-
Staying Low and Looking High: A Weekend at Mount Cook
It seems to me that humanity in general has an obsession with tall things. Such things come in multiple flavors: man-made, like the Empire State Building, the Eiffel Tower. Or wondrous natural occurrences, such as Mount Everest. In New Zealand, it’s Mount Cook (Aoraki in te reo Maori). The obsession seems to extend to getting on top of tall things: eating dinner atop the Eiffel Tower, climbing to the summit of the highest peak. There is an entire museum in Mount Cook Village about Sir Edmund Hillary, who was the first to summit Mount Cook (and then he went on to summit Everest, so he clearly had a bigger obsession…
-
Highlights of the Road South: Methven to Omarama
In traveling from Christchurch to Lindis Pass (gateway to Wanaka, Queenstown, and many of the activities most tourists come to experience), I discovered some lovely places on, and off, the beaten path. Mount Sunday got it's name because boundary riders would meet at the tiny mount on Sundays.
-
Home on the (Mountain) Range
This post picks up where I left off: traveling from Westport back to the East Coast of the South Island. Though I’d made the same drive only six days previous, I didn’t take the time then to stop and appreciate the beauty (partly because I didn’t even know I’d reached Lewis Pass until I’d passed it!). My return drive, I decided, would be different. I was back to explorer mode, rather than rush-to-the-west-coast-to-do-a-hike mode First, I pulled up Google Maps, zoomed in on the area where I’d be driving, and searched “waterfall.” This is one of my many strategies for finding New Zealand waterfalls, and it did not disappoint. There,…
-
I Would Drive 500 Miles…Just to Hike 20 More
I compile my items and hop in the car to drive from Kaikōura to Karamea. From East Coast to West Coast in one day. New Zealand is such a small country. But...also not that small. It's 263 miles, but will take seven hours. Distance-wise it's like driving from Longmont to North Platte, Nebraska. But it will take almost twice as long.
-
Dizzy and Delighted in Kaikoura
Kaikoura is one of those places that I didn't imagine could exist before I arrived. What I mean by that specifically: I had never before imagined a place where snowy mountains met the sea in such a combination of wild coast and snow-capped crowns. Nor could I have possibly imagined swimming in that ocean the morning after a frosty night ushered in a fresh layer of snow for those toothy mountains.
-
The North of the South: Picton to Golden Bay
Crossing the Cook Strait between the North Island and the South Island felt like embarking on a completely new adventure. Perhaps it was the high expectations. Afterall, nearly every person I've spoken to, kiwi and traveler alike, told me the South Island was the best island, that it would blow my mind, that it was far more beautiful. All of these expectations bubbled in the back of my mind like a boiling pot even as I tried to suppress them. High expectations often lead to disappointment.
-
Photos from the Kaimai Range
I visited the Kaimai Range several times while I was staying in Whiritoa, so they were disjointed visits. Hour long drives out and back through small towns and straight roads (shocking, but the Waikato region nearby actually has straight roads!). However, since I visited about three times in the span of three weeks, there is no backbone to the whole area and no experience here that was particularly noteworthy, other than loving all the waterfalls. It's simply a pretty and deserving-of-visitors region, so I'm adding my favorite photos and maybe a few comments--mostly for me. Because I'll look back at this blog in three, five, and ten years, and want…
-
My Pinnacles Experience: Hiking to Great Heights
First, I bought a sleeping bag. And that meant I had to do it. Hike the Pinnacles. Stay overnight in the DOC (Department of Conservation) hut. And (hopefully) love it--because one measly overnight stay wasn't going to justify the sleeping bag purchase. The Pinnacles Hut is the most popular hut in New Zealand.
-
A Hidden Paradise in Whiritoa, New Zealand
On Google Maps, Whiritoa looks like a beach town at the very bottom of the Coromandel Peninsula on the east coast. As I drove in through 16 kilometers of windy S-curves and 180-degree switchbacks, and then entered the town, I realized that I had been wrong. This was no town. Rather, it was a collection of a few hundred houses clustered around the beach. A single cafe provided snacks and a few staples (bread, butter, milk), but anything beyond would require the twenty minute trek into town. I wondered where the hell I had just based myself for the next month. The answer:
-
The Jurassic World of New Zealand’s North
I stomp along a muddy track. Bright green moss clings to trees, ferns stretch feathery boughs wide. The air is heavy, humid. The absence of other hikers makes me feel like an explorer. Thankfully, New Zealand has no large predators, so when the canopy above erupts in chaos, I know it's only a fleeing bird rather than a pterodactyl swooping down to snatch me up. The landscape would say otherwise, however.
