Now showing: "More Roadtripping" and "The South Island" for you viewing pleasure
Update: We're caught up to "Glaciers!" and the point I first filled my SD card. Trying to get up Milford Sound pics asap!
Saturday, February 27, 2010
More Pics
"The New Zealand Adventure" and "Raglan" have received some pixelicious updates. I also just noticed that Raglan is out of chronological order, but I don't know how to fix that. Sorry!
Now showing: "More Roadtripping" and "The South Island" for you viewing pleasure
Update: We're caught up to "Glaciers!" and the point I first filled my SD card. Trying to get up Milford Sound pics asap!
Now showing: "More Roadtripping" and "The South Island" for you viewing pleasure
Update: We're caught up to "Glaciers!" and the point I first filled my SD card. Trying to get up Milford Sound pics asap!
Friday, February 26, 2010
First Pictures Up!
And of course, now that I'm finally on the ball, the library is getting ready to close. Oh well. The iPhone pics turned out well and I'm happy to finally give you some visuals. I'll be here first thing tomorrow to give you even more. Cheers!
Edit: To save you some searching time, the only posts that got updated were "The Catlins" and "The Tallest Mountain in New Zealand"
Edit: To save you some searching time, the only posts that got updated were "The Catlins" and "The Tallest Mountain in New Zealand"
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Kate's Place
February 14
I woke up this morning after a surprisingly good sleep. I was totally dry, though it had presumably rained through the night. I found my sleeping pad to be wet underneath, so I dried it off before rolling it up. The foam worked very well for this: none of the water was absorbed in to make me cold or to make it harder to clean than a quick wipe with a paper towel. I'm happy I bought it. We went quickly this morning because we had to leave in time to catch the ferry back to the north island. We made more oatmeal, substituting boysenberry jam for the brown sugar we couldn't find. We packed up the tent as carefully as we could, trying not to get anything unnecessarily wet.
We reached Picton by 11:00 -- an hour and ten minutes before we were supposed to check in. We used our free time to pick up lunch at a Scottish bar and restaurant. We had wanted to go somewhere Scottish in Dunedin but found nothing. We figured this was a good substitute. We had our first view of the Olympics while we were waiting (5 km speed skating). It's strange to be totally missing big events like this. We also didn't see the Super Bowl and forgot about Valentine's Day until talking/texting people in the states. My fish & chips was tasty. I enjoyed it more with the extra tartar sauce I was not able to get in Queenstown. Back out in the streets of Picton, my bladder was not full enough to make me stop at what Ian, Wes, and Zach reported as "the Jetson's bathroom". It was apparently incredibly modern, entirely automated, and even spoke to you.
Checking in on the ferry went as smoothly as last time, even with our ticket (meant originally) for tomorrow. As we waited in the car to get on the boat, a man came by our car asking if we had heard of didymo and whether we had been in any lakes, streams, or rivers recently. Sidebar: Didymo, as far as I can tell, is a bug that infests a lot of bodies of water in New Zealand, making the water, at best, undrinkable. It spreads to new places by being carried on wet surfaces. The anti-didymo slogan on the sign we saw (several of which I had seen before) was "check, clean, dry". I'm not sure what the checking involves, but we are supposed to be careful to clean and dry everything we put in freshwater. I said yes to the former question and no to the latter because we had just seen a sign about it and reassured ourselves that our clothes had been washed since the last time we had been in a lake and that everything should be dry. In reality, we know very little about didymo and most certainly have been in lakes and rivers recently. But the man moved on before I realized that I should have answered differently. We'll just have to do some research ourselves next time we have internet, and be careful around freshwater from now on.
We waited about 20 minutes before being let on the boat, where we were parked outside this time. I took advantage of the down time on the ferry to blog (I seem to have fallen perpetually behind since our last trip on this boat). Though I never went outside, I had a good view through a glass wall in the back of the boat. Zach, in contrast, stayed out on the top deck for the entirety of the three hour ride. He looked a little windblown when we saw him on the way back to the car.
The car was not as we had left it. Exposed to the air for the whole journey, it had become crusted with salt. Windshield wipers + fluid cleared my view forward, but on the sides and in the back I had very little visibility until we reached a gas station. While Zach bought gas and I bought some macaroons, Wes cleaned the windows. With fuel, snacks, and a line of sight in all the relevant directions, we hit the road for Martinsborough (a destination chosen on the ferry (only slightly last minute)). We passed through Palmerston North and enjoyed the look of the city. Zach said John Cleese had made some disparaging remarks about the city, which prompted the residents to name the dump after him. I think we sided with the residents on this one.
Martinsborough is a small town stuffed to the brim with wineries. All of them were closed for the day when we pulled in, so we busied ourselves with finding accommodation for the night. The only tenting site in town charged $17/person, which meant we could have paid no less than $68 for a patch of grass for a night. Not impressed, we opted for the only other non-motel -- Kate's Place, a backpackers homestay where we were informed by Kate herself that the most important rule was that you make yourself at home. Though the night there was more expensive in absolute terms, it was hands down the better deal. Kate was a nice woman whose two vices were Evony and cigarettes, though neither interfered with her guests' stay. Our room had two bunk beds, each with a pillow, sheets, two blankets, and a reading light, which I found to be a nice touch. We also had our own towels, a bathroom, and several books. The common area had a big bookcase with much more reading material, Risk, Scrabble, and Puerto Rico. There were plenty of couches and chairs, a fully stocked kitchen (we even had access to the spices), and a dishwasher! The doors were always unlocked, the living room opened nicely to a patio outside, and we were given a very liberal license to relax: "Don't ask me if you can do something! I'll tell you [if you overstep your bounds]. But I'm very laid back."
And laid back she was. She didn't even make us pay when we accepted her room for the night. We picked up food for the night at the (thankfully still open) convenience store. The drive to the store deserves a mention because it took us around THE BIGGEST ROUNDABOUT we've ever seen. The town square in the center of Martinsborough is actually one giant roundabout with a full-fledged park in the middle. We decided to make omelettes for dinner, so we got eggs, tomatoes, onions, cheese, and bacon (bacon pieces, which really weren't too different from American bacon). Ian is big on having sides for dinner, so we also got a bag of potatoes.
We drove back to Kate's Place, parked in back for the first time, and brought our stuff in. She still didn't breathe a word about money, but was interested in our trip to New Zealand. She loved the idea of a semester here, but "Auckland wouldn't be my choice." Her choice would be Dunedin, where she went to school for a few years. She never got a degree, joking that this was because of the abundance of pubs, but never going in detail on the topic. We didn't press. She told us that most Kiwis don't think much of Auckland (interestingly, it occurs to me now that she never used the word "kiwi") because it's such a big, ugly city compared to the rest of the country. We started cooking, joined shortly by the German couple that was also staying the night (have I mentioned how everyone here seems to be German?). The meal turned out to be delicious. I like omelettes in general, but I really like the cheese we have found here: tasty cheddar. “Tasty” does not seem to be just a marketing label: we have found the same thing on multiple brands. It seems to be a legitimate type of cheese here, and we (even Ian, just a little bit) are fans.
