Don and Ann in a kayak.
Seals.
Weka.
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I vacationed in New Zealand, leaving 1/12/01 and returning 1/26/01. It was a great trip. As one person put it, "New Zealand would be overrun with American tourists if it weren't a 12 hour flight away."
It takes a while to get to New Zealand. The route was Indy to Chicago to Los Angeles to Auckland, New Zealand which took about 17 hours of flight time. Then there was an hour flight from Auckland to Blenheim, a small city on the north side of the South Island, where the trip actually started. This flight was on a 19-passenger turboprop.
We did some hiking on the north side of the South Island then drove over to the west coast and followed it down to Queenstown, hiking and touring along the way. From Queenstown we went on a 3 day hike called the Milford Track. On returning to Queenstown we came home, Queenstown to Auckland to L.A. to Chicago to Indy.
One of the chief activities of this trip was to hike The Milford Track. They refer to this as "the world's greatest walk." It is basically 3 days of hiking covering 33.5 miles. We stayed in lodges along the way so there was no camping. We did have to carry all our personal gear for those days; so this was more than day hiking but less than backpacking.
The lodges were dormitory style with rooms holding 4 - 8 people and shared bathrooms. They had nice lounges and dining rooms. We would get dinner and breakfast at the lodges and pick up our lunch there to carry with us on the trail.
The hiking was great. The first day was pretty easy, covering about 10 miles, almost all a slight upgrade. The second day was up and over the pass. It only covered 9.5 miles but we gained about 2,500 feet going up and lost 3,000 feet coming down. And it rained the entire afternoon.
On getting to the lodge at the end of this day, it was suggested that we visit Sutherland Falls, the 3rd highest falls in the world. However it was a 30 minute hike there and it was still raining. I went and it was worth it. But not too many people did. Most just wanted to crash at the lodge, get cleaned up, dried out and rested up.
The 3rd day on the Track was long, 13.5 miles, but was an easy downgrade all the way. The 2nd and 3rd days were a little tougher because the trail was almost all rock which is hard on your feet. While I didn't get any cuts or blisters, my feet were pretty sore by the end.
A lot of people do the Milford Track. We did what is known as a "Guided Walk" which means we had guides and stayed at the lodges. About 50 people a day start out on this walk during the season. Our Mountain Travel - Sobek group of 15 joined with others to make a group of about 48 to become Group # 77 this season. There were people from all over including New Zealand, Australia, Canada, Hong Kong and England. But the U.S. and Japan had the biggest contingents.
Normally I don't pay much attention to birds since most of them are nothing more than LBB's (Little Brown Birds) to me. But this trip had a number of interesting birds and bird stories.
First is the weka (wick ah). They're a bit like kiwis which is what we mistook them for initially. They're flightless birds too but without the long thin beak.
Second is the kiwi. We didn't see any partly because they're nocturnal and partly because there aren't very many. With the accidental introduction of predators to New Zealand, mainly stotes (a weasel like predator), many years ago the flightless birds who evolved in the absence of predators are having a tough time of it. There are stote eradication programs going on which are helping the wekas and kiwis.
Third is the kea (kee ah). This is a mountain parrot which is very curious and intelligent. We had been warned that they will try to steal anything and might even be able to open your pack. At our first lunch stop on the Milford Track, one paid us a visit. It waited 5 minutes for us to either feed it (which we were told not to do) or for us to drop something for it to scavenge. After 5 minutes it flew over to where I had set my pack down and it started working on the zipper. At one of the lodges there was a collection of boots that people had left outside and keas had destroyed.
Next was the fantail. This bird has a long tail that fans out but is otherwise an LBB. One day while hiking, I saw one near the trail. I used my hiking stick to point it out to someone. It then proceeded to fly over and land on the end of my stick.
Finally there was the Tui. Most of the group went kayaking one day but 5 of us went for a hike. At the end of the hike we stopped for awhile and had a snack. While there one person later said we spent 10 or 15 minutes listening to this bird sing. However my first reaction on hearing this bird was that someone was swinging a rusty gate. I thought it was a screeching noise with a gurgle at the end. Not what I would consider singing.
Generally the food we had was all pretty recogizable and standard. With some small exceptions, there wasn't a "New Zealand Cuisine" that I noticed. Except for Marmite, Vegimite and Justmite that is.
At the welcome dinner our first evening in New Zealand, we were given lapel pins making us honorary kiwi's. But, we were told that to keep the pins we would have to do certain things, one of which was to try marmite. One lady offered to return her pin then and there.
