Moving - West Coast to East Coast...

My tour down the West Coast of the South Island came to an end. I was packed up bright and early and ready to catch the intercity bus to Christchurch - this time, I planned to be EXTRA aware of bus stop and start times! This was a very long bus day - 8 1/2 hours, but again, it was more like a tour than just a boring bus ride. The bus drivers are so informative on all the towns and areas we traveled. I finally got a semi-decent picture of the farmed deer!

On the bus stops along the way, I arranged my accommodation in Christchurch at The Old Country House hostel and my plans for the following day. Upon arrival, I hiked to the hostel, literally hiked. On the handy dandy street map, it did not seem very far from the city center, but in reality, it was pretty darn far and it was hot. There was a noticeable temperature increase from the West Coast. I know that I've been traveling "alone", but you never really are alone. There are always other travelers to talk to and hang out with. This night, I just wanted to be really alone, me time, quiet time. I searched out the movie theatre and found that "The Kids Are All Right" was playing. I thought the moving was pretty good as it definitely captured current social issues and I am a big fan of Mark Ruffalo. It gets dark late here in New Zealand so, I was able to "hike" back to the hostel at 8:30 p.m. and be back before dark.

I would classify this day as a mellow travel day. I only booked one night at the hostel because I planned to head out the next day to visit FLIPPER in Kaidoura, which is about 2 hours further north up the coast.

Is It a Sound or a Fiord...?

Up with the sun, I headed down the "getting old really fast" steep hill from the Hippo Lodge to catch my early morning bus to Milford Sound. The ride was a long one, approximately 6 hours and along the way, we stopped at the Fiordland National Park, the town of Te Anau, Mirror Lakes and the Chasm (a stone work of art naturally created by water and air). I am not a great photographer by any means, actually I am not even a very good photographer, but the Mirror Lakes made me the BEST photographer around! It was so easy to get a beautiful picture.

Southern New Zealand is home to the Fiordland which was well known to Maori, who have many legends recounting its formation and naming. Demi-god Tute Rakiwhanoa is said to have carved the rugged landscape from formless rock, hewing out the steep sided valleys with his magical adzes.

When we arrived at the entrance to the sound, we boarded our boat cruise and off we went. We were educated on the difference between a fiord and a sound. A fiord is found in locations where current or past glaciation extended to sea level. It is formed when a glacier (carving its typical U-shaped valley) meets the sea and melts. This leaves a narrow, steep sided valley into which the sea floods. A sound is often formed by the sea flooding a river valley. This produces a long inlet where the sloping valley hillsides descend to sea-level and continue beneath the water to form a sloping sea floor. So...Milford Sound, having been carved by a glacier, is technically a fiord. Well, it's beautiful no matter what you call it. Amazing waterfalls, seal colonies and stunning rock formations. At places like this, nature can make you speechless...truly amazing!

After our two-tour, we were in a rush, I headed to the ladies room - really fast, and guess what...?? The damn bus left me! That's 3 times now that I've had that pit feeling in my stomach!!! Sometimes traveling alone can be a pain in the XSS! There wasn't anyone I could send to the bus and ask the driver to wait one minute. Uggghhh...thank god the Kiwis are so nice. There were several other tour companies leaving back to Queenstown and one very nice Kiwi driver, said "No worries mate, I'll give you a lift". Geez...I was exhausted after the LONG bus ride and boat tour and also pretty ticked off about being left - again I started crying - what a girlie girl! I arrived back at the Hippo Lodge and crashed really hard. It was a great nature day, with a slight bummer twist at the end, but all worked out fine and the sound/fiord was worth it!

What Do You Mean We Can't Go?

