Tekapo and Last Lingerings

Ahh, I'm so glad I saved my day in Tekapo for last, as, even though every mountain is beautiful, I'm convinced the ones around Lake Tekapo were the best, highest and snowiest. I took the bus here in the morning and boy oh boy was it a beautiful drive. It was all through mountain country as the bus worked its way through a pass in the Southern Alps. We passed Mt. Cook, many, many more mountains and gorgeous tussock country - home of the hardy Merino sheep. The country reminded me of the mountains in Lord of the Rings sooo many times, and I expected to see the crazy woods wizard racing across the Tussock country with his Ragadast rabbits being chased by Wargs at any moment.

Merino country

 I finally arrived in Lake Tekapo itself and ahhhh, gorgeous! The town is next to a large, very glacially blue glacier/snow melt lake, and it reflected the mountains to great effect. I climbed up Mt. John for a full view of the area, and it was beautiful (surprise, surprise). The area was incredible, and I think I'm just going to have to post a few pictures, stop the description, and recommend you go there yourself! Along my trek, one highlight was a incredibly musical bird song - possibly one of the most beautiful and exquisitely musical things I have ever heard.

Pure beauty

 The town of Lake Tekapo was also lovely, and very tiny with highlights being the other amusing tourists, a lovely old Church of the Good Sheppard, and sheepdog statue. The church was along the side of the lake, and was beautifully set amongst the mountains. The statue was in recognition of the contribution the sheepdog has made to the farmers in the area and was a lovely tribute.

Well that’s all for now folks! The next day, I bussed into Christchurch, and planed to Auckland. My lovely hosts picked me up (yayyyy), and we went to their son's house where they had been baby sitting their granddaughter while their son and daughter in law visited… Canada! I repacked my bag and somehow actually managed to fit most of my things in my bag. Ahh, what a great trip! Friendly Kiwis, a wonderful new second family, great travel buddies and acquaintances, really good work experience, spectacular scenery, near perfect weather and lots of those moments where I just had to sit back and say wow - what a fantastic summer/winter. I definitely hope to be back some day, but for now I'm content to head home. I boarded the plane in Auckland, 13.5h later ended up in Vancouver, Vancouver to Toronto (destination confirmation pending), and then home.

 Sweet as, and love you long time NZ.

 

 Church of the good Shepherd

 

Queenstown

Next morning we got up to head out of beautiful Wanaka to possibly even more beautiful Queenstown! Our first stop of the day was at a place called Puzzle World. Here, we were entranced by many puzzling things such as the leaning tower of Wanaka, a wooden maze which took an incredible amount of time and confusion to find ones way around in, a room tilted so water appeared to flow uphill, etc., a perspective room (see picture) and many other super neat optical illusions, etc..

The perspective room - look at how tall I am!!

Along the way, we stopped off at the birthplace of bungee jumping to hear its history and watch some sillies take a leap. We watched a video on the origin of the bungee idea - a tribe which used to do it without the elastic part of the rope to promote fertility - and its evolution and commercialization by a few crazy Kiwis who took elasticized the rope and took it all around the world to bridges and tall buildings before commercially setting it up in Queenstown. We watched one of our friends take the leap, and several others gracefully (or not) dive from the platform and bounce around upside down before being retrieved from dangling above the river by two expert fishermen in a boat - sweet as.
 

 

Queenstown itself had a strong resemblance to Whistler as a ski/resort town, but was a bit more spread out and diverse than Whistler. The town is nestled between a lake and some big hills which become mountains in the distance and was quite picturesque. Our first evening there we reveled in being in a somewhat bigger town and enjoyed shopping and exploring in the many gift shops for the afternoon/evening.

