Day 1 Milford Track

15 Feb.
We said goodbye to Peter and Gerlinde this morning and started on what is scheduled to be our last NZ adventure. We are hiking the Milford and Routeburn Tracks, two of NZ's "Great Walks." We are with a tour provider called Ultimate Hikes. (we've seen some good tour operator names--our Doubtful Sound trip was with Real Journeys.) they took the 43 hikers in our group, 2 of the guides, and a young staff member who has just arrived from Utrecht, Holland, to Te Anau. We had lunch in Te Anau both yesterday (with P & G) and today. It is 20 km from Manapouri, the port for our Doubtful Sound adventure. This means we have done the Te Anau-Queenstown road once a day for the past 3 days. Today's trip was notable because the driver told us about the area we were seeing and because we were significantly delayed by a huge flock of sheep being moved from one pasture to another via the road. Hundreds of sheep were trotting down the road, scattering on the limited space between the rocky mountain hillside to the left and the sheer drop to the lake on the right. We were glad not to have had that experience the 2 times we drove ourselves on that road. We were sorry P&G weren't there to hear all the interesting bits. For example, yesterday we saw an old-time steam locomotive with old-time cars on a track next to the road. Today we learned it was from the gold-rush days, before the road along the lake to Queenstown was built. Miners would bring their gold by steamer to Kingston at the south end of the lake. It would be carried by steam train from there to Invercargill for processing in Australia.

After lunch the bus took us north along the lakeshore to where we caught a boat (operated by Real Journeys, a huge company) to the beginning of the Milford Track. Te Anau Lake is the largest on the South Island and is really a fjord, so more stunning scenery. This picture shows where the boat lands and what's beyond it.

We walked 1.2 km to our first night's lodging, Glade House. The location is lovely. We didn't get much time to gaze at the scenery. As soon as we dropped our packs in our room (we are in a private room with it's own bathroom, a luxury we won't have on the Routeburn), we had a brief orientation and then divided into groups for an informative and entertaining nature walk with our guides. Back in time for dinner, a session where we introduced ourselves by national group, and an overview of the tomorrow's part ofnthe track. A first on our NZ travels, Americans were the largest group, followed by Australians. There is a couple from Norfolk Island, which considers itself a separate entity from Australia. He is a descendant of the Bounty mutineers who stayed on Pitcairn Island. We have had lots of interesting conversations already and are looking forward to more over the next 3 days.

The generator was turned off at 10 pm so it is really quiet. I'm going to stop here and enjoy the sounds of the bush. Maybe we'll get a clear night at some point and be able to see the stars.

Quick update

I'm writing this from Queenstown on 14 Feb--happy Valentines Day to all my readers. My last post ended promising a report on Peter and Gerlinde's helo ride. The hike was less than they had hoped. We did another drive thru glorious NZ scenery from Franz Josef Glacier to Queenstown. Highlights included Mt Aspiring National Park and 2 beautiful blue lakes. Queenstown is in a stunning location and we stayed in an apt right on the lake overlooking the Remarkables Mountains. After one night here, we drove to Manapouri for an overnight boat trip on Doubtful Sound, the northernmost big fjord in Fiordlands National Park. That was our 7th NZ national park. It was a great trip, which I promise to report on in more detail. Drove back to Queenstown this afternoon in time to pack and go to a meeting on the 8-day hike on the Milford and Routeburn Tracks that begins at 9:15 tomorrow morning. I plan to carry the iPad on the hike so I can blog along the way. Posts will have to wait until we return to Queenstown on Feb. 22.

We had a farewell dinner with Peter and Gerlinde this evening. They will take us to our bus to the hike tomorrow morning, then fly back to the US tomorrow afternoon. We will miss them. We started planning our NZ photo review dinner for when we are all back in Annapolis.

