Vacationing on the North Island

On the early morning of May 25^th, Christchurch shook some of its residents awake.  I had already gotten out of bed – I had a 7:00 a.m. bus to catch and had woken up early – but I didn’t feel a thing. Not sure why. Oh well. 

In any case, catch my bus I did and I was off to Blenheim.  There were five reasons for me to return there, and all of them were conveniently living under one roof: Hannah, Laura, Ben, Nathan and Kim.  Still in town awaiting the start of pruning, they’ve moved out of Koanui and into a house that they’ve furnished quite nicely. Though it had only been a few weeks since I’d seen them (and only a week and a half since I’d seen Hannah), it felt like much more. I was great to be with the gang again.

Two movies, one trip to the library, a somewhat disastrous attempt at making pizza (hint: “tomato sauce” in NZ means “ketchup”), one short night, and a yoga session later, I had to take my leave. It was hard to say goodbye, but I had a good reason to head out – Leah was waiting for me in Wellington!

Yet another ex-Koanuite, Leah is a Canadian Christian-hippy-outdoorswoman, and she’s awesome.  She’d left Blenheim a month ago to travel around South-East-Asia, and was back in NZ.  She had been staying with her sister in Wellington but was itching to head North to Tauranga and the kiwi orchards.  When she suggested I meet up with her in the capital city and travel up together, I jumped at the chance.  

Wellington's harbourfront has a strangely placed hopscotch thingy.  We played.  Leah won. :(

Over the course of three days, we made our way from Wellington to Tauranga via Taihape (a tiny spot on the map), Taupo and Rotorua.  It was a fun journey; we saw someone warming up to attempt a world record bike jump (he did it too!  Triple back flip http://www.biketaupo.org.nz/content/view/606/1/), splashed around in a hot spring, met a helicopter pilot who’s coworker was flying Peter Jackson around the Tongariro area (lucky!) and even saw some trout trying to spawn up a waterfall (cool!)

One tiny section of Okere Falls.  That's where we saw the fish spawning. 

Leah in the mists of a steaming Rotorua pool in the park.

One of the foot baths in the park.

Some dude doing a crazy flip.

Leah in Taupo's hot spring

 But the best part of the journey was the destination: the new home of six other friends from Blenheim. Aline, Andrea, Sinead, Joe/Adrienne, Hiroshi and Rob have set themselves up in a nice apartment (though condo is a more apt description) in gorgeous, beachy Mount Manganui (which is basically a suburb of Tauranga).  It’s très sweet here. 

The others (including Leah now) are all working on the kiwi orchards, picking now, pruning later.  I’ve been enjoying their company while their around, and enjoying my solitude while they aren’t.

Over the past two days I’ve walked at least 25km while exploring the town and searching out the best deal for a ski jacket ($159, as it turns out). I’ve also hiked up Mount Manganui again, and even gone for a (very short) dip in the ocean – which is great, considering June 1^st marks the first official day of winter here.  Crazy! And how did I celebrate?  By sunbathing on the beach J

Leah on the beach.

The beach from the top of Mount Manganui.

Perched precariously on a rock on top of Mount Manganui.

A quick visit to Post-Quake Christchurch

On May 22^ndI rolled into Christchurch.  Coincidently, it was the day of the predicted rapture and exactly three months to the day after this city was rocked by a huge quake. Though I paid no heed to the rapture talk, I was a little nervous to see what state Christchurch was in after two big quakes in less than six months. (If you remember, I was here in October and had expected to see rubble and mayhem then.  Luckily, for the most part, that was not the case.)

Once again, I was delightfully surprised that things weren’t as bad as I’d imagined. Don’t get me wrong, things aren’t great;  Big chunks of the central part of the city are still inaccessible, many buildings bear “Do not enter” signs, and heaps of businesses have yet to reopen. Hundreds of people lost their lives, and thousands others are still living with the effects of that quake, so I’m not diminishing the level of destruction or suffering that Christchurch has seen. I was just happy to see that life is indeed going on, most buildings are still standing and many businesses are up and running.  It was good to see.

I didn’t get up to much, other than wander the streets and take pictures of some of the hardest-hit areas (the ones I could get to, anyway).  I also delighted in visiting different supermarkets (I know, I know, Loser) and other shops, since Wanaka isn’t exactly teeming with stores.  Of course, the Botanical Gardens are as gorgeous as ever, so I spent a happy hour revisiting some of my favourite trees and watching the ducks play in the river.  When you’re broke and in a broken (but on the mend!) city, you make your fun where you can find it.

