Back to Reality

We've been back for a little over a week and a half. The post-travel glow is slowly wearing off as our normal, day-to-day routine is now back in full swing. We're definitely happy to be back home with our family, friends and of course, Tachi, our dog. If we ever need a break from the routine, we can look at our pictures from New Zealand.

And so can you! We've finally finished sorting our New Zealand pictures and posting them online. We didn't process them, even though Cheryl really wanted to. Maybe she'll get around to processing some of them during the holidays. WARNING: There are a lot of pictures, and it's only a fraction of the pictures we actually took.

Parting Thoughts

We leave New Zealand today and will spend most of our time on planes and at the airport. We're flying from Queenstown to Auckland and will have a 4.5 hour layover in in Auckland before we depart for San Francisco. Thank goodness for the Air New Zealand lounge, wireless internet and duty-free shopping.

Quite a few people we've met have asked us what our favorite part of New Zealand is. And it's really hard to say because each place we visited was unique in its own way. But here's our list of our top 3 favorites.

Cheryl
1. Hiking Franz Josef glacier
2. Relaxing and wine tasting in Hawkes Bay
3. Blackwater rafting in Waitomo

Greg
1. Blackwater rafting in Waitomo
2. Kiwi Experience in Rotorua
3. Hiking Franz Josef glacier

Top Kiwi Sayings (in no particular order)
1. Cheers, mate: Not a toast, but seemed to be how folks generally said thanks.
2. How ya going?: Umm..by car? Nope, we soon discovered that this phrase basically means How are you? Or what's up?
3. Good on ya: Nope, not saying that the shirt looks good on you, but they're saying is good job or good for you.
4. Flash: Not the flash on your camera. Flash means fancy. Flash yoghurt, flash camera, flash car, flash house, flash restaurant.
5. Give it a go: Try it.
6. Oi, seal: This one is Greg's contribution.
7. Ki Ora: Maori word for hello, goodbye, thank you

We think the south island is much more scenic than the north. The Maori influence is much stronger on the north island. Agriculture/farming is still a big part of the culture and landscape. The pace of life is much slower in New Zealand. And the kiwi people are really friendly and helpful folks.

Relaxing in Queenstown

We did the 2 hour drive back to Queenstown this morning. It was another beautiful day, and Cheryl managed to stay awake for the entire drive back to Queenstown. We were a bit early to check into our last home, so we decided to check out Arrowtown, a small town about 20 minutes outside Queenstown.

Arrowtown was a booming gold mining town during the New Zealand gold rush in the mid-1800s. The town has maintained it's old western town feel with many original buildings. They held the Michael Hill NZ Open (golf tournament) in Arrowtown just a few days ago. Similar to the California gold rush, the NZ gold rush brought many Chinese from Quandong province to the area to mine for gold. We visited a restored Chinese settlement in Arrowtown and discovered that the Chinese gold miners in NZ experienced similar prejudice and discrimination that the Chinese in California experienced. However, it seemed less violent than the experiences of the Chinese in California.

From here we headed back to Queenstown to check into The Dairy, a private luxury hotel. It's was a very nice bed and breakfast, with a comfy lounge, library and honor bar. It's called The Dairy because part of the B&B used to be a corner store, which was known as a dairy. We lounged around, drinking tea and chatting with the folks who worked there. Then we headed into town to check out the shops and enjoyed a relaxing dinner at Amisfield Winery.

Exploring Fiordland by Sea and by Car

So we’ve spent the last two days living aboard the Fiordland Navigator while we explored Doubtful Sound.

It started with an hour cruise across Lake Manipouri, followed by a 45 minute bus ride across Wilmot Pass. Both were scenic enough to keep us interested…although Greg fell asleep on the bus.

Finally, we arrived at the cruise ship and we were off. We were shown to our room and settled in. Back on deck, we were immediately amazed by the steep canyon walls, numerous waterfalls, and the podocarp forest that our nature guide mentioned about 50 million times. Although the walls of the fiords are solid granite, they’re completely covered with plants and their roots can’t penetrate the granite. The roots spread out and grip the rock. Podocarp forest – got it? There are also big “scars” where trees have literally lost their grip and fallen off of the walls. This causes a land slide and basically takes out a bunch of plants under the initial tree.

