Milford pt 1 - The Road

With three days to rest before hitting the trail for the second of our great walks we decided to take to the legendary Milford Road.  When we left Te Anau it was under a clear blue sky, but as we crept closer to where the mountains meet the sea the clouds grew thicker, grayer, and lower.  The valley became narrower with the mountains becoming so precipitous it seemed as though they were bound to collapse upon us . By the time we'd made it to The Divide area the clouds had obscured just enough of the view to show us a hint of what we were missing,  so we headed back a few km to Lake Gunn to make camp and wait out the weather.  Thus we battled with the weather for the next 2 days, hoping against hope that everything would clear up so that we could catch that perfect glimpse of Milford Sound in the sunshine.

In the meantime a few short hikes in the valleys kept us (me really, since Kayleigh entertained no ideas of hiking on her short 3 day break) busy.  One short walk was inspired only by the peculiar way the DOC had designed for you to cross the river.  Named a "walkwire" on the topo map, it turned out to be just what it sounds like: a tightrope like wound wire supplying your only footing with a wire on each side acting as your handrails.  It was delightfully fun and shaky.  Later, a fun jaunt up the Humboldt River to the base of the Humboldt Falls rewarded me with a refreshing dip in the crystal clear waters at the base of the massive falls.  It had actually been a sunny and warm in the Hollyford Valley that day, but the clouds clung to the peaks with frusterating tenacity so we again retired back to the Lake Gunn camp in desperate hope that the next day would reveal the true glory of our surroundings.  We hadn't planned on camping for any length of time, so we had just enough food left to scrape together another dinner from various bits and pieces. 

At least we got to enjoy this sunset for our troubles

Humboldt Falls

The walkwire

The last day before we had to report back to Te Anau for our hiking preparations was bathed in glorious sunshine, pure and uncorrupted by a single cloud.  We got on the road as soon as possible and when we came around the corner to the Divide this time - WHOA! Stop the car! OMG! The way the cliffs shaped the Hollyford valley, the ancient rainforest decorating the granite with deep green and the last bit of winter's snow decorating the peaks like a crown - it was like a scene from a CG movie.  The road continued along this way, somehow becoming more impossibly scenic.  Once through the engineering marvel that is the Homer Tunnel the road reached it's most impressive.  Walls of sheer granite raising several thousand feet from the valley floor on three sides creates a natural amphitheater of unprecedented scale.  We progressed along the road in small increments, stopping every few km to take more photos.

The far side of the Homer Tunnel 

Looking down the Hollyford Valley from Key Summit

Alpine tarns

Eventually we arrived at what many consider the créme de la créme of the highway - the Milford Sound.  Mitre Peak rising a mile directly out of the sea over the sound is the most iconic image in all of New Zealand - one that I'd been incredibly excited to lay my eyes upon for the first time.  You can imagine my surprise then when I found myself completely underwhelmed by the sight.  All the photos I'd seen of the sound had been centered on Mitre Peak itself, but as it turns out it isn't even the largest peak on the sound.  The whole sound is framed on either side by large stone cliffs which are much closer to the shore viewpoint, causing them to dwarf the entire scene.  Not the worst problem in the world maybe, but the real issue is the busloads of tourists, the constant helicopter chatter above and the two or three large cruise ships on the sound at any given time catering to said busloads of tourists.  It felt and sounded more like a busy airport terminal than the pure and unspoiled place it's made out to be.  This is really a shame, as it seems that tourism has spoiled the very thing it has come to enjoy.  Don't get me wrong, it was a pretty place for sure, it's just that after all the glory that is the Milford Highway, well, it just didn't hold up.  Perhaps Donald Sutherland was right when he expressed his fear that his Milford Sound would never be the same again once the tourists arrived. 

The classic photo of Milford 

Things I'll Miss About New Zealand

When the immigration office begins e-mailing you in warning that your visa is about to expire you know that its time you should start planning your exit strategy.  Yes, hard to believe it but we've been in New Zealand for almost a year now and our remaining time is very limited.   This has led me to begin reminiscing on the good times.  I've found myself looking through our compiled photos and videos smiling, yearning for it not to end.  So I've compiled a list of ten things that I'll miss about life in New Zealand for your reading pleasure.  Enjoy!

-$1 Movie Rentals from Civic Video

Who can argue with $1 week long movie rentals? (Keep in mind Netflix doesn't exist here) Quite an extensive library to choose from as well, from international and foreign language films to anime.

