The Return to Wellington and Goodbye to New Zealand

We returned once again to our friend Dan's in Wellington to pick up where we left off, namely hanging out with him and his flat mates on the back porch drinking wine and talking about American politics, religion, kiwi culture, and classic rock. It was great to unwind and have real conversations after feeling like complete tourists for so long. Thanks again Dan, David, and Shannon!

We ran into our second bit of nasty weather as we made our longest drive yet--Wellington to Auckland in 10 hours. Since we needed to be at the airport the following morning at 4 am, we decided to sleep in the airport--a mixed bag that made us long for the austere comforts of 'Delicious V.' We hope we'll only need to repeat this experiment in insomnia a couple more times in the coming months.

--K & D

So Long, South Island

Our first time through the port town of Picton, we stopped for little more than email. But this time, we spent a little more time in its environs. Notably, we splurged on "pizza" and followed that mistake with a wonderful hike through the Queen Charlotte Sound. The hike took us up to some beautiful views of inlets and bays and gave us a chance to bid a fond farewell to the crazy plants of the South Island--we'll miss you, giant ferns!
-K & D

Two Nights in Nelson

One of the main advantages of staying in one place for more than a day is that you can start to develop little stories about the place and its people. To wit: On our first day in Nelson, we took care of some stuff in an internet cafe staffed by one slightly condescending tech guy who looked down his nose at a German tourist who didn't know how a certain type of software worked. OK, standard enough. It seems that this type of person has worked in each of the internet cafes I've been to. But, on day two of wandering the streets of Nelson, I happened to glance into an empty shop selling what looked to be standard teeny bopper clothing and who should be standing dejectedly behind the counter? That's right, our condescending computer guy. I couldn't help imagining that he treated the young clientèle with the same contempt, perhaps telling them that certain halter tops were certainly not in style anymore.

The second half of our Nelson stay was not completely filled with people watching, though. We decided to take a stab at one of the most popular treks in NZ--the Abel Tasman. Unlike the trails that had occupied most of our hiking time in NZ--the Abel Tasman is relatively easy hiking along the coast in a more tropical setting. Once we started what was going to be a 5 hour hike, we got pulled astray by the beach that wound next to the trail. So instead of the long walk, we decided to stroll through the rocky shallows along the beach. After getting marooned in an inlet due to our ignorance of the tides, and wading rather than walking back to the beach, we finished the hike by taking another ill-conceived walk through the muddy estuary. A few lost flip-flops later, we were off for a night in Picton, our last stop on the South Island.
-d

Pancake Rocks and Glowworm

The west coast of the South Island is one of the least populated parts of NZ. Initially, we weren't sure what we should do on the drive north from the glaciers, but we got a great recommendation from the folks in Christchurch to stop in at the megalopolis of Punakaiki. Although our map would indicate this was a samll town by the font size, it's really just a DOC visitor's center, two cafes, and some accomodations.

Though the town is tiny, it makes up for its size with all of the fantastic hiking and scenery nearby. Our first hike was to Fox Caves and it had to be one of our favorites. Although it didn't start out at all challenging (the 2 river crossings we were warned about were basically dry), it got progressively harder as we neared the cave. After sliding around on moss-covered rocks for 20 minutes, we came to a warning sign for slippery rocks. If you're Dennis, this would put you into a giggling/cursing/ hysterical state, but the sign bore out. The last ascent to the cave is over large, wet, moss covered boulders. Pretty treacherous, but exploring the huge cave was a great reward for the efforts.

We then checked out the pancake rocks along the shore of Punakaiki. The rocks are still one of nature's mysteries according to the signs, plus they're pretty.

Although we didn't wait till dark for our next caving experience as advised, we also explored Punakaiki Cavern, turned off our headlamps, waited in the pich black towards the back of the cave, and saw a glowworm. We'd seen dozens of glowworm caving tours since we've been in NZ, and this was the only cavern so far that was free. In retrospect, this was probably because it contains one dodgy glowworm, but we were still really excited to see him/her/it!

-K

Foxy and Franzy

In a country that so far seems to have every geoogical formation, it should be no shock that there are 2 glaciers about 25 km apart on the west coast. And of course both being glaciers, we had to make some comparisons.

