piha beach

a cave along the shore

this is the black sand piha beach

we also hiked out to whites beach which still had black sand?

we stayed until sunset

On sunday we decided that since it wasn't too cold we should get in a trip to the beach.  Katelyn's boyfriend has a car and they both love to surf so we decided to visit Piha.  Piha is only about 20 minutes from where we live in the center of the city.  Its so great how you can be in the middle of a bustling city one moment and then in a beautiful natural setting the next!  The beach is a black sand beach and it even has some spots with this dark navy colored sand they call iron sand.  Its really beautiful and it has really distinct rock formations.  

So while Katelyn and Reed surfed and played around in the shallows looking for pipi (kinda like mussels) for dinner.  Unfortunately I couldn't find any (they must not be around that area or they are out of season), but I had fun anyway.  Its pretty cool to be able to go to the beach in the winter time even if the water is a tad chilly.

Wellington!

view of the city from zach's back porch

civic center where we visited the art gallery 

view from the top of Mt Victoria

we saw Second Hand Wedding (an independent Kiwi film) at the Embassy Theater where they premiered Return of the King!  they have plaques on each seat showing where everyone sat and I am sitting in Elijah Woods seat!

So I decided to go visit my UMBC friend Zach who is currently living New Zealand's capitol city, Wellington.  It's an incredibly beautiful place, it reminded me a little bit of Quito (the capitol of Ecuador) because of all the houses situated on hills.  Its probably the most people friendly city I've ever been to.  There are sculptures and installations everywhere and wherever you go there are places to sit and hang out or places for kids to play.  It's pretty much like a giant playground and there are really cool fountains everywhere!

Zach was pretty happy to see a familiar face and I was excited to introduce him to my new friend Jenny( who I went on my south island trip with).  We had a really good time and even fit in a few dorky lord of the rings excursions.  Id say Wellington is definitely one of my favorite New Zealand cities. 

south island road trip!

So I just got back from my 2 week road trip and in record time I have pictures and posts up and ready!!  I even have it kinda organized.  Just click on whichever day you wanna see:)  The map above shows where we went around the south island (the bright blue line) and if you click it you can see a bigger clearer version.

Day1-Christchurch and BEYOND!

Day2-Marlborough

Day 3-Nelson and Kaiteriteri

Day 4-Abel Tasman

Day5-Golden Bay

Day6-Hokitika

Day7-The Glaciers

Day8-Wanaka

Day9-Queenstown

Day10-Milford Sound

Day11-The Catlands

Day12-Dunedin

Day13-Twizel

Day14-Christchurch

south island road trip!-Day 1

this is the christchurch cathedral located in cathedral square 

Captain Caveman Van!!!!!

playing around in the arctic simulation room just before the "storm"

Its called a blue penguin and they are the smallest (and cutest) penguin in the world!

Day 1-Christchurch and BEYOND

My roomate Katelyn and I arrived in christchurch on Friday and stayed at a Base bachpackers hostel that night.  We woke up early in the morning to start our day and meet our groups. I met Jenny and Leah in Cathedral Square and we began our journey to find our van.  

Anticipation rising, we walked out on the street from the Wicked Camper headquarters to meet our van.  Thats when we met Captain Caveman.  We were pretty excited and believed that we definitely got the best van there was.  For one, it was not stick like we believed it was gonna be (yeah for not driving stick with my left hand!) and two it wasnt scary like the arnold van with the glowing red eyes right next to our cheerful caveman.  

It took us some time to figure out our bearings and plan where we wanted to go, but we decided to head north.  On the way out, we hit the Antarctic Adventure center where they had penguins!  Along with cute adorable little blue penguins they also had a room where you put on parkas and they simulated and antartic storm.  It was kinda scary, but there was an igloo to hide in so we were ok.

