We hope you all had a nice Christmas! Ours was spent in a small mountainside village called Tretes which is about 50 km or so northwest of Malang. A very nice place that is a popular weekend get-a-way spot for the locals. We were quite proud of ourselves in getting there because we were finally able to negotiate the public transport system almost as seemlessly as the locals and for the same price they pay. It only took us 4 weeks, but we finally did it. I wish I would have taken a picture of Keith sitting in this bemo (minivan - aka public bus) - he was sitting next to this cute, very small lady, and she just made him look like a giant, with his head nearly touching the ceiling. Then there's our enormous backpacks spread across our laps...no we don't stick out at all.
Arriving in Tretes, we were fortunate to meet a friendly ex-pat who steered us in the direction of a great hotel. Very reasonably priced, and views from the common dining areas that were amazing - overlooking steep mountain valleys, distant mosques, and a big ol mountain. There are hikes in this area that take you to the top of some mountains, but we opted not to do it as the rainy season could make the walk treacherous and unpleasant. Yes, we are still getting the daily 2:00 downpours.
We had a nice stay in Tretes. Although we were literally the only tourists there, so we became a bigger attraction for the locals than any of the scenery and mountains that they originally came to see. We took some short walks to some waterfalls, the more popular of the two was packed with local tourists (this was the Saturday of Christmas, so there were lots of locals up for the weekend), and student groups. The kids in particular got a kick out of us, and I now have a small indication for what it might be like to be famous. "Excuse me missus...may I photo?" Giggle, giggle, giggle, photo taken, shrieks of delight. It was pretty cute, but it did get old after a while. So many eyes on us the whole weekend. We were weary by the end. We went into the local pool hall to play, and I am already a pretty bad pool player, but when I have 30 pairs of Indonesian eyes relentlessly staring at me, I get even worse.
We spent Christmas night having dinner with two ex-patriots (one from Australia, one from Britain) who were clearly starved for some Western conversation because they both talked at the same time throughout the entire dinner. It was interesting (and a little frustrating) to hear their perspective. They are clearly jaded by many aspects of Indonesia, so we wonder why they are hear at all, but the answer comes the more they talk - they like to not have to work much and live inexpensively, and they love the women - both have married much younger local women. Interesting evening.
So what of this travel nightmare I mentioned? Well, it's a bit of a long story but to summarize, we essentially learned two lessons:
1) Never pre-book your transportati0n.
2) If you violate #1, forgo the money you spent on that prebooked transportation and carry on. It is not worth saving a few bucks for the inconvenience of trying to make good on your earlier purchase.
So way back in Probolingo, we foolishly got talked into through tickets from Bromo to Yogyakarta (jo-ja karta), as that was our next destination planned. As we were hanging out in Bromo, and hanging out with Steve and BB, we found some other places we wanted to go in between (Malang, Tretes). No problem, our booking "agent" says, just call me from where you want to be picked up on the day you want to be picked up (along the main route to Yogya), and we'll come get you. So the day we left Tretes, we arranged for the night bus to come get us at the spot of our choice. We headed down the mountain, didn't find the first town to our liking, so went a bit further to another town where there was a decent train station that made a good waiting place. Called the guy. No problem, be there about 8:00. It was about 3:30 when we got there - we deliberately went early to avoid missing him. Long wait at the train station, playing cards, getting stared at. As we get closer to the time, we move out on the street. Wait, get stared at, eat a little from a vendor, get stared at. It's now 9:00, no sign of this guy. Keith calls, and finds out his bus broke down! About 3 hours ago! He wasn't going to try to come find us or let us know somehow! Keith let him know how frustrated we were, and within two minutes we jumped onto a public bus headed for Surabaya. Upon getting off the bus in Surabaya, we were completely swarmed by taxi drivers. It was like pushing our way through an angry mob. We were so irritated at that point, that out of spite we went walked over to the bemos to take public transport to our hotel. So we got on a bemo, asked the guy if it took us to city center, of which he assured us it did. 5 minutes into the ride, the guy who handles the money took my money, then asked where we were going (we had already told him 3 times). Communication was already difficult, but adding insult to injury, the radio was blasting awful music right into our ears, so not only could we not understand him, but we couldn't hear him. Plus, in trying to communicate where we were trying to go, he and everyone on the bus would periodically laugh like crazy at us. We were already on such a thin thread, this was the breaking point, and we eventually got the message that we were on the wrong bemo. So he dropped us off at a bus stop of which we had no idea where it was (Surabaya is a city of 2 million), and where now we were being ignored by all the transport people. Finally after taking out our frustrations on each other, we recoverd, found a taxi and after much discussion with all the taxi drivers in the area, they figured out where and how to get to our hotel, and after we had to tell him to turn his meter on, we were off. We arrived at our hotel at about 11:00 and crashed.
We caught the early AM train to Yogyakarta (which is what we could have done all along if we could have just let the $30 go). So next day we board an executive class train (don't get too excited....in means air conditioning, reclining seats (of which one of ours was broken) and a snack). Nice enough way to go though and by 2:00 we were in the town of Yogyakarta - a city similar to Ubud as it is known for its culture and art.
We found a great place to stay with the most creative murals painted on the walls of our rooms. We'll get a picture of it. Nice city, with plenty to do. We spent today walking around. Tons of shopping here, but neither of us were in the mood to tackle the bargaining today, so we just wandered around (jalan jalan), trying our best to learn to ignore the constant offers for transport. "Yes, excuse me mister. Transport? Bromo? Borobudur? Yes please?" I think we dream those words now.
We'll get some pictures up over the next few days. We'll hang around here for a few days, then spend New Years in a mountain town, back here for one day, then fly to Singapore on the 3rd.
Wednesday, December 28, 2005
Friday, December 23, 2005
Merry Christmas from Malang
OK, so Em updated everyone on Mount Bromo. Here is my take on the description: Drain Crater Lake, re-fill with sand. Add one more wizard island, remove all snow. And add Mt Hood in the background….Got It?
So yeah…we are in Malang. We have been staying at an old Dutch colonial mansion that was long ago converted to a hotel. The common areas are very nice. There are about 6 sitting rooms, with couches and international TV (CNN, BBC, HBO). So we got caught up in international news and even watched a movie. We are still traveling with Steve and BB from Belgium we have had fun dinners and rounds of billiards over Bintang (Indonesian beer).
The room was OK. The hot water didn’t work if our neighbors next door were using it. But that was not the least of are worries. Just outside the front desk the hotel they kept a big Rooster in a small cage. We commented that the only way he was ever going to come out the small door was in pieces. So needless to say, he was bored. He started making his morning “cuck a doodle doo’s” at about 2:00 a.m. We wish we would have brought Em’s Ambien because we’d had fed him a nice snack. The next day we had a long conversation with him, and last night he was much better. Sunrise only.
On our first night we went out to a nicer diner at the Amsterdam restaurant. It was about 4 km from the hotel and it being night, we didn’t want to walk. So, we grabbed a Becak, a three wheeled bicycle with the driver in the back and Em and I up front. All XXXX lbs of us. It was slightly uphill. The driver was small. Physics! He ended up pushing us in places. Very embarrassing! It turns out however, that this is normal and we saw becak drivers pushing their passengers around fairly often once we started noticing. Is was good for a laugh at ourselves though.
We will enjoy a quiet Christmas in the mountains to the North, a little town called Tretes. We are thinking af all of you over the holidays.
Emily here now....here are some pictures from the past week or so....
First, back to Ubud, and our cooking class. Keith learning the Bali technique of using the hands in all of the Balinese cooking:
Here's a look at the agricultural area around Bromo from the hike we did to the viewpoint:
And another picture of the village that I just really like:
A look into Mt Bromo - the most active of the volcanoes:
Here's the vast wasteland from the viewpoint on our second attempt at the sunrise:
Here is our transport that we took across the sand sea from Bromo to Malang:
Workers doing their daily chores of gathering grass to feed the cows and horses. They carry this so far and it looks SO heavy. No riding tractors here.
So yeah…we are in Malang. We have been staying at an old Dutch colonial mansion that was long ago converted to a hotel. The common areas are very nice. There are about 6 sitting rooms, with couches and international TV (CNN, BBC, HBO). So we got caught up in international news and even watched a movie. We are still traveling with Steve and BB from Belgium we have had fun dinners and rounds of billiards over Bintang (Indonesian beer).
The room was OK. The hot water didn’t work if our neighbors next door were using it. But that was not the least of are worries. Just outside the front desk the hotel they kept a big Rooster in a small cage. We commented that the only way he was ever going to come out the small door was in pieces. So needless to say, he was bored. He started making his morning “cuck a doodle doo’s” at about 2:00 a.m. We wish we would have brought Em’s Ambien because we’d had fed him a nice snack. The next day we had a long conversation with him, and last night he was much better. Sunrise only.
On our first night we went out to a nicer diner at the Amsterdam restaurant. It was about 4 km from the hotel and it being night, we didn’t want to walk. So, we grabbed a Becak, a three wheeled bicycle with the driver in the back and Em and I up front. All XXXX lbs of us. It was slightly uphill. The driver was small. Physics! He ended up pushing us in places. Very embarrassing! It turns out however, that this is normal and we saw becak drivers pushing their passengers around fairly often once we started noticing. Is was good for a laugh at ourselves though.
We will enjoy a quiet Christmas in the mountains to the North, a little town called Tretes. We are thinking af all of you over the holidays.
Emily here now....here are some pictures from the past week or so....
First, back to Ubud, and our cooking class. Keith learning the Bali technique of using the hands in all of the Balinese cooking:
Here's a look at the agricultural area around Bromo from the hike we did to the viewpoint:
And another picture of the village that I just really like:
A look into Mt Bromo - the most active of the volcanoes:
Here's the vast wasteland from the viewpoint on our second attempt at the sunrise:
Here is our transport that we took across the sand sea from Bromo to Malang:
Workers doing their daily chores of gathering grass to feed the cows and horses. They carry this so far and it looks SO heavy. No riding tractors here.
Thursday, December 22, 2005
We're Not On Bali Anymore!
It’s been a while. The town we’ve been in for the past 4 days did not have internet connection. We are currently in the town of Malang, Java. A “small” town of 700,000 people or so in the Eastern reginon Java. It actually isn’t that bad for how many people are here.
Our crossing from Bali to Java was uneventful, but it was a long day, and landing on Java we immediately knew we weren’t on Bali anymore (duh, that’s cause we just left Bali…). What I mean, is, Java, being the island that holds over 60% of the population of Indonesia, is not dependent on tourism. What this means is that they don’t all speak English! Can you believe the nerve! Just kidding. Glad we bought a phrasebook. Now we can ask questions and not understand the answers. So getting to our main destination brought some frustrations, and a good schooling in how the public bus transportation works and how to not have to pay more than the locals (which we did of course…arghhh).
The main destination being Cemeru Lawang (or Bromo as they all call it), which is a cute little mountain village located right on the edge of a HUGE caldera. Inside the crater of this volcano, is several other mountains…all of which are pretty active, and the smallest of which is Mt Bromo. Argh. This is so hard to explain. It is such a weird setting. Flat, flat sea of sand inside the crater with 3-4 mountains poking out of it. The locals drive you all over the sand sea to the base of Bromo, which you “climb” up (walk up stairs), and stare down into a sulfur inferno. You need to see the pictures to understand, but this connection is terrible, and I’ll be lucky to get these words posted. The main tourist activity is to hire a jeep and get driven to a viewpoint overlooking the whole wasteland to watch the sunrise. We walked up to the viewpoint the first day (starting the walk at 3:00 AM!), but were covered in clouds, so hired a jeep the next day and got some nice views.
It was a lovely village to relax in, and take the occasional walk. Very mountainous, with farming everywhere. Every hillside is covered in either potato, onion, or cabbage fields. And some of these fields are STEEP. These people work so hard. Carrying everything on their backs - even the grass to feed the cows and horses. We've got some great pics we'll post one of these days. And being up high, it was cool (as in lower temps)! We were actually a touch cold at night. Ahhhhh.
Now we are a bit further west in a town called Malang . From here we'll go to some more small mountain side towns, and in between the rain showers try to get some walks/hikes in. It's not likely we'll have loads of internet connection options, so don't worry if you don't hear from us for a while.
Our crossing from Bali to Java was uneventful, but it was a long day, and landing on Java we immediately knew we weren’t on Bali anymore (duh, that’s cause we just left Bali…). What I mean, is, Java, being the island that holds over 60% of the population of Indonesia, is not dependent on tourism. What this means is that they don’t all speak English! Can you believe the nerve! Just kidding. Glad we bought a phrasebook. Now we can ask questions and not understand the answers. So getting to our main destination brought some frustrations, and a good schooling in how the public bus transportation works and how to not have to pay more than the locals (which we did of course…arghhh).
The main destination being Cemeru Lawang (or Bromo as they all call it), which is a cute little mountain village located right on the edge of a HUGE caldera. Inside the crater of this volcano, is several other mountains…all of which are pretty active, and the smallest of which is Mt Bromo. Argh. This is so hard to explain. It is such a weird setting. Flat, flat sea of sand inside the crater with 3-4 mountains poking out of it. The locals drive you all over the sand sea to the base of Bromo, which you “climb” up (walk up stairs), and stare down into a sulfur inferno. You need to see the pictures to understand, but this connection is terrible, and I’ll be lucky to get these words posted. The main tourist activity is to hire a jeep and get driven to a viewpoint overlooking the whole wasteland to watch the sunrise. We walked up to the viewpoint the first day (starting the walk at 3:00 AM!), but were covered in clouds, so hired a jeep the next day and got some nice views.
It was a lovely village to relax in, and take the occasional walk. Very mountainous, with farming everywhere. Every hillside is covered in either potato, onion, or cabbage fields. And some of these fields are STEEP. These people work so hard. Carrying everything on their backs - even the grass to feed the cows and horses. We've got some great pics we'll post one of these days. And being up high, it was cool (as in lower temps)! We were actually a touch cold at night. Ahhhhh.
Now we are a bit further west in a town called Malang . From here we'll go to some more small mountain side towns, and in between the rain showers try to get some walks/hikes in. It's not likely we'll have loads of internet connection options, so don't worry if you don't hear from us for a while.
Does everyone know that in less than two weeks, we'll be traveling with BOTH of my parents through Thailand?? Yes, my dad is going too. Hooray! I'll let them do the blog postings for that month. :)
Merry Christmas! They set up the funniest looking Christmas tree at the last place we were staying. It looked like a bunch of droopy tropical branches in a bucket with lights on it. Not a lot of talk about Christmas here obviously, but most of the hotels try to do some kind of decorating for the "Westerners".
All right, signing off for now....
