East Coast - January 6, 2010

Today brought a relatively relaxed itinerary. The first half of the day involved hiking the Queen Charlotte Track (“QCT”) in Marlborough Sound. Marlborough Sound is an extensive network of sounds (go figure) in the northeast corner of the South Island of NZ. The QCT enjoys recognition for being an approachable hike with some stunning vistas. (I think I’ve used “vista” more since being on this trip than in the past three years; part of sightseeing I guess.)

The entire QCT extends about 20-30 miles. A worthwhile multi-day trek to be sure, but we did only about 7 or 8 miles in total. We were able to mosey on over to the trail because we knew the hike would take only about 3 or 4 hours. We scheduled an advance return trip on a water taxi to allow us a longer trip. Basically, we would hike to a point and the water taxi would pick us up and return us to our destination, instead of worrying about the return hike.

The trail itself was well-maintained, which meant hiking it was a breeze. We were able to see some stunning views of the nearby sound.




In addition, we saw the ubiquitous national plant – the silver fern. You will notice it on the jersey of the All Blacks and other national affiliations. Silver ferns take their name from the color of the underside of the leaf being silver with the top being green, as most other ferns are.



Llamas, on the other hand, I don’t know what their deal is. I’m pretty sure they’re not any country’s national symbol, and I’m willing to bet they’re not on sports jerseys either. But, hey, they’re funny looking. Plus their names are spelled funny. Get a good laugh out of that picture, I’m sure llamas get made fun of by other animals too. (Donkey: “Don’t you realize you get made fun of by other animals for being bizarre looking and having a strange name? :::Snort::: Llama: “You’re an ass.”)




At the end of the hike we ate lunch in the picturesque Misteltoe Bay. Not much going on in Mistletoe Bay except the usual amazingly clear and beautiful emerald green water with stunning mountain profiles and surrounding vegetation. Yawn. If I had a dollar for every lake, sound, etc. that I’ve seen like that…





The water taxi scooped us up and returned us to where we started the hike. Along the way the water taxi treated us to a nice boat ride through the sound.

We saddled up our Toyota golf cart and began the 4 hour drive along the coast. Our destination was Christchurch, full circle from our sojourn on the South Island. Driving can be annoying. Nevertheless, the trip to Christchurch included a scenic ride alongside the eastern coast of the South Island.

This eastern coast was impressively beautiful. The east coast should be relatively similar to the west coast of the South Island. But because the east coast is on the other side of the South Island’s mountain range, the east coast receives much less precipitation. [See rainy/foggy pictures from 1/2/2010] In addition, I believe the coastal waters along the east are calmer. The waters certainly were today.



The coastal area around Kikoura was unbelievable. Heading north and east from the beaches will put you at about Fiji. Rougher surf would be expected, but the waves were tame and the seas were calm. Except for a few differences, including black sand, I figure this area probably resembles the Californian coast before extensive development. We even saw seals like out in Cali.



The drive finished with our arrival into Christchurch. We didn’t have a chance to partake in nighttime activities because the usual responsibilities (meal preparation/laundry) needed attention. We will check out Christchurch tomorrow.

Lounging on Onetahuti Beach - January 5, 2010

I would mislead if I stated that we “awoke” the morning after the day of six-hour kayaking and three-hour hiking. Rather, we basically just interrupted the cycle of disturbed resting. The sun had risen and slightly warmed the air and we eagerly awaited the goal of relaxing on one of the beaches we frequently passed as we kayaked and hiked.

Breakfast on the beach:


So we departed our beloved campground:


But a little more hiking was in store before we could lounge on a beach. From our campsite, we hiked another two hours to the beach at Onetahuti.



The hike difficulty and vistas were similar to those experienced the day before.

The beach was welcomed and (somewhat) hard earned. We threw our bags on the sand, set our towels, and lounged. The sun was intense and I was sweating from the hike, so I figured I should cool myself off in the beautiful teal water. As I submerged myself I realized that the water temperature had overshot my attempt at cooling off and brought me right to freezing. I’ve been in cold waters before (Lake Champlain, the Atlantic out of season, etc.) and my inexact internal water thermometer would put that water at about 62 degrees. Such temperatures bring the swimming experience away from refreshingly cool to numbingly cold.

All was not lost. We still soaked up some intense sun for a solid three hours before our beach taxi arrived to return us back to the launching station in Marahau.




Once back in our car we packed up and made our way to the next stop in Havelock. The drive was a paltry 2 hours.

