Lake Matheson ; Munro Beach ; Haast ; Jackson Bay ; Lake Hawea ; Wanaka - Mount Aspiring Road

(Posted from Wanaka Internet Cafe)
(This post covers 26 - 28 February, 2013)

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Thursday, 28 February -

This morning we left Kidd’s Bush campground at the head of Lake Hawea for the town of Wanaka (WAN-a-ka) and provisioning. We first went to the Mount Aspiring National Park visitor’s center to ask our questions on where to get groceries and showers and where to drop off our trash. The trash question comes up because all the camps have ‘please take your trash with you’ signs. At some point we can’t do that anymore!
In this case, the answer from the guy behind the desk was for us to go to the grocery store and buy a trash bag for $3.50 and, when filled, take it to a trash and recycling facility out of town. He said this approach ‘encourages everyone to produce less trash’.
Well, that may be the official answer but it doesn’t work in a small van. We only create a small amount of trash but need to get rid of it at least every other day.
Once into Wanaka proper we saw the guy may have been giving us the official line but we easily found trash receptacles near the city park and toilets and at the grocery store. It wasn’t a problem after all.
This trash thing reminds me of the signs we were seeing in the toilets at campgrounds. The sign would say ‘Don’t leave your rubbish here” and then direct us to somewhere to take the rubbish... like bins along the main street of a nearby town. However, some signs merely gave us directions to a nearby town’s trash-and-recycling facility and the hours they are open--- and they were only open two to three hours one day a week! We’re all for cooperating with the local means of disposing of trash but it has to be practical.
After provisioning we decided to forego showers for now and get out to the trail. We drove out the incredible Wanaka-Mount Aspiring Road, a very picturesque drive along the lower lake with views up to snow-capped peaks-- even today, that last day of New Zealand summer.
After 25K or so the road turned to gravel and a very wash-boarded surface it is.... for another 30K! We continued along the river through sheep and cattle stations (ranches). At one point we had to wait for a thousand sheep. We had arrived just as they were driven out onto the road by dogs and young cowboy-hatted guys on ATVs (or as they’re known here, “quadbikes”). We were only delayed twenty minutes and it was very interesting to see the dogs working the sheep and hear the whistles of the guys on the quadbikes directing the dogs.
The gravel road kept getting smaller and smaller and we had to keep an eye out for surprise oncoming vehicles. After an hour we came to the end of the road--- and the car-park was crowded with vehicles!
The car-park here is the Raspberry Creek site and it’s the departure point for multiple hikes into the surrounding mountains. We chose the Rob Roy Glacier Track.
We hiked for 20 minutes to a suspension bridge crossing the river, then started up. And up. And up. We walked another 40 minutes on a narrow trail and had another hour to go when we came to a section of trail which had been wiped out by a landslide and a warning sign telling us to be careful in this area. The trail took a hard right turn up a steep hill and it was both wide enough for only one and completely exposed with no hand-holds. And on the way down we would face a drop off of hundreds of feet at the turn. We had had enough. We had gotten a good look at the Rob Roy hanging glacier from a viewpoint as we climbed and I’m sure an up-close view would be spectacular. But the trail-damage area was just a little too challenging for us.
We walked back to the van, arriving around 1530. Though we were parked in full sun, there was a good breeze keeping the van cool so we decided to stay here for the night and enjoy the sun setting over the mountains surrounding us.
After supper we worked on the laptops and looked forward to a night in the mountains.

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Wednesday, 27 February -

This morning we woke to another perfect sunny morning. We’ve been in-country two weeks and have yet to be rained on. Yesterday was our first serious overcast but by mid-day even that had a summery feel to it. I’m not complaining, I’m just noting it’s not what we expected.
Today we wanted to take a day off from walking. We drove to the Haast Visitor’s Center, mostly looking for ideas, and found instead an excellent facility. We paid our $6 to watch the visitor’s film (an odd custom of New Zealand government visitor’s centers is charging us to show us film promoting their area!) and saw an interesting but dated production. The content was good but our eyes are now used to high-definition photography and the visuals on this one looked like it was 16 millimeter film from the Seventies.
However, the rest of the center was great. They have a gift shop, as is typical, but it’s upscale and had books and clothing we’ve not seen elsewhere and prices seemed more reasonable.
The museum portion of the center had very good historical photographs and displays. The Haast and Jackson Bay areas were planned to be development centers for the area but it didn’t work out well. Immigrants were brought to the area but it was a hardscrabble life. It rained so much many of the crops rotted in the fields. The incredible amount of water flowing down from the mountains isolated some families by trapping them beyond impassable rivers of run-off. Diseases easily took hold.
In the late 1880’s a government official visited in response to calls for government to build a wharf at Jackson Bay so the area could be supplied by ship. But the official decided it was too costly for all the more trade available and recommended against it.
In the 1860’s gold was found nearby and that of course led to a temporary boom but most gold-seekers went home empty-handed and left Hasst and Jackson Bay with only a few subsistence-level farmers and fishermen.
A World War II project to build a road through the Southern Alps finally linked the remote wilderness of the west coast with the interior and tourism eventually became a critical driver of the economy, as it is today.
The center is so good, I imagine, because the Haast area is designated a World Heritage Site and as such gets the full attention of the best professionals to develop and maintain its centers. The huge and pristine wilderness area runs from mountain top to the sea and occupies hundreds of square miles.
After the visitor’s center, we then drove to Jackson Bay, some 30 miles off the main road and our last view of the Tasman Sea before we cross back through the Southern Alps to the interior.
After snapping photos off the wharf at Jackson Bay (green-mirror sea, mountains in the distance) we had a portion of fish and chips (bluenose was the fish today) from ‘The Cray Pot’ in the our little van. Excellent!
After lunch we headed back to Haast and then on via the Haast Pass through the Southern Alps. We pretty much bee-lined this one, given that we were walked-out and needed to get to a camp for the night.
On the eastern side we stopped at the visitor’s center above Laka Wanaka and scored some good tips for views and freedom-camping sites for the next few days.
We then drove on down along Lake Wanaka and to Lake Hawea, then back a 10K gravel road to Kidd’s Bush Campground, a DOC site at the end of the lake.
After supper I walked the nearby nature trail for about a half hour and then worked on the blog a bit while Labashi worked on photos.

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Tuesday, 26 February -

We woke this morning at Clearwater Bridge to the sound of a cow bellowing time and again. It appears we parked in the path of the herd’s morning exercise and Bossy didn’t like it! The herd eventually figured out how to go around but it was touch-and-go there for a while.
The Clearwater Bridge campsite is a free one and though it’s humble (it’s just a clearing alongside a dry streambed) it’s within stone-tossing distance of the Department of Conservation’s Peak View pulloff. When the weather cooperates this is a perfect place to look across the valley at the sunlit Fox Glacier and the snowy peaks of Mount Tasman and Mount Cook.
But this morning we had fog just above the treetops and heavy clouds obscuring the peaks. It looked like it might rain any second.
After pack-up we drove to the nearby cafe at Lake Matheson. They have a wi-fi hotspot and when I looked into the details the deal wasn’t bad. Five dollars for 24 hours and 100 MB of capacity. And the good thing on this one was we could share it.
I caught up the blog and posted an entry online, checked our phone message machine at home (via Skype), and picked up our email. Labashi spent her time sending out a few emails of photos from the last few days.
We were there long enough to have lunch and noticed the sky clearing a bit at the peaks. We walked back the Lake Matheson path hoping for a view but the clouds soon closed back up and we decided to move on.
As we walked back to the car a hitchhiker asked for a ride to town. She was Diana, a twenty-something woman from Switzerland, near Basil. She was looking for a ride to the Franz Joseph glacier but we were going the other way once we got to the main road. We asked if she was a student but she works a full time job and is just taking a holiday as part of her seven-week vacation time (seven weeks!!!!!).
We dropped Diana in town and picked up a few items at the corner market store before driving south.
Today we were hoping to see Fjordland Crested Penguins at Munro Beach. We didn’t get to the parking lot until 1700 and it was a 45 minute walk to the beach. This beach feels very remote. The water of the Tasman Sea is green-hued and ultra-clear. The beach itself is fine, rounded pebbles at the water’s edge and after the waves come ashore, they rattle the larger rocks together as they retreat, making an odd sound. A few feet further inland, another layer of rocks, these about two-to-three inches in diameter and all rounded by the action of the waves, making it difficult to walk. You sink in with every step everywhere on that beach.
Unfortunately, there was no sign of penguins today, endangered or otherwise. There are supposed to only be something on the order of 1500 breeding pairs of these in the world so it would have been special to see them. We are at the outer edge of their season here so it was a long shot at best. We did get a nice walk out of it but with yesterday’s over-doing, the walk tired us more than it seems it should have.
We then drove south in search of a campground. We had two free ones on the NZ Camping app to our south, and a pay one not far to the north. It was getting late but we thought we’d take a shot at the freebies.
When we came to the place on the map where the first was supposed to be, we found a stop sign in the middle of the dirt turnoff road. Something must have changed there.
We continued south another 20 minutes to the Waito River mouth, a place described as a large open area where whitefish fisherman gather each year for the whitefish season. We couldn’t find anything that looked like a large parking area and went so far as to explore back an overgrown lane with a SHUT THE GATE sign on it. But that one led out onto open sandy beach and I was lucky enough to have enough room to turn around on solid ground but just beyond was soft sand. There was no way I was going to venture into that sand. Also, we had crossed a low, muddy area which I feared might fill with water overnight when the tide came in.
We turned back and back toward the hard road found a small two-track leading onto the dry river bed. There were tracks from other vehicles but it did’t look like anyone had been camping there. Nevertheless, this was a legitimate freedom-camping site according to the Westland rules for freedom camping. We found a flat spot and settled in. About 30 minutes later another campervan came in looking for the place but didn’t stay.
We were quite happy with our spot until about midnight. I noticed the buzzing of a mosquito and turned on my light to chase it. I swatted it and four more, each just floating into view along the ceiling of the van as I lay there with the reading light turned to the ceiling. That seemed like a lot of mosquitoes so I got up and started looking for more of them. In the next half hour I killed about 30 of them. There was obviously a hole in our defenses.
I found the screen in the roof vent was broken so that would account for some of them. But I suspect others were coming in the van’s vents. We used duct tape to block off the ceiling vent and I closed all the dashboard vents. After another twenty minutes of swatting, I finally felt I was getting ahead of them.
We woke twice more in the night, each time finding one or two but we had stopped the onslaught and finally dropped off to sleep.

