After our Thanksgiving celebration on the farm our time there came to and end two weeks later and we set off for a south island adventure, starting with a bus to Wellington, a ferry across the Cook Strait, and another bus to Christchurch. Here we picked up a car and headed to the southwest corner, which is one of the best areas of island. On the way we made one overnight stop in Dunedin near the Otago Peninsula. I was excited about this because there are penguin colonies here which I had noted during our planning as a south island must-see. This turned out to be a rather difficult feat to achieve without paying for a tour, which like the good and mildly stingy Mennonite I am I was not interested in doing. Even so, I was technically successful. On one of our beach visits I stumbled upon a nesting area and after inspecting the nesting boxes from a respectful distance I could just see the tip of a beak poking out of the shadows. This was the extent of the encounter but I count it as a win. We were significantly more successful with seal sightings - many of the beaches were littered with them. It's a decent game to see how close you can get to take a picture without making them want to chase you.
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| I have begun to wonder how I ended up on a sheep farm in the Australian countryside where everything is brown and dry when all along I could have been on one somewhere like this |
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| My life since getting back to Australia has looked dangerously similar to that of these seals |
The next day took us to Te Anau where we spent several nights, hiking and kayaking the days away. My favorite hike that we did was Gertrude Saddle in Fiordland. Fiordland is stunning with all of its mountains and vast valleys, also of course its fiords, sounds, and lakes which many tourists are left pining for after visiting. It was a fairly short but steep up and down, rocky path but along the way you pass several waterfalls and a very chilly lake - Ben took a dip but I opted to remain dry and warm. At the top is a view of one of those valleys with Milford Sound, the most famous of the Fiordland sounds, peaking out the far end. I believe this was also the first time that I have touched snow in about two years which was unexpectedly exciting.
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| Black Lake on the way to Gertrude Saddle - pretty but chilly |
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| Views from the top of the saddle |
After several days exploring this area we headed to Queenstown. This was probably my favorite city of the ones we visited on the south island. It's sprawled alongside a small lake in a valley surrounded by the Remarkables mountains. While here I went for a walk above the city to get a nice view and stumbled upon some mountain goats who were not nearly as excited to see me as I was to see them. The other thing in Queenstown that stuck out to me was their local lawn bowls club. Its located in the middle of the Queenstown Gardens and has a great view of the mountains. I was pretty jealous as the Kulin bowling green is significantly less picturesque and cool.
From Queenstown we headed to Mt. Aspiring National Park and into the wilderness for four days to walk the Gillespie Track. I don't think I explained this before but NZ has a well-connected and maintained backcountry hut system available for public use. I believe I've read that it's the largest network in the world. They are found along all the major walks as well as in the most remote areas of the country, sometimes initially constructed by shipwrecked fishermen. The huts are simple and vary greatly in size but it's great after a long day of walking to know that you've got someplace dry and away from the sandflies and mosquitos to cook your dinner and sleep.
The first day of the Gillespie Track was a slow uphill burn along the Young River through forest and ferns, landing us at Young Hut in the afternoon. Day 2 was the most challenging but the most rewarding being the day we tackled the Gillespie Pass to get to the other side of the mountains in our path. It felt like we were climbing for absolute ages. It was very steep and exposed on the way up, as well as very gusty which is definitely not an ideal weather condition to be climbing such a portion of track in making it reasonably dangerous. Personally I don't have much love for ledges, edges, or climbing steep trails so I was not having a great time. We were very fortunate though that the clouds had stayed clear just long enough for us to have a brief photo shoot at the top before closing in over our delightful view of the mountains. While up there we also witnessed several avalanches, which are pretty cool as long as they are very far away. After a snack, or three, we made the long descent down the other side and wound our way through a valley to reach Siberia Hut. A lot of hikers doing this track take an extra day just to relax at this hut which we thought seemed like a great idea too.
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| Where day 2 began (we wound our way up the grassier bit on the left) |
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| Where it went (up, up, up) |
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| Where it ended (all the way down, but on the other side) |
The last day of our little trip was a quick and easy walk in the morning to a spot on the river where we could be picked up by a jetboat to take us back to the start. This was required as the bridge across was under construction but I was not to disappointed by that fact. I daresay the jetboat ride out may have been the best part of the entire loop. We were drifting around corners, zooming through rapids, and even doing a couple donuts all while receiving an informative lesson about the flora and fauna found along the river.
Our next few stops were brief but still worthy of a visit. The towns of Wanaka and Lake Tekapo are in the middle of the south island, a region especially known for its vast lupine fields. We were lucky enough to be on the south island in the height of lupine season and had great views of them in full bloom. Another must see to finish out our south island tour was Mt. Cook, the tallest in New Zealand and at its base sits a nice lake that often has icebergs floating about. From here we returned to Christchurch and hopped on a bus where we spent the next 24 hours making our way back to Auckland.
My last activity in NZ was a highly anticipated trip to go scuba diving around Poor Knights Island, three hours north of Auckland. It is reportedly the best diving over there and I would agree it was pretty good. We had perfect weather, glassy water, and an entertaining boat captain from the Netherlands. I saw mostly various fishes, but we were lucky enough to find a few eels. This area is also home to the largest measured sea cave which you can drive inside and it has some cool acoustic properties.
A day later Ben and I flew back to Sydney, about a week before Christmas, which is where I am going to leave you for now. The next post will cover what I've been up to since then.
