I had a solo Chrissy in Sydney, while T went to visit his family. Luckily Sydney is one of the best places I can imagine to spend Christmas by myself. We know so many expats here, as well as some lovely Aussies, I had no less than 12 offers to join other people's celebrations, so I was far from lonely. It also happened to be a lovely long streak of hot and sunny weather, which meant beach days for me!
Sun's shining at 6 AM - time to go to the beach!
Christmas Eve - Chinamans Beach
The ice cream boat came by a few times while I was at Chinamans Beach.
Next up was Clovelly Beach for Christmas Day. I thought it might be quiet, but that turned out not to be the case at all.
Madness!
I talked to a local man who was also watching this craziness. He told me it's a tradition for the lifesaving station every Christmas. The community brings out hard boiled eggs. At a given time, the kiddos jump in the water and people throw the eggs in. If a kid gets an egg, s/he can exchange it for an ice cream. And they dye the water green for good measure. Australia is weird.
On the ocean end of them beach, it was a bit quieter. Perfect for me and some snorkeling!
I had such good snorkeling at Clovelley, I went back on my last day off from work too. Lots of beautiful fish, and some huge groper, at least three feet long. On my second visit, though, a woman near me got a really good sting from a bluebottle jellyfish. I decided I was good for the day after that!
My Christmas Day included a lunch at a friends house. The couple is from France and Germany, and so we had a French-German-Aussie lunch while I played with their 15 month old baby. It was a quiet, happy day.
The city was done up for Christmas too!
Christmas Eve service and a thunderstorm about to happen
Santa delivering presents Aussie-style
Martin Place Christmas Tree
Everybody is trying to stay cool
"Stacy said no soup today. Too hot"
And there we have it! Merry Christmas from Sydney!!
The biggest chunk of our time in New Zealand was spent hiking the Milford Track. It's a four day hike (with a final fifth day spent in the Milford Sound). We took the "luxury" approach to the hike, paying a company for a guided walk, which meant we had lodges to stay in each night, and only had to carry our clothes and personal items. This was totally the way to go.
T & I had been training beforehand, so the 10 - 13 mile days weren't so rough. What was rough, though, was the weather! It rains 300 days of the year there, and five of those were on the days we were hiking. It was a lot of rain and a lot of cold.
The hiking company sent us some stock photos after we finished our hike. You can see that we didn't get quite the views from the brochure. But it was still fun!!!
Our version and brochure-version of the MacKinnon pass
Another set of views from the pass
The most extreme difference in the shiny online pictures and our experience was the sheer amount of water. That manifested in trails becoming more like streams, when the water you're meant to be walking beside gets so high it covers the trail. No waterproof gear can withstand that amount of water, so our feet stayed wet each day. Wet with VERY cold, melted snow water. On the plus side, a group behind us told us that they saw an eel swimming with them while they waded at one point. We were just as happy not to have known that was happening!
We'd heard about the Milford Track before we went that it's great in all kinds of weather. If it's sunny, you get the spectacular mountain views. But if it rains, you get to see waterfall spring up all around you. And that's what we saw - it was amazing!
Plenty of waterfalls, like this one, are there year round
Even though we stayed wet and cold all day every day, we knew that there was a dry and warm lodge waiting for us at the end of the day. We'd get to the lodge, wash our clothes for the next day, and put them in the generator room to dry. Then we'd settle in to play some cards and have dinner while the rain kept coming down.
One of our lodges
All of the lodges except the first and last one are accessible only by helicopter. We happened to be there at one on their supply day. It was pretty incredible to see the copter navigate its way through the valley and onto a pretty tiny pad, fighting the wind each time.
One of my favorite things about the lodges was getting to see the keas. They look like parrots, but they are huge and green, and they live in the mountains around the Sound. They are such cool birds! A guide told us (and later we confirmed on the internet) that they have the intelligence of 4 year olds. We couldn't leave anything outside because they would take it and stick it up in a tree, just for a game. At one lodge, they had a post with boots attached for the keas to chew on. So we could watch them by the window, destroying boots and trying to peck away at the helicopter when the pilot wasn't around.
For the most part, the hiking was easy to moderate. The trails were pretty stony, but only one day was intense climbing. Most of the time it was like walking through a beautiful rainforest.
A rainforest with snow-capped mountains above....
Our day of intense climbing was in the middle of the week. We had a 9 mile day, which wasn't so bad. Unfortunately, we also had to climb about 2,000 feet in elevation for the first few miles of that. We left quite early that day to make sure we were down the other side of the pass in plenty of time. It was 11 switchbacks up the mountain to MacKinnon Pass - named for the explorer who mapped the route to the sounds.
The climb was pretty intense, mostly because of how hard we worked. By the time we got to the top of the pass, we were pretty warm and sweaty. That changed almost instantly, as the wind at the top was almost unbearable, and it was sleeting. We stopped for one quick photo at the memorial to MacKinnon, tried to peer through the cloud for the infamous views, but then practically ran the last 30 minutes along the ridgetop to the mid-way lodge. Luckily, there was a heater there, and guides making sure the ones of us looking hypothermic were well taken care of. Doubly-luckily, we heard the next day's group actually had colder weather with full-on snow. Shew!
