Home Sweet Home

We are home with no travel problems like we had on the way out. Liz and John kept our car while we were gone and gave us curb service when we returned, complete with a 'Take Away' (that is Kiwi for Takeout) Shepperd's pie, which I already ate, yummy. We covered a good part of the north island and only a small part of the south island, the two islands are very different, but both worth visiting. We drove about 3400 kilometers (about2100 miles) and trampped in both tropical rain forests and snow covered mountains. For those that care, gas in NZ is about $1.60 NZD/liter or about $3.65 USD/gal, most autos use diesel which is about $1/liter or about $2.30 USD/gal but there is milage tax you pay on diesels but it is still less than gasoline. Currently the NZD is worth about 0.6 USD, so it is a good time to travel to NZ, the people are extremely friendly and the country is easy to navigate. Overall we had a great trip and we hope you enjoyed the pictures, we only posted a few of the roughly 800 pictures we took. Work tomorrow...yikes. Fred and June

Saturday, 16May09, Waikaretu – Port Waikato - Auckland

This morning we toured the Nikau caves, which is way off the beaten path of typical NZ tourists. The more popular caves are in Waitomo, but from what we have heard they are very much commercialized, a typical tourist spot. The Nikau caves are just amazing, but I have no pictures. As a side Emily wants everyone to know that the Nikau palm tree is the most southerly palm tree in the world, there are many around Waikaretu. Our guide, the owner of the property, Phillip Woodward, discovered the caves as a child with a friend in 1953, he bought the land in 1978 and opened the caves to the public about 15 years ago. I have no pictures because you literally have to crawl on your hands and knees, through 6 to 8 inches of water in places. Phillip strongly suggested you leave anything you can’t hold in your mouth behind, I am glad I listened. The trek through the caves is about a kilometer, takes about 1 ½ hours and you will be wet and dirty when you come out, but is it worth it. The stalagmites, stalactites, and glow worms are spectacular. We really enjoyed the caves, and our hosts went out of there way, as usual, to make us welcome. They suggested we take the scenic route along the coast back to Auckland, which was one place they filmed ‘Lord of the Rings’, again the scenes were breath taking, I took pictures but they are nothing like the real thing. We are now in Auckland airport, departing here at 7:15PM NZ time (03:15AM ET) and we will get home at 10AM ET about 31 hours travel time L .

Friday, 15May09, New Plymouth to Waikaretu

This morning we headed up to Egmont National Park hoping to get some views and hiking of Mt Taranaki. Unfortunately, the weather had other plans. We did get in a hike of about an hour when we had to turn around because of a river we did not think we could cross without getting wet. It rained pretty hard last night and the creeks are gushing. The hike was pretty damp, the vegetation around Mt Taranaki is like rain forest, there were lots of steps and ladders on the trail, they obviously put allot of work in the tramping trails. When we returned the visitor center was open, which is beautiful, so we discussed our plans with them and they pretty much said we should not try to hike up with the current weather situation and our probability of getting any views was slim to none. So we set off for Waikaretu where we booked a B&B for the night. The drive was pretty rainy so even though there was some nice views, we did not stop to take any pictures. Waikaretu is in the boonies, even for NZ, we took several gravel roads barely wide enough to pass a car over mountains to get here, but we are here. The town does not even have a store, a gas station or much else. It has a small school that looks like a house and a café that was just constructed last year. We booked the room with them, the owner is the sister of the owner of the first B&B we stayed at when we arrived in NZ. Tonight they are having a fund raiser at the B&B where we will have dinner, the whole town is coming, they are expecting 30 people J . We are here to see the Nikau caves, we will have to fill you in on that tomorrow.

Thursday, 14May09, Picton to Wellington to New Plymouth

Today was mostly a travel day, we took the InterIslander ferry, from Picton to Wellington, it was a another ‘fine’ day. The Kiwi weather forecast often says ‘fine’ which means fair weather. The ferry ride is quite spectacular, when you leave Picton, the ferry has to negotiate about 30 or 40 kilometers between the islands on the north end of the south island which are very beautiful on such a nice day. We even had a pod of common dolphins come swim along the ferry for a bit. The total distance from Picton to Wellington is around 100 kilometers. We took the 10AM ferry which gets you to Wellington around 1:30PM and we set off for New Plymouth. The drive from Wellington north was scenic, it is darn hard to find any bad scenery in NZ. We are now in New Plymouth, we will do some short treks around here in the AM and then move onto Waikaretu where we hope to do some spelunking on Saturday before we head to the airport.

