It's a wrap

We came here for two different reasons. For Chris, this was his reward. For Christina, this was her challenge. But soon after our arrival, we realized that perhaps we came to escape reality. Sometimes reality bites and briefly stepping away from it all so that we could play hard, sleep in, and shed the hair-shirt of responsibility is enough to regroup, recharge and reprioritize.


We also thought this would be a good time to step back and reflect upon our lives til now, hoping for a revelation of life altering proportions. This trip has really only reinforced two central tenets of our lives: Working is for chumps, and Not having money sucks. Perhaps, upon reflection, post-trip we will be able to reconcile these two antithetical ideas and find a way to 1. do nothing and 2. get paid for it.
At the end of the day, this trip was less about figuring things out and more about being with, and enjoying each other. And that's what really matters.

Thank you Reddells

Our trip would not have been more than an unrealized idea had it not been for the perennial invites from my friend Marcie.

We want to thank Marcie, Russell, Lincoln and Buckley Reddell for their generous hospitality during our stay here. They opened their home(s), put us on the right track and helped us out with transportation to places we would not have seen otherwise. We look forward to the times when we can repay the favor. Thanks again.

Sorry mom....

Sheer, abject terror ---from the moment we stepped into the booking office until we were safely hanging from our bungy chord 440 feet below the jump platform. The Nevis bungy is the second highest bungy in the world with a free fall of 8.5 seconds. To you skydivers out there, this may seem like a walk in the park, but as the relatively close ground below accelerates toward your delicately-formed skull at 9.8 m/second squared, it's more like trying to outrun a bear with a piece of prime rib stapeled to your pants.

I must admit, I couldn't shake the idea that I would plunge to my death in a freak accident. How strong is nylon anyway? It's all just a numbers game isn't it? As we were shuttled to the jump sight, the bus was as silent as a prison transport taking fresh young cons to the hoosegow.

When we arrived at the jump, we all put on our industrial-strength, five-point harnesses as we deperately and breathlessly tried to convince ourselves that "this is going to be fun!" Fortunately for Christina and I, the heaviest people go first, eliminating the possibility that we were going to be the first jumpers of the day.

Finally it was my turn. Days of nervous anticipation were about to come to an end ---- one way or another. I wish I could describe the feeling of the last five seconds before jumping. It's really a battle between your natural survival instinct and your will. Your body tells you that this is a baaaaad idea. Your mind does too, but it's wrestling with your desire to prove you have free will. As you inch toward the edge and the five second countdown begins all I could think was "Can't be like that chubby girl who cried and didn't jump". So a last breath in and.....

I(Chris) let out a pretty nice yell which quickly turned from death-call to "Whoooooooo! Yeah!!!!!!" A switch flipped, the fear dissipated, and the rush just took over. I absolutely loved it-loved it.


I (Christina), on the other hand had a completely different experience of the free fall. My intial exclamtion was "Woah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" followed by "Oh, shit. Oh, shit. Oh, shit." I couldn't shake the feeling that I was plummeting to my death even though I (sort of) knew I wasn't. It was by far the longest eight and a half seconds of my life.

I will admit that there were times while I was writing my dissertation that I seriously considered jumping out of a forty story building. Glad I saved it for something that was a round-trip.
(check out this video: http://youtube.com/watch?v=pIzZJSvKPqw&feature=related)

Coasting along the Southern Scenic Route

Yellow eyed penguins, an albatross colony, waterfalls, and Hector's dolphins all "don't miss" attractions along the Southern Scenic Route of the South Island. We must have been too nervous about driving (and especially each other's driving) because we missed all of that! After filling up our car (to the tune of NZ$94) we made our way to Dunedin, a large Scotish-like city centre that is the home of Cadbury Chocolates, Speights Beer, Penguins and the Albatross (not the bar). Guide books recommend a drive along the Otago Pennisula to catch a viewing of the albatross and penguins--but all we saw were hundreds of seagulls and two sleeping sea lions. The one attraction we were really looking forward to was Cathedral Caves and had to time the visit with low tide, since the caves are only accessible via a beach walk. Unlike every other day in which the low tide was mid afternoon, the low tide happened to fall at 8:30 a.m. on the day we planned to go. Despite being on vacation, we both agreed (with some twisting of the arm) to wake up early to drive the hour from our campsite. We treked through the bush, made our way across the beach and entered the enormous caves. Cathedral-like they were, and about the closet thing we came to a religious experience.

