Month: February 2011

Total Miles Traveled: 59,733

The drive up to Punakaiki was a bit ho-hum until we got close to it and started driving along the coastline.

And when you reach Punakaiki, you see scenes reminiscent of the California coastline (and LOST — doesn’t the rock below remind you of the four-toed statue?).

I liked this photo because of the sheer size of the cliffs compared to the little boy playing on the beach.

So, the big attraction in Punakaiki are the blowholes and “pancake” rocks.

Here are the rocks again.  They’re limestone eroded by years of rain, wind, and surf, so that they look like stacks of pancakes.  Quite an unusual sight and a neat stop if you are passing through.  It’s only a 20 minute walk from the road.

Along the way, you’ll see little flightless birds like this one.   We thought it might be a kiwi at first, but were then told that kiwis only come out at night and are super rare.  This here is a “weka”.  They’re very inquisitive and, like chickens, they’ll eat anything.

The sunset at Punakaiki:

Next, we drive up to the north of the South Island to Kaiteriteri, and visit the Abel Tasman National Park for some hiking and kayaking!

Here’s a slideshow of all of our photos from driving up the West Coast and Punakaiki Rocks:

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Total Miles Traveled: 59,583

Another highlight on New Zealand’s South Island: its glaciers – Fox Glacier and Franz Josef Glacier.

Since we had hiked on a glacier in Argentina (Perito Moreno), we were excited to do it again.  This time, though, we decided to do a “Heli-Hike” tour of Fox Glacier, where you fly up to the middle of the glacier and hike around for a couple of hours.

It would be our first time in a chopper and it offered some fantastic views:

But next time we go in a helicopter, we’re going to take our motion sickness meds.  Though it was only a few minutes, we were already starting to feel nauseous.  A few more minutes in the chopper and we would have had, umm, issues.

Walking on a glacier is an awesome experience.  We’d do it again in a heartbeat.  It’s always changing because of the ice melting, cracking, moving down the mountain.   And there are just really beautiful views:

The minerals in the water make the ice look super blue…

Here’s a really cool example of how a glacier is living and constantly changing.   We could hear water running at the bottom of this crevasse so the guide started chopping off hunks of ice to toss in to see how long it took to hear a splash.  Fun, right?  I know.  It WAS fun.  And it took 4-5 seconds to hear the splash.  So pretty deep.  You wouldn’t want to go jump in for a swim.

So about an hour later in to the hike we came back upon the same crevasse…  OK, so maybe we created this pool from our overzealous ice chunk throwing, but it was surprising how quickly the landscape had changed!

Here we are with a trusty ice axe:

An ice cave:

Another river:

After the hike, we went to check out Lake Matheson nearby.  Nice easy hike and great restaurant called Matheson Cafe.   It’s the only “nice” restaurant in Fox Glacier town and totally worth the splurge.

The million dollar view from Matheson Cafe:

And the sunset…

The next day we hiked up to Franz Josef Glacier.   Pretty neat to see the terminal face, but you could probably skip it if you had hiked on Fox Glacier.

Here’s a giant cave at the base of the terminal face of the glacier.  Chunks of ice flowed out from the cave which was pretty cool.  We were told that a couple tourists died because they hopped the fence, went in the cave and were killed by falling ice.   Not sure if it’s true, but not a smart move if it’s true…

Have a look at all of our photos from Fox Glacier below:

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Total Miles Traveled: 59,378

One of the highlights in Fiordlands (southwest of the South Island of New Zealand) is Milford Sound, which is technically not a sound (which we learned is formed by running water) but a fiord carved out by glaciers over the course of thousands of years.   The drive to Milford Sound is also rated as one of the top must-drive roads in New Zealand and it lived up to the hype.  Really breathtaking in spots.  It’s about 3 hours from Queenstown, so if that’s too much of a trek, stay in Te Anau which is much closer.

Milford Sound is the more well-traveled of two famous sounds in the Fiordlands, the other being Doubtful Sound.  What’s amazing about this place is how tall the surrounding mountains are and how small you feel.   You can’t really get a sense of it until you are actually there next to the wall or see a huge sailing vessel look like a toy boat next to the cliffs.

So, since it was such a well-traveled destination, we decided to try something a bit offbeat – well, not offbeat for us per se, because it was scuba diving.

Why on earth would we want to go scuba diving in freezing water?   We don’t know.  It was probably a bad idea.  But the selling point was that we would dive through murky glacial runoff (fresh, 44 degree F water) for the first 15 feet and then in to clear, 63 degree F sea water underneath.  And why is this significant?  Because you’d see sealife there that’s normally at super deep depths but is very close to the surface in this environment because of the murky runoff above that filters out the light.

So how cold does 44 degree F water feel (even after wearing 7mm wetsuits, hood, gloves, boots)?  @#$(*@@! cold.  So cold that it literally took Lisa’s breath away and she started to go in to shock… that is, until our divemaster, a crusty former Egyptian Navy Seal, told her to breath in to her regulator and pushed her head underwater.  Tough love!  But it worked!  She was much happier to be underwater. And here’s Lisa after she made it down:

The first thing we saw were spiny lobsters – you see them just about anywhere.  But they were huge.  Probably about 18 inches not including antennae.

Here’s an example of deep sea life – black coral.  “Yes, but it’s white”, you say.  Verry observant.  The reason it’s called black coral is the skeleton of the coral is black, so when the dead version of this would wash up on shore, it looked black.  But healthy black coral is actually white!

Some other sea life – anemone:

Stinging hydroids:

Here we are trying to warm up in between dives:

Here’s our divemaster.  Yes, that is a rusty saw in his hands.  I’d be lying if I told you it was standard SCUBA equipment (no way!).  He was on his way down to saw some rope off of the propeller.

We were hoping to see this baby fur seal underwater, but he was just chilling out.

Sea urchin:

Brittle star with 11 legs:

After our dives, we did a mini-hike to a waterfall with glacial runoff.   It was COLD.

Some more photos of Milford Sound:

See how small that ship looks against the wall?   That ship carries hundreds of people.

See the slideshow below for a look at all of our photos:

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Total Miles Traveled: 59,200

It is with heavy hearts that we write our first blog post on New Zealand.  We arrived in New Zealand for an overnight stay in Christchurch.  Luckily we left for Queenstown one day before the earthquake.  We want to send our thoughts to all those affected by the Christchurch quake.  Christchurch is a small quaint town and we know that this quake has deeply affected all residents.

After our brief stay in Christchurch, we hopped down to the southern part of the South Island… Queenstown.  To say New Zealand is beautiful is a big understatement.  We got our first look at NZ’s beauty in Queenstown.

Lord of the Rings fans know that New Zealand is really Middle Earth… here’s a view of what could be a scene from Middle Earth.

Check out the color of the water… so vibrant!

We also saw our first of many many sheep.  It used to be that there were 10 sheep for every human in NZ but after an increase in New Zealand branded lamb and a general paring back process, there is now only 3 sheep for every human.  Take a look at some of these sheep…

We leave you with this shot just outside of Queenstown…  And to think that this was just the start of NZ beauty!

Check out all our photos here:

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