This was the start of a week very full of sights, travels and new adventures. My friend Kathy flew in from Columbus for a two week visit. On Monday we boarded the Stray bus (a tour company whose goal is to give adventurous travellers access to amazing places around New Zealand) to do a free day tour around Auckland. We got to walk out on the Auckland Harbor Bridge (scary in itself with the gusty conditions that day) to watch bungy jumping. Also, drove around to see beautiful Bastien Hill (in the rain), go to Sky Tower and watch sky-jumping (in the rain) and visit a pub for lunch. I was amazed to realize that almost all of the places we visited that day were places we have walked to over the past couple months.
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| Lake Matheson |
Tuesday Kathy and I flew to Christchurch to start our tour of the South Island. We chose to use the Stray busses to do our travels even though most of the people on these trips were 20-30 year olds. We knew we'd be the oldest ones but we liked the places they were going and their philosophy of travel. We met so many nice people from many countries including Sweden, Holland, Switzerland, England, Wales, France, Germany, Japan, China, Austria, India and more. Many of the folks were on work/holiday visas and were in New Zealand for 6 months - two years. The work they did varied but many were involved with retail, service and agriculture. With careful budgeting they were able to make enough money to fund their travels around the country.
Our first night on the road was in Christchurch where we were able to see firsthand the earthquake damage as we tried to get to our hostel by walking through the center of the city. We quickly found out that a large area has been closed off to all vehicular and foot traffic. We were saddened by extent of the devastation that still exists in the center of the city even one year after the first of the major earthquakes.
Wednesday morning we were up very early to work our way around the closed city center to pick up the bus to take us to the West Coast where we would catch up with the Stray bus. We traveled over beautiful country of the Transalpine Mountains.
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| Our little group on the icefields in the rain |
On Wednesday night we arrived in Franz Josef for two nights stay at the Rainforest Hostel. The next day I went on a full-day glacier walk. It was very tiring but I'm glad I did it. We were given a warm coat, snow pants, warm hat, gloves and thick socks and heavy boots. We started with a long walk through the rain forest, then over glacier rocks, then put on cramp-ons to go on the icefields. We went high up the glacier and had to traverse narrow ledges, crevasses, and icy conditions. We had rain about half of the day. Part of the tour included a pass to the thermal pools in town - a most delightful treat after a cold, rainy, tiring day on the icefields.
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| The Top of the Parasailing Hill |
On Friday we arrived in Queenstown, the Adventure Capital of the World. Queenstown YHA was our favorite hostel. A private room for Kathy and me looking out over the lake with snow-capped mountains. It was mostly cold and rainy but we did some hikes, checked out the museums and shops and rode the jet boats through Shotover Canyon. One of the highlights for us was going paragliding. A peaceful gentle ride - not scary in the least - what a great way to enjoy the beautiful countryside below us. Paragliding was one of those adventures that we can say "We're glad we did it and we'd do it again" as opposed to other adventures that we'd say "We're glad we did it but we don't need to do it again."
PS: Terry stayed back in Auckland to work. He traveled to Dunedin on South Island (an area settled by the Scots) to give a talk at the university. He also managed to fit in a scenic train trip over the Taieri Gorge, a tour of Cadbury Factory and a tour of the Speights Brewery.