Since it was a Sunday, we thought it would be nice to carry out our Sunday tradition of coffee and crosswords, so we found a cafe and that's how we spent the rest of our morning. After the puzzles were solved and our mugs were empty we continued on to Curio Bay, site of the world's largest Jurasic fossilized forest.

Our last stop was Marcie's (Chris's friend) beach house for a few days of relaxing and taking a vacation from our vacation. Many of the nearby beaches are littered with gemstones and fossils and Chris had a field day scavenging. To his disappointment, he came back empty handed.

We wrapped up our "tour of the south of the south" with a meal of the ubiquitous fish n' chips and a nice bottle of white wine.

You call that a "Great Walk"?

For what appears to be our last and final tramp, we literally stepped out of the front door of our hostel with packs on our backs to walk the 49 mile loop from Te Anau to the Kepler Track and back. Four days later we returned relatively unscathed and in reasonable spirits (blisters and aching feet took away some of the fun). Oh, and by the way, it was Chris who went through TWO blisteraid packs leaving me with mere bandaids...but in all fairness, his blisters were a bit gnarly.

It took us a total of 18 hours walking, from start to finish. But, that's almost shameful, considering some 300 people ran the track in an average of 7 hours in one day (the winner crossed the finish line in 4 hours, 49 minutes)! We happened to be on the trail during the "Kepler Challenge" endurance race. It's exceptionally impressive in that the runners had to climb ~4600 ft in one day and still complete a marathon distance.

The track is located in Fiordlands National Park where glaciers have cut massive gashes in the landscape creating fiords and mountain tops drape the landscape. Walking across the ridge line gives way to the most amazing view of the South Fiord.

We had plenty of time on the second day to pull over, sit back and admire the sight...that is until we suspected the annoying Texas Frat boy was fast approaching (I swear, this guy never stops talking). Then we took off and zig-zagged our way through 97 switchbacks, descending about 800 meters to our campsite. Where we had a quick dip in the frigid river, a refreshing cool down after a long day. But of course, we weren't alone. The battle between us and the sandflies quickly began and we were forced to retreat to our tent for the rest of the evening. Unfortunately, the Kepler track wasn't as impressive as the Routeburn, with much time spent in the beech forest, green moss gets old quickly. The third day felt much longer because of the latter. By the end of the day, I was dragging my feet, now more than 10 minutes behind Chris, and it must have shown on my face because when I approached our campsite, a guy took pity on me and handed me an ice cold beer. It's amazing how a Steinlager can change one's mood. (YES, I did share half of it with Chris!!)

Dash Kaffer

Hiking with Chris is like hiking alone. Minus the red tights and blond hair, he's like Dash from The Incredibles. One minute you're walking side by side, and next thing you know, he's ten minutes ahead, nowhere in sight (he's even suggested that we invest in two-way radios). I've grown used to this, not taking it personally and using the time to have some conversations with myself. In the middle of such conversation on a recent tramp, I came across a kind elder man who thought I was out hiking alone and was shocked when I told him I was with someone. "That's no partner...you should reconsider." I started to give that idea some thought, but quickly grew to my senses when I saw Chris around the bend waiting for me, giving me words of encouragement.

Christina got a little Route-burn

The Routeburn track is a three day alpine hike which has become the surrogate for those (us) who were not smart enough to book the Milford track (NZ's iconic walk) months in advance. That being said, 9/10 Kiwis agree that the Routeburn track is a much better hike than Milford. Milford is sort of like wanting to meet Michael Jackson. You're super excited to meet the "King of Pop" and shake is jewel encrusted white glove. But when you get up close, you see that his face has more plastic on it than a Tonka truck. Not so cool.