The hostel we booked turned out to be one of the nicer establishments we have stayed in so far. The town of Havelock is a small hamlet with not much going on beside the self-proclamation of being the green-shelled mussel capital of the world. I have yet to verify that. The hostel, however, feels like a converted hotel from the turn of the 19th century. It’s only slightly renovated and doesn’t appear to have required much anyway.

Sea Kayaking in Abel Tasman National Park - January 4, 2010

Our patience in dealing with a few rainy days on the west coast was rewarded with a magnificent day today!! For all of you that read the blog and wished us better weather – THANK YOU! It was wonderful to have a day on the water in a beautiful park with the sun shining.

We started our day fairly early, arriving at the Marahau Sea Kayaking office at 8:30am. The adventure started with a 1.5 hour kayaking preparation lesson. When the guide started teaching us about how to get out of the kayak if we flipped, I got a little nervous.

Once we got our gear on, packed all our overnight stuff in the kayak (tent, sleeping bags, etc.) and finished the preparation talk, we were on our way for a full day of kayaking with our guide. Thankfully, we managed to get in a small group of 8 people (4 boats with 2 people each). After just 15 minutes in the water, the guide had all 4 kayaks in a row and we had a sail up pushing us along! It was fantastic! If the entire day of kayak was riding the wind with the sail, my body certainly would never get sore.

It was also our lucky day that we had the wind at our backs most of the way. The water was chilly when we hit some waves, or got wet with the water off the paddles, but for the most part, it was sunny and warm.

The guide led us along the coastline at Abel Tasman National Park from 10:30-12:30 and then we stopped at a beautiful beach to have lunch.



The lunch was surprisingly delicious! We had chicken sandwiches with picadilly sauce (which Colin really liked), fruit, juice, cookies, and an amazing piece of chocolate cake! After a meal like that, the last thing you want to do is continue kayaking. To help fight off food coma, Colin and I went on a short walk to a viewpoint to look down at the beach where we had lunch. This is our view:



The second half of the day was nice. We kayaked at a good pace, explored a lagoon (which later showed us the dramatic tide changes when it was completely empty!), and we even saw a penguin in the water! Unfortunately, the penguin dipped back into the water too quickly before I could get my camera. We finished kayaking at 3:30pm and proceeded to start the adventure for the second half of the day. We had to hike 12km to the next beach where our campsite was located. Since I felt all salty and sandy, we stopped at a freshwater lake where I was able to rinse off and change out of my bathing suit and into more appropriate hiking attire.



We were rewarded with some pretty amazing views along the hike and stopped a few times to rest our bodies, eat some snacks, and drink water. The hike was not difficult, but felt that way after kayaking all day and carrying about 20-30 pounds in our backpacks.

Once again, we were rewarded when we got to our campsite around 8pm and saw that it was just a few feet from the beach. We quickly put down our gear, set up our tent and had dinner. Before the sun set, we caught a few photos of low tide on the beach.





We tried to keep ourselves awake until 10:30pm, when the sky got completely dark to do some star gazing. I have NEVER seen so many stars out at night as I did in the park! There were so many clusters of stars they created a haze of white in places. Some stars where sparkling, others were just so bright. It was worth staying up for, that’s for sure!

Driving stories - January 3, 2009

Ah, another rainy day! Looks like the New Year has brought the Millers bad weather in New Zealand. As Colin mentioned yesterday, our hostel was a nice house situated in the middle of the rainforest. Since it was rainy and foggy, it was nice to relax in the evening and sleep in this morning. Our only plan for the day was to get ourselves to the northwest area of the south island called Abel Tasman National Park.



The fog was not as thick this morning, so we could see a bit more of the rough ocean. We decided to do a little cave exploration on our own after breakfast. It was exciting to finally use our headlamps for something other than sleeping in hostels. The cave had a marked “trail” in it, so it wasn’t really exploring on our own, but there was no guide with us. After the cave exploration, it was another quick walk to the beach before leaving the west coast.

During the drive we hit some really rainy sections, but as we got closer to the northwest it seemed to be clearing up a bit. We spent four hours driving, and reached our destination, a town called Motueka, around 2:30pm. It wasn’t sunny, but it also wasn’t raining. When we got to Motueka, we realized we took photos on the camera without the SD card in it! So, we have photos on the camera, but we don’t have the connector for the laptop. We quickly got the SD card in the camera, and took some photos on our drive to the very northwest corner of the South Island – an area called Golden Bay. Unfortunately, the rain seemed to follow us from the west coast and once we got over the mountains it was raining so hard we could not see the bay up close.




