Live from New Zealand, it's Halloween

Well we've are finally in NZ and on our way! Here means a place called Rotorua(which I think is Maori for second lake, or something like that). Actually we've been here for a day now, but we've been too tired/unable to get internet access to be able to post. I've been trying to get my cell phone to be able to post to the blog again, but the cell and phone network in general here is odd. It reminds me of where we were in the US about 5 years ago. Rates are pretty high, the prevelance of cheap and abundent any time minutes isn't here, and the land line and cell phone networks don't play nice all the time. That translates into 39 cents(NZ) a minute, off peak, although that includes calls to the US. Of course the on peak when we'd want to use it most, is 1.39$ a minute. And we can't call calling cards easily to reduce the cost because the calling cards don't appear to be reachable from cell phones because of the way the land and cell providers interact(or don't interact as it were). So we're sorta in the dark ages of cell service still, which sucks. On the good side I can receive phone calls on my phone quite well and inexpensively...if any one can successfully navigate placing an international call here.

I'm trying to post an image if a Haku warrior that I took while we attended a traditional Maori welcoming and dinner last night. Hopefully it'll come through, internet activity also seems a bit spotty. Which also doesn't bode well for me posting pictures to the picasa album.

so other stuff! Driving on the wrong side of the road: Crazy! Freaky! Awesome! Roads are twisty everywhere, it's a motorcyclist's dream, assuming they have a bike here. The Jester has been doing all the driving so far(which means the day before yesterday). Today is my turn. It should be interesting to say the least. But a big plus, we finally managed to get the routable GPS maps of new Zealand yesterday, which means we now have electronics that know the way FAR better then us.

We were going to a "famous" spa thing here(this region is the most geothermally active in NZ), but we both feel less enthused about that one right now, so we think we are going to skip it. This area is nick named "sulpher city", and it's quite obvious why when the wind goes the right way. It smells like the bad parts of New York when you catch it wrong.

The day before yesterday we went to the glow worm caves in Waitomo. There won't be pictures there as they don't allow photography, the worms are senstive to light or somthing. It was pretty cool, despite raining the whole day. The worms look like these cool blue LED lights attached to the ceiling, with creepy strings they hang down to catch prey. The strings look like loogies to me. We then hiked to this really high point near by. The views were incredible, spectacular, (insert whatever description with lots of exclamation points you want). And I don't even think they are close to the best we'll probably encounter. We did get some good pictures of that, and we got to baa at the sheep that were roaming around the field. Pics will get posted if we can ever get reliable enough internet access.

Last before I go...it's windy and rainy, or has been. The rain has finally let up and is supposed to be clear the rest of our trip. I don't exepct the wind to calm down though. Maybe I can get my cell working today, in which case there will be more frequent updates with some poor pictures.
-The Cleric