Here are some pictures from New Zealand that other people took. I thought I’d share.
(c) All rights reserved Kimberly Fiore
Category: New Zealand
One Final Tour
There is this bug that glows in the dark and lives in caves. They call them glow worms, but they aren’t worms. I booked an all day tour to go see the glow worms. It was a big bus tour and that just made the whole day slightly disappointing, but I still got to see glow worms and sheep! It was a 13-hour tour and there wasn’t one interesting person on the bus except the bus driver, Rachael. I’ve attached a video. Getting on the bus was a bit stressful. I arrived at the bus station where there were a bunch of tour buses and people, but none of the buses had the name of the tour company I thought I booked with. Later I found out they are all the same company with different names. The lady in the office said I needed to check in with the lady by the buses. There was a sea of confused tourists and somewhere in the middle of that sea was a lady with a shopping cart of fruit and a list of names. She gave me some fruit, gave me a sticker and told me which bus to get on. Ah, the sticker people tracking system. So simple and yet quite effective. I’m a green sticker for the day.
It was a 3-hour drive to the cave. Rachael told us all sorts of information about New Zealand along the way. I was actually a little bummed that I couldn’t stay awake for all of it. I think she talked the whole 3 hours. The cave tour involved a lot of information on how they found the cave, a little information on the glow worms and a quick, but beautiful boat ride through the cave. No one is allowed to take photos so the one I posted is from the internet. All the Japanese (half the bus) were late so we got to the farm late. I assume their translator did a bad job of telling them when to be back.
The Agrodome farm was fun though. First they showed us how to sheer a sheep. I’m not sure how I feel about this. Then they showed us how a dog herds sheep. I don’t think I liked this part. It’s one thing to herd sheep because you need to, but another thing to stress them into running around a course because 53 tourists want to watch. I did kinda like the part where one of the sheep tried to be all tough and face off with the dog and stamp its foot in protest. “Fuck you, we did this yesterday and I don’t like you”. Then we went on a trailer pulled by a tractor around the farm. We saw at least 7 different types of cows, pigs, turkeys, pukekos, goats, deer, sheep, and alpacas. Then we got to feed the sheep. The tractor stopped and sheep came from everywhere. It was a fantastic mess of sheep and squealing Japanese. I could have watched that for hours. I got to pet and feed sheep. I was a happy 6-year-old!
The last stop was the Te Puia. We were here in the 18-day tour, but I chose not to go. It’s a thermal park / cultural center. First off was a Maori concert. It was similar to the dinner we had gone to on the tour, but just the singing and dancing part. Then we had a tour of the thermal park. I had my fill of people touching me and crowding me so I skipped out of the tour and walked around on my own. There is a geyser there. It didn’t go off while I was there. I wish I had had more time to walk through the park. A long ride back to Auckland and Rachael decided to not talk so people could sleep. I was ready to stay awake and take in all the knowledge Rachael had to share. Darn, I did that wrong.
Today, I’m going to take it easy, get some work done. Tomorrow I get on a plane to go back to the US. It doesn’t seem real.
Interesting facts:
Glow worms are not worms, but the larvae of a type of fly.
Glow worms glow so that insects will think that is the way out of the tunnel and then get caught in their feeding lines.
The first glow worms to hatch eat the others.
A sheep shearer makes $2 per sheep
2 dogs can handle 800-1000 sheep.
The sheep get sheared every 6 months.
Lanolin is sheep oil – their wool is oily – maybe not news to you, but it was to me.
There are Angora Goats – again, maybe you knew this, but I always thought it was a type of rabbit. There are angora rabbits too. Learning new things.
(c) All rights reserved Kimberly Fiore
End of Tour
Our last full day on the tour we went to an old Chinese settlement. It was from the gold rush days. Apparently the Chinese were allowed to come over and mine, but only mine claims that had already been mined. They weren’t allowed to live in the English settlements so they created their own settlement. After that we went to ride bikes on the Otago Central Rail Trail. It was a nice, easy, pretty ride on the trail of an old railroad. The tracks are gone. We only did a 2 hour section. The overall trail is longer. We stayed in a tiny town with an old hotel. Most of the group was very unhappy with this. They made us sit outside for dinner since the bar was crowded with other guests and townspeople. Some of the people were talked to or treated like they were teenagers or second class citizens. I didn’t experience this, but that’s what they were talking about. The dinner wasn’t very good. Most of the group was upset that our last dinner together and was so disappointing.
