Sydney

Welcome back to the blog! February was slow for the blog but high on travel, good New Zealand weather and adventure. We’ll chronicle our time with the Hines family in Australia and Matt Reinaker in New Zealand over the next couple of weeks, starting with our visit to Sydney, Australia.

Sydney is a big city. It ranks up with New York, Chicago and San Francisco in terms of size and energy. Sydney is well known for food. Our hotel was in the central part of the city bordering on Chinatown, and provided us with plenty of amazing Asian food choices close by. The harbour creates a charming setting for the big city, and the Sydney Harbour Bridge and Opera house add to its charm. The city has a mix of historic architecture mixed with the same type of modern office and apartment buildings you see in all large cities.



Sydney Harbour Bridge



Central Station circa 1906

Front entrance to Central Station

Darling Harbour

Sydney Harbour Bridge and Opera House

A trip to Australia wouldn’t be complete without a visit to a wildlife park. Heather had eagerly anticipated seeing Kangaroos for months ahead of her visit. The  Featherdale Wildlife Park outside of Sydney did not disappoint.

Dana bonded with the Koala

Blue Penguins love attention

The crowd pleasing croc

A Brush with the Tasmanian Devil

Outside the city, Sydney has more of a Southern California vibe along the coast. We got to take in a little of the surf culture at Bondi Beach. Even on a workday afternoon, the water was filled with surfers and the beach covered with sunbathers.

Being in Sydney reminded me how exciting it is to be in a big city (Auckland is great and has it’s own charm, but it’s not nearly the size of Sydney). It’s just got an infectious energy that is special.

Hines Family Adventure

The blog has been neglected over the last two weeks because the Hines family made the long journey over here. The family got to experience quite a bit in two weeks seeing Rotorua, Queenstown, Milford Sound and the Glaciers in New Zealand, as well as Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide in Australia. Some of the sites we saw in New Zealand:

Great colours at Wai-o-tapu

Family loved the Maori performance at Te Puia

Heather loved the sun and scenic surroundings in Queenstown

Mystical surroundings at Milford Sound where the mountains and water meet



Moss takes over the forest in Fiordland National Park

Waterfalls are a constant part of the landscape in Fiordland National Park

Heather was proud of herself after completing a steep hike overlooking Haast Pass



From the glaciers and surrounding rainforest



That’s it for now. I will post more pictures from our trip to Australia later. Off tomorrow for more adventures with college friend Matt Reinaker. Dana, Matt and I will be starting our Milford Track hike later this week.

Tongariro Crossing

Hines 1 Mt. Doom 1. We evened up the score against Mt. Doom (the one in Lord of the Rings). Shortly after we arrived in New Zealand, we went snowboarding amidst the foggy, rainy weather and we left the mountain feeling defeated. This time around, we conquered these volcanos by completing the Tongariro Crossing. It’s known as the best one day hike in New Zealand. The hike took us up into the clouds that seem to always hang around the top of the volcanoes. At the peak elevation of 2,000 meters, we were completely encompassed by clouds. The landscape varied from the impressive stature of the volcanic cones and craters to mineral alpine lakes and lush forest.

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: