Thursday 10-28-10

The sandfly's were there to greet us once again, we decided not to stay another night. We set out to find Mt. Haast, hoping there would be road signs coming from a different direction.  Driving almost back to Reefton we decided that we could not find Mt. Haast for a reason and pulled over at the Klondike routes.  We opted for the Klondike spur trail that would get us above bush line (tree line state side), and avoid the valley hike through the marsh. 

It was a good steep hike that got us above bush line quick, but the trail had not been used in a while and many of winter storms had passed through since the last trail maintenance.  A lot of downed trees and branches made it difficult to see some of our orange triangle markers as some of these markers were on trees that were laying on the ground.  Moss covered the entire forest floor and was very thick,  while squishy and soft you would sink down and wonder how long it will take before you hit solid ground, if in fact you could find something solid.  We had to be careful of our foot placement.  Quite a bit of the hike was on a steep boulder field that had moss and trees growing all over the rocks. You could see the huge granite boulders by pulling up big sections of the moss or under any of the countless fallen trees roots.  Along with watching out for boobbie traps of hidden holes in boulders or tree roots we also had to keep our heads up for hanging branches that had broken off trees but been hung up on others on their way to the ground, it got a little interesting, kept us on our toes.  At the top just before breaking bush line there were larger boulders covered with moss, Paul had to help hoist me up some.  This section was sketchy, the trees were growing around/through some boulders and seemed to be pulling from them off the mountain.  Surviving the boulder dash we found a bit of snow at the top, and beautiful views. Paul got some great pictures and you can even see where we parked our van, basically a long way down right below us.

The way down was even better, while the land did not change coming down it was  harder to spot the holes and branches hidden under the moss.  We had some good laughs and always enjoy commenting on how crazy the Kiwi's like their trails! 

Lewis Pass was very pretty, our little van that could slowly made her way up.  The pass had two one way bridges, very interesting for the logging trucks that take it.  Once out and making our way down, the valley seemed to change dramatically from the one we were just in.  The thick bush was replace with bare mountains creating huge views of the entire valley.  We both like the new valley better, and followed it into Hanmer Springs. About 5 min from town we picked up a couple that were hitch hiking from the road. They had just finished with a backpacking trip and were picking up their car to head home to Chirstchurch.  We dropped them off in town the guy showed us the start of a road we should follow for free camping and great views. We took his advise and made our way up a gravel road which just kept climbing and slowly loosing width, there were trail heads, and gates blocking closed roads. About 3/4s of the way up the side of the mountain just where the road narrowed to about a foot on each side of the vehicle and the washboard and bumps got bigger than our tires we decided we really needed water and opted to end our wild goose chase and find a motorcamp in town.  

Our motor camp is just 5 min from town, is clean, cheap, very small and run by a cute short old couple.  The showers are free and have the perfect temperature.  In the camp we ran into a couple that stayed at The Barn (by the Abel Tasman) while we did not make their acquaintance at the barn we now met and chatted with them most of the evening.

Wednesday 10-27-10

We woke up to a cloudy day and headed south to Greymouth, this town is the biggest on the west coast and we were hoping it would be better than Westport.  Not much to write about Greymouth, and we decided to head east to go over Lewis pass to Hanmer Springs and 'Thrill Seekers Canyon'. On our way we stopped in Reefton which was the first city in the Southern hemisphere to have street lights.  I think that was the last 'first' they have had. It was very reminiscent of old mining towns we see in the states, we stopped long enough to watch part of a video on how the local strip mine is actually "helping" the natural environment, check out some local walks and eat lunch. While the town had an interesting history and having panned for gold in Sumptner Oregon we made Reefton a quick stop.  The lady at the I site showed us a picture of Mt Haast that is close by and only a 3 hr hike to the summit. It was to late to do today, but the DOC campsite Marble Hill was close so we planned to do it in the morning. 

On our drive to the camp site we kept our eyes peeled for Mt. Haast, but did not see any trail heads or signs. We were getting tired so may be we just missed it.  The camp was in a beautiful valley, but close to the road.  Along with Mt. Haast it had some other hikes close by.  

Cooking dinner was an experience.  As soon as we stepped out of the van we were swarmed by sandflys, the worst we have seen them since we landed in NZ.  No amount of bug spray would stop them, so we were forced to eat our dinner in the van.  Even with bug spray on they were hovering around, crawling on glasses, silverware, everything!  Dinner in the van was yummy, we tried a new meal, chicken in red curry! 

Tuesday 10-26-10 The Pororoari river track

Sleeping very hard we tried to get up early since checkout is 10am.  However, we snoozed for a bit longer than we should have. Running like mad to the kitchen to cook our breakfast as well as some more stuff to store for some future meals, we were hoping the whitebait would not be discussing.  To be on the safe side we fried some up alone before our meal to make sure it would not ruin our eggs (eggs are sort of a treat for us, we usually have granola with yogurt for breakfast.)  The whitebait was great, it did not taste fishy at all so we added it to our eggs.  While doing this we struck up conversation with an English couple who have lived in Queenstown for a year working and are traveling for 3 months then on to Melborne, Australia to work some more.  Anyway  a side from them having a safari jeep that had a tent on the roof (seriously) they said we needed lemon to go with our whitebait and eggs, we did not have one so they gave us one! They were right the lemon really added to the flavor!   

As we were packing our van at 9:55am we saw a van approach…It was our camp host checking to make sure people left on time, she is very punctual!  Paul and I threw the rest of our stuff in and got out of dodge before we were charged another night!  A very short drive to the car park by the DOC office (like 2 minutes) we asked the DOC lady what we could do for the day aside from visiting Pancake rocks. She rated 3 hikes for us, we heard the british couple were going up Fox River to a big rock over hang called 'The Ballroom'.  This sounded cool, but the DOC lady said it had a few high river crossings, and is not marked very well and while a nice hike she recommended Punakaiki River valley walk because it had the best scenery.  This walk had "just an extra punch", as she put it.  We could tell by her enthusiasm that this was a must do.  We packed our day packs and a lunch, left our car in the safe car park and headed down the road to the walk, but first a short stop at the Punakaiki Cavern (literally on the side of the road.)  

