Wednesday, April 10th

True to the weather predictions promise, the next day in Queenstown was very rainy. It was a good place to be in the rain though, because there were many things we could do inside. We started with Odyssey: Sensory Maze. We had to hand over our coats, wallets, phones, and shoes, and in return we were given gloves and crazy glasses (looked sort of like 3D glasses, but they also had a kaleidoscope effect on what we could see. We went through a door that looked like a vault, and climbed through elastic bands into a room packed nearly to the ceiling with balloons. It was sort of like a ball pit, but the balloons did not offer support if you fell over, which I discovered through scientific experiment (During which I sadly lost my crazy glasses, and on realizing how hopeless it would be to try and find them, we became very grateful we had left our phones and wallets with the manager!) We played hide and seek and stirred up the balloons, and then decided to move on to the next room. After that came the smelling room. There were plastic blocks on the walls that, when you leaned in close, gave off a distinct smell. The game was to guess what the smell was before revealing the description next to it. We were surprisingly unsuccessful with several smells, like chocolate, popcorn and campfire smoke, but we nailed cinnamon and garlic. There were also panels along the wall that said something like “see what happens when you touch me.” Turns out what happened is you got shocked with a small current of electricity! Having grown up around electric fences and experienced this sensation often enough in childhood, I could readily pass on that experience.

At the end of this room, there were 3 boxes we had to reach into and feel an object inside, and try to guess what it was. One contained an iron, and another a kettle. The third one neither of us could figure out till our second time through. It felt like a skull, but it had some weird, spiky protrusion that seemed to be coming out of the top, almost like a crown. We managed to pull it out of the box far enough to tell it was indeed a plastic skull with a tiny crown on its head, which seemed very out of context from the other two objects!

We skimmed through a room with mirrors, checkered walls and a strobe light, and ended up in the Spaghetti and Beans room. Here again, we climbed into a pit, this time full of pool noodles and large rubber “balls” that were shaped like peanuts. They were 2-3 feet long and quite bouncy. We launched ourselves in, bounced around, launched the “beans” at each other, and generally warred and burrowed until the lure of the next room drew us on. We climbed out onto an unstable platform in black light, and then entered a room that was pitch black when the door closed behind us. We were on a rope bridge, and we felt our way forward into a room that felt like Jurassic Park- but peaceful. I guess it was more like a rain forest. There were plants everywhere (fake) and grass (also fake). But the music made it feel like calm and peaceful and like you should be getting rained on, and the whole time we crawled through this area, I couldn’t shake the feeling that a dinosaur would jump out at any moment. That didn’t happen, but Gus did try several times to give me a fright by jumping out. I think it only worked once. We crawled around there for quite a while, partly because it took us quite a time to find the way to move on. From there we crawled into a cave with Christmas lights on the ceiling, probably imitating glowworms. The crazy glasses broke the lights into many fractals, and made the whole experience quite a bit more interesting looking.

After that, crawled along in the dark, and there were great big things hanging down from the ceiling, though it was too dark to tell what they were or what they were made of. It was a rather disturbing experience, and you just had to feel your way around until we finally found a door to get out of that play.

Next we entered the room of mirrors. It was like the carnivals you see in the movies with mirror houses, where you walk in and see twenty other yous looking back, and when you move towards what you think is forward, you run into a mirror and have to turn around and try a different direction. At one point, Gus tried to find me, and thinking one of my reflections was the real me, walked right by and gave me the perfect opportunity to make him jump. After that, we had a very fun time trying to trick each other about which image of us real vs reflection, and the more time we spent in there, the harder it actually got to tell which images were real and which weren’t, and which way was forward and which way was mirror. Eventually we found our way out into another room of mirrors, though it was small and rectangular, and from the ceiling hung two hammock-type chairs where we could relax, listen to music, and look at the images which reflected each other and seemed to carry on forever.

After that, we came out into a passageway with a wall of those sequins where if you push them one way they appear a different color. We drew pictures on the wall as best we could, and then stepped out into the surprisingly bright light of normal day, finding ourselves back in the lobby where we started. Our tickets allowed us to go through as many times as we wanted in an hour, so we went through again. We heard some other people in the maze at some points, but we never saw anyone else and most of the time it felt like we were the only people around. Overall, we had a great time there. It was definitely a place to embrace your inner child and play, and thankfully we are both pretty good at that.

The next thing down the street was the Thrill Zone. This place was sort of like an arcade on steroids, and we opted for a VR experience (virtual reality). They took us to a spot where headsets hung down from the wall. The headsets came down over our eyes and tightened on the back of our heads. Then they put controllers in our hands and started the game. We had opted for a cooperative game, and we were something like samurai with laser guns fighting of aliens. I was not very good at this game, but Gus did quite well.

