Of fire and water - Hawaii

We started this trip with a one-way ticket to Cairns, Australia. We had a rough idea what we wanted to do and when, but like to keep our option open. So about halfway we figured, that since we'd fly home a week before Christmas, we might want to book something asap, so we wouldn't end up with very expensive tickets.

We looked at several routes. The most straightforward thing, would be to have a stopover in Asia, and then home from there. But that didn't feel right. What about going in the other direction? After all, New Zealand is so far away, there's no 'detour', and it would be cool to finally do that round-the-world thing. 

As it happened Air NewZealand had a special: to Hawaii. Now that sounded like a plan, and here we are!

City of refuge, Kona

Now to be honest, Hawaii didn't blow us away. That might have something to do with these three things:

• High expectations.
  There's nothing like high expectations to quickly turn any experience into a deception.
• The weather.
  We simply ran out of luck with that one. As we arrived we'd hoped that it would clear up, but it didn't. It had been raining in Hilo for 10 consecutive days, and the storm was forcast to linger over the island for another week. Roads were closed due to snowfall and flash floods, tours cancelled and the Hawaiian weather even made it onto the news back home in Europe.
• Feeling poorly.
  That does change your experience. Flying in, I was coming down with a cold, that lasted a full week. Nauseous, head aches, runny nose, sore throat, overall lethargy, the works. We still did some stuff, but things like going on a proper walk, were just too much for me. We went out every day, but I wasn't enjoying it as much as I know I would have otherwise.

Having said that, we did do some pretty amazing stuf! Like what? Here's some of our highlights.

On day 2 we drove up an active volcano, Kilauea, and watched the lava in the crater splatter and blow. We were told that we were lucky, since quite often the lava isn't visible at all, because its normal level is a lot lower. That night after dinner we went back to the crater and saw the lava in the dark of night which was even more spectacular. Especially because it was a lot quieter that during the day, and we could actually hear the spatter and howling going on. Talk about force of nature...

Kilauea crater

From Kilauea lava still continues to flow down to the sea, the island grows when it solidifies in the water. The hike to the ocean entry point takes approximately 2 hours on way: too much. But we did see the massive steam plume from a distance. Usually there are boats to the entry point, but those didn't go out because of the high winds. We decided to do a short petroglyph walk instead, and that was pretty special too. 

Big steam vent where lava flows into the sea

Now day 3 was definitely a highlight: we had booked a manta ray dive. This was really the reason we went to Big Island. Luckily I only had a sore through and some mild headaches that day, so I could make it (or maybe I just suppressed the rested since it came back with a vengeance the next few days). We headed out of the marina at 3pm, and saw some dolphins on the boat ride to the dive spot. We started with an easy afternoon dive, on which we saw some cool stuff: moray eels, garden eels, a Pacific barracuda, a small turtle, some big crowns of thorns, both yellow and grey trumpetfish, black long-nosed angle fish, very weird lizard fish, and a massive Neptune's cockle. 

Trumpet fish

After 65minutes we surfaced, it was a really nice dive, though not spectacular. Saying that, I think we must consider ourselfs spoiled. Read that final line of the last paragraph again. Seeing all that, and then labelling a dive nothing spectacular. Hmmmm... We might need to abstain from diving until we've got our perspective back. 

But first, it was time for supper. The crew had layed out different wraps and cookies, which we ate while watching the sunset. When it got dark we got a briefing for the main event: the manta night dive. During the briefing we saw the first big manta shadow under the water's surface, the exitement rippled through the crowd.

Lizard fish

The general plane of this dive is that you plunge in, swim to a designated sandy spot, and wait at the bottom for whatever shows up, while pointin your torch over your head. We got a few extra kilos of weight in our BCDs, so we would easily stay put, because the swell had come up even more. To attract the mantas, there would be lights from the surface down, and the bottom up. The mantas feed on zooplankton, and those zooplankton gather in light beams, thus making an easy meal for an intelligent manta.

