the kiwis

The First Not-At-All-Annual Kiwi Awards for Excellence in Travel

Best City: Christchurch

Best Scenery: Milford Road & Milford Sound

Best Scenery, urban: Queenstown

Best Accomodation: Hotel So

Best Dining Experience: Street food lunch from the vendors at the Christchurch Arts Centre market

Susan's vote: Fergburger, Queenstown. "A truly outstanding chicken sandwich, and just a fun place."

Best Shopping: Christchurch Arts Centre, on the weekend during the market

Best Beer: Speight's Gold Medal Ale ** (category by Susan entirely)

Best Dessert: Hazelnut & caramel tart, Strawberry Fare, Christchurch

honorable mention: Sticky date pudding, Strawberry

Fare, Christchurch

Best Dessert, packaged: Cadbury Coconut Rough (whoever throught to roast the coconut before putting it into the milk chocolate should be KNIGHTED)

Susan's vote: Caramel Tim Tams

Best Tourist Trap Attraction: Queenstown's Gondola and luge up top

honorable mention: Cadbury Factory Tour, Dunedin

Best Roadside Attraction: Moeraki boulders, Moeraki

honorable mention: The Chasm, Milford Road

Best Drive-by Town We Didn't Stop In: Oamaru, an adorable beach town that reminded us of Santa Cruz, along the Highway 1 on this side of the Pacific Ocean

Best Translation of Kiwi to American: Babyfoot Table (What they call a foosball table. Get it? Cause it's small soccer?)

honorable mention: Holeys (What they call Crocs, those horrible shoes. Hee!)

Item I would most like to transport home with me: Wine Tastes from Queenstown, where you can sample the wines at your leisure. I would be a regular, and bring ALL my friends.

Susan's vote: The alley of street food vendors from Christchurch Arts Centre, or a full array of Speight's readily available on tap.

roundup

Just a quick roundup as it is late and I still have to pack - and the shuttle comes, no joke, at 4:00 tomorrow morning.

On Sunday, we left Te Anau (which was pouring rain) and headed to Dunedin (which was pouring rain, and cold). I drove the whole way, and did fine - except for a couple of instances where Susan had to remind me I was too far left, it was not a problem. A bit more stressful than driving otherwise, but not a near-death experience.

Dunedin is different from any other place we visited in New Zealand - it is the second largest city on the south island, but it is just not tourist-driven, so it is a city where people live, work and go to school, not book you on a fabulous wildlife cruise.

It was also a Sunday, so everything was pretty well closed. We did manage to squeeze in to a brewery tour at Speight's brewery, followed by a fantastic dinner at the ale house - I had my last dinner of New Zealand lamb, though you really wouldn't know one was missing from all we passed along the way... We also it up a movie, and had a pretty good evening for a closed, rainy Sunday night town.

Monday, we did the other Dunedin attraction, the tour of the Cadbury plant. Chocolate smell and free candy bars? Yes, please. The tour was actually wonderful, and wound through the factory during production and wrapping, which was nifty.

After a trip 'round the town center (called The Octagon, though dissapointingly, two of us entered AND left), we were essentialy done with town - it may have been weather blues, but part of it was also that, by this point, we had also gotten a bit attaached to the idea of getting an extra day in Christchurch, so we wanted to take advantage of that.

So it was up the coast we went, taking Highway 1 up the Pacific Coast. weird, no? We stopped along the way for the most incredible thing. Along a very small stretch of beach, stuck in the sand are these incredible, perfect spheres of rock. The ocean wears away the concrete and limestone that makes them up at different rates, so they are also coming apart in interesting ways, but these boulders, about 6 feet in diameter, are just marvels of nature and mystery. Totally worth the stop. 

Back in Christchurch, the city feels a but more crowded than last week, and some of the overcast drabness and occasional spitting rain followed us north, but it was also a little bit like coming home.

Today, we had a full day of shopping, eating and just catching up, without any rush. We found the firefighter's memorial, made out of salvaged scrap from the World Trade Center, which we missed the first time around and which was really wonderful, actually. For dinner, we skipped the mains and went for the expensive, to die for, fantastic desserts at this place. Seriously, if you ever are in that half of the world, go to this place. Their online menu has the desserts in TWO PARTS, for goodness sake. An excellent way to cap off a really excellent trip to New Zealand.

