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Published: June 14th 2009
Scratching the Backbone of the Southern Alps We took a couple of days to make our way to the interior of the south island. The drive from Christchurch is absolutely beautiful and offers views of the Southern Alps mountain range. The Alps run vertically down the south island and act like a backbone as they almost split the west from the east. We took a quick jaunt through the town of Methven at the base of Mt. Hutt to scope out what the job situation looked like. Mt Hutt experiences the longest ski season in the country and actually opened two weeks early this year as they had been getting dumped on in the snow department. This however didn’t seem to spark many job openings yet so we decided to move on.
We pulled up for the night in Lake Tekapo which has been put on the tourist map due to the beautiful opaque turquoise blue glacier lake that the surrounds the town. There is a very small church at the tip of the lake with the most beautiful views looking across the water to the surrounding snow covered mountains. The Church of the Good Sheppard has a giant
picture window at the front and anyone who is looking for a little divine inspiration can visit here and be awed by the vast beauty of the world in front of them. A little further down the road is Lake Punakaki which is another glacial lake. There is an outstanding view of Mount Cook at one end, at nearly 3800m it is the highest peak in New Zealand. We parked Daisy on top of a view point and enjoyed a nice picnic lunch!
We rolled into Wanaka in the mid afternoon to a beautiful sunny day, perfectly highlighting the mountains surrounding the town. People have told us that Wanaka is a miniature version of Queenstown, which is supposed to be one of the most beautiful and touristy towns in the south island. Whenever we are talking with people, locals or travellers alike, the consensus is always that these southern mountainous towns are stunning. They are right! The town lies at the base of Lake Wanaka and has 4 different ski areas surrounding it; surely we’ll be able to find work here right? Well after 3 nights and much searching through local newspapers and reading the many “no jobs available”
signs on the store doors, we began to feel rather unprepared for working here for the winter. Despite the grim looking outcome for the employment market, we were able to enjoy the beautiful sights of Wanaka. We found ourselves a great little Indian restaurant (Indian food has now become our favourite dine out option) and another great campervan holiday park complete with hot tub and sauna.
We’ve realized that ski areas here are different from what we’re used to back home. For one thing, the towns associated with the hills are usually still a 30-40 minute drive from the hills themselves. The other weird thing is that although this year has been a particularly good year for snowfall so far, none of the base towns have yet to see even an inch of accumulation! We’re told that come mid winter towns like Queenstown and Wanaka will be nicely covered with snow and are actually quite pretty. Not that either of these towns needs a boost in the aesthetic department anyways.
Tramping Franz Joseph We decided to take a break from the job rejections by heading over to the Fox and Franz Joseph Glacier areas. There’s really
not much in either of the towns at the base of the glaciers so if you’re heading this way, it’s pretty clear what you’re going to do while here: hike up the glacier of course. Seeing as I had gone glacial hiking in Jasper, Canada before and as we now are in conserve money mode until we find jobs, I opted out of paying to go on a guided hike on top of the glacier. It’s certainly not cheap to do here in NZ, with most guided tours starting around the $100NZD range however Lindsay had not been on a glacier before, and we did just drive all this way so she strapped on her crampons and she was off. I opted to do a self guided hike to the terminal edge of the glacier as you can get within 20 m of it just by going on a 1 hour hike. Lindsay’s experience was a bit different however.
Lindsay now... The day before we arrived in Franz Joseph I received an email from my previous employer, Tri Fit, with a very intriguing job opportunity. This job would bring us home at our originally planned time of mid
Night shot of the Church of the Good Sheppard
It was a beautiful starry night with the snow on the mountains reflecting off of the moonlight August. Shortly into our travels Matt and I had talked about using the full year that we had on our plane tickets as we were enjoying ourselves so much and wanted to make the most of our time away. This would bring us back home around November. However, this largely depended on us getting jobs in NZ as we would need the money to keep our travels going. With the job situation not looking very promising this season and being relatively unprepared attire wise for a winter, but still wanting to see what NZ has in store, when this email came though we had a difficult decision our hands. I decided to use the fresh air and exercise of a glacier tramp to clear my head and hopefully put some things into perspective.
