Everything I Know About the Kunkel Curse

New Zealand Family Adventures Days 5-10

For as long as I can remember, my dad has talked about the Kunkel Curse. Along the same veins of Murphey’s Law, the Kunkel Curse says: The more I want something, the more likely it will never happen. My dad’s two favorite examples throughout my life: shooting a bull elk with his bow and seeing the Vikings win the Superbowl. But there are numerous other instances when he’s brought it up, always when there is something he (or we) are really looking forward to–such as when our flight to Canada to view the Northern Lights was canceled. And then, after we’d rescheduled our flights, when the lodge we were supposed to stay at declared bankruptcy and closed down.

Already, just talking on the phone with my dad before he flew to New Zealand, he was already warning me of the Kunkel Curse. I really wish someone would invent an app where you can punch people through the phone.

Anyway, now you know the curse is coming…

I’ll pick up where I left off:

Waking on morning five in Te Anau, the group perfects the definition of a lazy morning and then we perform a comedic show where everyone stands around the packed van almost ready to go, and then one person runs back inside for something. And then just before that person steps out the door, another person has to run inside for something (don’t ask me what for–I thought everything was already in the van?), only for yet another person to do the same. Anyway, got to love ’em.

We set off, retracing our steps away from Te Anau and a great experience in Fiordland. On the drive, we discuss our plans for the next few days, productive contributions interspersed with ADHD-like outbursts of “deer!” and “elk!” followed by the half sigh of “no horns.” Sometimes Sandee gets to chime in with “sheep!” and “can we take one home with us?”

Despite all of that, the elected decision maker of the day (something I tried to implement, but really it’s just mom and always mom), does get a plan in place for the afternoon. Just before Queenstown, we turn off to drive up to the Remarkables Ski Field. It’s a steep and winding 13km road with stunning views. I drove it once before, but I still white knuckle the steering wheel and refuse to look anywhere but the road. The drop-offs are no joke for scaredy-cats who don’t love heights.

We park at the ski area and walk through the chairlifts on a gravel road before turning off to take the short climb to Lake Alta. My mom is giddy–she loves little streams and info boards that tell you about the plants in the area. It isn’t long until we see Lake Alta and Mike engages in what is becoming a very familiar conversation:

“Madison?”

“Yes, Michael.”

“Do you have the tripod?”

“Yes. Do you want a photo?”

So I set up my little tripod while they all mill about deciding where the short ones should stand and then I scamper down beside them and try to get them to do ridiculous things. Mostly, they’re very photogenic so it’s hard to screw up. Except I always have to elbow my dad to get him to smile.

The lake is bright blue, rimmed by grey, rocky peaks, and we sit for a while and enjoy the contrast of it. But some of us can’t sit for long.

As per usual, if there’s a tall thing, my dad wants to climb it, so he sets off to scramble up one of the shorter ridges by Lake Alta. I go with him, but then he wants to keep climbing. I roll my eyes and let him go on his own, but before he’s halfway up I can’t help but follow him. I have a little bit of my dad in me, but most of all, I’ve been hiking alone for 7.5 months and I know acutely what it feels like to reach someplace cool and have no one to share it with. With a groan, I start up the slope after him.

It’s mid-afternoon by the time we leave the Remarkables Ski Area and wind down to Queenstown, further distracted by another stunning photo stop. Nearly everywhere you look in New Zealand is postcard worthy.

It takes nearly as long to drive the congested streets through town as it did to drive up to the ski field. Everywhere we look there are people. People waiting in line for Ferg Burger. People wearing massive visors. People eating ice cream. People surging out into the street, perched on curbs, snapping photos, lifting shopping bags. It’s a kaleidoscope–constant, colorful movement everywhere you look. Searching out our AirBnB, we drive up a steep road (oh no, are we going to have to walk this?), then enter through the back door into what is clearly a bathroom… Mom and I don’t remember this in the AirBnB description. But it’s all made ok when we see the view.

There’s almost a frantic buzz as we chop avocado, stack crackers, and thinly-slice part of the cold-smoked salmon we picked up several days prior. As we crowd onto the narrow deck with our snacks, we can’t take our eyes from the view. Up here, it’s so blue, so peaceful. All of the bustle of Queenstown has disappeared and it’s just the five of us, our cold-smoked salmon and avocado (seriously, this is my new favorite way to eat salmon), and the lake.

Later, we venture down that knee-breaking hill, reminding each other (though I doubt any one is worried about me) not to get so hammered that we can’t walk back up the hill at the end of the night.

For dinner, we go to Blue Kanu for a mix of Asian and Polynesian. I look no further than the first drink on the menu and soon after there are three lychee martinis at the table (not all for me!). I slurp down the lychee fruit provided with my drink, not deterred by Sandee’s comment that lychees look like eyeballs.

