PIC - Basket Boat

Check this out... forgot about this photo from Vietnam - getting paddled to shore with Jean in a basket, in Nha Trang, Vietnam.

Arrived at the very bottom...

So.. last stop on the blog was two days into Queenstown the "would like to pay a fortune to die of fear" capital of New Zealand. I thought we wouldn't stick around Queenstown long - so much for that. After almost 5 days of jumping off cliffs, full-contact luging, and being adopted by an entire New Zealand Rugby team we just barely made it out of Queenstown alive and livers intact. I don't quite know how we managed not to do a bungy jump - we had 2 beer courage I think.

After Queenstown, we spent a few days in Te Anau, the gateway to world famous Milford Sound. It rains 2 out of 3 days there (really, somewhere that rains more than Vancouver!) but we managed to have spectacular weather. Milford is known not only for it's spectacular scenery, but also because it's considered one of the most beautiful walks in NZ. There are some great points for travelling in the spring before major tourism season starts.. but it means that most of the major multi-day walks aren't really ready for unprepared ! travellers. We settled for an amazing boat cruise of the Sound and lots of day walks instead.

I made it up to the highest tip of NZ, Cape Reinga - just so I could go to Stewart Island at the very bottom of New Zealand, at about 47 degrees South latitude. Our first task on arriving on the Island was to find Captain Squizzy. we booked a fishing trip to catch blue cod. 3 Brits who had never been fishing and me - not that experience mattered. We pretty much put lines over the side of the boat and hauled up fish, kilos and kilos of blue cod. It's expensive to buy Blue Cod in NZ, and I think we caught enough to pay for the trip! We've been eating cod fillets for 4 days now - in curry, fired in bread crumbs, buttered, BBQ'd. I have run out of ways to cook fish and I can't believe I am looking forward to a night of pasta. Or rice. Or anything without fish in it.

Stewart Island is considered a hiker's heaven is relatively free of the predators that plague the rest of NZ (rats, stoats and possums), the Island is full of birds and native bush, and abundant rope swings. We had a couple of really great day hikes, the best part being the opportunity to hitch rides back to town on various moving vehicles the locals use to get around the island. Our biggest coup was hitching a ride on the back of a tractor - a joy just for the looks from the other jealous tourists as we bumped into town.

I think it's the small towns that have really made my trip to New Zealand is the excitement of people falling down wells and motorcycle rides in Barrytown.. our fantastic experiences in Stewart Island.. it's never the obvious points that you really connect with. I am just a few days out of Christchurch now - and only a week left in NZ before I hit Melbourne for the Melbourne cup. I think I am looking forward to not wearing 3 sweaters at a time!

PIC: me at Franz Joseph glacier

me at Franz Joseph glacier
Originally uploaded by Tara_Knight.

Check it out! finally remembered to post a photo - me ice hiking at Franz Joseph Glacier.

See the flickr badge next to this photo for me jumping off a cliff in Queenstown!

Now throwing myself off of cliffs....

After Wanaka, we have arrived at the adhreniline junkies paradise - Queenstown.

After throwing myself out of a plane, it seemed only natural that it was time to pick another thing to fly off. One of my mates and I headed off to the Canyon Swing - 60m free fall, 109m over shotover canyon. (Check it out! http://www.canyonswing.co.nz) Believe me - falling out of a plane was easier because someone else wanted to go. Trying to let myself fall backward off a 109m cliff was a drastically different story, but an amazing rush when I finally jumped off! (well - OK from the photos it looks like I fell off the cliff - but we don't have to remember it that way do we?)

For a few bucks more, since we were still buzzing from the first jump, the guys convinced us to do a second - yep..swung my butt over the edge of a cliff and managed to hang myself upside down over the edge until they pulled the pin holding me and I flew like superman over the gorge - holy geez! (it's the gimp if any of you check out the web site)... after that - bungy jumping doesn't seem so bad really - I think we are close to getting three of us girls traveling to all go together and jump off the bridge near Queenstown.



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After Barrytown

My next stop was the picturesque snow town of Franz Joseph, home of the fastest moving glacier in the world. It moves up to 6m a day! When we arrived, the freezing rain put me off any big hikes, but the next day was absolutley stunning - we took an amazing walk up the advancing glacier face, and into the crevaces and hummocks of the glacier. It was a tough but rewarding hike, getting stuck in slim places, loosing footing, climbing up and down ice faces - we really had a fantastic time.

And we were rewarded with another hailing, freezing rain of a day the next morning. The weather was so bad we just ended up watching movies and playing cards with eveyone in the hostel. We skipped the stop at the Fox Glacier and headed out to the beautiful ski town of Lake Wanaka. Here, we were finally greated with blue sky and great opportunities to walk through the bush.

While in Wanaka we checked out the legendary Paradiso theater - a theater where there are no movie seats, just lots and lots of living room couches, some airplane seats and an old yellow beetle to serve as chairs. The Kiwi's know how to make a movie theater, we took our beers and settled in for a cute kiwi film, "50 ways of saying fabulous" - if you get a chance to see it in Canada (it was at the recent Toronto Film festival) I recommend it highly! At intermission we grabbed freshly baked cookies - it was such a civilized movie night - like being at a huge living room.

New Zealand

New Zealand
Originally uploaded by Tara_Knight.

