Treading on Thick Ice

Yesterday we drove to Fox Glacier (that’s the town name as well as the glacier name) and did an hour hike up to Fox Glacier and back down. We couldn’t get too close because some rock fall closed the trail, but it was still neat to look at. The pictures don’t do either of the glaciers we went to any justice, the glaciers are absolutely huge. The river at Fox Glacier was a color blue I’ve never seen before. Its caused by “glacial flour” which is formed when rocks are crushed up into tiny dust by the glacier then spit out the bottom into the river.

Fox Glacier

Awesome blue river

Yeah not really sure what that sign means....

But that one I get.

After our hike we came back to camp, made dinner and headed down the street to Fox Glacier Hotel (pretty much everything in this no-stoplight town is named Fox Glacier something – ie: Fox Glacier General Store) for the Southwest Speed Sheep Shearing competition. The competition is a big deal because it only happens one a year and the location of the competition rotates between 5 southwest towns. So everyone from Fox Glacier and neighboring Franz Josef Glacier came out for it. We sat on the floor in the front row (can’t say I had ever sat on the floor of a bar before) and watched the competition. I was rethinking wearing wool after seeing how cut up and bloody the sheep get then I realized we were watching the amateurs. The professionals still occasionally cut the sheep but not as bad. The winner sheared a sheep in 26 seconds, pretty amazing.

This girl sheared one in normal clothes!

The oldest contestant...82 years old!

This morning we drove to the town of Franz Josef Glacier and got ready for our glacier hike! We did a halfday hike which was from 10:30 to 3:30 with 2 hours spent on the ice. That was plenty of time on the ice with our heavy boots, super glad we didn’t do a whole day hike. After getting our socks, boots and jackets on we took a short bus ride to the glacier path. We hiked for about an hour through rocky stream beds and rainforest before finally reaching the terminal face of the glacier. The walk was about 2.5 kilometers. The glacier is so big and steep that it gives an optical illusion of being closer than it is. When we were close to it be put our crampons on which are spikes that go on the bottom of our boots to stick into the ice. Using a carved out ice staircase and hand rope we started to climb. We hiked around the ice for a couple of hours, ate lunch on a rocky part and hiked down. The pictures really don’t do it justice, the glacier was HUGE but I hope you enjoy the pictures anyway. The glacier is so pretty, especially in the blue ice parts. I was “that girl” and asked our guide about a million questions all day long. Just wanted to make sure I knew everything possible about the glacier since a) I’ve never seen one before and b) Ill probably never hike on one again!

Still 2 km from the glacier...looks closer though!

Sign we walked right by...

Putting our crampons on

Ice stairs

The hike was awesome but I was darn happy to take the boots off. The blisters are well worth it though. After the hike we drove back to Fox Glacier to stay the night. In the morning we are going to Lake Matheson which is really still and you can see the reflection of the snow capped mountains in it, so Ill be posting more gorgeous pictures soon! In the meantime enjoy these!

Beer and Knives: A Girlie Weekend

Last night we went on the Monteith's brewery tour and it was really cool. We got to walk all through the brewery and learn about the process, smell the barley (taste it if you wanted - Sarah said it tasted like chocolate dirt), and best of all at the end we were able to taste all 7 of their beers. Afterwards the tour continued at the Railway Hotel for a bbq dinner and more Monteith's beer.

This morning we drove to Barrytown which is about 30 minutes north of Greymouth for knife making! We had seen a brochure for this class in the North Island and it seemed like a cool, unique way to obtain a one-of-a-kind souvenier. We put on smock shirts, gloves and glasses and started to work. This picture shows all the materials we used for our knives, only 4 things: steel, wood, brass and brass pegs.

