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And just like that we are back in Jackson, Wyoming crossing our fingers for more snow, getting our ski legs back, and testing our lung capacity in this thin dry mountain air. If you are up for it, we’ve put together a slide show covering the last 14 months in Fiji, New Zealand, Thailand, China, and Australia. Looking through all of these photos, we have shocked ourselves with how much we have done and seen. Great memories!

Click on the image to see the slideshow:

Guest blog entry by BJ’s mum, Jean Hansen . . .

A rolling stone gathers no moss except if that stone is located anywhere along the western coast of New Zealand.  As we traveled from  Franz Joseph further west, I noticed that moss was glistening off the top of fence posts and fence rails and hanging like shimmering veils from the limbs of the trees.  We had truly traveled to the rain forest regions of the west coast.  And per my last guest blog that was how we arrived at Punakaiki.

We actually spent three nights in that region because it was an area that no one in the group – BJ, Lisa, and of course not me, had yet to explore.  The Tasman Sea was fantastic with gigantic waves.

We visited the Pancake Rocks and were intending to go out this morning at high tide to experience the blow holes, but after staying up until 2 am to finish a book I had started, the bed was simply too enjoyable to get up.  As BJ and Lisa will most likely be living there for approximately 6 weeks before they leave NZ, they promised to take a video of it and send it to me.

BJ and Lisa both worked some over the past two days.  And I seriously doubt that you could in too many countries in the world, get up and work for ½ day, drive from the rain forest of the West Coast, over the Southern Alps via Arthur’s Pass, and back to the pastoral lands of the East Coast.

We were so taken by the first place that we stayed near Christchurch that we are back there again, with the Giant Schnauzers and the Clydesdales for my last night on the South Island.  Tomorrow, I fly to Wellington and then the next day I start my long journey home to the Tetons.

Every time we went exploring I would come up with questions about what I was seeing and asking why – sort of like traveling with a very inquisitive child and most likely, very annoying to my cheerful, helpful traveling companions.  But what could they say – after all one of them is related and the other is too much of a lady to dismiss me.

Actually, they were able to find answers to a couple of my questions, like how did sheep get to NZ and when did they arrive? The country has no native mammals.  And why does the ice in the glacier appear to be so blue?  But I have other questions to explore like why in the Canterbury portion of the South Island, the farms appear to have borders of evergreen trees that are trimmed like huge hedges?  And what motived the early settlers to plant portions of their ground to forests?

As you can most likely tell from this blog, I am one for exploring the countryside and not much of a city explorer. Just today, we experienced  an ocean and it’s beaches, a rain forest, high mountains, open plains and green pastures.  Yes, and the animals keep finding us – yesterday, we shared lunch space with a cat, a dog, and a Weka.  And today we interrupted a Kea who was eating someone else’s castoffs.

Now it’s back to work for me so I can  – hopefully – meet up with the traveling duo again – where ever, they may be – this fall.

Guest blog entry by BJ’s mum, Jean Hansen . . .

Here we are at day 9 of my visit to New Zealand and I can’t believe all that I have seen and done in the time that I have been here. I couldn’t ask for better guides and traveling companions than BJ and Lisa. Of course, I am a little prejudice –‘cause BJ is my son.

Today is a “layover day” which means that we are actually spending more than one night at one location. As I write this update, I am sitting in the upper level of a holiday home, looking out over the tree canopy at the Tasman Sea on the west coast of the south island of New Zealand. BJ and Lisa have gone for a walk and looking out at the rain falling, I expect that they will be coming back soaking wet.

The nonchalant attitude of the native New Zealanders and the pristine environment – seemingly unaffected by humans – is extremely addictive. From my first night in Christchurch where we were greeted by two giant Schnauzers and two Clydesdale horses, to the Albatrosses on the Otago Peninsula when we were staying in Dunedin, to the playful seal who raced to our cruise ship in Milford Sound so he could surf in the wake of the boat, to the friendly cats who hung out at the cottage in Arrowtown, to the Samoyed, Mike, in Wanaka , and finally here, Milly, the small black Labrador who earns her keep as a ski resort rescue dog – we have found “pets a plenty” during our travels. Even where we have been eating seems to have taken on an “animal” theme. Starting with the Three Cows in Christchurch, to the Fat Duck in Te Anau, to the Blue Duck at Milford Sound, and thought about eating at the Cow in Queenstown.

