Final Thoughts on New Zealand

We had an absolute blast in New Zealand. We ate great food, we saw some unbelievable landscape and we did some hair-raising, adrenalin-pumping activities along the way. We owe a great debt of gratitude to my parents, Joe & Sandra Kittinger, who paid for the entire honeymoon, thus allowing the monetary gifts of our friends and family towards the honeymoon to be used for incidental expenses on the trip. Their generosity enabled us to have the trip of a lifetime and it really means a lot to us to have these memories of our first trip as a married couple. We returned with over 1500 digital photos, and 2.5 hours of videotape, and we will make a smaller subset available to all of you for viewing. From north to south we really feel as if we toured the entire country and saw the best parts of what New Zealand has to offer. It's an unbelievable place, and we highly recommend it to any of you whose interest may have been piqued by our blog. We encourage you all to keep in touch and we send our love,
Jack & Daniela

Fiordland: Kayaking, Sand Flies & Storms

Aloha Y'all,
We made it to Te Anau, a small lakeside hamlet in southland, which is a kind of crossroads in southern NZ. It's a launching point for some of the famous hiking tracks in Fiordland and also the area that many visit to access Doubtful Sound, our destination. Fiordland is exactly what it is described as, a land of fiords (fyords, fjords, depending on your locale). Cut by glaciers, these submerged valleys offer fantastically steep canyon walls, with equally deep marine canyons below. Over 3 million acres of fiordland are protected as a national park and also as a UNESCO world heritage site (NZ has two of these). So the area is largely untouched. It's remote, wild, and prone to inclement weather, which we had the luxury of experiencing. To get to Doubtful Sound, you have to drive 30 minutes from Te Anau to Manapouri, cross Lake Manapouri (2nd largest in NZ), drive over the Wilmot Pass, and then you finally arrive and are instantly greeted by the welcoming committee: a swarm of millions of sand flies. A word on sandflies in fiordland: Sand flies, which are small as gnats, no-see-ums, midges, or other tiny winged predators of human blood, are inescapable. They are everywhere, and you can dip your entire body in DEET and they will still land on you and bite you. Even after soaking ourselves in insect reppellant, you could see a swarm of sandflies hovering around the heads of those around you, and see your own swarm intermittently, when they dart into your eyesight. You can't feel them until after they bite you, and the bites don't show up for a couple of days, after which they itch like hell. Even when you think you've gotten away they are still there. In a strong breeze they simply retreat to the leeward side of you appendages and hover there, fighting the swirling air currents until they can get sufficient purchase on your exposed skin for a bite. Okay, so there's lots of sandflies. We jumped in kayaks the first day and were surprised to find that we were kayaking with what must have been the olympic team from the european union. We're in pretty good shape, but the group we were with must have trained on kayaks prior to the trip. It was going great until the wind started up. The steep valleys channel the wind down the fiords, quickly whipping up 3 foot waves and it is virtually impossible to make any forward headway against anything over 15 knots. So we sailed home, rafting the kayaks together and holding aloft a 10 x 10' nylon sail, which sent us speedily racing back to the harbor. The next day the wind intensified, so we jumped on a day cruise out to the mouth of the fiord where we could check out the Tasman sea. Fiordland's waters have a layer of freshwater, loaded with brown tannins from the forest. As a result, barely any sunlight penetrates to the marine waters below. This tricks normally deep-sea corals into growing very close to the surface. We didn't get to dive, but we did see some videos and pictures of black corals and a range of other anemones, coral species, and sea fans that grow on the canyon walls in just 10 or 15 meters of water. A must do for any fiordland visitors: dive and check out these organisms, which are only this accessible in fiordland. We made it back to Queenstown the following day and checked out a rugby tournament before flying home to Honolulu!

Mountain Biking in Queenstown

Queenstown is known as the "adventure capital of the world," and it very well may be. It also could be called "backpacker capital of the world" or, perhaps more aptly, "thrill-seekers capital of the world." This is mostly because you can bungee jump, jet-boat, river surf, canyon swing or choose any other activity amongst a myriad of adrenalin surging options all within arms reach from Queenstown. Q-town is the first town we've been to in quite a while. Having stayed in villages, the residents of which typically number less than a thousand, Queenstown was a return to population. Only 14,000 or so permanent residents call Q-town their home, but over a hundred thousand typically visit during the xmas/new year's summer break, and during ski/snowboard season. We rolled in late, after hanging at the famous Cardrona pub on the infamous road over the perilous Cook Mtn range road (perhaps too many adjectives here?), and barely made it to the mtn biking shop. We drove up to Skipper's Canyon, a previous gold-mining area right outside of town, where our guide promptly handed us dual suspension mtn bikes, gave a 2-minute tutorial on how not to die, and sent us barrelling down this single track beset with streams, jumps, boulders and other hazards. We somehow navigated all this mess successfully and ended up breathless at the bottom of the canyon where the Shotover River cut an aquamarine ribbon through a deep valley. Then they threw the bikes on a trailer, us in a van and up we went to do it all over again. The road they drove up apparently took years to cut back during the gold rush days. And it looked it. There were multiple points in the gravel road where a late turn or faulty traction would have sent us rolling down steep cliffs to oblivion below. The second run on the bikes was better - we got a little more confidence and could open it up a bit. We had a blast and rewarded ourselves with a night out with some of our mtn biking buddies, and got ready for the drive to Fiordland, one of the most remote and wild areas in NZ.

