A view of the Remarkables, Queenstown’s surrounding mountain range

Our week-long exploration of New Zealand’s South Island started well enough. When you rent a car from Hertz with the intention of driving through both islands they don’t want you taking the car on the ferry, and we didn’t want the expense of taking the car on the ferry. Instead you drop off the car in at the ferry terminal in Wellington (without formally returning it), and then just pick up a new one in Picton when you get off the boat. Simple as that.

We got on the ferry and the ride was beautiful. It takes about three hours to traverse the Cook Strait and then travel down Queen Charlotte Sound through what felt like fjords or Alaska’s Inside Passage. Calm, relaxing, beautiful, with quiet spaces available to read … pretty much a perfect journey.

Most of my pictures from crossing the Cook Strait and sailing down Queen Charlotte Sound got erased in a “new phone” mishap. This was the sole survivor, which doesn’t do justice to the beauty of the passage.

The hell started when we got to Picton. There was quite a line at the Hertz office and by the time we got to an agent she said “You don’t have a reservation and we don’t have any more cars.” The “no more cars” was believable; the recent earthquake on the South Island had stranded a lot of cars and everyone was having a problem with supply. But we had a reservation, we were sure of that. If they didn’t have a car they would have called us to say “Don’t come down here!” And they were giving cars to others with reservations. We called the Hertz support line and they were sure we had a reservation. The people in Picton didn’t think so, though, and they weren’t giving us a car.

No one else had cars either. You know, that earthquake thing. A delightful woman at a neighboring, local car rental place (Ace, if you’re ever in New Zealand) tried to help us, including calling around to all the other options, but she came up empty handed too. It was looking grim; we were starting to research hotels in Picton until they could find us a car. Eventually, though, after an hour or two of anxiety, she came through and not only found a car but – importantly – found one with a trunk big enough for all our luggage. Finally we were off to see the South Island. Thank you lovely lady of Ace!

First on the agenda was two nights in Nelson, a two-hour drive west from Picton. The drive introduced us to the millions and millions of bright yellow broom plants that cover the South Island’s roadsides this time of year. Not only was the ubiquity of broom plants a subtle reminder of British history (the plant was the emblem of a certain French family of Anjou who thus became known by it’s Latin name, plants genista, or the Plantagenets; they ruled England for 350 years starting with Henry II in the early 12th century), but they brightened up everything along the road. Nelson itself was a cute town with a small pedestrian mall area that seemed to have a great little night-time buzz, definitely a place one could hang out in for a while.

The great weather in Nelson made hiking measurably better than it had been on the North Island. Here we are on the Abel Tasman Coast Track, one of New Zealand’s greatest Great Walk.

A big advantage for starting in Nelson was that the weather was supposed to be good there and miserable in the rest of the South Island. And indeed, the weather was fabulous, perfect for a day-hike we did in Abel Tasman National Park. The Coast Track is a famous three- to five-day hike all along (surprise!) the coast of the Tasman Sea, often described as the most beautiful of New Zealand’s Great Walks, extremely well-marked and easy to follow. As we’re not big on backpacking or sleeping in huts – or at least one of us isn’t… – we just hiked the first 10 kilometers out and then turned around and came back. It was a beautiful hike tramp with glorious views of the sea and kayakers and remote beaches, even occasional forays deeper into the woods. At the start there were lots of other people, mostly also on day-hikes, but after a few kilometers we encountered others only much more infrequently. After the hell of our Alpine hike on the North Island, this seemed like heaven.

Views like this were pretty common

From Nelson it was a long six-hour drive southwest to Franz Joseph Glacier, a little town right next to – you guessed it – Franz Joseph Glacier. It’s supposed to be one of New Zealand’s prime attractions, but you couldn’t prove it by us. We got in too late to see it the one night we were spending in the village, and the next morning, when we planned to see the glacier on our way out of town, the weather was cold and rainy. It’s a 40-minute hike from the car park to the glacier and no one felt like taking that on in the rain. Somehow sitting in cold, wet clothes for the remaining four-plus hour drive didn’t seem that attractive. So except for a pleasant early morning run – before it started raining – Franz Joseph was kind of a bust. Kind of like the Emperor after which it was named who ruled over the demise of the Hapsburg Empire.