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Bushman’s Museum ; Franz Joseph Glacier ; Fox Glacier ; Gillespie’s Beach to Galway Beach seal colony walk

(posted from Lake Matheson Cafe near Fox Glacier, NZ)
(This post covers 23 - 25 February, 2013)

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Monday, 25 February -

Today our challenge was walking to the seal colony at Galway Beach. The sign at Gillespie’s Beach says it’s a three-and-a-half hour round-trip walk and we expect this may be extra challenging because of sandflies and soft going in the sandy beach portion of the walk.
We had done something like 16,500 steps in our walks to the glaciers yesterday and this would be significantly more.
After a very restful night we got underway walking at 0830. We followed a trail behind the dunes for 20 minutes, then crossed to the beach. The going was very tough on the upper beach because it’s soft, deep sand and on the mid-beach because it’s all smooth stones, varying from pea-gravel to four inches in diameter--- but all deep and shifting under us as we walk.
But there was a narrow band of hard-packed sand right at the water’s edge. We just had to dance out of the way of the waves rushing in occasionally to cover all of that sand.
We followed that beach for three-quarters of a mile and came to huge overhanging point above us and a lagoon stretching off inland. It soon became clear we couldn’t stay on the beach because it was getting narrower and narrower and filled with more and more rocks. We had missed a turn.
However, we had the great good fortune to see seals nearby. Good thing we missed the turn!
We took photos and noticed a younger seal come out of the water. We tried to get closer and were doing well, we thought, when it gave a piteous bark. We were beside a large rock and as we passed that rock we saw what the young one was barking at.... it’s mom sunning itself on the rock beside us.... within about ten feet of us.
We had been warned not to get between a seal and the water and that’s exactly where we were when we saw the mother seal. But mom was very cool about it and we got some great photos.
As we turned back to leave, we saw dolphins swimming nearby. They were Hectors, just like the ones we had swum with at Akaroa. They seemed to be just passing through but were very close to shore.
We turned back and went up along the lagoon to rejoin the track to the seal colony. We had already done well with our photos but now wanted a bush-walk.
We followed the bush track as it slowly climbed the high ground behind the very high bluffs we had seen. We crossed the high land and then had made a steep descent, part of it on steps so steep we had to turn around and descend backwards so our feet would have enough step.
Once back down at beach level we still had a quarter mile of stone-only beach to get to the seal colony. We saw only about a dozen seals altogether at the colony and this time luck wasn’t with us. We couldn’t get any good photos there.
We returned to the base of the hill and checked the time. We were just about to start back and we had already walked for three and a half hours (with the detour).
The trip back was a push. We ran out of water shortly after leaving the far end and the steep climb off Galway Beach took a lot out of us.
But we soldiered on and got back to the van after six hours, 24,500 steps, 10+ miles, and 64 stories of stairs (according to the Fitbit).
After recovering a bit in the van, we drove back to Fox Glacier town. The sink in the van was refusing to drain so I thought we’d go to a dump station and I’d use a hose to try to get it working. Andrew had told us a previous customer had jammed up the grey-water tank with food particles and he thought he had gotten it fixed.
I did get the system working but it’s not clear it’s going to stay working.
We then drove to the nearby Lake Matheson cafe and took a coffee break before heading to the nearby Clearwater Bridge freedom-camping spot.
After supper I caught up the blog and Labashi used her laptop to take a close look at the photos we took today.

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Sunday, 24 February -

This morning we left our campsite along the road to Franz Joseph town and headed on into the town. We took a quick tour of the visitor center but decided we had better get on out to the glacier this morning rather than wait for the crowds to gather.
We drove a few K south of town to cross the single-lane bridge then another 4k to the parking lot, arriving shortly after 0900. We then walked the Franz Joseph Glacier Valley walk. We had a perfect summer sun for our walk and took our time walking through the valley, impressive on all sides. In the distance we could see the pretty white snow of the upper glacier and the gravel-covered grey of the lower glacier. The riverbed of smooth stones was mostly dry but where water flowed it was granite-flour gray in color. High on the walls, water cascaded down, making small rainbows with their mists.
We took lots of pictures of Kokopelli with the various backgrounds of the valley and worked our way as close to the glacier face as possible. We were surprised to find a large arch of blue ice at the base of the glacier and it took us a minute to reconcile the scale of what we were seeing. What we at first took for a large pile of gravel was actually blue glacier ice covered with a foot or so of gravel, insulating and preserving the ice.
The trail only approaches the face of the glacier within a few hundred yards. It’s too dangerous to get closer.
We then returned pretty much via the same path but our perspective was very different looking down-valley. Our walk took a bit under two hours.
After the walk, we stopped at the Lake Wombat trailhead for a leisurely lunch, then went back to town and the dump station. At the dump station we met Wayne and Maree, an Australian farming couple about our own age. We had a quick chat while Wayne tended to his rental motor-home’s duties, then took our turn.
Around 1400 we drove on to the Fox Glacier and walked to its face. This was about a 70-minute walk but a lot of it was quite steep and the Fitbit racked up the stair-count.
The face of the Fox Glacier could be approached closer but the steep part came in when the trail took us above it for a view down at it. Shortly after we left the highest vantage point we heard an odd sound which took a minute to recognize. A small rockslide had started on the far side of the glacier. We had just missed seeing it. I had been filming there not ten minutes before. We’ll certainly remember the sound, though. At first there was just an odd clacking sound... the rocks hitting each other.... then a sudden rush and the resulting crash as the rocks hit the bottom of the defile. Very impressive.
On the way back to the van we were asked by two DOC employees to fill out a survey form. It turned out to be asking our opinion about the sight-seeing flights over the glacier. We guessed we had seen something like eight of them in the hour we were walking and they seemed to stay high up above the valley walls so they didn’t seem intrusive at all. At the Franz Joseph glacier, though, the sight-seeing helicopters seemed to be in a constant flight pattern, two coming up valley, one down close to the glacier, and one returning down-valley on the other side, pretty much all the time. Those were a bit annoying. I wouldn’t want to deny local companies their livelihood over it, though.
After our second walk we were quite tired and headed into the little town of Fox Glacier for a coffee at the local cafe and a short visit to the general store for a few essentials and a bottle of wine.
We then drove west out of Fox Glacier to a 12k dirt road to Gillespies Beach. This is another old gold-mining area but it’s right on the Tasman Sea. The gold mining was largely done by a massive dredge which churned through all the land just behind the dunes, extracting the gold as it went.
Today it’s difficult to tell there was gold mining here. Everything is covered in thick vegetation. The walk to the beach is through a tunnel of vegetation and the beach itself is pristine and goes on forever.
The campground/car park at Gillespie’s is simply the latter--- a parking lot--- and a relatively small one at that. There’s a grassy area nearby for tents but the only thing that tells you there’s camping is a sign at the entrance to the lot, cars go to the right, campervans go left. There are no tables or fireplaces but there is a ‘longdrop’ (pit toilet) and beside it, a smallish water tank.
Not long after we settled in we saw Wayne and Maree come in and select a spot. Maree came over a bit later and invited us to come have a little wine-and-cheese snack with them.
We spent a wonderful evening with them and laughed our way through two and half bottles of wine, several cheeses, a bag of tortilla chips, and a container of hummus. Wayne and Maree are farmers of rapeseed (canola), wheat, and beef cattle on a farm 200 miles west of Sydney. They have a 27-year-old daughter who’s on track to become a pediatrician. Wayne is further into ‘agri-politics’ than he likes but it sometimes gives him the opportunity to visit other agri-business places.
As darkness approached (and the wine ran out) we bid a fond farewell to each other and exchanged addresses. Back at our van we decided we didn’t need anything else for supper and turned in.

