New Zealand South Island Part 1: Meerkats, Beaches and Birds

New Zealand South Island Part 1 photo highlights

Our time at home in December passed in a blur of visits with friends and family, enjoying the snow and eating a lot of great meals- which meant we had to buy new pants a size bigger for the second half of the trip;)  We rotated between a host of different friends and family, usually on different nights.  We were happy to have time away from each other, but seeing how incredibly uninterested Xander and Liam were in us when they had the alternative of spending time with their friends made us appreciate the fact that we’ll have them captive for a few more months before losing them to their teens.

Liam and Eli in Abel Tasman National Park

We were all happy to have our first 2^nd half destination be New Zealand.  Between the friendly (mostly) easy to understand people, beautiful places, fun activities, and personal safety, there is no easier place to travel (easier than any country we have ever travelled including the USA).  We started with an epic travel day:  Denver à LA à Auckland (13 hours, the longest flight we’ll have)  à Nelson à Collingwood.  We left Monday afternoon and arrived Wed night.  Thanks to crossing the international date line, we skipped December 29^th, which happens to be both Mike’s (Jim’s brother) and Jace’s (our nephew’s) birthdays. I’m pretty sure means they didn’t get a year older.  New Zealand is 4 hours behind Denver, but tomorrow. 

The long trip was worth it because we met up with our friends (and Liam’s bestie) from Golden, the Merkerts (aka Meerkats).  It was wonderful to travel with them and their lovely Australian friends Ivan and Chris.  It was also great to have someone else do all the travel planning for a change.  We were some of the first in the world to celebrate the new year on the beach after a day kayaking and hiking in Able Tasman national park (the next day because there was no way were staying up that late).  The next day we discovered the actual natural setting for our Windows 10 screensaver on the beach at Farewell split northern-most point of the Southern Island in (that included baby seals and an exciting hissing-seal encounter.) 

Bringing in the new year on Farewell Spit

After a long rainy day drive down the country, we made our day down to Franz Joseph glacier. Both Jim and I had hiked on the glacier ~20 years ago (and you could as recently as a few years ago), but now it is only accessible via helicopter—really stark evidence of global warming (but still a beautiful hike up to the glacier face).  Another highlight of the area was hiking up through a middle earth-like forest to an old mining tunnel where we waded through water deep underground to see glow worms that made the cave ceiling look like a sky full of constellations. Awesome.

Jetboating on Shotover Canyon

Next we were off via the Wild West coast to Queenstown, the “adventure capital of the world.”   Along the way we saw hector dolphins in the surf, and incredible rock formations.  In Queenstown we rode luges down from the top of the gondola, went jet boating along the Shotover river ½ meter above the river bottom and 2 centimeters from the canyon walls, took a steam boat across stunning lake Wakatipu to see some impressive sheep dogs and sheep shearing, and did a whole lot of wrestling (at least the boys did).  We stayed in Queenstown a few extra days after the Merkerts headed back north that included lots of hikes, a scenic drive to Gandalf country, and a city Segway tour.  Liam ended up crashing his Segway after showboating a bit, but still wants to save up to buy one when he gets home.

Jim training for his future mall cop career

  

On my 10^th “surviversary” from cancer, I got to bungee off the Kawaru bridge-  the first commercial bungee jump and my first bungee jump when I was in NZ while in college.  Only now they use harnesses.  (Seriously, the only strap they used to have was to a towel wrapped around your ankles.  Ahh, progress).  The only physical thing that I can do better than Jim and the boys is throw myself off of cliffs.  Luckily, that’s been a fairly significant part of the trip. (Bungee video)

