The Ultimate Trip - Has ended

We are on our way to the North Island tonight, taking a ferry from Picton to Wellington at 5pm. Word on the street is that the North Island is not as interesting as the South Island. However, I am looking forward to being able to visit more Maori towns - a little more diversity. Before we run off, though, I thought that I might do a little to catch the blog up on what we have been up to!
After we left the Banks Peninsula we stopped in Christchurch for another night and then headed north and west toward Golden Bay. This is a large peninsula in the far North West of the South Island, reaching around like a big arm toward the East and ending in Farewell Spit. It is unbelievably quiet and untouched because it is a bit out of the backpacker circle and a 2 hour drive, over mountains on a windy road, from Nelson. Very few New Zealanders, and even fewer foreign tourists, make it this far out. We loved it out there! Farewell spit is the longest sand spit in New Zealand, extending something like 26 kilometers, with golden sand and stunning beaches. Just opposite the spit are dramatic green bluffs, dropping directly down into the ocean where fur seals play amongst the waves. We hiked along these cliffs, sometimes walking at obscene angles just to stay near the edge, and I felt like I was back in the Westman Islands in Iceland. Some of the beaches in Golden Bay look like remote tropical beaches, only they are not as warm. We stayed in a wonderful backpacker called Shambhala, which had doubles on a hillside overlooking the ocean. Our sliding doors opened onto a small deck and we could watch the sunrise while lying in bed! Golden Bay was truely a place we will remember.
Because Golden Bay next to the Abel Tasman national park, we were able to go for a day hike along the famous Abel Tasman walk. This is one of New Zealand's "Great Walks" and follows the coastline for a 2-4 day hike. We have even met some people who have hiked it in a single day, although I am sure they were not able to linger anywhere to view the stunning scenery. It is truely a beautiful area, with blue-green ocean, golden beaches rising into green mountains, and NZ bush country. At the end of the day of hiking, when we were returning to our car, we stopped to stroll along one secluded beach. Just as we were about to leave, a pod of large dolphins swam almost right up to the shore! They couldn't have been more than 2 meters from where the waves were braking and they stayed around for 10 minutes playing in the surf. This was probably the best dolphin show I have ever seen. At one time 5 of the dolphins all jumped high out of the water together - it would have been quite a great picture, if I could have managed to catch it! After that hike we really were feeling quite high.
Even though we were sad to leave Golden Bay, we managed to drive to Nelson that night, for a short stay in this northern city. Nelson is friendly enough, but the two highlights for us were the wine tour we took with Roy and discovering the small, but excellent, Lighthouse Brewery. The wine tour was interesting, mainly due to Roy, who was a very interesting and informative tour guide. He seemed to know plenty about the wine growing and making business, probably because he has spent plenty of time volunteering on vineyards in Europe. Not only did we taste wines at the 5 vineyards we visited, Patrick and I managed to buy a bottle at each! Hopefully some of these we make it back to the U.S. for our friends and family to try.
The other find, Lighthouse Brewery, was not in Michael Jackson's beer book, nor did we read about it anywhere. Somehow, we happened upon it while walking in town and it turned into a great find. The guy who owns it runs everything - he employs not a single person. He seems more of a beer drinking, than maker, but manages to turn out some of the best beer we have tried in New Zealand yet! He started as a home brewer with a homebrew store and turned it into a (very) small brewery. He has help developing recipies from a friend in Auckland and it seems to work. Unfortunately, he is shutting down his current location in July without having a new place to move to. Visiting him has gotten us excited about home brewing again when we have a home.
Our final stop on the South Island was in Queen Charolette Sound at Hopewell backpacker, by far the best run and nicest backpacker we have stayed in in New Zealand!

