more updates have came along!

so, i’m in sydney.

before ya’ll go all crazy on me, tim is going to be here in 6 hours, and i’ve just postd 10 new posts!. that still leaves me like 10, if not 12 days behind, but i don’t think i’ll keep up this intense daily bloggin here (unless someone can present me with an argument like “well i actually read all of this”).

anyway. its 12:30am here, and i’m tired, and i’ve formatted 10 entries with photographs! thus, i present the next 10 days after where we left off:

10 – jan 28: kaikoura to geraldine – long drives and changing cars
11 – jan 29: geraldine to twizel, the day hike that killed us
12 – jan 30: sunrise over mountains (twizel to all day bay)
13 – jan 31: all day bay to dunedin, penguinds and internet
14 – feb 1: dunedin to fjordland
15 – feb 2: milford sound sea kayaking
16 – feb 3: full of doubtful sounds
17 – feb 4: fjords to queenstown
18 – feb 5: queenstown to wanaka
19 – feb 6: whole day in wanaka

aand, photographs are here, although not all of them have been blogged yet.

our new zealand trip map

and that’s the map!

what’s coming:
days 20-25 in new zealand
days 01-06 in sydney (that’s today)
more photographs (way more. i’m slow at processing and its already a lot, i think).

leave me commmeeeentttsss nooooobs. otherwise i feel like i’m writing into the V O I D.

yours,

– attention needing child.

19 – feb 6: whole day in wanaka

oleg has made the brave decision of leaving me alone for an entire day, and booked himself a rock climbing trip for this day. this left me in an enviable position of being able to sleep in until after 12 (or whenever i wanted, really) for the first time on this entire “vacation”.

oleg has made the brave decision of leaving me alone for an entire day, and booked himself a rock climbing trip for this day. this left me in an enviable position of being able to sleep in until after 12 (or whenever i wanted, really) for the first time on this entire “vacation”. (i’m not sure who could call such a torture as having to be moved out of any bed you’re at with all your stuff AND having eaten breakfast by 10 am a vacation, but, hey, i’m not the one defining english words here). of course this meant that the bed on which i slept was complete JUNK – sagging mattress that squeaked the entire night each time i dared to move a limb. thus meant that each time i turned i actually fully woke up, and the short bursts of sleep that i did get, were of terrible quality. (for the record i’m pretty sure that i turn about 10 times per night. just counting from amount of waking up that i have done.)

upon waking up for real at 11:15, i decided not to let the terrible bed of deterring me from the goal of sleeping in, and continued the fight for slumber on the luxury (haha, hostel and luxury rarely go together – the exception being the hostel near wellington, the 96% rated one) double spring mattress that oleg slept on. around 12:30 i decided that this counts as having slept in :) and got up for a slow breakfast of reading and cereal.

around 1:30 i decided to go and enjoy the local beach, which was all of 5 minutes walking away. beautiful! while the beach was not pearly white sand, but mere gravel, the blue skies, shining sun, mountains around the lake, and the flurry of extreme sport activity that kept happening around and on it definitely made for an enjoyable ~3-4 hours of laying down and listening to music. and doing nothing else. at all. aaaah!

the extreme sports however made for a pleasurable watching. some kids (probably 20 years old, those youngsters) were hanging out a bit beside me, and brought with them two kayaks (and an adorable beagle puppy). of course after a few beers, a girl and a guy decided to swim out into the lake on a kayak made for 1 (the girl just sat at the back), which ended with a beautiful overturn. one of their friends went to “rescue” them by taking the puppy, and swimming a bit out, and tossing the puppy overboard (it was actually more funny than cruel, although i would not have done that to my dog) – it of course swam (far better than the girl, in my opinion).

anyway, extreme sports (outside of puppy tossing). apparently about 40 meters from where i decided to lay, a paragliding launchpad was located. i’m not sure if its called paragliding, but the premise is as follows – the guide and you sit under this huge chute which is connected by a rope to a boat that speeds away quickly. at some point (which i couldn’t see due to the trees) you take off the land, and start rising into the air as the boat pulls you behind it kite-style. there’s a balance between the pulling and raising as the chute goes *really* high up, and after seperating from the boat (couldn’t see how, too high and far away) floats back to the ground regular parachute style. each time someone would launch it would be preceeded by a loud noise from the boat and a flurry of seagulls flying away from the area, and followed by everyone staring at another lucky soul.

