South Island Day 5 – Milford Sound

After an amazing drive through the mountains, a tunnel, and with a bunch of walking trips on the side, we finally arrived in Milford Sound.

The first thing we noticed (other then the beauty of course), was how it wasn’t very ‘commercial’.  A very small place, with a pub, and a pier. A selection of tours you can go on.. but no McDonalds or anything like that.. Good stuff.

We got there about a half hour before the last tour, so the timing worked out great again..  One annoying thing though was that while we wanted to sit and wait on the pier, the ‘sand flies’ were just too much. Swarms of them came at ya if you stopped moving.. So we waited indoors for the most part. Above is the view from the Pier, with the boat we were about to go on, and Mitre Peak in the background.

Soon, we were off on the couple hour tour..  The guides were pretty interesting, with the odd joke here and there.. He informed us that we had come after one of the longest droughts – 9 days without rain.. But thanks to the rain over the past 2 days, nearly all the waterfalls were alive…

Here is a slightly warped panoramic looking ahead to where we were going..

Sooo many waterfalls.. it’s hard to cut down on the photos I’m posting up here.. but just know it’s just a small sample..  As we were boating along, the captain noticed a small pod of dolphins.. so we followed them around for a bit.. First time I ever saw wild dolphins.. They came to check us out as well..

Again, the water was a brilliant blue.. and the surroundings were amazing.. Here is a short clip of the dolphins – sorry about the camera work, but I did a quick pan just to quickly show where we were..

We continued on.. Just in awe of the waterfalls and the natural beauty.. We were told many of the cliff faces had precious metals in them, but they were protected by the national lands.. Here are a bunch of pics..

The boat came up right under one of the waterfalls.. So i took a clip of that as well.. You can also just make out the fish that were swimming around under it..

The tour continued on.. And then happened upon a few Furry Seals sunbathing..

I also took a film of them hoping around.. Again, quite a shaky film, sorry!

We continued on, to where the land gave way to the ocean / Tasman sea, it got pretty choppy out there, so we turned around, and headed back in..

More of the waterfalls..

At one point, the clouds gave way to a bit of sky.. so we had to take a pic! first bit of blue sky in awhile!

Being the last tour out, they offered ‘End of day specials’ – all the leftovers at a cheap cost.. Paid a buck for a cup of pretty tasty soup..

Once docked, we headed back down the road to Te Anau, with just a couple stops to make.. There were just a couple spots on the way up that we noted down to stop at when coming back..

A “Slip” as they call it, where a side of a mountain has an avalanche – but not snow – trees and soil.

Another little waterfall above, and another great view of the valley while driving back:

And a great view along the valley river:

And one final shot that I love, of a misty tree..

Then, it was back at our campsite, to pack for tomorrow’s start to a 3 day hike into the mountains, along the Routeburn track!

South Island Day 5 – The Road to Milford Sound

We woke up and after a quick stop at the grocery store to pick up a few more things we needed – specially for the hike starting tomorrow, we started our day trip up to Milford Sound and back. We also called ahead to book a spot on a boat tour of the Fjords (Milford is actually a fjord rather then a sound – bit of a misnomer by the guy who named the area ages ago)..

As you can see from the map to the right, the road started out pretty flat, with gorgeous mountains in the distance.. but we quickly caught up to them, and beautiful sites ensued!

There are a ton of points to stop at along the way, so we targeted the ones we really wanted to do, and left the rest depending on timing..

Here is a pic of the guide which the parks and rec folks make available on their site (http://doc.govt.nz), showing many of the places you can stop and take a walk into the rainforests of Fjordland..(specific pamphlet: http://www.doc.govt.nz/upload/documents/parks-and-recreation/tracks-and-walks/southland/fiordland-day-walks.pdf )

Here is a pic where we were nearing the end of the flat land, and entering the mountains..

Our first stop was the Mirror lakes.. Which, on a clear day, gives folks famous images of the southern alps reflected in the little ponds.. But alas, the rain was messing with that plan..

