Franz Josef Glacier

Today, Kate and I walked on a Glacier. I think that pretty much sums it up (other than the part when we got lost...)

OH, and ! when James Cook first saw the Franz Josef Glacier, he thought it was a cloud. That had to be embarassing!

The Glacier!

A few of the many beautiful waterfalls! The Franz Joseph is one of only 3 glaciers found in a rainforest (The Fox is another and the third is in Argentina). Most glaciers are found at much higher altitudes, but the massiveness of the Southern Alps next to the coast made the Franz Josef and Fox glaciers possible.

There's been a lot of rain. The glaciers are everchaning, see the cave in the middle, supposedly, that is three times bigger than it was just a week ago. Also, check out the amazing action of erosion on the rocks! They're so pretty!

I'm on top of a glacier!!! I'm so cool.

I think the ice looks really cool. Also, I was standing still because there was a bit of a back up, so I had to entertain myself, something we all know I'm good at.

Adventures in Queenstown

Queenstown, not much to do on a rainy day, but when the sun’s out, the guns are out. And by guns, I mean, Kate and I had a lot of fun.

After an AMAZING week in Wanaka, filled with organic farming, tramping, and good company, our most awesomest hosts ever drove us to Queenstown, cause they rock! Along the way we stopped in Arrowtown, where we were supposed to go for a hike. Unfortunately, by the time we got there, I was the only one who still wanted to hike… so… Instead we went to a bakery, and then did a little exploring of this historic gold mining village.

Arrowtown is famous for Chinese Village. I bet you can figure out who lived there, Chinese gold miners. Their huts were amazing. Small, one room shelters built nestled into the protective rock wall.

From Arrowtown we entered Queenstown. Kate and I planned to go for a Lord of the Rings Horse Trek and maybe a bungee jump or canyon swing. As we arrived in town, a cold rain started coming down, so it was definitely a good thing that we had skipped the tramp. No fun tramping in a cold rain if you don’t have to. Anyway, we got to town and booked our horse trek ; then we found a place to sleep (We have priorities!).

At 8:15 am Tuesday morning we eagerly walked down to meet our ride to Glenorchy and Paradise. It was raining, and the forecast was for rain, so we wore rain jackets. Me, I had was optimistic, and knowing Glenorchy is an hour from Queenstown, I brought sunglasses, just in case it was sunny there. Apparently, the opposite was true. At 8:30 the lady from the stables gave us the bad news. The weather was far far worse out there, gale force winds and lots of rain, so the trip was off. Luckily, we hadn’t booked a bus yet, so we just rescheduled for Wednesday. So we stayed an extra day in Queenstown, of course, we now have a max of one day at Arthur’s Pass, which means that tent I’ve been carrying around for the last 2 ½ months, probably will never see the light of day. Sad.

So we tried to figure out what to do in Q-town on a rainy day. There isn’t much. It’s real attraction is that it’s the gateway to a lot of really really really fun things, like horse treks, and Milford Sounds tours, kiwi tours, lots of 4WD tours, jet boating, white water rafting… you get the idea. So, I did what any girl in my position would do. I signed up to do the canyon swing, the following afternoon. (Who wants to plummet to their almost certain death on a rainy day?)
Which still left Kate and I with the dilemma, what to do with our rainy day? We got breakfast at the bakery, then took a nap. A logical thing to do, given what we had planned for the following day. Oh, and Kate made fun of me, because I revealed that I had grabbed sunglasses, “Hope springs eternal…” she’s mocked me for that a lot on this trip… After our nap, we hit the theatres to see Ghost Town, which was actually a good movie. I recommend it. Not your traditional romantic comedy.

Soo… the real stuff! WEDNESDAY! Kate and I woke up to a slightly chilly, but SUNNY!! morning. Once again we made our way into town to catch our ride, and this time, we actually got in the van! We drove along the lake (featured in LOTR) to reach the Dart Stables. Along the way, I noticed that the mountains had some fresh powder on them. While we got rain, they got snow, is that fair? We also stopped at a view point, where our driver pointed out the Battle of Helms Deep. Unfortunately, I only just saw the movies and am not a geek, and wasn’t really sure where he was pointing since he was standing behind me. But! I have officially seen where the Battle of Helms Deep was shot… take that Meredith!

