Mooseadventures Down Under!

On Feb 3rd

HENRY CREEK CAMPSITE

We camped north of Te Anau at the Henry Creek Campsite, which was a pretty primitive site. They just had smelly outhouses (full of bugs). It had just rained, so we set up our tarp over our campervan to ward off rain.

But there was a terrible influx of mosquitoes into our campervan. Now, up until then, I had assumed that New Zealand mosquitoes were cute and small compared to Alaska mosquitoes, but this is where it proved me wrong. They were fairly big here and very aggressive. We ended up with like 70 of them in our campervan and we killed half of those, which took us most of the night in a long, ongoing battle. Needless to say, we didn't get much sleep.

After that massive failure, we skipped our second night at Henry Creek and got a night at a camper park in Te Anau, and had no trouble with bugs there.

WEIRD CREEPY BUGS

Also at Henry Creek, we saw a tree with dead bugs on it. Weird, creepy dead bugs. I looked this up later and google suggested that these were the shells of young cicadas which they shed. This makes sense, as we heard a lot of cicadas in the woods.

LOTR SITES;

FANGORN.

There was this cute, unofficial sign made of rocks.

The first site we went to was supposed to be Fangorn Forest, where Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli meet Gandalf. We went to the site, but all we saw was forest, and we couldn't see any trees that looked like that location. Also, we know that most of it was filmed on a set in Wellington. So, that was a bust.

ANDUIN RIVER

The other was an overlook of Waiau River, which was used as the Anduin River. This one did look more like the movie, or at least, we could imagine that parts of the movie were shot there.

Moreover, it had a strange and dangerous overhang of the trees and grass on the edge of the cliff, where there was nothing under the last 5 feet or so of land. Very unsettling. So we didn't get very close to the edge.

DALEK'S VIEW

On the map near the Anduin River was a note of a Dalek's View just down the road. We had to go see, and found this tank decorated as a Dalek. Fun!

MILFORD SOUND

For the afternoon, we drove to the Milford Sound, which was a very pretty drive. We stopped at Lake Gunn.

TUNNEL

There was a one way tunnel on the drive. We had to wait our turn and then were allowed to go through it. It was a very long tunnel.

AT THE MILFORD SOUND

At the end of the journey, we arrived at the Milford Sound. Which had a port access for a cruise ship, and some hotels. We didn't want to pay for parking, so we parked in the free spot just out of town. Really, there wasn't much of a town, just a few hotels and restaurants.

After a walk, we got in our van and drove back.

THE KEA.

Google says this about the Kea. The kea (Nestor notabilis) is a large, highly intelligent, and famously mischievous alpine parrot endemic to the South Island of New Zealand.

At the Divide we stopped and in the parking lot we saw a kea bird sitting on top of a car, trying to get into an ice box. And it was succeeding. Also, it was using its beak to pull up the trim. I threw a couple of rocks at it and tried to shoo it away but that didn't work. Pesky birds.

January 1, 2026

GREETINGS;

This is the end of 2025 and we have been on our trip for 4 months and 6 days! Our trip is halfway over as this year ends and the new year begins.

WHERE ARE WE? (Everyone’s favorite question)

We spent New Year’s Eve in Hamlyn Heights, Australia, just outside of Melbourne, on the south side of Australia. We picked this area for three days because we are planning to go to the “Twelve Apostles”—and before you get excited, this isn’t a religious pilgrimage, it’s the name of some cool iconic limestone sea stacks found along the Great Ocean Road.

So we are renting a car and driving out there. There is also a medieval theme park near here named Kryal’s Castle that looks like a lot of fun.

WHERE ARE WE GOING NEXT?

After the driving to see the Twelve Apostles, we will return to Melbourne for two nights, then train to Wagga Wagga for one night, then to Canberra, the capitol city, for two nights. Then we’ll train to Sydney for 4 nights before flying to New Zealand on Jan 12th.

WHAT WILL WE DO IN NEW ZEALAND? Jan 12, for 10 weeks.

See Hobbit Holes, of course (which are called Smials in the LOTR books). For the first month, we are borrowing a camper van, if all goes well, for a month and we’ll drive around the South Island. We will also go to Canterbury Faire down near Christchurch, an SCA event, for 9 days, Jan 19-27. We might even see some of the SCA folks we met in Australia there.

AFTER NEW ZEALAND

We’ll come back to Sydney and attend the Roweny Festival (April 8-14). Then we will return to Hawaii via an 18 day cruise, starting April 20th.

OUR TRIP SO FAR:

Where all did we go on our trip?

HAWAII.

We started in Hawaii for 8 nights, which was pretty low key. We had an Airbnb in a little town on the coast just near the beach.

ASIA

JAPAN,

Sept. 3-17. We started in Tokyo, where we visited the National Museum of Tokyo ?@. Then we went on the train to Nagoya, where we met up with Laurel to visit the popular Studio Ghibli Themepark. They made some of my favorite animated films, such as Spirited Away, Warriors of the Wind, and Castle in the Sky. Then we went to Osaka for 4 days, then to Tokushima, the city where Laurel is living; and she showed us some Japanese folk dancing and took us to an Awa dance performance. Lastly, we went to Kagoshima where we visited Masashi, a friend from college.

SOUTH KOREA.

Sept. 18-Oct. 1. We took the ferry to Busan, South Korea and stayed 4 nights there before taking the train north to Pyeontaek where we stayed with friends from Alaska, Erica and Alex. From there we visited Seoul (including the Palace), the Suwon Hwaseong Fortress, and the National Museum of Korea.

TAIPEI.

We first went to Taipei, which used to be one of the most densely populated cities in the world (but I think it’s been passed up since I lived there in 1988-1990). It was fun to revisit Taiwan (I lived there for 18 months), unfortunately, I didn’t recognize any of the places I’d been to. We also went to Kaosiung and then to Hualien where our friend Wendy @ showed us around the entire area for a day.

VIETNAM.

We originally didn’t plan to go to Vietnam, but we heard a lot of good things about it, how it was starting to replace Thailand as a popular and inexpensive tourist spot. We went to Hanoi and then to Da Nang before flying out to Thailand.

THAILAND.

We said we would get a lot of Thai massages, but only got like 3 while we were there. We started in Bangkok, on Khaosang Road. We didn’t do as much as we’d hoped there, because I got sick and then the Queen Mother passed away and they closed the museum, Palace grounds and other places. Later we flew to Phuket in the middle of Thailand, a popular resort area. We tried swimming at the beach, but the water was not very clean and had an oily sheen to it. So, we mostly ate out and walked around looking at shops and got a few Thai massages.

SINGAPORE.

We spent a week in Singapore and had no idea what to expect, but to our surprise it was very modern, maybe more modern than some US cities. They had a great subway system. English was a main language and (finally) you could drink the water. Both Vietnam and Thailand had water that was undrinkable (and I got sick while in those countries). In Singapore, I recovered and felt better. They had some amazing places, including the @ Gardens and @Park

AUSTRALIA.

We landed in Perth on November 11th, where we met some SCA folks at an event, and then again on a Scribal night. We also happened upon a museum display of the Terracotta Warriors, which I really loved! (Did not expect to see that in Australia). We flew to Hobart in Tasmania and went to the top of Mount Wellington, but it was very foggy up there. Then a couchsurfing friend took us to Bruny Island for a day, which was marvelous. We also rented a car and drove to Port Arthur to see the old prison.