New Zealand and Fiji

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Hello again everyone. I apologize for the long wait between blogs, but I have been procrastinating a bit while trying to enjoy the last of summer in this hemisphere. I wasn't able to get the Australia portion written before heading off to New Zealand and Fiji, so I will write about these travels first and then do a short final blog about my time in Australia, since that it is really just beginning.

New Zealand (south island):

Reed and I arrived in Christchurch at night and took a shuttle to the hostel that we had booked online, The Jailhouse. The place lives up to the name as it is literally the old Christchurch jail transformed into a hostel. Upon entering it looked like a normal hostel, with a reception desk, bar, tourist pamphlets on the wall, and a small community area, but the similarities stopped there. We walked through the metal door into a two-story prison, just like you might imagine it: the entire interior was open in the center to the second floor rails and cell doors, cold concrete walls, completely monochromatic, thick metal doors, tiny cells (rooms), and a one square foot window. Fortunately, they did remove the toilet unit so it could fit a normal bunk bed and provide almost enough space for luggage. This was definitely the coolest place that we stayed on the entire trip, and the only night we spent in jail (pay up boys...).

In the morning we were off to get our rental car to road race around the island in 10 days, as we cut our trip a bit short to lengthen our stay in Fiji where we would meet my brother Tony. We headed straight for Mt. Cook, or Aoraki to the Maoris (the massive and usually tatoo covered native islanders to New Zealand), which is the highest in New Zealand. The drive from Christchurch to Mt. Cook was amazing, and as we would discover, driving almost anywhere on the south island of NZ is stunning and difficult. The difficulty is a result of the combination of rapid elevation change, tight corners, constant switchbacks, wet roads (rains all the time), distracting natural beauty everywhere, and fighting the never-ending desire to stop for more pictures. Mt. Cook is a National Park, among many in NZ, as 1/3 of the entire country is environmentally protected. Despite being summer when we were there, the air was brisk and much of Mt. Cook (above the village) is completely covered in ice and snow, as are the surrounding glaciers. We crashed early to get rest for the next day. In the morning we went for a couple of hikes on the glaciers. First, we stopped at a glacial lake, which was interesting as it had large icebergs jutting out of it as well as smaller ice particles floating around that you could reach in and grab. Also interesting was the color, because it is in the 'ablation zone' (where the glacier melts- this lake actually is frozen part of the year), it is the color of watered-down icy milk. After that, we did another hike to the Blue Lakes, where we took a swim in the cold & clean waters of the glacier, and headed off.

Our next stop was Queenstown. This is the busiest backpacker location in New Zealand, and is full of people who come here to admire the beauty and throw themselves off bridges and out of airplanes. It is one of the action sports capitals of the world, home to the inventors of bungee jumping, and the inventors of many more action sports that didn't catch on, including zorbing- rolling down hills in giant rubber balls, sledging- bodyboarding down rapids with fins, and many others. We got in and checked into the Base, which is a huge backpacker spot in downtown Queenstown. That night we went out to see what the town had to offer, and we had a blast. The bars are packed with people from all over the world discussing their adrenaline filled days. There are tons of thrilling and crazy things to do here, but our first day we opted for golfing at a near-by links style course called Jack's Point, which was awesome, despite the many skydiving airplanes buzzing just over our heads on a few holes to land on the grass runway next door. The following day we were off to experience the most famous part of New Zealand, Fiordland National Park and Milford Sound.

This drive is absolutely amazing. The portion from Te Anau to Milford Sound is the most famous and ridiculous portion, which would be less than 2 hours if driven straight through, but takes most people 3-5 hours as you need to park every few miles to get out of the car, slap yourself to make sure it's real, and admire it. Taking pictures quickly begins to become annoying as you could take them in any direction at any time, and it requires taking your eyes off of the surroundings. I will post some of my photos on here, but no picture could ever do this place justice. The landscape is filled with enormous mountains, some of which are hidden in the rainclouds, very wet (over 20 feet of rain per year here!), waterfalls everywhere you look, rivers gushing over boulders, and dense forest covering it all. The rain was coming down for almost the entire drive, so we were able to see the waterfalls in all their glory- awesome. When we got to the other end, we quickly booked a cruise on the Milford Sound, which was just as amazing as the drive. The Sounds wind inland from the Tasman Sea, and end up recessed and protected by the huge mountains on all sides, so most of the waves and predators of the sea never make it here. This makes Milford Sound, and the other sounds nearby, great habitats for sea life. There are seals, dolphins, and the Hoiho Penguin (one of the world's rarest), although we did not see the penguins. The cruise made it to the way to the Tasman Sea, where you can see the open ocean, before tucking back into the calm waters. On the way back in the boat made a stop near a seal colony and then drove right under the largest constantly flowing waterfall in the area. Afterwards, we made the amazing drive once again, and were back in Queenstown.