I have seen sheep, sheep, and more sheep, as well many deer farms. Just across the lake from where BJ and Lisa live is Deer Park Heights – an animal preserve of sorts and also the place where several scenes of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy were filmed. BJ and I enjoyed watching Lisa get mauled by the goats, thars, donkeys, and miniature horses as she was trying to feed them pellets out of her “little tin bucket”. As the goats were knocking her down, she was hollering, “BJ, did you get that” so expect some interesting animal interaction photos to be posted!

I have been fortunate to see in my brief time here, the Cathedral at Christchurch, Craft Market on the Square at Christchurch, the Moeraki Boulders along the east coast, the University at Dunedin (where BJ spent part of his junior year in college), the Otago Peninsula, the Farmer’s Market and Happy Hens in Portabella, the Larnach Castle, the bird wildlife park in Te Anau, watched the Milford Sound Movie, cruised the Milford Sound, and then a long layover of two days in Arrowtown.

BJ and Lisa had to catch up on work, so I browsed Arrowtown on my own during the days and we got together at night. I visited the local Museum, checked out the shops, and toured the Chinese Settlement. I did get to see where the kids live and met their flat mates. Their house was filled with flat mates’ mother and a new baby, thus the reason that I stayed in a great place in Arrowtown.

Then on to Wanaka where we went to the “chick flick” He’s Just Not That In to You with most of the teenage female population of the town. The movie theater was great. It was platform seating, but on each platform was a couch, a love seat or a recliner. Other seating options included regular turn of the century theater seats and a complete Volkswagen Buss Convertible. Apparently we didn’t’ think that I had spent enough time in airplane seats so we settled into our row of three airplane seats and watched the movie – complete with a twenty minute intermission. Time enough to have a pizza, ice cream, cookies or other meal items from the adjoining restaurant. I went from flying in an airplane watching movies on my trip over to NZ to watching a movie in an airplane seat while here.

I woke up in Wanaka with a fever, so the trip from Wanaka to Franz Joseph was filled with my sneezing, coughing, and blowing my nose. We did stop at Fox Glacier to see ice floating in the river and to get up close and personal to a glacier, then spent the night at Franz Joseph. I was feeling a little better this morning and had high hopes of taking a small airplane ride to the top of one of the Glaciers for a snow landing”, but the weather didn’t’ cooperate with us. So no airplane ride. I will have to keep that one on my bucket list for a little while longer.

I have eaten some new and interesting meals. But the most fun I had was Sex on the Beach in Dunedin. I thought about having it with a Nutty Italian, but I thought that the one drink was enough for the night.

So, here we all sit watching the waves and enjoying the slight drizzle and planning our adventures for tomorrow. Might try to get in a little whale watching and/or penguin viewing before flying out in just 5 days!!

Prepare yourself . . . this is a long one. My mom and stepdad arrived a week ago and although I feel like they just arrived, we really covered a lot of ground . . . so much that I didn’t have a chance to write until they left town.

As I cleaned up the house and prepared a room for my mom and stepdad to arrive on Friday afternoon, my roommate Ali gave me a nervous smile and said “I may be in labor.” She had somewhat expected to be early (she was originally due March 17th on BJ’s birthday) but we couldn’t help but laugh about the timing with my parents showing up in just a few hours time. I was so excited for my mom and stepdad to come to town but realized I hadn’t warned them that there would possibly be 6 ½ in the house instead of just us 6.  When they arrived I could quickly see the excitement in my mom’s eyes and the slight look of terror in my stepdad’s. We quickly moved them into their room and I suggested that we head downtown for a beer and dinner to welcome them into town and to get out of Steve and Ali’s hair as they timed her contractions. During dinner at Fishbone, we got a text from Steve that they were heading to the hospital and just 4 “easy” hours later we got a second text that said they had given birth to a baby boy, Tyler Robert Thomas Hanrahan. We met Tyler two days later in the hospital . . . welcome to the world Tyler!

