Monday, March 9, Home Again

Home again, home again, jiggidy jig. We left Auckland this morning, March 9, at 9 AM and arrived at San Francisco this morning, March 9, at 11 AM, via a six hour layover in Sydney, Austrailia. I wish the flight to NZ only took 2 hours on the clock. Unfortunately they wouldn't let us out of the airport, but it was a rainy day anyway. We did see the Sydney Harbor bridge and the Opera House from the plane! I took about 500 photos on the trip which I will gradually start posting this week at the Picassa site. I also noticed some of the photos from the blog have disappeared, and will add them, and others, back to the blog. I also noticed that due to my long windedness the older posts on the blog have rolled over to a "Older Posts" page. I hope you all enjoyed reading about our trip to New Zealand as much as we enjoyed being there. Sorry if I rambled on at times, but words really can't explain what a beautiful country it is. Next time we visit NZ, and there will be a next time, we'll spend more time there.

Here's the link to the photos. I am gradually adding more, so check back periodically.
http://picasaweb.google.com/nzmaples/NewZealand?feat=directlink

Sue and Ken

Sunday, March 8, Auckland

We woke Sunday morning to another beautiful, warm day. Actually it got quite hot today, felt like 80 in the sun, 60 in the shade, which is typical around here because the sun is really strong (broken ozone layer).

After breakfast in the kitchen of the B&B with the other guests (a very gay male couple, an older couple from England, a middle age - our age - couple from Florida, and a young Japanese couple who were getting married this afternoon), we packed up, checked out, and left our bags in her front hallway, and headed out.

We took a walk to the North Head area which is an old cinder cone from a 600 year old (not that old) dormant volcano located farther out in Auckland Harbor. We walked to the top of the cinder cone and could see for miles around Auckland and the surrounding islands. The harbor is huge, really a bay on par with San Franciso Bay, and has hundreds of boats of all kinds and islands of all sizes.

After our walk, we made our way to the ferry terminal and caught a ferry to Rangitoto Island, the 600 year old dormant volcano. It was fun getting out on the water and those ferries really move! After all, they have a schedule to keep and do it quite well. The only thing on Rangitoto Island is lava, young trees and bushes, people and a tractor that pulls a tourist "train" round the island, and most importantly to the top of the island so we didn't have to walk up. At the top we could look down into the crater, and also got a 360 degree beautiful view of all of Auckland and the islands.

By 5:00 we were back in Devonport, retrieved our luggage from the B&B (Stanley let us in the back door) and caught another ferry across the harbor to Auckland's main ferry terminal, where we knew we could catch the airport bus. While waiting for the bus a couple we had met back in Queenstown walked up to us! Small world! They had been sitting at a cafe and saw us get off the ferry. Keep in mind this meeting was several hundred miles from where we had first met.

This night we stayed at a hotel by the airport so we could easily catch our early flight out in the morning. The flight went from Auckland to Sydney, Austrailia, then to San Francisco.

Until we meet again, New Zealand...

Saturday, March 7 - Queenstown to Auckland

We woke to a beautiful mostly sunny day, had a leisurely morning, checked out of the hotel in Queenstown and made our way to the airport for our flight to Auckland. It was sad to say good-bye to Queenstown, but I know we’ll be back. After all, I didn’t get my chance to bungee jump!

We arrived in Auckland about 2:30 pm and caught a taxi to the bed & breakfast in which we are staying in Devonport. Devonport is across the water from down town Auckland, much like Sausalito is from San Francisco, and is very much like Sausalito. There is a ferry that connects Devonport to Auckland and all the islands around here. Tomorrow we’ll get out on the water one way or another (if the weather holds).

We didn’t arrive in Devonport until about 4:00 today, so we only had time to walk around town. They have a very nice water front with a park and sea wall, even a small swimming beach. The weather was great, mostly sunny and warm, about 75 degrees and humid.

We had dinner at a great Italian place, Buena Sera, run by a real Italian guy who makes all the pasta, sauces and everything himself. Ken and I agreed it was the best Italian dinner we’ve ever had. I had tortellini with a 4 cheese sauce and Ken had eggplant parmesan.

