Days 40-46: Tanjung Benoa, Bali

Sorry for the long delay in posting, we’ve been relaxing completely! We’re in Bali now, at the four star Aston Bali Resort ($55/night, thanks to wotif.com!), enjoying the beautiful beach, warm sun, and nothing to do! The last month has been fairly tiring (but wonderful) and we have a lot of recuperating to do. I’ve been playing a bit of volleyball, and we went jet-skiing, but other than that it’s mostly been sleeping, laying on the beach, swimming, and reading! It’s a rough life, but someone’s got to do it.

Bali is truly beautiful, and the people are tremendously friendly. We’re only 8 degrees south of the equator, so it’s predictably hot and humid, but not terribly so – temperature is around 28 degrees Celsius most days, and probably 70% humidity, but between swimming in the ocean and pool (both probably 24 degrees, a nice bath water!) and the breeze coming in off the ocean, it’s fine being outside.

We'll have to more to report about Bali later, after we do some more exploring, but for now the beach is calling.

Days 37-39: Christchurch

We’ve spent our last few days in New Zealand dealing with logistics, relaxing, and exploring Christchurch. It’s been raining outside most of the time, so we’ve watched a bunch of movies (on demand movies are great!), used the free internet access, and eaten take-away from the near-by Thai and Chinese places. The great www.wotif.com has allowed us to stay at a nice hotel for less than the price of a hostel!

We took advantage of our one afternoon without rain to walk around Christchurch a bit, walking along the River Avon, which circles downtown, and strolling through the beautiful botanical gardens. We also watched some performers at the World Buskers Festival, going on for the second half of January. It’s a very nice city, probably our favorite in New Zealand. It has a very English feel to it, between the architecture, people, and all the rain. It also reminded us a bit of Boston, since the downtown area is quite small, very walkable, and closes early in the evening.

We also spent a lot of time in the great used bookstores here, swapping out all those we’ve finished for new (to us) ones. The book situation is difficult – you can’t carry enough with you to last terribly long, but new books are expensive (in New Zealand they seem to be about twice the price as at home), and used book stores are never frequent enough. Hostels sometimes have book swaps, which are great, but then the selection is pretty bad. Library book sales have been great, since they always have really good prices, but they’re pretty rare. Hunter gave us several books when he left, which have been great, keeping us going through a really dry spell!

Days 35-36: Mt Cook

More driving today. We went all the way back up to Mount Cook, but this time on the interior side of mountain range, probably only 40 kilometers from Fox Glacier. Other than helicopter, there aren’t any shortcuts from one side of the range to the other though – you have to drive at least 400 kilometers to get from one side to the other, due to the paucity of drivable passes through the mountains.

Part of the drive was backtracking (the first we’ve done in NZ) to Queenstown, but the remainder was new. We passed by High Country Salmon and bought a pound and a half of fresh salmon for $8! Boy did that grill up nicely! We hiked down to the beautiful turquoise waters of Lake Pukaki and went for a swim. Apparently the color is caused by minerals in the sediment, leftovers from the glaciers that carved it out. Mount Cook provides an amazing backdrop, with it snow gleaming and glaciers beckoning.

The next day we went up to the Tasman Glacier, hiked (and swam) around the Blue Lakes (which really should be called the Green Ponds), then down to Tasman Lake, which is filled with icebergs calved from the glacier, and through the moraine. Tasman Glacier is much flatter than even Fox Glacier, but even bigger. A very large portion of it is covered in dirt and rock, making it less impressive, but apparently the ice is 200 meters deep! It was quite warm despite the altitude, and nearly desert level dryness in the valley, much to our surprise. The views up to Mount Cook and the surrounding peaks were pretty amazing, it’d be fun to do some real climbing in the area.

Days 33-34: Te Anau

Today we drove down to Te Anau, passing into yet another temperate zone of New Zealand, with much drier conditions. We’re in an interior valley, and all the rain is blocked by the high mountain ranges on either side. We’re finally starting to see the true prevalence of sheep – the drier, steeper conditions mean that we’re seeing thousands and thousands of sheep, but very few cows. All of the travel has caught up with us a bit and we’re feeling under the weather, so we’re taking this afternoon and tomorrow off to recover. That sadly means we won’t be going down to Milford Sound like we’d planned, but it’s obviously more important to rest up and feel better. We did manage to swim in Lake Te Anau though, jumping off a 5 meter high pier down into the frigid waters.