Saturday, December 17, 2005
Monsoon Season on North Bali
Um, was I mentioning a while back that it wasn't feeling like the rainy season here? Well, I eat my words. We are in the midst of the monsoon season for sure. Back in Ubud, we would get some seriously heavy (and seriously punctual) rain showers every day about 2:00. They would usually let up by 5:00 or so. Now we are on the north coast of Bali, in a small town (or stretch of even smaller towns) called Lovina. And man has it been raining. Torrential downpours for the better part of the three days we've been here. Rivers running down the streets, waterfalls coming over the roofs, crazy.
So we ended in Ubud on a good and bad note. We had that cooking class on our last full day there, and it was nice because we learned some good stuff, and there were only the two of us in class, so we got lots of special attention. But we were the only two in class, so we had to eat everything we made! Keep in mind we made 5 main dishes! No we didn't eat it all, but we sure ate too much and literally spent the rest of the day not moving any more than necessary. We also at this point had picked up some kind of relatively small bug, so that helped in keeping us close to the room. Nothing too awfully bad, but enough to be uncomfortable. We're still both having lingering effects, but we can see vast improvements in the near future.
So we left the next day, and had a lovely ride from Ubud to the north coast through lush and dramatic mountian scenery. The bus stopped at one of the higer elevation mountain villages, and we were both surprised to actually be cold! We arrived at the bus depot in Lovina only to be greeted with business cards being shoved in our faces before the bus even came to a stop. We were both a bit weary from traveling (and that pesky bug), and both became instantly intolerant of dealing with the touts (as our book calls them). We tried to be as nice as possible, but essentially made a beeline for our planned hotel.
North Bali is known for its black sand beaches and very swimmable waters as the reef is quite far out providing nice calm waters. So we walked out to the beach to get a look, and after beating off the touts, became immensley disappointed. The black sand was nice, and might have made for a nice lounging beach had it not been for the garbage also lining the beach and the brown stream waters (containing who knows what) draining into the swimming area. Needless to say we did not swim, but took a walk along the beach instead, contemplating the seeming hopelessness of the scattered environmental efforts throughout the world. What a battle humans are up against! Not to mention the albatross! (There was an exhibit at the Sydney aquarium about how many sea animals are killed from ingesting plastic from the seas). As we were driving over, we got a good look at one of the "landfills" off the side of the road that was literally spilling into the river. This country was not ready for the influx of plastic that the Western societies introduced.
As you can tell, we hit a bit of a travel wall here,and have spent most of our time just hanging out in our room, watching the rain, playing cards, and reading (and recovering). Really, it's still not a bad life. We've also been trying to plan the rest of our time in Indonesia, and are finding ourselves with extra time that we're not sure how we're going to spend, so we ended up staying here an extra night. We moved today to a place more centrally located and with a pool, so in between storms, we've been able to get a few swims in.
Tomorrow we leave to the very northwestern corner of Bali, where we will stay the night, then the next day catch a ferry over to the island of Java, where we will then hop on a train and head to the base of Mt Bromo, which we will climb (short, easy climb) to get some hopefully stunning, volcanic views.
Hope holiday preparations are going well for everyone!
So we ended in Ubud on a good and bad note. We had that cooking class on our last full day there, and it was nice because we learned some good stuff, and there were only the two of us in class, so we got lots of special attention. But we were the only two in class, so we had to eat everything we made! Keep in mind we made 5 main dishes! No we didn't eat it all, but we sure ate too much and literally spent the rest of the day not moving any more than necessary. We also at this point had picked up some kind of relatively small bug, so that helped in keeping us close to the room. Nothing too awfully bad, but enough to be uncomfortable. We're still both having lingering effects, but we can see vast improvements in the near future.
So we left the next day, and had a lovely ride from Ubud to the north coast through lush and dramatic mountian scenery. The bus stopped at one of the higer elevation mountain villages, and we were both surprised to actually be cold! We arrived at the bus depot in Lovina only to be greeted with business cards being shoved in our faces before the bus even came to a stop. We were both a bit weary from traveling (and that pesky bug), and both became instantly intolerant of dealing with the touts (as our book calls them). We tried to be as nice as possible, but essentially made a beeline for our planned hotel.
North Bali is known for its black sand beaches and very swimmable waters as the reef is quite far out providing nice calm waters. So we walked out to the beach to get a look, and after beating off the touts, became immensley disappointed. The black sand was nice, and might have made for a nice lounging beach had it not been for the garbage also lining the beach and the brown stream waters (containing who knows what) draining into the swimming area. Needless to say we did not swim, but took a walk along the beach instead, contemplating the seeming hopelessness of the scattered environmental efforts throughout the world. What a battle humans are up against! Not to mention the albatross! (There was an exhibit at the Sydney aquarium about how many sea animals are killed from ingesting plastic from the seas). As we were driving over, we got a good look at one of the "landfills" off the side of the road that was literally spilling into the river. This country was not ready for the influx of plastic that the Western societies introduced.
As you can tell, we hit a bit of a travel wall here,and have spent most of our time just hanging out in our room, watching the rain, playing cards, and reading (and recovering). Really, it's still not a bad life. We've also been trying to plan the rest of our time in Indonesia, and are finding ourselves with extra time that we're not sure how we're going to spend, so we ended up staying here an extra night. We moved today to a place more centrally located and with a pool, so in between storms, we've been able to get a few swims in.
Tomorrow we leave to the very northwestern corner of Bali, where we will stay the night, then the next day catch a ferry over to the island of Java, where we will then hop on a train and head to the base of Mt Bromo, which we will climb (short, easy climb) to get some hopefully stunning, volcanic views.
Hope holiday preparations are going well for everyone!
Monday, December 12, 2005
Ubud - The Cultural Heart of Bali
Hi all. We have been here in Ubud for the last two days, and have really taken a liking to it. It is in the central part of Bali, and is known as the cultural heart of Bali. There are lots of arts and crafts to buy, dances to attend, and temples to go to. But first I digress....
Some random information about Indonesia:
I forgot to talk about the driving here. It is crazy! One guy described it perfectly as organized confusion. Most people drive scooters, nobody signals, and people are just weaving in and out at leisure. The horn is used as the turn indicator, or just to let people know you are coming. About 1/3 of them wear helmets, and there is usually 2 or 3 people on each scooter. In the bigger cities (like Denpasar) it is utter madness to a westerner that comes from deluxe-width, organized roads.
Most think of Indonesia as the Muslim capital of the world, and indeed it is the most populous Muslim nation, but there is actually quite an array of religions throughout the archipelego. Bali, in particular is predominantly Hindu, while Lombock is Muslim. And there are some very easily noticed differences that we have observed. From a ceremonial standpoint, Bali is lovely because each morning and evening, women walk around with trays full of offering/blessings made up of bamboo leaves, flowers and incense and place them on various statues, on cars, outside certain rooms, and over doorways, then splash them with holy water. In Lombock, on the Gilis, the Islam religion was noticable by the daily prayers that are broadcast over speakers, and the observance of Friday as a very holy day where the town shuts down and everyone heads to the mosque from 11:00 to 2:00. Many more temples in Bali. And in Bali, there are dogs everywhere....in Lombock on the Gilis it was cats (dogs are seen as quite dirty, and not to be touched in the Islamic regligion).
Some people asked more about costs of things.....A typical, sit-down dinner at a nice restaurant costs us between 30,000 and 50,000 rupiah (equates to $3-5 USD). Where if you eat off a street vendor's cart, you might pay 6,000Rp for the two of us. Not bad, eh? And internet is quite prevalent. At least in the areas that tourists tend to frequent. The smaller the town, the slower the connection, but they all have it to offer. It usually cost about 300 Rp a minute ($2-3 an hour).
No sunburns yet. We are pretty diligent about lathering up on the sunscreen and wearing the hats. I have to say, we are getting quite brown though.....:)
I think that was it....back to what we've been doing.
We ended our stay in the Gili's with a night dive! (Notice I don't mention these things until after the fact for the sake of the parents!). It was my first night dive and it was spectacular....and it puts me one-fifth of the way to becoming an Advanced Open Water diver. We had great weather for it and saw some interesting anenomes, clams (huge ones), and a frog fish (a fish that cannot swim and walks on its "elbows").
Keith wanted me to include this photo - our first stop at a street vendor. Apparently he likes how I tower over the local. This is on Gili Trawangan:
The next day was entirely given to travel and we reversed our course back to Padangbai, and carried on another two hours until we reached Ubud. Thankfully we arrived before dark and had no problems finding the place we wanted to stay. It is called Sania's House, and looks like a Hindu temple all on it's own. It is very hard to describe, but lots of ornate buildings/huts/bungalows surrounding a lush, tropical garden and a pool! That was one of our requirements since we are no longer by the ocean. Yes, we had to pay a bit more for the pool. Now we are up to $6 a night. It was heavan yesterday, as when the sun comes out, it gets quite hot.
We are now definitely seeing the rainy season. Just when we thought we were going to break from the heat yesterday, the clouds rolled in, and the rains fell. And fell. And fell. Such a torrential downpour for about 4 hours! And it did the same thing today, but did not last nearly as long. The nice thing of course, is that it definitely cools the air down.
We've really enjoyed this town so far - I think when tourism is up, it can become quite overrun with tourists, as it is an easy day trip from Kuta. We feel like there are quite a few tourists here, but that is only because we have come from much smaller cities. There are still many deserted hotels and restaurants. They've got a great public market. We made our way into first thing yesterday morning and came away with some nice souveniers, and we think we did OK with the bargaining. It also runs into a huge produce market, where we saw tables full of dead chickens (bird flu!) - we only looked from afar, and had no desire to walk by it. Then we went to the Monkey Forest, where we saw lots of....you got it....monkeys!! They are living freely in this forest, and not behind cages, and are used to being fed by tourists. So like dummies, we showed up with a handful of bananas and almost got mauled by these creatures. A couple even jumped up on Keith. They are known to get aggressive, so I didn't want one on me and did a typical girl scream and jump up and down when they tried to get on me, and got rid of the bananas as soon as I could. It was kind of weird, but I guess cool to see the monkeys.
Here's a monkey enjoying our banana:
That evening we went to see a fire/monkey dance (ketchet), which was so cool. There were at least 100 performers and 6 audience members. Because of the rain, they had to move it into a barn type structure, but it was still a need experience. Most of the performers were men in sarongs that sat on the floor and did this really cool chanting that provided the beat for the dancers. Then the dancers came out with very ornate costumes and did their traditional dance that told a story of a king and his wife as they fought the evil empire. The chanting was my favorite part.
Here's a look at the dance:
Today, we decided it was time to get some exercise, so we rented bikes, and road outside of town about 15 km to a famous temple called Gulung Kawi. It was a nice ride. Uphill all the way, and no rain, so we had sweat pouring out of every pore, but we were rewarded with a dramatic temple, great scenery along the way, and a downhill trip home. It was nice to see more of the smaller villages and people going about their everyday life, and every child we passed screamed out with joy, "Hellloooo!".
Here's Keith outside one of the main parts of the temple (I forget what they called this part....):
Here's the scenic rice paddies surrounding the temple:
And now you're caught up. The afternoon rain has ceased, and we're scheduled for a massage at 5:00 so we must be going! Tomorrow, we'll do a cooking class, and probably take off for the north part of the island the next day.
Some random information about Indonesia:
I forgot to talk about the driving here. It is crazy! One guy described it perfectly as organized confusion. Most people drive scooters, nobody signals, and people are just weaving in and out at leisure. The horn is used as the turn indicator, or just to let people know you are coming. About 1/3 of them wear helmets, and there is usually 2 or 3 people on each scooter. In the bigger cities (like Denpasar) it is utter madness to a westerner that comes from deluxe-width, organized roads.
Most think of Indonesia as the Muslim capital of the world, and indeed it is the most populous Muslim nation, but there is actually quite an array of religions throughout the archipelego. Bali, in particular is predominantly Hindu, while Lombock is Muslim. And there are some very easily noticed differences that we have observed. From a ceremonial standpoint, Bali is lovely because each morning and evening, women walk around with trays full of offering/blessings made up of bamboo leaves, flowers and incense and place them on various statues, on cars, outside certain rooms, and over doorways, then splash them with holy water. In Lombock, on the Gilis, the Islam religion was noticable by the daily prayers that are broadcast over speakers, and the observance of Friday as a very holy day where the town shuts down and everyone heads to the mosque from 11:00 to 2:00. Many more temples in Bali. And in Bali, there are dogs everywhere....in Lombock on the Gilis it was cats (dogs are seen as quite dirty, and not to be touched in the Islamic regligion).
Some people asked more about costs of things.....A typical, sit-down dinner at a nice restaurant costs us between 30,000 and 50,000 rupiah (equates to $3-5 USD). Where if you eat off a street vendor's cart, you might pay 6,000Rp for the two of us. Not bad, eh? And internet is quite prevalent. At least in the areas that tourists tend to frequent. The smaller the town, the slower the connection, but they all have it to offer. It usually cost about 300 Rp a minute ($2-3 an hour).
No sunburns yet. We are pretty diligent about lathering up on the sunscreen and wearing the hats. I have to say, we are getting quite brown though.....:)
I think that was it....back to what we've been doing.
We ended our stay in the Gili's with a night dive! (Notice I don't mention these things until after the fact for the sake of the parents!). It was my first night dive and it was spectacular....and it puts me one-fifth of the way to becoming an Advanced Open Water diver. We had great weather for it and saw some interesting anenomes, clams (huge ones), and a frog fish (a fish that cannot swim and walks on its "elbows").
Keith wanted me to include this photo - our first stop at a street vendor. Apparently he likes how I tower over the local. This is on Gili Trawangan:
The next day was entirely given to travel and we reversed our course back to Padangbai, and carried on another two hours until we reached Ubud. Thankfully we arrived before dark and had no problems finding the place we wanted to stay. It is called Sania's House, and looks like a Hindu temple all on it's own. It is very hard to describe, but lots of ornate buildings/huts/bungalows surrounding a lush, tropical garden and a pool! That was one of our requirements since we are no longer by the ocean. Yes, we had to pay a bit more for the pool. Now we are up to $6 a night. It was heavan yesterday, as when the sun comes out, it gets quite hot.
We are now definitely seeing the rainy season. Just when we thought we were going to break from the heat yesterday, the clouds rolled in, and the rains fell. And fell. And fell. Such a torrential downpour for about 4 hours! And it did the same thing today, but did not last nearly as long. The nice thing of course, is that it definitely cools the air down.
