Happily Stuck in Wanaka

We picked up a German hitch-hiker the other day.  In talking about her experiences during her four months of travel here, she said that she’d gotten ‘stuck’ in a surfing town up on the north island for 3 months.  We weren’t quite sure what she meant (we assumed there was a love interest involved), but we’re starting to understand how you can get ‘stuck’ somewhere that just seems to suit you.  For Amy and Dave, that ‘somewhere’ is the town of Wanaka (population:  3000).

Anyone know where we can find this in New England?

The town is situated on the shores of Lake Wanaka, in the shadows of the mountains of Mt. Aspiring National Park.  Everybody here is into something fun and outdoors-y, without all the crazy adrenaline of Queenstown (about 1 ½ hours to the south).  Mountain-biking, fly-fishing, hiking, kayaking, sailing, and trail-running in the summer (we’ve seen lots of triathletes-in-training), and in the winter it’s all about the skiing.  Tons of biking and running trails everywhere, and they’re building more.  But it’s just got this very laid-back vibe.  After trying unsuccessfully to figure out how we could live here and still be close enough to all the people we love, we’ve resolved to find ‘the Wanaka’ of New England and make that our new home.

Anyway, we arrived here on a Thursday night, the day we finished the Keppler track.  We planned to be here for two nights, before hitting the trails again for the Cascade-Saddle Pass.  Friday morning, we went for a really nice trail run – 7.5 miles for Dave, 18 miles for Amy.  Checked into a nice campsite for the holy trifecta of laundry (clean clothes), kitchen (clean dishes), and hot showers (clean bodies).  At the local Dept of Conservation office, we learned of bad weather coming this way, and were advised to put off our planned hike until after the weather passed. 

Frogger!

We took the rain delay as a sign that some higher power really wanted us to go Frogging the next day.  Frogging, also known as white-water sledging or hydro-sliding, is like white water rafting… only instead of a raft, you have wetsuit, helmet, life-jacket and your own little individual toboggan-type thing (see photo), and you ride the rapids.  There’s really no better way to see and experience the gorgeous Kawarau River than up close and personal.  Just Amy and Dave, an English couple, and our two guides, Rose from Canada and Guido from Argentina.  We frogged on a section of the river called the ‘Roaring Meg’, with its class 3+ rapids.   Seriously good fun!  We’ll let the pictures speak for themselves on that. (Oops... just realized all those beautiful photos of the river gorge are on a CD... and our computer has no CD drive... so you'll have to see those some other time).

Coolest movie theater ever!

Based on some additional tramping suggestions from our guide Rose and some serious storms predicted for Sunday night, we decided to wait until Monday to start our tramp… which meant a fourth night in Wanaka, which we weren’t all that upset about.  It also meant a chance to go back to the coolest movie theatre you’ve ever heard of.  Instead of seats there are comfy couches (and one ’57 Chevy).  They bake fresh (giant) cookies for intermission, or you can have the homemade ice-cream.  If you order dinner at the start of the movie, you come out at intermission with your meal waiting for you, fresh from the kitchen.  And the food is amazing – Dave had the Moroccan Lamb Burger on a gluten-free bun (d-lish), while Amy went for the Chicken Burger.  Oh, did we mention it also has a full bar?  So we’re headed back there tonight for ‘The Fighter’… and another lamb burger, of course. 

One Great Walk

Enjoying the manicured trails of the Keppler Route

After sky-diving, road-tripping through the Catlins along the southern coast, and watching our Highlanders get thumped by the Crusaders in Dunedin, it was time to tramp again.  We had initially hoped to hike the Dusky Sound – a 4-day hike that, in our lonely planet ‘tramping in new zealand’ guidebook, first detailed the beauty on the hike, but then had lots of boxed text warnings about how hard it was, how potentially dangerous, how only experienced and fit hikers should tackle this one – those boxed text warnings are all it takes to get us excited about a hike.

Unfortunately, with this one, it’s also unspeakably expensive to get there and get back.  A ferry boat crossing across a lake to start the hike, and then we would have had to hire our own float plane to come get us and transport us back to civilization when we were done.  While that was an exciting prospect, it also seemed unnecessarily expensive, when there were so many other beautiful hikes that were slightly easier to get to… as in, drive up, park your car and start hiking.  So we’ll come back for the Dusky Sound another time (after we win the lottery and can afford our own float plane).