Me with torch

There were 4 groups of 4 divers, each with their own guide. We were in the second group to descent, and gathered at a spot at about 10m deep. We each had a small torch, but the guides had places bottom and surface lights near our spot, and boy, those lights sure were bright. It kind of felt like a circus arena. But within seconds we saw our first manta ray. What a sight! She flew over our head into the beam, summer salting on her way back for a second helping. We could look right into her open mouth, seeing the gills on the insides. Spectacular.

We huddled together trying to stay stable in the swell. That was tricky. Our guides had told us to pick up one of the boulders strewn around if we had trouble. I flinched at the thought of picking up a rock, bare-handed even, but couldn't think of another option, so I did it anyway.

With my new found stability I could really enjoy the show in front of me. Thousands of silver fish swam in vertical shoals around us. A manta with a wingspan of 2.5-3meters flew into the light, and disappeared again into darkness like a ghost. During feeding it came so close that it actually brushed our heads. I sometimes simply forgot to breath.

Manta ray up close

After about 50minutes our dive guide decided our time was up, and we needed to go back to the boat. Getting up the first thing I saw was a rock fish, right next to where we had been sitting. These are highly venomous, and one of the reasons you do not pick up rocks! 

Another reason are the sea urchins that I suddenly noticed all around. We swam towards the boat, watching some nocturnal fish hunting. On the boat we had a nice hot shower and instant cocoa with biscotti. But who cares about that, we just saw a manta ray up close, feeding, for almost an hour!

Another great experience was going up the Haleakala Volcano on Maui. Seeing the sunrise from the summit is supposed to be spectacular, so on our list. We spent 3 nights on Maui, and had looked online for the best day to do this. Day 6 looked promising. We got up at 3am to make the 2hour drive from Lahaina to the summit, some 3000meters higher. As we drove up the volcano, it was a lovely clear night. The stars were very visible in the sky, and the towns below glowed in the dark. 

We were just in time for one of the last spots at the parking lot, when we arrived at 5am. It was close to freezing when we stepped out, so we decided to have a nap in the car for the hour we had to wait. As we woke again at 6am the clouds were drifting in... So unfortunately no clear sky sunrise for us, but it turned out to be impressive nonetheless. 

Haleakala sunrise

After an hour or so, we went back to the car and had breakfast. We had planned to do a hike down the crater today, but I really didn't feel very fit. But didn't want to miss out either. We figured we would just slowly start to descent, take many breaks, and after an hour or so would start walking up again. It was only 8am and we had the rest of the day to do this. That turned out to be a very good plan. What a magnificent landscape...

The track was easy, but reasonably steep. And every turn revealed different perspectives and more colours. 

After slowly making our way up again, we drove back down around noon. And that's when my problems began... My ears simply would not equalise. When this happens while diving, I go up again, but we could hardly stay on the volcano. We did stop for a while, and after some time I was able to 'pop' them. But it hurt. And I heard sound I've never heard before, that was unnerving. 

I've always had pressure-sensitive ears, and I figure I must've put them through a bit too much. These last 6 days: 4 flights, 2 scuba dives and 3 drives up over 2500m. And all while having a cold. To make matters worse, my next flight is in two days. A trip to the pharmacy provided a fairly aggressive nose spray, let's hope that does the trick.

Keanae peninsula on the road to Hana

On day 7, our last day on Hawaii, we (more accurately Rodie) drove the road to Hana. A narrow, winding road with many one-lane bridges. Though not nearly as narrow as the road on the north east coast we drove on day 5. The views were really nice, the waterfalls pretty and the greenery spectacular at places. Honestly I did not think it was all that it's hyped to be. But Rodie really liked it, and we usually like the same type of things, so I blame my stuffy head for that. In retrospect I maybe should've stayed in bed. But then again, I'm not in Hawaii that often, so wanted to do as much as I could. 

Day 8, we're flying to San Francisco, fingers crossed that the ears make it in one peace too!

Oh and we've lost our cord to get photos from my camera and upload them, so this post will be edited sometime in the near future with more photos...

Milford Sound - Fiordland

We set out at 7:15 am for a cruise on the Milford Sound. Milford is one of New Zealand's famous fiords. We were staying at Te Anau, about 2-2,5hours driving from the Milford jetty. And we had booked a cruise for 9:45 cruise opting to beat the crowds to it. The weather looked unexpectedly lovely and sunny that morning.

