Water Skiing in New Zealand and Jumping Off Unsuspecting Bridges

I wrote this on paper January 4th, 2012 on my flight from Christchurch to Auckland:

We're about 3/4 of our way through our trip. In retrospect it seems like we've done a lot, but at the same time we haven't and its been quick. This country is much larger than it seems and traversing it really takes a significant amount of time. Travel takes up entire days at times.

Very easy to understand intersection / round about signs leaves a GPS unnecessary:

Kiwi's have radio stations that end in even numbers!! 90.40

January 1, 2012:

Our 4.5 hour drive from Queenstown to Franz Josef on the west coast of the south island took us around 8 hours once it was all said and done.

Views en route:

A couple of look outs and a longer stop in Wanaka - we grabbed lunch

and sat on the standard international "beach" made of gravel. The view was fantastic, blue water surrounded by mountains and in the distance snow capped mountains! There was so much water activity going on - swimming, boating, water skiing, tubing...the works!

I told tim there was no way I would be able to not ask someone for a (water) ski set. When a dad, his friend, and son/daughter came into shore, I approached them and offered them money for a pull and he said he would, but they've just finished. I was understanding, and a little bummed. He asked where I was from and I told him Chicago and it would make my trip. He said, "I tell you what, I don't want your money, but I'll take you for a quick pull." I stripped off my shirt, socks, and shoes and walked into Lake Wanaka with the closest set of two skis, and they pushed the boat back out into the lake as my chap stick floated away from inside my pocket. I put on the skis, the rope grew taut, and "Hit It!!".....a split second later, I was on top of the water, water skiing on Lake Wanaka, New Zealand, on New Years Day no less, with snow capped mountains as the back drop. I was in heaven.

The beaming smile on my face was from ear to ear, the blue water and the incredible landscape. I did several jumps crossing the wake and messed around lifting each ski out of the water at differnt times.

I was so content behind their boat cruising around the lake for 5 minutes which seemed like an eternity. As we cruised back towards shore, I whipped out right

and did my standard "dive out of the skis" to get them off my feet easier, and failed to realize how shallow it was at the time and I had to last second tuck into a front flip out of the skis as not to dive right into the bottom of the lake. It all worked out, I walked the skins to shore, and I couldn't thank them enough. We talked about how great diving Poor Knights marine Reserve is going to be, as he had dove them in the past, which got me even more excited for our diving!

Lake Wanaka in the back drop post skiing:

Lake Wanaka:

We journeyed on further towards Franz Josef, without a map - there are very few roads to get lost on in New Zealand and stopped at the "Blue Pools," a 1K walk from the "car park" (as they call it)

to a crystal turquoise blue wading area, about 7m (25 ft) below. A stream was running down from the mountains and formed a crystal clear blue pool below. We saw a few people swim through the pool to a boulder 30m up stream. We walked across the narrow suspensison bridge and I told tim that there was no way that I could NOT jump off the bridge.

I walked below to the water level and scoped it out, I estimated it to be about 8' deep. If I hit the gravel bottom when I jump, no big deal....so I climb back up the rock face, strip down to my boxers and venture to the middle of the swaying bridge.

Most people at the pools had noted my unusual presence and had become my audience. I climbed over the cables supporting the bridge the the wooden 4x4 supports running beneath the bridge and step onto them.

"Here goes nothing...." I jump off, breathe once or twice during the fall, hit the water and i curve my body forward as soon as I land to prevent myself from going deeper. I managed to avoid the bottom...surfaced for air and released a shout of joy and exclaimed "I'm doing it again, that was awesome!"

I swam to the shore, climbed up the rock face, and over the side cables and jumped again. This time, without the fear and unknown of the depth of the water, I wook in the spectacular views looking up the canyon on the way down. I'm so glad I did it and I just want to do more cliff diving! We hiked back on the trail to our car parked on the side of the road, continued to Franz Josef Glacier, stopped at the grocery store, cooked a stir fry dinner, used the internet for a while, and got some shut eye before our full day glacier hike the next day!!