Queenstown

The next morning was an early start for a day trip to Milford Sound! It was a beautiful day in Queenstown, but as we headed towards Milford sound, the weather became more and more 'fiord-land-like'. We bundled up and enjoyed it anyways - I was toasty warm in a few sweaters, including one my mom had bought almost 19 years previous when my parents (and I) visited the sound - it returns, but I doubt it will hold together for another trip. The countryside for our bus ride was wrapped in mist, but was still quite beautiful with mountains and farmland changing to steeper mountains, lakes and untouched forest. When we got to Fiordland National Park, we could truly appreciate the wilderness of the area as we stopped to check out the sights. On a brief walk through the forest we were able to enjoy the rainforest and the multitude of mosses and incredible green of our surroundings - so mysteriously beautiful. The fiord landscape was shaped by glaciers over the ice ages and continues to be shaped today, but by water rather than ice. The gloomy weather we experienced illustrated this as the rain falling created thousands and thousands of waterfalls. I thought there were a lot as we drove through the hills to the Sound, but that was nothing compared to the number we saw when we were cruising along the Sound. We took a boat ride for a few hours into the Sound (which is technically a Fiord, but good luck fixing that now) to enjoy the amazing sights. There were steep cliffs and mountainsides on either side of the water and through the mist, the waterfalls were quite visible. Some were large and thundered down the banks, but others were small and swept up by the wind halfway down their course. It was difficult to keep track of scale as we cruised through, but many of the cliff faces and therefore waterfalls were up to 150m high! I loved watching the waterfall as we cruised up the Sound, turned around in the Tasman Sea, and cruised back down, catching a wee glimpse of some seals. The waterfalls and spectacular landscape stole the day though, and, while the pictures I took really don’t seem to do the area justice thanks to the mist, I'll just have to remember, and come back again some day! Oh yeah, and the mountains were crying, and every tear drop was a wa-wa-wa-wa-waterfall (Coldplay reference!).

Milford Sound. Pictures just cannot capture the scale and beauty

We topped off a great day with a trip to the renowned Ferg Burger shop where, of course, we ate a Ferg burger! Despite the wait, the burger was quite good, and it was a fun dinner out.

Ferging it up!

Conny and our other travelling friends all left Queenstown this morning, so I had a quiet day exploring solo again. Unlike ski-in Whistler, around Queenstown, you have to take a further bus up to the mountains to the ski fields, as snow in the town is not at all a permanent winter feature (when it snows in New Zealand, it's often only at high altitudes, rarely at sea level, and when it snows at the bases of mountains, it usually melts before too long, but it also helps that I've been enjoying New Zealand's warmest winter in 40 years)! So I decided that morning to get my fix of summer snow and go visit the ski fields. I chose the Remarkable field, and as I hoped, found it to be quite remarkable! The ski bus took about 45 minutes to get out of town and up the switchbacks to the top of the mountains. The view from the top of the mountains revealed way more snow peaked mountains than I had seen from the base or Queenstown, and some lovely looking ski conditions on the slopes. I wandered around, took some pictures of the scenery and enjoyed being surrounded in snow! (If only there had been a bus to the cross country ski fields… :() That afternoon, I returned to Queenstown, and hiked up the Tiki track which ran along the trail of the gondola in Queenstown. My climb was rewarded by a beautiful, free view of the city of Queenstown, the lake and the surrounding mountains, ahh how lovely. I just wish the towns along the West coast of New Zealand were a bit bigger and had more practical opportunities to live and work there… :)

The remarkable Remarkables.

Mountains! Franz Josef and Wanaka

We caught a bus inland to the small town of Franz Josef to take a look at the Franz Josef glacier. We arrived late in the afternoon, so no time to do any ice climbing or anything too exciting, but I wanted to catch a glimpse, so grabbed a bus out to the glacier. It was a bit of a trek into the glacier, so I had a good run in trying to catch the last glimpses of sunlight on the glacier. I had enough light to take a look at the glacier, and it ended up being a very cool experience as I was the only person in the glacial valley. The glacier itself was pretty cool, 'dirty' and towering up between two steep cliffs, but even better was the valley. It was a huge valley with steep sides, water falls, neat vegetation and a valley floor littered with glacial debris and stones - very picturesque and beautiful . I'm so glad I made it out to the glacier, and it was nice to stretch my legs with a good run!

The magical Franz Valley.

