Ain't no Mountain High Enough...

Our Funyak guide summarized the difference between the North Island and the South Island as saying, "they have a Sky Tower, we have Mountains." Quite biased, but he may be on to something. The South Island has Mountains... a lot of them... and they are quite high. The change in elevation will take your breath away - especially if you are traveling by foot! 

Our plane was greeted by the most incredible, razor-edge mountain range, appropriately called, "The Remarkables". Because of the beautiful mountains, we decided to spend our first day hiking. When viewing the options, we made sure to scale back our ambitions - not to let our eyes bite off more than our legs could chew. Therefore, we opted for, "Queenstown Hill". Despite the lyrics of Aretha Franklin's ballad, which played in our head, for us, the "Mountains" were probably high enough to keep us off them. After living the hike, we are grateful for our timid approach. As a fellow hiker shouted to us at the base of the hill as he was coming down and we were going up, "It does not stop going up" - an uplifting encouragement as we embarked. The hill was a straight up set of switchbacks that took us to the top without any pesky meandering delay. The trees at the bottom felt like Lake Tahoe or Mammoth - all pine (unfortunately, non-native). Once we got to the top, the original vegetation was all that existed - just shrubs, sun and amazing views of mountains. The rest of the day was spent resting from the trip, where we viewed the same mountains from more comfortable restaurants and pubs. 

The next day, we decided to get a bit closer to the mountains with a jet boat tour and "Funyak" paddle on blow-up canoes - all through the valley where they filmed a lot of Lord of the Rings. Our jet boat guide shared some incredibly interesting tips. First, the only native "wild land animals" on the island were some local jet boaters. Seriously, we couldn't believe that there are no wild, native non-flying animals anywhere - and it is true! The only predators are rats and possums, which came over on shipping vessels. Second, we sat in a U-shaped valley, which means it was carved out by a glacier. The milky colored stream was the sediment from the existing, receded glacier still in place. Finally, we were traveling up a "braided" river valley, which meant that the river would change with each storm causing some hesitation by our driver at key turns. He showed us just how "wild" jet boaters are by skidding the boat over just inch(es) of water and cutting like a slalom skier around boulders and debris in the river. Once at the top of the river valley, we joined our paddle guide and "the cleanest water known to man kind". Kiwis seem to battle with Chicagoans on their abilities to exaggerate. It was a tributary carrying run-off water from the mountains way above. From there, we enjoyed a little swimming and mostly floated down the river while we enjoyed the high mountains around us.

We were not the only looky-loos to enjoy the mountainous terrain of Queenstown. Mr. Rees first founded the town as a great spot to raise sheep. He gave way to some gold miners. They left when the rivers stopped sparkling (no more gold) and left the town to be overtaken by adventure seekers. Now, it is the adventure-sport capital of the world for both Winter and Summer sports. The town was packed. Restaurants and pubs are built for tourists in all seasons. The food is made to suit people from around the world. Queenstown is quite a melting pot of people all brought together to seek one thing: Mountainous adventure. 

As we wind around the roads from town to town and between farms, you can see adventure seekers jumping off bridges and cliffs. At one bungee jumping adventure site, Jessica and I decided to get a little closer look. We were introduced to what seemed to be an extreme form of spectating. We were greeted with a giant jumbo screen with a live feed to the bridge showing each bungee jump from at least 2 angles at any given time. We saw multiple people wobble up (their ankles are secured to the cord) to the edge and face their fears. Most gobbled up the adrenaline, while some succumbed to the fear. Either way, it made for excellent viewing. We did not partake in the jumping.

At the end of our third day's driving adventure (after bungee jumping spectating), we found ourselves in a valley the Maori called, "Hole in the Sky." Apparently, the mountains surrounding the town block out all the weather. They get ~1/10th the rain the nearby communities get, while still getting hot days and cold nights. The result: great conditions to grow grapes (wine) and fruit (mostly cherries). We dove in head first with some tasting. 

Notably, we finally found sheep! A whole lot of sheep. In fact, a local guy claimed many parts of New Zealand could handle up to 5 sheep / acre (likely an exaggeration, but those things were packed into every farm we saw). Additionally, we were a bit surprised to find out that New Zealand farms venison! We saw farms with herds of both white tailed deer and elk. I guess maybe more surprising is that we didn't see any of these deer outside of the farms. Only remaining food-related mystery - where does all of Jessica's consumed bacon come from?

Off to our next adventure - a 5 hour drive through huge glacier carved, U-shape valleys where we will take an overnight cruise offering kayaking, swimming and late night pictures - all of which will be with the worlds' highest sea cliffs surrounding us in a fjord called, the Milford Sound. Jason is expecting massive waterfalls on all sides, jumping dolphins and hopefully a rainbow. Maybe he has drank too much of the exaggeration kool-aid. 

