Adventure 15: Australia, Day 1- Welcome to Oz! Home of the Bilby, Macca’s, and SUNSHINE!

April 21^st-22^nd

For mid-semester break (all of the Americans kept calling it “spring break” and getting corrected by the Kiwis, since it’s actually fall here), I had known all along that I wanted to travel somewhere in Australia, since who knows when I’ll next be back in this part of the world.  I (quite easily) convinced my flatmate Amanda and fellow Ole Sarah to forgo the calls of the island paradises of Fiji and Samoa and accompany me.  We also intended to travel with a guy from Slovakia, who unfortunately had to cancel last minute, but to our good fortune he introduced us to Kathleen, who goes to Ohio State University, and she decided to join in our adventures!  We all met a couple of times to form a basic outline of our route down the lower half of the east coast and decide which stops were on the top of our “To Do” list.  Somewhere we had heard that there was a bunch of free camping in Australia so we borrowed a couple of tents from one of Kathleen’s friends, one of which I had the pleasure of packing in my newly purchased tramping pack!  I’d decided to order my own pack for the trip and future excursions, since it would be very inconvenient to drag a suitcase around, not to mention trying to camp with it.  Packing was a bit of a struggle, since we had limited space and didn’t know exactly what to bring or what the weather would be like compared to Dunedin’s dreary climes.  Luckily, Amanda and I were able to yell at each other from down the hallway as we were packing and try to decide what we actually needed or not.

Thursday night around 9pm found Amanda, Sarah, and I making our way down Cumberland St. to the bus stop, wearing our tramping packs on our back and our smaller bookbags on our fronts.  We felt like quite the spectacle, but most everyone else heading that way were also going to be travelling on the Night Bus so we didn’t look too out of place.  Our friend had told us about the Night Bus, which travels, as its name suggests, in the evening between Dunedin and Christchurch.  This was perfect for us, as it would take us to the Christchurch airport in time for our early morning flight but we wouldn’t have to miss any of our Thursday classes.  By the time the bus rolled up a little after 10, my lack of sleep during the week due to assignments and the excitement/stress of packing was seriously starting to catch up to me.  This was a blessing, as it enabled me to sleep for most of the 5 hour ride north.  The bus rolled into the airport parking lot around 3:30am and we all stumbled off and gathered our packs, half asleep and feeling more like zombies than humans.  In typical New Zealand fashion, the check-in area didn’t actually open until a little after 4am, and then the gate area couldn’t be accessed until 5, so we parked it on the floor and played the waiting game a couple of times before we could actually get to the gate and sprawl across the chairs for another short nap before our flight boarded around 7.  Not the best night’s sleep, but better than nothing!

Our flight took off smoothly, but we were very disappointed to find that they did not even give us free water, much less free snacks, for the entirety of the 4 hour flight.  I managed to get some work done on my history paper, but it definitely would have been aided by some complementary coffee!  I was too indignant at the lack of service to pay $3 for a measly cup of black coffee and wasn’t yet feeling so urgent about the looming deadline of the paper to make too much of an effort to stay awake and write rather than catch some more zzz’s.  When we arrived in Brisbane I was the first to get off the plane and was greeted by warm air! This was very exciting after the cold front which had been moving over Dunedin for the past few weeks, and I couldn’t wait for the others to get off so that we could meet Kathleen, who’d been on a slightly earlier flight, and start our real adventures!  Going through customs, I had to take the tent out of my bag and have it checked for any dirt or other foreign substances which they didn’t want entering the country.  I didn’t know when it had been last used, but fortunately Kathleen was still waiting on her tent’s inspection only a few tables away and was able to yell across that it had been used in the Fjordlands in New Zealand.  Apparently, the customs official hadn’t liked that she was travelling alone and didn’t have a specific intended destination for the night, since we hadn’t booked anything ahead of time.  This, combined with the fact that she wasn’t part of a group, caused her to look more suspicious than the rest of us and allowed Amanda, Sarah, and I to catch up to her.

Picking up our rental car was much more of a trial than we’d anticipated.  When Sarah had booked it online, the final price had appeared to be only a little over $400.  When we arrived at the Hertz counter, however, we were told that there would be an additional charge for being under the age of 25 which brought the total, including insurance, to around $1,000...that was an unpleasant surprise.  We checked with the other rental companies that were in the airport, but they all gave either the same or greater prices so we were left with no choice but to go with Hertz and pay the extra charges.  Darn fine print got us in a big way, but the lesson has definitely been learned!  Rather disgruntled, especially by the fact that we were not provided with the promised road map of Australia, but were only given a little piece of paper with the Brisbane city layout, we were directed to the parking lot to pick up our transport for the next 10 days. 

Our moods immediately improved when we walked outside and were greeted by sunshine and temperatures in the 20’s (70’s F)!  Even the sight of the pocket-sized, hatchback Toyota Yaris, into which we were expected to cram all of our stuff, along with ourselves, could not dampen our spirits.  That might have been partially due to the fact that we were all running on very little sleep and no food and by this point we were getting slightly slap happy, but it just made the situation all the more entertaining!  We extracted our shorts and t-shirts from our tightly packed bags and made a quick change before attacking the logistical issue of how exactly we were expected to pack everything into our itty bitty car.  After the realization that not even one of our packs could comfortably fit in the hatchback, we ended up buckling one in to the middle seat with another on the floor in front of it and the other two on Kathleen and Amanda’s laps in the backseat.  The smaller backpacks we managed to stuff into the hatch, but, needless to say, it was quite the full car.

