Tuesday, November 23, 1994

It was an interesting night. I got to bed around 11pm, but to sleep about 11:45pm. At about 12:15, I was woken up, by two things: My arm got caught in the power cord for the electric blanket, and a floodlight outside our window came on. It has a motion sensor that was apparently picking up the wind. It would go off for a couple seconds, and then come right back on. So I ended up moving to another of the vacant rooms where there was a queen sized bed, and no window to the side where the floodlight is. It was even colder than I was prepared for. I froze solid for a few minutes before thawing out for a decent nap.

I got up around 8:30 to try and take a shower. The water was hot, but the bathroom was huge and drafty, so it was a real quick shower. We didn’t get breakfast so I guess this place wasn’t a bed & breakfast. We packed up the car and drove into town to try and locate a store that sells brewing kits. We spent awhile trying to find one, and finally located a place called “Brewers Hop”. They must have had about 50 or more pre-made kits to choose from. Bill bought a can, but I’ll wait until I can get one with US measurements instead of metric. It will make things much easier.

We headed back to Sumner to take the “high road”, which runs a ridge-line high above Christchurch. We went to the eastern end of the peninsula, where there’s a farm with sheep and cattle sharing an unbelievable view northwest through Christchurch with old gun emplacments. Military tranquility. World War II again…

We headed back west along Summit Road, not really knowing where it would come out. It was a beautiful drive, but would have been much better on a bright, sunny day.

We spent about an hour and a half up on the hill before deciding to come down to try and find lunch. We spent another two hours driving around, trying to find someplace to eat other than a hotel restaurant. We eventually ended up an McDonalds, and by then we were ready for anything. I had more fish’n’chips (Filet’o’Fish and fries). Not quite what we’ve been used to, but it hit the spot.

We got to the airport around 3:30pm, checked in our car (with the poor little sparrow still in the grill) and are now sitting in the departure lounge, watching Monday night football on Tuesday afternoon. San Francisco is up 28-0. It was nice to see football again. We’d completely forgotten that it was football season.

Create a mental picture: An old series on TV, about a serviceman named Gomer Pyle. What was that phrase he used to say all the time? “Surprise, surprise, surprise…” Guess who’s on the plane with us? Remember Linda and Manfred? The German couple who we met on the Picton Ferry, and again at our departure for the Doubtful Sound trip? The came walking down the aisle of the plane just after we got seated. Did I mention that he works for Luftansa? They have to fly standby on this vacation, and they’re leaving today, since the flight isn’t full.
We talked a little about Linda’s tandem parachute adventure on the day we went to Milford Sound. She actually jumped out of an airplane at 3,000 meters with a guy strapped to her back. She may have talked me into trying parachuting again, since I now live about 5 minutes from an airport that offers parachute lessons. We’ll see if I have any money left for things like this.

We just helped a guy who speaks absolutely no English fill in his travel documents. I don’t know Spanish very well (at all), so he just gave me all his tickets, passports, and everything else, and we just did our best. The stories he must be able to tell. He was born in España in 1914. I wish I could speak Spanish…

Last night and today have been relatively uneventful. We got off our plane, picked up the baggage, and went through customs. Bill had to go through the “Things to declare” line, since he had the lupin seeds I bought him. After a thorough strip search, they let him through. The didn’t really do a strip search, but did look up the seeds in a “book” before letting him through. We got picked up and taken to our hotel, the Sydney Airport International Hotel. Talk about a generic name!!! We checked in, kicked back, and watched the movie “Curly Sue”. A cute movie that tugs a little at the old tear ducts.

After sleeping almost 11 hours, we got up and got psyched for the next 48 hours. The hotel van brought us to the airport at about 11:30. Only about 4 hours early. Since then, we’ve been just “hanging out”, watching airplanes and people. I get such a kick out of watching everybody.

There’s the business traveller in a suit who looks bored to tears, while the “suit” next to him is furiously preparing materials for something. The family with three young children, trying to keep them entertained. Groups of students. Huge throngs of Japanese tourists chattering incessantly.

I wonder if they actually talk more than other nationalities, or if it’s just their language that makes it sound that way. Germans are everywhere, just like they’ve been everywhere we’ve been. We were talking to Manfred and Linda about the number of German tourists, and they mentioned the fact that all Germans get 30 days off, per year! They feel that’s why so many Germans can take vacations so far from home. We get to board the plane, but neither of us are looking forward to 14 hours on the plane, even if it is a direct flight.

