Milford Sound, Kepler Track, Queenstown, and More...
Hello Again!
We're back in Wanaka after a great couple of weeks on the road. Since the last time we wrote, we headed south to the wild lands of New Zealand. The scenery is gorgeous: rain forest leading up to wind-swept alpine mountains, huge lakes, rich ocean, great trails, "enough beautiful waterfalls to make you sick" (according to our friend Shane), and on and on.
We stopped first in Te Anau, where the Kepler Track--one of NZ's seven "Great Walks"--starts and finishes. Last Saturday was the Kepler Challenge, a 37-mile running race around the trail. Travis thought about racing but was frightened by the $150 entry fee and decided to just do the free fun run (run the same route, pay no fee). He had fun out there in mountains on a beautiful day, and it was a good day of training indeed. Racing the official division was our friend Samantha (we stayed with Sam and Shane in Christchurch). Sam had been training hard and came to the race fit, fast, and shooting for the win...and she got it! 60k in just over six hours made her the Kepler Champion--way to go Sam!
We then headed towards another classic destination: Milford Sound. First however, we made a day-stop at the Routeburn Track (another Great Walk), where Travis, Shane, and Amy enjoyed another great day in the bush.
Milford Sound itself was spectacular. Imagine a thin finger of ocean extending into the mainland, and that solid rock mountains rise vertically from the water to above 6,000 feet, with glaciers all over and hundreds (thousands when it's raining) of little waterfalls streaming in every direction. That's Milford. We spent day and a half there and loved every moment.
From Milford, the Little Prince took us north to Queenstown. Something like a small Aspen (CO), Queenstown is flashy and touristy, and it's the first place in NZ where we've seen people obviously putting effort into looking fashionable and ritzy
(most of them were foreigners). Although Queenstown is not really our kind of place for the long run, we did enjoy some nice coffee shops and took advantage of the great mountain access for biking, running, and hiking. Trail access is also top-noth in Arrowtown, just outside of Queenstown and even more lovable.
We went for a quick overnight WOOFING (Working On Organic Farm) stay in order to take a break from sleeping in the car, only to realize that we actually enjoy sleeping in the car and living on our own schedule much more than staying at someone's house and living on theirs! So, a quick exit from WOOFING and a night drive (pulled over by cop for one headlight out, ended up chatting with cop for five minutes about nothing much, left without citing us, realized that cops here are actually out on the roads to help people...imagine that) took us back to Wanaka, where we went to a Mexican restaurant (food was some sort of a gesture of Mexican food; I guess where pretty far away) and rented a movie ("A Beautiful Mind"--awesome!).
Anyway, we're on the way up the West Coast, where people are sparce and traffic lights are outnumbered by glaciers at least 2:1 (no exaggeration).
Here we go, see ya later!
T and A
PS--"A Short History of Nearly Everything" and "Guns, Germs, and Steel" are two great books that have been providing good companionship and continuing education; give them a look!
We're back in Wanaka after a great couple of weeks on the road. Since the last time we wrote, we headed south to the wild lands of New Zealand. The scenery is gorgeous: rain forest leading up to wind-swept alpine mountains, huge lakes, rich ocean, great trails, "enough beautiful waterfalls to make you sick" (according to our friend Shane), and on and on.
We stopped first in Te Anau, where the Kepler Track--one of NZ's seven "Great Walks"--starts and finishes. Last Saturday was the Kepler Challenge, a 37-mile running race around the trail. Travis thought about racing but was frightened by the $150 entry fee and decided to just do the free fun run (run the same route, pay no fee). He had fun out there in mountains on a beautiful day, and it was a good day of training indeed. Racing the official division was our friend Samantha (we stayed with Sam and Shane in Christchurch). Sam had been training hard and came to the race fit, fast, and shooting for the win...and she got it! 60k in just over six hours made her the Kepler Champion--way to go Sam!
We then headed towards another classic destination: Milford Sound. First however, we made a day-stop at the Routeburn Track (another Great Walk), where Travis, Shane, and Amy enjoyed another great day in the bush.
Milford Sound itself was spectacular. Imagine a thin finger of ocean extending into the mainland, and that solid rock mountains rise vertically from the water to above 6,000 feet, with glaciers all over and hundreds (thousands when it's raining) of little waterfalls streaming in every direction. That's Milford. We spent day and a half there and loved every moment.
From Milford, the Little Prince took us north to Queenstown. Something like a small Aspen (CO), Queenstown is flashy and touristy, and it's the first place in NZ where we've seen people obviously putting effort into looking fashionable and ritzy
(most of them were foreigners). Although Queenstown is not really our kind of place for the long run, we did enjoy some nice coffee shops and took advantage of the great mountain access for biking, running, and hiking. Trail access is also top-noth in Arrowtown, just outside of Queenstown and even more lovable.
We went for a quick overnight WOOFING (Working On Organic Farm) stay in order to take a break from sleeping in the car, only to realize that we actually enjoy sleeping in the car and living on our own schedule much more than staying at someone's house and living on theirs! So, a quick exit from WOOFING and a night drive (pulled over by cop for one headlight out, ended up chatting with cop for five minutes about nothing much, left without citing us, realized that cops here are actually out on the roads to help people...imagine that) took us back to Wanaka, where we went to a Mexican restaurant (food was some sort of a gesture of Mexican food; I guess where pretty far away) and rented a movie ("A Beautiful Mind"--awesome!).
Anyway, we're on the way up the West Coast, where people are sparce and traffic lights are outnumbered by glaciers at least 2:1 (no exaggeration).
Here we go, see ya later!
T and A
PS--"A Short History of Nearly Everything" and "Guns, Germs, and Steel" are two great books that have been providing good companionship and continuing education; give them a look!
posted by Amy and Trav at 4:30 PM
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