the evening was spent examining my burnt back, legs, and tummy, and whining about a killer headache (until i took 2 advil). to top this off, i tried this terrible sauce on the chicken that i ended up not being able to eat entirely (oleg had no objections to it, and finished his plate), so i wasn’t even rewarded with a pleasant dinner.

thus a day that should have been nicer, ended up being not that awesome after all. however, it was relaxing. and hopefully after this burn goes away i’ll have some tan left over. (yeah i know it won’t happen, just let me dream :) )

18 – feb 5: queenstown to wanaka

basically, in acordance to my “crazy stuff” category and my general craving for all kinds of crazy, i decided to do a kinda bungee jump. instead of a proper one where you get a terrible jerk into your knees, i went for a canyon swing. it is a combination of a bungy jump and a swing, allowing for as much andrenaline, and less stress on the body in terms of physical part. of course its still unnerving as hell :)

for the sheer fact that it is now february 19th, and i still haven’t written about this experience fully, i apologize for any shortcuts in this entry. i think it is impossible for me to write about everything in total depth – and i’m pretty sure you’re overwhelemed at this point anyway. thus, i will probably be brief, despite the awesomeness of what happened today!

basically, in acordance to my “crazy stuff” category and my general craving for all kinds of crazy, i decided to do a kinda bungee jump. instead of a proper one where you get a terrible jerk into your knees, i went for a canyon swing. it is a combination of a bungy jump and a swing, allowing for as much andrenaline, and less stress on the body in terms of physical part. of course its still unnerving as hell :)

let me quote the guide: 60 meters of freefall off a 109 meter high booth, above a canyon, resulting in a 200 meter arc of swing. if you look through their jump styles, i went for (first) a backwards jump – where you softly fall away from the platform and freak out completely not feeling anything for a whole half of your life (anyway that’s how it feels), and secondly for a “gimp boy/girl does hollywood“. i have a video of the 2nd one filmed by another guy there, and i have nice photos i ended up buying of both of them from the actual people, but this was definitely one of the most awesome experiences in new zealand.

the andrenaline rush is particularly high because of the skill of the operators, who know exactly how to build you up so that you end up completly freaking out.

after my craziness, oleg and i went onwards and forwards through the highest paved road in new zealand to wanaka, a town similar to queenstown, only nicer. in the evening, nothing happened, as we basically enjoyed the pleasant atmosphere.

17 – feb 4: fjords to queenstown

again, the biggest highlight of the first half of the day was the pretty drive from manapouri to queenstown. lots of mountains, lakes, crazy reflections, and beautiful turny, twisty roads.

again, the biggest highlight of the first half of the day was the pretty drive from manapouri to queenstown. lots of mountains, lakes, crazy reflections, and beautiful turny, twisty roads.

the first impression you get upon arriving to queenstown is how mindblowingly crazy it is. most stores have something to do with extreme sports – flying horizontally, vertically, or preferably, both. skydiving, bungy jumping (this sport originated here), paragliding, racing of all kinds (water and earth), going down extreme waterfalls in extreme boats, etc. i think that if you want to do something crazy, this is the place to do it.

so, of course i did end up doing something crazy. but that’s another story.

today however, was a very uncrazy day. upon arrival (thankfully we had a booking – every hostel, hotel, motel and b&b was full), we simply went up the local hill to see some people do their bungy jump off a local attraction, and generally to enjoy the weather. my personal highlight has been finding 3 awesomely cute magnets to bring back to my parents. perhaps not the most prudent financially place to buy them, but then again i ended up not seeing those particular ones anywhere else, so i’m pretty happy in the end of it all.

evening was quiet – i booked my ‘crazy’ event, and got an hour of internet free, so that hour is of course now gone from my memory :) and of course i walked around in search of a payphone. the town is small, cute, and the constant screaming of another crazy soul deciding to jump off a bridge or a hill with some plastic behind their back accompanies whatever it is you’re doing.