Wednesday 13May09, Blenheim

Today we got up bright and early and headed to the Makana Chocolate factory, that took about 5 mins, not exactly what we were expecting..if you are ever in Blenhiem, pass on the chocolate factory. So from there we cruised around and checked out where all the vineyards were and found a good place for lunch. We spent the afternoon visiting the vineyards of Marlborough country, it was a good time, we pretty much had most of the tasting cellars to ourselves and I had to restrain myself because they encourage you to taste all their wines which could easily get to your head. June and Emily had a good time. Drinking age in NZ is 18 and only one place even asked Emily for ID and when she said she was with her parents they didn’t even want to see it. A bit different than the states. We are now in a hotel in Blenhiem and are booked on the 10:05 ferry from Picton to Wellington tomorrow, from there we will make our way north to be sure we are in position to make our Saturday afternoon flight out of Auckland.

Tuesday 12May09, Kaikoura

Our morning got off to a slow start, the ocean was rough and the whale watch was cancelled. We put our names on a wait list for a later departure and kept our fingers crossed. In the meantime, we walked around the Kaikoura Peninsula and saw a NZ fur seal colony. There were a lot of them sunning them selves on shore and we got really close, but boy did they stink! We walked along the high cliffs and once again got lots of pictures. We also did some souvenir shopping while waiting to see if the whale watch would depart. It was cancelled 2 more times but we finally left on the 2:00 boat and it was well worth it. We saw lots of birds, like the Albatross, and three sperm whales which was two more than most excursions see. They are so large and when they dive down it is fascinating to watch. We decided to head up to Blenheim for the wine tours on Wednesday.

Monday 11May09; Hanmer Springs and Kaikoura

Hey all, this morning we did some horse trekking at Hanmer Horses in Hanmer Springs. Going into the horse farm we had to cross two streams (fords) with the car, this is why you never buy a rental car, It has been raining here for a few days and it was a wee bit exciting crossing. The weather was sunny and crisp, the ride was nice thru the country with great mountain views, nice pics. From there we headed for Kaikoura, where Emily spent a week during her semester and swam with the dolphins. We are staying at a bed and breakfast on a point along the peninsula in Kiakoura. The family used own the entire peninsula and have thousands of sheep, today they have 100 acres, 300 sheep just enough to do shearing demonstrations twice a day. We attended one of the shearing demo’s, it was interesting and we learned a bit about sheep, Uncle Earle would be proud of us. We are on stand by for a whale watch tour tomorrow AM, if that does not work, we will just do some walks around here and walk out to the seal colony on the end of the point.

Day 7, 10May09, Mt Robert

Today when we woke up and looked out side....snow. Emily was so excited, having missed her New England winter by coming to New Zealand. We found that in addition to eating dinner out of the microwave last night, there was no place in town to get breakfast, it seems it really is the off season and only die hard trampers are about. Luckily Emily had a few granola bars and some nuts..that was our breakfast. We decided to try to hike up Mt Robert, a mountain that Emily had come down when she hiked around here for 4 days in the summer. Going up it was socked in, we were in a cloud bank and almost turned around, but decided to try to see if we could get above the clouds. When we broke thru the clouds, it was spectacular, the snow was a bit deeper and the wind picked up, but the views were just amazing. We ended up going considerably farther than we planned, we just could not stop, it was so beautiful. We finally turned around and headed back down the mountain as the clouds started lifting out of the valley, we got some great views of Lake Rotoiti and the valley. We got back from our hike about 12N and headed for the next town of size to get some lunch. Our plan was to head south for Arthur's pass, but weather reports of heavy snow in the pass changed our plans, we decided to take Lewis pass from the west side of the island to the east, it is much farther north. The drive was full of beautiful scenery. We are now in Hanmer Springs, the major hot spring resort on the South Island. We had a nice dinner for Mother's day and then went to the Hot Springs, it was neat, some springs are filtered or fresh water and others are natural springs that smell like sulfur. The natural springs are pretty hot, you can only stay in them for a few mins. Depending upon the weather we may stay here another day or head up to Kaikoura tomorrow.

