Kaikoura

What!  Kaikoura is a beautiful town wedged imbetween mountians & the ocean.  With two of NZs best right-hand surf breaks and the largest population of Dusky Dolphins (pods can number in the thousands).  We thought is was so amazing we’ve stayed a little longer in the Dusky Lodge that has a great pool & spa with a good group of travellers esp. the Chilean Montrealer!  We’ll chill this evening in the spa but tonight theres a party at the Whale Bar.  On to Chirstchurch tomorrow!  South Island is the best!

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Yesterday was a wonderful, sunny, warm day.

I woke up sounding like a deep sea diver breathing through water, then coughed and hacked up some more cheese curdish stuff from my tired lungs.

I lay abed wheezing like this until several hours later, showered and then went out, long after my mother’s own solo departure from the room. She went to wander the city and use up some of the gift certificates I have. She spent the afternoon doing the
Lyttleton Wildlife Cruise, checked out Cathedral Square and had an eggs benedict with smoked salmon at Le Cafe for breakfast.

When I did emerge I wandered out short-sleeved into a gorgeous day with a lovely breeze, slathered in so much sunscreen I could have slid down the street. I intended only to change money, and buy proper tissues before the three day weekend (Canterbury’s Cup & Show weekend is on, everything shut for Fri, Sat & Sun) and pick up my Green Spot whiskey from Whisky Galore but I walked past a little vintage shop (Two Squirrels) on Hereford on my way to Colombo St and got sucked in by a beautiful 50s cotton dress with blue and green flowers on a white background on a mannequin in the window. Gorgeous dress, with such fine details and darts and pleats, for a shaped figure requiring boobs a la Genevieve and an ass a la Jennifer Lopez. One out of two attributes ain’t bad. The kind of vintage to make my heart sing, and perfectly suited to a summer’s celebration of release from 13 months of winter incarceration.

Wheezed and sniffled and coughed up the short flight of stairs in the old wooden building stuffed with a variety of antique shops selling jewelry, tchotchkes, furniture, decorations, and clothing. I mentioned it to the woman there, who addressed me as “sweet” about as many times as her chatter required commas. A charming verbal tick in a nice Kiwi accent, delivered with enthusiasm and a love of vintage wear. I tried it on. Too big, it hung on me like a sackcloth, none of the darts and shaping hanging on me where it should to give that hourglass silhouette the 50s and 60s styles deliver. I was disappointed.

But I spotted another lovely vintage 50s dress on the rack, a pale silvery blue silk, like moonlight on snow, with teal blue embroidered flowers on it, a brocade silk, with a waist line and a scooped neck to die for. The bodice is lovely, fitted mostly to the waist, where it flows out with oodles of fabric hanging heavy and cool against the skin to mid-calf. It swings divinely. THAT fit. I bought it. $100NZ. An impulse, a splurge and a reward for myself on a sunny warm day of freedom. I intend this cocktail dress for a Christmas party in Auckland with a posh friend. I will also bring it to Pole for next winter for one of the dinners. It’s a stunning dress and I look awesome in it. I want to dance in it.

Except my boobs weren’t anywhere near the darts. Them crazy 50s bra lines. I needed about 2 inches of lift to get mine near where they needed to be. I tried the dress on sceptically, believing my boobs would never achieve the heights they once did for maybe a year as a teenager, but I reached in and hauled up my bra straps, and thereby my boobs, to see what I would look like in it with the proper chest positioning. Size good, droopage not so good.

The owner of the shop recommended I go for a fitting at Ballentynes, just up the street and around the corner, for a proper bra to get them up there. Expensive bloody department store, reeks of money. But without hesitation I walked into the lingerie dept in my torn and saggy jeans (yet another pair of Levi’s only just over a year old giving up the ghost on me, WTF?) in my pale and bulbous body with a daypack on my back hanging fleece and water bottles on it, and asked for a bra. For a dress.

After spending NZ$100 on a dress, was I going to balk at the price of a bra to put my boobs in it right? Not likely. Was I going to accept the stigma implied in the slightly airy tone of the place that shrieked You Do Not Belong But We Will Be Polite To You Anyhow? Nope. Walked up to the first clerk available and said I needed a bra. For a dress.

She led me into the dressing room.

