Luxury

It's been over a week since we've really been around internet access and the last few days i've simply been soaking up the luxriousness of my Aunt's house.  We are for all intents and purposes, done with our bike tour.  Margaret's house is about 50 kms from our drop off point and Skyler's and Lucas' bikes have broken more spokes than I can keep track of, so we will probably catch a ride from Margaret for the last leg.  We finished much quicker than the 4 weeks we allotted ourselves, so we have about a week to enjoy our own bedrooms, free hot showers and internet, a stocked pantry, a garden with fresh vegetables...
We are just besides ourselves.  My head was spinning when we arrived: "Do I take a shower first or go eat some fresh tomatoes, or do I go to one of the two supermarkets to buy a beer, or should we go gorge ourselves at the thai restaurant, or should I go take a nap on that queen size bed."  How do you get to such a state you ask? Well lets see...

 If the sandflies don't get you the Killer penguins will

Luckily for us we have had sunshine since I last wrote in Punakaiki and the west coast has been nothing short of spectacular.  Unlike Greymouth, Westport was a great town to spend some time in.  It felt like a town that kiwis lived in, not just a tourist center, and there were very nice beaches with no sandflies.  Skyler decided to bus back down to Franz Joseph to try and get on a rafting trip while Lucas and I rode on to Nelson lakes to do a backpack trip.  The morning Skyler left Lucas was feeling really sick so I left him to sleep and spent a nice day at the beach.  The next day we decided to ride to Murchison, but 15 km into the ride it became obvious I wasn't going to make it.  What just seemed to be a really full stomach from a big breakfast turned out to be a gnarly case of stomach flu.  We slept in a very basic backpacker in Berlins (basically just a cafe that tour buses stop at along the river).  Luckily we were the only ones in the compact hostel, so nobody had to listen to me wretching up my stomach lining.  After vommitting all day and not eating anything we set out the next day to Murchison.

Due to our sick days and Skyler not being able to get on a raft trip, Sergeant Spreads (aka skyler) was able to catch up to us here despite blowing out his tire.  Of course the nice backpacker was full for the microlite airplane convention (?) so we ended up staying at the Gold Shack--a real top notch place where you had to wear sandals in your room so your feet didn't stick to the floor.  Before we went to bed we all prayed that we didn't get any skin diseases from sleeping in the questionable bed linens.

Riding to St. Arnaud turned out to be peaceful ride.  It was almost eerie being outside and having the sound of your tires hitting the pavement be the loudest noise you can hear.  Once I was sure we were about in the middle of nowhere we came across a sheep dog competition that was actually very impressive.  The owners would use a series of whistles to direct their dogs to herd sheep up a hill through some slalom gates... something I'm not sure I could even do just chasing after the sheep myslef.

Once we got to St. Arnaud we splurged and bought ourselves some fried fish and fries (or chips as they call them here). The next few days we walked a circuit through Nelson Lakes Park.  We had some gorgeous weather and some very sore shoulders and legs.  The first night while we were cooking our cous cous and canned tuna a search and rescue team came through the hut looking for a Swedish hunter.  On our walk out of the park we saw the recue helicopter lifting someone.  When we got out, the DOC office told us the hunter fell over a waterfall and died.  It was weird because it didn't seem to be so abnormal.  I guess tourists are rescued almost on the weekly from getting lost in different parks, but usually they are unprepared and with no outdoor experience (but usually alive I believe).

From St. Arnaud we had almost entirely downhill 100 kms, stopping occasionally to eat apples or snap pictures of the various rivers.  St. Arnaud's store was limited and expensive so I had banana cake and a boiled potato for my lunch.  We got into Motueka just before Margaret and Tom left for Golden Bay to celebrate her 50th birthday.  It has been a renewing experience having a home to live in after traveling from campground to hostel and living out of bags for over a month.  To have a personal space where you don't have to throw pillows at your neighbor to stop them from snoring.  The three days we've been here we've cooked cookies, an apple crisp, incredible toasted sandwiches and salads.  We've sat on a beach and drank local beer from the Monkey Wizard Brewery.  We've had delicious burgers from the Fat Tui and scrumptious curries from the thai and indian restaurants.  Sure these might be common meals or experiences back home, but when you are eating a diet of canned, freeze dried and deep fried food for a month a simple salad becomes a godsend worth blogging about.  Also, when we weighed ourselves last night we all discovered that we lost about ten pounds since we were last at Margaret and Tom's.  It is pretty shocking since I've been consistently between 180-185 probably since high school--regardless of excercising and eating habits--and now I'm 170.