The views from this hike were spectacular, even by my(Chris) standards. The first day was flat and nothing to write home about. The second day, however, was great, despite Christina's persistent pee pee face. Christina thinks that hiking should be like walking through an English tea garden in a temperature-controlled environment where the sporadic flying insect or drop of moisture is taken care of by a team of penguin-suited yes-men. --Ahem...Christina here and I have to interject. I had a "pee pee" face on for the first half of the day because of the 2000 ft climb up a river, in the sleet! I was cold and wet and my pants got soaked. I swear I was going to get hypothermia! There, now you know the REAL story. ---(the sun just happened to come out right when this picture was being taken, then it went away)

We had steady and gradual climb through areas that were reminiscent of Scotland - not only because of the landscape but because of the weather. We had a continual smattering of rain and wind through fields of tussock and greenstone up to a saddle joining two peaks.

After a quick respite in the hiker's hut, we headed down the Hollyford face to our next night's rest.

The last day was the most rewarding, not only because the sun had cleared away the clouds, but because it had cleared away the cold memories of the prior day's adventures. At times it was difficult to discern the sun's golden rays from Christina's beautiful face. We had a fantastic early morning hike, walking under waterfalls, stealing views of the mountain tops, and discussing my movie ideas until we reached the trailhead where we caught a bus to the Milford sound.

My scared little monkey

You would have thought that we were getting ready to bungee jump off of the highest bridge...but no, Chris was only driving for the first (and last) time in New Zealand. He was so freaked out that he felt nauseous and perspirated profusely. The sad thing was, we were only driving for less than 10km. Needless to say, he made me drive back. Funny thing, I loved it!

Ice Ice Baby

From a distance, the Franz Josef Glacier looks like a frozen river flowing through the valley. This glacier has carved its way through the rainforest and unlike most glaciers, it is advancing. The glacier is nestled between the coast and the Southern Alps and is easily accessible by foot.

Along with our guide and a handful of others, we climbed up the glacier and wound our way through crevasses, some less than 2 feet wide and more than 20 feet deep. The labyrinth of crevasses was much like walking in between frozen waves.

Crayola doesn't come close to mimicking the true color of ice blue, a color that glows from the towering blocks of ice.

Possum, your end is the road!

There are about 70 million possums in New Zealand (about 20 per person) and the locals are not a fan of these pests. A favorite pastime is to steer your car towards the possum and create roadkill.

Abel Tasman Coastal Track

In 1642 Abel Tasman, a Dutch explorer, landed at the northern beachheads of the south island and didn't even get out of his boat (since 4 of his men were killed by Maori warriors). But that didn't stop the Kiwis from naming a national park after him. The 3500 acre park runs along the North coast and gives way to stunning views of the coastline (I say stunning, Chris wasn't all that impressed). Whereas many tourists choose to take a water taxi and walk a small portion of the track, we opted to walk for 3 days to cover more ground. During the second day we both developed blisters, but Chris initially refused to dole out the carefully-rationed blister bandaids "until it's bleeding". I whined and I won.

The well worn path takes you from bay to bay, bringing you across beaches and through esturaries. That may sound romantic to some of you, but having a heavy pack makes it less like a moonlight stroll with your honey and more like a physical fitness test in fifth grade gym class. The coolest part of the trip was figuring out when to cross the flooding inlets due to high tides. Our days had to be timed just right to avoid wading through waist-deep water. Occassionally we had to remove our shoes, hike up our pants and work our way through the shallowest areas to get to our destination.

Those damn flies

You can spot a victim several feet away. In fact, everyone falls prey to the sandfly. But don't be deceived by the name, they are not restricted to the sand, they are EVERYWHERE!!!!!!!!! And you would think that we would have learned our lesson by now (since we've been here for three weeks) and would slather ourselves in DEET each day before venturing out. But no, we are covered in bites. And the itch. Oh, do those bites itch!!! I recall standing in CVS (drug store) before leaving the states, staring at the anti-itch creams, convincing myself I wouldn't need it. And still, several bites later (now gaping wounds from all of my itching), I am refusing to shell out the four bucks.

