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Published: August 9th 2007
Hamner Springs
It feels unusual not to be wearing shorts & flip-flops! New Zealand - South Island
Christchurch The second we disembarked from the plane you could feel the cold (the temperature was around 3-4 degrees).
Despite the rain in Australia we haven't really experienced truly cold weather for 6 months (apart from a few nights in the Blue Mountains).
We had already purchased some highly fashionable (not) warmer clothing in Oz in the form of fleeces etc but we had to make a beeline for gloves and scarves as well!
We arrived at our guesthouse (Stonehurst) and was delighted to find the room had a T.V with Sky movies! It probably sounds sad but we haven't had T.V since we got the Campervan about 7 weeks ago , so we ended up just lying in bed watching movie after movie for the first day.
After that we thought we'd better venture outside for a look around.
Christchurch is billed as the most British town in N.Z and if it wasn't for slightly different road signs and number plates on the cars and you just woke up in the middle of town one morning it would take you sometime to realise you were'nt back home somewhere.
However that doesn't
Snow Bathing
We had to buy de-icer to unfreeze our asses! mean it's an interesting town. It's pleasant enough with a nice botanical gardens walk and the
"River Avon" which you can punt down. (It really is very British), but the town itself doesn't have too much to see. We thought the T.V won hands down in the interest stakes.
We went out for a meal on our last night here and had the best traditional British meal since leaving leaving England!
A Curry at the
"Two Fat Indians" restaurant!
If you're in Christchurch and missing Chicken Tikka Masala then definatley go.
Hanmer Springs We spent 2 nights here then on the 3rd day caught a bus to
Hanmer Springs. This place is set just below snow capped mountains and has natural hot water springs to bathe in.
We were told that the town looks very much like an alpine town and to be honest it is very nice, pretty quiet and our first taste of New Zealands natural beauty.
We stopped in
"Hanmer Backpackers" which had a really homely feel to it with real fires burning in the lounge.
That afternoon we went to the Spa and purchased a ticket which allowed us to
Sperm Whale - Kaikoura
The best shot of the day! enter twice in the same day, that way we can also go again at night (and maybe the kids will be gone by then - It's the school holidays).
The spa's were nice with the hottest sulpher one being 41 degrees. There are about 10 pools altogether with the coolest about 32 degrees. Ths sounds o.k but when the air temperature is about 0 deg here they aren't hot enough. You have to go in them though because to get from the changing rooms to the hotter pools you have to walk barefoot across the concrete pathways which after about 5 steps kills your feet with the cold so you end up leap-frogging from one to the other and back again. We also managed to to do a spot of "Snow bathing"! (see pics)
Victoria thought it would be funny to take some pictures of us lying on the sunbeds which were covered in ice...Oh yes very funny...for about 2 seconds. Another mad dash back into the springs though stopped the frostbite on the buttocks. Any longer we might have had to have a butt-cheek amputated!
That night we returned to the spa about 8.00p.m. There weren't many kids there
whale Watch - Kaikoura
Just before its deep dive and it gave it a whole nicer feeling soaking in the dark with steam rising everywhere.
The next day we went on a walk up to a look out point on the mountain. All the tree's had snow on so it gave it all a winter wonder land feel. The closer we got the the top the more ice there was on the path so we had to be really careful not to end up on our arses. The view from the top though was spectacular and our first real view of the mountainous landscape here.
Kaikoura...Whales and Seals... After this we went to Kaikoura which is on the coast, about a 2 hour drive from Hamner and the place to go Whale watching in N.Z!
We got there in the morning and thought we had better book onto the tour straight away as they get cancelled all the time due to bad weather. We were told there was a boat leaving in 15 mins, so we grabbed our gear and legged it down to the Whale Watch Co.
There were 30 people on our boat and it wasn't full. However the numbers don't really
Fur Seals - Kaikoura
Aaaagh. doesn't it look friendly? detract from the experience as the boats are specifically designed for these trips and have ample room for viewing. It also shows a seriously high-tech animated video presentation giving info on what were looking for, different types of whales and even how deep and what type of terrain is below us.
There is a guide talking you through the video and providing info during the moments when you aren't outside with the whales. It's difficult to concentrate on this though because the boat is flying across the water leaping over swells and waves in hot-pursuit of
Sperm Wales.!
The boat just doesn't drive to an area and sit and wait for them to appear, they have loads of equipment to detect where and when the whales will surface and so race to get to the area just as it surfaces. This provides the most amount of time with the whale as they only surface for about 5 minutes then deep dive again for around an hour.
The pursuit is quite exciting as the boat powers of waves and takes sharp turns to get there in time, however not every pusuit ends in success as the whales don't always do
Fur Seal
Aaaagh. Not so friendly! as predicted so we have to track another and shoot off again in another direction.
There are also rules to stick to as well like, the boat has to be within 300m of the whale when it surfaces and if there are 3 other vehicles there including the "spotter plane" you have to back off.
Even with all this against us though we still managed 6 close sightings altogether. The boat stops about 30-40m away from the them and most of the shot is just the whales back, about 4m of it just sticking out of the water.