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Monday, 11/22/93, 9:00pm

Well, today started out with a bang. Literally. Actually it was more like a whoop-whoop-whoop. A New Zealand Air Force helicopter landed about 100 feet behind our A-frame, and the Alpine Center. It must have been Search and Rescue training, since the loaded up with people in bright red-orange jackets, and took off about an hour later, heading up towards the Mueller Glacier area. About an hour later, the helicopter came back empty (well, there was a pilot), did something else at the Alpine Center, and then flew away, back down the valley. The weather was definitely breaking up, but predominantly cloudy, so we ended up cancelling our helicopter flight.

Driving back south to hiway 80, we turned to the northeast, towards Christchurch.
The mountains all around are beautiful with their fresh coats of snow. It’s too bad we can’t see the tops. We did finally catch a brief glimpse of the top of Mount Cook, but it went away pretty fast.

We stopped at a winery just outside Geraldine that makes Elderberry Wine The only place in the whole southern hemisphere. Most of you know how much I like Elderberry jelly, so I thought the wine might just be tasty. Unfortunately they were out of it, so I couldn’t bring any home. C’est la vie.

We continued on north, stopping from town to town, trying to find another home stay for the night. Apparently our reservation at the hotel got screwed up, and they ended up cancelling us. So now we have no place to stay. Since it’s Monday, I don’t think we’ll have any problem finding a place to stay.

We stopped at a place by the side of the road for fish’n’chips, which were great. As we continued towards Christchurch, we drove right on through town, turning where ever we felt like it. We wen through the industrial center of town, took a right turn, and ended up at the base of the Gondola that runs up the side of a hill right on the outskirts of town. We decided to go up and see what the city looked like. But the road we were on didn’t have an exit. Instead, we ended up in a tunnel going under the gondola, and came out the other side in a little bluff-side town called Lyttleton. We finally found a place to stay, owned by a pub, and recommended by another homestay owner. We took the hill road to Sumner, just back to the east around the same hill we just went under.

It turned out that the place is a semi-renovated 2 story Victorian. There are 6 bedrooms in the place, exposed wiring around the circuit breakers, and only about four other outlets in the whole house. We know, because the temperature in the house is about 4° centigrade, and we tried to find a place to plug in a little space heater to warm it up. We eventually found three little heaters, but could only plug one in, or we’d blow the circuit breakers.
So we plugged one in by the TV, one in the bedroom, and turned the electric blankets on high. It’s finally starting to warm up in here. I’m just not looking forward to the morning. It’s going to be freezing in here, and the rest of the bedroom will be sub-arctic.

Back to earlier. We walked across the street to the beach where there’s a weird formation called Cave Rock right in the surf line. It’s a large rock with a cave in it that you can walk through about 30 yards out towards the ocean. There’s about eight different holes that you can crawl out through. In high tide, it must be kind of weird the way the tide must move through the cave.

We went back to the pub, had a couple of beers, and a small mince pie (hamburger). After 30 tons of fish’n’chips for lunch, it was all we needed (wanted). Now we’re back in the house praying that we don’t start an electrical fire with the way we’ve rigged the heaters. It’s much warmer here now, but I’m not looking forward to the iceberg that will form in the front room over night. I hope I can finish my journal, but I may have frostbite.

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Sunday, 11/21/93

We got to sleep in today, and made it to almost 9:30. The day is overcast, with new snow (!?!?!) on the ridge directly opposite us, almost to the canyon floor. It’s about 10:30 now, and it’s starting to snow again. Very lightly, but snowing non-the-less. I thought I left the northern hemisphere to see spring and summer! This would be like getting a snowstorm at home towards the end of May. Not impossible, but unlikely. I’m pretty sure that they won’t be flying today, so we may have to schedule our trip for tomorrow morning before driving to Christchurch. We’ll just have to see what happens.