I removed my t-shirt and she measured me, not once indicating to me that she was appalled at the hairy armpits or the saggy boobs. Once around the ribcage (I’m small of chest in that regard) and once around the boobs. Then she asked me a few basic questions like did I mind the colour or without lace or what? I pulled out the dress and showed her what I was trying to get my boobs into. She held it up, tilted her head, and left the dressing room. A few minutes later she came back with two bras, same one in two different sizes. Commenting on the discrepancy between the size of my chest and the size of my “chest”.

I dislodged my boobs in front of her, from my black lace bra, and she slid my arms into the new bra, then walked around back as I leaned over to place my breasts in the cups, and did me up in the back. An odd way to enter a bra, for me. She adjusted the straps and I stood up, yanking bits of stray boobage into place.

Holy cow. Me grandma. Yup, a granny bra. A lovely soft cream lace, not itchy at all, a hefty pair of straps and cups that covered the entirety of each boob sans bulge. Very comfortable, actually. A bra with DARTS, and suddenly my chest was anchored firmly to my front somewhere closer to my clavicles than they have been for decades, and they were not going to BUDGE from that position. No bouncing, no shifting, all sorts of frontage going on. Perfect for the dress. I tried the dress on and it was divine. Boobs exactly where the darts were. I could probably do handstands in this bra and nothing would shift, they would continue pointing right out there.

But then I noticed the unsightly bulges on my hips/waist where my panties cut into the fat I’d accumulated there over the winter. She went and found some granny panties to cover that up, and I was set to dance, to twirl, to move about in a comfortable, gorgeous dress at a fancy party.

Except for the hairy legs and the knotty toes boot-clad far too long. Oh, and no I won’t shave the armpit hair. I have so little I can hardly even make a proper feminist statement by not doing so.

Bra NZ$60. Panties NZ$25.

Need shoes. Perhaps ballet flats in silver or white or teal?

Before I left the dressing room the clerk adjusted my own black lace bra for me, tsking just a little, bringing the boobs up at least an inch in them. A bit of a revelation, that.

From there I sailed down Colombo St to Whisky Galore, stopped in at Toff’s (used clothing) on Gloucester and bought a purple cotton sarong (NZ$6.50) with a nice print and a three quarter sleeve white cotton eyelet top with gentle
green vines and purple flowers, button up, slightly fitted. (NZ$6.50) Summer clothes, summer weather, summer freedom. Looked for shoes. Everything has heels and I will not be wearing heels of any sort for a very long time at this point. No luck.

It was a longer walk than I expected to Whisky Galore, out past Valentinos. Picked up my two bottles of Green Spot, had a “wee dram” of another very expensive fine whisky which cleared up my lungs IMMEDIATELY, but made me lightheaded. Whereupon I sailed back down the sidewalk to Thomas’s, fell into bed and slept until Mum came back from her adventures. Mum had a marvelous day, saw a few Hector’s dolphins, the harbour and bought a scrunchy cream cotton knit hat with an adjustable wire brim at the market in Cathedral Square. She’s having fun and being very independent.

Then I cooked dinner. What fucking bliss. I made basmati rice (GOOD RICE!!!!!!!) and did a quick stir fry in olive oil of zucchini, carrots, onions, garlic, fresh ginger, and a chopped tomato added in at the last moment. Salt, pepper, soy sauce for flavour and sauce and pillowed by a mound of this lovely delicate white rice that stuck together in these delicate long grains. Colours on my plate orange, red, green and white like a flag of freedom, half an avocado on the side. Mum had wine. I had water. Consumed the whole plate. Moaning the whole time. FRESH vegetables, good rice, the flavours were divine and clean and
each bite had the taste of the slightly crisp vegetable and a tinge of ginger and garlic, and the rice as the simple comfort and fragrant bed upon which I delivered it.

But I have not really budged much yet. Next year I will get off the Ice, get a room for a week paid in advance, and just stutter to a halt. No visitors arriving right on the heels of my redeployment, and I bloody hope no lung issues again or broken foot. Just stop and roll over in bed looking out the window at the wind ruffling the tree leaves and the blue sky brocaded and water-coloured with clouds. Cook a little, shop a little, sleep a shit tonne of hours, willfully spend time being profligate with water in showers.

