view from the reception area at our nicer than nice holiday park in Queenstown

our last camper van meal - unfortunately consisting of the infamous leathery "Porterhouse" Steak that Scott picked out

view from the top of the gondola - that's downtown Queenstown at the bottom left - nice location wouldn't you say?

Lord of the Rings shop in Queenstown - you see this all around NZ

the road we had to drive with the fuel light on!

one of many deer farms in NZ

Day 16 recap (Thurs Feb 24)

[Scott] Our visit to Fiordland yesterday was absolutely incredible, and Milford Sound went right to the top of my list of favorite spots in New Zealand - or the world for that matter. This fascinating place is definitely a must-do for anyone visiting New Zealand. They have done such a great job preserving the natural feel of the area. Imagine what Niagara Falls would be like without the miles of pavement and shops up close to it, or Yosemite Valley without all the buildup in the valley floor. I think the mystical foggy weather we had and getting there early really made it extra special. I went for a run this morning along Lake Te Anau. It makes running much easier when you have the mountainous lake views to look at. After I got back, we went to the Fiordland Museum in town which was quite interesting. They had some great pictures and diaries from hikers who have spent time in the extensive hut system on the famous trails of the area. There were some really fascinating tales from people who were caught hiking in extreme weather conditions, and perhaps didn’t heed nature’s warnings. One of the most famous hiking trails in the world is located in Fiordland and it is called Milford Track. They only allow 12 (or is it 24?) people per day to set out on this 6 day hike, and reservations typically need to be made months in advance. We obviously didn’t have time to do this anyway, but we enjoyed reading all about it. We went and picked up some good sandwiches at the Te Anau grocery market for lunch, and had our first mince pie which was actually pretty good. We then got on the road and drove three hours to Queenstown and arrived around 6pm. We were really sweating it wondering if we were going to run out of gas (or petrol as they say here). We stopped at a place that wasn’t open, and then another that only took NZ ATM cards. We then had to drive 20km to the next town on a fairly narrow road lying between a lake and a steep mountain without any shoulders. We did make it but it was certainly a quiet ride full of anticipation. I thought Stef was going to bite here fingernails completely off! Anyway, Queenstown is essentially a ski town, and has become known as the adventure capital of NZ. Bunging jumping, sky diving, and paragliding are the big attractions here. We decided all of that was a little too crazy for us, so instead we took the ride up the gondola and got some really great views of the area. Unfortunately the luge (alpine sled) was closed, so we just had a drink sitting at the window overlooking the town. It’s really not a very big town, but they have a lot of shops and restaurants packed into the few blocks they do have for their downtown. For anyone visiting Queenstown, I would definitely recommend taking the gondola for the great view of the area. Also, it’s definitely the most hip place we’ve been in NZ. They have a bar called the “Minus Five Bar”. They keep the temperature at -5C and serve drinks in cups made of ice. We didn’t make it over there, and I think it’s like $25 just to get in, but it sounds pretty cool! After riding the gondola back down, we got checked into a holiday park. This place is the Mercedes Benz of holiday parks. We thought all the others were nice, but this place was top notch. The only downside is they charge a buck per six minutes for the shower – bizarre! We bought some “Porterhouse Steak” at the grocery store and cooked ourselves a meal in the campervan. Unfortunately, the steak tasted more like a leather shoe than a Porterhouse Steak. I guess all the good grain goes to the sheep here or something! Actually, I think they just name their cuts of meat differently here. We had no trouble falling asleep since we were still tired from our long day at Milford Sound yesterday. We are flying to Auckland tomorrow so we can catch our flight from Auckland to Sydney the day after. What a great two weeks it has been in New Zealand. We wish we had more time to explore the country further, but at the same time I suppose it’s the sign of a good vacation when you’re leaving still yearning for more. The hiking (tramping) system they have here is incredible and we hope to come back sometime and really explore the back country on the Milford Track, Routeburn Track, Kepler Track, and others. These are on the order of 30-60km each, and take anywhere from 3-7 days each mostly exploring the Fiordland where we were yesterday. This was Stef’s suggestion that we make it a priority to come back and do these hikes! Yes, the same woman who contemplated strangling her husband on our hike up the volcano last week. Perhaps that leathery steak has altered her ability to think straight, so I’m not going to make any reservations yet.