Christchurch has/had a lot of churches, and they seemed to be the buildings that suffered the worst damage.

Broken glass was still on the ground outside this office building.  No idea if it was from vandals or the quake.

As close as I could get to the heart of downtown. Cathedral Square is just beyond that white building, if I'm not mistaken.

I was glad to see that this archway is still standing.  It was one of the first things I photographed when I first got to NZ back in 2004.

Random destroyed apartment building.

Many areas downtown are cordonned off by chainlink fences, and of course many of these have become memorials.  Interestingly, this was the most colourful, elaborate and extensive one I saw.  It's outside the Arts Centre where the Dux Delux microbrewery and pub once stood.  They've left a bunch of duck-shaped papers with handy ties in a folder on the fence so people can add their own notes.  Inki had brought me to this pub back in October, and it was quite good, so I left a note myself (not picture here though).

The sidewalks were pretty bumpy in places.  You could see where it had likely roiled and waved up during the quake.  This is one of the most dramatic examples I saw.

Another shell of a church.

The pretty fountain in the Botanical Gardens was working just fine though. :)

A plan for my last four months...

I’m currently in Wanaka, my favourite town in the country, and I just found out yesterday that I got a job at one of the ski hills here, which I’m really excited about.  Apparently they had over 1200 applicants for only 100 positions, so I’m feeling pretty proud to have gotten it.  From the end of June ‘til the end of August, I’ll be selling tickets and working the gates – nothing too revolutionary, but it should be fun cause I’ll be working with people from all over the world, and I get a free season’s pass and heaps of discounts around town.  Yay!

After that, I’ll only have about a week or two left on my working holiday visa (where have eight months gone???), which kind of sucks.  I’m torn, cause the uncertainty of what I was doing was both exhilarating and terrifying.  To have the rest of my official time here mapped out is kind of comforting, yet sad.

As for beyond September, I have some decisions to make.  I can get a tourist visa which will allow me stay here another three months, but I won’t be able to work, so any money I have left, will be drained away, especially since the Rugby World Cup is taking place in NZ during September and October, and as a result, hostels will likely balloon from about $25 a night to nearly $60 a night (yikes!). 

Or, I could head home for a few months where I could maybe work and make some money in preparation for school here in January.  But that means two winters in a row…not a fun prospect.

And then there’s the question of what to do with the car.  Gandalf has been good to me, but as I’ve mentioned before, he needs a new timing belt which will likely cost me $800-$1000, and really, I don’t really need a car anymore if I’m staying in one place for the foreseeable future.  My options are to either sell Gandalf cheap now, or fix him up  and sell him at a better price later (people reckon that before the World Cup lots of tourists will be in the market for cheap cars).

So many things to think about.

For now though, I have two weeks to kill before training starts for work, and I’d rather not spend them here.  So, I think I’ll head back up north to visit some of the old Blenheim crew – some of them are up in Tauranga on the North Island and others are still in Blenheim.  I’m going to leave Gandalf parked here in Wanaka and make my way by share rides and buses (cheaper and less stressful than driving a car in need of a new timing belt), and maybe even fly back (how extravagant of me!).

The Routeburn Track in the sun and the rain and the snow

Those of you who know me would probably agree that I’m neither a girly-girl nor a great outdoorswoman.  I’m somewhere in between.  I enjoy the outdoors, but not encountering much of the creatures that reside there; I do my best to avoid mosquitoes, bears, coyotes, wolves and the like.  One of the many many things that I enjoy about New Zealand is that, other than the mosquitoes and the overly friendly sandflies, none of the creatures here are inclined to chomp down on human flesh.

Therefore, I explore the kiwi backcountry with much more gusto and vigour than I do in Canada (in other words, I do explore it here, whereas I don’t at home). It had been a while, but this past weekend I laced up my hiking shoes, shoved my sleeping bag, rain gear, camera, and a bunch of instant noodles into my backpack, and hit the trails.

It was all last minute.  A Canadian girl I’d met briefly last week in Franz Josef was at the same hostel as Hannah and I in Queenstown.  She and three other people she had just met were doing the Routeburn Track Friday through Sunday and she invited me along.  As Hannah was leaving on Friday, and I had nothing to do until Monday (when I had an interview with Treble Cone in Wanaka), I was happy to accept the invitation.

In hindsight, it might have been a good idea to put a bit more thought into logistics before agreeing to come along. 

You see, it’s mid-fall here, and “here” is pretty far South (which in this hemisphere means, it’s colder), and the Routeburn is in a mountainous area that has been known to get snow even in the height of summer. Do you see where I’m going with this?

