Author: Scott

Day 7: Wanaka

Following the Glacier Expedition boat tour on the 11th, we drove into the town of Wanaka and got coffee (or the best equivalent) at Ritual Espresso. We brought in the iPad and the camera to edit some photos and do a blog post. However, Becca noticed a sign saying, “No WiFi – You’ll Have To Talk To Each Other.” It made us smile through some slight frustration, but we did understand what they were getting at. We’ve always been pretty intentional to just enjoy one another when we’re out to each or get coffee, but we were surprised at how often we saw other tables of people all on their phones in NZ – at cafes and dinner spots. Maybe they just wanted to update their blogs, too? Based on the downward thumb swipes typical of scrolling through any social media platform…probably not. 🙂 We enjoyed our awkwardly-ordered Americanos at Ritual while discussing potential hikes and then walked a couple blocks over to admire Lake Wanaka before heading to our AirBnB.

We dropped off our stuff, grabbed water, and headed out to do a hike. At first, we thought about doing Roy’s Peak, but Becca read in the guidebook that it gets busy in the summer so we decided to give the Minaret Burn Track a try. The tracks in New Zealand are what we call trails in the US. The trailhead heads list three guides of tracks: One shows a person and a child, meaning a well-formed track for easy walking; a second shows a person walking, meaning a walking track which is a defined, well-formed track suitable for most ages and abilities; and the third is a tramping track showing a person with a backpack, meaning limited track formation, often with steep grades. Minaret was listed as a person walking. We expected a chill flat-ish path along the lake leading to a quiet swimming beach. It turned out to be quite hilly (850 ft elevation gain) and had a couple exposed places to the sun. We both got quite warm since we had worn long sleeves and pants to avoid too much sun exposure. (Scott later bought what he is calling an Australian Outback hat with fabric hanging off the back, covering the neck and ears.) In total this was another 4 mile hike, and we never made it to the beach. Our path didn’t bring us sight of any other hikers, but we did run into a few friendly mountain bikers. We were thankful that we hadn’t done Roy’s Peak since that would have been all up hill and on an exposed side of the hill.

After cooling off and showering we drove 5 minutes into town. Before dinner we spent a few minutes at the lake watching sailboats racing.

For dinner, we walked a few blocks down the main road and attempted to eat at Kika’s, a local New Zealand tapas place, but the waitlist was an hour long. Instead, we ate a cafe/bar near the lake, sharing a pizza and pork buns.

Side Notes:

⁃ With how many places have pizzas on their menus and highly recommended in reviews, you’d think pizza was invented in NZ.

⁃ Though there are many cider options available, we haven’t seen Zeffer’s Apple Crumble Cider since Lake Tekapo.

Additional photos available on Smugmug.

Day 7: Mt Cook – Glacier Boat Expedition

As a spur of the moment decision just after we checked into our room at Mt. Cook, we decided to book a Glacier Expedition tour for the next morning. Not entirely knowing what to expect, we boarded a coach bus with about 40 other tourists. Most were with a Japanese tour group. There was one other couple, and they happened to be from Vegas! They were celebrating his retirement from a career as an OB/GYN and were taking a five week tour of New Zealand to do it.

The coach stopped in a parking lot and the guides prepped us for a 20 minute hike to the terminal lake. Not having seen the path, their language made it seems bit rigorous. We needed to keep pace with the guides and arrive in 20 minutes or we would miss the boat!

We were unnecessarily concerned for ourselves. Having sat near the front of the bus, we walked just behind the lead guide. After about 500 meters and a slight incline, our guide stopped us to wait for everyone else to catch up. He announced that we had just completed the most difficult part of the hike, and now we just had a 15 minute walk ahead of us. In all seriousness, he let us all know that now was the time to turn back if we didn’t want to walk/hike the rest.

Choosing to continue onward, we chatted with the Vegas couple about their travels and asked the lead guide questions about the trail and plants. The walk was beautiful with a partly cloudy sky, perfect temperatures, and fairly casual pace. The five is us could easily carry on a conversation. We arrived at the docks to realize that 8 or so people had turned back at some point in the last 20 minutes and would miss the best part of the tour. Not everyone comes to New Zealand to backpack or hike. Our guide said it was common to have some folks turn back.

Seeing the terminal lake and icebergs alone would have made the walk worthwhile. Yet, our boats awaited us, and we giddily jumped in.

