Milford Sound

So we're back from our trip to Milford Sound. What can we say? It definitely lived up to the hype. It was incredible. Easily the most amazing, mind-blowing scenery we have ever come across. Everything about it was cool - the cliffs, the waterfalls, the water, the history, the wildlife, even the rain! Let us start from the beginning though.

The town of Te Anau (pronounced tea ah-new) is sort of the gateway to Milford Sound and Fiordland National Park (in which Milford Sound is located), even though it is basically about the halfway point of the three hour drive from Queenstown to Milford. There is basically no where else to stay after there, so we too made it our basecamp. It was a holiday weekend (Labour Day - just spelling it how they do) and the town was relatively busy, so the first thing we did was find a hostel to stay at. We settled on the first place we found - Bob and Maxine's Backpackers. Nice enough place. Maxine was a textbook low-talker and Bob can only be described as whacky. They also have the fattest cat I have ever seen. We explored town a bit, did a little hike on the nearby Kepler Track, visited a wildlife sanctuary, and I even let Steph talk me into eating out! Quite the occasion! I believe it's the first time we've had dinner at a restaurant since we were in Auckland, so a good 2 months. That night everyone staying in the hostel sat around and chatted about everything from chocolate to governments. There was a guy from Israel who had an exhaustive (and very funny) story about trying to get a visa to visit the US, a girl from France whose accent was actually kind of charming, a reserved and polite girl from the UK, a hardcore hiker from Switzerland, and the most stereotypical German-Swiss guy sporting bleached-blonde hair parted in the middle and complete with Toblerone chocolate. I wonder if Steph and I are stereotypical Americans?

Despite every single person that I've met who has been to Milford Sound saying the weather was sunny and gorgeous when they visited, of course we had rain. Lots of it, in fact. It's not really surprising given that it rains an average of over 6 meters of rain there per year - that's 20 FEET! As you can see, we didn't get quite the same view as in the picture from my previous post.

We wanted to do a kayaking trip, but because of the foul weather we opted for a boat tour instead. Actually, the rain in Milford Sound is kind of a blessing in disguise, as it creates literally hundreds of new waterfalls. The misty ribbons of water flowing down the sides of the cliffs was worth getting wet for.

Since the lady that booked the trip for us had talked us into getting "the special", which included lunch and a visit to an underwater observatory, we spent our first 15 minutes aboard the Pride of Milford stuffing our faces with as much buffet food as we could. Like I said, we don't eat out much. After that, we joined the hordes of Japanese tourists out on the deck to soak (pun!) in the views. Another good thing about taking the boat tour was that the captain was constantly giving insight into the history, wildlife, and geology of the Sound. In fact (I told you I'd come back with lots of info), as I said before, it's not actually a sound. It's a fjord. A sound is created by rivers while a fjord is created by glaciers. I'm not sure why it originally came to be known as Milford Sound, but I guess the name was quickly too famous to change it. I do know that it was originally know as Milford Haven after the first european explorer discovered it when his ship was blown in by a storm. Captain Cook, who is credited with discovering many places in New Zealand, actually sailed by it twice thinking it was nothing more than a large bay. Also, the huge amounts of rainfall creates a freshwater layer over top the saltwater layer from the sea. The freshwater layer filters the light and causes the saltwater below it to be much darker than it normally would be at that depth. This means that deep water-dwelling creatures are tricked into living much closer to the surface than usual. At a depth of 8 meters in the underwater observatory, we got to see some of these creatures. Black coral, for example, is usually found at depths of 50-150 meters. Even more interesting, it's not even black!

