Rainbow Warrior - (Kerikeri)
Our long awaited dive to the rainbow warrior certainly did not disappoint, after our days of patience waiting for the weather to turn for good diving conditions. We were up early in order to get kitted up and drive to the dive site, where we picked up a father and daughter duo who were to accompany us (Brent and I, as well as another diver Nick, and our guide Kelly) to the sunken ship. We pushed the dive boat out into the water and cruised for 10 or 15 minutes until we found the area of the wreck. Normally a buoy marks the stern of the ship and is used as an assent / descent line, but this had blown away with the winds from the previous days and so we dropped anchor and hoped we were close. We were, in fact, as it landed on the deck of the ship and we descended to our best diving experience to date.
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| launching the dive boat into the water |
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| all geared up and looking really cool. I mean, ready to dive. |
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| snorkel Brent: the precursor to scuba Brent |
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| descent complete - checking beginning gauges |
The Rainbow Warrior is a sunken Greenpeace ship that was struck down by the French in NZ waters, and later re-sunk near Kerikeri to become an artificial reef for marine life in the area. In 1985, the Rainbow Warrior was in the South Pacific protesting nuclear testing by various governments. The French at that time were undergoing nuclear testing and had a test site planned for an uninhabited island. The Rainbow Warrior was moored in Aukland harbour, drumming up support and other ships to go protest the nuclear testing and put a stop to the drop. While gathering support and supplies in Auckland, the French secret service sent in some agents, who planted limpet mines on the hull of the ship and sunk it, killing a photographer who was on board. The New Zealand Police apprehended the operatives before they got out of the country, and charged them with espionage related offences. Relations between New Zealand and France were pretty tense for a while. As a result of the sinking, many Kiwi yachts and other boats sailed to the island that was to be bombed, and moored in a protest to both the testing and the actions taken by the French in New Zealand waters. This stopped the test, and Nuclear testing by the French ceased for 15 years following. The Warrior was raised for an investigation, and upon discovering that it was no longer sea worthy, it was towed to Matuari Bay and sunk to become an artificial reef and an unofficial marine sanctuary, protecting and nurturing the sea life the ship and it's crew fought so hard to protect. In the 24 years since this has happened, the waters have certainly reclaimed the ship as a refuge for all sorts of fish, kelp, anemone, and other sea life. The white sand that the ship rests on (maximum depth 27 meters) reflected the sunlight filtering through the water, lending much more light to the vessel than can normally be seen at comparable depths. The ship itself is only 40 meters long, which means that you can easily explore the perimeter of it in one dive and gain an appreciation for the general outline and make of the wreck.
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| hull of the ship (professional photo) |
As the other divers were still working through their various lessons for accreditation, Kelly stayed with them and Brent and I were free to dive the wreck on our own, swimming and exploring to whichever parts we were most interested to see at the time. For our first dive, we descended to the maximum depth and circled the ship slowly, admiring the anemones, seaweeds, shells, and fish that had completely covered the exterior of the wreck and formed homes on any available space. As we were fairly deep for the entire dive, we used up our air quite quickly and were only able to circle the ship once before returning to the dive boat. After having lunch and spending enough time above water to allow our bodies to work out much of the nitrogen that you acquire at depth, we made our second dive of the day back down to the Rainbow Warrior. This time we swam mostly along the deck of the ship, where we could see a ladder that connected the lower deck to the upper deck; we could look in the windows (covered in sea life and harbouring fish), we could swim along a walkway on the lower deck that was kind of like a tunnel but with one open side, and we could enter a small room filled with fish life and swim out a window on the other side. This room was especially cool and we went in a few times, as "big-eyed" fish love caves and dark places and there were hundreds hanging out inside. At one point Brent swam above to take a photo from the window of me inside, but I waited at the door to the room for at least a minute while a giant blue cod hung out in the doorway and stared at me.
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| swimming towards the bow of the ship |
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| the deck, covered in marine life |
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| inside the room with the big-eyed fish |
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| swimming along the walkway |
The photos I took during this dive give a small window to what we saw that day, but they in no way do justice to how beautiful and eerie the sunken ship really was. The professional photos, taken a few years ago by a pro photographer / scuba diver who went to the wreck with the same company we did, certainly give a better example of the beauty we saw that day.
