NEW ZEALAND

Below are posts from my New Zealand trip. The post below this one will be the beginning of the trip and go on from there so it will be easier to read. Sadly this is my last trip unless an unexpected windfall drops in my lap. I have some hope that I will keep doing posts at random, but knowing how things go, that probably won’t happen. If I have any major bursts of activity I will be sure to let everyone know. Read on for tales of my adventures down under, the country that sees the sunrise before anyone else.



Sunrise on the 3rd day of the Milford Trek, Fiordland National Park

Getting There is Half the Battle

On November 18 I started making my way to New Zealand for a 2-week hiking trip. I drove the 45 minutes to Pikeville to pick up my dad who would drive the car home from Cincinnati. After that it was a direct flight to Los Angeles and then on to Auckland, the largest city in New Zealand boasting a population of about 1 million people. On the way to Auckland we crossed the international dateline, another first for me. It was November 20 upon arrival.



After Auckland it was a short 1-hour flight to Christchurch, the major metropolitan city on the South Island with about 300,000 people. All in all, the trip was only about 26 hours total, 18 of those in the plane. Coming home was quite a bit longer (38 hours) and more tiring, but if someone handed me a ticket today to go back I would jump on the plane.

The hiking trip was with a small group of 5 others and 2 guides. In between deviling us with slightly untrue facts about the country, the guides were a wonderful source for legends and history and identifying birdcalls and plants.

Just a few of my favorite New Zealand facts:

The country has 4 million residents
For each of those people there are 10 sheep. This number is down from 20:1 in the 1980s.
It is home to the Kea an alpine parrot considered to be one of the smartest birds in the world.
Kiwi—a fruit grown in the country, a rare bird, and what the residents of New Zealand call themselves.
The west coast of the South Island gets 6,000-8,000 millimeters of rain a year. That’s 21-26 feet.
Only 1 million people live on the whole South Island.
They hate possums but have found a new use for their fur—blending it with merino wool to make the most luxurious knitted products.
Until 1,000 years ago New Zealand was uninhabited.

A Kea parrot near Arthur’s Pass



I could go on and on, as per usual. Basically this trip I decided to do on a whim was the most exhilarating, exciting, and fun trip on the year. I didn’t do a lot of food research, since our guides cooked a lot of the meals, but I did come back with a bird call CD and loads of amazing pictures.

Christchurch

As I rolled off the plane and into my hotel in Christchurch I resisted the temptation to take a nap, which wasn’t hard. It was a beautiful sunny day and after that trip I was so happy to have fresh are and more than 1 square foot to move about in! I was lucky to be staying on Cathedral Square in the heart of Christchurch and because it was a Sunday local artisans would be setting up for a craft fair. Unbeknownst to me there would be another treat later in the day.



I walked across the square, over the River Avon (above) which meanders through town, and on to the craft fair. The basics were the same—food, jewelry, wood, and woven—but the execution and materials were unique. I came home with a scarf knitted from possum yarn. For Christmas my brother got a salad tossing set made from Rimu, an ancient New Zealand hardwood tree.

On my way back to the hotel while soaking up the warm sun I started noticing a crowd. Then I started noticing Christmas decorations lining the streets. I finally saw what the crowd was gathered for—The Santa parade!! It’s been years since I’ve been to the Christmas parade and this was one of the best and most unique parades I’ve ever been to. There were no school groups or beauty pageant winners, but plenty of community groups, bands, and dancers. My favorite was a group of men in kilts all belting out Christmas songs on their bagpipes.

I watched for an hour and still didn’t see Santa, but here are some of the groups I jotted down:
Rock bands (teenagers and adults) playing in semi trailers with their sides down
Ballet and Salsa dancers, also in semis (below)



A Chinese Christian rock band
An accordion orchestra
A Lego float
Bob the Builder
A Japanese association with everyone in traditional costumes
The Russian Cultural Trust
A group of old fashioned bicycle enthusiasts many riding bikes that have 3-4 foot tall front tires
Trick BMX riders
A man in a Kiwi bird costume

It was quite a lucky start to the amazing trip that was to follow.

Punakaiki

On November 20 my hiking trip started with a long drive from Christchurch over the Southern Alps to the west coast. The landscape went from agricultural plains over massive peaks to a coastline that receives about 21 feet of rain per year. Our guide said take out the ‘s’ in west and coast and you’re left with wet coat, which is what you have on the west coast.



We spent our first night in a small town called Punakaiki (pronounced Puna-ky-kee) a couple hundred feet from the Tasman Sea (above), which flanks this lush and sparsely inhabited coast. The Sea is brutal, crashing into the coast with so much force and cold water that it looks like geysers are spraying from the rock formations.




We visited the rocks after a beautiful spring day of hiking through the fern trees, mud, and sprouting ferns. It was an amazing day with a clear blue sky and warm sun.




This sprouting fern was bigger than my arm. It was HUGE.

Glaciers

From Punakaiki and the Tasman Sea we drove a couple hours down the coast to Franz Josef and Fox Glacier. Franz Josef is one of the fastest moving glaciers in the world. It has been moving forward for years, bucking the trend of receding glaciers around the world.



This is the approach to Franz Josef. You walk up a wide, flat valley flanked by rocks that have been pushed and marked by the moving glaciers.




If you look in the bottom right corner of this picture you can see people climbing up the corner of the glacier. With a guide you could strap on some crampons and make your way up the face. There was also the option to take a helicopter halfway up and play around on the glacier.

The color of this glacial lake on the way to Fox Glacier never got old. It was like the ocean but you knew it was colder than cold. Most of glacial run off has this color or a slate blue color.

