The Journey to Queenstown, Not as Straightforward as You'd Think

Lake Tekapo. When we left Christchurch, we headed west to Lake Tekapo, one of the lakes in the center of the country that is known for its milkiness, which allows it to maintain a surprisingly bright blue color. The milkiness, which is found in a lot of lakes in the region, is a result of "rock flour," fine particles of dust scoured from rocks as the glaciers moved across them, which was deposited in the lakes as the glaciers receded. These are ancient glaciers from the last ice age, by the way, not the current ones that Anne and I were climbing around on! On the last stretch of road before reaching the lake, as the sun was setting, I caught sight of my first snow-capped mountain on the south island. So beautiful! There's something so exciting about that, still. No matter how many times I've seen snow-capped mountains, I still think they are particularly magnificent. We arrived at the lake at dusk. Its a lovely setting, surrounded by mountains, as is pretty much everything here on the South Island. The big tourist spot to stop is at the Church of the Good Shepard, a tiny, one room church that was built beside the lake for the early residents of the area. It looks so dwarfed by all the amazing scenery around it that I can see why people would feel particularly reverent there, with that holiness all around them. Next to it is a statue of a border collie, which is a memorial to the sheepherding dogs of the area. I have no idea why it belongs next to the church, except that it makes one less stop for the tour busses. Just to give you an idea of how small the traveller community is here in this country (despite the large number of travellers!), I knew 3 people staying at the hostel where we stayed that night from previous times working in Motueka and Golden Bay. Aoraki/Mt. Cook. At the hostel in Lake Tekapo, we talked to people in our room who told us that the road to the base of Aoraki is less than an hour's side-trip from the main road to Queenstown, where we were heading. In case you are wondering, Aoraki is the tallest peak in New Zealand. The name it was given by the Europeans is Mt. Cook, but they are switching back to Aoraki, the Maori name, which is so much cooler. Plus, Captain Cook already has half of New Zealand named after him (the other half is named after Abel Tasman and various English royalty), so he's not exactly going to be hurting if they stop calling the mountain after him. We figured we couldn't pass up an opportunity to see such an icon when we were that close. We stopped at the visitors center (i site - another of Anne's favorite things, which I have also found quite useful as well!) at the base of Lake Pukaki, from which you can see Aoraki at the head of the lake. The woman working there recommended the hike to the second swing bridge out of the Hooker Valley Trailhead. Of course, this offered two funny occurances. First, Anne and I were still laughing (and by were, I mean still are) about the "I like the way your hips swing!" song, so of course, we were quite excited about going over TWO swinging bridges! We adapted our new favorite song for the occasion, and walked across the bridges singing "I like the way your bridge swings!". That was after we'd actually found the trail, however. First, we were driving along looking for the Huka Valley Trailhead, as I thought I'd heard the i-site woman direct. Luckily, when we saw the turnoff for Hooker Valley Trailhead, we were smart enough to figure out that that must have been what she was saying, but I just didn't quite make it out properly with her accent. Leaving was another challenge, with my car deciding that it didn't want to let us use the seatbelt in the front passenger's seat. Anne, (good girl!), didn't want to ride seatbeltless, so she switched to the back seat. My car had apparently been feeling a little put out, since it had done this a couple times to us already that day, so poor Anne had to switch to the backseat until we'd drive about 100 meters down the road and the car felt like she'd won, and released the seatbelt from her chokehold on it. Anne would then switch back to the front seat and we'd start it all over again at the next stop. Cars without quirks are so boring, aren't they? Queenstown. I guess we lingered a little too long at Aoraki, either that or all those seatbelt stops held us up longer than we'd planned, but we ended up making a mad dash for Queenstown to make it to the DOC office to pick up our camping and hut passes for the Routeburn Track and the post office to collect my package in which mom and dad had graciously sent me my down vest (which I'm wearing right now, and have been wearing almost every day since I received it - THANKS YOU GUYS!!!!!!!!!) before they closed. We made it to the DOC office, thanks to Anne's excellent navigation skills and my quick driving around those tight turns. We even made it to the post office before it would have closed on any normal day, but we'd forgotten (despite 2 days of talking and planning), that today was Sunday. Oops. So I wasn't able to get my vest until after our hike, but obviously, it is making me so happy to have it here, so its already made up for missing it on the Routeburn. The rest of our time was normal pre-tramp arrangements. Book track transfers at the i-site. Check into the hostel. Dinner. Go grocery shopping. Unfortunately, we missed singles night at the Fresh Choice grocery store. But we did see a guy picking out a snuggie on the way in and another guy in a crazy hot-pink 80s wind suit. We think he was wearing it as a joke though, since he looked early 20s. We hope it was a joke... Then back to the hostel to sort and pack and head to bed for our 7:45 departure the next morning.

So, as I was saying earlier...

Anne and I were driving out of Christchurch, chiming in with the radio on the "swing!"s and laughing our heads off already. Before I tell you all about our adventures, I first have to tell you just how cool Anne is. She was awesome to travel with! To start, it is so excellent to be travelling with another south Minneapolis native, who knows all the old south high slang. I'll exclaim about how dope the view is and she'll respond that the view from the B-side is just as stupendous. And her exceedingly correct response to my question of "Are you ready?": "To RUM-BLE!" After just a happily startled pause on my part, we both broke into singing jock jams on the side of a mountain on the Routeburn track. Gotta love it. She also appreciates the Sound of Music as much as I do, and although she didn't join me in twirling around on the mountaintops (her loss), she enthusiastically participated in a road trip sing-a-long with my thrift-store-find Sound of Music soundtrack tape. Not to mention that she would randomly break out singing "high on a hill was a lonely goatherd..." This was followed by a little G Love "Baby's Got Sauce." We have eclectic taste - what can I say?! Have I yet mentioned her preoccupation with roadkills? I was worried about this at first, because of a family event all those years ago, which transpired only because mom was not there to lend her better judgement to the idea of taking a roadkill raccoon, putting it in a garbage bag, and bringing it to my Aunt Betty's land in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin to bury it and come back to dig up the skeleton in a couple years. Meredith was very into skeletons at the time. Well, that whole operation didn't go quite as planned. I hadn't been so excited about this idea from the start, not being quite as taken with skeletons as Meredith and definitely not as excited about the idea of riding around with a dead raccoon in the back of the car. Dad got the raccoon into the car, but we hadn't gone very far before he figured out that it wasn't quite as fresh as he'd thought. He pulled over and dumped it, but not wanting to litter, he put the plastic garbage bag that had been holding it back in the car. As you can imagine, driving with a not-so-fresh roadkilled raccoon in the back of the car didn't make things smell so sweet, so we rolled down all the windows. This influx of breeze began to circulate the air in the car a little more violentely than expected, and we ended up with me screaming in the front seat, the dead-raccoon bag wrapped around me and pinned there by the wind. I don't remember how we restrained the bag (or mollified me), but I do remember quite clearly pulling over at the next gas station, where dad pulled over to throw the bag in the garbage. So with this as my main road kill memory, I was a little hesitant about Anne's fascination with the squashed and flattened creatures on the side of the road. Luckily, she wasn't planning to be here in a couple years, so she didn't try any roadkill burials using my car as the hearse. And to admit, I did get into the little game of identifying the various stoats, possums and pukekos that lined the sides of the road. We even saw a dead hawk next to another dead blob of something. Anne was impressed with the quality of the roadkill here, saying that they had a high "splat factor." I can only guess that that may be due to the high speed limits on the highways we were traversing.