Blah blah blah, we drove into Paradise (privately own land trust, yay conservation!) where we met our horses. I got the small one, Chester. He happened to have a Napoleon Complex. Little man = alpha horse. He likes the front and likes to eat. He was not happy until we had picked off the other horses to lead the pack… then he paid attention to what I told him to do… at least a little.

So things we saw:
1. Lothlorien – place where Frodo tries to give the ring to the Elf and she gets all evil look and then he looks in the well and realizes how horrible life will be if he doesn’t destroy the ring.
This place looks nothing like the movie. Primary school kids painted leaves and Peter Jackson had people pin them to the trees to make it look like autumn (it was shot in an evergreen forest). Plus, they may have brought some trees of their own.
2. Isengard – really pretty, and the river that floods it. The river, not at all what it looks like in the movie, it’s a braided river, not a wide flowing mass. And, there is no giant tower! That was really just a 6 foot model that was added to the scene using computers (Sorry to ruin it for you…) But it was really ridiculously pretty and there are some very distinctive mountains in the scene!
3. Amon Hen (Kate spelled it for me… we’re not sure) – Boromir Dies! (I actually recognized this one!). So all those hundreds of orcs rushing over that hill… 30 C day (really hot ..86?), wetsuit for muscles, plus armor, including a helmet that prevents you from seeing and hearing well. Oh, and those weren’t 100s of extras, that was the Queenstown rugby team, running down the hill, then off camera to run back up it, then down it again looking fierce. Since they couldn’t really see where they were going, sometimes they tripped on trees… which means the director yelled cut, and they had to run up and down the hill all over again. The lucky ones were slain… That day had some major casualties, 2 with heat stroke, 2 (or more) with twisted ankles, plus, 1 concussion (Camera on a zip-line hit the guy as he was running down the hill). I’ll take bleachers over that work out any day.
4. Fangorn Forest: The forest the orcs are cutting down. They didn’t really cut down the forest, but rather they imported tree stumps (Then took them out again… don’t worry, everything was left as they found it).
5. OSCAR: Movie Star! This horse was in the movie for that huge battle scene. Technically, he was in it 10 times, because they only had 250 horses but used computers to make 2500. He also saved the day in Prince Caspian – if it wasn’t for him, all of the other horses wouldn’t have run through the river. Of course, as the fearless leader, he didn’t make the actual scene.

So that was our morning…

After lunch, we had the canyon swing. For this, I (somewhat) voluntarily jumped from a platform 109 m above a river, flowing through a canyon with hard rock walls. The first “Swing” I did was the pin drop. You look over the edge, and you jump. It’s actually pretty scary. But I did jump myself! Although, I took about 2 minutes after stepping to the edge to convince myself to do it. When you first jump, it’s not scary. It gets scary when you’re falling for about 5 seconds and you haven’t landed on something soft and you haven’t felt the rope tighten. Oh, and flipping upside down unexpectedly didn’t help. But it was wicked fun.

My second jump involved lawn furniture. I sat on three plastic chairs (apparently one just isn’t enough) and then you’re supposed to lean back until you just fall over the edge. Well, they kind of hold you too make sure you don’t lean back to fast and just swing under the platform. Of course, in my case, they weren’t so much holding me as pushing me. The pin drop had a rating of 6 underwear (meaning as scary as it gets), the Chair of Death only had a rating of 3 underwear. Whoever made that rating system, was an idiot. The Chair of Death deserves 10 underwear, as I believe my minute of screaming “NO NO NO NO NO NO” the first time they tried to send me over proved. But they successfully pushed me on the second attempt, and I screamed, loudly, much to the amusement of the rafters below. Kate claims that they were laughing at me.