Fox Glacier: We first visited Fox Glacier, the more southern of the two. We did a steep 2 hour climb through lovely native bush with sharp turns across steams, until we got our first drmatic glimpse of the glacier about half way up the mountain. The ultimate lookout point was great, with views of the entire valley left by the receding glacier ringed by sheer cliffs that looked how we imagined Yosemite may have looked 100,000 years ago. Pictures don't adequately capture how steep the ice wall is--its terminal face gives a sense of how the ice chews away the rock. The face is pretty grey--brown, kind of like dirty snow, which I guess it technically is, but above are cathedral-spire blue peaks. On the walk to the actual terminal face of the glacier, we were flanked by masive rock falls that fanned out along the edge of the valley.

Interlude: After our Fox hikes, we decide to squeeze in another hike to nearby Gillespie Beach to see an abandon gold mining operation and a not-abandoned seal colony. We learned a valuable lesson here--carefully study the trail map before setting out. If you don't, you'll end up on a deserted beach walking towards a point for over an hour before turning back convinced this can't actually be a trail, especially as it would be washed away at high tide. Having said that, the pounding surf and the desolation of the place made the walk worth it. Upon returning to the beginning of the trail, we learned that we just needed to walk around the point to reach the miners' tunnel and seal colony. Heavens to Mergatroid!

Franz Joseph Glacier: The first difference we noticed was that Franz was much more visible from the town and seemed larger, stretching back further into the mountains than Fox. We began our exploration by hiking to a viewpoint at the opposite end of the valley. The valley created by Franz is more narrow with less rock falls, but covered with cool red rocks. On our second hike, the approach walk, the glacier was in view the whole time. There's more consistent aquamarine ice, but it lacked Fox's impresive peaks.

So in the final glacial show-down, there is no clear winner--you just have to see them both.

-K & D

You Can Drive a Bus and Give a Commentary

Our very first organized tour was amazing, and probably set an example that will be hard to follow, in large part because of our bus driver Max. To understand the genius of Max, you may need to be familiar with ex-DC United Coach and now color commentator for the spanish soccer league, Ray Hudson.

To give a taste of the Hudson flair for the overdramatic, the following is an example from a Barcellona match we watched recently, where a player made a run for goal, but didn't score:

Ray: Put that boy in handcuffs and a set of shackles...put that boy in a safe...put that safe on a ship...sail that ship into the middle of the ocean...then sink that ship...and the boy would still get out!!!

Keep in mind that the match was still in progress and that the other commentator was trying to talk about what was happening on the field.

OK, now on to our bus driver, Max. To give some more context, Max is a middle-aged guy who grew up on the South Island and became interested in the environment as a young boy of eight, running through the bush at night with a knife and his trusty dog, hunting possums and pigs. As an introduction to an eco-tour focused on the birdlife and geology of Fiordland, we were already impressed.

At our first stop at the Te Anu Birdlife Sanctuary, I couldn't help but crib some notes, and so now present,

'Max's Guild to Birdlife in New Zealand':
Takahe: An endangered flightless bird with a distinctive red beak. When hand-raised, they use a special glove that looks like a takahe, otherwise they found the birds will fall in love with the human hand that feeds them. They can become quite mental.
Kea: NZ's naughtiest bird. World's only alpine parrot and the only bird that can store fat. Smart as dophins. They'll take apart a car in minutes, probably because they're interested in the mechanics. They probably like jazz, too. If you got mad at a kea and wanted to strangle it, you couldn't, they're protected by law...And they know it.
Kaka: Related to the kea, but less naughty. They can still be a bit cheeky.
Tui--NZ's cheekiest bird. They an imitate the call of all 3,000 bird species in NZ. You'll recognize them from the beer label (NZ's 'Milwaukee's Best' is called Tui).

Other interesting facts we learned from Max:
-Shania Twain just purchased one of the largest sheep operations on NZ. She also has a crush on Max.
-On multi-tasking: "Women always say men can't multi-task. Peter Jackson can direct 3 different films in 3 locations at the same time, you can drive a bus and give a commentary, you can iron the clothes and watch the baby."

So not only did we see some amazing sights and learn a bit, we got treated to the incredible storytelling of Max. Thanks!

The Ecstasy of Life in a Van

Just a quick note on our van, Delicious V. Delicious has brought us to the west coast of the South Island and found, with a little help from us, the best free night of camping ever. The picture above is from the back of the van.
-K & D

Te Anu to Queenstown, Wanaka, and Beyond

Queenstown is the place we thought we were going to go for a mid-morning to afternoon hike. As the picture above might indicate, we were underwhelmed by the town. The scenery was amazing but it's as if all of the tourism board's energy has been focused on this boomtown. For a rather coarse metaphor, the town is what Vail, CO might vomit up. Every storefront is filled with people wanting to relive you of you NZ dollars and in return show you where the Lord of the Rings was filmed, throw you off of a bridge with a bungie attactched to your ankles, send you skydiving, jet-boating, etc. It was all just a bit much after the relaxed beauty of Fiordland.

