Fiordlands

Wednesday evening was spent packing up so that we could leave for our west coast adventure straight from work on Thursday afternoon. We arrived in Te Anau around 8pm that night, checked into our tiny cabin, and went into town for a quick bite to eat and The Ranch. After some last minute organization, it was off to bed but only until 5am Friday, as our kayaking trip to Doubtful Sound began at 6.15am.

Our guide picked us up and we headed to Lake Manapouri, stopping for 5 other people along the way. Strangely, all 8 people in the group turned out to be American! They included a retired judge (originally from Rochester) and his wife from DC, a couple of which the guy lives in LA, and his girlfriend in Puerto Rico (they only see each other when they go on vacation), and another guy from LA. Our guide was from NZ but lives in Canada part-time. It ended up being a great group of people.

Upon arrival on the docks of Lake Manapouri (voted the Most Beautiful Lake in NZ), we unloaded the trailor and reloaded everything onto the boat that was taking us across the lake. The ride was nice and calm, and we enjoyed some early morning scenery. When we arrived on the other side 50 minutes later, we unloaded all of our gear, changed into some really lovely wetsuits, and reloaded everything into another trailor. Then, back in the van for a drive over the mountains, across Wilmot Pass to Deep Cove, our put-in at Doubtful Sound.


Deep Cove from Wilmot Pass

At Deep Cove, more unloading and reloading into the kayaks, and we were finally ready to go. After a quick paddling and safety demo by our guide, we hopped into our tandem kayaks (2 person, fiberglass and Kevlar “tanks”) and were on our way. Due to extremely windy conditions, it was a slow go, especially for the older, inexperienced couple. But eventually, we all made it out of Deep Cove, into the main part of Doubtful Sound. Unfortunately, we were met here by even stronger winds, resulting in some pretty substantial waves.


Loading Up the Kayaks for our Journey

At this point, we needed to paddle part way up the sound, heading into the wind, to the tip of Elizabeth Island. If we tried to paddle directly across to Hall Arm (our destination), we would likely be blown into a rock face which would have been very difficult to paddle out of given the current weather conditions. So, we paddled our little arms off, taking on the large waves, until we reached the island. The older couple ended up needing a bit of assistance from our guide, who was attached to them by a rope at this point. After a short break, we had to ferry across the roughest section of water, eventually ending up at the entrance to Hall Arm. During this part of the paddle, we were warned to watch out for “smokers” which look like little tornadoes on top of the water. The smokers occur when 2 separate wind currents blowing perpendicular to each other collide, causing the tornado-like phenomena. These can flip a kayak so we didn’t want to come across one. Luckily, nobody did, and we all made to unscathed to the calmer, more protected waters of Hall Arm.


Doubtful Sound


Some More Views

The difference in here was amazing. Wind died down from 15-20 knots to just a light breeze. The water was almost completely flat, which made the paddling much easier and more enjoyable for everyone. The scenery, as in the entire sound, was beautiful. Huge green and granite mountains rose straight up out of the water, making it obvious that they dropped down under the water just as steeply. There were a fair amount of waterfalls, and some birdlife flying overhead. While we were paddling in the sound, we saw the spouts from whale’s blowholes in the distance, and found out that this was a pod of very rare Arnoux whales, hardly ever seen, and only seen in the sound for the first time 2 days before we saw them.

We paddled to the end of Hall Arm, enjoying the sights, and then back up it a little way to our campsite. The whole day took about 6 hours of paddling, and we covered about 18 kilometers. Not too shabby! We carried the boats away from the rock beach, back into the woods where we set up camp. After setting up the tents, we all changed into dry clothes and congregated in the net shelter to get out of the rain and away from the horrid, biting little sandflies. Inside, we hung out, cooked some dinner, and even drank some wine, courtesy of the tour company. We were all off to bed by 10.30 as we were to be woken at 6am for another full day of paddling.


Soggy Camp in the Rainforest


Bug Free Zone

Next day, we took down camp, put on our wet clothes, packed up the boats, and were back on the water by 8am. The early morning paddle was beautiful, and we were able to enjoy the peaceful calm and quiet for about the first 2 hours. When we got back out of Hall Arm, to the main section of the sound, the winds had once again picked up and, combined with the opposing tidal current, made for some more large, capping waves. Once again, we paddled into the wind and ferried across to Elizabeth Island, then up it’s coast and around the top where we were careful not to get blown into another cove. Once we rounded the island, we were relieved to find that we got to paddle with the wind back down to the end of it. The waves were still pretty substantial here so Craig and I had some fun trying to surf the waves in our boat.