I got the videos so I can always remember how absolutely ridiculously I behaved when faced with falling from a really high platform (So far I’ve been too embarrassed to watch them with sound…)

I guess that’s it. Kate and I took the bus to Franz Joseph today and we walk on the glacier tomorrow! Yay!

An attempt at the quick low down.

Kate and I have been busy. Our time is almost up and we're attempting to make the most of it.

Shortly before the election, we flew the coup and ran to Australia. Side note, we flew from Christchurch to Aukland, NZ and then to Cairns, AU. I got through security and onto a plane in Christchurch without once showing ID, and I didn't show my ticket until I actually got on the plane. Weird, a world without paranoid airport security! Intense.

Austrlia! Was amazing. Kate and I went on a three day/ two night dive cruise on the Great Barrier Reef. That is the life. We had a beautiful room on a cruise ship, PLUS! 12 dives on the 8th wonder of the world! A few of the high points: sharks, turtles, cuttlefish, lion fish, and of course, lots of nemos. Another great part, Wednesday, as we're about to be briefed for the fourth dive of the day, finding out that Obama won. Rock solid!

After our dive trip, we took Friday to recover and went to the beach. Unfortunately, it's stinger/crocodile season, so there was no swimming. But it was still pretty!

Saturday, we went with Uncle Brian on Gus the Bus to see Rainforests! And actually, Uncle Brian sold the business a while ago, so we had Aunt Charine. and Gus had busted his eardrum the day before, so we had Steve. Needless to say, it was an awesome day, filled with rainforests, giant spiders, a few snakes, waterfalls, and crater lakes (lakes in volcanic craters!) Oh, and guess what. That funny think called a platypus, made with left over parts... they DO EXIST! We went spotting platypi and I actually saw them with my own eyes! I'm a believer.

Sunday, we hopped a plane back to Aukland. Were we cozied up on some benches in the international terminal before catching our flight to Christchurch on Monday. (Did I forget to mention we had to sleep in the airport both ways... fun...)

From Christchurch we took a bus down to Dunedin to WOOF at a Bed and Breakfast. Our trip to Dunedin had a few objectives: 1. Check out the University of Otago 2. Check out Otago Peninsula (awesome marine life!) 3. Walk up Baldwin St.

Finding and checking out Otago was easy. Cool university with a good Marine Bio program.
Unfortunately, our trip to the Peninsula didn't work out. Our ride for Thursday fell through, and sadly we had bus tickets for Friday morning. So I'll just have to come back to NZ to see the penguins and albatross colonies.

Baldwin St. Why that street? Five Words: STEEPEST STREET IN THE WORLD.
Who can resist? So on Thursday, Kate and I went for a stroll/photo shoot. It was a fun little walk. We took lots of pictures of the insanity. Wondered why the street existed (it doesn't go anywhere!) Worried that cars were going to roll backwards down it. I went to roll down it, but I was scared of the concrete and cars. It was intimidating! Really...

And now! Kate and I are in the most beautiful place in the world. Lake Wanaka. We had a day in town before our new hosts picked us up. So I followed the advice Alex gave me: 1. We went to the movies. 2. We went to the Bakery. Two delightful endeavours.

The movies were special. Well, the theater was, the movie (Body of lies) ... eh. So, it was a one screen theater. But instead of rows of seats they had lots and lots and lots of comfy couches! and one car. AND it gets BETTER! It was attached to a cafe, where you could enjoy a delightful dinner before or after the movie. Or even better, at halftime! Which was the intermission, and then you could take your dinner in with you if you didn't finish in the time allotted. It was absolutely delightful. Unfortunately, the movie playing the next night did not look enjoyable, so Kate and I couldn't make an excuse to go twice.

The bakery we found. Also amazing. We went to the Doughbin. I'm not sure if this is the one that Alex meant, but it was delightful!

We're with our new hosts, who just joined the WOOF network. Lucky us! The were woofers themselves, 15 years ago, and now they are AMAZING hosts! The last two days we have worked in the morning and then they've taken us to do walks in the afternoon. Quite delightful walks! Tomorrow we're taking the day off and going out to Mt Aspiring Nat'l Park to hike to Rob Roy glacier, and hopefully see some avalanches!