I arrived to the centre first thing in the morning and was given over pants, jacket, boots, crampons, wool socks, and hats and mittens for the hike. We started our hike at the same place as the rest of the general public, however at that 20m mark, we crossed over a yellow string barrier and hiked another 20 minutes in until it was time to put
our crampons on our boots and climb on to the glacier. Along this first part of the hike we did some introductions to meet the rest of our group for the climb. In all of our travels we’ve heard some strange assumptions and some misconceptions about Canada, but on this hike, I definitely got the best one. I introduced myself as being from Canada and my guide immediately piped up about his knowledge of ‘people from the land of maple syrup’ as ‘seal clubbers’! I couldn’t help but laugh, and added it to the top of the list of random comments that we have heard about our home and native land on this trip. I made sure to avoid him asking, and let him know that we also had our own currency, we did not have to move to the States in the summer when our igloos melt, and that we were not the northern state of America. Anyways..... 😊
There are giant steps that are carved into the side of the glacier and a rope to use as you ascend up. The steps are not at a gradual incline but rather one giant knee high step after another
on a very steep incline. Needless to say we were appreciative of the guide rope. After a half hour of steps and weaving our way up, we arrived to the highest point that we would get to on our half day excursion. At this point I was not very impressed with the glacier. To give you a comparable example, it was basically like walking on a giant snow bank that was melting in the springtime with all of the dirt and grit from the snowplough beneath your feet. We stopped for a quick lunch and then continued to what was the best part of the day. We spent the next hour or so climbing through caves, and going through small crevices. The ice in these parts was the nice blue colour that I expected and since it was a relatively warm day outside many of the walls were dripping and gave a nice glow to the ice. To finish off the glacier our guide brought us through one of the tightest crevices where we had to walk with one foot in front of the other, bodies turned slightly sideways, and basically using the walls on either side of us to
help push and propel us through. Really cool! We climbed back down the side of the glacier, took off our crampons, and then hiked back to the main parking area.
As for the job, after much deliberation and scenario playing, we decided that this was too good of an offer to pass up. I accepted a job offer to manage the Toyota fitness and recreation centre in Cambridge. Looks like we’ll be home as planned mid-August!
Matt again... Crazy Beautiful Queenstown Often dubbed the world’s extreme sport capital, Queenstown certainly has something to tickle everyone’s fancy. If it’s unbelievable photos you’re after, there’s hundreds of photo ops virtually from every street corner. It would probably be more challenging to try to take a bad picture in the town. Surrounding the city on all borders are snow capped mountains of which the most famous and probably the more often photographed mountains are called, very appropriately, the Remarkables. Because Queenstown is particularly opposed to “freedom camping” (camping wherever you want), we decided to once again check ourselves into a backpackers so we can have a place to hang out at night. We once again managed to find
ourselves a nice little place complete with a hot tub, called Bungy backpackers. Strange name for a backpackers one may think, however since Queenstown is the founding city of bungy jumping, it is quite aptly named. I believe the saying goes, “when in Rome, act like the Romans” (unless you’re asking Ron Burgandy, then he doesn’t quite know how that one goes), well in this case after doing what we did next in Queenstown you may draw the conclusion that kiwi’s are crazy thrill seekers that may have some kind of imbalance issues going on...I mean who in their right mind would decide it’s a good idea to huck themselves off a gondola suspended between two mountains with nothing more than a giant elastic band tied around their legs? As you probably guessed, the answer is, “we would!” There’s arguably two things you absolutely have to try out while visiting Queenstown, one of them is eating a fantastic and giant burger from the world famous burger joint called “Fergburger” and the other thing is literally taking a leap of faith on one of the three bungy jumps around the town. Having jumped a few times before on the Ottawa River
back home we figured that we were seasoned pros that need to step it up to the next level. Two of the 3 bungy jumps are just under 50m(150ft) which is about what we jumped from before in Ottawa so we decided that the 134 m (~450ft) “Nevis” is what we were after. Looking back it was probably a mistake to book our jump for the latest timeslot in the day because that meant that we had the whole day to ponder/worry/possibly regret our decision. We occupied our minds by hiking up to the top of one of the peaks in town that besides offering an amazing view over the city and the surrounding mountains has a whole slew of activities to do at the top of it including a luge track and paragliding. After looking at the luge track, we decided that it wasn’t worth the $40 to go down it and we were told by a kiwi guy that we ran into that the one they have in Rotarua in the North Island is better anyways. No worries, it would have made us late for the big jump anyways.