Days 31-32: Queenstown

We were treated this morning with mostly clear skies and a view up to the peak of Mount Cook. We’ve been tremendously lucky with the weather thus far on the trip (knock on wood!), and yesterday was the most rain we’ve had. Apparently rain like yesterday is pretty common for the west coast, so we’ll be happy for all the sun we get!

We continued driving south along the Tasman Sea, stopping a few times for brief hikes and explorations, including a fun hike near Ship Creek that included sand dunes, swamps, rain forest, and near desert conditions, all within a few miles of each other. We cut inland along the Haast River, a broad valley with high mountains on either side. We hiked out to the Blue Pools, which I thought were really more green than blue, but were still beautiful. Yes, we have been using that word a lot (and WOW! a lot as we drive), but it’s true every time.

We stopped again at Lake Wanaka, much to the relief of a German man who’d decided to take his car all the way down to the lakefront and then (unsurprisingly) managed to get it stuck in the sand. Using the mats from our car and a lot of pushing, we got him free, and then continued on to Lake Hawea, where Mary decided to go for a swim in the 10 degree Celsius waters! (It was cold, dammit! – Mary) These are pretty huge lakes, measuring maybe 80 kilometers long, although only one across, clearly carved out by glaciers long ago.

Queenstown reminds me a bit of Geneva (but a lot smaller). It’s a relatively small town situated on a lake, nested against the mountains, with the beautiful backdrop of The Remarkables mountain range across the water. The town is pretty cute, although every third shop is an “information” desk, providing bookings for all of the adventures sports that go on just outside of town (parachuting, bungy jumping, jetboating, mountain biking, whitewater rafting, and dozens of others). We spent the next day relaxing, wandering around town, and enjoying some more beautiful weather with an incredible sunset over the lake.

Day 30: Fox Glacier

Lucinda was rather surprised at our request for a 10am breakfast, but we loved the late morning and felt quite refreshed. We went for a quick hike down to Lake Matheson, which is featured in thousands of photos, with Mount Cook looming in the background (frequently reflected in the calm lake). It was drizzling most of the morning, so no views of the mountains for us, but it was still beautiful.

We joined an afternoon trek up onto Fox Glacier, since you need to be with a guide to go onto the glaciers, and they provide the crampons and other gear you need. It’s an hour and a half hike through the glacier valley each way, then an hour on the glacier itself. The valley is pretty remarkable, since you’re hiking in rain forest with only a shirt and shorts, while you can see the glacier next to you, less than 100 meters away. It’s one of only 2 places in the world with this combination, the other being Patagonia. The top of the glacier gets 40 meters (yes, 120 feet) of snow a year on average, which compacts down to about 10 feet of glacial ice.

Once you get out onto the ice, you definitely need a jacket and maybe long pants and another layer or two. Between the steps the guides carve out for you, the crampons, and the hiking sticks they provide (with metal spikes), it’s pretty easy to walk on the glacier, but I wouldn’t do it without a guide, given the deep crevasses and changing ice conditions throughout the day. The combination of the deep blue of the glacial ice, the clear ice that has begun to thaw, the white ice full of air bubbles, and the gray of rock fragments from landslides onto the glacier, it’s much more colorful on the glacier than you’d expect.

It started to rain as we climbed down from the glacier, turning into a hard rain as we hiked down, and a downpour just before we reached the busses back down to town. We were absolutely soaked when we got back to the B&B, but were thrilled to find Peter drawing a bath, clean clothes that Lucinda had laundered for us, and warm beds that we crashed into early.

Day 29: Franz Josef Glacier

We checked out the famous Pancake Rocks of Punakaiki this morning, which are certainly unusual. They’re apparently formed by alternating layers of sandstone and sea creatures, which then erode at different rates over time, leaving rocks that look like stacks of pancakes (pictures worth thousands of words). We then headed down to Franz Josef Glacier, stopping only when forced to by the occasional stock drive.

