Last day in New Zealand

Kea, the mountain parrot

We spent a delightful day in Christchurch. It started at the New Zealand Air Force Museum. Since the NZ air force spent most of its time as part of Great Britain's RAF, this wasn't very exciting. A collection of mostly World War II planes, but they did have a Sopwith Camel (Snoopy's plane) from World War I. Next was the Antarctic center. Christchurch is the starting point for the New Zealand, American, and Italian expeditions to the Antarctic. We started with a disappointing simulation of a summer storm - 8 degrees Celsius and 45 km winds, so the windchill was -18 degrees Celsius, pretty sissy. Then we went on a fun ride on a Hagglund, the tracked vehicles used in the Antarctic. We climbed 40 degree hills and crossed water 3 meters deep. Unfortunately, we didn't have time to see all the exhibits, but what I was was interesting. The best parts were a colony of little blue penguins and the 17 minute movie of the highest, coldest, driest continent. The Willowbank Wildlife Reserve was the highlight of the day, a close-up view of both endemic and introduced species from the long-finned eels, which dominate the rivers to the geese, Pukeko, and ducks in the air. The hits were the Kea parrots and finally seeing a Kiwi with their long beaks (in the dark). We ended the day with a trolley ride around the center of town and beer at the Art Centre, basking in the sun.

Feeding the long finned eels

So how should I sum up this trip? What a lot of variety in a small country, though we did travel 2175 miles. Alpine snow, to glacier rivers, to thermal features, to prairies and deserts. The highlights were the helicopter flight around Mt. Cook, the water falls of Milford Sound and the glow worms in Waitoma caves. Another highlight was Paul Brown, our bus driver, who is Maori. He had many Maori stories to tell us, translated all the place names, shared the home towns of the rugby players for the All Blacks, the national team and sang us several songs. We've never had such an interesting bus driver.

Mt. Cook to Christchurch

Sunrise on Mt. Cook

The morning sunrise was spectacular - clear blue skies as the sun hit the east face of Mt. Cook, then Mt. Sefton, and slowly lit up the glaciers below Mt. Sefton. We left Mt. Cook's Hermitage lodge and began descending from the high country. Lake Tekapo provided a coffee stop as well as a pretty stone church, named the Church of the Good Shepard on the Lake. This church is shared by 3 congregations. As we descended into rich farm land around Christchurch, the food basket of New Zealand, we again passed lots of sheep farms, the growing dairy farms and a few deer farms. All very typical of this countryside.

Church of the Good Shepard of the Lake

We reached Christchurch about 4 PM and many set out for souvenir shopping since most of the group leaves tomorrow. The girls have a 7 AM flight to Sydney and then home.

Mt Cook (Aoraki)

Moeraki boulders

Today is the start of Fall in the Southern Alps. We traveled about 1 1/2 hours to stop at the Moeraki boulders. These boulders started as calcite crystals int he ancient mud and grew over time. As the Pacific Ocean erodes the shoreline they become exposed to the surface. Next stop was the town of Oamara, where the old town is filled with limestone building.

As we left the ocean we started following the Waitaki river which has hydroelectric dams built all along it. These dams supply electricity to the entire country. In fact, the joke is that the North island would float away if it wasn't for the power cables providing electricity to the North island from the South island. At last we saw Mt. Cook or Aoiraki, the cloud piercer, 12394 feet high. Our hotel room has a beautiful view of Mt. Cook and Mt. Sefton.

Aoraki, the cloud piercer

Laura and I decide to hike up the Hooker valley. We pass a memorial to the 69 climbers who have died here. We travel next to a lake filled with glacier milk, cross 2 one lane suspension bridges until finally we get a closer view of Mt. Cook, but it's covered by clouds. We still had a great 3 hour hike through bogs, desert, scree, and scrambling up rocks.

