E noho ra, Aotearoa.

One last morning in New Zealand. We breakfast on a well-stocked buffet at our accommodations, the Hotel de Brett, in Auckland city center. Most of the day is spent shopping — gifts, knickknacks, a new shirt for Eric, a possum tail for Tusker…the day goes quickly, and we soon find ourselves back at Auckland International Airport. There, on the runway, we find a plane decorated nose-to-tail in a Hobbit ad.

If you got it, flaunt it…New Zealand Air, and the country itself, may seem a little overboard with Lord of the Rings / Hobbit-themed advertisements. But there’s a reason Peter Jackson chose this land as a setting for his retelling of Tolkien’s stories (beyond being kiwi himself): New Zealand has it all. Soaring mountains, rolling, welcoming countryside, open ocean, deep caves, warm people, great food.

We’ve had the honeymoon of a lifetime. These islands on the other side of the world from our home have treated us well. E noho rā, Aotearoa.

The Garden of Dunedin

The rain blows over just after we get out our umbrella and head down the hill to the Botanical Gardens of Dunedin. Winding our way through the geographical gardens, we stumble across an aviary, where we see a wide array of New Zealand birds we mostly had not seen elsewhere (no kiwis, though). Among them is Sid, a talking parrot, who regales us with Kiwi-accented questions: “How are you?” “Have a cup of tea?”

We discover the Rhododendron Dell, which is a bit past its prime (late November is bordering on summer in New Zealand), but still magnificent, with towering bushes more petal than leaf. We grab a coffee (Maori-style cappuccino, see photo below) and a crepe in the Croque-O-Dile cafe in the gardens, and make our way out through the rose garden. We stumble across a puddle of napping kitties on our way back to our quirky B&B, then pack up and head off to the airport.

Back in Auckland. Last 24 hours of our trip. Making the most of it, we dine in the O’Connell St. Bistro on a Monday night, joined mainly by banker-types and international businesspeople. We’re in our own world, with one last delicious, hearty New Zealand dinner. (These are the moments that make us city people — we love adventure, but we love a beautifully-executed, wholly delicious meal even more!)

Better Than Disneyland

The last leg of our 160km trip across Central Otago. We awake refreshed from our lazy day yesterday and walk out into a foggy morning. As we ride, the fog quickly burns off, revealing views of the Rock and Pillar Range on the right (west) and the valley stretching down, eventually, to the South Pacific on our left (east).

Many critters pop up along our trail, from the ubiquitous sheep and cows to a billy goat in a box, some beautiful, delicious-looking turkeys (a few days too late for Thanksgiving!), and the occasional alpaca or two. The views get better again, and finally the trail flattens out to a straight 6k run along the base of Rock and Pillar Range to Middlemarch, the end of our journey. We celebrate with Hokey Pokey-flavor ice cream and board a train back to civilization.

The Taieri Gorge Express is easily the most gorgeous (in the Ithaca sense of the word) ride we’ve ever taken, with a sheer drop to the Taieri River on one side and steep slopes thick with yellow wildflowers on the other. We kick back with a Bundaberg ginger beer and an Emerson’s London Porter and enjoy the ride.

Eventually, we arrive in Dunedin, on the southeast coast of the South Island, the southernmost point of our journey. We’re well below the 45th parallel at this point, and the sun stays up until 10pm. We make the most of it by walking around the town and getting tapas and local brews at Inch Bar, then head up the hill to our B&B for some well-earned shuteye.

Ranfurly Rest Stop

Morning in Naseby — quiet, except for birdsong and light rain, which clears up before we finish breakfast. We depart Church Mouse and stroll through the main part of town (about 5 buildings on a single street corner) and head over to the Maniototo Curling Rink for some international curling action.

Entering the spectator section, we’re greeted with hushed conversation among the curling fans, all sitting on the edge of their seats. We hoped to be sitting down by the rink, like with an ice hockey game, but apparently curling takes intense concentration and we’re sealed off in a viewing area perched above one end of the lanes.

Unfortunately, Team Kazakhstan was eliminated early on, as were the Kiwis. We watch matches between the men’s and women’s teams for China vs. Australia and Japan vs. Korea. It’s exciting to see teams from all around this part of the globe, but…curling’s not really an electrifying event. After watching a few ends, we pack up and ride 10k down to Ranfurly.

