The Icing on our New Zealand Cake: Franz Josef Glacier

[Oct 12 & 13, 3011] When we booked ourselves in for a full-day hike up Franz Josef Glacier, we had a good feeling it would be a pretty exciting day. We actually extended our trip for it, as it sounded like an absolute must-do, but still we cursed the seemingly endless five-hour drive from Queenstown, through low clouds and driving rain (the west coast of the South Island is notoriously rainy, which is actually how the glaciers continue to replenish themselves), along dangerous winding roads and mountain passes. We arrived at Franz Josef Village, a tiny little settlement no more than two streets wide and two streets long, on the rainy evening of October 12, ate a quick dinner in our hostel's kitchen, and went to bed early, hoping the next day would turn out a little nicer.

Lucky for us, it was blue skies over Franz Josef Village the next morning. We headed over to Franz Josef Glacier Guides for our guided hike at 9:15am and they bundled us up in a lot of wintry waterproof gear that seemed pretty unnecessary on this sunny and springlike morning. Goretex jacket, rain paints, well-loved boots (Dayle opted for her own hiking boots after sticking a foot in and feeling a 'squish'), crampons, and a fanny pack to carry them in. Apparently the weather changes fast, and the guides said it would likely rain by the afternoon. The whole operation had the air of going out on a scuba dive. Soon we were on a converted school bus (that smelled like wet winter boots) with our guides George and Jess to take us the short drive to the base of the valley, where we would start the trek in the rainforest. Now, normally we don't take the organized tour route, but in this case we decided that it was better to see the glacier with someone who understands the ice, and to help us get high up into all that pretty blue ice that there are in fact, no trails to, and is off-limits to independent hikers. And were we ever glad, it turned out, to be with someone who knew what they were doing up on the mountain!

The group split into two once we reached the flat, rocky floor of the valley, and we chose to join "faster" group with George, an impish bearded Kiwi guy who'd been leading hikes up the ice for four years already and said "Sweet as!" a lot (a unique Kiwi expression translating to "Awesome!"). George had a plan to dash with us up the glacier to pass the group that had embarked at 8:15am, and then to head up as high as we could. Our group of about 11 twenty and thirty-somethings were keen to make the most of our day, and George made sure we worked for it, while teaching us all about the geology and weather conditions that created such a crazy piece of landscape. First came the steep zigzagging climb up atop layers of loose rock covering the glacier ice, and it was nearly an hour before we reached the start of the bare ice. A quick lesson on how to put on our crampons -- spiked metal "shoes" that reminded me of mini bear traps -- over our boots, and another lesson on how to walk with crampons on-- "like John Wayne", with feet slightly apart, so as not to tangle oneself up, and with bent knees for stability-- and we were off. It was surprisingly warm under the sun, and soon we were carrying more clothing layers than we were wearing. The clouds started to roll in eventually from the ocean, as our guides predicted, and by the time we stopped for lunch, it had gotten quite chilly and overcast.

John Wayne!

We climbing through the light rain that rolled off our Goretex jackets and rain pants, and would look down every so often and realize how much distance we'd covered. You lose total perspective on distance while climbing glaciers (or mountains), and George would point out waterfalls falling down the cliffs beside us that were hundreds of metres high (perhaps thousands?). There was a snowy part we could see at the top of the glacier that we were positive we'd reach in no time at all, but apparently it was too far for any climber to reach in a day. The ice formations we walked through and over were ever-changing and incredible, and no matter how tired our legs got, we all were happy to keep going.

Misty glacier

George and a cool ice tunnel

Finally, around 3pm, it was time to turn around and start the trek back down. George radioed back and forth with his fellow guides scattered around the glacier to try and figure out the best way down, and we were just getting ready to set off when we heard a rumbling and a huge crash.... we looked to our right (in the direction of the valley) and watched as a MASSIVE chunk of rock/dirt/trees/grass detached itself from the cliff face around Roberts Point and fell into the valley below-- the place where we were meant to trek down through to get back to Franz Josef Village.

