Eoin's Dad visits and we walk the Routeburn Track

It's funny how I can go weeks without anything exciting to update about and then all of a sudden have so much to say. I feel slightly disorganised with this blog entry so bear with me, please. I have a feeling this will be quite a long entry.

Eoin's dad arrived in Queenstown on March 11th (Wednesday). Thursday and Friday are my days off, so the three of us did some touristy things together. On Thursday we did the Lord of the Rings safari tour in Glenorchy. I am not a huge LOTR fan so it was mostly just some nice scenery that I was looking at. We stopped in a few places that were important for the film, though. We saw where the cast and crew met every morning for make-up/costumes/food as well as the spot the elephant battle began. I think Eoin got more out of it than either David or I, but I can't say that he was particularly impressed with the tour either. After the tour, we did some grocery shopping and went home to make some delicious fajitas. Amazing.

On Friday we hopped on the TSS Earnslaw (the boat I also went on with my mom) and cruised over to Walter Peak Station. Walter Peak used to be a working farm with sheep, cows, and deer and is now a tourist attraction. We had a barbecue lunch, which was amazing (and worked out to be only about 10 dollars with our locals discount!) and saw a sheep herding and shearing presentation. The rest of the week I had to work, but I did manage to get up to the luge one last time with Eoin and David.

Here I am posing with a sheep!

All in all, Eoin and I definitely enjoyed eating at restaurants and having astronomical amounts of food in the flat. We don't need to go grocery shopping for the rest of our time in Queenstown (except for little things of course but really, that doesn't count!).

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The start of the Routeburn Track

For the past three days (Friday, Saturday and Sunday) Eoin and I have been out in the Aspiring National Park and Fiordland National Park hiking the Routeburn. Putting it nicely, I was not excited at all about this trip. I am so un-outdoorsy its not even funny. I sucked it up (eventually) and trudged along for 3 days in the alpines of New Zealand. It was a lot easier than the Tongariro Crossing, but there were still some steep sections and lots of narrow paths with long drop offs if you miss stepped. The scenery was amazing- rugged mountains with glaciers, waterfalls and moss covered trees all around.

Walking on the track. Day two.

We averaged about 4-5 hours of walking each day with water breaks and lunch thrown in. We spent the nights at huts situated along the trail. Our first night we each had our own bunk on a bunk bed. The second night we shared a platform with two other people. It's a bit odd but there was enough space that it wasn't too awkward. We were in bed by 9:30 at the latest each night, and on the trails by 9:00 AM each morning.

Not a very attractive picture, but this is me walking along the waterfall.

As much as I hate (and I do mean hate) hiking the Routeburn wasn't that bad. My legs are definitely sore today, and my feet are a bit tired but I had an "okay" time. (I am not saying I had "fun" though haha).

One thing I noticed on the hike, though, is the vast difference between Americans and people from other countries. While on the hike, there was a group of four Americans, roughly our age that were staying at the same hut as us. They were talking rather loudly and I overheard them talking about how the hike the next day was "only" 10 miles and that one of the girls could "run that in an hour". They planned to finish by noon the following day, and wanted to be the fastest ones on the track. They were complaining that the trail wasn't challenging enough and it was too easy.

Meanwhile, while they were rushing through the Routeburn, everyone else was going at a nice slow pace, enjoying the outdoors, taking in the scenery and having a good time with their friends. No other place I have been as had such competitive people as the Americans. It's not about finishing the quickest, or being first. It's about the overall experience. If you can run a mile in 6 minutes, that's great, but did you look around while you were running? Did you have fun? Did you take it all in? If you can run a mile in 10 minutes I bet you see more than the person who ran it in 6. Being fast, first or the "best" does not make you a better person. In fact, I felt embarrassed by the group of Americans in the hut. I feel that people everywhere get the impression that we ( Americans) are "too good" for them. We aren't. We just like to think we are better.

I could go on and on about this, and maybe its "anti-American" (which is a stupid term anyway), but no other country, that I have been to, parades their patriotism as extremely as we do.

Alright, enough babbling. I need to get showered and dressed and off to work. Today is Otago Day (which is somewhat like Independence Day but on a smaller scale and only in the Otago County) so I get paid time and a half!

Miss you all!

Moms visit part 2

So Mom is back in the states now, but this is the first chance I have had to sit down and write a blog. Now that mom is gone, I am back to working full time, which is good because I seriously need the money.

