One final trip - Day 6 (Catlins National Park)

January 1, 2015

What a way to start the new year - we drove the Southern Scenic Coastal Route through Catlins National Park and it was stunning. Warning: there are a lot of pictures in the post and you will think you are dreaming it's so gorgeous!

I so wish we could have stopped in more places, but we had to get all the way to Invercargill so we were limited to only a few stops. This is definitely a see-again place.

Florence Hill Lookout
Luckily the sun was out today, although a storm was always lurking in the rearview mirror. As we were driving the scenic route, we saw this amazing beach below the road and pulled over at this lookout we found. It was picture perfect.

This view was so stunning I wish we would have had food for a picnic or something to enjoy it longer. But if you look to the left of my right hand, you will see a truck down on the beach so we decided we would figure out how to get down there as well.

Tautuku Beach
Success! We found the road leading to the beach. At the urging of Brian, I got brave and drove right onto the beach. I was concerned that we would get stuck in the sand, but it was packed tight and driving on it was a cinch. And it was a perfect evening with a nice breeze to cool it down.

Even Ike was getting in on the fun!

Now that's some green moss on those rocks in the foreground.

Niagara Falls
We saw Niagara Falls on the map and thought we had to see it. Of course it couldn't compare to Niagara Falls in the U.S. as the mountains weren't too high in this part of the country, but I was interested to see what it would look like.

We turned on to a dirt road and kept driving and driving. Eventually we realized we must have passed it and turned around. But we did take a couple of pretty pictures first.

I swear, every time I take a picture of sheep they stare me down.

As we drove back, we think we found Niagara Falls, but it was just a little drop of of maybe a meter each. We didn't even stop to take a picture haha. But it was an interesting adventure on that extremely rocky road!

Waipapa Point
The last stop we made was at Waipapa Point where you supposedly can see sea lions. We were going to try and find a spot to see penguins, but everything I read said you needed to stay until the evening and we couldn't be that late. Oh well!

Waipapa Point had a cool lighthouse and we did have an encounter with a sea lion. Exciting! More postcard pictures incoming...

After we had walked up to the lighthouse, we walked down to the beach to try and see some sea lions. This is what we found.

 This guy was laying absolutely still, and eventually we decided it was dead. so I trotted onto the beach to get a picture.

 So imagine my surprise and fear when the guy lifted up his head while I was still standing right near him! If you notice in the picture above, I'm between him and the ocean.

We had read a sign back at the parking lot which stated 1) do not get within 20 meters of a sea lion and 2) do not get between a sea lion and it's escape route (the ocean). Clearly I was in violation of both as I thought it was dead. So I quietly back away and then ran for my life. I guess I overreacted because he just put his head back down and went back to sleep.

But isn't this country amazing? These areas are so unspoiled by humans and we can just visit them for free. Awesome.

Brian found another a friend a little further down the beach.

There were other things to see while we were on the beach as well. I had fun watching a bird picking up it's meal and dropping it from 50 feet in the air to crack the shell open. It was so interesting. I didn't get great pics of it though, they were mostly blurry.

Swooping in to pick up the meal before taking it over to the rocks

Took about 4-5 attempts before success was achieved

Some fishermen were enjoying the beach as well.

Brian always takes pictures of me walking away, so I finally put one in. LOL.

It looked like the storm was catching up to us, so we decided to call it good and head on to Invercargill for the night. But first, a couple last pics on our way out.

The grass in this area had so much character. Made for super cool pictures (at least I think so)

We thought these windswept trees were so cool!

The view looking away from the beach & lighthouse was every bit as gorgeous

One final trip - Day 5 (back to Christchurch & farewell to Sister Chan)

December 31, 2014

It's New Year's Eve! To celebrate, we are taking the ferry to get back to Christchurch in time for Sister Dindi Chan to be set a part as a Sister Missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The Chan's have become really great friends to us and we were honored to be invited to this special occasion for Dindi. But first we had to get there. Luck was definitely on our side, because even though it was raining, we got to be first in line on the ferry! Well, really it was because we had Ike - but I'll take it.

Seriously, we were the very first car to drive off the ferry. Watch this...

And we're all ready to go.

 And the gate's going, going...

 Gone! Boom!

After a much less sunny drive back to Christchurch than we had enjoyed in the other direction, we made it back just in time for a quick shower and then drove over to the church. Saying goodbye to Sister Chan was sad, but we know she is going to be a great missionary!

What a cute girl!

Lastly, we got home to another beautiful sunset. Time for some rest before our road trip down south begins in the morning! Enjoy the different views from our house.

One final trip - Day 4 (NZ's "big things" and near death experiences)

December 30, 2014

Today is our last day of touring on the North island. But to cap it off, we saw some beautiful sights. Our first stop was Mangawhero Falls where two different scenes from The Two Towers were filmed. At the top of the falls, the little river leading two it is where Gollum caught a fish on the road to the Black Gate. Then, the pool at the bottom of the falls is where Gollum was caught by Faramir and Frodo. 

The drive up to the falls was absolutely beautiful. It was a quick 20km back into Tongariro National Park towards Turoa ski field. When we got there, the first view point was right at the top of the falls looking at the river where Gollum fished.

We are clearly following the sign and staying "behind the fence"!

