Francesca and Henk-Jan's Backpacking Trip!
Friday, August 14, 2009
And then I decided to jump off a bridge...
The Legend of Bungy Jumping:
'Land-diving' on Pentecost Island originated hundreds, perhaps thousands of years ago. Local legend has it that a woman who was repeatedly abused and mistreated by her husband Tamalie ran away from him, only to be caught time and time again, punished, then given more of the same treatment.
She finally climbed up one of the tallest banyan trees to escape from her husband's abuse, he following hard on her heels. When she reached the top she dared him to join her, mocking his cowardice. She then jumped out of the tree, having been smart enough to tie vines to her ankles beforehand. Tamalie, taunted by his wife's accusations of cowardice and not noticing the vines around her ankles, was astonished to see her land on her feet and threw himself after her - succeeding only in falling to his death.
The event was subsequently reconstructed annually, initially only including the village woman. Shortly after, the men took over in order to address their historical shaming and to prove their courage to the woman, and eventually the jump became the premier annual custom coinciding with the Yam harvest on Pentecost Island.
Our Adventure:
After reading about the legend above in a book about New Zealand, I knew I had to try bungy jumping! And what better place for my first experience than on the first ever commercial bungy jumping site, run by AJ Hackett -- with a track record of 20 years of jumping with NO accidents. :) Henk and I visited the Kawarau Bridge site the day before our jump, to watch a video and watch a few people take the leap. Needless to say, regardless of having skydived not long before, I was scared out of my mind!
The morning Henk and I booked our bungy for, it was raining -- again! >.< New Zealand weather, at least in the winter, gets pretty annoying sometimes with all this rainfall. We decided to try and book our jump for another day, because we weren't sure if we'd get good pictures/DVDs due to all the rain. However, when we got to the pick-up point, we were unable to move our jump date, despite having specifically booked an open-dated ticket for this purpose. Pretty annoying! Not sure where good customer service goes these days, but it wasn't at AJ Hackett when we visited. :)
Nevertheless, despite feeling a bit forced, we got on the bus and made our way to the bungy site at the bridge. First, we had to get weighed to determine the length/girth of our bungy cords. The cords go from super light to heavy, and are supposed to ensure that your back remains stable and the level of whiplash from the bounces back up post-jump is minimal. As we were weighed on the scales, Henk and I both realized we had lost a bit of weight from all of our hiking! To be expected though, I've never done so much walking in my entire life -- and having greasy fish 'n chips and burgers still doesn't keep the weight on much! Not that we mind much! :)
With our weight written on our hands, we were given cards for our jump and sent outside to the bridge right away. There was really no time to doubt what we were doing -- it was pretty much gonna happen, no backing out at that point! We were each fitted with a harness that went under our legs and around our waists, and had a long cord attached to it so we could get hooked onto the bungy itself. Standing in line was absolute torture... it was freezing cold and raining. I couldn't even feel my hands anymore! At that point, the cold was more of a concern to me than the fact that I was minutes away from diving off a bridge. I tried not to look down as I stood on the bridge. We were 141 feet (43 meters) high above a river, which was racing due to the water pouring from the sky, and plenty of rocks and trees below.
The jumps went fast and before I knew it, I was sliding down to the platform to be fitted with the leg harness. Before I was sitting there, I hadn't realized that the leg harnesses were basically two towels wrapped around your lower leg and ankles. I mean sure, they then tied nylon bindings around the towels and through our legs a few times, but I wasn't exactly thrilled with the idea that 'magical' towels were supposed to keep me from instant death! I kept sneaking looks down at the water, against my better judgement. We were so high up! o.o OMG! Eeeek... At that point though, I was standing up on the platform itself. I wasn't gonna back out now, no matter how nervous I was! I was gonna jump!!
I never realized how completely different bungy jumping and skydiving are from each other. You would think they provide about the same experience -- I mean, you are throwing yourself from some crazy heights in each case! However, once I saw the site, I felt like bungy would be a far more difficult challenge. First of all, in skydiving, your guide is completely in control... you're basically just along for the ride. Plus, since you are going at such a fast speed and jumping from such a great height, that feeling of 'falling' and 'height' never actually set in.
With bungy, it is just yourself literally on the line! You stand there at the edge of the bridge, and you have to make the decision to fall straight down off it. You know you're attached and safe, but it is still a completely unnatural feeling to will yourself to fall. Of course, you could always ask them to push you. But then you're not conquering many fears that way. :P I put my hands over my head and leaned forward -- there I went straight off the platform! Ahhh! I let out a few choice curse words almost the entire way down! :) You can't really help it!
I rocketed down towards the river, attempting to ignore the sensation of falling that I hate, yet failing... it was so intense, you can't *not* experience everything! Yikes. But after taking the leap, it's not over yet. Since you fall with such great force, the cord yanks you back up towards the platform... and there you are, being yanked up midair, only to then fall yet again back down. It's a bunch of mini-bungy sensations post-large jump. Even though the bungy people told us we'd be fine physically, during the jump and post jump bounces, my back hurt quite a bit. It might be because I didn't sleep right the night before, worried about the jump, but still -- Ouch!
I kept my eyes closed as I was hanging in midair, still pretty high up, waiting for the yellow raft to come closer to me and get me down from the horror. It was quite an experience, but more of a challenge to overcome rather than the most enjoyable one. I grabbed onto the pole my rescuers offered me, and chatted with them while removing my harness in the raft. I felt a slight bit dizzy, perhaps from not having anything to eat yet, and rushed up the pathway to meet Henk. Henk was the last from our group to jump, so we got to watch each other jump from the bridge. He has done this jump before, so he wasn't too nervous until he was standing on the edge of the platform.