Karaoke night in Te Anau

Stef crossing a suspension bridge - notice the really bright blue water

Scott overlooking a raging river with huge boulders near Milford Sound - one of the many impressive overlooks maintained by the NZ Dept of Conservation

Parrot by the entrance to the tunnel

entering the infamous one-lane 3mi Homer Tunnel

Stef checking out a large starfish from the underwater observatory

Milford Sound's Underwater Observatory - the circle of viewing windows 10 metres under the water's surface. They told us it is the deepest observatory in the world.

Scott in the mist of the waterfall

looking up at the waterfall that they brought us to within about 10 feet of!

the cruise ship passing by a fur seal colony - you can see one on both the right and left side of the rightmost rock - they brought us up real close to watch them play in the water

coming back into Milford Sound from the sea - for perspective, notice the "large" cruise ship in the bottom left of the picture! yes, the walls are as steep as they look.

Stef on the cruise ship on the unusually calm waters of Tasman Sea - typically as soon as you leave the Fiord, there is a high swell

early morning shot of the famous Mitre Peak in Milford Sound - the spotty fog really added a mystical quality to the experience

Day 15 recap (Wed Feb 23)

[Stef] We pulled into the picnic area last night at 11:30PM. Scott didn’t mention the story of getting into the picnic area (so you know I would love to share it!) Because backpacking and camping are so popular, there are many places to just pull over and sleep. Most people get into their sites and set up by sunset and certainly no later than 10PM. Even on the side of the road, and especially at Holiday Parks. Scott and I always seem to stretch the day as much as we can and it’s usually 10:01 PM and we are still trying to get to a place to stay. So anyway, we pulled into this picnic area and a tent was set up with a car off to the side… so I reminded Scott to quietly park our camper and we’ll go to sleep. Well, since it’s a diesel you can hear us anyway, so I am sure that didn’t help the tent people to sleep. Then we misjudged the tight bend in the drive and had to reverse and inch forward a bunch… but we got in, after taking out a bunch of branches on the trees. Once we got in and shut off the engine, I thought that was going to be the end of the noise, but just for good measure, Scott hit the horn for a nice sharp blast while trying to climb into the back of the campervan. I am sure the sleeping people enjoyed that! Of course, if that didn’t wake them up, the sound of us slamming the doors to get out and in to go to the bathroom sure did. This was all followed by me screaming my head off and trying to “run” around the campervan because there was a moth attacking me (the only insect that really grosses me out), while Scott laughed his head off. And to top it off, getting up at 4AM, turning on our diesel truck and heading out probably wasn’t appreciated either. I think we probably should have gone somewhere else instead of subjecting these poor people to our behavior, but what would we have to laugh about now, right?

Getting up on four and a half hours of sleep is almost easier than a full night of sleep for us. We got on the road by 5:15AM to see Milford Sound. I suggested that we go early, before all the tour buses so that we didn’t have to deal with the traffic on the narrow roads. All the travel books we have read tell us not to go in a campervan, but Scott and I decided we would be okay if we left early and beat the rush. From Te Anau to Milford is a suggested two to three hour drive. Apparently, they don’t go at 5:15AM so they don’t know it takes just over 1.5 hours! They were correct on the narrow roads and steep sides of the mountains. Driving in a fog (literally and figuratively) gave the winding roads and steepness an even scarier effect. I tried to not look and not focus on anything. I don’t think I breathed until we were in the parking lot at Milford. After about 60 Kilometers into the drive, there is a one-way tunnel. This is the infamous Homer Tunnel. It is a three mile tunnel (through a mountain) that drops down into the Milford Valley. It was proposed in 1889, but wasn’t started until 1935 and completed in 1940. It wasn’t until 1954 that the connecting road was completed however. It really felt like we were driving into the center of the earth because of the steep drop and the close rock walls. It wasn’t very well lit either. Scott thinks they are probably the same lights that were installed in the tunnel 60 years ago and I was sure we were going to emerge in China, or I guess whatever would be on the other side of the world from here.

