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.......