We were somewhere around Cairns on the edge of the reef when the Dramanine began to take hold.

Hello friends. First, my apologies. After having sent faithful dispatches daily from the land of the rising sun, I managed to completely blow off any sort of updates for the entirety of my two weeks down under. I've received numerous thoughtful inquiries--"how is the trip going", "is everything OK", "are you dead", "you're not getting out of the $20 you owe me that easy"--but, to be quite honest, I've been so busy that I simply haven't had a chance to put fingers to keyboard and bash out an account of the whole thing! So here I sit, flying home to Seattle, with nothing to do for thirteen hours but run down my battery and work on a nasty case of jet lag.

For this fully-illustrated installment, I decided it would be better (read: easier on everyone's mailboxes) if I put the whole thing up on the web instead of mailing you 10 MB of pictures. I did, however, mail everyone a version sans pictures, just in case you're feeling too lazy to wait for the thing to download (or could care less what I look like in a hawaiian shirt). Feedback on the new approach is welcome.

And now, to the issue at hand: Shear and Loathing in New Zealand.

The whole adventure started off when Robert, a fellow program manager who worked for me at the time, got hustled off to TechEd Dallas to help out with a talk on power management. Yes, that's right, he's the one to blame when you're laptop slides gratefully into terminal sleep, never to be awakened. TechEd is a huge conference that brings together both developers and IT professionals (the guys who run corporate computer systems) in a series of conferences designed to evangelize, enlighten, and get everyone very drunk. Dallas is the biggest of these, weighing in at about 10,000 people, but they hold smaller ones all around the world.

Robert used to work for Microsoft Consulting Services (MCS) in Canada, and randomly wound up having lunch with a fellow MCS person, Dave Thompson (not Thomas, there's no Wendy's down under). Dave was an MCS guy from New Zealand and in charge of the TechEd there. He bemoaned how difficult it was to get speakers for an event so far away. Robert to the rescue! A few short weeks later we were both arranging our trip, he to speak about power management, me to speak about storage management.

The trip started on August 8th, just three days after I landed from Tokyo. We hit the plane with our laptop batteries full and our spirits high. Robert had rented a few DVDs for the trip, and we settled in with the first: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

Now, I'd heard nothing but raves about Hunter S. Thompson's novel, but only mixed reviews of of the movie itself. I have no idea why this would be, as the movie is absolutely hilarious. We both laughed and cried for a solid two hours, and then--kaput. Battery dead.

Robert grew quite upset about this. He had an extended conversation with the (utterly clueless) flight attended, trying to determine what the "laptop port" on the side of his chair was for. Turns out that it's only usable if you buy a $90 widget on the ground before you hit the plane. The sanity of selling such things in the on-board catalog (instead of the normal "sapphire necklace with Titanic commemorative WonderBra") had evidently escaped the good folks at United. Robert made a few desperate attempts to use the airphone to track down a solution, but to no avail.

After a good 20 hours in the air, we finally began to descend upon Auckland, New Zealand. It was here the that the toys came out. Robert, the thoughtful documentarian, had equipped himself with a very nice digital still camera and an outstanding digital video camera, both of which fit handily in matching fanny packs that both sat on a single belt. He was decked out as quite the mobile digital recording studio. No sooner were we in sight of the ground when out came the cameras and the video, both glued to the plane window. Wow. We were going to go through a lot of footage.

We arrived at our hotel, checked in, and made some friends to go have lunch with. We wandered around, looking for New Zealand food, but the closest we could come before hunger got the better of us was a Belgian tavern. I had lamb, which NZ is famous for. Mussels were also hugely popular. The high point, however, was a fantastic dessert wine that Charles, one of our cohorts, selected. You can see me about to drink it, steve-martin-in-Roxanne style, below. The beers (not actually as collosal as they appear here) were also excellent.

Dan shoves his shnoz in a nice shiraz at the Belgian pub in Auckland.

Having conquered lunch (a three-hour affair), we set off to do the tourist thing in downtown Auckland. We headed to the nearest crosswalk and discovered something truly odd. When the pedestrian light turned green, a preternatural whistle, descending from high to low, emitted from the light, followed by a disturbing cluck-cluck-cluck-cluck-clucking. It truly sounded like a cross between a native bird and a high-speed playback of the soundtrack to "Space Invaders". Ask me to make the sound for you sometime, words don't do it justice. We thought this was pretty funny; there are some stoplights in Kirkland that make a little noise to let the blind know it's time to cross. About fifteen crosswalks later, the amusement had faded and we were just pissed at the clucking stoplights.

We made our way through the city to a monument called the "Sky Tower", which looks just like the Seattle Space Needle about to give birth. Robert insisted on shelling out $18 NZ (approximately $0 US) to go up to the top deck and have a look. Thoroughly unremarkable, although the obligatory rotating restaurant at the top is said to be better then our Needle's (and no, it's not a McDonalds, although that would almost qualify). Robert and I decided that we would do a video/still camera division of labor, so I stood on the massive glass plate and took the obligatory photo between my feet.

