Aoraki - Mt. Cook

We picked up a rental car-- a small and featureless Corolla (no cruise control even!) and headed out of the Canterbury region and west towards the southern Alps. The drive got majestic around Lake Tekapo where autumn was just beginning and the lake was a magnificent shade of blue. The water gets its color from these very fine glacier pebbles. The lake is one of the largest in the area, some 30+ square miles.

Further down the road, you get to the largest lake in the region, Lake Pukaki with Aoraki/Mt. Cook sitting at it's end at nearly 3800 m high. We took a detour off our course to Queenstown to head into Mt. Cook Village for lunch. The drive winded next to the shores of Lake Pukaki to the very remote and scenic alps village.

After lunch, we drove further south taking quick breaks near Lindis Pass and Lake Dunstan. As we got closer to Queenstown, we stopped to watch the sunset at Lake Hayes. The remarkable reflections and beautiful pink and orange skies were breathtaking. Hiking back to the car, we think we saw the elusive kiwi come out of a burrow at night. Extremely rare to see one in the wild (most NZ'ers have never seen one), but just maybe we did?!

After a full day on the road, we were happy to settle into the very modern Rees hotel on Lake Wakatipu in Queenstown. More on this hotel later, but suffice it to say-- it was one of the nicest places we have stayed.

A little different Lyttelton

Pronounced the same as our hometown, the city of Lyttelton 30 minutes outside of Christchurch is just a *little* bit different than home! Lyttelton was formed from a massive volcanic island and is now an inlet of the Banks Peninsula.

We took a day-cruise in search of wildlife departing from the city's harbour. We explored the volcanic outcrops, sheer cliffs, and islands in the sea while spotting a few pods of Hector's dolphins.

The Hector's (or New Zealand) dolphin is the smallest and rarest breed of dolphin. There are only 7,000 of them left which makes them endangered. They almost look like miniature orca whales and generally only grow to 4 feet in length. We got to see them playing, doing husband-wife type things, and swimming in front of the boat.

We also got lucky enough to spot one of the largest flight birds-- the Wandering Albatross. These white-winged Albatross frequent the Kaikoura coast and have wingspans of 10+ feet. Pretty impressive to see!

In between spotting all sorts of birds, we came across the very small and extremely rare, white-flippered blue penguins. They almost looked like little ducks, but these two blue-green penguins with white bellies are unfortunately prey to the ferrets and cats of the area (and becoming extinct as a result), but they were a joy to watch flippering across the water.

After our cruise, we were transported to the nearby Christchurch Gondola for 360 degree views of Christchurch, the southern Alps, and the Lyttelton harbour.

Charming Christchurch

Our hotel sat in the center of Cathedral Square of Christchurch so we spent a lot of time in the square. We toured the Cathedral where we were impressed by the detailed mosaic tiles on the floor and the solid wood beams lacing the ceiling. The outside of the building is very representative of much of the architecture throughout the city.

Christchurch Cathedral

After seeing the cathedral and walking the botanic gardens, we spent some time in the Canterbury museum and walked through Christ's College of Canterbury (which is actually one of the oldest schools in the city and is all-boys).

Canterbury Museum

We spent lunch in the square watching the various street performers (reminded us of Boulder back home!). The fish 'n' chips I had here was the best I had all trip! And what a deal at about ~3 USD.

Cathedral Square performer

Our first evening in Christchurch, we wandered around aimlessly trying to locate a non-thai restaurant that was open (and it was only 7 pm!), but we finally found Frommer's 3 star "find" called Winnie Bagoes (get it?). It's a pizza bar with a huge local crowd and a unique atmosphere to boot. The food (lasagna and fettuccine carbonara) was fantastic and the people were fun. We ordered their famous banana pizza dessert only to find out 30 minutes later that they were out. They refunded our money and gave us the blueberry/apple one for free. A group of older men who were celebrating their 20th year anniversary of weekly guys' nights here ran over to "share" our pie with us (it could've fed a dozen). They were super entertaining and friendly. The bachelorette group in the bar seemed to enjoy them as well. What a lovely taste of Christchurch!

Our last evening in the city, we ate dinner at a fancier place along the Avon River. The restaurant, Coyote, served up NZ cuisine with a Mexican flare. We enjoyed the lamb and steak as we listened to a local band at our firepit table. What a wonderful way to cap off our time in Christchurch-- our favorite city thus far!

