Mitch and Katie in New Zealand

Feb 22 - Back to the North Island

2008-03-12T19:12:00.000-07:00

Woke up this morning and checked out of the Maui YHA youth hostel in Kaikoura. today will be a long travel day, but it was definitely worth it to have spent so much time in Kaikoura. We make a quick detour down the road to see if the little penguin we saw the previous day was back, but he was not.

We headed north to seek out the other half of the seal colony and waterfall that the owner of the Sunrise told us about when we checked out the day before.

We drive north for about 20 minutes to Ohau observation point. When we get there it is very clear that there are plenty of seals around because of the strong smell. You smell these guys long before you see them. We walk to the observation point, and below us are the mother seals lounging on the rocks. There was a small depression in a couple of the formations, which had filled with water from waves washing over the top. These little pools were absolutely seething with baby seals, thrashing around, learning to swim and fighting each other on the edge of the pool. We stood there for a little while watching, and a crowd of people eventually gathered, so we moved on up the road.

Just around the corner there was a gravel pull out for the waterfall that the owner of the Sunrise Lodge had told us about. We were excited about the possibility of seeing some seal pups playing in a waterfall, but given the number we saw at the beach, the chances were probably slim. The guy had said that he had been there 8 times in the past 2 years and he had seen them 6 times, but his wife, who had been there about 6 times had never seen them. It was a nice little walk, and the waterfall was really pretty, but there were no seal pups...

We hopped back in the car and continued on towards Picton, and our ferry. I saw a sign for an Alpaca farm, and made the executive decision that we had to check it out. It was a little place, and a lady walked from her house and into the shop. There were many alpaca and 1 llama, we talked for a little while about raising and shearing the animals.

Katie bought a hat made from some of the alpaca there on the farm.

We got to Picton in time for a quick lunch at a cafe along the main street, and a scoop of Hokey Pokey ice cream for desert. We boarded the ferry and settled in for the ride to the North Island. A very awkward Belgian guy asked if he could sit down at our table, and we said sure. We started talking, and asked him what he had done while in New Zealand. He started off by complaining about how expensive all of the things were, like sea kayaking, whale watching, dolphin trips, glacier trip and caving, that he didn't do any of those things because they were just a big rip off. Then he proceeded to say that New Zealand wasn't all that remarkable, and that it wasn't all that different from Europe. He had been traveling with a tour bus, and getting out at the places, walking around, looking at the buildings. I suppose from his perspective, it wasn't that different at all. He had been staying at communal bunk rooms in the hostels, because they were the cheapest accomodations, and they were really noisy and the lack of sleep had ruined several days. He said he was going to Austrailia for 2 weeks after he leaves New Zealand, and that he wanted to do it as cheaply as possible. He was very well educated, as we spoke for a very long time about the world economy, trade issues, and energy markets. I didn't get the impression that he couldn't afford to do these things, it's just that he chose not to. Afterwards, Katie and I both felt really sorry for this guy, since he had missed so much, and his mindset would prevent him from ever really enjoying some of the things that we had done.

We get off of the ferry in Wellington at the beginning of their rush hour (4:45pm), and drive north. Traffic is horrible, stop and go, and it adds about an hour to an already long drive. The one bright spot was a sight that kept us laughing for the rest of the trip. Now keep in mind that Katie and I are both cyclists and there is always an uneasy tension between cars on the road and cyclists. We have a healthy respect and fear for the power of a 1 ton vehicle moving at 40mph vs a 17lb racing bike, and have been scared in traffic before. So, on with the story. We're cruising along this narrow 2 lane road with poor shoulders in bumper to bumper traffic. Traffic is moving pretty well coming the opposite direction but it is heavy as well. We are coming up to a bridge with concrete walls on the sides which narrows a little further, when we both notice a cyclist coming the opposite direction. He looked to be in his 60's, and was decked out in a safety orange vest and a big orange flag shooting out of the back of his city cruiser bike with wide handlebars. He didn't look very at ease. Compounding his discomfort was a gigantic camper van riding right behind him as they were crossing the bridge coming towards us. We don't know what triggered it, but all of a sudden, the cyclist's eyes got really wide, his elbows shot out to 90 degrees, and he stood and started pedalling like speedy gonzales on methaphetamines, mouth gaping open and peadalling like crazy! We can only assume that he survived. Maybe he had signed up for the "Extreme Adrenaline Bike Ride" in wellington or something of that sort...

We drove for another 4.5 hours to Turangi, where we stayed at another hostel. The night driving over the mountain pass was pretty harrowing, so to wind down once we got to our room we had a glass or two of wine that we had brought from Kaikoura. That helped us get off to sleep...

Feb 21 - ORCA!

2008-03-10T18:47:00.000-07:00

Today we woke up to see the sunrise on the beach just behind the hostel we were staying at. I went out the back door, and crossed the train tracks and went down to the beach. Katie said she would be a long in a little bit. The beach was composed of small to medium sized polished black rocks sloping gently down to the water line. I got down to the beach and took some photos at the shoreline as the sun started rising. Katie came down just as the sun was coming up. We watched the sun come up, and walked along the beach for a little bit, checking out the cool little rocks.

We then went across the street to buy a breakfast. We got mountain tops, which are like little pot pies topped with a mound of twice baked mashed potatoes. They were really tasty. As we checked out of the Sunrise Lodge, the owner told us about the other half of a the seal colony (consisting of the females and pups) which is just about 20 min north of Kaikoura, and that just past it, there is a 5 min walk to a waterfall that sometimes has baby seals playing around at the base. He said it is kind of a kindergarten that the mothers bring the pups to in order to keep them safe while the moms go out and hunt for food. We decide to check it out on our way towards Picton tomorrow.

On our way down to start the peninsula walk, Katie says "stop the car, I think that's a penguin". I pull over and we get out and walk to the shoreline and standing on top of a rocky outcropping is a little penguin. We thought it could be one of the impostors at first, but after zooming in with our cameras it was obviously a penguin. EDIT: upon further examination, the bird in question was the "almost-a-penguin" or "not-a-penguin" that we had seen plenty of (the one that nests in trees). Katie was very disappointed.

WE continue down to the seal colony and do the peninsula walk, which is a 3 hour loop that goes along the rocky coastline, and then up along the cliff tops pack to the parking area. Since the coastline part of it can only be done on the 2 hours on either side of low tide, we decide to do the cliff top first to give the tide time to go out. The clifftop walk is very scenic walking along grassy pastures and along the cliff edge which drops to the sea.

Then the trail drops down to the coast line near south bay on the other side of the peninsula, where there is a little wharf and comes back along the shoreline. The first part of the shoreline is a very large flat base of rock, which turns out to be very slippery. The rock is pretty smooth and rounded and formed into parallel channels filled with water.

There are seaweed (I think) that are shaped just like little balls on a rope, tied into a bunch. When you walk on top of them they pop like bubble wrap.

After about 10 min of walking we come to a large collection of male fur seals. They are all sprawled out on top of the rock. As we get closer we see more and more, about 20 or 30 in all, and they are spread from the terminal face of the cliff to the shoreline. at first it doesn't seem like there will be a safe way to thread between them all without getting uncomfortably close, but I find a path that hugs the cliff face, and keeps us from getting closer than about 10 feet from one. So we ease along this path, taking photos every now and then until we get through most of the seals.

The trail continued on along the rocky coastline, with the occasional indifferent Fur Seal here and there. We continued to pick our way through along the coastline. It was taking a little longer than we expected, and given that we wanted to try to make it back to see the dolphins, we picked up the pace a bit until we got back to the car. As we rounded the last corner to where the parking lot was, we saw a Japanese lady almost step on a sleeping Fur Seal. Another lady was trying to warn her that she was about to walk into one, but I guess she didn't understand her. Good thing the seal saw her first and barked loudly. She understood that pretty well, and nearly jumped out of her skin when she saw this thing about a 3 feet from her.

We were back at the car just before noon, and with the tour leaving in 30 min, we took off down the road to the Dolphin Encounter place. When we arrived, folks were checking in, and when we got to the front of the line, the receptionist said that there were 2 spot left to spectate, we were pretty excited. Then she after checking she said that there was 1 opening for swimming! Katie was really excited. I insisted that she be the one swimming, so I could take photos. Katie dashed off to put on her swimsuit, and while she was gone, the receptionist checked with her supervisor, and there was 1 additional spot, so I could swim too. We were both pretty excited about the whole thing, based on what we had seen the day before on the whale boat, it looked like a really amazing thing.

We got fitted for our wetsuits, saw the briefing video, and to a bus over to south bay, the same place the whale-watch boat left from. We get on the boat which is a little smaller, and motor out along the coastline. As we are cruising out to find the pod of Dolphin, we are looking out at the front of the boat and see a tall black fin rise out of the water and disappear. I thought I knew what it was, and a few seconds later the captain confirmed that I did a few seconds later. It was a Killer Whale, or Orca! The captain tried to bring the boat up to it, but we didn't see that one again. It was moving away from us, and probably dove down to feed. A couple of minutes later, we passed through a large pod of dolphin swimming very fast. There were several hundred of them, and they seemed to be moving extremely fast.

The captain says for the first group of swimmers to get ready, but before they can get into the water, we found out why the dolphin were swimming so quickly. There was a pod of 6 Orca behind them, heading their way. The captain of the boat said that the Orca can hunt and eat these dolphin, but they usually prefer to hunt stingrays. The crew on the boat were very excited, because they said it is actually pretty rare for them to see the Orca here: they only see them about once every 2 or 3 months. We turn around and parallel the Orca about 60 feet off to their left side, and watch as they surface to breathe. There is a couple of males, 3 females, and 1 pup swimming along with them.

