Out of here.

"The water is too clear and the sun is too hot." - Mojdeh
Those were our biggest dilemmas today.

Testing the waters.

We woke up and hit the supermarket. We are planning a fishing/camping trip at a place called Nelson Lakes. Apparently it is pretty far away from everything. Sounds great. We were beginning to feel like locals in the small town of Takaka, but it has been inundated by bloody tourists.

This is part of our hippie camp!

After some time in town, we went to our favorite swimming hole and played in the river. We laughed that watching people climb rocks, swing on ropes, and cheer each other on, was a lot like being at the zoo.

Like a zoo without cages.

After that it was back to town for our last meal that wont include our tiny cooking set and stove. We found the best place for fish (or chicken) and chips just before we planned to leave. Then we had to get in a good fish before leave town. The river by our campsite has been dirty due to all the recent rain. Today it was astoundingly clear and we actually saw our first trout without a guide. That was a close as we got though.

 We watched the sun set and chased daylight back to camp. 

Off to Nelson Lakes now!

Climbing: Day 1.

It rained the first few days when we arrived in Takaka. Staying at a hippie campground means that we are living in a mud hole. When I am not running around barefoot in the campsite, I am usually practicing my slacklining.

When our arms hurt, we slackline.

When we eat, however, instead of watching TV, we are playing Scrabble. Mojdeh bought herself Travel Scrabble for Christmas and it has been passing many wet hours.

One afternoon it was sunny so we rode bikes into town with new friends.

Then we were able to go for a walk in the bush.

It was finally sunny for a day but we couldn't go climbing because the crag (climbing area) was still wet. So we asked around and found out that the best place to go climbing after 6 inches of rain was the cliffs by the harbor. The next day we rented gear and hit the crag.

Getting ready.

It took us a while to get there hitching, but after 3 rides from different people we made it. We walked up a narrow track and BAM, there was the cliff! Extremely excited, we geared up.
Starting off with easy climbs were slowly got ourselves back into the swing of things. The peak of our climbing day was when we lead a 26 meter (85 feet) route called Franklin's Tower (16NZ/5.8US). It has astounding views and a bell made out of a fire extinguisher.

Mojdeh touching the anchor.

We then went back to our hippie camp had a late lunch and tea. Then we took advantage of the climbing area that was a 2 minute walk from our campsite for some evening ascension.

We heard that there is lots of climbing here.

On the way back I gave the cows with some flowers. 

One of them got shocked by the electric fence because it wanted flowers too. It is now Christmas Day. Merry Christmas! Mele Kalikimaka.

Abel Tasman Kayak Trip.

From the small town of Motueka, we headed to the smaller town of Marahau. At least Motueka had a supermarket. Marahau is at the entrance to the Abel Tasman National Park, but that is it. The Abel Tasman is a very popular park along the coast on the South Island. Having walked the last 70 km track carrying our heavy packs, this time we opted to use kayaks.

Preparing to paddle.

We had a boat drop us off at the north end of the park and we paddled for three days in a southerly direction. The idea was that the wind typically blows from north to south so the paddling wouldn't be very difficult. The first day we landed at Onetahuti beach and paddled a bit further north to Shag Harbour. There we were able to sea many seals lounging on the rocks and rolling in the surf. As soon as I could, I put on my goggles and swam out towards one. I tried to swim slowly and not spook it, but it wasn't as fond of me as I was of it.

 

Seal pretending to be a whale.

It kept swimming away. I couldn't stay in the water very long because it was FREEZING. We even saw penguins swimming around! (The Blue Penguin here is the smallest in the world.)

Blue Penguin.

We eventually headed south to our destination of Mosquito Bay. We hit some 25 knots onshore wind that made us paddle like mad, get soaked, but stay upright, and had me humming the Gilligan's Island theme song in my head. Luckily we made it to Mosquito Bay without much more trouble.

An empty bay.

We doused ourselves in insect repellent and made dinner. The campsite is only accessible by kayak so the people that walk in the park are unable to camp with us. We explored the marine life some more when low tide hit. We found some starfish and decided to have some starfish races in the tidal streams!

Starfish were everywhere. I am a serious kayaker.

The following day we leisurely broke down camp, had breakfast, and paddled out looking for more sea life. There are amazing birds like Gannets and Shearwaters that we were able to see dive bomb the ocean for their food. Our next camping area was similarly only accessible by the water so we didn't expect a lot of company that night. Unexpectedly, nobody else showed up. There were a couple of Oystercatchers that noisily alerted us when we got too close to their nest. It felt like we had the whole world to ourselves.

Nobody around.

