windy welly

After leaving Dunedin, we headed north towards Lake Tekapo. Lake Tekapo is a beautiful little town. We visited the little church there, which appearently is the most popular church to get married in in NZ. It was freezing in Lake Tekapo! We wore layers of clothes to try and stay warm. The bus driver organized a bbq for supper so we went for a little while =). We only stayed long enough to eat because it was so cold! We went back to our hostel, which had a woodstove! Score! We laid by the woodstove with shortbread and tea and had a game of Scrabble.

The next day we were off to Christchurch again. We arrived early afternoon because the weather was so bad that we didn't make many stops along the way. We took advantage of the free wi-fi at the library and caught up on some emails. We hung out at the hostel for a while, where we met a couple of funny guys from Israel and played cards. Tina and I then went to a couple of Irish pubs - Bailies and Sullivan's. Sullivan's had a live band that was quite good.

Early the next morning we headed for Kaikoura. When we got to Kaikoura just before lunch, it was beautiful! Finally some warm weather! We spent the afternoon laying outside by the pool. We had a relaxing night hangng out at the hostel. I played cards with a group of people from Spain, England, and Holland.

The next morning we headed off for Picton, which is where you catch the ferry to the north island. The ferry ride was just over 3 hours. We had a beautiful day for a crossing. Tina spent her time on the deck, excitedly seeing many new seabirds!

Change over to t: Best thing i did in nz yet. Yay shy mollymawks and northern giant petrels!

the ferry landed in wellington, cap city of NZ. a cool town nestled around Oriental Bay. spent the first few days checking out the city with our Scottish friend Bryan who we met a few weeks earlier on the south island.

first impressions of Welly: 1) it's effing windy! 2) the peope look and dress differently than those on the south (more 'north american' looking in terms of style and complexion, except for #3); and 3) there are more Maori here than in the south. lots of jogggers along the waterfront; tons of skateboarders here; lots of cool cafes, restaurants (especially turkish kebab shops! there's a kebab restaurant on every corner for sure), and bars/pubs. visited the super awesome Te Papa National Museum. amazing displays, exhibits, and interactive pieces. def a highlight of our trip.

On Paddy's Day, e and i went to kitty o'sheas and ran into a friend from queenstown. ha! then moved onto molly malones for live tunes. people in welly go all out for paddy's day! the streets were crowded and bars packed with all ages decked out in serious green and paddy's paraphrenalia. awesome. was a v good night =).

plan for thurs is to hire a car with bryan for 3 days and head nw of welly to see taranaki region and mt taranaki, a near-perfect conical dormant volcano that dominates the landscape there. yay driving on the wrong side of the road! see what happens... hopefully the brit is a good coach.

- first photo is lake tekapo

- second is civic square in wellington

- third is of fun bldgs on cuba street, where there's tons of cafes, pubs, shops.

e and t

deadly dunners!

13 mar/10

pre-amble: this post is a big one! - mostly for our sake. read if you have time =).

just spent an epic week with shane and raph at their place in dunedin. they have a sweet little house in neighbourhood called maori hill. cats foussa (tongue always out) and souzie (breaths really loudly) rock. also have 4 hens for eggs.

fri:

time in dunners started out rough. e still queasy when we arrived from alex on thurs. i was sickest i've ever been when i woke on fri morn. 7 hrs of hell. we must've caught a nasty stomach virus. felt ok enough on fri after eating plain rice to head out around otago peninsula to taiaroa head to look for albatrosses and penguins. feelin like shit disappeared instantly upon arrival - 2 ROYAL ALBATROSSES!! 2nd largest seabird in the world with wingspan of 3 metres. awesome. then waited an hour or so til dusk when BLUE PENGUINS (!!) came in from fishing to nest just off the beach. so sweet. smallest penguin in the world. wicked views of 2 wicked species on the same wicked beach. ahh, nz.

sat:

laundry day!! first time since we left canada 3 weeks ago. yay washing machine! started the day with a walk up baldwin st - steepest street in the world! get some calves on you there. spent the day touring around otago penin again. strolled along long beach; cool seacaves there. then headed to newly-opened orokonui ecosanctuary for lunch. a 300 ha protected area near city. is enclosed by multi-millon dollar predator-proof fence (no native mammals in nz except 2 species of bats. all 14 mammals are introduced and numerous birds and plants are threatened by them). wanted to bird there, but fog and drizzle won out. then headed to mapoutahi pa - a maori burial ground on the peninsula; watched life guard training races and dudes riding around on sand dune buggies attached to wind surfing kites. erin too sick to leave the car =(. raph made delicious encrusted elephant fish (a small native shark) and salad for dinner. early to bed.

