New Zealand

(Milford Sound)
So I am just getting back to site here after being away for about three weeks. We landed in Vila only to be met with some typical January Vanuatu weather: hot, humid, and rainy. I decided to stay an extra day in Vila to be there for a volunteer’s last kava before he headed back to the US. Briz, the volunteer departing after five years of service, is somewhat of a Peace Corps Vanuatu institution so it will be strange to not see him on my occasional visits to Vila. It was my first time drinking kava in almost a month and I was kind of ready for a shell or two.
The next day I was headed back to Pele. As I was pulling up to shore I saw my house was still standing (always a good thing), and was greeted warmly by people in my village. People kept asking me how long I had been gone as if some large chunk of time had elapsed. I had a few people guess I had been gone two months, and upon me correcting them (3 weeks) they were shocked. It’s nice to be missed.
Not much has changed here and very little news. One shocker was meeting my counterpart on shore. He had shed about 60lbs in the last few weeks. He got really sick while I was gone, and just a couple days ago went to the hospital and found out he has malaria. He has the appropriate meds now and says he’s feeling better. Charley is a big guy so it was really scary seeing him looking gaunt and fairly thin.
Yesterday was my first full day back at home. I finished unpacking things, and storied with people in the village. It rained almost the full day, and people have been saying that it has been raining the whole time I was gone. Glad I left for a bit. Going on vacation during January was no accident as the rain and nothingness drove me nuts last year.
So about the trip… New Zealand was awesome! We started out our trip flying in to Auckland and were greeted by beautiful weather, San Diego style, sunny, mid to high 70s that seemed to follow us for almost the entire trip around New Zealand. I felt a little overwhelmed at first by being in an actual city again. I found myself reading billboards and signs aloud as there was so much to look at. Liz had already got this out of her system as she had just been in the US for a few weeks, but I was a little bit like a fish out of water. A trip to the grocery store was strange as I wasn’t used to seeing so many options. Liz found me staring at the cheese isle, and helped usher me along. You really forget how many options for things you have in the Western world. My caveman syndrome didn’t last too long, and after a day or two I was more or less right back in the swing of things.
Auckland was pretty cool city. Doesn’t seem to have a whole lot of character to it, but there were good things to look at and some good food. I got my good beer, Mexican food, and sushi fix within the day and a half we spent there before traveling to Christchurch. We stayed at a backpacker hostel set in a park that was a quick walk from downtown. The accommodation and general traveler network and info. is amazing in New Zealand. It’s pretty cheap to stay in the backpacker hostels, and they’re kept up well. For the most part we had a nice room with a good size bed for about $35 a night. We mixed the hostel stays with camping which helped save on funds too. A few times we camped at hostels where they have sites for about $10, and you still get the full use of the facilities.
(Auckland, View from near the aquarium)

(A penguin meeting at the aquarium)

(Liz and friend)
After seeing the sites for a day and going to the aquarium (pretty cool but a little pricey for what it is) we jumped on our flight to go to Christchurch. We spent about a day and a half in Christchurch checking out stuff. We rented bikes one day and pedaled around town. The university contributes a lot to the feel of the city, and I liked this city (albeit smaller) more than Auckland. There are also a lot of late 19th century British buildings in the city which gives it some character.

(The Cathedral in central Christchurch)

(Biking around town)

(The beach in Christchurch)
After a full day in Christchurch we rented a car that would be our travel mode for the next two weeks. Driving on the left side of the road was pretty weird at first, but came natural after a few driving sessions. The hardest thing when first driving was judging your placement on the road, remembering you still had half a car on your left as you’re used to being on the left when driving. Some things were weird the whole time though. Liz and I both hit the windshield wipers many times when trying to signal. The knobs were reversed. Another thing that never felt right was seeing a car coming in the oncoming lane from behind a blind curve. Many times it felt like they were coming at you.
We first drove about two hours outside Christchurch to the Banks Peninsula. We did some hiking near a town called Akora and saw some cool views of the Akora sound (fiord maybe?) and the sea on the other side of the ridge. Plenty of sheep greeted us along the trail as it wound through a sheep rancher’s private land.

(View of Akora from our hike)

(On the other side of the ridge is the sea, behind us)
(Sheep and more sheep)
The town of Akora reminded me of a little summer lake town in the US complete with small ice cream and craft shops along its main drag. We camped at a great site about a twenty minute drive outside Akora where a river mouth meets another sound. The campsite consisted mostly of Kiwi families on vacation, and we were a small presence with our lone backpacking tent compared to the compounds some of these guys set up for their long stays.

