South Island!

South Island
So tons has happened since my last entry. Last time we chatted, I was aboard the ferry crossing from Wellington to PIcton (North Island to South Island) We arrived to the South Island crossing through some beautiful hills and Fjords on the way to the dock. After arriving to the tiny city of Picton, we started our long drive to our hostel, hoping to make it as close to our next day activity as possible. We arrived in Picton around 4:30pm, and were driving through some beautiful landscape until approximately 7:30pm. On the way there, we made a brief stop in the main city of Nelson for a quick stop to refill, and buy some groceries. Our hostel was in the small city of Motueka, and was a refurbished Bakery. When we were checking in, we were greeted with a nice older guy, his cat, and a basket full of freshly baked corn & chocolate chip muffins. We cooked our staple of pasta spirals and chicken, and shared stories with a young british couple who were sitting next to us. We were planning on going out to the one bar in town, but our exhaustion got the best of us, in addition to the 40 degree weather and rain, and we decided to turn in early for the night.The next morning, we had an early morning to catch our sea kayaking adventure in Abel Tasman National Park. We arrived to meet our bus in the next city over. It wasn’t the best of weather by any stretch, it was cold and raining, and we knew that soon ,we would be out floating in the ocean in the same. We suited up, and took a water taxi out to a small hut where we would be putting on wetsuits and gathering some of our other gear. The wetsuits were meager, but managed to keep us decently warm. Cat and I shared a kayak and we were joined by 3 other groups, mostly younger people. Unfortunately, we were only able to kayak for about 2 hours, and mostly in protected waters because of the strong winds and rain. The conditions out at sea would have probably thrown us straight into the water. So the idea to stay in the bay sounded pretty good to me. For lunch, we docked at a small spit which separated the bay to the ocean, by this time, the weather cleared up quite a bit and it turned out to be a pretty beautiful day! We had a lunch provided by the tour company, and narrated by our South African guide who has had the best accent on this trip so far. Lunch consisted of a massive sandwich, kiwi fruit, and boysenberry muffins. After lunch, we would be doing a 6km hike back to our pick-up site through the national park. It’s so weird to be hiking while its about 55 degrees out, but it visually appear that you are in a rainforest. The hike was really unique, I’ve never really hiked through a place that’s looked like that, and every now and again, you’d have glimpses of the ocean and some of the beaches. We arrived to our pick-up point exactly in time to see our sea taxi swing by and pick us up. The ride back to the start point was great, we were flying through the water, and by this time ,the weather was great. Also, I’ve never seen anyone put boats into the water like they do there, they drive the boat trailer out into the water with a farm tractor and launch and dock ships, with their passengers.Around 4pm that evening, we were on the go again. It was about 5pm, and we had a pretty long and tough drive ahead. Our next stop off point would be Franz Josef National Park. We would see how far we could make it, but it would be likely that we’d still have a fair bit of driving the next morning. The weather turned pretty sour and the rain didn’t really help with the narrow roads with hairpin turns. The driving alone would have been exhausting let alone the full day kayak we had the day before. But, we kept a pretty good pace. On the way there, we stopped in a small town along the way and found the one place still open. (note every town on the west coast was less than 4000 people, and there were only a handful). We were lucky to catch the one place open left in town and were able to get some takeaway food as a quick recharge. Cat got some fish and chips and I treated myself to pineapple burger. After another hour, we finally made it to Greymouth, the Mouth of the Grey River (clever eh?), we found an awesome little hostel called Neptunes which seemed like a great place if you were staying for a while. The funny thing was, since we asked for a double, their only double was actually a refurbished shipping container which was about 50 feet from the actually hostel (kitchen, bathrooms, etc…) However, we did have a TV with 3 channels!The next morning was an early one. We had to be up and moving by 6am, so we were up and shaking around 5:30. The weather that morning wasn’t promising, but we were optimistic it would get better As expected, we made it the Frans Josef village with time to spare around 8:40am. We stopped to get a quick gas