Date First Posted: July 1, 2007
Log Entry Start Date - May 4, 2007
Log Entry End Date - May 14, 2007
Locations Covered - South Island, New Zealand
Present Location: Encore II @ Scarborough Marina (Brisbane, Australia)
(Encore Crew are back home in the USA)
Latitude: 27 Deg 11.6 S Longitude: 153 Deg 06.4 E
Weather: Cool and partly cloudy
Distance covered since last entry: 0 nautical miles , 1200 land miles by car
Total distance traveled since departure from Antigua: 11,261 nautical miles
Commentary:
After
we finished decommissioning Encore II and prepared her for shipment back to
Ft. Lauderdale we were ready to say goodbye to Australia and head home via
New Zealand. We enjoyed a final OZ sunset with our friends at
Scarborough Marina.
Our
flight from Brisbane to Christchurch, the largest city on New Zealand’s
South Island was easy compared to what we faced later. As we crossed the
South Island by air, we got our first glimpse of the spectacular scenery
that New Zealand is known for. The Southern Alps run up the west coast of
the South Island and with perfect visibility we could see the rugged snow
capped peaks all the way down to Mt. Cook, the highest peak in New Zealand
if not all of the South Pacific.
We
stayed downtown in Christchurch just a block from Cathedral Square, the city
center and hub of the cultural center. As its name suggests, the Anglican
cathedral anchors the square and was our first visit after checking into our
hotel. Coincidentally, the Evensong service was going to start just after
we arrived, so we stayed to attend. This service consisted of scripture and
hymns sung by the boy’s choir. It was very unusual, especially in such an
old gothic church.
We knew that New Zealand would be much cooler than Australia given that where we were going on the South Island, it was about even with Tasmania and mid-Fall. While we brought our “warmest” boating clothes, having the boat in the tropics for 6 years didn’t quite give us a lot of selection. Since winter starts in June, the outfitting shops had a lot of selection and we bought some warmer clothes.
Better
prepared for temperatures only in the 50’s we strolled through
Christchurch’s famous botanical gardens. In addition to great rock gardens
and a wide variety of plants, we were surprised by the unusually large
variety of old trees including some towering Red Woods from California that
had been planted over one hundred years earlier. It was hard to pick
just one picture from the dozens we took.
Our
route through the South Island took us down through the center just east of
the Southern Alps, with our first stop at Lake Tekapo, one of the long
inland mountain lakes formed by dams on rivers formed by glaciers. On the
shore overlooking the lake is the Church of the Good Shepherd, a tiny stone
church that is one of the most photographed spots in New Zealand. The
visibility was again perfect with the snow capped mountains reflected at the
end of the lake over twenty miles away.
The
manager of the small lodge where we stayed suggested we visit the Mount John
observatory nearby. The 360 degree view from the top was great and we
learned that this spot with 5 different observatories is considered to have
the best nighttime visibility in the country. East of the mountains has dry
weather and clear skies most of the time, and the observatories, run by a
university, are booked year round. The visibility is so good, there is an
effort to have this site named a World Heritage "Sky Park", the first of its
kind. With that designation, development of the surrounding area would
be limited so that night time lights would be minimized.
The
next day we drove to Arrowtown, an old mining town in the foothills on the
way to Queenstown, a major resort area. On the way we took a side trip up
the shore of Lake Pulaski on the road to Mt Cook Village, the closest town
on the east side of Mt. Cook and the point of departure for mountain
climbers and trekkers. Storm clouds were passing over the mountains that
prevented us from getting a full view of Mt. Cook, but what we saw was still
breathtaking including the glaciers which were awesome. The National
Park center has a memorial book with biographies and stories relating to all
of the climbers that have died climbing these mountains. The number of
people, including several just this year, was surprising. This is the
area where Sir Edmund Hillary (a New Zealander), trained prior to climbing
Mt. Everest.
Just
before we arrived in Arrowtown, we stopped at one of the many vineyards that
cover the hillsides in the area. It is always interesting to try wines
from different places around the world.
Arrowtown looks like a one block version of Mackinaw Island, originally filled with thousands of miners, now turned into a summer resort village that by May (late fall) was nearly deserted.