First step is to heat up the steel in the fire and pound it into a rough knife shape using a heavy mallet. It was WAY harder than I thought thus my new found respect for blacksmiths.
Next you take the hammered steal and shape it using sanding machines. We used the sanders all day to shape, polish, sharpen and buff the knives.
The next step is really important. Walking the mini horse. Just kidding. The farm had a bunch of animals so during lunch we fed the ducks, pet the horses (regular and mini) and played on their giant swing. Robyn (Steven our teacher's wife) handed me a rope and I thought it was the dog leash and boy was I surprised when I turned around to see a mini horse on the other end.
Below is a picture of the knives before they were finished. Steven told Sarah that the wood used for the handles was from a "mad woman's dorm" aka mental institution so that makes our knives even cooler. After more shaping, sanding, 30 minutes of hand sanding and polishing our knives were finished and it was time for champange!

The whole day was really cool and so fun. I'm really glad we did it, and now we have beautiful knives to keep as souveniers! We are staying in Greymouth again tonight, right now its pouring so we are taking refuge in the TV room watching American Idol. Tomorrow we are driving south towards the glaciers!

South Island!

We spent the 21st and 22nd in Wellington, city ‘o confusing streets. We stayed at a campground outside the city, but went into the city on the 21st to visit Te Papa National Museum. I got to see the world’s largest preserved Colossal Squid!! I’ve actually watched a show on this exact squid before about how the caught it while it was alive, and preserved it. So that was cool to see it in real life. After the museum we drove around in circles (theme of our time in Wellington) trying to find Crepes a Go Go for an afternoon snack. We eventually found it and it was worth the trouble of getting there. Then we headed back to our place for the night. It rained and turned really cold, so first thing Sunday morning we went to Warehouse to buy extra clothes/blankets.

I got to Skype with my sister Laura and wish her a Happy 21st Birthday Sunday morning. Then we drove into Wellington and went to the beautiful Botanic Gardens. The roses were absolutely amazing and the begonias were SO pretty. We drove out to Cape Palliser which is at the very southern tip of the North Island. It was about a 2 hour winding drive through the mountains, which only some thin wood sticks forming a “fence” to keep us from plunging off the side of the mountain. Oh and it was raining. (Don’t worry mom, he drove slow!) We finally reached the Cape and saw enormous waves crashing against the sharp jetties and solid black sand beaches. Pretty amazing. We began our hunt for seals which was harder than we thought since they blended with the black sand. We did find some however, sleeping in the grassy shoulder. We were able to get pretty close, within 20 feet of them. (Our guide book said to make sure not to get between them and the sea cause they will attack you if you block their escape path). After taking a few pictures we drove further down the road and pulled over to see the black sand up close, we failed to notice that we parked about 5 feet from a patch of seals (they blend in!) and they scared us half to death when they perked their heads up as we got out of the car. After looking at the pretty lighthouse (we chose to forgo walking up the 250 steps to reach it) we drove back to Wellington. We ate dinner in the city at an asian place called Chow. Then we headed back to camp. Wellington Botanic Gardens Cape Palliser seals (hard to see in this picture)
Monday it was STILL raining and so cold. We had brunch in Welly then boarded the ferry to go to the South Island. Since it had been raining and super windy the 3.5 hour ferry ride was not the smoothest, not at all. The boat was lurching over the huge waves and slamming back down. One of the ferry workers called out our license plate and had Sarah go back down to the car deck and put on the emergency brake because our car was moving a lot. We arrived about 40 minutes late, got our car and headed towards Havelock, the green liped mussel capital. We ate dinner at Mussel Pot…when in Rome. It was so good. We ordered one dozen steamed mussels with garlic and white wine sauce and another batch with green curry sauce. Another hour of driving and we arrived in Nelson where we caught a beautiful sunset on the waterfront. The next town over was Richmond where we stayed the night. Dinner at Mussel Pot

