Day 17 - Oamaru and Mt. Cook

We spent the morning walking around Oamaru and checking out all the cool buildings and Steampunk stuff.  This was a term I had never heard of before so check out the link if you are interested.  After our leisurely morning, we headed to Glen Tanner which was where we would stay in the Mt. Cook area.

An example of steampunk.  You could put $2 in and flames and sound effects occurred.  

This building was right across from our backpacker.  Example of steampunk in front.

Mt Cook with Lake Pukaki.  Beautiful

We headed straight for a hike when we arrived and we ran into a herd of sheep crossing the road.

They were everywhere.

We did the Hooker Valley hike which took you up to Hooker glacier.  It was a perfect day and beautiful hike.

These are chunks of the glacial ice floating down the river.

Matt skipped some stones in this water and I swear they skipped 15+ times.  It was amazing.  We assume that the water was more dense than normal because of all the glacial debris in the water.  We hung out hear for awhile and saw some Keas flying high overhead.  I soaked my feet in the freezing cold water.

A swing bridge they had just completed. 

This was a memorial for those that had died on the mountain.

Freda Du Faur (in the picture bottom left) was the first woman to climb Mt Cook on December 3rd (matt's birthday), 1910.

Lupin and Mt Cook.

After our hike, we headed back and made dinner and got ready for the next day's hike which Matt warned me may be our most challenging yet...

Day 16 - Penguins and more Penguins

Stopped for coffee, a meat pie (for Matt) and custard roll (for me) on our way to the YEP preserve.  Did I mention that I loved the abundance of bakeries?  On the way there we stopped at the same beach we had stopped the day before but this time waves were crashing fiercly into the board walk area and going over the wall.  It was cool to watch the waves roll in.  

While we watched a local stopped by.  He said he had never seen anything like this before in his life.  Once he found out we were Americans he asked if we like our President and proceeded to call him a sappy bloke.

Yellow-Eyed Penguins

Can you see the furry baby in there?  Click to enlarge

We did a tour of Cadbury Chocolate.  The end of the tour had an amazing chocolate chute where 100s of gallons of chocolate dropped in front of our eyes.  

Ducks of Paradise mama and chicks.

Moeraki Boulders along the way to Oamaru.   

A bunch of boulders are buried in this beach and slowly uncovered over time and then they break down into huge pieces.  pretty cool.

After we checked into our backpacker we went to the Little Blue Penguin preserve.  The LBP are not endangered.  This is the viewing area that you sit and wait for it to get dark and then slowly "rafts" of penguins come floating onto shore and climb up the rocks to go to their nests to feed their babies.  There was a light so we could see but the penguins couldn't see us.  We saw hundreds come ashore.  Pictures weren't allowed so check out the link above.  

After we watched all the LBP come in, we saw some in the parking lot and some wandered under our car as we were driving out.  We had to stop our car and scare them out from under the car by shaking our keys at them.

Day 15 - Dunedin

We checked out and headed to Dunedin, another coastal town that is famous for their Edwardian style architecture, Cadbury Chocolate, and Yellow-Eyed Penguins.  But first we started the day with a flat white and a savory biscuit.  Yum. I appreciate the New Zealanders love of baked goods.

We stopped at St. Clair beach and ate lunch in our car since it was sprinkling.  We watched the surfers while this guy watched us.

We did a a quick hike down to Tunnel Beach.

  Kind of off the beaten path.  You hike downhill to this great view of an impressive land bridge.  

Then you look to your left and see a tunnel in the side of the hill.  The beach has very dramatic cliffs in this area and is not very accessible so Mr.  Cargill, one of the early settlers, made this tunnel so his daughters could play on the beach.  You walk down the stone stairs too...

...this beach where there is another cave...

and these impressive jagged cliffs surrounding you.  You feel very small.  There was no body else here so it also felt very remote.

After the hike, we checked out the city.  They have Scottish roots here and very cool architecture.

This is the train station.  

We decided to have an alfresco dinner at a place called Ratbag(not an appealing name but good food).  They were famous for their meter pizzas.  The restaurant was right off the Octagon which is the center of town and felt a bit like Pioneer Square.  It felt funny eating outside at Christmas time when we are used to trying to stay warm and dry at this time of year.

After dinner we grabbed some warmer clothes and headed out to Sandfly Beach to try to catch some Yellow-eyed Penguins (YEP) coming assure to feed their babies.  YEP are native to NZ and endangered with a population of only about 4000 currently.  There was a volunteer stationed at the beach to instruct us where best to spot them.  We had to keep low and not move because if they see you they wont come assure which they need to do in order to feed their babies.  We got to see 2 float onto the beach and then they hiked about 50 yards up some boulders to their nests.  So fascinating to watch these guys in their natural habitat.  No pictures because it was dark and they were a bit far off but we did get some the following day when we went to a preserve for the YEP.

Day 14 - Doubtful Sound

We had a 7:40am check-in time for our cruise to Doubtful Sound.  It started with a 45 minute cruise across Lake Manapouri which has alot of little islands in it that look like haystack rock with a forest on it.  The lake is very deep.

 After the cruise across the lake, we got off the boat and loaded onto a bus to ride a windy gravel road to the Sound.  The road was built for the construction of the power station  (more on that later).  Because it is such a remote place, camps of men stayed there to work on the road and then build the power station.  As we drove we saw beautiful green forests, water falls, etc but all the vegetation is actually growing on rock.

We stopped for this view of Doubtful Sound along the way. 

