Milford Sound

Today's adventure was heading out to Milford Sound. We hopped on a tour bus from Queenstown for the 4 hour drive out to Milford Sound with stops at Te Anau and other small towns and scenic vistas along the way. The weather was terrible, with snow showers hitting us in the mountain pass and making the roads kind of sketchy. But the skies broke just as we rolled into the sound and the sun glistened upon the water in the gorgeous fjord. And gorgeous is no understatement, the sheer cliffs plummet at 70-80 degrees into the crystal clear water. Alpine trees cover every inch of the mountains and waterfalls come cascading down from everywhere, thanks to the generous amount of rainfall in the past week. It was an incredible experience as our clipper ship cruised us around the Sound, stopping to check out seals and penguins that were sunning on the rocks. We were able to go all the way out to the mouth where it empties into the Tasman Seas. Totally worth the 8 hour round trip journey on the tour bus.

Ice bar!

As mentioned in the previous post, we went to Minus-5, the ice bar. And yes, it was cold, but yes, it was pretty sweet. As you can see in the picture, the entire wall behind us is made from ice, as is the bench, as are the ice sculptures beside us. Was a fun time with some yummy drinks and cool parkas.

Brrr, it's cold in here...

...there must be some some Toros in the atmosphere. So today was a cold one. It's about 55F here, pouring rain in Queenstown and we are totally NOT dressed for the weather. We are packed more appropriately for Uluru or Cairns, Australia where it's about 90F currently. After a mix-up this morning, we went with our second choice activity and took the gondola up to the peak which overlooks Queenstown and the look, the views were incredible. It's hard to describe just how picturesque the lake looks nestled into the mountains, it almost makes Lake Tahoe look like a pond. But what everybody says is true, you can't really appreciate it until you get here. We rode the luge at the top of the gondola and had a fun time flying around the curves while getting drenched in the rain. After a quick lunch back at the hotel, we headed off to go river boarding. The rain got heavier, the sun got more scarce, and we were informed that the snowmelt water temperature in the river was 50F today, flowing at 350 tons/second. River boarding is similiar to river rafting....that is river rafting when are thrown out of the raft and forced to fend for yourself, but add a boogie board. We had our layers of wetsuit, our helmets and our boards and they let us loose on a high flowing class III-IV river. This was a pretty intense, exhilarating, literally breath losing scary experience. You literally get pounded by waves all while trying to stay on your board, breathe and not get sucked into a whirlpool. Within 5 seconds of being out there I was more tired than I was when I did my triathlon. Luckily neither John nor I got sucked down into a whirlpool - but others were not so lucky. I think we can say it was a fun time...and it was...however it was probably one of the most challenging things both mentally and physically we have ever done. We're off to the Minus-5 bar tonight, a bar made entirely of ice...the walls, the bar, even the glasses! So yeah, it's been a cold day.

AKL -> QNS

As beautiful as Waiheke Island was, we were excited this morning to move on to Queenstown where we will be for 7 days. Since we're traveling with backpacks, it's totally non-trivial to pull one and two pieces of clothing out for a day without undoing the entire pack. In Queenstown, we will finally be able to completely unpack for the week and live out of a dresser/closet. Gene overwhelmed our palettes again this morning with an amazing breakfast. We woke up to fresh brewed coffee and tea, and homemade croissants and boysenberry jam. The croissants were so incredible, we could have eaten a dozen of those alone. Then came the second course, a berry compote with homemade muesli and yogurt. When we thought we were totally sated, Liz brought out Gene's third course, an egg, ham, bacon and cheese frittata with an accompanying plum sauce. Holy cow. Needless to say, that breakfast at 7:30am tied us over the Auckland to Queenstown flight and hotel check-in and we finally decided we should eat something at around 3:30pm, even though we still weren't really all that hungry. We've spent the day putzing around Queenstown, which we love on first impressions. The flight in was a little hairy, as the plane buzzes the mountain tops and then banks a sharp u-turn to drop into the valley before threading two mountain ranges and landing on an elevated runway that appears to suddenly jump out of the valley floor. People have said that Queenstown is super crowded (compared to the NZ countryside), kind of "fake" and built-up. To us, it feels like a mountain town, a lot like Breckenridge. And really, what's not to love about that? Lots of backpackers around, we felt like just another young couple backpacking their way around at the grocery store and filling the pack with a week's worth of eats to go with our suite, which the Heritage Queenstown was nice enough to upgrade us to for free. Speaking of groceries, the store had the obligatory Vegemite, which we passed on. But, per request, we did pick up a pack of TimTam's, the "most irresistable chocolate biscuit". They were tasty for sure.