There has been some recent news that will change our trip, but I will keep you waiting until later in the blog for that!
The last few days have been spent on the Banks Peninsula, East of Christchurch getting back into a good mood about traveling. It could be because the weather has turned up, or that the place we were staying was absolutely terrific, or that we met some interesting people, or that we just plain had tons of fun. Probably all of these! When I made reservations at the Onuku Farm Hostel near Akaroa, I had no idea just how out of the way and cozy it was going to feel. The hostel is on a real working sheep farm (not that we really noticed that) and was everything a hostel should be - homey, warm, friendly, environmentally consious. Besides sheep, they also had chickens and a cat, an herb garden, grape vines, lemon trees, peach trees, apple trees, kiwi bushes and other plants I couldn't identify. A couple of indangered Wood Pigeons also had made the garden their home. A perfect place for all creatures. There were only a few other people staying there, since it is late in the season, and we all seemed to warm to each other immediately. And for some reason, the weather out on the peninsula seemed to be at least 5 degrees warmer than in Christchurch!
The area is beautiful: rolling hills with windy streets, vineyards, and farms. The peninsula creates a very sheltered bay where the world's smallest dolphin, the Hector dolphin, lives. We had booked a trip to "swim with the dolphins", which literally means we would don semi dry wetsuits and get into the 10 degree Celcius (50 degree Fahrenheit) water for a swim. It was actually a lot more fun than it sounds, although we didn't see the huge pods of dolphins that I was expecting. After chasing around a few pods of feeding dolphins, who weren't too interested in us, we discovered a pod of 3 dolphins who had a ball swimming around us and playing. They really are interactive creatures. Actually, it was a bit better watching from the boat because the visibility in the water was very poor. By the time we headed in to shore all our extreamities were practically frozen off :-) but it was well worth it!
After the swim we had intended to do some walking on the farms around the peninsula, but ended up lazing about in the sun, just enjoying being warm. We were very sad to leave Onuku this morning, but felt we needed to get a few things done in Christchurch..... which brings me to the big news.
Almost.
Before I forget, I wanted to mention that when we were in Dunedin we also had the opportunity to see adult Royal Albatross! It was really an experience of a lifetime for me because ever since I read "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" I have wanted to see an albatross. Actually, it was a fluke we were able to see one. There is an albatross colony residing on the Otago Peninsula but it is protected due to their endangered nature. You can pay quite a lot of money to visit a hide close to the colony, but we were told that the adults were not frequently present at this time of year because they were off to sea finding food for their young. Instead, we chose to take a tour of Fort Taiaroa and the dissapearing gun they have there. I can definitely say that Patrick was a bit more excited about the tour than I was, the lookout part of the fort turned out to be the ideal spot for watching albatross! There were at least 3 adults that kept swooping around us while we sat there and we probably even had a better view than the people on the colony tour. Even our guide was amazed at how lucky we were! And oh, are they beatiful birds with a 3 meter wingspan!! Just amazing to watch.

Now, I am finally to the point of the big news. The reason we needed to get back into Christchurch today was because.........
Patrick was waiting to hear back from a biotech company in the U.S. and he now has an interview arranged for the end of May! It looks like we will be traveling back to California around the 10th of May so that he can prepare for the interview, which is in Eugene, Oregon. Pretty cool! We will have to speed up our trip around New Zealand and we will skip visiting Asia again before we travel home, but it is all good.

That's all folks, for now. Looking forward to having the chance to visit with many of you in the VERY near future!

Because the weather was so bad at the southern tip of New Zealand, we completely bypassed Stewart Island - the island off the southern coast where Kiwi's (the bird) are seen during the day. It was a shame to miss this island, which is mostly national park, but we found quite an interesting coast between Invercargill and Dunedin! Our one night in Invercargill was spent stocking up on food and wine and taking in a movie: The Secret Window. Great flick, with Johnny Depp doing a great job in this spooky Stephen King story.
The Catlins is a newish park in the south east part of the south island, and seems to be not too well traveled yet. Perhaps this is because the main road through the area has yet to be sealed. No worries for our stout little car! We found a great little town with a crazy shop in a converted bus/van. Everything there was made out of recycled items and was meant to be played with. I couldn't help but push the button that was labeled "life is full of little temptations, this is one of them" only to be drenched by a water pistol. Patick's favorite item was the "Mail Whale", a huge, steel mailbox shaped like a... you guessed it.... whale. We almost couldn't tear ourselves away from this kitchy store, but we left in good spirits to look for a place to sleep for the night.
Our first try was a tiny little backpacker down a long dirt road. When we arrived, there was no one about, but a sign suggested we let ourselves in and sign up for a bed. The small house was warm and cozy and filled with character. Unfortunately, it was also full for the night. Since there was nobody home, we stayed for a few minutes to look through their guest book and eat a few chocolate eggs :-)
We lucked out and only minutes later found a new lodge, not yet listed in any of the books or literature about the area, which was cheap and completely empty! We had a huge cottage all to ourselves, with two bedrooms, huge living room, kitchen and porch looking out onto a farm. What luck after all the trouble we had in the Southern Alps.

