Time to Pack again

We've been back in the US for 3 weeks now. Obviously this is too much time without major upheaval, so the packing has started for our cross-country trip. Yep, we're moving. The new job starts in 4 weeks in Ithaca, New York, home to our alma mater Cornell. We think we've found an apartment (thank you craigslist) a mere 6 miles from work, perfectly suited for biking on those 8 days per year when the weather is nice.

If anyone is interested in a free slightly cat-damaged loveseat, let us know!

It's good to be home

After a full week of being back in the US, we can safely say that it's good to be home. We're really enjoying having a kitchen and bathroom to ourselves, a comfortable bed, and even a couch and TV. We're starting to make the rounds and catching up with friends. Lots of stuff happened while we were away!

Job interviews start next week. Time to get back to real life.

Our Trip in Review

Total distance driven: ~19,300 miles or 77% of the earth's circumference!
Flat tires: 1
Traffic tickets: 0 [whoo!]
Oil changes: 4
Gas burned while driving: ~712 gallons [27 mpg overall, not bad!]

Cheapest trip portion in $/day: US & Canada! [big thanks to friends & family for letting us crash on your couches and eat your food]
Most expensive trip portion in $/day: Peru [lots of organized tours]
Worst budget overrun: US/Canada, 9% over high estimate
Most accurate budget: Airfare, 0.3% under estimate
Overall budget: 4.9% over low estimate, 7.4% below high estimate [it worked! shocking!]

Favorite foreign country: New Zealand
Best hikes: Mt Zion (Olympic Peninsula, WA), Illecillewaet Glacier (Glacier NP, BC), Key Summit (Fiordland, NZ)
Hardest hikes: Illecillewaet (BC), Pasachoa (Ecuador)
Favorite bird: Pukeko (NZ)
Worst insect: Sandfly (NZ)
Best food: Cheddar beer soup with Stout at Full Sail (OR)
Worst food poisoning: Copacabana, Bolivia
Most over-hyped locations: Idaho "wilderness" and the Nazca lines
Most unexpectedly awesome locations: Mt. Hood (OR), Glacier NP (BC), Cherokee Territory (NC), Ecuador (all of it)

Things we'd do differently:
-Less driving, more hiking in the US
-Get off the Gringo Trail in Peru
-Don't eat in Copacabana
-Take an extra week of Spanish classes in Ecuador

Overall it was a good trip. We were really excited to plan it, it was fun while we were there, and we're really glad to be back. Definitely a very positive life experience for both of us. We feel extremely lucky to have had the opportunity to take such an extended "holiday".

New Zealand trip stats

Distance driven: 8500 km (5282 miles)
Tyres purchased for the car: 5
Personal property pilfered: milk from the fridge in Auckland :(

National Parks visited: 8
Alpine crossings: 5 (4 in the car, 1 on foot)
Glaciers visited: 3

Farmer's Markets visited: 3
Farmer's Markets visited in the rain: 3
Times snorkeling plans foiled by rain: 10
Days spent watching it rain (and nothing else): 5
Flooded bridges forded with a donut tire: 1

Eggs consumed: 150 (food is expensive)
Breweries visited: 6
Wineries visited: 8
Honey consumed: 4 lbs (manuka, rewarewa, and tawari)

Kea spotted at a distance: 4
Kea seen close up: 0 (total bummer!)

Back in the USA

We're back! We just went through the giant pile of junk mail and gave the shredder a work out, found the plates and glasses, and eventually turned up sheets for the bed. We think it's good to be back, but we haven't really gotten settled yet.

Time to start in on the list of restaurants we missed!

