Picks and Pans

Here it is folks, the ballots are in.  This is the moment you all have been waiting for.

Favorite Towns

• Wanaka - Set on a beautiful mountain lake, Wanaka was a nice, laid-back place to relax for a few days. There were also a lot of cool activities, including a hip cinema and Puzzling World.
• Te Anau - Also set on a beautiful mountain lake, Te Anau was even more laid-back than Wanaka.  A great place to relax.

Least Favorite Towns

• Glenorchy - Sure, this town is the gateway to some great hikes, but its residents like to rip you off on everything from camping food, to "secure parking," to dingy hotel rooms.
• Haast - To quote Jay, "This is a sh*t-town in the middle of nowhere isolated on the west coast. The only reason to be here is to get from the west coast to Wanaka."

Favorite Cities

• Wellington - This was a really hip city with a good vibe where there was a lot to see and do and lots of good places to eat in between activities.
• Nelson - Plenty of sun, beaches, great location close to national parks, and very clean...what more could you want?

Least Favorite Cities

• Dunedin - Maybe it was just the crappy weather affecting my mood, but I found Dunedin pretty boring.
• Auckland - Auckland is clean, modern, and metropolitan, but lacks character.

Favorite Hikes

• Rees-Dart - The scenery on this hike was amazing and the weather made it even better.
• Abel Tasman - Beautiful beaches and easy walking. This hike was peaceful and relaxing.
• Tongariro Northern Circuit - The pictures really speak for themselves, this area was totally unique and awe-inspiring.
• Routeburn - This is a classic tramp with fantastic and accessible scenery, beautiful huts, and a great taste of what southern New Zealand has to offer.

Least Favorite Hikes

• South Coast Track - Mud, bush, and hills with very little scenery...for 7 hours a day. It wasn't worth the effort.

Favorite Tourist Attraction

• Stuart Landsborough's Puzzling World - This place was sooo much fun! There was a giant maze and a room full of puzzles - a great way to spend a rainy day.
• Speight's Brewery Tour - This was a very cool brewery that still uses nearly 100 year old equipment. The all-you-can-drink free samples at the end were also very well-recieved.

Favorite Large Hostel

• YHA Rotorua Treks - This hostel was brand new, had comfortable beds, and great lounge and kitchen facilities.
• Purple Cow Backpackers - This hostel also had comfortable beds and a great kitchen and lounge. It also had ping pong and a huge projection screen for movies.
• YHA Franz Josef - This hostel had a huge kitchen, great beds, and a free barbeque the night we were there.

Least Favorite Large Hostel

• On the Beach Backpackers - The kitchen had an ant problem, the building was old, and the beds were terrible.
• YHA Auckland - This was a bit of a disapointment, considering its five star rating. The place was a bit dingy and run-down and I caught the cleaning lady almost throwing out our food (even though it was correctly labelled).

Favorite Small Hostel

• Endless Summer - This was in a beautiful 1880s house where the owners have thought of everything. It even had a dishwasher.
• Lauder Store - This was more of a bed and breakfast, but they had pretty close to hostel prices. They had recently converted a 100 year old mud brick store and extended it into a beautiful B&B.
• Arthur's Pass YHA - Very cosy, great location, and a great kitchen and lounge.

Least Favorite Small Hostel

• Glenorchy - Very dingy, dirty bathroom, and sketchy bedding.

Best Beaches

• Abel Tasman National Park - These beaches are sheltered, stunning, and, best of all, not accessible by road.
• Hot Water Beach - At this beach, you could dig a hole and it would fill with hot water to give you your own hot tube. Need we say more?

Best Mountain

• Mt. Aspiring - Considering the helicoptor-like view that we got of it, this mountain was pretty awe-inspiring.
• Mr. Ngauruhoe (aka Mt. Doom) - A classic concical volcanoe in the middle of a flat platau. It draws your attention from miles away.

Best Restaurants

• Catch, Wellington - Very fresh sushi from a conveyor.
• Fergburger, Queenstown - You cannot miss Fergburger when you go to Queenstown. Probably the largest and most delicious burger either of us will ever eat.
• La Toscana, Te Anau - Great post-hike pizza.

