Lien-Thanh's Blog: New Zealand South Island

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.