New Zealand

Well, I doubt anyone read our last entry (Timor Leste) due to its excessive length. We'll try to be a bit more succinct this time ... but with Lee editing this (and adding her five cents worth), I can't make any promises.

On our way to New Zealand (from Timor Leste), we had a quick 24-hour stop in Sydney. Just enough time to see our friend James, eat some home cooking (his food), do some laundry (in his machine), and get a good nights sleep (yes, you guessed it; in his guest bed. Thanks, James!). Then it was off to NZ, specifically Wellington on the North Island. But we didn't linger (we figured we'd see it on our way back) and, right after a quick stop for breakfast (it was a little strange paying 1st world prices again) we jumped on a ferry to the South Island. And we saw for ourselves that, when the Divine Beings were dishing out stunning landscapes, New Zealand got a pretty sweet deal. The views throughout the journey from Wellington to Picton (on the South Island) just took our breath away.

We arrived in Nelson, our first stop, a lovely mid-sized city where we planned to spend a few days recovering from the challenges of travelling through Indonesia and Timor Leste. Well, that was our excuse anyway. After some pretty lean living in Indo and Timor Leste, we happily indulged in pizzas and ice cream (and even McDonald's; I'm sooo sorry ...). We also had to organize our bike trip along the West Coast, so our other excuse for indulging ourselves was that we needed to 'carbo load'. Unfortunately, we also 'fat loaded' and 'ice cream loaded' as well.

Nelson wasn't all just eating and sleeping our asses off. We took advantage of our proximity to Abel Tasman National Park, and did an overnight hike/kayak tour. The first day we were essentially on our own; they told us where the kayaks would meet us the following morning and dropped us off at the trailhead. We walked for about six hours along the coastline, enjoying the view and the well-maintained trail. We pitched our tent at a small campsite just off the beach (Bark Bay), and the next day we met up with our kayaking group and spent the day on the water. We even got close to a seal colony. Cool. One small unexpected glitch ... the kayaks were two-seaters, and Lee and I quickly learned that we had to work on our communication skills (someone is a bit of a control freak, but I won't mention any names). Thank goodness we didn't book a tandem for our bike trip ...! Overall, however, the entire trip was thoroughly enjoyable, and we would highly recommend it.

Abel Tasman National Park
After a day's delay, we finally got our bikes (they were rented from a company in Christchurch who had to ship them to Nelson) and were ready and pumped to get going. We planned to bike west towards the port town of Westport, and from there follow the well-known West Coast trail south finishing in Queenstown. Our tour was based on one Lee found in a biking book, and, based on the timeline the book provided and conversations with more than a few bicyclists in town, we thought we could accomplish the journey in the 12 days that we had. (We were limited to 12 days because we were trying to meet up with Lee's boss, Helen, and her husband Wilf in Queenstown on the 26th.)

After the first day, however, we realized that perhaps we had been a bit ambitious. First, the distance from Nelson to Queenstown is just over 900km. That meant we needed to cover, on average, 75km per day, a calculation that we somehow neglected to do during our planning phase. Second, we were carrying all our stuff (in the neighbourhood of about 15 kg each) as we were doing the journey only one way and we weren't able to find a bus company willing to ship the stuff we didn't need to Queenstown. Third, we realized after closer scrutiny of the tour Lee found that it was likely a supported tour as it only listed the biking distance between Nelson and Westport as 80km (the distance is closer to over 200km). As you can imagine, it is significantly easier to cover longer distances on a supported tour because you don't carry anything on your bike, except maybe a water bottle or two. Fourth, we were not in top biking shape (damn those tasty pizzas!), and on the first day, after being on the bikes for six hours, our legs and our bums gave serious protest. And we'd covered only about 65km! But the short distance covered wasn't only due to our pizza and ice cream habit ... NZ is hilly!! And we're not talking steep but short hills. No ... we wish! No, these hills are steep and long or not-as-steep and seemingly going on forever. Midway through the first day we faced a monolithic beast that just went up and up and up. It's actually a good thing our legs died when they did that day. We didn't know it, but there was another beast just over the horizon -- the Hope Saddle. We attacked and barely conquered that monster about mid-morning on the second day. It's such a brute that while we were recovering at the top, drivers going past us honked their horns and gave us the thumbs up or shook their fists in victory.