The boat cruise took us surprisingly close to some of the cliffs and almost into some of the larger waterfalls. You really have to get up close to truly appreciate the size of these things. Many of the waterfalls are around 500 feet tall and some of the cliffs are upwards of 1500 feet straight out of the water. Check out how dwarfed a two-story tour boat looks compared to these cliffs here. We also got to see some of the unique wildlife that exists only in this region of the world. That's right, we saw our first wild penguins - the Fiordland Crested Penguin. We didn't get a good picture of them because we were quite far away and they are tiny little guys, but here is one from the web:

We also saw a colony of New Zealand fur seals:

Another native New Zealand creature that is quickly becoming one of my favorites is the Kea (pronounced like the car maker Kia). A Kea is an alpine parrot that lives in some of the harsher climates of New Zealand, especially Fiordland National Park. They are notorious for being somewhat of flying raccoons - they will steal your lunch, tear apart your hiking boots, or, most famously, destroy your car. Apparently they have a thing for the rubber on windshield wipers and around windows. We had seem some in cages at the wildlife sanctuary in Te Anau, and they have beautiful dark green feathers. The soggy ones we encountered near Milford Sound weren't quite as pretty, but they did live up to their reputation. Every parking lot had at least one of these things, swooping around looking for handouts from tourists. At one stop on the way out, there were two particularly daring little rascals. As one of them posed for pictures on the ground, I turned around to see the other one on the hood of my car, pecking at my windshield wipers. Nice try, but you'd have to get up pretty early....

There are days worth of side trips to see and do between Te Anau and Milford, but Steph can only stay happy for so long while wet and cold. Our 2-3 night trip quickly turned into a long one-night trip, and we headed back to Queenstown. It was a great experience though, and we can't wait to go back when somebody comes and visits. See all our pics HERE. Oh yes, one more thing. You have to go through a tunnel to get to and from Milford Sound. One unlucky bloke didn't quite make it:

Heading out

Just a quick post as we are about to leave to go to Milford Sound for the next 2 or 3 nights. Stephanie doesn't work again until Thursday, so we have some flexibility with how long we want to stay. The plan is to drive out there, find a place to stay, then figure out what to do. Not much of a plan, really. We're also hoping to stay one night on the Milford Track, but we haven't been able to figure out yet how that will work since you have to take a boat to get there. Should be able to get more info once we're out there. Here is a picture of Milford Sound that I stole off the internet. Hopefully we'll get some good weather like this.

Also, I had a bit of a "small world" moment the other day. There was another riverboarding training session a couple weeks after mine. This week I met a few of the guys that had taken that course. One guy is from Ireland, another from New Caledonia (island somewhere above NZ in the South Pacific), and another is from the US. "What part of the US?" "Atlanta" "I'm from Atlanta too" Turns out he grew up in Buckhead, went to Wesleyan, graduated same year as me, then went to school in Texas and has been there ever since. He and his wife are in New Zealand until February. Pretty cool to meet somebody from back home. Apparently there was another guy on the course from LaGrange, but he quit. Be back in a few days!

Gearing up for summer

The warm (-ish) spring weather we've been having around here has inspired us to get more active and get geared up for summer. One thing we've been looking to get for a while is bikes, so we checked out the classifieds of the local paper. We eventually bought one off some people having a moving sale - only $50 including a baby carrier! Sweet! It does run pretty good for its age (once I took the baby carrier off), so I think we got a good deal. Stephanie got her bike from the Warehouse (like a small walmart) on sale, so it was only about $125 new. Once we loaded up on all the necessary accessories - helmets, locks, a pump - we were ready to go. Our first trip was out to Lake Hayes, which is a nice little lake about 15 minutes away. I go by there all the time going to and from my riverboarding and had always wanted to check it out. There is a nice trail that goes around the lake and up on the side of an adjacent hill, providing good views of the lake and surrounding mountains. We also stopped by the lower Shotover River, walked around a bit, stopped to read, threw some rocks, and watched the jetboats go by.

Lake Hayes

We found a rope swing on the lake

Shotover River

A Jetboat on the Shotover River

Ideally as it gets warmer and warmer we'll be using the car less and our bikes more. We both should be able to bike to work, at least on occasion, plus we can bike to town and even to the grocery store (theoretically). I have my doubts on how much any of this will actually happen, but we shall see.

The other thing that I've been doing to get ready for summer is learning to fly fish. The local angler's club hosts an annual fly fishing course, which started last week. Over a total of four sessions, we'll cover everything from casting to picking out the right fly. So far we've had two sessions where we've gone over the equipment you need, the equipment you think you need, and the equipment you definitely don't need but must have anyways. We've also learned how to tie a few knots and started learning how to cast. I started out pretty rough, but after a couple accidental casts went farther than any cast I had made on purpose, I adjusted my "stroke" a little bit and am getting the hang of it. Whether I'll actually catch any fish is another story. After the course we can choose to go on an outing with the club to a hut they have set up somewhere in the backcountry, which should be fun.