His jump was pretty fun to watch! Since losing a bit of weight from the hiking, his clothes have been quite a bit looser on him... therefore, during the jump they didn't want to stay on! His shirt flew up a bit and even his pants started to slide down despite his tightened belt. :D I didn't mind watching that! But he does need new jeans. Donate for new jeans for Henk!! :) We got to look at our pictures and DVDs after his jump on a big screen -- they looked pretty awesome. We purchased them, and got some free T-shirts and laminated jump certificates as well. We earned it!
Make sure to watch our videos. Pretty awesome!
After using some free internet at the AJ Hackett center, Henk and I decided to grab lunch at Fergburger -- this jam-packed burger joint close by. We heard great reviews from our driver, and the line of people out the door only heightened our curiosity. We looked at the menu and decided on the 'Tropical Swine' burger: Prime New Zealand beef, American streaky bacon, edam cheese, pineapple, lettuce, tomato, red onion, aioli & tomato relish. Amazing! We also got fried onion rings to go with our burger, which came with a giant aioli dipping sauce. Quite possibly the BEST BURGER PLACE EVER! (Seriously.)
After filling up, we happened to walk next to the cinema and notice that the new Johnny Depp movie -- Public Enemies -- was playing! We both really wanted to see it, so we went in and got tickets for the next showing. I didn't know much about John Dillinger and his life, but Depp, as always, brings him to life in an amazing way. Go see it if you haven't yet!
After the movie, Henk and I headed back to our awesome hostel (called 'The Black Sheep') and get ready for the next morning's early departure around 6:30 am. Yikes!! After bungy, we needed the sleep for sure.
Ttyl,
Francesca
(Note: Click outside the 'play' button to watch the larger video version on YouTube. Check this post again later, as I will update with photos of our jumps!)
Francesca's Bungy Jump!! WATCH IT!!
Henk's Bungy Jump!! Woo-hoo! :P
'Land-diving' on Pentecost Island originated hundreds, perhaps thousands of years ago. Local legend has it that a woman who was repeatedly abused and mistreated by her husband Tamalie ran away from him, only to be caught time and time again, punished, then given more of the same treatment.
She finally climbed up one of the tallest banyan trees to escape from her husband's abuse, he following hard on her heels. When she reached the top she dared him to join her, mocking his cowardice. She then jumped out of the tree, having been smart enough to tie vines to her ankles beforehand. Tamalie, taunted by his wife's accusations of cowardice and not noticing the vines around her ankles, was astonished to see her land on her feet and threw himself after her - succeeding only in falling to his death.
The event was subsequently reconstructed annually, initially only including the village woman. Shortly after, the men took over in order to address their historical shaming and to prove their courage to the woman, and eventually the jump became the premier annual custom coinciding with the Yam harvest on Pentecost Island.
Our Adventure:
After reading about the legend above in a book about New Zealand, I knew I had to try bungy jumping! And what better place for my first experience than on the first ever commercial bungy jumping site, run by AJ Hackett -- with a track record of 20 years of jumping with NO accidents. :) Henk and I visited the Kawarau Bridge site the day before our jump, to watch a video and watch a few people take the leap. Needless to say, regardless of having skydived not long before, I was scared out of my mind!
The morning Henk and I booked our bungy for, it was raining -- again! >.< New Zealand weather, at least in the winter, gets pretty annoying sometimes with all this rainfall. We decided to try and book our jump for another day, because we weren't sure if we'd get good pictures/DVDs due to all the rain. However, when we got to the pick-up point, we were unable to move our jump date, despite having specifically booked an open-dated ticket for this purpose. Pretty annoying! Not sure where good customer service goes these days, but it wasn't at AJ Hackett when we visited. :)
Nevertheless, despite feeling a bit forced, we got on the bus and made our way to the bungy site at the bridge. First, we had to get weighed to determine the length/girth of our bungy cords. The cords go from super light to heavy, and are supposed to ensure that your back remains stable and the level of whiplash from the bounces back up post-jump is minimal. As we were weighed on the scales, Henk and I both realized we had lost a bit of weight from all of our hiking! To be expected though, I've never done so much walking in my entire life -- and having greasy fish 'n chips and burgers still doesn't keep the weight on much! Not that we mind much! :)
With our weight written on our hands, we were given cards for our jump and sent outside to the bridge right away. There was really no time to doubt what we were doing -- it was pretty much gonna happen, no backing out at that point! We were each fitted with a harness that went under our legs and around our waists, and had a long cord attached to it so we could get hooked onto the bungy itself. Standing in line was absolute torture... it was freezing cold and raining. I couldn't even feel my hands anymore! At that point, the cold was more of a concern to me than the fact that I was minutes away from diving off a bridge. I tried not to look down as I stood on the bridge. We were 141 feet (43 meters) high above a river, which was racing due to the water pouring from the sky, and plenty of rocks and trees below.
The jumps went fast and before I knew it, I was sliding down to the platform to be fitted with the leg harness. Before I was sitting there, I hadn't realized that the leg harnesses were basically two towels wrapped around your lower leg and ankles. I mean sure, they then tied nylon bindings around the towels and through our legs a few times, but I wasn't exactly thrilled with the idea that 'magical' towels were supposed to keep me from instant death! I kept sneaking looks down at the water, against my better judgement. We were so high up! o.o OMG! Eeeek... At that point though, I was standing up on the platform itself. I wasn't gonna back out now, no matter how nervous I was! I was gonna jump!!
I never realized how completely different bungy jumping and skydiving are from each other. You would think they provide about the same experience -- I mean, you are throwing yourself from some crazy heights in each case! However, once I saw the site, I felt like bungy would be a far more difficult challenge. First of all, in skydiving, your guide is completely in control... you're basically just along for the ride. Plus, since you are going at such a fast speed and jumping from such a great height, that feeling of 'falling' and 'height' never actually set in.
With bungy, it is just yourself literally on the line! You stand there at the edge of the bridge, and you have to make the decision to fall straight down off it. You know you're attached and safe, but it is still a completely unnatural feeling to will yourself to fall. Of course, you could always ask them to push you. But then you're not conquering many fears that way. :P I put my hands over my head and leaned forward -- there I went straight off the platform! Ahhh! I let out a few choice curse words almost the entire way down! :) You can't really help it!
