New Zealand

Although we made it into Arthur's Pass late at night, we hit the road early in the morning to make the most of our last day in New Zealand. We were going to backtrack into Arthur's Pass to see some of the scenery we missed while driving during the night.

We only had 150 km (100 miles) to travel today, so we took our time coming down from the mountains.

The views were still beautiful, even after spending the last week immersed in similar sights.

Around lunch time we reached Christchurch. We topped off the tank to the rental car and made our way to back to the airport. There was still one stop left on our agenda, the International Antarctic Center.

The Antarctic Center focused on showing how the scientists survive the harshest weather on the planet and give you insight into their typical day. We meandered through the various exhibits, watched the videos, viewed the pictures, and did all the quizzes meant for little kids. The main attraction was the room that allowed you to "step onto Antarctica."

It was a really, really cold room. You had to put a heavy jacket and special shoes to keep the snow clean. They had a giant thermometer showing the temperature. You could stand in front of a fan to get a feel for a slight wind chill. Dawn was most excited about the slide made of ice blocks (once again made for little kids).

Every 30 minutes the room would reenact being out in a storm in Antarctica. The temperature dropped, the wind picked up, and the lights went out. As the timer counted down, a nervous excitement built up inside me. Guys feel this urge to test their limits. How would I fare on an ancient battlefield defending my homeland against the Romans? How would I do if I had to settle America in the 1600s? How would I react if I was caught in a storm in Antarctica? One of those questions was about to be answered. I left the hood down on my jacket to see how long I could last. The lights dimmed as a simulated voice came over the radio and announced the storm was fast approaching. The temperature dropped and the winds picked up. After what seemed like minutes, the wind nearly blew you off your feet and I couldn't feel my ears or nose. I put my hood on and squinted my eyes against the freezing gales. Dawn tried to snuggle closer to steal some of my body heat, but I beat her back. Just when I thought I'd never feel warm again, the storm started to lighten up. Before leaving the storm room, I took a ride on the snowmobile.

We walked to the penguin exhibit to see the local residents. Injured and handicapped penguins live in the Antarctic center. Apparently one penguin was blind, another continuously molted. One penguin had custom flippers to help him swim.

We went back through the center, watched a short film on Antarctica, and left. It was time to head home, our trip through New Zealand had been completed.

Dawn and I woke up early and drove back into town. We checked in at the Franz Josef Guides lobby. Along with the other hikers, we were fitted with water-proof pants, a water-proof jacket, water-proof boots, gloves, hat, and crampons. We climbed into the bus and headed to the foot of the glacier.

Dressed for an assault on Siberia, we first had to walk several miles to the base of the glacier through a temperate rainforest. After about an hour we reached the foot of the glacier and were instructed on how to put our crampons on over our boots. The glacier was beautiful. It wasn't covered in gravel like the glacier we had seen 6 days ago, but a brilliant white and blue. The wind coming down the glacier was freezing cold. A slight rain fell, but it was hardly noticed. I couldn't wait to get started.

The guides asked for everyone to divide into groups of 10 based on skill level. The higher skill level groups were going to grind out the path for the rest of the groups. Rain makes the glacier glassy smooth, and we had a lot of rain the night before. As people move over the tracks, their crampons chew up the ice and make it easier for the following people to make it through the glacier. I had originally planned on being in the 2nd or 3rd group (out of 5), but few people volunteered to go in the first group. Dawn and I decided to give it a shot. As we started up the mountain, I ended up being the first hiker leading the rest of the group behind the guide.

The first thing I noticed about the glacier is that it was really cold to the touch. This may seem obvious since it is a block of ice, but walking across it you begin to view it as white rock. When used correctly, the crampons do a good job of gripping the ice. We began climbing up the glacier using the steps the guides were cutting with their axes. We climbed over the first series of ridges and began weaving through the crevasses in the ice.

Glaciers are formed by giant snow fields way up the mountain. Snow falls year round and is then compacted into ice. This compacted ice gets forced down the mountain as more and more snow falls. As the glacier moves down the mountain, the ice melts in the warmer air, rain, and sunlight. The water seeps down through the glacier forming holes, eventually draining into the river at the base of the glacier. The melting causes some areas to be weaker than others, and as the glacier moves, the surface shifts and slides to form huge cracks called crevasses. This is what we walked through.

