New Zealand - Tongariro Alpine Crossing

After one night in Wellington, we made our way to Tongariro National Park. This was the place where we were going to do our biggest hike yet, the Tongariro Alpine Crossing. It's a 19.4km hike that takes you up and over a volcano range and then down into the beautiful valley that overlooks Lake Taupo. We were especially excited for it because the mountain we'd be hiking past was Mt. Ngauruhoe...also known to Lord of the Rings fans as Mt. Doom!! The morning of our hike, we woke up really early, as we were catching a 5:45am shuttle from our hostel to the beginning of the walk. Since the walk is one way, you have to arrange shuttle transport to get you to the start and then pick you up again.

The walk started out with a fairly flat bit until Soda Spring, when it started to climb steeply. It was a quite hard walk at times. We made it to Red Crater (half way point) at 9:00am. We took lots of picture of Mt. Doom, the Red Crater, and the Emerald Lakes and then made our way down towards Blue Lake. We stopped on a rock to eat our sandwiches and have a bit of a break and then continued on. The last half of the walk was mostly downhill, which was nice at first, but started to hurt our legs and knees towards the end! We had amazing views of Lake Taupo as we made our way into the valley. We hiked pretty hard the last part so we could make the 12:30pm shuttle back to the hostel. The last few kilometers seemed to go on forever! But, we made it back in time for the 12:30pm shuttle!!

Once we made it back to the hostel, we had some well deserved showers and a really long nap. Then woke up to make some dinner and fall back asleep afterwards! It was an amazing, but difficult hike, and we were hurting for a couple days after!

Fun in the sun, followed by pain and dizziness

Chris here,

After we made our 'that's not a knife, THIS, THIS is a KNIFE' knives, we headed up to the Nelsen region of New Zealand. This is in the middle of the northernmost part of the south island, is smack dab in the middle of wine country, and is right beside the beautiful Abel Tasman National Park. Now, you should know that basically the entire south island is a National Park and that it's pretty much all beautiful, but still, it should be mentioned. We were pretty busy over the past few days, so we decided to have a lazy day in Nelsen and then maybe kayak the Abel Tasman coast the next day. We stayed at this sweet as hostel called The Bug, which is definitely one of the best hostels in the country, run by a cool, laid back guy and his family. It's called the bug because everything is VW Beetle themed. Our room was the Lady Bug. Lazy day began with yummy breakfast and a walk up to the 'peak' of Nelsen, where you can see over the entire town. Another great day in NZ, temperatures around 30 degrees and not a cloud in the sky. We sat down and looked over the city, but actually preferred to turn around and look back over the rolling hills and countryside.

Kayaking was probably going to be too time intensive and rushed, so we decided to walk the coastline instead. We took a water taxi from Marahau up to Anchorage Bay, where we saw the famous 'split apple rock' and several amazing beaches. On our walk back we promised ourselves we would hit up a couple of them. Anchorage Bay was great, but better beaches beckoned us, so we hiked up the hills and were on our way. Another 30 degree day, which is kinda too hot to be walking uphill in, so we plunked ourselves down on this little beach and lazed in the sun and swam in the calm bay. It's definitely nice to not have to worry about sharks, jellyfish, or rip tides like you do in Australia. But what you do have to worry about is rocks. Andrea smashed her foot up good on one and she was bleeding everywhere. Good thing we weren't in Australia or there surely would have been several Great Whites swimming right for us. lol.

When we got her back to the beach and bandaged up, it was obvious she was cut pretty bad, but we still had 2 hours to hike, and since Andrea's a trooper and an Army Ranger all in one, she laced up those Keen brand hikers like the keener she is and we marched on out of there. Great scenery, great walk, but the cut on Andrea's foot is not a highlight.

From there we drove to Picton for the night, where we'd catch the ferry the next morning to go to Wellington, but our GPS now has an apetite for the craziest and most off-the-beaten-track paths you can imagine. So many twists and turns up and down hills and mountains that I never had the car straight for longer than half a second the entire trip. Very beautiful (thanks, GPS) but after a long day I just wanted to GET THERE ALREADY! We'll have to keen an eye on that thing...

New Zealand - Knifemaking

We had read in our Lonely Planet about this couple near Greymouth that teach a one day course where you make your own knife. We thought that this would be a fun and different way to spend a Saturday, so we made our way from Franz Josef to Barrytown for our day of knifemaking. Steven and Robin were a lovely couple and made the day a whole lot of fun. At the end of the day, when we were done our knifemaking, they served us champagne and treated all of us like good friends. It was a really awesome experience!

Forging the steel for our blade

It doesn't look like much, but it's on the way to being a knife!

Blade with brass hilt and wooden handle

Taking a break!

Axe throwing!

Almost finished. Just need to polish the blade and stain the handle.

Our groups finished products. Chris' is the far left and mine is the 6th from the left. The items above the knives are all we used to make our masterpieces!

New Zealand – Glaciers

We spent two days in Franz Josef so we could explore both the Fox Glacier and Franz Josef Glacier (25km from one another). It's a really neat drive to both locations because it's mostly rainforest and it definitely doesn't feel like you are driving towards a massive glacier. At both sites, you are allowed to walk up really close to the glacier terminal face (~100m away). Both of the glaciers had a huge cave at the face where the glacier meltwater comes out. There are so many warning signs telling you not to go past the yellow rope, but people still do and a couple years ago, two men were killed when the walked into the cave area and a massive chunk of ice fell on them. When we were at the Fox Glacier, a massive chunk of ice came crashing down and it was quite loud and scary. We were good tourists and stayed behind the rope to enjoy the views.

On our last afternoon at Franz Josef, we decided to follow and insider tip from our kayak guide in Milford Sound and head to some hot pools located along the Lower Whanganui River. We didn't have much for directions, but we did our best and sort of ended up in the right place, but really lucked out when some local guys came down the track and told us where they were. It was so neat beacuse you would dig into the sand/rocks and hot water would fill the hole. We had to make a connection so we could add some cold water from the river because that water was REALLY hot! It was a lot of fun and a nice way to relax after a few days of walking. Unfortunately, the sandflies really enjoyed the hot pools too and we were eaten alive, but we still had a good time!

Peter's Pool at Franz Josef Glacier

Franz Josef Glacier

Lake Wombat - Franz Josef

Fox Glacier

Hot Pools!

New Zealand – Haast Pass

After we spent the morning throwing Chris out of a plane, we decided to spent the afternoon a little more low key. We drove north from Wanaka to Haast Pass where we decided to do some tramping. Again, the drive was stunning, and we had a lovely time exploring the area around Wanaka. I would say it's probably one of the nicest places on the South Island. We were pretty beat after an adrenaline fueled morning and then an afternoon walking up hills and through rainforest, but it was well worth it!

Lake Hawea (north of Wanaka)

Haast Pass

Lake Wanaka