One of the things we quickly learned about a cruise is that you just get fed until you are fat and in food induced coma. The food was decent and we had another bottle of wine while we chatted with a Swiss German couple. We met a lot of Swiss Germans and folks from the UK in New Zealand.

Once we were done eating (and drinking) we put on some warmer clothes and hung out on the top deck, just laying there, watching the clouds go by and listening. Other than the hum of the generators on the boats, the only things we heard were the waves and birds. Suddenly, we heard a shrill cry that I swear was a kiwi. We heard it multiple times. The only reason this is such a highlight is because our guide at Rainbow Springs who’s lived in New Zealand forever has only heard them once.

Oh, btw, the wind was howling all day. Good thing we weren’t in kayaks.

The next morning, we were served breakfast and explored more of the Doubtful Sound. We stopped in Hall Arm, where our nature guide explained that we’d be doing an exercise. Not a physical exercise, but a mental one: Listening to the Silence. The captain shut off the boats engine, and we just floated in Hall Arm listening to the waterfalls, birds and wind for about 5 minutes. Essentially, we were communing with nature. When I looked over at Greg, I could tell he was thinking, “How much longer is he going to make us do this stupid exercise?” I had to bite my tongue to keep myself from laughing outloud. I guess Greg’ll never be into meditation.

It was roughly noon when we got back to Te Anau. We checked into our hotel, grabbed a sandwich at Subway (we had to see if it was the same as in the US – pretty much was), and headed out on the 120 km drive towards the Milford Sound.

This was some of the most remarkable scenery that we’ve seen in New Zealand. Once we got into the foothills, we were treated to huge, snow topped cliffs, numerous waterfalls, and the rainforest. The pictures don’t do it justice…but it’s the best that we can do.

At one of our many stops, we came across two kea birds hopping about the pull out and posing for some close up pictures before they flew away. Kea’s are the world’s only non-tropical parrot, and as we found out, they like cars. We saw a description of them at Rainbow Springs that said they like to tear apart rubber (i.e. boots, windshield wipers, etc.). While waiting to go through a one-way tunnel, a kea hopped up on our hood. The light turned green and it hopped off again as we started to drive away. On the way back, we stopped at another pull out and another kea visited our car…starting on the side mirror and then onto the roof. It hopped onto the other side mirror and when I cracked the window open, it tried to gnaw on the glass and window seal. Of course, I took pictures of it while Cheryl told me not to taunt it. We had two more of these big green birds perch on our car at another pull out. It’s amazing how unafraid of humans they are!

As we wind down, we’re thinking about home. We miss our dog and are looking forward to kicking the Yamamoto’s butts in Guitar Hero. See everyone soon.

Ups and Downs

This morning, we had to leave the lap of luxury at the Heritage, Queenstown for the Top 10 Holiday Park in Te Anau (read: a KOA with ensuite units, dorms, and camp grounds). It’s actually not bad…kinda like camping in luxury. The plan: get settled in Te Anau for a night and prepare for a two day kayaking / camping trip in Doubtful Sound.

Before we hit the road, we had a few more things to check out in Queenstown. First, we took the Skyline Gondola (i.e. ski lift) to the top of a peak overlooking the area. From here, you get a great view of Queenstown, the Remarkables (a set of three mountains that also made an appearance in LOTR), and Lake Wakatipu.

Second, we made a stop at Queenstown’s oldest home, Williams Cottage. It was built in 1864 and remains very close to its original condition. The cottage and its garden are now the home of a neat boutique selling contemporary, made in NZ stuff. The displays provided an interesting contrast to the 1930s wallpaper (which was peeling). We grabbed something to eat and coffee before heading out to Te Anau. A few hours later, we pulled into our latest home. As we settled in, Greg went to call the kayaking company to ask about secured parking while we’re on the kayaking trip. About 10 minutes later, he comes back and throws our itinerary onto the ground, pouts, waves his arms around and jumps up and down like he’s having a fit. I’m thinking, “Uh oh, they screwed up our reservation or they don’t have overnight parking.”

Greg: “It’s canceled.”
Me: “Huh? What’s canceled? The kayaking trip?”
Greg: “Yes, the kayaking trip. The whole thing.”
Me: “Uh, how come?”
Greg: “They said tomorrow looked like it would be a great day, but the day after was going to be too windy to safely kayak.”
Greg looks really disappointed and sad.
Me: “Oh. Well, it’s probably better that we don’t attempt the trip then. Remember how sucky it was to paddle in the wind at Abel Tasman? It’s okay, we can’t control the weather. Maybe we can do an overnight cruise instead.”

