around the world in 180 days

            Today was a fine day. The rain from yesterday cleared and the sun was out for most of the day. We followed the west coast north, to Punikaki (my spellings of NZ town are terrible and I’m too lazy to look them up, please forgive me), where the famous pancake rocks and blowholes are. We headed up there primarily for a different hike, though, one that followed in the Inland Pack Track up a river to a couple of caves.

            The drive up to Punikaki was fantastic. The road followed the coast and wound through mountains and crossed tons of streams and creeks. The coast is jagged and full of bays and peninsulas and the views were incredible. In Punikaki, the pancake rocks and the blowholes were the main touristy things, but they were some of the coolest touristy things we’ve seen so far and they weren’t even at their best. The blowholes are supposed to be best at high tide, and we were about 2 hours early. The pancake rocks are layers of limestone laid down on top of each other so the rocks look like stacks of pancakes. Creative, eh?

            The caves were excellent as well. We hiked about an hour and a half through the rainforest, crossing a couple streams and walking through an area that had obviously been flooded in the last couple of days. There was a deep layer of sand across the trail and long leaves were wrapped around the bottoms of tree trunks, pushed there by running water. At the caves, only one of the two was safe to go in, but you could follow it about 200 meters back into the side of a cliff. There were all sorts of formations on the walls, floors and ceilings. It wasn’t like some of the tourist caves back in the states, but then again, there weren’t crowds of people or lighting or guides. We shut off our headlamps and stood there in the blackness for a minute or so, listening to the water dripping around us and seeing absolutely nothing. It was creepy.

            It looks like we’re still on for Avalanche Peak tomorrow. We’re in Arthur’s Pass, and the weather looks good. We’ve got our lunch all packed and we’re about to head for bed so we can get an early start. We’ve got tomorrow, and then we fly out the next day and we’ve still got a lot to do, like find a place to stay that first night in Sydney. It will all work out. It always does.

As our last days in NZ are slipping away, we’re busy trying to make the most out of the time we have left without driving ourselves crazy. We left Queenstown yesterday and drove north through the Crown Range and then Haast pass. We checked out some of the day hikes along the road, which traversed some incredible mountain scenery, but were left sort of unsatisfied. All of the hikes were short, like 30 mins or so, and most were crammed with people. They were alright and the scenery was incredible, but we both realized today that we’re looking for a hike that’s a bit more satisfying. We feel like we’re wasting our last days in NZ doing this touristy stuff. I guess this is one of the drawbacks to not planning ahead–some days the only things you stumble across aren’t what you really want to do.

We tried for a better hike today, settling on a 3 ½ hour hike to a seal colony, which would have been fantastic, had there been actual seals at said seal colony. I guess it was the wrong time of the year or day or something, but we saw one seal sitting out on a rock. They must be endangered. The walk itself was ok. We went through a dense rainforest-y area that was pretty cool, but we wore sandals instead of boots, which was a mistake. The trail was rocky and pretty muddy but oh well. We survived. We just got dirty feet.

Tomorrow will be better though. We’re spending tonight in a small, touristy town on the west coast called Hokitika and tomorrow we’re driving north to the pancake rocks area (Punikake), to do a river hike, as long as it isn’t raining. The hike is supposed to be beautiful. After that, we’re going to backtrack back down the coast a bit and head inland to Arthur’s Pass (which I keep calling Albert’s Pass for some reason) and on Friday we’re going to climb Avalanche Peak, again as long as the weather is good. Saturday we leave, flying to SYD to start a new section of our trip.

Last night we met some more Americans. Now that we’re getting ready to leave, they’re coming out of the woodwork. These two were retired gentlemen who were biking their way around NZ. They were from southern Illinois, but had spent a lot of time on the north shore and in the BWCA, so we talked a lot of MN, of fishing and of all the things we should check out next time we come to NZ. They were interesting and I enjoyed talking with them.

The other bit of news recently that some of you already know is that Anna got into St. Kate’s, so we’ll definitely be moving to the cities when we come back. This, along with our leaving NZ, has got us both thinking about what things will be like when we get back. Anna will have a lot of things to try to figure out from overseas and I think it’ll be stressful for her at times. I hope that I can help, and I hope that everything works out. I suppose it will—it always does.

Ok. It's been a while since I've written, so I've got a lot of ground to cover. This will be a long post. Click on the link below if you want to read it all . . . After I posted ... [Continue reading this entry]

Before we left Invercargill yesterday, we stopped by the DOC office and had a lovely conversation with an older lady who worked there. She told us that the Rees-Dart trek is her 2nd favorite, second to the Routeburn, which is ... [Continue reading this entry]

We hardly did anything today. We drove about 150 km,ending up in Invercargill, and saw a waterfall and a bog lake and went grocery shopping. Neither one of us slept well last night, as it was cold. Not MN cold, ... [Continue reading this entry]

We arrived in Dunedin yesterday, a town that reminds me of Duluth. As you come into town from the north, the road winds down a hill that overlooks the town and the harbor like 35 does coming down Thompson hill. ... [Continue reading this entry]

Except for the weather, which was quite windy and a little rainy, yesterday was an all around great day. We stayed in the small town of Renwick, which is in New Zealand's famous Marlbourough valley, the heart of NZ's wine ... [Continue reading this entry]

Yesterday was a very long day. We woke up beside the Whanganui river and slept in Wellington, which is about a 5 hour paddle and another 5 hour drive away. We're staying with Rich, a friend of Beth's, from ... [Continue reading this entry]