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Saturday, 23 February -

After breakfast we left Lake Mahinapua to return to Hokitika for showers and internet service.
We had showers at the local (indoor) swimming pool, $3 per person. The shower room was a massive open room, about 24 x 30 with benches around the edge and hooks for your clothes. In the corner was a small anteroom with two shower pipes dangling down from an overhead pipe. I can’t imagine how this works for a largish swim team. Apparently two guys start showering and the other guys line up for their turn. This morning, though, I was the only person there.
I had my doubts about this arrangement but one push on the pop-out button and water began to flow, quickly turning warm and making for a very nice shower. The pop-out button would come out every minute or so but all you had to do was push it back in for another minute. The water was very soft and wonderful.
After I finished I walked across the street to a Saturday-morning open market, here a matter of only 20 or so tables selling veggies, breads, knitted goods, artwork, and of course the thing the town is famous for--- jade--- in many different forms.
I talked at some length to a jade-seller who of course recognized I was an outsider. As we talked he said he had never been out of New Zealand and didn’t intend to go. He says the West coast of New Zealand and particularly the Hokitaki area, are perfect. He has a four minute walk to a pristine beach, a 20 minute drive to hunting, and the climate doesn’t vary more than 8 to 10 degrees (Celsius) throughout the year.
I asked if it snows here and he said they will very occasionally get flurries. The town doesn’t own a snowplow. Yet I can see snow-covered peaks from here even now in late summer.
By that time Labashi was out from her shower so we drove around the corner to the library. We connected very easily (for once) and the wi-fi was free. This was the first time we had free wi-fi. Normally it’s $2 - 3$ a half hour or more.
I uploaded a blog update and Labashi sent out some pictures. We’ve been having problems with our mail flowing since arriving in New Zealand and our ISP at home appears to have gotten to my trouble ticket and gotten that fixed.
When mail wasn’t coming in or going out, we were still able to see mail if we logged on to the webmail version of our account. But the problem with that is you have the paid-wi-fi clock counting down very quickly as you read an email online and try to compose a quick reply. When mail is flowing to our laptops we can get the mail quickly, log off, read and compose multiple replies, if necessary, then connect again for the outbox to flow. Anyway, it seems to be working properly now.
We had a ‘ficelle’ at the Cafe de Paris for lunch. A ficelle is a small baguette split lengthwise and filled with New Zealand bacon (more like ham than our bacon at home), pineapple, and brie cheese, then toasted. I could do those for lunch EVERYday. Cost is $7.80 but we split it so that makes for a cheap lunch here.
Oh, yeah, speaking of prices.... gas is NZ$2.22 a liter minimum (I just paid $2.45 this afternoon). That’s at least $8.88 a gallon. With the conversion, that’s over $8.00 US per gallon. If I’ve figured my mileage correctly, I’m getting 19 mpg highway on the old (2004) HiAce campervan.
After lunch we drove south our of Hokitika. About a 1/2 south we stopped in the gold-mining town of Ross to use their dump-and-water-up facility since we’re not sure we’ll see another for awhile.
Next was Pukekura for the Bushman’s Museum and Wild Foods Cafe at Pukekura. I expected this to be a classic tourist trap. It advertised wild game and claimed to sell possum pies. It had a motto-- “You kill’em, we grill’em”.
Actually, though, it’s a museum to celebrate New Zealand’s last frontier of adventure... deer hunting by helicopter.
The film tells an incredible story. Animals were introduced to New Zealand in the form of possums, stoats (ermines, I think), several species of deer, chamois, and other goat-like ‘sporting’ animals. The new animals threw off the balance of nature. The possums and stoats killed off many of the birds and the deer multiplied so quickly that they were out-competing the cattle and sheep for the good forage. They were declared enemies of the country.
New Zealand also had developed a taste for venison and for decorative horns. By the early ‘70s venison was bringing over $1 a pound. To fill the demand, hunters soon had to innovate. The innovation came in the form of hunting from helicopters. That included shooting deer from helicopters and, later, capturing deer live via net guns.
Before the development of the net guns, though, men would wrangle down deer by leaping on them from helicopters. The film showed footage of guys standing on the right skid of the chopper as it pursued a deer, all very close to the ground in high-pitch terrain, and as the chopper would get as close as it could, the guy would leap onto the running deer’s back. I’ve never seen anything like it. That’s crazy!!!
We then toured the ‘museum’, which had a little of everything. They have possums in largish cages. They are something like ours but they have a much thicker coat and a furry tail. The fur is mixed with merino wool and sold as very expensive possum-marion gloves, hats, sweaters, scarves, etc.
There’s a small trench in the floor full of green mossy growth and large (4’+) eels. And to me the best thing in the whole place were the net guns. It’s one thing to see a net-gun in the movie but these are actual net-guns used by the guys hanging onto the side of a wildly-bucking helicopter trying to get close enough to fire. And the great part is these guns are just there. You can pick them up to understand their heft and examine them in whatever detail you like. I absolutely loved it.
After the Bushman’s Museum we drove on an hour or so to Whataroa through very pretty farming country with roadsides full of ferns. Green, green, green. But the rivers are all dry or nearly so. Though the area is known for its rainfall, they’re in a drought right now. People who depend on cisterns (rainwater collection from the roof for the household water supply) are having to haul in water or pay for a water service truck to come in and fill the tank.
We topped off the gas at Whataroa and continued south. Labashi had read a novel called ‘The Bone People’ which was written by a very interesting woman at Okarita. She wanted to check out the area and it happens there’s a small community campground at Okarita Beach. We planned to spend the night there but the campground was overcrowded. In the style of New Zealand camping there are no camp sites. There’s merely a largish area, in this case more of a large turnaround, where people pull in and park, generally dividing up what space is available. But as it gets crowded, the vehicles start parking closer and closer to each other. In this case there was a space we could have claimed but it would have been within a few yards of other campervans on both sides. We’d rather not.
We moved on and consulted the New Zealand Camping app on the iPad. There was a road-side DOC campground not far off the main road. That was at Lake Mapourika. At first this seemed little more than a gravel pit-style pulloff but we found a spot well away from the other campers and situated where late-comers can’t come in close to us.
After supper I walked to the lake and then over to another campground on the same lake, just checking out the camping rigs, the foliage, the rocks, the riverbed, etc.
New Zealand is endlessly fascinating....


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Akaroa ; Arthur’s Pass ; Hokitika

(posted from Hokitika Library)
(This post covers 19 - 22 February, 2013)