Once we turn our bikes in on wednesday we have about a week before we need to be in Auckland to catch our plane back home.  We are casually planning what to do that week but most likely we will be headed to the northern tip of the North island if we can swing it.   As always here are some more pictures:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/56993065@N03/

Sunshine!

We've run into 7 days of forecasted sunshine wooo!  We've done a lot since Fox Glacier so I won't be able to fit all of the sweet stuff in, but here are some highlights...

Fox Glacier and Mt. Cook, from Gillespie beach at dusk

After recouping in fox glacier we rode a short, but still hilly, 20 km out to Gillespie beach.  It was incredible to be able to see a massive glacier while you were chillin' on the beach.  The sad thing was 'chillin on the beach' was actually furiously walking around waving your hands around your face trying to lose the sandflies.  I don't think I've mentioned sand flies yet... just imagine a fruit fly, that doesn't die when you slap it, that bites.  When we rolled into lake Paringa in our spandex our slender, exposed legs were eaten alive.  Here we had our fly suits on as soon as we stopped moving, but they go straight for your face!  I tried to make a PB&J and I had 5 flies go kamikaze into my peanut butter then three others go up my nose.  It was ridiculous.  We rested a day at the beach and hung out with some friends from Santa Cruz who drove out in their rented station wagon.

Mama and baby sheep walking through camp

The next day we set off for Franz Joseph.  It was about 60 km with a pretty massive climb.  Our legs were feeling better but it seems our butts still can't hang with 40+ km rides.  The grocery store was really expensive so we just treated ourselves to some bomb indian food.  We stayed an extra day here to wait out some heavy rains. 

Next we had our biggest ride yet, going from Franz Joseph to a campsite about 12 kms outside of Hokitika.  We were feeling good after resting and the 115 km (70 mi) ride wasn't actually too bad.  We totally devoured our cous cous with green curry tuna dinner.  It was tastier than it sounds, but I guess anything is tasty after riding a bike for 8 hours.

Hokitika was full of jade carvers and different artists.  It was a nice little beach town, but I think we were probably most excited about getting to our first supermarket on the west coast.  We all made some epic dinners and revelled in the convenience of having everything easy and cheap.

We had an easy ride into Greymouth (an actual 'city' with over 4000 people!) where we took a tour of the Monteiths Brewery--Pride of the West coast.  It turns out they don't actually brew the beer there.  They do the cider in Greymouth and then their parent company brews most of the beer up in Auckland.  We got to taste their 7 beers and have two beers of our choice.  We shared the pub with just an english couple.  After several minutes of struggling to understand them Skyler and Lucas started laughing in agreement.  Convinced that the woman was only using vowels and no consonants, I just went along with it and later asked what we were talking about.  Skyler told me they thought he looked like Colonel Mustard.

What pretty bearded ladies!

Yesterday we were excited because there were just showers forecasted (it seems like we get rained on 80% of the days) and the ride was gorgeous up the coast.  It was reminiscent of Big Sur but with rain forest.  The sea was very angry and it felt like it was going to storm on us and sure enough just before we got in to Punakaiki the sideways rain came.  We gratefully pulled into the first hostel to find shelter and the man laughed when we said "gosh this miserable weather came out of nowhere."

"This is nothing, things start getting fishy when the 40 ft swells come in," said the receptionist.  I guess I'm just not used to the New Zealand perspective on weather.  All I know is if there was sideways rain in Santa Cruz, it wouldn't be called 'showers' it would be more like '4000 people without power in storm of the year.'

Second water bottle didn't make the cut today... Gotta load up on those carbs!

So far I've been the only one without bike troubles (knocking on wood), as Skyler broke two spokes and Lucas put some glass shards through his tire.  My front tire is developing an interesting curve in the tube, but I'm just going to ride it out.  Who know it could be the one piece that holds the rest of the bike together.  So, I'm going to head back to the campsite to make instant rice packets with soup mixes, mmmmm.

More Pictures:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/56993065@N03/

...and my butt is still sore

Our legs hurt but you're never too tired for jumping photos in spandex!

Riding from Wanaka to Makaroa was pretty easy as far as the gradient and wind goes, but about 10 kilometers out of 'town' it started raining hard.  It was mostly down hill and we were just in our spandex and shirts so we were getting pretty chilled.  Makaroa consists of two cafes, a DOC (dept. of conservation) center and a hotel.  We got to the first cafe, stoked to get into a warm shelter and they immediately told us to leave all of our stuff outside, "there are lots of old people here" the lady told us.  Confused and feeling bad things towards this woman we took our things back outside in the rain.  After we bought our coffees and soups and what not we took out some of our food to eat and the same lady, very upset this time, told us we could eat their food inside but our food had to be eaten ouside.  We were literally going through body convulsions trying to warm up our bodies and all I wanted to say was "I hate you and your bland overpriced soup!"