Trying to make our fingers work and switch to dry layers
What goes up most go down, and we went down for about 3 or 4 hours. And we also got in a little extra mileage since the main trail was still closed for the season due to avalanche risk. Our knees and ankles were done by the end of the day. You can be sure we spent a lazy night in the lodge and slept great that night.
The rest of the hike was mostly flat. On the last day, we even got a few minutes of no rain!
On the downside, no rain means that the sandflies were out in full force. Sandflies look like miniature house flies, but they bite like mosquitoes and are even more aggressive. We decided to eat our lunch walking on the last day, just to avoid having to continually fight them off. T was not a fan of anything about that situation.
Our hike ended at the Milford Sound, where we took a boat from the end of the trail to our final lodge. The next day, we took a boat out into the Sound to experience the mountains from the water. Of course, it was raining. And it was so windy we weren't sure we were going to get to go out at all - the wind was 100 knots in the morning, with a 4-7 meter swell towards the ocean side. But luckily it calmed down enough for us to get our boat ride in. And after the previous few days, standing on deck in beating wind and rain to see the best views didn't phase us at all!
I have way more photos than could possibly fit in a single blog post. But here's some more in a video plus some bonus action footage:
After our hike (post coming soon!), we flew back to Christchurch to pick up a rental car. The flight from Queenstown was really short, but it has to be one of the most beautiful airports in the world.
We also said goodbye to Scotty here =(
After picking up our car, we headed straight out to Akaroa for a couple days of post-hike relaxing. Akaroa is on the Banks Peninsula, which is about an hour and a half drive east of Christchurch. It's called Banks Peninsula after Captain Cook's botanist, Joseph Banks (even though those guys didn't land there). It's a pretty interesting area geographically: whereas Christchurch is pretty flat, the Peninsula has drastic hills. It was formed by volcanic activity, which is exactly how it looks on a map.
The other interesting thing about Akaroa is that it was primarily settled by the French. Back in the day, a French whaler decided he wanted to settle the peninsula and establish it as a French colony. So he headed back to France, loaded up a boat with brave Frenchmen and women, and headed back. But right before they arrived, the English claimed New Zealand for Britain. The French decided to stay in Akaroa as they'd planned, and to this day, it's heavily influenced by the French settlers.
French flags flying outside the French bakery with a Frenchman inside
There's not too much going on in little Akaroa. It's a tiny town, but there was enough for us to stay content for a couple days! The town is right along one of the bays of the peninsula, so there's some fishing and boating. Most of the industry of the town seems to be centered around tourism, but it's still a very small village and definitely not over-crowded with visitors.
A portable piano - we sat and listened to the pianist for a while
We didn't have any set plans for our stay: just relaxing and resting after our hike. After a mix-up with our initial accommodation, we ended up getting a BnB right in town, which was perfect because we could walk everywhere. The gardens were a perfect way to enjoy some sunshine!
Our days in Akaroa were spent walking through the shops in the village, hanging out at the house, and finding cute little places to eat.
A good place for lunch!
Walking around Akaroa
Checking out the cute houses
Looking up plants in the plant app =)
Always on the lookout for a dog that needs a pat!
One of our activities was a windy, curvy, narrow drive out to Okains Bay - one of the smallest and curviest I've ever driven on. There's not much in Okains Bay - a few little houses, a tiny school, and a campground. There is also a big Maori museum, which was what took us there in the first place. The museum was really interesting, and we learned a lot about the original settlers of the island.
But our real find in Okains Bay was the bay itself. It was a gorgeous beach, and we had it completely to ourselves. It was hard to believe that such a beautiful spot didn't have anyone else there enjoying it!
Our time in Akaroa was very relaxing. If there was a downside to our time there, it was that the village was maybe a little too small and laid back. Finding places that were actually open during their posted hours turned into quite a challenge. From dinner at a restaurant, to visiting a winery, to seeing a lavender farm, to renting kayaks, it sometimes felt like a constant challenge to contribute to the town's economy! For example, Aunt Kaye, Holly, and I went to the kayak rental shop on a sunny afternoon. The man serving the counter told Holly that his boss had "a lot of meetings" that day, and that kayaking "wasn't going to happen." On another occasion on our way out of town, we stopped at a little art & garden shop that was going to open at 10. By 10:10 no one had arrived. We'd experienced enough during our days in Akaroa to know that there was a good chance no one would arrive all day. We went on our way!
This sign pretty much sums up the speed of life on the peninsula:
Always best to write your hours in chalk so you can head home early if you want!
Even though we weren't able to do some of the things we wanted to do in Akaroa, it was still charming. And in some ways, that casual approach to running a business added to its charm. Plus, it gave us plenty of time to appreciate things that are always around!