Canyoning = Awesome: Laka Wanaka, NZ

We booked all these trips and it occurred to us that a paragraph description doesn't really prepare you for what you're getting into. So we naturally weren't too apprehensive about our "canyoning" trip in Wanaka. You know that feeling when you're kind of laid-back about an activity and then all of a sudden you realize you're way over your head? That describes perfectly what happened to us two days ago. Canyoning, it turns out, is equal parts rock climbing, rappelling (abseiling), and waterfall jumping.. all inside a canyon with 300 foot walls on each side. Our guide, Dave, who owns the business picked us up at 9 and proceeded to outfit us in wetsuits, helmets, body harnesses and water hikers, which has now become a common occurrence. It occurred to me later that when the owner of the company is your guide, you're probably signed up for a pretty intense experience. So we hiked up the 40% incline next to a roaring waterfall. I say "hiked" in the liberal sense - we were mostly scrambling up a crumbling rock face, clipped into safety lines that prevent you from falling off the cliffs on insanity to your instant death. Fear of heights is not really an accurate term when you're suspended 100 meters above a canyon floor and dangling by a rope attached to a 6" bolt. We get to the top and Dave gives us what is now our 3rd lesson in abseiling (rappelling) and down we go, into the canyon. Full wetsuits and everything, approx 60 degree water. So after we signal we're ready, Dave immediately turns and flies off a 30 foot ledge into the river below. Whoa.... So we take the cue and fly off this boulder into the green oblivion below and Dave's description of "committed" comes fully to light. There is now no way to get out of this canyon except down. And down means straight down, on safety lines, rock climbing on soaking wet canyon walls, and reppelling through (not around, over, or under - THROUGH) raging waterfalls. That anyone would invent canyoning as a sport is legitimate proof that adrenalin junkies really are some of the coolest people in the world. So off we went, jumping off of waterfalls, rock climbing along ledges and rappelling through these raging rapids for 6 hours. And it was intense!!! Our rapelling lines were rigged so that once we got into a waterfall, we could zip down them and fall, twist or cannonball into the pools below. Sometimes we short-rigged the lines so we would rappel down and off the line, and plunge into the waterfall pool. It was a pretty insane thing to be perched above a 50 foot waterfall and see your repelling line dangling into a massive waterfall, knowing all the time that you were going exactly where that line disappeared - into a raging cascade of whitewater. And when you hit that waterfall (or, rather, when it hit YOU), it was like a thousand pounds of force hammering your helmet and down you went! Sometimes we had our feet on the wall, sometimes we were free-suspended over a ledge. There were also smooth, slow flowing passages, where we simply floated downstream, buoyed by our wetsuits, looking up into the canyon where 300 foot verdant green walls framed a sliver of sky and trees above. Little drops of water trickled off the cliffs and fell, highlighted by the sun, past fern gardens growing out of the canyon walls. The water was crystal clear. Then, just as you were settling into this moment of zen, Dave would yank you out of the water, clip your harness into a climbing line and show you some insane cliff he wanted you to jump off, or climb down. This was an adrenalin-soaked adventure. The last three rappels were the most intense. We were about 500 feet above the canyon floor, where a series of waterfalls streamed down a sheer rock wall. We were dangling off that wall the entire time, clipped into safetey lines and abseling ropes. We ended the adventure with a 15 meter jump (~46 feet) jump into the bottom pools, where we both kissed the ground, thanked Dave for the insanity we just experienced and promptly vowed to never fear death again!

