Trip with Mom & Dad: Day 7 - Waitomo Caves

January 2, 2014

Today we embarked on the second leg of our trip and flew up to New Zealand's North island. Our first stop after landing in Auckland and picking up the rental car was to drive into the Waikato region to visit the famous Waitomo Caves.  We saw two of the three caves while we were there: Waitomo Glowworm Cave and Aranui Cave.

Now in case you don't know about glow worms, the glow worm, Arachnocampa luminosa, is unique to New Zealand. Thousands of these tiny creatures radiate an unmistakable luminescent light in the darkness of the cave and it looks like you are outside sitting beneath a starry night.  It's incredible.  Unfortunately, we were not allowed to take pictures inside the glow worm cave, so I have posted some images from the internet so you can see what I am talking about.  This is something I really suggest seeing in person if you ever have the chance.

This first picture is what the glow worms looked like when the lights were turned out. The cave was made by an underground river that has cut through the mountain, so we boarded boats and were guided through this portion of the cope by a tour guide in absolute darkness. It was amazing!

In this picture, you can see the threads that the glow worms spin to catch their food, called "fishing lines". Each glow worm has about 30 fishing lines dangling from their bodies and they catch insects such as mosquitos, flies and sand flies.  I was glad to hear that something is eating these crazy sand flies!

Now for the pictures that we took.  This first one is of Mom and me waiting in line to get in.  As you can imagine, because the caves are pretty deep, bringing a lot of tourists through results in a lot of carbon dioxide being released into the air.  Because the air flow is low, the park rangers have to monitor the level of carbon dioxide to make sure it doesn't get to dangerous levels.  This very thing happened just after we got in line to go through the tour and they shut it down for a while to let the levels drop.  Lucky for us, a lot of people didn't want to wait and after only about 15 minutes they reopened the cave and we got right through.

The last picture at the glow worm cave is as we were leaving the cave after disembarking from the boat. As I said, the tour was incredible!

In addition to the Waitomo Glowworm Cave, we also walked through nearby Aranui Cave. This is the only cave in this region that was not made from a subterranean river.  This cave was actually formed from shifts in the ground which caused the rock to split apart.  Now, with the water that seeps into the ground, and over thousands of years, the cave is completely full of stalactites and stalagmites.

Here is what the locals have to say about this cave:

The massed delicacy of the millions of stalactites in Aranui Cave is probably without equal in the world. The cave was formed on an earthquake fault, which means the rain water that creates the limestone crystals enters more readily. As a result, almost every corner of the roof and walls is adorned with fragile, sparkling forms in pale brown, pink and white. There is very little of the ceiling that has not been decorated by the dripping water.

Over the years the guides have given many of the limestone clusters affectionate nicknames, which help to bring the cave to life. The entrance to the cave, for example, is known as the butchers shop, because the formations (with a little imagination look like sides of beef and a sheep hanging from the ceiling). Further in, narrow chambers reveal carrots, cauliflower, cheese and a parsnip, as well as Snow White who is accompanied by a few more than her original seven dwarves!

We had a lovely walk up to the cave where we learned about some of the local plantlife.  Mom is standing next to a silver fern, which is a symbol of New Zealand. I guess I didn't zoom in as much as I thought but you can still sort of tell the silver coloring on the fern leaves.

I can't remember this plant name, but it is apparently used to remedy all sorts of illnesses because they contain something that numbs in them. In order to be effective, you have to wait for the leaves to be mature.  The way you tell if they are ready is how much the insects and animals have eaten the leaves. You only want to use leaves that are riddled with holes.  Isn't that crazy?

Once we got into the cave, we saw a bunch of interesting shaped stalactites/stalgmites.  This first one to the left of me and Dad is called Jabba the Hut.  You can sort of see it...right?

These stalactites are like flutes or straws, they are hollow in the middle. Sadly, you can see that all of these have been broken off.  We learned from our tour guide that 100 years ago when it wasn't really feasible to take pictures when you toured through the cave that tourists were encouraged to break off a piece of a stalactite and take it home as a souvenir to generate more interest in touring New Zealand worldwide. They didn't realize at the time that it takes about 100 years to grow one centimeter. Oops!

They had a piece of the limestone for us to hold so that we could see how heavy these formations were.

This is us leaving the cave.  It would be pretty easy to miss if you didn't know it was there!

Here are some additional pictures of the stalactites and stalagmites that have made some interesting formations (along with their nicknames) for your viewing pleasure :)

Bob Marley's Hair

Carrot

The Nativity

Obelisk

Snow White and the Seven Dwarves (plus a few more dwarves lol)

Meat Locker (sides of beef and a sheep hanging from the ceiling)

Unbroken delicate formations

Trip with Mom & Dad: Day 6 - Christchurch rest day

January 1, 2014

Happy New Year!!! Today was  a rest day for us, so there's not much to blog about.  The sun decided to show itself and we had an absolutely beautiful day.  This was quite handy since we needed to do a bunch of laundry before the next stage of our trip and the warm, sunny day dried all of our clothes quickly.