And tomorrow, Melbourne.

like the weather

It's been rain, rain, raining in the southland today. Our glowworms got rained out again (poor flooded larvae!) and we had wet all the way to and from Milford.

Milford Sound, though, gets 200 days of rain a year, and 8m of rainfall on average, so seeing it like it was today was pretty representative of what it actually looks like. It was rainy, sure, but still gorgeous:
The other thing - there has been rain pretty much nonstop, and they said about 44cm in the last 10 days (134mm in the last 24 hours!) so everything is saturated. Around here, that means that the mountains are literally awash in waterfalls. The road from Te Anau to Milford is about 120 km and takes 2 hours. We left early this morning, to catch our cruise in the Sound and to miss the parade of buses on the road and the masses of tourists on the water. But the road itself is full of attractions. On the way there, we didn't stop, but we still got to enjoy the scary tunnel that is in the most avalanche-prone area (average of one a day in winter), took 20 years to build because of the rock slides and water that flowed through) and until about a year ago, had no lights whatsoever inside. Yeah, that was fun; but when we emerged, it was to these sheer cliffs with just waterfalls as far as the eye can see:
The Sound is stunning - totally worth a trip, even if its raining so hard it goes sideways. We saw fur seals lazing about, sailed all the way to the Tasman Sea, and marveled at the sheer cliffs of insanity. On the way back, we stopped to see The Chasm, which is a full, rough, rushing river (and in this weather, where the tiny creeks have become raging rivers, this one was still the most impressive) that has carved its way into rocks something fierce. It was worth getting absolutely soaked as the rain picked up while we watched.

I love New Zealand, but am totally ready to leave Te Anau. We are heading for the coast, for Dunedin, tomorrow, and I hope it is drier. I also hope they have reasonably-priced clothing - I ripped my jeans in Queenstown, and am finding that everyone who wears jeans in New Zealand must be a zillionaire, because I can't find a replacement pair for under $70.

Oh, and I didn't drive today, but I definitely will tomorrow. I will take photos to prove it.

into te anau

Driving a left-side car is not quite as difficult as it could be - it's more unnerving than anything, and a bit comical to watch us flounder, like an Amazing Race team trying to get out of a parking lot. Turning isn't even the most difficult, really - often, we could just follow the car ahead or, no joke, keep an eye on the sticky Hertz affixed to the car in front of the speedometer to "keep left." It's hard to keep track of the boundaries - we hit a curb pretty hard when pulling up to it, and as the passenger, it's my job to tell Susan when she's too far over left and nearing the shoulder or a parked car. No incidents yet, though we did spring for the extra insurance. If we paid for it, might as well use it.

And having a car, in addition to the novelty and flexibility, has already proven its worth in freedom. Tonight, our scheduled tour to see the glowworm caves here in Te Anau was cancelled on account of flooding (we've rescheduled for tomorrow, after our Milford Sound day - pray for more climate weather). Unfortunately, Te Anau is no Queenstown, or even Franz Joseph. There is essentially one street, with good restaurants but few shops (why no wool, Te Anau?) and no nighttime activities whatsoever - after we did one pass, we were done with town, really. But it was still light out, so we hopped in the car and headed for Manapouri, 20 km away.

When booking trips, we (OK, I) kept having crises of tourism - Milford Sound is what everyone comes to see; the pictures and postcards are spectacular, and the many dozen daily tour buses can't be wrong. But on the other hand is Doubtful Sound - similarly beautiful, but far more remote, less visited, harder to get to - image no sound, no other people, just majesty. Of course, it's also three times more expensive to go there than Milford. I finally decided Milford was going t be more than enough and that I needed to quit pining.

Well, Manapouri is where the first leg of the Doubtful trips leave from, so we got a little taste of it. The lake is crystal clear and cold, and on a chilly, almost-rainy night, it feels impossibly remote. The silence as we stood on the rocky beach was extraordinary - the occasional lap of the water, or droplets from the earlier rains falling from the trees behind us, but no insects, birds, man or machine. Just silence and calm. It was the best sunset possible, and we never saw the sun.

