The final days in New Zealand

After our multi-activity day in Okarito, we continued to Punakaki. Once again we had the most amazing drive along the west coast. I do have to say that the west coast of New Zealand has become one of my favorite places in the world. So beautiful and secluded –and maybe just the place I’ve been looking for - the place which I will move to someday.

The activity of the day was a hike on the beach and in the beach caves. It was totally AMAZING!!!(I feel like I’m running out of superlatives to describe my trip ;-) ) Ken and Jac took us on a path through some caves where we got out on some other beaches. The views were just breathtaking. See below. Not too many people know about this place so we were lucky that we got to see it. I struggled a bit with my fear of heights when we had to climb the cliffs, but with some help from my friends in the group I managed just fine.

In the evening we had our final dinner. It was really nice and funny. There was a lot of dancing and singing plus plenty of (bad?!) jokes. (Many “blond” ones.) We managed to keep awake to nearly 1 o’clock, which is very late on a hiking trip (you are usually so tired at 10 pm so you fall off the chair). But in the middle of all the laughter I felt a bit sad, since I knew it would be good bye the next day.

Our final day we started off with the walk to check out the pancake rocks (See below) and then we started our way back to Christchurch. We drove through Arthurs pass and on the way we stopped for another short walk to some limestone cliffs. What can I say – it was another drive through a beautiful surrounding.

In the early afternoon we reached Christchurch and started to say good bye to each other. It is funny how quickly you can start to really like people. I have said “Good Bye” to quite many new friends on this trip and it always makes me a bit sad, since it isn’t often you have the possibility to meet these friends again. Thank God for Facebook, that at least makes it easier to keep in touch.

The beautiful west coast of New Zealand

After our great Copland hike we continued to drive north on the incredibly beautiful New Zealand west coast. I have to say that it is a place for me. J  I have always had a hard time to decide if I love the sea or the mountains more, but on the west coast of New Zealand I have it all. Including lots and lots of beautiful national parks filled with hiking trails. Can you just imagine??? There can’t be a better place for me!

Our first stop after Copland was Okarito - a nice little village just by the sea. On our agenda was:

·         Kayaking in the lagoon

·         3 hour hike up the hill and on the beach

·         Cave/tunnel walk

All these activities took place on the same day, so it was a full day! J

We started the day with the kayaking. Again I was teamed up with Phil. I was very happy for that, since we have a calm way of handling everything (yeah - I know guys, I’m usually NOT that calm, but I can actually be that in between and I prefer the calmer me). We just paddled on the beautiful lagoon, enjoying the sunshine, looking at birds and laughing at our fellow travellers. Let’s just say that we exchanged the least amount of words in our kayak – there were quite a lot of discussions on the other ones. The other kayaks were also competing of who would be the first, so they were really pushing themselves. They even tried to paddle over a log, see below. ;-) We just paddled softly through the water enjoying the scenery and the nice weather.

You need to know one thing about our group – on all the hikes we have had a tendency to get lost. Mostly someone in the front got occupied in some kind of discussion and forgot to look for signs and the rest of the group just followed. We told our kayaking guide, Gemma, about this behavior, so she was just laughing when we after only 15 min of kayaking already were going in the wrong direction. In the end of our kayak trip Phil and I were behind the others (as we had been for most of the time) and we saw how the other kayaks went the wrong way. But for once we were not just following. Instead we went the right way and laughed when we saw our friends pulling the kayaks out of the shallow waters where they  were not supposed to be. Needless to say – we were first back to the harbor, which was a bit funny since we were the ones not competing.

After the kayaking we went on a hike up the hill. Ken, our tour leader, told us we would do a small detour. ;-) The detour was 3,6 km! Uphill!!! Well – at least half of it was uphill. But the reward was a couple of minutes without any breath and breath taking views. J The final part of the hike we walked on the beach. Talk about workout. When you think about it – we had a full body workout that day; with the kayaks in the morning and the beach walk in the afternoon. We were also lucky enough to see some seals. One of the seals jumped out just in front of me and scared me to death, but it was so nice to see it heading for the water.

After the hill and beach hike we had one more activity for the day: the cave/tunnel walk. When we arrived at the trail head Ken told us that we would have 45 min walk uphill. Hmmm… I wasn’t in a mood for another uphill hike, but I didn’t want to complain, so I just started to walk. Luckily we were a fast group and made the hike in only 23 minutes. In fact we did ALL our hikes faster than what was stated from the beginning. When we arrived at the tunnel Ken told us to put on the head torch and walk through the one km long tunnel. I wasn’t totally comfortable with the walk. It was very dark and we walked through water that reached up to my ankles. When we reach the other side of the tunnel Ken told us to turn around and do the walk in the tunnel without our head torch on!!! “Really!!! Come on!! I thought it was difficult enough to do it with the head torch on.” But the goal was to see glow worms and you don’t see them with the torch one. So I did like the rest and headed down the tunnel again with no torch. And to my surprise I saw a lot of glow worms and it wasn’t as bad as I expected. But it is safe to say that I wasn’t too comfortable.

