Sorry about the late post...
Friday 1/15 - we flew from Christchurch NZ to Sydney Australia. We had been trying for several days to contact our friends Luke and Nikki from the S/V Skyus but hadn't had any luck. Their home is just over an hour north of Sydney and they are back home for the next year. Luke and Nikki had invited us to stay with them while we were in Australia. Luke is a doctor and works crazy hours and Nikki and their two daughters, Evi and Indy, have been visiting her Dad. That's why they were hard to get a hold of.
We landed in Sydney and called our rental car company. The woman I spoke with said "walk out the front of the airport and around the left side of the big car park and wait by the trolley station". Off we went with our bags and hoped that we were waiting in the right location. About 20 minutes later she arrived and drove us offsite to our car. It's a Toyota Yaris. It's very small but new. I asked her if she knew Luke and Nikki from an hour north? We didn't even know the name of the town they lived in! She laughed... but she did offer to call them for us. After the phone rang about 15 times Luke finally picked up! I told him we had just arrived in Sydney. He immediately said come here! Awesome... We were hoping to go there for a day or two and figure out what, where, how, etc. Another one of our "figure it out as we go" adventures.
Before I go any further let me just say that we are spoiled. We have seen so many beautiful places scenery wise over the past several years; we're spoiled, period.
Getting out of Sydney was interesting to say the least. There are no highways as we know them. All the roads are narrow, windy and not at all well marked. To make it more interesting the Aussies in their ultimate wisdom have added tollbooths that "DO NOT" accept cash! Everyone must have a transponder or have called in advance and given their plate number and a credit card number to the road authorities. To make matters worse you have to call and register your plate with different authorities for different roads! If you know exactly where you're going and how to get there it could work but if you're lost or new to the city and take many roads you're screwed. It was so unfriendly. The main road from the city north was a two-lane freeway but they have made it into three lanes. How did they do this? By eliminating any sort of breakdown lane and making the travel lanes very narrow. And to make it worse, the trailer trucks pull two trailers that take up 1.5 lanes around corners! I was just staying up with traffic and Cindy was yelling at me to "slow down"! I'm not bitter but "The driving in Sydney sucks".
We managed to get out of the city alive after only getting lost a couple of times and after about two hours we found Luke's place. Luke and Nikki have a great house across the street from several white sand surf beaches in the town of Forrester Beach. As a bonus Luke's brother and Nikki's sister live right next-door and Luke's mom Trish (who we met in Guatemala) was there also! Trish has actually circumnavigated the world in a sailboat some years ago. Everyone is so friendly; it's a real comfortable place to start a vacation. Luke was home for the first day we were there. Then he went to work for a 48 hour shift. Nikki wasn't due home with the girls until the following day. We chilled there by ourselves for the night. The bird watching from their back deck is amazing. From their back deck you can also see inland for miles. We went on some great beach and cliff walks with Trish and enjoyed Dan's (Luke's brother) awesome coffee. Cindy also went to the farmer/artisan's market with Trish and Simone (Nikki's sister) to absorb some local culture while I stayed back and cut my own hair. Luke had lent me his cutting shears so I started shaving my head. I had the left side very short when the shears died! There I was, in a foreign country with one side ½" long and the other 3" long and dead shears. Looking in the mirror was pretty funny. Luckily I had my leatherman with me. I dissected the shears and 30 minutes later got them working, thank God. I thought for sure Luke had played a trick on me...
After spending three nights with everyone, we decided to head south. We actually considered just staying at their house and hanging out at the beach for a couple of weeks. Maybe take up surfing? But no, we had decided to head south toward Melbourne. Google maps and several other things I've read said Melbourne was about 13 hours away. A big problem here is that there are no roads or highways around the cities. You have to travel through a city to get around it. Once again we had to drive through Sydney. Sydney is huge, it took hours...but we didn't get lost this time.