We worked together to destroy invading robots as they encircled us. We could turn all the way around, and any direction you looked, robots could be coming for you. Neither of us loved that game, but the experience was definitely worth it—the VR was so cool. We got to play two games with our purchase, and Gus lovingly agreed to play the dance game they had, which was my most ardent desire. It helped that the other games were fighting off zombies (too scary) or fighting each other (not really our style, plus I’m hopeless at FPS, even in VR).

The dance game turned out to be a great choice. It was actually more of a reaction game—you had to punch blocks as they came towards you, and the way you had to move to do this just happened to look sort of like dancing. One of our hands was orange, and the other was purple. You had to punch the purple blocks flying at you with your purple hand, and orange with orange. This sometimes meant crossing over your arms or reaching in different directions and it was quite the mind game to keep everything straight!

I think we could have spent our whole budget in that store; they had so many cool games and experiences. Unfortunately our budget wasn’t big enough to spend any more time there though, and we were hungry so we went ahead and moved on.

We bought Empanadas from a food cart and sat on a covered bench, looking over the lake and watching the rain as it poured down. After lunch, we explored shops for a while, looking at all things they try to sell to tourists, before returning to our hostel for a rest.

The last thing we had decided to do that day was an escape room—something I had always wanted to do. Gus had done at least one before with an OSU group. The premise was a gold heist, back in the late 1800s. We searched the room for clues, and I thought we were doing pretty well at first, but we got hung up on a few things. The guy running the place was listening in on us, and whenever we would get pretty stuck, he would send us a message on the TV. These were helpful at first, but towards the end when we weren’t solving things fast enough, he pretty much told us the answer. That took most of the fun out of it for Gus, but I still thought it was great fun. Turns out it was a blacksmith who felt underappreciated, so he decided to give himself a raise.

We turned in early that night in preparation for doing the Shotover Jet in the morning. This was the #1 thing to do in Queenstown, according to Trip Adviser, so we were pretty darn excited to go.

Tuesday, April 9^th

            We took off for Queenstown around 10 in the morning, not feeling any reason to rush since we would be in Queenstown for three nights. The drive over, about two hours north, was beautiful, especially when we got to Lake Wakatipu and could see all the mountains bordering it.

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            We arrived just after noon and navigated towards the sky gondola, which we figured would be a good place to start. We found it easily enough, but unfortunately the same could not be said for parking. We had been lulled into the small town ease of never having to hunt for parking, so it was a bit of a stressful reminder that we were back in a bigger city. After what felt like forever (but was probably 20 minutes) we finally saw a parking garage and decided paying for parking was worth the price of hunting around. (Our small town upbringing really comes out when we have to deal with the outrage of paying for parking).

 Back on track again, we quickly made our way through a line, bought tickets for the gondola and 5 trips on the Luge, and were on our way up the mountain! For those of you reading this familiar with the gondola at Wallowa Lakes, this one was very similar. The view as we ascended the mounting just got better and better until we were at the top and had a beautiful, wide view of the city, lake, and the Remarkable Mountains across the way (literally named The Remarkables, a joke I wore pretty thin during our stay there, to Gus’s exasperation). We admired the view and looked through the mountain top gift shop before finding our way to the Luge.

The Luge is like sledding down a mountain, except for instead of snow you have wheels, and you can steer. We took a ski lift even further up the mountain, and then zipped back down on the Luge-way, speeding around corners, down steep ramps, and through tunnels. It was incredibly fun. We could have stayed there all day, but after five trips, we were out of stamps. We took the ski lift up one last time, just to admire the view even more. It had turned out to be a beautifully sunny day, and we basked in the sunshine and our good luck—the forecast had been promising rain up until the day we got there.

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Afterwards, we went back down the mountain and walked around part of the city and through a park until it was time to check in at our hostel. We didn’t take a lot of pictures as we went, but here were a few things as we walked around.

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I had read about Queenstown’s vibrant night life, so we agreed to splurge and go out for dinner. We found a pizza place that had been recommended and were seated at a semi-outdoor table with a heater right overhead. The light was very dim, almost too difficult to read the menu, but very relaxing and romantic. After dinner, we had dessert (hokey-pokey ice cream) at a cute little dessert shop. Hokey pokey is a distinctive flavor, essential to New Zealand. It’s sort of in between caramel and toffee, and is quite delicious.

  After that, the next thing on our list was an Ice Bar. Gus had just happened to read something about it when we were looking up places to go, and we knew we had to try it out. We couldn’t get in until 10pm because it was booked full, but that gave us time to run back to the hostel and grab our passports. New Zealand will allow you to drive on their roads with a foreign driver’s license, but won’t accept that same license as proof that you are old enough to drink, even with the drinking age being 18.

