[Flash 10 is required to watch video]
One last thing before we leave
Testing the Coriolis effect. Would have used a toilet but they all flush too strongly.
Rotates counter-clockwise!
New Zealand Vacation - Day 8
Auckland
Our last vacation day was a short one. We only had time to have breakfast on the go, then made our way down to the waterfront and the maritime history museum they have. It’s a really nice museum outlining the history of both Maori and European settlers and the different technology they each used. However, since the Maori had no written language, a lot of assumptions had to be made with their technology.
They had a lot of different boats on display, both small scale reproductions and full sized actual versions of more modern sailing ships. It was all pretty cool but we only had an hour or so so we had to rush to the museum. Off to the airport after that and now about to board a long flight to LAX.
Been a wonderful trip, we have very few regrets and tons of great memories. I’ll add a summary and thoughts on the trip when we get back. Have to sort through about 1200 pictures too. Special thanks to Telstra mobile Australia and Vodaphone NZ for making this blog possible. Telstra especially is the greatest network ever, paid $30 for a sim card and tons of data and credit, have so much left over and their network coverage was amazing. That’s the same price as some hotels wanted for 24 hours of Internet access!
Good night New Zealand (and Australia), we shall miss you.
New Zealand Vacation - Day 7
Rotorua - Waitomo Caves - Auckland
Happy 30th birthday Andrea!
Woke up early as we had a 2+ hour drive ahead of us to the Waitomo Caves for a 10:00 tour. In retrospect we probably should have stayed closer to Waitomo. I installed GPS apps on my phone for Australia and NZ and they have come in incredibly handy, but for some reason, they don’t do well with NZ highways. Each highway has a crazy technical designation on top of the regular name, so when the GPS girl tries to say the name of it, it ends up taking her 20 seconds just to finish by which point we’re already at the turn. It literally sounds insane, I wish I could have recorded it.
Got to Waitomo (sushi), had a quick breakfast and got on the bus for our glowworm cave tour. Our guide Hop (short for his Maori name) drove us along some cool dirt roads up in the hills, made us realize just how steep the sheep farms can be. Dropped us off at the top of one hill and we made our way down to the cave entrance. Put on light equipped helmets and started making our way down the man-made walkways. The light level quickly drops off as you leave the entrance of the cave and turn a few corners. After 100m or so, it’s basically pitch black, but even before your eyes have fully adjusted, you can see the glow worms on the ceiling.
They’re called glow worms because of the tourists, but are more specifically glow maggots. When you’d shine your headlamp on them, you noticed that they had a small hair like web tangling down beneath them. This is how they eat, flies and other small insects go into the cave through the water stream and see the light of the glow worms, which they mistake for sunlight or moonlight and fly into them and get caught. The glow worms reel them in and inject them with an enzyme and eat them over a few days. For all this, they get a lifespan as moths of about 5 days, used entirely to breed as much as possible. We got into a raft and he paddled us up and down this river, with the glowworms to light the way through the cave. After about 20 mins, your eyes adjust to the darkness and so many more glowworms are visible. It looks like a starry night basically.
We went to a 2nd cave, which had no running water through it and thus had far fewer glowworms. It was still cool because we got to see holes to the surface from the bottom up. And also, the cave has a few relics from past times. The entire skeleton of a Moa bird is in there. A Moa is a giant extinct bird, similar to an ostrich or cassowary.
After the tour, we drove to Auckland. Got there in late afternoon and walked around the city for a while. Went to their clone of the CN tower that’s pretty ugly in my opinion but is the tallest building in the southern hemisphere. Right next to it, a building from the late 19th century was being renovated to be turned into a brothel, but the construction company screwed up and removed the floors without properly supporting the walls, so in mid afternoon, workers noticed cracks along several walls and the whole building slumped forward. The police had sectioned off the intersection and evacuated surrounding buildings. A crowd had formed in case the building collapsed. We went up the Sky Tower and then tried to find a Thai restaurant to celebrate Andrea’s birthday.
After dinner, we came back and by that point, heavy equipment was arriving as the city had decided to demolish the building as it was a safety hazard and couldn’t be repaired. We waited around for about 2 hours in the hope of seeing something happen, the machines moved around a bunch but they had to set up extra protection, so we eventually got bored and left. I don’t know when exactly they got to it, but by this morning all that was left was a pile of rubble.
New Zealand Vacation - Day 6
Rotorua
Had a morning half day tour booked with a Maori guy named Huru. He was probably about 50 years old and grew up back in the time when the Maori language was banned in schools and at home, but it was obvious his parents had ignored that ban, as he definitely spoke English with an accent. He was full of tons of useful information as he drove us around to various volcanic hotspots in the area around Rotorua.