It was also nice to show my parents a real summer day in Christchurch.  Thank you weather, for cooperating!

Trip with Mom & Dad: Day 5 (part 2) - Milford Sound

December 31, 2013 (continued)

Hooray I'm finally ready to post about our time at Milford Sound. Although the drive there was gorgeous and we had a great time, this was the object of our day trip.

As I mentioned in my last post, the weather progressively worsened during the day, which was great because it made the waterfalls look great but it also got much colder.  You will see me get more and more bundled during the cruise the sound.

This first picture is just as we were leaving the docks. Notice I'm just wearing a t-shirt at this point?

As we pulled away from the shore, Mom decided it was way too cold to be outside so she camped inside on the lower deck. I made about 10 trips up and down trying to figure out what Dad wanted to eat from the pita pit inside and trying to find some hot chocolate for mom. Lol.

This is a great picture of my Dad, isn't it?  This is us looking off the back of the boat.

Here are a couple pictures of the really cool surroundings we were able to see.  The first is called "Bridal Veil Falls".  I liked this right away because of the name since there is another Bridal Veil Falls in Provo canyon (I think) back home. The second reason I really liked this waterfall is because you can really see the erosion the waterfall has caused to the side of the mountain.  You can't even see the water running right in the middle of the picture because it has cut so deeply.  Cool, huh?

This picture is of a mountain that is nicknamed "Mount Lion".  I can't remember the actual name of the mountain haha.  I could actually see it as we were driving by - the right side of the picture is he hind quarters of the lion.  As we drove around the side, the mountain actually juts out the way the back legs would if the lion were lying down.  The left side is the head and mane of the mountain.

As we made it farther through the Sound, we came upon Mitre Peak.  Brian insisted that the part of Mitre Peak shown in the picture below was the "mitre", which is named after a priest's mitre hat in the Catholic church. I tried to tell him it was the actual peak above, but he wouldn't have any of that until we heard additional information from the tour guide.  Well, by that time, the clouds had thickened to the point that you couldn't see the peak clearly, so the third picture down was the best I could do. You will have to google Mitre Peak to see a clear picture of it :)

At this stage, I opted to add the sweatshirt because it was getting pretty cold. As we reached the edge of the Sound and turned around at the opening to the Tasman Sea, it was also really windy. So windy in fact that Brian lost his BYU hat!  He was so sad - it just blew off into the sea forever.

Me where Milford Sound connects to the Tasman Sea

On the return back to the port, our tour guides took us really close to some cool sights.  First, we saw a whole bunch of seals curled up next to a waterfall.  The were all cuddled up and looked just as cold as us!

Then we went almost directly beneath a waterfall.  The mist was splashing up all around us - pretty fun! This picture was taken as we started pulling away from it because it was the only time we weren't in a huge crowd of people.  But it was spectacular.

Look who I found sitting inside keeping warm!

Since the cruise was almost over, I made Mom & Dad go outside for some pictures so they could remember they were here haha.

This picture has "Mt. Lion" in the background.  Look how cold it looks out there! I think this was the one time Mom was completely justified in wearing about 5 layers of clothing...

Here we have a waterfall in the background.  It's just before we got back to the port.

The tiny waterfall in the background of the picture above was actually quite large once we got close to it. Here is Brian in front of that same waterfall.  We found out that this single waterfall supplies all the water and power to the people living at Milford Sound.  I thought that was really interesting.

We had a great time here even though it was really, really cold by the end. Definitely one of the highlights of the trip so far.

When we arrived back at Milford Lodge for the night, we realized it was going to be super cold that night.  Because I delayed booking a room for too long, Brian and I were supposed to camp that night. Well that was going to be miserable due to the weather conditions so we decided to brave the really long drive back to Christchurch that evening rather than waiting until the morning.

The drive wasn't incredibly eventful.  Because we were driving late at night, we weren't able to see Mt. Cook - again - and we didn't stop by the site where Edoras was filmed in Lord of the Rings.  But we did pull over to look at the amazing stars and we found the Orion and Southern Cross constellations - which are not constellations you can see from Utah. Also, we saw hundreds of rabbits along the side of the road.  Unfortunately, we hit a couple and Brian was very sad.  So sad, that I had to drive for him for a while.  What a sweetheart he is!

We made it home safely around 3 am and got a little sleep.  And that was the end of a very long, but amazing day.

Trip with Mom & Dad: Day 5 (part 1) - Milford Sound

December 31, 2013 - New Year's Eve!!!

We had a GREAT day planned for the last day of 2013 and it even started with the sun! We had some driving to do, so we got on the road fairly early to enjoy 5 hours of road trip to get to Milford Sound.