Not a bad view for our first campsite... across Lake Te Anau

Instead, we headed over to Fjordland to hike the Keppler Track – one of New Zealand’s 9 great walks.  No, seriously, that’s what they’re called – “The Great Walks”.  They are New Zealand’s most well-known, well-serviced multi-day hikes.  The trails are practically manicured sidewalks, and even the smallest streams have little bridges for crossing.  During the high season, you need to make reservations for some of these hikes months in advance – yet another reason that Amy and Dave love traveling in the ‘shoulder season’ – no reservations required.  We’re not so big on the planning in advance. 

The Keppler had the added advantage of being one of the few circuit hikes, meaning the hike started and finished at the same point (i.e., no expensive logistics involved) -- a 4-day, 3-night hike, covering 60km.  The hike is laid out beautifully – with 3 lovely huts evenly spaced about 15km apart, (about 5-6 hours of hiking each day).  But if you’re camping like us, they’re not quite as kind.  No camping is allowed in the fragile high-alpine zone where the first hut is.  So instead, you have an extremely short first day (1.5 hours), and then an extremely long second day – covering 23 km, and gaining and then losing about 1300 meters of elevation that day.  For those of you who don’t hike… that’s a fair bit of elevation for a day, if you’re carrying a 45-pound pack. 

The first day was almost disappointing in how short it is… you get all dressed up, pack up your pack nice and tight, lace up your boots, put on your gaiters… and the hike is over before you’ve even broken a sweat.  (Of course, Amy then breaks a sweat by dropping her pack, exchanging boots for sneakers, and trail-running back all the distance we’d covered).  The campsite the first night was a beautiful beach, along the shores of Lake Te Anau… which was dampened only slightly by our New Zealand nemesis, the sandfly, which has developed a taste for our exotic North-American flesh.

We woke up amped for the second day’s hike.  Given the short hike the first day, we had a lot of kilometers to cover on day 2 – the trail signs promised 8-10 hours of climbing and then descending.  And we did climb steadily – for 2 ½ hours... up some beautiful forest trails, breaking through the tree-line, and along a wind-swept ridge, to our first destination, the hut that marks the end of every-one else’s first day.  It was supposed to be a 4 hour hike, but we’ve learned two things about tramping in NZ:  first, that we’re fast on the uphills (slow on the downhills) – actually, learned that in Patagonia, and second, that the author of the NZ tramping guide is much more generous with predicted hiking times than the author of our Patagonia hiking book.  So, yea, we pretty much crushed that first section of the hike. 

A glimpse of what we might have seen...
if only the weather had cooperated

And all that climbing of course yielded unbelievably stunning views of the Fjordland landscape below… or at least it would have, if we hadn’t chosen the one day that week that was completely clouded over and fogged in.  Still, walking in the clouds along the mountain ridge had its own mysterious beauty and charm, and the clouds lifted for brief spells, offering glimpses of the stunning scenery we would have otherwise enjoyed.   And then a long, long descent to the campsite, tucked into the river valley.  (And yes, Amy still went for a 6 mile run after all that hiking). 

Don't look too close...
or you might see how full
the moon was that night!

Our third day offered some lovely walking along the Iris Burn river valley, and our favorite campsite of the trip, Shallow Bay.  It’s always nice when you can end the day with a refreshing dip in the lake… and the sunset that night was pretty incredible. 

One of our favorite things about this hike was all the birdlife that surrounded us throughout the trip.  There were a lot of curious little fellows, who would even daringly hop right onto your leg for a brief moment, accompany you along a section of trail, and constantly serenade you with beautiful birdsongs.  We’re not really into birding, so we had to guess a bit at the names.   Our favorite was a little black-and-white guy with no neck… we think this one is called the ‘chubby mcchubberstien’.  Another was the ‘fancy-tail’.  We later learned from an actual bird expert that our ‘fancy-tail’ is actually called the ‘fan-tail’… so that gives us hope that we might be right about the chubby guy as well.

Pretty spectacular sunset from our
beach campsite the third night...

After a lovely 4 days of tramping in the back-country, we headed back into civilization for our usual post-hike ritual:  binging and gorging on any food we can get our hands on (in this case, a meat pie for amy, a gluten-free carnivore pizza for dave, and milkshakes for everyone… and then a second meat pie for amy).  We hopped in Dougie and headed a few hours north to Wanaka, to prepare for our last New Zealand tramp, the Cascade-Saddle Pass, which of course has lots of boxed-text warnings. 

 



You all seem to like the photos... so here are a few more



Countless beautiful sunsets along the shores



One morning we went for a trail run to a nearby seal colony...
this guy snuck up behind us and gave us a surprise



Dave thought this was a sign for sheep crossing...
Amy thought it was the rare and endangered 'stubby cow'



Signs don't get much cooler than this...






