New Zealand Day 7: New Year's Eve at Lake Wanaka

We left Queenstown for the hamlet of Wanaka. We used some of our credit card bonus points to book a room at a swanky B&B. The guidebook said, "Wanaka wakes up in a big way for New Year's Eve," so we expected things to be a little crowded.

We were not disappointed! The streets were filled with teenagers - lots of lads and ladettes with bad haircuts and bottles of blue Powerade. Do I sound like an old lady? Just wait until you hear what we did to ring in 2010!

The banks of Lake Wanaka.

Our B&B was pretty nice. Nate swiped the biodegradable bottle of organic peppermint hand soap and I took a nap under the possum fur blanket on top of possum fur pillows. We figured that set probably cost at least $1,000! ooh la la!

We had an early dinner because every restaurant in town was booked up for seatings after 6:00. We took a leisurely stroll back to our B&B, put the baby down for the night, shared a tray of New Zealand cherries (DELICIOUS!) and were snoozing before it was fully dark outside. We didn't hear any midnight revelers and slept through the fireworks over the lake. Unlike most of them, our alarm clock doesn't have an off switch and she was chirping bright and early on New Year's Day.

These two pictures are the only ones I took in Wanaka. We would recommend you skip it.

New Zealand Day 6: Queenstown

We woke up to a rainbow in Manapouri, a small town near Te Anau. I asked the lady at the front desk of our hotel if they get a rainbow like this every morning. "Well, not every morning. But we get them a lot."

We hightailed it to Queenstown, which is situated on Lake Wakatipu near The Remarkables mountain range. The Remarkables is featured in Lord of the Rings and is a pretty popular place to ski in the winter. We admired it from the car and it really is quite remarkable.

Lake Wakatipu had gorgeous blue water. Sorry - no photo of The Remarkables.

We decided to embrace our touristness and do what most people do when they go to Queenstown in the summer: eat a Fergburger and Bungy Jump. We checked Fergburger off the list; Roxy and I shared a Bun Laden (veggie burger) and Nate had a Little Lamby (lamb with mint jelly).

Outside of Fergburger before the line was out the door.

After lunch, we walked down the street and paid a lot of money to get tied to a rubberband and pushed off of a bridge. Queenstown is the home to modern bungy jumping, so we figured, why not? We're not too cool.

The bungy site was so incredible gorgeous. The bridge is over the Karawau River, which is a brilliant turquoise color, and is pretty cold (which I found out when I dipped my fingers in the water while hanging upside-down).

Wide shot of the bridge and river.

There goes Nate!

There goes Cory!

The equipment they used was surprisingly low-tech. They used bath towels to pad the space around our legs, and they paddled out in an inflatable raft with a PVC pole to get the swinging jumpers after the jump.

The staff working on the boat had enormous biceps!

They're making money hand over fist. They probably have 20 people jump every hour, and if the tickets price wasn't enough, they charge $70 each for photos and DVDs (we passed). We did get shirts that say "Jumper" on them and had an adrenaline rush for the rest of the day. Lots of fun!

We headed out of bustling Queenstown and on to the small hamlet of Glenorchy. We stayed in a room above a bar, right across the street from the Possum Fur store. The Australian possums are destroying the native trees, so it's good for the environment to buy a sweater made of possum fur or a possum fur coat.

One of the few buildings in downtown Glenorchy.

We were the only occupants that night and we got to sleep with the heater on! Our bedroom was in one room with a sink. The toilet was across the hall and the shower was next door. It was kind of like a college dorm and was ideal for us because the baby went to sleep at 7, so we locked her in the bedroom and stayed up to watch Superman in the lounge room next to our bedroom.

New Zealand Day 5: Milford Sound

Milford Sound is one of the most popular tourist destinations in New Zealand. From Te Anau, it is about a 120 km drive on a winding road. The drive is stunning, though, with lots of places to stop and hike around. We drove straight there and moseyed our way back.

Mountains peeking through the clouds on the road to Milford.

Waiting in line to drive through the Homer Tunnel. Look at that sky!

Driving through the Homer Tunnel. Kind of scary.