16 – feb 3: full of doubtful sounds

after the exciting day of kayaking, the doubtful sound cruise began to look like a smarter proposition as i was entirely composed of pain. the cruise is composed of 3 parts – first we board a boat from manapouri harbor, which is all of 5 minutes away from our hostel, that boat takes us across the lake to doubtful sound, where we board a tour bus, which takes us across the mountains where we board another boat which takes us around the doubtful sound itself.

first off, we were the exactly last two people to board the boat at manapouri, so we were almost too late (which would have sucked as we don’t have the time to be late!). other than that it was a very pleasant, calm ride through the lake, with very pleasant scenery, but nothing out of usual at this point.

the bus ride was more exciting, with a trip to the hydro facility in the area, which was pretty interesting to visit, but i doubt that its interesting to read about. the only remarkable story to tell is when the bus driver said that “i have to turn this 11 meter bus in a 5 meter cave, and the company expects me to return with a 11 meter bus and leave the cave at 5 meters”.

i honestly preferred the sea kayaking to the cruise, but regardless, doubtful sound is an incredible place. we were basically in nature that has stayed on its own since 1700s. (sandflies included – a few days later both oleg and i had enough of the painful bites). we even saw dolphins swimming in the sound, which was awesome, but did not let me get a good enough of a photograph of them. argh! we also saw seals (of course), who were lounging around under the perfect sun.

oh yeah.

sun!

the west coast gets about 5 meters of rain per year, and doubtful sound, which lies behind a mountain and essentially is the coast of the tasmanian sea gets 7 meters of rain per year. however we have been blessed with perfect weather – blue sky, shining sun, and thus lots of photographs.

since the day ended with:

  • a rush drive to te anau to get something to eat
  • setting off the fire alarm while cooking together with
  • adam, a retiree from israel who is travelling around NZ on his own (to both experience the world and improve his english before starting up a personal business with his wife)
  • the fire alarm no one cared about – it took the managers like 10 minutes to come and turn it off, and tell us “it happens all the time”

    • 15 – feb 2: sea kayaking

    this day will remain as one of the most pleasant days we have spent in new zealand. not only it was full of excitement and danger (while being reasonably safe), but we also got to meet new, and awezome, people.

    after a long period of trying to arrange of what could we do in the sounds, we decided to grab the offer to go sea kayaking with rosco’s milford sound sea kayaking company. we have spent most of yesterday trying to decide if we should go for the “peaceful” and “easy” morning sea kayaking experience, or try for the more “adventurous” afternoon trip. after a long period of weighting the pluses and minuses (the particular plus to the afternoon trip being that it takes you more into the sounds, as you go out by powerboat, and return by kayak), oleg had me convinced due to his argument that the word “adventurous” was used to deter overweight americans.

    boy, were we wrong (well, right, but more right than we knew!)

    afternoon kayaking trip departed at 2:30pm from milford sound, which is about 2 hours from te anau, from which we were about 20 minutes away. of course oleg intended that we leave around 10:30-11, and my inability to wake up early led to us leaving at 11:30 – and we were still fairly early.

    but all that happens, happens for a reason. on the way to milford sound (which is a town all of 100 people large), we saw a hitchhiker, and as usual i said “lets pick him up!” and for the first time oleg said “alright”. this is how we met mark, a very ambigously aged and definitely sporty looking hiker from uk. upon further conversation it turned out that he worked in the statistics department in a university, and was over 30 – neither one of us would give him a day over 26. he turned out to be a great person, and took great interest in us going sea kayaking, as he only had one day in milford sound and wanted to take some kind of non-touristy tour as well.

    as fate would have it, one spot was left on our trip, which he promptly booked, and thus there were 7 of us going on this trip.

