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Published: March 11th 2006
Our first impression of the South Island was that it looked a bit like the English Lake District. Well, that's true to a certain extent but while England has been lounging on the sofa, watching the teev and eating endless jaffa cakes New Zealand has been making the most of its gym membership and is now looking pretty buff. Ths Southern Alps run 650 km down the west of the island forming a rugged spine of wilderness. Almost every corner (and there's a fair few of those on the curly wurly southern roads) reveals jaw-dropping scenery. It's no wonder that Peter Jackson decided to film the Lord of the Rings trilogy in his own back yard. When you've got a back yard like this, who is going to argue?
It's not just the splendour of the mountains - NZ has an incredible diversity of landscapes ranging from temperate rainforest to volcanic plateau. These magical polynesian islands are middle earth incarnate. The Kiwis are justifiably proud of the results of Mr Jackson's endeavours. A measure of the Tolkien-mania here is evident from the fact that the road map we bought had a special ring symbol indicating the locations of the Plains
of Rohan, Isengard etc. Indeed, you can pay to be driven to the exact shooting locations of various scenes where you can have your photo taken in costume, rubber swords and all. It has been cruelly suggested that Tom's big hairy feet would negate the need for any extensive assistance from the props department.
In keeping with the spirit of their country, Kiwis are pretty sports crazy. Not only are they fanatical supporters (particularly of the All Blacks of course) they are also out there getting stuck in. We drove the 330 km from Christchurch to Mount Cook in about 4 hours only to find a bunch of pumped up Kiwis running in the opposite direction armed with kayaks and bicycles for the two day triathalon event back to Christchurch. With typical NZ understatement, it was casually called the "Bloody Good Race".
The Maori name for Mount Cook is Aoraki - Cloud Piercer. Surely that must be the best name of any mountain in the world. It's rather apt too. At 3,755 m Mount Cook is an impressive sight. It was here that Sir Edmund Hillary cut his teeth before moving onto bigger things.
After a night
under canvas we shot off down south to Fjordland. Well, we got about 20 km before the long arm of the law reached over and gave us a ticking off. The cop was very pleasant about it and took the time to advise us on the weather conditions down south and what we should take with us for a walk into the bush. However, that didn't stop him from hitting us with an 80 buck speeding fine - "Don't worry mate - just a few less beers, eh!"
The reason that we were heading for Fjordland was to go tramping. This has nothing to do with wearing a shabby raincoat and keeping your belongings in a shopping trolley. In NZ it means that you're going for a walk, usually quite a long one. New Zealanders seem to love getting out into the wilderness. For example, you can buy packs of freeze dried trekking food in most supermarkets. We have an inlking that someone somewhere is probably also eating them at home, to avoid actually having to cook or wash dirty pans....
There are nine "Great Walks" through wilderness areas (though one is actually a kayak trip). Some of
these are so popular that you have to book weeks or even months in advance. Fortunately, this is not so on the four day Kepler track, so we loaded up with freeze dried nasi goreng and hoi sin chicken (no more pasta for us now that we're in a country where trekking food has evolved to a higher state of being!) and stomped off into the bush. The route passes through pristine beech forest before climbing 1,000 m vertically out of the bush for an alpine crossing along a series of razor-edge ridges. It was a pretty hard slog and the new boots that we had bought for the occasion didn't help. We hadn't had the chance to break them in and suffered our just deserts of blisters and cream. Evenings were spent chatting to fellow trampers from all over the world. Some Kiwis were also on the track, including a whole family from Christchurch who were a complete bunch of jokers. The son, Simon, had moved to Brisbane in Oz and gravely pronounced that the labotomy that they have to give you for Aussie citizenship is not reversible...
The Kepler is a spectacular walk. Of course the Kiwis
Albatross! Albatross!
Owls ears! Wren's spleens! Otter's noses! Wolf nipple chips! Get em while they're hot. They're lovely...hold a race around the 60 km track, for which the record is under 5 hours! The ladies section was recently won by "a slip of a girl from England" who stopped all the way round to take pictures! Paula Radcliffe must have been on her holidays.
An unexpected aspect of the alpine section was the presence of the Kea. The Kea is, believe it or not, an alpine parrot. To our minds the notion of an alpine parrot is reminiscent of Manuel's "Siberian Hamster" called Basil. However, we can assure you that they are real, and they are unbelievably mischievious to boot. We woke up on the second morning to find a gang of them on the roof trying to rip the chimney apart like a bunch of adolescent hooligans. The next night they mounted another raid and made off with some poor girl's socks.