I rocketed down towards the river, attempting to ignore the sensation of falling that I hate, yet failing... it was so intense, you can't *not* experience everything! Yikes. But after taking the leap, it's not over yet. Since you fall with such great force, the cord yanks you back up towards the platform... and there you are, being yanked up midair, only to then fall yet again back down. It's a bunch of mini-bungy sensations post-large jump. Even though the bungy people told us we'd be fine physically, during the jump and post jump bounces, my back hurt quite a bit. It might be because I didn't sleep right the night before, worried about the jump, but still -- Ouch!
I kept my eyes closed as I was hanging in midair, still pretty high up, waiting for the yellow raft to come closer to me and get me down from the horror. It was quite an experience, but more of a challenge to overcome rather than the most enjoyable one. I grabbed onto the pole my rescuers offered me, and chatted with them while removing my harness in the raft. I felt a slight bit dizzy, perhaps from not having anything to eat yet, and rushed up the pathway to meet Henk. Henk was the last from our group to jump, so we got to watch each other jump from the bridge. He has done this jump before, so he wasn't too nervous until he was standing on the edge of the platform.
His jump was pretty fun to watch! Since losing a bit of weight from the hiking, his clothes have been quite a bit looser on him... therefore, during the jump they didn't want to stay on! His shirt flew up a bit and even his pants started to slide down despite his tightened belt. :D I didn't mind watching that! But he does need new jeans. Donate for new jeans for Henk!! :) We got to look at our pictures and DVDs after his jump on a big screen -- they looked pretty awesome. We purchased them, and got some free T-shirts and laminated jump certificates as well. We earned it!
Make sure to watch our videos. Pretty awesome!
After using some free internet at the AJ Hackett center, Henk and I decided to grab lunch at Fergburger -- this jam-packed burger joint close by. We heard great reviews from our driver, and the line of people out the door only heightened our curiosity. We looked at the menu and decided on the 'Tropical Swine' burger: Prime New Zealand beef, American streaky bacon, edam cheese, pineapple, lettuce, tomato, red onion, aioli & tomato relish. Amazing! We also got fried onion rings to go with our burger, which came with a giant aioli dipping sauce. Quite possibly the BEST BURGER PLACE EVER! (Seriously.)
After filling up, we happened to walk next to the cinema and notice that the new Johnny Depp movie -- Public Enemies -- was playing! We both really wanted to see it, so we went in and got tickets for the next showing. I didn't know much about John Dillinger and his life, but Depp, as always, brings him to life in an amazing way. Go see it if you haven't yet!
After the movie, Henk and I headed back to our awesome hostel (called 'The Black Sheep') and get ready for the next morning's early departure around 6:30 am. Yikes!! After bungy, we needed the sleep for sure.
Ttyl,
Francesca
(Note: Click outside the 'play' button to watch the larger video version on YouTube. Check this post again later, as I will update with photos of our jumps!)
Francesca's Bungy Jump!! WATCH IT!!
Henk's Bungy Jump!! Woo-hoo! :P
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Makarora
Franz Josef turned out to be a neat little place for us to stay a few extra days, and more importantly, to save a few bucks. However, we were quite happy to leave the Austrian emperor behind. There was one minor problem though... We couldn't find the Stray bus. The bus should have gotten to FJ a few days before, but there was no sign of it. Thinking we might have to call the office to make sure the bus would come pick us up we checked outside early in the morning. There was a Ritchies bus there, but no Stray in sight! I walked up to one of the passengers and asked if this was perhaps an undercover bus. And indeed, it appeared we had found our "waka."
I chucked our bags in the back and we found two comfortable seats. This bus was much bigger than the buses we had been on until then, so my legs finally got some space. Our driver, Ricky, was to take us to Makarora, a small town in the middle of beautiful mountainranges. Our drive for the day was supposed to be the most scenic one in the world. Quite promising! We took off and Ricky showed us the second glacier in the region: the Fox Glacier. Fox Glacier was called after one of the earlier Prime Ministers of New Zealand. We got a few nice shots from the distance and drove off again.
Our next stop was Lake Matheson. Lake Matheson is fairly famous, because it's an extremely dark and still lake. The leaves from the surrounding trees made it a perfect mirror. What's there to mirror you ask? The two tallest mountains of New Zealand: Mt Cook and Mt Tasman. Just look at the picture to see what awesome effects that creates! After the lake we chilled out in the local cafe for a hot chocolate and a sandwich. Francesca demanded I took a picture of said hot coco, because it looked royal.
Next stop: Makarora Wilderness Resort. The drive proved to be quite enjoyable, with some great photo opportunities along the way. We stopped at a beach, where I skipped some stones, and Francesca got some great shots. We also climbed a tiny watchtower, but could not spot any dolphins. We had booked into our own double, with a hot meal on top of it. Francesca loved the unusual shape of our housing, which was perfectly triangular. The driver had warned us that there was not much to do in Maka, so that it would get pretty dark. Our only option was to check out the resort's bar, where we could get our food. Francesca opted for the Fish and Chips and I chose the Lamb Chops. We shared both meals and were more than full after finishing them both. I challenged Francesca to a game of pool and I'm sorry to share that she kicked my ass. :(
We decided we were pretty tired at this point and wanted to get some sleep. However, a couple off the bus challenged us to a pool-duel, so we accepted. The two games we played with them were close, but we still squeaked out wins in both cases. We ended up talking to that couple throughout the night. The best part of the night was still to come though: a karaoke-competition! Woo! At first, we sat back and watched people pull off some amazing, and some not-so-amazing performances. We were more or less forced to do our share, and ended up singing Bryan Adams' "18 Til I Die (Everything I Do)." However, this was not enough, as the four of us ended up singing James Blunt's "You're Beautiful." Woohoo! Leaving everyone behind completely stunned, we decided that after well over four hours of karaoke (!!!) the superstars needed some sleep.
