Aotearoa

Christina's and my campervanning-around-New Zealand venture went surprisingly... smoothly. We didn't miss flights, ferries, or buses, run out of gas, get terribly lost, or any other things that become little memorable horror stories on vacations. I guess I shouldn't have prefaced that with "surprisingly," but... you know.
Anyway, we did what NZ tourists do: lapped up the scenery along the West Coast of the South Island-- snow covered peaks and glaciers mixed in with jagged, rain forest covered mountains lining an unfettered coast fed by opaque minty-gray colored streams and pools-- doing some shorter and longer hikes to take more of it in along the way. We spent several hours in a cute town called Hokitika to see people carving NZ "green stone" (jade) and an animal observatory that had a nocturnal kiwi house. Kiwis are pretty ridiculous looking things.

Queenstown is recommended by most as a must-make stop in NZ. It is certainly in beautiful place (apparently a good deal of LOTR filming took place in the "Rembarkables," the mountains at the base of the lake the city borders) and set up very well for tourists. It kind of reminded me of an overgrown Northstar village, though, and my favorite places of the trip actually came in the days of travel directly before and after it-- Wanaka and the Fiordlands.

After waking up to sunrise over Lake Hawea (we'd thought it was Lake Wanaka when we pulled in... it was dark), we'd actually made our way over Wanaka. It's at the edge of Mt. Aspiring National Park, and apart from having its own beautiful lake, has hikes that look out in different directions at Mt. Cook (tallest peak in NZ) and Mt. Aspiring. We did one of these hikes, Roy's Peak, and instead of more words to describe the results of a 2-3 hour climb, pictures:



Te Anu is the stop-in, get gas, figure out what you're doing point for the Fiordlands. The afternoon after leaving Queenstown, we stopped in, got gas, and signed up for sea kayaking on Milford Sound the next morning. The drive out to Milford (broken into two parts, having camped at a remote conservation site part way out) was breathtaking in it's own right. It starts out with serene lakes, meadows, and dense forests, before opening up to serious mountains that probably put others to shame. Kayaking on the Sound (which is actually misnamed; as it was carved by a glacier, not a river, it should be Milford Fiord) was so much fun. The wind was a worry at points so we couldn't go as far out as they usually do, but we made it around a bend that opened up to a deceivingly long stretch of dark water with Mitre Peak rising on the left, water falls on either side, and a small mountain-island in the center; I wasn't disappointed. Couldn't take pictures at that point since the waves/wind demanded paddling, but here's when we went up a calm side river a bit:

(Obviously that's not us, but we were all wearing the same black thermals, fluorescent wind jackets, and goofy fleece hats, so who's to tell?)

The drive back up the East Coast to Christchurch reenforced the lesson that New Zealand has very, very many cows and very, very, very many sheep.

P.S. - Clicking a picture opens it up bigger in a new window.