Tomorrow is when I try to drive. As I leave on that scary note, also bear in mind that I am doing so in an area where cows can finagle their way through the fence and go trotting by - and in - the road like a wayward stray. This happened on the way to Manapouri, and Susan had to do a bit of unexpected herding with the Ford Focus. So I have to: stay left, not too far left, and watch for cows. And sheep! Yeah, this could go poorly.

Queenstown Rocks (sung to the tune of "Cleveland Rocks")

This may be the prettiest place I've been; if it isn't, it is certainly in the top few, because Queenstown is stunning.
It reminds me of Patagonia, given the glacier landscaping, but in a good way - Queenstown, too, has this pretty blue hue that often overtakes it, and the lake it is perched on (Lake Wakatipu, one of the top 10 most fun words to say) is both massive, looks more like a fjord than a lake, and is also pretty and blue and opaque.

I don't know what bribe we paid the weather gods, but yesterday when we woke up, ti was cloudy and overcast (unsurprising for fjordland...) so we wandered about town a bit - went to some shops, lost my sunglasses, found my sunglasses, signed up for obligatory tour options, and so forth. By then, the clouds were clearing, so we went up the gondola. It's not as long as the gondola in Christchurch, but it's much steeper and faster, and the views from the top of Bob's Peak are supremely awesome.

And no, I am not calling it Bob's Peak because I don't remember the name, as I am given to do. It is really called that. One more reason to like this place.

When we came back, we had lunch, and by then the clouds were thicker and darker and the lake had gotten choppy and the wind picked up - somehow we managed to go up the gondola in the only 2 hour window of gorgeous weather.

Even though our hotel was a little pricer than we may have liked, it is right on the lake with some incredible views from the roomplus they had laundry, so Susan and I have all clean clothes (it's amazing how travel turns laundry day into Christmas morning - all this clean underwear! It's a fiesta!). We walked across the harbor to the gardens after dinner, to look back at all the lights.

We will only be spending about two days here all told, but for all that it is stunning and lovable, that's enough. The vastly skewed tourist-to-local population here gets a little hard to take before too long. There is such a backpacker population that the shops and restaurants seem to be all operated by visiting Aussies, Americans, Irish, British, and other travelers who decided to stop for a while. I am starting to wonder if anyone here is actually Kiwi. So we are good to go - plus it's raining today.

Now, we head south. If you don't hear from me in a while, send help; today we rent a car, so we may be trapped on the right side of the road somewhere, trying to get left.

diet coke: new zealand

It's taken me several tries to get a fair assessment on this one.

Try #1 was actually a rum & diet coke, at a place where all the shots are double shots. So it tasted...like rum. But it didn't make the rum taste bad, so my hopes were high.

Try #2 was from a can, and it...was good. I mean, canned Diet Coke, but not coca light or some such abomination. Slight aftertaste, slight tinnyness, but good.

try #3 was not good. Fountain diet coke has an aftertaste that will curl your toes. Seriously scary. It tastes fine, but then it...well, it tastes going down the way no good beverage should. Let's just say that.

So, the verdict is that I can drink canned (and perhaps bottled? We will try that soon) diet coke here just fine, in a pinch. It's no 7/11, but it's freedom from the Sprite prison I was in while in Argentina.

On to Queenstown

I am pretty glad that I am off bus travel for a while. I know I am a pansy, but I don't really like car trips anyway, and buses are even less comfortable, plus they stop when THEY want, not when you want. So we were on a bus for hours today and it was long and I was so glad to be finally off of it, but fortunately the trip from Franz down to Queenstown is gorgeous. It goes by Fox Glacier, through the Mt Aspiring National Park, by Lake Wanaka, and past about a zillion sheep. You will have tot ake my word for how pretty it was, though, because I couldn't get many good shots from the coach window. But the low-lying fluffy clouds on the huge mountains were quite stunning.

And now we are in Queenstown, home of the most adrenaline-packed, outdoor-loving, extreme-loving population on the planet. This place is so hardcore, they even have a giant X carved into the side of a mountain (I don't actually know if that's why it is there, but there is, in fact, a giant X in the side of the mountain overlooking town). It is a little overwhelming, how aggressive this town is in pushing the availability of jetboating, skydiving, parasailing, quad biking, bungy jumping, mountain biking, and various other creative ways they have of dropping you from great heights or forcing you to achieve great speed. I feel vaguely guilty for being in the adrenaline capital of the country and...not really caring about the adrenaline sports. But I have no desire to book some bungy-boating package deal. Which is ALSO too bad, because oddly, everything in Queenstown is also a booking agent. There are information stations and tour bookings at just about every restaurant, store, and counter in town. You essentially cannot take a pee without simultaneously being able to schedule a trip to Milford Sound.

