No introductions necessary 
How to backpack in STYLE
Marine Miracles in Kaikoura
After a short drive, 2.5 hours, from Christchurch to Kaikoura we were ready to be amazed by the marine life miracles that have made Kaikoura a must have on the Southern Island loop.
Our first day there we went whale watching, our second day swimming with dolphins.
Both were an open ocean experience. So we had no guarantees of either spotting whales or encountering dolphins interesting in frolicking with Flipper-happy humans. But more importantly, it was exactly what we wanted. A relatively eco-friendly and animal-friendly experience. The animals weren’t lured by putting out bait or by any other unnatural means.
Luckily our chances of spotting the whales were enhanced by the use of a special listening device which the skipper of our boat used now and then in the water. But no sonar was used. They didn’t want to disturb the marine life.
Our chances of encountering human-happy dolphins were by no means influenced. We were either lucky or we were not. The only good fortune we had was that we went on the early morning trip, which started around 05.30. The dolphins usually return around that time from individually hunting fish way out in the open ocean and then gather closer the shore for some playing around and chitchatting with eachother..
Our time in Kaikoura was magnificent. We not only spotted 3 whales, but we also encountered huge groups of dolphins. We were able to swim and fool around with them for quite some time.
The swimming was exhausting though. The dolphins are so quick it takes a lot of agility and energy to keep up with them, even for a little while.
Nevertheless, It was really an experience I will never forget and would recommend to anyone going to New Zealand.
More photos of whale watching and dolphin swimming in Kaikoura:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/the_dude_in/sets/72157623339531222/
John’s blogpost on Singapore, Christchurch and Kaikoura:
http://www.oldenhuizing.com/2010/02/03/nz-christchurch-kaikoura/
Shopping Singapore, Crazy Christchurch
There are a couple of things to remember when traveling with John. One of them is that forgetting or losing stuff is at the order of the day, or night for that matter. So when John checked in at Schiphol airport he very conveniently forgot to put his wallet in his carry-on luggage. Therefor when we arrived in Singapore on a 12 hour transit, he had no money or creditcards on him. Luckily I was loaded 
so we were able to each buy a new Sony DSC-WX1 camera at one of the tax-free electronic shops. This amazing piece of new technology even has something called ’smile detection’.
This makes sure that a picture is automatically taken when a person smiles at the camera. Very conveniently when you are either dealing with children posing for the camera, or with John.
We took our brand new cameras for a little try-out at the Singapore airport butterfly garden. Since the smile detection function didn’t work on the butterflies we just used our macros. As you can tell by the pictures, it’s passed its exam!
After a whopping 36 hour journey we finally landed in Christchurch early in the morning of the 31st of January. We got a real lucky break there, because it was the last day of the World Buskers Festival. 
A 7-day long festival of the best street artists in the world!
Christchurch had a very relaxed atmosphere. It felt more like a big village, than a city of 350,000 people. Nevertheless, this feeling changed a bit when the next morning we went to pick up our SUV at Europcar. We made the booking with HolidayCars back home, so all we were supposed to do was show the voucher and drive away in our Pimp-my-Ride style 4×4. Unfortunately, this is not how the story went.
The employees of the Europcar branch in Christchurch told us they couldn’t accept the (prepaid) voucher. Apparently HolidayCars hadn’t been paying its bills to Europcar so they decided to have a little payback of their own. The Europcar people told us they only would let us have the car if we would pay (again) for it on the spot. Since we had to be in Kaikoura later that afternoon for our Whale Watching trip we really had no other option but to agree. Nevertheless, we told them we would only accept this deal if HolidayCars would reimburse us the money paid. After 1 hour of phonecalls and emails to HolidayCars it was agreed that John and I would pay for the car and they would reimburse us later on.
It felt a bit like a tricky deal, because we were told by Europcar that HolidayCars probably was going down the toilet. They apparently had 250 thousand euros worth of unpaid bills with Europcar alone!
Hopefully we will get the money back. Until that time I would recommend everybody NOT to book with HolidayCars.
After this early morning madness we stepped in our souped-up car and cruised on to Kaikoura for some major marine life miracles. More on that in my next post!