While BJ worked on Saturday, my mom, stepdad, and I explored Queenstown, the Saturday craft fair and my favorite coffee shop, Vudu. We returned home to pick him up for a little afternoon wine tasting at Peregrine and Gibbston Valley wineries, a quick visit to watch a few people bungee jump, followed by a film in the Arrowtown Cinema where we watched Man on Wire, a documentary on a French street performer who illegally rigs and walks across a wire spanning between the two towers of the World Trade Center. We returned home to what would become the norm for the week . . . a little more wine and a lot of conversation until way past my bedtime.

We triple checked the forecast before agreeing on a general plan for the week. Unfortunately it called for rain, cold temps and even snow! There is really only one place to look forward to in the rain . . . Milford Sound. We packed our rain jackets and warmth, made a quick visit to the hospital to see Ali, Steve and Tyler on the way out of town, and drove straight to Milford where we had reservations on a Mitre Peak Boat Cruise, one of the smallest boats that cruises the fiord. We checked in and found out that so far we were the only 4 that would be on the boat and that the company actually required at least 6 people to book in order to sail.  So we quickly got to work attempting to recruit two more people for our boat and luckily just 5 minutes before departure time we got the thumbs up and hopped aboard. It had been raining most of the day so far causing thousands of waterfalls to pour into the fiord, but just as we set out the rain stopped almost completely. It was just about perfect. Although we couldn’t see the tops of the mountains the clouds, mist and waterfalls were spectacular and easily made up for it. We ventured out into the opens waters of the Tasman Sea and had to hang on tightly as the boat bounced and crashed over waves, making for a very exciting few minutes laughing about the morbid thought of the captain falling overboard and being stuck out at sea. Just as we turned around to head back in the rain started up again and we spent the remainder of the trip, including a dunk under a massive waterfall, under a covered area on the boat. We experienced the best weather possible in Milford Sound and celebrated with a mandatory beer at the one and only bar in Milford.

We drove back to Te Anau from Milford, my mom shooting photos around every bend, where we had reserved a room and a campsite for the night at a Holiday Park. As my mom and stepdad have toured the South Island, my mom found herself constantly rolling the window down and sticking her head and camera out to snap a quick shot of something beautiful. She took so many photos from the passenger seat of the car that she unintentionally began a collection called “Photos from the Road.” Each photo usually contains at least a portion of the car, window, pavement, or fence line along the road somewhat encroaching on, yet another, beautiful New Zealand scene. We checked in to the Holiday Park in Te Anau and while BJ and I set up out tent, my stepdad decided to turn on the small space heater in their very cold, very tiny cabin. We could smell the burning as we walked back over to meet them and come to find that the heater was burning a few small markings in the carpet. We put on our Good Samaritan hats and, instead of covering up the burn with a small carpet runner, we took the fried heater to the front office to tell them what happened. The front desk staff gave us a very disappointed look and told us they would assess the damages in the morning. Apparently they thought we burned the carpet on purpose and they were going to do their best to make us pay! We went to dinner, dismissed our frustration with the Holiday Park, and spent the rest of the evening in the communal kitchen playing many hands of Gin Rummy and keeping watch for the “Carpet Burner Killer,” aka the front desk staff.