I showered after dinner. The bathroom was just the right size for one person and the shower was excellent; the water was hot and the shower head was removable. This combination was a great one for my bug bites. Hot water sprayed directly on itchy areas is the most soothing treatment I know of and this one was no exception. I got out of the shower feeling great and ready to settle down for a board game. Everyone had been willing to do Risk, but Puerto Rico caught my attention. I saw and played it for the first time last summer in Windermere and had a good time doing it. I have found Risk kind of frustrating recently, so I persuaded the guys to give Puerto Rico a try. It's a somewhat complicated game and required a lot of time to set up, even more so because we were the first people to play Kate's copy of the game and three of us had never heard it before. I was worried I would be over my head explaining it, but eventually everyone got a grasp of it and enjoyed a close game. We went to bed a little before 1:00 feeling very content.
Last Night on the South Island
February 13
I was an early riser this morning, getting up at 6:30 to work on the blog and charge my electronics in the kitchen shelter. The three people who came and went in the time I was there made a total of one cup of tea for breakfast. The last guy, apparently on his way to go fishing, was intrigued with my netbook and asked me about getting one for his kids in school. Impressively, he even asked me what operating system I was running. I told him I thought it was a good deal and I enjoyed the portability. Happy with my answers, he wished me "cheers!" and went on his way.
I woke up the rest of the group at 8:00 -- I knew Ian's watch alarm would never do it, even though we keep using it for some reason. We ate our cereal with lukewarm milk and found it to be actually pretty good. It was not, however, filling enough, so Ian and I picked up some eggs in town. We got back to discover that the cereal had in fact been enough for Wes and Zach -- they hadn't eaten all of it, at least -- which meant that I ended up eating five bowls of cereal and about four eggs' worth of scrambled eggs. Pretty good-sized breakfast there.
After breakfast we remembered we had seen a zip line in the camp. We walked over to try it out, but quickly realized we would have no shot at it unless we were willing to pull children away. Deciding against that option, we packed up the tent and headed out. Our first stop today was Gore Bay. This was a nice little beach town with absolutely no grocery stores but a beautiful view. We made one PBJ each with the last of our supplies and spent a few minutes sitting in the sand enjoying the view. I waded into the very cold surf to soothe my overly bug-bitten feet. The ocean felt nice and I was ready to get back on the road.
We stopped for groceries -- essentially just boysenberry jam to restock our PBJ supply -- in a town called Cheviot. A little more driving brought us to Kaikoura, which was our destination for today. The area was marked, at least on the coast, by large rocky outcroppings jutting out into the sea, over which waves break dramatically. It was a very scenic drive and we pulled over at a lookout on top of the peninsula to take in the view and eat a second round of sandwiches. As we ate we remembered that this was the day Kyle and his grandfather would be returning to the US. We hadn't seen them since the drive from that very buggy lake.
We went to the grocery store in town to get some vegetables for the sauce for our pasta tonight, then drove down the peninsula to a trail we had read good things about. The section of coast the trail covers is also a seal colony, and we saw about 50 seals while we were walking. I wish we could trade a few of them for penguins, but it's still cool to see seals. At the highest part of the trek, where we saw the full size of the colony, we got a good view straight down into the water. A rock shelf extended about 100 m from shore, never deeper than 50 cm or so.
There were big cracks spider-webbing their way all over the shelf, the finest details of which we could easily make out through the shallow water. It was a cool pattern and easily the highlight of the trail -- or at least the part of the trail we walked. We didn't have time to make the full 3-hour hike, so we turned around early and drove in search of a camp site for the night.
There were disappointingly few options for a while. There was a closed hostel in town and a lot of non-vacant motels (not that we would have stayed in one anyway). We passed a "Lodge and Tree Houses" that sounded awesome but looked pricey. Nothing else came by for a while and we wondered whether we should turn around. But then we passed a sign for Seaside Pottery and Accommodation, and noticed some campers parked on the side of the road. We pulled in and things looked promising. There were a lot of tents and no registration signs. We passed a sign which introduced the area as a community project and which urged us not to litter, but, saying nothing else, confirmed our hopes that we had just found FREE CAMPING! We pulled off the road just before Seaside Pottery and Accommodation, the unrelated business which would not be receiving our business after doing such a lovely job of drawing our attention to the area.
We found a good spot by a tree that was a little sheltered from the wind and rain that looked imminent. I was immediately happy with the location; while Zach drove the car around from where we had pulled off, my job was to stay and hold the site. I did so by climbing the shelter tree -- a very climbable one, as it turns out -- and reveled in the sound and site of the ocean waves rolling over rocks, the green texture of the grass, and the simple pleasure of climbing a tree. We started cooking right away, hoping to beat the rain. Even though we have both a pot and a skillet, we only have one stove, which means we have to cook our pasta and our sauce separately. Zach always does the pasta first, since the sauce will hold its heat better and will effectively warm up the pasta. At Lake Paringa, I drained the water from the pasta while Zach started the sauce, but we both thought afterward that we should have left the water in as an insulator. So we tried just that tonight. Zach pulled the spaghetti off early because the water would continue to cook it after it was off the flame. Unfortunately, this effect was more pronounced than Zach expected and the pasta was a little overcooked. Live and learn, I guess.
It was still a good meal. The sauce was tasty -- red pepper, onion, and mushrooms cut into sevenths, even though I was kidding about that request. It was lightly raining as we ate, and had been since we started cooking. The water combined with the growing darkness made us want to get in the tent as quickly as possible. Wes, Zach, and I grabbed our headlamps and made final rainproofing adjustments to the tent. Ian braved the elements, walking out to the sea to do dishes. He looked epic cleaning our plates while the wind howled and water splashed all around him. By his reports, the experience felt as adventurous as it looked.
We scratched our plan to play caveman poker, as our "chips" were quite soaked and we didn't want to make the tent any wetter than it was. Instead we played a quick game of BS, which I haven't played in a while. Zach won because none of us were paying attention as he played his final card and simply kept going, not calling him on it until it was too late (he had, in fact, lied). Our prize for the poker game was going to be the right to sleep in the dry car. Since we didn't end up playing for it, we decided to give it to Ian, who does not have a sleeping pad and seemed to most want to be in the car. The rest of us unfurled our pads in the tent, giving us a nice dry surface, and went to sleep.
I was an early riser this morning, getting up at 6:30 to work on the blog and charge my electronics in the kitchen shelter. The three people who came and went in the time I was there made a total of one cup of tea for breakfast. The last guy, apparently on his way to go fishing, was intrigued with my netbook and asked me about getting one for his kids in school. Impressively, he even asked me what operating system I was running. I told him I thought it was a good deal and I enjoyed the portability. Happy with my answers, he wished me "cheers!" and went on his way.
I woke up the rest of the group at 8:00 -- I knew Ian's watch alarm would never do it, even though we keep using it for some reason. We ate our cereal with lukewarm milk and found it to be actually pretty good. It was not, however, filling enough, so Ian and I picked up some eggs in town. We got back to discover that the cereal had in fact been enough for Wes and Zach -- they hadn't eaten all of it, at least -- which meant that I ended up eating five bowls of cereal and about four eggs' worth of scrambled eggs. Pretty good-sized breakfast there.