After following the Orca for about 35 min. we turn back and head towards the cove where the pod of dolphin should be. When we find them, they are really agitated, and the pod is small. Their natural defense is to break into much smaller groups when the Orca come through. The captain of the boat circles around for about 15 min, and is able to determine that the dolphin were too agitated by the orca to play around with people so he canceled the swimming, and told us that we would be provided with refunds. I was ok with that, and pretty impressed with the captain's decision, because he could have just as easily plopped us in the water, and then pulled us out, saying that's just the way it goes.

After we returned and changed out of out wet suits, we headed up the road to the Kaikoura Vineyard, where we had a glass of wine on their porch looking out at the mountains and the ocean. After relaxing for an hour or so there, we go back down into town and to the Adelphi Lodge for dinner, which was excellent. Just down the road, we stopped at the Craypot for a gigantic slice of Chocolate Mud Cake. We then make our way to the youth hostel we were staying at for the night, the Maui YHA. It is located on the road facing the beach, and the kitchen area has great views of the ocean and mountains across the way. We talk a little bit to the ladies at the front desk, who ask what we've been up to. We mention that we saw an Orca pod, and they were really excited, as neither of them had ever seen them up close. It was kind of cool that they were excited about it, and it validated our boat captain's comments on how special it was to come across the Orca.

After we move some of our stuff into the room, we go back outside to try to catch some good sunset photos. We stop where we saw what we thought was a penguin for a little bit, and then went back down to the Seal Colony. Tonight is a full moon, so I was hoping to get some good moon rise shots with seals in the shot. I got one descent shot. They wouldn't stay still long enough.

Katie is getting eaten alive by the kelp flies, so she retreats to the shelter of the car, and I walk out along the rocks and play around taking long exposure shots by myself. Capturing one of my favorite shots of the entire trip:

Bigger version here

It's very difficult to weed out emotional attachment to an image and to be objective about it's merits when the experience of taking the image is so close. Maybe it won't be my favorite from this trip forever, but who knows.

Feb 20 - Thar she blows.

2008-03-09T19:06:00.000-07:00

We checked out of jail and hit the road right at 8:30am, right at the peak of rush hour. When I entered our destination into the GPS, Judith told me to make a right turn out of the car park. This is the equivalent of a left turn in the states. It was against heavy traffic, so I decide to make a left turn and let Judith figure out what I should do next.

The traffic was pretty heavy in spots, but the behavior of the drivers was significantly more cordial than those here in RTP. When 2 lanes would go down to 1, everybody merged together taking turns, without any pushing and shoving, or "me firsts". This might have been an anomaly, but it sure was nice. We get out of town and stop for coffee and a bite for breakfast, before heading on to Kaikoura.

We get to the whale watch place a little bit early so we sit outside in the tailgate of the car and put on sunscreen. Parked across from us is a young couple who are obviously traveling in their car, and they are checking us out as I organize my camera gear for the boat trip. This makes us a little bit nervous, since we are going to leave the car for about 4 hours, but they leave for a walk before we do, and we figure they were just looking at the only thing that was going on around them.

Time comes for the tour and we head inside for a quick "briefing". There is a little panic, becuase we left our boarding passes in the car when we came back out, so Katie and I run out and dig out the passes and get on the bus that takes us to the south bay wharf where the whale watch boat is waiting for us.

One of the striking things about Kaikoura is that there are snow topped mountains surrounding the peninsula. It is very beautiful.

The whale watch tour is a 4 hour tour where they boat you out to an area where sperm whale are known to feed. It is a 1600m deep trench that comes very close to the shore line, making it easy to get to. We get in a large catamaran and start motoring out to the trench.

The boat absolutely flies across the waves crashing through some 8-10ft tall swells, throwing water more than 20 ft into the air as we cruise along for about 20 minutes or so. We see our first whale just as it is diving to feed. We cruise around and find several more through the use of an underwater microphone. What you see with the sperm whale is that they come to the surface, then breathe several times, spending about 10-15 min on top, and then they dive straight down sending their tails up into the air as they dive. They stay down for about 45 min. before they return to the surface. It was really cool to see them up so close. It was also very difficult to take photos, because the seas were pretty big, and I had to wrap an arm around the edge of the boat to steady myself as we rocked around.

Before we came back to dock, we stopped and looked at a giant pod of dusky dolphins. There were several hundred of them playing around in the water just off the coastline. They were jumping and flipping all over the place. It was like a circus on speed.

That was the sight that made us decide to try to get on one of the dolphin tours the following day that put you in the water in the middle of these things. We didn't hold much hope that we would be able to, since all the guidbooks said we need to book at least 2-3 weeks in advance. We figured we'd try anyway, though.

We stopped by the dolphin encounter place and they said that there was space on the 12:30pm tour, but for spectating only, no swimming. We decided to check back after we did the peninsula walk tomorrow, and perhaps hop on if there was still space.

We checked into our Hostel, the Sunrise Lodge, Mark and his wife (who was about 8 months pregnant) showed us around the place and gave us good tips for doing the walk around the seal colony. We head that way to see if there were any seals around. We stopped at a roadside barbeque grill where a lady was grilling fresh seafood, and had a crayfish fritter, and some green shell mussels, which were delicious and cheap. At the end of the road which goes down to the end of the Kaikoura peninsula, there is a seal colony with male seals lounging around on the rocks.

They come ashore some too, and are not at all bothered by people. You can get as close as you dare to these things, I think the closest I got was about 10-12 feet or so, but I kept a good eye on him the whole time. One seal barked at me and gave me a start, so I backed off a little.

We did a little grocery shopping and turned in for the evening after a dinner of fish and chips and Speight's Gold Medal Ale...

Feb 19th : A night in Jail

2008-03-06T18:27:00.000-08:00

Today is a big travel day, with almost 7 hours of driving. We went into town and Katie bought a wool sweater on sale at one of the sporting goods stores. We grabbed a quick breakfast to go, and said goodbye to Queenstown, it was a great city, one that would be near the top of the list for ideal places for us to live.

About 2 hours later we drive past lake Pukaki and Lake Tekapu, turquise blue glacial lakes with amazing views of Mt. Cook far off in the distance.

We stop for the obligatory Ice cream break in Geraldine, as suggested by the i-Site person in Queenstown. I had Honey Kiwi Fruit and Black currant blackberry, which fueled me for the rest of the drive to Christchurch.

Some of the road signs have a little too much information to absorb at 60+ mph:

We get to Christchurch, and park in front of our accommodations for the night, an old Jailhouse converted into a youth hostel. We check into our cell, and ask the front desk for places to eat for dinner. The Jailhouse was pretty neat inside. The door to the rooms are the original heavy solid steel plate doors, with the peep hole covered with a circular plate. Inside there is a bunk bed, and not much else. The toilet seats in the bathrooms are made of clear Lucite with barbed wire embedded in them. After looking around for a while, we head downtown for dinner.

City driving is where Judith (the GPS) really comes in handy, this was especially so in Christchurch, since the area we were heading to for dinner was a web of one way streets. We park the car and are a bit early so we decide to walk across the street and check out their botanical garden.

We eat dinner at La Cafe, I have a Lamb Burger and Fries, and Katie had Salmon Pasta. Then we raced each other on dessert, a slice of "Chocolate Nemesis". We head back to Jail and get ready for the drive to Kaikoura in the morning. On the recommendation of the couple from San Fransisco, we have booked a whale watch boat tour for 12:15pm, and it is about a 2.5 hour drive, so we shouldn't have to rush to get there. It will be nice to stay in Kaikoura for 2 consecutive days, even though we couldn't stay in the same hostel both days. It's also good to get a big portion of the South Island driving over with all at once.

The jailhouse is a little noisy, so earplugs come in handy yet again.

Feb 18.

2008-03-03T18:43:00.000-08:00

We wake up early to watch the sunrise, which turned out not to be so great, since we were down in a slight canyon. Then we ate breakfast on the ship, as we motored out to the Tasman sea. They raise the sails on the ship once we were out at sea, which didn't seem to do very much and were mostly for show. Then we turn back around and head into the sound.

Motoring back in to the sound we see a few dusky dolphin riding our bow, and a couple of fur seals lazing on the rocks.

We get back to the wharf, exchange email addresses with our new friends and say goodbye. The bus we have scheduled to take us back to Queenstown is supposed to leave a 2:30pm, and it is 9:30am. There is not much to do at Milford with the exception of the cafe and the cruises, so we check to see if we can catch an earlier bus.

The 9:30am bus to Queenstown has plenty of room so we hop on. As we pass Milford lodge, we stop to pick up some more passengers, which turn out to be the couple from San Francisco we saw the morning before hurrying to meet their bus. We talk with them almost the entire way back to Queenstown. They are taking a year off and traveling the world. they both worked in the software industry before they left, he mountain bikes and used to climb, so we had plenty to talk about.

We get back to Queenstown at 2:30pm and catch a city bus back to the Hotel. When we check in the lady at the front desk remembered our names from checking in 4 days prior, checks us in and brings our bags up to our room for us. I went out to the car to get Katie's jeans for her which were set out to dry while we were on the Routeburn. It's always a little relief to find all of the stuff I have left behind is all present and accounted for when I return from a little excursion. The room is very nice, on the top floor and is a 2 level room with a living room and kitchen, and 2 bedrooms upstairs. We take showers and a quick nap, and then plan the final week of our trip. We decide on 2 longish travel days with activities in between them and book our lodging at Rotorua, Christchurch, and an additional day in Kaikoura. We book our 2nd attempt at a white island tour for the day before we fly home.