The next morning, I went at high tide to check out the famed Pancake Rocks, which have eroded so that they look like big stacks of pancakes. Amongst the rocks are "blowholes," which are fissures eroded through the rock, and when hit by crashing waves at high tide, emit a puff of seawater mist with an accompanying, well, blowhole, sound. There was even one coming horizontally out of a sea cave. That was my favorite. After one particularly large wave, it sprayed all the way across the little cove where it was situated.

After Anne left, I headed up the West Coast to Punakaiki, where they have some amazing eroded stone formations (and as many of you can attest, I LOVE stones and boulders and rock faces, so you can understand why I was attracted here). I headed out of my hostel where I was camping in my sight amongst the native bush, and took a track simply labelled "beach". I had no idea what to expect, and certainly didn't expect this! The overhanging cliff faces, eroded by many years of crashing waves, water cascading over the tops, from the rainstorm that had just let up.

Lake Matheson, the lake famed for its reflections of Aoraki and Mt. Tasman (the two tall peaks in the mountain range that you can see) and Fox Glacier (which you can see coming down the face of the mountains, although I don't actually remember which one it is. Its hard to tell whats a glacier and whats just snow from far off, especially in a photo). We were again so incredibly lucky with the weather. As we passed this, the best lookout point on the lake, the sky was almost completely clear of clouds. As we continued around the lake, the clouds were drifting in, obscuring large parts of the mountains at any one time.

Anne and I exploring one of the ice tunnels together (how did Moritz end up in the background on this photo too??). You can really see the blue ice clearly in this one. Our guides told us that we were incredibly lucky to get ice caves and tunnels like the ones we were able to experience, because it is rare that they will form in the ice fall part of the glacier, where we were exploring. Normally, because of the intricacies of glacial formation, ice caves and tunnels like this form up in the neve (snow fall area), where you have to take a helicopter to reach.

Anne hiking down into the glacial valley ahead of me down the glacier. The glacier has been advancing for the last 15 months, after a long period of retreating. The terminal face used to be several kilometers further up the valley only a hundred years ago. It is hard to imagine such an awesome flow of ice moving THAT much in only a hundred years.

Anne and I posing on the glacier, hiking sticks in hand (and crampons strapped firmly on feet!).

Can you see those teeny, tiny-looking ice spires up on the horizon above us? They are many kilometers up the ice, and can get up to 4 or 5 stories tall! You can also see a bit of the blueness of the ice behind us.

You can see some of the ice formations (and a funny German guy named Moritz) behind us. A little aside to share with all of you: Moritz was staying at the same hostel as me after Anne left, during which time the new pope was chosen. We were both disappointed, thinking that they should have picked someone from Latin America. He expanded, saying "yeah, wouldn't it be cool? He could salsa while doing the blessings!" and proceeded to do a demonstration of blessing someone in time with his salsa dancing. I CRACKED UP! So I'm hoping that next time around we'll get our "salsa pope"!

Anne and I at the terminal face of Fox Glacier before heading up onto the ice for our all day glacier walk.

After being away from home for 4 months, I get a little excited about all the little pieces of Minneapolis here in New Zealand, like Hiawatha Lane in Takaka, or the Minnehaha Walk that we did in Fox Glacier. The walk was a really pretty little stroll through the rainforest. We parked at one end and joked that we should hitch back to our car, which was literally a 5-10 minute walk down the road. Instead, we spared some poor driver from being in on the 1-minute hitched ride that WE thought would be really funny, and turned around to walk to 20 minutes back through the rainforest. Tough job! :)

Anne and I posing at the Knight's Point Lookout along the West Coast Highway on our way from Queenstown up to Fox Glacier. Its a pretty, scenic points with lots of rocks out in the ocean, and the guidebook says its named after one of the original surveyors' dogs. Lucky dog.

Here's me kayaking in all my gear through the Milford Sound!

Apparently we didn't get any shots of the Routeburn on the digital, unfortunately, because this is the next photo I have. These are our kayaks as we paddle across the dark (but still SO clear!) waters of Milford Sound, New Zealand's biggest fiord and part of Fiordland National Park, where we hiked on the Routeburn Track. Again, we were blessed with this beautiful, sunny day with great views of the towering mountains descending into the fiord.

Anne and I drove along the length of Lake Pukaki to do a little walk exploring the base of Aoraki/Mt. Cook. Here we are with the tallest Mountain in New Zealand (Aoraki) behind us. We certainly lucked out with the blue sky that allowed us this awesome, unobstructed view of the summit.

