One of the more fascinating experiences for Mike was when we literally drove under and through an entire mountain. In the photo below, you can see the entrance to Homer Tunnel. The tunnel itself was not fixed with beams or supports but instead relied purely on the structural integrity of the unlined granite that made up the mountain.
You may have to look close to see the tiny entrance into the ginormous mountain.
The photo below perfectly captures how it felt to drive though the 1.2 km tunnel. These were my thoughts as we passed under the mountain; dark, scary, time travel, claustrophobic, unsafe.
As soon as we arrived on the otherside and into the main area of the Milford Sound we booked a boat to take us through the Fiorland for $73 each. The area has recently been named the 8th Wonder of the World (not sure by who...) but it's easy to see why.
The U shaped space between the two mountains below was carved out by icebergs many many years ago. Now a deep valley sits among the mountains surrounded by water.
There is no garbage anywhere! It's always nice to see when a country takes care of their land.
Seals lay on the rock waiting for the sun to peak through. I wish I had gotten a video, they looked so cute hopping around. One even popped up out of the water like a torpedo and landed up on the rocks.
Waterfalls crashed down onto the waiting ocean in a powerful display of nature.
After the relaxing boat ride through the sound, we had many hikes to choose from for our next activity. The lady at the information desk recommended the Lake Marian Track, promising us that it would wow us from start to finish. She had a big smile and I'm a sucker for enthusiasm so we strapped on Mike's 'double knee braces' and hit the trail head.
Five minutes into the hike we were blessed with raging rapids flowing alongside the trail. Don't fall MK, I know how weak your knees can be...
Roots from the trees made natural steps and escorted us up the steep incline.
The reward at the end of the hike was the pristine Marian Lake. Some snow still remained on the sides of the mountains and I could only imagine how beautiful this lake would look during wintertime.
As we enjoyed the view, little beads of rain started to fall so we packed up and began running down the trail. I didn't have any protection for my camera so I stuck it in an old almond snack bag. Just as we arrived at our car, 1.5h after the first drop, it began pouring rain and my camera was thankful to make it out alive! She lives to snap another day.
The drive to our campsite was no less incredible and we had front row seats to some rain showers.
I just needed to get high enough to capture it. Mike said, "it's a picture... of a picture! Genius!!", when he took this photo.
We also took a quick pit stop at the Mirror Lakes....no explanation needed.
We spent the night parked at a cute little countryside freedom camping area and this huge fella parked himself right beside my door while he patiently waited for some love.
We were absolutely pooped so after a hot shower we slept, hard.
Day 217- While on our way to our next campground, we stopped in Queenstown for a few hours to enjoy some wifi and eat a delicious burger.
Fergburger is a local burger joint in Queenstown that is famous for their perfectly crafted burgers. To Mikes chagrin, we waited the standard 1 1\2 hours for our chance to critique the said burger.
Oh, my, goodness, was it ever something. I am currently writing this blog in India where beef is illegal because cows are sacred and just seeing the photo is making my mouth water.
We drove for the rest of the day and parked our smiling faces at a campsite overlooking a river. We finished dinner just in time to see a vibrant violet sunset. I love the moon in the distance.
Day 218- We slept for a short 2-3 hours before our alarm woke us up at 3:30 am. It was time for our last big hike in New Zealand. Roys Peak is a 16km hike that was promising to take us 5-6 hours round trip. Someone had recommended that we try to make it to the top for sunrise and we accepted the challenge.
The walk took us through private farm land, across fields of green and passed many curious sheep. When we finally made it to the top, the sun began to rise and the view was remarkable.
At 1578 meters we had a 360 degree view of Lake Wanaka as well as the surrounding peaks of Mount Aspiring and Mount Tititea.
We were lucky to get some great photos of the world below, before a huge wall of clouds rolled in. That's me in the distance.
Mike perched at the tip of the top, engulfed in heaven.
After we completed the hike we hit the road for Lake Tekapo where we planned to camp for the night. It was a difficult hike and we were both absolutely exhausted so we stocked up on coffees before hitting the highway. Along the way we noticed the lake below glowing bright turquoise. The colour of the water was so blue that it looked fake so we had to google it to see if it was treated with something industrial. Turns out the color is legit and the ice run off from the surrounding mountains is what makes it so blue. The lake below is called Lake Pukaki.