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Friday, 22 February -

This morning we woke as the sun rose over the mountains at 0730. After breakfast we drove around Lake Kaniere about 4 km to Dorothy Creek Falls. These were billed as pleasant little falls but were actually quite incredible. The falls come down 100 feet of multiple levels into a picture-perfect pool among white granite boulders. The walls alongside the cascade are covered in ferns.
We took photos and a few short video clips and then headed back the 4K gravel road to the campground to plan our next adventure.
We decided to forego making a dash for Gillespie Beach over two hours south and instead look around more locally.
We elected to take a gravel-road drive into the next valley, the valley of the Arahura River. After about 5K of tunnel-driving (i.e., driving through foliage so thick on each side that it makes a partial tunnel over us) and a short descent, we came out to a long valley, all taken up by one farm. We paused to take photos of a few unfamiliar birds and then, following the directions in our guide book, crossed the Arahura River bridge and opened a farm gate to proceed up along the river on a two-track path. We parked when the two-track abruptly ended at a wash-out.
We then walked up and down a steep hill, descending to cross the river-plain, now a grass field for browsing cows. As we started the next ascent we met a group of about 20 high-school-age kids and their advisor, all giving us a cheery “hi-ya” or “G’day”.
They all had large backpacks and apparently were on a multi-day backpacking trip.
We continued on several steep climbs and descents for a total of 45 minutes to reach the bridge. The last section was very steep but had metal poles with a chain at the top to assist us.
The suspension bridge was rated for only one person at a time and it’s floor was merely wire and metal straps about 15 inches apart.
Labashi tried the bridge first as I filmed. It took about two minutes for her to cross. When I joined her, she said she had had her heart in her mouth as she crossed, mostly because she could see the water rushing by 50 feet below.
We had a cookie break on the far side of the bridge and then re-crossed and returned to the van in another 45 minutes. The Fitbit said we had done 45 stairs.
We then drove back out of the valley and returned to Lake Kaniere for lunch along the lake.
We headed back toward Hokitika and decided we’d better take advantage of the nearby dump station to top-off our water tank.
We then drove into town and did a bit of shopping for jade at Traditional Jade. Afterwards we drove along the beach and then hit the local grocery (New World) for supplies for the next few days and a bottle of wine for tonight.
We drove south out of Hokitika for a short distance (only about 10K) to our camp for the night at Lake Mahinapua, another DOC campsite.
After supper we walked the Bellbird Walk, a ten-minute walk but through very pretty fern-dominated growth.
Labashi is enamored of the flowers and birds and indeed they are interesting. We went to some trouble today to get a photo of one particular bird only to have one walk into camp tonight and walk right past our feet. The one in the wild was very shy but this second one has apparently been fed by previous campers.
As we entered the campground I noticed a guy putting together a Pakboat. This is an inflatable canoe. It’s actually a framework covered by a high-tech skin of fabric but then inflatable tubes run between the frame and skin to stiffen the canoe shape. The resulting craft is only 14 kilos in weight (this one a single-paddler model).
The canoe guy is an Austrian who is traveling by car and taking short backpacking trips around New Zealand.
About a half-hour before dark I walked an overgrown bush trail which I thought led to the swimming beach. I would have been leery of just barging on through the growth overhanging the trail in the US because of snakes and briars or other nasties. But since there are no snakes and we’ve yet to see briars it was an easy decision to go on. I walked in about ten minutes with daylight fading but came to a very steep descent and thought it a bit too risky, especially for this late in the day, and returned the way I came in. A few minutes later I found the actual trail to the swimming beach.
The weather here has been wonderful. We’ve had lower-80’s, sunshiny days and high-50’s to mid-sixties nights.... perfect weather for travel in a campervan. Daylight starts weakly at 0600 but get-up-time is about 0730. The evenings are long and mostly gentle, though sometimes windy. On the windy evenings we’ve generally been able to sit out on the leeward side of the van.
Sunset is a slow process and it seems like darkness is finally coming on around 2030 but the sky is still pretty light at 2100. But by then our bodies tell us it’s bed-time.
We made up the bed and got undressed and into bed to start reading when we realized we hadn’t heard the canoe-guy come back yet. We looked out to his tent and saw that indeed was the case. He had gone fishing about two hours before dark and had asked us if we wanted a trout if he had any luck fishing.
The moon was nearly full and I remembered he had a headlamp but, still it was almost 2130. We decided it would be a little adventure if all was well and it needed to be done.
We walked down to the beach in the moonlight and found him along the shore, just starting back. We then stayed along the beach listening to the night-birds before returning to our little home.

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Thursday, 21 February -

We slept well at Klondyke campsite even though we had a fairly strong wind occasionally buffeting the van in the night. Labashi said the guys in the next camp site sat up talking but I never heard them. But once again we had a beautiful morning and the wind quieted down nicely.
After pack-up we drove up to Arthur’s Pass Store and tried the internet connection again. This time we were able to get some mail out and I was able to talk to our bank via Skype.
I’m having a hard time adjusting to the fact that any business in the US has to be taken care of by 1100 local since that’s 1700 (the day before) in the US. I don’t even think about it until around 1100 and by then it’s too late.
After the store, we headed north and then west with the GPS set for the gold-mining town of Hokitika. Along the way we stopped at a scenic overlook called ‘Death’s Corner’ (nice!) and found a half-dozen keas milling about. Two of them promptly flew onto the van roof and attacked the roof vents. I grabbed a jacket and scared them off but stayed near the van while Labashi took photos.
Our next stop was in the little town of Kumara. As we drove through we saw a series of panels illustrating the town’s history. Kumara was also a gold-mining town.
As we read the panels, an older local fellow walked up to us. He pointed at the old hotel across the street and said “Would you believe there used to be 10 of those in this little town?”. As he proceeded to tell us he could so clearly see his mother pulling him (at age 16) from the hotel, we understood a ‘hotel’ was a bar with perhaps a few rooms, but the purpose of the hotel was drinking, not accomodations.
We continued on the west coast, finally emerging with a clear view of waves breaking on the beach. It took us a few minutes to realize we’re looking at the Tasman Sea!
We continued down the coast highway to our first need--- a dump station! We needed to dump the porta-potty and to refill our water tank. The dump station was similar to those in the US but didn’t have a clean-water refill. We thought we’d better call Andrew to see whether we could trust the water here. He said the water supply would indeed be safe but the hose might be contaminated from people using it to spray inside their tanks or drain hose. But all we had to do was disconnect the hose and use the one from the van.... that’s just how it works in New Zealand at most dump stations.
We then drove into Hokitika and first hit the i-Site for local maps. We took a tour around town and stopped at the liquor store for a bottle of irish cream. A small bottle of Bailey’s is $30 so we decided to try Canterbury Cream for $13! Since everything else was north of $35 that will have to do. We were surprised to see Amurula Cream, which we had enjoyed in Botswana. But it was $45 for a small bottle.
We then drove out of town to Hokitika Gorge, about 30 klicks out. There we found a beautiful gorge with incredibly-blue water. The blue color comes from light reflections of the rock dust or ‘flour’ in the glacier water coming down from the Southern Alps.
We spent only about an hour at the Gorge, walking their well-tended footpath to the end and back.
We had intended to go to a campground south of town but our New Zealand Frenzy book showed one on a nearby lake. We did have to duck into town for a gas fillup (gas is $8.00 a gallon here) and then we drove back out to Lake Kaniere. Tonight our campground was a Department of Conservation (DOC) ‘standard’ campground, which goes for $6 per person. It has nice open camp sites and a very clean amenities building with flush toilets (but it does not have showers).
After supper we played with the computers for a while and then took a walk along Lake Kaniere.


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Wednesday, 20 February -

We woke at Lake Pearson and after pack-up headed further into the mountains, toward Arthur’s Pass. We again had a sunny, pleasant day with temperatures heading into the high Seventies or low Eighties.
Our first stop was the “i-site” or visitor center, at Arthur’s Pass. We watched the video about the discovery of the pass by Arthur Dobson and the discovery of gold on the west side of the country at Hokitika. The merchants of Christchurch wanted gold and they wanted the business gold brought with it so the race was on to build a road through the mountains. After years of construction, the road was finished but it was still too far and the miners preferred to deal with west-coast cities Nelson and Dunedin. And then the gold ran out.
The mid-1800’s saw stagecoach services use the road and before long that led to the railroad and a true, dependable, and relatively cheap east-west connection crossing the Southern Alps.
After the visitor’s center tour we went on to Arthur’s Pass Store where we thought we’d use their wi-fi connection to send out email and upload my blog. The service was fairly cheap for New Zealand, $3 for an hour, but it kept failing. While we tried to get things done, the router had to be rebooted four times. They eventually offered to refund our money because of the hassle so we took them up on it. I did manage to get a blog update posted and retrieve email, though.
We then drove to the nearby trailhead for Devil’s Punchbowl track. This was a short, but strenuous hike up to the base of an incredible 130-meter waterfall. My Fitbit credited me with 50 sets of stairs, though. And a stair-credit is only given going up the stairs. The hike took us about an hour.
Back at the parking lot we had lunch and then returned to the store to buy a knit cap for me for sleeping in colder weather. We’ve been looking at them but the popular possum-merino ones run about $45. This one is more like $15 and will do just fine.
We then decided we’d like another walk. We drove north to a ski-hill parking lot and walked the Dobson Nature Track and about half of the Lake Misery connecting trail.
That was another walk with some uphill to it and my Fitbit ended up with 79 stairs for the day and 13,600 steps / 6 and a half miles. And all of it in perfect sunshine and a light breeze.
It was 1700 by then so we headed back south toward a free campground called ‘Klondyke’. We stopped in Arthur’s Pass to check about a sign for showers. There were showers, all right and cheap enough at $2 for six minutes. But when we went around back to the showers and found the door locked because a woman was having her shower, we asked how it was. “Cold!”, she said, “Very cold”. And right there was enough information for us to make a decision.
We drove on to Klondyke and were surprised to see how empty the campground was. We snagged a primo spot atop a dyke of some sort along the dry riverbed and settled in.
After supper we took a short walk back into the woods and we took photos of keas, i.e., mountain parrots.

