At the end of our stay in NZ, T and I were both depressed to leave. What are the chances of being in a country (especially NZ) and having it be sunny every day?  It’s obvious that we got to see the best of the weather and the country, but now we’re screwed, because we just want to come back and live there forever.

I’m not sure what brilliant comments I have to describe New Zealand, except that I love it here. Even in the rain (and I’ve been here in the rain), it’s a glorious landscape. There wasn’t a day that passed that I didn’t think how lucky I was to be here, and how glad I was that we came. I felt independent and strong and healthy, and it felt good. In conclusion, all I can really say is that New Zealand makes me glad to be alive, and that’s a pretty nice feeling.

After gaping at Lake Pukaki for what seemed like hours, we headed on to Lake Tekapo. I had a lovely picture of Tekapo that T took, but I just erased it accidentally. I do apologize. Tekapo was all right…the caravan park was really big and kind of weird, but it was fine for one night. (After the Wanaka campsite, everything is a disappointment. Since T and I had promised to swim in the ‘trifecta’ ofNZ rivers, oceans and lakes, we decided to jump in Tekapo. It was hot and we hadn’t yet swum in a lake. And now we know why. It was bloody freezing. T kept telling me it was colder than Golden Bay, and I argued with him until I was submerged up to my neck and totally convinced my heart would stop.  We spent the night eating some bad couscous, and practicing for T’s green card interview. I would ask him questions in a variety of different accents, and he would answer. I think my best accent was drunken pirate, but he thought that was unlikely. Psh. What does he know? I’m sure plenty of drunken pirates work at the Sydney consulate.

From there, it was on to Christchurch, along a road full of perfectly hideous lupines that had us once again questioning why we came to such an ugly country.

Christchurch is a very pretty city that looks a lot like England. The last time I was here, I had just spent three years in the UK, so the charms of the city were lost on me. This time, I feel as though I got a little more out of it. I even said to T that Christchurch is a very pleasant city, and he responded, “Yeah, if pleasant means boring.” Pretty rich coming from an Englishman, whose cities are practically identical!

Rid of the campervan, we stayed in a beautiful hostel called the Old Countryhouse. I kid you not, it was the nicest hostel I’ve ever seen, and baby, I seen me some hostels. After nearly three weeks in a van, having our own room and bathroom were almost too luxurious to imagine. Here are some shots of the courtyard outside our room and our door.

Again, one of the most exciting things about being out of the van was eating Food We Didn’t Cook Ourselves. And so we had dinner at Dux de Lux, a restaurant and microbrewery where we got to have a salad! And calamari! While drinking a bitter! (OK, only one of us had the bitter. 50 cents if you guess who.) We also had  lunch at a spectacular burrito restaurant, which T declared The Best In The Southern Hemisphere (I am excluding Latin America from this pronouncement, obviously.) We also had a delicious Indian dinner to conclude our stay in New Zealand–and it was lamb! (Which is kind of cheating, but at least I can now say I’ve eaten lamb in NZ.)

And of course, I added this picture to prove that everybody loves Clussic Huts.

One of the things here that we’ve been astonished by, repeatedly, is the water. It comes in all shades and is usually remarkably clear–at least in the rivers and lakes. We thought we’d seen it all until we drove past Lake Putaki, with Mt Cook in the background.

Do not adjust your screen. That is actually the color of the water, I kid you not. I can do some exciting things with the enhance option on iPhoto, but I can’t do this.

