damn that victorious beer tasted fine!

ok. I have my limits of decency and self restraint, but a beer bet is
just irresistable. right? ha. all our fellow passengers are going home
with pictures and videos of "that American girl" hanging off the front
of the boat being drenched in the cold cold waterfall. what can I say.
there was a beer at stake! :D somebody had to do it.

drinking water from the falls...

the driver of the boat pulled us into the bottom of one if the falls,
and encouraged everyone to grab a glass, and drink the fresh water.
then the driver made a jovial little dare over the loudspeaker...
"I'll give a beer to anyone willing to go under the falls....."

well we had just me this group of nice respectable people, and as nice
American girls, we had a reputation to keep up, right?

in awe of the surroundings

after the champagne ran out, we wandered the decks of the boat taking
in the amazing scenery of the sound as we cruised along. there were
too many waterfalls to count... often springing out of the impossible
mountain peaks. where did the water come from? the wind had picked up
a bit, and some of the falls sprouted out of the wallks of the
mountains, and disappeared into the air.

wasn't kidding when I said we went a little decadent!

we loaded up onto the boat, and were welcomed by the 3 crew member
with a champagne toast. lovely. as we left the port, we sipped the
champagne, and chatted with our fellow passengers. 3 "nice" Australian
couples (retired folks), 1 widowed English lady, a Czech couple (about
our age), and 1 German guy. everyone was quick to chat, share life and
travel stories. really nice group, clicked right away. or was the the
champagne flowing??? hummmm.

first view of doubtful sound

through the collecting clouds, we managed to get a little glimpse of
the sound as we came over the pass. stunning. the moody clouds really
seemed to fit the scenery too.

waterfalls everywhere

coming over the pass on the bus, the driver gave us a constant
commentary of the native trees and history of the area. we stopped at
few few viewpoints along the way, although we also started to get a
taste of the wetter aspects of a rainforest climate with a constant
drizzle of rain starting. apparently, it has been a dry summer, so the
locals were quite excited about the rain. it also fueled the many
dozens of waterfalls springing from the landscape all around.
selfishly, however, I was just mentally pushing my cute new tank top
to the bottom of my bag.

boat to bus to boat

made our way to the meeting point, and joined up with our small group
(heather and I decided to treat ourselves a bit on this final tour,
and booked an overnight on a small boat with only 12 people). to get
out to the sound, we took a 45 min boat across a lake, to meet up with
a 45 min bus ride over the mountains. it was super windy and a bit
wet on top of the boat, so I opted to relax, and enjoy the scenery
going by from the dry cabin.

NZ rainbow!

our laziness the night before made for an early morning start to head
out to doubtful sound. gosh, I was so over packing by this point, I
threw like 5 things into my backpack, and was ready so quickly... I
even showered (I am dirty and lazy on vacation, and choose sleep over
shower any day!). ha.

the drive out to the lake was gorgeous. even caught a little rainbow
in the distance. just over the dark shadow on the right mountains!

intermission...

sitting on the plane, minutes away from departure to head back to SF.
almost caught up with the blogging. 2 days shy of the complete
adventure. will post the last few days on the flip side.

it has been amazing to be a world away for a bit of time. it was such
a sampler trip of this adventurous country. 3 weeks went by incredibly
fast, I have a long to-do list for my next trip down here. thinking it
is going to be "mountains, rivers and breweries".... and 3 weeks just
won't be enough next time around.

see ya on the flip side. or second Tuesday, as I Like to think of it
(I leave NZ at 3:40pm on tuesday, and get back to CA at 6am Tuesday).

-girl wandering. :)

farm fresh dinner in our little house

we arrived at the hostel in te anau while it was still daylight! I
think it wax a first for us! the private room we had booked turned out
to be a bedroom in a little 2 bedroom house shared with a "nice
couple". a delight to have space to live, cook, spread out, and a
couch to sit on for an evening. didn't know how much we missed the
homey comforts until we had them for a night.

drank one of our yummy bottles of wine with our home cooked farmers
market dinner, and put off the packing and repacking till morning.
prolly my least favorite part of this kind of travel is lugging my
suitcase in and out of different accomodations everyday, and needing
to unpack and repack everyday for the activity of the day. we did so
many different things on this trip that this cycle was a constant, and
taking blowing it off for a night was decadent!

coming onto fiordlands

the steep jagged mountains of queenstown and wanaka gave way to the
lush mounded mountains of the fiordlands. getting excited for our
overnight cruise on the sound.

driving snacks

little late afternoon snack tray was in order. rice crackers with
pate, fresh blue cheese and radishes from the farmers market. good
living!