Today is our “rest day”, so that’s the only biking for today. Not much going on in Ranfurly but a hot tub and a comfy bed, so we take the afternoon easy and then head to St. Bathans for a walk around Blue Lake and dinner at the Vulcan Hotel. St. Bathans is 10k down a gravel road, and while it’s now in the middle of the country, it used to be an important spot for gold mining. Blue Lake is just a watered-down gold quarry, which in its heyday was called the “Glory Hole” by the locals. Really.

The Vulcan, like the Ancient Briton last night in Naseby, is full of locals and locals only, and serves up a great plate of meat and veggies. We explore the tiny town, check out the old church, cemetery, and school ruins, and drive home to Ranfurly alongside a beautiful sunset in the “Big Sky” land of central Otago.

Riders of Rohan

From Lauder Store, we get back on the trail to wind around the north end of the Rock and Pillar Range. According to the locals, this promises to be the most scenic part of the journey. The trail quickly makes good on the promise, with broad vistas of the three adjacent mountain ranges, a couple of tunnels to ride through, and of course more sheep (dead and alive!). This also happens to be the location Peter Jackson used to depict Rohan, with rolling hills and rocky crags.

We break for lunch in the shade next to a pasture and watch the sheep and clouds float by, and a while later stop at Oturehua for a cold one and a seat without a gel cover. Bustling Oturehua has around five or six buildings in total, but our favorite is the general store. It’s been operating continuously since 1902, longer than any other general store in New Zealand, and doubles as a museum of random old stuff (including Fagg’s Beef Tea — see photo below).

We summit the trail and see a sign that reads “It’s all downhill from here!” After riding through a couple other one-horse towns, we find that that was a little misleading, particularly when we branch off the main trail to head up to Naseby for the night.

After some ups and downs, we eventually get into town. We drop our bags at the Church Mouse, an old church building renovated into spacious accommodations, and walk down the hill to the Ancient Briton for dinner. Our host there, also named Eric, tells us about the Asia-Pacific Curling Competition happening in town.

Of particular interest is the Kazakhstan team, which is participating for the first time (we *really* wanted a Kazakhstan Curling Association t-shirt but alas, couldn’t find one). The coach is a Korean immigrant who fled the Japanese in WWII, and his daughter, one of the team members, was born to a Korean father and Kazakhstani mother in America. Fancy meeting another Korean-American in a town of maybe 300 people on the other side of the world! Unfortunately, we ran out of energy before the Kazakhstan team showed up for “tea” (dinner), so decided to try to find them tomorrow.

Wild Thymes in Central Otago

We wake up at the crack of dawn today, drop off our rental car, and hop on a bus headed to Clyde — the start of the Central Otago Rail Trail. The Rail Trail was an active railroad until the middle of the 1900’s, and in 1990 work began to remove the tracks and turn it into a trail for hiking, cycling, and horseback riding. The trail opened in 2001, and has increasingly become a draw for the region.

We start the trail from the easternmost point, with 160 km in front of us until we get to Middlemarch where we’ll board a train to Dunedin. Hopping on our mountain bikes, we ride for a km or two when Eric spots a sign for…a hedge maze! We make a necessary detour, and run through the tall, green, well-maintained and difficult hedge maze. It takes a few tries until we finally make our way to the center, with Eric leading the way after Gloriane gets lost and ends up at the beginning.

Back on the trail, we pass through tiny hamlets with populations of a few hundred, and we take in the idyllic scenery. Sheep and cows everywhere, wandering through fields purple with wild thyme. The countryside with its unhurried pace is serene and bucolic, entirely quiet save the occasional bleating of sheep and the continuous crunching of the gravel under our tires.

After lunching at Chatto Creek Tavern, we meet up with Trail Treks, the outfit providing us with horses to do 15 kms to our next stop. Our guide is Kelly, a native Kiwi who has been riding horses since the age of 5. Saddled up English style, we slowly mosey down the trail at a pace of 5 km/hr. Gloriane and Kelly have fun coming up with a list of idioms having to do with riding horses:

• champing at the bit
• rearing to go
• handing the reins over
• free rein
• putting the cart before the horse
• hold your horses
• home James and don’t spare the horses!
• neck and neck
• pee like a race horse

Eric lags a few yards behind because his horse, Dougie, likes to take it easy and make stops for mouthfuls of grass. Dougie seems to be a donkey trapped in a horse’s body, and it’s not until Eric learns how to make Dougie trot with a little kick that he manages to catch up to the rest of the group. Gloriane’s horse Charla, on the other hand, breaks into a canter at one point, and Kelly keeps having to head her off to keep her in check.