The crevasses could rise 20 feet on either side of us. It was a little unnerving to walk between two walls of ice. The crevasses were never flat, so you had to constantly walk at an angle, careful to always get a good footing so you didn't slide down the glacier. Because the crevasses are the lowest points on the glacier, the guides like to keep the hikers moving through them (you can't really fall because you are already as far down as you can get). The fear is ice falling from above you, so you have to keep a look out for lose blocks overhead. We kept climbing and climbing and climbing.

I realized why it was so important to have waterproof clothing. You were constantly squeezing between the blocks of ice. The surface of the glacier was wet as the exposed ice melted. My gloves instantly were soaked as I used my hands to keep my balance. When you did slip, you couldn't really catch yourself. The ice was very slippery, and if you could grab a block of ice, you had to be careful because they can be razor sharp. The wool did keep my hands dry and warm though.

After a couple hours of making our way through the glacier, we came to an ice cave. Shifting in the ice had formed a hollow in the glacier that could be climbed through. The ice was a deep blue in the cave. We were told that all the ice not exposed to the sun looks like this. As the ice is compacted and pushed down the mountain, all the air is squeezed out. With no air the ice acts like a crystal reflecting only the blue portion of visible light. The ice on the surface is porous and prevents light from passing through giving a white color. The cave was beautiful.

We continued climbing for a little while longer and stopped for some lunch. I thought we would start making our way back down the glacier since we were supposed to spend 5-6 hours on the ice, and we had been climbing for 3 hours at this point. But after lunch, we kept climbing up. In fact we kept climbing up steadily for another hour.

We reached the high lines, the tallest point we would climb. When we reached this point, the guides realized a new crevasse had formed from the rain last night. They bounced around excitedly about a new ice feature. I guess after going up the glacier every day, new ice features add some excitement to the job. Our guide climbed to the top of the crevasse and began knocking ice into the gap. The newly formed crevasse looked like a very narrow "V". It was very deep, I couldn't even see the bottom of it. The theory was that you could knock larger chunks of ice into the gap and walk along the blocks to make your way through the crevasse. It was the same strategy we had been following all day, but the ice had been packed in over the past couple weeks. The guides worked furiously for about 20 minutes to knock ice into the gap. Dawn was first in line and the guide called for her to start making her way across the crevasse. I didn't really think it was wise for Dawn to boldly walk along a new path that the guides hadn't even walked through, but Dawn went on anyways. It was a tight fit for her, very tight in fact, so I knew I was going to have a tough time. I began making my way, shoving myself into the crack in the ice. I decided to follow the guide's advice to consider this "a rebirth" and force myself through the slippery, tight gap. Right at the tightest part the ice gave way beneath me. The ice only shifted down about 6 inches, but my body only slid down an inch, leaving me suspended between two very cold pieces of ice. I was stuck.

I couldn't move forward because my feet couldn't reach anything. I couldn't pull myself up because I was between two slippery pieces of ice. Trying not to panic, I posed for pictures for the rest of the group waiting to make their pass through the crevasse. Dawn was calling frantically to the guide for help. Our fearless guide had a solution. He cut a piece of ice from the wall of the crevasse and pushed it down towards my foot. I was able to reach it and pull myself out of the gap. The above picture is actually just after I got unstuck and reached the wider portion of the crevasse (can't you see the relief on my face?). Once through the crevasse, I climbed up onto the ledge to thaw out. My hands were frozen from trying to push myself out of the gap. I tried blowing on them and sticking them in my armpits, but the heat hurt tremendously. I gingerly rubbed them on my shirt.

As we waited for the rest of the group to pass through the crevasse, we took in the views of the glacier. The view was beautiful. Here is a view further up the glacier:

Here is the view back down the glacier:

My hands had warmed up by the time the rest of the group made it through the crevasse, so I was ready for the hike back down the glacier. The hike back was significantly easier as we walked along the top of the glacier back to the bottom (instead of winding through the crevasses).

On the way down the guide told me that since we found the new crevasse, we got to name it. Since I had become the most intimate with the new crevasse, he wanted my input. Claiming to be finished with that crevasse forever, the guide decided to name it in my honor: The Cold Sausage.