But besides all of the in-your-face guest services, Queenstown is GORGEOUS. It is a living, breathing, postcard, this charming little town on the shores of a huge glacier lake. We could not for the life of us find any affordable accomodations (even though now, in town, there seem to be tons), so we ended up in a hotel about a 15 minute walk from town. The good news, though, is that our hotel is on the lake with million dollar views, and it has everything under the sun. Totally worth it. We got here late enough (stupid bus) that the pictures will have to wait until tomorrow, but they will be there, never fear.

Oh! I almost forgot the wine experience to end all. It's no wine-by-bike tour in Marlborough, but Queenstown has a wine store where you put money or open a tab on a rechargeable card, and can taste virtually anything in the store. After dinner tonight, Susan and I went and plowed our way through the store. This place is incredible, and we unsurprisingly found sauvignon blancs, rose, pinots and rieslings to die for, all bought by the taste. I would go to that store all the time if I lived here. So it's a good thing that I don't, or I would probably end up accidentally signed up to bungy or something.

franz

OK, yes, so I am sitting at an internet cafe, blogging about Franz Joseph and the like, and I decided to make it into multiple posts. I fear people will get bored if I have things in one big post, or that I won't be able to fully remember everything if I put it all into one? I don't know. My days need to all be separate posts, apparently.

But we are still in Franz, until tomorrow when we take a long bus ride south to Queenstown, where you can to everything stupid and adrenaline-y ever. But for now, we were not feeling adrenaline-y, or rich, so we did not do any of the heli-skydive-trekking-packages that are everywhere in this town. Instead, Susan and I decided to get to the glacier on our own steam, so we walked all the way there from town. It made for a tiring morning, but how often can you say that you woke up, talked out the door, and walked over to a glacier? Cause we did.
Franz is dirtier than the glaciers in Patagonia, and the body of water it ends in is much, much smaller, so the terminal face is not nearly as much of a sheer drop as the others were. The river it ends in is deceptive, though, apparently - it's small, but it is very unpredictable, so lately one of the paths that gets closest to it is closed because of falling ice and flooding, and there is another path that has been reclaimed by the river on the other side. Apparently, the river will just change course and take over things without warning.

We said pish posh, though, and crossed the little stream to get to the path anyway, and got pretty close to the face. I have seen a couple now, but glaciers are no less breathtaking at this point; they really are extraordinary. And we were never menaced by the river, but it was awesome to walk right up under the waterfalls pouring from the mountains, see that the big boulders in the river were, in fact, blocks of ice off the glacier, and see all the places where the river has gone at one point or another. We even went for another easy stroll at the end, because it was supposed to lead to some good views. It did:

The hikes were easy enough, they just meant for about 7 miles of walking before lunch, so we are beat. We are going to wander about town a little bit, and that my be it. Besides, it's time to repack (again) in time for tomorrow's departure. I like Franz, and it is certainly the most similar to my time in Patagonia, with both scenery and remoteness, but far easier. Not just the English, but the high-speed internet, the fully staffed i-site information centers, the easy, well-marked hikes.

(I even got to watch a bit of the Oscars last night. Really? Was No Country that good? I didn't even want to see it. Normally, I throw Oscar parties and organize betting pools, but being out of the country for the nominations, campaigning and now the awards, and I am terminally out of it; of the big 6 categories, I have seen...There Will Be Blood.)

So we are remote, but not too. And I still love New Zealand.

Tranz Awesome

OK, first of all, since I am back on a non-temperamental, email-only Mac, I want to justify my last post: what is not to love about New Zealand?

They don't call Christchurch the most British city outside of England for nothing.