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Tuesday, 19 February -

We woke to wonderful sun illuminating Akaroa Bay to our right and the Pacific Ocean to our left. The reserve is just east of the road down to Okaine’s Bay, one of the Banks Peninsula’s Eastern Bays.
After pack-up we continued around Tourist Drive until we could see we were nearly around to the end of Akaroa Bay. We descended to the SH75 road to Christchurch and took it to Barrys Bay Cheese, a cheesemaker and purveyor of fine cheeses and wines. We tasted several cheeses and bought a small bag of Maasdam pieces at half the price of a solid block of it. And the good news is this cheese is so tasty that small pieces are exactly what you want.
We had set the GPS for the other side of the South Island today. We’ve been having fine weather and it’s expected to last for a few days. We’ve learned it’s best to visit the west coast when the east side is having especially good weather. The east is in the rain shadow and is dry while the west side of the mountains are reportedly quite rainy.
On our way west we had to retrace our steps back past our old camp at Waihora Park. Once again in familiar territory, we went to the New World grocery store we had visited a few days ago for a few essentials. We don’t have much room in the fridge or for food storage so we only buy for a few days.
We then drove across the Canterbury Plain toward the western mountains. We stopped for a break at a rest stop and thought we might walk a bit but decided we’d better find our camping place for the night. We continued on to Lake Pearson where we happened upon the last lake-side site.
We had barely parked when two van loads of kids came in and parked nearby. They were from a local school and were going swimming. Apparently they were used to using our campsite as their beach. It was all good fun to have them around for an hour or so.
This campsite was a Department of Conservation ‘basic level’ site in that its only facility was a porta-john. The lake-side sites were very nicely situation and the others were basically in a field of weeds. We were one of about a dozen campervans and there were three or four tent campers.
And though it was a ‘basic’ site, the views of the mountains on each side and of the lake were first class.


********************* END OF POST *****************

Note....

Sorry about the long time between posts. Internet access isn't quite so easy here and we're generally far from an access point at the best times for us to post.

Off to New Zealand! ; Swimming with dolphins...

(posted from Arthur’s Pass Cafe, Arthur’s Pass, NZ)

(This post covers 21 January - 18 February, 2013)

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Monday, 18 February -

This morning we were up at 0615 for our dolphin-swim appointment at 0820.
We drove to Akaroa and parked right next to the main wharf. After our briefing at 0830 we suited up in wet suit and booties (along with the other ten swimmers) and headed out toward the sea on the big, modern catamaran. The cat was chosen both for its stability and for the ability to place the engine and propulsion unit forward and away from the stern and the swim ladders. A nasty prop
We seemed to have no good luck at first and I was starting to wonder whether we’d get to swim when two dolphins approached and attempted to ride our bow wave. We were going a bit too slow for that but they seemed to enjoy swimming alongside.
We entered the 61-degree water which at first took our breath away. But once it had filled up the wet-suit and our bodies warmed it, the sea seemed quite pleasant. We had a small chop-- about one-foot waves--- but they had a long period and were quite comfortable.
Labashi and I made our way out to the far edge of the group and that seemed to be a good place to see lots of dolphins. We’d see them approach and sometimes come up only two feet away. We had diving masks and snorkels and we soon learned to put our faces in the water as soon as we saw them come anywhere near our direction. They didn’t always surface again and sometimes went right under us.
We had been warned not to touch the dolphins and we didn’t, even though they sometimes came within arms reach. They were constantly on the move, darting between us, perhaps, but never pausing.
We swam with them for about 30 minutes before the boat backed to each of us in order to board the ladders in an orderly fashion. The boat has rear controls and side-thrusters so the captain is right there in view of the swimmers boarding and can keep the boat under control very nicely. It was again to our advantage to be further from the boat for we had some good sightings after the pickup sequence started.
After serving us hot chocolate and telling us more about the Hectors, we had a final few minutes among a group of five or six before we headed back.
Back at the wharf we all stripped off the wet suits and booties and had hot showers. Labashi and I had brought along our toiletry kits and waited until everyone else left before having ourselves a nice hot shower each. The others had just had a quick rinse.
After dropping our wet stuff off at the van we walked through town to the fish-and-chips shop. Today’s catch was guernet and a portion of fish and chips was $10.50 but you have to buy the (largish) ketchup and tartar sauce packets at $.60 each. The drinks were also expensive-- a ginger beer and a 22 oz water were $4.20 each. Fortunately, the fish-and-chips portion was large enough for us to just share one.
After lunch I was knocked out by the Dramamine we had taken this morning but Labashi didn’t seem to be affected. She shopped while I napped for a half-hour. We then spent an hour at the library/espresso shop on wi-fi.
We then visited the shop with the listing for free camping in our Native Parks guide and it turned out to be a ‘misunderstanding’. The shop ran tours of penguin-nesting colonies and track-walks. They only offered a spot in the driveway of one of the employees if someone was on a multi-day walk.
The girl suggested we could drive up Lighthouse Road to spots up there so we gave it a shot. The road was very steep, in places so steep I wasn’t sure first gear was going to pull us up there. We saw one pull-off across from a sheep-loading ramp which would work in a pinch but we’d be very exposed if the wind picked up.

Up at 0615 for our morning trip; drove to Akaroa in 35 min; parked at wharf. Suited up after briefing and went out. No luck at first, then good luck for 35 min swim. We at outside of ring and got lots of viewing. Afterwards had lunch at fish and chips (expensive paid for ketchup and tartar), 4.20 soda or water. I napped while L shopped. Went to native lands listing then up lighthouse road and back, then tourist road to Otetopatu Reserve. Stayed for night. Saw Crux, satellite, small magellanic cloud, Orion nebula, Milky Way. Out by starlight.

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Sunday, 17 February -

We left Waihora Park late this morning. We were up a bit late at 0800 but had lots of little chores and never left until 0930.
We were almost half-way to Akaroa but the second half is the hilly one. We first hit Little River, though, and stopped at the visitor’s center and art gallery. I’ve taken quite a liking to New Zealand cappuccinos and mochaccinos and the Hummingbird brand is a good one. The art work was high quality.
We arrived Akaroa around 1330 and immediately started looking for a dolphin-swim charter. That was the whole point of Akaroa for Labashi so we didn’t want to miss out. We booked with Black Cat charters. Cost was high... $145 per person... but then again these are the world’s rarest dolphins and they are wild, not trained. The trip is limited to 12 swimmers and it’s from a largish catamaran so the boat should be nice and stable.
We then walked along restaurant row along the beach but the town and all the restaurants were very crowded.... Sunday, you know! We ended up back at the van and had a nicer lunch than we would have had in a crowded and noisy restaurant.
After lunch we walked back to the old French side of town and up to the Giant’s House. This turned out to be a home far up on a hill which the owner had surrounded with large (giant!) plaster figures, all covered in small mosaics. It was creative but not worth the $40 admission price to us. We could see enough from outside the gate to see it wasn’t for us. If it had been a $5 per person fee, we might have gone for it but no thanks at $20 per person.
We walked back toward the van and stopped at the library/cinema/espresso shop for a cuppa and a wi-fi connection.
We then walked back to the van and drove from Akaroa to Okain’s Bay Campground. The camping app said the fee was 1-5$ but it was $12 per person. When I hesitated, the girl said she’d give me the group rate which was $10 per person.
We selected a spot in a grove of trees and while Labashi started supper I went walking. I soon found a zip-line and a bike track (a course for kids up and down through the woods) and the beach.
After supper Labashi and I walked to the beach looking for penguins or seals. We had a beautiful moon rising as the sun set and it was nice to be out on the smooth-sand beach all by ourselves. There was also a creepy sea-cave nearby that we explored a bit until we remembered we were in earthquake country. This area feels very remote though it’s really only a few hours from Christchurch.
Back at the van I did a bit of blogging catch-up and set up alarms for tomorrow’s early start.