I’ll admit having my mother here is lovely and fun and I’m excited to unfurl with her and show her NZ, but I am so exhausted I can only feel guilt at being unable to perform the simplest function like getting Brad’s (of Brad and Me and Ruby Make Three) van WOFed and registered so we can actually get on the road and visit NZ. She’s seeing Christchurch and the airport. I can barely organize my shower things, let alone make calls and make appointments and make inquiries about schedules and such. I am still sick and dragging.

Similarly stunned winterover Polies wander solo and in occasional random clusters around Christchurch, barely able to get it together enough to leave the city and start their vacations. And most of them having got off a week or more before me. And they healthy. I seem to be the only one felled by every germ that winked at me off the first
plane to Pole. NO immune system. Ass kicked on so many levels.

But nonetheless, yesterday was a lovely day.

**Caveat: this post was written several days ago, early in my arrival, and is perhaps influenced by a steroid-induced moodiness and not necessarily indicative of current emotions***

My arrival in Christchurch is not what I expected, but at this point I don’t know what I expected. Perhaps some repeat of sensations from seasons past: a fascination with bugs and trees and grass. But stepping off the plane into the moist night air with 12 other winterover Polies, all I wanted to do was get away. From them. From my whole winter. I landed stunned and numb and paralysed from the neck up, if not completely stuffed with snot and in some pain from the airplane pressure changes, and unable to hear properly. I took 5 minutes to return my ECW Gear to the CDC (Clothing Distribution Centre) and then I ran as fast as my bum foot and the airport luggage trolley could take me to the Sudima Hotel next door.

Some of that could have been the vicodin I took for the flight on the doctor’s recommendation, to still the coughing jags I am having, to alleviate the feeling of being in a large nutcracker with every cough. Now with head cold. And I also got the mean cramps and heavy period 10 days earlier than scheduled. My body has come undone. Whence my brain?

I dream not of Christchurch and the food varieties in its many restaurants, but of a small yurt somewhere in the forested hills, no responsibilities to anyone but myself and sleep for a month.

I am exhausted. I woke my first morning in NZ with every ache and moan of my season sitting on me. From the roots of my hair to my belly to my arms and shoulders and back and hands and feet and face all throbbed with protest when the alarm went off. I felt sat on by heavy expectations and responsibilities, not freedom and humidity.

Where was my release? My freedom at last achieved? If this is it I have no energy for it.

I still cough, my sinuses ache, my ears hurt and I go in and out of hearing like I have water in my ears, I resent having to pay for things, and paying so damn much with the exchange rate just catching up with the extra cost of everything in NZ to make it as expensive as the US.

I am disgruntled. Angry. Restless and unable to stop my mind, yet saddled with having to get up in the morning and deal with shit. I would dearly love to just find some space somewhere off a river and park Ruby there for a week and stop doing anything but being, unthinking, undoing, undoing. Yes, undoing the season in my mind, unbundling, unclenching, undoing and disentangling the knotted leftover emotions, the horrible constants of 9 months of being treated as if I were incompetent, stupid, lazy and not worthy of the very basic respect and honesty. Not by the vast majority of the crew. they were caught in much the same syndrome as I was, many of them.

I am so damn tired. Screw birds and greenery and humidity, screw the charming garden city of Christchurch, screw the glorious Botanical Gardens, screw Two Fat Indians and Sala Sala (Japanese), I just want to sleep for a week unthinking, looking out the tent door at the sky and then rolling back over with a muttered “fuck it”. I just don’t have the energy for anything.

I try to sort the different strains of “fuck its” going through my mind, I try to figure out how much is being so fucking sick, how much is the hangover of a winter, how much of it is the aftermath of this particularly difficult winter (and how can I differentiate there when this is my only winter?) and how much the culture shock of being back in the world with all the daily choices and responsibilities of choosing food from menus and finding a place to stay for the night, let alone the larger responsibilities of getting a van roadworthy and hosting my mother’s first trip to NZ. Has it been too long I have lived the simple life of the same small dorm room, the same 42 other people, the same meal times, the same unforgiving cold? Is this shock? Too much change too soon too quick?

Because this is not the simple life anymore. May I abdicate? May I shrug these burdens for awhile, finish out my antibiotics, stop taking the steroids? May I have my health and mobility back so I can go out there and enjoy the things I missed at Pole so much I almost hallucinated them?