Dunnedin

New Zealand Fur Seal

We spent the morning traveling to Dunnedin. The countryside changing from mountains to rolling plains with cattle, sheep, and deer farms scattered throughout. On arrival, we took a trip down the Otago peninsula to see the wildlife. We had a choice of penguins, albatross, or seals and penguins. We chose the latter, Nature's Wonders, and on arrival got into an 8 wheeled ATV with a driver. It was like a Disney ride as we went through mud holes, water holes, and climbed steep hills. We had a beautiful view of the peninsula and harbor area from 160 m up. Then we descended to sea level to see a colony of New Zealand fur seals. There were quite a few babies and well as adults. In the ocean were huge belts of kelp, which grow at a rate of 1 meter/day. We then traveled to a different area to see penguins. Sheltered under a rock we saw a couple of little blue penguins, the smallest penguin. Fifteen percent of the world's population of yellow-eyed penguins live on this peninsula. At one point they were down to 900 penguins, but today there are about 1200. They were very difficult to spot until finally one came out of the ocean in the distance and another turned around so we could see its white belly in the bushes, a fun experience.

Little Blue Penguins (at Antarctic center)

Milford Sound

Mitre Peak, Milford Sound

We're on our way to Milford Sound and stop for an early lunch at Te Annu next to the largest lake on the South island. It begins to rain as we enter into Eglington valley with the peaks hidden in the clouds. We make a brief stop at Mirror Lakes, which are left over after the river shifted its course. As we go further the water being to flow in places like Falls Creek and a beautiful carved canyon, the Chasm. We're beginning to see more and more water falls in the nearby cliffs and after we go through the 1.2 km. tunnel carved out in the 1930's, they're everywhere, a precursor of the sound. We begin our 2 hour cruise through the sound. There is Mitre peak, the most famous landmark of Milford sound hidden in the clouds. As we cruise the sound, there are waterfalls everywhere, only two of which are permanent - Lady Bowen Falls (161 m) and Sterling Falls (155 m). The rest of the waterfalls only appear when it rains, and they fall from great heights. The sun shines more and more as we make our way to the Tasman sea. The sound, actually a fjord, isn't actually very long. But it is easy to see why this is a World Heritage Site. On our return, they get us soaked going under Sterling Falls.

Unfortunately, our return bus trip is tragic. Margarete has an asthma attack and can't breathe. We stop the bus. Peggy Connor begins to help her. Another bus stops and 2 other nurses begin to help. A helicopter pilot stops by in his car, we're in an area with no phone communication, but he has a radio and asks for an ambulance. The nurses begin CPR. At first Margarete begins to breathe again, but a few minutes later, they're giving CPR again. About 75 minutes later a medical helicopter manages to land on our narrow road and an ambulance arrives. But it's to no avail, she has died on the side of the road.

Queenstown

Shotover River

Queenstown is where Beth spent most of her weekends when she student taught in New Zealand. It's a tourist town on Lake Wakatipu surrounded by mountains. Here you can do anything that involves the outdoors: jet boat, bungee jump, ski, kayak, etc. We chose a four wheel drive trip on a shelf road down skippers canyon. This was a gold mining area and the canyon is filled with tailings from the water sluices that used to operate here in the 1860's. The road follows the Shotover river for about half its length. It has many beautiful views of the river and other rock formations like the castle and the lighthouse. We stopped at a restored school house and ranch for tea and then return to town. Meanwhile, the others took the Lord of the Rings scenery tour, which covers some of the nearby locations used in the movies.

Lighthouse Rock

In the afternoon, we do laundry, shopping, and a walk through the gardens. Dinner was at a nearby Irish pub, where we had a great stone grilled steak, superb! It was good to have a relatively quiet day after many single nights in different locations.

To Queenstown

Knight's Point

Today we traveled the rain forests of the West Coast which get 200-300 inches of rain, but we got to see it in the sunshine. Most of the forest is covered in pine trees and ferns, all of them very tall. You feel that the dinosaurs should be lurking nearby. We stopped numerous times for the sights: Fox Glacier, Knights Point on the Tasman sea, Timber Creek Falls, and Lake Hawea. Our big stop was a jet boat ride up the Haast river with view of the 2000 foot Harris Falls and Joe Falls. We had fun jetting up the shallow river and doing a few 360's. While the river was shallow today, it only takes a few days of rain to turn it into a torrent from shore to shore.

We arrived in beautiful Queenstown at about 4:30. Our Novatel hotel is right along the water front. In the evening, we took the gondola up the mountain side for gorgeous views of the lake and its surrounding mountains. The buffet up there was quite delicious. We ended the day, celebrating St. Patrick's day at a local pub.

