Tawharanui (ta-far-a-noo-ee)

Rhiannon and I, on consecutive weekends awhile back, made the quick 80 minute drive up to Tawharanui Regional Park. It has a beach. It has a native bird sanctuary. It has great camping too. And hiking trails. Oh and rock pools. I'm just really excited to tell you about it.

I have to admit that after the extreme uniqueness (is that a thing? If something is unique it can't be anymore or less unique, right?) and breathtaking views that constantly smacked me in the face and occipital lobe on the South Island, I didn't really know if I would capture that feeling of awe again on the North Island. After all, there are a lot of pretty beaches and views in and around and near Auckland, but constant availability makes me unconsciously take them for granted. 

The other thing that the South Island has on its side, and I just realized it as I started typing this, is the relative lack of crowds. Even though Milford Sound and Mt. Cook and the glaciers are the most well-known sights in NZ, they aren't easy to get to. That makes the number of people cramming themselves up and down hiking paths and along the narrow roadways limited. One thing I really like about travelling is the perception, whether real or not, of doing something that is rare, of experiencing a place at a certain time that not many other people in the world will ever do. Much of the South Island gives you that feeling - setting up camp in dense and shrouded woodland, kayaking underneath a waterfall, being one of ten or so people at a reflective Alpine lake. 

Near Auckland, the beaches are often pretty populated. Not like Copacabana crowded, but you definitely don't get the sense that you're experiencing it on your own. As an occasional hater of crowds (not strictly agoraphobic, just don't like them), this can be pretty annoying. Tawharanui, due to its relative lack of fame coupled with the fact that you have to drive on gravel roads for several kms before reaching the park, doesn't suffer from these crowds nearly as much.

All of this is to say that if you arrive at Tawharanui on a clear Saturday summer's eve (which we did the first weekend there), you get the whole damn thing practically to yourself:

Smiling because no one's here.

A dusty sunset guides us to our picnicking location.

Action shot! Caw-ca-caw-ca-caw!

I mean this particular evening was incredibly clear, like contemporaneous gigantic moon-rise and sunset clear:  

The moon races above the opposing burning horizon.

And then some humans got in the way.

Descend a few vacant steps, slip your toes into the world's softest sand, and let your cares melt away.

I mean just look how empty that is. Also, pretty.

And this was mid to late January, so the water was perfect for swimming.

Picture of Rhiannon testing the water and taking picture of surf. Included:  no one else.

Did I mention it was a really clear night?

You get the point, so here is an artsy photo from atop a nearby hill/rock. It was a really great rock.

So like, job done, right? Some amount of travelling was performed. I've shown you a really nice evening spent in a vacant and beautiful regional park. I probably convinced you that it's totally possible to find a not crowded beach near Auckland. 

But wait, there's more. The next weekend, Rhiannon and I returned. We suspected that we hadn't seen everything Tawharanui has to offer. We bivouacked in a lovely little camping area surrounded by some pretty odd looking native birds, called Pukekos (poo-kek-oh):

I suspect these would be extremely delicious.

Back to the beach, where washed up dead things and rock pools provided hours of entertainment:

Yes this is a penguin. Yes this is sad. And yes it was poked with a stick.

Adorable, prickly, and deadly. I'd say this pufferfish employed excellent camouflage.

The beach's rock pools, which span probably 4-5 acres at low tide, are home to crabs and mussels and sea slugs and numerous types of fish, but by far the best thing caught us completely by surprise:

This legitimately freaked me out as I was a half second away from stepping into this pool.

We could simply goad the octopus into chasing us out of its pool. Clearly guarding something.

"You kids get off my lawn."

So cool and unexpected. We spent a solid half an hour with this octopus, eventually finding out it had a nearby (lazy and useless) mate. We came back an hour later to find it chasing away small crabs from a different pool. Those pictures are great, but the video below does it proper justice. Thanks Tawharanui for giving me my favorite nature encounter in New Zealand to date, and for giving me a jolt of uniqueness and awe once again.

Cheers!