We have never stayed in a bed & breakfast before, so this is a new experience for us. This is a really cute Victorian house built in 1880 and overlooks the park along the water front. When we arrived we were greeted by Stanley, the very friendly yellow lab. Stanley appears to have greeted every guest for the last many years. Judy, our hostess, is from England and has kept up the entire front and back yard with beautiful gardens in which she takes great pride. Every square inch, including the front and back porches, has luscious greenery and flowers, and not a single weed. Our room is the one on the second floor front with the window open.

March 5&6, 2009, Doubtful Sound

Bright and early Thursday morning, we hopped on a bus and headed for the Fiordland of New Zealand. About 12:30 we arrived in Manapour.

There we boarded a water taxi boat that held about 35 people and spent about an hour crossing Lake Manapour.

At the other end we boarded another bus for a 30 minute ride which took us over a gravel road over Wilson Pass and down to Doubtful Sound.

What a view! At the top of the pass we looked down at the entrance to the sound. It is actually a fiord by definition (carved out by glaciers), as are all the “sounds” in this south western region of NZ. We boarded the boat about 2:00 PM and spent the next 20 hours on Doubtful Sound. Everyone has their most beautiful place on earth, but this beats all of them.

The day was rarely perfect weather for seeing the sound. Mostly sunny, about 70 degrees, not too windy. We headed out from the eastern most part of the sound (Deep Cove) toward the mouth of the sound at the Tasman Sea. It took about 3 hours to reach the sea. Along the way we saw water falls at least 2,000 feet high, mountains descending straight into the water covered by the native beech trees, moss and other tree and shrub vegetation I don’t remember the name of. The mountain sides are all rock, no dirt for the roots to dig into. The trees cling to the mountain side by spreading their roots into the moss that grows on the rock. You know this moss which is the stuff a florist puts in a potted plant or flowering plant you buy. That dried moss came from these sounds of New Zealand. So… the roots of these 20-30 foot tall trees clinging to a very steep mountain side are only an inch deep, but spread very wide. Periodically they have “tree slides” which are like an avalanche but instead of snow, it’s with trees. There are many scars on the hillsides running hundreds of feet from top to bottom and only several feet wide, from these tree slides.

About half way to the sea, we came across a pod of bottle-nose dolphins. There were about 10 of them. At first they were a ways out from the boat, but as we headed toward them, they saw us and came to the boat. They were jumping out of the water and swimming next to the boat in the surf at the front of the boat, jumping and playing. It was amazing to see them having such fun with us. They stayed with us for about 15 minutes.

At the opening of the sound to the Tasman Sea there were several small islands, which makes sense since the sound was glacier formed and the glacier left all these little islands at the end from all the silt and rock it pushed out as it moved. On these small rock islands we spotted hundreds of fur seals basking in the rare sun. After watching them for a while the captain of the boat turned us toward another small rock island where we spotted a rare crested penguin. This time of year they are stuck on land while they molt and replace all their feathers. It is a rare penguin, so were were really lucky to see him.

While in the sound we had a chance to kayak or go out in the boat’s tenders and snoop around closer to the shore. That was fine, except for the dreaded Sand Fly! They are worse then mosquitoes, although thankfully, the bites don’t itch as much. There is folklore that says that some goddess brought them in as a curse to keep people out of this beautiful area. It worked, because there is no one here, except us tourists. But it is beautiful!

About 6 pm we headed back into the sound and to a sheltered cove to anchor for the night. It was very calm, and after dark we couldn’t even tell we were on the water. We woke about 6:30 the next morning to the sound of our boat’s motors. It wasn’t daylight yet, but we got up and had breakfast. By about 7:30 daylight was starting to show through the pouring rain and fog which had settled on the fiord. The lighter it got, the more beautiful it got. I thought the day before was amazing with the sun, but this fog and mist created such a mysterious look with the steep rock walls coming straight into the calm water, with every hill side behind it slightly foggier. The rain brought out hundreds of waterfalls cascading down the mountain sides from thousands of feet straight up. This day was such an amazing contrast to the day before.

We returned to the dock by 10 am, boarded the bus that took us back over Wilson Pass to Lake Manapour, boarded the water taxi for another hour ride across the lake to our bus back to Queenstown. It rained heavy all the way back.

