Days 36, 37 & 38

Day 36

After a good nights rest we left Franz Joseph and headed for Fox Glacier, just a little further south. Before leaving, we enjoyed a nice clear morning and a view of Franz Joseph Glacier from the town.

It was nice to see the glacier today, since yesterday it was rainy. When we got close to Fox Glacier we stopped off at Lake Matheson, which is said to be the most photographed lake in New Zealand, and below you can see why!

It provides amazing views of Mt. Cook (the highest peak in NZ on the right) and Mt. Tasman (the peak to the left of Mt. Cook). With the snow capped peaks against the green pasture and moutainside, it was incredible.

There is a nice walk around the lake and a few spots where if you are lucky, you can get clear reflections of the mountains in the lake. We were fortunate to have a beautiful sunny day with little wind, so the water was nice and calm.

There were some clouds coming in and out and at times they covered the peaks of the mountains. We could have sat there for hours just enjoying the view, however, our bus was going to leave so we had to keep moving around the lake.

It certainly made us both excited for ski season coming up. I know most of you are ready for more snow!

Even without the lake to provide the reflection, the view was breathtaking. After the 1 hour walk around the lake, we were dropped off at our backpacker in Fox Glacier town, where we would stay for 2 nights. We got checked in and relaxed for a bit before heading out for the happening place on a Saturday. They were having a speed sheep shearing contest at the local hotel tavern, we couldn't miss out on that! By the time we got there the place was packed, so we watched from outside the window, hence the less than desirable photograph.

Small town New Zealand on a Saturday night!

Day 37

This morning started off a bit slow since we weren't causing too much trouble today. We spent some time catching up on emails before heading out for a nice walk to Fox Glacier. We walked along the road for about 2 km before making our way up the road that provides access to the glacier and the surrounding hikes. It was another few kms to get to some trails, and we were enjoying the day. We went on the River Walk and crossed a swing bridge along the way. It was quite long, and certainly did sway in the wind. The maximum load on this bridge is 5 people and it was built in the 1920's. Both pieces of information were comforting!

The River Walk also provided nice views of the terminal face of the glacier. We could see a bit more of the glacier, but as you can tell there was some fog settling in around the mountain.

The rest of the day we just walked around Fox Glacier town (didn't take too long) and then cooked some dinner and watched a movie at our hostel.

Day 38

We started off the day by doing something we had already done, but we certainly didn't mind at all. Our last bus driver was kind enough to take us out to Lake Matheson prior to dropping us off at our hostel because it was a beautiful day. We were lucky to have another beautiful day and have the chance to go again! This time we enjoyed the view and had a flat white in the sunshine. Not a bad view!

The glacier guiding outfits also do a lot of helicopter guide trips. We saw quite a few helicopters flying around Mt. Cook while we were enjoying the view. There is one in the picture below just above Mt. Cook.

Another beautiful day and there weren't any clouds in the sky! After Lake Matheson (#2) we continued on our journey towards Makarora, where we would be staying the night. We stopped at many beautiful waterfalls along the way.

Roaring Billy falls were just on the other side of a river full of glacier run off water, and the color was a cloudy aqua. This is quite different than most of the water in New Zealand, which is amazingly clear.

Next we stopped at Thunder Creek Falls.

We were driving along the coast and it was neat to see all the places along the way. You could stop every hundred feet and have an amazing view. This is one of the places we stopped, called Knights Point. The ocean is always amazing and provides you with a sense of awe.

We finally arrived in Makarora where we stayed for the night. There isn't really a town there, just an all inclusive hostel/bar/restaurant/cafe in the middle of Mount Aspiring National Park. It was quite cute and we stayed in 1/2 of an A-framed building. The stars were amazing and it was an enjoyable evening. John proceeded to beat Andrea in a game of pool and then 2 games of cricket darts! Re-matches are in order!

Days 34 and 35

Day 34

Today we started with a cool activity. We went across the street from our hostel to a small workshop to do some bone carving. Bone carvings are very popular, especially the ones with Maori designs. Maori people have been carving bones for jewerly for a long, long time.

We started by deciding which design we would like to carve. I choose a fish hook design which represents strength and determination and brings peace, prosperity and good health. It is also a mark of authority and leadership. According to Maori mythology the fish hook of Maui made form whalebone was used to haul up the North Island (it's a cool story about how New Zealand came to be). Andrea decided to do a combination of a whale tail and a koru. We can't remember what the whale tail signifies, but the koru represents growth and life; new beginnings, growth and harmony. It symbolizes a new fern shoot.

We took the designs and traced them on a piece of bone.














Then our instructors helped us out by cutting out the inner parts of the designs.
















