NZ Cont. (Part 2)

Now, as I was saying...

Once in Milford Sound, we boarded a small boat which took us to all the nooks and crannies of the sound and out to the Tasman Sea, from where we could see the rugged coastline extend into the horizon. The boat was small enough that the captain got right up under a few of the waterfalls so everyone on the bow of the boat got sprayed. The scenery was just breathtaking, there's no way to describe it that would do it justice, so we took a few hundred photos instead but it'll be a few more weeks before I can post those. We got to see some seals hanging out on the rocks and swimming, twisting around in the water, from just about ten feet away. We also spotted some dolphins that came and swam right up under the bow of the boat, criss-crossing back and forth and so close that our faces were splashed with droplets of water coming right out of their blowholes. It looked like a giant belly button opening and closing. By the end most everyone had gone back inside because of the cold but I stayed out on the bow drinking it all in, my body giong numb from head to toe. I was standing right there, on a boat in the Southern Fiordlands of New Zealand with arctic winds and saltwater spray hitting my face.

We all dozed most of the way back to Queenstown, I had forgotten my book and ipod and my phone's battery was dead so I had nothing to do but think or sleep, and I definitely don't need to do any more thinking!

We hadn't planned on going out that night but Nea kept insisting that she wanted to to and she finally got her way. Good night to go out, too, as we stumbled on a Chilean World Cup match at a bar where the entire Latino population of Queenstown was watching the game. We went to another bar first where we were given free drinks by some guy who had won a $500 bar tab and then we were nearly assaulted by a group of English guys. We fled to the other bar. We got back to the campervan around 4:30 in the morning, put on all our sleeping layers, and called it a night.

We were supposed to check out of the campgrounds by 10 a.m. but at noon we were still putzing about gathering our belongings. There was a sharp rap at the door and on the other side stood a one-armed man with a grimace on his face and a clipboard tucked tightly under his wing. He told us quite coldly that we should have been out of there by 10 and basically to scram, so while the other two girls were showering, Lupe and I got to enjoy the lovely experience of emptying the gray water from the camper as well as the toilet box. We had all agreed that only liquied shall enter the toilet box, all other matter was to be deposited in public restrooms. Since we were laughing so hard, it was difficult not to breathe and inhale some of it, so we half-laughed and half-choked our way through it.

Once on the road, we headed in the direction of Lake Wanaka. There were some amazing views of Queenstown from the curvy, mountain highway that slithered its way up through a very windy mountain pass. Lake Wanaka was freezing and windy so we only spent long enough outside to take a few pictures before running back to the camper to get some warm food in our bellies. The rain drops sounded like metal pellets on the camper and the wind was blowing so hard that it made the camper rock ack and forth. Once we though the weather was clearing up a bit, we got on our way again, but no sooner had we gotten on the highway than it started raining and then snowing. Lupe was driving and not only was it her first time being in a snow storm, but she'd also never driven in snowy or icy conditions. The snow started to stick and we pulled over to decide what to do with the worsening conditions. The car that had been behind us pulled up alongside and asked if we were okay and if we were planning on going much further that night. We had been planning on going a few hundred more kilometres but they recommended we stay the night because of the snow. They agreed to show us where a capsite was, so they pulled ahead of us but a few minutes down the road they stopped again, the driver got out and came to ask if we wanted to park the camper in front of their house for the night so we wouldn't have to pay for campgrounds. Our budget-minded selves were much-obliged to accept their kind offer and once parked in their front yard, snow coming down heavily, we were invited in for a cup of tea and come crabapples stolen from their neighbor's tree. Hannah and James were very sweet and down-to-earth and we spent an hour or two talking around their kitchen table, drinking hot tea and laughing. After taking a picture and writing down their address with the promise of a postcard from Mexico, we went back out to the camper to sleep. Three of the four of us were now going on our second night and neary third day with no shower and bundled up with basically the exact same clothing day and night. I spent the entire next day with a hat pulled tightly over my greasy hair, thankfully it was chilly enough to be coherent.

