Ice, worms, and rainbows

We have been having WAY too much fun with my parents here on the South Island. Let's see - we don't have a ton of time on the internet so I'll do a quick recap! They arrived into Queenstown on a windy but clear day....so we headed straight to dinner and grabbed some gelato in town (that is the photo from he previous blog). The next day we wandered around Queenstown a bit - my mother HAS to go up every gondola within sight, so up we went in Queenstown (the first pic is from the top of the gondola)! After that little ride and big view we went to the Kiwi House and were able to observe kiwis in a little nocturnal house. This was a real treat - as Jay and I hiked all over the place on Stewart Island to try and find us a wild kiwi - with no luck. =( So, if we wanted to see a kiwi this was where it was going to happen. We got great views of these funny little fluffs and felt quite satisfied after this little trip.

We eventually left Queenstown for Te Anau, to spend time in Fiordland National Park. We had a great jaunt in Milford Sound. I believe Jay talked about this in the last blog - but we had the best of both worlds on this trip! A recent rain gave us TONS of waterfalls and rainbows, but the clouds were clearing up at the end of the day so we were able to see most of the mountains in the sound. We saw the Tasman Sea (quite bumpy and fun) and steep, jagged peaks. It was beautiful. The most entertaining part was when my Dad and Jay decided to go stand on the bow when they put the boat under a waterfall. They were (as my mom says) "drowned rats." See that pic below. The following day we spent some time in the Te Anau Glowworm caves....here we walked into a cave system and boarded a little boat that was pushed into a dark section of the cave. Then you looked up and as your eyes adjusted to the darkness you saw stars! BUT - they weren't stars they were worms! Glow worms! A little larva, actually, that produces a little light in its butt to attract insects into it's "fishing lines" that it hung from the roof of the cave. I found myself looking for constellations! A very pretty treat indeed.

Next - we headed north to the land of glaciers. These are tiny glaciers compared to Alaska, but grand nonetheless and very beautiful! A special part about these glaciers (which is quite similar to AK) is that they are surrounded by a lush rainforest. So, lots of blue and green! Well, were we ever spoiled rotten here. We ended up with perfect weather and my parents decided it was time to go up in a helicopter, land on Fox Glacier, and hike around it with a guide. What a treat for all of us! I was not thrilled about the helicopter part of this, but even that turned out to be quite fun and not TOO scary (only a little bit). The ice was gorgeous and we were able to play in ice caves like penguins and hike around waterfalls. We all made it off the ice alive and treated ourselves to a very yummy dinner in the town of Fox Glacier. My mom bought a shirt that says "foxy lady" on it to remember her time on the Fox Glacier. Very suiting for that foxy mama.

It got too cloudy at the end of the day for my mother to get her scenic overflight - so we went for a walk around Lake Matheson for the "view of views"....but as you can see in the pic. below we saw lower bits of the mountains and a lot of gorgeous rainforest instead. We still had a great walk!

Now we are in Renwick - the town Jay and I worked in for 2 months. We managed to get here in time to go to one winery we loved - Bladen. It is also raining buckets and Tink has sprung a few leaks. Spoiled brat. Tomorrow we will head to Marlborough Sounds for a few days of R&R on the water. Boys go fishing and girls go to the hot tub. Yipee! After that we head to the North Island! I have left so much out - but I'm sure the Barber friends back in NY and elsewhere will hear all those stories once they make it back to the States.

We haven't had time to upload all our pics yet.....so this is all there is for now. But, we will let you know when the BARBER visit pics are posted.

Tom and Diane are here!

They got in to Queenstown on Saturday afternoon and we've had a blast ever since. Tom says we'll certainly have a blast if we have another drink or two. But seriously, we had a beautiful day in Q'town yesterday, went up in the gondola, then out in a cool old steamship called the Earnslaw. Saw the inner workings of the engine room and great Lake Wakitipu sights. Then, today we just got back from a cruise in Milford Sound. What a place. It had rained quite a bit in the past few days and there were inumerable waterfalls cascading down sheer mountainsides into the sound, which is acutally a fiord (we spell it fjord in the USA, not so here), hence the name of this region, Fiordland. And of course we are being spoiled rotten already, eating and drinking well! Tomorrow we will check out some glow-worm caves (yes, worms that glow and live in caves) before we drive north to Wanaka. Here are some pics until we write again....

