Month: February 2018

We took on our most ambitious hike of the trip so far with the Tongariro Alpine Crossing. It’s a day hike on one of New Zealand’s Great Walks and very popular. They’ve had over 4000 hikers complete it in a day. Monday wasn’t the greatest weather: overcast with showers predicted for the afternoon. We could have done it Tuesday, but the forecast wasn’t any better.

As we loaded into the shuttle to head to the trailhead, our driver gave us a debrief about the trail, the day’s conditions, and what to do in an emergency. She definitely wanted everyone to know that they were hiking a mountain pass and made sure we all had appropriate clothing, food and water.

The crossing is 19.4 km. It starts at 1120m and reaches a max elevation of 1886m and ends at 760m. That’s a climb of about 2500 feet. It typically takes six to eight hours. We started at 8:46a and there would be shuttles back to town at 2p, 3:30p and 5p (or whenever the last hiker arrived).

At the start:

A look back about 15 minutes into the hike.

A look up at the Devil’s Staircase, the first major climb of the hike. We’re heading into the clouds.

At the top of the Devil’s staircase, you cross a flat ash/sand crater for about 10 minutes before beginning the ascent to the top. It was getting windy and we started to see some hikers heading back. Leena asked why and they said it was too windy at the top. The 30-40 mph wind we were in? “This is nothing.”

We continued up and conditions got pretty gnarly. Winds were gale force, we were wet from the moisture of the cloud, and it was steep with very loose footing on the scree. I hung onto Leena through the most exposed and windy sections (I’m about twice her weight). Temperatures were in the low single digits Celsius (30s Fahrenheit). Neither of us had gloves so fingers were soon numb.

After the second major climb, you descend down loose scree for about 15 minutes into a crater. You pass Emerald Lake and Blue Lake. My picture of Emerald Lake didn’t come out, but here’s a look at Blue Lake.

You then have to climb back out of the crater, another cold, windy and exposed climb. As we began the descent, we came out of the clouds enough to get a few nice views.

There’s even a bit of blue sky!

The descent has lots and lots of staircases and a long walk through the forest.

We finished just after 3p and caught the 3:30p shuttle back to town.

At the end of the day, my iPhone health app gave me credit for 228 floors climbed, a new record.

From Bay of Islands, we wanted to head south to get to Abel Tasman National Park on the north end of the South Island. We had no schedule, so I picked out a beach town on the way. Raglan is west of Hamilton and would help break up the driving. That was about all the thought that went into it.

Raglan is amazing. The beach is beautiful, and it’s a legendary surf spot that’s featured towards the end of the movie The Endless Summer. It has the longest left-hand break in the world. In the movie, they joke that you can only catch two waves a day in Raglan because the ride is so long. At least I think they were joking.

The town is very eco-conscious with a movement to try and become a zero-waste town. It has a pedestrian bridge from a beach to town, and at high tide, everybody jumps off it. It’s probably five or seven meters high. I was tempted but didn’t take the plunge. It has cliffs that overlook the beach. We hiked down from our AirBnB stay.

After morning at the beach, we drove about 30 minutes to see Bridal Veil falls. They’re 55m high (180 feet). As you’ll see, they’re beautiful.

We made a picnic dinner and headed to a cliff top overlooking the beach for sunset.

We drove a few hours north to the Bay of Islands area and stayed in Paihia. Captain Cook visited this bay in 1769. He counted 183 islands in the bay, but apparently he was counting rocks as well. The official count is 144. An island is defined as land that’s always above the water (i.e. not submerged at high tide) and has vegetation growing on it.

After checking in to our hostel, we did a short hike to a viewpoint of the Bay from above the town.

We took a drive to see Haruru Falls. Don’t step back any further!

A shot from the beach in town before we went for dinner.

In the morning, we took a 3-hour tour of the bay by boat. First up was a look for dolphins. The crew found a pod hanging around a couple of cruise ships anchored in the bay. Many came right up to the boat.

Others were swimming around in the water a few hundred feet in front of the boat. You’d see fins as they’d surface for a breath and I was quick enough on the reaction to get a few of those. I remember thinking about photos I’ve seen of dolphins in mid flight and wondering if we’d have any jump as they surfaced. Then, a pair did and I clicked away. Right after it happened I leaned over to Leena and said that I thought I got the shot. I did!

And thanks to the “live” photo feature on the iPhone and the Lively app, you can see the whole jump.

The boat then started heading for the Hole in the Rock. It’s a hole in the distant rock in the middle of this shot.

The lighthouse on the northern tip of the peninsula on the east side of the bay. It was manually operated until the early 1970s.

The Hole in the Rock.

The weather was calm, a requirement for the boat to make a passage through the Hole. This was their first passage in three weeks. Great timing for us!

A view back.

We flew into Auckland and spent a couple of nights there. We did a few urban hikes with views of the city.

From the top of Mt Maungawhau you can see the old crater (now just grass) as you look over the city.

From a downtown park.

We made it out to Parnell St and returned to Oh Calcutta for dinner. We’d had a great meal there on our last trip to Auckland nine years earlier. It was delicious again.

We flew back to Melbourne for our last couple of nights in Australia (this time).

We explored the White Nights festival on the first night. We took the tram to the Carlton Gardens. A fire dragon was outside the Melbourne Museum.

The coolest thing was the ~15-minute light (and audio) show projected onto the Royal Exhibition building. The visuals showed the edifice being continually built and torn down, with invasions by serpents and lasers, and well, let’s go to some pictures.