After breakfast we remembered we had seen a zip line in the camp. We walked over to try it out, but quickly realized we would have no shot at it unless we were willing to pull children away. Deciding against that option, we packed up the tent and headed out. Our first stop today was Gore Bay. This was a nice little beach town with absolutely no grocery stores but a beautiful view. We made one PBJ each with the last of our supplies and spent a few minutes sitting in the sand enjoying the view. I waded into the very cold surf to soothe my overly bug-bitten feet. The ocean felt nice and I was ready to get back on the road.
We stopped for groceries -- essentially just boysenberry jam to restock our PBJ supply -- in a town called Cheviot. A little more driving brought us to Kaikoura, which was our destination for today. The area was marked, at least on the coast, by large rocky outcroppings jutting out into the sea, over which waves break dramatically. It was a very scenic drive and we pulled over at a lookout on top of the peninsula to take in the view and eat a second round of sandwiches. As we ate we remembered that this was the day Kyle and his grandfather would be returning to the US. We hadn't seen them since the drive from that very buggy lake.
We went to the grocery store in town to get some vegetables for the sauce for our pasta tonight, then drove down the peninsula to a trail we had read good things about. The section of coast the trail covers is also a seal colony, and we saw about 50 seals while we were walking. I wish we could trade a few of them for penguins, but it's still cool to see seals. At the highest part of the trek, where we saw the full size of the colony, we got a good view straight down into the water. A rock shelf extended about 100 m from shore, never deeper than 50 cm or so.
There were big cracks spider-webbing their way all over the shelf, the finest details of which we could easily make out through the shallow water. It was a cool pattern and easily the highlight of the trail -- or at least the part of the trail we walked. We didn't have time to make the full 3-hour hike, so we turned around early and drove in search of a camp site for the night.
There were disappointingly few options for a while. There was a closed hostel in town and a lot of non-vacant motels (not that we would have stayed in one anyway). We passed a "Lodge and Tree Houses" that sounded awesome but looked pricey. Nothing else came by for a while and we wondered whether we should turn around. But then we passed a sign for Seaside Pottery and Accommodation, and noticed some campers parked on the side of the road. We pulled in and things looked promising. There were a lot of tents and no registration signs. We passed a sign which introduced the area as a community project and which urged us not to litter, but, saying nothing else, confirmed our hopes that we had just found FREE CAMPING! We pulled off the road just before Seaside Pottery and Accommodation, the unrelated business which would not be receiving our business after doing such a lovely job of drawing our attention to the area.
We found a good spot by a tree that was a little sheltered from the wind and rain that looked imminent. I was immediately happy with the location; while Zach drove the car around from where we had pulled off, my job was to stay and hold the site. I did so by climbing the shelter tree -- a very climbable one, as it turns out -- and reveled in the sound and site of the ocean waves rolling over rocks, the green texture of the grass, and the simple pleasure of climbing a tree. We started cooking right away, hoping to beat the rain. Even though we have both a pot and a skillet, we only have one stove, which means we have to cook our pasta and our sauce separately. Zach always does the pasta first, since the sauce will hold its heat better and will effectively warm up the pasta. At Lake Paringa, I drained the water from the pasta while Zach started the sauce, but we both thought afterward that we should have left the water in as an insulator. So we tried just that tonight. Zach pulled the spaghetti off early because the water would continue to cook it after it was off the flame. Unfortunately, this effect was more pronounced than Zach expected and the pasta was a little overcooked. Live and learn, I guess.
It was still a good meal. The sauce was tasty -- red pepper, onion, and mushrooms cut into sevenths, even though I was kidding about that request. It was lightly raining as we ate, and had been since we started cooking. The water combined with the growing darkness made us want to get in the tent as quickly as possible. Wes, Zach, and I grabbed our headlamps and made final rainproofing adjustments to the tent. Ian braved the elements, walking out to the sea to do dishes. He looked epic cleaning our plates while the wind howled and water splashed all around him. By his reports, the experience felt as adventurous as it looked.
We scratched our plan to play caveman poker, as our "chips" were quite soaked and we didn't want to make the tent any wetter than it was. Instead we played a quick game of BS, which I haven't played in a while. Zach won because none of us were paying attention as he played his final card and simply kept going, not calling him on it until it was too late (he had, in fact, lied). Our prize for the poker game was going to be the right to sleep in the dry car. Since we didn't end up playing for it, we decided to give it to Ian, who does not have a sleeping pad and seemed to most want to be in the car. The rest of us unfurled our pads in the tent, giving us a nice dry surface, and went to sleep.
Something from a tree I climbed got stuck in my eye. This was my attempt to find it.
Also, thanks for reading the blog Eric and Patricia ;)
Eat Local
February 12
We woke up this morning to find free homemade bread waiting in the kitchen. Nice! It was already cool enough to suggest that our friendly fellow American girl had gotten up before 6:00 to make it. We checked out of the hostel and drove to a part of town where we believed we'd seen bakeries. We found a spot near the sidewalk where a young hoodlum was being reprimanded by two policemen for wearing an apparently gang-like bandanna over his mouth. As the youth walked away sans-bandanna, we walked in the opposite direction in search of doughnuts.
It didn't take us long to find a bakery. We wandered inside, looked around, and found... no doughnuts! Egad! Surely they have doughnuts in New Zealand! We acknowledged that none of us had actually seen any of them on our trip, and we resigned ourselves to less sugary pastries. If there are any doughnuts to be found in this country, they will wait for another day. After breakfast we drove to the Christchurch botanical gardens outside Hagley park. We didn't really understand the signs in front of the flowers -- most of them said "Rosa" (including ones that didn't seem to be roses), some of them had a date or two from the past few centuries, and a few had locations listed. The flowers themselves were pretty, and the landscaping was perfect. There were a wide variety of very large trees, plenty of green grass, and a river running through the garden on which people glided by on punting tours. It almost felt Italian.
The garden led us to a museum which occupied us for a large part of the three hours we had before our parking expired. The first exhibit we entered was on Maoris and Moas. The former is the name of the indigenous New Zealand people, whom I know very little about so far. The latter is the gigantic flightless, defenseless bird species that they drove to extinction. Both were intriguing and kept me lagging behind the rest of the group, as I ended up doing for the whole tour of the museum. The exhibit we spent the most time on after the Maori display was Antarctica. Christchurch Scott is the launch site of many Antarctic expeditions and the location of many memorials to them. In this room we got to see, among other cool but less recognizable things, a copy of Robert Scott's last journal entry. The handwriting was hard to read, but it was there nonetheless: a dying man's last words about his own death. It's a sad story and it's strange to see it retold so matter-of-fact-ly. I was so caught up in this area of the displays that I lost the group entirely and had to search through three separate floors to find them.
We didn't stay in the museum long after I caught up -- we instead found ourselves in the middle of a shopping area, unsure of how to get back to the gardens where we had intended to be the whole time. Fortunately, we managed to find our way back without much searching, leaving us with about 40 minutes to meander back to the car. We made our way to the central rose garden which was filled with pretty colors and smells. In the center of the roses was an oversized sundial with arrows pointing toward about six major world cities. Surprisingly, it listed their distances in miles rather than kilometers (the only English unit we've encountered so far is the Subway footlong). Almost as surprisingly, it showed London to the South. We realized that the North-up, equator-center view of the world is very strongly ingrained in us. I'm curious to see if there are similar conventions in world maps here.