Our last day we went back to Christchurch. On the way we stopped to see Moeraki Boulders, large round rocks on the beach. They were pretty cool. I can’t quite explain them so if you want more info, see this: http://www.moerakiboulders.com/
A lot of people on the bus were sick, theory that it was the horrible dinner from the night before. I was glad I had chosen the vegetarian option. We got to the ghost town, I mean Christchurch early evening. Since the tour was over for me, I stayed at an airbnb. It was luxury to have my own room with a double bed! I got a bus back downtown and went out to dinner with a couple of the people from the tour. We walked around the deserted ghost town of Christchurch. At one point we heard music coming from a small alley. We walked into the alley and it opened up into a courtyard with 4 or 5 restaurants and some live music. Since we had already eaten, we walked through the alley coming out the other side into the ghost town again. I wonder if all the people of Christchurch are hanging out in tiny hidden alleys all over the city.
I left way too early in the morning for my flight back to Auckland. I just wanted to stay in that comfortable bed for another few hours. Joel picked me up from the airport. We found a place to picnic for dinner, wandered around town, shopped for food and checked me into the new airbnb. Another night with a double bed in a room of my own – Aaaahhhhhh. For New Year’s Eve we had a picnic with a couple people from the tour, watched a comedy show and then watched fireworks at midnight. It was a very pleasant New Years Eve.
Today was a chill day of working and doing laundry. Went to dinner and wandered around Devonport and Silo Park in Auckland.
(c) All rights reserved Kimberly Fiore
Queenstown Birthday
Morning on the boat was beautiful. The clouds came in low covering the tops of the mountains, but it was quite peaceful. The water was like glass. At breakfast, they announced the sighting of penguins. I LOVE penguins. I looked and saw them, but all I saw was a black thing in the water way off in the distance. You couldn’t tell that it was an animal, much less that it was a penguin with a yellow tuft of feathers over its eye.
Then off to Queenstown. Queenstown is known as the Adventure capital of New Zealand. They are famous for skydiving and bungee jumping. We have three nights in Queenstown. How great to stay in one place for three nights! First they took us to Peter Pans Tours to book any activities we wanted to do. This was the most disorganized tour company. The lady helping us would ask a question and then completely ignore the answer. They were obviously only interested in getting our money and getting us out of there as quickly as possible. Six of us signed up for Canyoning and they couldn’t even tell us which company we were booked with, what day, or what time. We would get an email later that would tell us. Later that night, we still didn’t have the email and the shop was closed. Our tour guide got a hold of the guy from the shop and he agreed to meet us at a local bar and bring us the information. He was, of course, an hour late. But we finally got the information. We spent way too much time in a backpacker bar. I am so not a backpacker. We finally went to a bar with live music which I enjoyed much more, but a few in our group couldn’t wait to go back to the backpacker bar so they could have cheaper beer and Jagger bombs. I stayed up long enough for midnight to celebrate the beginning of my birthday and then off to bed.
The canyoning tour was fun. We put on thick wetsuits and harnesses and walked through a tight canyon. We rappelled or slid down waterfalls along the way. It was only for an hour or two, but just the perfect amount of time. Four of us went out for a nice Italian dinner and drinks at a rum bar – no Jagger bombs in sight. Then to another place with live music. It was a wonderful adult evening.
The last day in Queenstown, I spent wandering around the town. A few of us went to do the Luge which is similar to an Alpine Slide, but instead of a concrete luge track that only one cart can go down, it’s more like a go cart track. We went to Ferg Burger which is supposed to be the best burger place in the world. I don’t know how you get that reputation. There was always a line out the door and down the block. The line was shorter when we went and it didn’t take too long to get our burgers. It was a normal burger with a huge bun and a lot of goop on it. It was good, but I don’t get all the hype. However, I don’t get all the hype about burgers anyway.
(c) All rights reserved Kimberly Fiore
Christmas
Out for dessert, I asked the group if anyone knew what Pavlova was. The French girl told me it was a Russian dessert, a pastry that wouldn’t be made well here. Then again, no dessert is made well except in France. A couple days later I tried Pavlova and it’s not Russian. It’s from either Australia or New Zealand. It’s like a pie made of meringue and berries. And it’s fabulous!
After we left Franz Joseph, we did a small hike around Matheson Lake with views of Fox Glacier and Mount Cook. Mount Cook is New Zealand’s highest mountain. I didn’t see the glacier and I have no idea which mountain was Mount Cook. But it was beautiful. We also stopped at a lot of cool places for photo opportunities. One was Bruce Bay which is a very isolated beach. We went over Haast Pass which is one of New Zealand’s newest roads. So most of the wilderness in that area is untouched by humans. I bought new earrings and then lost one on a small hike to a waterfall. Wow – that was expensive. We also went to Blue Pools which was a pretty area where a very blue river runs into another river. When we got to our accommodation, we went jet boating on the Makaroa River. That was a lot of fun. Later that evening I lost $10 that fell out of my pocket and no one seemed to ask if anyone lost $10. Then later I discovered that I lost my new wool/possum hat. Merry Christmas Eve – Instead of getting gifts, I’m losing things.
