After Kayak School- West Coast

Before we set off from Kayak school in Murchinson, we asked Mick and Shannon what we should see on the west coast as we headed down to Queenstown. Without hesitation, they advised us to go do a hike "to the gorge," which would lead to a class 5 rapid (that they regularly run) flowing with water the colour of Bombay Gin. Not like the crowded hikes that the Department of Conservation sends tourists on, Mick stated, brushing these DOC walks off as "boardwalks." Hike time? "I've done it in 2 hours carrying my kayak" said Sophie, aka boat slave operation's manager, of New Zealand kayak school.

So, we jotted down instructions from Mick and Shannon on how to get there. Although they seemed somewhat vague at the time, we had confidence it would all become clear once on the trail. They were somewhat as follows:

"Go to Hakitika. Turn left at a roundabout, towards Kanerie. Follow signs to Lake Kanerie. Turn left on gravel road. When you drive over a bridge that crosses the Arahura river, drive 200 m. On your left there will be a fence made from a railroad tie. (at this point Mick sized us up, and stated "It will take both of your strength to lift it").

This is really where the instructions fell apart:

"Park your car- or continue driving, until your car gets stuck. Continue on this path. Cross the suspension bridge. Go up up up. Once the trail begins coming down, take a left down the second dry creekbed you cross. If you come back to the river, you have gone too far on the trail."

Well, we found the trail head, and continued on what was a road through a farmer's field with cows for about half an hour. There was really no one else around. After a few wrong turns we found the suspension bridge, and continued on the trail. We crossed two massive creek beds (which were not completely dry by the way) hopping across rocks in the midst of this flowing water and scrambling up boulders. As for the trail: well, as Mick promised, this was no boardwalk. We passed two hikers, and felt a little silly, as they were decked out in full gear, including gators. There were sections of the hike that were completely mud - and sometimes it was like we were hiking up a stream that flowed on the path. At one point, while trying to leap across a mud patch, I slid and ended up with quite muddy jeans! Alison claims it was her walking stick that saved her. At every creekbed Ali and I were like "does this count as a dry creek bed?" , "have we gone 'up up up'?".

We did ask one of the hikers that we passed, who advised that they actually fly kayaks in to this river, and it would take another 3 hours to hike to "the gorge". We had already been hiking for ~2 hours, and so a bit dismayed, we continued on.

All along the way we were seeing these numbered wooden boxes, about the size of milk crates, which read "Blue Duck Predator Control, Do not touch". Alison and I speculated about what exactly they were trapping and what the bait was for a while, passing another trap every 100 meters or so.

Just when we were about to turn back (after yet another creek bed) we came across another pair of hikers- one who worked for whoever was monitoring these traps! ("A duck man!" Alison exclaimed. She had really wanted to meet one.) We explained that our Kayak friends had sent us on this hike to see a rapid and we had no idea if we were on the right track. He thought for a while, then stated we should continue on to trap #18. At this point we would head down the creek immediately following it. "Its a bit steep" he warned. Then we found out that they are trapping stouts (non-native weasels, predators of endangered blue ducks) (or trying to) and using chicken eggs as bait.

Happy as clams with shiny new (and clear!) directions we continued on. At that point we were at trap #13. At #18, we swung a left down this steep creek bed. There we were, sliding down rocks, holding onto trees as we descended towards the river.

At last we got there. As promised, a beautiful rapid with beautiful water. There was a gorge, with either water smoothed walls or covered in green. The area was sort of a pool with various waterfalls falling into it. We clambered on the giant smooth rocks surrounding the area. My only complaint was the sand flies.

Hiking back up the steep creek bed from the rapid (up by the smaller rocks).

Alison with her prized hiking stick.

Part of the rapid (as always, it is really hard to capture the magnitude of any water feature on film. Take our word, it was awesome). More waterfalls behind Ali.

The suspension bridge with Bombay Gin water.

Alison with her hiking stick on bridge.

Besides our hike, we pretty much drove down the coast, stopping at waterfalls and other little viewpoints along the way. Of course there is never enough time- and there is so much more we could have and would have like to have seen! Next time though ;)

These were the Pancake rocks on the west coast. Here is Alison, eating pancakes.