After the horses, we bike another 7 km to Lauder Store, our accommodations for the night. Finding out our dinner reservations are 15 km away, Pam, the friendly proprietor, generously offers us a ride to Ophir. There, in Pitches Store, we have a beautiful meal — much better than we imagined was possible so far off the beaten track. Our first day on the trail ends with a magnificent sunset.

Wakatipu By Waka

Despite the go-go-go pace of Queenstown, we decide to take it down a notch today. Get up late, eat a light breakfast, and then drive up past swaths of mountain lupine to the top of Lake Wakatipu. We get lunch at a little cafe in Glenorchy, and while there we find a kayak outfitter in Kinloch who can take us out on the lake and up the river above.

Kinloch is, basically, a lodge and some campsites, and is accessible only via a 10km gravel road after driving 20km past Glenorchy. Our kayak guide Bas turns out to be from the Netherlands — yet another transplant in the Queenstown area, lured in by the beautiful and accessible landscape. We head out from the north end of Wakatipu, a sapphire-blue, 80km-long glacier puddle.

We land on a rocky beach some ways south and embark on foot toward an unidentified ruin a ways into the forest. Bas shows us the remains of what appears to be an English settlement, probably over a hundred years old, but with no concrete info or formal research, he doesn’t know for sure. All that’s left are some rock-walled terraces, a couple of collapsed chimneys, and a telegraph wire that appears now and again through the leaf mold.

Back in our kayaks, we paddle back up to the meeting of the Dart River and Lake Wakatipu, and head up through the currents. On the way, our accommodating guide offers to tow the paddle-weary Gloriane, who happily accepts the free ride. We wander around in the wetlands and flats for a bit, then settle in on the shore for a beer before heading back home.

Routeburn Tramps

Our vow to stay on the outside of Queenstown still intact after a night’s rest, it’s back into the trusty Yaris and toward the mountains. Today is a day of ‘tramping’ (Kiwi for ‘hiking’), but we stop first in Glenorchy to check out the local scene. And…there’s nothing much to see, so after a snack we hit the Routeburn Track, one of New Zealand’s “Great Walks”.

The Great Walks are a handful of world-class hikes spread throughout NZ. Routeburn is near Queenstown, in the Fiordland region; our time only grants us a day-long in-and-out, but the whole track is 3-4 days long. The well-built track leads us across swaying cable bridges and into a beech forest, alongside a gorge filled with the bluest water we’ve ever seen.

Frequent stops to cool our feet in glacial melt streams keep us energized. We make it as far as Routeburn Flats hut, where other hikers are resting up for the next leg or staying the night. A bit past there, after a steep uphill, we decide we’ve reached halfway and head back down the mountain to the sheep pastures below.

Back in Queenstown (vow notwithstanding, we still gotta eat!), we stumble across The Cow restaurant in an old cow shed, hidden in a back alley. After a long hike, what we need most is nourishment, and their spaghetti Bolognese is exactly what we’re looking for.

Mario Kart For Grown-ups

Sunrise over the Banks Peninsula. Another breakfast with eggs from right outside our door and a quick goodbye to the alpacas, and we’re back in the Yaris on our way to the Christchurch airport. We’re treated to spectacular aerial views of the Southern Alps on our way south to Queenstown.

Once off the plane and out of the airport, we take care of some logistics and tramp up an hour-long climb to the top of the gondola to get in the Queenstown adventureland spirit. We didn’t hoof it all this way just for the view, though — we did it for the luge!

We saw this on the internets a while back, and knew it had to happen. The Queenstown luge is like real-life Mario Kart, and we bomb it a couple of times, first on the Scenic Track (Mushroom Circuit) and then on the Advanced Track (Rainbow Road). Pretty fun, but it would be better with Golden Mushrooms and Banana Peels.

Back down in the town, we stumble across a moa! We thought these bigger-than-ostrich flightless birds were extinct, but there’s one sitting right in the center of Queenstown. Wandering around looking for dinner, we find that Queenstown is *completely* overrun by adrenaline-junkie tourists, and vow to stay out of town as much as possible for the next three days…

Banks and Back

We’ve given ourselves only one day to wander around Akaroa and the Banks peninsula, and we fill it up. Will this be the most beautiful part of our trip? It’s looking like a serious contender. Morning brings a sunrise over the hills around the harbor. We cook up a delicious breakfast with multi-colored eggs from multi-colored chickens living 50 feet from us, and step outside to hang out with “the boys”, the five Suri alpacas sharing the property with us.

After walking around the property, dodging sheep poo and swinging on what looks like a Great Depression-era rope swing high up in the hills, we eat a quick lunch and drop back down into Akaroa. We pick up a couple of pies (somewhere between a souffle and a pasty) to eat later and visit The Giant’s House.