Once back and proven to be over 18 years old, we put on long, black parkas that were provided for us, and entered the Ice Bar. The room was very small, which made sense since the whole space had to be kept around 15 degrees. Everything in there was made of ice: the seats, sculptures, bar, even the glasses. The light seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere—it shone through everything, making it seem like everything was glowing. I ordered a cocktail, and Gus ordered a mocktail, and both were served in round, chunky glasses made of ice. If you set them on the counter and slid them across it, they would glide across and off without hesitation. We stayed inside longer than the 2 other couples in our group, and after they left, so did the bartender, so we had the place to ourselves. We took pictures with and of the different sculptures and enjoyed our drinks until we were cold enough to call it quits. It was a fun and odd experience, and the perfect end to our first day in Queenstown.

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Monday, April 8^th

            This was one of our most incredible days. We left around 7am, a tad difficult after our long day the day before, to head out to the fiord lands: Milford Sound. Arriving to Te Anau in the dark, we had been blind to the environment and scenery around us. Now, as we headed northeast into the mountains, we found ourselves driving through stunning scenery of mountains that rose dramatically all around us. With hardly anyone else on the road and the mountains just protecting us from sun rays shining over their ridges, it felt as though an early morning spell of peace and wonder had been cast over us. We drove for about an hour, steadily climbing in altitude, and the mountains crept closer and closer. Soon, the uphill grade became much steeper and the road much narrower and it felt like a truly adventurous drive.

Coming down a steep hill, a van came up behind me and drove so close I was afraid to tap my brakes. Luckily, there was a parking lot at the bottom of the hill where I could pull over and let them pass. I noticed that the other vehicles in the parking lot were arrange rather oddly, but distracted as I was by escaping the van, it took me a moment to realize that the parking lot was full of Kea! Now you may remember these cheeky mountain parrots from a previous adventure, and if you don’t you should read the post about Arthur’s Pass (I put a lot of work into that!). The Kea were all over! Calling out, musical and inquisitive, chasing one woman around for a taste of her shoelace!

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Another one hopped towards me as I attempted to get a picture of it, and came so close that it grabbed ahold of the wristband on my phone case! It would have been perfectly happy to get even cozier with me, but that was a little too close for comfort for me.

We continued on, cognizant that we had to check in for our cruise at 9:25am. Driving back up in to mountains and thinking about the Kea, we were surprised to find that there was a tunnel in front of us. It was nearly a mile long, and the sheer impressiveness of it struck me on the other side when I turned back to look at the wall of mountain we had just driven through!

The mountains were now closer and taller than ever, and we wound our way down into the fiords. Finally, after being on the road for two hours, we found our way to the parking lot and checked in for our cruise. There were probably ten large cruise boats along the dock, but ours was a small boat at the very end.

The captain welcomed us aboard and we set out for our two hour cruise. The first thing that came into view was a beautiful waterfall, just hidden from sight on shore by the angle of the mountain.

We cruised smoothly through the fiord, dwarfed by the steep mountains that rose on either side of us. The captain would speak over the intercom now and then, telling us interesting facts and stories about Milford Sound, like how it’s one of the wettest places in New Zealand, getting an average of 22 feet of rain every year. He told us that it was not uncommon for it to rain 10 inches in one day there.

Along the way we saw some seals basking in the sun and some free falling water that fell from cliff faces so steep the water came down in thousands of individual droplets (which my camera just couldn’t capture).  

The cruise was spectacular. The pictures can explain it better than my words, though hardly doing justice themselves.

Near the end, the captain steered our boat as close to underneath this waterfall as possible, adding a last taste of adventure that was very exciting and very wet! This picture was taken as soon as I could clean off my camera from the spray of the waterfall!

Afterwards, we ate lunch and then walked around a loop track that gave us a shoreline view of Milford Sound. As we were reading an informational kiosk, we heard rustling in the brush near us, and out popped a Weka! We had seen this flightless bird in a wildlife reserve (basically a zoo), but it was extra special to just see it walking around.

We both felt unwilling to leave the beautiful fiords, but there was also not much else we could do there, and many things to see on the road back that we had had to pass by in the morning. So we took off, and travelled just a short distance before we came to the first area of interest: The Chasm. The name sound so dramatic, but when we walked out to see it we learned that the name was accurate. There was indeed a chasm, caused by large rocks being carried down the river during floods which then swirled around and eroded the rock along the rivers path. The overall effect was astounding, even though the resulting rock reminded me of a salt lick.

We stopped along the way at vistas, waterfalls, and rivers, pausing to take in the spectacular views, only to move and find more breathtaking scenery just down the road.