Dec 31 - Day 2 Kayaking Doubtful Sound & New Years Eve

Dec 31, 2011

It's a pretty unique New Years Eve when you wake up, and other than your group of 9, there are literally no human civilization for 50 miles.

Our camping area:

Our transportation back to the main arm is our kayaks and our own arms. We woke up around 6am, it was light out, but there was no sun light, the canyon walls blocked it from coming into our camp site.

We explored the area around our tents, I walked to where we would place our kayaks back into Hall Arm, and the tide had completely come back in, hiding everything we had seen just prior to falling asleep last night. We changed into our hiking gear, packed up the camp site, loaded the canoes and we were on our way for day 2. It took awhile for the sun to finally hit us, and it was very welcoming, warm, and it was time to bust out the sunnies again. We kayaked into a semi-cave on the side and exited it with the canyon walls dripping water down onto us. We made our way to the main arm and set out towards the ocean.

At this point, we were going downwind, and decided to "raft up" (all 4 canoes together), take out our "sail" and instead of using man power, we sailed down Doubtful Sound with our sail leading the way!

What a reprieve for our muscles and a cool experience to partake in!

To our right this whole time was an island, that, from a distance looks like an alligator:

We finally made it to the end of it, and circumnavigated it on the far side, staying as close to shore as possible as we fought the head wind on our way back to our starting point. We kayaked into various inlets, found more water falls to fill up our water bottles and climbed up a nearby stream to fill up again too. We passed several water falls on our way back to our starting point and definitely were paddling full steam ahead at various points, both for fun, but also to fight the brutal head wind. It was such a relief to get back and out of the kayaks. It was a great experience, I'm glad I did it and it was much more of an adventure / outdoorsy sleeping in the Sound, but two days was more than enough. We unpacked our kayaks, packed up our bags, I took a glorious dip into the Sound, which you could noticeably tell that it was part fresh and part salt water, then ate a peanut butter and nutella (my favorite) sandwich.

While eating, we saw a crab just below our feet and took a few pictures of him.

Our last view of Doubtful Sound:

Our bus came to pick us up and bring us to the west end of Manapouri...and I don't remember the bus beginning to start driving and by that time, I had already passed out and woke up 20km later as we carried our stuff to the ferry to take us across Lake Manapouri. This trip was much more picturesque than the route to Doubtful Sound. The sun was out, the sky was blue, and the scenery was incredible.

We arrived in Manapouri and had about 45 minutes to kill prior to our bus to Queenstown. I bought a few post cards, wrote and sent them off (Dec 31 in NZ, Dec 30 in the USA,) and they didn't arrive until January 25th!! The one I sent to my apartment...as of today, Feb 8, still has not arrived. I have given up hope on it ever showing up. I hope it was placed in a bottle and is floating over the pacific somewhere to be found hundreds of years from now! Our bus arrived, with our tourists coming from Milford Sound, the bus was slanted to that every seat could see out the front of the bus, the bus roof had tinted windows, and the sides were gigantic windows as well. Talk about the ultimate sight seeing tour bus!!

Two hours later, we arrived back in Queenstown, grabbed our stuff from our previous hostels storage room, back on the bus and he dropped us off at our hotel for the night, as EVERYTHING in Queenstown was booked for New Years Eve. We didn't have any choices other than this place, which was nice, and provided a scenic view of Lake Wakatipu

We got settled in, cleaned up from our days at sea, and walked back down the hill, 15 minutes to downtown Queenstown, which was definitely happening. There was a concert in the park, we saw nomads living / partying out of their camper van on the side of the street, the area was all blocked off, and everyone was having a great time. We met up with our friend from the hostel, Colin, grabbed a beer with him at one of the local pubs taking in the atmosphere and swapping stories before eventually making our way back to Adventure Queenstown Hostel:

to reunite with all our friends we made earlier in the week. I was excited to see everyone and everyone seemed excited to see us and genuinely welcomed us with open arms. The New Years Eve festivities began with loads of dancing, drinking, ...doing the limbo in the kitchen, as midnight approached.