Christmas day started off early with a 6:30am leaving time. We drove to a big lake with a few photo stops on the way. At the lake we got on a boat and headed across the lake. Then on the other side of the lake we got on busses. The busses took us through more untouched wilderness. The road had been built for the construction of a hydroelectric plant. Otherwise, Doubtful Sound would be even more difficult to get to. The busses took us to our overnight boat. Doubtful Sound is part of the Fiordlands. It is far far less visited than Milford Sound. We never saw another boat the whole time we were there. This is another area where there are no introduced species of plants and no animals. We cruised through the fiord to the Sea to look at Fur Seals. We took tours in smaller boats or kayaks. There was swim time too which for me was jump off the boat and promptly swim back to the boat. The water was so cold. The dinner was the best we’ve had so far on this trip.
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!
(c) All rights reserved Kimberly Fiore
Glacier
Time to move on. Two hours after leaving Christchurch, the tour company called our driver and told him he had to pick up people up from the airport. So now we are behind schedule four hours which makes for a long day of driving. He dropped us off in a small town and we just wandered around for a couple hours while he went back to Christchurch. I don’t like this part of the tour. Just when you get to know people and bond with them, they leave and new people come on. Maybe my future husband will be one of the new people. It was a full day of driving to the tiny town of Franz Joseph. The drive was so beautiful. There were so many waterfalls that we started playing a game to see who could call out the new ones fastest. All along the trip whenever we are near the ocean, people have been telling us we might see an orca and of course no one has seen an orca. So, we decided if you see a waterfall, just call out Orca. I can’t even count how many orcas we saw. My future husband is not in the group of new people. After dinner they had dance music and the younger Italian guy likes dancing. He pulled out some dance moves I can’t begin to explain. It was like gumby crossed with Saturday Night Fever, some chicken dance and a dash of the Rockettes. It was one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen. The older Italian wanted to play cards so I tried to teach him Rummy. It was very difficult to teach so I left out some of the harder rules and let a lot of wrong moves, like playing out of turn, slide – Rummy Lite. All was going ok until he decided he didn’t like the game anymore and proceeded to try to teach me a game. It looked kind of like Rummy, but with more cards. No matter what I did, it was wrong and he’d get upset because I wasn’t playing right. He’d then tell me what I was doing wrong. Unfortunately, no matter how many times he’d tell me, I still don’t speak Italian. So, he’d tell me again and I still hadn’t learned Italian.
The next day 8 of us went on a glacier hike on the Franz Joseph Glacier. Because the glacier has receded so much in the past few years you can no longer hike to the glacier. You now have to be taken by helicopter. This made the hike very expensive, but also makes you feel like a bad-ass. For those of you who don’t know, I am in love with snow. Ice is equally as wonderful. I would have been happy to spend a week up there. It’s so beautiful. In 3 hours, I took 320 photos. I won’t post them all, but I will probably post more photos than you want to see. Sorry. Sort of. No, not really. After the glacier, spent some time in the hot springs, then all you can eat pizza. Good day.
(c) All rights reserved Kimberly Fiore
Dolphin
Our next accommodation was nice. We had small houses in the mountains. We went to the hot springs and dinner. Then on to Akaroa. We were supposed to go to Kaikoura which is famous for dolphin and whale watching. But because of the recent earthquake we were not able to go there. Three of us went on a dolphin watching cruise in Akaroa and the rest wandered around the town. It was a warm sunny day and we saw lots of Hectors dolphin. I had never seen them before. They are tiny. I didn’t get any pictures of them so the picture I’m putting in is from the internet. We saw little penguins swimming and fur seals. We saw lots of birds and one sheep (not swimming). The boat was a family run business, small group of people and the boat staff was wonderful. They also had a dolphin dog. He ran around with his little life jacket on. He can hear the dolphin so he would run to the side of the boat where they were long before we could see them. After Akaroa, we went to Christchurch. Christchurch was nothing too exciting. A bunch of us went to the botanic gardens (free) and then wandered around downtown. Christchurch is still rebuilding from the earthquake years ago. It feels like a ghost town. Most buildings are abandoned and there were hardly any people around. There’s a bunch of Burner type art and murals around town. My favorite mural was one of penguins. On the left the penguins looked normal, but then toward the right, the penguins were melting.
(c) All rights reserved Kimberly Fiore
Zorb Video
I tried to upload this video days ago, but wifi in New Zealand sucks. I finally got good wifi for a night.