Greenstone

I had a blast fishing the Greenstone River, and I think Julie had a pretty good time too. While of course I wanted to catch some fish, Julie really just wanted to watch me catch one and she did. The river lived up to its reputation, and even this hack of a fly fisherman, yours truly, was able to land a few big ones. Here's how it went (note: this may be of limited interest to some!):

Day 1: Dropped off at the Divide trailhead and headed up to McKellar Hut, about 4 hrs away. Arrived at hut, swam in river (really just a little stream at this point). Saw lots of little trout. Later on, met Doug and Katie from Jackson, WY (Katie noticed the JH sticker on our water bottle). Doug had been fishing Beat 1, the section I was assigned to the next day, and had caught about a dozen fish. A few years ago fishery managers wisely decided to make the Greenstone a "controlled backcountry fishery" which requires anglers to obtain a free online permit to fish it on a first come first serve basis. They divided most of the river into 3 separate 'beats' which can only have 1 or 2 anglers on them per day. The main purpose of this is to preserve the backcountry experience.

Day 2: Following Doug's advice, Julie and I walked about an hour into Beat 1 where he said the river finally got more accessible and large enough to hold some big fish. I said goodbye to Julie for the day; we decided it would be best for her to get to Greenstone Hut early enough to get a good bunk, and I would just fish my section and head in later on. The first hour started a little slow...I spooked a fish or two before finding a bigger and deeper section where I could sneak up a little better. Spotted a good sized fish and my first cast landed the fly a foot or two from its nose--wham! Nice big rainbow. After I released it I found that the pool was loaded with at least 5 other trout of the same size...but they were all shook up so I moved on. For a while I had one fish at the edge of a riffle very interested, but just a bit too suspicious. Then, in the same pool, hooked up with another large trout, but after a minute or two the fly came off. Tied on another, then soon after I had what may have been the biggest fish I was to hook...but this one came off the hook, which was bent when I checked it. BY this time it was time to eat lunch. For the rest of the day, I had several hits but did not hook another fish. The wind grew stronger and stronger (about 20-25 mph downstream) as the day went on and really made for difficult casting and fish spotting. So reluctantly I headed back on the trail at about 3:30 or so, not getting to Greenstone Hut until 6 or so.

Day 3: Made an attempt to get an early start up to Beat 3 but got talking with Doug and he asked me how long of a leader I was using. When I told him it was about 9 ft or so, he did not look satisfied and said, "let me lengthen that for you", and told me that he used to be a fishing guide out in Jackson for about 20 years. He said that leader length was really key and that he almost always lengthens or ties his own to at least 12 if not 14 ft or so. He tied two new sections of leader on for me in a flash and told me to take some of his big Royal Wulffs when he saw I only had size 14 flies. He gave me some more pointers and then we got into a discussion about stream ecology and then about his time sailing in the Bahamas. Then Julie and I hit the trail and walked all the way to the start of Beat 3. Another beautiful day, but windier already, damnit! Didn't see any fish in the first few pools, but practiced casting the longer leader a bit. Julie patiently put up with my scouting and sneaking until finally we came upon a pool that was just too perfect not to have fish. Crouching and shielded from the wind by a tree, I started advancing my fly into the pool. After a few floats I was almost going to move on when a big white mouth surface and swallowed the fly. I set the hook and slowly started bringing the fish in. Good sized fish but not a jumper. When I finally got it in it had clearly swallowed the fly pretty well and when I tried to remove the hook it bled from the gills. I had been on the fence the whole time on whether or not I would keep any fish (1 per day was the bag limit), but this was clearly the one as its survival was tenuous at this point. Way more than I could eat, but we knew there would be no problem finding someone to share it with back at the hut. So I filleted it then and there with a swiss army knife. Must have been at least 6 or 7 lbs. After that, caught one more medium sized fish before we called it a day. The hut warden happily gave us a glass of homebrew for a fillet. It was delicious. And someone, must have been Doug and Katie, left us some olive oil and seasoning back at the hut!