Dolphins and Glaciers

We completed the marine mammal part of our NZ trip on 9 Feb. We drove from Christchurch to Akaroa, a town settled by French on the Banks Peninsula southeast of the city. There are many attractions--seals, small blue penguins, the French atmosphere (streets are "rues"). We came to swim with the tiny endangered Hector's dolphins. About 3-1/2 feet long, only 8000 exist, all near the Akaroa harbor. We wore wetsuits--the water was about 15 degrees C. Mike let me wear his dive vest under my wetsuit, giving me both an extra layer and a hood. No fins or flippers--splashing drives them away.

The boat goes out until we spot dolphins, then we wait to see if they will gather around the boat to check us out. When they did, we got into the water not wearing our snorkel and mask but using them to make noise to attract these curious creatures. It was actually easier to see them from the boat. We had to go out of the bay into the Pacific Ocean to find them, so once we were in the water it was hard to see them over the waves. Mike missed his diving gear, especially his bouancy control device. Still, it was fun to be in the water on a sunny day. There were lots of seabirds, and I enjoyed being at the same level as a group of sooty petrels floating nearby. The guide told us that albatross sometimes swoop down to see if the black things in the water (us) are dead fish waiting to be eaten but we didn't see that.

When we got back and dressed, we had a lovely seafood lunch at a waterfront bistro. We then decided to drive to another coastal area that our Queen Charlotte Track guide Luke had told us had a colony of little blue penguins. We set our GPS for Taylor's Mistake, a scenic reserve east of the port town of Lyttelton. Lots more gorgeous scenery, then the South Island's major port where we saw a lot of earthquake damage. The GPS kept trying to take us down (or up) streets closed by damage. We finally found someone to ask and learned no roads were open around the end of the point. So, we headed back through a tunnel, wondering what that had been like during the quakes. We headed for the point from the other direction and saw even more damage. The final bit of the road was a steeply rising and then descending series of hairpin turns lined with what looked like really expensive houses. One had a gondola car on a rail to go from the street to the house. We finally found Taylor's Mistake, where the beach was full of surfers but nothing about penguins. The trail we would have taken to the most likely spot for penguins was closed due to earthquake damage. It was littered with huge rocks. Some of them have probably fallen in more recent shakes. It was a beautiful drive anyway and I got to see another familiar plant in its gigantic NZ form, geraniums as tall as a house.

We were all affected by the amount of earthquake damage we saw and by the ongoing shakes. Mike and I didn't feel anything on our last day there, but Gerlinde did. None of us slept all that well, wondering what might happen.

We left Christchurch yesterday morning on the Tranzalpine train to Greymouth on the west coast. Despite rain and low clouds, the scenery was dramatic. We went through a long tunnel after Arthur's Pass to find sunshine on the western slopes. We had sun most of both days in Christchurch but this was still a welcome sight. A representative from our rental car company was waiting for us at the station. We carefully arranged our 4 huge bags in the car, which then had room for 4 but not 5 of us. I rode on Mike's lap to the office to do the paperwork. In response to my question of whether there was anything we shouldn't miss on our drive from Greymouth to Franz Josef Glacier, the rental agent showed us pictures of the Hokitika Gorge she had taken last weekend. We hadn't heard of it but were convinced by the pictures. It was a bit further off the beaten track than we expected--31 km, the last few of which were gravel. We all agreed it was worth the detour. Until I get pictures on this blog, you can google the name and see the beautiful turquoise water of the Hokitika River as it passes thru a gorge surrounded by subtropical vegetation. We ate lunch on rocks at a bend in the river. Except for the sand flies, we could have stayed for hours enjoying the view.

Another stunning drive down the coast from Hokitika included views of the turquoise Tasman Sea and snow-capped mountain peaks. We saw a lot less people and structures than we have elsewhere but also more extractive activities like quarrying. Franz Josef Glacier is every bit the tourist town we expected, but with one of only two alpine glaciers that descend into the coastal forest in NZ, we could see why. We flew over the area this morning, from the coast (cf turquoise water, above) to Mt Cook, the highest peak in NZ. We flew over 2 adjacent national parks. Mt Cook NP has 70 named glaciers. We saw a bunch of them. These glaciers are still growing. Franz Josef grows an average of 2 meters a year, although it has retreated 300 meters over the past 18,000 years. The snowfield at the top of the glacier gets 50 meters of snow a year on a base of 800 meters. Really gorgeous stuff. Pictures to come.