After a couple of hours, we decided to move on to Wanaka. The Rough Guide book on NZ described it as a sleepy version of Queenstown, which seemed more to our taste. The town was in fact a wonderful balance, having all of the beauthy without the frantic pace. We spent the afternoon by the lake and decided to try our hand at finding another free night of camping a bit further north.

The search brought us one of the most pleasant surprises of the trip. While not as lauded as much as the rest of the South Island, Mount Aspiring National Park was quite impressive. The area is one of the most remote in NZ, the small highway through its center was only completed in 1995. Though it was late in the day, we squeezed in a few hikes, including our first suspension bridge which led to the blue pools.

P.S. Though the highway was completed in 1995, it still has a ridiculous number of single-lane bridges, each its own adventure in trusting the right-of-way signs.

-K & D

Milford Sound? Milford Awesome

First off, since arriving in NZ, everyone has told us how quickly the weather can change, i.e. it can and probably will turn freezing cold and rain on you at any moment. We've been incredibly lucky so far with weather--almost no rain, sunny, and unseasonably warm so far. However, we ran out of luck on the haul from Dunedin to Te Anu across the southern part of the South Island. The intermittent downpours and unbelievable winds fortunately cleared up as soon as we pulled into the tiny tourist town of Te Anu, which would be our base for exploring Fiordland and the Milford Sound for a couple of days.

On our first night, we took a lovely walk around Lake Te Anu and decided to book a 'coach cruise coach' tour for Milford Sound the next day, partly to avoid driving the intimidatingly narrow and winding road without gas stations along the way. As many good things can be said about 'Delicious V,' fuel economy isn't one of them.

The tour experience had to be an entry in and of itself (see the next entry highlighting our bus driver, Max). Letting someone else do the driving was a nice change of pace and allowed us to view the scenery, like the mountains becoming more severe and beautiful as we approached the fiords. We took a two hour cruise through the Milford Sound, the skipper deftly navigating our small cruise ship close to the sides of the fiords for great views of the flora, the waterfalls, and sunbathing sea lions. We saw some bottle-nose dolphins swimming along with the boat as well. We even got a brief taste of the ocean waters past the sound, before carefully turning around in the choppy waters. The firodland area was the most unique landcape we've seen in NZ so far, and possibly our favorite.
--K & D

A Day in Dunedin

If Auckland is LA, Wellington is San Francisco, and Christchurch is Charleston, SC, then Dunedin has to be Chicago...or maybe Baltimore. When we pulling in and found parking on the edge of the warehouse district and the local cricket oval (?), a Bad News Bears-style cricket match (?) was already in progress, and we felt right at home (sort of).

The city is nestled around a bay--much like Wellington, but much less 'flash' or 'posh' (notice our attempts to blend with the natives and their peculiar dialect). Walking through the warehouse district reminded us of Chicago, and we mean that as a good thing. The town's Scottish heritage plays out in more than just the names of places; it's decidedly blue collar. We enjoyed walking around the central city octagon and finally, having some lunch, and stumbling on the bustling Saturday retail and entertainment district.

The day was capped by a walk to the beach and the chance to watch intrepid wet-suit-wearing surfers making the most of the 3 foot waves at the nearby beach.

-d

What Else Is Between Christchurch and Dunedin?

Thanks for asking! The quick answer is not much. Think sheep, grass, and rolling hills--but that's pretty much the default setting of NZ. The one exception to the least scenic drive we've been on were the Moeraki boulders.

It's hard to imagine that these boulders were made by nature, especially when you look into te hollowed out broken balls on the shore. But we were assured by the signs that they were naturlaly-occurring cyst-like depostis that were eroded and slowly exposed from the hillside.

Perhaps adding to the sci-fi-ness was the fact that we had slept in the parking lot mere steps from the beach and a herd of deer, neither of which we saw when pulling in the night before. Not a bad way to wake up!

-K & D

Little Blue or Big Yellow?

