Milford Sound

OK, I have been MIA due to a lot of reasons, none of which really matter (but in my defense, I took over 600 pictures this day of the honeymoon and it takes a long time to go through them). But back to the honeymoon pictures. After a very scenic drive, we took a 3 hour tour of Milford Sound. It was a lovely sunny day and we got to see seals and penguins. What more could you want?

Mirror Lake

On the way to Milford Sound, we stopped at Mirror Lake. As with so many things on our honeymoon, it was amazing. As I made the last post, I realized that Mirror Lake really deserved its own, so here are the pictures.

To Milford Sound

On the 19th day of our honeymoon, we went on a cruise of Milford Sound. I must say, it is actually a fjord. Anyway, I used an entire memory card that day! The day we went was beautiful. The sun was shining, the drive to the sound was amazing and we made many stops along the way. The guidebook made suggestions of little hikes and places to stop. A couple of the places were closed due to construction or geological "instability" so we couldn't see everything we wanted to. But then, if we had, we probably would have missed our cruise!

During the drive, we stopped at Mirror Lake (it's the next post), saw some keas which are native to New Zealand, and drove through a tunnel. The tunnel was basically 1 1/2 lanes and was one way so we had to wait for a while before we could go through it. While we waited, we saw little waterfalls and the parrot.

Te Anau

On the 18th day of our honeymoon, we went to Te Anau. Since we got there in the afternoon, we missed the Milford Sound cruises for the day. Instead, we booked the Milford Sound cruise for the next day, a glow worm cave tour for that day, and an overnight Doubtful Sound tour (we were happy it was off season).

Since the glow worm tour didn't leave for a few hours, we decided to go hiking around the area a bit. There was the beginning track to a multi-day hike so off we went, but only for about an hour in and then turned around. As with the other hikes, it was quite picturesque.

At 7:00 PM, we headed off in a boat across Lake Te Anau to the cave. It even had an underground waterfall! Unfortunately, pictures weren't allowed because supposedly they disturb the glow worms. Even though we couldn't take pictures, it was an impressive tour and I'd highly recommend it. We got into a small boat with about 10 people in the dark and then our tour guide and as our eyes adjusted to the dark, we could almost see the sides of the caves. More often, I felt the presence of cave walls. It was kind of eery but really cool.

The tour got done about 9:00 PM and we hadn't had dinner yet. We saw a "roach coach" selling burgers and such but thought that we could do better. Wrong. Everything was closed! So, we headed back to the mobile burger mobile and happened to get pretty darn tasty burgers, even though they had beets. Yep, beets on burgers. Oh, I ate grilled chicken, not a burger.

Queenstown

On the 17th day of our honeymoon, we wandered around Queenstown. We had brunch at Vudu cafe which has free internet access. It was a great cafe and very tasty food. I highly recommend it.

After a hearty breakfast/brunch, we did a bit of shopping (and more yarn) and went to a bird sanctuary to see kiwis. They are an extremely rare flightless bird of New Zealand. They are nocturnal so the houses are dark. We got there close to feeding time so we stayed to watch them get fed and eat a bit. The kiwis are raised in the houses until breeding age and are then released to "safe" areas in the country where the predators have been eliminated. I managed to get a slightly blurry picture of the kiwi.

From Glaciers to Queenstown

Yep, I am still blogging about day 16 of our honeymoon (with a bit of the drive from day 15, too). When looking through the pictures of the waterfalls, I realized that the whole drive was just stunning, so here are pictures of the drive (minus the waterfalls) along State Highway 6, through Haast Pass and Wanaka to the suburbs of Queenstown.

Puzzle world

On our drive from the glaciers to the fjords, we made a few stops along the way. One of those stops was Puzzle World in Wanaka. The Lonely Planet guidebook and a friend of mine recommended it so we thought we'd check it out. All I can say is that it is strange. If you have any balance issues or get dizzy easily, it is NOT a place for you to go!! There are some warnings on one of the rooms.

Puzzle World has rooms of different "puzzles." Some are optical allusions, well most are actually. There is a room of faces and if you walk a certain way, the eyes look like they are following you. There is also a room that explains how some of the optical allusions were done in the Lord of the Rings movies. There is also a room that seriously messes with your balance. There are funky steps and a slide that you ride up instead of down. The floor is also angled. Outside, there is a maze to solve. We did pretty well on the maze but had to quit early because I felt a bit ill from the "funky" room.