1. Kiwis drive fast. On the NZ roads, the speed limit is generally 100km/h, which is about 65-70mph. In actual fact, Kiwi drivers drive about 345km/h, or whatever is the speed of light.
2. Kiwi roads are always longer than they seem. Road signs will tell you that there is only 100km to your destination. Hurrah, you think! I will be there in an hour. Then you get onto the road, to realize that it is 100km of hairpin turns along a mountainside, upon which you can only drive 10km/h. To see the speed at which the locals travel these roads, please see above.
3. Kiwi dogs are full of love. I found that Australian dogs are highly ambivalent, snooty creatures who couldn’t care less about being patted or getting affection. I find this sick and wrong. Their Kiwi counterparts, however, are good dogs and will happily receive attention without making you feel like a fool for offering it. In addition, it appears that there is a law that every ute in NZ must have four dogs in the back. I think this is a fine rule, as it greatly increased my daily dog viewings.
4. Kiwi sun is astoundingly strong. When most people think of NZ, they think of skiing, or of little hobbits trekking through mountains to deliver some ring. In fact, NZ has one of the highest rates of skin cancer in the world, because there is about 1/10000th of a mm of ozone over the country. I managed to get a pretty fantastic farmer’s tan on both my arms, just from driving with my arm out the window. Had I not started putting sunscreen on, I would be the human equivalent of fried chicken right now.
5. Kiwi bugs are all bloodsucking vampires, wanting to drain you of every last drop of blood. I never thought I’d meet a bug I liked less than the mosquito (roaches excluded). Now, I have. The sandfly is a hideous monster created by Satan to torture me in the most picturesque places. They got me so often around the ankle that T suggested I grow my ankle hair into a cuff to keep them away. Instead, we agreed that I would grow my leg hair as a deterrent and he would grow a beard, just for fun. (Please note: If my brother is reading this, he has now just keeled over dead from horror at the thought of my hairy legs. Sorry, Bub.) Please also note that leg hair is not an effective deterrent.

It seems the West Coast of NZ is infested with these little *&^$#@% and T believes that’s why it’s so sparsely populated. Either way, I will not miss them at all, and neither will my bite-scarred legs.

After leaving Queenstown, we stopped in a little place called Kingston to call the kayak companies and see if we could get on some trips. As we were parked in a store parking lot next to the pay phone, suddenly a little old man on a Jazzy zoomed up from out of nowhere. He was selling jams to benefit the local fire dept., and he was completely adorable and charming. How can you say no to a cute old man on a Jazzy? We bought some cranberry jam for $3 and watched him zip over to all the other people in the car park, all of whom also bought jam.

Now, about the kayaking. Let it be said that I am usually right (except if T asks, in which case please tell him I said ALWAYS). I had really wanted to go kayaking and since we didn’t go in Abel Tasman, I wanted to go in Milford or Doubtful Sound. But nooooo, T thought that was a merely tolerable idea. He eventually caved, because I told him that the big boat tours are boring and there’s nothing else to do if you don’t do those.

We ended up doing a sunrise tour with Rosco’s Kayaking, which meant we were picked up at 7am by a girl named Kelly from Belfast and brought to the water, where there were only about a billion sandflies, waiting to chomp on me. We got dressed in some mighty sexy stripey thermals (yes, there were pictures; no you cannot see them) and we hit the water.

It didn’t take too long for T to realize that yes, I am always right. Once we got away from the shore and the sandflies disappeared, it was lovely. The water was perfectly calm and “stunningly clear,” as Kelly said, and we could see down to the bottom in the shallower parts. There were very few cruise boats out and no other kayakers. It was wonderful.

The only bad part was that we weren’t seeing any wildlife. Kelly had promised that if we saw none, she would go swimming, but that we would see fur seals, at least. A couple of hours had passed and we had seen nothing. We all started to console ourselves with the fact that the scenery was amazing, when Kelly saw something in the distance.

From far away, it looked like driftwood. When we got closer, we realized it was five fur seal pups, just hanging out. They were just floating around, doing nothing. Kelly said it was the first time she’d ever seen that many seals together, just swimming around, and even she was riveted. They just cruised around, flopping their fins, lying on their backs. They were right next to our kayaks, without a care in the world. We watched them for ages before we kept going.

