12/21

In Rotorua, we visited Te Puia and the Moari Cultural center.  It was very interesting to learn about the Moari people and the treaty they signed with the British Crown.

In the afternoon we spent a few hours at the luge.  They had ski lifts to take you to the top of the hill which is the start of the course.  Then you hop in one of the luge cars and race down the hill, steering your car down the path.  It was a blast!  Those cars were fast!

The next day, we went Zorbing.  You climb into a giant, inflatable hamster ball and they push you down a hill.

After Zorbing we went to a nursery and bought several packets of seeds, thinking we would love to grow some of the plants we’ve seen back home.  (years later the seeds are sitting in a drawer)  We drove to Whakatane and did some beach combing before calling it a day.

The next day, we took a tour to White Island, the volcano.  The crater is filled with sea water but is very very acidic from proximity to the volcano.  The island is so acidic that wash from the beach produces precipitate in the ocean water.  I thought that was cool to see.

After we got back, we drove to Coromandel where we spent Christmas.  We had booked a hostel in town but it was very packed with a family.  When we arrived, they had filled the entire refrigerator with their groceries and had claimed every bed in the house.  It was a bit frustrating.  We were worried that we wouldn’t be able to get another place on such short notice (especially since everything was closing).  So we rushed back to the visitor’s information building and inquired there for a place.  They gave a few suggestions that didn’t pan out but the last was a farm not too far away.  We drove out to the farm to inquire about a room and what we got was spectacular.  This couple had built a small house to live in while they built their ‘real’ house.  After completion, they rented the small one.  It was perfect, and the couple was super nice.

After settling in, we went to Waiau Falls and a Kauri Grove.

We borrowed a shovel from the farm and spent Christmas at the hot water beach.  If you dug down into the sand, super hot water would bubble up.  After we had our fill of the beach we went to Cathedral cove and hiked around a little bit.

We spent the next several days in Auckland before our flight back to the states.  Auckland was the largest city we visited, and it felt similar to Melbourne.  We were sad to have to leave, it was quite a journey.

12/12

There was a whale watching tour from a plane (they even let you fly the plane!).  I had always wanted to fly a plane, so this sounded pretty awesome to me.

From the air, we spotted a sperm whale and followed it around a bit.

When we were planning the trip to New Zealand, the travel agent we used told us to skip Kaikoura because it is too touristy.  However, early in our trip we were talking to others in our hostel and they said that the dolphin swim was a necessity.  So when we came through Kaikoura we signed up to swim with dolphins.  The dolphin swim here is in the open water.  That’s important to note because the dolphins are not baited, in a cage, trained- they are wild dolphins.  In the morning before heading out on the boat they have you watch a video and do some minor training with us.  Dolphins are intelligent, curious animals.  To attract the dolphins to us in the water, we were told we have to make noise in the water and/or splash about doing strange actions.  The dolphins will come closer to investigate.  If a dolphin locks eyes with you, they are challenging you to a swimming contest.  They will swim in a circle around you and you must attempt to do the same while maintaining eye contact.  If you When you break eye contact, the dolphin will swim off.

The weather didn’t cooperate and after the training the excursion was cancelled.  So we went on a swim with seals instead.  I wasn’t prepared for the water temperature and after just a few minutes swimming around, my wedding ring fell off and sank to the bottom of the Kaikoura trench.  I was pretty upset about that for a while.

The next day we got to do the dolphin swim.

We dropped into the water three or four times and swam with several pods of dolphins.  After the swim, the ship made its way back to Kaikoura.  On the way, we saw more dolphins and even a pod of Orcas.

When we got back we headed on toward Picton, stopping at Ohau waterfall.

We took the ferry to Wellington and saw a few sites there before trying to find more LOTR filming locations.

