Boating the Sounds

Our last day in Marlborough, we got on out the water and explored the Marlborough Sounds in what the operator called a ‘boating safari’. Our guide had small boats that fit two people and we set off on the tour with a Dutch couple on their honeymoon and two guys from Belgium. As you’d imagine, the scenery was awesome. However, most excitement came from driving these mini boats. The motor is in the back of the boat, and the driver sits in the back and steers. Being in a smaller craft, you can get going at a pretty good clip and have a little fun jumping the wake of the other boats. This fueled a little good natured international racing competition. The Dutch typically lagged behind, with the Belgians typically keeping pace with us. Good fun.

We passed a mussel farm out in the sounds that was taking in huge volumes of the preferred local green mussels. They are bigger than the normal black mussel that you’d find in the US. Black mussels grow in the sounds as well, however they are picked out of the haul and thrown back into the sea as "rubbish" as they don’t have the same value as the locally preferred green mussels!

The whole area is a special place and the sounds incredibly scenic. It has to rank as my favourite area in New Zealand thus far…..although we still have plenty to see.

Our boat was named 'Magic'



Mussel Farm



Marlborough by Bike

Getting Dana to ride a bike isn’t easy. I can count the number of times we've ridden bikes together on one hand. Well, I've finally found the motivation she needs to jump on the bike and ride. The conditions have to be perfect: a flat, short route, good weather, and with vineyards as a destination.

There are hundreds of vineyards surrounding the town of Blenheim in the northeast section of the South Island. The area produces mostly white wines, although many of the wineries have reds as well using grapes grown on the eastern part of the North Island.

We ended up biking around 20 km and had a great day enjoying the local atmosphere.

 

Kaikoura

On our trip this past week to the northeastern part of the south island, a hotel front desk attendant suggested “South Island is way better than North Island”. I couldn’t dispute this after a few days in the Marlborough region. Even with Auckland’s city amenities, Wellington’s charm, and other scenic spots like Rotorua and the West Coast beaches, the North Island doesn’t quite match up to the laidback mood and grand sweeping landscapes of the south island.

We started in Christchurch and drove up the east coast with a stop in Kaikoura and then spent two days in the Blenheim and Malborough Sounds. The coastal drive from Christchurch to Blenheim winds along the coast and was stunning. We stopped in Kaikoura and ventured out on a three hour hike around the peninsula.

Exposed limestone provided an interesting contrast with the water and horizon.



A lone seal sunbathing on the rocks



 

Next up with a bike adventure among the vineyards of Bleheim. Check back.

Caving and Abseiling

Waitomo, about 2 hours south of Auckland, is known for its caves and there are a number of tour operators that offer black water tubing (tubing in a cave), abseiling (rappelling), and tours of the glow worm caves. We opted for a smaller tour operator, Green Glow Eco Adventures, that amazingly had a 100% excellent trip advisor rating and allowed a flexible itinerary. Turned out a be a great choice. We made it all the way through a local cave system and got the adrenaline going with abseiling over some 100 foot cliffs. Our guide Paul was a geologist that knew every detail about the caves and its inhabitants, kept us safe on the abseiling and was a cave photography master.

Against my better judgement, I will post some pictures of the abseiling. All I ask is that you take it easy on me when commenting on my outfit. Dana is fair game.

We were dropped into a lush green gorge that led into the entrance to the cave. Paul has a formula down on the photography inside the cave and set up a couple of fantastic shots.

Notice the first picture with the blue/green dots. Those are the famous glow worms that litter the ceilings of the caves. These are some amazing organisms that have been around for at least 80 million years. They only exist in caves in New Zealand, Australia, and South America and must have evolved before these landmasses split apart from Gondwanaland. In spite of the name, they are not actually a worm, but fly larva. They mimic stars in the darkness of the caves to attract insects emerging from the water in the cave. If all goes well for the glow worm, the insects get caught in a sticky vertical web that looks a lot like long beads of water. Here is what the worms look like up close (note the rest of the pictures are from Paul, who supplied us with a CD with some pictures he’s taken in the cave system):

Here is the Glowworm in the larvae state.

Glowworms then hatch into a fly. The key for them is to store up enough energy in their larvae state that they have time to reproduce. They only live three or four days as a fly.