And remember those hiking shoes I put in my bag? Yeah.  Shoes.  Not boots.  Not warm, and definitely not waterproof.  And that sleeping bag?  It cost me all of $40 and was meant for summer use, and even then its effectiveness at keeping me warm is less than optimal.  And the rain gear? Turns out much of the properties that at one time made it waterproof no longer apply (that was a nice surprise in Saturday’s downpour, let me tell you). And my camera?  Well, one hour into the first day, my batteries died. And my backup set?  Yeah, they were dead too.  Greeeeaaaat.

Nonetheless, I had a great time.  I was hiking with Aki and Lavilla from Canada, Rahki from England, and Eddie from Germany.  We also met Andrew from Oz, Dermud from Ireland, Nathalie from Switzerland, a dozen Americans doing an outdoor leadership course, and a bunch of other random people along the way.

The Routeburn is a 32 km, three-day hike and we slept two nights in huts spaced about four hours apart along the track. We climbed from about 700m to 1255m of altitude, then back down.  The entire way we were surrounded by majestic mountains and pristine waterfalls and beautiful forest. When the clouds broke, the views were stunning.  Unfortunately, for much of Saturday, when we were at the peak of the track, the mountains were shrouded in grey clouds and the rain rarely let up. We were all rather soaked and cold when we reached the hut that night.

And what about those huts?  Well, even in the summer, they’re basic (unsurprising, as they’re at the top of a flipping mountain).  In the fall and winter, they cross the line into positively rustic.  I won’t lie – I was rather uncomfortable at times.  It wasn’t the lack of light (the sun sets at 5:30 these days), or the fact that we had only a single outhouse (one didn’t even have TP) to be shared among 30+ trampers, or the cosy sleeping quarters – those were fine.  It was the cold that was killing me.  I really wasn’t prepared for that.  A few days ago, it was 20 degrees in nearby Queenstown and I was wearing a t-shirt and capris. Up on the Routeburn, even at noon we could see our breath indoors and all we had was a wood stove in a massive room to keep hypothermia at bay. I seriously considered hiking back down and try my hand at hitchhiking at one point. 

Luckily, the fire did its job and by sleeping directly next to the stove while wearing two pairs of thermal pants and socks, and about five layers on my upper body, I managed to not only get comfortable, but sleep soundly.  Phew!

Day three started off beautifully – the sun was shining and the snow-topped peaks around us were positively sparkling (the huts were all in these really stunning locations). By 1:30 though, the temperature plummeted and the pretty, light snow that had been falling all morning suddenly turned into that heavy, slushy stuff that sticks to everything and makes even the cheeriest of souls downtrodden. I only had to hike in it for an hour, so it wasn’t bad (and I had resorted to wearing plastic shopping bags over my socks which kept my feet somewhat dry – sexy).

I was so happy to get to the Divide: the end of the track and the pickup point for the bus.  Unfortunately, the moderate snow we were having on our (inland) side of the mountain range was evidently extremely heavy on the other (coastal) side, and that was the side the bus was coming from.  We spent a tense hour and 15 minutes waiting for said bus after hearing that the road was closed and that, if the weather didn’t break, it might not make it at all and we might have to camp out again.  Scary.

Fortunately, after a time, the snow plows did their job, and the bus did show up (I literally nearly hugged the driver).  So I was able to shower (oh my goodness did I ever need it), eat a hot, non-instant-noodle meal, enjoy a cold beer, and sleep in a warm room.  Double phew.

Now, I really wish I had a bunch of photos to share with you all, but I only managed to take a few in on my first day, and (after rearranging the batteries a few times) two on days two and three.  Luckily, I've managed to grab some pictures off of Aki and Lavilla.  Tripple Phew!

Lavailla, Rahki, me, Aki and Eddie

Mackenzie Hut, where we spent our second night.  This was the calm before the snow storm.

One of the many waterfalls along the track.

Andrew, me, Aki, Nathalie and Durmid trying to stay warm at Mackenzie Hut.

Before heading out on our last leg of the walk.



The drying station at Mackenzie.  There were 30+ pairs of boots and shoes and countless items of clothing drying here.  It wasn't the best smelling place in the world.



Mossy!

A less-than-perfect attempt at a self portrait.

The view from the Routeburn Falls hut, night one.

My sexy hiking atire on day three.

Westcoast to Wanaka

Over course of last week, my travel companion Hannah and I slowly made our way down from lackluster Greymouth to action packed Queenstown.

New Zealand’s remote West Coast has much in the way of water (it gets some five metres of rain every year), trees, rocks and mountains, but little in the way of people, towns, roads and other comforts. 

