{"id":1446,"date":"2011-03-29T21:06:29","date_gmt":"2011-03-30T05:06:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/amyalphin.com\/?p=1446"},"modified":"2011-03-29T21:06:29","modified_gmt":"2011-03-30T05:06:29","slug":"new-zealand-westland-and-queenstown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/amyalphin.com\/?p=1446","title":{"rendered":"New Zealand : Westland and Queenstown"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

So this is the post where I try not to whine too much.\u00a0However, the truth of the matter, was the days spend traveling down the west coast of the south island and Queenstown were the most challenging of the trip, in so many ways.\u00a0 There were highlights, and moments of comedy throughout our suffering, which I will try to focus on, so that you don\u2019t stop reading and click through to the next blog on your reader.<\/p>\n

We left Arthur\u2019s Pass and headed back to the west coast headed towards Westland National Park, and the infamous Franz Joseph and Fox Glaciers.\u00a0 These are also the names of the towns where the glaciers live, it\u2019s all very confusing.\u00a0 Along the way, we stopped in one of the coastal towns which is known for its greenstone (this is the Kiwi word for jade) jewelry production.\u00a0 I got a very lovely piece.\u00a0 Tom also stopped at a hardware store, because he had become slightly obsessed with the two tone New Zealand mailboxes and wanted to see if we could bring one home.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The weather was not great, but it wasn\u2019t horrible either, and we wound our way down the coast in a steady drizzle.\u00a0 This part of the country is very remote, and has very little population.\u00a0 As I mentioned before, the Kiwis take advantage of this lack and save money by building bridges with only one lane.\u00a0 It is a bit unnerving to approach a bridge and know that there is no way out if someone starts barreling down form the opposite direction straight at you.\u00a0 This risk is somewhat moderated by the right of way signs that pop up about a km before the bridge, telling you whether you have right of way or not.\u00a0 After that, it\u2019s just a game of chicken, where you hope you read the sign right.\u00a0 Yikes.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

We eventually made it to the town of Franz Joseph Glacier, where we were planning to stay for the night, as it was about 3 hours from Arthur\u2019s Pass.\u00a0 We stopped by the Department of Conservation (DOC) office, which is essentially a very nice ranger station, to check on the trail conditions for the day, as we had planned several walks near and around both the Franz Joseph and the Fox Glaciers.\u00a0 We were a bit surprised, however, when the rangers said that there had been record rainfall amounts over the past few days, and even more rain was expected.\u00a0 All of the trails near Fox Glacier had been closed due to flooding, and they were only recommending a few trails near Franz Joseph due to flood risk.\u00a0 We figured that we\u2019d come to see glaciers up close and personal, and we would do what we could to make that happen, so we headed off for our \u201capproved\u201d trail.\u00a0 With our rain gear.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The \u201chike\u201d to the glacier was pretty much a flat walk along the receding glacier\u2019s moraine, which pretty much looks like a lunar landscape, as the glacier has spent eons grinding the bedrock down to pebbles and sand.\u00a0 We were able to get very close to the glacier its self, which was very cool.\u00a0 The glacial ice is a bright, vibrant shade of blue, and there is a constant grinding and popping noise as the slow moving river of ice makes its presence known.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Soon we were soaked to the skin, and headed back to our car.\u00a0 Since we were unable to do most of the hikes we had planned for the next day and a half, we needed to reassess our route.\u00a0 We could have stayed in Franz Joseph that night, but there really seemed no point, as the town was tiny and there were no hikes to do.\u00a0 So it was back into the car, and planned to drive as far as we could towards Queenstown that evening.<\/p>\n