Now, all day, there had been "little" rocks breaking off and falling down the cliffside around Roberts Point (little probably being the size of a car, but looking much, much smaller in the immense landscape) and while us hikers were like "Whoa! That's crazy!" George would respond, "Come on, that's not very impressive," and crack a joke (perhaps not really joking) that the mountain could do much better than that.

A little dash of excitement

So how else does a glacier guide and his merry band of hikers respond? Well, a round of high fives was in order. There we all were, high-fiving and "whoa"-ing and cheering when ANOTHER chunk of the mountain, this time even bigger, falls off in what felt like slow motion, and the valley below is a giant dust cloud that's going nowhere. And that's when George says, "I think we might have to call a helicopter..."

And that was when the group went from high-fiving to air guitaring and jumping up and down and shrieking, and various other gestures of joy. I don't know if the actual danger of the situation (which may have been over anyway) actually ever registered with any of us, for the excitement of getting a free helicopter ride far overshadowed any kind of fear one could possibly have.

So while George and Jess got out their ice picks and carved a big flat landing pad on the ice, there wasn't much we could do, except try and not fall over, as we'd been told to remove our crampons and suddenly it was incredibly hard to stand up (especially while jumping around in excitement). We were divided up into groups of six, given some instructions for boarding, and waited until a tiny speck hovered up out of nowhere (remember that scene in Cliffhanger? Yup.) and landed on the glacier. The first group was off and a moment later, another helicopter appeared to take our group.... and with so much excitement for the way-too-short ride down (which I remember as being really loud, and a really strange feeling in flight) I probably didn't take it in as much as I would've liked to. But we landed, safe and sound, with tired legs (but not as exhausted as if we had to walk all the way back down!) and with stories to tell in the sunshine that had re-emerged. That night we'd meet other people from our group in town, or in the Glacier Hot Pools (a lovely man-made maze of pools where you can sit in steaming water under lush rainforest ferns) and we'd try again and again to process what an insane day it was. [We learned later on that the rocks loosen up in the springtime melt, but no group had been airlifted out for at least three years or more, that being when there was a flash flood]

***

From there, our trip went on for a few more days, driving back to Queenstown at warp speed, in order to get the rental car back in time; a few nights at a very comfy hotel with a mountain/lakeview balcony and a "pillow menu" (and it was a steal on Wotif.com); more rugby on TV; more awesome food; and gave paragliding a try.... after our original outing was cancelled due to winds the Tuesday before, we just had to wait out a brief snow flurry before we could run off a cliff and float into the valley near Queenstown -- something that was at least as much fun (if not more?) as a helicopter ride, and lasted a lot longer in the open air. 

If you've read all of these blogs about our New Zealand adventures, you'll probably start to get what we're really trying to say: it's an amazing place. So get over there, post haste, before the rest of the world figures that out. And if you're still needing a little more inspiration, feel free to check out our many photos and videos. Sweet as!

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[Check out our New Zealand photos and videos here]

[Check out more photos of our Franz Josef adventure here]

Sandflies, Mountains, Rugby, and Sleeping Seals... A Few More NZ Adventures

[Oct 8-11, 2011]  Dunedin was a cute town to stay in, but we had a schedule to keep, so the next morning we continued on, but before we left town checked out Baldwin Street, the world's steepest street. It might be something of a quietly-kept secret, as none of us were previously aware that Dunedin was home to the world-record setting steep street, but it didn't disappoint. We parked at the very bottom of (the flattest part) and watched tiny, ant-like tourists climbing up what looked like one of those Hot Wheels ramps for toy cars from the '80s. We all happily admitted we were far too lazy to try walking it ourselves, but got a taste of what was probably the world's second-steepest street, later on in Queenstown (but more on that later).

