Picton to Mt. Cook

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Welcome to the South Island of New Zealand! We dropped off our rental car in Wellington, boarded the InterIslander Ferry, and pick up another car in Picton four hours later.

We started our two-week trip with two days at Queen Charlotte Sound, hiking sections of the 70km Queen Charlotte Track. Most of the trail is pretty flat, making for some easy walking. We were treated to views of sounds on both sides of the trail.

As we made our way south, we stopped by many of the island's wine-making regions. This was in the Marlborough region. Just like houses in New Zealand, wineries there were modern and tastefully decorated.

We stopped at Kaikoura as we drove along the eastern coast of the island. The walk around the tip of the peninsula there is wonderful! It's only a couple of hours, and you get to see a ton of wildlife and interesting rock formations. 

One of the best days we had was in Lake Tekapo. It suddenly clearly up as we got near it. The setting of the town at one end of a large blue lake is perfect. Plus, there is a observatory just up a road from the town that offers one of the best views in the world and serves delicious cappucinos. (Of couse, we opted for the hike up to the observatory.)

The place felt so remote, yet it's so accessible. It's such an underrated destination. If it was in anywhere near New York, it would be packed with tourists on a nice day like this.

Just a short drive from Lake Tekapo is Mount Cook National park, home of New Zealand's highest mountain. We camped in this beautiful spot near the entrance to the park. We were pratically the only ones there! We set up our tent and made a yummy grilled salmon and veggies dinner before heading out to the glaciers for a sunset walk.

I don't know how we managed to get perfect weather the entire time we were on the Western side of the South Island - it certainly isn't the typical weather here. But I was grateful! The hikes in Mount Cook were short and extremely rewarding, just the way I like them.

There's more to the South Island of New Zealand!!! Coming up is my most anticipated part of the trip - the Queenstown region and the famous Milford Track.

Tongariro National Park to Wellington

In this post, I'll cover three highlights of our roadtrip from Tongariro National Park to Wellington, New Zealand.

More photos from this segment!:
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Tongariro Alpine Crossing

The most popular (and possibly best) day hike in New Zealand, the 19.4km Tongariro Alpine Crossing passes over the volcanic terrain of the multi-cratered active volcano Mt Tongariro. We started the hike with clear blue skies and were greeted with stunning views of Mt. Ngauruhoe, better known as Mt. Doom from the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Mt. Ngauruhoe can be climbed as a side-trip, but that would make for a very long day.

As we hiked to over the peak of the alpine crossing, a cluster of emerald lakes appeared out of nowhere. At first, they were partly covered by fog, but as we started descending towards the lakes, the fog suddenly cleared in a matter of seconds revealing this gorgeous view.

Here is a shot looking back on Red Crater after the crossing.

If you do attempt this one-way hike, don't forget to arrange transportation from one end of the trail to the other!

Gannet Tour

We had so much fun visiting the gannet colonies at Cape Kidnappers despite the nonstop rain. Our tractor tour drove us four miles each way down the cape to the gannets, which reside at Hawkes Bay from August to April each year.

These little creatures migrate between the Cape and Eastern Australia, with a mortality rate of 70% to 80% during the journey.

Wellington, NZ

Wellington is beautiful on a calm, sunny day. Set on Wellington Harbor and surrounded by mountains, there are many places to go for a scenic walk.

Standing atop Mount Victoria, just minutes from Downtown, we caught a glimpse of this Quantas Airline plane descending into Wellington Airport through the fog. As we watched, the pilot actually decided to abort the landing, pulling up and circling around for another pass.

The vibrant Cuba Street in downtown Wellington offers numerous shops, restaurants, and bars.
As the capital of New Zealand, Wellington is also home to a number of museums and cultural institutions, including the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa.

Auckland to Taupo

More photos from this segment of the trip!:
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We left our home exactly five months ago today! And with a little over a month left to go in the trip, the end seems near. We're nowhere near done with our adventure though. We're just getting started with our road trip in New Zealand, and we've still got our backpacking trips coming up (Milford Track and W Track) and a whole new continent (South America) to explore!

We have three and a half weeks altogether in New Zealand, which is split between the North and South Island. Starting from the north, we rented a car from a local car company this time (it was significantly cheaper than our favorite international chain). Packed with camping and hiking gear, a constant supply of bread, peanut butter, and snacks, we were off on the road. Our road-map looks pretty ambitious (I already cut out a few destinations from this map - there were so many places I wanted to see in New Zealand)!

First stop: Auckland. A fairly small city, it is set amongst a field of 48 extinct volcanoes that provides great jogging trails and viewing platforms. Here, standing on the top of one volcanic cone, you can see several others and the city in the distance.

From Auckland, we drove out to Tauraga, in the Bay of Plenty. We camped in prime real estate, right under Mt Maunganui at the end of the peninsula. The days are getting long enough now that we don't need flashlights anymore at night, and the weather is just perfect for camping too. We enjoyed beautiful views from the top of Maunganui after a short hike.

