view from the roof-top garden at the yha dunedin

charming otago university

dunedin public gardens

monday was so stunningly beautiful and WARM out that my backpackers roommate, andrea from switzerland, and i did the walk to the botanical gardens and strolled about, talked to the birds in the aviary and layed in the grass to soak up some sun. it was so nice to see people out, flowers in bloom and spring things springing to life after all the snow/rain/wind.

otago sunset

up close and personal

two, by two

yellow-eyed penguins

part of the draw of the otago peninsula is that there is the northern most land dwelling colony of the yellow-eyed penguins. the cute lil' guys make the trek into shore every evening just before sunset to nest and if you're in just the right spot you can see them marching home to their eggs/mates.

penguins and sheep, oh-my!

striking a pose

so cute

not as cute as the little blue penguins but the baby sheep that are out and about for spring are pretty darn cute...

i love sheep

the otago peninsula

we had access to the yellow-eyed penguin colony through a beautiful sheep farm that bordered the beach...

the otago peninsula

this is the view from the otago peninsula looking back towards dunedin...  the water looks like it should be warm but i assure you, that at the 45th parallel it is not.

best clouds, ever

in my opinion new zealand has THE BEST CLOUDS... they have so much personality!

the otago peninsula

one of the things not to miss in the dunedin area is the otago peninsula - an arm of land that is dotted with farms and penguin and albetross reservations, with beautiful beaches and several cute little suburbs.

DUNEDIN

i love dunedin (doo-nee-din). dunedin is the 4th largest city in little ol' new zealand (behind auckland, wellington and christchurch) with a population of about 125,000 (25,000 being university students). i found it extremely charming, friendly and pretty with great architecture, nice parks, hills and a GREAT cafe (no, i haven't kicked the coffee habit yet). the university area was a mix of modern and old english style buildings with a river running through the center, the main hub of downtown is an octagon shaped plaza reminiscent of the campo in siena and there were great little alley pubs and cafes throughout.

transport

in case anyone was wondering, this is my usual mode of transport while here...  although a lot of long-term backpackers purchase a car it wasn't in my budget and i didn't really want to have to worry about a car and registration and petrol, etc.  the intercity busline is the major provider and goes nearly everywhere (and is pretty reasonable).  on occasion i have also taken the nakedbus (no frills) which is cheaper but runs less often.

gavin, angela and zumba!

gavin and angela were my wonderful hosts in invercargill for 2 nights. he owns an private electric company and she is a rep for several new zealand brands (including whittaker's chocolate!!!). they began taking couchsurfers a few months ago and i was only there 2nd! i felt so lucky to have met them - angela picked me up at the bus station, took me to the invercargill museum, to a local craft fair and gave me a tour of the city (even though it rained, hailed and the wind blew several trees down near their house). angela also introduced me to zumba - a dance excersize that she is quite into - which was entertaining to say the least. i spent friday afternoon at the local pool and swim some laps before giving gavin and angela a slide presentation of "me" (they were really interested in life in the states) and we watched the bachelor after dinner.

sadly, i decided that the weather was not favorable to head down to stewart island and that i'll save that trip for later but i was glad i ventured down to invercargill because meeting gavin and angela was really wonderful and i am so grateful that they shared their home and some great home cooking with me!

couchsurfing invercargill

from fiordland i really wanted to go to stewart island for about a week to hike the rangiora track, which meant a stopover in the southern tip city of invercargill. i have heard nothing plesant about invercargill to date, the only reason people go there or go through there is to get the ferry to stewart island... so i decided it might be another good use of couchsurfing and that i should stay with a local to see why anyone lives there and what they do there, etc. i was accepted by gavin and angela, both born and raised in the area, and this was my couch for 2 nights!

