Christmas in Queenstown

Adventures in Catton hunting (and discovering which glacier is right for you)

We should first start by congratulating everyone on surviving the most recent apocalypse threat. We can't deny that we found ourselves slightly caught up in wondering at what time all the world's volcanoes would simultaneously erupt as we approached the looming end of the Mayan calendar, but, like Y2K, the Cuban Missile Crisis and the "coming out" episode of Ellen, we all woke up to find out that the world was spinning as usual. Next on the horizon: Fiscal Cliff triggers Yellowstone Super Caldera.

When we last left off, we were spending a few rainy days in Franz Josef Glacier. The tiny village of Franz Josef is going through a pretty rough patch currently. Now neither of us are glacierologists (at least not officially), but we can sum up the current problems of this village for all the amateurs out there. Basically, the economies of the towns of Franz Josef and Fox Glacier are centered primarily around glacier tours. These can be guided hikes, where a guide leads a group up the adjoining cliff side then onto the surface of the glacier, or heli-hikes, where a group is loaded into a helicopter and flown high onto the glacier, where they then embark on a similar guided hike. You can guess which is more economically viable and thus more popular among tourists. Well, recently the terminal face of the Franz Josef Glacier collapsed, and the NZ Department of Conversation deemed that for the time being, guided hikes are not safe, and therefore only heli-hikes are allowed out of Franz Josef. Well, that's devastating enough for the local business. But to make it worse, the glacier terminates in a rain forest, where helicopter flying weather is never a guarantee. We arrived in town during such a stretch of "no-fly" weather. It was a real bummer. Lucky for us, our hostel had wonderful spa facilities where we could beat the rainy-day blues:

It was comforting to know that know that none of the nude people would bring drinks into the hot tub.

We weren't about to let a little soggy weather dampen our visit, so we set out to explore the area. Even though hikes onto the glacier are currently prohibited, you can still enjoy the 45 minute walk up to the terminal face, so we decided to check it out.

Even on a gloomy rainy day, it was an incredible sight to see: miles of ice dropping out of the clouds, grinding and carving a valley out of the mountains. Feeling energized by our early afternoon hike, but not ready to call it a day, we decided to hop over the pass to the next town over, Fox Glacier, and scope out the scene. Fox Glacier is an even smaller village then Franz Josef, but it feels bigger because it sits among wide pastures that open up all the way to the coast.

For whatever reason, it was a nice sunny day on the Fox Glacier side of the pass, so we grabbed some ice cream and enjoyed the sunshine. As we were sitting outside of the grocery store, we observed a bus from Fox Glacier Guides pass by, and we decided that the time was right to track down a rare breed of human beings: a Catton!

As many of you know, we have a dear friend, Ben, who worked together with us in Wyoming for 5 years. Well before we came over here, he informed us that his baby brother, Eli, was working in Fox Glacier. We had been in touch with him, and were planning on meeting up with him in a few days, but since we were in the neighborhood, we decided to see if we could catch him at work. Well, it didn't take long. As soon as we walked up to his work, we found him outside, hanging up wet pants.

 

We had a great time hanging out over dinner, and before we parted ways, we made plans to return the next day and camp out in his yard, with the prospect of our own glacier tour with a pro by the end of the week. So we came right back, enjoyed the company of Eli and his girlfriend, Jessica, and their two roommates, camped out in the yard, enjoyed Jessica's delicious cooking, went for a picnic on the beach, went on a few hikes, and soaked in the surrounding beauty of the Southern Alps. We quickly grew fond of the area and all it has to offer.

Thick Shakes...Here We Come!

Greetings all! Today marks the two-week anniversary of our arrival in New Zealand! Our travels continue with relative ease. All of our limbs are in tact, and Matt still has one working ear and most of his fingers, so all things considered, we're doing pretty darn good. We've made our way well down the west coast of the South Island at this point, but before we divulge the details of the our current adventures, we've got some catching up to do!

When we last left off, we had just acquired our valiant steed, the Emerald Smaug. Now we were ready to begin our journey south, across the Cook Strait to Picton, a harbor town at the north end of the South Island.

