New Zealand and the Lord of the Rings - Part II

So after our time in Wellington, we took a ferry ride across Cook Strait to the South Island. The boat ride, although rough at times, was rather pleasant. Plus, once we got into the Marlborough Sounds, the ride calmed. The Sounds are inlets dotted with little bungalows and summer homes, only accessable via boat. The Sounds are made up of finger like streches of land reaching out into the ocean where three major bodies of water join. It looks like what parts of Maine must have looked like 50 or more years ago. If the day had seen clearer skies, I may have convinced Jack to hang out and try kayaking, but as it was a huge storm was brewing and we needed to head south.

We got to Kaikoura later in the evening, with enough time to check into a motel and run the grocery to cook dinner. It was a lovely evening of relaxing while snacking on fresh fruit and a good wine. The next morning we headed out to swim with dolphins. I'm not talking about swimming with a dolfin or two in captivity, where they perform a few tricks and you hang on their dorsal fin. These dolphins were wild. We went with a company called Dolphin Encounter, where they took us out into the ocean and had us join a pod of about 350 dolphins. They swam around us, circling us occassionally, checking us out while we dove down and made all sorts of funny noises in the name of entertaining them, despterately trying to keep their attention. It was the most amazing experience. At first I was hesitant, I mean, I was in a full body suit in freezing temperatures, getting ready to plunge into an ocean with wild animals. But after the first group of 5 or even 10 came swimming right at me, and I got to play with them a bit, I was hooked. I had taken the head piece off (I found it too restricting) and as the rush hit, I could barely feel the cold.

After the exhilerating start to the day, we decided to take another ride and on a whim booked a helicopter tour. We had heard from one of the boaters that two blue whales had been spotted in the vacinity. Jack and I both couldn't miss that. Our half hour helicopter ride turned into the best spot decision we have made on this trip. We got to see a female and her calf and hovered over them for about 10 minutes. They are so big, almost unreal. I was amazed at their size, and felt truly lucky to see them in the wild. Then, as they dove, our pilot took us to see a sperm whale that had surfaced. Again, a crazy site. This time the whale was located by a whale watching vessel, so we could compare the sizes. They are enormous mammals. Absolutely astonishing. I now have a better insight into the gravity of whaling. Maybe the next step is to join Greenpeace and go on anti-whaling trips. They just had a huge victory as the Japanese decided to hold off on humpback whaling, so maybe now is the time to step up! Hmmm. Or maybe I'll just whole heartedly support the cause for now.

After Kaikoura, we headed to Christchurch to stay with family friends. This time we stayed with Alex McKinnon and his lovely girlfriend, Rhianon. They were kind enough to host us for two nights and show us around a bit. We had some wonderful Thai food the first night, a warm welcome from the more traditional English fare in New Zealand, and were introduced to the pasty the next day at a farmer's market. The pasty is extremely popular all over England and apparently New Zealand as well. Although I tend to be against meat pies of any kind, the pasty was surprisingly good, even cold. Jack did eat most of it though.

Christchurch is famous for its gardens, so we did some walking around the city to take them in a bit, as well as to explore the Cathedral with its windy bell tower, Christ College, and the new modern art museum. I'm not really a fan of modern art, but the building's architecture was great. Plus, its always nice to check out local artists. Then we went to see Into the Wild, a movie by Sean Penn about a young man who donates all of his inheritance to OXFAM to live a life in the wild. Without giving the moving away, what I'll say is that Jack read the book and has always been intregued by the idea of trying to live off the land, without worldly possessions. Now that we're married, it puts a wrinkle in any attempt to shed all attachment to society and live in the wild, but I understand the basic idea. Some people may say that we're coming pretty close to it now, living for 9 and 1/2 months out of a backpack, but really we have it pretty good. We don't have many clothes, or extra shoes or jewelry or little stuff, but we don't miss it too much. What we miss most is having a permanent place to put everything. Moving every few days gets exhausting. Anyway, in the movie, the main character comes to some sort of revelation that happiness is only happiness when shared. Honestly, it started out well but in the end I just kept thinking, "what an idiot."

On our way from Christchurch we did something I've never done before, we picked up hitchhikers. Americans wouldn't really dream of doing that now-a-days, but the movie inspired us to do it. Plus, we were in New Zealand, where they mention one car crash, or one rape, etc. on the national news. Suffice it to say that we were safe. They two kids were college age and headed south for Christmas break. It was a nice change in conversation for a bit and made us feel good for aboout two seconds before the conversation ended. Mom, how did you do this so much in the 70s?

We went to Lake Tekapo for the night before heading to Mount Cook (New Zealand's largest mountain) and Tasman glacier. The area is gorgeous and well worth a visit. We hiked a bit up to the glaciers - what a fantastic site. We actually saw melting glaciers and the formed glacier lake. If I had been more able, we would have gone kayaking in it, or atleast hiked for longer. But we ended up just heading south again the next day, towards the Otago Penninsula.

On the Otago Peninsula we stayed in a new hostel, Old Bones, sortof out of the way, but extremely nice. It is great to finally find a place where there aren't spiders on your pillow (the night before in Lake Takapo I had a huge black spider crawling right by my head on the pillow as I woke up) and clean and safe enough to do laundry. While there we went to see yellow eyed and blue penquins! The blue penguins were really interesting. We found out that they spend most of their time at sea and only come ashore to mate and molt. The couple needs both the male and female to raise an offspring, so if one dies at sea, then all is lost. They are also the smallest of the penguins and currently in danger.