Next stop was Dunedin, a great little college town with loads of character.... and Yellow Eyed Penguins. Somehow we arrived just in time to hike out along the beach and wait in a hide while the cute birds came home from fishing for the day. They seem to come out of nowhere and pop up in the surf on the beach. Then the birds waddle up on shore to the base of a hill, where they begin to preen themselves until they are dry. Finally, they hop up the hillside to their nests for the night. The whole process is pretty funny to watch because they are so awkward on land.
Since then we have watched them again in Oamaru and also have seen Blue Penguins, the smallest penguin in the world. While the yellow eyed penguins arrive individually, the blue penguins arrive in rafts of about 10-15 and stay in a group as the waddle up to their nests. A pretty fun thing to see, but while the yellow eyes were free to watch, the blues cost about $8US, which was a bit expensive we thought.

Just a quick comment for those people visiting NZ anytime soon. We ate at a great restaurant called Fleur's Place in Moreaki and highly recommend it. It has great food and great atmosphere! It is located in the small fishing village at the harbor. The owner put the building together from recycled materials, including old windows from another structure and walls from a shack in another town. A true gem!

Here we are on another blustery day in Southland. Spent the day slowly driving our way to Invercargill after bypassing many muddy camping spots. Hadn't planned to be here until a day or two later, but here we are none the less. Looking for inside activities, we stumbled upon another internet cafe and thought we could waste some time typing. Just thought I would write down a few odds and ends.

Did we mention running into a couple, Vern and Stephanie, in Christchurch who we had met almost 5 months ago in China? Amazingly, we had stopped by a hostel to look at the tent of another traveler and there they were! I think it was in Xian that we first met them on our way out of the hostel there. They had spent the day with our friend Clem. What a small world of travelers. Here in NZ, we had the opportunity to spend an evening drinking beer and talking about travels and the world. It felt like seeing family.

While driving back from Milford sound to Te Anau we had our second flat tire in three days... on the same tire. Unfortunately, this occured on Good Friday, a 4-day holiday weekend in NZ. The spare tire seems to be doing OK and it will need to continue to roll until Tuesday, when everything opens up again. We celebrated Easter by having a lunch of fish and chips at a take-away place in Riverton. Pretty exciting!

Yesterday, a huge group of teenagers arrived, with their escorts in tow, at the holiday park that we were staying at. Patrick and I debated where they might be from, he guessing somewhere in the U.S.A., and I saying Canada. Turns out Patrick was right (a very unusual occurance ;-) and the group was from St. Johnsburry Academy in Vermont. Five teachers have brought 26 kids here for 2 weeks of hiking, biking and river rafting. How cool is that? Sure wish they had something like that when I was in high school.

