Three weeks in New Zealand

I have been back in the US of A for about two weeks now. The first week back I caught up on job paperwork, and this past week I was out of town again for a meeting and working on detector fabrication at Indiana University. So this is about the first chance I have had to catch up. Here goes....

I met my father as scheduled and off we went. New Zealand is easy to be a tourist in. Accomodations range from hotels (similar to what you expect in the US) to hostels. My favorite is the backpacker's, which typically has bunk rooms and shared bath and kitchen facilities. They are clean and comfortable, and run about $30/person/night in a twin; less if you get a bunk in a dorm room. We saved money by making use of the kitchen facilities often.

From Christchurch we made a beeline to Te Anau, where we started the Routeburn Track, meeting Hazel and Ted (NKU friends), and hiking the trail from the west side to east side. The Routeburn Track is ranked as one of the top 10 trails in the world, and now that I have been on it I can see why. Each day was completely different. The first day was through rain forest heavy with red beech. The second day was spent above the treeline, with expansive views and fabulous alpine walking. The third day was again through rain forest, but forest that was less rainy, and was dominated by a silver beech. The weather cooperated with us pretty well. It was temperamental, with some drizzling, especially the first day, and the mountaintops were often obscured by cloud, but our panicked preparations to slog through heavy rains were in vain - thank goodness! The facilities along the trail were topnotch. A series of huts (for which reservations were required) are along the trail which provide bunks and stoves and water. We only carried food, cooking gear, clothing, and sleeping gear, making for light packs. There was an option of a guided walk, in which one would only need to carry clothing, but the price was exhorbitant (~NZ$1500) for the three days/two nights on the Routeburn. We were fine just carrying our own gear.

After saying goodbye to Hazel and Ted, we worked our way back to pick up the car at Te Anau, and from there went to Milford Sound for a day. It is a spectacular place, with waterfalls cascading down the valley walls. It was, however, very touristy, and only bound to get worse, as New Zealand capitalizes on its reputation as a tourist-friendly place. After the day trip there, we moved on to Wanaka via Arrowtown, taking short hikes along the way. In the one day we traveled from Milford Sound to Wanaka we passed from rain forest to near desert. The area around Wanaka reminded me of northern Arizona - dry and mountainous, with clear skies and trees only in the creek and riverbeds. We hiked up to the Rob Roy glacier in the mountains near Wanaka, and were lucky enough to see an ice fall as part of the glacier performing its summer melting act.

From Wanaka we traveled back across the mountains to Haast, and stayed along the beach in sandfly country. I had not believed that the sandflies were any big deal really based on my experience to that point. We were not badly plagued by them. They were easy to kill, and were repelled by deet. However, I learned that it is not the original bite of the sandfly that is annoying, but how that bite develops over the next few days. It gets extremely itchy, and any scratching makes it inflame to be even worse. Letting clothes rub the bite irritates it. To make matters worse, the sandflies are sneaky, and crawl into moderately inaccessible spots (up your sleeves, under your socks) before they bite, which means that you end up with bites in tender places whcih are easily irritated by clothing. To make a long story short, I now completely believe the New Zealand claim that the West Coast would be more thickly settled were it not for sandflies.

Haast was just a stopping point on our way up to the two famous West Coast glaciers, Fox and Franz Joseph. These two glaciers are the only places on the world where a glacier dips down into a rain forest. On our first afternoon we hiked to the bottom of each of these glaciers, and a good thing that was, too, since at this point the rain started. New Zealand was catching the tail end of a tropical storm. The next morning we went down to the coast to try to find a seal colony. The rain was less at the coast (but still wet). Sadly, we were not successful at finding any seals. The sea was very rough due to the storm. Still, the hike was quite nice, leading us along beach, through marsh, and through beech stands.

Heading north from there, we chased the last clouds of the storm as it dissipated up to Pancake Rocks, a spectacular rock formation at the edge of the sea featuring blow holes and weka birds. We spent the night in Greymouth at the Noah's Ark Backpackers (highly recommended), taking time to tour the Monteith's brewery. The next day we set our sights on Dunedin, and started the trip by driving over Arthur's Pass towards Christchurch. We had very rainy weather, and did not get out of the rain until past the divide at the Pass itself. On the way out of the mountains we stopped at some very interesting limestone formations called Castle Hill, and kept driving until we reached Oamaru, just a couple hours north of Dunedin. We stayed the night there, and on the way down to Dunedin the next morning stopped at Moeraki Boulders and the town of Moeraki. These spherical concretions are fun to see and climb on, and are now a big tourist draw on the east coast road. While in Moeraki, we took a hike in an area that was supposedly good to find yellow-eyed penguins in. We were successful! We got a really great close-up view of two penguins right along the trail as they worked their way up to their nest from the sea. There are only about 4000 yellow-eyed penguins left, so it was a real treat to see some.

We spent two days in Dunedin and the Otago peninsula. Out on the peninsula we saw Royal Albatross and a variety of shag (cormorants). Back in town, we found a pretty good beer (Emerson's) and enjoyed it in the evenings. Upon our return to Christchurch, we found the bar that had the most Emerson's pulls, and made it our home away from home. Interestingly, Richard Emerson himself, owner and brewer, showed up at this bar for a visit, and we chatted about various good beers in NZ and the US.

In the end we drove over 2000 miles while staying inthe southern half of the South Island. I ate more cheese and sausage for lunch than I want to see in a long time. We discovered good New Zealand beer, and saw so much scenery that our computer hard drives are chock full of scenery shots.