The famous Mitre Peak, hidden in the clouds

But that didn't last very long. As we drove north, into the mountains, the road became quickly very misty and wet. By the time we came out of the Milford tunnel it was proper drizzling weather. We'll never wonder again why the West Coast is commonly referred to as Wet Coast. 

We're told the annual rainfall in the Milford Sound is almost 7meters! One of the wettest inhabited places on earth... About 182 rainy days a year, so we had about 50-50 chance, not taking into account that spring is the rainy season,

A few of the thousands of waterfalls 

The upside of all that rain? The gorgeous waterfalls of course! Because the rock doesn't retain any water, many waterfalls will stop 30 minutes after the rain ceases. We saw plenty of waterfalls, and most were absolutely pumping! 

Because the fiord walls are very steep, both above and under water, the boats can get right up to the walls. Sometimes touching the trees there, and once underneath a waterfall! 

Nature's hydro power

I sat inside for a fair bit of the trip, and suddenly I saw two dolphins next to the boat, very cool. Unfortunate they were gone before I could alert Rodie, who stood outside on the bow. 

The boat navigated the fiord right up to the border of the Tasman Sea, and there we could see another surprise: penguins! 

Can you spot the penguin?

Our guide told us these were yellow-eyed penguins, one of the rarest species on earth. We were delighted that we had our binoculars on us, cause it was hard to spot these birds from far off (the cruise boats luckily aren't allowed to disturb them). As we watched we saw two penguins. Clumsily hopping on the rocks on their bulbous pink feet. The bright yellow colour next to their eyes was very well visible too.

Penguin in the water

We watched as the bird made it to the water, and plunged in. Once in they look like a semi-sunken duck. We were quite excited to see one of these very rare penguins. The only thing is... 

A few days later we went to a dedicated viewing hide to watch yellow-eyed penguins and were (again) lucky enough to see them. And they definitely looked different! The pink feet were similar, but the yellow markings not. After some googling we believe we saw yellow-crested (Fiordland) penguins at Milford Sound. 

Sun at last

As we reach the Tasman Sea we distinguished a tiny patch of blue in the clouds, the sun had decided to come out and joins us. As we headed back to the jetty, we saw some other boats heading out. Even though we knew the surrounding cliffs were high, seeing the bits being dwarfed by them really gave some perspective to it all. 

 Seal rock

On our way out we has passed a rock strewn with seals on the south side, and now we passed another one on the north side: imaginatively named Seal Rock. Another batchelor fur seal hangout. 

I had never imagined how frequently we would see these animals!

Fur seal on display

At noon we were back at the jetty. We drove back to Te Anau, but now had time for some stops on the way. We stopped at The Chasm. A gorgeous short walk, with some impressive river views. And the place where we spotted our first Kea! 

Other good stops were Knobs Flat, the Mirror Lakes and Te Anau Downs.

Mirror Lakes

The search for sea lions - Victory Beach

New Zealand is home to much wildlife, and we have seen quite a lot of it! But, always looking for more, we really wanted to see some sea lions. We have seen many, many fur seals, and though they are super cute we haven't seen even one sea lion. (Although I've recently read that fur seals are actually misnamed sea lions, their external ears being proof of that.)

Somehow the need to see a sea lion turned into our self imposed quest...

Tussock dotted farmland

During our tour at the Albatross Centre, we eagerly asked our guide if she knew where it was most likely to see sea lions on the Otago Peninsula, since we had visited quite a few beaches already. She first advised Allan's Beach, where we look that morning, and if not there, give Victory Beach a try. We drove there as soon as we finished the Albatross tour.

En route to Victory Beach

From the carpark it was about 40 min walk to the beach. As usual in New Zealand, the walk itself was really pretty. First through farmland, then through dunes overflowing with flax and yellow lupin. The flax you see everywhere in New Zealand, but we haven't seen this much lupin before. 

Then we suddenly stumbled upon the beach. 

New Zealand flax

We intensely looked in both directions, but couldn't see anything seal or sea lion like. But, having learned from our previous experiences, we decided to walk north anyway. It's so hard to spot these animals, if you don't know where to look.