Last Hurrah: Tiritiri Matangi Island and St Patrick's Day in Auckland

After five depressing days in Auckland trying and failing to sell our car while we had the best weather of the entire trip taunting us, we finally sold Larry on Friday. We immediately got tickets to Tiritiri Matangi Island, a bird sanctuary on an offshore island about an hour by boat from Auckland. The wind was high and the sea was up on our trip out, resulting in a lot of sick passengers, but we were far from ill and had a nice ride out to the island. We opted for a lackluster guided tour for the first 90 minutes or so, had lunch near the lighthouse, and then wandered around the island on our own for a few hours. We spotted all the birds the island had to offer, save the kiwi and blue penguins which you can only see at night. We even saw two pairs of kokako, a super-rare blue bird with a haunting call. The "we thought these were extinct" takahe hung out near the visitor center, and one is even an opportunistic food thief. We saw saddlebacks aplenty, hihi/stitchbirds (they only exist on 3 offshore islands), whiteheads, bellbirds, tui, fantails, pukeko, parrots, and ducks. After leaving the stream-of-consciousness chatter of our fellow tour folk, we got to listen to the woods and the constant chatter of birds. Very cool. Tiritiri is highly recommended to those who might venture down here--book in advance and you can stay overnight and see the penguins and listen to the kiwi.

The rain held off, though we could see if off the coast and the wind was blowing it right to us. Somehow we stayed dry (other than that spray wave that soaked Hilary head to toe on the boat) and after washing up, went down to the nearest (and very crowded) Irish bar for St Patrick's Day. We got (really cold) Guinness and some beef stew, very tasty. The cold beer is a bit of a sin, but everywhere in NZ seems to pour Guinness near freezing. You'd think the English Isles heritage would have taught them how to pour a beer... Anyway, we left that bar after our beer and stew since the band was playing only songs from a high school dance. And not just any high school, our high school i.e. mid 90's "lite rock" stuff. Not bad songs per se, but the lack of diversity was annoying.

We walked down the street to the Windsor Castle, a less Irish place but one that had a band with a broader understanding of music. We got another (super cold) Guinness and some fish & chips. Yum. After that we headed back to our last night in Auckland and NZ.

This morning we jammed our bags full of all our worldly possessions, and now it's just a few hours until we catch our bus to the airport. Crazy that it's all over.

Whangarei in the Rain

We spent almost a week in Whangarei at the Whangarei Falls Motor Camp. Quite a nice place, cheap rooms and a comfy tv room. We got ourselves a room on arrival since it was raining (surprise!) and it was supposed to rain more the next day and night. We figured we'd move out to the car again once the weather dried out. While we had the room, we took the time to empty it out, give it a scrub, and renew the WOF (warrant of fitness) which expired at the end of the week.

It never stopped raining. The Metservice forecast kept telling us it would be things like "partly cloudy" or "chance shower", but it rained constantly all week. Not a strong rain, but the misty drip kind of rain with clouds only a handful of meters off the ground. We had planned to visit the Whangarei Heads for the views of the mountain spit and the ocean/harbor, but with the low fog-clouds and rain we never got to go. We did spend a lot of time on the trail from Whangarei Falls (a block or so from the camp) that leads down into town along the river, passing the falls of course and then through a kauri park. We walked along the trail most days (with Hil doing some trail running), even in the rain, and were glad for our room at the end of the day.

Whangarei itself was a nice town as well. We hung out there while the car was being checked over, and went into town a few times when we got sick of sitting in the room in the rain. We went to the rose garden and adjacent fernery and explored several of the local art shops for the last of the souvenir gifts.  We also spent a lot of time drinking "flat white" coffees in a couple of coffee shops downtown while it, you guessed it, rained outside the window.

And that was pretty much it for the second trip to Northland: rain, rain, and more rain. Back to Auckland to sell the car...

Coromandel, the Firth of Thames, and back to Northland

We drove up the west coast of the Coromandel this time and arrived in Coromandel Town (often it's just called Coromandel, but the "Town" is added to remove confusion). Perhaps not surprisingly, it rained. We hung out in the very convenient covered picnic area, chatted with folks biking around in the rain (poor souls), and finished the last of our Marlborough wine. Not a bad day after all!