The vertical web the glow worm uses to catch prey.

There were other animals that have made the cave system their home that we were able to see: eel, crayfish, small and large spiders, and weta. Paul has some great photos that give a good feel as to what the caves looked like:

Hillary Trail - Karekare

Summer has supposedly come to New Zealand, however the rain ceases to go away. The rain held off yesterday (although it remained cloudy), so I got out to tackle another piece of the Hillary trail on Auckland’s west coast. This piece took me up some mountains south of Karekare beach and then took a path back along the water.

Training For The Big One

We have signed up for a 4 day 52.5 km hike among the fiordlands of the South Island called the Milford Track. It’s known as one of the greatest multi day hiking tracks in the world. Our journey for that starts on February 25^th and a college friend of mine, Matt Reinaker will be joining us. We figured a warm up was in order to get our legs and minds ready for the challenge, so we tackled the Pinnacles hike on the Coromandel peninsula.

The Pinnacles hike takes you to the highest point in the Coromandel, promising panoramic views of the eastern and western shoreline among a setting of lush green forest. We made this a two day hike as there is a hut only a 45 minute walk from the peak. First day was uphill virtually the whole way and took us 2.5 hours to get to the hut. We beat the advertised time of 3-4 hours and felt pretty good. We survived the hut experience and even got some sleep in spite of some incessant snoring. The hut was actually fantastic; it has two large rooms with large bunk bed style layout and mattresses that sleeps 80, along with a large kitchen for cooking and a covered deck. Huts like this are fairly prevalent and well frequented in the New Zealand National Parks; the US could learn a lesson here.

We traveled up to the peak the next morning, but unfortunately the clouds stole our panoramic view.

On the way back we took a slightly longer route, hiking downhill for about 4 hours. By the time we got back to the car, we were exhausted, hungry and ready for a shower. We did learn a couple things that should come in handy for our Milford hike: bring entertainment for post hiking evenings (I think we went to sleep around 8:30 because we had nothing else to do), we’ll need more food than we thought we would, and plenty of Advil as our calves were sore for three days after this adventure.

New Zealand Food

We recently had the opportunity to taste some New Zealand specialties during our travels: Whitebait, savory pies and a Hangi.

Whitebait is a small fish considered a delicacy in New Zealand. It can cost upwards of $100 per kilogram (so roughly $50 per pound). They are caught on the west coast of the South Island (by the glaciers) from September to November when the immature fish swim up the river from the estuaries. The Whitebait that they catch are approximately 1 inch long and translucent.  When cooked, they turn white in color- hence ‘whitebait’.  They are usually consumed as a fritter made of Whitebait, flour, eggs, salt and pepper, served between two slices of white bread. We went in a little different direction and got a Whitebait pizza from Hokitika’s Fat Pipi Pizza.

Fish on pizza doesn’t sound appetizing (anchovies, anyone?), however this was pretty good. The fish have a very mild taste and the pizza had plenty of other flavors with capers and lemon. Overall, the whitebait were fun to try, but I’m not sure we will eat them again.

We also finally sampled some pies- a staple of the NZ diet, but not the fruit pies you’re thinking of. These are savory pies, typically centered on meat.  We stopped at a renowned pie shop outside of Christchurch to see what all the fuss was about.  They had a wide selection of small pies to choose from ranging from ham and cheese, to garlic and vegetable, to classic style beef or chicken.

Very affordable at something like $3 NZ each, these pies didn’t look all that big, but they were very filling. The crust is pretty deep and the interior was like a really thick soup. It was good, however not worth it for all the fat and calories.

A heartwarming local food experience happened on Christmas. One of the nurses found out on Christmas Eve that Dana and I haven’t tried a ‘hangi’, the traditional Maori BBQ-like meal. Even though she wasn’t working, the nurse went out of her way to bring two plates of her family’s meal for Christmas to Dana while she worked her shift in the emergency room. The Hangi usually consists of chicken, pork, stuffing, pumpkin, potato and kumara (like sweet potato) and is steam cooked for several hours over hot coals in a pit dug out of the ground and covered with fresh dirt. As a result, it has a very smoky smell and tastes great!