We ended our multi activity day with another nice dinner prepared by Jac and once again I ate far more than I should. I especially liked her pine apple pie. J What can I say – Life is good!

The Copland hike

There has been a week since I last wrote a blog, but I have to split this week into several different ones. There were too many activities to fit them into one blog.

When we left off the last time we were stuck in Manapouri because of the heavy snowfall in New Zealand. I was quite worried at the time that we wouldn’t be able to do some of the activities that we were planning to do. I was especially worried that we wouldn’t be able to do our multiday hike in Copland. 

To keep us busy, while we were stuck, our tour leaders decided to take us sledging. J Even if I didn’t participate, I just took pictures of the others, I laughed so much so my stomach hurt. It was so funny to see them all crash into the snow piles around. See below.

The second day of snow our main tour leader Ken decided that we should take a chance and just drive towards Queenstown even if the roads were closed. He had snow chains to our bus, so he figured that they might let us through. We had, however, to leave our trailer with all the mountain bikes, since with the trailer they wouldn’t for sure allow us to drive. But since someone else from ACTIVE (the company I was travelling with) could pick it up later that was not a problem. Luckily we got through all the way to Queenstown and even the whole way to the west coast where our Copland hike took place. It was a long day of driving, since the snow and ice forced us to drive slowly. (They don’t use salt on the roads in NZ, which of course makes the roads a lot more slippery), but we arrived to the west coast safe and sound.

The Copland hike was supposed to take 3 days, but since we were stuck in the snow for a day, we had to shorten it to 2 days. This meant that we were hiking 6-7 hours per day, two days in a row. That is normally not a big problem but this was a hike with a lot of obstacles: streams, hanging bridges which only one at a time could walk on (I was scared to death, since I’m afraid of heights), rocks, roots, minor climbing over cliffs, lots of up and downhill – you name it. We had it all. So it was not an easy hike, even if it wasn’t one of the tougher ones that I have done. Luckily we had good weather so we didn’t have to worry about rain or slippery rocks. It was the most AMAZING hike and once again we were sooo lucky with the weather – clear blue sky and lots of sunshine. We walked through cold rain forest which makes it so very special. I mean – it is so strange to see all the leafs with frost on. (These things don’t normally exist in Sweden.  You have either leafs or frost.) On top of that we had the views of the beautiful mountains, streams and waterfalls. I was enjoying every minute.

When we hiked we hiked in our own pace and not the whole group together. But in an earlier hike Phil and I found a pace that seemed to fit us both, so I did the whole Copland hike together with him. It was nice to have someone around to talk to, but we also enjoyed just walking in silence. Hiking does that to me – I get quiet (I know – it is unusual ;-) ) It was also nice to have someone around if something would happen. I knew that our tour leaders, Ken and Jac, were never far away, but still it was nice not to be totally alone on the trail.

At the hut at the end of our hike there was a hot spring. It was SOOOOO nice to sink down into a hot spring when you have hiked the whole day in temperatures around zero degrees Celsius. It felt absolutely GREAT!!!!! We were sitting there for the longest time drinking beer (I didn’t carry it myself – Phil gave me one. I know – he is such a nice guy) - just enjoying life. Some of the guys went back to the hot spring in middle of the night. I didn’t which I regret. It must have been beautiful to sit there under the stars.

As usual we had a wonderful meal in the hut prepared by Jac. I tell you – that girl can cook. If I have gained weight in New Zealand I owe it all to her. She even made me eat deserts. I just couldn’t resist the food she was making.

So as a summary our Copland hike was one of my highlights of the trip. I could honestly not ask for anything more from a hike.

Stuck in the snow

It is snowstorm in New Zeeland. It is funny – we have had unusually good weather every day we spent here so far and yesterday it just turned. Luckily is hasn’t really affected our activities yet but it looks like it might change.

A couple of days ago we had a beautiful mountain bike tour around the lake in Queenstown. It was one of those perfect winter days with clear blue sky and sunshine. Of course it was a little cold – but as we say in Sweden “there is no bad weather, only bad clothes”. The bike tour was nearly 3 hours and in the end of it we had a great lunch just by the lake. It was real “life is good” moment.