Anne and I found a fellow tourist snapping photos along the road overlooking Lake Pukaki with Mt. Cook/Aoraki in the background. Unfortunately, we didn't realize that our fellow traveller hadn't a clue how to frame a shot properly. But at least you all get a good view of the New Zealand roads.

apologies

Hi guys - Just a quick note that I'm out on the West Coast with little phone reception and barely more internet. And what there is is quite expensive. I should have better internet access in the next week or so since I'm heading slowly towards Wanaka and on to Dunedin, but for now, please bear with my slow posting rate! When I get better internet, I've got some great photos of Anne and I to post from all of our adventures! Ilana :)

Anne!!!!

I made a second run to the airport to get Anne on Saturday morning, actually managing to collect her this time. We explored Christchurch a bit. We strolled through the Botanic Gardens down to Cathedral Square and back. And that was about it. We were ready to get out of the city! As we drove out of Christchurch onto the open road, we were listening to Kiwi Radio, playing all New Zealand artists. There were some good songs on there, but we had a couple favorites. One was the rap songs just because its awfully funny to hear rappers doing their shout-outs to South Auckland instead of NY or LA or whatever. And our other all-time favorite was - oh goodness - I have no idea how to get this across in writing. I wish you could put sound clips on this thing. We were driving out, and CRACKED UP when we heard this song, who's main chorus seemed to be "I like the way your hips swing!" But you don't get the whole picture from the lyrics. The 'swing' was higher than the rest of the words, and said more like Wayne and Garth's "schwing!" from Wayne's World. At least I'm pretty sure schwing is from Wayne's World. I haven't actually seen the movie, but I've heard it quoted a million times, so hopefully I'm quoting it correctly. And I have to go right now, because the store is closing up. More updates later!

Hanmer Springs

Hanmer Springs was quite a nice surprise when I woke up the next morning. You know how it is when you arrive somewhere well after dark and you awaken the next morning and you look outside and you're absolutely stunned by the unexpected beauty of the scenery that you didn't see in your nighttime approach? I was impressed by the little alpine town. It was pretty much an upscale tourist town, but it was such a great place to spend my morning. I couldn't get enough of breathing in that fresh, clear, cool, pine-scented air. I went to the hot springs thermal reserve in the morning. I got bored of soaking in the natural sulphur hot pools pretty quickly, especially since they didn't have the cold water to counteract them. Afterall, what fun is the heat if you can't follow it by a shock of cold, sauna-style? They had a lap pool, however, so I was a happy little fish, swimming for ages in there. I had to do backstroke since I was wearing my contacts and I'd forgotten to bring my goggles. But I like backstroke, so I was all good with that. I ate a picnic lunch amongst the pines outside the thermal reserve before heading down to Christchurch. I checked in at my hostel, did some shopping, and got ready to pick up Anne the next morning, since we had arranged for me to pick her up at the airport at 11am. The next morning, I got to the airport a bit early, even after taking a walk through the park and Botanic Gardens after checking out of my hostel. I drove around, circling the arrivals area for a good hour or so. Finally, I got a bit nervous, worried that something had gone amiss, since Anne hadn't called my phone to let me know that she'd be late. I found a phone and called her host parents, leaving a message for them to call me if they knew if Anne had gotten on her flight as planned. I eventually decided to cough up the money and park at the airport and go in and talk to the people at the Air New Zealand desk to see if they had any updated info on the flight. There wasn't much money to cough up though, because unlike airports in the US, at least ones I'm familiar with, anyway, the parking was dirt cheap! Free for the first 20 miutes and I think it was a dollar for each additional half hour or something like that. I didn't have to remember that part, because I got out in under 20 minutes. Cuz um, well, I went to talk to the Air New Zealand people and they weren't familiar with the flight 0413 arriving from Wellington at 10:40. After much searching, they told me that there was a flight 0413 arriving from Wellington at 10:40am TOMORROW. Whoops!!! I cannot believe I did that! Especially since I have to admit I've done it before: I got to Florence a day early to meet Amelia when we were travelling in Europe after my semester in Norway. I was so worried that time, too. Oh well. Better a day early than a day late, though, right??? I called Anne's host parents back to let them know that I'd figured out my mistake. I talked to Annette, her host mother, who thought it was hilarious, but was glad that I'd figured it out at least. It was fun to talk to her for a little while. Annette and Murray (Anne's host parents) are a trip! They are so much fun. So now I had a whole, well, half day that I hadn't expected, to explore Christchurch. Luckily for me, they were having a big bio-cataloguing event at the Botanic Gardens, and had all sorts of natureific events at the gardens, based around cataloguing the biodiversity of the area. I hooked onto a bird hike with one of the women who worked in the gardens and a ranger from the local City Council. It was so cool! And I got the ranger's card, so I can get some advice about other fun places to go check out the bird life around Christchurch on my way back through. They're situated in a wetland area, and I just love all those wetland birds. After the bird hike, I speeded off to go to a Maori cultural performance. It was really disappointing, unforutunately. I haven't really done things that are very mainstream touristy, for the most part, and I knew this would be, but I am really curious about the Maori dances, so I was hoping that the performance would be cool enough to make up for the touristy feeling of it. As you have probably gathered, it wasn't. They did the hokey pokey in Maori, for goodness sake! I think that upon later reflection, my problem is that I am genuinely, deeply interested in the culture, particularly the food and dancing, and these performances cater to people who just want to see a quick overview and move on. But I really truly wanted to know more! So it was very disappointing. I still hold out hope that I'll be able to find a class in Maori dance or something, but it doesn't seem to likely. It might have to remain a mystery to me.