The next day it was cloudy, crazy windy, but not raining. We took the narrow and winding road lined with gnarled pohutakawa up the coast toward the tip of the peninsula, having to stop for about 10 minutes at one point while some trucks added fresh gravel and a roller tamped it down along the one-lane road. We also encountered fresh gravel that had not been rolled, which was a bit of a slippery ride. Oh and this road is right on the coast, with a friendly cliff dropping into the water often only a few inches from your tires. Exciting! We got to Port Jackson at the north end and continued along the road intending to get to the coastal walkway. However we found a ford of which we could not determine the depth. It had been raining, remember, so we decided to just turn around and go back to Port Jackson. On our way back we passed the shuttle bus that takes tourists to the walkway from the Thames area; it was equipped with a snorkel. Next time we need one of those. Anyway we got back to Port Jackson and parked at the beach, where we ate lunch took a walk along the beach. Our way back was fun as we had to close our eyes to keep out the whipping sand. We eventually made it back, and got the pleasure of driving back down the loose gravel road at the edge of the cliff. The road crew had made good progress though, and the really slippery spots had been packed down a bit. We did feel really bad for the motorcycle guy that was coming down the road. On the plus side, the views were gorgeous and this bit of coastal driving was Aaron's favorite in all of New Zealand. Highly recommended and better than the Bay of Islands or the South Island West Coast. (we've included a picture of our car, "Larry", hanging out on the coast here as we get ready to sell him next week)

From the tip of the peninsula we made our way down to Opoutere, to the same YHA we had stayed at before. Our first order of business was to go out and get more cockles, though unfortunately our visit coincided with low tides around dawn and dusk so we didn't get to eat them until after dinner. The cockles were much lower quality than last time--smaller and with more barnacles. The ones we collected still tasted great though. We walked through the hostel's bush walk which had a great variety of trees and birds right next to the camp.  Hilary spent some time jumping on the trampoline, and was less successful with the walking stilts... gotta love Opoutere.

The next day we took a walk along the beach, which borders a shorebird preserve (the nesting sites above high tide are fenced off but the beach is accessible). The morning was decent weather and we had a nice walk. After lunch we went out to the "summit" hike up to the hill overlooking the hostel and the estuary. The tops of the hill is an old pa [fortified village] site, and you can still see where they dumped cockle and pipi shells. It started to rain on us near the top of the hill, but it was just a light rain and the views were nice.

That night, and all the next day, was the BIG STORM. The weather service had been putting out warnings for most of the week and the computer models basically predicted Armageddon over both islands. The hostel management offered us tent/campervan folk the option of using their empty dorm rooms for the night to ride out the storm indoors; we didn't but it was very nice of them. Turns out the Coromandel got mostly grazed. It rained all right, but it wasn't too bad. The gale force winds did show up the next morning, and blew rain bands at the edge of the storm through every 15 minutes or so. But the big rain was near the Strait, and boy were we glad to not be in Whanganui, Wellington, or Blenheim for the storm. It was a good day to stay in and watch The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and The Girl Who Played with Fire (the Swedish ones). We don't have the last one, unfortunately.

The day after the storm the weather was actually not too bad. We drove around to Miranda, on the other side of the Firth of Thames. This is the area where EcoQuest is based, and Hilary spent a lot of time here during her program. We visited the park where they did a lot of walking, running, and learning how to drive a stick. The trail she used to run on had been redone, which was sad.

After our park walk we went to the Miranda Shorebird Center, where Hilary had done some work with EcoQuest and the guy behind the counter knew a bunch of the folks she remembered. We rented some $5 binoculars and took the 2 km walk to the hides near the shore. Lots of birds, and it was super fun to have binoculars to get a nice close view.

Back at the holiday park, we played petanque and jumped on the trampoline. Fun! We also got free access to the hot pools fed from nice sulfury springs and spent some time hanging out in there, though it was only 38 C and not hot enough for Hilary.

The next day we took the coast road up the Firth and then through Auckland, stopping eventually outside Warkworth in the town of Sandspit. After getting a spot at the camp, we drove a short way up the coast to Goat Island, where there is a marine reserve and a popular snorkeling area. We rented wetsuits since the water is still only 19 C (brrr!). Turns out Hilary had been here before too, although it's been very built up in the last 9 years. It was wickedly busy, with a lame glass-bottom boat (the water is only a few meters deep...) and tons of kids in some sort of class. We snorkeled around for awhile with the tide bringing in some lovely cold water. The conditions were pretty crappy; the bottom was very stirred up and there was mostly just kelp and snapper. We did see a bunch of leatherjackets, but the promised eagle and sting rays never appeared. Oh and it was super cold.

