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| From Australia |
More to follow...
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Comments [5]
45.19.0000S/167.00.0000E
"Happy Birthday Mom"!!!! We love you and we'll see you soon!!!!
In the mid 1700's Captain Cook traveled around the world charting uncharted waters for the Queen of England. On his second journey he passed Doubtful Sound located on the Southwest coast of South Island New Zealand and named it "Doubtful Harbor" because he doubted the ships ability to sail out of the sound if he sailed in due to the prevailing westerly winds. Doubtful Sound is one of several fiords on the southwestern side of South Island. Several days after our Milford Sound cruise, our destination was an overnight cruise on Doubtful Sound. Let me first say both Milford and Doubtful Sounds are misnamed. A "sound" by definition is created from a river. A fiord is created from a glacier and both of these "sounds" are glacial. Six boats offer overnight cruises on Doubtful. We wanted a smaller boat for a more personal touch. We had reserved space with Fiordland Cruises. The boat carried 12 passengers and 3 crew. Just getting to Doubtful Sound is a challenge. First you catch a ferry that takes you across Lake Manapouri. Lake Manapouri is the second largest and second deepest lake in New Zealand. After a 45 minute ferry ride across the lake you climb aboard a small bus and for a one hour ride on a very isolated road that runs between the hydro power plant to Doubtful Sound. We were told that it is one of the most isolated places in the world. I believed it. I've got to give the Kiwis credit. Take this power plant for example; Lake Manapouri sits many feet above sea level so they had the foresight to build a "huge" hydroelectric plant. Clean, quiet, and free energy, awesome! Way to go Kiwis! The plant puts out over 800 mega watts and is all below ground. It is one of eight that provide power to the country. Anyway.... the bus ride travels along a dirt road past many tall waterfalls and cascading streams. If you wanted to find someplace to film Jurassic Park this would be the place, no alterations necessary. This area is also one of the wettest places on earth. They receive over 5.5 meters of rain per year! We would pass over a hill and it would be raining. We would go around a corner and the sun would be out. Our bus driver "Daz" was explaining all sorts of things as we drove. Once we arrived at our boat "M/V Friendship" Daz took off his driver's cap and put on his captain's hat. He was the boat captain also. My only concern about a smaller boat was that there was a chance "everyone" onboard might not speak English, like a group of ten from Japan or Germany or something. This was not the case; eight were from NZ and four of us from the USA. The boat was a beautiful older wooden cruise ship 60 feet long. She had a large galley and many tables for everyone to sit very comfortably. The helm was an enclosed room up a short ladder from the main salon. Below were two staterooms each with six bunks. The topside was a large observation deck. There were large glass windows around the whole boat. It was awesome. There was a second skipper, Bill and the cook, Ivette. Daz went over all the safety information before we left the dock and appointed me to be the person to help out in a man-overboard situation. It was drizzling when we pulled away from the dock but throughout the cruise the sun would intermittently show itself. All in all it was a glorious day. We cruised the sound for several hours, looking for penguins and seals, and then we checked a couple lobster or crayfish traps as they call them in NZ. One of the pots had a good size cray. Ivette made a delicious lobster salad for an appetizer. Not long after we got the crayfish I was on the bridge talking to Daz. He asked me to take over for a while. I cruised the ship down the fiord for quite awhile. Then Daz said "let's have some fun". He asked me to spin the ship around and back up to a waterfall. Sounded good to me... Starboard in reverse, port in forward.... I backed up within 20 feet or so to the falls. Cameras were clicking away. We pulled away and Daz pointed to another waterfall across the fiord and said to head to that one. Once we got close he announced over the intercom for everyone to go onto the foredeck to see the next waterfall. He then told me to put the bow of the boat into the falls! This was a little too close to the rocks for me to navigate a small cruise ship so I asked Daz to take over... We had fun. Later that night we tied up to a very quiet mooring at the end of First Arm. There were two mountainous rock basins on each side of us, what a beautiful spot! Ivette had made stuffed chicken, roast beef, root veggies and all the fixings for dinner. All this after feeding us great snacks all afternoon. The food was great! There was nobody else in these fiords; we were alone. No homes, no people and no other boats, nothing. After dinner we broke out a half dozen fishing rods and took turns fishing. We didn't catch anything big but we did catch six red cod, at least a dozen spotties, three dogfish and one smelly barracuda type fish. It was fun. Around 11:00pm we all retired to our bunks for a good night sleep. The next morning the generator started at 6:45am and the heat came on. Coffee was ready by 7:00. It was really foggy! Visibility was a couple hundred feet. We dropped the mooring at 7:30 and started motoring back to the dock. I went up on the bridge to see if Daz wanted a coffee. He asked me to take over and he went down and had breakfast. There I was motoring up the sound watching the radar and chart plotter. It was like I was back in Buzzards Bay... I should mention Daz did know my boating background. Later Cindy even took a turn at the helm. Once we got back to the dock it was a quiet ride on the bus to catch the lake ferry back to the town of Manapouri. It was an "awesome" trip.
