New Zealand South Island Part 1

While the North Island of New Zealand was amazing, most people had told us that the South Island was even better. We are also back to our favorite style of traveling, which is cruising around in a camper van and seeing the National Parks, of which the South Island has many.  

We arrived in Christ Church and picked up our van, which is a Toyota Estima (basically the international version of a Siena). We've named the van Left Side since that is what we keep yelling at each other when we pull out on the wrong side of the road. We've got a GPS that tells us what to do that we've nicknamed "The Boss" and our 12 volt fridge, which here is a called a chiller. So it's just us, The Boss, Left Side and Chiller creeping around the national parks chasing waterfalls (if you didn't get the bad joke there, ask someone who knows 90's pop music).

Gina with the trusty van

We had a weather forecast for clear skies so we headed to Mount Cook, which at 12,000 feet is the tallest mountain in New Zealand. The weather held out beautifully and we got clear views of the mountains both days we were there. We did a cool hike up Hooker Valley to Hooker Lake, which had the best view point of Mount Cook and a bunch of floating icebergs that had broken off the glacier on the other side. We did another hike up to the Mueller Hut, which was one of the best and hardest hikes we've done in all our travels. There were views of the Mueller Glacier all the way up and many waterfalls that were coming off the bottom of the glacier. The hike was only about 3.5 miles one way, but gained 3,400 feet in elevation with most of that coming on a mile stretch. Definitely worth it for the views though!

Mueller Lake with Mueller Glacier in the background

Hooker Lake and Mount Cook

Mueller Glacier, we got to see a couple of huge icefalls

Gina on a mission across the snow

Just some shaggy hippie

We had a bit of a small world moment at the campground when the people on one side of us knew someone from Sunnyside, Washington that I worked with on one of my last projects at work and the people on the other side of us have a son in law that went to Branson (private high school in Marin). We've met a fair amount of Americans here, but it seems as though there are more Germans in New Zealand than any other Nationality ( all still excited about the World Cup).

After Mt. Cook we headed to Queenstown. Being the adventure capital of the world we spent most of our time jumping off of or out of things. First, we did a bungy jump off the Kawarau River Bridge and then we went skydiving over Lake Wakatipu and the surrounding mountains. Even though the skydiving is a much longer fall than the bungy jump, bungy seemed crazier. I guess it is just something about the way you fall (head first) and that you get so close to the ground. From the bridge we actually hit the water with our hands before rocketing back up. 

I believe I can fly

Touch that water

Big ups!

From Queenstown we headed to Te Anau and spent a day hiking along the lake before heading up to Milford Sound where we did a really cool kayaking trip. A boat drove us all he way out to the Tazman Sea and then we paddled about 12 miles back across the sound. It is a really beautiful landscape as the mountain rise nearly 5,000 feet out of the sound and there were lots of waterfalls. We also lucked out with another clear day and got to see some fur seals.

Paddling across the sound (Mt Pembroke in the background)

Smile, Gina!

Looking back at the Sound

Looking back at the sound

After wearing out our upper body muscles, we decided to punish our legs for the next couple of days. First we hiked on the Routeburn Track, climbing up to Key Summit and going to Erland Falls. Then we headed to to the Kepler Track and we climbed up to Mount Luxmor, which was a 23 mile return trip and about 4,200 feet of elevation gain. About half way up we got above the tree line and had great views of Lake Te Anau and all the surrounding mountains. We also saw a couple of keas near the top of the mountain, which are kinda like a big parrot.

Tarn on the way up Mount Luxmor

Looking back at Lake Te Anau

A kea, very cool bird

We made it to the top

We drove on to Wanaka, which is a cool little lakeside town. It was our favorite New Zealand town so far as it had kind of a Truckee-ish vibe to it. We had heard there was good fishing in the lake so we decided to check that out.  To go out in a boat for two hours was $300. That was a little out of our price range so we found a place where we could rent our own poles and the shop owner was super friendly and told us some good places to go. On the walk back to the car, carrying our fishing poles, we had two different people stop us to tell us that they had been fishing all day and hadn't had any luck. Oh well, we continued on with our fishing mission, but picked up a six pack of beer to entertain in us in case the fish were scarce. We did lots of fishing in Lake Wanaka and the Cluha River and didn't even as much as see a fish. We saw a couple other people also fishing without much luck (and they didn't have beer) so at least we weren't the only ones who left fishless.  

