Changes in Latitudes

We drove out from Lake Wanaka and past Lake Hawea towards Tarras. Tarras was put on the map in 2004 when " Shrek the Sheep " was found in a cave, having avoided being sheared for six years! He became quite the sensation, being taken on tour before eventually being sheared in front of 200 people and on live television. There we stopped in the little store for some small souvenirs and an ice cream. Continuing on we stopped at a town called Twizel to get some information on Aoraki/Mount Cook National Park and the dark sky reserve. This part of New Zealand has the world's largest dark sky reserve, which boasts the best stargazing...we decided to not stay the night though since we had some amazing nights before that. When we got to Aoraki/Mount Cook National Park we got some advice on how to not take too long of a hike but also get some great views. The little known trail, Red Tarns, was recommended to us and we were happy we did it. From the top we had a great view of A...

From Greymouth we drove south along the west coast of New Zealand. This was the only day we had bad weather. The rain poured pretty hard, and I was a little bummed because Mount Aspiring National Park was what I was really excited to see and get in some nice hiking, but we still stopped along the way through the park for short (30 min) walks in the rain. The road that goes through the park is called the Haast Highway ...our stops included Fantail Falls, Blue Pools (not pictured), and Makaroa before we called it a day. [Rain on the GoPro ...looking at Franz Josef glacier] [cairns in front of Fantail Falls] [Marius adding his cairn] [We are big fans of picnic lunches when we're on a road trip] [soup, bread, cheese, rice crackers, hummus and coffee] [Entering Mount Aspiring National Park] [We were supposed to see Aoraki/Mount Cook really well from this side, but the clouds did not let us] [Cell phone service is really spotty and often nonexist...

Day three we woke up not feeling 100%. We had been eaten alive by sandflies, were not too comfy in our tent set up (Marius' legs were sticking out of the end), and we just weren't feelin' it. But it was the last day, the last 10 kms, the last hours in Abel Tasman. We packed up, the sun was shining and it was yet another gorgeous day. [Packing up on day 3] This section of the track wove in and out from woods to beach. While walking along one of the beaches early in the day, a group of hikers called us over. We took our packs off and went to see what was up. They had found a colony of fur seals playing in the cove about 100 yards from where we sat. We watched them for about 15 minutes. The pups were playing in the water and one of the adults swam by us to check us out and make sure we weren't dangerous. Such a beautiful way to start the day. [Difficult to see, but there are fur seals by the rocks] [Momma coming to check us out] The last six kms of t...

New Zealand is known for nature, and the Department of Conservation (DOC) has found a great way to get people to see the best of the best. Thus, the 9 Great Walks of New Zealand: Abel Tasman, Milford,  Lake Waikaremoana, Tongariro Northern Circuit, Whanganui Journey, Heaphy, Routeburn, Kepler, and Rakiura. So far I can say I have done three of these: Milford, Tongariro and Abel Tasman. We walked the Abel Tasman with our good friend, Divya. They recommend using 3-5 days to do the trek, and we did it in three...but we like to brag that we rather did it in 48 hours. We flew to Nelson on Monday morning with Divya in tow, and a shuttle picked us up at the airport and drove us to Marahau, the start of the Abel Tasman Coastal Track. The weather was predicted to be perfect for the whole week and we were excited to experience this unique part of New Zealand. At 12:30 we began walking and we had to walk 24 kms to make it to our accommodation. We managed to get to the hut at Bark Bay...

We did a lot in New Zealand in a short amount of time, so I'll write entries in chunks. [Enjoying a cup of noodles on our Cathay Pacific flight to Hong Kong] [Neat live camera feature to see our plane from above] On February 24th we landed in Auckland in the morning after quite a long haul of plane flights and layovers (Bergen - Oslo - London - Hong Kong - Auckland). Between London and Auckland we had a total of 22hrs of flight time, probably round it up to 25 hours with the layover. We landed just before 8AM and were picked up by my old flatmates, Dominic and Beau, whom I lived with when I was living down there. They hadn't changed a bit, and chatting with them made it feel like I had never left. It was hard to believe that I hadn't seen them in nearly 6 years. We had breakfast at Mission Bay, a local beach that we frequented and got caught up. Marius and I felt very pale and were eager to get a shower and a nap. We got to our hostel (YHA Auckland City) and dr...