We started at Wai-O-Tapo, which had some bubbling mud flats, various lakes of different substances and temperatures, and a whole lot of steam. The level of sulfur smell varied from pool to sinkhole, sometimes overpowering. One of their pools was almost a lime green colour. The crown jewel of the park was what they called the champagne pool. A shallow lake about 100m in diameter that fed the rest of the pools. It was also the hottest pool there at about 100 degrees C. Steam was just streaming off this thing, and you could see it dissolve anything that had fallen in there by accident, like branches and leaves. Several spots on the pool showed different colouration where various minerals were surfacing.
The second stop was a longer hike, and took us from a viewpoint above to more various pools. This stop was definitely more forested, although the forest had all grown within the last 100 years. It was the site of a former geyser which only erupted from 1900 to 1904 but was so powerful that it would shoot 100+ metres in the air for several hours a day. It was so powerful that after 4 years it caused the surrounding area to cave in on itself, and that’s the reason it stopped. But scientists now say there’s evidence it could start erupting again soon. We capped the tour off with a very hot water pool at the end of the walk that had a sky blue tinge to it, never seen anything quite like it.
After getting dropped off at the hotel we decided that we couldn’t leave NZ without seeing the native Kiwi bird. So we went to this nearby bird refuge, that actually takes Kiwi bird eggs from the wild and holds on to them until they hatch and the birds reach a certain level of maturity. The big problem in NZ is that the Kiwi population keeps dropping, and this is mostly due to the fact that in the 19th century, to combat an exploding population of rabbits, introduced several decades earlier, they introduced it’s natural predators, the possum and the stoat. Well they decided it was easier to go after Kiwi eggs than to chase rabbits all day, so as a result the Kiwi population has been decimated.
They had several other rare native NZ birds in captivity there, which were cool to see since we had only briefly seen a couple of them in the wild. A family of ducks emerged when we were feeding the fish at one pond (they give out bags of food), a mother and 5 little ducklings. The mother would stand by and watch as the ducklings started nipping at Andrea’s toes, also tried snatching the diamond out of her engagement ring. The mother only seemed to get mad at me when I stood between her and one of her kids. But the reason we came was for the Kiwi bird. After a 30 minute presentation on how the birds are raised, we went in to the nocturnal pen. They’re nocturnal animals, do this allows them to be more active for us tourists. I wonder if they make it daytime lighting at night. We got to see a couple of them running around their respective pens. Kiwi birds are strange creatures, more mammal like than bird, they barely have wings left so they can’t fly, have bone marrow instead of air like other birds. It saddens me to say I think this is what Darwin meant when he said survival of the fittest. I can see these birds being easy prey, the one just kept running around in a circle sniffing the same spots over and over again. They have a cool walk where they kind of bounce from foot to foot.
That was pretty much it for the day, we found another good spot for dinner, then explored the town on foot for the rest of the evening.
New Zealand Vacation - Day 5
Christchurch - Auckland - Rotorua
Mostly a day for traveling. Left for the airport, driving through most of Christchurch to get there. Got to Auckland right on time, got our final rental car for the trip. A Nissan Sunny, which I think is just a renamed Sentra. We went with a lower budget local company for the rental this time, so although the car only has 90,000 Km on it, it seems like the car is about 10 years old. The funny thing is that whenever the car is put into reverse, it starts beeping as if it’s a truck.
Got started on our 3 1/2 hour drive to the town of Rotorua. Immediately noticed the big difference between the north and south islands of New Zealand: actual highways. Took a 4 lane highway for the first 45 mins of the drive. There is a definite difference in terms of how many people are on the north island vs the south.
Got to our hotel, and it was too late for most attractions, so we ended up going to a thermal spa right near our hotel. Rotorua is located in the middle of a super caldera and has plenty of residual volcanic activity, even though there are no active volcanoes. There are thus plenty of natural hot springs around. As soon as we left the hotel and started walking towards the place, we could smell the springs. A powerful odor of sulfur fills the air, a rotten egg smell that’s almost gag inducing.
After paying a bit extra for more private pools, we sat in various pools of varying temperatures that were nearly empty and overlooking Lake Rotorua. The last one we sat in was 42 degrees which is really hot. Combined with the sulfur smell, I couldn’t sit too long in it without feeling way too hot. But we ended up staying in or around that pool for over an hour talking to some guy from the area who had a yearly membership and came all the time.
Ended off the day having dinner in a local place with ridiculous portions. Despite the prices being high, we’ve found New Zealand portion sizes to be even more insane than American ones.
New Zealand Vacation - Day 4
Lake Tekapo - Christchurch
Once again had a bit of a slow start to the day. Enjoyed a take-out breakfast overlooking beautiful Lake Tekapo. Once again, we were joined by some bunnies. They must be able to live a nearly care free life, there are no snakes, no foxes, I’m guessing their biggest predators are eagles. There was a whole family of them in the grasslands in front of the lake, everybody was stopping to take pictures.
