Adventure Capital

Finally, we landed in a town with some Saturday markets on a Saturday! We visited the two markets in town, the sun blazing and the wind howling, the combination giving a crisp blue lake with exciting waves.

We both did the Shotover Jet, the famous jet boat as I discovered with more research. This is probably the one to do for a thrill. It was much better than Hukafalls jet. It flew through Shotover Canyon cutting close to the canyon walls.


We ended the day with a Gondola ride up the mountain for some magnificent views. The AJ Hackett bungy jump was there. I think this was the first one, but other than for historical reasons, it looked like the Nevus jumps and swings would have been much better. We did a luge ride, like the one Edwin and I did in Sentosa in Singapore. It was pretty fun.

 For dinner, we succumbed to $5 lamb shanks from the Alpine Supermarket.

Towards Queenstown

The drive to Queenstown was punctuated by several waterfall stops and majestic scenery. There were more waterfalls than was possible to visit, the Blue Pools where trout could be seen in clear glacier fed rivers, and lookouts were framed with big skies, mountains and lakes.

We made a lunch stop at Wanaka where we had a little fun at Puzzling World.

Just outside of Queenstown was Arrowtown, a historic themed town where we learned about the Chinese immigrants coming to NZ to mine gold.

We found a little gem called The Whistler for the next two nights. For the usual $105, it featured pretty much a full kitchen and even washing machine.

Some say Queenstown is overrated, but I thought it was quite a beautiful city. Mountains, lake, resort like feel with tons of restaurants, gift shops, outdoor sporting stores and Asian tourists. This evening, the turquoise blue lake was rough with white caps from the incessant wind.

We ordered some Indian food but then discovered $4.50 lamb shank dinners at the grocery store on the walk back to the hotel. I aborted the India curry and had a delicious lamb shank. Then I had the curry anyways.

Unfortunately our washing machine malfunctioned and didn't wash while we re-watched the movie Couple's Retreat. Guess which resort Couple's Retreat took place at? No, not the one we stayed at. 

Franz Josef Glacier

No sleeping in on tour days! We got up, had our lunches packed and got suited up for our glacier hike.

The Franz Josef Glacier Guides is the largest tour company in all of NZ, also owned by the Maori tribe who made some good investment decisions. The guiding company had some pretty good gear including boots and crampons, as well as raincoats and storm pants. I've noticed here in NZ that most tour companies have full gear for their activities which is great for tourists like us.

We were expecting rain today but amazingly, the weather was great! Our guides told us that being the wettest part of the country, appreciate the sun whenever you can.

The hike was definitely a highlight of NZ. It started off with a quick tramp through rainforest suddenly giving way to the rock valley leading up to the glacier. Waterfalls cascaded down on both sides of the valley. The day was marred when I lost my sunglasses somewhere on the track.

The weather was variable on the ice as we walked through deep ice crevasses, through ice tunnels and walked on the frozen imperceptibly flowing glacier.

I was really glad for the advice we got from friend and the Internet to do the full day tour rather than the half. The guides told us where the half way mark was and it barely got started on to the glacier!

We repeated our dinner at the Landing then ending off the day with a soak in the Glacier Hot Pools included with the glacier tour. 

Rain

It was pouring today. We drove from Westport down to Franz Josef taking about five hours.

Although it was a full day of driving, there were a couple of sights that we wanted to hit along the way which were outdoors.

The first was Cape Foulwind. Yes, quite foul today indeed. From the car, we saw the lighthouse, admired the waves crashing against the rocks and drove on.

We didn't stop until the Punakaiki Pancake rocks. Along the way, the highway ran along the coast which was pretty dramatic because of the wind and rain causing some pretty impressive waves.

Even though Punakaiki should have been a free walk, because of the rain, the iSite got us anyways when we bought ponchos.

We got out and got wet! The iSite agents told us that what made this afternoon spec was the fierce wind. Usually, it only just rained.

The track out to the ocean and pancake rocks started off with rainforest, then tall grasses that reminded me of a corn field. Then all of a sudden it gave way to the full brunt of the wind and rain.

The sea had carved out impressive caves in the multilayered rocks and with the weather, ocean sloshed around eroding the cliffs further.

Now that we were wet anyways, it didn't matter so we backtracked a bit on the highway to Truman Track. This 20 minute walk was well worth it too, taking us to the beach. The rain let up slightly but the wind continued to howl making the caves and overhangs along the way good reprieves. Towards the end of the track, a waterfall fell and flowed out to crashing ocean waves.

The drive was really quite long and I was at the wheel. But with my audiobook Moneyball, the driving was surprisingly not tiring at all. I'm always impressed at how audiobooks totally make a fatigue fighting marathon of a drive completely different where I sometimes hope the drive to be longer just so I can find out what happens next in the book.

In Franz Josef we booked a full day guided hike and I was really annoyed that they didn't apply the $10 off coupon to both our tickets instead of just one, because we only had one coupon. I told Shannon that while Southeast Asian countries rip off tourists for a dollar or two here and there, here you still pay more as a tourist but it's a factor of ten more.