After the bike tour we started our drive to Manapouri - a cute little village just by a lake. This is where we stayed the night before our trip to Milford Sound – in the Fiordland National Parks (what a beautiful place!!!!). We didn’t want to stay in Milford Sound since it is easy to get caught there in the winter. (And we still nearly did.) We went to Milford Sound in the early morning for our sea kayaking trip and already on the way there we were warned about the weather. You see – you have to drive through a pass to get there and the pass might close if there is a lot of snow (high risk of avalanches). And we knew that there was a lot of snow coming in. Anyhow – we arrived to Milford Sound with great weather and decided to take the kayaks out, but stay close to the starting point/harbor. We didn’t want to get caught by the weather far out, since it might be very hard to get back or to find another place to get out of the kayaks. We had a local guide, Paul, and since I’m new to kayaking I got to go with him. What a great guy! He kept me laughing the whole time and showed how to play around with the kayak. This is my kind of sport! I might start doing it back home in Sweden. I mean – there are great opportunities to do it in Stockholm. It was a lovely kayak tour even if we had to cut it short, only 2,5 hour instead of 4-5 hours. After the tour we had a quick lunch and then we headed back to Manapouri so we would not get caught by the snow.

We came back without any problems and spent a nice relaxing afternoon and evening in the motel, watching a movie, playing some game and sorting out pictures. Then we woke up this morning and found out that the road back to Queenstown is closed. And we were supposed to go there on our way to the highlight of the tour – the Copland hike!?! So here we are, stuck in Manapouri, waiting for the clearance to drive to Queensland. Our tour leaders are a lot of fun though – they decided that we should go for a 2 hour hike in the snow.  It was actually a quite nice hike, but I didn’t have the proper clothes for it (wasn’t prepared for a hike today), so now I’m sitting here in a coffee place slightly wet, sipping on a cup of nice jasmine tea and blogging. But I can definitely think of quite many worse ways to spend my day. My only worry is that the snow might stop us from doing the Copland hike. But in any case – I’m still in beautiful New Zeeland and if we can’t do that hike we can for sure do a lot of other nice things.

It is official: I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE NEW ZEELAND!!!!

As I already told you in my previous blog so many things have already impressed me about this country; especially the friendly people. The tour leaders for our tour, Jacqueline and Ken, are no exception. They take so good care of us. I have been on so many tours around the world and I’m used to be set on kitchen duties, cleaning duties or whatever duties, but these guys don’t let us do anything.  They always say “sit down and relax”. Everything is done in a nice pace, no rush or stress, and we still are able to do a lot.

The group is great, but what can you expect? Only people that really love hiking would chose a winter hiking tour. J All of us are in good shape and know what to expect from a tour like this. I’m actually one of the slower hikers, which is a first. J I’m used to be one of the faster ones in the hiking group.

The group consists of:

·         Matthew and Martin, father (47) and son (13) from Czech Republic

·         Phil (37) from USA

·         Dan (34) from USA

·         Jennie (38) from USA

It is a nice small group where the common interest is being outdoors. :-)

We have had some amazing hikes so far, incl. clear blue sky with very little wind. Of course this also means very cold mornings, evenings and nights (-3 to -8 C), but it also means that everything will look so much more pretty.  As Jacqueline said yesterday “I’m so happy so I don’t know what to do with myself”. And that was how I felt also. It was such a beautiful morning and I had the possibility to hike in a fantastic surrounding. How can I not be happy??

So far we have done 4 hikes:

·         Day 1, short hike to the top of Mt John. It took us about 45 minutes up and 30 minutes down, but what a beautiful view we got. It was a nice little hike to stretch our legs the first day.

·         Day 2, we did a 5 hour hike in Mt Cook National Park. We were so extremely lucky with the weather: sunshine and no wind. Jacqueline had never experienced so good weather there before – not even in the summertime. The only difficulty was that we were walking on snow. In the morning it was hard/icy, but it got mushy during the day and added some to the workout.

·         Day 3 we hiked up to Aspiring hut. It took us only 2,5 hours. We spent the night in this beautiful little hut with no electricity and running water - we had water in a tank outside. But the water tank froze during the night, so the next morning we didn’t have water at all. But we had prepared for that and taken in enough water for breakfast. Personal hygiene was a different story: I used wet napkins to clean myself. It is a fact that your normal personal hygiene standard is lowered quite a lot on hiking trips like this. Suddenly things you wouldn’t allow back home is totally fine.

·         Day 4 we hiked back to our bus. It was one of the most amazing hikes I have ever done. The grass was frosty and it looked like we were walking on diamonds and the mountains on each side of us glowed in the morning sun. Yeah – it made us all happy. J

·         Day 5 is our day off. I might go horseback riding later, but I haven’t made up my mind yet.

So New Zeeland has now shown me the AMAZING nature, a lot of stars, the good weather and all the beautiful hikes that are available around. How can I NOT love it? This is the country for me.

My first impression of New Zealand

I have to say I’m really impressed with New Zealand and I’m not easily impressed. And this is even before I’m starting my tour of the South Island. Here are the things that have impressed me so far:

·         The people. So friendly and helpful. And they smile a lot. J

·         Air New Zealand. I’m so sorry dear Lufthansa, but my new favorite airline is Air New Zealand. So nice planes, friendly staff, good service and good food. If they would operate in Europe I would use them all the time.