We drove to Motueka and booked a water taxi tour for 12:30. The water taxi (aka boat) took us up and down the coast of Abel Tasman National Park. The park is sooo gorgeous. We even got to see a couple seals (but not nearly as close as we saw the other day). We stayed at a campsite in Motueka and the next morning drove 20 minutes to Marahua, rented kayaks and kayaked around the National Park all day. We spent a few hours on a beach that was all our own, ate lunch, then kayaked back. We drove to Westport and stayed the night. This morning we drove to Punakaiki to see the famous pancake rocks. They were pretty cool. They are layers of limestone built up over thousands of years. Out in the sea we could see a couple pods of dolphins. Then we drove towards Greymouth, detouring to Blackball to buy their famous sausage for tomorrow’s dinner. Now we are in Greymouth and we are taking a tour of Monteith’s brewery tonight. Tomorrow we are going back up the road to Barrytown to do a knife-making class!
Abel Tasman National Park "Split Apple Rock" at Abel Tasman Park "Pancake Rocks" in Punakaiki

Road sign near the pancake rocks, we didn't see penguins but we did see dolphins!

Trapped in Thames

(The following post is very long but you will be rewarded at the end with pictures....you've been warned)

Ever seen that Nicholas Cage, Jon Lovitz & Dana Carvey movie "Trapped in Paradise"? Of course not, no one has except my family. Its a really funny movie and it kept coming to mind last week when we couldn't seem to escape Thames, the town our car broke down in. We originally hoped to be there 1 day (we werent planning on stopping there at all but our van had different plans) and ended up staying 4.

As I wrote in a previous blog the Toyota place couldn't work on it Friday. So after hanging out in the Toyota showroom drinking free tea and reading for 2 hours we explored Thames, all of it. All 1 main road. And the "mall" which had about 9 stores. Sarah and I invented our own game where we said what American store the NZ mall store most resembled. As I recall they included Rave, Hot Topic, PacSun, Walmart, Gadzooks. Oh and the highlight was seeing that you could take "professional" baby pictures smack dab in the middle of the food court but you had to choose between the "white fur heaven" and "formal because its black" backgrounds. Lovely. We killed time in the Walmart (here known as Warehouse) and you bet we checked out the aisle labeled "Vases and Urns".

We stayed in the Sunkist Backpackers hostel and bonded with Nina the dog. (Pronounced Neena). Had yummy Italian pizza for dinner and called it a night. Most places in Thames, correction in New Zealand, close early...like 8pm. So usually we have no choice but to go to bed at a reasonable hour.

Saturday we took the bus up to Whitianga (pronounced Fit-e-anga) and checked in to our next hostel, the Cats Pyjamas. Yes, that is how they spell pajamas. They also spell tires, tyres. It was pouring rain when we got there so we immediately decided to stay 2 nights since we didn't have to hurry back to our non-working van and we didn't want to go to the beach in the yucky weather. We ate lunch (split a lamb burger which was actually pretty good but the ketchup here tastes really weird...like it has cinnamon in it or something). Then we went to the local cinema and saw Revolutionary Road. This theater, unlike others we have come across, had more than 2 show times a day! After the movie we hung out at the hostel and I got the lowdown from a local on all the celebrities on New Zealand's Dancing With The Stars.

Sunday the 15th we walked to the Whitianga Wharf to catch the passenger ferry across the harbor. We met our taxi driver for the day, Paul, and we drove us (along with a Slovakian girl our age named Verrrrronica and an older lady from Holland named Alice) first to Cathedral Cove. After a 45 minute nature walk/hike we reached Cathedral Cove, which is characterized by its giant limestone arch caved out by the waves. There is beach on either side of the arch. Inside the arch there was a penguin! I was super excited to see a penguin, but sad when I realized that it was sick and that's why it didn't mind being in the middle of all the tourists. There were more people on the tiny Cathedral Cove beach then Ive seen for a week and a half in all of New Zealand!

Next Paul drove us to Hot Water Beach, which was true to its name. 2 hours either side of low tide you can dig a hole near the hot springs and create your own hot water tub! The middle of where the spring ran down was so hot the sand was actually boiling! We dug ourselves a hole and relaxed...for a few minutes until you had to dig some more to keep yourself somewhat covered in the water. It was a really neat experience.