The following day we drove up the rugged west coast of NZ, pulling off the highway every so often to take in the cliffs plunging hundreds of feet into the Tasman Sea, the desolate beaches scattered with torturously twisted driftwood, and temporate rainforests with ferns as big as golf umbrellas. It felt so strange to drive through a mountain pass in the Southern Alps feeling like we could be in the Antarctic and just a few minutes later to feel like we could be in a rainforest in the middle of the Yucatan.

We got into the town of Franz Josef just before dark and went to book our glacier excursion for the next day before treating ourselves to a surprisingly delicious steak dinner for about 20 USD. Although complete grease monkeys by any standards, we went to bed once again without showering as we figured we'd want to shower in the morning anyway. Three days, three nights. At least it's not hot and humid!

Indulged in a long, hot shower the next morning, scarfed down some cereal, pulled on my hiking boots and snow pants and off we went. Our guide was a native of Franz Josef called Brooke. Her father was a glacier guide for 15 years and her first time up there was when she was three. As Maori legend has it, the glacier was formed when a Maori couple decided to climb the valley walls. The girlfriend loved th mountains and climbing, but her boyfriend was a total beach bum. Sometimes though, to make her happy, he'd accompan her to the mountains. One day, as they climbed the walls of the valley, the girlfriend was way up high in her own little world of bliss, when the boyfriend got stuck. He couldn't go up and he couldn't go down and finally, exhausted, he fell to his death. The girlfriend was so upset she cried until her tears began to fill the valley and form a river. The Maori gods decided to freeze the girl and her river of tears as a monument to their love for each other and that's how the Franz Josef glacier formed. The Europeans in the group all groaned and the Mexicans swooned.

It was an exhausting full day on the ice. To walk with the cramp-ons (metal spikes that you clamp to the bottom of your boots), you have to keep your feet straight, shoulder-length apart, and stomp your feet into the ice with every step you take. Our guide les us halfway up the glacier, carving steps in and out of the crevaces with her ice pick. We got to squeeze through a few holes and tight crevaces, literally sapphire blue, with the feeling that surely you'll get stuck or the glacier will decide to move and you'll be trapped in that tiny crawl space, getting squeezed more and more tightly with each breath you exhale. Thanksfully there was always light at the end of the tunnel and the glacier didn't budge an inch. We descended off the glacier right before dusk, exhausted, freezing, wet and aching, swearing never to step foot on another glacier again. It was really amazing to be up there, literally slithering between two walls of blue ice no more than 6 inches apart, but I think a "once in a lifetime experience" is definitely applicable.

As it was our last night in NZ and we still had a bunch of food left to finish, we had a double-feast for dinner. Pasta with four-cheese sauce to start, then salad, and for dessert a treat for ourselves - brie and camembert with crackers and apple slices, topped off with a few glasses of white wine from a box, another shower to wash off the glacier grime, and off to bed.

Friday was our last day in NZ before flying to Melbourne. We got the camper back just in time and I spent my last few NZ dollars on chocolates and a few postcards, and on to Melbourne!

New Zealand Part One

When we landed in Christcurch, New Zealand, the camper van we had reserved wasn't available until the following day, so we took a shuttle into town and found a hostel. It was a short walk "downtown," if you can call it that, where there were a few blocks of bars, restaurants, cafes and shops, a little old train car-turned-restaurant going around, a small cathedral, and some barely-past-puberty skateboarders showing off their tricks in the town plaza. We found a cozy restaurant with heated outdoor serating for the smokers in the group and ordered a few coffees to warm our chilly bones while we planned our itinerary for the week ahead. It was an early night, I think we went to bed around 8 in the evening, just after two stinky Frenchman joined us in the room at the hostel. One of them snored loudly and unevenly, providing the only obstacle to a night of sound slumber.

We rose before dawn as Mexico's second match of the World Cup was being played at 6:30 a.m. New Zealand time and we had found a bar the night before where we could watch it. So as unbelievable as it may sounds coming from me, we watched Mexico beat France over a good coffee, a glass of milk, and a big English breakfast at a bar in Christchurch, NZ at 6:30 in the morning with a small bunch of Mexican and French nationals. We left right after Mexico's victory and convinced a shuttle driver to take us back to our hostel, wait for us to pack up our bags and then drive us back to the airport where we could pick up our camper. Turns out the shuttle driver had an ex-girlfriend from Mexico City and he'd been all over Mexico. He even spoke pretty passable, Kiwi-accented Spanish!