The garden was our last stop in the city, so when we reached the car we got back on the road. Our first stop was Lyttleton. We picked up breakfast and lunch supplies here, along with some snacks. We kept driving around the coast until we reached a picnic area to have lunch -- which wasn't until 3:00. We ate tuna sandwiches and one peach each, just for Dustin, and drove on to Akaroa. The town had a beach that was lined with some kind of fern tree, giving it a tropical feel. Ian's guide book recommends walking along this beach to a nearby lighthouse. About 2/3s of the way there, we called it good enough. The lighthouse didn't appear to be very spectacular and we were ready to get to our final destination for the day: Okains Bay.
The road to the bay took an aesthetically pleasing but practically worrying turn when we drove into a cloud rolling out from the sea and over the hillside. For several minutes everything was shrouded in fog and we really hoped it wouldn't rain tonight. We started descending the hill, out of the fog, and reached the camp site with fairly clear skies.
The site was nice enough, aside from some strangely poor signs in the office (containing a single red quotation mark in black text, inconsistent fonts, erratic punctuation, and random spacing). We found a good spot to set up camp and scurried off to the beach while there was still light.
We quickly lost Zach. He had wandered over to the rocks at the end of the beach, hoping to find mussels. When we noticed he was not there, or anywhere in view, Ian said he had last seen him in front of the cave close to said rocks. We ventured bravely in and cowardly out, lacking, again, headlamps. The car was much closer this time than it had been at the sea caves, so we went back to obtain some light. As we walked back to the mussel-covered rocks, we doubted Zach had gone in any further than we had into the cave. We were proved correct when he came strolling down the beach behind us, bearing the news that we were allowed to gather and eat the mussels. We could do it safely, as well: he had talked to someone who regularly ate the mussels raw, to no apparent ill effect. We decided to do it, stopped back by the cave (which, it turns out, really doesn't go back any further than we did), then waded into the water. Zach instructed us only to get the really big ones, and advised us that they would probably be the furthest from shore. We did as he said and amassed a small bounty of shellfish.
Zach was excited about the endeavor. He had always wanted to do this, but had never been in an area where it was allowed. We talked about the fact that this would probably be the only totally free food we ever ate, and the freshest to boot (at least as far as animal food goes). We carried our treasure back to the kitchen, along with the ingredients for rice and beans. Zach boiled the mussels first, to serve as an appetizer. Still not a fan of mussels, I only had two to celebrate our unique gathering opportunity. I worked on the rice and beans while everyone else chowed down on the rest of the mussels. I enjoyed this part of the meal, and everyone ate their fill. After we cleaned the dishes we walked back out to the beach. The sand was nice and comfortable, but the clouds had returned and obscured our view of the stars. We went back to the car after a few minutes and set up the tent for the night. The area we found had a lot of straw spread over the already soft sand, so we looked forward to another particularly restful sleep.
We woke up this morning to find free homemade bread waiting in the kitchen. Nice! It was already cool enough to suggest that our friendly fellow American girl had gotten up before 6:00 to make it. We checked out of the hostel and drove to a part of town where we believed we'd seen bakeries. We found a spot near the sidewalk where a young hoodlum was being reprimanded by two policemen for wearing an apparently gang-like bandanna over his mouth. As the youth walked away sans-bandanna, we walked in the opposite direction in search of doughnuts.
It didn't take us long to find a bakery. We wandered inside, looked around, and found... no doughnuts! Egad! Surely they have doughnuts in New Zealand! We acknowledged that none of us had actually seen any of them on our trip, and we resigned ourselves to less sugary pastries. If there are any doughnuts to be found in this country, they will wait for another day. After breakfast we drove to the Christchurch botanical gardens outside Hagley park. We didn't really understand the signs in front of the flowers -- most of them said "Rosa" (including ones that didn't seem to be roses), some of them had a date or two from the past few centuries, and a few had locations listed. The flowers themselves were pretty, and the landscaping was perfect. There were a wide variety of very large trees, plenty of green grass, and a river running through the garden on which people glided by on punting tours. It almost felt Italian.
A greenhouse in the garden
The darker side of Christchurch: A maximum-security playground.
We didn't stay in the museum long after I caught up -- we instead found ourselves in the middle of a shopping area, unsure of how to get back to the gardens where we had intended to be the whole time. Fortunately, we managed to find our way back without much searching, leaving us with about 40 minutes to meander back to the car. We made our way to the central rose garden which was filled with pretty colors and smells. In the center of the roses was an oversized sundial with arrows pointing toward about six major world cities. Surprisingly, it listed their distances in miles rather than kilometers (the only English unit we've encountered so far is the Subway footlong). Almost as surprisingly, it showed London to the South. We realized that the North-up, equator-center view of the world is very strongly ingrained in us. I'm curious to see if there are similar conventions in world maps here.
The garden was our last stop in the city, so when we reached the car we got back on the road. Our first stop was Lyttleton. We picked up breakfast and lunch supplies here, along with some snacks. We kept driving around the coast until we reached a picnic area to have lunch -- which wasn't until 3:00. We ate tuna sandwiches and one peach each, just for Dustin, and drove on to Akaroa. The town had a beach that was lined with some kind of fern tree, giving it a tropical feel. Ian's guide book recommends walking along this beach to a nearby lighthouse. About 2/3s of the way there, we called it good enough. The lighthouse didn't appear to be very spectacular and we were ready to get to our final destination for the day: Okains Bay.
The road to the bay took an aesthetically pleasing but practically worrying turn when we drove into a cloud rolling out from the sea and over the hillside. For several minutes everything was shrouded in fog and we really hoped it wouldn't rain tonight. We started descending the hill, out of the fog, and reached the camp site with fairly clear skies.
The site was nice enough, aside from some strangely poor signs in the office (containing a single red quotation mark in black text, inconsistent fonts, erratic punctuation, and random spacing). We found a good spot to set up camp and scurried off to the beach while there was still light.
I don't even know where to start...
We quickly lost Zach. He had wandered over to the rocks at the end of the beach, hoping to find mussels. When we noticed he was not there, or anywhere in view, Ian said he had last seen him in front of the cave close to said rocks. We ventured bravely in and cowardly out, lacking, again, headlamps. The car was much closer this time than it had been at the sea caves, so we went back to obtain some light. As we walked back to the mussel-covered rocks, we doubted Zach had gone in any further than we had into the cave. We were proved correct when he came strolling down the beach behind us, bearing the news that we were allowed to gather and eat the mussels. We could do it safely, as well: he had talked to someone who regularly ate the mussels raw, to no apparent ill effect. We decided to do it, stopped back by the cave (which, it turns out, really doesn't go back any further than we did), then waded into the water. Zach instructed us only to get the really big ones, and advised us that they would probably be the furthest from shore. We did as he said and amassed a small bounty of shellfish.