By the time we were on are way out, tens of busloads of tourists had come in, and even as we stopped to admire the vistas, a bus would pull up, shepard its passengers through the scenery, then load back up and move on to the next thing. I felt so fortunate to have the luxury of driving and seeing things at our own pace! It was a bit of an eye-opener for us of how annoying commercialized tourism could be.

One of our bigger stops was at Mirror Lakes, where we walked along a board walk listening to the birds and admiring the reflection of the mountains in the water.

We returned to our hostel exhausted, but utterly content and filled with the richness of the nature we had been surrounded by all day.

Sunday, April 7^th

The next morning we set out to see Larnach Castle. It was a very small sort of castle and not quite what I expected, but still very elegant and the first castle I have ever seen! There were not many people there when we arrived, and we had the luxury of exploring the 1870s castle practically by ourselves. The furniture and stained glass windows were true to their era, and everything from the tiles on the floor to the fancy chandeliers spoke a quiet yet ornate elegance.                    

The castle was surrounded by well-maintained gardens where one could easily lose track of time, and the view over the peninsula was worth building a castle for. We were able to climb to the top of the castle terrace and admire it from there, though the setting made me feel like sort of like Gandalf stranded at the top of Saruman’s tower (minus the whole betrayed by my former ally and left to die part).

We could easily have spent the rest of the day there, exploring the castle and the grounds, but we had already planned our next stop 200 miles to the west, and we decided we had better get on the road. Though it was out of the way, we decided to drive south to the Catlins, a beautiful forest area of Southern New Zealand known for many beautiful types of scenery. Hampered by time, we decided to visit a few notable landmarks, though again we could have dedicated more than a day to exploring this scenic area.

We stopped first at tunnel hill, which (and I think you will find this a common theme) was creatively named for being a tunnel through a hill. It was a tunnel built for the railroad, though the railing had all been removed, and was now simply a place where people could walk through and admire the 19^th century handiwork.

It took 5-10 minutes to walk from one side to the other, and we realized on the far side that there was nothing to do but turn around and walk back. We did the walk back without flashlights, keeping our eyes on the light at the end of the tunnel. It was a rather unnerving experience, because the light did not seem to grow any bigger for a long time, and seemed instead to be stretching away from us.

We were glad to at last reach the sunshine and carry on to Surat Bay, where we had hoped to see Sea Lions or Seals resting on the beach as they commonly did. Unfortunately our timing was off, but we still enjoyed a nice long walk on the beach before we ate our sandwiches. I was thinking that I could get used to having lunch on the beach every day.

From there, we carried on to Purakaunui Falls.

After soaking in the sight, we were again back on the road. We had driven about 5 miles off the main road to see the falls, but the road carried on and met up with the main road some ways ahead, so we decided to carry on, rather than turning back. This turned out not to be the best decision, because the dirt road was much rougher and much less sign posted than the main road, and the distance we had to drive to meet up with the main road was much longer than the little line on the map had suggested. We managed the whole affair with only one wrong turn and a 5 minute back-track, so overall I think we did quite well (Gus actually enjoyed it, thought it felt like home).

That little adventure did set us back about an hour from where we should have been though, and it was nearly 5 o’clock by the time we arrived at Curio Bay, which featured an impressive bluff and, more importantly, was home to a petrified forest. We watched the waves crash against the cliffs, then ran down to inspect the remaining stumps of 180 million year old conifers that had been buried by ancient volcanic mudflows before the sun set.

We had had a wonderful and adventuresome day, but it was a little disheartening when we realized that at 6 o’clock, we still had a 3 hour drive to our hostel. Luckily Curio Bay hosted a small café, who sold us their wifi password for the price of mocha and a soft drink. With google maps to guide us to our destination on the quickest route (the opposite of the way we had been guiding ourselves), we were able to make it to Te Anau in time to take a gloriously hot shower and get good night’s sleep.

Saturday, April 6th

The first leg of our journey started with a drive down the east coast to Dunedin (pronounced Done-Eden). As with the beginning of any trip, it took about three times longer to get out the door than anticipated, so it was past 11am on April 6^th that we got on our way.

The drive to Dunedin is about four and a half hours, so we only made it to Timaru before we were ready to stop for lunch. We wanted to eat somewhere nice and scenic, so we followed the signs on the road to Caroline Bay and found parking. As we made sandwiches out of the back of our car, we heard what sounded like a wasp nest, but in the distance. On our walk down to the beach, we realized that the buzzing noise was actually the drone of dirt bikes, and we remembered that driving on the beach is legal in New Zealand. There was a whole track set up, right there next to the ocean, orange netting and all. The handful of bikes practicing tore through peaceful atmosphere of the beach, and made me feel grateful that our beaches are motor free. We walked down the beach towards a rocky area a ways down, and the distance, wind, and sound of the ocean silenced the angry buzzing and allowed us to eat our sandwiches in peace, marveling at the convenience with which we were able to stop and have lunch by the ocean, and enjoying the sun. 