Sorry, Jim. Good fishing doesn't run in the family.

Trying to channel the River Runs Through it mentality

The next day in Wanaka after more unsuccessful morning fishing, we decided to do some more hiking. We went up to the top of Roy's Peak where we got great views of the town and the lake, as well as being able to see the snow capped mountains in Mt. Aspiring National Park. We had a great swim in Lake Wanaka to wash off the dust and sweat and headed towards the glaciers on the west coast.

Lake Wanaka

Mount Aspiring

We've mostly been staying in DOC campgrounds, which are great because they are cheap and in beautiful locations. We've also stayed in a few Holiday Parks, which are more expensive, but have showers and a kitchen that you can cook in. I first suggested we try a holiday park so we could have a shower five days into the trip. Gina's response was "We didn't even go hiking today and you were in the lake yesterday". Hard to argue with that!

One pesky nuisance that we've encountered here is the notorious sand fly. They are really small and hard to notice and they bite like crazy and leave itchy little bumps much like a mosquito. Gina has started patrolling the van each night with our solar powered light killing any sand fly crazy enough to try to occupy our space. Creeping around in the dark with her light she looks like Seal Team Six going after Bin Laden and she's just as effective.

That's it for now!

B and G

New Zealand - North Island

Ah New Zealand.  The place that seems like it was designed specifically for us with the snow capped mountains, beautiful beaches and roaring rivers. New Zealand has been at the top of our list of places to go for a while and our trip was designed to hit New Zealand at the right time of year (their summer).

We arrived in Auckland after a long night of traveling from Bali. Our friend, Becca, who has been living in Auckland for the past two years, provided us with a ride from the airport, an awesome place to stay and a lot of great advice about what to see and do in the area. Our first day in town we went to watch Becca's softball tournament, which was fitting since we met Becca playing softball in San Francisco. Softball in NZ is pretty popular and the most interesting part about it is that it is even more popular for guys. They don't really have baseball so all the guys grow up playing fast pitch softball (presumably as well as cricket and rugby).

After the tournament we drove out to Piha beach, which is out on the west coast of Auckland. We did a cool hike to Glen Esk falls and then walked along the black sand beaches in Piha. Being summer in Auckland there is light until 9pm, which is really great for making the most of the day.

Glen Esk Falls

Our tour guide did good!

Piha Beach

The next day we took a ferry out to Waiheke Island, which is about a 40 minute boat ride from Auckland Harbor.  Waiheke Island is known for their wine, and as we have been known to like wine as well, it was a good match.  We visited Mudbrick Winery, which is a beautiful vineyard up on a hill above the coast. The wine was pretty good, but I think we've become spoiled after spending so much time in Napa. We decided that one winery was probably enough since one of us was already buzzed and we wanted to head to the beach. We caught a bus to the other side of the island and took a nice walk along the beach, before heading back to meet Becca and go on a sculpture walk that had been set up on the island. There were a bunch of really cool sculptures along the coast line and the setting sun provided amazing lighting.

Tasting at Mudbrick Winery

View at Mudbrick

The beach at Waiheke

Sculpture walk

Our Auckland exploration continued the next day by doing the coast to coast walk, which starts in the Auckland Harbor (Pacific Ocean) zig zags across town and ends up at the coast on the other side of town (Tasman Sea). Our favorite parts were hiking up the Volcanos (Mt. Eden and One Tree Hill) and getting the great views of the city from the top. We also got to see a lot of stuff that wasn't technically on the route, since we made a lot of wrong turns trying to navigate the route. All told we ended up adding a few extra miles to an already very long day. After some serious failure in navigating Auckland's public transit system that involved no one having ever heard of the bus that we needed, we caught a train back across town.

Top of Mount Eden

Yes, they do have sheep. The local ladies, as the Kiwi's call them.

