January 1, 2025

We woke up to a new year with its infinite possibilities.  We have a rental car for the week and headed along the lake to Mt Creighton for a hike up the mountain (Mt Creighton Loop Train).  A man at a local outdoors shop had said it was an easy 8 mile loop he had done with his parents, so off we went. We think we are in pretty good shape, but this was NOT an easy hike as it was mostly uphill and the way down was much more gradual and felt mostly flat.  Go figure that.  It was well worth the effort.  It turns out there was a gold rush in the 1860’s in this mountainous area, and we ran across the hut of one of the gold minor (Sam Summer). 

(Thanks Danny Catt)






We also learned the Polynesians came to this area in 1280 and has explained the use of Māori (native language of the Polynesian descendants in New Zealand) that is evident throughout the country.

As many of you know, this Heyman family tends to focus an inordinate amount of time on food…we have not been disappointed so far and it’s only January 1st!  

The local beer has been great and even more refreshing after a long, hot hike (remember, mostly uphill!).  Dad especially likes the Pilsners here!  We also had a local bread baked with, slathered really, butter and Parmesan cheese.  It was incredible right out of the oven.


We’ve only been here a little over 24 hours, and we have already discovered two excellent ice-cream shops, a delicious way to end the day.




It was great sharing our love of ice-cream.

The last note I (Jody) would like to make is this:  As Mel and I have traveled around the world, I have found that other countries (excluding Indonesia) value their surroundings more than we do in the US.  Litter does not exist in many places we have seen.  No cigarette butts, no paper, no plastic, no crumbs from your muffin you bought at your favorite coffeehouse.  Clean streets and your interest moves above ground level.  Is it possible to create a culture in the US that values clean streets and other environments?





Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

December 29 2024

Image
Hello family and friends! A number of people asked us to blog our travels, so we are taking advantage of this trip to start documenting our travels. We have come to realize we are truly bipolar.  We have been to the Arctic five times and are now embarking on our second trip to the Antarctic.  Two years ago, we began in Ushuaia, Argentina, and went to three subantarctic islands including the Falklands, South Georgia, and South Orkney Islands. We then made our way to the Antarctic Peninsula, a broad strip of the Antarctic that protrudes well above the Antarctic Circle (on that trip, we had an on-board toast when we crossed the Circle and shortly after we turned around to had back north to Ushuaia).   This trip will begin in Queenstown, New Zealand.  Our first trip to NZ, we will spend a week exploring the South Island.  We meet our group in a week, then board our ship on January 8th and head to several sub-Antarctic islands.  More to come later. For now, we h...
Read more
Image
 New Zealand, January 2, 2025 We left Queenstown this morning.  It’s a town centered around winter skiing and as we were leaving town, we drove by one of the major mountains called The Remarkables.  We personally thought it was remarkable as there were no chair lifts to be seen.  Hmmm. We had a pleasant ride to Te Anau with no plans for the afternoon.  It’s a small town and the woman at reception suggested we go on a jet boat tour on the Waiau River, connecting Lake Te Anau with Lake Manapouri.  OMG, what a great afternoon!  Our guide has been doing this for 55 years, and when he did his first “spin” with our boat, we couldn’t believe it (video attached). We had a GREAT tour of the river leading to Lake Manapouri, learned about how the lake is used for hydroelectric power, AND how the river was used for scenes in the movie The Lord of the Rings.   We were also impressed with the Kepler Trail, a 60km (37 mile) route with huts that are used for over...
Read more
Image
January 4, 2025 - Wanaka, South Island, New Zealand  Today was a more leisurely day, but we still packed in a good workout, then made our way to the Blue Pools. Imagine pristine water the color of a gorgeous aqua marine stone. It was well worth a short ~1 mile hike to see it up close.                                                    The forest has a dense and lush canopy and is filled with singing birds, ferns, moss, foxglove in purple and white, and trees not only reaching skyward, but in strange shapes and angles. Many look like they have bent with time, but were not quite ready to decay, they just kept growing.   The above tree looked like an open hand. In this last photo, there is a flat disc-like formation on the trunk of the tree. It’s called a Southern Bracket (laymen:  “Platform Mushroom”), and is a polypore. They are quite amazing! ...
Read more