Blogs from Banks Peninsula, South Island, New Zealand, Oceania - page 2

Entering week 4 of my parents' trip to New Zealand!! They are getting used to traveling in hostels on the cheap, hiking wilderness trails, learning about life in our small town of Timaru and meeting lots of friendly people, NOT fighting traffic and learning to drive on the left!! Also-close encounters with seals, yellow eyed penguins, birds, alpacas, sheep and cows, New Zealand traffic jams (where sheep and cows are crossing the road en masse!). We have had a number of trips of varying length; some are just overnights and others as long as 10 days. In between, I work a few shifts and they "recover" and check out the sights and walking trails in Timaru and surrounding towns. Our first trip was partly covered in the last blog. During one of my work periods, ... read more

On a very sunny Saturday, we headed out to Banks Peninusla to visit the Onawe Pa site. This is situated on an incredible natural promontory/island (depending on the tide) and was established as a Maori Pa (fortified site) in 1831. Unfortunately, in 1832 it was the site of an horrendous massacre of the local tribe by another local tribe and as such is an area that must be treated with much respect. There is little to see now except the stunning landscape, but it is one of those places that looks purpose-built, and in fact, is the sort of natural place man could not really have designed better himself. On the way we picked up lunch and stopped at Poranui Beach near Birdling Flat, which is a pebble beach with no swimming (extremely dangerous rips) but ... read more

Day 546 (25.09.08) After a freezing night in the van, we packed quickly and hit the road out of Arthurs Pass headed for the Banks Peninsula. The drive from the park threw up yet more amazing views and meant we had to stop to take in some of dramatic mountain and lake viewpoints on the way.With the road getting much straighter and flatter, we knew that was it we had officially left behind us the Southern Alps with a little reminder of them in the snow capped mountains every time you looked in the mirror. However, this was not the last of the hills we were to tackle as we were soon to learn. The Banks Peninsula was formed by two huge volcanic eruptions which has caused the land to rise steeply from the sea and ... read more

We arrived at Dunedin early afternoon and had just about enough time to look around the town before everything closed. Dunedin is a relatively old Scottish settler town with lots of classic victorian architecture scattered around the 'Hexagon' (city centre). Now it's a bustling tourist destination being at the start of the Otago Peninsula known for it's wildlife sightings of seals, yellow-eyed penquins and albatross. our campsite was located between the two, the plan being to visit Otago the next day. As it happened we had our first rainstorm since we arrived the following day, which pretty much put a stop to our Otago Peninsula tour so we decided to jump in our van and begin the long drive up the East Coast to Banks Peninsula close to where we had flown into (Christchurch). It took ... read more

I'm in love! In love with New Zealand!! It's so ME! All outdoorsy activities in the most beautiful natural scenery, lush green fields and mountains line the coast, white sheep dotting the greenery, wineries galore, great restaurants hidden away everywhere and the most friendly down-to-earth wonderful smiling people! The curvy coastal drive to the Banks Peninsula in a small shuttle van brought me to a small town, Akaroa (very cute, French influenced) to begin my "tramp". Yes, they call it a "tramp", I am guessing this is a combination of trecking (hiking) and camping..get it "tramping"; anyway, it's a multi-day treck. Most people seem to do this particular treck in 4 days, but being the "balls out" kinda gal I am, I chose the 2 day, 35 kilometers (21 miles) in 2 days, all hiking up ... read more