Zach was excited about the endeavor. He had always wanted to do this, but had never been in an area where it was allowed. We talked about the fact that this would probably be the only totally free food we ever ate, and the freshest to boot (at least as far as animal food goes). We carried our treasure back to the kitchen, along with the ingredients for rice and beans. Zach boiled the mussels first, to serve as an appetizer. Still not a fan of mussels, I only had two to celebrate our unique gathering opportunity. I worked on the rice and beans while everyone else chowed down on the rest of the mussels. I enjoyed this part of the meal, and everyone ate their fill. After we cleaned the dishes we walked back out to the beach. The sand was nice and comfortable, but the clouds had returned and obscured our view of the stars. We went back to the car after a few minutes and set up the tent for the night. The area we found had a lot of straw spread over the already soft sand, so we looked forward to another particularly restful sleep.
The Tallest Mountain in New Zealand
February 11
It was another oatmeal morning today. As we took down the tent and packed up the car, things were feeling so routine that I forgot we were hiking Mt Cook this morning and not, as I was waiting to do, driving away.
The trail was supposed to be about three hours, and I was expecting to see a lot of sites. Unfortunately, we realized shortly after starting that we hadn't brought any cameras. My SD card is shot somehow (it isn't even recognized by my netbook), Ian's camera doesn't acknowledge any batteries you try to give it, neither does Wes's, and Zach left his in the car. And so it was left to me to document the glories of Mt Cook and the surrounding glaciers, lakes, and mountains on that most breathtaking of cameras: the iPhone.
The first picture I took was of a small gap in the clouds revealing the snow-covered slopes of a mountain. Mt Cook? Zach was the one who pointed it out, and soon after he noted another break in the clouds off to the left, revealing more mountain. We got to a lookout point staring straight at the area in between our two little windows. As we watched, all of the clouds slowly vanished, revealing ridge of mountains so large and gorgeous we were surprised it was not Mt Cook.
As we watched the unveiling, someone pointed out a waterfall flowing out from underneath the snow. Seemingly on cue, it let fall a big chunk of snow. The sound caught up several seconds later and we realized, even if we had heard it, we never would have seen much of it if we hadn't been looking at the exact spot right when it happened. This was our first and best view of many snowfalls today. We kept walking into Hooker Valley (we took the name totally seriously, I swear), slowly getting closer to the slopes of Mt Wakefield, which were obscuring the rest of the valley.
As the trail led us closer to the mountains, we got ever-more-spectacular views of them:
There was another glacial lake, several small waterfalls and snowfalls, and, at least on the mountains we were looking at, no vegetation. Given how much greenery there is in New Zealand, peaks like these particularly stand out. Mt Wakefield was the only green one, and on one plateau of the path, we finally, slowly, started rounding it and started to see the other side.
"We have another mountain!" I called back. Mt Cook was sliding into view.
The first thing I noticed was that, from this angle, the peak actually looked smaller than the ones we were passing. We never got quite close enough to it to compensate for this effect, and I would liked to have gotten another view of it. Nonetheless, it was a gorgeous mountain. It had the most pointed summit of any we've seen so far, which would probably make it an especially rewarding climb. The whole park here is dedicated to climbers. The registration area doubles as an alpine museum (and triples as a gift shop, of course), noting the achievements of the many climbers on the many mountains in this area. There was a catalog of all the people who had died here, listing names, dates, locations, and causes of their demise. There were about 250 of them. The trail we followed included an Alpine Memorial to the deceased adventurers, covered in plaques for each climber. There were a lot less than 250 of these. The walk ended at yet another glacial lake(/river). We had a snack break there and took in the best view of Mt Cook we were going to get.
As I said, this was still a gorgeous view. I snapped a few pictures and regretted only that I couldn't get far enough out into the lake to include some of the very large chunks of floating ice in my shots.
Before we left, Ian dipped his head in the very cold water (not the first time he's done this), only to be outdone by a group of teenagers behind us who swam out and sat on the ice.
The return journey went quickly for the most part. We did have to wait at both of the swing bridges. The first one was just for a small group of people. The second one was for a very timid guy who was crossing the bridge so slowly and carefully we didn't know whether to be impatient with him, sorry for him, or amused at him. He had a goofy look on his face the whole time, like he realized how silly his stride looked, was not comfortable changing it, but was actually enjoying the bridge after all (given that he had almost reached the end). The only delays after that were self-imposed. After we rounded the corner of Mt Wakefield going the other way, we saw and heard quite a few of those snowfalls. We paused for a while each time to scrutinize the snow, looking for the source of the last sound and trying to catch the next one early when it was most impressive.
We hit the road shortly after the hike. Our first stop was Lake Tekapo -- a stunningly and indescribably blue lake; light, bright blue with green, looks almost like we're in the sky and not just above a lake. This was Ian's Windows desktop picture for quite a while last year, and it's kind of incredible that we're actually here now. Even when I knew we were going to New Zealand, I didn't know we would make it to that particular beautiful piece of land. This lake is also home to the Church of the Good Shepard, a small building with an amazing view. The plain glass windows of the church inspire more awe than any stained glass.
After some consuming some PBJs, we got back on the road, bound for Christchurch. I drove this leg of the journey, and the road was as windy and hilly as ever. It's still strange to us to be on a major highway that is not totally flat and straight for most of the drive. We made it to Christchurch and checked into our hostel just outside the city. The girl behind the counter was an extremely enthusiastic American who appreciated the fact that we pronounced the last letter of our registration ("license plate number" = "registration number") "zee" instead of "zed" ("zee" = "zed", evidently... hadn't heard that one yet). We took a quick peek in our room: 6 beds, two already claimed. Artfully textured square metal plate on the wall. Standard enough. We went back to the car to drive into the city -- for some reason our hostel was a lot further from the downtown area than we expected.
Four blocks later, we realized we were rather close to downtown. Unable to find parking, we ended up driving back down the street toward our hostel, parking no more than a five minutes' walk from where we started driving. Christchurch was a a nice city. The streets felt very open, there was a lot of public art, and tram lines wound all around the streets. We split two large pizzas for dinner; Zach and Ian ordered the "Sweet As" (which is a phrase I have since seen on several t-shirts, but have yet to hear anyone use), which was topped with chicken, cranberry sauce, and brie. Wes and I got the Number 119, which had bleu cheese, broccoli, chilli peppers, and onion. Both were great. The Sweet As pizza was so sweet I saved most of my slice for dessert. Even Ian ate a little bit of the brie.
After dinner we walked to the park. On the way there we ran into the Tramway Restaurant, driving around the city while its patrons enjoyed their food. What a great idea!
The park was nice, though we didn't stay long. It was getting dark and we went back to the car to drive the three blocks to our hostel -- at least we were more sure of the parking there. We found the room not quite as we left it. The artful metal plate still hung on the wall and there were still six beds, but now four of them were sporting other peoples' stuff. We asked the French girl who had been in the room since we were last here how many people were already staying there.