On our way back, we watched a little bit of a dirt bike race that had just begun, watching the bikers struggle through the soft sand of some areas and thinking it looked quite difficult! On our way out of Caroline Bay, we drove around a bit and were very much impressed with the community center, which was home to skate parks, playgrounds, meeting spaces, an ice cream stand, and even a small roller coaster, all within a two minute walk of the beach! New Zealand playgrounds and parks are on point.

We continued on with our journey, with only one more notable stop along the way: a small beach, slightly hidden behind some trees that Gus just happened to notice and decided to check out. The beach was one of the most beautiful we had ever seen, with perfect, soft sand and tons of beautiful, round stones, and it went on for miles. There was no one else on the beach, not even the trace of any footprints left behind, and it felt like our own private beach. It seemed as though the tide was coming as we walked along, and at high tide there was probably not beach at all, so we moved on, perhaps a few smooth, shiny stones heavier than before.

I’m not sure what time we got into Dunedin, but it was probably around 5 or 6. Fun Fact: Dunedin has the steepest street in the whole world. I’m not sure which street that actually was, but, Fun Fact: The city with the steepest street in the world has A LOT of steep streets. And our hostel was on one of them.  It took some driving around, grumbling about the absurd inclines, and the kind advice of the check-in guy at our hostel, but we finally figured out how to park near our hostel and determined not to move our car anywhere until we left the city.

Our hostel was a cute old building with lots of character, and we were on the top floor next to a balcony with a view over the city. On our way in to the city we had passed by some impressive looking buildings, so after a quick dinner on the balcony, we set of to see what we could before dark. We went first to the Octagon, which is actually a street layout in the shape of an octagon that is home to some notable things, such as this impressive Cathedral Church (closed)

and the also impressive city hall building which was unfortunately under construction. So we ventured on to the Railway Station, which still operates, although I think most if not all of the trains that leave from there follow scenic paths that return to the same railway station.

The stained glass windows were beautiful and very appropriate, adding to the charm of architecture and attention to detail that we only seem to see in buildings built in times past.

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Next we went to see the First Church of Otago, which was not actually the first church built in Otago, but does feature many spires. Sadly, this was also closed, and we learned our lesson that checking out the town is an activity best done before 5pm.

So we returned to our Hostel in time to watch the sun set over the city and the bay, and enjoy some nutella and ritz, our dessert of choice for road tripping.

For me, the high point of our trip so far has been climbing the mountain at Arthur’s Pass. I had been excited for this trip for weeks, and after a relaxing time at Hanmer Springs hot springs the weekend before, I was ready for some time in the great outdoors. We took off on Friday as soon as Gus was out of school and headed west into the Southern Alps. The landscape was open and green, with fields and cows all around, and in front of us the mountains rose up with the promise of adventure.

On our way, we saw a sign for Castle Hill, which sounded way too cool to drive by. (Plus they had a rest stop and those are not overly common in New Zealand). As we walked past the parking lot and down a path, we were awed by the enormous volcanic rocks that did indeed look like some kind of Castle on a hill. We explored and climbed around and didn’t even get to half of the site before it was time to go. (The hostel website was rather intimidating about not checking in on time). We vowed to explore more on our way home, and headed on to Arthur’s Pass!

Arthur’s Pass Village is comprised of a store, gift shop, restaurant, and about twenty or so rental properties, including the hostel we stayed at. So once we checked in, we went to the only restaurant in town and ordered Hawaiian pizza, which despite Gus’s disgust of pineapple, was the only thing on the menu that looked both edible and affordable. We sat by the window, watching as it rained sideways outside and hoping things would clear up a bit before our hike the next day.

It did not. But, undaunted, we dressed in all our layers, packed food and water for the day, and went out in search of adventure. And we found it.

The information site maps suggested hiking up Avalanche Peak Trail to Avalanche Peak, and down Scott’s Trail. The guy at the information site recommended we just take Scott’s Trail up and back, since it was the easier trail. The signs told us we needed to be very fit to do this hike, but since we are young and relatively athletic, we weren’t concerned that we’d have any trouble. We had a moment of doubt about what we were getting ourselves into when we started up Avalanche Peak Trail and it looked more like a waterway than a trail, but that just added to the sense of excitement we felt to begin our journey.

