The final day

I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm such a procrastinator.

So the last full day in New Zealand we were at the YHA hostel in Opoutere. It is a town in the Coromandel Peninsula. We woke up ridiculous early to drive to Hot Water Beach. It is a beach with magma warmed rocks under the surface that heats the sand up. You dig a hole at low tide, let it fill with water and viola! Hot tub on the beach. And I mean hot. The sand burns the bum that's for sure. You have to go within an hour or so of low tide (thus the getting up early). We were pretty tired so we drove back to the hostel and napped for a couple hours. The fast pace of the month was catching up with us. In the afternoon we did a bit of kayaking and then hiked to Opoutere Beach. It was deserted. Jess took off to explore the other side of the beach so I was by my lonesome with the exception of one guy who was taking some pictures. We ended up chatting for about an hour. It was such an insightful conversation. All these things that I'd been thinking about and wondering, that Jess had got me trying to sort out, it was like it all became clear while I was talking to this person who was completely removed from my life. It was kinda cool. Anyway, I met up with Jess a little while later and we wandered until supper. She decided on one last adventure and tried to walk through the little cove near the hostel since it was low tide. I wanted to see the forest again so we went our seperate ways. When I saw her again, she was covered in mud. Guess that cove was practically like quicksand. But she made it through in the end. I made our last supper of the trip. It was our usual - tuna, pasta and boiled carrots. Another traveller gave us a few peppers and zucchini to add to our "feast". It wasn't much, but it wasn't bad. I have to tell you, since I've been back I've already had tuna and pasta twice. Voluntarily. It really is quite good. I spent the rest of the evening packing for our flight to Fiji.

The next morning we drove to Auckland with a quick stop in Thames to pick up some souvenirs since we pretty much had not bought any yet. I mostly bought a New Zealand made brand of plastic food storage containers. Weird choice for souvenirs but it was honestly my favourite thing I'd seen while there and a heck of a lot better than spending $8 on fridge magnets that weren't that cute. So yes, I went to New Zealand for a month and all my mom got was essentially a New Zealand version of tupperware.

When we got to Fiji we were taken to the First Landing Resort. With the cyclone season being in effect, the beach was looking a little rough, but we had a super cute beachfront bure (bure = hut). This was our viewSince it pretty much nothing but poured for the first 3 days we were glad we'd gotten a nice room. Now, Jess was the sleeper of our little duo. She went to bed earlier than me at night and slept later than me in the morning. She even caught the occasional nap during the day. I think she almost thought it was unhealthy how much less I slept than her. But once we got to Fiji, I slept. I'd sleep for 12 hours at night and nap during the day. She was a little shocked. I tried to explain that the reason was while in New Zealand there was something to do every morning that I did not want to miss. But in Fiji, all we had on the schedule was sleeping, eating and relaxing. So I did. A lot. And it was wonderful. The food was pretty incredible at the resort. Not that tuna and pasta doesn't do it for me, but this was better. Note that Jess's meal came in a coconut! During the meal there was usually a few of the workers playing and singing for us. We even caught a couple of shows with dancing and fire tricks. So neat. As great as it was, I was going a bit stir crazy by the 4th day. So it was extremely timely that we finally got some sun for a couple of hours in the afternoon! We layed by the pool and attended a kava ceremony. Now the cool thing about kava is that in university I did a paper on it for a drug plants class but of course had never tried it since I'm pretty sure it's illegal in Canada. If you check out the effects in the Wikipedia page, we got to the numb tongue and throat stage. We only drank 2 coconut shells of a fairly dilute brew. It was sure an interesting taste though. The Fijians LOVE their kava and to turn it down is quite rude. So I didn't. The next day our flight home was not until 10 in the evening so I booked myself on a sailing trip to a deserted island with an Austrailian/Canadian family in our resort.Jess decided to spend the day at the resort. I had such a good time. I visited with my new friends and listened to music on the sailing yacht. Once we got to the island I went snorkelling and participated in another kava ceremony (I told you, it's rude to say no), got a massage and just lay on the beach. I even hiked to a part where I couldn't see or hear anyone else. Quite the experience.
It was so sad to have to come home. I could have stayed for another 5 months easy. And I definately plan to go back.

The wild day

So for those of you waiting on the edge of their seats to read about the rest of my trip (mom), here is the day after the tongariro. now you get pictures!