Today we took a tramp (a walk, not a person) up towards the Hooker Glacier. We headed up a canyon covered with huge gravel moraines left when the 6 glaciers that worked this valley retreated at various times. We continued right on past the terminal of the Mueller Glacier, up towards the Hooker (Glacier, that is). We crossed two swinging bridges through kilometers of gravel and rocks. Up and up towards the Hookup Glacier terminal. On the way up, there were huge ice shelves hanging high up on the left side. They’re called “ice falls” when the terrain is too steep to keep the ice up there. The Hooker Glacier is just as dirty (covered with gravel) as the Mueller and Tasman. All three of them have from one to three meters of gravel on them. Both sides of the valley have huge walls of gravel on them. There are rock slides everywhere, which may be the primary reason the glaciers are covered with gravel.

After 5 kilometers, we reached the terminal lake. Very large, and very cold. It’s only 0.4°C all year round. Chalky white water. Small to medium turquoise blue icebergs floating around. Sitting there listening to ice cracking and rocks falling wasn’t as easy as it was at the Tasman, since the river was running right next to us. It’s still a very weird place, proving once again that we can never understand what Mother Nature is up to.

The walk out was done rather quickly, since it was starting to spit rain and snow again, although by the time we got back it tried to clear up. We went to the store, picked up pasta, sauce, and veggies for dinner. We ended up making far too much food, which we felt we had to eat. Now we’re sitting here updating journals. Mine’s easy. Only about a half-hour of work. Bill’s just starting to work on November.

We have a tentative reservation for a helicopter ride tomorrow at 11:00am, but at the price, it will have to be a spotless day before we go. I’m not quite as excited as when we were at the Franz Josef, since it’s supposed to be “clearing” tomorrow, but we’ll have to see what happens.

I can’t believe that we only have two days left. It seems to be only a few days ago that we were in Cairns. But it’s been four weeks since we were there. Pretty amazing, the way time flies when you’re having fun.

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Saturday 11/20/93

Up again (not with the peacock this time) We had our breakfast with Pam and Barry and talked for quite awhile before we decided to head for Mount Cook. Just as we were piling into the car both Pam and Barry remembered that we had forgotten to pay. WHOOPS! It was a little embarrassing.

We headed north, back to Queenstown, before turning east for the rest of the trip to Mt. Cook. We pretty much just blasted our way north, with two exceptions. We stopped at a bridge just outside Queenstown to watch the bunjy jumpers. We parked at the entrance and walked to the observation stand to watch. I was pretty sure I didn’t want to do it, until I got there, and saw some people jump. If I hadn’t left my wallet in the car, I probably would have gone. But it’s too late to think about that now. Maybe when I get back home.

The second stop was for a huge, technicolor display of lupins on the side of the road. They were everywhere, and just about every color. Purple, blue, pink, yellow, white, and more. We even bought seeds to bring back to the states!

We had an expensive fish’n’chips lunch in Omarama. It cost us almost $3.50NZ for a large platter of food and a soda. It was pretty good (not the best) and seemed to do the trick. Continuing on north, we stopped around 3pm in the exciting town of Twizel to call for directions to our next homestay. For some reason, they decided to cancel our stay with no warning. I was slightly agitated (OK, really p—— off!), since I figured a Saturday night stay would be very hard book on such short notice. I nearly told her what I thought of her business practices. We started driving around, looking for other places to stay, but there weren’t any available. Not just places to stay, but buildings in general. We ended up driving up to Mount Cook town to see if there were any hotels/motels with available rooms. There are only two hotels in Mount Cook; a Tavelodge and the Hermitage. They ran $185NZ and $300NZ+, with only one room remaining in the Travelodge. We found out that they also rent little A-frame cottages for $106NZ per night, and they had only two of these available. We took one, and considered ourselves pretty lucky.

We tossed our luggage into the A-frame, and headed for the Tasman Glacier Terminal. We drove up a huge glacial valley, to a giant pile of rocks (giant, like 1/2 mile wide, about 100 meters high). We parked the car, and walked up to the top of the moraine to a lookout point. You could see about 20Km up the valley over what appeared to be a gravel covered valley floor. A sign at the lookout told us that there are 1 to 3 meters of rock, covering a glacier. It was really weird. You could see huge crevasses in the rocks (glacier), and some blue walls where the glacier ended in the terminal lake. Bill and I sat and tried to listen to the glacier (how do you say “shut up” in Japanese?) Hopefully the clouds and rain will clear up tomorrow, so we can get out and really take a look this place.