Caryn to Alison: "be the pancacke"

kayak school

Caryn:
New Zealand Kayak School in Murchison is a haven of kayaking.

First, the digs: you live in a sweet roomy lodge with a large kitchen. The staff make a fire for you while you are out kayaking, so you return to a warm haven.

Second there are 13 (plus) river runs all within 30 mins- all classes of water. And it is beautiful!

The founder of the Kayak school we attended is Mick Hopkinson is like a founder of white water kayaking. He was a member of a small team that made first descents of the river Inn in Switzerland and Austria, the Blue Nile in Ethiopia and the Dudh Khosi in Nepal. He tells tales about paddling down the Blue Nile with Ethiopians shooting at him in crocodile infested water. He's pretty hard core.

The course that Ali and I took was this 4 day intermediate course entitled something like "Catch the Wave". Alternative names could have been : "so, you think you can kayak" or "Roll camp". I don't want to give you the wrong impression- it was lovely and we had lots of fun, however it was loads of work.

The first thing that was a bit of a shock was after 6 weeks of doing whatever we want, whenever we want, all of a sudden we were on a schedule!!! (I do not want to think of how hard the adjustment to returning to work will be after 6 months...i'm not thinking of that right now though). Our days started at 8am, when we drove with our coach Shannon to the pool for roll practice (aka roll boot camp). We both abandoned our old CtoC (or what had become some version of the CtoC) roll for the Sweep roll, which Shannon swears by. After about a million rolls, he would film us doing them.

Side note: Alison asked Mick "how many rolls do you think you have done? Thousands?" to which Mick replied "Oh- I don't know. But i still practice my rolls. A thousand is a good number to start with". I think we did around 200-300 in our 4 days there. We've still got a ways to go.

Anyways, after pool session we had our first break and it was back to the lodge for second breakfast, dry off, warm up, watch the videos of our rolls...then it was back into our wet gear again for our second session. First day it was a flatwater session, other days it was our first river trip. Which involved more rolls (of course). Then second break. Then third river session.

Needless to say it was awesome, fun to get in a boat again, but exhausting. We learned a lot, tearing around in our Dagger RPM's (NZ kayak's school's philosophy is that you should paddle a very long boat for a very long time. Gives you more boat control they say. I still want a Fuse.)

It has been 4 days since Kayak school, and i am still doing rolls in my sleep. Wish we could do more kayaking on our trip! (Mick Hopkinson did tell us that we can kayak in both India and South Africa.).

The staff at NZ kayak school had recently acquired a pet goat: which we called cory because we couldn't understand what they were calling it in their kiwi accent (cordy? horty??)

Alison with goat.

There were kayaks everywhere! Here are just a few.

Alison in front of the 10 meter waterfalls we ran on our first day. No biggie.

Our Lodge: Kitchen

(Oh: tots joking about the waterfalls. no waterfalls for us)

Loungy area.

The Decor of the lodge is very appropriately all kayak related. This includes several of Mick's paddles from his expeditions. This one is the one he used on the crocodile infested Blue Nile.

Hanging around til kayak school - Westport

We went through Murchison (where we would come back to do kayak school) to go do an "easy" hike called Charming Creek Walkway. How can you go wrong with a name like that?!

Indeed it was charming. It follows an abandoned train track. I am fond of trains. It leads to the abandoned coal mine! There's lots of cool abandoned stuff along the 6 hour trail to have a look at.

Caryn at the first train tunnel to hike through.

Photo with flash.

A long suspension bridge to cross.

This is just beautiful. It's quite big in real life.

This little bird was so neat. We stood verrry still and it curiously poked about near us for quite a long time. It seemed interested in us.

Yellow orange black wall

Yeah, so no pics of the coal mine or any stuff along the way, but it was sweet. And charming.

Love you!

Hanging around til kayak school - Nelson + that other little town

Ali: We got to the south island, as you recall, verrrrrry early in the morning after the night ferry. I drove for a while and then parked the car and we had a nap. Woke up and drove to Nelson.

