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Day trip to Akaroa

With one day left on the South Island and yet another spectacular blue sky, Paul and I decided to hit the road and take a day trip to the nearby village of Akaroa, located about 54 miles/87 kilometers from Christchurch.  Akaroa is the oldest town in Canterbury, founded by French settlers in 1840, and is a wonderfully quaint, beautiful village nestled in the heart of the Banks Peninsula.  We had also heard that the area offered many opportunities for excellent “tramps” (or hikes as we call it) as well as ocean cruises to see New Zealand’s unique marine wildlife.

We headed out early in the morning choosing to take the “scenic route” in our rental car.  Apparently there are two ways to Aakora:  One easy and relatively straightforward, and the other more spectacular, yet rugged.  We took the latter.  It wound up being a harrowing hour and a half drive from Christchurch but well worth the incredible views.

Here is the description of the route we followed per the New Zealand Tourism Guide:

There are two routes to Akaroa. State Highway 75 takes you via Lake Ellesmere and Lake Forsyth before it climbs over the hills to Akaroa Harbour. The other route is very scenic, but longer and more difficult to drive. It takes you through the Lyttelton tunnel and around Lyttelton Harbour before making the rugged, cross country journey to Akaroa.

Photo taken during our “tramp” in the Banks Peninsula with the sheep looking on. 

Adventure Travel New Zealand TRAVEL BY REGION Trekking/Hiking
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Back to Christchurch

Ok, I know I was going to jump into the North Island of New Zealand but I found a few more pictures and stories that I forgot to include on the South Island.  I guess that’s what happens when you are writing about a trip that was ten years ago!  So let me back up here and return to where I left off in the Milford Sound.  To read the last post on exploring the Milford Sound click here.

We rose early to the morning sun coming over the serene Milford Sound.  It was yet another glorious day and not a soul was in sight.  Paul and I enjoyed our last hour of solitude while we sailed back to shore where we would be boarding the oddly shaped Real Journeys bus back to Christchurch.

Everyone was tired and quiet on our long ride back to Queenstown.  I for one looked awful, like I’d been punched in the eye.  Actually I had an unfortunate encounter with a sand fly (that nasty thing bit me hard!) the day before while I was kayaking in the Sound and my left eyelid had swollen up like a balloon!  That was a fun one to explain to a bunch of strangers!

We arrived in Queenstown by late afternoon and headed straightaway to the tourist office.   We had one more thing to accomplish in Queenstown:  Our very last adrenaline-pumping activity, Jet-boating.  Luckily there was one last ride of the day.  If we hustled, we would be able to catch the 5:30 pm jet-boat on the Shotover River just outside town.  I should have been scared when I met our driver, a twentysomething Kiwi with a dangerous grin on his boyish face.  But “no worries” as they love to say in New Zealand.

Adventure Travel New Zealand TRAVEL BY REGION
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Under the New Mexican Sun: Four hours in Albuquerque Part I

We rose at the crack of dawn on Sunday morning to head back to Albuquerque where my dad would be catching an early morning flight.  The sky was jet black and the tiny town of Taos was still fast asleep.

As we followed along the Rio Grande, the sky began to brighten and turn from inky black to a pale, milky blue.  Weather had come in and the royal blue sky of the last few days had disappeared.  It was a good day to head back.

The two and a half hour drive back to Albuquerque was peaceful and serene.  Hardly a soul was on the road.  I admired the lone western countryside and saw real rugged beauty in its jagged mountains and unique southwestern landscape.  It is not like Arizona;  there are no cactus in sight.  Yet it still has that dessert, western feel to it.  It was lovely.

New Mexico TRAVEL BY REGION United States
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A three generational ski trip

As you have probably gathered from my last few posts, I did something very special over the last few days.  Me, my father and my five-year-old daughter Sophia took a three-generational ski trip to Taos, New Mexico.  It was the first time (except when Sophia was a meager four-months old) that I had ever truly traveled alone with my daughter and it also was the first time the three generations got together for a weekend away.  My son and husband were off on their own adventure thus it was just me and Sophia this time.

We picked Taos for many reasons.  First, it is relatively easy for us to access.  It is a non-stop flight from Tucson where my father lives as well as from Minneapolis (where I live).  Second, it is really a cool little trendy ski town.  Nothing at all like the big ski resorts in Colorado or even Utah.  Taos is tiny, tough and has a unique southwestern style and flair that quite honestly can’t compare.  Finally, for some reason New Mexico is the only place in the country this winter that actually has good snow.  Colorado, Utah and Northern California are struggling with terrible snow.  Meanwhile relatively untouristy, trendy Taos has plenty of snow.  That fluffy, powdery, heavenly snow that skiers dream and drool about having.