Our first stop after Christchurch was the small coastal town of Oamaru, reknowned for its penguin colonies, old victorian building, and possibley the best botanical gardens in NZ. What brought us to Oamaru were the penguins, but we were pleasantly surprised by our daytime stroll though town and the gardens--we definitely could have spent more time here--but we hurried through as the penguin viewing starts around 5:30 pm.

Yellow-Eyed Penguins: Our first penguin viewing wasn't a managed (read: expensive) experience. Essentially you walk along a nature path along the coastal cliffs above the yellow-eyed penguin colony and wait for the notoriously shy adult penguins to swim to shore to feed their babies nested along the cliffs. When we arried, there was a lone penguin standing about 2 feet tall on the beach, wings outstretched, occassionally flapping to cool down. As the small crowd of people watched the lone penguin for about 30 minutes wondering what s/he would do next (go back into the ocean, signal to his friends that it was safe to come ashore, flap his wings a bit more, etc?) we heard some rustling underneath the blind we were hiding behind. The blind was constructed to not disturb the endangered and skittish yellow-eyed penguins, so the crowd was completely hushed and hidden from view of the beach.

To our collective surprise, the rustling beneath the blind turned out to be a penguin feeding its young, but mostly preening for the cameras a few feet away. It was definitely a special experience to be so up close to this rare and beautiful bird, found only in NZ.

Blue Penguins: We moved on to view the blue penguin colony, which is a conservation projecte and was more of a manged experience (read: we had to pay). At dust, we were corrallled through the gift shop to a lighted stadium seating area nex to the beach where the blue penguins come ashore each night. The blue penguin is the world's smallest--only about 15 centimeters tall. They're known in Australia as fairy penguins and are rare in NZ and AUS, but not endangered. After a brief talk by the marine biologist, the rafts of penguins began to arrive in groups of about 20. We watched as they climbed the steep rocks ashore--running, stumbling, and goofy walking their way into our hearts. Awww.

Christchurch

One of the wonderful things about this trip so far is the kindness that we have been on the receiving end of for the past 2 months. Here in Christchurch, we are being hosted by our friends' Deb and Craig's friends' Richard and Michelle. To say that the stay has been a taste of home comforts would be an understatement. We have enjoyed amazing food and drink, tours of the various Christchurch neighborhoods, long walks through parks and the use of their bicycles for a spin around the city. All of that and we have only been here for 40 hours.

From our perspective, Christchurch has been both the most American and the most Brittish of cities in New Zealand. In the downtown core, there are streets that seem to scream Oxford, while the suburbs seem to knit together the standard American sprawl with quaint Cape Cod style hamlets. The highlight of Christchurch for me was the sunset tour of the Port area by Sumner Beach and Lyttleton, which are nestled in on the other side of a hill from Christchurch proper. The combuination of the blue blue coves, the clapboard houses and the unique port culture (read, Russian sailors who looked a little KGB-ish) was truly unique.

-d

To the South Island

We took the ferry from Wellington to Picton, a beautiful 4 hour sail from New Zealand's North to South Island. The South Island is much less populated and is famous for its Lord of the Rings landscape. We pulled in too late for any of the wine tasting tours in the Marlborough Pennisula's wine region, so we drove down to the sleepy beach town of Kaikoura. The landscape here is beautiful--the southern alps are quite close to the shoreline, and there's a nearby seal colony. Though there aren't as many seals here after it warms up in November, we were able to see a good number of them, including the one above, who we've dubbed the Paris Hilton of seals.

-K & D

Wellington, Is it Better than El Paso?

After a chilly night of sleep up in the mountains, we drove down to Wellington, New Zealand's capital city, and home to my old friend from Chicago, Daniel. In addition to putting us up for a couple of nights, we got a great walking and driving tour of the city, which is beautiful and seems much bigger than it's population of just under 400,000. Wellington is kind of the boho university town of NZ, sort of the San Francisco to Auckland's Los Angeles. We can't wait to stop in again toward the end of our NZ grand tour to chill on the back porch, watch some kiwi TV and convince Dan to move to Tulsa next year.
-K

From Stinky to Sublime

With the new van we were able to visit two of New Zealand's more famous sites. First Rotarua... If you were a person, let's say me, and could eliminate one sense for a short period of time, truly rid yourself of it, you should destroy your sense of smell for a stay in Rotarua. The town is situated among a collection of hot springs that smell like the worst combination of sewage plant and rotton eggs. Yeah, that bad. But apart from the gagging, the place is truly amazing. Wai-O-Tapu Thermal Wonderland combined bubbling pools of mud with surreal bright yellow and green springs. Walking across a boardwalk that is suspended above a thin crust that itself is suspended over a bubbling cauldren was pretty thrilling.