Back in Sandspit we checked out the cute "frontier town" full of old cars and shops full of vintage stuff. The holiday park is actually rather nice, though a little old-looking. We camped out in the vintage theater-seating TV room and picked Shrek 2 out of their selection of G-rated movies.

From Sandspit we continued north to Whangarei. If the weather cooperates, we'll do some more snorkeling and/or diving along the Tutukaka coast or the Poor Knights before we leave.

North Island West Coast, and more rain dodging

We crossed the strait again and immediately set off for Whanganui, since we had liked the town earlier but not spent much time there. Our rabid weather forecast checking convinced us that the rain would hold off until we had a chance to visit Taranaki. We got a site along the river and had a nice time watching the baby pukekos wander about. We then went into town and enjoyed the nice old buildings and the cute main street (though everything closes promptly at 5). Treated ourselves to dinner at an Indian place, which was super awesome after quite a while of cooking for ourselves and a long driving/ferry day.

The next day we stopped again at Rapido for a coffee. Guess what, it was raining. The forecast suddenly moved the storm up a whole day and we drove along the coast toward Taranaki while it poured steadily on us. Upon reaching the turnoff to the mountain which we couldn't see, we decided it wasn't worth walking around in the rain for and continued on to the northern end of the mountain peninsula. We stopped at White Cliffs brewery, as it was raining, and mused that the rain might stop if we just had a beer. The beer was pretty good, though not spectacular, and we watched it rain from our vantage near the bar. But behold, our plan actually worked and by the time we left there was a break in the rain and the hint of not-clouds to the north. Amazing!!

We drove a short way down the road to the White Cliffs and walked along the black sand beach below the cliffs. Not sure how the beach is black when the cliffs are white, but hey we're not geologists. We continued north along the highway and passed through the Awakino Gorge. It was beautiful. This section of the west coast of the North Island is at least as beautiful as the scenic route along the west coast of the South Island. We passed the Waitomo area again and continued on to Cambridge, where we spent the night at the holiday park, while it rained. And rained. And rained.

The next day we went to the nearby Maungatautari Ecological Park, another mainland island behind lots of fencing. The place is obviously not very well traveled, as there is a tiny carpark followed by a little more than 1 km of walking through some cow fields. The little orange markers led us astray and we had to bushwhack our way to the gate. Once there, we found that the trail was closed due to construction, though they invited us to walk along the super steep gravel maintenance road instead. We did, for awhile. After a steep climb we decided to just hang out and listen to the birds next to the Jurassic Park style fence. Perhaps not the best stop, but at least it didn't rain on us.

We drove north from there, stopping briefly in Matamata for the Hobbiton sign.

Then we headed to the Coromandel, finding only a bit of rain on the way. We had a nice time here before, and we'd like to spend more time in the area. Too bad it's supposed to rain a lot. Hopefully we'll find a bit of sun here and there...

Marlborough Wine Country, Nelson Lakes, and Marlborough Sounds

We have reached the end of our South Island journey. Crazy! Only three more weeks left before we have to return to reality.

Blenheim was a good choice of location. While it wasn't super sunny, it was only a bit cloudy and definitely not raining. We took ourselves just out of town to visit the wineries of Marlborough, New Zealand's largest (by volume) wine producing region by a long shot. If you've had NZ wine, it's probably been from Marlborough. And it was probably a Sauv Blanc. This area is famous worldwide for it, and deservedly so. We visited four of the wineries in the area.

We stopped first at Highfield based on a Lonely Planet recommendation. Apparently it's not an uncommon recommendation and they get a lot of "if you go to only one place, go there" people. Their claim to fame is a viewing tower with a nice vista over the valley and the surrounding hills. The wine was fine. Nothing wrong, but nothing to really write home about. We left with just some pictures and a recommendation for our next stop.

Mahi. Wow. This was a good one. The wine is mostly single-vineyard, which we love, and all natural fermentation, which we really love. The style of wine was perfect for us, and everything was very good. We had a very nice tasting and left with a Sauv Blanc, Chardonnay, and a Pinot Noir. And, of course, a recommendation for the next place and some good ideas for lunch.

We ignored those good ideas and instead went to a takeaway in Renwick for a hot dog and a "Renwick burger" complete with a beef patty, chopped steak, onions, tomato, lettuce, a fried egg, bacon, a huge slab of melted cheese, mushrooms, and a pineapple slice. So. Good. Beard-washing was necessary after that enjoyment.