Peter and Gerlinde did a glacier helicopter hike this afternoon. Mike and I did the hike up to the foot of the glacier. We got about 100 meters from the glacier's edge. I'll share Peter and Gerlinde's report in my next entry. Off to Queenstown, our last stop, tomorrow.

Hydrangeas

Hydrangeas

We arrived in Christchurch this noon after driving through some dramatic coastal scenery south of Kaikoura. After having seen a seal lounging on the rocks at the marina for our whale watch tour yesterday, we watched for more today but saw none. It reminded us of some of the wilder parts of the northern CA coast.

Our Christchurch B&B hostess, Kelly, let us store our luggage in our large and beautifully decorated room. The house is a Victorian villa built in 1901. We are in the Elizabethan room. We look out onto the veranda and the garden beyond. I'm writing this at a charming white garden table, listening to the small rock waterfall and looking at the flowers. Which brings us to hydrangeas, in a moment.

We walked from the B&B to downtown. We had seen signs of earthquake damage as we drove in, but it became more extensive the closer we got to the central business district, which is closed off. Outside the CBD, individual buildings and groups of buildings were fenced off. We walked by Christ College of Christchurch, all English Gothic, and saw lots of damage. We got away from the damage by walking through the huge botanical gardens along the banks of the Avon River (really). We saw lots of huge trees from all over the world; 4 different kinds of eucalyptus trees, all huge; and a kauri tree, a NZ native that was almost completely logged out. I was especially happy to see the kauri because I thought they only grew in the north of the North Island. I also saw the biggest hydrangeas ever. The blooms were 8 or 9 inches across. The blossom was made up of 5 stems spraining from the same main stem. We all took pictures. I hope at least one of them comes out.

So, sitting in the B&B garden, I saw one of the giant hydrangeas as well as a hydrangea with double blossoms--10 petals instead of the usual 5. I'm planning a NZ plot in my garden this summer. I'll have to see if giant hydrangeas are available in the US.

The botanical garden was a good respite from the destruction. After having seen the movie about the earthquakes, we recognized places we had seen before and after. The movie showed emergency personnel marking buildings with spray paint to show the status--how many if any dead and injured had been found, that the building was empty, and probably other things. Seeing those markings on buildings today was very emotional, both because of the movie and because of the memories they evoked of the aftermath of hurricane Katrina.

Let me also report that there was a brief earthquake as I wrote the last sentence. The table shook a bit, as did the brick pavement underfoot. You can only imagine the courage of the people who continue to live here. A sign of their determination is the appearance of pop up enterprises-- in vacant lots, garages. At one end of the CBD, a container mall has opened. Containers have been turned into shops, a bank, and cafes. There were lots of people, lots of color, lots of life, right next to the closed part of the CBD. Really inspiring.

Seafood and Whales

Seafood and Whales

We are having so many adventures that it's hard to keep you up to date. We left Picton this morning and drove 2 hours down the coast to Kaikoura. There's a lot of wild Pacific shoreline on the way, with beautiful black sand beaches so wild that not only is no one on them, there also appear to be no structure except the rr line for miles around. We arrived early enough in this seaside town to check into yet another charming B&B, Nikau Lodge. True to their name, a Nikau palm stands right outside our window.