We made it to Wanaka, which is about another 3ish hours south of Franz Joseph.\u00a0 The road went through some very wild country, with even more one lane bridges.\u00a0 We were driving through the lower portions of the Southern Alps, and there were few other cars on the road.\u00a0 We kept stopping to take in the dramatic scenery, which still managed to be breathtaking despite the rain.\u00a0 One memorable stop was this lake, which was one of the windiest stops we made on the trip, and where a very unfortunate tour group had stopped to set up camp for the night.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a>\\<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Eventually we made it Wanaka, where we spent about 45 minutes looking for a cheap hotel ,before Tom gave in, and we decided to treat ourselves to a night at a nice bed and breakfast.\u00a0 We felt like we had earned it, and man, was this place swanky.\u00a0 But, really, after several days in the rain, just having a roof over our head and a warm shower seemed like high times.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The next morning we drove further south through the passes to Queenstown.\u00a0 This city is famed for it\u2019s stunning alpine vistas and adrenaline packed adventures such as sky diving, bungee jumping, river surfing and canyoning.\u00a0 We checked into the Southern Laughter Backpackers, (which is the Kiwi word for hostel), and requested a private double room.\u00a0 They said they had only one available, and it was \u201cin the back garden\u201d.\u00a0 Now, I think that when referencing your converted shipping container \u201croom\u201d which is sitting in the back parking lot, it\u2019s a bit of a stretch to talk about it being \u201cin the back garden\u201d, but hey, who am I to judge.\u00a0 Our room was just that, a converted shipping container in the parking lot, which happened to be rapidly<\/em> filling with an alarmingly large puddle due to the aforementioned rain.\u00a0 We decided to go for it though, because how many opportunities do one have to sleep in a converted shipping container?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

We spent the afternoon and evening bumming around Queenstown in the rain, getting soggy, sampling some of the local brews and having a tasty dinner at a well reviewed Indian restaurant.\u00a0 As a side note, do not go to New Zealand for the food.\u00a0 In our experience they cook only two things well:\u00a0 fish and chips and Indian food.\u00a0 It\u2019s pretty much all we lived on during our time there.\u00a0 Now you know.\u00a0 We had originally planned on doing a backpacking trip that night, but due to the epic amounts of rain falling from the sky, most of the trails were either under water or closed due to high flood risk.\u00a0 In fact, a few folks that we talked to that were staying at our backpackers had actually just been evacuated off the famed Milford Track the day before due to the fact that the entire time they had been hiking on the trail, the water had been up to their waists or chests<\/em>, and they had to be helicoptered away from their hut to avoid the rising waters.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

At this point, we were sick of our plans being changed, we were sick of the rain, and just wanted to do something fun.\u00a0 So we wandered into one of the outfitters that offered canyoning tours.\u00a0 In America, we call this canyoneering, where you jump, swim, slip and slide your way down a river, and try to have fun and not drown yourself in the process.\u00a0 We shelled out a rather large sum to book our fun for the following day, then splashed our way back to our container for the night.\u00a0 The following morning, we woke up and were glad to see that the large puddle in the back \u201cgarden\u201d had not yet overtaken our front porch, and eagerly got ourselves ready to go canyoning.\u00a0 However, when we arrived at the outfitter, we were told that, of course, there had been so much rain overnight that the rivers were now at flood stage, and all trips had been canceled for the day.\u00a0 I probably don\u2019t have to mention that this was pretty much the low point of the trip.\u00a0 We\u2019ll just move on.<\/p>\n

Because my husband is amazing, (and at this point pretty desperate), he yet again salvaged a BACK UP PLAN.\u00a0 He read in our guidebook that there was a very interesting bird park in Queenstown that was mostly under cover, and he thought it might be worth checking out.\u00a0 Now, I\u2019m not that into birds, but New Zealand has some of the most unique birds in the world, so bird parks actually have some appeal.\u00a0 They also had two breeding pairs of kiwis, which while being the national bird are actually quite rare, so we were anxious to see them.\u00a0 Kiwis are nocturnal, so the kiwi houses are red, but you can make out the akward and somewhat silly shapes of these interesting birds in the photos.\u00a0 Tom took some video where you can see them better, and hopefully I’ll be able to post some soon!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

All in all, the west coast and Queenstown were far from the highlight of the trip, but they were a learning experience for us.\u00a0 We have defiantly learned not to pin our hopes on one activity in a place, and to always, ALWAYS have a backup plan.\u00a0 Preferably one that involves flightless birds, they’re always good for a laugh.<\/p>\n

Up next, the odd spherical boulders, the blue penguin colony and Mt Cook National Park.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So this is the post where I try not to whine too much.\u00a0However, the truth of the matter, was the days spend traveling down the…<\/p>\n

Continue readingNew Zealand : Westland and Queenstown<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-new-zealand","category-travel","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/amyalphin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/amyalphin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/amyalphin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/amyalphin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/amyalphin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1446"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/amyalphin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1446\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1487,"href":"http:\/\/amyalphin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1446\/revisions\/1487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/amyalphin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/amyalphin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/amyalphin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}