They also have been helping to make sure that I get the right bakery. They've told us all the bakeries in town, and I've now tried two. There may be one more. Doughbin was better than the one today, but I'm a scientists, it's all about multiple tests (I've already tried DB twice, it's only fair that I go back to the one from today).

OK, bed time!

The French Connection

No more llamas, but we have found another all you can eat paradise! Now I just have to break out the oatmeal raisin recipe and we’ll really be having a good time.

We’ve landed ourselves in Akaroa, the French Connection. Apparently, this area was first settled by the French, sometime around 1840. They promptly tore down all the natural vegetation, introduced some invasive species in the form of mammals and went to town, or at least built a town. We’re staying in Duvauchelle, on the Duvauchelle Bay, which is part of Akaroa Harbor. Again, we have found another lovely slice of paradise as we are flanked by water and mountains.

Silly updates. The computer shut down, and now I’m stuck trying to rewrite a paragraph that I just wrote. And I saved it too! Grrrr… silly Vista. That’s the problem; it’s a pc, not a mac. So I guess I didn’t actually save it. Flashback to that college paper that got lost because the control key on a pc and the apple key on a mac are not in the same place!

New Zealand is a wonderful case study demonstrating the damage that humans can inflict on the natural world. Nearly all of the native vegetation has been cleared, mammals and birds have been introduced, and native birds have met a nasty fate. Let’s not forget the cat of the light house keeper that drove the Stephans Island Wren to extinction. But all is not lost! There is a movement in New Zealand to try to undo the damage done by European settlers. Not to fix the environment, because is that possible? But to repair the damage done so the environment can go on being what it is; a dynamic, ever changing force that controls our well-being.

This week, we’re staying with people of the help the environment help itself mindset. Along with replanting native vegetation and completing pollen surveys, they have also hosted researchers doing bird surveys, among other things. Their bookshelves contain a library of information on New Zealand conservation efforts with which they are involved. As well as bird and plant books to keep me quite content. Yesterday, I was treated to a hands -on lesson regarding fucia reproductive strategy. By the way, an amazing plant, they are either hermaphrodites, with both stigma and anthers, or females, with stigma and vestigial anthers. No males for this species. I have to do my research to determine the reproductive benefits gained by this gender distribution. There are many possible explanations… but what is the chance that it just happens to be that way? But I think it’s safe to say, everything in nature has a purpose, even pretty flowers.

And pretty flowers are what keep Kate and I occupied all day, or at least all of our working days. In order to feed their conservation passions our hosts, two former vets, also have a peonies operation. They are Peonies suppliers and early summer is prime picking season. In the morning, we go out to collect pretty pink peonies from the rows of plants. But we try to get them before they're pretty! We want to get the plant just before it blooms, so that it can be kept cold and shipped so that it’s in full blossom for the bouquet of flowers that it will join.

Kate and I have the lovely job of holding gigantic bundles of peonies
and then trying to load them onto the trailer to be brought to the house for processing. After 2-3 hours in the fields, we return home for lunch. Then Phase 2 begins. Kate and I make boxes to place the peonies in for shipment. Then we join Waka and John in “The Chiller!” (I feel like this is the name of a D scary movie).

The Chiller is probably what you imagine, a giant refrigerator kept slightly above freezing at 2 C! The Chiller provides the backdrop for the real work. Waka and John sort the flowers by grade (size of the flower) and cut the stems to 60 cm. Then Kate and I have the joy of bundling. We take 5 flowers, make sure all of their stems line up so they can all get a drink of water, then wrap a rubber band around the bottom of the stem and another just below the leaves. The painful snap of a rubber band against your skin confirms that your fingers are still alive with blood coursing through the veins. A good test to make sure you’re not getting frostbite. I prefer to avoid the snaps and find out too late that I have frostbite. So far, we both still have all of our fingers and toes.