All in all, it is an interesting place. I think it is one of those places that you have a pretty strong reaction to. We met some other American travelers the night before we went who absolutely raved about it. While we were there, we met some Irish tourists that had been on our glacier hike. They were leaving the place and said that it wasn't worth the money.

Waterfalls, waterfalls, oh how I love waterfalls

In case I haven't mentioned it or you haven't figured it out yet, I love waterfalls. We had a waterfall guide book (John gave it to me for my birthday) to New Zealand and I have planned vacations around waterfalls (that's why we went to Norway). I don't know what it is about them, but I love them. I love to hear and see the rushing water and I think that they are beautiful.

So, when we left the glaciers to drive on State Highway 6 towards the sounds/fjords, I was not disappointed. The guide book said that we'd see tons of them and many were just along the side of the road. I knew that there'd be lots of waterfalls on this drive. However, I didn't imagine that there could be as many as there were. I felt like every time I looked on either side of the road, we'd pass a waterfall. Some of them were tiny, others were pretty impressive. Many of them weren't named or if they were, it was unoriginal names like culvert 5. That's how many waterfalls are in this area!

Franz Josef

On the 15th day of the honeymoon, we spent the day hiking on Franz Josef glacier. We had to be there at 8:15 AM which was quite difficult for us (those of you who know us know that we are NOT morning people). Anyway, we got to the base/guide place, got out gear, and then on the bus.

We then spent about 8 hours hiking on the glacier. We were decided to be in the slowest/photo taking group but I was still sore for a couple days from all the steps up and down the glacier. It was really cool to watch our guide use a pick axe to carve steps out of the ice. I think this was my favourite day of the honeymoon. It was the most physically demanding but it was an adventure. Climbing a glacier was also something I've really wanted to do since we were in Norway in 2004 and didn't get to hike on that glacier. Anyway, when we finished our hike, our guide informed us that we had hiked about 8 miles on the glacier!

Most of these pictures were taken with John's camera, by either of us. We shared the camera on the hike. I had mine with us as well but it got heavy to carry around.

To the glaciers

On the 14th day of the honeymoon, we continued our travels south to the glaciers. We arrived near the glaciers in the afternoon, booked our hiking trip for Franz Josef the following day, and then hiked a bit around Fox Glacier. Since there is a high risk of landslides and such, we stayed pretty far away from the glacier.

As was becoming common on our trip, it rained. It kind of felt like we were back in Ireland with all the rain. However, the glaciers and fjords get a lot more rain, about 6 metres per year if I recall correctly. Anyway, it rained in the afternoon/evening so we did our laundry in the pouring rain, checked our email, and later went for a beer at the holiday park where we stayed.

Happy Christmas!

The past three Decembers, we have flown to a Christmas market. The first year was Munich, then Salzburg and last year we went to Prague. This year, Europe was far out of our reach so we headed downtown for the christkindlemarket on a cold Sunday. It is a nice little market that is contained to about a block. It doesn't compare to the European markets but the prices of some things were actually lower than in Europe! We were also able to get tasty gluwein, some donut things, and good German sausage. So, even though it is small, it filled our "need" for a Christmas market and was a quite enjoyable couple of hours downtown. :)


This year, we also got a Christmas tree. The kitties are quite curious about it but they didn't climb is and haven't knocked it down. Darshin has tried to eat the branches. It is so nice to have a tree and have the presents wrapped under it. Somehow, it feels more like Christmas with the tree and presents. We even have four stockings waiting for Santa to fill them!

Also, for the second year in a row, I participated in an Irish Secret Santa. Even though presents weren't "due" until the 6th of January, I got mine already. It was a lovely surprise one day to have a package from Ireland. It contained two of my favourite yarns, too. :) When trying to take pictures, Tiffin was very interested in the hand made stitch markers.

So, on Christmas Eve, I wish you a Happy Christmas!

Petrol, where are you?

The thirteenth day of our honeymoon was a Monday bank holiday. On the Sunday before, we decided that we needed to try to drive a ways before making camp. Problem was, we only had about half a tank of petrol. We checked the map and there were a lot of little towns along our route. So, on we drove.

Well, after driving a while and passing through a couple "towns," we were getting low on petrol (gas) and looked at the map again. There was a bit bigger town shortly ahead so we kept driving. We got to the town and behold, a petrol station. Problem was, it had closed about half hour before. See, it closed earlier on Sundays and even earlier because the next day was a bank holiday. The petrol station was also closed on the bank holiday or we would have just camped and waited for it to open the next morning.

