Traveling New Zealand Part III — May 30, 2024 through June 13, 2024 (subtitle: From dramatic glacier carved fiords to limestone caves and verdant moss covered rainforests, the South Island of New Zealand does not disappoint. The only thing missing is the hobbits!)

REPEAT WARNING: Once again, this is not a sailing related entry. This, as well as future entires through May 2025, reflect our effort to capture our experiences while we explore Australia, New Zealand and other places in the southern hemisphere across the world from the country we call home by land with some air travel assists. We are metaphorically putting our memories in a bottle to savor on some future date. If you are not interested in reading an amateur attempt to document travel experiences you may wish to skip these entries. No offense will be taken. You were warned!

When we left off in our last blog entry we had just left Timaru where Jill had her 6 week follow-up appointment. When we initially made our post Timaru plans (complete with many pre-paid accommodation bookings) we thought that we needed to return to Timaru (on the east coast) every 2 weeks so we organized our travels around a couple of big loops. (We called it our hub and spoke approach to exploring New Zealand.) For our first loop we’d head South down the East coast, then head West to the Fiordland region before heading back to the SE coast and finally up to Timaru. We’d then do a “wash, rinse, repeat”. with another loop headed West only this time it would take us further up the West coast before a northern loop took us back down to Timaru. When we learned that we didn’t need to return to Timaru for Jill’s brace adjustments we had an opportunity to modify some but not all of those plans — more on that below. But with those initial plans in place, our first stop post Jill’s 6 week appointment was Oamaru, a place we visited before. Given its close proximity to Timaru we had stopped there when Jill was discharged from the hospital (our stay in the High Tree Chalets) and again when we travelled back to Timaru for Jill’s 2 week post-op visit. As we mentioned in a previous blog entry, during our last stay on Oamaru we visited the Steampunk Museum and learned that the annual Steampunk festival coincided with Jill’s 6 week post-op visit so we decided to spend the weekend in Oamaru following that visit to partake in the festivities.

What a riot! We knew what Steampunk was but didn’t have a full appreciation that there was an entire alternate universe built around it. People came from all over the world as their Steampunk alter ego (no one introduced themselves using their real name), and dressed in their Steampunk finest, to spend time together at the meet and greet, parade, ball and marketplace. The clothing and props were amazingly elaborate. Think Victorian clad inventors using tools and machinery available during that era to make innovations that are common place today. (We posted some great pics from the festival on our Sailing Che Figata Instagram page.) There were many references to time travel and all the participants seemed to really enjoy living through their Steampunk personas for the weekend. Though we left our Steampunk best on Che Figata 😉 we enjoyed being voyeurs for a few days and everyone was quite inclusive and welcoming.

As long as we were in Oamaru (probably for our final visit) we did a few side trips. Our first excursion was to the Riverstone Castle. The Riverstone Castle is kind of a kooky thing. Not sure how else to describe it. The short story is that this woman, Dot Smith, had a childhood dream to live in a castle so when she grew up and got married she and her husband built one using local Oamaru stone. It is quite an imposing structure and includes all the attributes you’d expect from a true medieval castle including turrets, a drawbridge and a moat. Periodically, Dot and her indulging husband Neil allow visitors to take a tour of the castle and the grounds and we happened to be there during one of those times. Inside, the castle looked more like a museum than a home — not how we’d choose to live — but you’ve got to give them credit for their commitment to make a dream a reality. You can see a picture of the castle here: https://www.riverstonekitchen.co.nz/riverstone-castle. We also visited the Oamaru public gardens which were quite exquisite. We are always amazed at how much the British invested to bring their beloved gardens to the new countries they colonized. In this case, as they were planning settlements in New Zealand the late 1830s, the Brits made a decision to set aside broad swathes of land for public use at the edges of the young cities. (New Zealand was officially a British colony from 1841 through 1907.) At any rate, we always enjoy a stroll through these public gardens and try to do so whenever we are in a city or town that has one.

