Easter Travels

We decided to relax for awhile after my family left, so nothing too exciting to report for the rest of that week. We set our clocks back that weekend (2 weeks ago) and mourned the early darkness by holing up in our house watching basketball on Sunday. We did at least manage to get outside for a walk on the beach that night. Last week was a short one because of the Easter holiday. I started my new role as Professional Practice Fellow and moved into a new office. Craig is still busy teaching and also received some good news. He was awarded an Emerging Researcher Grant by the University, for $22,000!! This is really something to be proud of as some of his competition included members of the department with much more experience than he. He will be using the money to inflict shoulder pain on participants to see how it affects motion and function. Any volunteers?

Because we had a 5 day weekend, we had planned a trip up to Abel Tasman National Park. This park is well known in NZ for its beautiful beaches, often sunny weather, and clear, turquoise water. We headed out after work on Thursday to begin our 11-ish hour drive up to the Northern-most part of the South Island. We drove for about 4 hours and stopped around 9pm at a holiday park where we had reserved a cabin. Normally we would have camped but it is getting pretty chilly at night these days (it even snowed 30 cm in the mountains last week!). So, we cranked the tiny fan heater in the room and made our frosty trips to the shared bathroom outside in the middle of the night as quick as possible.

Friday morning (Good Friday), we woke to crunchy grass from the frost, but sunny, clear skies, and hit the road again. That day, we headed west, through Arthur's Pass, over to the West Coast, and then North to Westport. We made several stops along the way, breaking up the drive nicely. Our first stop was in Arthur's Pass, at Castle Hill. Here we did a short walk to see giant limestone boulder formations, with the snowy mountains as a backdrop. The rocks were huge, and some people were even bouldering them.


Craig at Castle Hill


Castle Hill from a distance

From there, we continued on through the scenic pass stopping to do 2 short hikes, Bridal Veil Falls, and Devil's Punchbowl. The falls hike was pretty, through the woods, past a creek waterfall for which it was named. There was some snow in the trees and on the ground but it was still warm so we enjoyed the white stuff. After that hike, we started up the Devil's Punchbowl Waterfall Trail which promised amazing close up views of the huge waterfall we could see from the parking area. The trail consisted of lots of steps and boardwalks, made more challenging by the ice covering. But, when we got to the top in about 30 minutes, we were rewarded with a sweet view. The 131 meter waterfall was right in front of us and we were close enough to be sprayed by its mist. We took some pics, enjoyed it for a few minutes and then tramped back down the trail for some more driving.




Devil's Punchbowl Waterfall

Once through the pass, we reached the west coast and stopped at Pancake Rocks. This place is formed by what looks like millions of flat rocks (like pancakes) piled on top of each other, forming the coast. The waves were crashing in and, in some places, under or through the rock formations. It was nearly sunset and the place was really beautiful. Another great place to get out of the car to stretch our legs a bit. After hanging out there for an hour or so, we hopped back in for the last hour of our day. We made it to Westport around 6pm, checked into another "cabin" (consisting of 2 bunk beds, a sink, and a heater. Pretty good by cabin standards), and made some sausage and pasta in the camp kitchen.


Pancake Rocks

After a good night's sleep, we hit the road for just a few hours up to Abel Tasman. This time, we only stopped once, at Buller Swingbridge, NZ's longest swingbridge. I had been looking forward to seeing and walking on this bridge since before we even came to NZ, so I was very excited. That excitement faded quickly when I saw the bridge, deduced that it couldn't have been more than a meter or so longer than other swingbridges we'd been on, and found out you had to pay to walk across the thing. Very disappointing. We took a couple pics and left.

We got to Abel Tasman early in the afternoon, found a holiday park with a cabin with 2 single bunk beds, and walked the 300 meters or so to the beach. It was as promised, beautiful, sandy, clear turquoise water, with blue sunny skies. We decided to take a test drive North into the park to make sure we could find the place we had rented kayaks from for an overnight trip starting the following morning. The road through the park was probably the most narrow and windy road we've been on, making for an interesting drive. We found the kayak place and turned back toward our cabin, deciding to stop for a hike at the well-know Split Apple Rock. This is a rock that was once perfectly round and is now split perfectly in half and is perched on its own little island in the ocean. The hike down to the beach from the car park was super green and rainforesty, dumping us out directly on the beach. The rock was really cool and was worth the hike down. We took some pictures and started climbing around on some rocks. There we found a small starfish, a tiny crab, and lots of other small marine life. We then started climbing on some bigger rocks on the other side of the beach and found some cool caves and lots more marine life, including many small starfish, 2 HUGE ones, sea urchins, crabs, and some unidentifiable stuff. This was very exciting, and more than made up for my disappointment at Buller. We spent a couple of hours exporing, and yelling, "Look at this!" every few minutes when we found something new. Craig nearly got pooped on by some gigantic sea birds on several occasions, and when the sun started to set, we made a quick exit back up the trail through the car.