Francesca and I had enjoyed our stay in the little town of Makarora, and loved the amazing surroundings. However, the bus left the next morning to take us to Wanaka. Francesca had looked the town up in the Lonely Planet and had found some cool things for us to do, so we had decided to stay for a few days. The road to Wanaka was again littered with views of snowtop mountain ridges, enormous lakes and amazing waterfalls. Not a bad way to spend the morning! We got to Wanaka around noon and Ricky dropped us off at Holly's Backpackers, where we would spend two nights.
After dropping our bags off we headed for our first stop in Wanaka: Cinema Paradiso. Francesca had found this place and decided that we were going to watch a movie here. The place didn't look like much from the outside, but we wanted to see "The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas" so we made a reservation for later that afternoon. Next was our fun for the day: Puzzle World! This place has the biggest maze in the world, a leaning building, some cool optical illusions and a great selection of wooden puzzles. Obviously, Francesca and I headed for the maze first. Our challenge was as follows:
It took us well over an hour to get through the whole thing, having to backtrack quite a few times. It was really good fun though, being helped quite a bit by the great weather. The finish brought us to a little courtyard, with some cool toilets. The entrance had a Roman-style drawing on the wall, which created a neat optical illusion. These were not the ones we were supposed to use though! The actual toilet seats were also a nice treat, being made with original stuff like jellybeans, pokercards/chips and money, and shells and sand in them.
We headed back inside to check out the illusion rooms. Our first stop was a room that made me even taller, and Francesca even smaller. After walking around in the room, we walked outside to watch the illusion in action on the delayed TV recording. Pretty funny to see how your mind can play tricks on you like that! The connected room started with an incline of about 15 degrees, whilst the objects in it were actually level or around level. We saw a pooltable on which the balls roll upwards, water runs upwards and a person standing on a ledge looked like they were leaning forward whilst standing straight. Weird!
Having finished with the Puzzles we sat down for a bit, playing with some of the wooden puzzles and enjoying a sandwich. We had a bit of time to kill, so we took it easy. When we got bored of puzzling walking towards the cinema sounded much better. It took us about half an hour to get there and we were still a bit early. The Paradiso offered us meals during us intermission (cool for a cinema!) and Francesca and I opted for the steak sandwich and pumpkin & coconut soup. When the doors opened we saw why the Lonely Planet had raved about this place: the seats were random couches! But that was not all; the best seats in the house were for us! Francesca's showing you all we had an indoor drive-in. Awesome!
The movie was also a good pick. A really impressive drama about a German boy whose father is a high-ranking officer in the German army during WWII, and in charge of a concentration camp. His son 'finds' the camp during his explorations and develops a friendship with a young Jew. Devastating consequences portrayed with powerful images made the movie a perfect pick.
So was the food! The steak sandwich was pretty much a collection of her favorite foods: steak, garlic bread, sauteed onions and mushrooms, and a salad with balsamic vinegar dressing. Whilst she enjoyed her sandwich I ate the soup, which also tasted fantastic. Dessert was equally fantastic: two freshly baked chocolate cookies! Yum! And we got to eat the meals in our car! The evening had us relaxing in our hostel, looking ahead at the next days and thinking of our plans. The second day in Wanaka was really quiet: we slept in and walked around in town. Since town was so small we were done pretty quickly. Francesca did enjoy a "super cookie" from the local bakery, which she loved thoroughly.
This morning we were picked up by Nana, a driver we had seen before. Nana was quite happy to have us join his bus, seeing there were only 6 people on it (including us). Our drive today was to take us to Queenstown, the adventure capital of New Zealand. Francesca had dreaded thinking about it, as this is the place for bungy jumping. Our first notable stop of the day was the 45th parallel. The 45th parallel is the line in the middle of the equator and the southpole. Nana also told us of some of the history of the region. A few decades back Otago had been pestered by a rabbit-plague, which had made the land completely useless. Prices were as low as $1 per acre. About 80 million of the little buggers had to be killed to make the place worthwhile again. The government decided to release a virus, killing off 95% of the rabbits. The remaining 5% are now controlled by the local farmers with guns and traps. The price of the land has gone up to $10,000 per acre, being great for fruit-farming.
Just before Queenstown, Nana drove up to Makarau bridge. This bridge is very famous, but I won't tell you the reason until the next post! Stay tuned!
I chucked our bags in the back and we found two comfortable seats. This bus was much bigger than the buses we had been on until then, so my legs finally got some space. Our driver, Ricky, was to take us to Makarora, a small town in the middle of beautiful mountainranges. Our drive for the day was supposed to be the most scenic one in the world. Quite promising! We took off and Ricky showed us the second glacier in the region: the Fox Glacier. Fox Glacier was called after one of the earlier Prime Ministers of New Zealand. We got a few nice shots from the distance and drove off again.
Our next stop was Lake Matheson. Lake Matheson is fairly famous, because it's an extremely dark and still lake. The leaves from the surrounding trees made it a perfect mirror. What's there to mirror you ask? The two tallest mountains of New Zealand: Mt Cook and Mt Tasman. Just look at the picture to see what awesome effects that creates! After the lake we chilled out in the local cafe for a hot chocolate and a sandwich. Francesca demanded I took a picture of said hot coco, because it looked royal.