The tension on the 45 minute bus ride
to the bungy canyon could have been cut with a knife. Nervous laughs could be heard all around. Our confidence, what little of it was left at this point, was completely shattered as we rounded the corner at the top of the canyon to reveal our “jumping off point” (pun definitely intended). This thing is massive! You can barely see the river that flows through the canyon nearly 450 ft below us. Why oh why is this an idea that everyone jumps on board with? This was craziness! Seasoned veteran or no seasoned veteran, this was intimidation at its best. Apparently nobody has backed out of doing this and we certainly weren’t going to be the first so we loaded into the trolley that shipped us out to the main pod. Luckily the music was blaring when we got out there as it helped pump us up and cover the whimpers and nervous chattering. Although I’ve lost a few pounds since we started this trip, I was still among the heavier people there so I was lucky (is this the right word) enough to jump near the beginning. It’s really quite hard to explain what it’s like to waddle (your
legs are bound together by the bungy rope) to the edge of a platform and stare straight down into a giant canyon knowing you’re going to get a chance to see the bottom of it a little more up close in less than 10 seconds.
3.......2.........1..............”H...O...L...Y..................Sssssshhhhnnnniiiikkiiieeeessss!! Wow the scenery is great from here; wow, that river seems to be getting closer; I wonder where the guy who takes the pictures is hiding; I wonder how my mom and dad are doing; I wonder what the weather is like in Toronto today”.....these are few of the questions that I had time to think about on my way down. Just when you think that the bungee should start stretching you back up again, you still fall for another few seconds...it’s that far down. The best part of it was that on your second recoil, you are told to yank a cord that releases the bungy from your feet and you flip around as you are also harnessed from your waist. Contrary to the other jumps I’ve seen before they actually have to haul you all the way back up to the top again while you dangle uncontrollably. What an amazing experience.
Lindsay had to wait for another half hour or so before it was her turn to jump. She waddled out to the platform, gave a little ‘thumbs up’ and did a perfect swan dive off. Not bad for someone who can’t do one into a pool! For some reason, lighter people’s bungy cords don’t release as smoothly so Lindsay ended up being hauled up hanging upside down for 450 ft....what a head rush!
We celebrated our test of mortality by getting Fergburgers for dinner. Lindsay wants to note that Apache Burger in Toronto still gets her vote, but I thought they were pretty good. I’m sure anything we ate would have tasted good as we were happy just to be alive! We agreed to meet up for a few beers with a couple of other people from our jump to continue to celebrate properly. It’s amazing how hucking yourself off a gondola bonds you to others who have also gone through this ridiculous rite of passage.
Although we missed out on having a game of frolf (golf crossed with Frisbee) in the first ever official frolf park in New Zealand (this would have seemed too tame an
activity following a bungy jump anyways I’m sure), we certainly enjoyed our time in Queenstown. It’s probably for the better that we head on to the next place on our itinerary or else we’ll spend what’s left of our money on the other extreme activities and great night life this city has to offer.
Up next, to the university town of Dunedin to see the All Black national rugby team squash France!
Love to all,
MandL
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Suhail
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NZ is my wife's dream destination
What a fantastic trip of NZ you two are having. Lindsay, my wife visited NZ and especially its Fjordland National Park and hiked in its renouned Milford Track as a young girl. She keeps torturing me all the time talking about the beauty of NZ's Southern Island. But unlike the two of you, we will remain off extreme sports. That is not for us haha. But I do admire your courage. Your blogs are very informative. We are gathering all the info we can through your writings. Nice job indeed, but do remember -"greater the summer vacation, harder the fall" haha - just kidding. And hope to see you again with TriFit. Keep posting all the nice posts. Live long and prosper.