We hiked up to the base of Franz Josef Glacier, through the valley it has carved out over the last 18,000 years. It’s left behind a vast field of boulders and smaller rocks, broken down by the pressure of the glacier. Most of the trail was still covered 250 years ago apparently, so nothing has had a chance to re-grow, but given that there is rain forest on either side of the valley, you get the feeling that it won’t take long, assuming the glacier doesn’t advance all the way down the valley again (it is growing though, a few meters a year). Unfortunately I forgot to charge the camera battery last night, so no pictures, but we’ll get some tomorrow at Fox Glacier.

We stayed at the very nice Clearwater B&B last night, which is close to Fox Glacier. The owners, Peter and Lucinda, are very friendly, and it was nice to be back in a home again. We chatted with them for quite a while and enjoyed their company; they, like all the Kiwis we’ve met, are very friendly and nice. In addition to the B&B, they also have 800 head of cattle, some sheep, 3 goats, 2 dogs, and 5 peacocks! Oh yes, and 2 kids – it’s a busy household!

Day 28: Drive to Punakaiki

By Mary
On learning that we intend to drive to the West Coast today, the owner of our hostel implores us to take the local road, instead of the one used by tourists. The local road, we are told, is much prettier. Having driven along the coast of Australia and both coasts of the NZ North Island, we feet it improbable that the scenery could get more picturesque. And yet, it has.

I don’t think we have done a good job describing the NZ landscape. It is an amalgam of Hawaii and the Scottish countryside. There are lush rainforests, beautiful beaches, and rolling grassy hills dotted with sheep, horses, cows, deer, and the occasional wild goat. The wild goats are actually a pest, here, because they destroy native plants and kill the kiwi birds. But I think they are adorable, so I don’t care. In any case, causal viewing of the land at any point will yield small farmhouses with sheep and cows out to pasture, or black sand beaches with giant rocks jutting out, or thick forests, or tall, misty mountains. No hobbits or elves, yet, but I feel sure that I am turning into a wizard.

We stopped in a town called Westport, which is annotated as a big town on the map, but has less than 6,000 people. Today Westport was having its A& P fair, with carnival rides, pet shows, and horse show-jumping! We got to the show jumping contests just after the Pony/Small Riders class, and got to see both Young Riders and Adult classes. The horses in the final class were gigantic and amazing, and the jumps were really high. We ate lamb shank and cotton candy.

Then, we saw a colony of seals, which are super-smelly, and really fun, and a lighthouse. We had a picnic near the lighthouse, and ended the day in Punakaiki, which is right on the coast near a black sand beach. I went to sleep as soon as we got there, but Dave hiked through the rainforest to the beach, and got some good photos. I woke up briefly, ate 3 kiwi fruit and a can of chili, and then went back to bed.

Day 27: Abel Tasman National Park

By Mary
The Kiwis are having a hard time figuring out where Dave and I are from. No one has guessed the United States. Most of the time, they guess Brazil or other parts of South America. This was also the case in Australia. Black people, as you may have guessed, are pretty rare, here, so I am a big hit everywhere we go.

Today we hiked the Abel Tasman, and ended up walking along the coast to Coquille Beach. After the walk we really appreciated the cool blue water of the Tasman Sea, and found a small cove that was perfect for sunning and reading.

The coast of New Zealand is pretty shallow for a long way out. At high tide, the water is knee to waist high for as far out as you care to walk. When the tide goes out, it goes out rapidly, and within 30 minutes the coastline will have grown six or seven times wider. Because of this, it is not uncommon to encounter small boats that are “anchored” on the sand.

Day 26: Ferry to Picton

By Mary
This morning has begun awfully. We have taken the Interislander Ferry from Wellington to Picton on the South Island. The ferry left at 8:30am, which meant waking up at a ghastly hour.

Although its schedule is completely unsuitable, the boat itself is pretty massive and cool. There are 10 decks, including 3 levels of car parking, 2 movie theaters, an arcade, 2 cafes and a cafeteria, a kids playground (with magic show), and lots of nice seating. The seats in particular are nice because they are close to the café, and perfectly soft for sleeping.