We took the high road and decided to leave with dignity and try and wait out the rain in the next cafe.  Luckily this one was quiet, with good food and drinks and they didn't mind us taking our shoes off and huddling on the couches.  After watching some horrific footage of the christchurch earthquake, we set off for our campsite.  Skyler and I noticed that Lucas' back tire was bending and about 4 km from the campground two spokes busted.

The next morning Lucas hitchhiked back to Wanaka, got his tire fixed, hitched back to our campsite and we set off for Haast at about 1pm.  The ride started with a really tough climb and then a long flattish 60 km.  Shortly after that Skyler got a flat.  We underestimated the 'mostly downhill' part as we were exhausted when we got into Haast later in the evening.  We got some essentials from the store and made our two packets of ramen with some eggs for our dinner.  We met a fellow bike tourist from San Francisco and we noticed that his dinner was three times the size of our dinner and only for one person.  No wonder we were getting so hungry! 

Yesterday our ride was pretty mellow, we set up our camp at Lake Paringa and then rode another 7km up the road to a cafe/salmon fishery.  We struggled to stay awake eating our treats and then headed back to camp.  This morning we woke up to several people putting boats into the water.  The whole campsite perked up when a guy water skiied naked out of the boat launch.  We rode another 80 km into Fox Glacier today, stopping for coffee and fish and chips on the beach (these were literally the only two commercial establishments for the 80 km).  We got and expensive beer and are now headed back to cook up some quinoa, kidney beans and some veggies into what we expect to be a stew... something none of us have attempted so it should be really good!

Long winded post but I'm too tired to edit so there! Tomorrow we are resting and will hopefully meet some friends that are driving from Chirstchurch.

The end.

More pics: http://www.flickr.com/photos/56993065@N03/

Ow, my butt hurts

We are back in Wanaka, but this time we are on bikes!  We rode about 35 miles from Queenstown to Cromwell yesterday.  Riding loaded bikes was a new experience for us all and I think we all nearly took a spill doing routine things.  Skyler almost ate it trying to stand up and pedal, I almost fell trying to maneuver from the sidewalk to the street, and Lucas fell into a parked car.  Overall, it was a good start. 

 Satisfied with my pack job

 Skyler trying to pick up some ladies

"Beat it kid!" Lucas scoweled, as some poor child asked us where we were going.

We heard there was some rain coming in the evening and into the next day but all we got was just a fabulous sunset.  We just stopped at a rest area to camp with what seemed like 20 camper vans (I think you are allowed to camp anywhere there is a public toilet).  As we layed down in our tent to rest our aching legs, our close neighbors decided it was a good idea to blast their German rap music--which coincidentally had the same melody as Jingle Bells.  We tried to make some passive aggressive comments like "Gosh I enjoy camping in silence" and "man I am tired and ready to sleep!" 

Super Size for epic Sunset!


We were initially stoked when the wind picked up and drove everyone inside their cars, but it turned out the wind was louder than their music.  The rest of the night we layed in half sleep, waking up whenever the wind would collapse the right side of the tent on Skyler.  If he didn't push the tent back out into it's normal position the rain fly would make a sound that accurately replicated a WWII warplane starting its engine.

So with sore butts and droopy eyes we started our day towards Wanaka.  The first hour or so we had to battle a mighty head wind.  On this trip I haven't encountered anything as demoralizing as having to struggle to pedal downhill.  I found myself cursing and taunting the wind "Oh is that it?! Well good I needed a work out anyway!"  I looked on with disgust as some slick roadbikers flew by with their carbon fiber bikes and tailwind.  Finally the wind died down and about 10km outside of Wanaka it started to pour.  I welcomed the change surprisingly.  Rather than feeling sorry for myself, I found it motivated me to bike faster so I could stay warm.  Thoroughly exhausted we are all trying to stay awake for dinner. 

We decided to treat ourselves to a hostel for warm showers and to keep everything dry for tonight's rain.  The next several days we will probably be camping.

