New Zealand - The Land of WOW!

Adventures in New Zealand Complete Photos (yes there are many more!): http://picasaweb.google.com/snailhugger/NewZealandDec2009#

Because it was so very very hot in the outback and there is very little contract work in December and January, I decided to treat myself to a trip to New Zealand for a bit of hiking and literal chilling. It was about 6 degrees Celsius (that is 42.8 degrees F) when I arrived in Christchurch, on the south island of NZ. I spent a couple of days in Chch as the locals text it, enjoying long walks through the botanical gardens and making friends with random dear old ladies as I do in. I hitched a ride with a friend of a friend down up to Kaikoura and spent the whole day hiking around the headlands, exploring the rocky intertidal, and sussing out the seals and sea gull colonies.

I headed up to Nelson, which is at the north end of the south island. I used this town as a hub for hiking the Abel Tasman trail, hanging out with my very good friend Danna the cephalapod-iatrist, and then meet up with a different friend from Perth to hike the Heaphy Track. Both of the hikes were stunning in their own very different ways.

Abel Tasman was a stroll in the park - literally. I did the whole thing in two days. It was very popular, but for good reason. The scenery is stunning! I really enjoyed poking around on the mud flats in the afternoon and all the stream fording made the hike a little more challenging. Once I reached the top, I took a boat back down to the starting point. Brilliant!

The Heaphy track was 80 km, but extraordinarily easy. We stayed in huts and the scenery changed quite a lot each day. We saw numerous wekas - a type of rail that is unusually bold and a few carnivorous land snails. On one of our shorter hike days, we assisted one of the national park's biologists putting out mammal traps to reduce the influence of introduced predatory mammals (mostly stoats) on the native birds.

Due to previous difficulties hitching out of the Heaphy track back to Nelson, I decided it would be best to rent a car for the remainder of my south island explorations. This would allow me to see more in the short amount of time I had. I headed out of Nelson toward the west coast. I stopped briefly at Nelson Lakes National Park before hitting the coast at Westport. On the way, I picked up a hitch hiker who happened to be a yank, mostly, he works at Yosemite NP in the summer. I dropped Sam, my temporary passenger and Westport and headed out to Cape Foulwind to see the beautiful rocks and fur seals, then used up the remainder of my day light getting down to the tiny village of Punakakai.

I spent the night in my compact rental car on a high coastal overlook. Unfortunately it rained all night, so the amazing dimly lit views I got on arrival were just soggy grey fog in the morning. I persevered and decided to go hiking to a nearby cave despite the rain. I donned my keen sandles and short shorts to enable me to cross the streams, however, I quickly realized even this would not prepare me for the actual trail conditions. The trail was a stream and then it became a river! I saw some good birds and nearly stepped on an eel the size of my thy so it was still a worthwhile adventure.

I drove back into town and had a hot lunch at the pub and waited for Caren a German born, British sounding physical oceanographer from Norway who I had met on the Heaphy track. We spent the avo looking at pancake rocks and discussing how to escape the nasty weather on the morrow.

We decided that there might be better weather on the east side of the island so we headed up to the divide between east and west – Arthur's Pass National Park. As we drove up the winding road toward the park, we realized we had made the right decision. The clouds were lifting to reveal spectacularly beautiful scenery. We did a short hike up a spur with INCREDIBLE panoramic views. We thought this must be the most underrated hike in all of NZ because neither of us had ever heard of it, but it was 4 hours of WOW!!!

I dropped Caren at another trail head as she had decided to do a 3 day walk in the park and I had a tighter schedule. When I dropped her, there was another guy starting the hike who happened to be from Colorado but knew about 3 of the people I used to work with in Carlsbad, again small world! We exchanged government gossip and I headed off to get back to the coast. I drove till the long day ended all the way to Okarito Lagoon where I stayed in a campground at the beach. I woke in the morning to walk on the beach and marvel at the southern alps on the horizon. I hired a kayak and went out on the lagoon to look for the rare white herons and paddle my way up a lazy stream into the forest. It was positively the best kayaking adventure of my life. So beautiful!