"Four", she confirmed. Great. Reception was now closed so we had to rouse the enthusiastic American girl from her room upstairs where she was almost ready to go to bed. Chipper as ever, she pulled out the log, turned on the computer, and declared that we were exactly where we were supposed to be. So were the two girls who had checked in before us. That left the two intruders unidentified. The French girl told us they had been female, but knew nothing else about them. They were nowhere to be found now. Undeterred, our cheerful receptionist went with us to the room and helped us simply move all of the intruders' luggage into the hall, where she unsuccessfully, but politely, rummaged through it for identification. After that, nothing came of the miscommunication. The bags were gone when I woke up the next morning and the only thing Ms. Extrovert said was "Sorry for the mix-up last night, guys!"
Since we were in a hostel and it was still early (not much past 10:00 pm), I decided to seek out a power outlet and settle down to charge things, blog, and transfer pictures from my camera. This is when I discovered that my netbook wouldn't read my SD card. I already knew that my camera wasn't able to take or view pictures with it, but I hadn't used it since the last time I checked it on my netbook. Further discouraging was the fact that the wireless signal where our building was was too weak to use. I ended up typing very little before crawling into bed. At least we're getting doughnuts in the morning.
A few more Mt Cook shots:
It was another oatmeal morning today. As we took down the tent and packed up the car, things were feeling so routine that I forgot we were hiking Mt Cook this morning and not, as I was waiting to do, driving away.
The trail was supposed to be about three hours, and I was expecting to see a lot of sites. Unfortunately, we realized shortly after starting that we hadn't brought any cameras. My SD card is shot somehow (it isn't even recognized by my netbook), Ian's camera doesn't acknowledge any batteries you try to give it, neither does Wes's, and Zach left his in the car. And so it was left to me to document the glories of Mt Cook and the surrounding glaciers, lakes, and mountains on that most breathtaking of cameras: the iPhone.
The first picture I took was of a small gap in the clouds revealing the snow-covered slopes of a mountain. Mt Cook? Zach was the one who pointed it out, and soon after he noted another break in the clouds off to the left, revealing more mountain. We got to a lookout point staring straight at the area in between our two little windows. As we watched, all of the clouds slowly vanished, revealing ridge of mountains so large and gorgeous we were surprised it was not Mt Cook.
As we watched the unveiling, someone pointed out a waterfall flowing out from underneath the snow. Seemingly on cue, it let fall a big chunk of snow. The sound caught up several seconds later and we realized, even if we had heard it, we never would have seen much of it if we hadn't been looking at the exact spot right when it happened. This was our first and best view of many snowfalls today. We kept walking into Hooker Valley (we took the name totally seriously, I swear), slowly getting closer to the slopes of Mt Wakefield, which were obscuring the rest of the valley.
As the trail led us closer to the mountains, we got ever-more-spectacular views of them:
"We have another mountain!" I called back. Mt Cook was sliding into view.
The first thing I noticed was that, from this angle, the peak actually looked smaller than the ones we were passing. We never got quite close enough to it to compensate for this effect, and I would liked to have gotten another view of it. Nonetheless, it was a gorgeous mountain. It had the most pointed summit of any we've seen so far, which would probably make it an especially rewarding climb. The whole park here is dedicated to climbers. The registration area doubles as an alpine museum (and triples as a gift shop, of course), noting the achievements of the many climbers on the many mountains in this area. There was a catalog of all the people who had died here, listing names, dates, locations, and causes of their demise. There were about 250 of them. The trail we followed included an Alpine Memorial to the deceased adventurers, covered in plaques for each climber. There were a lot less than 250 of these. The walk ended at yet another glacial lake(/river). We had a snack break there and took in the best view of Mt Cook we were going to get.
As I said, this was still a gorgeous view. I snapped a few pictures and regretted only that I couldn't get far enough out into the lake to include some of the very large chunks of floating ice in my shots.
Before we left, Ian dipped his head in the very cold water (not the first time he's done this), only to be outdone by a group of teenagers behind us who swam out and sat on the ice.
The return journey went quickly for the most part. We did have to wait at both of the swing bridges. The first one was just for a small group of people. The second one was for a very timid guy who was crossing the bridge so slowly and carefully we didn't know whether to be impatient with him, sorry for him, or amused at him. He had a goofy look on his face the whole time, like he realized how silly his stride looked, was not comfortable changing it, but was actually enjoying the bridge after all (given that he had almost reached the end). The only delays after that were self-imposed. After we rounded the corner of Mt Wakefield going the other way, we saw and heard quite a few of those snowfalls. We paused for a while each time to scrutinize the snow, looking for the source of the last sound and trying to catch the next one early when it was most impressive.
We hit the road shortly after the hike. Our first stop was Lake Tekapo -- a stunningly and indescribably blue lake; light, bright blue with green, looks almost like we're in the sky and not just above a lake. This was Ian's Windows desktop picture for quite a while last year, and it's kind of incredible that we're actually here now. Even when I knew we were going to New Zealand, I didn't know we would make it to that particular beautiful piece of land. This lake is also home to the Church of the Good Shepard, a small building with an amazing view. The plain glass windows of the church inspire more awe than any stained glass.
After some consuming some PBJs, we got back on the road, bound for Christchurch. I drove this leg of the journey, and the road was as windy and hilly as ever. It's still strange to us to be on a major highway that is not totally flat and straight for most of the drive. We made it to Christchurch and checked into our hostel just outside the city. The girl behind the counter was an extremely enthusiastic American who appreciated the fact that we pronounced the last letter of our registration ("license plate number" = "registration number") "zee" instead of "zed" ("zee" = "zed", evidently... hadn't heard that one yet). We took a quick peek in our room: 6 beds, two already claimed. Artfully textured square metal plate on the wall. Standard enough. We went back to the car to drive into the city -- for some reason our hostel was a lot further from the downtown area than we expected.
Four blocks later, we realized we were rather close to downtown. Unable to find parking, we ended up driving back down the street toward our hostel, parking no more than a five minutes' walk from where we started driving. Christchurch was a a nice city. The streets felt very open, there was a lot of public art, and tram lines wound all around the streets. We split two large pizzas for dinner; Zach and Ian ordered the "Sweet As" (which is a phrase I have since seen on several t-shirts, but have yet to hear anyone use), which was topped with chicken, cranberry sauce, and brie. Wes and I got the Number 119, which had bleu cheese, broccoli, chilli peppers, and onion. Both were great. The Sweet As pizza was so sweet I saved most of my slice for dessert. Even Ian ate a little bit of the brie.
After dinner we walked to the park. On the way there we ran into the Tramway Restaurant, driving around the city while its patrons enjoyed their food. What a great idea!
The park was nice, though we didn't stay long. It was getting dark and we went back to the car to drive the three blocks to our hostel -- at least we were more sure of the parking there. We found the room not quite as we left it. The artful metal plate still hung on the wall and there were still six beds, but now four of them were sporting other peoples' stuff. We asked the French girl who had been in the room since we were last here how many people were already staying there.
"Four", she confirmed. Great. Reception was now closed so we had to rouse the enthusiastic American girl from her room upstairs where she was almost ready to go to bed. Chipper as ever, she pulled out the log, turned on the computer, and declared that we were exactly where we were supposed to be. So were the two girls who had checked in before us. That left the two intruders unidentified. The French girl told us they had been female, but knew nothing else about them. They were nowhere to be found now. Undeterred, our cheerful receptionist went with us to the room and helped us simply move all of the intruders' luggage into the hall, where she unsuccessfully, but politely, rummaged through it for identification. After that, nothing came of the miscommunication. The bags were gone when I woke up the next morning and the only thing Ms. Extrovert said was "Sorry for the mix-up last night, guys!"