My friend Blake lives in Brisbane and promised to take us to lunch at a pancake house which we actually managed to find without too much difficulty.  First Australian driving experience = success!  It was so good to see a friendly face when he arrived and we congratulated him on choosing one of the few places that was actually open.  We hadn’t counted on the fact that a lot of the restaurants and shops would be closed for Good Friday, which was especially disappointing when we sighted our first Target store in months only to find it closed for the holiday L The menu at the restaurant, named simply “Pancakes,” was overwhelming to our empty stomachs and sleep-deprived minds.  There were heaps of different options, most including ice cream along with some sort of fruit and nut combination.  I finally settled on the “Hot ‘n’ Tropo” which had buttermilk pancakes with chocolate ice cream, grilled bananas, walnuts, and chocolate sauce, yum!  While waiting for our food, Blake pulled out 4 chocolate Bilbys, which are the Australian’s special version of chocolate rabbits, which his mum had gotten for us as an Easter present!  What a great example of Australian hospitality J Apparently, the Bilby chocolates are going extinct, so we’re now part of the lucky few who’ve gotten to experience them!

When the pancakes (finally) arrived, I’m pretty sure all of our eyes actually popped out of our heads and our jaws dropped to the floor (imagine the cartoon-style animation upon seeing something extremely wonderful/surprising, Bugs Bunny style).  We now had huge plates of food in front of us to devour, which effectively stopped conversation for a good 10 minutes.  After our initial efforts, the pace began to slow as we reached that tricky state where you feel like one more bite might actually make you burst, but it’s just so good that you keep trying to take smaller and smaller bites to fit everything in.  I almost made it to the end of my plate, but finally realised that I might actually have to be rolled out if I took one more bite, so I ceded defeat and we all left feeling very full and much happier.

Blake was a great tour guide around the city, walking with us down to the river and across a huge bridge to an enormous Ferris wheel in the park.  We all declined a ride, as it was rather expensive and any sort of swaying motion did not seem like the best idea for our very full stomachs.  Next, he took us to an amazing market, which had so many beautiful things for sale, from dresses to jewellery to garden art to corn on the cob!  That was a surprise!  One of our few regrets from the trip is that we didn’t get more things in Brisbane, choosing instead to wait to buy our souvenirs in the other cities.  For one thing, most of the items were less expensive in Brisbane, and for another they were just plain cool.  Part of our tour took us through the “Lagoon” which is an outdoor, public swimming area which was completely decimated by all the flooding and only recently was able to open a very small section.  Too soon, it was time for Blake to catch his train for work and for us to hit the road with our newly purchased Lonely Planet guide to Australia’s east coast.  We said good bye with the promise of keeping in touch and many “thank you”s for the Bilbys and the wonderful day in the much welcome warm air and sunshine J 

One thing we noticed immediately about Australia is that the roads are not only much bigger than those in New Zealand, but they are also much more well-marked.  It was a relatively easy drive down the coast to Surfers Paradise, where we planned on spending the night and then exploring the next day.  We rolled into Surfers Paradise a little before sunset and made the rookie mistake of stopping to check out the beach before finding a campsite.  It was really pretty as the sun was starting to go down, but this left us trying to find a place to pitch our tents in the growing dark, with the added complication that everywhere in the city was completely full due to the Easter holiday.  Shoot.  We decided that the best plan would be to stop at a McDonald’s (or Macca’s, as they call them over there) to use their free internet to try to find a place to stay.  On the way, we stopped at a gas station where Sarah and I picked up a can of beans for dinner since we were still quite full from our pancakes.  We ended up eating these in the corner of the Macca’s outside seating area, feeling like homeless bums (probably because we kind of were at this point...), eating our beans out of the can with a collapsible mug and camping spork.  No camping was to be found, so we piled back in Yarrie (our pet name for our wee red vehicle) and started driving, hoping that something would present itself to us, perhaps a nice park?

We were getting rather desperate when we passed by a large church on the outskirts of town that had its outside lights on and was conveniently located next to a field, which at this point looked like the perfect camping spot.  One of our friends had camped at a church when he was travelling around the North Island, so we decided to give it a go and Kathleen and I went in to ask if we could use a small corner of their field for the night.  I’m thinking that we looked pretty desperate and sad by this point, having been travelling for quite a few hours and not having any clue what we’d gotten ourselves into, but this may have helped our case.  There was some sort of youth gathering that night, so a boy led us to the pastor who immediately consented to let us pitch our tents for the night and even offered the fenced in playground!  We were so relieved and giddy that when we got back out to Amanda and Sarah in the car we couldn’t spit out that we had a place to stay because we were laughing so hard at the ridiculousness of the whole situation.  Hauling our packs out of the car, we utilised Sarah’s headlamps and pitched our tents in a little grassy patch next to the playground equipment.  When Sarah and I crawled into our tent, we immediately realised that it was a wee bit too short when neither of us could stretch out without either our feet or heads hitting the sides.  Well, it could be worse, right? Right.  The tent could end up being a junior-sized tent from Wal-Mart which doesn’t have a cover and can’t handle the slightest amount of dew before it drips on you...  Let me just advise you: if you’ve ever considered buying a tent from Wal-Mart...don’t do it!!  However, when we were woken around 6am by the birds and full sun shining upon our little playground camp and were able to get out of our sleeping bags without freezing on the spot, we still agreed that it could definitely be worse...first full day in Oz, here we come! J

