Itinerary Email to Seth!

I just wrote an email to Seth explaining what our plans are for the next month... and i just decided to share it with everyone else!

yo!!!! yeah i am so psyched for thursday... thanks for all the links.. we will check them out!!! all the stuff we have done was only the north of the south island an we only had a glimpse of the wild west... so we had to go back!!! we set up an itinerary for the entire month.. and it wasn't enough!!! so here is a breif overview of what we got lined up... i figured you would like to hear!!!

we are going to drive down the west coast... stop in greymouth to the speights brewery... their black beer laura and i really like... laura likes a black beer.. awesome!!!.. then we are going to drunkily stare at glowormsin hokatika and then spend a one day hiking near okarito.. which is the area where the nz book "the bone people" was based.. laura read it and really wants to go!... and then we are going to do at least the lake matthewsen hike at fox glacier then to wanaka... then we are diving to Mount Aspiring National Park... i have heard from a few folks that we have met that this park is sick... so we are going to do a three day back pack close to the cascade saddle (this german guy said he has been waiting his whole life to try the cascade saddle and the weather couldn't hold)on the westside of the matukituki river... then to queenstown to get tranport to the Routeburn Track... which is another "NZ Great Walk" three day tramp that straddles both Mt Aspiring and Fiordland... i did some research about top hikes in the world and there were a few lists that had this as one of the top ahead of the milford... Look up some pics online... it seems sweeeeeeet.... then we get back to queenstown.. unfortunetly its not a loop and is in a really remote area near this road named paradise... then we hop over to te anu and then transport to the four day milford and when we get to milford sound (third day is my birthday) we are going to do a day of kayaking in the sound.... then back to te anu and then we are going to do three days of day hikes just in fiordland... lake marian.. lake manupouri.. lake hauroko and the lookout bluff track..just to name a few then we are going to do he scenic south coast drive stopping in a town called bluff to look at stewart island.. eat mussels... we will probably be really tired of eating dried food at this point... and then over too.. curio bay to see thousands year old petrified forest(tidal) nugget point.. blowholes.. dunedin..then otago peninsula penguins... christchurch.. camp in banks peninsula..(some other germans we met said there favorite campsite was here)...then over to Arthurs Pass for a few hikes. free camping here!!! and then back to picton to a ferry... then Laura is giving a presentation the next day at New Zealand's National Youth Environmental Leaders Conference!!! and then we will sleep!...

laura and i are picturing you whipping out a map!!! we basically..we meaning mostly laura.. read the whole lonely planet and another hiking book..and then crossreferenced conversations we have had with other travelers.. almost eveyone we met and then decided what we wanted to do this first time down... we will go down again... mount cook is way out of the way. we looked at doing another backpacking rip that is the start of the copeland track... which goes west to east ending close to mount cook... hopefully with you... we are going to do the canyon swing with you... only if you do the nevis highwire bungy with us... its the gondola with the glass floor 134m bungy... cool?.. coooool!!! anyways.. thats what we hope to do in a nutshell!!!

as you can tell we are kinda excited!

Wellington Again

Now we are back in Wellington, recuperating and planning our next trip to the South Island which starts Thursday night! We have been staying with Lynette, our new friend from our Landmark Class. She has given us a bed that is not in our van to sleep on, and we have repaid her by cooking lots of yummy food, including 2 cheesecakes!


We participated in the culminating event of our friend Carolina's Landmark community project. As an Italian immigrant to New Zealand, she became aware of a WWII Maori-only battalion that fought to liberate Italy. After finding out that some of these 80-90 year old men could still remember the words to certain Italian songs, she came up with the idea of re-writing "O Solo Mio" with Maori words. Along with Club Gharibaldi, the local Italian club, we sang this song as a tribute to the veterans at Wellington's Italian festival. Sounds strange, but it was a moving experience.

Kaikoura: Swimming with the Dolphins

I have dreamt of swimming with dolphins ever since I heard you could do such a thing.

Kaikoura's ideal dolphin swimming conditions come from its unique continental shelf system. It drops off dramatically 100 meters from shore, bringing "deap sea conditions" (800-1500 meters!) unusually close to human reach. Add 2 ocean currents that pass through, a pristine environment, and no hunting pressures, and you get healthy populations of whales, dolphins, seals, albatross etc. There are 15,000 dusky dolphins (the kind we swam with) living near Kaikoura.



Christian took this beautiful moonlit picture as our boat left shore at 6 AM - without a tripod!

I took most of the pictures on this little adventure - Christian was too seasick even for his camara (now you know that is bad!). However, he was not too sick to participate - in an amazing show of will, he swam the first round of the dolphin swim, got out, threw up, and made it back in by the third round!

Dusky dolphins love to jump and do flips, out of the water, for fun (well there are many explanations for why but that's the one I like), quite often. Imagine 300 of them surrounding the boat, jumping and flipping!