It was worth the drive though. While we were in the Tunnel, the sun was able to emerge a bit more and it gave the area a beautiful, mysterious glow. There wasn’t a person up or a commercial restaurant, hotel or Starbucks in sight. What a marvelous wonder. We made our way to the ticket office, which was still closed, so we went back to the campervan and had a continental breakfast. I took a 20 minute nap and Scott relaxed a bit himself. He woke me just before 8AM and we went back to the ticket office and asked some questions in order to decide on the right trip to take. While there were earlier cruises, we chose the “Nature Cruise” which departed at 10:35AM. We got information about a coffee shop and headed out to relax and wait until our trip.

It was the first time the weather was “bad” for us (not surprising with 300” of annual rainfall – 25 FEET – can you imagine?). It was rainy or misty and the cloud cover was thick but spotty. We could see the scenic Mitre Peak without any trouble though – which we heard is not that common (this place is more often cloudy than anything else). We also were happy to see the mist and rain, as it creates a mysterious aura to the landscape, not to mention gets the water running on the large number of playful waterfalls covering the walls of the Fjords. We were also told that on cooler days, the seals and dolphins are more likely to emerge from down under; on warm days they tend to stay underwater for the cool waters.

Our cruise boat seemed pretty huge, but it was the middle size for tours. It holds about 200 but it probably was a little over half full. The tour is more intimate on this cruise because this boat has a commentator wandering around who is there to spew facts and answer questions. This cruise took two and a half hours and then we spent another half hour at the Underwater Observatory. The cruise goes along the Southern side of the sound and the goes into the Tasman Sea to turn around, and then follows the Northern side of the sound. The captain told us that often the sea is too rough and they turn around before entering the sea (not today though – we got the whole tour!). At the end of the sound is Saint Anne’s Point and it has a lighthouse on it. It didn’t seem like it was big enough to throw any light, but the novelty of it seemed quaint. On the way back, the boat stopped at the Underwater Observatory, dropped off the people who purchased tickets and continued on. (After viewing the observatory, we were taken back by the tour guide on a smaller boat.) The entire experience provided so much information and insight into this unique world. I will do my best to give it justice, but bear with me – most of you know I was far from a science major. I can give you the history, but I may not provide much understanding of the scientific side of this special place.

To answer Scott’s quiz question – A fiord is a steep walled inlet of water formed from the friction with ice during glacial movement; a sound is formed from other geological forces, such as earthquakes. Therefore, Milford Sound is really a fiord and not a sound.

Milford Sound began forming 500 million years ago and 18 million years ago the walls split completely and filled with water from the Tasman Sea. Researchers know that Milford has endured at least three ice ages. Another interesting aspect of Milford is that the Pembroke Fault Line runs through its terrain. This is the cause of the many earthquakes that take place daily. Our guide told us that there is one earthquake every six minutes in the area, but they are rarely strong enough to make an impact on daily life. Based on the time we spent, we must have experienced 80 minor earthquakes, without even knowing it! The guide also said that scientists have discovered that Milford experiences a major earthquake every 200 years BUT it has been 300 years since the last one. Since they are well overdo for a ‘quake, I was anything but excited about the drive back through the tunnel! Our guide said, “Don’t worry on the drive back through the tunnel. I’m sure today is not the day.” A chortle passed through the boat as everyone recalled their morning drive through the eerie tunnel.

The walls of the fiord are very interesting. In some spots walls also contain a variety of minerals that, when oxidized, make vibrant greens, oranges and whites (I believe copper, iron and quartz). They host many waterfalls, such as Fairy Falls. This is an 18 meter high falls that looks more like a mist than a waterfall. When asked why such an odd name, the guide explained that after a late night on the town, depending on what you were doing the night before, you could swear you were seeing gnomes and fairies dance around its base. Another waterfall that the ship’s captain took us to about 10 ft from (yes we got a bit wet) is called Sterling Falls. It is as high as a 50 story building. Many of the falls are unnamed because they appear only after it rains.

The wildlife here is really impressive. This was the original home of the Kakapo. The Kakapo is the world’s largest parrot. It is also flightless and nocturnal. This bird no longer lives there and there are only 81 left in the world. They have since moved to a few of the islands off the mainland here, but an extensive program is in place to restore their population. We also saw some sort of parrot on our way out – it was hanging out near the tunnel, posing for pictures.