After our day at the beaches (props to the sun for coming out for us!) we had a delicious dinner at a local Indian place. SO good!

Monday we caught the bus back to Thames. Les, the mechanic working on our car, met us at the bus stop and told us we still was working on the radiator and it would be another day. So we checked back into the hostel and I started a puzzle. Afterall we had already seem all tiny Thames had to offer (at least twice), and I didn't want to spend all my money on internet.

Tuesday it took me about half a day to realize it was St. Patrick's Day. I'm not sure what Patrick is a Saint of, but it certainly isn't used cars. You know its not good when the mechanic makes a house call to come tell you the bad news in person. The overheating had caused MASSIVE damage to the engine and it was likely to cost more to repair than we paid for the car. After giving us a demonstration of the problem (the radiator spewed water out all over the place) he called our insurance, only to find out it was only liability, not mechanical insurance. Awesome. So basically our option was to pay more money to see if the car could even be saved, or just give up. Sarah politely asked Les to set the car on fire since our insurance covered fire damage, but he didn't. In the end we decided to just see if a wrecker would give us any money for the van. We stayed one more night in Thames...making this night 4 in the same small city. Needless to say we were ready to move on! We were becoming friends with the locals...someone actually honked "hello" at us as they were driving through town, and I said Hi to the local video store lady where we used the internet.

Wednesday morning we FINALLY left Thames, and made sure to give our van the one finger salute on the way out. We took the bus to a suburb of Auckland and hauled all our baggaged about 10 blocks to the van rental place. We are renting a Wicked Van which are pretty popular around here and very noticable as they are each spray painted differently. Thankfully ours is one of the more subdue ones. The back says "Here for a good time...not for a long time". I've seen others with South Park characters on them, the Beatles, the Gorillaz, marijuana references, etc. So we lucked out with our design. Ill post pictures later. We drove from Auckland to Waitomo Caves and we are calling this part of our trip "New Zealand Take 2". So far so good. We even have a radio in this car! And a/c, not that we need it. Oh and power windows! The back is like a bed, similar to our first one and we camped out last night and probably will the rest of the time to save some of the money we lost by buying a complete lemon.

So we got to Waitomo Caves last night and parked it (literally!) at a campground. There was a local school on a field trip at our camp and they put on a talent show last night so that provided some pretty funny entertainment. Sarah and I attempted to go on a night walk to see glowworms but it was really dark and scary so after we saw some we had enough and hastily walked back. (It was a mapped out walk and the campground provided the flashlights but there is just something about walking in the dark, through the forest, when no one knows you are out there/isnt expecting you back that gets a little spooky). It rained all night and the rain sounded like someone was dropping marbles on a tin roof right above my head.

This morning we packed up and headed 1 km down the road to the Legendary Black Water Rafting Company. Thats right, we were going blackwater rafting! Waitomo Caves is famous for their extensive underground caves and large glowworm colonies. Glowworms are fly larvae that glow in the dark (its actually their poo that glows) to attract food. We suited up in very fashionable THICK wetsuits, had a quick training session and set off. We hiked a bit through the underground caves (our helmets had lights to show the way) then we had to jump backwards off a few waterfalls and floated some of the way. It was SO cool. A couple of times we all turned our lights off and just floated in the pitch dark and looked up to admire the massive amounts of glowworms. They looked like millions of green stars arranged in constellations. It was unreal. There weren't any rapids but jumping off the waterfalls was enough for me! At the end we all turned our lights off and navigated via touch through a tunnel and out the other end of the cave.

After warming up with complimentary hot showers, soup and bagels Sarah and I drove our graffiti van 3 hours South to Wanganui. We are trying to be in Wellingtown by the 21st so we have a few days to spend there before catching our ferry to the South Island on the 23rd. We went in the biggest Pak N Sav grocery store Ive ever seen, then played on a giant swing above the river, then grilled dinner at the campground. So far at the campground Ive seen a goat, 3 rabbits roaming around (I almost kicked one in the dark on the way back to the van) and an aviary with tons of birds! The campgrounds are really nice and clean so I dont feel like Ive been living in our car.