There was a sailboat about a mile away and we could see their light on once it got dark enough for lights. (The sun goes down around 9 and it gets dark about 10.) We woke up, still alone, and decided to stay in bed for a while. The weather wasn't great and there was no reason to get out of bed. Hunger drove us to the only picnic table in camp eventually. The clouds gathered and things began looking like the weather wasn't going to be friendly. We said good bye to the local birds and decided to head back to Marahau where we knew we could find good burgers and some hot chips (french fries). It rained a bit and when we pulled up early to the beach a guy was there to take us back to base. We immediately ordered food, packed our gear and hitchhiked out of town.

Now we are at the town of Takaka (Tah-kuh-kuh). We are staying at hippie central. Willie Butler lived a 2 minute walk from some of the best rock climbing in New Zealand. He would charge climbers $5 to camp on his property because the Department of Conservation runs the crag and doesn't allow camping. He tragically died climbing a couple of years ago, but his family still lets people camp here. So here is to Willie and all the other dirtbag climbers that we hope aren't stealing our food right at this moment!

Short update.

After wine tasting, naps seemed to be essential.

I got sick for a couple of days, but luckily our hostel had a deal with the local bakery. Anything that wasn't bought before 5pm was brought over to the hostel for the backpackers to eat. So here I was, sick as can be, but stuffed with meat pies, sandwiches, popcorn, kiwis, and orange juice.

Me being sick.

There was no work for us in Nelson, so we headed out of town.

 On the move.

The following day we walked to...well we were walking until someone offered us a ride to a campground near the beach. The people here are SO friendly. The guy that picked us up invited us to his house for Christmas because we don't have anything to do.

At the beach, we collected shells.

Then made necklaces.

We are now in the town of Motueka. There is nothing in the town, but it is the gateway to the Abel Tasman National Park. Our plan is to kayak along the coast and camp on the beach. Our first day should be in a marine reserve filled with seals.

Here is a video of our canoe trip from the North Island.

Blanc.

We stayed one night back in Picton before heading off for a new adventure. We had spent plenty of time canoeing, hiking, and camping so we thought that it would be nice to spoil ourselves a bit. Being on a half year vacation is very difficult. So we headed to one of the most famous wine regions of the world, Malborough.

Checking the crops.

The Malborough area of New Zealand is very popular for its Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Gris, and recently its Pinot Noir. We sampled them all. The first day that we arrived we walked to a few of the closest wineries. We found out what makes a family run winery much better than a giant multi national conglomerate when the owners of Gibson Bridge offered to drive us home after hearing us whine (sorry for the bad pun) about how tired we were. We hit up the only shop in town for sausages and garlic bread and barbecued our way to heaven with a great bottle of Gibson Bridge Pinot Gris.

 

Life is rough here.

The following day we hired bikes, bought some crackers and cheese, and set off to try as many wines as we could. We cycled the countryside and ate leftover sausages, garlic bread, and many different cheeses with our bottle of River Farm Sauvignon Blanc. What a great day. Following that, we had dinner with a Pinot Noir from Te Whare Ra.

 Highfield Estate is a big pink castle that looks out over the vineyards.

Te Whare Ra was another small and family run winery that impressed us enough to return to it to buy our bottle for dinner. The plan is to try and tear ourselves away from the wine country and head to Nelson. There we hope to trade work for accommodation and not spend much money. Apparently, the hostels need extra hands as the holidays roll around. However, we are not used to working much and I wouldn't be surprised if we lived in a tent off the beaten path for the next couple of weeks!

Doing Queen Charlotte.

Our water taxi dropped us off at one end of the peninsula and said that they would see us in 5 days at the other end. We were on our own. Hopefully we had enough food, fuel, and energy in our legs to last the over 70 km (45 miles).

We started here.

The QCT.

Immediately the track went straight uphill. After 45 minutes of panting and sweating we were wondering if we were going to be able to do this whole thing. The plan for the first day was to take it easy and just walk 5 km.

The first night we camped near here.

We didn't know that it was 300 meters in elevation change! Eventually we arrived at Schoolhouse Bay. There was a beautiful sailboat in the bay and we were envious of the owners that didn't have to walk to the track like we did.

One of the many waterfalls.

 

Mussels are everywhere here!

The owners of the boat came ashore the following morning and we quickly became friends. We packed up our camp and began the longest day of the trip. It was about 25 km and 8 hours of hiking that we were about to endure. Halfway we came across Furneaux Lodge. It was a fancy place where we indulged in overpriced chicken burgers with brie and chutney. We saw our friends that owned the sailboat (which was named Luna C) and they offered to give us a lift to our next campsite. Being the epitome of laziness we quickly accepted and spent the afternoon lounging on their boat instead of slogging another four hours through the beautiful forest.

Mojdeh on board the Luna C.