·         Auckland Airport. My new favorite airport (it used to be Munich). So nice, clean, great restrooms, terrific lounges and super friendly staff. It is a pleasure to wait here.

·         My hotels in Auckland and Christ Church. Clean, nice, not expensive (for a western country) with possibilities to cook for yourself.

·         All tourist brochures. You can find one for every kind of activity, for every part of the country and they are all free, including ALL maps. (When I was in Frankfurt I needed to pay for the city map in the tourist information – how stupid is that?).

I REALLY like this country already now! Hmmm wonder where this will end?? J

BUT…..

I’m now in Christchurch and as you all know the city was hit by an earthquake in February. When I arrived here I went for a short walk in the close surrounding. It made me really sad. It gave me the same feeling as I got when I came to Phi-Phi Island in February 2005, just a couple of months after the tsunami.  I mean – you read about the catastrophes in the papers, but you can never fully understand what has happened until you see it. It didn’t even feel right to take pictures of the city. But I took one – of the beautiful clock tower. I got so happy when I saw that it was still standing. Then, just before I took the picture, I realized it was not totally unharmed. See below. I do hope they will be able to rebuild the city soon. It seems to be a really nice place when you look at the parts that are OK.

My Fiji adventure

Since I haven’t been on-line for the whole week my Fiji stop is just one long blog.

It is safe to say that I will not come back home with a nice tan. ;-) In Costa Rica I had a lot of rain, but that was ok since I was focusing on animals and nature. In California it was, as always, sunshine but we were too busy doing everything except sunbathing so no tan there either. And now in Fiji I had 3 days of sunshine and the rest of my stay was just windy and rainy. Well, that is how it is sometimes and the only thing that would make it worse is if I would get in a bad mood because of the weather. So I refused to do that and enjoyed a lot of relaxing time reading, playing computer games and writing -  charging my batteries for the 2 upcoming weeks of hiking in New Zeeland. J

I made a mistake in my Fiji planning – I thought I would sail in Fiji, but it was an island hopping program. Ah well – that is what happens when you have to book a lot of things at the same time, you don’t have the time to really study everything in detail. The biggest disappointment from that part is that I travelled on my own, not in a group. But I have met quite a lot of nice people on each island, so it was still ok. The other disadvantage is one that I have experienced so many times before – you can’t do some activities because you are travelling alone. They require at least 2-4 people. So I missed the snorkeling with sharks just because of that. Luckily I have seen sharks while snorkeling before, so it is not the end of the world to miss it.

To travel on my own has both disadvantages and advantages. When I’m travelling with others I often end up being responsible for a lot of things on the trip. That can sometimes stress me a bit, since I need to make sure that a lot of different needs are met. When I’m travelling on my own I only need to care for my own needs and that is easier. But on the other hand – the only time I truly feel alone is when I experience something really beautiful or nice and there is no one there to share it with (I don’t mean a loved one, I mean friends and family also).

The Fiji part of the trip might have been difficult to handle for some people that I know. The accommodation has been really simple (see below), the food is not too good and definitely not healthy (lots of carbs, sugar and fat) and the weather has been bad. On top of that a lot of things are quite expensive. Compared with South East Asia, it is a steal.  For the same amount in Asia you would have get great accommodation, a lot better food and good service.

What did I experience then in Fiji?? Well let’s see, I have:

·         Listened to a lot of traditional music and seen a lot of dancing. All 4 islands that I visited greeted us with a song when we arrived and continued with song and dance each evening.

·         Had good snorkeling. The one time that I got to snorkel I did it on the place where they shot the movie Blue Lagoon (with Brooke Shields). It was really good snorkeling with lots of fishes and nice corals.

·         One sunburn. J Of course I managed to burn myself on one of the 3 days I had sun, even though I used spf 25.

·         Met a lot of nice people. I have had nice chats with Steve, a cute Brazilian guy from Campinas (where I used to live in 1999), lots of UK students, couples from Germany, New Zeeland, Italy, Richard and Mandy from Australia and Caroline from Gothenburg.

·         had some of the worst accommodation I have ever had. At least no one can say that I travel with a lot of lux, even if I do fly in business class. ;-)

·         Had one GREAT Pina Colada. I haven’t had such a good one since Barbados in 1991. ;-) Good I’m getting old and pathetic – talking about drink that I had 20 years ago. J

So all in all Fiji was quite ok. Not as I expected it to be, but you can’t win them all. I had great stays in Costa Rica and California, so it is ok to have some minor setbacks. I’m really looking forward to my New Zeeland stop and the hiking. I hope it will be a nice group that I’m joining.