Gandalf country

We’ve spent the last week touring around the far south of New Zealand in the Caitlins where the sheep are plentiful and the trees grow sideways in the wind.  We made it down to Stewart Island and went to Ulva island, a primordial forest where they diligently trap all predators (apparently, rats can swim for 3 days) so that many endangered NZ birds that evolved in a place where there were no predators can live in peace.  A favorite sound has been the two-voice boxed bell bird calls echoing through the forests throughout the South Island.  New Zealand was so isolated for so long it has/had many amazing flora and fauna unique on Earth.  About 500 years ago, New Zealand had the largest bird in the world—the Moa—that was over 3m (~10feet) tall.  It got eaten by the Haast eagle, the largest eagle ever known to have existed.  As with many places, settlement and non-indigenous species have wreaked havoc—for example, rabbits were introduced to keep weeds down, stoats were introduced to keep the rabbit population down-  now there are still a ton of weeds, rabbits, stoats and kiwis are endangered—but New Zealand has had the most visible conservation efforts we’ve seen anywhere to date, and it seems to be making a difference.  

Exploring the Caitlins in the far South

We’re excited to spend another month in this beautiful country.  Our main focus right now is gearing up for the Milford trek, which we start on the 25^th.  An ambitious undertaking (for me and Liam at least) but dubbed as one of the “best hikes in the world” it should be amazing (if only it involved cliff jumping). 

Senses:

Jim: The wide beach reflecting the beautiful rock tunnel outcroppings at Farewell Spit; the constellations of glow worms lighting our way through the pitch dark tunnel; the pull of the kite string as I get it to fly to the end of the line, high above the Queenstown hills full of farms, deer and sheep; the refreshing mist from McLean falls filling the air in the dense green forest.

Carolyn: The mellifluous sound of the bell birds calling to each other in the fern covered rainforest on the Abel Tasman waterfall trail; Hector dolphins arching out of the azure Tasman sea wave along the shore of the wild west coast near Haast; the slobber from the ugly-but-cute fluffy scottish bulls tongue coating Xander's hand as he feeds it at the Walter Peak Country farm near Queenstown; the row of trees sticking up from the hectares of sheep fields, twisted and sideways from bracing themselves against the “roaring forties” latitude wind

Liam: The giant waves barely nicking me as I look out to sea to see the small Hector dolphins in the surf; The tortured look on the sheep’s face as it’s thrust to the side and shaved into a tiny naked ball; the inky sap from the mossy moa tree dripping from my stick pen as I write a message on a paper like leaf- the same way people used to send postcard 100 years ago; the plethora of  rocks scattered across gemstone beach as I slowly pick through rock after rock to find the perfect additions to my collection

Xander: The lush green forest filled with beautiful bird songs opening up to a vast hill range of trees and ferns; The turquoise green waves rocking our kayak back and forth and threatening to crash us into the jagged cliffs and rocks of the islands offshore in Able Tasman; Wading through the numbing water of the cave to see glow worms creating constellations across the tunnel ceiling; My face stretching back as we skim centimeters above the bottom of the river and millimeters away from the cliff walls in a jetboat in Shotover canyon; the waterfall shining in the sunlight as it pours down the many tiers of rocks in the Caitlin forest

Lessons learned:

• Put sunscreen on your feet
• Kiwis are unique in that they have nostrils at the end of their long beaks.  Since scientists measure beak length from the nostrils, they have one of the smallest beaks of all birds
• Kiwis are "honorary mammals" because their feathers are similar to fur (they don't have the barbs like other birds) and they don't fly
• Sandflies are awful
• Possums are pests in New Zealand.  They were introduced from Australia to try to start a fur trade and are now "plague" proportions.  You see them run over on the road everywhere.  They are protected in Australia.
• Albatross have a 3m wingspan (as big as the Haast eagle)
• Tourists love Cadbury chocolate
• Albatross live on the ocean for 5 years, circumnavigating the world in the southern sea
• Don't stand up to pee on a rocky boat
• People on Ulva island wrote postcards on leaves with sap from trees to send back to Scotland
• Rats can swim for 3 days
• Kiwi's eggs are the biggest proportion to their body weight-  as big as ostrich eggs. Ouch
• European settlers came to New Zealand in the 1800