I had planned to go to a campground six hours south of Luke's house, a least that is what Google maps had stated the drive was. We stopped several times along the way for a total of a couple hours but we had left the house at 10:00am and got to the campground at 9:00pm, and it was full... We found another campground. It was full...there were kangaroos hopping around everywhere so at least that was cool. I finally said I'm not going to stress out over this so we were going to a hotel. We found a Comfort Inn in Lincoln Downs, which was the next town away on the coast. We had a great night sleep in comfort. The next morning we drove south again for six hours to our next campsite. This time we had called several places in advance and reserved. We arrived in the beach town of Mallocoota. It was a cool and windy night. We only have warm weather sleeping bags with us and it wasn't warm... The next day after we thawed out we drove another six hours along the coast leaving New South Wales and arriving in the territory of Victoria. We stayed at a very nice campground in Mornington, another beach community. The campground had a camper's kitchen, which was a nice bonus. It was a little warmer but still cool.
We had decided to go in search of the 12 Apostles on the "Great Ocean Road" which is southwest of Melbourne. Our plan was to stop in Melbourne on the way back north to see the city. Unfortunately the same issues with the roads in Sydney are in Melbourne; multiple tolls and no roads around the city. "But" fortunately there is a ferry that goes across Melbourne harbor (Port Phillip) so we could get around the city via the water. We took the car ferry and I'm sure it saved us several hours of driving and who knows how much in tolls. Average tolls prices we've seen are $10. The $70 ferry fare seemed like a bargain! We had called and reserved a hostel on the Great Ocean Road several hours west of the ferry landing. The hostel was $95 for one night! The average we paid for a hostel in NZ was $45. Australia is expensive! But the hostel in Apollo Bay was very nice and just across the street from another white sandy beach. We explored the small town, walked the beach and picked up some groceries and wine for dinner. Cindy needed to seek out a doctor for a minor issue and found a great husband and wife team just around the corner from our hostel that saw her at 6:30 pm, gave her a shot, some pills and a prescription, all for $63. She had a nice chat with the doctor about the history of Australia and learned that the Drs Lawless had been practicing together for 50 years!
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| From Australia |
We had read that the coastal ride from Sydney to Melbourne was a beautiful ride. It's not all that beautiful to be honest. The slow road does not follow the coast but meanders inland through forested national parks and small towns. In several areas the road reaches down to a harbor but for the majority of the ride you need to drive away from the main road (Route 1) about 30 minutes to see the ocean. We did this a couple of times but decided that we would never get anywhere. Of the 20 hours south driving, we didn't see the ocean for more than a half hour before we got to Mornington Peninsula and I'm not a slow driver!
We did see the 12 Apostles. They were cool. Several tall pillars of stone about 100 feet tall in the ocean off of some very tall cliffs. Honestly though, we are spoiled having seen so much beauty in our travels. Australia's south east corner so far reminds us of the Midwest USA with traces of the California coast; lots of traffic, malls and people. They have preserved their coastal areas and do not allow development along many of the shores. We have seen lots of green trees and lots of brown or burnt grass fields. The beaches here are awesome, hard to get too but awesome, other than that we have not seen anything amazing. The sheep are definitely better feed in NZ. Prior to arriving at the 12 Apostles we drove out to Cape Otway to see the famous lighthouse, only to discover that there is a $16.50 pp fee to pass through the gift shop and out to the lighthouse; they have even positioned the car park and gift shop so that you cannot see any of the lighthouse. Oh well, we can head to Martha's Vineyard for that.