out of focus venison pie... and a takahe

yes, i was a vegitarian, and i will likely go back to being one on my return to the states... but, in new zealand meat pies are traditional fare and after nearly 5 months i figured i should try one... i asked around with a few locals where i should get my first pie and 'miles better pies' was the front runner. the owner said if i was going to have a pie in te anau then it had to be venison as the te anau area is (farmed) deer country. so, i took the advice and was not disappointed at all - hot, buttery, flaky crust with tenderly stewed venison on the inside - it was delicious.

in the background is a statue of a takahe, a very rare (it was virtually extinct but is coming back slowly with the help of some sanctuaries and captive breeding programs) new zealand bird. there are a few in an aviary at the entrance to fiordland national park and they are odd looking birds with vibrant blue/green coloring and huge beaks. they are a bit larger than a goose and remind me of how i think dinosaurs might have moved about (thanks to jurassic park, once again).

the fun 5: melanie (sydney), oibar (spain), jenn, georgina (ottawa) and jorge (spain)!

this was my super-fun group for the trip, we sat together for the soup/orientation and enjoyed dinner with conversation mixed with english, spanish and a really entertaining sidebar about leeks. all but jorge went kayaking on tuesday morning and he kindly acted as our photographer from the boat (more photos to come).

crazy swimmers

on tuesday morning before pulling up anchor there were a few CRAZY kids on spring break from university in australia who decided to go for a very quick dip in the really cold water... crazy aussies...

sun!

i felt so lucky with the weather we had been having when the sun decided to show itself for our cruise out of hall arm on tuesday morning - it was still cold but it was nice to see a little blue sky after all the gray!

kayaking the sound

on tuesday morning we had the opportunity to kayak or take a zodiak ride through hall arm of doubtful sound - i did the kayak and it was so calm and peaceful, super-quiet, cold and it even snowed on us a bit. sometimes i wish i had a waterproof camera!

temporary waterfalls

although there are some standing waterfalls throughout the sounds we saw one every few hundred meters due to the large amounts of snow.

doubtful sound, misty mountains

deep cove, doubtful sound

there aren't good enough words to describe the scenery in doubtful sound... this is leaving the dock at deep cove.

slush

after crossing lake manapouri we boarded another bus to get to the dock into doubtful sound - a slow drive on the most expensive road in new zealand. it had been snowing for several days and it was a bit strange to see all of these tropical trees dusted in snow. for several of my fellow travelers it was their first time seeing snow in person, ever, so the bus driver stopped at the top of one of the passes to give folks a chance to get out and touch it. it was the wettest snow i've ever experinced - more slushy-like than the beautiful, soft, fluffy snow of mt. ruapehu.

crossing lake manapouri

it was cold, crisp, at times wet and snowy...

lake manapouri and the kepler range

luckily with a blog i can tell exactly where i left off! my main reason for the visit to te anau was to do a tour/boat cruise of the doubtful sound. most people head to fiordland national park via te anau to hike one of the tracks and/or do a cruise of the milford sound... i chose to do the doubtful sound cruise because the fiord is bigger, they only let 1 day boat and 1 overnight boat in (which makes it much more intimate - if you can be intimate with 90 other people on the boat) and as cammy from california is coming to visit we will likely do milford then. as luck would have it the road to milford was actually closed due to weather and too much snow so they were delaying any with a milford sound booking anyway.

on monday morning the bus picked me up from the backpackers in te anau and we drove 30 minutes southwest towards lake manapouri where we boarded a small boat to cross over into the park. the ride across lake manapouri was gorgeous as we were surrounded by snow capped mountains (the kepler range) and the clouds provided some great dramatic scenery. the ride across was just shy of an hour and i spent most of the trip chatting with the captain and standing up on the deck until it got too wet.

haitus - sorry!

sorry folks, i've been terrible at this.  i am now in oamaru until october 14th and have easy access to email and facebook but unfortunately anything having relations to photos and blog updates will be slow coming...