Our original road trip plan had us tracing the southern coast all the way around to Te Anau, a bit inland, taking in the Catlins and Invercargill along the way. But as we'd just spent the last three days almost entirely in the car, we decided to cut quickly across the island to Te Anau and allow for an extra day to relax in Queenstown, where Stephane and Jenny visited not long before and found to be lovely. Note to anyone planning a driving exploration of New Zealand: it may look like short drives on a map, but it's best to take it slowly and allow yourself the time to enjoy the sights outside of the car! That said, the daylight hours are long, even in October, and you can easily drive well into the evening and think it's still 4pm... we still carry a bit of that Aussie night-driving fear from our many 'roo-dodging' experiences years back.

Allez Les Bleus!

An ecstatic win

Te Anau is a tiny but very touristy town in NZ's Fjordland region, built on the incredibly pretty (are we even surprised anymore?) Lake Te Anau. It's the main jumping-off spot for visiting Milford and Doubtful Sounds, two fjords many visitors explore by boat, but still a good 2.5 hour drive from Milford Sound-- an area of very remote and inaccessible wilderness. But before our trek out to the fjords, we spent the evening in The Moose, where in fact, where the entire town and all of its tourists had congregated inside to watch the Rugby World Cup quarter-finals. The game was especially important to our travelling party, as France was facing off against England in what was sure to be an exciting game. With the help of Jenny & Stephane's red, blue and white wigs and paraphernalia, we got in touch with our long-lost French roots and cheered on "Les Bleus", surprisingly, with quite an unproportionate number of passionate French supporters for the size of Te Anau. We subsequently learned the French national anthem and a few sports cheers, and when they beat England, the entire bar went crazy. It was so much fun to watch (and not really all that hard to understand) and it must have been around the time that we got really, really hooked on rugby...

But onto more adventures! That next morning we hopped in the car and set off on Milford Road, where we wound between mountains, for the first hour, higher and higher until we reached patches of snow (which we couldn't resist a frolic in), and entered into the Homer Tunnel-- a 1.2km tunnel that veers seemingly endlessly through a mountain, on a downward slope, which was a strange feeling. The tunnel is an incredible feat of engineering and construction, started as a job-creation scheme during the Great Depression, it took nearly 20 years to dig, and only recently was widened to accommodate two lanes of vehicles.

Mirror Lake

On the other side of the Homer Tunnel, the mountains appeared to go on forever to the still-hidden fjords. The highway continued to wind downwards, with plenty of great stops to check out, like Mirror Lake, until we reached Milford Sound. That's where we had our first encounter with the irritating New Zealand sandfly: here we were, innocently emerging from the car when suddenly we were ambushed! It appeared others were having the same problems, so we took a few hurried photos with the amazing (but hard to concretrate on) backdrop of Milford Sound, and dashed to the boats, where thankfully someone had thought to build a large structure made of glass, where we could enjoy the views without swatting. Luckily, thanks to the chilly temperatures we wore many layers of clothing, which the sandflies couldn't bite through, but Dayle still managed to find one persistently sucking blood out from between two of her fingers-- a bite which didn't disappear or cease itching for more than two weeks following the visit.

Glorious Milford Sound

But we suppose, if the sandfly terror was our admission fee to get down into the gorgeous natural scenery in Fjordland, well, it was worth it. We set off on our 2-hour boat cruise from the end of Milford Sound to the ocean (15 km), watching the weather change numerous times from sunny to cloudy to rainy to sunny. Seals swam alongside out boat as we shrieked with delight. The captain steered the boat underneath waterfalls plummetting down the cliffs on either side of the fjord and right up to impressive rock formations, and shared impressive facts about the area. Probably one of the highlights was Seal Rock, one of the only parts of the fjord (it was massive cliffs everywhere) accessible to seals climbing out of the water to rest, and we learned the incredible cuteness power of a mass of sleeping seals on a rock. It was a pretty great afternoon.

