We visited Westland Greenstone in Hokitika to learn how they make the trademark New Zealand jade ornaments.

Gary Sinclair, the head carver, shows the craft.

In New Zealand, the MojoTrotters braved the world’s third-highest bungy jump so you don’t have to. Watch what it was like in this video.

Want to know more? Read about the experience here.

Photo by Jeffry B

1. Give yourself only a few days to sell it

A car can be sold in a few hours. Or a few weeks. You can assume you’ll get lucky and put it up for sale right before your departure date. Or you can be realistic. If you sell your car quickly, you’ll still have a few days to enjoy your trip.

2. Leave mechanical inspections to the last minute

Older cars in New Zealand must undergo an inspection every six months called a Warrant of Fitness. This ensures a car won’t spontaneously fall apart on the road.

A sticker on the windshield shows when the next inspection is due. The longer left on the W.O.F. sticker, the more confidence it gives buyers.

If your W.O.F. is running close to the end, and you want to renew it, it’s best to do it within many days before your departure. A W.O.F. inspection can reveal mechanical or structural flaws that can take several days to fix.

3. Don’t clean your car

On the car market where we sold our car, we saw nice vans that were filthy inside: strewn with dirty socks, full of dirt and grass, the windows nearly opaque with dust. As if buyers would simply overlook this.

4. Ignore the market cycles

If you bought a car in the beginning of the high season (November) and try to sell it at the end (March-April) you can’t expect to recoup your costs. Lots of people will be selling their cars and few travelers will be shopping.

You’ll have to lower your price.

5. Don’t be a salesman

A used car will sell itself, right? You don’t need to promote its strengths, play down its weaknesses and instil desire in the buyer. Just hang out in the market lounge and people will beat a path to you.

6. Use only one sales channel

There are car markets, internet classifieds, flyers that can be posted at hostels, and the good ol’ for sale sign taped to the window. Why bother with them all when one will do?

One of several drug delivery apparati in Queenstown

Queenstown is the most convincing proof that governments can profit from the legalization of drugs. This is, after all, the city that deals the world’s most expensive narcotic. Walk around its compact downtown and you’ll see hundreds of addicts, just biding time until their next fix, for which they’ll pay hundreds of dollars.

The drug dealers are registered companies that are taxed and subject to stringent safety standards. There are very few deaths and virtually no violent crime caused by the drug. Because the drug is so expensive and the city so far from major world cities, users tend to come from higher income brackets. And they normally come for a fix or two, then leave.

It’s impossible for someone to steal the drug and deal it himself in the back market. The barriers to entry for new dealers are so high that the number of dealers – and prices – remains steady. This stability also ensures there are no turf wars between dealers.

Drug users await their next fix at the Queenstown harbour

The price of the drug is exorbitantly high because the cost of extraction is immense. Dealers must build pricey and long-term structures, buy specialized equipment, and hire well-trained staff to deliver it.

Some of those costs may include: passenger boats powered by jet engines, cabins suspended by steel cables over a deep crevice, cable cars that transport users to said cabins, special elastic ropes that are tied to users’ feet, robotic winches that bring users back to safety after a drug administration, transport buses, drivers, cameras and editing computers to give users a visual record of their experience.

Fixes can last anywhere from 20 seconds to a full day. Shorter trips are usually more intense.

Interestingly, the drug cannot be manufactured or purified from any other substance. The drug resides within certain glands inside the users themselves, and requires all these complex structures to extract it.

This drug is called adrenalin.

A pedestrian walks past one of several drug dealing stores in Queenstown

The A.J. Hackett Nevis Highwire Bungy Jump: 134 meters
Cost: $250 NZD (convert this)
Difficulty: must love fearing for your life

When the technician clips the bungy cord on your feet, you vaguely start to realize what you got yourself into.

We had just watched six other people do the jump, billed as the third highest in the world. As thousands have done in the past, they jump, the cord stretches, they bounce. When they’re reeled back to the platform, they look stunned and thrilled, probably wondering what to call the neurochemical sucker punch they just took.

No big deal, you think. I can do this. And you were thinking this when you forked over an absurd $250 for the jump, when you boarded the 40-minute bus to the Nevis site, and when you stepped on the cable car that carries six people to the platform, a metallic cabin dangling over a crevice by steel cables.

You’re all harnessed and buckled. The technician sits you on a reclining chair that looks like it was made for dental torture and clips on the right bungy cord for your weight.

“This is the release cord,” he says, and tucks a red strap into the padded harness around your ankles. “When you finish bouncing, pull on this. It’ll release your feet and you’ll be held by your chest harness.”