Lupe was the bravest of the bunch and was the first to get behind the wheel of the camper. We had a slight mishap due to the inexperience of driving on the left side of the road and one of the rearview mirrors was nicked, causing a bit of a shake-up. It took about five hours to get to our first stop, Lake Tekapo. It's a glacier lake near Mt. Cook in Mackenzie. We arrived shortly before dusk with enough of a chilly breeze that the lake was covered in whitecaps. Posed for numerous pictures and wandered over to investigate a little old church on a point jutting out into the lake. A tiny, stone church built in the 1930s which in my opinion could qualify as being the church with the most stunning views on the planet. We left at dusk and decided to sleep near Mt. Cook so we wouldn't have to drive much in the morning, so the dark scenery zoomed by in a black blur, hiding itself from us in order to be discovered the next morning.

I put on my boots the next morning to go outsie and turn on the gas so we could use the stove for breakfast and immediately had to return for the camera. We were surrounded by jagged mountains, covered in snow and a mossy, green carpet of trees. Nestled between the mountains was another glacier lake, grey in the light of a cloudy dawn. It had rained all night which made for a restless sleep as you can hear all the droplets falling on the metal roof of the camper. After breakfast and showers, we headed to Mt. Cook.

We had been informed the night before that due to heavy snow and freezing conditions, some roads and most of the tracks were closed, but because of the rain overnight and a mild morning, about a foot of snow had melted and things had opened back up.

We hiked through Hooker Valley with the intention of getting all the way into the valley to see Hooker Glacier, but everywhere we looked and every corner we turned gave us such midnblowing scenery that we were a bit slow on the trail. We passed a little, stone monument with dozens of copper plaques left in memory of adventurers and mountaineers who had died on the mountain due to accidents, falls and avalanches. There was a hanging suspension bridge (another one further down the trail that we didn't get to), an almost entirely frozen-over lake with jagged pieces of ice covering the entire surface like a jigsaw puzzle, and rolling hills covered with a spongy, soft green moss and freckled with dark boulders. We debated whether to finish the track or to head back to the camper for lunch and get to Queenstown by nightfall. Lunch it was, which we prepared on the side of the highway overlooking another glacier lake. We had a late lunch of pasta with bottled tomato sauce while the sun went down over the lake.

It was a long drive to Queenstown. Lupe and I watched Fatal Attraction in the back while Aleja drove and Nea co-piloted. We got to Queenstown around 9:30 p.m. and went to sleep shortly after setting up camp. I slept in my pajames, jodded sweatshirt, fleece jacket, nestled inside my sleeping bag and under the duvet that came with the camper. Warm and toasty like a hot down in a warm bun.

Queenstown, named as such because the first European settlers decided that, being nestled on the edge of a lake with a majestic backdrop of New Zealand's Southern Alps, the place was fit for a queen. The founders were two families of goldminers, still amongst the wealthiest families in NZ. The city gave us a gray and rainy welcome, well-deserved I suppose after the luck we've had so far - sunny every single day. We spent the day walking around the town, exchanging money, booking our outing for Milford Sound the next day, had a bento box at a Japanese restaurant for lunch, and then went down to an ice cream placed called Patagonia for dessert. I had a delicious lavender hot chocolate, warmed me up right to the core.

We sat at a table where there were two other people on their laptops, talking about how we should be careful what we talk about because people could understand Spanish and going on and on. After an hour, I said something about wishing I had hair like the girl at our table and she glanced up at me and I knew instantly that she had understood every word we had said. My face was burning and I'm sure I turned purple with embarrasment. At least I was caught paying her a compliment...she was from Argentina.

We came back to the camper to watch a movie, a laughably bad one, and then started cocktail hour with boxed wine called Goon. After a few litres of Goon and a dinner of sliced-in-half hot dogs, sprinkled with cheese and heated up in the microwave, we went into town to try and find a decent bar. What we neglected to realize is that it was a Sunday night and it was a bit of a ghost town.

