Kaikoura -- The Final New Zealand Installment

Our last destination on the South Island was the seaside town of Kaikoura, on the northeast coast. We chose this town for the possibility of seeing New Zealand fur seals and it was a good place for Paul to make a cold-water dive. The drive up the coast was pretty and we passed through many tunnels cut into the mountains. Kaikoura is a typical tourist seaside town with the shops and the restaurants, but the scenery was not so typical. The mountains seemed to plunge right into the ocean. It was gorgeous. It rained most of our first day in Kaikoura so we took the opportunity to hit the shops. We all were quite successful in our souvenir shopping. Paul got a sheepskin rug and a NZ possum fur to add to his museum back home. I bought tons of yarn and have big ambitions of knitting my first adult sweater. Emma chose the more classic souvenir of a NZ t-shirt. We feasted on fish and chips and enjoyed walking around the quaint town. This mural was painted on the side of the town's library and the fake whale ribs lined one of the park walkways. The rain let up in the afternoon and we headed out to the peninsula to find some fur seals. The first one we saw was this sleeping female. We also enjoyed the signs everywhere warning people not to move the seals. Move a sleeping seal? Is this the equivalent of cow tipping? I don't know why you would move a seal or where exactly you would move it to, if you could even lift it.The big splurge of our trip was to stay in a bed and breakfast for my birthday. The bed and breakfast I booked was on a farm and Emma enjoyed their sheep shearing show. We also went to a historic whaling home. The structure of the house was built with the vertebrae of whales. Emma loves history and visiting these type of homes/museums is one of her favorite things to do. She often says that if she had one wish it would be to live "back then." The next day the weather was perfect and we headed to the dive shop to drop Paul off for his scheduled dive. Unfortunately, the previous day's bad weather had churned up the water too much and the dive was cancelled because of poor visibility. Paul was quite disappointed and I know he, unlike other tourists, would have been happy to dive in any condition. Instead of diving, we walked along the coast and saw more fur seals. By the end of our trip, we saw over 100 of them! At sunset we took a walk on this ridge over the ocean. We had a spectacular view and Emma got really goofy during our photo shoot. Finally... it only took me over a month to get these posts on the blog! Maybe part of me wanted to hold onto our trip a little longer. This covers the highlights of our New Zealand trip. Although it is such a small country, there was so much more we would have loved to see. We would definitely like to go back someday.

Holiday in the Holiday Parks

We stayed in a variety of accommodations during our trip: hotels, hostels, a bed and breakfast, cabins, but most of the time we slept in campgrounds. The most common New Zealand campgrounds are the ‘holiday parks.’ These campgrounds are everywhere and filled with amenities that I’m not used to in a typical campground: kitchens, pools, playgrounds, laundry facilities, computers with internet, and more. I often prefer to be out in the backcountry, but stopping at these campgrounds perfectly filled our traveling needs. I enjoyed cooking in the common kitchens with all of the yummy fresh food we had purchased at the grocery stores (yes, the grocery stores were truly a highlight of our New Zealand trip).

Our little social butterfly loved staying in the campgrounds and Emma quickly made friends each time. At the very least the campgrounds had playgrounds, but most also had trampolines or giant bouncy pillows. Even the backpacker Paul had some fun at the holiday parks, especially the day he was pretending to be a superhero with our tent tarp. On Christmas morning we woke up at a holiday park and proceeded to have a very un-Christmas like day. The campground was packed and it seemed strange that kiwis celebrate Christmas in the summer with camping and barbeques. Many of the kiwis even had little Christmas trees in or around their tents. Emma’s big Christmas celebration was renting this cool bike for a half hour. She was thrilled. Who needs to open dozens of presents on Christmas?I got my Christmas wish of delicious pancakes at a restaurant and then we did what we did every other day of our trip and went hiking. We were headed to the Peel Forest and along the way we passed by Lake Pukaki, another one of NZ's scenic lakes. It was another gorgeous day and we were lucky to see the impressive Mt. Cook (NZ’s highest peak) without any clouds obstructing the view. We arrived at the Peel Forest and had our choice of many hikes. We opted for the Big Tree Walk to see some huge cedar trees, and a second hike to Acland Falls. Although we kept forgetting it was actually Christmas, it was definitely a memorable day.