Next stop: Makarora Wilderness Resort. The drive proved to be quite enjoyable, with some great photo opportunities along the way. We stopped at a beach, where I skipped some stones, and Francesca got some great shots. We also climbed a tiny watchtower, but could not spot any dolphins. We had booked into our own double, with a hot meal on top of it. Francesca loved the unusual shape of our housing, which was perfectly triangular. The driver had warned us that there was not much to do in Maka, so that it would get pretty dark. Our only option was to check out the resort's bar, where we could get our food. Francesca opted for the Fish and Chips and I chose the Lamb Chops. We shared both meals and were more than full after finishing them both. I challenged Francesca to a game of pool and I'm sorry to share that she kicked my ass. :(
We decided we were pretty tired at this point and wanted to get some sleep. However, a couple off the bus challenged us to a pool-duel, so we accepted. The two games we played with them were close, but we still squeaked out wins in both cases. We ended up talking to that couple throughout the night. The best part of the night was still to come though: a karaoke-competition! Woo! At first, we sat back and watched people pull off some amazing, and some not-so-amazing performances. We were more or less forced to do our share, and ended up singing Bryan Adams' "18 Til I Die (Everything I Do)." However, this was not enough, as the four of us ended up singing James Blunt's "You're Beautiful." Woohoo! Leaving everyone behind completely stunned, we decided that after well over four hours of karaoke (!!!) the superstars needed some sleep.
Francesca and I had enjoyed our stay in the little town of Makarora, and loved the amazing surroundings. However, the bus left the next morning to take us to Wanaka. Francesca had looked the town up in the Lonely Planet and had found some cool things for us to do, so we had decided to stay for a few days. The road to Wanaka was again littered with views of snowtop mountain ridges, enormous lakes and amazing waterfalls. Not a bad way to spend the morning! We got to Wanaka around noon and Ricky dropped us off at Holly's Backpackers, where we would spend two nights.
After dropping our bags off we headed for our first stop in Wanaka: Cinema Paradiso. Francesca had found this place and decided that we were going to watch a movie here. The place didn't look like much from the outside, but we wanted to see "The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas" so we made a reservation for later that afternoon. Next was our fun for the day: Puzzle World! This place has the biggest maze in the world, a leaning building, some cool optical illusions and a great selection of wooden puzzles. Obviously, Francesca and I headed for the maze first. Our challenge was as follows:
It took us well over an hour to get through the whole thing, having to backtrack quite a few times. It was really good fun though, being helped quite a bit by the great weather. The finish brought us to a little courtyard, with some cool toilets. The entrance had a Roman-style drawing on the wall, which created a neat optical illusion. These were not the ones we were supposed to use though! The actual toilet seats were also a nice treat, being made with original stuff like jellybeans, pokercards/chips and money, and shells and sand in them.
We headed back inside to check out the illusion rooms. Our first stop was a room that made me even taller, and Francesca even smaller. After walking around in the room, we walked outside to watch the illusion in action on the delayed TV recording. Pretty funny to see how your mind can play tricks on you like that! The connected room started with an incline of about 15 degrees, whilst the objects in it were actually level or around level. We saw a pooltable on which the balls roll upwards, water runs upwards and a person standing on a ledge looked like they were leaning forward whilst standing straight. Weird!
Having finished with the Puzzles we sat down for a bit, playing with some of the wooden puzzles and enjoying a sandwich. We had a bit of time to kill, so we took it easy. When we got bored of puzzling walking towards the cinema sounded much better. It took us about half an hour to get there and we were still a bit early. The Paradiso offered us meals during us intermission (cool for a cinema!) and Francesca and I opted for the steak sandwich and pumpkin & coconut soup. When the doors opened we saw why the Lonely Planet had raved about this place: the seats were random couches! But that was not all; the best seats in the house were for us! Francesca's showing you all we had an indoor drive-in. Awesome!
The movie was also a good pick. A really impressive drama about a German boy whose father is a high-ranking officer in the German army during WWII, and in charge of a concentration camp. His son 'finds' the camp during his explorations and develops a friendship with a young Jew. Devastating consequences portrayed with powerful images made the movie a perfect pick.
So was the food! The steak sandwich was pretty much a collection of her favorite foods: steak, garlic bread, sauteed onions and mushrooms, and a salad with balsamic vinegar dressing. Whilst she enjoyed her sandwich I ate the soup, which also tasted fantastic. Dessert was equally fantastic: two freshly baked chocolate cookies! Yum! And we got to eat the meals in our car! The evening had us relaxing in our hostel, looking ahead at the next days and thinking of our plans. The second day in Wanaka was really quiet: we slept in and walked around in town. Since town was so small we were done pretty quickly. Francesca did enjoy a "super cookie" from the local bakery, which she loved thoroughly.
This morning we were picked up by Nana, a driver we had seen before. Nana was quite happy to have us join his bus, seeing there were only 6 people on it (including us). Our drive today was to take us to Queenstown, the adventure capital of New Zealand. Francesca had dreaded thinking about it, as this is the place for bungy jumping. Our first notable stop of the day was the 45th parallel. The 45th parallel is the line in the middle of the equator and the southpole. Nana also told us of some of the history of the region. A few decades back Otago had been pestered by a rabbit-plague, which had made the land completely useless. Prices were as low as $1 per acre. About 80 million of the little buggers had to be killed to make the place worthwhile again. The government decided to release a virus, killing off 95% of the rabbits. The remaining 5% are now controlled by the local farmers with guns and traps. The price of the land has gone up to $10,000 per acre, being great for fruit-farming.
Just before Queenstown, Nana drove up to Makarau bridge. This bridge is very famous, but I won't tell you the reason until the next post! Stay tuned!
Monday, August 10, 2009
An Iceberg Is Not A Glacier!!
Next we were on our way to Franz Josef! In New Zealand, there are two extremely unique glaciers – Franz Josef glacier and Fox glacier – unique due to the environment surrounding them. Both glaciers, while entirely made of ice themselves, are surrounded not only by typical snow-capped mountains, but also by lush rainforests; which you can see in many of our pictures.
However, first we drove through really thick forest and stopped off at Lake Mahinapua, a lake which marks the meeting point of the Hokitika glacier and the Tasman Sea. Many of the lakes in this area of New Zealand’s south island are formed due to the melting of glaciers – the water runs off to form large rivers and streams.