See if you can guess which of our friends these next few
photos remind us of... this one above?




 


 

We wish Q were here with us...



It was a pretty exciting fishing shop...

Voted the 'tackiest tourist attraction in Southland'...
But Gore is the brown trout capital of the world

The view from Wanaka Bay...



Good marketing materials from our skydiving company:)
We defnitely embraced the fear



Crusaders Thump Highlanders

The vaunted Crusaders proved a bit too much
for the Highlanders to handle

Dunedin, NZ:  It was a tough night for the home side.  This much-anticipated Rugby Super XV showdown between two of NZ’s top teams couldn’t, in the end, live up to expectations.  The host Otago Highlanders have gotten off to an unexpected strong start to their season, after missing out on the playoffs since 2003.  With three wins and one loss, this rag-tag side of blue-collar players – not a star among them – has pulled off a few early upsets with gritty wins against teams from Wellington, Perth and Pretoria, all on the road (Super XV is the professional rugby union conference with 5 teams from NZ, 5 from Australia, and 5 from South Africa).

It was a spirited but friendly crowd...

Their arch-rivals, the Canterbury Crusaders, made the short trip down from Christchurch, in need of a victory as their city continues to recover from the earthquake, and the recent depressing news that they would lose their right to host Rugby 2011 World Cup matches due to damage from the quake.  Their team of highly-touted all-stars (think Yankees, here) was looking to take out an entire region’s frustration on the team from Otago. 

Amy and I had decided that the underdogs from Otago were our kind of team… So we bought our Highlanders flag and found our seats in the stadium.  There was definite excitement in the air, with fans decked out in the blue and yellow of Otago or the red and black of Canterbury.  It was a good-natured crowd, though, with husbands and wives or fathers and sons supporting opposite teams from each other, and fully decorated in face paint and shirts of their favored teams.  Fortunately, there was a 6-year old boy behind us who knew exactly what was going on and was basically doing his own play-by-play during the entire match… otherwise, we most certainly would have been lost.

The match was close from the start, with Otago missing a few early good opportunities to score some points off of some penalties, and Canterbury looking dangerous with their all-star back-line of speedy, quick-passing all-stars.  Conceding a late score just before half-time, the home side trailed 13-6 –but well-within striking distance. 

The Highlanders push through in the final minutes
for their consolation try

Alas, the second half was not so close… The Crusaders broke through the Highlanders defense again… and again… and again.  18-6… 25-6… 32-6… 37-6… 44-6.  As time wound down, the Highlanders, refusing to give up, mounted one final charge… they pushed right up against the Crusaders line… and urged on by the supportive crowd, crashed through for one final score, giving the home fans at least something to cheer about.  Perhaps it was a mere moral victory… or perhaps the Highlanders were sending a message that they wouldn’t be so easy to defeat if the two sides meet again in the playoffs. 

Final score:  Crusaders 44, Highlanders 13. 

Although our team lost, we have big hopes for their season.  Our adopted English football side, Fullham, went on to their greatest season after we decided to lend them our support, eventually falling in the championship of the European cup.  So we’ll continue to follow the Highlanders’ progress as the season continues and expect to see them back in the playoffs this year.

12,000 ft. and Falling Fast

PHWOOOOOOOOOOMP!  That’s the sound I heard as Dave exited the plane and within half a second disappeared into the atmosphere.  “Oh Shit” involuntarily escaped my lips. The plan was for me to do the same 30 seconds later.

Queenstown is known as THE ADVENTURE SPORTS CAPITAL of THE WORLD  (home of bungee jumping, jetboating, whitewater rafting, frogging, parasailing, hand-gliding. .  . you name it.).  The adrenaline flowing through the city is truly palpable.  The city is swamped with adventure seekers gabbing about the adrenaline boosts they recently received or the adventures they plan to undertake.  Our adventure of choice. . .  might have been (that’s for any parental units reading along) SKYDIVING! (something Dave  had done once before (15 years ago) and I was completely new to)

It all happened very fast. We found NZONE, Queenstown’s skydiving company (thanks for the tip, TK :), and the next thing I knew we had paid a whole lot of money to jump out of a plane. . . we were headed in a van to a drop zone. . . suited up in a jumper,  a soft helmet , gloves, and some goggles. . . and I was introduced to some guy, Chris, who would soon be strapped to my back and hold my life in his hands.  YIKES!  WHAT IS GOING ON?  Through all of this, I was quiet. . . very quiet. Dave?  Quiet too.  No laughing this time, friends.

