Windy...Rainy...Cold...Winter in June?

Ok, so Carly and I know that our updates are looooooooong overdue. We apologize for our inconsistency and would like to take this opportunity to share personal life updates seeing as we’re not together 24/7 anymore. I will bug THE HECK out of Carly for the next week so that she posts soon, too. (We all know who’s the slacker when it comes to correspondence, anyway…)

The Pinnacles!

Life in Wellington is starting to blossom as the weather gets poorer and poorer. I don’t know if it’s actually “winter” here yet, but I hope this is as cold as it gets. As I’ve told many of you already, Kiwis do not believe in central heating. Here we are, living in an hundred-year-old house (renovated, of course) freezing our little tushies off every morning we get up. Though we have space heaters in our rooms (lifesavers), I swear to you – I can see my breath every morning while I eat breakfast in the kitchen. However, I absolutely adore the place I live. Very comfortable and out of the city but still close enough to be convenient. Oh yeah – and this must be the Seattle of the Southern Hemisphere, or something. But Wellington on a nice day is heavenly!

Carly, Kate, Dave and myself!

The job! I feel like I haven’t given anyone a good explanation…I am sorry to have kept you in the dark! I work at the Ministry of Justice, which unfortunately is not related to the Ministry of Magic, though I do fancy myself a wizard every now and then.  Wooo for finding a government job! Haha! I work in Support Services, which basically exists to keep the building running and the people (around 1000 employees) happy. A few of my duties:

• -                     logging plumbing, electrical and general maintenance calls
• -                     refilling toner cartridges in the building’s printers (there are around 40 large machines)
• -                     ordering office supplies (some people can get really needy!)
• -                     setting up meeting rooms

I have to say, now that I’ve typed the list, it does sound pretty boring.  However, I really enjoy it because I am away from my desk half the day and get to interact with people in every department in the building, so I’m always talking! The work atmosphere is also fairly relaxed, and I love the ladies I work with. I do have one really cool task – taking a few mailbags over to Parliament twice a day. For those of you who have been here or know Wellington, that means going into the Beehive! How official is that?

On the friends front, Carly and I are still fighting the good fight. We hang out regularly (can anyone say weekly dinner/movie night?) with our good friend, fellow American, traveler and overall awesome person: Kate Schnippering. We met in Dunedin, where we thought we’d end up living, and managed to stay in contact. She has been living in Wellington for the last month or so but alas, she is headed to either New York or Southeast Asia in a few weeks time. We are hoping that she returns, though! Also, we were fortunate to meet Dave Pearce, the embodiment of dry British humor, during our time in Kaikoura when we were rain/clouded into our hostel for two days. It has been excellent keeping in touch with him, too! Carly and I have both made great Kiwi friends as well, and we are trying to develop those relationships as much as possible before we head back home. It’s going well!

Finally, I will post a bit about our recent outing to the Pinnacles in the Putangirua Scenic Reserve. Carly, Kate, Dave and I borrowed a car and drove the 1.5 hours out of the city to the reserve on the Palliser coast. Our intent was to travel the Dimholt Road, aka the “Paths of the Dead,” that you see in the third LOTR movie. It’s not the little gap that looks all scary and everything, but it’s the part after that, just before Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli go in the hole in the mountain. It was very beautiful, just like the movie, and there were no tourists! A win on all fronts. It’s a bit unfortunate sometimes – I have visited a few of the filming locations and they look nothing like the movie, which is understandable, but in this case it could not have been closer to the film!

We wandered a bit, ate a great packed lunch, and headed out to Cape Palliser to check out the seal colony: stinky creatures! We managed to (inadvertently…promise!) scare a few smaller ones out of a bush and watched them furlumph their way back towards the water…classic! Otherwise we encountered some dead possums hanging over a fence and then a present of deer pelts and heads left along the side of the road by some prankster hunters…sorry for those of you who are squeamish.

Deer head...

...and pelts.

