Adventures Part 1B: On the Road with Jake and Robin

After arriving back in Wellington from the South Island, we decided to take the following day off to do laundry and rest up, before heading north to Taupo and Rotorua. This was what we in the industry like to call a BAD MOVE.

Things started out fine enough the next day. Then it started to snow. It took about 10 hours to do what should have been a 4-hour drive as a result of accidents, road closures, and dead stops. We got out and had a sludge fight at one point. This is not normal weather for the central North Island. In fact both the locals and the evening news were heartily impressed. There wasn't actually that much snow, but given the small, winding roads and the fact that snowplows are few and far between, it was more than enough to almost paralyze the middle of the island. We kept having to go farther and farther out of our way. On the plus side, we did get to see some nice scenery, and there were a few places where it went from being completely snow-covered to ridiculously green and back again over the course of a few kilometers.

We did finally make it up to Taupo, a town on the shores of Lake Taupo that the snow had not even touched. We did very little that night beyond trying to watch some rugby on tv (and being mystified. None of us understand rugby.) The next day we headed up to Rotorua, which is an area with lots of geothermal activity. There were some nice mudpots and steam vents and that kind of thing, though it's got nothing on Yellowstone. Rather than Old Faithful, they've got a "geyser" that erupts if (and, as far as I know, only if) they put soap (actually, biodegradable soap substitute) in it. Jake dubbed it a fauxser. (There is a good story about how a bunch of guys from a prison camp in the area accidentally discovered it while washing their clothes, though.)

We also did some nice walks in the area. My favorite was through a geothermal area just outside Taupo called the "Craters of the Moon." It's this field that's full of big, collapsed steaming craters. It had kind of a surreal feeling to it.

There's a lot more to see in the North Island, but we didn't have enough time to do any more, so we headed back to Wellington the day before Jake and Robin flew back out again. That about wraps up our New Zealand travels. The South Island was much more memorable than the North, but then we didn't really do the North justice.

Next time: Emily braves the land of DEATH (otherwise known as Australia).

The photos below are all Jake's.

A cop got stuck on this uphill stretch and stopped us all here for about 40 minutes to let the snow melt.
















10 Minutes from the snow, it was beautiful.
















Robin by a steaming crater.





















A "Crater of the Moon."

Adventures Part 1A: On the road with Jake and Robin

So Robin, Jake, and I were supposed to do a joint post while they were over here, but we were tired from traveling and ended up watching Dr. Who episodes in my room instead. Anyway, here goes.

Basically, they arrived and hung out in Wellington for a few days as we waited for my last exam to be over. (Wellington, by the way, experienced several days of solidly bad weather (wind, driving rain, hail) starting from their arrival.) However, we had a nice enough time, and saw the big museum and went up the hill overlooking the city and that kind of thing.

As soon as my last exam had ended, we headed for the ferry and started off for the South Island. It's about a three hour ferry ride across the Cook Strait, and the last bit of the crossing winds through some gorgeous sounds (flooded valleys). We took the train down the coast from Picton to Christchurch on the east coast, then took the other (rather more scenic) train through the Southern Alps to Greymouth on the west coast. From there we rented a car and drove south via several national parks. Eventually, we headed east again to Dunedin and then drove back up the east coast to Picton and the ferry.

There were very few cars on the roads, which was good because virtually all the highways are 2-lane roads, and most of them wind around coasts and mountains and pass over 1-lane bridges quite regularly.

The scenery was amazing. I knew it was going to be pretty down there, but it was really ridiculously gorgeous everywhere we went, and the drives from place to place were generally just as nice as the destinations. In fact it was rather anguishing that daylight only lasted about 10 hours. We had to do some driving in the dark, knowing full well that there were mountains and lakes and valleys on all sides. The west coast and south-west of the island are most dramatic, but the whole things is pretty in different ways. Anyway, along the way we hiked, went sky-diving, hiked on a glacier, cruised through a fiord, rode a jet-boat through a canyon, and saw various wildlife.

The sky-diving I enjoyed mostly for the scenery. I cannot imagine a more beautiful place to do it. The actual falling was not as exciting as I expected, but the gliding over the mountains was very nice.

Wildlife spotted included dolphins, seals, various notable birds (New Zealand, having no native land mammals, has many interesting flightless and flighted birds), and, thank goodness, penguins. We had to cheat a little bit for the penguins. We went to a penguin colony near Dunedin that people are working to conserve. They've dug trenches in the beach so that you can hide in them and watch the penguins going out or coming in from their day's hunting. It was rather a surreal experience running through the trenches chasing our weathered penguin-guide woman to the next likely spot. Anyway, the penguins were appropriately cute and amusing.

I also enjoyed seeing black swans, and there was the call of one bird that may haunt me for the rest of my life. I think it was a bird, anyway. It sounded like gentle bells jingling in many tones. Frankly, it sounded magical. (Jake and Robin are not quite as enamored of the memory as I am, though they were pretty darn impressed at the time, no matter what they tell you.)

And on that note, I will end this for today. Look out for Part 1B: The North Island or Emily, Jake, and Robin Drive into a Blizzard and Part 2: Oz.

Below is a sampling of Jake's and my photos.



pretty penguin preening party

















I think this is Milford Sound, the most famous of the fiords. However it may just be somewhere random within Fiordland.





This is the gorgeous little campsite in Fiordland where we stopped and heard the amazing bird call.















Black swans!!!








































Franz Josef Glacier