Just
outside of town we stayed at a the Bains Homestay, a Bed and Breakfast run
by an interesting couple that ran a shipping agency in one of New Zealand’s
ports. They had traveled extensively and we enjoyed sharing stories about
our travels. The fall foliage around their home was at its peak.
From
Arrowtown we stopped in Queenstown to pick up a picnic lunch and to take a
ride on an old coal burning steamship that makes runs down the adjacent
mountain lake. During its heyday over 1000 passengers would ride this boat
to the end of the lake before roads had been built, taking supplies and
bringing sheep to market. The engine room was open to view and the machinery
was interesting to see operate.
At
a nearby dock was one of the New Zealand America's Cup sailboats, converted
to taking tourists for day sails. At this time of year, however, it
would be a cold and probably wet ride. This was quite a contrast to
the hundred year old steamship.
Queenstown is famous for its ski resorts, which are open from about June through October. In the background of this picture are the "Remarkables."
From
the mountain lake at Queenstown, we drove to the shores of yet another
mountain lake at Te Anau. This is a town that during the tourist
season hosts visitors to New Zealand’s famous fjords.
Fjordland,
as this region is called, is best known for Doubtful and Milford Sounds. It
is only possible to drive to Milford Sound, going over mountain passes, and
scenery that is breathtaking.
The
primary purpose of a visit to these Sounds is to take a boat ride through
the sound and out into the Tasman Sea.
While
the east side of the South Island is relatively dry, the west side consists
of rain forests and receives up to 15 feet of rain each year. As a result,
most visitors only see
towering waterfalls coming down the sides of steep mountains that plunge
into the sea and the sides of the fjords. We were extremely lucky to be
visiting on a rare day with clear blue skies and the views were worth the
nearly 6 hours of driving round trip to the head of the sound.
After
only a few days in New Zealand, we’d already seen tremendous scenery that
changes in the course of just a few hours. At times we felt like we were in
the high plains of North America, at others rolling through the green fields
of England and the Netherlands, and then onto shore lines like the Big Sur,
followed by the Swiss Alps. With only brief showers one morning in
Christchurch and one evening in Arrowtown, the weather has been perfect,
although on the cool side.
The
drive from Te Anau back to Queenstown is short and while there are lots
of touristy things to do in Queenstown including a gondola ride up a
mountain, and jetboat rides on the mountain rivers, we decided to pass on
the usual and take a side trip to Invercargill and Bluff. Invercargill is
one of the South Islands largest cities and major seaports, located on the
south coast, with Bluff being the nearby peninsula and the southernmost
point on the South Island. Neither is a tourist destination, but the drive
looked to be interesting. Invercargill has an unusual art museum with an
exhibit of Maori culture (the aboriginals in New Zealand). Bluff is famous
for its oysters, and we stopped for lunch overlooking the coast on a wet and
windy day. Other than smaller offshore islands, the only land to the south
is Antarctica. Not coincidentally, Christchurch in New Zealand is a
major departure point for Antarctica, and we met several folks on our trip
with connections with the McMurdo research center there.
Heading
back north, we spent the night in Queenstown. On our way, we ran into a
huge flock of sheep being herded down the mountain road. For the
roughly 4 million people in New Zealand, there are over 40 million sheep.
Everywhere you look there are sheep, in pastures, on hillsides, and on
occasion, even on the road. We were blocked by this herd for some time
as the shepherds in pickup trucks, with the aid of sheepdogs, were moving
the sheep down the mountain.
Next
to sheep, there are also many herds of deer being raised. The fences
aren't very high, so in addition to the venison that is produced for
restaurants in New Zealand and around the world (in particular Germany),
many of the deer have now escaped and provide hunting opportunities.
Unlike Australia with their kangaroos and koalas, New Zealand's only
indigenous mammals are bats. Recently a huge problem has been the
number of possums that are now living in New Zealand. Brought in on
purpose a hundred years ago, now they are considered pests, and we were told
that everyone's civic duty is to try to run over them by car if you can.
They are unlike the possums back in Michigan, and are actually very furry
and look like big long squirrels. A major industry has been launched,
selling products made out of possum fur, and these products are actually
very nice.