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| From New Zealand1 |
On Doubtful Sound
From Manapouri we drove three hours to Queenstown. Queenstown is known as the most touristy city on South Island. Neither one of us were real excited about going there but we figured we should see it for ourselves. It met our expectations... The people there were not as friendly as the rest of the island, it was expensive and very crowded. After two nights in Queenstown we were both happy to leave. It was the only hostel in our five weeks here that we had any problems; nothing big, just some of our food was stolen. If you like a tourist filled busy city Queenstown is the place for you, it wasn't for us. It is very popular with the young party scene crowd.
1/7-From Queenstown we drove several hours to Omarama. The hostel we stayed at is on a 2000 hectare farm. Tony, the owner is very friendly; nice place! When we arrived we dropped our bags off and left to go visit other friends of friends. We met Jim and Sonja at their home, which is a sheep station or a sheep farm known as Totara Peaks. Their station is on Lake Benmore. They own a few thousand acres with a couple of miles of waterfront on the lake. They also rent waterfront campsites. They were super nice people and had us stay for dinner. They invited us to stay with them but we had already paid for our hostel. We learned more about sheep farming and Sonja's job of artificially inseminating cows. Their home has magnificent views of Mount Cook and Lake Benmore. We said our goodbyes around 10:30pm and headed back to the hostel for another good night sleep. We wish we had more time to spend at Totara Peaks with them.
Friday morning we drove to Mount Cook under beautiful blue skies. Mount Cook is the highest mountain in NZ. Many people train on Mount Cook for their Everest Climb. Sir Edmond Hillary (the first man to climb Everest) learned how to climb on Mt Cook; after all he was a Kiwi... The views on the drive to the mountain were spectacular! We followed a brilliant turquoise colored lake most of the way. If you have never seen a glacial lake it really is something to admire. The colors are so bright it looks as though the lake is glowing. Once we were as close to the mountain as we could drive we decided to tramp the Hooker Valley trail (what can I say, it had a catchy name). At the very start of the tramp there was a small glacier where we could hear and see small avalanches. It's amazing how loud even a small avalanche is. It sounds like a jet taking off. The tramp into the lake was 1.5 hours with very little change in elevation. It was a rocky and wet tramp. The only bad thing was because it was a fairly easy hike there were a lot of people. During most of the walk, the mountain was clearly visible, which is rare due to cloud cover. When we got to the base of the glacier at the bottom of Mt. Cook it began to cloud up and started to sleet a little. We ducked down behind a boulder for shelter on the moraine filled lake and had lunch watching the snow fall in the mountains above us. It cleared up on the walk back to the car. All in all it was a good 2.5 hour walk. Not far up the road from where we had parked was the Mt. Cook Visitor's Center and the Hillary Center. The visitor's center had an absolutely fantastic museum. It is amazing here that everything on display is touchable. No one damages or steals or writes their name on things! It is refreshing and so good to see how well kept and how clean things can be. Even hiking or driving down the road, you don't see any trash. The Hillary Center was great also. Along with the museum we watched an interesting movie about Hillary's amazing life. Back to the hostel for a great dinner and some socializing.
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| From New Zealand1 |
Cindy on the tramp to Mt. Cook.