Can you make the noisy fuckers 10 strong and drunk at the restaurant table behind me shut the hell up? Someone please, turn down the volume on the world for a bit. I am overwhelmed and just can’t handle it right now.

Well possums, sometimes Ms Possum works a bit too hard in the relentless fight against pests, so it was time for a country sojurn over a long weekend to get bright eyed and bushy tailed again!

So she was off to the outskirts of Blenheim, a sleepy town at the top of the South Island. The area is renowned for its endless hectares of vines which produce New Zealand’s world class Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Noir and other amazing wine varieties. Ms Possum drinks nothing else during her nocturnal adventures in her hometown up North!

And, not only is the wine to die for, the region also produces mouth-watering olive oil and honey – it’s a gourmand’s paradise!

The bit of R&R gave me a chance to commune with animals other than those of my namesake. I must admit though, there were times when we ran over something lumpy on the road, and the evidence suggested that there were one or two less of my Possum friends for the Tannery; ugh! No, I wasn’t tempted to scrape the two-dimensional ex-life forms off the road – Ms Possum does have to maintain some semblance of dignity after all. Not only that, but I was on holiday!

Fortunately, no reputation had preceded me, so I was able to go incognito and meet the animals who lived nearby and welcomed me to their paddocks with open hooves.

This mini pony literally bounced over to say “Hi”. He wanted to know what I had in my pockets and loved the tall stems of lush green grass I had picked for him. He did try to tell me that the stalk part was not palatable – ok, so I’m a city girl! I horse whispered to him for ages and he told me he wanted an all over head massage, which of course, I obligingly gave him.

Next it was to the big horse paddock. The two great big creatures were previously aloof, but mini pony must have put in a good word, because they soon stooped to give me some time of day. A bit of choice grass their way helped to break the ice between us.

The two black and two white sheep next door proved that apartheid doesn’t exist in their neck of the woods. After baa-ing at me initially as an unwelcome interloper, they also succumbed to the succulent culinary items on offer. Thank goodness they didn’t know I produced baby lamb jackets!

At the mud brick house bordering a vineyard where I was staying, was KoKo the Birman cat. He was delighted at Ms Possum’s visit and couldn’t resist disguising his legs with one of Possum New Zealand’s “Harlequin” striped possum fur scarves. Yep, there is something about possum fur that sends cats into Seventh Heaven. KoKo loves chasing his possum off-cut which is attached to a lead – keeps him amused for ages!

Lo and behold, we spotted a pesky little hare playing peek-a-boo with us down the driveway. Unfortunately, the South Island is overrun with these creatures that eat anything and everything growing in the area – it’s quite a problem for the fruit and vege growers, as well as the native flora and fauna. Perhaps there is the making of a new industry here… hmmm…

Just as I was forgetting myself, I met a friend’s dog inadvertently named after me! Yep, “Possum” is super hyper, super friendly and finds it hard to sit still. Naturally, I felt an immediate affinity with this beautiful dog, and I thought possums of one kind or another are always popping into my life!

Then it was on to visit another friend who lives in a beautiful three-acre estate, bordering a stream. Sipping tea in the sumptuously appointed living room, complete with possum fur throw, I spied a huge rifle nonchalantly placed against the burr walnut dresser near the front door. “It’s to shoot the starlings in the roof” I was told after I expressed surprise at this incongruous, non designer décor item. “But of course” I said, suspecting every Blenheim home had one. Obviously my host was a crack shot, because I didn’t notice one buckshot hole in the pristine ceiling! It was reassuring to know that someone else had to deal with pest problems, and suddenly Ms Possum felt she was not entirely alone in her crusade to restore nature to its correct equilibrium.

Back on the road, I encountered other creatures such as herds of Friesian cows’ dotted (excuse the pun) in amongst the vineyards. As we didn’t get a chance to stop to take another pic, my hosts kindly obliged me with a “mock moo-moo” in my quarters (excuse the alliteration).

So there you have it, Ms Possum goes rural, meets other critters and broadens her outlook on the animal kingdom. It was a lovely weekend meeting creatures great and small. Now it’s back to the animal Ms Possum knows best, as she prepares to keep the Northern Hemisphere “warm as a bug in a rug” for the coming winter.

See y’all later Possums!

From Ms Possum wearing New Zealand Swandrii Jacket and Gumboots (possum fur trimmed of course!)