We've really enjoyed this town so far - I think when tourism is up, it can become quite overrun with tourists, as it is an easy day trip from Kuta. We feel like there are quite a few tourists here, but that is only because we have come from much smaller cities. There are still many deserted hotels and restaurants. They've got a great public market. We made our way into first thing yesterday morning and came away with some nice souveniers, and we think we did OK with the bargaining. It also runs into a huge produce market, where we saw tables full of dead chickens (bird flu!) - we only looked from afar, and had no desire to walk by it. Then we went to the Monkey Forest, where we saw lots of....you got it....monkeys!! They are living freely in this forest, and not behind cages, and are used to being fed by tourists. So like dummies, we showed up with a handful of bananas and almost got mauled by these creatures. A couple even jumped up on Keith. They are known to get aggressive, so I didn't want one on me and did a typical girl scream and jump up and down when they tried to get on me, and got rid of the bananas as soon as I could. It was kind of weird, but I guess cool to see the monkeys.
Here's a monkey enjoying our banana:
That evening we went to see a fire/monkey dance (ketchet), which was so cool. There were at least 100 performers and 6 audience members. Because of the rain, they had to move it into a barn type structure, but it was still a need experience. Most of the performers were men in sarongs that sat on the floor and did this really cool chanting that provided the beat for the dancers. Then the dancers came out with very ornate costumes and did their traditional dance that told a story of a king and his wife as they fought the evil empire. The chanting was my favorite part.
Here's a look at the dance:
Today, we decided it was time to get some exercise, so we rented bikes, and road outside of town about 15 km to a famous temple called Gulung Kawi. It was a nice ride. Uphill all the way, and no rain, so we had sweat pouring out of every pore, but we were rewarded with a dramatic temple, great scenery along the way, and a downhill trip home. It was nice to see more of the smaller villages and people going about their everyday life, and every child we passed screamed out with joy, "Hellloooo!".
Here's Keith outside one of the main parts of the temple (I forget what they called this part....):
Here's the scenic rice paddies surrounding the temple:
And now you're caught up. The afternoon rain has ceased, and we're scheduled for a massage at 5:00 so we must be going! Tomorrow, we'll do a cooking class, and probably take off for the north part of the island the next day.
Friday, December 09, 2005
Tranquility on Gili Trawangan, Indonesia
I think we've entered paradise. We've settled in nicely to island life here on Gili (Island) Trawangan - one of three small islands off the northwest coast of Lombock. It was quite the travel day to get here from Padangbai involving a 4 hour ferry ride (thank goodness it was cloudy that day), then a 2 hour bus ride, waiting for an hour at what Lonely Planet calls the "armpit of Indonesia", then another 45 mintues on a smaller outrigger boat, and we're here. Life is pretty easy here, once we found a decent room ($5 a night) with a working fan (the first room had a fan that didn't move any air making for a hot, sticky night), all we've got left to do is try and stay cool in the pristine aqua waters, and find places to eat.
Here's Keith relaxing outside the room we've called home the last few days, Trawangan Cottages:
Once again, we have breakfast included in our rooms, and banana pancakes and Lombok coffee delivered to our patio is becoming one of my favorite times of the day. The pancakes are SO good! The village here is small, and the locals are lovely. We've been trying to improve our Indonesian, but it is still pretty limited. Nevertheless whenever we say selamat pagi (good morning), we see faces just light up at our efforts. And they literally sing it back to us...selamat paggggiiiii! So cute.
The town consists of one main road that lines the waterfront, with tons of restaurants and places to stay. The sad part is, there is hardly anyone here to fill them all up. I think I've mentioned in other blogs (I can't remember what I've said and not said), but it is low season here, and even so, we've had more than one person tell me that even in low seasons in the past this place is usually full. They are openly very frustrated with the effect the bombings have had on tourism here. They say things like, "nobody comes anymore", "fucking bombings", and we've seen lots of t-shirts and signs to the same effect. After all my nervousness in coming here, I am so glad that we did. I feel nothing but safe here, and any little bit we are doing to help their economy makes us feel good.
Here is our big heads in front of the waters where we snorkel and try to stay cool:
The soliciting is way less here to. Only when you walk the strip do you get constant invitations to eat a meal, get a room or book a snorkeling trip. But they take no very nicely. No vendors on the beaches, so by dealing with it all on the way over here, you are rewarded by some honest to goodness peace. We've mixed with the locals a little bit. Mostly Keith who joined in two different soccer games. They were only a touch faster than him - but he had a blast, and they seemed to enjoy him being there. Yesterday we did our first diving trip. Beautiful, clear water, 28 degrees celsius (aka WARM), and lots of nice coral and colorful fish. On the second dive, we saw three whitetip sharks! They were pretty small (2 meters or so), but still pretty cool the way they just kind of circled around where we were.
Here's me on the dive boat yesterday:
It is definitely hot. The first half of the day is the hardest - the air is very still, and the sun is out. Not much to do but hit the water and try to find shade. We don't put up the big bucks for AC so our room is quite hot during the day. Then, being the rainy season, the afternoons usually bring some releif in clouds and wind. We haven't really gotten rained on, just the wonderful sea breeze when it decides to show up. We have thoroughly enjoyed eating (big surprise there). The food is fantastic. Some of our favorites have become the gado gado (a potato and veggie mix in peanut sauce), barracuda and the way they cook any of their tempe and tofu. Yum.
We'll stay tonight, then take off back to Bali tomorrow. We'll head to central Bali first to look at (and buy) arts and crafts, then up to the north coast of Bali before heading to the island of Java. Thanks for the emails and comments....we love hearing from back home!
Here's Keith relaxing outside the room we've called home the last few days, Trawangan Cottages:
Once again, we have breakfast included in our rooms, and banana pancakes and Lombok coffee delivered to our patio is becoming one of my favorite times of the day. The pancakes are SO good! The village here is small, and the locals are lovely. We've been trying to improve our Indonesian, but it is still pretty limited. Nevertheless whenever we say selamat pagi (good morning), we see faces just light up at our efforts. And they literally sing it back to us...selamat paggggiiiii! So cute.
The town consists of one main road that lines the waterfront, with tons of restaurants and places to stay. The sad part is, there is hardly anyone here to fill them all up. I think I've mentioned in other blogs (I can't remember what I've said and not said), but it is low season here, and even so, we've had more than one person tell me that even in low seasons in the past this place is usually full. They are openly very frustrated with the effect the bombings have had on tourism here. They say things like, "nobody comes anymore", "fucking bombings", and we've seen lots of t-shirts and signs to the same effect. After all my nervousness in coming here, I am so glad that we did. I feel nothing but safe here, and any little bit we are doing to help their economy makes us feel good.
Here is our big heads in front of the waters where we snorkel and try to stay cool:
The soliciting is way less here to. Only when you walk the strip do you get constant invitations to eat a meal, get a room or book a snorkeling trip. But they take no very nicely. No vendors on the beaches, so by dealing with it all on the way over here, you are rewarded by some honest to goodness peace. We've mixed with the locals a little bit. Mostly Keith who joined in two different soccer games. They were only a touch faster than him - but he had a blast, and they seemed to enjoy him being there. Yesterday we did our first diving trip. Beautiful, clear water, 28 degrees celsius (aka WARM), and lots of nice coral and colorful fish. On the second dive, we saw three whitetip sharks! They were pretty small (2 meters or so), but still pretty cool the way they just kind of circled around where we were.
Here's me on the dive boat yesterday:
It is definitely hot. The first half of the day is the hardest - the air is very still, and the sun is out. Not much to do but hit the water and try to find shade. We don't put up the big bucks for AC so our room is quite hot during the day. Then, being the rainy season, the afternoons usually bring some releif in clouds and wind. We haven't really gotten rained on, just the wonderful sea breeze when it decides to show up. We have thoroughly enjoyed eating (big surprise there). The food is fantastic. Some of our favorites have become the gado gado (a potato and veggie mix in peanut sauce), barracuda and the way they cook any of their tempe and tofu. Yum.
We'll stay tonight, then take off back to Bali tomorrow. We'll head to central Bali first to look at (and buy) arts and crafts, then up to the north coast of Bali before heading to the island of Java. Thanks for the emails and comments....we love hearing from back home!
Tuesday, December 06, 2005
Welcome to Indonesia!
Well, we made it. I am writing to you from an internet cafe that is in the 'inn' where we are staying. It is a dial up connection, so, sorry, no pictures today. I don't have the patience. And yes, I'm sweating. A lot. It's 7:00 pm here and while it is quite pleasant outside, it is hot and muggy in this little room. We are on the island of Bali (not to be insulting, but for those of you who don't have a handle on world geography - I am equally guilty - Indonesia is a mass of islands, and Bali is one of them. Bali is not the city where all the bombings happen. It is actually quite a large island, and the southern part is the beach town of Kuta, where the bombings happened both times). Anyway, we flew into Densapar without any difficulties and hardly a glance from the customs agent, and made our way outside where we were bombarded constantly by taxi drivers. We tried dutifully to save money and find the bemo (minivan/public transport), but failed, and ended up paying 100,000 rupiah ($10) to get to a town where we were supposed to then be able to easily find a Bemo to our desired destination of Padangbai (on the eastern side of Bali). Problem was it was late, and the official bemos were not running, but they were happy to hire one out to us for a much increased price. We were out of options, so we took it, and showed up to Padangbai after dark, which is a newly realized travel no-no. We had no sense of orientation, and even though it is a small town, we couldn't even figure out which side the water was on! This coupled with the fact that we were being approached from all sides to buy tickets to Lombok, nights in a hotel, etc. And they are relentless. Keith almost reached a breaking point, but luckily I convinced him to just walk a little further, because we ended up finding a very quaint, clean and pleasant bungalow style place to stay, off the main drag (if you can call it a main drag) of town.
So we checked in for a mere $4 US a night! And we have a private bathroom. And the burning question on everyone's mind....the toilet. Yes, it is a sit-down toilet. No, it does not flush - you have to scoop water into it to move the stuff along. No TP provided, so we're glad we had bought some ahead of time in Sydney. And cold showers only, which is just fine - I can't imagine taking a hot one.
Today, we spent a relaxing day around town, getting a feel for what the next three months of our travels are going to be like (or at least the next 30 days here in Indonesia). The biggest adjustment will be the sellers of the crafts....or peddlars, I guess you could call them. They are relentless. You learn very quickly some tricks.
Number 1 - As soon as you show interest in a product, you are toast - not only will the person not leave until you cave in, but 5 others will join in the fun with their own goods.
Number 2 - Don't tell anyone, you'll come back later. They remember you and what you said.
Number 3 - It is best to just say No, thank you (Tidak, Terima kasih). Yes, you have to say it about 10 times before they will actually leave, but that's the only way to not purchase something.
That being said, we did make a handful of purchases today. Some intended, some not. We both bought sarongs - a must have here, Keith got a nice light shirt, and then we inadvertently bought a Balinese calendar and a 15 minute massage. And yes, everything is inexpensive here, so it's really not a big deal. We will be able to get nicely back on budget here soon after overspending in NZ. Right now we figure we'll be spending about $30 a day on average - it was closer to $100 a day in NZ.
Language is going OK. We're trying to learn as many phrases as possible, but most folks here speak enough English to get the necessities taken care of. We will continue to learn, and hopefully use it more. The saddest thing about the constant solicitations is that it makes you not want to talk to the locals. You do all you can to avoid someone coming at you - one of these days it will be someone genuinely wanting to talk and not trying to sell something, but we won't know. Even when they're not carrying things in their hands, they want to sell you tickets somewhere, anywhere.
It is a totally different culture here, and I think we will enjoy learning more about it. It is sad to see such a poor country, and we've had more than one person tell us how hard it is when no tourists come. They say this year has been quite bad for them. Very sad.
There is also a huge opportunity to open a recycling plant here! Keith and I went through about 5 liters of water today (4 separate plastic jug containers) - and it just kills me to think where all that plastic is going to end up - and how much we are contributing to that by staying healthily hydrated.
On a happier note, we spent the rest of the day lounging on a very small, hidden away beach. Played in some waves and played some frisbee. The water is a nice refreshing temperature. We're going to have to get used to being "bored" for a while. Poor us. The scenery here is gorgeous. Random temples everywhere, and this little harbor is chock full of colorful outrigger fishing/rice moving boats. Will try to get some pictures up one of these days.
We take a 4 hour ferry ride tomorrow to the next island east of here which is Lombok. Then off to an even smaller island off of Lombok, where we may chill for about 5 days.
So we checked in for a mere $4 US a night! And we have a private bathroom. And the burning question on everyone's mind....the toilet. Yes, it is a sit-down toilet. No, it does not flush - you have to scoop water into it to move the stuff along. No TP provided, so we're glad we had bought some ahead of time in Sydney. And cold showers only, which is just fine - I can't imagine taking a hot one.
Today, we spent a relaxing day around town, getting a feel for what the next three months of our travels are going to be like (or at least the next 30 days here in Indonesia). The biggest adjustment will be the sellers of the crafts....or peddlars, I guess you could call them. They are relentless. You learn very quickly some tricks.
Number 1 - As soon as you show interest in a product, you are toast - not only will the person not leave until you cave in, but 5 others will join in the fun with their own goods.
Number 2 - Don't tell anyone, you'll come back later. They remember you and what you said.
Number 3 - It is best to just say No, thank you (Tidak, Terima kasih). Yes, you have to say it about 10 times before they will actually leave, but that's the only way to not purchase something.
That being said, we did make a handful of purchases today. Some intended, some not. We both bought sarongs - a must have here, Keith got a nice light shirt, and then we inadvertently bought a Balinese calendar and a 15 minute massage. And yes, everything is inexpensive here, so it's really not a big deal. We will be able to get nicely back on budget here soon after overspending in NZ. Right now we figure we'll be spending about $30 a day on average - it was closer to $100 a day in NZ.
Language is going OK. We're trying to learn as many phrases as possible, but most folks here speak enough English to get the necessities taken care of. We will continue to learn, and hopefully use it more. The saddest thing about the constant solicitations is that it makes you not want to talk to the locals. You do all you can to avoid someone coming at you - one of these days it will be someone genuinely wanting to talk and not trying to sell something, but we won't know. Even when they're not carrying things in their hands, they want to sell you tickets somewhere, anywhere.
It is a totally different culture here, and I think we will enjoy learning more about it. It is sad to see such a poor country, and we've had more than one person tell us how hard it is when no tourists come. They say this year has been quite bad for them. Very sad.
There is also a huge opportunity to open a recycling plant here! Keith and I went through about 5 liters of water today (4 separate plastic jug containers) - and it just kills me to think where all that plastic is going to end up - and how much we are contributing to that by staying healthily hydrated.
On a happier note, we spent the rest of the day lounging on a very small, hidden away beach. Played in some waves and played some frisbee. The water is a nice refreshing temperature. We're going to have to get used to being "bored" for a while. Poor us. The scenery here is gorgeous. Random temples everywhere, and this little harbor is chock full of colorful outrigger fishing/rice moving boats. Will try to get some pictures up one of these days.
We take a 4 hour ferry ride tomorrow to the next island east of here which is Lombok. Then off to an even smaller island off of Lombok, where we may chill for about 5 days.