Another photogenic creature came into our sights on the trip as well. The ever popular New Zealand Fur Seals. This is not a breeding colony – it contains only juvenile males. They stay here until they are old enough to move on (5-6 years old). A full-sized male grows to a little over 5 feet and around 240 pounds!

Crawfish and Rock Lobster is a big industry in this area. There are many holding pots for these lining a section of the sound. Many of the seafood are exported to Asia and the United States. Makes you wonder if you ever ate one from here, huh?

The observatory could get its own book. It was the highlight for me today. The observatory is floating, as is its associated dock where we arrived. This is to create a completely independent structure and not ruin or alter the fiord or sea floor in anyway. There are no bathrooms and all waste created there is taken back by boat at the end of the day. Once arriving in the lobby we descended a spiral staircase down 30-35 ft below the water’s surface (making it the deepest underwater observatory in the world). At the bottom is a circular room probably no bigger than 15 feet in diameter with windows on all sides. There is a ledge that is completely built up with “Sea Stuff” and it really feels like you are a fish in its natural surroundings. Our guide explained that the existence of a scuba diver, submarine or cage alters the state on an underwater community. This observatory, that is completely built up and covered like a part of the ocean on the outside, allows us to be a witness to the underwater world without altering the natural state of its contents.

The water in the fiord is actually brackish for the first 20 feet because of the rainwater runoff constantly going into the water. The rainwater contains many nutrients from the plant life above, which creates an interesting phenomenon - tea colored water allowing very little light through. This effect makes the creatures you would normally find more often on the ocean floor grow and thrive at about 30 feet under the water’s surface. One of these is black coral. I was excited to be able to see this, as it is a highly protected coral. It is often used for very, very expensive jewelry. As of late, I believe it is illegal to harvest, sell, or even possess it in most countries because of its value and scarcity. The tour guide even stated that most people will never see it, even scuba divers because of its normal growing depth. The water is also filled with fish as far as the eye can see. Many of these fish do not normally live in water this close to the surface, but they do here because of the low amount of light. There are starfish, snails, anemones and all sorts of things… I felt like Nemo looking out at them! Our guide said ONE time in the history of the observatory there was a 15 foot long shark that came into the area to feed on the schools of fish. This was to the shock and amazement of the people inside! It was probably one of the only times in history a shark was observed in its unaltered, natural habitat! Unfortunately, we didn’t get to see anything close to that, but we did get to see the underside of a few starfish as they clung to the windows!

Scott made fun of me a lot during this visit because I stalked the guide and asked him a million questions. I guess I should have just paid more attention in biology! It was really a great experience and I recommend it to anyone who may travel to this part of the world.

After we got back to the dock, we walked to our campervan and headed down the mountain again. The tunnel wasn’t AS SCARY as it was in the dark.

We got back to Te Anau and found ourselves a campervan site in the town. We met a really nice Kiwi in the next site over and she asked us about 300 questions about our travels. She was a close-talker, but we enjoyed her all the same. We decided to walk the town and find something fun to do. The campsite was across the street from Lake Te Anau. It was a beautiful walkway and it had lots of plaques with historical facts. We walked around the shops and looked at all sorts of touristy stuff. When we got bored with that we decided to go to “The Moose Café” for dinner. It seemed like a good mix of locals and backpackers, so we had dinner. It was a decent meal but not outstanding, and we sat outside at a table overlooking the lake. After eating, Scott and I decided to go have a drink in the bar area and watch the locals. And to what to our wondering eyes did appear? A Karaoke contest! It was mostly locals there and everyone seemed to know each other. It was really funny to watch everyone – especially since they ONLY sang country songs or 80’s love ballads. They were all pretty great singers except for a few drunk people who slurred during their solos. It really got interesting when a backpacker came up and sang a Pearl Jam song (90’s rock/grunge band). Seemed that most people in the bar didn’t know if they were gonna clap or not… it wasn’t a love song! Anyway, we laughed til we cried, and then decided sleep was more important than the results of the contest. We walked back and slept, dreaming of another day of exploring – this time it will be in Queenstown.
Click here for more on the fiord at Milford Sound

grape vineyards on the hillside in NZ wine country [as always - click to enlarge the picture for a better look]

Scott reading the historical tiles in Wanaka. There is one tile for every year A.D. describing the noteworthy world events from that year. Pretty interesting. No, we didn't read all 2000 tiles.

an example of one of the tiles in Wanaka

Scott's work with the reflections of the clouds and mountains on Lake Hawea - the views were breathtaking in every direction

Lake Hawea with a motor boat slicing through the mountain reflection - Stef captured this awesome shot

The impressive Mt. Aspiring - look how many sheep are actually posing for this shot!