Hanging Clouds, Peaceful Morning

Once past the island, it was back into Deep Cove for the home stretch. In here, the winds had died down significantly, so the paddling was pretty easy. We tried sailing by holding 2 boats together and holding up a sail with the paddles. Figures, as soon as we wanted to sail, the winds became almost non-existent. Still, it was a fun challenge, and our group finally got going pretty fast, only to be stopped by crashing into Andy’s group, who had stopped in our path to take down their sail.

After the sails were stowed, we paddled slowly, stopping frequently to take pictures and look around, back to the take-out. We were all sad that the trip was over, but happy to change into dry clothes. We repeated to whole process from day one, unpacking and repacking, driving across the pass, boating across the lake, and getting dropped off at our campsite. It was an awesome trip, something you can’t experience anywhere else, and well worth every penny and ounce of effort put into it. We couldn’t have asked for a better guide, and the crazy weather made for some fun (in spite of some anxiety) paddling.

Upon return to our campsite, we set up our tents, hung a clothesline to unsuccessfully dry some clothes, took some much needed showers, grabbed some dinner in town, and hit the sleeping bags. During the night, it got so windy that we actually considered the tent may collapse. It didn’t, but we woke to continued crazy wind, broke down camp, and headed up Milford Road to Milford Sound. Andy took a cruise of the sound while Craig and I went for a hike at a little trail called the Chasm. This was really cool, huge water gushing through windey, holey, carved-out rocks. Too many tourists back there though, so we didn’t spend much time looking. We headed back to pick up Andy and then off to find some more hiking.


Chasm

There was a 3 hour return hike along the road, called Lake Marian Track. The description sounded cool, so we stopped and headed off up the trail. It wasn’t long before we came to a river with some more giganting whitewater, flying over and under huge boulders and old, moss-covered trees lying across it. It was gorgeous and we spent some time taking it in before heading on up the trail.


Andy and Katie along the Creek

The rest of the trail was up up up, over some trees, rocks, and roots. It was a really cool green trail and we had fun scrambling and climbing on all the obstacles up to the top. The description I read had said the trail ended at a high alpine lake (Lake Marian) at the top, but it didn’t hint at the beauty of it at all. We walked through a clearing, rounded the corner, and were staring at, by far, the most awesome lake I have ever seen. It was pretty large, clear blue, surrounded by huge, towering, jagged, granite cliffs, with several waterfalls cascading down the sides. Gorgeous. I can’t begin to describe it otherwise. We sat and enjoyed it for awhile, and Andy took a dip. Then, unfortunately, we had to head back down.


Trio at Lake Marian


Lake Marian

Along the road back toward camp, we stopped for a short hike to a 275 meter high waterfall and then an even shorter hike to a “historic grave.” The grave was for a guy who “lost his way and died here from exhaustion” back in the late 1800’s. Kinda cool.
We drove a little further until we found a campground called Cascade Creek. We got the last available site and quickly set up our tents so nobody else could steal it. Our site was the only one in an open field but it was right on a creek. We cooked some taco’s for dinner and watched the rain roll in. We decided to retreat to our tents around 9pm even though it was still light out. It was a wise decision because the wind once again picked up even stronger than the previous night, and the rain barreled in. Luckily, our tent again made it through the night, despite it’s ageing. It was still raining pretty hard though, so we decided to pack up and head back to Dunedin, instead of hiking as planned in the soggy conditions.

It was nice to get home early to unpack and dry out. Andy got ready for his trip to Mt. Cook. He left (in our car) on Tuesday morning for his first driving on the left hand side of the road experience, and returned Wednesday afternoon unscathed and excited about all he got to see in awesome Aoraki Park. Craig and I would rather have gone with him, but had to work instead. Oh well, only 4 days this week, then another fun weekend! We spent the last night of Andy's visit eating some yummy fresh chinook salmon from the Mt Cook area and hanging out, laughing at old stories. I was sad to leave him at the airport this morning despite the new gray hair I found last night as a direct result of his visit. We had a great time with him! Andy, we hope you're home safe and sound reading this after your long long long flights. PS-some of the sheep around here are walking a little funny, any idea why?

