the rest of the story

The rest of the New Zealand story, while it's still moderately fresh.

We left Wellington and went inland (east) to do a back country hike. After a slight detour (well, we got a little lost), we ended up staying the night at Cone Hut. There is a huge network of primitive huts in the back country for deer hunters to stay in. Sometime in the 40's, I believe, there was a deer population explosion, so these huts were built by hunters to accommodate their efforts to help with population control (the venison meat was worth a pretty penny). Now, these huts are used recreationally for people such as myself to stop for the night out of the rain. It's brilliant! These huts are conveniently 5-8 hours apart from each other, so you can basically get to one each night without needed a tent at all. They are either free or about $5 per night. We stayed at Cone Hut after a rainy hike in. There was one other person there, but it was a cozy little hut and the perfect shelter from the rain.

A couple days later, we took the Interislander ferry across to the south island. This is about a 2.5 hour ride and is something like a mini-cruise. You can watch movies and grab breakfast and a cup of coffee. You can also step out of the top deck to check out the scenery which is amazing. You travel through "sounds" out of Wellington (on the north island) and into Picton (on the south island). Picton is just a small port town with nothing to see. We headed north to do a small hike to a neat gorge called sawcut gorge. It looks like someone just carved through a rock with the intention of making intricate curves and stunning views. Plus we saw an eel. cool.

The next couple days were surreal. We met up with Wellington friends, Brendon and his partner, Julie. They took us to Nelson, where we had delicious ice cream and bought some essentials for our upcoming caving expedition. We camped out next to Harwoods Hole - we knew so little. The next morning we woke up, got all of Brendon's gear sorted and hiked to the beautiful and daunting top of the hole. This is where it hit me what was about to occur. So picture this, a 600 ft hole in the ground, which I'm guessing is about 75 ft. wide and you can't even see the bottom from the top. We get a quick lesson on belaying with this unfamiliar gear, we muster up our chi or whatever we each call it, I let go a few quick tears and down we go. It takes 20 minutes per person to get down. The line up was Julie, then me, then warren, with Brendon last. The first few seconds of free hanging on the rope over this magnificent hole were the worst, but miraculously after a minute or so, the fear was gone and it was just heavenly. There is nothing else I could compare it to. It was a meet your maker sort of experience and I'm so glad I did it. At the bottom of the hole is a cave that takes 4-5 hours to hike through and it is complete with an underground river, underground waterfall, stalagtites and stalagmites, impressive cathedral-like chambers, and glow worms. We make it through the cave and finally see the light again, then there is a several hour hike back to the car. We make it back to the car around midnight only to devour burritos and crash.

The next day is equal in awesomeness, but is the complete opposite. lazy day. It's rainy, so we drive to the Mussel Inn and spend the day by a fire with pub brewed beers and cider and play a rock stacking game called Ruk Shuk for hours. This bar is a scene out of a fairy tale. You walk into this place, time stops, and worries disappear. It's cheesy, but true.

Warren and I manage to ignore all the advice we were given about keeping at least a half tank of petrol at all times on the south island (petrol stations are quite sparse). We find ourselves completely empty and a good 20 kilometers from the nearest town. The first passing vehicle picks us up and brings us safely into town. We then purchase a small can of petrol and the first passing vehicle outside the petrol station picks us up again. Easy. These guys were genuine do-gooders, with a little extra motivation. It turns out they were headed to pick mussels at a nearby beach. The limit is 50 mussels per person per day (only 100 with the two of them), but with us in tow that makes 200 mussels! So they score 100 extra mussels and Warren and I get a lesson in mussel scavaging. Everyone wins! We test our skills the next night and manage to get ourselves about 50 in total (not too bad for rookies) and make a delicious dinner of them.

A couple of days later, we find ourselves at the foot of Fox Glacier. I have to keep pinching myself that all these places ARE real and DO exist on such a small island. We take a tour onto the glacier. We put on pounds of clothes and rain gear as well as the very necessary cramp-ons (spikes which attach to the bottom on your hiking boots to allow for somewhat graceful ice walking). This moment stands as one of my most bizarre. There is ice as far as you can see in one direction and in the other there is a river with large blocks of chipped glacier flowing down it. The glacier is making lots of creeking and cracking noises and there we are dressed like eskimos hiking all around. After checking out lots of cool crevaces and even putting some therapeutic glacier mud on our faces, we head back down from the glacier and back into civilization. bummer.

The next big ticket item: one of New Zealand's Great Walks - the Kepler Track. These great walks are just that and can be quite popular for a reason. They are moderately strenuous hikes with breathtaking views at EVERY corner. We stay at the Luxmore Hut the first night. This hut can accommodate about 60 people and is a lot more dolled up than the other primitive huts. The next day consists of hiking up to the peak of Mt. Luxmore (about 1,300 meters) in the snow and then hiking down to Iris Burn to camp out by the river with thousands of sandflies. There only one thing that can satisfy three day hike hunger - vanilla thickshakes. no added vanilla syrup. not too thick.

The last week of our trip was spent diving down in the dark waters of Milford Sound, checking out petrified forests and waterfalls through the Catlins, meeting some yellow faced penquins near the beach, and then driving up to Akaroa to celebrate a birthday. Banks peninsula (Akaroa) offered some nice surfing, Hector dolphin (the world's most rare) spotting, and elegant french dinners - perfect for the new 28 year old. We spent Christmas in Christchurch eating a buffet dinner and watching The Sound of Music.

It was time well spent. really well spent.