New Zealand Trip Day 5- Dunedin (Albatross, Seals, Sea Lions, Penguins and of course Sheep)

After our fantastic day exploring the landscape and flora of Milford Sound we were off to discover the fauna of the East Coast. We drove 4 hours across the lower southern island to Dunedin. A medium sized collage town... it reminded Derick and I a lot of Columbia. And while out accommodations were adequate they were not fantastic so I wont give them a shout out... but the place we ate for lunch was AMAZING! We ate at a little place called the Governors Cafe... started by a collage drop out it became ridiculously successful and still is, it was hard finding a table at 1:30 in the afternoon! I had the special of the day mushrooms with toast (but it sounded fancier on the menu) and it was INCREDIBLE!!!! And of course like everything else in New Zealand the food was very fresh and it looked as if the menu changed with seasonal availability... sigh I love New Zealand.

ANYWAY so after lunch we went back to our place to get ready for our wildlife tour... Here is the thing I am not a big fan of other people planning stuff for me, thats why I do all the research and plan my own trips. And I don't like tours... BUT in this one instance I decided it would be a good idea because... there was so much wildlife to see and we only had one afternoon, alot of the good places to see penguins are on private property and the tours get permission to go & I didn't want to get trampled by a Sea Lion! So I emailed around asking for recommendations for the best tour... we were told by several locals to go with Elm Wildlife Tours. And I am really glad we did. Our guide was SUPER knowledgeable, he had a degree in zoology. This company is all about preserving the animals habitats, and has even been helping reestablish native plants in areas by the beaches to create more penguin habitat.

First stop was the Albatross Colony... not really my thing but they were HUGE... we only saw them flying and they look like a normal bird in photos... but they were massive. I would not have gone here if it wasn't on the tour... if you really like birds then sure... but I thought it was just okay.

Oh yeah, but the tour people did give us some pretty sweet binoculars... I was excited!

This is our second and final stop, on one half of this little peninsula there are New Zealand Fur Seals and on the other half there are Sea Lions and Penguins. We had to drive through like 5 peoples land to get out here and go through locked gates... Definitely could not have gotten here on our own... and they had some pretty sweet blinds built so we could view the animals without disturbing them... but the landscape reminded me of what I would imagine Scotland would look like... I LOVED IT

 There were about 20 people in our group but when we got here we broke into two groups (we had two guides) so we only had 10 people in one group so it didn't feel too crowded. These are New Zealand Fur Seals... they were SO CUTE... these first two are both about a year old and the last one is maybe two... cause I am an expert and seal age... no the guides told us!

Sheep... there are SO MANY SHEEP! This guy got stuck on the wrong side of the fence... and then a cliff right behind him... and when we walked by a second time... there was another sheep over there with him, both stuck... They are so stupid!

 This is a Sea Lion. They were SO SLEEPY! 

And on to my favorite PENGUINS!!! We saw a couple little blue penguins in their nests... but we could only really see feathers but then we saw alot of Yellow Eyed Penguins... Since these birds have no natural land predators... they live in the forest... so every evening they pop out of the ocean and climb the hills at the shore... and when I say climb I mean hop the hills... and go to their nest in the brush at the top! And they get hot while they are hopping and need to hold their wings out to their sided to cool off! Here is a penguin egg & one popping out of the ocean!

And going to start hopping!

Where else in the world can you see penguins and sheep hanging out?

New Zealand Trip Day 4- Fiordlands & Milford Sound

On our next day we spent the whole day driving to Milford Sound (here is a really helpful site)... which actually means we spent the whole day... Hiking, chasing alpine parrots, playing, and being awed and the ridiculous scenery! This was definitely one of the best drives of the trip! We left a little later in the day, maybe 10, maybe 11... to miss all the tour busses driving in from Queenstown... and sure enough as we were headed in we passed tour after tour after tour of busses leaving... and even one dude that got left by his bus : ( 

I think spring is the perfect time to go to New Zealand! The tourists are not very bad, we had most places in the country almost completely to ourselves! The weather is GORGEOUS! Sure jackets at night, and a few days were kinda cold... but it was awesome! AND there was still snow on the mountains... which just made everything look more epic!