Other than that, its business as usual. Steph joined a gym that is opening up about a mile away. They have a big pool too so we're planning to go over there for a swim sometime soon. I need to be going on more riverboarding trips to get to the magical 50 run number (I'm like 30 away), but the scheduling just isn't working out. They only have trips going on the occasional day that I have temp work, or the trip is too full to fit me on the bus (I literally got booted off the bus one time last week), or more recently I've had another stretch feeling a little sick and congested. Next week I'm hoping to make at least 3 or 4 trips (6 or 8 runs at two runs per trip). We are also hoping to get out of town for a night or two next weekend, probably to Milford Sound. We're hoping to do a little hiking on the Milford Track before it gets too busy, and of course see the sound, which is supposed to be amazing. Actually it is not a sound at all, but a fjord. And that's all the info I've got. I'll try to come back with something a little more than that.

A Tour of Queenstown - Part 1: Queenstown Gardens

Since we don't really have anything going on that is all too interesting (unless you'd like to hear about the spaghetti we had for dinner last night or the games of Yahtzee we've been playing), we thought we'd do a little virtual tour of Queenstown and some of the surrounding areas. Today we'll cover what is probably our favorite part of town - Queenstown Gardens. But first, the below map gives a little overview of the layout of Queenstown and some of the notable places around town.

As you can see, Queenstown Gardens covers a small peninsula just a short walk from downtown. It's called gardens but it is really a big park with lots of stuff to do. There is frisbee golf, a jogging/walking track, tennis courts, lawn bowling, croquet, a skate park, an indoor ice skating rink, plus the gardens of course. Everything is well landscaped and really nice. Since it is spring, the birds are chirping and some of the trees and flowers are starting to bloom. It's really quite lovely. We've had a run of nice weather recently, and on a warm spring day the park is packed with people lounging around on the grass, feeding the ducks in the pond, or playing frisbee golf. The only other thing worth a note is the pigeons. We're not talking about dirty, crumbing-eating pigeons you find in cities all over the world. I'm talking about wild, native pigeons, which are absolutely enormous. They swoop over your head making this weird clucking noise, but otherwise stick to the trees and aren't begging for scraps like their cousins. Thought everyone would like to hear about that.

Nice view of town from the park

Frisbee golf hole that I got a hole-in-one on. You are required to go through the big trees to get to the hole just to the right and behind them.

The rose garden is pruned and ready for spring flowers

Baby ducks

These trees are really strange. They are called "monkey puzzle" trees.

the weeping willows hanging over the pond are pretty

Click HERE for more pictures from Queenstown Gardens. Also, we'd like to give a shout out to Steph's cousin Emily and wish her a happy birthday. (This is a dangerous precedent, since I am notoriously bad at remembering birthdays). Oh and by the way, the spaghetti was good and I have been dominating at Yahtzee.

Snow Day!

I guess you could call me lucky, since just 2 days after my 4 days floating down a freezing cold river we got a cold front accompanied by a heavy snowfall. I don't think it would have made much of a difference, though. Once you're numb, you're numb. Anyways, we were happy to get some snow. It makes the mountains look a lot cooler, and supposedly it's good for the ski tourism, which I guess we care about. Most of it had melted by the afternoon, so while Steph worked I walked down to the lake to try my hand at some fishing. I had hooked a small fish the evening before, but it got off pretty quickly. This time after only 4 or 5 casts I hooked what seemed to be another small fish, since it wasn't putting up much fight. I was shocked when I reeled it in and saw a huge trout on the end of the line. I guess he was just toying with me, because once he saw the shore he turned around, took off, jumped out of the water, spat out the hook and was gone. I will be back though, and next time I'll bring a net and snag that sucker before he can escape again.