The trail led steeply up, and it actually felt a lot more like rock climbing than hiking. We scrambled up craggy rock faces and climbed up tree roots, guided by little orange triangles that showed the way much more clearly than the landscape. As we climbed, we saw waterfall after waterfall, and the beauty of the scenery around us was proof we had made the right decision. After ascending for about an hour, we climbed out of the fog and rain, and we could see the valley below and more waterfalls on the mountains across from us. Another hour after that, and we climbed out of the tree line and instead of scrambling up rock faces we were walking on an easy slope, surround by grasses. Across the valley, we could see where the tree line ended on the mountains across from us, and the top of the mountain just a little ways above. (So we thought, haha).

We continued on and now, as we hiked further up, we began hiking into the clouds themselves. We heard a Kea, the world’s only alpine parrot, calling below us and saw it alight onto a tree. We watched it for a while, but it was too far away to see very well. We were feeling pretty tired at this point, but sighting the Kea filled us with renewed energy to carry on. The trail markers had changed at this point from orange triangles to metal posts with yellow tops, and as fog closed in around us, our visibility shrank until we could only see one or two markers ahead of us at a time. We hiked for another hour, and the fog made everything seem a little eerie, like we were the only people on the mountain, or maybe in the whole world. In front of us, we could see a ridge, and beyond that, the shadow of the next ridge rising above. It looked like if we could just get to that shadow ridge, we would be at the top of the mountain, but every time it came into focus, another shadow ridge rose beyond that.

Doubts began creeping into our mind, how much further did the trail go? We were still going the right direction weren’t we? If we didn’t find the top, would we have to turn around and scale down those rocky faces with free flowing water? That did not seem like a good option, so we pressed on and on. We had hoped to eat lunch at the top of the mountain, but hunger and fatigue suggested we eat sooner, so we finally stopped for a break. The break didn’t last long, because as soon as we stopped moving, the cold air and rain sent chills right through us.

Just past the place we ate lunch, the trail dropped steeply into a small valley of boulders, then rose straight up again. It seemed so cruel for the trail to become even steeper right at the end, and we even revisited turning around, but there really was no way we could go down the way we had come up. So we climbed, pressing on past fatigue and past the black spots Gus later told me were dotting his vision, on up to the top. And we made it.

Our sense of relief was strong. To say the least.

Suddenly, as we rested at the top of the trail, a Kea flew right up next to us! And then another flew practically over the top of us! (It was actually pretty scary; they are big birds that were obviously not scared of humans). We watched them, and they watched us. Kea are curious and intelligent birds, and these ones seemed as interested in getting a look at us as we were at getting a look at them.

We watched them long enough to get a good picture and feel a bit creeped out, but we were concerned about how long it would take to get back, so we started looking for Scott’s Trail to follow back. We could see the yellow posts directing us in one direction, but it looked like the trail was going up. Still, it looked like our best option because it was marked, so we followed the markers. They led up on to what we called the Spine. Picture a two foot wide path sharply plummeting on either side. We were walking across the spine of the mountain. The trail led to the actual top of the mountain: Avalanche Peak. We had hiked a vertical mile, and we were on top of the world. As you can clearly see in this picture.

Since hiking out to the peak of the mountain didn’t work, we went back to the spot we first saw the Keas. I had been smart enough to take a picture of the map at the I-site, so I figured out what direction Scott’s Trail was in, and, after we climbed over a couple boulders, we saw the trail markers. The way down was still steep, but a much better alternative for going down the mountain. The mood lightened after we found the path and we were sure that we would be back in town before dark, so we carried on at a comfortable pace, stopping to enjoy the scenery again once we hiked down out of the clouds. We had a good view of the Devil’s Punchbowl, the largest waterfall around, as well as the myriad smaller waterfalls on surrounding mountains.

We got back into town around 5:30, changed out of our sweat and rain soaked clothes, and went to dinner at the only restaurant in town…for Hawaiian pizza.

It was a fantastic day, full of beautiful and mysterious scenery, type I and type II fun (I: fun while you’re doing it, II: fun when you think back on it). We climbed a mountain! And we felt as accomplished and exhausted as you could imagine.

The next morning we slept in (as we well deserved to) and then hiked out to the Devil’s Punchbowl. The trail was unfortunately not a level, short walk as we had expected. It was a half mile of stairs. But we prevailed and made it to the waterfall, which was every bit as majestic up close as it had promised to be when we saw it across the valley.

Afterwards we headed out of town, regrettably not stopping back by Castle Hill because our legs still felt more like jello than legs. We did stop at Cave Stream though, which is, not surprisingly, a stream that runs through a cave. The cool part is that the cave is big enough that you can walk through it for about a half mile. Unfortunately, we were not equipped with the right clothes or lighting apparatus to make this journey, but we did explore the cave mouth and the canyon in which it was set. We had driven down out of a layer of cloud that morning, and the sun was shining bright and warm.

