A quick update

Just in Nelson trying to figure out how to book some stuff for our next track. We are in great sunny weather, starting to sweat. Did some fishing the past two days, ben "caught" a huge brown trout but wasn't able to land it. It was very exciting though.

We are heading back into the bush tomorrow. Should be beautiful, perhaps dolphins and lots of water, rivers to ford and an opportunity for swimming!

Saw two of the glaciers here. that was incredible. they looked like raging rivers magicked to be frozen. Very cool and up close to them like having the air conditioning on outside. We had an awesome beach front campsite on the Tasman sea, the snow capped mountains and glacier's providing an awesome backdrop for the night. The sunset was great and we took lots of black and whites on the beach. Ate a great meal and slept well.

Last night we were on a lake that was incredible, but incredibly infested with sandflies! Luckily we ate early and then found shelter in our tent. We woke up with them swarming all over the tent and got the hell out of there as fast as we could!

We are off to book things.

A lazy morning

We have worked our way south and our now heading back north. Saw sea lions and yellow eyed penguins on the south coast along with beautiful beached. were in Dunedin and saw the royal albatross and seals playing in the water. Are finally getting into some farm country and seeing road side stands and signs for farmers markets. Visited a sheep/wool farm, oh the yarns. I am planning on knitting myself a sweater out of the natural wools I found here. They are cheap! and beautiful and I am thrilled to have found some wool.

We have some fishing to do today, should please ben, still haven't caught a fish, but had a bite!

The weather is warmer in the south opposed to the mountains, but we will be in the mountains tonight, so back to long johns. Had a great bed last night and a shower, those are good to.

We were in Milford s0und three days ago, took a boat ride on an overcast perfect milford sound day, got to venture out to the tasman sea. It was beautiful. So much water! Seals as well, rocks and just more water. They get an average of 7 meters of water per year! That is a lot of rain, you could just see all of the water pouring out of any mountain crevice it could make it into, lots of falls.

We are trying to find a money exchange to pay for our accomadations last night, ben has left me at the hostel as collateral! They have free internet. Haven't posted due to the fact that it was $1 for 8 minutes and you really can't do much with 8 minutes on a slow computer.

Having the rental car now is fabulous, we can be on our own timetable and it is cheaper than taking the bus for one let alone both of us. Petrol is pricey, but we heard that the new zealand dollar dropped relative to our money, so we are hoping to get a better exchange at the next big bank. things are expensive here, but we are making due. Accomadations are cheap, they have camping sites everywhere and Holiday parks- which you can camp, hook up a motor home or stay in a cabin, regardless you get a shower, we try to stay there every other or third day.

Going out to enjoy the gardens. Hope Ben can get some money in this small town!

Kate

Update Finally: Kepler Track

So we emerged from the bush last Sunday from the Kepler track. It was amazing, challenging, beautiful and kicked our asses at times. Being above the bushline was such a dramatic change. It was incredible. We enjoyed a day in the alpine before an incredibly hard descent that sent our knees into incredible amounts of pain. On the first day of our tramp we only hiked for about 4 hours, and the second day was 10 hours of hiking, with plenty of stops, but we ascended and descended in the same day with heavy packs. We are in good shape now! Day 3 was gorgeous, winding through the valley of the peak we reached, some great forests, and wetlands. This country really has it all. The campsite on the third day was amazing, right on the beach again. There was a hut there, but a family that came in by boat was using it.

we got back to town and slept well on a mattress which was wonderful. Slept great and recovered from our aches.

We're in Love

New Zealand is the most amazing place, with the most amazing air and we havn't see anything. The people are great and the hostel is amazing. We have a great big window with lots of fresh air coming in. It is perfect for a honeymoon.

We went out for Indian last night after our 3 hour flight turned into 6 hours on the plane with computer problems and fixes. Sooo glad that we sat on the plane for that repair!

Today we have been prepping for backpacking, getting food- we found an awesome asian market with dried tofu and vegetarian lamb products as well as couscous and udon noodles, oh and coconut milk in cardboard containers and curry paste, so ben is cooking up gourmet on the track.

Not too much new.

Going to grill up some New Zealand grass fed, organic beef and lamb tonight! Hooray!

Not so much to report on this actual day. wE went to the Sydney fish market and ben cooked us up a feast as I did a round of laundry and we are preparing to depart for New Zealand HOORAY!!

I posted all the days below so don't forget to scroll.

Hopefully I will post from New Zealand soon.

Love you all.
Kate

The Blue mountains

So Friday found us taking the early early train out to Katoomba, a starting point for the many beautiful views of the blue mountians. WE were lucky that we brought our rain jackets as we saw a lot of that and fog. It was an amazing 6 hour hike in the rain forest, through rain (which kept the mozzies away!) and such a thick fog that at times I felt like I was floating amoung clouds. These pics are of what we hiked past and saw in pieces through the fog.

We went up and down over 3000 stairs and feeling really in shape for new zealand.