We checked into our hotel, then headed out to dinner at the restaurant the bus driver recommended – Botswana Butchery. It was in a cute cottage like house on the lake front, but the inside had been remodeled to be rather modern – lots of black and white. We arrived at about 6:30 pm in our jeans and wet rain coats. No we did not have a reservation but our bus drive recommended the place so they accepted us. We followed the receptionist to the second floor where she sat us in a small room, single table, two comfy, overstuffed wing chairs, all to ourselves with a fire place and a window view of the lake. This little room even had a door that they closed each time the waitress came and went. How we lucked out on this, we’re not sure, but we suspect that since we were dressed in our soggy jeans, they were trying to hide us. We had an excellent dinner (lamb and steak).

Now we’re back in our room and we’ll head out tomorrow morning for Auckland, and very sad that our trip is coming to an end. We could spend a month in Queenstown and not do everything! Sunset in Queenstown on our last night there.

Wednesday, March 4, Day two in Queenstown

The bungee jumping bridge.

I can’t believe how fast the time is flying by. Our trip is more than half over. Today was another beautiful day, not a cloud in the sky and about 75 degrees (same as yesterday). In the sun it is very hot, but in the shade it is cool. We have been told the NZ sun is very intense and I believe it.

Today we took a 45 minute drive north along Lake Wakatipa from Queenstown to Glenorchy at the source of the lake, which is the Dart River. This is the area where much of the Lord of the Rings movies were filmed. It is beautiful! You can very easily imagine you are in the Middle Earth, where the story took place. Along the lake the only sign of civilization is the road cut out along the hillside as it follows the lake. No boats on the lake and no buildings along the lake. Glenorchy and Queenstown are the only towns on this huge lake. Beyond the head of the lake is a fantastic view of Mount Earnslaw. It is beautiful snow capped peak, and in the foreground are lush green fields and the lake. (see photo.) The wind was whipping up on the lake today causing waves to roll and break onto the rocky beach. I’ve read that the lake is so long and big that due to “atmospheric conditions” the lake rises and falls 5 inches every day.

After having lunch at one of the 5 cafés in Glenorchy (the other 3 buildings in town were the Dart River Jet Boat activity house, a gas station, and a gift shop) we headed back toward Queenstown.

Sign on the cliff side dirt road to Chard Farm Winery.

You can see the dirt road cut out on the hill side in the center of the photo.

On the other side of Queenstown is a valley equivalent to our Napa Valley, but smaller. It’s about 15 miles long but only ½ mile wide, but on each side are wineries and vineyards. We finally did what we came to NZ to do – go wine tasting. We went to 3 wineries: Chard Farm, Peregrine Winery, and Gibston Valley Winery. We bought a bottle at the first two, but not at Gibston. Gibston had a cheese house where we did buy some sheep cheese. It is very good, much like parmesan. We’re now back at our room sitting on the balcony with a glass of wine and cheese, spoiling our dinner. We also have found out that to ship wine back to the US costs about $120 for every six bottles, so we’re not sure what were going to do about that.

Tomorrow we head out on an overnight boat on Doubtful Sound. The weather is supposed to stay nice until Friday (then rain), so we’re expecting to see some more amazing sights out on the water.

Tuesday, March 3, Queenstown

Today we had to decide what exciting adventure we would do in Queenstown – After all Queenstown is known as the adventure capital of the world. We could bungee jump, jet boat, sky dive, para-sail, kayak, 4x4, Luge, among just a few adventures.

We chose to start the day with jet boating on the Shotover River. We took their bus to their dock at the river, donned our “splash coats” and life jackets. It was a beautiful 75 degree day, so the thought of needing a splash jacket seemed silly, but we learned otherwise. The boat held about 16 of us and away we went. The water was usually no more that a couple inches deep, but these are jet boats which have no propeller, and can run in very shallow water. They took us through a beautiful gorge which steep rock walls. Of course the driver’s job was to make this as adrenalin filled as possible, so at about 60 miles per hour we zipped past vertical rock walls at only mere inches away. Then, with little warning the driver put the boat into a full 360 degree spin. The whole trip was quite exciting. We bought the video of our boat trip and intend to post it on YouTube. When we get it posted, we’ll let you know the address.
(Might be a while since when we got home we discovered they gave us the wrong video)
Back in town, we took a gondola ride to the top of a local mountain. Up there we opted to do the luge ride. It really wasn’t much, but it was fun. Kind of like a go-kart but on a slope. From up there we watched several parasailers. Looked fun, but too $$$.