Now go watch The Two Towers to picture Gollum swimming/fishing right behind me...

Now for the part where I started making bad decisions. There was a little track that went down the ravine past the falls so you could get a view of the waterfall. While Brian walked down the track to take a picture of me at the top of the falls, I thought it would be a good idea to stand in the middle of the falls. So I stepped down from the fence into the river right where the bend in the fence is that you can see in the picture of Brian. Just as Brian walked into view, I slipped on one of the rocks and fell down.

Now, I had chosen a safe distance from the edge, but from Brian's vantage point it looked like I was right on the edge. When he saw me fall, he thought I was about to fall of the waterfall to my death. Needless to say, he was very traumatized. I didn't realize how traumatized until later, so I sat there and waited for him to take my picture anyway. What a meanie I am! As you can see, it really does look like I'm much closer to the edge than I actually was.

After the picture I quickly ran around to check on Brian. After being strongly rebuffed on his end and several groveling apologies on my end we took a couple more pictures and headed back. But first, we stopped back at the first lookout so I could prove to Brian I hadn't been as careless as he thought.

Beautiful view from the waterfall

Looking at Gollum's pool

Closer up 

We are going to miss these beautiful drives through the woods!

On our way out of Ohakune, I noticed a giant carrot sculpture and we just had to stop for a picture. A while ago I had found out that New Zealand has about 20 "big things" around the country. A majority of them are on the north island and I had hoped to chase a few down on our road trip, but most of them were too far north of where we were traveling. Because we couldn't catch them all, I sort of forgot about them until we passed this one. So, we were able to get pictures with a couple of them.

Apparently adventure begins with carrots...who knew!

At this point, our journey turns south back towards Wellington. But first we had a couple more stops to make. The first was in Taihape, where we accidentally (again) found our second "big thing". This time it was a giant gumboot. If you've ever travelled to New Zealand, you will know that gumboots are an absolute essential part of any Kiwi shoe collection.

Random photo taken from the road as my obsession with the NZ skies and the land of he long white cloud.

Our last stop just after we passed through Taihape was at Rangitikei Gorge. There are so many gorges here with all of the glaciers in New Zealand and each one we have seen has been absolutely beautiful. This one was no different. This particular location was one of four places where the Anduin River was filmed during the LoTR trilogy. 

These were the last photos of the day. At this point we continued back to Wellington where we stayed the night before catching an early ferry the following morning. I hope you enjoyed this whirlwind day as much as we did! 

One final trip - Day 3 (Napier to Ohakune)

December 29, 2014

Today we had to make it a long ways to catch back up from dawdling the day before, but we did see some beautiful places in spite of the rush. 

Napier

Our first destination was Napier, located in the Hawke's Bay area - which is on the East coast in about the middle of the North island.

To put things in perspective, Naper is the fifth largest urban area in New Zealand, but it only has about 128,000 people. Once you get outside of Auckland/Wellington/Christchurch, the towns get pretty small pretty quick. But that just means you get to see great personality and Napier was no different. There was a huge earthquake in Hawke's Bay back in 1931 which demolished most of the city. Being in the unique spot to build a new city, Napier was rebuilt largely with Art Deco architecture. The architecture is what led me to this city.

The sun made its first appearance today as well, so it was extremely hot. This meant Brian melted pretty quick, but we did get a few nice pictures before it was time to move on.

A beautiful garden in the parade between the main street and the beach 

View from the Napier beach

Lake Taupo

Lake Taupo is the largest lake in New Zealand (by surface area) so we couldn't really skip over it. The lake is created in the caldera of an old volcano. What I thought was interesting is that the initial eruption of this volcano (which occurred 26,500 years ago) is the world's largest known eruption over the past 70,000 years and is called the Oruanui eruption. Pretty amazing. 

We only stopped in a couple of spots, but Ike was happy to get out of the car and roll around in the grass for a bit in his famous "torpedo" style.

The initial dive

Somewhere in the middle

Near completion!

Resting after all that hard work. 

Tongariro National Park
On our way to our accommodation in Ohakune for the evening, we passed through Tongariro National Park which is New Zealand's first national park and a world heritage area. We thought it was funny that we kept seeing signs that only said "National Park". When we realized it was the first one it made more sense - if there is only one national park you don't really have to give it more of a name haha. 

This national park provided many of the backdrops for Mordor, Mount Doom and several other desolate locations in the LotR movies. We took a little detour up to Whakapapa Ski Field, which was the site of several Mordor scenes. 

On the way, we paused to take a picture of Mt. Ngauruhoe. This mountain wasn't in the movies, but it certainly set the tone to see the fog rising from the mountains as if it were steaming. 

 View of Mt. Ruapehu as we drove up to the ski field.

 The volcanic rock here served as the location for the Mordor battles and the slopes of Mount Doom. We didn't hike all the way to the scene of the final battle as it was pretty cold and I didn't have a jacket. The second picture is my favorite as the outcrop of rocks on the left is literally a wall jutting out of the ground. So interesting how these formations come to be.

 This area was also used to show Frodo and Sam lost in the Emyn Muil before running into Gollum.

It was getting pretty late and chilly by this time, so we headed back down the mountain and on to Ohakune for the night. I hope you enjoyed your tour the quaint art deco town of Napier, the view of New Zealand's largest lake and a walk through Mordor!