Adventure 14: Taking the plunge

April 16^th-17^th

Sitting at $3 lunch with some friends one Wednesday, Stephanie mentioned that she was going canyoning in a few weeks and that they had two spots open in their car.  Amanda and I looked at each other and immediately volunteered to fill those positions, pending details of cost and time of departure.  So, what is canyoning, you may be wondering?  I was kind of wondering this too, so I did a little further investigating.  They were heading to Queenstown, of course, the adrenaline capital of New Zealand.  The route would be through 12 Mile Canyon, though we wouldn’t actually be traversing the whole 12 miles.  We would be abseiling (rappelling), jumping off waterfalls, and making our way down the river in the bottom of the canyon.  Sounded like fun to me!

Amanda wanted to bungy jump so we set out before the rest of the group so that we could make a stop at the Kawarau Bridge.  When I had gone with my friend Amanda, we’d had to wait in line on the bridge for awhile before we got strapped in and made the leap.  This time, however, I’d barely gotten out onto the viewing platform to take pictures when I realized that she was already walking out and went right up to the platform to get strapped in!  She looked just a wee bit nervous as she scooted out onto the platform, waved to the camera, and jumped!  Apparently the worker had told her that Americans are good at swan dives so she was under a bit of pressure to represent the entire nation.  Now, I’m no Olympic diving judge, but I’d say she did pretty well J

We’d noticed on the way in that there was a restaurant and winery just across the parking lot from the bungy centre.  After her jump, Amanda definitely needed a drink so we headed over for our first wine tasting experience.  It was interesting for us to learn about the different flavours and which type of foods they should each accompany.  Neither of us are huge fans of red wine, which was confirmed by this tasting, but there were some very good whites and roses that were different from what we’d tried before.  All of the bottles were out of our price range (shocking, right?) so we paid for the tasting and went the rest of the way into town to check into our hostel.  The good part about the hostel was that it was right in the centre of the main street.  The bad part was that our room smelled like wet socks mixed with sweat, which judging by the hiking packs that belonged to our roommates, was probably the case.

Gelato seemed like a fitting reward for being brave enough to jump off a bridge so we walked across the street to Patagonia chocolates for some of the best gelato that I’ve had since actually being in Italy.  I can’t remember the name of the flavour that I ended up trying, but it involved caramel, chocolate, and some sort of fancy vanilla. It was amazing. For dinner we’d gotten a coupon for a large pizza, bowl of side salad, and bottle of house wine from one of the local bars.  The salad left a bit to be desired, as it consisted of a cereal bowl with a few slivers of onion, tomato, ans sad looking lettuce.  The size of the salad, however, was more than made up for by the pizza.  When they said large they weren’t kidding.  This thing was enormous! We almost managed to finish half of our spinach, sundried tomato, ham, feta, pineapple, and red capsicum (pepper) pizza and our cereal bowl-sized salad.  This led to us looking rather ridiculous walking back to the hostel with a box about twice as wide as we were and then try to fit it into the fridge in the hostel’s communal kitchen.  We also got to carry it around the next day, earning us some confused and some envious looks from passers- by on the sidewalks. 

The next morning we met up with the other three from our group for breakfast at “The Bakery” that my parents and I had found that had discounted day-old date scones.  After this gourmet breakfast (it actually was quite good) we walked over to the headquarters of the canyoning company to meet the rest of our companions for the day and get driven out to the river.  We were greeted by (already wet) wetsuits, boots, and helmets, each with its own nickname on the front.  Getting into the wetsuit was somewhat of a struggle, which ended with me sitting on the tarp making various faces and grunts of frustration while finally managing to get all my limbs in their proper places.  My helmet bore the name of “Lucky” which I figured boded well for me, though I was a little jealous of the woman who got to be Frodo.

It was a short walk to our first zip-line over the top of the canyon, but if you have ever walked in a wetsuit you know that walking is actually more like waddling, and raising your leg to climb up a hill is made exponentially more difficult by the wet rubber attempting to pull it back down.  When we had all managed to haul ourselves to the top, we were given brief safety instructions and a demo and then, one by one, were clipped to the line and sent off across the canyon!  I’ve only been zip-lining once before, and I must say it was more exciting (and higher) in Ecuador, but it was still fun to be sailing over the tops of the trees, with the occasional Tarzan yell thrown in for good measure J  There were only four short zip-lines, and then it was time for our first abseil, which would take us down into the river where the real adventure would begin!  We were once again hooked up to a rope and instructed to lean back over the edge of the cliff and walk our way down to the river at the bottom.  This was one of my favourite parts of the experience, possibly aided by the fact that I was not yet wet and freezing.  It was a bit tricky at the bottom manoeuvring over to the guide, but I managed to hop my way horizontally over the side of the cliff, get unhooked, and take my first plunge into the icy water.