Queenstown from the gondula

Franz Josef Glacier

Mt Cook from our helicopter

The morning started with a ride on the Tranzalpine train from Christchurch to Arthur's pass. About half of the ride was through the flat sheep country of Canterbury. Then we reached the mountains and beautiful views of the glacier fed Waimakariri river. We passed through many tunnels and bridges as the train climbed through the valley. The high country was filled with patches of beech trees. From Arthur's pass the bus took us down a 16 degree grade to the Tasman sea on the west side of the island.

After a lunch stop, we reached Franz Josef Glacier about 3:30. Here we took a helicopter ride and saw 3 glaciers: Franz Josef, running from 600 ft to 8000 ft. above sea level, the Fox Glacier next to it and Tasman Glacier on the opposite side. They were all impressive with blue ice, deep crevices and the dirt flowing on the sides. We also went by Mt. Tasman and Mt. Cook (Aoraki), the highest mountain in New Zealand at 12000 feet. Finally, we landed on Fox Glacier at about 6000 feet of altitude. Below us was ice over 1000 feet deep. The sky was a gorgeous blue, and it was so warm we didn't need our jackets. On the way back, we had quite a bit of smoke in the air since a farmer was burning his field. The trip was definitely worth it. Then it was beer:30, time for a Guinness at the local pub on this glorious day.

Beer at the local pub, it's beer:30 !

Christchurch

Christchurch Art Centre

We rode from our hotel down to Kaikawa for our lunch stop. On the way, we stopped at Oahu Point to see a colony on New Zealand fur seals sunning on the rocks. The town of Kaikawa is a small tourist town, the starting point for whale watching tours. Mike and Peggy took the tour and saw 8 whales and several hundred dolphins as well as three species of albatross.

After lunch, we travelled the coast line road to Christchurch, a beautiful city of about 325,000. We took in the Arts Centre, filled with craft shops and outdoor vendors. Then we walked the botanical gardens, largely an open air park with some concentrated planting areas scattered through the park. The town center itself has the Avon river running through it with many a 'punt' poling or kayak rowing. Cathedral square in the town centre was a clean, beautiful square with lots of flowers. Of course, it was the last day of the flower festival in town. Dinner at the Copthorne hotel was one of our best - green shell mussels, salmon, and apple strudel. It was an early bed night since we have an early start on the train tomorrow.

Chalice and Cathedral

Wellington

Kiwi Skeleton with egg, Te Papa Museum

Our morning started with a quick trip to the top of Mt. Victoria for a view of Wellington harbor. The wind was actually calm in the "city of winds" We were let loose in Te Papa, Wellington's famous museum. Mary and I start in the special Monet exhibit, mostly on loan from Boston's Fine Arts Museum. His use of different light on the same subject was amazing. The museum is broken into multiple sections on various subjects. We visited the section on the Waitangi treaty between the English and Maori. This is significantly affecting things to day as the Maori regain their property. Our next section was on the introduction of species to the islands, then the effect of volcanoes on the natural history of the island. I was shocked that the natural history portion was primarily models of animals, not the actual animals. Most interesting was the section on volcanoes with dramatic films and pictures showing the landscape changes in the last 100 years.


We spent most of the afternoon (4 hours) crossing the channel to the South Island. On arrival we went to a wine tasting at the Montana Winery, then a late dinner and bed.

Bus Travel to Wellington

Today was a travel day with coffee and lunch stops. We did stop at the Wairakei geothermal plant which utilizes the 230-260 degree Celsius steam to generate power. Next was a Huko (foam) falls, a small waterfall. Lunch was in Lake Taupo and then we climbed into a National Park to view Mt. Ruapehu, 2797m, an active volcano. The approaches to Wellington (2 of them) hug the narrow coast with hills surrounding you. It only took an accident to completely block traffic for over 20 minutes.

Mt. Ruapehu, tallest on North Island

Rotorua, the thermal area

Rotorua is famous for it's thermal features. Here the Pacific plate is buckling under the Australian plate and the magma is as little as 2 km. below the surface. Our first stop was Wai-0-tapu thermal wonderland with it's mud pots, thermal pools and craters with hot springs. The water ranges from clear water to a black oily water (good enough for kerosene lanterns) to a bright green color from colloidal sulphur.