A very lovely day, indeed! Tomorrow we are going to check out Brave, the new Pixar movie! Other than that, Carly and I are ruminating about our travels in November/December. We may or may not hit up SE Asia, but are definitely going to finish our tour of New Zealand and make it to Australia for friends and fun! Until next time, folks! (We promise to be more diligent about this blog…)

Flattin' It Up Karori Style

Yay for finding a place to live! We are happily settled into our great new flat in Wellington with one Kiwi girl (Jess) and one Romanian/Kiwi mutt (Crina - she’d approve the usage of the word) in Karori, a sprawling suburb west of the CBD. It’s very sunny during the day, however it gets pretty chilly at night. Central heating isn’t a prevailing installation in New Zealand. Most people use small space heaters to heat bedrooms while “heat pumps” (fan forced heaters attached to the walls) are used predominantly in the living areas. In our case, we close off the rest of the house and stay in the living room and kitchen when we turn our heat pump on to save energy. We are both looking at purchasing small heaters for our rooms, though. It’s really cold when you wake up early!!!

Our lovely flat!

Karori is great. We are on an excellent bus route – the number 3 – which runs straight into the CBD, down all the popular streets, and out to a place called Lyall Bay which is the only place anywhere near Wellington to surf. Even then, we’re not so sure how great the waves are…

Our gorgeous kitchen - dishwasher included! Definitely a step up from our last one at Wake. Also, the great thing about moving in with people: we didn't have to provide any furniture or kitchen supplies. Sounds moochy, but we contribute to the flat in labour ;)

Lucky for us, the grocery store is only a 10-minute walk down the road. The library and the pharmacy are also in the same area, and there are some cute cafes (that we haven’t yet visited) a bit further down. Being the last/first bus stop, we’re always guaranteed a seat on the bus if we don’t feel like walking! While the buses are great, they do tend to get a bit expensive – it costs about $3.50 to get into town, so while we don’t have a car, we’re still paying a decent amount for transportation.

For you people suggesting we get bikes…pshaaaaaw. Wellington is super hilly and I doubt either one of us wants to ride uphill on our way home from town. We do see lots of serious cyclists riding from our seats on the bus, though ;)

Rachel's room - yes...the mattress is still on the floor. Working on it...

Rachel's again - two doors! Weird, but awesome. Also, plenty of space for the cat to run through.

Carly's room! The bed is actually up off of the ground! Woot.

We actually cleaned our rooms for the flat photo shoot...

The conservatory - how Clue!

And our post for next time – Crina’s new kitten! There has been an addition to the flat since we arrived: an energetic little kitten named Loki that’s as cute as ever! Pictures to come!

Walking On Ice

After a scintillating 8-hour ride on a lovely, packed Newman’s coach, we arrived in Franz Josef just in time for the rain to fall. After all, NZ’s West Coast is dubbed the “Wet Coast.” The great thing? That was the only rain we saw in Franz Josef for three days…pretty unheard of taking into account that in 2011, FJ saw 265 days of rain and an annual rainfall of 12 meters. Whaaaaaaaat?

We stayed at the Rainforest Retreat, quite a lovely spot aptly named for its surroundings. Our hostel mates, however, were not so impressive. While we had great roommates each night, we learned that the major tour (aka party) buses many young foreigners use for transport dumped their hoards on our doorstep. This meant loud, drunken shouting at night and even louder, early mornings as people slammed doors and prepared for various activities…and that’s why we travel with earplugs.

Anyhoo, hooligans aside, we were not able to book the glacier walk the next day, so we did a lovely hour and a half walk along a nice trail and generally relaxed in the sunshine. Our walk took us through the rainforest to some old sluicing tunnels miners dug/blasted out in order to transport snow melt and glacier water to various places around FJ for gold panning. So fun!

The next day: our glacier walk adventure! Arriving at the glacier, we learned quite a bit about its formation and recent history. For instance, 100 years ago the glacier was visible from the sea, but due to changing weather patterns it is now 25km from the ocean…crazy! While this sounds like bad news, it is entirely possible that the glacier will advance in the future.