We woke up in Te Anau to a cold bite in the air and snow capped peaks in all directions. We planned to dedicate much of the day to seeking out a few good fishing holes for my stepdad. First stop was on the river side of the Control Gates at Lake Te Anau. While he fished, my mom and I went on a short hike through the rainforest along the Kepler Track and BJ read his book in the sun. My stepdad had a couple bites but was quickly learning just how difficult fishing is in New Zealand. I suppose the country is world renowned as a fishing destination because of the challenge it poses . . . they don’t call it “catching” for a reason. We continued on down the road back to Queenstown, stopping in the town of Athol at Stu’s Orgasmic Fly Shop for a little advice, and hit up a number of different well known holes along the Mataura River. We could see the huge trout just hanging out below the surface and watched as my stepdad’s perfect cast floated a fly directly over the trout. But no bites . . . not even a little nibble. It’s as if they were laughing at us for even attempting to trick them. While my stepdad continued to test the trout, my mom, BJ and I kept ourselves thoroughly entertained by taking close up photos of flowers and bees, reading and building small cairns along the water’s edge.

We had contemplated spending a night in the Aspiring Hut up the Matukituki Valley the following night but the combination of the rainy forecast, lack of time, and a snoring habit helped us change our plans to just a day hike up to the Rob Roy Glacier. The first section of the walk is out in the open, along pasture land, and the sideways blowing rain had us drenched in no time. BJ and I were pretty willing to turn back to the car but my mom encouraged all of us to keep going. Once we crossed the river we thankfully found tree shelter along the track and continued up to the glacier. Since my mom and stepdad had only seen Franz Joseph Glacier from distance on the west coast, they were really excited when the trail ended just below the calving Rob Roy Glacier. It was completely worth the initial dousing of rain! Of course as we returned to the car the rain softened and the clouds lifted so that my mom and stepdad could get a feel for why the Matukituki Valley is one of BJs favorite places in New Zealand. That evening we dined at a small Thai restaurant in Wanaka where we happened to run into our friend Smiley, who we hadn’t seen since Brad and Gretchen were in town. He joined us while we ate and, being an avid fisherman himself, reassured my stepdad that the New Zealand trout are very smart fish. As we drove back over the Crown Range to Queenstown we encountered the worst of the forecast . . . It was actually snowing on top of the pass. There was barely a dusting of snow on the road and normally, like all winters in Jackson, we would have cruised on through at high speed, but I felt out of my element as if I had never even seen snow before. I quickly threw it into 1st gear, white-knuckled the steering wheel, and clenched my teeth as we inched over the pass in our two wheel drive family wagon. It’s funny to think about now.

We woke up the following morning to dark clouds, a little rain, and snowcapped mountains around Lake Wakatipu. I cooked Breakfast Pie (bacon, mushrooms, onions, eggs, and cheese, all under puff pastry), we drank lots of coffee and even got in a group video Skype call in to my little sister Anni who was hard at work, like always, at UCSB. But this only delayed us until about noon when we finally decided to face the weather and get out of the house. We drove the winding lake road up to Glenorchy to fish the Caples, Diamond Creek, and Rees River. We, of course, started out the afternoon with a very necessary cappuccino at the Glenorchy Café and then made our way to the Caples Trailhead. We had assured my stepdad that it was just a 5 minute stroll to the bridge, but after 15 minutes, realized we had quite a ways to go yet. He backtracked towards the car to fish an area that had caught his eye while my mom, BJ and I ventured on a bit further to the bridge we had remembered. Thankfully we did not see as many fish as we had expected . . . my stepdad made a wise choice but still encountered the same smart trout of New Zealand. After a cold day (I was hiking in long johns, my puffy jacket, and a rain jacket), we returned to Queenstown for my parents last night in town and went straight to the Cow for a yummy warm pizza dinner. It was hard to believe our time together was coming to an end and we prolonged saying goodbye by spending another late night catching up on life, work, my stepdad’s partial retirement, and looking at photos from Fiji. As my mom and stepdad departed yesterday morning, I felt like they had just arrived but looking back over photos and remembering funny moments all over the southland it is clear that we really packed a lot in to their limited time in the country. We decided that if we aren’t back home in a year, they would come visit us again wherever we are. I plan to hold them to it!