Awkward People, Beautiful Backdrops

I had originally planned to have one last South Island trip blog post in which I showed you a ton of the really majestic postcard-esque pictures taken by Joe with his expensive camera and outdoors photography expertise. It would be called something totally predictable like "Pack Travel Part V." Then I started looking through the photos and changed my mind completely...

People spend a lot of time trying to have the perfect pose for pictures. Don't believe me, a quick search of 'selfie posing techniques' revealed this, and this, and this.

While a great picture of someone (you, a loved one, Barry Obama) can get a lot of likes, and maybe even some stalkers, the funny and awkward pictures are the most memorable. In our modern social media driven society, how often do people post the embarrassing pictures? The ones that are ruined by the face or pose the person(s) is making in it. Without further ado, here is a gallery of these photos, from the archives of Joe Katarksy, taken with the beautiful backdrop of many New Zealand scenes. I'll also be providing you with a plethora of synonyms for 'awkward', though here is a more complete list. 

At Castle Hill:

My ungainly hobbit feet are proficient at gripping rocky surfaces.

K:  Just leave me here, save yourself.
L: K bye.

I actually think is a pretty cool picture. I mean just look at the bill of this Batman hat. 

I spy with my little eye:  something veiny, clearly very dehydrated. 

At Arthur's Pass:

I don't really understand why Joe took this rather cloddish picture of two random women. Or why he shared it with me.  

An unfortunate yet excellent example of why sunglasses matter.

Campsite at Lake Pearson:

The sun sets over a tent that highly educated fools ungracefully took way too long to set up improperly.

When you live out the back of a car, heavy-handed splash-of-water 'showers' and sandfly repellent applications are a must.

On the hike up to Mueller Hut at Mt. Cook:

The exasperated look of "We've been climbing stairs for an hour and aren't even halfway to the summit yet."

Joe's unwieldy enthusiasm after reaching the summit. 

Wipe that shit-eating grin off your face, Eric. 

The South Coast at sunset:

Again just a pretty cool picture. I'm only awkwardly in it to demonstrate the reflective sheen of the receding tide.

Into the Fiordlands:

I believe Michael is air-drying his hands here, but I like to think he's displaying his gangling T-Rex pose.

In which Lee poses quite normally, Michael takes his power pose, and I generally ruin the whole damn thing.

And again with the inelegant pointing at the camera. You like that?! 

Rhiannon thinks this a good advertisement for cold-weather gear.

And on the kayak trip in Milford Sound:

An amphibious mountain man; up close and personal with Joe on the kayak.

The whole group, and probably our best picture together. Not that awkward if you disregard the spray flaps.

Okay maybe a lot of those pictures weren't awkward. So just to drive the point home, here's one more for good measure. On the flight back to Auckland:

Two weeks of thorny beard growth, sunburn, and hanging out with goofy people caused this.

Cheers!

Pack Travel Part IV

(This is part 4 of the holiday season South Island camping trip. For continuity, it will probably make much more sense for you to read parts 1, 2, and 3 before reading this...or not, do whatever you want.)

"He's still writing about something that happened almost two months ago?!" Yes. Yes I am. And just to spite you (reader that I adore for taking the time to peruse my adventure blog) this will be a very long and photo-filled post. I won't let your negativity affect me. Water off the duck's back:

And what a happy duck.

Following our one night beach-side camping excursion, we headed northwest up the coast of the South Island. This part of the country is known as Southland, and it's pretty big. The population density is a mere 2.8 people/km^2. That's small; for reference, Madison, WI is 1172.6. It makes sense as you drive through Southland because it contains Fiordlands National Park (FNP), which is really just a bunch of uninhabitable mountains and fjords and lakes and ohmygodthisisamazing scenery.

Before we started this portion of our trip however, we first had to celebrate New Year's Eve in Te Anau. This tiny town (pop. 2000) is at the southern edge of FNP. For this reason, it's relatively touristy and has a number of nice little shops and even a few bars. So for NYE we went to town and somehow stumbled upon this large bonfire in the town's main park:

Joe and Michael play a game of who can get closer.

