New Zealand Weekly Update #3

Last updated on November 13, 2022

6th of November until 13th of November 2022

Approximate reading time: 8 minutes

Apple pie and neighborhood

Sunday, sunny day. After we went out to do some rigging and „garden work“ in the Niger Stream (still spelled Nai-Jer), we went back to Wanaka and an afternoon with some chilling at our terrace. The way to Niger Stream and along the Lake Wanaka is just a stunning one, full of lanscape, views to the mountains, along a bumpy gravel road, sheeps and cows crossing your way and you end up at a beautiful spot in a remote area. While you prepare yourself for the tour, sheeps might come close to you, watching you and join you the way up to the entrance of the canyon. More of this later on…

So we came back to our house in Wanaka and Julia already prepared some yummy apple pie to share with us outside at the terrace. While we were eating, a neighbor went by and we just had a short conversation. She introduced herself as Caylee and mentioned she lives just next to our house with some friends (from UK and France). So we invited her for a piece of apple pie and some ice cream. And most of the time it is just like this. People walk by, having a short conversation and want to know what you are doing, who you are and just talk. But it’s not a typical amercian „how you are doing“ , most of the people are really interested in your person – especially as New Zealand just opened the borders again after a long time of Covid and Isolation. And we will meet our neighbors again soon 🙂

Robin „all good“ from the Netherlands

As we knew from several chats in our guide whatsapp group, Robin planned to arrive Sunday 5th of November and join us to live in our house and fill up the left room. Robin is original from the Netherlands and is practicing canyoning sports for more than ten years and is running a canyoning company in france (check out https://www.purecanyoning.com/ for more information). He is a quite patient and relaxed guy with a lot of experience in different canyons around the world. He was also guiding for Deep Canyon some years ago and know the area as well as the canyons really good. On the next day (Monday) we went out together to explore the Niger Stream even more. We offer a beginner trip (Niger Stream) as well as an intermediate Tour (Big Nige), which is even longer with more rappel sections and a longer hike up to the entrance. This day, Robin and I hiked up the whole way to Big Nige (~ 30 Minutes steep walk way up high). This day was meant to be to check the canyon for any branches, trees, broken anchors and all this stuff. Unfortunatelly we found a big dead tree in between two rappel sections and tried to remove this one by pushing, pulling and use our hand saw to cut it a little bit. But this one was too big and we need to get it out another day with a real chainsaw (and keep this one dry). After Robin explained some sections and we checked out Big Nige (honestly a stunning one with nice rappels in the waterfall, nice pools to jump as well as a nice slide and morning sun directly in your face), we headed back to Wanaka. By the way, whenever something is good or Robin explained something, he says „All good“, all the time. And I just started to do the same, e.g. when I am on my way with customers – kinda weird isn’t it :). When you reach Matukituki Valley (where the Canyon is located, close to the Matukituki River), you lose your phone connection, your internet and your communication options to the rest of the world – so you always need to bring a radio or InReach with you just in case). As soon as we got back our phone connection, we received a message from Julia. She told us that there will be a BBQ with the Neighbors next to us – the apple pie yesterday was worth it 🙂 (and the icecream and the coffee haha). So we headed up to the neighbors house and met Piers and Canelle (he is from UK, she is from France) and both work in Wanaka for „Big Fig“ (to all my german friends, try not to laugh 😉 ). Big Fig is a small restaurant where you can get healthy and really really tasty food. Depending one the size of your bowl, you can choose out of different options (roasted potatoes, chicken, meatballs, different salads and more). And you get sparkling / still water for free. All the time. Definitely a recommendation! So back to the BBQ – the view from the terrace of our neighbors is stunning, you can see the Lake Wanaka and we just enjoyed the evening, some nice snacks, good conversation and some beers.

Jam in the Park gone wrong – Slackline gone wright

After a long day of canyoning one day later and some tree work, our plan was to sit in the park with some people, having some yoga sessions and some jam afterwards. Unfortunatelly, we ended up in the wrong place and searched for this kind of event. In the end, we ended up sitting at the beach of Lake Wanaka and having a beer. While I tried to set up the camera to make some pictures, a guy went by and asked if he should take the pictures. This is kinda normal situation here in New Zealand as the people here are really kind and try to help and support you. After some nice pictures we had a nice conversation with Cody. Fun fact, he works actually for a company called „Ocula“ , eyewear, optometrists and vision care specialists. And we went into a nice conversationabout my previous carreer experience (working in optometry and contact lens research in Germany) and that we have to catch up again when he is back in town. Afterwards, aour neighbors went by for some conversation and we ended up in our house for some beers and some socializing.