 This is a Kea...he is a crazy alpine parrot known for his curiosity and intelligence...  you are not supposed to feed the Kea...  he tried to go in our car to eat my sandwich... RUDE... I have even heard storys are these dude eating the weather stripping on windows of cars to try to get in. They look cute at cuddly but they are like a foot and a half tall (19in) and run at your face when taking pictures! I love them! AND they have orange feathers under their wings...

This is as some random rapids we found on the way... there was swinging bridge that Kim took my Yoga pose picture from. The color of the water was awesome!

 This is a giant waterfall that we hiked to... well this is the closest we got... anyways its called Humbolt Falls

 And like always... I love grass

This is actually in Milford Sound... The tide was out to we were able to walk a little ways out into the sound.

This is at the Homer Tunnel Nature Track... We went for a short hike here... or shall I say TRAMP, they call hiking tramping, so we would always get questions like "have you done any tramps"... um yes please... where are they?

This is Mirror lakes, one of the first things we did during the day... but it was too windy so we stopped by on our way back out.. and sure enough it was WAY MORE MIRRORY! YAY

We ate dinner at the Redcliff... the restaurant that the cast of LOTR hung out at when filming in the area... and I know why... the food was AMAZING! I think the best we had the whole trip... you can tell by how we ate EVERYTHING!!! I love Kim's face in this photo!

Another traveling to New Zealand helpful tip... it took us dining out three times for someone to finally tell us how to really pay for the food, everyone was too nice to tell us we were doing it wrong. Every single place we ate you leave your table when ever you want and go to the cash register, alot of times at the bar to pay, they already have your ticket and they can almost always just split the bill at the register... oh and always call it a bill not a ticket... they will look at you like your as dumb as a sheep... like my sheep joke! 

Thanksgiving Menu

I have spent all morning deciding what delicious things to eat for Thanksgiving... the best part is that we did Thanksgiving shopping yesterday... So now I have to find things to go with the food that we already bought! Yep thats how I roll...  

so after much flipping of the Martha Stuart Pages 

This is my menu... 

Dry Brined Roasted Turkey (stuffed with apples & onions)

White Wine Reduction Gravy

Cream Cheese Mashed Potatoes

Cornbread, Bacon & Leek Stuffing

Baked Artichoke Hearts

Fresh Cranberry Sauce

Deviled Eggs

Spicy Sautéed Green Beans

Apple Pie

Pumpkin Pie with Fresh Whipped Cream

Right now I am making turkey stock out of the neck and giblets of my freakishly large turkey... I feel really bad eating this obviously massed produced bird and when I move back to the states vow to raise my own or eat wild turkey. And just finished making my cranberry sauce that will hold fine in the fridge till Thursday. Tomorrow I start the dry brine on the freak bird and make the pumpkin pie, Wednesday I make the apple pie... and everything else on Thursday...

 ITS GOING TO BE SOOO GOOD!!!

And Derick and I both have off work on Friday! BOOYAH! Now all we need is a fire place to cuddle in front of and sleep off our food coma!

New Zealand Trip Day 3: Bungy Jump

Bright and early the next morning Derick and I walked downtown to the bungy jump headquarters. I did was doing my jump on the Nevis Bungy... which is a 134 meter 8.5 second free fall... that is over 400 feet. They bussed us up to this canyon where the jump was located... I WAS FREAKING OUT!!!

Here is where the magic happens... they take you out to the platform in the middle of the canyon that you jump off of... 

  
This is out on the platform looking down... Still freaking out!

 

In the chair getting the bungy strapped to my harness and legs... SUPER FREAKING OUT! I was really afraid that when it came down to it I wouldn't jump and just be a big pansy!

I told the dude... just tell me when I get to the edge of the ledge cause I don't want to look down... but he just kept saying... scoot forward... keep going... keep going... AND THEN I LOOKED... oh my gosh I almost died... getting all the way out on the ledge was the hardest part!