We left Franz early the next morning on our way towards the ski and adventure area of the South Island - Wanaka and Queenstown. Wanaka was our destination for the day, and we had a great ride there through some absolutely amazing mountain scenery. I don’t think it will matter how many times I see mountains, I will always be impressed by them, and take way too many pictures of the same one. My visit to the mountains in the winter has been especially neat as I have gotten to see the beautiful snow on the mountains, but I haven't gotten snowed in anywhere! We stopped at the picturesque Mattison Lake in front of the mountains, and enjoyed the reflection of the mountains in the water, the beautiful vistas and the crisp, fresh air. The forest we went for a walk through was also very different and beautiful as this one was more mossy than the past ones and had a very green hue. We arrived in beautiful Wanaka with more spectacular views and I had a very lovely rest of my day… skydiving!!

 

The Lake Mattison view

Yep, you heard that right - I went skydiving and had a blast! I got my gorgeous suit on, a harness and climbed into a plane. I got all strapped to my 'beautiful stranger'  and enjoyed my one way plane ride. The scenery was beautiful as we climbed up into the air, and circled higher and higher until 12000 feet. If I thought the view was nice from inside the plane, it was even better from outside the plane!! My tandem partner and I jumped out of the plane in 'free-fall' position, and I loved every minute of it! I had an unobstructed view of Lake Wanaka and the beautiful mountains surrounding the area. After a few fun spins to get the full 360 view, we had a smooth landing and were back on solid ground. I'm definitely going to have to do that again some day! We spent the rest of the day with lots of adrenalin in our systems and heard a great live band that night.

  

 Me and my beautiful stranger

West Coast Wandering

Let the wanderings in small but beautiful West coast towns begin! After a morning in Greymouth, I headed on the bus up to Nelson - a full day's ride through beautiful West coast scenery - huge surf, big cliffs and mountains on the other side. The vegetation was also quite different from what I have gotten used to with a lot more green and jungle-like conifers (great description eh?). We even got a great stop in at the pancake rocks - WAHOO! They were quite cool and the best way to describe them is really their name - pancake rocks. Columns of rock formations which were layered rocks appearing like a good old stack of pancakes with the maple syrup effect being provided by the moss. I'd say the pancakes were layered quite firmly though as the intense surf was giving them quite a beating - very cool spot! I got into artful Nelson a bit after dark, but my exploratory walk to the hostel gave me a good vibe about the quaint, medium-sized town.

Just add syrup to the pancake rocks!

 The next morning I adventured around Nelson, walking to the downtown, out along the harbour flats, and along a route to the centre of New Zealand! Okay, the geographical North-South Centre of the country apparently (I wouldn't really know). The centre was a survey point up on a look out and, of course, climbing the hill gave me a great look at the city and surrounding mountains and ocean. I quite liked my walk around and time in Nelson on another beautiful morning. Travelling in the tourist off season has been a fantastic experience so far - places which I know are normally full and bustling have been quite empty (I was one of 3 travellers staying in the Greymouth hostel), but I have still had fantastic weather to enjoy everything - that's just been luck so far. Also, it's been a decent temperature and I haven't had to deal with that killer NZ heat (but I might melt when I come home seeing as I've only had winter/autumn for about a year). I met up with my travelling companion and friend from working in Gisborne in Nelson, and together we continue along to Kaiteriteri!

 

The centre of New Zealand in Nelson!

 Kaiteriteri is a super small town right next to the beautiful Abel Tasman park and a beach destination for Kiwis and tourists alike (although mostly in summer…). We arrived after dark, but the next morning explored the area. I went for a walk along a trail on the cliffs and beaches and felt as if I was in the Caribbean with the golden sand, eroded cliffs dropping down to beaches, many lovely birds and bird song, and beachy feel of the place. The sand and beaches were truly beautiful, and I could have spent much longer there, but it was time to hit the road again to Westport!