But I am not in Christchurch any longer - yesterday, Susan and I took a train west. Trains are not really used in New Zealand for transportation - there are a total of three trains, all by the same company, all used pretty much for tourist transport. But it is totally worth it - and for our itinerary, the most efficient, and certainly prettiest, way to get where we wanted to go. We left from Christchurch and went straight over the mountains to Greymouth on the West Coast. The Tranz Alpine route goes through the Southern Alps and the coal mining towns and over to the West, where there is more rain and fewer people. It was lovely when we left, but started getting cold and rain at the summit. Cold, sure, rain, sure, but still stunning.


And it seems Susan's good travel karma, and my apparently horrible travel karma got into a cage match, and hers won the battle: Our train was nearly an hour late getting in, which proved a problem for the bus we were supposed to catch. But apparently, the train is often late, so the buses wait. We had about 4 minutes grace period, but it was all we needed. After a quick stop in a tiny town, we made it south to the town of Franz Joseph (size: two streets, one glacier) in time for some bitter, brutal rain to come in. Plus, it was COLD. (Speaking of, I love how it is about 30 degrees colder here than it was in PATAGONIA. Weird weather, yo.)

Franz is backpacker central, and there are probably more helicopters and camper vans here than actual Kiwis, but it's also pretty awesome. It is the only place I have ever, ever been that I can take an easy hike in the rainforest and then come out on the main road, turn left, and see the glacier. It's surreal.

Kiwi luvvin'

Y'all, I love New Zealand. 

I love that we are staying at a pod hotel in the middle of town that has 7 different "mood" tv stations (not to be confused with the "wake" stations - those you can set to come on with some gently increasing light to wake you up gradually), one of which is a crackling fire. I love that this place is so tourist oriented, but in this country that means lots of tour packages and help, rather than in-your-face commercialism. In fact, I love that the souvenirs you can buy everywhere are things like merino wool, handcrafted jewelry and artisan crafts; I have seen maybe one cheap tee-shirt shop.

The weather is divine, if unpredictable. It's fall, so it makes sense. Yesterday morning, we went to the weekend craft market at the Arts Center. This is how cute this city is: The University of Canterbury outgrew its amazing gothic campus right west of town center, so when they relocated, Christchurch kept the entire thing exactly as it is and turned it into a free center for visual and performing arts, and now there is an art house movie theatre, a theatre venue, artists in residence, stores, cafes, events...it's really cool, and the weekend market is wonderful. Plus, a whole alley of cheap street food. And I love street food.

And even though it was chilly and overcast in the morning, it cleared right up so that in the afternoon, we could be uber-touristy and take the gondola up the mountain. We took the bus to the suburbs and went up a little ski lift/gondola thing to the top of the 450m peak. The views up there were outstanding - Christchurch, the harbors and beaches of neighboring towns, these tiny little hamlets all along the coast. The wind was inSANE, so we have a lot of pictures of walking against the wind and me in the "I'm flying, Jack!" pose, but it was no joke - you literally had to brace yourself to not be knocked over by the gusts.

It got chilly again last night, and there was a brief cloudburst, but this morning it seems to have passed, and it's back to being mild and lovely. I love the New Zealand food - we've had all ranges, and all of it uniformly excellent. I love that the people here are so polite they don't even litter, so the town is very clean and liveable. I love that they also seem to love straws, so every time you buy a soda even at a conveninece store, they hand you a bendy straw; awesome!

This place is insanely awesome, y'all.

in which things look up for our hero...

The number one reason why things were better today was that, by the time I had gotten up, showered, packed my pathetic belongings into a shopping bag, and checked my email, my sister had already landed in Christchurch. I just had to go to our hotel to meet her.

The next reason is that our hotel? Is awesome. It is this weird, new, hip, tiny place that is...so weird. It is designed to save on space and save on money, so it's like IKEA threw up in here. They clearly spent money on design, and it's brand new, so everything is spectacularly spiffy. And our room is about 12 feet by 7 feet. Total. Bathroom included, no closet. But it's all been designed with that in mind - the bed is built in, and runs along the back of the room; it's lofted a bit to have storage under the room; the flat panel tv, reading lights, and elaborate sound/alarm/mood music system are all mounted to the wall; the bathroom is shaped like a 1/4 circle, separated by frosted glass, and organized so everything serves multiple purposes. It's like being in a ship's cabin, and it's a trip, but it's also super comfy beds, free brand-new Macs for web surfing, a posh gym and sauna for use, et cetera. I would rather a trippy, small, ultra-designer room for the same price as a private room in a hostel, thanks. I love it. Stay here, seriously.