The Bluebridge Ferry, which travels from Wellington to Picton, and on to the Undying Lands

Our travels in the South thus far could be summarized in a number of ways. One could describe them as a grand traverse through a dazzling array of widely varying ecosystems and geologic features, as we've crossed dense forests, rugged mountain ranges, craggy beaches and seen an immense glacier that travels 7 miles down through mountains and ends in the middle of a rain forest. One could describe it as a cultural immersion experience, as we've met and worked alongside people from China, Egypt, England, Japan, Ireland, Chile and of course native New Zealanders. However, those are pictures, stories and lessons for another time, as for now, we will relay our tale through our ever-changing  adventure in accommodation!

While it's not generally the most exciting aspect that pops into someones mind when they think about travel abroad, accommodation is, especially over a long period of time, a weighted factor of every day's planning. After all, shelter is a basic human comfort, and when you don't have a house, trailer or apartment to go home to every night, you always have to consider where you're going to rest your head. Fortunately, we have the warm embrace of our Emerald Smaug to rely on, but because we occasionally like to have showers and a place to eat, we generally like to take advantage of the widely available affordable dwellings here in NZ. But you can never really be sure what to expect.

               Best case scenario                                                       At least they had a pool...at one point

Our first experience came in the lovely town of Nelson, in the heart of wine country right on the coast of the Tasman Bay. We had heard a fair amount of praise for Nelson, and even if we hadn't, we were just in high spirits to be on the road and exploring a new land. Now, we don't want to take anything away from Nelson. It certainly is a beautiful coastal city with a lot of personality and a very friendly population. We just happened to outline an itinerary for ourselves that included all of the worst the town had to offer.

This started at our hostel, whose name we shall conceal so as not make mudslingers of ourselves. Our evening's shelter was essentially a frat house. Although it was a beautiful building, it had been defiled by the beach bums who occupied it and sat around playing video games all day. Every surface of the vast downstairs was covered with beer cans, stacks of papers, dirty plates and scattered cigarette butts. The poor proprietor was a comical old guy who mostly stood around shaking his head at the poor quality of help he head to keep his hostel running. His number two was a really nice young guy who, upon our arrival, showed up at the check-in desk after we'd been standing there for 10 minutes, and said simply "I'm Reception!" His name was more likely something like Brody or Chet, but either way, after digging through a mountain of papers for a few minutes, he found some keys to give us, and showed us to a room whose door had been used for the scene in The Shining where Jack chops his way into the bathroom.

"Reception"

With our spirits slightly dampened, we decided we should just grab a quick bite and get some sleep before we took to the road again the next day. We had heard good things about a Thai restaurant just a little ways away, so we eagerly headed out the door to grab some food. The town was pretty quiet that evening, so when we parked across the street from our restaurant, we pretty quickly noticed the loud music and flashing lights that were coming from the space above the Thai restaurant. We then noticed a fair number of what appeared to be scantily clad women wearing low-brimmed baseball caps, all conversing and smoking out the window above our restaurant. Finally, we noticed the sign that hung directly adjacent to the sign for our restaurant: Secrets: Gentlemen's Club. Now, maybe this genuinely was a discreet gathering place where the young men of the community could convene and discuss their affairs in private, but we tended to doubt it, and even at the risk of being called a couple of squeamish Americans, we know that everything that rises must fall, and eating below a brothel can never be a great idea.

So, this all just goes to show how a couple of wrong turns can sour an experience in an otherwise beautiful place, and we quickly found out how a couple of fortunate choices can positively enhance the experience in an exceptionally ordinary place, for our next destination was Greymouth. As the name implies, Greymouth is kind of a grey destination (and its sits at the mouth of the Grey River, but that's irrelevant). Despite this being a rather ordinary town, we found a real diamond in the rough at the Global Village Hostel.

Now, when we've told people since our time in Greymouth that we spent 5 days there, they usually assume that our car broke down. Apparently, the locals don't exactly consider it the cultural epicenter of their country. However, when we arrived at Global Village, we were welcomed by such a feeling of calm and tranquility, that we decided to stick around for a little bit. The place is owned by a very kind couple of world travelers, Russell and Yurie, and they're assisted at their operation by Simon, a young Englishman who, 3 years ago, was himself just a traveler who dropped in for a night. We noticed that they had a few other people who did some work in the mornings, so we decided to ask if there was any work they needed done in exchange for a few more nights in their haven. They were gracious enough to offer us some gardening work (outdoor detail!), so we stuck around for a few more days, happily tending their garden, planning our next leg of the trip, and even making time to finally go see the  Hobbit (wait for the DVD).

Although we were sad to leave our new friends, we were ready to continue our journey south. That mostly catches us up to where we are now (after a brief and mixed stint in Franz Josef). We're currently in Fox Glacier, which is where we'll pick up next time.