We went out onto the balcony and the fireworks began, hugs, high fives, kisses, "USA" chants (mockingly from the Scots haha) and pure happiness overtook the air.

New Zealand is the very first country in the world to enter the new year, so as I rang in the New Year in Queenstown, New Zealand, my friends at home were (theoretically) just getting home from a late night bar at 5am, Dec 31st morning (Saturday night, the 30th) and I had entered 2012.

We all entered the common room and the Scots taught us a traditional Scottish dance, which was quite a good time, filled with do-si-dos, spins, singing, and more dancing.

A handful of us went out to the bars at about 2:30am, returned shortly after and most people had crashed. We jumped a cab back to our hotel, and successfully had rung in 2012!

Dec 30 - Kayaking Doubtful Sound

Dec 30, 2011 - Kayaking Doubtful Sound

I'd be lying if I said this day didn't begin without a hitch. I literally awoke every 30 minutes over night because Tim had set his alarm on his ole reliable red slide phone which hadn't been used in years. Given this was our most expensive adventure, and it was for 2 full days, I was not going to miss this. Turns out, his alarm never goes off / randomly went back 2 hours, I awoke and checked my camera's time as I had been throughout the night, and asked a fellow hostel-mate what time it was, he confirmed the time to me, and it was "Oh Shit O'Clock." I sprung from my bed, Tim and I put all our crap in the hall way to pack our food up quickly, without making breakfast as planned, we were on our way outside to get picked up to go kayaking. Our bus was late, and I decided I would run to their tourism office and leave my stuff with Tim. I did, another person was there waiting for the bus as well, it shows up late, and we go back to pick up Tim and the fellow backpackers heading to Doubtful Sound for the day or the kayak adventure. A 20 minute coach bus ride to the tiny town of Manapouri and we were ready to embark on our journey to Doubtful Sound. The bus cleared off all the day trippers going on cruises on Doubtful Sound and left 8 of us on the bus, we all felt like the badasses of the group knowing that we would be carrying our housing, food, clothing, transportation (our kayaks), and gear for the next 2 days, roughing it, as opposed to a day cruise on a boat.

We loaded our gear onto the ferry that would take us ~20 miles across Lake Manapouri, another picturesque lake, however, it was overcast, and looked stormy exactly where Doubtful Sound was.

We disembarked by the largest electric plant in New Zealand on the west half of Lake Manapouri. 250' below ground, a pipe system carries water / electricity back to the other half other shore of the lake, I would quite like a tour of this, however, I'm much more eager to go to Doubtful Sound. A 20km bus ride later (these buses had to be taken on barge here, because there is no road to connect to Doubtful Sound - hence why its more remote and VERY VERY less touristy, and the reason we chose to go here vs. Milford Sound.

We were introduced to our 20' long, 2-person kayaks, loaded our gear into water proof bags, packed our tents, food, put on our wet suit bottoms and fleece tops (for wind, bugs, and sun protection) put on our kayak skirts and life jackets and lifted our (6 people to lift and carry) extremely heavy kayaks into the Sound. These sounds are direct inlets from the ocean, however, the top 3 to 30' of water is fresh water, due to the run off rain entering the sound from the never ending slopes above. Despite this pristine rain water, the Sound is dark in color due to tannin, which the rain water picks up from the trees on the canyon sides. This prevents much light from penetrating the water, and due to this, many species of plants and animals that are usually found at more than 200' deep in the ocean, can be found at a very reasonable scuba dive depth of 30' to 60'. Doubtful Sound is 3x as long and has 10x as much surface area as Milford Sound, a much more vast inlet, yet still gorgeous. It also has a family of dolphins that lives in the sound that we were hoping to encounter.

As we paddled out into the main arm, we began passing several water falls.

This first one at the time seemed incredible, and by all means, it still is, but little did we know about the number of massive water falls we would see in the next 36 hours. We paddled against the wind, into a side wind, and downwind, it seemed to be constantly changing. The view, although constantly changing due to the progress we were making stayed incredible the entire time.

