Bird Culture

We've had a couple responses about the amazing night sky. To tease you some more, here's another pic Jon took two nights ago near Mt. Aspiring.

We actually spent the night with an astronomer who pointed out that the Milky Way was much more visible in the Southern Hemisphere than in the Northern. As a result, the Kiwi's actually named a formation out of the galaxy (and not just stars). Take a look at these pictures and see if you can see the head and neck of a Moa, an extinct bird, previously native to New Zealand, in the Milky Way. Just behind (to the left of) the head of the bird is the Southern Cross.



In other, somewhat bird-related news, we've noticed that Possum are roundly hated by Kiwis (both the people and the bird). It turns out Possum are an invasive species in New Zealand and are therefore much despised, along with several other animal and plant species. The possum also eat Kiwi bird eggs, so they don't like them either. The Department of Conservation even goes so far as to promote clothing made of Possum Merino, because it supports an industry that helps to control possum populations! They also sell shirts that say "Possum: New Zealand's Little Speed Bumps"

We haven't even done 26 kilometers in a day!

We may be hiking a lot down here, but its nothing like running a full 26.2 MILES. We'd like to congratulate Tony on his impressive pace (10 minute miles!) in the Boston Marathon on Monday. And thanks especially to Al for this picture.

Aspiring to Perfection

After leaving Wanaka early yesterday morning we did a quick morning hike to Rob Roy Glacier





then retrieved our packs and headed further up a valley to catch a glimpse of Mt Aspiring



Along the way we saw tons of cows (and cow patties) and sheep (and sheep pebbles)



but we stayed dry and had a fun night in the hut


with another crystal clear night.


We're now in Queenstown resting up before we head even further South to the fiordland and our 4-day Milford Track.

Boots get another day's rest, legs don't

We drove down to Wanaka this morning with some great lake and mountain views along the way, and immediately fell in love with this town. Its got a very active and outdoorsy culture and the scenery reminds us a lot of Colorado. We had lunch by a lake and then "hired" some mountain bikes for a "wee" ride around the lake. Louisa discovered her inner mountain biker and Jon had a great time being back on two wheels. We're off for another overnight hike tomorrow to a mountain hut with a view of Mount Aspiring, so check back in a few days!

Lazy Sunday

Not much to report here, as we had a kind of lazy/rainy sunday. we slept in, did some laundry, checked out the Fanz Joseph Glassier from below via a short, nearly handicap accessible walk, because our boots were still wet and the weather wasn't conducive to an 8hr hike to get up above it.

Since there's not much new news, we thought we throw you a couple tidbits from days past. First, Louisa unfortunately lost her beloved visor, and in an attempt to find a new one we came across a store that had nearly 50 visors, all of which were some color variation of three basic images. One was an Eminem logo, anther a 50 Cent logo, and the last was a New York Yankees logo. Needless to say, we're still looking for a visor...

Also, there have been some rather dramatic road signs here regarding speeding. Jon probably should have paid closer attention to them (he got busted doing 114), but really he thinks they're just a distraction, here's a few of the ones we've seen so far:

Be patient, don't be a patient.
Speeding Ticket (over a picture of a body in a morgue with a toe tag)
(a picture of a speedometer at 120km/hr where the indicator needle is actually a cross)
DRINK DrIvE
Drive to survive, arrive alive
Stay left - High crash zone [it was also a high tourist zone]
100 (encircled by many target-like circles) - its not a target, drive to the conditions.
You're a long time dead...so what's the hurry?

what do you think? are these helpful? scary? or just a big distraction?

Epic Hike = Epic Blog Post

We started off early yesterday morning at Arthur's Pass, on a hike up to the top of Avalanche Mountain and over to the other side to a valley hut. We saw pretty much everything you can imagine a hike could have, including...


steep forest climbs


steep climbs over boulders


shockingly good views of a glacier (pronounced glassier)




amazing views


a crazy descent on a skree slope (that little black dot is Louisa)


a night in a mountain hut with two other couples and more amazing views of the stars


but try as we might to avoid getting wet


and we really did try (we even had one bootless crossing)


we eventually sucked it up (and soaked it up) and jumped right in with our boots on.

Like we said, pretty much everything you could imagine

Shout-out

The blog would like to wish a very happy birthday to Rob Canham!

South Island!

Here are a few pictures from the past two days. We crossed from the North to the South island on an early morning ferry and drove into the island through a lot of vineyards. We camped near lake Rotoiti (see below) and had plans to hike today, but we awoke to the prototypical South Island weather...rain. We scrapped our hike and drove further south, where we found some sun along a great coastline drive and were able to go for a 8km walk. We wrapped up our day with a visit to the Monteith's Brewery (appropriate after seeing all those vineyards, right?) and are gonna rest up tonight because tomorrow is supposed to be beautiful and we have plans to do an overnight hike over Avalanche Peak at Arthur's Pass (don't worry, Moms, its not avalanche season!)



Ferry from North to South Island


Camping on Lake Rotoiti (Nelson Lakes National Park)


For Mom/Andrea - yeah, there are a lot of sheep here!



For Mom/Marty - and a few horses too!


pancake rocks on the drive south along the west coast


Pouring our own drinks at the Monteith's Brewery

PICTURES!!!!

For those of you waiting to see what we've been seeing, take a look at the posts below for just a few of our pictures. We're now in Wellington, which lives up to its "windy" nickname, and will be on our way to the South Island bright and early tomorrow morning!

The Tongariro Alpine Crossing (18km!!!)

The mountain to be hiked


At the steaming top.


The Emerald Lakes


View back at the volcano


Blue Lake


Happy to almost be done!


If we can make 18km look this good, you better believe that bay was stony!