Monday morning we got up at 5:30 to go to Milford Sound in Fiordland. We had debated about whether we should go with a guide on a bus or just do it ourselves, but we were warned repeatedly about the drive being NZ's most treacherous highway and cars constantly going off the road. The highway didn't actually end up being as bad as it was made out to be, but it was a good six hours there which would have meant twelve hours of driving in one day. The driver also spoke the better part of the drive there, providing us with a wealth of information that we would have otherwise never known.

Milford Sound is considered by some to be the 8th natural wonder of the world. The Fiordlands are a World Heritage Site, which means it's virtually a locked safe, nothing can be taken in or out, so our children's children can visit and it should be entirely and completely unchanged. Most of the drive is through a lush, temperate rainforest and beech tree forest. The ground is covered with giant ferns and a pale green moss called "gorilla snot" by the locals hangs from the tree branches. The area gets 200 days of rain a year, meaning it gets ten times more rain than London, and we were lucky enough to be there on one of the rare days of sunshine.

Duty calls and it's my turn to shower, so I'll continue the next time I get a chance to use the internet. Hasta pronto!

Sydney cont.

I'm up a bit earlier than the rest of the girls this morning and I thought it a good opportunity to update this, only I'm having a hard time separating the days! I feel like we've done so much walking and seen so many things that they've all sort of blurred into each other...in a good way though.

After my very early morning on Sunday, I had to wait a good while before the girls got up. In the meantime I enjoyed myself a few cups of English breakfast tea and a few trashy magazines, then went ahead and made our lunch to take with us. Since the girls were running low on energy, we decided to take it easy and headed to the Chinese Gardens. We've had amazing weather everyday since we got here, in the mid-sixties, so walking around the gardens was really nice. Lots of bonsai trees, weeping willows, meandering streams, ponds, waterfalls, etc etc. From there we walked to the firsh market where we were nearly attacked, once again, by the fiendish seagulls whilst trying to enjoy our red tuna sashimi and seaweed salad. Since we were planning on attending free salsa classes (I know, I know...), we came back to the apartment to get pretty.

Salsa dancing was a blast. It was quite awkward at first, as the women had to start in a circle while the men switched partners every few minutes. I was told by a Frenchman, "this song is really hot...you make me really hot" at which point I quickly scurried back to where Lupe and Nea were. There were some amazing dancers there, an Australian-born Portuguese guy and a Chinese guy that had a dance-off, and we had a blast being twirled in circles, but only after downing the water bottles full of liquor that we'd smuggled in, of course.

On Monday we took a bus out of town, or to a suburb of Sydney rather, called Coogee. There's a 5km walk from Coogee Beach to Bondi Beach (pronounced Bon-day, it's Sydney's most famous beach apparently). The scenery was absolutely spectacular, little coves carved out of the craggy cliffs that jut dramatically out into the sea. Naturally-formed pools where older people and little kids can swim, completely sheltered from the crashing waves. The water was dotted with surfers all waiting to catch the perfect wave. A surf camp for little kids who "bunny-hopped" and paddled out again and again. Dripping surfers half-clad in their wetsuits around their waist that got quite a few giggles when we were caught staring. Skateboarders dipping and twirling in and out of what looked like empty pools in Bondi Beach. Once the sun went down, we went to have a coffee in one of the many outdoor cafes with space heaters and spent a long while laughing and telling stories. One of Lupe's friends called her to tell us about something called "Fire on Rocks" so we jumped on a bus and came back into the city. Turns out Fire on the Rocks is a show the city puts on every year with dancing and music, fire and boats, costumes and floating dragons, all on a floating stage in Sydney Harbour illuminated by the light of flaming barrels floating in the water. As luck would have it, we got to be here for the one day a year they put the show on.

Bodies are starting to emerge from the rooms now, so I must bid adieu and get a bite to eat.

Arriving in Sydney

A 4 and a half hour flight from Cincinnati to L.A., a four hour layover, and a fifteen hour flight across the Pacific put me smack-dab in the middle of Sydney, Australia. The long flight actually wasn't as bad as expected other than the announcement half an hour before landing that it would be a "very rocky descent" and images of Lost flashing through my head. Other than that it was just the usual, lots of sleeping, a couple of movies and two not-so-great but also not-so-bad meals. First stop off the plane was the Duty Free to fulfill the order for a flip-top of Marlboro Reds and two bottles of gin (Australia, apparently, is very expensive and tobacco and alcohol are heavily taxed). Then on through customs and out to meet Nea and Aleja, the two other girls who had just arrived from Mexico City, out in the chilly 7 a.m. dawn.

