Feb 6-7, 2018
Satomi
and I took our fourth international hiking trip together. Our flight to
New Zealand was uneventful and smooth. I watched 9 episodes of Mr Robot,
the most consecutive episodes of a TV show I’ve ever binged on. The bathrooms
on the airplane had wallpaper of fake bookshelves with funny titles. Some of my favorites were Aerial Hitchhiking, The Insiders Guide to
Nude Ski Resorts of New Zealand, and The
Mile High Club.
|
I forgot to take a picture, but it looked like this. |
We
arrived late in Christchurch and stayed overnight in a cute Airbnb-like guest
house.
|
I swear she only does this to scare the hell out of me every night. |
Feb
8, 2018
We attempted to pick up a SIM card
and see some cathedrals in the city. Neither happened, other than a quick
drive-by picture of Cathedral Square, because we were becoming increasingly
more convinced that Satomi was going to crash the car. Driving in a
rental through a new city on the wrong side of the road is tricky. Satomi
was very surprised when we heard a honk that was not aimed at her.
|
Cathedral Square |
Over the course of one week, we
drove 842 miles. The first leg of our road trip was from Christchurch to
Rakaia Gorge, where we took a short pleasant hike with several lovely lookout
points. The color of the water was an unreal bright sky blue.
|
Rakaia Gorge |
We drove to the top
of Mount John for a quick panini lunch break overlooking Tekapo Lake. The
view was magnificent.
|
Adorable hot chocolate |
|
Lake Tekapo |
The drive to
Glentanner was no less spectacular. We pulled over three times to take in views
of Lake Pukaki. We each drove over 3 hours and got the hang of driving on
the wrong side of the road.
|
Couldn't get over the color of this water! |
|
The reflections in the water were pure magic. |
We checked in to our
cabin at 4:30pm, right as the only cafe was closing. Our dinner that night was some trail mix I
brought from home, which we ate while hiking. The original plan on our
itinerary was to do a flat hike called Hooker Valley Trail. At our
guesthouse host’s recommendation, we switched to Seally Tarns, which has a
whopping 1,810 steps.
|
8 down. 1802 to go. |
After we finished
climbing stairs, we had the option to continue onward over rock boulders and
loose gravel to get to Mueller Hut, which is seated at an elevation of 1800
meters. Only one day into our trip and still full of energy, we decided
to race the sun to get to the top.
|
Our hiking "trail" |
We were rewarded at the summit with our favorite hiking view of the entire trip: the sun setting behind glaciers and ice cliffs.
|
Glaciers and Ice Cliffs |
|
Sun Setting Over The Mountain |
At the top, we also saw a couple Kea Mountain Parrots, the only alpine parrots in the world. We scurried down the trek while we still had some daylight, and luckily made it out right as the sun was setting at 9pm. Back at our cabin, we admired the night sky. The stars looked amazing every night of our trip.
|
Kea Mountain Parrot |
Feb
9, 2018
We
loved Pukaki Lake so much the day prior that we had to see it one last
time. We took a morning walk to the lake. Along the way, we were completely surrounded by rabbits.
|
Morning lake colors were very different compared to the afternoon. |
Having eaten very little the day prior, we
feasted on a gigantic breakfast and bought some muffins to restock for our next
hike.
|
Before |
|
After |
Our
road trip of the day was down to Wanaka.
We stopped briefly at Lindis Pass, a mountain pass covered in
dried-up-looking grasslands that’s famous for some reason. The music on
my iPhone is a broad mix that spans from the 1910s to the 2010s. Satomi
was pretty neutral about all of it, other than a solid dislike of Tom Waits
because it made her “throat hurt to hear that.” Satomi’s music is mostly
soft rock love songs, in both English and Japanese. I found this amusing,
as I’ve never thought of Satomi as a romantic type.
|
Lindis Pass |
In
Wanaka, a crazy looking building titled Puzzling World caught my eye and I
spontaneously had to stop.
|
If you saw this while driving, you'd stop too! |
|
Getting excited before even entering the building. |
It was everything I could have wanted: optical
illusions, spatial puzzles, and a giant outdoor maze! I was in love with it.