Heavy
downpours kept us in our hotel for the night. The next day we headed over
the Cardrona Pass to the west coast and on to Fox Glacier. Cardrona
Pass is the highest main road in New Zealand and it reminded us at times of
our visit to the Andes in Ecuador. At the end of the pass is the town of Wanaka and we had a surprise when we stopped for coffee. Next in line
behind us was a couple from the sailboat Maggie Drum. We had last seen Joe
back in Neiafu in Tonga, last August. In the “small world” category, here
we were, thousands of miles and months from our last encounter, and just
happened to be in the same town, at the same time and the same shop with
them as they were taking a driving tour in the opposite direction from us.
They had sailed down on their boat which was in a harbor on the
North Island.
Although
the high mountain pass and plateaus were dry, going down the western slopes
to the Pacific put us right into the thickest of New Zealand’s rain
forests. This part of New Zealand gets over 18 feet of rain per year, with
misty fog covering the dark green slopes. The twisty roads reminded us
of our ride to Hana on Maui years ago. Even though this road was one
of the "major" highways, like others, almost all of the bridges are single
lane, where you alternately have either the right of way, or have to stop
for oncoming traffic. From tundra to jungle in only a couple of hours, we
started up the west coast with the Southern Alps just inland from the
coast.
After
lots of stops for photos along the coast, we reached Fox Glacier village
late in the day. The west coast shore has long rocky stretches with
the big surf swells coming all the way from Australia.
Fox Glacier starts at over 12,000 feet near the top of Mt. Cook and continues almost to sea level, ending only a few miles from the coast.
We
walked a short ways up valley formed by the glacier to see its beginnings in
the clouds and the face of the glacier as it melts in a river. We had hoped
to take a helicopter ride, but the weather was too cloudy for flights.
The people in the background are walking to the face of the glacier even though warnings were in place due to the risk of a sudden flood from water that had melted and formed a lake on the top of the front of the glacier. Pictures from over a hundred years ago and diagrams showed how the glacier face has retreated several miles over the years. This could be cited as an example of global warming, but in reality, a lot of the retreat took place back in the 1700's. The ice at the face of the glacier is now hundreds of years old.
The
B&B we stayed at had a great view of the mountains and just before sunset
the clouds cleared so we could see the top of Mount Cook. We were
definitely the last tourists of the season at the B&B, and the morning we
left, the owners were on their way to Europe for three months during the New
Zealand winter. While we had little to complain about our weather up to
this point, the next day brought heavy rain and thunderstorms as we
continued up the coast.
Just
north of Fox Glacier is the Franz Joseph Glacier, perhaps the more popular
tourist destination for glacier flights and helicopter hiking. While we stopped
to view a movie about the glaciers and lunch the weather cleared and
gave us some more spectacular views of the mountains and ice, plus a lot of
fresh snow.
Further
north we stopped at the “beach” resort of Hokitika. Our hotel had views of the
coast line on one side and the Alps on the other. The beach was wide with
crashing breakers and huge pieces of driftwood. Being a thousand miles from
Australia, we assume these logs have been washed down the slopes of New
Zealand by heavy rains and then washed back on shore later. Given the
late fall season and cool weather we walked the beach almost by ourselves,
but could imagine during the summer thousands of tourists.
Along
the coast north of Hokitika is an area with rugged rock cliffs made up of
closely spaced layers of flat rocks. This area called, Punakaiki, has the
nickname of pancake rocks, which is what they look like. The park
signage gives a number of explanations for how these rocks were formed, but
admits that the scientists are still not absolutely sure.
A
visit to New Zealand without seeing a Kiwi bird just wouldn't be complete.
We had no idea what size they were or where they lived, so we were surprised
to find what we thought were Kiwis wandering around in the parking lot where we stopped at
Punakaiki.
They look a bit like a small chicken and at least these were pretty tame.
In fact, one walked right by a cat sitting at the edge of some woods and
neither the cat or the bird seemed too interested in the other. We
later heard from a visitor to our website that what we saw were really
probably Wekas, and that Kiwis are nocturnal. Looking up bird pictures
on line, we realize he was right. Since Kiwis are
flightless, they are becoming endangered by the animals that have been
brought to NZ.