sun:

gorgeous morning! drove up to mount cargill for awesome views of city. then to st clair beach in city to watch surfers and have hotpie (v popular here. little pies stuffed with mince meat/steak/or lamb and cheese) and hummus for lunch. back out to penin to tunnel beach - captain cargill had a tunnel dug thru rock to a private beach where he could chill w/o being harassed by locals. wicked cool spot with huge sandstone cliffs and headlands. then to papanui inlet which had thousands of cool crabs and pretty pied stilts and variable oystercatchers. then onto 'the pyramids' - 2 old volcanic vents (dunners is surrounded by old volcanoes). very neat. last stop was a walk above the gorgeous hooper inlet and allan's beach toward lover's leap, a nutso spot where shane and raph go rockclimbing over the ocean. i made too-hot veggie curry for dinner. raph made nz dessert called pavlova - fluffed egg and whipped cream cake with boysenberries.

mon:

e and i strolled downtown to see railway station - most photographed building in nz. hung out dt and grabbed ride home with s and r after work. e made delish veggie lasagna for dinner (r and s being v tolerant of our veggie ways =) ). after din head to sandfly bay (named b/c it's always so windy there that the sand flies around. but not this eve! v calm). sandfly bay is possibly my favourite place in nz so far. huge huge sandy beach with crazy high sand dunes and world-class wildlife viewing experience. stood a blind and watched YELLOW-EYED PENGUINS (one of rarest penguins in world) come in from fishing, hop up over rocks to base of steep, high hill that they climb to top of to nest for the night. crazy. i am in love with sandfly bay.

tues:

with forecast for super fine day, s and r took day off work to drive northwest into central otago. by 11.00 fog still hadn't lifted. meant an unhappy shane. but by time we got to st bathan's, sun was out in full force. hot! st b's is old gold-mining town. popn 50 or so. shane went swimming in beautiful Blue Lake (used to be Vinegar Hill, but quartz was dug out in search of gold; filled in to create lake). then explored around old bldgs and ruins. had lunch and beers from the haunted vulcan hotel (ghost of whore who used to rob gold miners until she got her come-uppins haunts room #1). then headed into dry dry country to poolburn dam, in weird landscape of dry fields and schist outcroppings (thx, greene =) ). site of The Plains of Rohan in lord of the rings - the two towers. enchanting place. 3 hr drive home; back to dunners at 20.00.

wed:

hung around house; strolled dt to meet r, s, and friend tim for lunch - falafel on lawn of first church. then e and i read and napped on church lawn til 3.00. rough life. home for wheat beer, tofu stirfry, bavarian apple torte for dinner. r's cousin suzel arrived after din. in nz for 4 weeks; just traveled asia and aus.

thurs:

rain most of day. headed dt to have coffee with jolene, gf from nfld that i did my MSc with. e and s played intense and possibly record-breaking game of jenga! raph made yummy curried squash and chickpea salad; eggs on toast for din. 5 of us walked uptown to old dam to check out cool glow worms (excrement glows bluegreen in the dark).

fri:

s and r dropped us at bus on way to work. i'm sad to leave. all had such a good time this week. s and r are so generous, kind, funny, fun, and saucy. our type of people. great friends for sure. hope to see them in thailand! =)

en route to north island. bring on the warm weather. freezing here! we`re wearing all our warm clothes now, incl scarves and toques. brrr.

t

Adventures in Alex

March 3

Our plan to head for drier weather panned out. We made it to Alexandra, locally known as Alex, about mid-morning. Alexandra was named after the Danish princess. We walked around the small town with a population of about 5,000. We explored the museum, which contained loads of information about the gold dredging that the area was known for. We also got weighed by the old jockey scale at the museum, as demonstrated by Tina in the picture :)

The next day in Alex we decided to do a little more exploring. We walked to the shaky bridge and then walked some of the "rail trail", which is the old railway track. We again had Subway for lunch because it is cheap and a means to get our veggies :). One of my flip flops burst so I have one less pair of shoes to carry. Tina walked back to the hostel barefoot with me so I wouldn't stand out...although a surprising number of people in NZ walk around with no shoes!