Our first little hike was an amazingly blue stream / rapids.. I wish the blue that we saw, showed up more in these photos – and it was sooo clear!  Any the water levels and number of waterfalls we were going to see, was all thanks to the rain.. So while it messed with some aspects of photos, the rain gave us the opportunity to enjoy the land, as it is 250 days of the year – wet, with waterfalls coming alive all around us…

In the photo above, right about where my feet are when taking this photo, was where I very nearly slipped into the rapids, and said bye bye to the world! I like to refer to it as ‘Incident # 2’ 😉

Here is a look back from the board walk, where you can see the moss I slipped on, while walking backwards for Mish to take a photo of me..

Maybe it wasn’t the best idea to walk out on that rock and then think the boots I had on were going to grip anything I stood on!

The trees in these forests are just absolutely covered with growth of all sorts.. Sometimes with many different coloured mosses, and other times, such as the pic on the right, with a thick layer of green moss.

After this walk, we continued on despite the road looking like it was headed towards a dead end..

The dead end turns out to be Homer or Gertrude? Saddle, where Homer tunnel has been built to continue the road to Milford. before the tunnel, the mail man had to walk the Milford trek to deliver mail to Milford sound.. I think the tunnel was completed in the 50s?

Here is a clip of our drive towards the tunnel – with a sample of the fact that waterfalls and snow capped mountains were everywhere we looked..

While waiting for the tunnel light to go green, we snapped some photos of the waterfalls around us.. There was another walk here, that would bring you up to the top, but we passed on this one..

Then, still while we were waiting for the light, a wild parrot paid a visit.. The Kea parrot, which we had only previously known due to the millions of “Don’t feed the Kea” signs everywhere… Needless to say, the dumbass in the car was soon feeding the Kea.. (note the yellow sign in the background is just one of millions of such signs in NZ, which is basically saying don’t feed the birds)

Once the light changed, we moved on, through a very roughly built tunnel.. lots of water dripping.. the walls were exactly as they looked when the last chunk was hammered off – no concrete or smoothing it over..

Here is a little video of the tunnel drive:

We emerged on the other side, to the views of still more amazing mountainscapes.. and a winding road back down into another valley..

I can’t get over how beautiful the area was.. Even in the rain – maybe more so with the rain.. I dunno.. with clear skies we may have seen into the distance more, and maybe the tips of the mountains.. but the rain brought a definite natural look to the area.. and of course the waterfalls..

One more side trip on the way before we actually got to Milford Sound.. This side walk was called the Chasm. It had more of the sooo blue, sooo clear water rushing down through smoothly sculpted stone and fallen trees.. Here is a look down the ‘Chasm’..

Another example of the fern trees which are all around

Next up.. A boat cruise around the waters of Milford Sound..

Head South – Day 4

Woke up early to catch a flight to Queenstown.. and first thing we see outside our window (like they warned us), was a huge cruse liner pulling in silently.. It was early morning, and it was so quiet I don’t even think most the people on the boat knew they had arrived / were awake..

Anyway, we took off to the airport, returned the car, and hoped we would get on the flight we wanted..

When our names were called, it was another relief.. Such good luck on the stand by flights! Once onboard, the pilot informed us that unfortunately the skies were overcast, so we wouldn’t be able to take in the great views of the mountains from the air.. No problem – we’d go with the close up view we were planning on!

Once we arrived, it was a pretty quick process to get our camper. We had rented a 4 person camper since the little vans with toilets were sold out everywhere.. And we also went for the automatic so Michelle could drive without much to worry about. [turned out that we never used the toilet – so many public ones around.. but it was nice to have the insurance i suppose!] 

After a quick video which I had to watch to get familiar with the camper’s various bits, we were off to fill ‘er up. We headed for the first grocery store, right next to the airport basically, and bought mainly stuff for the upcoming 3 day hike, plus a couple more meals and foundational stuff…

Once we were loaded up, we headed out on the road for Te Anau. What a beautiful drive! It was raining on and off, but that didn’t deter at all..

Some more zig zag driving, but now with the camper, it wasn’t so fun 😉  We had a little incident – learning the hard way to remember to put the locking pin in the fridge!  One egg down, we continued on our way..

It was the first time I had seen a Deer farm.. I for one thought they looked very weird – I guess since my whole life I’ve only seen them as wild animals..And i’ve never seen a hundred deer in one spot, out in the open – seemed very unnatural. These folks like their deer meat I suppose.. We took some photos of the deer farms later on in the trip, so stay tuned for those..

