Lien-Thanh's Blog: New Zealand Part I: South Island with Mom and Debbie

Feb 6-Feb 7, 2019 Wednesday-Thursday

My original plan was to spend 15 hours traveling. I was to leave Honolulu Wednesday morning, cross the international date line that Phileas Fog forgot about, have a quick layover in Sydney, and arrive in Christchurch late on Thursday where I'd meet up with Mom and her friend Debbie.

Honolulu to Australia to New Zealand

Unfortunately, my flight to Sydney was delayed… first 2 hours, then 4 hours, and then 24 hours. This would mean not arriving until late Friday, which would really throw a wrench into my road trip plans, where I had a different hotel booked each night. Making matters worse was that a couple days earlier, there had been a different flight to Australia that had also been cancelled, so all the flights to Oceania in the near future appeared to have been completely booked. Many of the people on my flight had been originally booked for the prior cancelled flight, so they were now being held over in Honolulu for 3 whole days of unpaid missed work or lost reservations. Qantas asked everyone to leave and come back the following morning, and everyone else seemed to know how to follow directions.

Much pleading, an online visa, and an extra $300 later, I managed to book a new flight to Brisbane where I would spend the night in the airport, and then fly onward to Christchurch Friday afternoon. Due to the long flight, long layover, and international date line – my first flight departed Feb 6 and my second flight departed Feb 8. This would have been confusing even if I hadn’t been in a high-stress time crunch. If all of this is too hard to follow, just know that it was very, very stressful. It also meant that instead of 15 hours of traveling, I spent 29 hours of traveling.

Mom's day in Christchurch

My day in airports

While on the plane to Brisbane, somewhere in the middle of 4700 miles of ocean crossing, I became flushed, nauseated, and lightheaded. This had happened to me a couple months ago right before I fainted, so I knew what was coming. I had just enough time to decide what to do. Should I go to the bathroom and vomit? No, because if I stand up, I will certainly fall. Should I slump onto the floor and lie down? Maybe, and it’s certainly what I want to do, but if I make that much of a commotion would they try to keep me off of my connecting flight? So then I figured, I’m going to faint no matter what, so I might as well just let it happen. I lay back on my seat, propped my feet up, and closed my eyes. I felt my pulse get slow and my skin get clammy. The dizziness and nausea intensified. And then I woke up, slumped over, covered in a cold sweat, my vision temporarily blurry. I was still dizzy. I sipped on as many fluids as I could and otherwise stayed completely still for the remainder of the flight.

Trying harder to stay hydrated

BBrisbane Airport was nice enough, but almost everything was closed which made it look big, empty, and a little spooky. There was almost nobody around, except for a few scattered pods of small couches where people like me were sleeping (plus one annoying guy who kept Facetiming). I took a shower in the bathroom, and it felt good to wash all the off the cold sweat. I didn’t have the foresight to pack a towel, so I dried off with some of my clothes. I settled into a couch and slept on and off, with awakenings a few times an hour for overhead announcements, fear of my bags not being guarded, panic that I missed my flight, being cold from my wet hair, and having to pee after drinking all that water.

My flight from Brisbane to Christchurch was half an hour delayed, and when I finally arrived, I was randomly selected at customs to have my bags emptied and searched. It was a long day, to say the least.

Abandoned airport

Couch pods

Not my hotel

Feb 8, 2019 Friday

I arrived in New Zealand frazzled, on the afternoon of my mom’s 62^nd birthday. Mom and her friend Debbie picked me up at the airport. They had entertained themselves exploring Christchurch for the last day and were excited to start our road trip of the South Island.

South Island Road Trip

We made a quick stop to view limestone boulders at Castle Hill. Then we headed west to Arthur’s Pass where we hiked to Devils Punchbowl Waterfall. It was a shorter hike than the one I had initially planned, but it was beautiful nonetheless and I was happy to get back on schedule.

Castle Hill

Devils Punchbowl Waterfall

Next we traveled to Hokitika, and I took my mom out for her birthday dinner. We shared seafood chowder, salmon tartare, cider, and a chocolate custard dessert.

Birthday chowder and tartare

The highlight of the evening was a walk over to Glow Worm Dell. Glowworms look like stars, and they’re one of my favorite things in New Zealand. This was Mom and Debbie’s first time seeing them, and I had only seen them once before.

Feb 9, 2019 Saturday

Before the sun had even come out, we took a quick walk to the beach and stopped at a delicious little coffee shop. We hit the road bright and early, all of us brimming with excitement at the idea of experiencing a glacier up close.

Early morning at the beach

Best coffee!

We arrived in Franz Josef early and since the afternoon weather was looking ominous, we were fortunate to get rushed onto an earlier heli-hike tour. Everything happened quickly, and it felt like just moments before we were geared up with ice crampons, coats, and poles, flying in a helicopter, and being dropped off on a glacier.

Mom exiting the helicopter - you could really feel the wind coming off of it!

Navigating through glacier crevices and ice holes was just as magnificent as we thought it might be, and was certainly one of the highlights of the whole trip for all three of us.