Tongariro

Tongariro Crossing is the single most popular day trip in NZ attracting over 30,000 trampers a year. Mt Tongariro and Mt. Ngauruhoe are two active Volcanos that have transformed the surrounding bucolic landscape into a pyroclastic wasteland. It also happens to go between two moutains used in the filming of The Lord of the Rings, Mt. Doom and Mordor. (By the way, the Kiwis are sucking every ounce of fame from those movies. There hasn't been a day where we haven't had someone say "And this is where Peter Jackson.....") We started the trek at 8:30 a.m. with ~300 other people up a relatively steep climb of 2400 ft to the top of the South crater.

From there we hiked across a ridgeline to the thermically-active Red Crater.

Volcanic gases spew from cracks in the lava encrusted walls carrying the distinct aroma of sulfur and brimstone.
A quick drop in elevation takes you to the Emerald lakes whose color derives from minerals flowing from the volcanic effluent. The sight was amazing. But we quickly moved on because of the chilling winds. We made our way across a snow field to start our descent, mostly through Okahukura bush. The crossing was 17km in length and took us 6.5 hours to complete. Needless to say we were pretty tired that evening.

Ruapoopoo

We got held up in Taupo waiting for the weather to clear for the Tongariro Crossing and decided to do some Wwoofing to pass the time (and save some $$). So we made our way to Ohakune, a sleepy town under the shadow of Mt. Doom. Well, it certainly wasn't paradise (like our last Wwoofing gig). To summarize: rusty water, boiled cabbage and a mildew infested camper van. We were two of eight people working there, which made the experience somewhat tolerable. There were two perks: free horse trekking, which I (Christina) took advantage of...but if I never get on a horse again, I'll be just fine. And Goldie, the dog. Goldie LOVED us and will no doubt cry himself to sleep for the next couple of nights now that we are gone.

It's a small world....

...but I wouldn't want to paint it. Three days after we arrived we were on a ferry taking us back from an island near Auckland where I(Chris) ran into a girl who I had a beer with in Berkeley ~four years ago. She was an editor for a start-up publicly accessible journal called PLoS (Public Library of Science). I was trying to fast-track one of my papers through the review process.

1.5 weeks later I met these guys on a bus from Auckland down south. Steve (the guy on the left) literally lives three blocks from my house. He used to pick up my next door

neighbor for school every morning. We all went to the same junior high and high schools (~10 yrs apart) and even had some of the same teachers. Of course the teachers we shared are now pretty much on their death-beds. Chad, on the right, has a mom who works at the same hosptial my mom works at. I wonder who I'll run into next?

Green Glowing Poo

Wet suit? -check
Goofy white plastic boots? - check
Oversized red plastic helmet with LED light?- check
Making sure not to drink too much coffee before getting into all this stuff for 5 hours?-Whoops.
Now we're ready to go caving in Waitomo (world famous for it's glow worm caves)!
We started off with a 30 meter rappel into the mouth of the cave. From there we took a ride on a zip line through the pitch black to the underground Milky Way created by the glow worms. Our adventure had only just begun. We plunged about 25 feet into the 11 C water with our inner tubes and started rafting our way through the caves (hence the wet suits). The sight was amazing! Thousands of green glowing worm butts lit our way. After a while we ditched our tubes and spelunked through the rest of the massive underground flooded corridors. We winded our way through tight squeezes, and up and down waterfalls fending off eels until we saw our first rays of sunlight piercing through the abject blackness.

Can I also get hardship pay with that?

As was inevitable from the onset, we've found ourselves in nearly daily diplomatic talks trying to explain away the idiocy of current U.S. foriegn policy in a way that doesn't make us look like a bunch of Elmer Fudds for allowing the almost 8 year fiasco in the States to go as far as it has. What is the GS level for U.S. foreign ambassadors, because I'd like to get my check including all the overtime put in-- thank you very much.

Baa!

As has been said, sheep run the place here!