Waterfall fun

Following our sandfly dash back to the car (a pity we couldn't stroll more slowly through the lush fern-filled coastal rainforest), we made a dash back to Te Anau, and then onwards to Queenstown, to be done with the driving already. After a little bit of hunting, we found a sweet, sweet place to rest our feet for the next few days with fabulous views of Lake Wakatipu in the centre of town. We didn't think about the fact that the near-vertical walk down Turner Street to the heart of Queenstown also meant a horrific trudge up at the end of the night, but it was rugby time again (this time New Zealand vs. Argentina) and so finding a big screen was mandatory. It was another good game--and unexpectedly AMAZING food at the Ballarat Trading Company-- and we took it as a good omen for our trip to continue in the best of fates.

We spent the next few days doing silly tourist things in Queenstown: eating impossibly massive burgers at the legendary Fergburger, wandering around Lake Wakatipu, taking the Skyline gondola for views high above Queenstown (and having a blast riding the luge around the tracks on the peak), and playing a ridiculous but adorable mini-golf course made up of a miniature robotic town, sampling a good variety of local wines, and relaxing in our awesome two-storey townhouse (much nicer than any of the apartments any of us have lived in). It was good times for our last few days, before Stephane and Jenny left us to take in more live rugby on the North Island....

Mmmm, Fergburger for breakfast.

The Luge

Jenny putts for the win

NZ Continued: Driving the Coast & More Penguins

A continuation of our travels through NZ...

[6 October, 2011]
After a super exciting penguin-filled evening in Oamaru, we decided to spend a bit of time exploring the charming little town by day. It was an easy walk to the harbour from our hostel, past plenty of well-preserved Victorian buildings and gardens. The historic arhcitecture must have inspired the town's residents, as next to the traditional was bits of Steampunk everywhere (if you're into Steampunk, Oamaru's the place for you!). We were especially entertained by the coin-operated locomotive that spit out flames and made train noises as it chugged along on the spot in front of "Steampunk HQ". In fact, it totally scared the crap out of us when we dropped a coin in the night before and it came alive! (Much less scary by day).

We did a bit of wandering, visiting the (vacant by day) penguin bird houses by the harbour and a street with craftspeople (a homemade whisky maker!). The guys went back to get our car and Jenny and Dayle continued their stroll along the waterfront towards the penguin colony (we were on a mission to get some cute little stuffed penguins to accompany us on our trip). We were halfway there when an older man called over to us from behind the chainlink fence of what looked like a boatyard: "Hey! Do you girls want to see the penguins?"

Errr. Jenny and I looked at each other, half wondering if it was some elaborate pick-up line, or worse. It was however, broad daylight in the middle of a tiny town, and curiosity got the best of us, so we went over to find out more (and quickly felt sheepish for being so suspicious!). Don was a nice older guy with a soft spot for the penguins, and told us that he thought it was a bit ridiculous that they charge visitors so much money to watch the penguins at the colony, when they're actually living in everyone's backyards in town! Don led us around the boatyard, where there were little boxes built everywhere to help the little blue penguins with their nesting. He lifted up the lids on the boxes so we could "get a photo" amd sure enough, inside each was one or two, slightly stunned but very blue, tiny penguins nestled inside! The little nocturnal birds didn't look too happy to be disturbed, but Don reassured us they don't mind, and they're actually not afraid of people at all. In fact, when big trucks arrive at the boatyard early in the morning to deliver oil and gas (ahem, petrol), the penguins will get up out of their nests, jump around and flap their little flipper-wings, "scolding" those damn truck drivers for waking them up! Don was a fantastic tour guide and we learned that some of the penguins have been returning to the same nests for 14 years (though now it's the younger generation owning the nest), and that once there's chicks hatched in the nest, only one of the adults will head out to sea for food and the other will babysit. I gather we were there just as they were starting their nesting for the year - great timing! It was incredibly cool to learn about the amazing little birds from the locals' perspective. And all it cost us was a little bit of razzing from the staff in the office, when Don brought us in and introduced us as "two girls from France who think the French are going to win the World Cup!" Well worth it, in my opinion. :)