After the seals, we saw a funny yellow-eyebrowed penguin called a Fiordland Crested Penguin, sitting on the rocks. He gave us quite a show, washing and doing his best catwalk turns. Then, we saw at least six more big fat fur seals, sunning themselves on the rocks.

Our final destination was the enormous waterfall that provides the power to the area. From a distance, it’s beautiful, but we didn’t get a sense of its scale until we walked over to it. It was really spectacular, despite the fact that we had to maneuver across loose rocks covered with moss to get to it, and I nearly died multiple times.

After the waterfall, we started back to the dock, but the wind had really picked up, making the water really wavy. We got kind of stuck for a while, but managed to reunite with the group, mostly because of my manly paddling skills. The group behind us full of obnoxious American cyclists got separated and I laughed inside.

In the end, the whole experience was pretty fantastic. I got to see seals and a penguin, the kayaking was really easy until the end, and the best part is that I WAS RIGHT AGAIN, which is the important thing. T admitted later that our Milford day was his favorite, along with the skydiving. Ha.

The last time I left Queenstown, I cried. This time when I entered the town, I almost did the same thing. I’m not sure what happened in the seven-year interim, but it looks totally different. I recognized nothing. Queenstown is now tourist central. There are stores and restaurants everywhere. There are condos on every block. There is a ^%$#@&* Louis Vuitton. LOUIS VUITTON, people!

To be honest, I found it all really depressing. I don’t have my photos from my last trip, but when we get back to Maine, I am going to pull them out, because I didn’t recognize a thing. In 2000, I spent a week in Queenstown because I loved it so much. It was a fun, kind of sleepy town—a lot like Wanaka was on this trip. This time, I was just grossed out.

T and I wandered around a little bit and decided to get lunch. Of course, since it’s so touristy there, everything was outrageously expensive. T wanted beer, so we hit the local Irish pub, Pog Mahone’s. The food wasn’t great but T had his 2 1/2 Guinnesses, so he was happy, and I was happy because we were sheltered from the icky, icky urban sprawl.

We spent two hours having lunch and then we left. Don’t get me wrong: Queenstown is still a beautiful place. The Remarkables are still stunning and the road coming into town is gorgeous. But the Others. Oh, so many Others.

We woke up early the next day, completely oblivious to what day it was, only knowing that it was horseback riding day. We drove out to Cardrona, where we went riding with Backcountry Saddle Tours. I should explain that T and I often try to go horseback riding when we’re traveling and it’s almost always a disappointment. Not because of the scenery or the horses, but because we want to canter the whole time and we never get to do it.

This time, sadly, was no different. The scenery was perfect, don’t get me wrong. We walked up into the mountains, overlooking Lake Hawea and the surrounding hills. There were pink and lilac lupines scattered about, and lovely little streams running through the hills. There was even a little dog that led the way, running through the fields and lying in the streams to refresh herself as she waited for us to catch up.

Again, the problem was that it was kind of boring. We walked for Ages and trotted far more than I would have liked (especially because I was on the last horse, who was considerably lazier than the others, so we kept having to trot to catch up). The first two times we cantered, the girl who was second in line didn’t know how to do it, so we trotted and trotted. The third one was good, but was too short, and the fourth time, the horses got all out of order and mine charged past T and the second girl and jumped the queue.

It was nice to be outside, though, and it was a beautiful, beautiful day. On our way back to Wanaka, we saw an example of typical New Zealand scenery:

After the riding, we picnicked in town, overlooking the water and decided to do the Rob Roy glacier walk. It was a “must do” in our book, and the girl at the campsite said it only took 3-4 hours. Even I could hike for 3-4 hours.

Things that should be mentioned in the guidebooks that tell you something is a “must-do”: the road to the Rob Roy glacier is at the end of 25km of unsealed road. The book said it took an hour to get there, so we figured it was no problem. Then we came to the end of the paved road and spent about an hour and a half bumping along the dirt road at 30km an hour, until we came to a ford. We gots a rental van! We ain’t going to cross no ford!

