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Nov. 9, 2017 — Te Anau to Milford Sound Cruise, New Zealand (see MS on the west coast of the South Island).

We had heard from many people that we should definitely go on a Milford Sound cruise and this was today’s goal. Today was probably the most visually stunning day of the trip and will have the most pictures of any blog entry. It would be hard to come up with a single best highlight of the trip but this may be it.

The road from Te Anau to Milford was closed due to snow on the day before (Nov. 8). It is also a fairly treacherous ride. The red areas on this map are the areas where it is forbidden to stop due to the danger of avalanches. There are areas where they ask you to use your gears to stop not your brakes. Driving on the left through an avalanche seemed like a lot of fun.

I was happy not to feel like a wimp for not wanting to drive since it did seem a little sketchy, especially if we encountered snow (which we didn’t). We took a bus tour to get to the cruise and were very happy to have done so. The bus had a glass roof and full picture windows. I ended up seeing so much more from the bus than trying not to get killed driving. Interesting how sometimes not going on your own lets you do and see more. Usually it’s the other way around.

The bus driver was very entertaining and we had frequent stops. One was at Mirror Lakes. The sign was reversed so that you could read it in the reflection.

Because of the snowfall the previous day, the waterfalls were very full.

View of mountains from the bus

At one of the stops we saw a Kea, a rare type of parrot.

After the bus we moved on to the ship.

View from the Milford Sound port

The guide said that it’s unusual to see all three of the main sea animals (penguins, seals, and dolphins) in one day but we were there on a good day.  This description from a brochure describes two of them.

Penguin at the top

Another penguin

I tried to ask the dolphins to stop moving for a while so I could get a good picture but they seemed to be in a hurry, maybe to keep up with the ship. Here’s my best attempt.

Bottlenose Dolphins off the side of the ship

The female seals were sunning as a large group while the big male was off on his own. This seems like a sick human male fantasy.

Female seals

Male seal

My wife can be fearless. I’ll probably never forget this incident for the rest of my life. The guide warned us that we were about to go right into a waterfall to experience its power (some what like the Maid of the Mist at Niagara Falls). We saw another ship go in before us.

We were about to go where this ship is

Many people including Margaret and I rushed to the front of the ship to see the waterfall up close.

Just before the deluge

Soon it started getting wet. I mean wet. Really wet. I moved back as far as I could while still being outside. Most people scurried inside. Margaret stayed right up front.

Margaret as one of the very last to leave, soon to be the only one left

Soon everyone else had left. I was soaked to the bone. There were only a few dry spots on my body and I left way before we got to the very worst of being inside a waterfall. Margaret stayed up front the whole time.

My very last picture before I wimped out. Margaret is still there somewhere.

I’ll never forget the crowd thinning out more and more until only one intrepid passenger remained. One of her pockets was a miniature pond.

Here are some pictures of waterfalls and mountains. It is possible to get bored with beauty. I remember being almost annoyed at seeing elephants in the Kruger park in South Africa since we had seen so many of them. How many waterfalls can you see before it’s enough? Fortunately, we didn’t get anywhere near that point.

Looks like a lace veil spread out

The furthest point we got on the cruise was to Tasman Sea in open waters.

Tasman Sea

While the bus on the way down made frequent stops and gave a lot of commentary, on the way back he announced that he was going to be quiet and concentrate on getting us back as quickly as possible and without stops. This was exactly what we were hoping for. We were done for the day but we weren’t sick of the views.

More mountains and waterfalls on the way back to Te Anau from Milford Sound.

Just before the tunnel entrance on the way back

Glad they build this tunnel rather than trying to drive on a road through these mountains

Some days when you travel things just work out, like this one. The snow closing the road the day before and not this day led to us being able to see very full waterfalls. We saw all the main animals. I spoke with people who took the cruise before us and they complained of heavy cloud cover that we didn’t have. The decision to take the bus made for a much more enjoyable day. The company that ran the hotel pickup, bus, and boat (Real Journeys) had everything really well organized. I wish all of life could be like this.