We piled into the smallest plane I’ve ever seen.  No rows, no seats, nothing.  A piece of translucent hard plastic served as a door which Dave sat disconcertingly close to. My new best friend, the one who would soon be strapped to my back, made sure I knew how far we climbed.  “4, 000 FEET” (Are you attached to me yet?),  HALF WAY THERE (Now, are you attached to me?),  10,000 FEET (CLICK. Relief.), and WE’RE HERE 12,000 FEET!. . .  Awkward smurk from Dave.  “I LOVE YOU” or was it “I LOVED YOU”? !?! PHWOOOOOOOOOOOMP!  “Oh Shit!”

Force pushing me to the door. . . legs bent and tucked. . . chin up and head tucked back. . . PHWOOOOOOOOMP!. . . SCREAM (just a short one)!. . .  CLOUDS!. . . Tap. Tap. . .  Arms out.  . .  Flying on stomach. . . Not feeling like I’m falling at all. . . Somehow cradled by the air?. . . all. . . WOWWWWWW!  The Remarkables (Queenstown’s Mountain Range). . . Lake Waikatipo. . . SKY! SKY! DAVE!?!!  Chris’s commentary,  . .  Chris’s commentary . . . PARACHUTE!. . .   Slight disappointment the free fall is over but feeling good about the parachute opening.  .  . Peace.  Calm.  Ahhhhhh.  Chris’s commentary.  .  . Chris’s commentary.  Feet up. Feet down.  DAVE!  THAT WAS SO FUN!!!

Like nothing else I’ve ever done. 

*NOTE:THIS ADVENTURE SUBSIDIZED BY THE WEDDING GIFTS OF DAN & KAT AND TK & BEAGAN.  THANKS GUYS!*

A Day in the Life…

Most of the posts we write are about the big events that make up the majority of our travels – treks, volcanoes, adventure sports, enlarged spleens...  But occasionally, we do have the rare relaxed day, with little on our agenda other than to get from ‘point A’ to ‘point B’, plenty of time to get there and just trying to enjoy ourselves along the way.  So, we thought we’d give you a taste of one of those rare mellow days between…

March 16^th, 2011

8:30am – Seven Minutes of Heaven:  No, not the junior high dating game, and no, nothing r-rated.  Get your minds out of the gutter (Q!)!  This is a family-oriented, PG-rated blog!  We’re talking about the hot showers at the motor park we stayed in last night.  We try to camp as often as possible in the free Department of Conservation campsites, so hot showers are a welcome treat when we splurge for the paid campsites.  We had big plans to wake up early, go for a run, and do our laundry… but our bodies were clearly tired from three tough days of hiking in Welcome Flats.  So we slept in a bit, and then enjoyed the hot showers (50 cents buys you 7 minutes of hot water) and did some much-needed laundry (our clothes don’t smell so good after multi-day hikes… and neither do we).

10:30am – In Search of the Best Fish and Chips in NZ:  Our only plan for the day is to drive to the town of Wanaka, about a 3-hour drive through some beautiful mountain passes (we’re getting into the part of the country where they filmed ‘Lord of the Rings’… so it’s pretty stunning all around).  But with the whole day to get there, we opted for a brief detour to the isolated fishing village of Jackson Bay, for lunch at the Cray Pot restaurant – which, according to our Lonely Planet, is well-worth the detour. 



A brief timeout during the rugby lesson



11:30am – Rugby 101:  Jackson Bay is as quaint and cute as can be.  With a little extra time before the restaurant opened, we took a stroll along the beach, and Dave gave Amy a basic primer on the game of rugby – in anticipation for the upcoming Super XV Rugby match we’ll be going to in Dunedin (Otago Highlanders vs. Canterbury Crusaders).  We don’t know whether we’ll be sitting in the Otago section or the Canterbury section, so it will be a game-time decision as to which team we’re supporting.  But we’re told it should be a great match, between the two NZ teams on the south island who have a good rivalry and are both having good seasons thus far.  

Best fish 'n chips in New Zealand!

12:45pm – Mission Accomplished!:  Amy’s basket of fish and chips have arrived… and within a matter of seconds, have been thoroughly and enjoyably reduced to stray crumbs.  Once again, Lonely Planet has come through for us.  Best fish and chips ever.  We’re probably going to have to detour here on our return trip north to get another basket of fried goodness.  Dave opted for the local specialty – a whitebait sandwich (on gluten-free bread).  Everybody in this part of the country is crazy for whitebait… we can safely say it’s fish… we think it’s smelt… which we think might be baby salmon?  But we’ll let Amy’s dad and the other anglers among you correct us on that one.  The gluten-free bread is just a bonus – Dave can get gluten-free products everywhere in this country – at restaurants, bakeries, and supermarkets.  Love it here!