Saturday, December 03, 2005
Seeing the Sights of Sydney
We've been good tourists, and have been seeing some of the obligatory sights of Sydney....but to be honest, as of yesterday, my thoughts have been preoccupied with the fact that we will be landing in Bali sometime tomorrow! Crazy. All of our creature comforts and ease of travel will be suddenly stripped from us. In most ways I am excited, as in some ways it feels like the true start of our trip, but I will not deny there is some nervousness there as well. I have to remember, that this is exactly how I felt 10 years ago when Cari and I took off for Mexico with no expectations, and it turned into one of the best experiences of my life. I'm sure this will be the same. Our plan, after landing in Denpasar, Bali, is to head northeast immediately to lesser populated areas. We will not be dawdling in the big cities for any longer than necessary and are going to skip the southern part of Bali entirely (you know, where all that bad stuff happens). We will go to a small town on the east coast, and the plan is to head to the island of Lombok the next day.
Anyway, back to Sydney. After exalting on how great the local transportation is here, we are coming off the public transportation day from hell yesterday. Just as we had the subway/trains all figured out, we came to see that for this weekend only, the trains running to our neighborhood will be shut down for maintenance. Great. Then we go out to catch the bus yesterday, only to find that the bus won't be coming to our busstop due to a local festival/fair. It was quite comical. We eventually made it via bus to another train stop, where EVERYONE was rerouted and everyone was headed into the city. So once the train came we had to literally cram ourselves into the car....it reminded me of those TV shots I've seen from China or Japan, where they literally shove people into subway cars. It wasn't that bad, but it was pretty tight. 1 hour and 45 minutes later after being on a bus, a subway and a ferry, we arrived at our destination of Manly Beach. An oceanside beach where people just go to chill. We did the same, soaking up some sunshine, playing in some waves, then heading back to the mainland. Then in trying to plan our evening missed two more buses, but eventually got back to the hostel, showered, got back on a bus (I know, I think half of our day was spent on public transport), then treated ourselves to a play and dessert. We were going to see something at the opera house, but nothing there was anything we wanted to spend our money on, so we picked a comedy at the university theatre. It was pretty good - not great, but good.
The day before, we basically got ourselves familiar with the city. Walking around a good chunk of it and taking a ferry around the harbor. Here are two of the more famous sites, although not very good photographs.
The Sydney Harbour Bridge:
And the Opera House:
From there, we walked around Darling Harbor, took in a not very good Imax show (the largest screen on earth), and a very good digeridoo show which was free. We discovered that I can make my lips vibrate (necessary to play the digeridoo), but Keith cannot. Must be linked to the curling-your-tounge gene.
Today, we're going to take in the aquarium, then do all our last minute travel preps for tomorrow. Keith is trying to confirm that we even have a flight as we speak....we're not finding our flight online....oh boy. Always check a couple days ahead on your flights when you're flying internationally! They can change on you!
Ok, I think that's it for now. I think you can count on the blogs either sharply decreasing in length and/or frequency. Who knows what Indonesia has to offer. And pictures may become much harder to show you. I hope not, but we'll find out soon.
Think safe travel thoughts for us, and we'll be in touch!
Anyway, back to Sydney. After exalting on how great the local transportation is here, we are coming off the public transportation day from hell yesterday. Just as we had the subway/trains all figured out, we came to see that for this weekend only, the trains running to our neighborhood will be shut down for maintenance. Great. Then we go out to catch the bus yesterday, only to find that the bus won't be coming to our busstop due to a local festival/fair. It was quite comical. We eventually made it via bus to another train stop, where EVERYONE was rerouted and everyone was headed into the city. So once the train came we had to literally cram ourselves into the car....it reminded me of those TV shots I've seen from China or Japan, where they literally shove people into subway cars. It wasn't that bad, but it was pretty tight. 1 hour and 45 minutes later after being on a bus, a subway and a ferry, we arrived at our destination of Manly Beach. An oceanside beach where people just go to chill. We did the same, soaking up some sunshine, playing in some waves, then heading back to the mainland. Then in trying to plan our evening missed two more buses, but eventually got back to the hostel, showered, got back on a bus (I know, I think half of our day was spent on public transport), then treated ourselves to a play and dessert. We were going to see something at the opera house, but nothing there was anything we wanted to spend our money on, so we picked a comedy at the university theatre. It was pretty good - not great, but good.
The day before, we basically got ourselves familiar with the city. Walking around a good chunk of it and taking a ferry around the harbor. Here are two of the more famous sites, although not very good photographs.
The Sydney Harbour Bridge:
And the Opera House:
From there, we walked around Darling Harbor, took in a not very good Imax show (the largest screen on earth), and a very good digeridoo show which was free. We discovered that I can make my lips vibrate (necessary to play the digeridoo), but Keith cannot. Must be linked to the curling-your-tounge gene.
Today, we're going to take in the aquarium, then do all our last minute travel preps for tomorrow. Keith is trying to confirm that we even have a flight as we speak....we're not finding our flight online....oh boy. Always check a couple days ahead on your flights when you're flying internationally! They can change on you!
Ok, I think that's it for now. I think you can count on the blogs either sharply decreasing in length and/or frequency. Who knows what Indonesia has to offer. And pictures may become much harder to show you. I hope not, but we'll find out soon.
Think safe travel thoughts for us, and we'll be in touch!
Wednesday, November 30, 2005
Sydney!
We made it to Sydney today with no problem. I had to jump online for something else, so I thought I'd post a quick entry, although I don't have much to say. We had to get up VERY early (3:45) to catch our flight (I know.... again, I can feel the sympathy pouring in). When Keith was complaining yesterday about how early we would have to get up I reminded him that most folks back home have to get up around 6:00 or so every day to go to work....I don't think we have much room to complain. Nevertheless, he is upstairs napping right now and as I can't ever seem to nap for very long, thought I'd take care of some stuff online.
We're staying a ways out of downtown Sydney at another YHA hostel, but being the large city that it is, Sydney is set up with a pretty sweet subway/bus/train/ferry system, and the first thing we purchased was a weeklong pass to ride any of them at any time. So while we're not staying right downtown, it's not too much trouble to get there and actually kind of nice to be able to escape from it. I do have to admit that we would have stayed downtown, but apparently December is the busiest travel month for Sydney and waiting until the day before to book a double room in a hostel doesn't cut it - all the places that we knew would be good places to stay were full and we didn't want to risk getting stuck in a dive for the five days we're here. So we ended up in a suburb called Dulwich Hill - maybe a 20 minute drive from downtown - 30 min by subway. It's an interesting community - I'm trying to figure out the predominant nationality and have narrowed it down to Greek or Italian. We went to the bank first thing to get some money and were greeting with a HUGE line of people - all very short and speaking a different language. I heard lots of Italian, but lots also looked Greek to me (ha, no pun intended). We quickly learned, by chatting with the very cute and chatty old lady next to us, that today is "pension day". Apparently not a lot of people utilizing direct deposits for their pension check - they were all at the bank to get their cash. I even saw one lady immediately stuff it all into her bra!
It's not a touristy part of the greater Sydney area at all, and we found that our hostel caters to the travelers on working holiday. It's kind of nice in a way to just be in a regular neighborhood without the bombardment of tourist activities, which you really can't get away from in NZ. And with such a diverse population in this particular neighborhood - it really does feel like a foreign country - although not at all what I expected Australia to be like. We stuck out like sore thumbs at the bank today....it made us realize how much more we're going to stick out 5 days from now when we land in Bali! We may venture into the city tonight, we'll see if Keith ever wakes up....don't worry Melody, I'll let him sleep! :)
I just looked at the beginning of this blog....looks like I had more to say than I thought!
We're staying a ways out of downtown Sydney at another YHA hostel, but being the large city that it is, Sydney is set up with a pretty sweet subway/bus/train/ferry system, and the first thing we purchased was a weeklong pass to ride any of them at any time. So while we're not staying right downtown, it's not too much trouble to get there and actually kind of nice to be able to escape from it. I do have to admit that we would have stayed downtown, but apparently December is the busiest travel month for Sydney and waiting until the day before to book a double room in a hostel doesn't cut it - all the places that we knew would be good places to stay were full and we didn't want to risk getting stuck in a dive for the five days we're here. So we ended up in a suburb called Dulwich Hill - maybe a 20 minute drive from downtown - 30 min by subway. It's an interesting community - I'm trying to figure out the predominant nationality and have narrowed it down to Greek or Italian. We went to the bank first thing to get some money and were greeting with a HUGE line of people - all very short and speaking a different language. I heard lots of Italian, but lots also looked Greek to me (ha, no pun intended). We quickly learned, by chatting with the very cute and chatty old lady next to us, that today is "pension day". Apparently not a lot of people utilizing direct deposits for their pension check - they were all at the bank to get their cash. I even saw one lady immediately stuff it all into her bra!
It's not a touristy part of the greater Sydney area at all, and we found that our hostel caters to the travelers on working holiday. It's kind of nice in a way to just be in a regular neighborhood without the bombardment of tourist activities, which you really can't get away from in NZ. And with such a diverse population in this particular neighborhood - it really does feel like a foreign country - although not at all what I expected Australia to be like. We stuck out like sore thumbs at the bank today....it made us realize how much more we're going to stick out 5 days from now when we land in Bali! We may venture into the city tonight, we'll see if Keith ever wakes up....don't worry Melody, I'll let him sleep! :)
I just looked at the beginning of this blog....looks like I had more to say than I thought!
Monday, November 28, 2005
Queenstown back to Christchurch
Ok, aparrently it is my turn at the blog. My engineering mind tells me that the most efficient typer should do the blogging. Em types like a 'rat on a cheeto', I, however, am a bit slower. I think she left off as we got off the Routburne track and stayed the night in Queenstown. We ended up renting a car, as it was the cheapest way to see all the sights we wanted on our four-day trip back to Christchurch. After leaving Queenstown we headed to Wanaka, a small town set in the mountains. We hiked a 3 hour hike that took us up a valley to the Rob Roy Glacier. It was a very nice hike, but none of our pictures turned out great, so none are included. We camped along the river at DOC campsite....saving a few $$!!.
The next day we drove to Fox Glacier, one of two glaciers that drop very close to the Tasman see on the West Coast. We hiked to the terminus of the glacier where we sat and watched it melt away...literally. The glacier slides down the valley at the high speed of 1.5 meter/day...10x faster than glaciers in the Alps. It melts even faster, so the glacier is actually retreating up the valley. I am sure the coal we have been burning in our Alpine huts had nothing to do with it...
Fox Glacier
We stayed in a hostel in the coastal town of Hokitika, a small town the had the feel of many towns on the coast of Oregon. It is known as one of the few places where greenstone or jade is found and the town is lined with jewlery shops. Em found a nice jade necklace...one of our few souveniers for NZ.
The next morning we headed to Arthur's Pass where we ate lunch and did a short waterfall hike. It my effort to get a great picture of me in front of the waterfall....I fell in!! Em was there to help by laughing and taking a picture....not included in the blog.
The next day we drove to Fox Glacier, one of two glaciers that drop very close to the Tasman see on the West Coast. We hiked to the terminus of the glacier where we sat and watched it melt away...literally. The glacier slides down the valley at the high speed of 1.5 meter/day...10x faster than glaciers in the Alps. It melts even faster, so the glacier is actually retreating up the valley. I am sure the coal we have been burning in our Alpine huts had nothing to do with it...
Fox Glacier
We stayed in a hostel in the coastal town of Hokitika, a small town the had the feel of many towns on the coast of Oregon. It is known as one of the few places where greenstone or jade is found and the town is lined with jewlery shops. Em found a nice jade necklace...one of our few souveniers for NZ.
The next morning we headed to Arthur's Pass where we ate lunch and did a short waterfall hike. It my effort to get a great picture of me in front of the waterfall....I fell in!! Em was there to help by laughing and taking a picture....not included in the blog.
We headed down the pass and stopped to walk through a limestone cave...called "Cave Stream" Cave.....very original and very decsriptive. This short, 1 hr hike was one of the best things we've done. It is very much like the slot canyons of Utah, in a cave form. The water was about waist deep in places.
Entering the cave:
Waterfall:
After camping the night at a free campsite...yeah!...we headed to Christchurch, where we are now. We head to Sydney on the 1st for 4 nights.
Cheers!
Thursday, November 24, 2005
Milford Sound and more Tramping
Friday, November 26, 2005
Happy Thanksgiving! As I type this you all back home are enjoying cozy, turkey dinners with friends and family. I hope you are all enjoying!!
We're back from our 6 day adventure in the southland sounds and alpine areas. If you want to cruise on down to the last entry about the Kepler Track, I've put some photos up. We are in Queenstown right now - still on the southwest corner of the South Island. Queenstown is another tourist/adventure haven. We're just lying low and resting, bypassing the touristy stuff. We only have 6 days left and have decided to rent a car for those days so we can stop along the way without having to spend so much time figuring out bus schedules and how to get to the last few side trips we want to do. Being on the south part of the island is an advantage as well, because you can get nice deals on rental cars. The companies need their cars moved back up north because so many travelers travel from north to south, then fly out. Anyway, below is again my journaling of the hiking and kayaking we did. Again, it may be too boring for most. The Readers Digest version is that everything went well and was beautiful, except for one miserable day on the trail, where we got a taste of the unpredictable, at times unpleasant NZ weather that everyone keeps warning us about. So read on at your own leisure.....
Sat, November 19, 2005:
The dramatic beauty of the Milford Sound. We got to see it by kayaking rather than aboard one of the many cruise ships that make their way around the sound - or is it a fiord? The technical definition of a sound is a water filled valley that was carved out by a river. And a fiord is one that was carved out by a glacier. (Am I right dad?) The valleys of where we kayaked were carved by glaciers, so technically it should be called the Milford Fiord, right? Well, our guide today said they have compensated for this fact by naming the whole area Fiordlands National Park. Whatever the correct geological name, it was stunning. The Milford Sound is one of the only of the many sounds that line the West Coast of the southern half of the south island that is accessible to people by car. Doubtful Sound is the other one and requires a long drive, a boat ride, then another drive over a pass. The land is quite remote here. You can get to other parts of the park also by helicopter or plane, by walking some very difficult tracks, or by boat via the Tasman Sea.
Even getting to Milford is a bit of work (or time at least). From Te Anau (the last major town before the sound) it is about a 2 hour drive to Milford Sound via what is supposedly the famous Milford Road. A very long, winding and beautiful drive. We got picked up at the ungodly (for us vacationers anyway) hour of 6:30 AM by the kayak company to make the journey. The first part was nondescript, but once we started gaining elevation and after passing through Homer Tunnel, we started getting more dramatic views. Eventually we had our first view of the sound and it was a beaut. Essentially, it looks like mountains that have been submerged. Very steep, tree-covered cliffs that plunge right into the water and peaks towering high above.
