Manapouri to Christchurch

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Our 8 weeks in New Zealand have gone very fast and I'm writing this in Christchurch as we wait for our flight to Perth to begin the Australia leg of our trip. We have loved our time here, it is a fantastic country and we would definitely recommend it.

The last two weeks have brought more glorious weather, superb views, encounters with wildlife and the occasional bit of hard exercise.

We met friends Vicki and Alastair in Fjordland and had some great evenings (including one very late one) with them. We also managed to fit in a walk above Lake Manapouri with the novelty being it started on the unpopulated side of the harbour so we had to row to the start.

We then moved on to the Curio Bay on the Catlin Coast for a relaxing few days in a hostel with an amazing view of dolphins playing in the sea and a short walk from a petrified forest (trees turned to stone) where we could hide and watch the world's rarest penguin (the yellow eyed) come ashore for the night.

More animals awaited us on the Otago Peninusla, this time sea lions. We were able to sit on the beach 15metres away as they alternated between fighting and sun bathing. Our final animal experience in new Zealand was in Oamaru watching the Blue (or fairy) penguin parade. This was interesting and we certainly saw a lot of penguins but it involved sitting in a grandstand with 100 other people and just didn't have the authentic feel that stumbling across animals on secluded beaches further south did.

In between these sightings it was the hard exercise - we hired some bikes and did 70km of the Central Otago Rail Trail, this is a disused railway that the Department of Conservation has turned into a walking, cycling and horse riding track (although we only saw cyclists). We did the Middlemarch to Hyde section which isn't the most scenic part and the ride back into what seemed like a gale was very hard work but it was great fun and we really enjoyed doing something different.

Our last few days in New Zealand were spent back in the mountains at Mt Cook, the countries highest. This gave us more great views from our cabin and from the walks that we did leaving us feeling sad to leave this stunning country.

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Photos

The view from our room on the Catlin coast
To add to it Dolphins would come and play a few metres out

On the Central Otago Rail Trail
Surely I should open my eyes to cycle

Comments

[Stephen Paul]

nice!
Love the pics. Your cover shot is similar to a picture I took there- [photo=475442] with totally different weather and from much further down. No uphill hikes for me!