Thunder Creek Falls in Mt. Aspiring NP

one of many bikers we passed on our drive down the South Island's West Coast - look at all that baggage!

Day 14 recap (Tues Feb 22)

[Scott] Today is a big driving day as we are going to try and be at Milford Sound tomorrow. We stopped off and did the quick 30 min. hike to get a decent view of Fox Glacier without hiking to the terminal face. It’s very impressive again, but really quite similar to Franz Josef. We then drove and drove and drove - our longest driving day of the trip. Just like yesterday, there was interesting scenery (and more sand flies) all along the way. The mountain scenery was particularly nice in Mount Aspiring National Park, and then the views from up high over Lake Hawea were quite memorable. The water was so calm and the lighting was just right so that there were perfect mountain reflections on Lake Hawea. We stopped in Wanaka and ate some pizza, and walked around for a bit in this touristy little town situated right on shore of the lake. They have an interesting sidewalk in the town of Wanaka, with a tile for every year A.D., and on each tile it summarizes the events in the world and NZ that year – of course we didn’t have time to cover more than about 1% of the 2000 tiles. I think we spent around 10 hours on the road with all our little stops to take in the sights, and at around 11pm we pulled over at a small picnic area pull-off just past Te Anau on the Milford Road. We plan to get up early (like 5am) so we can get up to Milford Sound and really experience Fiordland right from the early hours and take a cruise through Milford Sound. It is technically a fjord, not a sound, but the name stuck. Here's a trivia question for ya: what is the difference between a sound and a fiord?

Just standing in there makes you hungry for a slice of Stef's famous birthday cake!

rocks balancing hundreds of feet high on top of the edge of Franz Josef Glacier - won't be long before they come crashing down

Stef hiking up to the "terminal face" of FJ Glacier

Stef sitting on a huge boulder which shows interesting water erosion from years ago - glimpse of FJ Glacier in the background

Scott hiking up to Franz Josef Glacier - which you can see at the end of the valley

here you can see the road winding alongside NZ's west coast - with all the amazing views around each bend, I must admit it was quite an accomplishment just to keep the campervan on the road!

waves crashing into the rocks at one of the spots we stopped on our drive down the "rugged" west coast

one of the many grape vineyards we passed with sheep grazing - look at those 10' tall vines! We're curious why some of their vineyards are like this. Anybody know?

Day 13 recap (Mon Feb 21)