-Toasted Vogel's with Pic's Peanut Butter on top

Aside from being what I ate for lunch almost everyday at work for almost 6 months, Pic's Peanut Butter is straight up the best damned peanut butter I've ever tasted, and this is coming from a PB fanatic.  I shed a tear for the day I finish my last jar.

-Cheap Tuesday Cinema

Ignoring the fact that the "cheap" Tuesday cinema tickets are just realigning the prices more to what we'd be used to on any given day in the US, it was a fun when you suddenly  realized it was Tuesday and rushed to see what was playing.  We made a bit of a ritual out of it.

-$10 Curry, Rice and Naan 

We still can't believe that we hadn't tried Indian food before coming to NZ, and we will always associate the two.  One of the few budget restaurant meals in the country, and as delicious as they come

-Hiking in the Rainforest in the Waitakeres

I will truly miss having such an outdoor paradise just out my backdoor.  A massive rainforest covered, waterfall scoured, beach backed, secluded mountain range.  Yes, please.

-Waterfalls

I doubt many other places on earth can compete with the multitude and diversity of waterfalls here.  Certainly not golden California.

-Strolling Along Beautiful Empty Beaches

I'm not sure I'll ever be able to enjoy Santa Cruz again.

-The Coffee

Aside from the fact that NZ is the place that I learned to love coffee (espresso drinks to be more accurate), I'll miss the cafe culture that permeates every nook and cranny of the country.  It just doesn't have a parallel in California.  I guess Starbucks will have to do.

-The Beer

I'm sure my new found appreciation for this legendary beverage will only continue to grow and come to include many an American beer, but I'll never forget the place I learned to love it.  (Anyone know of any good craft breweries back home?)

-Turkish Cafes on Every Corner

An ode to one my new favorite take outs

- (Generally) Clean and Well Stocked Public Restrooms

'nuff said

-A Relaxed and Even-Handed Outlook on Life

Kiwis are intelligent, humble, and mild mannered.  They prefer to be understated, even at their most pretentious and you'll be hard pressed to find many moral crusaders here.

-Friends!

Because I couldn't have had the time I did in NZ without them.  Thanks for bringing me into the fold and helping me to adjust to my new life thousands of miles from home.  

The Kepler Track

With the excitement of QT behind us we headed further south to the Fiordland National Park region.  Perhaps more than anything else, this is what I wanted to come to New Zealand for.  A massive 12,500km2 national park, it is one of the largest national parks in the world.  This is a new and tumultuous area geographically speaking, with the Pacific plate colliding with the Indo-Australian plate to create a huge chain of precipitous mountains stretching along the Southwest coast all the way up to Kaikoura.  Moisture clad winds blowing from the Tasman crash up against the mountains ensuring buckets of rain; it is one of the wettest places on Earth with 6,813mm per year!  This combination makes for some lush rainforest, thousands of cascading waterfalls and some epic fiords and sea cliffs.  Seeing as how only one road penetrates into its largely harsh and inaccessible wilderness, what better place could their be to do our first ever multi day backpacking trip? :)

The Kepler Track is a 60km, 4 day track crossing the Kepler mountain range that borders on the shores of Lake Te Anau.  With backpacks in tow we took to the trail which winded its way along the jurassic looking forest shoreline.  Ferns carpeted the forest floor and moss every other surface.  It wasn't long before we found ourselves at the base of the ascent and began the climb.  As the elevation rose the forest changed in subtle way.  The trees got shorter, the moss became whiter, the terrain more rocky.  We burst from the treelike just in time to prevent Kayleigh's knees from buckling under exhaustion.  The views over the lake were pretty amazing and we arrived at the Luxmore Hut (more like a chalet!) in time to catch some awesome views of the South Arm of the lake and the mountains above.  