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Saturday, 16 February -

This morning I found the nearest grocery store on the GPS. While Labashi shopped I texted Andrew to call (incoming calls are free). We went over the water pump issue and it turned out to only have some air in the system. Once I left the faucet on to let the pump push the air out, it started pumping water. That’s great! I was thinking we were in for a day of rushing around trying to get a water pump replaced.
We then went on to Westfield Mall where I bought minutes for the phone (Andrew only provides the phone, not minutes) and we went to the K-Mart where we bought a mattress topper (the van mattress is too thin) and a cheapie quilt. Labashi likes to have a lot of covers and since Andrew dropped the van off to us, we couldn’t ask for more like we had in South Africa.
After our shopping we wanted so see more of Christchurch so set the GPS for Sumner Beach. That was only a half-hour trip but along the way we saw a Home Depot-like business--- a “Mitre10 Mega”. We looked for a fitting for the fresh-water tank’s vent but didn’t find one. Apparently Pex isn’t a thing yet in New Zealand.
We then drove on to Sumner beach and walked the beach for an hour.
We needed to get to a campsite for the night so set the GPS for Waihora Park. But because of our new position our route took us up the steep hills northeast of the city. That was a beautiful drive--- until the top, where a sign said the road was closed due to landslides. A GPS alternate showed another route but we also found it blocked by a landslide. We ended up taking a shortcut down the mountain but came out very close to where we had first started ascending. But we didn’t regret the trip up the mountain.... we had a spectacular view up there.
Back at Waihora I talked to Adelle about her listing on the Rankers web site (the listing for her campground) and then I sat out a bit to watch the stars but soon faded. The sun goes down about 20:45 and the sky is still light until 21:15 or so. Wow--- I love summer!

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Friday, 15 February -

Today after our Uncle Toby’s Cheerios we went into Christchurch to the Botanical Garden. We went to the DOC office seeking maps and assistance and were mostly successful.
We then walked through the beautiful Botanical Garden to the Museum. We started through and I realized I’d have to move Budley or risk a parking ticket. While Labashi toured the Maori section she so badly wanted to see, I walked back to the van and moved it to the Re:Start Mall parking lot on the advice of a museum staffer. Parking was $1 an hour there and $3.10 an hour at the meters.
Labashi was about finished with the section when I returned and I joined her for the rest of the first floor. We had entered the museum thinking we’d spend an hour there and three hours later had only done the first floor!
We flashed through the second floor and then headed down to Re:Start. This is a section of the city where the earthquake rubble was pushed back and a few blocks of shopping area was built out of shipping containers. The city had purchased over 1000 shipping containers right after the 2010 earthquake. In three months, an architectural firm had designed and a contracting firm had built, a shopping mall from some of them. Others were used to make barriers against falling rock around the base of some hills.
We used the free wi-fi around Re:Start to check in at home and did some shopping for New Zealand specialties--- like possum-and-merino socks and gloves. Everything seemed so expensive, though. Sweaters were over $200 and even a pair of gloves was $40.
I also used wi-fi to fix a problem with online billing for my Tracfone. I’ve been extending service without any problem and now I get a reject while in New Zealand. I bought minutes on both phones to extend service until after my return to avoid losing accumulated minutes.
After some searching online, I decided I wanted to get a New Zealand map chip for my GPS. I had the rental one, a TomTom, but I didn’t like it at all. If I was going to do this I needed to do it now before we left Christchurch and got away from the city.
I found one at a Map World about 20 minutes away.... so far as I could tell the only place to get it in Christchurch. We drove over there and I bought the chip with the New Zealand and Australia maps for NZ$249. That’s about $40 more than I would have had to pay for it in the US but I don’t have much choice.
One thing I’ve learned. Bring your own stuff; don’t depend on the outfitter.
That evening we drove back to Waihora Park for another delightful night in the country by ourselves.
But that evening we had another problem. The water pump quit. I measured the water in the tank and it was only down about one-third. I didn’t have cell service so couldn’t call Andrew from there. It would have to wait until morning.

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Thursday, 14 February -

This morning we had Uncle Toby’s Cheerios for breakfast at our camping spot at North-South Holiday Park.
After packing up, we headed to the nearby Antarctic Center and spent a few hours there. The entrance fees were very high at NZ$80 for entrance to the museum, the penguin feeding, the 4D film, and the Antarctic Storm Experience.
We were just in time for the penguin feeding so went there first. We first watched from an underground aquarium window with a view of the person feeding them above. As the feeding continued we moved to a half-and-half view, then to an above view. The penguins were indeed very cute and we saw that many of them had infirmities and that’s why they were at the center.
Next up was the 4D Experience. This was a 3D film of a trip to and in among the ice of Antarctica with the added dimension of water spray and moving seats to simulate what was on the screen. As the bow of the ship fell in heavy seas, we’d feel it in our seats and water would spray us in the face.
At one point we’re ashore looking up at icicles and one breaks off and seems to pierce right into us.
After lunch in the parking lot, we went back in for more. In addition to the historical artifacts we also participated in an Antarctic Storm. We donned rubber overshoes and heavy coats and entered a room of snow and 18-degree temperatures. As the simulated storm approached, the room darkened and the wind began to shriek. The anemometer only recorded a wind strength of 25 miles per hour but the wind-chill it brought was very real.
After the museum we decided to go to the local Department of Conservation office for maps and guidebooks. The GPS showed it downtown but when we got close it was obvious the office was no longer there. I checked the Official New Zealand maps app on the iPad and it showed the office back near the airport, where we had come from. We followed those directions and thought we had it made when we saw a Department of Conservation flag atop the building. But there was a sign on the door saying the office had recently moved to the Botanical Garden visitor’s center.... just a few blocks where we left from for this fruitless search.
We determined that we’d get there too late if we had any delays at all so we headed out to our first campsite out in the country. I had picked this one from the Official New Zealand maps app which had led us astray for the DOC office.
But we found Waihora Park with no difficulty. But there was nobody there and no instructions. We’ve seen this before, though, so we just went ahead and selected a campsite and checked back a few hours later to pay.
That’s when we met Adelle, the wifely side of the caretaker couple. She was a trip.... a bit sassy and very funny in a country-gal way.
While waiting for Adelle to show, I met two Austrian guys. One had been working for the last five months on the North Island and had taken a two week vacation to tour the South Island with his buddy.
Waikora Park is a local park next to a country harness-racing track on one side and a Department of Conservation plant nursery on another. A rail-trail for walking and bicycling was nearby and it had a children’s playground complete with tree-house and an old enclosed lifeboat for children to play on and in. It also had a bar-be-que of a type I’ve not seen before. In this one, you light a gas flame by pressing in a button and it heats up a stainless-steel surface where you cook your food. After cooking, you clean down the surface with the provided tools. The gas to run it is free.
After supper we walked to the rail-trail head where we found a railway station building open and equipped much like it had been in the early 1900’s when it served the local farmers and ranchers.
We then walked back to the van and set up for the night. By 2100 we were already asleep.

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Wednesday, 13 February -

We again walked to the truck stop and this time shared a ‘homestyle’ breakfast--- two eggs, English bacon (more like a ham), sausage (more like a giant hot-dog), a McDonalds-like homefries triangle, and toast. That one cost us $20 but since we were sharing and had plenty of food, it seemed about right.
Back at the room I made calls to our bank via Skype and they said the problem had been cleared overnight. No information was available on why the transaction had failed.
At 0900 I met Andrew, our host from Cruzy Campers, at the reception office and we drove on to our room. There he went through the van with us and we signed the papers. He was turning the van over to us here rather than taking us back across town to his place. His wife had other business nearby a bit later and would pick him up.
All plans went out the window when we smelled natural gas as we were going through the instructions on how to turn on the gas. Andrew had just bought a new tank and installed it on the way here but I could hear a leak and Andrew, who didn’t have good hearing, could smell it.
Andrew called his wife and told her to meet us at a local mall. We had asked for directions to a mall for our provisioning so he wisely decided to take us there to go ahead and shop while he worked through the problem.
I came out to check an hour later and he had replaced the bottle and adapter but still had the smell. We determined it had to be a leak in the regulator. He went off with his wife to buy one and I hung out for 20 minutes until his return. That did indeed fix the problem.
We continued shopping and stowing until near supper time and then bought a takeout meal from one of the food-court shops. We had a wonderful stuffed baked potato and barbequed beef with potato wedges-- our first meal in the van.
The van’s license plate says ‘Budley’ so that’s it’s name. When I use the cell phone to call Andrew callerID also identifies me as Budley.
Since we were familiar with North South Holiday Park from our evening there last night, we returned for our first night in the van.
We got organized fairly quickly and settled down to a comfortable, but colder, night. The temperature was around 45 degrees.