(Our small tent in a large campsite, Liz modeling)
The place had a small zipline for the kids which looked like fun, but there where tons of kids on it so we didn’t get a chance to go on it. We were saying how something like that would never be allowed in the US. Some kid would hurt him/herself and here comes the lawsuit. We did the zipline that night after a few beers and a bottle of wine. Pretty fun.
From Akora we drove North on Highway 1 through sheep ranches and farmland in route towards a town on the East coast called Kaikoura. Driving along the way before you hit the coast it reminded me of northern California foothills. The scenery was very brown and dry. A little different than California though in that mountain ranges in the background rose steeply and fiercely unlike a gradual transition to the Sierras or California coastal mountains. In Kaikoura we ate great seafood on the beach and checked out a seal colony. There wasn’t a ton of seals (about 10), but you could get pretty close to them.
(Eating seafood on the beach)

(Me and a seal, looks like I just clubbed it)
From Kaikora we headed into Marlborough, wine country. We got a great suggestion from some Peace Corps friends and stayed in a hostel called The Grapevine in the small city of Bleinhem. It was a really nice place set on a creek, and very close to a lot of wineries. There are wine tours by bike offered by an outfit in Bleinhem, and we were going to do this until our friends told us that the hostel also loaned bikes for really cheap and gives you a map of local wineries. We arrived at the hostel at about 10am and the woman who ran the place set us up with a couple bikes, some suggestions, a map, and said we should be able to hit about 3 or 4 wineries.
We pedaled out towards our first winery on a beautiful sunny day. We both drink more red wine than white, but we had heard that this region is really famous for their white wines. Our first stop showed us how really good a white wine could be. We were both used to mostly boring Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc we had tried before, but these wines were spicy and the wineries we visited were using things like passion fruit and other citrus fruits that gave a lot of the wines a great flavor.
At our second stop of the day we tasted some wine and decided to get a glass of Sauvignon Blanc and an appetizer platter while reclining in their outdoor beanbag chairs. Very nice indeed!

(Liz and the nice view from Wither Hills Winery)
(Lounging in beanbag chairs at Wither Hills)

(Liz and friend among the vineyards)

(Down in the cellar)
We continued along tasting good wine as we went, and enjoying the day as we pedaled slowly through vineyard countryside. At our seventh winery (3-4 hah!) we had to call it quits as it was 5pm and the wineries were closing. We got two bottles from that place, one a delicious pinot noir, and headed back towards the hostel. Here we met a strong headwind that came out of nowhere and gave us a good workout getting back. We arrived to the hostel and lay on the bed for a few minutes before attempting anything else. We then made a great seafood pasta dinner and drank it a good bottle of wine purchased earlier. I sat here with a full belly staring out at the creek thinking, “What a great day!.”
After Bleinhem we headed North again along a scenic drive that wrapped a little of the Marlborough Sounds and then we headed West to Nelson to meet a couple Peace Corps friends, Laura and Mckenzie, who had been traveling in New Zealand for about five weeks. We met them, and exchanged stories of our travels thus far. They had been hitchhiking across the South Island and had a few good tales. We found a place to camp, and then set out to go try a local brewery. I had already sampled more than a few microbrews at different places, and was game for some more. We tasted some beer and left with our two liter plastic bottles of the beers we liked. I had never seen this before, but a few breweries in New Zealand let you come with your own two liter bottle and for a discounted price fill it up right off the tap.
(Laura and Me trying good microbrews)
Later we all went out to meet an American the two girls had met earlier in their travels at yet another microbrewery (I was in beer heaven after two years drinking only one kind of beer). We went out to a few bars, and Laura and Liz did a little Karaoke. The next day we all hung out for a bit before we parted ways (they were headed the opposite direction we were), and Liz and I drove up to Abel Tasman National Park in the Northwest. We arrived at our campsite at around 5pm, which meant we still had about five hours of daylight left to explore and hang out on the nice beach. It would seriously not get dark in New Zealand until about 10pm. It was crazy. The campsite we were at was great, and it allowed you to be able to day hike one of the best parts of the Abel Tasman backpacking trail.
The next morning we got up and did a long day hike that took us up to a hill lookout and then dropped us onto the coastal track for a few hours on the way back to our campsite. The coastal trail was pretty amazing. You would skirt cliffs and be on top of ridge lines with gorgeous views of the teal water beaches below and then go through tunnel like parts with dense ferns and old growth trees. The trail dropped you out on the golden beaches from time to time, and at around lunch time we stopped on a good one. We ate, lounged on the beach for a while, swam, jumped off some rocks, and after a while headed on our way again.