The glacier...named after the Austrian Franz Josef because it looked like his beard :)

Once on the ice, we were decked out with crampons – handy spikes that fit over our boots for walking on the ice without slipping/falling/dying. Our guide, Turtle, was 100% Kiwi and a total hoot. He safely maneuvered us through ice tunnels, around crevasses and holes of death while simultaneously keeping us entertained with his antics and foreign swear words he’d learned from other tourists. The day was fantastic! We had an excellent time, and the 6 hours we spent on the ice were some of the greatest we’ve had on our trip so far. Thanks so much to the Franz Josef Glacier Guides!

 

What is going on??? Oh you know, just a crevasse.

After a relaxing hour in the FJ hot pools (entrance fee included in our guiding cost) we treated ourselves to a lovely, large meal at a great café called Full of Beans, and later to a sticky toffee pudding and cider down the road at Alice May’s. Alas…exhaustion set in once again and we found ourselves in bed at 10:30.  

Queenstown: The Ben Lomond

Another beautiful day! We decided to extend our stay in Queenstown to St. Paddy’s Day! Saturday was supposed to have gorgeous weather, and who really wants to sit on a bus and waste completely perfect blue skies? After hearing great things about the Ben Lomond track from Kate and Craig, we decided it was for us. Post trauma on the Queen Charlotte, we’re only up for day walks until further notice.

What a walk though! At 6 hours and 20 minutes return, it was quite an adventure! The first three hours were solid uphill – past the gondola, through some amazing beech and pine forests, out onto the saddle and finally up the steep hour-long walk to the tippy top of the summit. These pictures we’ve posted? They don’t do the steepness of the track justice. Our downhill experience was lovely, however.

Huffing and puffing our way up the mountain!

Reaching the summit was amazing. We had a 360-degree view of Queenstown, Lake Wakatipu and the Southern Alps! Most Q-town visitors are offered a nice look at the city from the gondola platform…this was incredible and dwarfed that viewpoint. Definitely worth the climb. After a 10 minute rest, photo session and chocolate break, we headed back down to get meat pies for dinner as a reward. Coconut-curry chicken and lamb with kumara (sweet potato) finished off our evening! We attempted an obligatory St. Paddy’s Day visit into Q-town’s nightlife but were exhausted and sad to realize that everyone had already been drinking for hours and were past all points of polite, coherent conversation. Instead we turned in at 10:30pm like the college graduates we are.  

Our trail...doesn't look difficult, does it?

At the summit! Queenstown and Lake Wakatipu in the background.

Queenstown: The Bungy

I would like to start this out with an apology to my mother.  She was adamant that she did not want me to bungee, and when I called like the terrible child that I am and told her gleefully that I had jumped off a bridge with nothing but rope around my ankles, she said she didn’t want to think about her baby doing that.  You might want to skip this next part, Mom.

Rachel graciously allowed me to write this in first person as this was something that I had never done and as she is a veteran of bungee jumping, it was decided that I should give you all the fresh terror myself. We woke up that morning and walked down to book the bungee jump before I could second-guess myself, and Rachel finally broke down and signed up as well after waffling for a good two days on whether to do it again or not. In the end, she couldn’t resist, and off we went to Patagonia, an excellent coffee and chocolate cafe, for a bracing coffee before being loaded onto a bus to our doom (please excuse the histrionics). 
            
The company that we jumped through is AJ Hackett, which actually started the business of bungee jumping. The Kawarau Bridge, at 43 meters over the Kawarau River, is the first commercial bungee site and it is obvious that these people have everything down pat: safety, weighing, video, pictures, etc. At the site itself, we were weighed and given a slip, then sent up to the bridge. Once they were actually wrapping my feet with cords and towels, I could only tell myself that I was an idiot for doing this, as Rachel laughed behind me. Up on the jumping platform, I really, really did not want to let go of the bridge, staring down at the water below me, but the bungee guide said, “3,2,1 jump!” and there was nothing left to do but jump. During the free fall, there was a moment of mindlessness, a moment of panic, and then the cord started to catch my fall and it was pure enjoyment. After a head dunking in the river below, two bungee employees reeled me into a boat, and I sat on the side to watch Rachel jump. She managed a perfect swan dive (even the bungee guys were impressed) and jumped so far out she didn’t even hit the water. The jumps were over and all we (I) could do was giggle in disbelief that it was actually over.