The Sky Tower, straight down.

We headed down and determined that if we were going to look like ridiculous tourists with cameras glued to every eyeball, we'd better do it right. We dropped $40 NZ (approximately $0 US) on the blackjack tables and took off for the wharf. I have no idea why we took the picture below, except perhaps for the amusing visual of a stylized kangaroo about to bound fearlessly into 25 feet of seawater.

Could be a harbor anywhere in the world, if it weren't for the lunging marsupial.

The next day, the conference organizer Viv set us up with a scenic tour, or "walkabout" as they oh-so-quaintly refer to it. Joining us was going to be Beth, aka Dream Date Beth. Beth was uniquely qualified to join us. For one thing, she was the only speaker at the conference who wasn't really excited about spending the day in her hotel room checking email. For another... well, first, some background. Seattle has a TV show called "Almost Live". It's like Saturday Night Live, except that it's a) local and b) funny. Some years back, they had a recurring guest named Bill Nye the Science Guy. Yes, Mr. Nye actually got his start here before he got his national PBS gig. Mr. Nye was a shy single at the time, and the cast decided to do their best to remedy it. They launched a contest, and skipping over the details, the winner was our very own Dream Date Beth. They actually dated for a year, too, so it wasn't just the fifty she dropped the producer.

Anyway, moving right along. We hopped on a charter van first thing in the morning and it took off to pick up our cohorts for the day. We had two guides, a primary guide and a backup understudy who was just learning the ropes. First fellow passenger up was Rocco, an Italian fellow who knew a bit of english. Fortunately, Robert is fluent in italian, and they were soon chatting away happily. At least I assume they were, they could have been arguing fiercely and I would have been completely clueless. Unless it was about pasta, in which case I would have caught on. Other then that my Italian's pretty weak.

In any case, it turns out that Rocco was quite an intriguing fellow. He's a writer for an Italian adventure travel magazine, and he flies around the world hiking, climbing, parasailing, and otherwise traversing the globe in unusual ways. This boded well for our trip. The two octogenarians we picked up next, however, did not. (not that I have anything against octogenarians, of course! some of my favorite relatives are octogenarians.) We rounded up our motley crew with some Aussies on vacation (incidentally, Australians and New Zealanders to actually call themselves "aussies" and "kiwis" respectively, and generally don't even giggle when they do it) and headed for the hills.

On our way, Robert expressed his intense desire to see some sheep. I cannot attest to why he was so fixated, but it turned out to be a main point of conversation during the trip. It also resulted in these fine gems of humor. From our guide, told in a heavy kiwi accent (like an aussie accent, but don't tell them that):

A young tourist was wandering through the New Zealand countryside when he saw a farmer tending to his sheep. On closer inspection, it appeared that the farmer was having inappropriately intimate contact with the wool-clad beast. The fellow ran up to him in shock and said, "Good heavens, sir, shouldn't you be *shearing* that sheep!?!" To which the farmer replied (remember the accent): "I'm not sharing this sheep with anyone!"

Our first stop was at an information center with some spectacular vistas. Here we have Robert, aka Quick Draw, whipping out his mini-DV to catch some action footage. Standing by bemused is our intrepid adventure traveler Rocco, wondering what kind of hellish tourist nightmare he got himself wrapped up in.

Rocco and Robert, each admiring the world in their own way

We wandered around to the front of the info center, and there it was. For those of you in on my past email exploits, there's always been the subtle phallic reference. Well, this one wasn't so subtle. Normally you have to use your imagination for such things, but the miracles of digital photography bring you the totem pole pictured below. Said symbol measured in at a good 20 feet and contained no less then seven Freudian brain-teasers, six of which were tumescent (the seventh was bigger then t he poor fellow's leg and wasn't going anywhere). As one of our cohorts commented, they were evidently very excited to see us.

Is that a dijeridu in your pocket?

We finally got down to some semi-serious hiking. We wandered down a nature trail and were regaled by our intrepid guide with details about all manor of flora and fauna. We chewed some tea-tree leaves (yes rob, same ones from that squirrly aff case) and admired the wildlife. We got about halfway down the path when we spotted it--a type wood pigeon that our guide explained were fairly rare. Hunters took them for meat and had reduced their numbers drastically. This one seemed rather friendly and followed us around for a while, coasting from tree to tree. The picture doesn't do it justice; it was quite large and beautiful.

Threatened wood pigeon; evidently tastier then tea leaves

We continued down the path and saw some silver ferns, the national plant of New Zealand and the symbol for Ansett Airlines and the New Zealand All-Blacks, two of the more insignificant airlines/sports teams respectively. One of the more unusual specimens of plant life was a fern that usually grows in the crook of a tree branch. This one had given way, but somehow tenuously held on to the tree, hanging like some sort of basket.

From right to left: Primary guide, emergency backup guide, and Rocco, ready to dive for cover if the plant gives way

We continued on to some phenomenal waterfalls. The oohs and aahs reminded me of how lucky we have it in the northwest. Rocco took lots of pictures for his magazine, and I snapped a few as well.