Victory Beach

And that was proven once again. After walking a few minutes, we saw something lying at the beach. Was it one of those kelp heaps? It wasn't moving for sure, but we walked towards it anyway. 

Coming closer we saw that it actual was an animal. But was it still alive? Her hind flippers and eyes were covered in flies... 

Is it alive?

As we closed in, she did move and it was definitely a sea lion! It didn't like us being too close and showed us her impressive set of teeth. All good. We kept some distance.

We still felt she wasn't the healthiest looking specimen, but later learned that sea lions are often covered in flies when lying at the beach. 

Look at those teeth!

We continued our walk, but didn't encounter any more sea lions. At the end of the beach, on the rocky outcrops were however a dozen or so fur seals. And some oystercatchers, and we did see some very freshly made penguins tracks. The walkers we talked to a few minutes before told us they saw two yellow-eyed penguins coming out of the water, but we just missed them...

Fur seal coming ashore

We walked back, and 'our' sea lion was still there. At the same spot, but her head was now towards the sea instead of the dunes, and she was sound asleep. 

She couldn't be bothered with us being near this time. 

Sleeping beauty

We walked back the same way we came. Today we saw albatrosses, red-billed gulls with chicks, oystercatchers, fur seals, white-faced herons, paradise shell ducks, pied stilts, and a sea lion. Not a bad day at all!

Sea lion at Victory Beach

Kea crazy - Fiordland

I think it's time for a single animal dedicated post again. Why? Well quite frankly because I can't choose which photos to post.... And having a Milford Sound post with 8 pictures of Kea and 4 of the sound would be a bit weird wouldn't it?

Our first kea

So what is a Kea? An alpine parrot! Endemic to New Zealand, and not too common since it was hunted to near extinction. You might wonder why, could it be that tasty? Or may be as stupid as a dodo?

Sitting pretty

None of the above, it's actually one of the more intelligent birds, but it does occasionally kill sheep! 

It's alpine habitat means it needs high caloric food to survive, like (animal) fat. To get that, some kea would tear open a sheep's backside and feed on its fatty layers. And most sheep apparently die as a result of that treatment.

Rainy kea

What do you of that that massive beak now? 

Not very surprisingly this behaviour led farmers to kill any kea they'd lay eyes on. There was even a bounty for every kea upper beak handed in. Nowadays kea are a protected species, though still occasionally (illegally) hunted. 

Windy kea

Now we've read on many sites that your bound to spot a kea when you stop anywhere in the Southern Alps. Kea are very opportunistic, and have learned that humans provide a generous and steady source of food, so they hang out at alpine viewing points and parking lots. 

Though they also like to destroy rubber window seals and windscreen wipers, and quite a few warnings are posted for that.

But we had been in the Alps for days and hadn't seen any. It was getting to the point that we feared we might not see any.

Up to no good kea

Luckily that change when we drive back form Milford Sound. At each stop we made, we saw one or multiple kea. And none of them very shy. They'd walk right up to us and our car, to see if there was anything interesting. We almost had an extra passenger. 

But looking at them walking around they do not look very intelligent. But I don't think any walking bird looks smart, they've got wings for a reason!

And kea have pretty wings too. Though they are an olive brown green hue when walking, once they take flight you see the brilliant orange on the bottom of their wings. But you'll have to google to see a picture of that. 

Fluffy kea

Time for chicks - Royal Albatross Centre

We spent a few days in Dunedin, and one of the must-see's there is the Otago Peninsula. And that's exactly where we went. The peninsula is home to the world's only mainland royal albatross colony. And a tour is the only way to actually see the albatrosses, so, cheapskates as we are, we got tickets through a discount site, and booked a tour for 3pm.

Taiaroa Head Lighthouse

The colony is right at the head of the peninsula. We arrived a bit early so had a look around at the parking lot, with lots of screaming gulls. But no albatrosses of yet. We took a stroll to the cliffs, looked at the lighthouse, and the fur seals below them. We have seen a lot of fur seals this trip!

Our tour started with a video of albatrosses and a short talk. Both very informative. Did you know albatrosses mostly eat floating dead squid because they can't dive very deep? I didn't. 