After lunch we decided to walk to Black Ridge winery, about 5 kms outside the town. Black Ridge is the southernmost winery in the world (see picture). We tasted a number of different wines before heading back. We decided to take a more scenic trail along the river to get back. Along the trail, we took a wrong path and ended up walking in the oppposite direction for quite some time before we came to the realization that we should have been back after walkig for so long. We headed back in the right direction and, after walking about 25 kms that day, were ready to eat and relax! We decided on pizza at a local restaurant. I woke up a few hours after falling asleep and was so sick. It lasted all night. I'm so glad that we had the 6 bed room to ourselves that night! I was still sick the following day when we had to get ready to catch the bus to Dunedin. We made it to our bus stop time except the bus driver left Alex early without us! We got public bus tickets and had a beautiful drive to Dunedin :)

Erin (and Tina)

rained out in q-town

mar 1

We arrived in Queenstown on Saturday, February 27 in the evening. Queenstown is a beautiful town of about 13,000 people. It is a resort town with lots of shops, cafes, and bars set amid beautiful mountains and water. It kind of reminded us of Whistler, Banff or Jasper. Queenstown is known as the very expensive place in NZ. It is the spot for many adventure activities, including river boarding, sky diving and bungee jumping. During our visit here, we went to the AJ Hackett Bridge, site of the first ever bungee jump. Got to see a few people jump! Crazy.

The first evening, Shane (friend we grew up with in Pasadena who has been living in NZ with his wife Raph for 4 years now) picked us up and we went to the cabin they were staying at for supper. So nice to see him and Raph!

On Sunday Tina and I decided to climb Queenstown Hill (you can also take a gondola if you're too lazy to walk =) ). It was a really nice walk through the woods. The view from the top was amazing, allowing us to see all the surrounding area. When we got to the top, tina realized she forgot the memory card in the camera, so we have no pictures to prove we were there! Sunday evening we decided to go to an Irish pub for a beer. We ended up meeting a few guys from England and Ireland and moved on to another bar with them. Definitely have some funny stories from that night :).

We stayed in the room with two girls from England, Emily and Sophie. They were very sweet and were traveling after finishing up university. We have met tons of travellers who take some time off after finishing high school or university to travel before looking for work.

We debated long and hard about going to Milford Sound, which apparently is a must-see fjord in NZ. Because of the weather forecast, we decided against going...a good decision, according to other people we talked to. Monday in Queenstown it poured, so we had a relaxing day in the hostel reading. The rain map showed rain for the rest of the week in Queenstown so we decided to head more inland to Alexandra on Tuesday in search of sun!

- the first photo is of a jumper on the AJ Hackett Bridge

- the second is of the Remarkables (mtn range in backgrd) and Lake Wakatipu, taken from Shane and Raph's cabin in Queenstown

erin with sprinklings from tina

links to latest photos

go here to see photos of the north coast of the south island:

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=11352982&l=f3904d9a0e&id=846415455

and here for shots of the west coast and central otago on the south island:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=395466&id=846415455&l=81e4a39e3e

wicked wanaka

28 feb 2010

gorgeous weather again the past few days. after franz josef, moved inland and away from coastal vagaries of weather.

central nz is awesome! the drive inland was retarded.

we're in the most beautiful town on the planet. called wanaka (WAH-nu-kuh, but e and i kept sayin wa-NAH-ka, like the rest of the canadians there. oops.) in the centre of the south island. the drive here 2 days ago was by far the most stunningly beautiful scenery i've ever seen. anywhere. there's these breathtaking gold and grey mountains around two huge aqua blue lakes (l wanaka and l hawea).

the first night, we met 3 friendly kiwis at the local pub. one works for dept of conservation and is a birder! invited me to come by the office and told us of good hikes we should do.

yest e and i hiked up mount roy just outside town. 1580 m elevation. straight up the whole time. stunning stunning stunning views from the top. indescribable. hiked with the german monika from new york who's a retired pediatric cardiologist. hitchhiked out and back with 2 very sweet brothers from manchester. then went swimming in the lake with them and out for a few drinks.

leaving here tomo for queenstown, the banff of nz. supposed to rain all week though, so may not stay there long. but we get to see shane finally! woot woot!

first photo is lake hawea as seen when driving through 'the neck.'

second is view of lake wanaka from top of mount roy.

t