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Tuesday, 12 February -

We crossed the International Date Line a few hours out of Auckland. At Auckland airport, we had a mess. We felt okay but had to go through multiple passport controls. We had a long line for the first only to then have to retrieve our baggage to be scanned into the country...in our presence. That meant we had to get our baggage from the carousel and lug it to and through another long line. When one of our bags came through the tech spotted hiking shoes and Labashi’s were taken and cleaned while we waited wondering whether there was going to be a big problem about it. In the end she was issued a warning notice but it could have been an on-the-spot $400 fine if the hiking shoes had been heavily encrusted with dried mud.
The hiking shoes problem came about because we hadn’t declared them. The problem with that was the form asked if you had any hiking boots or shoes which had been worn outside. Haven’t ALL shoes been worn outside? Also, the shoes in question were not a classic hiking shoe but rather a cross-over between a hiking shoe and a sneaker. If the form had said “Do you have any shoes with a lug or lug-style sole?”, we would have answered yes.
We then had the choice of waiting for the bus or walking ten minutes to the domestic terminal. We chose to walk since we thought we’d have a problem loading and unloading the luggage and the buses only ran every fifteen minutes. That was fine but when we got to the terminal the blue line getting us there continued down the sidewalk to the end of the terminal. We went the whole way to the end only have to re-trace the entire distance through the terminal back to the Air New Zealand check-in.
After yet another trip through a security scan we waited about an hour for our flight.
In Christchurch, we retrieved our baggage and I saw a Vodaphone store nearby. I bought a New Zealand SIM chip for the GSM-frequency phone I had bought in South Africa last year. Cost was $30 but includes $20 in talk-time at .22 per minute.
When I tried to pay for the SIM chip with my credit card, the transaction was rejected. This was particularly irksome since I had contacted my credit union at least four times about our travel plans for New Zealand. Fortunately, I had picked up some cash from the ATM just before going to the Vodaphone store.
I used my new phone to call the campground for a shuttle pickup and we soon were in the capable hands of Kristen. She shuttled us directly to our room and we took quick showers and crashed.
We woke in about four hours-- about 1700 local time. We walked to the nearby truck stop and had comfort food-- hamburgers and fries with a beer for me and a glass of wine for Labashi. For NZ$28 or about $23 US. Fortunately, though we had ordered and paid for a plain burger each, they were garnished wonderfully and we had no complaints.
On the way back to our room I bought $5 worth of internet time (an hour) and used the time to check mail and make a Skype call to check our answering machine.
We went back to bed about 2030 local (about 0230 body-time) and slept heavily until 0630 (local).

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Monday, 10/11 February --

Enroute to New Zealand we were served our first meal, a supper, about an hour after takeoff. After supper I watched the movie ‘Looper’, then also tried to nap but to no avail. Cabin lights then went down for a few hours.
About halfway through the flight I caught a few minutes of sleep but it didn’t refresh. But about 10 hours into the flight I put my seat back a bit and caught a short nap that for some reason refreshed me greatly. I don’t believe I slept more than 5 or 10 minutes but woke feeling much livelier. Labashi said she hadn’t slept but a few minutes either and also seemed to feel better.
We then watched another movie. I tried a New Zealand one, “My Secret Wedding”, about a Chinese-ancestry girl marrying a European-ancestry New Zealand guy.
Two hours before landing we were served breakfast and that seemed to revive everyone.

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Sunday, 10 February -

We woke a bit late and had a long breakfast with our hosts. We just hung out chatting until loading up for the run to the airport at 1330.
At the airport we suddenly realized we had a problem. We were thinking we could check a bag and take a carry-on plus a personal item. However, the weight limits were much lower this year. I had apparently looked at the limits for our South Africa trip last summer and missed the lower weights now allowed. The only way to continue was to check another bag... for $150 more! I briefly thought of just throwing away enough to get down a bag but I was afraid of any unforeseen delays from that point on might cause us to miss our flight. We ended up checking a third bag. We definitely have some planning to do for the trip home.
Our flight to LAX got underway on time and was non-eventful. We had a bit of turbulence but only for a few minutes at a time.
At LAX we had to transition from the domestic system to the international system so that meant catching a bus to another terminal and then checking in through security again. Each pass through security was a bit of a hassle, mainly because the put-everything-back-together side is too short. You just barely get your shoes on and others are coming through behind.
We boarded for our flight to Auckland about 2145, a full hour before departure and settled in. Our seat assignments had been changed at the last minute but only to improve them, i.e., to allow us to sit together. The plane too off on time and we wee on our way for the 13-hour leg of the flight.

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Saturday, 9 February -

Today’s the day!
We put in motion all the plans to shut down the house and armed the security system after loading the luggage in the car.
We then drove to Labashi’s brother’s home in Northern Virginia, not far from Dulles Airport.
We had a very pretty day for driving and arrived at her brother’s home at 1530. At 1845, we all went out to look for a pass of the International Space Station. I had received an email from NASA’s Spot the Station program this morning telling me there would be a pass tonight so I looked up the flyby times for Northern Virginia on spaceweather.com/flybys.
I had the iPad along and used the GoSatWatch app to try to find the space station’s icon while it was still below the horizon. The position didn’t look right and I then remembered I had set the location manually and it had been set for West Virginia location. I was still in the process of getting this squared away when Labashi saw a moving light. It wasn’t in quite the right place but it was close. That one turned out to be another satellite. We had a two-fer going!
And sure enough, the space station appeared on time and where predicted. It was much brighter than the other satellite. It was bright enough, in fact, to be what I call a ‘sizzler’. It’s so bright it’s easy to imagine you can hear it making a sizzling sound. Spectacular!!!!
After the big success with the sighting, we went to dinner at the local Bonefish restaurant and had a wonderful time chatting away the evening.

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Friday, 8 February -

Today we packed our clothing and incidentals. That doesn’t sound like much but lots of decisions are made in the process.
Late that afternoon I walked along the creek near home with rain threatening and got in 16K steps for the day.
That evening we watched the new ‘Gold Rush’ episode. We also learned we’ll miss the finale.

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Thursday, 7 February -

I started packing my electronics bag today. I have GPS, multiple tactical flashlights, headlamps, portable UV water purifier, 12v power inverter, ipod and cords, and spare batteries for all. I ran an errand to the post office and along the way heard a helicopter close overhead. It was a small copter under contract to trim back the power lines running from Three Mile Island, the York Haven Hydro Plant and the Brunner Island coal-fired steam plant. Dangling from the copter is a long cable and an array of ten 26-inch circular saw blades powered by a motor in a cage at the top of the array.
I was quite busy running around today so I have 6000 steps in before I started my walk along the creek. I made my first 16K day today.
That evening we finished off the ‘Closer’ disk.

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Wednesday, 6 February -

I made arrangements with Andrew at Cruzy Campers to meet at our campground the day after our arrival in Christchurch. In addition to campsites, this campground -- North South Holiday Park -- has cabins and ‘ensuite’ rooms with bathroom and shower. But what draws us to this one is they have a free airport shuttle and are used to dealing with foreigners coming in or leaving via the airport. Also, there’s a truck stop across the street where we can reportedly have a hearty meal.
That afternoon it was very cold yet... around 30.... but sunny. I convinced the Concours to start and headed to town. I was surprised to find the creek road very muddy and only the tracks of other vehicles were clear. I had to stay in the narrow tracks to avoid the mud.
After Starbucks, I returned via Rudy Park and walked there for 7K steps on the Fitbit.
That evening we watched two episodes of ‘The Closer- Season 7’. Yeah, it’s time to close this one down. The plot lines are getting thinner and thinner.

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Tuesday, 5 February -

More New Zealand planning this morning, then we drove up to Bethany for an early dinner with Mom and Dad. We went out to Texas Roadhouse. This visit turned out to be a disappointment. They served half of our baby-back ribs only partially cooked and too tough to cut. The manager took them back but instead of replacing them, we waited out a cooking process. Mom and Dad finished their meal before we got ours.
I got my walk in at Bethany before and after the meal.
That evening we watched a ‘Mad Men’ episode. It doesn’t have the same old magic. There are enough flashes of inventiveness to keep us interested but it’s not like the early years.

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Monday, 4 February -

Today we were heavy into the New Zealand trip planning. Labashi loves this run-up to the trip. She has books and we watched movies and she spends hours and hours on the web researching each little detail about the Maori culture and places to visit.
That afternoon I walked my four-miler along the creek for my Fitbit steps. That evening we watched two ‘Mad Men’ episodes.

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Sunday, 3 February -

This morning we watched ‘Sunday Morning’ and then I walked my four-mile creekside walk in a very comfortable 35 degrees.
That afternoon we watched the Rugby Sevens championships from Wellington, New Zealand. This was our first exposure to Sevens and these matches were great! The seven-man game is much faster (and shorter) and we saw amazing reversals of fortune. We were hoping to see the All-Blacks in the final but they were eliminated in a nail-biter. Then we saw England come back from an early-in-the-match shellacking to beat a powerful Kenya team. We, and the Wellingtonians, were rooting for Kenya.
We then watched the Super Bowl. We usually only watch a few play-sequences before getting bored but this one was different. We watched the entire game.