Following our final tour of Oamaru we were off to Dunedin. Our daughter lived there for about 5 months while spending a semester abroad at Otago University. Our whirlwind 2 day stop there included a visit to the street where she lived (affectionately referred to by locals as “Fatty Lane” because it is nestled between a McDonalds and a KFC — both of which are still there!), a stop at her favorite local pub (The Baaa Sports Bar & Grill), a tour or the Larnach Castle — the only true castle in New Zealand (with a tragic backstory befitting of an authentic castle) — a trip to see the Moraiki Boulders (human sized egg shaped boulders strewn across a beautiful beach but otherwise underwhelming) and a tour of the Royal Albatross Centre. The visit to the Royal Albatross Centre was probably the highlight of our brief visit. Just so fascinating to learn about these graceful and large endangered birds. Some interesting factoids:

⁃ They mate for life and the pair raise their chicks together

⁃ When they leave the nest as young birds they fly out to sea and don’t return to land for 5 – 7 years when they are ready to select a mate

⁃ They mate every 2 years and after mating season, when their chick leaves the nest, the mating pair leave the island separately and don’t reunited for 12 months when they return to the island to mate once again

⁃ They have a 10-11 foot wingspan

After our brief stop in Dunedin it was off to Te Anau (pronounced Te Anow as we were frequently reminded by our New Zealand friends), known as the gateway to Fiordland National Park and Milford Sound. We spend 5 nights/4 days in the area and were busy every minute — there is that much to see. This part of New Zealand is the wettest inhabited place in the country as well as one of the wettest in the world. The average annual rainfall is 252 inches — that’s 21 feet so you don’t have to do the math. The rainfall can reach 10 inches during a 24 hour period. In addition to creating these beautiful fern filled, moss covered, rainforests, the rainfall creates dozens of temporary and permanent waterfalls that cascade down the steep cliff faces. We had an opportunity to see these during a cruise of the Milford Sound. Though it is called the Milford “Sound” is is actually a fiord, formed by a process of glaciation over millions of years. The result is a stunning narrow bay, about 10 miles in length, lined with sheer rock faces that soar almost 4,000 feet up from the water. We posted some beautiful pictures from our cruise on our Sailing Che Figata Instagram page.

An added bonus of our trip to Milford Sound is that on one of our stops along the way we spotted the infamous Kea Parrot. The Kea Parrot is an endangered endemic bird that only lives in forested areas along the west coast of the South Island. These large birds — which are quite beautiful with their olive green and teal feathers and a splash of reddish-orange at the base of their tail — are considered some of the smartest animals in the world, up there with dolphins and whales. They have learned how to turn on water taps at camp grounds and use tools to set off traps and steal the eggs that are used as bait inside. They are also know to be very cheeky. A Kea once locked a hiker inside a toilet in one of the huts that were built to give hikers a place to stay while hiking along one of New Zealand’s 10 Great Walks. (More on the Great Walks below.) We also heard a story from a local we met about two Keas who work together to steel rubber from a visitor’s windshield wipers. Apparently, one Kea acted as a decoy — distracting the tourist with his antics — while the other one carefully stripped the rubber off both windshield wipers.

In addition to our Milford Sound cruise, we did a tour of a local glowworm cave. The glowworm cave is a limestone grotto that includes an intense underground waterfall and raging river. To reach the cave we had to take a boat across beautiful Te Anau Lake. (The boat ride itself was worth the price of admission.) Once in the cave (after maneuvering through the low entrance – Jill left her crutches behind) we boarded a small boat (more like a wooden raft) that took us down the river into complete darkness, allowing us to see the thousands of tiny bright lights courtesy of the glowworm population. If we didn’t know that we had floated down a river in a cave we’d swear that we were on our boat in the middle of a passage on a moonless night looking up at the stars. The tiny bioluminescent lights — used to attract unsuspecting prey — are that bright and beautiful.

Finally, we did a lot of hiking. Yes, hiking! Though Jill is still in a full leg brace, her leg is feeling better every day and she can walk quite far now — though not at her usual hummingbird pace. We even had one 10,000 step day. We walked along the track circling Te Anau Lake, down the Cascade Creek nature walk and along a portion of the Kepler track. We particularly enjoyed the walk on the Kepler track. We first walked along a path that ran beside a river. When that got a bit too tricky for Jill to navigate on crutches (the somewhat muddy path began to descend steeply) we circled back to follow a path close to a lake. Both paths meandered through verdant rainforest with a dense fern understory and carpets of moss thickly covering the logs and trees. It was truly magical.