The best known of the Great Walks is the Milford track, often claimed to be one of the most beautiful walks in the world (you need to book almost 6 months in advance for this one!). It follows the old Maori path into Milford Sound where they collected the jade that was
Mount Cook
Cloud Piercer used as pendants for tribal chiefs. The route was the only way into the sound, which is otherwise hemmed in by huge cliffs. In the 1940s a road was finally built that opened the sound up to the world by means of a long dank tunnel. It's an amazing drive up to the tunnel - you reach an ampitheatre of cliffs 800 m or so high and plunge down through the deep tunnel that constantly seeps black water. The other side seems like the land that time forgot - truely epic vertical scenery.
Milford Sound is in fact a fjord, not a sound at all (being created by galcial action, not that of a river donchaknow...) but the name has stuck. It's one of the most beautiful locations in NZ and a big tourist draw so we were a little glum when we smashed our camera halfway through a cruise on the sound. We don't have many pictures but the day is burned in our memories anyway.
We sorted out the camera in Queenstown, the home of the adrenaline junkies. If there's something daft to do with big elastic bands, ridiculous heights and water then these guys have
Dusky Dolphins
...have sex ten times a day on average, the scamps... already thought of it. If you so desired you could probably sky dive straight into a jetboat which will take you to a waterfall bungy jump. All a bit too much for us so he headed to Wanaka and got lost in the maze at Puzzling World like the juvos we are.
However, we had a change of heart in Makarora and took a jetboat ride into the Mount Aspiring National Park (not a bad name either come to think of it). Jetboats are ridiculous - ours was something like 800 horse power with only four inches of clearance in the water. It was like riding a Ferrari around an ice rink. Of course, they were invented in NZ... The upstream section of the Wilkin river was pretty sedate but on the way back we span 360s and dodged semi-submerged tree trunks, squeezing through impossible gaps and leaving us exhilarated by the pure speed of the machine.
We took to the air next for a helihike on the Franz Joseph glacier. The short helicopter trip was a highlight. We soared over the icefield, banked over the glacier, flew straight at a ridge and then plummeted down the other
side leaving our hearts in our mouths. The pilot was phenomenally skillful - he had absolutely no margin for error when he landed us on the glacier but plonked us down right on target. The glacier hike was great, taking in ice caves, whirlpools and crevasses. However, to be brutally honest the glaciers in NZ seem a little bit piddly in comparison with those in Patagonia. Uh oh - we've become glacier snobs, if there is such a thing?!
Next up on our whistle-stop tour was Hokitika, where you can get jade carved to your specifications. We turned up on Saturday night but Gordon, the jade guy, preferred to work at night so we settled in with a few stubbies and set to work designing. Gordon expertly carved our designs in between gulps of beer and yarning outlandish conspiracy stories. It was a rather bizarre Saturday night in Gordon's shed but he turned out to be quite a character. The next day the finishing of the jade was all down to us and we spent seven hours sanding our jade (and our fingers) until our jade was shiny (and our fingers dropped off).
We needed a bit more
exercise so we stopped in Arthur's Pass, one of the few passes through the Southern Alps. We took on the ominously named Avalanche Peak but the portents weren't too good. We were warned of high winds that afternoon. Only one week before an English woman had lost the path and tragically fallen to her death. To cap it all, the walk that we had chosen was walk number 13 on the trail list. Gulp. The path was described as "steep" and they weren't wrong there - parts of it were more like rock climbing than hill walking. Nevertheless we made the summit before the winds came and just before a storm rolled in down the valley. We made a swift exit as water began to pour from the sky and then was whipped horizontally by blustery gusts.
Our last destination was Kaikoura on the east coast. The swimming with Dolphins tour was all booked up so we went out at first light to see the Giant Sperm Whales that feed just off the coast. They were simply awesome. We can reveal the answer to the obvious question - yes, when the whales were first encountered the oil discovered in
their heads (which is probably used as balast) was mistaken for something quite different. As if they would need 2.5 tonnes of the stuff - we'll leave that there....
We've now left the South Island and bid it a fond farewell. The reason that we shifted around in record time was to make it up to Auckland in time to meet Jez and Pen off their flight from Melbourne. We can't wait to see our buddies again - it's been a while. As they say in NZ - sweet as.
Cheers for sticking with us. We're really appreciating the comments and messages. Take it easy guys - we'll be in touch soon.
T&S
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Forsyth
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Sweet bro!
Hey guys Glad to hear you're loving it here and getting around the place. Looking forward to catcing up with you soon, once I'm back from the fishing trip up north! Take it easy and have heaps of fun - I'm sure you will Cheers FT