We all enjoy dinner, even Sandee who has been forced out of her comfort zone with the food. In fact, the incredible pork belly share plate opens the doors for three more weeks of pork belly ensembles on her plate. (Now that I’m actually eating out regularly, I’ve realized every restaurant in New Zealand seems to serve pork belly).

It is a calm evening for Queenstown–the wind barely blowing as we leave the restaurant–and we seek out a brewery for my dad and Mike. The first one we find is closing early–not enough people. I guess the Asian crowd isn’t big on craft brews. Despite being just as empty as the first (i.e. three people), the second brewery is still open and we spend an hour exchanging photos and figuring out new AirDrop tricks. Also, I learn that none of my family members can recognize which photos they took, because they keep AirDropping me photos I’d just AirDropped to them.

It’s a giggly walk back through town and surprisingly most of the crowds have dissipated. The hill looms large before us. The way the shadows from the streetlights fall makes it seem twice as long. Despite this, dad and Mike decide to run to the top. I have no such foolhardy sentiments.

The next morning is another exercise in leisure, but it’s important to allow time to simply sit and enjoy the view. And what a view.

The downside to waiting until 10am to leave the house is that now it’s prime brunch hour and everywhere is busy, but we manage to squeeze into a little table at Vudu Cafe and scarf down breakfast. While waiting for our food, dad and I take a quick sojourn over to the bike shop. Of course, we don’t get more than a foot in the door before mom is calling to say that our food has arrived. We book it back to the restaurant.

Take two on the bike shop. Queenstown is renowned for excellent mountain biking and there is a downhill-only bike park on the edge of town that actually spits out right by our AirBnB. This doesn’t inspire much confidence in me because the hill above our AirBnB is way steeper than the hill from town to the AirBnB.

This bike park does have one green track, the shop owner explains, for those looking for something easier (Me! Me!). But, he adds, most people tell him that Queenstown does things a little more intense than elsewhere and a Queenstown green is really like a blue anywhere else.

Oh boy.

But four of us sign up to do it, renting bikes, helmets, and elbow and knee pads. Sandee is perhaps the only sane person in the group, but we’ve always known that. We bike a block up to the gondola and pay for a 4 hour pass. Getting onto the gondola with our bikes is an ordeal.

Step one: grip the handle bars and swing the bike up on it’s back wheel. Let me tell you, this is not how bikes were meant to be used.

Step two: walk toward the moving gondola, aiming for the far left corner (since the gondola is moving that direction). Good luck steering your bike since the wheel used for steering is up in the air and useless.

Step three: enter the gondola while holding your bike upright. Guess what, the handles only barely fit through the door, and the door is moving!

Step four: in a timely manner (as more people need to get on behind you), turn sideways while the gondola is moving and the person in front of you is also turnings sideways and the person behind you is attempting to get on the gondola.

Step five: lean back against the plastic wall of the gondola and begin dreading exiting the gondola.

Let me draw your attention back to my fear of heights. I don’t think it’s really a fear as I did the Via Ferrata course in Wanaka just fine and even dangled from two carabiners from a wire that was ridiculously high in the air. But certain things get me, like driving on roads with sudden drops. And going up that gondola (the steepest gondola in the southern hemispher, to be fair) makes me feel horrible. I don’t even want to look–in fact, I close my eyes. I look like I’m praying. Or meditating. Let’s go with that.

Just as sudden drop-offs freak me out while driving, so do sudden drop-offs while biking.

The Queenstown Bike Park green trail itself isn’t ridiculously steep. The trail is quite flowy, which is usually what I enjoy. But the drop offs beside the trail and beyond the corner berms are often steep. So while Mike, Dad, and Mom fly down the track, my rides are very much slow and steady rather than fast and furious. Sometimes I am tense and scared (which isn’t ideal for biking!), but other times it’s great, and you can’t beat the views.

Though, the fast and furious style doesn’t work out for everyone. Mike takes an unfortunate fall, shooting over one of the berms and injuring his shoulder.

We get Mike some ice cream and pain killers and my parents do another loop. Two loops are enough for me, and definitely enough for poor Mike.

For the evening, we load onto the TSS Earnslaw Steamship (built in the same year as the Titanic, but considerably more successful in it’s voyages across Lake Wakatipu), and cruise the lake. The people watching on the boat is next level. If anyone can explain the fashion choice to wear a shirt with a teddy bear pinned to the back of it, we’d love to be enlightened. To be fair, mom and I are practically in matching vests so others probably think the same about us!

After forty-five minutes, the boat docks at Walter Peak Station. The farm is something out of a dream, nestled on a spit of land beneath a towering peak and mere feet from the blue as blue water of Lake Wakatipu.