After we bundle them, we stick them in crates, separated by grade (like eggs, they’re either AAA, AA, or A). This job is the one that brings your fingers closest to frostbite. The crates are filled with water and packing flowers into a crate doesn’t provide much opportunity for wiggling one fingers. When you go finish packing a crate and return to rubber banding, you tend to get a few more healthy reminders that your fingers, thankfully?, still have blood flowing through them. Your fingers have lost some dexterity, so you’re more likely to snap your fingers, and they’re colder, so it hurts a lot more. While the chiller is a nice escape from the midday heat, when all the bundles are done and you have to wait for more flowers, the midday heat provides a nice escape from the nearly freezing chiller. So you’re happy whether you’re going in or coming out of the chiller!
And that pretty much describes our daily routine!

So what about the not daily routine? Yesterday, Kate and I had a nice surprise. The woofers who like to call themselves “The French Connection” came to visit us in Akaroa, “The French Connection.” Along with a pleasant catch up in the sun, we went to explore Akaroa, famous for Hector Dolphins. These dolphins are small compared to the more common bottle-nosed dolphin, and are endemic to the region. Unfortunately, we got to town too late to take a cruise to see the marine life for which Banks Peninsula is famous. But we did get to see a model Hector dolphin and see the pretty harbor. So it wasn’t a wasted journey!

And sorry, Kate’s asleep, so I can’t get the pictures to document our livelihood. (They really are entertaining!)

Llama Llama... the real post

We left our island paradise on Saturday morning, on a boat filled to the breaking point with puau. Puau that we had neatly stacked in lovely blue crates that very morning. It had been a delightful week… especially when we no longer had to go destroying tawenie.

Kate and I played teacher for our last week on the island, helping to supervise the three children as they completed their lessons from correspondence school. Our afternoons were spent completing a variety of household/childcare activities. My favorite werethe ones involving baking. We made the world’s most delicious oatmeal raisen cookies, if I do say so myself (don’t worry mom, I copied the recipe). We also did a far amount of walking around the beautiful island, swimming, and I got Sarah playing puzzle!

So we were sad to go, but also excited.

It was rainy for our bus ride from Picton to Christchurch, so many of our travel days have been less then sunny. The bus took us along the beautiful Kaikoura coast. In the interest of time, Kate and I had opted to skip staying in that region, it’s amazing how fast three weeks goes!

This was the windiest, hilliest road we have been on yet. It was bad, even by New Zealand standards. But there were rewards for enduring car sickness, again… Lots and lots and lots of seals!! These things are so cute. Especially when they undulate their entire body in an attempt to hop along, or reach their tail forward to scratch behind their whiskers. I never imagined a seal scratching itself!

After arriving in Christchurch on Saturday evening, we hopped a bus to Rangiora to meet our new host, children’s book author, Jane Buxton. She is a woman with many hats. Author and LLAMA/ALPACA farmer! Yup, we spent the last week on a Llama and Alpaca farm. While most of our work involved weeding and aiding some native trees in their fight to become re-established, we did get to spend some time with the animals (not just the dogs and cat).

We got to lead the Llamas for walks. They like to get all close to you. We got kisses from them, Misty was especially affectionate. We got to see a newborn baby, although unfortunately, Jessica decided to give birth before anyone was awake. And we got to practice for our future careers with the discovery channel/animal planet. We got to see how baby llamas are made, twice. Lucky guy. The interesting part was the sound that he made.

The reproductive system of a llama does not work the same way as the reproductive system of a human. Shocking, I know. Llamas have induced ovulation. That lady isn’t wasting any eggs. She only ovulates when the male is around, so he has to make this strange gurgling noise to get the eggs moving.But once he’s got that going for a while, all the ladies are ready. His first mate, was a little difficult, it took some persuasion on his part to get her ready for 350 days of child bearing. That’s right, 11 and a half months to make a baby llama, WOW! The 2nd llama, sunshine, was quite ready to go, having listened to mating noises for about 45 minutes before it was her turn. And she wasn’t the only one, there were a few ladies in that barn ready to try their hand at motherhood. But only two lucky ladies.