The next morning we drove off to Fox Glacier. Fox Glacier is a tiny little town, and was basically full when we got there, but we got lucky and found a room. In the morning we got up and went to book our hike with a local tour company. After a short briefing about hiking glaciers and how difficult and wet it would be, we were off. They told us not to bother trying to stay dry, and after crossing several rivers on foot at the beginning of the hike, our boots were soaking wet. From there, we had a long hike up to the actual ice, which included about 700-800 steps on a forest trail. We made several stops on the way up, but not everyone actually made it to the terminal (ice face at the bottom of the glacier). Also, because the terminal of the glacier is the most dangerous point, we had to continue up past it before getting on. Once we reached a safe point, we laced on steel spikes, took spiked walking poles, and headed out on the ice. Walking on the glacier is dangerous, and even our guide took a spill onto the rock hard ice, the first of many to fall (Reed and I actually remained on our feet the entire time). We saw many little crevasses in the ice that lead to a river that flows under the ice and actually "lubricates" the area between the mountain and ice and allows Fox Glacier to advance. It is among less than 3% of the world's glaciers that is advancing to this day according to our guide. The entire time it was pouring rain, and despite having my rain coat and pants on under the heavy duty rain jacket and pants they gave us, I was dripping wet when we finished, but the experience was well worth it. When we got back to town, we changed into dry clothes in a gas station restroom, pick-up some Irish hitch-hikers, and continued on.

We drove into the night to a town called Hanmer Springs. This area is known for natural mineral springs, and we spent a good portion of the next day soaking in the pools here. After relaxing for the day, we got back in our car to rally race to our next and final destination before returning to Christchurch- Kaikoura. I was incredibly excited about Kaikoura, because it is one of the best places in the world for whale watching. Two currents collide here (warm and cold), and the continental shelf drops from 90m to over 800m, and as a result of the collision nutrients and prey are carried to the top in the upswell, so large ocean mammals take advantage. Sperm whales are present off of the coast here year-round, and there are other whales that pass through seasonally (Humpbacks, Pilot, and occasionally Orca), as well as fur seals, many types of dolphins, blue penguins, and many more. We had read that these whale watching trips are subject to weather, and it is best to leave several days in the itinerary to ensure getting out, but we only had one day, so we hoped for the best. When we got up, it was a beautiful sunny day (rare for our NZ experience), and things were looking great. Unfortunately, there were apparently high winds off-shore that had created 2 meter waves (6-7 foot), and all boats were cancelled. Back in the car and off to Christchurch once again. This time we stayed in a modern hotel downtown to live it up and wash our stinky wet clothes before heading to Fiji in the morning.

Fiji

We arrived in Nadi and found the tour company in the airport that we would use for the next 5 days of island hopping. We hopped in a cab and headed off to our hostel in Nadi, and after realizing that it was about an hour out of Nadi (in Fiji cities include everything nearby), we headed back and found a new one. We crashed early as I had to get up at 5 a.m. to meet Tony at the airport. Once we met up, we were headed back to the hostel and had an hour to get ready to leave for the boat.

Our first stop was Beachcomber Island, which is considered the party island of the Mamanucas and Yasawas (island chains we were in), and juding by how people looked in the morning when we arrived, it was. It is a tiny little island, which can be run around in about 7 minutes, but it is very fun. The island has one dorm with a wall in the middle to seperate the men from women. Together, the dorm holds about 90 people, all basically in one room. The advice we received upon entering the mass dorm was 'drink enough so that you can sleep." Since about all there is to do on the island after dark is play cards, eat, and drink, we followed orders. The snorkelling just off-shore was great, so that kept me busy during the day. We passed time by playing cards at the beach bar, swimming, beach volleyball, and tossing around rugby balls. After dinner, everyone would hang out at the beach bar, listen to the horrible band (they actually played game show jingles at one point), and drink the horrible Fiji beer, but it was a blast. At night, the lights from the beach bar would attract little feeder fish, which lured in hundreds of baby black-tip reef sharks, all about 2 foot long or smaller, so a South African guy we were hanging out with and I got in and they swam all around us and between our legs, which was pretty awesome! We were here for two days, then we headed off to the next island, Manta Ray Island.