As retired professors of mathematics, we feel that there were not enough numbers in these blogs. Therefore, here are some counts related to our travels:

• 29 days away from home
• 14 flights
• 13 different airports
• 4 different airlines
• 11 boat rides
• 6 cable car rides
• 2 trains
• 12 different hotels
• 14 hotel check-ins
• 10 time zone changes
• 236 miles covered by Margaret on foot, as recorded on Apple Watch Moves
• 59 miles covered by Larry on foot, as recorded on Apple Watch Moves
• 16 degrees south, latitude closest to the equator: The Great Barrier Reef, AU
• 45 degrees south, latitude furthest from the equator: Te Anau, NZ
• 131 degrees east, longitude furthest west from home: Ayers Rock Resort, AU. (That is, 160 degrees of longitude between home and Ayers Rock)
• 175 degrees east, longitude closest west from home: Auckland, NZ. (That is, 106 degrees of longitude between home and Auckland)
• 29 degrees Fahrenheit, lowest temperature we experienced (Cradle Mountain, Tasmania)
• 101 degrees Fahrenheit, highest temperature we experienced (Kata Tjuta, Northern Territory)
• $2.12 per litre, cost of gas in New Zealand dollars (Equivalent to $5.56 per gallon, in U.S. dollars; a fun math problem!)
• $1,000,000+ average cost of a house in Auckland, in New Zealand dollars. (Equivalent to $680,000+ in U.S. dollars)
• 5 states or territories (out of 7) that we visited in Australia
• 5 regions (out of 16) that we visited in New Zealand
• Countless memories and experiences

Overnight Stays in Australia, sequentially:

1. Sydney
2. Trinity Beach (near Cairns)
3. Uluru
4. Alice Springs
5. Melbourne
6. Hobart
7. Cradle Mountain
8. Hobart

Overnight Stays in New Zealand, sequentially:

9. Christchurch
10. Franz Josef
11. Queenstown
12. Te Anau
13. Queenstown
14. Auckland

Nov. 10-11, 2017 — Te Anau to Queenstown, NZ

Te Anau, NZ

Te Anau is in the southwest corner of the South Island (see #11 on the map)

While Margaret was hiking on part of the Kepler Track (see her separate entry), I went on another Real Journeys excursion to see the Te Anau Glowworm caves. As they hyped it “Experience a mysterious underground world of rushing water before drifting in silent darkness beneath the luminous shimmer of hundreds of glowworms.”

It was a short 2.5 hour trip which began with a cruise across Lake Te Anau then a walk inside the caves. They didn’t allow any photography since it was mostly in the dark and the flashes would have disoriented people. We had to crouch into a small opening and on a slightly treacherous walkway (at least for someone with mobility problems) but it wasn’t that bad.

These pictures are from their web site — realjourneys.co.nz/en/experiences/glowworm-caves/te-anau-glowworm-caves/

They then moved us into these small boats through the cave.

We reached the highlight, which was the luminescence provided by glow worms. Each glow worm weaves hooks to catch insects and has its lights to help the bugs find them.

Stock photo of the “luminous shimmer” of the glow worms

I felt like an intruder in this beautiful private world of the glow worms. Hopefully, we weren’t disturbing their life cycles. I’m really glad they banned picture taking and were very strict about being totally silent in the cave. Someone asked if there was a waterfall in the distance but the guide said it was probably someone breaking the silent rule in another boat. Sounds carry very far down here.

Just as I got off the boat on the return to Te Anau Margaret arrived at the dock. This wasn’t as amazing a day as the Milford Sound cruise the day before but it was many times more active for me than I’m used to at home (or that I maybe should be doing).

The next day we got back in our car and drive back to Queenstown. No trip to New Zealand is complete without a picture of sheep. According to Expedia, there are about 39 million sheep in New Zealand or about 10 sheep for every human.

A couple dozen of the 39 or so million sheep in NZ

In the US. we’re used to deer running wild, not being farmed so we were surprised to see deer farms all over. Most restaurants we went to had venison on the menu. Again according to Expedia, there are approximately 1.7 million deer on 3,500 deer farms. NZ is the world’s largest and most advanced deer farming industry. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deer_farm

Deer having a rare opportunity to see people from the US

I was looking forward to the end of a week’s worth of driving with some pain and trying to remember to keep left. We did get our money’s worth by being able to stop all along the way from the northwest corner to the southwest corner of the South Island. It will be good to start getting right again.

