New Zealand Week 4

Day 21 (October 19)

                We woke up in the Queenstown car park to a series of emails suggesting that we were about to close.  While Elliot ran around feeding ducks – we found out that we had finally closed on our house and were homeowners!  It was great news.  We celebrated by packing everyone up and taking a hike up Queenstown hill.  Set about 500m above town, this hill is essentially in the middle of Queenstown.  We had some exciting experiences trying to navigate Moana up the steep and narrow roads, around parked cars and through neighborhoods to the trailhead.  A surprisingly steep and sunny few hours – we were able to enjoy beautiful view of Queenstown and the surrounding area.  The mountains were amazing and Lake Whakatika was stretched out in all its glory.  We also got to look down on the airport to watch planes take off. Elliot capped off the trip by declaring, ¾ of the way through the hike, that she had to poop.  It’s difficult to ask a toddler to hold it so…..its a good thing we had poop bags in the backpack. 

                We next drove, while the kids slept, to Glenorchy – which turns out to be a lot less compelling than the Lonely Planet would suggest.  We then backtracked to an amazing free camping site along the shore of Lake Whakatipu. The lake is amazingly clear, cold and beautiful.  It is surrounded by mountains on all sides, many of the snowcapped. Mac and Crystal jumped in the VERY cold lake, much to the amusement of Elliot, and we all learned that the chairs provided with the camper did not have enough support to keep a toddler from falling through them, out the back and down a hill (she was fine). 

Day 22 (October 20)

                We woke up and had a slow morning, where the excitement was really Elliot falling (in the camper this time) and getting a mouthful of blood.  She looked really hardcore!  The plan was to head back to Queenstown for adventure and after 20 minutes of driving around town looking for parking, heading up and down hills and over heating our transmission – we finally found parking. 

                We headed up the gondola again, much to Elliot’s excitement, and Mac then made his was to the AJ Hackett Ledge swing.  Not brave enough to try bungy jumping, the ledge swing is only a slight step down but comes out favorably on the fun / risk calculation.  Essentially two long (100 feet +) ropes suspended from a platform, they strap you in, ease you out to the top of the pendulum arc and then give you a rip-cord to pull.  You then free fall for a few seconds before the ropes catch you and you take a few big swings out over the city.  The platform you go from is suspended about 500-600 feet in the air off the side of a mountain and your initial drop takes you along the side of the mountain and, it seems at the time, very close to some rocks and trees.  It was adrenaline pumping to be sure and Elliot sat at the top cheering – “go daddy!” When I finally got unhooked, she came up to me and said – “you scream like a girl.”  As I took a little sit down to calm my shaking knees – I reflected that perhaps I was not as brave as I had previously thought.  Adventure morning was topped off by Crystal and Elliot taking a flying ride down the alpine luge and, best of all, this time Elliot got to drive!  Pizza on the gonola back down the hill.

                After a brief stop at the grocery store, and narrowly avoiding a ticket for not wearing a seatbelt (had taken it off for just a second to attend to Elliot), we were off towards Mt. Cook National park.  Incidentally the NZ police are super nice – “Oh, I see you aren’t wearing your seatbelt – how about you just drive down there and talk to that officer over there.”  Luckily the grape police hadn’t reported their prior warning to the real police – as we got off with just a warning.  As Mt. Cook National Park would be much too far to travel in a day with our kids, we stopped at Omarama (O-Mara-ma, not Oma-Rama), a tiny town along the way with the distinction have having the most amazing hot tubs we have ever seen.  After a dinner of kebabs from a roadside stand, we headed to our pool.  Each hot tub was private, equipped with its own changing room, deep and, best of all, wood fired.  A roaring wood fire built into a metal heat exchanged IN the hot-tub heated the pool, while you adjusted the air vents and cold water inflow to keep the temperature right.  We got the whole family in and spent the next 90 minutes watching the mountains grow dark in the setting sun.  Wes LOVED the water – turns out he floats, and was just the chilliest little guy.  After some initial apprehension, Elliot couldn’t get enough of the water and only slipped in over her head once (maybe twice).  A unique and relaxing experience – something we really couldn’t have done anywhere else. 

