The Journey South

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After finally leaving Auckland, with some paychecks in our pocket, we set off for the South Island. We hit Lake Taupo after 4-5 hours of driving, and got out of the car to have lunch. It suddenly hit us how much the temperature had dropped and we weren’t even in the South Island yet.

We could see a Mountain range in the distance, and as we got back into the car, we slowly got closer and closer to it, which was very distracting as you’re trying to drive.

After many hours of driving (10 hours plus) , and lots of mountains, and green scenery later, we arrived in Wellington, which is right at the bottom of the South Island, and New Zealand’s capital city.

By the time we arrived, it was freezing cold and we had no where to sleep. As we had to get up at 6.00 the next morning, we thought it was pointless paying to sleep somewhere for a few hours. We parked up by the lake in the city centre surrounded by flash apartments. We sat there pretending to be lost and pointing at random things in the distance, and then leapt into the back of Rocky before anyone saw us. The van was completely crammed with snowboards, tents, backpacks, BBQs and other equipment, so everything had to be (subtly) shoved to the front so we could fit in. It was completely freezing and I had to wear my trousers, hoody, PJs over the top, scalf and hat under the duvet. So this is Wellington.

The next morning we woke up before it was light and made our way to the ferry. The ferry took about 4 hours to get to the South Island, to start the journey again.

We passed through Christchurch and went down the East Coast, passing many amazing mountain ranges. It soon got dark and we headed for lake Takapo. We arrived at night and said that we could be anywhere and surrounded by mountains and wouldn’t know it.

Sure enough, we woke up at sunrise and saw the most amazing view of the red sun rising over the snowcapped mountains and the lake. Really beautiful.

We then only had a few hours to drive and arrived into Queenstown which is a town in the valley of massive snowcapped mountain ranges. We rocked up to our house, which is a wood house on top of the hill. The whole front of the house is roof to floor glass and has the view of the mountains and the lake. Really amazing house……with a real log fire. This is now home for the next 5 months.

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