Since we were in a hostel and it was still early (not much past 10:00 pm), I decided to seek out a power outlet and settle down to charge things, blog, and transfer pictures from my camera. This is when I discovered that my netbook wouldn't read my SD card. I already knew that my camera wasn't able to take or view pictures with it, but I hadn't used it since the last time I checked it on my netbook. Further discouraging was the fact that the wireless signal where our building was was too weak to use. I ended up typing very little before crawling into bed. At least we're getting doughnuts in the morning.
A few more Mt Cook shots:
Never seen drinking cappuccino in Italian restaurants with oriental women
February 10
It took us a while to get ready this morning, and we made a lot of trips back and forth to the car. Ian and Wes went to find an outdoor store to replace our broken tent pole (did I mention I broke a tent pole? It happened on the 7th, and we improvised a two-pole tent at the Holiday Park on the 8th, using rope tied on a water jug on either side of the tent to keep it taut). They found one that would do a repair, but not before 10, when our parking expired and we wanted to be on the road.
So, car finally packed but tent pole still out of action, we sat down for breakfast at the Orange Cafe, on the same block as our hostel. Zach and I ordered the eggs on toast breakfast and discovered that all of the breakfasts come with more toast. This amounts to six slices of toast for each of us, plus a lot of spreads. The eggs were poached in some sort of bowl a little smaller than a slot in a cupcake pan. It made the egg look somewhat like jello in that it resembled no particular organic shape. It was, at least, a very interesting way to serve eggs. It was probably easy to make, too. The most interesting part of breakfast, though, was marmite. "New Zealand's vegetarian spread" was a yeast spread and tasted like it -- to Zach, at least. To me, it tasted like soy sauce and was not something I wanted on my bread or really anything for breakfast. Though Zach didn't like it either, he "could see people liking it on toast". I can't.
The somewhere we're going to is Mt. Cook. We're just cutting a day off our stay in the South Island and moving our ferry back to the 14th (we managed this with nothing more than a phone call. Apparently we can even use the same ticket). Our first stop on the way is the Moeraki Boulders, a collection of very spherical boulders on a beach, and the location of the cover photo of Ian's guide book. Some of the boulders are cracked open like eggs or giant pokeballs. Others are shattered into dozens of pieces, none of which have been noticeably rounded into smaller spheres. I find these shards almost as interesting as the whole boulders.
Our next stop was supposed to be a blue penguin sanctuary, but the only ones we saw were in the gift shop. We did see a seal sunning itself on the rocks in front of us, making it the third one we've been close enough to walk to (assuming none of them were sea lions), the fourth one we've been within 10 meters of, and the umpteenth one we've seen at all. I didn't realize there would be quite so many of them.
I was reading ferociously to get to the end of my book while we were driving, so I didn't go in with the guys when they stopped to get salmon. It was a fishery that we stopped at, and visitors were apparently allowed to feed the fish for free. From what I heard, the fish were just as frenzied as the paid variety. We bought a 2.2kg salmon and got back on the road.
We paid our fee at the registration center at Mt. Cook before we went to the tent site. It was $6/person and we payed entirely in coins. Most of them were $1 and $2 coins, though 13 of mine were not :). We had no ill-will for the cashier; we just are not used to having this quantity, or this value, of change.
After the briefest of looks at our camp site, and a briefer debate about whether to upgrade to a cabin to avoid the rain (we chose not to), we headed off to walk a few trails and cook dinner. Barely having started the first trail, Ian wanted to veer off and climb a small hill. I told him I would if he did, and we charged. The charging didn't last long. The vegetation on the hill, combined with its quickly increasing slope, tired us out pretty quickly. We eventually had to crawl up the hill, using our hands on the ground for balance as well as rest. Toward the top, we started running into bushes that had long, but shockingly strong and sharp, leaves. Ian pricked his leg on one, but I only brushed mine enough to infer its piercing power. When we reached the top, we discovered our conquest to be a disappointingly narrow ridge, with barely enough flat ground to rest on and no chance of descending the other side (which was covered in not surprisingly sharp bushes), at the base of which Zach and Wes were contentedly following the trail.
"It makes you appreciate how tall those mountains are," I noted. We took a few minutes to catch our breath and then scurried back down the side we had worked so hard to climb. I enjoyed the exercise. Ian complained of being out of shape and we both want to exercise more while in Auckland. The simple act of buying/hiring ("rent" = "hire") a bike may go a long way toward that goal, given how hilly the city is.
By the time we caught up with Zach and Wes, the trail was almost as high as our ridge had been, but it was much easier to climb. We eventually reached the end of the trail and found it to be much higher, but still easier to climb than our hill. Perhaps there is something to be said for the many long, winding paths that have led us, by car and on foot, around the rippling landscape of New Zealand.
The track led to a glacial lake. We recognized the Grey color of the water right away, but the glacier was much less noticeable. Though it's just on the other side of some mountains from the Fox & Franz Josef glaciers we saw a week ago, this one, covered in rock and barely distinguishable, has a very different look. We notice what look like kayakers down in the lake. We sit looking at the lake and its floating ice for a while (long enough to realize the "kayaks" have motors), and go back down to the carpark to start the next trail... which again leads to the lake. We could have gone all the way down to water's edge this time, but the motorized kayaks were being pulled on shore there and we didn't want force our way through. When we were sick of the bugs and ready to start cooking, we went once again back to the carpark.
The fish, as with much of our food, was Zach's territory; he was the only one of us who had ever filleted one (though he couldn't believe that I, living on a lake, had never done it). He washed it in a stream and started slicing it on a picnic table. Those ubiquitous bugs started into us again, and when Zach was finished he decided we should drive somewhere else before cooking it. This turned out to be a good decision, as there were far fewer bugs on the lookout where we stopped. The fish was great, though we all agreed we could have gotten more of it. This seems to be recurring theme with our meals: they look like a lot of food while we're buying and preparing it, but it never really fills us all up -- the closest we've gotten was the mutton and cous cous dinner.
After wiping down the dishes with a paper towel (we didn't want to use our water jugs for cleaning, given that we were within driving distance of sinks), it was time to set up camp. The campground was already rather populated when we first drove through it, but we managed to find a nice little spot that was surrounded by trees and not close to any other tent. We wanted as much isolation as possible because we were planning on another game of caveman poker and didn't want to keep anyone up. Worried about rain, we had decided earlier to try to use our broken pole. Ian and Wes wrapped it in duct tape and slid it into place. It worked! I'm sure the tent has less structural integrity than it did before, but the pole is at least strong enough to keep the tent and the rain fly taut, which is what we want if there's a downpour. It's not yet 10:00, so we decide to do the poker game. The chips this time are small rocks, straw, and big rocks. We decided after the last game that it would be much more fun to have something heavy for our most valuable chip, so we each picked out five of the largest rocks by the tent. This wasn't enough for Zach, who wandered away toward what looked like a rocky (dry) river bed in search of the biggest rocks he could carry.