The Giant’s House is a nearly 20-year work always-in-progress by Josie Martin. The grounds of this house are saturated with mosaic sculptures and random oddities. The amount of detail is incredible! And so much character. Gloriane in particular is enchanted with all the quirky touches carved into the space, and with Josie’s matching personality.

Done with civilization for the day, we drive up and then back down to Le Bons Bay. Tucked in between two ridges and well-protected from the South Pacific beyond, calm Le Bons reflects the deep azure of the sky above. We tiptoe across tidal flats and up the inlet that feeds into the bay, through a pine forest, and finally back to our car for an early night watching The Whale Rider on DVD.

From North to South

These are our last few hours on the North Island until just before we leave New Zealand. We bid farewell to the land of Maori, Zorb, and smelly warmth, and hop on a plane to Christchurch.

A quick tour of Christchurch reveals that it was truly devastated by the earthquakes last year, and is still recovering. We pick up supplies and head southeast to the Banks peninsula, and into a massive rainstorm. Eric puts on his Ryan Gosling face and drives straight in, through windy, foggy roads that are thankfully nearly completely free of traffic.

The clouds and rain don’t let up until after we’ve checked in at Kereru, our B&B perched on a mountaintop overlooking Akaroa harbor, so we head down into Akaroa proper to get some dinner. Oysters and Monteith’s Black tide us over while we take in the tiny town. Babushka Gloriane sings along with “Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas” to keep us warm on the chilly patio.

We find that bookings really *are* essential, especially in a town as small as Akaroa, and accept a 9:15 reservation at The Little Bistro. But it’s well worth it — amazing French-tinged Kiwi grub, and dessert served with a tiny shovel — enough for sweet dreams that night back on the mountain.

Chief Eric of Kea Waka

Early morning at Lake Okareka: cool, tranquil, quiet. We find a trail around the lake’s wetlands and eavesdrop on pakeku, tui, and black swans. Off in the distance, we hear a woman calling her cows home (no, really!). Feels like a Kiwi Sound of Music.

Breakfast with avocado and Vegemite on toast (the Marmite factory is still rebuilding after the Christchurch earthquake, so the locals have to make do with an Aussie import for the time being), and we head down to Wai-O-Tapu, “Geothermal Wonderland”.

By “wonder”, I think they mean “I wonder why it smells so naaaasty.” Glad we didn’t have eggs for breakfast, because these bubbling pits with names like “Devil’s Hole” and “Sulphur Cave” stink something awful. But they have pretty colors and steamy currents, so they make for good photo-ops.

Not content to see without touching, we head up the road to Kerosene Creek, a natural hot creek. The pictures don’t do it justice — think a nice, hot bath, in the middle of a stream bed. And not too smelly 🙂

Lunch in Rotorua and then we drive north to find the home of the original Zorb. What’s Zorb? Imagine being tossed inside a giant inflatable hamster ball with a bucket of warm water and tossed down a big hill. With sheep watching you. We ended up choosing OGO, a newer cousin of Zorb, with longer runs and cleaner rides. Turns out the guy who created Zorb sold it to some other folks and let them run it into the ground, while he went bigger and better with OGO. Wish we had video from inside the ball…this was SO MUCH FUN and hilarious. Eric’s abs hurt from laughing the whole way down.

At night, we board the bus to a Maori hangi, Kea Waka (‘waka’, in Maori, is used to describe any vehicle), where Gloriane volunteers Eric to be chief of our tribe. This means Eric gets to stand in front of a hundred other tourists while Maori warriors swing spears at his face. You know, “representing his tribe.”

Arriving at the Maori village Tamaki, we’re schooled on the ancient Maori ways, learn Te Wero (“The Challenge”) and poi dances, and grub on some earth-cooked Maori delicacies. On the way back to town, Chief Eric is called up to the front of the waka to entertain his tribe on the ride back to our home village. This task mainly entails coercing the tribe into singing songs from their home countries, i.e. The Beatles.

As the waka pulls into its home port, Chief Eric manages to come up with a parting joke to further delight his tribe. “What kind of boat does Fozzie the Bear use to travel across the Pacific Ocean? …A “waka waka”! Heeeeeey!” And with that, Chief Eric jumps out the open door before his tribe turns into an angry mob.

Trial By Cold Water

Eric almost sank the marriage today, in 10-degree Celsius pitch black water. But Gloriane is a serious trooper, and managed to find some fun in our 5-hour “Black Abyss” caving adventure. What was this like, after a tranquil day in the Shire? Think “from Bilbo to Gollum” and you get the idea.