Three months in New Zealand have flown by faster than I imagined and this week BJ and I decided to submit our applications to stay in the country a little longer than planned. We filled out the lengthy application to extend our permit to the end of July and were pleasantly surprised to receive a call a DAY later from the immigration office saying our passports were ready to be picked up. That was easy! We are definitely looking forward to some more time down here, and possibly some time on the north island during the NZ winter. BJ has also been scheming with his brother Brandon, who has been living and working in Shanghai for the last two years, about meeting up in China once we leave New Zealand. Brandon and his wife Jen are flying back to Idaho at the end of August and have a little bit of time off before they leave. We will be missing out on Australia, which we figure we can always come back to on our own, but REALLY excited to see some parts of China with someone who knows it well. Some ideas are brewing for a trip to Lhasa as well. If anyone has been, we are all ears for suggestions and advice on entering and visiting Tibet.

This week my volunteer job at the winery turned into actual work. No, I’m not getting paid (although I count the many bottles of wine they have sent me home with as more than enough payment) but it wasn’t a typical tasting and testing week at the winery. My roommates could no longer give me crap for just drinking wine all day. I actually came home dirty, tired, and sore. My job for the week was moving and washing empty pinot noir barrels, which were damn heavy and my little weak arms were tired after a while. I know I know . . . waaaaa. I’m really not complaining. It was fun to be moving around and practicing my wine barrel roll and lift, something I didn’t realize would actually take some skill.

We’ve become quite the homebodies down here, cooking dinner, watching movies or reading at night, and not spending too many nights out on the town. But last night we made an exception and rode our bikes to town for an evening out. Nothing fancy . . . some okay food at Pog Mahones, a drink at Barmuda where we sat by ourselves in front of this HUGE outdoor fireplace, and some strange music at Dux-d-Lux . . . but a fun time none-the-less in downtown Queenstown.

On another note, my mom and stepdad flew in to the country this morning. They are going to spend a while on the north of the south island and then make their way down to see us by next weekend. We are looking forward . . . Kia Ora!

I know this sounds a bit morbid, but on my dad and Fran’s last day in Queenstown we spent the better part of the morning googling “When will I die?” Fran had been amazed at BJ’s ability to simply ask Google a question and find an answer, so she tried to come up with a really difficult question (and one she thought very useful). After two hours, we had submitted answers on questionnaires on a few different websites and learned that both Fran and I, simply because we are women who do not smoke, will probably live to be about 100. BJ and my dad, because of their family history and simply because they are men, are going to leave us, the two women in the room, lonely during our final years. We were able to find quite a bit of humor in our fortunes as Fran, who is usually on one sort of diet or another and who was appalled at the idea of living to 100 years, found that if she actually gained a few pounds would die earlier.

Once we were satisfied (or unsatisfied) with our fortunes, as told by Google, we ventured out into another rainy day for a brief wine tour of Gibbston Valley. Since it was Sunday, Mount Edward’s Winery was closed so we settled for a cheese and wine sampler at Gibbston Valley Wines. BJ and I practiced our wine tasting skills and all agreed that we needed some coffee to turn around our late afternoon sleepy wine heads. We headed into downtown Queenstown for some cappuccinos and a movie . . . Slumdog Millionaire. It was by far (and I’m sure I’ve said this before but this time I mean it) the best movie I have seen this year. The cinematography was brilliant, in both color and style. It moved so quickly, jumping from scene to scene, that it almost gave me the feeling of being in India. It was a really creative way to share a story about Indian life in the slums.

After the movie, we spent a “Last Night in Queenstown” dinner at the Fishbone where we continued to laugh about certain scenes from the movie and reminisced with my dad and Fran about their entire trip. They saw the most of New Zealand you could possible see in a month’s time and loved every minute of it. I felt like our time together flew by. We were busy bouncing to the West Coast and to Milford Sound, but had an unexpected blessing with a chunk of rainy days in the end where we could all relax together in Queenstown. I think they truly enjoyed a bit of time to relax while they were on vacation.