(Spoiler alert: We discovered a Catton in New Zealand!).

We're Off to See the Kiwizard...

Kia Ora, mates! That's New Zealandish for "¡Hey, buds!" We've really been rapidly immersing ourselves in the local customs and language, and once we come home, whenever that may be, you can expect a lot of "Well in New Zealand they say..." and "In New Zealand, it's considered insulting to..." and "In New Zealand, they arrested us just for..." and so on. 

So for those of you that don't know, Kelcy and Matt are in New Zealand!

Wellington Harbour

Many of you know that we had been pseudo-planning on coming this way for a while, but we didn't officially pull the trigger until just about three weeks before our departure date of December 3, but we did it, and now we're here on a working holiday visa for up to 12 months! We did about as much planning as was required to learn on which side of Australia we'd be when we arrived. At this point, we've determined with near-certainty that it's somewhere between Africa and Texas. 

In the current global zeitgeist, nearly everyone associates New Zealand with the Lord of the Rings. Well, as it turns out, this staggeringly beautiful country was not merely a locale for a film shoot. The events that were depicted in those epic masterpieces actually occurred here. We know...that sounds ridiculous. But just take a look at this safety video that we watched on our flight from San Francisco to Auckland.

Our in-flight magazine informed us that most of the actors in that video were from New Zealand. Do you notice anything peculiar about these folks? Like, that they're all elves, dwarves, wizards, and Smeagol? If that's not convincing enough, take a look at what we saw in the Wellington airport:

An ode to one of New Zealand's most tragic heroes. Plus, when we asked one of our flight attendants where he was headed after we landed, his reply was "I go to the hall of my forefathers, in whose mighty company I shall not now feel ashamed." Before we could ask him which island that was on, he was already asking the next aisle "Chicken or beef?" That's all we'll say about the matter.

Middle Earth's Embassy

So now for a summary of our travels so far. We flew out of Denver on December 3, connected through San Francisco, Auckland, and finally touched down for good in Wellington on the morning of December 5. Landing in Wellington was like paragliding into a hurricane inside a tornado inside a snow globe. We quickly learned the reason for the city's aptly earned moniker  "Windy Wellington."

Even though we both picked up a cold bug right before we left and were feeling kind of lousy, we pretty quickly got to business with all of the basics, like setting up a bank account, getting a phone, and all of that good stuff. But there was one more detail to take care of before we set off to explore: a vehicle. 

After some due diligence, we decided that it would be a worthwhile investment to have our own means of conveyance, so we did some homework, made some phone calls to private sellers, and then finally found what we thought would be our golden goose: a car auction. We found a company a little ways outside of Wellington that does weekly budget car auctions, and you can even preview which vehicles are going to be available. This was what were we waiting for; everything would be different after the car auction! Well, after a few hours of bus rides and a few missed stops, we arrived at the auction, drove a few of the cars we were interested in (or at least the ones that would start) and decided that we weren't going to buy anything. However, we'd come a long way for this, and we decided to stick around to enjoy the show. It was one of the best decisions either of us had ever made in our life. We don't know if car auctions in the US are accompanied by such gratuitous fanfare, but in New Zealand, it's a high octane, action packed spectacle. A whole lot of hand actions, showmanship, shouting, and swagger go into it, all without the bidders really doing or saying anything. The auctioneers rule the show. It's like watching 6 peacocks get into a knife fight with each other. It was awesome.

However, still being without a vehicle, we decided to hunker down and contact as many sellers as possible the next day, and by the end of it, we were the proud owners of a 1995 Subaru Legacy wagon, which, along with this blog, we've dubbed the Emerald Smaug, in tribute to the gold-hording dragon from The Hobbit, and also in honor of the dragon tramp-stamp that our carriage proudly displays over its hatchback. 

Purchasing and driving a vehicle in this country is easier than ordering a Big Mac, or so it seems so far. We haven't discounted the fact that we could be violating any number of traffic laws. Less easy is learning to drive from the passenger seat and on the left side of the road, but after living in a national park for several years, and spending every summer cursing all of the foreign drivers on the road who seem to have never seen the inside of a motor carriage before, we've learned that a little bit of ignorance goes a long way. 

Next up, it was time to load the car on the ferry and head for the south island, which is where we'll leave off for now. Look to the east, at first light on the third day, for our next blog update.