Disappointed, we returned to Motueka, praying for some better weather the next two days. The forecast says sun – let’s hope NZ weathermen are much better than those from the U.S.! We have a two day expedition set for Abel Tasman with kayaking tomorrow, camping overnight, and then walking and taking a water taxi on Tuesday. Fodor’s tells me this area competes with others for the highest amount of sun, while the west coast is known for all its rain. They were right about the west coast, so let’s hope they are also correct about this area.

Since the last two posts haven’t included too much exciting information, I will share here some of our struggles with petrol stations (aka gas stations).



NZ understandably has small towns. It’s two small islands. It’s a small country. NZ also understandably has few gas stations in those small towns. Not many automobiles on the roads drive the roads of this small island country.

Travelers must remember to plan ahead. The distance between some of those small towns are easily underestimated. In two instances, we have underestimated those distances. Sure, we take the blame for such a misstep. The problem, however, is that the few gas/petrol stations that do exist are annoyingly unreliable outside of business hours.

Twice we have white-knuckled a drive with the fuel tank sinking dangerously below “E”. Perhaps we exaggerated our fears because, after all, we drive a glorified golf cart. [See for yourself in the 12/26/2009 posting.] Nevertheless, we would breathe a sigh of relief as we finally came across a gas/petrol station only to find that we would be forced to use a blasted machine that doesn’t take American forms of payment! More on this later…

Ice Climbing – Canceled. Fun – PPD. January 2, 2010

Just our luck. Another early morning of eagerness to ice climb. Another cancellation. What are the chances of a glacier situated next to a rainforest experiencing torrential downpours that cause tours of the glacier to be cancelled? No, seriously, what are the chances? I got nothing.

Anyway, we took our jilted-selves from Franz Josef and headed north along the west coast. The trip went relatively fast because our view of the coast was clouded; literally, the rain and fog descended into the area for an extended stay.




The first stop along the way was the town of Hokitika. After some grocery shopping and a nap in the car by the ocean (again clouded by fog), we visited a relative of the Miller family who lives in town. He, Peter Kettering, is a transplant from the northeast US and is the brother of my dad’s brother’s wife. If you’re like me, you’ll probably need to map that out on paper.

He and his partner, Vicki, were extremely hospitable. They treated us to a quick tour of their intimate home, extensive gardening, and delicious muffins. More important, they graciously entertained our interests in their experiences in NZ, California, and the rest of the World. Interacting with locals and their living situations breathed fresh air into a trip dominated by tourists.





The second and last stop was the sleepy “beach” town of Punakaiki. Similar to most of this leg, fog prevented the vista of, what we were told, resembled northern California. No worries. The hostel we booked turned out to be a diamond in the rough. And by “rough” I mean dense rainforest about 150 meters from the ocean.

Happy New Year from New Zealand - January 1, 2010

Even though it is still New Year’s Eve for all you Americans...

The beginning of the 2010’s. What will the next decade bring? Teleportation? 100 Home run MLB seasons? Faster and more courteous service at the DMV? I, for one, am not sure about the first two. But I can tell you that, in addition to the DMV probably still being a mess, the first day of 2010 brought an early wake-up call for a day of ice climbing.

We had booked an ice climbing trip on the Franz Josef Glacier. We settled on ice climbing because the hikes didn’t satisfy our sense of excitement and our bank account frowned upon the helicopter trip to the glacier.

Our alarm clocks sounded at 630AM on New Year’s Day. Nicolle and I hurried ourselves into a quick breakfast and out the door. Normally we’re never late for anything (cough!), but we literally had to run down the street to ensure that the ice climbing trip didn’t leave without us.

As we walked in the door of the tour company’s store, we noticed that it seemed conspicuously empty. Turns out that we were the only individuals booked for that ice climbing time. Though just us two and a guide might have made for an intimate climb, the tour guide canceled our climb. We were dismayed by the cancellation, but the tour company made up nicely: they rescheduled us for the next day and comp’ed us some free passes to a local hot pool spa.

We figured that the spa might serve us well later on in the day after, say, an invigorating hike near the glacier. So we researched the local map, chose a hike, and set on our way.