Beginning the Journey to Christchurch

First of all, I have to apologize in advance, because I am working on my blog at an outdoors store in Hokitika on the West Coast of the South Island and they are blaring country music. A little distracting! Its particularly funny because you never hear country music here! At least I haven't, anyway. I heard one song, once, at the New World grocery store in Motueka, but that's it! So if you start to detect a little twang in this post, that's why! I left the Innlet to head down to Christchurch to meet up with my friend Anne Skoglund, who I skiied with on the cross country ski team in high school. She has been doing her student teaching here in New Zealand, and returned home to MN yesterday to graduate from U of M - Morris with her degree in secondary school teaching for French. She will be an AWESOME French teacher. Another quick aside: they are not only playing loud country music, they are repeating the same song, and it isn't any better the second time. But I do know that this guy is driving to down Richmond "with a redhead riding shotgun and a pistol by my side." Ahhh. Gotta love country music... So back to my story though. Anne and I had decided to meet up in Christchurch and travel around the South Island together with her week off from classes before she headed back to the US. They're doing better now - they're playing Devil Went Down to Georgia. I like that one. So I figured I'd drive down to Christchurch and meet her at the airport. Easy, right? Well, there was a little more to it than that, as I found. I headed out of the Innlet and over the Takaka Hill (again!). This time, my car had decided that 5 times over that hill was just too much to deal with. I cruised (or limped) into Motueka, at the base of the hill on the far side, with a horrible sound of something stuck in my tire. I couldn't see anything in there though, so I brought it to a service station. Turns out the brake lines had worn out. Thank goodness the brakes still worked! So, while I was waiting for my brake pads and lines to be fixed, I went over to the AA (New Zealand equivalent of AAA) office to get a road map of the Lewis Pass area that I'd be driving through. On my way back to the garage, I finally gave in to my craving for a a chocolate thickshake (we'd call it a milkshake in the US, but they have milkshakes, which are thinner, and thickshakes that are, well, thicker). I went into Arcadia Organics, the local natural food store. I was pretty sure that they wouldn't have them, but at least they might be able to recommend a place that would. I definitely didn't want to go back to the place I'd gone earlier when I'd had a thickshake craving a couple weeks earlier. What I was actually craving that time was my favorite from Dairy Queen, a small mint oreo blizzard. So a peppermint chocolate thickshake should do in a pinch, right? It was horrible. Thin, watery and painfully fake-tasting. So I asked the woman working at Arcadia, hoping that she could recommend a place better than that one. Now here's the surreal part: her answer was "Oh, the McDonalds across the street has excellent thickshakes. Sorry. Kentucky Fried Chicken. I always get those mixed up." The other woman working with her chimed in that the fish shop down the street might have them too, but she didn't know if they'd be open yet and the KFC had really good ones. "Okay, so the KFC across the street is the best place to go for thickshakes?." [I just had to check to make sure that I wasn't dreaming this one - the women at the organic foods shop were really recommending KFC as the best place to get a thickshake in town???]. "Oh yes, I was over there just the other day for a chocolate thickshake. It was excellent." The entire time, I couldn't get over the fact that not only were the women from the organic shop recommending that I go to a fast food place for the best thickshake around, they were raving about the thickshakes that they'd had there themselves, entirely unapologetic and seemingly oblivious to how incongrous their recommendation was to the environment that they were working in. Huh. So I went over there, excited despite my knowledge that I really SHOULDN'T be. Come on, American abroad going to a fast food place from home? How bad is that?! But I have to admit that I have a spot in my heart for those fast food milkshakes. Probably because they're the only thing I'm willing to eat from the fast food places at home, so I've eaten them on many a road trip. So I was somewhat guiltily anticipating a little taste of home. Well, KFC thickshakes are NOT the same as American ones. They fall right in with the poor thickshake standards that I've found to be the general rule here. It was more of an oversweetened chocolatey slushy, all full of ice flakes, not creamy like it is should be. So disappointing! I had another little disappointment after that. I went to pick up my car, took it for a test drive with one of the mechanics to check the brakes and I was on my way, or so I thought. I got about 10 minutes out of Motueka and they started making a funny sound again. So I had to turn back around and bring it back. They took it for a test drive, figured out that one of the parts hadn't been put back in properly, and had to take off the wheel and the brake AGAIN, put this little pin back in place and then put it all back together again. It was quite interesting to watch, but I was glad when they were finished (although a little nervous that maybe there was something else that had been missed, too). It was getting late and I was hoping to make it over the Lewis Pass and into Hamner Springs before dark. I definitely didn't even remotely make it before dark, but luckily after that dang Takaka Hill, all of these mountain roads with their well-graded and well-spaced curves are no problem!

Rosy Glow

Okay, so here is my chocolate sampling list from Rosy Glow: Chocolate Caramel, Black Forest Fudge, Cashew Crunchie, Coconut Rough, Cream Brazil, Conquistador, Creamy Cinnamon, Coconut Cream, Just Ginger, Turtle, Lime Sour, Peppermint Dream, Nut Creole, Toscanner, and Orange Koko. 15 total. All excellent. I think I could never pick an absolute favorite, since it depends on my mood, but if I had to, it would probably be the lime sour, turtle or just ginger (which reminds me of grandma's pepparkakar dough that we make at Christmas).

