Milford Track

Hiking the iconic Milford Track was our next New Zealand adventure. In a word: WOW. It was four tiring but stunningly gorgeous days. First, we bussed from the town of Te Anau to Te Anau Downs, where there are boats running up Lake Te Anau to Glade Wharf.

This region of NZ, Fjordlands, is notoriously rainy, and we did get spit on a bit as we make the first leg of the hike, and again on Day 3 as we made our way up over Mackinnon Pass. But other than that, we were really pretty lucky with the weather as we hiked along the lovely Clinton River...

...enjoyed the mountain ridges towering around us...

...stayed each night in the basic huts run by the NZ Department of Conservation along this trail...

...saw tons of bird life, including the destructive NZ parrot, the kea...

...walked 33 miles on paths this magical...

...enjoyed views like this (from Mackinnon Pass)...

...crossed a dozen fun, wobbly bridges...

...saw more waterfalls than I could count (including this one, Sutherland Falls, the highest in NZ at 580 meters)...

...and then finally finished the trek at stunning Milford Sound.

So like I said: WOW.

Marlborough

Spent some time in the Marlborough Region these past days. So much fun to check out the town of Nelson (though it was startling to see a stoplight for the first time in awhile) and its movie theaters, many restaurants, farmer's market...

...and (SR was very excited about this) TABS, known to gamblin' types as bars where you can bet on horse races. We lost.

Once we'd had our fill of the big city, we headed out into the quiet peace of Marlborough Sounds and the idyllic Hopewell Lodge, which is tucked against the water's edge here so unobtrusively that you can't even really see it as you're coming upon it.

We spent many hours here just relaxing, reading on our beautiful porch with a beautiful view...

...taking advantage of the water right out the front door via kayak and stand-up paddle board...

...and going along on a trip to collect some of New Zealand's unique green mussels from one of the area's many mussel farms.

A couple times/week, the Hopewell owners throw a mussel dinner free to all the lodge guests--just one of the many reasons this was an amazing place to stay and VERY high up on my list of favorite spots on this trip so far.

Gorgeous time, gorgeous place, hope to return someday....

Golden Bay

Loved the Golden Bay area for the couple days we spent there. Treated ourselves to a rare dinner at a restaurant, this one at local favorite The Mussel Inn.

It's apple harvest season in New Zealand, and it's so fun to see trees just sagging under the weight of so many beautiful red apples. Look out for them at a grocery store near you soon...but maybe buy ones that were grown more locally if possible!

Collingwood, the end-of-the-road town we stayed in, won my heart completely by having a fancy chocolatier, where I bought a delicious peppermint chocolate as a special treat.

And we both loved the walk to and around Wharariki Beach. This beach is actually on the West Coast, but because we're at the very top of the South Island, the land gets thin enough (eventually coming to a point at Farewell Spit) that it's a short trip from the golden east to the wild west coast.

This beach was gorgeous, with it's wild rock formations, caves of colorful conglomerate rock, seals (see the one in the pic below?)...

...tiny clams (?) in uncountable numbers clinging to the bottom inches of rock, where the tide rolls in...

...and other fun surprises, if you look at the rock carefully enough.

As we headed back south from Collingwood, we stopped at Te Waikoropupu Springs, the largest freshwater springs in all of Australasia; so strange to see the vast area of water just bubbling up from below.

We also made a diversion into the interior of Abel Tasman National Park, to the Caanan Downs area, for a walk to Harwood's Hole. The Hole is actually one of NZ's biggest caves, but it is so narrow and deep that it wasn't really possible to take a picture. Still impressive to glimpse in person, though. I'm also not going to post the picture I took of the view at Harwood Lookout, which was completely spectacular in reality but so relatively disappointing through the camera lens. But I can give you this shot of the forest that we walked through to both those sights, which might already look familiar to you fantasy film fans out there. Apparently parts of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy were filmed in this reserve, and it's clear why. Especially when the sun briefly came out on our walk in, the light filtering down through the trees made it an utterly magical place.

