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Our descent in a de Havilland Dash 8 into Blenheim BHE, at the top of New Zealand's South Island, took us over part of the Queen Charlotte Track. Tomorrow we start a multi-day tramp along that track.
We designated today a rest day. So, we did what we always do on rest days: we hiked.
New Year's Eve, continued walking the Queen Charlotte Track to Punga Cove. The view is from our verandah.
New Year's Day, 2018, we did what we usually do on New Year's Day: went for a walk. Today was the longest section of the Queen Charlotte. Tonight, 7:00 p.m. it will be 2018 in Minneapolis.
Hiked above and beyond Picton, a port on New Zealand's South Island. Tomorrow evening we take one of these ferries to Wellington on the North Island.
Tasted the wines of five Marlborough wineries with friends from Oregon. We hired a driver.
On our Wellington urban hike: a glimpse of the ferry we took last night for a four-hour journey from the South Island.
Our room for the next few nights in a small lodge built in 1896 half-way up a mountain. Many of the electrical outlets are DC, powered by possibly the oldest operating hydroelectric generator in the southern hemisphere.
Clambered, sometimes on all fours, over volcanic scree to reach this hut at 6,450 feet. We turned around at the hut and rode the scree back down. We'd need ice axes, crampons, and the skill to reach the summit of Mount Taranaki at 8,261 feet.
Egmont National Park, Day 2 of 4. After yesterday's Big Climb, we eased back and hiked lower-altitude forest tracks starring numerous waterfalls and furry trees hosting mosses and epiphytes.
Today, a jet boat brought us back to a world with Internet and roads. 3 days earlier I maneuvered our rental car along a narrow, winding road, avoiding recent rockfalls. At Pipiriki, New Zealand, a jet boat came to take us up the Whanganui River to the Bridge to Nowhere Lodge.
On our Waiheke Island hike: a geodetic marker, with Auckland visible in the distance. We're spending our last two nights in New Zealand on this island, a 35-minute ferry ride from downtown Auckland.
A 7-hour hike around San Francisco was our antidote for jet lag. At the Pacific Ocean, fog probably rendered this camera obscura ineffective.
