New Zealand - Arrowtown and Dunedin

The weather wasn't predicted to be very cooperative on our second full day so we decided to stay more local. The pass over Cardrona Range was open - yes, it snowed, but not too much - so we headed to Arrowtown. Arrowtown is an old town - like 100 years older than me which means it's nearing relic-hood. Arrowtown, next to the surprisingly named Arrow River, was sort of the gold mining hub for the big piles of gold that were found in the gold rush years. Arrowtown is now a nice town of shops and restaurants. We checked out their "stuff" and then started scoping out places for lunch.

We ended up choosing "The Stables". Much to Amber's and A.J.'s delight, they had WiFi. Now would be a good time to retract my "WiFi junkie" label of the previous post. I have been admonished for overstating the reality. We ended up eating upstairs and had a lovely lunch in the hay loft.

We then went by the famous bungy place. We watched someone jump and decided it looked like fun, but we'll never know if we'd have actually done it or not because it was just too dear at around $200 a jump.

We headed off and checked out another old town, Cromwell, on the way back to Wanaka. It was along a man-made lake. Like they need another lake on the South Island! Yeah, well, maybe hydroelectricity makes more sense.

After getting back to Wanaka we did our "advance" planning for the next day. We quickly realized there were no more "close" destinations much to the dismay of our excellent driver, Mr. Eric. In spite of that, we decided Dunedin and the royal albatrosses were a must see. One sleep and a four hour drive later, we rolled into Dunedin and worked our way up the Otago Peninsula to the Royal Albatross Colony. The time of year we were visiting meant we might not get to see any in flight, but soon after we hit the car park we saw one in the distance so we were greatly encouraged. They have unmistakably huge wings. That happens when your wingspan is around 10 feet. Yes, 10 feet! That's some serious wow factor!

To be most exact about what I was crossing off the "cool critter in the wild list" would be the hybrid northern royal albatross entry. Hybrid because they have a little southern royal albatross mixed in (just who was that ancestor with the wandering eyes?!). What I find equally entertaining is the northern royal albatrosses live only about as far north as the rest of us down under dwellers. North is clearly quite relative.

We did the tour and got to see the albatrosses a lot closer up. Eric tried to get a bit too close to investigate a picture behind some display glass and bonked his nose on it. No big deal except it also made quite the bonk noise which stopped the tour guide in mid-sentence. All eyes swung to him and Eric did all one can do in that situation, shrug and give them your best sheepish smile. Oh, if only I'd had the camera at the ready for that moment! He did the best sheepish grin ever! Yep, we got a lot of mileage out of that one. Since he's my favorite, I will say it was clearly caused by the effect of all that driving on his vision.

Speaking of vision, we also got to see a few more critters that I went ahead and added to my list. New Zealand fur seals and spotted shags are also southern hemisphere dwellers. The spotted shag (also called a Parekareka if you like syllabic challenges) is a type of cormorant only found in New Zealand. Wow, it's like a gold mine of cool critters! The light wasn't so hot so the picture just doesn't do them justice.

There were also blue (fairy) penguins on that peninsula, but like Tasmania, the penguins don't head for shore until dark and waiting for them would make the day way too long. Reluctantly we headed back while I consoled myself that I'd already seen fairy penguins in the wild. That and I'd crossed three things off the critter list in one day! Yes, it was a good day!

New Zealand - Washed Out in Wanaka

You know how really big hit movies have delayed releases in other countries? Let's just pretend this post is like that except it's not big, it's not a hit, and it's not a movie. It just might have something to do with there being no internet on our New Zealand trip and I didn't feel like writing anything if I couldn't post it. I am not too proud to admit that not having internet was a serious blow. I know I was not alone as Amber and A.J., also known as the WiFi junkies, were always looking for a WiFi fix. How do I know this? For the first time ever, they were always willing to go to the grocery store because that was one of the few places where they could find WiFi. Nuff said.

We were ready and raring to go on Thursday the 24th after arriving at the resort late the previous evening. We thought we'd drive the road the resort is on to the very end and then hike up to the Rob Roy Glacier lookout. About 10 kilometers in, the road became gravel. It also became a great way to check the condition of one's fillings.

We trundled along quite nicely enjoying the scenery - lots of waterfalls, peaks playing peek-a-boo in the clouds, and sheep pastures galore. All the spring lambs were way cute. There were cows and their calves around, too, but they just don't got it on the super-cuteness scale. Everything was going along swimmingly until we rounded a bend and discovered... well, an impediment would be the nice way of putting it as you can see.

