Fjordland & around

Just before leaving Wanaka, we went to the wall climbing centre that the city is well known for. This brought some good competion to the party. There were 20 walls with different obstacles to climb up, and some walls were fully set up for racing. The harness systems were auto-retractable, so we could clip ourselves on and go at our own pace without having to take turns. At first 1 hour didn't sound like it was going to be long enough, but half an hour into it our arms were already feeling it and by the end of the hour we were downright exhausted!

A feirce competition between Kim & I

After the climbing, I insisted that we take the advice of our yacht club friend and go for a hike up to the top of a mountain for a good view of the lakes. It was a bit tiring to do this right after the wall climbing, especially since we ran part of the way up and then most of the way down (it got challenging to stop once we started running down the mountain). The view was well worth the hike and there were some really interesting information boards about the history of the lands.

Viewpoint at the top of the mountain in Wanaka

Kim found a nice tree to sit in at Lake Wanaka

We moved on to Queenstown. It is my understanding that this place is known for taking lots of money from tourists for doing "touristy things" so our goal was to avoid that wherever possible. That being said, I did enjoy some delicious ice cream from the local chocolatier at the pier. We really enjoyed taking in everything at the harbour front. Lots of different boats, a diverse mix of people and people playing music. There was one fellow with a trumpet playing Louis Armstrong's, "What a Wonderfull World." This was just excellent!

Below is a picture of a nice chilled out place in Queenstown where Kim and I bought some drinks and got a nice little daytime buzz going. We had some good chats about how good life is and how much the people in our lives mean to us.

We moved on to Milford Sound in the New Zealand Fiordland. This was an amazing place to take in nature. Everything was covered in green. The first night we found a Department of Conservation campsite on a nice small beach. This was pretty quiet except for a pair of silver-tops that got their campervan stuck in the gravel and needed a push out. The driver said, "you must be used to pushing cars like this if you're from Canada."

The next day we climbed up a mountain that had a fair bit of water at the top, and lots of interesting historical information about how the fiords were formed by glaciers moving through. I really enjoyed taking it all in and imagining what it actually would have been like to witness the glaciers shaping the land to the way it is today.

It was on and off rain for most of the time in Fiordland. We were waiting for it to clear up so we could get some good views aboard one of the fiord cruises, but it didn't really come. It's understandably quite hard to find a day where it's not raining there considering they get over 7200 mm of rain a year! No wonder there's so much green. The rain didn't scare us off, we signed up for a cruise of the fiords and they even let us borrow some rain jackets. We had a great time out there and still got some good views of the fiords, even when all we could see was the bottom of them. And there was definitely one bonus that came from all the rain that day; the fiords were thriving with waterfalls that otherwise wouldn't have been there. The captain even drove the front of the boat right under a big waterfall while Kim & I stood in the water's path.

That night we found another D.O.C. campsite. There we met some travelers from the U.S. and had some interesting chats about the world. The next morning was absolutely beautiful and I really took in the landscape while I ate my breakfast. After breakfast we went for another great walk, this one through a forest with moss everywhere. There was also a nice lake that reminded me of home.

Campsite where we spent our first night in Fiordland

Water at the top of the mountain. Interesting.

Still at the top

So much GREEN

On the Fiord cruise

Waterfall on the cruise

Walruses resting up for fishing later

Breakfast table at the 2nd campsite

Kim doing what she loves

A nice lake to sit and look at

Leaving Fjordland

After Fiordland the plan was to head down to Stewart Island for 1 night. However, once we reached Dunedin we found out that the ferry to Stewart Island is a pretty expensive journey and not really worth it for just 1 night. So we hung around Dunedin for a little while, Kim talked to a spiritualist and I went to the university to learn more about an environmental sustainability program they offer. Afterwords, we headed for a nearby beach with hard packed sand that we were able to drive around on. We were lucky to see some local kitesurfers hitting up a strong wind. This made me more and more interested in getting into this sport. We caught a nice sunset here and then found a campsite for the night.

The next day we went to a museum focused on navigation of the sea. I got really interested in a video showing an aboriginal sucessfully reinacting his ancestors sailing to Hawaii with no navigation tools at all. Afterwords we went on a nature walk. Kim and I decided to go our own on what was supposed to be a 50-minute loop track. I walked the track once around and saw lots of joggers on the way. This gave me the urge to jog, so after the first loop I went back the way I had just come. Figured I'd see Kim on the way but didn't. So I walked around some more, sat, looked around...still no Kim. I've learned that things like this seem to just happen with Kim and all one can really do is just go with it.

2 1/2 hours after the journey began, I decided to go looking for Kim. After 10 minutes of walking I found her on a side track walking towards me. 50 minutes, eh? Classic Kim.

Where the walk began

There's Kim!
On the road again...look at all the sheep!