The whole time I’m at Walter Peak Station, I’m enjoying how beautiful it is now, but also trying to imagine how I would have felt in the 1850s while trying to settle the area. As the story goes, two men came to settle the area in the 1850s and flipped a coin for which side of the lake they would get. Rees got what is modern day Queenstown and von Tunzelmann got the other side. The Walter Peak side. In fact, he settled right here where Walter Peak Station is today. I can’t imagine standing at the outlet of the lake (where Queenstown is today) and looking across that wide expanse of water at the beautiful, but impassably steep mountains and thinking, “should have picked heads.”

Walter Peak is beautiful and perhaps von Tunzelmann didn’t have regrets right away, but as soon as the town of Queenstown began to form on the other side of the lake, he was the one who had to take the rowboat for 7 hours while Rees just had to walk down the street.

Thankfully, the steam ship is far more efficient. Along with the lake cruise, we enjoy a buffet dinner, a brief wander in the gardens, and a sheep shearing demonstration. The height of the evening, at least for Sandee, is watching the sheep dogs fetch the sheep, and then getting to pet them afterward (the dogs, not the sheep). “Worth every penny,” she says as the dogs lick her face.

It’s a late evening back, and an early morning for two of us.

The sun rises on my mom’s birthday and she and I are scheduled to go on an all day jet boat and “funyak” tour. It’s one of the first things we earmarked to do when we starting researching New Zealand. But, we hadn’t anticipated how quickly the activity would fill up and there were only two spots available when we tried to book months ago, thus why we were splitting up for the day.

Mom and I had been anticipating this since before she booked the flights (so for about nine months). The bus (a real one, not the giant van I’m driving) picks us up in downtown, drives the hour to Glenorchy where we get on a jet boat to soar up the Dart River. Then, after a BBQ lunch, we get into two-person inflatable kayaks and head down the river, enjoying the rapids, narrow side canyons, and stunning views of the mountains and the glacial river.

Except we don’t.

Damn that Kunkel curse.

We check in at the activity office in downtown Queenstown and they inform us that it is super windy and dusty in Glenorchy today and that we have the option to decide not to go and receive a full refund.

“How windy?” I ask several times and none of the data that she shows me is very helpful (wind speed given in meters per second means absolutely nothing to me). A few minutes later she comes back and says with a sheepish smile, “It’s 13 miles per hour.”

Mom and I are confused. Thirteen isn’t all that windy. But then, “and gusts of 35mph.”

Ah.

We decide not to do it and walk back to the AirBnB (which means climbing that hill again).

The Kunkel Curse has struck, decimating the activity that I was the most excited for and had anticipated for months.

Much discussion ensues and we load our bags and tumble into the bus (this time I mean the giant van) and drive off in pursuit of a hike. I take them to the Mount Crichton Loop Track, which I did before but knew my mom would absolutely adore!

And adore it she does!

When we’re finished, we somehow don’t think this through and decide to get lunch in Glenorchy. As we circle the mountain and the rest of Lake Wakatipu opens up before us, we’re wondering if there’s a fire. Why is the air so hazy at that end of the lake? And then it clicks.

It’s a dust storm.

We go to Glenorchy anyway. While there is no exploring or doing the Glenorchy Walkway (as the conditions are decidedly unpleasant, we do find a nice sheltered glass box to sit in and enjoy a delicious meal. While mom and I were understandably super disappointed not to be able to go funyaking, we were also glad not to have decided to tough it out and go in this miserable weather.

On the way out of town, mom spots a waterfall off the road and we go picking through the bush in search of it, but can’t get that close.

We continue on, saying goodbye to Queenstown and heading in the direction of Arrowtown, hoping to find a brewery. Mike’s goal for his New Zealand trip is to return with five brewery T-shirts. So far, neither of the two breweries in town sold T-shirts, so he was fearful.

We stumble across Canyon Brewing on the drive and it is extremely fortuitous as the outdoor area is lovely and none of that wind plaguing Glenorchy has a foothold here. Besides, they have T-shirts! I’m not a beer drinker, but the vibes are familiar (I’m always at breweries with my parents back home) and both Mike and dad get their first T-shirt of the trip. It’s a good one too, with the back saying: BEER FOR THE BOLD.

In Wanaka, where we end up, the AirBnB is a little farther outside of town than we remember booking, but it has big beautiful rooms and, best of all, an incredible deck. The wind is really whipping in Wanaka, but we decide to walk into town anyway. It takes about half an hour and dad’s hair is blown away from the side of his face like a coastal tree, but we smile and laugh and embrace it. It’s part of the experience.

For mom’s birthday, we go to Bombay Palace and eat delicious Indian food. Even Sandee tries it, and likes it! Mike fist pumps in the background.

