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