We reached the bottom of the glacier, but did pose for one last picture.

We hiked back to the bus and turned our gear back in at the office. As tired as I was, Dawn and I still had to make it to Arthur's Pass that night. We had 240 km (150 miles) to drive. We grabbed some dinner and some powerade to rehydrate and hit the road. Tomorrow would be our last day in New Zealand.

Originally Dawn and I had only planned to pass through Queenstown on our way to Wanaka. Having spent half the day at Deer Park had put us way behind schedule. We decided to scrap our hike in Wanaka and spend a little more time in Queenstown.

Queenstown is the adventure capital of the south island. You are encouraged to paraglide, bungee jump, sky dive, and any other event that will cause your heart to stop. We chose a slightly less adrenaline pumping activity: the luge.

We took the gondola up to the top of one of the mountains in Queensland. Queensland was definitely the most touristy place we visited in New Zealand (really the only touristy spot). Everything was designed to suck cash from the visitors. Tacky souvenir shops, restaurants with scenic views, pictures of you getting into the gondola, pictures of you riding the gondola, pictures of you getting out of the gondola, and of course, riding the luge. We followed the signs to the luge tracks, picked up a helmet, and got in the ski lift to go to the top of the tracks.

The luge is a plastic seat that is pulled down the hill by gravity. You have a handle that acts as a brake as you push it down (if you keep it up, you go full speed ahead). I don't have any pictures of us on the luge (I refused to buy the picture at the bottom of the hill), but I did find a picture of a guy that personified the fun that could be had on the luge track.

Dawn started down the hill first, and I was right behind her. As we made our way down the hill, I was surprised by how fast you actually started going. I thought it would be prudent to apply some brake, but my heart jumped into my throat when I realized that my legs got in the way of pushing down the brake. I had no way to slow myself down. While Dawn was screaming joyfully down the track, I was screaming bloody murder. Things got worse, I saw a hairpin turn coming up on the track. I was able to press the brake, but it was way too little way too late. I ran into the barrier of the track and wiped out. Just then a 6 year-old passed me taking the turn like a professional race car driver. I picked my luge up and started back down the track. Unfortunately I had lost all momentum and cruised across the finish line at about 3 mph. If Dawn asked to do it again, I'd probably leave her on the mountain.

We rode the gondola back down to the city and grabbed some lunch. We had 360 km (225 miles) to travel, so I was eager to get on the road (and leave the luge debacle behind me). The destination was Franz Josef to do a glacier walk the next day. As we left Queenstown, Dawn notified me that she was finally ready to take her turn at the wheel. I had been driving for the last 5 days and was surprised that Dawn decided she wanted to drive. I pulled off the side of the road and we switched seats. The Dawn driving experiment had begun.

When you are used to being on the right side of the road, and used to the driver being on the left side of the car, riding passenger in the left lane and in the left seat can be a little uncomfortable. You feel like the car is about to run off the left side of the road. I realized Dawn had exercised a great deal of self control to not constantly pester me to move to the right. Dawn had chosen a span of road that wound up the mountain cliffs above Queenstown, not exactly the best terrain to learn to drive on the opposite side of the road. Trying to resist the urge to yank the wheel to the right, I focused on being the navigator. Not being nearly as good as Dawn, I gave her none of the useful details like "the next turn will be in approximately 43 km" or "the Daudaidai Mountain Range is on your left", but instead focused on reading the history of New Zealand in the back of the guide book. After an hour of Dawn at the wheel, she had her first single lane bridge. We had the right of way, so she sped across the lengthy bridge with no problem. However, when it came to leave the bridge, Dawn went to the right side of the road instead of the left side of the road, just as a car was approaching from the other direction. I uttered an "Ooooooh" and closed my eyes. The car swerved and the seconds passed by with no collision. We had survived, but Dawn's driving adventure in New Zealand was coming to a close. We switched places again further up the road.