The thing to do at Milford Sound is to take a boat tour. We didn't make any plans ahead of time, and we were advised that most of the tour buses arrive for boats departing around midday, so we hightailed it out of Te Anau to arrive before all of the other tourists. We walked up to the nearest tour company window, bought our tickets for a "nature cruise" of the sound and got on the boat just as it was departing. We couldn't have planned it better if we tried!

A cloudy day on the Sound. The area gets 7 m of rain annually. 

She wasn't too interested in the scenery, so Rox made a friend on the boat.

Cold, rainy weather on the boat! Perfect!

Getting drenched at Stirling Falls

We didn't see much wildlife on the tour, only a few fur seals. We heard about a new genus of lizards that was discovered in a nearby canyon and learned that they were thinking of reintroducing the endangered flightless Takahe in this area. Milford Sound is pretty cool, but I don't know if I agree with Rudyard Kipling in calling it "The Eighth Wonder of the World."

On the drive home, we first stopped to take a short walk to The Chasm. I was changing Roxy's diaper in the carpark where we had our first interaction with a kea! These naughty parrots hang out in carparks, waiting for people to feed them and generally acting mischievous. They are known to pull the rubber off of car windows. A kea landed on top of our car and kept poking his head through the door while I was doing the changing. Nate had a good laugh when I tried to scare the bird off with a swift elbow jab (I missed).  Look at the beak on that bird! Now imagine that beak breathing down your neck!

The kea is quite drab until he shows his bright red underwings.

Giving the kea the evil eye right before I tried to elbow him.

By the time I finished changing the baby, a crowd of people had surrounded us and were taking photos of that cheeky kea.

Bridge over The Chasm.

Waiting in line on the other side of the Homer Tunnel.

We stopped at the Divide, which is the lowest east-west pass in the Southern Alps. There was a trailhead to Key Summit, which promised great views of the Fjords and valleys around us.

Trail signs in New Zealand don't give distances - they give the time it should take you to complete the hike (I found this very annoying and condescending. I know, lighten up, Cory). The roundtrip hike to Key Summit was supposed to take us about two hours. We had a cranky baby on our hands so we did our hike double quick. We made it to 15 minutes from the top (according to the sign on the trail) in half an hour before the baby bomb exploded:

Um. Roxy's ready to go, thankyouverymuch.

Parts of the trail were lined with greenstone.

Despite not reaching the summit, we still had some pretty good views:

The road to Milford Sound and all around the island are lined with lupine. These hardy plants were gorgeous and are my new favorite flower. 

Beautiful flowers at the end of a beautiful day.

New Zealand Day 4: Te Anau

We had a lot of driving to do on Day Four. Luckily for us, we took the Southern Scenic Route to our next destination. I didn't get many photos of the drive, so just imagine sweeping landscapes, lush green hills filled with fluffy white sheep and snow-capped mountains peeking up in the distance.

Not even close to doing justice to the scenic drive.

We stopped in Te Anau, a tourist town that serves as a base camp for trips into the Fjordland. Basically, it's a place for tour buses to pick up hundreds of tourists who want to see Milford Sound (tomorrow). It's also a starting point for hikers to start on the Milford Track, which is one of New Zealand's "Great Walks." The Milford Track is called The Finest Walk in the World (Ahem. If you want to hike instead of walk, try the John Muir Trail), and we would have loved to do it. Alas, one-third of our party would be scooting up the trail instead of walking, so we have to save it for another trip.

Te Anau doesn't have much to offer, so we rested up after a big travel day and looked forward to the next day's visit to Milford Sound.

Family portrait (crashed by friendly Fletcher the Dog) on the banks of Lake Te Anau.

New Zealand Day 3: The Catlins and Curio Bay

We bid a farewell to the fur seals and albatross and continued south towards the southernmost point of the south island.

We drove to the Catlins Conservation Park, which is an underrated region of farmland, forest and beaches. The weather was gorgeous, so we found a track to walk and got up close and personal with the New Zealand flora.

Descending into the forest.

Nate heading up for a closer look at McLean Falls.

We found a place surfer's hostel with a spare bed in Curio Bay, which was a great spot. Very remote with only a few hostels and a campsite overlooking the oceans where rare Hector's dophins splash and play.