Mt. Aspiring National Park

Before going to New Zealand, both Paul and I picked Mt. Aspiring National Park as one of the places we wanted to backpack. After stocking up on supplies in Wanaka, we headed out of the town towards the National Park. It was extremely dry and hot in Wanaka and it reminded me of being in the small, mountain towns of Colorado in the summer. By the time we reached the trailhead it was quite chilly in the mountains and with the approaching clouds it looked like we would end up getting rained on. We hiked up the West Matukituki Valley, along the glacier river by the same name. We were surrounded by mountains with waterfalls pouring down everywhere, forming little streams that flowed down into the big river. Again, the scenery was spectacular. Sheep could be seen grazing all over the valley and hillsides (in the picture below all of the white dots are sheep). At one point we encoutered a farmer and his dogs, herding the sheep. We sat down and watched, and Emma especially enjoyed getting to see the lambs close-up. The wind kept picking up as we hiked and at one point I literally felt like I was going to fall over (it could have something to do with my pregnancy imbalance and the pack I was wearing!). The 25 mph winds slowed us down quite a bit and then the rain came. It started to pour and we eventually decided to stop for the night, a bit sooner than we anticipated. Paul quickly threw the tent up in the rain and we all got in and out of our wet clothes.

Despite the rain, Emma was having the time of her life. She loved carrying her own pack and it had been over two years since we really backpacked. It is almost sad that she has forgotten so many of backcountry adventures. One of the highlights of this trek was the freeze-dried ice cream we brought along. This is the same stuff that astronauts eat and Emma loved it! It rained and rained all night long. In addition to the rain, the black flies were so bad. We left the tent only to go to the bathroom and within seconds we would be covered with the biting little pests. In the morning, we woke up on what felt like a waterbed. During the night a stream formed that flowed directly under us. We put on our dry clothes and ventured out into the rain. We used a trick from our childhood of wearing plastic bags inside our boots in hopes of keeping our feet dry. We packed up our wet belongings and headed off.

Below is a picture of one of the mountain streams that we crossed on the way into the National Park. It was raining too hard to get the camera out for the 'after-shot', but overnight this and other streams had become more like raging rivers. We were forced to ford the streams, walking in ice-cold water all the way up to our thighs! So much for the plastic bags on our feet -- we were drenched! We intended to be out for two nights and also hike the Rob Roy Glacier Track, but everything we had with us was soaking wet. Despite the rain we all enjoyed our backpacking adventure and wished we didn't have to cut it short.

Haast Pass, NZ

After driving and sightseeing along the west coast for a couple of days, we headed inland and crossed the Haast Pass through the mountains. The winding drive was spectacular and we crossed many bridges along the way. Each time we had to check for oncoming traffic as almost all the bridges on the South Island are only one-lane! We had a whole day to complete this 145 km drive so we made several stops and hikes along the way. There were lots of waterfalls to stop and see. We randomly stopped at a hike called Blue Pools and it turned out to be gorgeous. The hike through the woods was pretty and we got to cross yet another swing bridge over another of New Zealand's beautiful rivers. The hike ended at the so-named Blue Pools and they certainly lived up to their name. We could see lots of huge trout swimming in the crystal-clear pools and had it not been for the freezing water, it would have made a good swim. Emma played along the river, alternating between being a goat or being Gollum from Lord of the Rings. In this picture she looks exactly like Gollum and her voice was also a perfect creepy match to the character.The Haast Pass travels by two amazing lakes before ending in the town of Wanaka. It was a perfect sunny day and the surface of the lakes looked like glass. Lake Wanaka was the first lake we saw, but the second lake, Lake Hawea, was even more spectacular.

More Monro

So I have to add one thing to Melanie's post on our Monro Beach hike. Just before we set out for our hike we came across... a Paradise shelduck. This goose-like duck has kind of an attitude and Emma was certainly not a fan. She kept asking what was wrong with it. She did however, enjoy the pigs right next to the parking lot, though according to Melanie she mis-spoke and asked if she could go look at the sheep. A fact I found very entertaining considering we live on an island with pigs everywhere. They were cute pigs, and in truth the shelduck was a little demonic.