Mt. Aspiring

We went for a nice hike tramp today into Mt. Aspiring National Park.  We first drove up along Lake Wanaka (rhymes with Hanukkah) and through myriad sheep, cattle, farm-raised deer pastures.  This gave me an opportunity to lecture the family on various ranching topics drawing upon my 4-H days from 40 years ago.  Naturally, the children were thrilled to learn the reddish-brown white-faced cows were Polled Herefords and other such factoids.

In keeping with local custom, we now express all track (not trail) distances in kilometres.  Editorial note: we also now customarily look for opportunities to spell words with fancy British spelling thus giving the 61 Days of Togetherness blog a more sophisticated and worldly air.  Thus a 6 mile track like today’s becomes a 10 kilometre track.  Note how much more impressive a herculean 10 km tramp sounds than a paltry 6 mile tramp.

Our walk took us up Rob Roy Creek to a viewpoint of glaciers and waterfalls coming off Mount Aspiring.  You have to admit that Mt Aspiring is a pretty good name for a mountain.

Here are some views from the day.  The trail bridge across the Matukituki River...

Looking down into the Matukituki valley from a vantage point up Rob Roy Creek...

Looking up at Mt. Aspiring from the end of the trail from a couple of different vantage points.  Walter had a great day except for the last 50 metres which we insisted that he complete.  His disapproval of this mandate is reflected in the second image....

Lucas and Margaret once the sun was shining again....

Early cave dwelling sheep witnessed along the track....

Our favorite kiwi expression is “to rattle your dags”.  It means to hustle.  At the risk of too much information, the “dags” are the unsanitary bits hanging off the rear-end of a sheep.  When a sheep runs, its dags do in fact rattle.  Here is one action....

Here is Lucas rattling his metaphorical dags on the way back to the car.  He begged me to not use any reference to the term dags as it related to him, but I reserve my parental right to embarrass him this one time.

The Year of the Sheep

Other than our Milford and Abel Tasman Great Walks, we have had a pretty open itinerary.  Once we got to the South Island, we were under the false impression that there would be nobody here – just a few million sheep biding their time until they became lamp chops or high end sweaters.  Well, we heard wrong.  There are a lot of tourists down here too.  We had trouble finding lodging in Christchurch, Queenstown, and Wanaka. The most common reason offered was that it was around Chinese New Year and it we just entered “The Year of the Sheep”.  It is true that we have seen a lot of Chinese tourists.  It is also true that we have seen a heck of a lot of little lambies in the fields all over the island, so the Chinese travelers chose well from a symbolic perspective.  Next year is “The Year of the Monkey”, so if you are going to be in Brazil next February, make your reservations in advance.

Milford Track - check

We have been delinquent on our blogging. When that happens, you feel like you need to write a lot to make up for the big gap, but I’ll spare you that for the most part.

We finished up the Milford Track a couple of days ago.  If you google the Milford Track, the advertisement at the top describes it as “The Finest Walk in the World”.  That is a pretty bold claim, but it certainly is nice.  It is a four day hike, but if you are speaking like a proper kiwi, it is called “tramping”, not hiking.  The total length is 33 miles.  Over that distance, you first hike up the Clinton River valley.  At its headwaters, you climb up and over MacKinnon Pass and then down the Arthur River valley to Milford Sound.

The before.....

Our first hut, the Clinton Hut...

In part, Margaret and my inspiration for this New Zealand trip was seeing a Globe Trekker New Zealand episode on PBS when the kids were just babies. In that show, the host tramped the Milford Track and we thought we have to go do that someday.  So we did it.

This is super wet and lush country.  We had two partial days of rain, but also two clear days which I would guess is well above average.  Somebody told us that Milford gets 8 to 9 meters of rain per year.  That is an unsubstantiated figure, but I am going with it.  For you English units enthusiasts, that is an average of almost an inch of rain per day.  The country reminded me of a blend of the Napali Coast on Kauai (for verticality), Southeast Alaska (when raining), and the Sierras (for all the granite).  It was impressive.

The Kea, the world's only alpine parrot species.  You had to hide your boots from these guys as they are quite mischievous and destructive....

