LOTR DORK CHEER!

It's been such a long time coming that I almost forgot how excited I should be about The Hobbit being made into films with Peter Jackson at the helm. Today I saw this video and my excitement has been thrown into high gear. Seeing the old sets rebuilt and hearing the familiar music... yay! Here's the first (of hopefully many) video blogs that Peter is doing from the New Zealand sets.

Hiking Fox Glacier (Or, The Hardest Thing I've Ever Done)

For the purposes of this story, it doesn't matter what you do or don't believe about climate change and global warming: whatever the reasons, glaciers around the world are receding. These ancient remnants of the planet's last Ice Age are tucked away in the steep valleys of mountain chains or stretching in ice sheets of the polar seas.

In New Zealand, the really cool thing is that the proximity of the Southern Alps mountains to the country's western coast means that a few of its remaining glaciers are no more than 15 miles offshore, and are only 250-300 meters above sea level. This makes them quite possibly the most accessible glaciers in the world... Which means that people who aren't skilled mountain climbers and hikers can visit them. Good thing I fit that bill!

There are two main glaciers in the area that are toured by visitors. Franz Josef Glacier and Fox Glacier are snuggled right along the northwestern side of New Zealand's tallest mountains, descending from those peaks and ending amidst temperate rainforest. That's another unique feature of these glaciers, and it means that visitors are comfortable hiking to the glaciers in shorts and t-shirts.

Which is a good thing, because you're going to get warm hiking to Fox Glacier. Why, you might ask? Well, friends, that's because you're going to have to hike up 800 stairs. EIGHT. HUNDRED. STAIRS.

Quick, stair comparison stats! The Empire State Building has 1576 stairs. So, you know, I did the equivalent of half the climb of arguably the world's most famous flight of stairs.

I believe my previous stair accomplishment was climbing the 320 steps up to the cupola of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. I didn't remember this number before I started the Fox Glacier hike. So when I heard "800 steps" I assumed, true to my complete lack of spacial awareness, that it probably wasn't that much different than St. Peter's. And hey, at least walking the stairs to the glacier wouldn't be like a claustrophobic fun house:

Climbing to the St. Peter's Cupola

Besides, here was the fitness/activity level information suggested by the brochure: Moderate fitness and agility is required. Involves steady, well-graded uphill walking for 45 minutes.

Now I'll be the first to admit I'm not in great shape. I don't do a lot of exercising. I could stand to lose some poundage. But still, to my ears, "moderate fitness" means, okay, I don't weigh 300 pounds, I'm not a grandma. (Though as it turned out there was a grandma on our hike and she was in way better shape than me.) But I'm 26. I'm young. I'm on the vacation of my life, and I'm certainly not going to let a little "uphill walking" stop me from the experience of climbing on a glacier. Sign me up! 800 stairs, what is that, like... well, whatever I can do it.

Off we go!


Start of the hike, and hey, we're actually going downhill. Thumbs up for that.


I didn't get many pictures while I was on the stairs, because I was more concerned with not dying/passing out/crying/being laughed at by fit Europeans, but here's one we snapped from nearer to the top.


And one of our awesome guide Cole looking, well, awesome.


There's one section that involves creeping around the edge of a bluff, at which point we were sternly instructed to put our cameras away because it was too dangerous. I did some Google Image searching and found this one that someone took despite the warnings:


Do you see that chain the guy is holding? You have to hold that while you climb the rocks because if you let go and you fall you're going over 100 meters straight down. To your death.

There were times I thought I was not going to make it. I was reciting scripture in my head about the weary renewing their strength and soaring like eagles! And Ben didn't let me give up and somehow by the grace of God I did it! It wasn't fun. But it was rewarding.

This is the face of someone who WORKED for it!

And our reward was walking on a glacier, which has got to go down as one of the ultimate experiences of my life.

Crampons, which are metal spikes you strap to your boots for ice-walking.

Looking down a moulin in the glacier surface where water trickles down to the river some 150 meters below.

So the moral of the story is... for about $100 more a person you can take a scenic helicopter ride and get dropped off on the top of the glacier and then hike around it and there are no stairs involved. I'm just saying.

Driving in Middle Earth

We opted to rent a car and drive our way through New Zealand. This is hands-down what I would recommend for anyone going on a trip here, especially for a first time. The country is compact, so most driving distances between major highlights are easily done in a few hours. Plus, as Ben accurately put it, the scenery you pass is a destination in itself. There was literally not one moment (except if it was dark out) that you couldn't be happy and usually awed just looking out at the countryside flying by. In fact we took a lot of our photos either out the window of the moving vehicle, or by pulling over every five minutes at some insanely gorgeous lookout.

Ben used Google Maps when we got back to calculate the total travel distance. Including the ferry ride between islands (which we technically didn't drive) and the trip out to Milford (which we didn't drive ourselves but rode with our kayaking group), we went over 3000 kilometers! This equates to about 1900 miles, or the distance from Los Angeles to St. Louis. Either way you put it, we covered a lot of ground! Here's our trip map:


View Larger Map

Though we had a blast in our cheap little rental cars, a word of warning! Driving in New Zealand is not for the faint of heart... and probably also not for the easily-carsick-ed.

