If You Feed a Kea Dinner, It Will Eat Your Car For Dessert

After our cancelled skydive in Queenstown, Milford Sound, in Fiordland National Park, was our next destination. We camped at Deer Flat campground outside of the Park, and drove into Milford Sound the next morning. During this drive, we had our first experience with the Kea bird. These are the only alpine parrots, and they are the nosiest birds we've ever seen - they like to rip the rubber lining off car windows, hence the title of the blog. This one is enjoying the view from the roof of our car:

When we arrived in the Sound, we realized that all the tours for the day were already on their way or done, so we booked a kayak tour for the next morning, and camped at the Milford Sound Lodge. At 7:30am, we were at the boat ramp, decked out in the most fashionable of dry gear, and ready to go. The trip was awesome. We were out earlier than any of the boat tours, so it was calm and quiet. We split into to 2 groups, and we had 10 people, 5 tandem kayaks. We saw our first penguin (a Fiordland Crested), and a few fur seals:

Our guide poured us tea made of the raro berry, and we saw some amazing waterfalls rushing down the cliffs of the Sound.

We were exhausted afterwards, but still drove a lot of the southern coast route, ending our day in Riverton. On our way to Dunedin the next day, we drove through Invercargill, and stopped at Nugget Point to walk to a lighthouse. We saw more fur seals and this time a Yellow Eyed Penguin!

In our quest for a free place to camp that night, we drove the entire length of the Otago Peninsula, then part way back and ended up camping on the oceanside of a big boulder. It's funny waking up in places like that, wondering if anyone will be around when you slide the van door open and stumble into the light. Oh well. We drove to the Dunedin Botanical Gardens to make breakfast (tea and cereal/oatmeal most mornings), then talked with some aviary birds, stared into a window at Jack Russell puppies, and made our way to the Dunedin Holiday Park. Here, Ryan finally got some surfing in, with some excellent 5-7' waves at St. Kilda beach:

The next morning was a beautiful Saturday, and we headed to St. Clair beach, apparently along with every family in Dunedin. It hadn't been sunny for a while, so this 80 degree F weather may have been their first beach day this season! The sun may have been a reason we loved Dunedin so much also; that and it has a big university, so there are more people our age. New Zealanders are serious about the sun here, being as close to the ozone hole as they are - every child is covered head to toe in sun clothing or wetsuits. Ryan surfed again, although the swell had backed down considerably.

That afternoon, we took a bus into the city for a Cadbury Chocolate Factory tour (although they didn't have the actual factory operating on a Saturday - bummer), and then a Speights Brewery Tour, these complete with free chocolate bars and all the beer you could drink in half an hour! Speights is the #1 brewery in NZ, and they told us you can buy their Summit Lager in Trader Joes, so check it out! Dinner at Thai Hanoi restaurant was great - thank you Laura and Chris for that recommendation!

The next morning, Leo, our van, barely made it up the steepest street in the world - Baldwin Street! Making our way up toward Christchurch, we stopped at the Moeraki Boulders Scenic Reserve, home of round boulders sitting on the beach:

We free camped on the edge of a river that night in Selwyn District, just south of Christchurch. The next day we drove to Christchurch, parked at their botanical gardens (every large town here has a botanical garden!), and toured the town. We free camped again about 30 km south of Kaikoura, then drove to Kaikoura, the seafood capitol of NZ, the next day, checked into a holiday park, and walked the town. We saw seal and sea bird colonies at a point just outside town, and decided we wanted seafood for dinner. We inquired into the prices of crayfish - our lobster in the states - and decided we liked Maine's prices better. We ate at The Strawberry Tree, where we finally tried whitebait, which locals call white gold as it is a delicacy, had mussels, and fish and chips. We met Benedikt and Sarah, a German couple who we might call up when we're in Munich!

The next day we headed north toward Blenheim, and did a small winery tasting tour along the way. Some of the better wines we tried were Brancott and Stoneleigh, which can be bought in the States. We stopped in Havelock, the green mussel capitol of the world, and ate a tasty dish of mussels, then stopped at a very nice free camping spot maybe 30 minutes outside of Nelson, which is in the middle of the north coast. After some contemplating, we decided we should make time for the Abel Tasman National Park, so we drove to Kaiteriteri, a nice coastal resort-like town with a beautiful bay that our German friends recommended. It was here that we decided to re-book our next adventure - skydiving over Abel Tasman. So with that on our minds, we drove to the Matueka airport. It was getting cloudy, and we were afraid that this one would be cancelled as well, but nope...we jumped!

Sweet As!

[Answer to the quiz, as you may have guessed - Kiwi fruit. Weird, huh?]

October Showers Bring November Flowers

So we've been in New Zealand for 12 days and although the weather hasn't been the best, we've been having a great time. For the most part it's been cold, windy, and rainy, and we've even seen some hail.

We started out in Auckland, staying our first night in NZ with our friends Danny and Jaime, who have just moved to NZ for a 2 year stay. The next morning we picked up our Spaceship campervan, which we are calling home for a month, and headed south. A quick description of "Leo," our van: it's barely big enough for us to sleep in, it has a pull-out two-burner stove, plenty of food storage underneath the bed, and best of all a DVD player.




Ryan bought a surfboard in Hamilton, and we made our way to Rotorua, home of adventure sports and thermal hot springs. We went to the Wai-O-Topu Thermal Park and saw Lady Knox Geyser and crazy thermal pools.

Next, we were off to Gisborne, where Ryan was able to put his surfboard to use a few times, at Wainui Beach. A Saturday farmer's market in Gisborne replenished our supply of strawberries, kiwi fruit, bread, and wine (tough selection!).

Napier, in the Hawke's Bay wine region, was the next place to visit. Here we were able to taste some of New Zealands famed Sauvignon Blancs and Chardonnays. An added bonus is that most "cellar doors" offer complimentary tastings, which fits well with our budget! We also tried olive oils dipped in dukkah, which is a blend of nuts and spices, and is quite yummy.

We finally made our way down to Wellington, and found an interesting place to stay the night. Battle Hill Regional Park was deserted, rainy, and full of sheep and their lambs. A generous ranger, after collecting our fee, brought us a dozen fresh-from-the-hen's-nest eggs, still warm when we put them in our cooler. Those would make a good breakfast! We then took the Bluebridge Ferry across the strait to Picton on the South Island. A few nights later, after some more rainy and windy drives, we found ourselves face to face with the Franz Josef Glacier, which starts in the snowy mountains and ends near a rainforested area by the sea. We "tramped" (hiked) to the terminal face, which was amazing considering we were actually touching a glacier.

Yesterday we stopped quickly at the Fox Glacier, then drove to Lake Wanaka, where we scheduled a skydive for today. Unfortunately, this morning brought gray skies and very windy weather, and skydiving was cancelled. We decided not to stick around and wait for clear weather, and instead headed to Queenstown, the extreme sports capitol of the world. We entered the Central Otago wine region, so we stopped for some Sunday afternoon wine tastings, trying the Pinot Noirs, which don't compare to California's!

Milford Sound is our next destination, then back up the East Coast. One thing we've noticed here, the people are very friendly. Besides the ranger giving us the eggs, a lady at a petrol station handed us a coupon for a few dollars off our gas. We don't think that's ever happened to us in the States.

Quiz: This picture shows a:

a) grape vine

b) kiwi vine

The answer will be revealed in our next blog!

And finally, R.I.P. Cheech, our little hamster who died right after we left on this journey.

Until next time, cheers!