So thats what we've been doing the last week or so. Sorry its so long but I hadn't posted in awhile. Here are some pictures to accompany this last week!

Rainbow we saw while driving. The rain here just comes in spurts then its sunny again!

The cool rope swing in the middle of nowhere we played on today

Back of our van, more pictures to come of the sides

Our blackwater rafting group before we went, Sarah & I are in the middle

Penguin in Cathedral Cove

Cathedral Cove

Cathedral Cove again

Sarah digging our hole at Hot Water Beach

Old blog I never posted

This was a blog I had written up before all the car drama consumed us for a week. Its explains some of the pictures I had posted earlier....

Tuesday we stayed in the area and checked out a couple of close beaches. First was Matai Bay which is known for its famous 2 crescent shaped shores. It was pretty deserted (like the rest of this country) except for one pesky bee. One GIANT pesky bee. It was like a flying tarantula and it would NOT leave me alone. Sarah batted it off my shirt with her towel, and by batted I mean she slapped me across the back with it. But the bee came back for more. I tried outrunning it but that didn’t help either. Sarah stood there and laughed until she cried while I was running for dear life, with the big black dot bouncing along behind me. We concluded that it like my white shirt, so I took it off and had to bare the cold wind in just my swimsuit top. But at least the fuzzy flying bee of death wasn’t on me anymore.

The waters of Matai Bay are unreal. Identical to any picture you’d see on a postcard or brochure. They don’t need photoshop in this country to make it appealing. The water is a million shades of blue and teal and the sand looked like a rainbow of pink, orange, yellow. We stayed at Matai Bay for an hour or so, until the bee reappeared, then we drove (about 2 km – gotta get used to metric) to Karikari Bay. This beach was also deserted but it was beautiful as well. The sand was really soft and the sun decided to meet us at this beach. And there weren’t any bees. Perfection. I reapplied the SPF 55 and kept my hat and glasses on.

After we had our fill of the beach for the day we drove back to the grocery store and fish shop in Cooper’s Bay. We picked up lamb rump and more bluenose for dinner for the next 2 nights. We also got more zucchinis (or courgettes as they are called here) and mushrooms. Sarah grilled up a delicious dinner using only a small bit of oil and salt. We forgot to get lemons but the food was so good just on its own. No butter needed!

I read a bit and we got ready for bed. Then as we were falling asleep I wondered what time it was so I checked…it was 9:00. Haha! But when you are camping you pretty much go to sleep when the sun runs out. (That reminds me to put flashlight – or torch as they say here- on my shopping list).

This morning we woke up early and got on the tour bus for Cape Reinga and Ninety Mile Beach. The tour guide was full of information on the hour’s drive up to Cape Reinga. We first stopped at an old gum forest, where “gum” was dug and turned into varnish, rosin, and if dried out – amber. We also stopped for ice cream and I had my new favorite kind – Hokey Pokey – which is vanilla ice cream with bits of honeycomb in it. So good!

Further on up the road we got stuck behind a herd of cows but it was so neat watching the 2 cattle dogs herd them. I have never seen anything like it. The dogs never got distracted, rounded up stray cattle and kept them moving, without a human in sight telling them what to do! When we reached Cape Reinga we saw the northernmost lighthouse in all of New Zealand and we saw where the Tasman Sea and Pacific Ocean met. Very neat, very big waves, and very strong wind! Again the water is so amazingly blue and the hills are so green, I can’t get over it! Cape Reinga is known in the Maori culture as the point were deceased peoples’ spirits depart. So that was neat to see. Maori is the native tribe in New Zealand.

From there we boarded the bus again and headed to a spot to each lunch. Oh I should mention that one of the tires on the bus was not balanced so every so often we were picked up speed the entire bus would shake. Kinda scary when you are taking sharp turns on narrow roads that are flanked on one side by a cliff. I was about to take bets on when the whole wheel would fall off. Later when we were on our way home the bus driver told someone we had a “case of the wobbles”. Haha I love their sayings!