Our tour of White Island was almost cancelled due to windy conditions. The boat ride out was very choppy - half of the passengers got sick on the way, but we were tough. The island is an active volcano 48km from the coast. The only way to step foot on it is via the once daily boat tour. Once there, we were given gas masks to help with the sulfur fumes and hard hats in case of an eruption. We got to walk right up to the steaming vents and explored this crazy landscape for a couple of hours. Miners used to live in this hostile environment!

Fortunately, the water had calmed on our way back, making for a beautiful trip to end the day.

After a couple hours of driving, we arrived at Rotorua, known for geothermal activity. The city is filled with attractions - visitors can see a number of geothermal areas, attend Maori cultural shows, and visit the famous Rotorua museum, which was once a geothermal spa that offered therapeutic treatments to visitors from all over the world. With our one day there, we checked out the museum, visited a Maori village at night, went to one of the geothermal sites.

The Maori performance was really interesting, and the traditional dinner served afterwards was delicious!

After all these recent adventures, we had to relax when we got to Taupo on a warm, sunny day. We had a long lunch by the lake, while watching locals enjoying this beautiful town. Why don't we live in New Zealand?

Next: the Tongariro Alpine Crossing, claiming the title of the best day hike in New Zealand. 

Melbourne and the Great Ocean Road

More photos from this segment of our trip!:
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Our stay in Melbourne started with a scramble to find treatment for Dave's very swollen foot. We Emergency rooms are almost useless for foreigners - there's an initial fee of $400AUD, plus additional for any treatment. Eventually we found a General Practitioner who was ale to see us the next day for a reasonable fee. Fortunately, the swollen foot was just a badly infected bee sting! Thanks goodness for antibiotics. The trip continues!

With that great news, we thought we'd do a little more driving and a little less walking for a few days. We ventured out on the Great Ocean Road, a 151 mile stretch of road along the south-eastern coast of Australia, filled with beautiful towns, parks, and you guessed it, ocean views.

Beautiful coastal views

We stopped more often than we had anticipated on the drive, for coastal walks, photo sessions, coffee breaks, etc. It took us two and a half days to finish the drive. I'm glad our schedule was flexible enough to allow for these relaxing days!

Enjoying a beautiful morning on the beach. Every beach is this secluded!

Kuala bears are the cutest animal we saw on the whole trip (yes, beating everything in Africa). There were clusters of them hanging out near eucalyptus trees. Look up in the branches!

Kuala bear hanging out on the road

The highlight, and main tourist attraction, was the Twelve Apostles limestone stack formations at the western end of the road. These were formed by erosion of the soft limestone to form caves in the cliffs, which then became arches, which in turn collapsed, leaving rock stacks up to 45 meters high. Several walkways in the area provide great views of the Apostles.

Several of the Twelve Apostles

Enjoying the crashing waves

We rounded up the drive back in Melbourne. Although the city center felt small, it had fun streets (especially alleys), interesting architecture, and great food. We went to a delicious tapas restaurant and got authentic ramen.

Next stop, New Zealand!

One of the many graffiti-ed alleyways in Melbourne 

Federation Square, Melbourne

Making the most of airline miles

In many conversations with friends about the trip's logistics, we were asked if we booked Around-the-World tickets for the flights. It would seems to make sense given the route of our trip, but no, we did not, and I've been wondering why anyone would want to do that.

While the idea of one fixed-price ticket to travel one-way around the world sounds great, there are some many downsides to Around-the-World tickets:

• You are limited to one airline network: the three main airline alliances that offer then are Star Alliance, SkyTeam, and OneWorld. Star Alliance probably has the most extensive network, but still, you're probably limited on where you can fly (on our trip, for example, they would not have had any domestic flights in Argentina). Plus, some smaller airlines that serve regional markets are not part of airline alliances, so these trips would have to be purchased in addition to your Around-the World ticket (for example, our flights to Lukla in Nepal). 
• You have to go in one direction around the world: this is harder than you think, especially if you're also going North and South (hitting South America or Africa?). Instead of optimizing for longitude, we optimized for distance flown and weather :)
• Finding availability on the flights you want may be difficult: want to go from NYC to Paris on your first leg on Delta or AirFrance? You mostly certainly will not find availability unless you book well in advance, defeating the purpose of flexible booking with Around-the-World tickets. You may end up spending a ton of time figuring out which routes you can actually fly. Plus, it's hard to do a lot of that research online, which means spending a lot of time on the phone with booking agents - particularly difficult if you're on the road. 
• Plus, it's not all that cheap! Tickets start at ~$2000, but prices quickly go up once you add mileage and stopovers. 

There are upsides, too, to around-the-world ticket. Booking is fairly flexible, so you don't have to plan your route way ahead of time; it can be a great deal if you're going to some expensive destinations; and you earn a bunch of miles on one airline. Since we didn't use them, though, let's not dwell on these points too much.

