To the South!

After a week and half on New Zealand's North Island, it was time to head south! The ferry ride across Cook Strait to Picton takes just under 3 hours.

Picton is a quiet little town. I did a quick hike along the water and then spent the afternoon heading just south to the Blenheim area to do some wine tasting. I'm not a huge wine drinker, but this area produces some world renowned wines and it was cool checking out all the vineyards and tasting the different wines. There were some quite tasty dessert wines.

After Picton, it was on to Nelson to gear up for my 2 day trek through Abel Tasman. I didn't get a chance to spend a ton of time in town, but it seemed good sized and would've been fun to go out for a night or two.

Abel Tasman... wow! This is the most popular park in all of New Zealand. The park runs along golden beaches, lush forests, marine reserves (with seals and penguins!) granite cliffs and tidal bays, all overlooking a clear green sea. There is really no way that a description can do justice to how beautiful this place is. It seemed that every corner I turned, I was stopping to take in how amazing this place is. It's easy to see why this is the most popular. Despite being the most popular, I did not find it crowded at all and it is always great to be able to enjoy the wilderness on your own.

The main track runs about 30 miles and there a lots of other side tracks that can be done if you have the time. Since I was on a tight schedule I did the track in 2 days, although it would've been great to spend an extra day or two here and enjoy the majesty of  Abel Tasman. The track is tidal, meaning that some of the sections can only be crossed during low tide and often have no alternative route. This means that any trekkers will have to plan their days carefully so they don't get stuck. One of the cool things about a lot of the tracks in New Zealand, is that there are huts along the trail where you can rent a bed for a night. This saves you from carrying all that camping gear around, although there are plenty of sites as well if you do want to camp. Since I didn't have any gear out here, I opted for the huts. It was a LONG two days doing about 15 miles each day, but there wasn't a ton of elevation change and having a light pack made it that much easier. Although I still ended with quite a few blisters on my feet.

Next is to head south along the western coast and spend some time on the Franz Josef glacier. Until next time!

Wellington and more!

After spending an epic day summitting Tongariro, time to head south.

I spent the first evening in Napier, a little town on Hawkes bay on
the eastern side of the island. There are lots of wineries in this
region and I was hoping to do a tour but wasn't in town long enough
and too disorganized to get anything going. Instead I spent some time
walking along the a great shoreline and heading up to some bluffs that
overlook the city and caught the sunset there. Not the worst day, but
in hindsight I probably would have skipped it and headed straight for...

Wellington!

After spending a few days in this city I still feel there is still so
much more to see. I was quite fortunate to have a friend I met in the
Cook Islands- Mark- who lives in Wellington spend half a day showing
me around the city, giving me the rundown of the history and the
hidden gems in town. Despite having only ~400k in the metro area-
Wellington is a very centralized city with a ton of great attractions.

Wellington is unique in that they designated the entire range of hills
that encircles the city as a park. Going up Mt Victoria on the eastern
side of the city gives some great views of the city and harbor. But
damn it was windy up there! According to one of the placards, the
winds in Wellington blow at or above ~35 mph for half the year. I've
never been to Chicago but I can't imagine it is windier than Welly...

Some of the other highlights:

Te Papa museum - This is a 6 floor (and free!) museum right on the
harbor in Wellington. Lots of cool things here including a collosal
squid, lots of exhibits on earthquakes and volcanoes in NZ (including
an earthquake simulator), the history of NZ and the unique wildlife
that evolved on the isolated island and how that dramatically changed
when colonization began.

Museum of City and Sea- This contained a lot of the history of
Wellington. The coolest thing here was they

Lord of the Rings movie tour! We had a guide show us around to some of
the filming locations for LOTR and play the clips from the movie that
were filmed there. After hitting about a dozen or so locations (and
doing corny poses mimicking the movie) we headed to Weta Cave- the
museum/store of Weta which did the special effects for LOTR and a
whole slew of other movies. They had some amazing models on display
including the Uruk'Hai, Saurons armor, Gollum and a dozen of the
swords used in the movies.

Finished that off with finding a bar to watch the Patriots play Monday
night football (on a tuesday afternoon!) and then catching the ferry
south to Picton. The ferry was decent but I have to say that some of
the ferry views from Seattle and San Juan islands are more impressive.

More to come on south island adventures when I get a good connnection...

Volcanoes, Glowworm Caves and Hot Springs!

New Zealand thus far-

Auckland - As far as cities go, I didn't think Auckland was everything special. Most the people I talked to said the same thing and it wasn't neccessary to spend more than a couple days there. While there I spent some time walking around the city, they have some really nice parks and a decent Museum but nothing too crazy. I also spent half a day taking the ferry out to Rangitoto - a volcanic island and hiking to the top. There were some pretty cool lava caves on the side that you could go and explore! Note to self- a flashlight would be very helpful next time. The entire city of Auckland is built on a "dormant" volcano field- though Rangitoto was the last one to erupt... only 600 years ago!