Later on that day we hopped in the car and drove along the east coast to Dunedin, one of New Zealand's bigger cities, taking in the interesting Moeraki Boulders along the way-- a bunch of perfectly round rocks sitting at the seashore of Moeraki Beach. According to Maori legend, the boulders were left behind by an ancient giant canoe of the Gods which crashed on the shore after they journeyed across the Great Ocean of Kiwa (the Pacific Ocean) to what is now New Zealand-- the boulders being the canoe's cargo, the gourds holding water for the journey (or read the better explained version). Or if, you're looking at the big rocks purely on face value, they're old and quite interesting as some of them have been split open like giant solid chocolate eggs (OK, so we may have have the Cadbury factory ahead in Dunedin, a little bit on our minds!) on a very pretty beach.

We didn't get to Dunedin until late in the afternoon, and we couldn't get there fast enough to devour the cheese bounty we'd picked up along the way at the delightful Evansdale Cheese Factory, where we sampled about 10 varieties of cheese and a heated cheese debate took place on which cheese was yummiest-- the French voting for the stinkiest one possible, the Canadians voting for the gooeiest mild brie. Well, in the end, we bought three huge chunks of the stinky blue, the brie, and an awesome smoked brie, and had a feast in our (empty, of course) hostel room under the shadow of our bunk beds at the Stafford YHA. We all agreed that although none of us enjoyed sleeping in hostels, we could deal with it if we were putting our savings towards delicious cheese.


That evening we explored a bit of Dunedin, known for its ornate old buildings. They were indeed beautiful but perhaps we'd had our fill of Victorian architecture in Oamaru. We had originally planned to go to the Cadbury Factory for a chocolate tour (sadly it was already closed!) and also to head out on a nature tour of the Otago Peninsula to see the rare and elusive penguins (!) but with that checked off our lists, and not feeling enthused enough about the albatrosses we could also see on the peninsula, we opted for another kind of sightseeing.... Dunedin's pubs! And indeed, sitting in a quaint pub by a fire, sampling the local refreshments was the best type of sightseeing one could do on a cold, early-spring Friday night in southern NZ.

[More to come... in the meantime, check out some of our photos and videos posted now on our Flickr page!]

We're Baaaack

We're back in sweltering Brisbane after a delightful week and a bit in New Zealand. For one thing, it sure is strange to holiday in a cold country only to come back to a hot place... the complete opposite of what we'd usually do! But though the South Island was a little chilly, it was kind of nice to put on some layers, don toques and gloves, and - dare I say it?- stomp around in the snow! Well, the snow thrill wore off in about 20 seconds or so, but it sure did make for lovely photos.

Anyway! We had a fantastic time -- NZ far surpassed our expectations for being a great place to travel. We lucked out with pretty amazing weather (lots of sunshine and blue skies), had great travel companions, and a strong Aussie dollar on our side. The Kiwis we met were really nice, endearingly rugby-mad, but sadly few and far between. The South Island felt more than anything... kind of empty. On almost any road in the parts we travelled to, you could count the cars you passed on your fingers, and when we did meet people running hostels or shops or tour companies, more than half the time they were from another country. It was a little weird... it seems that most New Zealanders must either live on the North Island, or in Australia. Where we went, it also even felt devoid of wildlife, which could have been due to climate, time of day, introduced species wiping out the native fauna, or maybe something else (we kept seeing signs about poison being used in national parks to wipe out various pest species...).

So it was just us and the sheep for most of the trip. We drove our Toyota Camry up and down mountains, hiked a few great trails around Mount Cook, Lake Tasman, Mt Aspiring National Park, and up Franz Josef Glacier - an unbelievable day for more than a few reasons! We got into a few adventures, trying our luck at paragliding in Queenstown, and scoring a free helicopter ride off the glacier when the mountain next to us started collapsing into the valley below. We had some great local food - cheeses, wine, lamb, and ketchup out of a can (for dipping grilled cheese sandwiches, silly!). We got caught up in the Rugby World Cup frenzy, we saw some rare penguins, and took a boat cruise through the fjords of Milford Sound, our boat chaperoned by adorable seals who swam alongside us. And besides all of that, it was so nice to get out into the fresh air and reunite with old friends. We're definitely already dreaming of a return someday to check out the North Island, and perhaps to embark on one of NZ's many Great Walks, where we can get gloriously lost in a national park for a few days at a time!