The real deal in airline travel, we thought, was using airline miles for some long-haul flights and taking advantage of award tickets' outdated systems and loopholes. Delta, for example, allows one stopover, one layover, and one open jaw on each award ticket. So we booked a round-trip ticket with the first leg from NYC to Nice, and the return leg from Sydney (open jaw) to Buenos Aires (with a 2-week stopover) and through Miami (24 hour layover) to NYC. All these flight cost 80,000 miles per person. By comparison, the Sydney to Buenos Aires flight alone would have cost over $1,000 if we paid for it. There are some truly amazing deals out there if you look hard enough.

Then, we found some really good deals on shorter-haul flights, by purchasing most tickets well ahead of time, using miles for the most expensive routes, and flying a couple of low-cost airlines where necessary. I bought most tickets before we left for the trip. Used AA miles for the Quantas flight from Cairns to Ayers Rock (10,000 miles for a $600 flight) and Delta miles for flights between Buenos Aires and El Calafate (25,000 miles for 2 flights around $300 each). Overall, we did pretty well:

It's a steal considering we never had to take a detour, make unnecessary layovers, or fly many low-cost airlines. Also, we opted to fly whenever it made sense, instead of taking long-distance buses and trains, or driving excessive distances.

The Outback

We had a great flight from Cairns to Ayers Rock! You really get an appreciation for the size and emptiness of Australia. There's no development that you can see from the air the entire way - no roads, houses, or even trees for the most part. As we were about to land, we were treated to unobstructed views of Ayers Rock!

Cairns to Ayers Rock

Ayers Rock from the air - you can see that there is a single road that circumnavigates the rock. The airport was about 10km away. 

It was about 110 degrees when we arrived in Ayers Rock Resort. Most of the trails around the rock were closed due to the weather, not that we were going to attempt them anyway - the infamous black flies of the region love the heat and were out in full force that day. It was impossible to walk out of the car for more than a minute without being swarmed. We weren't even able to outrun them. 

So we spent the afternoon in the safety and comfort of our four-wheel drive. Luckily, the drive around Ayers Rock isn't too different from the walk. The big rock was even more impressive up close, with each side providing a different perspective. I was a bit disappointed, though, that we didn't get to climb to the top. 

Many interesting details on the rocks

The rest of our stay in the Outback was significantly milder, especially in the mornings and at night. We got up early in the morning each day to watch the sunrise take an early-morning hike. Then we drove through the hottest part of the day to our next destination, averaging about three hours of driving. In the afternoons, we would settle in and go for smaller walks. The days ended with sunset viewing. 

We had a blast driving our tank through the desert. The roads were in much better shape than we had anticipated, as long as you're prepared for long stretches without any facilities. 

Beautiful hike through Kings Canyon

Overall, the Outback was more remote than I had anticipated. There was no development other than a few simple lodges here and there. The place seems to be inhospitable to living creatures, although the aboriginal people have lived there for thousands of years. We were very happy to be returning to civilization in Melbourne (and we brought with us a very swollen bee sting on Dave's foot).

Cairns & the Great Barrier Reef

More photos from Cairns:
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Welcome to Australia and the southern hemisphere!

It was easy enough getting here from Japan. There is a direct flight from Osaka to Cairns on a low-cost airline. In just 8 hours, we went from fall to spring, and in Cairns, spring felt a lot more like summer.

We spent 4 days in the region. Our favorite parts were snorkeling in the Great Barrier Reef, exploring the beaches and rainforests of Daintree Rainforest and Cape Tribulation, and exotic fruit tasting at a family-run orchard. And our least favorites? Getting sunburned while snorkeling and enduring hundreds of bug bites even with the constant application of bug spray.

We landed in this tropical paradise! The boardwalk in Cairns. 

We didn't spend too much time in the city of Cairns itself, but it seemed like a pretty livable city, with a great beachfront and modern apartments buildings. 

One of the snorkeling sites in the Outer Great Barrier Reef. The reefs were pretty shallow in most places, so you get a close up look at all the features. 

We took the Calypso Snorkeling boat out for an action-packed day on the Outer Great Barrier Reef. We visited three different sites in day, spending about an hour snorkeling at each location. The reef formations and variety of ocean life we saw were quiet impressive, and the water was perfectly warm for swimming.

The marina at Port Douglas, where we boarded our boat. 

Beautiful secluded beach, Cape Tribulation

Just on the other side of the beaches is a lush rainforest with great walking trails. Here, you can appreciate the diversity of plant life, as I've never seen most of these plants native to the region. One great find was the Cape Trib Exotic Fruit Farm. A small number of visitors each day participate in a tasting of ten in season fruits - all are tropical, delicious, and not in your local grocery store. The issue is that these fruits are not produced in large enough quantities and are not easy enough to transport and store to make them commercially viable. Custard apple (my favorite from the tasting), for example, turns into mush when it's transported (similar to what avocado does when it over-ripens but at a much faster rate). At its peak, though, it is super sweet and creamy, just like a custard dessert!

One of the several rain forest boardwalks in the Daintree Forest

Our basket of fruits for tasting

Next up, we're going to another iconic Australian destination - Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park and the Outback.