This internet cafe is hurting my hands… so I’m going to wrap up the highlights:
First night in the north island, stayed at a lodge run by a friend of a friend of Brian’s… so relaxing. great good, great company, great sleep.
Saw geothermal parks in Rotorua–the craziest thing I’ve ever seen. Who ever knew the color neon yellow could be natural?
Were still tired, so we checked into our hotel and…watched four movies in a row. No dinner. I think we’re going crazy. We watched: Daddy’s Girls (tyler perry movie), Rocky Balboa, Black Snake Moan, and Talladega Nights. Oh, and that morning we watched Fargo. Whaaaaat?
Then: CAVING. The CRAZIEST, COOLEST thing we’ve ever done. if you come here, you HAVE to do it.
100ft abseil (rappeling straight down) into a dark hole you can’t see the bottom of. Then a zip line in the pitch dark with glow worms over head. Then, tubing in an underground river. The glow worms above look like the milky way… only… they’re larvae of a fungus gnats. But if you don’t think about it like that, they’re beautiful. Then: swimming i nthe underground river, over a waterfall and a couple of tight squeezes. Then, by far, the coolest part… the last section of the cave we had to crawl on our stomachs, then climb up three waterfalls… the last waterfall led us to the light of day. It was the coolest, craziest thing I’ve EVER done.
Then, we went to our motel where we stayed in a PLANE that had been converted into a room. No big deal…we slept in the cockpit. Pictures to come
Now we’re in Auckland and we’re headed to Sydney, Australia, tonight. It’s been a whirlwind of a ride, that’s for sure.
Abel Tasman national park
First of all–all the national parks here are free. FREE. That’s right, no paying. It’s great.
We drove up to the coast and walked part of the Coastal Track–it is so beautiful. Then we drove all the way to Picton that night so we could catch a ferry the next morning, which concluded our trip in the South Island.
The South Island is beautiful, and still, and really colorful–the black water of Milford Sound, the bright green of the hills, the turquoise glacier lakes, the white sheep, the deep green of the rain forest ferns, the clear blue of ocean, the shades of green jade… we were sad to leave it.
Seeing Josh and Lori Sesler in Greymouth, NZ!
Brian and I drove the BEAUTIFUL coastline up to Greymouth, where most of the jade trade is, where we met up with Josh and Lori who were driving down the west coast the other way, and had pizza and caught up–it was great to actually talk to people–we’ve been keeping to ourselves mostly. They are so fun and we had a blast trading stories about New Zealand and everything. Unfortunately, as we were heading separate directions we had to part ways…
Brian and I drove up to Westport then, but on the way stopped at these pancake rocks in Punakaiki… the pictures are unbelievable.
…two glaciers in one day! Not nearly as pretty as the Perito Moreno in Argentina, for example, but still very cool none the less. And, we saw two in one day. Which brought our total up to 3 in 48 hours.
ps–the “towns” in the South Island are very small. We stayed in Franz Josef… I think there was maybe one restaurant open for dinner.
ps again–the roads in the South Island on the West Coast–unbelievably windy. It’s like perfect in and out, like skiing around moguls. Ridiculous.
Real Italian Pizza in Wanaka.
We went to Wanaka to check it out, and to see a friend from high school, who is there boarding and living with a bunch of Italians. They invited us over for pizza that night and it was incredible–freshly made. We stayed there and drove up to Mt. Cook–tallest mountain in NZ, but couldn’t actually see it. Darn clouds. Good thing we got to see it from the other side of the mountain range the next day! We did get to a glacier though in the Tasman Valley–absolutely beautiful.
We then drove through the Southern Alps to the West Coast of the South Island, where we saw….
Jet Boating.
Don’t know what it is? Neither did I. You’ll have to look it up–but basically it’s like a jet ski, but a boat… and it’s powered by two V8 buick engines. Heck of a lot of power. We went flying–literally through a canyon, inches away from rock on either side, spinning around in 360s, flying through water only inches deep, literally holding on for my life. Check it out–shotover canyon jet boating, queenstown, NZ.
