"Between every two pines is a doorway to a new world" -John Muir

Monday, January 5, 2015

There and Back Again


One thing we’ve learned on this trip is how to be flexible. Bad weather comes in, people get injured, or we hear that thousands of people are flocking to the little town we were planning on staying in for New Years. We were talking to a man who lives at the holiday park we were staying at in Wanaka and he warned us that thousands of people come there for the holiday and it turns into an absolute madhouse. As much as we love Wanaka, it was already crowded, so the thought of the population tripling in size didn’t sound as fun to us. We found a place to stay in Dunedin for New Years Eve, so we decided to go on a little road trip for a few days.

We left Queenstown the day after Christmas and headed down south to visit the world famous Milford Sound. The very first week we were in New Zealand (early September) we tried to book the four day “Great Walk” on the Milford Sound, but it was already completely booked through March. Since we weren’t able to do the backpacking trip, we decided to take a short cruise on the Milford Sound. It rains over 200 days a year in the Milford, so imagine our surprise when we got there to find a nearly cloudless day. Our two hour cruise took us up through the Sound to the Tasman Sea stopping by several gorgeous waterfalls, seal colonies, and the famous Mitre Peak. Sadly it was a bit foggy so we didn’t get to see all of Mitre Peak, but it still an awesome experience. The drive into the Sound was completely fogged in so we couldn’t see anything, but the drive back out was the prettiest drive I’ve ever been on. There were mountains on every side, waterfalls everywhere and a really long tunnel we drove that went right through a huge mountain! One of the other Great Walks in Fiorldland National Park is the Routeburn Track, so we decided to do a day walk on it. We both agreed it was one of our favorites because of the spectacular views we got of Fiordland.  I will let the pictures do the talking.

Cruising the Milford

Our Jucy cruise ship

 
Beautiful view from the top of Key Summit on the Routeburn Track

 
We left Milford and headed to the southernmost part of NZ known as the Catlins. Our one stop here was at Curio Bay where we heard from 5-7 was penguin “hoppy hour.” Sure enough, right after 5 we saw a few penguins hop out of the ocean and waddle around the rocks. There were ropes set up, so we couldn’t get close enough to take a good picture but we can officially say we saw penguins! Just around the bay we wandered down to the beach (freezing cold Antarctic water) and saw a few Hector’s Dolphins!

He's pointing to the penguin. I promise it's there!

Beach where we saw the dolphins
We camped one night in the Catlins and headed up to Dunedin the next morning. Dunedin was one of the first major cities in NZ, so they have some older buildings with some really cool architecture. It felt like England mixed with a classy surf town. Dunedin is home to the Cadbury factory, so being the chocolate fanatics we are, we had to sign up for a tour. As we walked into the tour, we were immediately handed a big bag of chocolate. We instantly knew we were going to have a great time. Highlights included walking up the big purple silo to see a chocolate waterfall and the liquid chocolate sample we got. I felt like we were at Willy Wonka’s factory, except the weirdest thing we got was a green cream filled chocolate egg. We figured we should probably exercise after that so we headed to Tunnel Beach for a short hike. Many years ago, a man built a long tunnel in the rock so his little daughters would be able to get down to the beach. Pretty Cool! We had high hopes of going out that night for New Years Eve. The plan was to walk twenty minutes or so down to this cool bar we saw and have a few drinks to ring in the New Year. At about nine it started downpouring followed by some lightning. As much as I would like to say we partied hard with the rest of New Zealand, instead we had some cider and played UNO. Don’t ask what time I fell asleep.
Our stash from the Cadbury factory
 
Old train station

Climbing on the rocks at Tunnel Beach


This picture was too good not to share. I tried to attack him with some washed up seaweed and this was his revenge.
 
Our last stop before heading back to Queenstown was to the Moeraki Boulders. This beach has a large section where somehow a bunch of boulders have ended up. There were a ton of tourists there, but we still managed some exploring and got some cool pictures.


Baby dinosaur??

The cutest baby seal ever, although it did look like it was lost :(

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