First of all, though major cities Auckland and Wellington have short sections of multi-lane interstates (motorways, as they call 'em) surrounding the urban area, almost all other "major" roads are little more than a two-lane country road. In fact, go but a little further off the beaten path and you'll quickly find yourself on a gravel lane!

Glenorchy

Then there's the driving on the other side of the road (from the other side of the car). This is actually pretty easy on the open road. In towns it just means double checking each time you make a turn! The most annoying part was that the blinkers and windshield wipers were on reverse sides of the steering wheel! Probably every single time I went to make a turn I first turned on the wipers.

But more challenging than the opposite-side stuff is the fact that a LOT of New Zealand is mountainous. So sometimes you're driving on straight roads beside the mountains.

Near Punakaiki, facing the Southern Alps

But a lot of times you're driving on curvy roads through the mountains.

Coromandel Peninsula

Sometimes really REALLY curvy roads.

Road to Queenstown from Wanaka

Also, New Zealand is crazy about the one-lane bridge. They'll put 'em anywhere! And sometimes they are long!


When you encounter a one-way bridge, you get a helpful "give-way" sign. A red arrow means your direction has to wait for oncoming traffic to clear. A black arrow in your direction means you have the right-of-way... or maybe in this country it is the left-of-way?!


Don't forget that New Zealand (like everywhere else except here) is on the metric system. This means you drive in kilometers not miles! On city roads the speed limit is almost always 50, which translates to about 30 mph. On the open road, the speed limit is almost always 100, which translates to about 60 mph. But you try going 100 kph on hairpin turns around the side of the mountain. Actually, don't. It's impossible.

There's lots of road construction so be sure to follow those signs too... like this one, where apparently you can choose your own speed.


So there's some challenges to driving in New Zealand. But it really was an amazing way to see the country. And the very best part? Even a wrong turn ends in reward.

The end of a wrong turn, somewhere in the North Island

New Zealand

I've sat in front of this computer for about 15 minutes, just staring at the Blogger screen and trying to figure out how to sum up my trip. And the only conclusion I've come to is that it won't fit.

It wouldn't fit in our cameras (though we have 3000 photos as evidence that we tried) and it won't fit in my blog. New Zealand is, in comparison with the size of the world, such a small place, but it won't fit in here. The extraordinary creativity of God is bursting from the seams of the place, His glory revealed in lakes vast and mountains ancient, in the carving of a landscape by water, wind, glacier, volcano, earthquake, time. We were rendered spectacularly speechless around every turn.

So rather than try to come up with an eloquent and succinct summary that would end up being overwrought and insufficient, I'll just share some stories, and of course, some pictures! Let's start with this one.

This is a kauri tree. A teenager kauri tree, in terms relative to some that still exist in parts of the North Island. Some of the largest-growing and oldest-living trees in the world, the kauri were almost completely cleared from logging and fires in the 19th century. About 4% of the forests were spared and are now fiercely protected. In the far north, where we didn't have time to go, there is one giant specimen believed to be over 2100 years old: a tree from before the time of Christ. There are records of others, bigger and older, that existed before the massive deforestation, including one that explorers estimated at nearing 4000 years old. There are a few groves left in the Coromandel Peninsula, which we drove through, and thankfully this one and its twin behind it there were right by the road.

Also thankfully for all you fine readers, we'd been kayaking and Ben was still shirtless. Hands off, ladies. Hands off.

Lots more pics and stories to come!

I Should Probably Start Packing.

Just kidding, I've started. I mean, nothing is actually in a bag yet, but, you know, I thought about it. We've got a good 15 hours before we leave for the airport, and who would I be if I wasn't a raging procrastinator? So we'll get it together here soon.

Tomorrow I'll be on a plane to Los Angeles, and tomorrow night we'll be on the plane to Auckland. Toss in a little time travel and we'll be landing down in New Zealand on Tuesday morning. I am excited but at the same time I have that strange surreal feeling I get before any big trip or event, where it just won't seem like it is actually happening until we get on that plane! I am praying for safe travel and that this trip is just really awesome for Ben. He's worked so hard over the past year and so REALLY hard over the past few months that I just can't wait to unleash him on NZ and see him enjoying life.

Just pretend this is me and Ben.

We are going to be gone for two weeks (or as I like to count it, two episodes of LOST) and we'll be a bit off the radar in lots of the places we're headed. We will be trying to snag internet from time to time and hope to post some pics and updates from the road.

What do you mean they're missing two weeks of our show?! Don't they know this is the final season?!

Well let's be honest, those bags aren't going to pack themselves. I've done my stalling, and I'm getting on that plane tomorrow whether I'm ready or not. But since I'd prefer to have clean underwear and my glasses (what else does a girl need?) I'm off for now... see ya in a couple weeks kiddos!