The day after our crazy adventure in Tongariro National Park we filled our day with fun. On the way to Taupo I made us stop to take this picture. The area is known for skiing and somebody actually drew those on. From the highway driving at top speed (which for me was usually around 70 or 80 - those twisty roads are scary) it looked like the sign had been made this way. And in the backgroud are the mountains we hiked up the previous day.
Then we went to Huka Falls. I was talking to a guy from Christchurch when we were on the Routeburn Track who recommended that we stop there. But with his accent (he was a Scandinavian living in New Zealand - it was all screwed up) I thought he said "Hooker Falls." He assured me it was nothing of the kind, so Jess and I went there. So pretty. The water was so blue.
Then we went to Rotorua, had dinner at a place called "Fat Dog" (extremely delicious Cajun Chicken Burger), and shopped quick. I bought a pink purse I'd been eyeing at Kathmandu (the South Pacific's version of MEC) since we'd been in Nelson. We had approximately 1 hour to get to our white water rafting trip that we'd booked the night before. It was on the Kaituna River and the starting point was about 30 minutes from Rotorua. So because I was with Jess (and she is always living on the edge) we went 20 minutes the opposite way out of town to go zorbing. This is my only picture.We rolled down the hill together in one of those see through balls. It was so fun.

Jess drove so we miraculously made it on time to our rafting trip. I felt like we were on amazing race the way we sped through zorbing and onto the next task. Wehn we arrived at our rafting start point we were informed that it was just the 2 of us and our adorable guide L.B. That scared me a little because I thought it might be harder with less people, but we actually ended up getting special treatment. He made is so fun for us. The particular trip we picked included a drop over a 21 foot waterfall. This picture obviously isn't us, but it is the river we rafted. And we did not flip. That was definately the highlight, but the entire ride was awesome. L.B. tricked us into jumping out of the boat at one point (acutally Jess asked if we could and I blindly followed her) and then he would not help us back in and we went over a rapid/small waterfall just in the water. There was no shortage of water on that trip. L.B. would row back into a waterfall after we'd gone over and leave either Jess or I in it to get doused with the thunderous water. T'was a blast.

Then we drove to a beach somewhere and went swimming and watched some surf lifeguard/rescue people in training. They are the most fit people I've ever seen in my life. After that we continued on to the Coromandel Peninsula which is where I was when I wrote my last post. I'll finish off the trip on another day. I couldn't not write about all our fun times in Rotorua though. Zorbing really was the coolest thing ever.

A shout out to Elijah Wood and Sean Austin

We climbed Mount Doom. Because we are crazy.

Okay, it's not actually called Mount Doom. It's Mount Ngauruhoe (pronounced Nare-a-hoo-ee). And it is part of the Tongariro Crossing which is apparently considered the best day hike in New Zealand. But it is the volcano that acted as Mount Doom in Lord of the Rings. And if Elijah Wood and Sean Austin (Frodo and Samwise) actually climbed it, they certainly have my respect.

So here's the story. We booked it to Picton to catch the ferry on Monday and then got stuck in traffic leaving Wellington. Their rush hour extends along the major state highway leaving town for like an hour. It's pretty crazy. We stopped to visit a Kiwi friend of our parents' and her daughter who had picked us up at the airport. Lovely people - I wish we'd had more time to visit with them. After our visit we still had a few hours drive to our lodge. We got there around 11 which wouldn't have been too bad if we didn't have an 18 km hike planned for early the next morning. We caught the sleep we could and then we were off to do the Crossing. It was originally something we'd planned to leave out of our itinerary until every single traveller we met said it was their favourite thing they'd done on their holiday. Back into the itinerary it went.

Anyway, true to form we hadn't really read any of the brochures or found out anything about it except that it wasn't a loop and we needed transport. While driving to the start of the track our driver described a couple of the side trips (New Zealand is all about the side trips) and said that if we did any of them we'd need to make up time on the "easier" parts because we only had 8 hours before he'd be at the other side to pick us up. There were 2 other older couples in our van and none of us figured we'd do any of the side trips as they were fairly difficult scrambles up the summits of two of the volcanoes and took about 2-4 hours each.