Satomi... not so much, but she tolerated my indulgence. My favorite part
was a room that’s built so the furniture is at 2 degrees and the floor is at 15
degrees. It’s hard to describe the sensation this causes, but it made me
laugh hysterically. This led to Satomi’s quote of the day:“I sometimes
laugh when you’re laughing. Not because I find anything you’re laughing
at funny. More because it’s funny to watch you laugh.”
|
Be still, my heart. |
|
|
A whole room of following faces |
|
|
Even the bathroom was decorated with an illusion! |
|
Giant human maze! |
|
Satomi's neutral expression the entire time. |
Our next stop was Roy’s Peak, a hike lined with
hundreds of adorable sheep that led to incredible views of mountains and
water. It took us over 5 hours, so we
had yet another race against the sunset on the way down the mountain.
|
There were views like this pretty much the whole way. |
|
Sheep! |
|
More sheep! |
By the end of the hike, we were utterly
destroyed. Over the course of 48 hours,
we had walked a total of 26.3 miles and gained 2,016 meters. Satomi said
she was sorer after this hike than she was after her last marathon (as in – the
one where she qualified for the Boston Marathon).
|
Feeling tiny on this magnificent trail. |
We stumbled into Wanaka around 9:30pm, dead beat
exhausted and famished. We wandered the town, desperate for food and
worried we were going to have another hungry night. The first restaurant was
closed, the second was in the process of closing, and we were extremely
relieved when the third one seated us for dinner. We ended up at a fine dining wine bar where
we had an amazing meal of: licorice lemongrass soda, lamb shoulder, and roasted
duck. Still hungry, we ordered a large cheese
plate and an entire sampler platter for dessert. We collapsed into bed close to midnight.
|
We'll take all the dessert, please. |
Feb 10, 2018
The
morning started off perfectly with a quick visit to the Lone Tree of Wanaka to
take pictures.
|
The definition of serene. |
For
breakfast, we had our first pies. Over the
course of the trip, we ate a total of 8 pies: lamb/mint, minced meat/cheese, mutton, apple/blueberry,
seafood, thai chicken, creamy chicken, and venison. Both of us liked the seafood pie the best.
|
More hot pies! More hot! More pies! |
Our
next road trip took us to Te Anau. One
area of the road was extremely steep, curvy, and equal parts scary and beautiful. Still sore from the day prior, we opted for a short easy
hike on part of the Kepler Track. It was
pleasant, but certainly not as magnificent as the others. Perhaps we didn’t choose the right hike or
perhaps Kepler simply pales in comparison to the other great walks of New
Zealand. Regardless, we needed something
calmer and gentler that day so it worked out well.
|
Mountains on Kepler Track |
|
River on Kepler Track |
We checked into our cabin and took a leisurely stroll around
Te Anau Lake. To be honest, the lakeside
walk was considerably more beautiful than what we saw on the Kepler Track. We had more pies for lunch.
|
I could see myself living here someday. |
The moment I had most been looking forward to came up, which
was a cruise on Te Anau Lake leading to a glowworms cave!!! It did not disappoint. The ride on Te Anau was beautiful, and then
we walked through really neat underground caves with rushing water
underneath. We saw a really big eel and
a small waterfall inside the cave. Then
we got into little boats and floated in complete silence looking at the
glowworms shining above and all around us.
It was like how one might imagine floating in the night sky should feel. It was an incredible, out of this world
experience like none other.
|
Feeling the wind in my hair |
|
Sun starting to set over Lake Te Anau |
Toward the end of the tour, we were approached by an angry
German man who ranted half-incoherently about Trump (and ties and penises?),
the youth of today, and I’m not even sure what else. It was very odd. Back in Te Anau, our dinner was the best meal
of the trip. Our main entrees were hare with
risotto and venison with beets. Dessert
was prosecco jello with cream and berries.
|
Hare and risotto |
|
Wine jelly!? Where have you been all my life? |
Feb
11, 2018
We had meat pies for breakfast, and
then embarked on a rainy but still incredible road to Milford Sound. Like The Road to Hana in Maui, there were
dozens of stops we could make. We stopped at 8 of them on the way there:
1. Eglinton Valley. It was okay, but I think the yellow grassy
fields are lost of me. They just don’t give
me as much of a reaction as water and greenery.
|
Eglinton Valley |
2. Mirror Lakes – one of my favorite
stops. Aptly named, it created beautiful
crisp reflections in the water.
|
Mirror Lakes |
3. Knobs Flat. I was hoping for a field of lupin flowers but they were no longer in bloom so it was just a nice
bathroom break.
|
Knobs Flat |
4. Lake Gunn. This wasn’t an official stop, but we had to
pull over because we love lakes!
|
Lake Gunn |
5. Hollyford Valley Lookout – beautiful. What else can I say?
|
Hollyford Valley Lookout |
6. Lake Marian. There was a little hike to a waterfall, and a longer hike to an alpine lake. We made it to the waterfall. The forest was very lush with tree ferns and
moss, and it felt like we were in an enchanted fairy tale.
|
Satomi is to the left of the waterfall |
|
Tree ferns! |
7. Homer Tunnel. There was a mandatory stop in traffic before
we descended into 1.2 km tunnel through solid rock.