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Skiing the Ridge

It’s something of a paradox. The more untamed, untrampled a place, the more it seems to soothe the soul. Even as it races the heart. – Advertisement of skiing the Ridge in the Taos Visitor Guide.

Taos Ski Valley view from Kachina Peak at the Ridge. A ski purist heaven that only recently opened its doors to snowboarding two years back.

Today I became an official “Ridgehead”. I climbed and skied the Ridge, a no man’s land of off piste skiing located at the top of Kachina Peak at 12,481 feet. It was an exhausting endeavor which quite frankly I had no business doing. Yet, did I enjoy it and was it worth the effort and the pain? Yes! It was an adventure that I had not yet accomplished in skiing and even if I was breathing heavy and my legs burned each and every step of the way, it was so incredibly worth the view and the accomplishment.

To access the ridge is half the battle. You take the last chair lift up to the top at 11,819 feet, take off your skies and carry them on your shoulder in heavy snow for an hour and fifteen minutes up to 12,481 feet. The walk up is arduous and exhausting. You gain over 600 feet in elevation and are doing it wearing uncomfortable ski boats and lugging your skies and poles up each breathless step of the way.

Adventure Travel
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Road trip out in the wild west: Albuquerque to Taos New Mexico

Yesterday my five-year-old daughter Sophia and I left for our first three-generational ski trip. My father, me and Sophia headed west to test out the slopes in Taos, New Mexico.

The last time I’d been to Taos was at least fifteen years ago, when my family and I took the ten-hour drive from Tucson to Taos in the “purple people-eater” minivan. (Don’t have any idea where the name came from but it stuck). Over the years, Taos has become quite an interesting albeit historic town known for its flavorful mix of art culture, gay community and Bohemianism. If that isn’t enough to bring you there, Taos’ world class skiing should (without the insane crowds as trendy venues like Vail and Telluride). When my dad proposed taking our annual weekend ski trip out west, Taos instantly came to mind as a place to revisit.

Getting to Taos is pretty much equivalent to going to Colorado as it requires a two and a half hour flight followed by a two to three-hour drive. But the main difference between the two is size. Colorado ski areas are huge and Taos is just one little resort tucked away and isolated in the mountains.

Adventure Travel New Mexico
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Sailing sound in the Milford Sound

“Adventure is a path. Real adventure – self-determined, self-motivated, often risky – forces you to have firsthand encounters with the world.   The world the way it is, not the way you imagine it.   Your body will collide with the earth and you will bear witness.   In this way you will be compelled to grapple with the limitless kindness and bottomless cruelty of humankind – and perhaps realize that you yourself are capable of both.   This will change you. Nothing will ever again be black-and-white.” – Mark Jenkins

Around five o’clock we boarded our ship for the night, the lovely Milford Manner and sailed off into the sparkling blue depths of the world famous Milford Sound.  We felt quite lucky to have such amazing weather and no rain in sight in a place that normally receives rain an average 330 days per year.

View from our ship, the Milford Manor, of the Milford Sound in all her splendor.  

Another small ship paved the way ahead but besides this other ship, we were the only ones around.  

The Milford Sound travels for ten miles/sixteen kilometers before the fiord meets the Tasman Sea.  It is one of the most remote areas of New Zealand in which most of it is impenetrable except the fiord itself and the 34 mile/55 km track which is considered one of the top treks in the world.  

Adventure Travel New Zealand Trekking/Hiking
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South bound to Milford Sound

After traveling to the world-famous fiords of Norway and being blown away by their sensational beauty, I knew that Paul and I would have to make time for a trip down south to New Zealand’s Fiordland National Park.

Fiordland National Park is located on the Southwestern part of New Zealand’s South Island and is the country’s largest park with over 21,000 square km/8,100 square miles of pristine forests, mountains and lakes.  The region is composed of over 14 fiords and five major lakes that are flanked by steep, jagged mountains coated in rainforest making this part of the world virtually impenetrable except along the 310 miles of tracks (hiking trails) or by boat.  I had heard that Fiordland offered some of the best scenery in all of New Zealand and after the sheer, pure beauty we had seen so far, I couldn’t imagine that we would see anything finer.

A sneak preview of what’s to come….

Adventure Travel New Zealand TRAVEL BY REGION Trekking/Hiking
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Hiking into Middle Earth: A tramp along the Routeburn Track

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do.   So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails.    Explore.   Dream. Discover.”   – Mark Twain

The New Zealand Silver Fern, the symbol of purity and beauty.