Our room in the hostel. The place was a bit run down, but the ocean was within walking distance.

We at dinner at Blue Cod Blues, which was the only place to get food for 25 kms. Good burgers and the fish and chips were wrapped in newspaper.

"I've got the blue cod blues..."

Our hostel was just down the road from a petrified forest, which doubles as a burrowing site for a yellow-eyed penguin colony. The Maori name for the penguins in hoiho and they are featured on the NZ $5 note (Sir Edmund Hillary and Mt. Cook are featured on the other side of that note, but we'll get to them in a few days).

View of the petrified forest. Those rocks are fossilized trees from the Jurrasic - pretty awesome!

The penguins arrive back on the beach around dusk after a long day of fishing. Their arrival was a bit earlier than the blue penguins we missed up in the Otago Peninsula, so we were able to keep Roxy up long enough to see them.

I left Nate and Roxy on the beach and went to find a loo and when I came back, this is what I saw:

The little blue rock on the left is Nate and Rox. The little white rock directly to the right of them is the first returning penguin.

We gave the penguins plenty of space as they navigated their way across the rocky beach to their burrows in the shrubs. These penguins are quite clumsy, stumbling and hopping all the way back to their home.

Mr. Penguin as he cleaned up after the work day.

Hopping to bed!

They were really quite amazing little animals and it's amazing how close we were allowed to get to them. Signs all around advised onlookers to give the penguins at least two car lengths of space and almost everybody seemed to observe that rule.

"Don't mind me! Just headin' home!" These people were actually much further from the penguin than it appears in this photo.

We saw four of them before we called it a night. Later that night at the hostel, we told our fellow travelers about seeing them. I said that I was disappointed that we saw only four. The gregarious Dutch fellow laughed and said, "ONLY four? The world's rarest penguins and you're upset you saw ONLY four?" I think he was a bit bitter because they spent five days on Stewart Island and didn't see a single kiwi bird (which is the main reason people go to Stewart Island). We had a good night talking with the Dutch couple and an American couple while the baby slept soundly in the room next to us.

New Zealand Day 2: Dunedin and the Otago Peninsula

We got a bit of a late start (New Zealand is three hours ahead of Brisbane) and hit the road! We drove south towards the city of Dunedin and the Otago Peninsula. One of the goals of our trip was to beat the summer heat, so we figured we should get as close to Antarctica as possible.

The Otago Peninsula is teeming with cool wildlife like penguins, albatross, sea lions, fur seals and, of course, sheep. We refused to pay $30 to see the albatross colony, but lucked out when we saw one fly overhead while we were sitting in the carpark. He was too fast for me to get a photo.

Down the road from the albatross was a blue penguin burrowing site. These penguins, the world's smallest, spend all day out in the ocean, swimming around and eating fish. The head back to their burrows around dusk and there are crowds of people there to watch them make the trek across the rocky beach. Dusk hits at around 9:20pm, which was a bit too late for our Roxy, so we were satisfied to hang out with the fur seals that also inhabit the beach.

Bachelor fur seal hanging around the penguin burrowing ground. Some of his amigos were playing in the waves.

The hostel where we stayed was our favorite for the trip. It was cheap, wonderfully cosy and had a fantastic view of the bay. If we go back again, we will definitely spend more time in this area. There was just so much to see and do!

Sheep that lived next door to our hostel.

Me getting warm(!) near the stove in our cute hostel.

New Zealand Day 1: Christchurch

Nate had a week off from work for the holidays, so went took a holiday to New Zealand. We flew to Christchurch on Christmas morning and spent the night at a Tudor-inspired motel where we enjoyed Christmas dinner. They even had Christmas crackers waiting for us.

Nate at dinner, looking like he's about to be crowned king by the lit chandelier.

Roxy with the kind of creepy headless suit of armour.

Before dinner, we took our rented Yaris for a spin on the winding roads outside of town. We saw our first kiwi sheep about two minutes after we drove out of town.

Hut at a rest stop on our afternoon drive.

There's nothing uniquely New Zealand in this next photo. I just think it's cute.

Baby buns. My Christmas present to you.