As some of you may know, New Zealand has a huge problem with non native animals brought here by settlers. Before man arrived here, the only native mamal inhabiting the islands was a type of bat, and the main other land animals were birds. They have some fantastic large, flightless, birds here, not seen anywhere else in the world where preditors are present. Unfortunately, some of these birds have been hunted to extinction now, but this is not where I am going. One of the animals brought to NZ was the possum:
"The brushtail possum is an introduced species that was released in NZ in 1837 to establish a fur industry. The NZ possum is only distantly related to the american opossum.
With the fall in demand for fur and the value of the fur dropping to uneconomic levels the numbers of possums dramatically increased and they have now reached epidemic proportions with well over 70 million possums munching there way through 21300 tonnes of vegetation nightly, and they are decimating NZ's native bush and birdlife.
The possum has no predators and NZ's bush is defenceless against them. They are a serious threat that has spread to 92% of NZ's three main islands and many native trees,plants & birdlife including the kiwi are under threat from extinction because their habitat is being destroyed by the possum."
Now there are whole environmental groups dedicated to protecting the NZ environment by keeping the numbers of possum down. What do they do? They kill possum and use their fur in combination with sheep's wool to make clothing. Pretty nice stuff, too.

We finally had a chance to cruise a real fjord! Today we drove out from Te Anau to Milford and took an early morning cruise into Milford sound. The weather gods blessed us with clear blue skies in an area that is known for rain and the sound was absolutely beautiful. Couldn't have asked for a better day for a boat ride.

This country is crazy with tourists! Ever since we left Wanaka we have been unable to get away from the crowds! On Wednesday morning we packed up our little car and headed down the mountain road leading to Queenstown. We were greeted by a beautiful morning, with only white puffy clouds in the sky. Beacause the drive was short, we took our time on the road, stopping whenever we felt the urge to jump out and stare at the snow capped mountains or a sun drenched valley. The book claims the drive is "hair raising", but I would say it is anything but. Ok, so there is a short stretch with hairpin turns, but the road is good and only lasted for maybe half a kilometer. But the guide was definitely correct when it said that the drive was spectacular. Queenstown sits at the end of a huge lake that is framed on all sides by mountains. Coming over the mountain road, we were greated with stunning views of the lake and valley below and of the quaint city of Queenstown. I suppose it wouldn't have been the same in the rain.
Along the way we also stopped in a little town called Kingston, which is famous for its steam train. I got a big kick out of this, since I grew up in Kingston, Rhode Island, and spent many hours waiting at our train station. The station in this Kingston even looked a little like the old Kingston, RI station, so of course I snapped a picture.
Queenstown was very picturesce, but so touristy! There is a main street lined with expensive tourist shops, all very quaint, and tons of tourists to go along with them. As soon as we hit town, we tried a number of the hostels and even one holiday park, and there was not a bed to be had. Check that, I did call one hostel and was told that we could not rent the only two beds they had because we were not staying 2 nights. This was after the woman kept me on the line telling me how nice the room was and how it was probably the only one in town. I swear that I clearly expressed my need of 2 beds for a single night before she launched into her schpeal. The thing that really gets me, though, is that I was too stunned by her refusal to rent the room, that I didn't even respond to her. I've definitely thought of a million things I should have said, and have logged them in my brain for the next time. Yes, we did locate a place to stay: a cabin in a holiday park outside of town for half the cost of her stupid hostel room. Now we know why they call them "hostels" (actually they call them backpackers here, but who's counting). To celebrate our discovery of another cheap accomodation, Patrick and I treated ourselves to a couple of beers at a local pub (Dux de Lux), which had very nice brews (I had a stout and a very interesting ginger brew) and then out for some sushi. Not the kind of night we can repeat here in NZ ($$$), but well needed.
The cold has caught up to us here, and the following morning we awoke to find a thin sheet of ice covering our whole car. We have beefed up our camping gear for the cold by buying a couple of inexpensive synthetic comforters to put on top of the air mattress, but we have yet to try it out. After the few colds nights we spent in our tent last weekend, tossing and turning the whole night, we are a bit shy of a repeat. If these comforters don't work, we may forget the idea of camping while on the south island.
We rushed off from Queenstown, excited to arrive in Te Anau and get out on the Kepler track. Oh the eager beavers we were, until we tried to book the walk at the DOC (dept. of conservation). Somehow, in the past few days, this track, like all the other Great Walks in Fiordland, has been booked up through the end of April. Foiled again by all those pesky tourists (yes, I do know that we are part of the problem). Can't find lodging, can't get on a track, what can we do? We are now reduced to only taking day walks, which is really perfectly fine, I guess. If only we had a backpacking tent, some warm sleeping bags, and a stove (hmmmmmm, who wasn't planning?). At least the area is absolutely beautiful and we are having great weather! Plus, it will allow us more time to visit all the vineyards farther north.
Which brings me to today and Milford sound. Amazingly, we dragged ourselves out of bed at 5:30am and left for the 2 hour drive to Milford at 6:30! First people on the road! This is the first sunrise that we have seen in months and it was lovely. At one stop along the road, Patrick saw what he thought was a dog in his rearview mirror. Concerned that it might be a stray pet, we hopped out to investigate and found out it was a Kea. Kea are mountain parrots native to the south island and are very curious and like to eat everything. This bird came almost right up to us, but we had to shoo it away from our car before it started eating any exposed rubber. I thought it was pretty cool to see a wild parrot!