things to note:
#  doubtful sound and the kepler track are stunning
#  i love little baby sheep
#  couch surfing 2/2
#  penguins, sheep and sea lions together, OH-MY!
#  little blue penguins are SO CUTE
#  not all kiwi kids are polite
#  elephant rocks look like hedgehogs
#  dunedin rocks

kepler track, brod bay and the murchison mountain range

kepler track + jenn

gotta love the camera timer...

kepler track

te anau walk to brod bay

on sunday i walked the first part of the kepler track, to the brod bay lookout. the track is a gorgeous combination of lake front, grasslands, new zealand bush and mountains. i can see why people flock here (but am glad it's still winter and the "off season" as there are still very few people out and about - on my 4 hour hike i crossed paths with only 1 other person).

baby sheep and the kepler mountains

storms a comin'

pastures + lake te anau + murchison mountain range...

lake te anau

ah, peace and quiet... from queenstown i slept on the bus to te anau (staying up too late, drinking too much and getting up too early will do that) and arrived just after 9am. i checked into the backpackers and took a much needed nap (plus it was snowing and windy and cold out). at 1p i got up and headed out, bundled up, for a much needed walk along the lake. lake te anau is just east of the mountain range on the west coast of the south island, and is the gateway to the fiordland sounds. most people, myself included, use te anau as a base for trips to milford and doubtful sound and the kepler and hollyford tracks.

couch surfing queenstown

couch surfing 1/1! i flew from wellington to queenstown on thursday for a 2 night stopover before heading west over to the sounds. as i had been to queenstown before and wasn't planning on any of the touristy agenda items, i decided to give couch surfing a try, in the hope of getting a bit of a local view/meeting people. www.couchsurfing.org is an online network of couch surfers and couch hosts and i had heard some success stories from other travelers. there is no exchange, it is literally nice folks who like to meet people and can offer a free place to stay (be it a couch, spare bedroom, floor, etc.). i contacted a few folks and ended up with josh, a 33 year-old bungy instructor, and his 4 roommates in downtown queenstown. it was GREAT. josh and the roommies were all really welcoming and relaxed, he cooked dinner both nights and we hung out at the frankton spa all day on friday. i slept on the couch but it was comfy (and i know couches) and in all a great way to save a few dollars.

in other news, the weather is currently quite chaotic (more so than even "normal" new zealand weather): http://nz.news.yahoo.com/a/-/top-stories/7951028/massive-storm-to-hit-new-zealand/
while in queenstown it snowed from thursday evening all the way through saturday morning, leaving about an inch of snow on the ground in downtown queenstown (which is rare). wellington is getting a gale and here in te anau it is alternating between rain, snow and sun within ever hour (it's actually pretty cool).

windy welly

from auckland to wellington: wellington is a much nicer city, full stop. wellington has great parks and a beautifully developed downtown area and pedestrian alleys and the bay is clean and a joy to walk around. the one downside is that wellington is windy. very windy. insanely windy. i had 6 days in and about wellington and did a little of this and a little of that and a lot of relaxing. maureen put me up in her cute little apartment in eastbourne (across the bay from wellington) and then the two of us stayed a few days in plimmerton (a place she was house-sitting for a co-worker). i took the ferry into wellington and cruised the town, hiked up to mt. victoria, read, drank coffees, baked maureen cookies and a ginger cake and generally just hung out. it was great!

view of downtown from mt. victoria...

wellington looks an aweful lot like sf in some places... except that the cars are on the wrong side of the street...

the tranzscenic

i so feel lucky that i had the time to take the train from auckland to wellington! it was a long trip, 12 hours, but it was beautiful countryside and relaxing and completely worth it.

these are the strange satalite laser beamy things on the ceiling of the auckland train terminal...

sunset over fields just north of wellington...

the $1 ferry to auckland

i left coromandel town on tuesday, the 7th, via the ferry to auckland. frankly, i've had quite enough of auckland at this point but it is the go-between between the far north and everywhere else (at least for the carless). my ferry trip was great this time 'round and the weather held out and i was able to enjoy the top deck the whole way over.