But that's our trip in a nutshell.... more detail to come! And if you've got the urge to look at a million or so mountain photos, don't forget to check our Flickr page. xx A&D

On A Penguin and Mountain High

Hello from gorgeous and cold New Zealand! It's been a crazy couple of days already, but since we scored some free wifi, we thought we'd take advantage and write a little update. 

We arrived in Christchurch to freezing cold weather and just an hour after an aftershock (damn!) on the 4th. Met up with our friends Stephane and Jenny and we're picking up where we left off in 2008 when we parted ways in Melbourne- they're perfect travel companions. Got our car and cruised around Christchurch as Disaster Papparazzi (hey, I call it photojournalism!) -- seeing all sorts of cracked, condemned, and empty houses, shops, and streets. The city centre is fenced off, crumbled, and deserted, and there are workmen about but that's all -- Adrian said it well when he remarked it felt like something out of a zombie movie!

From there, we drove inland on a dreary and cold afternoon after a big breakfast at Denny's (yes, the American chain!!) towards Mount Cook, watching the mountains in front of us get taller and taller, and oohing and aahing and stopping the car every time we saw a snow-capped peak peeking out from the clouds. And nearly every landscape belonged to us-- there's a certain feeling around the South Island that I've experienced only in the Aussie Outback: a huge sky, a massive landscape, and a peaceful and profound emptiness-- solitude, I guess. Very hard to describe! (Has anyone else felt this sort of thing? Help!)

It cleared up just as we hit Lake Tekapo, a beautiful blue glacial lake. We kept on until we hit Mount Cook Village in the evening, a contrived little ski chalet-feeling settlement  built in a flat valley beneath towering mountains with a posh hotel, 2 hostels, and a couple of houses for the Department of Conservation - Mt Cook is NZ's highest mountain at 3700m or so, though not that tall by Canadian or European standards- but still pretty amazing. We stayed and ate in this lovely "Backpacker Lodge" with a pub decorated with deer head hunting trophies and great beer called Tui on tap -- unfortunately the "grocery stores" were basically a few items of junk food and instant noodles behind the hostel reception desk. Ugh. So much for saving money by cooking! Every room had a view of the mountains that was almost too perfect-- it felt constantly like we were looking at a painting, not a real scene!

This morning we set off for a hike to Mt Cook lookout, a really cool trail running along the valley floor through grass and lots of spiky plants. We got close to the mountains and another turquoise lake at the lookout and heard a BOOM and a rumbling sounding something like a big truck going over a bridge on a highway... this happened a few more times, minutes apart, before we saw what it was: avalanches high up in the snowy mountains! Just crazy. We hiked another trail later on to Tasman Lake, in the same area, and this time found a huge blue lake with giant ice chunks floating in it-- that didn't look that big until we saw a teeny little yellow tour boat cruising between the icebergs.... and we realized how warped our sense of perspective is.

After our mountain hikes we headed back to the coast in our car, passing rolling hills, perfectly still lakes, and many, many sheep (with which we play our very favourite country-driving game... honking at sheep and making them hop and run this way ad that.... a forgotten pleasure from our drives around Tasmania, but somehow a game Stephane and Jenny also know! Maybe it's universal?) We made it to the coastal town of Oamaru about two hours before dusk, and checked out the Blue Penguin Centre to find out about seeing the little blue penguins the town, and this part of the coast, is known for. Turns out they've turned the place into sort of a Phillip Island (Australia) style circus-- $25 to sit in the grandstand and watch the penguins swim into shore from the ocean. 147 penguins counted last night, they kept telling us! We sort of wondered if we could just spot some on our own, and then one of the ladies at the centre let it slip in hushed tones that: "If you drive to this spot on the map right now, it'll take you only about 5 minutes to get there, and if you look hard and peer into the bushes alongside this beach, you might see a yellow-eyed penguin, as they come in from the ocean around this time to their nests in the bushes, where they live and hide along this inlet". Why not? We thought.... we could always come back to the penguin circus later.