We stopped at a rock beach after a few hours of paddling, ate lunch, and our guide (he was 21 and the youngest of our group of 8 by far) brewed coffee, and we continued on. We filled up our water bottles at any water falls on the side and I was drinking it like I'd never seen water before, to which, the group gave me grief for the shear volume of water I was able to drink.

Our guide filling up his water bottle in the mini waterfall:

At this point, our guide points to the upcoming canyon ahead and explains why there are so many sections of downed trees.

He explained this phenomenon as a 'tree fall.' Essentially, the slopes are so steep and there is so little soil that any little nook in the mountain side, the trees put their roots into, and then as it stabilitizes, other trees rap their roots around other trees' roots. When one of the trees at the top falls, and loses hold of its nook, a chain reaction occurs and all of the trees tumble down the mountain side.

We kayaked on to the end of Hall Arm, saw a giant crack in the mountain side caused by an earthquake in the 1950s (very new in geological time)

parked our boats and went for a hike up to a waterfall. We hiked up a stream to get there, and on the way, I almost stepped on this:

But I caught myself. This is one of the many non-native animals brought to New Zealand. At first it was rabbits as pets which do as rabbits do...and multiply like rabbits. Next, the Europeans brought these weasels and their cousins to control the rabbit population because they were eating many of the Kiwi's crops.

Anyway, we trekked on up to the water fall and we were blessed with the opportunity to stand in a water fall with the water from above pounded us on our shoulders, the whole time, I was worrying that the falls would be transporting a large rock or tree branch (given that everything at the bottom of the falls road the water down to this location on the canyon side, this is very plausible), but luckily we were safe, and enjoyed the serenity of the Sound.

We began to entertain ourselves throwing rocks down at a boulder half way down the stream attempting to be the first to hit it, but it was much harder than it appeared, either way, it was a fun little break from the day.

Other notes:

* One 60' boat came into Hall Arm while we were there, and we attempted to kayak/surf its waves towards the shore.

* Everytime our guide wanted to speak with us, we'd "raft up" - all 4 kayaks side by side, and then "break away" by everyone pushing on everyone else's kayak at the same time, and we continued to improve throughout the trip.

After leaving the walls, we headed back in the direction we came from, and to our camp site of the night. My arms were definitely exhausted from kayaking for ~6 to 7 hrs.

Where we kayaked into to park our boats:

We pulled our kayaks ashore, and as a team of 6, and we met our arch enemy. Sand flies. These minute, mosquito-esque insects, are my single least favorite animal on the planet. They swarm you by the hundreds and bite at any bit of skin available. I have never been so flustered, annoyed, or driven crazy by anything in my entire life as these little buggers. I would've spent $100s on a can of deet to get away from them. Luckily, we had some, and lathered up our arms, masking our scent and it did wonders! Tim and I set up our tent, on a gloriously comfortable gravel filled area while battling the sand flies, toured our camping area, and made our way to the 'main tent.'

Prior however, we got to see where the other tents were set up, there was an elevated toilet about 100m behind our campsite and other than the obvious lack of comfort (we're camping in the wilderness) it was such a cool experience! Literally, no other humans but us for about 50 miles, just vast vast New Zealand Fiordland Wilderness!

I changed on a mini island in the river bend as the sun was setting and being away from the sand flies has never been so rewarding. We spent the rest of the night in the tent that is set up by our guides company, drank boxed wine, cooked our pasta on our propane burner, shared stories, and eventually headed for our tents. Prior, we ventured towards where we disembarked from our boats, and the tide had lowered so much that we could walk out another 150' from where our kayaks were. It was cool seeing everything that is typically hidden by the Sound. Hall Arm was entirely still and the peacefulness was incomparable to anything else I've experienced.

On the way back to the tents, we stopped for some bird calls, as we tried to contact the elusive national bird, the kiwi. Although we heard them in the distance, they never believed that our bird calls truly were other kiwis, and as we crawled into our tents, inflated our 1/2" thick, 2'x4' mattress pad, the sounds of the wilderness, the insects in the trees, and the chirping of the birds guided us to sleep.