Aside from the discovery channel scenario and walking the llamas, we also got to help trim toe nails. So all in all, for not much time with the llamas, we got to do a fair amount. The thing that amazes me about llamas is that they are like no other farm animal. They are highly intelligent and curious, not at all frightened of humans. Also, they respond to verbal directions. Llamas come to you. If you want them, you just call “Llama llama” and they all arrive, eagerly awaiting directions. You don’t need dogs, scary noises, or imposing positions to get them to herd up and switch paddocks or head to the barn, just call them and they come. Amazing.

But, no more llama farm. Kate and I spent the day in Christchurch and we are now at our new home in Akaroa, on Banks Peninsula. A beautiful piece of land that is a bit of a tourist destination. We’ll be here for a week, working with flowers and helping to replant native species (yay for not weeding!). Then we have a big adventure planned for next week! We’re running away from our island on Sunday, to hit up a neighboring island, that’s just a bit bigger. Australia to dive the Great Barrier Reef!! (One week in Australia is going to cost us about as much as our entire time in New Zealand, ouch… but so worth it!)

Llama Llama

Kate's computer is too advanced! I wrote a really awesome blog entery on her computer, but I can't post it, because she has the newest version of Word and this computer doesn't. That silly girl. I'll have to see if I can save the document as an older version, because it was way better than whatever I'm about to write.

We have left our island paradise. Our second week there was awesome. School was back in session, so we no longer had to grub tawenie. Although, I did miss the views of the sounds that we had while working... and the skill that it took to not tumble down the insanely steep hill. For this part of our visit, we spent the mornings supervising the children as they comleted their lessons from correspondence school and the afternoons doing general household/child watching activities.

My favorite parts of afternoons playing house? 1. making the world's best oatmeal raisen cookies (Yes mom, I got the recipe) 2. Using a rainy day to get Sarah addicted to playing puzzle! Yay playing puzzle!

Saturday morning marked the end of our island vacation. Though Kate will tell you, it was far from a vacation, but it was quite fun. We spent the morning packing paua to bring to town. This involved getting them to use their giant muscles to hold onto each other so we could squeeze them nice and tight into some blue bins for the ride to town. Then we packed all of the blue bins into the boat, and I wondered how Mike and three Woofers were going to fit in there. Then we added our bags to the boat, and I really got worried. But about an hour and some dolphin sightings later, we all made it safely to Picton.

Kate and I took a bus down the Kaikoura coast to Christchurch. It was a rainy day to see some beautiful country, as most of our traveling days are. We tried our best to enjoy the passing scenery, we had opted not to stay in this region in the interest of time, who ever would have guessed that three months would not be enough! The road was windy and hilly, even by New Zealand Standards. But I was rewarded for fighting off car sickness (Again) by the beautiful scenery and lots and lots of seals! Some of the rocky beaches were completely covered by these funny organisms. They were quite cute, as they undulated their entire bodies just to hop forward a couple of inches! Or as they curled their tails around so they could scratch behind their whiskers! I never would have imangined that manuever.

We arrived in Christchurch in the early evening and caught a bus to Rangiora to meet our new host. Jane Buxton is a woman with many hats. She is the author of several (several meaning lots and lots and lots) children's books as well as a LLAMA/ALPACA farm. That's right! I got to stay on a llama and alpaca farm.

And I don't feel like rewriting anymore. So I'm going to try and figure out how to get the document I already wrote on the internet, and you'll just have to wait to read about my time among the llamas.

Bye!

Desert Island Books

So what I read on a desert island:

1. The Secret Life of Bees (I had already started this one when I got there)
A terrific book. Well written and a good story, what could be better.

2. High Citadel
This book was left behind by a previous woofer. I understand why they left it. Nothing like a communist ambush in the middle of the Andes.

3. My Enemy the Queen
Also left by another woofer. Who doesn't enjoy a 16th century romance novel. Although, it wasn't so much a romance novel as a bad book.

4. Babysitters Club
Gotta get the 10 year old to read somehow.,

5. Priestess of the White
A Fantasy book that Kate bought in Taupo. Very enjoyable and strange. Gotta love Fantasy.