Sonic Waves Music Concert - (Coromandel)
While in Kerikeri (and with free internet), we did a few searches for any live music in the area, and I found a concert called "sonic waves" featuring all New Zealand bands that was playing Easter weekend in the Coromandel, a peninsula east of Auckland. So, after hanging up our wet suits and finally packing up our bags, we drove to Coromandel town, where we spent a night in our tent, and then to Whitianga, where we spent the night in a basement apartment, since the hostel we wanted to stay at was full. It was actually quite a nice treat - we shared it with a woman and her mother-in-law who were selling fruits and vegetables in the area, and we had our own private kitchen, bathroom, and living room for the night. After our night there, we drove a little south, to a field beside a school in a small town that was to play host to some local musical talent. We set up our tent in a farmer's field that had quite a few cow patties, and sat under the awning of our tent as the rain came down and we waited for the concert to begin. Fortunately, though, we had some pretty cool neighbours and joined in their makeshift rain-barrier set up and hung out for awhile. Sometime in the late afternoon the rain started to let up and the music began, and so we went up to the stage and danced and danced and danced until early in the morning.
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| our makeshift rain cover |
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| our neighbours, just before heading up to the stage |
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| Hollie Smith & Tyson Smith |
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| The Black Seeds! |
Rotorua
The morning after the concert we packed up the tent and headed into town for some breakfast, before taking off for the stinky (but pretty) city of Rotorua. Rotorua is the hub of Maori activity and tourism in NZ, with many shows and cultural events taking place all the time in the city. It is a natural thermal hotspot and the entire city smells like eggs - a result of the sulphur released from the warm earth and water in the area. One of the popular things to do in Rotorua is to participate in a "hangi," this is a traditional Maori way of cooking food in a sort of underground oven, kept hot by the natural geothermal activity in the area. These hangis involve quite a bit of meat, however, and are also often quite expensive, and so we opted for a well deserved afternoon nap the first day, and the second day we took advantage of the rainy weather by visiting one of the natural hot pools in the area. It was warm and nice to soak in the hot pools against the cool air, and our skin felt fantastic and very soft after spending a few hours there.
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| steamy steamy hot pools |
Elle's - (Kawhia)
After Rotorua, we went back to Oparau to visit with Elle, Maddie and Mitch again (they really can't keep us away for too long), and to get our car updated with a WOF (warrant of fitness), which has to updated every 6 months in New Zealand. While we were there Christophe and Pescaline, some of Elle's previous WWOOFers, were also there, and so we got to hang out with them for awhile. Highlights of the visit include a trip to Hamilton to see "Paul" on the big screen and eat at a delicious Chinese restaurant, watch Elle and the kids get dressed up for a wedding, hang out with Christophe and Pescaline, finally cut Brent's hair (with Lou's clippers), and have a delicious brunch with everyone and Jane, who came back for a visit.
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| big yawn from Wawa, who loves snuggling up in freshly cleaned laundry |
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| post brunch tea party |
Wanganui
We have a history of telling Elle we will be staying with her for a certain length of time, and then extending it by at least a few days, so all bets in town were that we would hang out for awhile longer, but for the first time in awhile we had a bit of a schedule to stick to. My parents were arriving in a few days and we wanted to spend a couple of nights in Wanganui at the hostel where our friend Andy works, and so we took off as planned from Elle's house, after an afternoon where I rowed with the whaleboat team, of course. It was pretty great to see Andy again and to explore Wanganui for a second time. We made it back to the fantastic park in the middle of the city, and this time we found the bamboo forest - bamboo grows much higher than a person if you allow it to! It is a definite possibility that Andy, Brent, and I, being Canadian and in New Zealand for more than half a year, made poutine both nights that we were there. Oh poutine, how we have missed you. Sticking to our schedule, we left Wanganui and spent a bit of time in Wellington while we waited for our ferry, which brought us back to the South island late at night and where we crashed at the Juggler's Rest again, before taking off early the next day for Christchurch to pick up Mary and Bob.