Waitomo - Waitomo is a tiny city a few hours south of Auckland. This region of New Zealand produces a large portion of the worlds dairy products. Just riding the bus out of the city and seeing the awesome landscapes was refreshing. I'm not sure how many times I looked around and thought I was in the Shire. BUT the real reason I came here was for the glow worm caves! Glow worms are moth larvae that are on the ceilings in dark caves. They trick flies into coming close to them as they mimic the night sky and then trap them in a webbing they dangle down from the ceiling for eating later! I did a black water rafting trip where you sit on a tube and float/climb down the river that runs through the cave system. At one point we turned all the lights off and just watched the glow warms in the pitch black!

Rotorua - A city built on geothermals! The people here use the power of the geysers to heat homes, water and even cook food in! They also have a great forest on the hill behind the city. When british colonists first settled in the 1800's they planted 150 different tree species to see what they could grow and use for lumber. The California redwoods are of course the biggest attraction. There are some great hiking paths through the forest with awesome views over the city, though some of the paths were closed for logging operations.

Taupo - A nice little city on a giant lake in New Zealand. A little ways down the Waikato river which flows from here, there is a thermal pool that runs into the river. It's awesome jumping into the steaming hot pool and then moving 10 feet into the chilly river! I also saw my first jet boat on the river. Jet boats are a super manuaverable and quick boat powered by two streams of water. These looked like a TON of fun to ride on and I'll definitely be doing it later in the trip.

Tongariro Crossing - An epic 18km through Mordor! This takes you past several peaks, volcanic craters, lava fields and lakes! The weather for the day started quite good, but clouds and heavy winds rushed in just as I hit the Tongariro summit. Had conditions been that bad before I went up, I probably would not have done it. I'd love to go back on a nicer day and do this hike. On a clear day you are able to get coast to coast views! About halfway through the descent out on the opposite side, the terrain quickly changes from alpine to dense forest. I sudden change was quite surprising!

Next stop is Wellington! Until next time!
Brandon

Until next time Cook Islands!

I landed in Auckland this morning and now that I'm in a civilization with decent internet… it's time for updates!

After spending 10 days on Rarotonga- the biggest and most populated of the Cook Islands this is a great place to go if you want to have a relaxing vacation on some beautiful beaches. The island is quite small, about 10,000 people live there and there is a 32km main road that circles the island where all the action is. There are few activities on the island, so a lot of my days were spent reading on the beach and trying not to get sunburned.

One of the first things I did was the cross island trek. The path takes you up to Te Rua Manga, also known as "The Needle" because of its needle like appearance in the sky. The hike was about 450m elevation gain over 5 miles. This seemed like a quite easy trek, but it turns out most of the elevation gain is in a stretch of < 1 mile, which made that part SUPER steep.

Once at the base of the needle, there are some beautiful views to the north and south of the island. The official path ends at the base of the needle, but there is a metal chain bolted into the rock that you can use to scramble to ¼ of the way around the needle at which point there is an old rope that goes straight up! Going to the top is not recommended and I did not feel like trying my luck that day.

After you reach the top, you descend back into the forest and navigate along a stream. We ended up losing the path at one point and had to spend half an hour backtracking to get back on course. Once at the end there is a waterfall… but since it is at the end of their dry season there wasn't much to it. Our first thought was that it must be further down so we didn't take any pictures!

Other highlights include:

TONS of great snorkelling if you're willing to take the time to explore a bit and find where the good spots are. Given that there really isn't a ton of other things to see or do on the island (especially for those on a budget) I spent many a days exploring the waters. The beaches here are shallow for a ways out and there is lots of reef where the fish like to stay. Some of the highlights were finding some pockets of hundreds of fish that you could swim with and not scare off and seeing a couple of sting rays. I wish I had an underwater camera because there were some fantastic photo opportunities.

Opening a coconut and drinking the milk. This was a quite tedious task. First we had to throw stones at a tree to knock a young and fresh coconut down. After that you have to crack the husk and peel it open. Once that is done, you gently crack a circular section out of the nut so that you can drink from it. All in all it took about 30 minutes, but the juice inside was soo sweet and tasty and totally worth it!

Rugby! There was an international rugby 3-day tournament while I was there. This was a 7 player version which plays much faster than the traditional 15-man version. Luckily, I met a girl from my hostel who plays for the Houston professional team so she was able to explain all the rules to me so I wasn't a completely clueless American. It was quite fun to watch the games although they were played in under 20 minutes so I didn't feel a lot of back and forth or deep investment in the game. Still was a great day and I hope to catch another game in NZ or even try my hand at playing.

Island nights are a traditional song and dance of the Cook Islanders. This features dancers in traditional garb dancing to the beats of a drum group. The drumming was awesome and it was cool to listen to all the different rhythms and beats they would interweave with each other.

Farewell for now Cook Islands, I hope to visit again in the future!