Another rocking reason for today is the food - my sister and I have really similar tastes, so we go the order-and-split route, and today has included for my chewing pleasure: a Moroccan lamb salad, a chicken sandwich with cranberry relish, flatbread, an Indian chicken satay pizza, and an Asian chicken salad that was not at all like it sounds, but really wonderful. Oh, and also, a lovely fruity reisling from the region. I like New Zealand food a lot, already.

And finally, late this afternoon, my bags arrived. That's the other reason today rocked. I am now in jeans, with a cleansed and moisturized face, and no longer carrying everything I own like a crazy bag lady. I feel so much better - when you've only got a backpack for all you own, you WANT TO KEEP the BACKPACK.

On an administrative note, these computers are free, but they are just for web surfing - so no pictures for right now, though I am taking them, and I will update the posts soon. And also, I think this Mac is running Safari or an old Firefox, and I can't change it, so I think the blog formatting will be wonky. Sorry about both, but I love the free Macs, so I won't turn it down.

what have you got to lose?

First, I lost February 20. I left on Tuesday afternoon for my flight, and landed on early morning on Thursday. And Wednesday was my sister's birthday to boot; that's totally an excuse not to have to get her anything, right?

I got to Auckland ridiculously early yesterday, just after 6:00 am, after some barely sufficient sleep on the plane. But I had just over 12 hours until my flight down to Christchurch, so the plan was to enjoy Auckland for a day. Unfortunately, by bags just did not want to leave home, and they - along with those of about 40 others - didn't get on the plane. I was told that they were being rerouted, and would be here...eventually. So I still had 12 hours in town, but now I had them without a toothbrush or a pair of non-yoga pants.

If you're ever in the same boat, it's really easy to get into town from the airport, and then back again. There is a hop on/hop off airport shuttle that goes all around the city center and requires no reservations, so I tooled into town and went for pretty much the only sight in town that was open at 8:15 in the morning, the Auckland Sky Tower (New Zealand has adhered to the international law that every city have a really tall thing for tourists to go up and look around; the Sky Tower is very, very tall). Normally, I am not the first one to go up the towers because I find them expensive and interchangeable after a while. From up top, all cities are just rooftops, right? But since I had one day, it was a great way to get my bearings and to "see" all of Auckland. Plus, it was still barely 9:00, so it was really quiet, and lovely to look around on a clear day. Auckland is a booming port, and seems to be an immensely liveable city. And because they are ridiculously addicted to adrenaline activities here, I also had the option to either walk around the outer walkway of the tower (!) or jump off it (!!). I did neither. It does not seem a good thing to try when one has nothing to change into. Should one, hypothetically, soil oneself at hurling own 90 stories. I had a hard enough time with the disconcerting glass floors in the observation deck. I am not scared of heights, but we were REALLY HIGH.

Auckland was gearing up for the Chinese New Year festival with all sorts of Chinese lanterns all over town. Albert Park had these massive displays of really elaborate lanterns and...papier-mache sheep (?) that were lovely and cool. I wandered through Auckland University an over to the Domain (big, gorgeous park). In there is the Auckland Museum, and it's Maori exhibits. New Zealand is a fascinatingly young country. There were no mammals here save bats until man brought them over; their idea of historical objects date back to 1860. I am from California and that seems...really new to me. But the Maori artifacts were really, really cool. I can already tell I am going to go to town on the souvenirs here.

I walked up Queen Street, the main drag (also decorated with Chinese lanterns) and to the Quay and the waterfront (and marveled at the QEII in dock for the day). It was not a lot of time, but I think I got a feel for Auckland. Very clean, very accessible, very lovely city.

When I got back to the airport, no dice on the bags. I have to say, I have had three major legs on my trip thus far, and have had major problems with every single one of them. I hope this is not a trend. By the time I made it south to Christchurch, I was exhausted, cranky, smelly and at the end of my rope. I had only the overnight emergency pack with its odd assortment of toiletries (toothpaste, toothbrush and shampoo were all very appreciated; soap or face wash or moisturizer would not have gone awry) and my carry-on to my name. I showered (which was lovely) and put back on the clothes (less lovely) and slept hard.

I like New Zealand already; I lost a lot getting here, though.