Day 4: Really hoped to have little more fishing on our way out, and I hooked into yet another nice fish in a deep pool that unfortunately took the fly off. Then had to walk past some really beautiful sections of the Greenstone as we had to make it back in time for our shuttle bus at the end of the track.

It was a really awesome experience. Gotta go pick up Tom and Diane!!

Back from Stewart Island

Last night we took the late ferry back from Stewart Island and had a fantastic farewell from at least 5 albatross and tons of sooty shearwaters gliding just beyond the stern, the sun setting through clouds. It was blowing a gale all day and the seas were wild, but the little high speed cat just plowed right through it no prob. Hard to leave the island though, what a great place. Our only complaint was the chilly wind that we had towards the end, made us forget that this is supposed to be summer. But this was a south wind coming right up from Antarctica--first stop, Stewart Island!

Jay crosses a swing bridge on the Raikura Track

The Rakiura track was everything we hoped it would be. The first day was mostly along the coast, through beaches and forests and along some high cliffs that showed off the crystal clear blue water below. This was very hard for me as I was wishing I could be underwater. But the forests were just as awe inspiring...plenty of big rimu trees (one of several of NZ's podocarp species) and some flowering rata (produces a nice little red flower). I tripped a lot because I couldn't stop just staring at the canopy. The next two days were mostly in the forest and much of the trail was narrow boardwalk to keep you out of the mud. Luckily we didn't encounter too much rain. We really wanted to spot a kiwi, and even got up early the last day to increase our chances, but no luck. We did hear them though, and saw lots of footprints on the beach.

Julie points out the kiwi tracks we found on the beach

Yesterday we took a boat ride over to a little island called Ulva Island where they have successfully eliminated all pests (this took years) and re-introduced a number of rare or uncommon birds. We spent most of the day there and had a great time, spotted many different birds except for kiwi. At one point we were walking through the forest and spotted a kaka, a kind of parrot, on a tree limb. We stared at him and he stared back at us, then decided he would fly over for closer inspection and landed on a tree fern just feet from Julie's head. We checked each other out for a bit and then he started climbing up a vine, mouthing it and crunching it in typical parrot fashion.

Now we're in Queenstown in an e-cafe listening to irritating e-cafe musak. But tomorrow we are planning on heading out on another 3 to 4 day hike called the Greenstone track that is said to have some of the best trout fishing around. I got lucky and won a sort of angler's lottery to fish the Greenstone. And when we write again Julie's folks will be here!

A note to picture viewers: Julie filled her picasa account and is too cheap to pay to increase her storage. BUT - she had another gmail account for her little soap-making hobby called Global Scents. Please note that now she is uploading photos to a picasa account under this name. The new link is up for that account. There are lots of new pics up - scroll down in Jay's feb. album and look at the new album in Julie's globalscents account!

Stewart Island

Here we are! Sitting in front of a computer in a rather large hostel on Stewart Island - in the township of Oban. We are in love with the island already. Reason #1 - NO PASTURES! NZ may have mountains, glaciers, hot springs, and a beautiful environment, but they also have a lot of cattle and sheep. These critters are a nice part about NZ because they are such a huge part of the Kiwi identity and culture - but cattle and sheep have also wreaked havoc on native forests (in other words, there is not much native forest left here). Stewart Island, on the other hand, only had 2 small farms on it and those have since been bought by the Dept. of Conservation and/or a NGO and these bits of land are being converted back to native forest. So what do you see when arriving on the ferry? TREES! Beautiful forests and TREES! Not cattle and lambs, or even vineyards for that matter. A real treat for these little biologists. We like these native forests so much, we thought we would go for a hike through them. Tomorrow we take off on one of New Zealand's "Great Walks," on the Raikura Track. This is a 3-day tramp through the native forest, mountains, and along some beaches as well. We actually don't really know what else to expect except mud and rain! Yipee!

