The New Beginning!

SLACKING BIG TIME! Big changes have happened! I made the move from Rochester NY to Denver CO!! I came to Denver straight from the Woods of NZ with what i could carry on my back!! Ever since I got here tons of great things have been happening! So i'm coming back to the blog!  Why CO you say!? Well if you don't know me ....i love the mountains!

And theres tons of amazing Mountains here!

 OH and let me tell you bout this Cute girl!! Her name is Steph she's great and likes to take adventures with me!!

And the Concrete! Heaven!!... oh and did I mention a bunch of my best friends live out here!... Danny Rippin the full pipe!

Cody! loving the mountain life! 

And the Pony tail life!

.... Ive got lots to share the next while! Keep checking in and as always... Let me know what yah think! 

The end of New Zealand

WOW at this point im back in the states... and things have been crazy so I have been slaking so hard! .... I wanted to get the last of my NZ pics out before i start filling you in about the new things going on!

This was the set up pretty much every night ha... car.. tent close by!

From the day i starting looking into the trip to New Zealand I knew that I wanted to make my way up to  Able Tasman National park.. well I made it! I hiked around for most of the day finding cool little spots like this along the way. This spot was bone dry when I started my hike and the water looked like it was a mile away. On my way back to the car the tide had came back in and made the spot look way cooler!

So many amazing beaches ever time you take a turn into a cove it opened up to and amazing beach with no one at it!

Here it s a birds eye view of one of the little private beaches that pop up! 

Land....Water....Islands....Mountains....how can you not love it! 

I found an amazing drive through Queen Charlottes Sounds! I loved this place... amazing view and ..... NO FUCKING SANDFLYS!!!

This is how it should be everywhere! I LOVE CAMPING!

Leaving New Zealand was not easy! I was sad to say bye one of the only things I wont miss is stopping at a gas station and eating one of these damn pies every time! 

I will live in a place like this someday!

Bill From Australia told me about this swimming hole that i had to check out!... I was alone and had a freaking blast here! I LOVE SWIMMING! Thanks Bill!

The last few days I spent it Christchurch my buddy Ben that i met in Queenstown hooked it up hard! gave me a bed to sleep in the first bed I slept in the whole trip... almost 2 months on my Thermarest pad! Which by the last night I slept on it had seen lots of better days! I think its time for a new one!

Ben hooked me up with his roomies cause he had to go out for some school stuff.... they asked if i wanted to go surfing!.... I was sooo stoked! My last night in New Zealand and I got to surf until i couldn't see anymore! Fuck too good! ... I want a quick shout out to everyone who made this trip unreal! I couldn't thank all of you enough! I hope to see you all again soon and hope I can show you just as good of a time in the states!!!

Baby you can drive my car!

Basically for a week straight my thing was wake up, make porridge, apple, banana and jelly for breakfast, clean up my tent and sleeping gear and roll out. Back on the open road...no plan no real destination just driving till i wanted to take a break or pull over every 300 ft when i saw something cool. Sam the main man at the house i stayed at in QT told me i had to get to Hokitika, a small beach town on the west coast. He said they have a drift wood art contest there!

This is the first on i saw walking up to the beach! This place was too cool

I just wondered how long it took some people to make some of these! or just to think of the idea!! 

Everything was made from what they could find on the beach... w/e washed up on shore. The amount of detail was crazy! 

Some more nuggets i come across!

Nuggets 80 degree coast and YES.... thats a snow capped mountain in the back! 

Next stop was the pancake rocks! located in Punakaiki!

The pancake rocks were cool but lots of hand rails that had signs preaching not to go over the rail.... when i found a spot where there was no sign i had to climb out!!

This one of the great meals i had while driving around alone being to lazy to cook amazing meals like Pete did ha. Good ol hot dogs, beans and rice! yummmmmy!

Good bye Queenstown!

After being in Queenstown for a bit now it was time for me to leave! With the money i made working i decided it would be a good idea to rent a car and see the south island this way rather then being on other peoples time hitch hiking. I picked my car up monday and had it for 8 days! Boy did i see alot in those 8 days! Here is where it all started ... no plans at all i headed towards the west coast where everyone said i had to go this whole time..... lots of random pictures of stuff i thought was cool!

Flowers cool rocks in the Tasman Sea!

I would drive for and hour or whatever and see a signs for short hikes and just pull over and see what its all about ...this sign said Blue Pools! It would have been nice to be there when the sun was over head to get the full blue affect oh well!

While driving held up traffic while on a one-way bridge to snap this one of mount cook from a far!

Fish head on a stick!

This beach had sooooo much drift wood! I wish i could have taken some home with me!...So many cool looking pieces of wood

Before i left i did a little bit of research to see a few hikes that i might want to do... Copland was one of them! The trail was filled with pretty high and long suspension bridges like this one! 