Colorful Christchurch

Christchurch treated us to clear blue skies for our entire visit. We enjoyed breakfast in the square each morning (seriously, why don't our Starbucks serve the delicious double chocolate muffins?).

We took a nice stroll down the Avon River on our way to the Botanic Gardens where we took in the colorful rose gardens, Peacock Fountain, and numerous other gorgeous blooms.

We followed a bumblebee and monarch around the gardens, too!

We took an enjoyable walk through Hagley Park as well. Autumn is in full swing in this beautiful city!

TranzCoastal

Our time in the south island began with a beautiful train ride along the east coast. We rode the TranzCoastal train through farmland, rugged Pacific Ocean coastline filled with hundreds of seals with the Kaikoura mountain ranges to our other side, and even through the vineyards heading into Christchurch-- the south island's largest city.

They say it's one of the world's most scenic train journeys (although we'd argue that the train from Seward to Anchorage might take the cake!) and we enjoyed sharing a table with a mother and daughter from Wellington. They had lived in NZ their entire lives and hadn't done this train yet. The mother (in her 90s) wanted to check this off her list before her time was up. We enjoyed visiting with them! We spent hours out on the open air viewing cart taking in the views of the mountains and coastline while enjoying the fresh air. The coastline was breathtaking-- bright teal blue water fed to giant rocks and shiny black sand which led to plush green mountains. We enjoyed the pod of ~50,000 seals that hang out along the coast, but were saddened to hear that their numbers were reaching all-time lows (they once had a pod in this area of more than 2 million!).

The beautiful Kaikoura coastline


Can you see the hundreds of seals blending into the rocks?

The train went through dozens of tunnels and over hundreds of bridges and took the better part of the day. As we approached Christchurch, the scenery changed to rolling hills like those you read about in fairy tales (is this why it's called the Canterbury region?) with mountains in the distance and spectacular vineyards in the foreground. We arrived into Christchurch at dinner time and took a shuttle to our downtown hotel in the heart of Cathedral Square (and right next to a large IBM building!).

Ferry! (What'cha call me?)

We departed the north island and reached the south island by a ferry called the Interislander. It runs from Wellington 92 km to a very small town in the Marlborough region on the north east coast of the south island called Picton. Dave found it fun(ny) to pester me everytime I said the word ferry by responding "What'cha call me?" It's a family joke to carry things on for much longer than we should, so I think I will be hearing this response for months to come.

The ferry route took us from Wellington through the Cook Strait into the Marlborough Sounds, throughTory Channel, and on to the Queen Charlotte Sound before arriving in Picton. The ferry resembled more of a cruise ship-- filled with shops, food courts, and seats that appeared to be have taken out of the first-class cabin of an aircraft. The views were phenomenal, but the cabin itself was absolutely freezing. We were pretty uncomfortable actually. They say the journey is one of the best of any ferry in the world and it reminded us a lot of the inside passage of Alaska (although on a much smaller scale!).

Capital Punishment

Our time in the capital of NZ, Wellington, was short and that's probably for the best. Unfortunately, our experience was one of frustration. The minute we arrived in Wellington, we could tell that parking was going to be an issue. Unlike other big cities where it appears that most transportation is public and most vehicles are yellow (taxis), Wellington seemed to have none of those and was packed with peoples cars. As we checked into our downtown hotel, they told us they had only a handful of spots for the several hundred rooms. We were told to park on the street. It was 2 hour parking, so we paid for 15 minutes to unload our bags before deciding what to do. We came back out, reloaded the meter with 2 more hours and headed to Te Papa - the National Museum of NZ. We enjoyed the state of the art, interactive Ourspace exhibit, but weren't thrilled with the High Ride which I blame for what I think is a broken rib. The worlds only colossal squid on display was disgusting, but the city view from the panoramic windows completely made up for it. As Americans, we could not believe what an impressive museum this was and that the ticket price was $0.

After a stroll through the waterfront and Civic Square, we returned to our car with 6 minutes to spare on our meter, but it didn't matter as we had received a nasty-o-gram from the Wellington police. That's right, we got ticketed before our meter expired. Apparently, you can not re-load meters here. I suppose the ticket with a timestamp before the expiry time is worth the fine as it's a memory we'll visit often with laughter.
One thing we really enjoyed in Wellington was the cable car ride we took at night. We had the cable car nearly to ourselves and enjoyed the views for the relatively short ride from Lambton Quay to the top of the lookout hill at the botanic gardens. We had a great view of the skyline at night and enjoyed stargazing. We got a kick out of the different constellations here including the Southern Cross.

