Ivandkate2011adventures

After skirting the beauty of the lakes and driving through the rain-soaked forests of the mounainous Haast pass, we're heading down to the West Coast of the South Island. This place is harsh and windswept. Sheer hardwork and determination allow the locals to eek out a meagre living from the land and its unforgiving coastline, and they do so with pride. They take a certain satisfaction from knowing that not many people could do what they do. In fact, they regard the strangers who enter their lands with suspicion. This is the impression we get on arriving for the first time on the West Coast. We walk into the pub in Haast, hopeful for a snack that will keep us going on the last leg of our journey. The group around the pool t... read more

We are heading across the Cook Straight to the South Island. Our check in for the ferry goes smoothly, which is more than can be said for the crossing – a blustery affair which requires an intense focus on the horizon in order to keep lunch down. We’re glad the choice of the now defunct catamaran - the vomit comet, as we’re told it was called, was not available to us. After a couple of hours, our Interislander ferry begins to navigate its way through the deep, and mercifully placid waters of Queen Charlotte Sound. The southern land seems to envelop us and draw us into its harbour, and we sense that nature will have a lot in store for us here. We’re going to be making our way down the East coast this week, before ... read more

We expected our visit to Auckland to be fleeting – to arrive late, spend a day organising ourselves with a van and supplies, and to hit the road. What we didn’t necessarily expect was that Iv’s cousin Margaret would make our short time here so enjoyable. She, along with pedigree cat Poppy, welcomes us into her home with open arms. There are tourist board-quantities of promotional material, maps and guide books waiting for us, and Margaret insists on taking us wherever in the city we need to go. One of the first stops is to pick up a campervan, which will be our home for the remainder of out visit. We have explored our options to discover that we need to go for a bargain basement model. Iv’s relieved to find that the van we’re presented ... read more

We rise from our hostel beds at 5.30am and gather our belongings as quietly as we can to avoid disturbing the others sleeping in our dorm. At 6am a taxi us on a twenty minutes journey to the outskirts of Cusco, where grand old trains take passengers through the Sacred Valley towards Machu Picchu; the last hurrah of this leg of our adventures. For hundreds of dollars we could have opted for a silver-service, Orient-Express like affair through the mountain highlands. We couldn´t afford that but our train is nevertheless fairly grand, it´s vista dome top and leather seats unlike anything else we´ve travelled on here. As it pulls out of Cusco we sit back to enjoy one of the most impressive mountain train journeys in the world. The train´s wagons meander through the countryside, allowing ... read more

The 3am start is a bit brutal but necessary if we want to avoid walking in the dark tonight. We try to get some shut-eye on the 3 hour drive. Iv agreed the ground rules with our fellow trekkers the previous day that there would be no early morning chatter but he is startled from a semi-sleep by a nightmare that takes him back to that first trot on a horse. It has been prompted by the crazy shaking of the bus as it tries to navigate the mountain dirt road. We have never been on anything so bumpy. We try protecting our bum cheeks by sitting on layer upon layer of jumpers, fleeces, towels......anything. But it is to no avail. We ponder whether the ´white finger´condition can affect the whole body. How the bus stays ... read more