Many Weekend Pictures

Last week, Andy (my brother) finished up his 11 day hiking trip in Queenstown on Thursday night. So, Craig and I drove out there Friday, leaving right from work and arriving at 8.30pm. We checked in to our campsite quickly and then ran down the hill to Andy’s hotel because we had reservations at Minus 5. Minus 5 is a small bar made completely of ice on the inside. The seating (benches), bar, and even the glasses are all ice. There were lots of ice sculptures too. We were given nice, heavy, furry hood coats and gloves to go in. Not surprisingly, it was cold! So, we had some yummy, fruity vodka drinks inside, took some pics, and then headed back outside to warm up.


Katie, Andy, and Craig at Minus 5

By this time, it was about 9.30pm but still in the 70’s outside. We ran into 4 guys from Andy’s tour and had a drink with them on an upstairs bar’s balcony. By this time, we were starting to get a little tired so we got some pizza and headed back to Andy’s fancy hotel to hang out on the balcony and enjoy the warm evening temps. Then Craig and I walked back to our campsite and crawled into our tent for some sleep.
Next morning, we met Andy at his hotel again and walked through the artisan’s market down by the wharf. He had reservations to go hang gliding at 3pm so we decided to go for a hike first. We hiked up one mile track which ended up being pretty cool, with nice views of waterfalls and a creek.


Waterfall on One Mile Track

After the hike, Craig and I left Andy to his hang gliding adventure and went mountain biking. The trail started off as a fairly flat double track along the lakeshore. As we went further and further, the trail became increasingly technical. Single track through the woods with lots of little hills, rocks, and tree roots. It ended up being an awesome track and before we knew it, we had been riding for about and hour and a half. We really wanted to keep going but knew we had to turn around and head back for dinner. By the time we got back to the car, we were both pretty dirty and tired, and knew we had earned the buffet dinner awaiting us that night!
Back at the campsite, we found Andy relaxing under a tree. When asked how the hang gliding was, we found out in had been cancelled when they got to the top of the mountain due to turbulent, chaotic winds. Bummer! But it was rescheduled for another try in the morning. So, we showered quickly (8 minutes to be exact, that’s what you get for $1) and walked up to the gondola, which we boarded and rode to the top of the mountain for dinner. The gondola ride was pretty crazy. It goes almost straight up the rock cliffs. Definitely not ski-able terrain below so it was very different than the lift rides we’re used to!
At the top, we hopped off the gondola at the Skyline Restaurant, where we had reservations for dinner. We were fairly early so we hiked up a little hill to check out the luge rides. Finally, it was time to eat and we were led to a table near huge windows overlooking Queenstown. We didn’t spend too much time admiring the view though, as the buffet was calling!


Craig and Katie at dinner


View from Skyline Restaurant

There was a ton of food to choose from including soups, salads of every type, cheese and crackers, meat (chicken, pork, venison, lamb), sides (veggies, eggplant, kumara and parsnip mash, veggie fried noodles), seafood (clams, salmon, scallops, shrimp), and pasta (ziti, cannelloni, ravioli), and desserts of every imagineable kind. There was definitely a ton of food, and I think Craig was full for the first time since we’ve been in NZ. This after at least 10 plates of food. We ate for about 2 hours and then wobbled back to the gondola for a ride down in the dark. We then wasted no time and rolled right into our tents.
In the morning, Andy got up and left for another attempt at flying and Craig and I slept in. We eventually got up to sunny, hot skies, and packed up tents and camping gear. With some time to kill before meeting back up with Andy, we walked through the gardens and enjoyed the sights and views. The temps were in the 80’s so we tried to stay in the shade and keep cool. At noon, we headed over to our rendez-vous point and found Andy, again denied from hang gliding. This time too much wind! But he and 2 other guys from his trip had gone jet boating in Shotover Canyon instead and had a great time. So, at least he got a little adventure after all that.
The rest of the day was spent driving, first over the Crown Range to Wanaka for some scenery, and then back to Dunedin. We arrived home Sunday night around 8pm, unpacked ate some dinner, and went to bed.
Monday was Superbowl Sunday at home and we had planned to leave work at lunchtime to watch the game. We walked across the street to a pub called The Bog where the game was just about to begin. We were the only ones in there watching for the first half but about 10 others popped in for the second half. Craig and I were definitely the only Steelers fans there and we were rewarded with a great game and a Pittsburgh win, along with some record-breaking plays. Go Steelers!!!!!!
The game was over by about 4.30 here so we decided to drive up to Moeraki Boulders and the lighthouse to give Andy a taste of NZ east coast. We saw tons of seals and penguins, and even a very rare sea lion that growled loudly at Craig when he got too close.