After dropping off our luggage, we walked down to the waterfront and the Kaikoura Whale Watch Adventure office. We arrived early enough to eat our ziplock salad (child of hanging salad--see Abel Tasman entry if you missed that one) on their deck and watch a movie about whales. The many prominent warnings about rough seas and the potential for seasickness were a little dating, but we boarded the bus with my supply of candied ginger and went out to the marina south of town. Definitely the right call. We were on a jet engine hydrofoil catamaran which got us out to whale-watching grounds so quickly that we saw our first sperm whale about 30 minutes after casting off. Sperm are the largest of the toothed whales. They can dive to 6000 feet and only need to breathe every 2 hours. When they surface, they need about 10 minutes to re-oxygenate. They don't porpoise when they dive like other whales we've seen, but they do arch and flip their flukes straight up in the air. Gerlinde had never seen whales in the wild before, so we were really happy we got to see 4 of them, all sperm whales. Really exciting stuff. We also saw a bunch of dusky dolphins and, much to my great delight, 3 kinds of albatross--the royal, the shy mollymauk, and one so rare it's not even in my bird book, the wanderer (we saw the juvenile). We also saw a Cape Pigeon, which has very distinctive and strikingly patterned black and white plumage, and what one of the crew members said was a sooty petrel, although I can't find that one in my bird book, either. All thoroughly worth the queasiness of the trip. Mike promises he has great photos.

Our last day in Picton, yesterday, gave us the best weather we'd seen there since the day we arrived on the ferry from Wellington. Mike appreciated that because he was on a rib boat about 8:30 am for his 1-1/2 hour trip to the Mikhail Lermontov wreck dive site. He came back really excited about the dive and everything he had seen. He also came back with an enormous crayfish that the dive master had caught the day before. Mike got it because our B&B hostess, Glennys, picked him up at the marina when they got back. Her husband, Gary, is the dive master's accountant and also, evidently a good friend. So, the crayfish was for Gary.

The rest of us spent the day sailing in the Sounds with Gary, on his boat. In appreciation for his offer to take us out, Peter had volunteered the day before to make one of his vast salads for all of us for dinner. So Gary's crayfish was added to the menu. It was delicious. It's also likely to be the only one we'll eat. Kaikoura claims to be the world's crayfish capital. Half a crayfish here costs about $48.

The sailing was terrific. Definitely an easier way to get around than kayaking. We motored to the Bay of Many Coves where we moored and ate the lunch Gary asked that we bring in "payment" for the day's sail. Then we put up the sails and came back under wind power. Winds were fickle, more in strength than direction, but we did bury a rail once or twice. This was Gerlinde's first experience sailing, a great introduction.

As you've probably gathered, we really bonded with Gary and Glennys. This would be an evev longer blog if I listed all the things they did for us during our stay. Gary taking us out on his boat and Glennys letting us take over her kitchen to make dinner had the biggest wow factor, but all of it was wonderful. Saying goodbye this morning was really hard. We hope they will come to Annapolis so we can get Gary out sailing on the Chesapeake.

Fresh as the crayfish was, it wasn't the freshest seafood we had in the Marlborough area. Our first day of kayaking on the Sounds, the 3rd day of our Queen Charlotte Track adventure, we kayaked to a green lip mussel farm. The mussels grow on long ropes that hang from large floats. The ropes are winched up for harvest, destroying the 1st meter of mussels. Kayak guides know this and go to grab mussels from that first bit. It is a difficult task. The ropes are really heavy. Even with our 3 kayaks rafted together, our guide Luke was only able to get 3 mussels. He had brought a pot to cook them in. 20 minutes after they came out of the water, we were eating them on the beach. Amazing.

Kayaking and hiking

I ended the last entry with a little information on our day in Abel Tasman national park. We did about 6 km of kayaking in strong headwinds, first around A fur seal sanctuary island, then eastward along the coast to a bay where we stopped for lunch and chained into our hiking shoes. We then hiked a similar distance and saw what the headlands and coves looked like from the shore. Our guide, Haya, walked part of the way barefoot. Not something we would have tried. Like all the guides we've had, he was friendly, professional, very informative, fun, and with an interesting story.

We returned to Marahau by water taxi, showered at the Abel Tasman Kayaks facility, and took off to return to Picton. The recommended return route was to avoid the windy coast road and drive west then south to get a straighter road. Peter aquitted himself well on his first driving experience. The roads were almost empty and we had great views of the mountains to the south most of the way.