We came back to the cottage, made our own dinner (curried rice with chicken and string beans), and started updating journals around 9:00pm. It’s now 10:45pm, and I’m finally caught up completely. Bill was a few days behind, but he’s even starting to catch up to this week. He’s got two days to finish before he’s done. Hopefully that will be tomorrow, since we’ll be starting over with more activities then

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Friday, 10/19/93

We were up early for our trip. Actually we were up even earlier (like 4am) when this stupid peacock started crying for it’s mate. It was a very overcast, heavy day, looking like rain could come at any moment. We drove down to Manapouri, where the first leg of our journey would commence. We met Linda and Manfred again (the couple from the Picton Ferry). They were seeing off a friend on the same trip we were on. We picked up our sack lunches and boarded the ferry across Lake Manapouri to the power station. There was a light drizzle falling, so most of us stayed inside the ferry, going out only for pictures.
We got to the other side of the lake, climbed into a bus, and took a short trip down inside a huge, solid granite mountain, where somebody decided to put a power station. The tunnel we drove down was a 2Km long spiral that ended 200 meters below the surface of the lake.

There was a fairly large cavern at the bottom (maybe 50m x 200m?), holding 7 generators. Unfortunately we were only allowed on the top level where the exciters are (not very exciting), and didn’t get to see anything actually working. This station was constructed specifically to provide power for a single business south of here (an aluminum smelter). Currently the smelter gets 80% of the power, and only 20% is shipped back into the national power grid. Pretty nice arrangement if you ask me. The country builds you your own power station…

The water used to power the turbines gets discharged through the tailrace tunnel, which is bored through 12Km of solid granite right to the top of Doubtful Sound. Quite a feat of engineering once you see the mountains they drilled under, and the fact that they get over 200 earthquakes a month on this part of the island!

We got back on the bus for the trip from the lake to Doubtful Sound. This road only connects the lake to the sound, and goes nowhere else. The only way onto this road is via boat! It was used to move all the heavy equipment from the sea to the powerstation.

The area around here, with the clouds and mist, has a mystical property. It was a completely different perspective than Milford, but by far the most common, since this area gets over 9 METERS of rain per year! The record in one day was 21 inches. Now that’s rain!

We got to the sound, boarded our new catamaran ferry for the third leg of the trip. This sound is thirteen times as large as Milford, and very primitive. Other than our boat, there were only six other fishing boats working in the entire area. The permanent population around the shoreline is one, the caretaker for the New Zealand school district hostel.

We spent three hours cruising around the sound, stopping and turning off all the motors for awhile, just to listen to nature how nature intended it. Very nice. It was just as amazing as Milford in a different way. Clouds partially obscuring the peaks all around us. The rain remained very light, so it wasn’t a really bad day, just quite different. I experimented with different types of pictures, and I hope they come out good.

After riding around for three hours, we were all ready to head back. We got back on the busses for Lake Manapouri as the weather started getting worse, but after eight hours, most of us were too tired to really care. Once we got back to the car, Bill and I headed back to Te Anau for dinner.

We ended up back at the same restaurant as last night, but this time we both had fish’n’chips. Back at the house we sat around with Pam, Barry, and two of their friends who had just bought an 82 foot yacht to do tourist and research trips. It’s quite a boat. We had actually seen it in Milford Sound, went Ohhh, and Ahhh, but didn’t thing about it further until this evening. It was also quite interesting to find out that the other woman was a certified open-ocean boat pilot. She had actually piloted the nice, new catamaran that we were on in Doubtful Sound from Sydney. Even more interesting what the boats history in Sydney. Apparently it was a run-down all male floating strip joint in Sydney Harbour. What a strange world that we’d find this out sitting in a homestay from the person who brought the boat to New Zealand in the first place.

The other houseguests showed up shortly thereafter. They’re a young couple from Tuscon who are on their honeymoon. He’s a programmer named Henry, who’s an expert in whatever’s being discussed at the moment, and she’s conspicuously silent. Another friend of Pam and Barrys showed up (his name was Murray), and then things got real interesting.
We started talking about the early life of these native Kiwis, and their current plans with their boats. It was pretty funny. Five very informed, very intelligent Kiwis with very casual attitudes towards life, and Henry from Tuscon providing them with expert advice on things as diverse as what type of sails to buy for their new yacht, and how to survive in the rainforest.