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| Brent in the bamboo forest |
MEET THE FOCKERS
Christchurch
Thus begins the most interesting tale of traveling with my parents, which is certainly a different style of travel than the dirty vagabond life that we have become so accustomed to. We made it to Christchurch with just enough time to check into the bach (pronounced "batch," which is the Kiwi term for a holiday home) and drop off our bags before making it to the airport to pick up Mary and Bob. It was incredibly surreal to return to Christchurch after the quake. The city is barely a skeleton of what it was when we first arrived in November. I remember feeling almost excited to experience the small aftershocks that we had after the September quake, but after seeing the devastation in the city from the February quake and feeling its aftershocks, I most certainly did not feel excited. Much of the center city is still cordoned off and the public is unable to even walk into these areas. Most of the stone, brick, or cement buildings are at least partially ruined and some have crumbled completely to the ground and can now be considered only rubble. In some homes, huge portions of wall have crumbled to the ground to reveal the contents of rooms once inhabited, posters still on the wall and chairs still on the floor. By large measure it pays to watch where you step, as much of the sidewalk ("footpaths") have heaved and are no longer flat. There were a few places I would have liked to go back to, but mostly only those stores / restaurants / buildings outside the city center are still available to the public. Having a car was most certainly beneficial for getting around Christchurch after the quake.
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| what the streets you CAN drive on look like |
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| what many of the buildings look like |
We only allotted two nights to Christchurch for this reason, and so the main event of our time in the city (aside from allowing Mary and Bob time for getting over jet-lag) was a visit to the International Antarctic Center, a sort of interactive museum / experience of life in the Antarctic. Christchurch is the staging area for most of the countries who conduct research in the Antarctic - many warehouses owned by various countries house supplies and equipment in Christchurch, and depart from the city center for trips to the Antarctic. The center had quite a few cool features, including a habitat for a small population of little blue penguins who are in some way damaged and unable to survive on their own in the wild, a "Hagglund," which is the all-terrain, amphibious vehicle used in the Antarctic, and which they have created a course outside to showcase its features while you get to test-drive from the back cab, a "storm room" where you can experience a sort-of storm (really not even comparable to most winter days at home), and a 4-D movie theatre showing an Antarctic expedition, where you are transported via boat (the chairs rock when you hit waves and water spurts at you), and where various other things happen, such as a bird pooping on your face as water splashes you.
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| penguin crossing (not really) |
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| the Hagglund |
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| a little blue penguin |
Oamaru
Bob and Mary largely wanted to follow the same route that Brent and I first took through the South island, and so after Christchurch we packed up and headed back down towards Oamaru, the historic town with the yellow-eyed penguins, nice cheeses, and the crazy wallaby lady. We took the slightly longer but much more beautiful scenic route through the mountains, and along the way we stopped again at Lake Pukake for a view of Mt. Cook and to soak in the nicer weather in the area. We also stopped at a historic, tiny, and beautiful church in the area that Mary was keen to see. It seems to have turned into a bit of a tourist attraction, and as we entered they handed us a pamphlet that described how in its construction, no stones were moved at all - any in the way of the foundation were simply worked into the building itself, and all of the stones used in its construction came from a 5 kilometer radius around the church.
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| the stone church |
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| Mary, Bob & I next to lake Pukake |
We then headed on towards Oamaru itself, where we stayed in another bach in a beautiful but noisy location next to the sea and the train station. Our first day we took a trip to Waimate to visit the crazy wallaby lady again and to wander through the enclosures and feed the hungry little buggers. Mary enjoyed the experience as much as we knew she would, but the surprising one was Bob, who took quite a liking to the wallabies and was all smiles as he talked to them and hand fed them while patting their backs. After hanging out with the wallabies for awhile (and the moulting geese, and the duck with a funky hairdo, and the peacocks and hens, etc...), and after hearing a few stories from the crazy wallaby lady, we went back to the Riverstone kitchen for a delicious lunch (and for Mary, 4 cookbooks and a wild meat marinade).