More photos of Singapore and Christchurch:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/the_dude_in/sets/72157623214371897/
John’s blogpost on Singapore, Christchurch and Kaikoura:
http://www.oldenhuizing.com/2010/02/03/nz-christchurch-kaikoura/
Catching up – a (really really) quick overview
Hello Earthlings!
It’s been quite some time since my last post. More or less a whole year. Mainly because I’ve been really busy at work, but also because I just wasn’t in the mood to sit down and type about little ‘ol me. I must be getting old
So, once again (this has happened b4), let’s do a quick overview of past events. I:
-started working as project manager at the Department of Justice after I came back from Easter Island
-lead an interdepartmental team responsible for the Dutch implementation of Administrative Cooperation under the Services Directive (and recently successfully finished the project)
-started taking drumming lessons
-celebrated the 40th wedding anniversary of my parents
-got an injury during running and quit running altogether
-ordered a trekking bike called ‘Easy Rohler’ by Idworx, which will be ready to roll in a couple of months time
-was told I will become an uncle for the second time around
-started on a new challenging project which will enable the online application of the so called Declaration of Conduct (Verklaring Omtrent het Gedrag)
And yesterday I finally left for another travel extravaganza, once again with John. This time it’s 38 days of fun and games on the South Island of New Zealand and, to top it off, some chilling on the bounty islands Rarotonga and Aitutaki in the South Pacific.
Easter Island – a moai mystery
Although I have been back home for over 2 weeks, until now I still haven’t had the time to sort out my Easter Island photos. But better late than never!
Easter Island (Rapa Nui) had been on my ToDo List for quite some time, so finally being able to go there was (one of many) a dream come true.
My time of visit coincided with the yearly cultural Tapati festival. A 2-week extravaganza of singing, dancing, sporting activities and general merrymaking in which all of the Rapa Nui people take part.
In the couple of days I had at the island during the day I visited all of the interesting sites consisting of moai, volcanoes, caves, beaches and much more. In the evening, and the early hours of the night, I watched enthralling singing and dancing performances at the Tapati festival.
A funny thing is that after I said goodbye to John in Santiago (he left for home) I met another John, this one from the good ol’ US of A, on Easter Island and ended up having dinner and going to the festival with him every evening. The John’s are outthere!!!
I could write quite a lot about the history of Rapa Nui, its people, its moai and its tragedies. But I won’t. There are two reasons for that.
1. Nobody exactly knows the truth, so there are many ‘truths’ to tell.
This became clear when I heard different stories from different guides and read yet another story in guidebooks and other reading materials on Easter Island.
2. Rapa Nui (in my opinion) is not to be read about, but it is to be experienced.
Nevertheless I’ll gladly tell you my experiences of Rapa Nui over some home-cooked meal (by you of course ) while on the background playing some sweet, and sometimes powerfully strong, Rapa Nui music.
For those thinking of going to Easter Island. I can recommend the tours done by Bill and Ian of the Tauraa Hotel (where I stayed). They both have their own insights in Rapa Nui history and the mystery of transporting the moai and are full of interesting personal tales and tidbits of knowledge on the island and its inhabitants. 
The breakfast over at Tauraa Hotel is also really really good! Bill, by the way, is the Australian husband of Edith (owner of the Taura Hotel), who is Rapa Nui. Bill came to the island in the nineties while working as the main contruction engineer on the Kevin Costner produced movie called ‘Rapa Nui’. Apparently the storyline used in the movie is way off base, especially concerning the Bird Man bit. Nevertheless, check it out.
More mysterious photos and my amateur shaky-flaky movies of the Tapati festival 2009 can be found on: http://www.flickr.com/photos/the_dude_in/sets/72157614521710053/
Santiago de Chile: a big city, but no big deal
There’s not much to say about Santiago. It’s a big, relatively unattractive, city. So John and I did what we usually do in big cities; go to the biggest and newest shopping mall we can find and chill…
Of course I’m exaggerating a bit. There are some nice old buildings in Santiago, some interesting musea, some good restaurants. But still, Santiago doesn’t quite make it.
John and I went our seperate ways after Santiago. He went back home and I went to (one of) the most isolated and mysterious places on earth, Easter Island. More on that part of my trip in my next post.