We reached Franz Josef in time for dinner. Inspired by the trip through Deer Park the day before, Dawn ordered the lamb shanks and I treated myself to venison. It was delicious. We drove to the hotel, but staying in the room had no appeal after a long day in the car. We decided to head out on a short hike to see the Franz Josef Glacier at sunset. We drove 10 minutes back out of town and found our hiking trail. It was a 30 minute hike to the viewing point, and we were rewarded with the most spectacular view of the entire trip (in my opinion).

We went back to the hotel to get some sleep, tomorrow would be a full day hike up the glacier.

Milford Sound is one of New Zealand's most beautiful areas. Sheer mountain cliffs drop into the calm waters. Frequent rainfall creates dozen of temporary waterfalls and feeds several permanent waterfalls. The cliffs can be over a mile high, the highest oceanside cliffs in the world. Despite being a 4 hour drive from the two closest large cities (we stayed in a smaller town 2 hours away), it is the country's largest tourist attraction. Arriving in the area, you wouldn't figure that it is a big tourist spot. There are only two places to stay, a small hotel and a fancy hostel. There are no grocery stores, no restaurants, no gas stations, and not even a McDonald's. Most people come on day tours from Queenstown and Invercargill, leaving early in the morning on large buses and returning later in the day. There are only a number of things to do in Milford Sound. You can hike the Milford Track (a several day hike from Te Anau), you can kayak through the sound, take a helicopter ride up the coast, or take a tour on a boat. The most common are the boat tours, and since it came highly recommended, Dawn and I set out in the morning to get on the first tour of the day.

We booked our tour at the hostel and drove down to the dock. I hoped our boat size wouldn't be directly proportional to the quality of our tour.

We climbed aboard the smallest boat in the harbor with about 15 other people and set off. The views were absolutely amazing. The boat slowly chugged out into the sound, the captain only briefly pointing something out every 5 minutes and allowing us to absorb the beauty around us.

As I mentioned before, many of the waterfalls were created by the recent rainfall, others strengthened. Milford Sound is one of the wettest places in the world, but the rain actually creates more scenic views. It wasn't a hard rain, just enough for me to want to keep my hat on (and glad that I had a waterproof jacket). I don't think even rain could dampen the stunning views available in every direction.

Eventually the boat went out into the Tasman Sea (body of water between Australia and New Zealand). The wind was very strong and very chilly (the roaring 40s coming up from Antartica). The captain indicated that the waters could get very choppy. We turned around for the return trip through the sound. We passed by some seals napping on the rocks and continued chugging slowly along. Eventually we arrived back at the dock and departed the boat. I have uploaded tons of pictures from the tour, make sure you check out the photo gallery.

The rain also created waterfalls along the cliff walls as we left Milford Sound. It was hard to keep driving, you just wanted to stop and take in the views forever. We had planned on making it to Wanaka that night, so we had to keep moving.

Our next stop was Queenstown, 290 km (180 miles) away.

As we traveled to Queenstown, we passed more and more set locations for Lord of the Rings. One place in particular was supposed to have several sets on site, and also offered the opportunity to feed llamas, goats, deer, buffalo, horses, buffalo, and cows that look like yaks. Sounded like a great place to stop to me. Right before we reached Queenstown, we turned off to visit Deer Park.

After paying the $20 to enter, I drove up the path to the first animal paddock. I was surprised there were no rangers, no one monitoring where we traveled, just an automated system that sucked in $20 bills. I was eager to get to the buffalo, but first we had to pass through the llamas. I rolled down my window, stuck the tin of food out of the car, and rattled to get each llama's attention. As they flocked to the car, I rolled up my window, rolled down Dawn's window, and locked the windows. Every llama was forced to go to Dawn's side of the car. It was funny for a minute, but then the llamas started reaching inside the car to get the food. Before Dawn killed me, I pulled the car forward.

We continued up the hill and through the deer paddock. The bucks wanted nothing to do with us and just moved further away as we tried to walk up to them. Since these deer weren't hunted (rather allowed to get nice and fat before being sent to the butcher), the antlers on these suckers were huge. Dawn managed to get a doe to come up to be fed. We got back in the car and kept our eyes peeled for the first buffalo.