As promised here is the first of many of spandex photos! Haha

Just a routine water break on the side of the highway

More Pictures: http://www.flickr.com/photos/56993065@N03/

Sore Feet

IMG_1317
Originally uploaded by bricedahlmeier

After about 14 days of tramping, it seems we are heading into our last leg of our journey... the bike tour. Our feet are tired so now we're going to give our butts a go. We just finished two tramps--the Gillespie Pass and the Cascade Saddle to the Rhees track. Both hikes were incredibly beautiful. Unfortunately my camera battery ran out so I don't have many pictures to share, but thankfully Skyler and Lucas stepped up to the plate and took some great photos. You can check them out here...

Lucas: http://www.flickr.com/photos/57181626@N08/

Skyler: http://theadventuresofskyler.blogspot.com/

Skyler wrote a nice post about our trip and I'm feeling lazy so I recommend reading his blog, but here is a little blurb.

Gillespie pass was a very scenic hike. It is also a very well maintained trail and therefore crowded. The huts (which were basically hostels, with pristine toilets, running water, cooking areas and covered patios) have bunks for twenty people. When we talked with the warden he said that the hut we were headed to had nearly 50 people sleeping there the previous night! Luckily we were sleeping in our tent.

The mountains here are absolutely awe inspiring. It continually amazes me how up close and personal they are. You can be casually walking through a grassy meadow and just a few hundred meters to your left and right are sheer exposed walls of rock. They are so close you can't fit the thing in the frame of your camera. They are incredible.

The cascade saddle was the hardest climb we've done on the trip (I think it was around 1200 meters). The first hour sucked because you can't stop thinking "shit I have to do this for like 4 hours." After that though you start to feel like you're making progress. We found a great camping spot on top of the saddle where we had a frigid waterfall to "shower" in. Luckily the weather was gorgeous so we had some incredible vistas of Mt. Aspiring and a few different glaciers. The next day we got to hike alongside a glacier and stand right at the base of it. I was imagining pristine glacial melt--something you would see on the label of a overpriced water bottle--but it was incredibly muddy, nasty water.

At the end of the hike we got a ride into Glenorchy by a nice oil painter where I finally got to air out my feet. I am hoping that my biking shoes don't keep rubbing on my blisters that have been hanging around for about two weeks now. It seems as soon as they start healing up I open them up by hiking all day with wet feet.

The weather forecast is looking bleak for the next few days, so we will most likely have a rough start to our bike ride. As soon as it is sunny though, be ready for some sweet pictures of bike spandex and beards/chest hair!

Swimming on the Dusky

We got off of the Dusky track about two days ago.  We ended up cutting out a two day section of the hike so that we wouldn't get stuck on the track (and everyone said that this part was the least spectacular of the whole trail anyways). 

The night before we left it rained four inches in Te Anua.  We decided to go because it seemed it was impossible to avoid heavy rain.  As we got to the lake the next day, the wind was whipping at probably around 40 mph or so.  It was frigid and we were getting on this little fishing boat to get to the trailhead.  The skipper told us to hold on as it was going to be rough.  He wasn't kidding.  As we charged through oncoming wind-waves, water would spray well over our heads and then change direction as the wind caught it.  When I wasn't thinking "what am I doing here" there were some incredible vistas of waterfalls and ribbons of rain falling against a dramatic backdrop of mountains.  I would've took pictures but my hands were glued to my seat.

Everyone we talked to about the Dusky told us to prepare for mud so I bought trash bags to fashion some gaters for my trail running shoes.  Within five minutes I realized what a silly idea that was as we were literally hiking up a creek.  Before we got on the trail Skyler and Lucas were bagging on the hut system in New Zealand--all of the major tracks have huts that you stay in, some are mandatory and cost money.  After our first day of hiking it was obvious that the huts were necessary.  Every bit of flat land was covered in water.  It did make the tramp a different experience since we were sharing the huts with the same 3-6 people everynight, but luckily everyone was friendly and in good spirits.

Our second night in I hardly got any sleep because the rain was so incredibly loud on the plexi-glass roofing(or some similar material).  There was lightning and thunder but you could hardly hear it because it was raining so hard.  The next day hike is the one that is in danger of flooding but we thought "hey the fifty year old women are going for it... it can't be that bad."  After a gorgeous day of hiking through lakes and soggy grass we climbed down tree roots for a couple hours.  We could see from above that the Loch Maree was in fact flooded, but we didn't see the older women in the emergency shelter so we figured they got across alright.  We had been told that we might have to wade up to our waist to get to the walkwire bridge to cross the river.  I was in back trying to take pictures when I heard Lucas yell "I'm swimming!"  I didn't really believe him but I figured I should put my camera away anyways.  As I came around the corner I saw Skyler swimming for the walkwire.  As I watched Skyler climb the ladder to the walkwire bridge I noticed a strange log floating against the current towards me.  I then realized it had eyes.  Here was a three foot eel swimming directly towards me.  As I squealed "There's an &*^$!ing eel!" my first thought was, 'I hope this isn't an electric eel' as it rubbed against my leg very near my special parts.  I remembered that there wasn't anything that can kill you in NZ but I wasn't taking any chances as I dove into the water with my fully loaded pack on my back.  It was a slow yet very intense struggle.  The current was pushing me inch by inch away from the ladder as I moved inch by inch with my power doggy paddle.  What relief it was to grasp the ladder with my outstretched arm.  The last thing I wanted was to be that stupid foreigner who tried to swim across Loch Maree and drowned.  I could picture the locals reading the paper "Didn't anyone tell him about the man-eating eels? ... tis a shame, truly... no sense about these foreigners"

