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Published: October 31st 2006
Now where do we start with this one? We've spent just shy of 3 fantastic weeks in the South Island of New Zealand and we've done (and also spent!) LOADS...
Our last update was from a slightly soggy Brisbane and from here we flew into Christchurch on the 11th October. And that's where you find us now after nearly a 3 week stint in a Sleepervan (it's like a campervan... only smaller (imagine a sardine can on wheels!!)) and a 3800 kms anticlockwise trip around New Zealand's South Island. Now i'll try and spare some details (it's going to be difficult) and focus on the key activities, because otherwise i'll be here till Christmas writing and you'll be bored reading it (although half of you have problably tuned off already)...
Our first and last stop in our van was at Hamner Springs. This is a lovely little alpine resort about 1 1/4 hrs from Christchurch that has a large outdoor thermal pool complex (12 thermal pools in all) at between 35c and 40c. Watching the sunset over the snow-capped mountains from a giant bath was quite a way to start and end our little expedition.
Our second main
stop was Kaikoura. Situated on the coast, this little town is framed once more by the almost requisite snow-covered mountains and has an abundance of wildlife - a quick walk along the beach and you can see fur seals, albatross and all sorts of seabirds. Go a little further out to sea and there are whales (apparently) and a thousand odd dusky dolphins. The latter we joined on a swimming trip with a company specialising in "Dolphin Encounters".
The weather in NZ has been quite patchy (we've had sun, rain, wind, cloud and frost) but on the most part it's been fairly kind to us. The previous day's "encounter" had been cancelled due to gale force winds and rain, but for us the sun shone and the wind held off. The experience involved donning wetsuits, gloves, hoods, boots, fins, snorkels and masks and jumping in the 10c water (that was a shock i can tell you) and swimming around the dolphins making stupid noises (it attracts them allegedly) and trying to act as "dolphin-like" as possible. Well all this behaviour seemed to pay off and we spent a good hour (in 4 sections) having dolphins swimming all around us
(presumably trying to work out what the hell we were doing) to as close as 30cms or so. Back on the boat and changed we were then taken on a short cruise around the bay and we probably had in the region of 150 dolphins in the vicinity of the boat - some were doing somersaults, jumping - just fantastic. A few people had highly recommended this to us and we would definitely do likewise. Before we get too carried away with how great these mammals are however, a quick mention of the dolphins' morals needs to be made. Apparently scientists studied one female dusky dolphin who, in a space of 2 1/2 minutes, had sex 5 times with 3 different males! Blimey. A record even Jordan would be proud of.
We then headed to the west of the island via a stop in the Marlborough wine region. Here we spent a day on a couple of bikes touring 6 or so of the region's vineyards. We tried a fair amount of wine, had a nice lunch, tried some more wine and wobbled our way back to our bed for the night - not before we'd tried out the
local pub and beer obviously.
So on to the west of the island, and it wasn't long before we popped into a shop to buy some thermals (luckily it's warming up here (apparently) and they were on sale!). Our first port of call on the west was the Glaciers. Surrounded by temperate rainforest the Franz-Josef and Fox Glaciers come down from the Southern Alps to almost sea level. They are both an impressive sight and have a number of walking (or "tramping" as they are called in NZ) tracks around them.
We decided to splash out on on a heli-hike to the Fox glacier. Once again the weather held off (it can be very unpredictable on the west) and we got the green light for our trip. This involved a helicopter ride (Sarah's first) to about 600m above sea level on the glacier and a 2 1/2 hr hike around the ice. So kitted out in crampons (you don't want to stand on someone's toes in these) and walking poles we hiked up and down the river of ice with our 2 guides (one of whom looked a bit like Yosemite Sam). This part of the glacier is
the most interesting as the weight of the ice coming down the glacier bascially creates ice caves, troughs, gulleys etc. (all these things have proper names but i have no idea what they are). The ice also has an amazing blue colour from the incredibly compact ice. When we weren't laughing at the American photographer geek on our trip ("you'll need a 300mm setting for that shot") we had a good time on the ice. Unfortunately no blue skies as the cloud was sat around 900m above sea level but it gave it this eerie, kinda-cool feeling at the same time (which apparently made the light better for photos too - joy)!
The Haast pass took us over to Wanaka and then Queenstown. These are the 2 main towns in the southern lakes region and are surrounded once again by (you've guessed it) stunning snow-capped mountains. A night in Wanaka was followed by 4 in Queenstown. Those who have been will know that this is the adventure capital of NZ, so we decided to do some fun stuff (hence the spending a lot!) too! We eased ourselves in quite gently with Jetboating (going as fast as you can down
a very narrow gorge in a little speed boat doing 360 degree turns sums it up) which was good.
Next, in light of it being our one-year anniversary we decided to jump out of a plane! Fortunately however someone who knew what they were doing had strapped themselves to the back of us. It was fantastic fun actually and we had the most gorgeous clear day and you could see for miles over the mountains and lakes. Not that we looked out the window of the plane much, we were too busy contemplating how big a hole in the ground you'd make falling from 12000ft!! We both decided to have a photographer come up with us too and glad we did - we got some great photos...