We passed a sign indicating that the buffalo paddock was on the way out of the park, so we decided to go up for the scenic views and find the areas where Lord of the Rings were filmed. Reaching the top of the mountain I felt like I had been transported to Middle Earth. I immediately began scanning the map for set locations, but Dawn was less than enthusiastic about reenacting movie scenes with me. See wanted to take more pictures of the mountains and valleys. I begrudgingly abided and got back in the car to drive to the summits. The views were absolutely outstanding.

If you want to see more incredible pictures, make sure to check out the photo gallery. I uploaded tons of pictures, those included in the blog are only a small subset.

After spending a significant time driving around the top of the mountain, Dawn finally agreed to join me on my quest to find the filming locations for Lord of the Rings. Dawn snapped a couple pictures of me reenacting parts of the film, check out the gallery to see all the shots and descriptions of the scene from the movie. Here is one of me acting as Legolas spotting orcs running through the valley.

It was finally time to see the buffalo. I had bought three more buckets of food to make sure we didn't run out. I drove back down the mountain to the buffalo paddock. We spotted the buffalo in the back of the field, but conveniently along a dirt path up the hill. Fully understanding that a Toyota Corolla is not intended for off road use, my desire to get close to a buffalo overwhelmed my fear of getting stuck or rolling down the mountain. We slowly pulled up next to the buffalo. I shook the food tin again, and one of the buffalo slowly made their way over to the car.

The buffalo came right up to my window and I slowly offered some food in my hand. As he sniffed the food, a ball of snot dripped onto my hand. The buffalo opened his mouth and showed his huge teeth. I panicked, squeeled like a little girl, and dropped the food onto the ground. The buffalo bent over and began eating the food I dropped, not caring that he was scraping his horns along the side of the car. Fearing scratches and dents, I quickly offered more food in my hand to distract him from the food under the car. I slowly got used to (but not exactly comfortable) feeding this huge animal from my hand. A second buffalo made his way over to my window. I could not handle two buffalo both trying to eat from my hand at the same time, so I threw some more food on the ground. To my horror, the two buffalo began butting heads 3 feet away from my window! I imagined one falling into the car and pushing us down the hill (the buffalo were probably bigger than the Corolla). I frantically yelled at Dawn to wiggle her can outside her window to get one of the buffalo to go to her side. Thankfully the two buffalo separated. I paused feeding my buffalo to take some pictures of Dawn. Just like before, the buffalo began scraping his horns on the car to get to the food I had dropped. I realized that it would probably be prudent to continue on our way. I started the engine as quietly as I could (to make sure the big buffalo wouldn't confuse me as competition for its food and start butting the car) and began backing down to the main path.

I breathed a sigh of relief as we got back on the path and continued down the mountain. We turned the corner and immediately ran into a yak Scottish cow (until I went to Scotland, I thought this was a yak). Scottish cows are big, really big (and this is coming from someone who had just been right next to a buffalo). I got my confidence back up and offered a handful of food. The yak-looking cow smelled my hand, but wouldn't eat from it. I'm almost grateful it didn't want to eat from my hand. I made the mistake of throwing the food on the ground, and the yak-cow began eating at the foot of the car. The cow's horns are about 100 times longer than a buffalo's, so I was in an even worse situation than I was in before. Meanwhile, a herd of ponies had surrounded Dawn's side of the car and were obnoxiously eating anything they could get in their mouths.

We distracted all the animals by throwing the rest of food as far away from the car as possible. I quickly moved away from the danger zone and worked my way back out of the park. Dawn and I continued into Queenstwon for some dinner. We began to realize that we weren't going to make it to Wanaka at a reasonable hour, so we checked into a hotel on the lake on the edge of Queenstown. Tomorrow we'd be making our to the Franz Josef glacier, but it was going to be a pretty long drive.

Te Anau sits on the largest lake in the southern island of New Zealand and has a beautiful backdrop of mountains. As I mentioned in the previous post, it is the known as the "walking capital of the world" due to many hiking (or known in New Zealand as "tramping") trails running through or starting at the town.

Of the many trails leading out from Te Anau, we chose the Kepler Track. It forms a 4 day loop through Fiordland National Park, but since we only had 1 day, we would hike to the first shelter and return back to Te Anau. We would pass by the filming locations of "River Anduin" and the "Dead Marshes" on the trail. After a quick stop to check-in at the information center, we hit the trail.

