A New Adventure Begins....

And the Travelin' Family are off again. 

We have had an opportunity to do something extraordinary. 

It's something that we've been talking about for years, but up until now we would get to the point of going - and then hesitate, until it was too late. This year we started up the pattern again, excitement, hesitation, excitement, hesitation.... And then one morning, with three weeks until the the trip, we both woke up and said, let's just do it. 

Nepal. The Himalaya Mountains. Tea House Trekking and working in remote Nepali villages improving schools. It's an absolute dream trip for us. I mean top ten bucket list!

But I have to say it's not my normal style to be this last minute. Remember, I'm the over the top planner. "Drill Sergeant Douglas" who has an excel spread sheet to keep everything organized and planned ahead of time. Am I able to let go of my controlling ways and attempt a trip like this?  I must say that I am finding it quite hard to let go of the planning of this trip, even though the people we are going with do this for a living and are super experienced. Heck, we will be traveling with a Kiwi/Nepali family (she's Pakeha and he is Nepali and their two children). So why do I find myself googling, and double checking each part of the itinerary? I guess it is a lesson to learn about myself. It's part of my journey to learn to let go. Maybe the rarefied air in Nepali will help me with this. 

So, we leave soon, all I have to do it pack and sort the visa photos. 

Stay tuned for adventure updates!

When you look like your visa pictures it's time to come home!

Shaking It in Christchurch

A long day in the car. It can't be helped. We've bitten off a full day drive from the Fox Glacier to Christchurch city on the opposite coast (and over the mountains) so that we can catch our flight home tomorrow morning.

At least we mentally prepared the kids by telling them it would take foooorrreeeevvver and we wouldn't get the Christchurch until after dark. In reality it's only about six hours....

We say goodbye to our beautiful little Glacier camp and head back up the west coast first thing in the morning. This time we don't have the gloomy rain of the ride down, but a patchwork of sun and clouds.

Christchurch lays almost directly East of the Fox Glacier, but we have to drive some 180 kilometres north along the coast before we can turn east and pass through the mountains. And there is no wonder, we can't simply drive through the highest peaks of the southern alps! Mt Cook at 3750 meters would be a darn hard thing to put a road over or through!

It was a long day of driving, but we had plenty of amazing scenery to keep us occupied. 

Arthur's Pass is every bit as stunning as touted in the guide books. And it seems like quite a feat of engineering that you can literally drive across a mountain range in a day. Albeit me with sweaty palms during some of the hairpin turns!! 

We had the chance to meet one of the famous South Island Keas up close and personal when we stopped in Arthur's Pass. The cheeky little bugger was busy meeting the tourists by landing on their cars and begging for food.

We reached Christchurch in the late afternoon and what a contrast to the West Coast. It was sunny, dry and very hot. Not wanting to spend too much time at the airport hotel we drove downtown to see what kind of progress has been made since the earthquake.

What's left of the CBD of Christchurch

Of course we've all heard about the devastating 2011 quake, and seen pictures of the damage. But when you don't live in a place you tend to move on. Other things compete for the space in your head. It is the countries most costly natural disaster (some economists estimate the rebuild of the city will be in excess of 40 billion dollars) It killed something like 180 people and toppled the Christchurch Cathedral so you would expect to see some damage. But I must say three years on and I wasn't really prepared for it. As you drive through the city it seems a bit macabre to be "looking for damage" but then, lets be honest, of course we were. Just like every other looky-loo driving past an accident scene. It is a natural fetish to see such things.

You don't see much damage near the airport, but as you get near the CBD it is suddenly brutally in your face. Then entire down town is either gone or cordoned off. Even after three years the devastation is still that apparent. Some may say that the government hasn't acted fast enough, but with the cost for the rebuild likely to be pulling our country into debt for a hundred years or more  - not to mention that the aftershock earthquakes are still hitting the city - I am not quite sure where I stand. Certainly my heart bleeds for the people of Christchurch. Both the ones who have stayed, and the ones who have left.

What really struck me the most was the "new downtown" is built of shipping containers. Stores and restaurants have all popped up back in business, despite the red zone around them. Temporary, yes. But inventive and quite cool. I'd certainly feel safer in one of those than a traditional brick house down here. And it just goes to show that life will go on. Humans are good that way!

