New Zealand - The South Island

Two weeks sounded like plenty of time to visit a relatively small country. I kind of thought that all the people who kept telling us that two weeks wasn't long enough were crazy, especially since two straight weeks of vacation is pretty difficult to come by for most people I know in the States. As it turns out, they were right. Trying to see all of New Zealand, or at least all of its highlights, in two weeks is a challenge. We have made an admirable effort to get it all in, but the only way to do that is to be constantly on the move, spending a lot of time in transit between spread out towns and sights. Frankly, I am exhausted after two weeks.

Having said that, I wouldn't have done it any differently. Unless you have the luxury of spending a month here, there is no other way to go about it. Everything we have seen was great, so I wouldn't have wanted to cut anything out.

As promised, the South Island is even more spectacular than the North Island was. The scenic trains between the ferry and Christchurch and then between Chirstchurch and the West coast through the Southern Alps offered amazing views.

  

  

My previous estimate that New Zealand had about a million sheep was grossly inaccurate. In fact, it has 35 million sheep. And I'm fairly certain I've seen at least 5 million of them personally.

From the train, we continued on to the glacial region of New Zealand. Having passed a few days since OGOing without undertaking any adrenaline-inducing activity, I was due for an adventure. On the South Island this came in the form of glacier hiking. We were supposed to hike Fox Glacier, but due to bad weather and recent glacial instability there, we had to change our plans and instead hike Franz Josef Glacier. Apparently Franz Josef is much more stable and their hikes go even if it is raining, as it was on our hiking day (my knowledge of glacial stability being zero, I trusted them on this).

We got suited up in head-to-toe rain gear - very flattering over 3 other layers of clothing - and hiked through a desolate field of gray rocks and hills before getting onto the glacier itself. For this part we got to use crampons, which are boot attachments with 10 spikes on each foot for climbing up massive mounds of packed ice. It was definitely a unique and challenging experience, but the up close views of the glacier were totally worth it.

From the glaciers on, the weather only got colder in the Southern towns and we haven't seen much in the way of sunlight for days. The exception was our first night in Queenstown and the surrounding lake region. The mountain lakes are a shade of blue that I have never seen outside of tropical oceans. We also got treated to a spectacular sunset in Queenstown.

The cult of adventure that permeates New Zealand is hard to resist. I even found myself signing up for hang gliding, only to have that plan thwarted by rain. But this country is heaven for anyone who is an adrenaline junkie.

After leaving Queenstown, we headed back to the West coast to Fiordland National Park, which Kiwis universally seem to agree is the most beautiful part of their country. I can't say that they're wrong. We took a cruise through Milford Sound which was pretty amazing. Apparently it typically rains 200 days a year there, but we were lucky enough to have a nice day.

Our final destination in our whirlwind tour was Dunedin, a town in the South that is known for its penguins and other wildlife. Despite cold weather, we got to see an abnormally large colony of fur seals (even the people at the reserve were impressed) and the rarest penguin in the world (there are only 1600 pairs left in the world and we saw 5 of them in the wild).

We also go to see the most Eastern point in New Zealand, which is the third place in the world to see the new sunrise each day. Apparently this peninsula was quite packed on New Year's Eve when we switched over to 2000.

All in all, it has truly been a fantastic visit. It's hard to comprehend that I still have a month to go in Australia, and that I haven't done most of the things I have planned for there yet. Mostly I am excited to return to sun and warm tempuratures, especially since I didn't really pack appropriately for the colder weather we've been having, and ecstatic to not be on a bus again for a while. I'm also thankful that we managed to get out of Christchurch without any earthquakes (they had 2 within 24 hours of our being there).

So, now on to Melbourne to kick back and relax for a bit, and maybe even be in the same hotel for multiple nights in a row...