Yikes! The river completely took my breath away, it was so icy cold!  They had told us that it was around 5 degrees Celsius, but neither the warning nor the wetsuit quite prepared me for its icy embrace.  Paddling my way as quickly as I could over to the rock where everyone had gathered to wait for the rest of the group, I tried to keep my hands above the water so that they might retain a little warmth.  This made me look rather ridiculous and swimming somewhat less that efficient, but what can I say? I like being able to feel my fingers!  These efforts turned out to be in vain, however, as my hands were soon numb and we didn’t have long to wait before we were ordered back in the water to weave our way through the shallow rocks to our first big test: the waterfall jump.

We came up to the waterfall, but couldn’t see over the edge to the bottom because it was down in a rock pool and we couldn’t get close enough until we were actually about to jump.  One of the guides did a demonstration, which involved her front flipping into what, for all we knew, could have been an endless abyss.  A splash was heard, which signified her arrival at the bottom and a very brave member of our group volunteered to go first.  I was towards the middle of the line and tried to psych myself up for the jump ahead.  I hadn’t expected to be so scared, but I knew that I was here and was going to do it, no matter how terrified I was.  The woman two places in front of me was having a bit of trouble with the 7m drop and decided to wait a couple more people before she took the plunge.  This did not do much to calm my nerves, but Nicole, another member of our group, made the leap and then it was my turn!  I made my way cautiously up to the edge and peered over...21+ feet looks farther than it sounds when you’re being instructed to jump towards (but not into) the base of a waterfall and avoid the rocks that appear (but in reality are probably not) to be right in your way.  I’m not sure what was going through my head as I got the countdown, but it was something between “oh my gosh why am I doing this...absdoigjerogih” and “you have to do this, you’ll be so disappointed if you don’t!!!” while I tunnel-visioned in on the spot that seemed to give me the most space between the rocks and falling water.  Somewhere between my racing thoughts I heard the guide yell “3!” and I managed to hurl myself off the ledge, letting out an embarrassingly loud “aaahhhHHH!!!” which rose in volume and pitch about midway to the water.

Not surprisingly, to my more brave and reasonable side, I popped up out of the water just fine and remembered to tap the top of my helmet, signalling to everyone that I was OK.  My very chicken-like self, however, was greatly relieved that I had come out alive and was able to swim my way over to the side and scramble up onto the rocks for a bit of a breather before our next trick.  The half of the group which had already made the jump, myself included, were then led up the bank to another zip-line, this one which went out over the pool into which we had just jumped.  The guide told us that we would be zip-lining out to the middle of the pool, and then have to partially unclip ourselves from the line above and lower ourselves into the pool on another line, from which we would fall back into the water when we chose to let go.  Needless to say, we were a little sceptical about this plan since it sounded like we could potentially drop from the top all the way down to the pool if we weren’t quick enough to catch ourselves.  We were assured, however, that the rope would catch us when we first got unhooked and our friend Michael volunteered to go first.  Without a hitch, he flew out over the pool, unclipped his first line, and lowered himself down the second, dangling over the pool like a spider on its web.  We heard a splash after the guide at the bottom told him to let go and the next in line stepped up.  I was the last of our group to go, so I got to be the demonstrator for the second half of the group, which by this time had made their way up the hill behind us.

For some reason I was much more comfortable with gliding out over the pool, unhooking my harness, and lowering myself down before dropping than I was with jumping from the same height.  I think it had something to do with the fact that I couldn’t really see how far below the water was when I was told to let go and the lack of aim required to avoid any rocks.  The next big test came only about a minute later...they don’t give you much time to recover (might be a good thing).  Two at a time, we climbed up more ropes which were strung along the cliff face opposite the waterfall to a very small ledge where another of the guides (there were 2 plus the photographer) was waiting to instruct us on the proper cliff jumping technique.  In a nutshell: perch precariously on the edge of the rock and jump.  Oh boy.  This is the part which was the worst for me.  It was an 8m jump this time and, though I was fine scaling the rock face, standing and looking down towards the water gave me quite the fright.  However, I’d already come all that way (and paid a significant amount) and there was no way I was going to let myself back down.  With the exact same terrified scream, I leapt out from the rocks and once again landed in the freezing water!  Phew!  It was quite the rush, between the jump and the water, and I was glad to sit back on the rock for awhile, trying to warm my hands and watching the rest of the group drop either from the abseil line or the cliff.

Before we moved on down the final stretch of the river, one of our guides who was from Oklahoma taught us a handy trick to regain the feeling in our fingers.  He called it the penguin and showed us how to shrug our shoulders up and down with our hands flexed outward, looking like rather ridiculous penguins waddling downstream.  I could actually feel the blood being pumped back into my hands with each shrug of my shoulders.  This was a slightly alarming sensation, but a good one as well since I knew that at least some blood was making its way to my poor purple hands!