The last eleven days we drove a car from Queenstown, New Zealand, to Auckland, New Zealand. IT was an unbelievably crazy and fun and exhausting and beautiful trip, of which we only have time for the highlights…
Milford Sound–at first you’re expecting a little more… number one travel destination in the world, and this is it? But as you sit back on the boat and let it sink into you… the silence, the impressive mountains, the raging waterfalls, the black water, no sign of human life, you feel so humbled, like you are truly sitting at the feet of God. The mountains on every sight of the sound (which is actually a fjord… fjord, carved out by glaciar, sound, by a river… it was misnamed by the first explorers) are so steep there is literally no way to approach it by foot or to carve out so much as a lookout point. The only flat place is the tiny little “town” of Milford which, until recently, didn’t even have electricity. They have to create their own using hydroelectric power and the waterfalls. (oh, and the town is just one lodge and a ferry terminal). To get to it, you have to drive through a 1.5km tunnel–Humboldt tunnel–that took THIRTY YEARS to carve out. No joke. It’s kind of like God decided He wanted to create something unbelievably beautiful and protect it from all human intervention. You can look, guys, but you just can’t touch, no matter how hard you try. It was majestic, to say the least.
After a week of relaxation, we’re on the road again in traveling mode this time! We jumped on a plane in Tahiti around 6:15pm on Saturday and somehow landed in Auckland, New Zealand, after only 6 hours at 10:15pm Sunday. Crazy time change. We spent the night there and this morning, got up bright and early and hopped another plane to Queenstown, southern end of the South Island of New Zealand. It is sooo beautiful! Think: Lord of the Rings. Literally! Most of the movie was filmed on this island, right around where we are and will be! We just got here, parked our car, stumbled our way into a hostel with an open double room, and walked the short way to Queenstown–a town surrounded by mountains, on a lake, filled with good food and friendly people and–so far–good weather! Tomorrow we’re off to the Milford Sound by bus, then water, then bus again, and on Wednesday we’re headed to Shotover Canyon for a jetboat tour–should be frightening. Or exhilarating? We have eleven days to wind our way up to Auckland via rental car and then we’ll be off to Australia!
We’ve added moving to New Zealand or owning a vacation home here as one of our life goals.
We landed in Tahiti at 5:40am, thanks to the time difference. Life, however, was already busy around the island of Tahiti. We then took a ferry to the much smaller island (60 km around) of Mo’orea, where we found our hotel–Sofitel–on a very secluded beach facing Tahiti, just a few minutes from the ferry landing. It was absolutely the nicest and most beautiful hotel either Brian or I had ever been to. Everything was open air, all the “rooms” private bungalows, and all with an unbelievable view of the most turquoise water we had ever seen. Mo’orea is surrounded by a rock atoll (correct term? not sure), on which all the waves break, creating a calm lagoon surrounding the island. The water is as clear as day, and there are tons of fish and coral and all sorts of things to see snorkeling. Everything about it was perfect–so calming and peaceful and quiet! We slept a lot and ate by ourselves–mainly out of necessity, since food on the island is SO expensive (though very good). One day we rented a car and drove around the island and up to a sweeeet view point where you could see the whole unbelievable island–it looks like something straight out of an adventure movie! Another day we rented a kayak and paddled out to the rock where are the waves break and saw a whale less than 100 yards from our kayak! Granted, he was one the other side of the big rock but it was still pretty breathtaking nonetheless! We’re pretty sure eeeveryone there was on their honeymoon–including a couple of gay couples we saw. The diversity of languages was impressive–though we didn’t expect to have such a language barrier–many people spoke english, but french was the main language which proved to be a challenge–but between english and spanish we managed to decipher everything.
We did have one crazy adventure: the first day we decided to walk to a supermarket about 4km away or so, and bought our (expensive) groceries that lasted us for the rest of the week, but unfortunately the minute we stepped in the marker it started pouring down rain. We had just bought fresh bread. Not a good combination. So finally after waiting it out for awhile we decided to just make a run (or quick walk) for it. A few minutes into, we realized that maybe that wasn’t such a good idea. Right at that moment, this woman pulled over to the side of the road and offered us a ride! We swear we don’t know how we do it, but somehow someone always comes in the nick of time to save us! And usually in the form of hitchhiking. Her name: Noella.
