Honeymoon in New Zealand!

"WELCOME TO NEW ZEALAND!"

Six short months after tying the knot, we set out on our biggest adventure yet: a 2 week campervan tour of far away New Zealand.  Armed with little more than a reservation for said campervan, sneakers, and two weeks worth of underwear, we set off from San Francisco on November 23rd and finally touched down two flights and 16 hours later in Queenstown... on the 25th!  Things were already very peculiar in this new land...

Our first stop was a flight recovery center hotel on the shores of Lake Wakatipu, just a few kilometers down the road from downtown Queenstown. This was our view from our hotel room... not too shabby.

The rain was pretty persistent our first day, but after browsing about 100 different brochures, we decided on an exciting trip up the incredibly steep gondola in Queenstown. We were rewarded with this spectacular view.

On our second day, the sun finally graced us with its presence. Here we are in the hills above Queenstown.  Airport at right, town directly behind us.  It's windy and cold!

Our First big adventure was a guided 4x4 "Lord of the Rings Tour" which took us to multiple locations where the movie was shot around Queenstown.  The highlight of this trip was the amazing "Skipper's Canyon Road" drive.  Two-way, one-lane road with a rather large drop off on one side. 

After recovering from our flight for a few days in Queenstown, it was time to start our adventure.  This is Jucy, our trusty modified Toyota Mini-van complete with fold-out bed, mini-fridge, pump sink, and burner.  How nervous does Perry look to be driving this thing on the left?

First Stop: Te Anau and the amazing glowworm caves.  Unfortunately, glowworms don't like anything but perfect darkness, so we don't have pictures of our spelunking adventure.  However, the boat ride there from downtown was spectacular.

Did we mention that we got married recently?

Ariele was only kinda freaking out.

After all that glow worm excitement, we made our way to our first campsite (run by the NZ Department Of Conservation).  After paying our honor system $12 fee, parking, and cooking our fish dinner we walked out onto the shores of the beach to drink some good New Zealand wine and watch the sun set.

Our 100 kilometer morning trip to Milford Sound was the most beautiful drive either of us has ever been on.  There were sights like these every couple of kilometers.

A lovely glacial valley with the rising sun streaming over clouds and white-capped mountains.

Another DOC campsite bordering lake Te Anau.  Waking up to this view doesn't suck...

A small turn off called "Mirror Lakes" lived up to its name completely.

And Finally, Milford Sound.  Rudyard Kipling called it the 8th wonder of the world, and we pretty much agree with that.  We were in awe of the very tall, very steep mountains rising out of the clear, green/turquoise/aqua ocean water.

AND THEN WE NOTICED DOLPHINS!!!  Big, beautiful dolphins (5-6 of them at one point) swimming along in front of our boat as we cruised across the water.  They were jumping and spinning and looking up at us as we feverishly snapped pictures of them for what felt like forever, but was actually probably closer to 8 minutes.

We also spotted seals....and penguins...and waterfalls all around us.  The whole setting felt like the happiest place in nature.  We really lucked out to have such a beautiful and animal-filled day there.

Driving back out from Milford we ran into a Kea bird who hopped on to the roof of our camper after Perry jumped out to take his picture!  Following a brief conversation with Ariele, the bird started eating the lining of drivers' side door.  Good thing we bought insurance.

After re-tracing our steps through Te Anau and Queenstown, we made our way to Lake Wanaka on the highest paved road in all of NZ, but not before snapping off more pictures of the incredible scenery!

Luckily, we found a campsite for the night on the shores of Lake Wanaka, so we took advantage of our location and went on a little hike along an outlet river.  Beauty ensued.

After fairly good luck with the weather, our fortunes turned damp once we left Wanaka.  It rained almost constantly on our drive to the glaciers on the west coast.  Once we got there, the rain let up enough for us to make the 5 kilometer hike to Franz Joseph glacier. Can you see it nestled there between those two steep mountains?

We were rewarded for braving the rain with waterfalls all around...

This is as close as you can get now.  Don't want any melting ice falling on anyone's head and ruining their honeymoon!

After fleeing the rain and the glaciers, we finally found ourselves on the west coast.  With nothing but the stormy sea to our left we drove up the coast until we hit Punakaiki and its famed Pancake rock formations.  Their origin is a mystery to this day (got any ideas?).