Had a 200km drive back to Christchurch ahead of us but decided to take a little longer and take a scenic highway back instead. It was a nice enough drive but we really got spoiled during the last 2 days, plus it was cloudy so we couldn’t see the tops of the mountains. I made it a personal mission of mine to photograph some sheep. Stopped a few times and tried stalking them. As soon as they’d see me they’d run away. So I had to come up behind some bushes, and get a shot in before they realized I was there and started walking away, baa-ing, and for some reason, crapping in my direction. The last time we stopped, it was near a somewhat busy intersection and farmers driving by must have thought it was hilarious to see me with a huge lens crouching behind some bushes so they honked at me.
One thing I haven’t yet mentioned about driving in New Zealand, is that almost all bridges are one lane, probably 95% of them outside of Christchurch. If they’re long enough, they even provide passing lanes in case cars have started from both directions. One bridge we took was even shared with a rail line!
Got to Christchurch around 3:00 and checked in to our super tiny hotel room. It looked like it was designed by Ikea. The whole place was probably 8’x10’, including the bathroom. Suitcases went under the double bed, the bathroom was a quarter circle wedge in one corner and it was just a sliding door so you could hear everything which was awkward. It would be a good room for 1 person, but for 2, it was too small.
Walked around Christchurch for the rest of the day, a pretty small city with some interesting buildings and a really nice park. There is construction happening in a bunch of spots to repair damage from the earthquake they just had, but nothing too major. The biggest damage we saw was a tear in the street over a streetcar line which was already nearly repaired. Had a 7 beer sampler at a local pub with dinner, then went to another one next door that was having a quiz night. We had missed the start of the quiz, but stuck around anyway and played on our own. We had no clue what the answers were to any NZ question, but did ok otherwise, especially on any questions involving Canada.
New Zealand Vacation - Day 3
Fox Glacier - Lake Tekapo
Magnificent! That’s just one of many adjectives I could use to describe the New Zealand countryside. It’s just incredible in so many ways. Add it to your bucket lists folks. We spent most of the day in the car but it was just an amazing day.
Woke up to a steady rain in the small township of Fox glacier, an alpine town set in a valley. We took our time getting ready and getting out the door because we knew that the weather was supposed to get better and we wanted to take a walk up to the glacier. Well by 10:30 it was still raining but we couldn’t wait any longer so we started the walk. It drizzled the whole time but was still a good walk. Left town around noon and worked our way down the west coast, and sure enough, the weather cleared up within the hour.
Driving through the south island of New Zealand is like driving through several different continents. The closest thing I can think of is Hawaii but NZ is probably even better to drive through, each setting is just unbelievable and most of the roads are nearly deserted. The west coast is almost tropical at sea level. You get ferns and palm trees, empty beaches with huge waves. At altitude, the scenery looks more Canadian: evergreens, steep rock faces and snow, ice and rivers.
After hitting the town of (Du) Haast and grabbing lunch to go, we started heading inland, following a wide river valley. By this point, the clouds had almost completely dissipated and we had blue skies and amazing mountains surrounding us. We had to avoid stopping as much as possible, but it was impossible not to, there were tons of waterfalls and vistas. All it took was going about 100km inland for the scenery to become much more arid. Forested mountain faces gave way to Serengeti-like sheep filled plains. We stopped once for pictures in front of some sheep and all the ones near the fence looked up and chewed slowly, watching my every move as I crept slowly closer with the camera before some of them ran off.
Speaking of sheep, the motel owner from the previous night told us about a famous sheep nicknamed Shrek that was discovered in 2004 roaming the hills and had escaped capture for 6 years. Its wool had grown so long it looked like a ball of fur. It gained national notoriety and was sheared on national TV by New Zealand’s best shearers.
Turned north again at this town called Wanaka, which was the furthest point south on our trip and at 44 degrees and change, is further south than Toronto is north. The scenery soon changed again, as we were now behind the southern alps and the landscape became even more arid, almost desert like in spots. After another 150km or so, it settled back into plains as we came back up on the alps from the rear. Finally came up on one of the first of two huge lakes on the back of mount Cook and got to a visitor’s centre overlooking the deepest blue lake we’d ever seen and a crystal clear view of mount Cook reflecting off of it. Within another 50km, we got to lake Tekapo, our resting spot for the night, and enjoyed the sunset over the lake surrounded by about a dozen bunnies! With no snakes, or any real natural predators, rabbits tend to breed like…rabbits.
[Flash 10 is required to watch video]
Andrea crossing a stream along the exit from Fox Glacier