We also went to a beautiful little restaurant, called Fleur's Place in a nearby town of Moeraki. It's completely made up of wood that used to be in other buildings. For instance, the stairs came from an old house, the floorboards came from another building, etc. I thought it was such a cool idea. And the food was fantastic.

We then went to Dunedin, where we visited the Cadbury chocolate factory (Amazing!) and the only Castle in New Zealand before catching a flight back to Auckland and on to Australia.

Pictures coming!

New Zealand and the Lord of the Rings - Part I

The past few weeks have been a whirlwind. We flew into New Zealand, Auckland to be precise, from Fiji. I had just had the accident and was trying to walk, so our adventures were fairly minimal. We spent a few days there, stayed in a really creepy hostel and visited the hospital, where they confirmed my cuts were healing nicely with no infections, before heading out to see the landscape. We did have some amazing experiences while there though, we not only visited the best ice cream shop I've ever been too (Bill Clinton even stopped here on a visit in 1999), by the name of The Chocolate Boutique, but we went to the top of the Sky tower as well.







By far, in our few days in the city, Jack's driving was the scariest thing we did. We rented a car (the public transportation in New Zealand would have taken way too long, plus I was in no condition to sit on a bus for hours on end). He did an excellent job too! We did have a few instances where he drove on the wrong side of the road (over here its on the Left), but luckily no cars were coming. We then headed north to Sheep World where we saw a shy sheep shorn (say that 10 times) and learned about the natural environment before English settlers cleared the land for sheep grazing. We also learned how good possum fur is for the environment, they are a pest here and not native to the land. Possum fur is the only fur that is deemed good by the World Wildlife Fund (if you're going to buy fur, buy possum fur - its really soft too). Jack bought a pair of slippers and I'm a bit jealous.

Something you may want to consider if you visit New Zealand is that outside of major cities you will not find many hostels, hotels or B&Bs open late. We discovered this at a very inopportune time, as we were headed down the major two lane highway at 9 pm. Everywhere we stopped was closed for the night. We almost had to sleep in the car, but were saved by a very nice old woman who opened her B&B for a ridiculous rate to save us from driving off the road due to sleep deprivation. We learned our lesson!

We then headed to the Coromandel Peninsula to Thames for a night. We stayed a B&B run by a really interesting couple. They grew all of their own fruit and vegetables organically and the husband also had a wood shop (something I also dream of doing one day). Jack and I have discussed ways in which we could grow our own food as well, so it was such a great experience to see it in practice.

After our day in the car, driving around the peninsula, we found our way to Rotorua, a town with a high volume of volcanic activity. We went on a fabulous breakfast boat ride in the morning, after a night at a very good and sparse youth hostel, where we were the only passengers. Usually, they assured us, there were about 100 guests, but we were happy and lucky enough to have our own private tour. The crew gave us great pointers on where to go on the cheep, so instead of paying a bunch of money to see the boilers (like in Yellowstone) we just walked around the city to see the boiling water and mud. It was great! We also visited the Buried Village, the site of a - well you guessed it - buried village from a volcanic explosion over a 100 years ago. Although nothing like Pompeii, it was quite a site to see.

Our days drive from Coromandel Peninsula took us past Tongariro National Park, a World Heritage area. It may be most well known of late as the home of "Mount Doom" in the Lord of the Rings. "Mount Doom" is really Ngauruhoe mountain and is in the middle of two other magnificent mountains. All I can say is that the landscape is one film makers dream of. It was remarkable.

Our next stop was Waitomo, a place known for its caving and glow worms. We again stayed at a really fascinating B&B, this time it was an ostrich farm! The B&B was average, but the owners were hilarious. They were convinced by their entrepreneur son to go in on a scheme to raise ostriches years ago, so they moved to Waitomo and started the farm. We got the tour after breakfast. The eggs alone can feed 18 people! They way a ton, well really about two kilos - or about 5 pounds. You can also use their skin, feathers, and meat. Talk about a useful bird. I may not attempt eating an ostrich, but it sure makes it hard to argue not to. Jack tried an egg, he liked it well enough. I just stuck to my yogurt. We also learned that they could gut you in one kick of their leg - ouch. They really look and act a lot like dinosaurs up close (I assume of course).

After our visit at the Big Bird Inn, and our night hike to see the glow worms, we traveled south to the capital, Wellington. The drive, like all of New Zealand, was simply breathtaking.

Wellington was extremely nice, mostly due to the fact that we stayed with Peters' family friends, the McKinnon's. Although Jack and I love to backpack, and really enjoy our adventures, it was was relaxing and refreshing to stay with friends. It was a treat to have a room for more than two nights and a place where we didn't have to lock up our stuff when we left for the day. It was the perfect time too, as I was starting to miss the comforts of home.

While in Wellington, we visited Parliament at John's suggestion and witnessed a heated debate, as can only happen in the Westminster system. Not unlike the House of Commons. We also just walked around the city, took in the botanic gardens, rode the tramcar, visited the Treaty of Waitomo (the treaty signed by the British settlers and the Maori chiefs), saw an exhibition about Whales at the Wellington museum, and enjoyed home cooked meals by Avenal. It was extremely nice.

Pictures and more to come.