After that we headed north along the coast.  The rest is history.

south island road trip!-Day 2

this is where we woke up our first morning

can you spot the sea lions?

this starfish lives in Bob's Bay 

eating some beans around the campfire in Havloc

Day 2-Marlborough

That morning it really hit us how lucky we were to be travellers.  We had pulled off the night before on a picnic area overlooking the ocean.  We couldnt really see much of what was around us but we could hear the sound of waves and see the moon reflecting off the water.  What we woke up to the next morning was incredible.  The sun rose over the ocean that morning and we rose with it.  It was a beautiful sight.  Something you can only see when you are in the exact right place at the exact right time.  

 And then we had some car trouble... well, what we thought was car trouble cuz we couldnt get it to start, but then the tow truck man showed us how to use a manual choke.  Ooops. we never had any trouble with our silly old van after that.

We drove up into the Marlborough area where we passed gorgeous vineyard after vineyard. We even saw a seal colony on our way through Kaikoura!!!  Theg fat ones were just laying like blobs all over the beach, and the babies were swimming around in little shallow pools.  It was so neat!

We stopped in Blenhiem for some supplies and met up with some friends from AUT.  We travelled with them to Picton where we did a small hike in the Marlborough sounds to "bob's bay".  It was a pretty little bay and we found some really cool snails and starfish.

Later that night we camped out in Havloc and sat around the camp fire.  Zach had a harmonica and played along to Tim's made up camp songs.  It was pretty funny.  It got really cold tho so we decided to call it a night.  Tim, Travis,Boris and Zach all shared a car and two would sleep in it and the other two would sleep in a tent outside each night.  I was pretty glad to have Mr caveman van and not a small thin little tent outside.

south island road trip!-Day 3

THE ONE RING! . . .prototype

Leah and I in Nelson

the incredible beach at Kaiteriteri

Day 3- Nelson and Kaiteriteri

So after a fun night with Tim and friends we parted ways and headed for Nelson.  Nelson was a pretty big town compared to the ones we'd been seeing so far.  The archetexture really fit.  You know how sometimes modern stores look really out of place in some towns?  Well somehow Nelson found a way to mask it, at least in the center of town.  In the center of town there were cute little cafes, some live music, and plenty of people milling around.  

After visiting the visitor's center we soon learned where our pilgrimage had subconciously lead us . . . to the ring!  A small jewelers shop in town was responsible for making all of the rings for the movie and the had the prototype they presented to Peter Jackson on display.  We were pretty excited even if it wasnt THE ONE ring.  When we went in we were disappointed with the not so enthusiastic staff, but we remained excited anyways.  Geeks always prevail!

So after walking around for awhile we ventured out to the bay.  It was really beautiful and we lay out on the rocky beach till we figured we should move on.

We drove till we got to Kaiteriteri beacause it was the perfect spot to prepare for our hike the next morning in Abel Tasman.  The beach at Kaiteriteri was gorgeous and had some really interesting rock formations.  We ran around the beach for awhile and climbed around on some rocks and dead branches.  Something about unfamiliar and beautiful places really makes you feel like a little kid who wants to explore and run around on everything!!

That night we made our healthiest dinner of the trip, potatoes and veggies.  We even had tea afterwards! yummm

south island road trip!-Day 4

the beginning of the abel tasman coastal walk

this is where we started to run downhill

finally we reach our destination!

Day 4- Abel Tasman

Abel Tasman is a National park and is considered on of the "great walks" in new zealand(just like the tongariro crossing that I did in taupo).  Its a coastal trek and if you were to do the whole thing it would take 3-4 days.  We didnt have time or equipment to do the whole trek so we decided to do a 8 hour return hike.  Basically we hiked 4 hours in and 4 hours back.

The trail was incredibly scenic.  It started out pretty flat walking across platforms over a sandy expanse of marshy area.  Then the trail became more like a rainforest and we hiked under trees that looked like palm trees and passed numerous waterfalls.  After a few hours it became steeper and drier.  It reminded me more of the mountains I hiked in Ecuador the higher up we went.  