Once we arrived in Franz Josef that night, we heard that the weather wasn’t the greatest for going up on the glacier for a heli-hike. A heli-hike was our original plan for the glacier – so much hiking and walking had gotten us both exhausted, and I thought it would be a nice change to be lazy and get flown up to the top of the glacier. Thus we immediately decided to hang around a few extra days and see if the weather would clear up. Henk got us a great discount, since we were staying for a while, and we decided to relax for a few days.
I hadn’t been feeling the greatest since we arrived in Franz Josef, but thankfully, Henk noticed and planned a special evening for us the next night. That night, Henk asked me to get dressed up nice and to just follow him. :D When we first drove in, my eyes had lit up at the Indian restaurant in town, excited about the chance at another butter chicken. When we arrived, we sat down and almost immediately a Diet Coke was placed in front of me… but the waiter hadn’t even given us menus yet! Apparently, earlier in the day Henk had gone to the Indian place and pre-ordered our entire meal!! Butter chicken and garlic naan, my favorites, were delivered straight to the table without me asking for a thing.
After some mango ice-cream dessert, Henk let me know that the night’s surprises were not complete yet. We left the restaurant and started walking in the direction back to our hostel. However, rather than turning into the hostel, we turned right instead, and headed into a large building. I quickly realized that we were at the Glacier Hot Pools! Henk thought spending time in the pools would help relax me a bit. Earlier, he had booked us an awesome outdoor private pool, situated in our own private section surrounded by rainforest and the stars up above. Complete with your own sauna and showers, the pool fills up automatically with Jacuzzi-hot water and starts bubbling! After 45-minutes, the pool drains itself, so there is no need to do anything but sit back and relax. We used our pool time wisely, and then spent another hour exploring the 3 larger (and hotter!) pools – since by now it was around 9 pm; we literally had the place to ourselves!
Each morning we attempted to go on our heli-hike. Around 10 am, we were supposed to check in and ask if the helicopters were going to be flying. However, for the past couple of weeks the weather had been pretty bad. So, rather than doing our hike either of the next mornings, we worked instead. Finally some work is available for us! While making some lunch in the kitchen the previous morning, we spotted a sign at the hostel advertising the possibility to ‘work for accommodation.’ Since we had nothing else to do— the area around Franz Josef (also the name of the town) is pretty small—we opted to work. Working at the hostel for 2 hours gets you free accommodation (per person) and working for 4 hours gets you free dinners up to $20 at the bar. Sounded good to us! 4 hours of work for free lodging and meals? Couldn’t be that bad; might as well save some money.
Thus the next two mornings we spent time stripping and changing beds, cleaning bathrooms, vacuuming and sweeping up the bar area. Henk taught me how to change a duvet cover – the first time he did it, it looked like a magic trick! Keep the cover inside out, find the cover’s corners, then grab the duvet’s corners, flip the entire thing and shake it out… looked cool! But what can I say; it was a much better method than mine: which was holding open the duvets’ cover while trying to squash the duvet in, resulting in a large bag with a giant lump at the bottom. Not exactly ideal! In total, we ended up working for three nights’ accommodation and one night’s meals; so that night, we savored our Hawaiian pizza and BBQ chicken sandwich knowing we earned it!
Finally, we reached the end of our time in Franz Josef. It was Thursday, and neither of us felt like staying much longer working in a town where we had done almost everything there was to do. Already booked onto the Stray bus for Saturday morning, and booked into a hostel in Wanaka for the next nights, we were stuck. We had to make a decision: risk another day of bad weather and a canceled heli-hike (meaning we do nothing on the glacier at all), or book ourselves on for a full day glacier hike (meaning lots of walking!) Not wanting to risk missing the glacier completely, we booked ourselves for the full day.
The next morning, we got dressed and headed to the company that was taking us to the glacier… a bit early. We had booked onto the glacier hike starting at 9:15 am, but we had received a card telling us to be there at 8:15 am! Unsure, we arrived at 8:15 and had to wait around for a while before getting our gear – over-trousers and crampons—and jumping on the glacier bus. But ahhh, we looked up at the sky! The weather looked really good for that day, and we found out later that a few heli-hikes were able to take off that day. Grrrr… I was a bit disappointed, but hey, that means more walking for us! Let the heli-hikers keep their flabbiness. :D
The hike started off with a 10 minute walk through the forest, arriving at a large dried-up lake. During particularly rainy periods, the area we took about 40 minutes walking through would be completely filled with water. Before jumping on the glacier itself, we were divided up into 4 groups of 11 people. Our guide was nicknamed Bushman, and he carried an ice axe with him to carve out our path (since the ice changed regularly) as we hiked along.
Franz Josef glacier was found by the Austrian explorer/scientist Julius von Haast, who named it after the Austrian Emperor at the time. The glacier, being in an unusually warm climate as evidenced by the bright surrounding rainforest, melted quickly – at about a meter to a meter and a half per day. While you would think this would lead to a disappearing glacier rather quickly, the strange weather in the area snowed enough that the glacier also grew at the same rate daily; thus remaining a ‘moving but stable’ glacier.
Once at the face of the glacier, we stopped to tie on our crampons (Ok, Henk clarifies that he tied both of ours) before continuing on the ice. The first part we climbed through was an area filled with rocks on top of the ice. Rocks fall down from the mountains on either side of the glacier onto the ice at the top, and then they slide down to the face of the glacier, thus creating our tough terrain.
Around 12:00 PM, we stepped onto the first area of pure ice. The view was amazing – snow-covered mountains, waterfalls in the distance, and ice walls which slowly got larger around us the deeper we walked. Some of our trail had steps pre-carved in the ice for us, with ropes for us to use anchored on the sides, but sometimes Bushman had to use his axe and create the path for us to continue. The 8:15 am group before us even got stuck trying to create a new path, wasting an hour before turning back to use previous paths instead. As a result of many stops to wait for new paths, we got to take a ton of great pictures with the glacier!