We had another adventure out to an island, visiting Rangitoto.  Rangitoto is a volcanic island that resembles a mini version of a Hawaiian Island. There were some really cool lava caves that we were able to navigate and the summit and the coast line trails provided beautiful views.

Crawling through the lava caves

Summit at Rangitoto 

We took a two day trip to Waitomo and Rotorua, which are a couple hours south of Auckland. We were able to get cheap bus tickets on Naked Bus (not as exciting as it sounds) that worked out great for getting from place to place. First we went to Waitomo, which has the famous glow worm caves. All the glow worms look like bright blue stars on the roof of the caves, really neat to see. We also did another cave tour where we got to explore deeper into the cave system and see all of the Stalagmites/tites/lites.  We caught our bus to Rotarua for the night and woke up the next day ready to raft the Kaituna River.  

One of the first things we do when we go anywhere is to Google wherever we are going + white water rafting.  One of the first things that came up when performing this exercise with New Zealand was the Kaituna River and its 7 meter waterfall. For those of you that are not fluent in the metric systems that's over 20 feet. It is the tallest commercially rafted waterfall in the world and something that we figured we had to do. The falls definitely lived up to the hype, as you will definitely be able to see from the expressions on Gina's face.  The rest of the trip was cool too as there were some smaller falls and drops and lots of good places to surf in the waves.

Gina has the best faces

After the trip we had some time to walk around Rotarua, which is know for its geothermal activity and geysers. It was a cool place, but would be hard to live there as the smell of sulphur is pretty overpowering. We made our way back to Auckland, where the next day we headed down to New Plymouth with Becca to do a backpacking trip around Mt. Taranaki.

Mt. Taranaki is a volcano that rises up 8,000 feet just a few miles from the coast. We did the Pouakai circuit which makes a loop on the west side of the mountain.  We traversed through dense forest, swamps, lava cliffs and high ridge lines.  The terrain was really cool because it was always changing and there were great views of the mountain and all the way to the coast.  One thing that is different about backpacking (actually the first thing that is different is that they call it tramping, which makes it sound a little scandalous) is that you stay in huts that are built along the trail. The huts are basically a couple of big bunk rooms with mattresses and a big communal kitchen/dinning room. It really lightens the load since you don't need to bring a tent or a camping pad.  The downside is that you have to share the hut with however many people happen to be there. In our case it was 13, but the hut can sleep up to 32, which would be crazy since you can pretty much hear anything happening in any part of the hut.

Gina and Becca crossing the swinging bridge 

Gina and Treebeard

Our hut under the volcano

We did a pretty long day the first day so that we could do a side trip to a waterfall the next day and then explore New Plymouth a little bit. We walked along the water and made a quick stop at a brewery before heading back.  

Our last day in Auckland we spent most of the day doing laundry, fixing stuff with superglue and planning our route through the South Island.  We will be traveling in a camper van and we are very excited to return to our camper van lifestyle that we grew accustomed to on our road trip across the US.  

Bali

One of the weirdest things for us upon our arrival in Bali was the realization that neither of us had ever set foot in the Southern Hemisphere. Combined, we have been on the earth for 59 years, but somehow neither of us had ever been in the southern half of the world.  We will also now remain in the Southern Hemisphere for pretty much the rest of our international travels.

Aside from allowing us to check "Go to Southern Hemisphere" off our bucket lists, there was a ton of cool stuff in Bali.  We spent our first three days in Ubud, which was kinda of like the Indonesian version of Fairfax (or Berkeley for those that are unfamiliar with Fairfax). There are Yoga studios and vegan restaurants and it has a more laid back vibe than you typically find in an Asian city. We spent our first day just walking around the city and took a trip to the Monkey Forest, which is home to over 300 monkeys.  The monkeys just kind of roam free and you get to walk through the forest with them. We were pretty careful since we had heard stories of the monkeys stealing people's backpacks, phones, wallets and cameras and there is an average of three monkey bites per day. We stood back and watched as other people fed the monkeys, which usually consisted of someone offering one banana to a monkey and then another monkey sneaking up behind them and stealing their whole bushel. Pretty entertaining overall.