Ohakune Ithilien and Mordor

Rangitikiei River Gorge River Anduin

Putangirua Pinnacles the Dimholt Road

Here I tried walking up to the base of the pinnacles for a photo.  The ground was covered with the gravel and shells that make up these formations.  It was quite unstable and I took a spill on the way down.  The rocks were very sharp!  It was a painful drop.  I think I sat there for ten minutes to compose myself.

Harcourt Park Isengard Gardens

Ruapehu, Mead’s Wall Mordor and the Emyn Muil

We also stopped by Huka Falls in the rain and Taupo.  Pulling into the parking lot in the car, you could feel the earth vibrate from the rushing water that is Huka Falls.  It was incredible to feel it, to hear it- that river was moving!

Craters of the Moon

The following day we drove to Rotorua and attended a Hangi Feast.  The men paddled down this river to the stage area.  We all crowded around the river to get a few pictures.  Some of the tourists here were very pushy and one lady kept pushing against me.  She nearly pushed me into the river, so I tried to give her more room.  She took it with a shove and fell off balance into the river.

12/6

On the way to Milford Sound we passed by some beautiful scenery and stopped at The Chasm and passed through Homer’s Tunnel.  The Chasm is a wonderful testament to the power of water, watching the flow vanish into darkness as it cuts its way out to the sound.

On the other side, we found our ship, the ‘Wanderer’, parked the car and got aboard.

We set off on our overnight trip into the sound.  We were extremely fortunate, it was dry the day we arrived and it rained overnight.  The sound was beautiful and lush and green on the way out.  We even saw penguins on the shore!  The way back was misty with waterfalls everywhere.  The Wanderer stopped at the deep underwater observatory.  The biosphere near this station is unique in that while it is only 10m deep, there is life here normally only found at 500m depth.  This is because the freshwater draining into the sound floats on the surface above the salt water and reflects a lot of light that would normally penetrate deep into the sea.  Here we saw black coral (it’s white when it’s alive).

Next we headed off for Te Anau.  The storm overnight brought some trees down on the only road leading out of the sound.  When we came upon the stopped traffic, I got out and spent awhile moving trees off the road with everyone else.  Trees are heavy!  After we cleared the road, we headed into town to the glowworm caves.  Gliding across the water on a little boat in the dark watching the glowing specks on the ceiling was a fascinating experience.  We came out of the cave and continued on to Invercargill where we stayed the night.

The next morning we headed to the Catlins and got a flat tire on the way.  Probably from the debris on the road after the storm.  We stopped briefly at Curio bay to see the petrified forest on our way to Cathedral caves.  You can only walk into Cathedral caves at low tide and our timing was off!  We tried to hike around to see what we could but we couldn’t get far.  So we went to the beautiful Purakaunui Falls then Nugget Point before going on to Dunedin where we stayed at Hogwartz.

After breakfast we did the Cadbury tour then went to the Otago Peninsula.  There we saw Royal albatrosses.  It’s tough to describe the scale of the albatross.  At the albatross observatory they had a wingspan model to give you an idea.

There was a farm with covered trenches that mazed across the property.  They were observation tunnels where you could walk and view penguins up close.  The penguins weren’t afraid because they could only see your eyes through the observation slits.  What an amazing experience!  We were unbelievably close to the penguins.  Better yet, when we asked for a suggestion for a place to stay the night, they said we could stay right there at the farm!  Everyone has a B&B in New Zealand!

The following day we drove by the world’s steepest street then Larnach castle before visiting the moeraki boulders.  Then we went to Fleur’s Place for dinner.  That night we stayed at Olive Grove.

In the morning, we took to the scenic highway toward Mt. Sunday.  Earlier in the week, we picked up a Lord of the Rings filming location book and picked some sites near our route to stop and visit.  We stopped at whitestone cheese in Oamaru then headed back to Christchurch to stay the night.  Before heading to the hostel we visited the Willowbank wildlife reserve where we saw Kiwi and Tuatara.