(c) All rights reserved Kimberly Fiore
Abel Tasman
Next was a long drive to Wellington. We had a tour of Weta Workshops booked. I really wanted to go, but I’m still sick and this was the last opportunity to see a doctor for a while. Heidi and I skipped the tour to go to the doctors. Just to see the doctor and tell her I had a sinus infection and her to go, “yes you do” cost me $200. Ouch and ouch. We went out for dinner. It was the last night we would all be together. Half of the group would end their tour in Wellington and half of us would go on to tour the South Island. It’s sad to say goodbye to some of our group. The next morning was an early start with breakfast at 6:00am.. Half the group got on bus or had other plans. The rest of us got on a ferry to cross the Cook Straight. I’ve never been on a big ferry before. This boat was huge, full of semi trucks, cars and cargo on the lower levels and people on the upper levels. The views outside were stunning, but the wind and cold made it uncomfortable outside so we spent the 3 hours in the café area. We stopped for wine tasting. It was a tourist area with some shops – I could have skipped this part. We had lunch near a river where part of The Hobbit was filmed. I took a picture of the river, but can’t say it looked familiar.
We got to spend two nights near the Abel Tasman National Park. Two nights in the same place is a small luxury! The first morning we got picked up by a water taxi. Because of the big changes in tides, they load you into the boats and take the boats out to the water by tractor. That was a fun unique experience. Our boat took us to Split Apple Rock. Then we went to a nearby island and looked for fur seals. Our guide told us they were technically sea lions, but they never changed the name. We saw a few. They dropped us off at a different bay and we hiked back. There are a bunch of trails in the park and some go along the tops with great overlooks and some go down to bays. We did some beach time and a lot of hiking. We saw dolphin, but no orca. I keep hoping to see orca – maybe later in the trip. It was a little more hiking than I wanted. We got back around dinner time. It is one of the most beautiful places I’ve seen.
They have a great sea gull here. He’s very white with red eyes and red feet. There was one on the beach that tried to sneak up behind us in hopes of getting food. He snuck all around us – up one side, then the other, round back, back and forth in front. It was a lot of work of pretending he didn’t notice us as he searched for scraps. He came up empty. The sand at the beaches is golden due to iron in the minerals. Some of the sand is black which was obviously metallic because it stuck to the magnets on my backpack, creating cool crystal like structures on the magnets. The water was too cold for me, but a few people swam.
Then it was time to move on. We drove through some of the prettiest mountains – very rugged and very green. More cows, sheep and farms too.
Maori
The Maori show/dinner was fun. The bus driver that picked us up was funny. He taught us “Kiora” which means “Hello, Goodbye, How are you, etc”. Then he proceeded to translate it to almost every language in the world, including accents in that language. At the dinner/show they did a ceremony before letting us in. Then there were different educational stations where they showed us different parts of their culture. They were warriors and great sea navigators. Many of their games were based on hand eye coordination and agility to make them better warriors. After that they took us to a room where they did traditional song and dance. I found it interesting that they shake their hands a lot in the dancing and they explained that this was the life force. Louise, are you reading this? They believe shaking of their hands is life force. Then dinner. The dinner was similar to a Hawaiian Luau where the food was cooked in the earth. After there was more singing and dancing and more funny bus driver who knew the national anthem of many countries.
On Day 3 of the tour we started off by going to see some mud pools. There is a lot of geothermal activity in the area. It was exciting for a minute. Then we went to a place where two creeks met, one was cold and one was warm. A few of us sat in the creek for a little bit. There was supposed to be skydiving today, but it got canceled. I wasn’t going to skydive anyway so it didn’t matter to me, but I think the mud pools and two creeks was an attempt to fill the extra time. Then we went to Huka falls. It’s a very impressive waterfall. It’s not tall, but it’s a tight rock canyon and the volume of water being pushed through it is insane. A sign said the volume of water could fill 5 olympic sized pools every minute. After that we went to Blue Duck Station which was a ranch in the middle of nowhere. We were supposed to do some 4wd touring of the ranch, but because it was raining, we didn’t go very far. They spent a long time telling us about the ranch instead. It was very beautiful, but it would have been more interesting if we could have seen more of the ranch.
On Day 4 of the tour we were supposed to hike the Tongarino Crossing. It is supposed to be a live volcano, but I don’t think you can see lava or anything. It got canceled because of weather. Everyone on the bus was so cranky about it. So we did a smaller hike to a waterfall. Half the group did that and then went back into town for lunch. The rest of us did a hike from there that went to two lakes. The hike was longer than I expected and it was all above tree line with a lot of exposure – it was so windy. I decided I wanted to spread some of Scott’s ashes above the lakes. I got one guy to take the picture and I tested the direction of the wind. Right after we had a discussion about how many times I’ve been covered in Scott’s ashes. Just as I let the ashes go the wind changed direction and blew Scott all over another girl on the tour. She was a bit freaked out about it. The guy and I kind of joked about it and that freaked her out more. I felt a mixture of embarrassment and humor. I wanted to laugh, but didn’t think that would help much.
(c) All rights reserved Kimberly Fiore
Rraine Drops 