After a long day of it, we sat ourselves down on the beach (with the pancake rocks off in the distance on our left) and watched the sun set while enjoying cheese, crackers and a bottle of wine.

Side Note: Did we mention we were a long way from New York City?  This sign by a seal colony on the west coast gave us a little reminder.

The next day we arrived in Abel Tasman and found an amazing campsite right by the ocean called "The Barn."  Perry made friends with a horse and fed him an apple.  It was sunset and we had plans for kayaking in the morning, so we hit the hay...

AND KAYAK WE DID!

With a couple of very friendly seals!  This guy popped up right next to our group of kayaks and swam around with us for about 15 minutes. It was pretty sweet, to say the least.

We stopped for lunch on this beautiful empty beach cove.  The water looks tropical, but it is totally freezing cold. Perry can attest to that fact, unfortunately. :)

Kiwi Challenge: Can you spot the baby seal?

With a heavy heart we left the South Island behind and traveled across Cook straight to Wellington and the North Island from Picton.  The boat we were on was carrying passengers, cars and cattle.  Here is Perry trying to find a well ventilated place to avoid the side effects of the latter.

The first sight we saw driving out of wellington was Karahana Bay.  There was no telling the difference between the ocean and the sky. Seriously, is there a horizon there?

The North Island is less mountainous but more volcanoe-y, at least in the areas we visited.  Here is Ariele just below the summit of Mount Ruapehu.  This mountain houses a ski area, a bunch of hikes, and many different filming locations for the Lord of The Rings.

A little ways down the Mountain we stopped off to take a short hike to a beautiful waterfall.  Ariele gazed at it in wonder...

.. and took this picture of a smaller mossy waterfall..

Orakei Korako Thermal area houses the largest geyser field in New Zealand, with over 250 Geysers and hot springs littered around the 1/2 mile hike.  To get there you have to take a little boat across this small lake.

Don't step off the path Ariele!

That's much better...  Behind Ariele is a 15 foot fault covered in silica.  A thin layer of water flows over the surface of the silica at a rate of 20 million liters per day!  In person, it looks like a slow trickle...

Perry tries to find a good angle to capture the beauty...

Amazingly, just down the path from the crazy geysers and barren silica landscape, this little forest awaits to enchant you...

This bubbling hot spring was empty for many years before randomly filling with hot bubbly water one day a few years ago... who the heck knows whats going on under the ground here?

When Perry was pitching ideas for honeymoon locations, he had a dark plan in mind to trick Ariele into coming with him on a Lord of the Rings nerd trip to New Zealand (AKA Middle Earth). In the moment pictured below, his well laid plans are all finally coming to fruition.

Hobbiton (where the hobbits live) is actually in the middle of a working sheep farm.

There are 45 hobbit holes at the Anderson farm, each set up with a different scale, helping to depict actors as hobbits or humans or wizards during filming. Interestingly, all of these hobbit holes are built to code and registered with the New Zealand Department of Housing. A bare-bones loving crazy person could live in one of these if they got past security...

 Below we have "Perry the Wizard" on the left, and "Perry the Hobbit" on the right (check out the height of the fences to see the scale difference).

There are so many fun things to do in Hobbiton: (clockwise from top left) you can hang out in your hobbit hole, dress as a hobbit and grab a beer in the Green Dragon pub, dance under the party tree, set out for your own adventure, or you can visit Bilbo Baggins at his home in Bag End (assuming you are there on party business).

Leaving Hobbiton was very difficult.  Perry wanted to move in permanently and live the simple and jolly life of a hobbit.  But we had more adventures to pursue, and just outside the gates of the Shire Ariele finally accomplished her goal of touching a sheep.  All previous candidates had run away and proven too quick for Ariele to capture, but this one mistook her hand for food and acquiesced to a little snout petting... before biting her and running away.

Driving into Auckland, the final stop on our trip, we realized that our time campervanning around New Zealand was fast coming to an end.  After an emotional goodbye, we left Jucy and walked downtown to our hotel.  Auckland was not our favorite place on the trip by a long shot, but we did get some much needed R & R (and real showers) before embarking on the 36 hour journey back home to Brooklyn.

And that was our trip; two weeks went by in a flash. Overall, we flew 26,600 km (16,500 miles), drove 2,634 kilometers over 10 days (1,600 miles with only three honking situations), and we saw some of the most incredibly beautiful places in the world...

...together!