Oct. 16

Day 1

The flight to Christchurch was quick, ten minutes at altitude before we started the descent. We claimed our campervan from Explore More and our roadtrip commenced, but not before we had problems figuring out how to use the parking break…eventually after some pounding and yelling at it we figured it all out.

We made our way south stopping in Timaru playing on the beach for a while, enjoying the ocean and scenery. That night we parked at a skate park/old festival grounds, it was Friday night and apparently that is the local hang out. So there were plenty of drunks out and they even toilet papered the grounds.

Day 2

We headed further south towards Dunedin stopping to see the Moeraki Boulders. They are truly amazing! They look like soccer balls or hatched dinosaur eggs… perfectly spherical and GIANT.

We arrived in Dunedin about mid-day and attempted to park in the city centre. And I smashed the side mirror into a sign. uhoh. The mirror was fine, it just folded in, but there was a large white paint spot on our black van….not to worry after many hours of rain and a little scrubbing most of it was off.

We walked around Dunedin, there was a motorcycle fest so it was quite busy. We took a short tour of the Cadbury Chocolate Factory. It was a typically factory but we did get to one ton of chocolate fall!!! It smelt soo good. We walked around some more…I noticed that the houses and suburbs and shops are a lot like Wellington except the churchs and some buildings have older history and some real cool architecture.

Around 6pm we met up with a friend I met the first week I got to NZ, Molly. We had dinner and a drink before we made our way to an Indonesian orchestra. It was cool, I left feeling very cultured. After the show we hung out at Molly’s for a while before we hit the town (it was Saturday). We went to Refuel, it’s a club on campus which I thought was interesting. Then we went to the Octagon, it’s basically and octagon of clubs, also it’s the city centre. That night, we parked our van in the middle of town and had a sleep.

Day 3

We got a shower! Molly let us shower at her place before we hit the road again. We made our way to the aquarium which was on the Otago Peninsula, a really scary drive along the water edge. The aquarium was a small disappointment in comparison to most other ones.

So we drove further south, getting colder mile by mile. We were on the road fro maybe 30 minutes when Mal says, “look there’s a whale!” cause we were driving along the coast. So I pull over into a “campsite” to have a closer look…turns out it was a waverunner. So I was trying to figure out how to get out of the campsite but I didn’t want to back out onto the highway so I pulled further in to turn around and we get stuck in mud! We assessed the problem, I drove forward in reverse and even tried pushing in neutral but two girls cannot push a campervan. So we stared pulling grass and finding twigs to put under the tire to get some grip, nothing but mud flying and rubber burning. I found an old dismantled baby carriage with a blanket so we put that under the tire, only to later find a syringe stuck in the blanket. Now this whole time we were laughing because when you think about pulling over for a whale, this whole situations is ridiculous! But I was starting to get frustrated when Mal said, “why don’t we try our rice?” I was so confused apparently it works when she is stuck in snow. So that sparked the idea to use some gravel from the side of the road and then within a few minutes we were freed from the mud! So after about an hour detour in the mud we were able to get back on the road.

We took the scenic route and it was amazing! We made a few stops along the way…like this beach

and this Nugget Point.

The drive was gorgeous! We drove through the Caitlins along the coast for a while and then by farms and sheep! There really are heaps of sheeps, 40 million in NZ and I bet i saw at least 35 million of them. We ended up stopping in Porpoise Bay just in time to watch the sunset and see the seals cross the road…literally I almost hit them as they snuck out of the bushes.

Day 4

We still have yet to get to the bottom of NZ…but we are nearly there now. A few hours drive and we made it to Bluff, the farthest south you can go, beside stewart island but I won’t count that. In Bluff we took a short hike by Sterling Point, it was cloudy all day and by the time we turned around to head back it had started to rain. If is was sunny we would have been able to see the southern islands and the clear water.

We didn’t stay too long in Bluff before we left to Invercargill to get some tours sorted out at the I-site. It was cold and cloudy with showers all day so we spent the day in the Museum, except when the fire alarm went off and we had to leave.

By 7pm the weather was clearing up so we went for a walk in the Queens Park. A gorgeous park that had Japanese Gardens , playgrounds, tons of caged amimals (a small zoo). It’s amazing seeing parks like this that are free, the maintenance alone is costly not to mention the fancy bathrooms that talk to you.