      Mama and baby

  This monkey was really enjoying himself

      Trying to keep a good distance 

The next day we woke up at 2:15 to climb Mt. Batur for the sunrise. Mt. Batur is a volcano that is the second highest mountain in Bali at a little under 6,000 feet. The climb in the dark was really cool, as we could see down to all the lights on in the little villages surrounding Mt. Batur. We arrived at the top in time for the sunrise, but unfortunately the fog rolled in so we couldn't see too much.  We did get some nice views in the light on the way back down.  After we left Mt. Batur we went to a coffee plantation where they make Kopi Luwak, which is the most expensive coffee in the world. The coffee is made from beans that have been eaten by Luwak cats. After the cats are done with them, the beans are washed (so they tell us anyway), peeled and then processed to make the coffee.  We couldn't really taste the difference and I think it is really more the novelty of it that makes it so expensive. It was very much needed though after the 2:15 wake up call and hike.

     At the crater's edge

     We made it to the top! 

    View coming down from Mt Batur

    Mt Batur from below

    Rice terraces at the base of the mountain

    On the way down

 Coffee and tea tasting- my fav was the coconut coffee

       Luwak

    The most expensive cup of coffee- not too impressed

Our last day in Ubud we went rafting on the Ayung River. It was a really spectacular river canyon.  Very lush with steep walls and tons of waterfalls flowing into it.  The river was narrow and rocky, but there were some big drops and decent class three rapids. Our guide was excellent, assuming that his goal was to hit every single rock as hard as possible.

    Getting ready to raft the Ayung River

    Ayung River

    Waterfall along the river- I got photobombed!

We left Ubud and headed towards the beach.  The two main options for the beach were Kuta (19 year old Australians, tranvestite protitutes and drugs) or Sanur (lots of Nordic people in their 70's). Even though it probably makes for less interesting blogging, we headed to Sanur. Our hotel in Sanur was excellent and we even got an upgrade (cue upgrade dance). We spent one day just relaxing on the beach where the equatorial sun gave us some punishing sunburns (not surprisingly all the elder Nordic people on the beach with us had skin that looked like really old footballs).

    Sunset at Sanur Beach

    Full Moon on Sanur

    Bryce enjoying the upgraded room

The next day we took a glass bottom boat out to the reef and went snorkeling, which was really awesome. Saw bunch of familiar fish (morish idols, angelfish, parrotfish) and a bunch of new fish as well. We took a boat ride to turtle island, which is a turtle rescue place and got to feed the turtles and then we went parasailing, which was also really fun. 

     Snorkle Selfie

      Really cool coral reef not too far below

      Not sure what type of fish this was but it looked like a trumpet fish

     Exploring the depths of the sea 

      Up close and personal

     Green Sea Turtle

      Being swarmed by sea turtles 

              Last night in Sanur

We ate tons of good food and really loaded up on seafood when we were out at the beach. You can sit right on the beach and have a delicious seafood dinner with drinks for under $20. We will definitely miss how far our money went while in Bali, Thailand and Laos.  We will miss the amazing food, friendly people and beautiful scenery as well.  There are, however a few things that we aren't missing about Asia quite so much since our arrival in New Zealand:

- The Air: Once you get outside the cities it is fine, but the air pollution is crazy. There are so many cars and motorbikes on the road and I don't think that emission standards is really a thing.

- Lack of Sidewalks: Some places had them, but a lot of the time you are just on a street.  Usually a narrow street with cars, buses, motorbikes, other pedestrians, dogs and maybe someone who just set up there motorcycle fruit stand. The biggest problem with all that is that it can make it difficult to explore places on foot, which we really like to do.

- Humidity: We spent most of the time we were not inside an air conditioned room sweating like crazy. In Ubud our room didn't have AC and I think we probably lost ten pounds of water weight every night.

- Constant Solicitation: You want taxi? A Massage? Come look in my shop? Heroin? New kidney? I respect that people gotta hustle to make a living so it's hard to complain, but let's just say that we won't miss it. I think I might even try it when I'm back in the states. You want cash flow? Balance sheet? Heroin?

So that's it. One whole month of our trip, one whole month in Asia. Don't think we could have had a better time and looking forward to our month in New Zealand.

Lots of love,

Bryce and Gina