Next we got to play with the tools and started grinding away the bone around the outer part of the design. We used several different tools like belt sanders and orbital sanders and dremel tools to remove the excess bones and smooth the edges.






















Once the tool work was done we grabbed a piece sandpaper and sanded and sanded and sanded.
















After four different grits of sandpaper our bone carving was ready for a quick polish and cord. As you can see we are excellent bone carvers. I may just change my profession (just kidding Dad, I will stick with health and safety for a least another year or two).






















After the bone carving we hoped back on the bus to start our journey to Franz Jospeh Glacier. Most of the rest of the day was spent driving, but we did make a couple of stops at different places, including a look at this cool mountain lake. Cool "Heart" Bananas is sitting on John's shoulder. Our wonderful nieces and nephews helped us decide on a name. Thanks Conor, Caitlin, Kiera, Annika and Tanner!















Then we had a look around the Bushman Center. The Bushman Center had a bunch of information about getting rid of the wild deer in New Zealand. New Zealand did not have any native mammals other than one small bat. The non native deer were being pests, so they were killed and the venison shipped to Germany or moved to farms. There was one deer with a rack that Andrea thought would look good on the wall at One Shot Buck Camp. She thought since John Sr. is the patriarch of One Shot he should make it his obligation to shoot a buck like this...
















We arrived in Franz Joseph, set up our activities for the next day, got our room sorted and had some dinner before we crashed in our bed.

Day 35
It was an early start with fairly decent weather (slightly overcast), we hoped the weather would hold, but we had doubts since everyone kept telling us there were heavy rain warnings out for the area. We didn't care, we had a glacier to hike!

Yup, that is right, we spent today hiking on the Franz Joseph Glacier. We were on a guided full-day hike, and it was amazing. We arrived at the headquarters about 35 minutes early, clearly we were excited about the adventure of the day. We had a cuppa (cup of coffee, a flat white to be specific) and relaxed before the rest of the hikers arrived. Then we were outfitted with an outer/goretex layer for the top and bottom, wool hat and mittens, boots and crampons. Then it was off to the glacier...
















The weather was less than ideal as it was raining most of the day, but I suppose we would have gotten wet anyway. The guides carry an ice ax with them that they use to carve out steps as we are going along since the glacier is constantly changing.






















We walked through crevasses such as the one above. Some were very narrow and we barely fit through them. We would have to shuffle one foot in front of the other and turn our bodies sideways in order to get through. It was a lot of fun and incredible to explore.

















Unfortunately, due to the rain we didn't get to take as many pictures as we would have liked (especially Andrea) because we don't have a waterproof camera. The ones we did get were pretty good, but the camera lens kept fogging up, hence the blurry areas on the pictures. We had a few breaks in the rain and tried to take as many pictures as possible.

















It was amazing to be walking on the ice and we both enjoyed the crampons. It takes a bit of time before you get to the point of really trusting that they will hold you. It was a bit more slick due to the rain, so we had to walk almost like we were marching and stomping our feet.

















We had to keep moving to stay warm, so John was showing off his dance moves all day. Ok, maybe not, but it did get pretty cold if you stopped moving around.






















We had fun exploring some of the different formations in the ice. It was an amazing experience and we were tuckered at the end of the day. We got back to our hostel and dried off and warmed up a bit before heading to the cafe to have some dinner and relax by the fire.

day 31, 32, 33

Day 31

Today we started another cool adventure. We wanted to explore Abel Tasman National Park and heard that kayaking was one of the best ways to see the park. So we booked a two day kayak trip with an overnight on a houseboat in the park. The first day of the trip we were with a guide and a couple of other kayakers. It was a perfect day to be on the water. We got a little instruction and headed out to an island for a break and some tea/coffee.

After tea we headed over to the next island to check out some more wildlife and hopefully see some New Zealand fur seals. Well, luck was on our side and we got to see one swimming and a couple up sunning themselves on the rocks.

We took a few pictures of the seals and then headed back to the shoreline to look at some of the beautiful bays and beaches. The beaches are amazing and the water is an incredible blue/green and so clear. We had a nice paddle to our lunch stop. We had some sandwiches and cake and relaxed on the beach in the sunshine. John went for a quick swim before we headed for a little hike to view the beach from above.

As you can see it is a very beautiful spot!

Our guide said this beach was rated one of the top ten in the world, but we are not sure of the qualifications. After lunch we got back into our kayaks and headed further north along the coast to Achorage Bay and our accomodation for the evening. Along the way we saw some more wildlife, including some cool star fish.

We had a few pictures taken of our expert paddling and then headed into the beach after a great day of paddling.

We got to the beach around 3:30, so we decide to go for a little hike along the Abel Tasman Coastal track before we headed out to the houseboat. It was a great little walk.

