South Island Adventuring

After Breanna’s wedding we came back to New Zealand for a four week adventure with no obligations except to see everything we had left on our list and hang out with each other. We spent those four weeks living out of Mushu and loving life, driving about 100km each day and seeing whatever seemed interesting.

Hiking and Such

Luckily we had the opportunity to do some incredible, bucket list style hiking while we were in the South Island. The highlights include Gertrude Saddle at dawn in the Fiordlands, Mt Cook area, Fox Glacier and many many others during our 4 week tourist experience.

Lindsay riding an uncontrollable coal car…

My artistic shot of a an old railway now hiking path

Crossing yet another swing bridge on our railway hike

Looking down at Golden Bay from the Able Tasman hike

What’s Lindsay doing with that stick?

Oh, she’s paddling a stump…?

I think at this point we may have been dehydrated…

Awesome shot of Lindsay hiking one of the sandy beaches of the Able Tasman

Looking down at the beaches of the Able Tasman Track

Morekai Rocks in the afternoon, the side everyone sees.

Lindsay going for a little adventure.

Looking back at the Morekai Rocks.

Playing up in the somewhat off limits area

“Artistic” shot of a well traveled water bottle…

Tell me that doesn’t look like a face

Sunset at the Morekai Rocks

Sunset looking back at the big rocks. Sunset, Low Tide and Clear Skies on the West Coast of NZ was an awesome experience.

Hiking up to an overview of the Fox Glacier, through an area where many elves live.

This should be fake. Places like this don’t really exist…

How many places can you get a fern tree and a glacier in the same photo?

Lindsay and I on our way to Mt Cook National Park

Hiking out towards the glacial lake below Mt Cook

Work it… you’re a tiger, show me a tiger!

Lindsay was super psyched when she saw this.

An old hut on the way out to the Mt Cook Glacier

A Glacial lake in late summer with hundreds of icebergs… pretty cool hey?

More of the MT Cook National Park

Super awesome cloud!

1,800 stairs and 2.5 miles. Seriously.

Lindsay and I at the top of the stairs!

…aaaand down we go!

A very rare three rope bridge.

Lindsay playing around on the bridge.

Aww, she’s so cute!

Breaking the cloud on the Gertrude Saddle hike

This is the same shot as the one with the clouds, just later in the day

A really cool older guy that started with us (about 15min ahead of us)

Lindsay standing on some snow in late March

Once in a lifetime shot… Looking out toward Milford Sound

Clay relaxing with one of the prettiest views on Earth!

Panoramic shot, one of the most incredible places I’ve ever been

A waterfall that looks like it should be from a movie

The second clearest water… IN THE WORLD

The surface of the crystal clear pool

Completely random day hike area

Hiking in a sandstone spire adventure

It became quite steep…

Looking down from the top

That’s me. That’s my sign.

Random Sights from Getting (mostly) “Off the Beaten Path”

This is a collection of some of the stuff we did that was a bit unique and not necessarily in all of the tour books. Of course some of it was touristy, but for the most part we tried to go see the parts of NZ that wasn’t all over Lonely Planet.

Lindsay washing dishes in the ocean…

Clay taking a picture while Lindsay gets smoked by a 4′ tall rogue wave… oops!

Lindsay’s super cool shot of a floating dinghy and an old dock

Cooking in the rain, one of our last days with Mushu

This is our “wet weather” setup!

They called these dino eggs

Lindsay contemplating life on a big atlas stone.

Trying to atlas stone lift the dino egg

Inside the boulders

Atlas just waiting to be picked up!

Apparently these are millions of years old too!

These are limestone rocks made millions of years ago in the ocean

We went to Niagara Falls!

This was Niagara Falls…

Standing at the furthest south point of NZ

Alaska guys, notice the shirt?!

My 5-in-1 cooking setup. Pasta, fresh veggies, pasta sauce all cooking at the same time!

The boiler of a shipwreck

More shipwrecks

Pretty cool that there was a sign

Looking up towards Milford Sound

Look at the tourists! We caught them in the wild away from their bus! (Okay, that was mean… sorry)

The Milford Tunnel

1km through the mountain, raw exposed rock

Looking up at the opposite side of the tunnel

Lindsay just hanging out in a tree in Milford

I think this one is cool. That is all.

Mitre Peak in Milford Sound

And then we had a herd of sheep on our way to the camping site…

This person lives in paradise. It looks like a magazine shot.

Reflection lake with the Southern Alps on a clear day

Another shot, without the dock

Lindsay playing around on an old abandoned dock… safe?

The hull of an 100+ year old shipwreck.

A shipwreck from the 1890s. You can see the boiler in the distance.

Mom would be proud… sleeping under an overpass in the back of our car!

Yep, I bought a matching beard for my jacket.

Pancake rocks. We’ll have to add the videos to get the full effect though.

Clay playing on an abandoned excavator. Why? Why not.

Animals of the South Island

We were lucky and able to see some awesome wildlife. We were able to see Sea Lions, Fur Seals, Yellow Eyed Penguins and the rare Merino Sheep all without going to a zoo or guided tour. Oh and don’t forget about the Orcas and Dolphins from Punga Cove!

We called this a “Sea Dustin” not a Sea Lion

… and anyone from Alaska now knows why.

Posing with my Sea Dustin friend

It would be really cool to see a Yellow Eyed Penguin…

And we did… this is without zoom.

Just the rarest penguin in the world. No big deal…

Baby and momma fur seals. We literally stumbled upon these guys on the side of the highway.

Posing with the fur seals.

Statue of a Merino sheep. Why not?

And a real merino sheep!

I had such high hopes for these little hell-parrots

Awesome shot of Lindsay hiking one of the sandy beaches of the Able Tasman

The “Downtown” Experience

This is a collection of shots from our time in “town”. Whether it was the biggest city on the South Island (Christchurch) or just a little town that had the Gypsy Fair, these are the civilization moments.