Alpine Adventures on Fox Glacier

We arrived two days ago in the small town of Fox Glacier, where there is, in fact, a glacier. This part of our trip was something I had really been looking forward to. We were to take a helicopter ride up and over the glacier and then do some ice-climbing. What we actually did, which was far better, was take a helicopter ride up to an isolated alpine hut, where we camped for the night. The heli ride up was insanely cool. If there is anything more fun that riding in a helicopter, I'd love to know what it is, because this was fantastic. We took off and sped just over the tree tops, then swung into the valley where the glacier instantly leaped into view. The scale of it is hard to communicate in words. It was a massive frozen river, gauging it's way through a steep-walled green canyon. And high above the glacier, the helicopter settled onto a 10 x 10' pad next to a tiny wooden shack. This shack was actually the chancellor hut, where we would stay for the night. The hut sits atop a ridge overlooking the glacier on the north side of the canyon. With our guide, we ducked out of the helicopter and stowed our excess gear in the hut. We then suited up for our assault on Chancellor Dome, a peak on the northern ridge of the canyon, which would allow us a view of the entire snowfield, the glacier, and the two highest peaks in New Zealand, Mount Cook and Mount Tasman. We strapped on body harnesses, donned our helmets and got our cramp-ons and foul-weather gear packed up - and then we began our climb. We started at the hut, at 1300 meters (approx. 4000 feet) and climbed another 700 meters to the summit. Our ascent included rock climbing up a nearly 30 % grade and finished up with a snow track to the summit. We were blessed with an absolutely perfect weather day - and we got clear views at the top of the entire scenery. We had lunch on the summit and then started our descent as storm clouds began to creep up the valley. On the way down we used our ropes and climbing gear as the grade was quite steep. We were also visited by a noisy flocks of Keas, which are alpine parrots. Only in New Zealand can you be climbing a rock face, pick-axe in hand, and come face-to-face with an alpine parrot. These parrots were incredibly fiesty and obviously have no fear of humans because they come right up to you. They followed us down the mountain and were our pets for the remaining time on the mountain. Back in the hut we found a small research notebook for an ongoing study on these birds, and it turns out they may have the most developed sense of play of any birds - anywhere. After a huge plate of pasta and a bottle of red wine, we sat up on the ridge where we could hear the glacier moving down the mountain. At our particular point, the glacier was moving at 4 meters per day, and you could hear it! Huge towering ice pinnacles, forced upward by the downward pressure of gravity on the huge mass of ice periodically tumbled over. These pinnacles, called ceracs, were as big as 60 meters, so there was a lot of ice moving around down there. The glacier was so huge it was difficult to understand the massive forces at play, but you could get a sense from the noise. The stillness was occasionally broken by a loud cracking noise, like a far-off gunshot, followed by a low rumbling like thunder, as the glacier continued it's slow downhill movement. Later on we crashed on bunkbeds in the hut and woke up early for our descent down the ridge - and on to the glacier, where we were going to be lifted out by helicopter back to the village. The descent was incredible. The alpine slopes were in full bloom, with flowers budding off of virtually every plant. We bushwacked down the ridge and reppelled down a 100 foot rock face. And then we donned our cramp-ons and ice-axes for our march across the glacier. It turns out that glaciers are pretty dangerous phenomena. Besides the constant motion, the glacier is marked by frequent caves, gullies and crevasses, some of which seem endless. The topography is also sculpted by moulins - which are meltwater rivers that run over the glacier and down through the ice, where the water lubricates the underside of the ice as it moves across the valley floor. We made our initial ascent onto the ice with full ropes and gear, crossing innumerable gullies and valleys where the safety line insured against a misstep into a blue void. The ice was incredibly different than what we had walked on for our ascent up Chancellor Dome. Glacier ice is really dense, and gives off a deep blue color. Most of the air has been forced out of the ice through massive pressure and years of compression. We had to stomp our cramp-ons into the ice to ensure good footing. We made it across the frozen landscape and played around in some blue ice caves and then got ready for the helicopter ride out. Helicopters are really loud, and when it touches down 30 feet from you, you know it. Ice scree rocketed across the terrain and we shielded our faces and ran heads down to the door. Once in, you're really taken by how small it is inside. it's like a fishbowl with a huge whirling fan. And the take-off is the best part - you lift up and then tilt downward, and then begin racing at ever-increasing speeds across the terrain. Our pilot took us up the glacier, over towering ceracs and made a huge hairpin turn over a ridge face. We then followed the northern canyon wall home to the village for a well-earned shower and of course a scotch - poured over the "glacial rocks" (ice we chipped off the glacier!).

Diving Riwaka Resurgence

The next day we dove into 40 degree water - and yes we actually paid to do this. After being picked up by our dive guide, we drove up to Riwaka, a small town below Abel Tasman Nat'l Park, where the Riwaka river emerges from the mountainside. After donning humongoid wetsuits, we hiked the 1/4 mile up to the stream's "resurgence" (where it emerges from the limestone) and were greated by..... a crowd of naked hippies. Yessiree it seems that this stream has become the favorite hangout of the free and unencumbered hippie gangs of Nelson, NZ. You can imagine it may take some fortitude to willingly jump into 40 degree water. It also takes some additional mental focus to do this in the presence of naked, frolicking hippies. but we did it nonetheless. We took multiple lights and were outfitted in wetsuits, hoods, gloves, booties - you name it. We descended through the sump (where the water comes out of the mountain) into the an 8 meter cavern and then swam into the darkness. After a 50 foot swim, we re-emerged in a spectacular limestone cavern. The ceiling was adorned with crystalline stalagtites and limestone "drip curtains" that sparkled white. The visibility was incredible - you could see clearly as far as your light beam could shine. We spent a half hour floating around in the cavern admiring the formations, and even killed the lights, which was an eerie feeling. We finally emerged, to the collective delight of our own group and our nude on-lookers. Happy to be out of the freezing water, Daniela celebrated by jumping off a small rock pile into the "crystal pool," promptly declaring that the water was much more tolerable with a 7 mm wetsuit on.