Andy and Katie at the Lighthouse

Lots O' Pics

It was a fun weekend and great start to the week. We are leaving to kayak Doubtful Sound and check out the Fiordlands on Thursday so it will be another busy weekend!

Surfs Up!

Last week was fairly uneventful. The weather was pretty nice so Craig got to paddle his kayak in the ocean a little bit, which was exciting for him. We went for a bike ride through the city and down to the path along the water on Thursday. Otherwise, it was just a normal work week, nothing too exciting to report.
Starting on Friday though, temps shot up into the upper 20’s (80’s) and we even saw one report that said 32, which is in the 90’s, Farenheit! It was pretty hot. So, we took advantage and went surfing Friday night, and then for a walk on the beach as it was still warm and light at 9:30. I was a little nervous surfing because there had been a shark hanging out at that beach last week. So, every little piece of seaweed floating by underwater made my heart jump a little. However, no signs of an actual shark, thank goodness!


Katie showing off her moves at Waikouati Beach

Saturday turned out to be even hotter and we roasted at the Farmers Market in the morning. We got to see an antique car show in the octagon on the way down which was interesting. The sun was cooking us at the market so we didn’t hang out too long. We walked home and stopped for an ice cream lunch on the way. That afternoon we decided to hit the beach again to cool off with some more surfing. This time, we checked out a new beach, Warrington, and it turned out to be awesome.


Craig the surfer dude at Warrington Beach

We ended up surfing (still showing signs of improvement) for over 2 hours, which was pretty exhausting. Then it was home to grill dinner and hang outside for the evening.
Sunday brought some cooling morning rain but as soon as that stopped, it heated right back up again. We drove out to Tunnel Beach in the afternoon to check out some really cool caves and tunnels carved out by the ocean. To get to the beach, we had to walk down a steep hill and through a tunnel that was actually carved out by John Cargill, a son of Captain William Cargill, who founded the Otago settlement (where we now live) in 1848. He had the tunnel carved out in the 1870’s so that his family would have access to the beach, which was otherwise unattainable. We hung around there for a little while, watching the crashing waves and taking in the views.


View from Tunnel Beach


Tunnel Beach

Then, back home for a quick dinner and we were off to try out a new mountain biking trail near our house. The trail was pretty cool so we biked there for a bit and then down through the city to the bike path again. We’re definitely enjoying summer!

Action Shots

Homecoming

While our North Island trip was amazing and fun and we were sad to see it end, it was nice to come home to our new house with improved floors at the same time. We got home on Saturday evening, unpacked, ooh'd and aah'd over our now sanded, stained, and gleaming hardwood floors, cleaned a little, and went to bed exhausted. We then spent Sunday doing some serious cleaning (it needed it) and grocery shopping as our supplies were pretty much non-existent. The house looked great after much dusting and scrubbing, and we even took all the rugs and curtains outside to beat, vacuum, and air out. So, the house also smelled better (it was a little musty after being closed up for so long, and the floors smelled like varnish).