Anyway, where did we leave off? Milford Sound I think.... So, the night we got back from Milford Sound my boss gave me off work (which was totally unexpected and super nice of her!) so that mom and I could go see the Maori Haka show. We rode the gondola up Bob's Peak (the same place the luge and paragliders are) and waited for the show to begin. I thought it was a big hokie, but mom enjoyed it. The performers told us a bit about Maori culture and weapons and then did the Haka. Afterwords you could get your picture taken with them, I decided not to pose with them but mom did:

The next day mom and I went white water rafting. It was a beautiful day out, and our guide (Chief) was hysterical. No one fell out of our raft, but a few people fell out of other rafts. Mom and I were sitting in the front of the raft so we got completely soaked, but it was fun.

More importantly, the weekend of moms visit was my birthday weekend! We went to Dunedin. This is where my blog will get super interesting. We left Queenstown at 9 AM and I mistakenly told Eoin to head towards Invercargill for an hour. Once we figured out I made huge mistake we turned around and headed back towards Queenstown. We stopped in Cromwell at a fruit stand to get some cherries, and when we went back to the car it wouldn't start. Turns out, the plugs going from the battery were cut off. Some nice man fixed it for us and we went on our way again. Neither Eoin or I saw the sign for SH 8 (state highway 8) and again we went the wrong way for about 30 minutes before turning ourselves around again. We made it to Roxburgh (what should have been about 2 hours into our trip but was now something like 4 hours) when our engine exploded. Yep, that's right. Smoke, sparks, flames and bits of engine came out of the hood. Good job, car. Our 1990 Toyota Corona is now in the car cemetery. We got a ride to Roxburgh, where we tried to figure out what to do next...get a bus to Queenstown? A bus to Dunedin? A rental car to Dunedin? We were all grumpy and tired, but decided to continue on to Dunedin to celebrate my birthday. We took the bus to Alexandra where we rented a car and headed back towards Dunedin. We made it to the hostel by 7 PM. We should have been there by noon.

We ate dinner and went to bed, we were THAT exhausted. The next day was my birthday! We started the day with a tour of the Speights Brewery. Speights in a beer brewed in Dunedin and is known as the beer that "southern men" drink. Think- cowboys, sheep herders and scruffy dirty old guys. It was still a good tour though, and drinking beer at 11 AM wasn't so bad either. I am sure Eoin will have more to say about this since he is the beer connoisseur. After the tour, mom and I went to a spa and totally got the celebrity treatment. It was amazzzzzzzzzzzing. Massages, facials, pedicures, manicures, lunch and cake! Fabulous!
Eoin went shopping. So I think he had a good time? I don't know, it was my birthday..whatever.

Then we had to book it back to the hostel to get out to the Otago Peninsula to see the Yellow Eyed Penguins at Penguin Place.

Penguin Place is a reserve that is also part of a sheep farm where the yellow eyed penguins live. Yellow Eyed Penguins are native to New Zealand and are endangered...there are only 4,000 of them in the world. They are the third largest penguin (but are still quite small) and we got to see them up close. The tour brings you out to the sheep farm to the section the penguins inhabit. There are paths and trenches for people to walk on and peek through to see the penguins without interfering in their habitats. We saw a bunch of chicks and juveniles waiting on land for their parents to come back from fishing all day. Most of the juveniles had patchy spots where there feathers had fallen out and new feathers would grow. The chicks were covered in downy feathers. While we were there we saw about 5 adults come out of the sea and preen themselves before heading back to their habitats to feed the chicks.

Here is a short video of some of the adults:




It was so cool to actually SEE a real penguin in the wild. It's a very different experience than seeing them in a zoo or aquarium. After we completed our tour, we went to see the Albatross, they were flying all over the place and they were HUGE! Eoin saw a sign that said "Blue Penguin Sightings" so he and mom went down to check it out. They called me about 20 minutes later and I came down to the shore to see what all the fuss was about. Apparently, a whole group of Little Blue Penguins came out of the sea all at once. I missed that, and I almost missed stepping on a chick on our way up from the shore. The chick was walking right in front of me, and hopped up a few steps before heading into the bushes. I was less than a foot away from the fluffy little thing, and it was so cute!
Unfortunately, the flash of a camera disturbs the penguins (they have very sensitive eyesight) so we couldn't get a picture. But it was definitely the coolest thing I'd seen all day.

We drove back to Dunedin and had some dinner and two desserts (it was my birthday, after all) and then went to bed. We got up early the next morning and drove back to Alexandra where we dropped off the rental car and hopped on the bus to Queenstown.

Eoin and I are now without a car and are walking to work and taking the bus home. So I guess I am getting some exercise out of all this craziness.

That's all for now, it's my day off and I am cleaning and blogging and watching tv. I might do some laundry...don't be jealous!

Miss you all!