We hopped out of the car to investigate and soon discovered swimming was the only option. That would still be going along swimmingly, but it would definitely be losing something in the translation. Our very first foray and we were washed out. Drat!

We decided regrouping was in order. We thought we'd drive up to Treble Cone which is a nearby ski area and have a look at the view up there. Closed. Double drat! Okay, how about trying the Diamond Lake hike we saw on the way out? We actually got there and walked up far enough to see the lake and, whoops, down comes the rain. We decided a re-regrouping was in order as hiking in the rain didn't really sound like much fun to me (yes, I'm totally a fair weather hiker).

We went back to the resort, ate lunch, and decided the weather was improving enough to try to go up Iron Mount. Success!!!

What a relief to know we weren't a washout at playing tourist. Um, maybe I spoke a bit too soon.

We headed towards Lake Hawea and thought we'd go to Haast and the west coast.

Lake Hawea was beautiful, but a slip (aka landslide) on the road to Haast meant we couldn't make it there. Washed out again. Oh well, tomorrow is another day.

Tasmania - Freycinet National Park

We spent our last full day of our trip checking out Freycinet National Park. We did the hike up to the lookout for Wineglass Bay which is considered one of the top 10 beautiful beaches in the world. Yeah, it was quite lovely, but I’m awfully partial to the beach just outside my door.

We also checked out Honeymoon Bay which was also quite nice. Eric and I discovered a yellow wattlebird there which decided to try to “play dead” to see if we’d miss it. Once he realized we were onto him, he took off. He sure had interesting “wattles” which are those yellow things hanging from his cheeks.

It wasn’t long before it started getting less nice there because of the rain clouds we could see heading our way. When we felt the chill of the leading edge of the weather front, we decided to move on. We moved on to check out another bay and discovered it was closed. Based on the sign, I guess that weather front was going to be nasty. We found out later that Hobart actually had a tornado so I guess those clouds were packin’.

Since the rain was now getting serious we decided to eat at a little café near the park. We had a lovely conversation with a couple from Western Australia while we mowed through our grub. They were about our age and she was a netballer and was getting ready to go play in a netball tournament in San Diego. I didn’t even know netball was played in the U.S., but apparently they have started up leagues in the last 5 years or so. He had thoroughbred horses although he was quick to volunteer that he had “slow” thoroughbred horses.

We could have sat and chatted with them all day, but we needed to head back to Launceston for a night’s sleep before we got on the plane. Before we knew it we were boarding the plane and heading back to Sydney. That’s the worst part about vacations – they have to end. Now I get to start looking forward to our trip back home for Christmas and with it already being less than a month away, it won’t be long.

Just one last time I’ve got to say it – Tessellated. Hee hee!

Tasmania - Now That is South

After our tour of the Tasmanian east coast, we rolled into a town a little ways from Hobart called Richmond where we would establish our base of operations for the next three days. The town of Richmond is quite small and very historic (not England level historic, but still pretty darn old). Richmond has the oldest bridge in Australia and a lot of old and cool buildings. We were staying in the Richmond Barracks (built in the 1830s) which sounds pretty bereft of amenities, but in fact was an exceptionally nice place to stay. It was more like a home than a hotel as the owners had refurbished the insides into 3 units that felt like a small home. We stayed in the Lady Esther which was a separate two story unit with a second bedroom upstairs.

There weren’t many places to eat in Richmond so we ended up eating the first two nights at the Richmond Arms Hotel (built in 1860) after returning from our days exploits. In an interesting coincidence, Prince Charles and Duchess Camilla visited Richmond and stopped at the Richmond Arms Hotel while we were staying in Richmond. I’m not a “royals watcher”, but I must admit to being tempted to hang around Thursday to get some pictures. When you only have a week in Tasmania, you just can’t do everything so seeing the royals did not get added to my “list”. Besides, I had absolutely nothing appropriate to wear for such a momentous event (grin).

Our first day out of Richmond, we headed to Port Arthur and checked out the convict prison history there. We also saw some stunning coastal scenery and interesting road signs. My favorite scenery was the Tessellated Pavement because I just like saying “tessellated”. One of the signs we saw required driving 45 kph instead of 90 kph for a long, long way from dusk to dawn because, apparently, there were still wild Tasmanian devils in the area. We didn’t see any, but I did “capture” a turbo chook so I still got to cross another critter off my list.