The driver took us down a river bed (with some water in it) past HUGE sand dunes to eat our lunch. We had salad sandwiches, which consist of one piece of deli meet and a salad, between two pieces of bread. Interesting but pretty good. He also served us tea (my new favorite drink, especially with brown sugar!) and “crumpets” aka cookies.

Then it was time for dune-boarding! Pretty self explanatory. You get a boogie board, hike up a huge sand dune, then ride down it on the board. Another bus driver was explaining how to do it to us and told the boy to “mind their dangly parts”. Haha, another funny saying. The dune we were about to hike up was ENORMOUS. The guide said “don’t look around, just focus on breathing, and before you know it you’ll be a third of the way there”. Thanks for the encouragement. So up we went, the strong wind wasn’t making it any easier and I was convinced if my grip on the board slipped it would fly all the way to Texas. My calves were throbbing by the time we reached the top, and some people gave up halfway and turned back. But I was bound and determine to dune-surf, even if it means I wont be walking much tomorrow. We rode the boards down and it was really fun! You go about 50-60 kph which is around 30 mph. So pretty darn fast. A nice lady on our tour took pictures of us going down. We look like specs but at least its proof we did it!

Going down a sand dune at 30 mph means sand gets impeded in your hair, clothes, ears, teeth, skin, etc and the same speed. I think it will take a few days to get all the sand off me. After dune surfing we drove around a bend in the riverbed to Ninety Mile Beach (which is only about 65 miles long). The driver started doing donuts in the sand (with the huge tour bus) and even I thought I was going to be sick and I never get car sick. Then we cruised down the beach, dodging seagulls (we only hit one…yikes!) and stopped to take pictures. The driver also pointed out a car that drove on the beach and got stuck, 50 years ago. (See picture on blog). This is not a place you want to drive anytime around high tide, or without 4 wheel drive. There are patches of real quicksand.

We headed back home, grilled the rest of our veggies and fish and have begun reading on where we want to go next! There is so much to do here, no wonder they suggest coming for 6-8 weeks!!

Hope all is well with you all!

Speedbump

Well last night we hit a bit of a snag. Our car overheated (probably the result of being 19 years old and driving it through windy gravel roads for 10 hours) and we had to add water 4 times just to make it to the next town. Fortunately the town we made it to is pretty big and full of car places. So we took it to a shop this morning and turns out we have a crack in our radiator. They couldn't fit us in today but we are first on the list for Monday. Major bummer. Plus they don't know yet how much damage there is, and we don't know if its worth fixing. Tomorrow morning we are taking a bus to Hot Water Beach so we can dig ourselves a jacuzzi and forget about it till Monday.

Sarah found out yesterday morning that her beloved dog, Josie the Boxer, had to be put to sleep. So needless to say we haven't had the best couple of days. We are trying to take the car stuff step by step and see what our options are. So say a prayer for Sarah & family and our little van!

I had an exciting post written on my laptop but I'm not on that right now, so I'll have to add it later. Sorry this post is such a bummer. I know things will get better but its just so frustrating right now.

We are staying at a pretty neat hostel today, its what I imagined all hostels are like (which hasn't been true) - like a big old sorority house or something. Now I'm going to make myself a cup of tea and try not to think about the car.

Pictures!

I dont have enough internet time to type a whole post right now, but here are some pictures! At Cape Reinga where the Tasman Sea and Pacific Ocean meet

Enjoying tea and crumpets on the tour bus today

A 1950's Mercedes that tried to drive on Ninety Mile Beach during high tide and got stuck in the quick sand

Trekking up to the top of the sand dune...my calves were BURNING! (It was really steep!)

Watching cattle dogs do their job!

Karikari Bay

Karikari Bay

A sea ring Bachelor Jason gave me....

Sarah grilling up some fresh veggies and fish!