The New Zealand Adventure Part 7: Aoraki Mt. Cook & the Mackenzie District

Mt. Cook over lake Pukaki

Mt. Cook was the final major stop on our tour of the South Island. The area is kind of interesting in that it has some strikingly gorgeous sights, and some that are . . . well, strikingly ugly.

Mt. Cook is New Zealand’s tallest mountain. The Maori name is Aoraki which means “cloud piercer,” and it’s easy to see how it got its name.

Mt. Cook has been a longtime destination for mountain climbers. In the Mt. Cook village you’ll find the Sir Edmund Hilary Alpine Center, a gorgeous museum and educational center dedicated to the area and the history of mountain climbing. Entrance is free and absolutely worth a visit.

Plus, it ‘s a good place to pick up maps and information about area and the trailheads to several treks are right nearby.

The ugly part came in at the Tasman Glacier head. This is just my opinion of course, but this is not the prettiest place in the South Island; that’s not to say it isn’t still really interesting and impacting. My understanding is that the construction site appearance of the lake basin the glacier flows into is due to the fact that the glacier has done a little back and forth action – it advanced, retreated, advanced again, and is now once again in retreat. The result is that it has turned the terrain to rubble.

On top of the mountains of rocks, the glacial silt makes the water on this lake look dusty grey. (It's possible that in different light the water might look different, but that day it was murky.)

The place like it could have been the location for Mordor – it wasn’t . . . but it looks like it could have been. (Actually, prettier fields not too far away were the locations for Gondor.)

Just a little ways down the road, the glacial flour in some of the other lakes nearby created a completely different effect. At Lakes Ohau, Tekapo, and Pukaki light plays off the silt in this magical way that creates an intense turquoise blue color. It looks pretty otherworldly.

In between Lakes Tekapo and Pukaki we stopped at Mount Cook Salmon Farm, which is hidden just off the main road. According to their website, the farm is eco friendly and sustainable. We got there right at 5:00, so we didn’t get to tour the place much, but we did get to see a bit and feed the fish.

The pens were crowded with salmon, but they looked beautiful and the water was clean and that crisp aqua blue.

Most importantly, the salmon was delicious! We ordered a plate of sashimi and were served a heaping plate. The fish was firm and absolutely luscious.

Filled with tasty salmon sashimi, it was time to head out of the Mackenzie District and head back to Christchurch to complete our South Island loop.

Here's my slideshow:

and a link to the rest of Greg's.

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The New Zealand Adventure Part 6: Queenstown, Arrowtown, and Glenorchy

Lake Wakatipu

Once upon a time, Queenstown was a gold mining town. At some point down the line, Queenstown started to reinvent itself as the adrenaline capital of the world. The first commercial bungee site started here, and since then they’ve found a million other ways to give you a natural high. It’s THE resort town for adrenaline junkies.

The night we got back to Queenstown, we met up with Sabina who had just been skydiving that afternoon. The next morning she had tickets for an adventure combo pack to go jet boating, heli biking, and some other craziness all before lunch. You can also go canyoning, white water rafting, canyon swinging-- you name it, they got it. While some of the water adventures sounded fun, none of the many methods of plummeting through air held much allure for me, given that my heights seems to be getting worse by the day. (To be fair, I think Greg would have liked to go on the canyon swing – it’s exactly what it sounds like -- a bungee swing that flies back and forth across a canyon.)

No bungee or skydiving for me; or maybe I’ll wait until I’m 65 and then rumor has it, they let you jump for free. While Sabina sought out ways to keep her adrenaline levels pumping I decided to indulge my inner geek -– and I dragged Greg along with me.

With Sabina in Queenstown, after her morning of adventure sports and in the middle of our day of geekdom.

First, the history nerd got to come out to play. We began the day in Arrowtown, where we toured the ruins of a Chinese mining settlement that sprang up during a gold rush.

The rest of the town is a cute little vacation spot with restaurants and shops and I took the opportunity to pick up a few gifts for family and friends. Among the many popular souvenir items, I found the merino-possum wool blends to be particularly interesting. Bushtail possum we brought to NZ to establish a fur trade, however, with no predators to keep them in check, their population exploded, and they have wreaked havoc on the native birds and vegetation ever since. The situation got even worse when fur fell out of fashion, since hunters have no incentive to capture them. Clothes blending NZ’s famous merino wool with possum fur is still manufactured and popular there. The amazing part is that the blend is actually much, MUCH softer than plain merino wool . . . and in this case, wearing fur is actually be good for the environment. I picked up a scarf for my dad; I kind of wish I'd bought one for myself too.

We spent the second half of our day of nerdom touring Middle Earth. Yes, we geeked-out completely and took a Lord of the Rings tour. We booked a trip with a small company called Pure Glenorchy that takes you in SUV to visit the film locations in the area and they show how images were spliced together to create the world.

Greg begrudgingly stands in for Faramir.