Being surrounded by them in the water was like nothing else. They are fast and huge! If you make a noise like a dolphin or swim in a circle they will get interested in you and do circles with you. And then jet off with a flip of a fin.

Christian and his new buddy at the Kaikoura seal colony.

I'm used to tourists.

Kahurangi National Park- Mount Arthur

Interesting foliage just below the tree line.



Laura descending just below the summit.

Mount Arthur was an incredible hike. It had panoramic views of the surrounding Kahurangi Park. We saw only a few people the entire day and the last two decided to camp just before the incline to the summit. It would have been a perfect spot to watch the sunset over the mountains and I believe that night it was supposed to be a full moon...

Wharariki Beach

This beach is near the Farewell Spit on the northwest corner of the South Island. Everyone seems to want to see the "Spit" ... but this beach was much more exciting. It was vast and had incredible rock erosion formations, seals galore, but a bit too much wind!

That tiny little dot is Laura.

Baby seals having a brief discussion about the current labour party. Three were playing in the cove beyond. They play by flipping and spinning around each other in the water... we spent a lot of time watching them.

Laura's Email Update___March 11, 2006

Hello again out there!

Christian and I are back in the internet cafe, just in time to update you on our life.

One month later, we have been finally seeing the beautiful things people talk about in this country. We completed 2 4-day backpacking trips - the Queen Charlotte track and the Abel Tasman Coastal Track. Since it is the end of summer, beginning of fall here, we thought we might as well do some beach tracks and save the alpine stuff for later.

I think I now see why people rave about here... the Abel Tasman in particular was stunning. Lush and green along bright clean blue almost carribean looking beaches. There were tidal crossings in which you have to time your walk to correspond with low tide. When the tide is out, the sand is vast and looks like a wet desert.

Both Christian and I felt like we could stay out on the track for a long time. In fact, the last day we did not want to leave the beautiful beach we were camped on so despite the lack of much food left we spent the morning there reading and getting a sunburn and hiked out in the afternoon.

We met some interesting people along the track too. One night we sat around a picnic table until after dark talking with a ex-navy Kiwi who has worked for 5 years in London, and a 19 year old Dutch couple who had been dating since they were 14. The Kiwi guy explained all about yachting to us - much more than a rich man's sport apparently.

On the third day of the Queen Charlotte track - the best day in terms of views etc., I came up with a name for our van! Greenstone is the less precious and more abundant form of Jade, and is special to the Maoris, who call it "Pounamou". They make tiki necklaces out of it, among other things. Sticking with the colors theme, green in the new van's case, we are calling our van "The Pounamou Palace".

Most of this will probably be in the many pictures Christian is posting. Check them out at

http://www.bigbluebugblog.blogspot.com.

Hope you are not overwhelmed by information and that you are all well.
Love
Laura

More Abel Tasman!

birds!

Laura crossing Torrent Bay.

Water during sunrise.

Sunrise over Tonga Island. Our campsite was about 10 paces from the beach.

Abel Tasman National Park!

After backpacking for all day... this was a pretty nice place to let my feet rest.

The sand was pretty cool. Some sort of granite oxidation made the beaches orangey... a bit larger than sand that we are used too but still very comfortable to relax on.

This is from our final tidal crossing. When the tide is out people like to write there names or whatever they want with large stones.

Laura taking it in on our final day.

Rope swings are always a good reason to stop and take a break!

This is for all the people that didn't believe that Mondo and Scape play fought together.




the attack!!!

the tackle!!!

The retaliation (teeth)!!!!

A couple of funny shots from Wellington!

We thought we would add a couple more shots from our other camera!



Laura looking very happy after starting a sidewalk dance pary!



This is what it feels like to watch synchronized swimming in Wellington Harbor!

Pictures and Stuff!

off to the Abel Tasman!!!


breakfast.. yum!



Laura wants me to stop putting pictures of her on the blog... but i just can't help it! that and i'm sure people don't mind!!!



This is Michele (right) and Mateo (Left) from Italy and Gabie (middle) from Isreal. Gabi is a longtime friend of Laura's cousin Alon. They are apple pickers outside of Nelson and were recently on the cover of the local paper!!! We spent a wonderful weekend with them learning from them and hearing fantastic stories about their travels. They really were great hosts and will definitley be seeing them again! Thanks for the hospitality!!!... oh yeah.. the picture is from a walk we went on with them to the source of a river.. Gabie is filling up our water bottle with some delicious water!... so cold!



this was a view near our campsite on our last night on the queen charlotte.




great view!!! dorky camera bag!!!



baby fern..


sign reads "Pack in. Pack out."... translation... "feed scraps to the hungry pig!"



Waiting for the 3am ferry to the South Island.