Worst Restaurants

• Curry place in Westport - The worst curry ever. It tasted like Cambell's soup.

Best Place for Fish and Chips

• Christchurch - Three dollars for fish and chips.  That was a bargain and a half.
• Nelson - Very fresh fish and great chips.

Favourite Cadbury Chocolate

• Energy - This exclusive to New Zealand chocolate was darker than milk chocolate but not as dark as dark chocolate. We went through about 1 kg of it.
• Tiramisu (dessert line) - Essentially chocolate with coffee cream filling. Once we opened a bar, it was gone really fast.

Best Place to Destroy the One Ring

• The summit of Mt. Ngauruhoe 

Best Wildlife Encounter

• Yellow Eyed Penguin, Curio Bay - This little guy was sooo cute. He was hopping along the rocks on the shore.
• Seal pup, Abel Tasman - This guy was playing in the surf near our campsite.

Worst Wildlife Encounter

• Sandflies.  These are horrble. Their bites are so itchy that they wake you up in the night and last for days.
• The sheep poop and dead rabbit along the trail up Mt. Roy.
• Wekas - These flightless birds were very good at stealing our food and even made off with an oatmeal-covered spoon.

Cheers,

Erin and Jay

Back Home

Hi everyone,

In case you were worried, I just wanted to let you know that we made it back to Edmonton!

Cool things we did in Auckland:

-went to the zoo and saw kiwis, giraffes, hippos, monkeys, kangaroos....

-had some delicious food 

-saw the improv show Scratch that was part of the New Zealand Comedy festival. This was really cool because Scratch is from Edmonton and we have seen them perform man times in Edmonton

-went shopping for some luggage to transport our remaining possessions home

-went to the Auckland museum (we didn't leave nearly enough time for this, it was a really nice museum)

The flight home didn't seem as long or arduous as the flight to New Zealand (probably because we only had two flights instead of four). Now we are back in Edmonton and we are pretty jet-lagged and in the process of unpacking, opening our mail, etc. It is really nice to be home!

Later this week we will post a list of our picks and pans, so stay tuned!

Far North

Hey everyone!

I am writing from Auckland, where we will spend the last few days of our trip.

After hanging out in the Bay of Islands, we drove farther north to Ahipara, a tiny town on the coast. There was a really nice hostel there, so we decided to stay for four days. Unfortunately, on the first night, our car was broken into and a lot of our stuff was stolen, including Jay's camera gear and a lot of our hiking equipment. Luckily, all of our photos had been downloaded from the camera to the computer so we didn't lose any of those. Our travel insurance (and possibly our renter's insurance) will cover some of the stolen items, so we are really glad we got insurance on our baggage. I definitely would recommend it to anyone who is travelling!

We spent a few days hanging out, going surfing and swimming, and making friends at the hostel. The hostel itself was an old house built in the 1880s and had beautiful high ceilings and wood floors. The hostel was also quite small, so we got to know a few people and had a good time hanging out. It was a pretty difficult place to leave this morning!

Now we are in Auckland, New Zealand's largest city. We have returned the rental car and we plan on checking out the museum, zoo, and park. It is hard to believe that we only have 3 days left here!

We will probably post again with some stories from Auckland and a wrap-up post, including our picks and pans.

Erin

Tongariro Photos

Hey everybody,

Here are the photos from our only North Island tramp, Tongariro Northern Circuit. It was beautiful and amazing and you should really check them out, I think the photos turned out quite nice.

Link to the Gallery

Some samples:

From Tongariro Northern Circuit

Mt Taranaki on the horizon at sunset.

From Tongariro Northern Circuit

At the top of Mt Doom.

From Tongariro Northern Circuit

Mt Ruapehu - weather transition


Well, it's been fun photographing this trip. There were certainly heaps of cool things to see. Unfortunately these are my last photos from the trip, as my camera and camera gear were stolen when our car got broken into on Friday night in Ahipara in the Far North. Sucks!

