Our Last Two Weeks in the South

Burr… it’s getting cold

Over the past month or so we’ve noticed quite the change in weather and atmosphere. The days are getting shorter, which means the leaves are losing color, and the temperature is getting quite low as well. Similar to autumn in Michigan, you never know if the next day will be warm and sunny or just wet and cold. About half of our time is spent in our long johns and its not because we find them attractive. It’s also getting dark around 6pm so we are spending many hours in the van playing dice, cards or reading.

We fly out of here on the 31^st of May, which left us only 2 weeks to see the rest of the south island after our friends Jess and Scott left. We thought it would’ve been enough time, except for one factor; the weather. Our raincoats are always ready and accessible, and we try to do the majority of our driving while it’s raining to maximize our sun exposure. We’ve modified our plans quite a bit, but we are happy with the things we’ve done considering the conditions.

We travelled back to the west coast to take care of some unfinished business.

We hiked up 1200 meters in a few hours to get a fantastic view of Franz Josef glacier. The weather wasn’t the best, but the clouds were high enough for us to get some great views; it’s the next best thing to paying $300 for a helicopter ride.

We made our way as far northwest as we could to Karamea to explore some caves and arches and also stopped at the Heaphy track (another Great Walk). 

We only hiked into the Heaphy for a few hours, but it was a great day walk with incredible powerful beaches, rivers that look like iced tea from all the tannins, and tropical forests. 

If you notice we are back in the palm trees again, and the temps were nice too, but there’s one problem…

Let me set the scene for you; we just finished a 5 hr hike and we were looking forward to a nice picnic on the beach. It was an 80 degree sunny day on the beach and here we are in the van hiding from the stupid sandflies. Sandflies are similar size to fruit flies, but swarm like bees. They leave you alone as long as you are walking, but the second you stop you are attacked from all angles. They’re blood suckers like mosquitoes, but their bites itch for days if not weeks later. The west coast and parts of the Fiordland are known for them. So we finished our hike around 2pm and took shelter in our van for the remainder of the day. Needless to say we didn’t stick around for long.

The Maori legend has one of the Maori gods creating the New Zealand and doing too good of a job. There was concern that the coast was too beautiful and everyone that visits wouldn’t leave, so another one of the Maori gods created the sand fly to keep people moving.

When Michelle and I first arrived in NZ, I was looking in a tramping book and saw an incredible picture of a hike and I knew that it was one of the walks we had to do. So we planned on doing the hike after we toured the west coast. Well the rain didn’t let up and this is one of those tramps in which fine weather is highly recommended for views and safety. So we sat in our long johns and waited for a few days in the cold rain. We looked at the forecast and saw that it wasn’t going to let up anytime soon. Out of curiosity, I checked the east coast forecast and it was a week of sun. A bonus of NZ’s size is that you can drive from one coast to the other in a few hours. So it was a pretty easy decision for us, we went back to Kaikoura. Kaikoura is the place where we snorkeled, gathered paua, and tried some fishing. We’ve been there twice before and were excited to go back.

There is a 10 min hike up to a waterfall that supposedly has baby seal pups playing in the waterfall during the winter months. We checked it out twice before (once in December and another in January) hoping to see some, but it just wasn’t the right time of year. Well this time we got it right. 

As we walked up the river we could see baby seal pups playing in the river. As we approached the waterfall we could see dozens. They were everywhere; in the water, on the rocks, on the hill, and down stream. 

Michelle took heaps of photos, which give you a pretty good idea of what we saw, but she also took an incredible 5 min video that we recommend you watch (link at the bottom). They are so adorable and they remind me of little puppy dogs. They are just as playful and curious too.

Apart from observing the seals (everyday), we did a few walks in the area, did some souvenir shopping, and relaxed in the sun watching hundreds of dolphins swimming in the bay. It really changed our spirits and we were enjoying ourselves again. We continued to check the weather for Mt. Owen (THE Hike) and it still had rain forecasted for the next week. We couldn’t wait around for the weather to clear up since we had to go back to the north island soon. So we left the sunny east coast and drove back into the clouds to really give it our best shot. If we get there and the weather is terrible then we’ll bugger off and head north, however, if the weather isn’t too bad we’ll give it a shot.

The weather going up to the hut was windy, rainy, and cold (go figure), but it wasn’t a heavy rain so we kept pushing ourselves. It was a difficult 5 hr hike; up a super steep mountain and then back down the other side to reach the hut. The whole time I was waiting for Michelle (who had a cold) to say lets go back, but it never happened so we kept going. That evening, the clouds broke and the moon came out which gave us hope for the morning.

It was clear that morning and apart from a few clouds around the summit it was an amazing day and well worth the hype. The attraction to Mt. Owen, (Drimrill Dale for the Lord of the Rings fans) is the marbleized-limestone rock formations. It’s rock, but has the features similar to that of glaciers with smooth faces and deep crevasses.  It was almost as if we were walking on the moon. 

When we returned to the hut for the night the clouds moved in and the rain started up again. It didn’t let up until we reached the van the following day. It’s crazy how things work out sometimes. Now that we’ve done Mt. Owen our trip here feels complete. We’ve done all the tramps and seen all the things we’ve wanted to.

Tomorrow we board the ferry for the north island. This gives us one month to sell our van. It’s our largest concern at the moment, and it’s going to be sad to let her go. We’ve become quite attached to it and would love to ship it home with us. Apart from trying to sell the van, there are still a few places to check out and a few friends to visit in the North Island, but we really don’t have any major plans. It seems a little sad knowing that we are leaving, but we try and remind ourselves that our last month here is still more time than most people get to spend here. So much can happen in a month and we are excited for what’s to come.