Black sand beach on the west coast

Born to be wild - must stop in Barrytown

One of the stops on the Stray tour is a little, tiny place called Barrytown. It is so small, it doesn't even have a section in the Lonely Planet - the centre of this 'bustling' metropolis is a tavern and a few houses.

The real attraction is a knifemaking course by a local artisan, Steven, who is quite the character. We started out the morning with just a strip of carbon steel. We forged (yep - I forged!), and a full day of cutting, grinding, glueing, bashing the crap out of it, more grinding, and sanding - we all made really great knives. Cutlasses, daggers, carving knives - I have a beautiful trout filleting knife. And what's better after a day of making sharp objects than Steven sharing his famous home-made rot gut alcohol, nicknamed White Lightening. This stuff is evil. Apparently no one else in town is willing to drink it any more, but backpackers never turn away a free drink. Steven sent us off well and truly wobbly back to the Barrytown taven.

And if I thought that was the end of my fun in Barrytown - boy was I wrong. After getting a bit to eat, and grabbing a pint in the tavern with my fellow knife-weilding drunkards, I got to talking to a few of the locals. And - not kidding - a woman bursts into the bar and says - "guys - you gotta help - Elmo's fallen down a mine shaft." Before I know it, in flip flops and holding my pint, I am swept out to the parking lot, packed into a van and I am off to resuce Elmo in a mine shaft.

Stopping to get some supplies, we whip onto the highway and up the steepest driveway up to the edge of a ridge over town. Barrytown used to be gold mining territory, and there are mineshafts all over the hillsides - Elmo had just found a new one. The guys jump out of the van, torches, ropes, and luck of fools head into the dense bush, Elmo's cries for help in the night air. Sarah (Elmo's girlfriend) and I wait on the driveway (what am I supposed to do in flip fops?).

Well - probably the quickest rescue ever - in about 15 minutes the guys come out of the bush, whoopng and laughing and dragging a very wet and happy Elmo. Elmo had fallen down a 40 foot mine shaft, with over 20 feet of water in the bottom. He'd crawled his way to within 10 feet of the mouht of the shaft 3 times trying to make sure people could hear his cries for help. Boy - was he lucky to be alive, and other than a huge scare, and some very nasty bruising and scrapes, none the the worse for wear. After a hot shower, and a beer or two to relive the tale in his kitchen - we all hopped in the cars and went back to the bar. Elmo was the man of the evening - tale was told and re-told - how he lost his dress gumboots, how he never touched the bottom of the shaft, the intrepid rescuers, and quite the party was had by all that night. I missed the bus leaving the next morning...

So with plenty of time on my hands the next day a few of the local guys adopted me for the day. I had been walking by a gorgeous Triumph Bonneville 750 motorcycle in the Tavern/hostel complex... and when I mentioned I hadn't ever gotten the opportunity to ride on my Uncle's Triumph, Tomo, one of the Tavern owners, picked up a helmet, grabbed some leathers and took me on a spectacular ride over the ridges and limestone canyons hugging the magnificent west coast highway between Barrytown and Hokitika. I think it might be the most gobsmackingly beautiful drives I have ever gone on in my life. They also took me whitebait fishing. White bait are these tiny little fish that are considered a real delicacy in New Zealand - a white bait fritter will go for over $30 in Auckland at a restaurant. They are fried whole in an egg and flour batter - very delicious! Not bad for couple days in the middle of nowhere... I might even go back.

Hello Spectacular! the Wild (Wet) West coast of the South Island

The South Island is New Zealand's outdoor playground, and oh have I been playin'!

After a sectacular ferry ride from Windy Wellington to Picton, first stop - wine tastings! Whole bus headed to a winery for one of the most comprehensive wine tastings I have ever been to - we went right throught their entire range of wines, infused liquers, flavoured olive oil and liquer ice cream toppings. (Yes Dad - my pack is now so full of fleece and poly pro that I was able to restrain myself from buying too much - no space!)

After the wine tasting, the cold and fog that had been following us all throught the North Island lifted, and we arrived in spectacular Abel Tasman Park. (BTW - you'll hear spectacular a lot in this posting - get ready) In town, we got to stay on Old Macdonald's Farm! more than wildly appreciative this time I was not chased by bulls like last time I stayed in a farm paddock.

Abel Tasman is absolutely gorgeous, and has tremendous tramps for a few days through the woods. Not trusting my free sleeping bag (a little thin - but thank heavens I have it) or the Kiwi definition of "huts " on the trail (and it turns out they are just about 5 star motels compared to "huts" in canada - they even have mattresses and metal top counters!) I took a water taxi up the coast. We had a fantastic ride - huge geological features (fjords, white sand beaches, azure water, seal colonies) and they dropped me off 6 hours hike from a floating house boat hostel in Anchorage bay. I had an absolutely amazing hike through native bush, beaches, waterfalls, and a low tide hike over huge estuaries. The house boat sent out a dingy and picked up an eclectic (hungry and grateful) group of travelers off the beach. We had a fabulous night of drinking, telling stories, looking at the stars and discussing the best of New Zealand. After a big hike - falling asleep to the sway of the boat was just the best. The next morning after breakfast, they provided all the goods for us to back up a lunch for the 4 hour walk back to town.

One of the girls off the boat was an American GP living near Abel Tasman, she took me for a hike to Harwoods hole, an enormous granite cave in the bush. The trail was just like something out of The Neverending Story... or any other childhood adventure book you have read - through beech forest, over moss covered boulders - all of New Zealand seems to look like a children's adventure picture book.