We walk down into Queenstown, which is a beautiful little city by the lake with the Remarkables rising out from the shores of lake Wakatipu. While in the city we run into the German guy we met along the Routeburn, he was planning to do the other portion of the Routeburn that he didn't do for the next day. We eat dinner, eat ice cream, have a drink, and then walk back to the hotel to turn in for the night.

Feb 17

2008-03-01T10:29:00.000-08:00

Last day on the Routeburn Track. I get up at around 6:10am and when I do, I start a wave of folks waking up and getting going. I go to the kitchen to brew up some coffee, borrowing a lighter to light the stove from the man who lent me tape to bandage my leg the evening before. He came up from the Divide yesterday, which is where we are heading today. He says that we will have all the time in the world to catch our bus, and that's exactly what I want to hear. The sun slowly starts to rise and reflect off of the mountains on the other side of the valley, and I set up my tripod for a few photos of the colors reflecting off of the glaciers. I meet a commercial photographer from Minnesota who is also shooting the sunrise with a Nikon D70, he is also using a tripod, but it is a smaller one that he says is not really worth carrying. We get on the trail at 7:24am, along side a couple from San Francisco who are trying to make it to a 12:30pm bus to Milford Sound Lodge.

The advertised time from The Mackenzie hut to The Divide (the end of the Routeburn Track) is 5 hours. This is an "average time" taking into account short breaks for photos or eating. This couple will be pushing it to get there, and they are practically jogging up the trail, so we let them go, we had plenty of time.

Most of the hiking on this section is through the same type of forest that we were in the last hour of yesterday's hike. Enchanted forest type scenery heavy moss covering the ground and trees.

After a couple of hours we pass Earland falls, which is almost 200 ft tall. We stop for a couple of pictures and continue on.

We make really good time down to Howden hut and stop there for just a little while to eat our lunch.

We continue on towards The Divide, and we get to Key summit, which is a 1 hours side hike. We get there at around 11:30am with plenty of time to do the hike. At the junction of this trail we meet a group who are taking part of a guided hike . We talk for a little while, turns out they are a Sierra Club group, doing a day hike from the divide and up to Key Summit. This was one of the many times that I saw a group and was glad that we are doing the trip by ourselves. Not that it looked horrible, but there were many different levels of ages and ability and the group will only move as quickly as the slowest person. I would imagine a lot of time is spent waiting on folks to re-group. Most people drop their packs at the base of the climb and do the key summit hike without their packs. I just continue onward with mine still on. It feels strange to not have the pack on after 2.5 days of it being welded to my back. We go up a couple of switchbacks, and I catch and pass some of the Sierra Club group that had gone up earlier. After another switchback or so, Katie calls up to me and says, "Is this the climb ? Why didn't we drop our packs ?!?!" So she chucks hers in the bushes, and starts bounding up the trail like a tigger with her new found, unencumbered lightness.

At the top of Key summit is a view of snow topped peaks, and a hanging lake. It is very clear how the glacier cut a cross section through the mountain and chopped off the valley at the mouth of this lake, turning it's outflow stream into a 500 ft. tall waterfall to the bottom of the glacier cut below. there is a loop trail at the top, with signs pointing out various things about the alpine environment.

We go back down the trail, pick up Katie's pack and continue down towards the Divide. We arrive with about an hour to spare, take the obligatory "End of the hike with the sign" photo, and I brew us up a cup of coffee while we wait in the bus shelter for our bus to arrive. It feels strange for a while to be be a road after being in the woods for 3 days.

The bus arrives at 2:30pm and we head towards Milford Sound for our overnight cruise which leaves at 4:30pm. The landscape along the drive down to Milford sound is very dramatic with very steep faces towering above the road in all directions. Many of the tops of the mountains have significant glaciers at their tops. There is a long 1 mile long downhill tunnel that leads down to the sound and a 15 min. timed traffic light controlling traffic going into it. We get stopped at it going in. Looking to our left we see a apartment building sized block of ice that had fallen several hundred feet from the mountain top above. There were people walking around it's base, which didn't seem like a very wise idea at all.

When we get to Milford it feels like we are back in civilization, we get a slice of cake and a beer at the cafe, then walk on to the wharf and wait for our cruise. The cruise holds 60 people and is fully booked. We share a bunk with a couple from Brussels, Belgium, who we make conversation with on and off for the duration of the cruise. Katie and I throw our packs into the bunks, and quickly go to take a warm shower, our first in 3 days. Milford sound was very hazy and humid, making photography pretty poor. The Scale of the sound is hard to grasp, the steepness and height of the mountains rising out of the sea don't really register until you see a kayak or another boat at the base of one. The peaks rise up to about 5000 ft (Mitre Peak is the highest) and rise to that height almost immediately after leaving the water. There are trees clinging to the side of the mountains, and in places there are tree slides where one falls and rips all of the others off and pile up at the base. The wind is blowing very strongly, blowing the spray from the boat and making it very wet to be up top on the boat.

We meet an Irish guy who is traveling the world and we exchange stories about Southern Utah. He tells of getting off a train in Green River Utah, and being the only one getting off the train, no platform, just down on the dirt. The man on the train told him to walk for about 10 min in a certain direction and he would come across a bar. He decided not to go into the bar after looking in. He noticed he had cell phone receptions so he sent a text message to his friend back in Ireland to get on google maps very quickly and find him a place to stay. His friend replied with some detailed directions (North for about 5 min then east for a little while). Somehow he found a place to stay, he said it was one of the coolest places he had been, because the people were so nice. One of the ladies in the town lent him a truck (an old Silverado), and some guy took him hunting. It was pretty entertaining to hear his take on staying in this little town.

In the evening we stood outside with the Irish guy and Belgian couple and talked while looking at the sky.

It's pretty interesting that almost all the non-American people we have spoken to have all asked what we thought about the presidential race, and politics in general. The most impressive thing about this is how knowledgeable they all are about all of the candidates and what is going on.

We turn in and set our alarms so we can catch the sunrise the next morning.

Feb. 16 Routeburn Day 2

2008-02-28T05:29:00.000-08:00

Based on the weather forecast, it sounded like it was going to be bad to start off, and then clearing later on, so we slept in until 8:30am, by far our latest morning start. I got up and fixed us a cup of coffee, and talked to the hut warden a little about the weather. It was not as cold as forecast, which was a relief. We decide to leave around 10am so that we will be at the Harris saddle around lunch time.
Today, the trail we are hiking climbs up above tree line, and crosses the high point at harris saddle, where there is a small hut with a bathroom. This is also the place where one can do an optional 1 hour side hike up to the top of conical hill for some great views.

We leave on time and head out under low hanging clouds. As we are passing Routeburn falls, I notice a German man with a tripod that I had talked to the night before trying to get a shot of the falls. I pointed out the trail that I had found and told him to give it a go, but be careful. Katie was afraid that I had just sent the poor guy to his death, but after we topped the falls, we could see that he had safely made it down to the base of the falls.

The trail climbs up to a nice cliff side overlooking Harris Lake which feeds into Routeburn Falls, then up to the saddle and along the Hollyford face.

We are at the saddle at about noon, and eat our lunch on the backside of the hut out of the wind.

It was not as cold as forecast, but it was still probably in the low 40s, and windy. After I fix us a couple of cups of coffee, Katie said I should go up conical hill to take some photos. I leave my pack behind with her, and started running up the trail with only my camera and tripod. Unfortunately when I get to the top of Conical Hill, it is completely socked in with clouds. I meet a guy from Israel who had been waiting up there for 2.5 hours for the clouds to clear. He says that this is supposed to be the best views on the whole track. We talk for a while, and it was clear to me that it wouldn't clear any time soon. So instead of waiting for too long, and having Katie worry about me being gone for too long, I decide to start heading back down the hill so that we could continue the hike. I pass the older Chineese couple with the good food when I get to the lower sections of the hill. They are just heading up to the peak. I get back to the hut, and we continue on towards Mackenzie Hut.

This was going to be the longest day of hiking, and almost all of it above tree line. The Hollyford Valley, which we are hiking along was cut by a glacier during the last ice age. When I say cut, it looks exactly like that in some places. It looks just like someone had taken a knife and chopped down the mountain at a certain point, making a cross section of the peaks and valleys. On the opposite side of the valley from us are big glacier covered peaks and in the valley about 1000m below flows the Hollyford River.

The big peaks are behind us on the opposite side of the valley, so every once and a while we have to look over our right shoulders to catch another peek of them.

Around 3pm, the sky clears up, opening up views all the way down the valley to the tasman sea. If I had been a little while later to Conical hill, I would have been able to see forever. I'll just have to try again next time, I guess. I run out of water, but fill up at one of the waterfalls along the way (the MSR Miox came in handy after all).

Around 5:30pm we come up over a peak and see our hut far down below at the base of a prismatic lake. As we hike down towards it, the trail switchbacks down the south face of the peak and enters another old growth Beech forest covered in the thick lush green moss. It is dark, cool, and damp in the forest, and contrasts sharply with the bright sunny and relatively dry alpine conditions we were in for almost the whole day, up until about 15 minutes ago.