Photos from Rotorua, Coromandel, and Raglan

Hey folks,

Got some more photos for you... 3 Albums!

Rotorua... Maori cultural performance and some geothermal oddities!

From Rotorua

The chief!

From Rotorua

We did not swim in it.

Cathedral Cove, near Whitianga on the Coromandel Peninsula.

From Cathedral Cove

A sweet rock formation on the beach.


Raglan... and learning to surf.

From Raglan

Choo choo :) Our very own caboose!

Tongariro Northern Circuit

Good morning/afternoon/evening everyone!

We just completed our final tramp in NZ and I know you are all dying to hear about it....
The trip we completed was the Tongariro Northern Circuit. It was a four day trip in Tongariro National Park, a very volcanic area of the country.

Day One: Was pretty boring. We only hiked for three hours and then sat around in a hut all day. We had really good views of a Mt. Ngauruhoe, a huge volcanoe that was used as Mt. Doom in Lord of the Rings.

Day Two: Included the Tongariro Crossing, NZ's most famous day walk. Even though we left the hut at 8 am, we were surrounded by day walkers for the first half of the hike. It was pretty funny to see how unprepared they were for the weather and how out of shape they were walking up the first stretch of hill. Pretty early in the day we did a side trip up Mt. Ngauruhoe (Mt. Doom). It was a pretty tough climb and the weather at the top was very cloudy and very cold. Jay's leg hair was frozen into little strands of ice. There was no visibility at the top, but we could see the edge of a giant crater. Despite the weather, I think we are both pretty happy to say that we have climbed Mt. Doom. Day Two also included walking across two giant craters and some great views of a red crater and some emerald coloured lakes.

Day Three: The very cold weather continued on Day Three. There was a pretty severe wind chill for most of the day and our faces are definitely burned from it. However, the day included walking among rocks from a lava flow. It was like walking on Mars...very very cool.
Day Four: Was also very cold with misty rain for most of the day. On the last day of the hike we usually are ready for a shower and some real food, so we just walk as fast we can.
After the hike, we drove to Rotorua and went to the Polynesian Spa for a soak in the famous healing waters of the Priest Spa. It was a pretty relaxing end to the hike.

We spent all of today driving from Rotorua to Paihia in the Bay of Islands. The drive was supposed to take 6.5 hours but ended up taking almost 8 because a semi rolled on the highway and we got sent on a crazy detour.

We are planning on spending the next 5 or 6 days relaxing on the beaches in the north and then we will head to Auckland to catch our flight back home.

Take care,
Erin

Hot Beach and Surfing

Hello hello!

When I last updated you, we were in Rotorua and the forecast was still really unpleasant for Tongariro, the area where we want to do our next hike. We decided to head north to the Coromandel Peninsula and see the sights while waiting on the weather.

The drive to Coromandel was really pretty. The hills pretty much all looked like Hobbit hills. There were also some really cool sights to see in Coromandel. We did a short walk to Cathedral Cove, which was a really cool beach that had a huge cave/tunnel. It was very pretty. After Cathedral Cove, we went to Hot Water Beach. That's right, Hot Water Beach. Hot Water Beach is a beach that has a natural hot spring under it. Around low tide you can dig a shallow hole in the beach and have your very own hot tub. The water is around 60 degrees Celcius, so we ended up having to devise a system of canals in order to not burn ourselves, but it was really worth the effort. We had the only hot pool with continuous inflow and outflow. (Trust a plumber's daughter). Hot Water Beach was AWESOME.

The next day we drove from the east coast to Raglan on the west coast. Raglan is world-famous for its surfing so we signed up for a lesson and gave it a try today. Surfing was also AWESOME. We had a good instructor and we both managed to stand up pretty easily. It was really fun and I was really impressed with how quickly we learned. Here is a picture of Jay:

Another cool thing about Raglan is that our hostel room is actually an old rail caboose. The hostel has about 15 cabooses and train cards in the yard. It is pretty cool.

The weather is finally getting better in Tongariro so we are heading back south tomorrow and we will hopefully be starting the Tongariro Northern Circuit on Saturday. We will be happy to be back on the trail.