The rest of the night consisted of watching 50,000 NZD worth of fireworks (people thought this was a lot of money for a fireworks display, scoff), going to every single (3 in total) bar in Te Anau, and taking over a dance floor that just would not play Hotline Bling for me. 

After nursing hangovers and watching a pitiful MSU football performance, we headed north into FNP along the Milford Road. This is a truly breathtaking drive, and we had our sights set on a truly breathtaking campground for the next two nights:

Sometimes you have to stop along the highway and lie in fields of Lupins.

Lee, Michael and Keegan prepare a meal around our communal hole. Our site was nestled in a dense forest, perfect for late night Sasquatch calling. 

Joe and I look on expectantly. 

Deer Flat Campsite. Just wow.

After a gin-soaked sleep in the tent, we drove into the mountains, stopping for a hike to Lake Marian. This was a pretty strenuous 90 minute climb past cascading rapids and twisting up a narrow track.

Okay so a boardwalk stroll along a babbling stream doesn't look strenuous, but like just after this picture it got tough.

At the top, soaring peaks surround an extremely calm lake. So calm that the mountains mirror across the pristine and silky water. This was maybe my my most zen place I've been to in New Zealand.

Lee captures the scene. Slight ripples let us know we are, in fact, in a dream.

"A man is but the product of his thoughts..." -Gandhi
"Shit this is pretty." -Eric

Another hour or so hike along the Routeburn Track brought us to Key Summit. This strangely flat terrain on top of a mountain provided 360 degree views of the surrounding region.

Atop Key Summit and Joe is holding an unidentified object up to his fa...oh right a camera.

Finally, after packing up camp, driving back into Te Anau for a rainy day/night of drinking and playing cards and eating frozen pizza and showering, we were set for the cherry (and whipped cream and drizzled chocolate sauce) on top of our South Island sojourn:  a kayaking trip in Milford Sound.

The day began very early - dark and dreary amidst a cold morning fog. Our guide, Andrew, picked us up from Te Anau's Event Centre parking lot and drove us in the waxing light of dawn the two hours up to Milford Sound. We had been there briefly a few nights before, and captured a quick appetizer of what our day on the water would bring us:

My version of Milford Sound.

Michael's.

Lee and Keegan's (the morning of kayaking). They got a sunny shot.

Joe's. No matter how you spin it, it's beautiful. But Joe wins.

So, yeah, we were pretty excited about getting to kayak. The day was just right - sunny yet cool, relatively calm waters, and just the right amount of sandflies to remind you that not even paradise is perfect. After suiting up in like 20 layers of awesome looking thermals and sun/water protective gear, and getting the appropriate paddling safety lessons, we set out. Because there were 5 of us, I got to team up with some random guy from Greensboro, North Carolina named Justin. Ex-army, no kayaking experience ("I got this Justin"), and a really talkative and interesting person - definitely a good kayaking companion. 

The next 4 hours is kind of a blur: light to heavy gusts of wind, Justin "accidentally" flicking salty sea-spray into my face over and over, the sun beating down on my neck, nearly smacking one of these little guys with my paddle as he chased a school of fish, aching arms and back, the approach to a ferocious waterfall, teaming up with other kayakers for a makeshift raft and sailing across the Sound, a barrel-rolling seal (apparently trying to digest his food), a seaplane landing on the serene water just beside us...the list goes on and on. I'll shut up and show some photos.

Smiles on top mask growing frustration with faulty steering mechanism... 

Justin and I display perfectly synchronized paddling technique.

And then I slack off a bit. I gotta get a hold of Justin's GoPro footage.

Just two peas in a pod.

Ungh.

And that was basically it for the trip, or at least I can confidently say it was the highlight. We headed back to Queenstown that night, ate some good food, partied (Michael and I) a bit, and slept in actual beds for the first time in nearly 11 days. Some of us got a little tuckered out before we even made it back to Queenstown:

Making memories is exhausting.

Cheers!