 And then everyone counted down 3, 2, 1, JUMP and I just jumped... I didn't even have to think about it... jumping was the easiest part... but I really wanted to look epic doing it so I made sure I did it right... 

 

With a super awesome swan dive!

And I just fell like that... parallel to the ground... almost the whole way down... felt like I was flying! I had so much fun while falling... except that I couldn't breathe!

It was a long way down!

After we got back from Bungy Jumping we met the Wentzels ate super delish burgers at Ferdburger... and  drove to the "Gateway to the Fiordlands" Te Anau. We stayed at a cabin out of town called Glacial Rock. Our kitchen was stocked with fresh Milk from their dairy cow and eggs from their free range chickens! AMAZING! and the views!!! This is me on the back porch of our cabin!

Right out our back door... 

After we settled into our cabin we explored the town a little bit... watched a film called "Ata Whenua: Shadow Land" at the tiny local movie theater: Fiordland Cinema. It was a gorgeous short film of Fiordlands World Heritage Wilderness that few get to see set to music. It was "filmed across extremes of season, climate & terrain" so we got a really good idea of what this amazing place was like all year around in places normally unreachable by humans! To see the trailer click here!

After the movie we went back to the cabin and cooked a delicious dinner of venison, lamb & beef local from the butcher in town, and fresh vegetables from the market! AMAZING!

New Zealand Trip Day 2- Queenstown Gondola & Luge

So the next day we flew from Tokyo into Auckland, and then took a domestic hop down to Queenstown... our plan was to start at the bottom of the country and drive all the way back up to the top! So we picked up our rental car and made our way to our first Hotel. We stayed at the Rydges Hotel & Resort, the same hotel that the Lord of the Rings Crew stayed at while in the area. The hotel was situated on the shores of Lake Wakapitu with maybe a 7 min walk to the town center. We got upgraded to lakefront rooms when we arrived so we had a sweet view of the lake and the town.  

View from our room during the day!

View at night!

Right after we got into town we headed up to the Skyline Gondola on Bob's Peak. The views were amazing! This is looking down on Lake Wakatipu and the Remarkables Mountain Range.

 From the top of the gondola we headed to the luge track. We had to take another smaller lift to the top of the luge and then of course luge back down... we went twice... since I heard once was never enough... 

This is looking at the luge track, there is a beginner and advanced course... everyone had to do the beginner first, I was a little disappointed looking at the track cause it looked so easy... but is ended up being SO fun, you go SO fast, I almost died a couple times... Derick and James had alot of fun racing!

After the Luging and Gondola, we walked around town and ate dinner at a Mexican restaurant, we then were off to bed tired from traveling all day and I had to get my rest before 

BUNGY JUMPING the next day!

New Zealand Trip Day 1- Tokyo

We were flying out of Tokyo for our trip to New Zealand but Derick had some stuff to take care of in Tokyo so we ended up going down a day early and had some extra time to hang out! We stayed at the New Sanno Hotel  a hotel for military members that offers super good rates in the heart of the city. While we were there we went to the Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden, a  garden that was created as an imperial garden in 1906! 

Not only was the garden beautiful they were also have thier annual fall chrysanthemum exhibition... what they can do with these chrysanthemums is crazy!

Ozukuri (thousand bloom) Bed

 They create this massive dome shaped chrysanthemum plant by a unique technique of pinching and training.  You can tell how but these are cause that is Derick standing by the plant in the background.

Kengai (cascade) Bed

This is a training technique where they try to make small flowered chrysanthemums to look like wild  chrysanthemums flowering on a cliff.

Ichimonji (imperial crest) and Kudamono-giku (spider) Bed

These things were as big as my face... and super perfect. 

Ogiku (large-flowered) Bed

These were definitely as big as my face... look at one compared to this old Japanese man taking a picture with his phone! 

fall... sigh...

I love fall, so does Derick. We did not want to miss all the fall leaves since we are leaving TODAY for New Zealand, so yesterday we went out with our friends the Nation's to see the leaves in Oirase Gorge... it was SO worth it!