We took a few stairs down from the road to the cave entrance.  Already it felt like were were far removed from civilization.  Inside the cave was amazing, cold, dust/water particles in the air and darkness.  The trail is not very far in only about 350 feet, but we spent about 15-30min exploring all of its nooks and crevices. The DOC lady said that there are a small number of glow worms there, however not as impressive as the places you can see thousands but they live all over the south island in caves or on logs really anyplace that has an over hang where they can dangle there glowing silk to catch bugs.  In the very back of the cavern through a narrow passage way looking up to the right we saw our first glow worms!!! While not many maybe 10-15 it looked like blue twinkle stars in the night sky. We tried to get pictures and video, but it was to dark and we did not have the camera lens to do it. We exchanged a few high fives and felt pretty cool.  Onward to our hike!

We immediately saw why our lady from DOC rated this as her favorite hike, it was just stunning.  This is the longest Paul and I have ever stayed on a trail, around every corner we stopped and were amazed by the view. Thick jungle cover the steep mountains and faces of granite popped out seeming to glow in the sunshine. The river had a few locals close to the mouth fishing for whitebait, we chatted with one for a moment and he asked where we were from.  He had been to Oregon in the 70's and love it, he said being from Oregon we will do just fine in NZ, he is an old hippie who started to tell us about the old bumper stickers he had read while there, things like "Don't Californicate Oregon", he was so thrilled about them!  We left him to this whitebait! Past the 3 guys fishing the river was crystal clear, when the sun hit the shallow parts it had no color just the river bed, in the deeper parts that had some shadows the water was beautiful green blue and still very clear! This is one of the prettiest places both of us had ever been to! Feeling special we stopped on a river stone bed and had our lunch, our view was beautiful granite faces and great views continuing up and down the river valley.  

Back on the trail Paul thought he saw some old steps leading to a tail, being careful (because there are chasms and caves covered in jungle) the went up a few before the disappeared. Meanwhile I hear something coming up behind me in the bushes, naturally I panic and tell Paul to get down here and help me fend off whatever it is.  It turned our to be a Weka! These birds are really goofy, they are bigger than a chicken, have no wings, big thick bird feet with impressive talons, a medium thick beak! I enjoyed watching these birds from a distance, but when this guy was coming up on me like a freight train I was nervous.  Paul squatted down and pretended to give him bread the Weka walked right up to him but when he did not see any food, he went about his business.  Crazy Weka!

Since we parked right across the street from the Pancake rocks we decided to walk through again and see if we could get some better pics.  We did and it was impressive to see them once again, but we did not see the blow holes, the tide was to low.  We went back to our car and decided to stay at the motor camp one more night and shower up.  After dinner it was time for some blog catch up and prep for our night mission later on.  Once we had a healthy start on the blog and the headlamp batteries replaced to shine extra bright we headed out, Ninja Style!  We walked back up the road to the caves and headed in to explore.  It was pitch black outside with the clouds in thick there was no moon or stars and it was even darker in the cave, very spooky!  Once we were into the "ballroom" part of the cave with the high ceilings we turned off our headlamps and looked up, it was amazing.  The ceiling of the cave had these little lit up glow worms and in this one main crease running over our heads there were hundreds of them, it looked like we were looking at constellations in the night sky.  We both just sat there speechless for a couple minutes, it seemed surreal!  Then voices "shabree's explaining how her imagination was getting the best of her"  came out and it was back out of the cave with a quickness. It turns out Kasey forever ruined  Shabree for nighttime spelunking by giving a dramatic explanation of a cave horror movie she had recently seen.    

Tomorrow we head south to Greymouth the biggest town on the west coast, have a look around, and either continue south toward the glaciers or cut inland  through Lewis pass into Hamner Springs!

Monday 10-25-10

Woke up to a few clouds around the lake and went for a fun trail run along the lake loop.  It was a really fun run, after we finished we felt like we did an hour's worth of tire jumps maneuvering through the roots and puddles.  It was great to have a warm shower after the run.  We then loaded up and headed east toward Westport, the oldest port town in NZ.  We drove through beautiful gorges with granite rocks jetting out of thick jungle bush.  We were pleased to see the return of our beloved fern trees mixed in the forest. Most cars we passed on the road were loaded with 3-4 kayaks on the roof, as the road drove along the Buller river a very popular white water river.  From what we could see it would be a great place to kayak or pack raft. The drive was uneventful with some good views and some old remains of coal and timber towns along the road.  We should note that along this stretch of road it the longest swing bridge in NZ, this is now old news to us since about every hike has one and most look like they are on there last leg so walking along the longest one does not sound tempting.

When we hit Westport we were both a bit shocked that it was ghetto and run down, with "coasters" representing to the fullest (coast people all over the world look the same!) It was overcast and the main road down town had been torn up and it did not look like there were going to fix it anytime soon.  We saw two old men washing their semi trucks in tank tops stretched over large belly's wearing cut off shorts, a definite highlight! We visited the I site and asked if there were any must see's in Westport, all that we got was a seal colony on the edge of town, and surrounding area  activities. With not much to do, and feeling a bit sketched about the town we headed south toward Punakaiki.  The lady at the DOC said that the pancake rocks were worth a look and there were some day hikes we could do.

Once we left Westport the clouds disappeared and our best friends blue sky and sunshine were waiting.  All along the coast there were terrific pullouts with views.  From stories we'd heard and things we had read we expected the west coast to be stormy and not so tropical, but it was in fact some of the most beautiful views we have seen in NZ!  Once we saw RV's on the side of the road at some of the beaches Paul started talking about freedom camping (pulling over and camping along the road) I did not quite like the idea. I could see that Paul wanted me to not be such a chicken and goodie goodie, but it just did not feel right.  So once we hit the motor camp and asked how much it was per person for the night, Paul asked about freedom camping. The host in her most annoyed look simultaneously held up a warning flier and said "sure if you want a $400 fine!" I'm sure I also saw a "F-you hippies" in her eyes! Then she went on about how it's getting out of hand with freedom camping and people being disrespectful to the environment and locals.  Paul and I can understand were she is coming from, we had just read in the paper that some Spanish tourists went into a neighborhood and went #2, in a residential neighborhood! It' s unbelievable, what people will do, so we gladly paid for the motor camp.