Saturday 1/09 -Yes, we saw penguins, lots and lots of penguins! Hundreds as a matter of fact! We traveled from the west coast on the Tasman Sea back to the east coast on the south pacific to the town called Oamaru because we had heard there are two penguin colonies that lived there. We've been looking for penguins in the wild ever since we've been here. In both Milford and Doubtful we were told the penguin colonies had gone out to sea 3 weeks prior. We saw rocks that "usually" are loaded with penguins... Our niece Tori will not forgive us if we leave here without seeing penguins. So Cindy did her research and read that Oamaru is the place to see the little guys. When we arrived in Oamaru there was no one at the hostel to check us in. We decided to go for a walk and return in a couple hours. There are "I Sites" in every town here and they are great places to get information. We walked into the I Site and I asked where we would "definitely" see penguins. They said we could go to a beach down the road and "maybe" see Yellow Eye penguins, or we could buy tickets to see the Blue Penguins. They actually have bleachers set up to watch a colony of blue penguins come in from the ocean to their nesting area. We didn't want to take any chances so we bought tickets for the Blue Penguin show and we planned on going to see Yellow Eyes also. Both species live in the wild. The Yellow Eyes start coming in at about 7:30pm and come in one at a time. We were told we may or may not see them. They're kind of hard to see but we did see about a dozen Yellow Eyes land on the beach and in their nesting areas along the cliffs. The Blues come in by the hundreds, starting around 9:30pm. They form what is called a "raft" 100 meters or so off shore. You see a dark patch in the water maybe 5 meters wide slowly working its way toward shore. All of a sudden from the surf the penguins literally pop out of the water and land on the rocks. They just keep coming... Bumping into the ones in the front of the pack. They take their time waddling up to their dens. Once they're in front of their home they stand there for a long time, drying and primping themselves. The males call to one another in a loud long duck like cry. Then they disappear into their den. Their chicks are almost as big as the adults, maybe 2/3 the size, but they're brown and fuzzy. Unfortunately, you can't take pictures of the Blues. It's dark enough that you would need a flash but it would scare the birds. The Blue Penguins are very social but the Yellow Eye Penguins are not; both are very shy though. Our second night in Omaru we went for a walk along the beach and watched a few Blue Penguins come to shore; once we learned more about them they were much easier to locate on our own.
Here is something I never thought I'd say, "The penguins are keeping me up at night"! They are everywhere.... Some of them have made their homes in a small open garage just outside of our hostel window. All hours of the night, they scream! It's sounds like a catfight. Supposedly the females go for the loudest males. I don't know but I think the female penguins should do like the human females and tell the males to shut up!!!!
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| From New Zealand1 |
The lone Yellow Eye
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| From New Zealand1 |
Cool sign
Not far from Oamaru was one of the spots that filming for the movie Narnia was done. We stopped at the site, which is a green pasture with large limestone boulders known as Elephant Rocks. I laid on a T-rock table and did my dead Aslo imitation for Cindy. I don't think she got it...
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| From New Zealand1 |
Aslo
Oamaru has very different architecture from the rest of South Island. Most of the downtown buildings are built of local limestone and are grand with large white columns in front. One old building now has a whiskey distillery. For $10 you get to try a "float", which is a sample of four different scotches. I told the bartender what kind of scotch I liked and he help me choose which whiskeys I should sample. There was a big difference between them all in both flavor and smell. It was a fun thing to do on a cold day.
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| From New Zealand1 |
Scotch
The weather has gotten cool and rainy ever since Doubtful Sound.
We left Oamaru to head north back toward Christchurch. It's now 1/11 and we fly to Sydney in 4 days. Our plan is to spend our last several days close to or in Christchurch. I've been saying for weeks now I would like to go back to Double Dutch in Okains Bay. It was our favorite hostel in NZ. Cindy had heard about another place not far from Double Dutch that she wanted to try. I really wanted to stay in Okains Bay but I agreed to stay where she wanted, saying I hope the place was as nice as Double Dutch. You never know, it might even be better. We had reservations at the Onuku Farm hostel. After a long drive up an incredible long hill (the car wheels were spinning out to get us up the hill) we arrived. It's cold and the wind is blowing 30 + knots. One of the staff, Zane, showed us to our room. Two very narrow beds, no cover sheets and water bottles were laid on the beds for heat since there was no heat in the room. The room was also wedged between the common area and the kitchen.... Noisy....? They did have a fire going in the common room so at least the drafty old building had a warm common room. Zane then showed us the facilities. For a toilet they have an out door toilet and outside showers! Okay this place is rustic! I feel bad for Cindy as she feels bad. We could have stayed at our favorite place and now we're here, with a freaking outdoor toilet and shower! (there is one toilet inside). Oh well it is better than places we stayed on our Everest trek, we'll make the best of it. Cindy wanted to take advantage of their kayaking trip in Akoroa Bay.