After two days we'd covered about 120km and conquered two monster hills. But our legs were burnt out, and our asses weren't speaking to us anymore. We decided that we needed a rest day, and we combined it with a shuttle bus to our next scheduled stop. That way we'd get our rest day, but not fall too far behind our schedule. So we took a shuttle from Murchison to Westport, and it's amazing how much easier it is to cover 100km when you're on four wheels and not two!

Everything got better once we reached the coast as the views of the cliffs and the ocean are just stunning; they certainly gave us a much needed mental boost. Along the way, we met a nice couple from Switzerland who were also on bikes. Dario and Suzanne had been on the road for more than a month, and were in tip-top shape. We crossed paths with them on a couple of occasions, but we'd only overtake them after throwing the bikes on a shuttle bus. They always caught up with us though!

Those tiny specks on the road are Dario and Susanne.
We were there only half-an-hour before them.
One must see (of many) along the West Coast trail are the Pancake Rocks at Punakaiki. They are really cool, and they actually do look like pancakes. All we needed was a little maple syrup .... Speaking of maple syrup, you actually can eat pancakes at the Pancake Rocks. Unfortunately, we'd already eaten breakfast.

Franz Joseph Glacier is another must see. We signed up for a day tour to walk up the ice face (you can take a helicopter to see the glacier, but we figured it was the wimpy way to do it; it was also seriously out of our budget). And what a walk is was! It's an eerie feeling walking on what's essentially a giant ice cube. The glacier is full of gorges and ridges and our guide, Ben, was a little overzealous in his trail-making. I think he could have kept going up the glacier forever. Lee said that when it finally became apparent to him that we had to head back (or risk coming down the glacier in the dark) he was like a puppy that realized that it's owner is serious about taking it home. He just sort of deflated. I think he was hoping we'd all say that we were up for continuing onward, even though it was past 4:00pm when he finally turned us around. We got back to our camp (more than a couple hours late), wet, cold, and tired. It was a very cool experience (literally!), but, as you can imagine, we slept like babies that night.

Ulrik making his way down a set of ice stairs.
Our bike trip was at an end and, fortunately, we'd had only one 'serious' mishap -- some losers stole all our food from the camp kitchen one night. We jumped on another shuttle bus to Queenstown to meet Helen and Wilf (Lee's boss and her husband). And after all the hard work, is was very good to spend a couple of evenings with them; it was nice to see some familiar faces. Nice, too, enjoying some really good food (we'd been primarily cooking for ourselves in camp kitchens -- thanks Helen and Wilf!). After too short a time, Helen and Wilf were off to the Milford Track (lucky them!), and we were on our own again. Not that we lacked anything to do. Queenstown is, after all, the adventure capital of New Zealand, and while we bypassed the jet boats, helicopters, zorbing, and bungees, we did try The Luge. It's basically a go-cart, but the track goes around the top of this hill overlooking the city. You can pick up a fair amount of speed, and competing against each other was a lot of fun. We also did a day hike to the top of Ben Lomond, which is the highest peak in Queensland. The views from the top were absolutely stunning (totally worth the three hour uphill journey to get there). It was literally a 360 degree vista, which included the Southern Alps.

Enjoying the view from the top of Ben Lomond.
But eventually it all had to come to an end, and we boarded a plane to Wellington where we were to catch our flight to Sydney, Australia.

New Zealand's South Island is truly beautiful, and we really enjoyed our visit there, even when we were cold, wet, tired and had sore bums. We'll most certainly return, but next time we might rent a camper van ....

For more photos, see our New Zealand photo album.