In Nelson we had sweet accom - our first place with a little kitchen, and quite big for what we are used to.

The first day we were so tired from night-ferry fiasco that all we fit in was a little walk to the beach. That night I felt I might be "coming down with a little something."

The next morning I was still feeling "sick." Since I was having a sick day, and it was Caryn's birthday, we took the day off. We did nothing much, and then much later, we did an art walk around town. We treated ourselves to nice things all day since I was sick and it was Caryn's birthday. I think my birthday will be in India and Caryn will have a sick day there too. I highly recommend this, by the way. Maybe tomorrow will be your birthday! Caryn actually turned a year younger!

Art: we saw many lovely things, highlights include a giant knitted Jesus face and The One Ring To Rule Them All from the film. (Real one was destroyed in Mount Doom when we did the Tongariro Crossing.)

One very cool bookshop. We go to loads of bookshops.

Beach in Nelson. I have no pants because when we do laundry, boy oh boy, we do laundry.

Caryn says: This picture is for Michelle and Nicole. Sea Mustache? I think so!!

Jesus.

Ali says: These are "kiwiberries." I don't know if they're made up or what but they taste flippin good. They taste like kiwis, better than kiwis. And aren't endangered like the birds.

Which is fudge and which is soap? Wanted to eat them both. The fudge we went back for 2 more times and almost drove an extra half hour a few days later to get more. We restrained ourselves. Come to NZ just for this fudge!

Another stunning waterfall!

To get to the waterfall. Feels cool to cross those babies.

"A sheep!" This trail lead to sand dunes and a magnificent beach:

Up on some conglomerate cliffs. Poor Saskatchewan! One of our claims to fame is repeated in NZ.

Caryn, not getting sucked out to sea.

I took a wrong turn and Caryn said, "no you didn't, now we can go to that pirate coffee place." So we headed down the hill from this sign and found...

Pirate mocha with anchor at the...

ESPRESSO SHIP! so cool.

Docked at the harbour for your caffeine needs.

By now we were out of Nelson and staying in the Golden Bay area. This is very near the top of the south island - NW. If you look on a map you'll see a sand bar reaching off the land up there, a "spit." We tried to do a spit hike but it was high tide, so no luck. We did do another awesome little hike though:

We found a magical place. It was rocks, in cool formations. Skinny high high parts, holes to look in, water shaped stuff, ledges, house type stuff. I said I wanted to live there and started saying, "this is where I'll have my storehouse" "this is where I'll keep my slaves"

and I went on and on, and then Caryn started doing it too, and she was ahead of me on the path so she was getting the best spots so i ran in front shouting

"this is where I'll have my harem!"

and her: "this is where I keep my cupcakes!"
"stables!"
"computer lab!"
"yoga studio!"

and pretty soon we were RUNNING the trail

and then we popped out into the carpark and I almost shed a tear because it was over.

If I lived in the area I would go there all the time and climb high high up and crouch and watch tourists way down below me.

The next day, we went back. We did the hike again.. and... my dream came true! I climbed way way up which was sweet as, and then, no lie - tourists walked by! The first two didn't see me and the second two glanced up, just as I, as Katherine so eloquently put it, "dropped, and their whole world went black."

Love you!

For you Rach (and all you others who have been holding your breath for sheep pictures...)

These are the happy sheep that lived in a field we hiked through to get to a magnificent beach.  More on the magnificent beach later.

Fairies and Ferries

Alison:  Windy Welly! (true).

We had a great city time in Wellington. We arrived, and, as usual, had no place to stay and barely any plans. Caryn was in that hungry mood she gets where she can't think properly or make any decisions.

Then she went and bought a mocha in a sweet as travel mug.

Suddenly...
plans!plans!PLANS! in all one breath she said something like: "we should go to that hostel, then go to the opera tonight; tomorrow the city and a play, and then no hostel that night - take the night ferry to the south island and sleep in the car."

My jaw dropped.

So, that is what we did! And it was wonderful.

Caryn:  Wellington has a pretty strong arts scene (from what we could tell from our 2 day whirlwind), so it's fitting that we got to take in a play and go to the opera.  The opera we saw was Handel's Xerxes.  It was translated from Italian to English on a little classy screen....