Everywhere on the trip — Oct. 18 to Nov. 15, 2017

Note — This is not a visual blog entry and I would recommend reading a different blog, such as the one from Milford Sound if you’re looking for travel pictures and commentary.

I’ve had people who are parents of 20-somethings complain that their children don’t seem to be going anywhere with their careers. They may have a master’s in a science field and be waitressing or spending six months traveling the world on next to no money.  My advice was always that the 20’s can be really well spent making bad decisions (if they’re not long-term), trying out what turn out to be bad career choices, working at low paying jobs, and traveling. That’s not to say that someone like our son who found a career that works well for him right out of university is doing the wrong thing. (He’s also doing several international trips with vacation and time he has purchased).

My advice was that the time to worry is if your child is still in his / her 30’s and living at home with no career. My incredibly wise aunt Lil had the theory that everyone needs to rebel at some point in their life. If they don’t do it in their teens or twenties, they’re due in their 40’s or 50’s and in a possibly more destructive way.

The reason for bringing this up here is everywhere we went on this trip we were served and guided by people in their 20’s. Many of these people had come to Australia or New Zealand from all over the world. Maybe they were leaving their home for a good reason or maybe they had no reason to leave but had always wanted to come to this part of the world.

Of course, I spoke with literally dozens of these 20-year olds. I always asked them where they were from and what their dreams were, while they’re serving us dinner or taking us on a tour. The most common response was that they had no idea what they were doing long term but that life was good for them at this moment in their lives. One Polish young woman in Franz Joesph Glacier was an exception. Something unhappy had happened to her in NZ. My guess was that a partner broke up with her but I don’t know,. Besides her they all seemed pretty happy (or as happy as you can be serving a nosy old man from the US).

Many were from Europe such as an afternoon guide we had at Cradle Mountain, Tasmania. He had spent enough time here to become an expert on the plants, animals, hiking trails, and history to have a good job. He had bigger dreams for moving on to other environments.

An interesting character was this guide from New Zealand, for our laid-back lake cruise in Franz Joseph. At first glance, he seemed a little like a redneck, for lack of a better word.  He was very progressive about human rights and very much into hunting and fishing. He didn’t like the new progressive female Prime Minister of New Zealand, because he thinks she is trying to make too many changes too quickly. He was an excellent guide who knew a lot about the animals, plants, and native legends.

Our lake guide explains the strength of a hemp plant.

These two couples in their twenties were not working, just traveling. One couple was from France the other from Italy. I started up a conversation with them so I could practice my French. It turned out someone had given them a picture from the 1970s’ of two couples at that very spot who were about their age. They were too shy to ask but I volunteered to get a picture of them posing just like the people in the postcard.

For the most part, I didn’t take pictures of these twenty-somethings. It was one of the highlights of the trip to be able to vicariously experience their lives for a few brief moments each. Their lives were also filled with the drudgery of their jobs but the excitement of meeting others like themselves from all over the world and of being these beautiful places.

Besides the twenty-somethings, I talked with many people from all over. Some we became friends with for a brief time. I’ll just relate one situation here. On the Milford Sound Cruise, we shared a table with two couples who represented two extremes of the travelers we met.

One couple was newlyweds from the North Island of New Zealand. This was their first time in the South Island. She worked as a cake designer and this trip was obviously taking up much of their savings. We really enjoyed these people and they were probably more thrilled to be on this cruise than the other couple.

In contrast, the other couple was from Lake Tahoe (the Nevada side, with lower taxes). They were world travelers and about as high energy as any travelers I’ve ever met. In one day in Queenstown they were busy from early morning to late at night  with something like 7 different activities —  a zip line, city tour, cruise, cable car, midnight sky tour, and ate in the best restaurants. They could not imagine spending 4 weeks in ANZ, because they see what they believe to be everything in a very short amount of time. I made a joke about spending our children’s  inheritance and they got very defensive, explaining in much more detail than I wanted about how well they had all their financial bases covered. They were clearly Republican because all they seemed to care about was lower taxes.  While these people were fascinating to talk to for a few minutes, the other couple would be much more fun to spend time with.