Abel Tasman National Park - the most beautiful place you've never heard of

Let me just start this by saying that Abel Tasman Nat'l Park is the most beautiful place you've never heard of. No really - it is. More on this later. First we have to fill you in on the wierdest place we've stayed since we've been here. It's called the Pujis Well-ness Retreat in Nelson, NZ, and as far as we can tell, it's just two people who have a large house and charge a boatload of money for you to stay in one of their closet sized rooms. Now it is nice, and it fronts an absolutely lovely little creek. And there is a hot tub, and a sauna. There is also continual burning of incense, a colon-crunching diet of nuts, berries and other foods likely procured from the neighboring forest. The home is well-furnished, with a nice yard and a lot of picturesque views of the creek and the Maitai valley, where it resides. I guess we had a little something different in mind when we were thinking "wellness retreat." Like I previously stated, it's pretty much someone's house, where you can stay for an exorbitant fee, while retaining the option to shell out additional hundreds of dollars for a hip-hop yoga class or pay (yes, pay) to starve yourself on a diet of nuts, berries and various fruit juices.

Now back to the good stuff about the area. Nelson is a great town. Right on the water, lots of character, and like all the other New Zealand towns, it's chock full of great little cafes, stores, and restaurants. As for Abel Tasman, it's nestled along the northern coast of the south island, where the 18 foot tides create massive tidal flats, wetlands and beautiful coves and bays throughout. The park is home to the nesting grounds of seals, but it is also a great reserve for coastal areas and native forest. We took a boat to the western end of the park and hiked the scenic Tasman coastal track, hugging the coast for 4 hours back to the Torrent Bay Village. The village is a cluster of homes accessible only by water that pre-date the national park. It reminded me a lot of Dog Island, albeit with markedly different landscape. I can't describe how beautiful the hike was - there where so many "whoa! look at that!" moments, and you'll just have to see our pictures when we post them to believe it.

New Year's in Wine Country (Marlborough, NZ)

Blenheim, NZ might not be on the "hot 100" list of places to ring in the new year - but it oughta be. We rolled into town after a loooong drive from Waitomo (on the North Island). To make our 10:00 ferry ride between islands we calculated that we needed to get up at 4:45 am. Let me tell you, 4:45 am is an early start to what is traditionally a pretty late night. So on New Year's eve we trucked it south, winding our way through fantastic countryside to the port city of Wellington, which is famously cold and wet, which it was, of course. We made the ferry with 15 minutes to spare and turned in our trusty Nissan rental car. The ferry ride was pretty crazy. Not only was the passage pretty rough, but it was rough in a 350 foot cruise ship, and waves were coming across the bow and washing over windows that were 4 floors above the deck. Whoa. Daniela is like my mom: utterly impervious to motion sickness unless she's suspended upside down, reading a book in the windowless cab of a truck on the world's curviest rose. Me, on the other hand, am not the most seaworthy of people, and I spent most of the ferry ride on the upper deck, outside in the freezing rain, sucking on ginger beer and praying for the storm to let-up so I could fixate on the horizon. Once the south island came into sight the swells calmed down and we wound our way through unbelievable inland waterways to Picton. Most of the coastal homes we saw were accessible only via boat, and these waterfront hamlets were packed with vacationers out for the holidays. We procured our next rental - a diesel Kia, and rolled into Blenheim 20 minutes later. We managed to squeeze in a booking at a local restaurant, and ended up in the town square for a new year's countdown and fireworks. A band rang it in with a lively rendition of that song always gets played on New Year's (which I have never learned the words to).

Blenheim is in the heart of the Marlborough valley, which is internationally renowned for it's Sauvignon Blanc. It also boasts great Pinot Gris (Pinot Grigio in the N. Hemi) and really tasty Pinot Noirs. We now because we went wine tasting on New Year's Day! We got picked up the next morning by a very eccentric and crazy wine tour lady, who took a group of us around to a host of great vineyards. We tasted a bunch and even procured a few bottles, which we hope will actually make it back to the states. On to Nelson for Abel Tasman National Park....