Maybe more artistic... but this van has nothing on Dougie

3:00pm – ‘Quick, Stop for a Photo!’:  It’s a rainy day on the west coast of the south island… a good day for driving, with REM and Tracy Chapman cd’s to keep us company.  We brought about 10 cd’s with us for the drives, but for some reason, only about half of them work.  So our choices are a bit limited.  We think Dougie must have a bias against Jack Johnson… because he refuses to play any of those CDs.  We’re discussing whether we should cycle-camp through Croatia as the last leg of our full-moon… seems like good training for triathlon season, and we’ll save money on transportation costs that way.  (Anyone know anything about cycle-camping?).  Anyway, as we’re driving through all of this gorgeous mountain scenery, we come to a one-lane bridge with lots of pedestrians walking back and forth, snapping photos and causing major traffic hazards.  There’s a beautiful rushing river below with big falls.  Amy says, ‘Can you pull over?  I want to take a photo.’  No, not of the beautiful river, but of the ‘escape’ van (one of the rental companies, which paints each of it’s vans as unique works of art).  We just found that funny… all these people stopping to admire this amazing natural beauty, and we want to take a picture of a van.  With all of our hiking in the NZ backcountry, we can admire -- but just can’t get too excited about -- all the beautiful roadside attractions.  Somehow it’s much more rewarding if you have to hike some serious kilometers to view the natural beauty.

Kicking back after a long and strenuous day...

6:00pm:  Toughest Decisions of the Day: Where to camp and what’s for dinner?   We cruised into Wanaka around 5pm and took care of a few errands – stopped by the local Dept of Conservation information center to get the low-down on a tramp we plan to do in a few days (the Cascade Saddle Pass) and to buy the topo maps we’ll need.  Then on to the local iSite tourist information center to figure out where we might camp for the night.  We found a beautiful municipal campsite next to a rushing river and a small nature preserve.  Dinner, dishes, and we tucked into Dougie for the night… just as the rain started to fall. Another one of those nights we’re so glad to have a camper-van!

Every Hike Should Have Hot Springs…



The world looks better when soaking in hot springs...


Our second NZ tramp was a three-day hike into Welcome Flats, just south of Fox Glacier.  Our hiking book has 53 multi-day hikes in it… but this one was easy to pick out from the bunch:  our destination was the finest natural hot springs in all of NZ.  We started the day doing a couple of our respective favorite activities:  Amy ran 10 miles on a beautiful winding dirt road (yes, the same dirt road she had earlier used to put Dougie in the Ditch), with stunning early morning views of Fox Glacier to guide her along.  Meanwhile, Dave drove ahead 10 miles and used the morning to sort and pack all of our camping gear (one of his favorite activities).


Hiking along the Kararua River


We drove to the trailhead, about 26km south of Fox Glacier, and got started around 12:45pm.  For the first half of the hike, we walked alongside the beautiful Kararua River – very full, moving fast, milky blue, beautiful rock formations carved over time by the rushing water.  We crossed a series of increasingly heart-lurching swing bridges, high above river canyons. We learned that they have to make the bridges so high because they repeatedly have been washed out by avalanches in the winter months. But we trust the Kiwi engineers.  Unlike some of those bridges in Patagonia, these bridges seemed to have all their bolts in place. We decided that we really like to hike about 5 hours each day – it’s the perfect amount of time:  1.5 hours, then a snack break…. Then another 1.5 hours, and a lunch break… then 2 hours to finish, planning your dinner all the while.  Unfortunately, this was a 6+hour hike…so we were definitely starting to tire by the end, and very happy to eventually see the campsite. 

But the world seems to always look so much brighter when, after removing your boots, setting up your tent, and making some dinner, you throw on your swim suit and head off for a soak in some thermal pools.  And these were some very high quality thermal pools.  Large enough for several people to soak in at once, a few pools with increasingly hot temperatures, and stunning mountain scenery of the Southern Alps in the backdrop.  Between the strenuous hiking (and Amy’s 10-mile run as a warm-up) and the relaxing soak, we slept like babies that night.    