The hike started by walking across a large swinging bridge over the Waiau River. The water was flowing very fast (I think Waiau means "fast flowing" in Maori, I can't really remember the information sign at the edge of the river), but the water looked crystal clear. After crossing the bridge, there was a steep incline that took us up to get some good views of the surrounding area. The views continued as occasionally the forest would clear as the track came near the cliff line.

The forest was very green, with the ground covered with ferns and the beech trees reaching high above us. Small streams followed the path for a portion of the trail and we had to cross over a couple swinging bridges. Dawn had commented on seeing several large boxes that looked like traps. We found out later that these boxes are used to capture rats that eat the rare kiwi's (the bird, not the human from New Zealand) eggs. The area we were in supposedly was home to kiwis, but we didn't really expect to see any since they are nocturnal and very reclusive. We did get to see some wildlife, a gigantic spider.

I'm not really afraid of spiders, but I certainly didn't want to dwadle around it. We moved out of the heavy forest and came to a clearing. Another informational sign indicated that this was a marsh. When the glaciers receded, soft dirt and water filled the area. It could be 5 feet deep (although it looked firm on the surface) and acted like a giant sponge to retain water from the frequent rain falls. A side track led to a pond. Since no water flows into the pond, nutrients are scarce. Only a few types of plants have adapted to live in this area. At this point, Dawn got tired of me reading every bit of information on every sign and threatened to leave me behind. We took some pictures and then continued on our hike.

After a couple hours we reached the first shelter on the trail. The resting spot sat on the edge of Lake Manapouri, giving us a chance to rest our legs and take in more pretty scenery. The sand flies were pretty vicious, but we had 20% deet bug spray that kept them at bay.

As bugs became less and less deterred by the deet, we decided it was time to head back. Even though we were back-tracking over trail we had already hiked, it was still great. The woods were somewhat quiet, not too many birds chirping or flying overhead. You could hear the trickle of water when we passed close to the stream. It was very relaxing.

We eventually made our way back into town. The plan was to drive to Milford Sound to spend the night. We filled up on gas (as we were warned that this would be the last place we could get "petrol" as we traveled north). This would be the shortest drive on our trip, a meager 120 km (75 miles), and we planned to reach the hostel in 2.5 hours.

At this point, Dawn was sick of talking to me, so she tried to turn on the radio. She pressed the seek button and radio dial started spinning to find a radio station. The radio scanned through all the frequencies without finding anything. As if to rub it in, the radio displayed the word "NOTHING" and turned off. Dawn's only choices were to listen to me spout more facts I had read in the guide book and various pamphlets, or to take a nap. She opted for the nap.

The drive through Fiordland National Park offered the best views we had on our trip yet. Since it is a national park, there were no houses, no grazing fields, nothing. The mountains loomed overhead. The west coast of New Zealand has rain 220 days of the year (nearly every 2 out of 3 days), and a light mist began to fall. Dawn woke up and began taking pictures out the windows of the car.

We reached the tunnel leading down into Milford Sound. The tunnel only runs one direction, but switches direction every 15 minutes. We had our first encounter with the keas. The kea is a parrot found in the mountains of New Zealand. Keas are notoriously curious, very intelligent, and bold. They come right up to your car hoping that you'll give them something to eat (although there are huge signs indicating that you should not feed them). Working in teams, one kea will distract a person while its buddies go through bags and purses to find food. They are known for chewing through the plastic and rubber moldings on cars. Keas have even been reported to kill sheep. When I saw them start coming over to the car, I immediately rolled the windows up and sprayed them with the window washing fluid. The car in front of us wasn't able to deter the keas as successfully.

It was finally our turn to go through the tunnel and temporarily escape the keas. The Homer Tunnel was started in 1930 and originally dug out by 5 men with pickaxes and wheelbarrows. The tunnel didn't open until the 1950s, it's a long tunnel. The roof is unsealed granite, so water gushes down in some spots. It is also extremely dark in the tunnel, the only illumination is the headlights from your car. After coming out of the tunnel, you are immediately rewarded with a view of the Milford Sound valley. Tomorrow we will be exploring Milford Sound, one of the most beautiful places in New Zealand.