[Scott] Last night after our kayaking, we drove south for about three hours and stayed at a holiday park in Westport. We arrived at about 10pm and fortunately they still had a spot for us. We were definitely excited to get showered up after two days in the salt water. We got up and found out that our Subaru suffered some vandalism back in CO, which really bummed us out. Somebody threw a river rock at the car and broke the windows and there was some other miscellaneous damage to the interior. However, Melinda offered to get everything taken care of and our car should be fixed when we return. That really puts our mind at ease knowing that Melinda is on top of everything! Are we being well taken care of or what? So I called the insurance company to authorize Melinda, and we headed out on the road. Thanks Melinda for getting things taken care of so we can enjoy our trip!!! So we regrouped and headed out on the road. We saw some amazing scenery on our drive down the West Coast – rugged coastline and the waves were really breaking in hard at points. This is certainly not a place for swimming! There are some really pesky bugs over there called Sandflies and we’re getting bit up pretty good. Tiny little pests about the size of fruit flies, but they really pack a punch and really leave you with a lot of itching. The road follows right along the coast and in some spots the road is up on some really high cliffs looking down over the coastline. The hills are very thickly forested for long stretches at a time. One area I wish we had time to stop at and explore was Paparoa National Park with all its rain forests. No matter how much time you allocate for driving here, it always seems to take much longer than you think. There are so many scenic views (which we stop at often), and the winding roads really keep the speed down - especially in a campervan. We arrived at Franz Josef Glacier around 5pm, and did about a 2 hour round trip hike up to the terminal face of the glacier. Really cool! These steep rock walls carved out by the glacier are enormous, and the grandeur of this place really leaves you in awe. There are many beautiful waterfalls. The rocks all along are interesting with the very noticeable gouging from the ice, and there are many huge boulders with interesting formations from the ice and river. The glacier is quite brown with all the soil and rocks on it, and the ice is blue-ish in color (I’m sure Uncle Ron will be able to explain to us why since we didn’t allow enough time to visit the information centre). When you’re standing there looking at the terminal face of the glacier up close, it’s amazing to look up and see these huge boulders up on top of the ice and think about them unpredictably falling hundreds of feet as the ice melts. This glacier naturally carries tons of rock and trees down through the canyon. They have the area roped off and there are signs everywhere warning you of all the dangers. The place kind of reminds me of Yosemite Valley in CA – the only other place I’ve ever been to that has a similar feel to this (although there aren’t any glaciers around of this size anymore in CA – not that I know of). Another interesting thing was the signs through the valley saying things like “the glacier was here in 1750”, and this was at least 1-2km from where it is now. The effects of a large snowfall are seen in the movement of the glacier five years later. Wish we could spend more time here, but it’s going to have to be a hit and run since we have so much yet to see this week between here and Queenstown, including many hours of driving. So we drove a little further down the road to the town of Fox Glacier where there is another large glacier – these are the two largest glaciers in NZ and they’re about an hour or so apart. We found ourselves a Holiday Park to plug the campervan into, again nice facilities. Stef prepared a pasta dinner and I did the laundry.
Click here for more info on Franz Josef Glacier

loading the kayaks onto the water taxi for the 25km ride back to where we started

holding full grown mussel with the baby mussels on the rock behind

the group resting for morning tea

all the rocks along the shoreline were black - covered with these baby mussels

Stef wading in the calm waters of a cove

Here we are with our German friends - Anne and Stephan.

This was our campsite for the night in Abel Tasman. Our kayak trip guide Blake is making our breakfast. That's Stef in our tent in the background.

Stef showing the thick cushion we slept on

Scott and Stef - the American Kayaking Team

Stef paddling (notice the beautiful water color)

Stef locking the padlock at the "secure" parking at Old McDonald's Farm

Day 11-12 recap (Sat-Sun Feb 19-20)

[Stef] * Disclaimer* In my recap of the Abel Tasman experience, I will do my best to not sound like a travel brochure. Abel Tasman National Park is a must do for all travel itineraries. It has a variety of ways to see the park for all fitness levels. The unique aspects of Abel Tasman are that it is the smallest of the National Parks of New Zealand, yet the busiest. In American standards, still not what we would call “busy”, but that’s a good thing! Another interesting part of Abel is that it is only accessible by water OR on foot. There are no roads, not even access roads into the Park. The hiking is rolling and follows mostly along the coast. A great fact about New Zealand is that there are no animals, insects or otherwise that will harm or fatally wound you. It is great to be able to hike, camp, or swim without the threat of sharks, spiders, bears or mountain lions. Because not everyone has youth or fitness on their side, “Water Taxis” are a great way to see the park too. It will take you to a beach for your picnic lunch or will give you a tour of all that the dramatic coastlines and uncharacteristic tropical blue waters have to offer. It also has the largest underwater national park, as the Marine Reserve within its boundaries was founded to protect all animals and respect marine life through education, research and preservation.

For the history buffs in the audience, I will tell you that Abel came about in 1942. A woman who lived there (her name escapes me) was petitioning to make the area a National Park. Since the Second World War was raging in Europe, the New Zealand government did not have time to look into funds for another national park. After much frustration, she wrote a letter to the Dutch Government posing as a member of the New Zealand Government. She explained where the area was and asked to name the area after the Dutch explorer, Abel Tasman. The Dutch Government was overjoyed by the prospect and quickly wrote back and told New Zealand they would love to be part of it and wanted to know the opening date so that they could be there for the ribbon cutting. Fearing the backlash and embarrassment, the Kiwi gov’t could not refuse and say it was a fraud, so they were forced to name it Abel Tasman National Park. And so, Abel Tasman was founded.