Pancho, our guide and boat driver, had been giving this tour for several years. Due to the icebergs ever moving and melting, he never gave the same tour twice. Carefully assessing each iceberg, he would decide how close we could get. He assessed for the following things (and probably more, but these are the things he shared with us)

  • Size: Only 10% of the iceberg is above the water, and 10% is always above the water. Should a piece break off, or the sun melt the exposed part, it will rebalance itself to maintain the 10% above water. Rebalancing might mean a subtle shift, a 3 foot roll, or even a complete over-turning. Larger icebergs will move more water when they break apart or rebalance or roll. It’s obvious when you think about it, but easy to forget when you’re admiring them. We didn’t want to encounter a spontaneous surge from rebalancing with a 10 foot wave.
  • Height: A smaller, but taller, iceberg could easily smash a boat if it rebalanced or rolled in the wrong direction.
  • Color: Blue ice is newly exposed ice. It means that the iceberg has recently rolled or rebalanced. It’s less likely, but not 100% certain, to do so again terribly soon. White ice has been exposed or above water for a longer period of time. If the entire visible part of the iceberg is white, it’s likely to rebalance soon.
  • Cracks/crevices: Icebergs are chunks of a glacier that has broken off. Glaciers are layers of finely compressed snow and rock and sediment. So both have streaks and layers in them. Not all layers are as dense, which makes them weaker and melt faster. An iceberg with more cracks and crevices will break apart more quickly and more often.
  • The 90%: We can’t see the majority of the icerberg under the water, but our guide could sometimes see a shelf or another piece below the surface and would steer clear.
  • Melting Lines: Icebergs develop grooves at the water line. We can’t remember the technical name for these grooves, so we’ll call them melting lines for now. You can see them in the photos. The deeper the groove, the longer the iceberg has been in that position, and the more likely it is to rebalance soon. Similarly, if you don’t see a crevice at the water line, it may mean that the iceberg has recently rebalanced.

Most remarkably, we learned about glacial powder. As glaciers move down the mountain they scrape the sides, capturing the loose rocks and grinding it to powder. The glacial rivers all have a chalky grey color to them, like the Hooker River in our Mt. Cook post. Here’s another photo for reference:

When the rivers feed into a lake the bigger sediments drop, leaving only the finest sediment to linger just under the surface. As the sun hits the lake, the blue light, since it has the shortest wavelength, is all that can escape the surface making the lake look crystal blue (not crystal clear, but a gem-like blue). This means that same stuff turning the river grey turns the lake blue!

Below is Lake Pukaki again. The Hooker River flows into it. You can sort of see where the grey mixes with the blue.

Needless to say, we can’t recommend that tour enough. It was a trip highlight!

Excursion links:
1) Glacier Explorers

Additional photos available on Smugmug.

Day 6: Mt Cook

After our morning hike on Jan 10th at Lake Tekapo, it was time to drive an hour or so to Mt. Cook. We found several pleasant surprises along the way including an alpine lavender farm and amazing views of Lake Pukaki!

Lavender Farm

This was a lovely little Alpine Lavender farm that caught our eye on the side of the road. Who needs to stop and smell roses when you can hang out in a lavender field?

Lake Pukaki

Our drive wound around much of Lake Pukaki after the Lavender farm, and we weren’t disappointed.

Hooker Valley Track

Upon arriving too early to the hotel to check in, we made PB&J sandwiches for lunch before heading out on a hike.

We chose this trail for the mid-distance of 4ish miles and approximate time it would take us to complete. After crossing 3 swinging bridges (with a maximum capacity of 20 people) and nearly losing our hats multiple times along the trail due to heavy wind conditions, we ended the trail overlooking a glacial lake with icebergs in it!

We had earned a hot shower after all of that, and our clothes earned a wash. Unsurprisingly (in general, but also after that hike), we were the first to dinner at the hotel’s amazing buffet. Not only did we get the best and freshest food, we also had the best seats in front of the panorama windows facing Mt Cook.

More photos available on our Smugmug site.

Days 5 and 6: Lake Tekapo

Jan 9 We landed in Christchurch on Wednesday afternoon. After a shuttle ride to the car rental hub, we signed away our lives, promising we were fully equipped and knowledgeable with New Zealand driving rules. Our official training came in the form of a ‘leaflet’ given to us at the same time we were given the contract. Luckily, Scott was savvy and discovered a whole selection of driving guides and videos on the airplane’s media console during our flight to Christchurch. We were prepared for unfamiliar signs and figured we’d be fine so long as we could remember to stay to the left.