Once we finally got to Te Anau, we picked a camp ground (a ‘Holiday Park’ – their equivalent to KOA I suppose), and got settled.  Tomorrow would see one of the world’s most beautiful drives – the Road to Milford Sound

North Island Day 3 – Waitomo Caves, Rotorua Geysers

We woke up pretty early today, but once we were ready, we were off to our first organized tour.. Black Water Rafting in the Waitomo Caves…And if we had time, we would head to the Geysers at Rotorua or Taupo

We got there with a little bit of time to spare, so took advantage of the ‘waitomo museum’ that came included with our black water rafting tickets.. It was a simple little museum, with a few interesting tidbits – like ticket stubs from nearly 100 years ago to visit the caves, examples of the bugs you might see in the caves.. etc.

Once it was time, we met up with our guides, and they got us fitted into some wet suits, helmets, and boots. Stinky, cold stuff, but whatever. Then we got on a stinky bus to head over to the cave entrance..

Once there, we chose an inner tube that fit our rear end nicely, took a practice jump backwards into the river from a few feet up, then went on our way to the cave.

I didn’t bring a camera into the cave (not allowed anyway), and didn’t buy the couple photos they sold, so here are some I just grabbed off the ‘net. It’s exactly like what I saw anyway..

There were a few spots where we had to jump with our tubes over waterfalls… but nothing too major. Amazing caves for sure. I started out with one of the big ugly bugs right by my head when I first went in. yuck.

The picture on the right is a glow worm, with a bunch of mucous silk lines that it creates to catch prey. When we turned our helmet lights off, it was pitch black, save for the glow worms little green lights. I wish I could better describe how it looked.. Just amazing! A galaxy of green stars above you.. Thousands of them. They were all pretty high up (the caves were huge in some areas), so we didn’t have to worry about running into the silk lines..

But of course, before they described / showed us the lines, i had already climbed up a couple steps of the cave wall to get a closer look at a worm that was unusually low. And it turned out my hand actually touched one of the lines. The lines actually make their prey go numb.. and the next day, my hand had a fine, straight red line, that itched / stung something fierce – for about a day or two.

It was definitely an amazing experience.. Drifting down a lazy man river in a pitch black cave, with thousands of glowing dots above you.. Fantastic.

Once we got out of there, we headed for the cold showers, some hot soup and a drink..then back out on the road for the geysers.  

We had one in mind that Michelle said was supposed to be the most colourful.. But, after that whole drive, we got there about an hour after it closed. So we quickly looked up another, and sped there. It was a great drive.. though while the mountain scenery was great, it would pale in comparison to what we would be seeing in the south island..

We found that even though it wasn’t crazy busy (we were on the tail end of the high season for NZ tourists), the ratio of camper vans to locals was impressive. The majority of folks rented the like VW type vans – with a sink,stove and bed built in. The public washrooms were good quality and quantity. And most camp sites let you buy single showers for a few bucks apparently. Anyway, one of the rental places is called Wicked rentals, and they paint their vans funky.. hippy-ish.. with a different joke on the back of each.. like this one!

‘Te Whaka’ Geysers are on Maori lands in Rotorua, so they have the rights to them, and they make sure everyone respects them.  ‘Te Whaka’ is the short form, of the second longest word that exists.. We got there with only about an hour left before they closed, so the guide quickly hit the main spots, then left us to roam..

The first spot (after some Maori traditional wood carving, and other culture stuff) was a Kiwi bird in captivity.. These are weird looking fur balls that are pretty big – about the size of a beach ball.. With a long beak to grab stuff off the ground. They are nocturnal, and rare, so it’s just about impossible to see them in the wild. Funny looking things.

From there, we checked out the boiling mud pits:

They export quite a bit of this mud for facial treatments, etc..

Then we went over to the geysers.. Which have been constantly erupting for many many years.. There were very bright yellows and oranges with all the chemicals spewing out.. And they even had some big concrete ‘warming’ benches, which were nice places to sit to warm the bum.

And that rounded up the third day trip, and our last one on the North Island… The next morning would see us wake up early again, and head to the airport to head south to Queenstown!