Unfinished floors when we moved in


Finished floors

During the week, we didn't do much, recuperating from our trip, getting back into the routine of work, and loving all of our new space. The following weekend, we hit up the farmers market for the first time in quite awhile. Berries and stone fruits are now in season, so we bought raspberries, blueberries, and kakana (I think) berries, which are a tasty cross between boysenberries and blackberries. There were also tons of apricots, nectarines and peaches. It's fun to go to the market and wonder what will be new every week! As this is also strawberry and cherry season, the are street vendors selling them daily for pretty cheap, so we have had a fridge well stocked with fruit for the last couple of weeks! The cherries here are amazingly good, huge, dark red, juicy, and sweet. And the strawberries are equally as good. You can smell them just walking down the street!
We also did some work on our gardens, which was a fun new thing for us to do.
Last saturday, we decided to take advantage of our out-of-control backyard mint bush and invited our friends over for burgers (cooked on our newly acquired barbecue!), Craig's german potato salad (nice and vinegarry, complements of the family recipe), yummy brownie, pudding, and strawberry dessert (thank you for discovering that recipe Todd!), and mojitos. This turned out to be a great combination for our first gathering in the house. We managed to finish off an entire bottle of rum with the mojitos and made a large dent in the food supply.
The next day, we hiked up to a new mountain biking path that looked challenging but cool. We were looking forward to trying it out, and Craig did the following evening, with Dan. Good decision by me to not go as it turned out. Craig arrived home a couple hours later, holding his arm gingerly with a pained expression on his face. Turns out, the trail was extremely difficult and both he and Dan took some falls. Unfortunately, the last fall for Craig was particularily nasty. He described it as flying over his handle bars, landing on outstretched arms, and then with all of his weight on his right forearm which was on a log. So, looking at his arm, a fracture was definitely a possibility. Luckily, after a restless night for him, a couple of people at work determined it was not broken, applied a laser treatment to aid in healing, and after a couple days, his arm was about 95%.
So, we were able to enjoy a sunny evening midweek by going surfing. We both still stink but are showing signs of improvement. Craig actually stood on his board for about 6 seconds, a new record. And I actually got my feet on the board a couple of times instead of just kneeling. Take note that 50% of the time, my feet were on the board but I was upside down but this was deemed as success nonetheless!
This weekend is just winding down (it is Sunday night). Friday night we tried out a new japanese restaurant for appetizers of crispy squid tentacles, octopus balls, "flash" spring rolls, spicy pork, shrimp skewers, grilled meat skewers, seafood mix, and chicken something. They were mostly pretty good but small portioned so we moved on to another restaurant for pizza and chocolate cake for dessert.
On Saturday, we drove over to Queenstown to pick up a kayak for Craig. I had forgotten how beautiful that drive is, and it was nice to go over that way in summer. Previously, we had only been there in winter to ski. We ate a Thai dinner there, and walked around down by the water and in the gardens until his boat arrived. Then back in the car for a rainy drive home. Craig was dying to try out the new toy and took it out on the harbor today. So far so good, and he was excited to be back in boating action.
No plans for this week. My brother Andy arrived in Christchurch on Friday after some difficulty with cancelled flights in the States due to the freezing temps. Speaking with him on Friday night, he was tired and sunburned (big change from home!) already, and getting ready for bed at 6pm. Ahh, jet lag. He leaves for his 10 day hiking trip tomorrow (Monday) and we will meet up with him next week, which will be fun. Our first visitor!
Hope all of you in the northern states are staying cozy and warm. And Go Steelers!

Happy New Years

The New Year’s Eve drive from Waitomo to Stratford provided two options. We could either choose to drive the Forgotten World Highway or we could drive along the coast on the Surf Highway, and we chose the prior. The Forgotten World Highway got its name from the fact that the road is so windy and road conditions so poor that people forgot it was there as everyone takes the Coastal Route, or at least that’s why it should have gotten the name. The road is about 150km long and was the most direct route for our journey. It started out well enough and we drove through the Whanganui National Forest and then down through the Tangarakau Gorge. The road was a very tight two lane, probably close to 1.5 lanes and had several “saddles”. Apparently, the term saddle refers to an exceedingly windy and narrow road with no chance of seeing oncoming traffic or avoiding it. Thankfully, all Kiwi’s had forgotten about the highway anyway as we saw a rare few cars during 4ish hours along the route. The scenery along the route was mostly rugged farmland with sheep pastures among steep hilly terrain. Once in the gorge the landscape changed to dense rainforest up the side walls. There are no petrol stations along the road and only one town, Whangamomona Village, which claims to be a republic and not part of New Zealand. See the link for details.


Tangarakau Gorge

Republic of Whangamomona

Once through the republic, we pressed on with more of the same farmland until the road finally straightened out, as we rolled into Stratford.

Stratford is a small town on the edge of Mt. Taranaki National Park. We had booked a campsite the day before as many were filling up for during the holiday season. We found our site and set up around 5, then headed into town to get some tasty treats for the evening’s celebrations. Just as we left for the grocer the rain started to dump. We got pounded with rain for a good 4 hours before it let up. Fortunately, the holiday park had a nice lounge connected to a kitchen where we made our New Year’s feast of spaghetti with vegetables, hard cider (Grannypash) and some tasty desserts from the grocery store bakery. We spent most of the evening in the lounge until it was closed for the night around 11. During that time we watched The Sound of Music and attempted to tolerate the revolting strawberry flavored champagne we bought. I made it through a cup and Katie made it through 4-5 sips. The last hour of our year was spent in the tent, which was surprisingly dry with all the rain. We had a mini-countdown with a football drop at midnight, and tried to go to sleep. The partying camp neighbors had other plans and we were awake until 3 or so with their racket. Kids these days!