What a lucky girl I am that I have visited this gorgeous place three times in less than ten years.

We saw lakes, rivers, glaciers, forests, mountains, and rocky shores.  We stayed in cozy hostels, and creepy deserted lodges.  We drove in brilliant sunshine, and raging downpours.  We ate far too much junk food and took too many pictures. Other than the sandflies, it was great.

This one section of the road between Greymouth and Hokitika had all these inukshuk-like rock piles that people had made.  They were cool.

We took the only route available down the West Coast (I’m not exaggerating.  There’s literally one road down).  It took us through Greymouth (stopped for free library Internet, a McFlurry and KFC), Hokitika (took some photos at the beach),

The beach in Hokitika

Pukekura (spent the night in the emptiest and creepiest place I’ve ever stayed.

Our creepy accommodations in Puukekura.

Seriously, this “hamlet” consisted of approximately three buildings, one of which was adorned with a giant metal sandfly), Franz Josef Glacier (visited a glacier, natch), Fox Glacier (ditto), Haast (spent that night and thought we might go out to a pub or a bar there, until we arrived to the “town” and realized that the population is about 200), and finally, Wanaka.

How one spends an exciting Saturday night in Haast.  Sadly, that look of glee is not staged.  I was actually that stoked.

As I mentioned back in October when I was back here, Wanaka is one of my favourite places in NZ.  This time of year, there’s not much to do there, but nevertheless, we stayed three nights. It’s still damn pretty, and we made the most of it.

We walked to my favourite winery (Rippon) to do a tasting.  Unfortunately, it’s closed until July L

We took dozens of pictures of the lake. 

Fall in Wanaka.

The lake.  Again.

We saw a charming French rom com at Cinema Paradiso.

We visited Puzzling World, a museum celebrating all things that tease the brain: illusions, tromp d’oeils, puzzles, games and mazes. It was pretty cool.



Big Nadine and Little Hannah. 



Pretending to puke in the fake bathroom.

The maze.  We had to find our way to the four corners then navigate our way out again.  Finding the corners was fairly easy and we were so proud and cocky.  Then it took us nearly an hour to find the exit again.  It was humbling.

Ouch!

We also spent two days in Queenstown, which was nice, though we didn't really get involved in the action there (Queenstown is known as a party and adventure town -- bars, bungy jumping, rafting, mountain biking, you name it, Queenstown's got it).  On Friday, I headed out on the Routeburn track (more on that later) and Hannah hopped on the Stray Bus to head back up North to Bleinhem. It was hard saying goodbye.

I’m hoping to find work in Wanaka for the winter, unfortunately, things are very quiet at the moment, and no one is hiring.  Things are meant to pick up in July, but in the meantime, I’ve got a rapidly-dwindling bank account and a car that’s in dire need of a new timing belt (which is not cheap).

I might have a place to work for accommodation for the next six weeks and I had an interview at a ski hill on Monday, plus I’ve applied at two newspapers and a holiday park, so I do have some prospects. It’ll all work out, just not sure how just yet J

Fox Glacier.

Mossy rocks at Fox Glacier

A pond near Franz Josef Glacier.

A helpful Department of Conservation poster at Franz Josef

Lake Matheson near Fox.

A bridge near Haast.

Near the Blue Pools (which were anything but when we were there). Another place where people had made a bunch of rock stacks. 

Hannah and I at Thunder Falls.

Visiting Pancake Rocks, and me with no maple syrup.

Before I first came to New Zealand back in 2004 I had made a list of “must see” places and things that I was determined to experience in the three weeks I was to be here.  That list included visiting Milford Sound, Hobbiton and Rotorua, seeing dolphins and sheep (obviously), and hiking on a glacier.  I was happy to have crossed off most of the items on that list, but there were still some that remained undone, even after my seven weeks here in 2009.

Last week when I visited the Punekaiki Pancake Rocks, I finally completed that list. It’s a nice feeling.

The rocks were pretty cool, as were the adjacent blowholes and caverns.  I was surprised at the well-maintained paths and signage in such a remote area.  It reminded me of how many of the natural attractions in Australia are presented, and I found it decidedly un-Kiwi. I’m not complaining – not at all -- it’s just that other than Cape Reinga up in Northland, I don’t think I’ve seen another vista or attraction in NZ that was so “packaged”.

Have a look:

Pancakey!

crossing the river near the rocks

In the cavern

A Canadian on pancake rocks.  It's like I'm the maple syrup.

Odd angle.

Better view of the rocks.