Every so often it blows water out of it's hole but the undeniable best part of the "spot" is when it goes for it's deep dive and drops it's head to go vertically down, this brings it's tail right out of the water and you get the shot that most people recognise.
We only saw Sperm Whales that day but they also have humpbacks, Orca and even Blue Whales occasionally...maybe another time for those.
P.S
Whale Fact: Sperm Whales got their name because when early whalers eventually caught one and they cut into it's forhead alot of white ghooey stuff came out.
Hokitika - Birdsong Hostel
The view from the lounge was stunning! They thought this was whale sperm...?...In it's head?
It turns out the stuff was oil which is now why they are some of the most hunted types.
After about 2 hours we returned via a rock where Fur Seals hang out and managed to see a few pics of those. These Seal shots though weren't anything compared to what we managed to get the next day though.
We were told of a seal colony about an hours walk out of town so we headed there. It was absolutley freezing and we were numb by the time we arrived but it was well worth it.
We both thought that we'd just see them lounging on rocks out in the water, but as we got there they were all over the area leading from the water to the pavement and carpark. If you wanted to you could walk up and stroke one, although there are signs warning to keep 10m away and when we did get with a few metres of one it growled and showed us it's massive teeth...so probably best not too! (See pic)
As we walked slowly towards some we suddenly realised they also hide under
the bushes, much to Victoria's surprise! She walked past a bush and one almost jumped out at her! I was videoing but had just stopped the second before it growled and she screamed. For some reason she wouldn't repeat it so I could get it on camera?
The West Coast Our first stop on the West Coast was
Greymouth, and that's pretty much all I can say about the place!
Next we stopped in Hokitika which again was a quite town but had a far quainter feeling about it and the hostel we had chosen,
Birdsong, was great! it was slightly out of town but right across the road from the beach and is the most homely, comfortable hostel we have stopped in since we left England! The first night we almost had the place to ourselves until another couple arrived quite late! They even had Monopoly which Victoria managed to thrash me at! (She even manages to control my money playing games!!).
One of the best things was the sunset which dropped unobstructed into the sea right in front of the hostel...well give or take a couple of thousand miles...
The beach here was amazing, not
pretty, but it had the most stones and driftwood I've ever seen, it looks like a shipwreck graveyard!
Glaciers After 3 days we left here to go to one of the main reasons for coming to the West coast...The Glaciers!
There are two on this coast.
Franz Josef and
Fox We stopped at
Franz first and planned to stay here a week, which in reality is far too long but by doing this we can get a cheaper rate and save ourselves some money for big trips!
We didn't know what to expect as neither of us had a great understanding of what a glacier is, so for those as thick as us...A glacier is a body of ice that flows down hill...that's it!
Franz and Fox Glacier are nestled in between the mountains (The Southern Alps) and appears as a big slip of ice flowing from the top to the bottom. Gravity pulls the ice downhill, this is called "advancing". If the ice melts faster than it flows they call this "retreating". Franz and Fox Glaciers are approx 18,000 years old and move faster than any other glaciers in the world, an average of
Peters pool - Franz Jospef
Just after I'd put my foot through the ice! 1m per day!
The main activity here is hiking the ice but we had decided to leave that until we got to "Fox" as it's cheaper!
We did do lots of great walks though which gave us fantastic views of the mountains and ice. One spot,
Peters Pool has great reflections of the glacier...or it would have done if the pool wasn't iced over.
You would have thought that a 36 year old man would have more sense than to try breaking the ice with his foot....but no...after a bit of determined stamping I finally managed to crack it... and ended up with one leg, knee deep in freezing water...nice one! We eventually had to return another day to get a better "reflection shot" as, after all that, I had only managed to create a foot sized hole!
We decided at the last minute to go on a
Quad Bike Trip as the weather had turned wet and we'd been told it was great fun when flying through puddles. Victoria didn't want to go on her own so we had one between the two of us and she sat pillion.
We got kitted up in wet weather gear
Peters Pool
Our second visit and the reason we wanted to get rid if the ice. including wellies and after a quick intro and a go round the practise track we were off for the main event. The ride lasts about 1.5 hours and takes you across the river bed and through some of the rain forest.
It was good fun and some of the puddles were deep enough to get yourself and your passenger nice and wet! I was trying to skid round all the corners with Victoria screaming on the back but I think the extra weight stopped it from skidding too much (Sorry babe:-)). Victoria had a go driving for about 5 minutes, almost threw us into the bush at one point and then wisely decided she was a better passenger.
We ended the trying to get as wet and muddy as possible and for a finale we got hosed down by the trip guide!
We manged to while away the rest of the week by doing a few more walks and watching really old terrible Video's (Not DVD's) in the hostel (NOTE TO MY MATE SCOTT - Do you remember a film called "Return to Witch Mountain", I think we watched it at
Film Club...anyway that was here - Holy crap
- that was years ago)...
So finally it was time to go to the next glacier and our Heli-Hike at
Fox...
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Triona
non-member comment
looks like your having an amazing time!!