We get to the viewing area and it seemed the word was out -- there were 5 or so other cars parked there, and it actually wasn't long at all before we saw funny little shapes in the bushes on the steep incline from the beach. Penguins! More emerged from the grasses and we were totally photo happy... and even video happy, as we watched them build nests, shake their cute flipper arms, and make the weirdest bird noises ever (we'll edit the clips together and post them on the blog in the future). It was insane! They totally stole the spotlight from the adorable little seal flopping around on the beach far below, but ah well, these were really cute penguins! 

Finally the sun set and we were so full of penguin-spotting joy that we just headed to a hostel and a grocery store.... and then what do we learn from the lovely hostel manager? Well, if we just walk to the town pier, there should be plenty of the little blue penguins nesting along the rocks at night. Sure enough.... well, none of us have ever seen so many penguins in one day, but there is something about spotting rare (?) wildlife in their natural habitats that just gives you this amazing feeling of satisfaction. Euphoria, really! And so far New Zealand has been a continuous shot of pure euphoria. We can't wait to find out what comes next!

Bye for now!

Wool socks: check. Polar fleece jackets: check. Raincoats: check. Cameras and blank memory cards: check and check!

One more sleep and we're off to New Zealand for the next 13 days. We're super excited for all the tramping and the country road cruising. We're totally stoked to climb a glacier. Not to mention ooh and ahh at adorable penguins and mountain vistas. Maybe we'll even get to hug a sheep. We can only hope!

We're back in Australia on the 16th of October, so see you then!
Bye for now! xo A&D

Destination New Zealand!

Wow, it's September! It's kind of crazy that we've already been back in Australia for six months now - and sadly, have not yet even left Queensland. So we're truthfully a bit giddy for October to roll around - because in just four weeks' time, we'll be headed off to explore some totally new territory: the south island of New Zealand!

We're taking the easy way out with this trip, actually. It was actually pretty much all already planned when our friends Stephane and Jenny (who are living over in NZ and about to wrap up their year there) invited us along on their weeklong trip in October, where they'll drive from Christchurch to Queenstown in a leisurely, on-a-budget-but-with-lots-of-hiking-and-photo-snapping sort of manner... just the way we like it! It's a real double whammy -  not only will we get to reunite with some great friends (with whom we spent a lot of time with during our first stint in Oz - in Echuca, Port Douglas, and Melbourne), but we'll also get to finally visit a country we've been meaning to for ages.

Kiwi dollar... how cute.

On October 4, we'll fly into Christchurch airport and meet up with Stephane and Jenny. We probably won't see much - if any - of Christchurch, which we hear is still in quite a bit of rubble after the earthquake early this year. From there we'll wind our way south/west to the mountain/adventure town of Queenstown, via Mt Cook, Dunedin, Fjordland National Park (at the southernmost tip of New Zealand, and possibly the world!) and a few other stops. We've got about a week and a half to soak up the scenery and the Kiwi hospitality, both of which we've heard great things about. We're also stoked that the Aussie dollar is doing so well against the New Zealand dollar, making it a cheaper trip than we thought, and also for the chance to brush up on our conversational French with Stephane and Jenny.

Queenstown: looks awesome!

We're slightly worried it's going to be freezing cold in October, which is still springtime, and the fact that we'll be hanging out in high altitudes pretty close to Antarctica doesn't help. (Note to self: add wool socks to the packing list!) So unfortunately, it's not a camping trip, but we're hoping we'll be so distracted by the stunning scenery that we'll forget how cold it is. And maybe we'll see a hobbit or two - it is, after all, the gorgeous setting where Lord of the Rings was filmed. It should be a good adventure anyway. The countdown's begun!