The hiking trail was listed as taking about 5 hours roundtrip, with the summit rewarding hikers with a nice view of the Franz Josef Glacier. The hike itself was moderately difficult. The elevation climb wasn’t too drastic. Based on my poor conversion of meters to feet, I estimate the climb gained about 2000 feet in elevation. Sir Edmund Hilary would scoff at such a trifle…while being carried by his sherpa guide. The trail, however, included a few steep climbs, rock scrambles, rickety bridges crossing raging rivers.





One interesting characteristic of the hike was varied environments among differing elevations. At one point we walked through dense vegetation with noticeable humidity and warm temperatures. The next we were climbing up open rock faces where the air was a little cooler.

After about two hours of hiking, we reached the end of the trail. The end was not the summit of the mountain. Nevertheless, the end was high and open enough for a great view of the glacier.





The glacier itself was/is impressive. It’s one big ice cube carving the mountains as it advances/retreats. Even more impressive is the contrast between the glacier sitting next to, essentially, a rainforest. Just another absurdity of NZ.

Finally, we took our wobbly legs and exhausted bodies to the hot pool spa. Normally, I’m not a fan of spas. But we matched my affinity for the right price (free) with Nicolle’s love of spas. I had hoped that the spa was geothermal pools. In this case, the pools were artificially heated to three temperatures: 36, 38, and 40 degrees Celsius. My conversions of temperatures is even worse than for distances, so you’re gonna have to convert that one yourself. What I can say that the pools were warm but not hot. That is, nobody was basting me with melted butter and filling the water surrounding me with diced vegetables. Nicolle says that the 40 degree pool was uncomfortably hot. Sorry we didn’t take photos, but the pools were outdoors in the rainforest, with beautiful steam rising above.

To be sure, one one two zero one zero was a relatively relaxing day. Tomorrow brings another early wake-up (for the rescheduled ice climb).

Wanaka and the drive to Franz Josef - December 31, 2009

Today, New Year’s Eve, we started our day in Wanaka, which is a town not far from Queenstown. We thought the two towns would be similar, but Wanaka did not appear to be as beautiful or exciting as Queenstown. Because we arrived in Wanaka late last night, we had to get our keys from a lock box. When we got to our room, we found out the hostel had mistakenly put us both in a male dorm room. That meant I had to bunk with 5 guys. Three of the guys were travelling together from Israel and one guy was Brazilian. We spoke with them for about 15-20 minutes, before they went out for the night. So, the male dorm room was fine since I really didn’t see any of our bunk mates. This morning, we walked around a bit in the town and had a great lunch at an Indian restaurant. Colin had venison and I had some lamb. Both were delicious.




On our way out of Wanaka, we stopped by a place called “Puzzle World,” which has a life size maze in it. We didn’t want to pay the $15-20 to go in, so we took a few photos by the leaning tower outside.



Our drive from Wanaka to Franz Josef took us through the Southern Alps of New Zealand. Since we’ve already posted so many amazing mountain photos, I won’t post more here. We did stop after about an hour to do a short (5 minute) hike to another waterfall.





We soon emerged to the West Coast of New Zealand. The road skirted along the ocean at times and there was one primary viewing point, where we took a photo. Not far from the viewing point, there was a 1 hour hike to the water that brought you to an area where penguins and a seal colony exist. We decided to take a break from driving to do the hike, but found out the penguins have left their spot for a few months to be in the water. Even though we didn’t see any penguins or seals (we didn’t walk the extra 2 miles), it was still really nice to be alone on the beach. The sand was pretty rocky and I’m sure the water was cold, so we just walked a bit. Colin says he prefers a deserted beach to anything else in the world!!

Once we left the beach, we decided not to make any more stops until reaching our destination (Franz Josef). The road went back into the mountains, where we swerved on some serious “S” curves for about 45 minutes. We passed the town of Fox Glacier, where the first of two glaciers in “Westland Park” are located, but we didn’t stop because Franz Josef is the other glacier town. Since it is New Year’s Eve, we opted to pay a little more to have our own room versus sharing with others. After unpacking our bags, we decided we should do some laundry since we have been wearing a lot of our clothes multiple times and we are about halfway through our time in New Zealand. We don’t expect to have to wear my long sleeve dry-wicking shirts or pants in Australia and hopefully won’t have too much more cold weather now that we are heading north towards the warmer weather.

Our New Year’s plans are pretty low-key – meaning we have none! We have an ice-climbing expedition planned for tomorrrow and we need to meet the guide at 7:45am. Plus, since neither of us drink, it doesn’t make sense to stay up to party in the hostel. We plan to get a good night’s sleep in our own room before a day long ice climb.