Queenstown - adrenaline and adventure capital of the world - the budget isn't going to enjoy this!!

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I have now reached New Zealand, which is like everyone says - very beautiful and lovely with great scenery although the weather can be a bit of a tester. If you hear a New Zealander complaining about the rain in England you can tell him where to shove his kiwi fruit as this is meant to be the height of summer and it has rained quite a lot...as you will hear.

I arrived in Christchurch in early January and I had a great plan to stay there for a few days, make friends, and buy a campervan with them and tour New Zealand in true old school style! Anyway, possibly due to my lack of social skills, I managed to find not one person who shared the same burning desires towards camper van based travel as me, therefore 6 days after arrival I set off - on the train, on my tod!!

Looking back, it was probably best that I didn't pursue the campervan dream as it would probably have bankrupted me and in the meantime I have been as free as a bird to do what I want on my travels in this fair land.

My first stop was Arthur's Pass, a hamlet in the middle of the mountains which run down the spine of the South Island. Arthur's Pass was absolutely beautiful, and I stopped off there to do three days of walking (doesn't sound like me, but when in Rome....). Anyway, I only mention this because on leaving Arthur's Pass I decided to try and hitchhike to my next destination - a new experience for little old Marky. After standing in the road for about 20 minutes with my board and an aching arm, who should pull over and stop for me but two beautiful women in their clapped out old motor (okay, so they weren't beautiful but they were at least women!!!). They took me as far as the main coastal road on the west of the island, where I had been waiting a grand total of about 30 seconds when this cool couple in their 20's picked me up and took me all the way to my destination - Franz Josef Glacier. I got on so well with the two of them during the drive down that they invited me to their camp-site for a free dinner and (plenty) of drinks.

So, to summarise my first experience of hitching, I waited about 20 minutes in total, then taken straight to my destination and got free food and drink out of it - not bad!!!

Franz Josef was were the rain really started. I was booked for a hike on the glacier, but it was raining so hard that a river had formed down the side of the glacier and was carrying down rocks from the mountain - a might dangerous apparently. Instead of being allowed to hike on the glacier, we still had an absolute hoot, because in full wet weather gear we got to walk to the glacier's terminal face (the front face) across all these rivers that had sprung up due to the torrential rainfall. On the way there, the rivers were ankle and shin deep, and on the way back it was knee and thigh deep wading - I felt like quite the Indiana Jones.

Despite the setback at Franz Josef, there was no problem as another glacier, Fox Glacier, was just down the road so I went walking on that instead. New Zealand is absolutely choc full of glaciers - 3149 to be precise, which is more than double Switzerland and second only to Antarctica as the beaming guides have recited. Obviously I've not bothered checking whether its true so it could all be a load of tosh!

Fox glacier was a lot steeper than Franz Josef, which means that you can't really get to access much of it without Edmund Hillary backing you up. I was able to see some nice ice caves and tunnels but the whole glacier experience didn't quite blow me away like I thought it would!!!

Leaving Fox I had the slightly ambitious plan to hitch 250 odd km south to Lake Wanaka. After accepting a lift from a truck driver to get part of the way there, I was committed. My plan sounded like a great idea at the time but standing alone at a truck stop with the rain starting to fall, it suddenly seemed a little foolish!!! My salvation came in the form of a crazy Israeli guy called "Iran" (I think). Out of nowhere he swept into the truck stop in this bread van - oh yes, it was an old Bedford Rascal - and he told me he was going to Wanaka and that I should hop in! Apparently, this van had been broken down in a friend's yard in Auckland and Iran was told if he could get it started he could have it. So he did, and he had driven it right through New Zealand sleeping on a mattress in the back - that's proper backpacking!!

Lake Wanaka was beautiful even by New Zealand standards, and it also contained what must be the greatest attraction in the country - Puzzling World. For four quid I spent 4 merry hours wandering round a giant 3D maze complete with bridges and towers, messing about in a room that was angled at 15 degrees so that when you were inside it looked like water ran uphill, and enjoying many other fun activities. There was also a room which showed how they made the hobbits look so small in LOTR - some cunning trickery using carpet patterns, angles and floor heights meant that as you walked from one side of the room to another you grew from a midget to a giant!

The next stop was Queenstown, the adventure capital of the world. However, I was initially there for one night only, as the following day I was off to do a 6 day trek, known in New Zealand as one of the “Great Walks”, which would take in some kayaking on Milford Sound as well. And what better way to prepare for a week of hiking than a night on the tiles. My friend Robin and I, who had been travelling together on and off since Franz, had heard of a crazy (read slightly sleazy) bar called Altitude. Anyway, when we got there it was saints and sinners night so everyone was asked to write out a confession. One girl's was that she had the biggest nipples in the world and was actually able to twirl keyrings around them. When I tell you that there was also a white water rafting giveaway on , it doesn't take a genius to figure out who was going to be the victor. The girl dutifully preformed her party trick and I have to say I don't think I'll ever see anything like it again!