In the avo, I tore myself away from Okarito Lagoon, vowing to come back, and headed toward the tourist destinations of Franz Joseph and Fox Glaciers. It was weird to be among such a variety of international tourists, but then the glaciers were really cool and they were so close to the ocean! Another oddity at the glaciers was the abundance of cheeky Kia (the worlds only alpine parots) that were in the parking lot exacting their indignation on the rubber weather seals on many of the parked cars. One defiant bugger refused to leave the roof of my hire car. Only about 15 km by windy road to the exposed beach where I took the liberty of camping on the beach. Clouds that had hung in the mountains all day cleared as though revealing the mountains as a special evening treat. It was a stunning thing to be able to stand on the edge of the wave line and look up and glacial clad mountains while wearing a light jumper. Wow!
The next morning, I woke to more mountain splendor at the beach, then I did a short hike to a nearby lake where the alps reflected on the still water as the morning mist lifted off the lake. Not bad for a morning stroll.

On the way out, I picked up a couple of Brazilian backpackers with huge packs lumbering toward Fox. They accompanied me for the day down to hast and we did a really nice hike down by jackson's bay. This is the end of the road on the west coast, so we headed into Mt. Aspiring National Park for some stunning views and short hikes.

I pressed on toward Wanaka where I met up with a friend of a friend the next day. He graciously hosted me overnight and gave me full run of the kitchen and even the laundry! Hurray for cleanliness. I spent the following days hiking in Mt. Aspiring National Park and did an overnighter to the Routeburn Track on Christmas Eve/Christmas am. The hikes were excellent but the weather was a bit damp and dodgey at Routeburn. However, the scenery was still beautiful.

I decided to go for a big Christmas drive and headed down through Queenstown and out to through Te Anu to Milford Sound. The weather was pretty bleak the whole way till I finished my lunch at the cafe in MS, then the clouds drew up and I got dramatic views of the sound and phenomenal views all the way back out to Te Anu. The road out was winding and surrounded by huge high cliffs with waterfalls cascading down them.

I kept on driving down to the south coast and the Catlins. I arrived just after the yellow eyed penguins went to bed but I caught them at 4 in the morning as they headed out to go fishing in the morning. I watched them for an hour and saw about 5 of them emerge from their burrows, squabble with their mates, and then waddle out to the sea. After a bit of a nap, I headed up the east coast toward Dunedin and took a boat trip out to see the Albatross colony and to see them out foraging on the ocean. This was, well, a fantastic day for me with birds. I topped it off with a trip to the Dunedin aquarium which was great!

At this point, unfortunately, it was time to head back toward Nelson, I made a quick stop in Christchurch, and endured a rainy drive up the coast. On my way, I stopped to picked up a man and his 7 year old daughter that were hitch hiking back to their small town from Christchurch. They were obviously very poor and the guy looked like he wasn't in the best of health. We had the usual small talk. They were surprised a foreign female would pick them up, but greatful. When I told them I was a biologist they got very excited. The little girl aspires to be a wildlife vet. She was obviously a soft heart because she was lamenting the lost lives of all the roadkill, which were mostly invasive possums, but she didn't know they were a pest. She started asking me all these crazy questions about how to become a wildlife biologist. It was pretty surreal. I encouraged her to go for walks and be observant, keep a list of birds she sees, go to the library, get good grades in school, and just pursue her interests, even if others thought they were obscure. I dropped them in their small town, and drove off. They had invited me in for tea, but I declined....lots of miles ahead of me... but as I got out of town I realized, I had a tidepool guide that I had gotten from the aquarium and a book on New Zealand wildlife I had picked up at a used book store. The girl had mentioned their address, it was such a small town, I decided to go back and give her the book because it might help her follow these childhood fascinations and it was two days after christmas but I had no one to share a gift with. I went to their house. They were surprised to see me but over joyed. I got warm apologetic hospitality and and tea. The little girl was over joyed to have the books. She chattered on to me about all manner of things in her life and she showed me her year book, which had no signatures. She had no real friends. It is a small town and she hadn't lived there long so she hadn't made any friends. The towns people were wary of them because her dad was sickly and jobless. He worried about not being bright enough to support his intelligent little girl. She asked me to sign her year book and then I said I had to go. She held my hand and led me down their drive way. That was one of the best christmas presents I've ever had.
I made it back to Nelson that afternoon and paid a visit to friends I had met through Danna. I had a marvelous visit with them on their little farm. The next day, I returned the car and hitched to Picton where I caught the ferry to Wellington. There I briefly visited the Te Papa museum to see the giant squid. I took a train up to Palmerston North, where no tourists seem to go, and met up with an old friend from graduate school in Humboldt, who is doing his PhD on godwits (a type of long-beaked shore bird). They migrate extraordinarily from Alaska to New Zealand via wetlands in asia. I only had a short stay, but it was great to catch up with my friend and I even got to go out and spend a little time doing field observations of the godwits.

On the 31st of December I left New Zealand and flew to Bangkok, Thailand.