Milford Sound!

We left early Monday morning for Milford Sound in Fiordland National Park.  The day before we had some crazy rain - expected as the area gets more than 200 days of rain a year, and some 10 m or something like that.  But by morning, (and still 2 days later!) the sun was out and we were on our way!

At only 119 km from Te Anau, the ride took more then 2 hours.  We were hoping for an early morning cruise (10:30) so set the alarm for 6am.  We barely made it - I guess that's what happens when there's a manchild that needs to be addressed.  And a man, too, I suppose :)  The first half of the ride was standard NZed fair - rolling green hills and sheep.  With the occasional deer farm.  But the second half, was well, amazing.  Steep fiords carved into the mountain scape, with lush valleys that go right to the edge of the mountains, no foothills here…

At Milford, we did the expected - took a 2 hour fairy out as far as the Tasman Sea and back again.  Saw a few seals, dolphins, penguins, and of course, Mitre Peak, named after the popes hat :D  We can't wait to see our pictures!!  

Ethan's going to be disappointed though.  The poor guy was so exhausted that he slept pretty much the entire time.  I can see the conversation now… "Dad, I don't remember the Milford cruise, can we go again?", to which I'll have to say - "Sorry son, you were sleeping" … Let's of course, ignore that he's only seven months old ;)

Monday night there was no room at the inn, so we booked a hut on the Routeburne Great Walk, a way better alternative.  There were maybe 8 of us who stayed the night, although it could probably hold 30.  John, the park ranger, was excited to see Ethan, doesn't get a lot of infants backcountry.  Although the Kiwi definition of backcountry and the North American definitions differ greatly!  This was almost luxury: running hot water, a wood stove, gas stoves, bathrooms, padded bunks, the works.  Ethan spent half the night in my sleeping bag, and half in Amy's - but it worked out well - both according to us, and the other guests !

New Zealand has the right idea with their "walks" and huts.  Monday night we were the only foreigners on site, the rest were older, locals.  None wanted to mess with tents or "technical" gear, they just wanted to go tramping.  The system in place here really does a terrific job of making nature accessible to all people, regardless to experience and physical ability.  I love it.

Tuesday morning we hiked past the hut to Earland falls, at 200m high it was pretty sweet.  No empire falls of BC, but one of the larger falls I've seen in some time.  On the way out we took another side journey up Key Summit.  It's a geographically interesting area - a single peak in a fiordland valley that's the head of three rivers, one to the east, south and west..

The evening found us back in the small town of Te Anau, at the same lakefront hostel we stayed at Sunday evening.  We didn't have any agenda, other then to clean up from hiking, enjoy a little lamb on the bbq, and to take it easy for the evening… One of the few nights we were inside by 7 - we watched "The fastest indian", a movie that was based out of Invercargill, New Zealand, a town not to far away.

The Remarkable Queenstown (Food!)

The trip from Makaroa to Queenstown was supposed to be rather quick, but we took the milk run.  I can't say it was intentional, just missed the turn off and ended up on a smaller, less traveled road.  Not that I'm complaining!

When the speed limit says 100 km / h, and there is a sign immediately below it, posted for 25 km / h, you know you're in for a fun trip.  New Zealand is quite possibly the only place where the speed limit isn't actually achievable.  If you're going that fast, you're not going to make it around all of the twists and turns and ups and downs.

After twisting and turning, along with switchbacking up & down at least one pass, we hit fog so think you couldn't actually see the width of the street.   Well, technically, it wasn't fog.  It was just a low lying cloud that we climbed up into.  Same effect though.   

Anyways, I say all this with one purpose - the road to Queenstown was amazing.  And lined with either sheep, or shear cliffs of which we couldn't see the bottom.  Either way, amazing…  :)

Queenstown itself was interesting.  Known as the adrenaline capitol of the world - it's home to bungee jumping - it's a place where defying gravity is the norm.  So we decided to go for a hike, figuring walking uphill was about all the gravity defying we wanted to do.  One bonus though - we hiked to the top of a gondola run and took it back down - no one checks for tickets at the top and we thought it made for a better all-around experience!  

Now, just a moment on lunch.  Of course I like food, but in efforts to keep costs low lunch has typically been a PB & Jam sandwich.  Today however, we splurged.  We had a Fergsburger.   Amy went with the classic, I had a hard time deciding between lamby and bambi.  Went with lamby, and *man*, I was not disappointed!  Fergsburger was perhaps one of the most amazing hamburgers I've ever had.  Yum.  Will cover dessert later...

The town, really is party central.  Ethan fit right in - at 7 months he's a little young, but he fit in well with the girls…and the Japanese tourists who liked to take their photo with him…  While I don't care for the party central aspects, I still have to recommend the place.  It's geographic location, on the edge of a lake, boxed in on one side with the remarkable mountain range, and on the other with other mountains I can't remember, was … well, incredible!  

