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Archive for March, 2009

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Kayak and Back

Friday, March 27th, 2009

We’ve been offline for a few days – way offline. After the rafting trip, we continued to make our way back to Auckland doing what I’m now calling our Week of Adventure. The next stop was Queen Charlotte Sound at the top of the South Island, which is a pretty combination of hills and inlets. We spent a day on guided kayak trip from Picton cruising around many coves, stopping for lunch on a deserted beach, and being followed by seals playing under our kayak. At the end of the day, we left the group to paddle up to our lodge for the night in Lochmara Bay. I’ve never arrived at a hotel this way before, but it seemed appropriate in the setting.

In the morning we hiked out from the lodge on the final section of the Queen Charlotte Track. It’s a nice 20k walk, but the highlight of the day might have been on the water taxi back to town. A group of 3 dolphins surfed, jumped, and played in the wake of the boat and it was a fantastic sight that we didn’t want to end.

We took a day off from the activities and caught the ferry back to the North Island. It’s bittersweet because it’s good to have a break from the campervan, but it also means that our time in NZ is getting shorter. However, we still had more things to do and we returned to Tongariro. When we stopped there on the way south, we passed up the Tongariro Crossing. It’s a 20k trail that is considered the “best one day walk in NZ” in the guidebooks and is always rated highly in those top-hikes-of-the-world-type lists. At that time, the weather didn’t cooperate and I just didn’t feel up to it. We vowed to do it on the way back and this time everything fell into place. The views include volcanic mountains, craters, alpine lakes, and even smoking geothermal vents. It’s an incredible track with Mt. Doom (Ngauruhoe) as the backdrop, and I’m thrilled that we did it. I’m also a little tired and looking forward to a few days in an apartment in Auckland to recuperate.

View from the Crossing: 

 blog-tongariro.JPG

 On the Queen Charlotte Sound:

blog-kayak.JPG

Posted in New Zealand, Travel | 2 Comments »

Mother Mother Ocean

Sunday, March 22nd, 2009

For the Parrotheads among you the blog title might conjure up an appropriate song. I’m referring to “A Pirate Looks at Forty” and that’s just what I’m doing. We celebrated my big four-oh with a white water rafting trip on the Buller River. There was even a section of rapids in the middle that you could swim, so of course we did. (“Swim” is a pretty ambitious term. What you actually do is jump out of the raft into freezing water, splash around until you get your breath, and then basically just try to keep your feet up in front of you and float wherever the river wants to take you until a guide fishes you out and back into the raft.)

It was just the thing to energize me and make be feel very much younger than 40… until later on when the stiff muscles set in. We ended the big day with dinner out – no cooking in the campervan! I tried to look back and reminisce a little, but it’s more fun to look forward to the next 40 and daydream about the adventure that is waiting. After all, that’s what Jimmy would do, right?

Here’s a view of something called the Pancake Rocks that we saw a few days ago. It has nothing to do with my birthday, other than that I had pancakes for breakfast.

blog-pancakes.JPG

Posted in New Zealand, Travel | 3 Comments »

Pastabilities

Thursday, March 19th, 2009

I could have used this blog to go on about the beauty of the Fox and Franz Josef Glaciers, but if you want to see what they looked like, check our photo gallery on Smugmug (link at right).

Instead, we should take some time to discuss the practicalties of campervan travel. Food is a big part of camping because, really, after the sun goes down, what other G-rated activity is there to do beside cook and clean up? With no TV, dinner consumes a large part of every evening.

Although we have a stove in the camper, most of the holiday parks have nice communal kitchens where you have more room and facilites to get your gourmet on. You can also spy on what other people are eating. For the most part, it’s a pretty sad offering with lots of backpackers making pasta out of noodles and ketchup (gross) and Germans frying up all manner of meats.

For our part, we’ve tried to keep to the same type of menu we made back home. Our California-Mexican-Mediterranean-Fusion style food is often hard to duplicate, but we do the best we can. On a side note, Aussies and Kiwis do not like their food as spicy as we do – store bought condiments like mayo or salsa are way too sweet. So, we’ve resorted to making a lot of things, like fajitas, from scratch.

Generally, we like our own cooking (which is good because Gordon Ramsay is not here), but occasionally we forget to pick up a few key ingredients and have to get very creative. Tomorrow we really need to get to a grocery store because we’ve run out of just about everything. Here’s a picture of what was left in the cupboard.

If you can combine these ingredients into something that is not disgusting, please send us a recipe…

blog-dinner.JPG

PS – We drank the wine and had tuna sandwiches.  The rest is still left for tomorrow.

Posted in New Zealand, Travel | 3 Comments »

Ring Things

Monday, March 16th, 2009

NZ is not just the home of rugby and bungy jumping. It also has an alter ego as Middle Earth. I’ve received quite a few questions about what locations we’ve seen. Up until now it hasn’t been much with the exception of Mt. Doom.

Arriving in Queenstown, it’s not hard to understand why many sites in this area were chosen. After an exciting jet boat ride (we had to do some kind of touristy adventure activity!), we headed off to seek out some filming locations. We started in Glenorchy, where Eric spent a morning fishing in the shadows of the mountains that stood in for Isengard, minus the tower that was digitally inserted. Here’s the spot.

blog-isengard.JPG

Back in Qtown, there is a farm with goats, llamas, deer, and other exotic game that was the site of many of the scenes of Rohan. It’s on private property, but you can pay about US$10 per car to drive and walk through it. The most famous spot here is the rock where Aragorn plunged over while battling the Warg in the 2nd movie. Yes, I know how geeky this all sounds, but in my defense we were far from alone at these sites, so I’m not the only one.

The next stop was my favorite. We hiked up to the top of the Remarkables (a mountain range) Ski Field to the Dimrill Dale. This is the spot where, at the end of the 1st film, the fellowship is recovering from the shock the Gandalf’s death. Unlike many of the other places which were heavily altered with special effects, this one looks exactly like the movie. It’s beautiful and luckily we had some great weather too.

The final stop on the way out of town was near a bridge where they bungy jump. Just behind it is a river in a sharp gorge where the “Pillars of the Kings” would have been. You have to really use your imagination for that one.

There are quite a few other locations here, but in the words of our favorite wizard, “All you have to do is to decide what to do with the time that is given you.”

Posted in New Zealand, Travel | No Comments »

Postcard from EnZed

Friday, March 13th, 2009

We spent the last few days in the Fiordland National Park and felt as if we had been teleported into a travel brochure for New Zealand. This area has the stuff of postcards or movie backdrops. We thoroughly enjoyed an overnight cruise through Milford Sound (and it was a nice break from the campervan too). The best way to see the fiords are on the water, and we got up close and personal in kayaks. The sheer walls of mountains make you feel very tiny.

Our next stop was a walk on part of the Routeburn track to Key Summit with great views of the peaks and alpine lakes. Here’s the picture that the NZ Tourism Board wants you to see:

blog-fiord.JPG

Posted in New Zealand, Travel | 1 Comment »

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