Riding back down and into down, we headed for Coutenay Place where all the nightlife was. We enjoyed a seriously delcious meal of pizza, pasta, and garlic bread at One Red Dog. The 2+km walk back to the hotel was well worth not dealing with the stress of driving (and the potential for another ticket). We even found one of those famous red telephone booths. Figured you couldn't walk past and not take a photo by it!

Rainy Tongariro

Our journey from Taupo to Wellington was the worst weather we had the entire trip. Very rainy and fairly cold. Unfortunately, it probably would've been the most scenic part of the north island. We had considered doing the day long Tongariro Alpine Crossing track, but the idea of hiking for 11 hours in pouring rain wasn't exactly appealing. Luckily, we had purchased art with much clearer views of Tongariro.


After our drive through National Park, the journey became filled with windy roads, sheep, and rolling hills filled with shrubbery like you'd see in the desert. The roads in NZ are all in great condition, but we did notice several differences to the U.S. Repairs are called reconstruction projects and can be of types realignment or resealment. Signs will often say "New Seal" when they have recently been renovated. Speaking of seal, hidden turn signs state "Consealed" rather than "Blind turn." We entertained ourselves on the 5 hour drive to Wellington with these NZ idiosyncrasies.
The skies cleared as we headed in to the Kapiti Coast. Rain stopped, and we were surrounded by vineyards and gorgeous coastline. It was a nice greeting as we approached Wellington.

Taupo

We didn't spend a ton of time in Taupo, but we did stop to see the Waikato river which flows from Lake Taupo and yields the very blue Huka Falls.

In town, we had brekky at a local shop. I ordered the brekky nachos (and before you say 'what? nachos for breakfast?' I should mention that they were covered in mince and bacon. Bacon is clearly a breakfast food!)-- they were delicious.
Fueled and ready to go, we tried to win $10,000 by getting a hole in one on the pontoon afloat Lake Taupo. Dave hit the platform several times, but no joy. Those that may recall my attempts at hitting a tee shot in a wedding dress with heels and male clubs would know the result of my attempts at a hole-in-one here.

Bubble, Bubble, Boil, and Trouble

The next stop in our north island itinerary was the geothermal wonderlands of the Bay of Plenty region. As we picked up our rental car in Auckland, we experienced our first awkward feeling about tipping. As Dave went to tip the man, he refused the money and firmly said "Do not tip people in NZ, mate!" We had read this about their culture, but just couldn't understand why someone would refuse money. New Zealanders drive on the left side of the road and as in England, the driver sits on the right side of the car. Dave was thankful for this as it was a friendly reminder that driving is different here. We immediately noticed that nearly every km was a new sign promoting safe driving techniques-- "Tired, Take a Power Nap," "Speed and people DIE," "NVR TXT N DRV," and "Don't Drive Drugged." Definitely grabbed your attention. There weren't a lot of radio stations in this region, but the one we did find was a mixture of Christian music from the 'states and local artists singing about the Lord. It was perfect for our Easter Sunday drive so far from home. Upon arrival into Rotorua, we had our first geothermal experience at Hell's Gate. We dipped our feet in mud pools, saw sulphur lakes, mud volancoes, and boiling mud. We learned how to carve symbols on wood.

Hell's Gate

For dinner, we attended the Matai (my-tie) famly Hangi feast. This is a meal prepared from the steam underground by the Maori people (these are the indigenous people of NZ) and consisted of lamb, chicken, potatoes and rolls. The evening began with the warriors rowing up and down the river in their waka (canoe) chanting. These canoes are homemade from trees and are what the tribe arrived to NZ on (they had 70 wakas each holding 1300 people). After honoring their ancestors, they gave thanks to the unseen Creator, Father sky and Mother earth. They welcome us,, the 4th winds tribe of many nations (over 17 represented!) with chants, offerings, singing and games. Our highlight was the Poi dance ("Girl, Come with me, your boyfriend is no good). After enjoying a very delicious meal, we hiked to the very clear creek filled with glow worms. The bubbling on the bottom makes the water extremely cold and very clear-- the depth appeared to be 1 foot but really was > 9 feet!