We played around and soaked up the sunshine to our hearts content, then headed home. It was a perfect end to our adventurous weekend.

We have a car! And with said car, we began adventuring a little further from home. First up was the small town of Akaroa, located on banks peninsula. The trip wasn’t far but consisted of a very windy road up and down steep mountains and a very thankful Gus that Sami is a very capable driver. We could tell the trip was going to be worth it as soon as we got over the last mountain and got a view like this:

Once we arrived at Akaroa village and got settled in we explored a picturesque little town that has a similar permanent population to Ione, the rest are tourists. And as tourists ourselves we immediately went searching for the touristy things to do! First up was the Giants Garden, a combination of mosaic artwork and a first class garden. I could continue to describe it but we took pictures!

Our main adventure in Akaroa was a dolphin tour on the Akaroa Harbor, where we saw the world’s rarest and smallest oceanic dolphin (Hectors dolphin) which are curious creatures that swam up right alongside the boat. We also saw seals, blue penguins (even smaller and more adorable than other penguins) and lots of cormorants. We did not get any really good pictures of the wildlife but the scenery was gorgeous and also moved at a slower speed. So here are some pictures of that! The boat also had a dog trained for spotting dolphins, though she mostly took naps in the sunshine.

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And that was about it! We had a nice leisurely drive back, stopping along the way to read books on the beach in the sunshine and successfully made it back home with no adventures. Its wonderful to have a car.

Bonus Picture!

Our first weekend in New Zealand, we bused into Christchurch to explore the botanical gardens and the museum. The morning turned out to be warm and sunny, so we strolled through the gardens and admired the beautiful scenery and well-tended gardens.

The Gardens hosted a cute café where we stopped for lunch, and it served THE best chai latte I have ever experienced. As we ate, the clouds rolled in, so we headed into the museum bordering the Botanical Gardens.

We explored the not-so-ancient history of the Maori, Polynesian settlers who arrived in New Zealand between 500-800 years ago. The first to discover New Zealand, the Maori found themselves on an island inhabited with thousands of birds and virtually no predators. The biggest of these birds, the Moa, stood 12 feet tall

but were unwary and nonaggressive towards humans. As such, they were rather quickly hunted to extinction. However, the smallest of this family still lives today, the Kiwi.

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We spent two hours wandering around the museum, soaking in Maori history and examining tools, art work, jewelry, and other components of Maori culture. Just when I thought we had spent a good deal of time in the museum and seen what there was to see, Gus discovered that there was a second floor! There is, of course, more to New Zealand’s history than Maori culture, but we were still both quite surprised to learn the size and scope of the museum. Upstairs, we found information about Antarctic pioneers whose last stop before exploring the frozen tip of the world was New Zealand. We saw the first vehicle to ever reach the South Pole, this tractor.

So we spent another two hours wandering around the museum, learning about New Zealand history until our mental processing abilities went on strike and absolutely refused to process any new information!

To appease our weary brains, we decided to move on, remembering that we had heard there was a Chinese Lantern Festival going on, and we decided to check it out. It was too cold of a day to stay until dark and see the lanterns at their finest, but we walked around, looked at all the displays, and listened to a Chinese rock group sing “It’s my life” by Bon Jovi and “Country Roads” by John Denver.

On our way home we had a small mishap that became dauntingly large as time went on. At this point in our NZ timeline we still did not own a car, nor did we have phones with cell service! You might see where there is potential for trips to become more stressful than necessary in such a scenario, and you would likely be absolutely right. We live in the country and had been dropped off in the nearest town to catch a bus to Christchurch and we assumed that we could simply catch an uber home. Remember how we didn’t have a cell phone with service at this point? (You should, I mentioned it three sentences ago). Well it turns out that to setup an uber account requires a working cell phone number, and without a working cellphone it also means reaching your very nice hosts (Karma and Craig) to explain that you’d gotten yourself into a funny situation is also difficult.

We were saved by… a museum! The museum previously mentioned in this post had free WiFi and with it we were able to text Karma and wait outside hoping for her to respond. She did! When would we be in Prebbleton? Good question, I made an educated approximation (guessed) and we hoped that a bus would be coming soon enough to allow us to reach Prebbleton on time. There was and we successfully ventured across the very large park to the station, watched it almost drive by us as Sami chased it down, and arrived exactly on time to get a ride home from Craig. Moral of the story: yes, you can find your way home through luck and perseverance but it is a lot easier to actually plan ahead. We recommend you do that instead.

Bonus Picture!