On a different note - we just spent the last few days in the Catlins - the remote southeast corner of NZ. Beautiful waterfalls, coastline and PETRIFIED FORESTS in the intertidal zone. These forests were SO COOL. Why? Because they date back to Gondwanaland - proof that NZ was once part of this ancient land mass. We were blown away by this little bit of rocky intertidal zone. We even found a large rock covered in fossils of ancient ferns and other plants. But the trees were so neat. They were petrified once they fell over, so you would look and see huge logs of "rock" along the shore. Looking further - we saw these big rocky bumps everywhere. Cloer inspection revealed that these bumps were actually tree stumps - and we could even see the tree's growth rings in some of the petrified wood! At the end of the day, we were walking back to the van and got to watch a funny yellow-eyed penguin hop and hop up the rocks to the nest on the cliffs. A real treat.

Pictures!

Well folks - we finally took a TON of time to upload all our photos from the last week. Here we are in Aoraki/Mt.Cook National Park. I LOVED it here.... I think Jay was quite happy too!

And here are the wonderful, entertaining, yelow-eyed penguins....with one of their two fluffy chicks begging in the background. We uploaded far too many pics of them, but we couldn't help ourselves. There is even a video that should make you LAUGH - all of these are in Julie's album.
And here is what I wanted to come to NZ for -the only mainland colony of albatross in the world. The Otago Peninsula supports a small northern royal albatross colony. Look at that wing span! It is about 3m (or 9ish feet). These are HUGE birds and they are simply wonderful to watch as they soar around. We were there watching them for almost 2 1/2 hours and we never saw the birds flap their wings once.

Both of our picasa albums have new photos up - look in the February folder. And folks - just a hint - we MISS our family and friends dearly. I admit, when we get online, the first thing we do is search for comments from friends/family on the blog. So, feel free to comment! We miss hearing from you. Enjoy the pictures!

East coasters

What a great week we have had so far! We don't have tons of time to write because we are - hold yer breath for the shock - going out to eat. Yup. That's right folks - we have a treat coming to us tonight and we are excited to not be cookin' next to Tinkerbell. Yipee! So, I will summarize events of the past week and maybe tomorrow or the next day we will do a real update with pics and all.
Last Saturday - spent the day in Blenheim getting ready to head south, headed south to Kaikoura and Jay went snorkeling while I snoozed in the van. The abalone quest was not successful, but man he was cold and took a lot of out-of-focus pictures. I was dry and warm.
Sunday - lazed in the hot springs at Hanmer Springs Resort. This place is awesome! Thermally-heated waters fill swanky pools and mix with cooler water so you don't get boiled. And it is cheap because they don't pay to heat the water! Your job is to move from hot spring to hot spring all day. Tough job.
Monday - Mt. Cook/Aoraki National Park - rain rain rain - but I loved it! We were in glacier-land! Most of this day was spent on a soggy road.
Tuesday - Mt Cook again...but the rain stopped and the biggies (mountains) started to show their faces. I was shocked to discover we slept in the shadow of one giant, Mt. Sefton, without knowing it last night (it was covered in clouds!). We hiked a LOT today - to a glacial lake called Hooker Lake. What were those boys thinking when they named that!? Then we hiked to town and had a beer while we stared at Mt. Cook. We watched a kea (alpine parrot endemic to NZ) try to eat someone's camper chair at night. High class entertainment.
Wednesday - Another hiking day - this time we went up up UP and got a nice view of Mt. Cook and Mt. Sefton with some altitude. Beautiful. Then we drove to Oamaru and met up with a guy my friend Sean Neilson spent time with in NZ during his visit. Jim is a great guy! He used to run penguin tours, but has since sold the business. BUT he kindly took us out to see the yellow-eyed penguins and boy oh boy, did we see them! What a rare and very special treat. These birds are only found in NZ and are one of the more rare birds to see in NZ. We just happened to get lucky and see not only chicks and parents....but all these amazing interactions and behaviors. The parents preened, squaked, shook heads and necks, and made a racket. The chicks begged, ate puke from parents (yum), and fought over food - all about 5 ft. away from us! And for the record, they approached us. We just stood completely still with our mouths hanging open the entire time. Awesome.
Today - Jim took us around Oamaru in the morning (after inviting us to sleep inm their house in real beds with a real bathroom the night before, we accepted). We loved this little town with all the cool limestone buildings. Now we are in Dunedin with plans to go to the Speights Brewery tomorrow and on a tour to see the only mainland nesting colony of albatross! YIPEE!
Everyday - happy.