(the only downfalls at this point, were that my shoulder was killing me at times – from all the driving ( I think mainly from the Coromandel winding drive), as well as missing out on White Island which was on our already shortened target list.. but so far, it’s already been like no other trip – amazing)

North Island Day 2 – Leigh, Goat Island

We woke up to a glorious sunny second day in Auckland (third if you count the arrival night, but I won’t).. We packed our stuff, and checked out of the hotel, since I couldn’t book the entire week on my Hyatt points, so I booked the rest of the week on some of my Hilton points.. Turned out the Hilton was a really nice hotel, situated right on the pier. Our room had a great balcony with lounge chairs, and a really nice shower, bar, fridge, etc. they gave us champagne as soon as we came in (since it was our honeymoon).. And warned us to close our drapes when we went to bed, as cruise liners may come over night and dock – and they’d get a nice view into our room! ha.

We had troubles planning for this day.. We wanted to hit White Island – an active volcano island of sulfur… But it turned out it would be just too much driving.. We had looked into possibly crashing at a B&B the previous night, closer by the island, but we ended up coming back to the hotel..

Anyway, we started the day out just wandering downtown Auckland.. With a bit of Shopping for a couple crucial things (ie. I forgot my hat, Mish forgot her rain coat, sun tan lotion..)

We ended up having lunch on Vulcan downtown, which seemed to be a nice stretch of pubs / cafes… It got pretty busy with the work folks heading out for lunch.. I guess not everyone is a tourist 😉

Then we got in gear, and headed out towards Leigh – a small fishing town to the north (B):

It was a relaxing walk around their boat launch area.. enjoying the beautiful clear water…

From there, we headed out to Goat’s Island, to relax and chill.. It’s supposed to have some great snorkeling, but we couldn’t get ourselves to do it (i may have if i brought my snorkel stuff!)

Some interesting cracks in the rocks that go quite a distance..  I was laying ont he beach in the distance of the photo above at one point, and every few minutes a few pebbles would fall on me.. Seems the cliff is still crumbling away quite a bit..

Mish came across a dead blowfish ont he beach, as well as some bright blue little Jellyfish.. And there were quite a few critters running around the tidal pools we were hanging out in..

We used a bit of a Toll highway to get there and back.. I suppose it was a bit more of a direct route.. Had a pretty funky bridge going over it:

That was it for the relaxing day at a couple beaches.. Lots of great scenery and sunshine.. Another early morning coming up, so we hit the sack a little early to prepare.. A night shot from our balcony before bed:

Day 1

We woke up in our hotel, after having spent the night recuperating from about a day and a half of travel, including 22 hours of flying. The view from the Hyatt was alright.. It was a business-y type hotel but pretty good.

We planned out our first day trip as a drive out to the east.. Depending on the timing, possibly taking in a couple short hikes. Our main target was the Hot Water Beach.

So we set out on our drive. Before getting to the coast, there was one little incident.. There was the first flat, straight piece of road I had really seen – and maybe the only one in NZ.. And I had a guy driving right behind me.. but I was going 118 in the 100 zone, and a cop appeared.. Gave me a ticket for about 120NZD. First day out, first ticket :(.. But i just decided to ignore that, and not let it bother me…

We took the coastal drive instead of the more direct route.. And it was worth it! It was one of the greatest drives I’ve ever done. Whipping in and out of the coast along the water and beautiful shoreline of the Coromandel Peninsula…

.. all while trying to remember to Keep Left, and shift gears with my left hand! Oh and the wipers and turn signal were also swapped – that was probably the most challenging.. Don’t know how many times my wipers came on while I turned / changed lanes 😉  The lanes were crazy thin too.. at times single lane even.

I just wished I had a Porsche!

Once we hit the town of Coromandel, we had lunch and shopped a bit (Michelle had left her Rain Coat at home, by the door). Cute little town with some nice shops.  From there, the road headed inland, and over some ‘hills’ with lots more zig zags… Here is a view back from the way we came.. Coromandel is still in site..

And the view forward, with a look at our little car:

We continued on.. And once we hit the water again, stopped off at a short walk called Cathedral Cove:

The hike was pretty easy, and we figured we should get warmed up for the upcoming 3 day hike into the alps! It was a nice beach too, with some sort of bird family that we ran into. They looked funny with tufts of hair sticking up on their heads. They seemed similar to pheasants or something.  Not sure if they couldn’t fly, or just preferred not to, but they just ran around. NZ Factoid: The only native mammal is the bat.  There are no poisonous spiders, snakes.. No bears, or other dangerous animals.. Just lots of birds. And apparently, millions of years ago, since they had nothing to fear, many of the birds stopped flying here.  The infamous Kiwi bird is a flightless bird (who is also nocturnal) as well. 