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| From Australia |
Today we saw lots of koala bears, which was very cool. We drove through Great Otway National Park where there were lots of koalas lounging in the trees. They were so relaxed and not at all bothered by us tourists taking their picture and gawking at them! We did see one guy placing his young kid in a tree close to a koala to get a cute picture. Hello! Wild bear! And did I mention the flies? OH MY GOD! There are flies everywhere. I'm not talking an occasional house fly. There are several trillion billion flies! These flies fly on your face and won't leave! You brush them off and they come right back! They fly into your ears and up your nose. It's like someone is blowing spitballs at you, thwack, they stick! People walk around with nets over their heads! I was trying to smile for a picture and there were at least four flies on my face! Everywhere you go, as soon as you open the car door they are there. There are hoards of them "everywhere" in the Victoria Territory! They like the dry hot weather we've been told. When we asked about them we were told, "you have never heard of the "Aussie wave"? As the woman saying Aussie wave, waved her hand in front of her face....
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| From Australia |
The next day Cindy kind of freaked out, stating how much she doesn't like traveling with no place reserved for the end of the day. My comment was it took us over 20 hours of driving to get to where we were but we were told it would take 13. How could we make plans? We might not make it to our reservation. There seem to be plenty of hotels? She seems to have gotten over it I guess, but I think Australia is making her a little edgy. Later, after driving for several hours, we stopped and had an excellent lunch in a beautiful little town, Port Campbell, on the water. She seems to have lightened up a little more. Later we found a free campsite on a small lake just north of Camperdown. The weather has warmed up but the wind is howling at lease 40mph, other than that all is well. Okay, not long after I started writing this paragraph the wind picked up even more. We were hiding from the flies in our tent when our tent collapsed in the wind! We had to move our car to block the wind. There was so much dirt blowing around, the tent floor was covered. At 8:30 pm Cindy crawled out of the tent to get something in the car. She was out there for about 10 minutes; I think she was waiting for a lull in the wind. Then I heard her shout, "John, there's some guy out here in a truck and he's freaking me out"! We were the only ones at the campground so I think she was a bit creped out. I jumped out of the tent as the guy was getting out of his truck and started walking towards us. He was all smiles and said he was here to collect the fee... I told you Australia was expensive; even the free campsites cost $10... The guy was super friendly and told us all about the place. The small lake we were beside was down over 15 feet because of the lack of rain and severe drought for the past10 years. The "pond" that remained was now only 15 inches deep with 50% salinity content. All the fish had died. It was sad; he told us stories of how he once fished there and about the fishing club that had been built there. Hopefully the lake comes back..
The morning after our night at the "free" campsite I was up early, 5:45am. I walked down to the water and thousands of birds flew up as I approached the waterfront. I've been to over 20 different countries in my life and the wildlife in Australia has been the most spectacular I have seen anywhere. I also should mention, New Zealand was probably the prettiest country I've ever been to. We have now seen all sorts of beautiful birds, kangaroos, koala bears and a couple of wallabies.
As in NZ, we have been stopping at local I-sites or visitor's centers for information. In both countries they have been a wealth of information, providing free maps and local knowledge, guiding us to destinations that meet our interests. They are located along all the major routes within a couple of hours of each other. In Australia it has been a great resource for us due to the huge distances between destinations.
We had planed on going to Melbourne but there are no hotels to be found anywhere near Melbourne. The Australian Open Tennis Tournament was going on and it's also Australia Day weekend. Australia Day is the equivalent of the U.S. Independence Day. We decided to avoid Melbourne altogether and headed inland to Echuca. Echuca is a small town located on a river on the Victoria/New South Wales border where we found the last motel room available! It is the start of the holiday weekend and everything was booked. The big tourist attraction here is taking a ride on one of the old historic steam driven paddlewheel boats on the river. We thought about it but decided it was out of our budget. We spent a day exploring the town and found two small winery tasting rooms where we enjoyed sampling multiple vintages and flavors of port. What a treat! Of course we bought a bottle from each winery.
After two days in Echuca we decided to head toward Nikki's dad's house in the town of Bundalong. We had met her Dad "Geoff" last year in Port Royal, on the island of Roatan in Honduras. Geoff lives on a billabong; a body of water created by a river flooding. Basically he has a beautiful house on a river. We called ahead and made plans to arrive the next day. When we arrived there were about 40 people hanging out on Geoff's lawn at the river's edge. Nikki's youngest sister Michelle who now lives in Tel Aviv was there with her three kids also. After a few more introductions, Geoff took us on a river tour in his ski boat. It was very much like the Florida Everglades; just beautiful.