We didn’t mind taking a moment to admire the water misting out over the
steep rock cliffs above us.
|
Homer Tunnel |
8. Falls Creek – a sweet little
waterfall. The water was crystal blue
even on a cloudy rainy day.
|
Falls Creek |
One of the two highlights of the
entire trip (the other being glow worms) was the fjord cruise through Milford
Sound. Because of the rain, I was a
little worried we wouldn’t have any visibility.
I was completely wrong. The rain
made the fjord explode with hundreds of waterfalls. We saw a couple seals and got right up
underneath a couple of the waterfalls. It
was complete magic and made me wonder if I should be moving to New Zealand.
|
My happy place |
|
Too many waterfalls to count |
|
More waterfalls |
|
Getting close and personal with the waterfalls |
|
Seals! |
We had some toasties for lunch at the fjord
before heading back to town. Our afternoon drive was even more eventful than our morning one. We took a short walk to The
Chasm, a unique and fascinating pothole rock formation created by centuries of
stones being swirled around in the current of the Cleddau River.
|
The Chasm |
|
Such interesting and unique rock formations! |
We took a day hike to Key Summit,
part of the famous Routeburn Track.
It had frequent terrain changes with a large diversity of plants, a
little waterfall, a couple small lakes, and amazing panoramic views of
mountains. What’s not to love?
|
Boardwalk on Key Summit |
|
Small lake at the top. I'll never stop loving these reflections. |
Since we were making good time and
had been so charmed by our first stop at Lake Marian, we returned to hike all the way out to the alpine lake. We were glad we
did! It was beautiful beyond
description.
|
Could stay here forever. |
It stopped raining and the sun came
out, so we decided to stop by Mirror Lakes one more time to see what it looked
like with blue skies. It was even more stunning this time around.
|
Mirror Lakes in cloudy weather |
|
Mirror Lakes in sunny weather |
Since we had noticed fish and chip
joints everywhere, we split a platter of fish and chips for dinner. We were still hungry but not in the mood for
more fried food, so we stopped at a second restaurant for a cheese plate, New
Zealand cider, and a meringue-based dessert called Pavlova.
|
Pavlova |
Feb
12, 2018
We had our last meat pies for
breakfast while overlooking Te Anau Lake.
Our final big road trip took us to Queenstown. A large section of the drive was stunning as
it curved around Lake Wakatipu.
|
Lake Wakatipu |
We spent
the day sledging in Kawarau River. We
hung on to body boards through three Grade 3 white water rapids, the first of
which flipped me over vertically. It was thrilling, gorgeous, and unlike
anything I’d done before.
|
Getting ready to take off |
|
Sledging on the beautiful Kawarau River |
|
Feeling good |
|
Feeling a little nervous |
|
Feeling totally freaked |
We had walked 49.5 miles in 4 days, followed by day in the
rapids, and we were utterly exhausted. We settled into our “Breakfast at
Tiffany’s” guesthouse which was charmingly girly. Our room had a couple soft robes, 18 pillows,
a really comfortable mattress, and numerous pictures of Marilyn Monroe and
Audrey Hepburn. It was the perfect setting to take an evening off; I relaxed while Satomi took a long nap.
|
Breakfast at Tiffany's B&B |
We went back into Queeenstown late
at night for dinner, where we devoured lamb shank,
blue cod, yet another cheese board, and an elaborate-looking chocolate + toffee + ice
cream dessert.
|
Dessert. |
Feb
12, 2018
|
Entrance of Kiwi Birdlife Park |
|
Morepork Owl |
In the afternoon, we took a gondola
up to the skyline and went luging. As usual, the scenery was phenomenal.
|
Lift to the Luge |
|
Luge Tracks |
|
Luging |
We ate lamb kebobs for lunch
overlooking Queenstown from above.
|
Lunch spot |
New Zealand was one
of the most magical places I’ve ever been to and I will certainly be returning
– if not to live, than at least to visit.
|
Last view of New Zealand from the airplane |