Queenstown is one of the major bases for touring Milford Sound and seeing the sound was the main reasons I came to Queenstown. There are a few options from Queenstown. You can:

• Coach-Cruise-Coach
• Fly-Cruise-Coach
• Coach-Cruise-Fly
• Fly-Cruise-Fly

I found really good ½ price deal for the Fly-Cruise-Coach deal which meant I was to take a 35 minute plane ride to the sound, board a 2 hour cruise on the sound and then take a 4+ hour bus back to Queenstown. I was picked up at around 11:30 p.m. and we headed to the airport. When we got there, I had a bad feeling because the pilot/head of the company had us sit and wait for about 25 minutes as he was waiting on the weather. It was pretty windy out, but it did not seem too bad. Well, it was bad and our tour was cancelled due to the windy, rainy weather at the sound. Apparently, the weather at the sound can be completely different than the weather in Queenstown. I was so disappointed. I did not have a Plan B for the day so I asked our driver to take me to the tourist information center so I could evaluate my options for an afternoon activity. Queenstown is the capital for adventurous and fun activities. I read that there are approximately 200 different tours/activities you can do from and in the town. Anything and everything you’d want to do is here:

• Bungy jumping – done it - check
• Zip lining – done it - check
• Canyoning – done it - check
• Sky diving – won’t do it - forget the check
• Lord of the Rings site tour – no thanks - forget the check

And the list goes on and on…

At the end of the day, the wind was taken out of my sails and nothing appealed to me. I rescheduled my tour to Milford Sound for the following day - this time I decided to forgo the flight and take the bus to get there. This way, I knew I’d make the boat tour, it just meant it was going to be a really long day.

I walked around town and called it a night.

Off to the Beautiful Queenstown...

I was off, bright and early, heading further down the west coast and then inland. The scenery continued to amaze - beautiful green mountains, rivers, waterfalls, orchards, vineyards and of course sheep! We stopped at an amazing fruit stand - the colors of the fruit were so vibrant. At one of our stops, I tried to get a photo of the stags, but they were a bit far away. We passed through the very popular Lake Wanaka and other towns that were once booming during the New Zealand gold rush. There is still some gold mining happening here. Rumor has it that a man was walking down by a local river and found a large gold nugget that sold for $50k on ebay! It was a very long bus ride, approximately 9 hours, to arrive at the town that is fit for a queen - Queenstown.

Queenstown is in Otago in the south-west of New Zealand's south island. It's built upon the beautiful Lake Wakatipu, has spectacular views of the surrounding mountains and it is a resort town - skiing in the winter and adventure/outdoor activities in the summer.

When I arrived, I took out my handy dandy street map and headed for the Hippo Lodge. Anja and I had made plans to meet in Queenstown and Hippo Lodge was going to be the accommodation. Well, my handy dandy street map was not a topographical map. The lovely Hippo Lodge, it turns out, was up an extremely steep hill. I thought my heart was going to come out of my chest lugging all my stuff up that hill! It was the first time I had to convert my bag into a backpack. I trudged up that hill like the little train that could..."I think I can, I think I can..."! All that work paid off with an incredible view.

There are hundreds of things to do in Queenstown, but my purpose was to use it as a base to see Milford Sound. I booked my tour to Milford Sound for the next day, headed down the hill and met up with Anja and her new friend, Michaela (I think that was her name). We went to dinner at a Mexican restaurant - well, a wanna be Mexican restaurant. The Mexican food here is not what we are used to. They had fake sombreros, like the ones at Chevy's, only these were more the shape of witches hats...Ay yi yi! I MISS our REAL tacos, burritos, enchiladas, huevos con chorizo, horchata...and the list goes on and on!

Nature Girl Parte Numero Dos...It's A Bit Colder Today...

Franz Josef is a town, but it's also the name of a very large glacier on the West Coast of the South Island (Ka Roimata or Hinehukatere in Maori). The primary purpose for visiting the town is to visit the glacier. Some people take a walk to the edge of the glacier, take some pictures and walk away, but noooo, not me - oh no - I booked a full-day guided trek onto the glacier! What was I thinking? I was a bit worried because, well, I don't feel like I am in that great of shape. No time to contemplate, I had to get moving!

The glacier was named after Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria by the German explorer, Julius von Haast in 1865. He was the first European to document the glacier from a steam ship in 1859. The glacier is currently 12 km long and terminates 19 km from the Tasman Sea. It is the worlds steepest and fastest flowing commercially guided glacier and it is an amazing site!