We made it to Lake Tekapo fairly early in the evening but we were both too tired to take advantage of the free time. Lake Tekapo is home to the largest light pollution free area in the world and it also houses two research observatories. Our intention was to visit one of the observatories for a tour but the cost was too steep. Instead, we hung out on the beach late night and played with the functions on my camera to capture some magic of our own.
It also happened to be the night before Valentines Day so I added a little love to our star gazing. Pretty cool hey? If you make the shutter speed super long you can not only capture all of the stars but you can use a flashlight to write a note to your loved one. Mike didn't know what the heck I was doing until the photo finished processing.
Day 219- Happy Valentines Day!!! We spent most of this romantic and lovey day driving on the highway towards Christchurch. We stopped for gas around 100 kms from Christchurch and the gas attendant was excited to ask me if we'd felt the earthquake just an hour before. We hadn't but apparently this 5.9 monster was felt along the fault line as far as Aukland and rocked the city of Christchurch. The city was shaken pretty badly from the quake and once we finally made it into town we began to see some of the damage. The malls and most businesses were closed until further notice and aftershocks were felt on several occasions. Almost exactly 5 years earlier, to the day, a 6.3 earthquake shook the town and destroyed a lot of the downtown area. Remnants of the destruction still remains today and can be seen while driving around the city.
The shipping containers below were used at the sites of fallen buildings to stabilize the damage.
Our only plans for the day were to prepare Jazz for her return to her rightful owners as well as stock up on any items needed for our next destination. After we completed our tasks we went to see the new Zoolander movie and I'm pretty sure I felt an aftershock in the theater. Scary, although I forgot about it quickly because the movie was hilarious.
We spent what was left of the evening with our girl Jazz and listened to some cool tunes on the cool grass.
Day 220- I was fascinated by the earthquakes and continued to monitor the aftershocks on a reliable website.
101 earthquakes within a 24hour period?! WHATTTTTT????
Our first order of business was to get a real authentic eggs benedict, which was one of my last requests before leaving the country. We went to a restaurant called Black Betty and ordered up two Benny's.
It was just as we'd hoped. DELICIOUS.
Another item on our list was to get Mike's hair cut. It was a much more difficult task than you would expect and it was only after three failed attempts that we finally found a barber that was open. Well, maybe not a barber...maybe just a man with a sign that said he was a barber. It was funny because when we saw this...let's call it a vintage style salon, I looked at Mike with apprehension. Mike responded with, 'usually these hole in the wall places are the best'. Well, Mike was very very wrong and the "barber" blindly hacked at Mike's hair for a full 6.5 minutes. It was like watching the Grinch shave his face when he was a child because Mayor Augustus Maywho made fun of him because he was oddly hairy as well as involved in a love triangle with the beautiful big toothed Martha May. <annnnnd exhale> Orrrr it was like the barber was the love child of Sweeny Tood and a young Edward Scissor Hands. Both characters played by my favourite actor Johnny Depp. The worse part was that he made fun of Mike for being too into himself when Mike asked him to even up his lopsided sideburns.
I digress, next stop was to return the van. We had no problems giving her back and we were happy to see we'd crushed 5200 kms with the ol' gal. She treated us well and she will be missed. Though it may not be with Jazz by our side, we will definitely return to New Zealand one day. In total we had 5 weeks to explore this beautiful country and I don't feel like we even scratched the surface. The landscape is unique, untouched, vast and continual. It's hard to believe places like this still exist in our world. I didn't expect to be so awed by New Zealand and I left feeling like I had just spent the last 5 weeks in a fairytale. New Zealand to me is like a unicorn, you think such a creature can only exist in your imagination until one day you open your eyes and it stands in front of you. Mike said, "this was unicorny and didn't make sense because he has never opened his eyes to see a unicorn standing in front of him". To this I replied that his eyes are wide shut. Let him chew on THAT for a while!
We took a bus back to our hood and checked into a room. Not much in the way of nice theatres where we were heading so we made it a double header movie weekend and went to watch Dead Pool. Hilarious movie! Now that we had our movie needs satisfied we were ready to catch a few hours of sleep before our 4 am wake up call.