When we got high enough we could see dazzling blue water all around us and even some islands out a little ways.  When we began to descend we decided just to run it.  We ran all the way down to the bottom, nearly tripping over a rock or two and were very surprised where we ended up.  The trail just all of a sudden opened up into the most beautiful secluded beach.  (dont worry aunt debbie I got you some sand:)  It felt good to be there because we knew that you could only get to it after 4 hours of hiking (we later noticed little water taxis bringing some lazier people in but o well lol) 

We sat and basked in the glory of our new found beach for about half and hour until we realized we still had to hike all the way back.  And the down hill we just ran had now turned into a grueling uphill hike.  o dear.

but we did it and we slept well that night:)

south island road trip!-Day 5

oooo Golden Bay

creating our own path through chetwood forest (takaka hill)

windy fun at wharariki beach

Day 5- Golden Bay

Golden Bay was one of my favorite spots on the south island.  We started our day exploring Takaka.  We found a spot down a gravely path where apparently a small part of the first lord of the rings movie was filmed.  It was the part where Aragorn leads the hobbits into Chetwood forest after Bree.  We ran around there for awhile and made our own paths through the woods.  Poor Jenny and leah both had a fun time falling into some gorse bushes, but we all came out alright eventually (ps. thank you mrs Kolb for the guide book, it helped us find so many cool spots!!).

After that we made our way into town where we wandered around in some shops and then drove awhile to get to Wharaiki Beach where the lady at the info center said there were playful baby seals.  The hike out to the beach was beautiful.  It went across a farm with lots of sheep and rolling green hills.  Then the wind picked up.  We almost got blown off the hills and then when we finally made it to the beach we were being sand blasted.  For some reason we thought it would be a good idea to eat lunch on top of the tallest sand dune.  We ate crunchy pb&js and then hightailed it back to the car.  It was beautiful tho.

After that we made for the west coast and began to head south.  While trying to find a spot to pull over we saw quite a few night critters.  We even saw a kiwi bird crossing the road!!! It was really exciting!  That night we also saw a rabbit and a hedgehog cross the road while we made our way through what we thought was the creepiest town ever, Westport.  It just had that creepy small town with mullets kinda aura.  Anyways, we waited to pull off till there was a good buffer zone of a few kms between us and westport.   

 

south island road trip!-Day 6

chilling out in hokitika

My favorite new zealand theater!

Day 6- Hokitika

So after we woke up a comfortable distance from Westport we decided to keep heading south along the coast towards the glaciers and see what we could find.  The fisrt major town we hit was Greymouth.  We decided we should probably try and find a place to shower.  It had been 6 days since we showered and well that sandstorm up in golden bay was making us look a little crusty.  

We found showers outside a gas station where you could pay 2 dollars for every 4 minutes.  It was beautiful.

Greymouth is an old coal mining town, as are a lot of the towns on the west coast.  We wanted to do this trek where we could visit old coal mine where there was a huge accident years and years ago.  It reminded me of Wesley's song. We didnt get to hike it becasue we couldnt find it, but I still though it was pretty interesting.

After Greymouth we hit Hokitika where we spent most of the day.  It was a cute little town and we spent out time milling around some of the shops and wandering around an old used books store.  It was right on the beach so we grabbed our books and found a nice place to sit and read for a awhile.  

Around 6 or so we grabbed some seats in a little movie theater where they were screening Lars and the Real Girl.  It was run by one man who renovated an old bank and set up shop.  Its filled with couches and he sold snacks like incredible organic dark chocolate, beer, wine and of course the new zealand preferred cinema snack; jaffas (little chocolate balls with a hard orange flavored outer coating).

Anyways, the movie was really good and I think you can probably rent it in the states at this point.

south island road trip!-Day 7

an awe inspiring scene just a few meters from where we fell asleep the night before

yummy glacier water!

franz joseph glacier

fox glacier

Day 7- The Glaciers

The night before when we had pulled over to sleep we kept hearing strange noises.  Feeling safe from creatures in our van we ignored it and fell asleep.  When I woke up the next morning I was surprised to hear that sounds had not stopped.  I got up and went outside and could see some water through the trees.  It must be ducks making all of that noise.  I walked along a short path to the water and what I saw took my breathe away.  The sun was rising behind the trees and partially lighting the fog covered lake.  On the smooth dark water tons of black swans glided gracefully their sillouettes set of by the white fog make their presence both mysterious and regal.  It was really incredible.  The only thing ungraceful about these creatures were the honking noises they made!  It was an amazing thing to wake up to.  Again, I was in the right place at the right time.