Another thing that makes being in the Southern Hemisphere different is that the South face is the cool, shady side of the mountain, and the north is the sunny, warm side. I know it must sound quite obvious, but since I am so used to it being the other way around, it really messes up my internal compass.

I am taking some photos and hiking with my tripod on my shoulder when I slip on a mossy rock and bust my butt. It happens really fast, but I instinctively protect all of the camera gear and slide down a rock. I look down and found that I have torn the leg of my pants and scratched my leg. The leg was no big deal, but the pants are my favorite pair of convertibles. So, really bummed out, I catch up with Katie and we finish the trail down to Mackenzie Hut. Katie starts moving really fast on this last section of trail because she doesn't want to be caught and passed by the older Chinese couple with all of the good food. She says they are our nemesis, and have a way of just popping up out of the woods with no notice.

It has been a long day, we get to Mackenzie Hut at around 7pm. We find two mattresses situated on a platform alongside about 12 others. The remaining bunks in the bunk room are all taken, and are configured like the other hut bays of 4 bunks, 2 sets of 1 below and 1 above. Mackenzie is still a very nice hut, but it is not quite as new as Routeburn Falls, and not quite as posh. I change into another pair of pants, clean out and tape up the cut on my leg, and start preparing our dinner ( Ramen and Lemon Pepper Tuna ). As I am finishing up, I come out to the eating area and discover Katie doing a Betsy Ross on my convertibles, mending them with needle and thread that she had brought along. It's was really awesome to have her fix them, since now I'll have a good story to go along with them.

The hut warden Evan collects everybody into the Kitchen and gives the safety speech of what to do in case of a fire, which he turned into about a 30 min stand up comedy routine. He was quite funny, and sometimes a little awkward, bearing a striking resemblance to a slightly shorter Captain Jean Luc Picard dressed like a boy scout. After the routine he collected the hut tickets, and Kaite and I go outside to Lake Mackenzie, skip a rock across the lake, and take a couple of photos of Emily Peak reflecting in the lake.

Then we go in the bunkhouse and settle in for the night. We are both a little concerned about the hike tomorrow, since we took a lot longer than we expected to today. Plus I have the additional stress of us having to make a bus at 2:15pm to get to Milford Sound for our cruise. We don't have a tent with us, and are counting on making it to the overnight cruise, leaving at 4:30pm in order to have a bed for the night. There's nothing worse than having your bed set sail without you. Based on all of these factors, we decide to hit the trail at 7am, to ensure enough time to do the Key Summit side hike ( 1h additional ) and make it to the bus with enough time so as not to stress.

Since all of my camera gear and stuff is stored underneath the communal bunk platform, I am a little bit on edge about someone taking the equipment. A good number of the people at the hut this evening have been hiking with us since the start, and have seen me taking photos and carrying around the tripod. I know it is probably an irrational fear that someone would take it, since they would have to carry all of the stuff a minimum of 5 hours to get off the trail, and few people are crazy enough to do that... let alone carry all the junk the whole trail.

Nonetheless I have a hard time getting to sleep, and sleep restlessly the entire night, rousing at the noises of people coming and going to the Toilets all night.

Feb 15 Routeburn Track Day 1

2008-02-26T19:24:00.000-08:00

Routeburn Track -
The most amazing 3 days in the woods.

We had good luck this morning when we were checking out of our Hotel. They said we could leave our car in their parking lot (or carpark in kiwi) while we were on the Routeburn, and they would also store our luggage for us at no charge. That made lots of things very easy on us, as we only had to get our stuff packed up and take a quick bus trip into Queenstown to get to our bus transporting us to the start of the Routeburn.

It was a little bit rainy, and the forecast called for somewhat unsettled weather over the next couple of days. It didn't really worry me too much, since we were prepared (clothing wise ) for temperatures down to freezing with rain and wind thrown in to the mix. We went into Queenstown a little bit earlier than we needed to, so we could eat a big lunch and ice cream before getting started. Lunch was a Furgburger, which is a legendary Queenstown burger joint that sells all types of burgers made from many different types of tasty animals. We then went to the department of conservation center next door and checked the weather. The forecast was for rain with the snow level at 1300m and 60kph winds at 1400m for tomorrow. That sounded like a pretty tough day, given that we would be hiking around 6 hours that day above tree line, and very exposed to the elements. I was wondering if I really had enough clothes, and figured I had just enough to keep me warm in that kind of weather. Katie and I grabbed an ice cream cone and sat at the Bus pickup.

Organizing a bus transfer for the Routeburn is a necessity, even though the track itself is only about 20 miles (if you do not do the side hikes), driving from one end to the other involves something like 225 miles of driving. The bus ride from Queenstown is about a 1 - 1.5 hour trip along the shores of Lake Wakitipu up through Glenorchy and to the end of the Routeburn road. As we were traveling along the Routeburn road which is gravel, the bus skidded to a stop. Everybody looked up out the front windows and in front of us, covering the entire road from side to side was a huge flock of sheep.

They were being herded down the road by a truck into the next pasture. They all froze in front of the bus and didn't know what to do.

There was a brief standoff until finally one brave sheep made a run for it and shot past to the left side of the bus. And the rest followed in a scared, flowing river of wool.

Everybody on the bus had a good laugh, and we continued on to the start of the track. We reached the start at around 2pm.

The first day of the track climbs up through a ancient beech forest. The trees, ground, and pretty much everything that is not moving or being walked on, is covered with a heavy woolly moss. Ferns are the dominant plant in this forest. There are numerous swinging bridges, which are a couple of 2x6's suspended by steel cables spanning the many streams and waterfalls along the track. They bounce and swing when you walk over them, but there are cables to hold on to if you need them. The track is very well maintained and surprisingly easy to walk.

At the first waterfall I stopped to climb down and take photos and noticed an older Chinese couple stopping there too for a quick bite to eat. After 3 hours or so, we came to the Routeburn river valley which was very wide and flat.

This is the site of the first hut on the walk, the Routeburn Flats hut. We were staying at Routeburn Falls hut, which was about 1.5 hours up the trail. The trail climbed continuously through the forest for another hour. The visibility to the other side of the valley is limited by the dense forest, but soon we came to a clearing that was the result of a landslide that occured in 1994. This opened up pretty dramatic views of the valley flats that we had climbed up from about an hour ago.

Shortly after the clearing we come to the hut. Which was amazingly nice. Built with a view of the valley, there were two bunk halls with bays of 4 bunks. The toilet area was separate from the bunk room and had flush toilets and running water. The kitchen area was absolutely huge and had about 30 very nice gas stoves with pots for heating water and sinks. It was like arriving at the Hilton. I started boiling some water and made our ramen noodles and added in the thai chili tuna. It went down fast, and I still felt a little hungry. The Chinese couple we saw earlier sat down next to us and proceeded to lay out a smorgasboard of fruit, sausage and rice that made me a little envious...

After dinner, I went outside to play around taking photos as the sun went down, while Katie relaxed in the Kitchen. I found a little steep path down to the base of Routeburn Falls, which made for some nice pictures.

I then walked up towards Harris Saddle, where we would be going the next day, and took a few photos as the sun was going down. It was really nice being outside, running around during that time of day. I then came back to the hut, and we got ready for bed. Most of the folks were already in bed and asleep by the time we got in there. There was a symphony of snorers tuning up for an all night performance. It was so nice to have a pair of earplugs.

Homeward bound.

2008-02-24T10:34:00.000-08:00

We are in Waitomo this morning and heading to Auckland to fly home this afternoon. Lack of connectivity and time have been the major factors as to the lack of updates. Here are the highlights since we left Queenstown on the 18th:

Drove 7 hours to Christchurch, 2h to Kaikoura, 2h to Picton, 3h ferry, 5h to Tarangi, 2h to Rotorua, 2h to Waitomo (23 hours total...)

Saw Mt. Cook

Spent a night in Jail ( not the real kind, more on that later )

Saw Sperm Whales diving to feed

Walked around in the middle of a Fur Seal colony

Almost swam with a bunch of Dusky Dolphins, but saw a pod of 6 Killer Whales very up close instead

Saw the Sea Lion Nursery

Alpaca farm!

Saw a kiwi (the bird, not the fruit) hatchery

ZORB'ed

Spent 4 hours climbing and crawling through an amazing cave.

Check back for the photos and details, if you like, as I'll be posting them one by one once I get back home, and get a decent connection (it's taking forever to upload photos). It's been an incredible 3 weeks, and we've packed in all the fun we could. Now it's time to head back home and start planning the next one...

Back in Queenstown...

2008-02-18T02:17:00.000-08:00

We finished the Routeburn yesterday, and took an overnight cruise on Milford Sound after the finish. It was an amazing hike. Everthing went really well. We had very clear weather, which made for great views, but mediocre photography. Can't have it all.

I'll post more and some photos when I get more time. We're preparing for and planning the last week of our trip as we head back up north.

Feb 14 - Lord of the Rings Horses.

2008-02-14T12:14:00.000-08:00

This morning we woke up to heavy rain falling in Haast. We had tried the night before to dry our soaking wet clothes from hiking in the rain on a glacier in the Hotel's guest laundry, but it didn't do the job. so I set up a clothes line in our room hoping that they would get dry. When we woke up, the clothes were still pretty damp. So we began drying them with the room heater and hair dryer as we got reoriganized and repacked. We had about a 4 hour drive to Queenstown, and another half hour to Glenorchy where I had booked a 2 hour guided horseback ride around the rivers starting at 2:15. We got on the road at about 8:10am, which meant we didnt' have alot of time to spare. Katie's toes had swollen up from the poorly fitting boots and she was having a good bit of pain in her toes. She didn't have blisters, but alot of soreness from the socks rubbing. So she started on Ibuprofen. It was a big concern, since we're staring the Routeburn Track tomorrow.