We arrived at our B&B about 8:15 pm and had another experience of Kiwi friendliness and generosity. Our hostess agreed to wash and dry our clothes that night so we could bring them with us on the Queen Charlotte Track the next morning. Despite saying she wouldn't fold them, they were waiting for us folded in the morning.

We packed the duffel bags the Marlborough Sounds Adventure Company had left for us for the stuff that would be transported by boat between our lodgings. Their van picked us and our stuff up at 8:25 and took us to their office to pick up our lunch, meet our guide, and start on our trip.

Our first day's hike was about 14 km, the second about 11 km plus a trek on a very narrow trail thru virgin bush to a small waterfall.  It was good to get a sense of how dense the bush is once you get off the track.  We stayed in a different lodge each night.  One of the treats was arriving to find our bags already in our rooms.  The deal we booked also included dinner each night and breakfast each morning.  We met before breakfast each morning to make our lunches from the supplies the company had shipped in that day.  The lunches we got on our first morning were in clever little plastic boxes with a large compartment for a sandwich an smaller ones for other foods. the two compartments folded together, the box latched shut, and the food stayed fresh and uncrushed during our day's adventures.

The two days of hiking were great.  Lots of interesting views, good stories, birds, plants, etc.  The area we hiked through is a national park but with lots of private lands interspersed among the public ones.  We saw a few private holiday homes. On the third day, we took a water taxi to our third night's lodging, then got into kayaks and explored Keparu Bay. From the water we could see many more private holiday homes.  It was a little disappointing to see that we weren't as far away from the world as we might have hoped, but interesting to see how much private property the park included.  We had relatively high winds that day, but we did manage to get to a mussel farm and get 3 mussels from the first 3 feet of the rope which would be crushed anyway when the rope is winched up for harvest.  Our guide, Luke, cooked them for our lunch about 20 minutes later, definitely the freshest seafood we're likely to get on the trip.

We kayaked about 6 km our 3rd day.  On the final day, we kayaked about 16 km in flat water with no wind. I learned that the German word for the kind of rain we had is nieselregen, or sneeze rain--resembling the droplets you experience when you are sneezed on.  The overcast and rain probably contributed to the lack of wind.  We saw seals in the water with us, rays, starfish, lots of herring, and lots of seabirds.  We definitely felt accomplished by the time we paddled back into Picton.

Today was mostly a rest day.  We saw a movie that our guide, Luke, had urged us to watch.  It was "When A City Falls," about the earthquakes in Christchurch.  It was a more detailed picture of what happened and how people reacted than anything we could have gotten through the news.  We also went on a wine tasting tour.  Mike drove -- he is diving tomorrow so he can't drink.  We found lots of very different and interesting wines.

While Mike is diving tomorrow, Peter, Gerlinde and I are going sailing with our host, Gary.  We're hoping for good winds and maybe a little sun, the first we will have had since the day we arrived in Picton.  Peter is going to make one of his big salads for us and our hosts and we'll drink the wines we bought today.

Update

Update
I am writing this on Feb. 1, although I won't be able to post it for 4 days. We are at Furneaux Lodge on Endeavour Inlet in the Queen Charlotte Sound. It's the evening of our first day on this adventure. We started with a water taxi from Picton with a knowledgable captain and our guide Luke to a salmon farm in the sound. We heard about sustainable chinook salmon farming but mostly looked at the many seals who looked like they had made it thru the levels of security to breakfast on salmon. We went from there to Motuara island, a bird sanctuary where we saw 2 birds new to us, a beautiful green parrot native to NZ whose name I will add and the tiny South Island robin. These are tiny grey and white birds that seem to have no fear of people. Luke was pleased to see so many without bands, a sign the banded birds were mating successfully on the island. Peter and Gerlinde got to see their first Saddleback, a bird we had seen on Tiri Tiri Matangi but were pleased to see again. From there the watertaxi took us to Ship's Cove, a, beautiful spot that Capt James Cook visited 5 times on his 3 trips to NZ. We hiked about 14km from there to Furneaux Lodge. It was overcast and drizzly, but the scenery was still amazing. Luke told us a lot about the plants we were seeing as well as the local lore. We learned that Peter has a gift for mimicking bird calls. He and a few bell birds spent some time calling to each other.