So enough of the tiki tour, we grabbed some Hell Pizza (somehow fitting) and called it an early night at our hotel to get some shut eye before our early morning flight tomorrow.

What a fantastic trip this has been. Family bonding at it's best. And another part of our stunning country that we have been able to explore. It is humbling that these blessings are available to us.

Until the next journey.....

What Does The Fox Say?

No Ring-ding-ding-ding-dingering from Ylvis' catchy 2013 Swedish pop song for us today....

No, today the fox speaks in geological term. Ancient terms of water, rock and ice. For today is the day we visit the Fox Glacier. One of the most accessible Crown Jewels in the icy tiara of glaciers that descend from new Zealand's southern alps.

Hiking up to the Fox Glacier - look closely and you will see some small dots on the trail by the river. Those are people, just to give you an idea of the huge scale of this place.

When planning this trip to the South Island one of the things that we saved up for was to end it with a really memorable experience. Something that, hopefully, would be as memorable as the Queen Charlotte Track at the beginning. A bookend if you will! And that is why today we've splurged the extra money to hire a guide and actually walk up and onto the glacier itself. Juliet is too young to go - minimum age of seven required - so we split up into two groups. Us girls in the morning and the boys in the afternoon. So it's up early and a nice little walk into town from our camp site to start our day.

Once we've had our safety briefing at the Fox Glacier Guides and get fitted with crampons we board a bus to take us from the little tourist township up the nearly seven kilometers to the glacier itself. At first the drive is the usual stunning beauty of lush trees and ferns so typical of the south island. But as we gradually get closer the trees become noticeably smaller and then non existent, marking the time when the glacier was this far down the valley. Surprisingly not that many hundred of years past. It's a potent image of how alive this land is, and just how fast this glacier is receding up the hill. No one can fake the growth of trees. As we enter the valley itself the naked rock cliffs towering above us remind us of just how small we really are.

At the glacier terminus. Cameras can't capture the size of this place. See the people standing by the river?

The Fox Glacier is fed by four alpine glaciers and falls some 2600 meters in a giant frozen waterfall toward the sea and paradoxically lands it in the rainforest that covers the coastline of the South Island. And at the moment it is retreating at an alarming rate. The past years of drought and the overall warming that we've experienced has hastened it's retreat. And because New Zealand is a maritime climate (meaning that we get lots of snowfall, but not very cold temperatures) our glaciers are specifically sensitive to global warming.

In keeping with the warming theme, it seems appropriate that today the sun is shining (quite a rare thing for this part of the country) and of course that just enhances the stunning beauty.

As we walk up to the terminus you can hear the sounds of water rushing out of the glacier and the occasional rock or slab of ice rumbling down. It's like a great beast rumbling in it's own growly language.

On go the crampons and up we go onto the ice itself. The guide has hacked out steps into the ice, and all safety precautions have been observed, but still we feel quite the rugged individuals. There are quite a few tourists on similar groups (mainly Chinese) so we don't feel isolated, but for us this is not about solitude as much as it is about feeling nature in its grandest form and connecting with the last vestiges of the ice age.

The girls loved it. Sister bonding at it's best. Even when Clara fell down a slope and landed on top of some rocks (which were plugging up a rather deep crevasse) it didn't dampen their spirits.
Although I must say that when she landed in the crevasse and the sound of rock falls hit us, both the guide and myself had a small panic attack while getting to her. Scary though it may sound, with Clara you get used to being put into such situations! She got a bruise and a reminder to stay on the trail. (And the guide got his first gray hair.) And we all laughed at the end.

The highlight for Liana was drinking the pure glacier water that was pouring off the ice. We filled our bottles and brought some home to enjoy at the camp site. 

All in all we were on the glacier about three hours. It was hot, it was cold, it was spectacular, it was an immense feeling to be amongst the natural grandeur. And everyone needs to be humbled from time to time. It's good for the soul.

The boys had an equally good time in the afternoon and we spent our last night in Glacier Country bbq-ing in the shadow of Mt. Cook and Mt. Tasman. What an amazing time that we live in that such wonders are available to us mere humans. I hope that our descendants will have the same views when they have their turn through this world a hundred years or so from now.

The glacier was the perfect way to cap our explorations of the South Island. Tomorrow we are in for a long haul across the country to Christchurch.