and caffeine but then chcked in for our day-long hike on the Glacier.We bussed over to the river opening to where the glacier melt came down and began our hike. The weather had actually cleared up a bit since our morning. But they had outfitted us pretty well with waterproof jackets and pants. We hiked for about 20 minutes to the face of the glacier. It was massive! It’s so strange seeing it from a distance because it looks so different. It looks like a big mass of concrete until it gets closer to the top where it looks like blue icicles sticking up out of the ground. So the initial climb was technical, we were on safety ropes for much of the ascent. But once we topped out, it was fairly up and over climbing on the snow. Every now and again we would have to squeeze through a crevasse. These little parts of the hike were quite impressive since we saw into the clear ice from the side. Often it had shades of bright blue from the compression of the ice. After about 2 hours, we stopped for a quick lunch. One of our hiking mates managed to lose their juice box into a deep ice hole, never to be found again. Our guide, Ryan was really knowledgable and took us through some tough areas of climb. By 3pm, we were still climbing, but taking a closer look, we realized that we had not even traversed nearly 1/3 of the way up the 3000m glacier. At that point, we made a stop at our highest point of the day, and started heading back down. The way down was a bit quicker, but still pretty rough on the body. Not to mention every now and again you would step in a freezing cold puddle of ice water. My boots and crampons were fitted a bit small for me, so I was more than excited to be done with the walking, but the views were still unreal.After arriving back at the base, we turned in all of our gear, and headed to our accommodation which Cat booked ahead of time. If you’re ever at Frans Josef, we’d highly recommend the Rainforest tree Huts, it was about twice as expensive as a hostel double room, but we had a full kitchen, and the rooms seemed almost brand new. It was a great place to cook our dinner and relax after a day of hiking. We cooked up some beans chicken and rice, and also some kiwi fruit.The next day we were fairly slow getting moving, we slept in a bit trying to enjoying our nice place. We were back on the road around 11:30am for our trek down to the southern most point of our trip in Queenstown. We decided that we would probably take our time on the drive, and this decision was well worth it as the scenery was spectacular on the drive down to Queenstown. We passed only a few small towns, but we made it a point to stop at plenty of scenic destinations. If you’re cross referencing the blog with our photos, this is the day where we thought It would be a good idea to try to jump in as many as our photos as possible. So you’ll see a bunch of us jumping in front of the Fox Glacier, the Tasman Sea Coastline, and other random places such as the valleys on our way to Queenstown. On the way there, we stopped in a little country store which was playing “stand by your man” and the atmosphere was reminiscent of the country bar in the Blues Brothers. Just past the store, we found an empty plot of land which had a perfect view of the river valley. Cat and I stopped and took the moment to play some Frisbee in this pasture with a perfect view.It’s so hard to describe the views that we saw on our drive to Queenstown, but they definitely kept us interested during the drive. Our jaws would drop around every corner. We also stopped a number of times to take some short hikes to a variety of waterfalls We actually ran to some of them to shave a few minutes off so we would have a chance to see more. We arrived in Queenstown sometime after dinnertime. Our first mission upon arrival was to of course… book our bungee jump, a must-do in the Queenstown area. We booked both the Ledge Bungee (143 feet drop), and the Ledge Swing, which throws you out over the city and back. We had tried to book the big drop (Nevis), but it was booked out and we were leaving town before there was an opening…. We’re going to save it for next time… After our booking, we headed to our hostel and then to get some dinner. We had been recommended a place called Fergberger in Queenstown. Upon arrival, the place looked perfect, big burgers and country-renown fries. We found out that this local joint actually uses all local businesses as their suppliers, and the taste of the meal proved it. Cat and I agreed, it was probably the best meal of our trip.The night in Queenstown was the only location of our trip where we’d be spending two nights…. And what a nice thing that was. We were actually able to buy groceries for more than one day, and we didn’t have to worry about packing up and checking out immediately. On day 2 in Queenstown, we woke up a little