At the petrol station, a guy was standing around so John asked him where the nearest petrol station was. It was back in the direction we had come! We ended up driving about 50 kilometers back in the direction we had come (but not on the same road) and passed 4 petrol stations, all of which were closed because of the bank holiday! We finally found one in the town we had originally started in.

Later in the trip, we saw warning signs that the next petrol station was X kilometres away (sometimes over 100)! We learned from our adventure and made sure that we had at least half a tank of petrol before venturing out to the next "destination."

On the Road

On the thirteenth day of our honeymoon, we traveled. We got a late start and wandered further south. We walked across a swing bridge, which made me nervous, saw some seals, and saw some pancake rocks. We also saw one of the funny "hours" signs that seemed to be pretty common in New Zealand.

The Wall Island seal colony was our second stop and admired the views and watched seals playing. While walking around the coastline, we saw 8 wekas, which are a rare bird that I believe only lives in New Zealand. They are one of those silly flightless birds that New Zealand has a lot of. :)

Our third stop was the Pancake Rocks. They are a unique geological formation of rock that look sandwiched, or pancaked together. It was quite an interesting site.

We then continued our travels and drove on 2 1-lane bridges that had train tracks as well. Yes, that is right, the cars and trains share bridges in parts of New Zealand. The first one was a little scary since we've never driven on train tracks before and we had looked out for cars, but not trains. It was at night, which made it a bit more of an adventure, and we weren't able to take pictures.

Abel Tasman, part 2

On the twelfth day of our honeymoon, we went kayaking in the Abel Tasman Park. We had booked with Kahu kayaks and were running late (we were supposed to be there at 8:30 AM and couldn't find the sun screen). Anyway, the group had left but because they had forgotten a lunch, we were still able to get to the dock and take the tour. The guides and other staff were all really friendly and seemed to have a lot of fun kayaking on the sea. If you're going kayaking in Abel Tasman, I'd highly recommend these guys. The lunches (included in the booking), were really good and had amazing muffins!

Anyway, while kayking, our guide took us to where seals frequently are and we got to see some sun bathing. We also saw some shags (a bird). We didn't see any penguins but there are some that live there. Our guide showed us pictures of some that he had seen the day before. Our guide also took us on a little adventure. We hiked with the kayaks into a river and then paddled down the river a little ways. On the way out, we did a bit of adventure kayaking and paddled all the way out. We had to paddle into the tide and got all wet. We didn't tip over, though.

The weather was amazing on the day that we went and it was one of my favorite days and adventures. There aren't as many pictures as my normal, though, because I had to paddle. However, there is one of my favorites in this post. :)

Hiking Abel Tasman

On the tenth day of our honeymoon, we went hiking in the rain in Abel Tasman National Park. We spent five hours hiking along the coast and even in the rain, it was beautiful. The park was founded in 1942 and is the countries smallest national park. The park is named after Abel Tasman, who was the first European explorer to sight New Zealand in the 1600's.

Nelson

After Marlborough Sound, we moved onto Nelson. The guidebook had said that Nelson is a craft centre of New Zealand so I was really looking forward to the town. We wandered around one day during the week and I found a lovely yarn cooperative (Fibre Spectrum) and got some wonderful hand dyed yarns. Nelson is a wonderful little town. It is filled with small shops, most of which aren't chains. There definitely is an artsy vibe to it and we got some Merino shirts while there. We also checked out the church, got some Danish cheese and German sausage. Yum!

We also went back to Nelson on the following Saturday because we were told that the market is wonderful, and the market was wonderful. There were a lot of craft people there. I got yet more yarn, hand dyed and/or hand spun in lots of lovely colors. We also got some jewelry, ate more German sausage, had a venison pot pie, and some cake. It was a lovely day.

After the market, we decided to check out Founders Brewery, in Founders Park. I didn't know what to expect, but Founders Park was not what we were expecting. Founders Park is a heritage park, where the buildings are like they were in the 1800's. There were some strange things there, though, like a chain saw exhibit.

Camp sites

During our time in New Zealand, we stayed in a wide variety of places. There were a couple nights that we stayed in parking lots (literally) that were near a public toilet. Other nights, we stayed in DOC sites, which varied in how private they were. When it was cold or we needed to do laundry or charge batteries, we stayed in holiday parks. These were our least favourite as they were usually parking lots (often grass but not always) with power attachments. Most of them didn't have privacy.