The next 3 days were spent walking the Routeburn track, the aforementioned "great walk". And it was. An amazing trek past waterfalls, mountains, rivers and glacial mirror lakes. The weather was absolutely superb, and I met some top guys on the route so there were 5 of us walking together. My “superb” planning meant that I was now only an hours drive from the famous Milford Sound - having walked across the mountains that take about 5 hours to drive around from Queenstown. I had booked to be picked up by a kayaking company and taken for an afternoon's paddling before being dropped off and walking back to the hut in the evening. Unfortunately at that point my planning began to unravel and I missed the pickup to Milford Sound meaning that I had to find my own way there, and after my late arrival had to wait until the next morning to do my kayaking. Morning came and the kayaking was superb, at one point we had a group of 7 or 8 dolphins swimming alongside us and the views of landmarks like Mitre Peak was superb.

To digress for a sec, I want to quickly mention the Maori. Almost everything in New Zealand was created in a special way according to Maori legend. Even though they're obviously a load of hokum, the legends are pretty cool. For instance, would you rather believe Milford Sound was created by:

A - a glacier that over millions of years carved the valley, then retreated and the valley was filled by inflowing rivers,

or

B - the son of a God wielding a magic axe started at the bottom of the south island carving out the fjords one by one. He moved north carving as he went, and by the time he reached the northernmost fjord - Milford Sound - his craftsmanship was exquisite. Milford Sound is the final masterpiece of the craftsman and his magical axe and that is why it is so beautiful.

I know which one I prefer!!

Back to the walking, and after a really great day on the Sound, imagine my surprise when I returned to my hut to find two policeman and two helicopter paramedics waiting for me - ooops. As I hadn't gone back to my hut the previous night they had assumed the worst and sent the search parties out looking for me - as well as the helicopter which at about 650 quid an hour to run means the NZ tax payer won't be making any money out of my stay!

I walked back along the Caples track across the mountains to Queenstown feeling a bit sheepish, but on my return it was time for some serious adrenaline - namely a canyon swing and a skydive. The canyon swing was amazing - you freefall 60 metres and then swoop across the canyon in an arc at 120 mph. I'd heard about a really scary way of doing it called the Osama. Basically they put a bin over your head (geddit!!) and then simply manhandle you to the edge and push you off backwards. Because you can't see anything, all of your other senses go absolutely crazy and by the time they winched me back up to the platform after the jump, all I could do was giggle lamely!! It was an absolute blast and I'd recommend it to anyone.

The skydive was a unique experience as well, not scary or a real ground rush, just really cool. I'd asked my instructor to try and scare me as much as possible on the way down, so we exited the plane doing some sort of cool back somersault and then about half way through the freefall he put us into a flat spin for what seemed like an age. I can't describe the feeling, except to say that it was great and that I'm really glad that I did it. I felt that because the ground was so far away so you couldn't really gain perspective on the speed at which you're descending. I've heard that if you freefall past or through cloud and pretend that that the clould is in fact the ground, that really gives you an idea that you are heading south at quite a pace!!.

Other highlights in Queenstown included jet boating and luging, and I also managed to complete another of New Zealand's Great Walks - the Kepler Track, which was hugely rewarding and where once again I met a really good group of people along the way and we shared in some unforgettable sights and experiences. I have now returned to Christchurch, after completing some day-walks at both Mount Cook (the highest peak in New Zealand) and also at a beautiful place called Lake Tekapo. After having done most of my recent travelling either on foot of by bus, it was once again time for me to deploy my trusty thumb and get back on the hitching trail. I hitched back from Tekapo with these four crazy Taiwanese, who seemed to stop to pick me up just so they could take pictures of me!!! Anyway, their English wasn't the best so we had a lot of very circular conversations involving nodding and repeating of things said five minutes ago, but I did get to teach them what an Ostrich was and how to pronounce the word Avalanche so I think I've done my bit for Anglo-Taiwanese relations!

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Photos

Lake MacKensie
A stunning glacial mirror lake on the Routeburn track.

Franz Josef Glaciar
The heavy rains meant the glaciar was inaccessible - bu I had a lot of fun wading through all the rivers that had suddenly sprung up!!

Fox Glaciar
My walk on the glaciar itself.

Hitchhiking saviour!!
The mighty van that saved me from the rain!!

Routeburn Track
Scenery on one of New Zealand's Great Walks.

Milford Sound
Kayaking on Milford Sound with Mitre Peak in the background.

Mount Cook
New Zealand's highest peak.