Lastly, there was dessert.  In the town harbour, on a lake that's crystal clear, we enjoyed a little chocolate and ice cream from Patagonia, a local dessert place . I kid you not - they probably have the best ice cream I've ever had (marzcapone and fruit of the forest & Argentinean caramel flavours- yum).   It helps that the sun was setting behind a crazy beautiful mountain range, behind a crazy beautiful lake, and I had my amazingly beautiful wife next to me ;)

Little Fishy in the brook…

Just a quick note this morning.  Went fishing after "work" yesterday afternoon, had a great time.  The weather wasn't cooperating - was rather windy, so we had to relocate to the head of Lake Wanaka, where the river meets the lake.  Considering it's a braided river, the headwaters are more than a kilometer across…

We landed 7 or 8 salmon (landlocked species), each were maybe 30 cm long and about a half kilo or so in weight.  I caught but lost, a rainbow trout - lost it in fighting when it was airborne.  Ah well.  But the real catch was a 49 cm brown trout, that weighed nearly 2 kilo.  A bit of a fatty he was ;)  

Of course, dinner was *amazing*.  We were back at the house, with fish cleaned an in the pan within an hour.  Yum!

Birds Part II

Today was our last day of work and Kevin has gone fishing this afternoon with Raymond (the farmer). I stayed behind with Ethan to have a quiet time to type this and do some reading. It took a while to get Ethan to go down for his nap. He finally started to fall asleep in my arms and DONG a bird flies into the window that I was sitting by. The bird struggled and my heart sank. Great, I finally have a sleeping baby, but now there is a near-dead bird out the window to look at. I decided not to look. After 25 minutes I just noticed the bird flutter on it's way. He's quite lucky that Calvin (the kitten) didn't notice. Calvin has a habit of taking birds out of the sky, this would have been a very easy target… But I think the little guy is going to make it : )

One of the days on the farm we worked 8 hours and took the next off to do a hike. Since we are in Mt. Aspiring National Park, we did not have to go too far. We got all organized and ready to hit the trail and 20 meters into our hike there was a river we had to cross. It was raining a little and we were a little discouraged to see the continuation of the trail on the other side. I wasn't feeling that desperate to venture on and thankfully there was another hike a short drive away. With a clearer sky and dry feet we hiked up Mt. Shrimpton. Ignore the name, it was a beefy mountain! Ethan napped in the back carrier and when he was awake, he enjoyed reaching out to grab branches. After a couple of hours we reached the bushline (treelike) and were able to see a lot more of the valley. Some of the mountains have snow on them - while on an adjacent mountain there was a very narrow gully, resulting in a long, narrow, continuous water fall.

We've enjoyed the one store here in town - multiple ice cream's: hokey pokey, coffee walnut, banana chip, kiwi fruit, rum & raisin; also had a little fruit & nut loaf, and a honey chocolate nut square. All goodness...

Birds and the Bees

The remainder of our week on the farm involved laying a stone walk way. With large rocks and fairly solid ground, it seemed like Kevin was doing all the work; and what a fine job he did! I tried my best to contribute and did find myself quite useful with the shovel, wheel barrel, cro-bar, and rake, as well as feeding Ethan, entertaining him, and putting him down for naps.

We're in a valley with mountains all around, it is quite pretty and the weather seems to change every few hours: sunny, cloudy, sun showers, hot, cool. It does smell wonderful after it rains! The ozone layer in this part of the world is thin and we have to be very careful about the UV rays. The sunscreen we have seems to go on like a paste and even after rubbing it in we look a little on the albino side.

While on the farm we noticed an anomaly of nature. The bumble bees here are bigger then birds back in Canada. They'd put any humming bird up to a challenge - rather scary, unless giant bees don't bother you. Then it's par the course, standard fair. In fact, they look like fuzzy little "bumble bears".

Farming Mt. Aspire National Park

Today we've begun our woof experience a fruit tree / berry / nut farm.  Actually the farm is somewhat general purpose - with a little something for everyone it would seem.  It's amazing how quickie 4 hours of manual labour passes, it's really little more than enough time to pass between snacks.  

What makes today so great though, is that I feel good again.  Two days ago I did a 2km trail run, and yesterday I did roughly the same only in a windstorm.  But by mid morning I was feeling horrible and my cough had returned.  It seems that a post-chest infection / chronic cough isn't to be mixed with running, according to the family medical professional.  After several naps yesterday, and a long sleep last night, I work feeling nearly recharged.  So I did the natural thing - manual labour.  Just not the kind that gets the heart rate up or lungs burning.

Today / tomorrow we'll be putting netting over blueberry bushes, to keep the birds off.  Means digging a handful of fence posts today and running wires and netting tomorrow.  Honestly, for three great meals it's a good trade.  

Oh, and did I mention - we're located in the middle of the Mt. Aspiring national park?  :)

Good Morning Day! I'm awake and ready to play!

A song I made up to sing to Ethan when he wakes up; similar, although opposite to the classic book Good Night Moon and to my own tune and dance of course :) An appropriate song for everyday, especially today. We got up early and headed down to the beach to see if we could see the Yellow-Eyed penguins. We did not see any, but the ocean, sea shells, sound of the waves, and view were spectacular. We came back to the hostel on the hill for breakfast and some relaxation. Then it was time for a little jaunt over the hills just outside the door.

With the wind at my back and sheep scattered throughout I jogged over the grassy slopes overlooking the water with a skip in my jump and taking a moment to toss in a freestyle twirl. With the sheep as my witness, it was glorious! My God is an amazing creator! You don't have to be in NZ to do this; I dare you to just try it where you are. Start with a little skip, add a little spin, stretch out your arms, and shout:

Glorious!