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!

Rotoroa

Rotorua: New Zealand's smelly city!  Well, it smells like sulphur because there is a ton of geothermal activity!  Ali and i hiked, enjoyed hot springs, and soaked in the geothermal sights!  Here are some pictures from our 2 day adventures in Rotorua :)

We went to Wai-O-Tapu Thermal Wonderland- which has a bunch of thermal wonders.  This was a giant hole.

Alison caught in a Mauri pose by the ink pots aka boiling mud.

Here i am, tree climbing.  Look at me go.

This one is called the Artist's Pallet.  Apparently it changes colors depending on factors like how overcast it is.

View of campaign pool

frying pan flat.

Another view of the Artist's Pallet

Alison with terrific stripy rock.

Campaign pool.

The Devils bath.  It was such a florescent green!

Candy called a fairy mushroom.  Not recommended (but Ali liked them).

Hope you like the pictures! Miss you all!!



Hobbiton

Matamata is the town that has Hobbiton from Lord of the Rings. So yes, it is like Rolo, Saskatchewan, famous town of Corner Gas.

We hopped on the bus with our tour guide, a shaved Gandalf-type. BEFORE we left of course, we had to read and understand our confidentiality form. This is bad news for you, but great news for us. Bad news is, we'd get sued if we posted pictures here, so this is all you get:

Ok, here's one more at the silly thing at the visitor centre. Note I wore my hobbitest clothes for the occasion. And my hair is always like a hobbit's.

Good news for us was that because they are going to start filming the Hobbit soon (thus the confidentiality), the tour is not worthless now, it's absolutely beautiful! Our tour guide was great, and super specific (ie "remember how Gandalf drives in and the kids are disappointed and then he sets off fireworks? THAT IS THE VERY BRANCH IN THAT SCENE!" Or, "This is the exact spot where Bilbo did such and such and then he says exact quote").

The hobbit holes are completely real. Well, you can't go in them all, but the brick is brick, rock is rock, gardens are gardens, etc. It's also completely accurate to the books. For example, in the book there are little plum trees, but NZ's plum trees are too tall, so they have a real pear tree planted and they stuck a bunch of plums on it.

Caryn bought The Hobbit within the hour after the tour and we are reading it out loud to each other. We rented and watched LOTR's 1 as soon as we could find a place with a DVD player. It was a nice way to relax after our Tongariro crossing hike (and fitting - the hike is Mt Doom!).

Beautiful spot, Hobbiton. I could live there.

Coromandel

Before heading around the Coromandel, we slept over at our couchsurfing spot. Rosalie has rigged up an old gypsy wagon (actually) for people traveling through to use. Rosalie is sweet as, she is an older woman who loves making tea from herbs in the garden (mind the "chooks" - the chickens) and doing radical jobs. We'd tell you what they are but we don't want her to get arrested.

Coromandel Peninsula was one of the top most beautiful drives in the world according to us. It starts on the ocean edge and continues spectacularly like this until turning into sheep farm land. We stopped at one of my favourite trees (now) to have a climb. Drove up, exploring the towns and then went to find

New Chums Beach

A local secret, a couple we stopped for directions was a bit reluctant at first to reveal the way. When we told them we had a friend from NZ back home that told us about it (Steve, PA's swim coach) they launched into, "well, I think the only trouble you'll have is crossing that river..."

We waded the river, crossed the rocks, braved the trail and emerged suddenly onto the. most. beautiful. beach.

We quickly ate our annoying lunch (with bad watermelon and squawking birds and sandflies) and then I flew into the water while Caryn busted out the camera.

Also on the Coromandel we visited the famous hot water beach called Hot Water Beach. If you dig a hole in a certain area, the water that fills it in is hot! We joined the fray.

Climbing tree

Caryn on New Chums from Ali's ocean view perspective

Caryn is the next Martin Hill. Caryn's art on New Chums.

Neighbour dog, Sky, Rosalie, Caryn, gypsy wagon

Very busy Hot Water Beach. Can you spot Caryn?

The water where the people are sitting down is really hot!

Love you all very much. We miss you and wonder how you are.