A close up of the lichens and mosses 

Hidden lakes and Te Anau

We found out that night, much to our dismay, that the climbing wasn't over yet.  The 2nd day was to climb an additional 400m before descending equal distance only the ascend it again before a long 1200m descent.  To make it all the more fun and interesting, it snowed that night so we had about 3" of fresh powder covering the trail and ensuring everything was slick. Add to that the 60km/h gusts of wind, occasional sleet and fog and we were facing up against "blizzard like" conditions.  We hadn't really packed for that kind of cold given the time of year, but luckily we had enough layers to keep warm and dry sans the hands which were losing the battle against the icy wind.  Once they started to go numb the trail became more bearable and the pace picked up.  As we went along the high ridges sheltered us from some of the wind and the song "Winter Wonderland" looped in my mind as I enjoyed the novelty of the snow.  As the altitude raised the rugged exposed black rock was reminiscent of some scenes in LOTR.  We were even lucky enough to have the clouds part just long enough to glimpse some amazing primeval looking mountain and lake views.

Walking in a winter wonderland

But as you know, everything that goes up must come down, and down we came.  Plodding heavily under the added weight of our packs we stomped our way down the long zigzagging trail 1200 meters to the Iris Burn Valley.  Knees ached and the good spirits dwindled to somber silence as we marched.  When we finally arrived we could hardly make dinner before collapsing into our bunks.  Despite being the longest and most difficult section of the hike, it was certainly the highlight.  Even though we didn't see as much as we could have due to the weather, the snow and bad visibility gave the sense that you were much more isolated than you really were and made it feel like a real adventure.  Maybe this reveals my nerdiness, but as we walked I imagined we were walking through some remote location in the Himalayas.  Good stuff.

The 3rd day was mostly flat along the Iris Burn River Valley providing some nice views of the high mountains and some more jurassic looking forest, but the real highlight of day 3 was Lake Manapouri.  Even better, the last hut of the trip was located right on its shores.  It proved a beautiful bath tub to rinse off 3 days of hiking.  A hike back to the carpark was all it took to complete the circuit on the 4th day, completing our very first backpacking trip.

Iris Burn Valley 

Plum tuckered

Lake Manapouri

The Adventure Capital of the World

Queenstown has it all: luxury, beauty, delicious food, great nightlife, shopping and atmosphere.  It can all be a bit overwhelming at times, with the tacky commercialization and loud, raucous backpackers seeming to plague the city like sandflies at a west coast beach.  Luckily there is an infinite of empty, quiet wilderness to make an escape from all of it if you so desire.  Well, we had had our fill of that quiet wilderness and were ready to tackle the town head on.  Queenstown is known as the adventure capital of the world due to the innumerable adrenaline activities on offer, many you've heard of and some you haven't.  

The first activity of our adrenaline filled day could be one of the latter.  We got up bright and early (and had quite an amazing coffee I must say) for a morningful of jet-boating.  The Shotover Jet Company opened for tourists in the 1970s, becoming one of QT's first adrenaline attractions.  The boats are capable of reaching a maximum speed of 85km/h and only require 10 cm of water once up to speed.  Oh, and did I mention that you aren't strapped in? The ride immediately began with 180's, 360's and some serious speed whipping the bitingly cold morning air right through your clothes.  Luckily the hand bar was liquid heated! Fancy stuff! We bulleted down river through the bleach white Shotover River Gorge, coming nail bitingly close to the rocky outcroppings.  One could easily imagine that the guy driving the boat had once had aspirations of becoming a Formula One driver.  After the ride we clambered off the ship to get warm in the gift shop where we found a wall full of photos of famous customers who'd been through, including Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman!

Next up on our big day out was the big kahuna, the mother of all QT adrenaline sports.  That's right, bungy jumping.  Let me just start by saying that I'd been absolutely dreading the thought of it all morning.  As many of you may know I have a quite powerful fear of heights, so I wasn't off to a good start right off the bat.  By the time we were on the shuttle to the jump site I was practically crapping my pants.  Nervously we filled out all the paperwork and went through the prep steps at the site (where I found out I'd lost around 10lbs since leaving Auckland btw! WTF?) before going out to the observation platform.  From there we watched a brave soul take the 43m plunge before we decided it was better to go at get it over with than sit and wait in slow torture.

The job - the Kawerau River

Just before we got tied up

We silently walked across to the center of the bridge, only waiting a moment before they called us down onto the jumping platform.  The guy made small talk with us as he bound us together by the ankles (we decided to do a tandem jump) and secured the cord.  At this point I was doing all I could to avoid having a full blown panic attack.  Why the hell did I want to do this? Why the hell did I PAY to do this!? Such questions I was asking myself as they told us to stand up and put our toes to the line, which of course you must verify by looking straight down into the river below.  I managed to get my toes there, but the rest of my body wouldn't come with. I was leaning so far back that it almost put Kayleigh off balance, my hand clinging white knuckled to a pole.  Then the moment of truth when they told us "Now just lean forward and go".  I sent the signal to my hand to let go the pole but received no response in return, it was like a pit bull with lock jaw.  So the guy helped me out a bit and gave us a little nudge and down we went.  From that moment on it was fun.  Well, maybe I confused fun with the overwhelming sense of relief I felt for it being over.  That said Kayleigh and I were totally bummed that we closed our eyes when we fell, so we've vowed to do it again someday.

