South Island Road Trip

Way back in July of 2011, my mom and Fred came for a visit to NZ. The vast majority of the visit was a road trip on the South Island.

We flew into Dunedin and drove south through the Catlins, past the southernmost end of the South Island, and into Bluff.

Day two was a drive from Bluff through Invercargill, and up into Fiordland (Fjordland, elsewhere). Some noteworthy coasts before getting into the edge of the fiords. It's rather amazing how fast out of nowhere the mountains appear that make up the fiords. Fun fact - they are all named as sounds, because the Euros that got there first misnamed them, due to what they were familiar with in the UK.

Day three was dedicated entirely to a cruise on Milford Sound, and the drive to and from Te Anau to get there. Some say it's the best drive in NZ. It's certainly not bad, and Shannon loved it because it has a one way tunnel with no stop lights in the winter. Strange one.

Take a look at the little boat by the waterfall. That's not a little boat.

Amazing cruise in the mist. Dolphins, seals, waterfalls, and blue-green water with cliffs that shoot straight up. Well worth the hype, especially since there was almost nobody on our boat. I hear it can be a mess in the summer. Be hardcore - go winter.

Day four was a quick trip from Te Anau to Queenstown. Queenstown itself is a lot like Vail in the village/upitty/take your money sense. Pretty enough town, nice being on the water, but not the best spot. Amazing stuff around it though. That bridge is where bungy jumping was invented.

Day five took us onward to the Wild West Coast, by way of Wanaka, which is just over the Crown Range Pass. I think I could lifestyle it in Wanaka. To be 40 minutes away, it's an entirely different world from Queenstown, and just as pretty. It was snowing/sleeting over the pass, so not a lot of photos. Past Wanaka, over the Haast Pass and up to Glacier Country, where we snuck in in a dusk visit to Fox Glacier. By the way, that one lane bridge is about 2k long, and on a major highway.

Day five was a much shorter day, as we all needed a break, and the weather was horrible, as it is wont to do on the west coast. We did swing through Franz Josef Glacier after navigating a traffic jam, where we got caught in a torrential thunderstorm about a 30 minute walk from the car. But we got really close to it. Sweet. Wound up in Hokitika for the night.

Day six, and the final day, ending in Christchurch via Arthurs Pass. We had concerns over snow, but it never became and issue - just some dust. Made for a pretty trip across, with a quick stop at Hokitika Gorge on the way out of town.

A great road trip, and great exposure to new parts of the country. If only there had been more time...

Fire Up The Readers

Life, it seems, has gotten well in the way of this blog. But due to recent motivations, I aim to catch up on photos from as far back as last July, and share what's coming next. It should get interesting from here...

Quick update on the beer - brewed a porter on Sunday night. We know of a couple mistakes that we made, so we'll see how it goes. Fermenting away, though.

Traffic jam on my ride to work

Mt. Cook, NZ

White Island

So, maybe not only in New Zealand, but not in many places... Two weekends ago, Shannon and I got to walk on an active volcano. But not one of those lava sputtering (or drooling, as the location may warrant) volcanoes, one that blows sulfur and ammonia!

White Island is a privately owned volcano (seriously - the guy wanted to say he owns one, and he won't sell it to the government) about 80 minutes by boat off the coast of Whakatane, in the Bay of Plenty. While it was a pretty gray day, it wasn't raining, so it was all good, despite the following day being picture perfect on shore (see prior post).

After arrival, you land in a dinghy that holds a surprisingly high number of people.

And then it's right into it. You're walking through a blown out crater past these mounds. They are like blisters, just waiting to explode with hot gas. Sweet.

A lot of the rocks strewn about have an obvious sulfur content.

Clearly volcanic rock lying around, and big chunks of sulfur. And of course, as you'd expect, bubbling mud.

There is one area with a high concentration of vents. This is the bit where you've pretty much got to sport the gas mask. Some people were still struggling with the air.

 It seems pretty clear why that might be. Do you know how hard it is to use a viewfinder with a hard hat and a gas mask?

But you get there eventually, and when the wind is just right, and the steam goes the right way, you can see this tube into the earth, and what's coming out of it. Pretty wild stuff.

And way at the center of the crater is a lake. We didn't get awesome views of it you could still just make out the far side. As you can clearly see, that water is green. It was sold to us as a pH of -0.4, which I didn't know was even possible. The word is that every few years, the bacteria living in the lake changes and it turns red and blue.

There have been many failed attempts at mining operations on the island over the years. The remnants are clear. I can't imagine trying to live out there for three months at a clip. It would be pretty rough. On the days that the seas were too rough to take the boat around the point, they had to climb up and over a cliff before going to work all day in the sulfur mines. Fun.

The weather did clear a bit on the way out, and we got a good view of the island. On a clear day, you can see it from the shore of the mainland. As an aside, I find it interesting that the North Island is referred to as the mainland. All about perspective, I guess.