A few words about the Kepler track. The Kepler track is one of what’s known as the “10 Great Walks of New Zealand.” These multi-day walks — ranging in length and difficulty and taking anywhere from 3 to 5 days to complete — traverse national parks and other culturally significant protected areas in the South Island, giving hikers access to some of New Zealand’s most incredible landscapes and wild life. They are very well maintained and accessible. Huts — that you must reserve in advance — have been constructed along the tracks to provide shelter for the night during the journey. We are not sure why we didn’t know about these walks but we didn’t. Had we known, we would have planned to walk one during our New Zealand South Island tour. Of course, those plans would have been cancelled given the turn of events (definitely not something you can do on crutches) but we are already plotting our return one day to do one of these great walks.

After our wonderful stay in Te Anau it was time to head back East so we booked a room in a B&B in the Caitlin region. The Caitlins, located in the Southeast corner of the South Island, is a rugged, sparsely populated area, known for its coastal landscape and dense temperate rainforest. Being on the Southeast coast, the land is very exposed (the closest land mass is South America). This causes wild weather patterns and heavy ocean swells. Naturally, this attracts the big wave surfers who frequent the area. Thinking that this would be a brief stop on our way back to Timaru we planned only two nights and one full day there. Still, we covered lots of ground. We started the day with a walk to Purakaunui Falls, a magnificent wide waterfall surrounded by bush that cascades about 65 feet over three distinct tiers. (We used a picture of this waterfall as our feature image for this post.) Following our visit to the falls, we walked along the Tautuka estuary, Surat Beach and Cannibal Beach in Cannibal Cove. (Fun fact about Cannibal Cove: Captain James Cook gave the bay its name in 1770 after the crew of the HMS Endeavour found human bones in the remains of a meal.) Though we were disappointed that we didn’t see any of the resident yellow-eyed penguins or sea lions during our coastal walks, we very much enjoyed walking along the dramatic coastline with its sheer tall cliffs and watching the huge waves crash over rocky outcrops. It was quite spectacular and, being outside tourist season (its winter in New Zealand), we had both beaches and the estuary to ourselves.

At this point in our original plans we were supposed to head to Geraldine, a lovely small town just north of Timaru where we’d stay the evening before and after Jill’s next follow up appointment. Now that we didn’t need to return to Timaru until July 23 we ditched those plans and headed west to Wanaka to spend a few days there before continuing on to the Frank Joseph Glacier area on the West coast — just north of Fiordland. Though we did some backtracking (had we know we didn’t need to return to Timaru we would have just continued up the West coast from Fiordland), the Caitlin’s weren’t that far out of our way and we minimized the number of changes we needed to make to our itinerary. From here on out though there will be no backtracking. Our plan is to travel up the West coast starting with Franz Josef Glacier, then along the North visiting Sauvignon Blanc wine country before continuing East and back down the East coast completing our land-based circumnavigation back in the Catlins. At that point, we will have travelled around the South Island for nearly 6 weeks and we plan to spend another few weeks in Annaabel’s glorious house in Wanaka before heading off for Jill’s final appointment in Timaru on July 23.

As we sign off with this blog post we just completed our brief 2 night stay in Wanaka, enjoying dinner at a few of our favorite local restaurants (Fudog and The Spice Room), spending some time with Annabel and taking care of the unglamorous, but necessary, task of doing laundry. We are now headed to Frank Josef Glacier. It has been an amazing drive. Part coastal with huge waves crashing over the rocky coast and casting a misty spray on the road and part rainforest as we winded down hairpin turns in the narrowest of valleys between tall mountains, with ferns cascading down the steep cliffs on either side of us. If this drive is any indication of what is in store for us during our stay along the West coast we are in for a spectacular treat. Most likely, our next blog entry will cover our 8 night/7 day trip up the West coast. Cheers!