Day 6, Sat 09May09 - St Arnaud

Today we left Wellington via the interislander ferry that runs between the North Island, Wellington and the South Island, Picton. The ferry ride is about 3 hours and is quite a large boat. The views were spectacular and once we got out of the bay, the seas got rough, but with such a large boat no one got sick. We then drove to Havelock, Nelson and onto Nelson Lakes, the day was sunny so we had a hard time not stopping because the views were just awesome. We are now in the town of St. Arnaud, which is basically a general store and some cabins. We are in a cabin, making our dinner in a microwave, because when we went looking for food, the store had closed, it was 6PM. Emily thinks this is just fine, apparently she has been living like this for the last 3 1/2 months. Mom and Dad were looking for something a bit better, we will survive. Here the lakes meet the mountains, you will see the lake and snow covered mountains in the same view. Tomorrow we will do a few short hikes around here, Emily spent time here this semester and is in love with its beauty. We plan then to trek down to Arthur's Pass and do some more Tramping (that is Kiwi speak for hiking). Well, enough for now, we hope all is well in the states. We have been posting a few pictures each day on our Flickr page, if you lost the link it is; http://www.flickr.com/photos/fjaquish/sets/72157617392984591/

Day 5, A Rainy Drive

B&B Near Em's School
Originally uploaded by fjaquish

Hey all, this is the B&B we stayed at about 3 kilometers from Emily's school (EcoQuest). We picked Emily up about 9AM after a nice breakfast with our hosts and got underway headed south about 10AM. We did not really have a plan. We were going to stop in Lake Taupo to see some hot springs but it was just pouring so we kept driving, although we stopped at Huka Falls. We are now in Paraparaumu which is about 50 K from Wellington where the Ferry goes to the South Island. We drove about 8 hours today, but since the rain never let up, there was not much else we could do. Our only disappointment was that we could not see Mt Doom when we drove by (Lord of the Rings), it was socked in. We also stopped in Hobbit town, but it was a tourist trap so we passed on that.

Day 4, Wednesday, May 6th....Poor Knights

NZDay2&3_2009_05_05_0288
Originally uploaded by fjaquish

Today we had a nearly perfect day. When we stopped at "The Perfect Day" tours on Tuesday, they told us that the large boat that primarily carries people that want to snorkel and kayak around the islands was not running in the off season but we could go with the divers on a dive boat. We almost bagged it, but decided this is a once in a life time chance so booked on the dive boat. It was a great decision, like I said it was almost a perfect day. On the way out and on the way back to the islands dolphins (common and bottle nose) came to our boat and played in the bow wave, June was in heaven, I took lots of blurry pictures. The weather was great, it rained a few times but we were in the water and they lasted only 5 mins then sun again, the divers made two dives while we snorkeled the same sites. These sights included lots of colorful fish, some caves and arches that are just beautiful. The water was 20C (68F) and they provided wet suits so we were quite comfy. We were on a boat with some Aussies, some Brits, some Americans from Oregon, and a few Kiwis. It really was a nice time. We drove back to Whangarei for dinner and a hotel room, today we drive south to Emily's school, we are looking forward to seeing her.

Day 3, Tuesday, May 5th..Kauri

NZDay2&3_2009_05_05_0209
Originally uploaded by fjaquish

Today we did some driving, some gawking and some short trekking (this is hiking in Kiwi). We were hesitant to do much else since we were still without our luggage. Our B&B host loaned us rain coats, if you think the saying in Vermont that goes "if you don't like the weather wait 5 mins" is applicable in Vermont, come to New Zealand. When the sun is out it is really warm, then within mins it will cloud over, rain and the temps will drop, so you just dress for all weather in layers. We drove from our B&B over the typical NZ mountain road, which is like Appalachian Gap only it is more narrow, there are absolutely no shoulders, you have to share it with log trucks, and you are driving on the left. Driving on the left works pretty well as long as you are not doing anything that interrupts your concentration, the next thing you know instinct takes over and it can get exciting, I will just leave it at that. We drove to Tutukaka to check out the boat cruise to Poor Knights Island, which Jacque Cousteau (spelling?) said was one of the top 10 dive sites in the world, and made reservations for the 6th to snorkel, more on that later. We also drove to Whangarei (pronounced Fangaray) to see the Water Falls, don't worry we will have plenty of pics for you. Then we headed west to the Kauri trees to see the Lord and King of the Forest, they were impressive. We got back around 9, after dinner in town, then had a glass of wine with our hosts, who were very very nice, as we have found is consistent with almost all New Zealanders. We retired content...our luggage was waiting for us when we got to our room!