That night we parked by the museum and about 830 am I woke up only to realize we had parked straight not parallel making it difficult for cars to pass…oops and then we spent 45 minutes tearing the van apart to look for the atlas only to find it in the side door compartment….oh the adventures!

Day 5

Finally we can drive north! Sick of sleeping in the freezing cold with few blankets. We made our way to Te Anau where the weather turned to sun and blue skies. This drive was even better than the Caitlins drive. Our first detour was to Monkey Island, a small island right by the beach. There I made a quite run to the island before the waves came. And sure enough I got trapped by the high tide. But the view was amazing I could see the snow capped mountains, FINALLY! The rocks on this island were soo unique, lots of minerals and stuff smooth and jagged. But I had to figure out how to get back to shore. I was wearing jeans and the water was up to my butt, do I walk back and have no jeans for the rest of the trip? or take off the jeans and go in my underwear? I chose the latter. Good thing we were the only ones on the beach at that time!

(this is me on top…and I had to get to that beach.)

Our next detour was Lake Hauroko which was 60km off road, it is the deepest lake in NZ. I couldn’t contain myself! We kept getting closer to the mountains, I have never seen mountains and these snow capped mountains took my breath away. Here we skipped rocks and took photos with the picturesque lake and mountains in the distance. The tramping paths were covered by water and trees. On the way back to the main road we got stuck behind a flock of sheep being moved. It was real cool, but the sheep sure do walk slow!

(the lake)

Some small detours included a historic suspension bridge and some wetlands in the valley of the mountains. From there it was a straight shot to Te Anau were we hung out, charged our cameras, and checked internet. It was pretty chill, watched the sunset by the lake and skipped some more rocks!

And watched this wonderful sunset.

Day 6

We parked in Manapouri, just outside of Te Anau for the night. In the morning we got up and went for a walk to Pearl Harbour and Fraser Beach where we saw an amazing rainbow in front of the mountains….and of course that’s the one time I didn’t have my camera with me. Around 1130am we started our trip to the Doubtful Sounds with Real Journeys. All day was cloudy and or rainy though…

It started with a 50 minute ferry across Lake Manapouri to catch a bus next to the fancy power plant the took us through the rainforest for 45 minutes.

Then we jumped on the Navigator, our overnight cruise ship. There hadn’t been much rain lately so the 21mm we got allowed the waterfalls to flow beautifully. But the rain also impaired the vision of seeing the mountains but it didn’t keep us from having fun! We went on tiny one person kayaks that were quite tippy…but no worries I went on that 13km kayaking trip a few weeks previously so I was prepared. But I was not prepared for the giant sea waves, nonetheless I stayed afloat the whole time in the pouring rain. Well I was soaking wet so once we got out of the kayaks they let us jump off the deck of the ship into the freezing water below! It really is like a thousand knifes, as Jack says. It was an exhilarating feelings but it was great having a nice HOT shower with homemade soup to follow.

With that the weather started to clear up and we made our way to the Tasman Sea. It was extremely windy and the waves were going like crazy, I swear it gets worse each time I got to sea. We got to see a seal colony and some blue penguins.  After some extreme motion out at sea dinner was served! Not the best timing but it certainly was amazing food, gourmet I’d say. And for dessert, Pavlova! My favorite.

Day 7

The engines stared at 630am with the skippers wake up call. Had some fresh fruit and fancy eggs for breakfast and I was set. It was truly breathtaking watching the clouds and fog rise above the mountains in the morning, I have never breathed fresher air. We even saw some dolphins surfacing and more penguins, but instead of clouds and rain we were in for a day of sunny blue skies. The waterfalls had now disappeared but we could now see the fjord clearly.I still can’t get over how still and calm the water is in the projection of the sounds allowing for amazing reflections in the water. The skipper even took us under a permanent waterfall to collect some fresh water which we then drank straight, hmmmm NZ fresh rain water.

Day 8

Off to Milford Sound. I was really nervous about this drive because we were told we must have snow chains in the van if we drive there, which we did not have. Nonetheless the weather was beautiful and the road conditions were fine. The drive was the most beautiful and wonderful thing I’ve EVER seen. The flat green grass leading into snow capped mountains. It was awesome seeing old avalanches that once covered the roads. Along the drive we stopped at Mirror Lakes and The Chasm which was amazing lookout points over water. At our Chasm stop we tried to get a photo with our van and the mountains in the background as we sat on top of the van. So I set up the timer on my camera and put it on the post and ran to the van…just as a crazy Kea bird tried to fly INTO the van and then once I scared it away it went straight for my camera on the post! Crazy bird…good thing I and run and scream at the same time to scare it away.