I don't know what gets into me and Jess. We are 2 hours into the hike, having just completed the Devil's Staircase (the hardest part of the regular track). Because the area is all volcanic it really does look a bit like what one would imagine Hell might. (Very Mordor-ish for you LOR fans). Anyway, it was a good 50 minutes of climbing for us. Everyone stops for lunch at the top of the staircase which is also the spot where you can veer right and climb straight up Mount Ngauruhoe. It's all loose shale and volcanic rock. And there is steam coming out of the top. It takes 2 to 3 hours to climb and 30 minutes to descend. Because you basically scramble down the loose shale. The thought completely terrified me. But for some reason I'm like, "Hey Jess, we should do this" and she agreed. I would have chickened out about 10 minutes in if she had not been ahead of me. It was probably the hardest most terrifying hiking thing I've ever done. With every step up you slide 3/4 of a step back. And I was so petrified of the scramble down that my whole body was shaking. And you'd grab a rock and sometimes it would hold and sometimes it wouldn't. At some points, I was basically crawling (you should have seen how covered with dirt I was by the end - hilarious). It took us just under 2 hours to get to the top. We could smell the sulphur and see the steam. We sat to eat half our sandwhich. My bottom was quite warm, and kept getting warmer and warmer and warmer. When I finally stood up, there was steam coming from where I'd been sitting. Incredible experience.

The scramble down took about a half hour and was way less scary than I had been expecting and other than sheer exhaustion and 6 more hours to hike (with only 3.5 hours to do it). I can't believe we did it. We caught up and passed the other 2 couples (who weren't as crazy and hadn't done the extra climb) and made up a lot of time in the next hour and a half. At the "2 hours left" sign, Jess ran the entire rest of the way down because she was determined to make it within the 8 hours. And she totally did. I was about 20 minutes late (still mighty respectable) but still caught a ride. The other two couples were 2 hours behind us by this time. Everyone in New Zealand asks "are you fit" to us all the time and we are never sure how to answer (obviously we don't look it). After that day, we felt we could say that we are definately reasonably fit.

Anyway, we spent today in the Coromandel Peninsula at Opoutere Beach (beautiful) and now tomorrow we go to Fiji. My time is up so that's all I can write. Talk to you all when we get home.

Seals, seals and more seals

We finally saw seals to our hearts content. We are in Kaikoura which is on the east coast of the southern island and known for its marine wildlife. We did a bit of a jaunt over some rocks (that are covered at high tide) to a seal colony and saw dozens and dozens of seals up as close as we wanted. DOC tells you not to get within 10 metres and for a good reason. The bull fur seals could do some serious damage. I got a big closer than I meant to at one point and got yelled at by three of them. Oops.

So we no longer feel cheated and can go on with the rest of our holiday. Still no penguins for me though and no dolphins for Jess. Big huge sigh about that, but otherwise we are happy campers.

I ate crayfish and it's fantastic. But super expensive. As much as lobster. But it (crayfish) tastes better (to be fair, Jess disagrees on that point).

Tomorrow we catch the ferry from Picton back to Wellington. I have a charged iPod and 2 gravol tablets waiting for me. I'm going to find a spot at the back of the boat and try to sleep my 3 hours of seasickness away. And, it will get me out of driving for a couple hours afterward! I hate driving in Wellington so in this case, the seasickness actually helps me out. Jess is going to wonder why I'm taking so many gravol and she won't know the truth until she reads this post someday.

Tramping* it up - New Zealand style

Well, Jess and I have now tramped. We just completed the Routeburn Track which amounted to three fairly full days of hiking. We even did what they call a side trip which is where you ditch your pack (unless you are crazy and "like a challenge" as the one guy said as he passed us for the second time) and do a more difficult and treacherous trail for an hour or two to get to some amazing view.

We met two couples (one from the Czech Republic and one from Oregon) the first night at the "hut"** and became fast friends the second night as Jess led a game of "up and down the river" with the Oregon guy's deck of cards. We were a bit rowdy and got the "lights out" time moved from 10:00pm to 9:40. Oops. So fun to laugh though.

I can't really describe how lovely the track was. The first and third days were mostly in this ethereal beech forest with moss hanging from trees and a waterfall around nearly every corner. The second day was by far my favourite though. We walked exposed above the treeline for a solid 5 hours (not including our side trip or lunch break) along the side of the mountains. Every turn was a different fantastic view. I absolutely loved it and would definately go again. It didn't hurt that we had three fine days of sun and no rain.

We guessed almost exactly right on how much food to take and came back with only a couple of crackers, a bit of cheese and a bite of chocolate. Our suppers consisted of "Adventure Packs" that someone had tipped us off about. Best freeze dried Honey Soy Chicken and Roast Lamb and Vegetables that I've ever had. Which isn't saying much I guess. But they were actually quite good and reasonably priced and healthy. Some people went all out and had mashed potatoes and sausages and the real adventurous (read: crazy) ones lugged up bottles of wine. Not us though - we went as light as we could. And like I said, guessed exactly right.