Walking back in the dark feels like one of those memories that will be imprinted on my mind forever. Scattered clouds but some stars breaking through. The wind is still fierce, but the five of us link elbows to conserve warmth and because we’re slightly giddy with the feel of the day. The joy of being here, of being together. Even as the streetlights fade and the trees rise up and Dad almost makes us walk off a mini cliff because he refuses to turn on a phone flashlight (mom turns hers on just in time to reroute us), I can’t help but feel like the day played out exactly as it was meant to. Us, together.

Wanaka greets us with rain in the morning. It’s an opening for a slower day. After a late breakfast, Mike and Sandee take a walk, deciding to enjoy the rain. Mom and I head into town for some shopping (neither of us is very successful at shopping without the other). And dad rents a bike and heads out to do some muddy mountain biking, which also includes getting super lost and accidentally biking to the top of Mount Iron despite no bikes being allowed on that trail. When we reconvene later, it’s to check two breweries (and their shirts) off of the list. Then it’s a BBQ dinner on the AirBnB deck and some games.

It feels way too soon to be leaving Wanaka, but we have to depart the next day. The drive is beautiful, first curling along the edge of Lake Hawea then Lake Wanaka.

I pull over so that dad and Mike can stand on the side of the road passing the binoculars back and forth while peering through the fence of a red deer farm.

We get out to hike to the Haast Pass Lookout and then grab lunch at the Hard Antler Cafe. Dad tries the local whitebait sandwich and the rest of us get venison. It just feels like the right thing to eat when there are over 100 antlers on the wall. Dad wants a shirt from the Hard Antler Cafe, but when we ask for one, the waitress pulls out a toddler-sized shirt and grimaces. “This is the only one we have left.”

We don’t get the shirt, though it’s a missed opportunity because as we pile into the bus, mom proposes buying the baby-sized shirt, buying a teddy bear, putting the shirt on the teddy bear, and then pinning it to the back of dad’s shirt… He’d have fit right in on the boat to Walter Peak Station!

Franz Josef is rainy when we arrive, but the cafe is warm and the motel comfortable and we’re buzzing with excitement for the next day. The next day is… Glacier Heli-Hike Day!

Franz Josef is known for the Franz Josef Glacier, which is one of the few glaciers in the world that terminates nearly at sea level (or at least, it used to. It’s retreated a bit due to melting). Franz Josef town has several helicopter companies each running scenic flights, glacier walks and hikes, and even glacier ice-climbing, but the only way to reach the glacier is via helicopter.

I can’t wait for the helicopter ride as I’ve never been in one before. Also, the video I watched of the glacier-hiking experience looks so cool–going into ice tunnels and through crevices. The guides supply crampons and ice axes and take you on what is essentially a giant playground of ice. All around are towering mountains.

We’re so excited for this super cool opportunity. Which means…

That it’s too foggy to safely fly the helicopters the next day and the heli-hike is canceled.

We’ve already had breakfast. We’re pumped and ready to go. We’re dressed in all our warm layers. But nothing.

There’s nothing to be done.

After some discussion, we switch gears and decide to hike part of Robert’s Point Track. I’d done this hike previously because there is an ok view of the glacier at the end, but I ended up loving the track far more than the glacier view. We didn’t have time to do a full five hour hike, but if we only went halfway, I could take them to a long swing bridge. And seeing a swing bridge is on Mike’s New Zealand bucket list.

So we set off into the rain forest. It’s a bit damp and the sky drizzles on us as we walk, but that’s when rain forests come alive. Everything is green and swollen with water, absolutely saturated and plump and alive. The rivers are flowing, waterfalls cascading down the steep cliffs, and we are smiling.

As promised, we only go halfway, checking out the long swing bridge and heading back, but as we gather at Full of Beans Cafe for lunch, everyone is happy and smiley. The clouds have lifted a little so we check in with the helicopter company but they’re still grounded. Ah well. We didn’t get to clamber around on the glacier like little kids at recess, but Robert’s Point Track was a wonderful second choice.

A few hours later we walk the treetops near Hokitika, then wander the beach.

Sunset later is bright and beautiful and takes my breath away. Something about sunsets and sunrises, probably the temporary nature of them, always makes me feel so lucky. To be alive, to be right where I am. And to be with who I am with.

And that’s what I know about the Kunkel Curse.

Sure, activities might get canceled, teams might not win the Super Bowl, lodges might go bankrupt right before we’re supposed to arrive, but always we end up together. Together wandering through the woods in search of elk. Together hiking the Mount Crichton Loop Track. Together in Canada in a different lodge. Together hiking the beautiful Robert’s Point Track.

The Kunkel Curse, whatever it is and whatever sends it, knows that what is really important to a Kunkel is who you are with. Not what you are doing.

Read More about my NZ Family Adventure…

Days 1-4: The Kunkel Clan Arrives in New Zealand!

Days 11-17: Spoiled in the Sand: Adventures in Abel Tasman National Park

Days 18-19: (coming soon)