Whitsundays, and holy moly, New Zealand

We are in an adorable hostel in Punakaiki, South Island, New Zealand, and giddy. How have we not discovered this place before now!?

But before I launch into our awesome day, and how we are more or less prepared to move to New Zealand, I'll dutifully record our trip to the Whitsunday Islands, off the shores of Queensland.

I have to be honest. The Whitsundays were a bit of a dud for us. A dud in the fireworks sense: it is probably primed to explode with gusto for most visitors, but for a variety of reasons it just didn't really go off for us.

To begin with, I'm still dealing with the ear infection / periodic colds, so I was instructed to stay out of the ocean. As anyone who knows me well -- or who might have heard the story from my mother about the time in Hawaii that I happily followed a sea turtle well beyond a rip tide -- this was aggravating news. I love to swim, and it would have made all the difference to have been able to cannonball off the ship, or dive, or snorkel, but it was not to be. For another thing, the weather sucked. We had moderate amounts of sunshine for one day we were out on the islands, but the rest of the time it rained. For thirds, Airlie Beach (our launching pad for the journey, where we were stuck for two nights) is, shall we say, not someplace that Justin nor I particularly wants to spend any time, being as we are not enamored of disco balls, top-forty pop radio, or twentysomething drunk co-eds. It does, however, have a very nice Austrian doctor.

So it wasn't really our favorite stop. But here's the thing: even the lowlight has had some highlights. To wit:

We "sailed" on a tall ship. It was a bit of an accident -- our cheaper, more traditional sailing ship got cancelled, and they placed us on this more luxurious boat. It's true that the staff chose to motor more than sail, but how can you argue with three masts? Or, for that matter, sun deck chairs below three masts?

Also, the Whitsundays are really beautiful, no matter how you slice it. We went for a hike while others snorkeled, and we found a redback spider, and we survived.

Also, Whitehaven beach -- reportedly one of the best beaches in the world -- is pretty nifty, even if it's threatening rain. The sand, at over 98% pure silica (pure enough to be used for the Hubble space telescope, actually), is absolutely pure white, and feels like flour on the toes.

Hill Inlet, of the postcard vistas, was shown to us -- rather inexplicably -- at high tide, so the swirly sand was not visible, and I have nothing of the caliber of, say, this to show you. Thankfully, however, I have this:

EVEN BETTER! This is Paola, and she is almost one year old, and she (along with her absolutely delightful parents) was the highlight of our Whitsundays trip. I practically tripped over myself to babysit her while her mum and dad, Francisca and Frank, went for a dive. She has little dinner roll feet! In addition to being possibly the best and most adorable baby ever, Justin and I were quite inspired by Francisca and Frank, who were traveling on a round-the-world ticket with the little munchkin; they demonstrate that it is absolutely possible to be a great parent and a great traveler at the same time. We're looking forward to seeing them in San Francisco on their way back to Munich this fall.

We left the Whitsundays missing our new friends but chomping at the bit for some self-catering road trip. And boy. Have we found it. We rolled into Christchurch at 1am last night, and managed to procure a car and a hotel room after quite a bit of ... adventure. (To the amazing, amazing old lady who was up at 3 in the morning to manage your hotel reception: words cannot express my love and gratitude to you.) We woke up this morning and found a city that appears to be absolutely none the worse for wear after the 7.4 magnitude earthquake that struck just over a month ago. We found a divine breakfast, and headed out on the highway in our little Corrola hatchback, and were immediately confronted with spectacular snow-covered mountains:



The Southern Alps

That we drove through (at Arthur's Pass), and dutifully hiked around:

And then on to the beach on the other side, with spectacular limestone formations and one of the most gorgeous coast drives (outside of CA's Highway 1, of course) that I have ever seen:

And onto here, where we are staying in the best hostel we have stayed in so far, snuggled next to a coal fire in the middle of a rainforest within 8 minutes walk to the beach and to limestone caves.

We had a spectacular day of driving through truly unbelievably beautiful countryside, hiking through glacial-mill valleys studded with waterfalls and utterly devoid of tourists, seeing one million sheep grazing peaceably in front of enormous thousand-meter peaks, playing on insanely beautiful beaches with stones worn smooth from the tides, and drinking local beer on tap at the cozy pub. This is not only one of the most beautiful places I have ever been -- it's also the quaintest, with a wood fire puffing out of every chimney. We are going to explore the west coast of the South Island a bit more tomorrow, and are really looking forward to more: we only wish we'd gotten here sooner!

New Zealand, we love you already! Miss everyone back home -- hopefully we'll be able to hop online periodically, but the South Island is generally pretty remote, so we may not be able to update as regularly as we might like. I promise many photos and commentary soon.

XO,

Meredith & Justin