 

Kaiteriteri beach

 Westport was a pretty small town again, but we arrived with enough time for a grocery run and to find a comfortable spot to watch the Super Rugby finals (go Chiefs! < look at me, such a good Kiwi!). After a good game and a come from behind surge in the last 20 minutes, the New Zealand team won - Wahoo!! The next morning I decided to try my hand at a famous New Zealand adventure activity - I realized I had been way  too relaxed in my travelling. So we went for some Jet Boating on the Buller River. Jet boating is a form of boating invented by a crazy Kiwi, and is quite similar to Jet skiing, but in a boat. The engine works by shooting water out behind the boat, and this technique allows the boat to go in very shallow water and do lots of fancy maneuvers. We had a 'leisurely' cruise up the Buller River and got to see a tree which appeared to change species half way up (a vine had established itself in the crown and taken over the original tree's vascular system - way cool). We also heard about the river which was quite surprising - when we boated on the river it looked like a moderately fast, big river - but nothing too intense, but our driver told us stories of how it can rise 10-15 metres in half an hour and move incredible amounts of water - having (I think) the second largest discharge to the ocean of any river in the world. Picturing the river with that much water in filling its large banks was quite intense! But none of that excitement for us - we just had our man-made adventure as, on the jet boat's way downstream on the river, we did many spins and daring maneuvers and shot around corners at an alarming route. Wahoo adrenalin!
 

The Jet Boat!

Well that was some great West Coast scenery along the way, but it's time to say goodbye to the West Coast and head inland to the bigger mountains!

 

 

Christchurch Construction

We left for Christchurch the next morning and arrived on the Canterbury plains after a few hours drive. The city was pretty big, and driving in and to the hostel you could barely tell there had been an earthquake other than a few closed buildings, etc.. After I settled in and went for a wander into the downtown area it was a different story. Three years after the first quake it was quite clear how bad the devastation had been, and how big the rebuilding efforts were. There were empty corners a-plenty where buildings had been removed and not yet rebuilt, but several of these were filled through 'open-space projects' - community efforts to fill in the gaps in Christchurch's centre through innovative ideas like mini putt courses and, my favourite, a pallet pavilion. The pallet pavilion was a very neat space where brightly coloured pallets had been stacked and some decorated or filled with plants to form a square with a stage, coffee shop, and lots of innovative seating - yay rebuilding!

Pallet Pavillion

The downtown also still had several streets closed to cars, but most were navigable on foot. Walking around, I saw many buildings which were still in ruins, their walls stabilized by beams or leaning against boxcars for stability (lots of boxcars actually). Through the destruction, there was still lots going on in the city with restaurants set up out of box cars throughout the area, and a whole boxcar shopping area (complete with LuluLemon, which I went into to say hi to the Canadians which were working there:)).

Downtown shopping - I`ve never seen box cars that looked so good!

 Taking a walk through the Cathedral square was interesting and, the cathedral structure was still visible through the construction fence (there were so many construction/engineering projects going on in the area and so many workers busy fixing things, it shows how destroyed the city was that they aren't all done yet!). I took a look at the Earthquake City Museum, and got great picture of the stories and struggles of the city. It was a really cool display with lots of information and stories. I took a meander through the beautiful botanical gardens on my way back to the hostel, and they were quite alive and well - beautifully so! Overall, I'd say the city is alive and well - what doesn't destroy a city makes it stronger.

 

 

The famous Christchurch Cathedral

Kaikoura

Early morning to the ferry for a hop, skip and a jump over to the South Island. We had great weather and lovely views along the way of Wellington and the North Island receding, and then the sounds and hills of the South Island approaching. It was very cool to almost immediately see a different landscape on the south island of different looking hills, way more forested area, and the big sounds that the boat passed through. A short ride through Picton, we stopped in Blenheim for a visit. The town had a very different demographic than I had been used to seeing as there were many migrant workers in the area to work in the many local vineyards. The town itself was small but pretty nice with a public square and pretty waterfront features. As we drove off, the landscape around the town was also quite nice with the many vineyards sheltered between mountains - tres cool! Our next stop on the way to Kaikoura was a very special one at a magical seal pond! About a 10 minute walk up the road, there was a waterfall flowing into a small pool of water which was alive with the activity of 25-35 seal pups - SOOO CUTE! The pups come up to the pool from the ocean to swim and socialize in safety, and they were making the most of it! They were leaping and splashing through the water, chasing each other, sitting on rocks, climbing the banks to appear as 'tree-seals', and generally being very entertaining. Neato!