The second day out of Richmond, we decided to head up Mount Wellington next to Hobart. By the time we got to the top, it was pretty chilly and enveloped in a cloud layer that made for tough pictures. The view was spectacular in spite of the clouds. Next we checked out downtown Hobart and after that we headed south as far as we could go. After we got to Southport the road turned to gravel so we decided we’d call it good. We looked real hard out the Southport inlet and just couldn’t see Antarctica – not that we thought we might, but it was fun to imagine anyway and I doubt I’ll ever get as far south as that again.

We got back to Richmond for our last night in the “barracks” and were sad to realize we had just one day left of our adventure in Tassie. We’d slotted our last day to be in Freycinet National Park on the lower east coast, but the predicted rain just might get in the way. Sure hope not.

Tasmania - East Coast

For our tour of Tasmania’s east coast we headed out “vacation early” from our Launceston base. It was a few hours drive to the coast not including the stops and detours we are prone to succumb to so frequently. We made it to Scottsdale and decided it would be a good idea to stop at an iStore to prevent another 20 km “Walls of Jerusalem” boo boo.

The lady was helpful and annoying at the same time. She insisted on tracing the whole dang route with her pen on the free map as though I was incapable of understanding how to stay on the Tasman Highway from Scottsdale to St. Helens and then another road up to Binalong Bay. Hmmph! To her credit, she did point out that the other possible route had many k’s of gravel roads. Okay, that was good to know and, of course, that was the path the GPS had chosen so we knew we should overrule it.

I’ve begun to notice that we are starting to attribute a “human” personality to the “GPS lady” and we kind of don’t really like her. I guess maybe we are getting tired of being told what to do all the time and don’t appreciate her insistence on getting us back on the “right” track when we get sidetracked, as we often do, from our main objective. I’m sure this is exposing some character defect on our part, but we sometimes take fiendish delight in going any direction other than what she commanded.

A ways out of Scottsdale, while I was most likely still muttering about the pen marks on the map, we decided to take a detour to see the Saint Columba Falls. At 90+ meters (about 295 feet), Saint Columba Falls is one of the tallest waterfalls in Tasmania so we took the turn at Pyengana township and made GPS lady mad (tee hee!).

Out in the middle of nowhere, we encountered a traffic jam. It was a bit unusual to be sure, but they were “mooving” pretty well so it didn’t take long. The falls were terrific and definitely worth the very short (and non-tarrying in spots) hike to see them.

Alert to Mom – we’re being very safe, but it would be good if you’d not look at the next picture, okay?

What can I say, except we didn’t tarry, really.

We had a nice lunch at a small restaurant on the way back to the main drag and on the way to the car, saw the calves chasing the milk trailer in the other direction. It’d be like me and a chocolate cart I’m afraid.

We got to Binalong Bay and then to the road to the Bay of Fires area. It’s a long stretch of beach (miles) where some of the rocks are very red or orange – quite unusual and striking. We explored around that area a while with A.J. making a discovery of a dead sea lion which I decided I didn’t need to see.

We took off from there and headed down the Tasmanian east coast. We enjoyed lots of nice coastal scenery and I began my search for a critter I just added to my list – a Tasmanian native hen. They call them turbo chooks because they can run really, really fast like a roadrunner. They are fairly common, but I was looking for a variety that was photogenic as in one I could capture on the camera as more than just a tiny dot. We got all the way to Hobart to check in for the night and I hadn’t gotten one. Drat! Maybe tomorrow.

Tasmania - Cradle Mountain

Our second day in Tassie was dubbed “Cradle Mountain Day”. We thought we’d head west from Launceston and check out Cradle Mountain which is Tasmania’s 5th tallest mountain. We plugged Cradle Mountain into the inboard GPS and off we went. We drove along happily for an hour or so, saw a sign that said “Walls of Jerusalem” and decided to head that way to check these walls out. When we got to the car park, we discovered the “Walls” were a 3-4 hour hike from there. Oops! Guess we should have stopped at what we call the iStore (information centers plopped all over Australia) before we got so ambitious. At least the scenery was lovely – both times we saw it.

We decided there should be no more detours and got serious about getting to Cradle Mountain. The road wasn’t as cooperative, though. It was all zigs and zags, speed up and slow down, and go up and then down – basically quite unpleasant for the driver. Fortunately for us, we had a very good driver as long as you don’t have him say out loud what direction you’re turning. For some reason, Eric has a tendency to call a left turn a “right turn”. It has to do with a left turn being the “easy” turn here like the right turn is back home. All I know is it makes for some interesting car conversation as I try to figure out what turn he’s “really” talking about.