Peter and Gerlinde have done a lot of hiking in the Austrian Alps and found the general topography here familiar. They were expecting something like the alpine huts with which they are familiar. Furneaux Lodge is nothing like a hut. We have large, luxurious rooms with a wall of windows to the Sound on one side and the mountain on the other. Meals are in a beautiful old house built as a holiday home by a family that immigrated from Scotland. Except for the promise that our next night's lodging will be equally wonderful tho different, we might not agree to leave.

We have stayed busy since my last entry. On our last night in Wellington, we went to Zealandia, a constructed "wilderness" close to the city built as a refuge for threatened and endangered NZ animals. The purpose of the night tour was to see the elusive national bird, the kiwi. We saw two of them. They are larger than I expected and for all their reputed shyness didn't seem concerned about all the red flashlights trained on them. We also saw the rarest NZ parrot and the prehistoric Tutara, a lizard that dates back to the breakup of Gonwandaland. We also got to see glowworms in the hillsides near water. They are fly larvae that excrete filaments like spiderwebbing to trap midges, a worthy endeavor. All that and a walk thru the woods in the dark with red flashlights. Great stuff.

The next morning, we got all our impedimenta to the ferry terminal in two trips, dropped off the rental car we had driven 2080 km and took the Interislander ferry for the 3-hour crossing to the South Island. It is a beautiful trip, about an hour to get from Wellington to Cook Strait, an hour in the Strait, and an hour in the Marborough Sounds to get to Picton. Once there, we dragged our stuff 90 meters or so to the rental car office where Chaz got us our station wagon. There was general dismay about whether everything and everyone would fit, but resourceful Peter put down one of the back seats so all was almost well. He and Gerlinde sat together in the back with the suitcase at the side while we drove the long, breathtakingly beautiful, and incredibly winding road to Abel Tasman National Park. Before leaving Chaz, we asked him to call his colleague in Greymouth and change our reservation from a car the same size to a van.

Our first night on the South Island was spent at the Ocean View Chalets in Marahau, one of the gateways to the smallest and most popular of NZ's national parks. You are probably tired of reading how stunning the scenery here is, but our first view as we turned up the road to the park really was breathtaking, tall mountains going down to the Tasman Sea. Our chalets lived up to their billing. We took a walk on the wide beach available only at low tide, watched sea birds, admired a few amazingly complex sand sculptures, and watched people digging for clams. When we returned at high tide, the beach was only a few feet wide.

We had stopped at a supermarket on the way to Marahau to pick up dinner and breakfast supplies. Our chalet rooms were the smallest and least equipped we'd had so far, so making the usual dinner salad was challenging--what to do with no big bowls. So we made a hanging salad. Peter cut up all the vegetables and put them in a plastic grocery bag. We hung it on a hook on the deck until we were ready to eat. Then one of us held the bag open while another scooped it out with our one big spoon. We had a common deck and each of our rooms had its own small table and 2 chairs. We pulled them together, lit the votive candles on each table, and ate looking out over the bush to the sea. It was especially nice once the temperature dropped enough to silence the deafening noise of the cicadas.

The day we spent in Abel Tasman was spectacular. The weather was bright and sunny but with a strong sw wind. We got into a water taxi in the taxi parking lot, then were towed by tractor into the sea. The taxi took us to a beach near Ponga Island. Then we got into double kayaks and paddled to Tonga Island, a NZ fur seal refuge. We saw pups and mothers and heard bulls. Also lots of seabirds.

We are now internet land so I will finish and post this, then file another report later.