During our trip, a few sites stick in my memory. Our absolute favourite site was on the water but in the Nelson area. We stayed there two nights and were able to have a camp fire (most places didn't allows camp fires! We had gotten German sausages in Nelson and grilled the sausage as we enjoyed the water and just being outside. Some of the photos of this site are amoung my favourites from the trip.

Other sites that we really enjoyed include where we stayed the first night on the North Island. It was in a park reserve parking lot but was private and really pretty. The rest were on the South Island. One was in the Malborough area. It was right on the water and spots were fairly secluded from each other (where these pictures were taken).

Marlborough Sound

The 8th day of our honeymoon was rainy and dreary so we decided not to go kayaking as planned (turned out to be a very good decision since it rained really hard at times, it was pissing rain as the Irish would say). Instead, we wandered around Picton, did a little souvenir shopping, and drove around the area.

On our drive up to the wine country, we noticed a sign that said "Alpaca" with an arrow. Below the sign, it indicated that there was "fibre." Of course we had to stop. So we turned off the main road, drove into what seemed like someone's driveway, some some cute alpacas, and then noticed a shed like building that appeared to be the shop. There was no one there. The door was open but John wouldn't let me go in and wander around (I think he was concerned that I could get into mischief in an unattended yarn shop). Instead, we walked up to the house nearby and a guy answered the door. He indicated that he would come down to the shop soon. We then happily (well, I was happy) looked at the alpaca yarn and fibre and bought enough for me to make myself a sweater, some undyed for me to play with and a something for Aileen (she hasn't gotten it yet though). All of the wool was undyed which I quite like. So, some day, I will hand dye the white alpaca and have fun making myself a sweater with the brown. I have a few ideas for a pattern and think it will be a self-design (after I finish the one I started this spring).

After buying lots of alpaca yarn, we then continued on our journey to wineries. Since it was about an hour before the guide books said most of the wineries closed, we decided to try one of the major ones. We got there about 10 minutes before we thought it closed. There was one car in the parking lot and 2 customers in the shop. We walked in and were told that the store was supposed to be closed but since there was a private tour later in the evening, we could still shop. The person working in the shop also offered free tastings and chatted with us. She was from the U.S. and had gone to New Zealand to work for a year and is now studying there so she could stay. She seemed to be having a lot of fun. We certainly had fun tasting the wines and ended up buying three bottles. We intended to bring one of them back for my sister but decided that we didn't want to risk it breaking in the flight so we had to drink it. :) They were all tasty but I think I like my Italian wine better.

To the South Island

On the seventh day of our honeymoon, we drove down to Wellington to catch the ferry to the South Island. On the way, we stopped at one yarn shop that we happened to drive by. It had mostly acrylic yarns but I managed to find some lovely merino to make a sweater/jumper for a friend's baby. I just have to get to work on it before the baby gets too big.

So, we took the ferry from Wellington to Picton. I spent a good part of the ferry ride concerned because I happened to notice a lorry/semi truck full of sheep on the ferry! They didn't seem happy and we figured that they were going to the South Island to get slaughtered. Later, we decided that that didn't make sense so they were going to a new pasture where they would have many happy years to eat grass and get sheared to give lovely wool.

Tongariro Crossing

On the sixth day of our honeymoon (I know, we've been back about 3 weeks and I am only on day 6), we climbed part of the Tongariro Crossing. We were told by the Department of Conservation that the full crossing transport wasn't up and running yet so we could climb up the first half of the hike, to the saddle, and then back down the same way. While we were hiking, we found out that there were tour operators running but due to wind, they weren't doing the whole hike that day.

The hike was hard and I had trouble maintaining a comfortable body temperature but it was absolutely amazingly beautiful (as evidenced by the volume of pictures I'm posting). I kept getting too hot and then too cold. Tongariro Crossing was one of John's favorite things on the honeymoon and mine as well. After reaching the summit of the saddle, we attempted to continue on a little ways since there were supposed to be pretty crater lakes and we wanted to try to see them. What we found was a snow field. I turned back part of the way into it because my ankle hurt too much. John ventured on and reported that it was windy, very windy up there. That snow field was the hardest thing we did on the honeymoon (yes, harder than hiking on a glacier). We also got sunburned on the hike. We blame the snow field...

Tongariro National Park

On our fifth day, we headed to Tongariro National Park. John wanted to climb Mount Doom and I wanted to see a World Heritage Site. Upon arrival into the National Park village, we got information about the crossing and hikes in the park. It was raining and mid afternoon, so we decided to do one of the shorter hikes, the Silica Valley hike. While on the hike, it was sunny, rainy, and even hailing! The weather really changes quickly in New Zealand.