Back at the bottom of the gondola, we decided to do a less adrenaline rush activity and took a drive to a little town called Arrowtown. It was a very cute gold mining town. On the return drive went via the local ski hill. Actually, we had to drive up about 2000 feet just to reach the ski lodge. From there the lifts carry skiers up about another 500 feet to the summit. While that doesn’t sound like much, it was all wide open like one giant bowl, not really a ski bowl, but like an inverted bowl. Not a single tree. Most of the area was intermediate to advanced, with just a small beginner area.

Tonight had dinner at Chico’s (not the women’s dress shop). It was very good, New Zealand food. Tomorrow we’re thinking of a 4x4 tour of the Lord of the Rings area and maybe a bungee jump!

Monday, March 2 Omarau to Queenstown

This morning we woke to a beautiful, partly cloudy day. We headed south along the coast, stopping to see the Moeraki Boulders. These are a very strange and unique group of about 30 perfectly round boulders on the beach, ranging in size from 2 feet to about 5 feet in diameter.

Legend has it that these are gifts from the gods, but in reality they are a geology formation from inside the bluffs above this ocean shoreline, that fell into the ocean.

From here we started driving west toward Queenstown. We arrived in Q-town by mid afternoon. Ken says it’s about the size of Reno, but I say it’s much smaller, more like South Shore of Lake Tahoe, but a couple square blocks condensed together. The residential area spreads out and up the hillsides away from the lake. The town is right on the shore of Lake Wakatipu, a beautiful mountain lake, again much like Lake Tahoe. Our hotel is about a mile north of town along the lake shore.

After checking in to the hotel, we relaxed on our balcony with a glass of wine and gouda cheese (a local specialty) and enjoyed views of the lake and surrounding mountains. We took the bus into town and had dinner along the wharf.

Sunday, March 1 Wanaka to Omarau

This morning Wanaka was very rainy. We hit the internet café then took a drive to Treble Cone ski area which is in the mountains above Wanaka. Along the way saw several cows that were wandering along the roadside – no fence between them and the road, and they left plenty of evidence they had been on the road! The road up to Treble Cone was gravel for most of the way from below snow level up to the ski area, so we’re not sure how easily traveled it is in the winter. The road was closed shortly after it became gravel so we don’t know what it was like around the next corner.

From Wanaka we drove about 3 hours eastward to Omarau, on the east coast, where the Little Blue Penguin Colony is located. The drive took us through very barren mountains, which leveled out as we neared the coast. Omarau is nothing and only known for the penguins. We had dinner at a pub called Fat Sally’s. Great food, and we saw Fat Sally – aptly named. Then just at dusk we went to see the Little Blue Penguins. They are sort of nocturnal. They spend all day from an hour before dawn, out at sea fishing. Then just after dusk they return to their colony on land. The viewing place is a small grand stand and they light the area with a light spectrum the penguins can’t see so they are not afraid to come ashore. Just at dark they start coming ashore in groups of about 5-10 penguins. They climb/waddle up a rocky steep shore up to their grassy colony area. They are really cute – about 15-20 inches tall, and look just like any penguin you would imagine, except their backs are blue. When they get to their grassy colony, they start calling each other with a very strange sound that I can’t really explain, except it sounded like a high pitched snoring. We were not allowed to photograph so nothing but post cards of these little cuties.