Clams, Cakes and other Culinary Explorations at the Innlet

Well I realized that I never really told you all much about my time at the Innlet. I'm just going to boil it down to the main theme: eating. They had just bought a breadmaker when I arrived back after the Abel Tasman tramp, so you can imagine all the experimentation that was going on with that every day! Starting the day I arrived for my two weeks of WWOOFing (helping out in the eco-minded hostel for free room and board), we had a week of torrential rainstorms with only a few hours let up the entire time. It was actually a bit of a problem, since I didn't have a chance to dry out my tent before we left Marahau, since it was raining there too, and after a week being stored wet, waiting for just one sunny afternoon to dry it, it still smells a bit funny. But goodness, the culinary adventures started long before that. Lets start with clamming. The first time that Karin and I were staying at the Innlet, we were sitting in the kitchen with Inge, a girl from Germany. Amy, the hostel manager came in to see if any of us would be interested in clamming with her. Of course I jumped at the chance. I've never been clamming in my life, much less eaten one! So getting a chance to learn firsthand how to do this was very exciting! We grabbed a big bucket and headed down to the beach across the road, which was at low tide, perfect for clamming. None of us had ever gone before (other than Amy), so she had to describe exactly how to go about finding all the little cockles buried under the sand. We were supposed to walk on the sand in our bare feet, and when we felt something that seemed like a rock, dig around for it, because it was probably a clam. And when we found one, keep on digging, because they usually live in groups. The first part of our search was a little disheartening. We all thought that we weren't feeling the clams the way Amy described, because we weren't finding any, but then, she wasn't either. We continued out across the mud flats out toward the retreating ocean. Suddenly, and yes, it was sudden, we were all finding clams everywhere we stepped! We were having such a good time, comparing to see who could find the biggest ones, or the most in the same hole. Soon, we'd filled up our bucket nearly to the brim and Amy told us it was time to head back. None of us wanted to stop, however. Now that we had the hang of this, we were loving it! We started walking back, but even then, we were encountering clams with each footstep, stopping to check their size, and wanting to take all the big ones. Amy eventually made the rule that for every one we put in, we had to take one out, preferably a smaller one. This didn't work so well, unfortunately, since all of the smaller ones that we'd collected in the beginning were all the way at the bottom. It came down to putting one in and grabbing one that may or may not have been smaller, as long as it looked like it COULD be slightly smaller and putting it back under the sand. It was the excitement of keeping the new one you'd found that counted, even though it was quite likely that the next person to find a "huge!" one would judge theirs to be slightly bigger than yours and displace your prize catch. Amy did corral us back to the car eventually, she and Karin leading the way with Inge and I following behind carrying the bucket, which by that time was very heavy (thus, why we'd driven). We went back to the Innlet, where we learned to scrub and soak the clams and make clam chowder. This was only the second time I'd ever had clam chowder in my life, the first being out in Pismo Beach, California with Keasha last April. Goodness. It was almost a year ago, exactly. How funny! Sorry, I just realized that as I was typing. You probably don't all need to know that... But we had an excellent dinner of clam chowder and garlic bread that night, spiced up with herbs fresh from the garden. Mussels. The next day, Karin and I walked down to explore Wharariki Beach in the morning and returned to the Paddlecrab Cafe at the Puponga Visitors Center on the Farewell Spit where we feasted on a fantabulous lunch of their homemade foccacia with a variety of veggies and spreads, including wonderfully fruity scented olive oil, roasted tomato and garlic, and avocado with balsamic vinegar. We finished it off with a dessert of lemon yogurt muffins topped with fresh berries. I will have to try to figure out how to make those at home, because they were absolutely fantastic! While we were sitting in the sun on the cafe deck overlooking Golden Bay and Farewell Spit, we talked about how Karin had been curious to try some of the Green Lipped Mussels they get here in New Zealand. I, of course, was curious to try ANY mussels, since I'd never had them before in my life. We decided to head to Takaka for some grocery shopping. I tried mussels for the first time last night, and yum! They were great! I am definitely getting into this seafood thing. Which is good, because later on that night, we went to Tinky's Tavern in Collingwood for their St. Patrick's Day celebration. I thought it was awfully funny that their local pub shared a name (or at least half of one) with the most maligned Teletubby. In addition to the loads of people decked out in various shades of green, singing Irish melodies and dancing jigs around the bar with Irish flags painted on their faces, drunk on Guiness (the night's special), Tinky's was also offering free fresh oysters. I don't know if I've ever even gotten up the courage to try a cooked oyster, even in all those years of Oyster Stew for Christmas (Meredith and I eating Annie's Mac and Cheese instead). So a raw oyster, whoa. But I did it. And I can't say I'm going to be going on a new diet of raw oysters, but it wasn't so bad. I'd do it again. I guess. Now leaving those new saltwater tastes behind, we'll move onto the cakes, and then of course ROSY GLOW! In that week of rainstorms, which included Easter weekend, so we were packed, we had some nummy baking going on. I helped Sibylle out with a great German apple cake that she knew how to make (German because she's from Germany. I don't know if its REALLY German, per se). Anastasia, one of the girls there from England, had never baked cakes before and was eager to try. So with me as her willing accomplice, we bought some baking supplies in Takaka and turned out a banana cake, chocolate cake (originally a vegan recipe that we doctored up a bit with eggs and lotsa butter - that poor vegan who wrote it in the recipe book! They would be having restless nights wherever they are, knowing how their recipe's been co-opted), a carrot ginger cake, and a sticky date pudding with caramel sauce (that one was all Anastasia except for me as the consultant and I think she's graduated to pro cake baker, cuz it was nummy!). I also made some Mexican Chocolate Cookies, one of my favorite recipes from home, which I shared with the Innlet peeps, sent a bunch up to Gilbert Ave crew in Auckland, and brought to Mary, the woman who makes Rosy Glow chocolates in Collingwood. I'll type in a list of all the different flavors that I tried there in a bit. She makes these fabulous homemade chocolates, all super rich in so many different flavors. How was I lucky enough to stay just 10 minutes from a gourmet chocolate shop?? She definitely got to know me and gave me a couple free chocolates to sample to boot! What else? Oh, the last thing that I should tell you all before my time runs out: I went to the Mussel Inn for dinner one night. They had a fabulous seafood chowder, and their own range of homebrewed beers (easily the best I've had in New Zealand, not that I've made it my business to do TOO much sampling of the NZ beers! BUT, here's the cool part: they also have a ping pong net that attaches to the table right there in the restaurant, and you can play ping pong! Sometimes, the owner said that they have rounds where everyone cycles through for a chance to play and they have lines out the door. I wish I'd been there for that! Oops. Gotta get this published before time runs out, so I 'll let you all just imagine that one! And this is a small restaurant!