From there we jetted on to Tongariro National Forest. In every ranking we have seen, the Tongariro Alpine Crossing (a 2 day track) is ranked at the top. It is easy to see why. While we couldn't do the full track, we stitched together a few hikes that approximated the experience and were amazed by the waterfulls, thick bush, and subalpine desert conditions that existed side by side.

-d

The Tragedy of Life in a Van

Backstory: When I was 18 years old, I had a Honda Civic that caught on fire while on a road trip to Chicago. It caught on fire soon after the heat gauge went from C to H, so let's just say I have some experience with that particular gauge. Anyway, as we started up our first major pass, I glanced over at the aforementioned gauge and noticed that rather than resting comfortably on C, it was bouncing around midway towards H. At the same time, the van was barely able to keep 45 km/hour. Not wanting to be engulfed in a ball of flame (the diesel engine of the van was just below our seats), we immediately pulled over. The telltale sign of a radiator hissing and the smoke and the steam of water hitting the engine seemed to indicate we pulled over just in time.

When we looked at the engine, it seemed like we could just let it cool down, coast back down the hill to town and get a new hose. But no, suddenly the first crack of the hose occurred and steam started billowing into the van. In a flurry of motion, we quickly through all of our bags and food out of the van and onto the side of the road. Once complete we stood back thinking the worst was over, but of course it wasn't. Not 5 minutes of standing and staring later, there was a loud crack and a second geiser of steam as water and coolant poured out from below the van. Coasting the van downhill no longer seemed an option.

Maybe I'm romanticizing NZ, but I was amazed that the very first car that passed, turned around and came back down the hill to help us, without us even trying to flag anyone down. They let us use their cell phone, which miraculously had reception, and we called our rental van guy, who called a tow truck for us. The truck showed up within the hour. Thank you kind strangers!

Once back at the garage, the mechanic found that the problems with the van were pretty extensive (suspicion confirmed!), and included a busted water line and burned out turbo. The tragedy of the van indeed...

For those worried that we may be stuck in some town in the middle of NZ, fear not, our van guy did come through with a replacement that he drove down the next day. We have dubbed the new van 'Delicious V' in a spate of wild optimism. It is a little less dingged up and a lot more capable of keeping up with the flow of traffic. Not bad attributes in a Mystery Machine Mark II.

-d

The Triumph of Life in a Van

I think most people my age have wanted to own a van at some point in their lives. A big comfy van. Or maybe just drive around with their friends solving crimes in a van, a la the A-Team or Scooby Doo. My van dreams have been realized in New Zealand. Cruising the country on our own schedule, with a cooler (or 'chilly bin' as they say here) and sleeping under the stars has been good for the budget and great for me. Now if the van rental guy was cool with me airbrushing a pirate on the side, I'd be in heaven.

-K

Twelve Hours and Done: Auckland, New Zealand

So our first happy surprise of the trip was that our flight wasn't 18 hours long, it was only 12. And we got fed two full meals including free wine. Not bad, Air New Zealand! Our first bit of anxiety about landing in NZ was if our extreme budget camper van we rented was a complete scam, or would come through (more on this hypothethis later...)

We did indeed get picked up by the van rental guy, and while the van didn't look too spiffy, it looked serviceable (more on that later...) We made it into Auckland to our first hostel of the trip, the lovely Lantana Lodge, just outside downtown Auckland. We spent the first day slightly brain dead from lack of sleep---always a good opportunity to get some errands done. We made a stop at the grocery store and to the American Airlines office to purchase our Round the World tickets for the rest of our trip. Buying our tickets was really our second bit of anxiety,partly because of how complicated buying these tickets can be, and partly because we had left for our RTW trip without our proper tickets.

Luckily all went well with purchasing the tickets, we saved ourselves some cash by purchasing in New Zealand, and we got a couple of days to see the sights in Auckland. We walked through a lot of neighborhoods, including the 'K' road area and Parnell. Some noteworthy sights included the Auckland Museum, which has a nice collection of pacific island art and cultural artifacts on display.Maybe because it was the last place we visited in the U.S., Auckland seemed like a more walkable version of L.A.

After a couple of days and with tickets in hand, we drove out to the countryside toward the east coast, something all the locals kept encouraging us to do as soon as possible.
K & D