Day 23 (October 21)

                The morning in Omarama, for Mac and Crystal, consisted of laundry, cleaning out the camper, emptying and refilling water tanks and filling up gas / propane.  Elliot and Wes, however, had a WONDERFUL morning.  First a trip to the, somewhat underwhelming, Omarama Top 10 holiday park playground followed by a visit to Patch, the lamb.  A pet lamb of the holiday park owner’s, Patch was about 15 pounds and running around in a little pen.  Elliot was allowed to go in and after carefully petting him, trying to feed him grass and baaaaa-ing, decided that he was hungry.  We have had several conversations over the month about how baby lambs eat their mother’s milk, like Wes.  Elliot, putting two and two together, lifter up her shirt and chased Patch around telling him to drink some milk.  Hilarity ensued. 

                We then packed up the family for the drive to Aoraki / Mt. Cook national park.  We stopped along the way at High country salmon.  Turns out that the canals draining the glacial lakes around the Southern Alps are a great place to farm salmon.  I never expected to be eating fresh salmon sashimi on the edge of a glacial lake while looking out at 3000m peaks…but it was a great lunch!  Lake Pukaki is a one of 3 glacial lakes from the last big advance of the glaciers off the Southern Alps and has the same long, thin and steep walled look as the finger lakes in New York.

                Once we arrived at Aoraki / Mt. Cook, New Zealand’s highest peak, we discovered that the hike to Mueller’s hut, out planned hike, was still snowed in to the point of requiring ice axes and crampons.  We are adventurous with our kids – but not that adventurous.  We then decided to hike up Hooker valley to the Hooker glacier.  One of the major glaciers coming down off Mt. Cook, the hike from the Whitehorse Campground was up the old glacial track, over morraines and swing bridges over rushing glacial rivers.  The hike itself wasn’t very challenging, as we were essentially walking up an old glacial valley and, as such, the elevation gain was minimal.  The landscape, however, was DRAMATIC.  As with Milford sound on the western slope of the alps, the eastern slope of the alps is marked by broad flat glacial valleys with mountains that rise nearly straight up from the valley floor.  The result of this is that the hikes are all either valley walks or mountaineering tracks – there just isn’t any middle ground.  When we got to the lake, it was worth it! 

                The clouds cleared off of Aoraki / Mt. Cook as we arrived, and we got several amazing views of the peak.  The Hooker glacier could be seen at the end of the impossibly blue glacial lake and there were at least two dozen BIG icebergs floating in the lake that were recently calved off the glacier.  It was something else.  We hung out for a while until the sun went behind clouds and the wind got the better of us.  We hightailed it back to the camper, where we met some nice German parents with their 1-year old doing essentially the reverse of our trip.  Dinner and bed as a storm rolled in and the van was blasted by wind and rain. 

Day 24 (October 22)

                The weather calmed a bit in the morning and we decided to take a slightly shorter walk to the Tasman glacial lake.  A bit of this was a reflection of the landscape in the park (valley walks or mountaineering) and a bit of this was reflective of the fact that Elliot is becoming increasingly resistant to riding in the backpack. She wants to walk more and more and we are nearing a point that long hikes will become impossible, because she won’t be carried and can’t really walk.  Wes is still a trooper in the carrier, but he tops out at about 3-4 hours, basically two nap cycles.  After this, his curiosity gets the best of him and he wants to look at the world.  While he does well in the front facing carrier – it is difficult to shield him from the sun, rain and wind in this position.  It looks like we are going to be in the ½ day hike category for a while. 

                The hike in, which took Crystal and Mac 8 minutes on the way back – with Elliot in the backpack, occupied an entertaining 90 minutes.  Elliot fell significantly behind at one point as she stopped to “read” a trail sign and a kindly older kiwi couple stopped to talk to her, looking very concerned that a 2 year old kid was out alone, until they spied us on the next rise watching carefully. Elliot continued her streak of pooping while on hikes, although at least this time no one walked by during the event. 

                The Tasman glacial lake is a physical testament to climate change. It did not exist until 1973 and, since that point, has steadily enlarged as the glacier has retreated and now stretches 7km from the face of the Tasman glacier to the terminal moraine that holds back the lake, and has commercial tour boat rides.  You can clearly see the terminal and lateral moraines from the 1973 advance and how far the glacier has retreated in just a little bit more time than Crystal and Mac have been alive. Wes, who was asleep for most of the hike in at this point, woke up and with the wind blasting light rain – we decided that retreat was advisable.