    at 2:30 two rugged and adventurous looking guys, who turned out to be rosco and tex (rosco being the owner of the company, if you can call it that – i’d call it an experience or a party, company sounds too official), and tex would would be our guide for the day. they both immideately reflected an ownership of a great sense of humor, and had me worried with their statements of “its a rough looking day, so we’ll have ourselves an adventure” (or something to that effect). thankfully, i chickened out about bringing my d70 with me about 10 minutes earlier as i was looking at the water and the wind, so they couldn’t really convince me to take less with me at this point (i did take the sd500 with me, and i’m glad i did!). another point of interest is that i was the only girl amoung 7 guys – 1 being the guide, and the other 6 being 22 – 35 old guys. honestly, that kind of worried me, as i suddenly visualized currents, sea waves and dragons plunging out of the deep and me trying to defend myself with a paddle and my camera.

    after that segue i realized that not a single travel agent was worried about my paddling ability, and more worried about my swimming ability. i knew that dry bags are provided for our stuff, so as long as i was reasonable about attaching the dry bag to something that wouldn’t sink, in worst case i’d get wet, and i can definitely live with that.

    we got driven to the departure point, where we all got handed quick dry clothing. it was a pretty funny sight as all the guys had to wear these legging like things :) (me too, but i’m not as bothered as i had a long fleece covering me). we all got 2 layers of quick dry clothing, then a waterproof jacket, a life jacket, and a “skirt” for the kayak (its a rubber .. skirt .. that you pull over the hole in which you sit, essentially waterproofing the raft). upon dressing ourselves quite stylishly so, we got some quick instruction with how to hold and handle the paddle (oleg and i were the only ones who never were in a kayak before, and its not even that true for oleg who said he had been in one once previously. thus i was not only the weakest one, but also the most complete noob!), and off into the boat we went.

    at this point, as all our stuff was inside the dry bag, the only thing i was worried about is how will i get from the boat into the kayak without killing myself and breaking both boats as well. but, again i put faith in the experience of the leader, figuring that he had to deal with clumsy cases like i before.

    the boat ride out into the sound was … bumpy. and awesome fun. it also broke my found raybans (a screw got lost – i have both parts and will repair them as soon as i remember to just buy an eyeglass repair kit). the boat is very powerful, and so it bounced on the waves like there’s no tomorrow – making all of us bounce within it! it was just awesome, especially when i saw a waterfall and went “oh my god!” and pointed and the driver turned to look at me with a worried “oh shit its too fast for the girl” experession. i think they were both worried that i can’t handle it, but, geez, don’t they realize skydiving was more extreme than some boat ride? ;)

    the part i was most worried about went seamlessly – mark and oleg went in one boat, and i went into the guide’s boat. i figure he might as well have to suffer my lack of skills, and generally it would be fun to meet more people on the trip.

    after figuring out that the kayak won’t tilt if i take a deep breath, we all gathered together and got our general and informative instructions from tex as to what to do in case he “falls asleep”, in case we overturn, and how to get into steady formation with the rafts in case of rough weather, and we headed off into the direction from which we just came.

    the total distance back to the “camp” – aka point of our departure (we still had a 2 hour drive to manapuri, the town at which we were staying) – was 12-14 kms (tex said 15 in the start, and then 12 at the end, but i don’t know when did he sound more sure). after paddling 3 of those kms, we came to my personal highlight of the trip – huge, tall, fresh waterfall.

    underneath which we actually went.

    twice.

    in a kayak.

    i cannot transfer into words the amazingness of this experience. at first had to wait a bit while cruise ships went in, held for a few minutes to let tourists snap off photos, and then went out, while we were just hanging by the side. when there was a break in the cruise ships, tex asked me if i want to go underneath, and i just couldn’t believe the fact that it was possible. the way that the rock underneath the waterfall is formed, you can actually squeeze the boat into a small crevice right underneath, and the water just COVERS you. the noise, the power, the freshness (yup, the water is indeed chilly), and the sheer raw power of this experience is mindblowing.

    the others quickly followed suit, entering the same crevice. i snapped off a bunch of photographs of oleg and mark coming up to the waterfall (see above), and one particular photograph came out awesome, in terms of reflecting how surreal the experience is (and another one shows how tiny the boats are compared to the waterfall). after i was done, tex suggested we go under again, this time from a different angle, and off we went.