On the bus ride back to Te Anua we discussed what we were most looking forward to upon our return. You'd have thought that we'd both say a shower wouldn't you? But you'd be wrong, partly because Jess took a swim in the lake the night before and because I was not nearly as dirty as I've been on other work or pleasure related trips into the wild. I was actually dreaming of trading in my hiking shoes for my flip flops (called jandals in NZ) and Jess was looking forward to a real supper. And when we got here, I put on my jandals and we had the best dinner at a little place in Te Anua called La Via Dolce (or something close to that). I happily paid $40 for my dinner. For those of you who know me and my reluctance to pay a lot at a restaurant (and are sitting there with your mouths hanging open), it was worth it and I would have paid $60 for the fine food I ate. It was chicken and vegetables atop roast potatoes and some kind of Italian sauce which started with an "F" and was heavenly. And our waiter sang to himself (using the word "Amore" quite a lot) as he cleaned off and set other people's tables which made me smile quite a lot. It was the perfect meal to end a wonderful three days.


*Tramping here means hiking in case I haven't already explained that. And it means serious hiking, not just strolling along a paved mountain path (because there are plenty of those if that's your cup of tea).

** Hut is a loose definition in this country. The Great Walk Huts are fairly amazing and nicer than a lot of the hostels we've stayed in (which are also very nice). 10 or 20 stove tops, flush toilets, fantastic views and relatively comfy bunks afford a relaxing evening. You do share a room with 25 other people, but if you have earplugs and a face mask, it's no problem.

yesterday and today - queenstown and doubtful sound

because i've been questioned about it, the whale rescue i thought i might try to participate it (if it had still been alive) would have involved covering the whale with towels and keeping it wet with buckets of water and helping turn it the right direction to swim out once the tide came in, etc. i was not planning to perform CPR (dad) or pull on its tail to get it back in the water.

it is tuesday january 22 today (which means it's monday back home). i haven't been great about saying which day things were happening. so that clears that up.

yesterday we hung out in queenstown. our hostel was truly awesome. it was called hippo lodge and we paid the most we've paid so far for a private room but it was one of the nicer places (my 2nd favourite). the view of the lake and the rest of queenstown was amazing. which obviously meant we were at the top of a big steep hill. which was unfortunate for me because i'm not great with directions and jess and i split up at the end of the day and i forgot exactly which street to walk up. so i picked the one i thought, got to the top (huffing and puffing), and couldn't see my hostel anywhere. then i walked back down and asked someone. she laughed at me and said i'd actually gone up the right one but just had to go up the staircase. funny but i had absolutely no recollection of going down a staircase in the morning. jess assures me we did. but i am very unobservant about things like that. so back up the giant hill. oh well, good training for the Routeburn. anyway, while in queenstown we did a bit of shopping for the big hike, booked the trasportation (it's not a loop so we start and end in different places), booked our accomodation in Fiji, and booked a day trip to Doubtful Sound. after that we drove the 2.5 hours to Te Anau where we are doing a homestay. nice clean cozy house with a real friendly guy who was so excited about our whale story and wanted to see our pictures. so it's been good.

Doubtful Sound. Stunning.

this morning we got up early and walked to the corner in the rain (our first day of rain since Auckland - we've been very lucky) to catch the first bus (referred to all day as a coach). it took us to the visitor's centre in Manipouri where we caught our first boat and crossed Lake Manipouri. Beautiful ride in the mist and rain. Good news is our raincoats appear to work okay. Once we arrived at the other end of the lake, we did a quick tour of an information centre and then we caught our second bus which took us first on a tour of the power station (we rode a bus for about 20 minutes underground and then had a nice tour - neither jess nor i had fully read the description of the day so this was an enjoyable surprise for both of us). the coach then took us over the 21km Wilmont Pass road (the most expensive ever built in New Zealand. owned by the power company and only accessible by water on both sides) which took about an hour to reach Deep Cove. Tons of waterfalls and trees and plants and moss (my secret weakness - spaghnum mostly. it's harvested here and used for all sorts of interesting things). then we caught our second boat and had a lovely three hour cruise through the fjiords and into doubtful sound. it was all misty and "moody" in the morning and majestic and lovely. it had stopped raining but remained overcast until we turned around at the tasman sea and cruised back. then the sun came out and we had a completely different view of everything. loved it.

we went back to our bus at Deep Cove and back over Wilmont Pass road. caught that boat to cross Lake Manipouri again. rode that bus back into Te Anau. all said and done we had 4 bus rides and three boat rides. long brilliant day.