Anyway, after that we walked up to the observatory, right in between the nesting albatrosses. There were several binoculars, so we could take a look. November is nesting period, and with the binoculars, we could see 5 birds from the observatory. Our guide tolds us a bit about their personalities, and about life in the colony in general. 

Southern Royal Albatross nesting 

Lower at the cliff we could see the cormorants nesting. After about half an hour we walked down again. For some of the participants this was it, but we had booked the 'unique tour', so we were allowed up in the old fortress.

We got to see the disappearing gun (yes really!), the old armoury, but best of all... two albatrosses up close! Appearantly they prefer nesting closer to the viewing post of the fortress than next to the observatory, who knew?

Red-billed gull

After the fortress tour, we walked all the way down, passed the red-billed gull colony. We've seen these gulls a lot in New Zealand, and hadn't thought a lot about it. But they turn out to be endemic to New Zealand, and endangered at that. 

But the best thing? Unlike the albatrosses, that take like forever to incubate, the guls' chicks had already hatched! Cute as a button, even though I know they'll grown up to be annoying gulls. 

Posing like a grown up gull.

The colony as a whole was loud and smelly, as you'd expect from sea gulls. The chicks range widely in age. The youngest we saw was a very fluffy and shy day-old (maybe even hours?) next to an unhatched egg. But others were a lot bigger and bolder, screeching away. Very cool to see that many, and that close up!

Fluffy little chick

Walking in the wet - Abel Tasman Coastal Track

New Zealand is all about the outdoors, especially when hiking, or tramping as the Kiwis say. The country even has 9 Great Walks. These are multi day hiking trails, which supposedly have the bast views and divers landscapes.

Now, we are by no means avid walkers, but we felt like we at least had to try to do one of these trails. I mean, being in the country for almost two months, and not do one of the walks....? That's like missing out on the essentials of the country.

Start of the Abel Tasman from Maharou

After done online searching, we decided to walk the Abel Tasman Coastal Track. We chose this one for several reasons:

• Supposedly it's the easiest of the Great Walks, so manageable for leisurely walkers. 
• It's very accessible, so if you decide you cannot take it anymore, you can even decide to take a water taxi out.
• You walk a trail from hut to hut, where you spend the night. So the distance between two huts determines how far you have to walk each day. The Abel Tasman has 'extra' huts, so you can chose to walk the whole track in 3,4 or 5 days. (This whole track is 60km.)
• This area usually has really good weather: one of the sunniest parts of the country.

View over Tinline Bay

Because the huts have limited space, you have to book them before you start. By the time we thought about booking them, some of them were already fully booked. So this limited our options, both in length and dates. An attentive option would be you camp along the trail, but then we'd have to hire (and carry!) camping gear too. That's a bit too hardcore for me.

We would walk 3 days, from Marahau to Awaroa, staying 2 night in huts. 

Because the trails are all about nature, you can't buy anything en route. You have to carry all your food , clothing and sleeping gear with you.

The huts have drinking water, flushing toilets and cold showers. No heating or electricity, but some sort of heating would be available.

Walking the first day

At our hostel we arranged for a water taxi to pick us up at Awaroa on day 3, and hired an extra sleeping bag (we travel with just one) because the nights get pretty cold!

We headed out on the 6th of November. Just as one of the infrequent bad weather fronts rolled in... Well , if you let the rain get yo you, you can't do anything in New Zealand! But look at the sky in that first photo, imagine that the start of you three day walk....

Start of day 2, Drizzle at Anchorage Bay

On that first day we walked just over 13km. Most of it in lovely weather, and those views... Simply amazing. But our bags were pretty heavy, were of used to more than a day pack. And there were a couple of pretty steep climbs that day. 

We stopped for lunch at Appletree Bay, a lovely little cove. But the tide rose very quickly, so we climbed up again and walked to the hut at Achorage. The first real showers started after lunch, and about 20 minutes before we got to the hut it started to storm. We were utterly soaked by the time we reached the hut. 

The rain stopped about half an hour after we got there... So we spend a lovely few hours sitting in the sun. As soon as the rain stopped, the birds came out. A few ducks, some quail and even a weka! 