Ooooops, the internet is closing, so I will have to continue this another day!!

Finally uploaded the pictures I took while diving in Koh Tao. I was just learning, folks, so some are not so great, but they can give you an idea of what we were seeing!

http://www.clubphoto.com/reward.php?id=2052576&mid=members17_shula758061&pwd=

We are still in Wanaka and still having a great time! Wanaka is a high alpine town situated at the edge of a beautiful lake and surrounded by high snowy peaks. It is just to the east of the Southern Alps, and an hour north of Queenstown. Since we are at the start of autumn here, a big storm bringing snow has been predicted since we arrived. Every evening we have gone to bed expecting stormy weather in the morning, and every morning we have woken up to sunny skies and warm air. Seems that Wanaka has its own microclimate. Why would we ever want to leave? We have done 3 day hikes in 3 days, warming ourselves up for the Kepler track in Fiordland. Getting back into shape has been easier than we thought. Hopefully, the bad weather ahead won't deter us from getting on that 4 day trek.
Our first two nights here we slept in our 2 season tent on an air mattress. Who uses an air mattress in the late fall? Brrrrr, it was so cold that even when we were snuggled up together and sweating on top, our bottoms were cold. Pretty miserable. We decided that getting normal camping mats is a priority, but not in this small, and expensive, town. Since we didn't want to head out right away because we were having too much fun with all the great day hikes in the area, we chose to bump ourselves up to the "basic cabin". This means that we get four cement walls, a heater, and a bed for US$10 each. Not too much to pay for a little comfort. Hopefully, when we get to Queenstown we can do something about our lack of cold weather gear.
New Zealand is turning out to be even more expensive than we originally expected. OK, it is really hard to come here after being in Asia for so long. Horrors at spending $10 to camp, we could get an excellent hotel room in Bangkok for that! But we are adjusting OK. Food here is outrageous. There is no way we can afford to eat out and we can barely afford to cook for ourselves. I swear that we spend at least $40 every 2 to 3 days on groceries. Is this normal? Am I just too out of touch? Let's not talk about gas, everyone knows that gas is only cheap in the U.S. At least our car is getting 33 miles/gallon, which I think is a great feat for a 20 year old car. Not to say that we are letting all these money issues stop us from having fun, but we have definitely modified our "lets go kayaking, climb on the glacier, mountain biking, white water rafting, etc. etc. etc." attitude. The tourist and backpacker scene in New Zealand seems to revolve around "extreme" sports. Bungie jumping and sky diving are the norm. At every hostel we have stopped by there are ads for some new crazy sport, and they all cost a fortune. How do these young, budget minded backpackers do it? What a different world.
New Zealand is also not as remote a place as you might think. There are tourists everywhere. We haven't had a hike to ourselves yet, even ones that seem like they are off in the middle of nowhere. I guess the real season here is during the summer, but it really doesn't seem like anything has slowed down yet. It is still difficult to get a hostel room and the internet cafes are filled. And now they are getting ready for the ski season! This place has definitely been found.
We still love New Zealand! It is like Oregon as a country. They have green, wet mountains; wild, rocky ocean; farmland; funky towns; small cities; lots of outdoor opportunities; BICYCLE LANES; decent microbrewed beer; pinot noir wine; and cool people. They are fairly environmentally concious and everything seems so clean (again, comparing to Asia). Too bad it is just so far away from all the people that we love so much. Now, if everyone would just pick up and move down here......... Is that too much to ask?