We all decided to call it a night around 10:30pm, before Henry got really out of hand.

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Thursday, 11/18/93, 9pm

Boy, the days are starting to fly by at breakneck speed. On Wednesday we got up for breakfast at 9am, with the English, Aussies, Kiwis, and Yanks. It was quite tasty. Another good start for the day.

We started up towards Arrowtown, which is a small, rural, ex-ghost town which now caters to tourists. It wasn’t too big, or too interesting, so we did a tramp up to a monument on a hill, and through an early-day graveyard. A “tramp”, by the way, is used to mean walk or hike. We took a “side” road that went up to Coronet Peak, the local ski area. The road climbed very quickly from Lake Wakatipu at 1060 meters elevation towards the peak at 1651 meters. That’s a 600 meter change in less than 15Km (1800 feet in 7 miles). On the way up, we notice a small dirt road to the left that said “Skippers Canyon”.

Being the adventurous people we are, we went up. An up. And up. It finally came to a pass (not “it came to pass”). Right at the top, there was a sign that read “STOP. Budget and Avis cars are not insured past this point”. Seeing as how we rented from Hertz, we decided that we needed to continue. Straight down. One lane. With a sheer cliff of 200 meters on the right (Bill’s side), and a sheer cliff going up on the left (my side). Through a cutout in the bluff called “Hell’s Gate” and it’s sequel, at this time unnamed. Further and further we went, eventually deciding we should turn around, since we didn’t know where the road went. Needless to say, turning around was another unique experience.

Once we worked our way back up to the main road, we continued up to the ski area. It was pretty strange seeing a ski area with no trees, but that’s the way they all are here in New Zealand. The views from up there were amazing.

Back down the mountain, it was time for our jet-boat trip on the Shotover river. We put on damp, stinky full jackets filled with foam so that we’d float when the boat hit a rock wall and sank. Then twelve of us piled into this little red boat that sounded like a hot-rod. We pulled out into the current, and started upriver. After a brief trip, we turned around and the driver opened the throttle. The only acceleration I’ve ever felt like this was in a nearly empty jet in Santa Barbara. Intense.

The boat skipped up onto the surface of the water (it has only a four inch draft), and then we went flying down the river into a gorge with vertical granite walls. Nigel (our driver) was very good. I swear we missed the rocks on both sides of the boat by less than an inch!

It was exciting and petrifying at the same time. We went under one ledge where I had to duck, or my face would have been paté (is that “duck paté”?) After about two hours of this (OK, maybe two minutes) we came to a wide spot in the river where another boat was waiting to come upstream. Nigel zoomed towards it at nearly full throttle, yanked on the wheel, and did a complete 360° turn in about 20 feet. It was wild! After deep-breathing for a moment, we were off downriver to do more close calls and crazy spins. It was a GREAT ride that anybody who comes to New Zealand should do. It seems slightly expensive at $54NZ, but when you consider it’s only $27US, it’s worth it. What a rush.

Once we warmed back up from the ride, we headed back to Queenstown to walk around, take pictures, and pick up our tickets to Doubtful Sound (for two days later). By this time, the wind that had been picking up all day decided to get serious. It must have been blowing about 80Km/hr. Bill’s camera is still freaking out and rewinding rolls of film far too early, but we really don’t know what to do with it.

We headed back home and picked up “hot-dogs” at the local grocery store to cook for dinner. It was a very unhealthy dinner, but did the job: we lived until the next day. As evening progressed, the wind really kicked in, even blowing stronger than Wellington. It blew hard all night long, but we awoke to a gorgeous, sunny day with no wind at all.

Thursday : After breakfast, we packed up (yet again) and headed off to Te Anau and Milford Sound. Even though Milford is only 50Km due west of Queenstown, we had to go 150Km south to Mossburn, 30Km west to Te Anau, and then 150Km back northwest to get to Milford. We began to understand the roundabout trip when we started to see the main part of the Souther Alps. Very impressive, very vertical, very large country. It was a beautiful drive, getting more and more impressive by the mile. Vertical granite walls hundreds of meters high, waterfalls everywhere, glaciers, huge steep ravines, and much more. Up and up into the high alpine country we drove, finally driving into a tunnel drilled right into a 300 meter high granite wall. We came out the other side halfway up an even large granite wall, with a birds-eye view of a huge glacial valley. A camera just wouldn’t (or can’t) do it justice, which isn’t to say I didn’t waste a roll trying.