In the morning after a restless night because the wind was blowing so hard the window next to my bed was rattling. Cindy said she thought the roof was coming off! It was still windy and cold in the morning. I woke Cindy up at 7:30am as I wanted to pick mussels for dinner and it was low tide. The ocean is an hour walk down a huge hill and the wind is still blowing like stink! In the car we climbed and tried to find a close rocky beach, no luck. We drove 30 minutes to Okains Bay and picked mussels right behind Double Dutch. It wasn't as windy in Okains Bay since it's on the other side of the peninsula from where we're staying. We did get pretty wet picking the mussels. Neither one of us really wanted to go back to the "Farm"; Double Dutch was so close.... On the way back we passed through downtown Akaroa and stopped for coffee. Coffee led to breakfast, it was great. It was an extra hour killed. Tonight we'll have the mussels and wine, yum. It could be worse. I just hope we don't get sick. It sure would suck having to run out to an outhouse in the middle of the night! Actually I'm joking a lot here. We actually had a great time while at the farm. The people were very friendly and it was quite at night. But it was a bit more rustic than we had planned for; if the weather was better it probably would have been much better also.
1/13 -We got up before 7:00am because we had scheduled a kayak trip on Akaroa bay. Five of us were waiting and at 7:45 Mafi our guide and her dog Cracker showed up and told us because of the bad weather over the last few days it would be unlikely that we would see dolphins. She gave us the option of not going but we all said we still wanted to go. It was the first none windy day we've had in a long time. We all hopped into her truck and she drove us down a 4-wheel drive only road to the water. We grabbed our kayaks and slid down the rocky beach and splashed into the water. We paddled south for 2 hours to the mouth of the bay. If we had continued on our path the next point of land would be Antarctica. We did see a couple blue penguins floating around and we explored a fairly deep cave. We paddled for about 3.5 hours. It was a good way to start the day. The bay is absolutely beautiful. And we did see one Hector Dolphin from the beach but even the "swim with dolphin" tourist boats did not spot any dolphins. It takes a few days for them to move back into the harbor after a bad storm.
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| From New Zealand1 |
Next stop Antarctica...
After the kayak trip we drove back to Christchurch to complete our on-shore South Island circumnavigation. Everything here has been great except for the rent a car. All we have to say is "DO NOT" rent from Jucy Rentals. So five weeks, 2400 miles driving and 17 beds later we are back where we started at Dorset House in Christchurch. Two days to Sydney!
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| From New Zealand1 |
Farm view.
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| From New Zealand1 |
The "Farm" outdoor toilet.
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| From New Zealand1 |
No traffic, no snakes, no litter, no smog, no scorpions or poisonous spiders, no high-rises, no freeways, no crowds; no worries....ahhhh New Zealand! It's been a great time! Thanks and goodbye New Zealand, we'll miss you!
Fair Winds
John & Cindy
S/V Tashmoo
sailtashmoo att yahoo dot com
Copyright © 2006-2010
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44.37.000S/167.51.6000E
Happy New Year!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
While we were in Wanaka we did some good tramping. Tramping is what they call trekking or hiking in New Zealand. One day we drove along a very scenic dirt road for over an hour to get to the parking lot for the Rob Roy Valley tramp. When we rented our car they asked us not to go through any streams with the car. I though it was sort of an odd request at the time, but I agreed. On the road to Rob Roy I learned why... We must have crossed a dozen "Fords". The signs clearly call them a "Ford", not a stream, so I don't think we broke any rules. Anyway the 1.5 hour tramp to get to Rob Roy valley led us to the base of the Roy Roy Glacier. At one point I counted over 34 waterfalls in view. This place was one of the prettiest spots I've ever seen. Small avalanches where happening about one every 10 minutes, which made it even more spectacular. It was a beautiful day with clear blue skies and temperature about 80F.
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| From New Zealand1 |
Crossing a "Ford"
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| From New Zealand1 |
At the base of Rob Roy.
The day following our Rob Roy Valley tramp we decided to hike Roy's Peak. Roy's Peak is written up as a very hard 5 - 6 hour long tramp but with magnificent views of Lake Wanaka and the surrounding mountains and valleys. I've gotta say, this was a hard one. It was a three hour "steep" climb with no variation in pitch. It just kept on going! We were dodging sheep and poop piles for the first two hours of the climb. About two hours into the trek I got a cramp/pain in my hip which slowed us down. Once I got to the top and rested while having lunch I was fine. Coming down Cindy's feet were in pain... We walked down, down, down for 2.5 hours! It was a really nice view from the top but I'm not sure it was worth it. After it was over we tend to forget about things and it doesn't seem as bad.
