Canyoning in Wanaka

December 30th was spent canyoning outside of Wanaka. We were scheduled to do the "Big Nige" trip, but the water levels were so high that they only let us do the "Niger Stream" trip, which was pretty extreme with the amount of water pumping through the canyon! When we first arrived, we had to hike up a hill with all of our gear. This might have been the most difficult part of the day, but the scenery was nice!

Then we put on our super thick wetsuits, helmets, and harnesses and started our adventure. We got to abseil down a few large waterfalls like the one seen here.

We also got to do some ziplining, some cliff jumps (including one really high one!), and some sliding down water chutes (including one head first!). The sliding was my favorite part.

Sometimes you didn't even know what the bottom looked like; you just had to trust the guides and slide down into a big pool of water at the bottom. The canyon was awesome; it was like a naturally occurring water park!



















Canyoning made for a really fun day full of adventure, and we're so glad we did it. I'll end with a video of Zack doing one of the jumps with an oh-so-graceful landing!

Franz Josef and Fox Glaciers

On December 28, we spent the day exploring the two most accessible glaciers in New Zealand. We were hoping to do some ice climbing, but one glacier company wasn't running trips anymore and the other didn't have room for both of us (even though I tried to book over a month in advance). We considered doing a guided hike instead, but we figured since we had spent plenty of time exploring St. Mary's Glacier in Colorado ourselves, that we didn't need to spend our money on that kind of trip, though lots of people say they're awesome (you're not allowed on the glacier without a guide). Anyway, we first visited Franz Josef Glacier, where there was a 45 minute hike to get near the face of it. This picture shows our view near the start of the walk.

Along the way, there were massive waterfalls to enjoy and a strangely colored gray river leading out from the glacier. I'm standing next to the waterfall in the picture below, so that may give you an idea of its size, and that doesn't even include the upper part of it!

When we got closer to the glacier, I was struck by the blue hues in the ice. I've never seen anything like that in snow, and it looked really cool (ha-literally!).

We, um, sort of snuck under a barrier rope to walk farther along the path to get closer to the glacier. To be fair, lots of other people did it too (I know, I know), but that included a guided glacier group, so I knew it couldn't be that dangerous. That meant we got to see this ice cave and got a much better view of the blue hued glacier.

A nice, older California couple took this picture, and we ended up walking all the way back to the parking lot with them, chatting the whole time. They were traveling around the South Island in the opposite direction as us, so it was fun to swap stories about what we'd seen and where to go.

Then it was time to head to Fox Glacier, only thirty minutes away from Franz Josef. On the way, we stopped at Lake Matheson, hoping for some good pictures of snowy Mount Cook reflected in the lake. No such luck, but when the clouds parted for a brief moment, I did get a glimpse of the big mountain we would see later in our trip from the other side.

When we got to Fox Glacier, we saw that it would have been another walk of over an hour to get close to the face of it, so we decided to just see what we could see from some lookout points and call it good. It seemed pretty similar to Franz Josef in that there were waterfalls in the nearby area, blue hues in the ice, and a long walk to get near it. There was this funky pond (pictured here) with bright green and blue colors in it that was kind of unique.

Fox Glacier

After our time at the glaciers, we had a three hour drive to Wanaka, where we would spend the night. More on Wanaka tomorrow!

Smith's Farm and Mountain Biking the Queen Charlotte Track

After our wine tasting afternoon, we stayed the night at Smith's Farm in Havelock. It had some fun animals and a pretty hike on site that led to a big waterfall. If you stay in the woods until dark, I guess you can also see glowworms, but I did the hike in the daylight.

On Monday morning, we rented mountain bikes and rode part of the Queen Charlotte Track, which we could access by riding only four kilometers from our campsite. New Zealand has several famous hikes; some take a full day and others take several days. The Queen Charlotte Track is one of the longer ones; it's 71 kilometers and takes most walkers four or five days and bikers two or three. We only rode to a major lookout and back, which took us a couple of hours. But that still gave us great views of the Marlborough Sounds. The panoramic shots below show you our whole view (if you combine them together).

It was a fun mountain bike ride and a good way to start the day, even though the weather was a little drizzly. But there was still some driving to do and more fun to be had on Christmas Eve Day! Stay tuned...