Day 2: rain

Achorage hut had 4 separate door rooms, with 4 bunks each (sleeping 8 per room). The matresses were plastic wrapped foam. Not the most comfortable ever. But hey, we weren't doing this for comfort.

Someone lights the fire, we rinsed our socks and shirt, and hung our clothes next to the fire to dry.

Our dinner consisted of a salad with avocado and a tin of teriyaki chicken each. Dessert was an energy bar. 

The huts don't have cooking facilities and we figured that hiring and carrying a portable gas stove was too much of a hassle. 

We had some nice chats that evening, prepared our overnight oats, and by nine o'clock everyone was in bed!

Start of day 3 at Bark Bay

We were looking forward to day 2, it was forcast to be a lovely sunny day, and our pack would be not as heavy.

Imagine our deception when we woke up to the sound of rain... 

We took our time eating our oats (that had turned out quite nice!) and staring out the window. Around 10 we figured we might as well start, it didn't get any sunnier as far as we could tell. And we were right unfortunately.

It rained all day long. We didn't stop for lunch, because we were quite sure our rice cake would fall apart from the moisture. 

A good thing that even in the rain, the track is gorgeous. But of course we would have preferred some more sunshine.

A tui, one of the most common birds on the track.

We reached Bark Bay hut at around 2pm, having walked again 13km. Since it had been such lovely weather (ahem) we had decided to take the high tide route and a detour to Cleopatra Pool.

But we did gave a lot of fun that afternoon in the hut. We chatted and laughed with some of the other walkers. Taking turns of making fun of each other's food turns out to be a good way to pass the time. (Our dinner was ready cooked rice, mustard tinned chicken, red peppers and tinned olives.)

Bark Bay hut was a little more basic than Anchorage: the same plastic matresses, but this time in 2 bed rooms, each sleeping 14 people in platform bunks. What is a platform bunk? Two platforms above each other, both with 7  matresses, right next to each other. It has been a while since I've slept that close to a stranger...

The creek just before Tonga Quarry

But what a nice surprise on day 3. We had given up hope, but the sun made it at last! What a gorgeous day it was. We had only 10km to walk today, and our pack was almost empty.

We saw so many birds that day and the sunlight made all the views just made all the little creeks glitter. Because of the rainy days the waterfalls and creeks were tumbeling.

Day 3: sun at Onetahuti Beach

At Onetahuti Beach we had a break, we watched the oystercatchers and red billed gulls at the beach, and staring at the sea, we even saw some seals in the water!

After Onetahuti we walked through an estuary and then got ready for our last hike uphill. Walking down we realised we were very early for our water taxi. We had booked a 3pm taxi, and we arrived at noon. We decided to walk to the beach, just in time to see the earlier water taxi arrive! 

We stepped aboard and 1,5 hours later we were back where we started.

Boat ride back

Sleepy seals - Cape Pallister

While we stayed in Wellington, we decided to do a daytrip to Cape Pallister, home to the largest New Zealand fur seal colony of the North Island.

View from the cape

The drive there took about 2,5 hours, and was really nice. When we were nearly there, we started to watch the sea intensely, hoping for a glimpse of seals.

What a comfortable position...

And suddenly we thought we saw one! We pulled over and indeed... there was one. On closer inspection, we saw several. Just lazing around, perfectly blending with the rocks.

Quite an active pose

We walked towards the sea, about 10meters off the road and there lay another in the grass! So quietly we didn't notice it at first! 

Can you see them all?

We were hoping to see some pups, but we were probably a few weeks too early. We did see some smaller ones though. Two out of the water. One was just hiding with its mum, the other one was trying to annoy all the grown ups. Biting and poking every single on as he passed them. 

What is that biped doing?

Staying a bit longer we saw them interact with each other, the proud male at the largest boulder, the young one playing in the water.

Love the difference between wet and dry

We stayed for about an hour, watching them from different locations. We then drove on to the lighthouse, but decide that we didn't feel like walking the 250steps up. So we didn't.

Nozzling 

We then drove back to Wellington, just in time for the afternoon traffic jams. Always fun. Despite that delay, we were just in time to do the last tour of the Weta workshop, but that's a whole other story! 

For now: I hope you like these pics as much as I do...

Which way is up?