Our last bit of excitement was a smaller waterfall jump, which was only about a meter but ended in a shallow pool, which necessitated a belly flop style jump, instead of a cannonball.  One of our friends went for the Superman pose, with one hand in a fist out in front as he jumped and managed to get a really awesome picture out of it!  I was slightly less coordinated than this, but I managed to get a face full of water and came out sputtering and laughing with the rest.  Finally, we were lowered into the last wee bit of river before the chute to the end.  I was lowered down the cliff and told to pose for a picture with the guide while hanging right above the water...then he flipped me!  I once again landed face-first in the water, this time without warning.  He, of course, thought this was very clever.  I was not quite as amused, but it was pretty funny after watching a couple other people receive the same fate J  

After a few “We Survived!” group pictures back where we’d started our journey, we squirmed our way out of the wetsuits with varying degrees of difficulty and shimmied into our dry clothes, very grateful for the extra layers which we’d brought and that it wasn’t too cold of a day!  On the drive back into town, we all decided that some Patagonia hot chocolate was definitely necessary to warm up and as a reward for our bravery.  After watching our picture slideshow a large group of us headed over for some hot drinks and then made our way to a burger joint to which we’d received coupons for free chips with any burger purchased.  It was fun talking to some of the others with whom we’d shared the experience.  Two of the boys were also on exchange at Otago and had done almost the full gamut of adrenaline adventures in one weekend: all three bungy jumps, river surfing (lay on a boogie board as you make your way down the river through rapids), and now canyoning!  The other couple that came to eat with us were from England and travelling around the world on holiday.  They’d already been to Australia, a couple places in Asia, and were heading off to the U.S. soon after New Zealand.    One of my favourite parts of travelling is meeting all of the other people who are doing the same and hearing all of their stories.  Plus, it’s not too bad having the opportunity to create some new stories of my own J 

Adventure 13: The land of the dinosaur eggs!

April 9^th

One attraction which is relatively close to Dunedin which we hadn’t been to yet is the Moeraki boulders.  When we told Ash (our Kiwi host) that we wanted to go there his response was something along the lines of, “Aren’t those just some big rocks?”  Well, I suppose you could say that, but what makes them so interesting is that they are enormous and perfectly round!  It looks like they were just dropped from the sky onto this one stretch of beach, and are only found a few other places in the world.  They somehow formed on this one specific beach which had the perfect conditions.  We’d seen postcards and other people’s pictures of them and it looked like the perfect day trip so we rented a wee car and took off up the highway! 

Our first stop, recommended by friends who had gone before, was at the Evansdale Cheese Factory.  We’d received reports of good cheese and free tastings, both of which we all greatly enjoy.  It was a little factory, well-marked and right off the side of the highway with a large metal cow with a funny face out front...so far, so good!  When we entered, we were the only guests so we had the full attention of one of the workers, who gave us tastes of all of their specialty cheeses while explaining the differences in taste, texture, and how each is made.  Most of this went in one ear and out the other.  Let’s be honest, we just wanted some delicious free cheese! However, it was interesting to hear about how they hand-make all of the cheeses and the inspiration for some of the names (women, places, employees who happened to be working at the time).

After looking at the prices of the smallest pieces of our favourite cheeses and realizing that even those were rather above our price range we continued on down the highway, making a stop to eat our packed lunches by a public rest area in a little town along the way.  One of my favourite things about New Zealand is that there are always exciting and unexpected stops to make along the way of any road trip, usually involving scenic overlooks and, if you’re lucky, native wildlife.  One such stop which we encountered on this trip was called Shag Point, promising seals and possibly penguins, along with a name that was just too good to pass by.

Leaving our car at the head of the trail, we followed the path down along the cliff.  I noticed that there was a side trail leading down to a beach which looked as if it hadn’t been trod on recently, so of course we decided to go investigate!  After a few minor slips by some of our company on the way down, we reached the beach which had beautiful, up close views of the crashing waves and lots of big rocks to scramble over in search of the perfect view.  Picking our way (more carefully, this time) back up the hill, we continued on the more well-beaten path to the official lookout point and were rewarded with the sight of an entire pod of grey, fuzzy looking seals!  There were two main outcroppings of rock, one which held the majority of the sleeping seals and the other which was the resting place for only a couple of the little guys.  One of the seals on the less inhabited rock appeared to want to get over to the other side but was lacking the means to cross the water.  He scooted up to the edge of his rock, laid on his belly, and peered down over the edge of the rock, weighing his chances on making the leap down to the water.  He decided this was not a viable option (a good choice, in our opinion) and began flippering his way up the rock to try and go around, conveniently bringing him closer to us!  Occasionally stopping to check out the potential crossings, he seemed to tire very easily and it didn’t seem that he was going to make it all the way up to us within the next hour so we left him to it, wishing him the best of luck on his mission.