Before we settled in to our camp, we ran up the road to Pancake rocks since the weather was perfect.  It is a cool walk along the coast looking at limestone pillars being eroded by the sea. It sounds so lame, but it is very stunning to see them and the surrounding Paparoa national park with granite face rock cliffs and palms growing out of them.  Feeling like our day could not get better we came home to our van and gathered stuff for dinner.

Entering the kitchen of our camp, our noses were overwhelmed by delicious seafood smells!  A Maori family was cooking a feast, I was immediately intimidated to pull out our ingredients for spaghetti!  Trying to own our dinner with pride I started to boil the noodles, when myself and one of the Maori women kept meeting eyes.  I said "you meal smells wonderful" This seemed to be all they needed to dang near accept Paul and I into the family!  The older man of the crew Ruki grabbed Paul by the shoulders and asked if he had tried NZ crawfish, Paul said no.  Next thing we know Paul is eating fresh caught crawfish (lobster they say is what we would call it) from today.  We are getting pressured to eat all of it, stuff we would not eat at home like the guts (brown stuff!).  I gave Ruki a spoon to scoop me some, I was nervous but they were being so nice how could i say "no way in hell am I eating the meat with the brown stuff on it!" I'm pleased to say it was very good, Ruki thought so too as he took the spoon back from me and used it for himself. I suppose sharing is caring so I was discretely cleaned my spoon before using it again.  The next few moments were a whirlwind, I was tending to our spaghetti and I could hear Paul eating more and more crawfish. Soon Marj's (one of the ladies) husband walked in to the crawfish fest and cracked one open and sucked every last bit of edible substance on them. Marj did not like this, she shooed him out and said that the crawfish was for Paul. Being her thoughtful self, she brought me over a small bowl of the chowder she made with the crawfish. Holy moly it was so freaking good, I shared with Paul and we both felt giddy.  We thanked and let them enjoy their meal, and we ate our pasta.  Over dinner Paul and i were talking about how little encounters like the one we just experienced really feel special and make a trip memorable.  Soon after dinner Ruki, Sonya, and Marj (Ruki is the grandpa, Sonja is the youngest one but not a child , and Marj is the mom we think) came and talked to us for awhile.  Paul asked them about whitebait.  Whitebait is a fish that Kiwi's seem to be crazy for, they fish for them by net, we have spotted guys out there with their nets at just about every river we have passed on the south island.  In the paper we read that they go for $75 a kilo, wow expensive they must be something.  Ruki said they are good but not much bigger than our spaghetti noodle! We were surprised they were so tiny, and asked how to eat them.  The best way is to mix it in with some eggs, Kiwi's call it a whitebait fritter.  Ruki full of wisdom, along with showing correct ways to eat the seafood he explained how traveling is great but few people get to connect with other people in a meaningful way.  

Our new friends are from the Bay of Island area on the north island, when we go we are "to call" them so we can visit and they can feed us some more.  Paul and I said we would cook for them, but they did not like that idea.  We exchanged cell phone number and e-mails.  Marj invited us to their camper van so we could see real greenstone carved jewelry.  We walked to their camper van feeling a bit strange, but we were welcomed once again.  She showed us great carvings, while Sonja got our cell number to text us the number of a great carver of greenstone so we can set up a meeting with him and possibly purchase some.  Marj is traditional, we said we wanted to buy some and she quickly said it is to be given as a gift so Paul could buy some for me and I could buy some for him, but we should not buy it for ourselves, it was sweet that she wanted to help us buy  greenstone.   Greenstone is not Jade, Marj explained that Jade is from Asia  and while sold in a lot of shops as greenstone it is not the same thing.  Also while this was going on Rukiki pulled out a ziplock bag of whitebait, they were so tiny that if they did not have black dots for eyes you could hardly see them.  Once again being so gracious he gave us close to half a ziplock bag full of the little guys for us to try some with our eggs in the morning! We told him they have given us too much already, but they insisted.  Marj said they needed to get rid of the whitebait before they flew out of Chirstchurch back to the north island and she said she did not think they were so good.  On cloud nine we went to sleep.

For the love of Crawfish

Whitebait from Ruki

Pancake Rocks

Sunday 10-24-10 St. Arnaud tramp

We expected it to get cold last night but it was very comfortable.  We went to the DOC headquarters to ask how the weather was for the day (no rain but low clouds on the lake you could not see the mountain tops), we also asked about this  hike the 'St. Arnaud'.  The DOC headquarters here was very well done, they had just added some new displays and Paul and I took our time reading about the birds, and plants we might encounter on the trip.  I learned that the lake is home to the oldest eel fish (maori call them tuna) in NZ and possibly the world. These fish are really ugly and creepy  and very old, some of the females do not reach maturity till 90+ years of age, but maybe they do taste good.  There is also this bug that drills into the beech tree, the female bug houses itself in its own shell while feeding on the trees sap and then extends from the shell its anal tube and excretes this stuff called honeydew! This honeydew is very popular with birds, fungus, other native plants, and very necessary to the entire eco system. The things you learn!

With a great weather forecast for the day we set out on our hike. The forest was really cool, very different than the coastal forest.  While the coastal forest had lots silver and black fern trees, vines, and possibly dinosaurs; this forest had bushy shrubs, knotted twisted trees that look like sick Aspens, small ferns, tons of moss and lichen and three kinds of beech tree with anal tubes protruding out disguised as sweet nectar.  Our trail was very nice, there was some random creeks that sprung right from the ground and of course a few slips.  We quickly started to climb.  After about an hour on the trail it looked like we might break treelike, but we encountered some switch backs and it took a little longer to breakout and reach parachute point a rocky look out to the valley and Lake Rotoiti.  Most people stop at this point of the trail, however when you hike with Paul you can always go a bit further and a little higher. There was a trail that went to the top of the ridge from the look out, this part was very steep and had some snow. There was not a lot of snow, but it seemed to like the trail so we had to hike around it on this spongy grass. The grasshoppers did not like us walking on the grass they kept jumping all around us (I did not know grasshoppers lived this high aprox 4,000 ft, well above treelike, and Im not sure what they eat.)  