We got back to the beach about 6:00 and waived down the houseboat host to come pick us up. We spent the rest of the eveing having a few beers, a nice bbq dinner and chatting with some really cool people from Switzerland, Germany and the Netherlands. Below is a picture of the boat from above, we didn't get a good close-up picture of it.

Day 32

We started the day with a nice breakfast and got to feed the fish off the back of the boat. Surprisingly, feeding the fish in Achorage Bay is very similar to feeding the fish at Lake 30. You throw a little bit of old bread in the water and the fish swarm. The only real difference is that the fish are herring in Achorage Bay and not bluegills.

After breakfast we packed up and got a ride back to the beach to grab our kayak and head out for our second day on the water. Our second day in the park was unguided, so it was just the two of us exploring all the cool bays, beaches and islands in the park. The high tide was around 9:00 am, so we got to go explore some the bay lagoons that are only accessible during high tide. Amazingly the tide was 4-5 meters (12-15 feet) while we were there. It can be 6-7+ meters during full moon. It was a beautiful morning to be on the water.

We saw a bunch of birds, like the pied and spotted shag, oyster catchers, and others. Below is a pied shag drying it's wings. It doesn't have any oils in its feathers, so it must dry them before it can fly high into the air.

Once we finished exploring the lagoons we stopped and had a little lunch and then headed out to Tonga Island which is in the marine reserve and is a protected island (you can't get closer than 20 meters to the island) because it is a fur seal breeding area. We were excited to go see all the seals. It was amazing to see all the seals and pups (baby seals). The babies are usually born in January so they were just starting to swim. It was really cool to see them playing in the water and sunning themselves on the rocks all around the island.

We spent a bunch of time kayaking around the island. Unfortunately we had to head into shore to catch our water ferry taxi back to Marahau and our hostel. So we packed up all of our rented gear and waited on Onetahuti Beach.

It was a really cool couple of days kayaking around an incredible park.

Day 33

Another day started off with incredible scenery of the Abel Tasman National Park. We were picked up at Old MacDonald's Farm, the backpacker we stayed at last night, and headed out to the Matueka airport where our next adventure would begin. No, it is not skydiving either! Gotcha. We went microlighting, which is something like flying really. Ok, maybe not quite, but it felt like it. It is more like handgliding with a motor.

A picture explains it better than words could. Above is a picture of John and his guide, Guy. John sat in the back and enjoyed the ride and took a few pictures. Below is a picture he took of Andrea, and her guide Trevor.

It was amazing to see the park from above and gave us such an incredible perspective of the landscape. Below are a couple pictures that Andrea took of John's microlight as it was flying through the air. It was a beautiful and clear morning with little wind, perfect microlighting conditions.

You can just see John flying below.

The sun shining over the water was stunning.

Naturally Andrea took a lot of pictures, and this is another one of John taken from the back of her microlight.

Below is a picture of the houseboat that we stayed on while out kayaking in the park. The houseboat is the larger boat on the left.

The water in this part of the Tasman Sea is so clear that we could see various depths and colors from the height we were at, roughly 1000 feet.

Words cannot describe how beautiful it was up in the air. From above, we could see all the bays and beaches we had been kayaking in the 2 days before. Many of the bays are full of water during high tide, and turn to beach at low tide, like this one below.

Andrea and her guide Trevor were "glory" hunting. When flying, you try to put yourself between a cloud and the sun, and it creates a beautiful rainbow from the reflection. We were successful, as you can see below.

The faint shadow that you see in the middle is our microlight. Below is a picture outside of the national park, towards Matueka, of some farmland. Many of the apple orchards are covered in the red tarps seen below. This protects the apples from the hail. The area is also very densely covered in vineyards and hops as the weather provides favorable growing conditions.

The airport is quite small and has only one landing and takeoff strip. We came down on the grass just to the right of the stip below. This is a picture coming in for our landing.

The landing was nice and smooth. As soon as we landed we both wanted to take off again, it was an amazing 35 mintues that went by very quickly. This is the only place licensed for microlighting in the entire country. After we took our suits off, we sat outside the hanger watching the planes from the flight school take off, and the sky divers float down with their parachutes open.

After our bus came to pick us up, we headed down along the coast towards Barrytown where we would be staying this evening. The drive was incredible! We stopped at a viewpoint called Irimahuwhero, named by the Maori people, and this is what we saw...

This is us!

We stopped further south along the coast at Pancake Rocks, a hot tourist destination! They are not entirely sure of how the rocks formed, but there are hard and soft rocks piled on top of one another, and oddly enough, they look like pancakes.

Evening was settling in and the sky and clouds were beautiful.

We spent the evening relaxing at our Tavern/Hostel called All Nations Tavern in Barrytown.