Island crossing, drive from Picton to Dunedin and chillin' in Queenstown


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Oceania » New Zealand » South Island » Dunedin
February 20th 2013
Published: March 1st 2013
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I got on the Inter Islander Ferry to cross from Wellington to Picton. My initial plan on the South Island was to go from Picton and travel the west coast and arrive in Queenstown. By bus it would've probably taken me a couple of days, since there isn't a straight ride from Picton to Queenstown using Naked Bus (I had a 5 ride ticket with that company), so it would've been a waste of time.



Browsing in the Couchsurfing website, I saw a guy offering a car ride from Picton to Dunedin (east coast). Time and money-wise it was a far better option, so I contacted him and met him on the Ferry. His name's Ryan Everton and he turned out to be a rather interesting fellow. He just took a year off college, where he's studying law, to attend to a business he started on his own. It's a company called "Globelet", that basically consists in reusable plastic cups, that if bought, gives the owner of the cup discounts and free beers in restaurants and hostels (the target audience being backpackers). He also sells these cups in festivals and major events. Globelet also has a website called "Tikiway" which focuses on a data base of drinking water taps along the country, to avoid the massive consumption of water bottles throughout NZ, and using bottles that can be filled in these water taps (http://www.globelet.com/).



The navigation between the two islands lasted about 3 hours and I had time to take photos of the channels at the top of the south island, which were quite nice and remainded me of the channels in the south of Chile.



When we arrived in the south island, I met Ryan outside the ferry and got in his car. Initially the idea was to spend the night in a camping site near a town called Kaikoura, which is about 1 1/2 hours north of Christchurch. There's not much in that town, except for whale watching.

We stopped in one of the fish and chips stores in Kaikoura to get something to eat and we used Ryan's plastic cups to get free coffees there. While we ate, we met Sam, one of Ryan's friends from college who lived in a share house in Christchurch and he offered us to spend the night there, so problem solved. Ryan had a few meetings in Christchurch the next morning and afterwards he would be driving to Dunedin. We arrived in Christchurch at about 10pm and crashed in the living room.



The next morning, Ryan left me near the city center and we agreed to meet at around noon. I walked right to the city center, which has a big area closed - they're still demolishing buildings after the earthquake, so the city center is virtually non-existant. In some areas, they buit stores and coffee shops out of containers, which actually look really cool. I had a coffee and then went to the public library to go online and kill time.

Ryan picked me up from the library and we set out for the 4 hour drive to Dunedin, stopping in a bakery in a small town along the way to get something for lunch.



When we got to Dunedin, I went with Ryan to his old flat to get a few things he had left behind and then he dropped me in a hostel called "Hogwarts", which was supposed to be good. Then we went our separate ways. It turned out that the hostel was fully booked, so I went to a visitor information center to see where would be a good place to stay the night. I chose a small place called Ramsay Lodge, which for a relatively small price I got a good room for myself. The hostel was made up of single or double rooms and it was a nice, quiet place to stay.

Initially Dunedin wasn't in my plans. It's a small college town and has some nice old buildings. The center of the town is called "The Octagon" and it's where most bars and restaurants are. I didn't have much plans for the night and I posted in the couchsurfing website if anyone wanted to join me for a drink. To my surprise, I got a text message from Suzanne Burns, an Irish girl I had met in Sydney the previous year. I hadn't contacted her before, because I thought that she was traveling at the moment.

Anyway, I met Suzanne for a beer in a bar called "Albar". It was really good catching up and she offered to lend me her car the next day and that she would ask if she could get me in for a free boat ride in the boat she was working in (sightseeing tours of albatrosses, other birds and sea mammals). Of course I said yes, I wasn't about to let this opportunity pass. She also offered to host me the next couple of days.



Early in the morning, at around 8am, Suzanne picked me at the hostel and we drove to the dock where she got off and I took the car. Luckily, I had practice driving on the left side of the road in Tasmania and it was an automatic car, so I was set. I went to a petrol station to fill the tank and then I set off to the "Otago Peninsula", where I was to do some sightseeing. The first stop was Larnach Castle, a house built by an Australian entrepeneur in the 1800's and that's famous for its gardens. I only paid the ticket to see the gardens, so I spent around 1 hour walking around and taking photos.

My next stop was a place called Sandfly Beach, where yellow eyed penguins can be seen (but not at the time I went, they usually show up at around 6:30pm). But I had a nice walk in the beach and then walked for about 45 minutes up a sand dune, following a path and from where I got a pretty good view of the beach.

Then I was off to Lovers Leap and The Chasm, two lookouts over cliffs that are really nice and a short 10 minute walk from one another. In general, there weren't many people in the places I went to, which was good.

At some point, I got a text mesage from Suzzane saying that it was OK for me to go on the boat and that I had to be at "Wellers Rock" by around 3pm. I had enough time to go to a very small town called Porto Bello to get something to eat. I stopped in a cafe called "Penguin Cafe" and had fisherman's pie for lunch.