The weather was marginal. Cloudy, and looking like it could rain at any time, but very calm water. We got geared up, safety talk done, then hit the water. Keith and I in a double and three other couples and our guide. We took our time circling the sound and enjoying the views. Of course Keith and I would have liked to have gone further out into the sound, but that is one of the problems with guided tours - you have to go where they tell you. On the other hand our guide was awesome and gave us lots of good information about the area. For wildlife we saw lots of penguins and one seal. We had a leisurely lunch stop, a peak at where the famous Milford Track ends, then were back to teh docks by 3:00. We never did get rained on - it got a tad bit windier, but no rain which was nice. The sandflies down here though....yikes are they bad! There's a Maori story saying that one of the gods created them to keep people away from the beauty of the area so as not to destroy it.
Here's us in the kayak:
And a view of Mitre Peak - one of the most photographed parts of the sound:
After kayaking we had a quick tour of Milford, which consists of a pub, a lodge, and a cruise boat terminal where 6,000(!) people a day take motor boat cruises around the sound. The van stopped to take in some views on the way back, and some hot drinks and biscuits (cookies), then we got dropped off at the Divide (where the mountain ranges split the east and west sides of the island). From here we started our 5 day hike.
The original plan was to just do the Routeburn Track - another Great Walk. But it is not a loop track and the logistics of getting back to where you started to pick up the rest of your stuff is a nightmare and a ton of driving. So we created our own loop track by combining the Caples Track with the Routeburn, which only involved one shuttle (and a stay in a lodge!) to get from the end of the Caples to the beginning of the Routeburn. So to start we headed up the Routeburn from the Divide for about an hour after which we turned off onto the Greenstone/Caples track. This portion was not a Great Walk so camping is free and the huts are much cheaper at only $10 per person. 20 minutes into this trail, we arrived at our campsite for the fist night. We brought our tent and sleeping pads in this far, close to where the trail divides, with the plan to stash them, stay in huts the rest of the time and pick them up on our way out.
There is one thing I think I forgot to mention about the Kepler Track and great walks in general. While you do have to pay a premium, what you get for it is almost worth it. The huts are very well set up with sleeping bunks (with nice pads), cooking facilities, drinkable water, flush toilets. What this means is you save a LOT of weight by staying in them, and packs become considerably lighter. We became quite spoiled in this way on the Kepler, so we opted for the huts the rest of the way on this walk for the weight factor as well as the unpredictable weather factor. Tents can only stay dry for so long.
So there you are, rambling as usual. We got to camp by 6:00 PM and set up the tent just as the rain started. We ate dinner, and quickly climbed in to sleep. The forecast calls for rain all day tomorrow, so we are preparing for the worst, but hoping for a break.
Sunday, November 20, 2005:
We we knew if we kept glowing about how lucky we have been with the weather it was going to come up and bite us in the ass at some point. Unfortunately the forecast was dead on. It rained ALL DAY today. Not even a pause. We got absolutely soaked. Our worst day hiking probably ever (although as I sit here typing this now, it doesn't seem like it was all that bad). I guess we couldn't come away from NZ without one hike like this. Glad it wasn't on the Routeburn where the truly spectacular views are supposed to be. It rained all night on us, and I think the guy at customs who washed our tent, washed some of the waterproofing off because by morning rain was starting to drip through. We woke up early but stayed in bed waiting for "the rain to stop". Ha. We'd still be lying there waiting!
We finally bit the bullet, donned all the raingear we had (of which Keith has very little). I just bought some waterproof pants, and boy am I glad I did. We packed up quickly, stashed the tent and off we went. Given the pounding rain, gusty wind, and knowledge that we had to go up and cross over a saddle, I sort of wanted to go on the other track that follows another river (but would entail more mileage). However, since we forgot the maps (just what our parents want to hear - lacking in raingear, alpine crossings and no map) we didn't know if we'd make our bus on the other side, so we stuck with the original plan. We quickly learned the defnition of Great Walks (of which this isn't). Great Walk = great track, great track maintenance, great signage, and great huts. This trail sucked. Very narrow, steep, and completely root laden. Anyone who has hiked at all, knows how slippery a wet root can be. That is all we've been walking on is roots. We did OK the first hour dealing with it all. As we got closer to treeline, I started to break down (I think I was literally whimpering there for a second).
Then we broke treeline and yes, the wind was fierce and the rain harder and colder. But Keith assured me we wouldn't be up there long and the trail had miraculously become easy walking. So we booked it, finally being able to walk faster and our spirits a little lighter (this is 2.5 hours from the start). Then we started heading back down into the valley on the other side and lo-and-behold the trail begain to deteriorate again. They did have good markings on the trees so we were never in danger of losing the trail, it was just really hard walking. At this point Keith's jacket is starting to soak through and my waterproof shoes are no longer waterproof. At about 3 hours from start, and know Keith is having a little breakdown as he is pretty much soaked from head to foot. We are both tired and the rain shows no sign of letting up. I have got to hand it to the polypro/fleece/wool gear - you do stay warm, even when wet. Moving helps of course as well. I thought my hands would be goners buy I kept my saturated fleece gloves on and they (my hands) stayed warm the whole time.
Eventually, we both stopped complaining and buckled down and dealt with the misery of it and had as much fun with it as we could. With less trail maintenance comes river crossings with no bridges and that pretty much sealed the deal for wet feet. That and the fact that our trail was a river itself half the time. Keith only managed to fall once due to a faulty boardwalk, Em three times. We stopped once to use the loo, otherwise we motored on through to the hut arriving at about 2:30 (5 hours of walking in the rain). What a beautiful sight it was. There was one other guy there and he already had a fire going. Upon changing into dry clothes (the garbage bags worked like a charm) we both realized just how wet we were. We got things hung up to dry and are now settled in quite snugly to this humble hut (Upper Caples Hut). It is a smaller hut but has all the same amenitites except for gas cookers and a flush toilet. Anything with a roof and a fire is fine with me at this point.
Here's Keith monitoring the drying of the clothes in the Upper Caples Hut:
Monday, Nov 21, 2005:
The rain finally quit late in the evening last night and we got some nice views of the cliffs surrounding us. Keith managed to get a decent size coal fire stoked upa nd it seemed as if our stuff just might dry. Another gal joined us, arriving late, and just as wet. A very pleasant evening was spent in what was a much cozier hut than the big guns on the Great Walks. We slept well, woken only by the frequent and loud rain showers, but were pleased to wake to no rain. The skies weren't clear, but they were much less angry than yesterday giving us hope for a dry walk out. Regardless - we would have been more tolerant of rain as at the end of the day we have a room booked at what people have been calling the cozy and quaint, lovely Kinloch Lodge.
As it turned out, we barely got drizzled on and had a very nice, easy hike out. Teh walk was mostly out of the woods in a wide open very pretty valley following right along the Caples River. Even though the trail was quite easy walking, we were both quite tired - physically and emotionally wiped from teh day before is all we could figure. Lovely scenery the entire way (except for teh dead cow right on the trail!) and we were at the trailhead/carpark with a half hour to spare before our shuttle arrived. Teh shuttle turned out to be a boat ride that dropped us in Kinloch which amount to the lodge and two houses.
Kinloch lodge is a great place. They have a whole range of accomodations from deluxe, all inclusive to backpacker/hostel style. We stayed in our usual double room with shared facilities, butthe rooms are much nicer than any hostel we've stayed at yet. There is an onsite restaurant, all the usual facilities (TV room, kitchen, living space), but the best part (and most needed) was the hot tub! Ahhhhh!!!!
The wind was amazingly strong all night and quite cold which had me a bit worried about our high elevation hike. We'll see what tomorrow brings, in the meantime we're making the most of these facilities - which includes getting our stinky clothes freshened up again.
Tuesday, Nov 22, 2005:
We awoke thi smorning to clear, blue skies and calm air. Yay! We got all checked out an dafter splurging on a cup of coffee were off in another shuttle headed to the Routburn trailhead. We started our hike at about 10:15 and could already tell it was going to be a much more crowded trail than any other so far. But if the mountains we saw on our drive to the trailhead were any indication, we could also tell it was likely going to be even more scenic than any others as well.
The climb up here to Routeburn Falls Hut was relatively easy, taking only about 3 hours and was absolutely stunning (the clear day helped of course). Valleys and waterfalls, turquoise rivers, and snowcapped rugged mountains teh whole way. There are lots of guided walks on this trail, so we passed many large groups moving quite slowly. There is also an option to walk the entire track guided and stay in private huts along the way....for a measly $1200. Apparently you get fancy meals cooked for you and I'm assuming much warmer and more pleasant sleeping quarters than un independent walkers get.
This hut sits right on a fairly steep cliff just below Routeburn Falls and overlooking the valley from whence we came - in other words great views to read your book and sip your hot chocolate by. We got here so early that after claiming our bunks, we walked up the trail a bit further to catch some more views just in case teh weather turns on us tomorrow and blocks it all. Forecast for tomorrow is confusing, but calling for some not-so-nice stuff. We'll see.
Wed & Thurs, Nov 23 & 24, 2005:
I write this from the parking lot - the beginning and end of the Routeburn Track and our major tramping in NZ. We ended with a fabulous 2 days of hiking . Yesterday's forecast was quite glum - lots of nasty talk about southwesterlies blowing in and rain easing off to showers by the afternoon. The skies were clear when we woke up, so we headed off quickly wanting to get to the top of Conical Hill (a side trip that offers spectacular 360 views) before these southwesterlies moved in. We lucked out again. It was a cloudy day, but the clouds stayed high enough that we still got all those great views. Check out us on top of Conical Hill:
And the rain didn't come until we were well settled into our hut at McKenzie Lake. When the weather is fine and the hiking is superb, there isn't much to say. This truly was teh most stunning hike we did and a great one to end on. Yesterday's walk took us climbing out of the waterfall-laden basin where our first hut sat to the ridge that overlooked teh Hollyford Valley and lots of dramatic, steep snow capped mountains. The rest of the day followed along that ridge for about 8 km until dropping back down to McKenzie Lake and our hut. The walking has been relatively easy and we've been getting to the huts or carparks by about 2:00 with leisurely breakfasts and lunch stops. Pretty nice - almost need the hiking days to be a bit longer.
After a little rain last night, we woke to a very crisp morning, but with the bluest of skies and warm sun once we got out into it. The hike today had us climb back out of the valley briefly for a few last glimpses at the mountains, then spent the rest of the time gradually heading down through the trees to Howden Hut. From there (where Keith made the short jaunt back down the Caples track to get our tent). From there we took one more side trip up to another hill with more views, then back to the carpark. Here we are on that side track, called Key Summit contemplating the beauty of it all:
Just gorgeous. Now we wait for the bus and the four hour drive to Queenstown. (Carl and Tory....I highly recommend this hike as one for you to do if end up in NZ! I would do this one over the Kepler if you are limited on time. Much more dramatic scenery.)
Happy Thanksgiving! As I type this you all back home are enjoying cozy, turkey dinners with friends and family. I hope you are all enjoying!!
We're back from our 6 day adventure in the southland sounds and alpine areas. If you want to cruise on down to the last entry about the Kepler Track, I've put some photos up. We are in Queenstown right now - still on the southwest corner of the South Island. Queenstown is another tourist/adventure haven. We're just lying low and resting, bypassing the touristy stuff. We only have 6 days left and have decided to rent a car for those days so we can stop along the way without having to spend so much time figuring out bus schedules and how to get to the last few side trips we want to do. Being on the south part of the island is an advantage as well, because you can get nice deals on rental cars. The companies need their cars moved back up north because so many travelers travel from north to south, then fly out. Anyway, below is again my journaling of the hiking and kayaking we did. Again, it may be too boring for most. The Readers Digest version is that everything went well and was beautiful, except for one miserable day on the trail, where we got a taste of the unpredictable, at times unpleasant NZ weather that everyone keeps warning us about. So read on at your own leisure.....
Sat, November 19, 2005:
The dramatic beauty of the Milford Sound. We got to see it by kayaking rather than aboard one of the many cruise ships that make their way around the sound - or is it a fiord? The technical definition of a sound is a water filled valley that was carved out by a river. And a fiord is one that was carved out by a glacier. (Am I right dad?) The valleys of where we kayaked were carved by glaciers, so technically it should be called the Milford Fiord, right? Well, our guide today said they have compensated for this fact by naming the whole area Fiordlands National Park. Whatever the correct geological name, it was stunning. The Milford Sound is one of the only of the many sounds that line the West Coast of the southern half of the south island that is accessible to people by car. Doubtful Sound is the other one and requires a long drive, a boat ride, then another drive over a pass. The land is quite remote here. You can get to other parts of the park also by helicopter or plane, by walking some very difficult tracks, or by boat via the Tasman Sea.
Even getting to Milford is a bit of work (or time at least). From Te Anau (the last major town before the sound) it is about a 2 hour drive to Milford Sound via what is supposedly the famous Milford Road. A very long, winding and beautiful drive. We got picked up at the ungodly (for us vacationers anyway) hour of 6:30 AM by the kayak company to make the journey. The first part was nondescript, but once we started gaining elevation and after passing through Homer Tunnel, we started getting more dramatic views. Eventually we had our first view of the sound and it was a beaut. Essentially, it looks like mountains that have been submerged. Very steep, tree-covered cliffs that plunge right into the water and peaks towering high above.
The weather was marginal. Cloudy, and looking like it could rain at any time, but very calm water. We got geared up, safety talk done, then hit the water. Keith and I in a double and three other couples and our guide. We took our time circling the sound and enjoying the views. Of course Keith and I would have liked to have gone further out into the sound, but that is one of the problems with guided tours - you have to go where they tell you. On the other hand our guide was awesome and gave us lots of good information about the area. For wildlife we saw lots of penguins and one seal. We had a leisurely lunch stop, a peak at where the famous Milford Track ends, then were back to teh docks by 3:00. We never did get rained on - it got a tad bit windier, but no rain which was nice. The sandflies down here though....yikes are they bad! There's a Maori story saying that one of the gods created them to keep people away from the beauty of the area so as not to destroy it.
Here's us in the kayak:
And a view of Mitre Peak - one of the most photographed parts of the sound:
After kayaking we had a quick tour of Milford, which consists of a pub, a lodge, and a cruise boat terminal where 6,000(!) people a day take motor boat cruises around the sound. The van stopped to take in some views on the way back, and some hot drinks and biscuits (cookies), then we got dropped off at the Divide (where the mountain ranges split the east and west sides of the island). From here we started our 5 day hike.
