Day Five and Six: Milford Sound

Milford Sound is the wettest inhabited place in New Zealand, and is among the wettest in the world getting about 252 inches of rain each year on average.  In other words, 21 feet of rain on a normal year.  If it happens to be one of those days of sunshine when you visit, Milford Sound would look like this:

The picture above is not my picture.  We didn't get that type of day -- instead we got a rainy one that came after a huge storm.  So, while we didn't get mountain peaks and blue sky, we got LOTS of waterfalls which I thought were pretty cool.

(See that huge waterfall? We're about to get super-close to it and we're about to get soaked)

(See?)

(Kayaking among waterfalls -- the rain obligingly stopped for this kayaking adventure...)

We got to cruise around Milford Sound ate surprisingly tasty food, talked to some other travellers as we ventured briefly into the Tasman Sea then spent the night on the boat.  I believe this was Jamie's favorite excursion of our whole trip...it was pretty spectacular.

The next morning we headed out of the Sound and headed towards Lake Wanaka. In our first major deviation from our itinerary, we decided to skip an afternoon and evening in Te Anau (glowworm caves were flooded) and instead decided to start our long drive up the West Coast. Probably the best deviation of the trip!  The drive up was gorgeous...

...and we spent our first official night in the campervan which was surprisingly comfortable.

(This is the kitchen -- bathroom/shower on the right -- and the bed is behind me)

The first restful night of sleep convinced me that we should plan to spend more nights in the van and cancel some hotel reservations.  The other (more awesome) surprise was that the town of Wanaka had a pretty awesome bakery that sold dulce de leche-stuffed churros which is a treat I had resigned myself to only getting while in Peru.  I'll 'fess up that there was one of these bakeries in Queenstown too so we may have indulged a bit and gotten them twice on our trip.

Vacation is for indulging, right?

Day Four: Queenstown

For some reason, I neglected to take many pictures on this day. As I mentioned before, the decision to go to New Zealand during the off-season came from our hope to save some cash and also out of necessity due to our schedules.

While this meant that there was a LOT of rain (I think it rained at least a little bit each day), it also meant that there were a TON of rainbows and waterfalls.  Plus it felt especially glorious when the sun came out and the sky cleared.

(Double Rainbow!  Also, Wolfie enjoying the view)

(Seriously huge waterfalls everywhere)

The first thing Man Boo and I did when we arrived in Queenstown was to stop at Fergbaker for some tasty pasties.  Totally yummy and highly recommended if any of you are ever in Queenstown.  That night we headed up the Skyline for dinner and a Kiwi Haka show. Fortunately, no pictures were taken as both Jamie and I had to go on stage to demonstrate various Maori dances...my nightmare and Jamie's dream.  Sort of like the time Jamie was that "guy-in-a-box" at the Cirque Du Soleil show in Vegas and became a mini-celebrity for the night when random people kept recognizing him despite the fact that I was the one who had to be in the spotlight and the butt of the joke.

We woke up to this view directly outside our window...

...and started our trek to Milford Sound. 

Day Two and Three: Mount Cook.

Welp. My big dreams of updating from the road didn't really pan out given a combination of "technical issues" with our WiFi hotspot (i.e. the rental company forgot to switch it on before we took off) and just plain tiredness after a day of exploring.

Fortunately, Jamie and I took quite a few pictures which can help me retroactively blog about our time on the other side of the world...

From Christchurch we headed south towards Aoraki (also known as Mt. Cook).  We knew going into our trip that it would involve a bunch of driving considering how much we wanted to see in 13 days.  We were also counting on these drives including lots of picturesque stops on the way.  New Zealand delivered.

These are all from the FIRST DAY of driving. Seriously...so much incredible scenery.  We drove through "Pelennor Fields" (or rather, right by it and through land that looked pretty much the same as it) and ended up at Minas Tirith -- or at least the hotel at the base of the mountain upon which they superimposed Minas Tirith. I neglected to take a picture of it, but it was like this minus the CGI castle and Gandalf.

I should note that Man Boo and I had not planned on geeking out on Lord of the Rings while we were in New Zealand, and we actually didn't realize we were passing or staying in these locations until after the fact when we found a book on the Lord of the Rings locations and skimmed it in a souvenir shop.  Still, it was pretty fun to learn about.

