New New Zealand

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Sorry we have been bad bloggers while in New Zealand. We packed a lot into our short time there.

Arriving in Christchurch in the middle of the night, our tent was vacuumed before we were let loose on the New Zealand flora and forna. We then had to walk a mile to get to our car rental, thats the service you get when you choose an 'el chepo' car and it really was 'chepo' many dents and rust spots meant we didn't have to worry too much about getting any fines.

As you probalby know Christchurch was hit by 3 huge earthquakes last year which distroyed large parts of the city. What is less well known is that they are still experiencing aftershocks pretty regularly (one on Christmas day caused more damage). We arrived not sure what to expect really as the news here talks about how loads of people are moving away from the city. We found that there are large parts of the city where you can forget anything has happend, then suddenly you'll drive down a different street and 3 houses will be gone and the others proped up with huge struts. However, lots of people are just getting on with life.

Our first day was spent functionally finding charity shops to buy pans, crockery etc buying gas canisters and so on. The next day we went into the city centre and discoved that there isn't much to see just at the moment. A huge area of the city is unsafe and totally fenced off. Some enterprising firms have opened shops in old shipping containers which looked really cool.

Leaving Christchurch we headed staight to Mount Cook on the advise of Kath (see Melbourne sections of the blog). Driving a hitcher Charlie to lake Tekapo, a turquoise blue lake with a pretty little church right on the shore, on route. Our arrival in driving rain and strong wind had us cursing Kath's suggestion while we atemped to put out our $20 "water resistant" tent. Half an hour later we were blessing Kath while watching an amazing dramatic red sunset on mount cooks peak.

We awoke to a cloudless blue sky and set out on the Hooker valley walk, which takes you up to the glaciers at the bottom of Mount Cook. It was a really beutiful walk, a little busy but still lovely. The next two days were both lovely and warm and we got lots of amazing views, the highlight being the top of the Red Tarns walk, Mount cook reflected in tarns after a hard walk.

Heading South towards Wanaka we went to a lovely campsite Chris remembered, on a river and we found some cheap beer (bonus point to NZ for affordable alcohol) and watched the sun set over the river. Another bonus in NZ is how late the sun sets there compaired to Australia, much less time trying to fill dark hours while camping. In the morning we walked the Rob roy track another pretty walk upto a glacier look out.

On to Queenstown we had chips for tea sat on the harbour, the hills and lake complete with steam train reminding us of Cumbria. We were in Queenstown organising for the Route burn track, a three day walk spanning the hills between Queenstown and Te Anau, a 150km drive between the start and end was causing us some problems. Luckly I found a post on a 'trampers' (hikers in English) website looking for someone to swap car keys on the walk then drive each others car to a meet up point on the day we needed. After some hasstle with our Australian phone we were sorted.

The walk itself did not start so well. Arriving at the start we found Chris's water bottle had leaked over his spare clothes and were told merrily it was going to snow. Later rangers reduced this to rain with snow flurries higher up. We did the first day rather fast as the rain was predicted for the afternoon and made it to camp just as the first drops started. The next day was lovely and clear just in time for us to get good views on the highest part of the walk, the views of the mountains over the valley were great. We reached the saddle in time for lunch, then began the decent just in time for the hail, then the snow! Both were just brief flurries but I was very glad to have a good coat (Not the only time I was glad, thanks Mum and Sue for getting it to me). That evening we walked up part of the North branch of the track, I had to take off my shoes to cross a freezing stream then got my shoes wet from the wet grass, so the last day walk was a little uncomfortable. Knowing that it was only a couple of hours meant we were too focused on finishing.

Returning to Te Anau and our chepo car we planned on getting a real bed for the night one way or another. Chris's bargining skills came in really well and we got a B&B room for not much more than 2 dorm beds would have been. We had a lovely evening, washed clothes, ate meze style food and had some beer, good times. The next day we had booked a cuise on the Milford sound to take a break from walking. The drive up was broken up by lots of pretty look outs at lakes and cool river carved ice.

Passing back through Queenstown I got my nose pierced something I've been meaning to do for ages. Then headed towards the West Coast and begining the longest hitch hike lift ever. We picked up Quinn an young American who was heading towards Haast. We drove for a couple of hours stopping off at pretty lakes and rivers on route. Chris and I stopped to camp and Quinn stopped too not wanting to hitch at night. In the morning we drove on to Fox Glacier, which was pretty cool but rainy we dropped Quinn off in town before Chris and I went for lunch at a local lake. We thought that was the last we would see of Quinn, however half an hour later after visiting the Franz Josef glacier we picked Quinn up again for another few hours lift to Hokitika. 24 hours later we droped Quinn off for the final time.

Unfortunatly, the west coast weather was living up to its reputation, we spent the first three hours in bed worrying the tent was about to collapes around us in the strong wind and rain before giving up to sleep in the car (not as bad a nights sleep as you'd think). The next morning we headed into Hokitika to buy some jade like the good little tourists we are, choosing a birthday present for me, hurrah. Then we headed off to Hokitika gorge, which was lovely.

We headed inland briefly to a town named Blackball, home of New Zelands workers strikes. They still focus on mine workers rights, even having UK miners strike memorial plates on the wall in the pub.

The rest of the West coast was a variety of beach side cliffs and walks in fairly rubbish weather, not a highlight really.

Up to Golden bay on the North coast. We camped for a couple of nights at Harwoods Hole an really secluded queit campsite (when the other backpackers weren't playing death metal). The campsite was on the edge of an awesome forest filled with strange boulders and an amazing look out over the valley. We did nearly end up spending the night in the woods, having missjudged how quickly the light would fade we had a rather dark walk back but it was worth the sunset view.

Chris spent a lot of time in Golden bay on his last trip, including wwoofing with a couple building a house while raising their two small children and wanted to return to see how the house turned out. They welcomed us in with tea and showed us around their lovely home.

The next day Chris fullfulled his plan of returning to Shambala (a lovely relax hostel with the best view ever) then going for a vegan pie at the Mussel inn before walking home along a path lit by glow worms. Lovely.

At Shambala we met Cass and Adam who are motor biking around NZ. I had never realised what luxury having a car is until I spoke to them about motor biking around. We drove with them to Farewell Spit, the top left corner of the south island where we got totally and utterly soaked, the only time we got really very wet in NZ.

In the Marlborough sounds area be spent a day kayaking on the sounds, which were very cloudy so the views weren't up to much but the reflextions in the water were amazing. The cloud actually came low enough to touch the sea which gave some very eary views over the water. We spent a few days around the sounds then headed south to Arthur's Pass

Arthur's Pass is a range of hills just west of Christchurch where we spent a pleasant few days walking and looking at the gorgous views. Just like Milford Sound we were very lucky with the weather - clear skies and some amazing landscapes with plenty of cheeky Keas (a mountain parrot) playing around us. It has very strange weather there and we were lucky to see what we did, one side of the pass has an average of 6 metres of rain a year whereas the village just behind the mountain, literally half a mile away has only 3 metres a year.

Our flight back was more or less without incident other than the fact the airline pinched our (empty) gas stove and moquito repellant off us as apparently they are very dangerous to take in your luggae (?).

Nigel (of Liz & Nigel, the people we spent Xmas with) came to the airport at 5.45am to pick us up, a fact for which he is almost totally guarenteed a place in heaven. Since then we've been searching for Jobs in and around Fremantle, which we've been unable to sort out so on Monday we head south to the Margeret River region to do some fruit picking which we're hoping to be untraumatic and to make our money as quickly as possible and get out. Wish us luck...

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