We drove down the Haast Pass in very heavy rain, which was feeding some raging rivers and waterfalls all along the road which followed the Haast River. I was beginning to doubt my sanity for booking the horseback riding trip, looking around at the driving rain, and thinking about what I should wear that I didn't need on the Routeburn. There were some pretty sights along this road, but we didn't stop, because we needed to run some errands in Queenstown before we went riding. Everything closes at 6pm, and we needed to pick up our Routeburn hut tickets, a quick dry shirt for Kaite (she left hers at the Abel Tasman sea kayaking center), eat lunch, and get some medicine for her feet.
After an hour or so, the rain stopped and began to clear up, someone was smiling on us. At least we wouldn't be riding horses in the rain.

We got to Queenstown, and ran all of the afforementioned errands, and even had time to eat a cone of ice cream. We made it to Glenorchy with 5 minutes to spare... Piece of cake.

The Dart stables in Glenorchy advertised several rides, one being for riders of all abilities. I chose them because they looked like they would let Katie have some fun and let the horse run. They drove a group of about 12 to the horse paddock where they asked our experience level. I have ridden a Mule in Bryce Canyon, and a swayback mare in Tsali, but I told them I would try just about anything. They sized us all up and picked out horses for us based on all of those factors. I wound up with Jackie.

He was very disobedient in the paddock after I got on him, he wouldn't obey any commands and was walking around nipping other horses. A little Japaneese girl wound up behind him, and he kicked at her, missing her head by about 8 inches. I knew right then I was in for an interesting day. The stirrups felt a little too long, but I didn't realize how short they were, nor the problems that would cause later.
Katie and I were put in a group with 3 other riders and the guide. With two of them having worked on a cattle farm, and the other guy having done some riding, and Katie with all of her experience on a horse, I was by far the big rookie.

We walked down the fence line and Jacky began to behave better, and listen to me. Then the guide said, "Want to try to trot ?" She told me to grab the front of the saddle and a handful of mane and grip with my legs. I did and the whole group sped up. The too-long stirrups meant that I couldn't isolate myself from the bouncing of the horse and pretty soon I was getting jackhammered up and down over and trying to stay on got pretty sketchy, but I stayed on the beast. Pretty soon the group stopped, and Katie yelled up to the guide that my stirrups were too long. The guide came back and shortened the stirrups by 2 notches, and asked if I wanted to give it another go. I said sure. She sent the rest of the group up ahead and stayed in front of my horse, leading him into a trot. This time it was much better. We slowed down to a walk, and she asked if I wanted to try to canter. I said sure, and this time we went into at trot, and then took off absolutely flying down this riverbank. It was much smoother than the trot, and immensely faster. It was very cool. Katie was so excited that I had gotten up to a canter.

We did a couple of river crossings in some pretty deep water, then we did a nice long canter on the way back.

We finished up the ride, and drove back to Queenstown, and checked into our hotel. We organized all of our gear for the hike starting the next day, which took a couple of hours. Then drove back into Queenstown for a late dinner at Fishbone, where I finally got to have a big bowl of green shell mussels. very tasty and worth the wait.

We start the Routeburn tomorrow, so it will be a while with no electricity. We'll be back in Queenstown on the night of the 18th. I'll check in when we get out of the woods...

Feb 13 - Ice Ice baby

2008-02-14T12:03:00.000-08:00

Today was the day for Franz Joseph Glacier. We booked a full day guided tour with Franz Joseph guides, which would be about 6 hours of hiking on the glacier. We ate breakfast at the cafe next to the guides and bought a sandwich to take for lunch.

It was really tricky to figure out clothing for the day, since it was warm in the valley, and it was hard to tell what it would be like on the glacier. The guys at the guide shop were dressed in short sleeve shirts and shorts, so I figured I'd go with that, and bring along a fleece vest and a hat just in case it got really chilly. It was forecast to start raining later in the afternoon too, so that made things tough.

They provided a gore-tex jacket as a rain jacket, which I decided to use, to save my ran shell from any wear from rubbing against the ice. They also provided Grivel crampons that strapped onto my boots. I decided to use my boots instead of the ones they offered. Katie was going to use her boots too, but they said her boots didn't go high enough on her ankle for support, so she had to use their boots. The problem with that is that Katie's feet are really narrow, and the chances of her finding a boot that fit her were slim to none. She tried on several pairs, and worked her way down to the smallest size they offered, and they were still too big. Even with two pairs of thick socks on, she could still slide the laced and tied boot off of her foot without untieing the laces. She went with 3 pairs of socks, and it was still too big. The main concern was that she would mess up her feet, and be in poor shape for our 3 day hike of the Routeburn Track coming up in 2 days.

Sorting out camera gear was another fun one. The tripod came along for the entire hike, and my typical mode of hiking with it is to leave the camera attached to the tripod, and have it balanced on my shoulder. This meant I would have one free hand. I asked some of the guides if it was ever technical, and they said it wasn't very technical, so I felt OK.

We piled into the big red bus at 10pm that took a big group up to the parking lot near the foot of the glacier. There were 55 people on the trip today. We went through the rainforest, up and down a couple of ladders, and down to the terminal face of the glacier. The group then split into 5 smaller groups. The guides lead the group through the glacier, carrying a huge old fashioned ice pick and cutting steps in the ice where they need to.

They also clean up anything that may cause a hazard for the group behind. They also set ice screws as anchors with a piece of 8mm cord to use as helpers for some of the really steep steps, or if there is a crevasse close to the bottom of the descents. They really make it easy to get around on the glacier.

After we stopped for lunch, we found a couple tight tunnels in the ice, which were extremely blue and clean ice, everybody in the group shimmied through the tunnel.

A little while later, it started to drizzle, and then to rain pretty hard. We were at our highest point on the glacier when it really started coming down. A Helicopter flew in to rescue somebody from another group, and take them down to the valley. I found out later that it was someone who was having an asthma attack, and just couldn't get it under control. There are helicopters flying around the glacier during the day, and the heli-hike was one of the options, but we both decided to stick with the full day trip. Our guide, Johnathon, said we made a good choice, since the heli hikes don't really get to see that much more ice, and it's over $100 more per person.

I got to try the little raincoat I got for my camera, which seemed to work pretty well. after a while, visibility was so poor, and it was raining so hard, I just decided to put everything in the drybag, and call it a day for photos...

It was an excellent day, I was a little worried about Katie's feet getting messed up the whole time, but near the end, when I asked her how she was doing, she was just grinning from ear to ear. Everything worked out just fine.

We went back down the glacier, got off the ice at around 4:30pm and back through the rain forest to the bus, where all 55 folks piled in like drowned rats. I was very glad it was only a 10 min. ride back to the village, it was pretty steamy and stinky on that bus.

We returned all of the gear to the guide shop, changed into some dry clothes, and ate next door at the cafe. I called ahead to our next night's stay at Haast, to let them know we'd be there around 8:30pm, since almost every little hotel and hostel closes the front desk at 8pm. This can be a big pain for trying to cover a lot of ground, because if you don't get to your room in time, or make other arrangements, you are out of luck. Well, the place I called didn't have any record of our reservation. In a little panic, I went through the old emails from places, and finally discovered the correct place. They said we would be in room 1 and they would leave the door unlocked and the key on the bed. After a 2 hour uneventful drive, we made it to Heritage Park Lodge in Haast, and found the room just as described.

Feb 12 - Truman and Pancake Rocks

2008-02-14T11:52:00.000-08:00

Today we started out on the Truman Track, which was a little 10 minute walk that left from our Hostel in Punakaiki. It went through a very lush rainforest, wound down through some native grasses and finished up on a beach with a rocky shoreline and deeply in-cut coves. The tide was low but was coming in, so the waves were really pounding the rocks. The beach itself was composed of tiny polished rocks which were really tough on the feet. There was a small waterfall at the back end of the beach dropping down the cliff and forming a little fresh water stream that trickled down to the shoreline.

We checked out of the Te Nikau retreat, which was the hostel we stayed at overnight. I asked the lady at the front desk about hiking up the Fox River, and she said that it would be pretty dangerous to do so, since they had just had some significant rain. That will have to wait until next time.

After we got back to the car, we drove for around 10 minutes south to the Pancake rocks in Punakaiki. A short path leads down to a rocky shore, and opens up in several places to views of these unique rock formations. The cliffs are structured in very regular and well defined layers of rocks. Deep ridges separarate the layers. The cliffs are on the shore, and when the tide is coming in, it makes for some very dramatic scenerey. The cliffs form narrow coves which amplify the rising water brought in by a wave such that one wave can cause a very quick rise in the water levels in these coves of 30-40 feet or more.

Attached to the side of the cliffs, right at waterline are a type of seaweed, which are some of the toughest plants I've ever seen. These things took like big bunches of black organic garden hose hanging from the cliff. when the waves rise and fall the seaweed is violently thrashed and swirled around the rocks. It's amazing the stuff is not pulverized. We saw some on the Truman track that had been pulled off of the rocks, and it is incredibly tough, I couldn't tear it by pulling it, almost like it was made of rubber.

