Happy New Year!

We like topiaries shaped like elephants!!!

Hey all,

Hope everyone had a wonderful New Years. We’ve had an action packed time since we last left you (in short, this is a long one). A couple of our friends, Bea and Will, from our Frisbee team have been traveling around New Zealand the last several weeks and we got a chance to meet up with them for dinner.

Drea, Dave, Bea and Will

They were on their way to Christchurch from Queenstown so we drove up to meet them on route at the Millhouse. It was a cute little restaurant/hotel on a river about an hour north of Dunedin. We had a nice dinner catching up with them and hearing about their travels (go to beainsf.blogspot.com to see pictures of their fishing trip among other things, they brought in an impressive haul of fish). After dinner we had them follow us to a lighthouse about 20 minutes from the hotel to try and catch a glimpse of the ever elusive yellow eyed penguin. There was a small hide constructed next to the beach that we wandered in to just as the light was beginning to fade. Unfortunately, the light was a little too faded as we were there after we were allowed to be there and a woman very protective of her penguins came down and yelled at us. Sorry to bea and will for getting them yelled at on their vacations. But on the plus side we did see one penguin come up the beach during our few minutes there.

We got back into Dunedin and hung out for a couple days before New Years planning our trip to Stewart Island. New Years eve we decided to hang out in town and go to the new years festival. It was a fun show with about 5 bands and a few other acts rotating through a main stage in the center of town. As it was getting close to midnight Drea and I were near the stage when I got a tap on my shoulder. It turns out Matt Tolcher, Sanjay and his girlfriend Shalani were traveling through the south island and decided to stop in Dunedin for the festivities. Matt and Sanjay are Frisbee friends from the bay area, Matt currently lives in Auckland. We went out for a beer with the three of them and watched the fireworks just after midnight. Sorry, forgot to take their picture.

The next morning we headed off on the road to Stewart island. We stopped a couple times on the way down to hang out by the river in Gore and then spent a couple hours at Dolomore park just outside of there. We had planned to explore the park but instead decided to relax under a tree by a small stream and read some deeply depressing German literature (Sorry Drea, but it was most definitely depressing). We spent the night in Bluff and the very end of State highway one overlooking the fouveaux straight.

Us at the end of the road

Drea knitting at the end of the road

We took the ferry the next morning at 8. (The ferry is supposedly one of the consistently roughest commercial ferries out there, the fouveaux straight is only 30 meters deep at it’s deepest and the shallow waters can lead to impressive swells) Luckily, the morning ferry was calm for us and we got to the island without incident. We had planned on kayaking the first leg of the rakiura track and then hiking the last two legs. Unfortunately, the weather was predicted to turn in the afternoon with 40 kmh winds. The kayak rental person asked me rather snootily, “Do you know anything about wind?” before telling us that she wasn’t going to rent us the kayak. Oh well. So we decided to hike from there. We added a couple hours to our first day by taking this route but we saw some beautiful vista’s and a family of weka (small inquisitive flightless birds) along the coast. It started to rain on us about 2 hours into our hike and got steadily more difficult as we went along. The track was a mix of wooden boardwalks and small swampy mud holes. There was a short debate and then it was decided that Dave was poorly equipped for this trip. The tennis shoes that had served perfectly well on other wet weather hikes did not fare well at all against the deep deep mud of this track. We got to the hut about 7 hours after starting out that morning thoroughly exhausted and very wet.

The next day was predicted to be more of the same but much to our relief we woke to a break in the clouds and started off hiking in the early morning sun. The good weather held for the rest of the day (of course there were gigantic mud bogs the entire way) as we hiked our way over the hills towards our next hut. We stopped several times to snack, take in the scenery and rest our very weary feet. It took us another good 6 hours of hiking before we rolled into the Port William hut. It was a beautiful little stretch of beach that used to be one of the earliest settlements on the island before it was turned into a park. We went on an evening walk trying to spot the ever elusive kiwi but gave up after a short while.

The top of the lookout tower halfway through day 2

A stunning vista that the camera just wouldn't do justice to. I'm not talking about us.

Who am I kidding, look at us. ;-)

Drea's real expression while crossing the swing bridges.

Drea also got some binoculars for Christmas that we had a lot of fun with....

The ninja sees all!

You can't hide from the ninja, even when his assistant is mocking him.

The ninja's assistant is no one to be trifled with!

We walked the last 4 hour hike at the leisurely pace of 6 hours. Not sure how we did that. We got into Halfmoon Bay around 2 and our ferry was scheduled to go out at 6:30.

The end of the track (but still an hours walk from town)

We got in a little later than we’d planned so we decided to try and spend another night on the island. It seemed everything in town was booked up and as a last minute effort we went to the information center to see if they had anything. As it turns out, a nice woman on the island came down that morning and said that if they had anyone that needed a place to stay that they could stay at her place. So Drea and I and another couple were lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time and got the invite to stay there. It was awesome. More like a bed and breakfast than any kind of backpackers hostel. She greated us with tea and cookies and made us feel so at home. Especially after she took our backpacks off of us at the information station and drove them up the hill to her house. Sweet! She had a beautiful home with a fantastic garden and huge windows overlooking one of the small inlets. We stayed most of the day there relaxing and cooking dinner and getting cleaned up.

Our wonderful host Ann and her cat, Cornflakes

The next day we took the morning ferry over to Ulva island. The island is a bird sanctuary that has been able to remove all the rats and other introduced predators from the island. We went on several little walks and saw Weka, Parakeets, Kereru(essentially super fat pigeons), Kaka (parrots), and several other assorted rare birds. Alas, no kiwi. Darn nocturnal birds.

The only kiwi we saw this trip.

We took the ferry back around noon, went for a quick mountain bike ride, then collected our bags and said goodbye to our wonderful host and jumped on the last ferry out.

Then we drove home. Whew!

Hope you all had a wonderful New Years. Love to you all.

Dave and Andrea

PS. The chickens like fruit but their favorite is banana bread and chocolate cake. Who do you think has been feeding them that???