The Milford Sound Cruise was rather disappointing compared to the Doubtful Sounds which are 10x bigger. However, that doesn’t mean it was uneventful. The cruise went to get close to a misty waterfall warning us that we may get a little wet. The mist was cool and with that the wind shifted and the downpour trapped us at the front of the boat as the other viewers refused to get out of the way. I was the most wet of course, my jacket and jeans soaked through all the way to my underwear. I was pretty upset cause it was the beginning of the cruise, but with that we received a free beer for the trouble! After that I hung out in the boat with this wonderful woman, Francis who has been to every continent and is an actress and is in Wedding Crashers. It’s fun meeting random people from around the world. After the cruise we went to the Underwater Observatory to see fish in their natural habitat.

Off to Queenstown for the rest of the day. Which is was only that simple, it took seven hours to get there. Along the way we say a controlled forest fire and later this really weird cloud that looked nuclear, but obviously it had to have been something else. We didn’t get to Queenstown until 9pm so we decided to park at a Holiday Park for $16 per person where we got kitchen facilities and bathrooms available.

Day 9

Woke up to closing doors and boyscouts. But it was nice to be back in some civilization. We ventured into town around 10am and searched for things to do. We were on a tight budget and decided Bungy Jump was not going to happen, plus I’m not sure my stomach could handle that. So we walked around doing some shopping and went to the Saturday morning arts and crafts market. There were some really cool things there, like clocks made out of beer bottles that were melted flat, jade necklaces, knit stuff and much more. It just so happened to be Jazz Fest at the time, so stayed around and heard Tambolele perform, a Brazilian band that was amazing! They really engaged the crowd and put on a great performance.

After the performance we headed back to the van to find a parking ticket! UGH. I’ve never received a ticket of any sort and now to get my first in NZ! At least it was really cheap, $21. After a walk around the park and the disappointing news of the ticket we went took an hour drive to Wanaka and found a Holiday Park for $12 where we hung out and enjoyed the beautiful lake and sunset to get away from the civilization.

Day 10

For breakfast I attempted to make some rice, however the directions on the packet are horribly incorrect. Nonetheless, I made mushy rice that was too wet and then as I was draining it to rinse it I dumped it all out in the sink! So peanut butter sandwiches became breakfast.

We headed into Wanaka and went to Puzzling World to do a giant walking maze, which was really frustrating because I hate being lost! There were also illusion rooms and lots of puzzles to do.

The rest of our day consisted of driving to the Fox Glacier. Along the way we stopped at the Blue Pools and in Haaste for some fresh fish and chips. It was a about a five hour drive before we made it to the glacier. It was amazing. The water was soo beautiful and the rocks so unique. It’s really hard to explain it, cause it doesn’t even look that cool in a picture but trust me it was!

That night we drove through some sketchy road to find a free parksite right by the beach just in time for the sunset! It was wonderful, the whole beach was filled with really smooth rocks and giant waves, it was soo peaceful.

Day 11

In the Fox Glacier town we tried to coordinate a guided hike up a glacier, the office didn’t open until 830am so we were there right away. And so with that we were booked on a tour at the Franz Josef Glacier, 30minutes away, for 845am! That didn’t quite make sense to us, but he just said drive fast, which was a little hard to do considering the construction and the mountains and the extremely curvy road. Nonetheless we got there around 915 and they moved us, gave us our gear, signed some papers and through us on the bus. And of course since this wasn’t planned we hadn’t eaten any breakfast and they wouldn’t let me get my water from the van. So we were quite unprepared and worst of all, my camera was in the van!

With their jackets, boots, bum bags, and campons (cleatlike things) we took a bus to the bed of the Franz Josef and walked for 45 minutes until we got to the base of the glacier. We then put on our crampons and went up some ice steps and over the rock moraine until we were finally on the real glacier. the harder the ice and thick, the more blue it is. it was the coolest thing seeing the U-shaped valley that had been carved away by the very same glacier I was standing on hundreds of years later.

