Work is the Curse of the Travelling Classes

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New Zealand - South Island

We can now safely say we have turned completely and utterly work-shy and are now well and truly travelling bums! It didn’t take too long to work this out, I think in total 10 hours worked between us safely decided we aren’t cut out for it any more. Katie even packed in one job before she even started! So since we last wrote, from South America, we’ve had a whistle-stop tour of NZ in a bizarrely shaped van…of course this was much more fun than the original rather dull idea we had of working over here!

We landed in Auckland, very sad to say goodbye to Chile and the rest of the magnificent continent that is SA. We had some fun getting on the plane when Katie tried to take a cutlery set in her hand luggage. Needless to say they weren’t too keen on that and took the knife away, only to give her one again with dinner (had they not learnt?!) Auckland was a great place to land as we were looking forward to a few creature comforts we just couldn’t get in SA… mainly Asian food! Auckland is just full of Asian people, shops, hairdressers, restaurants, you name it. So first stop was an Asian food hall for Indian, Thai and sushi (very nearly all in one day!)

We were also astounded by the amazing friendliness we were greeted with. Coming from Chile where they were kind, but not always that helpful with the usual ‘make it up if you don’t know’ (actually this was true of everywhere we visited in SA) answers to questions and requests for directions. Whereas here they’ll draw you a map and give you a full history of the place before you’ve left the shop, if they haven’t already taken you there themselves! The city itself is very pretty, set in a harbour with endless islands and extinct volcanoes, and on arrival we took ourselves up the focal point of the city, the scary needle like Sky Tower, to get an even better view of NZ’s largest city and the beautiful sunset over the city of sails.

We landed in NZ with a working holiday visa so set the job hunting in motion. We were amazed at how easy it was to set ourselves up; by the end of the first day in Auckland we already had a joint bank account (ironic, as we were declined one in the UK!) Next step was where to look for jobs and seeing as we had landed in the middle of winter the adverts for snowboarding were just too tempting, so without too much delay we were on a flight down to Queenstown, the centre of winter sports in NZ.

Queenstown is a beautiful place, set on Lake Wakatipu with the snow-covered peaks of the Remarkables on one side and the Coronet Peak range on the other. On the surface a fantastic place to spend a few months, but after a week or so the cracks started to show and it started to reveal itself as a bit of an 18-30s resort. Plus, as all the workers were foreign it lost a lot of its kiwi-ness, which is a real shame as they are such friendly people. Despite all this we did manage to have a cracking couple of weeks on the slopes in a very snowboard-friendly resort (at last they out numbered the skiers!) We were blessed with the best snow they’ve had in years so made full use of it. Although after all the hype we were shocked at the dinky-ness of the place! It really is nothing in comparison to Europe (we now consider ourselves very lucky.) So after a few days on the slopes we thought we’d better start looking for a way to pay for it and searched out those elusive jobs. This didn’t prove too hard so after a couple of days Katie was working in a restaurant, and by the weekend we were both cleaning rooms in a local hotel. Hadn’t we struck it lucky! Needless to say by Monday we had both quit, and had booked a campervan for the following week, wicked! Leaving us just one more task… to squeeze in as much snowboarding as possible before we left! Definitely the best decision, I am certainly not cut out for restaurant work any more (I walked into a closed patio door in front of a very busy restaurant on my first day!) and Matt is just plain lazy (his own words!)

So onwards and upwards, first stop Ezy to pick up the little beauty that was to be our home for the next five weeks, a funny converted van with a ridiculously high roof. Perfect! We schlepped off to Te Anau in the Fiordland area, and were quickly introduced to the way of campervaning… everyone waves at you! Very friendly bunch these campers! On our way I think we went through about five different seasons, ending up with a blizzard! So the first night was possibly the coldest we’ll have, waking up to a thick layer of snow over the van. This was the perfect day to visit Doubtful Sound as it gave the whole place a postcard look and a wintery silence. The whole trip was excellent as we’d managed to join a very small number of people for our various boats and buses, (Doubtful Sound, which is actually a fiord like the rest of the sounds , is only accessible by boat). The guide cum skipper cum driver, Steve, was brilliant and took us out through the sounds past pods of huge playful bottlenose dolphins, cute NZ fur seals and the most peaceful bit of NZ there is. The whole area, with its thick forest lined banks and sheer hills, carved beautifully by those very generous and thoughtful glaciers a few years ago, was stunning, and the absolute isolation of the place was fabulous.

Once the snow had melted we headed out to Bluff on the very southern tip of the South Island in search of their famous dredge oysters, but alas the season had ended so we were just greeted with a dull industrial town, which we quickly left. Following this we picked up the southern scenic route (they love naming their highways over here) through the Catlins. We stopped off at practically every beach on the way, each one emptier and more windswept than the next. We could imagine them full come summer time, but as it was we weren’t stopping long with our coats and hats on.

