The Land of Zeal

We've arrived safe and sound in New Zealand. It is great to be back! This place is so gorgeous. I'm seriously debating whether to put it back on the top of my personal rankings of World's Most Beautiful Places. It was seated there for a long time, then got surpassed by Alaska last year. We'll see where it stands a month from now, but it is so so nice.

Unfortunately, it's also so so expensive. Erin and I are choking on the prices here, especially after getting spoiled in Asia. NZ is expensive to begin with, and we cried ourselves to sleep the other night after we saw on the local news that the US dollar is at a 20-year low to the NZ dollar. Ouch! The weakness of the US dollar is absolutely killing us right now. This performance couldn't be timed any worse for our travels. So to save some dough on transport, we actually bought a car. That's right, a car. Pretty wild to think about it, but it should actually work out to be cheaper than buses or renting a car long-term. It's an '89 Mistubishi Mirage (Lancer) with a guaranteed buyback arrangement from the place from which we bought it. We'll get a photo of it up soon. It should give us maximum flexibility for the least cost if it doesn't bomb on us. We have our fingers crossed.

The coast just outside of Sumner on the Banks Peninsula

After a long two days of travel from Bangkok via Melbourne, we arrived in Christchurch, a beautiful green city of churches and gardens. Unfortunately, we were unsuccessful in getting a visa lined up for Australia so we couldn't get into downtown Melbourne but instead passed eight hours couped up in the airport transfer lounge. In any event, upon arrival in Christchurch we knocked out a bunch of chores and trip preparations there and then made our way out to the coastal suburb town of Sumner which is gorgeous.

Lake Tekapo which we passed on the drive south

Now we've made our way down to Queenstown in the south. Tomorrow we set out for the Milford Sound area and then tackle the Milford Track and shortly thereafter the Routeburn Track. They're both world-renowned multi-day hikes in the Fiordland area so we are stoked to get out there. The weather's turned quite rainy which is typical but looks to clear a bit for our Milford trip. Our Kelty tent kept us warm and dry on our first night out in the rain last night, next to the scintillating blue Lake Pukaki.

Gratuitous Kelty product shot next to Lake Pukaki

We're also looking forward to our friend Aly from Boulder joining up with us in a few weeks. We'll catch back up with the blog in a week or so.

Drew