Kakapo Lodge - Hanmer Springs, New Zealand

This was a pretty standard YHA hostel in Hanmer Springs.  We had a bunk bed and a double, so a bit of floor time here.  We did some laundry, slept, and left.  Not much to report.

WGGSH? - No

WWSHA? - Yes

Kinloch and beyond to the West Coast

We returned to Kinloch Lodge (our absolute favorite hostel in New Zealand) for two nights after the Greenstone to wash clothes, have a good dinner at their restaurant, recharge a bit and so that Ainsley could use Uncle JB’s christmas gift to go canyoning. Queenstown was next for one more night, and Eliot’s opportunity to go paragliding, and then we moved on to Lake Wanaka and up the West Coast to see the pancake rocks and glaciers. As we’ve said a thousand times to other travelers we hated leaving Kinloch, the Routeburn and Greenstone tracks behind. If we had spent all of our time in New Zealand there it would have been fine. But, the pull of new natural wonders, sights and the Abel Tasman track succeeded in pulling us away.

Old MacDonald’s Farm, Marahau, New Zealand

Marahau and Old MacDonald’s Farm was our jumping off point for the Abel Tasman Track.  This was quite a unique place.  Lots of animals wandering around the place and a fantastic low tide bay in town that extended out for a km or so.  It had the tiniest little standalone cabins we’ve ever seen along with the craziest standalone shower stalls - displayed by Jack.  The kitchen for our cabin was outside on a deck like space.  Five beds though, with linens, are all we need.

WGGSH? - No

WWSHA? - Yes

Seeing penguins, sting rays, and fur seals – some of them I swam with!

Part I:  The Seals

On the boat in Abel Tasman National Park, we roamed up to the beginning of the track, slowly but surely. As we turned the corner, we saw a cove and in that cove were some baby fur seals and some fully grown ones. In that cove, I began to wish I could be in the water with them swimming. Just a little bit later, my dream came true.

As we hiked up to Separation Point, we saw the lighthouse down some steps. We started walking down those steps, but to our left we noticed a man swimming in the water off the rocks. Then I spotted some seals around him, only adults this time. I thought, lucky guy to be able to go in that freezing cold water. Then dad just announced, “You want to go swimming with the seals over there?” And I said, “I’ll try.” So I did try.

We stripped to our underwear (our bathing suits were in our packs back at the track junction). After many attempts to get into the coldest water you can ever imagine, I went in. And then I was swimming with seals! One of them swam a foot in front of dad and me, swimming under water. Then a big guy jumped in from the rocks and started swimming towards us. He was a little further away from us than the guy who was under water, and he popped his head up three feet in front of us and he looked his big black eyes straight at us. That was soooooooooooooooooo awesome!

A few seconds later, Mom and Ainsley hopped in with us. Even they were in just underwear! Eliot took a few pictures. Now that’s the end of my first story.

Part II: The Ray

After feeling the warmer water at our last hut, I felt like swimming at the end of our four-hour hike the next day.  I got my chance when dad said he would come down to the water’s edge with me. It was in an estuary. It was just past low tide with the water starting to come in.  There was only water the size of a big river in the middle of a huge sand flat (it took twenty minutes to cross the flat at low tide).  When dad and I got to the water’s edge, I got in the water.  It was freezing cold just like at the seals!  “Man,” I said myself, but I was still trying to swim.

A few minutes later, I was in water up to my chest with a big current, when a few feet in front of me I saw a sting ray sail past me.  Three feet in length and at its widest spot the wing span was about two feet.  It looked like it was flying under water, just like they say penguins do.  Then it was gone.  It went past in about a second.  My reactions didn’t react in a second, but in the next few seconds I was out of the water and blabbering to dad about what I had seen.  When I got back to the hut, I was talking all about it.  It was just so cool.

Two days later, I was going to see another of those flyers under water.

Part III: The Penguin

After we left the hut, we were going to pick up the water taxi from the beach.  We waited a long time, then the water taxi came.  The boat motored for a little while towards Marahau, but we saw no more animals.  Then after we checked some other stops for passengers, we came to a little blue penguin in the water off the side of the boat.  He was so cute swimming along the top of the water, ducking his head down to look for fish.  Though I had seen many other little blue penguins on the Banks Peninsula, this was one of my first times seeing one so close up in the water.  As we went away, I was thinking to myself, “How lucky am I to see all these animals?”  And that’s the end of the story.

p.s. The day before we saw the penguin we went to a quarry near a beach.  There we saw some starfish and some sea urchins.  My favorite starfish was a big blue one and there were lots of other colors of that starfish.  The sea urchins hid near rocks and were about the size of a tennis ball and spiky.  I loved seeing all of these animals in Abel Tasman and I want to come back sometime.  I wish everyone in the world could see these sites.

Trip Inn Hostel, Westport, New Zealand

After seeing Fox and Franz Josef Glacier we headed further up the beautiful West Coast road to see the Pancake Rocks and stay in the small town nearby.  However, we found the few hostels full and decided to push further north to Westport.  Along the way we saw a funny tourism sign that said “If you want to know Switzerland visit Queenstown, if you want know New Zealand visit Westport.”  Queenstown is a fine place to visit, has many things to see and do, but it does have that European ski town feel.  Westport we would find did feel more authentically New Zealand (what do we really know though?) and we enjoyed our brief one night stay.  The Trip Inn Hostel was in a lovely old victorian style home.  Ainsley and I tented in the backyard while Kelli and the boys slept in a three share. One of the most unique features of the Hostel was its use of coal for heating.  They had a large pile of coal in the backyard for a small history lesson for the kids.