this evening we've done nothing but eat supper (our favourite meal, pasta with tuna and boiled carrots) and organise our food and packs for tomorrow. we catch our first bus at 7:30 and are back off to queenstown. we've got two hours and then we catch a second bus to glenoarchy which drops us at our starting point, the Routeburn Shelter. we will spend our first night at Routeburn Falls Hut and our second night at Lake Mackenzie Hut. that info is mostly for my dad since he likes to follow along on my trips. to the rest of you, if you were bored you should have skipped that sentence.

so won't be much news from us in the next few days. i've never done a three day hike before. apparently the second day is the hardest. and to make it extra fun, the forecast is rain! we've been told to be ready to walk through a half metre of water if it rains. sounds like fun.

now i shall go and drink tea with the homeowner and another guy staying here (i think the accent is scottish) and then head to bed.

long post about the last few days...

i saw a beached whale. we went back up the golden bay coast to farewell spit on friday and because of lack of time skipped our return trip to the beach you have to hike to and instead did another hike out to a different beach (not as wild but still lovely - no seals though). we "improvised" our way back to the carpark (of course jess was loving it and i was so worried we were lost) and saw a bull sperm whale that had beached itself a couple of days previously and died on the beach. it was sort of sad but the DOC (Department of Conservation) officers that were there said it was an old whale that had likely done it on purpose to die. t'was his time i suppose. when we first came around the corner that let it be in our sight i thought it might still be alive and we took off running the 3/4 kilometre or so to get to it. we knew we had a 6 hour drive with no stops to get to Punakaiki and we had to be there by 9 to get our room and if we were late he'd still charge us even though we'd be sleeping in the car. and we were already running behind but the thought of participating in a whale rescue was more than i could bear. so off we ran. we got such interesting information about whale rescues from the DOC guy (because of the length of the sand spit in that area it does happen on occasion). he even said that they once managed to rescue 100 pilot whales that beached themselves a couple of years ago. thousands of volunteers came out to help. so cool.

anyway, we now had 5 hours and 45 minutes to make a 6 hour drive (and that's 6 hours with no stops - our stops don't tend to be quick). i will not tell you how we did it on those windy roads, only that we did it and got to watch the sun set from about 20 feet in front of our hostel. it was a great day because we really packed in the absolute max of what we could do.

saturday (yesterday) we woke up early to get to the blowholes at the pancake rocks that were about a 10 minute walk from the hostel (although i'm embarassed to admit that we drove - we were scared we'd miss it). these funny looking layered rocks, thus the name pancake, have holes where the water bursts forth at high tide. there are pictures of them all over NZ. while it was not quite as dramatic as the pictures, it was pretty cool. after that we drove to westport, about an hour north (stopped to do a quick 30 minute hike) to get gas, batteries and go for lunch. we then went to a seal colony so as to ensure that we would see them. we hit the pay dirt and stood and watched them for about an hour. we were fairly far away but it was still pretty neat to see, especially since there are baby seals right now. we have another hope of seeing them up close when we travel back to the north island up the east coast past christchurch. after our seal watching we returned to punakaiki to do a 3 hour river walk that included a river crossing at the end. i was pretty nervous, having never done one, and had my waterproof bag for my camera, extra shoes to change into so i wouldn't have to walk in my hikers and warm clothes in case i fell in and had to warm up after. i'd also let someone at the hostel know where were going in case we didn't come back. so picture me, all prepared for the worst, at the side of this river getting ready to cross. jess went first and we decided I would take a picture of her. she seemed to do it with no problem (but i was still a little nervous). by the time i sat down, put my camera into my waterproof bag, took off my hikers and switched to sandals she had crossed back over and back again. so, a little red faced, i crossed my first river (without a bridge). we got back to the hostel, ate dinner and crashed.

this morning (sunday) we arose early and were on the road by 7:15. our goal - queenstown. that is about a 10 hour drive without stopping. in new zealand, i think they consider us a bit crazy for even considering it (but we are canadian girls - we know driving). it was a really nice drive actually. we made several stops. the first was in hokitika to look for jade. then we stopped in fox glacier to meet up with our dutch friends for lunch (which was so fun). we visited the information center in haast (which is an area we really really wish we could have spent some time in) and did a bunch of short walks as we drove through haast pass. stopped for dinner in wanuka and made it to queenstown around 9.

tomorrow is preparation day. we need to buy all of our food for our three day Routeburn Track. exciting.