SOLD!!!

We have had a VERY busy week or two!

We spent Christmas with Lynne and Dave on the dairy farm we worked at back in September. Before heading into the farm, we spent four days exploring the Catlins area together. There we saw sea lions lazing in the dunes, yellow-eyed penguins (as well as two babies in a nest about one metre from us), and fur seals. We had a very cool moment when the four of us were reading on a beach and a fur seal came out of the ocean directly in front of us. It posed for pictures for a few minutes before heading past us on the beach to laze on some rocks. The whole time it was about 10 metres from us, which was incredible.

Christmas was very fun. Lynne and Dave were able to try their hand at milking. We visited our calves, which are on grass now and don’t have to be fed milk like we did a few months ago. Craig’s favourite calf is doing well; Andrea’s favourite calf is still dead.

Christmas Day we opened presents with the family, played with new toys, and had a yummy dinner. Boxing Day we were invited to a neighbour’s house for another feast. We also starred in a play written by Ania, the 11-year-old daughter. (For the record, Craig played Santa, Andrea played The Elf, Lynne played Mary, and Dave played Joseph.)

We arrived in Christchurch three days ago. This is the biggest city on the south island, with the same population as London, Ontario. We put our van up for sale right away, crossing our fingers and toes that it would sell quickly. Luckily, we had nothing to worry about! The van sold within 36 hours of putting it up for sale, AND we got our full asking price in cash! It all happened yesterday and it definitely made our day.

We’re now staying in a hostel here in Christchurch, and are in the middle of figuring out how early we will be flying into Bangkok now. We’ll either be arriving in Bangkok on January 8 or January 15, and staying for a few weeks before we fly to Delhi on January 29. Anyone reading our blog who has recommendations on places to stay/see in Bangkok or Delhi, let us know!

Travelling is about to get a whole lot more real for us!

Season Bleatings!!!

Jet Boating Video

Geotechnical Tramping

For the last week, we’ve been travelling down the west coast of the south island with Lynne and Dave. The weather was mostly cloudy and rainy, with temperature in the mid-teens.

We made it to glacier country and visited both of New Zealand’s famous glaciers, the Fox and Franz Josef. They are unique in that they are very low (altitude-wise) but are surrounded by a rainforest climate. Very odd indeed.

We hiked to the terminal face of Franz Josef Glacier, which is 7000 years old and 12 km long. It was pretty impressive, even though we were only able to get within 100 m of the terminal face – since the ice at the face randomly breaks off, they do not permit tourists up too close. Sadly, each year tourists do not respect the boundaries, and earlier this year two tourists were crushed by ice that fell on them while they were posing for a picture directly under the terminal face.

The following day we did an all-day guided glacier hike on the Fox Glacier, only 25 km down the road from Franz Josef. The Fox is 300 m deep and 13 km long. Since it’s so dangerous to approach the terminal face of the glacier, we hiked 800 steps up into the rainforest alongside the glacier to hike onto it higher up. The crampons on our boots helped steady us as Atli, our Icelandish guide, lead us on, over, and through the glacier, often pick-axing steps for us on steep surfaces. In total we spent four hours on the glacier and it only started to rain on our hike back to the bus.

To get off the west coast we had to drive over Haast Pass. To give you an idea how hilly and windy the roads are here, our 240 km drive from the glaciers over the pass took over 5 hours. Unfortunately our van completely broke down as we were driving up a giant hill, and New Zealand highways are always one lane each way with NO shoulder to speak of. As Lynne and Andrea slowed down and directed traffic around our van (which broke down on a blind corner), we waited for help. Did we mention it was pouring rain? Luckily a friendly tourist stopped to tow us up the steep hill very slowly to a pull-over, where we got a jump to our battery that lasted us until we got to our next town. One new battery and a new fuel filter later, and we’re good as gold! We are glad it didn’t cost very much to get her up and running again.

Once in Queenstown Craig and Dave did the Shotover JetBoat Ride, which took them within inches of the rocks as they rode down the river within canyons. The attached video was filmed by Andrea from the shore as they passed in front of her on their way 6 km downstream.

Now we are headed south to Invercargill, and our map is complete – we have completed our giant loop, and from now on will be travelling the path already taken. We hope to visit some old friends and get a bunch of hiking done before Christmas!

Family Ties

For the past two weeks we have been travelling with Craig’s parents, Lynne and Dave, showing them our favourite places at the top of the north island and then exploring the wild west coast. They are also in a motor home. They are doing a swap – the couple they are borrowing this motor home from are coming to Canada next year to borrow Lynne and Dave’s motor home.

The weather was glorious for the first week they were down on the south island, so we spent a few days lazing in Nelson and on a lovely beach called Kaiteriteri. It was around 25 degrees Celsius every day and we enjoyed relaxing in the sun and exploring the rocky shore around the beach by doing lots of hikes, which were more like rock climbing sessions.

Then the weather turned sour (aka rainy and cool). We stopped by Ivan and Canada’s farm (the one we helped out at in November) for a final visit. Lynne and Dave explored the farm and met all the animals, and got up close and personal with sheep for their Christmas card photo.

We have spent the last week exploring the west coast. We were warned to expect loads of rain (check) and loads of sandflies (check) – which are similar to black flies back home, and whose bites are super annoying and very itchy.

We drove as far north as you can go on the west coast, which involved driving over one of the hilliest and windiest passes yet. For approximately 20 km we were driving UP, but our 1985 campervan shone like the star she is and we made it. Once in Karamea we drove 16 km down a one-lane dirt road into Kahurangi National Park. There we explored some caves and hiked to some pretty limestone arches.

Two days ago we did our craziest hike yet with Lynne and Dave, which our hikers are still drying out from. In Punakaiki we embarked upon the Fox River Tourist Caves hike, where we were supposed to hike about an hour through the forest to some caves. Well, since the region had got last month’s rainfall in the past few days, the river was a-flowing and the six regularly-small river crossings were high and mighty and well past our knees. Once we had conquered the first two barefoot, everyone but Craig decided to suck it up and wear our hikers through the rest. Much to Craig’s dismay, since he was videotaping all the crossings, no one fell down.

The caves were well worth the wet feet. They were giant caverns with many stalagmites and stalactites to manoeuvre around. We were glad we had our torches (flashlights) since these were self-explore caves with chasms to step around. That kind of “tourist” activity is pretty dangerous, and it’s the kind of thing you just don’t see in Canada – especially since it is our favourite price, free.

On our way to the caves we picked up a hitchhiker, who gave us a “what a small world” moment when we found out she’s from St. Mary’s, Ontario, which is just north of London. Crazy!

We are now in Greymouth and still heading south. In a few days we will be near the Franz Josef and Fox Glaciers, where we plan to do a full-day guided glacier hike. We are pumped, especially since Andrea has never seen a glacier before. It should be pretty awesome!