                We then packed up the car and headed back out to the other side of Lake Pukaki, where we drove up a dirt road, past a hydroelectric plant and along a sheep station to find an AMAZING lakeside campsite with view of the mountains, the lake and the setting sun. It was past the power plant on the Braemar station side of the lake, about few kilometers before the bathroom sign (so we can find it again next time).  Slightly shielded from the blasting wind off the mountain, we read books, played games and cooked a delicious dinner of spaghetti while we planned the few remaining nights in NZ and researched a washer and dryer for our new house.  Weston is learning about his toes and how to transfer objects from hand to hand, and this is endlessly entertaining to Elliot.  He seems to LOVE her and whenever he starts to cry, Elliot helps out by bringing a litany of things he may need (diapers, wipes, changing pad, toys, nook, blanket, another nook, Zoe the doll, Sam the doll, wooly lamb…the list goes on). Elliot is also learning that “choices” are maybe a bit more negotiable than previously thought and realizing that sometimes mom and dad give different answers.  She is also trying the “mom said yes” on dad and the “dad said yes” on mom.  Her attempts at deception are fairly straightforward at this point, but how fast flies the naiveté of youth.  Also, we learned that the area around Mt. Cook is called Mackenzie Country, clearly I should move here.

Day 25 (October 23)

                The wind quieted down overnight, but the mountains were still in clouds when we woke up.  We ate delicious oatmeal and then packed everyone up for the short drive to Lake Tekapo, the next glacial lake over.  We dumped / filled water tanks and then headed to Tekapo springs – a hot springs place with pools that were MUCH larger than in Omarama.  We all splashed, jumped and swam (Elliot put her head in several times) for a few hours.  We then cooked a lunch of soup and sandwiches in the parking lot (one of the benefits of the camper van).  As we packed up to drive, Elliot asked – “is it nap time” and when we said “yes”, she said “thank you” and went promptly to sleep.  This precipitated a peaceful 3 hour drive towards Arthur’s pass, one of three passes through the southern alps and the site of a beautiful national park.  We stopped at Castle rocks – which are these amazingly upthrust limestone formations that stick, almost cartoonishly, out of the rolling hills of the surrounding rolling green hills.  This was where the climatic scene of “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” was filmed and it was a fantastic 45 minute hike / climb / adventure for Elliot.  She got to run up hills, duck through rock caves, jump into Mom’s arms and generally carouse and carry-on.  She loved it.  We made camp on the shores of Lake Pearson in anticipation of a hike tomorrow morning in the park.  With only one full day left in the camper and 2 ½ days left in NZ, we are growing nostalgic for what has been a great trip. Traveling with two young kids in a camper is way easier than we anticipated and provides the logistical support for naps / snacks / bathrooms / diapers that makes road trips so hard.  We have managed to see a large swath of the country and while there is much left to do on our return trips, we feel like we got a sense of what NZ has to offer.

Day 26 (October 24)

                We woke up by the lake and get rolling pretty quickly.  We headed up through the first part of Arthur’s pass which was a lot less steep than anticipated.  We stopped at the national park visitors center, which was PERFECT for kids.  There was a little coloring area, Elliot colored a Kiwi, and all kinds of kid friendly displays about Keas (NZ alpine parrot) and the early colonization of the Arthur’s pass region.  We got some trail information and then struck out on a 1 hour round trip hike to the Devil’s punch bowl.  A 131 meter waterfall from a hanging valley, it was stunning.  The best part of the hike is that we got to see the training running from Christchurch to Greymouth (East => West across the south island) as it entered an 8km tunnel.  Elliot LOVED it!  This train is apparently one of the great train journeys in the world.  It must be stunningly beautiful, but 8 hours on a train (round trip) with two kids sounded like we were asking for trouble.  After the hike, we stopped in Arthurs pass village for a trim flat white (we finally got our coffee order down), a date scone and to check on the progress of our house painting (Its going).  We then headed to Bealy’s spur trial for what was supposed to be a 4-5 hour hike up the spur to a little alpine hut.  After cooking breakfast, a Wes breakdown, an Elliot breakdown and then 20-30minutes of Elliot “hiking”, it became clear that this wasn’t going to happen.  We finally got both kids down and make it to a beautiful, but windy, overlook of Arthur’s pass and the surrounding river plain (which is absolutely flat).  It will probably be our last hike in NZ and despite a rough start – it was satisfying.  Great views, a good workout and not too crowded.  We then drove the 2 hours to Christchurch, where we set up camp in a holiday park.  Elliot and Wes went to the playground with Crystal, while Mac cooked dinner and then, as we worked to get the kids down, we started the process of getting packed to head home.  