We made it to the top of the ridge, we thought there might be a saddle that we could have our lunch at, but it was just as steep on the other side.  The other side was covered with snow, and it was very windy on our narrow path on the top. My sweet Paul was grinning from ear to ear counting all of the Mt peaks, ranges and valleys he wanted to see. My grin was a bit tense, I loved our views, but don't do well so high up as I get a little vertigo. Once we got our pics and Paul had his moment to drool over the scenery we headed back to parachute rock to eat our lunch our of the wind.  I do good going up Mountains, but going down really freaks me out!  After my slow descent we made it to our lunch spot. We briefly chatted with a couple from the area, and stayed on the rocks for a good hour.  Paul spotted a glider plane that was very close the mountains we watched it for a bit, I was nervous that a wind gust might crash it into the rocky ridge, but Paul thought we should go in one. My goodness we think very differently at times! 

Once back at our campground I thought we should walk into town and find some ice cream.  At the general store I found this Magnum ice cream sandwich, it looked delicious when I heard Paul say " dude, no wwaayy! We look for these all over Mexico!" We meant our brother in law Brian. We found a table and enjoyed the ice cream and a beer. It was such a great day to have a good 5hr hike, sunshine, shower, and ice cream! We hope tomorrow is as beautiful, but we hear it might rain. Here is hoping for the best.

Saturday 10-23-10

Nelson Lake NP

Made breakfast burritos this morning with pork sausage and eggs, it was so good and had coffee with cream, ummmm.  Planned on heading into town to see if the P-town crew responded about trip options and book our tramp the Kepler in Fjordlands.  Ended up doing just that but then decided to walk around town a little to find a book store.  Got new books then spotted a Saturday market, we decided to stroll through and see what was there.  It was filled with pies, ice cream, honey and various other edible treats.  We were both feeling hungry and decided to get out of there quick.  Got to the car made sando's and started to head south to Nelson Nat. Park only on the way the weather was just too nice so we stopped at a park just off the beach that was completely vacant, pulled out our sleeping pad chairs and caught some rays while catching up on reading, it was to nice out to drive.

As evening came on some clouds moved in and we headed towards Nelson Lakes.  the drive was nothing interesting, felt like we were driving through OR or WA with tree farms and clear cutting everywhere.  We pulled into Kerr Bay campground  at the town of St. Arnaud right on the edge of Nelson Lakes National Park and both felt so glad we came.  There was a warm breeze, totally clear blue skies, a big lake with sail boats on it and big mountains opening up to even bigger snow capped jagged peaks to the south, awe…. very nice.  The Kerr Bay campground is very small but has solar heated showers that are free for campers, free stoves and a big covered eating area, it also has miles and miles of trails and tramps starting right at the campground.

After hanging out in the sun for a little while fighting off vampire sandflies  we went back to the van and installed new curtain wires, no more sagging string hung with safety pins!  It turned out really good, this van is really becoming home!  

Friday 10-22-10

Woke up today to another beautiful day on the Tasman Bay.  Slept in and took our time cooking breakfast and visiting with our Cali friends before getting on the road.  Alice and Shabree had the exact same outfit on.  Both had Brooks cascade running shoes, nike capri pants, and mid weight patagonia long sleeve shirts! It was to funny, Jesse took a picture of them next to the matching vans. Headed back to Nelson to grocery shop and check out the DOC office and talk to the local DOC officer on what to do.  We were looking at the Travers' Sabine Circuit in Nelson park,  but the lady took out her book and read the local conditions as heavy snow with crampons and ice axe necessary at some of the high areas.  Even with shabree's new bad ass boots we figured we probably were a little short on supplies for this tramp.  After more discussion with our DOC officer we decided the park did however have plenty of other options for day trips and would be a great place to hang out for a little while.   Also at the DOC we researched further tramps to get a game plan for when the Portland crew arrives and went to the library for a little time catching up on the internet.  

Once done in town went back out to Mc Kee campsite, set up camp, made awesome fajitas with lame salsa (all there salsa is sweet and has NO spice) and went to bed when the sun went down.

Thursday 10-21-10 Last day of the walk

About 7am it started raining, however it only lasted about 15min before the clouds blew away and the sun shined again.  We hung our rain flap to dry while we ate breakfast.  Paul bandaged my heels for our last few hours of hiking.  I looked goofy in my teva sandals and socks, but it was better for having my heel in boots.  We enjoyed our last few views of gorgeous bays.

We booked another night at the Barn, to shower and do some laundry and sun tan in the summer time weather (when out of the gale winds). To our delight our California friends with our van pulled up!  We had a nice evening chatting with them and a tour group that was staying in the hostel.  This group was much nicer than the first one we encountered while staying here before the tramp. The leader was very funny and seemed to like Paul and I.  He made these mini pancakes for desert for his group and gave Paul and I quite a few of them as well.  There was one american in the tour group, and a bunch of british girls. The american guy was such a dork, everytime he spoke we cringed and wanted to say not all Americans are as nerdy as he is! The British girls were very funny they talked for hours about the latest celebrate gossip, who's cute, who's not, who's dating who ect.  It was very funny to ease drop.

Wednesday 10-20-10 Random housing in the middle of the park

We slept well and slept in till 9:30am, and we smiled wide when we saw the blue sky and sunshine.  We had plenty of time to dry the rain fly of our tent while we ate breakfast and enjoyed the views to our private beach.  Once tramping again the trail climbed into the highlands and away from the ocean.  It was great to see the bush in this area, it is a lot of the same plants we have seen, but somehow slightly different.  For instance there are much more vines on the trees, the fern trees are bigger and the top of the ridges it seems like the high desert. 

We hit Torrent bay about mid day. We knew there was some vacation homes in the area (there is a lot of private land in the national parks here) but it felt like black butte. This was the place we were to camp at tonight, but it was all in the shade, had no view and just sucked.  We decided to cross our last low tide crossing. A side note my new boots rubbed the skin off on the left heel ( I know shocking) so when we came to a small river crossing we were not wanting to take off my bandages. Paul being wonderful waded across the river with his packed dropped it off walked back across piggybacked me and my pack. With freezing feet for Paul and dry raw heels for Shabree we hit the trail and walked for 5 min to our poached campground the Anchorage!  

We we arrived we were the second tent. So we ditched our packs in the tent and walked to this point that we thought we could see penguins. An hour later and no penguins, we walked back to our tent to see about 6 more tents.  Every tent seemed to be spread out when Paul says "Are you kidding me!" Right next to our tent was another tent. We are talking 3 feet away.  Irritated and confused by this person we read our books and tried to ignore him. He then went to a picnic table right next to a lady's tent across the way.  After dinner we went to our tent and heard someone using the picnic table right by our tent. We tried not to be to annoyed since there were few tables, but we wanted to see who was using it. It was the girl who was across the camp, since the moron that tented right next to ours was using her table. And worse this guy snored all night!

 Tuesday 10-19-10 Start of the Abel Tasman

Monday was spent uploading wedding pics in an internet cafe in Motueka, S   L   O   W  internet speeds, but it was raining out so what better way to spend it than sipping coffee, reading and getting our pics.  then drove to base camp, The Barn to prep for our tramp.

Tues - After a very cold night we woke up to blue sky!  We were expecting rain, for the start of our tramp.  We stayed at The Barn a hostle/campground that is two minutes away from the place we were to meet our water taxi.  At the Barn we saw our exact van! We met the couple who called it there home as well, they are from San Francisco; Jesse and Alice.  Jesse just finished his MBA and Alice was ready to change jobs.  They will be in NZ for three months.

We parked our van at the aqua taxi and set out to meet our skipper and guess who pulled up at the taxi… Jesse and Alice will be on the same trip.  The meeting place is not by water but on land a few minutes from the ocean.  They loaded our packs in the boat and then loaded us in the boat.  A tractor pulled the boat to the water and backed us in! A vert efficient way, but the skipper said the local police do not like them to use this method.  The town of Marahu is population 30 and they all work to cater to the tourists going into the park.

Our taxi to the start of the walk was more than we expected.  We went out of our way to see Split Apple Rock.  It is a spherical rock that sits on a bed of rocks above the water in the middle of a bay.  The rock is split in half.  It is a big deal because NZ used it in there international tourism campaign.  We headed north to our destination.  About 5 min past split apple rock the boat to a sharp turn and we knew the skipper spotted something. Off to the left only about 10-15 feet off the boat we saw dolphins! When we thought it could not get better we saw a baby dolphin! it was just about the cutest thing we have seen, it looked just like a dolphin but no bigger than a salmon.  The skipper said they have to stick right by their mom's side for the first few days/weeks because they babies do not know how to balance themselves well.   Of course like an idiot I put the camera in my pack and it was not accessible. Ugh! And right after we saw the dolphins we spotted little blue penguins! The blue penguins are the smallest in the world.  They are very shy so as we approached they ducked under water.  We liked our skipper, he called out the DOC for being "a bit slack" about how they talk to tourists and run things! All we could do with grin.

About an hour later we arrived at Totaranui the start of our tramp and it was amazing.  Golden beaches kissing green/blue clear ocean!  We headed on the trail to our first campground for the night Tonga bay.  We were blown away buy the views and of course the trail.  It was a great trail and well maintained, however still kiwi with 3 slips in about 10min of walking from the start.  We met a guy from Switzerland named Stephan, we hiked and chatted with him as we crossed our first low tide crossing that we would encounter on the trail.  It took us about 20 min to walk across the bay, it was not completely drained.  We crossed a river down the middle that was up to our knees and very cold.  

We arrived at our campground and were again blown away buy it's beauty.  About 20 min after we set the tent up the rain came.  It rained on us for about 3hours. We huddled in the tent thinking about having sandwiches for lunch instead of our warm noodle dinner to stay dry and warm.  About 8:30 we cooked our dinner in the tent, ramon and tea, YUM!   

Sunday 10-17-10 Nelson

Waking up to rain in Aussie bay, headed to Nelson to feel out the Able Tazman great walk.  We found street parking right in front of the I site/DOC and since it was Sunday we did not have to pay, yay.  We spent the first few hours on the internet. I have been checking my email since we arrived waiting for the wedding pictures to be ready, and they were ready today.  We could not have been happier with them, there are some very special pictures and we just love them!   We booked the Abel Tazman walk for 10-19-10.  The weather will not be sunny and hot like all the pictures advertise, but since this is the most visited national park in NZ because it is so accessible we decided to beat some of the crowds.  There are two low tide crossings, we talked to the DOC lady and she showed us the tide chart for next two weeks so we could plan what direction we are walking and when to hit the tidal crossings.  They would not give a print out of the times and did not seem to recommend we write them down…we should just know I guess.  We asked for a pen and wrote the times down.  Then we over heard the DOC officer casually talking about some kids who could not cross a river, missed a tidal crossing, could not be picked up by boat because the ocean was too rough and the road washed out  that would get rescuers close to them so no one could pick them up for a bit.  Interesting?!  Felling good about our planned route we booked tent sites. No huts this time, the tent sites are cheaper and we can't live in luxury all the time!  We are completing this tramp in 2 nights and 3 days.  After our last great walk that we could have completed in the same time and missed the snow storm we figured a little hustle never hurt.   

Since it was still raining in Nelson we decided to get some supplies.  We looked at some hiking shoes for Shabree that were waterproof.  Her shoes get so saturated that we figured to enjoy our spring hiking we need shoes to go with the rest of our gear.  We found her a great pair.  Paul will be looking for more selection and probably pick up a pair in Christchurch.  Nelson is a great town, very pretty.  We walked around most of the day and decided to eat some lunch. Looking in restaurant windows we spotted "oldrity" the guy with the dreadlocks from the ferry! We did not eat there but went to Lamborettis and each had a sandwich. It tasted so good to have some different food! What a great treat.  

Leaving Nelson due to no places to camp we drove up hwy 60 to Mc Kee campsite. It is right on the ocean and only $6 per person. The rain let up as we pulled in so we enjoyed dinner with another ocean view, beautiful sunset but the ominous storm clouds hovering around the mountains.  