We took a taxi to my cousin Lupe's apartment on George Street, had breakfast, showered, and took care of first-day administrative stuff. Grocery store (eating in all week to save money), paying for the rest of the Fraser Island trip, ATM, etc etc. We finally left to do some sightseeing around 5 but being winter in the southern hemisphere, it was already getting dark. Our first stop was the cathedral where they illuminate the front facade at night. They illuminate 6 other buildings around Sydney and most of them look pretty tacky, but the cathedral is really gorgeous. It's like a slide-show, with a bunch of different images fading in and out of each other on the projection. We sat for about an hour and a half and watched the whole cycle a bunch of times, sitting on the cold, stone ground of the plaza and taking it in.

From the cathedral we went to the 42nd floor of a circular building where there's a rotating restaurant/bar. We got our first look at the famous Sydney Opera House from up there, as well as an amazing view of the entire Sydney skyline all lit-up at night. I was surprised by how modern the city is, lots of steel and glass skyscrapers jutting up into the sky contrast with the beautiful geography of the winding coastline. After one gin and tonic I was pretty much falling asleep in my chair (it's a 10 hour time difference with Cincinnati) and we called it a night.

We got a much slower start than expected on Friday, not leaving the apartment until around 1 in the afternoon. We spent the entire afternoon walking, covering most of central Sydney. All the way down George St. to a neighborhood called The Rocks, full of winding streets and cool, old buildings. We walked half-way across the Sydney Harbor Bridge from where we got great views of the harbor and the city. From there we went down to the Opera House. It was smaller than I expected it to be but amazing nonetheless. The bathrooms were the coolest bathrooms I've ever been in, with curvy wooden doors on the stalls and lighting impressive enough for a modern art gallery. Next came the Botanical Gardens where we unpacked our picnic lunch and were soon close to being attacked by the seagulls and birds. We kept shooing them away and pretending to throw things at them, but they were fearless and after Lupe warned us that they've been known to attack people, we grabbed our stuff and ran for a bird-free zone to enjoy the rest of our lunch. We didn't wander around the gardens too long because dusk was upon us and the giant bats hangin like pods from the trees were starting to wake. We made a quick escape and walked over the Art Gallery of New South Whales. There was some really cool Aboriginal art work that we weren't allowed to photograph for "tribal reasons" and some other cool stuff, but the museum was closing so we didn't stay too long. From there, we walked down to a neighborhood called Woolloomooloo where there was a pretty little marina, great views of the skyline, and loads of those giant bats swooping and soaring overhead. We decided to rest our haunches and treat ourselves to a beer before walking back to the apartment.

We didn't get to rest long because being the first game of the world cup pitting Mexico against South Africa, we had to join the festivities. I know, I know, I don't like sports, but we didn't really actually watch the game. We went to an apartment where there was a mixture of Mexicans, Irish and Australians to pre-game, have a bit to eat, and watch the opening ceremony before heading down to a park where there were huge screens set up to watch the game. Lots of boxed wine means the night is sort of a blur, but we had great fun.

Our hangovers meant that we got another slow start on Saturday. We took a ferry from Circular Quay to Manly Beach, getting some great views of Sydney Harbor on the way. Manly Beach is like a little seaside town a half-hour ferry ride from Circular Quay in central Sydney. It was pretty chilly and we were hungry, so we found a little restaurant where we shared some calamari and pasta and then took a quick walk down to the beach. The chilly breeze meant we didn't wait too long before getting back on the ferry and coming back to the apartment for a nap. The nap turned into sleeping through the night for me, surprise surprise, which is why I've now been up since 5 this morning. The other girls went out and though Lupe is sound asleep in the next room, the other two girls have yet to make an appearance. So it looks like it's going to be another slow start...more time for me to enjoy my morning coffee and a good book while watching Sydney awake from the window.

I don't think I'll get a chance to put any photos up until I get back to the States, so you'll have to wait for those. Probably won't get a chance to post much after we leave Sydney either, but I'll try my best! Good morning, good afternoon, good night, hello, how are you?