    the difficult thing about being in the front of the boat with the guide is that on one hand i’m supposed to be the navigator, but on the other its the freaking guide and instructor – it seems like he should know these waters like the back of his hand. anyway, after i mildly quiestioned if we are going in too far from the left (he said not to go from the left), we safely went underneath yet again – except this time it was impossible to get as close due to the sheer wall of air and water that prevents you from getting underneath it head-on.

    the quickdry clothing proved to be quickdry, and the waterproof skirt and jacket proved to be indeed waterproof – even against a waterfall.

    after that mindblowing experience, the next few kms of kayaking flew by in pleasant conversation with tex (who definitely leads an awesome and unique lifestyle that most people don’t even get the chance to hear about, let alone experience), and new views and experiences. we saw mirtre’s peak (a huge mountain in milford sound), an overhang off which some crazy girl did a base jump for a video once (can’t remember the name, but the overhang sticks out about 5 meters deep into the water – definitely impressive), had lunch with the local seagull, seymore (i’m still not sure if its even possible to have a local seagull, but it was indeed only one seagull who seemed pretty confident about landing on the kayaks), and generally enjoyed the surrounding areas – nature, right there. it was so much right there that not only we saw a seal sleeping on the shore (he ignored us quite successfully), but for a little while there was a seal swimming right behind oleg and mark’s raft (they thought i was joking when i said “uuhm, guys, you have a seal behind you”).

    the second mindblowing part of the trip came when the waves picked up and we got to try out surfing with the kayaks. basically the idea is that you catch a wave with the kayak by catching up to a big wave, and once the speeds are equalized you can ride it for a while – sending a great arc of spray to all sounds – the bigger the wave, the longer and bigger the arc. tex was awesome in this area as i didn’t have the strength to paddle fast enough and he actually caught us up mostly on his own a few times. the first time we rode a wave it was just insane, because after the amazingness and excitement of the actual ride the boat slows down and sinks into the wave. as i saw the entire kayak going entirely underwater, i thought “alright, here we are going down”. as i could feel the raft starting to sink underneath me (at this point the camera was with oleg ;) ) and i prepared for the consequences, the wave moved on, the air in the raft pushed it out and we lifted back to the air. it was definitely a one of a kind moment. (to my defense, i wasn’t overreacting as tex admitted too that he thought we’ll overturn). unfortunately the strength of the wave messed up everything attached to the nose of the raft, so i had to kind figure out how to fix everything back in a way that wouldn’t kill me if i tried to paddle. i was semi successful.

    pretty soon after catching the waves, we entered the river’s mouth and soon after that we arrived back to the departure point. after an exchange of emails, names, and urls with tex and mark we all went our seperate ways, but hopefully not for the last time.

    this day was far more full of excitement and new experiences than this text can convey. i can only testify to the fact that my muscles hurt for the next 4 days, but that my memories will last a lifetime!

    14 – feb 1: dunedin to fjordland

    after oleg’s arrival from the mechanic at 10:30 am, we quickly had breakfast, loaded up our stuff into the car and departed towards the distant fjordland of new zealand – milford sound, doubtful sound, te anau (the local big city, meaning it has 3 streets) and manapouri (the local small city, meaning it has 1 street), in which we were staying. the drive was long and as far as i can remember uneventful, except for one small event.

    after oleg’s arrival from the mechanic at 10:30 am, we quickly had breakfast, loaded up our stuff into the car and departed towards the distant fjordland of new zealand – milford sound, doubtful sound, te anau (the local big city, meaning it has 3 streets) and manapouri (the local small city, meaning it has 1 street), in which we were staying. the drive was long and as far as i can remember uneventful, except for one small event.

    i drove! on the left side of the road! it was not a long drive, and it was a rather empty stretch of the highway, so i tried driving for about 30 minutes. i did more or less okay, didn’t crash into anything or anyone, but its tough, everything is very BACKWARDS. i felt like alice in wonderland – everything became mirrored.

    other than that, lots of

    the whole day stands out only for oleg going to te anau by himself and thus i had a few hours to sit at the shore of the manapouri lake, watch the sun set over the mountains, just think to myself, play sudoku, and do absolutely nothing.

    in the evening we met 3 very energetic ladies from germany, and kiwi guy, who is an artist, who was sorta travelling with them. it was a pleasant dinner around a table filled with people, which actually was nice after the alone meditative time.