The next day was much more successful regarding the organisation of our activities. After my first tour with customers and the first guide Robin (with 4 customers, 2 of them from germany, having a great tour, great rappel sections and a lunch after the tour) we went again to the park to have some slackline experience and meet some new people. This time we have been at the right place and found the already set up slacklines and some people to talk.

Big Nige with customers – oh happy Day

After these park experiences and meeting some new people, it was time to get into the intermediate canyon „Big Nige“ with our experienced guide Sandra and a total of 5 customers the day afterwards. The hike up to the entrance is quite steep and take about 30-40 minutes. This canyon has some really nice rappel sections (sometimes in the waterfall), some jumps and slides and when you are lucky, the morning sun shines into the canyon and warms you up (and sometimes you see a lot of rainbows while rappeling in the water). There are some highlights in this canyon, for example a big slide and a Zipline over the canyon at the end of the tour and it’s always a lot of fun for customers and guides. I am really looking forward for a lot of tours with international guests here!
The next day (Thuersday) I was able to take my day off and so some stuff. I headed up to the post office in Wanaka to register my car (and it is really kinda easy to set this up). You just have to fill in a document to prove, that the car belongs to you (after the guy who sold the car to you also filled in a document). That’s it. You just have to make sure, that your Warrant of Fitness and your registration are up to date. Otherwise you also can update them quite easy. Unfortunatelly, the woman in the postoffice made a little mistake and entered a wrong license plate into the computer. So she told me, that my license plate is not valid anymore and I have to go to a „Powersports“ company (like a car shop) and have to get a new number plate. Talking to a guy in this powersports shop, he told me that my license plate is still valid – so all the way back to the postoffice. And here we’ve found out that the woman just made this little mistake – all good – license plate valid until end of december 🙂

Why (k)not?

As the season just started and there are also some days without tours, my boss asked me if I want to be responsible for the social media stuff (Facebook, Instagram etc.) and I was really happy to set up some nice videos and pictures to be published the next weeks. You’ll find out some information on Facebook and Instagram by searching „Deep Canyon“ as well as on our webpage https://deepcanyon.co.nz/ . You’ll find a promotion video later in this section (and we are really happy to see you soon in New Zealand 🙂 )

After work was done, we headed up to a little event just close to our house. Free sausages in a bar with a garden next to it. But it was kinda weird as the woman at the bar asked us, if we are already members of the club, As we didn’t know which kind of club this should be, we asked the woman about it. The only answer was, that if we are part of the club, the drinks are cheaper. At this day, we just signed up as guests and ordered a drink on the bar. Afterwards, we went out to the garden and were able to grab some sausages for free. Fair deal 🙂 So we still think about joining this weird club or not – depending on the amount of free sausages and beer haha 🙂

What else to say?

As the time is running here (or seems like running) we still practice yoga every morning. Yoga sessions are sometimes really easy going, sometimes really demanding. This morning (Sunday) we have been five people (some neighbors joined as well) and we had to practice the yoga session at our terrace. Unfortunatelly, I have no good pictures to prove, but it was sunny and a really nice session. We’ll keep going and find our inner peace (and some sore muscles as well haha).
After our Yoga session, we went to some climbing again to Hospital flats and did some really nice and demanding climbing sections. As it was my second time outdoor climbing, it was kinda hard to get into the climbing sections (we did it toprope style) and I just was able to reach one peak today. But a friend of ours (Piers) made a really nice shot of another section I tried. Unfortunatelly, It was just above ground and I was not able to get higher, but I will publish this picture anyways (even if Thomas told me it’s not fair to share this one as I did not finish this section 🙂 )
And I am still waiting for my official bank account to get my money transfered (normally it’s kinda easy and fast, but New Zealand banks are quite busy at the moment and ask you to be patient, really patient) . No bank account, no tax number, no money. Financial backup is going to shrink 🙁
Last short story, saturday evening we went to a sportsbar to watch the womens rugby final – New Zealand vs. Great Britain (and Piers is from Great Britain). The bar was full of people, cheering to the national team of New Zealand and the whole evening has been a lot of fun (and New Zealand won 34:31 – what a game and what a victory!).

Hope you enjoy the short stories from New Zealand, it’s just a small insight of my daily life here – there are a lot of things going on – a lot of experiences and a lot of new and amazing people and sometimes it is just not possible to write everything down.
I will update you again next week and send you some powerful and loveley greetings from this unique and wonderful island.

Felix