Day 110: Driving back to Auckland With no windows in the room that I stayed in last night, I had no real concept of what time it was, and so apart from when Murgs popped her head round the door to say goodbye as she left for work (after which I fell straight back to sleep again), I managed to sleep through until nine, and got out of bed feeling a million times better than I had on the previous evening. I subsequently had a rather lazy but very pleasant morning waiting for my washing to finish in the drier (washing [View Full Entry]

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Day 103: Forest Giants and Harbour Retreats I'm not sure what it is about Auckland, but as had been the case when I first arrived here seven weeks ago and stayed at a different YHA, I was again sharing a small dorm with a group of Germans girls, and again they decided to get up ridiculously early to pack very slowly. Rather annoyed, I gave up hope of sleeping at seven and went out for breakfast leaving them to it. Again, I've nothing particular against Germans in general, just one's that I have to share dorms with in Auckland. My mood [View Full Entry]

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Day 102: The onward journey....from bike to bus to plane to bus to walking to car to ferry Once again, I was up early, and with scissors and suncream removed from my hand luggage, I caught the bus to the airport for the flight to Auckland. As with most domestic departures in Australia and New Zealand, getting through the airport and onto the plane was a fairly informal affair and the subsequent flight uneventful. On arrival in Auckland, I caught another bus and then walked to the hostel. The main reason for my return to Auckland more than a week before [View Full Entry]

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Day 99: Dunedin to Middlemarch to Ranfurly. The first 60km through the Central Otago Goldfields I arrived at Dunedin's impressive railway station at nine this morning ready to catch a train along the Taieri Gorge Railway. Unfortunately the train wasn't a steam engine as I'd hoped (only to make my dad jealous, to be honest, I wasn't so bothered so long as I got to see the scenery and reached the end of the line in one piece). Having climbed aboard one of the old wooden carriages and found my seat, it was a short wait before we started slowly moving [View Full Entry]

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Day 96: New Zealand's Scottish City After catching an early bus, I arrived in Dunedin at lunchtime, and as is so often the case, realised that the bus stop and the place I'd booked to stay were at opposite ends of the city. Although, being a New Zealand City, it only took twenty-five minutes to walk from one end to another, it was rather hilly and quite painful since I do seem to have accumulated more luggage (again). I found my hostel without too many problems and settled into my dorm which I'm sharing with four eighteen year old boys on [View Full Entry]

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Day 93 (cont): Summits and Lakes: The Divide to Lake Howden From Milford Sound, it was a half hour bus journey to the Divide (532m) and the start of the Routeburn. The only passenger dropped off at the stop, I was feeling a bit apprehensive as I put on my backpack and set off on the gravel track. Within five minutes of starting out, it began to rain. Although not a torrential downpour, it was annoying enough to warrant me burrowing into my rucksack to retrieve some Gortex. I did pass a couple of people on their way down from the [View Full Entry]

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Day 92: Milford Sound: The Eighth Wonder of the World (according to Rudyard Kipling) Getting up before six after a night out to put half my luggage in storage, drop off keys and get an early bus for a five hour journey that actually involves travelling only about 80km as the crow flies, but is a lot longer owing to the terrain not really being suitable for road building, was never going to be joyous, but I did manage to get to the bus stop in time, and even managed to pick up breakfast en route. For the first three hours [View Full Entry]

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Day 89 cont. Arrival in Little Britain An hour and a half drive from Wanaka, we finally arrived in Queenstown and were dropped off at our respective accomodation with plans to meet an hour and a half later, for food and drinks. Before a much needed shower, I had to go on a hunt for a supermarket/pharmacy to buy some conditioner in an attempt to tame my slightly unruly mop of hair, which was looking slightly worse-for-wear after ten days of backcountry rambling. Given that the town is largely developed around tourism, with visitors having a wide range of eateries to [View Full Entry]

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OK, so this is obviously being typed up in retrospect, but I did keep a diary of sorts through the ten days I spent with the Hiking New Zealand crew, and here it is, all typed up, and (hopefully) with photos. Day 80: Flora Saddle to Rock Shelter: Meeting the group "When you see someone putting on big boots, you can be sure adventure is about to happen" (Winnie the Pooh) I was really apprehensive about the whole group hiking thing, but I managed to drag myself out of bed bright and early and down to Nelson information centre, where I [View Full Entry]

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Day 77: Pretty town, nice shops, ugly cathedral Apart from visit the bakery to get breakfast and lunch, I didn't really do anything this morning in Picton, but packed up my stuff, said goodbye to a few people at the hostel (particularly the couple who I'd just spent the last two evenings with), and found the bus stop to catch the bus to Nelson. Only a couple of hours away, the sun was shining as it had been in Picton, but without the strong gusts of wind that Picton had seemed prone to, it seemed much hotter in Nelson. I'd arrived [View Full Entry]

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