After that noisy wake up call we continued to head south for another exciting experince.  Its not often you get to see two glaciers in one day! We started off at Franz Joseph Glacier.  Before we even saw the glacier we could see the milky blue water running down from the mountains that we knew had to be glacier water.  We scooped some up in a water bottle to possibly drink later after we used my awesome UV light filter to clean it (we didnt end up filtering it we just drank it lol) and ate lunch by the water.  

When we finally got to franz joseph it was a long walk up to the glacier face.  It was a strange sight.  In one way it was kind of just like a pile of snow being squished between some mountains.  But it was quite immense and there was not snow anywhere else, in fact we were in short sleeves at this point.  We didnt get all the way to the face because we kept stopping along the way to look at pretty waterfalls or cool rocks.

Then we took about a half hour drive to Fox Glacier.  I actually think I liked this glacier better because the surroundings were immense and epic looking.  We walked as close to the face as we could get.  I kind of wish a could have touched it, but o well.  

It was pretty cool to see glaciers because there might be nothing left of them in a few years.  They may be the only ones ill ever see.

south island road trip!-Day 8

becoming a giant at puzzle world

eating lunch at lake wanaka

yep, they are about to jump out of an air plane

Day 8- Wanaka 

We woke up outside of Haast and drove south to Wanaka.  Before we got into town we saw a sign for Puzzle World and decided to check it out.  It was awesome!  We went through a room of 3d holograms, a tilted room that made all the furniture look level so that we couldnt keep our balance and were falling all over the place, and an optical illusion that demonstrates how they made the hobbits look so small while filming in the first movie.  There was also a really hard maze that we only cheated in a  little bit to escape:)

 Later on we ate lunch by the lake and watched silly tourists ride around on paddle boats shaped like tractors and push each other into the freezing cold water.  Then we found the local cinema to check out movie times and discovered they had homemade icecream!  I got cinnamin and honey flavored ice cream that was soooo good it left one of those delicious films on the top of my mouth:)  

After we found the info center Jenny and Leah decided it was time.  They were gonna go skydiving.  I went with them to the airport and took pictures of them floating down like dots from the sky.  It was pretty awesome to watch and they were happy cuz they didnt have to pay a million dollars to get their pictures taken.

 

After that crazy adventure we decided to go see Run Fatboy Run at the Cinema Paradiso in town.  Its a really cute cinema with couches and even a car with seats you can sit in.  It had really funny commercials before the movie that really could only be made in New Zealand.  lol There was one with a guy that made shadow puppets on the screen that was really great.  Anyways, the movie was pretty funny and I'd say it was an all around good night.  Nothing can go wrong when I've got some popcorn and raisinettes!

south island road trip!-Day 9

our view of wanaka from mt iron

queenstown harbor

my eel friend from the underwater observatory

a beautiful view from queenstown gardens

Day 9- Queenstown

We woke up to a beautiful sunrise in Wanaka and decided to do a short trek before heading to Queenstown.  We found a trek that was about an hour and fifteen minutes return that went up Mt iron.  When we got to the top we were pleasantly surprised at the great view of the city and the lake below.  

Soon after we drove the short trip to Queenstown.  This was the first "big city" we had seen since Christchurch so it was a bit overwhelming, but eventually we found a place to park and we wandered over to the info site.  We had picked out some exciting plans for Queenstown.  We wanted to book a rafting trip that took us down the Kawarau River or to us the Anduin river from lord of the rings.  So we booked our trip and excitedly went on our way to explore the town.  

Despite being full to the brim, the town is actually quite pretty and rests by a small harbor surrounded by mountains.  One of the highlights of my day there was paying 3 dollars to go into the underwater lake observatory.  Of course it was a bit small and dinky to some, but I loved it!!  You got to go below the water line and watch all the fish and ducks near the pier diving around underwater.  The coolest part were the eels that occasionaly crept up to grab some meat from the feeders.  