We arrived to a nearly full hut as all of the trails out of Loch maree were flooded.  We met a new German friend who had already spent 9 days on the track, and had to swim 7 times to get to Loch maree from the leg that we decided to skip. 

We listened to the weather that night to hear that more heavy rain was coming in two days, so everyone that had swam that day decided to get off the track ASAP.  Sure enough after two more days of mud-walking and climbing tree roots torrential rains pummeled the last hut we stayed in.  The skipper of the boat the next day said it rained "the better part of twelve inches in the last 24 hours."  Good decision us!

So we are back in Queenstown with about 12 days left until we pick up our bikes for our tour up the west coast.  We are going to try to do a couple 3-4 day tramps to kill the time and save some money. 

I didn't upload many pictures this time because it takes foreeever but still some good ones:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/56993065@N03/

From Queenstown...

We've covered some serious ground since leaving Motueka.  We drove South through Hamner Springs where we went for a soak in a strange hot springs/water park thing.  Then we were off to Christchurch where we stayed with Denise, one of Margaret's friends.  We saw some pretty hilarious prop comics perform in the Busker's Festival--a collection of street performers and variety acts that lasts ten days.  It was nice for us poor travelers to get some free entertainment. 

After our one night stint in Christchurch we charged over to Lake Tekapo to meet our friend Tyson.  We spent the day swimming, throwing rocks and basking in the sun.  We slept right on the lake shore under the extraordinary southern hemisphere stars.  After packing up our slightly moist sleeping bags we set off to Mt. Cook National Park.  We hiked in for an overnight stay up to Ball hut.  The hike was easy so we had some time to just sit in the sun above a crackling glacier.  There was a fancy radio set up in the outhouse next to the hut we slept in.  We got to here the Ranger talk to all of the people staying in the huts around the park.  We got to listen in on a hillarious conversation about a very full outhouse somehwere deep in the park.  We all giggled when the Ranger instructed the campers to use the 'poo stick' to try and wiggle out some extra room. 

We climbed a somewhat sketchy rockslide to get a better view of Mt. Cook, which was covered in glaciers and ice.  The park is a big mountaineering hotspot (or should I say cold spot har har har), and most of the hikes through the park are precarious to say the least.  As we hiked out it rained on us and we got to test out our new rain gear.

We parted ways with Tyson, he was headed East in search of surf and we headed off to Milford Sound.  When we settled on a campground it was pouring rain.  There were about 10 campervans and then us in our three person tent.  We set up our stove in the rain and made some veggie soup with some TSP (textured soy protein mmmmm).  I think we were the entertainment for the night for all the people snuggled up in their vans.  In the morning we drove the rest of the way to Milford Sound for a cruise through the fjord.  The rain had stopped and all of the rainforest-covered mountains looked magical with the sun shining through the misty peaks.  It rains on average over 7 meters in fiordland.  It helps explain why even the sheerest peaks coming out of the water are covered in green.  The skipper told us that even though we were on the sea there is layer of fresh water that usually stays around 3 meters thick.We decided to spend another day at our campsite because it was so epic. 

We are now in Queenstown  preparing for a 8-9 day tramp through the Dusky Track--also apart of Fiordland national Park.  It will definitely be really wet and muddy.  We decided to hire a mountain radio to get weather reports and to communicate if we get stranded and need help.  We went to Stu's upholstery (?) to rent what we thought was going to be a little hand held thing, but instead got thorough instructions on how to set up our 'simple' aerial for our radio...  frist we have to climb a tree to get the transmitter 4 meters in the air, then run wires to the ground 20 feet away then hook it into a clunky box.  If we do get stranded, hopefully we can set it up before we run out of food. 

More Pictures:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/56993065@N03/