It
is hard to describe New Zealand’s west coast except by comparison to places
like California’s Big Sur and Kauai’s Napali Coast, only with a backdrop of
the Swiss Alps.
With
one night left in New Zealand, we drove inland to an extremely remote B&B
called the Kahurangi Brown Trout, located about in the middle of nowhere
alongside a mountain stream with steep hills all around. The owner, an
American from Colorado and his Australian wife, had settled on this location
decades before, starting with a bare piece of land and building a home with
3 extra rooms for guests, planting trees and vegetables and creating a
nearly self-sustaining organic retreat with ducks and cows. They hadn’t had
visitors for almost a month and didn’t expect any more until “spring”
starting in October.
Nancy
loved the flock of ducks just outside our door, and couldn’t stop taking
pictures of their gardens and the views all around. The weather had turned
perfect again as we drove to and from this special place, a crisp fall day
with clear blue skies, colorful leaves on the trees and country roads that
could have been right out of West Virginia.
Our final days started with the drive to Nelson, a seaport and hub on the north coast of the South Island. We saw a few sailboats still in the harbor as we passed some time before our flight to Auckland on the North Island. Most cruisers stick to the warmer bays near the northern tip of New Zealand, and crossing the strait between the North and South Island can be quite an adventure. We weren’t able to visit the North Island other than our stay in the Auckland airport, but did get some nice views from the airplane. We were surprised to learn that quite a bit of the scenes from the movie series, Lord of the Rings, were shot on the North Island as well as the South Island. The producer, Peter Jackson, is a Kiwi. As we saw, much of the landscape is perfect for films of that era.
From Auckland we flew home via Los Angeles, and between a slight delay leaving Auckland and the huge distance between our plane's landing gate at the international terminal and our connection to Detroit, we missed our final flight by just minutes. All together we had started our return trip at 9 in the morning at the B&B and arrived home after midnight the second night following. With 8 time zones and crossing the International Date Line, we’re not sure how long all of that was, but we think it actually was a total of about 30 hours in a car, plane or waiting at the airport.
While 30 hours is a long time, on reflection it was the culmination of our trip which had started in Antigua in the Caribbean in January 2006, 16 months ago, and after more than 10,000 sea miles and literally months of sailing and night passages. We didn’t track the miles from our side trips on land, but they probably add up to another several thousand miles beginning with our visits to Quito and the Andes in Ecuador, to the interior of Australia, and finally our travel through New Zealand’s South Island.
Our guest book on Encore II has had over two hundred new friends added; representing over a hundred sailboats plus dozens of friends we’ve met on shore. Of the cruisers we’ve met, some have already completed their circumnavigation, many others are planning on leaving Australia and continuing through Indonesia this year, and others will spend several more years in the Pacific, going back and forth from places like Fiji to New Zealand. We know of a handful of cruisers who are having their boats shipped back to the USA like us or even back to Europe, and others that have sold their boat or are trying to sell their boat in Australia. We don’t know when we’ll see most of these friends again, but we’ve got a lot of email addresses to stay in touch with. Finally, we’ve had over 3000 visits to our website, and we hope that those who have followed our journey have enjoyed reading our logs and seeing our photos.
We plan to keep the website up and may add sections in the future when we resume our cruising. We’ll be back onboard Encore I in the Great Lakes this summer. After that, we’re thinking of cruising up the US East Coast, and in a year or two even possibly sailing around Nova Scotia and back down the St. Lawrence river and seaway back to the Great Lakes.
Since we started our “salt water” cruising with a plan to be in the Caribbean only for a couple years back in 1992, Encore I has been around the world once and Encore II half way around the world. Who knows what the future will bring. We do know that we have been blessed with the opportunity and ability to make these voyages, and are thankful for the safe passages, the experiences shared with family and friends, and being able to learn about and appreciate the world we’ve been given.
The earth is the Lord’s
and everything in it,
the world, and all who live in it;
for he founded it upon the seas
and established it upon the waters.
Psalm 24:1-2
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