After that I walked around by myself for awhile in the Queenstown botanical garden.  There werent any flowers out because it is autumn, but the colors of the leaves and the reflections on the pond were beautiful.  

At the end of the day we met up with our friend Christy at her hostel called Bumbles.  We cooked there and she let us take a shower in her room ( 2nd shower of the trip).  It was fun to catch up with a group that had gone a different route because they told us about some fun activities we should do after Queenstown.  

After hanging out awhile our early to bed early to rise sleep schedule caught up with us and we headed out of town to find a pull off.

south island road trip!-Day 10

on our way to Milford Sound

can u see the itty bitty waterfall?

Day 10- Milford Sound

We woke up outside of Queenstown and met some of our friends from school in the city for some breakfast.  It was fun catching up with everyone and seeing how their trip was unfolding.  

After breakfast we went to check in for our rafting trip, only to find out it had been cancelled because of rain the night before.  We decided to not spend anymore time in money eating Queenstown and  head straight for Milford sound.  

The drive into Milford was incredible.  All of a sudden the road began to spiral down and cliff faces just sprung up all around us.  It was very foggy, but the fog added to the mysterious and monolithic effect.  We passed waterfalls coming down from the cliffs that seemed to be flowing right out of the misty heavens, and we drove through a tunnel that went straight through a mountain.  It was an amazing, but slow drive.  

When we finally got into the "town" we decided the only thing to do at dusk was to hang out in the only cafe/bar  there was in town.  Luckily this lead us to some friends we had been hoping to meet up with.  We found them playing pool, and we hung out and exchanged stories till pretty late (well late for those of us packing it in everynight around 7:30 . . .).  Then we decided to sleep right where we were already parked and we fell asleep to soft raindrops tapping on the roof of the van.  

south island road trip!-Day 11

our view of the waterfalls as we leave milford

on the road again

fanghorn forest!

Day 11- The Catlands

So to our dismay as well as amazement we woke up to a pounding rain and thunder in the Milford restaurant parking lot where we had crashed the night before.  The sound of the thunder rivaled the volume of the thunder that struck the tree near our campsite that one time at swallow falls (I know Hollin and Alex definitely remeber).  It was incredible.  We decided to not go on a cruise of the sound, but to book it to Dunedin instead.  We didnt want to be stuck there incase the weather didnt clear up.  So it was a bit disappointing because Milford sound is said to be one of the most beautiful sights in New Zealand, but at least we had seen how immense the cliffs and mountains were while while driving in the day before.  And, to pull a Pollyanna, seeing the waterfalls cascading down all the cliffs as we escaped was a pretty incredible sight.

We decided that we were going to take the scenic route through the catlands and drive the almost 800 kms to Dunedin that day.  We were running out of time and we had plans in Twizel so we had no time to waste down south, even if it would have been kind of cool to go to the southern most tip.  O well.  I drove half the trip to Invercargil, and Jenny drove the second half of the trip the rest of the way to Dunedin where we immediately crashed at a picnic  pull off outside of town.  

Some of the highlights of the drive were buying some hokey pokey icecream at a gas station, and stopping near Te Anu to explore Fanghorn forest (another dorky lord of the rings thing).  The forest was incredibly moist and green and the ground was so moss covered and undisturbed that your foot sank in a few inches every time you stepped.  It was really cool. (thank you again Mrs. Kolb!)

south island road trip!-Day 12

around the city center in Dunedin

creepy little workers at the cadbury factory

drinking up some southern pride!

Can you guess who?

Day 12- Dunedin

So after waking up next to another Wicked van a few kms outside of Dunedin, we headed into the city. The night before we had had a bad impression of it while driving through because we decided we no longer liked lots of lights and people.  We definitely preferred small towns and mountains or beaches to big cities at this point.  But when we found our way into the "octagon" (their city center) we decided Dunedin wasn't so bad.  It had a very british feel because of the cathedrals and some of the old buildings.  

