I'm currently sitting in a Honda dealership waiting on an oil change for my new car, recently christened The Red Rocket. R squared had some trouble starting yesterday, so once I got him moving I came to the dealership for a quick once over. A nice mechanic tweaked a few things free of charge and the old guy runs a bit smoother, although he has quit an attitude in the mornings. I have learned not to let him die before warming up, or I will play hell getting him started again. Other than that the ride works pretty darn well, especially after I installed some crappy new speakers from The Warehouse (NZs walmart). So, as I sit, getting charged too much for an oil change, I am trying to offset the cost by using their free internet service I discovered. Hell, I might try and sneak in here from now on instead of making weekly donations at the library!

For the past week I have been hanging out with a school group and Jesse and Sara, a couple from Colorado that is camping here at the school. Jesse and Sara showed up the day before Erik and Elin left and the next day I set off to the crag with them. It turns out that J&S had not done any lead climbing or rigging, but Jesse was into learning so I taught them a few things to get them started and by the end of our time together Jesse was leading like a champ and doing a great job setting up ropes. Along the way I also met two great guys Ben and James. Ben was just getting into climbing but James was very strong and I climbed with them off and on over the next couple of days. It was great to climb with James because I knew he could finish any route I couldn't and he was a great motivator; pushing me to lead everything and giving great beta and psycs. He will be in Paynes Ford for around a month and I am really excited to hang with him some more, not only is he an awesome person but he is also just the kind of person I need to really improve my climbing. The school group is a private outdoor adventure school that is for boys around the age of 14. Because the kids are pretty self sustaining at school, they are really mature and supper funny. There is one guy who at 14 can beat box better than anyone I have seen in person! They also taught me a game called "touch" which is similar to rugby and touch gridiron (what they call American football here). It is so much fun, but I didn't stretch beforehand and because you basically run almost non stop for however long you play (and we played for over an hour) I am more sore that I think I have ever been in all my life! I really am having trouble walking! The group left yesterday and I will miss them terribly, but I got some emails and I plan on checking out the school at some point. I also got a bunch of info from a couple who work for Outward Bound NZ, and I am planning on looking into their program as well. I can observe an outward bound course for something like a whole week, so it is a really good opportunity to look into outdoor instructing which is of course something I am interested in career wise.

Now that I have the ride I will shoot off to the West coast soon to do some surfing! I just found out that Colin is close to me, so I might swing south to pick him up to do some climbing and other fun-in-the-sun activities together.

Chris, the mechanic, just came and gave me my bill which was not so bad after all and he also shot me some good info about how to start the car in the morning to make it idle better, so as long as it works, old Red is going to be "sweet as"! Man, I am adopting the local vernacular already, I am either an anthropology major or a huge dork. Who am I kidding, I'm a dorky anthropology major! Love you all! Latas!

I have 7 minutes, so here it goes. . .

I am still in Wharepapa hanging out with many new friends and climbing as much as possible. The most exciting thing of late is that today I bought a car! Yesterday I got a ride into town with some friends, but they move the car and I didn't know where they were so after a while I started to walk home in hopes of eventually picking up a ride back to camp. First though, I had to walk between two towns because people wont pick you up on that expanse of highway (about 5 km). Once I got to Kihikihi, I saw a 89 Honda Civic for sale for $1200 (remember NZ dollars). I talked to the guy and he let me "test drive" it back to camp! I liked it but told him it was a little pricey for me (this is like 800 dollars US!), and because I would also have to pay to ferry it to the south island I couldn't do it for more than $1000. He agreed and cam to camp today to pick me up and work out the ownership change. He also worked out a SUPER cheap deal on 2 used in good condition tires for the front. He was a super nice guy and as long as the engine holds out, I got a bargain, especially considering I will resell it when I leave! Well, that's it for now, the mean librarian tells me my time is up, and if I have learned anything so far, its don't piss off the librarians. . .the bite. Cheers!

So, time goes on and I still find myself climbing in Warepapa. I have been camping at an elementary school here for about three weeks and life is pretty good. For my $4 a day I get a propane grill, running water, flush toilet and even a hypothermic shower! The climbing is good and I have met tons of people while staying here, including: Toby and Ben, two German cats who were nice enough to let me tag along with them for a week or so (thanks guys!), Blair, Clarrissa and Josh, three weekenders who I plan on visiting in the west (yes to surfing!) and Elin and Erik, to beautiful kids from Sweden who I love more and more as the days go on (and I think like me too!). Soon I will be heading west and then to the south island so I will update on my progress as much as I can. Peace, love and harmony!

So, I have been hanging out here in Wharepapa South for about a week now. It is very beautiful here, in a very Lord of the Rings sort of way! The area was formed through volcanic activity and so there are features and landscapes unlike anything I have seen. At first the weather was good and I got a lot of climbing in with different people that I ran into at the closest crag. On monday I took a rest day because no one was around and it was rainy. Later, I met two really cool German cats that I climbed with for a while until it started raining again. It has been raining now for the past couple of days, but I hear it is supposed to clearup soon. After this weekend I may head out to the West and attempt to hike the summit on Mt. Taranaki, which will be a lot of fun but also hard, if not just because the weather there is supper fickle. We shall see what happens, but until then Im staying in this nothing of a town to climb as hard as my little body can!

So, many of you have gotten info about what has happened until now, so I will give you the bare bones timeline up to the present.

-Packed and had horrible gear problems, some of which were not resolved until recently.
-Had nice flights to LA and Auckland, although the the international flight receptionist didn't want to let us on because we didn't have return tickets.
-Got to Auckland, rented a car and hit the Coromandal peninsula to see Dave and Josh.
-Committed to a week of work at a Buddhist retreat the following week. Brady and Colin
committed to anther couple of weeks at Mana after that. Did some cool hikes and basically
pimped around for a while.
-Took the car back to Auckland, met some kids form U of A, hung with them and slept on them
and slept on the beach. Dropped the car off and headed out of town on foot, having trouble
getting a ride out of town. Finally got picked up by Bobby Sharn who gave us tea and drove
us to Thames. Slept on a soccer field and hoped a few rides the next morning, finally scoring
one from a British lady who drove us all the way to the Buddhist center.
-Spent a week at the center, learning about meditation, reading a lot and working 3 hours a day. The area was very beautiful and the rest was nice but I was itching to climb and getting bored by the end of the week.
-Brady, Colin and I split up, they headed to Mana and I headed south to Wherapapa South. I got a good ride to the motor way from a nice lady who told me all about hitching through Asia on
"the hippy trail" in the early seventies. Got dropped off and got a ride from a truck driver
to Hamilton (there is a funny story behind this, but I will have to tell it some other time).
A few more easy rides later I found myself in Wherapapa, camping in a schoolyard for $4 a
night. This place is not nearly as busy as I expected, but I have found people to climb with and
the climbing is really interesting and cool. I plan on sticking around for a while if I can keep
finding partners. There is also lots of bouldering and many of the bluffs have walk offs so you
know what that means. . .thats right, free-solo baby!

So that gets us about up to date. Along that brief overview there are of course many great stories that need to be told. Unfortunately, I am still paying for the internet and I wont be able to go into detail until I find some free service and a bunch of time. Until then, know that I am safe and having a blast. Until next time, I love you all, don't work to hard and smile even if you don't feel like it!