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