We just bought a new digital camera in Singapore, and have uploaded our first album of photos to club photo. Nothing too spectacular, but you can see what we have been up to!
http://www.clubphoto.com/reward.php?id=2185652&mid=members17_shula758061&pwd=

Will write up another post in the next few days!

I suppose, since it is the 1st of April, that I should spin some long yarn about some crazy thing that happened to us in the past few days. But my internet time is precious in these here parts (NZ$5 per hour, to be exact) so I feel too much pressure to type quickly so I can't give you a good April Fools. Oh well.
Auckland was a fine city, although we didn't really spend more than about 5 hours total in the city. Spent most of our time relaxing at Dennis's house, trying to figure out what to do next. We did get to try some great beer in the city, though, which I am sure you find surprising, considering Patrick's sheer dislike of the stuff. On our first night in the Auckland area, we had a few beers at the Shakespear pub in downtown which were devine, and a couple at the Loaded Hog which pretty much sucked. Patrick can probably be more specific.
We finally decided to get on down to the South Island before the weather turned bad (ha!) and try our luck at finding trasportation there. Only too late did we realize what a great buyers market Auckland is at this time of the year. Down in Christchurch we scoured the papers and backpackers (their word for hostels) for campervans and cars for sale, and checked out prices on rentals. Yikes! Renting cars here is outrageously expensive (OK, everything here is outrageously expensive. We were spending NZ$48/night on a room, without bath, at the hostel. Amazing). In the end, we decided that a car would be easier to drive, and less expensive to buy, so we are now the proud owners of EDEN (to be renamed), a 1984 Toyota Corolla. She seems to be a trusty traveling companion, if we remember to shut the lights off when we park and to drive on the 'correct' side of the road (notice, I did not say "right"). Yeah, driving on the left takes a bit of getting used to and can be pretty difficult. It is amazingly hard to judge the distance between the car and the curb on the passengers side and I think that the hub caps are pretty well scraped up from our trying to park the car. Today we ran our battery dead while we sat in the warmth of a cafe eating lunch, talking, and sipping coffee. Luckily the very small town had a garage that was open and they were able to jump start the car.
After buying the car, we also picked up all the necessary camping gear from travelers leaving the country. The system here works out pretty well! Rich Europeans (or Americans, or.....) come here and buy tents and stoves and mattresses and chairs etc, use them for 2 to 3 months, and then sell them to cheapskates like us for a fraction of what they cost new. So maybe the Dutch couple weren't too pleased about our bargaining them down, but hey, we've been in Asia for the past few months!
We set off late from Christchurch, planning to head West, over Scott's pass and then down the west coast to fjordland. Didn't quite make it to the pass on the first night, and decided to camp on the side of the road. Pulled into what we thought looked like a really nice piece of public land, set up our tent, cooked our first camp meal in way too long, and hit the hay. Our site couldn't have been more perfect. We had a crystal clear stream running 50 yards away and mountains all around us. The grass we pitched our tent on was soft and the sky was clear. Unfortunately, the weather was way too cold for our new air mattress, and by the morning we were popsicles. It also turned out that we had camped in the middle of ranch land, with cow patties all around. Sure hope that I didn't step in any when I used the loo in the middle of the night. The look on the rancher's face the next morning, when he found a rather disheveled looking me making some coffee, was priceless. He was awfully pleasant, though, and just let me know that we were on private land, but didn't ask us to leave.
Since then we have been more careful about choosing our campsites, although they have not been nearly as beautiful.
Today the rain set in, so we decided to have a night, and a hot shower, in another hostel. The price doesn't hit as hard when you spread it out over a few days of camping for free. Hoping to get onto the Franz Josef glacier in the next few days before heading south to fjordland.