Alison: It turns out it was basically a chick flick.We never would have known!

Caryn: The opera was really good.  We sat next to a friendly lady from Austria- who began humming along to the first song (at which point i was like "if she does this i'm going to have to change seats...).  luckily, it was just the first song she hummed to- she remarked to us in the intermission that she sang it at a wedding.  Which is slightly weird because the words are as follows: 'No tree's shade ever was more serene, dear and lovely" (on and on it goes- it is basically a love song for a tree).

Alison: I can relate.

Caryn:  The play that we saw "Fairy Stories" was... so so.  It had been brought back after 15 years to celebrate this theatre's 30th anniversary... or maybe for the out games which were at Wellington at the time.  Whichever it was, Alison remarked "I hope they don't have the same actors from 15 years ago, ha ha".  Well, turns out..... they most likely were.  And it turned out to be a bunch of short drama type things, more like a dance recital- no talking, but the dancing wasn't good enough to be featured as such.  We're opera snobs now anyways... (jk)

We also went to the museum and cruised through it in 2 hours, visiting floor 4 on recommendation of the coat check man.  Apparently it takes 2 1/2 days to see everything in this museum!!  The limited amount we saw, we liked.

Then it was off on the night ferry to the South Island!

Note: If you take the night ferry, not only will you get no sleep, you will also not see any of the scenery that is described as "dazzling" and will feel like your $255 dollars could be better spent during the day.

Tongariro Crossing

According to whoever "they" are, the Tongariro crossing is the best one day trek in NZ (note: they do not 'hike' in NZ, they 'trek' or go 'tramping'). It is a 18.5 km hike that is pretty challenging in points.

So, not wanting to miss out, Alison and I decided to do this trek. We arrived at our accommodation on Wednesday night, thinking that we would relax on Thursday and then do the trek on Friday. Upon arrival, the very nice check-in man advised us to do it on Thursday, as the weather was looking better than Friday. And so.... feeling somewhat mentally unprepared....we did!

It was a great hike.  It was interesting because of the changing landscape and the different terrain throughout.  One hour you are doing stairs up the mountian and climbing up rocks, and then next hour you are scrambling down loose rocks (this was alison's favorite part...she was like a little goat!) 

We were very tired by the end of it- although we ran the last couple kms because we did not want to miss the 3:30 bus (it was 3:15 or so) and have to wait until 4:30.  Luckily we arrived there in time for our 3:30 shuttle, and Alison even had time to do stretches with the bus driver! (Alison was doing stretches on the grass and all of a sudden he was like "my physio therapist taught me some good stretches.  Let me show you.")

Anyway the views on the hike were awesome!  Very diverse! Up mountains, by lakes, rocky switchbacks, you name it, it was there.

The beginning of the hike, which was like a prance through grasslands, beside a friendly creek.  Didn't last for long.

I thought that this was what we were climbing.  Finding out that this was a different (or side hike) was the best part of the hike.  Just jokes, it was all nice.

 

Here i am, beside weird rock things.

Apparently this was mount doom in Lord of the Rings.  

Alison at the summit of the mountain.  Note awesome $2 toque.

 

Yes it was this cold at the top.  The mountian i thought we were climbing.  Phew!

One of the very pretty lakes.

I think this was my favourite.  It was purple on the sides, and a wicked blue in the middle. 

On the way down.  Which was easier but SUPER long.  I think we went down for 3 hours!

My chocolate raspberry cupcake flavoured protein bar.  It did not taste like a cupcake.

Alison's was better.  It was caramel coconut.

Little greet plants and purple flowers.

 

Alison in her victory pose in the parking lot.  We finished!!

We are a bit behind in our posts.  Hopefully we can get the other ones up in the next few days.  Currently we are in Murchinson, and just finished a 4 day kayak school.  Now we are off down the west coast (oh- we're on the south island now...).  One week until India.  We are not exactly feeling ready to leave NZ (i could live here!- except for the sand flies.  I will not miss them at all) but are feeling excited for India!

Miss you all!