The third day was more climbing uphill. We could have hiked for 9 hours to try and make the furthest camping area, but we chose to stop sooner rather than later. We camped at the top of the hill (450 meters above sea level). There were wild pigs, annoying birds called Wekas that would carry anything that they could into the bush, and a couple of Germans camping with us. It was a cold night and we were excited when the sun came out the next day. The views from the top of the ridge were stunning and around every corner one of us would be heard saying, "Wow".
The fourth day we ended back at sea level and were able to drop our packs off at a resort for our water taxi to pick up. We even had expensive chicken and chips. It turned out to not be as rugged as we initially thought that it would be. This only left our last and final day. With only day packs, we thought that walking 20 km would be a breeze. Turns out that our legs were a little more tired than we anticipated. The last hour we walked in silence.

 

I look pretty professional on the move, but...

I prefer sitting to walking.

Admiring the beauty was replaced by the need to put one foot in front of the other. Hips, backs, legs, everything hurt. We were sick of our pre made pasta, dehydrated mashed potatoes, and even the delicious instant noodles. We made it to the end of the track and just waited for the water taxi to arrive. It was a bit strange to have nothing to do but wait. So of course we walked a little further. The boat picked us up and brought us straight back to the town of Picton. We had already booked our hostel that we had liked the week before so we couldn't wait to get back to it and it's hot tub. A bake-at-home pizza and bottle of wine later, and life was better than we ever could have imagined!

Finally. the law school apps are finished!

148km Canoe Trip

Leaving Taupo, we hitched a ride from a school principal out of town. Then an Aussie picked us up and took us to the small town of Turangi. From there, a Maori guy named Charlie picked us up (I think that he was pretty stoned). He was cool and like most Kiwis, he wanted to show us around. He showed us his tribe's marae. A marae is a gathering place when the tribe has a hui (meeting). They can gather for a funeral, wedding, or just to have a meeting. The tribe has a sleeping house full of bunks, a place to prepare food, and a large outdoor assembly area. Charlie dropped us off in Manaranui. (He was off to play music with a lady that plays ukulele.) A construction worker picked us up and gave us a lift into the town of Taumaranui. That was where our five day canoe trip began.

We are off!

We camped at a place called Cherry Grove just outside of town. There were no cherry trees, but a couple of rivers came together there so we tried out our new fly rods as well as the tons of flies, gear, and advice that Fishy Steve had given us.

 

Mojdeh with our flies.

A couple of tangles, no fish, but one beautiful sunset later, we went back to the tent. A giant local guy with a group of rambunctious kids in a mini van advised us on where to sleep as sometimes the local kids come down there to harass people and break into cars. We woke up the next morning with no problems during the night. We made breakfast and just as we were finishing our tea, a truck pulled up with a single canoe bouncing on the trailer behind it. We were going to have to river to ourselves! A guy got out and our conversation was something like this:


Dave: Hi, I'm Dave. What time did they tell you fellas I'd be here?
Us: They didn't.
Dave: Good, then I'm not late. Have you ever canoed before?
M: On a lake once.
R: I've paddled a bit, but
Dave: Good as wood, you'll be sweet as. Let's put this canoe in the water. I have some maps, but you won't need them. Skip the first campsite, sometime the local boys go down there and harass the campers. Right-o. Jump in, you're off! Just don't stack the boat. 

 First 5 mins.

There was more slang, but no subtitles in real life, however, you get the point. We skipped the first camp site like he recommended. As we rounded the corner to land at the first camping area, there were no local hooligans but three naked men in the water. Two scrambled to put on their shorts and the third jumped into the water. There is a lot of glacial melt so after a couple of minutes in the cold water, he decided to get out and just hold his shorts in front of him. We snickered a bit and kept paddling glad not to be staying there. The next campsite was deserted.

Just us and the river. So I did what everyone else does and took off my clothes. We never saw anyone else the first two days. The first day we paddled for about 5 hours averaging 7km an hour.

The second day the weather turned a bit and we got rained on for about 20 minutes. Out of nowhere the skies opened up and it poured. It is typical that shortly after donning rain gear the weather gets better. That was true while canoeing. We reached our campsite the second night as the rain began again. Luckily there is Dave's house where he lets everyone shower and use his kitchen. He wasn't there when we arrived, but he left a note telling us to make ourselves at home, so we made tea, got dry and waited for him. There is an old schoolhouse that has been converted to a Department of Conservation camping bunkhouse. With the thunder getting louder, we slept in the hut with a German and a Dutch girl. They were paddling for four days along the river. We awoke the next morning to the valley covered in fog and Dave running around in a towel. We made breakfast and chatted with Dave until the sun came out and we headed downstream again. Everyday we would stop to make lunch, fish, or just watch the river go by.  It still took us over 5 hours to go the 28km. Without a schedule, we could take as long as we wanted. The water was murkier than in Taupo and I have a million excuses of why we didn't catch (or see) and fish. Guides are amazing! We missed Steve.