This picture speaks for itself

The final activity for the day was some light fun in comparison.  We took the steep Skyline Gondola up the hill for an awesome view over QT and Lake Wakatipu.  At the top of the gondola is a concrete luge track on which we had tons-o-fun racing, drifting and trying to cut down our track time.
  

The luge track

The view from atop the gondola

Hiking Galore

Over the course of the next week or so, Kayleigh and I hit the trails hard.  The Queenstown area is ripe with mountains, forests and lakes for the picking and we hardly left any stone unturned.  In fact, Kayleigh was a little taken aback by the amount of hiking on the schedule, since she had assumed our time in Queenstown would be spent doing the adrenaline pumping adventure activities it is known for and prowling the pub scene at night.  Sorry Kayleigh, but I promise I'll make it up to you ;).  She held in there like a trooper.  Check out some of the beautiful pictures we got just for you.

Queenstown Hill - The obligatory NZ town hill, complete with awesome view

Routeburn - One of the most renowned of the 9 great walks of New Zealand.  We didn't have a booking, so instead we chose a beautiful sunny day and sampled the first day of it, hiking to the Routeburn Falls Hut and back

Lake Wakatipu on the road to Glenorchy

Routeburn Track

Routeburn Falls

Looking back down the valley

Wanaka - This is sort of like Queenstown's sister city, located just over the Cardrona Pass from QT.  Located on the shores of Lake Wanaka, many say that this smaller, quieter town rivals QT in beauty but without the price or crowds.  I completely regret not coming here in the winter season to experience the incredible snowboarding it offers.  Perhaps the impetus for a future trip? We'll see.  For now I busied myself climbing both Iron "Mountain" and Mt Roy.  Iron Mountain is a mere hill amongst the giants surrounding the Wanaka Basin, but Mt Roy proved a real challenge.  Climbing nearly 4000 feet in 5km, it's easily the steepest track I've ever completed in my life.  It will forever be known by Kayleigh as "that cheeky day hike", since the comfort of the words "day hike" after so many multi dayers seemed innocuous (we did this one post Kepler and Milford which you'll hear about soon enough). The punishment you suffer morphs into ecstasy when you reach the summit though.  The view was worth every grueling step.

Mt Aspring, Lake Wanaka and the winding trail to the summit

Rob Roy Glacier - The drive to get to this hike was half of the adventure.  The trailhead is located in the backcountry of Mt Aspiring National Park and the road to get there is LONG and ROUGH.  We were driving unsealed road into the mountains for well over and hour before hitting a series of 9 or so stream fords before finally reaching the parking lot.  Luckily there hadn't been so much rain lately, but fording 6 inches of water on a rocky streamed in a minivan without any 4WD or previous experience was both an anxiety prone nightmare and quite a rush.  The trail itself was filled with spectacular views the whole way and the final twenty minutes or so opened up to the gigantic face of the Rob Roy Glacier and its dozens of waterfalls. One of particular note plummeted straight down a cliff face of about 1000ft from a hanging valley.  One of my favorite day hikes in the entire country.

1000ft falls

Rob Roy Glacier

Lookout Tahoe! Hear Comes Queenstown!

I kid, I kid.  While the two resort cities may have a lot in common, they couldn't be more different from each other in terms of atmosphere.  Where Tahoe is a quiet respite from the civilized world, Queenstown is all about getting excited.  Queenstown is pegged as THE place to go in New Zealand for an international traveler, and now having been there myself I can say that I mostly agree.  Located on the precipitous shores of the ethereal blue glacially carved lightning bolt of Lake Wakatipu, it's feels more like the scene of a movie that is too good to be true.  A photo of it would probably have you mistaking it for some fairy tale town in Switzerland, but I have seen it, and I can assure you it is real and it is New Zealand.