Kawarau River - where we go riverboarding

Like I mentioned above, I have completed my 4-day riverboarding training course, barely. It was really hard and tiring, but turned out to be a lot of fun. There were 4 other newbies with me - a girl from the UK and guys from Sweden, South Africa, and Zimbabwe. It was cool to meet and chat with all of them, especially the guys from Africa. They have some, let's say "interesting" stories about back home. Do not worry, though. I am still a long way from actually becoming a certified guide. I have to log about 35 more trips down the river, do a safety/rescue course in mid-November, and get my first aid certification. So, it'll be at least a month and half before I actually get paid to do this stuff, but hopefully I can be doing some more temp work here and there during that time. Plus, Steph is used to being the bread-winner. She's been working 4 or 5 days a week and generally enjoying it. She's realized she does not like the breakfast shift, which she has been getting a lot of, so once she requests not to work breakfasts she'll be happy.

Speaking of Steph, she managed to pull of an all-time classic the other day. Those that know her may know that she has a bit of an issue with car keys. She loses them every now and then, of course, but also has a tendancy to lock them in the car. She once locked them in the car while it was running. But all of that pares in comparison to what she did a couple days ago. She left home and drove over to the library, but by the time she got there the keys were gone. She had lost her keys while driving! I know, impossible right? Well our car is a bit older and the key can slide out of the ignition even when the car is on. But still, the keys would have to be in the car, right? She searched and searched but could not find them, eventually drove home to find them sitting on the floor in the garage. Somehow she managed to turn on the car, toss the keys out the open car door without noticing, and drive off. Classic Steph.

Otherwise, we've been taking it pretty easy since our last post. Our schedules have kind of conflicted, so we haven't had many free days at the same time. Plus, the weather hasn't been too good. We did have a little barbeque with the entire riverboarding crew once the training was complete at one of the guides' house. It was a good time - hung out and played some foosball, chatted about the 'dangers' of riverboarding (mainly panicking clients trying to drown you), and dominated everyone in Wii.

At the request of birthday-boy Rob Hollister (Steph's dad), we will actually do a top-10 list of places from our US road trip like I had promised.

10. Los Angeles. Can't forget our final sendoff from the US. Sightseeing in Hollywood and hanging out with Betsy, Steve, Steph's brothers Robbie and Ryan, Uncle Bean and Sanita (sp?), and even my buddy Graham who happened to also be in town. Good stuff.

9.  Bryce Canyon National Park. I'm going to go ahead and say it is NOT the best 3-mile hike in the world, but hiking among the colorful hoodoos was still pretty cool.

8.  Estes Park, Colorado. Cool little town just outside Rocky Mountain NP. The outdoor seating area of the Starbucks right next to a little river was a highlight for Steph. I'm talking lifetime highlight here.

7.  Grand Teton National Park. We didn't spend enough time here, but the view of the Tetons from the shore of Jenny Lake was one of the best we've seen.

6.  Yosemite National Park. Arguably the most beautiful of our national parks. Luckily we weren't too exhausted when we reached the peak of Cloud's Rest to enjoy the amazing view.

5.  Rocky Mountain National Park. The hike to Sky Pond with Taylor was our first real introduction to the amazing backcountry of our national parks.

4.  Vegas. Not so much the casinos and typical Vegas stuff, but spending time with some of Steph's family that we don't see often was great. Seeing Seinfeld live didn't hurt.

3.  Grizzly bear encounter in Yellowstone. Seeing a wild bear less than 50 yards away from you while hiking is something you don't soon forget.

2. Angel's Landing in Zion National Park. Not only was the view from the top stunning, but the 2.5-mile hike to the top along thousand-foot cliffs made it that much more spectacular.

1.  Yellowstone National Park.  Truly a special place. Huge wilderness, volcanic activity, amazing wildlife, beautiful scenery. Our favorite moment was seeing the wolves on our last day. They kind of epitomize what makes Yellowstone so special.

Honorable mentions would be Grand Canyon and Sequoia National Parks. Grand Canyon was cool, but I think we'd have to spend more time there and hike down in it to truly appreciate it. Sequoia seemed great while it lasted, but the Jimmy ruined that experience pretty quickly. Good reasons to go back though.