So after my time in Fiordland National Park I went back to see Ginny and Gerry, Eve and Paddy at Halfway Bay Station.  We enjoyed a great meal and some Emerson's Pilsners and the following day I went on one last sheep muster in the high country with Gerry and his new shepherd Mark.  The top photo is the walk down after getting the mob through a tricky gate to graze the high country for the summer.

I ended my trip in Queenstown and went on an epic mission to bid farewell to the country I've come to love.  Yesterday I walked up the 3,000 + foot elevation gain to the top of The Remarkable Mountains which stand proud over Frankton, Queenstown, and Lake Wakatipu.  I made it to the top for an illuminated late day view over the valley below and bid farewell to the sun as I made my way down the back side of the range to Lake Alta.  After a good long drink of ice cold water from the lake I started down.  I descended the ski area nestled on the back side of the range and ran the access road out the 12km to the main road, and the remaining 6km back to town.

The run was amazing, two hours of bliss.  A breeze in my face, hair blowing in the wind, Lake Wakatipu below, the amber hue of tussock and silhouetted speargrass on ridgelines.  Miraculous mountains to the west, snow capped Alps to the north, the TSS Earnslaw returning from it's sunset cruise, and me in a zone of my own, rolling down.  The sun set transforming the sky from pale blue and orange to a glowing fire in the west, and endless pastel shades of purple to the east.  The first stars showed in the north, and I followed an upside down Orion to the north, while the Southern Cross watched my back as I churned my way over the Kawarau river and up the low lit slopes of Frankton.

Thanks for everything New Zealand!

The Milford Track and Milford Sound are acclaimed for a reason.  I had an amazing four day walk in well worn leather boots through places I wasn't sure even existed.  You can tell a lot about a man by looking at his boots.

I'm high above MacKinnon Pass communing with the Keas high flying over worlds unknown below.  This place is pure magic, pure!  The beauty surrounding me is inexplicable.  Mother Nature, the creator of all this magnificence can't even explain how she pulled this one off.  Wow!

Following my stint in Nelson Lakes, I made it back up to Mapua to bid farewell to Mary and headed south to Queenstown.  I based out of here for the remainder of my trip in NZ.  The above are photos from the Routeburn Track.  A beautiful three day walk through amazing high country in Fiordland National Park.  I camped in some beautiful places and met some wonderful international travelers.  So after three days of walking, sweating, swimming and taking in breathtaking views, I went to Te Anau to prepare for the acclaimed Milford Track the following day.

Treetops whistle as the first stars show.  The stone peaks surrounding Lake McKenzie still pose in the remaining twilight, standing guard over the valley.  And I allow my tired self, after a tea with whiskey, to slowly fade off to bed and the coming night.

I spent a week volunteering for the Department of Conservation in the Nelson Lakes National Park after the kayak trip with Mary.  We were charged with cleaning and painting one of the remote huts in the East Matakitaki valley and clearing a bit of trail.  We easily accomplished these tasks and the rest was like a vacation.  Myself, a young German guy named Moritz, the two Kiwis above, Nigel and Martin, and our DOC trip leader Kerri flew in to this beautiful valley for five days of tramping around, working and deer hunting.  Both Nigel and Martin bagged a red deer hind a piece.  It was a good week.

She's done it again, Mother Nature never ceases to inspire me to put pen to paper.  The slow trickle of a spring waterfall behind me, birds singing in the breeze, the alpen glow of west facing peaks at sundown and the low rushing churn of the river below is where I live right now.  Perched in a rock slide high above the East Matakitaki Valley below, looking South at the Majesty that these mountains behold as the sun lingers no longer and the foreboding gray of a cloudy twilight over stone peaks starts to take shape.  I feel infinitely inconsequential amongst these giants, but privileged to be allowed in their company.  For a brief moment in time I get to exist in a place that they've called home for thousands of years.  Time marches on and they watch it march right on by.  

I'm in the Blenheim area now, I got five days of work wire lifting on vineyards in the area.  It's monotonous work, but a great physical job.  It's good to work outside, get fit and not spend any money.

It was a lovely sunset here at the Wairu River mouth.  Pastel blue and orange swept over the western sky as gulls soared over the Wairu Bar facing into an incessant north wind.  I will sleep well again tonight after a physical ten hour day in the sun.

The above photo was one of about seven vineyards we worked on through the week.

After a week of work in Blenheim, it was once again time to play.  I made my way back to Mapua outside Nelson to see Mary, the cousin of Ginny who is the wife of Gerry, who manages Halfway Bay Station.  Mary is a wonderful person, filled with positive energy, so there was no better person to be with after hearing the news of my grandmothers passing when my brother called on the morning after I returned from Blenheim.  I decided Bama would want me to carry on enjoying the beauty that New Zealand beholds, so Mary, two of her friends, Brad and Ketter, and I went to Golden Bay and Farewell Spit at the very Northern end of the South Island.  We enjoyed a fantastic time at Fahariki, the sand dunes above, roaming the rolling green sheep paddocks right on the West Coast,  and enjoyed a beautiful evening watching swans, catching shellfish and walking forever at low tide on the sandbar at Farewell Spit.  The next day, Mary and I departed on a three day sea kayak trip around the Abel Tasman National Park.

Mary and I have been kayaking from Totaranui south.  Last night we stayed at Anapai and today we've made it to Mosquito bay.  The coast of Abel Tasman is astounding.  Crystal clear turquoise blue water, dramatic granite coast, sea birds, seals, the sound of cecadas and paddle strokes as we float by endless beauty with the backdrop of endless green bush blanketing coastal mountains.  It has been great.    

We ascended through a dried moss laden bush forest into the long white cloud that shrouded the ridges of Paparoa.  The clouds are what brought me back.  I'd been lost, unaware of the beauty surrounding me for awhile.  But the clouds brought me back.  An evening stroll from the Croesus Hut through the tussock fields above as the day gave way to a descending twilight, reopened my blinded eyes.  The company of two new friends overlooking the valley below was an antidote to an illness I had been temporarily stricken with.  An illness of disillusionment and uninspired times.  But a jaunt into the mountains is always good medicine to an apathetic soul.  Even as we descended I continued to ascend to a higher standing.

The holidays were great, with the cheer of a Kiwi family and plenty of food and drink.  The New year came in peacefully in the town of Karamea with a great group of people who live in a wonderful community at the end of the road on the Northern West Coast of the South Island.  Days have been passing by with lots of swimming, fishing and roving through the perpetually green forests.  I've made it to Nelson and will enjoy the next few weeks of real summer weather in the sunniest place in NZ.

The clouds have been swept away as the sun takes over after the storm has passed.  The hillsides glow, overflowing with trees of the brightest green imaginable.  The Tasman Sea churns incessantly beating down the rocks and sand.  But the tea colored river, swollen with fresh fallen rain flows with grace, beauty and a calm that brings peace to my overactive mind.