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After the first day we arrived, we woke up around eight o’clock, which was surprisingly early considering how exhausted we were from traveling. We were exited to explore the nearly-estate-like house which we found ourselves living in!

The house is beautiful and spacious, with a huge kitchen bench (kitchen counter), and a comfortable living room to hang out in. Outside, the yard is expansive and well-groomed. The whole property is surrounded by impressive hedges that provide a wind break and privacy. We were delighted to explore the yard and more than anything to bask in the bright, New Zealand sunshine. We met Ice, the friendly husky,

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and caught our first glimpse of Zeelu, the gorgeous Bengal cat.

We thoroughly enjoyed the morning, but began to feel a little concerned when we had not seen or heard from Karma at 11:30, since Gus had to be at school at 1. We waited patiently until noon, but finally decided we needed to figure out how to wake her up. Now, it may seem simple if you are reading this, that an easy solution would have been to knock on her door and see if she was awake. However, we were feeling the full awkwardness of our first day in a new house in a new country, and we had read in our ‘welcome to this house’ packet that the upstairs (where Karma and Craig live) was off limits to guests. So Gus did the next, most logical and most Gus thing he could think of. He went to the bottom of the staircase and started loudly singing “Oh What a Beautiful Morning” from Oklahoma. His voice resounded off the stairway and in 5 seconds we could hear the sound of frantic footsteps overhead. Success! (She knew exactly what was happening too, and later called Gus’s solution to our problem “pure gold.”) She took us to Lincoln University, which is about 7 miles away. Gus went to an international student orientation, and I explored the beautiful campus. Flowers were in bloom, the sun was shining, and life was good in New Zealand!

“It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to.”

J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings

Going Out Our Door

We left on February 9th from our home in eastern Oregon, and began what ended up being a longer start to our adventure than we had imagined…

Our original flight plan was to leave from the Tri-Cities to Seattle, Seattle to Los Angeles, Los Angeles to Sydney, Sydney to Christchurch. Turns out this was a terrible winter to attempt to leave from Seattle. My dad (Joel) drove Sami and I as well as my mother and sister to Tri-cities, in what ended up being a blizzard. We made it just before the freeway was closed behind us. After getting to Tri-cities we found out that our flight had been canceled and that the next available flight was in two days. Given how the roads looked we decided to just stay in Tri-cities for the time being and try again. Rough start but at least we could see the airport from our hotel room!

We spent the 10th waiting at the hotel for tomorrow to come and for our plane to take off. One cancellation wasn’t enough apparently and we found out that our next flight was cancelled. After deliberating on if we should wait where we were and try again in two days we found out there was a flight leaving from Portland that we could make, if Joel was willing to come get us and drive us there. Thankfully, he was. We stayed with my Aunt Kristine in Hermiston for the night before going down the Gorge in the morning.

At this point I would like to take a moment to highlight the kindness of people. From hotel clerks to airline help desks to my aunt and finally and most especially to Joel, we kept having people willing to help and direct us to help when this trip went poorly to start with. The first blog post has a quote about good company making the trip shorter, it most certainly did not make the trip shorter in this case but it did make it much more bearable. Sami and I are very thankful to everyone who was helpful and particularly to Joel. He drove in windy powder snow to get us to Tri-Cities, drove the long way round to come get us not even a day later because the freeway was closed, and then was willing to go down the Gorge the day after that in terrible winter driving conditions.

“I have found it is small everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keep the darkness at bay. Small acts of kindness and love.”

Gandalf, The Hobbit

So on Monday the 11th, a full two days after we had originally planned on leaving for New Zealand we set out once more down the road; this time for Portland. The driving wasn’t fun (though well driven by Sami) and other than long, not overly eventful. Which was wonderful! We arrived at an airport with our flight not cancelled! Joel had his own adventure going back home but did in fact make it home and all was well. It only took two days from first reaching Tri-cities to make it inside an airport.

Leaving the Pacific Northwest

Both Sami and I love the Pacific Northwest. Its beautiful and it is home. And we had never been happier to leave. We flew to Los Angeles and then to Melbourne, Australia. We watched movies, slept, and wondered about our life choices as we sat on that plane forever… just kidding. We mostly did the first two as we had been thoroughly exhausted before even getting on the plane. After a very long layover in Melbourne we caught the last leg of our flying journey to Christchurch, New Zealand. When we first walked out of the airport it was midnight, and forty degrees warmer than home. It was absolutely perfect. Our home-stay host picked us up from the airport and brought us to our home away from home! Of which there will be pictures shortly but not now as I am tired and I should probably get ready for school tomorrow. Will be posting again soon and there will absolutely be pictures of sunshine. Till then keep warm! Love, Sami & Gus