Marmite, Vegimite and Justmite are all yeast extracts. You spread butter on some toast and then one of these. Everyone we talked to about these said "It's an acquired taste." They're right.
Also, there appears to be a bit of rivelary between fans of these. I didn't find anyone who liked Justmite. And the Marmite fans can't stand Vegimite and vice-versa. I wasn't able to stand enough of either to really decide if there was a difference.
The other food story was one long day on the road when we didn't have time for a sit-down restaurant dinner. So we had take-out. They dropped some of us off for a short hike while the bus went into town to pick up some dinner. One of the choices they brought back was fish and chips. Some people considered this perhaps the low point of the trip. However I thought it was fun having a picnic of New Zealand fast food.
Different people had different days of the trip they liked the most. But for me, the day in Siberia Valley was the best. First we flew to the head of the valley to start our hike. It took 2 flights of 2 aircraft to get us there. I was in the 4 person Cessna 180. We got a short tour of the mountains before heading to Siberia Valley. To land we did two 45 degree banks to lose altitude to get to the field where we landed.
Once everyone had flown in, the start of the hike was to find a place to cross the river. There was no bridge and the river was way too wide to jump or find any other dry way of crossing. So we just waded in, boots and all. I rolled my pants up first just to keep them a little dryer.
The hike included going up and over a bit of a hill. This was actually the most difficult hiking of the trip technically. The Milford Track was longer and had greater altitude changes. But this part really required paying attention to where you put your feet and finding good ways up and down the trail over the rocks and tree roots.
Lunch was waiting for us at the end of the trail. There was also a string duet, violin and cello, waiting for us playing chamber music. My first thought was that they'd come here to practice since this was a nice place in the valley and easy to get to by river. But no, they'd been hired by our leaders to supply lunch music. On the way back down the river I asked them if they'd ever had a gig like this before. They hadn't. They asked me if this was a standard feature of this hikes. I answered that this was the first time I'd seen anything like this in 21 trips.
Then there was the boat ride back to town after lunch. We took jet boats. They've very fast and can operate in very little water, sort of like the air boats in the Everglades. The itinerary had mentioned "a wild jetboat ride." What they didn't mention is that it was done something like a carnival ride. We would head straight for river banks and swerve at the last second. We also attempted 360 degree spins. It was a wild ride all right.
The rest of the day, riding the bus to Queenstown, was pretty straight-forward. We eneded up in Queenstown which is a nice town. So all in all it was a really good day.
However the favorite day for a number of others in the group deserves mention. This was the day on the Milford Track when we came down the pass in the rain. While the pass was neat, the rain wasn't. But the rain generated numerous waterfalls which were really something. Two days later, when we drove back to Queenstown, was also rainy and we saw a lot of waterfalls as well. Many of the waterfalls only show up when it rains. A couple of times when we could see higher up the mountains, it seemed like the mountain sides were covered with waterfalls or runoff.
The Midford Track area gets a lot of rain. They say it's one of the rainiest areas in the world. Of course I think there's 30 or 50 other places that make this claim too. But at least they're well prepared for it. Each lodge on the Milford Track has "drying rooms." These are rooms near the lodge generators which are heated by the generators. Of course the one day we needed to use them, the main generator was having trouble and the rooms weren't as hot as they usually were. But it was nice having a place to dry out some of our stuff.
From sleeping in the lodges we learned the snoring patterns of most of those in our group. At the end of the trip one person had awards for the top 3 snorers. The interesting thing is that 2 of the top 3 were women. At least I wasn't the male winner.
The title for this trip, "Footrot Flats Lives" comes from a comic strip I discovered in New Zealand. We stayed at a Bed and Breakfast one night where there were a number of books in the living room / lounge. I spotted a "Garfield" collection. But I already knew about Garfield so I looked under it and found something called "Footrot Flats" and started reading it. I really enjoyed it.
"Footrot (Foot rot) Flats" is a New Zealand comic strip. But in talking to folks from Australia I learned that it is popular there too. There was even an animated Footrot Flats movie.
The strip is about a working New Zealand sheep dog called "the dog" (no name). It takes place on a farm and the dog has to round up sheep, babysit lost goat kids and so on. Think Garfield without the attitude.
The strip might even become popular in the U.S. However a few strips would require some translation. For example rugby, cricket and soccer are some of the topics mentioned. U.S. audiences would probably follow the soccer jokes but the other sports might not go over as well.