New Zealand Bests

Anyone who has spent a New Year's Eve with us knows that we love our "Year in Review" tradition, which involves coming up with all kinds of "best of" categories for the year & then thinking back on all the best moments and events of the year. So we feel that it's only appropriate to throw out a few New Zealand "bests" (some more obscure than others):

Best Holiday Park: Aspiring Holiday Park, Wanaka. Nice people, excellent view, and not crowded with monster-size tent compounds.

Best Motel/Hotel: Heritage Hotel, Queenstown. Views of the lake, giant room...and best of all, an in-room washer/dryer!

Best Beach: A deserted beach on Otago Peninsula, complete with lazy sea lions.

Best Meal: A tie between the Boat Shed in Nelson (excellent seafood) and a random Indian place in Dunedin that we stumbled upon.

Best Public Toilet (here's the obscure one): A fully-automated bathroom in Franz Joseph that speaks in soothing tones ("the door is now locked. You have ten minutes until the door will automatically reopen,") and pipes in the song What the World Needs Now (Is Love Sweet Love) while the occupant goes about his/her business. Best thing we did for under a dollar.

Best Ever Campervan: No contest in this category. We drove him into curbs and bottomed him out on windy dirt roads, but Ernest never gave up on us. While others might have snickered about the bright orange bus, we were proud of our spaceship.

Last Day in NZ

It's hard to believe that the first leg of our trip is already coming to an end. We are in Christchurch, and tomorrow we head to the airport to fly to Cambodia (after one night in Bangkok). Our last several days in New Zealand have been fantastic. A quick recap:

After Wanaka, we headed to Queenstown. We contemplated a tandem paraglide (Queenstown is the home of bungee jumping and other such extreme activities), but alas, it was not in the stars, as the weather was too windy. So instead, we headed out of town on a rigorous hike that took us almost 2,000 meters above the town and gave us views of both the lake and town below and the snow-capped peaks that surround that area.

The next morning, we headed back out to the coast to visit Fjordland. We did two different cruises of the fjords - the first on Milford Sound, which was unbelievably windy but strikingly beautiful, with vertical cliffs rising out of the sea and tons of cascading waterfalls. The next day, we did a full day trip to Doubtful Sound, which was also amazing. Gus spent a lot of the trip fretting that the tour was going to miss the big West Arm hydroelectric plant. But a very dark trip down into the mountain past lots of rock to the "turbine room" was as exciting to an engineer as could be hoped. As often happens on adventures like these, we ran into an American couple whom we had met a few weeks ago at a winery. After the cruise, we joined the two of them and their Kiwi bed and breakfast hosts for a few glasses of wine and some good conversation... and of course an earful from the New Zealanders about the current U.S. administration (pretty par for the course around here, we have found).

From Fjordland, we continued our journey around the southern tip of the South Island and up to Dunedin. Dunedin is a great city - home to a big university and so full of life. We spent a day on the nearby Otago Peninsula, watching for penguins (to no avail) and walking through sheep fields (New Zealand's standard hiking terrain, it seems). In our trekking around, we did stumble upon a beautiful, nearly deserted (aside from several very large, very lazy sea lions) beach & enjoyed a quiet walk there.

And now we are in Christchurch and soaking up the last bit of New Zealand (and knowing that this is the last bit of mostly familiar territory that we are going to be in for quite a while). We did a mountain bike ride today ("that looks like a nice trail" - whoops, we're on one of Christchurch's most popular technical downhills) and have spent the afternoon wandering around; we happen to be here for the World's Buskers Festival, and have consequently witnessed more juggling of fire and assorted objects than we ever would have expected to see on our travels.

Our next post will be from somewhere in Asia... so stay tuned!

On top of Ben Lomond with Queenstown in the background. We took the gondola up the first part to get a jump on the hike and scramble.

Sarah is blown-away by the beauty of Milford Sound.

Gus standing in his new New Zealand jacket at the southernmost point on the South Island. We hiked through sheep (as usual) to get here.

Gus standing on the winner of our "best beach visited." Yes, we are recycling our clothing from day-to-day.

Mountain Biking in Christchurch with a great view. The bikes we rented weren't quite as good as our own at home so the rest of the Kiwi riders mainly thought of us as speedbumps.

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p.s. We were missing one of our favorite pastimes so much that when we stumbled across a completely empty karaoke bar in Dunedin, we couldn't resist going in to belt out a few tunes, much to the amusement of the fairly bored staff. See American Idol impersonation below:

Franz Josef Glacier and a Rainy Day in Wanaka

We are now in Wanaka, catching up on email as we wait out what we hope to be a quick rain shower. Wanaka is an amazing spot - a valley surrounded by Mount Aspiring National Park with a giant, beautiful lake. There is a triathalon happening here today that is just about equivalent to an Iron Man. Watching the triathletes pedal by inspired us to hopefully rent bikes or go for a run later on today if the weather clears up, though our athletic endeavors will probably be significantly less impressive than those we witnessed this morning.