The view form our campsite at Welcome Flats...
and from the thermal pools

The next day was a 14km up-and-back day-hike up the valley to Douglas’ Rock Hut.  It was a tough hike, and although we eventually did find the hut, we found no trace of either Douglas or his rock.  That was a tough day, also 6+ hours, even without our heavy packs, and made tougher by the fact that we somehow managed to forget our bread/rice-cakes for lunch.  For those of you who have hiked before, you know that hungry hikers do not equal happy hikers.  But yet again, upon our return, the hot pools worked their magic, and once again the world was a better place.  We got an incredible amount of rain that night (1200ml… which is about 4.5 inches), but Dougie kept us warm and dry.

The third day was the reverse of the first day… another 6+ hours back out along the river… with double-lunch to fuel us along.  Unfortunately, this time there were no hot springs waiting for us at the end of the hike… just Dougie.  So we hopped in and drove a few hours south to the modern substitute:  hot showers (and some much-needed laundry)!

 

Why am I always the one rebutting?

So. . . I MIGHT HAVE driven Dougie into a ditch.*   But, we need to get this story straight.  Here’s how I remember it. . .

Yes, we were driving along a beautiful little stretch of winding dirt road between the small mountain town of Fox Glacier and our destination for the evening, Gillespie’s Beach BUT. . .  (here’s where I remember things a little differently) we were NOT just approached by a vehicle. This vehicle was BARRELING down this narrow, winding dirt road at BREAK NECK speeds.  And. . . I would IN NO WAY refer to said vehicle as a large campervan, it was more like a HUGE MOBILE HOME!  It was the size of the 3 bedroom house in which I grew up but. . .  ON  WHEELS and it was coming straight at me, AND, more importantly, my most prize possession, my dear husband!

What would any level-headed, compassionate, calm spouse and driver do but protect her love by gently placing him, and therefore the vehicle surrounding him, in a nice low spot out of the way of this BEAST of a vehicle? Stop, drop, and roll, right?  Into a ditch if there is one, obviously! 

As THE BEAST came CAREENING toward us, thanks to my evasive maneuvers, no one was hurt.  Defensive driving,people.  

And, yes, I might have laughed my way through but only to lighten the mood. You know how uptight Dave can be. ; )

*SHOUT OUT for our dear friend, Steph, for whom the unfortunate conditional tense might have been invented. : )

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Gillespie's Beach...

One of Amy’s characteristics that I love and admire is her compassion for and generosity towards others – both people we know and even total strangers.  If she can give something or do something to make someone else’s life a little better or easier, she doesn’t even think twice. 

 Occasionally, however, that selflessness can create small challenges.  Take the other day, for instance.  We were driving along a beautiful little stretch of winding dirt road, covering the 20km between the small mountain town of Fox Glacier and our destination for the evening, Gillespie’s Beach… where a free Dept of Conservation campsite right on the beach, a stunning sunset, and a bottle of red wine awaited us.  A large campervan approached from the other direction.  The road was plenty wide for both vehicles… but my Amy didn’t just share the road with the oncoming vehicle.  No, Amy selflessly decided to give the oncoming vehicle the entire road… leaving us (and poor Dougie) in a ditch  

This is Dougie in a Ditch...
Any Questions?





This is Dougie...



 





Time:  6:06pm, on a Saturday night, in the middle of nowhere.      

From my perch in the passenger seat, I saw us getting more and more perilously close to the road’s edge… but not wanting to be that nagging back-seat driver, I figured Amy had it well under control.  But the road’s edge creeped closer still, and then disappeared under Dougie.  We started to list to the left, and then very soon we were at a very unnatural 45 degree angle.  It’s not so much that we drove off the road… we were going quite slowly.  It’s more like Amy just gently parked Dougie in the ditch.

Our Hero: Clark!



My natural reaction was to want to assess the situation, check for damage, see if we could  extricate ourselves.  I was a bit concerned that we might have damaged poor Dougie… as he was balancing on what seemed to be essential components of his under-carriage.  Like, for instance, his fuel tank.  I was even more concerned about the fact that we’re not entirely sure that our credit card will actually provide the insurance coverage for our rental vehicle that we’re counting on. Amy, meanwhile, was laughing uncontrollably.  Now, I was prepared to see the humor in the situation… you all know I’m a pretty laid-back guy.  I just wanted to make sure first that (a) we were going to be able to get Dougie out of the ditch; and (b) it wasn’t going to cost us several thousand dollars in damages. 


So undignified for poor Dougie...