(View from the coastal trail)

(A cool rock outcropping on the trail)
After Abel Tasman we made our longest drive of the trip (about 6hrs) down the West Coast to Franz Josef Glacier. Even a longer drive like this was so easy as there was so much to look at along the way. Along the way we stopped and checked out the Pancake Rocks, which is a really cool rock formation set on the coast.

(The Pancake Rocks)
The West Coast was much wetter than the East and everything was green on our trip down the coast. As we drove towards Franz Josef the scenery reminded me of the Highway 101 drive in the redwoods of California. Sorry if there is a lot of California analogies here, but there were many times I almost felt like I could be in California. We arrived at Franz Josef and camped at a backpacker place there. When we arrived we got the bad news that there probably wouldn’t be glacier guided hikes the next day as it had been raining. Boo.
At Franz Josef we woke up later in the morning as we had heard they wouldn’t let people on the glacier only to find out now they were. However, we wouldn’t be able to get on a hike until later in the day. We decided instead to make the hike out to look at the glacier (and not actually get on it) as we had other stuff we wanted to do and another night spent in Franz Josef would make us rush too much through some later stuff. We were able to get pretty close to both the Franz Josef and Fox glaciers on easy walks. It is pretty impressive to be in a temperate, rainy place and be right near a river of ice. Supposedly, Argentina is the only other place in the world where you can do this.

(Franz Josef Glacier)
From the glacier areas we headed South to Wanaka, a small mountain town, for a night before heading into Queenstown. We liked this place a lot and decided we would come here on our way back too. We arrived in Queenstown, “The adventure capital of the world,” in the morning, and Liz headed off to go bungy jumping while I went for a hike that overlooked the city, the lake it’s on, and the sharp peaks that surround the city. I was going to watch Liz make the plunge, but they wanted to charge me a lot just to go watch. So she had a great time jumping off the 4th tallest bungy in the world while I was relaxing atop a large hill with a spectacular 360° view of the place.
The next morning we both went whitewater rafting just outside Queenstown on the Shotover River. It was a good day to be on the river with overcast skies, and the views inside the canyon were really something. We also wound through areas laden with abandoned gold mining equipment which was interesting and not unlike, in some ways, being in the Coloma area in California. The rapids were a little weak, but then again I think I have forever spoiled myself on rafting after my couple trips down the North Fork of the Salmon River in northern California. Those rapids on the Salmon really got the blood flowing. There were a couple good rapids on the Shotover, and we also went through a tunnel only to be met, when exiting the tunnel, with a wave of water that rocked the boat and doused us (the best part of the trip).
After our rafting trip we drove South to the Fiordland. As we started getting closer to Milford Sound (misnamed, it’s really a fiord) sheer rock faces rose quickly from the scenery with countless waterfalls pouring down their sides. This area gets some astronomical amount of rain each year. As we were coming closer to the fiords the rain had stopped and misty clouds were hanging among the mountains. Before we entered the Homer Tunnel, a mile long hole blasted through a mountain, we pulled over to the side of the road to admire the steep cliffs and snow capped peaks.
When we got out of the car we noticed that the tourists pulled over next to us were out snapping shots of a large sized bird. This bird, an alpine parrot called the kea, was very friendly, and was following these people around. The tourists left, and then the keas started to follow us, jumping on our car and checking us out. They’re really cool looking birds: brown with a sharply decurved bill and green and orange colors on their flanks and the undersides of their wings that present themselves while the kea is in flight. We admired the birds for a bit, and decided it was time to go, and when we started towards the car one jumped on the roof and started poking his head inside the car. “Are these birds going to let us leave?” The kea got distracted and started pulling at the rubber around the windshield so we were able to get inside the car. He eventually flew off and we were able to start towards the tunnel.

(Our friend the kea)

(The kea on our car with a nice background behind)
Supposedly these birds are very intelligent and are a bit of a nuisance as they use their strong bills to tear up all kinds of things. In fact, one of Liz’s friends was biking through New Zealand a couple years ago and fell victim to these birds. He locked his bike up for the night only to return to find his tires eaten away. When he asked some locals they replied nonchalantly that the birds must have got it. Little bastards!
So we headed through the Homer Tunnel which was a little eerie as the lights in the tunnel were off as we were not going through the one lane tunnel during peak time. We only realized the tunnel had lights upon returning two days later. “Don’t you think the tunnel is a lot brighter than before?”