At stake this time was doughnuts. We decided to get them for breakfast some morning, and the winner will get some larger number than everyone else -- we were a little vague about the details. The game was fun. Zach especially made use of his 20-chip stones, dramatically lifting them into the center every time he bet them. I won some number of doughnuts, Wes made a midnight Ramen soup (which I spilled my entire share of), and we went to sleep for the night, cramped in the tent that sleeps four very tightly, hoping it didn't rain.
It took us a while to get ready this morning, and we made a lot of trips back and forth to the car. Ian and Wes went to find an outdoor store to replace our broken tent pole (did I mention I broke a tent pole? It happened on the 7th, and we improvised a two-pole tent at the Holiday Park on the 8th, using rope tied on a water jug on either side of the tent to keep it taut). They found one that would do a repair, but not before 10, when our parking expired and we wanted to be on the road.
So, car finally packed but tent pole still out of action, we sat down for breakfast at the Orange Cafe, on the same block as our hostel. Zach and I ordered the eggs on toast breakfast and discovered that all of the breakfasts come with more toast. This amounts to six slices of toast for each of us, plus a lot of spreads. The eggs were poached in some sort of bowl a little smaller than a slot in a cupcake pan. It made the egg look somewhat like jello in that it resembled no particular organic shape. It was, at least, a very interesting way to serve eggs. It was probably easy to make, too. The most interesting part of breakfast, though, was marmite. "New Zealand's vegetarian spread" was a yeast spread and tasted like it -- to Zach, at least. To me, it tasted like soy sauce and was not something I wanted on my bread or really anything for breakfast. Though Zach didn't like it either, he "could see people liking it on toast". I can't.
The somewhere we're going to is Mt. Cook. We're just cutting a day off our stay in the South Island and moving our ferry back to the 14th (we managed this with nothing more than a phone call. Apparently we can even use the same ticket). Our first stop on the way is the Moeraki Boulders, a collection of very spherical boulders on a beach, and the location of the cover photo of Ian's guide book. Some of the boulders are cracked open like eggs or giant pokeballs. Others are shattered into dozens of pieces, none of which have been noticeably rounded into smaller spheres. I find these shards almost as interesting as the whole boulders.
Our next stop was supposed to be a blue penguin sanctuary, but the only ones we saw were in the gift shop. We did see a seal sunning itself on the rocks in front of us, making it the third one we've been close enough to walk to (assuming none of them were sea lions), the fourth one we've been within 10 meters of, and the umpteenth one we've seen at all. I didn't realize there would be quite so many of them.
I was reading ferociously to get to the end of my book while we were driving, so I didn't go in with the guys when they stopped to get salmon. It was a fishery that we stopped at, and visitors were apparently allowed to feed the fish for free. From what I heard, the fish were just as frenzied as the paid variety. We bought a 2.2kg salmon and got back on the road.
We had to stop for a few sheep on the way
After the briefest of looks at our camp site, and a briefer debate about whether to upgrade to a cabin to avoid the rain (we chose not to), we headed off to walk a few trails and cook dinner. Barely having started the first trail, Ian wanted to veer off and climb a small hill. I told him I would if he did, and we charged. The charging didn't last long. The vegetation on the hill, combined with its quickly increasing slope, tired us out pretty quickly. We eventually had to crawl up the hill, using our hands on the ground for balance as well as rest. Toward the top, we started running into bushes that had long, but shockingly strong and sharp, leaves. Ian pricked his leg on one, but I only brushed mine enough to infer its piercing power. When we reached the top, we discovered our conquest to be a disappointingly narrow ridge, with barely enough flat ground to rest on and no chance of descending the other side (which was covered in not surprisingly sharp bushes), at the base of which Zach and Wes were contentedly following the trail.
"It makes you appreciate how tall those mountains are," I noted. We took a few minutes to catch our breath and then scurried back down the side we had worked so hard to climb. I enjoyed the exercise. Ian complained of being out of shape and we both want to exercise more while in Auckland. The simple act of buying/hiring ("rent" = "hire") a bike may go a long way toward that goal, given how hilly the city is.
By the time we caught up with Zach and Wes, the trail was almost as high as our ridge had been, but it was much easier to climb. We eventually reached the end of the trail and found it to be much higher, but still easier to climb than our hill. Perhaps there is something to be said for the many long, winding paths that have led us, by car and on foot, around the rippling landscape of New Zealand.
The track led to a glacial lake. We recognized the Grey color of the water right away, but the glacier was much less noticeable. Though it's just on the other side of some mountains from the Fox & Franz Josef glaciers we saw a week ago, this one, covered in rock and barely distinguishable, has a very different look. We notice what look like kayakers down in the lake. We sit looking at the lake and its floating ice for a while (long enough to realize the "kayaks" have motors), and go back down to the carpark to start the next trail... which again leads to the lake. We could have gone all the way down to water's edge this time, but the motorized kayaks were being pulled on shore there and we didn't want force our way through. When we were sick of the bugs and ready to start cooking, we went once again back to the carpark.
The fish, as with much of our food, was Zach's territory; he was the only one of us who had ever filleted one (though he couldn't believe that I, living on a lake, had never done it). He washed it in a stream and started slicing it on a picnic table. Those ubiquitous bugs started into us again, and when Zach was finished he decided we should drive somewhere else before cooking it. This turned out to be a good decision, as there were far fewer bugs on the lookout where we stopped. The fish was great, though we all agreed we could have gotten more of it. This seems to be recurring theme with our meals: they look like a lot of food while we're buying and preparing it, but it never really fills us all up -- the closest we've gotten was the mutton and cous cous dinner.
After wiping down the dishes with a paper towel (we didn't want to use our water jugs for cleaning, given that we were within driving distance of sinks), it was time to set up camp. The campground was already rather populated when we first drove through it, but we managed to find a nice little spot that was surrounded by trees and not close to any other tent. We wanted as much isolation as possible because we were planning on another game of caveman poker and didn't want to keep anyone up. Worried about rain, we had decided earlier to try to use our broken pole. Ian and Wes wrapped it in duct tape and slid it into place. It worked! I'm sure the tent has less structural integrity than it did before, but the pole is at least strong enough to keep the tent and the rain fly taut, which is what we want if there's a downpour. It's not yet 10:00, so we decide to do the poker game. The chips this time are small rocks, straw, and big rocks. We decided after the last game that it would be much more fun to have something heavy for our most valuable chip, so we each picked out five of the largest rocks by the tent. This wasn't enough for Zach, who wandered away toward what looked like a rocky (dry) river bed in search of the biggest rocks he could carry.
At stake this time was doughnuts. We decided to get them for breakfast some morning, and the winner will get some larger number than everyone else -- we were a little vague about the details. The game was fun. Zach especially made use of his 20-chip stones, dramatically lifting them into the center every time he bet them. I won some number of doughnuts, Wes made a midnight Ramen soup (which I spilled my entire share of), and we went to sleep for the night, cramped in the tent that sleeps four very tightly, hoping it didn't rain.
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