Next stop: the Moeraki boulders!  There’s one little café at the top of the hill before you walk down to the beach and they have a clever little donation box where everyone who goes down to see the boulders is supposed to put $2.  This seemed a bit unnecessary to us, considering the restaurant owners were just capitalising on all of the tourists who wanted to see the boulders and they didn’t have to do anything to get them (or keep them, there’s no moving those things) there.  Sticking it to the man, we walked past the collection box, hoping that no one would yell at us for skimping on the fee (we’re clearly not all that rebellious; even this unmanned box made us nervous...).  The walk down to the beach was only about a minute, but it was probably one of the best-smelling minutes of my life!  The path was lined with manuka honey trees which were bursting with sweet-smelling yellow blossoms.  Manuka honey is a New Zealand specialty and, though I haven’t actually tried any, it’s reportedly very good and I know that it’s expensive...that means that it’s high quality, right?

Once on the beach, we could see the boulders a little ways ahead, some half buried, looking like overturned bowls, others sitting almost completely above the surface: massive balls of stone which could have been rolled up by an ancient game of giant marbles.  Some are situated in nice little rows right along the water’s edge, while others are scattered about farther up the shore.  We’d seen pictures of people sitting in one of the rocks which had somehow broken open, leaving a partial shell of hollow rock big enough for a person to get inside.  Apparently there’s some geology thing which gives the boulders their round shape and hollow centres and causes some to have thicker shells than others.  We soon found one broken rock that looked like the top of a chipped tea cup sitting in the sand.  My immediate idea was to crawl right inside for a picture, but that was quickly abandoned when I noticed the big pool of water in the middle.  I settled for perching on the side instead and we continued on our hunt for the bigger rock which would allow us to actually crawl inside.  Soon, our search was rewarded!  We came upon the remains of the large stone which looked like it could be a little hobbit hole, conveniently unoccupied!  One by one, each of us crawled in and posed for our photo, feeling like extreme tourists but fully embracing it J

Next, we decided it was time to actually scale some of the giant rocks.  Leslie, Amanda, and I scrambled up on top of 3 of the boulders which were situated in a roughly triangular shape.  We’ve been going to balance (a mix of yoga and Pilates) classes at the gym so we thought it would look cool to practice some of our poses atop the rocks.  It was a rather precarious perch, but definitely tested our skills!  Not wanting Ford to feel left out, we taught him to do “downward dog” in between two of the rocks which were situated more closely together.  I’m sure it’s a skill he’ll utilize in the future.  We wanted to try some sort of flat picture with all of us so we asked a nice German couple to take our picture and made our best attempt at spelling out “6-8-7,” the number of our flat.  I can’t say it was an extremely successful attempt, but if you use your imagination it’s possible to see what we were aiming for!

After our all of our touristy wishes had been fulfilled, we climbed back up the sweet-smelling hill and hopped back in our car before someone made us pay.  Our last stop before heading back to good ol’ Dunners was the small town of Omaru a little ways up from Moeraki.  It was a quaint little town with an historic Victorian harbour.  It was a pretty little place, whose only downfall was its small but overpriced ice cream cones.  We had an uneventful (the best kind) of trip back, utilized our car to pick up some frozen pizzas from the grocery store for dinner (the first time we haven’t had to carry our food back!), and settled back into the flat, checking another item off of our “To Do” list on the fridge J    

Adventure 12: New Zealand wildlife: Up close and (almost too) personal

Monday, April 4^th

Pukeko- a native NZ bird

For their final excursion, my parents and I decided to take a tour of the Otago Peninsula to get a closer look at some of the wildlife right around Dunedin.  It was unfortunately (though not at all surprisingly) lightly raining as we waited for the tour bus to pick us up from the hotel at which my parents were staying but the tour promised to run rain or shine; the animals don’t care about getting wet!  It was a small tour, which was nice because we got a lot of great information and were able to go to a couple of privately owned locations to view the animals. 

On the way out to the tip of the peninsula our guides talked to us and showed us many of the native birds, which were actually the only species native to New Zealand before its colonisation.  Since humans began to settle the country, the number of native bird species has dropped by an incredibly large amount, due to the introduction of predators such as ferrets, dogs, and cats.  This introduction was obviously very detrimental and some of the birds which have survived are so unique, with bright colours and odd little shapes that it makes me wonder about those which didn’t survive.  The first official stop was at the Albatross Museum, where we were taken to the viewing station for the young albatross chicks.  Albatross apparently need wind to fly up from the sea to feed their chicks, which looked remarkably like big white cotton balls and didn’t move a centimetre while we were up there, so we didn’t get to see any since there wasn’t much wind yet.  They did have a lot of interesting information, though, and some life-size and weight albatross chick stuffed animals. Man those “little” guys are heavy!

After the rather disappointing lack of albatross sightings, we carried on to a privately owned farm, to which our tour company had purchased exclusive access.  In New Zealand, farm most often means lots of sheep, which always means lots of sheep excrement, which we had the pleasure of trekking through (more like tip toeing and jumping from one relatively safe patch to the next).  A true kiwi experience J  Down the slippery slope we went until we reached an outcropping of rocks overlooking the oceans and the biggest pod of seals that I’ve seen yet!  At first they’re hard to spot, but once you see one it’s as if they’re popping up out of the rocks left and right and, looking down, there were a couple babies right up close!  Many were, in what I’ve come to think of as typical seal fashion, lazing about on the rocks looking more dead than alive, but there were a couple groups who were having a grand ol’ time splashing about in the tidal pools.  There was a small group which was especially entertaining, as they had managed to get a hold of one of the huge pieces of seaweed which cover the NZ coast and were playing a rousing game of tug-o-war with it.

