can go back in a plane for only 35 dollars, but we have to be there when the plane lands because it won't wait for us. Eran ran to Pini and told him to ask the pilot if there's room in the planes for the 6 of us. turns out it was OK but the plane was supposed to be there in a few minutes, we ran like crazy, through all our stuff inside the bags and ran again to the landing area.
we went on 3 planes (2 in each one) and landed back in Makaroaa where we started the track (instead of a 7 hour walk minute - a 7 minute flight).

But.....
The problem is we already paid for the Jet boat, so like good Israelis, we wanted our money back, but of course they wouldn't give it back - so we agreed to get a Jet boat trip instead. So at 15:00 we went on a 35 minute jet boat trip, he drove like crazy and made a lot of spins with the boat, amazing experience:

This was by far the most "hazuy" day we had so far, and the most exciting one.
Today (wednesday) we are on a Zoola day, we said goodbye to Pini and Irit and Tamar made cookies for a goodbye breakfast. We are spending the day in the internet place (2 hours so far) and in a while we are gonna see King Kong (or as Tamar keeps calling it Godzila) in the "Cinema Paradiso).
On Shabat we are supposed to be in a nice Lodge in Glenorchy near the lake, and on Sunday start the Rutbern Treck (one of NZ great walks - please pray for good weather).
now we are really tired from the Blog (us from writing and you from reading) so we will go to rest in the hostel and you rest also. Talk to you soon and write emails.
One more Important thing, we bought a local SIM card, and it is in Tamars old phone the number is :
021-0565322
and if you call from Israel :
6421-0565322.
You all are welcome to call or send SMS, for us it's free, for you we don't know (but "ma kara, Tashkiu"). The Phone is not Available in a lot of areas, but you are also welcome to leave messages.
Bye Bye.

Is our luck starting to end? (yes)

OK,
Here we are again in christchurch, the city where we landed in. again in Johni and Ronit's house. How we got here again well that's a long story......
We will carry on where we left of. On Monday we met Pini and Irit in the afternoon, and we travlled along the Golden bay, which is in the northest place in the south island. it was a lovely day. at night we got to the farm of John and Lian, which are a great couple that Pini and Irit met in Israel, and they are also in the HIT. early in the morning we took off to a 2 day Kayak trip in the Able Tasman (one of the great walks). The first day was great and we had marvelous weather, at some stage Tamar and me struggled against the waves, so the guide tied his boat to ours, and helped us a little bit. But that's OK because he told us we are in the heavy kayak....
Here is a picture of us and the guide :















The guide also told us that there were only 2 days of rain in the last three weeks, that's when we knew it will rain the next day.
At night we saw some sharks which came really close to the shore :















In the morning we woke up in the tent to the sound of rain. We decided to continue the kayak trip (the 2nd day was without the guide), and go to the Tonga island, that was supposed to be the nicest place where U can see seals (dog of the sea). at first is seemed OK because we where in a bay, but when we arrived to the open sea, things where different - the waves were really hugh and the wind very strong. Tamar started to panic and after fighting the waves for almost an hour, our kayak finally flipped. This was quite a frightning experience, because you are connected to the Kayak by a skirt and you have to remove it when you flip, and that wasn't so easy... (Tamar took a bit of time, but when i reached her she managed to get out by herself. we started shouting Help Help!! and a guide came to our rescue and in a minute Pini and Irit came too. He helped us flip our boat back and kayak back to the safe beach we left in th morning.
from that point everything was great, we changed clothes, drank tea, and waited for the taxi boat to take us back (in pooring rain).

Thursday we had a "yom sidurim" in Nelson and on friday morning we said goodbye to Pini and Irit and also to John and Lian and headed south towards Reefton. But we never managed to get there....
We stopped on the way (2 hour drive from Nelson - remember this) for a 4 hour bike trip but after 2 hours Tamar flipped over, and the front handle hit her stomach strongly. She was in a lot of pain, and she thought she is gonna die.... so I went to find help and in the meanwhike an Israeli family arrived and called a guy with a jeep to help us. He drove us to the Murchison hospital which turned to have no Doctors only nurses, and no real equipment, so they gave her some pills and sent Tamar in an Anbulance back to nelson (closest hospital) and eran followed in the car.
Here is a picture of the ambulance drivers in the hospital :

In the hospital they Xrayed Tamar and said that she has no internal damage, only severe bruises and that she needs to rest for 2-3 days. They let us leave before shabat and we got back to John and Lian.
We spent a relaxing shabat there and it was truely lovely.
On Sunday morning we wanted to had back to Reefton but we had a small leak in the car, and John recomended we take the car to a garage in Nelson that was opened on Sunday. by the time we got to the garage the car had no reverse gear and the drive was really slow. After the mechaninc checked our car he said that the transmission was gone and that he may find a 2nd hand transmission on Monday morning. Collin the mechaninc gave us a car to drive around with we where upset, and went to a backpacker in nelson to rest and watch TV. On Monday morning Collin told us that he had no luck in finding a transmission so we thought for a while and decided to rent a car and continue the trip. We called Johni in Christchurch and he recomended to get bak to Christchurch and rent the car there, so we took the first bus out of Nelson and got to christchurch 7 hours later. We where only 3 people on the bus, and the driver startied telling us, how he killed 72 officers in the Vietnam war, and how much he loves Ehud Olmert.....
So This morning we rented a car, 1995 Nissan which is quite and upgrade from the one we had, and we are heading towards Arthur's pass to meet Pini Irit and Ori.
We are now optimistic and taking the whole bad luck events easily.
Hope our luck will change from now....