New Zealand, sweet as

We spent a week in New Zealand, on the south island.  We fly into Christchurch and rented a car.  Each day we drove to a new town, sightseeing along the way and staying at hostels at night.  (WARNING, this is a long post!) 

The first day we tried to look around Christchurch but soon discovered the almost total destruction of the center of the city from the earthquakes.  We encountered blocked off streets, crumbling buildings or demolition sites.  It was quite astonishing how most of the rumble still lay unmoved.  We decided to find a grocery store and stock up on road snacks.  We lucked out by finding a store with a large bulk foods section.  It was so much fun to scoop out a variety of our favorite snacks like yogurt pretzels, trail mix, muesli..etc.  The prices were also a pleasant break from the horrendously expensive Australian food and rice cracker, wasabi and seaweed snacks in Japan. 

Our first destination was across the island to the west coast to a town called Greymouth.  We drove over mountains called Arthur's Pass, enjoyed a few small hikes and the company of a hitch hiker - Enrico from Italy.  I was caught by surprise when we passed Enrico and Todd stopped the car to turn around and pick him up saying something about, "ride karma."  I had never picked up a hitch hiker nor been one but it turned out to be fun to chat with an interesting world traveler for an hour or so and then let him out and be on our way.  Here are some of our views along the way. 

Most bridges are one lane.

In Greymouth, we stayed at a very nice and well organized hostel, Global Village (run by a kiwi and his Japanese wife! We attribute the cleanliness and organization to her.)  In effort to experience the local food and brew (for Todd) we had dinner at the nearby pub.  Their menu ended up being mostly fried food and Todd decided to order the fisherman's platter and whoa! it was ALOT of fried food.  I had the fish and chips and that was enough for me for the rest of the trip.  But kiwi's do like their fish and chips. 

 

The next morning we decided to back track a little north along the coast to see the "pancake rocks." While having breakfast in the hostel, we were approached by a middle aged woman about riding with us to see the rocks.  Another unexpected passenger, Marylynne.  It turned out she was from Washington and she had an interesting story that hearing made the drive go by quickly.  We returned that afternoon to drop off Marylynne and for Todd's visit to the Monteith brewery tour. 

Then we were headed south to Franz Josef and Fox Glacier.   We stayed the night at another hostel where we made dinner in the communal kitchen.  I made a huge serving of pesto orzo with feta, olives, tomatoes, mushrooms and spinach (it is difficult to buy orzo, feta and pesto in Japan.)  The great thing was it tastes great cold, we had leftovers for our drive the next day!  It was fun to be in the communal kitchen, listening to all of the languages being spoken - french, german, japanese...

The next morning we hiked to Fox Glacier and had a rainy days drive further south to Queenstown.  We were lucky with weather and only had one rainy day, although the high mountains were covered with clouds up until the last day we were in New Zealand. 

We arrived in Queenstown for dinner and a beautiful sunset.  We were able to walk into town from our hostel.  Todd got to enjoy some NW worthy local beers, I got a taste of Thai and amazing gelato for dessert (they had flavours like pistachio fig and marscapone berry.)  I loved the gelato so much I indulged the second night too!

We stayed in Queenstown two nights.  It was my favorite town in New Zealand, scenic with mountains and a lake, great restaurants, night life and a Starbucks.  The second day, we drove to Lake Te Anau to see the fjord lands and take a lake cruise to glow worm caves. It is the furthest south I have been in the world.  Then we returned to town for a delicious pizza dinner and more gelato! Todd was also able to catch a rugby match the following morning as our visit coincided with the New Zealand rugby tournament. 

No pictures allowed in the glow worm cave but it was like a really starry night,  instead of stars it was little worms trying to attract food.  Pretty neat.

Are we there yet? A long day of driving.

A little rugby, some bungee jumping (we just watched) and a cheesery!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our last night, we spent in Lake Tekapo.  A lake with stunning blue water and the most photographed church.  It is really photogenic.  We spent our afternoon walking to the church, hiking Mt. John where there is an observatory, cooking dinner and exploring the southern night sky on a start gazing tour.  We were lucky that the big clouds sitting on the mountains nearby never moved toward the lake to ruin our view of the stars. 

We learned a lot about the southern hemisphere sky and got to see the southern cross, Jupiter and the moon with big telescopes.  The next morning we enjoyed our last glances of New Zealand landscape as we drove to Christchurch to fly back to Australia. 

 On our last day, a view of Mt. Cook.  The highest mountain in New Zealand.  Sweet as.