Travels with Flynn: New Zealand's South Island

January 2000

Where?

For orientation, I've included a south island map that highlights the spots for which there are pictures below.

Catching the Travel Bug

Brandy got me to New Zealand. After spending Xmas and New Year's in Australia (where she had spent a semester of "uni"), she was travelling to NZ for a week but didn't have anyone to travel with there. When asked to join her, I said "Sure." Simple enough, eh?


We stopped at the Shoe Fence during our first day of driving. It wasn't in Lonely Planet, but nearly everything else we saw and did during our week travelling together was. (Yea, just one of those..."Hey, what's that?" "A fence with a bunch of shoes." "Cool, let's stop." "Okie doke.")

Glenarchy

[left] The appoach to the west end of Lake Wakatipu and Glenarchy. The dark peak in the middle is the one we climbed during a day hike.
[right] Along the hike, we crossed a lot of small streams. I drank from them as Brandy waited for giardia to set in on me. (It never did.)

Two shots of the south ridge view from Alfred Mountain, overlooking Glenarchy, Lake Wakatipu and Pig and Pigeon Islands.

The ridge of the mount is about 1/4-1/2 mile long. This is the view to the north. The high peak on the right side of the valley is Mt Earnslaw (2819m/9250ft.)

Fiordland

South Island Takahe at Te Anau. It's one of the many native flightless birds that were pretty much wiped out when people brought in predatory animals. (I think the real ones are a bit smaller.)

After passing Lake TeAnau and driving through some forest, this is the first view of the northern portion of the Milford Road valley.

A footbridge across the Marian River kicks off the hike to Lake Marian, an amazing glaciel lake surrounded on 3 sides by gorgeous (but unhikable) cliff faces.

Camping along the Eglinton River on the Milford Road. The view is amazing but the sandflies were unbearable. ("Is it raining?" "No, that's just the sandflies trying to get into the tent.")

The pass under which the Homer Tunnel leads.

A view of Milford Sound from the beach where we stopped for lunch during our kayak daytrip.

Haast

Waterfall along the Haast Pass road and view of Jackson Bay. The little white Hundai on the left was our rental for the week.

Glaciers

Fox Glacier is a strange beast to view. Because there are no objects to use as of reference, any feature of the glacier seems like it could either be the size of a bus or the size of a fist. (I suspect that most of the time, larger is more accurate.) It's also strange to see this giant trail of snow and ice spreading down the valley in the middle of a hot summer day. (Although, in the valley at glacier-level, the air is quite chilly.)

There are a lot of danger signs along the route to the glacier. This one at the terminal face was my fave because it combined things falling with drowning in the river and addded the possibility of a wave doing you in as well. If only there were electric eels and some sort of toxic waste, I think we'd have all of the disaster bases covered.

Franz Joseph Glacier. It's damn big as well. There were some graphics showing how much of the valley it filled at different times. Looking at the size of the valley that was filled only about 100 years ago was pretty serious proof of global warming for me.

Abel Tasman, Nelson and Picton

Although a misty, rainy day, I had a great group to kayak with in Abel Tasman National Park. Cameron [NZ], Jess [UK], Gerda [Holland], Hans Peter [Switzerland], Mark [Australia], Michelle [Canada] and a woman from Houston were a diverse and upbeaet group. I rode in a double with the second guide, Scotty (and consequently got a bunch of great stories and a few extra chances to poke in and through coastline caves.)

[left] Lunch on the beach was exceptional under the tarp. The group was almost reluctant to go back out onto the sea and into the rain.
[right] Shortly thereafter, we had a tea break on another beach on Fisherman Island.

[left] Mark pops out of his kayak to push it when they ran aground after lunch when trying to poke through a shallow waterway.
[center] Everywhere you turn, there's some action activity. This one's for the kids, although I was tempted to play on the Titanic slide as well while waiting for a pickup ultimate game in Nelson.
[right] The geographic center of NZ somehow ended up on the top of a hill just on the edge of Nelson. You can't get any more central than Sal, Stu and I are.

A 45 minute walk from downtown leads to Tahuanui Beach. I came to call this little island along the way "Darrel's Island" because it seemed just the sort of spot my manager at HP would love to hide. (Except for the fact that it's a 1/2 mile from the coastal highway.)

Kaikoura

On the coastal train [left] near kaikoura and [right] passing the salt flats. (The pink tint is from algae that live in the water of the flats.)

Christchurch

[left] I saw quite a few buskers during the two days I spent back in Christchurch before heading to Dunedin for the South Island tournament.
[center] Skinny German Juggle Boy was my favorite. Here, he has caught a bowling ball in a plunger that was balanced on his chin.
[right] Everyone I met was great in NZ, but Bronnie and Roobie were the best. I camped in Bronnie's back yard for a week while recovering from the power-vacation time with Brandy and worked my way through a bit of her personal library. Roobie got me into the Christchurch scene and even provided a roof on 2 different nights. Here we are after they set me up with a good zinc-ing at the South Island Championships.

[left] All of the Christchurch ultimate folk rocked. (Even the Americans.) Here are a smattering of folks that went out to a pub: [front] Bronnie, Penny, Shane, Justin and Roobie [back] Rebecca, Shiv, Ryan (Alaska), Ben (Williams College) and Lurch.

[right] I played with this Nelson team at South Islands. We had a great time, losing to the champs on Saturday (by 1) and again in the finals (by more than 1) but otherwise going undefeated against some good groups of players. Our squad was tall and athletic as hell. Injuries on Sunday were our undoing. [back] Ra, Kevin, Matt, Peter (BC) and Shiv [front] Paul, Q, Heater (WallaWalla), Keri, Laura (Montreal), Joe (BC) and Jason.