As for our kayaking adventure, we met at the beach on Saturday morning. We met our guide, Blake, and the other tourists up for the challenge. A German couple, an English couple, and two English women, traveling separately, made up our group. We loaded our kayaks, smothered ourselves in sunblock, had an instructional session and then set out. For the sake of our marriage, I let Scott sit in back so he could steer. Although the current was against us, (we were going North) the water was so calm I thought maybe we made a wrong turn and were at a pond. It was amazing how easy it was to paddle through and enjoy the landscape. The water was what the Kiwi’s call warm. I call it Arctic. But I guess that’s trivial. I enjoyed the water splashing on me since it was refreshing from the sun beating down on us. Although the air temperature was about 70, the sun is very hot here. The locals tell us that there is a hole in the ozone layer here over New Zealand.

Scott and I were a great team, but we were pretty out of control. Scott didn’t have the pedals adjusted to steer us correctly at first. We were really fast but we would run into things – mostly the other kayakers. We ran into the German couple so many times, for a bit I was afraid they were plotting an attack on us in our sleep. They didn’t seem even slightly amused when for the 10^th time we slammed into their boat and sheepishly apologized. We kept joking that everyone was thinking, “That’s so American of them, fast and out of control!”

We paddled for about two hours before we stopped for “morning tea”. Luckily on one of our last slams on the German boat, we exchanged more words then “sorry”. They were waiting for us on shore and came right up to talk. Scott said he felt like the “popular couple”. The woman, Anne is a student in the south of NZ for a semester. Stephan, her boyfriend, is an Engineer. He studied at Georgia Tech, so he was excited to talk to some Americans. Our guide Blake was kind enough to make tea, coffee, or hot cocoa and provide chocolate chip cookies and ginger snaps during our morning tea. It felt weird to have a hot cup of tea on the beach but it tasted great after all that rowing. We set back out for another hour or two before we stopped for lunch. Blake quickly got busy making us each 2 kebabs of beef. Our side dishes were fresh leafy green salad, a cold rice salad and coleslaw. Also, we had dinner rolls as big as my head and a cup of orange juice. It was all very good. We ate until our stomachs bulged. We layed on the beach and soaked in the sun, walked on the beach and just enjoyed our time. Blake made some hot drinks for anyone who was interested and then we set out again. The wind had picked up a great deal and so rowing was a lot more work. Before leaving after lunch, Scott adjusted his pedals and the steering was much better. We didn’t run into people at all after that. Scott and I set a faster pace and were leading the group. We got to a bend before our final destination and misread the signals from Blake on which way to go. The signal for “turn around”, apparently, was to point to the left with both arms, and then quickly back to the right with both arms. (Something he hadn’t gone over at all in the introduction). When Scott turned around, he saw the arms to the left. Then I turned around and saw them to the right. We didn’t know which way to go, so we just decided to go straight. Scott said he felt like he was misinterpreting the signals because we were headed straight for an island a long way out in the middle of the ocean. We continued on as I got soaked by each wave coming at me. Finally I turned around again and saw the backs sides of our group and Blake waving his hands (apparently he was also blowing a whistle). They had turned and Scott and I were off to cross the pacific. So, we maneuvered ourselves back and rejoined the group. Man, we were tired after this diversion! Blake told us he was just about to paddle out to get us, and was praying that he wouldn’t have to. We had many good laughs about this with Blake over dinner. Luckily we were heading into a calm cove to stop for the night. It was yet another beautiful beach. This one I liked the best. The sand was so soft. The name of the cove is Anchorage. We made plans to hang out with our new German friends and set off to set up our campsite with Blake. Blake showed us the spot he liked and we set the tents up while he prepared our post-rowing snacks. We were the only couple to opt for camping. The other choices were to sleep on a boat or in a cabin. Blake told us the boat is much like the life of a sailor in bunk beds and cramped quarters and the cabin is a big room where everyone sleeps within inches of each other on the floor. We were excited about that. We were also the only ones who wanted to have our meals catered so we didn’t have to worry about lugging anything. Sure glad we did! We had sweet biscuits (cookies), carrots, celery, chocolate, licorice, pretzels and hot beverages. After our “snack” we went down to the water to swim. We touched the water and decided a sunset walk would be better. After our walk, we took a freezing cold shower by the beach to get the salt off and then headed back to our campsite for dinner. Blake prepared a curry vegetable chicken dinner over rice. YUM! We ate like it was our job and then had some hot beverages. By this time, the Germans had come over to visit us at our site. They were staying in the cabin and said it was a tight fit, but not terrible). We sat around and laughed at the silly differences in the world of driving – you can only imagine what a couple of experienced German Autobahn drivers thought of New Zealand’s winding 100km/hr roads! Blake, turns out, is an Australian from Melbourne, and had lots to share about his travels and coincidentally he hopes to be a ski instructor in Colorado next season. He also has big hopes of going to America to eat. He has seen the American cuisine on TV and is pretty excited. I asked him what he thought he would want to try first, and he said a foot-long hotdog with all the fixings at a baseball game. I can’t say I blame him, nothings better than that on a summer day. We laughed and enjoyed the night until the bugs were too much and went to bed.