When we got to Milford Sound, it was beautiful. The sun was out, the birds were singing, and the waterfalls were falling (the Sound was sounding?) We parked the car and decided to take the cruise out on the sound, since we were doubtful about the weather for the Doubtful Sound cruise tomorrow (a fortuitious decision). It’s very hard to describe how large everything actually is. A huge waterfall (Bowen Falls) started the trip out into the sound. The peaks on either side raise almost vertically to 1,600 meters (over a mile!), and underwater, the sheer sides drop down just about as far. Almost any size ship can cruise within 5 meters of the walls, since they are so steep. I seem to remember the guide saying something about some of the large cruise ships tying up directly to the shoreline! The day remained beautiful for the entire trip through the sound.

It was pretty funny when the boat finally docked. Everybody who drove up to the sound in their cars practically sprinted back the 100 meters to the parking lot. The lot turned chaotic as everybody tried to back up at the same time. You see, everybody wanted to beat the busses to the road at any expense, which nearly included yours truly.
Driving back to Te Anau (our next stop) was just as beautiful as the way up. We still had sunshine and very high peaks, but this time we seeing the other side. It was awe-inspiring.

We stopped for dinner in Te Anau, where I had to finally try local venison. It was actually very good, and not nearly as strong as I remember as a child. Maybe it’s because the deer are raised in captivity by the thousands down here, but I’m not sure. Bill had his standard Fish ‘n’ Chips dinner that night.

A quick side note: For the last couple weeks, we’ve been amazed at the number of birds that sit in the road until the last possible second. Well, today a seagull waited just a little too long. It hit the protector screen over the left front headlight (that’s what those plastic screens are for!). I made the local news that night as “Tourist Seagull Killer at Large!”

After dinner that night, we headed to our next homestay just south of Te Anau. Our hosts were Barry and Pam Eaton. We had a good evening sitting around, shooting the bull. Pam and Barry were the youngest hosts we’ve had yet. Barry was raised in Fiordland, working with the Department of Wildlife. Apparently New Zealand had only two native species of mammals, and all others were introduced. With no natural predators, the introduced species went crazy. After awhile, deer were classified as a “nuisance species”. So young Barry (and alot of other locals) were employed to “trim the herd by helicopter”. After a year or so, the realized that they could sell the pelts, and started bringing them out by helicopter at the end of the day. This made a nice profit for the young kids.

Shortly thereafter, the venison market started to pick up, and some of the local sheep farmers decided to switch to deer instead of sheep. To be able to do this, they obviously needed a couple live animals. So Barry and friends started jumping out of helicopters to TACKLE LIVE DEER. Talk about gutsy. It was very interesting and entertaining listening to their stories. Now Barry is a guide for fishing, backpacking, hunting and whatever else needs doing throughout Fiordland. He leads a wonderful life in a wonderful location.

Barry was able to show me the real Southern Cross. Remember that I had tried in the north island with Thomas, Beatte and their son, but that night ended in an argument about where it was. It’s quite strange looking up in the sky, and recognizing nothing…

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Tuesday, 11/16/93, 9:00am

Yesterday (Monday), which was today before today: We got up for breakfast which was also attended by an older couple from Kentucky. I really hope they aren’t the typical American tourists, or the locals must have a pretty poor opinion of Americans.

We finished up and headed south on highway 6 through Greymouth (the Jade River) to Mokitika. Since this was the last big town on the road south, we stopped so I could buy a poncho (I forgot to bring a rainproof jacket). I paid $13.50NZ and just the simple fact that I bought it should prevent rain for the next week or so. A quick fact: Hokitika gets over 3 meters of rain per game.

Leaving town, we swung inland for a few kilometers to “Shantytown”, a re-creation of an early gold mining town. This country was big in gold production in the late 1800’s It was my first ride ever on a live, working steam locomotive. That part was kind of fun. It was kind of eerie how closely this place resembles any gold town from California, right down to the rockers, Placer mining guns, and huge piles of displaced slag. Then we find out that alot of the miners down here had been in California during the 1850’s.