We stayed at a slightly older hostel and when Jenn took a shower, the steam swelled the door shut and she got locked in.  She pounded on the door for help, ‘Get my husband!’  Another guest answered, ‘what room?’  ‘He’s in Room F!’  This hostel had no room F- they were all numbered.  I think we were in room 3.  We had been in so many different places over the past two weeks it was pretty tough to remember things like that, especially in a laid back environment like the hostels.  In her panic, I think she turned the key and locked herself in, in addition to the door getting stuck.  Eventually I figured it out and freed my maiden in distress!

We had planned to take a hot air balloon ride but it was cancelled, so we visited the waipara wine valley to drown our sorrows before continuing on to Kaikoura.

11/29

We flew to New Zealand and made our way to Christchurch.  We walked around a bit before heading back to our room and getting some much-needed rest.

The following day we discovered meat pies at the Copenhagen bakery.  Over the next several days I tried to get pies at least twice a day.  After breakfast we visited the Antarctic Center.  They had blue fairy penguins in an enclosure and we watched them swim around for a while.  Then we rode in a Hagglund around a course they built to show off the tank’s capabilities.  After the Antarctic Center we walked around Christchurch some more taking in sights, such as the dandelion fountain by the river.

The next day we took the TranzAlpine railroad across the continent to Greymouth where we rented a car.  This is when the real NZ adventure began.  I was pretty anxious about driving on the left side of the road, and over the course of our trip there was a time or two where I pulled into the wrong side of the road by habit.  Thankfully, there was VERY little traffic on the road and both times I made that error there was no one around to witness it.  Except Jenn, of course.  After we got the car, we drove to Punakaiki to see the pancake rocks, then on to Hokitika for sunset and our hostel.

We did some shopping in Hokitika and bought some jade.  We had quite a time trying to buy a Styrofoam cooler to store our groceries in the car.  In Australia, the major cooler manufacturer was eskimo, and they called their coolers ‘eskies’.  On our tour of the red center we used them a lot so we picked up their terminology.  They did not call them eskies in NZ, and it took a while to explain just what it was we were looking for.  We asked at the grocery store, the gas station, even at a jewelry store.  Eventually the ladies at the jewelry shop told us we were trying to buy a ‘chilly-bin’ and sent us back to the grocery store to buy one.  As we were in line to check out, we asked for some ice.  They didn’t understand what we wanted.  Frozen water, I say.  ‘Ohhhhh, OICE!’ the checker says.  ‘Like Oice Oice baby!’, he says.  ‘Say Oice again!’ he requests.  It was pretty funny.  We got our groceries in our chilly bin with our oice and we were on our way.  From Hokitika, we went to Fox Glacier where we did the terminal face walk at the glacier.

We signed up for the heli-hike atop Fox Glacier but it took a few days for the weather to clear so we kinda just hung out at Lake Matheson playing cards.  NZ had very interesting birds.  The black one is a Pukeko and the green one is an alpine parrot or Kea.  When we visited Gillespie beach we met our first of many sheep.

The next day was clear enough for our helicopter to land on the glacier for our hike.  It was awesome!  Our guide was long-legged so Jenn had trouble trying to cross the chasms he could casually step across.  The air was crisp, the ice was blue, and they told us the dirt was from Australia- carried over by clouds.

We loaded up the car and headed out for Wanaka.  Unfortunately, we discovered a little too late that NZ isn’t like the states in regard to gas stations.  They are few and far between and we ran out of gas near Haast and decided to try to sleep on the beach.  We stepped put of the car and were swarmed by mosquitoes.  We lept back in the car and killed the blood suckers for an hour.  It also turns out that the beach in Haast was crazy cold.  We put on ALL of our clothes and tried to sleep in the car.  It didn’t work out so well.  Morning arrived very slowly.  We got some gas and continued on to Wanaka.  After arriving at the Purple Cow, we slept a bit before getting sunburned on a jet boat and visiting puzzling world.

Then we drove to Milford Sound.