Last Day in Litchfield

We woke up to our final day in the Northern Territory after a great night's sleep in our cute little hut. We still had things to see in Litchfield National Park before driving back to Darwin.

Buley Rockhole is an awesome place in the park. It's a series of waterfalls and naturally created rock pools. You have hundreds of personal little pools to choose from, and we had fun climbing around in many of them.

Playing in Buley Rockhole.

See the tiny termite mound?

After playing around for awhile, we walked the path to Florence Falls. It was a pleasant walk with informational signs and rainforest-type plants along the way.

Overlook of Florence Falls

We did our last waterfall swim in the Northern Territory here in Florence Falls. There were several other people there (you can drive to it as well), but it wasn't overly crowded. Can you spot Zack's head in this picture?

Zack of course wasn't content with just swimming and relaxing; he had to do a jump.

There were tons of fish underwater. These might be barramundi; I'm not sure. I do know I ate barramundi a few times on this trip-yum!

We enjoyed swimming under the waterfall for awhile before heading back toward Buley Rockhole and our station wagon. We had to go drop off our car in Darwin and catch our flight home.

Our final waterfall swim!

Flying out of Darwin.

Our trip to the Northern Territory was amazing, and we packed a lot into five days. The Yellow Water crocodile cruise and our hike to Edith Falls were probably my favorite parts of the trip, but I have lots of awesome memories. If you're interested in seeing the "real" Australia, and you love outdoor adventures, I would highly recommend a trip to this part of the country. But be prepared for lots of driving...these national parks are big, and they're not right next to each other! Anyway, that's the last of my posts about this trip, so now I can hopefully catch up with posts about lots of other things we've been doing lately.

Living it Up in Litchfield

After visiting the termite mounds in Litchfield National Park, we checked out the lookout platform over Tolmer Falls. You can't go to the bottom of this waterfall, because colonies of rare bats live down there. It's one of the tallest waterfalls in the park, and though the water volume wasn't large while we were there, the height of it made it quite impressive.

Can you spot the swimmers under the waterfall?

Next, we stopped by Wangi Falls. There were tons of huge spiders in the plants along the banks of the plunge pool, so Zack took lots of pictures of those (he's obsessed with spiders). Wangi Falls is a popular swimming spot; many people from Darwin take day trips here to cool off.

These Aboriginal girls talked to us for a little while. They were very interested in where we were from and why we were in Australia. I asked them if they had ever seen crocodiles in this swimming area. They nonchalantly replied, "Of course, but just freshwater ones," and they didn't seem to be worried about it at all!

There aren't many food options in the park, but we found a place called Litchfield Safari Camp where we could get some dinner. It was a family-run operation. The Australian bloke showed us our options on the whiteboard out front, his wife cooked our burgers out back, and his daughter and son helped run the "camp." We felt like total tourists, especially as I snapped pictures of these kangaroos while we waited for our food.

Our last Northern Territory sunset.

Our original plan was to camp back at Wangi Falls, but the heat was so intolerable that we knew we wouldn't get any sleep. Sweat was literally dripping off of our faces. Plus, we didn't have any sleeping bags or pillows (the rental car company was supposed to supply them along with the tent but didn't), and we were tired of sleeping on our clothes. So we drove and found a cute little place to stay for the night, and on our steps, we saw this cool green tree frog. Actually, there were several huge toads around the grounds.