Saturday, Feb 28 Franz Joseph to Wanaka

We had a very nice drive from FJ to Wanaka. The skies were cloudy, but no rain. As we headed south the road continued over many more one-way bridges, some suspension bridges, some truss, and some just cement. At least half of the bridges are one-way bridges, but we haven't seen any more that share the railroad tracks. It was interesting to note that the suspension bridges often had a sign that heavy trucks should cross only one at a time. Every so often the road took us along the ocean coast. In California these coastal views would be worth a million but here they are so remote that no one cares. The landscape continued just as we had seen most of the west coast, with mountains, mostly rounded at their top and covered with luscious green vegetation/trees (not a pine forest, probably beech trees and ferns). Many rivers come out of the mountains, each of which the road must cross. At times we drove through rain forest with many ferns and moss covered trees arching over the road. After Haast, the last town on the coast, the road turned east and headed up through Haast Gorge and Haast Pass. At Haast Gorge the river looked more like a Sierra mountain river, in that it was only about 20 yards wide and full of large boulders, and fast, clear, blue water pounding its way down hill. The mountains began to look sharper, rockier and less rounded.

Fantail Falls, near the Haast Gorge, with hundreds of cairns (stacked rocks) people had built on the river bed. I built one too to commemorate our visit.

We came through the pass and to the northern end (the start) of Lake Wanaka. The lake is about 27 miles long, but only about 10 miles wide, formed by an ancient glacier, and had a resemblance of Lake Tahoe, but not as wide and with only one town along the lake shore (Wanaka). Mountains surrounded the lake. This time of year no snow on the mountain peaks, but post cards show beautiful sunny days with snow caped peaks.

After our relaxing 5 hour drive, we arrived in Wanaka. We checked into the hotel. Ken noticed that the local airport was having an air show, so of course that's what we did next. However when we arrived at the airport it had ended. We did get their in time to see a group of ski-divers just landing. After the airport we went to town, walked around and had an early dinner at Relishes Restaurant. Very nice. I had salmon and Ken had a mushroom fettuccine dish. We have found the food in NZ to be fantastic. I was worried because of the similarity to England, but they have figured out how to do great food in NZ.

Back at the hotel, Ken took a sauna, I uploaded photos. Today's photos were not very good due to the overcast skys.

It started raining, hard, while we were at dinner. It’s forecast to rain tomorrow also. So instead of sunning ourselves at the Wanaka beach, we plan to take a drive to the local ski hill, named Treble Cone. Summer now, but we can get an idea of what their skiing might be like. A month ago I would have said NZ skiing was not much, but after seeing the mountains around here, I have a total respect for the excellence that NZ skiing must be.

Friday, Feb 27 - The Glaciers

Don't cross the yellow rope or you will DIE. We crossed and had a great (safe) adventure.

The path to the glaciers walking through rain forest that opens up to the glacier.

Franz Joseph Glacier.

Artistic Franz Joseph Glacier.

Watch for falling rocks Ken.
Swing bridge at Fox Glacier.
My favorite photo of the whole trip. The glacial mountains (Mt. Cook) in the background.

We went to bed last night to pouring rain. This morning when we woke up the sky was mostly blue and sunny with just a few clouds. Looking out our front window we could see the snowy peak of Mt. Cook. Yes, the weather gods are on our side today.

Today we did Franz Joseph and Fox Glaciers, both NZ national parks. These were very unlike visiting a US National park. There was no entrance fee and no crowds! We found a parking space with no problem.

We started at Franz Joseph glacier. There was a nice gravel walking path leading us to the glacier. The start of the path was through a green deciduous rain forest area with lots of ferns and overgrown bushes and trees, which made an archway or tunnel over the path. Shortly we came to a viewing point right at the edge of the glacial river bed. What a view! We could see up the river bed (another very wide gravel river bed with a milky, light blue, river meandering down the middle). The forested path dumped us out onto this gravel river bed leaving us to make our own pathway through it toward the glacier. We trekked our way through gravel and rocks of all sizes, from fine silt and pebbles to rocks the size of half a car, but most were the size of a throw pillow. The striations on most of the rocks were very different than anything I’ve seen in the US. The rocks had thin layers pancaked together. The layers were only about 1/8th inch thick. As the water wore down the layers they wore at different rates leaving the edges of the many of the rocks look like petrified wood. In addition to these rocks, there were also quartz and granite rocks, but all well worn.