So I hopped out of the van, and, Splash!, landed squarely in the middle of the creek that Dougie’s left wheels now hung above, suspended uselessly mid-air.  Amy continued to laugh uncontrollably. I tried placing some cardboard under the rear tire… but no luck.  I tried pushing… but no luck.  Amy, meanwhile, continued to laugh uncontrollably.  Dougie was clearly going to need some assistance to get out of this ditch.  And who knew if assistance could be found at this hour in the tiny town of Fox Glacier?  Amy, meanwhile, was now laughing so hard that tears were streaming down her cheeks.   

We decided to hitch-hike back into town and see if help could be found.  A lovely Italian family offered us a lift in their campervan.  Although the mechanic at the service station had just left for the evening, the clerk rang him up, and within a few minutes, we were passengers in Clark’s tow truck as he flew down the dirt roads, generally deriding our driving abilities.  He attached his winch to Dougie’s under-belly, and in a matter of seconds, Dougie was back on all four wheels, and all four wheels were safely on the road.  Clark did a quick inspection, pronounced Dougie perfectly fit, and at 7:06pm, we were continuing down the dirt road to our campsite at Gillespie’s Beach… only this time, I was driving.  



In plenty of time to enjoy the sunset...

 

Into, and out of, the ditch, in one hour flat.
Now, at this point, I was ready to see the humor in the situation.  As we enjoyed the stunning sunset at Gillespie’s Beach, I joined Amy in laughing uncontrollably.

 











Everybody’s Famous for Something…

Any of you that have spent enough time around Dave have heard him tell you how his town, Easton, MA, was once the ‘Shovel Capital of the World’, and how the trans-continental railroad was built with Ames shovels made in his home town.  Your towns are probably famous for something like that, too.  (Amy says Paxton might be famous for its shoe cobblers… but I think we can all agree that shovels are much cooler than cobblers). 

Here in New Zealand it is no different… Every little town we pass through claims to be the global capital for something.  The difference here is that each town builds a giant statue on the main road into town paying homage to its obscure claim-to-fame.  There were the relatively simple and somewhat uninteresting ones, like Hunterville, the Hunter Dog Capital of the World… and Ross with its goldminer… but then there were the truly inspired towns, like our favorites, Taihape, Tekuiti, and Kawakawa.  Tekuiti is the Sheep-Shearing Capital of the World, complete with its annual ‘Running of the Sheep’ event.  Our only regret is that we hadn’t yet started our collection of ridiculous town monuments when we drove through Tekuiti, so we have no photo of the giant larger-than-life statue of the farmer shearing the sheep in the middle of the town square.   

Some towns claim fame for their animals...



Some are famous for their pasts...



We did not make that mistake again when we arrived in Taihape, the gumboot capital of the world.  We had our camera at the ready when we cruised into town and were greeted by a giant statue of a multi-colored gumboot!  Unfortunately, we were a few days too early for the celebration of National Gumboot Day.   

Literally, missed it by a day:(



How could you not fall in love with the world gumboot capital?

   

Art meets public sanitation in the town of Kawakawa



Kawakawa’s claim to fame is that it has, without any doubt, the world’s most beautiful (and most famous) public toilets.  Designed by the ‘world-famous’ Swiss artist/philosopher/conservationist Hunterwasser, who (according to the lady in the shop that pays homage to all of his works), settled in Kawakawa because it was the only town he’d found that had a soul. She really was his number-one fan… we think maybe she was his daughter or something.  She went on to tell us how Hunterwasser had designed the New Zealand flag… not the one they use, mind you… but the one they rejected and might someday use.  He also designed the national museum… not the design they ultimately chose, mind you… but a fine design nonetheless.  He also designed a collection of stamps for the United Nations… which, last I checked, doesn’t have a postal service.  So, you can imagine his joy when the town of Kawakawa asked him to design their public toilets… and actually built to his design.  No wonder he thought Kawakawa had a soul! 

World's most beautiful place for a pit stop

They seriously are the most amazing public toilets you’ve ever seen.  Beautiful works of art, and quite functional as well.  It’s the only place where people don’t look at you funny when you run to get your camera before going to use the toilet.  Even Adam Goodrich, who refuses to participate in any conversations involving bodily functions, would want to talk about his experience in these bathrooms. 

And, in an incredible bit of good fortune, both Amy and Dave found themselves in need of a public toilet right around the time they were driving through Kawakawa.  But honestly, having now experienced those toilets, they’d be well worth the drive (and the wait), even if you were a few hundred kilometers away.  I guess everybody has to be famous for something…

Where the Oceans Meet...