We found a few times that birds really didn’t seem to want to fly, even if you were hurtling towards them at 100km/hr. Here is a picture of the ones we saw on this walk.. just before they jumped into the bush.

And of course, here is the reason why it’s called Cathedral Cove:

From there, we headed for Hot Water Beach.. We had to move, since we called ahead that morning to check the low tide times, and we were barely on schedule..

So the Hot water beach is an area of beach where at low tide, it exposes some hot springs. It’s an amazing experience!  Doesn’t seem to be very popular (about 30 people there at the time), which is good, since the area of the hot springs isn’t very big either. In the picture above, the area of the springs is actually just aroudn the corner of the trees in the distance (people are walking to it).

What you do, is dig a hole in the sand about the size of a tub for yourself.. Then, it fills up from below, with really hot water. Sometimes too hot! – so long as you are in the right area. The timing for low tide was at abotu 7pm that day, so it was getting a little dark.. so my pic below isn’t so great, but it gives you an idea.

We stayed there until we got good and wrinkly.. Then drove back home.. On the way, I couldn’t resist stopping on the side of the road just to take in the stars. They were incredibly clear (not to mention mostly stars I’ve never seen before ie. The Southern Cross)

Here is a little film of part of the drive back (that got Mish a little nervous 😉  ):  

We grabbed a quick dinner on the way, and crashed for our second night in Auckland…

The Beginning

Hard to believe, but it’s actually happening.. After a bunch of research (mostly thanks to Michelle) we have planned out our trip…for the most part.

I’ve reserved a handful of things, since it would be ‘unpleasant’ if we got all the way to NZ, to find we couldn’t do what we wanted to because it was sold out, etc.. So I booked the Hotels in Auckland for the first week, a Car in Auckland, Black Water Rafting, Routeburn track huts, a Camper in South Island for the last 2 weeks, Fox Glacier HeliHike, Kaikoura Whale Watch, and a hotel in Auckland for the way back. Michelle took care of the flight plans, but since we were going stand by, we had to have some backups.. So I also booked a hotel in Christchurch, as well as one in Sydney incase we missed certain flights.. We never ended up needing the backups, since we made all our flights.. So I cancelled them as we went… (They were all booked on points thanks to my work travels.. So with Michelle’s deals, and my deals, the main expense was the camper for 2 weeks, which served as both transportation, and our place to sleep).

We heard from a few people that it’s best to go to NZ in the fall (spring in Toronto), start in the south and you get crazy good deals to bring the camper back up north (the rental places typically have to hire people to do this for them after the high season). But, we went in mid February, and most of the off-season deals start in March or later.

February 14th 2009, we make our way to the airport, with the help of my bro. Valentines marks the beginning of our Honeymoon, and a lot of flying.

We got on every flight we were hoping to.. We had executive class from Toronto to Vancouver (in the bed seats!),  but then had to move to the back for Vancouver to Sydney. They did give us the ‘bulk head’ seats, so we had no one in front of us, lots of leg room, and the only 2 seat row (the rows behind us had 3 seats per row). This photo was taken soon after leaving Vancouver.. I think it’s Victoria island down below the wing..

The time changes were weird… gaining 3 hours to Vancouver.. then gaining some hours over the ocean…until we crossed the international date line, when we lost a day…all in, we were +17 hours compared to home.

In Sydney, we managed to grab some fresh air (As opposed to recycled air) for a bit, sitting outside the Sydney airport waiting to get seats on our connection.. Caught a glimpse of the Opera house when we were landing too..

We actually got on an earlier flight then expected from Sydney to Auckland, though we had middle seats – but it was the shortest leg, at about 2.5 hours. When all the flying was done, we had logged 22 hours of air time!

We picked up the rental car (a nice tiny car, called a Getz) and headed for the hotel (Hyatt) to check in before dinner. We walked around downtown Auckland for a bit looking for a bite, and ended up having dinner on the pier.

Then we hit the sack for the start of the adventure!!