Waiheke Island

This will be my third try posting this entry...we've been having Blackberry/gmail problems the past two days. Bugger! We spent our first day in New Zealand on Waiheke Island with a winetasting tour. First stop was Stony Ridge (named after the Stony Ridge mountain ridge it sits on) vineyards, where we sampled a great Sauvignon Blanc from Marlborough and some of their signature wines while taking in the expansive vistas overlooking meadows and farmland. From there we headed over to Mudbrick (named after the bricks made from mud the winery is made from), where we tasted their unique 06 Reserve Chardonnay which bursted with a butterscotch finish and sampled their yummy marinated olives. The last winery of the day was Kennedy Point, owned and run by Susan - a native New Yorker - who made us feel at home, the winery having a very similar feel to many of our favorites in Sonoma County. We enjoyed the 05 Syrah, her olive and avocado oils, a very delicious dukkah (some nut/seed mixture thing) and home made honey. The tour ended at Te Whau (pronounced "tee foe") Restaurant where we had some incredibly fresh local seafood and produce before heading back to our B&B, Te Whau Lodge. After an afternoon spent resting, we joined our hosts, Gene and Liz, and another couple from Canada, Brian and Catherine for dinner. Liz brought out pre-dinner canapes - chicken/veal pate, olive tapanade bruschetta, goat cheese and caramelized onion pastries - with a great bottle of Chardonnay to whet our appetites. Dinner was no less amazing, where Gene suggested a perfectly paired local 05 Syrah to go with the lamb and rosemary potato entry. We lingered at the table after dinner over dessert (ricotta mascarpone with fresh berries) and tea to chat with Gene, Liz, Brian and Catherine until it got late and time to turn in for the night. It now being Monday night here, we're certainly looking forward to sleeping in a bed for the first time since Friday night!

We've arrived!

After a hop through LAX and a 12 hour flight across the pond, we have arrived in New Zealand safe and sound. Despite the weather forecast, it's a beautiful day here in Auckland. Mostly sunny skies and 15C, whatever that converts into. More later, we are off to Waiheke Island for the day to do some winetasting. Cheerio! (Updated 11/28/06: Picture of sunrise over Auckland just prior to landing.)

Which way to swirl?

There's an urban legend (or at least a rumor from my elementary school playground days) that toilets swirl the other way in the Southern Hemisphere due to gravity or earth spin or magic toilet elves or something. I've been advised by many people on how exactly to prove or disprove this theory. Some have said it's impossible to do with toilets in general because they are engineered to have a specific swirl pattern, and that engineered swirl over-rides environmental conditions. Some have said that toilets in Oz/NZ are so high-powered that it's almost as if they have jet propulsion, so there's no swirl at all. So I was advised to try the experiment with a sink or a bath tub. Well, those pictures aren't very compelling, I've decided. So for our current purposes, we'll stick with toilet pictures until I am stumped down under (lol). Here, I present a Northern Hemisphere toilet swirling counter-clockwise.

How to fit 28 days into a backpack

Well, the time for packing had to come eventually. After a pleasant couple of days spent gorging ourselves over the Thanksgiving holiday at Carrie's parents' house in Auburn, we came home to the uneviable task of packing for 28 days. And trying to fit it all into one backpack a piece in the spirit of "travelling light." The picture on the left shows what went into my pack and carry-on, just under 60 pounds worth of clothes and gear. Carrie's spread was somewhat less because her clothes are smaller and she isn't gear-obsessed, but she also has a smaller pack. Managed to get it all in. Now we spend the next 24 hours waiting with baited breath before we leave. Hoping that we remember anything we forgot before we actually leave. Oh, and scarfing down tasty Thanksgiving leftovers. Yum.

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At this time next week, we'll either be crossing the international date line, or on Waiheke Island in New Zealand, depending on how you count the time. If you don't adjust for the timezone, we never actually see this time next week, we lose this day in flight. If you adjust for the timezone, we'll have landed and spent a whole day winetasting already, we can't wait, we're so excited! I've got three working days left in the office before I'm off on sabbatical for two months. I've transitioned all my responsibilities off to my coverage, and my inbox and all of my folders are completely empty for the first time since I first started working. It's a crazy and liberating feeling. w00t! lol.

Welcome to our blog!

Welcome to our little corner of the web where we plan to post updates from our trip to the South Pacific. I'm normally anti-blog because I feel like it's for people who don't know how to post web pages, but this turns out to be the easiest way to keep our friends and family at home updated about things going on with our trip. We're going to be gone for a month, and lots of people have expressed interest in our trip, we're certainly super excited. We're flying into Auckland from the States, spending a week in Queenstown, a week in Sydney, a few days in Uluru, and then over a week in Cairns, diving on the Great Barrier Reef. Keep checking in for updates, we expect to start posting here regularly in about a week when we leave for New Zealand. Please leave us comments on the blog, it'll keep us motivated to keep posting. :) Cheers!