It was pretty rainy, but Man Boo braved a trek in Hooker Valley to see Mt. Cook -- the highest peak in New Zealand (also known as The Lonely Mountain in LotR -- again, something we didn't know until later).  Sadly, it was too cloudy to actually see Mt. Cook, but the hike itself was pretty photogenic...

(This one's a panorama shot so you should click it if you want to see the full picture)

(These suspension bridges were all over NZ -- they were scary wobbly)

(Glacier!)

 Because of the rain and clouds, we weren't able to take advantage of the area's designation as a Dark Sky Reserve, but it was a risk we took booking a NZ trip in the off-season. Hey, we got 70% off our hotel and campervan rental and a bunch of free upgrades so I think it was a pretty good trade-off.  We've got stars in Minnesota.

Next stop: Queenstown!

Day One: Kia Ora from Christchurch!

Kia ora from New Zealand!  Man Boo and I made it safely to Christchurch yesterday -- a bit bleary-eyed but happy.

One of the things I had been most worried about on the trip was the extended amount of time we would be spending on planes: MSP --> SFO --> AUK --> CHC.  All told, we left our house at noon on Saturday and arrived in Christchurch at 8:45am on Monday after 19 hours (?? my math might be off, the international date line throws me off) of time on planes and in airports.

A couple of things made that trip much better though -- so much so that I actually didn't mind it at all.

First, we had an extended layover in San Francisco which gave us time to catch up and grab dinner with these cuties.  Spending time with them and the family energized us for the next long leg of our trip across the Pacific Ocean.

The second thing that helped immensely was the run of good "upgrade" karma for my flights.  Not only did I get an upgrade for my flight to San Francisco, but somehow Man Boo and I also got upgraded to first class for our 12-hour flight to Auckland!  Major win considering it meant we got to actually sleep in a bed on our way over and have a fancy breakfast together on the plane when we woke up.

Christchurch was beautiful.  We spent the day walking through the town, visiting the Museum, the Botanic Garden and eating yummy food.  

Cardboard Cathedral in Christchurch. An earthquake took down their main cathedral several years back, and they built this cathedral out of cardboard (and other materials, of course) to use while they repaired and rebuilt the original.

The Canterbury Museum.  The top picture is from an exhibit they had on Fred and Myrtle Flutey who were known for their "Paua Shell House". 

Flora and fauna at the Botanic Gardens.

Today, we got up bright and early, did a little grocery shopping for the campervan, made a crucial stop at Knit World to buy some yarn from which I can make my traditional "vacation memento" item.  Incidentally, I have to say that yarn in NZ is crazy inexpensive.  To the point when Jamie was actually encouraging me to buy more so that I wouldn't waste $$$ on more expensive stuff at home.  

Finally, we headed out of town and on our way to Mt.Cook.  It was a lovely drive (through Pelennor Fields for you LoTR fans) and pictures were taken.  As we drove, I found myself vaguely thinking it looks just like Pelennor, but didn't realize that it actually was filmed there until afterwards.  We should have done more LoTR preparation for this trip.

I'll share those pics tomorrow! For now...I can hardly keep my eyes open. Time for bed.

We're Going on an Adventure!

As I mentioned before, ManBoo and I are headed to New Zealand! It's crazy how quickly the time passed because we're actually headed there this week!  NZ has been on my bucket list since high school (pre-Lord of the Rings) and it's actually still pretty amazing to me that we're going for it.  My trip of choice always involves visiting interesting landscapes and getting to enjoy nature so NZ seemed like the perfect destination.  And, since it's a 14-hour flight, we're taking our longest vacation yet at a whopping 14 days!

We rented a campervan and we'll be driving through both islands (starting on the South Island by flying into Christchurch and ending up on the North Island flying out of Auckland). We're hoping to save a couple of dollars by "roughing" it in our campervan a few nights mixed in there.  To be honest, I'm looking forward to those nights the most because I can only imagine what the stars will look like from the other side of the world with little to no light pollution.

Stay tuned for updates from across the globe starting next Monday...Tuesday? Not sure about the date/time difference.  New Zealand, here we come!!