Archive for ‘April, 2010’

The West Coast of New Zealand is beautiful! We spent a few days between Westport and Haast enjoying the scenery, good weather, and fun activities. Here’s some highlights…
 

Caving Adventure

Not knowing much about it we randomly signed up for a cool-looking caving tour, and it turned out to be worth it. The cave is undeveloped; only a guide rope has been added. We entered armed with wetsuits, headlamps, and a small inner tube in tow. The cave formations were very impressive, and part way through we turned off our lights in the middle to see the absolute darkness in the cave. Then we descended to the lower level of the cave which has water that flows into the nearby river. We boarded our inner tubes, turned off our lights, and floated through the cave with millions of “glow worms” lighting up the cave ceiling above us. Glow worms are small worms that live on rocks and catch insects with tiny sticky threads hanging down. And, their bums light up! Floating through the glow worm cave was magical.
 

Franz Josef Glacier - below the clouds

A popular stop on any New Zealand itinerary is the Franz Joseph and Fox Glaciers. We arrived yesterday to cloudy skies and a poor forecast for the next few days. Since we’ve seen our share of glaciers, we decided just to do a long day hike for the exercise and leave the next day, whether or not we saw the glaciers in all their glory.

Peaking out the campervan window this morning, the skies looked clear and I was hopeful for good weather. We rushed to get ready and hit the trail by 10am for our 10 mile 4000 foot elevation gain hike. After three hours of strenuous hiking through rough terrain we ran into cloudy skies and figured we wouldn’t see a thing the rest of the day. In fact, two other couples we met on the trail turned around early to head back. But we were in it for the exercise, so we trotted on.

New Zealand above the clouds

I’m absolutely in love with New Zealand. This country is beautiful, fun, sweet, charming and exciting – and we’ve only just seen a very small part of it.

Beautiful New Zealand

Ben and I arrived in Christchurch, New Zealand last week via a long set of flights from South Africa. At that point we had no idea what to do in New Zealand, so we found a hostel and hunkered down for 4 days to plan and get over our jet-lag. I don’t have a single photo of Christchurch, but it’s a really great city right next to beaches and mountains with a cool downtown.
 

Campervaning

Jucy Cruiza Campervan

Our time in Christchurch ended with us setting out to explore the South Island for 2 weeks in a “Jucy Cruiza” campervan. Campervans are really popular here (more…)

Queen Charlotte Sound, New Zealand

Ben and I have searched the globe for good mountain biking, but have failed to find anything worthwhile outside of the US… until now. Yesterday we rented full-suspension bikes and rode one section of the Queen Charlotte Track near Picton, New Zealand. The scenery was gorgeous and the riding was awesome. We will definitely be mountain biking more during our next 3 weeks here. (more…)

We only spent about half of our time in South Africa on safari. The rest of the time was spent with our couchsurfing hosts in Johannesburg, driving, and relaxing in the Blyde River Canyon area near Kruger. Here’s a few things about our time in South Africa that I didn’t want to leave out…
 

Blyde River Canyon

Just west of Kruger park is Blyde River Canyon, a beautiful mountain range with cute towns and amazing viewpoints. After driving through the area, we booked last-minute reservations for two nights at a guesthouse out in the country. It was probably the most comfortable and beautiful room we’ve ever stayed in, with an enormous bed, jacuzzi, gorgeous view, and friendly host. Originally we were hoping to stay in town and spend our time hiking and sightseeing, but we took this opportunity to relax for a couple days instead. It was absolutely lovely.

When we added South Africa to our RTW itinerary, I imagined going on a safari in an open jeep on rough dirt roads, with lions and tigers roaming around the car and the guide holding a riffle, just in case. But it turns out that in South Africa, going on Safari is like spending the weekend at Yellowstone, just with different animals and scenery.

Self-drive Safari

How it works

Animal viewing from the car

We visited Kruger National Park, a huge game reserve east of Johannesburg. You could call this a “self-drive safari” because visitors simply drive their own cars around all day looking for animals. The animals are anywhere and everywhere, and most of the time we spotted them crossing the road, or near a river or water hole. You’re not allowed to get out of your car except in a few designated areas, but with all the animals around you wouldn’t want to anyway.

So Ben and I rented a car and stayed 3 nights inside of the park in a private bungalow with a small kitchen and grill. Each day we would head out, armed with cameras and binoculars, in search of wild animals…
 

Animals!

During four days of driving around Kruger, we saw almost every animal imaginable. (more…)