Our 2nd day in Rotorua was spent further south at Wai O Tapu. We enjoyed watching the Lady Knox geyser erupt to heights over 20 meters. While the geyser erupts on it's own every 24-48 hours, they force it to happen during daytime hours each day with soap. Lady Knox Geyser

We walked the 7 km loops through the Devil's Bath, Champagne Pool and the 74 deg C (165 deg F) Lake Ngakoro. The green color of Devil's Bath (below) is caused from excess water from the Champagne Pool mixing with sulfur and ferrous salts. I must admit, I've never been somewhere where steam rises from the ground, the sand is red, the lakes green, and mud boils in pools.

The stinky Champagne Pool and resulting Devil's Bath

After grabbing lunch at doing a bit of shopping at the locals' lakefront market, we went to the Whakarewarewa Redwoods forest. We hiked through rows of Sequoia's on a soft, cool path with ground to sky giant trunked California-like redwoods. It was one of our favorite hikes! We even ran into a husky! This is really not a dog-friendly country, so imagine our surprise to find a husky!

We ate dinner at the somewhat funky and eclectic Fat Dog Cafe. The chairs were all painted in different colors and the menu on a chalkboard. The portions were gigantic, but the prices weren't. We seemed to be one of the only tourists, so we felt we had a real locals' experience. While dining, we fell in love with one of the split-panoramic photos on the wall-- so much so, we purchased it! We capped the night off with sundaes at a local shop (go figure!). We hit the hay early itching and scratching from sandflies as we had a long day of driving ahead of us.

Auckland, New Zealand

Auckland is the largest city in New Zealand and this north island city is home to about 1/3 of the entire country's population (4 million). It was also the start to our two weeks exploring the two beautiful islands. We landed early in the morning going after a fairly decent night's sleep (as good as it gets in international economy) ready to explore the city. We took a shuttle to SkyCity where we were able to early check-in on our 17th room floor overlooking the city and the Sky Tower. After a quick shower, we were off for the Fish Market (which we never found) and the Victoria Market where we lunched at Hartley's Cafe. We ordered filled sandwiches and chips (just as in the UK, these are fries). We began what would become a daily tradition and enjoyed some local-made ice cream before walking out to the Viaduct Harbour Basin-- site of America's Cup and now an upscale condo and restaurant hub on the water. We successfully found the bus that took us to Mt. Eden, although it dropped us off more than 1 km away from the start of the hike. Mt. Eden is the highest point in Auckland sitting at 200m and is a 50m-deep cinder cone resulting from volcanoes 15,000 years ago. We were unprepared for this hike dressed in jeans and long-sleeves, but after what seemed like 15,000 steps, we reached the top. Tons of tour buses and vans were up here, but I guarantee they didn't appreciate the view as much as we did. But yeah, they weren't covered in sweat.
You could see the entire skyline and 360 degree views of the entire region including One Tree Hill. Noticing the once-an-hour bus was due in 20 minutes, we ran down the crater's edge furiously to not miss the bus.
Back at our hotel, we changed up for a nice evening of dinner at Orbit: the SkyTower's revolving restaurant serving delicious meals at 190 meters. Dining in tower restaurants has become a vacation tradition for us and we thoroughly enjoyed the lamb and salmon. The cos salad that we ordered as an appetizer (so we thought) arrived with our meal (we learned quickly that this is norm in NZ) but was absolutely delicious. It was extremely convenient that our hotel was attached to the Tower for our one-night stay in Auckland. Exhausted from the long days of travel and all the hiking we did, we called it an early night.

A Turbulent Start

Our journey overseas began a bit rough. After arriving to DIA, we quickly learned our plane had not arrived and was delayed. An hour later, it had been delayed 3 more times. I went and asked what the status was and the lady indicated high winds had diverted our plane into Grand Junction. She said she'd be surprised if the plane took off in the next few hours, although the flight was still indicating a departure in an hour (recall, the plane is still grounded 300 miles away). I asked her what our options were to make our once-a-day international connection in LAX. She said "don't worry, there's still time." I went back to my seat and not more than 1 minute later, she made an announcement for all passengers with international connections to make their way to their counter. Second in line, she indicated that our flight was not going to depart in time to make our Auckland flight. She quickly moved us to a flight that departed 3 hours after our original flight. Thank goodness we originally had a 5 hour layover, because we now were barely to meet the 2 hour minimum for check-in to an international flight. The attendant on the other airline didn't inspire much confidence that our bags would get transferred, but we were just happy to be getting out of Denver.
Twenty hours, 3 meals, 10,000 miles, and 2 days later, we deplaned the 747 in Auckland. Baggage arrived and customs was no-big-deal. We were officially on our way to enjoying our 3 week adventure!