Photos from Wellington, Napier, Taupo

Sorry these took a while to get posted. The Wellington ones are as old as 12 days, wow. Well here are the links to the 3 new galleries, and a juicy sample from each one. Wow! Erin is probably going to write a new post later today, detailing our latest exploits. No spoilers!

Wellington Gallery

From Wellington

Napier Gallery

From Napier

Taupo

From Taupo

Rain, rain, go away...

Since our last post, it has been raining every day and isn't going to get better anytime soon :(. Instead of starting our hike, we have been travelling in the Central Plateau region.

From Napier, we went to Taupo. Taupo is situated on Lake Taupo, NZ's largest lake. In Taupo we visited a dam and watched the river level as they opened and closed the floodgates of a dam. This was a bit more interesting than it sounds because the river was quite narrow after the dam, so the level rose really fast and created some pretty intense rapids.

After the dam, we went on a walk to the Huka Falls. The best part of the walk wasn't the falls (which were pretty nice), but the hot water stream at the start of the track. That's right...hot water stream! There was a pretty wide stream that was about knee deep and about 45 degrees Celsius right off of the track where we had a rest and soaked our feet...pretty awesome.

Yesterday we drove from Taupo to Rotorua. Rotorua is a touristy town in the centre of the thermal region. It is crazy driving through this region because there is steam rising from the sides of the road and a pretty strong smell of sulfur. In the evening we went to a Maori cultural performance. The evening started with an entrance of Maori warriors on a war canoe, followed by a traditional greeting and performance. After the performance, we had hangi, a feast cooked in a traditional method of digging a hole, filling it with hot rocks, burying the food with the hot stones, and letting it cook for several hours. The whole evening was really cool and I'm glad that we splurged on it.

This morning we visited a thermal area. We saw a geyser erupt 10-20 m in the air and then we toured the grounds. There were huge craters, boiling mud pools, and coloured lakes...it was really awesome.

Right now we are hanging out in the hostel. We don't really have any firm plans for the next few days because except that we will be keeping our eyes on the forecast for when we might be able to start our next hike.

Picton -> Wellington -> Napier

Hiii. We're in Napier right now, which is a little city on the south east coast of the North Island with a lot of character and a lot of wineries and vineyards in the area. More on that later.

Wellington was quite the nice city, but very windy. It's very pretty, and has maybe five times the urban hipness of Edmonton despite being less than half the size. Its hip city centre is totally cool! The YHA was huge and very nice. In Wellington we checked out the parliament (including the “Beehive”) and when on a tour there, and we went to Te Papa, which is Wellington's big ol' national museum. We were going to go to the city art gallery but it was CLOSED for renovations. Cafes and restaurants were visited and we had lots of good food, including splurging on some good sushi for dinner, which was overdue, I'm sure. Well, Wellington was nice but we have other places to see, so we headed off to...

Napier! Napier's really cool. It's been around since the mid 1800's I think, but an earthquake leveled the place in the early 1930's. The Art Deco style of architecture was very popular in America and Europe at the time, so all the buildings were rebuilt in that style. As a result I think it's pretty much the only place in the world with such a high concentration and amount of Art Deco architecture in the world. And I love it! It's so cool. It's retro but fresh at the same time. Like Coca Cola Classic, no? Other than than Napier is in the Hawke's bay area which is one of the oldest and more prestigious wine making areas in the country. Yesterday we rented bikes with the intent of biking to some nearby wineries to check them out and taste some samples, but the area was surprisingly built up in suburbia, with plenty of traffic. Well, we did make it to two wineries, but we'd had enough. Erin says it wasn't really what she expected. No little country roads, the wineries surrounded by suburban development.

I have no idea where we're going today. We're visiting the Napier museum and going to the NZ National Aquarium which is in town here, and then we're off to … I don't know. Either Gisborne, which is further east and north along the coast (it is the first city in the world to see the light of the new day... really ahead of the times), or into the interior, where there is our next tramp, volcanoes and geothermal activity, and a massive lake. Depends on the weather, Erin tells me.