The original plan was to just do the Routeburn Track - another Great Walk. But it is not a loop track and the logistics of getting back to where you started to pick up the rest of your stuff is a nightmare and a ton of driving. So we created our own loop track by combining the Caples Track with the Routeburn, which only involved one shuttle (and a stay in a lodge!) to get from the end of the Caples to the beginning of the Routeburn. So to start we headed up the Routeburn from the Divide for about an hour after which we turned off onto the Greenstone/Caples track. This portion was not a Great Walk so camping is free and the huts are much cheaper at only $10 per person. 20 minutes into this trail, we arrived at our campsite for the fist night. We brought our tent and sleeping pads in this far, close to where the trail divides, with the plan to stash them, stay in huts the rest of the time and pick them up on our way out.
There is one thing I think I forgot to mention about the Kepler Track and great walks in general. While you do have to pay a premium, what you get for it is almost worth it. The huts are very well set up with sleeping bunks (with nice pads), cooking facilities, drinkable water, flush toilets. What this means is you save a LOT of weight by staying in them, and packs become considerably lighter. We became quite spoiled in this way on the Kepler, so we opted for the huts the rest of the way on this walk for the weight factor as well as the unpredictable weather factor. Tents can only stay dry for so long.
So there you are, rambling as usual. We got to camp by 6:00 PM and set up the tent just as the rain started. We ate dinner, and quickly climbed in to sleep. The forecast calls for rain all day tomorrow, so we are preparing for the worst, but hoping for a break.
Sunday, November 20, 2005:
We we knew if we kept glowing about how lucky we have been with the weather it was going to come up and bite us in the ass at some point. Unfortunately the forecast was dead on. It rained ALL DAY today. Not even a pause. We got absolutely soaked. Our worst day hiking probably ever (although as I sit here typing this now, it doesn't seem like it was all that bad). I guess we couldn't come away from NZ without one hike like this. Glad it wasn't on the Routeburn where the truly spectacular views are supposed to be. It rained all night on us, and I think the guy at customs who washed our tent, washed some of the waterproofing off because by morning rain was starting to drip through. We woke up early but stayed in bed waiting for "the rain to stop". Ha. We'd still be lying there waiting!
We finally bit the bullet, donned all the raingear we had (of which Keith has very little). I just bought some waterproof pants, and boy am I glad I did. We packed up quickly, stashed the tent and off we went. Given the pounding rain, gusty wind, and knowledge that we had to go up and cross over a saddle, I sort of wanted to go on the other track that follows another river (but would entail more mileage). However, since we forgot the maps (just what our parents want to hear - lacking in raingear, alpine crossings and no map) we didn't know if we'd make our bus on the other side, so we stuck with the original plan. We quickly learned the defnition of Great Walks (of which this isn't). Great Walk = great track, great track maintenance, great signage, and great huts. This trail sucked. Very narrow, steep, and completely root laden. Anyone who has hiked at all, knows how slippery a wet root can be. That is all we've been walking on is roots. We did OK the first hour dealing with it all. As we got closer to treeline, I started to break down (I think I was literally whimpering there for a second).
Then we broke treeline and yes, the wind was fierce and the rain harder and colder. But Keith assured me we wouldn't be up there long and the trail had miraculously become easy walking. So we booked it, finally being able to walk faster and our spirits a little lighter (this is 2.5 hours from the start). Then we started heading back down into the valley on the other side and lo-and-behold the trail begain to deteriorate again. They did have good markings on the trees so we were never in danger of losing the trail, it was just really hard walking. At this point Keith's jacket is starting to soak through and my waterproof shoes are no longer waterproof. At about 3 hours from start, and know Keith is having a little breakdown as he is pretty much soaked from head to foot. We are both tired and the rain shows no sign of letting up. I have got to hand it to the polypro/fleece/wool gear - you do stay warm, even when wet. Moving helps of course as well. I thought my hands would be goners buy I kept my saturated fleece gloves on and they (my hands) stayed warm the whole time.
Eventually, we both stopped complaining and buckled down and dealt with the misery of it and had as much fun with it as we could. With less trail maintenance comes river crossings with no bridges and that pretty much sealed the deal for wet feet. That and the fact that our trail was a river itself half the time. Keith only managed to fall once due to a faulty boardwalk, Em three times. We stopped once to use the loo, otherwise we motored on through to the hut arriving at about 2:30 (5 hours of walking in the rain). What a beautiful sight it was. There was one other guy there and he already had a fire going. Upon changing into dry clothes (the garbage bags worked like a charm) we both realized just how wet we were. We got things hung up to dry and are now settled in quite snugly to this humble hut (Upper Caples Hut). It is a smaller hut but has all the same amenitites except for gas cookers and a flush toilet. Anything with a roof and a fire is fine with me at this point.
Here's Keith monitoring the drying of the clothes in the Upper Caples Hut:
Monday, Nov 21, 2005:
The rain finally quit late in the evening last night and we got some nice views of the cliffs surrounding us. Keith managed to get a decent size coal fire stoked upa nd it seemed as if our stuff just might dry. Another gal joined us, arriving late, and just as wet. A very pleasant evening was spent in what was a much cozier hut than the big guns on the Great Walks. We slept well, woken only by the frequent and loud rain showers, but were pleased to wake to no rain. The skies weren't clear, but they were much less angry than yesterday giving us hope for a dry walk out. Regardless - we would have been more tolerant of rain as at the end of the day we have a room booked at what people have been calling the cozy and quaint, lovely Kinloch Lodge.
As it turned out, we barely got drizzled on and had a very nice, easy hike out. Teh walk was mostly out of the woods in a wide open very pretty valley following right along the Caples River. Even though the trail was quite easy walking, we were both quite tired - physically and emotionally wiped from teh day before is all we could figure. Lovely scenery the entire way (except for teh dead cow right on the trail!) and we were at the trailhead/carpark with a half hour to spare before our shuttle arrived. Teh shuttle turned out to be a boat ride that dropped us in Kinloch which amount to the lodge and two houses.
Kinloch lodge is a great place. They have a whole range of accomodations from deluxe, all inclusive to backpacker/hostel style. We stayed in our usual double room with shared facilities, butthe rooms are much nicer than any hostel we've stayed at yet. There is an onsite restaurant, all the usual facilities (TV room, kitchen, living space), but the best part (and most needed) was the hot tub! Ahhhhh!!!!
The wind was amazingly strong all night and quite cold which had me a bit worried about our high elevation hike. We'll see what tomorrow brings, in the meantime we're making the most of these facilities - which includes getting our stinky clothes freshened up again.
Tuesday, Nov 22, 2005:
We awoke thi smorning to clear, blue skies and calm air. Yay! We got all checked out an dafter splurging on a cup of coffee were off in another shuttle headed to the Routburn trailhead. We started our hike at about 10:15 and could already tell it was going to be a much more crowded trail than any other so far. But if the mountains we saw on our drive to the trailhead were any indication, we could also tell it was likely going to be even more scenic than any others as well.
The climb up here to Routeburn Falls Hut was relatively easy, taking only about 3 hours and was absolutely stunning (the clear day helped of course). Valleys and waterfalls, turquoise rivers, and snowcapped rugged mountains teh whole way. There are lots of guided walks on this trail, so we passed many large groups moving quite slowly. There is also an option to walk the entire track guided and stay in private huts along the way....for a measly $1200. Apparently you get fancy meals cooked for you and I'm assuming much warmer and more pleasant sleeping quarters than un independent walkers get.
This hut sits right on a fairly steep cliff just below Routeburn Falls and overlooking the valley from whence we came - in other words great views to read your book and sip your hot chocolate by. We got here so early that after claiming our bunks, we walked up the trail a bit further to catch some more views just in case teh weather turns on us tomorrow and blocks it all. Forecast for tomorrow is confusing, but calling for some not-so-nice stuff. We'll see.
Wed & Thurs, Nov 23 & 24, 2005:
I write this from the parking lot - the beginning and end of the Routeburn Track and our major tramping in NZ. We ended with a fabulous 2 days of hiking . Yesterday's forecast was quite glum - lots of nasty talk about southwesterlies blowing in and rain easing off to showers by the afternoon. The skies were clear when we woke up, so we headed off quickly wanting to get to the top of Conical Hill (a side trip that offers spectacular 360 views) before these southwesterlies moved in. We lucked out again. It was a cloudy day, but the clouds stayed high enough that we still got all those great views. Check out us on top of Conical Hill:
And the rain didn't come until we were well settled into our hut at McKenzie Lake. When the weather is fine and the hiking is superb, there isn't much to say. This truly was teh most stunning hike we did and a great one to end on. Yesterday's walk took us climbing out of the waterfall-laden basin where our first hut sat to the ridge that overlooked teh Hollyford Valley and lots of dramatic, steep snow capped mountains. The rest of the day followed along that ridge for about 8 km until dropping back down to McKenzie Lake and our hut. The walking has been relatively easy and we've been getting to the huts or carparks by about 2:00 with leisurely breakfasts and lunch stops. Pretty nice - almost need the hiking days to be a bit longer.
After a little rain last night, we woke to a very crisp morning, but with the bluest of skies and warm sun once we got out into it. The hike today had us climb back out of the valley briefly for a few last glimpses at the mountains, then spent the rest of the time gradually heading down through the trees to Howden Hut. From there (where Keith made the short jaunt back down the Caples track to get our tent). From there we took one more side trip up to another hill with more views, then back to the carpark. Here we are on that side track, called Key Summit contemplating the beauty of it all:
Just gorgeous. Now we wait for the bus and the four hour drive to Queenstown. (Carl and Tory....I highly recommend this hike as one for you to do if end up in NZ! I would do this one over the Kepler if you are limited on time. Much more dramatic scenery.)
Thursday, November 17, 2005
The Kepler Track....in excruciating detail
Still in Te Anau. We've taken the last two days "off", and gearing up for a 5 day extravaganza of kayaking and hiking. So you won't hear from us for about a week after we get to our next major city which will be Queenstown....the bungy capital of the world apparently.
OK, here is the journalling I did while we hiked on the Kepler Track. Feel free to not read this, as it won't be too exciting - nothing life shattering or out of the ordinary happened to us, but it might give you a feel of a typical Great Walk experience in NZ if you are curious. And, no I won't be able to get any pictures up until our next major city. No USB ports available for use here. Sorry...
Sunday, 13-Nov-05
We left our hostel at about 9:00 to start the 60km Kepler Track. This is a loop track and you can access it directly from town - which means no expensive shuttle! Yay! We of course had to stop for coffee, so official start time on the trail was 9:30. Te Anau sits right on Lake Te Anau (thus the name) and to get to the formal trail head you have to walk quite a ways around the lake. This took about an hour and was easy and scenic. A sculler rowed by on the calm water with snow capped peaks in the background. Very nice. Once we hit the formal trailhead we continued to follow the lake, but now through beech forest. After about an hour, we branched off and headed up. This is where we also encountered our first fellow trampers. What we quickly realized is this would be the same group of people we would be seeing a lot of as there is only one option of where to sleep each night (unless you want to walk an absurd amount of miles). This track has three huts all spaced about 6 hours apart from each other, and they don't allow camping at any of them, so we were forced to pay the big bucks of $40 per person per night. As it turns out this was a blessing in disguise. Being one of the ten Great Walks of New Zealand, the huts are quite well equipped, and the tracks very well maintained, thus the bigger expense - and we were glad for this as the first night was a cold one.
So up the hill we headed, making quite nice time and staying ahead of the pack of people behind us. The weather was nice for the first half of the day - partly cloudy and a comfortable temperature. Just before breaking treeline, however, it started to rain. And a cold hard rain at that. Luckily we had only about a half hour to go to get to the hut (this is where I was saying, thank goodness we had to stay in a hut!). All of our gear was good in teh rain except our pants, where soaked through immediately. Which will be OK in the tropics but not up in high alpine areas. At any rate, we got to the hut, Luxmore Hut, which had great views of Lake Te Anau and the mountains when the clouds moved out of the way. The hut was big - sleeping 55 people, and with a large kitchen area and gas cookers and water provided as well as a wood stove. The bunk rooms themselves are not warm at all, and so everyone spent the majority of the evening huddled in the big living area reading books, playing cards and visiting. There was about 20 of us in total.
Here's a look at the first hut we stayed at on that rainy evening:
After warming up with some hot chocolate, we went out again to explore a nearby cave. Nothing spectacular about the cave, just that it was a bit of an adventure to walk through. It had a sizable stream running through it and some tight squeezes to get through, but no dramatic stalactites or mites. We only went in about 1/4 of a mile because we didn't want to get totally wet and dirty from climbing around on the ground through the tighter spots. Went back to the hut then, and made dinner, played cards with some fellow hikers, and turned in for what was a restless nights sleep. We both ended up sleeping in every article of clothing we brought and never quite got warm.
OK, here is the journalling I did while we hiked on the Kepler Track. Feel free to not read this, as it won't be too exciting - nothing life shattering or out of the ordinary happened to us, but it might give you a feel of a typical Great Walk experience in NZ if you are curious. And, no I won't be able to get any pictures up until our next major city. No USB ports available for use here. Sorry...
Sunday, 13-Nov-05
We left our hostel at about 9:00 to start the 60km Kepler Track. This is a loop track and you can access it directly from town - which means no expensive shuttle! Yay! We of course had to stop for coffee, so official start time on the trail was 9:30. Te Anau sits right on Lake Te Anau (thus the name) and to get to the formal trail head you have to walk quite a ways around the lake. This took about an hour and was easy and scenic. A sculler rowed by on the calm water with snow capped peaks in the background. Very nice. Once we hit the formal trailhead we continued to follow the lake, but now through beech forest. After about an hour, we branched off and headed up. This is where we also encountered our first fellow trampers. What we quickly realized is this would be the same group of people we would be seeing a lot of as there is only one option of where to sleep each night (unless you want to walk an absurd amount of miles). This track has three huts all spaced about 6 hours apart from each other, and they don't allow camping at any of them, so we were forced to pay the big bucks of $40 per person per night. As it turns out this was a blessing in disguise. Being one of the ten Great Walks of New Zealand, the huts are quite well equipped, and the tracks very well maintained, thus the bigger expense - and we were glad for this as the first night was a cold one.
So up the hill we headed, making quite nice time and staying ahead of the pack of people behind us. The weather was nice for the first half of the day - partly cloudy and a comfortable temperature. Just before breaking treeline, however, it started to rain. And a cold hard rain at that. Luckily we had only about a half hour to go to get to the hut (this is where I was saying, thank goodness we had to stay in a hut!). All of our gear was good in teh rain except our pants, where soaked through immediately. Which will be OK in the tropics but not up in high alpine areas. At any rate, we got to the hut, Luxmore Hut, which had great views of Lake Te Anau and the mountains when the clouds moved out of the way. The hut was big - sleeping 55 people, and with a large kitchen area and gas cookers and water provided as well as a wood stove. The bunk rooms themselves are not warm at all, and so everyone spent the majority of the evening huddled in the big living area reading books, playing cards and visiting. There was about 20 of us in total.