We dropped my dad and Fran off at the bus station yesterday morning so they could bus back to Christchurch before flying back to San Francisco and joined Ali and Steve last night for yet another movie . . . The World’s Fastest Indian, a great film about a kiwi whose love for going fast on his Indian motorcycle takes him from Invercargill, New Zealand to the salt flats of Utah. Something about Anthony Hopkins’ character reminded me immediately of my dad, whether it was his love for engines, his white hair, or his mannerisms. After the movie and before going to bed I had a sudden wave of missing my dad and I burst into tears. Despite spending the last week and a half with him, I feel like we never truly had a chance to catch up and I had this regretful feeling that if we continue on with our travels, I may not see him for a long time. While they were here, we had briefly discussed meeting up again with them . . . and maybe even in India. So Dad, we’ll just have to make it happen!

We’ve made it through both the first and second films and are about to embark on the third one. My dad and Fran have even watched most of the extras that go into how the trilogy was filmed, the costumes and props, and the characters. While BJ had to return to work the day after we returned from Milford Sound, the rest of us drove up to Glenorchy, a small town just an hour’s drive up the lake from Queenstown. We knew many scenes from the Lord of the Rings had been filmed in that area but didn’t know which or where. We weren’t a minute away from the house when the questions started coming and I decided that we better prepare ourselves with a bit of solid information to guide our journey instead of just making it all up. We stopped in Queenstown before our departure and went into an official Lord of the Rings Store where Fran purchased a Lord of the Rings Location Guide. My dad narrated the drive up to Glenorchy and we followed a dirt road out to an area called Paradise. It was beautiful and we could see the glaciated peaks of Mount Earnslaw in the background. It was fun having the guide to tell us what had been filmed where but to be honest, all of the names in films sound so similar that I could never really picture which part, or even which of the three films, they were referring to. After a while along the road to Paradise, we backtracked a bit and drove out towards the Routeburn Track where we strolled along the nature walk for a while.

As we left Glenorchy we could see clouds starting to build in the mountains and sure enough the rains came pouring down the next morning. Our big outings over the last two days have been to a local coffee shop and to the cinema and museum in Arrowtown. It’s actually been quite refreshing for us, and my dad and Fran, to have some down time while it rains.

Sunshine is usually unheard of in Milford Sound, but we somehow timed it perfectly (with the good weather luck from my Dad and Fran) and experienced the stunning fjord under the hot summer sun. When BJ and I had quickly visited Milford after a long hike a couple months ago it was pouring rain and thousands of tiny waterfalls lined the steep walls of the fjord. Under the sun, the temporary waterfalls had disappeared. It just so happens that you can’t have the best of both worlds in Milford Sound. When the sun is shining there will never be as many waterfalls and when there are a thousand waterfalls there will never be sun.

We started out our tour of Milford Sound with a day in Te Anau. We checked in to another Holiday Park, went on a self guided tour of a small bird sanctuary, and then spent a few hours reading and writing on the grassy lawn in front of the holiday park. While I was writing this blog on paper, BJ took a sip of beer and then sprayed it all over me and my paper. I thought it was a joke at first until he said that a bee had slipped into his beer and stung him on his lip. It had started to puff up pretty quickly. Later in the day we went to the local cinema to watch a film on the area called “Shadowland.” BJ noticed that one of the local beers that they were selling was called Wasp. He thought it was very fitting. Unlike the horrible film we saw in Franz Joseph, this film was beautifully done. Some of the scenery and accompanying music even gave me goosebumps.

It’s hard to describe the insignificance and smallness one feels in Milford and the photos will never do the area justice. But I can say that it is one of, if not “the” most beautiful places in New Zealand. We toured Milford on a small “nature cruise” boat which was able to get closer to the shoreline than some of the larger cruises. They taught us a few things as well . . . Milford Sound is actually a fjord and not a sound at all. It was incorrectly named by Captain Cook and the name stuck. A fjord is an area that has been carved out by glaciers and filled in with sea water and usually has very steep and dramatic mountains that jut up from the ocean. A sound is a flooded river valley . . . think of Puget Sound in the Northwest. We also learned that Milford Sound has many “treevalanches.” There is so little topsoil on the massive rock mountains that the trees either cling on to cracks within the rock or they grow on top of one another. If one tree comes loose from the rock, an entire string of trees below it will come crashing down with it, grabbing on to more and more trees as it slides down to sea level.