Mount Aspiring National Park

A true day of New Zealand adventure in Mount Aspiring National Park:

A flight into the backcountry on a 4-seater plane




A river crossing



A lovely hike out to the river with a picnic in the field courtesy of our guide who brought the food via jet boat



Then a ride out on said jet boat. These boats only need a couple inches of water to go and are the invention of a New Zealand native. Skilled captains drive these boats with a vengeance, spinning them in every direction making it seem like you are on a roller coaster.




After this wonderful day we drove to Queenstown for a free day and a beautiful sunset:

Birds

New Zealand birds are amazing. Their names are crazy and their calls even crazier. I bought a bird CD and if there’s anyone out there that knows how, I would love to make one of the Kea calls my cell phone ring. Here are a couple I caught with my camera:

The Weka—this is a ground bird. It can’t fly and strikes me as being like our Guinea Hens. We saw baby ones and mama ones. They were all over the place. I think that the Maori and early settlers used to eat them like chickens.



The Robin—this little guy will come up to you on the trail because it thinks your shoe laces might be worms. It has a nice little chirp.




The Tui—this tufted guy sounds like r2d2 everyone thought so. The red flax bushes were in bloom when we were there and the Tui fed on those like a humming bird.

The Milford Trek

After our free day in Queenstown we connected with a bigger group to begin the 33.5-mile Milford trek. In typical Laura-style I stumbled into this one. Turns out the Milford Trek is one of the most historic and famous multi-day walk in the world. People on my trip had waited for years to get to do this Great Walk. It is an iconic Kiwi trek. I had no idea, but I’m lucky to have made my way there.

British settlers Quinton McKinnon and Ernest Mitchell reached the pass in 1888 after being commissioned by the Otago Chief Surveyor to cut an east/west path up the Clinton Valley. McKinnon guided the first tourists through the trek the next year. McKinnon was the first guide and led groups through the route until he disappeared in a whale boat in 1892. The route wasn’t opened to independent walkers until 1964, which meant everyone passed through with a guide. (The Rough Guide)

The trek has been well documented over the years. All the lodges had archival photographs from the early days—women in skirts, pianos being hauled in with donkeys, men with hats and vests. The Rough Guide says the trek has in some ways, has become a victim of its own hype. Perhaps I got swept up in the history of it all or that our group was so wonderful or that I was inspired by the fact that I got to the top of McKinnon pass in under three hours, whatever the reason I couldn’t disagree with that statement more.

As a guided walker the trip is 5 days in all beginning and ending in Queenstown. I highly recommend hooking up with this guide company. The majority of New Zealand is so accessible that you don’t need a guided trip, but it made such a difference for this part of the trip. The walking is hard and the huts are at least 10 miles apart over generally rough terrain. It was nice to arrive and have a hot shower and a meal and bar waiting for you. Our evenings were spent washing clothes, eating dinner, and playing games. It was like being back at summer camp but in a good way.

The first day is more than easy—a 3 hour bus ride to Te Anau Downs where we caught a boat ride into Fiordland National Park.



We are headed to the snowy mountains.

Once we arrived at the launch we hiked about a half a mile to the Glade House, our first night’s hut. Our view was amazing.



The next day consisted of eleven miles walking up the Clinton River to the Pompolona Hut. Along the way we were able to enjoy the beauty of the river, the Keas who tried to steal our lunch, and the snow capped peaks. It was a beautiful clear day, which is rare on these trips.




We ended the day with a FREEZING cold swim out to this waterfall and our first view of McKinnon pass.




From the get go the guides are preparing you to get up McKinnon pass. They let you know every last detail about the 3-mile, 2,000 foot ascent: there are 9 switchbacks, at switchback 5 there are 3 smaller switchbacks because of a mudslide, and mile marker 15 is the halfway point. I assumed all this preparation was because the majority of the group was 60 years plus.

It was a rough climb to be sure and the guides hadn’t entirely over-hyped it, so I was surprised at how quickly I made it up.






Once we reached the top it was amazing and I vowed to do more hiking, more often. It was so exhilarating to get to the top.






What I wish the guides had told us a little more about was the hike down. After eating lunch at the top in the hut in the picture above, I started the descent. It was LONG and it was ROUGH. It was beautiful, but way harder than going up. When I made it to the hut six-hours after starting, the day wasn’t quite over because a mere 45-minute walk away was Sutherland Falls, the 5th highest fall in the world. Somehow once I made it to the falls and got soaked from going behind it, it stuck me as a good idea to run back to the hut. It was fun at the time but the next morning I was hurting!



Day three arrived and we were all moving a bit more slowly than the day before. We had thirteen miles ahead of us but they were flat as could be and as they say in New Zealand, cruisy. Luckily we had another clear day to enjoy the flowers and falls and river. After crossing the pass we were officially back on the east coast.





At the end of the thirteen miles there was another boat waiting to take us to the Milford Sound Lodge where there were no bunk beds or shared bathrooms in sight. We had a lovely celebration dinner. The next day the trip was capped off with a cruise around the sound where we saw dolphins, seals, and PENGUINS.





After the cruise it was time to head back to Queenstown. Despite the fact that we were around people the whole 5 days and had hot showers it really felt like we were going back to a noisy, crowded city even though there are only 5,000 people in Queenstown. It was an amazing 5 days and I realized that even though the scenery was beyond imagination the people in our group really made the trip what it was.

For more information on the trek and guiding company: www.ultimatehikes.co.nz

The End is Nigh

After the Milford Trek the rest of the trip was a little anti-climatic. I was ready for some killer hikes at that point but everyone else in my group was a little less than excited about even going hiking again. So our hikes were pretty well the easiest and in a way boring hikes. We were supposed to go up towards Mount Cook, the highest peak on the South Island but we got rained out. So here are some pictures from the end of the trip.