It was so mesmerising being able to watch such a happy little group in their natural habitat but the cold soon caught up to us when we stopped moving and I was ready to get going again when our guide told us it was time for the hike back up the hill.  We traversed the hill and carried on down the other side, this time on a gravel path which made it easier to spot and avoid the sheep droppings.  When we were almost to the bottom we noticed that everyone in front of us had stopped and were pointing at something just off the path.  There was a little yellow-eyed penguin only about 2 metres from the trail!  With perfect timing, he must have just waddled up from shore and obliged us by stopping to preen on the way to his nest farther inland.  Though I knew we’d be getting close to the wildlife, I never imagined that we would be this close!  After quite a few photos had been taken, we continued on down to the beach and our next big (literally) encounter.

 Sealions.  Aptly named for their size and the bushy fur which surrounds the necks of the older males, these “boys” as our guide called them also roar and fight in a manner reminiscent of African counterparts.  Though we were told that this fighting is really just playing, it certainly didn’t look like it from where I was standing, which was uncomfortably close to the action.  The situation was made even more unnerving as we realized that the group of six or so “playing” male sea lions were slowly moving their rowdiness closer to our group of 10 rather anxious humans, who got laughed at by the guide for backing up and not wanting to join in the fun.  Now, if you ask me, backing up seems like the logical reaction when being creeped up on by beasts multiple times bigger than yourself who are reported to run at 20 kph when motivated.  However, we were told that we were safe as long as we were prepared to run for the beach if instructed.  The hills, in this case, were not a safe option for retreat as there were more sea lions resting in the long grass who would be rather upset if they were stepped on mid-retreat.  Excellent.  Though my sense of adventure is keen for jumping off bridges, running from rampant beasts is a bit of an extension so, though it was a completely new experience which I’m glad I was able to have, I can’t say that I was too disappointed when we moved farther down the beach to observe the much smaller and less threatening penguin colony.

Our fearless leader with his "boys"!

Early fall (March-May, here in the southern hemisphere) is moulting time for penguins, so we were lucky to see many very close to the little hut under which we huddled to avoid the ever-continuing mist.  I’d seen a couple penguins come ashore in the Catlins, but we were so close (at most 200 metres) to the shore this time that it was like seeing it for the first time again!  Someone would see a black shape surfing up on the waves and then we would all watch as it made its waddling way up the beach, stopping every so often to cool off by flapping out its wings and stretching out its neck, the perfect pose for a picture!  There were also a few penguins already up in the hills, right next to their friends the sheep! Only in New Zealand will you be able to get a picture of sea lions, penguins, and sheep all at the same time.  It was so funny to watch, it looked like one of the sheep was having a face-off with the penguin, who was intruding on his private grazing ground.  The penguins and the sheep appeared to coexist peacefully enough, though we were told that if a sheep got too close it might get a wee slap with a flipper.  Now that would be a sight!

Sheep vs. Penguin (the tiny little guys in the bottom right corner)

A few more minutes watching the penguins hopping up the shore and a couple waddling away together to their nest (penguins mate for life, and supposedly wait for their mate on shore before heading home for the night, aww) it was time to end the tour and we made our way back past the “boys” and up the hill to the van.  Even though the rain made it a bit more uncomfortable than would have been preferred, if you let the weather stop you when living in Dunedin you won’t ever do anything!  Back at the hotel, we had a last supper of pizza (always a family favourite!) and exchanged pictures from our many adventures.  The next morning, bright and early, my parents came over to my flat and I made a breakfast of French toast to send them off on their long journey home.  It was really sad to say good bye, but I’m so glad that they got to come visit and experience some of New Zealand for themselves! I’m sure we’ll be talking about it for years and hopefully we can find another adventure (or two) to have together in the future J

Adventure 11: Milling through the Sound

April 1^st- April 3^rd 

April Fool’s day saw us back on another bus, this time an Atomic Shuttle, on our way to Queenstown for our tour of Milford Sound the following day.  For the most part, the buses here are very obliging and will actually drop you off right at your destination, providing it’s not too far out of the way.  This was no exception and we got almost curbside service right to our hotel on the edge of the city which saved us either a rather long walk or bus ride back from central Queenstown.  The hotel was situated on the side of the hill and our room came complete with a beautiful view of the lake out the back door.  Hopping on a city bus took us down into town so that we could explore the city a bit and peruse the Easter sales for a tramping pack that wouldn’t cost me an arm and a leg and souvenirs for my parents to bring home.  We weren’t very successful on either front, but we did find a delicious little soup place for dinner!  Tomato basil...mmm J