Then we drove south through Greymouth, where we stopped for a quick lunch and grocery shopping, and continued on towards Franz Joseph. When we got to our Hostel at around 5:30 and parked the car, I noticed an older couple sitting behind their car in lawn charis having a gin and tonic at a little table they had set up. As we were walking to the car to go check out the glacier, I said to the old man "Looks like you guys have this thing figured out!" He got up and started talking with us. He had been a pilot in the New Zealand Navy and trained in the US during World War II. He trained in New York and Corpus Cristi (sp) Texas, and he said he loved it. After we talked for a little while, Katie and I took off to check out the glacier and returned a little later to get some dinner.

As we were about to leave our room, the old guy came up and invited us to have a drink with him and his friend. He said he was shown such hospitality in the US and never had the opportunity to return it, so he figured he'd take this chance to return the favor. We accepted and had a little bit of the Gin and Whiskey that he had distilled himself. I was a little leary, but since they had been drinking it themselves, I figured it was pretty safe, and it was surprisingly good. We talked for a good long while. He was from the North Island, and was going around to see all of the parts of New Zealand that he hadn't seen yet.

Katie and I then left for dinner, which was pretty good, it was a little pricey and the service was very slow. The villiage here at the base of the glacier is a hotspot for tourists, and I guess the dinner place is a side effect of that. The best meals we've gotten so far have come from the most unexpected places: mostly little unsuspecting neigborhood pubs which serve the most amazing food (the best rack of lamb I've ever had was at Eivan's in National Park, NZ ).

Anyhow, tomorrow we climb the glacier. It looks to be fun.

Feb 11 - Abel Tasman Sea Kayak

2008-02-14T11:42:00.000-08:00

Last night we stayed up kind of late talking with a lady named Susan from Scotland who is travelling all over the world. She used to be a bond trader, but took off starting this past May and just started travelling around. Coincidentally, she has a friend who just moved to Raleigh that we're going to be in touch with when we get back.

Today we got up and drove out of nelson to go Sea Kayaking at Abel Tasman National Park. We left the Green Monkey at 7am, for the 1.5 hour drive to the park entrance. We were in kind of a rush this morning, and I didn't do a good job of checking the GPS waypoint, which was a bit off. That caused a little panic as we were getting close and were almost late... We made it there in plenty of time. We met our guide, Dazza, yes, that's his name. He was a prototypical Kiwi Kayaker with long sunbleached blonde hair and super-tanned complexion. Also along for our trip was a guy, Oshiro, from Japan, who spoke very little english, and a couple from Holland.

After a quick briefing, at the kayak center which was around a small shed, we got onto the water taxi that would take us to the start of the paddling. The water taxi was on a boat trailer attached to a big farm tractor. The farm tractor pulled the boat with our group and one other down the little road and out to the mud flat. It was low tide at the time, so the tractor motored on out over the mud flat and then backed us into the water and sent us off.

The boat ride to the start was very choppy, and took a little over 30 minutes to get to the start. We prepared the boats and then paddled out to an active fur seal colony called Tonga Island.

The island was surrounded by large rocks, and the surf was pounding the rocks pretty heavilly. We stayed as close to the coast as we dared, in order to get a good look at the sea lions. There were only a very few, moslty females and a few pups, because the males had all left for the summer.

We then paddled back to the shoreline against fairly strong winds and surf. It seemed like about 20 minutes of continuous hard paddling to fight the conditions. Then, once we had the wind at our backs, Dazza pulled out a square sail. The 3 kayaks rafted up and the two folks sitting in front on either side (Katie and the girl from Holland) held onto a strap connected a corner of the sail. The two on the outsides in the rear of the kayaks (Me and the guy from Holland) attached the other two corners of the sail to the ends of their paddles with a velcro strap. Then we lifted our paddles vertically into the air, forming a huge square sail. We had to brace the paddle against the front of our seat to provide some leverage against the force of the sail. Pretty soon we were just flying along the water being pulled and bounced along at around 5-6 knots.

A little later we stopped on a beach for lunch. Dazza cooked up some steak pitas in a big frying pan, and grilled the bread in it. We had sides of salad and potatoes. After lunch we made some coffee in a French press pot. It was a big meal,far more fancy than I expected. During lunch I asked Dazza about his big Kayaking trips. He has kayaked the Cook Strait from Wellington to Picton solo. He also told me about a 1 month solo trip he had taken around the southern regions of the south island. Pretty cool stuff.

We spent the rest of the day exploring around the lagoons and little inlets. Dazza was very knowledgable and pointed out all of the wildlife we saw along the way, and told us about the history of the Park. We saw a stingray just before the start, several gannets, and this relative of the penguin that is the only bird with webbed feet that nests in trees.

When we got to the pickup point, we saw a capsized kayak, which apparently belongd to two girls who got too close to some of the rocks. They were standing on the beach with bloodied legs and shoulders from being bounced up against the rocks. It looked like just really bad abrasions, and that they would be ok.

We took the water taxi back to the dock (only a 5-10 minute ride this time) and finished up at the kayak center where we got a hot shower, and loaded up and headed for Punakaiki. We took a route reccommended by the owner of th Green Monkey, which turned out to be very scenic along the Motueka River Valley, and the Lower Buller Valley. The drive took about 3.5 hours.

We checked into the Te Niku Lodge and called it a night...

P.S. Happy Birthday Caitlin!

Feb 10 Wellington to Nelson

2008-02-14T11:37:00.000-08:00

We woke up early this morning, checked out of the Halswell and drove to the ferry to cross over to the South Island. We checked in at 7:25am, and drove our car on the ferry for a 3 hour ride to Picton. It started raining on the way there. We talked with a guy who drove a milk truck and was also a motorcycle mechanic. He was going to ride his motorcycle around the South Island for 10 days. He gave us some very good advice on what we should do when we finish up the south island after our Routeburn track hike.

Going into Picton, the geography is like a mountain range sunken into the sea, because that is exactly how it
was formed. There were low hanging clouds and fog, it was really pretty on the ferry through that region.

Katie and I went to the Picton I-Site (tourist info) and we changed our accomodations for the night after the Routeburn track. We decided to go for an overnight cruise on the sound instead of staying at the Milford lodge. It won't be a gigantic ship, and we will be sharing bunks with 2 other people (it's 4 to a room), but the advantages are that we get dinner, breakfast, and we get to stay on the sound after all the other cruise ships have left for the day.

We then drove towards Nelson where we were at a youth hostle for the evening. The drive we took is called the Queen Charlotte Drive, which follows the coastline and dips in and out of the many sounds along the coast. We stopped for a short hike down to a little beach.

Then we continued to Havelock a little coastal town that is billed as the Green Shell Mussel capitol of the world. So naturally, I wanted to stop and eat some green shell mussels, unfortunately it was 3:00pm and the "Mussel Pot" was closed until 4pm, and we had to get a move on. So we grabbed a quick bite at a cafe and rolled on to Nelson.

Our plans were foiled again this evening. After checking in to the Green Monkey, we wanted to go into town and eat Ice Cream at a place called Penguino in Nelson. We walked downtown and found that it, along with almost everything else in Nelson had closed at 4:30pm. Katie had picked this place out long ago, and was despondant that they were not open. We are leaving Nelson tomorrow at 7am to go for a full day Sea Kayaking, so there's no chance for Penguino Ice Cream in Nelson on this trip. Maybe we can find one somewhere else.

We checked into The Green Monkey youth hostel, which is extremely nice. We have a large bedroom, and free internet, a very nice kitchen, and a nice little black cat that is sleeping on our bed right now, which is making Katie feel a little better about missing Penguino's this evening.

Tomorrow will be a long day, and probably an internet blackout for the next couple of days, so sit tight, I'll catch up when I get re-connected.

Feb 9th - Tongariro to Wellington.

2008-02-14T11:28:00.000-08:00

Today we woke up early, packed up our stuff and loaded up the rental car, a Nissan Wingroad, which we have called everything from the Rim runner to bowl streaker. We headed down to Wellington. It was billed as a 4 hour drive, and turns out the GPS was dead on target this time. We call it Judith because that's what one of Katie's friends calls her GPS, as it speaks in a female voice with a Brittish accent. That's not to say we trusted Judith completely, we did check the entire route she recommended before heading out.

Where's Waldo? (find the sheep)

The drive was pretty easy, by NZ standards. None of the driving is ever as easy as driving on interstates in the US, since all of the major roads anywhere outside a handful of major cities are two lanes at best. NZ is very fond of one lane bridges, where one direction has to yield to the other direction before they cross. There is a sign indicating whether or not you have the right of way a little bit before each bridge. It keeps you on your toes. Every once and a while, there is a passing lane, but the general rule is two lanes. This makes the driving demand alot more attention, and as such is much more stressful than cruising along an interstate for hours at a time.

We stopped for brunch at Wanganui, a small town that sits just inland where the Whanganui river flows into the Tasman Sea. They had a very nice main street and we sat outside at a little bistro and had an incredible meal. We then continued on to Wellington, which was about 2 hours from there. It took us a while to figure out where our hotel was as Judith was a little bit off on her location of it, and it was on a one way street. This made for many, many U-Turns in pretty heavy weekend traffic on tight city streets. We finally found the hotel and the "carpark" (Kiwi for parking lot). Getting to the carpark required driving up a very narrow 150 foot long alley inclined about 30 degrees (about the same pitch as a normal roof), and with only about 6-8 inches on either side. The carpark only had 1 space available, and we took it. Needless to say, we were very content to leave the car where we parked it for the evening.