Our tour guide clearing a path

Debbie looking tiny compared to the glacier crevices

Mom standing over a crack in the ice

Blue ice

Entering an ice hole!

Mom and her ice crampons

Me and Mom drinking glacier water

So much better than sleeping in an airport

Gorgeous sunny day

After a couple hours exploring Franz Josef glacier, the clouds suddenly swept in and everyone was rapidly evacuated off the glacier as it started to rain. We felt even luckier that we had managed to catch the earlier tour because otherwise we wouldn’t have gotten as much time on the glacier!

Sudden change in weather

Our tour guide Josh clued me in to another chance to see glowworms, and I was thrilled. We refueled with a quick café lunch and ventured onward to a short hike through Tatare Tunnels. It was carved in 1897 through 1500 feet of solid rock to help sluice gold (separate gold from gravel). As we went through the long dark damp tunnel, our feet got completely soaked. True to Josh’s word, we were rewarded with our second viewing of glowworms!

Glowworms tunnel!

Next up was a quick drive to Peak View Point to see Fox Glacier. We used a not-to-scale map and ended up on a much longer stretch of road than we were expecting. We nearly turned back because we didn’t feel confident that we were on the correct path to see the glacier, when suddenly we were there! On the way back into town, we laughed at ourselves as we embarrassingly realized the glacier had been within view of our road nearly the entire time.

View of Fox Glacier to the left, which was not so elusive after all

At this point we were very hungry and decided to splurge on a nice outdoor sit-down dinner, surrounding by serene cow pastures. Then we walked around Lake Matheson. The lake had stunning reflections that made it feel like we were gazing down into the sky. And if that wasn’t enough, we also caught a vibrant sunset as we were leaving.

Goofing off

Reflections

Gazing down at the sky

Sunset

It must have been my lucky day, because we learned of yet another hike that had glowworms! As the stars came out, we visited Minnehaha, our fourth walk of the day and our third time getting to see glowworms in 2 days!

Feb 10, 2019 Sunday

I had bought guava bread in the Honolulu airport and had nearly forgotten about it. It was smashed from my luggage, but it made for a quick easy breakfast so we could get another early start. Wanaka was 175 miles away, which was one of our longer day trips. We stretched out our legs at a quick hike to Blue Pools, which as the name suggests had vivid bright blue water. I stepped into the cold water with my mom, but didn’t stay down there for long because I was quickly covered in itchy sandfly bites.

No filter - it really was this color!

A guy jumping into the water

Moments before the sandflies found me

Itchy itchy itchy

I saw this sign later and it felt true, oh so true

The drive to Wanaka was stunning, and it was easy to break it up with a café lunch stop and a couple gorgeous lake viewpoints.

Lake Hawea

At last we reached Wanaka, where I enthusiastically showed Mom and Debbie “Puzzling World,” a fun little attraction full of optical illusions and a human maze that I had really enjoyed the first time I visited New Zealand.

Tilted Room - my favorite part

Mom and me in the Ames Room

Human maze - harder than you might think

The bathroom

We strolled into town for dinner, and then walked to “That Wanaka Tree,” a famous photography spot.

Everyone gathering around the tree

It really is beautiful

Feb 11, 2019 Monday

I had somehow convinced my mom to go bungee jumping with me, and I finally got to check it off my bucket list! We drove into Queenstown to tandem jump off of Kawarau Bridge, and let me just say – it did not disappoint! The ride was thrilling and brilliantly gorgeous. When we landed in the boat, we laughed hysterically. Mom didn’t want the photos/video, so I got them as her birthday gift and I’m glad I did! They're my favorite photos from the trip.

Cute bathroom sign

Kawarau River - so pretty

Bungee jumping!

Mother-daughter tandem

Mom got disoriented and felt like she was falling toward the bridge

Adrenaline giggles

Our video of bungee jumping:

Debbie opted out of bungee jumping but joined us for the zipride!

Debbie and Mom getting excited

Too cute

I got to go upside-down!

Grabbing breakfast afterwards with a beet latte!

The hike of the day was to Queenstown Hill, which offered a 360 view over the city, Lake Wakatipu, and the Remarkables mountain range.

Poisonous mushroom

Mom taking in the views

On a whim, we booked a tour to go paragliding but it was canceled due to the wind. Instead, we spent the evening walking through Queenstown, where Ihad a marvelous dinner of prime rib, lamb, and a kiwi mixed drink. With our extra time, we visited “Odyssey Sensory Maze” where we giggled through a series of silly rooms. Our favorites were the room filled head-high with balloons and the mirror maze.

Yummy!

For a nightcap, we went to an ice bar where all the furniture, decorations, and cups were made out of ice.

Ice bar

Feb 12, 2019 Tuesday

We had driven 530 miles in the last 5 days, and it was a welcome break to let someone else do the driving. We took a 12.5-hour tour that shuttled us onto 4 us rides and 3 boat rides, with the object of the day being a cruise on Doubtful Sound (which is actually a fjord, not a sound). The scenery was gorgeous, though all three of us were exhausted and ready to be done with traveling by the end of the long day. I didn’t have energy to do much more than eat dinner and go to sleep!