Day Nine and Ten: Abel Tasman and Kaiteritiri

Our day in Abel Tasman National Park included some of the best highlights (in my opinion) of the entire trip. We got up bright and early and headed to the north side of the park. While the south side is usually the most popular, the best hikes were only accessible by kayak and the weather was iffy.  I loved the tramps we ended up taking -- Jamie and I basically had the whole trail to ourselves and the weather cleared up just in time for our adventures.

We did a lovely tramp alongside a river, across a couple suspension bridges, and landed us at the base of a pretty great waterfall.

A day hike like this in the States would have been completely overrun by visitors...

We decided to head over to Takaka and Kahurangi National Park to check out Te Waikoropupu Springs (a.k.a. Pupu Springs....heh).  Ironically, the water in Pupu Springs is considered among the clearest fresh water in the world.  It was officially the clearest fresh water on inhabited land until a few years ago when it was "out-cleared" by another lake in a more remote location in Tasman. Still. It was pretty incredible.  It was hard to capture with my amateur photography skills and equipment, but trust me, you could see all the way to the bottom through the springs and it got pretty deep.

And of course, the drive along the coast back to our "bach" (i.e. NZ AirBnB equivalent) was gorgeous.  We had to stop and take a stroll...

Day Seven and Eight: Wanaka to Franz Josef Glacier

We had to put down a big deposit on the campervan which instilled all sorts of fear into me whenever we drove that huge honking piece of metal. Add to that the windy mountain roads, the left-side driving with the right-side wheel, and the wet weather and you can bet I was NOT going to drive the campervan. Fortunately, Jamie was/is an excellent driver and navigated the 7m vehicle expertly and managed the 13 days with nary a scratch.

The temperamental weather did offer some challenges to which I had to act as the "voice of reason" (read: pessimist) to Jamie's more adventurous optimism.  Take for example this "road":

There is clearly a river running through this road. I'm pretty sure Jamie knew that there were a few "fording" situations on this particular road to get to a hike he wanted to do, and thought that by the time we got to one of these fording sections I would be asleep or something.  Yeah, we turned around and did a different hike that required no fording of raging rivers in the campervan.  Fortunately, the drive back was quite lovely and I didn't mind having to do it twice.

Later that evening, the storm also decided to knock down a huge tree into our path.  Normally, I would be pretty freaked out at the prospect of being on a tiny mountain road, in the rain, at night and a certainty that AAA wouldn't be able to help us. But, being in New Zealand, it wasn't long before several muscle-bound men also got stopped by the tree blocking the road and took it upon themselves to clear the tree with their rugby-playing biceps.  

And, of course, the help of some chains and a strong truck. I don't know that a handful of Americans would have been as resourceful and quick to solve the crisis in a similar situation.  Those were some stereotypically-manly men.

After a lovely few days driving up the West Coast of New Zealand during which we saw glaciers! kiwis! rainbows! we ended up in Kaiteriteri with a lovely view of the Tasman Bay.

(There's a glacier somewhere behind those clouds...)

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.