After stopping along the way for a roadside echidna, we finally arrived at the entrance to Cradle Mountain National Park and got on the shuttle bus to go into the park. We signed up for the short hike to Glacier Rock and off we went. Glacier Rock is huge and, amazingly, you can walk out on it. (Mom, don’t read the next sentence, please). It’s amazing because there are no guardrails and it’s a long ways down.

We knew the full circuit hike around Dove Lake was 2 hours so decided to continue on. It was all going well until we got past the halfway point. The second half was just chock full of up and down stairs. By the time we got done my knees were not the only joints unhappy with me. I vowed again to get into better shape and not hold Eric and A.J. up so much as they much prefer turbo-hikes. Now I just need to figure out how to do that without my knees knowing.

On the way back on the shuttle bus I found another one of the wild quarry I’ve been searching for – a wombat! No, two, no three wombats! Woohoo! Another critter I can cross off my list. We even saw another one of the “rocks with legs” a bit later; it must have been a wombat convention! It was definitely a happy albeit exhausted drive back to the hotel.

Next up is Tasmania’s east coast.

Tasmania - Crafty Gorgeous Penguins

We left for Tassie (pronounced Tazzie) on Saturday the 3rd. The check-in attendant in Sydney said we were going to the “butt end” of Australia. I have to disagree whole-heartedly with his assessment of Tasmania. It’s more like the version of Australia that is greener and cooler and doesn’t look like it has spent forever struggling to survive.

One of the reasons we picked the week to come that we did was the “world’s biggest craft fair in the southern hemisphere” was scheduled for the first weekend. That meant our first day was craft fair day and so we spent a good portion of Sunday checking it all out. “Wow” is all I have to say.

They had a huge variety of crafts and even blacksmiths there plying their trade in what could only be a really hot, sweaty, and exhausting way of getting anything done. It’s probably a good thing anything I or Eric desired to buy would have to fit in an already pretty full suitcase. Especially since he was slobbering over some of the implements the blacksmiths created and I was secretly desiring some bags. This strange fascination with bags started some time ago, but is getting harder to ignore. I keep wondering if this is something I should be concerned about; you know, the slippery slope to fawning over lace doilies and stuff like that.

We parked at the showgrounds so we had the added benefit of getting to watch sheepherding dogs do their thing in preparation for the sheepherding championships. It was fascinating to watch especially as we got to see the young dogs in training and their “rough edges” which occasionally caused the sheep to bolt for it. It was an interesting slice of life in a place where they’ve got sheep everywhere you turn.

We ended the day with Cataract Gorge in Launceston. It’s a lovely gorge in the midst of the city. We hiked around to the bridge only to find that the way back was full of ups and downs – ups and downs that my knees were decidedly unhappy about participating in. I really hate this aging thing.

Even though the day was over, we had one more stop. For more than two years now, I have been stalking some very particular prey. I’ve seen penguins and wombats, but it has always been at a zoo. That is not the same thing as seeing one in the wild in my book so I have been looking avidly for these critters in the wild.
I’d heard there were penguins that frequented an area not too far from where we live. Heaven knows I have checked that spot a bunch of times with no success whatsoever. So when Eric wanted to know if I was interested in going on a penguin tour, it was clearly a rhetorical question. We drove all the way north to Low Head which is the Bass Strait side of Tasmania and home to a colony of fairy penguins. Oh yeah!

The penguins are out feeding all day and don’t come back in until after dark. The tour people had us stand quietly on the beach and wait. They had special lights for looking since the penguins don’t have eyelids. It wasn’t long before they started trickling in. I could hardly suppress my giggly delight; they are just so darn cute!

We watched them on the beach a bit and then headed to the nearby brush which was their rookery. I was surprised they allowed us to go there. We stood to the side of the path and then waited. They waddled by as they headed to their burrow. It’s a good thing there was no moon or they might have been bothered by the reflection off my ear-to-ear grin. Again, they’re just so darn cute! They’re also really loud. Apparently catching up on the day’s news with your mate is a pretty noisy affair. I could have sat there all night, but the tour didn’t offer it. Dang!

Seeing penguins in the wild – cross that off the list with a big ol’ grin!