    13 – jan 31: all day bay to dunedin

    the signs of “all guests must leave by 10am” in all day bay proved to be real, and they very politely kicked us out at 10:05. no other hostel has been this pressuring about this yet! (and i’m typing this 10 days later!)

    swiftly on our way, our plan for the day began as a simple short drive to our hostel in dunedin, which should have been a nice town, and a stop over at the moeraki boulders. the boulders are these huge, round, very spherical rocks that are just on the shore. oleg for some reason was super excited to see them, where as i just expected … rocks.

    moeraki boulders

    the signs of “all guests must leave by 10am” in all day bay proved to be real, and they very politely kicked us out at 10:05. no other hostel has been this pressuring about this yet! (and i’m typing this 10 days later!)

    swiftly on our way, our plan for the day began as a simple short drive to our hostel in dunedin, which should have been a nice town, and a stop over at the moeraki boulders. the boulders are these huge, round, very spherical rocks that are just on the shore. oleg for some reason was super excited to see them, where as i just expected … rocks.

    however our eloquent plans ended up getting shuffled, as the car’s squeaking began to annoy oleg far too much. thus, the executive decision to contact avis’s division in dunedin (as they thankfully have one there), and see if we should be worried.

    we still had to stop by the boulders, which while being fun to climb on, climb in, and jump off, were not as spectacular as oleg had imagined. i did however enjoy the beach, the low tide and the expanses of sand, and of course more BIRDS.

    all those seagulls just APPEARED behind my back when i asked oleg to pass me some of our bread/cookies/crackers. to their luck oleg dropping a bunch of cookies a few minutes previously and thus they were treated to a lot of thrown free food, while i took lots of photographs.

    dunedin

    the city was very charming. it was actually the first city we spent some time walking around for the sheer reason of walking around it. i really liked it – especially cause we found a place where internet was $3 per hour FROM THE LAPTOP. so no messing around with usb keys and such!

    of course after seeing that my desire to walk around has diminished :) but we still hung out for a while – all in all a lot of interesting architecture, and an AWESOME grocery store. i cannot believe how much i missed SELECTION in food and all those CHOICES. we even found honey roasted peanuts! and beer! mmmm.

    after buying food, we rushed home … err, the hostel. definition of home has become a very relative, extendable word. home changes every other day if we’re lucky, and daily on a regular basis. anyway. at “home” i snacked on some stuff purchased earlier, and did some small prep for uploading blogs and such. in the end i decided not to kill myself typing up the 5 (at least) days that i was missing, and just go and upload what i did end up having.

    i don’t MIND writing long entires. but i hope that all of you “faithful” “readers” ;) can appreciate that it takes a lot of time to write this stuff, and there is no easy way to find electricity to charge laptop (about 30% of the time we don’t have an outlet in the room at all, another 50% there will only be one outlet, which we still gotta share with camera charges and such). and it does take time.

    anyway. internet was great, as usual. i feel like such a cripple without the ability to look up any question that occurs to me over the day … how were the moeraki boulders made? are the seagulls here different from north american ones? what’s cool in dunedin? what should i cook tonight if i have half a red pepper, and rosemary spice? and such. let alone reading general enterntainment – slashdot, fark, overheardinny, dooce, digg, boingboing… aaaaah.

    what was funny is that the internet owner/manager guy picked up on how deeply i sink into the computer when i start using it, and in the end, when we stayed there like 30 minutes after store closing, he simply asked me (first, and oleg afterwards) on how much do i think i owe him. it totally took me by surprise, as my head was still in the wispy clouds of connection and information. i think i ended up overpaying him, but for the amount of time he spent helping me set up, and the fact i ended up sitting there for so long, its been worth it :D

    after internet, came the hostel, and then sleep. oh yeah! and oleg called avis who just sent him to a local holden mechanic. so oleg had to wake up at like 7:30 am or so to get in time for his 8am appointment, and i slept in till 10. mmmm. sleeping in. till 10. when have i ever used that sentence before?