Then we went down the street [we must impress how close all these wineries are to each other] to Te Whare Ra, one of the local organic wineries. The wine here was pretty good. Not as nice as Mahi, but still good. We came away with a bottle of Sauv Blanc. They were out of both of their reds, which was a shame because it would have been interesting to see what they did with them.

After that we hit Seresin. This was another big hit with a solid lineup and some goofy unique winemaking ideas. We tore ourselves away with only a Chardonnay, though you can buy their excellent Sauv Blanc at wine.com. Big thumbs up for Marlborough.

The next day we were pretty wined out. Since the weather in Nelson Lakes had cleared up [i.e. it stopped snowing], we took a drive down the valley to visit Rotoiti, which Hilary had been to last time. When we got there, there was some sort of waka [canoe] race going on and it was really crowded. It was also kind of cold. Nevertheless, we took a walk along the lake and spotted some tui and bellbirds. Strangely, about half way down our trail, Hilary remembered hiking along the very same 10 years ago... apparently, when she was here before she went for a run on the same trail.

From Rotoiti we drove to Picton. We had a chill night with our Chardonnay from Seresin and The Mummy from the video library at the holiday park. The next day we returned to the Queen Charlotte Track to do a walk. The day started a little grey but the sun came out and we had a very nice ~18 km walk along the track including a random cow-on-track sighting. On the way back, the cow was gone. Not really sure where it went...

Tomorrow morning we make the short drive back to the ferry and then the North Island.

Arthur's Pass and the West Coast part 2

After driving up the east coast from Dunedin in the rain, we stopped at Ashburton for the night at Coronation Park. It was a weird little place with a cramped lawn for camping and mostly semi-permanent residents. Not exactly welcoming... The next morning we decided to skip Christchurch since the reports were that the downtown was still totally cordoned off and full of rubble. Instead we took the road to Methven and got some coffee at a little cafe while it rained. Then we took the road through the very pretty Rakaia Gorge and then hooked up with the Great Alpine Highway SH-73 that runs through Arthur's Pass to the west coast. We drove up to Flock Hill Station, near Craigieburn Park, but they were closed for the day since someone left a tap running and their water tanks had been emptied. Bummer! Instead we turned around and went back to Springfield to stay at Smylies, a very cute and homey place with a giant library of books and dvds (half in Japanese, but still there were a lot) to hang out while, you guessed it, it rained.

The next day we got a short break from the wet weather and we stopped in the Castle Hill area to walk around the crazy limestone formations.

After that we got ourselves a spot at Flock Hill (now open), then drove to Craigieburn for a walk to Helicopter Hill. We swear the last bit of track is longer than the 500 m advertised. The view was rather nice and we took the long way back to the car on the way down.

The next day we took a walk along the Bealey Spur track. The weather was not quite as nice as the day before, with some rain blowing through. Bealey Spur is supposedly the place to go though, since it's on the east side of the pass and the rain was coming in from the west. After a bit of walking in the rain, it started to really rain and when our pants were thoroughly wet we decided to turn back before it got truly awful. Good thing too, when we got to the car the rain was even worse. We returned to Flock Hill and found a truckload of teenagers on some school trip. After enduring the melodrama for a few hours while it rained, we escaped to the bar at the main lodge for adult beverages.

The next day the rain was supposed to hold off on our side of the pass until about 1 or 2pm. We took our chances and went to the Bealey Valley track on the north side of Arthur's Pass village (but still southeast of the actual pass). We got some decent not-rain for weather, but the creeks were up and we had to turn around when the crossings started getting a bit deep and wide, in case we got caught in the rain. Good thing too, when we returned to Flock Hill around 2pm it started pouring.

And it rained. And rained. And rained. Thankfully the building was watertight and fairly warm (with the heater on) and nearly deserted. We hung out, cooked a nice dinner, and chilled while it rained. Eventually we had to go back to the car, but the grass was so wet we decided to leave it in the gravel parking lot overnight. It stopped raining around 6am. Seriously, the rain was ridiculous and never-ending.  We thought we'd get a five minute break here or there to rearrange the car for sleeping, but it never stopped.