(The light at the end of the Homer Tunnel)
We set up our camp and went to get a peek at the Milford Sound. It was pretty foggy, but we could still see that this was a very special place.
The next morning we woke up early and were picked up to go on our guided kayak tour of the sound. As we were getting outfitted we learned the wrath of the sandfly. Those things suck (no pun intended). They bite into you for blood, and like to get in weird areas like the folds of your ears. Once we got on the water they weren’t bad though. There were five two-man kayaks all told and we were split into two groups, each with a guide. Our guide was really good and was full of interesting natural history info on the area.
Our first stop was to get really close to a big waterfall and feel the spray coming off of it. We then skirted around the sound checking out all kinds of stuff along the way. We saw a lot of fur seals continually rolling on their sides (supposed to aid in digestion). We got an unexpected glimpse at a Fiordland penguin which shocked the guide. He had just got done telling Liz and me that the penguins aren’t around this time of year after we had asked our chances of encountering one. He was shocked and said he hadn’t seen one in a few months. This little guy was very fat and having a hard time getting down the rocks into the water. It was so cool to see a penguin in the wild, and we got to watch little fatty for at least 10 minutes. Other things we saw were more birds, a wild bonsai tree, and a crazy fern that looks like a lobed-leaf plant.

(Our fat buddy)
By far the best part of the Milford kayaking was the beauty and serenity of the place. It had been raining before we started kayaking, but while we kayaked it was fairly clear with clouds hanging high on the peaks that wrapped the glacier-carved fiord. The water was very calm and glassy at times, and we had very little wind to contend with. Sometimes we’d paddle up to a rock face that shot up a couple thousand feet in the air and just look up. Amazing! We had a snack lunch in the middle of the sound (fiord), and as we were doing so the sun poked in a bit, and some of the clouds moved away that had obscured the tops of the surrounding mountains like Mitre Peak.



(Milford Sound)
On the way back in Liz and I half surfed a wake wave from a fishing boat coming to port. I say half because we caught the momentum of the wake, but weren’t entirely on the wave the whole time. After the kayak trip we returned to the lodge and had a lazy day as the rain was really coming down.
From the Milford area we headed back to Wanaka to stay a night in a nice backpacker hostel that overlooked the lake and town. We then went to go see a movie at the local theatre, which we tried to do the first time through Wanaka, but the show was sold out. This theatre was called Cinema Paradiso, the name taken from a great Italian indy film I really liked when I was younger.
(Cinema Paradiso!)
This theatre was really cool as all the seats in the small, one-theater building were couches, and there was even a gutted old 40s car that people could sit in. They also sold local beer, homemade ice cream, and many other great refreshments that made this theatre really stand out from the rest. The next day we set out early to return to Christchurch. Had we more time we would have explored the Southeast part of the South Island too in such places as the Catlains, the Otago Peninsula, and Dunedin, but we were short on days. As it was we saw a lot for two and a half weeks.
Our return to Christchurch in the afternoon coincided with the Busker Festival, a large gathering of street performers, so we checked it out. We went to a performance held in courtyard of the local university. For a couple bucks we saw a few hours of great comedic performances by unicyclists, jugglers, prop comedians, and acrobatics from a flexible, portable balance beam supported on the shoulders of two guys.
The following morning we flew back to Auckland and went to the Seafood Festival that was going on that day. There was some good food to be had, but the venue was a little small. Later that evening we had sushi again as it would be the last time in a while for us to get good sushi. The next morning we were back in Vanuatu. As we lined up in the residents’ line the string band was playing. We did a bit of string band dancing while in line, and one woman in front of us motioned that we were in the wrong line thinking we were tourists. We had a good laugh over that one. That lady must not get out much outside of Vila as she should know we were doing the appropriate ni-Vanuatu style string band dance.
That was our trip in a nutshell. There’s plenty of stuff I missed, but those were the highlights. I had a great time and I definitely will be back some day.
Hmm… so…. back in the village. I was going to pull some weeds in my overgrown garden this morning, but then my sister Hannah called and we had a good chat. She is about to buy her tickets to come see me in May and I’m very excited. It’ll be awesome to show her my village and some Vanuatu culture. We’re also planning on going down to Tanna (erupting volcano, plenty of culture, cargo cults), something I’ve been waiting to do until someone came to visit.