More photos of Santiago: http://www.flickr.com/photos/the_dude_in/sets/72157613662745114/
John’s blogpost on Santiago: http://www.oldenhuizing.com/2009/02/08/santiago-de-chile/
LOL = Lots of Lakes
I guess there is a reason why they call it the Lake District of Patagonia. Beaucoup de lakes 
We went by bus, boat, bus, boat, bus. boat, bus from Argentina to Chile in 2-days. An interesting way to make a border crossing.
More LOL photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/the_dude_in/sets/72157613170342553/
John´s LOL: http://www.oldenhuizing.com/2009/02/03/lake-district-argentinachile/
Ruta 40: the long, and almost never winding, road
2 full days in a bus on a neverending road in solitary surroundings. That pretty much sums it up for Ruta 40.
The first day was hellish. No airco and seats in the middle/back of the bus with only (lousy) side views. The second day we were lucky and we got the seats right behind the driver. With it came a beautiful view of the road unfolding before our very eyes. As a bonus we also were the first to see and experience the reckless driving of our driver going downhill at neck breaking speeds
Nevertheless it was one of those once in a lifetime experiences. You be the judge of what I mean by that
More photos of Ruta 40: http://www.flickr.com/photos/the_dude_in/sets/72157613164552444/
John´s blogpost: http://www.oldenhuizing.com/2009/01/30/ruta-40-argentina/
Los Glaciares NP
And on and on we went… from southern Chile to southern Argentina.
Destination: Los Glaciares National Park.
Home of the famous Perito Moreno glacier (around the city of El Calafate) and the extremely hard to ascend El Fitz Roy mountain (around the city/village of El Chalten).
To cut a long story short:
1. The people in Argentine Patagonia are as nice as the people in Chilean Patagonia.
2. The wind in Argentine Patagonia is just as hard as the wind in Chilean Patagonia.
3. Trekking (we did the so called BigIce – 4 hours) on the Perito Moreno glacier was absolutely fabulous. Especially the part where John lost his footing, fell down and slid into a pool of glacier water
4. Trekking in Los Glaciares NP in the area of El Chalten was also perfect. Three full days of beautiful weather, loads of glaciers and glacier lakes and after a sneak peak of El Fitz Roy on our first day, we were awarded with the full monty on the our third day of hiking.
Our next stop in Argentine Patagonia will be San Carlos de Bariloche, which is situated in the famous so called Lake district. After a couple of days there we will take a 2 day boat/bus trip to cross over to the Chilean side of the Lake district and from there go to Puerto Montt.
But in order to get to San Carlos de Bariloche first we will travel by bus on the even more famous Ruta 40. A 2-day bus journey.
More photos of Los Glaciares NP: http://www.flickr.com/photos/the_dude_in/sets/72157612853492665/
John´s blogpost: http://www.oldenhuizing.com/2009/01/30/los-glaciares-national-park/
Penguins and Pain(e) in Patagonia
After 31 hours of travel John and I finally arrived in Punta Arenas, Chile. My first impression of Chilean Patagonia: It´s windy as hell!!!
Nevertheless, on our second day in Punta Arenas we ignored the heavy winds and went by boat to see a huge colony (over 150.000) of Magellan penguins on Isla Magdalena.
My second impression of Chilean Patagonia: It´s plagued by penguins!!!
After many close encounters of the penguin kind we went to Puerto Natales, which is one of the best starting points for trips to the famous National Park – Torres del Paine.
For our first Torres experience we decided on a day tour by minibus which showed us around the park for some easy accesible highlights. Looking back this was a smart thing to do, because our second day in Torres del Paine the weather changed to a steady downpour of rain and the ´Pain´ started
Our intended 8 hour hike to look at the most famous peaks of Torres del Paine was cut short to a 3 hour hike because of washed out bridges along our hiking trail. John and I returned wet, but definitely not wild, back at our starting point for our 2-hour drive back to Puerto Natales.
My third impression of Chilean Patagonia: Weather forecasts? What weather forecasts?!
However, the one thing you CAN count on in Chilean Patagonia are the friendly and helpful people. Hopefully Argentine Patagonia, our next stop, will bring us more of the same.
More photos of penguins and Pain(e): http://www.flickr.com/photos/the_dude_in/sets/72157612835938497/
John´s blogpost: http://www.oldenhuizing.com/2009/01/23/punta-arenas-puerto-natales-torres-del-paine/