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| got any tasty treats? |
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| Mary feeding the wallabies |
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| Bob feeding the wallabies - look at that jolly grin! |
As well as checking out the art galleries and shops around, we also went back to the viewing area of the yellow-eyed penguin colony, for a slightly rainier but overall more successful glimpse of the penguins as they waddled in from the sea. We were quite close to a few of them, and even saw a seal come out of the ocean and onto the beach, perhaps hoping for a tasty penguin treat.
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| Bob riding his childhood bike in the historic district |
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| the penguin viewing beach |
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| a yellow-eyed penguin |
Dunedin
Leaving Oamaru, we again followed the highway that allowed us a few side trips - one to the Moeraki Boulders and another to the fur seal colony at Shag Point. We had trouble finding accommodation in Dunedin as we arrived at convocation time for the Otago University students, and so we booked 2 double rooms in the hostel at Elm Lodge that Brent and I had called home for 2 weeks around Christmas. When Brent and I were there we had one small portion of the hostel mostly to ourselves as the share room in that part of the hostel was rarely rented out, but unfortunately when we arrived this was not the case, and 5 or 6 noisy and messy Americans were repairing bikes, skyping, eating, cooking, and not cleaning up anything in the living area of the hostel. Apparently a "youth hostel" is not the most appropriate place for a 61 and 74 year old, and so we set about finding a new place and were thankfully successful with a holiday park just outside the center city. The eclectic mix of the first night was, ahem, interesting, but I think we were overall happier with our spot for the next few days.
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| Brent chilling out on the Moeraki boulders |
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| lazy seals soaking up what little sun there was |
While in Dunedin we split up and did our own thing for a lot of it, as Brent and I had a few places we wanted to go back to and a few new things we wanted to do, and Mary and Bob had not seen any of it before. Dunedin has a really great Museum and Art Gallery, both of which are free, and all of us spent quite a bit of time there. The art gallery also has a section with lots of New Zealand-made films with computers and headphones to watch them, and Brent and I spent an entire morning there watching short films and a hilarious feature film from the 70s. We did do quite a few things together as well though, such as a mother's day breakfast next to a stormy ocean with with lots of crashing waves, and a tour of Speight's Brewery, "pride of the south," which included a self-pour beer tasting experience at the end.
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| fancy morning coffees for mother's day |
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| hieroglyphics pertaining to beer (for real!) |
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| chilling out next to the beer tanks |
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| shiny shiny beer tanks |
Another of our group activities was the Monarch Nature cruise, which we were the only passengers on. We boarded the boat in downtown Dunedin and then cruised along the entire length of the Otago Peninsula while our skipper pointed out the wildlife that could be seen. We saw shags, oyster catchers, a little blue penguin, fur seals, and especially cool, the royal albatross, which has a 3 meter wing span and can spend weeks in the air, barely flapping their wings. The location we went at the tip of the Otago peninsula is the only place in the world where albatross breed and nest on mainland. They were quite interested in us, as they often follow fishing boats hoping for some freebees from their daily catch, and I suppose it can be hard to tell which boats have tourists and which have tasty fish and squid on board. Particularly cool was watching these giant birds take off, as they just lean in towards the wind, wait for a good gust, and spread their wings and allow themselves to be taken by the wind.
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| setting out - windy and cold but beautiful |
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| albatrosses! |
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| shags on a pier |
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| feeding time - mmm regurgitated fish and squid |
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| gracefully in flight |
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| fur seal |
Another cool thing we did in Dunedin was go to see a live theater act called "God of Carnage," which was written by the famous playwright Yasmina Reza and features 4 actors in a living room setting throughout the entire performance. The play begins as the two sets of parents discuss a playground incident involving their children in an amicable way, attempting to resolve the fight that happened between their children. Gradually, however, they become more and more irate and the play gets quite a bit funnier. Bob now quotes his favorite line from the play daily, citing that he is: "fundamentally uncouth."