After checking in we walked around the city, we ate fish and chips at a brewery by the harbor, and played around on a playground by the waterfront. Then we got some more groceries, ate gellato (raspberry/chocolate, and Chocolate Hazlenut for Katie), and went back to the hotel.

2008-02-10T03:10:00.001-08:00

February 8,2008

Tongariro Crossing -
Today was the day for the tongariro crossing, a 10 + mile hike with a couple thousand feet of elevation gain that goes between Ngaurahoe and Tongariro. Almost all of the hiking is above tree line (which is only about 3000 ft. here in NZ, so no altitude problems) Ngauruhoe is a classic cinder cone volcano, and was used as Mt. Doom in Lord of the Rings. This is the most popular day hike in New Zealand, they estimate that around 100,000 people per year do it. On good weather days, the trail can look like an ant trail with all of the people clogging it up.

The place we stayed at, The Discovery Lodge, runs a shuttle from the lodge to the start, and they pick you back up at the finish and bring you home. The really nice thing about this particular shuttle is that it leaves the lodge at 5:30am and gets to the start of the track at around 5:45am, which is the earliest drop off by about 45 min. This gets you well ahead of the madding crowd and you do the first climbs before the sun gets over the ridge.

So this meant a pretty early start for us.

There were about 30 people on the shuttle from our hotel, and we got to the start, and had a quick run-down of where we needed to be by what time to make the return pickup at 2pm, and we were off.

The group spread out pretty well, and we walked as the sun slowly rose. The we started the first climb, at the top of which we had some great views of Ngaurahoe.

Then it leveled off for a little bit, and then climbed again, and continued up to Red Crater, the highest point of the hike.

There we had views of the Emerald lakes which we were walking towards, and Red Crater, and Ngaurahoe. You could see all of the previous lava flows that had gone down the mountain in the past. It was very obvious that this was still a live volcano, because at the top there were active steam vents venting sulfurous steam along the path we were on.

Coming down from Red Crater was a pretty steep scree slope ( really loose small rocks ) which, if you don't know how to scree run, is very had to get down. But scree running is really fun, it was so deep in places that it felt almost like skiing in calf deep powder. It's kind of a controlled slide as you run. You can really move down the hill well doing this, and it really saves your knees.

The bad part about the way the hike is set up is that the entire 2nd half of it is all down hill, almost continuously so.

This is really tough on the knees. About one hour from the finish the trail goes into a native forest, which feels like a rain forest after being above tree line for 7 hours. It was so nice to get into the cool shade after being exposed to the elements for so long. For the last 30 minutes or so of the hike, it follows a very swiftly running stream,which is unsafe to drink from because it flows out of the volcanic fumeroles picking up nasty chemicals along the way.

We made it to the the finish, with about 20 minutes to spare before our shuttle arrived and brought us back to the lodge. We cleaned up and took a nap...

Tomorrow we travel to Wellington, to get ready for the trip over to the south island the following day.

You'll have a hell of a time if you go that way...

2008-02-10T02:57:00.000-08:00

February 7, 2008

Last night we slept in the KiwiPaka youth hostel. It was a pretty nice little room, just a bed and small desk with a chair. At around 1:30am, though a group of kids came in from drinking or something and were making lots of noise, so I had to poke my head out the door and yell at them to get them to be quiet.

Today we went on a guided cave trip from Waitomo, the company was called rap rock and raft, or something like that. We got up and checked out of the Youth hostel before 8am, and ate breakfast. We went to the meeting place for the caving trip and then were driven to a little hut where we changed into our caving gear... They provided wetsuits, overpants to protect the wetsuits, rubber boots, helmets with headlamps, and harnesess. It was a little bit chilly and putting on the wet wetsuits wasn't too pleasant, but they quickly warmed up. I started talking to the guide about stuff, and it turns out that he went to school with the guy I talked to yesterday. He said he and Kirian started caving together about 24 years ago. He was a very good guide, letting folks know what was dangerous, but also making them comfortable about the stuff we were going to do.

We rappelled about 80 feet into the cave. we then grabbed our inner tubes ( which were at one end of the cave ) and started walking into the darkness, in about knee deep water with our headlamps on. The roof of the cave varied between about 30 feet high to just over 6 feet high, so it was by no means a tight squeeze.

At one point, Paul pointed out a couple of eels in the water, that he seemed to know pretty well, he stopped and petted one of the eels and pointed out some of the marks on the eel from territorial fighting. Paul said that he collected snails from his garden sometimes and brought them to this one particular eel...

As we were going deeper into the cave, I got near the back of the group of 6 and covered my light and looked back towards where we came from. The ceiling of the cave was covered with little bluish green lights. These are glowworms using bioluminescence to attract flying insects for food. We got pretty deep into the cave, and turned our lights out in a particularly big opening and it looked like a sky full of stars. Then paul smacked his inner tube on the water which caused a BIG reverberating BOOOM and slowly the glow worms got brighter and more of them started glowing. He said that they don't know exactly why they do this, but one theory is that the vibration from the loud sound was similar to the vibration they detect in the air when a prey insect is near, and they brighten to attract the prey... Whatever the reason, it was a cool trick.

We then floated in our inner tubes back down the cave, past where we rappelled in, and further into the other side. All along the while, Paul was taking pictures of the group. I asked before hand what I would need to bring in my camera, and he said they just don't allow it, because it would just slow down the group if everybody was taking pictures. Then we stopped and he took a picture of the group.

After the trip was over we stayed around and talked with Paul for a while about outdoors stuff, he's planning on starting his own guiding company, and he apparently is very into photography, and took many of the photos that are on the brochures advertising for the various companies... It was really good talking with him. He pointed us to a hike on the south island that we should do, as we go between punakaiki and franz joseph...

We then got in the car, picked up some groceries and headed towards tongariro. The GPS told us to turn at one point, and so I did... it took us on a twisty road, which eventually turned to a 1 lane steep gravel road through very remote mountains. It was kinda fun for a while, and then we came to a gate that said ("Do not enter unless you have been informed about the dangers that lie beyond this point" ) So I guessed it was time to turn around. I executed a 3 point turn in a driveway at the end of the road. As I was doing so, I noticed a little old lady looking at us from her door by the driveway. I stopped and got out and talked with her for a little bit, telling her where we were heading and that the GPS had led us wrong. She said that there used to be a road going through there but it was gone now and we "would have had a hell of a time" trying to get through on that road... So I backtracked to the main highway and went on to tongariro.

The next morning would be the Tongariro Crossing...

White Island, plan B...

2008-02-09T23:55:00.000-08:00

February 6, 2008

We ate at an excellent mediteranian retaurant for our last night in Tauranga, Zeytin.
Good food at the waterfront of Tauranga.

Well,last night when we got back to our room, we found that a message had been put under our door from the White Island tours. We were expecting one that told us when we would be departing for the tour the following morning. Instead, the message was that the tour had been canceled due to gale force wind forecast. Which was a real bummer, since we didn't have anything else planned for the day.

We consulted the books and maps and decided to go to Wai-o-tapu geothermal park. It was somewhat on the way to our next overnight spot in Waitomo, and was listed as a cool place to go. So we got up this morning and started down the road. It was pretty neat, but there were alot of people there. The park had an abundance of bubbling pools of mud, acidic water, sulfur vents, and boiling waterfalls. We spent about 2 hours there on a walking tour. Near the end of the tour there is a huge spring of hot steaming water. Due to the minerals in the water, there is a white crust on top, and a bright orange layer of deposits just below the water line. The water itself looks bright green. It made for some interesting photos...

At the end of the walk was a huge, snot green pool they called Devil's something or the other ( I didn't pay much attention to the names of the things ). After we finished the tour we got back in the car and headed for Waitomo ~2h drive.

When we got to Waitomo there was an ostrich farm by the side of the road with one of
them next to the fence. I pulled over, and Katie and I got out the check out this one
big bird. We inadvertantly started a big ostrich party as they came over to see if we
were going to feed them something.

AWWSTRICH PARTY:

We checked into our Hostel the KiwiPaka, put the sheets on the bed, and went to grab a bite to eat. We ate at the HuHu cafe. While we were sitting there a guy came in and was talking to what appeared to be the owner of the cafe before he sat down. I overheard him saying something about caving training. (We were not able to book the trip with the caving company that we originally wanted to, because they said that their guides would be training on Thursday). The guy sat down close to us, and after a little while, I caught his eye and asked if he worked with the company that we wanted to originally book. Turns out this guy was Kieran McKay, the owner of the company (Absolute Adventure). So we wound up talking to him for close to an hour about what we absolutely shouldn't miss while we are here. He gave us some good advice on some places to check out. He was a really nice guy, and we had a good conversation on climbing, exploring, and some of the details of running the business that he does.

We got into discussing the liability of guiding folks in a inherently dangerous setting. He told us that in NZ you cannot sue guides if you get hurt, but that if you do get hurt, NZ will pay for all of your medical expenses. It's kind an insurance that all companies pay into. He said that in his experience in guiding people that if you let them know up front that they are responsible for their own actions, they tend to do a much better job at taking care of themselves, while if you have a guide that helps folks every step of the way, they tend to become dependent, stop thinking for themselves, and end up not taking very good care of themselves.

The trips he guides start out with one of the most difficult things they do on the
entire trip, which gets the clients into the right frame of mind. This keeps them safe for the entire time.

After dinner, Katie and I went to do a walk around on the Rauakuri Walk, a path that
went through the forest and led us into a natural tunnel, and into some little caves.