The drive into Queenstown from Invercargill began in bland flat farmland and gradually became more impressive and more mountainous, culminating in its joining up with the southern end of Lake Wakatipu and riding the shore up to Queenstown itself.  Queenstown really punches above its weight when it comes to atmosphere and the whole town has a flashy youthful buzz which is ever so delicately balanced by the calming peaceful effect that its setting has on you.  We arrived hungry and after chowing down at the famous FergBurger we just wandered through the streets of the little town.  The following day we drove up into the aptly named Remarkables mountain range via the unsealed and windy ski road.  The views were…dare I say, remarkable.  Mwahaha.  Once we reached the end of the road at the ski village we did a noteworthy walk up the ski field beneath the Shadow Basin chairlift to an absolutely incredible vista!  It was a fabulous first impression of Queenstown.

The Catlins

With the farm shrinking in our rearview mirror we put the peddle to the metal, invigorated to finally get to the fabled mountainous southwest of the country.  We found, however, that there was plenty of beauty to distract and slow us down as we rounded the bend along the southern coast of the island.  The Catlins region is sort of off the beaten track, but as beautiful as one would come to expect from NZ.  The waterfalls and, much to my surprise, the beaches were where the Catlins really shined.  After the long road down the East coast region where much of the land is dry, brown and flat farmlands the Catlins contrasted sharply with lush old growth green forests - some of the only remaining old growth coastal forest in the whole country! If the little blue dot on Google Maps wasn't telling me otherwise, I'd swear we were back on the North Island.

Purakaunui Falls

McLeans Falls

Whoa!

After a few shorts walks to some amazingly beautiful waterfalls, we took a stroll along a Maori owned beach to see the Cathedral Caves.  The beach itself was amazing, and the caves only accessible during low tide when the waves aren't crashing up against the cliffs.  There were 3 or 4 large caves to be explored, but unfortunately we'd left our flashlights behind in the car.  That kept Kayleigh from venturing too far in, but I went in anyways using the flash on my camera to aid.  The farther you walked into the caves a pungent and unpleasant smell became stronger and stronger.  At first I thought that maybe one too many drunken people had sullied the caves with their urine, I came to realize that it was the smell of rotting seaweed on the cave floor.  This was some nasty dank stuff as the seaweed had almost turned to jelly, staining the sand on the cave floor a dark brown.  Holding my nose I pushed on with a group of other tourists who had flashlights, and at the end of one of the tunnels huddled against the far back wall were a pair of penguins! They were quite hard to see in the dark, and they seemed frightened by us, so I quickly retreated back to the light and fresh air of the beach.

Luckily we were to have a run in with penguins a few hours later that would prove about 1,000,000x more interesting and perhaps the most stunning wildlife experience of the entire trip.  Right down the road from our holiday park that night was Curio Bay.  The beach is a renowned habitat and popular observation point for YEPs, and every day at dusk the mother penguins come ashore form the sea to meet their babies who wait patiently for their fill of the catch of the day.  Whoa! We were not prepared for what we saw! We arrived just before sunset to see some of the young YEPs lazily cooling themselves in the cold wind.  It was mildly entertaining to watch them change position and hobble and hop along the rocks every ten minutes or so, but it was when the mother came ashore that the real action began.

The pair of penguins we had been watching marched quickly towards the shore the moment they'd spotted their mother. Whining, squawking and bowing low around her feet they petitioned her for some delicious regurgitated fish.  She largely ignored them at first, resting on the rocks and slowly making her way towards the hills (which, as luck would have it is where we were waiting with our cameras with the rest of the tourists).  Once she was comfortably away from the sea she wandered in circles, seemingly trying to gain some reprieve from the whining squeaking little ones, but every once in a while she would turn and deliver a mouthful of fish, much to the delight of one of the babies.  I say one of the babies because as we watched we noticed that the larger of the two smaller penguins would bully the other away when he came close to the mother with his cries.  They would tussle, biting and twisting and the smaller one always came away defeated.  We watched for perhaps twenty minutes as the smaller of the two penguins was pushed away and denied food time and time again.  It was a very sad spectacle to watch and we began to wonder if the smaller penguin belonged to that mother at all since she seemed unconcerned and uninterested at his lack of feeding.  Eventually she did concede and he did manage to sneak in a few bites before the other penguin could react, but the entire spectacle was incredibly captivating and a harsh reminder of the laws of nature.  Survival of the fittest indeed.