            

Following a tradition started by Briana, Chris and Rachel the last time they jumped, we got a celebratory Fergburger and stuffed ourselves to the brim on the waterfront, elbowing away aggressive seagulls and ducks. After all the excitement, something a little more sedate was called for, and we headed to the gardens for reading and napping. Some laundry and email checking later, we met Kate and Craig for some excellent Thai food and then retired for the night, completely wiped out from the adrenaline rush earlier in the day.

Queenstown: The Gondola

We’re a bit behind on our posting, but we can’t spare a detail about our time in Queenstown! The day after our jetboat excursion we went for a ride on the small gondola to the top of a nice hill overlooking the city. Craig came with us! It was good fun. Many activities start at the top of the hill, like mountain biking, paragliding and the luge.

Carly and Craig on the luge chairlift!

We had a blast on the luge! We did both tracks – the scenic and the “advanced.” Haha…it was definitely not as scary as one of us had remembered (anyone in the Cameron/Berryhill family would know that Rachel “nearly” went off the side of the luge track her first time…looking back, a total exaggeration…).

Carly on the luge!

The three of us looking sweet in our helmets ;)

After, we met up with Kate in the Queenstown gardens and has a nice stroll, stopping at the end of the peninsula to sit by the water on a gorgeous day – the first of a long streak of warm, sunny days for us! Finally a positive turn in the weather, for real. Next up: the bungy post! Yes, folks…we did it.

Queenstown: The Jetboat

We finally made it to Queenstown, the adrenaline capital of the Southern Hemisphere! Up until now, our trip has been enjoyable but a bit on the dull side, with the exception of our side trip with Milo. However, the fun was just about to begin! Our hostel - Deco Backpackers – was super fantastic (though a tiny room) with great bathrooms and a killer view of Queenstown, Lake Wakatipu, and the Remarkables from a hill just a little ways out of town. Also, free internet.

The view from our hostel!

 As soon as we got off the bus, an awesome crazy-cool Aussie (with dreads!) by the name of Craig kindly asked where we were planning to stay, and followed us up the hill to our hostel! He ended up being one of our favorite roommates on our trip so far, and we definitely intend to see him again. Our first order of business in Queenstown, though: Fergburger…the most amazing burger place in all of New Zealand. Seriously, though, it is. Craig, Kate (a Canadian we met at our last hostel) and the two of us went for some delicious, huge burgers! Jealous yet?

FERGBURGER!!! With Kate and Craig!

The next day we booked a jetboat excursion in the Skippers Canyon. It was the best bang for our buck as the company drove us out a long dirt road (about 45 minutes one way) along the old gold miner’s track left over from the late 1800s gold rush in New Zealand. We had a little history lesson on the way as well, and man were those people crazy…dying of starvation, flash floods and dynamite all in the very unlikelihood of striking it rich through gold-panning. No thank you, we say.

On our way to Skippers Canyon!

Our jetboat experience!

Today, however, the Shotover River in Skippers is used for jetboating! We had a great time whizzing through the canyon, getting super close to the rock walls and pulling 360 degree spins (and getting drenched). Craig came with us too! The ride back was as scenic as the ride in. Since we haven’t had a car of our own to stop where we want, we jump at any chance we have to leave town for a bit and see other parts of the country. This one was totally worth it – if you’re ever in Queenstown, Skippers Canyon is the way to go! 

Left: The Shotover River in Skippers Canyon.


Right: Carly with Craig the Aussie on the jetboat!

Craig making friends with the king duck...thus perpetuating our crazy interactions with Kiwi birdlife!