A few of the beaches we stopped at had penguin colonies, but we always seemed to be arriving at the wrong time of day, so were very excited when we got to Penguin Beach on the Otago Peninsula, home to a big colony of the rare Yellow Eyed Penguins. We arrived at dusk in time to watch them, one by one, waddle home from their days’ swimming and feeding, to try and woo themselves a woman or find an old partner, fantastic fun (for us and them, we’re sure!) The whole peninsula was beautiful, and home to a colony of Albatross at the tip, isolated beaches with some very large seals lazing about, glistening coastline and of course plenty of penguins, perfect! Next stop up the coast was Oamaru, guess what, another penguin colony! This time the smallest variety, standing just over 20cm tall, the Little Blue Penguin. Again, arriving at dusk we settled in (with a crowd of other people this time) to watch about 80 of the hilarious cuties clamber over rocks and run, bent double and head down across a path to find their way back to their little nests, only to waddle back out again seconds later for some illicit loving! They all came up in rafts of 10 or more and seemed to race each other back, maybe to check no-one was sneaking into their nest, or maybe to sneak into someone else’s before they got back, who knows? These are possibly the funniest as they are so small they can barely run upright so kept falling over on their race home. On the way out passing the ‘watch out penguins crossing’ signs we spotted two intrepid travellers making their way down the train line to find their own little secluded spot! I hope the train drivers keep an avid eye out.

On our way up to Christchurch we had a sudden urge to do something different so headed up to the Mount Hutt ski area. With little more than a smattering of snow on the roads we felt the essential use of snow chains a little excessive, but Matt kindly did the honours (while Katie went all girly and complained about the mud). At the top we were met by a girl in big ear defenders and rushed on to the smallest little helicopter you’ve ever seen (think M*A*S*H). We took off from the smallest landing pad (the size of a car parking space, actually in the car park), sending snow flying, and were whizzed over the Canterbury plains and the Mount Hutt ski field for a very long six minutes! Excellent fun, and surprisingly I was holding on far tighter than Matt, who was actually squeezed very crookedly into the back under the rotor!

Christchurch, a sizeable town on the coast, is one of the homes to another ‘world’s smallest’, the Hector’s Dolphins. We took a little boat out into the harbour, and again must have been charmed, as they were out in force playing and swimmingly along the bow of the boat (and always seemingly giving a little sideways smile up at you as they disappeared under!) We were still feeling lucky a couple of days later when we arrived in Kaikoura, slightly further up the coast, for some whale watching. Once again, nothing guaranteed, but it didn’t take long before we were successful in seeing the resident Sperm Whales. After heading out a bouncy 16 miles we started to see a spout, closing in we suddenly got a glimpse of their top half of the 20m beast hanging on top of the water. After a few minutes it fired its last spout and headed down below with a grand flick of its tail for show. We managed to find, and watch from only a few metres away, five that morning, pretty successful, as the average is usually one per trip apparently.

And the penguin hunt continued… during a bit of research late one night we realized we’d come to mainland New Zealand and missed one of their endemic penguin species. This was something we just had to rectify. There was only one place left we could try and spot them, where just a few pairs come to nest. So off we trotted, 280km across the country, and down to the very end of Westland to try and see a Fiordland Crested Penguin (as we’d missed them in Fiordland!) As we crept across the desolate beach in Jackson Bay, not really expecting to see any, a sharp intake of breath and Katie nearly bursting with excitement indicated there may be one close by. On closer inspection we had almost stepped on one a few feet away! Not wanting to disturb it (as it was guarding the nest and probably feeding chicks) we left him to it, so chuffed to have had such a close encounter with just the two of us there to see it. And probably only us for the next 50kms it was so desolate!

On the way, half an hour or so back up the coast, we stopped to take a walk through some pretty dense rainforest to another secluded beach to settle down to try and spot some more (it seems we have turned into twitchers!) Again our luck was in, when after hiding behind a rock in the pouring rain for over two hours, four flopped on the beach and waddled their fat bellies home for us to giggle at. Unfortunately they were not quite as close as our previous encounter. Our trip back up the west coast was more than a little wet so we didn’t get to see the glaciers they say are hiding in the forest. The low cloud did give the dense rainforests a very eerie feel though. To break up the journey we stopped at a nocturnal kiwi house (a very small zoo like place, part of a national captive breeding program for the very endangered kiwis where day and night has been switched around so people can see them during the day) housed in a wool shop (where the lady had obviously spent her years training in knitting rather than zoo keeping). In the house we got to see our first kiwi, the poor thing only had one leg so was using its incredibly long beak to help it move about and snuffle in the dirt. These flightless birds are hilarious as they’re so big - nearly chicken sized, egg shaped, have feathers that are more like hair, no wings, a massively long snuffling beak and look like they a wearing really baggy shorts! We continue our mission to see one in the wild.

Continuing north we realized why Spring is by far the best time to travel NZ - the immense amount of new born lambs filling the tremendous amount of fields this country holds! So the drive has been constant fun lamb / calf / small goat spotting! It was also fun being in the van so we could stop whenever we wanted, like in Punakaiki where the sea has created a stack of pancake-like rocks, which fire water through blowholes when the tide is right, very impressive.

The north of the South Island, Marlborough, is a very large wine growing region. So the sun was shining and the lamb infested fields turned into vineyards. Of course it would have been rude not to taste one or two… well actually we tasted in excess of 50 wines, some champers, and a few liqueurs, all in the space of a busy five hours! I dread to think what the poor driver thought of us by the time he’d dropped us back at the campsite. On the way back to the van we drunkenly stumbled into a giant hamster wheel (in the kids play area!), which kept us amused for a little while… the bruises are just going now! To treat the hangover and to say goodbye to the South Island we headed to the Greenshell Mussel capital of the world, Havelock, for some fantastically huge specimens! And from here it is on to the North Island… to be continued…

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Photos

Queenstown
Nearly our home for a while!

Posing Yellow Eyed Penguin
Our first of 3 species in New Zealand

A tight chopper
(Matt not worried at all)

Mount Hutt and the Canterbury Plains
A different view