That way, you can be reeled back up while sitting upright rather than staring at the rocks that were coming at you 50 meters per second.

Bianca waits her turn as a jumper is reeled back in.

He helps you to your feet and points you to the jump ledge. You see the river below, so dry it’s a trickle. You see the tiny pebbles and presume them huge boulders. There’s nothing between you and the hard, sharp ground.

That’s when you realize exactly what you got yourself into.

“I … I can’t,” I muttered. The numerous safe jumps you witnessed up close meant nothing. They no longer factor in. Self-preservation overrides any higher faculty of reasoning.

Which is exactly why the technician stands right behind you, giving you no choice but forward.

“Oh Jesus,” I said with each step forward, invoking my saviour, like any half-assed Catholic, only when I’m completely fucked. “Oh Jesus.”

“Come on, buddy, you can do it,” the technician said with practiced calm.

My toes were past the edge of the ledge. The technician counted: 3! 2! 1!

Every jumper before me jumped on 1. Every time. No one wavered, and this obedience baffled me. Until, that is, it was my turn.

In seduction theory, there’s something called the three second rule: when you see a woman that interests you, you should approach her within a count of three. Any longer and self-doubt will take command. You’ll start imagining everything that could go wrong, defense mechanisms invoke excuses to back away.

Standing on that ledge, looking down on that lifeless abyss, feeling raw ice in my throat, my thoughts stacked up like pancakes over a small opening, too narrow to go through. There’s nothing that will give you any comfort, any encouragement. You don’t have the luxury to think the fear away. And so you grasp on to the numbers coming from the technician’s mouth, the familiarity of a countdown your only lifeline to something resembling faith.

You jump on 1.

At first, there’s complete silence. Even your scream feels muffled, like it never leaves your lips. A black hole suddenly forms inside your chest and you don’t know if it’s the speed or the sight of the ground racing towards you. You flap your arms as if that will give you any stability, or, at best, slow the fall.

To some people the free fall lasts longer than the advertised 8.3 seconds. To me, it was far less than that. By the time I felt the tug around my ankles and the rocks below reversed direction, not a second had gone by.

I pulled on the release cord but it wouldn’t release. I tried six times. The rope that comes down, hooks on to the bungy tip and reels you back up was fast approaching. You’re supposed to be upright by the time it arrives. It clasped and I began to ascend upside-down.

I began to panic about this, too. But, just as I had disobeyed by most primal instinct when I jumped, here, too, I saw the opportunity to rebel. I dropped by arms, relaxed my abs, and let the machine do its job.

Like in the jump, I had to let the panic speak before shoving it aside and taking the leap. Like every important decision I ever took, I had to entertain every doomsday scenario to finally plunge into the blue emptiness.

I was gently lowered back into the dangling cabin and the technician asked, “How was it?” I wonder if he actually knows, or cares to know. How could I explain this to him? Every jump and every reaction is an assembly line piece, perhaps different in size or colour, but essentially the same.

These guys, they are pros. These guys are bungy technicians.

To these guys, I was just scared.

The complete stroll lasts no more than 20 minutes and within easy access of State Highway 6. But we took close to one hour. Each corner of the forest is a miniature kingdom fo those who take the time to look.

You can also see a few kahikatea, the tallest tree in the nation.

Another nearby track snakes along the beach. Which, in all likelihood, will be empty just for you.

Here are some of our favourite photos from this unforgettable walk.

Mostly they are pebbles scribbled on with a Sharpie. Others are driftwood branches set upright, towering rock piles, or a simple national flag.

All express a sentiment: I’ve been here. I miss my dead lover. I love my country.

They’re there for no reason, other than just being there.

Click on thumbnails to enlarge them.

Ease your kayak into one of the seal colonies of Abel Tasman National Park in and you just might get this adorable reception.

Seal facts from the New Zealand Department of Conservation.

We’d rather let the photos do the talking.

Click thumbnails to enlarge.

Some folks steam them, which is a shame, a kayak instructor at Abel Tasman National Park told me. When you have mussels fresh off the rocks, you have to respect their fresh ocean flavours.

You grill them in their own juices.

1. Get the grill nice and hot.
2. Lay the mussels on the grill as horizontally as possible. You want to avoid letting their juices drip out.
3. After a few minutes, the mussels will start to open. When they’re opened all they can, they’re ready.
4. Serve them with something carb-heavy for accompaniment. In this case, a simple and delicious penne aglio e olio. A little lemon is a nice extra.

Cheers!