We continued the drive south on highway 6, with the ocean on the right, and the mountains on the left, partially obscured by clouds. We began to catch glimpses of very high, snow-covered peaks through gaps in the clouds. I just wish it could have been a clear day. We took another side trip to the coast, and a little place called Okarito. This “town” consisted of maybe 15 houses, if that many.

Back on the highway, and into very high country with the Franz Josef glacier right in front of us. We took a dirt road right up to a viewing platform about 2Km from the terminus of the glacier. It’s a “dirty” glacier, filled with mud and rocks, but still quite a spectacular site. The valley walls climb vertically almost 1000 meters. We took a few pictures, and headed back to “town” for dinner at a tavern/bistro, and checked into the first hotel we’ve stayed in since leaving Auckland. It’s a nice place with a view of the canyon (you can’t quite see the glacier from here). It was quiet, with good beds, but we’ll sure miss that homemade breakfast we’ve been used to.

Today (Tuesday): We woke up to broken skies with the sun actually showing up at times. We’re scheduled to fly at 10:30, so I’m starting to get a little excited about the whole thing.

Stay tuned for what may be the longest entry yet!

Tuesday, 11/16/93, 8:30pm

Well, it isn’t going to be the most exciting entry yet, since we couldn’t go. The weather at 8:00am was beautiful, but by the time 10:30am came around (our scheduled flight), it had clouded over and they were cutting back on two thirds of the trip, so we skipped out and headed south (with almost no gas) to see the Fox Glacier. We put in enough gas (at 11 cents per liter more than anywhere else) to get us to Haast. We parked and walked up to the terminal end of the Fox Glacier. It’s impressive, and much larger than it looks. The exposes faces are a light, chalky blue, and the rest of it is white. You really have to see it to believe it.

We continued on southward to Haast. There’s only two gas stations in town, and the next one is over 150Km down the road. Because the gas was so highly price, we calculated that we’d need 12 liters of gas to get us there. We had a strange lunch, mine was a chicken burger with coleslaw. On the burger. It was kind of surprising, but no too bad. At Haast, we turned due east, heading up the Haast river into the Southern Alps and the most spectacular country we’ve seen so far. The river must be quite a site when full after an intense rain. The valley is almost 1/2 mile across.

We turned due south again, and climbed up and over Haast Pass. Looking back up the valley, you could see Eureka Mountain, over 1860 meters high, no more than 50Km from the coast. Then we started down the Eastern side of the Alps. We came across Lake Wanaka and Lake Hawea, both about 50Km by 5Km and mirror smooth. It was really weird to see that big of a lake as smooth as glass, and nobody on them, either water-skiing, or even just fishing. We took some pictures, and then decided to take a shortcut to Queenstown through Cardena. The road we took was about 25Km of sealed and 25Km of gravel/dirt. It went through the back country and was quite a lot of fun just to be “four wheeling” our way down south.

We pulled into our homestay here in Queenstown about 6pm. The house sits on a hill above Lake Wakatipu, in a suburb of Queenstown called Frankton. Our hosts were Louis and Ivan Lindsay. Another beautiful view out of the windows. We still seem to be picking all the right places!

We headed into Queenstown for dinner and a walk around. This is, by far, the most tourist oriented place on either island. There are shops everywhere, all with jacked up prices. It’s someplace we want to get out of, since neither of us are interested in this type of place. For excitement, we are planning a river jet-boat trip with a company called the Shotover Jet boats.

In the homestay, there was also a couple from Australia, and two men from the UK. It proved to be quite an interesting dinner table conversation when the different personalities got going.

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Sunday 11/14/93

Up again for another day that went by too fast. We said our good-bys after promising that I’d send them some Iced Tea samples (they’ve never had Iced Tea). We headed west, since Rex promised us good weather once we got there. Weather patterns, on the South Island in particular, are rather unstable, and move fast. So, if you have bad weather on the east, head west, and vice-versa…

We followed the Wairau River about 100Km to St. Arnaud, which is a beautiful little chapel on the edge of a beautiful mountain lake. We’re now only 100Km from semi-arid desert, and have huge snow-covered peaks in the background. Exactly like a trip from the high-desert in Nevada into the Eastern Sierras.

Next we picked up the Buller River, heading due west, over to a quick diversion down to Lake Rotoroa (not Rotorua). Another beautiful high mountain lake similar to Lake Arnaud.