Our 4th and Final Day in AT

AT is Abel Tasman, not Appalachian Trail, as I'm sure you've figured out. I haven't flown back stateside quite yet. Although they do have a street called Hiawatha Lane in Takaka. It made me feel right at home! They also had a local ceramic artist named Lisa Simpson. Hehe. Poor woman. I'm sure she gets way too many comments on that for it to be even remotely funny to her anymore. But anyway, back to AT. When I left off, we'd gone to bed in our little campsite in Anapai Bay. The next day, we got up. I got up for the sunrise again, and sat on the beach for a couple hours, writing and thinking while Karin slept until a decent hour. We packed a little scantilly on the food, so we were both at the end of our rations for breakfast, but figured we could snack our way through until we got off the trail and had a nice lunch. Unfortunately, it took us a little longer than we'd expected. We took a little extra time to head out to Separation Point. We are not entirely sure why it is called that. Karin heard that it separates the Tasman Sea from the Cook Straight (whatever ocean that counts as - we were debating about that one, too). Sounds like a good explanation to me, although we were both a little confused, since the Farewell Spit or Cape Farewell seem like they'd be more logical separation points for the oceans, being that the cape is the northernmost point on the south island, and the Spit makes a natural barrier out around Golden Bay. But I'm not a geographer, although I think that would be an awfully interesting profession, so I don't know! We also had multiple blisters and tape all over our feet in the attempt to prevent more from forming. We were hiking in our chacos, since we didn't want to deal with boots, but that meant that although our toes were happier, we kept getting rockst stuck in them, which isn't so comfortable, and is quite awkward to get them out with a big pack on. I know all of you with any kind of sports sandals know what a pain in the butt it is to fish a little piece of gravel out from right in the middle of the sole of your foot, where they always seem to lodge themselves. Try doing that with a big pack on your back! Toward the end, we were out of water and food hiking solely to get to the end. We were still appreciating the views, but our appreciation was a little more directed: "oooh. That point looks familiar. Do you think the carpark is around this corner?" "Okay. Its finally starting to flatten out. We must be close to the carpark now." "Do you recognize that house over there? I bet its by the carpark." Our watchfulness finally paid off, as we eventually DID make it to the carpark at Wainui Inlet. And our arrival was all the sweeter, since I'd had the unknowing forethought to park in the closest spot to the trail end, so not only did we come around a corner to see the capark, we came around to see my car! We both had our sandals off at this point and oh, those plush car seats felt good. As was the food at the Tui Cafe. Locally grown produce, totally open-air cafe with food cooked out of a camper van. We both got crepes filled with mushrooms and all sorts of yummy spiced-up veggies. So good! Especially since we were absolutely FAMISHED by this point. It was 3pm and we hadn't had anything other than trail mix and muesli bars since breakfast at 9. I got a fresh salad as well, and a warm pear tart for dessert. After fully satiating ourselves, we had recharged our energy enough to drive back over the Takaka Hill to Marahau, where we'd left Karin's car at the kayak office. During that week, I'd somehow managed to go back and forth over the Takaka Hill 4 times, no easy feat! Either going over it, or going over it 4 times! It is a twisty, windy road, both heading up AND down. There are beautiful views from the top out over the Takaka Valley to the west and Abel Tasman National Park and Motueka to the east. But I don't know if the views are worth that harrowing drive 4 times in a row... In case you're wondering, the 4 times were on my way from Motueka to the Innlet, then on our way from Wainui Bay (where I'd parked my car in preparation for our tramp) to Marahau (I didn't have to drive that time), then that same route again after our tramp, and finally back up to the Innlet the next day. And now I'm going to let you guys go because I want to go make myself some dinner.

Farewell Spit is trailing out behind me there as I stand atop a hill at the beginning of my first attempt at the Hilltop Walk with Anastasia and Elli, friends from the Innlet. Remember how I said I'd gotten lost in the same spot a couple different times? Well, this was the first one... We had a great time anyway though, hiking back to our car and driving down to meet everyone at Wharariki Beach to watch the baby seals and the sunset. We had a great group of us staying at the hostel that night and we all decided to go out and do this hike together, only the three of us were a little slow (Japanese tourist syndrome again, times 3, plus the fact that I had 2 cameras... you can see why we ran out of time!) And got lost...

If anyone's been wondering how kiwi fruit grow, this is it! A real live kiwi tree, growing at the Innlet. I know I've always wondered, but maybe that's just me and my fruit obsession! I'm sure someone else out there is interested too, though!

I am visiting Te Waikoropupu Springs, i.e. Pu Pu Springs, the clearest water in the world, except for a spring under the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica. They are also the largest freshwater springs in Australasia. This whole lake behind me is bubbling and churning as about 14 cubic meters of groundwater wells up from the marble bedrock each second at 7 kilometers per hour! The largest vent is 1.5 meters wide! And there are 8 vents in this main pool. Whew! Its pretty chilly water, but compared to Lake Superior, its a balmy, constant 11.7 degrees celsius. Oh, and once water enters the ground up in the mountains and starts trickling its way through crevices and cracks, it takes between 2 to 10 years for it to surface here at Pu Pu Springs. No wonder this place is sacred to the Maoris.

The sun was setting as I hiked along the Hilltop Walk that evening. The colors were so beautiful, especially reflected out in the ocean. This is looking down off one of the headlands into a little tidal river basin and out into Golden Bay. This was actually funny, because one of my friends from the Innlet, Anastasia, was out walking another part of the track at the same time, and both of us returned home talking about the amazing clouds, and both of us had taken lots of pictures of them! "I was hiking along taking pictures like a Japanese tourist," as she put it.

I hiked from Cape Farewell along the Hilltop Walk, which follows the north coast of the South Island near the Innlet, where I was WWOOFing, i.e. cleaning for room and board. Here is some more of the beautiful scenery along the way. This is one of my favorite hikes I've done in New Zealand. I love being up on the hilltop ridge with the ocean off to one side and green valleys followed by mountains on the other. I went back a couple times to do different sections of this trail. And I got lost in the same spot twice! I never DID continue that part of the trail through fully...

Unfortunately, the post ended up in the middle of the rock arch of Cape Farewell, the northernmost point on the South Island. You'll just have to believe me that its a really pretty rock arch. And I have a better picture on film, so you can be treated to that viewing later.

Lin and I cleaning up in the front entryway of the Innlet. Well, pretending to clean for the picture anyway!!

