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Published: September 2nd 2007
City Lights
Queenstown at night with the Remarkables mountain range in the backgroundAfter a short 4 hour ferry journey we were finally on the South Island after a week and a bit in the North,
Road Trippin' NZ Style: The North Island. We were heading west towards the famed and beautiful
Abel Tasman National Park to do a bit of a hike. We found a spot near where all the water taxis leave from and settled down for the night. Us guys mucked around a bit, Deadman lost (and then retrieved) my skateboard over a cliff and Joel attempted to start a fire with wet twigs, the world's crappest fire ensued😊
We accidentally slept in a lot later than we intended and had to rush to get to the water taxis, we ended up having approximately 10mins to get ready for our all day hike. The plan was to get the taxi north along the coast to one of the many little bays and then hike south for a few hours before getting picked up. The ride up the coast was incredibly beautiful and relaxing, it was amazing to be breathing the clean and sweet sea air. Unfortunately I got a little sea sick possibly due to lack of food and the rolling sea (or so I will
The Gang
Madan, James, Deadman, Justin, Joel, Morgan, Katirn, Elena, Ziggy and yours truly claim) and I spent the majority of the first 45mins trying not to throw up!
We had a couple of stops along the way, one was to see
Split Rock which is exactly what it sounds like and another to see a seal colony. I felt loads better after our first stop when we were able to have breakfast. After getting dropped off by the boat we set off on our way though the pristine forests urged on by the calls of numerous local birds. It was great to be out among nature again and the walking was a welcome difference from days spent driving in the van. We stopped at a nice beach along the way and decided to go for a swim. Since no one had brought their swimming costume everyone was resigned to having wet undies but being the genius that I am I decided to go in
au naturale. Daniel you genius. The water was a little cold unfortunately, with little being the exact word I would use to describe myself after spending 5 seconds in the sea! It was very nice and refreshing though😊 We hiked on and got picked up late afternoon before
Night Riding
At Coronet Peak going back to the vans and then heading into town for dinner and hitting the road again. We spent the night near the town of
St Arnaud in
Nelson Lakes National Park. We went for little walk again in the morning near the beautiful lakes but nothing too long or hard, we had many miles to drive today. We soon hit the road and just drove all day, we skirted by
Christchurch and ended up spending the night at a farmhouse of this guy Cameron that Joel and Morgan knew from their time in Vienna. He was a really cool guy and we spent the night chilling and drinking. In the morning Joel and Morgan went to help Cameron on the farm and the rest of us did nothing, we eventually headed out about midday on our way to
Queenstown. The drive down was pretty exciting, we went over a couple of mountain passes, one of which was the scene of a vicious and sustained snowball battle😊 We eventually made it to the skiing/partying Mecca of NZ and it was a relief to know that we wouldn't be having any long days in the van for a while. We
Queenstown View's
The view from our hotel found a campsite for the night (we were moving into our hotel the next day) and had an early night.
Queenstown and Snowboarding
The other 4 members of our group arrived at some ridiculous hour of the morning having driven all the way from Christchurch that night. There was Madan, Justin, Ziggy and Elena, we now had 10 in total! We went and checked into our hotel which was posh and swanky and then headed up the mountain.
What followed was six days of awesome riding, in a perfect world we would have got dumped on every night but alas it was not to be. What we lacked in powder we made up for with perfect blue skies for 5 days straight, the first was kinda cloudy. There is nothing quite like standing at the top of a mountain and being able to see the lush green valley below, the blue sky above, the white stuff all around and in the distance mountains which seemed to go on forever, it was bliss.
We rode at both
The Remarkables and
Coronet Peak, both located at the end of long, twisting mountain tracks and rode pretty much all
day, every day for 6 days plus 2 nights of riding at Coronet under the floodlights which was wicked.
One of the highlights was climbing to the top of The Remarkables and seeing the valley where Queenstown is located spread out beneath us. It was a truly amazing sight and me, Justin and Joel (the 2 people who I had started the trip with) just sitting at the top with our own thoughts. We also took some lessons at Coronet which was probably the best thing I could have done. The little tips they give you are pure gold and my skills increased so much in just a short 2 hour lesson.
All in all it was a great 6 days spent on the mountains riding with friends, going out in Queenstown and chilling in our hotel.
After our passes expired we spent another day in Queenstown exploring the city itself and just generally doing nothing and letting our bodies recover from 6 days of falling over (some more than others!), to be honest we all needed a break from each other as well and seeing as we were moving back into the vans for another week
Learners
Only a few of us had ridden before so it was a sore few days for Madan and co. we all needed to be getting along😊
Next time the rest of the South Island
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Joel
Joel Meadows
Good times!
One thing Dan forgot to mention was that he is a mad agent snowboarder! He led the way on the jumps and boxes and dazzled us with his 180's and olleys! And for the record, the fire I made was awesome! :P