Probably the highlight of our boat cruise in the Milford was our experience under the Lady Bowen Waterfall. After the captain advised everyone who didn’t want to get wet to go inside, the boat slowly inched toward the base of the falls, which plunge into the fjord from over 500 feet above. The boat dipped its nose directly into the waterfall and BJ and I, although somewhat hiding below the bow, were instantly soaked.

On the return back to the boat dock, we had the option of stopping at an observatory called Milford Deep. Milford receives about 8 meters of rain a year which creates a fresh water layer over the salt water. Unlike the muddy rain water that you would see during a typical rain storm, there is no mud for the rain water to pick up. The rain water turns a little bit darker in color from tannins but is not murky. The fresh water layer that ends up above the salt water shields enough of the sunlight that fish and sea creatures like black coral, eleven-armed starfish, sea urchins and sea cucumbers that would normally live much deeper in the ocean can live closer to the surface of the ocean. Obviously, this was a beautiful and yet very informational tour of Milford Sound.

My dad and Fran arrived in Queenstown last Thursday night and it has been go go go since then. I had a wonderful 28th birthday and I thank all of those who sent me e-cards (especially from my little sister who sent me a talking squirrel) and notes on facebook . . . oh, what would we do without the internets. We spent the day making plans for the following week together, leisurely exploring Queenstown, on a short hike that I had remembered as flat but was very much up and down, followed by a beautiful dinner and delicious sangria at a new restaurant for us called The Bathhouse, along Lake Wakatipu’s waterfront.

On Valentine’s Day, the following morning, we loaded up the Holden to head west over Haast Pass to visit Franz Joseph and Fox Glaciers. BJ and I had quickly visited the area on our initial drive down to Queenstown but only hiked the 5 minutes to the lookout at Franz Joseph and missed Fox Glacier entirely because it was closed . . . we didn’t realize glaciers closed and opened for business. My dad and Fran had brought the good weather with them and as we made our way over Haast Pass we stopped the car at pretty much every attraction including the Blue (actually quite green) Pools and Thunder Falls. When we arrived in the town of Franz Joseph we checked in to a Top 10 Holiday Park where my dad and Fran had reserved a room and we pitched our tent. Because of all the backpackers and campers in New Zealand, these holiday parks are quite the fad. They have a variety of rooms, campsites, huge kitchens, and usually a lounge with games, TV and internet. They are a bit more expensive option for setting up a tent but a much cheaper option for someone looking for a bed who doesn’t want to share a dorm room with a bunch of young backpackers. We had dinner in town and then quickly made our way to the Franz Joseph Hot Pools . . . a great business idea for a place where it rains so often. We have a great buddha-like photo of my dad in the pools, but had to remove this as requested. There were three pools, each a different temperature, surrounded by lush native rainforest foliage. Despite the 80’s decor of a neon wall that faded through different colors and was supposed to look like a glacier, the pools were quite peaceful.

We were Franz Joseph glacier bound the following morning. We had contemplated hiring a guide for the walk but since we weren’t planning on actually walking on the ice we thought, and correctly assumed, that it would be a waste of money. The trail follows an almost paved walkway for about 20 minutes before opening up to the wide river valley below the glacier. The “proceed at your own risk” trail continues on along the river bed for another hour before reaching the toe of the glacier. The glacier looked huge at the lookout but not until we we were standing below it did we realize its scale. We watched as a few groups put crampons on and began hiking up the ice steps that were perfectly carved out of the glacier by their guides. Next stop . . . Fox Glacier. This time the glacier was open but the minute we turned on to the dirt access road it began to rain and we decided to wait until the next morning to see it and head back to town to watch a film called “Flowing West” made by a local helicopter company. The imagery was beautiful but they sped all the scenes up to give it an “artistic” effect. It, and the horrible music, just made me dizzy. We spent the rest of the evening cooking dinner and playing a few heated games of hearts and gin rummy back at the holiday park.