Day 27 (October 25)

We woke up in the Christchurch holiday park and while the Elliot played, we cleaned out the camper van, got packed and had our final camper breakfast.  We stopped at the Christchurch botanical gardens to walk around, play at the playground and got to watch a remote control sail-boat race on a pond. These were not small boats - the biggest were 3-4 feet long with 3-4 foot masts. Mac (and Elliot to a lesser extent) were enthralled.  We then dropped off the camper-van, discovering we were going to get charged for not having it be clean enough, and grabbed a shuttle to the Christchurch campervan.  We then flew Air New Zealand back to Aukland, checked into the same hotel we stayed at on day 1, right across the street from the airport and walked to a little gastropub.  Everyone got to sleep at a reasonable hour.

Day 28 (October 26)

We had a late checkout (6pm) from our hotel.  We were able to grab breakfast and then the Airbus into the city.  We grabbed a cab to MOTAT (Museum of technology and transportation) which was a science museum near the Aukland zoo.  Elliot loved the fire trucks, playground and airplanes - including one she could fly herself!  We returned the way we came and got everyone down for a nap.  While the kids slept, Mac checked everyone in and got the bags into the plane.  Then came the flight home!  Air New Zealand was a wonderful airline to fly, the crew was accommodating and we were able to get Elliot down for at least 6-7 hours of sleep on the flight home.  After a connection in SFO, we arrived at our new house in Portland, approximately 45 minutes BEFORE we left New Zealand (love the international date line!!)

Greatest hits:

1)      Best Day: Driving out of Haast pass, hiking Isthmus peak and driving into Wanaka

2)      Best hike with boats: Coast track in Abel Tasman National Park

3)      Best hike with glaciers: Hooker Valley in Aoraki / Mt. Cook National Park

4)      Best campsite: Lake Pukaki, on the “wrong side” up the dirt road

5)      Best family adventure: Taking the Interislander ferry from the North to the South Island

6)      Best Dad adventure: ledge swing in Queenstown

7)      Best Mom adventure: Zorbing in Rotorua

8)      Most hilarious Elliot thing: Elliot making Maori war faces

9)      Equally hilarious Elliot thing: Chasing lambs on the farm tour at the Agrodome in Rotorua

0)   Best drive: Up and across Haast pass

1)   Biggest regret: Not being able to do the Tongariro Alpine Crossing due to bad weather

Observations / tips for next time

1)      Sandflies are REALLY annoying, sort of like blackflies – but more itchy.  They are everywhere on the South Island.

2)      The South Island is SIGNIFICANTLY more beautiful than the North Island. While there are fund things to do on the North Island (Cathedral cove, hot beach, Tongariro).  Spend as much time as you can on the South Island. 

3)      People are ridiculously friendly here. It is really easy to travel with children – stores, restaurants and visitors centers are set up well for them and people don’t seem too surprised when you roll up with little ones in extreme places. 

4)      The coffee is good but the ordering is weird – a trim flat white is pretty similar to a skinny latte.  You can’t find drip, instant or French press coffee in this country to save your life. 

5)      Haast pass is amazingly beautiful – we should have spent more time there.

6)      Milford sound is totally worth the time and effort it takes to get there, we would love to hike the Milford track next time around. 

7)      The Tongariro alpine crossing was supposed to be amazing, we got weathered off and would love to do it next time.

8)      Driving on the left took about a week to get used to, after that – it never really felt natural, but it was a lot easier. 

9)      Campervans are the way to go with young kids – this whole country is set up for them (public dump stations all over, camper parking spots etc), they are everywhere and you travel with your nap time / potty break / playtime / snack time equipment.  Having easy access to food and toilets in the expanse of New Zealand is critical when you have a tiny one. 

10)   Data is expensive here and cell coverage is spotty – you often can get internet at the Holiday parks, but it is limited and/or expensive. You buy a certain amount (typically 250MB) rather than a certain speed, like in the US.