Here's a look at the first hut we stayed at on that rainy evening:
After warming up with some hot chocolate, we went out again to explore a nearby cave. Nothing spectacular about the cave, just that it was a bit of an adventure to walk through. It had a sizable stream running through it and some tight squeezes to get through, but no dramatic stalactites or mites. We only went in about 1/4 of a mile because we didn't want to get totally wet and dirty from climbing around on the ground through the tighter spots. Went back to the hut then, and made dinner, played cards with some fellow hikers, and turned in for what was a restless nights sleep. We both ended up sleeping in every article of clothing we brought and never quite got warm.
Monday, Nov-14-05
We were in no hurry to get up this morning. It was much warmer this morning downstairs in the living area as the sun was streaming in. Yay! Sun! After listening to and watching the rain last night it was great to see the sun and partially clear skies this morning, as this was to be the most scenic day of the hike. The forecast looked good (there is a ranger stationed at each hut and they provide the day's weather forecast each morning at 8:30). Although the entire forecast things is funny here. NZ has proved to be more unpredictable in terms of weather than the Pacific NW. Regardless, everyone in the hut, huddles around the board and reads it like it were the Gospel - I guess any sense of hope of a nice day helps the morale. It is just so rarely correct, and changes so drastically each day, it is almost a wonder we bother to look at all.
After all that, the forecast was right on for the day. We had lovely weather (which really just means no rain). It was cloudy most of the day, but not enough to block our views. The whole walk today was up in the alpine region and followed several ridges providing breathtaking view after breathtaking view of the fiords of Lake Te Anau and all the surrounding mountains. We took our time knowing the weather was good, and that we had plenty of time (the 6 hours between huts is very conservative hiking time). So we went up every side track, took lots of long breaks and still made it down to the next hut (Iris Burn Hut) by 4:00.
Here are two shots of the ridge lines we walked on and views from the ridgeline:
This hut sits closer to the valley floor, at a much lower elevation than the previous night, so it was much warmer. Although with the lower elevation, comes the infamous NZ biting sandflies (of which we were unprepared to deal with on the Abel Tasman hike). Plenty of DEET this time, and we had the hut to escape from them in. Another relaxing evening of book reading and eating. Although we realized we were too scimpy on our food this hike, and had to eat very slowly and relish every bite. We might actually shed a few pounds on this one....shocking.
Tuesday, 15-Nov-05
Very easy walk today. The forecast called for afternoon showers, so we got up early and walked relatively fast to avoid them. Of course they never showed up. The walk was just down the river valley, so it was quite flat and pleasant. We came up to Lake Manapouri, then headed back north towards Te Anau to complete the loop. We arrived at the hut early (at 2:00), and really got lots of relaxing in. Keith even took a nap. Can't believe how much we have been sleeping lately! This hut sits right on Lake Manapouri and has absolutely gorgeous views.
Wednesday, 16-Nov-05
Hiking out today. Another very flat and easy walk.
Here's a look at the beech forest that we spent many an hour walking through on our way out:
You have the option of stopping early and catching a shuttle back to town, but we walked the whole thing following another river, and made it back to town by 1:30, ready for a hot shower and a big meal. Great hike.
Tuesday, November 15, 2005
The Kepler Track
Hey all. This will be a short post. Just wanted to provide a quick update. We are currently in Te Anau, NZ, which is on the west coast, southern part. Very near the famous Milford Sound. We just got back from a four day tramp on the Kepler Track. Very pretty. Lots of alpine views, views of the fiords, pretty forest walking and our first stays in the Great Walks' huts. We didn't have the option to camp this time and were forced to shell out the $40 per person per night at each hut. A blessing in disguise though, as the first hut was quite high up and quite cold and rainy that first night. I would have been quite grumpy in the tent. After that we really lucked out on the weather and had a clear day for the most important day which was over the pass with all the views. We're taking the day off tomorrow, so maybe I'll copy the journalling I did onto the website if anyone is interested in the minutae of the hike. I'd like to get pictures up of it, but the internet in this town is fairly restrictive and expensive, so we'll see. It might have to wait until we get to Queenstown. For now our plans are to kayak the Milford Sound and do one more big hike. Only two weeks left in NZ. Amazing!
Hope all is well back home!
Hope all is well back home!
Thursday, November 10, 2005
Biking in Dunedin
10-Nov-05
We arrived to our Dunedin hostel late, and were treated with a free upgrade as the place was somewhat empty, and the owner "hated to see it go empty". It is just a bigger room with a skylight and a TV, for the price of the standard double, but, hey we'll take it! Nicely equipped hostel by the way. Quite an old building, but nice amenities like this computer I am typing on now. Not hooked up to the internet, but free to use to look at photos and type blog entries that can be saved to memory stick and cut and pasted to blog later! (Nice!) We slept well, and headed out this morning to the information center to see what to do with ourselves in this town. Driving into the town yesterday, I was quite impressed with what I saw. Very nice first impressions of the city. Lots of very old, Victorian style buildings, a bustling, yet not overly crowded downtown, and quite hilly with views of the bay. And the service so far has been very nice - free upgrade at the hostel, bus drop off service at the doorstep, and free coffee at the bike shop!
So yeah, we ended up at a bike shop, rented ourselves some mountain bikes (after indulging in a free 'flat white' cooked up on the bike shop's very professional espresso machine), and headed out on what turned out to be an epic, tortuous, rewarding, and fun(?) bike ride. The Otaga Peninsula stretches out East of Dunedin and houses one of only two nesting grounds for the great and endangered Northern Royal Albatross. For those who don't really know what an Albatross is (it's OK, I was having memory blocks as well), it is a very large bird. Huge bird. And quite interesting. They mate every other year, and spend most of their lives literally flying around the world, only resting every other year, in the same place. The colony on the end of this penninsula is one of only two in the world for this particular type. They can fly for up to 1000 km a day, and at speeds of up to 100 km/h. They are very large and heavy birds so they maximize the use of the wind currents to minimize the amount of energy the expend.
Anyway, we thought a fun way to get out there would be to ride bikes, since all we've been doing is walking everywhere, we thought it would be a welcome change. And it was, but as usual, we overextended ourselves, and are quite beat up and exhausted this evening. Keith figures we probably ended up riding about 60 miles today. Yikes! We made it out to the end (28km) with no problem and although the viewing area to the Albatross was closed due to hanky panky of the birds, we were fortunate enough to spot one flying in the air over our heads. Before knowing much about the birds, we weren't sure we'd recognize one when we saw it as there are so many other birds flying around (mostly seagulls), but when we saw it, there was no question because it was enormous and dwarfed all the other birds around it. Very cool. No picture, sorry, I was too busy watching it.
Then we got ambitious on our bikes. On the ride out we followed the coastal rode, which was pretty much flat the whole way. For the ride back, we thought we'd first detour and see another beach on the other side that might have some yellow-eyed penguins, then take the high road back. Fine idea, but it added a lot of distance and a whole lot of uphill to the ride. I suppose we were rewarded by all the climbing with a nice long continuous downhill ride, but by that time it was hard to enjoy it as sitting on the bike was quite painful at that point. Long story short, we did it all, (and enjoyed most of it) but by the end we were sore all over (back, knees, butt, neck, hands) and just happy to be back. Needless to say, tomorrow is a take it easy, wander around town kind of day.
Hope all is well back home!
Lots of love,
Em and Keith
We arrived to our Dunedin hostel late, and were treated with a free upgrade as the place was somewhat empty, and the owner "hated to see it go empty". It is just a bigger room with a skylight and a TV, for the price of the standard double, but, hey we'll take it! Nicely equipped hostel by the way. Quite an old building, but nice amenities like this computer I am typing on now. Not hooked up to the internet, but free to use to look at photos and type blog entries that can be saved to memory stick and cut and pasted to blog later! (Nice!) We slept well, and headed out this morning to the information center to see what to do with ourselves in this town. Driving into the town yesterday, I was quite impressed with what I saw. Very nice first impressions of the city. Lots of very old, Victorian style buildings, a bustling, yet not overly crowded downtown, and quite hilly with views of the bay. And the service so far has been very nice - free upgrade at the hostel, bus drop off service at the doorstep, and free coffee at the bike shop!
So yeah, we ended up at a bike shop, rented ourselves some mountain bikes (after indulging in a free 'flat white' cooked up on the bike shop's very professional espresso machine), and headed out on what turned out to be an epic, tortuous, rewarding, and fun(?) bike ride. The Otaga Peninsula stretches out East of Dunedin and houses one of only two nesting grounds for the great and endangered Northern Royal Albatross. For those who don't really know what an Albatross is (it's OK, I was having memory blocks as well), it is a very large bird. Huge bird. And quite interesting. They mate every other year, and spend most of their lives literally flying around the world, only resting every other year, in the same place. The colony on the end of this penninsula is one of only two in the world for this particular type. They can fly for up to 1000 km a day, and at speeds of up to 100 km/h. They are very large and heavy birds so they maximize the use of the wind currents to minimize the amount of energy the expend.
Anyway, we thought a fun way to get out there would be to ride bikes, since all we've been doing is walking everywhere, we thought it would be a welcome change. And it was, but as usual, we overextended ourselves, and are quite beat up and exhausted this evening. Keith figures we probably ended up riding about 60 miles today. Yikes! We made it out to the end (28km) with no problem and although the viewing area to the Albatross was closed due to hanky panky of the birds, we were fortunate enough to spot one flying in the air over our heads. Before knowing much about the birds, we weren't sure we'd recognize one when we saw it as there are so many other birds flying around (mostly seagulls), but when we saw it, there was no question because it was enormous and dwarfed all the other birds around it. Very cool. No picture, sorry, I was too busy watching it.
Then we got ambitious on our bikes. On the ride out we followed the coastal rode, which was pretty much flat the whole way. For the ride back, we thought we'd first detour and see another beach on the other side that might have some yellow-eyed penguins, then take the high road back. Fine idea, but it added a lot of distance and a whole lot of uphill to the ride. I suppose we were rewarded by all the climbing with a nice long continuous downhill ride, but by that time it was hard to enjoy it as sitting on the bike was quite painful at that point. Long story short, we did it all, (and enjoyed most of it) but by the end we were sore all over (back, knees, butt, neck, hands) and just happy to be back. Needless to say, tomorrow is a take it easy, wander around town kind of day.
Here is me at what I am hoping is the top of the hill (trust me the smile is forced at this point). See the water way down there? That shows you how high and relentless the climb was.
And some random photos. Remember I said how NZ public places are generally not dog friendly? What do you think gave me that idea? First time I saw one of these signs, I couldn't figure it out. But after seeing my umpteenth sheep field, I figured out that dogs are probably shot in interest of preserving the sheep....
And the railway station in Dunedin. One of the many ornate and interesting buildings here.
Hope all is well back home!
Lots of love,
Em and Keith
Finishing up in Christchurch (for now)
8-Nov-05
While Jenn and I were fooling around in the internet cafe and writing our lengthy catch up travel updates, the boys spent the rest of the day at the racetracks. This particular day was a big one for Christchurch, Cup Day. A big horse racing day. So they wanted to go catch part of it after our exploration at Akaroa. It was horse racing, but the harness kind, where the horse is rigged up to harness and the jockey rides a cart (for lack of better word, not knowing the correct term) which the horse pulls. Keith will have to fill in with more details, but they had a good time and Keith got lucky on the last race and broke even for the day.
While that was going on, Jenn and I walked around Christchurch a bit more and explored the botanical gardens. They have a huge garden there, and we only touched the surface of it. Then we ventured onto the city bus system to catch a ride back to Sumner (the beach house), and I personally was quite impressed with the bus system. The main terminal is run a lot like a subway system, and they make it very hard to miss your bus if you pay attention. So home without any difficulty, but a bit later than planned only to be surprised with dinner on the way from the men and a surprise dessert of NZ pavlova for an early birthday celebration for Jenn.
9-Nov-05
Our last day in Christchurch (for now), and the day we have to say goodbye to our good friends for a long while. Jenn and John have one more night and a late flight on the 10th to go back home and we decided to head on out to Dunedin (about 4 hours south from Christchurch, still on the east coast). So we spent the morning packing, me taking some of Jenn's travel goodies, Jenn loading us up with leftover food, and a leisurely walk on the beaches of Sumner. Then it was off to the city centre where we watched the infamous Wizard do part of his daily lecture (a colorful character who has been coming to the city square for years and delivering random speeches every day at 1:00). He was talking something about the right way to keep a woman, and Jenn and I quickly got bored and roamed the craft fair going on, and got me some more fashionable (albeit, cheap) sunglasses. Then it was goodbye and off to the bus.
Here is a shot of the four of us in cathedral square in Christchurch. Basically the center of town:
While Jenn and I were fooling around in the internet cafe and writing our lengthy catch up travel updates, the boys spent the rest of the day at the racetracks. This particular day was a big one for Christchurch, Cup Day. A big horse racing day. So they wanted to go catch part of it after our exploration at Akaroa. It was horse racing, but the harness kind, where the horse is rigged up to harness and the jockey rides a cart (for lack of better word, not knowing the correct term) which the horse pulls. Keith will have to fill in with more details, but they had a good time and Keith got lucky on the last race and broke even for the day.
While that was going on, Jenn and I walked around Christchurch a bit more and explored the botanical gardens. They have a huge garden there, and we only touched the surface of it. Then we ventured onto the city bus system to catch a ride back to Sumner (the beach house), and I personally was quite impressed with the bus system. The main terminal is run a lot like a subway system, and they make it very hard to miss your bus if you pay attention. So home without any difficulty, but a bit later than planned only to be surprised with dinner on the way from the men and a surprise dessert of NZ pavlova for an early birthday celebration for Jenn.
9-Nov-05
Our last day in Christchurch (for now), and the day we have to say goodbye to our good friends for a long while. Jenn and John have one more night and a late flight on the 10th to go back home and we decided to head on out to Dunedin (about 4 hours south from Christchurch, still on the east coast). So we spent the morning packing, me taking some of Jenn's travel goodies, Jenn loading us up with leftover food, and a leisurely walk on the beaches of Sumner. Then it was off to the city centre where we watched the infamous Wizard do part of his daily lecture (a colorful character who has been coming to the city square for years and delivering random speeches every day at 1:00). He was talking something about the right way to keep a woman, and Jenn and I quickly got bored and roamed the craft fair going on, and got me some more fashionable (albeit, cheap) sunglasses. Then it was goodbye and off to the bus.
Here is a shot of the four of us in cathedral square in Christchurch. Basically the center of town:
We had a wonderful time hanging out with you guys, John and Jenn! It was so fun getting to know you better and spend some nice, relaxing time exploring part of NZ together. We look forward to more adventures together!
Monday, November 07, 2005
Last Day in Christchurch
November 8, 2005
I have to speed things up here, because Jenn is getting tired of waiting for me.