The next morning, we got going in a rare bit of half-sun, but not more than about 15 km later we ran into (literally) some rockfall. The rocks took a tire, so we pulled over to attach our spare. The very first car that passed us also stopped to help (super friendly NZ!), before we even had the car jacked up all the way, and we found out that our tire iron only worked on 4 of the 5 nuts. I guess the story is that the 5th nut is different to prevent tire theft. Lot of good that did us. We flagged down another car who had one of those 4-pronged tire irons and got the last nut off and the donut on. Thanks random strangers!

Our choices for destination were Greymouth or Christchurch, since nowhere else nearby would have a reliable source of tires. Either was about 120 km away. We picked Greymouth since that was the direction we were going anyway. Wow, what a fun road! Perhaps we have mentioned that it had been raining a bit recently. This day, not 10 minutes after resuming driving, the rain came in again accompanied by "gale force" winds of about 100 km/h in the high passes. Lucky for us, we were crossing the highest pass across the Southern Alps, followed by the crazy steep Otira Gorge with 16% grades and exposed bridges. Waterfalls were sheeting off the cliffs, rain was blowing up (up!!) the road in huge waves, and at one point we came to a bridge which was now a ford. We weren't going to cross it at all, but the oncoming traffic did just fine and we saw it was only a few inches of water. [this was one of the many, many one-lane bridges in NZ.] It was a bit scary though, even for just a few inches it was moving really quickly and the car had to struggle a bit to get through.

Eventually (we were driving really, really slowly) we made it across the pass and through the gorge, and when we reached the foothills the weather slacked to a mix of rain, wind, and sun--sometimes all three at once. But still it was a vast improvement over the mountain weather. We got to Greymouth and found the tyre shop that a construction guy along the road had recommended to us. They happened to have a gently-used tire in our size for sale and plenty of time to install it, so we were in and out in about 20 minutes for only $60. Nice!

After a gas stop and a trip to the market, we continued up the west coast along SH-6. Lonely Planet says this is one of the best road trips in the world, and it's pretty darn good. The wind was up and had been blowing for days, so the waves were impressively crashing into the rocky coast. The rivers were all swollen to massive proportions and were gushing down from the hills, accompanied by waterfalls galore. We stopped in Punakaiki for a walk among the Pancake Rocks and Blowholes; these blowholes actually blew. And we stopped a lot along the road to enjoy the scenery. Even gray and misty the coast is beautiful. A quick check of the weather in Punakaiki led us to the conclusion it was time to flee to sunshine, so we blew past Nelson Lakes (forecast: rain, rain, and snow!) and drove into Marlborough to stay at the Top 10 in Blenheim (forecast: some clouds, some sun).  Hellloooooo, wine country!

Fiordland, the Catlins, and Otago Peninsula

On our way south from the Wanaka region, we stopped in Old Town Cromwell for a break. We found a cute little historical village, no cars allowed, on the edge of the lake. [This is apparently a section of the old town that was moved and preserved before the town flooded after the construction of a dam.] We also found Armando's Kitchen, a very pleasant coffee shop/cafe/produce mart. We lingered over some flat whites (beans ground to order) and conversation with Armando. Afterward we took a wander around Old Town and the mix of art shops and museum pieces. A little further down the road we took a pit stop in Arrowtown. This has a much more built-up "historical" district but is still pleasant to walk around.

We blew past Queenstown since we can't afford to skydive, jetboat, or otherwise pay to fling ourselves through space. Instead we stopped for lunch at a picnic site along Lake Wakatipu between Queenstown and Kingston.

A short drive later we found ourselves in Te Anau, the base for Fiordland. We got a space at Fiordland Great Views Holiday Park, though there were only views of a hedge (and the sheep on the other side of the bush) and all the extra "amenities" they advertise cost more, from the spa (where an extra cost makes sense) to the forks and laundry pegs (huh?). We had a chill day there, walking to town to get groceries for the trip into Fiordland and booking a kayak trip on Milford Sound. We left Te Anau and drove to Gunn Camp along the Hollyford, about 40 km from Milford. We quickly found out that the Hollyford Valley is famous for its sandflies.