 

Mojdeh likes to paddle.

The third night was very busy. A commercial operation had started that day with 4 adults and 5 kids. We arrived at another DoC (Department of Conservation) hut, but seeing the 24 beds, we decided to camp on the lawn. We met some cool people (there were about 20 people staying there) and had an uneventful evening.

The following day, we met a guy named Luke that was in a kayak. He too is from the States. He quit his job, sold his car, and is now traveling around NZ. I have an appreciation for people that are willing to do that. We paddled and talked for a while together. The large group was at the next campsite so we decided to paddle a bit further and avoid the crowds. It worked well. There was only 5 of us in absolutely surreal beauty. It took us 8 hours on the river this day. We paddled over 40km.

The last day we had less than two hours of paddling to the end. The 10km we had left went by pretty quickly. We were tired of sitting in wet clothes, eating dehydrated mashed potatoes, and already cooked pasta. We had instant noodles for lunch...every day. Finishing our five day trip felt good. Our upper bodies are exhausted, but strong!
Dave was going to bring our packs to us so that we could hitchhike to a town on the coast called Wanganui and eventually head to Wellington. From there we wanted to get on the ferry to the south island. Dave forgot our packs. A two hour trip in the opposite direction brought us to Slalom Lodge. Dave hooked us up with a free room and a bottle of wine to say that he was sorry for forgetting our packs. The weather was crap anyway so it all worked out in our favor. To top it off, Luke was staying there. We hung out drinking with him, found out that he had a car, and he was going to Wellington the next day.
We woke up hungover, drove a really curvy road for 5 hours and we all tried not to puke all day. We found a hostel that was completely full, except for their tiny areas for tents. The three of us set up camp, again, but this time in the middle of the city. At some ungodly hour in the morning every vehicle with a siren went blaring by us. That got us up early enough to enjoy the free breakfast by ourselves and head off to the ferry. Luke stayed in Wellington for the day and we went to the south island. Last night we stayed in a cool hostel that has free chocolate pudding every night, a hot tub, free breakfast, and cool people staying here.

Now we are off into the bush again. 5 days of walking and camping on the Queen Charlotte Track. No computer for a while. So, we are doing well. I will post again when we get back.

Fish vid

Thanks again to Fishy Steve and his family for their hospitality and generosity. We bought a couple of fly fishing rods while in Taupo. We got the TFO NXT series fly rods. Mojdeh got a pretty rod that part of the proceeds benefits cancer research. Here is a video of our fly fishing time with Steve.

Rainbows

Today was another day of fishing with Fishy Steve. We have stayed at his family's house for 3 nights. They have made amazing food every night.

Last night was fajitas, homemade salsa, guacamole, etc. (Mexican food is a rarity in NZ) and tonight was home made pizza. This is amazing after a long day of fishing. Today, Steve took us on an outback adventure. We were walking through the bush up and down the Mohaka River. We only went "swimming" once. The rocks were slippery and as the river got deeper and faster we lost our footing and the water poured into our waders.

Nobody was hurt, we didn't lose any gear, so it ended up being a good day! Of course Mojdeh hooked a giant Brown Trout in the first few minutes and as she brought it close to shore, it threw out the hook and got away.

Fishy Mojdeh (?)

We left Auckland as soon as we could. Hearing that South Auckland is the sketchier part of town, we decided to take a bus and avoid the hitching for a bit. We skipped Rotorua and went straight to Lake Taupo. I have heard of this town because this is where they hold Ironman New Zealand in March. Their half IM is coming up in December. There is a also a 160 km bike race next week. Every Monday there is a small and casual duathlon. Quite an athletic town.We stayed in town the first night until we heard about a free campsite about an hour walk outside of town.

 It started pouring rain when we set off for our free campsite.

Eventually, the weather cleared and it has been more like summer every day. The nights are chilly. Our free campsite is right next to a river. There is a natural hot spring not far from our camp. We took advantage of that!

Here I am getting water at night out of the river.

After a couple of nights we booked a half day fly fishing guide. We set out on the Waitahanui River in the afternoon (after Mojdeh's bday) kind of groggy. We quickly woke up to the biggest trout that we have ever seen. 

Our guide "Fishy Steve" turned out to be much more fun than we ever could have hoped.  He helped us land some amazing Rainbow Trout. He then took pity on us and invited the backpackers back to his place for a hot shower and a fantastic home cooked meal.

I know this will make some people jealous!

 

The next day, we couldn't help but go out fishing for a full day with Steve. He got us into some great fish. The scenery was breathtaking, but we refused to stop focusing on the fish. It paid off!

This is my biggest fish of the trip... so far. We bought a fly fishing rod and we are going to put it to the test tomorrow.

 

Thanks to "Fishy Steve" for a great time! Check out www.fishysteve.com to see his cool web site.