Bonus:  my next post will likely be a supplement to this series in which I just show all of the best of Joe's diligently taken photos from our very hectic and tiring and amazing trip. 

Thanks for sticking through it with me!

"Oh my God is that a kiwi?" No, just a Weka. Dammit. 

Pack Travel Part III

(This is part 3 of my holiday season South Island camping trip. For continuity, it will probably make much more sense for you to read parts 1 and 2 before reading this...or not, do whatever you want.)

As we descended from the heights of Mueller Hut, a chapter of our trip came to a close. It was palpable. Within 24 hours, we would be picking up (Dr. Dirty) Michael from the Queenstown airport. Our 4 member group to that point had a kind of equilibrium to it - Joe took pictures, Lee was the forward thinker, Keegan ever optimistic and knowledgeable of walks/hikes he wouldn't be able to go on...and I drove or something. I'm sure the others didn't think about it, but I wondered what the addition of a fifth person would do to the group dynamic - especially when that person is already pretty damn dynamic. I mean, I had just gotten used to sleeping on the ground in a small tent next to Joe and his hairy skull, and now I had to add another dude to my cramped sleeping quarters?

But before all that, we had yet another picturesque drive south to Queenstown, stopping for a much needed and delicious burrito in the town of Wanaka. The locale is also known for its large and eponymous lake, where people in the area go to get away. This was a bit confusing. For those of you who don't know, Queenstown is where everyone in NZ goes to get away. So I guess that makes Wanaka a vacation spot from tourists for locals. Anyway it's a small oasis tucked into the mountains. After a brief trot around town made mostly for digestive purposes, we went to Lake Wanaka, with it's elongated beach line, plethora of bikini-clad denizens of all ages, a random painted van or two, and a tree sitting out in the lake.

Kids will do anything for a high nowadays.

It's not just some normal tree. It's out there, like 100 meters into shallow water, just kind of growing and being a perfect foreground to the sharp background peaks. It's name is the Lone Tree, and it's the 'most photographed tree in New Zealand.' I'm not sure who monitors those statistics. Probably Google.

Joe taking picture of Lone Tree:  "Lone Man and Tree" -E Schrauben 2015, asking price $12,375

After a brief stay in Queenstown, which I'll write more about later, we picked up Michael from the airport and drove south. This was the 'free-form' portion of our trip in which we knew we wanted to see Milford Sound, but that it wouldn't happen for a few days. 

We meandered toward New Zealand's South Coast, stopping on the way to see a free glowworm cave. Clifden Caves are naturally carved into private property limestone, a (you guessed it) sheep farm, but are totally free to the public and really easy to access. Glowworms are awesome (like a truly unique sight), twinkling in seemingly uninhabitable places. In the depths of these caves, they provided an astral setting when the headlamps were switched off. Unfortunately the lack of light for proper visualizing of glowworms also means that good pictures are hard to come by, especially with a phone's camera.

Cool Beans.

Silk hanging from glowing butts. Anyway you'll have to take my word for it that they're really cool.

The road from there was unplanned; we didn't even have a place to crash for the night. Luckily for us, I'd gotten some good advice on an app that lists all of the camping spots on a map in New Zealand, with pictures and descriptions and prices and facilities. Very helpful. We settled on a free beach side camp spot. It was way way down south (46° S!) near Pahia. It's mostly meaningless, but that was definitely the most south (the southest?) we had all ever been.

The campsite itself was just a patch of grass, somewhat guarded from the ocean winds. We settled right in and made a big community pot of chili and hot dogs. We all really enjoyed eating out of the community pot together:

How quickly humans can become feral. You might not be able to see all of Michael since he's in his jungle camouflage sleep roll. 

An actual campsite fire? So rare in New Zealand. And despite the best efforts of the wind and wet wood, we were able to make a nice burn. I was clearly unimpressed.

So south and right around the longest day of the year that the sun didn't set until ~9:45 pm. You get a lot of serious thinking done over the course of an hour long sunset.

The sheen of receding tide and light.

Cheers!