Abel Tasman - Dia Tres

I thought I'd mix up the title at least a LITTLE bit for you all. I was beginning to feel a bit boring with those all the same. I did the same thing with my senior research in college. I remember I published it with some funky title in there, just because it was beginning to sound a little too academic and boring. Our third day in the park, we woke up and had to set out fairly early to make the tidal crossing at Awaroa Hut. The hike there was short, and we had to be there an hour or so on either side of noon, but we were going for the earlier time so we could get up past Totaranui, a big, busy campground accessible from the road, that day. I was surprised at how much development along the trail. We didn't feel like we were in particularly secluded surroundings much of the time. We passed quite a few places that looked like they were resorts and holiday homes, all along the path. It was a bit distracting, actually. It definitely took away from the scenery and the experience a bit. It didn't feel as wild as we had expected. We loved it nevertheless, but that was disappointing for us. The hike was mostly through bush, so we were very glad that we'd been able to spend time out in our kayak along the coast first. The kayaking was definitely the highlight of our trip. We found an excellent beach on which to have lunch, called Goat Bay. We took every chance we could get to hang out on the beaches, despite the sandflies, because they were our favorite part of the hiking! Soooo beautiful! We ate under the shade, leaning up against the boulders and looking out to sea. As we got up to leave, we even saw a little sea urchin shell placed carefully in a crevice in the rock. The shell was so pretty and delicate. We left it there to surprise someone else as well. We made it past Totaranui, where we filled our water bottles again (filtered water available - gotta take advantage!) and headed on. This was yet another place where we experienced much more civilization than you ever hope to see on a backcountry tramp. We walked along the road through the campground as quickly as possible, wanting to get back out to the stillness of the bush and the views out over the ocean. After another tidal crossing, we hiked back into the bush and along a beautiful tidal marsh. I have a thing for marshes. We have them here in Golden Bay too, and I just think they are so beautiful. Its something about the texture of the plants, I think. We made it as far as Anapai Bay campground. We were the first ones there and had our pick of the spots. We chose one off on its own with a spot for our tent and a sandy "balcony" surrounded by driftwood logs looking out over the ocean. We made out well on that one. Before setting up our tent, however, we did our requisite evening swim and basking time in the last rays of the sun to dry off before it sank behind the mountains. It wasn't actually strong enough to really dry us much by that point, but we liked to pretend. Not that we needed an excuse to luxuriate in that wonderful sunshine. As soon as the sun was behind the mountains, it started to get chilly, so we changed out of our swimsuits and into our thermals, jackets and long pants. This is one time in my life that I am grateful to be so short and therefore to have pants that are way too long for me and cover my feet. I could put my pants over my feet, put up the hood on my jacket and make myself almost entirely sandfly-proof. For some lucky reason, they weren't going for my face... We turned in early after dinner that night, tired out after all that tramping.

Abel Tasman - Day 2

Our second day started out with a MAGNIFICENT sunrise. We'd been so inspired by EVERYTHING the night before, that we decided to wake up and watch the sun rise as well. We sat on a driftwood log on the beach wearing all of our warm clothes, winter hats and wrapped in our sleeping bags to ward off the chilly morning air. Since we were up waiting for the sunrise, it obviously hadn't had a chance to be warmed by the sun for a good 12 hours. It was the equinox, too, by the way. They do their daylight savings on the equinox, which makes it easy to remember, although still no less confusing for me. Especially here in the southern hemisphere: do you still spring forward and fall back? The answer is yes, by the way. And, as far as I can tell, the water I was watching go down the drain yesterday was swirling counterclockwise. Oh. The sunrise was wonderful though. It was of course indescribable. Can you ever really describe a sunrise? This one was entirely unique from anything I've seen. There were thick clouds on the horizon, black with the orange of the rising sun around their edges. I was convinced that we were looking into the crater of the sky volcano and the sun was about to erupt right out of clouds, fully formed. The clouds lifted just in time to see the sun rise up over the horizon, however. So we did watch a sunrise instead of a sun eruption. Before the sun had even had a chance to fully lift itself above the horizon, it began to disappear into that dark layer of clouds and a few minutes later, we were treated to a second sunrise of sorts, as it reemerged above the clouds. After this grandiose show, Karin went back to bed for a while, while I stayed on the beach writing letters. Our "second" morning, after Karin reawoke, started out with poor Karin stepping on a wasp while packing up the tent. Luckily we were kayaking instead of hiking, so she was able to stay off it all day. This was the day where we kayaked just a short way up the coast and then out to Tonga Island in the Tonga Island Marine Reserve to see the seal colony. They were so funny. We passed a group of adults on the exposed side of the island, paddling around on their sides amongst the boulders, one flipper and one fin in the air, just going in endless circles, apparently keeping themselves happily occupied. We continued around to the northern side of the island, where we paddled into a little cove formed by the rocks. There, we were greeted by multitudes of baby seals, playing, swimming and oh so cute! We pulled ourselves up against a rock at the edge of the cove and watched them play. There were 3 playing "King of the Mountain" on one of the rocks that stuck out of the water a bit. Others were swimming around together, leaping in and out of the water as part of their forward motion (like I was talking about before in the Little Mermaid...). We had a few that were especially curious about us and our paddles, swimming up next to our boat and jumping up out of the water to bounce our paddles on their noses! One climbed up onto the rock we were hanging onto and did the same thing. I guess he was too lazy to get himself out of the water. He just wanted to bounce our paddles the easy way! Another one startled me when I suddenly felt whiskers snuffling up against my elbow and turned to see him looking inquisitively at me. As much as I wanted to give him a pat on the head, I was good and knowing that he was a wild animal, I moved away a bit. Or as much away as you can get while still hanging onto a rock in a kayak. I at least moved out of the way so there was no direct contact! He apparently decided that this wasn't quite close enough for him though, since he dove back into the water, swam around to the other side of the rock, where he resurfaced and climbed onto the rock and from there onto our kayak, sitting on the middle section between us! I had to keep my paddle between me and him to keep him from crawling up into my lap, since he looked like he was trying to come that-a-way. I am going to have to get myself one of those plush seals to hug, because even now when I'm writing this, I just have such an urge to cuddle that cute little seal! Lunchtime rolled around as we were sitting there watching the seals and our bellies got us moving around the rest of the island and over to the far side of Onetahuti Beach, where we relaxed on a boulder in the shade and ate our crackers with tomato, cheddar and sausage. Plus some carrots and apples for dessert. Can you tell we were trying to eat up the heavy stuff before we began our hike the next morning? We had originally planned to start out hiking to stay further up the trail that night, but Karin's foot was bothering her and we were at this amazing beach... it didn't take much convincing to stay there for the night! We had a great time just hanging out along the beach: swimming, writing in our journals and once again enjoying the moon shadows at night.