After the bus ride, we loaded another boat and headed out.  It is hard to describe and our pictures do not do it justice.  They turned out a bit dark because of the clouds and the massive walls of rock that surround you but the sound was quite impressive.  Very deep, dark water that is actually fresh water sitting on top of salt water.  Impressive cliffs, cool vegetation, tons of rock formations.  Lots of little inlets or fiords.  It is so remote and peaceful.  At one point, the captain turned off all the engines and asked everyone to be quiet so you could only here natural sounds

There is a seal colony at the end of the Sound.

We are approaching the Tasman Sea.  It was very windy but not overly cold.

When we returned from our cruise, we loaded back in buses and headed to the power station which is NZ's greatest engineering feat.  How could we pass this up, right?  Some folks chose not to come along because you rode the bus deep underground down a long, dark, tunnel.  The bus driver called it middle earth.  They love them some Lord of the Ring references.  Anyway the station takes water from the lake and pours it into the Sound.  The company Matt worked for when he lived in NZ worked on the power station but he had never been here so he was very interested to see it.

The top of the power turbines which are apparently 5 stories tall.

After the boat ride back, it was still daylight so we decided to drive as far as we could on the Milford Highway (which was the road to Milford Sound that was closed due to mudslides) to the Key Summit hike.  It was supposed to have a good view and a possibility to see Kia.  By the time we reached the trailhead it was spitting rain and cloudy.  As we hiked up the clouds dropped so we could see less and less. It was still a nice hike and good to get out and walk since we had not been very active that day.

waterfall along Key Summit hike

We headed back to our place for dinner (and no mosquitos this time).

Day 13 - Queenstown and Manapouri

I was in need of a slower-paced day by this point so we got up and had breakfast and then spent some time walking around Queenstown.  It was Saturday so they had a market right along Lake Wakitipu which was right across the street from our hostel.  I picked up coffee at this cute place called Patagonia which also sold yummy chocolates.  Queenstown is known for adventure sports so we saw jet boats, people parasailing, and paragliding.  It is supposedly the birthplace of bungee jumping. Anyway, we did none of that but we did enjoy a nice walk around the lake.  Next time we visit NZ, I would like to spend more time here.  After our leisurely morning, we headed to Manapouri.  One of the things that our schedule change had allowed was time to spend in the fiord lands.  The road to Milford Sound (the most well known sound) was closed due to mudslides so we scheduled a cruise for the following day to Doubtful Sound.

This was the Bumbles BP in Queenstown.

This is the view from Bumbles.  Nice, right?

There was a great path around the lake and a frisbee golf course.  Next time I am totally going for a run around the Lake. 

We had no place booked for the next few days but found this place in Lonely Planet.  Cute rustic cabins that had gas cook tops, wood stove for heat and solar powered bathrooms down at the bottom of the hill.

View from Freestone BP of Lake Manapouri.

After we checked in, we did a short hike on the Kepler Track.    

Sign showing the names of the peaks.

Shallow Bay.  There wasn't another person on this beach.

 After our hike, we got some groceries and headed back to our cabin to make dinner.  In town I ran into someone from Oregon (I was wearing a Hood to Coast tshirt that they recognized and asked where I was from).  As we made dinner we were reminded that New Zealanders don't believe in screens for windows.  We kept our windows open past dark and a bunch of mosquitos got in.  Matt ended the lives of at least 30 before he could feel sure that we would not be eaten alive in our sleep.

Day 12 - Heading to Queenstown

We were awoken by the warden, Graham, letting us know that rain was coming down the valley and we may want to pack up our tent.  He knew we were planning to head out that day so it was nice of him to let us know about the rain.  We packed up, had a quick breakfast and headed out.  It was a very windy hike with some mist but we never got too wet.  Since I fell into one of the many creek crossings on the way in, I was very aware of them.  I counted 16!  This time I used my hiking pole and did not fall thankfully.

You can see the rain coming behind me.  

 On our way out, Matt wanted to do a another quick hike that was on the way.  I had no desire to hike uphill so I kept walking back to the trailhead.  He stashed his pack and made a quick hike up the Rob Roy Track.  The wind was really intense and on the swing bridge he had to cross to get to the hike, the wind blew his pack cover off but luckily he caught it before it blew away.

This is the Rob Roy Glacier.

I didn't mention that the last 33 km to the trailhead was gravel and the last 10 km had creeks we had to forge with the Sunny.  It was a little scary because the water was several inches deep in some of them. 

 We headed back to Wanaka and were ready for REAL food.  We stopped for a late breakfast at Cafe Lago.

Matt had something with eggs, sausage, toast, potatoes.  Yum.

My iced coffee.  This time it was like an affogato...basically ice cream with espresso poured over it and some milk I think.  

I had fancy banana french toast.  Deliciously sweet.  I loved their presentation.

 We were staying in Queenstown that evening so we headed down the road and checked into our place for the evening.  It was called Bumbles Backpacker.  This was definitly the most authentic youth hostel-like place we stayed in.  We were probably some of the oldest people staying there.  We had a private room but it was right off one of the dorm rooms.  I think they were near full for the night.  It was in a great location and had great views.  After checking in, we walked around town and stopped for a burger at Fergburger which is a famous burger place.  I think we pretty much balanced out all the calories we had burned off hiking between our breakfast and the huge burger and fries we had for dinner.  We walked around the harbor a little and then headed back ready to sleep in a real bed.  We were thankful for the DOC guy's advice to "seize the good weather".  We were also glad that we had shortened the length if the backpacking trip and changed the route.  I honestly would not have made it on the trip we had originally planned.  The best part of camping in New Zealand - no critters to worry about.  They don't have mice, raccoons, snakes, mountain lions, bears, etc.  They do have some possum that were introduced and plenty of pesky sandflies.  Anyway, I was somewhat inspired to do more backpacking...any suggestions on where we should go here in the States?