Abel Tasman

We spent three beautiful days hiking in Abel Tasman National Park, on one of New Zealand's "Great Walks" trails. A water taxi took us out to our starting point at Awaroa. Check out the awesome water-worthy tractors they use to drive and release the water taxis into the water after they load all of us in there on land at their office down the road:

And considering we'd decided to bypass the expense of kayaking the park, it was fun to see it by water on our way to the start of our hike--including a stop at "Split Apple Rock":

Once we were back on dry land, we just walked and walked south, back to the town where we'd parked--which of course took far longer than the two hours it took for the water taxi to ferry us north. It was the perfect balance: sleeping in as much as we wanted in the a.m., getting packed up and walking about four hours, and then relaxing and doing whatever we wanted until it was time to bunk down in one of the group huts along the trail, and then do it all again the next day. Pretty sweet. Hope you enjoy the pics of the gorgeous coastline up here in the north of the South Island!

Karamea

Continuing up the coast from glacier territory, we eventually made it into the wild northeast of the south island. We continued past Punakaiki, which I visited during my first week off the ice (I've now been in NZ for a full month! Crazy!) even farther into one of the more remote-feeling parts of NZ.

When we got to the end of the road, we were in the chill, lazy, sunny, hippie town of Karamea. There we planted ourselves for four nights. Why not?

There are a bunch of nice walking trails around town, including one to a big rimu tree.

And when I asked if there are glowworms around here (as I'd seen signs for glowworm tours a bit farther south), one of the hostel managers at Rongo Backpackers fired up the hostel van after dark that evening and took us to the trailhead of Fenian Track. Just 30 meters up the path, we turned off our headlamps and began seeing specks of white-blue light dotting the hillside. So cool! There is actually a glowworm in this picture, though they're so tiny it's difficult to see. A bit of Where's Waldo for you: see the blurry dark blob just above and to the left of the center of the photo? And then one of the sticky glowworm "web" tendrils that hangs down just as far as the upper right curve of that blob? Follow that tendril up, about four little bulb-shaped units. Your eye should run into a pale brown, long, skinny thing that also appears to be kind of ribbed and that runs nearly horizontal across the picture (though points slightly down to the right). Glowworm! I was imagining them as these fat, gooey worms whose entire bodies were phosphorescent. But they're actually tiny, long and skinny, and it's just a single dot of light on their butts that glows.

Another lovely outing from Karamea was a day trip to the Oparara Basin and its pristine temperate rain forests and amazing limestone caves.

On the downside, I came down with a bad head cold at the end of our first day here, and it hung on for the rest of our time in Karamea. So there was a bit less exploring of the area than there would have been otherwise, as SR sweetly hung out with me at the hostel in my pathetic state. Luckily, Rongo Backpackers is a great hostel. Right outside the front door, they have a garden that the owner, Paul, took me into, plucking all sorts of fresh veggies and herbs that he hoped would help me feel better.

By evening, there was entertainment just steps away from the hostel, in its adjacent little movie theatre!

And attached to the movie theatre is Karamea's own radio station, founded by Paul and kept eclectic by travelers who are willing to do a radio show or two while they are in town. In the three days we were here, we got to hear a Jesus-themed show as well as a hippie-themed show. Really, something for everyone in Karamea. A beautiful spot.

Heading north in the south

Still on the south island for a quite a bit longer, and will be returning even farther south to visit Fjordland in a few weeks, but for now we reached a southernmost point in Queenstown so try out a luge track--the ONLY thing SR has been able to come up with when I've repeatedly asked what he wants to do in NZ, so it was a moral imperative but also incredibly fun, with a great view of the city and its spectacular location.

Queenstown's rep is as NZ's adrenaline capitol, and in the afternoon we were there we saw people parasailing and bungee jumping and more, but we kept our wallets in our pockets and fled north. From Wanaka, headed through the mountains and lakes--consistently, ridiculously gorgeous scenery...

...with stops at the "Blue Pools"...

...a cornucopia of magical waterfalls...

...and finally to the western coast with the Tasman Sea stretching far as the eye can see.

Continuing north from where the road (there's only one road; no worries about wrong turns!) hits the coast, we headed north into Glacier Country. Stopped first at Fox Glacier...

...and then its brother, Franz Josef Glacier, both a pleasant hike from the established parking areas, as they both continue to recede farther and farther up their respective valleys at an alarming rate.

 The glacial nature of the area shows itself in other ways, too, like these turquoise glacial waters running down rivers. SR: "Rivers are not supposed to be that color!" Maybe not, but they sure are beautiful.