After having a rather cold lunch on the ice, we continued on to explore for ice caves and tunnels. At 1:30 pm, we finally found one. Everyone stood over the small tunnel going through the ice, discussing sliding through it. When our guide asked if anyone wanted to give it a shot, Henk caught my eye looking extremely excited. I knew from his expression that he was dying to see me slide through it! To his surprise, I walked towards the tunnel entrance and volunteered myself to give it a try by jumping in!
Before I slid down, the guide suggested I take off my gloves so they wouldn’t get soaked by the ice-water dripping in the tunnel. I agreed, and yanked off the mittens I had on. Because of the cold, I had been wearing two pairs of gloves – my purple gloves, and grey mittens on top of them. It didn’t occur to me that no one in the group watching knew I had two sets of gloves on. Laughter erupted from the crowd when they saw me pull off the top pair of gloves, revealing a second layer underneath! I slid through, then Henk and I took pictures while waiting for everyone else to take their turn going through.
Henk even got a picture of Monkey and Puppy on the glacier! Our guide Bushman stepped into the shot, showing his Bushman smile. We slid ourselves through awfully narrow crevasses, getting completely soaked in the process – thank God for waterproof jackets and pants! Still, I alone went through all 4 pairs of gloves we had purely from sliding them along these wet, narrow walls. In some places, the crevasses were less than a foot in width, and around 50 meters long with huge ice-water puddles on the floor of the crevasse. Yes, I stepped in a couple of those!
Finally, we saw the light! 3:30 PM found us at the top of our glacier climb for the day. Once we were at the top of the glacier, having seen everything, I realized I had been a bit confused about glaciers. Even though the hike itself was interesting, amazing scenery and fun ice ‘sculptures’ to explore, I was still left slightly disappointed. Henk, listening to my downbeat glacier comments, joked that maybe when we got to the top, we’d discover the ice-making machine the tour company must be using! We took a zigzag path back down the glacier, went through the dried-up lake and forest, and got on the bus which returned us to our hostel. That night, we ate more Indian food, watched the movie King Arthur, and quickly fell fast asleep.
The next day on the bus, Henk and I discussed our hike from the day before, and I quickly realized why I had been a bit disappointed. The glacier ‘image’ I had in my mind was basically an iceberg: a huge pyramid of freestanding ice, similar in shape to the snow-capped mountains we had been seeing. ‘That’s not a glacier!’ He explained, his eyes wide realizing I hadn’t understood. He pointed at Fox glacier in front of us – ‘That part, in between the mountains, that is the glacier.’ I looked at Fox glacier, at the strip of ice running between the two mountains. It looked like an easy skiing hill; overall, once I realized which part was actually the glacier, I wasn’t too impressed! And I didn’t feel so bad about saving some $ by not doing the heli-hike… a glacier is not remotely as cool as an iceberg! I’ll save the heli-hike for when we find an iceberg or something cooler! :D
Francesca
However, first we drove through really thick forest and stopped off at Lake Mahinapua, a lake which marks the meeting point of the Hokitika glacier and the Tasman Sea. Many of the lakes in this area of New Zealand’s south island are formed due to the melting of glaciers – the water runs off to form large rivers and streams.
Once we arrived in Franz Josef that night, we heard that the weather wasn’t the greatest for going up on the glacier for a heli-hike. A heli-hike was our original plan for the glacier – so much hiking and walking had gotten us both exhausted, and I thought it would be a nice change to be lazy and get flown up to the top of the glacier. Thus we immediately decided to hang around a few extra days and see if the weather would clear up. Henk got us a great discount, since we were staying for a while, and we decided to relax for a few days.
I hadn’t been feeling the greatest since we arrived in Franz Josef, but thankfully, Henk noticed and planned a special evening for us the next night. That night, Henk asked me to get dressed up nice and to just follow him. :D When we first drove in, my eyes had lit up at the Indian restaurant in town, excited about the chance at another butter chicken. When we arrived, we sat down and almost immediately a Diet Coke was placed in front of me… but the waiter hadn’t even given us menus yet! Apparently, earlier in the day Henk had gone to the Indian place and pre-ordered our entire meal!! Butter chicken and garlic naan, my favorites, were delivered straight to the table without me asking for a thing.
After some mango ice-cream dessert, Henk let me know that the night’s surprises were not complete yet. We left the restaurant and started walking in the direction back to our hostel. However, rather than turning into the hostel, we turned right instead, and headed into a large building. I quickly realized that we were at the Glacier Hot Pools! Henk thought spending time in the pools would help relax me a bit. Earlier, he had booked us an awesome outdoor private pool, situated in our own private section surrounded by rainforest and the stars up above. Complete with your own sauna and showers, the pool fills up automatically with Jacuzzi-hot water and starts bubbling! After 45-minutes, the pool drains itself, so there is no need to do anything but sit back and relax. We used our pool time wisely, and then spent another hour exploring the 3 larger (and hotter!) pools – since by now it was around 9 pm; we literally had the place to ourselves!
Each morning we attempted to go on our heli-hike. Around 10 am, we were supposed to check in and ask if the helicopters were going to be flying. However, for the past couple of weeks the weather had been pretty bad. So, rather than doing our hike either of the next mornings, we worked instead. Finally some work is available for us! While making some lunch in the kitchen the previous morning, we spotted a sign at the hostel advertising the possibility to ‘work for accommodation.’ Since we had nothing else to do— the area around Franz Josef (also the name of the town) is pretty small—we opted to work. Working at the hostel for 2 hours gets you free accommodation (per person) and working for 4 hours gets you free dinners up to $20 at the bar. Sounded good to us! 4 hours of work for free lodging and meals? Couldn’t be that bad; might as well save some money.
Thus the next two mornings we spent time stripping and changing beds, cleaning bathrooms, vacuuming and sweeping up the bar area. Henk taught me how to change a duvet cover – the first time he did it, it looked like a magic trick! Keep the cover inside out, find the cover’s corners, then grab the duvet’s corners, flip the entire thing and shake it out… looked cool! But what can I say; it was a much better method than mine: which was holding open the duvets’ cover while trying to squash the duvet in, resulting in a large bag with a giant lump at the bottom. Not exactly ideal! In total, we ended up working for three nights’ accommodation and one night’s meals; so that night, we savored our Hawaiian pizza and BBQ chicken sandwich knowing we earned it!