The trail pretty much the whole way followed this amazing rushing blue river! when i got to this bridge i was just blown away by the mountains and the water. It was the first time on the hike i got a good view of the mountains. I ended up camping just down on the right of this river...Amazing!

And after a long day of hiking what better way to spend your time relaxing in hot springs.... This is the pool with the best view but there was 4 pools i was hanging out in the deep one!

This was the next morning before anyone else was up!

After 2 good days of hiking i couldn't help myself but to stop and get some ice cream sense Richie and Pete got me Addicted! 

Catlins Coast

So it was my last weekend in Queenstown! A few of us decided to go to the Castlins Forest and see some new sites! We headed off  it was Me, Richie, Pete and our buddie Ian!

After Driving for 2 hours we came across this! 2 guys were driving towing a trailer with a car on it... the axle on the trailer snapped flipping the trailer followed by flipping the car that they were in!... Everyone was okay the passenger was a little beat up but okay!... So it looked like that was it for us moving forward for a while seeing as this mess was blocking the whole road!

NOT! We got a couple guys together and flipped the car that was towing the trailer then unstrapped the car from the trailer and throw that sucker over into the bushes. And like that the road was opened back up again! Leaving just the car that was on the trailer!

From there we went to the farm(some dirt jumps along the way) and picked up Kate and Samantha to join on our Catlins adventure!... adding them to the car filled the car up! I said ill go in the trunk haha! it was a called out to be 45min drive!.. 2 hours later we arrive at the coast! I couldn't wait to get out! 

One of the things to see in the Catlins is this cool little place called Nugget Point! 

Then the next stop was these Cathedral caves which was closed! and trespassers will be shot? There was a a sign with a man with i gun! ha So i said i want to meet this man who's going to shot us! haha there was no man! But we walked quite a ways to get to the caves cause the gate was closed!

We finally arrived at the beach! 

Me and Pete took off running cause we could see the tide was coming in! We wanted to get in the cave before the water came up to much!

Me and Pete just made it in! Richie wasn't looking and jumped off the rocks that kept you out of the water only to be engulfed by a wave up to his waist!( he was wearing his pants with is phone in his pocket!) Bummer!

This was the best shot i got while in there. It was real hard to try and get a good picture while at the same time the tide was coming in quick!

I had on shorts so on the way out snapped this one of the cave getting over taken by water!

From there i timed it just right so that i could run on the sand while everyone else took the high road back into the beach!

Time is Flying!!!

Time is Flying by! I cant believe how fast things are happening .... i will leave you with this while i make my way around the south island! More Updates when i have time! 

Me and Pete Loving Life... Bowlife? haha

-Richie Dagger Behind the lens.

Moke Lake

Work was over ... we were out! The guys hadn't climbed the Ben Lomond yet and i wanted to camp so we headed off again! This time Me and Pete were hiking then camping up in the mountains... Richie joined us for the hike but no camp ( He had to get the sand out of his vagina) haha. Hiking the BL with my big as pack on was a hell of alot harder than no pack like the time before! But like always once you get to the top its all worth it! Maybe more worth it cause you had to put in some extra work!

Me, Pete and Richie up top BL loving life!

C-YA Later Richie! Pete and I are off! 

Taking some time to just take it all in!

Things look like they are going to be fun to hike from far away but man when you get right up to them it just blows me away every time! Pete leading the pack blazing our own path!

Im getting really good at the paint drawing on photos huh!?

It was another perfect spot... took us a few mins to find a good spot for our tents amongst all this brush... 

There he is! The chef in his newly built Kitchen haha... we didn't know if we should make a fire or not ... we went for a little walk around ended up finding enough wood for a little fire so i gathered a bunch of rocks for a nice fire pit and boy am i glad we did that! It got cold as we were cooking and was nice to have a warm fire to eat by.

Dinner was unreal!! Camping with pete has made me change my idea of camp food ha.... this time it was mixed grain quinoa, with onions and garlic that he sautéed first, potatoes with thyme and basil, steamed broccoli, then avocado with onions that had pepper and lemon juice on them.... it was way to good to be 1. Cooked out of my tiny mess kit. and 2. To be camping food!.. Thanks pete for ruining my thought of camp food! haha

Snow capped mountains fire good food...good times!

Can't complain when your waking up and looking out your tent to this view!! 

I like adventures... from when we left the top of BL we made our own trail... it was a blast this shows a little bit of the terrain that we were crossing.... Pete making his way across a real steep part that if you weren't holding on to any brush your feet were coming out from under you!

We made it tho everyones alive from here down was the easy part... on your ass sliding down haha way faster and way less abuse to the body!

There she is Moke lake! Pete did some fishing i made some PB&J's the it got really windy and we left!

Back at it making our way home... this is too easy in NZ.