We pretty much checked out all the accommodations in Franz Josef and even a couple places just outside of town. I was not surprised that everything was much more expensive. We ended taking a room with the smallest sink we've ever seen (but at least there was an ensuite) for $68 a night at Chateau Franz. Shannon used her charm to talk down the friendly host from $76.

We had a very nice dinner at The Landing. The lamb shanks were good! So good in fact that we would return the next evening as well. 

Hiking Abel Tasman!

Even after having not rained torrentially yesterday we were still rewarded today with clear blue skies, perfect for our postponed walk in the national park.

We booked the brief 3 hour trek between Bark Bay and Anchorage. The booking entailed arranging water taxi drop off and pick up in and out of the parks.

It was a beautiful walk, and I have to say again how well maintained the trails are in NZ. Props to the Dept of Conservative.

The section we went on followed the coast giving us beautiful views of beaches, going over streams and pools, a swinging bridge at Sandfly Bay that we kayaked under two days ago, and ended off traversing the sandy foreshore between Torrent and Anchorage.

We drove from Kaiteriteri to Westport, the landscape turning mountainous as we hit Buller River, going along the gorge.

We found a motel, bought groceries for dinner and stayed in. Actually, pretty much all of the motels we've stayed in here have cooking facilities, usually consisting of two burners, a microwave, a small fridge and some utensils. It was nice buying exactly what we wanted for dinner, cooking and eating at half the cost otherwise at a restaurant. 

The Storm that Never Came

We were warned about a big rain storm coming in overnight so we were wary about hiking in Abel Tasman today. Waking up early to check the weather, dark clouds loomed just off shore so we decided to go back to bed and sleep in.

For some reason, for lunch I only had two kiwis, a chocolate chip muffin and chocolate ice cream cone. I paid for this in a headache in the afternoon until I ate some chips in the car.

On the recommendation of our host we drove north to check out the biggest and clearest fresh water springs on the continent, Pupu springs.

It was a bit of a long drive out there for a half hour walk, but it was interesting to see the thousands of liters of crystal clear water well up from a couple of springs in a lake. Unfortunately, the wind had picked up rippling the lake and obscuring the clarity and colors beneath. Some of this water had been underground for 2-10 years and the clearest next to a springs found in Antarctica.

Along the way, we made a side trip to Harwood hole, and sink hole almost 200 meters deep. I was seriously thinking about turning around because the gravel road was so rough, narrow and windy, but we eventually made it. The walk turned out to be great starting off with Lord of the Rings like dense silverwood trees giving way to acid rain carved marble rocks that gave the trail a bit of a challenge. Eventually, the path opened up to this huge drop into the abyss.

While driving, Shannon and I decided to start focusing on doing things here in New Zealand that isn't available in Canada. The countries are just too similar with tons of nice hikes and walks that you just can't do them all. Also, because it is difficult to do some things without a guide, it starts eating away at the bank account.

Even if we were to rent kayaks at Abel Tasman, we would have saved maybe $20, so we decided to do the guided tour. But maybe because of the season, mediocre weather and lack of wildlife, it definitely wasn't worth $320.

We looked at our calendar, read through the rest of the AA driving guides and figured we can cut some time out of NZ and consider possibly going to the Philippines for a couple weeks instead.

For those interested in budgeting, our expenses in CAD not including flights in each country so far is

Los Angeles: $2268 (6 days, $378/d)

French Polynesia: $6336 (14 days, $453/d)

NZ: $4604 (18 days, $256/d)

Abel Tasman National Park

We were excited to do the full day kayaking tour that was had booked around Abel Tasman. A friend of our told us that this was the best thing she had done in all of New Zealand.

It wasn't a bad day for kayaking. It was a little cold to start off with but once with all the gear on like the splash suit and kayak skirt, it was good.

We paddled down the coast from Tonga Bay down to Anchorage swinging by a couple of islands including Tonga Island to view some seals.

It was a decent day out in the outdoors with the sun staying behind the clouds until the tour was over. The water was very calm despite our guide expecting 30 knot winds. We saw a couple of seals, but not the hundreds fighting over prime mating rocks that would have been cool in a couple weeks time.

So far, I have to say New Zealand had been rather disappointing. Shannon and I seem to have arrived probably at a bad time during the year. All the travel literature we're using shows people frolicking on the beaches and taking swims in pools after long hikes, but it's been too cold and windy most of the time to take off my fleece. Here at Abel Tasman, we're probably a month too early to see the seals and whales, as well as enjoy the fruit season and even flowering of the vineyard plants.

The prices are expensive for what we're used to, and I can't help but keep thinking about beach, warmth and dirt cheap stuff in Asia, especially when we gave in this evening for a delicious Thai meal in Motueka.

Doing some reading for our trip ahead, it doesn't look too much more different. Queenstown looks interesting being the adventure capital of the world, but Fiordland sounds similar to what we have back home.

What's been good is that we haven't had a problem finding relatively inexpensive accommodation and not booking ahead of time. But I guess this is the tradeoff for low season.