New Zealand !

I have wanted to come here for a very long time, even before I knew that the Lord of the Rings movies were filmed here. For those of you hoping to see photos of filming sites, you’ll be disappointed mostly, as we definitely don’t go out of our way to visit those. If an area happened to show up in the films, and we’re visiting there anyway, I’ll let you know. :)

After flying into Auckland, we drove 3 hours south to Taupo, a nice little town (with excellent restaurants!) situated on Lake Taupo, the largest lake in NZ. Amazingly, I didn’t get any pictures of the lake (because it was so large - 29 miles by 21 miles, still pictures just wouldn’t do it justice). However, I’ll share our view off the back deck of our accommodation, overlooking the Waikato river -

Just upriver from here are the Huka Falls, where the river is forced into a narrow canyon (45 ft across) after flowing peacefully before it at 300 feet across.

As always, to watch the next video, be sure and open this post in a bowser by clicking the link at the bottom of the post.

And after that narrowed canyon, the water falls over 30 feet and gets to spread out again -

We took the tripod so I could get a long exposure picture of the water, but there was so much whitewater and force, I didn’t get the usual “smooth” water shot -

That same day we also visited Wai-O-Tapu Thermal Wonderland, and were lucky to have some sunny skies…

… that gave me my coveted reflection views -

Every thermal area we’ve visited in the world (Yellowstone, Iceland, Vanuatu) has had unique topography surrounding it…

… but this one definitely had the most interesting color variations!

Another stop on our tour was strolling through the Whakarewarewa Forest…

… amidst towering California Redwoods and Fern Trees -

The next day we undertook probably the longest hike we’ve ever done.

For those of you not well versed in metric, that’s 12 miles (however at the end, we had to hike yet another mile down a gravel road to get back to our car). Note the low hanging clouds in the picture.

So many times as I was researching our trip, the Tongariro Alpine Crossing was praised as “the world’s greatest day hike” so of course we just had to do it. We didn’t have the luxury of extra days to try and wait for perfect weather (as well as needing to book the transportation to the trailhead well ahead of time), so we gritted our teeth and strode off. Besides the grey weather, we were also walking with a bus full of other people. Sigh.

Since we didn’t have large vistas to enjoy, I focused on the colorful lichen around us -

About 2 hours in, as we crossed a large bare plain, the clouds suddenly lifted…

… and we got a clear view of Mt. Ngauruhoe (Mount Doom from Lord of the Rings!) -

(see the tiny people hiking across the plain?)

All too soon, the clouds came back in…

… and the light mist…

the hairs on Steve’s arm trapped the mist

… turned to rain accompanied by howling winds -

Not our best weather day for a hike.

We had climbed about 2700 ft in a little under 3 hours, and then we had the long descent. The end of the trail was actually significantly lower than the initial trailhead, and so our total descent was 4000 ft!

I’ve seen pictures of the 3 Emerald Pools taken on a clear day, and they are just spectacular against the dark rocky backdrop (Google the Tongariro Alpine Crossing to see what we missed). :(

No matter the weather, there will still be Instagrammers (with the pink umbrella) trying to get their best shot -

And so we descended…

… and kept walking…

… and walking…

… and enjoying bits of color…

… especially as we got lower -

After 6 long hours of trudging through wind and rain and poor visibility, the backside of the hike gave us a nice view of Lake Taupo -

But we weren’t done yet. This was at the 16 km mark (remember it’s 19+ km long), and we dropped into…

… a gorgeous rainforest that we didn’t expect. Nobody who reviewed the trail mentioned this - probably because they were too beat by then.

This babbling stream was a nice way to lift our flagging spirits (and heels) at the end -

I don’t have a blockbuster end to this post, just stats. The elevation gained and descended was as noted above, and we completed 20 miles (& lunch) in right at 7 hours. Whew.

Diving in Fiji

So we’re now almost halfway ‘round the world again. We actually returned to a land-based dive resort on Taveuni Island, the third largest island in the Republic of Fiji. Because of the rest of our itinerary after this stop (more on this later), I didn’t really research Fiji much. February (and March) marks the rainy season. And by raining, I’m talking about pouring for 12 hours straight one afternoon and night. I was going to insert a video of pouring rain in the tropics, but y’all know pouring rain, right? This is what we wished we had for the whole week -

But I get ahead of myself…

As we flew in on a small plane (from the main island to Taveuni), we got a glimpse of the lush greenery and surrounding reef -

We stayed at the Taveuni Dive Resort for a week, and dove 3 times a day for 5 days. For those who might wonder (like my family did), about half of an hour-long dive would be deeper (60+ feet), then finish with the second half at 30 - 40 feet. The latter is my favorite depth because that’s usually where most of the fish are, as well as the better light.

(not the best lighting, but it lets you see the variety and density of the fish life)

Rather than bore you with too many stills, I want to share some of the great videos that Steve shot with his GoPro. I’ll intersperse the videos with stills, so be sure and open this blog by clicking the link “read in browser” at the bottom of the post.

Steve made this video by freezing the start so you can see the Blue and Gold Fusiliers, then let the video run, so you can experience what we did - they swam away at high speed!

The fish above is a BIG Longnose Butterflyfish, in contrast to the ordinary Longnose Butterflyfish -

The Big one has a nose that is 50% longer than the other fella’s. It was actually quite obvious when we first saw it. :)

I had the best time just settling down on the sand and watching these guys at work -

The fish is a Spotted Shrimpgoby and he’s always paired with a shrimp (or two) that keeps his den cleared.

Besides fish, we were always on the lookout for nudibranchs, which is a fancy name for sea slugs. The guides were so sharp eyed that they’d spot one of these one inch or smaller creatures from 6 feet away from the very busy reef, and I could barely see them, even when they were pointed out to me.

That purple one was a little easier to see than this little white one that was probably 1/2 inch long. Even with magnification, the detail is hard to appreciate until you expand it even more on your screen -

Fiji is known as the soft coral capital of the world, and it did not disappoint.

The variety and lushness were astounding.

One of our favorite dives was on the White Wall. This is a sheer vertical wall that has only white soft coral extending from a depth of about 60 ft to over 200 ft! I came close to my personal deepest dive here at 108 feet. First we passed this guardian…

… and then enjoyed cruising along the expanse. Stills don’t really do it justice…

… but Steve’s video helps to give some of the sense of scope. Lighting is difficult at depth, and especially when trying to illuminate a big expanse with lots of particulates in the water.

After we gently cruised at 100 feet for about 10 minutes, we ascended to 30 feet, and spent the rest of the dive enjoying the fish activity and sunlight. Here’s a Spotted Boxfish that didn’t like the paparazzi -

Our surface intervals (one hour spent above water between dives to help blow off some of the absorbed nitrogen from breathing compressed air) were spent admiring scenes that looked like a watercolor painting -

Another amazing nudibranch…

… and a semi-closeup of soft coral -

This little crab thought he could hide from me -

definitely enlarge this one to see the detail

One last video where I’m the one to show the scale of the Cabbage Patch (a huge congregation of cabbage coral) -

Now we’re off to New Zealand!