Borrowed from this site.


Somehow the Dead Marshes don't look quite so dead in real life.


Borrowed from this site.


You can see parts of this mountain on the right hand side of the image of Isengard. Parts of this area also served for the Misty Mountain.


This gorgeous wooded area was used for Amon Hen and parts of Lothlorien.

The weird thing was that the other group on our tour was an older Israeli family – a brother and sister and their spouses—who seemed completely uninterested in the movie information. They were very nice, but while we were trying to listen to the bits about how this image was cut with that image to create Ithilien, the Misty Mountains, Isengard or whatever, they’d all kind of gloss over. I’m not the biggest LOTR buff by far – we didn’t show up in costumes or anything . . . although I have been trying to convince Greg for years that we should be Arwin and Aragorn for Halloween. This group, however, seemed barely to be familiar with the movies – like this epic trilogy was something they heard spoken about, or maybe they saw one and then decided to take this tour. That did detract from the experience a bit.

However, the areas we drove through around the little town of Glenorchy are spectacularly pretty, and while you can buy a LOTR location guide, it would be very hard to get to a lot of the spots and it would be even harder to pick out certain locations since many images were composites of different places. Several companies offer a LOTR tour, but one thing I have to say for Pure Glenorchy’s tour, is that they provide a small lunch stop. Our tour guide brought apricot bars that his mom made and they were absolutely scrumptious!

Plus, now I can say that I’ve been to Lothlorien and to Paradise!

Despite what the sign says, it is possible to exit Paradise; however, it wouldn't mind going back.

On our way out of town later the evening, we got a chance to see some of what we might of missed when we stopped off at popular bungee bridge. I shuddered at merely looking over the edge, and then my attention was quickly sidetracked by the site of the Pillars of the Kings.

No interest in jumping from here.




Borrowed from this site.

The Full Day:

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If you are looking for a locations guide, this is a good one. The page of Faramir looking over Ithilien is from this book.

New Zealand Adventure Part 5: Milford to Te Anau

The morning after our kayaking trip we woke to a gorgeous morning in Milford. We’d managed to book a campervan site at the Milford Sound Lodge – probably one of the prettiest sites we staid at.

Our plan for the day was to catch one more glimpse of the Sound and then slowly make our way back to Te Anau, while stopping at all the little stops we hadn’t had time for the day before.
Rather than going through them all, point by point, here are some highlights:

One more stop at Milford.

The Chasm.

Nice quote, but they might want to check their sources.

On a hike near Lake Marian

Near the Homer Tunnel, we got out and did a short hike and found ourselves on snowy terrain.

We tried to take a pic of ourselves, but got whited out.

When we got back to the car park area we found flock of kea parrots that were up to some mischief. These guys are apparently the only species of alpine parrots, and I must admit it’s odd to see parrots in the snow, and they’re super smart. You can just see them scheming and calculating how they’re going to get into the cars to get at the tourists food. We heard a story about one these sly little guys stealing someone’s passport right of their hands, pretty much out of spite. Luckily, they’re also really cute and fun to watch . . . just hold onto your documentation.

One of the things that really caught my attention in New Zealand were the wild flowers. Everywhere we went there were beautiful flowers, but they were just spectacular in this part of the Island. The fields closer to Te Anau were completely covered with lupins; the hills looked like they were a patchwork of pink, purple, and white.

What wasn’t covered with lupins, was yellow with broom bushes. The funny thing is that these flowers are considered pests – as they do have a tendency to spread themselves over the landscape. At least they’re pretty pests.

Back in Te Anau, we had booked a tour to see their Glowworms Caves. The excursion begins with a ferry ride, which was lovely in the later afternoon.

The boat takes you past the “Lady of the Lake.” According Maori legend, she became part of the mountainside when her infidelity lead to the death of her husband and she was overcome with guilt and grief.

The Glowworm caves themselves were really cool, although we only got spend a short time in them. Out of a two-hour plus tour, only about 20 min were spent inside. Once in, a gondola takes you into the dark parts of cave where the worms live. Suddenly the cave lights up around you like a starry sky , but they glow also reflects off the water so you seem to be floating in space.

Because we were not allowed to take pictures inside the cave, I've borrowed this one as an example.
These were taken in the Waitomo Cave in the North Island.

The funny part is that this beautiful sight it created by the gruesome life cycle of a very odd little creature. The glowworms are bioluminescent in their larvae phase. Their light attracts bugs, which get caught in snare lines and provide food for the larvae. The glowworm spends most of its lifecycle in this larvae state – about 6-12 months. The gnat that emerges from the larvae lives only a short time longer, pretty much just enough time to mate and lay more eggs. That’s the case for the lucky ones; a good number emerge from their pupa, are immediately attracted by the lights of other larvae and get caught in the fishing lines.

After the glowworms, we headed back to Queenstown for the night, enjoying the adorable scenery, even if it wasn’t all that varied.

The full slideshow: