Ken, I live on the other side of Wash. and kept hearing the snow and temp. reports from Spokane and wondered how you were doing. Glad you made it and had a safe return. Dick B.
Printable View
Ken, I live on the other side of Wash. and kept hearing the snow and temp. reports from Spokane and wondered how you were doing. Glad you made it and had a safe return. Dick B.
At 0230 the alarm went off and the front desk called our room. At 0430, we hot footed it over to the main office about 1/2 mile away from our room. The hot air balloon folks were in a bus with a trailer behind with the balloon on it. They could not negotiate the hedged drive where our room was located and asked us to meet them at the main building "roundabout" at 0500. The Camera Queen in an excited mode insisted on my early morning photograph. I don't enjoy being photographed. You'll notice she cropped this photo to keep everyone from seeing the obscene gesture I was making with my right hand. We rode the bus to a common area. There were two balloons going up. 24 passengers in the bigger balloon and 16 in ours. The baskets are cordoned off so the pilot and the LPG tanks and burners are in the middle compartment. The morning was chilly. They stopped at "Y" in the road and released a small helium-filled ballon to test the wind currents. This balloon's direction of travel determined the launch point. We parked in a small grassy park and began the process of rigging the balloons to the baskets, testing the burners...filling the balloons first with air and then with hot air. The balloons are attached to the buses initially and then released after everyone is on board. Prior to launch the pilots gave a safety lecture. 1st rule...don't interfere with the pilot. 2nd rule was teaching us the landing position. Basically, the pilot can control the basket in a 360º rotation but the path of the flight is wind determined. When we are given the command to "assume the landing position" the taller person places their back to the direction of travel. The shorter person stood in front of the taller person. Both then crouch down so their eye level is just about even with the top of the basket. The shorter person ends up sitting on the taller person's lap. Both grasp ropes inside the basket and hang on for dear life. One person tilts their head to the left and the other tilts their head to the right. This is to keep from breaking the taller person's nose at the landing. The landing is somewhat dramatic!
Attachment 105592 Attachment 105597
Attachment 105598
Attachment 105599
Attachment 105600
With the burners tested, the balloons filled with hot air and passengers we launched. Being an old oil field roughneck, I have gone up in a derrick a few times to assist derrick hands. I AM SCARED TO DEATH OF HEIGHTS! Not flying...but scared of heights. The hot air balloon ride was incredible! So quiet .....so peaceful.......the view spectacular! The pilots do have some control over the direction of the flight by changing elevation and catching winds blowing in different directions. I was surprised how readily they could control elevation. At one point as we approached a river, our pilot dropped us down until the bottom of the basket was less than 3 feet above the water and lifted us up to gently clear the trees on the other shore by the same distance. It was impressive!
The landing was pretty dramatic. So much so that my official SMC ball cap came off.....got drug under the basket. I brought some of New Zealand back with me on my SMC cap. I like to believe it's some NZ earth and not sheep dung from the sheep pasture where we landed!:D
Hot air balloon riding is a participation sport. The passengers have to help set up and tear down the balloons but that just adds to the fun. Of the 16 people in our balloons we rode with people from China, Singapore, Japan and the USA. It was interesting and you know something.....doing something this fun and special bridges all political and cultural differences. A smile of excitement and joy....translates in all languages!
We launched about 0600 and arrived back at the motel at 1000. Sharon and I napped until 1200 when Ken's wife Anne arrived to take Sharon shopping. I got called in the room about 1245 and my guide was waiting to take my fly fishing. No photos of either.
The shopping was good. When we went to dinner that night Anne said "I've never power shopped before!" Sharon had a list and they shopped hard!
Flyfishing turned out to be challenging. They hot air balloon ride in the early morning hours for a reason. Being an island they get winds! The later in the day the worse the winds became until just at dusk. We fly fished...attempted with a wind speed of probably 10-13 mph with gusts higher than that. The guide hooked 2 and I hooked 2 but neither of us were able to land them. The casting was difficult in the wind and I learned a lot about fly casting in the wind. The guide was quite expert and he taught me a lot about fly casting in the wind. I thoroughly enjoyed myself. No fish....no problem....that's why they call it fishing and not fish slaughter...or fish harvest!
The guide took me back to my room after 4 hours....refused to charge me for his time. He could have charged me $80 NZ per hour but refused to charge me. I told him that wasn't necessary and what about the license? He said we never filled out the license so he would not charge me for that due to the weather/wind conditions. This guy came in off "holiday" with his family to take me fishing and wouldn't charge me for it. I gave him a healthy tip. He initially refused it. Tipping is not expected in NZ. I insisted....I gave him a healthy tip! What a refreshing and friendly atmosphere!
That evening we went to dinner with Ken and Anne and walked around down town Christchurch. Beautful buildings...old.....very beautiful....Again...we returned to the resort early as we had the next day heavily planned. Great dinner...great beer......beautiful scenery......wonderful friends....friendly, friendly people......Incredible!
Looked like it was a great trip Ken!
Bryan
very nice!!! Jim.
Another post to put in a few more photos....
Here's some more scenery. My friend Ken said he had a surprise for me. Turns out he had a friend who is a hot air balloon pilot. He was piloting the other balloon we were chasing. In fact, we went over Ken's house during the flight. He was departing for work in Christchurch....saw us.....stopped his car....honked his horn and waved at us.
Attachment 105601
Finally we landed....got the balloon rigged for reloading into a canvas bag and the pilot was talking with the other pilot and the ground crew who were racing to find us.
Attachment 105602
Here's a little picture of the LOML.....If you have an hour, ask her if she enjoyed the balloon ride!:rolleyes:
Attachment 105603
Now so far.....you have heard how incredibly lucky we were to get out of Spokane before the 2nd major snow storm shut down all of the major airports in the Pacific North West......well....the same incredibly good luck happened in NZ...
The hot balloon ride.....they had not had one in over a week due to bad weather..........the day we arrived they got the 1st balloon ride in a over a week.....and of course we got ours......
Today the "good luck" continued.
We rode a bus to a place north and east of Christchurch and boarded a boat. The signs WARNED of High Seasickness Probabilty due to rough seas and.....all the whales had moved out. The nearest one was 20 miles out.
During the bus trip portion, we stopped enroute for "tea" and there was a local group of seals or sea lions....I forget which...on some rocks.....
Attachment 105617
At the docks, we loaded up.....and got underway. The seas weren't nearly as rough as I experienced in the Atlantic while in the US Navy but there was some chop. We arrived on site at the location 20 miles out....we got there about 5 minutes before a whale sounded and then dove. With that we started back in. By the time we arrived nearly 1/2 of the 60 or so passengers had gotten seasick. I didn't know they made those white paper bags in so large a quantity! I understood why the nurse that went along on the ride was "gloved up". Though we were on a 10:30 boat and there were many more scheduled for that day.....all other boats were canceled. Seas too rough and not safe to take paying passengers out on them....
Attachment 105618
This evening...Christmas Eve.....our anniversary....the resort Pepper's Clearwater Resort...Christchurch provided, free gratus, our anniversary dinner and drinks. Incredible!
Christmas morning the limo driver showed up and transported us to the Christchurch airport. We boarded a plane for Queenstowne. What a beautiful little town! IIRC...it's resident population is around 14,000 and it is definitely toursit oriented! A limo driver met us at the airport with our names on a sign. He said he didn't have another pickup for 45 minutes so he took us up to the highest point within the city limits and gave us an opportunity to see the city and it's beautiful lake. Then he took us to our hotel.