The glacier was quite a ways out from where we started walking – maybe two miles. After about a mile we came to a rope across the area with signs warning not to go beyond the rope for fear of falling rocks, high water, and other “hazards.” Most people stopped here and took their share of pictures. From what we could see the area beyond the rope was the same as the area on the “safe” side of the rope. We could see that many people had crossed the rope and ventured closer to the glacier. While we were contemplating whether we should also venture on, a tour group came through and went right on through the rope. The literature we read said the tours take you either up to the terminus of the glacier or onto the glacier. But of course you had to pay big bucks for such special access. The signs did not prohibit access, just warned of dangers, so we proceeded to go beyond the rope. We walked about 1/3 a mile and came to a point where a cliff wall came straight down into the water, so we couldn’t pass through. However we knew the tour groups were getting through, and we had seen them climb up into the wooded/brushy area above the river bed bank. We decided to stop for our picnic lunch on a large flat rock. While eating, a couple people came out of the woods right onto the rock we were sitting on. Well hidden, was a path that lead up into the woods then paralleled the river again. After our lunch we venture up this path. It was more like a small creek with flowing water. We were able to keep our feet dry because plenty of rocks to step on. This was a steep climb up this creek bed. The tour groups had strung climbing ropes from tree to tree along this creek-bed path to assist in climbing up the rocks. After a short while we decided to turn around and head back to the rocky, river bed.

We returned to the car, and it was only 2:00, so we decided to head to Fox Glacier, which is about 10 miles south of Franz Joseph Glacier. At Fox Glacier, they had two entrances – the glacier access or the view. First we went to the “view.” We started down a path through a very damp rain forested area. The brush was do dense we couldn’t see 10 feet into the woods. Trees were dripping with moss. We haven’t been to the Lord of the Rings area yet, but this must be what it is like. Must have been 99% humidity – my hair became one big frizzy curl. After about a half mile of down hill, we came to the glacial river from the Fox Glacier, and an old rickety suspension “swing” bridge over the river. This bridge was more interesting/fun than seeing the glacier. It wasn’t until we got to the other side that a sign said “caution, no more than 5 people on the bridge at a time.” Well, I guess we had to cross back – it didn’t collapse on the first crossing so I guess it wasn’t going to collapse on the way back. Part way back Ken noticed that the suspension cable was very rusted and should be replaced, so he stopped jumping and swinging the bridge.

After this walk we drove to the glacier “access” parking lot. This got us much closer to the Fox Glacier terminus than we could get at the Franz Joseph glacier terminus, so we got a much better look, close up, at a glacier.

After Fox Glacier we stopped in the small village of Fox Glacier for a pizza, early dinner on our way back to our hotel at Franz Joseph village.

It was a beautiful day. I’m not sure how warm it got, but it was t-shirt weather in the sun, and a light sweater was nice in the shade of the rain forest. It’s almost 8:00 pm and I’m sitting on our patio writing this. The sun has not set yet, and I believe will set about 9:00. It has been rising about 7 am.

Note to Robin – the restaurants around here all have gluten free options identified on their menus! And the little grocery store in town has a huge selection of gluten free (rice) crackers.

Photo of one way bridge with Train tracks

Thursday, Feb 26 - TransAlpine Train

We’re off to Greymouth on the Trans-Alpine train which runs from Christchurch to Greymouth. Met a family from Ottawa Canada. They’ve been traveling for 4 months around the world, having been in NZ for a month already. They said a month is not long enough to see NZ. They have 3 kids ages about 10-15 and the mom is home schooling them along the way.

The train ride was quite nice. Departed Christchurch at 8:15 AM and arrived in Greymouth at 1:00. The views were beautiful. First we went through the industrial part of Christchurch, then to the countryside. Lots of sheep and cows, some horses in pastures along the tracks. Fields were separated by tall rows of trees or very tall hedge-rows. We followed most of the time along a river that flows out of the mountains. All the rivers around here are very wide and shallow and the water meanders in several figure "8s" through this very wide shallow, flat river bed. The river bed is wide because a couple times a year the water actually fills up the whole width due to heavy rain in the mountains causing the water to bring silt and gravel down from the mountains. The water is also very clear and mostly not glacial looking, however there are some parts that do look glacial.

At the top of the pass, Arthurs Pass, they let us off the train for 5 minutes to look around. There was nothing there but the train station. Back on board and under way, we soon came to the longest of the 19 tunnels we went through. This one was 8 kilometers (about 5 miles) long, and reported to be the 7th longest tunnel in the world. On the Christchurch side of the tunnel the weather was nice, on the Greymouth side, it was foggy, with low clouds that hung on the mountain peaks and threatened rain.