Our penultimate stop was in Queenstown, the self-proclaimed “Global Adventure Capital.” Nestled into the remarkably beautiful Remarkables (an aptly named mountain range) and alongside Lake Wakatipu, New Zealand’s third-largest lake, you’ll never be bored in Queenstown. Hiking, biking, and zip-lining are only the start. It’s a bungee-jumping center, with mountain bikers careening down steep mountains and parasailing and God only knows what other delights. For the most part, we stuck with the hiking, primarily a great 13-mile jaunt where Mark’s parents drove us out to some golf course along the lake and we hiked a nice trail back into the city. The day before I’d hiked up to a big peak overlooking Queenstown – most people take the gondola up there – but I lost all my pictures during a new-phone booboo so that one doesn’t really count. (Strangely I lost a bunch of pictures of the ferry ride to South Island all the way through Queenstown, but I recovered pictures from the North Island that I thought I’d lost. I’ve added them to the post on the North Island so if you’re looking for pictures of Mark in his bright and happy yellow raincoat, now they’re there!)

Along the hike back to Queenstown where we encountered more of the happily blooming broom plants

That hike took us through fields used more by cattle and sheep than people, so this technologically appropriate passage over the fence worked great

Finally, it was back to Auckland for two more nights. We took Mark’s parents to Soul, the great bar-restaurant that Mark and I had enjoyed on our earlier stops, and they liked it too. And then on our last night, Mark & I actually had friends visiting from Boston. John and Shayna were on their honeymoon, 11 months after their wedding in Boston. John is the CTO for our company, a guy who started as an intern and about whom, after his first week, we knew would some day run the company. So we had a chance to catch up on some of what was going on back at the office and commiserate over the awful, truly depressing state of American politics today. It was too short a visit with great friends, but it was the only day we had so it had to do.

Shayna, Mark, and John Lee, great friends from Boston

And that was New Zealand. The next morning we were off to Cairns, Australia, Mark’s parents were headed back to Michigan, and John & Shayna were off to Japan. Two weeks wasn’t nearly long enough for New Zealand so we’ll have to come back the next time we’re ready for a little South Pacific island hopping.

Me with Mark’s parents on our last day in New Zealand

It’s spring in New Zealand and everything is blooming

On the Abel Tasman Coast Track

A pretty easy trail to follow, eh?

That’s Adele Island out there. I can’t believe that only a few years after her first album they’re naming New Zealand islands after her.

Lots of kayakers plying the calm waters of the Tasman Sea

Mark’s parents on a break during the drive to Queenstown

Mark & his Mom

Hiking to Queenstown

It was always threatening to rain on the hike into Queenstown, but Mark’s happy yellow raincoat made it seem bright

Lake Wakatipu and the Remarkables make a beautiful background for Queenstown and some great hiking

One last shot of Queenstown from across Frankton Arm, a section of the lake that makes the walk to Queenstown deceptively long. That hill behind the city is the one I climbed the day before, taking great pictures, before losing them all because of a dumb mistake. Sad.

And finally, me and Mark with John Lee, work colleagues and then friends for a number of years now

Mark and Jim, high above Auckland on Mt. Eden on our Coast to Coast Walk

The plan was pretty simple: after Tonga we wanted to go to New Caledonia. The problem is that we discovered when we started researching travel in the area that to a surprising degree to travel around the islands of the South Pacific you have to fly in and out of New Zealand. OK, that’s not a big problem, we would go to Auckland for a few days, fly to New Caledonia the day before the election, and spend a few hours late morning and early afternoon on what would be Wednesday there watching Hillary put the election away. I would write a blog about Auckland, we would enjoy the beaches, and go on with life.

You’ve probably heard it didn’t work out that way, which explains the long delay in writing about Auckland. We’ve both been just too damned depressed to do this, or almost anything else, either. We just can’t believe that a racist, bigoted, hate-filled campaign from someone who knows nothing about policy and cares even less could win. We’ve both been involved in winning campaigns and losing campaigns, but this is different; it’s as though the country we thought we knew just isn’t there. We’re trying to get on with life, though, so let me put down a few thoughts about Auckland.

The view from Mt. Eden on a hike across Auckland, including a pretty obvious crater

The big news is that for both of us, New Zealand is our 97th country (not the same 97 for each of us, but we’ve each been to 97 countries; and, if you’re wondering, it’s the 59th country since starting this adventure in 2013). Since the U.N. recognizes 193 countries, if you do the math … we’ve now been in over half the countries in the world. Finally! In some ways, the big surprise is that for all that we have traveled – my time in the Navy, Mark’s college backpacking experiences, our pre-retirement travels, and now this adventure – we’ve only just now passed the half-way mark. The big holes now are in Africa, the Middle East, and even here in Oceania; there are still nine countries in the South Pacific we haven’t been to. In other words we still have a long way to go.