The next morning we were picked up bright and early for our full day tour and cruise of Milford Sound.  It’s actually quite a long ride from Queenstown, but we stopped in Te Anau along the way for one of New Zealand’s best venison pies (as good as promised) and were kept entertained by the driver’s very wide base of knowledge about the area and some gorgeous scenery, especially as we neared the Fjordlands proper.  One of our stops was at Mirror Lake, only a few minutes’ walk off the Milford Highway.  Nearly all of the lakes in New Zealand are beautiful and surrounded by incredible scenery, but this lake in particular is known for having incredibly still water which perfectly reflects the mountains in the backdrop, hence the name.  Fitting with sly humour typical of this country, the DOC placed their sign upside down on the lake so that it would be read properly in the reflection on the water, instead of the actual sign.  I’m going to miss all of the unexpected humour which you see around here on everything from government signs to the backs of buses to grocery store ads.  The other main stop was at a location known as “The Chasm.”  Aptly named, this was a river like nothing else I’ve ever seen.  Over time, it had eroded its way through the rocky banks forming a series of tunnels and chasms through the rocks.  It was an amazing demonstration of the power of time and persistence.

After driving through the apparently famous Homer Tunnel (I’m sure there’s something special about it, but by that time I was thinking more about finally getting off that bus), it was only a short way down some more windy mountain roads to the mouth of the Sound!  We’d heard reports that the sun only shone on Milford around 10 days a year, and even on some of those days it still rains so we were prepared for the clouds which greeted us, even though it had been a beautiful sunny day when we’d left Queenstown earlier in the morning.  Fortunately, it was not yet raining and we were hoping that it would hold off at least until after the cruise.  Immediately upon embarking the little ship we were treated to a boxed lunch, coffee, and tea, which was very welcome after the long ride.

As we cruised out into the fjords, I was amazed by how huge the mountains actually looked from right down in the water.  Pictures just can’t do a place like this justice; it’s impossible to get an accurate depiction of the grandeur of the fjords using only a camera, my poor little point-and-shoot couldn’t even capture the entire mountain from the base to the top as we were cruising by.  One of the first big photo ops was a waterfall which they told us is 3x taller than Niagara falls but everything else was so much taller in comparison that the waterfall didn’t even appear that big!  Soon after we’d passed the falls, still at the beginning of our journey, we heard a screech from the top deck and people began pointing over the side.  DOLPHINS!! We soon spotted a whole pod of bottlenose dolphins, jumping and swimming past our boat in the opposite direction.  My mom promptly started screaming and jumping around (I swear people probably thought someone fell off the boat...love you mummy dearest J )and we were both too busy pointing and flapping about to get any pictures of the actual animals.  We did, however, manage to capture quite a few dolphin-y splashes J

Continuing on our way, I tried to stay out on the front deck to appreciate the full magnificence (and take pictures) but it was so windy that I felt like I was literally getting beaten back and eventually retreated back into the boat for some hot tea and a respite from the cold.  We reached the end of the Sound, which opened up into the Tasman Sea, only a couple thousand kilometres from the east coast of Australia!  On our way back we travelled down the opposite side to get a closer look at some of the waterfalls.  Closer, to the captain, apparently meant really close, as he decided that his boat needed a washing and steered it very carefully right up to the side of the mountain to dip the hull in the rushing water and sending all of us brave (or unaware of how close we would actually be) souls hurrying back under the shelter of the awnings as the waterfall rained down on us from above.  It was actually pretty cool (literally); it’s not every day that you get to shower in a waterfall!

The last bit of excitement for the trip was as we were once again nearing port and the end of our cruise.  Pulling up to one of the huge rocks along the side a pair of seals obliged us with a little show!  The first was calmly minding his own business, lying on top of the rock.  This was not meant to be, however, as another promptly scooted its way up out of the water below and began to flop up to the top to challenge his mate for the position of “King of the Rock.”  A minor seal fight ensued, with some howling, menacing opening and shutting of the mouths, and flipper slapping.  The original guy didn’t appear to be in much of a mood for fighting, though, and quickly gave up his reign.  Either that or his mother had instilled the “sharing is caring” principle much better than had the mother of his competitor.  The bus ride back to Queenstown was a much quieter one, as most people (myself included) were either napping or looking out over the scenery and mulling over the sights of our long, full day in the fjordlands.

In our time before our bus the next morning, we headed back into central Queenstown for breakfast at Patagonia, aka the best chocolate cafe you will ever encounter.  They have everything chocolate, from croissants to gelato to fudge to their specialty lavender hot chocolate.  My parents ordered a plate of croissants to share and a flat white coffee for my mom, which came out with a little heart design on the top, how cute!  The croissants came with 4 different topping choices: chocolate caramel (of course), delicious berries (the unanimous favourite), cream cheese, and butter.  If you’re ever in Queenstown, I’d highly recommend it.  Some more wandering around and a picture with the statue of a man and his sheep, which stood by the water, and it was time for us to end our stay in the adrenaline capital of the world, with lots of sights behind us and still more to come in the last days of their visit! Stay tuned...

p.s. If you’ll notice, I’ve begun using the New Zealand version of English (inserting “u”s and abandoning the “z” in favour of the “s”). This is because a couple of my friends and I discovered the hard way that you lose points for having incorrect grammar and spelling when you hand in papers and lab reports using American English, which was incredibly frustrating.  Microsoft Word’s default language has now been set to “English (New Zealand)” to avoid any such future loss of (an unnecessarily large amount, in my opinion) points.