This is a remote island about 2 1/2 hour ride from mainland Fiji. This island was a much different experience than Beachcomber. There were only about 25 tourists on the island when we were there, so it was much more quiet. The reef off of the island was amazing, so I spent most of the day in the water. Tony and Reed spent most of the day reading and relaxing on the beach. There was a sand volleyball court there as well, but the sand was too hot to play until about 3-4 p.m. every day, so we would play then. The first day I went hand-line fishing in a boat, and I caught a some type of trout. That night we hung out with our buddy who came with us from Beachcomber and 2 other swedish guys who went fishing, and we played cards on the beach all night. The next day we found the owner of the island, who also owned a charter fishing boat, and chartered him and the boat for the afternoon. He had a great new tuna boat, and we went out with the three of us and a couple of our buddies from the previous night. On the way out we saw a big turtle in the water. We headed stright out to the open ocean for about 30 mins and began looking for birds, as they eat the same fedder fish that the tuna eat. After seeing only a few birds here and there, we spotted a small circle of about a hundred and headed right for it. We could see the tuna boiling on top of the water, and drove right through the school and immediately got a big hit. I sat in the chair and started to reel, but it was pulling out tons of line, and the captain was yelling at me to reel harder. After over 30 minutes, and all 5 of us having reeled at least twice, I pulled in the last of the line only to see a 7 foot long Oceanic White Tip shark. We had driven through hundreds of tuna eating right on top of the water, and caught possibly the only shark! This was a huge bummer as we had wasabi on the boat and were planning on eating well that night, but it was lots of fun anyways. After this we headed back in, spotting some small Spinner Dolphins following us for a bit on our way back. The rest of the time on the island was relaxing, and the following day, only 3 hours late (Fiji time), the ferry picked us up to head back to Nadi.

Once we arrived back in Nadi, we picked up our bags and got a cab to take us to Pacific Harbor, on the other side of the island. This drive was one of the strangest drives ever, as it was pitch dark, very curvy, and the driver was constantly slamming on his brakes to avoid hitting the cows and wild horses. According to our driver, the cows are not too dangerous (despite almost hitting some), but occasionally the horses decide to charge oncoming vehicles, and cause major accidents and injuries. We were dead tired from the islands, falling in and out of sleep, and all of the sudden the driver would slam on the brakes and we would wake up to see a horse coming at us- not fun. We arrived just over an hour late (a constant theme in Fiji) to The Pearl Resort, where we would spend the next 7 days.

We booked this partly because it has a Robert Trent Jones Jr. "championship" golf course, which we played in the morning. Unfortunately, the course had been abandoned for 4 years in the early 90s, become overgrown with crabgrass- which now constitutes the entire fairway, and has some slight drainage issues (scuba boots would be appropriate footwear), so we played only 9 hole and quit. The rest of the time we spent chillin in a nice resort, wandering around to neighboring backpacker establishments to occasionally find people our age, and doing lots of sun tanning. We tried one other golf course in nearby Suva, but it was just as bad. The one thing that Pacific Harbor is famous for is the Beqa Lagoon Bull Shark dive, which I had been planning on doing since we decided on Fiji. You dive to about 90-100 ft. into groups of Bull Sharks all holding onto a guide rope while the dive instructors feed them tuna chum. There is also a Tiger Shark that roams the area, which is a massive 2 ton animal, that occasionally comes to eat and inspect the bubbles from the scuba tanks, so it usually swims within reach overhead. Unfortunately, when I dove in Bali, one of my teeth was throbbing, and on Manta Ray Island I was trying to skin dive (holding breath) to see eels and reef sharks up close, and to take pictures with an underwater camera, and I realized that at only 10 feet deep my tooth felt like it was going to explode. I spoke to the dive master, and he said that I probably had a loose/lost filling (my only one), and that if I dove that it could literally burst and shoot into/out my cheek, as the air in the socket can not decompress. That was horrible news, and the worst part was that everyday I would see all the divers go out and then have to listen to some of the stories when they returned (I actually contemplated having it pulled at one point, but luckily Reed and Tony advised against it). However, I was able to go ziplining through the forest nearby, which is the first and only course in the country, and that was really fun. We also played tennis on the synthetic grass courts, kayaked around the intercoastal canal that ran next to the resort, and did lots of reading. Overall, the week at The Pearl was very fun and relaxing, and it was the closest thing to a normal vacation that we had on the trip.

Upon checking out we were informed that the traditional way to get back to Nadi is to wait on the side of the road and basically hitch-hike onto communal share-vans heading to Nadi, which we did. Once we flagged one down with enough space for our thing we were back on the road to Nadi- dodging farm animals, on-coming traffic, and uncleared car wrecks. We booked into a hostel and spent the last night out on the town, which apparently closes shortly after midnight. In the morning, for me it was off to the airport and back to Sydney, although Tony and Reed had the entire day as they were on a late overnight flight. After an awesome and action-packed four months, it was all over.

I will write one more brief blog about my travels and life here in Australia to wrap things up. I do have a cell phone and regular internet access now, so if anyone wants to send me an email or give me a buzz, the number is [phone] or [e-mail]. I hope all is well and everyone is doing great.

Trevor

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