Awakening to a birdie symphony, we grab some breakfast and head to the caving departure point with an ill-fated good attitude. First step: put on cold, wet wetsuit. Next: sopping booties. Third: clammy rental helmet. Then all aboard a van that deposits us at the top of a 100m (~30 stories!) hole in the ground.

The abseil down the hole is fun enough to forget about the frigid rental suits…for a bit. But it’s c-c-cold down there. We duck through a narrow passageway and hop on a zipline, which we ride down about 15 seconds in complete and total darkness. At the bottom, a quick warm-up with hot cocoa and granola bars, then we stick our butts into innertubes and jump 8 feet down into cave water.

Have you ever been in a cave? Maybe. Have you ever been underwater in a cave? I hope not. Brrr. We paddle down an underground river for a good 5-10 minutes and, at a point, turn off all our headlamps. Up above — constellation upon constellation of tiny blue stars. Glowworms. Thousands of them.

Beautiful! Even after we learn that the glowing stuff is actually their poo. The beauty lasts only so long, however, as our butt cheeks start to fuse together into one solid block of numbness, hanging into the water below. We float back along the glowworm corridor, dismount, and then slosh through more water.

We wade through treacherous passages, slide down a short waterfall, swim a little, and finally make it to a second pit stop in a cramped cavern. Hot Tang and chocolate, and then we have a choice: climb directly up two waterfalls or take the easy way out. Eric easily convinces Gloriane to take the drier route, while he plunges upward into a spray of frigid cave water.

We make it out alive and thaw quickly over some hot soup, then hightail it to the civilized comfort of Rotorua, geothermal paradise of the North Island. Dinner at a night market and refuge in an incredible lakeside B&B round out this day of masochistic adventure.

Baa Baa, Bilbo

We rise with the sun (well, sorta) and head across the street to L’Assiette, a French bakery run by real Frogs, who make us an almond croissant to order. Passing up Movember macarons, we then check out and hop in the Mazda to buzz down to Hobbiton.

A two-hour drive south, Hobbiton is nestled in the Irish-green hills of a many-acre sheep farm. Gloriane gets a little lamb-feeding action, and we hop into a bus that winds through the patties and around a hill to where Hobbiton is hidden from view.

And it’s REAL. So real, we can smell the second breakfasts. Serious attention to detail here, with carvings in the windows and doors, rakes and hoes and mugs and jugs on the front porches, and a rocking chair for each. Not to mention the beautiful gardens, tended daily by human gardeners, and even fake moss made from real yogurt…well, just look at the pictures to get a sense of it.

Our tour ends at the Green Dragon pub, which is still under construction but will be open soon and serving beer available *only* at the Green Dragon. With the Lord Of The Rings already completed and the Hobbit about to be released, the place was in tip-top shape.

After our Shire visit, we travel to Waitomo to settle in for the night, in preparation for tomorrow’s “black water” rafting experience. Dinner across the street from our B&B at a great spot called Huhu, and at dusk we head to Aranui Caves for a nighttime walk. Our B&B hosts recommend this place to see glowworms, and we do — on either side of a bridge, with stars in between. Eat your heart out, Walt Disney.

Haere mai ki Aotearoa!

(Welcome to New Zealand, in Maori.)

5:30am — our New Zealand journey begins bleary- but bright-eyed in Auckland airport.  After a brief but adventurous wrong-side-of-the-road drive through suburban Auckland (did I mention the manual transmission is on the LEFT side, and the windshield wipers are where the turn signal is supposed to be?), we end up at our palace downtown, a 3-minute walk from the waterfront.

Breakfast at the marina leads to a walk around downtown, gawking at sky-jumpers (with unsolicited advice from a local: “that’s dangerous, I don’t recommend it.  You’ll lose all the small change in your pockets.”), admiring street art, and crawling through vegetation in Albert Park.

After a quick break, we meet up with Eric’s friend from NYC, Zee. Ramen Tanpopo fills our bellies, but there’s still room for liquid chocolate in the Parnell neighborhood. Gloriane windowshopped and shot photos until the rain starts. After the skies clear, we wander through Newmarket and break for beers at Lucha Lounge. (N-Zed seems to have a serious affinity for all things Mexican. Though we’ll stick with Cali burritos, thankyouverymuch.)

Back downtown, we hit up Depot for some incredible oysters and tasty fish, and hit the sack early to prepare for our adventure to the Shire tomorrow.