After our tour we headed north to Greymouth just as it started to rain, good thing we were on the early tour! At 6pm we headed to Monteiths Brewery for a nice tour, quite comparable to Leinenkugel’s only the brewery is smaller. They only have 7 full time employees…

That night we parked along the ocean! The waves were giant so we fell asleep listening to the crashing waves.

Day 12

Our trip was coming to an end, all that was left was the drive across the country, through Arthur’s Pass to Christchurch. And of course there were hardly any radio stations that came in so we sang! Mostly Hey Jude and many other random songs. The drive was beautiful, we were in gorges and valleys and mountains. It was a rather cold day and you could see the snow falling in the sky but there was nothing on the ground…so there was this perfect horizontal line along the mountains illustrating where the temperature changed. The drive was about four hours to get from the Tasman Sea to the Pacific Ocean across the country…not too bad. I will also add, I prefer the Tasman to the Pacific, it is a prettier blue.

In christchurch we went to the Antarctic Center. There was a subarctic room and we got to experience a summer day in Antarctica…just a bad winter day in Wisconsin, 0 degrees. But it did remind me how much I am not looking forward to going home for a brutal winter season. There was also a blue penguin center where they rescue injured penguins. They are the smallest breed of penguins and native to Australasia. We even rode a Hagglund track vehicle course behind the center.

After the Antarctic Center we venture into town only to be overwhelmed by traffic and people, so we hit the suburbs for lunch and then headed to the botanical gardens for our last day in the South Island. Quite the amazing trip I have ever had!!

DOMINION POST: “Everything under the sun” works better for families than “Wine Country” – but the new Hawke’s Bay slogal still won’t replace the original.

Hawke’s Bay’s new slogan is designed to promote the region as a destination for tourists and especially for families with children.

“If it’s a bright sunny day, [the slogan] works literally, but if it’s raining, it works figuratively because there’s still a lot to do in Hawke’s Bay”, Venture Hawke’s Bay Manager Janet Takarangi told the Dominion Post.  

The new slogan, however, does not replace the original “Hawke’s Bay Wine Country”, but features in a TV campaign which began on Sunday.

- read the full story here

PICTURE: SUN & WINE: Hawke’s Bay gets new slogan (pic: www.austravel.com/explore/hawke%27s_bay)

NZ HERALD: THE number one travel guide publisher Lonely Planet has named the Top 10 travel destinations – and New Zealand is one of them.

Paragliding in Queenstown and kayaking in Abel Tasman National Park are listed as “life-changing experiences” in Lonely Planet’s Best in Travel guide, which features the best and most inspirational travel destinations for 2010.

Tourism New Zealand Chief Executive George Hickton praised the result of New Zealand being singled out as one of the Top 10 destinations “astonishing”.

El Salvador, Germany, Greece, Malaysia, Morocco, Nepal, Portugal, Suriname and USA are also on Lonely Planet’s list.

- read the full article here

Never having the time, or never making the time to work on personal photographic project is something of a bug bear with me. I’ve a dose of pics, some panoramic for a trip to New Zealand from four years ago that I have to dig out and start processing into usable images. The funky thing is, most of them were shot with a Fuji S1, the original Frankencamera, and this one is a true cliché.

DOMINION POST: NEW ZEALAND does not seem to have a symbol of international significance – that could change with a giant bronze statue of a Maori warrior to be set up in Ngaruawahia in Waikato.

MONUMENTAL: That is how the giant bronze Warrior could look like. (pic: STUFF)

“Paris has the Eiffel Tower, New York the Statue of Liberty but they are both embraced by their nations. The Maori warrior could have exactly the same national and international significance.”, Wellington sculptor Dennis Hall says.

Hall would make the warrior over an estimated two years out of an steel frame, covered with a two centimetre thick bronze skin.

The idea is to create a statue that represents New Zealand and its culture in a way that is comparable with other internationally recognised monuments.

- read the whole story here

CARROT-SIZE: The giant warrior in comparison to other landmarks (pic: STUFF)

The massive warrior is not New Zealand’s first giant statue. Other landmarks are:

- the giant Carrot in Ohakune

- the gumboot in Taihape

- the giant trout in Gore

- the L&P Bottle in Paeroa

- the Kiwi fruit in Te Puke