The Routeburn Track in the South Island of New Zealand is perhaps one of the finest hikes in the world.  It rates up there with neighboring Milford Track as well as the world-famous Annapurna Trek in Nepal.

The 24 mile/29 kilometer Routeburn Track generally takes three days and climbs up to some of the most spectacular, pristine temperate rain forest and alpine scenery in the world.  Unfortunately my husband and I only had one day allocated to a tramp (what the Kiwi’s call hiking) along the Routeburn Track, and we were going to make the most of it.  Given what we had already seen of Queenstown and the surrounding area, we knew that our visit to Routeburn would be one of the best parts of the trip and we weren’t at all disappointed.

Below is a panoramic shot of the view at the top of the Routeburn Track….a view that we didn’t get to see.  This means we’ll have to someday go back and do the whole thing! (Photo credit Wikipedia Commons). 

Adventure Travel New Zealand TRAVEL BY REGION Trekking/Hiking
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Queenstown: New Zealand’s Adventure Playground

Photo above taken just outside of Queenstown, New Zealand.

The drive from Christchurch southbound to Queenstown was perhaps the most spectacular, awe-inspiring drive of my life.  It rated up there with the scenic, mountainous drives on the tops of the Austrian and Swiss Alps, two drives I have done back in my Euro-craze days (I was obsessed with Europe in my twenties and have been there over a dozen times, constantly exploring as many places as I could cram in).

After a few hours of intense motion sickness, I accepted my fate and cursed myself for over-indulging the day before on the Waipara Valley Wine Tour.  Oh well.  The handful of mouth-watering, lip-puckering NZ Sav Blanc’s certainly tasted delightful at the time!

Around three o’clock, exhausted of driving along the serpentine, rolling roads of Southern New Zealand, we saw signs that we were nearing Queenstown, the adventure tourism capital of New Zealand.  The verdant fields of white fluffy sheep slowly disipated while signs of life and civilization appeared.  About a half hour or so out of town we saw our first sign of New Zealand’s Adventure Playground for adults:  The first ever real, live bungee jump!

Bungee jumping hit the world stage in 1986 by New Zealand’s very own A J Hackett, who fearlessly dived from the top of the Eiffel Tower with nothing but a rubber cord attached to his ankles.  The craze caught on and there was no better place to offer this kind of adrenaline-pumping extreme “sport” than in the adventure paradise and capital, Queenstown.

Adventure Travel New Zealand TRAVEL BY REGION
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Heading South on Highway 1

New Zealand is one of the most isolated countries in the world.  Made up of two, vastly unique large islands known as the North and the South Islands and a number of smaller ones, New Zealand lies about 990 miles/1,600 km east of Australia in the South Pacific Ocean.  Comparable in size to Japan or the British Isles but without an enormous population (only 4.4 million people total), New Zealand is one of the best kept secret treasures for adventurous travelers.  Its pure beauty, ease of travel and endless things to do make it one of the best tourist destinations in the world, and a place I could only someday dream of living in.

What makes New Zealand so incredibly fascinating is its diverse landscape.  While the North Island is filled with volcanoes, rugged mountains, and thermal areas, the South Island is completely different and accounts for only 25 percent of New Zealand’s entire population (as of 2011 there are roughly 1 million inhabitants in the entire South Island as compared to over 3 million in the North Island).  The South Island is dominated by the Southern Alps mountain chain which runs along almost the entire length of the island and is blessed with over 223 named peaks.  The eastern side of the alps is dry and largely non-forested, while the west side has much more rainfall lending to magnificent rainforests, lakes, mountains and glaciers.  The lack of inhabitants combined with the utterly spectacular landscape in the South Island make it a traveler’s paradise and I couldn’t think of a better way to see it than by taking a 6 hour car ride down south.

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China’s controversial one-child policy

This is an original post by thirdeyemom on World Mom’s Blog published today.  

Photo above of the female lion which is always located on the west side of a building while the male lion, which is considered more important in ancient times, is located on the east side, towards the rising sun.

Imagine living in a place where your reproductive life was controlled by the government.  A place that not only controlled the number of children you were allowed to have but also the timeframe.  A place that enforced stiff fines, allowed forced sterilization and even forced abortions when you were breaking the law.  Imagine living in remote, impoverished parts of rural China.  This is what life is like for most women in these far off, often forgotten parts of the world, a place that accounts for millions of China’s 1.3 billion people.

China Global Issues SOCIAL GOOD TRAVEL BY REGION Women and Girls