Our tent provided the essential on a camping trip – shelter from rain or wind. That is really all it had to offer. They gave us their version of “thermarests” to sleep on. The padding was not more than a quarter of an inch thick. It was a very long night trying to sleep. We hadn’t slept on anything this hard since our stay in California! But we managed to get some sleep.

In the morning, Blake was busy making us French toast, cereal and some other breakfast type food. Blake told us that French toast is a crowd favorite. Most campers love it and he never sees anyone eat it the same. Apparently a Scottish girl ate it the way he called “savoury”, with salt and pepper on it. Blake liked to spread jelly on it and eat it with his hands – like a piece of toast. Our way, fork and knife with tons of maple (they say Golden) syrup was new to him too.

We cleaned up the camp site, got some fresh drinking water and headed out to the beach. We were joined again by the English couple. The Germans headed out on a hike, so we said goodbye to them while cleaning up the campsite. Our new tourists were a father-son team from Germany, a young Japanese man, and another couple – the man was from England and the woman was, oddly enough, from Cheektowaga, NY. Scott and I felt this was amazing, especially since we had not met a lot of Americans yet. She didn’t seem very impressed, so that pretty much ended any budding relationship there. Another guide joined us today as well. He was a Kiwi and we never really understood what his name was – the accent was quite strong – but we think it was something like Coyden.

The wind was much stronger today and so we had to really work hard. Scott and I decided that on a windy day, going North, in a kayak is like running uphill on our hands. We got through it though. We circled around an island (Pinnacle Island) about an hour into it. The rocks had about four or five seals enjoying the sunshine. They have built a colony in two different locations in the park. We continued on and had our morning tea. This time we were lucky enough to have a chocolate cake with our cookies and tea!

After tea, on our way to the final location, we got to see a seal in the water next to our boats playing. It was so adorable. It was an adult female, according to our guide. We went on to our final location, which was really a beautiful beach. The water was really blue-green in color. The rocks were covered with baby muscle shells along the coast line and it made a really beautiful black carpeted-look to the shoreline. There was a little a spot for snorkeling and exploring the life growing on the rocks. We had about 2 hours before our water taxi was coming, so we were going to have lunch and hang out. The lunch was the same as the day before, and still really tasty. Some of the tourists got a game of Frisbee going, others hiked around in bush behind us. Scott and I went to the water (I finally got in and acclimated myself to the cold!) We walked on the rocks and looked at all the different sea life around the rocks.

Finally our water taxi came, it wasn’t a very big speedboat, and they loaded all of us plus three or four other hikers PLUS all the kayaks. It was remarkable how they got all the kayaks on there! They never fell on the ride home either… I guess they are professionals! The boat operator was a really interesting guy. He was telling funny stories and showing us a closer look at the seal colony. He dropped us all off, and we caught our bus back to the car park. What a great adventure! Scott and I drove to Westport that night and got powered site at a campground there just after 10 PM. What a long day!

one of the many one lane bridges in NZ

Scott checking out the interesting creatures among the rocks at our breakfast spot

stopping for breakfast

view out the back of our campervan first morning