south out of queenstown along the lake

it was a gorgeous Saturday afternoon in queenstown, and everyone was
out and about, catching sun on every piece of lawn or beach to be
found. we drove out of town, and headed another 2 hours onto te anau.

wine stop in queenstown

made a quick stop in queenstown to pick up some wine for the cruise in
doubtful sound. heather navigated us to a little she remembered where
we could sample wines before buying. settled on 2 bottles of pinot
noir from the southern mountain region we were in.

tourist stop in arrow town

made a mid-afternoon stop in arrowtown, an old mining town, just
outside of queenstown. cute, and getting built up with shops. grabbed
a beer at the local arrow brewery and chatted with the brewers. good
beer, good people. we are missing their special brew IPA and the south
coast oyster season opener party by a week. have to keep that in mind
for the next trip.

the windy road down

our daily self portrait!

out of wanaka to queenstown

left wanaka early afternoon, and drove over another mountain pass
towards queenstown. amazing view from the tip if the pass looking out
over the remarkable mountains, and down to the lake and town of
queenstown.

Saturday farmers market in wanaka

we decided to try and arrive in te anau that evening in daylight, and
with enough time to make dinner for a change. heather found the little
garners market, so we lucked up dome fresh bread, cheese, veggies and
mint honey lamb sausages to cook up for dinner.

sunshine, oh sunshine!

still reeling a bit from the damp and rainy weather we have had, it
was awesome to soak up some sun! when I packed up for this trip, I had
a much more summery view of things... and have been lugging around a
suitcase full of shorts, bathing suits and tank tops. weather has
never been too cold, but it has also not Been the endless summer I
quite thought. ha. had to buy a fleece and some thermal leggings along
the way. feel like a bit of a dork for my poor planning... not like I
don't have a dresser full of the right stuff at home or anything?!
luckily, all is available here.

good morning wanaka

arrived late in the evening, found the hostel, and passed out from
exhaustion in about 1 minute flat.

woke up sat morning to a bright and lovely day in wanaka. small
mountain town along a lake. prolly what tahoe was 50 Years ago. our
agenda for the day was driving to te anau (2 hours south west of
queenstown), so we allowed ourselves a relaxed morning to get some
breakfast, explore town and write a few More postcards. we have spent
so litttle time sitting still, so it was really nice to hang at an
outdoor cafe and watch Saturday morning go by.

stunning sunset coming through the mountains

the road led us from the coastline into the mountains... we hauled up
and over a few passes, and followed along a bunch of rivers. the
stunning sunset was a great cap to an already amazing day!

heathers contribution

heather collected some interesting driftwood and mica rocks and left
her contribution.

franz Josef to wanaka...

since we decided to postpone our glacier hike by a day, we got back
from the hike and had to jump right intothe car for the 4+ hour drive
down to wanaka. so glad we decided to hit the glacier on the day
without rain tho! luckily it was a gorgeous drive. saturated from the
satcom the glacier, heather and I just took in the scenery from the
car, with a few stops along the wAy for some quick pics.

heading south, after clearing the mountains that house the franz Josef
and fox glaciers, we popped back out to the coast and came upon this
beach with all sorts of natural sculptures made of driftwood and
rocks. went as far as the eye could see in both directions, and seems
like most folks passing by add a little something to the beach.

final descent

after a full day of hiking (at least 4-5 hours on the glacier), we
made our way back to solid ground. it was an amazing hike and
education. spent most of the day with my jaw dropped in awe of our
surroundings! unforgettable experience.

tip of the dirt pile looking back on valley

we had to wait a few minutes on top of the dirt as each group needed
space to descend the steep hill one by one. great spot to sit and
absorb a little bit before returning to earth... :)

made it off the ice... still need to descend the dirt pile

patches of sun above and below us

starting to come down...

looking up the glacier at the dirt triangle I pointed out in one of
the first pictures. at the highest point, we were just up to the left
side of the triangle.

ice climbers

the guide company also runs day long ice climbing trips (Tony little
specs of people in middle of picture)... definitely doing that if I
make it back some day!

coming out the bottom!

the tunnel was a lot longer than I had expected, with curves, bumps
and drops along the way. got a bit wet, but totally worth it!

heather climbing into the ice tunnel

our group lucked out and were allowed to slide through a tunnel cut
out if the ice by water. the guide had set a rope inside, and one by
one we slid (bumping and grinding reallly) through the tunnel!

looking back into the valley from behind ice waves

I was pretty surprised how far up onto the glacier our group wandered.
our guide was a little surprised as well.

ice "waves"

making our way through the ice waves

moving upwArd, we zigzagged through the ice fields that had an overall
formation that looked like giant waves.