I arrived at the tour office at 9:00 a.m. We were given the run down on how to collect our equipment. Jacket, over-trousers, socks, boots, crampons, hat and gloves - check! We boarded a bus, arrived at the national park, were separated into groups and headed for the bottom of the glacier. The walk to the bottom of the glacier itself was a good distance - over 2km, although the distance was deceiving - it did not look as far as it was. We proceeded past the "Do not pass" sign (gulp) and just before we hit the ice, we put the crampons on our shoes. Up, up and up - through crevasses and up ice hills. Our guide, Troy, was awesome! He made sure out path was good, carved out steps in the ice and helped a few of the "less sure footed" hikers, but not me - I was loving it - let's go higher! There were parts on the trek where you had to squeeze, really squeeze, yourself through the crevasses! For the "squeezing" parts, we had to wear our jackets to elbow our way through the ice. Unfortunately, I did not check the size of my jacket before I left the tour office. The guy gave me an XXL - huh? I know I need to loose a few L B's, but c'mon! We were really lucky - we had great weather - no rain, which for this area, is very unusual. Anyway, the jacket worked fine and I'm happy it wasn't raining.

It was a full day of hiking and I loved it! Nature Girl did it again - Gucci sunglasses and all!

Greymouth to Franz Josef...

I was ready to get a move on from Greymouth. For my travel on the South Island, I chose to buy a flexi-pass on the Intercity Bus Line. The one unfortunate thing about their bus system is that the bus times can be a bit limited. So, for example, I was ready to leave Greymouth bright and early in the morning, the bus, however would not be there to pick me up until 1:00 p.m. - time to hurry up and wait!

The bus finally came and I was off on a continued journey down the West Coast and had a 4 hour bus ride to see the Franz Josef Glacier! By now, I have seen quite a bit of the landscape on the South Island - besides a beautiful ocean, there are heaps and heaps of farms, orchards and vineyards. YES, I have seen sheep, cows, red deer, llamas and elk - all being farmed. The deer and elk surprised me - coming from a family where hunting is a sport, it was odd to see a huge herd of male deer with a very large set of antlers corralled on an acre of land. I asked about the deer and the bus driver said that they are farmed for their meat, primarily sold to Germany and the antlers are primarily sold to China for Chinese medicine. There are also certain farms that raise huge stags and some rich guy will pay to come to New Zealand and shoot him - what a fake, that is not hunting at all - not cool! These deer are not even afraid of people. I am still working on getting a good picture of the deer - it's not so easy on a moving bus.

I arrived at the Glow Worms Cottages, checked in and Anja was there after her long day trek. We met up with Karoline and headed to the glacier hot pool. Three invigorating pools, one warmer than the next. It was very relaxing! We headed back to the Hostel and made dinner. I went to bed fairly early, because...we haven't seen the last of nature girl!!!

Nelson to Greymouth...Just Because...

Anja, my new friend from Germany, and I woke up early to catch the bus from Nelson. I was headed to Greymouth and she was continuing on to Franz Josef. Honestly, I don't know why I was going to Greymouth. There are hikes and other activities to do from Greymouth, but I wasn't very interested in any of them. I really just wanted to make my way down the west coast and stop along the way.

From Nelson, the bus made a few stops along the way and one of those stops was in Punakaiki. We had about a 25 minute stop over, enough time to see the Pancake Rocks. Anja and I were headed for the trail to the water when I heard someone "holla" my name. I looked over and it was Karoline! It was a little shocking to have your name called out when you wouldn't think you'd know anyone. It's a small traveling world here in New Zealand. It turns out that Karoline was on her way to Franz Josef too. The three of us made our way to see the Pancake Rocks. The Pancake Rocks are a heavily eroded limestone area where, during high tide, the sea burst through blow holes in the rocks. It can be quite dramatic - sometimes I feel like the pictures don't do justice to the amazing nature here. The layering of the limestone makes the rocks resemble a stack of pancakes.

We made plans to meet up the following night and I off boarded the bus in Greymouth to do - Nothing!

Greymouth was not an interesting town. I splurged for my own room, which happened to be the Elephant Room (still a shared bathroom), ate, did some work emails and went to bed!