Today we drove down to the end of Banks Peninsula to see the charming French town of Akaroa. We actually didn't make it all the way into town, but saw nice views of it from ahigh (?). We took a nice walk through the trees and up on to the rolling hills overlooking the harbor and the town.
A foggy, cooler day today, which was a relief as our hike was a bit of a steep hill.
Not wanting to go back the way we came, we made a loop of our hike, crossing through some pastures, scaling barb-wired fences, scaring sheep, and playing with cows. It all went off without a hitch until we had to go down the steep embankment to the road, where Jenn ran into a bit of difficulty on the slippery grass:
We will part with our dear friends tomorrow as we continue south to Dunedin tomorrow.
Hope all is well with everyone at home! Our thoughts are with you all!!
I have to speed things up here, because Jenn is getting tired of waiting for me.
Today we drove down to the end of Banks Peninsula to see the charming French town of Akaroa. We actually didn't make it all the way into town, but saw nice views of it from ahigh (?). We took a nice walk through the trees and up on to the rolling hills overlooking the harbor and the town.
A foggy, cooler day today, which was a relief as our hike was a bit of a steep hill.
Not wanting to go back the way we came, we made a loop of our hike, crossing through some pastures, scaling barb-wired fences, scaring sheep, and playing with cows. It all went off without a hitch until we had to go down the steep embankment to the road, where Jenn ran into a bit of difficulty on the slippery grass:
We will part with our dear friends tomorrow as we continue south to Dunedin tomorrow.
Hope all is well with everyone at home! Our thoughts are with you all!!
Pretty Boy?
For those faithful readers of this website, you may remember a post about shaving Gracie in the summer time, with a nice before and after shot. Well now I get to do the same for my husband.
Here is Keith yesterday at about 4:00 PM:
(I see now this is a bad picture because you can't see the extent of the poofiness of his hair)
Five dollars and five minutes later, here he is:
Here is Keith yesterday at about 4:00 PM:
(I see now this is a bad picture because you can't see the extent of the poofiness of his hair)
Five dollars and five minutes later, here he is:
On to Christchurch....with Friends!!
Happy with a successful first hike, we recovered with a night in Picton, and met John and Jenn the next morning (November 4th) and headed south down the East coast towards Christchurch - the largest city on the South Island, and freqently a gateway to Antarctica. John and Jenn are good friends of ours from Eugene who recently got married (in Kauai!) and are in NZ for the final stage of their 8-week, round the world, extravaganza honeymoon. We were so excited to hear they would be here the same time as us, so we made sure to spend some time together. With no specific plans in mind we had a nice leisurely drive south through Kaikora, which is described as where the city meets the sea. And this is the truth. We got our first glimpse of what looks like a snow capped mountain spilling into the ocean. Driving down Hwy 1, you look right and see mountains, and look left and see the sea. Pretty cool.
Arriving in Christchurch, we went to check into our vacation rental that John and Jenn so graciously booked and set up for us. A welcome break from the hostel. Not that the hostels are bad, it has just been a nice change. That night after settling into the house, Jenn and I went grocery shopping while John and Keith went to investigate the local pub. The house is located in a suburb of Christchurch called Sumner, so we were really about 30 minutes from downtown. We cooked up a fine dinner, and spent the evening relaxing and visiting.
The next day we were after a hike, and had gotten some recommendations about some hikes close by. So off we went. And the weather was fabulous. Hot and bright blue skies. So off we went. Sumner sits on the beginning of the Banks Peninsula, and the hike we did wrapped around some of the coves making up that peninsula. Beautiful scenery as usual (I need to come up with some more adjectives...), but the heat caught up with us after four hours, and we returned a bit dusty and beat.
Here's a shot of us at the very beginning with John pointing the way:
After cleaning up we treated ourselves to a beer at "Keith and John's Pub". We're sitting there, enjoying a refreshing local brew, and it walks this perky, happy, bubbly, cute, curly haired gal, who locks eyes with John and Keith and says, "Hey guys!", like they were the best of friends, after which both promptly turned beet red. Remember....Keith and John went to this pub while Jenn and I were shopping and cooking for them!! So you can only imagine the amount of ribbing and teasing that took place after that (and continues every once in a while to this day).
After that, Jenn and John introduced us to our first taste of Indian food (delicious)! And then early to bed as we were all beat.
Brings us to Sunday, November 6. John was also meeting up with a good friend of his, Emily, who has relocated to NZ and is a bad ass adventure racer, and entrepreneur now here in NZ. She has started her own company and makes nutritional "cookies". You can check her out at www.powercookies.com
So we headed inland to spend time with her and her family at the small mountain town of Hanmer Springs, where there is lots of hot springs. A pleasant time had by all soaking, visiting and eating, then back to Christchurch on Monday. Through all of the contacts I have made orginating with our neighbors in Lebanon, I stumbled into a meeting with a nurse recruiter who also specializes in immigration stuff. So Jenn and I went on Monday to talk with her for a while and got lots of valuable information about what it takes to work as a nurse here, short term or long. Something we are both interested in and something we will both chew on for the next year or so.
We ended the day with a bottle of wine and more food - we have become quite good at keeping ourselves well hydrated and fed!
Cheers!
Arriving in Christchurch, we went to check into our vacation rental that John and Jenn so graciously booked and set up for us. A welcome break from the hostel. Not that the hostels are bad, it has just been a nice change. That night after settling into the house, Jenn and I went grocery shopping while John and Keith went to investigate the local pub. The house is located in a suburb of Christchurch called Sumner, so we were really about 30 minutes from downtown. We cooked up a fine dinner, and spent the evening relaxing and visiting.
The next day we were after a hike, and had gotten some recommendations about some hikes close by. So off we went. And the weather was fabulous. Hot and bright blue skies. So off we went. Sumner sits on the beginning of the Banks Peninsula, and the hike we did wrapped around some of the coves making up that peninsula. Beautiful scenery as usual (I need to come up with some more adjectives...), but the heat caught up with us after four hours, and we returned a bit dusty and beat.
Here's a shot of us at the very beginning with John pointing the way:
After cleaning up we treated ourselves to a beer at "Keith and John's Pub". We're sitting there, enjoying a refreshing local brew, and it walks this perky, happy, bubbly, cute, curly haired gal, who locks eyes with John and Keith and says, "Hey guys!", like they were the best of friends, after which both promptly turned beet red. Remember....Keith and John went to this pub while Jenn and I were shopping and cooking for them!! So you can only imagine the amount of ribbing and teasing that took place after that (and continues every once in a while to this day).
After that, Jenn and John introduced us to our first taste of Indian food (delicious)! And then early to bed as we were all beat.
Brings us to Sunday, November 6. John was also meeting up with a good friend of his, Emily, who has relocated to NZ and is a bad ass adventure racer, and entrepreneur now here in NZ. She has started her own company and makes nutritional "cookies". You can check her out at www.powercookies.com
So we headed inland to spend time with her and her family at the small mountain town of Hanmer Springs, where there is lots of hot springs. A pleasant time had by all soaking, visiting and eating, then back to Christchurch on Monday. Through all of the contacts I have made orginating with our neighbors in Lebanon, I stumbled into a meeting with a nurse recruiter who also specializes in immigration stuff. So Jenn and I went on Monday to talk with her for a while and got lots of valuable information about what it takes to work as a nurse here, short term or long. Something we are both interested in and something we will both chew on for the next year or so.
We ended the day with a bottle of wine and more food - we have become quite good at keeping ourselves well hydrated and fed!
Cheers!
The Abel Tasman Coastal Track
We got off the ferry in a charming bay town of Picton. Not many people stay in Picton, but head out to the bigger town of Nelson (west of Picton) which serves as a gateway to the many activities of the area (mostly hiking and kayaking). We did not book a bus ride ahead, and upon getting off the ferry and noting the hoards of people (we had no idea the ferry would be so big), we quickly learned that the main busline to where we wanted to go was full. Normally we'd take this in stride, as we have nothing but time. But this is the one leg of our trip that we were on a time crunch as we were getting picked up by our friends in 4 days time. Regardless we found another smaller busline that had vacancy, but then we realized we didn't have cash, and the bus was leaving in 15 minutes. So we walked to the nearest cash machine, but it was out of order. Then we tried to get info on where banks and other cash machines were and found out it was a public holiday. Long story short, Keith had to sprint to the other end of town to find a working machine, while I made sure the bus didn't leave without us. Minor hang up, but it all worked out, and off we went to Motueka, a smaller town farther east of Nelson, and closer to our tramp (hike).
We checked into another lovely hostel, and got some invaluable information about the trail from the Info center and worked out our transportation for the next few days. We stumbled upon another great deal and were able to get a free rental car for our transport back out of Motueka (after the hike) and to Picton where we were meeting John and Jenn. A pathetic car, really - like a Geo, but free is free (someone ditched a rental in Motueka and the company needed someone to drive it back to Picton).
That was a bunch of nonsense really, I suppose the hike was more interesting than all of that jibber jabber. Adn a lovely hike it was. 51 km total, hiked over 3 days, 2 nights. The weather was great. Sunny and hot the first day, cloudy and cool the second, and somewhere in between on the third. It never did rain however. As the name implies it is a Coastal track, so it follows the coastline af the Abel Tasman National Park which sits on the East side of the northern most peninsula of the north island. The best way I can describe the scenery and climate is to say it is a combination of Hawaii and the Pacific Northwest. The scenery looks like Hawaii - white sand pristine beaches and bright blue water, surrounded by subtropical forests; but the temperature of the water and surrounding air is much like that of the NW. Not a bad combo if I do say so myself. I think when the warmer waters arrive in the summer, they become much more swimmable beaches. So as you start the track (which we did from north to south), you see these beautiful beaches, and of course we take pictures of them all and try to walk on as many of them as we can, but then towards the end of day 2, you start to take the beaches for granted and don't worry too much about missing one or two of them.
Here's a look at one of the beaches from afar:
Here is another look at a beach and an interesting granite rock structure. Granite predominates throughout the park.
The other interesting part of this track was the tidal crossings. You had to plan your hike and your campsites based on the tides, because there are two or three estuary crosssings that can only be crossed within 2-3 hours of the low tide. The tidal swings in this area are huge. 3 meter tidal changes. Making some at high tide impassible, or requiring a very long high tide walk-around route, potentially adding hours to your day. Here is a shot of Keith crossing the first big one, and the only one that didn't have a high tide route, so you had to time this one right. This ended up being the end of our first day, and you can see the hut ahead of Keith. We didn't stay in the huts, but usually camped very close to them.
What was really fascinating at this camp in particular was watching the time come back in. All of where Keith is standing in that picture eventually became a huge river. We could literally see the tide come in. We'd stand about 3 feet from the water's edge, and within 30 seconds the water would be at our feet. And the bubbling sounds coming from all the clam holes was unreal (the sand we walked on here was littered with steamer clam shells). We should have shot a video of it.
Don't know what else to say about the hike. Pretty nice the whole way. Lots of ups and downs like any coastal hike will be and lots of walks along the beaches as that is where the trail runs. New Zealander's have the tramping thing down. The trails are in excellent condition and the campsites and hut sites are very well equipped with flush toilets at most and filtered water at quite a few. Of course this is one of the most popular hikes so it also heavily regulated - we got checked for our permits each night.
We also learned what we already knew and that is that it has been a LONG time since we have done an overnight hike. We felt it the first day. Either that or we are just getting old. A combo of the two I am sure.
Here is a shot of the suspension bridge we crossed on the second day:
And a look at the beach where we camped the second night. Pretty nice, eh?
Here's a sunrise I stumbled upon when I got up for an early morning trip to the "loo".
And finally at the trails end, waiting for the bus, trying to recover with the infamous cappucino.
We checked into another lovely hostel, and got some invaluable information about the trail from the Info center and worked out our transportation for the next few days. We stumbled upon another great deal and were able to get a free rental car for our transport back out of Motueka (after the hike) and to Picton where we were meeting John and Jenn. A pathetic car, really - like a Geo, but free is free (someone ditched a rental in Motueka and the company needed someone to drive it back to Picton).
That was a bunch of nonsense really, I suppose the hike was more interesting than all of that jibber jabber. Adn a lovely hike it was. 51 km total, hiked over 3 days, 2 nights. The weather was great. Sunny and hot the first day, cloudy and cool the second, and somewhere in between on the third. It never did rain however. As the name implies it is a Coastal track, so it follows the coastline af the Abel Tasman National Park which sits on the East side of the northern most peninsula of the north island. The best way I can describe the scenery and climate is to say it is a combination of Hawaii and the Pacific Northwest. The scenery looks like Hawaii - white sand pristine beaches and bright blue water, surrounded by subtropical forests; but the temperature of the water and surrounding air is much like that of the NW. Not a bad combo if I do say so myself. I think when the warmer waters arrive in the summer, they become much more swimmable beaches. So as you start the track (which we did from north to south), you see these beautiful beaches, and of course we take pictures of them all and try to walk on as many of them as we can, but then towards the end of day 2, you start to take the beaches for granted and don't worry too much about missing one or two of them.
Here's a look at one of the beaches from afar:
Here is another look at a beach and an interesting granite rock structure. Granite predominates throughout the park.
The other interesting part of this track was the tidal crossings. You had to plan your hike and your campsites based on the tides, because there are two or three estuary crosssings that can only be crossed within 2-3 hours of the low tide. The tidal swings in this area are huge. 3 meter tidal changes. Making some at high tide impassible, or requiring a very long high tide walk-around route, potentially adding hours to your day. Here is a shot of Keith crossing the first big one, and the only one that didn't have a high tide route, so you had to time this one right. This ended up being the end of our first day, and you can see the hut ahead of Keith. We didn't stay in the huts, but usually camped very close to them.
What was really fascinating at this camp in particular was watching the time come back in. All of where Keith is standing in that picture eventually became a huge river. We could literally see the tide come in. We'd stand about 3 feet from the water's edge, and within 30 seconds the water would be at our feet. And the bubbling sounds coming from all the clam holes was unreal (the sand we walked on here was littered with steamer clam shells). We should have shot a video of it.
Don't know what else to say about the hike. Pretty nice the whole way. Lots of ups and downs like any coastal hike will be and lots of walks along the beaches as that is where the trail runs. New Zealander's have the tramping thing down. The trails are in excellent condition and the campsites and hut sites are very well equipped with flush toilets at most and filtered water at quite a few. Of course this is one of the most popular hikes so it also heavily regulated - we got checked for our permits each night.
We also learned what we already knew and that is that it has been a LONG time since we have done an overnight hike. We felt it the first day. Either that or we are just getting old. A combo of the two I am sure.
Here is a shot of the suspension bridge we crossed on the second day:
And a look at the beach where we camped the second night. Pretty nice, eh?
Here's a sunrise I stumbled upon when I got up for an early morning trip to the "loo".
And finally at the trails end, waiting for the bus, trying to recover with the infamous cappucino.
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