Abel Tasman at Last! - Day 1

Okay. I have to admit that basically, I've just been lazy for the past week or so and that's why I haven't written. Okay. Now its out there, so now I have to make up for that while I still have free internet access. Last I told you guys, Karin and I were headed out for a 4 day trek along the Abel Tasman Coast Track in Abel Tasman National Park, another of New Zealand's Great Walks. Only we only walked half of it, because we kayaked the other half, which was definitely our favorite part. Day 1. We dropped my car up at Wainui Inlet, the northernmost end of the Coast Track, where we would be finishing our hike and then hopped into Karin's car for the drive down to Marahau. We stayed the night with Stephen at his farm, and Karin thought it was just as cool as I did. We got up bright and early. Well, early anyway. It wasn't so bright, because it was raining! Not exactly what we were hoping for to start off our tramp, but the weather changes so quickly here that we didn't bother ourselves worrying about it too much. We got all trained in on safety and kayak protocol at Southern Exposure Kayaks. We knew a lot of what they were telling us, but the parts specifically about the ocean and the special considerations for the area we'd be in were really helpful. Plus, the guy training us knew good spots to go check out and camp and stuff, which he pointed out for us. We were also outfitted with our nice, bright yellow kayak, yellow-tipped paddles with purple hand grips, attractive purple spray skirts (I wish I'd gotten a picture of us wearing those things! They look hilarious), and blue lifejackets with the funniest over-the-shoulder clipping system I've come across on a lifejacket, and I've worn many in my day. They made up for it with all the handy-dandy mesh pockets in front, though - perfect for a muesli bar, sunscreen, watch, chapstick and sunglasses! The color scheme of the company, which all the guides wore, was blue and yellow. Karin was excited, saying that she felt right at home, since they were almost exactly the colors of the Swedish flag. We found out, however, that contrary to Karin's hopes, the owners were not Swedish. They were just regular New Zealanders. Finally, after getting all geared up, suited up, and trained in, we got out on the open water and took off, finally left to our own devices. We had lunch on Adele Island, where we switched to let me have a try at the stern, since I've never steered a kayak using a rudder before. You use foot pedals to move the rudder back and forth, and it takes a bit of getting used to, especially since it seems so natural for me to steer with the paddle, after all my years of canoeing. Unfortunately, I didn't have much time to get used to it, since directly after Adele Island, you paddle out into the "Mad Mile," where you paddle out in the ocean without any of the shelter of bays of barrier islands. Now, luckily for us, this was a calm day, so my new rudder-steering skills weren't really put to the test as much as they could have been. We pulled into Te Pukatea Bay, our first enormous golden sandy beach (our lunch beach was a little mini one surrounded by boulders and an even "bolder" seagull. Karin hung out at the beach, while I stretched my legs a bit, making the 45-minute return hike to fill our water bottles at the Anchorage Hut, where they had filtered water. This was a smart move on our part, because we didn't end up reaching our campsite until nearly dusk, and we would not have wanted to mess around with water purification at that point. We instead were able to devote our time to pick out the perfect little campsite next to the beach, and cooking ourselves a nice dinner (nice to be used in camping context - we had couscous, green beans and thai chili tuna). But that's jumping ahead. We took our time exploring up the coast, paddling back into Torrent Bay, where we watched a diving bird, unconcerned about our presence, floating along through the water next to our boat. The water was so clear that we could watch it paddling its feet to propel it through the water. When it dove under the water looking for fish, presumably, we could observe every detail of how it swam. I am continuously impressed and amazed by how close I can get to the wildlife here. It is an incredibly special feeling when they allow you to share their space and their habitat with them so openly. We continued north, loving the sandy beaches, but both of us agreed that our favorite scenery was the multitudes of weather-worn and sculpted boulders and cliffs that lined the shores along a large part of the coast. The sculpting tended to leave the rough-textured rocks shaped with rounded, smooth lines, a wonderful contrast. There were so many different shapes and forms, we never tired of watching them and inspecting each new rock face or boulder pile that we passed. We kayaked around a little sand bar and into Sandfly Bay (a brave move, as those of you who have experienced sandflies will understand. For those of you who haven't, they are little insects about the size of gnats who swarm around and bite you and oh, do those bites itch!). Luckily, we didn't encounter any sandflies. Instead, we found a little river, which we followed up to a bridge suspended high between the banks where the hiking trail crosses up above. There were birds calling from the bush, and the lazy, quiet murmer of the water as it flowed downstream out to the sea, but we both felt how quiet and peaceful it was there after being in the constant motion and action of the ocean. We relaxed in there, drifting down at the river's pace, tasting the water to see how far up the salt water penetrated, and watching the fish swimming amongst the logs and stones beneath us as we floated over them. Karin pointed out that we were finally getting our chance to paddle downriver all the way to the sea, as we'd dreamed of doing on the Whanganui. Okay. So maybe it was a smaller scale, but it still had quite an effect on us, emerging from the bush to the sheltered water but open sky behind the sandy arm that acted as a breakwater. Rounding the end of the sand arm and encountering the ocean waves again put us back into the feeling of action and alertness that we were able to leave behind back in the river. We continued up the coast, now searching for a campsite, since the sun had gone behind the mountains and dusk was fast approaching. We decided upon Mosquito Bay, despite the unpleasant-sounding name. What a good decision that was! It was a site accessible only by water, and we landed on the beach, unloaded our gear and some other people there helped us carry our kayak up to the racks for the night. After dinner, it was definitely dark and the water on the beach in front of our campsite was receding with the falling tide. We made our way around the point, climbing over the rocky outcrop that separated our beach from the one next to it, and were rewarded with a serene, moonlit beach all to ourselves. We laid out on the boulders at the far end of the beach, as we'd been tempted to do all day. We talked about all sorts of things that had been on our minds and found ourselves pausing for long periods to fully take in the beauty around us: The waves lapping quietly on the beach, the moon so bright that we cast distinct moonshadows across the rocks, the faint salty hint to the air that seemed to lessen as it got crisper and chillier. The clouds in the sky were playing their own little game, hiding sections of the sky, dissipating and then reforming to hide different groups of stars. It made for some interesting stargazing. Karin still managed to see an enormous shooting star, in one of the cloudless patches. She summed up the day best as we were walking back across the beach to our campsite with her comment that "I'm going to fall asleep with a big smile on my face tonight." Right on. That makes two smiley sleepers in our tent.