    12 – jan 30: sunrise over mountains (twizel to all day bay)

    it is very poetic that i have had the joy of seeing the sunset over the alps, and that now i have had the joy of seeing the sunrise over the highest austrasian mountain – mt. cook, in maori known as aoraki.

    it is very poetic that i have had the joy of seeing the sunset over the alps, and that now i have had the joy of seeing the sunrise over the highest austrasian mountain – mt. cook, in maori known as aoraki.

    the legend

    here i’ll quote from the guidebook – i thought its a cool story.

    “aoraki was a young boy in the canoe Ta Waka a Aoraki, which was stranded on a reef and tilted to one side. Aoraki and his brothers climbed to the high side and sat on the wreckage. the south wind froze them and turned them into stone, creating the Southern Alps/Ka Tiritiri o te Moana.”

    the mountains themselves are very picturesque. snow covered sharp peaks, bright blue sky… however i’m getting ahead of myself.

    the hike there

    as the hike the day before absolutely annihilated us, we decided to take the 4 hour hike early in the day. like, really early. as the ben, the bike rider, recommended leaving at 4:30, we decided to wake up at 4:45 and leave by 5:15 (sunrise as predicred by him is at 5:30am). suprisingly enough, with our preparations of breakfast and prepacked bags of the night before, this went successfully. on an interesting note, before the sun rises it is quite chilly, so we both ended up wearing far warmer things than we expected (but still taking the light change of clothes with us).

    departing our allergy-inducing motel room so early let us see as the peaks of the mountains slowly turned into a light blue, then light pink color, until the snow shone brightly. the hike was fun – long, but fun – and sunrise ended up happening only around 6:30 (which is about 20 minutes after we started the hike – the town is about 45 minutes away from the mountains).

    in one of the happier moments of the hike we stumbled onto a stream that was flowing in a most photogenic way among big rocks and kinda under aoraki (not really under, but aoraki was definitely on the background). dream come true! of course, everyone who comes this way has this photo, but i got the photograph before the sun shone on the water, which is how everyone else will get it. i’m not sure which one looks better – i could probably sit by that stream for weeks before getting a perfect photograph.

    the hike back

    i’m not entirely sure what “there” is – a lake with mini glaciers in it, surrounded by mountains? i guess its as good of a there as any other there in new zealand. we arrived there expecting to be first – alas, a 65 year old australian dude was there 30 minutes before us, and claimed he caught the perfect reflections in the afore mentioned lake. argh! i was not deterred by this, and managed to still get a few pretty photographs taken, before a magnificent moment when the sun rose over the eastern mountain, and started warming us up. we quickly changed into “summer” clothing, and proceeded to bounce rocks over the still water (by we, i mean oleg – i shot a bunch of short clips of him doing that) until the next person came along – a girl, about 15 minutes after we finished eating (yes, we were smart and took some powerbars with us :) ). on the hike back we actually met a lot of people (including the taiwanese students who studied with ben-the-dude-from-yesterday) going the other way (as expected). overall, a grand feeling of accomplishment rewarded us.

    the ride to all-day-bay

    we drove back to the hostel that kindly held over our bags (for safety), had a quick lunch there, and headed onwards down to the east coast. to continue the trend of the remarkable things that happened today, we actually met a pair from israel (nurit and avi), just married, and looking to get out of israel asap. very interesting – and i brushed up my hebrew too! :)

    11 – jan 29: geraldine to twizel, the day hike that killed us

    upon departing the friendly hostel with the unfriendly llamas, we headed towards the first big attraction on the south island – mountains. BIG mountains.

    unfortunately we weren’t able to book a BBH hostel in the area, as:

    a. we have had generally little luck with booking hostels at this time (most of our ideal locations were full – i.e. that is why we ended up staying in geraldine, which is fairly close to the mountains but implied a huge drive the day before)
    b. there were few (if any – i can’t remember) BBH hostels in the area
    c. few hostels at all
    d. and most places were fairly expensive :\

    by the way, BBH is the backpacker network that generally ensures that the hostels have some similar kind of quality in terms of accommodation and services provided. for example kitchens with cooking equipment, clean beds, all described through this guide that gives it a rating in %-age – like the wellington hostel.