Geoff lets people come and spend the day behind his house on the water whether he knows them or not. Like I said there were ~40 people there but he only new ~12 of them. He's such a nice guy. To get to his backyard you have to walk through his garage. It was kind of funny seeing all these people parking on the street and just walking up his driveway. Everyone would say hello as they passed on their way to the waterfront. There were kids everywhere. Michelle's kids had a great time playing with the local kids. We talked over some drinks watching water skiers and wake boarders go by. We spent several days here. Cindy and I took Geoff's 12 foot aluminum boat with a 15 horse motor out a couple times and explored some of the tough to get to spots. Thousands of birds were in view. Our second day there we asked Geoff if he minded if we stayed another night. He said to stay as long as we wanted. That's the way the people are here, very friendly. I even got up and slalom skied. It's been 20 years since I last skied. Fun stuff.
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| From Australia |
We left Bundalong and headed northeast toward the Snowy Mountains. Several years ago there was a huge fire at the top of the pass and thousands of acres were burned. It still has not made a come back. But it was still a pretty drive. At one point we drove down a dirt road off of the main road and found a troop of kangaroos lounging in the shade. There were 30 or 40 of them in the group. I drove the car off the road 300 feet down a wide trail toward them. We slowly crept into the clearing thinking they would flee. I stopped about 100 feet from them and took a few pictures. They didn't seem to mind at all. So I put the car in drive and crept a little closer. I stopped within 30 feet of them. They were staring at us as if to say "what are you looking at". But they didn't seem frightened at all. We watched them for about 30 minutes. I will say they are itchy animals. They're constantly scratching themselves with there tiny front legs. All but one of the kangaroos was less than four feet tall. Some were babies nursing on mom. One roo however was huge. He stood about seven feet tall. We know it was a "he" because when he stood up there was no doubt. This must have been his harem. It was great to see them in the wild. Unfortunately we also saw many dead kangaroos along the sides of the roads.
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| From Australia |
When we popped out of the Snowy Mountains we came upon a small ski resort town on a large lake, Lake Jindabyne where we found a room for the night. The motel sat on the edge of the lake and had a restaurant and bar which was very convenient since we were beat from driving all day. And our room came with breakfast. There were not many people staying at the motel or around the small town but we could picture it as a busy place during ski season.
The following day we headed to the capital city of Canberra. Canberra is a small city and laid out in a grid pattern. It was easy to drive around! We stopped at the National Gallery for several hours to enjoy some local culture and art. As I get older I think I'm losing my appreciation for art. We went to a beautiful art museum in Christchurch but the art at either place was not what I like. One of the big exhibits in Christchurch was of plastic bottles and illuminated florescent lights spread around the floor. In Canberra one exhibit was what looked like a huge pile of dog puke! The buildings where nice and we did see a few pictures we really liked. Cindy enjoyed some of the exhibits in Canberra; she saw here first Picasso and Monet.
We continued on north following back roads and stopped in the old farming town of Gunning. There wasn't much here at all; a small café', a bar and a small motel. The motel was clean and cheap so we did spend the night. The café owner said 10 years ago the bank in town was the second richest bank in Australia. Four years ago they closed their doors. The drought has taken its toll on this area. She said that the government has brought in counselors to help people deal with the hard times. Suicide is on the increase with people loosing farms that had been in their families for generations. We have also driven past many wineries that have folded. Grape vines hang unattended in uncut fields. It's sad.
We arrived back at Luke and Nikki's place three days before we had to be in Sydney to meet Cindy's mom. We had great fun again with them. We got together with their friends to celebrate Nikki's birthday but then it was time to say goodbye. We sure will miss them!