There were a few little waterfalls along the way too. Neat stuff.

Tomorrow is caving with one of the tour companies local to here. We'll see how it goes.

They weren't our first choice, but it'll still be good fun.

In Wellington...

2008-02-08T23:33:00.001-08:00

We're in Wellington tonight and all is well, I'm using the computer at
the front desk at the Haswell Lodge right now... expect some big
updates when we get a good Internet connection.

Tomorrow we head over to the South Island via the ferry...
--
///Mitch

We got into hot water today...

2008-02-05T00:52:00.000-08:00

Let me start off by saying that today the driving was much better. It's amazing the difference 8 hours of sleep makes.

Today started off with a quick breakfast and coffee from the bakery across the street from our hotel. We then hopped in the car, and drove for 2.5 hours north to a little town called Hahei. Along the way, we crossed 2 small mountain passes, with very curvy and narrow roads. The driving was much easier and more natural. In Hahei, there were 2 things we wanted to see.

Hot Water Beach is a nice cove that has a hot geothermal spring underneath it. When the tide goes out, you can dig into the sand and the hot water fills up the hole. Instant hot-tub. It's a neat thing. When we got there in the morning there were very few people around. But soon they started piling in with shovels. Apparently finding the hot spring is a hit-or-miss kind of thing, and when somebody found one, everybody would pitch in and dig it out. The holes would get pretty big, and then a giant wave would dump in over the wall, and the entire crowd would let out a collective AAAAAAHHHH.... Standing in the holes digging, if you hit a good hot spot, it would be too hot to stand directly over the spot. As I was lifting shovels full of wet sand out, I could see a little steam rising off of the freshly dug sand.

It was pretty crowded. It was fun for a little while, but then we wandered off to quieter parts of the beach and took a few photos.

Then Katie returned our rented shovel (or hired spade, as the folks here would say) and got back in the car and drove to seek out Cathedral Cove. We stopped and ate at a little cafe in Hahei where they had the most excellent chocolate cake.

Cathedral cove is found at the end of about an hour long walk that climbs from the beach and goes along giant limestone cliffs that tower above turquoise blue water. When the trail goes inland, the plants are tropical in nature, big palms and ferns all over the place.

At the end of the trail you descend steps down from the cliff to a beach. Then to get to Cathedral cove, you must cross through a 150 foot long, 90 foot high arch that has been carved through the cliff face. The other side of this "Cathedral" is right at shoreline and at high tide, you have to wade through the surf to get to the protected beach on the other side.

It was really a spectacular beach.

On the way back to Hahei, we stopped at Stingray Bay, which is another limestone cliff lined cove.

And we saw a group of these birds, We're not really sure what kind it is, maybe some type of partridge ? Anybody know? ...Bueller ...Bueller ?

Then we got in the car, and Katie decided she needed to drive, so I handed her the keys and she drove almost half the way back to Tauranga, and did a much better job than I did my first turn behind the wheel down here...

Feb. 5 : This is wrong but it feels so right...

2008-02-03T23:58:00.000-08:00

(a photo from our walk today)

The flight over the pacific was 13 hours, plus 1 hour sitting on the Tarmac in SF.

funny little something we saw in SF:

We ate dinner in the international terminal at a Japanese restaurant while waiting for our flight. Sitting adjacent to us at the sushi bar was a couple and their young boy. The young boy was about 3 or 4 years old, and he was being a pretty good little kid. He was obviously excited about flying: making airplane noises and swooping his chopsticks around like a plane. So at one point we heard the father ask the boy "You liked the green ones didn't you ?" The kid nodded his head, so the father ordered some avocado rolls from the chef. The restaurant wasn't too busy, so he made them right away and handed them over the bar to the father, who put the little tray in front of his son and resumed talking with his wife. The kid started gobbling up the avocado rolls, when he made a mistake he will not soon forget. He did something very understandable for a 3 or 4 year old, and something even some adults have done before... he mistook the large wad of wasabi on the tray for a large wad of avocado, and popped the whole thing in his mouth... His mom saw it going into his mouth, but was too late to react. There was the cruel 3 second delay that strong wasabi has before it hits really hard, and then the child started bawling, he spit out the wasabi. His parents tried to give him milk, but he coughed and spewed it out all over the sushi bar, I'm pretty sure some came out his nose. He was crying and they were doing all they could to calm him down. It took a while but he finally came back down to earth. But I don't think he finished the avocado rolls...

Anyway, we made it over the Pacific. I was able to get about 5 hours of sleep, which is better than I expected. When we landed it was 5:30am. We made it through customs with no issues, rented a SIM card for the mobile phone lent to us by a friend, and boarded the bus to go pick up a rental car. I jokingly asked the rental car guys if they had a test track for people driving on the left for the first time. He chuckled. But let me tell you guys, driving on the left is NO JOKE. It's not just "driving around in the other lane", oh no. Everything you have learned gets switched around in this bizare mirror world. All of your instincts, the little things that are automatic while driving, are absolutely wrong. If anything you are do while driving feels like you are doing it right, then you are doing it wrong. And if you are doing something right, it feels SO Wrong.

I never realized how much of the things we are proficient at rely upon our ability to predict how things will behave. For instance, when I am mountain biking a lot, I know exactly and instinctively how my bike will react to a given steering input, or body lean, or brake tap. Part of riding well relies on an unconscious model of how all of the variables behave, bike, trail surface, tires, etc. You can only develop this model by riding the same bike for hours and hours. When something changes on your bike, even as small as a 1 cm shortening of the stem, changes the steering speed very slightly, but it will cause me to be ricocheting off every tree in the forest, until I adapt the model to incorporate the new stem length. It's not a conscious effort, it just happens over time.

Now think about driving, and how many little things you don't even know you know, and how they relate to driving on the side of the road you have always driven on. And how much of driving reactions depend on your ability to predict what the other drivers on the road are all going to do. I'll give you one subtle one as an example. Imagine you are driving along a road and a car approaches from a side road on your right. You see, as you glance at the car, that the driver has his left turn signal on, going to turn left onto the road you are on. As he approaches the intersection, he slows a little and begins pull out and make the left turn as if he didn't even see you coming. OH NO HE'S GOING TO HIT YOU!!! But in NZ when this happens it's all OK, because he's turning left, into the left hand lane, and doesn't have to cross your path. There's lots of little ones like this that give you minor CI's until you get used to it.

Also every time I signal for a turn, I flip on the windshield wipers. This is because the turn signal and wipers are swapped. It's strange to look up and to the left to glance in the rear view mirror. Also looking down and to the right for the side view is strange. Shifting from Park to Drive is done with the left hand... DUH. All these little things add up, and it's really wierd.

Anyway... So I drive really slowly and carefully, and take my time and eventually get to the hotel. It's kinda fun trying to rewarp your brain to drive well...

SO We made it to the hotel (2.5 hour drive) took a 20 min nap, and then and went for a walk around. We went to Mount Mauao and walked along the beach. The photo is from our walk.

San Fran...

2008-02-02T17:53:00.001-08:00

We left the gate in Chicago on time, but then got delayed on the tarmac for 45 min. It was due to high winds in San Francisco. It really wasn't any problem, since we had a 4 hour layover there.

We are sitting at the Air New Zealand gate, waiting for the flight. It will be a 13 hour flight, When we get to Aukland it will be 5am local time Monday morning.

The plan then is to pick up the rental phone and rental car, and drive to our hotel for the first 2 nights in Tauranga. It should be about a 2.5 hour drive. It's going to be interesting driving on the left. I've been trying to get ready for it mentally over the past couple of weeks by imagining driving on the left... I'm sure it will be very different from what I can imagine.

This will be the last update for a while. You'll hear from us next in NZ.

coords:
N 37 37.013
W 122 23.576

///Mitch

Chicago...

2008-02-02T09:57:00.001-08:00

We made it to Chicago 15 min ahead of schedule. There is a lot of snow on the ground here.

Everything is going well so far...
Katie slept almost the whole flight here. She said her body can tell it's vaccation time.

Here's a terrible cellphone picture of the plane that's supposed to take us to San Francisco... Boarding in 9 minutes.

Current Coords:
N 41�58.847
W 87�54.611
///Mitch

Things to do while in NZ...

2008-02-02T04:16:00.001-08:00

http://www.aatravel.co.nz/101-must-dos-for-kiwis/

We're planning on doing almost all of the ones in the top 20...

This is a neat little page I found after I had planed everything, and
it turns out I picked some of the good stuff. Gives a good sense of
what we're so excited about.

--
///Mitch

Firing up the blog machine!

2008-02-01T19:03:00.001-08:00

It seems like there are enough people who are or will be interested in our progress, so I decided to set up a blog to chronicle this thing.

We're leaving tomorrow morning, and everything is coming together well. We just missed a bad weather episode in Chicago. Today they had about a foot of snow, which caused many of the flights to be canceled. The same weather event has messed up flights in the Northeast. I just hope all of the crap has worked itself out of the system by the time we are supposed to leave.

I just finished re-packing our tent, hiking boots, and trekking poles. I had to completely scrub down all of the items that had dirt on them, because I read that New Zealand has very strict biosecurity policies. Basically they are worried about soil contamination (hoof and mouth
disease, anthrax) and bringing in any seeds that may introduce non-native species.

Katie's Dad is picking us up tomorrow morning and taking us to the airport. We're finishing up packing and running around like crazy. It's going to be a crazy good 3 weeks.

///Mitch