I found an app (Lively) that lets you convert your “live” iPhone photos to animated gifs (used here) or short videos.

The next morning was a grooming morning. Haircut for me, manicure for Leena. Here’s a shot from my walk home from the barber. High Street in the Northcote neighborhood.

Feeling spiffy, we took a walk down the Merri Creek Trail to the Yarra River and grabbed lunch at the Studley Park Boat House. After a selfie.

For the evening, we headed to Brighton Beach to check out the Brighton Beach Boxes.

I’m not into bird watching, and Leena really doesn’t like birds (there’s a story there), but she did spot this one on the walk home.

Until next time Australia. We love it here!

We were supposed to spend three nights in Triabunna, but two was plenty. We booked a last-minute night in Dodges Ferry, followed by two nights in Hobart.

We drove south to explore the Tasman Peninsula. On the way, we found a cool lookout.

The navigation said we were taking “highways”, but they were just gravel roads.

First up on the Tasman Peninsula was a geologic phenomenon called tesselated pavement. The rocks look like some sort of tile work. This is rare, and this spot is considered the best example.

Next were some cool sights thanks to erosion. An amazing arch,

The next stop had an amazing vista and a nearby cave.

They say the entrance of the cave is shaped like Tasmania and Leena got an amazing shot of this. (Mine were nowhere near as good!)

I climbed down from the walkway into the cave and took a few more shots, the second from the beach.

We’d booked a last-minute place in Dodges Ferry that boasted a “cliff view” of the beach, and wow, did it ever deliver. This was one of the most incredible places we’ve found on AirBnB. This is from the back deck.

We drove to Hobart the next morning and headed to Mt Wellington for the view over the city. The car warned us that it was cold! We’ve been chasing the sun, so 3 degrees was just a bit cool for us. We bundled up to walk around and take in the views. As you can see, we were right on the edge of the clouds.

All bundled ups!

Back in Hobart, we headed to MONA: the Museum Of New and Old Art. Leena very much enjoyed it, while I continue to feel that most art is lost on me. OK, that’s a bit harsh. There were some provocative things, like the guy who sold his skin as a canvas to an artist (somewhere in the six figures) and now sits in the museum on display. His name is Tim. Apparently there will be more tattoos though he’s pretty well covered at this point. I wonder, what are his hours?

Here’s a look back from the lovely museum grounds to Mt Wellington.

We headed out for dinner that night at the Salamanca Market taking the historic Kelly’s Steps to get to the street. We had a great Middle Eastern dinner at Syra.

We drove further north to check out Freycinet National Park. We did a couple of day hikes, starting with a hike to Wineglass Bay. It starts with a hike up to a lookout point. As you head up you have great views of Coates Bay (from the opposite side as yesterday’s view from Swansea).

Wineglass Bay from the lookout at the top.

The trail continues down the other side of the hill to Wineglass Bay. It’s one of the best maintained trails I’ve been on.

The beach at Wineglass Bay is only accessible by the trail or boat.

We counted 899 steps back to the top.

We did a few other shorter hikes in the park with amazing views.

Just past these rocks is New Zealand, about 1000km further off.

From the beach on Coates Bay.

I checked over the last year and 145 floors climbed is easily the most I’ve done in a day.

And hey, I guess this is how we spend Valentines Day.

We flew down to Hobart and drove northeast on the Tasman highway to Triabunna. This got us most of the way to Freycinet National Park. We stopped by a couple of wineries, including Devil’s Corner with its sweeping panoramic view.

We stopped by 9-mile beach, which, as the name implies, is a long beach. We walked a bit, but not the whole thing!

We headed to Swansea for dinner and found this simply-named track for a quick walk.

It wandered down the coast next to a golf course. The tee shot on #7 would be fun. A 128m (140y) par three down the hill but over a tree. You can just see the top of the flag between the trees.

Leena getting a bit closer to Coates Bay.

We flew from Perth to Melbourne and spent a couple of nights there before flying down to Hobart, Tasmania. We figured out the tram and walked the city on the first day, and took a ferry down the Yarra river to Williamsport on the second day.

As you can see, Melbourne is protected by At-ats.

From Margaret River, we headed east to Denmark. We stayed in a lovely B&B on the Denmark River where we saw swans and kayakers and even a kangaroo stop by for a drink.

On our first morning, we headed out to the Tree Top Walk at Valley of the Giants. The walk gets as high as 40m off the ground and the red tingle trees get to 70m. Not quite as high as trees in the Pacific NW, but still very impressive. There are a few types of tingle trees in Australia, but the red tingle tree is only found in this area and are one of the tallest trees in Western Australia. They are a part of the eucalyptus family; it sure smelled good out there.

The trees have shallow roots, and can be hollowed out by insects, rot and/or fire.

We grabbed some delicious and local-caught fish and chips at the beach, then headed to Greens Pool. The off-shore rocks create a calm natural pool. I swam around for a while.

We then hiked just a few minutes east to see the Elephant Rocks,

The next day, we drove about five hours back to Perth for a final night before flying to Melbourne.

If you can’t tell, I absolutely LOVED Western Australia. We had some wonderful hosts (Neil and Richard in Perth, Simon and Melissa in Dunsborough, and Nadia and Cam in Margaret River), the scenery was amazing, the hiking was incredible, the wineries were lovely, and the food was delicious.