Finally, we reached the end of our time in Franz Josef. It was Thursday, and neither of us felt like staying much longer working in a town where we had done almost everything there was to do. Already booked onto the Stray bus for Saturday morning, and booked into a hostel in Wanaka for the next nights, we were stuck. We had to make a decision: risk another day of bad weather and a canceled heli-hike (meaning we do nothing on the glacier at all), or book ourselves on for a full day glacier hike (meaning lots of walking!) Not wanting to risk missing the glacier completely, we booked ourselves for the full day.
The next morning, we got dressed and headed to the company that was taking us to the glacier… a bit early. We had booked onto the glacier hike starting at 9:15 am, but we had received a card telling us to be there at 8:15 am! Unsure, we arrived at 8:15 and had to wait around for a while before getting our gear – over-trousers and crampons—and jumping on the glacier bus. But ahhh, we looked up at the sky! The weather looked really good for that day, and we found out later that a few heli-hikes were able to take off that day. Grrrr… I was a bit disappointed, but hey, that means more walking for us! Let the heli-hikers keep their flabbiness. :D
The hike started off with a 10 minute walk through the forest, arriving at a large dried-up lake. During particularly rainy periods, the area we took about 40 minutes walking through would be completely filled with water. Before jumping on the glacier itself, we were divided up into 4 groups of 11 people. Our guide was nicknamed Bushman, and he carried an ice axe with him to carve out our path (since the ice changed regularly) as we hiked along.
Franz Josef glacier was found by the Austrian explorer/scientist Julius von Haast, who named it after the Austrian Emperor at the time. The glacier, being in an unusually warm climate as evidenced by the bright surrounding rainforest, melted quickly – at about a meter to a meter and a half per day. While you would think this would lead to a disappearing glacier rather quickly, the strange weather in the area snowed enough that the glacier also grew at the same rate daily; thus remaining a ‘moving but stable’ glacier.
Once at the face of the glacier, we stopped to tie on our crampons (Ok, Henk clarifies that he tied both of ours) before continuing on the ice. The first part we climbed through was an area filled with rocks on top of the ice. Rocks fall down from the mountains on either side of the glacier onto the ice at the top, and then they slide down to the face of the glacier, thus creating our tough terrain.
Around 12:00 PM, we stepped onto the first area of pure ice. The view was amazing – snow-covered mountains, waterfalls in the distance, and ice walls which slowly got larger around us the deeper we walked. Some of our trail had steps pre-carved in the ice for us, with ropes for us to use anchored on the sides, but sometimes Bushman had to use his axe and create the path for us to continue. The 8:15 am group before us even got stuck trying to create a new path, wasting an hour before turning back to use previous paths instead. As a result of many stops to wait for new paths, we got to take a ton of great pictures with the glacier!
After having a rather cold lunch on the ice, we continued on to explore for ice caves and tunnels. At 1:30 pm, we finally found one. Everyone stood over the small tunnel going through the ice, discussing sliding through it. When our guide asked if anyone wanted to give it a shot, Henk caught my eye looking extremely excited. I knew from his expression that he was dying to see me slide through it! To his surprise, I walked towards the tunnel entrance and volunteered myself to give it a try by jumping in!
Before I slid down, the guide suggested I take off my gloves so they wouldn’t get soaked by the ice-water dripping in the tunnel. I agreed, and yanked off the mittens I had on. Because of the cold, I had been wearing two pairs of gloves – my purple gloves, and grey mittens on top of them. It didn’t occur to me that no one in the group watching knew I had two sets of gloves on. Laughter erupted from the crowd when they saw me pull off the top pair of gloves, revealing a second layer underneath! I slid through, then Henk and I took pictures while waiting for everyone else to take their turn going through.
Henk even got a picture of Monkey and Puppy on the glacier! Our guide Bushman stepped into the shot, showing his Bushman smile. We slid ourselves through awfully narrow crevasses, getting completely soaked in the process – thank God for waterproof jackets and pants! Still, I alone went through all 4 pairs of gloves we had purely from sliding them along these wet, narrow walls. In some places, the crevasses were less than a foot in width, and around 50 meters long with huge ice-water puddles on the floor of the crevasse. Yes, I stepped in a couple of those!
Finally, we saw the light! 3:30 PM found us at the top of our glacier climb for the day. Once we were at the top of the glacier, having seen everything, I realized I had been a bit confused about glaciers. Even though the hike itself was interesting, amazing scenery and fun ice ‘sculptures’ to explore, I was still left slightly disappointed. Henk, listening to my downbeat glacier comments, joked that maybe when we got to the top, we’d discover the ice-making machine the tour company must be using! We took a zigzag path back down the glacier, went through the dried-up lake and forest, and got on the bus which returned us to our hostel. That night, we ate more Indian food, watched the movie King Arthur, and quickly fell fast asleep.
The next day on the bus, Henk and I discussed our hike from the day before, and I quickly realized why I had been a bit disappointed. The glacier ‘image’ I had in my mind was basically an iceberg: a huge pyramid of freestanding ice, similar in shape to the snow-capped mountains we had been seeing. ‘That’s not a glacier!’ He explained, his eyes wide realizing I hadn’t understood. He pointed at Fox glacier in front of us – ‘That part, in between the mountains, that is the glacier.’ I looked at Fox glacier, at the strip of ice running between the two mountains. It looked like an easy skiing hill; overall, once I realized which part was actually the glacier, I wasn’t too impressed! And I didn’t feel so bad about saving some $ by not doing the heli-hike… a glacier is not remotely as cool as an iceberg! I’ll save the heli-hike for when we find an iceberg or something cooler! :D
Francesca