    thus we ended up staying in this fairly grimy motel, which provoked oleg’s allergies to a terrible extent. i was not left alone either as my allergies acted up terribly when we went into the mountains. oleg spoke to a local pharmacist who said that the super dry air could be provoking it too (as well as the unknown ingridients in the local air). indeed, the weather IS super dry.

    anyway, the motel was not so terrible, but generally speaking i like the hostels more – we have had general luck in booking them, and they are all more .. cute. homely. you feel more comfortable in them. on the bright side we got a whole 4 outlets, which hostels often skimp on – now, 10 days later, having 2 outlets in a room is a bright piece of news to me. we both have laptops, and we both have 2 cameras, and oleg’s drebel has like 3 batteries, which makes for a lot of charging happening. generally speaking we don’t need to charge nightly, and the car adaptor helps, but gosh, its so nice to have 2 outlets at least!

    we came, we saw, we left our stuff, we left towards the mountains as the sun was high up, and weather seemed to be kind and warm.

    of course it is the warmness that caused us all the problems. this area has a few hikes that take a few hours (all of them free, which is a pleasant thing), and we decided to take up this 2 hour hike.

    mistake one.

    its a 2 hour hike from the distant parking lot, and really it manes 2 hours of energetic walking. we -should- have driven to the closer parking lot which would make it a shorter hike.

    mistake two.

    we only had 750ml of water for 2 of us.

    mistake three.

    midday sun means for a lot of warm. too much warm – the entire hike was underneath the blazing sun and we quickly tired out. matter of fact, about 20 minutes before our arrival to the outlook spot for which the hike aims, i got lightheaded and had to sit down in the nearest shade – a big rock did the trick. at this point we had very little water left, so after taking it easily towards the view (which was not even that good), we started walking back.

    i took both bags and stopped at the first, closer, parking lot, where as oleg went with no bags and only the rest of the water towards the car. he said it was a terrible experience, and i believe him – he definitely looked like hell afterwards. i’m so glad we had the ability to leave me and the stuff at the parking lot – i would not be able to make it back without going crazy or something.

    when i entered a little shed in the parking lot, i breathlessly asked some middle aged couple and some guy if there is water around here. the couple were entirely useless in terms of information, where as the guy just offered me his bottle which i gladly accepted.

    while waiting for oleg further the guy (who offered me water a few more times, provoking my undying thanks to him to this day – i was feeling like hell, and water was exactly what i needed – and he offered it unasked too!) and i started talking. turned out he was a phys. ed. teacher from taiwan, here with a group of his students, who are touring the south island on bikes. we actually passed them by on the drive to the mountains earlier in the day – very noticeable as there are 15-20 young people, all biking very “professionally”. his name is ben, and as we later found out, he is an american who travelled around the world and decided to teach in taiwan. he had some eye problems and needed a ride to tekapo, a local big town. we were only going about halfway, to twizel, however twizel is on a direct big road to tekapo, and he gladly accepted my offer for us to give him a ride to that intersection.

    (p.s. oleg says he later saw him with his group in queenstown, about a week later, so i think it all worked out for him. yay!)

    after arriving back to the hostel, we have bought a lot of water, some more ice cream, more sun screen, and esentially “chilled” as much as we could. a problem was that the motel room heated up insanely while we were gone, so a lot of the “chilling” was happening outside in the shade, on the stairs leading to the building.

    we have decided to take up a big hike the next day, and prepared all our things in advance – i made sandwiches for the road, we packed our bags, and i have made the tough decision of only taking one lens with me to cut down the weight. we got seriously well prepared for the next morning – i believe the most organized preparation yet, as we even arranged to leave our bags and food in the motel until we return. (lonely planet speaks that carjacking is most common in the cars that are left in the start of the trails – makes sense!) the food we left this night, and the bags we moved in the morning.

    going to bed entirely too late (10:45pm instead of the intended 9:30pm) and setting our alarms for 4:45am, we were ready to take on those mountains on a fair scale.