Nov. 13, 2017 — From Margaret

Auckland is in the northern part of the North Island (see #14 on the map)

Auckland has a different feeling from other places we’ve been. It is a large city, heavily populated (1.5 million), with heavy traffic. But it does have parks close to downtown with some elevation climb (Albert Park and Auckland Domain)! So I do find places to run, just as I have everywhere. On our first full day there, we took a guided tour of the area – mostly in the area surrounding the city proper, with Time Unlimited (their Maori tour). We were a small group of three couples, and our guide facilitated social interaction, which added to the experience. We made stops at beaches, waterfalls, tops of mountains, taking in spectacular views, including the Waitakere Ranges. Auckland borders the Tasman Sea on the west and the Pacific Ocean on the east. The water felt rather warm!

Kelp on the beach that look like discarded belts.

The Polynesians settled on these islands between 1250 and 1300 CE. Our guide, Sofia, is intimately connected to the flora and fauna of Auckland, the cultural origins and diversity, and the surrounding mountainous areas. Her passion, enthusiasm, and knowledge made for a great full day tour. Sofia shared stories and folktales about the Maori people, the birds, and the healing properties of some plants. We couldn’t help but fall in love with the Auckland area after the time we spent with her!

During one of our snack breaks, we tasted Marmite (we had already tasted the similar Vegemite in Australia). It is a thick black food spread made from leftover brewers’ yeast with vegetable and spice additives – it tastes salty, bitter, and malty. On some of our short walks in the woods, Sofia asked us to disinfect our shoes – we sprayed a chemical solution on the bottom of our shoes so as not to contaminate the soil and vegetation of the region. Protecting the native flora is of paramount importance to New Zealanders. Sofia points out the fern (Maori koru) that is in the logo for Air New Zealand.

An unknown lizard blends in with the foliage.

Sofia also points out the similarity between a plant and woodsprites in the movie, Avatar. So many movies have been filmed in both the North and South Islands of New Zealand. It is no wonder to me. Our journey nears its end on Mount Eden, with a great view of the Sky Tower and downtown, as well as the cone of a dormant volcano behind us.

Nov. 11, 2017 — From Margaret

Queenstown, NZ

Queenstown is inland in the southeast corner of the South Island (see #13 on the map)

We really liked Queenstown! Our hotel was right on the waterfront, and we enjoyed these views from our hotel room.

Larry enjoyed the scenery as he rode the gondola up to Bob’s Peak. In a previous blog entry, I explained how I hiked the trail. We met at the top and enjoyed coffee and views on this sunny warm day.

 Speaking of coffee, we had to adjust to Australian and New Zealand tastes, as coffee in our country is usually brewed, and is weaker. We both drink our coffee black, so we usually ordered “long black,” which adds espresso to the hot water. But sometimes Larry preferred “Americano,” which adds hot water to espresso, and is a little weaker. Even with the extra water, he wanted it watered down more, which was often difficult for them to pull off.

On our last evening in Queenstown, we took the gondola up to Bob’s Peak, where we had been earlier in the day. We met a guide, who led our group of about 15 people on a walk to a dark area with two telescopes. Fortunately, we had a mostly clear sky with plenty of stars, including the Southern Cross. The moon wasn’t there to interfere, because it was a waning crescent moon visible only in the morning sky. We did see a couple of meteors, and a satellite. Our guide explained how there’s a vast area of sky that we cannot ever see in the northern hemisphere. He helped us pick out several stars and constellations. I certainly didn’t need help finding Orion, though it was upside down!

I guess because Orion is so distinctive, this constellation has been an anchor for me for many years – whether I saw it while walking home from teaching a night class, or see it in the early morning while out for a run and walk. Wherever we travel, I try to find Orion, the Big Dipper, and Polaris. In Australia and New Zealand, of these, only Orion was visible. But I learned to also recognize the Southern Cross. Perhaps the regular patterns in the night sky provide comfort. I also pay attention to moon phases and meteor showers, sometimes sitting out in my back yard in the wee hours of the morning with a cup of coffee.

It was a wonderful evening under the stars, and a nice way to end our travels on the South Island of New Zealand. The next morning, we flew to Auckland in the North Island.

Looking down on Queenstown at night from the gondola heading down.