The kids did well on the trail.  We were carrying our sleeping bags, clothes, food, kitchen gear, etc. (no tents, or sleeping pads as we were staying in huts along the way).  The first day was short, but the next three days averaged about 10 miles per day,  which is decent chunk of mileage for a 14 year old and 11 year old.  Everybody travels in the same direction on the track, so we stayed with the same set of walkers every night.  Lucas and Walter were the only kids which made us a bit of a novelty in a good way.

At the top of MacKinnon Pass which was about 3500 ft....

Our teenage son in an unsuccessful attempt to be surly...

It was quite an international contingent on the track at least among our hut-mates.  Lots of Aussies, a few Germans, eight Americans including ourselves, couples from Switzerland, Czech Republic, and Austria, a woman from South Korea, a few Scots and English.  Interestingly, there was not a single Kiwi on the trip.  Apparently, they like to do it in the off-season when the tourists have gone home.  The trampers were clearly bi-modal with about an equal number of younger people without kids and older empty nesters, and then us in the middle.

The after looking a bit haggard and ready for a shower....

Four thumbs up for the Milford Track from the Morton family!

We Made It!

Technically, the credit goes to Air New Zealand, but we made it to Auckland and have been exploring the city and surroundings for the last 48 hours.

Our first "day" really started back in Portland, encompassed our mid-afternoon departure, overnight flight to Auckland and then a pretty full day of exploration before we could get fully settled in our hotel.  That was one loooonnnnngggg day! Lucas and Walter performed admirably under the conditions.  We had multiple factors that could have lead to unhappy campers: fatigue, intermittent boredom during a 14 hour flight, parental restraint on in flight movie choices, uncomfortable seats, 7+ hours of immediate adjacency to your brother, minimal in-flight sleep, unhealthy food intake, waiting through travel logistics, more fatigue, tight flight connections, partial information technology woes, realization of items forgotten at home, moderate humidity, and a little more fatigue.  Despite all of that, they held it together, stayed positive, helped out, and peacefully co-existed for the most part.

Despite just scratching the surface, we have enjoyed Auckland.  Lucas has declared himself to be a city boy (he may re-think that proclamation once we get into the mountains).  We have checked out a few obligatory tourist things like going 60 stories up into the Sky Tower (the space needle equivalent) and taking a ferry out to Waiheke Island (the San Juan Island equivalent).  The city is quite multi-cultural with lots of Pacific Islanders, lots of Asians - Chinese and Indians in particular.  The pace is Portland-like and relaxed.  People are refined and polished when compared with the Morton family.

Photos coming ....

Safety First!

Flying out today on Air New Zealand.  Can't wait to get on the plane and really can't wait to get off the plane.  First things first though - it's time to take in their safety video.

Pick out the Fraudulent Kiwi

Discerning kiwi-philes will have no trouble differentiating between the two authentic Kiwis and the guy who got his stubbies, singlet, gummies, and bucket hat as a going away present from his friends at work.

Superbowl Sunday: New Zealand vs Oregon

Some of our friends have asked us "Why New Zealand?".  There is no particular answer - just looking for a good adventure.  You always hear that New Zealand is like Oregon, but different, and maybe a bit more spectacular.  Given that it is Superbowl Sunday, we thought it timely to post the classic head-to-head match up table.  It looks like a close match-up, but Las Vegas has the Kiwis favored by a touchdown.  Oregon does have the edge in the all-important breweries per person metric, so we have that going for us.

	Category	New Zealand	Oregon	Advantage
The Measureables	Land Area (sq. mile)	103,483	98,466	New Zealand
	Tallest Mountain (ft)	12,316	11,250	New Zealand
	Population	4,471,000	3,930,000	New Zealand
	Number of Breweries	156	176	Oregon
	Equatorial Access	34.4 deg South	42 deg North	New Zealand
	Polar Access	46.66 deg South	46.3 deg North	New Zealand
	Record Trout Weight (lb)	42 lb Brown Trout	35.5 lb Steelhead	New Zealand
The Intangibles	Novel Brewery Name	Yeastie Boys	Hair of the Dog	Toss-up
	Iconic Sports Team	All Blacks	Portland Trailblazers
			Oregon Ducks	Oregon
			Northeast United Soccer Club Under 14 Boys Blue Team