Seal Pup Video:
http://youtu.be/03J4vjQmle4

If you would like to see more photos of our trip click on the following link:
https://picasaweb.google.com/115853505113135701754/TwoWeeksLeftInTheSouthIsland

Two Weeks with Jess and Scott

Michelle and I were fortunate enough to have more friends come and visit us during our stay here. Again, it’s really great that we were able to share in this experience with other people. We planned out an action-packed two-week trip including many areas new to Michelle and I too. The strange thing is that Michelle and I really don’t have a home here. It’s simply a large van. It took us a while to figure things out between the two of us in such a small space.  As you can imagine it’s difficult to accommodate another person, but we had two people coming! Fortunately, for all of us, they had a rental car for the two weeks they were here. So that eliminated some of the clutter. Jess and Scott stayed in our compact collapsible guest room (tent) for their stay, and good on ya’ since there is nothing relaxing about a jam-packed two week camping trip. (Reminds me of camping in Oregon and Washington a few years ago with Michelle’s family) These friends have got a taste of how Michelle and I have been living in NZ for the last 7 Months.

We know it’s a long flight from Michigan to NZ and the time change is pretty significant too, so we decided to blast them with an adrenaline filled luge down a mountain. It was quite fun doing this again and it’s a good way to get great views of Queenstown. We chose to take it easy on them for their first day. Our trip began in the Wanaka area doing one of our favorite hikes, Rob Roy Glacier, and then moved on to the West Coast to view the Fox and Franz Josef Glaciers and to see the pancake rocks, seals, and kayak in Punakaki. 

One highlight of the west coast was the overnight Welcome Flat Hut trip. This was a 6-7 hr hike up a valley to a hut that’s known for its natural hot-pools. Michelle and I have wanted to do this for some time and decided to wait until we had company. To make things fun, we didn’t tell Scott and Jess about the hot-pools. We wanted it to be a surprise. We just made sure that we all had our suits and a couple bottles of Scrumpy (apple cider for adults). It worked out great. The rainforest hike was beautiful, they didn’t find out about the hot pools until the start of the hike, and the hot pools were hot and felt great on our sore feet and muscles. This was also their first time doing an overnight hike together and staying in a hut. It was a great experience for us all.

Getting Scrumped in the hot tub

A couple other highlights of the west coast were the walks along the wild west coast beaches, looking for jade, cool stones or driftwood, collecting and eating mussels, and spotting an octopus in the tide pools! 

We also kayaked down the Pororari Gorge for a couple hours, which looked like we entered the amazon jungle (minus all the killer snakes and crocs).  This was a completely new environment of NZ for us all. We also paid to stay at a nice campground one night, which provided a kitchen, laundry, and HOT SHOWERS!

We made our way inland stopping at Arthur’s Pass for a few short hikes making our way to Aoraki/Mt. Cook National Park. There we hiked through the Hooker Valley getting incredible views of Mt. Cook and Hooker Lake with floating ice in the evening light. We awoke the next morning to some heavy cloud cover and almost decided not to do the 1000-meter mountain climb planned. None of us were excited to hike with crummy views but we decided to at least start it and see if the clouds will let up. Well they didn’t, but they didn’t need to because we climbed above them! Jessica was the first to get her head out of the clouds and was screaming that it was so beautiful! It was absolutely incredible being above a thick white blanket of clouds. 

It also magically turned hot and sunny and we were rewarded with some amazing views atop at Mueller Hut. We were all thankful for the views and deciding to do the hike despite the morning gloom.

The grand finally of the trip was a stop at Milford sound. Half of the fun is getting there as the scenery is like no other place on Earth; Vast jagged mountains with huge glaciers hanging on their steep faces. To make it more fascinating, it was pouring rain. Milford Sound gets an average of three meters of rainfall each year. As we drove through the mountains (literally since there is a huge tunnel) we were greeted with 360-degree views of cascading waterfalls. Everywhere we looked we could see huge pouring waterfalls. Since the rain was too heavy, we opted out of the evening boat cruise and went to the shelter of the Milford Lodge. We paid for our campervan spot that gave us access to their SHOWERS, lounge and kitchen. There we stayed as rain poured and poured for five hours straight. We felt so lucky as this was the worst weather so far and we had a really nice and cozy lounge to play cards in and drink more ScrumpyJ  The next day was a complete 180 from the day before. The sun was out and the clouds were gone. We went on our spectacular two hr boat cruise through the fiord and got to see some of the best views of Fiordland, including Mitre Peak, waterfalls, bottle-nose dolphins, and seal lion pups. We had another great drive out and stopped for a quick hike at Key Summit to take in more great views.

Well those were the highlights of the trip. The amazing thing is that we were able to do everything that we planned. A few moments of clouds and rain, but we either modified our plans ahead of time or just toughed it out. Jess and Scott were great troopers too. Some nights were really cold and Jess had to sleep in two sleeping bags, others were rainy, really windy, and one or two nights had the trifecta; windy, rain, and cold, but they kept smiling and kept going.  It was great having them here to experience two weeks of NZ with us. We had amazing luck with the weather, breath-taking views through NZ’s varying microcimates, and many great memories with our friends. 

If you would like to see more pictures click on the following link:
https://picasaweb.google.com/115853505113135701754/TwoWeeksWithJessAndScott