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Saturday, 2 February -

Today I spent much of the day writing up instructions on how to restart our home’s systems... just in case Labashi’s brother or sister have to stay at our house in the unlikely event of a family emergency during our absence.
That afternoon I bundled up for today’s 25-degree high and walked the two miles to the bridge and back. With the wind in my face one direction I was cold going and warm coming back.
That evening we watched another New Zealand film, this one ‘Out of the Blue’. It’s the story of guy who one day snapped and started very methodically shooting up the small village.

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Friday, 1 February -

Today I took a Starbucks tour to grab up all the DoubleShot Lights I can. My two-case order didn’t come in at my regular Starbucks and they tell me they’ve been discontinued. I’ve heard this before but just in case I buzzed over to the East York and Park City shops and bought up their Doubleshots stock-- three cases total.
Of course part of my reasoning in going to Lancaster was also that I could get my day’s steps in walking the Mall.
That evening we watched the new ‘Gold Rush’ episode.

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Thursday, 31 January -

I took Labashi to her appointment this morning and used the wait-time to find an alternate way home via roads we’ve never seen. I also took a short walk at Springettsbury Park but the cold wind was howling today so I didn’t last long.
After lunch at Isaacs we walked at Galleria Mall to accumulate the day’s steps.
Back home I read Expedition Portal to see what the builders are doing as far as carrying propane for their stoves and water heaters. I’m using the one-pound portable tanks and am happy with that solution but I like reading about what the more-complex build-outs are doing.
That evening we watched the extras on ‘An Angel At My Table’.


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Wednesday, 30 January-

Today was a very warm but foggy morning and then a rainy afternoon. I spent the morning on the web and by lunch time Labashi seemed to be getting a bit frantic about her to-do list for the day. I volunteered to run the errands in town. I zipped off to the post office and in to Lowe’s (where I got in 6000 steps going up and down the aisles!). I took care of the grocery shopping and banking tasks and stopped at the State Store to buy ingredients for a special cocktail.
Back home I used those ingredients--- Canadian Club whiskey, St. Brendan’s Irish Cream, and Kahlua--- to make a drink our tax prep specialist had told us about. Her husband had done the Chilkoot Trail last year and swore that the miner’s favorite drink was an “Alaskan Duck Fart”... equal parts of the ingredients (though some recipes call for Crown Royal rather than Canadian Club). Not bad!
That evening we watched ‘Trout Bums- New Zealand Kiwi Camo’, a low-budget fly-fishing film. I liked seeing the backcountry but there was too much fishing footage in this fishing film! Tying flies, casting flies, watching flies float, watching fish take flies, and even catching some of them (that refers to the fact that they missed a lot of fish until they learned to pause two seconds before setting the hook).
We also watched ‘An Angel At My Table’, a film about New Zealand poet Janet Frame. What a life!

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Tuesday, 29 January -

I spent much of the morning reading Expedition Portal forum entries on pop-up camper builds for trucks. To my taste the builders are going too tech-heavy but I did find a good series of posts (in another section) from a guy who simply outfitted a small box truck with a bed and ice-box and basically lives like a backpacker but with a much more comfortable tent.... and he’s been doing it full-time for several years. He makes the case for keeping it simple and getting out there.
That afternoon I drove up to Bethany and walked for a bit, then took Dad’s car for its inspection appointment. After returning, I then walked the walking trail around the perimeter of the Bethany West grounds.
That evening we watched the pilot of ‘Annika Bengstrom’, a Swedish TV series about a crime reporter. We see lots of cues reminding us of ‘Wallender’ and ‘The Girl WIth The Dragon Tatoo’ series we loved.
We also watched a few TED talks via Netflix Instant.

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Monday, 28 January -

Today we had our annual tax-prep appointment. The appointment itself is fun! Our tax-prep specialist also travels and has lots of stories to tell.
I then dropped Labashi off and went on to Bethany and Capital City Mall for 8000 steps and 15-or-so stairs.
That evening we watched ‘Kawa’, a New Zealand movie about a Maori guy whose father died, leaving him in a senior position in the community and having to work through coming out as a gay man in this very conservative community. We were in it to learn more about New Zealand ways but it turned out to have a very good story to tell.

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Sunday, 27 January -

Labashi went to tea with her tea-buddies today. I fired up the Miata for a short run to clean off the disc brakes and circulate oil and top off the battery.
The temperature was up around 30 so I then got the Concours running and headed down to Starbucks and then Rudy Park for my walk. We had had snow yesterday but the roads were fairly decent-- just white with salt and I had to be careful of the grit outside the tire tracks and on corners. Everything went well until I went into Rudy Park and found the road snow-covered close to the parking area. I turned around and left rather than ride that packed-down snow (ice!) and rode to the ball-fields park (at the mill-- I can’t remember its name). I knew there was a sun-exposed road and a little corner of the parking lot where I might find a spot for the Concours without crossing ice. That was indeed the case.
I walked from there up the rail-trail segment to Rudy Park and made a loop in Rudy before heading back.
We made a run over to Deb’s Pizza for sandwiches that evening. We’ve been working through all the food in the fridge and freezer so we can turn if off during our trip rather than lose another fridge as we had a few years ago.
That evening we watched two episodes of ‘Mad Men’ Season Five.

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Saturday, 26 January -

I drove up to Bethany and Capital City for my Fitbit walk and visit to Starbucks and spent the rest of the afternoon on the web, mostly on Twitter, Reddit, and the various news-junky sources... with an exploratory detour over to RedState and Drudge.
That evening we watched ‘A Better Life’, a very good movie set in LA about a man trying to keep his son out of gangs. We then finished with a ‘Mad Men’ ep.


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Friday, 25 January -

This morning I ran Labashi over to a half-hour appointment near Rudy Park and spent the wait-time walking in the 18-degrees-and-windy cold. I’m glad it was a short appointment!
We then went on to the nearby Galleria Mall to add some steps. Then it was a quick visit to the York Historical Society gift shop to look for some small Pennsylvania-themed gifts for the NZ trip.
Back home I did a few clean-up chores and scheduled an inspection for Dad’s car. I then wrote an excruciatingly-long email to my brothers about the HomeSitter and what to do, who to call, etc if they can’t reach me in the wilds of the Pacific.
That night we watched the new ‘Gold Rush’ episode.

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Thursday, 24 January -

This morning was only 12 degrees so I drove up to Bethany and then Capital City Mall to get in my steps (I’m still making my daily 10K goal).
Back home mid-afternoon I called tech support for the HomeSitter and went over details of how it works. I had hoped I’d be able to call in to the box and disable it if it became a nuisance but that’s not possible. But I did learn there’s a method to call in to the box even when it shares the line with an answering machine. You just have to call in, hang up, and call back within three minutes. If the event is still going on (as in a power outage), the box will tell you that.

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Wednesday, 23 January -

We received a call from the HomeSitter at 0130 this morning. In my groggy state it took me a few seconds to realize the phone call I was seeing on my cell phone was from my home number.... obviously the HomeSitter.
The recording told me the temperature had dropped below 45 degrees and there had been a power outage. I punched in the code to tell it to stop making calls (before it woke my brothers up!) and headed downstairs.
The HomeSitter was right! I had made the mistake of placing it near the outer wall in a spot where insulation had been removed during the heat-pump installation. I checked the temperature with my temp-gun and it said the wall was 44. But just a few inches away, fully inside the room, the temperature was 52.
I couldn’t account for the power-outage message, however. I hadn’t noticed the power go out and my alarm clock’s display hadn’t zeroed (as it does in any power outage of more than a few seconds). I realized later in the day that this message had probably come from my starting a power-outage test (by unplugging the unit) but then abandoning the test before the alert threshold.
Later that morning we drove up to Bethany and I walked the halls while Labashi picked up Dad from the hospital. We then checked some medical issues for him and lunched at the nearby Isaac’s before going home.
I still had a few errands to run--- one of them to buy a roll of insulation for that problem I had been alerted to.
We spent the evening working on the web, mostly on New Zealand stuff.

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Tuesday, 22 January -

Today was very cold (16) and windy so we drove up to Capital City Mall for 7K steps. We lunched at the SaladWorks there and then hit the local Staples for a print cartridge before going over to see Mom.
Back home I reserved our seats online for the partner airlines (United and Virgin) for the US legs of our trip.
That evening we watched ‘Gold Rush’ and ‘Africa: Congo’.

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Monday, 21 January -

Today we went to Mom and Dad’s apartment. Dad’s in the hospital for a few days so we’re making sure everything’s set up and working for Mom. Labashi made breakfast and I did some walking. The facility is wonderful for that.... miles of halls and lots of stairs, all virtually empty. I walked 7000 steps toward my 10K goal for the day.
Back home later that day I caught up and posted the blog. I then called Air New Zealand to try to get Labashi an aisle seat but to no avail. My finished up my step count with a few laps around the house.
That evening we finished ‘Revenge’ Season 1.


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