middle earth

yeah, yeah....you can stop snickering in the peanut gallery but the south island does look straight out of tolkien's imagination (long before peter jackson came along). look for my next entry when i'm smart enough to remember photos of otago/middle earth (lake matheson will have to be a stand-in for now). it is also true that it is A LOT more beautiful than the north island. don't get me wrong, the north island is also very pretty, but the south island is more dramatic in its beauty. it is also very reminiscent of new england and maine's coastline.

obviously you can gather that i'm having an ah-mazing time on the south island. it does get a little lonely traveling alone, but i still have daily conversations with my "vodafone best mate" katy (sometimes on speakerphone with brittany and naughty caine :). my first days were exploring marlborough and its multitude of wineries. nautilus (craggy watch out 'cause this place is quite flash too), fromm (note to my german friends from gesenheim...if you make it to marlborough, then go to fromm and check out their german-styled rieslings), and neudorf (owned by new zealand's answer to robert redford) were definite highlights. i found the spy balls that gave spy valley winery its name...very x-files like but also a great picnic spot.i took a detour drive to punakaiki and the pancake rocks. i turned the corner and found myself in hawaii looking at a scene out of lost, but with a more plausible polar bear encounter.i didn't have time to make it abel tasman or milford sound (note to jenn...next campervan journey?), but i did make it to fox glacier and lake matheson which were unbelievably gorgeous. i drove into glacier country and was met by rain that turned into buckets of rain ("il pleut comme une vache qui pisse comes to mind"). i still had luck on my side because the next morning i was greeted by an amazing sunrise. i made it to lake matheson before the winds disrupted the lake waters so that i could see firsthand the mirror effect of mt. cook and mt. tasman (see the first photo at the top of the blog entry). i also made it before the busload of kiwi experience teenagers came to ruin the serenity. i hit gillespies beach and finally found the crashing waves of new zealand (the east coast waves are definitely smaller). i then made it to fox glacier and tramped right up to the terminal face. unfortunately, i ate it big time crossing one of the rushing streams that feed into fox river and twisted my ankle, which effectively ended my tramping day. pretty much not pretty handy, but at least it came at the end of my tramping itinerary. i next headed down to queenstown, driving with my injured foot on the gas pedal and my left foot on the brake pedal. dangerous, i know, but it hurt too much to move my right foot back and forth.near punakaiki and at the terminal face of fox glacier, i found some classic kiwi signs. i will say, after these many days of being on the road, the kiwis do have great road signs that clearly explain what i should be aware of on the road. and not just great fun signs like warning me of a potential penguin crossing but also what kind of turns to expect on the road ahead. you may have to zoom in on the first photo below, but that's right, you may catch your bike tire in a rut and fall headfirst over the handlebars. and this sign depicts what almost happened to me, except my fall wasn't due to being hit by falling ice/white rocks.