Dave has informed me that the views from the boat were spectacular. After disembarking in Picton, we drove along the northern coast to Nelson, a nice summer holiday town, similar to those along the Cape. Excellent hot chocolate, but no sweatpants – the weather is dropping quickly as we drive farther south! Then along to Motueka, a small town on the edge of Abel Tasman National Park.

Day 25: Drive to Wellington

We spent most of the day driving down to Wellington, with a brief stop at Lake Taupo, about an hour south of Rotorua. Lake Taupo was beautiful (and the sun was out), and we wish we’d spent the day there instead of in Rotorua. The drive was really interesting, in that the terrain kept on changing. We passed through forest, desert, mountains, canyons, and along the coast. We also drove through a lot of small towns, which ranged from cute to depressing.

Unfortunately, we arrived in Wellington after most everything was closed, so we didn’t get to see anything in town. But our hostel for the night, the Moana Lodge, is spectacular! We have a great bed, ocean views, a beautiful kitchen, and a cat. Wellington reminded us a lot of San Fransisco, and we’d like to spend more time there (and everywhere else in New Zealand!), including visiting Te Papa, which I was very sad to miss.

Mary continues to confuse people here, since she's not Maori, doesn't sound African, and doesn't look "American". We've had a couple people assume us to be Brazilian, which seemed like a pretty reasonable guess. A young Maori girl at the supermarket asked Mary where she was from, and upon hearing the states, asked her if she were a singer.

There are tons of fruit and vegetable stands on the sides of the road here, with local produce at great prices. Avocados, plums, apricots, potatoes, apples, bananas, and a variety of other stuff -- we're eating a lot of fruit these days! Imported food is expensive, so we're sticking to local seafood, lamb, and chicken for our protein. Most of the hostels we've stayed in have pretty nice kitchens, so we cook dinner most evenings, and eat a cold lunch we've packed for lunch. The Ozzies and Kiwis seem to understand coffee pretty well, and I've put away quite a few flat whites so far.

Day 24: Rotorua

Today was a cold, rainy day so we spent a lot of it indoors, reading and relaxing. We walked down to the lake and wandered through Kuirau Park, where some of the thermal vents that Rotorua is famous for are located. The whole area is a hotbed (literally) of thermal activity, with several volcanoes and a large number of hot springs, geysers, and steam vents. The entire town smells of sulfur, but luckily you become accustomed to the smell pretty quickly. Update by Mary: No, you don’t.

Rotorua is an interesting combination of a tourist town and a local town, with one half filled with tourist information and booking shops, and the other half filled with appliance stores, feed shops, and other things that only the locals (and those from all of the surrounding, smaller towns) would need. It’s a heavily Maori town, since the area has always been important to them, featuring heavily in their mythology. I think we would’ve liked it more if the weather had been better, but it’s not terribly attractive, nor is there a whole bunch to do.

Days 22-23: Looping around Northland

We took a tour of the Northland today, driving up to Kaitaia, which is at the base of the 90 mile beach leading up to Cape Reinga, but decided not to head all the way up to the far north end of the island due to time constraints. We then drove back down the western edge of Northland, taking the ferry from Kohukohu to Rawene (the Maori seem to really like words with duplicated sounds – we’ve also seen Karikari, Kerikeri, Mitimiti, and several others). The highlight of the drive was passing through the Waipoua Kauri Forest, a large forest containing many old growth Kauri trees, some up to 2000 years old, with 5m girth and 50m tall! We did a bit of walking through the forest to get close to some of the Kauri trees, but had a long drive so didn’t do as much exploring as we might’ve liked.

We ended the day in Pakiri, back on the south east end of Northland. The next morning we woke up and went for an amazing horse ride along the beach! Mary had a rather unruly gelding named Jazz, but she eventually charmed him into following directions. I had a much more friendly horse named Flame, but still managed to get myself thrown while galloping down the beach. Luckily sand is a great cushion, so I was up and riding again in no time at all. The Kiwis have a very different view of litigation than we do; they skip all the paperwork and assume that the person was at fault, unless they can prove that the operator was negligent.