In Greymouth we had lunch at a little place in town. I had a panini that was very similar to the one Florian serves at Hally K’Ono. This one was chicken, brie and apricot jam, but tasted just like Florian’s chicken, brie, pear panini. Maybe she’s from New Zealand?!

In Greaymouth we rented a car and started driving south along the West Coast of NZ. Ken drove and his left side of the street driving came right back to him since living in England 24 years ago. The roads are nice and in good shape. The only thing that was really different is that many of the bridges crossing the rivers (plenty of them) were one lane bridges AND at least two of the bridges we crossed were also shared with the train track! Yes, one lane shared by two opposing directions of traffic plus a train! We didn’t see any trains near these bridges but all indications were they are active tracks.

It started raining about half way to Franz Joseph (our stop for tonight). The whole drive from Greymouth to Franz Joseph was about 2 ½ hours of beautiful cloud shrouded mountains and fields.

After checking into our hotel we drove into town, 3 km down the road. Still raining. Town is one block long, with two restaurants, a small grocery store, two gift shops, and several tour outlets for helicopter and guided glacier hike tours. Due to the low clouds we have seen no sign of a glacier yet, but heard tomorrow might clear up a bit. I hope so, since the post cards really make it look amazing. Even if the rain doesn’t stop, we’ll probably try a walk to the base of the glacier, just to say we did. Rain doesn’t seem to stop people around here. We have rain jackets, but maybe it's time to buy rain pants, too.

Wednesday, Feb 25 - Christchurch

We made it to Auckland! We lost a day, and it’s now Wednesday. NZ is a day minus 3 hours ahead of California. They are one of the first countries to be on the west side of the International Date Line.

We never left the airport in Auckland and flew directly from there to Christchurch, which is on the middle of the east coast of the south island. (Auckland is on the north coast of the north island.) Checked into our hotel, The Rydges, by 1:30 PM, now time for a nap since sleeping on the plane was worthless. Actually, Ken is napping, and I’m writing.

Christchurch is a very pretty city. It has a very English feel to it, and actually that was apparently done on purpose when the town was first established. They imported native English trees, and kept the English architecture for homes and other buildings. In the center of the city there are several more modern buildings mixed in (by modern, I mean built in the 1970’s instead of looking “old English”). Our hotel is one of those, but they have upgraded it recently and it has all the 2009 modern conveniences and style. We’re on the 10th floor and probably one of the tallest buildings in this downtown Christchurch area. Across the street from the hotel is the River Avon, and on the other side of the river is a huge, beautiful park. When Ken wakes up we’ll take a walk and check out the area and find a place for dinner.

Took a walk along the River Avon. It is really quaint with ducks and flowers along the banks. Every block where the street crosses the river is a cute old bridge. We walked around this part of Christchurch for a while. Every other store is a gift shop, a restaurant with cafe style seating on the sidewalk, or very upscale women's shops. We also found a great internet cafe (there right now posting this), and hope we are so lucky in every town we visit. After this we're heading out to find dinner at one of the cafes.

Tomorrow we board the train bright and early and head west to the west coast.
More next time...

Monday, Feb 23 - California to Auckland

Finally our departure day arrived. Super Shuttle was all lined up to take us to the airport. The only problem was that it had been raining for the past few days and flights had been delayed for up to 2 hours, which meant we’d miss our connection.
Good sign #1 – Super Shuttle showed up 15 minutes early and we were the only passengers. Good sign #2 – Our airplane was coming in from Hawaii and had already landed by the time we arrived at the airport so no delays. Yea! We had no problem making our connection.

Packed and Ready

We're packed and ready to go!
Managed to get everything into one suitcase with room to spare for souveniers.

Link to photos

Here's a link to our Picasa photo site where we will post our photos.
Enjoy...
http://picasaweb.google.com/nzmaples/NewZealand?feat=directlink

Planning for New Zealand

This blog is set up so our friends and family can follow us on our trip through the south island of New Zealand from Feb 23 to March 9, 2009.