New Years in a Tent

We decided to start off our New Year kiwi style, with some tramping around Mt. Taranaki, another volcano. Unlike Mt. Tongariro, the other volcano we hiked, this one is set by itself. As you are driving you can see it from quite a distance as it stands alone among mostly plains and some rolling hills. We did not summit the mountain as crampons and ice axes were required because the top was still covered from last winter. Instead, we chose a couple short hikes around the base of the mountain within Mt. Taranaki National Park.

We pulled into a parking lot loaded with cars of other like minded people wanting to walk off a hangover or just start their new year with a day outside. The weather was sunny and warm. We started with a loop tramp called Wilkes Pools Loop Track. This was a cool short tramp that hiked a bit uphill and then upstream to a series of small waterfalls carved into the bedrock streambed which created Wilkes Pools. There was only a trickle of water coming down the creek so the waterfalls were small but really neat. There were also old lava flows to see. We then hiked away from that creek and over to another which lead us downhill back to where we started. This creek had a fair bit more water and had many waterfalls and waterslides as well.


Wilkes Pools


Mt. Taranaki

Following a PB and J picnic lunch we hit another short loop tramp, on the Kapuni Track toward Dawson’s Falls. This was the more popular track which highlighted an 18 metre waterfall. We walked down to the base, took a few photos, and headed back up to complete the loop.


Dawson's Falls

It was still only mid afternoon and small town Stratford was mostly dead since it was New Year’s Day so we decided to check out New Plymouth. We did have a small detour on the way to Lake Mangamahoe Park. There was a lot of water foul and some great views of the peak with the lake. It was worth the 5 minute drive for some nice views and a few pix. New Plymouth is the biggest city near Mt Taranaki and is on the west coast. We spend an hour or so walking along the shore on a paved bike path and then returned to the car via the main road of the city. The city centre was mostly deserted as 95% of shops and restaurants were closed for the holiday. The shoreline walk was nice and it felt good to be hot, as the sun was beating down on us the whole time. We don’t get too hot in Dunedin, ever. The evening was mostly organizing and cleaning the car and trying, unsuccessfully, to call and wish Happy New Year to those back home who arrived into the new year much later than we did.


Mt. Taranaki in the Background

Friday was all about driving from Mt Taranaki to the ferry in Wellington. It was a good day to drive with light rain and then sun. The drive took around 5 hours but we stopped at a few places along the way to eat and check out a small town. We arrived in Wellington a couple ours before we were to get on the ferry and the wind was howling. We assumed the ferry ride would be delayed and rough due to the weather but were going to take advantage of the time we had to check out the city. It was strange to be a “big” city as we haven’t seen one since we arrived. Wellington is the capital city and there is a “real” downtown with multiple story buildings and theatres etc. We walked for about an hour and got our choice of takeaway food for dinner. Katie had Pad Thai and I got an Indian chicken curry with rice. We then got to the ferry terminal and quickly ate in the car before boarding soon after. To our surprise the ferry was on time and smooth sailing but taking in the sights on deck was not fun due to all the wind.

We got into Picton (the other ferry port) and breezed through a DUI checkpoint to our campsite which was overbooked. So we put up our tent in the playground. That night was torrential downpours, but the tent stayed really dry.

We were up early as we hoped to get back to Dunedin that day. It was about a 10 hour drive back home. We did make a stop in Christchurch, the main city on the South Island, to check out an arts and farmers market, which was rumored to have a vendor for some of the wonderful German sausages we had a few weeks ago (See Quiet Crazy Week post) . The arts were plentiful, the produce was non-existent, and the sausages were in the house. We ate a couple, bought a few packs to take, checked out some art, ate a chocolate, banana, and cream crepe, shared a blueberry frozen yogurt, and headed out. Katie had read about a beach volleyball tourney also in Chch, so we rambled over to investigate. It was cooler and drizzling on the beach. The weather and level of play weren’t great so we quickly checked out the local landmark, Cave Rock, and finished our journey home. The last leg of the drive was studded with rain, wind, hail, thunderstorms, sun, and cool temps. We finally got home around 8 to find our house all dusty with newly polished hardwood in the living room and kitchen. We spend the rest of the night cleaning the house and unpacking from the trip.


Katie in Cave Rock

Overall the trip was a great time and we were glad to see the varied terrain and landscape of the North Island. We may head back to Wellington for a weekend but will unlikely make another voyage to the central locations we saw. It was strange to not be with friends or party on New Years, but we hope everyone had a great party and a Happy New Years! Ahhh, back to work.

Final Round of North Island Pictures