Sunday 10-17-10 Nelson

Waking up to rain in Aussie bay, headed to Nelson to feel out the Able Tazman great walk.  We found street parking right in front of the I site/DOC and since it was sunday we did not have to pay, yay.  We spent the first few hours on the internet. I have been checking my email since we arrived waiting for the wedding pictures to be ready, and they were ready today.  We could not have been happier with them! There are some very special pictures and we just love them!   We booked the Abel Tazman walk for 10-19-10.  The weather will not be sunny and hot like all the pictures advertise, but since this is the most visited national park in NZ because it is so accessible we decided to beat some of the crowds.  There are two low tide crossings, we talked to the DOC lady and she showed us the tide chart for next two weeks.  We planned what direction we are walking and when to hit the tidal crossings.  They would not give a print out of the times and did not seem to recommend we write them down.  We had to ask for a pen to write the times down.  Then we over heard of some kids who could not cross a river, missed a tidal crossing and the road washed out so no one could pick them up for a bit.  Interesting?!  Felling good about our planned route we booked tent sites. No huts this time, the tent are cheaper and we can't live in luxury all the time!  We are completing this tramp in 2 nights and 3 days.  After our last great walk that we could have completed in the same time and missed the snow storm we figured a little hustle never hurt.   

Since it was still raining in Nelson we decided to get some supplies.  We looked at some hiking shoes for Shabree that were waterproof.  Her shoes get so saturated that we figured to enjoy our spring hiking we need shoes to go with the rest of our gear.  We found her a great pair.  Paul will be looking for more selection and probably pick up a pair in Christchurch.  Nelson is a great town, very pretty.  We walked around most of the day and decided to eat some lunch. Looking in restaurant windows we spotted "oldirty" the guy with the dreadlocks on the ferry! We did not eat there but went to Lamborettis and each had a sandwich. It tasted so good to have some different food! What a great treat.  

Leaving Nelson due to no places to camp we drove up hwy 60 to Mc Kee campsite. It is right on the ocean and only $6 per person. The rain let up as we pulled in so we enjoyed dinner with another oceanview but this time huge storm clouds around the mountains and hugging the coast line... hopefully heading away from us!

Saturday 10-16-10 South Side

We woke up early to make the ferry. It was a good thing we left the camp while most everyone else was still asleep because the dome was completely flat! Sorry to all the kids who looked forward to jumping on the dome today. we are starting a diet today! As we were waiting to drive on the ferry we were observing our fellow ferry goers. Most looked normal, saw a few travelers such as ourselves, a tricked our Mitchubishi Endevor with all the bell's and whistles.  This mitsubishi had Burton stickers everywhere and the first personalized plates we have seen here "oldirty" Nice! The driver looked like he could have been from Portland super fancy gear/ride but with dreadlocks'.  While dreads was trying to be cool there were Kiwi's on our left who were pounding beers. Mind you it's 7am! These were not young people, but older men, we gave them a good look and will try to avoid them on the road!  

The ferry is very nice. Our trip was 3.5 hr but seemed to cruse right along. With about an hour to go you could start seeing the big mountains of the South Island. And I saw a twinkle in Paul's eye! My sweetheart loves his mountains! Getting close to port there was a whole school of dolphins surfacing about 30 feet off the boat and we ran through several huge jelly fish pods with thousands of the things visible in the clear blue green water.  We arrived right on time to clear blue sky in Picton.

Picton

Jelly's

Picton is a small town built right around the harbor.  We found the I site, got some info then REALLY eager to get out in the sunshine, set off on a hike right out of down town along the bay called Snout track.   As we were walking to the start of the hike we had to dodge about 50 7-10 year old boys and girls all getting their sail boats ready at the Picton Yacht club.  We started the hike and were walking through the same lush forest as the north island with incredible views of the bays and islands.  We stopped for lunch at Queen   Charlotte's lookout and ended up hanging out for about an hour just soaking in the rays.   Heading back we all the sudden noticed that all the little kids we had seen a couple of hours earlier were now about even with us out the arm all racing in their little boats around an island and they were cruising!  We saw a couple flip their boats, the safety rafts with the coaches or race officials out there had their hands full righting boats and fishing out wet kids, it was a great show!  

Lunch on Snout Track

We stayed the night as Aussie bay. A small DOC right on the water. Again we had the place to ourselves.  We watched the sun set while drinking wine and eating dinner. We a duck soap opera play our before our eyes. Shabree named the ducks, and one male had two lady friends! Paul thought he was a pimp but I think he bit off more than he could chew.  We had a lot of fun with the ducks! We must not be around that many people!

Aussie Bay Campground

Friday 10-15-10 Wellington Adventure

Spent another night at Catch Valley DOC campsite listening to the heavy rain and lying awake wondering if the van would lift off and we'd wake up in Oz.  Good thing for us our little van boxed well against the wind and we were still standing (on 4 wheels) as daylight came the wind let up but the rain would not stop, we made coffee and ate a quick breakfast and prepared, in the mud, to head into Wellington for errands and to have a look around the city.  After several figure 8's and faulty kiwi senior citizen directions we found the train station and headed downtown.  When we arrived it was raining and windy and we found a nice cafe in the train station with wifi and outlets.  We ordered tea and hot chocolate and plugged in every electronic item we own to charge while surfing the net, it was nice to catch up and , with cords and electronics everywhere recharge all our batteries!

Finally the weather cleared and we went out to explore the city.  Down town is right on a harbor on the edge of Cook Straight, the city is very compact with unique architecture, all the buildings seemed to have character…much cooler feel than Auckland.  We roamed for a little while then found our sports store to buy stove fuel and Paul battled with himself over whether or not to but a pair of extremely over priced but totally bad ass Varnet sunglasses.  In the end his logical side won which was good because we ended up forking over several hundred dollars later just to buy milage for our diesel van(tax is not included in pump price with diesel, you buy it by the Km) and to renew our registration, it was quite a shock to both of us.  It is funny how one day we feel like we are doing so good and we can splurge a little and the next hour we have some big bill and and we start stressing about how much we are spending with nothing coming in, the joys of unemployment.

After a really cool afternoon in Wellington we caught the train back to our car and went to find a campsite for the night, DOC locked the gates until 8am so we would have to find somewhere else cause we had to be at the ferry at 7am.  We found a Top 10 holiday park, pricey but with free showers and lots of hot water, both of us took 20 minute showers, it was SO NICE!  After cleaning up we made dinner then tried to watch some tv but got kicked out by a british tour group with a minim age requirement of 70 having a planning meeting as to which motor camps to drive to next. The leaders of the group (husband wife combo)sported matching outfits! We promised each other to never match like that in public, we then put on our long sleeve Ibex shirts and down vests different colors though, went outside and decided the large rubber dome filled with air that was like a trampoline was calling our name.  We both got on and were giddy jumping with Paul doing tweaked out methods and ski tricks and Shabree completing 10 point toe touches and other misc dance moves.  It was so much fun but right as we tried to take some pictures the dome started being less bouncy and we noticed it was loosing air.  We quickly made an exit back to the camp site and never looked that way again for the rest of the night.  