So, we walk into town to investigate overnight cruises at the Information Center. Luckily there was a room left on the Doubtful Sound overnight cruise that leaves tomorrow at 12:30 PM. While a cruise is not the same as kayaking/camping, at least we’ll still be able to experience Doubtful Sound. The woman at the bookings counter said that there’ve been heaps of penguin sightings lately and a good probability that we’ll encounter wildlife. She also said that the food is really fabulous, and we wouldn’t need/want to eat for 2-days after the cruise.

Greg: “This’ll be a good test. I’ll see if I can handle a longer cruise on a bigger ship. Or I’ll discover that I’ll be completely bored out of my mind.”

What do 500 Horsepower, Wine and Ice have in Common?

Nothing that we can think of. But we experienced each of these today in Queenstown.

500 Horsepower? Those would be the engines of the jet boat we road on the Shotover River. If you think driving a boat in 4 inches of water, through narrow canyons and doing 360 degree spins is a bad idea, then you’re wrong. We did the Shotover Jet this morning, and it was a blast. Every time we thought we’d hit a rock, our jet boat driver would crank the wheel and we’d miss it by inches. There was family on holiday from the UK, and the youngest daughter asked, “What’s he (the driver) trying to do us?” After the Shotover Jet ride, Greg has some new ideas on how a boat should be driven.

Now that we had our adrenaline fix, it was time to get our alcohol fix. So, we headed off to a couple of wineries in the Queenstown area for some wine tasting. Our first stop was Amisfield Winery. They had some really good wine and the winery was nice as well. Pinot Noir is what this region specializes in, but many of the wineries also produce Sauvignon Blanc, Riesling and Pinot Gris.

We must’ve needed another adrenaline fix (either that or lunch) because we stopped at the AJ Hackett bungy jump at Kawarau Bridge. This is the place where bungy-jumping originated. We watched several folks bungy jump (some required coaxing), but didn’t jump ourselves. We already jumped out of an airplane at 15,000 feet and didn’t think bungy jumping could top that. From here, we headed to a couple more wineries: Chard Farm, Peregrine and Gibbston Valley. Chard Farm is up this windy, gravel one lane road with a cliff that drops into a gorge on one side. But the winery was very charming, and we really enjoyed chatting the folks at the winery. Peregrine had a modern, stark feel, but you could see their cellar with the barrels of wine aging. Gibbston Valley felt the most touristy of all the wineries we visited. They had an extensive store, a wine cave tour and a cheesery.

After soaking up the sun and sobering up a bit, we headed back to Queenstown to get ready for dinner. And what a dinner it was! We had a nine-course degustation with wine parings at Wai, which is right by the lake. The food was fabulous, and the portions were just right. The wine pairings were also generous pours, so we were pretty happy after dinner.

We visited the Minus 5 Bar for a drink. The Minus 5 Bar is a bar where everything is made of ice, including the bar, cups, chairs and tons of ice sculptures. Each visitor is only allowed to be in the bar for 30 minutes. They give you parkas and UGGs and gloves. It was definitely different from any bar either of us have been to before.

Franz Josef to Queenstown

We’re on the way to Queenstown today. It’s about 4 hours from Franz Josef township to Queenstown, but we decided to take a small detour to Jackson Bay. Both Robyn and Sally from the Arorere recommended it. Jackson Bay is basically at the end of the road and was once a special settlement that the NZ government tried to establish. However, it was very unsuccessful due to crop-rotting amounts of rain and difficulty building a port. Today, there’re only a couple of families that live Jackson Bay. If you wanted to survive in the early days (and even today), you had to be quite resourceful. It felt very remote and isolated, but it had amazing views of the Southern Alps.

Heading back toward civilization, we were on our way across the Southern Alps via the Haast Pass. The drive was beautiful with turquoise rivers, water falls and steep mountains. We stopped at the Blue Pools, which was a 30 min hike from the road. The Blue Pools is where two rivers met, where you were supposed to see huge rainbow and brown trout. We didn’t see any trout because it was the wrong time of the year. We did see some French guy splashing around in the cold water though. It was amazing how blue the water was. It’s almost unnatural, like someone put turquoise tiles in the rivers and lakes of NZ. The water is just very clear here.