Seeing Seals

 

We then continued our drive through snow capped and impressive mountains and very different vegetation, alongside the ocean to beautiful Kaikoura. Here, I was lucky enough to be able to stay with parents of the friends I was travelling with in their beautiful home. It was quite a neat place with gorgeous, highly functional gardens and a view down onto the ocean and town, and up to the mountains.

Kaikoura the beautiful

 My next day was spent in Kaikoura and included a lovely tour of the house, workshop and gardens in the area where the couple makes or grows much of their food from garden and scratch - very cool, and delicious home made honey. I also walked and explored the area, having a beautiful walk along the wharf of the old whaling town (almost stepping on a seal), and enjoying the small town. Kaikoura was originally a whaling and sealing town as its waters are especially productive for these species, and while they aren't hunted here anymore, the town is still based around them, just through tourism and whale watching now. After lunch I went for another walk the other direction along the coast and found more seals than I have ever seen in one place! The seals were just chilling on the rocks making quite a site between the two colonies that were stationed there. My hosts were my guides for the walk as they used to work as seal divers and had lots of information for me. Kaikoura was a beautiful and wonderful place with great mountain to ocean views, and a very entertaining local seal population.

 

 

 

Tough day eh?

Wobbly Wellington

On the road again! Here goes my 2.5 week South Island adventure!... The first leg was done with a few friends I met in Gisborne who were headed down to the South Island for a ski trip - what great timing! They were absolutely lovely to travel with, and I had a great time riding with them from Gisborne, down to Christchurch via the East coast most of the way. They were very knowledgeable about the areas we drove through, and talking about the landscapes, flora and fauna along the way was great - my own personal tour guides! Our first stop was at a bird sanctuary where we saw several native bird species, including quite a few Kaka birds feeding! Other highlights included HUGE eels relaxing in the stream - after finally seeing some of the giants, I now understand why people eat them! Our first night was in Wellington, where I was fortunate enough to be able to stay with a 'friend of a friend' and get some local information on the area. We went out for sushi and I retired early in anticipation of a busy next day. Busy day indeed! I started my morning off with a visit to New Zealand's main national museum - Te Papa. It was first rate! The displays were super interesting and covered everything from NZ culture to the volcanic/seismic habits of the island, to its wildlife and more. Highlights included an Earthquake house (so I guess I kind of experienced one of those Wellington earthquakes), a giant squid, really neat art, the Marae house and the Maori weaving. Next was a walk along the harbour to the parliament buildings where I went on a free tour - it was great! The parliament buildings were remarkably similar to Canada's and I suppose that makes sense, given our shared British heritage. The Beehive is where all the politicians' offices are located and it was interesting architecture to be sure;  ornate hallways, committee rooms, chambers and the library were an added bonus. Another rather unique feature of the building was that it was all designed to be 'base-isolated' to resist earthquakes - some cool engineering there!

 

Keeping busy at the Beehive

 

Next, I checked out old St. Paul's church which looked normal enough from the outside but the inside revealed its magnificent wooden construction. The whole inside of the church was beautifully sculpted wooden architecture that looked amazing with the stained glass windows.

Next was a bus to Weta Caves!!! Weta is a movie production group that has done the special costuming, set designing, etc. for lots of famous movies - Lord of the Rings, Avatar, King Kong and lots and lots more! The props they had on hand and their stories of how they design and make them were amazing! For example, a sword used in a movie would be made in metal, plastic, wood, etc. Also, watching one of the graphic designers at work brought a whole new meaning to Photoshop!

My buddy at Weta Caves

 

Finally, I knew my trip to Wellington wouldn't be complete without a view over the city, so up Mt. Victoria I climbed for a stunning view of the metropolis sprawling between the ocean and nearby hills. Dinner and relaxing by the waterfront was followed by watching 'the rugby' and meeting lots of new people at a friend's flat. 

 

Doing well in Wellington