Then I drove to Wellers Rock and had time to have a coffee and take photos of seagulls in the dock while waiting for the boat from the "Monarch Tours" company. The boat in which Suzanne works does several trips a day of about 1 hour or so and they navigate 1 1/2 hour from Dunedin and back during the day as well. The Peninsula is renowned for the royal albatrosses, one of the few places in the world in which they nest and for the seals, sea lions and other bird species. The trip I did was full of Germans that were doing a tour (in fact, out of all the passengers, I was the only non German), so they had their own private guide and Suzanne basically only had me as passenger, which made it all the more convenient. It was a pleasant boat ride and I did get to see albatrosses a few seals, a sealion and other birds and got some good photos as well.



The last stop of the day was Taiaroa Head, where I wanted to do a walk. But when I got to the parking lot, I felt really tired, so I just slept for 1 1/2 hours and then it was time to drive back and go to pick up Suzanne at the dock. On the way home we stopped at a supermarket to get something for dinner. That evening I had dinner with Suzzane and Chris, one of her housemates. It was a very productive day and didn't really feel like going out afterwards.



The next day, I went out to the town center and spent part of the afternoon there. It was pretty busy in town, as a cruise-ship had berthed and it was also "O Week", or orientation week, which is the first week of university and there were drunk freshmen all over town. That evening Suzanne invited me for dinner at a friend of hers. We bought a few bottles of wine and had a good dinner with her friend (a Canadian girl, can't remember her name) and her two housemates. That day, I had a tooth-ache that I was hoping would be a temporary thing, but it was starting to hurt.



I left for Queenstown the next day and the toothache was still there and getting worse. It took about 5 hours to get from Dunedin to Queenstown and I was drowsy the whole way, going in and out of states of being awake and asleep.



Queenstown is the self appointed "adventure capital of the world". It's a ski town in the winter and by summer almost every adventure sport can be praticed here: bungy jumping, skydiving, downhill biking, paragliding, diving, etc. The nighlife is quite good as well, with people of all ages going out to the pubs and clubs. Most activities are expensive, so for low budget travelers, they have to pick out a few things. There are enough free and cheap options of activities to do around the area as well.



After getting to Queenstown, I check in the hostel and then I went to seek a dentist. I managed to get an appointment for 6:30pm and the result was that I had bacteria in one of my tooths, aparently for a while and somehow it had showed up the last few days. Apparently, as my body was fighting the bacteria off, it was the reason I had been feeling so lack of energy the past days. These were clearly bad news, considering it was the start of my 1 year trip and I had to figure out my next course of action, having a wide range of possibilities; from trying to get an operation in NZ (which was out of the question because of time and price), getting an operation in Thailand (where a lot of people go becasue of the low prices), fly back to Chile or buy antibiotics and see how if they worked or not for the next days. The choice was pretty straight forward and I bought the prescribed antibiotics (pretty strong apparently) and decided to wait for a few days.



That night I met with 2 Couchsurfers and we went bar hopping until midnight, but I really was tired and then just went to the hostel and slept until almost 12 the next day.



My first days in Queenstown, unfortunately, weren't what I had expected. Short walks, a lot of sleeping (I guess because of the medicine), hardly going out and no alcohol. I also wasn't really feeling like doing any of the tourist attractions. I went out one night for a walk and to take a few night photos and by coincidence stumbled on a small stand called "El Mercaito" that sold Chilean food - something I certainly wasn't expecting to see in that town. It belonged to Jorge, a Chilean cook who had had it for a few months with a friend.



I stayed in the hostel for a few days, but I had to move out because the hostel was booked out and I didn't book for extra nights soon enough. I went to stay in a more expensive place, the "Shotover Lodge", about 5km from town and used that day to read and rest pretty much. The room had a small kitchenette, so I didn't leave the room for 24 hours.



I had two more days in Queenstown - I was still pretty affected by the infection, but getting better. The last 2 days I stayed in a hostel called "Absoloot", which was really good. Pretty small and quiet in general. The people in the room were alright as well. There were Phoebe and James from England, Eugene, a Russian born Canadian and Jen from China. On one of the nights we went to a few pubs and the last day I stayed in Queenstown I went with Eugene up a hill called "Ben Lomond", which has a great view of the town and surrounding areas. The walk up was really nice and at the top of the hill there's a pelorus that indicates the direction of other miuntains in the South Island. Lakes and snowcapped mountains can be seen from the top as well.

It was a 6 hour walk more or less and I was really tired when I got back. At night I went to have a burger at "Ferburger" a trendy place that everyone in town seems to go to, opened 24 hours. The hambugers are really good by the way, totally recommended.



And that was it for Queenstown, I had expected to do more things, but health and budget impeded it. The next morning I took a bus to Chirstchurch where I was meant to fly to Indonesia de next day, but things didn't turn out as planned.


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6th March 2013

saludos de Lonquen
Hola Dani, Espero que el dolor de muelas esté ya bajo control. Muy bonitas fotos y lugares. Que increíble como siempre vas conociendo y reencontrando gente. Por aca todos bien. Mañana los niños entran a clases. Estuvimos la semana pasada en Rapel donde lo pasamos muy bien. Navegamos bastante en el mañoso y el 470 . Pablo hizo click con su optimist por lo que navegó bastante. También esta esquinado muy bien. Un dia fuimos a Pichilemu e hicimos surf. A todos nos encantó y pudimos pararnos en las tablas. El que mejor lo hizo fue Pablo. Espero que tu viaje siga viento en popa. Un abrazo Andres

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