I had quite a time, drying all of my clothing in the visitors center bathroom. Fun, standing with my rain coat covering me with the drier on for a long time.

We got coffee at a great little joint and had a wonderful day.

Beach Bummin

Thursday we spent bumming on beaches, after a let down visit to a market. We saw lots of surfing action on the overcast day and tramped around to two other beaches north of the ever so Manly beach. It was an awesome day. Lots of rock scrambling, ben saw a baby shark and we investigated tide pools. Oh and saw a sea turtle on the way in off the ferry. Had great fish and chips! Got some sun and loved being in the water. It was beautiful. The ariel shows the beaches north that we went to.

Reason why australia is so cool: Every where there is public access. We were walking atop apartments the other day as that was a public walk way and on this day the coolest thing were the public pools, filled with ocean water on the side of all the beaches, very cool.

We dashed over to Bondi beach (the hot spot in Sydney) for a sunset wine and cheese dinner. It was fabulous.

Ku Ring Gai

So we spent Wednesday at this park. A very hot walk, but not as grossly sweaty as we had suspected. I think this is what a dry heat means. The views were great the terrain tough but we made it. Saw tons of lizzards, cool birds, snakes and sorts. This isn't my pictures, but the view on our hike. Oh and we saw lots of crabs and the coolest Euculyptus trees. They are amazing (the trees) with blood red sap, I honestly thought that an animal had died on one.

We were hoping to see some aboriginal art, but weren't at the right part of the park.

We're here

Sorry I didn't post yesterday, we actually weren't jet lagged and made it a full day in Sydney. Saw the typical sights and started to enjoy the most amazing botanical garden!

The flight was long, but not too bad. The worst part of the trip was the wait in Vancouver, we had a bit of a run around and ended up having to go back through US customs, even though we had just arrived from the US and then they confiscated the last of my tangelos from the coop! Bastards! Anyway we got to do a little nature walk outside the vancouver airport, squished some winter green berries between our fingers and then didn't enjoy the canadian side of the airport long enough before going to the american side--which sucks! Made it to Honolulu, again got to enjoy their outdoor gardens, palm trees, fern trees an almost full moon... it was lovely. The fresh air before the smokers started in on it.

Slept the flight to Sydney, got here and immediately started sweating. Made it to the hostel easy and showered. Okay hostel, nothing remarkable. We are here for 4 more nights. We saw the opera house (didn't tour it), russell crowe's house (i really don't care or like him though, but the hostel dude thought he should let us know where it was and we walked right by it), the coolest ficus trees ever. They are huge and beautiful! Oh and fox bats that are really scary and actually problematic in the botanical gardens. We saw a dead one hanging from a tree, mouth open and scary teeth!

We are taking a train to one of the parks on the outskirts of Sydney today, should be fun!

Hope you are all enjoying the cold, while I am sweating!

Kate

Australia Here We Come

So we deapart early tomorrow morning. Hopefully we will be able to handle the fricking incredibly long flight that is up in front of us. We fly from Bloomington to Chicago, an 8 hour jaunt in Vancouver, 1 hour in Honolulu before making our final flight to Sydney! Hooray! I am so excited and can't wait to be there. Hopefully there is a good movie on the plane, because I know that I am going to watch it, and I wouldn't want to waste that sleep time on crap.

Enjoy the rest of winter! I won't be crying for cold gray Illinois days while I am watching surfers on the sunny pacific ocean. I will be posting from our hostel.

Later,
kate

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!

So the nature center is closed this week for cleaning. Meaning a great week of “working from home.” I am doing surprisingly well preparing for our 5 weeks away and hope to leave my job in top shape so that my co-workers won’t have to work too hard covering for me.

It is so exciting to think that I will be in Sydney this time next week and New Zealand the week after that. We are going to most likely rent a car although if we find a cheap one at the airport from a traveler heading home, we may go for it. We have some great tramps picked out, I have conceded on seeing where the Tasman Sea and the Pacific Ocean meet due to time and heading all the way north on the island will take about 5 days, stopping along the way, doing the 3 day backpacking trip, so instead we can climb a glacier and kayak in the sounds on the northern tip of the southern island.

Enjoyed our 4-month anniversary wine. The stash had a red wine and a Wisconsin Port. The 27th of December was forgotten as our 4 monther and we held onto the bottles for the new year. Now we have a dilemma- do we wait until we get back for the January 27th bottles or can we drink up early? Hard call, I may need some wine to get me through ben’s travel stresses.

Alright, I am done pretending to work at the office today, I just cleaned up the worst stinking snake poop thanks to floyd and scared one of our owls off her perch, plus she’s the one with only one wing, so she can’t fly, but I suppose she forgot, she attempted and fell on the ground… shame.

Oh and Cathy found out she is having a baby girl! Sonogram this morning we get to celebrate at stitch and bitch tonight! My last one for 5 weeks.

For New Zealand posts refer to campwedding.blogspot.com