Our destination for the evening was Tekapo, a small quaint city located on Lake Tekapo. The scenery was fairly unmemorable until we came over the final hill and into the edge of town. (Becca wrote that section. She was sleeping for most of the ride and I was driving. The scenery was nice, but not stunning enough to wake Becca from her nap. – Scott). Fortunately, Becca woke up for the final bend to see Lake Tekapo. The lake couldn’t be missed with stunning blue jewel tones demanding your eye. We dropped our bags off in our room and walked straight to the lake.

The wind was aggressively fierce, which made the hot sun bearable but ice cream eating difficult.

We found our way to the Tin Plate just up the road from our room, and split a burger and a pizza for dinner. They had Zeffer’s apple crumble infused cider in stock, and we were in heaven. Kate and Dale first Introduced us to the clever stuff in Auckland, and we’ve been looking for it everywhere since.

Bedtime came earlier for us so that we could do a longer morning sunrise hike up to the observatory and grab a coffee at the cafe there before heading to Mt Cook. Unfortunately, the road to the conservatory was closed, but we did find a beautiful trail just a wee bit farther beyond it. Having driven to the entrance on a noisier road, we were taken aback when we stopped and opened the car doors to hear this:

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It brought on a good laugh, and now we try to open our windows a little anytime we drove by a flock of sheep. Here are some additional views from our hike on Lake Tekapo:

More photos available on our Smugmug site.

Days 3 and 4: Auckland

(Days 1 and 2 were traveling)

After a 14 hour flight, we found ourselves in Auckland on a Monday afternoon. We taxied to our AirBnB, just off of Ponsonby Road. Our host, Bev, had just beaten us home and she warmly greeted us in the driveway before showing us to our flat for the next two nights. She may have some relatives in MN because she apologized for not having swept the patio perfectly clean before we arrived.

We took the first evening easy as our only goal was to stay awake until 9pm. We walked around the neighborhood a bit, and Becca got blistered from not having worn her chacos in a while. We were in the Freeman’s Bay neighborhood and it reminded us of San Francisco or Seattle with how the streets seem to be more often sneakily uphill. Scott found a wonderful dinner spot in the Ponsonby Bistro just a few blocks from the flat, and a tasty dinner helped us manage to stay awake until 9:15. Because it’s summer here, it was still light outside when we went to bed. Sunset is around 9:30 these days.

Tuesday began with a walk to breakfast at Bambina (well-worth returning to!) where we discovered that Kiwis don’t do coffee. They only have espresso drinks available, and their default drink is a flat white. Both of us prefer our coffee black. Scott ended up with a flat white when he ordered coffee, and Becca lucked out with cold brew. We don’t know how they made it, but it came with just ice and tasted wonderfully. The flat white was also delicious, but not quite what we were looking for initially.

After breakfast we went sailing!

It should be noted that our boat had won the America’s Cup with Team New Zealand a while back! It was a beautiful morning for a fun adventure.

Lunch at Frida’s consisted of mediocre Mexican food, but it was festive, on the water, and very close to Team New Zealand’s headquarters. It was fun to see where the America’s Cup will be hosted in 2021. Foiling monohulls (which are supposed to be even faster than the catamarans!) will be really fun to watch.

We walked around a bit and enjoyed a more relaxed afternoon before meeting up with Kate and Dale (AirBnB experience hosts) for a walking brewery tour. Three breweries (Jack Tar, Shakespeare, and Good George), three beer flights, and three hours later, we had made new friends and had our coffee woes confirmed. Drip coffee doesn’t happen in NZ. The closest thing they have is a plunger. No kidding. What we call French press coffee they call plunger coffee. We all had a good laugh about it. They recommended we order Americanos from here on out if we want plain black coffee. We also discovered the most amazing hard cider on the planet – Zeffer’s Apple Crumble infused cider. It was beyond incredible. Below is a photo Kate took of us on our walking tour:

Excursion links:
1) Relaxing Journeys: Auckland Sailing Cruise | America’s Cup Sailing Experience
2) The Great Auckland Craft Beer Hunt

More photos available on the Smugmug site above.

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