After figuring out accomodations, we took the trail to Lake Marian, situated in a hanging valley amongst the mountains. The trail was steep for much of the way and very rocky, necessitating some clambering. Fun!!! Along the way we passed Marion Falls and stopped for a snack. We arrived at Lake Marian to bits of sunshine and a beautiful lake, with views of glaciers and snow.

The next day we woke up super early to arrive in Milford at 7am for our kayak trip. The road was dark and deserted, and we got to drive through the Homer Tunnel without seeing another car. After a short trip from the meeting point to the launch, we donned our neoprene skirts and fancy yellow mist jackets and set out into the fiord. [fjord? what happened to the j?] The day was gorgeous, with no rain, light wind, and only spotty clouds. Apparently Milford was having a bit of a heat wave, and it got to about 20 C. The water was calm and clear and we had a great time paddling about 18 km from the bay at the base of the fiord to the Tasman Sea. A few sea birds were about and we came across lots of NZ fur seals. A boat met us where the sea surge starting to knock us around (gently, whee!) and took us back to Milford.

After a short rest and lunch, we took the Routeburn Track a short distance to the trail to Key Summit. Many, many switchbacks later we arrived at the top (918 m), where a strange and beautiful alpine forest/marsh sat. We also got views of Lake Marian, where we had been the day before. The nature trail at the summit was the best one we've done yet.

It was windy that night, which kept the sandflies mostly at bay. Even more wind in the morning meant we barely got eaten at all as we packed up to leave the fiords. We stopped again at Te Anau for gas and a snack at the friendly Sandfly Cafe. After that we continued along the Southern Scenic Route and picked up a couple sausages in Tuatapere (the sausage capital of NZ, apparently) and stopped for a nice ocean/mountain view at McCracken's Rest along the coast.

A short drive later we were in Invercargill, where we found the Invercargill Brewery and had a very lovely (and free!) tasting. Their beer was great (and they contract brew stuff from all over NZ) and we picked up a 1.25 L rigger of their NZ pils, a bottle of Boysenberry, and a vintage 2008 bottle of their Smokin' Bishop. We picked up a site in the park across the river for the night and enjoyed the pils with dinner after a walk/run through the totara forest in the park.

The next day we took another park walk through forest and along the estuary. Then we headed for the Catlins. We took the coastal route and stopped at Slope Point (the southernmost point on the island), Porpoise Bay, and Curio Bay. We got to see the super-rare Hector's dolphins that live in Porpoise bay jumping around--the resident pod numbers only about 20--and the most-rare yellow-eyed penguins at Curio Bay among the petrified trees the litter the beach. Pretty cool!

After that we drove along and wound up at a cute little holiday park near Surat Bay. We took an evening stroll along the river mouth toward the ocean, but never got there as we were blocked by the (also rare) NZ sea lions that were a little agitated after the previous group of tourists got a little too close. The sunset still looked nice from the river.

The next day we drove to nearby Jack's Bay and took a walk to Jack's Blowhole. As we keep finding in NZ, things are not really what they are named after (see the lagoon incident in Bay of Islands). The "blowhole" was more of a sink that was connected to ocean, and it didn't really blow despite our being there at high tide. It was an impressively large hole, though, and the surrounding scenery was great. We then stopped off at Nugget Point to see the lighthouse and watch the sea birds fly around.

Then we headed north for the Otago Peninsula just outside Dunedin. We got a spot in the town of Portobello (not sure about the relation to the mushroom) and drove out to Pilot Beach near sunset. There we and a ton of other tourists all stared at the one blue penguin on the beach for quite some time. And we waited, and waited, and then after about half the folks had begged off due to darkness a little group (flock?) of penguins came swimming in from the ocean. They popped out, waddled through the gulls, and headed for their burrows in the sand. Blue penguins are the smallest in the world and they looked really cute walking around the beach with their bright white bellies and grey/blue backs. After they got to the burrows, they started making little cooing noises, fully cementing the "cutest penguin in the world" title.

The next morning we headed for the Dunedin farmer's market. We're now 3 for 3 for visiting farmers' markets in the rain. It was a really nice market and we picked up food for a couple days, including some nice looking local beef and some truly beautiful kale. Time to head north and back into the mountains.