Mark and his colorful rain jacket in Cornwall Park

Our four days in Auckland were a treat, less because of Auckland itself than that we were finally, after seven or eight weeks, in a big western city with pharmacies and restaurants and bars and nightlife. Don’t get me wrong, we love being in remote places but after a while getting into a city – they have martinis in Auckland! – can be exciting.

A street scene in Auckland with the Sky Tower – the tallest man-made structure in the Southern Hemisphere – in the background

A night at Soul, a classy bar/restaurant with fabulous Vespers and this great raw fish dish

Mark and his old college friend Julie (you can tell it’s Julie because of her name tag…)

Our hotel had a washer and dryer in our room but – unlike most places we stay – it did not include breakfast. Then we discovered a Denny’s just a couple blocks away. Not elegant, but very functional.

• The big excursion was Auckland’s Coast to Coast Walk, a 10-mile hike that takes you across a very narrow point in the North Island. It’s all urban, but much of it is through great parks, up and over old volcanoes, and up One Tree Hill, a key landmark in Auckland. The parks were often beautiful and we loved sharing our walk with the many sheep there; it felt very New Zealand. We were really surprised, though, at how poorly marked the trail was. If there is one thing New Zealand is supposed to have down it’s their famous hiking trails, but had we not downloaded a copy of the route we never would have made it.

• I spent a couple hours at the Auckland Museum, half of which is a war museum and the other dedicated to Maori culture. It wasn’t earth shattering or anything, but both parts were good museums. The one thing I learned that surprised me was that human settlement in New Zealand had nothing to do with humans in Australia. Australia was settled 50,000 years ago, during the last Ice Age, when sea levels were much lower and people could walk to Australia from South Asia. Then just 5,000 years ago people from Southeast Asia started to move into the South Pacific and just 800 years ago, they got to what is today New Zealand. Who knew?

• We run into the strangest people on these travels. A few months ago Mark saw on Facebook that Julie, an old college classmate who he hasn’t seen in 30 years, was going to be in Auckland on a tour the same time we were going to be there. She was all scheduled up, but we still managed to have lunch with her and the friend she’s traveling with. She was a lot of fun so now we have to figure out some other place to meet up with her.

• And then there are the little things. Dinner at an Irish Pub with fun live music. A washer and dryer in our hotel, the Sebel, a glorious first on this adventure. And a Croatian bartender who makes a great Vesper, the original James Bond martini.

Then it was off to New Caledonia and what was supposed to be a short night (day for us) watching election returns. We’re coming back to Auckland, though, twice more. We’re meeting Mark’s parents there after our week in New Caledonia to travel around New Zealand with them for two weeks, and then spending one last night there before flying on to Australia, hopefully with great friends from Boston who will be passing through as well. Such excitement!

Our Coast to Coast hike day was rainy, sunny, hot, windy, cold … a little bit of everything. And while much of it was in the city, it crossed through some beautiful parks.

One Tree Hill in Cornwall Park with a big obelisk marking … something

Cornwall Park is a huge green space in Auckland. And just to make sure you feel as though you’re really in New Zealand there are sheep grazing all over.

It’s not uncommon to see Asians wearing shirts with slogans in English that don’t really make a lot of sense. We loved this woman’s sweater up on Mt. Eden: “Let’s Shopping O’Clock.” We’re guessing that’s a bad translation of “It’s Shopping Time,” but either way it’s pretty funny.

A map from the Auckland Museum showing the migration patterns for populating the South Pacific. Interesting that Australia – and Papua New Guinea just north of there – were settled some 45,000 years before Southeast Asian natives took to the seas to settle all these islands. And that New Zealand was very late in that process, settled only 800 years ago.

Then there was this copy of a statue that we saw last summer in Rome, the Dying Gaul. I loved the statue in Rome, but there was no explanation why the copy was here, in a museum about Maori culture.

And speaking of Maori culture, there was a lot of this kind of stuff in the museum

More Mark and Jim

We often see tourists doing this sort of thing. Apparently it takes practice to get it right.