late, but went on a little trek to scope out the city. We rented some mountain bikes and biked around the lake to a nearby city. The bike trip lasted about 2 hours with a short stop for lunch where we found a little dock on a far part of the lake to enjoy our packed pb and j. We spent a short bit of the afternoon doing some shopping for friends and family before we made our long-awaited trip up the Queenstown gondola where our body harness and bungee cord awaited.I think both of us knew that we wanted to do the jump before we arrived to Queenstown, but I think I may have been a fair bit more excited about the actual jump. Catherine was pretty nervous, but she was quite the trooper in convincing me to sign up for both the jump and the swing. Cat ended up going first, and on the swing since it was the less scary of the two. I videoed as she was lowered down into the starting blocks. She hastily smiled for the cameras before yanking the little red loop which sent her flying off into the distance with the picturesque views of the lake and the Remarkables in the background. Her scream didn’t sound planned at all, and was quite funny to watch if you ever have a chance! So I was next, and got myself in the same position. To be honest, I wasn’t really expecting the drop that came next. I am pretty sure I let out an non-manly scream when I went flying off, but the views were incredible, and after the split second of surprise, the drop is pretty fun too!So next was the bungee jump, if you watch cat’s videos, I apparently am sitting in the background, chilling on the couch while she is nervously getting attached to multiple cords, and asking if her limbs were going to be safe when she jumped. They really don’t give you much time to recover after your first jump…. But they counted. 5,4,3,2,1… in about the amount of time it takes you to read those numbers, and off she went. I remember screaming for her, just being excited for her. But she made it alive, with her limbs. I think she was pretty excited to be back on the platform though.Next it was my turn, I don’t think I was that nervous, but more excited about having the chance to run and jump off a platform into thin air. That doesn’t come very often. He mentioned doing a gainer, and I gave it some thought, but I thought it would be a shame if I screwed it up and ended up smashing my head again the platform… probably not the best way to spend $210. So I opted for the front flip, when my time came. I sprinted off the platform and gave my best front flip. I don’t really remember much of the actual jump, probably because it felt like doing a front flip off of a high dive, by the time I was out of my flip, I was flying down towards the Earth. The recoil on the cord throws you nearly back to the jump platform, that was pretty impressive.So after it all, it was an awesome experience and would definitely like to give it another go. The timing was perfect as it was nearly sunset and we got to watch the colors change on the surrounding mountains from the top of the Gondola.The rest of the evening was fairly easy and relaxed. We cooked our last dinner of the trip in the YHA kitchen, enjoyed the leftovers of our wine, and did some people watching of others and tried to figure out their backgrounds and intentions. Afterwards, we went in search of a good local and fun bar. This turned out to be a bit more of a challenge than one would think. But put into perspective, a town of 3500 on a Monday night, in a country with lots of sheep probably isn’t going to be the most happening place on Earth. Regardless, we ended up at Montys which was Monteiths Brewery’s restaurant and grabbed a drink with a warm fireplace to our backs and a little Aussie Footie on TV. I had a winter brew and Cat had a Pilsner.We had one last morning in Queenstown, and like much of the rest of the trip, it was well spent. We woke up a little earlier today and made breakfast and packed our things. Before our coffee/red bull runs, we over to the queenstown gardens and took advantage of their 18-hole Frisbee golf course. Our round took a little over an hour, but was a great and relaxing way to end our time in Queentown. After that, we made our way to the airport, parted with our friend and journey companion “Puggles” which allowed us to traverse the distance between Auckland and Queenstown, and checked into our flight.So ironically, I’m writing this entry about the South Island in the exact fashion as I wrote about North Island. Both times were written in crossing the passage between islands, only this time I write from the air. The last portion of our trip will consist of a short time staying in Auckland at a B&B, visiting a friend of mine from the IHouse, and making the 7000 mile journey back to the US.This entry is way too long, so I’ll continue with the trip wrap-up in a final entry.Paul