Thursday 10-14-10 South Island here we come!

We woke up to hike a trail a fur seal colony.  On our short drive from the campground to the hike we were flagged down by a guy on the side of the road with his hazards on, we rolled down the window and he informed us "theres some sheep coming up the road so please take it easy"  we said ok and kept driving expecting to see sheep being herded up the road, instead a few meters later there was a herd of about 10 sheep just walking up the road on their own, not sure how he got them to do it?!?!?

      On the hike it did not rain on us but the clouds were very low and you could not see the top of the hills.  We walked through private sheep pasture land for most of the way on the edge of the beach on just about the farthest south you can go on the North Island, the sheep run in and out of their fences and were all over the beach even in the reserve, not sure what they are eating or why they decide to pee every time we get close..  Walking along the Cook Straight on a rainy day it is still amazing how blue the water is. Once the land got rocky we found our seals! We rolled up to a group of big males.  They did not seem to concerned with us.  We kept our distance, but when Paul was positioning himself to get a picture, one of the males let out a groan, and all of the mom's with baby's dove into the sea.  We did see some baby's but the were far from us and ready to flee at another call.  It was a great way to start the day.

We drove back into the lower hutt and went to the I site.  We pulled the trigger and bought a ferry pass that leaves saturday morning at 7am! We are so excited!!! We were not going to go down south until are amigos were coming to visit in Nov, but there is just so much for us there. 

Wednesday 10-13-10, Down Pour

Waking up to a down pour, was disheartening.  We wanted to spend the day walking around Napier. It is such a cute town, with lots of Art Deco buildings to explore and cool shops.  Since our shoes are still drying out from our snow adventure we did not want to get our last dry pair soaked as well.  We decided to not stick around and head south toward Wellington.  

Hwy 2 to Wellington has been the best road we have driven on! It has been mostly flat, no washouts or hairpin turns.  Paul has been a happy driver.  The landscape has been a lot of green rolling hills, and some sheep, but not as many.  We went through a funny looking town called Dannevirke.  This town had cheesy bill boards and cut outs of vikings everywhere! I guess we know where they landed (inland) in NZ!

We stopped along the way looking for a restroom.  To our surprise we stopped in the park that filmed one of the scenes from Lord of the Rings, Rivendale.  However, we were much more excited about the little parrots we saw.  They were brighty colored and looked like mini scarlet macaw, a whole flock flew infront of the van and we stopped to watch them hopping around in the grass!  Things are very tropical as far as plant life and animalsin spots. We have felt at times like we are in Central American jungles, but without the humidity! 

Wellington looks like a really cool city. We just drove through the Upper Hutt (a suburb) and turning into the lower hutt to get to a DOC campground.

Our camp was very nice and there are Kiwi's around.  We hope to see one tonight!  We hiked up a trail for about an hour to stretch our legs. It was getting dark so we did not make it to the top.  We were the only campers once again! When I was changing into my thermals for the night I heard Paul say "Holy Crap!"  I jumped out of the van seeing that he was looking up.  I follow his gaze into a large tree. It was a huge white bird! I grabbed the binoculars so we could figure out what kind of bird it was. My guess was an owl.  To our surpass it was a Cockatoo. We had know idea that they had huge cockatoo's here. We watched him for awhile, The picture was hard to get, but you can see the yellow crest on his head.  

Tuesday 10-12-10 More vino? Yes please! :)

We decided to treat ourselves with a wine tour.  The weather is still stormy, but no snow this low, sun breaks, with high winds and big fast moving storm clouds that dump every few hours, so what would be better than trying the local wines! We did our laundry, secured the tour, and cleaned our van, while we waited for Ian our tour guide.  

Ian was very nice, he took around the town as well and shared a lot of history about Napier.  We picked up two older couples, one from Northern Ireland, the other from Scotland.  We all agreed it was nice we all spoke English, but laughed when we realized all of our English is very different!  

We visited 4 vineyards, and had 6-8 tastes at each vineyard.  At the first place I tried Dukkard, a dry middle eastern dip.  You dip your bread in olive oil then in the dry dip. This was so good! It is very popular here and in Australia.  The kiwi's thought it was funny that i have never heard of it since it's from the northern hemisphere. At the same vineyard we met another Australian couple that came right over to us and said " Are you the yanks?" He shook our hands and said "I'm on your side mate!" Not fully understanding what side he meant we gladly accepted our new comrades!  This couple was not on our tour but talked our ear off.  We have another invitation to look them up in South Australia for a place to stay! I think we are some sort of Aussie magnet. We love it. However, our kiwi amigo Ian was not impressed with the Aussies.  While he lead us to the van, he said he should not have let us talk to the Aussies.  There is a definite rivalry between the two countries. Similar to us and Canada, except it is a fact we are better than the Canadian's. A maple leaf… are you kidding me!  

After six and half ours of wine, we became great mates with our fellow wine lovers.  Ian dropped off the other couples and took Paul and I on a short tour of the town to explore further on our own.  He also asked about Sarah Palin. Good thing for us he thinks about as much of her as we do, not much.  Feeling giggly we made dinner and are going to burn some movies from our Sheffield friends! Cheers!

Monday 10-11-10 WTF Snow!

I did not want to get out of bed until I heard Paul say "Holy shit it snowed!" I jumped right up!  I grabbed my glasses expecting to see a just a dusting.  To my surprise there was 5-6 inches on the ground and it was still coming down with a 50 mile an hour wind.  I was very nervous, I don't have very much experience with hiking in a storm.  I did not know if we should stay in the hut or try and get off the mountain.  We had no idea if it was just the top of the mountain or if the whole lake was getting snow as we could not see much ahead of us.  Paul walked down the trail and said we could still see the orange triangles on trees that mark the trail.  We decided to leave before we would be snowed in for a few days.  The hike down was to take 5hr.  We figured we could do it faster and it would be down hill.  Once our rain gear was on and we had dry clothes to change into once we reach the bottom shelter.  The shelter is a waiting area to be picked up by the water taxi or bus.