We continued down the Upper Buller Gorge, through the Buller Gorge, and out to the Tasman Sea. Driving south on Highway 6 is very much like driving north on highway 1 in California at this point, right near the Monterey Peninsula. It becomes very obvious very quickly why only 5000 people live on the entire west coast. It’s pretty vicious, even on a calm day. However, Rex was right. It was a beautiful day. We headed due south now, and stopped at a place called the Punakaiki rocks, or Pancake Rocks and Blowholes. These are weird layers of sandstone eaten away by the sea, until what remains looks like a stack of pancakes. A rather large one. There is an interesting phenomenon here where the ocean has eaten away underneath a bluff, and made a huge underground cavern. Eventually the cavern collapsed, and leaves a huge arch near the sea with a large pit. During high tide, the sea rushes in under the arch into the ex-cavern which now has no top, and goes straight up into the air. Another spectacle, courtesy of Gaia.

A short distance further south brought us to our next home on the coast. Our hosts, Tony and Ib Pupich, have a very nice home on a bluff at Nine Mile Creek. The house sits about 100 yards back from the sea, looking towards the west. This house was another great choice. We went for a brief walk down on the beach to look for jade. It washes down the Grey River and out to sea at Greymouth, where it’s polished by the wave motion and sand, and then just washes up on shore. Apparently alot of the locals do these walks regularly.

After the walk, we jumped back into the car, and drove down to the town of Greymouth for burgers at Steamers (a bar). We stopped at a jade shop in Greymouth to see some of the boulders that have washed up in the river. Some of them were almost solid jade, weighing in at 100 Kilos or more! We headed back to the house, and stayed up talking until very late. We need to catch a helicopter early in the morning, so I’ll catch up with Today Tomorrow, which will be Yesterday then…

Categories: Aust/NZ
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Saturday, 11/13/93

We had to get up early this morning (6:30am) to catch the ferry to the South Island. We had a nice breakfast with the other guests who were staying at the house. This was the first time we had shared a house with other guests.

We drove to the ferry building, where we had to drop off our little Nissan Sentra, and then boarded the ferry as passengers. The crossing cost us $30NZ each. While we were still in port, I started talking to the steward (is that the right title?) about this ferry. It’s the small one of four ferries. Small is kind of a misnomer, since this boat was about 120 meters long, and had 6 different decks. The bottom deck held train cars, four wide (480 meters of train), two car decks, and three passenger decks. The deck we sat on (the middle one) must have been at least 15 meters above the water. And to think that this was the small boat! They even had a movie theater for passengers on board, where they were playing “Sleepless in Seattle”!

South Island, New Zealand

We spent three hours working our way southwest to Picton, in medium to small seas, still facing a few squalls. Along the way, we met a couple from Germany, named Manfred and Linda Barth. Linda grew up in Winter Park, Colorado (just over the hill from where I live now), and her parents still own two hotels there. Manfred works for Luftansa, so the got to come on this trip for very little money, but they have to fly everywhere on standby. It was really fun talking with them, and the three hour crossing passed quickly.

As we entered the bay north of Picton, fingers of this bay seemed to go on forever. It only took us about 1 1/4 hours in the strait, and almost 2 hours in the long, interwoven sound (is this the right word?)

We disembarked in Picton, and picked up our new car. We loaded it up, and sat in the parking lot for an hour, trying to figure out what we wanted to do, and where we wanted to go to begin our South Island tour. We finally ended up driving about 30Km south to Blenheim, where we checked into our next homestay.

The scenery all around us has changed considerably. There are now low, rolling hills covered with dry grasses, much like the foothills of the coast ranges in California in early fall. I was a little surprised by this shift, but then I never did understand Mother Nature.

Our hosts in Blenheim, Rex and Adrienne Handley, were pretty amusing. All the people we’ve stayed with so far have had an interesting/unique sense of humor and an even more interesting/unique outlook on life. It’s definitely made the homestays fun. Rex is an ex-pilot and current tinkerer.

He has his own glider, rebuild Model-T, miniature working steam engine, and much more. Adrienne just liked to talk, and was very good at getting us to talk about all kinds of things. We had dinner that night at the “Top of the Town” where our food was “Spot on” (meaning Great). The only problem with dinner that night was a disappearing napkin, but you’ll have to ask Bill about that one. I promised I wouldn’t tell.

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