glowing blue

our guide gave us a good talk about the blue appearance of the ice.
has to do with light rays being bent a distorted in the ice crystals,
and all that reflects back is the blue. she was super funny in
breaking off pieces of the ice, and making sure that we were aware
that the ice itself is not really blue, just appears that way in
context of the glacier. good thing too cuz I was secretly hatching a
plan on how I was going to bring a hunk of blue NZ ice home. j/k. ha.
I can only imagine the range of off the wall questions the guides have
to answer.

looking back...

the surface of the ice looked like a fairly level incline looking up,
but when you looked back you could see that it was a series of
fractured mounds. see the dude standing on the far side of the chasm?
again. puts the scale in perspective.

continuing up

we ultimately hike up to the dirt triangle area in the center of the
picture. a lot farther than it looks!

hiking through the blue ice

our journey up the glacier led us through a couple of tight spots! the
ice was also freshly "cleaned" in the rain over the previous two days,
so it was super bright and blue.

onto the ice

seeing the group next to the ice begins to put the size into
perspective, eh?!

looking back on the river valley from the top of the rock pile

top of the rock pile

reached the top of the rock pile, and had a few minutes to snap some
photos before getting on the ice. we had a few clouds hanging in the
middle of the valley over us for the day, but big blue sky lit up the
mountain tops and the glacier.

heather going up up and away!

kept heather in front of me. and I brought up the rear of our pack led
by our guide Sally.

...and up we go!

the glacier guides had been out since 7am recutting the ice stairs...
we split off into three groups of 10 people, got in line, and
started to climb. the crampons took a minute to get used to, but were
quite amazing how well they kept you hiking on the hard ice.
the ascent up this ice and rock hill was incredibly a lot steeper than
i anticipated!

our glacier lessons in action

George, one of our guides, really enthusiastically gave us a bunch of
info along the way! it wax really great to be in the first group out
in the morning. we didn't have anyone in front of us heading to the
glacier, and we saw some of the most spectacular blue skies of the day
unfolding over the mountains.

getting closer

we walked along the turbulent river coming out of the glacier. the
mouth of the cave was massive, and looked so sketchy! house sized
hunks of ice looking like they were ready to fall at any moment. the
guides said that the cave actually does collapse in varying degrees
every few years, stopping up the river, creating water dams inside the
glacier that explode, changing the landscape of the glacier itself.
the dirt covered ice to the right side wasn't there 5 years ago when
heather came to the glacier last. it was formed from a massive river
explosion a few years ago. so crazy to think about how rapidly the big
ice flow can change! the franz Josef glacier is generally in a
retreating mode (in different places of the glacier, it can be up to
10 meters a day)... but based on the snow pack at the top, and the
melt at the bottom, it varies quite significantly year to year. at the
turn of the century, it filled half the valley we hiked across, and in
the 70's it retreated half way up the valley you are looking at.
heather was quite amazed at how different it was in a mere 5 years.

waterfalls everywhere

the valley walls on both sides were littered with waterfalls. on the
hike out our guide gave us a good chat about the geology and climate
of the area that created the conditions for the franz Josef and fox
glaciers. I can't even pretend to reiterate the info... it was an
overwhelming day of info and experience!

very excited girl! :)

Sent from my iPhone

first stunning views!

we arrived at the glacier park, and began our hike to the base. fr the
place thus pic was taken, it was still a 40min hike to the base. the
sun was shining on the top of the mountains, and the frist views of
the glacier and valley were stunning! none of the pictures really do
any justice to the scale of the glacier. just massive!

off to the glacier - bright and early start

7:30am, light fluffy clouds and blue skies peeking through. brilliant
decision to put off the tour for a day! at the glacier office, we
collected our gear for the day (waterproof jacket / pants, boots,
crampons, hat / gloves), and jumped on the bus to the glacier.

rainy day

heather and I, along with our bunkmates, woke up bright and early to
prepare for our big glacier hike. it was still POURING rAin out, so I
awoke rethinking my gear, and preparing for a wet day. heather awoke
with no inclination to do the glacier hike in the rain. this was her
second time to the glacier, and she really wanted to be able to get
some good photos. we worked out the day before that we could shuffle
our plans a bit, and do it the following day if necessary... so we put
plan b in motion. a quick (and very wet!) walk over to the main
office, and we were rebooked for the first group out the next morning.
back to the hostel, we both jumped back in bed... and slept till noon.
guess we were due for a much needed day of rest!

heather read her tour books and came up with several rainy day
plans... but we only managed to walk around town a bit, and found a
couch by a fire at the bar, and were planted for the rest of the
afternoon. caught up on some postcards, and really enjoyed the time to
relax, and absorb.

by late afternoon, the sky cleared, and we had some sunshine for our
kiwi ice cream tower of delight! :)