It did not matter how detailed the directions were that we had to find our hotel and car rental agency in Sydney; we still got lost. Nikki had plotted out our course but as soon as we got over the famous Sydney Harbor Bridge none of the signs agreed with our directions. We drove blindly around the city for 30 minutes when Cindy said, "hey, there's our hotel!" I swung the car around and we went inside. We had to have the car back by 9:00am so we were hoping to leave our bags at the hotel desk and return after 2:00pm for check-in. We walked in and they said our room was available! Cool! We brought our bags up and came back down to the front desk to get more directions to the rental place. It sounded easy enough and I still think there was luck involved but we found the place fairly easily. They gave us a ride to the train station so we could get back to our hotel. It was Sunday and the traffic was light which was a bonus.
Later in the day we had plans to meet Cindy's mom Lois and Ann at their hotel in Sydney. It was a 25 minute walk from our hotel to their hotel. I've got to say walking around Sydney is a thousand times easier than driving. We meet them and walked down to the waterfront for lunch. We explored the Rocks district, one of the restored historic areas of Sydney. During the weekends they have a large arts fair set up along several blocks. There are several harbors that make up greater Sydney Harbor and the waterfront is really pretty. There are many stores, restaurants and bars overlooking the harbors. We had a great time with Lois and Ann and made plans to meet in the morning. While they were on one of their group tours, we visited the Maritime Museum, which was very nice and loaded with information and exhibits including a large US Military exhibit. That night Lois treated us to a dinner cruise in the harbor. The food, the view and the company were awesome! Later Cindy and I tried to see Avitar at an Imax theater. At $30 pp we decided to wait until we were back in the states. We must have walked 20 miles around Sydney in the two days we were there. We really enjoyed Sydney once we were out of the car and able to walk it. Our hotel, The Vibe, was in a great location and was a great deal once we found it discounted on-line. Sydney is a very expensive city to stay in, similar to Boston in prices. But the restaurants were great!
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| From Australia |
We really loved New Zealand. Australia was great thanks to Luke, Nikki, Evi, Indy, Trish, Simone, Dan, Geoff and Michelle. The problem we had in Australia is that everything worthwhile seeing is sooooooo far apart that traveling by car is not practical. Lois and Ann had a great time flying around the country. You need to remember that Australia is the size of the USA; visiting the Grand Canyon, Mt Rainier and DC by car in 2 weeks is just not practical. So if you're going to Australia for an absolutely beautiful beach vacation or to visit the outback and you're staying put it is a great place. But driving it is tough and lots of time is needed. We met lots of young Europeans that were traveling for six months, which we estimated to be the proper amount of time to fully explore the country by car. The wildlife in Australia is amazing. The birds are colorful, plentiful and loud! And to see kangaroos, koalas, wallabies and other wild animals in their natural habitat and so easily was very cool.
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| From Australia |
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| From Australia |
Our flights back to the USA were long. As soon as the plane took off Cindy went and found three empty seats in a row for herself so she could lay down to sleep for the flight. We were lucky that the flight had so many open seats as our flight to Australia was completely full. I flew back watching movies by myself. I did meet up with her in LA and we did sit together for the flight back to Providence. I really don't think she likes me anymore though. Our friend Jay was waiting for us at the airport at midnight when our plane arrived. Friends are great! We woke the next morning to fresh snow at my Mom and Dad's house; what a greeting.
Since we've been home. I went on a ski trip to Stowe, Cindy flew to St Louis and visited her brother and family for a week, our friends Armand and Elsie had a party with our Earls Marina friends and we've spent lots of time with moms and dads. Did I mention it's cold! We now have one more week left here and it seems like we haven't visited with ½ the people we wanted too. Busy, busy... and three weeks flew by.
Next update will be from the sunny Caribbean! :-)
Fair Winds
John & Cindy
S/V Tashmoo
sailtashmoo att yahoo dot com
Copyright © 2006-2010
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Comments [8]
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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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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