WGGSH? - Maybe

WWSHA? - Yes

Fox Glacier Holiday Park, Fox Glacier, New Zealand

After leaving Wanaka we headed up the West Coast with this as our first stop. We stumbled upon this nice and cheap Holiday Park and decided to pitch our tents. Holiday Parks were new to us when we arrived in New Zealand, but are found everywhere. They include sites for tents, campervans and varying levels of rooms, cabins and motel units. They also include cooking facilities and usually a significantly nice playground and trampoline. Eliot had his eye on one and finally we stayed at one.

WGGSH? - Definitely not, too much like camping which is not her thing

WWSHA? - Yes

Purple Cow Hostel, Wanaka, New Zealand

From Queenstown we headed towards the West Coast and made a stop at Lake Wanaka.  After checking out a number of places, we ended up here with a nod to Pop Pop and his college’s mascot a purple cow. We had a nice 6 bed self contained room to ourselves and settled in for a family movie one night on the bunk.  Our second night we were awakened to find someone entering our room.  We figured that they had mistakenly found the wrong room, but soon learned that she was in the right one.  After telling us that we had the room to ourselves they decided to add someone after all. Oh well.

Nothing remarkable here save for the ping pong and pool tables.  Eliot favors the ping pong and I can see a bit of pool shark in Jack.  He’s getting pretty good.  Funny how the features that have nothing to do with our room mean the most to the kids. Oh, they had a movie room and library of dvds too.  Hence the family movie night.

WGGSH? - No

WWSHA? - Maybe

Kinloch Lodge, Kinloch, New Zealand

Next to staying with Nicky and Graeme in Christchurch this by far was our favorite place in all of New Zealand. It was situated on the shores of Lake Wakatipu only about 45 minutes away from Queenstown, but it seemed like it was hours and hours away.

The rooms were simple and clean, a little cramped squeezing all five of us in. But, the kitchen was great, the owners wonderful, they had free wifi, the views stupendous, the restaurant served delicious meals and the overall atmosphere was truly peaceful.

We stayed there two different times and after we left for the last time everyone kept wishing that we could go back.

WGGSH? (Would GG Stay Here?) - Yes

WWSHA? (Would We Stay Here Again?) - Yes

Catching Up - Greenstone Track

We are now in Melbourne, Australia (Monday April 7th) after a sad departure from New Zealand, a country that we all loved. Our stay here will be just short of a week before we leave for Istanbul, Turkey on the 13th. Postings have been sparse during our time in New Zealand and now that we have good access to wifi in Melbourne, we’ll catch up a bit. Rather than putting all into one big mess of a post we’ll do a number of smaller ones in chronological order and corresponding dates.

First, some foreshadowing of future events from the topic and backdating of this post.

The end of March brought two special birthdays for our family and marked the first time that Ainsley and Jack celebrated in the fall. We were at the Bark Bay hut along the Abel Tasman Track on the South Island for Ainsley’s 13th birthday, complete with two kinds of freeze dried deserts (yum?). Hard to believe that Ainsley is a teenager! She is growing up so fast on the one hand yet still retains so many great attributes from her younger years.

After a special stop at the Hanmer Springs Thermal Pools, we returned one last time to Nicky and Graeme’s in Christchurch where we celebrated Jack’s birthday. Eleven!! His choice for desert was Hokey Pokey ice cream, a New Zealand specialty and his new favorite. Think of hardened caramel or toffee. Add to that Jack’s love of dulce de leche from Argentina and you may detect a pattern.

From Christchurch we left for a short stay on the North Island. Everyone was really quite sad to leave. We loved the South Island a lot and no one in the family wanted to go. It was such a peaceful and beautiful place; no highways to speak of, few shopping malls, no crowds of people, mostly unspoiled vistas of beautiful mountains, valleys and coastlines. Too bad we didn’t figure out a way to stay for good!

Now, back in time to our hike on the Greenstone Track that we started on March 13th. Because the Routeburn Track is not circular and the road distance from one end to the other is more than 350km, our original plan was to hike the Routeburn, see Milford Sound, then hike back to Kinloch Lodge via the Greenstone. However, the weather took a turn for the worse, with rain, hail and even snow at fairly low altitudes, so we changed our plans a bit and played it safe.  After two nights in Milford Sound, a long journey via bus to Kinloch, and better weather in the forecast, we decided to hike the Greenstone.

The Greenstone has a reputation as much less dramatic and not quite as beautiful track as the Routeburn.  It lies mostly in a river valley with no sub alpine sections so no amazing views of the mountain ranges like the Routeburn. Even so, as you’ll see in the pictures, the valley was incredibly beautiful, the weather was perfect, the huts were lovely and the Greenstone was much less crowded than the Routeburn.  We spent four gorgeous days walking together, eating lunches with fantastic views, crossing streams, and truly enjoying one another’s company.  It was a magic time for us and became one of our favorite hikes.  I guess having had perfect weather helped.

Milford Sound Lodge, Milford Sound, New Zealand

This was our stop after our hike on the Routeburn with a plan to return to Kinloch via the Greenstone Track. Weather was quite bad, lots of rain (expected here), but also hail and snow at low altitudes. The hostel was unremarkable and the only one in the tiny town of Milford Sound. We had a very basic room with five beds and a shared bath halfway across the grounds. Ugh! Most convenient though was the “drying room” or room with a dry heat source used to dry wet hiking clothes. That helped us recover from the two days of steady rain on the Routeburn.

WGGSH? - No

WWSHA? - Maybe

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