Another 4 star hotel. Did I mention what great taste my DIL and youngest son have? A concierge carried our luggage in. As we checked in....I asked another concierge about helicopter flights as I promised my wife one as an anniversary present. He whipped out the same brochure I'd been looking at on the flight over to Queenstowne. He told me about a special that they were running on one of the better shorter flights. He told me it would cost about $125 NZ (approx. $75-$85 US). He said he'd check on it and asked what day and afternoon or morning. The other concierge accompanied us to our room where he unloaded our luggage. The phone rang...the guy at the desk said our reservations for the helicopter ride were set and he'd billed it to our room. What service! How could it get any better? Sharon and I wandered around town. You had to see it to believe it. Beautifully set on a huge lake about 57 km long and surrounded by mountains. A lot of the mountain scenes from the "Lord of the Rings" triology movies were shot nearby. Absolutely stunning scenery. People sun bathing on grass in the parks.....musicians playing music....good music and musicians.....for tips in a tin cup......Only bad note....it's Christmas Day and most shops and restaurants are closed. We chose to lunch at a chinese restaurant. Bad decision...only bad food we ate on the whole trip. That evening...Christmas dinner.....Did I mention how intelligent, beautiful and what great character our youngest son's wife has? She had made reservations for us for Christmas dinner at another fine hotel. Dinner there was, indeed, superb! We wondered around town and finally back to the room. Big shocker.....MacDonalds......Domino's........Burger King......Wendy's .........a lot of "American" fast food places in NZ!
The LOML has her computer with all the photos tied up right now. I'll post more later.
Ken,
Glad to see you are home safe and that you enjoyed the trip. I hope some of that freak snow you got is gone too. I got to say, you were looking mighty chipper for 5 in the am. :eek: Aren't hot air balloon rides great?! Tell Sharon that if she only shot 20 GB of images she wasn't really trying very hard. :D While you are at it, remind her to make a couple of backup CD/DVD's of the images right away, and send one to your son and daughter in law in Texas for safe keeping. Not trying to be a downer or anything, but stuff happens (crashed hard drives, robberies, house fires (oh I didn't say that)), and this is a trip you don't want to lose the pictures from. Also, every 5-7 years you should make a copy of the disk on whatever the current media is (just try to find something that will read an old 5.25" floppy disk). Home burnt DVD's don't really last that long, and need to be copied occasionally to ensure that your images last. You definitely will be talking about this one the rest of your life.
Brian...Mike and Kristy gave us one additional Christmas present. They gave us a 1 Terabyte standalone hard drive. Every one of Sharon's photos..past and present are now backed up on that. I don't know what Mike and Kristy have planned...but we Fedexed Sharon's camera memories to them today. They have some special project that required them to have the photos no later than Tuesday. I had problems burning a DVD with her computer today. So we shipped them the memories. I did get the photos loaded on the computer and backed up on the standalone drive. I will be burning DVDs or CDs tomorrow.
I suspect I'll be replacing the main HD and doing a complete software load in the next week or so on her photography computer.
Thanks for the advice! She's on that computer working with photos for over 3 hours now. I'm using my laptop.
PS...wait 'til I get to the part where we arrived back into Spokane. It took me and a guy from Missoula 2 hours to dig out the van in the Super 8 parking lot. My left shoulder is killing me as a result.
Holy Cow Ken..!!!!! I'm so happy for you and Sharon and for this trip of a lifetime..!!!!! I'm extremely happy that it all worked out for both of you. I'd love to see more pics when you have time. :)
Great sounding trip Ken. I've never been to NZ, but friends have and they all loved it as much as you did. I expect that these memories will be among your best ever.
WOW! WOW! WOW! :)
I can't even begin to explain how happy I am that you and Sharon got to go on this trip. I was really wondering if you even made it out of Spokane in your quest to get to NZ.
I am really enjoying your narrative and feel like I was on the trip myself. Kudos to your son and DIL for making this 40th anniversary a special time for you and Sharon.
If you hadn't told us, I'd have guessed that NZ Ken was your long lost brother. Same height, same hair line ;):D:), same stature.
I'm really looking forward to the continuation of your travelog with as many pictures as you can upload onto SMC.
Again, so glad you made it back OK and had a great time.
Karl
Let's see....It's Christmas Day in Queenstowne.
A sleepy little tourist town and they know who butters their bread. They treat tourists well. If I could only go to one place in NZ....Sharon and I in coversation at midnight last night agreed.....This is the place!
Attachment 105654
Beautifully set on the shores of a glacial lake.....small town...surrounded by glacial cut mountains...easily accessible on foot to most of the town. Even a fat old man like me can walk around the major downtown area in 20 minutes or so.....
Hard to believe this crowd....listening to music....sunning....Christmas Day........
Attachment 105653
Flowers in bloom..........
Attachment 105655
Tomorrow...the fun begins.....
The hotel we stayed at was the only hotel on the shores of the lake in the downtown area. Everything was so accessible. Sharon on 2 occassions went shopping by herself and I was very comfortable with her personal safety. I have this theory about shopping. Her safety is my personal responsibility. I take this responsibility seriously. Shopping with her is my personal responsibility and I try to do it at least once a year!:rolleyes:I love the woman as much as any man could but shopping?.....I hate shopping. Her shopping routine goes like this.....Go to the 1st shop and find exactly what you want. Leave it and go to every other shop in town trying to find something better or cheaper. After 9 hours of proving no other shop has what you want or as good a quality as the 1st item you found or has it cheaper......return and buy the 1st one you found that suited your requirements. Drives me uip a wall! Seriously though....our final day we walked in to this one souvenir store....4 clerks recognized her and acknowledged her presence! I teased her relentlessly about that!:D But I gotta love that woman! She shipped home around $500 worth of souvenirs from that store. Every member of our family and some neighbors will have late Christmas gifts!
Did I mention jewelry she bought in Christchurch? Well I shoulda.......
December 26th.....
The entire trip we got up as early as 0230 and the latest we slept in was 0600. This morning we slept until 0500. We had breakfast here at the hotel. Great breakfast and GREAT prices. Restaurants in hotels are proud of their meals and price accordingly.
Today would be the longest day we spent on tour.....12 hours. We boarded a bus for the 4 hour drive to the Milford Sound which is a combined bus and boat tour. It was certainly worth the effort!
Though named the Milford Sound it should be named the Milford Fijord as most of the bays on the South Island were cut by glacier activity and thus should be named fijords as in Norway etc. We boarded a bus and started out driving southwest. Did I mention they raise sheep in NZ? Now I don't mean they casually raise sheep....these folks seriously raise sheep. While traveling on a bus if you miss a photographic opportunity of some sheep...don't worry there is always the next pasuture. An interesting thing to this old American farm boy and you may notice it in the photos taken from the hot air balloon...they use hedges along with fences a lot here around fields. They also plant a lot of trees and fence around the trees around fields. The trees and hedges act as a fence for livestock and as a windbreak.
We stopped in a little town southwest of Queenstown for "TEA". Another beautiful glacial lake...sleepy sleepy little town....geared for tourists. Of course the LOML always the clown had to pose for this photo:rolleyes:
Attachment 105665
Then we got near the Milford Sound.....dropping elevation in a dramatic fashion. We passed an overturned car and learned the next day that a young couple from Japan had been driving...going too fast and rolled it off the road and down the embankment on the switchbacked road leading down to the oneway tunnel. There is this tunnel. It is carved through the rock. It has stop lights at both ends. It is only big enough for traffic to drive through it in one direction at a time. Did I mention....IIRC.....while in the tunnel you experience about an 800' elevation change.....IIRC... The tunnel is about 3/8 of a mile long IIRC. Anyway...the point is the tunnel changes elevation pretty dramatically and it is narrow. Can you imagine what it would be like to have to back a tour bus up or down hill within this poorly lighted, almost pitch black tunnel...going uphill or downhill because you met some oncoming traffic? So they control traffic. If there are a large number of cars waiting at one end....once they enter...our bus driver said you can sometimes sit for 20-40 minutes waiting for the lights to change.
Attachment 105666
Back in a minute with photos after I refill my coffee cup. I hope I'm not boring everyone.
Enroute the tour guide pointed out what appears to be beautiful flowers. It's actually a noxious weed that is killing a lot of native plants.
Attachment 105667
It was raining early on the bus portion of the trip. Again...that turned out to be to our good luck. The soil is so shallow on these steep mountain sides and the makeup of the soil is such the rain runs off almost instantly. Thus....we saw literally hundreds of little water falls once we started driving down into Milford Sound and while we were on the 2 1/2 hour boat trip portion.
Attachment 105669
Here we are boarding the boat.
Attachment 105668
Now we'll get to some of the better photos of the Milford Sound.