To celebrate being alive we decided to have a couple of drinks that night. By this point in the trip we'd already become partial to a bar with a fire (the sleepervan doesn't have central heating) and Queenstown has some nice bars and it is testament to them we got up with a bit of a hangover the next day. I'm not sure there's a better way to get rid of
a hangover than River Surfing...... After a 45 minute ride to the river, we once again donned wetsuits, boots and fins and a body board. River surfing basically entails chucking yourself into a river (once again 10c water!) and going down level 2/3 rapids on a piece of polystrene. We were given instructions on how to direct your board but i think 8 times out of 10 the river wins and you end up going wherever it wants to take you! By the second run we'd sort of got the hang of it; i was trying barrel rolls and squirts (sounds ruder than it is) and Sarah was basically more confident that she'd survive the next 30 minutes or so!!
On our last day in Queenstown we went up the Gondola to the top of the hill overlooking the town. Not content with a nice view, the locals obviously decided they should build a luge track too! So a Km or so track with little go cart type things kept us entertained for an hour or so - everywhere you look you can do some sort of adrenaline thing in Queenstown! To commiserate (i mean celebrate obviously) our year
together we splashed out on dinner in a lovely restaurant called Bunker. Although not usually in reach of a "campervaners" budget it was a really nice change and so so nice! We'd really enjoyed our time in Queenstown: nice atmosphere, lots to do! and a lovely setting.
However, onwards we had to journey and our next 2 days saw us at Milford and Doubtful Sounds. Really stunning scenery in this area (known as Fiordland) where huge peaks and rainforest meet lakes and inlets to the sea. Milford Sound was a little cloudy and raining (but it makes for some stunning views as the clouds hug the peaks) but not surprising for somewhere it rains on 2/3 of days and 7-8 metres a year. Here we also had our only real run-in with the New Zealand Sandfly (at least the NZ wildlife doesn't all kill or maim humans like the Australian!). These little sods really know how to suck blood - well apparently the males are gentle vegetarians, its the females who are the real blood suckers (who'd have thought that hey?). We took an organised trip to Doubtful Sound (the only way to get there) and were again very
fortunate with the weather: for the past 2 weeks they'd had low cloud and rain, for us it had cleared and we had a clear blue day. Although not a fan of big organised trips, the stunning scenery on this well-organised trip made for a great day. We also went to a hydroelectric plant 140 meters underground which looked like something out of a Bond film (sarah wasn't interested in this at all!!)
Our next leg of the trip took us around the south of the island through Invercargill and to Dunedin (an area known as the Catlins). Completely different but still nice countryside. Oh yeah and it's lambing season as well and there are thousands of the little roast dinners in the making all over the place! More interestingly though, we saw some sea lions on the beach (they are big) and then later that day we saw some yellow-eyed penguins (the rarest of the penguins) from a little hide. Penguins are great there's no doubt about it - you just can't watch them and not laugh.
A stop in Dunedin which is the second city on the South island followed. We entertained ourselves with a trip
to the steepest street in the world (what a claim to fame hey), a trip to the Otago peninsula and then Cadburys World (well why not). Then we headed to Oamaru where we went to the Blue Penguin Colony. This is basically a conservation colony which has about 120 nesting pairs of the little penguins. We sat around till dark and then watched as c.120 birds came back from the sea in groups of about 40 or so. These penguins are hilarious; they're about 30cm tall and weigh a kilo. So if you can imagine 120 bags of flour with little wings hopping up the ramp from the sea, then hopping, waddling and falling over as they scurry off to their nesting boxes you've just about got the idea - all i could think of was a Benny Hill sketch. At the moment the chicks are being reared as well, so to add to the fun these big balls of fluff come out of the nest boxes and chase their parents all around to give them their catch from the day's fishing.
We were on the east at this point and before heading back to Christchurch we detoured via
Mount Cook (the highest peak in Australasia) and Lake Tekapo and Pukaki. The lakes were once again stunning - they're an amazing blue colour from glacier melt and are framed by the "snow-capped mountains". I wish i could say more about Mount Cook but (although everywhere else the weather was clear) around the mountain was a huge amount of cloud and rain making the mountain basically impossible to see! As we'd come all this way we had a walk to a lookout - we got very wet and still failed to see the mountain!!! Having said that the other views around were still very impressive.
Before finishing here we had a stop on the Banks Peninsula just south of Christchurch. This was unexpectedly nice as well and we found a little camping ground on this isolated stretch of beach - very nice indeed. All we have left to do is see a bit of Christchurch and get ourselves ready for the next big leg of the trip to South America! At the moment it feels like another trip in itself - after a great time here we hope it can match it!!
Now I have to apologise about the information overload, but that really is the trip in a nutshell. Let's just say there are a few things we've missed out! A beautiful country that certainly comes highly recommended from us!
Hope all is well wherever you are!
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Anthony
non-member comment
Sounds like you are having a great time and the pictures are brilliant. Good to see you are getting a bit of cold and wet weather like us in the UK, however I am sure South America will be much warmer!! Keep having fun and look forward to seeing all the pictures when you eventually make it.