Devils Bath

We then went to the 10:15 eruption of the Lady Knox geyser. In the 19th century, prisoners used to wash their clothes in this pool. But they were surprised by a geyser. The soap would break the surface tension of the water causing the geyser to go off. The geyser naturally goes off every 24-72 hours, but they use soap to have it erupt at 10:15 every day.



The area we visited was Waimanga (black water) valley. This used to have large pink and white terraces until the volcano blew in 1867 destroying the terraces. From 1900 until an earth slide occurred in 1904, this was the location of a geyser 400 meters in height.

This whole area remind you of a tropical Yellowstone - fumerals, steaming lakes and rivers, the steaming Cathedral rocks, but with palm trees around it instead of fir trees.

Cathedral Rocks

In the evening we had a home stay with Donna and Collin, who live in the outskirts of the city, where lots are large enough for sheep, a cow, or a horse. Others on our tour actually were on dairy farms or sheep ranches. Collin imports chicken eggs and incubates them for the local market. It was a fairly quiet evening, discussing their life in New Zealand and our mutual enjoyment of travel.

Rotorua

We spent most of our day traveling south toward the center of the North Island. About mid-day was our major stop the Waitoma (water hole) caves. Originally discovered in 1887, these limestone caves have a unique creature, the glowworm. These worms glow to attract insects. If you shine a light beneath them, you can see that hanging down from the worm are 20 or so filaments with which they snare insects, who are attracted to the glow. After 9 months, the worm forms a pupa and turns into a mouthless, stomachless fly that mates, lays eggs, and dies.

Filaments dangling from the glowworms

As we were floating on the river in the cave, it reminded me of a bright Wyoming night scale filled with constellations. When asked what actually glows on the worm, it's the 'poo', a substance excreted from the digestive tract.

In the afternoon, we had a quick walk on the Arapuri Swing Bridge built to carry workers to the first hydropower plant on the Waikato river, New Zealand's longest.

Our dinner was a Hangi Feast, traditionally steamed on hot rocks or in our case the thermal features surrounding our hotel. There followed some traditional Maori dances and singing - the girls using poi (balls tied on a string) to keep time. The guys demonstrating the haka, the dancing designed to scare off your foes.

Auckland New Zealand

We spent most of the morning waiting for the girls. They were arriving at 4:40 AM and should have been to the hotel by 6:30 AM. Turns out their plane from Denver took off 3 hours late - it had been hit by lightening on its way from Chicago and had to be checked out before flying again. They were rebooked on a flight that arrived later, getting to the hotel about 10:30AM.
We had a city tour in the afternoon from the harbor to the big park with the Auckland museum. It wasn't particularly interesting: lots of neighborhoods, plus stories of how the harbor area is being revitalized with new buildings, marinas, hotels, and restaurants. We ended out tour a Kelly Tarlton's Underwater World. Kelly took an old water treatment plant and changed it into an aquarium, a penguin encounter (primarily Gentoo and king penguins), and a stingray pool. We made the 3:00 feeding of the stingrays. While this was a Fodor's choice, it wasn't very special to us, we should have gone sailing.

Stingray Feeding

Auckland New Zealand

We're ready to begin a family vacation with Laura and Beth, and our friends from Fort Collins, Peggy and Mike Connor. After an uneventful 13 hours of flight in row 74 (the 2nd last) of a 747, we made it to Auckland. Laura and Beth will arrive tomorrow.
We arrived at our hotel about 8AM. Since our rooms won't be ready for hours, we decide to take the ferry boar to Devonport. Devonport is a cute little town, a nice place to live and still be only 12 minutes from the city center. We had breakfast at a little cafe, then walked the Mt. Victoria hill which was an ancient Maori fort, and more recently a hidden gun emplacement to protect the harbor.
In the afternoon, Mike an I went to the Auckland Museum, especially known for its Maori artifacts, especially a storehouse, lodge, and war canoe from the 1800s.

Maori Storehouse

On the 1st floor were dinosaurs, and exhibits of extinct moas. kiwis, and penguins. We also lucked into T. Rex Sue on a visit from the Chicago Field museum. The 2nd floor was filled with war memorabilia.
Mary and I managed to stay awake till 8:45 PM and then to bed.