Eat your heart out, Rocco.

We ended the day with a trudge along a beautiful black-sand beach on the eastern coast. I snapped this picture of our accompanying octogenarians looking cute.

"...and if you ever make me do that again, dear, I'll kill you."

We had one more day free, so we decided to go for it and try diving in New Zealand. We brought all our gear for diving the Great Barrier Reef in Cairns (pronounced kenz, like the plural of Barbie's beau), so we figured what the hell. We rented a car and sent out southeast for Tauranga (TOW-run-ga), a three hour drive. Our plan was to make it there, crash at a hotel, and dive the next day. Beth came along again for the ride.

What none of us really counted on was the extreme difference that driving overseas entailed. First off, there's the obvious--the car's on the wrong damn side of the road. Then there's the subtle, like the fact that the turn signal and windshield wipers are reversed (sudden frantic wiper blade motions in bright sunshine are actually an acceptable traffic signal for "idiot tourist turning left"). Finally there's the downright bizarre, like this beastie known as a "roundabout" which is a high-speed 360-degree U-turn that you can exit from at your leisure. Each entry into the circle of death is marked "Give Way", which is evidently Kiwi for "Yield". We spent three white-knuckled hours with Robert clutching the dashboard in mortal fear, alternately chanting "left lane, left lane" under his breath and screaming "Give Way!" out the window at oncoming traffic.

We finally made it intact the to the hotel, where we settled in to our rooms. At first they appeared quite nice, but then the odd things started to turn up. The windows were open, and given that the nights were quite cold, this resulted in multiple blanket layers (especially if you didn't *notice* that the windows were open behind the curtains). The toilet was about two inches too high, and the towels were nowhere near the shower where one might expect them to be. It basically gave the impression of a room that was designed, but never actually inhabited.

We woke up early the next morning and had a big, hearty breakfast. And yes, for those of you who remembered the purpose of our trip here, this would indeed come back to haunt some of us. We finished up, closed out the bill, and headed over to the dive shop. Two freezing, still-damp wetsuits later we were set and headed back to the boat when it started raining. This was not nice, gentle, even-tempered Seattle rain, this was more of what could be called an exceptionally high tide. We got on board, stashed our gear, and made our introductions. There were only two parties to meet: the captain, pictured below, and a threesome composed of a twentysomething, his girlfriend, and his brother in law. Further investigation revealed that the twentysomething was a certified dive instructor taking a vacation, the gfriend was along for the ride, and the brother in law had just finished learning how to dive. They were prepared to be buddies, while I was going to buddy with Robert.

We left harbor, and immediately hit some significant wave action. Swells appeared to be averaging 10-14 feet, and the boat was merrily diving down into one and lurching up off the next. Robert grabbed the video camera and starting filming enthusiastically. I mentioned to him that if he was going to be seasick, he should go off the back side of the boat, not in the bathroom. Robert assured me that he felt quite fine and would not be the least bit ill.

Five minutes later, a green-faced Robert was clutching onto the railing for dear life, bidding a fond farewell to what had been a hearty breakfast. Unfortunately, that didn't appear to be the end of it; for 45 tortuous minutes we slugged our way out to the dive site, Robert not letting go of the railing for a moment. I normally have a stomach of steel, and even I was turning green in the final few minutes before our arrival. Beth was the super trooper of the bunch, blithely playing a pocket solitaire game.

We made it to the dive sight relatively intact except for Robert, who curled up under a blanket and was not going anywhere. I normally don't like to dive as a trio, but since one of the two fellows was a licensed dive instructor I was willing to go for it.

My name is Daryll, but you can call me Captain Pain.

We rolled into the water smoothly and began to swim down the anchor line. I started to worry a bit about the brother-in-law, as he did not appear to be enjoying himself. Actually, I would describe his reaction as "absolute terror". However, the instructor calmed him down, reminded him that he was going to have a tough time descending anywhere with his air bladder fully inflated, and we all started down the rope.

Depth was outstanding. We had a magnificent dive, the water was clear, the fish were gorgeous. The instructor navigated like a champ and we made it straight back to the anchor line, which we ascended without a hitch, doing our safety stop at 15 feet right on the mark. We piled out, warmed up, had some lunch, and prepared to go back for a second dive. The brother in law declined, so the instructor and I went down as a buddy pair. The dive was even better then the first; ask me to see the underwater pictures sometime.

We surfed the big waves back; returning was much easier then departing. I even started to get the hang of the wacky driving thing.

Beth and Dan, returning from the maw of the beast.

We made it back in plenty of time, so I hunkered down in my room and started working on the slides for my talk the next day. The talk itself went spectacularly. Robert's idea of hurling out toys (koosh balls and legos) to the audience for asking questions was inspired. We both wound up as two of the top rated speakers in the evaluation forms.

And so went the first half of the trip. I plowed through most of my laptop's battery getting here, but the next dispatch will contain even more spectacular stories and photos, including the Great Barrier Reef, kangaroos, wallabies, kookaburras, and some spectacular sorties through the rainforest. Till then,

--dan