As you've no doubt learned by now, we're not really city people.  So, after we arrived in Auckland, picked up Dougie, and (of course) stopped at the tourist information office (here they're called i-Site's), we beat a hasty retreat out of Auckland.  Our first destination was Cape Reinga -- the northernmost tip of the North Island -- for a 3-day hike on the Cape Reinga Coastal Route.     
There's one private campsite/motel/gas station/general store/restaurant that provides safe vehicle storage while you hike and transportation to/from the point-to-point hike, so we spent the night there at Waitiki Landing before starting our hike.  We were unfortunately too late in recognizing the mosquito infestation that was taking place when we left Dougie's doors open while we prepared our dinner, which led to a mosquito genocide the likes of which have never before been seen.  (Note to Dave: definitely do NOT piss off Amy... she turns into a cold-blooded assassin when she needs to).
 

Grant and Buddy -- True Ultra-Runners!



As you're also starting to realize, we tend to have some wacky encounters... probably because we start some pretty wacky conversations with just about anybody... and this one is no different.  Staying at our campsite/motel/gas station/general store/restaurant, that very same night, was a NZ ultra-runner named Grant Jacobs, who was 20km from finishing his south-to-north run of the entire country of NZ -- both islands (although we do not believe he swam the ocean between the two islands!).  He started in December at the southern tip of the South Island.  He'd been running for 3 months.  And he was on his very last leg of the journey.  More impressive than that (to us, at least) was his dog Buddy, who'd been running alongside him the entire way!  (okay, if we're going to be honest, Buddy would occasionally, when very tired, raise a sore paw and request a ride in the baby-stroller Grant was pushing with his supplies).  In all seriousness, we were actually just as impressed with Grant as we were with his dog.  And he had that classic ultra-runner's humility.  So humble that he kept turning the conversation back to us and our travels, and couldn't even look squarely at the camera when we took his photo.  So we sent him off for his last 20km with cheers in the morning, and feeling a bit guilty that the rain had kept us from going for our own training run that day.
 

The last few miles of 90-Mile Beach



 But the rain was not enough to keep us from starting our 3-day trek.  That's why they make rain jackets, right?  We started at Te Paki stream and hiked the last several miles of the 90-Mile Beach, with intermittent sunshine and downpours.  After 4 tough hours of beach hiking in the rain, we reached Twilight Beach, our campsite for the night.
 

Amy is dedicated to her training...
even as we cruise around NZ







Now, if you're Dave, you like nothing more than reaching camp, dropping your 40-45 pound backpacks, taking off your boots, having a snack, and settling in for the night.  If you're Amy, you throw on your running shoes and go for a 10-mile run.  In the rain.  Seriously, people.  She did the same thing the next day, too.  Only that day, it was even tougher hiking, for 6+ hours.  She's nuts.  but it's pretty impressive and inspiring, too.  Amy's running the Boston Marathon 10 days after we get back from NZ, and she is very committed to making sure she's ready to run well.  It's also a great way for both of us to start any day where we're going to be doing a lot of driving -- a nice long run and a few hours in the car are actually a welcome relief. 
 


 But back to the hike... On day 2, we climbed up over some bluffs, and after a few hours, reached the Cape.  As we approached, we could see some odd crashing surf way off in the distance... the meeting of the oceans.  The spot just off Cape Reinga where the Tasman Sea (from the west of New Zealand) smashes up against the Pacific Ocean (from the east).  Needless to say, it was an amazingly beautiful lunch spot, watching the oceans collide.  And we can understand why this spot is sacred to the Maori.  We rounded the Cape and spent our second night at Tepotupotu Beach. 


The meeting of the Oceans... a very cool place to have lunch!




NZ wildlife... or home garden furnishing?

 On our 3rd day, we climbed up and over the politcally-incorrectly-named Darkie's Ridge -- straight up and over.  Apparently, NZ trailmakers hadn't yet discovered the beauty of the 'switchback' when they laid this route.  We also saw what we think was a hedgehog... because he looked exactly like those things you clean your shoes on outside some people's homes.  we descended into a pristine, deserted, beautiful beach called Pandora for lunch.  Our last obstacle for the day was a river that emptied into the sea, which our Lonely Planet warned us absolutely only to cross at low tide... Well, we couldn't really wait for 5 hours, because our ride was due to meet us well before that... so high tide it was, and some pretty serious flow!  And a good chance to practice our river-fording technique for the much bigger rivers we're likely to encounter later in our trip in the Southern Alps of the South Island.  A final 3 hours stroll along the beautiful sands of Spirits Bay, and our first NZ 'tramp' was in the books.
 

Pandora Beach... Another very cool lunch spot!