Split Apple Rock


Starfish

That night we had an appetizer of ice cream and then a dinner of ravioli, tortellini, fresh bread, and a tasty beer. We organized our gear for the morning's kayak trip, and went to sleep on our vinyl, single bunk beds. In the morning, Easter Sunday, I was surprised by a visit from the elusive Easter Bunny. It didn't take long in our 6 feet by 10 feet cabin to find my chocolate cadbury rabbit and some new, warm fleece slippers. Smart bunny knows my feet get cold in the winter! We left at 8 am and headed back up the windy road to Ocean River Kayaks to begin our adventure. After 3 hours of instructions and organizing, we were finally loaded onto a water taxi with our gear and kayaks. The water taxi was a 30 minute boat ride up the coast where we were dropped off to begin our paddling. Once dropped off, we put into the water and were off! The scenery was beautiful and weather was perfect (sunny and clear with just a light breeze). We paddled out from the beach to Tonga Island, known for its seal population. There were indeed plenty of seals here, mostly lounging on the rocks, enjoying the afternoon sun. We saw a few swimming and playing in the water and a man we met later in the trip said one seal jumped up on his kayak and another chased his paddle! No close encounters for us though, so we paddled on.

We took our time, enjoying the sights and good weather, and arrived at our beach campsite in a couple of hours. It was low tide so we pulled the boat up on the sand and started hauling our gear about 100 meters to the campsite. We set up our tent and we pleased to find we'd only be sharing the large space with 2 other tents, neither of which we could even see from our spot. We hung out, walked on the beach, and soaked up some sun until it got dark around 5.30 pm. Oh, and the Easter Bunny had made another visit to the beach! Craig found 3 Cadbury Creme Eggs scattered around in different places around the area. That bunny is so clever! We made our Easter dinner of soup with rice and then spent the rest of the chilly evening snuggled up in our sleeping bags, reading in the tent. Although it was warm enough for shorts during the day, as soon as the sun set, the temps dropped to near freezing. Because of the coolness and early dark, we were ready for bed by 7pm and were shocked to find out how early it actually was. I think we finally boiled some water in nalgene's to warm our sleeping bags and called it around 8pm. We did get to enjoy a gorgeous, huge, orange, almost full moon reflecting on the water first though.


Mosquito Bay Beach campsite

We made it through the night with a little excitement from the fighting possums outside our tent, and an unknown animal continually rooting through our stuff. The morning brought quickly warming sunshine and another great day. We took our time making an oatmeal breakfast and packing up. Luckily, it was high tide by the time we were ready to get the boat in the water and we only had to carry it a few feet this time. We again took our time paddling, exploring some lagoons only accessible at high tide, and feeling pretty lucky to be able to enjoy such an amazing place with good weather. We paddled for about 4 hours and made it to the end of our trip around 1.30 pm. Again, we were lucky it was still high tide and were able to paddle right up to the take-out. At low tide, the water goes out about a kilometer and the rental company has to pick up the kayaks with big tractors.


Lunch Break!


Pretty Scenery

We waited on the beach for only about 10 minutes before being picked up and drive 5 minutes back to the rental place. There, we unloaded our gear, showered quickly, packed up the car, and started driving again. Our goal for the afternoon was to drive south to Murchison, where we spent the night on some more bunk beds. Then, on Tuesday, we had to drive the rest of the way back to Dunedin (about 6.5 hours). We did stop for a short hike to a lake with pretty views of the mountains, and the road through Lewis Pass was really pretty. Otherwise, the drive was pretty uneventful and we arrived home around 6.30. Not bad!


Lewis Pass Hike

Easter Weekend Pics

So our Easter weekend was another awesome holiday spent in the great New Zealand outdoors. The work week was short, only 3 days. We checked out a new pub with some friends and were surprised by the large selection of beer on tap. This weekend, we relaxed again and are now getting ready for a full work week, the first in awhile. Hope you all had a nice Easter, and Happy Birthday to Jay and Andy!