Just as we planned, we woke up the next morning to sunny skies. We didn’t hike to Fox Glacier but took a ton of photos at a couple lookouts, one of which showed off the entire glacier, top to bottom. Both Franz Joseph and Fox Glaciers are some of the fastest moving glaciers in the world, moving up to a meter a day, and some of the only glaciers that are now actually advancing as a result of the amount of moisture and snow the area receives.

As we drove back over Haast Pass we stopped at Fantail Falls, were visitors had slowly created what looked to be a graveyard of cairns. We added our creative piece and continued along our journey. Although we are not avid Lord of the Rings fans, the movie and its locations were the topic of conversation during our trip back from the west coast . . . so much in fact that we planned the entire evening back in Queenstown around watching the first film in the LOTR trilogy. Luckily our roommate Steve was there to answer my dad every time he asked “Where’s that?” Not surprisingly, a majority of the country’s tourism industry is based on the release of the movies, and there are a ton of tour companies that offer LOTR guided trips to all of the filming locations.

By now I would assume most of the world is aware of the fires that have been engulfing Australia, the largest fires in their history, having killed 130 people! Yesterday we experienced their magnitude when we woke up to an orange haze, the haze that back home I associate with a fire. It had us perplexed for a while as we tried to think of what was west of us . . . mountains covered in rainforest, the rainiest place in New Zealand, and the ocean. It was hard to imagine a fire taking place in any of these very wet places. But across the ocean a ways . . . Australia . . . of course.

The eerie apocalyptic sky set the tone for the day for us. Our plans for a big bike ride turned into a morning of drinking lots of coffee, cooking a huge breakfast (eggs, bacon, mushrooms, and onion covered in puff pastry), and reading on the couch. BJ’s quote of the day, which almost won as the title of this blog: “I love drinking coffee and doing nothing.” That pretty much sums it up. We finally dragged ourselves out of the house, went on a 30 minute bike ride, half of which was up a paved road near Coronet Peak, and then drove to Arrowtown to spend a couple hours reading and napping in a park under a tree under an orange sky, followed by our classic kiwi date . . . dinner and a mooooovie. This time, however, we didn’t watch the typical blockbuster. Waltz with Bashir, an animated portrayal of an Israeli soldier’s memory (or loss of memory) of the Lebanon War in the early 1980s, is one of the most unique and powerful films I have seen. Based on the dreamlike memories that he has, and those that he discovers through interviews of fellow soldiers, it seems only fitting that the film would be animated. We quickly drove home to look up a map and details on the war.

The orange skies had moved on from Queenstown today and we woke up with a bit more energy. We still spent a little time with coffee, breakfast, and books on the couch, but sooner than later got antsy and headed out to a place called Moke Lake for a bike ride. Despite the encroaching dark rain clouds, we set out anyways along a dirt road that wrapped around the backside of Ben Lomond Peak, which shadows Queenstown. The road eventually meets up with singletrack along the Moonlight Track. We had some hellish climbs and fast descents along the road but were clearly enjoying worrying the sheep, the lack of people, the historic feeling of riding along an old mining road, and the incredible views over the valley that dropped off from the road. On our way back to the car, BJ got an idea in his head (or maybe his belly) of a Fergburger, a famous burger joint in downtown Queenstown that we had yet to experience. I pictured Homer (BJ) sleepwalking (riding a bike) to the fridge (Queenstown) with a thought bubble of beer (big juicy burger) above his head. We tried the burger kiwi style by asking for a topping of sliced beets and, of course, a side of chips (fries). It was a delicious Monday afternoon in New Zealand.