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| From New Zealand1 |
The view from the summit of hell trek.
12/30 We left Wanaka as it was beginning to get cloudy. The further we headed south the more the weather deteriorated. Going through the mountain pass between Wanaka and Queenstown we had a rain/snow mix and could see fresh snow about 500 feet up the mountains...yes it is summer in New Zealand! We drove four hours south to the town of Te Anau. We plan to spend three nights here. After we found our lodging we drove into the town center, had some lunch (Cindy got her venison) and checked the town out. It's a quaint little town, touristy of course, but it's on a nice lake surrounded by mountains. We finished off the day with a good bottle of NZ wine. I had a cigar while I watched the deer and sheep grazing right in front of our room. I was baahing (talking to) to the sheep when Cindy found me...
12/31 - On the road at 6:30am to drive two hours to Milford Sound. We had reservations on the 9:15 boat to cruise the sound. We had a great time on the two hour cruise. It sure is a beautiful sound. Waterfalls, mountains into the water, seals, dolphins and penguins (just kidding, we didn't see any penguins); just beautiful. It is cold down this far south though (what a strange concept for us northern hemisphere folks). It was snowing yesterday and today we're wearing hats and gloves. On our way to meet our boat we passed over the 45S degree latitude line. After the cruise we made our way back to Te Anau slowly, stopping at many vistas. We also did a two-hour tramp to a place called Gertrude's Saddle where we found another glacier at the head of the valley. It was a pretty spot into Middle Earth. We thought for sure we would see Bilbo Baggons along the way. Each time we find a hole dug into the ground we stop to look for Golum...
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| From New Zealand1 |
The views from the road to Milford Sound.
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| From New Zealand1 |
Just another beautiful waterfall...
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| From New Zealand1 |
Under Gertrude's Saddle snow field.
The next day was windy, and I mean windy! It was blowing 120kph. We were afraid to go for a long hike as we might literally get blown off the mountain! So we ate a late breakfast and headed into town to find an internet café to check emails. After having a couple coffees and taking care of some emails we decided to go for a little hike. Did I mention how expensive coffee is here? On the average of $3.50 a cup...It is good and strong though. There was a 45 minute hike listed to Mistletoe Lake not far from us so we headed there. The tramp was okay but it was only 30 minutes long! It was 4:00 in the afternoon, we were bored and it was still very windy. There were 3-4 foot white caps on the lake! On the way back to town I suggested we find a bar and have a beer. Cindy liked the idea so to Moose Tavern we went. It was a great place right on the lake. Not long after we arrived there it started pouring! The timing could not have been better. After a couple beers we headed back to our hostel for dinner. We met a nice family in the kitchen. The husband and wife both teach in international schools and were currently teaching in India. Nice people and fun to swap stories with.
1-2-2010 We drove to a tramp called Lake Marian along the Milford Road. It was listed as a steep and muddy, four-hour tramp. A good portion of the trail was in a creek bed and after yesterdays rain it was very wet. It was fun and ended at Lake Marion, which was a beautiful turquoise colored lake with waterfalls flowing into in from the surrounding mountains. It was nestled in a snow covered valley; very pretty. We were both amazed at the amount of people we saw climbing with sneakers. This was a rocky, muddy and slippery trail. People "get some hiking boots"! After the tramp we drove back to the hostel in Te Anau. We had actually checked out that morning but had left our food in the fridge since they didn't have a freezer for us to keep our ice pacs in. It was on the way back to our next accommodation in the town of Manapouri anyway, so it worked out great.
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| From New Zealand1 |
Glacial lake, Lake Marian.
In Manapouri we are staying at Freestone Backpackers. We have a cabin high on a hill over looking the valley, lake and mountains. The view doesn't get much more beautiful. The cabin has a queen size bed, two-burner stove, sink and a porch out front with very old comfy chairs. The one light in the cabin is solar powered and there is no AC power. It's basic but perfect. This morning I lit a fire in the small potbelly wood stove and the cabin was comfortable warm within 15 minutes. Cindy woke to a warm cabin with the great smell of a woodstove, a warm cup of tea and rain falling lightly on the tin roof. What a cozy way to start the day.
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| From New Zealand1 |
A Hedgehog...
Oh and for Jim's information, the tails are chopped off the sheep when they are born so...
Fair Winds
John & Cindy
S/V Tashmoo
sailtashmoo att yahoo dot com
Copyright © 2006-2010
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