We are in New Zealand!!!

Hey all, it was not the relaxing travel we had planned on but we are here in New Zealand arriving at 5AM local time Monday, that is the good news. The bad news is that our luggage is still in San Francisco. We ran from the San Fran flight to catch our Air NZ flight, it was a quite a feat, nothing went right, but we got on, so it is not surprising at all that our bags did not. The actual Air New Zealand flight was great...Steve and Patti...we got bulk head seats...no kidding....but this time it was a good thing. First thing we did was go to the store and picked up a few things to get us by, we are hopeful that we will have our stuff tomorrow PM. Unfortunately, it puts stick in the spokes of most anything we do cause all our gear is in our bags, hiking boots, swim gear, coats, etc. . I can't even charge my confuser, our host for the B&B we are at let me get on his computer to let you all no we are here safe and sound so no pictures and keeping this short. We don't really know what we are doing tomorrow, we may just nose around here, it is stunningly beautify, temps in the 60s and sunshine. Fred and June

Day 2....or is it still Day 1?

Last night (Friday night) we spent the night at Steve and Patti's cottage in Mallett's Bay, it was their first night (at the cottage, not a honeymoon) and they were kind enough to invite us. We had a "today I have a headache" good time. Steve and Patti love us enough to invite us in but they apparently don't trust us that much because when I got up in the middle of the night, I found we were locked in our room, I managed to escape out a window (nature was calling) but could not break in, so came back in the window and Patti let us out in the morning after she was up and could watch us. If they ever invite you out to their summer place on the lake, just make sure you don't drink too many liquids before you go to bed. :-)



After missing our flights yesterday with USAIR, they booked us on a 1PM UNITED flight to Chicago, then to San Francisco, then a 9PM to New Zealand. After experiencing the quality of the USAIR team yesterday, we decided to go to the airport first thing this AM to check in and make sure we had seats, I am making a very long story short by saying...surprise..we had no reservation with UNITED, after another stressful hour and a half with the "USAIR/UNITED/Continental Team", we made the panic call to Liz and John and they dropped everything (well John did) to get our car for us......but we are now in Newark, and came via Continental. We have a 4:20PM out of here to San Fran, arriving at 8PM and leaving at 9PM for NZ. Too tight for a international connection, but that is all we could get..I even tried to get something here in Newark...no luck.....anyway, we have our fingers crossed.

Hopefully, the next time you hear from us, we will be in New Zealand.......

Day 1 - Planes Trains and Automobiles!!!!

Well, we are off to a "planes, trains and automobiles" start. Liz and John brought us to the airport for our 1:30PM departure, but apparently the weather in Philly is bad, we have watched our flight move from 1:30 to 2:48 to 4:18, not a good trend. We moved our leg from Philly to LAX from 4pm to 6pm, now that is looking tight.....yada, yada, .....

You may know the rest of the story by now. Our flight was moved out to 5:30 which meant missing our connnecting flight in Philly and hence the flight to Auckland.......We have changed Airlines, flights and departing date to Saturday May 2nd. Needless to say Fred is not a happy camper. June is a little more optimistic but fighting back the tears over losing 24 hours of vacation time. We will replay the scenario tomorrow with Liz and John. In the meantime, our faithful friends Steve and Patti have graciously offered to let us spend the night with them in their new cottage on Coates Island. So, we are looking at beautiful Lake Champlain on Mallett's Bay and sipping (guzzling) wine and beer right now, not a bad exchange. Stayed tuned.

What is this Blog all about?

Friends and Family of Fred and June Jaquish,

As most of you already know our favorite daughter, Emily, has been in New Zealand since late January of this year "studying" a semester abroad as part of her Junior year at UNH where she is pursuing an education in Environmental Conservation. Mom and Dad are traveling to NZ leaving on 5/1 and returning on 5/17. The two of us will tour until 5/8 when we meet up with Emily and we will then do the second week with an experienced NZ guide, Emily.

This is my (our) first attempt at "blogging" so there may be some growing pains here, and if it just does not work out, I will revert to just sending out emails now and then. I also plan to post pictures on Flickr, at www.flickr.com/photos/fjaquish/sets/72157617392984591/ so you can always go there to see just pictures.

Fred and June