Te Anau
Next on the list was Te Anau, where we had booked what I was most excited about: Doubtful Sound. Coming in at a close second, of course, was Miles Better Pies, which has the most delicious vegetarian pie in NZ - a hard feat in a country known for its pies. We arrived in the afternoon and of course sampled all that we had been missing in pastry goodness before wandering through the town. Bob and Mary watched the Fiordland film "shadow land" and went to see the glowworm caves, both of which Brent and I had already done on our first trip through several months ago.
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| Miles Better! mmm! thankfully we got there before they closed for the winter |
The next day we woke up early for Doubtful Sound, which is 3 times longer and has 10 times the area of Milford Sound, which Brent and I had kayaked in January. It is also much more remote and has far fewer tourists than the more accessible Milford Sound. To this measure, we took a bus from Te Anau to Manapouri, a ferry boat across lake Manapouri, then another bus to the cruise ship from which we saw the fiords. Doubtless Sound, like many of the "sounds" in New Zealand, was actually misnamed when it was first "discovered" by the English, as it is actually fiords. It was named "Doubtful" Sound because Captain Cook, when he first sailed there in 1770, was doubtful that if he went into the fiords he would be able to get enough wind speed to get back out. The icing on the cake for our cruise, however, was that was were 100% refunded for it. A woman just outside where you get on the cruise ship approached Mary and apologized that Fiordland Cruises, who she had booked the tour with, would be unable to take us as their boat was still being serviced. She had put us on the exact same cruise with another company, and then handed her an envelope with the entire sum of what she had paid for all four of us.
The weather that day was pretty on-again off-again with heavy showers followed by drizzle followed by patches of sun and then back again, but mostly it was fairly wet - which is actually pretty decent for the sounds, which rain 200 days of the year, and which have spectacular waterfalls during wet weather. It would be pretty difficult to try to describe the beautiful, surreal scenery of Doubtful Sounds, so instead I'll give you a small snap shot of one of the most beautiful places on earth. Frodo, eat your heart out...
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| at the entrance to the Doubtful Sound |
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| beautiful but ccccold in the wind |
Queenstown
Queenstown was fairly wet for our stay and the gondola was not running, so we did and saw most of what we wanted to on the first day - including the best icecream / gelato / sorbet place ever: patagonia, and of course the legendary Fergburger ("in Ferg we trust"), where Bob got possibly the largest burger known to mankind. We arrived on a Saturday and there was a market and live music by the water which was pretty cool, and the next day we took a day trip first to Arrowtown, and then to Wanaka. In Arrowtown we perused the old Chinese settlement from the gold mining days and checked out / revisited the museum and shops around town. In Wanaka we went into a beautiful merino wool store and went back to the very cool theater that has couches, airplane seats, and an old car instead of regular theater seating, and watched "water for elephants." Both Mary and I had read the book and thought the movie was really well done and interesting - Brent said he was bored and Bob asked a lot of questions about the plot line.
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| fall colours in the market area |
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| the view from outside Arrowtown on the crown range highway |
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| Wanaka |
On our way out of Queenstown we stopped at the Kawarau Bridge, which is the original bungee jumping bridge, to watch people jump. I decided that I would probably regret it if I didn't hurtle myself off a bridge attached to an elastic band in New Zealand, and Brent was not to be convinced, and so I booked myself in and climbed up to the edge. It was a lot of fun, and not nearly as scary as when we did the canyon swing this summer.
Franz Josef
Our final "fun family outing" for this trip was in the glacier town of Franz Josef, where Mary and Bob hoped to take a helicopter up to the top of the glacier, and Brent and I were anxious to do a hike up to see it, as we had been thoroughly rained out our last time through. The weather gods, however cooperative they had been for the rest of our trip, were unfortunately not in good humour for the west coast. Understandable, I suppose, in an area of dense rain forest. Unpredictable winds and heavy downpours ensured that none of us got to do the activities we were hoping for, but we did have quite a nice spot at the holiday park to turn on the heater and watch the wind and the water pour down. Brent did a solo hike to the foot of the glacier, which I declined as everyone agreed we would be caught in multiple heavy downpours. Mary and Bob perused all of the gift shops in town, and I stayed at home to catch up on laundry and this blog.
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| Falls on walk to Franz Josef |
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| Glacier Valley |
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| Franz Josef Glacier |