When we found some parking and made our way to the info center I was disappointed to find out that you had to book a tour in order to go to the penguin beaches.  I really was sad because I had really been looking forward to seeing penguins, but we really didnt have time to book an all day tour, plus it was rainy and yucky out.  A much better day for indoor activities.  

So I took my broken heart and hauled it on into the cadbury factory to drown my sorrows in chocolate:)  To tell the truth the tour was kinda cheesy, but you did get some free chocolate and the shop at the end sold really cheap giant chocolate bars.  I controlled myself and only bought 2 giant bars (fudge brownie and macadamian nut), but it was pretty hard not to try and buy a 2 months supply since chocolate in auckland is SUPER expensive.  

After our delicious chocolate tour we had some time to kill so we wandered around  to look at some shops .  Eventually and we found our way into their pubic art museum.  They had some really great exhibits on women as a subject in art and on German fashion.  Unfortunately we didnt get to see everything because our next tour was about to start, but it was enjoyable to just be able to look around.

After that we made our way over Speights for our brewery tour.  Now this tour was definitely a lot cooler and pretty hilarious.  We were first shown an epic video of a bottle of speights bursting open for about 5 minutes and then we were lead into a kind of wax museum of beer history.  After learning about the history of Mr. Speight and seeing all the brewery equipment we watched a bizarre video about the southern man ( which is  their advertising campaign).  Their southern man is strangely similar to our american cowboy and the song they played with the montage was priceless.  At the end of the tour we got to sample all of the different types of beer that they made at the brewery.  Wesley you would have loved it!

At the end of the night we decided to grab some dinner at a restaurant instead of trying to cook in the spitting rain.  We found this really amazing and cheap vegan restaurant where we got to sit around on couches and eat at our leisure.  They had lots of board games and we ended up hanging around for awhile, ordering dessert, and playing Guess Who, Scrabble, and Cluedo (the spanish version of Clue).  

Id say overall, Dunedin was a really nice city despite their stupid penguin rules.

south island road trip!-Day 13

the stream gandolf crosses on shadowfax to warn the steward of Gondor about oncoming battle

yep, we were in the battle of Pelennor fields

our view of mt cook, the tallest mountain in New Zealand

Day 13- Twizel and Mt Cook

So this was easily the nerdiest day of our entire trip.  

We had slept just outside of Twizel and woke up to a cattle drive going right past our van.  After that amusing wake up call  we made our way into the small city and booked our Lord of the Rings Tour of Pelennor fields (That is where a really big battle takes place in the 3rd movie and there are elephants and such).   The man at the info desk smiles and asks us "so ur really into lord of the rings?".  We are used to being embarrassed about it by now so of course we tell him yes and to our surprise he whips out photos of himself as an orc in the movie!  Apparently we chose the right place to have a tour because Peter Jackson pretty much rallied the entire small town into working on his film. 

To our delight we ended up being the only 3 on the tour and we rode happily with our tour guide to the battle fields!  Our tour guide was very friendly and showed us clips of the movie while we gazed excitedly at the matching scenery.  She also told us a lot of background info about her friends who were orcs or some of the kids who got to be rohan riders in the movie.

But the real fun began when the tour guide lead us out of the van and to the trunk.  What was back there . . . can you guess?  Costumes and replicas of all the armour and weapons in the movie! Since it was only the three of us we had free reign and you can imagine the dorky scene that followed.  we ran around  with the tour guide snapping our pictures and uttering suggestions of what reanactments we should do.  We must have been a sight lol.

Anyways, after the tour we decided to drive to the Mt Cook township and try to take a short trek before heading back to Christchurch.  We did a short 30 minute trek to the view point where we luckily got a fairly clear view of the tallest mountain in New Zealand.  It was neat to see these snow covered mountains because most of the mountains in the southern alps chain that we had seen were not yet white on top.  We made good timing, because as we were hopping in our van a storm cloud overtook the valley where we had just been and it looked like it was about to get really rainy.  We raced the storm cloud back through Twizel and began our 300km journey back to Christchurch.