I was very nervous due to my lack of experience, but felt very safe with my Alaskan husband!  The trail started up hill for the first hour. I felt slow, but was very motivated to get the hell off the mountain.  There were 3 very sketchy parts that I held my breath walking over. Two were on the rock side to the mountain. Slick rock with narrow trail on sheer cliff. The snow was very built up that if you stepped a few inches to the left you would have no trail and fall off the cliff. We all know how I feel about cliffs, so this was very hard for me to walk over. I just focused on Paul and went for it carefully but not to slow.  The other part was a wooden staircase on the rock cliff secured by who knows what, probably Elmers glue, paper clips, and duct tape.  There was a sign that said 1 person max. This was crazy, one person max, but would it hold one person with snow? Ugh.. we made it past these awful areas and back into the forest.  I would rather deal with dropping branches than cliffs with snow drifts above Paul's knees and mid thigh for me.  I need to note that we had gear to deal with this weather, but not shoes.  We had our running shoes on! Our feet were very soggy.

We reached the bottom shelter in 2.5 hours. I was very shocked by our time. I felt slow, but the fear made us haul ass!  It was snowing at the base but was not sticking, thank goodness.  Once in the shelter we stripped down and put on our dry clothes.  I had a pair of dry shoes (worth the extra weight!),we took out a sleeping bag and cuddled in the corner to get warm while drinking hot tea.  We waited two hours before our water taxi came.  We felt so great to make it off the mountain.   

Captain Ron picked us up and delivered us to our van.  Now would she start..? Yes! She started right up.  We got the hell out the lake.  Being very exhausted we drove two hours to Napier to Snapper motor camp.

We took a very hot shower, baked a meatlovers pizza!!! Yummy!  We met a lovely couple from Sheffield England, and a couple from Capetown South Africa.  Spent the rest of the evening drinking beers, and chatting with our new friends in the motorpark kitchen.

Sunday 10-10-10

Another nice morning! We ate a lot of oats this morning since we knew we had a big climb ahead of us.  Paul and I felt these were the heaviest packs we have ever carried, it must be the fact that we did not backpack at all this year back home.  We set out on the trail that started straight up.  The sign said 4hr till the Panikire hut, out last hut of the walk.   We found it a bit strange that they mark all the hikes or tramps by time rather than milage or Km's. They also have no postings letting you know how close you are to your destination.  They do let you know that you are two minutes away from the hut which makes us laugh because you can see about 10 min before you get to it.  It was a very steep hike, but was the most scenic and fun part of the trail!  There were all of these natural steps made out of the roots of trees.  A lot of these steps were very big, past my waist.  Paul would have to go ahead of me on some and help hoist me up since my short legs had a hard time reaching the steps!  It was exhausting, but so rewarding! We reached out hut in 3 hrs! It was nice, but not as nice as the night before!  

It was infuriating when we found other people left their rubbish.  You are to pack out your rubbish, there are no garbage cans.  Once we changed we had to clean up the hut.  We scrubbed the counters and added the rubbish to our own to pack it out. Also at every hut there is a log book that you are to sign and date, and give your next destination and write whatever else you like.  These are not only fun to read, but important for search and rescue to know you last whereabouts and future destination if something were to happen.  Our log book at this hut had all of the pages ripped out! Ugh, it put such a bad taste in our mouths that people who should love the backcontry be so selfish and disrespectful!  

We spent most of the afternoon sunbathing on the deck and wandering if we would luck out and have another hut to ourselves.  Around 7pm and no people we knew the hut was all ours!  Paul and I played many games of speed and go fish! I won most games of speed and Paul straight dominated go fish!  It was fun to play cards.  We have such a fun time harassing each other in friendly competition.  

Around 8:30pm it's dark and I could hardly keep my eyes open.  It was very windy, so it was hard to fall asleep.  Once the wind and rain stopped, I was just about to fall asleep when i heard a little critter running around. This rat/mouse/thing sounded like he was running right for us to share our sleeping bag! I jumped out of the bag and sealed the entrance. Paul wondering why I'm breathing heavy, and freaking out, I told him to listen for our new friend.  In stead of listening the wind we became mouse detectives.  This f*&$% thing kept us up for hours.  Once we get settled he would charge us again. We would shine our head lamps but never found him.  We think he was actually underneath us but it sure did not sound like it.  Right when the wind picked back up the mouse stopped making noise, at this point we are so tired we just start laughing like crazy because we could not do anything else. Once we finally got very little sleep our alarm went off at 6:40am.  Ugh…

Saturday 10-9-10 Lake Waikaremoana and Hut Waiopaoa

After a stormy night we woke up to blue sky! After a great breakfast of Oates and honey and hot coffee we set out for our second day on the trail. My hips were bruised from the pressure of my 40lb pack, but after about 3min on the trail you do forget about the discomfort.  We followed the lake most of the day, lots of ups and downs. We saw this big bird on a branch. It had a white chest and dark blue feathers. It was really pretty. The picture does not show the colors very well, but we were excited to see some wild life!   The day seemed really long. The views were ok, but nothing we did not see the first day.  We came to a side hike to Korokoro falls about 30 min. We took the trail, but took our packs off and hid them in the trees. We ran most of the trail, until I tripped on a root and flew superman style to the ground.  Paul decided we could slow up since we (I) was really tired and not picking up my feet.  I was glad we did not take our packs when we came to a river crossing that had wet rocks and a wire cable to hang onto. Soon after the river crossing we came to the falls. It was pretty, but coming from Oregon we have seen our fair share of waterfalls.  So after a quick picture we ran back (much more carefully) to our packs.  

Right when we put our packs back on it started to rain! Ugh, we were so close the hut, we decided to put our pack rain covers on but not our rain gear.  It just sprinkled, but we had to walk through some marsh, so our feet got very soggy.  About 40 min later we saw our hut!

The hut looked more like a lodge! It was very nice, and we had it all to ourselves! Score! After getting out of our wet clothes, and the wood fire blazing we had a great evening playing our reception play list on Itunes and dancing around the cabin (I guess I was the only one dancing) but I think the dancing helped loosen my sore muscles!  The evening was so beautiful once the rain stopped.  We slept very well.