Afterwards we drove down through Auckland, then across the Coromandel Peninsula, and down to Rotorua. The trip we’ve planned through New Zealand involves a lot of driving unfortunately, but we get to see a lot of both islands in the limited time we have here. As with most of the trip, we’re trying to get a feel for places to figure out where we want to come back to and spend more time, rather than trying to explore them exhaustively now. Makes for an exhausting trip, but we do get to see a lot of the country for only being here 21 days.

Days 20-21: Paihia

We spent the morning wandering around the Ponsonby neighborhood of Auckland and had a great time lounging in a used bookstore, seeing the shops, and eating a tasty breakfast of meat pies. Thus refreshed, we headed on up to Paihia and the Bay of Islands, in Northland.

The drive was supposed to take about 4 hours, but we took a couple of (intentional) detours to see more of the coast. People have repeatedly said that the south island is much more beautiful than the north island, and that may be true, but the north island is plenty beautiful. Mary and I repeatedly commented that Kiwis must laugh at the audacity of the Ozzies to name a road the Great Ocean Road, since it’s rather similar in most ways (except for the limestone pillars) to the entire coast of New Zealand.

We drove through a remarkable range of terrain, including rain forests, pasture land, marshes, old growth Kauri forest, new growth pine, and occasional small towns. The roads up the coast are almost all single lane, narrowing down to true single lane across bridges and where there are repairs. Most of the roads are tremendously curvy – it’s more a surprise to see a straight stretch than it is to see a long set of S curves. The speed limit is usually set quite high, such that in my rented Nissan Sunny EX-Saloon (similar to a '97 Sentra), it would be difficult to break them. Hairpin turns around the outside of a rock wall have a speed limit of 35 km/hr, a place I’d expect a US speed limit of 10mph. It’s very fun driving, but rather tiring too. Next time we visit, I’d love to rent a Porsche (and stay a lot longer)!

We saw vast number of cows, sheep, horses, goats, and even the occasional deer out to pasture. I was surprised to see nearly equal number of cows and sheep; perhaps we’ll see a greater prevalence of sheep on the south island. Or perhaps all the sheep are hiding in the mountains, rather than in the flat parts along the road, and we'll never see all 40 million of them...

In Paihia, we took out some sea kayaks onto the bay and visited a few of the islands, as well as just laid around and enjoyed being out on the water. Later in the day we walked up to the Treaty House, where the Treaty of Waitangi was signed, and then walked the Haruru Falls track, which cuts through a nice mangrove forest, as well as a Brown Kiwi bird habitat (although we didn’t see any, they being nocturnal). We finished the day off by grilling some local fish on the grill and drinking some local wine – what a day!

Day 18: Auckland

We arrived in Auckland around noon and picked up our car from the rental agency. Driving with Chris along the Great Ocean Road turned out to be great preparation for driving on the left side road, since I was able to make it from the airport to our hostel without incident. We met up with an Israeli man staying at the hostel and walked through the town with him. Since it was after 5, most of the town was closed – despite having nearly a third of New Zealand’s population Auckland is pretty tiny and closes very early!

We spent a lot of time in Alfred Park and the Auckland Domain, a set of parks on one edge of downtown. The Auckland Domain is incredible, encompassing well maintained sculpture gardens, cricket grounds, and nearly wild forest areas. The sun stays up for a long time this far south, so you can wander around outside until about 9pm before the light is bad. Which I’m sure will come in very handy once we start driving, since you really don’t want to drive at night around here, with all the curvy roads and wildlife crossing.

Day 16-17: Sydney

We took the ferry out to Manly Beach on the 31^st, since we expected (correctly) most everything else to be closed. Unfortunately, the storm that had been pounding the coast north of Sydney sent some tremendous waves down to visit, and thus the beach was closed as well. But the ferry back and forth offers tremendous views of the harbor, bridge, and opera house so all was worth while.

Hunter, Farnaz, and Kendra flew out the morning of the 2^nd, so Mary and I went to explore the Royal Botanic Gardens that afternoon, which were amazing! They’re huge – we only hit a tiny fraction of them, despite spending 3 hours there. Beautiful trees, flowers, and rock formations, plus a colony of flying foxes (really fruit bats) that were just starting to wake up (and screech!) as we were walking through the park.

We finished our walk by going through the Opera House and then The Rocks area of town, then headed to bed early in preparation for a 7am flight (and thus 4am wakeup).