There's one other story about camping that I forgot to mention back in the Kakadu posts, but I want to remember it, so I'll put it here. We had set up our tent at an area called Mardugal after doing the Yellow Water crocodile cruise. There were various signs about crocs in the area (though you see those pretty much everywhere in the Northern Territory), and we were literally the only ones at the campground (low season). So we were lying in the tent, trying to get comfortable and get to sleep on top of our clothes and in the heat, when we suddenly heard noises. Not just normal noises...noises of something moving. Something (or someone!) was taking a few steps, stopping, and then taking some more steps. I promise that this wasn't just the breeze or regular camping noises; trust me-we camp a lot, and I know! So Zack and I, who if you'll remember had just seen over a dozen deadly crocodiles a few hours earlier, started panicking a little bit. Here we were in the middle of a deserted campground and something was definitely out there. So Zack, who I think had watched too many YouTube croc videos, decided we needed to get into the car to protect ourselves. Unfortunately, the noise was coming from the direction of the car. This meant we had to make a run for it! So we made our plan: Zack would unzip the tent, and we'd both make a mad dash for the driver's side door and jump in as soon as he got it unlocked. And that's what we did! I ended up on his lap, as there was no way I was going to run around to the other side of the car and get in that way-that's where the noise was! Then there was the dilemma of getting our tent into the car and getting out of there, as we knew neither of us would sleep well after hearing whatever we heard. So we backed the station wagon right up to the tent with the lights on, Zack quickly jumped out and shoved the whole thing into the trunk, and we drove off to the much more populated (and therefore safer!) Gagudju Lodge campground for a decent night's sleep. Well, as decent as can be had when sleeping on the hard ground in 85+ degree temperatures. I actually ended up moving to the backseat of the car for the early morning hours, because my back and hips hurt so much. Anyway, we'll never know what we heard out there in the wilderness...it could have been a wallaby or a big bird or even just a frog hopping around. But we like to think we escaped certain death from a crocodile dragging us off never to be heard from again!

Edith Falls Fun

Besides Katherine Gorge, the other main attraction in Nitmiluk National Park is Edith Falls. This was one of my favorite places on our Northern Territory trip. You can swim in the easily accessible pool (that's Edith Falls in the far background) just a short walk from the parking lot, but the real treat comes when you do the Leliyn Loop walk.







The hike gives you great views of the water and vast landscape below.

Then you get a glimpse of the awesomeness that awaits you.

We had these upper pools all to ourselves! It was amazing. And no, there are no crocodiles up in this area of the park!

Zack did some bouldering...





















...while I enjoyed playing in the water.

After an hour or so of enjoying our own private waterfall and rock pools, we continued our hike and got more beautiful views of where we had been.











You sure do feel like you are in the "real" Australia in the Northern Territory. It's pretty darn cool. Well, actually it's pretty darn hot, but you know what I mean! This is my last post about Nitmiluk; my next post will take you to Litchfield National Park (the third and final park of our trip).

Yes, I am a dork who owns an Australian swimsuit. It was $15 and works well for pictures in these settings. Don't judge!

Gagadju Adventure Tour

When you visit Kakadu National Park, you hear that two of the main attractions are Jim Jim and Twin Falls. However, you can't get there during the wet season because the roads are flooded, and no tours were visiting the area while we were there (the end of the dry season), because it was too hot. In order to drive on the road to the waterfalls yourself, you need 4WD along with a snorkel on your vehicle. We didn't have either. We heard that neither waterfall had a lot of water running over it anyway.


So we decided to do a day-long tour with Gagudju Adventure tours, because their 4WD vehicle would be able to take us to some other cool waterfall spots in the park. We met up with our driver and the other passengers in the morning, boarded the truck/bus thing, and were on our way. The first stop was Maguk, also known as Barramundi Gorge. You have to do a short hike to get to the waterfall, but the green plants everywhere and rock scrambles make it beautiful and fun.

After the hike, you reach Maguk Falls. It's not a huge waterfall, but the pool around it is great for a swim. We hung out here for awhile, just soaking in the pool, playing under the waterfall, and climbing the rocks.

After Maguk, we stopped on the side of the road and got out to take pictures with a large termite mound. You see these things everywhere in the park; some are really small and some are huge. I'll talk more about those when I get to my Litchfield post. But you can get an idea of the size by seeing how tall it is compared to me (I'm 5'8").

We had lunch at the park near Gunlom Falls. The Northern Territory is full of flies, and they buzz around your head and drive you crazy. We eventually invested in fly nets (you'll see those in later posts), but here's Zack using his cooling scarf as a makeshift fly swatter by creating a swinging arc to protect his head!

Gunlom Falls is where part of Crocodile Dundee was filmed. The scene where he spears the barramundi was shot on the banks of this plunge pool. We spent some more time swimming and hanging out here before heading back to Gagudju Lodge for a cold cider and beer. It was a pretty good day, though there was a lot of driving involved (Kakadu National Park is HUGE), and our guide didn't let us know that we could have hiked to the top of both waterfalls and had some good views and more plunge pools to enjoy. We probably should have just rented a 4WD vehicle and gone to these places ourselves, but oh well. I really can't complain when I spent my day swimming under waterfalls!