And so we climbed out, figuring that hell, we’d been driving for over an hour on the godforsaken unsealed road and how much further could the frigging glacier be? We soon found out. A car passed us as we were walking, and the driver slowed down, yelling “Woo hoo!” I thought he was just being a weiner and giving us a hard time because we were walking. It turns out he was a Red Sox fan (I should have guessed) and was applauding our hats. Helpful Sox fan informed us that the glacier was a 20-minute DRIVE from where we were. And so, back to the van. We were crossing the ford.

When T went to get the van, he spoke to two English girls who were about to make the same decision we did. He told them he’d drive them to the glacier, and we ended up taking Becca and Clara, two lovely girls from London, with us.

Helpful Sox fan wasn’t kidding about the road. However, by the time we returned to the van, T had had enough of this road and decided to fight back. And so we skidded and bumped our way to the glacier at much higher speeds than before. We crossed EIGHT FORDS on the way to the glacier (again, it might have been useful if that had been mentioned in ANY of the guidebooks—the English girls had a Lonely Planet which didn’t mention it either).

When we arrived, we made a deal with the girls that we would go first and if we decided to turn back, we’d pass them and we’d drive them back to the car. Unfortunately, as only T and I can do, we got lost immediately, and ended up in a field full of startled cows, jumping over a wire fence. In the distance, we could see the girls, and we followed them back to the correct path.

This hike was a real bitch. Sure, three to four hours! No problem! What I had forgotten was that I hate hiking and that it was also about 85 degrees with blistering sun. Hiking + sun = TERRIBLE IDEA. Also, we had been riding that morning and my calves were in a shameful state. So we climbed. Up, up, up. We passed dozens of people climbing down. “Oh, it’s beautiful,” they said. “Oh, it’s worth it,” they promised. I made a mental note to hunt each of them down and kill them slowly if they were wrong.

Finally, after T had to help me stretch my calves (I was literally about to cry with pain), a couple passed us. “20 minutes more!” they cried. Is it worth it? we asked. “Yes, yes,” promised the husband. “If it’s not, you can find me later.” Oh, I will, brother. I will.

Finally, sweaty and dirty and pissy, we saw the girls at what we thought was the end of the road. It turns out they had been climbing at record speeds trying to catch up with us, and since I had told them I am a slow hiker, they were most confused. And we still weren’t at the end of the bloody trail.

We reached it about 5 minutes later. I guess it was worth it. The glacier was spectacular. It was covered with pristine, virginal snow (not like that dirty Franz Josef), and there were waterfalls all over. We stopped to rest for a while, and then began the descent down. Going down the mountain is much easier than going up, can I just say? It was lovely and cool in the forest on the way down, and the four of us talked the entire way (well, mostly the girls. As usual, T listened).

We got back into the car, all disgustingly stinky and starving, and we decided to gun it back to Wanaka. On the way back, T was driving at least 70km/h and the girls were right behind. Unfortunately, on the way back, all the local animals decided it was dinnertime and began to venture into the road in front of us. Let me tell you: sheep and cows are dumber than rocks. The would get in the road in front of our car, and then freak out and just run down the road IN FRONT OF US, instead of getting off the road. T started ruminating about having some fresh lamb for dinner, and I was in full agreement.

We got back to the campsite in one hour. From the glacier. It took about two hours to get there, but only an hour to get back. I am sorry to report that T’s bird count is now 3-0. He was moaning about “suicidal birds” and swerved to miss one, and another one RICOCHETED OFF THE WINDSCREEN. It was the funniest thing I have ever seen. He is now officially The Slayer. Please note that I have killed no animals in New Zealand.

When we got back to the campsite, we sprinted for the hot tub and the sauna. Then we fell into a long, deep sleep.

Postscript to the founding members of the Giant Thigh Fan Club: Fear not! There is still plenty of thigh to be found, both right and left.