Until our next post!

Jason & Jessica

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Summer vacation with the locals: Driving, Beaching and Dreaming

We got behind the dash of our brand new rental car and ventured outside the city limits to the Coromandel Peninsula. It would seem that we migrated with the locals because the traffic was terrible and everyone had a boat. This was the adventure where we realized a few critical nuances of the Kiwi culture that we may have dismissed as we walked around the city (all cities seem similar).

Let's start with the drive. We coached ourselves in the parking lot to drive with New Zealand laws - primarily, staying on the left side of the road. Jessica created helpful mottos, which she continued to repeat for the 7 hour drive: "Take a left, and stay on the left… Left on Left" and "Wide Right coming up". Little did we understand, that was the easy part. The road between Auckland and the Coromandel has two prominent ridges that we must drive over. These ridges are complete with 15 and 25 mph blind turns (speed limit is 55) on a way too small two lane road surrounded by campers and trucks with boat trailers. We quickly realized why all the trucks looked thinner. They are! They have to be! New Zealanders really understand the width of their cars. It would seem that Jason was a bit more fuzzy on the issue. When we were not on the hair raising turns, we were in beautiful pastures, or on weird one-lane bridges. That is right, the two lane road (one in each direction) quickly turns into a 1 lane bridge. Traffic laws provide one direction to have a right of way, which is designated by a sign just before the bridge. Aside from rarely being able to see if cars are coming from the other side of the bridge, the most distorting part of crossing a one lane bridge is the realization that you (as a driver) need to give yourself more room on the left, not the right (as a driver from the US would normally do). While we are still safe from even the slightest scratch, Jessica calmly and quickly suggested that Jason was "cutting it close" on numerous occasions. After 3 days of this kind of driving, we are now feeling much more comfortable. The take away: New Zealanders are excellent drivers!

Our new abode lies ~100 feet off the nearby beach. Between us and the beach lies a simple hike, but a hike nonetheless. This should have given us a suggestion that there would be more to come. The Coromandel is a series of beautiful coves, many of which require hiking. Serious hiking. At the suggestion of a few locals, we called an audible on our first day and went to a beach way off the beaten path. We were told we would have to get there a few hours before low tide and leave a few hours after low tide in order to find the trail and get back dry. We followed instructions to a tee - well as much of them as we remembered. If we followed Jason's instructions, we would probably still be cutting our way through the bush looking for this beach. Instead, Jessica saw some locals walking and we followed them… over a stream… over some rocks… through the bush… over a ridge with a super old forest and finally to a beach called "New Chums". This is where the locals were. They went there in single file just before low tide and we followed them out just after. That is when we realized that good beaches require hiking. We subsequently saw "Cathedral Cove" with a beautiful rock arch simulating a Cathedral (45min hike), "Hot Water Beach" with hot springs just off the beach such that we could dig holes in the sand and sit in fresh spring water (10min hike) and "Crayfish Cove" a mostly rock, completely private party cove (20min hike). We beached it up with the locals for the majority of our time here on the Coromandel - always sure to bring our hiking shoes just in case.

If the locals were not hidden away on some hike-in beach, they were on a boat. In fact, giant beaches across the Coromandel support the local lifestyle of several plots of suburban-like homes, close together. Each plot had a giant garage that would store a boat, and usually a tractor (to pull the boat over sand without getting stuck). Occasionally, we saw boats with built-in wheels and drive trains which locals would drive out of their garages and straight into the water. These locals were built to fish, wake-board and sail. Water and boating was their source of relaxation. The very rich would have massive houses on the edges of these little beach/boat/party towns. The less well off would have small cottages supporting a bathroom, a kitchen and maybe one bedroom, but a yard big enough to put their whole families up in tents. In both situations: the nearby beach was central to all enjoyment.

With all that partying, every town was sure to have at least one restaurant. That restaurant was sure to have two items on the menu, and maybe nothing else: wood-fired pizza and french fries. Of course we dug in. Both were of the highest quality.

Additionally, as you might expect with so much partying done so close to a beach, the sun burns reached a next level extreme. Again, not to be left out, we (especially Jessica) gave our best shot at fitting in.

Finally, between all the beaches were cow pastures and dairy farms cleared of growth of local plants. Apparently, there was a lot of clearing that happened after the English settled in the 1830s and through until a conservation movement starting in the 1980s. Regardless, this created some very interesting plots of land near the coast. Which, as you might expect, spurred no end of discussion on the possibilities of getting a farm on the coast. We realized these plots were at least 5x outside our budget, but that is better than 20x like in California.

One more thought entered our heads as we drove through the local cow pastures: where in the world are all the sheep we heard so much about!?

We will let you know if we solve that mystery in our next stop: the South Island.

Jason & Jessica