Yesterday, we did our hike on the Franz Josef glacier - one of only three glaciers in the world that are advancing, rather than retreating. It was pretty neat to climb on the ice - glaciers are crazy things, indeed. Our guide was a little overzealous in his efforts with the ice-pick, seemly desiring to carve something equivalent to the Spanish steps into each rise in the glacier rather than just the small footholds that we really needed. So going was a little slower than we'd expected or hoped. But the sun came out just when we got to the top of our hike and we had excellent views of the whole glacier. Most importantly, Sarah looked ravishing in her gigantic borrowed rain jacket, wool mittens, pants tucked into her green wool socks and black rubber hiking boots with spikes.

The drive from the base of the glacier to Wanaka was spectacular. In four short hours we went from the rainforest on the western coast, through tundra, past snow-covered peaks, and down into the Lake Wanaka valley. Now Ernest has his best view from a holiday park yet.

Sarah in her glacier gear.

The Franz Josef Glacier - one of the few in the world that is advancing rather than retreating. The hot continent of Australia heats the air flowing east so that it picks up moisture from the Tasman sea. This drops a lot of snow on NZ.

The beautiful scenery on the drive to Wanaka. Fields, mountains, puffy clouds, and, of course, sheep.

Wellington, Nelson, and Abel Tasman Photos

As promised, here are some photos of our time in Wellington, Nelson, and Kayaking in Abel Tasman.

Wellington was a great little city on the sea. We had a gorgeous sunset.

Sarah scares some of the local inhabitants on her mountain bike.

We cleaned up for dinner and some live music in Nelson.

A nice little beach in Abel Tasman during our kayaking trip...

Yes, we do really only have one pose when we have our picture taken together.

Bikes, Kayaks, and Some City Time

Hello from Kaiteriteri! We have made our way to the south island of New Zealand via the beautiful city of Wellington where we spent a couple of days wandering around town, learning lots about the Maori culture and the history of NZ, eating very well, and soaking up the city life a little bit. Monday & Tuesday, we were in Nelson, visiting some great wineries and trying to act like we learned something about wine while living so close to Napa Valley. Yesterday, we rented mountain bikes in Nelson. We got a little lost in the hills, ran into some very excitable sheep, and eventually made our way out the beach.

But, so far, the highlight of the trip was today's kayaking adventure in the Abel Tasman National Park. We had a fun group and guide, perfect weather (not too hot and not rainy), and were lucky enough to see seals climbing rocks (who knew?!) and dusky dolphins playing in the waves.

Ernest (our spaceship, aka campervan) is treating us very well and our time spent with him has exposed us to a very interesting side of New Zealand life. During the few weeks around Christmas, most New Zealanders are on holiday. So they pack up the car with the camping gear and head out to their favorite "holiday park" where they get a tent or campervan site near all of the friends that they have made over the years. Now, these parks are not like the spacious sites that we know and love in US national parks. They are a small field separated into little spaces about the twice the size of your average SUV. New Zealanders, however, have figured out how to squeeze huge tents, a boat on a trailer, a truck, and the biggest BBQ you have ever seen onto each one and topped it all off with carpeting, string lanterns, and sound systems. All of this creates a very festive atmosphere complete with roving bands of teenagers.

Our other observation has been that we could really make a killing by opening a great sandwich shop. New Zealanders love great bread, cheese, and heaps of deli meat but really have not yet figured out that if you combine them that you might get a good lunch. And while we have discovered every imaginable combination of food put together in pastry form, we continue on our quest for the perfect chocolate chip cookie. So we've decided that our first official alternative to returning to a life in D.C. is to open a sandwich/half-baked Nestle Tollhouse cookie shop and easily afford our own giant tent/boat/truck and BBQ.

Sadly, our connection is a little slow tonight. So stay tuned for photos next time when we tell you about our time on the west coast visiting NZ's glaciers and fjords.

Kia Ora!

We have begun our travels in New Zealand. Our ability to be flexible in our travels was tested right off the bat, when our flight from Denver arrived to Los Angeles too late for us to make our connecting flight. So our first night of foreign travel was spent in the not-so-foreign (though some might argue otherwise) city of Los Angeles (on United Airlines' dime). We actually had a nice day walking around Manhattan Beach & reminded ourselves that flexibility is everything on a trip like this.

The next night, we were off & have been enjoying the beauty of New Zealand ever since. We picked up Ernest, our trusty "spaceship" (known to pretty much everyone else as a campervan) in Auckland & set off for the Bay of Islands, a beautiful spot north of Auckland. From there, we headed south and spent the past few days in Tongariro National Park, hiking on what they(whomever "they" are) dub one of the world's best one-day hikes. It truly was an excellent hike. The weather was a bit cloudy & drizzly, but it didn't dampen our spirits at all. Tongariro was also the location for much of the Lord of the Rings filming; take a look at the pictures below for a shot of "Mount Doom" and a few others. Next we're off to Napier & Wellington, and then we'll head down to the South Island. Stay tuned for another entry soon...

Our trusty "spaceship," Ernest, parked amongst all his friends - New Zealand's version of a "quiet holiday park."

Ernest, after Sarah's first experience with driving on the lefthand side of the road. Behind Ernest, the very nice mechanic who hammered out our rim for $20 NZ & sent us back on our way.

And, because we believe in second chances...

"Mount Doom," aka Ngauruhoe Volcano. Our hike took us through the saddle to the left of the volcano.