Here is a little about Milford Sound:

In geography a sound or seaway is a large sea or ocean inlet larger than a bay, deeper than a bight, and wider than a fjord; or it may be defined as a narrow sea or ocean channel between two bodies of land

Despite being one of the most accessible fiords, Milford Sound remains quiet and still, bounded by steep cliffs and dense rainforest. Rain or shine, Milford Sound continues to captivate even the most experienced traveller. At the pinnacle of Milford Sound is the magnetising Mitre Peak - standing a proud 1,692 metres above sea level, it is certainly an impressive sight to behold. Milford Sound is by far the best known of all of the fiords in New Zealand, and the only one that can be accessed by road. Rudyard Kipling once called Milford Sound the eight wonder of the world.

As you can tell, we had a lot to look forward to.

To start off, we drove almost all the way around Lake Wakatipu (you can see pictures of this lake on Day 4 - Queenstown).  We also were near a few Lord of the Rings film sights. We hadn't planned detours to all of them so we really only stopped at the edge of the area where Fangorn Forest was filmed (found in The Two Towers).  I guess we'll need another trip to see the other spots.

We also stopped at Lake Te Anau on the drive, which is the largest lake on the south island and second largest in all of New Zealand.  The lake was huge, as you can see, but we also thought the shores looked a lot like where the fellowship stops on the Anduin river right before Frodo and Sam break off from the rest of the group.

As we entered Fiordland National Park, which is where Milford Sound is located, the clouds really settled in and we began to see some raindrops.  Luckily before this happened we stopped at Mirror Lakes and got some more great pics.

The park has placed a sign at the foot of the lake backwards so that when you see it's reflection it reads correctly. Pretty cool!

View of the peaks above Mirror Lakes 

There was a little wind today, but the reflection in the water is almost perfect... 

Once it started raining, we were able to take picture of the waterfalls that flow more abundantly when it is raining.  It was so amazing! 

This picture shows the U-shaped canyon.  This is what happens when a glacier cuts through a mountain rather than a river

We thought this girl was blatantly ignoring the "Do not feed the Kea" signs, but she was actually just taking a close up picture haha!

This takes us to our arrival at Milford Sound.  Since this is already a pretty long post I'm splitting today into two separate pieces.  Otherwise I will never get anything finished!  It's surprising how many places don't have good internet options so that I can work on my posts during the trip. Hopefully I won't get too much farther behind!

Trip with Mom & Dad: Day 4 - Queenstown

Monday, December 30th

Well, we woke up to more rain and it was really pouring down when we left the hotel this morning.  So we headed over to the shops and did some souvenir shopping for a couple of hours and had lunch.

When we walked out of lunch, we had a miracle! It wasn't raining, it was warm, and the skies were clearing up. Not wanting to waste time, we quickly walked up to the Queenstown gondola to see the breathtaking views of Queenstown, Lake Wakatipo and the Remarkables.

Here is a picture looking up at the gondola as we started walking.   

Do you spy Dad and Brian? Perhaps more importantly, does anyone believe that my Mom actually rode a tram up that high?  Just to prove it, here is a picture Mom & Dad took while inside their gondola and you can see how far off the ground we were.  Lol, you can see Dad's foot in the reflection.

We took pictures in this stationary gondola so that we didn't have to buy the overpriced copies they take for you on the actual one.

Once we reached the top, we got to take some amazing pictures.  I guess it was a little brighter outside than I realized because the pictures are a little washed out.  I guess I should have used a different setting on the camera.  Oh well!

Make sure to notice the gondola gears in the right bottom corner.  My dad wanted those in the picture.  There is another one that shows it better, but they are smiling better in this one!

Overlooking Lake Wakatipu, Queenstown & The Remarkables

We also had some fun watching the bungy jumpers but I was too scared to try it myself. We got a laugh out of their advertisement on the roof of one of the towers.

After we rode the gondola back down we found another one of Brian's flats from his mission.  I was impressed that he basically drove us straight to it. Nice job Brian!

By the time we checked into our new hotel for the evening, the clouds had completely dissipated and we finally got a good picture of the double cones on top of the Remarkables. I was quite happy about that.

Then we headed over to Arrowtown, which is a historical town near Queenstown that was started when the west coast gold rush occurred.  The town has preserved many of its old buildings and it was very quaint.  We mostly just enjoyed being out in the sun and eating ice cream.  It was so wonderful to have a summer day!

At the entrance to the gold mining museum in Arrowtown.  Mom is down to only one jacket!!!

Mom is pointing to these flowers.  We kept seeing them on the side of the road so we did a little research and found out they are called lupins.  Which is actually in the bean family.  Pretty weird! 

Here's just a few more random pictures from the day that I liked. Enjoy!

Amazing view from the hotel!