Because it was raining, all these pictures were taken by both of us with John's Nikon 7900 instead of my D70. This helped his picture count and helped lower mine ever so slightly...

Tarawera Falls

On the fourth day of our honeymoon, we decided to continue on our waterfall quest. It took us to Tarawera Falls, which is halfway between Rotorua and Whakatane in the Lake Tarawera Scenic Reserve. It is definitely one of my favorite waterfalls that I've seen. In order to get to the trail leading to the falls, we had to drive on logging roads with gravel and pot holes. We kept winding around and thought that we had gone the wrong way at times. Finally, we got to the car park and found the trail and ventured on our couple hour hike. This was one of my favorite hikes of the trip because it was sunny and it was amazing to see water pouring out of rocks, going underground and then back above ground.

Hell's Gate

The next step on our waterfall tour, oh wait, I mean honeymoon, was Kakahi Falls in Rotorua. It is the largest thermal waterfall in the Southern Hemisphere and is in Hell's Gate Thermal Reserve. Because New Zealand was created by two techtonic plates colliding, there are volcanoes, mountains, and lots of hot springs/thermal reserves and this is one of them.

Hell's Gate Reserve was/is a sacred area to the Maori, the first cultural group to settle in New Zealand. They still use some parts of the park for religious/spiritual reasons. It is a realy interesting place. It helped that the day we went it was rainy/misty so the whole place had this surreal quality about it. It had a steam coming from the ground, sulfur bubbling up in mud and water, and even a mud volcano!

camper van

When planning the honeymoon, John researched the best way for us to travel around New Zealand. He decided that renting a camper van from Escape Rentals was the best idea. Their vans are full size vans instead of dedicated campers. They are then fitted with a bench, table, counter and sink. We also got a cooler, a propane stove, camp chairs, a grill, and a solar shower. We didn't use the shower much, mostly because it wasn't sunny enough to get warm enough. There was also an electric heater, which came in very handy since some of the nights got quite cold.

Each van is uniquely painted on the outside in a theme. Our van was freshly painted and we were the first to use it! It was named Tamanui Te Ra, which we were told meant "big boy sun." We quite liked our van (except for the loose battery cable which Escape didn't seem to realize it had) and got a lot of compliments on it as we drove around New Zealand.

Just for fun, here are two pictures of other Escape vans we encountered as well. One day, we saw 7 Escape vans. I now wish I'd taken pictures of them. :)

Kitekite Falls

I love waterfalls. For my birthday, he got me a New Zealand waterfall guide book. To help with the honeymoon planning, I looked through the waterfall book and marked the ones that I wanted to see. We then worked as many of those into the trip as possible.

The first of the waterfalls was northwest of Aukland. So, on day two, we got our rental camper van and ventured out of Aukland to see this waterfall. After getting a bit disoriented in Aukland, we found our way there and parked in the park car park. We then had a nice little hike to the waterfall. We knew that New Zealand was a wet country, but we hadn't really thought about what that meant: temperate rain forest. It was fascinating to see ferns and trees and have them be taller than John!

Upon seeing the waterfall, I had a bit of a surprise: kids were swimming at its base! It was a swimming hole!! Eventually, I succumbed to the temptation and had a bit of a dip with my clothes on. Since it was such a nice sunny day, it wasn't too cold hiking back in wet clothes...

Sky Tower

While in Aukland, John had considered doing the a Sky Jump at the Sky Tower but upon seeing the height, decided against it. Well, that and they weren't doing jumps when we were there. Instead, we took the elevator up to the top level and looked out at the city. The windows are tinted or polarized (not sure which) which gave an interesting effect to the pictures. We went in the evening hoping to see a sunset over the city but the clouds came in just before sunset. It was still a beautiful view.

Aukland

We arrived into Aukland about 6:00 AM on the 15th of October. Luckily, the hotel let us check in early and we took a nap until about 11:00 AM, which is still an early start for us. :) We then wandered around the city and did some site seeing.

We had wanted to go to an art museum, but unfortunately, it is under construction and closed at the moment.

Of course we went to visit a couple of churches as well. St. Mary's Church and Holy Trinity Cathedral are next door to each other. St. Mary's is an older, wooden church that used to be on the other side of the street. It was moved in basically one piece and rotated to its present location in 1982. There are pictures of the process in the church and they are quite impressive.